Keeping Secrets

by Penny Mickelbury

  She whipped the Karmann Ghia into the lot and parked in a Reserved for Management spot next to Freddy’s Ford Bronco, thinking the thing must be part helicopter to have arrived so far ahead of them. Gianna was out and aiming for the front door before Mimi could shut off the ignition and the lights. She trotted after her in intrigued pursuit.

  “Do you have a permit for this demonstration?” Gianna demanded.

  “Who the hell are you?” snarled a belligerent young man with bleached blond hair and three earrings.

  Gianna reached into her pocket, took out her ID, held it close to his face, and asked the same question again, only this time the voice was colder.

  “Oink, oink,” said another of the protesters.

  “Somebody get him a Kleenex. Or a feed bag,” said Gianna, and some of those lined up to get into Schuyler’s snickered.

  “Why don’t you ask them for a permit,” snarled the blond, pointing a thumb disdainfully to the line.

  “They’re in a line behind a rope which the establishment has a permit for—”

  But drowning out Gianna, one of the protestors yelled to the crowd, “Freddy Schuyler is a queer! A big, strong, football playing queer!” And then they began to chant, “We’re everywhere, we’re everywhere!”

  A man from the line rushed up to the protestors, a man built very much like Freddy, and grabbed the blonde’s shirt front. “I oughta break your face,” he spat.

  Gianna grabbed his wrist with the vice-like grip Mimi knew so well and propelled him back to the line and then she turned to the blond leading the protest. “You people have three seconds to clear this sidewalk or I promise you, if I have to call for backup, you won’t get out of jail until some time Monday. Late Monday. Your choice.”

  “Fucking fascist,” muttered the blond.

  “If I were a fascist you wouldn’t get a choice. Now beat it.” Reluctantly the demonstrators ambled off to the cheers, jeers and whistles from those in line. The men in line reached out to Freddy to shake his hand, to clap him on the back. The women reached up to plant kisses on his face. They either didn’t hear, didn’t understand, or didn’t care about the message of the demonstration.

  Mimi watched the protesters depart. Of the ten, only three of them— all men— had actually spoken. The others had joined in the “We’re everywhere” group cheer but otherwise remained silent. Not, Mimi thought, reflective of what she knew about ACT UP or Queer Nation. One woman in particular, Mimi noticed, short and rather dumpy, who looked at least fifty and had kept staring intently at Gianna. Who were these people? She watched as they slouched away, slowly, grudgingly, and without a backward glance, led by the dumpy woman, not the aggressive blond. Who the hell were they? No activist group turns tail and runs just because the cops, to say nothing of a single, off-duty, out-of-uniform cop, gives an order.

  Gianna was huddled with Freddy, away from the line, he leaning down low to hear her, both their faces intent and sober, Gianna doing most of the talking. Then Freddy straightened, wrapped Gianna in a bear hug, and she started to walk in Mimi’s direction.

  Taking her cue, Mimi turned and headed for the parking lot and noticed a pile of flyers from the fizzled demonstration strewn on the ground. She picked up one of the flyers, folded it, and tucked it into her purse. Gianna walked right past her to the parking lot, muttering soto voce, “Pick up another of those, would you?” And then Mimi shivered and realized that the night air was cold.

  They didn’t speak on the drive uptown to Mimi’s house, didn’t speak while Mimi built a roaring fire, didn’t speak while Mimi laid a couple of quilts and big pillows on top of the rug, didn’t speak until one of the big logs rolled off the grate, crackling and spitting fire and a spark jumped over the screen and onto the quilt and they both scrambled to put it out before it burned a hole. Then, finally, Mimi said, “You know we’re going to have to talk about it eventually.”

  It. The case, the horrible murders of the four gay people. It. The thing that represented each woman’s job and therefore the potential for major conflict between them given that the natural relationship between cops and press was adversarial at best and downright hostile in the worst case.

  Gianna sighed a deep, weary sigh and said, “Can we do it tomorrow?”

  And Mimi nodded. Tomorrow. Yes. So we can have this one more night of perfect, exquisite beauty before the ugliness intrudes.

  And they devised new ways to pleasure each other until the once roaring blaze was only a smoldering memory and they ran naked and shrieking in the freezing air into the bedroom and Gianna laughed when she saw the all-white bed ensemble, laughed the throaty, golden laugh that gave Mimi the tingles and then they were under the covers...

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Tyler took off his glasses to look at Mimi across the table, as if seeing her differently would somehow minimize the horror of her words. His eyes blinked and his lips trembled and he squeezed the spoon as if trying to bend it in half. He waved away the waiter who approached to take their order, returned his glasses to his face.

  As Mimi watched him she thought again how ridiculous it was for people to think about, talk about—expect—something loosely referred to as objectivity from reporters. Reporters were human beings and human beings responded the same way to shock and horror. She remembered her own reaction when Gianna told her in graphic detail how the four people died and now she watched Tyler restore his face and his emotions to some kind of normal state.

  “We have to report this,” he said in a tight voice.

  “We can’t,” Mimi said. “I won’t, Tyler. I gave her my word that any information she shared with me at this point would be on deep background. I won’t break my word.” Mimi was more adamant than she knew was necessary. Tyler would never expect a reporter to violate the sanctity of a source; but he was so horrified by what she had just told him that clear-eyed reason was not his initial response. Mimi understood completely, still not having recovered fully from the mind-numbing shock of learning how the four victims died. She looked more closely at Tyler, wondering how much of his reaction was due to the fact that someone he knew had died in such a monstrous manner, reminding herself that this was more than just a story for him.

  “So what now,” Tyler said listlessly.

  “Back to Metro GALCO. That’s my best hope for a lead.”

  “Why not the Nazis!” exclaimed Tyler bitterly.

  “Because the killer is someone who was able to get close to those people, Tyler, somebody they knew and or trusted. I don’t think Nazis fall into that category, much as we might wish it.”

  “Do the police have any leads?” he asked, chastened.

  “No,” Mimi answered flatly.

  She thought again of Gianna’s face and voice and attitude as they discussed the case and believed that she had not lied when she said the police were at a dead end. She realized that of necessity Gianna hadn’t told her everything the police knew about the murders; but she also felt that Gianna was leveling with her when she claimed the police had no leads, and she knew that fact terrified her, terrified them both, and saddened them, because what was growing between them could not take full flower until the murderer was caught— whenever that would be. Gianna had adamantly refused to even discuss the proposition that they work the case together.

  “We don’t do the same job, Mimi. Let’s get that clear. There’s nothing you can do to help me.”

  Mimi had been stung by Gianna’s blunt dismissal of her suggestion, and by the fact that she could so quickly cease being Gianna the lover, passionate and insatiable, and become Anna Maglione, super cop, focused totally, completely, and only on the job at hand. She’s actually worse than I am, Mimi was thinking as she was snatched into reality.

  “What, Tyler? Did you say something?”

  “I asked if you’re all right.”

  “No. No, I’m not all right. And for the first time in my life that thought scares the shit out of me.”

  “Why now, Mimi?” Tyler asked,
real concern in his voice.

  “Because now I care about something other than the story. That’s new for me and I don’t know what to do with it.”

  She saw that Tyler knew what she meant and her respect for him increased several notches when he took his eyes from hers and focused all his attention on the menu.

  *****

  Gianna saw in the faces looking up at her all the things she expected to see: rage, disbelief, horror, sadness, resignation. No matter what the group or organization, no matter what its purpose, no matter what length of its involvement in trying to make the world a better place, people were never prepared for the truth of hate in America, and Gianna could always see it in the faces of the people. Black people, Hispanic people, Jewish people, gay people, people of all colors— all the people so familiar with hate. The faces of the B’nai B’rith of northwest Washington were no different. She’d only been on the job and making these speeches for a short time, but she’d already formulated a theory about why her audience always seemed unprepared for the depth and extent of the hatred that permeated society: they must want to—need to—think that the people who did the hating all lived somewhere else. So when she recited the statistics for the seven jurisdictions that she monitored, and compared them with Washington, there was always shock. This was, after all, the Nation’s capital, the capital of the Free World. The metropolitan Washington area had the highest income and education levels of most major cities in the country. How could it also have so much hate?

  She’d come to dread the question and answer session after her speech because they always expected her to have answers that made sense. For a while she’d tried. She’d tried to tell them what the experts told her: That more than a decade of economic retrenchment had put too many people out of work, made them desperate and angry and in need of venting their frustration on some person or group of people they perceived as being to blame. Some social scientists believed that the war in the Persian Gulf had led to increased attacks on both Arabs and Jews—and that quite often, those doing the attacking couldn’t tell the difference. But recently, the best she could do was to point the finger at other cities—cities where the problem was so much worse than in Washington. Tonight that wasn’t enough because she knew what they didn’t know: About the four dead gay people, one of whom had also been Jewish. She knew that the hate was spreading and she was weak with that knowledge. So, when the final question of the evening came, from an elegant, elderly woman right on the front row, she was not prepared. The woman, swathed in mink and jewels that Gianna could see were costly even from a distance, was at least seventy and she stood proud and erect, perfectly coiffed silver hair glittering like the diamonds at her ears.

  “So, Lieutenant, what can we do?” asked the woman.

  “We’re here to serve you,” Gianna began as usual. “There is a special line into the Hate Crimes Unit that’s answered twenty-four hours a day. Any crime that’s thought be hate based—”

  “No!” The elderly woman pointed a scarlet-tipped finger at Gianna and raised her voice. “I don’t care about special lines! I want to know what can we do to stop the hate?”

  “I wish I knew,” Gianna replied, giving her most truthful answer of the evening.

  *****

  Mimi surveyed the people who sat with her in a small classroom in the west wing of Metro GALCO for the series of lectures entitled Out of the Closet and into the World. There were twenty attendees, evenly divided between men and women, and a representative racial mix, with no more than a ten year spread, Mimi guessed, in their ages— they all seemed to be between thirty-five and forty-five. She was struck by how ordinary they all looked, by how any of them could be the banker, the government consultant, the association president, or the computer salesman who were dead because, perhaps, they’d once sat in a room just like this one.

  Their leader, a professorial looking man of about fifty sporting a Van Dyke beard and wire rimmed glasses, identified himself as Calvin Cobbs and, sure enough, he was a professor of Sociology at American University. Out of the closet for the last three years, he had made it his mission to assist those willing to make that same transition. Mimi studied her classmates. Most were merely attentive; several looked nervous; and one woman looked about to pass out from fear. There was, thought Mimi, something vaguely familiar about her.

  “So,” said Calvin Cobbs, “who would like to tell us what has transpired in your life to bring you to this room?”

  The class, in unison, looked around at each other until a trim, handsome young man with fiery red hair and bright blue eyes stood, cleared his throat, and announced: “I’m here because I’m tired of hiding and afraid not to.” They talked and laughed and cried together until the class ended ninety minutes later.

  *****

  The only sound in the interrogation room was the almost imperceptible whir of the VCR as the machine recorded the interview, and the fact that it could be heard was testament to the heaviness of the silence. Eric was aware that he was holding his breath; he didn’t want any action of his to be a distraction. Gianna, anger lurking dangerously close to the surface, leaned her face close in to that of Jack Tolliver, so close that he involuntarily shrank back just the tiniest bit, but it was enough to let Gianna know that his bravado was false, that he would soon answer her questions instead of demanding to know how the police had located him.

  “We have our ways, Mr. Tolliver,” she’d responded with just enough smugness to make him nervous without telling him that in his case the “way” was nothing short of a miraculous and unexpected blessing: the security camera that Freddy had installed outside his club as much for the protection of the patrons who waited in line for entry as for protection of the property. Tolliver’s photo had been on file because he belonged to The Supreme Aryans, a skinhead group under continuing investigation in connection with vandalism of several synagogues a year ago.

  Gianna stepped back to study him. His pale, anemic-looking skin was in sharp contrast to the deep black of his silver-studded leather ensemble: the many-zippered jacket, pants, thick-soled biker boots and cap.

  “Why, Mr. Tolliver, were you harassing Freddy Schuyler?”

  “I wasn’t harassing nobody, I already told ya,” he whined.

  “The kind of activity you staged outside Mr. Schuyler’s place of business on Saturday night could be construed to be a violation of his civil rights, Mr. Tolliver. Not to mention the fact that you were leading an illegal demonstration—“

  “I wasn’t leading nothing, I tell ya!” he shouted, the fear beginning to show in the tenseness of his body.

  “But you were the one doing all the talking. It looked to me like you were the leader, and if you were, then you’re in big trouble and I think you should call your attorney. You can use that phone on the table over there.” Gianna deliberately turned her back on the blond with the three earrings, displaying a nonchalance that served its purpose admirably.

  “Look, it wasn’t my idea,” he pleaded. “I was just following orders, doing a job, trying to earn a buck, okay?”

  Gianna studied him closely, weighing his response. “I’m supposed to believe that somebody paid you to stand in front of Freddy Schuyler’s club and call him a queer? And who printed the flyers, Santa Claus? I don’t have time for this crap. Call your lawyer so I don’t get in trouble for violating your civil rights. For doing to you what you did to Mr.Schuyler on Saturday night.”

  “For God’s sake, lady, listen to me—”

  “Are you gay, Mr. Tolliver?”

  Her question caught him off guard and totally flustered him. She now had him where she wanted him and she watched him squirm.

  “Well...not exactly...”

  “Is that like being a little bit pregnant?” She laughed and knew that he would think it was directed at him.

  “You can’t make fun of me!” he protested.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. It’s just that you confuse me. Either you were in charge on Saturday night or y
ou weren’t. Either you’re gay or you aren’t. I don’t do so well with that in the middle stuff.”

  With a sigh of absolute weariness, Jack Tolliver leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Gianna leaned in close.

  “What’s the name of your group, Mr. Tolliver?”

  “C.Y.K.A.S., but I told you, it’s not my group. A lady runs it, a kinda old lady...”

  Gianna cut him off sharply. “What did you say? Sikes....Sacks....what?”

  “It’s letters, C-Y-K-A-S-, but I don’t know what they mean. The lady, she won’t tell nobody. She’s really weird, man. Like, I could only call her when she said so, and to a phone booth.” Gianna sagged inside. She wasn’t sure what she expected from Jack Tolliver, but it wasn’t this. And because she was frustrated and angry and exhausted from lack of sleep, she put Jack Tolliver through the paces again, from the beginning, willing there to be something else, something more, than the letters C-Y-K-A-S: letters that meant nothing to anyone.

  Mimi trotted down Nebraska Avenue behind Calvin Cobbs, an icy fall wind cutting through the insufficient wool of her sweater and slacks. Cobbs moved quickly in his anger and Mimi, trying to talk and run into the wind at the same time, was gasping for breath while still trying to sound both professional and rational. She was granted a reprieve only when Cobbs reached his car and had to fish for his keys deep inside his canvas carryall.

  “I’m not planning to sandbag your class,” she practically yelled at him. “I told you, I would never do such a thing.”

  “You’re in my seminar under false pretenses. Why should I believe anything you say?” He hissed his anger at her on the wind.