One on One

by Michael Brandman

  “They turned it down.”

  “The Town Council?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Fear.”

  “Of?”

  “Re-election losses.”

  “Typical.”

  “Of?”

  “Politicians. You can never trust one.”

  She chewed on that for a while, concern that I might think less of her darkening her face.

  “So, what’s the good news?”

  “I exercised my prerogatives.”

  “Is there any chance you might quit speaking in tongues, Helena?”

  She leaned across the table and lowered her voice. “I didn’t graduate magna cum laude for nothing, you know. Once I got elected to this cockamamie job, I set about studying the rules and by-laws as though they were gospel. And I learned a great deal.” She took a sip of coffee and gazed idly at the various tables, momentarily curious as to their occupants and whether or not she knew any of them.

  “Go on,” I urged.

  “In nineteen eighty-seven, an incident occurred in the Town Council that nearly short-circuited the career of the then Council President, guy named Walter Button. This Button character wanted to raise money for some street improvements. Pot holes and stuff. Civic business. But it had become political. Three of the other four members of the Council played for the opposing team and had pledged to vote down Button’s proposal.”

  “So?”

  “So he carefully studied the rules and the by-laws and discovered the little-known fact that the accumulation of unclaimed vacation time for Council members could result in a possible double payment, should a Council member request such a payment, as opposed to actually vacationing.

  “He further discovered a Town Council addendum that empowered the President to order any member with more than four weeks’ worth of accumulated vacation time to immediately take that vacation time. Which resulted in eliminating any possible double payment.

  “When President Button learned that each of his three opponents had more than four weeks’ worth of unused vacation time, he placed them all on immediate leave and once they were out of the office, he held a vote and his proposition passed unanimously. Two votes to none.”

  “What is it you’re saying here, Helena?”

  “As was the case back in Button’s day, three members of the current Council have each accumulated more than four weeks’ vacation time.”

  “Which three?”

  “I knew you’d ask that question.”

  “Which three?”

  “I may not be ready to disclose that information just yet, Buddy.”

  “Why?”

  “One on one.”

  “You mean you’re not going to finish this story until I agree to go one on one with you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re an even bigger jerk than I am.”

  “Taller, too.”

  She sat silently for a while, her arms smugly folded across her chest.

  “Okay. Okay,” I said at last.

  “Where and when?”

  “Your call.”

  “Your word?”

  “You have it.”

  “Then congratulations.”

  “What congratulations?”

  “I took the vote this morning. Your proposal passed unanimously. Two zip.”

  “You mean the fines and the jail time are now law?”

  “They are.”

  “For how long?”

  “I’m fairly certain that when their vacation time is over and the three bozos return to work, they’ll try to vacate the vote. But I can hold that up for quite some time. My guess would be for at least a year.”

  “So when I find these taggers, I can make their lives miserable.”

  “Correct. With but a single caveat.”

  “One on one.”

  “Also correct.”

  “This is very small-minded of you, Helena.”

  She stared at me for several moments, then began to rub the side of her nose with her extended middle finger.

  Chapter Twenty

  “I have the names,” Marsha Russo said as she plunked herself down in one of my visitor chairs. “I identified them according to the group they sat with at the memorial. I matched them with their yearbook photos.”

  “And?”

  She shoved a copy of the yearbook across the desk. “You might want to have a look at them. The photo pages are all marked with yellow stickies.”

  I picked up the book and leaned back in my chair. I studied each photo carefully. “There’s an odd consistency in the groupings,” I commented. “Good-looking versus not-so-good-looking.”

  “You sure know how to hit the nail on the head, big boy. The mixed group, boys and girls, they’re all very attractive. The other groups, not so much.”

  “Which you interpret as?”

  “I don’t know, Buddy. If what Kimber suspected regarding the possibility of sexual shenanigans is true, the fact that there was this grouping of only good-looking kids sitting together at the memorial might have some bearing.”

  “It might.”

  “It’s certainly worthy of further investigation.”

  “It certainly is.”

  Marsha sat back in her chair, more than a little self-satisfied with her findings. “Would you want to interview any of these kids?”

  “I would.”

  “Which ones?”

  “Let’s start with the questionably unattractive ones.”

  “That’s an unfortunate nomenclature.”

  “Okay. How about the not-so-good-looking ones.”

  “Too subjective.”

  “Then how about separating them by sex? Boys and girls.”

  “Bingo,” she said and stood. “I’ll start organizing the list.”

  “This is very good work, Marsha.”

  “I thought so.” She sauntered out of my office.

  Peter Bry agreed to meet me in Longdale, a couple of towns over from Freedom, in a small, family-owned sandwich shop where it was unlikely we would be spotted.

  I arrived before he did and from a table in the rear, I watched as the muscular young man stepped tentatively up to the shop window and scanned the place. When he noticed I was there, he came inside and joined me.

  “Thank you for seeing me, Peter.”

  He nodded.

  “Coffee?”

  “Maybe an energy drink.”

  I signaled the waitress who took the order, then wandered off to fill it. Bry turned to me. “This is about the murder, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Horrible tragedy.”

  “It was, yes.”

  “I don’t really know anything about it.”

  “I didn’t expect you would.”

  “But you wanted to speak with me just the same?”

  “I did.”

  “Why?”

  The waitress delivered his order then scurried off.

  I watched Peter Bry as he opened and then poured his can of electrolyte-packed liquid into a plastic cup. He gulped some of it down. He was a strapping young man, fit but unfortunately burdened with a nose the size of a small country and ears almost equally as large. He was bright-eyed, however, and quick-witted. He was engaging and engaged.

  “I’m trying to learn as much as I can about Henry Carson is why. Since you’re the swim team workhorse, or so that’s what I’ve been told, I thought you might have some insights that could be helpful.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, for openers, did you like him?”

  He reached for his right ear and scooped out a piece of shmutz which he stared at for a moment before whisking it away. “I never really thought about that before
. Did I like him? No. Actually, I didn’t like him at all.”

  “Why not?”

  Bry shifted uneasily in his chair, seemingly nervous to be speaking so frankly. “He was a weird guy. He paid lots of attention to the good-looking kids. A few of the boys. All of the girls. He would nod and say hello to me. He wasn’t rude or anything. But he pretty much ignored me.”

  “And the other coaches?”

  “Coach Fred is great. So are the others. They evaluate my performances and offer suggestions as to how I can improve them. They’re involved in the details and are amazingly helpful and encouraging.”

  “But not Coach Hank.”

  “Not Coach Hank.”

  “And that’s why you didn’t like him?”

  “I didn’t like him because he never invited me to any of the play parties.”

  “The play parties?”

  The young man vanished into his thoughts for a moment, then stared at me and said, “Look, I don’t think I want to go into this stuff. I don’t really have a whole lot of information about it.”

  “What’s a play party?”

  “I don’t know. I never went to one. I only heard rumors.”

  “What kind of rumors?”

  “That there was fooling around.”

  “What kind of fooling around?”

  “Like I said, I only heard rumors. You should ask some of the girls.”

  “How often did these play parties take place?”

  “Look, I already told you I don’t really know anything about them. Only the bits and pieces I overheard.”

  “Like there was fooling around going on.”

  Bry leaned forward and planted his elbows on the table. “This is making me real uncomfortable. I’m sorry I ever said anything. All I know is that there were play parties. Parties to which me and most of the other team members weren’t invited. That’s all I know.”

  “Parties where there was fooling around, as you termed it. I’m presuming fooling around refers to some kind of sexual activity.”

  Peter Bry pushed back his chair and stood.

  “I never said that. I told you all I know. I could get in trouble for this.”

  He looked around the sandwich shop as if to make certain he hadn’t been noticed or overheard. “I gotta go now.”

  He looked at me for a couple of moments, then made tracks for the door.

  I watched him go. I paid the tab and headed for my car. “Play parties,” I muttered to myself. “What in the hell is a play party?”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  “A play party is one that encourages sexual or polyamorous activities,” Marsha Russo read to me from a blog she had discovered on the Internet.

  “Define polyamorous.”

  “Non-monogamous. The play party phenomenon appears to have begun in the East. And it’s not just restricted to normal sexual behavior, it’s also big in the BDSM community.”

  “BDSM?”

  “A composite acronym. B for bondage, DS for dominance and submission, and SM for sado-masochism.”

  “Who goes to these parties?”

  “They seem to cut a wide swath. At least according to what I read on the Internet. Swingers. Group sex aficionados. Recreational sex advocates. People who experiment with their sexual expression.”

  “Where do I sign up?”

  “You know something, Buddy? I wish you were half as funny as you think you are.”

  I flashed her my goofiest smile.

  “Shall we get on with this or do you want to just roll around in your adolescent mire?”

  “Adolescent?”

  “Is it at all possible for you to treat this subject with at least a small measure of maturity?”

  “Who, me?”

  She glared at me. We were in her tiny cubicle, she in front of an Apple desktop, me seated behind her, trying to look over her shoulder but not really able to make out the small print showing on the screen. “So, how does it work?” I prodded.

  “Well, there’s no saying how it worked with Hank Carson and the swim team, but generally speaking, the Internet explains that a play party is an invitation-only event, involving numbers of people and multiple partners. Nudity is almost always involved. Permission to play is a must. Proper hygiene and safe sex are de rigueur. Participation is voluntary and involves all kinds of sexual activity. Those invitees who would prefer to simply watch from the sidelines are encouraged to do so, as long as they don’t interfere with the actual players. No unwelcome touching of a player is permitted, but masturbation is encouraged. What else do you want to know?”

  “How widespread is it?”

  “You mean the play party phenomenon?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s worldwide.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s all over the ’Net.”

  “You mean people have these kind of parties everywhere?”

  “Young and old. Straight and gay. Dominant and submissive. Everywhere.”

  “I find it hard to believe.”

  “Well, you better start believing, Mr. Smarty Pants Deputy Sheriff, because it looks like it’s going on right here in Freedom High School, of all places. Directly under your ignorant nose.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  “Two more this morning,” Johnny Kennerly said.

  He was in his cruiser on a cell phone. I was in my office.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, trying to snap myself out of the deepening darkness in which the play party phenomenon was threatening to engulf me. “What did you say?”

  “Fielbert’s Garden Supplies and Rogie’s Donair Emporium. Every available inch of their wall space has been spray-painted with weird drawings and oversized letters. All of them signed, I might add.”

  “Robber Xmas?”

  “Mostly, yes.”

  “I think we’ve reached critical mass. It’s time to raise the stakes.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “By getting the word out that we’re serious about apprehending these dickheads. Big rewards for those who lead us to them. Big penalties once they’re caught.”

  “And we go about doing this how?”

  “We print Wanted signs and post them everywhere. Every possible Internet outlet should be posted as well. We establish a Graffiti Hot Line and man it twenty-four/seven.”

  “How do you propose we pay for all this?”

  “By legislative decree. Which has already been granted.”

  “You mean the Council is going to fund this?”

  “I do.”

  “How did you arrange that?”

  “Helena Madison.”

  “No shit. Helena’s gotten this approved?”

  “She has.”

  “No shit,” Johnny repeated. “How did you get her to do it?”

  “I said yes to a little one on one contest.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “She and I are going to play a little one on one together.”

  “What are you, crazy? She’ll wipe the floor with you.”

  “Is there any way I might convince you to keep your opinions to yourself?”

  Johnny snickered. “Oh, baby. This, I can’t wait to see.”

  “Play parties,” my father exclaimed.

  We were having lunch on the back patio of his house, his favorite spot, more so because it had also been cherished by my late mother.

  It was a balmy, windswept afternoon and a pair of red-topped house finches caught my attention as they chased each other around the yard, stopping on occasion to forage for something to eat, then noisily resuming the chase.

  Lunch for me was a chicken salad sandwich. The Sheriff’s was a peanut butter and jelly, which was all he was currently able to eat. His health was still on a downward spiral and he had
begun to experience difficulty swallowing. Rather than adopting a liquid diet, he became defiant, forcing himself to eat solids, and having some success with the PB and J. “So, that’s what was going on?”

  “Seems to be all the rage. Marsha read me blog postings from play party participants all over the world. Without going into detail, it does appear that this phenomenon has caught on big-time. Reflective, I’m guessing, of the changing philosophy regarding sex and commitment.”

  “Changing how?”

  “A loosening of moral standards, perhaps. The rejection of traditional values such as marriage and monogamy as the sole criteria for sexual relationships.”

  “Must be right up your alley.”

  This comment hit home. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Sounds like your kind of lifestyle.”

  “Where are you going with this, Burton?”

  “You’re what now, thirty-four?”

  “Thirty-two.”

  He looked more closely at me, as if he were appraising my candidacy for non-monogamous hook-ups. “Whatever,” he muttered. “You never married. Never even had a girl you thought seriously enough about to bring home. Aren’t you a perfect example of a changing world philosophy regarding sex and commitment?”

  “I’m not sure I would agree with that. You don’t see me involved in any play parties.”

  “Probably because you didn’t know they existed.”

  It struck me that the old man was purposely needling me. I discovered the edges of a smile at the corners of his mouth. And even though I was his victim, it pleased me to see him rising to the occasion. “Were you looking to get my goat this morning?”

  “Hey, if the shoe fits.”

  “It doesn’t fit. Okay?”

  I pushed my plate back and stood.

  “Oh, sit down, Buddy. Don’t be so thin-skinned. I’m the one who’s dying here, remember?”

  I sat back down, somewhat contrite. I took a bite of my sandwich and with my mouth still full, offered, “This play party thing might conceivably have had some connection to Henry Carson’s death.”

  “Because?”

  “There’s a rift happening between members of the swim team.”

  “Where he was a coach.”