Male/Male Mystery and Suspense Box Set: 6 Novellas

by Lanyon, Josh

  Footsteps pounded on the landing above and then down the stairs, and somebody brushed over me and tackled Mr. Clean, who quit whaling on me and plunged back, crashing down the stairs with Jack on top. I lowered my arms, panting, muscles shaking, and hauled myself to my feet.

  Jack and Mr. Clean were rolling around on the cement courtyard, and I had to take a moment to admire the brutal efficiency of Jack’s attack. He swung with fine, fierce proficiency—and he was better built for brawling than me, though not in Mr. Clean’s division.

  Mr. Clean changed tactics, snaking around like one of those Water Wiggles. He was a wild man, and he managed to wriggle out from under Jack, grabbing for one of the umbrellaed metal tables and tipping it over. I was down the stairs by then and caught the table edge before it cracked down on Jack.

  Mr. Clean rolled onto his feet, Jack scrambled up, and Mr. Clean drew a gun from beneath his lightweight sports jacket and pointed it at us.

  Chapter Six

  I froze. Jack’s arms came up in a hold everything position. “Easy, pal,” he said.

  Mr. Clean’s eyes met mine, and they were as dark and fathomless as the barrel pointed my way. “Bang,” he said.

  I stopped breathing, but instead of firing he swung the gun at Jack and said, “Don’t move. Don’t even twitch.” He was backing up, moving swiftly to the front entrance, one hand stretched behind him to keep from walking into one of the other tables or lounge chairs.

  The gun swung back my way. “Last warning,” he said to me. “Stay out of the Aldrich case.”

  And then he was out through the arched entrance.

  “God damn it!” Jack snapped, and he went tearing up the stairs back to his apartment.

  I sat down on the bottom step, feeling like a puppet after someone had cut the strings.

  Bang.

  I could hear the blast; feel bullets tearing into my body, plowing through flesh and bone. I felt sick, although that probably had something to do with the punches I’d received.

  Jack came racing back, taking the stairs a couple at a time. He shot past me and out through the apartment complex entrance. It was dark now but I could see the gleam of the gun in his hand.

  I put my head in my hands, getting my wind back. I was going to have a beautiful set of bruises in a few hours. It’d happened so fast, but that’s like anything. Fast and unexpected, like when a soccer mom runs a red light and smashes into your car. Like a lightning strike in your brain.

  After a short time Jack returned, walking through the arched entryway. Spotting me still sitting on the stairs, he came over and dropped down beside me, resting his gun on his knee.

  “Okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you know him? Did you recognize him?”

  I shook my head. “I think it’s the guy from yesterday. Same voice, I think.”

  “I’ll file the report on this one. I want that asshole.” His face was all angles and sharps in the uneven light. The little white scar on his forehead stood out clearly. Meeting my gaze, he suddenly grinned. “That was a helluva punch you threw, Mr. North. You can handle yourself okay.”

  “Define okay.”

  “Nah, the dude was built like a brick wall.” His cheek creased. “You’ve done some boxing.”

  “College.”

  He nodded. After a moment he said quietly, “The guy’s connected. I’ll guarantee it.”

  “You mean like mob connected?”

  He nodded. “I guarantee you we’ll find him in a mug book.”

  “Tony Fumagalli?” I said doubtfully. “No one seems to know—or will say—why Eva broke her engagement to him.”

  “Maybe she figured out what he did for a living.”

  “They called him the Gentleman Gangster in the press. It shouldn’t have been a newsflash.”

  He didn’t say anything. I was crazily conscious of his shoulder against mine, his bare arm brushing my bare arm. Jack shrugged. “Tony F.’s out of play but there’s always Frankie, his son. He inherited the family business when the old man’s brain turned to mush.”

  Speaking of brains turning to mush. I wiped my forehead on my arm and said, “Maybe there’s a problem with Tony’s alibi. Even so…would it really matter? Would anyone prosecute a senile old man?”

  “They might.” Jack sighed. “I agree it doesn’t seem worth the taxpayers’ money.”

  “Maybe Mr. Clean’s not mob connected.”

  “Mr. Clean.” He snorted with amusement. Then he shook his head. “You don’t hire guys like that off the street. He’s a pro.” He smiled at me and his dimple showed. “You’ve got someone seriously annoyed with you, Tim.”

  * * * * *

  Splashing cold water on my face, I used one of Jack’s immaculate towels to dry off and stepped out of the bathroom.

  His place was very neat. Everything-in-its-place-scary. I glanced in his bedroom as I walked past. The bed—a waterbed—was tidily made, black-and-brown striped pillows stacked comfortably on a black comforter. I wondered who he was sleeping with these days. I hadn’t noticed anyone coming or going, but then I’d tried hard not to notice. And Jack had always been discreet about his social life, even when I was part of that social life.

  I found him in the kitchen tasting a honey-colored dipping sauce. “That’s good,” he announced.

  “Smells good,” I agreed.

  He gave me a searching glance, picked up a plastic baggie stuffed with ice cubes and tossed it to me. “Here, Rocky. Ice your hand.”

  I caught the bag, glanced down at my hand, and he was right. The knuckles were puffy and pink. I applied the ice pack and glanced around. “Anything I can do?”

  “The Perkins file is on the coffee table. You want a beer?”

  I walked over to the sofa, sat down feeling the protest of newly punished muscles on top of yesterday’s aches and pains, and picked up the file. A stack of newspaper and magazine clippings slithered out and spilled on the carpet. Jack was right. Perkins had kept anything and everything related to Eva Aldrich. I scooped up the fragile clippings. There were also sheets of legal paper covered in faded handwriting. Perkins’s unofficial notes? I flipped through, absorbed.

  “You want a beer, Tim?” Jack repeated.

  I glanced up and he had a funny half grin. “Huh? No. Thanks. I don’t want to push my luck. How did you get hold of this?”

  “My first partner was one of these old-timers who knew just about everyone on the force. I got hold of him and he put me in touch with Perkins’s wife. He’d only kept one file—this one.”

  “Wow.” What really wowed me was that Jack had bothered to do this on his day off. It was way beyond the call of duty. I looked up. “Thanks. I really appreciate this.”

  He shrugged. Turned back to the oven.

  I continued reading through the folder. Perkins must have kept up the file until shortly before his death. There were several photos that I recognized from the Life magazine spread of that evening, and there were a couple of those Where Are They Now features from the early ‘70s. A lot of the stuff I’d seen on microfilm and microfiche, but some of it was new—and a bit lurid. There was speculation about drugs and alcohol and Eva’s sexual orientation—none of which had shown up in the earlier articles about her death. Was there any foundation in fact or was this all based on rumor and gossip—and boosting circulation numbers?

  I barely noticed when Jack set a plate of wings and a Coke beside me. He sat down across from me and ate silently while I frowned over Perkins’s notes.

  At last I looked up out of the years and distance and said, “According to Perkins, only two people at the party were unaccounted for at the time of Eva’s murder: Stephen Ball and Gloria Rayner. He didn’t seem to consider Burack or Fumagalli real suspects at all.”

  Jack said, “For what it’s worth, I think Fumagalli’s alibi is unbreakable. Over a dozen people saw him at the Tropicana.”

  “He could have hired someone.”

  “We’ve been over it,” he
reminded me. “That wasn’t a professional hit.”

  He was right. “They found the knife,” I said. “It had been wiped clean of prints and dropped in the swimming pool. That information was never officially released to the press. I wonder why not.”

  “Could have been a lot of reasons,” Jack said. “Usually it’s because we hope someone’s going to accidentally trip himself up during questioning.” He tipped his head at my plate. “Are you going to eat something?”

  “Oh, right.” I set the file aside and picked up a little drumstick. “The murder took place during a party at the Garden of Allah, but Eva was found inside Stephen Ball’s adjacent villa. The murder weapon was a knife from Ball’s own kitchen, so the killing almost certainly wasn’t premeditated.”

  “I thought you’d find that interesting.”

  “I can’t believe this never came out before. It’s not even made clear in the official reports.” I bit into a wing, crunchy with baked parmesan cheese and oregano and garlic. My eyes widened. “Wow. That’s really good.” I reached for another wing. Suddenly I was starving, and even the fact that my various bruises and sore spots were starting to make themselves felt didn’t distract me.

  Jack and I munched for a few minutes in an unusually companionable silence.

  He neatly wiped his mouth on his napkin. I finished off my Coke. “I think Ball did it,” I said. “Perkins doesn’t come right out and say so, but I think he leaned that way too. She went to Ball’s villa during the party—why, if not to meet him? He didn’t go with her, so he must have given her a key because she got inside somehow. And he’s the only remaining principal who won’t give me an interview.”

  “That’s not exactly conclusive,” Jack pointed out. He rose, went to the fridge and got himself another beer. I declined a second Coke.

  “I know, but why won’t he talk to me? What does he have to hide?”

  “It’s not a news story to him,” Jack pointed out. “It’s part of his life. A painful part.”

  “It was fifty years ago.”

  “Yeah, but all the same, it’s a touchy subject for someone or that goon wouldn’t have shown up this evening warning you to back off.”

  I swallowed hard, remembering that gun pointed my way. Bang. I dropped the last chicken bone onto the pile before me.

  “True.”

  “By the way, I want you to come down to headquarters tomorrow and look through the mug books.”

  “It was dark. I didn’t really get a clear look at his face.”

  “Still.”

  I sighed. “Okay.”

  Jack’s gray eyes were alert. “Problem?”

  “Not really. It’s just a pain in the ass not driving. It takes up half the day making bus connections. Taxis are expensive. And I really didn’t get a good look at him.”

  “How long do you have to be seizure-free before you can reapply for your license?”

  “At least three months. I’m not seizure-free yet.”

  His gaze slid away from mine.

  “Anyway,” I said into the somewhat awkward pause, “I should be going. Thanks for letting me see the file.”

  “You can keep it for now. No one knows about it. You might as well.”

  “Seriously?”

  He nodded.

  “Thanks.” I picked up the file, rose, and he said, “You don’t have to go, you know.”

  I stopped and stared at him. Jack gazed steadily back at me. “How about coffee and dessert while you tell me what you’ve found out from your interviews? Might help to run your findings past someone else.”

  “Uh…okay.” I sat slowly back down. “I haven’t found out much in the way of new information.”

  “So you said, but you’re willing to tap Stephen Ball for murder, so you must’ve come to some conclusion from talking to people.” He went into the kitchen and switched on the coffee machine.

  “I’ve seen Gloria Rayner twice. The first time we mostly talked about her. Last time we talked a little about Eva, but she’s pretty cagey. I know she could tell me a lot more if she chose. I’m hoping the third time will do the trick.”

  “Gloria Rayner? She does those AARP ads?”

  I could just imagine Gloria’s opinion of being remembered for her AARP work.

  “She was one of those ‘50s blonde bombshells. She and Eva were best friends—and rivals, I think.”

  “Romantic rivals or professional rivals?”

  “Both, as far as I can tell. I know they were both trying for a role in a William Wyler film.” I watched Jack moving efficiently around his small kitchen. The overhead light shone down on hair as black and glossy as a raven’s wing. “And I’ve seen Roman Mayfield once.”

  “He’s the astrologer?”

  “‘Seer to the Stars.’ I forgot to tell you, he’s the one responsible for leaving the tarot card on my front door.”

  Jack stopped and stared at me. “He admitted it?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “He admits leaving a tarot card—like somebody left on Aldrich’s body?”

  “I don’t think he looked at it like that. Or maybe he did. He’s an oddball, but…” I stopped, remembering his kindness and patience that afternoon.

  “But what?”

  “He’s a…genuinely nice person.”

  Jack looked unimpressed.

  “He didn’t have a motive that I can see. He’s gay, for one thing. His relationship with Eva was strictly platonic, from what I can tell. Anyway, my point is, the card wasn’t left as a threat. I think it was supposed to be sort of a come-on, actually.”

  “He sounds like a nut.”

  “Probably, but he’s figured out a way to make a living at it. And, like I said, I think he’s harmless.”

  “Don’t underestimate a potential threat just because he’s an old man. If he was capable of killing once, he’s still capable.”

  I looked up, surprised at his serious tone. Jack carried in coffee and dessert plates on a tray, and I had to bite back a smile. The tray struck me as farcical. Not that Jack wasn’t civilized, but the bruise on his cheekbone from Mr. Clean’s fist sort of undermined the cosmopolitan effect.

  I took the dessert plate he handed me and said, “And I’ve talked to a lot of people who were on the periphery of Eva Aldrich’s world, read every article on her I could find.” I tried the strawberry nut crisp. It seemed to be a baked mixture of fruit and mashed up pecan cookies and nuts topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. “This is really good,” I said thickly, and swallowed.

  Jack smiled at me, a slow smile—that endearing dimple appearing unexpectedly. I suddenly ran out of things to say, and we ate our dessert in silence but for the scrape of forks on plates.

  Finally I glanced at the clock on the bookshelf and set my empty plate aside. “I should go. It’s late and you’re working tomorrow.”

  “I go in late tomorrow.”

  “Yeah. Well, I still should go.”

  He studied me without speaking, and then put his plate down.

  I stood up and he stood up. “Thanks for dinner,” I said. “And, now that I think of it, thanks for saving my ass earlier.”

  His eyes were so dark and intense I could hardly look away. I felt crazily self-conscious.

  “You don’t have to go, Tim,” he said. “Why don’t you stay?”

  Chapter Seven

  I wasn’t exactly sure if it was excitement or anger, but my heart was thudding so hard I could hardly get the words out. “What are you doing, Jack?”

  “Asking you to stay the night.”

  Come to think of it, it was mostly anger pounding through my veins and tightening up my throat. I got out a reasonably calm, “Why? You already said you weren’t interested. You made it clear.”

  “I know.” He shook his head. “But…”

  “But what?” I didn’t manage to control my temper quite so well that time, and I saw his eyes glint.

  Jack said quietly, “I know how this seems, but I’m not playing
games with you—I like you a lot, Tim. That hasn’t changed. I still find you very attractive. That hasn’t changed either.”

  “What has changed?”

  “I was mad that you didn’t tell me about your seizures. I think that’s the kind of information that needs to be shared with a potential lover, but…more than that, it seemed indicative of some other problems.”

  “What other problems?” Then I put a hand up. “Never mind. I don’t give a fuck what you thought my other problems were.” I turned and headed for the door.

  “Wait!” He caught my arm as I yanked open the door. It was a hard grip, but it gentled almost at once into a caress sliding down my biceps and forearm and then reluctantly releasing me. Goose bumps prickled all down my skin; I felt that touch in every pore, every hair on my arm. My heart slowed, the beats heavy against my ribs. “I keep making it worse,” Jack said. He sounded so rueful, I hesitated.

  Seeing my hesitation, he put a hand on my shoulder, drawing me back inside and shutting the door. The warm weight of his hand slid down my back and drew me close. Our lips touched—he tasted like coffee and strawberry nut crisp.

  “Stay,” he whispered.

  * * * * *

  The waterbed gulped as we settled on the comforter, and I had to bite back a nervous laugh. The first night I’d had a lot to drink, too much. Tonight I was cold sober and very conscious that this was probably a bad idea.

  I pulled my T-shirt over my head. Jack’s shirt was already off, his tanned chest lightly furred in silky black, his nipples brown and flat. He reached for the top of my jeans about the same moment I brushed my fingertips against his nipple. He smiled and I smiled, lightly pinching the tiny buds.

  “Oh, yeah,” he murmured. He undid the buttons of my Levi’s and his hands slid knowledgeably inside the encasing denim. “Use your tongue, Timmy.”

  I fully intended to, but paused, closing my eyes and savoring the feel of Jack’s big hand feeling me over. I savored his warmth through the soft cotton of my briefs, and then his fingers slipped through the fly. I pushed my hips into that exploration and moaned, my dick coming up hard and a little painfully in the binding Levi’s.