Victor J. Banis

by Deadly Nightshade

  “That must have been tough on his bride,” Tom said.

  “Oh, she knew about it before they got married. They tried it on before. A lot of times, I think.”

  “So why would they get married, you wonder,” Tom said.

  “Well, I think it was like, that didn’t matter to her. And there was this family thing. His family. Shaker Heights, you know. Old money, proper society.”

  “Ah,” Stanley said. “She married him for the money.”

  Peter shook his head. “I don’t think it was that either, not exactly. I don’t think they were, well, what you’d actually call rich. Not super rich, anyway. Daddy’s some kind of political figure, conservative, and Mommy’s very religious, family goes back to the Mayflower, or maybe it was the Santa Maria. Anyway, the folks may have had an inkling that junior was queer. I gather they encouraged the marriage, for whatever reason. And, they may have been generous with the newlyweds.”

  “Like, paying their rent?”

  “Maybe. That place they’re living is pretty expensive.”

  “So, Mommy and Daddy pressure them, and they get married,” Tom said, “even though he can’t do the deed.”

  “I guess a time or two, she watched him jerk off, and she seemed to think that was okay. So, he figured, if she was cool with that. And I think maybe he thought in time it would get better.”

  “But it didn’t?” Stanley was trying to fit the image of the limp-dick husband to the Jake Acheson he’d met earlier. If anything, you’d think Gaylord would make him go limp.

  “I don’t actually know,” Peter said with a shrug. “I can’t really say. The problem was, he met someone.”

  “Gaye Dawn?” Stanley suggested. Peter nodded.

  “She used to be called Gaye Sunset,” Marvin said. “But she did such a rotten job going down, they had to change it.”

  “And that’s when they got divorced?”

  “Not right away. See, she was back east. The wife, I mean. Back in Shaker Heights. And he came to San Francisco to look for a job, and he ended up at the Room. They were still married then. That’s when he and I got drunk together. He’s kind of cute, in a way.” He looked from Tom to Stanley. Tom looked back at him blankly, but Stanley nodded.

  “In a nerdy way,” he said. “Personally, I prefer someone a little butcher.” Peter glanced in Tom’s direction again. Tom stared stonily back at him. Peter looked away first.

  “Anyway, that’s where he met Gaye. For a while, I didn’t realize anything was happening. The management kind of frowns on that between employees.”

  “The girls are supposed to hustle the customers,” one of the group said.

  Peter frowned at him. “Maybe you ought to remember who we’re talking to here,” he said.

  “What, Tillie Law? They’d have to be pretty stupid not to know that already. Nobody pays their rent on what they make singing and dancing in a drag club.”

  “Not in that dump, for sure,” Marvin said.

  Peter turned away from him. “After a while, though, I could see what was happening. And one night, Jake told me he’d written the wife a Dear Jen letter. It wasn’t two weeks later when she showed up at the bar, looking fit to kill. They had a big ruckus, the three of them. Gaye’s got a fierce temper, throws things… one of these days…” He paused to shake his head.

  “I wasn’t actually there that night, so I can’t say what all went on. The wife stormed out, so I heard, and Jake and Gaye got a good dressing down. But later the bosses decided it was okay if the two of them wanted to play on the side—Gaye’s one of the more popular entertainers…” Marvin snorted, but Peter ignored him.

  “And Jake’s a good bartender. They just had to cool it at work, was the thing. No more scenes, and no screwing around on the job. Sort of like, what they did after hours was their own business.”

  “But Acheson and the wife stayed married,” Tom said. “Wonder why.”

  Peter shook his head. “The family, maybe. Might have been some money involved. Maybe she was still trying to figure out how to get some out of them. I don’t think it was love.”

  Lotus Blossom tittered.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Back at the station, they ran Gordon Hartman’s home movies. They were the usual family thing, of interest to the people in them, maybe a few relatives. Terminal boredom for anyone else.

  For the most part, it was Hartman and a woman Stanley assumed was his wife, and their son—Jay, wasn’t it?—a little boy in the oldest scenes, growing up before their eyes as the tape ran, eighteen or nineteen years old in the last of them. Scenes at a party—presumably, to judge from the label, their wedding anniversary.

  The son was youngest in this one, maybe four years old, so, logically, their fifth anniversary. And other domestic scenes, a few with an older couple, presumably the grandparents. Shots of the family cavorting around a swimming pool, father and son diving, splashing one another, flipping towels, mother watching with tolerant affection from a lounge chair.

  Stanley studied Gordon Hartman intently. He was a reasonably good looking man, not breathtaking, but the type who was probably far more attractive in person, chatting with you, than he would appear in pictures.

  He had a nice smile, good teeth—and a basket that was hard to miss, particularly in the swimming suit. But even in loose fitting slacks you could see its outline swinging to and fro when he walked toward the camera.

  You had the impression that he was altogether aware of the showing. Like, he could have worn jockeys.

  Despite himself, Stanley smiled. He kind of liked a cocky man. He could see how that might have helped Hartman get elected to the board of supervisors. In San Francisco, especially.

  It wasn’t much of a clue, though, to why he’d been murdered.

  “See anything?” Tom asked.

  Stanley shrugged and put the tapes back in their sleeves. “Not at first showing. Let me take these home and play with them a bit. Maybe something will jump out at me.”

  Tom said, “I want to take another poke at that Acheson. Gaye Dawn, too.”

  “I’ll bet she feels the same.”

  Stanley’s cell phone rang, a snippet from Can-Can. It was Barry Andrews, Hartman’s neighbor. “I thought of something,” he said. “You probably know this anyway, but Hartman and Acheson were chummy.”

  “Acheson? The guy across the way? Like, they were buddies?”

  “Umm, not buddies, I guess, more like…” he hesitated, sounding embarrassed. “I think they had something going, kind of. I saw Acheson leaving Hartman’s apartment a couple of times late at night, you know, kind of slipping out, the way a guy does when he’s catting around. I figured it was just some boom-boom stuff.”

  “As in room?” Stanley said.

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. Thanks for telling us.”

  He shared the information with Tom, who said, “I knew it. We should go back there.”

  Stanley considered that briefly. “No, I think we need to get him alone. If he was really slipping around, getting a little action on the side…”

  “I thought him and Gaye Dawn were a thing,” Tom said.

  “Give me a break. What’s love got to do with anything? Acheson was practically drooling over Hartman’s wang. My guess is he decided to see if he could get a close up. But I doubt he’s going to tell us about that with Gaye at his side.” He smiled sweetly. “Unless you want to distract her while I question him. Maybe take her in the other room, find some way to occupy her?”

  “We can catch him at work, can’t we?” Tom said. “So, now we…?”

  “Now, we go find our drag queen,” Stanley said. He added, before Tom could say it, “Transgender.”

  “Well, you’re the expert on that subject,” Tom asked. “Where do we look?”

  Stanley glanced sideways at him. “If you’re looking for a bear, you go to bear country, right? So where would we look for drag queens, Mister Detective?”

  Another silence. “You mean, d
rag bars?”

  “Wow. They were right,” Stanley said. “You are quick.”

  “No way. I’m not hanging around any fag bars. Especially not with any chicks with dicks.”

  Stanley might not have heard his objections. “We’ve got two places already, although God knows there’s no shortage of drag in San Francisco, this is the sequin capitol of the world.” He thought for a moment. “I think we’ll save the Boom Boom Room for last. I still haven’t altogether written off Miss Gaye Dawn either.”

  “I’m not going…”

  “Tom, honey…”

  “Don’t call me honey.”

  “Sugar, we’re looking for a drag queen killer. We aren’t going to find her at a baseball game, right?” He giggled. “Despite the frequent references to baseball bats.”

  Tom huffed resignedly He had to admit, Stanley’s “special insights” might be of some use in this investigation. “So, where then?”

  “Carla’s Web. We’ll start there. Pick me up at eight. And, Tom? Try to look butch, okay?”

  § § § § §

  Tuesday was Petaluma day, when Stanley visited his Dad. He had lunch first with his friend, Chris. He and Chris went way back, to high school. At one time, briefly, they’d been an item, and had decided things worked better for them as friends.

  “This way,” as Chris put it, “we can talk, without our mouths full.”

  Chris was eager to hear all about Stanley’s first homicide case. Stanley filled him in on what they knew so far. “Which,” he said when he was finishing his narration, “Isn’t much. Yet.”

  They were at their usual hangout; a little coffee shop in the Castro called The Cove. The owner, Solange, came to fill their coffee cups, chatted for a minute, and drifted off to other customers. Chris had just finished a shift on his nursing job, was still in scrubs.

  “So, this cop you’re working with,” Chris said, “the straight one. What’s he like?”

  “A fag hater. Total Neanderthal. Carries a big club. Wears a loin cloth.”

  “What’s he look like?”

  “An ape, sort of.”

  “He’s really ugly?”

  Stanley avoided his glance. “No, I don’t think I’d say that, exactly. I mean, he’s got these big shoulders, massive chest, kind of short in the legs—and he’s hairy. Like a gorilla. It’s more the impression you get of him. When I called him an ape, I mean.”

  Chris puzzled over that for a moment. “Like, an attractive gorilla? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

  “Well, yes, sort of. Sort of attractive, I mean.”

  Chris narrowed his eyes. “Stanley, this isn’t going to be another one of your swan dives, is it?”

  “Swan dives?”

  “You know, like those belly smackers you did in high school. You remember.”

  “I do remember them,” Stanley said in a frosty voice, “I don’t see what that has to do with my Neanderthal.”

  Chris gave him a wry smile. “It’s the way you always go at men, honey, like you were doing one of your swan dives. You leap at them, and land on them, kersplat. You totally crush them before anything gets going.”

  Stanley glowered at him. “That is so ridiculous,” he said. “I’ve never crushed anyone. And for your information, my relationship with this man is strictly business. We have a crime to solve together. There is absolutely, positively nothing beyond that.”

  Chris shook his head sadly. “Oh, dear. He’s hot, isn’t he?”

  “Furthermore, for your information, that particular store is closed, the doors nailed shut, the windows boarded over. I am out of the romance business, completely and absolutely.”

  “He is hot,” Chris said.

  “Totally. To kill for.”

  “Another swan dive,” Chris said in a weary voice. He waved a hand. “Solange, honey, could I have some more coffee?” And, sotto voce, “I’m going to need it.”

  § § § § §

  It was an hour’s drive to Petaluma, to Home Gardens. Stanley had always thought it sounded so much cozier than what it really was—an ugly post-Victorian building dropped down in the middle of two or three badly landscaped acres—a few scraggly trees and some shrubs in the front, crying out for water. The building’s façade was painted a ghastly almost-pink, like raw chicken thighs. The gray columns on the front porch showed signs of dandruff.

  The nurse at the front desk sent him out back—the “Gardens” part of it. At least there was grass here, in clumps that separated the plain cement terraces, cement because the patients who didn’t shuffle around with canes and walkers were in wheelchairs, and the bare cement made it easier for them to move about, although they had to do a kind of checkerboard jitterbug to get from here to there.

  Peter Korski was in one of the wheelchairs. Stanley found him sitting with an attendant, a little plump nurse dressed in the same gray and unhealthy looking pink. She looked glad to be relieved of her charge.

  There was a TV tray nearby with some dishes stacked on it.

  “You’ve just missed lunch,” she told Stanley, “but if you’re hungry, I think there’s some compost left.”

  “Umm, which is what, exactly?”

  “Oh, it’s just canned fruit salad. They call it a compost of fruit because it sounds dressier.” She glanced at the older Korski, who so far had taken no notice of them. “He’s quiet today. You take your time now, dear, have a nice visit. I’ll check back with you in a bit.”

  He’s always quiet with me, Stanley wanted to say, but he only smiled at her and stood waiting until she’d gone away, already lighting up a cigarette as she went. Watching her go, looking like an overworked wad of bubble gum, was a way of stalling, of putting off looking at his father, knowing what he would see.

  When he turned back, his father was watching him, staring stonily, the same aggrieved expression with which he always looked at his son. Even when his mind was still functioning properly, he’d looked at him that way. Everything else about his thought processes seemed to have changed, everything but that. He still hated his son. Ever since the night Stanley had confessed to him, told him he was queer.

  “I brought you some chocolates, Dad,” Stanley said, holding the box out to him. His father glanced at it, and away. Stanley put the box gently on his lap. “The ones you like so much,” he said, “with the mint centers.”

  He sat down on the chair the attendant had vacated. “I’m sort of celebrating,” he said. “I got promoted to homicide. A murder case, a really high profile murder case. A supervisor. This…” he started to say “drag queen” and caught himself. His father hated anything to do with homosexuals, anything that even suggested them. “…This woman shot him. They want it solved yesterday. And they especially wanted me on the case.

  My first one. Isn’t that great?”

  His father gave no sign that he’d heard him. Paid no attention to him at all. Past the last concrete patch of The Garden’s terrace, a rusty iron fence enclosed an old cemetery, the irony of the proximity seemingly unremarked by the residents of either site. Peter Korski stared in the direction of a stone angel that stood on a rise in the distance. The box of chocolates sat untouched on his lap. There was no sign that he was even aware of them. Or of Stanley.

  When Stanley left an hour later, his throat dry from the running monologue he’d kept up throughout his visit, the box of chocolates was on the ground, slipped off his father’s lap, or pushed there, it was hard to say which. After that first angry glower, his father hadn’t even looked at him, not even when Stanley had stood up and said, “Well, I’ve got to go, Dad, I’m working tonight. On my murder case. I’m in homicide now, did I say?”

  He picked up the chocolates, started to put them on his dad’s lap again, and changing his mind, tucked them under his arm instead. He put a gentle hand on his father’s shoulder, was painfully aware of how thin and bony it was. “You should try to eat more,” he said.

  The attendant saw him leaving and hurried up. “Had a nice visi
t, did you, dear?” she asked.

  “Lovely,” Stanley said. He handed her the chocolates. “He didn’t seem to want these,” he said. “Maybe the staff…?”

  “Oh, he’ll change his mind, I’m sure,” she said. She looked back at the senior Korski, still unmoving.

  “Makes you rethink how you live your days, doesn’t it?” she said. “When you see how you’re going to end up.”

  § § § § §

  He called his sister, Irene, on the way back to San Francisco, although he already knew just how the conversation would go—how it always went.

  “Stanley, I can’t just take off anytime I want,” she said, “I’ve got a family, a husband and kids. And it’s a long drive for me. You’re so much closer, it takes you, what, an hour, forty-five minutes, to get there?”

  “Irene, it isn’t like you’d have to travel for weeks in a covered wagon,” Stanley said. “You could make it in one day, down and back. Besides, he’s your dad. I’m sure he would love to see you.”

  “He’s your dad, too. And I know he loves it when you visit.”

  “He doesn’t, Irene,” Stanley said. “You know he doesn’t. He never cared for me. You were the important one.”

  “Oh, now you’re just feeling sorry for yourself. All those old quarrels, can’t you just let them go? Why do you hang on to them like this?”

  “He called me a sissy. A queer. He said I disgusted him. I still do.”

  “Well, maybe that’s because you never tried. You never made any effort to change your lifestyle, Stan.”

  “It isn’t my ‘lifestyle,’ Irene, it’s who I am. What I am. I’m queer.”

  “And you don’t have to use that word, either. You could say homosexual, that’s the proper term, isn’t it?

  And there’s no law that says you have to stay that way, I’m sure. People can change themselves if they really want to. You chose to be what you are. You’re still choosing it. Why blame your father for that?”