Third man out - Stevenson Richard - Страница 23

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"Backgrounders are a little unexciting for me at this stage of the game, Scott. I guess not."

"Of course, so much of my business now is electronic. And for that you don't need good character. The business is changing."

"You mean phone sex?"

"I have a suite of offices over in Corporate Woods. You should drop in sometime, Strachey, and see my operation. I advertise in Outweek, the Native, the Advocate, and the rest. The color glossies of the hunks come from an agency in L.A. and cost me an arm and a leg. But I've got this roomful of trolls over by the interstate I pay six bucks an hour to, while the callers cough up a buck a minute. You don't need choirboys for an operation like this. Just some horny old farts who'll show up on time and talk dirty for eight hours. With the labor surplus around here, it's like printing money."

"I don't suppose you have to worry about the Japanese competition."

"Hey, don't bet the farm on it. I was up to tar and feather my broker the other night and he was telling me how the Japs are getting into female retail sex in Mexico now. They've got whorehouses in Baja and Guadalajara where you can go down in the early evening and see the women doing calisthenics and marching up and down and singing the company song."

"I guess you were speaking metaphorically when you said you went up to tar and feather your broker. Or were you?"

"I do it at his place in Saratoga. He has a pool, and a grill where we can heat the tar. Not to boiling, the way they used to in the olden days. Just so it's soft enough to apply. Weird, huh? It's how he gets off. I go up once a week when his wife's down shopping in the city, and I bring a crew and tape it. Hey, it's getting hot out here. Are you sure I can't offer you a drink or a line or something?"

I said, "No, it's a little early in the day for my glass of port. But you can be your wonderfully hospitable self by telling me something."

"Maybe."

"Without mentioning names-I know you don't do that-were any of your regulars people who were outed by John Rutka?"

He stood up now, casually adjusted the organs inside his shorts, and sat down again. "I can answer that, yes," he said. "Two were outed and about ninety-two were scared shitless they were going to be next. For a guy who thought it was so great to be gay, Rutka was some pain in the ass to gay people, that's for sure."

"Did any of your customers seem especially unhinged by being outed, or by the prospect of being outed?"

"I know what you're thinking. When I heard Rutka had been murdered, I wondered the same thing. Who hated him so much or was so afraid of him he'd kill him to shut him up? I don't know. Like I say, every gay person in the closet in Albany hated Rutka's guts. But I never heard anybody say they were actually going to do anything. I'd remember."

"What about this? Have you or any of your staff run into customers who were violent, or seemed capable of great violence?"

"Two," he said without hesitation.

"Can you give me the names?"

"Sure. Fortunately, they're both in prison. Lars Forrester, the Troy bank exec they nailed for embezzlement. And Nelson Lunceford, the state insurance regulator who strangled his valet in the locker room of the Fort Orange Club last year. I had bad reports on both of them."

"They're both still locked up?"

"And will be for a long time. I've kept track of those two."

"What about S amp;M? Any practitioners? I don't mean the exotic stuff-tarring and feathering and whatnot-but just your plain, old-fashioned, down-home, wholesome types of S amp;M-hoods and thongs and chains and so forth. Chains especially I'd like to hear about."

He leaned back now, thoughtfully, with his hands behind his head, displaying his exquisite biceps and perfectly tanned armpits. "I can't answer that," Scott said. "For one thing, it's confidential. And anyway, there are too many of them for the information to be of any use to you. There are ten or twelve regulars I can think of right off the top of my head who like the feel of metal."

"Other kinds of metal, too? What do you mean? Pie plates?"

"No, just chains."

"Ah."

"Channel Eight said Rutka was tied up in the house that burned down. Was he bound with chains? Is that why you're asking?"

"Yeah."

"I'll have to think about that-think about different people. You know, Strachey, anybody can go into a hardware store and buy as many feet of chain as they want and have it cut into lengths or anything. I've done it myself. Chains are not just something people use for sex."

"I suppose that's true. What about this?" I said. "I've got three sets of initials. I think they belong to people who know their way around gay Albany. Especially closeted gay Albany. I want to know if these initials mean anything to you."

"I don't know about this. But go ahead."

"J.G."

Now he gave me his profile. The Thinker. "Maybe. I can't think. Maybe."

"D.R."

"Mmmm. I don't know. Hmm."

"N.Z."

"Oh-N.Z. Right. Nathan Zenck."

"Nathan Z-E-N-C-K?" He nodded. "Who is Nathan Zenck?"

"He's the assistant manager of the Parmalee Plaza on Wolf Road. He's the night manager, I think."

"Of the hotel or the restaurant?"

"The whole thing. What are these initials? Should I be telling you this?"

"Yes, you should, but I can't tell you why. It's confidential."

"I can relate to that."

"Tell me about Nathan."

He sighed, shifted, readjusted his genitals. "He's gay, kind of cute, forty or forty-one, unattached. Travels with the guest accommodations crowd. Likes to party. Nathan's a mover, too. He's been in Albany for two or three years, but I don't imagine he'll want to hang around here. He'll cut out soon. He wants the big time-San Juan or Orlando."

"What else about him?"

"I don't know. What else is there? His sign, his favorite color? What do you mean?"

"I don't know what I mean. Anyway, this is a start. It's been helpful. I appreciate it, Scott."

He leaned forward now across the coffee table that separated us and looked at me and let me catch his scent. He said, "You want me, don't you?"

"Sort of."

"It'll cost you."

I began to laugh, and then Scott S. Scott joined in, so that he wouldn't be left out, and he laughed too.

I stopped by my office, on Central, which I generally avoided in summer since the air conditioner quit early in Reagan's first term, but I wanted to pick up my mail and use the phone. I called Bub Bailey, who told me that the medical examiner had confirmed beyond doubt that the body found in the burned house in Handbag the previous night had been that of John Rutka.

I said, "They're sure?"

"The gunshot wound in the foot, and of course the dental exam. It's the dental that does it. It's as good as fingerprints."

"So that's that."

I half-listened while Bailey went on about the missing files and how critical they were to his investigation. I kept thinking about John Rutka being forced from his house, and chained, and shot, and burned to not much more than ash. Until this moment I hadn't entirely believed it. My reserve of disbelief had salved my conscience over abandoning Rutka when he had pleaded with me not to-even with his scams, maybe he had known he was in real danger-and I had clung at some level to the notion that Rutka was still alive so that I could shake him until his head swam and tell him one more time exactly how little I thought of him.

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