Pretty Pretty Boys

by Gregory Ashe

  “All right,” Somers said, clinking his Bud Lite against the glass. “Good man.”

  Hazard let go of some of his frustration and anger and studied his partner. John-Henry Somerset looked like a wreck. A hot wreck, but a wreck. Golden stubble showed on the perfectly cut line of his jaw. His collar, unbuttoned and messily pushed back, showed stains from repeated wear. Under Somers’s dress shirt, a white undershirt showed, and the top had slipped down to expose dark line on Somers’s collarbone. A tingle ran through Hazard. Did Wahredua’s golden boy have more ink than the tattoo on his wrist? And then Hazard gave a mental shake and told himself it didn’t matter. He continued his study of Somers. One of Somers’s hands shook as he settled the Bud Lite back onto the table, and Hazard wasn’t entirely sure that was from the drinking. The smell of hops and frying fish, the clatter of the pool cue, the buzz of voices on the TV, the smoke-filled mirror above the bar—all of it faded as Hazard took in the details of his partner. And he realized, with something like shock, that it was worse than he had thought. Somers looked like he wouldn’t make it a month, not like this.

  And then the moment passed, and Somers smiled, his eyes distant and fixed on a memory, and Hazard thought maybe he was over-thinking things. Maybe everything was fine. Not great, but fine.

  “Naomi was always a lot smarter than Cora,” Somers said, his gaze still distant. “I don’t mean that in a bad way. Cora’s smart too. Maybe I should say that Naomi always thought of herself as smarter. She’s pretty—”

  “She’s gorgeous,” Hazard corrected.

  Somers nodded. “But do you remember her in high school? She was a few years younger than us. She would have been a freshman when we were graduating.”

  Hazard shook his head.

  “She did a whole nerdy-preppy think. Very straitlaced. She was pretty, but this thing she’s got going on now—the tan, the hair, the clothes—that wasn’t her vibe. She was annoyingly, I don’t know, I guess the word is prim.”

  “That’s changed. Even I could tell she was putting off sex like a steam chimney.”

  Somers rolled his eyes. “Even you, huh?”

  “I’m gay. I’m not blind. So what happened? Why’d she change?”

  “College.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “And law school. And a clerkship in D.C.”

  “She clerked?”

  “Like I said, she always thought of herself as the smart one.”

  Hazard swallowed a mouthful of Guinness, savoring the heavy darkness of its taste, the roasted flavor. “She doesn’t seem smart.”

  “Ouch.”

  “You went to college. You know what I mean. Most of the time, smart means liberal. The smarter someone thinks he is, the more liberal he tries to act, even if a lot of it is just bullshit posturing. It would take a pretty wild twist of fate for a girl like that to go to college and law school and come out thinking the crazy things she does.”

  “She wasn’t like this before she went to school.”

  “What?”

  “Come on. You know me. You think I would have married into a family of white supremacists?”

  Hazard cocked an eye at Somers and took a drink of Guinness.

  With a laugh, Somers said, “Come on.”

  “All right. Maybe not this version of you. The one in high school, I don’t know.”

  And again, Hazard found himself thinking about Jeff Langham and wondering what Somers knew. He thought about the—

  —brush of Somers’s fingers over his chest in the locker room, the reaction like chain lightning spreading over his skin, the heat stiffening between his legs—

  —stairs in Wahredua High School, where Somers had shoved him.

  “All right. I deserve that. But that’s not Cora’s family. Even back then, you have to admit, she was decent.”

  Hazard nodded slowly.

  “Clyde Malsho, that’s her dad, he probably spent two years of his adult life outside of one prison or another. And her mom, Josie, she—well, you’ve heard all the stories, right?”

  A prostitute working in Smithfield, Hazard had heard. He’d also heard a lot of the boys in high school bragging about fucking Cora Malsho’s mom for five dollars. It was a boast and an insult at the same time, and Hazard doubted any of the boys had ever really done it, but they said it. Nobody would ever say it around Somers, nobody would say it where it could get back to Somers, but they said it.

  “I heard,” was all Hazard said.

  “So this stuff with Naomi, all this racist and homophobic stuff, it’s from college. She went to this ultra-conservative liberal arts school. Nominally religious, I think, but I’m guessing they wouldn’t have much use for Jesus if he came back. Too much love and compassion, not enough border patrol.”

  “And law school?”

  “Michigan, if you can believe it. Somehow she didn’t get expelled for all this white supremacist shit. And she did her clerkship with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.”

  “And she came back here? She could be out there making six figures. She gave all that up to, what? Help the Ozark Volunteers?”

  Somers shook his head and drained his Bud Lite. “I don’t know. After the clerkship, she worked for some think tank out in Connecticut. She must have been making a hell of a lot of money, to judge by that house. But I didn’t know she was back, you’ve got to believe me.”

  “I saw your face. Trust me, I believe you.” Hazard furrowed his brow. “How long has she been here? I know you don’t know, but we need to find out.”

  “Three months.”

  “I thought you didn’t know?”

  “I don’t. I’m guessing. But it’s a pretty good guess.”

  Hazard waited.

  “That was when I . . . screwed up,” Somers said. “That girl.”

  “Kaylee?”

  Wincing, Somers nodded.

  “She said she was here visiting Wahredua. Visiting a friend,” Hazard said, trying to remember. “Isn’t that what you told me?”

  “Yeah. I was pretty close to blacking out. I’d had a huge fight with Cora, I felt like I went to work all day, kind of like a superhero, and then I had to come home and deal with dirty diapers and a wife who had sciatica and a house that was falling down because I didn’t make any money and I spent too much on drinks with the guys.” Somers swallowed; he seemed to be tensing himself, nerving himself up for the rest of the story. “She was pretty. She listened. She said all the right things. I mean, you know how it goes.”

  “Not really.” Hazard noticed the flash of hurt in Somers’s face and said, “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, I haven’t really done the dating thing. I was with—”

  Alec, chasing Hazard around the apartment with the belt, hitting hard enough to draw blood sometimes.

  “—this one guy, and when it ended, I was with Billy. That’s all I meant.”

  “Well, you’re lucky,” Somers said. “Dating sucks. And I shouldn’t have done what I did, but it happened, and the next morning the girl was gone and I had six voicemails from Naomi, each one angrier than the last, chewing me up and spitting me out. The last one told me that she was legally representing her sister and that I wasn’t supposed to go home.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I went home. It was ten o’clock in the morning, and I had a hangover, and somehow Cora had already changed the locks. I banged on the door for about an hour until I threw up, and then Upchurch showed up and drove me to his house. I stayed there for a few days until I could think straight. Then I got the apartment.”

  Hazard turned over the sequence of events. “Where was Kaylee?”

  “Christ, don’t say her name, all right?”

  “Where was she?”

  “When?”

  “After you finished fucking her. When you woke up. Choose.”

  Somers flinched again. “I don’t know. I passed out. I told you I was plastered. When I woke up, she was gone.”

  “Did she contact you again? Try to h
ook up again?”

  “I told you it was a one-time thing, Emery. I’m not a fucking cheater, not that way.”

  Hazard blinked, but not at the anger in Somers’s voice—at the use of his first name. “That’s not what I was trying to say. I wanted to know if she tried to talk to you again.”

  “Why does it matter?”

  “Did she?”

  “No, all right? Nothing. I never even saw her again.”

  “So how’d you know she was Naomi’s friend?”

  “Naomi mentioned the fact. Repeatedly. In all six of her voicemails.”

  Hazard turned this over in his head. “And by ten o’clock in the morning, Cora already had the locks changed?”

  “Can we drop this? I told you what you wanted. I gave you the damn timeline.”

  “But there’s something—”

  “Maybe I don’t want to be dragged through the worst experience of my life. Did you think about that?”

  “That’s not what I’m trying to do.”

  “Well, you’re doing a great job of it anyway. I told you what you wanted to know. Now, either drop it, or I’m leaving.” His cheeks were pink, and he was shaking slightly—the same tremor that Hazard had noticed earlier, but now stronger.

  “You want to fight?” Hazard asked, pitching his voice as low and even as possible.

  “What?”

  “Do you want to fight me?”

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  “You look like you want to hit something. Let’s do it. I’ll give you the first shot free.”

  “I thought we’d moved past this,” Somers growled, shoving his seat away from the table and getting to his feet. “I thought we were done with this.”

  Hazard gripped his wrist, pinning Somers to the table. “I’m saying this as your partner. Sometimes you need to throw a punch. I can take one as well as anybody. And if it’s a choice between me having a shiner and you drinking yourself into unconsciousness, I’ll take a shiner. That way, at least, we can still work tomorrow.”

  Somers hesitated; he tried, once, to jerk free, and then he went still. “I’m all right.”

  Hazard kept his grip on Somers’s wrist.

  “I said I’m all right,” Somers said, his voice softening.

  With a shrug, Hazard let him go.

  “Look, can we—” Somers glanced around, as though suddenly taking in their surroundings: the deep shadows, the hanging yellow lights, the gleam of smoky silver above the bar. Someone had fed a roll of quarters to the jukebox, and it was pounding out a frenetic, whiny pop song, the kind that made Hazard want to claw his eyes out. “Can we get out of here?”

  Hazard cocked his head at the bar. “I’ll settle up. No, you can get it next time.”

  He paid the tab, left a tip for the waitress, and turned around in time to see Somers finishing off a row of shots.

  “Jesus Christ,” Hazard muttered.

  “Sorry,” Somers said, his voice even fuzzier now. “Just for the road.”

  By the time they reached the street, Hazard was propping Somers up by one arm. The sidewalks had emptied, and Hazard was surprised to see that a sliver of moon was out, scattering silver echoes along the Grand Rivere’s chop. A breeze had carried away the smell of exhaust, replacing it with the muddy water smell that Hazard had grown up with—and, as well, the smell of Somers’s boozy sweat.

  Hazard steered Somers along the sidewalk, moving along the waterfront and towards the Crofter’s Mark. They made it less than a block before Somers began to complain, squirming in Hazard’s grip and trying to stop. Finally, Hazard relented. Somers pried Hazard’s hand from his arm and, with casual ease, slung his free arm around Hazard’s shoulder.

  “That’s better, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “Partners, right?”

  Hazard grunted.

  As they started again towards Somers’s apartment, Somers asked, “Why’d you care about Naomi? Why’d you make me talk about all that?”

  Because, Hazard wanted to say, nothing adds up. How did Naomi know about Somers’s affair with Kaylee so quickly? How did Cora get the locks changed that fast? Why hadn’t Kaylee contacted him again? Something felt off, not quite right.

  But what Hazard said out loud was, “If Naomi really did come back three months ago, that lines up with when the vandalism and assaults on the LGBT community started.”

  Somers lurched off the curb, and Hazard barely caught him. “Yeah?” Somers mumbled. “You think she’s doing it.”

  “I think it’s a strange coincidence. Just like it’s a strange coincidence that she happens to know that a Volunteer might be our murder victim. Just like she doesn’t want to tell us why Armistead would play along with someone else pretending to be a volunteer. I think Naomi knows a lot more than she’s saying.” And, Hazard thought, she’s playing a game that she thinks nobody else knows the rules for. That makes her dangerous. But it might also make her careless.

  As they reached the Crofter’s Mark building, Hazard fished the key out of Somers’s pocket more easily. They rode up in the elevator. Once again, as they stepped into the apartment, Hazard was struck by how sparse it appeared: without the accumulated trash that Hazard had thrown out, the only sign that someone lived in this apartment was the dishes in the drainer—apparently Somers had found time to wash up. Hazard didn’t bother with the lights; he guided Somers across the darkened apartment and into the bedroom.

  Nothing had ever looked lonelier, to Hazard’s mind, than the twin mattress dropped on the floor. A spacious window overlooked the city, allowing in the gray twilight of the sodium lamps, painting the empty bedroom like a stormcloud. Somers, Hazard noticed, had taken the time to pick up his clothes as well. He had straightened up the whole apartment. Why? For me, Hazard wondered.

  Somers staggered free of Hazard, fumbling with the buttons on his shirt. “Give me a hand.”

  “You’re on your own.” Hazard took a step towards the door. “I’ll see you in the morning. We’ll start with Armistead and Fukuma, see if there’s anything to what Naomi told us today.”

  Spinning to face Hazard, Somers let his arms drop to his side, his shirt only halfway unbuttoned and revealing the taut white undershirt over a well-developed chest. Somers didn’t say anything; he stood there unsteadily, and then he took a step towards Hazard, and then another. His hands came up, and he grabbed Hazard’s lapels and yanked him a step forward until their chests touched.

  Somers’s breath, hot and yeasty with beer, tickled Hazard’s cheek. One of Somers’s hands came up, his fingers brushing Hazard’s jaw. “You’ve got one fucking beard, you know that?”

  “You need to sleep,” Hazard said, proud that his voice held steady in spite of the fireworks and whirligig spinning inside him. “What are you—”

  “I fucked around with some guys in college,” Somers said, his fingers tightening on the lapels, his whole body colliding with Hazard now, pressed against him. “I let them fuck around with me, I guess I should say. Before I married Cora. It was—you know, just to see. College. That’s what college is all about.”

  Hazard felt like the floor had slipped out from underneath him. Most of his senses were dedicated to absorbing the feel of Somers pressed against him, the heat of his body, the firm strength of toned muscles, the insistent, inescapable need that Somers radiated. The rest of him, though, was spinning as the words ran through his head. Somers? Somers had—had what? A few jack-off sessions in the dark with a drunk roommate? Or—

  “I just had to tell you. I wanted to tell you in college. If I knew where you were, I’d have called. I’d have written. Something. Just so you knew. I fucked up in high school, but I figured it out later. And I’m really, really sorry.” Somers paused, and it took Hazard a moment to realize that Somers wanted a response.

  “It’s ok. It’s over. It’s the past.”

  But Hazard barely heard himself say the words. He was thinking of the scar on his chest, of Jeff Langham eating a gun, of the
locker room, of the shove down the stairs.

  For another moment, something wordless and electric hovered in the air between them. Hazard didn’t breathe, and at some animal level he didn’t breathe because he was afraid he would draw that lightning inside himself and then it would never get out.

  Then the moment passed. Somers laughed, and the sound was too high and too loud, and he released Hazard’s lapels and tried to smooth out the wrinkles. He took an uneven step away, and then he turned and threw himself face-first on the mattress.

  And Hazard, like a coward, ran.

  WHEN SOMERS GOT TO THE STATION the next morning, everything was already in full swing. Fax machines beeped and whirred, copiers flashed and filled the air with the smell of toner overpowering the aroma of the coffee that Somers carried, and a crowd of familiar faces waited at the front desk for Murray to deal with their complaints. Murray, who had been dealing with front desk complaints for something like forty years now, still got his feathers ruffled. You could tell by the way his nose hairs began to quiver. Somers nodded as he passed Murray, but Murray didn’t notice; Patsy Hoard, almost as old as Murray, was in the desk officer’s face, bawling him out about her missing cat. Murray’s nose hairs were shivering like he was sniffing face-first into a hurricane.

  Rounding the corner into the bullpen, Somers was unsurprised—although a little disappointed—that Hazard was already there. Along with that disappointment came a rush of something else—an uneasy, unsettled feeling that Somers didn’t quite recognize at first. It took him a moment to realize what it was: embarrassment. But what did he have to be embarrassed about with Hazard? Well, aside from all the stuff from the old days. Somers ran through his memory of the night before.

  They’d gone to dinner, had a few drinks, and talked through the pertinent details about Naomi and, consequently, about Somers failing marriage. Was that it? Talking about his personal life? Somers didn’t think so; everyone in town already knew. What had happened after? More drinks—he remembered that Hazard had tried to put a stop to it—and then—