“OK, Romeo,” I said, “I have to crash.”
“If you don’t cal,” he warned, “I’m gonna be back out here in a white suit with flowers and a limo. And I’m gonna sing. If that’s what it takes.”
“How’s your singing?”
“My kissing’s better.”
I smiled. “Next time. Maybe I’l even let you use the front door.”
His face grew serious. He put his hand on my cheek. “Did a guy do this to you? Cause I’l fuck him up if you want me to.”
“No.” I told him the lie about the stranger on the street.
“A cute little guy like you needs some protection,”
Romeo told me. “I wouldn’t mind looking out for you.
If you wanted me to, dat is.”
“I take pretty good care of myself,” I said. “But I can always use a friend.”
Romeo extended his hand. “Friends, then. At least to start.”
“Friends.” We shook hands.
“OK,” I said, pushing him back. “I’l cal you.”
Romeo leapt up, grabbing a rung on the fire escape above me. He showed off with an effortless pul — up.
“I’l be waiting,” he said. He dropped back down, and ran down the fire escape, jumping off the last landing and landing cat-like on the pavement.
“Good night, cute Kevin,” he cal ed.
I waved goodbye and closed the window.
I cal ed Freddy and told him about my parents’ reconciliation and my flirtation with Romeo.
“Wow,” said Freddy. “That could be two times in one month you get laid without getting paid.”
“Ha ha,” I said, thinking that counting my last encounter with Marc Wilgus, it would actual y be three.
“No, I think that’s great. You have to wash that cop right out of your hair, darling. Ow! Watch the teeth!”
“I’m sorry?”
“Nothing, I was just saying that you’ve already gotten over Tony once. Just move on.”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” I said more confidently than I felt.
“That’s my boy. I’m very proud of-hey, what did I tel you about those teeth?”
“Umm, do you by any chance have someone there?”
“The boy from the coffee shop tonight,” Freddy said. “I think he’s part vampire.” I heard a muffled defense in the background.
“No, dear, those aren’t ‘love bites,’” Freddy said to his guest. “Love bites don’t break the skin. And it’s too hot to wear a turtleneck, so watch the hickeys, too. Mmm, that’s better.” To me: “So, what’s your next move.”
“Why don’t we talk tomorrow?” I said. “I don’t want to interrupt.”
“Darling, don’t be sil y. You know you always come first.” I heard the muffled voice again.
“Fine,” Freddy said to his guest. “Yes, you did get to come first. Now, be a good boy and get me a glass of water and maybe I’l let you come third, too.”
I heard Trick Boy walking away. “Is he any good?”
Freddy whispered, “Not bad. A little quick on the trigger, but I bet he’s got a lot more left in him. What I don’t understand is, if you final y got rid of your mother, why didn’t you have Hamlet…”
“Romeo.”
“Whatever. Why didn’t you have Romeo in for some hot man on man action? Most guys have to spend a few hours on an Internet chat line to have a sexy construction worker show up at their window.
And then he turns out to be a skinny accountant wearing brand new boots and a toy tool belt. As if that was going to fool me-I mean, someone. You had the real thing in the al — too-present flesh.”
“I’m thinking of maybe going out on a date with him first.”
“Kevin Connor on a date!” Freddy shouted. Oy, hold on, I think the earth just started spinning in the opposite direction.”
“Yeah, wel, don’t get too excited,” I said. “I’m just thinking about it.”
“Wel, it’s a good start. What about Michael Harrington? Any thoughts?”
“No, I’m waiting to hear from that computer guy I was tel ing you about, Marc Wilgus. Hey, wait a minute, he IMed me this morning on my way out the door. Let me cal him.”
“Go for it, Nancy Drew. Cal me in the morning.”
I cal ed Marc. “Can you come over?” he asked. “I’d like to tel you in person what I found out.”
I was incredibly tired. “Is it important?”
“Crucial.”
“Sure,” I said. “Give me twenty minutes.”
Fifteen minutes later, the doorman let me in. I took the elevator to Marc’s expansive penthouse apartment.
“Hey,” he said, opening the door. Then, “what happened?” He touched my cheek, gently.
I went in and lied again about the stranger in the street.
“That’s not true, is it?”
“What makes you say that?” I asked.
“Because I think you’ve gotten yourself involved in something very dangerous.”
I told him about the guy in the hotel. “I thought it might be related to the Harringtons, but I didn’t want to be paranoid.”
“I don’t think you can be too paranoid right now,” he said. “Let me show you.”
He brought me to his office. It was like walking into a super hightech computer store. LCD screens hung from the wal s and were perched on tables, where their displays were constantly flashing and updating. He took me to a large desk where three widescreen displays flanked an ergonomic keyboard. It was al very Minority Report.
“So, what do you run,” I asked, trying to sound smart, “Windows or Mac?”
Marc looked at me as if I’d asked if he slept with sheep.
“I run my own operating system,” he said. “Wrote it in high school.”
“Natch.”
Marc directed me to sit in the futuristic desk chair that seemed to mold itself to my body. He stood behind me, using a wireless mouse to run the computer.
“I ran that data mining program I told you about. It basical y looked for connections between the information you gave me that other investigations may have missed. Look at this.”
On the screen furthest to the left, he cal ed up the list of gay suicide victims that Tony had given me.
“You know who these are, right?” he asked. I nodded.
On the right hand screen he brought up what looked like the internal databases of The Center for Creative Empowerment Therapy. He pul ed up a file titled “Clientbase.”
“You got into their system?” I asked.
“I’ve gotten into the Pentagon,” Marc said. “This was nothing. Watch.”
He pressed a button and the information from the two side screens seemed to melt and merge into the middle screen. In a few seconds, the names of the suicide victims were on the middle screen, flashing in red, with the word “match” listed next to each one.
“What does this mean?” I asked.
“Al of the men who committed suicide were clients of Michael Harrington’s.”
Holy shit.
“So,” I said, “not only doesn’t his ‘reparative’ therapy work, but it drives his clients to kil themselves.”
“It may be worse than that.” Michael pressed more buttons. On the left screen a New York State Office of Taxation Web site popped up. Something about the Office of Probate. On the right, the financial records of The Center for Creative Empowerment Therapy appeared.
Again, the two side screens overlapped on the middle screen. When they were done, the same names were listed on the middle screen, but this time, for al but one of the men, the word “match” was replaced by numbers: 150,000; 75,000; 225,000; 50,000; etc.
“What are those numbers?” I asked?
“Bequests,” Michael answered.
To who?
“To The Center for Creative Empowerment Therapy. Almost al of the men who kil ed themselves left sizable donations to the Center in their wil s.”
A wave of dizziness passed over me.
<
br /> “He’s kil ing them,” I whispered.
“I thought they kil ed themselves,” Marc said.
“Yes but no,” I said. “I think he’s directing them to do it. Think about it-his ‘therapy’ involves intensive hypnosis. It teaches his clients to hate their own sexuality. It makes them feel ashamed and sick.
“That might be enough to make some of them suicidal. Michael sees this. But if the client is sufficiently wel off, and maybe if he’s someone with no friends or family who are likely to ask too many questions, Michael doesn’t do anything to help him.
Instead, maybe Michael gives him hypnotic suggestions that he needs to provide more support for the Center. Maybe even provide for it after his death. Then, if the client offs himself, wel, who’s the wiser?
“Or maybe Michael even encourages the client to kil himself once he updates his wil. Who knows how much control over his clients he has?”
Marc looked even paler than usual. “He’s programming them.”
“Yes.”
Marc looked around the office. “But people aren’t computers. You can’t control them to that extent.”
“Maybe he doesn’t have to. Maybe he’s tried it with fifty clients, but it’s only worked with these. That would stil be enough to put…” I scanned the list,
“over a mil ion dol ars into his bank account.”
Marc sat down. “Wow. This is heavy.”
He wasn’t used to the real world intruding on his virtual existence.
“Yeah,” I said. “It is.”
Marc said, “I could forward al this to the authorities. I could do it anonymously. When they see what he’s doing…”
“It would mean nothing,” I said. “There’s no proof.
Michael could make the case that of course some of his clients kil themselves-they come to him because they’re unhappy to begin with, right? He gives them help and they grateful y provide for the Center in their wil s. Sadly, despite his best efforts, they stil wind up kil ing themselves. Who’s to say otherwise?”
“So, let’s send it to the press instead.”
“Same problem. They’re not going to risk a libel case based on coincidences.”
Marc’s eyes narrowed. “Then, let’s take him down ourselves. I can do it, you know. Erase his bank accounts. Foreclose on his house. I could download so much child pornography onto his computer that he’d be in jail for the next hundred years.”
Now, that was tempting. I knew there was a reason I liked Marc.
“I’d need to prove it to myself, first,” I said. “I could be wrong.”
“How can you prove it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Not yet.”
Marc put his hands on my shoulders. “Don’t do anything crazy. And don’t go near him again.”
“I won’t,” I said. “I’m kind of scared now.”
“You should be.” Marc stroked the back of my neck.
Marc’s touch was just reassuring enough to make me think how truly over my head I was. I gave a little shiver and then couldn’t stop. Al of a sudden, my teeth were chattering and I felt as if the temperature had dropped a hundred degrees. I started to shake.
“Hey,” Marc said, dropping to his knees, “hey.”
He put his arms around me and held me through my mini anxiety attack. “It’s going to be OK,” he said,
“nothing’s going to hurt you.”
“It feels safe here,” I told him, warming in his embrace.
“I know,” said Marc, “why do you think I never leave?”
My hero, the agoraphobe.
CHAPTER 22
Lights Out for Kevin
I spent the night with Marc. We didn’t have sex.
He just held me and I feel into a sleep deep enough to pass for a coma. I woke to the sound of him padding around the kitchen. The smel of baked goods got me out of bed. It was 10:00.
I was stil wearing my clothing from the day before.
I peed, washed up, put some of his toothpaste on my finger and ran it over my teeth, then joined him.
This time, there was only one cup from Starbucks waiting for me. Chai tea. I thought it was nice he remembered.
However, the counter was also home to every kind of bagel, croissant, muffin, and Danish known to man.
“Let me guess,” I said, “you didn’t know what I wanted.”
“I figured you’d like a choice,” he admitted.
I picked up a croissant. “Sorry I wigged out on you last night.”
“No problem.” He tousled my hair. “It was nice having you in my bed.”
I pointed to the bruise on my cheek. “I couldn’t bear to look in the mirror. How bad is it?”
Marc looked down and blushed. “You stil look beautiful to me.”
If Freddy was the sexiest man I knew, and Tony was the toughest, Marc was definitely the sweetest.
I kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.”
Just then, I heard my cel phone ring. I ran into the bedroom to get it. It was Tony.
Shit.
I didn’t want to talk to him.
I desperately wanted to talk to him.
I turned off my phone and put in my pocket.
I went into the kitchen and took a long swig of my tea.
“Who was it?” Marc asked.
“Just someone I used to know.”
“Are you OK?” he asked me.
“I’m better,” I said. “I just got a little freaked out.”
“What are you going to do?”
Good question.
“First, I’m going to finish this croissant, which, by the way, is delicious. Then, I’m going to go home, shower, and get into some clean clothing. I’l figure the rest out later.”
“You can stay here if you want,” Marc said. “I mean, if you don’t want to be alone.”
“I don’t think I’m in any danger,” I told him, remembering how I thought that the pebbles my father was throwing at the window were gunshots. “I don’t think I need to be too paranoid.”
“I don’t know,” Marc said. “You can’t be too careful.”
I was getting advice from a man too afraid to leave his apartment. Had it come to this? I kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks for taking care of me.”
By the time I left Marc’s apartment, it was almost noon. I grabbed a cab home and on the drive turned my phone back on. Three messages from Tony. I was debating whether or not to listen to them when the phone rang.
It was Freddy.
“Hey,” I answered.
“Yo, bubbala,” he said, “how are you holding up?
Did you cast off your spinsterish ways and spend the night with Macbeth?”
“Romeo.”
“Whatever.”
“I spent the night with someone,” I said. I explained what Marc had found out about Michael’s customers.
“That evil fuck,” Freddy said. “I knew he was bad news from the moment I laid eyes on him.”
“You thought he was hot the moment you laid eyes on him,” I reminded him.
“Wel, that too,” Freddy admitted. “What are you going to do?”
“That’s the question everyone’s asking me. What do you think I should do?”
“Cal Tony. This needs to go to the cops now.”
“He’s been cal ing me,” I said.
“See? It’s bershert.”
“What if he doesn’t believe me?”
“What if he does?”
“What if he’s cal ing because he wants to get back with me?” I asked. “What if I can’t say ‘no,’ and then he breaks my heart again? Flow many times am I going to keep making the same mistake? I can’t keep doing the same wrong things and expecting them to turn out right. It’s been seven years now…”
Freddy interrupted. “You didn’t take your medication today, did you?”
I admitted that I hadn’t.
“OK, champ,” he said. “Just take a breath and listen. What if the mistake is not taking
that chance with Tony? You’ve waited seven years for him, Kevin.
And, let’s face it; you did lay a kind of heavy trip on him with the whole Working Boy thing. Maybe he just needed some time to work through it.
“He’s cal ing you, Kevin. Isn’t that what you wanted? What if you gave him one more chance?”
That’s the thing about Freddy. A part of him would always be in love with me, just like a part of me was always drawn to him.
But in the end, what he wanted most for me was to be happy. Even if that meant I wound up with another man.
The cab was just pul ing up to my apartment.
“I think I wil return his cal,” I told him. “I love you, you know.”
“Please, you know I detest cheap sentiment,” he answered. “Now go cal your man. And be sure you tel me al about it.”
On my way up to my apartment, I thought about what Freddy had said. He was right; it was a big deal for me to tel Tony I was working as an escort. Of course he was upset. Not that he had a right to be, but I could understand it.
I was looking forward to a nice long shower and then a cal to Tony. With any luck at al, he’d be moved to come right over and the makeup sex would be great.
But when I got to my door I discovered the worst news of the day-it was unlocked.
My mother was back.
Great, I thought, I guess the limo didn’t work.
Thanks a lot, Dad.
“Mom?” I said, opening the door.
The masked figure from the hotel room stepped out from the hal way. “Not quite, whore.”
I had just enough time to see the flash of the Taser before the lights went out.
CHAPTER 23
Naked in the Belly of the Beast
Darkness.
I tried to open my eyes, but they weighed a mil ion pounds.
Arms hurt.
Whole body hurt.
I slipped back into the darkness.
Huh?
Where am I?
Opened my eyes but everything’s stil black.
Must be night time.
So sleepy.
Woke up again. The good news was I wasn’t dead.
That was pretty much it for good news.
Now for everything else.
I was blindfolded, so I couldn’t tel anything about my surroundings.
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