Paul unlocked his front door and stepped in. Ian used one finger to raise the brim of his hat an inch to look at Paul. “You’re late,” Ian said.
“I know baby-sitting is one of your favorite things,” Paul said. “I wanted you to get as much time in as possible.”
“It’s a joy in my life right up there with being tortured to death by crazed terrorists.”
“You’ve never been tortured by anybody.”
“Maybe I’ll get lucky.”
Paul sat on the edge of the worn brown couch. The arms were threadbare where years of legs had been draped while lounging. “Is Jeff asleep?”
“You need to speak to that child,” Ian said.
Paul raised an eyebrow. “He beat you at which game tonight?”
“All of them, including chess for the first time. I know he’s your kid and all, but at the age of eleven he’s a menace. And he showed me how to do several things with my laptop computer that no one below the age of thirty should be able to do.”
“Serves you right for asking.”
“It was a delight when I insisted he had to go to bed. At least when he’s asleep I’ve got a chance of winning.”
“I don’t hear loud annoying music from downstairs,” Paul said. “What’s happening with the team?” Paul’s older son, Brian, had invited over more than a dozen members of his high school football team to spend the night.
“They were watching some movie earlier,” Ian said. “It was filled with guns and violence and studly men. I was not invited to watch. They might have another one. The only part of the conversation I was able to overhear concerned the physical attributes of the female of the species.”
Paul rose and walked into the kitchen. Ian followed. As they passed the door open to the basement, they could hear the sound of male voices.
Paul took a bottle of orange juice out of the refrigerator, found a glass, and poured himself some.
Ian glanced down the stairs and then moved close enough to whisper in Paul’s ear, “I want to know who the one is in the white jeans and black T-shirt. He drove up here on a crotch rocket.”
Paul grinned at his friend. “Do I want to know what that is?”
“It’s a Ducati, a motorcycle, one of the most expensive made. It is an exotic Italian racing bike. It’s got fully integrated….”
“I’ve got the idea. The bike and the kid are sexy.”
“The kid walked in here with Oakley Blade sunglasses, the ones with a blue-mirrored surface? It was hours after sunset. He also wore a black leather jacket that made him look more butch than the entire clientele of a leather bar on a Saturday night, and I have never seen anybody that sexy in white jeans.”
“I’m not going down there on an inspection tour for you. I did see a motorcycle parked in front of the neighbors’. Why didn’t you just introduce yourself?”
“I tried to get Brian to introduce me to all of them. He told me they were all straight and that I wouldn’t have any luck with any of them.”
“Need I remind you that they are all below the age of eighteen, and every one of them is jail bait?”
“I do not diddle little boys,” Ian said severely. “Anyway, some of them downstairs are bigger than I am. Need I also point out that I had sex for the first time when I was thirteen. It was with a nineteen-year-old male prostitute in Omaha, Nebraska, and I want you to know….”
“I’ve heard the story,” Paul said. “I know you’re proud of being a sexual athlete from an early age, but I have no quarrel with the age-of-consent laws and the crowd underneath us isn’t fair game for you yet.”
“I can wait, and I can look, and I can have lust in my heart. Besides, you’re the one who invited me here to baby-sit.”
“I did not ‘invite’ you to baby-sit. Only because Ben’s visiting his family and Mrs. Talucci hasn’t been feeling well are you here.”
Ben Vargas was the man Paul had been dating for over a year.
“What’s wrong with Rose?” Ian asked.
“I’m not sure,” Paul said. “I’m a little worried.”
“She’ll tell you when she’s ready,” Ian said.
Rose Talucci lived next door to Paul Turner. She had the ground floor of the house to herself. On the second floor lived Mrs. Talucci’s two daughters and several distant female cousins. At ninety-two Mrs. Talucci ruled this brood, her main concern being to keep them out of her way and to stay independent. Numerous times she’d confided in Paul that if they weren’t family, she’d throw them all out. She did her own cooking, cleaning, and shopping, as she had for seventy-four years. To her daughters’ horror, she took the bus on her own throughout the city and even to suburbs to visit friends, relatives, attend shopping-center openings, or anything else that struck her fancy. Paul loved Rose. She cared for Jeff after school whenever Paul or Brian couldn’t be home, and often wound up giving the boys and their dad dinner. This was prearranged on a weekly basis. For several years after it started, she refused all offers of payment. Being neighbors and nearly family precluded even discussing such things. But one day Mrs. Talucci couldn’t fix a broken porch. Paul had offered, and since then he’d done all repairs and had even made several major renovations on her home. Her being ill was unheard of, but she hadn’t been willing to tell him about it yet. Paul planned to talk with her again in the morning.
“Why do you need someone to watch these kids anyway?” Ian asked. “They’re all old enough to take care of themselves. It’s not as if they were going to try making out with each other, although that is not a bad concept.”
“I didn’t want Brian to have to be responsible for Jeff. Brian had enough to do with taking care of the party. As for the teens in the basement, you put fifteen high school kids together and I, for one, want them to have in their heads somewhere that there is an adult within reasonable proximity. I don’t think Brian and his friends would do anything, but you’ve got to remember kids will act like kids most of the time, not like Supreme Court Justices.”
“Are they going to sleep in their underwear?” Ian asked.
“The Supreme Court Justices?”
Ian glared. “I was referring to the undergarments of the crowd in the basement.”
“They all brought sleeping bags. I presume they’re going to sleep in them. Clothed, unclothed, or somewhere in between, I have no idea nor do I have any interest. I’m sure they’ll manage.”
“Is it normal for high school boys to have sleepovers? I thought girls did it and called them slumber parties?”
“Don’t be sexist,” Paul said. “Most of these guys have been on the same team at the same high school for three or four years. Sometimes they go out on dates or go to the movies before they go to somebody’s house to hang out.”
“Sounds odd to me,” Ian said. “Maybe one of them needs an older, wiser man to explain the ways of the world to him, or perhaps a group lecture would be helpful.”
“Why didn’t you suggest that to them earlier before I got home?” Paul asked.
Ian ignored him. “I bet every one of them is wearing tight white Jockey shorts even as we speak.”
“I suppose,” Turner said. “How much have they eaten?”
“An inordinate amount of pizzas were delivered about three hours ago. I think the food lasted all of fifteen seconds. An hour after inhaling everything but the carpet, they sent one of their number to the store. He came back with a car full of snacks.”
“They didn’t sneak any liquor in?” Paul asked.
“I hope so. Maybe one of them will get drunk and need an older, wiser man to care for him until the effects of demon rum have worn off.”
“Why don’t you take your older, wiser ass out of here? I can handle it from this point.”
Ian sniffed. “You just want to hog them all to yourself.”
“You’re welcome to approach any of them,” Paul said. “I’m sure each of them would have a unique response to any proposition from you.”
“Thanks for the useless inv
itation. I’d probably be beaten and raped over and over again, and I don’t have time for that tonight.”
“Being raped by teen-aged boys is not a fantasy that many in this society would relish or approve of,” Paul said.
Ian stood up. “That’s their problem. I’ve always thought being ravished by a football team would be a delight, although I would prefer a college crowd. I’m no fool, I wouldn’t touch the little darlings downstairs.”
“You wouldn’t want to stay the night? I need a keeper for them for a short while in the morning. I’ve got to leave early for work.”
“Sorry, I’m meeting the suicide woman from Washington State for lunch.”
“Which one is this?”
Paul knew about Ian’s pet project on teen suicide. Ian was convinced that many of the suicides reported were caused because the kids couldn’t deal with their sexuality. He wanted to prove that gay teens were a large portion of both suicides and true runaway teens in this country. His problem was getting people to talk. Ian found it difficult to walk up to a grieving parent and ask, “Did your child kill himself/herself because they couldn’t cope with being gay?”
“It was some sports hero. Hanged himself in the gymnasium the day before some big championship game. I managed to get the coroner to talk to me a little bit at the time. She’s changing jobs and passing through Chicago.”
“Didn’t he die years ago?”
“I keep in contact with possible sources. I send them articles, little notes. She responded more than most. Sometimes I get lucky. At any rate, my teenage baby-sitting duty is done for the next decade.”
“Good luck with your interview.” Turner followed his friend to the front door. “Thank you for helping out and thank you for not letting your libido get the best of you.”
Ian made his fingers on one hand into a circle and jerked it back and forth rapidly. “I’ll wait until I get home. You get pictures of any of them, I get dibs, but at least find out the name of the kid in the white jeans. He will break hearts before he’s through.”
Paul looked in on his younger son, Jeff. The eleven-year-old slept on his side, breathing easily. He noted the leg braces on the floor and the catheterization equipment on the nightstand. Amid the debris was the scrapbook Jeff kept of his older brother’s sports accomplishments. The recent newspaper article on Brian was askew on the top, waiting to be taped in place. This one had made the front page of the Tribune’s sports section. There had been pictures and a lengthy article about Brian and his best friend on the team, Jose. They’d been setting high school records as a quarterback and receiver combination.
Paul smoothed the covers and then sat on the edge of the bed. He watched his son sleep. Jeff had the birth defect spina bifida. That meant that at birth his spinal cord and nerves protruded in a sac from his back, near the bottom of his spine. He was born with bladder and bowel dysfunction and paralysis of his legs. Except for a brief scare a year before to unclog the shunt in Jeff’s head, there had been no major health problems in recent years.
As Paul sat at his son’s side, unbidden he began remembering the conversation he’d had with the grieving parents earlier. He saw them vividly in his mind. No good trying to block the remembrance. At the crime scene he could distance himself as a professional doing his job, but now this late at night with his younger son gently sleeping, the unwanted memory of the horrors crept from the corners of his mind. He let it flow through him for a few minutes, then shuddered involuntarily, trying to shake off the images. He touched Jeff’s hair gently, patted him, and eased out of the room.
Paul returned to the kitchen and began cleaning up debris. Occasionally he heard snatches of conversation from the basement. He filled the sink with warm water and washed cups, glasses, and bowls. He’d do this much for Brian, but his older son would clean all remnants of the party from the basement tomorrow.
As he plunked the last bowl in a cupboard, he heard a deep voice from the basement complaining, “I’m not going to be eligible to play next week. I’m flunking English. I didn’t get my book report in.”
“You dumb shit,” another voice said. “We need you. How could you be that stupid?”
The deep voice replied, “I tried to get to the store to rent the video, but by the time I got there it had been checked out.”
“You ever think of reading the book, Fred?” Turner recognized his son Brian’s voice.
“Read it? Jesus. Not when there’s a video out.”
“You dumb shit.” This was an angry voice that Paul didn’t recognize.
“Relax,” a voice cooed. “It’s no big deal.” This was not Fred’s deep voice.
Turner wasn’t sure if the topic had changed or not. He felt only a twinge of guilt at listening in. The world of teenagers was a mystery to him, and he couldn’t resist listening. In a minute he’d leave. Tired as he was, he’d sit up for a while reading the paper to make sure the boys downstairs were settled for the night. Then he’d make his way up to his own bed.
“Tom, get that crap out of here. His dad’s a cop. He could come home at any minute.”
Paul froze. The voices downstairs were silent for a moment.
“You guys get so hyper,” the one who had urged them to relax said.
“Out!” Paul had seldom heard his older son sound so angry.
“You’re kidding?”
“Out!” Brian repeated.
Paul debated casually walking downstairs. He knew most of the boys, and it wouldn’t be odd for him to say hello.
Several seconds of silence passed.
“Now,” Brian said. His voice was flat and even.
Paul heard rustling below. He quietly crept into the living room and sat in the easy chair. Half a minute later a hulking teen eased past him to the front door. Paul recognized him, but didn’t remember his name. The teenager saw Paul and the boy’s face turned gray as he hurried out the door.
Paul picked up a copy of today’s paper and began to peruse it casually. Fifteen minutes later he heard voices in the kitchen.
He wandered in and saw two boys rummaging in the refrigerator. One was Brian, who wore a University of Wisconsin jersey top and the white warm-up pants with the St. Felicita’s High School logo on the front left leg. Next to Brian was his best friend from the team and the other boy in the article, Jose Martin. Jose was always polite and friendly to Turner, but seldom said much. He was an inch shorter than Brian’s six feet one and slightly thinner but he was one of the toughest football players Paul had ever seen. Jose could take incredible punishment from an entire defensive line and bounce back up again. His dusky gold skin reflected his Hispanic heritage.
Paul noted that Jose wore tight white jeans that required no belt for them to cling to his narrow hips and that emphasized his butt nicely. His black T-shirt completed the ensemble, so Paul assumed this was the kid Ian had mentioned. Paul shook his head. He recognized that Jose was good-looking, as was his own son for that matter, but he felt absolutely no stirring of desire. He’d always wanted to make love to a man, not a kid. He did see that Jose’s plain black T-shirt tucked into his pants made more prominent the kid’s broad shoulders tapering down to his narrow hips. Paul hadn’t known the boy owned a motorcycle.
They exchanged greetings.
“Any problems with the party?” Paul asked.
“No,” Brian said. “Everything’s under control. Ian behaved himself.”
“Good. Is that one of the guys’ motorcycle out front?”
“Mine, Mr. Turner.” Jose smiled with pride of ownership. “Of course, my dad had to put money down and sign for me. I’ve got to cover the cost of the insurance and every other payment.”
Paul wasn’t sure it was a great idea to get a seventeen-year-old a vehicle that expensive, but it wasn’t his son. He’d never met Jose’s dad and didn’t know if he came to the games to watch his son. He was pleased that the boy had to be responsible for a large chunk of the cost.
“Good luck with it.” Paul said to Bri
an, “I’m going to bed. You need anything, I’ll be upstairs.”
Brian mumbled thanks. He and his buddy hurried downstairs with what looked like last night’s leftovers. Paul sighed and trudged up to his room.
Paul dragged himself out of bed at seven the next morning. In the shower he let hot water pour onto his tired face for five minutes in an attempt to revive himself. Originally he’d been scheduled to be off today, but with a case such as this, he knew it would be a full day. After he’d dressed and eased his way downstairs, he peered into Jeff’s room and saw his younger son still asleep. He then listened at the door to the basement stairs. He heard a muffled snort and a mild snore, but no other noise from the boys gathered below.
He turned the automatic coffee maker on, poured some tomato juice in a glass, and leaned against the counter. Tired as he was now, he knew it would only get worse if the case wasn’t solved in a short time.
A normal Saturday would find Paul involved with his sons in household chores, with Brian trying to sleep through them all and Jeff attempting to play computer games instead of working. After the morning squabbles, he’d make the afternoon a time to play with either son, take them somewhere, go to one of their sporting events, or find something they were interested in and do it.
Much as work occupied his mind, he still wanted to stop at Mrs. Talucci’s before he left. He had to organize care for Jeff during the day. Brian and his buddies had plans for the morning and afternoon and Paul wanted the house in some semblance of order when he returned. He enjoyed the vision of the boys downstairs waking up to Mrs. Talucci in charge. She’d have them scour every inch of house they’d come in contact with. Plus, if he could, he wanted to find out what had been bothering her. The fact that she wouldn’t talk about what was wrong only accentuated his worries that it was serious. He hurried next door.
Another Dead Teenager Page 4