by Mark McNease
Chapter Two
Cabin 6
Kyle Callahan and Danny Durban arrived at Pride Lodge late on Thursday night. This was their fifth Halloween at the Lodge and an event they both looked forward to months in advance. The couple had spent three long weekends each year there for the five years they’d been together, one for each season excluding winter. As lovely as the Pennsylvania countryside was, Kyle and Danny both found it too bare, too cold and stark in the winter months.
They’d found Pride Lodge by accident their first summer together, after Kyle suggested they go away for a weekend and began a brief internet search of gay bed and breakfasts within driving distance of their apartment in Manhattan. Pride Lodge popped up, just 90 minutes by rental car. While it was much larger than a traditional B&B, it instantly became one of their favorite getaways, and five years later they’d made the drive again as October came to a close and the Halloween festivities promised friendship, fun and an escape for them both from the pressures of their lives in the City.
Ricki was just about to go off desk duty when they arrived at nearly eleven o’clock that night. He knew all the regular guests well and was delighted to see them, even though he’d known they were coming. Several other guests had arrived early as well and a few were having drinks by the fireplace as Kyle and Danny checked in and got the key for Cabin 6. They always stayed in Cabin 6. For one thing, it was one of the luxury rooms, with its own television, kitchenette and bathroom; it was also well away and just down the road, giving the roomers a greater sense of privacy. The cabins were surrounded by trees in back and a long private drive in front. Most of the people who stayed at Pride Lodge were older. It just wasn’t the kind of place young LGBT travelers went to for a good time: too remote, too sedate, and too, well, old. The perfect hideaway for mature gay men, lesbian couples and singles looking to be comfortable exposing their 40 or 50 or 60-year-old bodies in a bathing suit, or sitting around a restaurant bar chatting with other people who remembered music from the 1970s when it was new and who would not likely be spending their time tweeting, linking in or obsessively checking their smart phones for texts and celebrity news flashes.
The other reason they always stayed in Cabin 6 was the painting: a beautiful dark-haired woman in a flowing red dress sitting at a black grand piano in front of a fireplace. She looked as if she were frozen in the 1940s, and appeared to be posing at the piano more than actually playing it. There was sheet music in front of her, but only one’s imagination could decide what the music was. Classical, most certainly, given the elegance of the woman and the room. It was clearly a reproduction, something that must surely be hanging in thousands of homes and hotel rooms around the world, but Kyle had only ever seen it in one other place—above his mother’s piano in the home he had grown up in in Highland Park, Illinois. His mother moved to a condo in Chicago after his father’s death and she had taken the picture with her.
Kyle had noticed the painting on their first stay at the Lodge. It was by accident and at a most inopportune time: they had checked in and were having sex, something they did with more urgency and frequency in those early days. No sooner had Danny closed the cabin door and turned the lock, than Kyle was slipping his clothes off and nodding toward the bed. Fifty may have been just around the corner for them both, but age had not diminished their desire and only added to their skills at pleasing one another. Their sexual relationship had been one of mutual giving from the first time they’d enjoyed it—after the third or fourth date, depending on which of them you asked. They were post-top/bottom, beyond the old constraints of roles, and more than anything, they simply enjoyed the intimacy they shared. It was, they believed, the real essence of a lasting physical bond: simply being close, touching, caressing, holding one another with a breeze cooling them as it swept in the window.
Twenty minutes later, with Danny lying naked next to him, his head on Kyle’s chest, Kyle glanced above his head and saw the painting for the first time. It startled him. It was early in their time together and Kyle, never a superstitious man, took it as some kind of message, as if his parents were giving their blessing in a discreet but very unusual way. Kyle made sure he and Danny stayed in Cabin 6 every visit after that.
Kyle Callahan met Danny Durban when both men were forty-seven, with just six months separating them. Danny, being the older of the pair, joked that theirs was a May-June romance. They stumbled upon one another, literally, at a photography exhibit at the Katherine Pride Gallery in Chelsea’s Meatpacking District. Kyle had gone because of his love for photography and his passion as an amateur photographer. Danny had gone because the owner of the gallery, Katherine Pride, had recently become a customer at Margaret’s Passion, the long-time Gramercy Park restaurant where Danny was the day manager. It was the kind of personal touch Margaret’s was known for, securing in return a legendary loyalty to the restaurant and to Margaret herself. The only meat to be found in the Meatpacking District these days came on very high-priced plates at restaurants with names like Sacrosanct and Tiberius. The area had once housed butchers feeding the citizens of New York City; now it was all upscale eateries, art galleries and clothing stores. Danny had come around a corner, studying the photographs on the wall, and accidentally bumped into Kyle, spilling both their drinks. Their eyes met an instant before their smiles, and five years later they were still together.
Kyle was by most measures an average looking man: oval face, large nose, pale blue eyes. His hair had been blond as a child but had long since turned brown, and he kept it cropped close to his skull, in part to downplay a receding hairline. He dressed in slacks and button-down shirts, in and out of the office, not liking the heaviness of blue jeans even on vacation; and his one surrender to fashion was his glasses: progressive, transitional, bifocal Ray-Bans that just about everyone said were the coolest glasses they’d seen.
Danny was the more outgoing of the two. He was also six inches shorter than Kyle, who was not a particularly tall man. It was a height difference Kyle never noticed except when he saw pictures of them together. Danny was the talker, Kyle the brooder. Danny preferred shorts outside his job in all but the coldest weather, and would throw on a sweatshirt or sweater to compensate for a chill. He liked being as casual as possible outside the restaurant where he had worked for the past ten years. He was top talent, keeping Margaret’s customers happy, familiar and returning. Margaret Bowman was a real person. Cheerful, birdlike and nearing 80, she seldom came down to the restaurant anymore from her apartment above it on East 21st Street, but when she did she always caused a stir. She would go slowly from table to table saying hello to people who had known and loved her for years. She asked how their children and grandchildren were; if there was a young couple dining she would remark on how lovely they looked together. If they were single, divorced, or even grieving the loss of a loved one, Margaret somehow knew and would say exactly the right thing. She had lost her husband Gerard to a freak traffic accident several years back and had no children, and she considered Danny the son she’d always wanted.
Kyle was the personal assistant to Imogene Landis, a high-maintenance, high-octane, high-profile television reporter whose star had been falling steadily for the past five years, which is exactly how long Kyle had worked for her. It seems she had found the best assistant she’d ever had—or at least the most persevering—just as her career began its slow slide into the tank of obscurity. Before Kyle, no one had lasted more than a year working for Imogene, and for that determination and loyalty she repaid him by being as needy, intrusive and inappropriate as she possibly could. Kyle suspected her current job, as a special English-language correspondent on financial affairs for Tokyo Pulse, a third-tier Japanese cable show produced by Japan TV3, was the last stop on this train. She’d be editing copy or selling Avon if she blew this one. He thought she knew it, too, which was why she leaned on him more than ever and why he allowed it. He confessed to a kind of love for Imogene, a soft spot for a woman whose vulnerabilities she would never admit
to herself, and he planned to see the job through to whatever end it met.
“Please turn your phone off,” Danny said as they rolled their luggage into Cabin 6. He knew the third person on every vacation they took was Imogene and he wanted her left in Manhattan; that included limiting her digital reach, ignoring her texts and letting her go to voicemail.
“Just let me check the emails, then I’ll turn it off for the night. I promise.”
“For the night? We’re not just here for the night.”
“She’s at the Stock Exchange tomorrow morning, it’s a very big deal for her.”
“In the background! She’s a prop, Kyle, she’s not ringing the bell.”
“Be kind. The show airs in Tokyo.”
“A re-run at 3:00 am. On cable, with Japanese sub-titles. She doesn’t speak a word of the language.”
“Of course not, that’s why they hired her! She’s an English-language correspondent. Do I need to explain what that is?”
Danny glared at Kyle. “I know what an English-language correspondent is,” he said slowly, causing Kyle to blush. “I know what a good one is, too.”
Kyle started to protest in defense of his boss, but Danny cut him off with a wave of his hand. “It’s great she’s learning Japanese, it really is,” Danny said. “She’ll be able to tell her bosses to fuck off in their own language, maybe do a proper bow with it before they fire her.”
“She’s learned her lesson.”
“Several times.”
Danny saw the hurt on Kyle’s face. “I’m sorry. I know you’re devoted to her, but she’s not the one you’re marrying. And she’ll get over the trauma of standing three people to the side, back row I’m sure, at the opening bell of the Stock Exchange. She can be your best man . . . or best woman or however it’s done with gay people.”
The two men had been talking about marriage since the law passed in New York. They’d been cautious, not wanting to get caught up in the emotions of the moment. They decided against rushing down to City Hall as they thought many couples had without really thinking it through. But they were in negotiations, so to speak.
Danny began hanging his shirts in the closet and putting his underwear, socks and sundries in the top dresser drawer.
Kyle rolled his suitcase into a corner by the nightstand on his side of the bed. He tended to vacation out of his suitcase and was never in a hurry to unpack. This was not their apartment, and he figured the task of hanging up shirts and pants could wait until morning. His real concern was his camera. He’d upgraded to a Nikon D3100. At $600 it wasn’t all that top of the line, but it was the best he’d ever had and he was extremely protective of it, treating it the way a violinist might treat a Stradivarius. He had been in love with photography since his father gave him a new camera for his fortieth birthday. Late in life to find a passion, but never too late.
Kyle checked his camera to make sure he had the battery charger and the USB cable to upload photos to his laptop. He’d checked at home before they left, but these were the sorts of small details people tended to run through their minds over and over: Did I turn the stove off, did I lock the door? Once he confirmed he had not forgotten anything, he sat on the edge of the bed and took out his phone. He scrolled through his emails and saw that Danny was right, as he knew he would be. Seven emails from Imogene, all stealth with subject lines like, “HAVE A GREAT TIME!” and “TAKE LOTS OF PIX FOR ME!” She had never accepted that all-caps was bad form. And below the screaming demands that he enjoy himself she would type something frantic, urgent, or personal-time-interrupting. Kyle had been onto this trick for years but she still thought he fell for it.
He decided to keep his promise to Danny and leave Imogene’s emails until the morning, when he could respond to them calmly, reassuring her that the earth had not shifted beneath her feet the past twenty-four hours. He was just about to turn off his phone when he saw the alert for a text message. Odd, he thought, looking at the time stamp. It had come in at 10:00 p.m. but they’d been on the road then. He hadn’t heard any alert, and he never had his phone on vibrate. The text was from Teddy Pembroke, Pride Lodge’s jack-of-all-trades. Teddy had been with the Lodge for fifteen years and was the only person other than Sid and Dylan who lived on the property.
The text read: “Let me know when u arrive. Things have gone wrong. Acceptance.”
“Hmm,” Kyle said, staring at the message, then looking at the nightstand: 11:30 p.m.
“What?” asked Danny, zipping up his now-empty suitcase and sliding it under the bed.
“Teddy texted me.” He showed Danny the message. “Is it too late to call?”
“Yes,” Danny said, glancing at the clock. “And what’s with the ‘acceptance’?”
“It’s a quote, from the book they use in Alcoholics Anonymous. Kind of a mantra for him. I should call.”
“It can wait. Let’s just enjoy one quiet night away from everything and everyone.”
Kyle smiled at Danny, trying to hide his unease about the text message. He’d befriended Teddy on their first visit to the Lodge and had kept in touch with him through the occasional email and a phone call now and then. Teddy had called him two days earlier to make sure they were still coming.
“It’s Halloween,” Kyle told him. “We never miss Halloween.”
“Good,” Teddy had said. He sounded nervous on the call, edgy. “I won’t be staying at the Lodge much longer, Kyle. Something’s going on here, something bad, we need to talk.”
“What, Teddy? Just tell me.”
“Not on the phone. I’m not even sure if I’m imagining some of this, it’s confusing, but somebody needs to know. You’re good at helping me sort things out, Kyle, it can wait two days.”
Kyle had become Teddy’s reluctant confidant, especially the last year. Teddy was close to Kyle’s age but had never done much more than handyman work and odd jobs. Clearly once handsome, with chocolate brown eyes that were as seductive as they were sad, a mouth that had a habit of biting its upper lip, and still thin when most men his age were packing on weight, Teddy seemed as if he were from the coulda-been-a-contender school. Had he gotten more education, had he applied himself more intently, and especially had he not been an alcoholic. That was where Kyle had helped him most, connecting him with a local man Kyle knew was in Alcoholics Anonymous. Kyle wasn’t in AA and had never had a drinking problem, but he was very good at finding sources and researching—it’s part of what he does for a living—and after a few failed starts, Teddy had finally gotten sober six months ago. Maybe, Kyle thought, that’s what this was about. Maybe Teddy had concluded he could no longer work at the Lodge and needed to move on for the sake of his sobriety. He had already stopped helping Cowboy Dave and Happy in the bar. That’s when it occurred to him this might be about love.
“Is there something wrong with you and Happy?” Kyle asked. He knew Teddy and the much younger Happy Corcoran, who had started as a bar back the summer before, had been dating. Young man breaks old man’s heart, Kyle thought to himself, old man folds up his tent and runs away.
There was a moment of silence on the other end. Then Teddy said, his voice lowered as if someone might hear him, “Happy’s gone. Since yesterday, without a word. I’m afraid it’s my fault.”
“He’s a kid,” Kyle said, immediately regretting it. Happy was twenty-five or thereabouts and capable of making adult decisions. “A broken heart at that age . . . “
“That’s not what I mean,” Teddy said. “I told him things I shouldn’t have told him, things that put him in danger, and now he’s gone.”
“What, Teddy?” Kyle said, his exasperation showing. “What did you tell him?”
“Not on the phone.” And then, with a sadness Kyle could feel from 70 miles away, “He wouldn’t just leave me.”
The call ended then, with Teddy not wanting to say anymore until they spoke in person. Whatever the problem was, it had Teddy itchy, sounding paranoid, and the sudden disappearance of Happy could only make it worse.
“You’re sure it’s too late?” Kyle asked, looking at the clock again.
“Let them man sleep,” Danny said. “You’ll see him at breakfast.”
Kyle decided Danny was right. Teddy worked very long hours. He didn’t need Kyle waking him up over a text message.
Kyle turned his phone off, waiting to make sure it actually shut down (it had a strange habit of coming back to life, as if it didn’t appreciate being told what to do). He set it on the nightstand, then stood up and started to unbutton his shirt.
“I can do that,” Danny said, motioning Kyle onto the bed. “I haven’t forgotten how.”
Kyle let it all go then, enjoying the touch of the man he was already growing old with.
Chapter Three
Room 202
She liked the idea of being a lesbian assassin and wondered if there were others like her, how they would go about finding one other, if they did. Maybe there was some sort of Facebook page for her kind, some site that required coded phrases and passwords to enter, but once inside she would not be alone in her singular mission, her only drive. It had been very lonely, and while she allowed her imagination its moments, she knew she did not belong in the company of killers. She’d had no choice in the matter, and was not really an assassin. Assassins were sent by others, were they not? They did the bidding of paymasters, while the assassin herself might have no stake in the matter at all. It was just a job, a high-risk paycheck. There was no comparison to be made. Hers was a mission of justice, of setting right a world that had been tilted wickedly out of balance thirty years ago when she was just a ten year old child hiding in a closet.
