The Hired Man (25 page)

“Ah,” I said, half-teasing, “so you're a real farm boy.”

He smiled and shook his head.

“Not really. We lived in a small town. My grandpa had a gas station and bar there; we lived up above the tavern.”

“Must have been kind of tough making a living,” I observed, taking the maraschino cherry off the little plastic pick and dangling it by its stem before eating it.

“You could say that.” He idly stirred the ice cubes around in his glass with an index finger. “I helped my grandpa pump gas, but if we filled up five or six cars a day it was a big deal. The bar did okay, what with the locals not having too much else to do in what spare time they had, but with my grandparents taking turns running it, there wasn't too much I could do in there except sweep up and empty the garbage, stuff like that. I was too young to bartend, so I got a job at a meat-packing plant a couple miles down the road. Then, when I graduated from high school, I joined the marines.”

“That's where you and Matt met, huh?”

He nodded, still looking into his glass, watching the ice cubes go around and around.

“In boot camp. We got to be friends then found out we had a…” He glanced up at me, gave me a quick smile, then dropped his attention back to his glass “…a lot in common.”

I got the impression I'd gone about as far as I could go for the moment without making it obvious I was prying. I'd already figured out a few things by reading between his sentences. No mention of a mother or father, just a grandfather. Referring to a “stretch” where he didn't see Iris. I wondered how they had managed to reconnect after all that time but couldn't want press him on it. And I wanted to know more about him and Matt—a lot more.

“It's nice to have good friends,” I said sincerely, “especially those who'll hang in there with you over the years. None of my business, but were you and Matt ever…well, more than friends?”

A slow smile crept over his face before he brought his eyes up to meet mine.

“Oh, yeah…” he said, then he sighed. “Matt left his wife and kids for me. I left my wife for him. And I don't think he's ever really forgiven me for it.” He took a long swallow from his drink. “It was easier for me,” he continued. “I didn't have any kids, and I only got married because everybody else was doing it. It was okay, but monogamy never was my thing, especially not with women. Women are for fucking.” He looked at me closely and grinned. “Am I grossing you out, Dick?”

Actually, he
was
within walking distance.

“Not at all,” I lied. “But when I talked to Matt, he said you didn't see much of each other anymore.”

He shrugged. “Things change. I gather you don't know too much about bisexuals, am I right?”

My turn to shrug. “Well, it's not like you're a different species,” I said, “but you're right, I guess I don't.” I noticed both our glasses were nearly empty and signaled the bartender for two more.

“Well, I think there are several different types. There's the type that starts out straight but knows there's something not right somewhere. Some of them spend their entire life never figuring out what they sense is wrong. A lot of others find the bridge that spans the gap between being straight and being gay and walk from straight to gay and almost never turn back. There's the type like me who can cross over the bridge in either direction whenever the mood strikes us without giving it a second thought. Then there's the type like Matt who isn't really completely comfortable on either side. I brought him out—sort of dragged him over the bridge, as it were, and he can still go back and forth whenever he wants, but no matter which side he's on, he's not really sure he belongs there.”

“Interesting analogy,” I admitted.

“And you don't cross the bridge?” he asked with another slight smile.

“There is no bridge for me,” I said, returning the smile. “I'm not a travelin' man.”

“Hmmm,” he said.

“Your sister's a pretty open-minded lady,” I said, watching him carefully when I said “sister.” Whatever I might have been looking for, I didn't find.

Gary grinned. “Yeah, she really is. She's done pretty well for herself, considering where we come from.”

“Well,” I said, “not everyone is ‘to the manor born'.”

He took a drink and put his glass carefully on the bar.

“You can say that again,” he said. “I give her a lot of credit, really. She had the guts to get out and never looked back.”

“How old were you when she left?” I asked, not unaware of the significance of the “and never looked back.”

“Four.”

“Well,” I said, “at least you kept in touch.”

He looked at me, and I caught a hint of irony in his voice when he replied, “Yeah.” He took another drink. “So, how about you? What's your life story?”

I gave him the Reader's Digest version, beginning with my humble beginnings in a log cabin on the frontier up to my deciding to become a private investigator. I always find it kind of hard to talk about myself; I don't find me all that interesting.

When I noticed his eyes beginning to glaze over, I wrapped it up.

“You caught many murderers?” he asked

That one sort of took me by surprise.

“I don't know if ‘caught' is exactly the right word,” I said honestly, “but I've run into a couple, yeah.”

“Interesting job.”

“So's yours,” I observed.

“And you think the guy who killed Billy and those others is a bisexual?” he asked casually in a non sequitur that managed to throw me a little off balance.

“It's crossed my mind.”

“And you think there's a link to ModelMen,” he said rather than asked.

I didn't like where this was headed.

“I'm not sure on that one,” I said, more truthfully than not. “That Billy and Stuart Anderson had ties to ModelMen could just be a weird coincidence. The prostitute…well, that's a whole other story.”

Gary had been watching me as I had earlier been watching him.

“Well,” he said, “if you think the killer is bisexual, and you think there's a link to ModelMen, that sort of narrows the field of suspects, doesn't it?”

Now I was definitely uncomfortable.

“I don't know enough to think anything yet,” I said, hoping I sounded convincing.

He smiled and nodded.

“When you do think,” he said, more teasing than sarcastic, “you might keep something in mind.”

“Which is?”

“Which
is
that there are a lot more closet bi's than there are open ones. I wouldn't worry so much about the ones who aren't ashamed to admit it. It's the other ones I'd keep an eye out for.”

He had a point, and I allowed myself to relax a little. Which, of course, allowed me once again to push aside the obvious fact Gary might be a suspect and let my crotch get its hopes up. The conversation had discombobulated me to the point where I had enough will power to keep from asking him if he wanted to go home with me but I knew that, if he'd suggested it, my nether regions would once again win out over my upper.

Fortunately, I didn't have to worry. Gary looked at his watch and said, “Ah, I'd better get going. Iris called right after I talked to you and asked me over for dinner. I was kind of hoping maybe you and I could…well, talk some more maybe at my place, but Iris's invitations are more like summonses so I told her I'd come. Can we get together again sometime? Maybe somewhere a little less crowded?” Considering there were maybe eight people in the whole bar, I think I got the message.

Yeah! Yeah!
my crotch said eagerly.

“Sure,” I said. “I'll look forward to it.”

*

I stopped at the grocery store on my way home and splurged on a thick T-bone steak, a huge baking potato, and a carton of sour cream. If it was going to be a night at home, it might as well be a self-indulgent one.

Jared had returned my call to say that the Male Call was hosting a bike run Sunday, so he'd have to pass on brunch. Jared in full leather on a Harley…

I quickly tucked that mental picture in my Future Erotic Fantasies file.

I made brunch reservations at Rasputin's, which was about equidistant for all three of us, for 12:45 then called both Tim and Phil to tell them.

I did my best to keep my mind off the case, but of course it didn't work. I was particularly bothered by this whole bisexual thing, for some reason, and I think it was because it made me realize I wasn't as open-minded and nonjudgmental as I'd always pictured myself being. Discovering you're not exactly who you've always thought you were is unnerving.

I found myself back with my jigsaw puzzle analogy. There were little bits and pieces of the case I knew fit together somehow, but not only did I not know how, I wasn't exactly sure which pieces they were. That the background of the entire puzzle was ModelMen, I was fairly certain, but I had the gut feeling there was a lot more to the puzzle than the pieces already laid out indicated.

While I wasn't exactly an expert on murderers, the one thing I did know was that most of them were not stupid, and that very often what appeared to be obvious at first glance turned out to be totally wrong on closer examination.

And killers were also not above a little calculated misdirection, so, since everything in this case pointed to the killer's being bisexual, maybe that meant he wasn't.

Oh, now
that's
a big help!
my mind said scornfully.
And maybe because you're sure ModelMen is involved, that means it isn't!
You're custodial, Hardesty!

*

Have I mentioned that I like brunch? I realized yet again, as Phil and Tim and I sat at the bar waiting for our table, that brunch was one of the few times when I always seemed to be able to step away from whatever case I was working on and just relax.

Tim was being his usual effervescent self, and I never ceased to be amazed at how someone with such a…well, gruesome…job could put it so completely aside when he wasn't working. I wished I could be a lot more like him in that regard. And Phil, too, seemed to be more relaxed than I'd seen him since Billy's death.

But even when I'm relaxed and having a good time, I manage to pick up on things, and I detected an uncharacteristic…well, shyness…between Tim and Phil.
Shy
is certainly not a word I could accurately use to describe either one of them under normal circumstances, but I sensed it, nonetheless. I took it to mean they were mutually impressed with one another, and I couldn't have been happier. Maybe, if this PI thing didn't work out, I could open a practice as a matchmaker.

As soon as we were seated and had our orders taken, Tim excused himself to go to the bathroom. I took the opportunity to pull up one of the mental notes I'd made at the Glicks'.

“So, I understand you know Glen O'Banyon,” I said, hoping it sounded like a casual remark.

Phil cocked his head and gave me a strange look.

“Yeah,” he said. “A really nice guy.”

Well, that got us absolutely nowhere, Hardesty,
my mind said.
Just spit it out, for chrissakes.

“You were with Glen the night Stuart Anderson died, weren't you?” I tried again to make it more than a statement than a question.

He nodded. “You don't miss much, do you?” he asked with a smile. “Yeah, I've seen Glen a couple of times. But only that one night as a client. He took me out to dinner once after that but strictly as a one-on-one, not as an escort, and there wasn't any sex involved. Neither of us even thinks of breaking the Glicks' rules, and I cleared it with them first, in any case.”

Tim returned and sat down, carefully removing his napkin from the table and arranging it in his lap.

“Remind me next time we come here to bring my electric drill,” he said.

Phil looked at him, head cocked in an unasked question. Tim grinned at him.

“It's a great place for a glory hole, but they've got metal partitions between the stalls. I think I'll complain to the management.”

“You've been spending too much time in the bus station,” I observed, and both Phil and Tim laughed.

After brunch, we took my car and drove out to Jessup Reservoir, about twenty miles outside of town, and spent the remainder of the afternoon walking the forested trails along the shore, just talking and having a really great time. The subject of Tim's work…or Phil's…never came up.

But on the way back to town Tim, who was sitting in the back seat, leaned forward and said, “Would you guys like to come over to my place for dinner? I pride myself on my ability to call out for pizza or Chinese.”

Phil sighed. “Hey, I'd love to, Tim,” he said, and I got the feeling he really meant it, “but I've got…an appointment at eight. Can I have a rain check?”