by Dorien Grey
The place reminded me very much of our friend Bob Allen’s original bar, The Ebony Room, before it burned down and he reopened it as Ramón’s. I mentioned it to Chris, and he agreed.
“Yeah, it does, doesn’t it? I never realized that before.”
Of course Jonathan, who was familiar with Ramón’s but who came along long after The Ebony Room days, was a little at a loss as to what we were talking about.
“I’m glad I didn’t meet Dick while he was with you,” Jonathan said to Chris.
“Why’s that?” Chris asked.
“Because as long as he was with you, he and I would never have gotten together.” It was pure Jonathan-logic, but he was probably right, and I was glad that things worked out the way they did.
Chris introduced us to the bartender and a couple of the patrons he knew, and we sat around talking for nearly two hours until I realized it was about time for us to head home if I hoped to get up early in the morning. I also realized, with no little self-satisfaction, that ever since my visit to The Hole earlier that evening, I’d not spent nearly every minute thinking about who had killed Rod Pearce. I sensed I was getting close, and it was a good feeling.
*
I awoke at six o’clock Thursday morning, but with Jonathan’s head on my shoulder and his arm across my chest, I didn’t have the heart to disturb him. I lay there listening to him breathe and staring at his face, watching his eyes move under his closed lids as dreams came and went.
It doesn’t get much better than this, one of my mind-voices said softly.
When he moved his arm to rub his nose, I moved toward my edge of the bed, and his head slipped onto the pillow. When he finished rubbing his nose and moved his arm back to put it over my chest again, I was gone. He didn’t notice.
I showered and managed to dress without waking him, then went into the kitchen to make coffee.
This time it was I who was standing by the window, looking out at a cloudless day, when Jonathan came up behind me and put his arms around my chest, laying his head on my shoulder. I turned around and kissed him. He had a slight case of morning breath, but I didn’t care.
“Why didn’t you wake me?” he asked, taking the cup from my hand and taking a sip, then making a face: “No sugar! I keep forgetting!”
He went to the kitchen for his own coffee, then returned to join me by the window.
At about 7:20 I called for a cab. Better fifteen minutes early than one minute late.
*
I arrived at 8:12, after a slow walk around the block to kill time. When I announced myself to the doorman, he called Tait’s apartment, then said: “Mr. Duncan will be right down, sir.” A minute or so later, the elevator doors opened, and Tait stepped out. Keith, carrying Tait’s briefcase, remained in the elevator as the doors closed.
“Keith’s bringing the car around,” Tait said with a casualness that changed my mood from mildly puzzled to mildly irked.
I could very easily have just gotten on the elevator and ridden down to the garage with them, but then realized that Keith’s “bringing the car around” was probably all part of the game.
We waited at the curb until a shiny new Mercedes, Keith behind the wheel, pulled up in front of us. Tait opened the back door for me, and we got in. I felt slightly Midwest-middle-class awkward not to be riding in the front seat. And I was duly impressed to see that Tait even had a car phone.
Ah, to be rich! I thought.
“I should say,” I said to Tait as soon as we got in, “that I consider myself officially ‘off the clock’ as of our conversation yesterday, so I won’t be charging you for any time today.”
Tait tilted his head in my direction and raised an eyebrow. “Nonsense,” he said. “Our conversation yesterday was before I found the gun was missing. So you are still ‘on the clock’ as far as I am concerned.”
“That’s very nice of you,” I said. “Thanks.” Then, deciding not to waste any time, I jumped right in. “So tell me about the gun.”
“Not much to tell,” he replied. “I went into the box office to get it as I was about to leave, and it was gone. I searched all the drawers, but nothing. No gun, no box of shells.”
He saw me looking toward Keith, who had his eyes on the road.
“And no,” Tait said, “Keith did not take it…did you, Keith?”
Keith glanced quickly into the rearview mirror. “No, sir.”
Well, that apparently settled that. I chose to move on.
“Go over for me, if you will, the night that Rod was killed. You said you didn’t have a chance to speak with him at all, which is why you gave him the note.”
Tait nodded. “That’s correct.”
“Was there anything unusual about that night’s rehearsal? Was Rod or anyone else acting strangely?”
A slow headshake. “No, nothing at all that I noticed.”
I leaned forward in my seat. “How about you, Keith? Did you see or hear anything out of the ordinary?”
He did not look into the rearview mirror. “No, sir,” he said. “I was in the office all evening, working.”
“Did you by chance see Tait give Rod the note?”
There was a pause no longer than the length of a mouse’s eyelash—but I caught it—before he said, “What note, sir?”
I sat back in my seat.
“Tait, I think I remember you saying you were in a hurry to leave that night. May I ask why?”
“I had a business meeting.”
At eleven o’clock at night? I wondered, then thought, So if Tait was at a business meeting, he has an alibi! Why didn’t he mention it before?
“And Keith drove you?” I asked. That could give them both an alibi!
“No,” Tait said. “I decided to drive myself.”
“And how did Keith get home?”
Tait shrugged. “I have no idea,” he said. “Cab, subway, bus…it wasn’t my concern.”
Of course it wasn’t, I thought. You’re the Master! But obviously that was normal for him.
“Tell Mr. Hardesty how you got home that night,” he said without raising his voice. I was sure Keith wouldn’t be able to hear him, but he apparently did.
“I took the bus, sir,” he said.
“Not a cab?” I asked.
“No, sir,” he answered.
I turned again to Tait. “May I ask who you met with, and what time the meeting was over?”
He looked at me with a bemused smile. “Are you accusing me of killing Rod?” he asked.
“I’m just playing devil’s advocate,” I said. “If the police decide to intensify their investigation, it’s the kind of question they will undoubtedly ask.”
He shrugged. “Then I’ll be in something of a predicament,” he said. “I was supposed to pick up my business associate at his hotel, but as I was on my way, he called me to say he’d just gotten back from dinner and thought he might have come down with a mild case of food poisoning and would have to reschedule our meeting after he returns from Europe next week. So I returned home and went right to bed.”
“And did you see Keith when you got home?”
“Keith has his own room,” he said with a wry smile, “and I assume he either hadn’t gotten home yet or was already asleep. So no, I did not see him.”
Okay, so much for that. Next question.
“Are you sure Gene does not know that you had sex with Rod?” I said it rather softly in hopes Keith wouldn’t hear the question—I was embarrassed enough for him.
“I’m sure he does not,” Tait said.
“So he hasn’t been acting any differently toward you lately?”
“Not any more so than I’d expect from someone who had just lost someone he loved deeply,” he said. “And in reference to my one encounter with Rod, I would trust that under the rules of privilege—assuming that such rules apply between private investigator and client—that he never will.”
“He certainly won’t hear it from me,” I said, pausing only a moment before asking my
next question. “Rod was killed near a bar called The Hole. Do you know anything about it, or if Rod ever went there?”
“I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never been there. Too many would-be Masters and not enough slaves.”
I looked again toward Keith, and again Tait smiled. “Keith does not go into bars alone,” he said.
“As for Rod’s ever having been to The Hole, I don’t know. I do know that he occasionally enjoyed going to the more…shall we say ‘esoteric’ places?...to study the kinds of people who went there; how they acted and reacted. I don’t picture The Hole being the kind of place he would go to pick up a trick.”
We were relatively quiet for the rest of the trip, what conversation there was being basically small talk. Keith, of course, said nothing.
When we pulled up at the Departures area of the terminal, Keith hurried around from the driver’s side to open the door for Tait, then opened the front passenger’s door to extract Tait’s briefcase and hand it to him. I was waiting for the ride back into the city, and the chance to talk to Keith one on one. Obviously, Tait knew it, because when Keith got back into the driver’s seat, Tait opened the rear door and leaned in.
“Oh, and Keith,” he said, looking at me, “you may tell Mr. Hardesty anything he might want to know.” He then smiled. “I’ll undoubtedly talk with you tomorrow.”
He was holding the door open with his right hand, so shaking hands would have been a bit awkward, so I just said, “I’ll look forward to it. And thanks again for your cooperation.”
Tait closed the door and Keith, without looking back, drove off.
“Pull over when you have a chance, Keith,” I said. “I’d feel more comfortable riding up front, if that’s okay with you.”
He nodded and a moment or two later we saw flashing lights ahead and traffic slowed to a stop. I took advantage of it by quickly transferring from back seat to front. As we moved slowly ahead we could see a police car at the scene of what appeared to be a minor fender-bender. As soon as we passed it, traffic resumed its normal pace. Keith kept his eyes on the road and did not so much as glance at me.
After a good two minutes of silence, I could tell he wasn’t about to speak until spoken to, so I stepped right in.
“I do have some questions you could help me with,” I said, “and I give you my word that I will not repeat anything you say to Tait.”
He gave me a quick, sidelong glance, but remained silent.
“This is probably a truly stupid question,” I continued, “but since Master/slave relationships are totally foreign to me, I’m curious as to why any guy would want to be a slave.”
He glanced at me again, longer this time, and he smiled slightly as his eyes returned to the road.
“I really don’t know how to answer that question,” he said after a moment’s thought. “Some things just are. What we are and how we got to be who we are is the result of our cumulative life experiences. Why is a drag queen a drag queen? Why is a leatherman a leatherman?”
He had a good point.
He glanced at me. “Sorry I don’t have a more concrete answer.” He was quiet a moment, then continued. “I’m too close to my own life to really describe how I got to be a slave—it’s just something that is a part of me. I can see Mr. Duncan’s evolution more clearly than I can see my own.”
“And that would be…?” I asked.
“Mr. Duncan was an only child. His mother died in childbirth, and his father treated him very much the same way as he treats me—right down to the sex. On Mr. Duncan’s—my Mr. Duncan’s—sixteenth birthday, his dad took him to a high-class brothel and selected a girl for him. Mr. Duncan went with her to her room, but refused to have sex with her. When she told the old man, he was furious, so he took them both back to the room and he had sex with her and made Tai…” he caught himself just in time…“my Mr. Duncan watch so he could learn how ‘real Duncan men’ were expected to behave. He never got over it.”
While it was a real struggle to keep all the “Mr. Duncans” straight—no pun intended—I think I got the picture.
“Their relationship deteriorated to the point where his father had his lawyer draw up a new will, cutting my Mr. Duncan out entirely, but died suddenly before he could sign it, and the family fortune passed from father to son.”
Wow! That was some story, I thought. I wonder how much of it is true?
“How did his father die, do you know?” I asked.
Keith shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think Mr. Duncan ever said.”
“So that explains Tait being a Master,” I said. “It doesn’t explain why you take it from him, and why you don’t leave him.”
He looked at me again. “You love Jonathan, right?” he asked.
“Very much,” I said.
“And you’d do anything for him?”
I knew where that was going. “Almost,” I said. “But there are lines that can’t be crossed, no matter how much you love someone.”
Keith shrugged. “Different people draw different lines.”
“And it doesn’t bother you to watch Tait having sex with other guys?”
He gave a shrug. “It doesn’t happen that often, and if it pleases him to have me watch, I watch.”
I’m sorry, but I was really having trouble going along with what he was saying.
“But how do you feel about it?” I pressed.
He gave me a look that told me clearly I didn’t have a clue, and he was right.
“If Mr. Duncan is happy, then I’m happy.”
“Did you watch Tait and Rod having sex more than once?”
“No. Just that first time when he came to visit.”
“And you weren’t the least bit jealous of Rod?”
He shook his head. “No. Why? You think I could have killed Rod?”
“Did you?”
He looked directly at me, his eyes and face serious. “Of course not.”
Give it up, Hardesty, I thought. You’re in a different universe here.
I suddenly remembered something Joe Kenyon had told me about past incidents at the Whitman.
“What do you know about…” damn! What was the kid’s name? Oh, yeah, “…Michael Greene? He had the lead in Triangle and killed himself not long afterwards.”
I saw his hands unconsciously tighten on the steering wheel. “I’m not supposed to talk about that.”
“Tait told you you could answer any questions I had,” I pointed out, “and I promise I won’t let him know you told me.”
“Michael was a very disturbed individual,” he said. “Mr. Duncan thought he was just a seriously repressed slave. So the night after the show closed, Mr. Duncan had sex with him, as a Master. Well, if Michael was a repressed slave, maybe he couldn’t handle the realization. A couple of days later he killed himself. It really shook Mr. Duncan, and he’s never tried that tactic again.”
“And what about Ted Marx, the stage manager a couple of years back? He apparently just disappeared between rehearsals.”
Keith smiled as if to himself. “Ted was a friend of one of Mr. Duncan’s business associates, who referred Ted. Ted was a real con artist and he somehow convinced Mr. Duncan he knew a lot more about stage-managing than he actually did, so he hired him. When Mr. Duncan realized it, he called Ted in and told him he’d have to let him go. But it seems Ted had seen Mr. Duncan at an S&M bar in full Master gear and threatened to spread the word among Mr. Duncan’s straight friends and business associates. He said he’d leave if Mr. Duncan gave him a $10,000 ‘Termination of Contract’ fee. Mr. Duncan agreed and told him to come back the next afternoon. When he did, Mr. Duncan had set up a hidden tape recorder and, as he handed over the money, I stepped into the room and took a photo of it. Ted didn’t know what had hit him, but Mr. Duncan took back the money and told Ted that if he ever saw him again, he’d turn the photo and the tape over to the police. Ted got the message.”
I’d been impressed not only by Keith’s calm demeanor throughout what Jonatha
n would certainly have called “the interrogation,” but by how effortlessly he maneuvered through the congested streets without constantly having to slam on the brakes to avoid pedestrians, cabs, police cars with wailing sirens and flashing lights, and other distractions. An unflappable guy. And for some reason I couldn’t explain, that thought really bugged me.
*
Keith drove me to Chris and Max’s apartment.
I thought about how lonely Keith’s life must be—I assumed Tait didn’t want him to have friends of his own—so when we reached the apartment, I said, “Would you like to hang out with us for the day? I’m not sure what we’ll be doing, but I know you’d be welcome.”
He smiled, but it quickly faded. “Thanks, Mr. Hardesty,” he said. “That’s really nice of you, but I really can’t. I’ve got some errands to run for Mr. Duncan, then there’s some work I’ve got to do at home, and he might call needing me to do something.”
“You’re sure?”
He smiled again. “I’m sure. But I really appreciate the offer. You and Jonathan make a great team. Be happy.”
We shook hands and I got out of the car and watched as it drove off.
You know, love can really suck sometimes, I thought.
I climbed the stairs and, not having brought a key, rang the bell to the apartment. The guys were waiting when I entered.
“Sorry,” I said. “Another morning shot to hell.” Jonathan came over to give me a hug, and I followed him to the couch and sat down.
“No problem,” Chris said. He was sitting on the arm of Max’s chair, an arm around his shoulders. “You want something for breakfast?”
“Nah,” I replied. “It’s almost time for lunch anyway. I assume you’ve had breakfast, though?”
They nodded in unison, making me feel somewhat better to know they hadn’t held off waiting for me to return.
“So, any plans for the rest of the day?” I asked.
“We thought we might run over to Staten Island,” Max said. “Jonathan says he likes riding ferries, right, Jonathan?”
“Well, he’d better not let me catch him!” I said.
Jonathan blushed furiously, then joined our laugh.
*
We decided to have lunch when we got to the island, and left the apartment about ten minutes after I’d gotten back.
