Dead and Gone (33 page)

“Please step back,” said the man. He had a semi-British accent, as if he’d been born here but gone to prep school over there or something
.

The Mole and I stepped back so the iron grate could swing out
.

We walked past the man inside, waited while he bolted the grate shut and closed the door. We were in a rectangular room, much longer than it was wide. The floor was highly polished dark wood, setting off overstuffed Victorian furniture, upholstered in a blue-and-white floral pattern. Only one light burned off to the side, flickering like it was gas instead of electricity
.

“May I take your coats?” the man said, opening a closet just past the entranceway
.

I shook my head “No.” The Mole wasn’t wearing anything over his jumpsuit
.

“Please …” the man said, languidly waving his hand to say we should go up the stairs before him. I went first, the Mole right behind me. We were breaking all the rules for this human
.

“To your right,” I heard him say. I turned into a big room that looked smaller because it was so stuffed with things. A huge desk dominated the space, standing on thick carved claws at each corner. An Oriental rug covered most of the floor—it had a royal-blue background with a red-and-white design running from the center and blending into the borders. A fireplace was against one wall, birch logs crackling in a marble cage. The windows were covered with heavy velvet drapes the same royal blue as the rug. Everything was out of the past—except for a glowing amber video terminal on a butcher-block table parallel to the desk
.

“Please sit anywhere,” the man said, waving one arm to display the options as he seated himself behind the big desk. I took a heavy armchair upholstered in dark tufted leather. A large flat glass ashtray was on a bronze metal stand next to the chair. The Mole sat on the floor, blocking the door with his bulk, putting his satchel on the ground. He looked from the man to where I was sitting, making it clear that we had an agreement and he expected me to honor it. Then he pulled out a sheaf of papers and started to study some of his calculations—taking himself somewhere else
.

“Now, then,” said the man, folding his hands in front of him on the desk. “May I offer you some refreshment? Coffee? Some excellent sherry?”

I shook my head. The Mole never looked up
.

“A beer perhaps?”

“No,” I told him. I’d made a deal not to do anything to him, not even to threaten him, but I didn’t have to pretend I was his pal
.

The man reached for a cut-glass decanter on his desk. Something that looked like a silver leaf dangled from just
below the neck of the bottle, attached by a silver chain. He poured himself a wineglass of dark liquid from the bottle, held the glass up to the light from the fireplace, took a small sip. If he was any calmer he would have fallen asleep
.

It was hard to make out his features in the dim light. I could see he was very thin, balding on top, with thick dark hair around the sides of his head. Heavy eyebrows jutted from his skull, hooding his eyes. The face was wide at the top, narrowing down to a small chin—a triangular shape. His lips were thin. His fingers were long and tapered, with a faint sheen of clear polish on the nails
.

“Now,” he said, taking a sip from his glass, “how may I help you, Mr.…”

“I’m looking for a picture,” I told him, ignoring the request for my name. “A picture of a kid.”

“And you think
I
have this picture?” he asked, his heavy eyebrows lifting
.

I shrugged. I should be so lucky. “No. But I hope you can tell me about that kind of thing in general. Give me an idea where to look.”

“I see. Tell me about this picture.”

“A picture of a kid. Little chubby blond-haired boy. About six years old.”

The man sat behind his desk, patiently waiting, making it clear I hadn’t told him enough
.

“A sex picture,” I said
.

“Um …” he mumbled. “Not such an unusual picture. Little boys in love do things like that.”

Something burned inside my chest. I felt the Mole’s eyes on me, got it under control, stuck a cigarette in my mouth, my teeth almost meeting in the filter. “Who would have a picture like that?” I asked him
.

“Oh, just about anyone. It all depends on why the picture was taken.”

“Why?”

The man made a tent of his fingers, his semi-Bri t
accent making him sound like a teacher. “If the picture was taken by his mentor, then it wouldn’t be circulated commercially, you understand?”

“His mentor?”

“A mentor
, yes.
One who teaches you, guides you through life. Helps you with problems … that sort of thing.”

I looked at him, picturing a little dot of cancer inside his chest, keeping my hands still. I raised my own eyebrows as a question
.

“Men who love boys are very special,” the man answered, his voice reverent. “As are the boys who love them. It is a most unique and perfect relationship. And very little understood by society.”

“Could you explain?” I said, my voice flat
.

“When a boy has a sexual preference for men, he is at grave risk. The world will not understand him. Many doors will be closed to him. It is the task of a dedicated mentor to bring the tiny bud to full flower. To help nourish the growth of the boy into manhood.”

“By taking pictures of the kid having sex?”

“Do not be so quick to judge, my friend. A true mentor would not take such a photograph for commercial purposes, as I said before. Such pictures preserve a unique and beautiful moment. Children grow up,” he said, his voice laced with regret for the inevitable, “they lose their youth. Would not a loving parent take pictures of his child, to look upon in later years?”

I didn’t answer him—I didn’t know what loving parents did. The State raised me. And the State takes a lot of pictures—they’re called mug shots
.

“It is capturing a moment in time,” the man said. “A way of keeping perfection with you always, even when the person is gone.”

“You mean people … people like you … just want to keep the pictures? Not sell them or anything.”

“People like me …” the man mused. “Do you know anything about ‘people like me’?”

“No,” I said. The deal was I couldn’t hurt him—nobody said I had to tell him the truth
.

“I am a pedophile,” the man said. The same way an immigrant would one day say he was a citizen—pride and wonder at being so privileged blending in his voice. “My sexual orientation is toward children … toward young boys, specifically.”

I watched him, waiting for the rest
.

“I am not a ‘child molester,’ I am not a pervert. What I do is technically against your laws … as those laws now stand. But my relationship with my boys is pure and sweet. I love boys who love me. Is anything wrong with that?”

I had no answer for him, so I lit another cigarette
.

“Perhaps you think it’s simple,” he said, his thin mouth twisted in contempt for my lack of understanding. “I love boys—therefore, you assume I am a homosexual, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t,” I assured him. The truth, that time. Homosexuals were grown men who had sex with other grown men. Some of them were stand-up guys, some of them were scumbags. Like the rest of us. This freak wasn’t like the rest of us
.

He watched my face, looking for a clue. “You believe my orientation to be so unusual? Let me say this to you: some of the highest-placed men in this city share it. Indeed, were it not for my knowledge of such things—of powerful men with powerful drive-forces in their lives—I would not have the protection of you people,” he said, nodding his head in the Mole’s direction
.

The Mole looked straight at him, expressionless
.

“Any boy I love … any boy who returns that love … benefits in ways you cannot begin to understand. He grows to youth and then to manhood under my wing, if
you will. He is educated, both intellectually and spiritually. Prepared for the world at large. To such a boy, I am a life-changing force, do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said. Thinking I finally knew what to call Mr. Cormil after all these years. A “mentor.”

“And I would … I have taken pictures of my boys. It gives us both pleasure in later years to look at this icon to our love, as it once was. A boy is a boy for such a short time,” he said, sadness in his voice
.

“And you wouldn’t sell these pictures?”

“Certainly not! I have no need of money, but that is not the point. It would cheapen the love. Almost immeasurably so. It would be a violation of the relationship—something I would never do.”

“So nobody would ever see your pictures?” I asked him
.

“Nobody outside my circle,” he replied. “On some rare occasion, I might exchange pictures of my boys with others … like myself. But never for money.”

“You mean you’d trade pictures? Like baseball cards?”

The man’s eyes hooded again. “You have a crude way of putting things, sir. I know you do not mean to be offensive.…”

I nodded my head in hasty agreement. I didn’t want him to stop talking. The Mole’s head was buried in his papers, but I could feel him telling me to watch my step
.

“My boys enjoy knowing they give me pleasure. And it gives me pleasure to show their love for me to other men who believe as I do.” He took another sip of his drink. “To be sure, there may be an element of egotism in exchanging photographs with others. I am proud of my … achievements. But—and I am sure you understand—one must be very discreet at all times.”

I gave him another nod of agreement. I sure as hell understood
that
part
.

“There are those who produce pictures of children for purely commercial purposes, ” he continued. “Not those who share my … life-style, if you will. But no
true
boy-lover would buy such pictures. They are so impersonal, so tasteless. One knows nothing of the boy in such a picture. Not his name, his age, his little hobbies.… Commercial photographs are so … anonymous. Sex is only a component of love. One brick in a foundation. Do you understand this?”

“I understand,” I told him. It was true that Satan could quote Scripture, as the Prof was always saying. “Would a person ever destroy his pictures … like if he was afraid there was a search warrant coming down or something?”

“A true boy-lover would never do that, no matter what. I can assure you that if the police were battering down my door at this very instant, I would not throw my memories into that fireplace.”

“But the pictures are evidence.…”

“Yes.
Evidence of love.”

“People get convicted with evidence of love,” I told him
.

A smile played around his lips. “Prison is something we face all the time. A true believer in our way of life accepts this. Simply because something is against the law does not mean it is morally wrong.”