The Dirt Peddler (7 page)

We sat quietly for a moment, I looking at him, he looking at the floor. Finally, without looking up at me, he said: “He, uh…he wanted me to go with him. He says he knows this guy who likes three-ways with hustlers. I told him ‘no way.' Even if I was single I wouldn't get back into hustling for anything! He wants to hustle, that's his business, but he can do it on his own.”

I had to admit I had a queasy feeling in my stomach when he first mentioned the subject, but I realized it was just a flush of the old Scorpio curse: jealousy and possessiveness. Still, I was a little pissed at Randy for even suggesting it…he knew Jonathan was in a relationship.

Same song, Hardesty,
my mind-voice said, and I knew it was right.

“Any idea what he wants to talk to you about?”

He sat back on the sofa as the tension dissolved. “Not really. I think it's got something to do with this big deal he's working on. He mentioned it at dinner the night he was over, if you remember.”

I remembered.

He shrugged. “Hustlers talk big, but he really sounds like he's got something. I'll find out.”

I reached out and gave his leg a squeeze. “Nice to know I'm not the only detective in the family.”

*

Rather than bothering to fix dinner, we decided to run out to a local fried chicken place, after which Jonathan dropped me off at the apartment and headed off for New Eden. I sat around the apartment watching TV…all right, all right, and looking at the clock…until Jonathan came in at around seven thirty.

“Everything go all right?”

Jonathan came over and plopped down beside me on the sofa. “Yeah. I think this'll be the last time I'll be playing taxi, though.”

“Oh?”

He sighed. “Yeah, if he wants to come over and hang around sometime, that's fine, but I don't want to be in a position of having to lie for him.”

“Why would you have to lie for him?”

“Everybody who stays at New Eden can leave one night a week, supposedly, as long as they say where they're going. Randy told them he was coming over here with me. And he told me he gets to leave any time he wants to.”

“Yeah? How does he manage that?”

Jonathan pursed his lips and looked at me closely. “Well, I'm not supposed to tell anybody, but…” He paused, and I managed to keep quiet and let him finish his sentence when he was ready. “Randy's having sex with Jeffrey Dinsmore.”

Well, surprise, surprise!

I looked at him.

“He
is
? Or he
says
he is?”

Jonathan shrugged. “I think he
really
is. Apparently Mr. Dinsmore has a fondness for hustlers—that's why so many of them end up at New Eden.”

“Does his wife know?” I wondered aloud.

“Oh, I really doubt it. Dinsmore's very discreet, Randy says. He only does it with guys when his wife is out of town. And she's out of town a lot.”

“Well, that's a fascinating little bit of news. And exactly how does Randy benefit from all this? Other than the privilege of changing Mr. Dinsmore's oil—or having Mr. Dinsmore change his?”

Jonathan grinned. “New Eden has a work referral program. They train the street kids who go there in lots of different fields, and then when they're ready to move on, New Eden helps find them a job. The Dinsmores are pretty well connected, so they can come up with some pretty good jobs. Randy's been working in the office…filing and making travel arrangements for the Dinsmores and stuff like that, and he's managed to get in pretty tight with both of them, but especially
Mr.
Dinsmore, of course. He's pretty sure they can find him a really good job when he's ready.”

He was silent a moment.

“Somehow I get the idea there's more to it than that. But Randy wouldn't say anything. Just hints that sounded to me like he was expecting a lot more than a good job.”

“What time are you supposed to pick him up—and where?”

“Eleven o'clock…at Hughie's. Will you come with me? I know it's late and we both have to get up early, but I really don't want to go into Hughie's by myself.”

I wasn't wild about the idea either.

“Sure, if you want.”

We watched some TV and left the apartment a little before ten thirty. Traffic was fairly light at that hour on a Monday night, and we even managed to find a parking place just down the block from the bar—probably partly because not many hustlers had their own cars.

As we walked toward the bar, we saw one hustler leaning against one side of the entrance, apparently hoping to snare a john before he had a chance to check out the competition inside. But as we got closer, I saw the guy couldn't have been more than sixteen. Even at Hughie's they check IDs.

Jeesus!

Jonathan leaned toward me as we approached him and said, “I'll meet you inside, okay?”

I knew he wanted to talk to the kid, so I said, “Sure.” I nodded to the kid as I passed him and opened the door, while Jonathan stopped in front of him and said, “Hi.”

The bar itself was pretty quiet. Again, it was a weeknight and some of the hustlers who'd normally come in earlier had probably left to work the streets, where the odds of being picked up might be slightly higher. And they didn't have to waste money on even one beer.

It was close to eleven, and no sign of Randy, which irked me somehow. I went to the bar and ordered a beer and a Coke from a bartender I didn't recognize. I was so used to seeing Bud behind the bar that this other guy being there caught me rather by surprise. But then I realized Bud had to have time off sometime.

I'd always found it fairly easy to tell the hustlers from the johns, and of the ten guys in the place other than the bartender and me, I'd say it was seven to three in favor of the hustlers. So when the bartender brought the drinks and took my money, I set the Coke on the bar in front of the empty stool next to me to dissuade anyone from thinking I was looking for a pickup.

Jonathan came in about five minutes later and sat down beside me. He looked pensive and distracted as he picked up his Coke.

“I told him about Haven House.”

I'd figured. “Good.”

He was quiet, staring at the back bar.

“I really hate this place,” he said.

The door opened and I turned to see if it was Randy. It wasn't. A well-dressed, good-looking guy in a business suit came in and walked to the stool on the other side of Jonathan. He ordered a beer, then glanced at Jonathan and broke into a grin that had more of Little Red Riding Hood's wolf than casual pleasure in it.

“Hey, how's it goin'? Haven't seen you in a while.”

Jonathan looked embarrassed and glanced quickly from the guy to me.

“I'm okay.”

“Lookin' really good,” the guy said, staring at Jonathan with a look that left little doubt where he was headed, and giving me the feeling that I must be invisible to him.

Poor Jonathan was obviously excruciatingly uncomfortable. Finally he looked at the guy and said, “I'm with someone now.”

For the first time the guy seemed to realize I was there.

“Oh. Okay.” Then he turned his grin to me. Obviously he assumed I was just another john.

“I can vouch for this one,” he said, with a head jerk to Jonathan that reminded me of a cattle auctioneer. “You'll sure get your money's worth.”

On rare occasions, I can be very proud of myself. This was one of them. While a very large part of me—okay, the Scorpio part, which
is
a very large part of me—wanted to get up and throw the guy through the wall, which I think Jonathan was afraid I might try to do, I managed to control myself, nodded, and said nothing.

“Well, I'll see ya around,” the guy said, picking up his beer and moving off toward the other end of the bar, where a tall, thin kid in a worn leather jacket watched him coming over with a sly smile.

Jonathan just stared at his Coke and shook his head slowly back and forth.

“I'm so sorry, Dick. He picked me up here once, just before I met you, and…”

I reached out to put my arm around his shoulder. “No problem. Don't worry about it.”

He gave me a weak smile.

“Have I mentioned that I really hate this place?”

I glanced at my watch and noticed it was ten after eleven, and no Randy. Jonathan then looked at his own watch and said, “Let's give him ten more minutes, okay? Then we'll go, and he can find his own way back.”

We finished our drinks in relative silence, noting the guy in the business suit—who one of my mind-voices insisted on referring to as
Jonathan's ex
—left with the kid in the leather jacket.

At eleven twenty, we got up to leave. Just as we reached the sidewalk—the teenager was gone—a battered pickup truck pulled up to the curb and Randy got out. He shut the door without looking back and came quickly over to us.

“Man, did you see who that guy
was
?” he asked in lieu of any other greeting as the pickup made an illegal U-turn and headed back in the direction from which it had come. He directed the question to Jonathan. “Chad Brownell!” he continued without waiting for an answer. “Doctor Carstairs on
Life Goes On!
He denied it, but I knew it was him the minute I saw him.”

Life Goes On
was one of the most popular of the prime time New York

based soaps, and Chad Brownell was one of its hottest stars. I knew Brownell was originally from here, and that he was both widely known to be gay and had a penchant for hustlers. But what he was doing in a beat-up pickup truck I didn't know. Good for his butch image, maybe.

“I sure am meeting a lot of famous people lately,” Randy said as we headed for the car.

*

We dropped Randy off at New Eden at three minutes to twelve, and headed home, again in relative silence.

“Not the best of all possible nights,” Jonathan said, looking out the window.

I turned and grinned at him. “But hardly the end of the world, either.”

He shrugged and turned to me.

“True,” he said, his spirits obviously lifting. “Think we'll have time to play a game when we get home?”

“Sure. Which one?”

“How about ‘The Asshole John and the Vengeful Hustler'? It could get a little rough.”

“Sounds like fun.”

And it was.

*

Tuesday morning, at about the same time that Tony T. Tunderew was scheduled to oil his way into the hearts of
A.M. New York
's national viewing audience, I got a call from Donna at Glen O'Banyon's office.

She apologized for not having gotten back to me sooner, and gave me the telephone number and address of Catherine Tunderew, Tony T.'s recently exed.

“If you talk with her,” Donna said before she hung up, “would you please tell her that her number one fan sends her best regards?”

“I'm sorry?” I was a little confused.

“You don't know who Catherine Tunderew is?”

Should I?
I wondered.

“No, I'm afraid I don't know of her.”

Donna sounded mildly embarrassed when she said, “Catherine Tunderew is one of the top children's book illustrators in the country. My daughter Amy loves her work, as do I. I thought everyone knew who she was.”

“Well, I've not been too much into children's books for the past couple of years. But I appreciate you telling me. And I'll be sure to pass on Amy's—and your—regards.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hardesty. Good-bye.”

It occurred to me that if Catherine Tunderew was a well-known illustrator, it was probable that the picture her ex-husband painted of her might be as inaccurate and unfair as his description of Larry Fletcher.

Donna had not indicated whether Mrs. Tunderew worked out of her home or for a company, but I tried calling the number I'd been given. I could always just leave a message, if she had a machine.

I heard a click, and then, “Catherine Tunderew.”

“Mrs. Tunderew.” I felt a little awkward addressing her by a title she no longer officially held. “My name is Dick Hardesty, and I'm a private investigator. I wonder if I might talk with you about your ex-husband.”

“And which sweet, innocent young virgin cruelly seduced and despoiled by the heartless but famous and newly rich writer do you represent, Mr. Hardesty?”

“I beg your pardon? I'm not sure I follow you.”

“Ah. Then perhaps I've mistaken you for one of the two other private investigators to whom I've spoken recently.”

Despite the definite undertone of bitterness in what she said, her tone was light.

“I'm sorry to have confused you. I haven't represented a despoiled virgin in quite some time. I'm working for Mr. Tunderew, as a matter of fact.”

She laughed. “Well, then, in that case it's been a
very
long time indeed. What other mischief has my darling Tony been up to?”

“Would it be possible for us to talk in person? I'll be happy to explain everything then.”

“Of course,” she said pleasantly. “If there is anything I can do to add to dear Tony's problems, I'll be glad to contribute what I can. I assume you are licensed and listed in the phone book?”

Now that was a first,
I thought.

“Yes, of course. It's under Hardesty Investigations…” and I gave her the address and phone number.

“Thank you. I'll call you right back.” And she hung up.

A very interesting if somewhat odd lady, I decided.

Less than a minute later, the phone rang. This time I did not wait for the customary two rings, but picked up the receiver immediately.

“Hardesty Investigations.”

“One can never be too careful,” Catherine Tunderew said. “I was quite serious when I said if there was anything I could do to add to my ex-husband's problems I would, but that does not include catering to the tabloids or the money-grubbers. You'd be surprised the innovative lengths to which some people will go to get information they can turn into cash.”