The Hired Man

by Dorien Grey

  “And your other escorts are…?”

  Again the exchanged glances, and a hesitation before Glick said, “Other than Phil, we have Mike, Billy, Aaron, Steve, and Gary.”

  “So, Phil was the only ModelMen escort Mr. Anderson utilized?”

  There was a momentary pause before Glick said, “When Stuart first registered with us, he did spend an evening with Aaron, but on his next trip into town he asked for someone different.”

  “He and Aaron didn’t get along?”

  “Oh, no, no,” Mrs. Glick said quickly. “It was nothing like that. It’s just that many of our clients enjoy variety. It so happened that we sent Phil, and they got along so well Stuart never found the need to ask for anyone else.”

  “I see,” I said, immediately remembering how much I hate it when people say “I see.” “Approximately how many times did Mr. Anderson and Phil see one another?”

  “Is that important?” Mrs. Glick asked.

  Test time, I thought. I smiled.

  “Yes, I think so. The more times Phil was with him, the more likely someone will remember their having been seen together, and the more curious the police will become.”

  “Well, while I’m afraid it’s inevitable someone will remember Phil in Stuart’s company,” Glick said, “I hope no quick conclusions will be drawn. Stuart always stayed at the Montero, which is nothing if not discreet in guarding the privacy of its guests.

  “But in order to allay any suspicion of Phil’s real purpose in visiting, Stuart felt unnecessarily obligated to imply that he was a company employee working on the new stores. I think there were four visits in all.”

  “Five,” his wife amended.

  “Any overnighters?” I asked.

  “Oh, no,” Glick said. “Stuart was too cautious for that. Phil would go over usually around eight, they would go out for dinner, return to the hotel for a couple hours, then Phil would leave. I really doubt anyone was paying attention, and even if they had been, it would all appear quite innocent.”

  “Undoubtedly,” I said. “But Mr. Anderson’s murder changes all that, dramatically. I understand Phil has an airtight alibi in that he was with a client. But here we may have a potential major problem—any alibi has to be verified, and if his client is reluctant to come forward…”

  Glick smiled broadly and heaved a large sigh.

  “I’m sure, if it becomes necessary, this particular client will not be hesitant,” he said. “He is a very prominent local figure, but thank God he is also gay and his sexual orientation is no secret. He normally does not utilize our services, but he met Phil at a social function and took a liking to him. Phil is very likable.”

  Oh, my, yes! I thought.

  The clock over the mantle was striking 10:00, and I decided it was about time to leave.

  “I think I’ve covered the most immediate bases,” I said. “I appreciate your cooperation, and there are several things I can start on as far as damage control is concerned. I’ll do my best to keep the police at bay, but I’m obligated to advise you that if you are contacted by them, do not lie. Evade and avoid if you think it’s necessary, but outright lies are dangerous, as I’m sure you know.”

  I got up from my chair, and both Glicks also rose. We shook hands, and Mrs. Glick walked me to the door.

  “Thank you for coming,” she said, smiling warmly as she opened the door. “We look forward to seeing you again.”

  “It was a pleasure meeting you,” I said, not insincerely but well aware we were doing a little etiquette pas de deux.

  We exchanged goodnights, she closed the door, and I went back to my car and then home.

  *

  On the way home, I kept thinking about Stuart Anderson and what might have led to his awful death. I couldn’t get out of my mind the fact that Richman had said he had been “hacked to death.” I wasn’t sure I knew what he meant—or that I really wanted to know.

  But Tim Jackson would know, and I was very glad I’d called him on Sunday before Anderson was killed; I didn’t want him to think I only called him when somebody ended up dead.

  As for the Montero, that it was extremely protective of its guests and discreet in its dealings with them was fine, but it occurred to me the average street hustler would stand out like a sore thumb if he was seen walking in with a guest…or walking out, alone. I felt Stuart Anderson was too concerned about maintaining his surface heterosexual image to risk it by bringing just anyone “home”—the Glicks had said as much themselves.

  But there were places like Faces, a gay bar/restaurant that catered to rich guys looking for far-above-average hustlers. Faces was sort of a halfway house between the street and ModelMen. Anderson could very well have picked up someone there who wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow at the Montero. I’d have to check it out…or let the police do it.

  I was still bugged about having been so evasive with Lt. Richman that it teetered perilously close to outright lying to him, especially after having given the Glicks my “don’t lie” spiel. Richman had always played fair with me, and I might very well need his help in the future. I couldn’t afford to jeopardize that. I decided to call him in the morning and try to extricate myself from the hole I’d dug.

  *

  As soon as I got to the office in the morning, even before I opened the paper or took the lid off the coffee I’d picked up in the ground floor coffee shop, I called Tim. I knew he would already be at work, but I wanted to talk to him as soon as I could.

  His machine picked up on the fourth ring.

  “Hi, this is Tim. Obviously, I’m not home, so leave a message. Bye.”

  “Tim, it’s Dick again. Tried to reach you Sunday, but you’re a busy boy. Please call me at home tonight if you can. Thanks.”

  I hung up, took the lid off the coffee and forced myself to read the paper as I drank it. I got as far as the crossword puzzle before my impatience with myself forced me to pick up the phone again and dial police headquarters.

  “Lieutenant Richman,” the familiar voice said.

  “Lieutenant, hi, it’s Dick Hardesty. I’ve been thinking over this Stuart Anderson thing, and I’m afraid I wasn’t quite honest with you. I apologize for that. Knowing that Anderson was married and had a family clouded my judgment a little. I realize now he’s well past trying to protect his reputation.”

  There was a frustratingly long pause before Richman said, “And what did you want to tell me?”

  “I’m pretty sure Anderson was bisexual,” I said. “I realized that the minute he came to my office and had obviously taken off his wedding ring—I could see the untanned circle on his finger. Straight guys don’t normally take off their wedding rings when they know they’re going to be around gay guys unless they don’t want you to know they’re straight. And that means he may well have picked up a hustler and was unlucky enough to get the wrong one. I could be wrong. Hell, he could have picked up a hooker whose pimp got in on the action—I don’t know. I just felt bad about not being totally honest with you.”

  Another pause, then: “Well, I appreciate your calling, Dick. We’d pretty much figured out the same thing.”

  “Oh?” I asked. “Can you tell me how?”

  “Not in detail, but there was…well, a definite indication other than the brutality of the murder that whoever did this is a pretty sick puppy who just might have a grudge against married men. Keep your eyes and ears open, would you? We want to get this guy, and soon.”

  “I promise I’ll let you know if I find out anything.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” he said, and I got the message.

  We exchanged goodbyes and hung up.

  “A definite indication,” huh? Like Richman’s use of the word hacked instead of stabbed, I knew I had to find out what he was getting at, even while I realized I definitely wouldn’t like it. It was sort of like approaching a car wreck ahead of you on the freeway—you don’t want to look, but you know you will.

  *

  I took two contracts out
of the drawer, filled in the few blanks, looked around for a fresh piece of carbon paper, made a sandwich of the three, folded them and put them in an envelope. I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if the Glicks had a copy machine somewhere in the house but didn’t want to chance it.

  I waited until around 10:30 then drove to the Glicks. There were a couple small work trucks in the parking area and a new sports car at the far end—Mrs. Glick’s, I assumed. I parked and walked to the front door to ring the bell. After the second ring, it was opened by a very large, pleasant-looking black woman wearing an apron.

  “Is Mrs. Glick in?” I asked.

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “She’s in the back by the pool house. You can just go around, if you’d like.”

  I thanked her and retraced my steps, going through the parking area to the back of the house. The already huge house was made even larger by the four-car garage at the far end, and beyond that stretched an eight-foot-high wall surrounding the pool, pool house, and about an acre and a half of park-like grounds.

  A heavy wooden, stockade-type gate stood open wide, apparently to allow the tanned, shirtless, sweaty and well-muscled workers I could see milling around a huge mound of earth to move back and forth to the trucks in the parking area. As I entered, mentally playing my favorite kid-in-the-candy-store games (I’ll take one of those, and one of those, and…), I noticed the mound of earth created an artificial small hill totally surrounding three sides of the pool house. The parts of the hill facing the pool were being terraced to provide what would be a cascade of water. Bucolic as all hell.

  When I was able to tear my eyes away from the workers, I looked around for Mrs. Glick and spotted her—the tiger-striped tank top and gold toreador pants made her a little hard to miss—standing between two tall, very handsome guys in white shirts, ties, and sports jackets. One was very butch-looking, in his mid-twenties, the other roughly the same age, sandy hair, nice tan and, when he looked in my direction, the most spectacular sea-green eyes I think I’ve ever seen.

  Given the fact they were fully and very well dressed, it was fairly clear they weren’t here to work on the fountain.

  I was about fifteen feet away from them, after nearly tripping over a bag of concrete while exchanging a warm smile with one of the shirtless wonders, when the green-eyed one moved his head closer to Mrs. Glick and said something that caused her to turned toward me, her face breaking into a warm, perfect-hostess smile.

  “Mr. Hardesty!” she said, all warmth and never losing the smile. “How very nice to see you!” She extended her hand as I was still about ten feet away, and I took it when I got there. “Won’t this be nice?” She indicated the work in progress.

  “Yes, it certainly will.” I glanced from one of her companions to the other. They were both looking at me, each with just the hint of a smile, and I felt like it was feeding time at the lion’s cage.

  Mrs. Glick touched each of them lightly on the arm without looking at them

  “Aaron, Gary, I’d like you to meet Mr. Hardesty. Mr. Hardesty…” She turned to the guy with the sea eyes. “…this is my brother Gary, and this…” Turning her entire body very slightly toward the butch-looking one. “…is Aaron. Gentlemen, this is Mr. Hardesty.”

  “Dick,” I amended as they each took a small step forward in turn to shake my hand. Firm grasps. Sincere. Disarming. Practiced.

  “Nice to meet you, Gary…Aaron.”

  “My pleasure,” they replied, almost in unison. Aaron’s was accompanied by a grin that managed to be both friendly and wicked at the same time.

  Aaron and Gary…Glick had mentioned both names when he was listing the escorts in ModelMen’s employ. Very interesting. The fact that Gary/Sea Eyes was related to Mrs. Glick came as something of a surprise, since there wasn’t all that much of a family resemblance. And not to be unkind, but he was obviously her younger brother.

  “Gary designed this,” Mrs. Glick said with obvious pride, again indicating the work in progress. “He is a true Renaissance man.”

  Gary looked at me with a serene smile.

  I’ve got a bedroom ceiling that could use some work, I thought. Maybe he’d like to come over and spend a couple hours looking at it.

  “I’m impressed,” I said honestly, and I wasn’t just talking about Gary being a Renaissance man.

  “Would you like to come inside for coffee?” Mrs. Glick asked. “My husband had some things he had to see to at the office, but he should be back in about an hour, and I know he’d be sorry to have missed you. I assume you brought the contract for us to sign?”

  “Yes, I did,” I said, “but don’t worry about it. I’ll just leave it and pick it up another time. There’s no rush. I really should be getting back to the office, and I can see you’re busy. May I have a rain check on the coffee?”

  She smiled warmly. “Of course.”

  I handed her the envelope with the contracts, which she in turn handed to Gary.

  “Be a dear, Aaron, and walk Mr. Hardesty to his car while Gary does me a big favor and takes this in to the study. Would you mind?”

  Both smiled on cue.

  “Of course not.” Again in unison.

  I glanced at Aaron just in time to catch his eye.

  “I’d be happy to,” he added, giving me a decoder-badge-secret-message smile.

  Mrs. Glick extended her hand, which I again took.

  “Thank you again for coming over,” she said.

  “My pleasure. Please tell Mr. Glick I’m sorry I missed him.” I then turned to follow Aaron to the gate.

  I increased my pace slightly to walk alongside Aaron, deliberately avoiding looking at the shirtless workers as we passed them. Well, actually Aaron didn’t walk; he sort of panthered along like some jungle cat, exuding an aura of raw sexual energy.

  “You’re pretty good,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I said, having absolutely no idea what he was talking about. “At what?”

  “Playing the Alice-at-the-Tea-Party game. ‘How nice of you to come.’ ‘How nice of you to have me.’ ‘One lump or two?’ ‘How very kind of you.’ God, I get so fucking sick of that crap!”

  He really had me, and I was just a little embarrassed because I knew exactly what he was saying.

  “Well,” I said, “next time I’ll just belch a lot and scratch my crotch.”

  He grinned then sighed.

  “That would be a breath of fresh air,” he said. “I know she means well, but sometimes she reminds me of a drill instructor. I guess it pays off, though—we’re all doing pretty well. But the thing that gets me with all this ‘gentlemen of the world’ training is that a lot of our…clients…are vanilla pudding on the surface—martinis and polite conversation at dinner—but the minute that bedroom door’s closed, they wanna rut like pigs.”

  We’d reached my car, but Aaron kept right on talking.

  “Of course, I’m probably being a little unfair—rutting’s my specialty. I’m like the rest of the guys in that I can do anything, and do, but we each have our little ‘specialties’ for the more discriminating clients, and mine is down and dirty.” He smiled again, and it was pure satanic glee. “You like it down and dirty, Dick?”

  He had me on that one.

  “I’d have to see the menu first,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Aaron said. “You think about it.”

  He extended his hand, and I took it. He slowly but steadily increased the pressure of his grip, and I automatically matched it. Neither of us said a word, but our eyes were locked, our faces impassive as hand tightened on hand. Just before I was sure I was going to start hearing bones cracking, he released his grip and smiled again.

  “You’ll do,” he said. And again I hadn’t the slightest idea what he was talking about.

  He held his forearm unconsciously with his wrist lightly touching the side of his chest just about level with his pecs, his elbow and arm drawn back like a piston stopped in mid-stroke. His hand, again apparently unconsciously, was in the po
sition of a lightly formed fist, and his thumb worked itself slowly and lightly back and forth across the top of his index finger, as if bringing the circulation back. For some ungodly reason, I found it erotic as all hell.

  Jeezus, Hardesty. Get a life!

  I reached for the door handle.

  “See ya, Aaron,” I said, opening the door.

  “Bet on it.” He grinned then turned and headed back toward the open gate.

  *

  I really couldn’t do much more until I could talk to Tim. I had to find out whatever he could tell me about Stuart Anderson’s death and what Richman meant by “certain indications.” I puttered around the office for a couple hours then headed for home. Around 5:30, I started playing the “don’t watch the clock” game.

  You’ve done it. You find yourself looking at the clock so often you determine not to look at it. You look. It says 5:43. You force yourself not to look for a good twenty or twenty-five minutes. Then you look at the clock again. It says 5:44.

  Oh, the hell with it, I thought, and was just reaching for the phone when it rang, scaring the shit out of me.

  “Dick Hardesty,” I said after the second ring.

  “Hi, stranger.” Tim’s voice, cheerful as always. “It was great to hear from you. It’s only been…what…six years?”

  “Oh, come on!” I said. “It can’t have been more than three years next Michaelmas.”

  “Well, however long it’s been, it’s been too long,” he said “Of course, a phone line does have two ends, so I’ll forgive you one more time.”

  “You’re a saint,” I said. “When can I make it up to you? I won’t ask how.”

  “Well,” he said, “that part goes without saying. But Gay Pride’s coming up this weekend. You want to go to the parade with me…maybe the carnival afterwards?”

  “Sure,” I said. “That’d be fun. But, uh, there was something else I wanted to mention…”

  “Here it comes,” he said with a long, dramatic sigh.