Gideon (27 page)

“Carl,” she said, driving along, “this Harry Wagner person. If he’s one of
they
…”

“He is, Amanda.”

“Then whey do you think you can trust him?”

“I don’t know if I can. I have a gut feeling, is all. I spent a lot of time alone with him in my apartment. I just feel that Harry’s someone I don’t have to be afraid of.”

“The situation may be different now,” she pointed out. “He might even be the one who’s been doing all the killing.”

“True,” he acknowledged.

“So how do you know he won’t try to kill you the second you walk in the door?”

“I don’t,” he told her. And when she turned her head ever so slightly to look at him, her eyes round and wide, he shrugged and said, “hey, welcome to my world.”

Harry Wagner had been sitting at the long teakwood bar for an hour and fifteen minutes and had been hit on by three people so far. Although he would have liked a little time to sit and drink alone, he didn’t resent the intrusions. On the contrary, it made him happy. He was desirable, he knew. He had come to Port of Entry to be hit on. To feel desirable. That was the point. That was why he always went there.

The brunette had been an easy turndown, sweaty and nervous. And too skinny—
scrawny
was the word Harry would use. Besides, the pickup was a halfhearted one.

“You look lonely,” the brunette had said, and smiled hopefully.

Harry hadn’t even bothered to respond, just shook his head as if he didn’t want to be bothered, and the brunette went away as if expecting the rejection.

The one with the streaked grey hair was borderline. A good body, perhaps a tad too chunky. But confident-looking. Calm. Not desperate at all. The conversation was boring, though. No spark. No real sign of intelligence.

“Me, I don’t like politics,” the gray-haired one said. “I’m into interpersonal relationships, you know what I mean?”

Harry knew. He passed.

The redhead was very close. Tall, muscular, reasonably interesting.

“What do you do?” Harry asked.

“I’m a jewelry designer. See this earring? I made it. Twisted the little rings myself. That’s why I have such strong hands.

“Strong arms, too, from the looks of it,” Harry said.

“And even stronger legs.” The redhead’s eyes blinked playfully. “Tennis is one of my favorite sports.”

“You must be fast.”

“On
and
off the court.”

“The redhead even liked football. A Redskins fan. Yes, the redhead was very close, and Harry might have gone along for the ride on a normal evening. But this was anything but a normal evening. This was a most special occasion. This was his farewell appearance. So Harry decided to sip his second Maker’s Mark on the rocks and hold out for perfection.

And then perfection walked in the door.

Almost everyone in the bar turned as the man in the black jeans walked in—no, didn’t walk, slithered. And it wasn’t really a man. It was a boy. A glorious, lovely boy who couldn’t have been more than nineteen. The most beautiful boy Harry had ever seen.

Harry Wagner could feel his heart pound and his cock stiffen, and he knew that for his special night, he had to have this very special creature.

It had been a long time since Harry had realized he was a homosexual. He suspected it when he used to lie awake in bed and think about his school friend, Timmy McGirk. It began to gnaw away at him when he would get knots of jealousy in his stomach watching the pilot, Rigney, make love to his steady stream of women. And he’d known for certain since the night he made love, with Helen, for the very first time. He had not accepted this sexual identity at first. He’d tried to ignore it, then fight it. But it was what he was, and gradually he realized he could not change that side of him. It had cost him his wife and it was costing him his job, and ultimately it would cost him his very identity, but looking at this man-child, Harry didn’t care. He would not have changed a thing. He was practically bursting from within, barely able to contain his excitement. This was magnificent. And it must be his.

The boy was close to six feet and slender, wiry and muscular with very white skin. He had the lithe movements of a dancer. His jeans were skintight, and he wore a loose, flowing white shirt under a black suede sport jacket. His eyes were large and piercingly blue. For Harry it was like peering into the blue of the ocean on a hot summer day, with the sun reflecting off calm water. The boy’s white fedora was worn at a jaunty angle, but when he took it off, Harry saw that his hair was very black and straight, cropped short on the sides and just long enough on top for a few strands to tumble over onto his smooth forehead. When he sat at a table, he was immediately enveloped by a wave of middle-aged men offering drinks, food, and probably their very souls. He smiled politely—Harry was sure he was used to this kind of attention—and declined several of the drink offers while accepting several of the others. He spent the next hour fending off advances in a very gentlemanly but firm manner. Harry, watching him, knew that this boy was also looking for something special. This boy was used to something special.

In another hour the bar began to quiet down a bit. Harry was able to make eye contact with the boy. Nothing flashy, just a nod, a quick smile, something to acknowledge the gorgeous creature’s presence. Their eyes held slightly longer than necessary. The boy nodded and his lips curled up ever so slightly in a silent communication of disdain for the crowd around him. At that point Harry knew that he had him.

Half an hour later Harry walked over and sat down at the boy’s table. Without so much as a greeting or word of introduction, he signaled the waiter over and ordered a Maker’s Mark and a dark rum and tonic, which was what he’d noticed the boy was drinking. He then pulled a Dominican cigar out of his pocket and handed it across the table. They smoked the same brand and this pleased the boy, warmed his eyes.

Harry was tongue-tied, so taken was he with the beauty across the table. He started talking about the D.C. heat, the stifling humidity.

“I don’t really want to talk about the weather, do you?” the boy asked.

“No,” Harry said.

“Well, what
do
you want to talk about?” the boy said.

“You,” Harry told him, and the boy laughed, pleased.

“That’s a fascinating subject,” he said, still smiling.

“It is to me,” Harry told him. “It is to me.”

So the boy told him a little bit about himself, in a throaty, smoky voice. He had an aura that seemed to belong to someone of a different ere. Montgomery Clift, perhaps. His name was Chris and he was not as young as Harry had thought, but still young—twenty-two. He was from upstate New York, not too far from where Harry had grown up. He’d gone to school in Boston. Boston College, not Harvard. “No,” he said with a husky laugh, “I’m not smart enough for Harvard.” But he was smart enough to have a degree in finance, although he was in no rush for a job. He’d made a little bit of money playing the market and he wanted to travel a bit. That’s what he was doing there now, traveling with some friends from Vermont. Having some fun. Before he became a grown-up, he said, he wanted to play.

“I like to play,” he told Harry. “As long as I know the rules.”

Harry was not interested in rules this night. He wanted fucking. He wanted passion, maybe even something a little rough. Something he’d remember.

It didn’t take long before Chris was leaning over and touching Harry’s arm, running his fingers up and down, and smiling. Everyone in the bar was watching. Harry loved being the center of attention.
Look at all these envious old queens
, he thought.
Let them get their own trophy. Keep away from mine
.

It was Harry who suggested getting out of there. The boy seemed reticent—not fearful, more like he was worried he’d been playing at a game that had just gone too far. But Harry soothed him, put no pressure on, made him laugh. And soon the boy nodded, looking Harry up and down, and said, “Why don’t we go back to your place?”

Harry explained to him that he was in the process of moving. “I don’t have any furniture,” Harry said.

Chris just looked at him and smiled. “There’s always the floor.”

It was normally a twenty-minute drive from Georgetown and Port of Entry to Harry’s house, but tonight Harry made the trip very slowly. The boy was following in his own car—a blue Chevy Suburban that he told Harry belonged to his friend from Vermont.

“It’s fun to drive,” Chris said. “It’s so butch.”

When Harry asked him about the cartoon and the logo stenciled onto the side of the Suburban, Chris shook his head mockingly and said, “Andy runs a day care center in Putney.” Then he rolled his eyes and said, “Don’t ask, don’t tell—that’s my motto.”

When they got to the house, Harry mixed them each another drink. The boy sat on a window seat, sometimes gazing out the window, sometimes turning back to stare at his host. Harry was barely able to contain himself. It had been a long time since he had wanted to please someone as much as he wanted to please this lithe and lean dark-haired youngster.

When the boy beckoned Harry over with his finger, Harry knew that his real night of ecstasy was now about to begin. The boy never moved. He assumed that Harry would bend to meet him. And he did. Their lips met and they began to kiss. It was slow and elegant, tantalizingly erotic. Harry was getting aroused. This boy was extraordinary. Extraordinary!

They were standing now, near the middle of the living room, locked in an embrace. Harry’s shirt was off. The boy’s clothing was untouched. He was making it difficult for Harry. That was all right. Harry was prepared to beg if necessary.

When it felt right, Harry reached down and unzipped the boy’s jeans. He reached in to grab the boy’s cock. He could barely wait for the pleasure. Could hardly contain himself.

His hands move. Both hand went inside the jeans. Harry knew it would take both hands to do this one justice. Feeling, groping, he was close. Oh, God, yes, he was so close …

* * *

It was almost too easy for the Closer.

The bar had been filled with yuppie faggots. A lot of horny men with not enough taste and too much money. The Target had been easy to find and easier to seduce. The hunger in his eyes made him accessible and vulnerable and weak. That’s what hunger did to men. The Closer knew.

The Closer had been briefed well, so the conversation went smoothly. All the right questions were asked, all the right answers were spoken.

In the bar, the Closer felt the Target’s lust as strongly as if it were a third person sitting at the table with them.

In the Target’s home, the Closer had been expecting the emptiness but not the sense of sadness. Of ordinariness. The Target had once been an exceptional man. Anything but ordinary. The bare house seemed to have reduced him, though, to its own shell-like level. The Target was like a structure with nothing inside. Nothing except his overwhelming lust and passion. And those were not enough to keep a man alive.

When the Target’s hands unzipped the jeans, the Closer knew it was time. The game had gone on long enough.

The Closer’s hands slowly reached toward the Target. The Closer’s eyes beckoned. The Closer’s lips drew nearer and nearer …

* * *

Harry Wagner heard the click. Didn’t realize for a split second what it was, but a chill ran all the way down his spine. He had been a player long enough to understand the smell of danger, and he knew instantly that he was caught.

They had taken the only thing left of him and used it to destroy him. He had been played for the fool, and now he knew he must suffer the consequences.

He looked at the lovely creature he’d brought into his home.

Bastards
, Harry thought.
Too strong
.

The kid, Carl, flashed before him. And then Allison, telling him he couldn’t even control his cock.

The bastards
, Harry thought again. And then,
I was so close
.

And then he was still.

The tree-lined street that Harry Wagner lived on was extremely quiet at one o’clock in the morning. It was a weeknight, and this was a neighborhood of midlevel government workers. Most were tucked safely into bed for the night, lights out, dreaming their dreams of early, taxpayer funded retirement to Hilton Head or Fort Lauderdale. The only car they passed as Amanda’s Subaru wended it’s way through this mid-Atlantic suburb was a dark blue Suburban, going slowly and carefully in the opposite direction.

The houses were small and squat, starter homes from the postwar boom, most of them faced with red brick. Harry’s was no different from any of the others. With one exception, Carl was pleased to discover as they pulled over to the curb out front.

The lights were on. Several lights. And a Jeep Wrangler was parked in the driveway. The man was home.

Amanda shut off the Subaru’s engine. A dog barked from somewhere down the block.

“I’m sure you’ll argue this point,” Carl said, his voice steady despite the loud pounding of his heart, “but I’m going in alone. There’s no telling how he’ll react, and if he gets violent, well, it’s better for one of us to be outside.”

She did not argue with him this time but just nodded, her eyes wide with fear. “You think he’ll react violently?”

“Nah,” Carl said, “not at all. But listen,” he added. “If I’m not out in a while …” He ran a hand through his hair, letting his voice trail off.

“If you’re not out in a while,
what
, Carl?”

“Nothing,” he said softly. “I’ll be out.”

“Good answer.”

They stared at each other in the darkened car. Again that bond passed between them. That closeness. For a brief moment Carl was overcome by regret over what had happened to them. He felt a powerful urge to take her into his arms and kiss her. But he did not. He smiled at her tightly and reached for the door handle.

“Carl?” she said, stopping him. “Don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

“Don’t worry. That’s not part of my plan.”

“You have a plan?”

“Well, no. But I’ve got all the way between here and the front door to work on one.”