These men, Brad knew, were the real power brokers in the room. The others—the famous others, like the megastar seated down the table from him—were mere actors and entertainers. Though their names carried the weight of legends, they were of little interest to the power elite.
What intrigued Brad most was how each of these men had risked something by being there—if not their families, then their careers and reputations. Their lives were a grand illusion perpetrated before the public's blind eye, with a history of closeted behavior reaching back as far as King David's passionate love for his 'friend' Jonathan.
So many gays had struggled to be what they were: men who could have sex with other men, and look themselves in the mirror the next morning knowing they weren't immoral or damned, but simply actors in the Theaters of Carnality and Love. Yet the men in this room cowered from the real world, thrashing about in gilded cages that separated their public selves from their private desires. It wasn't enough to have the bird in the cage, Brad knew. The bird needed to soar! That was something Ross had taught him.
Brad glanced over the elegant spread. A voluptuous floral arrangement grouped an impressive variety of orchids, ranging from the tiniest fingernail-sized blooms to others as big as a fist. Similarly, the wine boasted labels so exclusive they weren't even listed in most sommelier guides. The half-finishedCos d'Estournel sitting before him must have cost at least four or five hundred dollars. A French superstar of wines, it was the Bordeaux equivalent of the celebrity seated just down the table. Brad had been curious about both for years. At least the bottle would be available for sampling.
The food, too, was as extraordinary as it was delicious. A warm bear liver salad was accompanied by a succulent emu pate, though he passed when it came to monkey brainsa l'orange.
The evening's entrée, wild boar stuffed with Asian truffles, was carried out by a bevy of spectacular servers clad only in aprons. Conversation stalled each time they made an entrance, and seemed unable to revive till they left the room again. Perhaps that was what all the exorbitant prices were about, Bradford mused: this conspicuously decadent consumption and these overprivileged men playing at being bad boys.
He found himself stealing glances across the table to Hayden Rosengarten, auteur of this risqué engagement. Their host sat smoking a cigar and chatting with his guests. Brad was drawn to the man's forcible presence and the steel-blue eyes that quietly took in everything around him. What exactly, he wondered, could there be to fear from this man?
The team of muscled servers entered yet again, bearing gleaming trays of oysters on the half shell. As one overeager Adonis passed, he stumbled and nearly crashed into the table. With a snarl, their host plunged his burning cigar into the boy's bare chest, pushing him aside with a single action.
"Clumsy oaf!" he bellowed.
"My fault, sir!" the boy mumbled, terrified, as he hurriedly retrieved his tray and ran from the room.
None of the guests seemed startled by the incident. Clearly this wasn't unusual behavior in their social circle.
"Useless servants," Rosengarten griped. "What do I pay these people for?"
"Careful, Hayden," the senator warned, "or they'll be calling you a Republican."
"I've been called worse."
"What's that—a Democrat?"
"You're all the same to me," Hayden snarled. "The bottom line for everyone in this room is power, one way or the other."
Here, Brad saw, was a man clearly unafraid of the wealth and influence surrounding him. His curiosity was beginning to get the better of him. Ross had worked right here during the final months of his life. What part had he taken in this Roman Circus? Had Hayden Rosengarten ever burned him with a cigar?
Money and fame might distinguish the men in this room from the rest of the world, but it didn't make them interesting or principled. It was a gala of the unglad, hosted by the ungracious, for the undeserving.
When the meal was over, the apron-clad beefcakes returned with a variety of chemical substances on trays. The old-looking young man across from Bradford helped himself to three different powders.
"You might want to be more cautious about mixing those," Brad suggested.
The man turned his gaze toward Brad and blinked. His pupils were so dilated the irises seemed to have disappeared. He waved a cigarette in Bradford's direction, as though it were an extension of his arm for making public pronouncements.
"They way I see it," he drawled, "I'll either die happy or have a really good time trying."
He bent to take another snort. His name hadn't rung any bells when he'd introduced himself earlier, and for the life of him Brad couldn't remember it now.
Brad felt a foot steal into his crotch for the second time that day. He looked up to see the old-young man leering across the table. He appeared to be on the verge of a drug-induced coma. How'd you ever get so lost? Brad wondered, feeling like a world-weary mother.
A tray passed before Brad. Beside the lines of noxious substances sat a small dish of groundnut toffee for those who preferred sweet to the savory. Food, sex, drugs—there seemed to be something for every taste. Just how far would the Ice House go to satisfy its guests' desires? Could 'murder most foul' be on an unwritten list of diversions available for a price?
His thoughts were interrupted by his host.
"What's your pleasure, Mr. O'Shaughnessy?" he heard Rosengarten ask.
To know yours, Brad thought.
A smile played over Rosengarten's lips. His eyebrows arched like an eagle waiting to swoop down on an unsuspecting rabbit.
"I trust we can provide whatever you require in the way of pleasure this evening," his host stated.
"I'd rather hold off for a bit," Brad replied, squirming as the singer's foot meandered over his crotch. "I'm planning on making it through till the wee hours."
"Just like an accountant, harboring even time itself," Hayden said. "Perhaps you'd prefer a more mundane indulgence to start?"
He indicated one of the servers, turning the boy abruptly by the elbow and running a hand over his globelike buttocks.
"This delightful flower is named Athens."
"He's practically an Acropolis in his own right," Brad said.
"If he doesn't meet your fancy, we have more than a dozen others."
Brad's eyes moved to the almond-eyed bodyguard in the doorway.
Hayden followed his gaze. "His name is Johnny K., and I can tell you that his penis is legendary. In fact, I believe he has your name tattooed on it."
There were guffaws around the room. Brad managed a smile. "Sounds tantalizing," he replied, "considering the length of my name."
"He's yours for the asking," his host said. "All you have to do is say what pleases you."
"And what if what pleases me most is you, Mr. Rosengarten?"
The smile froze on his host's face. "Ah! Sadly, I would have to disappoint you. Though I thank you for the compliment."
A clock chimed midnight. A curtain parted and the specter of Marilyn Monroe wavered before them. It was Cinder, of course, but judging by how little interest she stirred up, even the return of the real Marilyn would have created less than a ripple of curiosity with that crowd.
The platinum bombshell shimmied through the room in a torrid rendition of "Heat Wave," fastening herself to Senator Freeman, perhaps the closest thing to a Kennedy she could find. She notched up the temperature with "Fever," wafting feathers and dripping diamonds. Not once in his routine did Cinder betray a hint that he'd noticed Brad among the guests.
Despite the bravura performance, the act ended to tepid applause. Her momentary reprise from purgatory over, Marilyn withdrew like the ghost of Hamlet's father at the cock's crowing.
The curtains reopened on another resurrected legend, this one a rugged '80s porn star dressed in a Roman toga. Bradford could recall any number of trenchant performances the man and his famed appendage had given in their prime. His favorite was Flesh Gordon. While time had done little to diminish the star's awesom
e physique, the drugs he'd imbibed over a lifetime of devotion to his art seemed to have done noticeable cranial damage.
The oversized cretin appeared to have no idea where he was or what he was supposed to be doing until a wisp of a youngster appeared beside him. The boy lifted the giant's robe, exposing his legendary member to a round of applause. This part of him, too, Brad noted, had sadly been affected by the drugs and seemed equally ignorant of its purpose before them that evening.
The young man became absorbed in his quest to waken the sleeping giant. Eventually, he was able to inspire a respectable erection on the aging star, eliciting gasps from several of the men at the table. Aroused, it seemed, the beast was still truly formidable.
A small cheer rose from the crowd. The boy smiled as though he'd managed a great feat, but the greater was yet to come. The star, finally seeming to grasp why he was there, grabbed the boy, who squirmed and let out a scream. The giant slapped a hand over his mouth and began his assault on the young man's sphincter.
"Some people roast a pig when they have guests to supper," Brad heard Hayden say. "I deflower a virgin."
Just then, the thin man from the front door appeared and leaned down to their host, whispering in his ear. Hayden looked up sharply and nodded. He rose.
"Gentlemen, I'm afraid I must leave you for the briefest of moments."
Rosengarten disappeared with his bodyguards, while Ichabod slipped back out the way he'd come.
Brad was curious to know what had made his host leave so abruptly. He looked around the room to see who might be watching. The singer had gone into a drug-induced haze. Ted, meanwhile, had fallen asleep with his chin on his chest, dreaming of blue chips. The others were absorbed by the on-stage spectacle.
Waiting till it seemed discreet, Brad slipped through the door after Rosengarten.
13
Bradford started up the grand staircase after his host's receding footsteps. He passed the portrait of the unhappy Maud Lacey, still awaiting the return of her peripatetic son. Next to her was an original Botero, the painter's famous fat men looking lustfully mischievous in garters and negligees. They'd always made Brad laugh. Now they reminded him of nothing so much as the roomful of ninnies he'd just left.
Upstairs, three separate passageways led off from a circular landing. Brad peered around a corner and saw Johnny K., the almond-eyed guard, posted outside a paneled door. A loud voice came from inside the room. Clearly, that's where Hayden had gone.
Brad peered down the second hallway. At the far end, a ladder led upward. In all likelihood, he realized, it ascended to the cupola. It would be useless to go up there now. He chose the third hallway and found himself treading a darkened passage to a set of double doors where a sign read, 'Arctic Collection of Admiral Donald MacMillan.'
He turned the doorknob. All was dark. He slipped in, closing the door behind him with a soft click. He fumbled in his pocket for Sebastian O'Shaughnessy's matches and struck one against the box. As it flared, a ghostly white shape lunged at him out of the darkness. Brad stifled a yell and fell back with a thud. The room plunged into darkness and silence again.
He lay there listening. Nothing moved. Had it been the ghost of Maud Lacey, still haunting her house after all these years? Brad wasn't sure he was ready to believe in ghosts. Still on his back, he struck another match. Towering over him, a polar bear reared on its hind legs, claws menacing the air and teeth set to tear apart anything that got in its way. Thankfully, its time for destruction was long past.
By the light of the fading match, a row of stuffed puffins sat laughing silently at him. They'd known all along it wasn't Maud Lacey's ghost. Off in another corner, a ship's anchor had come to rest. The match died again. Brad stood and lit another. He moved softly about the room whose walls were covered in maps and charts that once belonged to Admiral MacMillan and his crew. They'd been seeking a new world at the top of the globe, but somehow all routes had led to Provincetown.
A wall hanging caught his eye. Three silhouettes crossed a wooden bridge as a flock of birds winged silently past a pagoda. A boat waited in the distance. Something protruded from behind the weave. Brad ran his hands over the hanging and felt the wall shift. He gave a quick push and a panel opened.
He was in the secret slave closets! The darkness ahead was pierced by pinpricks of light. Brad eased his way along till he found himself peering through a hole into a sumptuous bathroom with smoked glass walls. Whatever else it might contain, his host was noticeably absent. He continued on to the next peephole.
As he inched forward, Rosengarten's voice came booming through the wall.
"Are you threatening me?" Brad heard him snarl.
He could see his host pacing around a large oak desk, the phone pressed to his ear.
"Try me, you son of a bitch!" Hayden spat into the receiver. There was another pause. "Well, join the parade. Lots of people would love to see me dead!"
Shifting his gaze, Brad saw the Nubian bodyguard standing inside the door.
"You listen to me, you little worm!" Hayden sneered. "You're a fake and we both know it. I'll expose you to the whole world if you try anything else!"
Rosengarten hung up violently just as a knock came at the door. Ichabod entered wearing an agitated look.
"Yes, Jeremiah?"
"It seems one of our guests has vanished," the thin man said, his gloomy gaze roaming the room. "A certain Mr. O'Shaughnessy."
Oh-oh! Brad thought.Gotta scram!
Rosengarten motioned to the bodyguard. "Cyrus, take Johnny K. and find him. He can't be far."
Brad watched as Ichabod exited behind the guard, then he hurried back down the darkened passage to the Arctic Collection. He peered out into the hallway in time to see Ichabod descending the stairs along with the two guards.
He waited till they were out of sight before slipping from the room and across the landing. He'd just reached the top of the stairs when he heard footsteps coming up. He froze. It would be impossible to return to the Arctic Room without being seen. Gauging his chances, he decided to take a risk.
He sprinted down the hall to Hayden's door and stood in the doorframe, smiling invitingly. A hand lingered suggestively over his crotch.
"Hi there!" he called out. "I was hoping to catch you alone."
Hayden's steely eyes took in his guest. "Ah! My young friend with the father complex. I seem to have become somewhat of an obsession for you."
Whoever had been coming up the stairs arrived at the door right behind Brad.
"Yes, Joseph," Rosengarten snapped. "What can I do for you?"
The young man stopped in his tracks. "I was... just coming to see if everything was okay, sir," he said.
"It's all right," Hayden said. "Mr. O'Shaughnessy was just expressing an interest in my... well-being. You can go back down."
"Yes, sir!" The boy disappeared down the hall.
Rosengarten waited, his eyes on Brad. "Come in, Mr. O'Shaughnessy," he said, leaning against his desk and picking up a cigar.
Brad retrieved a match and lit it for him. Rosengarten puffed several times, and then looked over at Brad. "How are you enjoying your evening so far? I trust you're having a memorable time?"
"Very memorable, thank you.Interesting guests, tantalizing food, and delectable service."
Brad looked around, quickly taking in the room—filing cabinets, bookshelves, a standing lamp. There was nothing out of the ordinary.
"And then there's the house itself," he continued. "I'll bet the history is fascinating. Am I correct in thinking the hedge outside is belladonna?"
"Quite correct!" Hayden said, breathing a cloud of smoke. "You're not only handsome, but observant as well."
"Don't you worry about, uh, poisoning your guests?"
Hayden shrugged. "There are things inside this house that are far more deadly," he said. "Not to mention tempting. It's amazing what money can buy."
Brad nodded. "I'm no stranger to the things money can buy," he said. "And I know all pleasu
res have their price."
"Of course! As do all men. But I pride myself on offering the things that money can't buy."
"Such as?" Brad asked, alert to the answer.
Rosengarten fixed his gaze on Brad. "Discretion, for one," he replied simply. "It can be a priceless commodity when you have need for it. Personally, I find it a necessary complement to both the deadly and the tempting. You must have recognized the good senator sitting in our midst?"
"Of course."
"How do you think he'd feel if word got out that he was seen frequenting a resort like this?"
"Not very happy, I'm sure," Brad said.
"Exactly! Especially as he has plans to run for the presidency in the near future. And we are also graced with the presence of a very big star this evening. He has some highly irregular tastes, to say the least."
"'To each his own,' as they say. I'm sure you must get all types here," Brad said.
"All types, yes indeed. Politicians, movie stars, religious figures... even Mafia heads."
And all in good company, Brad mused.
"Why, just two nights ago we were host to a very queer fish indeed..."
Rosengarten brought the cigar to his lips and seemed to ponder the memory, as though it disturbed him.
Two nights ago was when Ross was murdered, Brad realized. Just how queer was this fish and what did it have to do with Ross's death, if anything?
"That's why these men spend thousands coming here instead of going elsewhere. Absolute discretion," Hayden continued, punctuating the air with his cigar, "is my guarantee when they walk through this door. Why, the names I could name..."
Brad leaned forward.
Hayden pulled back. "But I would never," he said. "I'm not free to disclose trade secrets. If anyone thought I was trying to blacken his reputation, I'd be putting myself in a very dangerous position, indeed."
"My lips are sealed, Mr. Rosengarten."
"And such lovely lips they are," Hayden said, tapping ash into the palm of his hand.
Brad looked directly into Rosengarten's eyes. I'm flirting with my ex-lover's murderer to entice evidence out of him, he thought. How obscene is that?
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