Cold Serial Murder

by Abramson, Mark

  “Hi, Tim. You look familiar. Where have I seen you before? On-line, maybe? You on dudesurfer?”

  “What? What line?”

  “On-line… on the Internet… you know, the computer?” Jason looked at him like he was a blithering idiot, which was exactly how Tim felt at that moment. “Dudesurfer.com. I thought I’d cruised you once, even chatted you up, but nothing came of it. That wasn’t you? Castrohottie?”

  Tim didn’t know whether to be flattered or not. He just felt stupid. “No, I’ve never even heard of it. That wasn’t me.”

  As soon as Tim got home that night he punched in dudesurfer.com and bought a one-year membership on his credit card. Then he searched for the user name “Castrohotty, castrati, castrotoddy.” He wasn’t sure exactly what Jason said, but he finally found the one he must have been talking about under “Castrohottie” and he wasn’t a bit flattered anymore. Tim didn’t look anything like that guy!

  Now, all these months—no, years later—he tried to find Jason’s profile by doing a search on everyone who lived within the 94114 area code. There were dozens of profiles, but Tim finally found a picture of Jason’s face and clicked on it. That opened several other photographs, some nudes and some that zeroed in on specific body parts. Tim had never seen these pictures before and it seemed wrong somehow to be looking at them now that Jason was dead. He’d never searched for Jason’s profile before because at first he didn’t think he stood a chance with him and later, when they were together, Tim forgot all about that silly website.

  “Handcock” was his screen name, a take-off on Hancock Street, Tim imagined, but there was also a very sexy picture of Jason holding his cock in his hand. Tim looked more closely at the profile. It said that Jason was 90/10 active and open to just about everything, even things Tim had never heard of before. Then he looked at the date of the last time Jason had been on-line and it was the same as the last “update” of his profile. It was right about the time that Tim and Jason were at the peak of their relationship when Jason had posted: Already have the hottest BF in town. Not looking for LTR, but trying to interest him in a NSA three-way one of these days.

  Tim wished he had a dictionary to explain these initials, but BF meant boyfriend; that much was obvious. Tim couldn’t be happier to know that Jason had called him “the hottest boyfriend in town.” Jason was attentive toward him, especially at first, but Tim had to face the fact that Jason was always raring to go. Jason was as horny as a Great Dane pup locked up in a room full of bitches in heat. But still… this was the nicest thing Jason had ever put into words.

  Tim read the profile again and stared at the pictures of Jason. He wondered who took them. Some looked like professional shots or stills from a porn movie. LTR had to mean “long-term relationship” and when Tim thought a little harder he figured out that NSA stood for “no strings attached.” He remembered the three-ways toward the end of their relationship. They were never Tim’s favorite times, but he went along for the ride.

  “How do you like this one?” Ruth stood in the doorway of the living room holding a freshly pressed green dress in the air. “Is it formal enough for a date with my favorite nephew?”

  “It’ll be great. I’ll get my suit out of the closet.” Between the two of them in a one-bedroom, one-bath apartment with Ruth’s suitcases in the living room and Tim’s dirty laundry spreading out from his clothes hamper into the hall, it was a major chore to get dressed up enough to look presentable at the Grand Cafe, but they managed. Tim liked having his Aunt Ruth around. Or was it simply that he liked having another person in his daily life? Someone else’s energy and voice after he’d lived alone for quite a while now? Tim wondered whether he would ever meet a great guy and really settle down.

  Each week the B.A.R. ran pictures of happy gay couples all decked out in suits and ties with announcements of their recent weddings. Sometimes Tim would stare with envy, especially when one or the other was someone he’d bedded. On one occasion Tim knew both men in the photograph intimately.

  Having his Aunt Ruth around reminded Tim of when they lived together before, all the while up until he finished high school and moved to San Francisco. They had a lot more room there in the sprawling suburban home in Edina, Minnesota. They had his Uncle Dan around too. He wasn’t a bad guy. Tim was grateful that Dan didn’t object to his wife taking in her gay nephew after his parents disowned him.

  Tim and his uncle were never “buddies,” the way Dave Anderson, the track coach, had been at first. That was the first man Tim ever had sex with, the first time he thought he was in love, the first time for so many things that happened just before all the trouble started when people found out. If only they’d been more careful, Tim sometimes thought. “But everything happens for a reason,” his Aunt Ruth would say. “It’s all part of God’s plan.”

  Ruth wasn’t much of a church-going person, at least not during the years when Tim lived with them. Neither was Uncle Dan. Tim tried to remember whether they said grace at meals like at his parents’ house. Maybe Ruth had gone to church when she was younger, growing up sisters with Tim’s mother Betty. Maybe Uncle Dan had drawn her away from the church.

  There were so many things that aroused Tim’s curiosity now but had never come up. This week he and his Aunt Ruth had all the time in the world together. Tim might even ask her what happened to her marriage, not that it was any of his business. They’d never been big on secrets, though, even back in high school. His biggest secret, his being homosexual and having sex with a teacher, was so far out of the bag and out of the closet that any secrets before that one were now a dusty pile of “maybe”s and “if only”s and “what if?”s.

  They were seated at a table for two at the base of a pillar in the main dining room of the Grand Cafe. “What a beautiful place,” Ruth said. “I feel like we’re on a movie set in the 1920s.”

  “Well, it’s quite a change from Arts,” Tim laughed. “Don’t get me wrong. As long as you’re paying for it I’m not complaining. But one thing about Arts is that you can leave there feeling twice as full and spend half the money.”

  Their martinis arrived as Ruth studied her menu. “Look at all these choices. You go ahead and order whatever suits your fancy, dear. I think I’ll have the filet of sole.”

  “I’ve heard the lamb is great. I’ll have that. Be sure to save room for dessert. They’re famous for them here.”

  All Tim knew for certain was that his mother had enough church-going fervor for ten normal people. Her whole life could fall down around her like a crumbling house of twigs in the great quake of 1906. She didn’t care. All that mattered was her church and her bible. He could picture her holding it over her heart, a shield against the arrows of anything ugly or distasteful or anything too humanly real. All she needed was to pray and read her bible. And drink, of course.

  Thinking back on it now, Tim wanted to laugh out loud. Ruth and Betty Bergman grew up good little Minnesota girls whose father was rich and whose mother was a psychic. Now Betty clutched her bible and her booze and Ruth was slinging drinks in a gay bar on Castro Street in San Francisco. Which one had turned out normal?

  They had taken a taxi to the restaurant, but after dinner they walked a while to let their food settle. Only after they headed south toward Market Street did Tim realize they would pass through the seediest parts of the Tenderloin. Not the best sights of the city. A toothless woman in glittering green short shorts and spike heels lunged out of a doorway and screamed at someone in the window above. They stepped over a snoring man splayed across the sidewalk and then they had to walk out into the street to avoid a fight between two large drunks. Tim pulled his Aunt Ruth toward him and waved down the next cab. “Come on. Let’s get out of here and go home. I’d forgotten how dicey this part of town can be at night. Better yet, let’s stop in at Arts and see if there’s any more news. If there’s one thing those queens are good at it’s gossip.”

  It was nearly 11 p.m. and Arts was fairly busy, but they found a couple of open stool
s at the bar. Artie was glad to see them. “It’s been steady like this all night,” he said. “I guess the folks who weren’t here on Sunday afternoon read about Jason in the gay papers today. It’s like another memorial, but without the drag queens.”

  “Look who’s talking about drag queens,” Tim said. “I was just telling my Aunt Ruth this evening about your former career in show business. I told her she could probably get you to bring out some of your old photo albums from Finocchios if she asked you real nice.”

  “You don’t want to see them! Those days are ancient history… but that’s mostly because I don’t fit into any of my old gowns anymore,” Artie laughed and got their drinks. “You know, I thought we’d slow down right after the dinner rush, but it’s only starting to get civilized now that the kitchen is closed. We have simply got to hire another bartender. You should have been here earlier, Ruth. I would have put you to work again. Arturo hired a new nephew he’s training in the kitchen tonight, so I hope he works out.”

  “Tim and I just had a wonderful dinner at the Grand Café, but we can stick around for a while if you think you might need us,” Ruth offered.

  “I don’t think we will, Ruth, but you never know,” Artie said before he walked back to the rear waiters’ station where Patrick and Jake took turns ordering trays of drinks. Viv was playing show tunes, but no one was singing along, even though there was a good-sized crowd on the upper level around the baby grand piano.

  Ruth tried to bring up the subject of moving into a hotel again, but before Tim could respond Jake plopped down on a stool at the bar beside them. “I think Patrick can handle the business alone from now on, don’t you Artie? The dinner plates are all cleared and it’s just cocktail service now. I’m beat and I have an appointment for a new tattoo in the morning.”

  Ruth suspected that another tattoo was the last thing Jake needed. He reminded her of one of those men who traveled with carnival sideshows when she was a girl. Jake had more visible piercings than anyone she had ever seen in Edina. She’d been shocked when the college girl who came in twice a week to do housekeeping for Ruth had gotten a teensy little diamond chip for the side of her nose, now tame compared to Jake. The other waiter, Patrick, was such a contrast. He appeared to be the stereotypical blue-eyed blonde All-American boy. Ruth tried not to be judgmental. They all seemed to get along fine.

  “Sure, go on home,” Artie told Jake. “But you need another tattoo like you need another hole in the head and I mean that literally!”

  “It’s because I’m Jewish,” Jake said. “I got hooked on bodily modification from day one. If I hadn’t been circumcised, none of the rest of this would have followed.” He disappeared into the back room and came out a few minutes later with a black leather jacket over one shoulder and a backpack over the other.

  “Hey, did anyone see the paper today?” Jake asked.

  “I don’t read the papers much since the Weekly World News stopped publishing.” Patrick said. “Remember that issue with the headline: ‘MERMAN CAUGHT IN SOUTH PACIFIC!’? Gee, I loved that paper. And it’s lucky they caught her before she took it on the road. Ethel Merman would have been just so wrong for Nellie Forbush… but what a career move, especially after being dead all these years!”

  Jake laughed. “You are so blonde. Have you been snorting crystal again?”

  Ruth felt lost in their banter. “Of course we saw Jason’s obituary and the article about—”

  “No, not the B.A.R., either.” Jake sighed. “I’m talking about today’s Chronicle.”

  “I have it delivered every morning, but I barely glanced at it today,” Tim said. “It’s still sitting on my kitchen table at home. Why?”

  Jake draped his jacket across an empty barstool and pulled the newspaper out of his backpack while leaning into the bar next to Ruth. “I’ve got it right here.”

  “I saw it,” Artie took the paper from Jake and spread it across the bar. “It’s on the bottom of page four: Knifing victim found in car trunk in Golden Gate Park. Here, Jake, you read it. I can’t even bear to think about it anymore.”

  “Oh my God,” Tim said.

  “Listen to this,” Jake said, “multiple stab wounds to torso and face… blah, blah, blah… 19-year- old foreign student… sophomore at SF State… blah, blah… body wrapped in pink plastic… native of Paris…”

  “How dreadful,” Ruth said. “He was only a child, just like Jorge, and they found his body in the trunk of a car too?”

  “What else does it say?” Tim asked.

  Jake went on, “He had a part-time summer job as a pizza delivery boy …blah, blah… oh wait, I love this part… four large cold pizzas were still stacked in boxes on the back seat… keys left in ignition of the car. It was abandoned in the parking lot next to the Stow Lake boathouse… here’s the last line… name withheld pending notification of next of kin in France.”

  “Do they say if they think it’s the same killer?” asked Tim.

  Jake said, “They don’t say anything about that here, but it seems pretty darned likely, doesn’t it?”

  “Jason wasn’t found in the trunk of his car. He was just inside his own back door on the kitchen floor and he was still alive when I found him. Barely alive, but breathing.”

  “Let’s just think about this logically for a minute,” Ruth said to the group of them. “The first two murders, Jake and Jorge were both linked to this place, but this boy wasn’t. You don’t even serve pizza here, right? And Arts doesn’t deliver food at all.”

  Artie said, “We’re listed with ‘Waiters on Wheels,’ but that’s a small part of our business.

  Ruth asked, “Does this boy’s description fit anyone you might know?”

  Patrick was standing at the bar by this time, “I had a fling with a Frenchman last winter. Ooh, la, la. He was so hot! There’s no way he could have been only nineteen, though. He had to be at least in his thirties. Hey Tim, are you still seeing that sexy French flight attendant? What was his name? Jean-Yves?”

  Tim ignored the question, mostly for his Aunt Ruth’s sake. He pulled the paper closer to have a look at it. “Aside from Arts, did Jason and Jorge have anything else in common? I’m starting to wonder whether the gay angle had anything to do with their murders. Jorge was straight. Does it say whether this French kid was gay? I don’t see anything about that. He could have been either.”

  “Who knows?” Patrick said. “The Chronicle might not have brought it up, but the gay papers will. We’ll have to wait until next Thursday for a follow-up story.”

  “You’re right. There’s too much we can only guess at. We can check the local television news and watch the Chronicle carefully every day to see if they do a follow-up story on it, too.”

  “I’m outta here,” Jake said, “Good-night, everybody!”

  Viv had finally gotten an elderly straight couple to sing along to The Rose. They had obviously had a lot to drink, but they were putting money in her tip jar, so she was happy to play anything. Roy Rodgers with a “d” was waiting for her to get off work, sitting at a corner table all by himself, nursing a beer and working the crossword puzzle in the Examiner. If nobody else came in, Viv would be ready to go home soon.

  “I’m tired, too,” Tim said. “If you don’t need us, Artie, I think I’m ready to turn in.”

  “No, I’ll be fine,” Artie said. “Thanks for sticking around. Go on home.”

  “Shouldn’t we say hello to Arturo, at least?” Ruth asked.

  Tim pushed the swinging kitchen doors open and led the way. “How’s it going, Arturo?”

  “Hey, Tim. Ruth. You two getting a taste of the city?”

  “Yes, Tim showed me a wonderful place tonight, the Grand Café in the Hotel Monaco.”

  “Fancy.” Arturo let out a whistle. “Especially compared to this place.”

  “She paid,” Tim said.

  “There is nothing wrong with this place, Arturo,” Ruth insisted. “By the way, I met another one of your tenants this morning. Or, I should
say, the sister of one of your tenants. Marcia. She said she was Malcolm’s sister… on the second floor?”

  “Sister?” Arturo looked as surprised as Tim had been. “Malcolm doesn’t have any sister that I know of.”

  “She had her own set of keys,” Ruth said. “She told me that she takes care of his place when he’s out of town. I think she mentioned watering his plants or something.”

  “Takes care of what plants? He doesn’t have so much as a cactus. Besides, Malcolm’s not out of town. I just saw him yesterday.”

  “You saw him?” Tim asked.

  “Well, I talked to him.” Arturo explained. “I was giving some water to those dead geraniums Artie put out on our deck. I don’t know why he drags home these plants and doesn’t bother to take care of them. Anyway, the soil was so hard that the water spilled over and ran down between the floorboards. I heard it hitting paper, so I yelled down to apologize and Malcolm said that was okay because it was yesterday’s paper. He travels a lot and we rarely see him. I asked him when he’d gotten home but he must have gone back inside and didn’t hear me.”

  “How odd…” Tim said under his breath.

  “Well, Ruth, if you see any more of this Marcia person, you let me know, okay?”

  “I sure will, Arturo, I sure will,” Ruth picked up her purse and put her jacket over her elbow. “Good night.”

  Chapter 10

  Tim had never cared for church except for Sunday school where you sang silly, repetitive songs, recited Bible verses, and a nice lady would read to the class. At Christmas time, he had enjoyed arranging fabric stars and camels and wise men on a felt-covered board. The stories were as much fun as the funnies in the Sunday paper and just as far-fetched, especially once Tim learned to read the words. Burning bushes might be believable, but not getting two of every animal in the world onto a home-made boat.