Third You Die (Kevin Connor Mystery) (25 page)

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Authors: Scott Sherman

BOOK: Third You Die (Kevin Connor Mystery)
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“That’s what makes it so special, then. You can see how much he loved you.” As the words left my lips, though, I realized something wasn’t adding up. What was it?
I had some part of the story wrong. Okay, maybe Brent had been sleeping with Lucas on the sly. But love? That deep a connection? When had that developed? Over the year Brent had known Lucas, he was either trying to avoid him or dating Charlie. Unless someone was lying to me, the timeline didn’t make any sense.
Lucas nodded again, this time accompanied by the sound of a man trying to swallow the unwanted lump in his throat. From across the room, I could smell his sweat, which had turned sour.
But who was lying? And why? Someone must have misled me, because I had no doubt that the boy in that photo not only loved but
adored
the man who took that picture. There was an innocence about it, too. This was a love that contained no shame nor concealed any secrets. From a boy I’d been led to believe either feared Lucas or was having an illicit affair with him. It made no sense.
“I’ve seen hundreds of photos of him,” I said, “but I don’t think I’ve ever seen Brent more beautiful than he looks there.”
Lucas looked at me and, for the first time since I met him, he laughed. But it was a shrill laugh, tinged with a high keen that made me think of breaking glass.
He stood up so suddenly it startled me. He picked up the picture, kissed it, then handed it to me.
“See what I mean?” he said. “Why I believed God sent Brent to me? Why, during one of the worst periods of my life, a time in which I was becoming addicted to four different drugs without even realizing it, I became so obsessed with him?”
I studied the photo he handed me. Yeah, I thought. I can. I’d fall in love with someone who looked at me like that, too.
Then, I peered closer and felt a weird dizziness. Like a kind of double vision as a few details I hadn’t seen before emerged like tiny ripples on a puddle from a single drop of rain. A mole on the left cheek. Bigger ears than I remembered. Darker eyes. Differences so small I’d never have noticed them if I hadn’t been wondering why Lucas felt the need for me take a closer look.
“I assumed . . . ,” I began.
“That’s not Brent,” Lucas said. “That’s my brother. That was Colin.”
32
The Lucas Boy
“Well, you know what they say,” Freddy mumbled through a mouthful of marble cake. “Incest is best.”
“It wasn’t like that,” I insisted.
I’d called Freddy the minute I’d left Lucas’s gilded cage. On the way out, the guard who’d opened the elevator, Matthew Smith, winked at me. “Have fun up there?” he asked.
Something made me think he knew the score between Lucas and his benefactor. I suspected he might have seen a film or two of Lucas’s, too. There was a knowingness in his inflection that you only achieve when you’ve seen a person perform fellatio. It brings people together like that.
Luckily, his goofy smile and foppish hair made his remark more playful than pervy.
I couldn’t help flirting back. “The only way it could have been better,” I answered, “was if you’d joined us.”
Matthew widened his eyes in mock shock and swept back the loose lock of hair that flopped to his forehead. “I don’t know if that place could have stood the three of us in there,” he teased.
“Don’t worry,” I assured him, “it’s bigger on the inside than it looks from the outside.”
Truth was, Matthew’s playful banter was a welcome tonic after Lucas’s increasingly depressing tale. I shook my shoulders like a puppy shedding a summer rain. I needed to talk through what I’d just heard with someone.
Freddy
. I was supposed to call him anyway.
“You’re just in time,” Freddy answered the phone. “I was about to ring Tony and tell him you’d gotten yourself in the deep shit again, darling.”
“No,” I said. “Although I do feel like I’ve taken a swim in the sewers. Wanna grab a bite and I can fill you in?”
“Who could resist an invitation like that?” Freddy asked. “What boy doesn’t dream of being invited to dine with someone who’s covered in crap?”
“This is New York, Freddy. Everyone’s full of crap.”
“Yeah,” Freddy agreed. “But most of them have the good sense to keep it on the
inside,
darling.”
 
“Okay . . .” Freddy began, scooping up some of the vanilla ice cream he’d ordered as “dessert” for his pound cake. Don’t ask.
How Freddy managed to look like he did while chowing down like a starving dog at an all-you-can-eat buffet I’d never understand. Unless what I’d assumed were his biceps and pecs were really fat deposits. Naw, fat never felt that hard and strong. If he were an X-Man, his mutant ability would be to convert junk food into muscle.
I’d skipped dessert—let alone two—and watched him with envy and hatred.
“. . . let’s say we believe Lucas—that he never fooled around with his real-life brother.”
“I
do
believe him,” I insisted.
“Okay, Nancy Grace, calm down. I’m giving him that one. But hooking up with Brent because he
reminded
him of his brother is still kind of icky, don’t you think?”
“Consider the circumstances,” I said. “It’s not like he spotted Brent in a bar somewhere and went out of his way to pick him up. The first time he ever saw him was in a pretty unusual situation that forced them together.
“Remember, at that time, he was at one of the lowest points of his life. He was depressed and feeling guilty about his brother’s death. He was just getting into the adult film industry and experiencing the excitement of having people constantly telling him how gorgeous, special, and desirable he is. At the same time, he’s doing something that goes against every value he’s been taught by his conservative army parents. He’d cut off his family—the one he felt he betrayed by allowing his brother to go to Iraq ‘in his place,’ and he’s becoming part of a new community—one that values him only to the extent he stays hot and available. It’s all jumbled together in one big mindfuck.
“Meanwhile, he’s keeping himself together by self-medicating. Taking every street and prescription pill he can get his hands on.
“One day, he arrives on set tweaked on meth, primed to perform with a hard-on-ensuring Viagra and mellowed out by a Valium chaser. That was pretty much his standard cocktail for filming. He walks into a room crowded with strangers for what he expects will be just another day of shooting. Pardon the pun. That was the dorm room scene we watched.
“There Lucas sees this breathtaking creature who could have been his brother back from the grave. The director introduces them, gives them a simple scenario to act out, and then it’s time to fuck.
“Meanwhile, Brent reads Lucas pretty quickly. He doesn’t know what Lucas’s story is—not yet—but he can tell Lucas is awestruck, almost hypnotized in his presence. Brent, being SwordFight’s hottest new property and the happy little narcissist he is, assumes Lucas is reacting to his attractiveness and star-status. He takes charge. He seduces the confused, overwhelmed, and somewhat stoned Lucas right there, on camera, before Lucas has a moment to sort out his feelings.”
Knowing that background, the chemistry between the two of them, the impression Freddy and I had watching that scene that whatever was going on between them transcended mere sex, made a lot more sense.
“Are you saying Brent
raped
Lucas? Took advantage of him in some way?” Freddy asked.
“No, of course not. Lucas was a more-than-willing participant. Brent had no way of knowing Lucas was a mixed-up, overmedicated mess deep enough into drugs and depression to fall into a fantasy that confused his feelings toward his brother with Brent. Brent assumed Lucas’s reactions were strictly sexual. It turned him on to think he had that kind of power over the big stud.”
“It would turn me on, too,” Freddy threw in.
“Shocker. In any case, after the scene was over, Lucas got more and more obsessed with Brent. He told me a part of him knew what he was thinking was insane, but another part of him couldn’t shake the sense that, somehow, Brent was his salvation. Sent to him by God as a second chance with his brother. But this time, one he could rescue and protect.
“A Lost Boy he could save.”
“That,” Freddy observed, “is heavy.”
“Kind of like your ass is going to be if you eat one more thing,” I couldn’t resist pointing out.
Freddy stuck his tongue out at me and then used it to lick his bowl of ice cream.
“Could you be any more disgusting?” I asked, wishing I didn’t notice how long and flexible that tongue was. I wondered if the sexual tension between Freddy and I would ever totally die out, or if it’d always lurk in the background like a Peeping Tom outside his neighbor’s window.
“Absolutely,” Freddy promised. “Wanna see?”
“Yeah, no,” I assured him. “Today’s been depressing enough.”
“What I don’t understand,” Freddy said, “is why Lucas didn’t try and track Brent down? If he loved him so much.”
“After Lucas left SwordFight, he went to work for lower-rent production companies. He also got into heavier drugs, reckless partying, a real downward spiral. He eventually wound up in rehab and got off all the shit he was putting into his system. He says he also got a lot of counseling and insight into his ‘issues.’
“Brent heard through the grapevine about Lucas’s troubles and that he’d entered treatment. He was sympathetic. He even felt partly responsible—after all, he was the one who complained to Mason about Lucas’s ‘stalking’ of him.
“Brent wanted to leave SwordFight. I’m not clear why. But he felt the company had a legal hold on him. He was worried they’d sue his ass into oblivion if he didn’t continue making movies.
“The only person he knew who’d left the company was Lucas. Having heard that Lucas cleaned up his act, Brent felt there was enough water under the bridge to call him for advice. That part didn’t turn out to be too helpful. While Lucas had signed up with a competing production company behind Mason’s back, Mason wasn’t sorry to see him go. By that point, Lucas was looking strung out from his drug use and his behavior was increasingly bizarre. So, unless Brent was willing to either fake or actually
have
a breakdown, both of them doubted Mason would be as forgiving about his leaving.
“While that wasn’t good news, as far as Lucas was concerned, the reunion was a success. Now that he was sober and had some insight into his behavior, he told Brent why he’d acted so weird when they first met. Brent was really touched. He was also relieved—he’d always found Lucas attractive. Now that he knew Lucas wasn’t crazy, he felt a lot freer to act on it.
“So, they began an affair. Maybe even fell in love. Certainly, Lucas did. But a week before Brent dropped out of sight, he told Lucas he ‘needed a break.’ He felt bad seeing Lucas behind Charlie’s back. He said he needed time to make a choice. But he couldn’t do that
while
he was sleeping with Lucas—he was afraid the guilt he felt was sabotaging any chance they had for building a good relationship.
“Hmm,” Freddy observed. “The old ‘I have to stop seeing you so I can keep seeing you’ line. I may have used that once or a hundred times when I wanted to dump someone.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Well, maybe not that much. I mean, you know me. It’s not like I ever did the ‘dating thing.’ More of a ‘one night stand’ kind of guy. Or, ‘one nooner.’ Or, ‘that morning in a crowded subway car when the lights went out and—’ ”
“I get it, I get it,” I said. We could have been there all night.
“Fine,” Freddy said testily. “I’ll skip over the hot-air balloon, the opening-night line for the last
Twilight
movie, and the various Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormon missionaries who showed up at my door thinking
they’d
convert
me
.”
I circled my hand in the universal gesture for
Get on with it
.
“My point,” Freddy said, well, pointedly, “is just because
I
knew I wasn’t interested in anything serious didn’t mean
they
knew that. So, one learns to be diplomatic, darling.”
“Maybe you’re right and Brent was trying to let Lucas down easy. But Lucas didn’t think so. He thought Brent would choose him.”
“Ah,” Freddy said wistfully, “they always do, the dear things.”
“He was beginning to lose faith, though. Before the ‘time-out, ’ they were constantly in touch. Texting, on the phone. Brent’s director, Kristen, told me he’d seen Brent on the set making private phone calls—turns out he was right. Kristen thought the calls were to another production company, though, not another lover.
“When Brent said he needed some space, Lucas assumed it’d be a week or three. As it stretched into months, he became increasingly worried. Not that anything had happened to Brent, mind you. More that maybe Brent hadn’t chosen him after all.”
“Why didn’t Lucas just call him?”
“He promised not to. He’d already made the mistake of pursuing Brent too aggressively the first time around. He even thought Brent’s not calling might be some kind of test.”
“Lucas could have made the whole thing up,” Freddy offered, raising his hand to call over the cute waiter. The dark-haired, dark-eyed Latino was taking an order at an adjacent table. The waiter held up his index finger. One moment.
“Maybe he never did get back together with Brent. It could have been another of his fantasies.”
“No, I don’t think so. Besides, Lucas knew something about Brent that I’d asked everyone and nobody could answer. Not even Charlie.”
“What was that?”
“His
real
last name.
Richie’s
last name. Dawson. He even had the phone number and address of Richie’s parents in Queens. Look.”
I took out from my backpack a picture of Brent’s that Lucas had given to me. It showed Brent, a girl a few years older than him, and his parents at Disney World, the four of them smiling like every other family smiles when you point a camera at them in Disney World. Brent looked like he was nine or ten at the time.
On the back, Brent had written his parents’ names and all their contact information. He also wrote a note:
Dear Mom and Dad,
If you ever get this, know that I
forgive you. I will always love you.
Your son,
Richie
“Why would Brent have given this to Lucas? Why not just send it to them himself?”
“That part’s weird. . . .” I began.
“Yeah,” Freddy said. “Thank god the story’s finally getting weird. Because the whole porn-star-hooked-on-drugs-and-sleeping-with-a-guy-who-just-happens-to-look-like-his-brother part was so wholesome I was getting bored.” He glared at the waiter, who gave an apologetic shrug and repeated his earlier gesture.
“I’m about to give him a finger, too,” Fred growled. “But a different one. Sorry, darling. You were saying . . .”
“Lucas said that for a few weeks before Brent’s disappearance, Brent seemed distracted. Moody. A little worried. At one point, he told Lucas he had the feeling something—or someone—was after him.”
The waiter came over. I got my first good look at him, and I suspected Freddy’s motivation for beckoning him over may have gone beyond just wanting to place an order. The server really was kind of spectacular. He had the smoldering looks of an Argentinian soccer player you’ve never heard of who then winds up modeling for a Versace campaign and dating Miley Cyrus.

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