Boys of Two Cities

by Zack

  Ben snuggled back up against Mike’s chest, suddenly comfortable in the familiarity. “I meant, I’m not sure yet,” he said, looking up slyly. “I might need a bit more practice…”

  “Hah hah. I guess I can help out there, or point you in another direction. I know a few who would die for a good session with you. And that probably includes my brother—no, don’t protest—I know he and you had a go the other week.”

  “What!” Ben was scandalized. “He told you?”

  Mike guffawed. “No, stupid, you just did. I suspected, though. You left the porny video in the player, and I know Will. He’s not like me, he’ll put himself out for anything that moves, dirty slut.”

  “Should I tell him? About this, I mean.”

  “I’m sure he’d wheedle it out of you in the end. As for me, my delightful young brother decided I was a lost cause the day he caught me tossing off over a photograph of a naked man.”

  Ben looked wistful. “I wish I’d seen that.” Then he turned serious. “What do you think he’ll say?”

  Mike biffed the red head playfully. “I shouldn’t worry what he’ll say. He’s got two girls on the go right now and having a hard time keeping them secret from each other, but he tried getting my ex into bed not so long ago.”

  Ben was silent for a moment. “Your ex…was that the American guy Will told me about?”

  Ben flushed slightly at seeing the shadow cloud Mike’s face.

  “Yeah. Gil.”

  “Do you miss him?”

  Mike leaned over Ben and dropped his head on the boy’s warm shoulder. “Yeah, more than I hope you’ll ever know.”

  Ben refrained from asking what had happened, as if he could feel the raw sadness emanating from Mike. Instead, he said, “Thank you.”

  Mike rolled back. “For what?”

  Ben cracked an innocent grin. “For, you know, helping my poor confused friend out.”

  Mike ran a hand down the nearest red sideburn affectionately. “You’re welcome. Anyway, you made a pretty shitty day into a good one. So thank you.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Making the Connection

  Paradise was packed, as usual on a Saturday night. The Real Thing thundered around the cavernous dance space. It all felt very real. Mike danced, his naked sweating body one whirl of sound and violent movement, flashing strobe and ultra-violet outlining his extremely tight white shirt and short running shorts, so brief his balls showed clearly with each gyration of his hips.

  He was the center of an admiring circle of men ogling every clever move. But he had no mind of them because Gil was beside him, and getting his own share of openly sexual interest. And he was in delirious love, sad for all those surrounding them who knew no such all-consuming feelings.

  Poppers fumed stingingly through his system and he was dislocated in place and time. The music boomed hollowly inside his head; he could feel the bedazzling lights as a physical battering. He spun and twirled, but Gil wasn’t there anymore. In a panic, he looked everywhere and then saw the beloved blond head illuminated in a shatter of strobe being led away by a shadowy figure.

  “Gil!” His voice blazed out, and suddenly he was standing against the sweat-streaming walls of the disco beside Gil, but his lover had his back to him. Mike couldn’t understand, yet at the same time he knew as distinctly as he knew anything that Gil was rejecting him.

  The music was deafening. Mike reached out, tried to turn Gil around, but instead the shadow-man leaned out from behind, and he saw it was Rosen. A smiling, happy James. The music was just too loud, but the man’s words echoed inside Mike’s head.

  “Hiya, Mikey. I won’t waste your time, but how do you feel about my giving you a hundred bucks so’s I can take this cute piece of ass off somewhere quiet to blow him?”

  “Gil!”

  The young American turned very slowly, as though he were on a turntable, until his blank gaze rested on Mike. “He won’t fuck me. He only wants to give me a suck, and I’d like him to. You don’t really mind, do you?”

  “No, Gil, no, no, no—”

  “After all, you’ve always got Trevor now, and it’s only going to be a little blow job.”

  James watched this exchange with benign interest, but his Jack Nicholson face was burning through. He reached around Gil and thrust a wad of bills into the waistband of Mike’s shorts.

  …leave those kids alone…

  Shadow-Rosen drew Gil away, as dancers closed around them. Mike screamed. “Noooo, Gil…”

  …hello, hello, is there anyone in there…

  Noooooo…

  He was drenched, lying in a puddle of his own sweat, terrified. For minutes he lay there shuddering with a nameless dread. Then he rolled over onto what had been Gil’s preferred side of the bed, thankful for its chill dryness. Oh, Gil.

  The nightmare gradually drained away, but as is the way with such things, the image of Gil turning on him, accusing him, would not fade. Nor the image of James Rosen, who hadn’t really been James but some evil avatar of the dream, leading Gil away, and the boy going so willingly. Mike buried his head in the pillow, the one he hadn’t changed since Gil left, and sobbed brokenly.

  The nightmare proved to be a turning point. It pushed Mike to the point of critical mass. His normally sunny disposition lay in shards like a broken mirror and he still shook with the power of his hatred for Rosen when he staggered out of bed. For the first time in his life, he wanted to do murder. But first, he had to get hold of Gil, try to warn him to watch out for himself. The dream reinforced his fear that Rosen would still do something to Gil as soon as he found the time.

  “Sheila…hi, it’s Mike, Mike Smith.” He gripped the telephone handset nervously.

  “Oh hi there, beautiful.” The American production assistant chatted for a couple of minutes and then asked, “So what can I do for you today, Mike? I’m guessing you haven’t called just to pass the time of day.”

  “Actually, I have a favor to ask. Do you still have the crew list from Rome?”

  “Sure…”

  “I wondered if you could let me have the contact details for the American kid, Gil Graham?”

  There was a long silence at the other end.

  “Sheila…?”

  She sounded hesitant. “I can’t really give out that kinda information.”

  “It’s not confidential, is it?”

  “Not exactly, but…”

  Mike sensed her closing in on the phone and when she spoke again, it was in a hushed secretive tone.

  “Look, Mike, I can’t give you the information because Rosen ordered me never to let you know any details like that, if you were ever to ask. I don’t know why, but he was very insistent. Anyway, I seem to remember you were good friends. Why don’t you know his address?”

  “I never thought, at the time. Rosen wouldn’t have to know—”

  “I can’t,” Sheila hissed down the line. He could hear from the changed sound of her voice that she had covered the mouthpiece to stop being overheard by anyone else. “He’d find out. He always does. Besides, the archived stuff is locked in a file cabinet in his office.”

  “Couldn’t you make some excuse to have a look, like you need to contact someone…?”

  “Sweetheart, even if I could think of something convincing, he ain’t here right now.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, he flew out to the States this morning on some mission. He told me he’d be back in time for the first preview of Fascist Spring next week.”

  “Right. Anyway, thanks for talking to me.”

  Mike replaced the receiver. His disappointment was apparent in the abstracted way he made a mug of tea before setting off to work. The next day, as he drove out along Western Avenue, he mulled over the information Sheila had given him. He knew that Rosen hopped the Atlantic in his private jet on a regular basis, and had never given it a thought before, but the volume of his private snow stash made Mike wonder whether the trips were purely connected to Hollywood business,
or perhaps something else. It really depended on where in America Rosen had gone. If he could discover that, he thought there was one person who might like to make use of it and cause Rosen—if nothing else—some grief.

  As soon as he reached the studios he used a pay phone outside the canteen where breakfast was finishing. As staff began drifting off to their various productions, he dialed the Fascist Spring offices at Shepperton. “Sheila, it’s me again. Did James tell you where he was going in the States? Oh, you can’t tell me. Right. Just help me out here, please. If I say some destinations, just cough if I hit the right one. How about Los Angeles? Okay, er, New York? He has a facility in Nashville… What about Miami?”

  When he put the phone down, he tapped a fingernail thoughtfully on his front teeth. He checked his watch. Ten minutes before the day’s first scene. Rosen had accused him of being a leak, which meant there was something going on that worried the man. Maybe he should make the fact true after the event; it was time to have a word with the one person who might be interested in the producer’s current location.

  Gerald Mundy looked like he was in a foul mood, but that was not surprising since it was his basic nature.

  “Hello. Mr. Mundy. Sorry to disturb you, but I wonder if you could help me.”

  “The shit I can. What d’you take me for—the Citizens’ Advice Bureau?”

  Mike looked suitably contrite, but persisted. “It’s just that I’ve got some important information for James Rosen and I can’t get a hold of him—”

  Mundy’s ugly face creased into a sarcastic grimace. “Have you tried his office at Shepperton?” he snarled, spacing each word out for an idiot to understand.

  “That’s the point. He isn’t there, but I thought you would be likely to have a number for him in Miami?”

  Mundy sat back in his chair. “Miami?” His pursed his podgy lips. “No, he didn’t tell me he was going. No real reason why he should.” He sat forward and gave Mike a disturbingly pleasant smile. “Sorry, son. I can’t help you there.”

  “Oh, okay, fine. Sorry for interrupting you.”

  Mike pulled the door to behind him, but prevented it from completely shutting. He hovered outside and smiled as he heard Mundy punching his phone—judging by the string—direct distance dialing—a number abroad, therefore. Pinewood was already equipped with the new system that avoided going via an operator for long distance.

  “Mundy here, yeah, London…”

  Unfortunately Mike was unable to hear the much more of the muffled conversation from Mundy’s end, but he was convinced by Mundy’s tone that he had done something to screw Rosen. Mundy had said that they had different associates. Perhaps one of the cabals would take care of that bastard Rosen. He could only hope so.

  As General Estates Manager, Gerald Mundy knew a lot of things about a lot of people and had his hands in many murky, as well as legitimate, pies. Knowing what kind of substances some of the movie stars enjoyed to help the relax between scenes—and better still providing said relaxants—gave him a useful hold. He didn’t always make use of it, though, just now and then.

  So he had made it his business to know everything he could find out about James Rosen. Only a stupid fool would have dealings with a slippery and very dangerous toad like the American movie producer without having insurance. Some lucrative deals had come his way through the man, but upheavals in America had recently placed Rosen in a different camp to Mundy. That hadn’t bothered him overmuch until Rosen began throwing his weight about and making threats. The man had grown too big for his boots and paranoid to boot. Mundy wanted out from under before he got pulled down with Rosen, and that fall looked like coming soon, as the man took more serious risks.

  Thanks to the dorky knob-dodger who’d just spoken to him, he now had a means of achieving that and making a pile at the same time. In Miami Julio Rivi Acosta, the right-hand man to the Black Widow, had received his phone call very well. In between further calls dealing with studio matters, Gerald Mundy reviewed his knowledge of Rosen’s background, some gleaned from police contacts, but much of it from Rosen’s own boasting.

  Rosen’s association with Miami’s underworld of drug dealing went back almost a decade to when he was a struggling movie producer finding backing for his projects tough going. At a typical Hollywood party he met a charismatic Cuban and they got talking, discovered a mutual interest in boys and in stories to turn into movies. It transpired that his new connection had access to ready finance for the right kind of project, and a visit to Miami with some script ideas should certainly grease the wheels. Rosen, who had already been around the block several times, did not fool himself for a moment that the promised money would be clean. The Cuban cartels controlled the drugs trade, so he was under no illusion that there wouldn’t be some kind of quid pro quo; but if he had to deal with the devil, so be it.

  Thus began his string of cheaply made but financially successful movies. At first, the box-office returns satisfied his backers, but as the 1970s progressed, the Cubans wanted more. When he bought his first executive jet and began building a lucrative business in the European theater, a charming guy approached him and introduced himself as Julio Acosta. “My friends call me Rivi.”

  Rosen was aware of the man’s reputation as a hired assassin for Griselda Blanco, known as la Madrina or the Black Widow, the ruthless Godmother of Cuban drug trafficking, who was the ultimate fount of Rosen’s financial backing. Rivi had a simple request, that Rosen should take cargoes from Miami to various European destinations, where a few chosen contacts would take the merchandise from him.

  It was not a request, of course. Rosen was alarmed at the development, but drug money eased all situations, and for the past two years his jet had suffered no searches and he had encountered no problems of any other kind. But there was no extra pay for these “cargo flights,” only the guarantee of a continued line of credit. It wasn’t quite enough for Rosen, who quickly realized that the Cubans’ accounting system was haphazard. No one would notice the removal of a modest amount of the merchandise. He quickly established dealerships in Rome, Paris, and London to take his private cut of the drugs. One of the men in London was Gerald Mundy. There was no trust between Rosen and his cut-offs, but so long as the cash flowed and the drugs came in, everything was dandy.

  At the very end of the 1970s a weather change swept Miami that had nothing to do with the hurricane season, although for the Cuban cartel it whipped up a tornado. Previously, the majority of Rosen’s cargoes were bales of marijuana, but suddenly cocaine became the drug of favor among users, and much of the supply originated in Colombia. The Colombians moved in and encroached on the Cuban monopoly, beginning what became known as the Cocaine Cowboy Wars. As it turned out, Rosen found himself on the wrong side. Within a year over a hundred thousand illegal immigrants, mostly from Medellin, flooded Miami, all willing to murder their Cuban rivals. The Cuban cartel reeled.

  In 1980 Rosen took a punt and switched sides. It was easy to negotiate a new deal with the Colombians. In return for acting as a regular freight agency, Rosen received a greater share of the profits to keep his increasingly expensive movie ambitions afloat. But it was less easy to keep out of the Cubans’ hands, so he moved his drugs operation to New York and, with Colombian help, organized a conduit direct from Medellin. The Black Widow had enough on her hands and stoically chose to ignore the Hollywood rat. But she never forgot, especially when her connection in London hinted that Rosen had been on the take from his new masters.

  Now Gerald Mundy had informed his Cuban contacts that the wanted man had slipped through their net and was in Miami. It puzzled him as to why Rosen would risk a visit to Miami and the Black Widow’s turf, but there had been a recent bloodbath in Medellin and he suspected the new man needed convincing that continuing to deal with the movie producer was good for business. Mundy knew some bits about the new Colombian drug lord: he hated New York for one, and needed to wave the war standard against the Cubans in Miami to establish his supremacy for a
nother. Hence Rosen to Miami.

  Mundy no longer had any business interest in Rosen. The movement of consignments through his hands had largely dried up in the recent months since Rosen switched sides, but Mundy knew he would be in for a handsome prize for handing his Cuban bosses Rosen’s head on a plate. Now, thanks to the black-haired queer-boy who had let it slip, they were aware that their former colleague had slipped quietly into the city and was within their grasp. Gerald Mundy was certain the Black Widow would know how to deal with Rosen.

  It was money in the bank.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Mud, Glorious Mud

  Box Hard proved to be a reasonable success for the magazine owner Aiden Parnell. Mike and Gil had helped shoot the short porn movie at the magazines’ studio in North London last fall. Aiden had sold several hundred copies on VHS—one of which had so turned on Ben when Mike’s brother Will had watched it with him. Mike had received the cassette for free, of course.

  Work at Pinewood kept Mike busy through a few weekends, and he dreaded that the next weekend was free. The hours would be achingly empty without Gil to share them with. So he welcomed Aiden’s call one evening to ask if he would like to help out with a new project. Mike hoped the activity would cheer him up and keep his mind from wandering again and again over what he might have done that could have altered what happened.

  The job sounded hassle-free, because Aiden told him that they would be shooting the action with the studio TV cameras. Mike recalled them: two red-cased boxes with a long, manually focused zoom lens, connected to two Sony U-Matic half-inch recording units in the control room. In operation, a small black-and-white monitor mounted above the camera case showed the action through the lens. Aiden had originally said that the quality was not good enough, but he thought it would be fine for what he had in mind now.

  Mike drove up to Muswell Hill on the Saturday morning, a run that inevitably reminded him of the last time he had gone that way, with Gil at his side bopping in his seat to the music on BBC Radio One. He passed through Highgate Village with a lump in his throat, but felt better as soon as he was inside Aiden Parnell’s emporium.