by Dorien Grey
“Wow, that’s nice of them,” Jonathan said, not a trace of irony in his voice. “What time?”
“I’ll pick you up at quarter to seven.”
“Quarter to seven in the morning?” he asked, then quickly added: “Okay. Sure. I’ll be ready. I’ll meet you out in front, okay? I’d really like to show you around here, but that’s pretty early and most of the kids will still be sleeping, and…”
I hated to cut him off, but was pretty sure if I didn’t, neither of us would get to bed before midnight. “I’d like to see it sometime. But I’ll meet you out in front at quarter to seven.” Realizing that he had had very little sleep in the past 24 hours, I said: “You get some sleep now.”
“I will,” he said, brightly. “We’ve got our beds in the room already and we have to keep them covered up with a drop cloth during the day when we’re working there, but…”
“Good night, Jonathan,” I said with a smile.
“‘Night, Dick!”
*
Sure enough, when I pulled up in front of Haven House, Jonathan was sitting on the stairs, leaning forward, elbows on knees, hands folded. When he saw me, his face broke into a big grin, and he got up immediately and hurried over to the car.
He looked a lot better this morning than he had the morning before when he’d come to my office. The swelling had gone down considerably, the angry red abrasions had dulled a bit and softened in shade. He had a small band-aid over the cut just above the left-side corner of his mouth. His black eye was still puffy and bloodshot, but at least he was able to open it a bit. He was wearing an obviously old but clean and unwrinkled ABBA tee shirt that one of the other kids must have loaned or given him, and I think the same pair of pants he’d been wearing the day before. I assumed Haven House must have a washer and drier, because I couldn’t see the bloodstains.
I headed the car for downtown, and sat back with a bemused smile to listen to everything that had happened to him since I’d left him the day before, a roster of the other kids in the house, their names, their ages, what he’d found out about them, which ones he liked more than others and why, what his room was going to look like when it was done, etc.
We all know people who ramble endlessly, and normally it’s a trait that drives me up the wall, but with Jonathan I got the feeling that all this was somehow important to him and that he really wanted to share it with me, so I didn’t mind at all.
*
We parked in the public garage under Warman Park and walked the two blocks to the City Annex. Jonathan got quite a few discreet stares, but didn’t seem to notice. He did appear to be slightly apprehensive as we walked up to the main entrance of the Annex. Probably because it was shift-change time, the alley beside the building was lined with police cars and there seemed to be an inordinate number of uniformed officers walking around entering and leaving the various side doors and the main entrance.
We found our way to the elevators and went up to Richman’s floor. One officer in the car with us stood looking straight ahead at the door, but I could see him looking at Jonathan out of the corner of his eye. While I have an absolute obsession with not being late, I’d deliberately slowed our arrival so that we got off the elevator at, my watch said 7:17. I wanted to be sure that the officers had gotten there before we did, and had had a chance to either confirm or deny that they were the ones to leave Jonathan standing in the road. It would be very unlikely, if we were there first, that they would be stupid enough to deny it. But if they thought a denial would get them off the hook, and Jonathan then came in and identified them….
I could hear voices as we approached Richman’s door. Jonathan had been quiet all the way up on the elevator and apparently was a little intimidated by the surroundings and not really knowing what to expect next. I couldn’t really blame him.
I knocked and heard the Lieutenant’s voice: “Come in.”
I opened the door and held it for Jonathan to go in first. The two officers seated in front of Richman’s desk turned slightly, and the look on their faces made it fairly clear how they had responded the Lieutenant’s question.
Richman got up from his chair, and walked over to shake hands. “Mr. Hardesty,” he said, taking my hand, then turned to Jonathan, whose eyes moved back and forth between the two officers. “Mr….?” he asked, taking Jonathan’s hand. I realized I didn’t know Jonathan’s last name either.
“Quinlan,” Jonathan replied.
I noticed that the two officers had turned back to their original positions, and were staring out the window behind the Lieutenant’s desk.
“Mr. Quinlan,” Richman said, “this is officer Kerr and officer McGinnis. Are these the two officers you met on the road yesterday morning?”
The two officers reluctantly turned again to face Jonathan, expressionless.
“I think so. I didn’t get a good look at the officer in the passenger’s seat, but this officer…” he nodded toward the one in the chair closest to us… “was driving.”
Richman didn’t so much as look at the two officers.
“I see. Well, I just wanted you to meet Officers Kerr and McGinnis personally, to express our regrets for the incident, and to assure you that it will not happen again. Thank you, gentlemen, for coming in,” he said as he extended his hand again to Jonathan, then me. Then, without another word, he turned and went back to sit down behind his desk, facing the officers. Recognizing an exit cue when I saw one, I turned and went to the door, Jonathan close behind.
As we rode the elevator down to the lobby, Jonathan said: “Are they going to be in trouble?”
I gave a small smile. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”
*
As long as I had Jonathan with me, I decided to take him by my office to check out the paper with Giacomino’s photo. It was, as I’d said, the same paper that Jonathan had held in front of him when I took the Polaroids, but again, neither of us was paying much attention to the paper itself at the time. When we got to my building, we stopped in the ground-floor coffee shop to get Jonathan something for breakfast—I was pretty sure he hadn’t had a chance to eat before we left Haven House, and all I’d had was a quick cup of coffee while I was getting dressed. I noticed, as we walked into the diner, that the Help Wanted sign was gone. Actually, it was Jonathan who noticed it.
“Darn it!”
Eudora and Evolla, the identical-twin waitresses, were on duty as they had been just about every single time I’d ever been in the place. Eudora had had a mild stroke some time before, but it didn’t seem to have done any serious damage. They had to have been in their mid-seventies by this time—probably fifty of those years spent behind the same counter—but if that fact ever even occurred to them (and I rather hoped it didn’t), they never let on.
It was too early in the day for soup—hearing either one of the sisters yelling “BAW-el!” to the cook behind the service window was one of my life’s little pleasures—so we each had a ham and cheese omelet, with a side order of French toast and a large orange juice for Jonathan.
I saw him casting a rueful look at the spot in the side window where the Help Wanted sign was located.
“There are other jobs out there.”
Jonathan sighed. “Yeah, I know. But….”
Evolla—or whichever one of them was wearing Evolla’s name tag that day—brought Jonathan’s orange juice and French Toast, set it in front of him, and moved away without a word. I knew they could talk, of course, from their calling out orders to the cook, but I wondered if, even at home, their vocabulary included words not found on the diner’s menu.
Jonathan reached for the pancake syrup and emptied about a quarter of it over his toast.
“So what kind of work would you like to do, Jonathan? If you could do anything you wanted.”
He cut a large piece of toast, swirled it around in the lake of syrup, and somehow managed to convey it to his mouth without having syrup dripping all over him. He was obviously hungry and so concentrated on the food in front of him he did not look
up from it. “Anything I can get. I can’t afford to be choosy.”
I took a sip of my coffee. “Yeah, but if you could,” I prompted.
He put his fork down and looked at me.
“Plants,” he said. “I like plants.”
“You mean like a florist shop?”
He shook his head, looking just mildly disgusted. “No, not roses in a box or corsages or funeral arrangements: I think it’s wrong to kill flowers like that. I like flowers that stay right where they grew. I like plants, and trees—especially fruit trees, and shrubs and bushes…stuff like that.”
“Well, maybe you can check out the nurseries when you’re ready.”
He gave me a quick, sunrise-smile. “Yeah, I could, couldn’t I? I thought about it when I first got to town, but I didn’t see any anywhere. I guess they’re all out in the suburbs, and with me not having a car…but I think I’d really like that!”
Evolla (?) brought our omelets, and we ate.
*
When we got to my office, I first checked the answering machine, not really thinking I’d have heard from Lieutenant Richman/Richman/Mark—I didn’t know if I was ever going to be able to settle on which one—and I hadn’t. There was a message from Tom, asking me to give him a call when I had the chance. I’d thought of calling him even before I’d gone to pick up Jonathan, but didn’t want to wake him, and for some reason I didn’t want to return the call with Jonathan there. I also had a message from a client checking on the status of his case, and I felt a flush of guilt at not devoting full time to what I was being paid for rather than wandering the landscape looking for new windmills to tilt at.
I dug the newspaper out of my desk and there, sure enough, was Giacomino’s photo on page One under the headline “Rough Talks Ahead.” I handed the paper to Jonathan and his eyes instantly locked on Giacomino’s photo.
“That’s him! That’s him right there! Shouldn’t we tell the police?”
“They already know.”
“Are they going to arrest him?”
Good question. “I hope so,” I said, “but…”
Jonathan’s face fell, and he continued to stare at the picture. “Oh,” he said, his voice flat. “I know. He’s rich and he has his picture in the paper and I’m just some stupid nobody from Wisconsin.”
“Don’t talk like that!” I said, maybe a little more harshly than I’d intended. “I promise you that this guy is going to get exactly what he has coming to him. Trust me, okay?”
He gave a shrug and his voice reflected his doubt, but he said: “Okay.”
*
As we were getting off the elevator on the ground floor I stopped to say something to a woman from the office next to mine, who was just getting on. As the doors closed between us, I turned to see Jonathan, who was a few feet ahead of me, standing there with a look of mild surprise on his face.
“I wonder what he’s doing here?”
“Who?”
“That cop,” Jonathan said, pointing toward the front entrance. “The one who was driving the squad car.”
“Where?” I didn’t see anybody.
“He was standing right there,” Jonathan said, pointing. “Looking at that list.” He indicated the building registry. “Then he saw us and turned around real quick and left.”
“Are you sure it was him?” I started walking a little faster than normal for the door.
“Sure I’m sure. He wasn’t wearing his uniform, but I recognized him right away.”
We reached the door and went out into the street, each of us looking up and down the sidewalk, but there were just too many people to be able to spot one guy I’d only seen once.
Very strange, I thought…and it was far from a happy thought.
Chapter 6
I drove Jonathan back to Haven House, and he asked me if I’d like to come up and see his room. I told him I had to get right back to the office to take care of a few things, but said I’d like to have a rain check. He just smiled and said “Okay!”
He got out of the car and headed up the sidewalk toward the house as I drove away.
I was going to wait until I got back to the office to call Tom, but though I’d tried to kid myself that the calls he’d gotten were no big deal, it just wasn’t working. When I glanced down at my fuel gauge and saw I needed gas, I used it as an excuse to pull into the next station I came to. I drove to a “full service” pump—another indication of my hurry to get to a phone—and, getting out of the car while fishing in my pocket for change, went directly to the outside pay phone. I dialed Tom’s number, and was glad to hear his “Hello?”—Though I could tell it was a guarded “Hello.”
“How’s it going, Buddy?”
“Oh, hi, Dick. Glad it’s you.”
I wondered what that meant, but let it slide for the moment.
“Did you get some sleep?” I asked, then immediately added: “Sorry, I wasn’t going to do my Mother Hen number.”
Tom laughed. “That’s okay. It’s nice having someone of the same gender who isn’t a relative make a fuss over me. I talked Lisa into going to work today, and I decided I’d answer any phone calls myself. Glad I did, because the department called. They want me back to work Monday, if the doctor okays it. I’ll be on a desk for a week or so, maybe, but it’ll be good just to get back.”
“No more harassment calls?”
“I heard the phone ring a couple times during the night, but nobody left a message. I guess they didn’t want their voices recorded for posterity. I think guys like that are pretty much nightcrawlers, anyway.”
“Well, I guess we both knew something like this was almost inevitable. There are too many sickos out there for it not to. The main thing is not to let it get to you.”
“Oh, I won’t. We Bradys are pretty thick-skinned.”
“Speaking of which,” I said, suddenly remembering the elder Brady and the labor negotiations, “have you talked to your dad?”
“I called him this morning just before he left for the talks. He’s ready, and he’s sure not going to let that sick bastard Giacomino walk off with the farm. I wanted to tell him about the incident with that kid, but decided against it. He’s got to stay focused, and if he knew what that bastard did, he’d beat the shit out of him…he’s a tough old bird, and he could do it, too.”
I had no doubt.
“So you’re going to be home all day?”
“I’ve got to be at the doctor’s at ten thirty, but I’ll be back a little after noon, probably.”
“Good. Maybe I’ll give you a call later and see if you’d like some company.”
“Gee, I don’t know. Lisa won’t be home until about six, so we’d have to be here all by ourselves. I can’t imagine what we might find to do to keep ourselves busy….”
“We could always improvise.”
He laughed, and we exchanged good-byes and hung up.
*
I let myself relax for the rest of my drive downtown, but the minute I walked up to the main entrance of my building, I flashed back to Jonathan’s claim to have seen one of the cops from Richman’s office. I didn’t question for a minute the fact that he sincerely thought he saw him, but it was really pretty unlikely. Still….
I stopped at the lobby newsstand for the paper, noting the headlines: “Labor Talks Underway,” and mentally wished Tom’s dad and his team well. I forced myself not even to think about that scumbag Giacomino.
The phone was ringing as I opened the door and I hurried to the desk to pick it up.
“Hardesty Investigations.”
“Got a pencil?” I recognized Mark Richman’s voice immediately.
“Yeah…” I opened the top drawer of the desk to find one out of the thirty-four or more pencils in there that might actually have a sharpened point.
“Take this number down, then go to a pay phone and call me there in five minutes.”
Thoroughly confused, I reached into the wastebasket for an old envelope, and wrote down the number he gave me.
“Five minutes,” he repeated, and hung up.
I noticed the light on my answering machine blinking, but decided to wait until I got back to check on it. I left the office, and took the elevator to the lobby, which fortunately had a bank of pay phones, only one of which was unoccupied. I glanced at my watch and dialed the number.
“Dick?”
“Yeah. What’s going on?”
“Sorry for the cloak and dagger business, but I have very good reason to believe your phone—your home phone, too, probably—is being tapped. All hell is starting to break loose around here, and this Brady incident is becoming the focus. They know you and Tom Brady are friends, and since they know you’re gay, they’re hoping to catch either you or him saying something incriminating.”
Jeesus H. Kee-ryst! my mind yelled. What the hell did you just do, Hardesty? If they’re tapping Tom’s phone and got that last little exchange between you two…! Shit! Shit Shit Shit!!!
God, I didn’t dare say anything to Richman!
He, of course, was oblivious to what was going on in my head.
“But don’t feel too bad; I found out this morning that my office phone, at least, is being tapped, too.”
No good! No good! I thought. If anybody heard Tom and me talking, the shit has hit the fan for sure! I decided I had to tell Richman; there was too much at stake not to.
“Uh, Lieutenant…” and I used his official title very deliberately “…we have a big problem….” And I told him of my conversation with Tom, as close to verbatim as I could remember it. Up until that moment, Richman had known Tom was gay without knowing he was gay, if you can follow that one.
“We didn’t actually say anything,” I said, lamely.
Richman sighed. “You didn’t have to. I think my grandmother could have read between the lines on that little exchange.”
“So what can we do?”
“Let me talk it over with Captain Offermann and see if we can meet with the chief. This is really bad, I’m afraid, but we just might be able to do some damage control.”
He was silent for a moment while I mentally kicked myself around the block several times. Finally, he said: “Is your friend Jonathan somewhere safe?”
