“Probably not,” Donny said. “The truth is, they’re having a hard enough time dealing with the fact their kid is gay. He’s not going to back down on that one. I doubt it would improve matters by telling them he’s been living with a ‘person of colour.’”
Dan turned to Domingo. “What do you think?”
“I’ve met Lester a few times. He’s a very nice boy. But like any kid, he has to make his own mistakes. Live and learn.”
“That’s right,” Donny said. “I won’t be the surrogate dad who kept him apart from his blood family. But as far as I’m concerned, I’m his chosen family. I told him he’s welcome back here any time, even if it’s just for a weekend stay-over.”
They sat there silently contemplating this.
Donny stood. “Time for dessert,” he said, heading for the kitchen.
“Seems kind of hard,” Trevor ventured when Donny had gone. “Donny’s looked after the boy for a year and now he just wants to leave.”
“It’s ingratitude,” Dan said, colouring. “I don’t like it.”
Domingo looked at him sympathetically. “It’s not ingratitude, Dan. It’s a fifteen-year-old boy wanting to be a part of his family before it’s too late. Don’t judge him for it. Time will tell if it’s the right thing or not.”
Trevor put a hand on Dan’s. “In any case, Donny has been both generous and courageous in having Lester here with him this past year. Let’s hope it works out for the best.”
“Oh, it will,” Donny said, flouncing back into the room with a tray of tiramisu. “Anyway, that’s me — social issues galore. But having that boy here has given me a new lease on life. No regrets — and I have you to thank for it, of course,” he said, looking at Dan. “Anyway, I’d rather not talk about it any more, if you don’t mind.”
Domingo excused herself to use the bathroom. When she was gone, Dan turned and hissed at Donny. “What is she doing here?”
Donny gave him a baleful look. “She called me up last week and said she wanted to get in touch with you. I thought it was time you two talked, so I offered her your phone number. Then I remembered you were coming over this evening, so I invited her to join us. And here you both are.”
Dan shook his head. “I didn’t even know you’d kept in touch with her.”
“I’ve kept in touch with all your cast-offs.” He affected a mock-shiver. “There were so many of them I thought at one point I’d have to open a shelter.”
Trevor grinned but turned away so Dan wouldn’t see.
“There’s nothing for you to worry about,” Donny told Trevor. “You’re one of the few he’s met who were worth keeping. Apart from moi, of course.”
Domingo returned. Donny refreshed everyone’s drink.
Trevor looked over at Donny. “Dan said you’d started a new job.”
Donny’s face lit up. “Yes! You are looking at the official buyer for Mondo Beautique. It’s a very upscale specialty chain where they purposely price things higher than necessary to discourage non-exclusive clientele.
I fit right in.”
Glasses were raised all around the table.
“Are you still in the private investigation business?” Domingo asked Dan.
“More or less. I’ve been on my own for the past year, though. It’s been tough.”
Donny looked over. “But not so tough that he would ever reconsider the offer to go back to his old firm.”
Dan shook his head. “It was time for me to get out. As for the sort of cases I’m handling now, you don’t want to know.”
“Why is that?” Domingo asked.
Dan shrugged. “It’s mostly a lot of chasing down child support evaders.”
Trevor shot Dan a look to say he was being needlessly disingenuous, but he was not going to spill his secrets for him.
Donny caught the look passing between them. “Tell,” he said. “You are doing something besides chasing deadbeats. What is it now? Chimney sweep? Rat catcher?”
“Nothing so innocuous,” Dan said. “In fact, the opposite.”
He told them briefly about his unsuccessful attempt at tracking down Darryl Hillary.
“He was sent to jail eleven years ago for dating a fourteen-year-old girl. He was nineteen at the time. They were serious about each other, apparently, till his father turned him in for statutory rape. He ended up doing two years in jail.”
“And now he’s dead,” Domingo said.
Donny shook his head. “Seems a bit harsh when you consider Michael Jackson dated a fourteen-year-old boy and didn’t do any time at all. But maybe boys don’t count.”
“I agree with you,” Domingo said. “It’s reverse discrimination. Had it been a fourteen-year-old girl sitting on Jackson’s lap, he would have ended up in jail on charges sooner. But because boys are supposed to be tougher than girls, people weren’t freaking out as much, especially not in the arts community, where homosexuality is taken as a matter of course.”
“It’s true,” Dan said. “But the issue here is whether it’s immoral for two people who want to have sex to do so no matter what their ages.”
Donny nodded. “I always wonder if Liz Taylor knew. She defended Jackson to the ends of the earth. I can’t believe she’s naïve about such things. All those rumours about child molestation can’t have passed her by.”
“She’s a smart woman and apparently they’re very close,” Trevor said. “Remember how she went to Singapore to bring him back to the States after the charges were laid?”
“I think she believed they were in love,” Domingo said. “And that they were entitled to it.”
The others turned to look at her.
She shrugged. “After all, the boy was an adolescent, not a child. Jackson might like ’em young, but that doesn’t make him a child molester.”
“I agree,” Dan said. “I don’t think he’s a child molester. Not in the way we think of it. He was dating a younger man, not unlike what happened to my client and his girlfriend. If it were such a dirty secret, Jackson wouldn’t have dated the boy in public. He even brought him to the music awards. He just misjudged the public’s ability to tolerate such things.”
Donny nodded. “Jerry Lee Lewis married his thirteen-year-old cousin, for god’s sake!”
“What did that make him?” Dan asked.
“A pariah. It pretty much ended his recording career for nearly a decade. He also claims to have been fourteen when he married his first wife, who was seventeen. They just did it young down there.”
Dan whistled. “Hey! How come you know so much about Lewis? He’s not a jazz artist.”
Donny raised a finger in warning. “Jerry Lee Lewis is a very cool guy and don’t give me any grief over it.”
“I was thirteen when I had sex with my first boyfriend,” Domingo said. “He was in his twenties.”
“It’s an island thing,” Donny said.
“That’s right.” Domingo smiled. “The women came later.”
Donny turned to Dan. “How old were you when you first had sex with another man?”
“Twelve.”
“And he was older, yes? I seem to recall something you told me about your youthful proclivities.”
“Yes, he was probably in his thirties.”
“And was it willing on your part?”
“Totally. I went after him.”
“So who does that make a pervert, you or him?”
Dan shrugged. “Neither, in my estimation. I knew what I wanted and I knew where and how to get it.”
“Exactly!” Donny exclaimed. “So why should Michael Jackson be treated any differently? Or Darryl Hillary or anyone else? If we lived in Holland, where the age of consent is twelve, none of this would matter.
Your client’s brother could have been ninety years old, and the worst he’d have to contend with would be societal opinion, which is often harsh, but seldom murderous. Why are we letting the wrong people set these legal parameters?”
“Well, the law is a set of conventions that cha
nges over time,” Domingo said. “But we shouldn’t underestimate a young person’s sexual urges.”
“I draw the line at child prostitution, though,” Trevor said.
“So do I,” Donny agreed. “Money has no conscience. It’s one of the reasons I agreed to rescue Lester when Dan brought him here last year. No kid should be forced to have sex with someone just to avoid his parents. End of story.”
A moment of silence descended on the room. The conversation had circled back around to its beginning.
“Come on out here and see my view,” Donny said to Trevor, who took the hint and followed him onto the balcony.
Dan and Domingo sat in silence for a moment.
“That poor man,” Domingo said. “Your client, I mean.”
“Yes, it’s sad,” Dan agreed.
She looked off in the distance, her eyes misty and diffuse. “It’s not over yet,” she said. “For you, I mean. But you know that already, don’t you?”
Dan turned slowly to look at her. He shook his head. “No, I don’t know anything like that. He’s dead. What else is there to say? The police may have more questions to ask me, but as far as I’m concerned my part in it is over.”
She smiled sadly, as though she knew him to be a pathetic liar. “No. It’s got a long way to go and you’re going to get wrapped up in it. You can feel it,” she said then shook her head. “Sorry. I know you hate it when I do this. Let’s not go there.”
They soon heard Donny and Trevor returning. Domingo stood abruptly.
“Donny?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“It’s been a great pleasure, as always. Don’t worry about the boy. Sunshine after rain, that sort of thing. He’ll be fine. He’s going to make you very proud of him.” She shook her head as though she’d spoken out of turn.
She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “Never mind my nonsense. I don’t know what I’m saying half the time.” She turned to Dan. “And Daniel, you are still a delight. One of the kind and caring folk who make this world a better place to live. Please — let’s keep in touch. But remember, it’s not over yet. You need to be prepared for it.” Another kiss. “Say a very warm ‘hello’ to Ked for me. I hope he remembers his Auntie Domingo.”
“I’m sure he does. I’ll tell him you sent greetings.”
She paused before taking Trevor’s hands, staring into his eyes. “Dear, dear Trevor — thank you for bringing some peace to this man’s heart,” she said, nodding in Dan’s direction. “Please be good to him.”
Trevor nodded. “I intend to.”
She smiled ambiguously then turned to Donny. He walked her to the door then returned to the sitting room. For a moment, no one spoke.
“Well, that was a blast from the past,” Dan said at last. “She still makes the grandest exits this side of Buckingham Palace.”
“She wanted to see you,” Donny said with a hint of apology in his voice. “I’m sure you’ll forgive me for inviting her in time.”
Dan smiled slightly. “It’s all right. It was overdue.”
“She means well,” Donny said, still in apology mode.
“I know.”
“Another drink?”
Dan shook his head. “I’m good.”
Trevor was looking from one to the other of them. “Will someone please let me in on the secret here?”
Dan shrugged. “Domingo interferes with things. She used to, anyway.”
“‘Interferes’?” Donny said ironically.
“What things?” Trevor asked.
Donny sighed. “She does this ‘seeing’ thing where she goes off in a sort of trance and says whatever comes into her mind. Sort of like a vision or a prophecy.”
“It’s creepy,” Dan said.
Trevor looked at the two of them. “Is it real?”
“Real?” Donny repeated.
Trevor nodded. “Does it have validity? The things she says? There was someone on Mayne Island who could do that.”
Dan just shook his head. “Who cares? It’s creepy and invasive.”
Donny nodded thoughtfully. “It often has an eerie sort of insight or validity, but not always at the time. More often with hindsight. The problem is — or Dan’s problem with it is — she does it without being asked. She just holds your hand and looks into your eyes and lets fly.”
Trevor turned to Dan. “Is that what she meant when she said ‘it’s not over yet’?”
Dan made an irritated noise. “Who knows? It just bugs me when she does it.” He turned and went out onto the balcony.
Donny looked at Trevor. “The man doesn’t like it. What can I say?”
Trevor smiled. “It’s okay. I’ve seen his stubborn side. What do you think?”
Donny smirked. “About Domingo? I think that there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than you can shake a damned stick at, so why get uptight about it?”
Trevor laughed. “I’m with you there!”
Dan returned to the room. “Want some help with cleaning up before we get out of your hair?”
Donny looked at him. “You’re not in my hair, and no, I don’t require any help. I have a built-in dishwasher and a robot for a vacuum cleaner. And I’m not referring to the boy, who always did a little bit of tidying here and there, but thank you for the offer. And thanks again for the Chartreuse. Now that you no longer drink twelve beer at a gulp, I can handle what you leave behind for me to tidy up.”
Donny went down to the lobby, leaving them where he’d met them three hours earlier.
Six
Heat
The night felt as though it might combust. The coolness of Donny’s condo was just a memory. Each breath seemed a chore as they stepped into the car. Neither of them spoke till Dan flipped on the AC full blast and they sat back, shocked into inertia. Five minutes later they were heading east over the Don Valley, mulling over the news that Lester had left Donny and gone back to his family.
“There was more to it than that,” Trevor said, looking down at the black glass of the river beneath them. “He told me about it when we went out onto the balcony together. He said he didn’t want to bring it up in front of Domingo.”
Dan turned to look, curious that Donny would have confided in Trevor. “Bring what up?”
“Donny thinks Lester got scared and decided he needed to get out of town.”
“Scared of what?”
“Apparently he ran into someone from his past. A man he used to live with who abused him.”
Dan thought this over for a moment. “I knew about the man. Donny never told me Lester had seen him since then.”
They passed through Chinatown East, with its reams of fruit and vegetable stands over-ripening in the heat. Red and yellow lights winked and flashed, giving the impression the city was on fire. Pedestrians plodded with leaden footsteps, as though enduring a stronger gravity field than normal. No one was oblivious to the temperature.
“Lester didn’t mention it till last week,” Trevor told him. “That’s when he decided to leave. Donny wants to talk to you about it when he can speak to you in private.”
Dan mulled this over. Obviously it hadn’t been a total secret, or Ked wouldn’t have known about it. He wondered what explanation Lester had given Ked for wanting to return to his family.
They passed on into the heart of Leslieville. An overhang of branches held sway as the car turned onto their street and edged up to the house. A whiff of smoke hung in the air when they got out of the car. Dan thought of the garage arsonist and looked around. Nothing. Probably just a backyard fire burning somewhere.
They turned to the darkened house. A blast of stale heat hit them as they opened the door. The interior carried an air of quiet torpor. Ked’s hoodie lay draped over the banister, as though he’d returned while they were out. Even in the heat, he was seldom without it. He must have forgotten to take it when he left for his game earlier, Dan thought.
Ralph thumped a greeting with his tail. Too hot to move, he was nonetheless aler
t for the possibility of a walk. Since Trevor’s arrival, Ralph’s behaviour had improved noticeably. His longstanding disagreements with Dan had diminished: fewer accidents on the front hall carpet, fewer items of clothing destroyed when he got frustrated at the long wait between walks.
“How’s my favourite puppy?” Trevor intoned, giving Ralph a quick rub behind the ears.
“Is that how you get him to behave?” Dan asked.
“That and the occasional treat. Bribery and flattery work for most humans, so why not dogs?”
Everyone needed love, it seemed.
“Why not indeed?” Dan echoed, heading for the hall phone.
The first message was a goodnight call from Ked at his mother’s house. His words were touching. “I miss you guys already,” he said. His voice lowered confidentially. “But I’m not telling Mom that. Give Ralph a scratch behind the ears for me.”
Done, Dan thought, bemused as the message ended and another began. The next voice was strange to his ears — curt, metallic. It sounded as though a very officious robot were talking.
“This is a message for Mr. Dan Sharp. Mr. Sharp, sir, this is Detective Karl Danes of the Toronto Police, 11 Division. We met last night at the North York Pork Slaughterhouse.”
Dan pictured the fleshy police officer. The man’s name had been something like Danes.
The voice continued. “Sir, something further has come to light in this regard and I would appreciate an hour or so of your time. If you could call the following number, day or night, and let me know when it would be convenient to meet with you, I would greatly appreciate it. My number is …”
Dan switched off the message. “Domingo,” he said.
Trevor had followed him into the hall. He looked over.
Dan shook his head. “‘It’s not over yet.’ She actually said that less than an hour ago.”
Trevor watched Dan’s face. “You don’t sound surprised. Did you know you were going to get this message?”
Dan gave him an aggrieved look. “No. I didn’t know anything about it. How could I? Anyway, what does ‘not over yet’ mean? Lots of things are not over. Darryl Hillary still needs to be accounted for, for one thing. His life may be over, but his story isn’t finished till they catch his killer. Why is that significant?”
Dan Sharp Mysteries 4-Book Bundle Page 42
