by Mark McNease
Scott was obviously pleased. He smiled and waved at the waiter, about to order another drink.
“Hold off on that,” D said. “Let’s have a second drink at my townhouse. I have Scotch that’s been sealed and waiting for you for seventy-five years.”
“Seventy-five-year-old Scotch? You really shouldn’t.”
“Please, that’s what it’s for. I’ve been saving it for a special occasion, and something tells me that occasion has arrived.”
D let his leg slide against Scott’s under the table. Scott pressed back and a moment later D felt Scott’s hand resting on his knee. How easy they are, he thought. How easy.
The waiter came over, expecting to fill another drink order. Instead, D said to him, “Check please,” as he took out his wallet. Scott reached for his and D said, “This one’s on me. Now think of where you’d like to have dinner and we’ll decide in the taxi.”
Scott couldn’t believe his good fortune. Meeting Phillip had relieved him for an evening of his worries. No thoughts of being in “transition,” no thoughts of dipping into his savings for months as he looked for another job, no thoughts of yet another night alone as so very many of his nights had been. He was feeling especially lucky as they stepped outside and Phillip raised a hand to flag a cab. Soon he would be sipping on Scotch that had waited seventy-five years for him to taste it! It was going to be an evening to remember.
Chapter 19
It had been a long day for Danny, filled with more emotion than he was used to or would like. Nostalgia wasn’t a weakness of his, but he’d spent the afternoon immersed in it: nostalgia for the years he’d been at Margaret’s Passion, with Margaret. Nostalgia for a time in his life he knew was passing quickly into memory. Nostalgia, even, for the years he knew he could never get back. Time, Danny had learned, was a non-renewable resource, and the older we get, the less of it we have. Unlike anything else in our lives we cannot replace it. It left him with a sense of self-pity, and that was something he disliked in anyone, especially himself.
He was relieved to be at home, back in the apartment with their cats Smelly and Leonard, back with Kyle and their friend Linda. As he prepared the beet and goat cheese salad he reminded himself there were always people with something to truly be sad about. Linda’s wife Kirsten was in Phoenix awaiting her arrival while she tended her mother in the final stage of her life. They’d both liked Dot when they met her at the women’s wedding. She’d seemed robust enough at the time, but Danny knew cancer could come fast and furious, zero-to-sixty in a matter of months, and that’s what had happened to Dot. According to Linda she wasn’t expected to live out the month of July and Danny had already spoken to Kyle about going to the funeral if they were invited.
“I love scallops,” Linda said. She was standing in the kitchen doorway watching Danny and Kyle prepare dinner.
“The trick is to not overcook them,” Kyle said. Frying the scallops was his task and he watched them carefully in the pan, making sure they didn’t turn to rubber.
The dinner consisted of scallops, sautéed spinach, baked potato and the salad. It was a rare treat for the men to have dinner at home with a guest. They ate at home often enough, but seldom with anyone else in attendance. It gave Kyle a chance to take out the small folding table they used for company and set it for three. Normally, he and Danny ate sitting on the couch in front of the television, or sometimes on bed trays while they watched something they’d recorded. Smelly and Leonard, too, were delighted to have a visitor. The activity interested them and they kept walking in and out of the kitchen, waiting for something to happen. Smelly was hoping for a scrap of some kind, which she would not get. Leonard, meanwhile, kept marking Linda’s ankles with his teeth, sliding them against her as he walked back and forth.
Fifteen minutes later they were all seated at the table. Kyle placed it by the window overlooking Lexington Avenue. It wasn’t all that scenic—the view was out over the avenue, and across the street they could see Baruch College. Street sounds drifted up, the occasional car horn, a shout now and then. Kyle hoped they could make it through dinner without the shrill interruption of a siren.
“So how’s the party planning going?” Kyle asked Danny, referring to Margaret’s going-away celebration.
“It’s going fine,” Danny said. “I’m just glad it’s not a surprise. You can’t keep something like this a surprise. Speaking of which …”
Kyle waited a moment for Danny to finish. When he didn’t, Kyle said, “Yes? Speaking of surprises?”
“She gave us the building.”
Kyle didn’t understand. “What do you mean, ‘gave us’ the building?”
“As in ownership, Kyle. She signed the building over to us.”
“That’s amazing!” Linda said.
“In good ways and bad,” said Danny.
“I still don’t understand.”
“It’s pretty self-explanatory, Kyle. She gave us the deed to the building. Well, to me, but that’s the same thing.”
Kyle was stunned. They owned their apartment free and clear, but an entire building? What would they do with something like that?
Danny continued: “She said she doesn’t need the money, she has that from the restaurant purchase. She can’t take the building with her—her words—and she just … I don’t know … gave us the building. Not sold us, not loaned us. Gave us.”
“Oh my God,” said Kyle. “What are we going to do with it?”
Danny looked at him. “We’re going to become landlords, that’s what. We’re going to keep the restaurant open, and decide what to do with the building twenty years from now.”
“Jesus.” Kyle’s mind was racing. He’d been worried Imogene might take a job in another city and leave him. He didn’t want to work for someone else, didn’t want to work in an office at all if it came to that. He’d wondered a hundred times what he would do if he lost his job. His photography was a pastime, not a profession. He was weary of being an assistant in his 50s. And now this—a landlord, a restaurateur. Maybe this was the path he was meant to take.
“This is a lot to think about,” Kyle said.
“A lot,” Danny replied. “But not right now. It was a long day. I’ve got a party to finish planning, a building to own, whatever that entails. So damn much. And I want a new suit, for Margaret’s going-away.”
“You’ve got plenty of suits,” Kyle said.
“No. I want something new, something really expensive. Margaret deserves the absolute best, and I’ll give that to her.”
“You have a tuxedo.”
“I don’t want a tuxedo. I want Armani, or Versace, something stunning.”
The subject of a new suit made Kyle remember the places he and Linda had been that day, the people they’d talked to. “I’m not sure where to start tomorrow,” he said to Linda.
“I thought we were going to Keller and Whitman. That seems to be a vanishing point for Victor Campagna.”
“What’s Keller and Whitman?” Danny asked.
“It’s a high-end men’s clothing store,” Kyle said. “I’m sure they sell some very fine suits. Would you like to go with us?”
“I can’t. I’ve got an appointment in the morning with a florist for centerpieces. Then I have to help Chloe get out invitations. We should have mailed them a week ago. I think I was putting it off, you know, avoiding the whole thing.”
“Well,” said Kyle, “if we see any suits I think you’d like I’ll take some pictures and email them to you.” Then, thinking of the surprise Danny had dropped on them at dinner, he said, “A landlord. What the hell? We’ll be like Fred and Ethel Mertz without a Lucy and Ricky. Maybe Linda and Kirsten would want to move in. I heard Linda does a mean Babalu.”
“No, thank you,” Linda said. “I like my little house in the woods, and Kirsten’s gotten to like it quite a bit, too. Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside.”
“The parade Sunday might change your mind,” said Danny. “It’s not like anything you’ve
seen before. The biggest party New York City throws every year.”
“I won’t change my mind, but thank you. I like New York City as a great place to visit. Let’s keep it that way. I’m good for one big parade a year, in someone else’s hometown.”
Someone else’s hometown. It made Kyle think about bodies in the river, the Pride Killer’s return. New York City was the killer’s hometown, too. He would have to put aside thoughts of owning a building, being a landlord and running Margaret’s Passion. Somewhere out there was another man about to be lured to his death unless they moved quickly. He planned to be out of the apartment with Linda first thing in the morning, getting breakfast somewhere as they headed east to be first through the door at Keller and Whitman. He hoped whoever worked there would remember the young man who came in Monday looking for a suit, assuming he’d made it that far.
Chapter 20
D didn’t like changes to his plans, least of all sudden ones. But what had really changed except the timing? He was careful to always be prepared. There was nothing he was going to do tomorrow night that he couldn’t do tonight. And besides, it was too late, unless he wanted to call the whole thing off, and that was out of the question.
He let Scott babble on about looking for a new job, keeping his chin up, refusing to surrender to all the naysaying about the job market and older workers. He smiled and pretended to listen, nodding when he detected a pause, meanwhile having a conversation with himself in the privacy of his mind. Doubt had begun to seep in, and that was entirely new. He wondered if the time had come to stop, to make this his last Pride weekend killing spree and remain forever uncaught. He could become a legend—or more of one than he already was. He could become the most famous serial killer of them all … the one that got away. He had to consider it. He’d made the foolish mistake of choosing Victor Someone from among his customers. Then he’d hailed a taxi in front of Pianissimo’s, instead of walking Scott a block or two to keep from being seen outside the bar. What other mistakes might he make if he kept this up? He knew they weren’t deliberate. He was not one of those sad sociopaths who wanted to be caught, to find themselves the subject of tabloid television segments, interviewed from death row. He assumed it was because he’d been out of the game for three years, but was it really a game he wanted to see to its conclusion?
He was deciding to have one last go of it and retire when he glanced out the window at a street sign. 78th Street, three blocks from his home. Better to get out now in case the police somehow found this taxi driver and the man remembered them.
“You can let us off here,” D said, leaning forward to speak through the partition.
The cab pulled over. “I’ve got it,” D said, taking a twenty dollar bill out of his wallet and handing it to the driver. He threw the door open and stepped out, not waiting for change.
“This is where you live?” Scott said, looking up at the apartment buildings.
“A couple blocks,” D said. “It’s such a nice night, let’s get some air.”
Scott was amendable to a short stroll and the two of them headed up Third Avenue. Five minutes later they turned onto 82nd Street and D led them to his townhouse.
“Upstairs or downstairs?” Scott asked, looking at the four story building in front of them.
“Oh, all of it,” D replied, smiling. He could tell by the impressed expression on Scott’s face that the seduction had begun. How easily people let down their guard in the presence of wealth, he thought, walking up the four front steps and letting them into his home.
Once they entered they stood in the front entryway, a long hall with dark wood floor planks as old as the house itself. D tossed his keys on an antique crescent table, above which hung a portrait of an elegant woman in a blue gown and raven hair sitting in a red high-backed chair. D had no idea who she was. “My grandmother,” he said, nodding at the picture.
Judging by the wealth displayed in the painting, Scott decided money ran in the family and that he’d done quite well on this date. Very different from the last few he’d had. The men he met online were either older and still using profile photos from ten years ago, or younger and disappointed in him for a variety of reasons. He had all but given up dating, and was now glad he’d given it one more chance.
D led them into the living room, which might properly be called a sitting room. There was a television tastefully concealed in an oak cabinet. Along one wall was a fireplace with another portrait above it, this one of a gentleman from the late 1900s and a large dog at his feet. Another stranger D had been looking at for a decade and telling people he was related to.
“This is an amazing house,” Scott said. He was afraid to sit on the couch, which looked well-kept but old and expensive.
D saw his hesitation. “Go ahead,” he said. “It’s made for sitting.”
Scott eased down onto the couch, marveling at its softness. Was it velvet? He wasn’t sure, and he ran his hand across the fabric. So soft.
D walked over and stood in front of Scott. He cocked his head slightly, curious at this specimen. Scott reached out and placed his hand on D’s thigh. A handsome man indeed, thought D. Such a shame. Or such a prize.
D leaned down and kissed Scott. Not passionately, but enticingly. Just a taste.
“What can I get you to drink?” D said. Then, “Oh, wait, Scotch! Scotch for Scott!”
Scott laughed. He was feeling luckier by the minute.
“I happen to have that very old, unopened bottle. No ice, of course. One does not dilute seventy-five-year-old Scotch. I’ll be right back.”
Scott leaned back against the couch cushion. He watched D turn a corner into a dining room. He began to hum a song to himself, one among his few favorite love songs.
D stopped smiling the moment he turned into the dining room and was out of Scott’s line of vision. He walked to his liquor cabinet, another antique he had no use for except as a prop. He leaned down and opened the door, looking into the bottles of rum, Brandy, Bombay Gin and Dewar’s. It was not seventy-five years old, but he seriously doubted Scott would know. If he could tell the difference, he wouldn’t have long to comment on it. D reached behind the bottles, into the back of the cabinet, and wrapped his hand around the bottle of Rohypnol. One of those and Scott would soon think any Scotch was the best in the world.
Rohypnol acts very quickly. Once Scott began to enjoy his Scotch, commenting on its remarkable flavor, which made D smile, there wasn’t much time to get him downstairs.
“I have a wine cellar second to none,” D said, watching Scott for any signs of fatigue. It would be coming soon. “At least not second to any I’ve seen.”
“Very nice,” Scott replied.
And? D thought. He wasn’t expecting a dismissive “very nice.”
“I’m not a wine drinker, definitely not a connoisseur.”
“I’d still like to show you. It’s not something you’ll find in most homes, a world-class wine cellar. Come, we’ll only be a minute. I imagine you’re getting hungry and we should head out.”
“I thought you had some work to do.”
“I’ve decided it can wait. Dinner with such a nice gentleman has pushed any thoughts of work right out of my head.”
“Well, I was hungry,” Scott said. “Now I’m a little woozy.”
“Seventy-five year old Scotch will do that to you. Now please, indulge me. I don’t often have the pleasure of showing off my wines! You can bring your drink. Better yet, finish it and we’ll take a quick trip downstairs.”
Scott nodded, then tipped his glass back and drained the rest of the Scotch. He set his glass down on the coffee table, stood unsteadily and followed D toward a door just off the kitchen.
D opened the door. A waft of cool air rushed up at them. It was a welcome sensation for Scott. He was beginning to feel warm, helped by the June weather. Soon it would be hot in New York City, hot and sticky.
“After you,” D said, standing aside and motioning down the stairs.
“I d
on’t feel well,” Scott said. “I normally hold my liquor quite well. Very strange. You’d think there was something in it …”
A look of dawning realization came over Scott’s face. He was on the third step down when he turned back and stared at D, who was no longer smiling.
“What brand of Scotch did you say that was?”
“My own,” D said. He stepped forward and with both hands shoved Scott down the stairs. He would not normally do this, but he knew Scott was growing suspicious and he had to act quickly. He did not want to break Scott’s neck in a fall—that would ruin the fun—but neither could he risk a struggle.
“Hey!” Scott shouted just as he tumbled backward, down two steps, three, six, finally landing at the bottom of the stairs. His legs felt like rubber and when he flung his hands out grasping for the hand railing, the steps, anything to give him balance and stop his head from swimming, they simply flailed.
“What are you doing?” he managed, looking back up the stairs at D and trying to focus his vision.
D said nothing. The time for explanations had passed—and he never explained himself anyway. He bounded down the steps, leaping the last two over Scott and landing on the basement floor in front of him.
“Help!” Scott cried.
“No one can hear you,” D said. “Not your calls for help. Not your screams when they come.”
D grabbed Scott’s collar and began to drag the now-helpless man across the cellar floor, into his special room. There was an examination table waiting, handcuffs, a state of the art Nikon on a tripod, and the special belt he used to strangle his victims when he was finally done with them. Sometimes it was twenty minutes, sometimes an hour. It all depended how exciting it was and how unwilling they were to have their deaths prolonged. The less they fought, the less he was interested. It was a paradox of the trade: a serial killer who only enjoys the ones who make it hardest to be killed! The easily defeated ones, the ones who went limp or imagined they would please him with passivity, were quickly disposed of. He liked them trying to shout, to call out hopelessly and strain against the bindings. He especially liked the ones who threatened him and told him what they would do to him once they were free. Freedom never came, only a last breath, an exhale of complete surrender. No one would hear that, either. No one except D himself, when he leaned down close, closer, listening to them as they gasped their final breaths.
