by Hal Bodner
Becky would have been horrified to know that her sharp wit and macabre sense of humor had proved more off-putting to her dates than her excess weight. Although she was absolutely without malice, barbed comments escaped her mouth before she thought about the impact they would have on her dinner companion and were swiftly forgotten as her mind shifted gears and raced off onto a new topic of conversation. The simple fact was that Becky left most of her dates mentally exhausted and with the nagging suspicion they had somehow been roundly defeated in a verbal battle without ever having had the chance to arm themselves.
Then again, she’d found that the few men who persisted in asking her out onto a second date were fascinated with her job as medical examiner, rather than repelled by it—and usually in an extremely unhealthy fashion. On two occasions she’d been forced to change her telephone number when men of rather odd sexual predilections had insisted that she have sex with them at, respectively, the morgue and the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
To that rare man who could overcome her excessive weight, her passionate obsession with discussing her most intimate cases over dinner and her perceptive, incisive, responses to her dinner companion’s conversation—which to those who didn’t know her well would seem downright sarcastic—her actual eating habits proved insurmountable. Ty, her morgue assistant, had once made the analogy between Becky’s table manners and Elaine May’s in A New Leaf. No matter how careful she tried to be while eating, Becky adored food and soon lost her determination to be neat and fastidious and dove into her repast with gusto. She invariably finished each meal covered with most of it.
Ty, a charming Asian of thirty-four, was really the only man about whom Becky could say she dated with any regularity. But in all honesty, her mental use of the word dating was stretching the truth a bit much. Although Ty was one of the few attractive, eligible heterosexual men living in West Hollywood, he was inevitably and exclusively attracted to women who would euphemistically be described as “mature.” While Becky was easily ten years older than he, she knew that Ty’s preferences ran toward women who were at least two or three generations his senior. Since she wasn’t yet eligible for Medicare, Becky wisely figured Ty was simply a lost cause as far as a husband was concerned.
Men who were romantically attracted toward middle-aged, short, rotund coroners were few and far between. Becky contented herself with a number of close friendships, almost all of them with gay men, increasing the amount of time she volunteered to charity and becoming almost fanatically absorbed in her work. In at least one arena, her redirection of repressed sexual urges had paid off; Dr. Rebecca O’Brien was probably one of the finest forensic pathologists on the West Coast.
In the time she’d been employed in West Hollywood, Becky had seen her share of violent death. California law required that any person who died while not in the care of a physician or hospital must be autopsied. West Hollywood, with one third of its almost 40,000 inhabitants being gay males, many infected with HIV and AIDS, and another third consisting of the elderly, who suffer from a variety of illnesses, created the coroner’s office shortly after its incorporation as a city in 1984.
Although in many ways WeHo was like any other city, Becky often found its logic to be slightly skewed, and often her dark humor was kicked into high gear. Walking into City Hall for her first job interview with the city manager, she had made the mistake of asking the woman at the front desk to explain the purpose of the ponderous gray granite objects that were placed at almost every corner along Santa Monica Boulevard. The receptionist had proudly replied that they were examples of West Hollywood’s commitment to the elderly—bus benches, installed so that the aged could await the arrival of public transportation in comfort. Becky stifled a snort of hilarity; her macabre sense of humor was tickled. She doubted that the elderly folk of the city would be quite so amused had any of them been able to read her mind at the moment. To Becky, the bus benches looked alarmingly like tombstones, bearing letters spelling out CITY OF WEST HOLLYWOOD where the name of the deceased ought to be.
Since then, she’d curtailed her troublesome, irreverent sense of humor. In fact, before becoming the West Hollywood city coroner, Becky had thought she’d seen everything—but nothing in her prior experience had prepared her for this town. At times she almost longed for her residency in Philadelphia, with its routine stabbings, shootings, and traffic accidents. West Hollywood’s residents seemed committed to offing themselves in bizarre and unusual ways.
Her first case involved two Santa Monica Boulevard male prostitutes found smothered by plastic bags as a result of a rumor that partial asphyxiation increased the intensity of orgasms. Although the method of death wasn’t all that unusual, Becky found herself thrust into the limelight when the gay press picked up the story and descended on the coroner’s office for comments from WeHo’s new medical examiner. Completely flummoxed by the media attention, Becky made several sarcastic suggestions that found their way into the next issue of the Gay Gazette. To alleviate the furor, the City Council took Becky’s quips as official recommendations and, in a flurry of legislative activity, came up with a solution: Further smothering would be avoided by distributing pamphlets on the dangers of misusing Saran wrap to all hustlers along the boulevard. Moreover, local laundries would be forced, upon pain of hefty fines, to print WARNING! USE OF THIS BAG DOES NOT INCREASE INTENSITY OR DURATION OF ORGASM! in large letters on both sides of every dry cleaning bag.
The heterosexual community wasn’t much more adroit at offing themselves in a fashion mundane. A pair of newlyweds on their honeymoon at the Mondrian Hotel on Sunset Boulevard found their marriage to be, quite literally, short-lived. The young wife, in her girlish eagerness to consummate her wedding night, was playfully bouncing on the hotel bed. Her enthusiasm had gotten the best of her and, after a particularly energetic bounce, she’d lost control of her momentum and sailed out the hotel room window to crash on the street eight stories below. Becky’s second “patient” that night had been the doorman who tried, unsuccessfully, to catch the plummeting bride and was flattened by her falling body.
Shortly thereafter, the son of a prominent California assemblyman had been found dead in his apartment after a debauched week of staying home from work with a head cold and overindulging in illegal substances. The victim’s blood had been filled with a wide variety of drugs, but none were in sufficient quantities to have caused the youth to die. Three days later, she had finally identified the culprit that had driven the young man’s system over the line. She briefly ruminated over the blank space on the certificate where she was supposed to fill in the cause of death. Then, with not a little black humor, she neatly printed: DEATH BY NYQUIL.
“Yeah, we’re the Creative City, all right!” Becky mused wryly and took another bite. She examined the last morsel of Snickers and popped it into her mouth. Actually, she confessed to herself, given her high level of consumption, the peanut taste was becoming rather overpowering. She longed for her favorite, Tasty Cake Butterscotch Krimpets. Unfortunately, Tasty Cake had not yet expanded its market to include California, to Becky’s unending chagrin.
Becky licked her fingers, donned her rubber gloves with a brisk snap and prepared for work. She drew back the sheet covering the remains of Anthony Balencini, checked to make sure her camera was fully charged, switched on the recorder, and started her protocol.
Ninety minutes later, she slid Balencini into one of the upper drawers of the refrigerator built into the wall at the far end of the morgue. Puzzlement furrowed her brow.
The cause of Balencini’s demise was obvious: his throat had been cut so deeply that the spine was severed and he’d bled to death. The sheriff’s report, however, had mentioned that relatively little blood had been found at the crime scene. Furthermore, there were no signs of a struggle. Becky concluded therefore that the murder had taken place elsewhere and the body was dumped in the foliage to await subsequent discovery. What bothered her, however, was the almost total lack of blood in the corpse. Exs
anguination of a human body was rarely so complete.
Becky was also concerned with the lacerations on the penis; there seemed to be no logical explanation for them. In addition, and this was the really strange part about the case, there was a flap of skin missing from the corpse’s neck. A strip, six inches long and an inch wide, had been excised, the edges of the wound torn rather than cleanly cut, but Becky could not identify the object used. Further, neither the extensive damage to the throat area nor the genital mutilation nor the removal of the small piece of epidermis accounted sufficiently for the blood loss.
She wobbled down the hall toward her office, deep in thought, stopping only to toss the CD from the autopsy onto Ty’s desk so he could transcribe it whenever he returned from wherever he’d run off to. Entering the office, she grabbed a bottle of strawberry Yoo-hoo from the small refrigerator, twisted off the cap and took a swig. The cloying, sweet fruity taste did not improve her thought processes as it usually did.
Dimly, she recalled a case similar to this one. Either she’d read about it or someone had mentioned it to her. Maybe she’d seen it on the news. For the life of her she couldn’t remember where. She took another gulp from the bottle, hoping it would help her think. But it didn’t.
CHAPTER THREE
Billy Boyd was hot. Not hot as in temperature, but hot as in buff, as in cool, as in sexy. Everything about him, from the smoothly shaven, tautly muscled chest to the carefully disheveled hairstyle was calculated to achieve one end: money in Billy’s pocket.
He’d dressed carefully tonight, as always, choosing skintight blue jeans with the crotch sanded to make his basket look like it was about to burst through the denim and a faded brown leather vest to show off his tanned skin and the lithe definition of his upper body. He’d even covered his chest, biceps, and shoulders with baby oil to make them gleam as he stood under the street lamp on the sidewalk near Genesee across the street from the Pleasure Chest, a sex paraphernalia shop on Santa Monica Boulevard.
Yes, Billy was ready. Ready to trade a half hour of time with his tight, toned body for as much of the green stuff as he could get.
He shifted his weight slowly back and forth from one hip to the other, scratching seductively at his chest and belly. He’d worked hard for his body, especially since turning twenty-eight the year before when he noticed an alarming softening of the muscles of his lower stomach, his back and his waist.
“No love handles for me,” he’d resolved and spent hours in the gym until everything tightened up again and the washboard configuration, so highly sought after by middle-aged men from Chatsworth and Encino, reappeared.
Billy propped one leg on the seat of the bus bench and leaned forward, allowing his vest to fall open to reveal more clearly the results of his dedication to physical fitness. He’d already had one score this evening, a tremendously fat guy from back East somewhere, probably New York, who’d paid him a hundred dollars just so Billy would stand over him and allow him to stroke his naked thighs and jerk off for fifteen minutes. For the past hour, though, the trade had been sparse.
Billy had long mastered the technique of nonchalantly ignoring passing motorists, while at the same time quickly sizing up the drivers as potential clients. He remembered a business course in high school, before he’d been kicked out, when a teacher had told the class that a good salesman always checked out the shoes and watch of a prospective customer. If they were of good quality, the reasoning went, the customer most likely had bucks to spend. This was the only item of knowledge gleaned from his formal education that Billy used on a regular basis.
For Billy, money was the key—to everything. Why should he spend all day carrying trays in a restaurant or peddling cheap shirts and ties for a four hundred dollars a week when he could make as much or more for a few hours of minimal effort on a busy Friday or Saturday night? And, maybe, just maybe, if he were very lucky, he’d meet someone, a director or producer, who would be so taken with Billy’s stunning body and handsome face that he would, overnight, be catapulted to stardom in the movies. Now, that would mean really big bucks!
A rusty brown Plymouth Station Wagon slowed, its driver eyeing Billy, appraising. Billy took one look at the car and turned his back; the Plymouth drove off. He turned back to surveying the street and noticed a dark blue Jaguar Sedan had slowed; the driver was peering out the window at him.
Billy recognized the look. It was hunger; of a type with which Billy was infinitely familiar. Slowly, assessing the expensive car, he sauntered across the street and stopped near the passenger window. The window rolled down.
“How much?” the driver called.
“For what?” Billy answered, feigning disinterest.
“Blow job.”
“You a cop?”
“No,” the driver, a man in his late thirties, slightly balding, looked amused. “Accountant.”
“You do me or I do you?”
The driver grinned. “I do you.”
Billy considered the request. If he shot a load, he’d have to wait at least an hour or two before his body recovered enough to make another score. Maybe, during that time, he’d be lucky enough to pick up someone who wouldn’t be interested in seeing him shoot, but he didn’t want to take the chance. Unless Mr. Jaguar would make it worth his while to take the time off.
“Two bucks,” Billy quoted.
“Two hundred dollars?” repeated the Jaguar, in disbelief.
“Yeah,” Billy said. “I come buckets.” He shrugged off the vest and slung it over his shoulder with one hand, placing the other in his right pocket and pressing down so his jeans hung lower on that side of his hips.
“I’ll give you fifty.”
“One seventy-five.”
“A hundred. And that’s final.” The driver put the car into drive.
“One fifty,” said Billy.
“Sorry,” said the man, and he drove off while Billy stood there by the curb, mouth hanging open in disbelief and feeling like a fool.
“Oh, yeah? Well, fuck you too!” Billy yelled after the departing car and flipped the driver the bird.
“Such an emphatic response,” said a soft voice behind him.
Billy whirled around, ready to nail the newcomer with a right cross if the guy so much at snickered at Billy’s humiliation.
But the guy wasn’t laughing. Instead he wore a look of pleasant, interested curiosity, combined with just enough sympathy, as if he’d just happened to walk by and witness the incident and was empathetically on Billy’s side.
At first, Billy took the guy for another hustler. He had the looks for it certainly and, even though he was a little on the short side, he was in great shape with a physique that almost rivaled Billy’s own. Yes, sir. Under that tight black turtleneck was what Billy called a good body, a really good body. When the guy turned, motioning Billy out of the street, he got a good look at the guy’s rear; through the black jeans Billy saw the muscles of the upper thighs and ass bunch intriguingly.
There was something else Billy noticed: hunger, the kind of hunger he saw so often along the boulevard.
This could be fun, Billy thought and smiled. “Well, you know how it is sometimes,” he said.
“I do indeed,” said the guy with mock regret.
Billy laughed and the guy joined in. “So,” said Billy casually, “you score yet?”
“Not yet.” The words held a deeper meaning that Billy recognized instantly.
“You, uh, wanna go somewhere?” Billy said, a little more hesitantly than normal. If the guy was working, Billy knew his ego would suffer another beating. It was considered bad form for one hustler to proposition another; after all, both would be giving away what they could sell. But Billy was still a little pissed at the Jaguar and he figured, What the hell? The guy was hot. And Billy, if he was going to go for a freebie, liked it to be hot.
The stranger grinned. “I was thinking that, perhaps, it was a little warm out here for this.” He indicated the long sleeves of his turtleneck. �
�I’d probably be more comfortable...wearing less. And you?”
Billy frowned briefly, a little uneasy. Did the guy have some kind of an accent? He couldn’t tell. Billy didn’t like foreigners; you couldn’t really predict what they’d be like in the sack. He especially hated French tourists; they tended to treat hustlers like they treated their wives—in Billy’s opinion, badly. Well, the stranger sure as hell wasn’t a Frenchie, even if he did talk a little weird, kind of piss elegant.
Billy looked at the guy’s body again, and the vague troubling thoughts vanished from his mind.
“Sure,” he said. “Let’s get naked.”
“Naked?” asked the stranger, as if he were talking to himself. “What a novel idea.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing,” said the stranger and he looked up, directly into Billy’s eyes.
Billy noticed the guy’s pupils were dark, almost black, with little specks of silver. For some reason, Billy trusted those eyes and all his minor suspicions vanished.
“Shall we?” With an odd little bow, the stranger indicated the Pleasure Chest parking lot across the street.
Billy led the way across Santa Monica and pointed to the apartment building backing the parking lot.
“We can go in there,” he said, “One of them’s still vacant, I think. A trick took me there last week.”
“Good.”
They crossed the asphalt in silence; Billy licked his lips in anticipation. He felt into the waistband of his jeans and shifted his hardening dick so that it was more comfortable.
They reached the building and Billy led his new companion around the side to the vacant unit. He opened the door.
“After you,” said the stranger with another little bow.