Boy Toy

by Michael Craft

  With a petulant sneer, he looked at me, swiping tears from his cheek with the back of his hand. He turned and told Glee, “You people are always ready to assume that love is sex, or repressed sex, or dirty. My God, you’re both mature and savvy. Can’t you appreciate that I truly loved Jason without thinking of him that way? Must it always boil down to fucking?” And again Denny wept.

  If this was an act, it was a good one. I felt ashamed and embarrassed in the face of such naked emotion. “Denny…,” I began.

  “You, Mahk, surely you understand the depth of feeling that such a boy can nurture. But I did not lust for him. If that were the basis of my love for him, do you think I’d dare hope that Jason could love me?” Denny vaguely gestured to himself with both open palms, looking vulnerable and pathetic.

  I sighed, unsure what to tell him. “Jason’s sister, Mica—”

  “Oh, please. Gag me.” He rolled his reddened eyes.

  I laughed, grateful to find even a shred of humor in our conversation. “Jason’s sister surprised Sheriff Pierce and me with something she said on Monday. She told us that Jason was gay.”

  Denny shrugged. “I think he was, yes. So?”

  I plunged ahead. “She suggested that you and Jason had been having an extended affair, which had soured. She claimed to have heard Jason fighting with you on the phone, and—”

  “My God,” Denny nearly shrieked. “You think that I’m the killer?”

  Glee to the rescue. “No, Denny, of course not. It’s just that certain aspects of Mica’s story seemed to add up: Jason was gay, and he’d been working with you on the play, and—”

  Denny shrieked. “You think that I’m gay?”

  Glee looked at me; my blank expression told her that she was on her own. She answered Denny, “Well…yes. Aren’t you?”

  I was tempted to add, Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

  “No,” he insisted, sitting upright, hands on hips.

  I borrowed his previous line: “Oh, please. Gag me.”

  He turned to me, looking a mite steamed. “Mahk,” he minced, “you, of all people, should be sensitive to the dangers of stereotyping. The way I dress, walk, or e-nun-ci-ate is no accurate barometer of my psychosexual makeup. Your stud-muffin charade”—he pronounced it with a French twist, sha-ROD—“is certainly no barometer of yours.” Harrumph.

  I lifted a hand to my forehead. Glee stifled a laugh. I asked him flatly, “Are you seriously asking us to believe that you’re straight?”

  “Mr. Manning”—he eyed me coldly—“I don’t give a shit what you believe.”

  “Yeah, Mr. Diggins? My readers might give a—”

  Again, Glee to the rescue. “I think what Mark is trying to say is that public opinion can be extremely volatile, especially in a small town. The circumstances of Jason’s death seem to have everyone on edge. When word gets around—as it surely will—that there may have been a sexual angle to the murder, people will start to see you in a suspicious light. Your best strategy is preemptive, Denny. Why not just clear the air on this issue?”

  Glee deserved a raise. Come Friday, she’d notice a blip on her stub.

  Denny nodded, weighing all this. “It’s really no one’s business, but the truth of the matter is that I’m—God, I hate the word—asexual.”

  I glanced at Glee for help, but saw that I was on my own. “You mean…you’re, uh, sterile?”

  He tisked. “I mean, sex just doesn’t interest me. I don’t, in the parlance, ‘swing’ either way. I’m a virgin at forty-eight, okay? Satisfied? Go ahead—laugh it up.”

  I wasn’t laughing. Though I suddenly saw Denny as a self-deceptive, sexually confused, and tormented middle-aged man, I found it unlikely, given the enormity of his ego, that these humiliating admissions were lies. In short, I believed his contention that he was not actively gay. There was a further consideration: Denny had clearly been stressed on Friday evening when his play’s leading actor failed to appear for the opening performance. These two factors led me to believe, with a measure of disappointment, that Denny was not the culprit. Mica Thrush, the victim’s sister, was seemingly wrong. Had she merely invented the whole story of her brother’s liaison with Denny as a means of diverting suspicion from herself? Or was she somehow mistaken on the details?

  I rose from the chair without comment, stepping to the window wall that separated my offices from the newsroom. Facing out, I watched the midmorning activity through the huge pane of plate glass. Behind me, Denny breathed heavily, his emotions spent. Glee riffled through her notes.

  Then the rustle of paper stopped. “The phone calls,” said Glee.

  I turned. Denny looked up at me, then over to Glee.

  She said to Denny, “You’ve told a number of people that you repeatedly tried phoning Jason on Friday afternoon, concerned about his recovery from his cold.”

  Denny nodded, affirming, “I was nervous as a cat that day—with good reason.”

  “But”—I stepped near him—“the police have checked the computerized phone records, and there were no calls traceable to you that afternoon, in or out, on any of the several lines that serve the Thrush residence.”

  He shook his head, stating flatly, “That’s impossible. I phoned at least six or eight times from noon onward, leaving messages on the machine.”

  Glee suggested, “Or on voice mail.”

  “Whatever,” he snapped. “What’s the difference?”

  “Denny,” I said, sitting on the arm of the chair next to him, “it’s pointless to lie about this. The records are clear-cut. The police can check your own phone records as well, which’ll only prove—”

  Glee interrupted with a new thought. “What number did you phone, Denny?”

  With a put-upon sigh, he fished a classic “little black book” from the inside pocket of his blazer. He noisily flipped its tiny, gilt-edged pages. “Thrush, Jason,” he said; then he read us the phone number.

  Glee and I looked at each other, my pinched features mirroring hers. “That exchange doesn’t sound right,” she said, having worked at the paper for decades. “In fact, it’s not familiar as a local exchange at all.”

  I guessed, “Maybe it’s a cell phone.” Sitting in the chair, I reached for the speakerphone and slid it near me on the low table. When I punched a button, we all heard the dial tone. “That number again, Denny?”

  He repeated; I dialed; a line rang. After several rings, there was a telltale shift of ring pattern as the voice mail kicked in.

  Then a disembodied, digitized voice spoke to us, as if from the grave: “Hey, it’s Jason. You know the drill. Talk to me.” Beep.

  With a jittery finger, I punched a button, disconnecting the call.

  The color had drained from Denny’s face. He stared at the phone, speechless.

  Glee bounced the tip of her pen against her glossy red lips. “Interesting.”

  I nodded. “Could you phone Sheriff Pierce, give him that number, and ask him to run a history?” I stood, stepping into my office to grab my jacket.

  Glee smiled. “Dashing off?”

  Feeling inside my pockets for notebook and fountain pen, I told her, “I’m overdue for a visit with Mica Thrush.” And I took off toward the newsroom.

  Remembering my manners, I paused in the doorway and turned back. “Thanks for coming in, Denny. Have a great day.”

  Mica was in the driveway of her big dumb house, hosing her brutish new Mustang. Was it merely the slant of my own gay disrelish, or do babes with hot cars always seem a tad vulgar? Picture this:

  Mica’s jet-black muscle car lurched at a rakish angle on the blacktop, as if ready to pounce, intending to devour its mistress. Mica herself wore the skimpiest of black bikinis, a garment consisting of little more than string and pasties. Her toenails, I noticed, were lacquered black to match her fingernails and lips. She frolicked with a black bucket of white suds, stretching to sponge the car with one leg pricking the air. Her other hand held a sputtering black rubber hose, whi
ch twisted and jerked around her body like a hungry, venomous mamba. She giggled and dripped in the hot August sun, pampering her hot rod with languid inefficiency. This spectacle could doubtless provide a testosterone goose for some, but not, alas, for me. To each his own.

  As I parked at the curb and got out of my car, Mica pretended not to notice my arrival, swirling a gob of suds in one of the Mustang’s front wheel wells, as if cleaning its ears. She squatted on the slick pavement with her back to me, knees splayed, the string of her thong consumed by her crack. As I walked up the driveway, she tried to steal an unnoticed glimpse of me while adjusting the nozzle to rinse her beefy Pirelli tires.

  So I stepped on her hose.

  She twisted the nozzle, banged it on the pavement, then looked it in the eye, mystified by its limp performance.

  I was tempted to move my foot and let her have it, but I resisted. “Morning, Mica. What’s seems to be the problem?”

  She sprang to her feet, aping surprise. “Oh, hi, Mr. Manning. The water…” She wagged her flaccid hose, still bewildered by the problem.

  Struggling not to laugh, I summoned an air of sternness. “We need to talk.”

  “Your cute friend was here already, and we talked. You know, the cop.”

  “Sheriff Pierce is beginning a difficult investigation. I hope you helped him all you could.”

  She shrugged. “He went over all the same old stuff with Daddy and me.”

  “Where’s ‘Daddy’ now?”

  “He went back to bed. The sheriff was boring.”

  “Well, I have a few new questions. Maybe you’ll find them more interesting.”

  “I’m kinda busy right now.” She dropped the hose, sloshed the sponge in her bucket, and slathered some suds on the Mustang’s side windows.

  “New car?”

  She nodded. “Just got it. Just last night.”

  Uh-huh. Once the coroner ruled out suicide, she and Daddy must have figured the insurance checks were in the mail. Getting to the point of my visit, I asked, “Did Jason have a cell phone?”

  “Sure.” She was working toward the rear window. “Jason was wireless.”

  Frustrated, stepping toward her, I asked, “Well, why in hell—?” But my question was interrupted by the hiss and spray of the hose, which jerked across the driveway, dousing my shoes. “Christ,” I muttered, stooping to grab the nozzle, screwing it shut.

  Mica’s tongue hung out as she panted her lifeless laugh.

  Kicking water off my feet, I finished my question: “Why in hell didn’t you mention Jason’s cell phone when we were here on Monday? You knew we needed to trace your brother’s last phone calls, didn’t you?”

  “Well, sorry.” She looked at me as if I were nuts. “You were asking about the number of lines in the house and the voice mail and all—we weren’t talking wireless.” She plopped her sponge in the bucket.

  Shaking my head, I thought aloud, “I should have figured it out yesterday, as soon as Doug reported that there were no calls from Denny on the phone log.”

  “Denny Diggins? Definitely—he and Jason talked all the time—I heard them. Like I told you, they were…involved.” She tittered. “Can’t imagine what Jason saw in him.”

  “Mica,” I said flatly, “you’ve been making things up, and I want to know why.”

  She put her hands on her hips, striking a defiant pose—quite a sight, considering her near nudity. “What have I been making up?”

  “The whole business about your brother being gay and his on-the-rocks love affair with Denny Diggins.” There was now good reason to suspect that Jason had indeed been gay, but I was trying to put Mica on the spot. Would she back down and admit that Monday’s revelations were mere speculation? Or would she get defensive, reaffirming the whole story?

  She got defensive. With an uncharacteristic touch of fire, she assured me, “Jason was gay. He told me things; I saw things; I heard things. And I know that he was involved with that old guy. Sometimes Jason was away all afternoon with him, sometimes all night. They were together. They were having sex. And lately, they were fighting about it. I know—because I heard Jason on the phone.” Having made her speech, she reached behind her head, flicked her long, straight mane of black hair to the side, and picked up the hose.

  Watching her attempt to rinse the sun-dried soap from her car, I weighed two possibilities: either Denny had lied about his asexuality during our emotional encounter earlier that morning, or Mica was lying to me now. Somehow, I still trusted Denny’s soul-baring on this touchy matter. But if Denny had never even broached intimacy with Jason, why would Mica so stridently assert the story of a soured tryst? I could think of only one clear motive for such a lie.

  I asked her, just loudly enough to be heard over the spray of the hose, “Why did you take out a life-insurance policy on your brother?”

  She twisted the nozzle, dropped the hose, and turned to face me. “Why? Because it was cheap.”

  I might have predicted any number of answers, but this was not one of them. Stupidly, I asked, “What?”

  “I’m twenty-one, Mr. Manning.” She suddenly sounded mature, worldly, and shrewd; I wondered if her bimbo routine had been an act all along. “Mom’s dead, Dad’s sick, and his business is failing. School’s not my thing. Success, in my book, is a fast car and a place in Aspen. No one’s going to hand it to me, so I’ve learned to look out for myself. I live well enough here, for now. What money I have, I invest.”

  “In life insurance?”

  “Exactly. It’s a waiting game, but I’m young—and as I’ve said, Dad’s sick. I’ve assumed all along that the business would go to Jason, so I had to insure Dad’s life to make sure I’d get something substantial when he dies. Trouble is, Dad’s a bad health risk, and the insurance is expensive.”

  I offered mock consolation. “What a shame.”

  With a fuck-you sneer, she squatted at the bucket, wringing her sponge. “Anyway, while exploring all this, I discovered that it was dirt cheap to insure Jason’s life—he was young and healthy, with excellent actuarials. So I figured, What the hell? For a few extra bucks I could give myself a nice extra cushion. Now, lo and behold, Jason is dead, and I get two million dollars.” Standing, she tossed the sponge aside, lifted the bucket, and carried it to the curb.

  Following her, I asked, “Has it occurred to you that many people might find the circumstances of your brother’s policy suspicious?”

  She threw the dirty water into the street, then turned to me. “I got lucky,” she said with a shrug, “that’s all.”

  Neil and I met for lunch at First Avenue Grill, and I reported on my meetings with Denny and Mica.

  He, in turn, reported on his attempt that morning to phone Roxanne at her Chicago law office. “They said she’d gone down to Springfield for a few days—can you imagine? I wonder what that’s all about.”

  “Carl. Obviously.”

  “Obviously—I can’t quite see Rox visiting Lincoln’s tomb. But what about Carl? Did she go to confront him, to ‘talk,’ or just to spend some time with him?”

  I shook my head. “Only she can answer that. We’ll have to wait to hear from her.” In truth, I didn’t really care, not just then. As a friend, I owed Roxanne at least a sympathetic ear in her ongoing saga of romance-versus-commitment, but that Wednesday afternoon, I had weightier concerns on my mind.

  Finishing lunch, I told Neil, “I have a meeting scheduled with Dr. Formhals later, down at the Public Safety Building. I need a refresher on the medical aspects of Jason’s death. But I have some spare time first—”

  “Time to kill?” cracked Neil.

  I smiled, but let it slide. “I think I’ll linger here at the Grill for a while. When the lunch crowd thins out, I want to talk to Nancy.”

  “Be gentle,” he told me, grinning. “No rubber hose.”

  “Not yet,” I assured him, returning his grin. My smirk, however, was triggered not by the image of Nancy Sanderson sweating out a brutal interrogation, but b
y my recent memory of Mica Thrush wound up in wet black tubing.

  Neil stayed for an extra glass of iced tea while I had coffee, but he kept checking his watch. “Sorry, I need to get back. I’m sending Cynthia’s pavilion project out for bids today, and there’s a lot to wrap up this afternoon.”

  We clasped hands over the table. I told him, “No need to keep me company. Get your work done. We’ll catch up tonight.”

  He stood. “Early dinner, remember. Thad has rehearsal.”

  I nodded. “I’ll give you a call if anything develops.”

  We winked as a substitute for a kiss, then I watched him leave, never bored by the sight of him in motion.

  Some twenty minutes later, the last of the other patrons had left the restaurant, and Nancy noticed that I alone remained. She crossed to my table with a tentative smile, asking, “Is everything all right, Mr. Manning? Is there something you need—more coffee, your check?” She whisked an imaginary fleck of lint from the sleeve of her neat silk suit.

  I smiled. “Everything’s fine, thank you, Nancy. I was hoping, if you had a few minutes, we could talk awhile.”

  Clearly, my request was unexpected, but after only a moment’s thought, Nancy bobbed her head. “Of course, Mr. Manning. My pleasure.” She added, “As long as it’s ‘just us,’ may I offer you a chilled glass of Lillet? I just might join you.”

  Laughing, I replied, “How could I refuse such an offer?”

  So she got the bottle and a pair of small glasses, then joined me at the table. As she poured a few ounces for each of us, she told me through a wan smile, “It seems very strange to be sitting with you.”

  “I hope it’s not unpleasant.”

  “Heavens no, Mr. Manning.” She recapped the bottle of Lillet. “I merely meant that you’ve dined here hundreds of times since your arrival in Dumont, and it’s always been my pleasure to serve you.”

  “I understood what you meant.” Since she had offered the liquor and poured it, I expected her to signal that we should drink it—perhaps a casual toast—but her hands had left the table, resting demurely in her lap. So I took charge. Fingering the little glass (it resembled a juice glass, but was more delicate), I raised it slightly and told her, “After all this time, it’s a pleasure to get better acquainted.”