by Rob Rosen
“Fresh.”
“Works for lettuce.”
She sighed. Point one for me. “In any case, Barry, I’m calling at seven because I’m headed to work, and I couldn’t reach you last night. Now I know why.” She meant Ray. I should’ve felt uncomfortable, but I was quite used to my mom making generally uncomforting statements; I was inured to her. I hear you get bitten by a snake enough times, you stop reacting to the venom. Not that Mom was a snake, but still.
“And what did you want to tell me last night, Ma?”
“Arthur Slade,” she said.
I sat up. Actually, I jumped up. Actually, I jumped up, naked and swinging, and ran to the bathroom. “Gotta pee, Ray!” I hollered way too loudly. Ironically, with my dick being the way it was, it’d be a bit of a while before peeing was on the menu.
I closed the door behind me. I hopped in the shower. I closed the shower curtain. I crouched in the corner of the tub. No way could Ray here me, not even with a cup to the door.
“What about Arthur Slade, Ma?”
“Why does your voice sound all echoey, Barry?”
“I’m in the bathroom now.”
She harrumphed me. “You know I don’t like you to talk to me on the phone when you’re using the restroom.”
“I’m not using the restroom, Ma; I’m hiding in the bathtub.”
“Do I need to call the police, Barry?” she whispered. “Is that Ray man holding you hostage?”
In a way, but more psychologically. “No, Ma. I just don’t want him to hear our conversation. If we ever have this conversation, that is. Can we please have this conversation now? The tub is cold.”
“I liked it better when you worked at Starbucks.”
My eyes went rolling. “That’s because you got free coffee. Now, Arthur Slade. And no more tangents, please.”
“Right. Arthur Slade. And don’t be rude. Tangents. Look who’s talking.”
My teeth were suddenly gnashing. “Arthur Slade, Ma. Pretty please.”
“Better,” she said. “Do you know how Arthur Slade made all his money?”
In fact, I didn’t. Arthur Slade paid me; I didn’t ask where he came by the cash. I knew he’d never been in prison, never been convicted of a crime. I knew where he lived. I knew who his husband was. I knew more about him than I knew about most people, but I’d never thought to ask what he did for a living. Unlike my dick as of late, it had never come up.
“No, Ma, I don’t know where Arthur Slade made all his money.”
She snorted. It sounded like a very self-satisfied snort. “I’m not surprised. It was hard to come by. His bio, when you can find it, is rather sketchy. Seems he made most of his money in real estate, buying, trading, flipping, that sort of thing.”
“You said most of his money.”
Her snort returned. I was sure pigs within a mile radius were all turning their heads. “You caught that, huh?”
I nodded. “I’m a detective.”
She didn’t argue. I was waiting for Tangentland again. Thankfully, she simply full-steamed ahead. “Arthur was married before. Not legally, as that wasn’t possible back then, but married just the same. Your father knew the man.” Here she gave a pregnant pause, long enough to push out twins. “Before that men went to prison.”
My brain tingled. Prison. I knew where Jeff and the others had gone to prison. Jeff had told me about it, about Los Angeles County State Prison, about his incarceration there. He told me it was cathartic to talk about it, how after telling me the truth, the floodgates opened. I was glad to listen, to be there for him. He just gave me snippets. It sounded awful. It gave me the chills to hear him talk about it, such a sweet man in such a horrific place. Was that why he was warning me off the case? Was he simply being sweet?
“Let me guess, Ma,” I said, blinking the reverie away. “Los Angeles County State Prison.”
She sucked in her breath. “How could you possibly have known that?”
“Like I said, I’m a detective.” Though, yes, it was a completely lucky guess. Or unlucky, depending on how you looked at it. Still, since everyone else seemed to be connected to this case of mine, why not this new mystery man? “What was this man’s name? What was he in jail for? And how did Dad know him?”
“What, no offer of lunch first? A little quid pro quo?”
“You want me to pay you for the information?”
“You’re a detective. Isn’t that what detectives do?”
Holy shit, she was throwing my line back at me! I was equal parts proud and mortified. “McDonald’s at noon?” I offered.
“Chez Claude at twelve-thirty.”
I coughed. “There’s quite a disparity between the two establishments.”
I could hear her suck her lip over the phone. “Fine. Olive Garden at noon it is then.”
She hung up before I could object. And speaking of hung.
“Can I come in?” said Ray through the door. “I have to pee.”
I jumped out of the tub and unlocked the knob. There he stood, naked and grinning. “Sorry, I had to take that call.”
He nodded and tweaked my nipple. My eyelids fluttered. “I’ve seen racehorses slower out of the gate.”
“Accounting stuff.”
“Hush-hush.” He turned an imaginary key in front of his insanely full lips.
I mirrored the gesture. “Please, do come in.”
He crossed the threshold. “That coming part sounds nice.”
I sighed. I’d had a phone call with my mom in the bathtub. Ten minutes later, I was spewing in the same spot. Something about that sounded unsavory. Not that it stopped me from coming, but, well, you know.
* * * *
I met my mother at the designated spot and time. “You look good, Barry,” she said as we walked inside.
“So do you, Ma,” I replied. “And I’m on a budget here, so no drinks, appetizers, or desserts.”
She frowned. “I need an umbrella.”
“Because?”
We were quickly seated. “Because you’re raining on my parade.”
I shrugged. “Says the woman charging her son for information.”
She also shrugged as she took a seat. “Not charging so much as trading.”
“And the difference is?”
She smiled as she perused the menu. “Our rabbi wouldn’t approve of me charging.”
“So it’s a religious thing?”
She glanced up. “There’s that fresh thing again.”
I rolled my eyes. “I learned from the best, Ma.”
“Amen,” she said under her breath.
We ordered lunch. The waitress left us to our own devices. “Arthur Slade, Ma?”
She sighed her usual sigh, very dramatically. “Before we eat?”
I nodded. “In case you drift off course, better to start now.” She started to scold me. I held up my hand. “Fresh. I know. Blah, blah, bah. Arthur Slade, please.”
She glared at me and then opened her purse. Out came a photo taken off the Internet. She handed it my way. “That’s Arthur Slade’s first husband—”
“Tom Nolan.” I blinked. My jaw felt unhinged as it hung there. “A.K.A. Pearl Necklace. I work with him, Ma. Or, uh, her.”
It was an old picture, but Young Tom looked much the same as Old Tom, minus the acrylic nails and lace-front wig. And what the flying fuck was this new twist? Arthur had two drag queen husbands, both of them ex-cons, both of them working side-by-side in the same club? Did Lucy know this? And why hadn’t my client mentioned any of this to me? And did Pearl know about me, about me being a detective, about me spying on Lucy? I suddenly had a headache.
“That’s a pretty name,” said my mother. “Pearl Necklace.”
I grinned, despite the circumstances, which were awful at best. And, no, I didn’t explain the sexually-innuendoed alias. “Yeah, pretty, Ma.” My grin faltered. “And what do you know about him?”
She took a sip of her Coke. “I researched Arthur Slade. Like I said, not a lot c
ame up, simple bio stuff at best. But in an old article about some charity fundraiser, there was a mention of Arthur and his partner.”
“Tom Nolan.”
She nodded. “Tom Nolan. And I didn’t think much of it, except, for some reason, the name rang some bells, like I’d heard it before.”
“So you went to Dad?”
She nodded. “Sometimes two heads are better than one.”
Unless you’re getting head from two heads, and both heads are attached to two sweet men; then it’s just a headache, which, as mentioned, I already had. “And what’s Dad’s connection to a so-so drag queen with questionable taste?”
“Your father was briefly his accountant. When some records didn’t add up, this Tom fellow asked him to bend some rules.”
I coughed. Dad didn’t bend anything, rules especially. “Uh oh.”
Mom nodded. “Hence that briefly I mentioned. In any case, the man was clearly a crook. Arthur Slade most probably, too, as him and Tom were partners in bed and in business. Your father ended their association and never thought about either one of them again, until—”
“Until me,” I said, suddenly losing my appetite.
“Your father lost business after that. Those men were wealthy. They had connections. Your father never knew for certain, but he was pretty sure that Tom Nolan was responsible for the loss.” She shook her head. “Should you be messing with them now? What if they have even more connections these days, worse connection?”
I thought of Auntie Bellum. Was she a worse connection? She’d hired Pearl. Meaning, what, as my mom put it, was I messing with? “It’s a simple case, Ma. Cheating husband. Dime a dozen.”
Her head kept shaking. “But that’s not all your investigating now, is it?”
I kept mum. I kept mum for my mom’s sake. The less she knew, the better we’d all be. Me especially. Plus, I was growing more nervous the longer I was on the case, and the last thing I wanted to do was drag, no pun intended, her into it. “I’ll be fine, Ma. Besides, none of them has ever been arrested for physical crimes. No one was murdered. No assault. No muggings.”
Our food arrived. Neither of us lifted our forks.
“None that they were arrested for, Barry. Meaning, none that you know about.”
I sighed like she sighed: dramatically. “Again, I’ll be fine, Ma. Careful.”
The frown on her face spread. “It’s not you I’m worried about, Barry; it’s them.”
Which, sadly, made two of us.
* * * *
I found myself buried dick-deep in Jeff’s magnificent ass the next night, two hours before we were scheduled to perform. He was pinned beneath me, arms behind his head. They say the bottom is generally the one in control, but it sure as hell didn’t feel that way right about then. “Tell me something,” I said, my cock-pounding at a momentary standstill.
“Now?” he panted. “Not in…” He stared down at his massively thick prick. “Not in about five minutes?”
I shook my head. I pressed my hands harder down on his. “You might be more prone to tell me the truth at a moment such as this.”
He pushed his ass up into my balls. He pushed and retracted, pushed and retracted. I could’ve come. I could’ve but didn’t. “Fine,” he relented. “What is this something?”
“I found out more bad stuff about the people we work with.” I paused. I stared into his eyes. We were tethered together, more than dick-to-ass-speaking. I started to continue, but he cut me off.
“I get it, Barry.” He didn’t blink. His eyes, my eyes, stayed locked, even while our dicks stayed loaded. “We’re all ex-criminals down at the club. All of us did bad things. Maybe some of us still do bad things. Maybe, you’re thinking, I do, too. You said you see connections down at the club, patterns. You think I could be yet another connection, another pattern yet to be uncovered.”
I nodded. I eased out of him. I slammed back in. Our eyes momentarily untethered. Mainly because his were rolling behind his lids. “Bad shit tends to follow more bad shit. Way of the world, Jeff. They all seem like nice people, even Auntie, at times, but they’re not. They’re not nice people. Like the makeup they wear, it hides something beneath.”
“But you know me, Barry.”
“I thought I did, but I didn’t, did I?”
He exhaled. He shook his head. “Kiss me, Barry.” I obliged. Gladly. I liked kissing Jeff. Even more than I liked fucking him. Or maybe not more, but just the same. “Do you think I’m bad?” I didn’t. I never did. Not before I knew about his past; not after. And not now. But, still, I needed to know. I needed to trust him. I needed his help. “I would never hurt you, Barry.” He tried and failed to hide a smirk. “Or, okay, never intentionally hurt you. At least not this time around.”
I released his hands. I kissed him again. I plunged in and out again. I believed him. I believed him because I wanted to believe him. I believed him because I needed to believe him. I believed him because I was close to coming. And then I was coming. And then he was coming. And then I temporarily forgot that I was still mad at him, that I was leery of him, that, to a degree, I was afraid of him.
And then I collapsed on top of him.
As an FYI, you should never make a confession when you’re dick-deep in someone and you’ve just come. Nope, they didn’t teach that on my online school; that was just common sense. Oh, and common sense flies out the window when your dick-deep in someone and you’ve just come. Go figure.
In other words, I told him about Tom Nolan and Arthur Slade. I told him because, if those two were still in business together, and Lucy was also in business with them, then I needed to even the playing field.
“Please tell me you’re not involved in all this, Jeff.”
“I already did.”
Did he? I tried to remember, but I was coming at the time. I nodded just the same. “Tell me again.”
He stroked my shoulder. “I swear, Barry. I swear on my Louboutins, I’m not doing anything connected to Arthur Slade. I have no idea what his connection is to Pearl. I’m not involved with anything those two have been up to or are potentially up to.”
“Your Louboutins are knockoffs, Jeff. You bought them from a guy sitting on a cardboard box on a street corner outside a coffee shop.”
He grinned. “Yeah, but the audience doesn’t know that.”
My dick was finally soft. I finally pulled out of him. The tether was still there. Meaning, I believed him. Not that it was wise of me, but certainly expedient. “You want me off this case.”
He nodded. “It’s dangerous. They’re dangerous.” He lifted his index finger and stopped me from objecting. “But it’s your case. It’s your job. I’m not going to tell you not to continue.”
“Except…”
“Except, you need my help. You need my help even though I don’t want you to rock the boat, especially with me in it.”
My nod mirrored his. “I just need an extra set of eyes and ears. I mean, what if they’re already on to me? I didn’t know about Pearl, about Pearl and Arthur Slade. What if that was on purpose? What if Pearl is Arthur’s extra set of eyes and ears? What if all of them, Lucy and Auntie included, have figured out that I’m not really a drag queen, or, at least, just a drag queen? Like you said, they were all bad people, potentially all still are. The difference is, they trust you; you’re one of them.” He winced at my choice of wording. “Were one of them.”
“Better.”
I rolled to his side. I held his hand. “First thing’s first.”
“Cake? Sex makes me hungry. Or at least after sex.”
I shook my head. “Case-wise, first thing’s first.” I turned my face his way. “What kind of cake?”
“German chocolate. Made with real Germans.”
I grinned. “Ice cream?”
He blinked. “Vanilla. German-free.”
I turned my face to its original setting. “In a minute. Back to the first thing. I need to figure out why Auntie always goes on before Lucy. What that f
iling cabinet has to do with that.”
“Why there was meth in there and why, when you checked, there wasn’t.”
I touched my finger to his nose. “Bingo.”
He rolled over onto his side. “I was a drug dealer, Barry.”
“Uh huh. I know.” It was followed by a frown.
“Typically, I received my drugs from a middle man. I never had contact with the actual source of the drugs. That way, if I got caught, the supplier was relatively safe.”
“And?” My frown was still there. This was an unsettling conversation. I couldn’t picture Jeff doing any of this. Or, perhaps, I simply didn’t want to picture it.
“What if the filing cabinet is some sort of middle man?”
My frown turned upside down. Or, um, right-side up. “Genius.”
“I have my moments.”
“The order of the line-up, it must have something to do with the filing cabinet.”
Jeff sighed. “Maybe.”
Again, my face turned his way. “Maybe?”
His face turned to mine. Like Rita Hayworth, Jeff gave good face. To be fair, he also gave good head. “All you know is that, at one time, the filing cabinet stored meth. But when? This week, last, last year?”
I blinked. “Oh.”
He blinked. “Yeah. Oh. In any case, the four of us are on tonight. Me and you. Lucy and Auntie. I’ll watch the hallway, the office, see, as best I can, what, if anything, Auntie is up to. You watch Lucy. Maybe that pattern of yours will make sense then.”
“Fingers crossed.” He suddenly looked like Barbara doing Fanny. Meaning, his left eye was precariously close to his right one. “What’s that for?”
“Just in case.”
* * * *
“Hi there,” said Ray as I approached the bar, and Jeff, now Mora, sashayed her way backstage. A scotch quickly got slid my way. I had to break it off with Ray, if only for my own sanity, but my liver was arguing the point. Free booze! it shouted at me from somewhere left of my pancreas.
He winked. I melted. My liver harrumphed. “Hey, Ray,” I said with a quick kiss and a slug of my scotch. “Bananarama tonight. ‘Venus.’ For the second set, Blondie’s ‘Atomic.’”