Name Games

by Michael Craft

  Oh, brother. I laughed as Thad bounded out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Eyeing Neil, I asked skeptically, “‘Respect your instrument’?”

  “Theater talk.”

  Enough said.

  Half an hour later, Thad had left for his audition. The night had turned brisk, cold actually, and Neil managed to convince Thad to wear a coat and scarf—out of respect for his instrument, I guess. This all transpired while Neil and I cleaned up the kitchen, carping about the need to replace long-gone Hazel. Though our complaints were lighthearted, they reflected a fact that was increasingly apparent: we did need help.

  “Once this murder investigation is comfortably behind us,” I told Neil while wiping down the countertop, “we need to have a serious talk, the three of us. We need a housekeeper, probably live-in. Money’s not the issue.”

  “No,” Neil agreed, wrapping a few leftovers, stowing them in the refrigerator, “the issue is having our home invaded by a stranger, an employee. Those of us not ‘to the manner born’ find such a setup pretty weird.”

  “I hear you.” Dampening the towel, I wiped out the sink. “But from all accounts, adjusting to domestic help is a hurdle worth jumping. They say it’s an easily acquired taste—like champagne or limousines.”

  Neil nodded while punching the button, starting the dishwasher. “We’ll talk about it.”

  Something else along these lines needed discussion as well—that vacant corner storefront on First Avenue. I was tempted to remind Neil of it, and in fact I opened my mouth to do so. But the words stuck in my throat. Not only was I unsure of how to broach the possibility of moving Neil’s architectural practice to Dumont, but I was afraid that if I did, I would not get the response I hoped for. If I pushed too hard, too early, he might reject the idea out of hand. This would have to wait.

  Finding much safer ground, I asked, “Ready for a drink? We missed cocktails.”

  “Sure.” He breathed a relaxed sigh. “That sounds great.”

  With a flash of inspiration, I suggested, “Why don’t we have them in the den? The night’s turned cold—I can light a fire, the first of the season.”

  Neil stepped to me and slung, his arms around my waist. “That sounds rather cozy, Mr. Manning. I daresay romantic.”

  “I daresay,” I agreed, kissing him. “Tell you what: I’ll get the fire ready. You bring the hooch.”

  He laughed. “Deal.”

  The den in the house on Prairie Street was originally my uncle Edwin Quatrain’s home office. Located on the first floor adjacent to the front hall, it occupied a corner, with tall windows facing prime views in two directions. Though I now claimed this generous space as my own private domain, I had changed little of the already handsome quarters.

  The room was dominated by my uncle’s massive partners desk, a beautiful old piece of furniture that bore no resemblance to Bruno Hérisson’s delicate cylinder-top desks. Not intended for milady’s letter-writing, but for work, the two-sided mahogany desk was covered by an oversize suede blotter. Matching leather chairs faced each other from identical arched kneeholes.

  Away from the desk, a tidy chesterfield suite—a studded leather love seat with two matching armchairs—surrounded a coffee table, facing the fireplace. The oak mantel and brick surround had been custom-designed by the Taliesin architect, so the style could be described as neither traditional nor modern, but artfully geometric, somewhat sculptural, vaguely Oriental. Between the gunmetal andirons stood logs and kindling, arranged there since spring, ready for the match. Opening the flue, I checked the draft, flicked a lighter, and touched the flame to the crumpled old copies of the Register that were stuffed beneath the grate. Within seconds, the burning newspapers filled the room with their yellow glow.

  Neil rattled through the doorway with a tray and shuffled to the coffee table, setting down his load. The tray held an ice bucket, two heavy crystal glasses, strips of orange peel on a saucer, and the bottle of Japanese vodka, just plucked from the freezer. The frost-covered bottle, now placed within inches of the flames, was already streaked with tears that formed a pool at its base. “Fire and ice,” Neil cooed. “I love that.”

  “And I love you,” I reminded him, patting his knee as we sat together on the sofa. Leaning forward to the table, I plunked ice into the glasses, uncapped the bottle (it was still cold enough to burn my fingertips), and poured. Neil twisted the orange peel over both drinks; backlit by the fire, tiny droplets of citrus oil could be seen exploding in midair, instantly filling the room—and our nostrils—with their piquant scent.

  Neil handed me one of the glasses, then touched his own to it. “To saner times,” he told me. And we sipped the icy vodka.

  Settling back into the sofa with our drinks, I rested my free arm around Neil’s shoulders, cuddling. A minute or two passed in silence as we watched the fire.

  I took a fresh sip from my glass. “We haven’t done this enough lately. I hope you don’t feel that I’ve come to take your presence here for granted.”

  “I would never feel that,” he joshed.

  “I mean, our situation right now, the Quatro assignment—it feels as if we’re living together again, but we both know it’s sort of ‘borrowed time.’”

  He touched a finger to my lips. “Don’t go there, not now. Let’s just enjoy the time we do have together. As to the future—who knows?”

  What did that mean? Was he saying that we’d just have to adjust to our future separation, or was he hinting that it was time to review our alternating-weekend “arrangement”? If we did review the arrangement, which way was he leaning? Did I have reason to hope that he might join me in Dumont permanently? I was tempted to ask, but once again feared that his response would disappoint me. So I heeded his advice and let the issue rest.

  He interrupted my thoughts, saying, “I hesitate to ask, but what’s new with King Carrol’s case?”

  “Quite a bit, actually.” Plenty had transpired in the last two days, but the previous evening had kept Neil late at the Quatro plant, and we’d had no relaxed time together when I could bring him up to speed. He already knew about Monday’s bombshell—the bogus extortion note “outing” Pierce and implicating him in the murder—but Neil had heard nothing yet about what we’d learned of Cantrell’s background.

  Collecting my thoughts, I downed a hefty slug of vodka, then told Neil, “The plot has thickened considerably. First, probate revealed that Cantrell owned controlling interest in a highly profitable gay-porn video company—it essentially subsidized his miniatures museum. Second, Lucy discovered that he had connections with the ACLU and frequently testified as a free-speech advocate at porn trials—he was planning to appear for the defense in the case now being mounted in Dumont by Harley Kaiser. Third, while Deputy Dan is the obvious suspect for having planted the bogus extortion note, I think he may simply be a pawn in some conspiracy to shut down the porn shops—suggesting the possible complicity of the DA himself.”

  “Wow.” Neil had gotten an earful, and he needed a moment to sort through it. He chomped an ice cube, swallowing it. “Which video company did Cantrell own?”

  I laughed. Aware of Neil’s long-standing interest in erotic videos, I’d had a hunch he’d zero in on that detail of my revelations. “I knew you’d ask, but I can’t quite remember the name of the company—those porn studios all sound so much alike. It was something like…” Then it clicked. “I’ve got it. It was Hot Head Video.”

  Neil pulled a leg up onto the sofa, turning to face me. “Cantrell owned Hot Head? No way!”

  “You’ve heard of it?”

  “Well sure.” His tone suggested I was completely out of it. “Hot Head is one of the biggest names in the business—has been for years.”

  “Are they…‘good’?” My question sounded stupid, but Neil understood what I was trying to ask: Did Hot Head simply grind out sleaze, or did they measure up to Neil’s finicky, somewhat cerebral, porn standards?

  “Good? They’re great. Hot Head redefined the gay v
ideo when they burst onto the scene back in the seventies. Their production values have always been first-rate, and their scripts always have a plot, a real story that goes beyond the hard-core action—though there’s plenty of that too, of course.”

  “Lucy mentioned that the studio is strictly legit—no kiddie porn, for instance.”

  “Absolutely. In the world of porn, Hot Head is a class act.”

  It was an odd compliment, but there was nothing facetious about Neil’s tone, and I trusted his judgment in this arena. I thought aloud, “If Hot Head has enjoyed such a respected reputation, I suppose that’s a credit to Cantrell—he was the founder and guiding force.”

  “I suppose,” Neil conceded, hesitating. “Cantrell must have stayed in the background, though, because I don’t recall anything in the press about him. If you ask me, Hot Head Video owes its success to one man—Rascal Tyner.”

  The name had a familiar ring, but I couldn’t place it. “Who?”

  “You remember,” said Neil, gently shaking my shoulder as if to jog my memory. “Rascal Tyner. He was the gorgeous young headliner who took the porn world by storm during Hot Head’s early days. Overnight, he catapulted Hot Head to the status of a major player in the gay video business.”

  “I do remember that.” Though Neil was speaking of gay-porn history that was made more than twenty years earlier—long before I would recognize that I myself was gay—I could indeed recall the name, even the face, of Rascal Tyner. He was a phenomenon, a true star, whose sheer sexual magnetism garnered ample attention in the mainstream press. I remembered, “He was widely rumored to be straight.”

  “Right,” said Neil. “That might have been PR—he might have been eyeing a career shift to the larger straight audience—but who cares? Even if he wasn’t gay, he was more than convincing onscreen. He turned out an astounding oeuvre of flicks for legions of hungry gay fans who couldn’t get enough of him. He enjoyed a meteoric career in the late seventies, when home VCRs were first introduced. It wasn’t just his obvious physical attributes that secured his porn stardom, though. The guy could really act, which set him far apart from his hunky colleagues who had never uttered a line in the silent days of eight-millimeter porn.” Neil shook his head wistfully, adding, “It was even said that Rascal Tyner never needed a fluffer—not once in all that taping.”

  Just when I thought I was following all this, I was lost. “What’s a ‘fluffer’?”

  Neil grinned, sliding his hand between my legs. “A fluffer is an off-camera stagehand. His sole duty is to keep the star aroused between takes.”

  “Tough duty.” I laughed, imagining the creative means I might employ to keep Rascal Tyner camera-ready. I let my head fall back, enjoying the feel of Neil’s hand on my crotch—his attentions were having the predictable effect. But then I thought of something. Something bothersome. Turning my head toward Neil, I asked, “Something happened, right? What happened to Rascal Tyner?”

  Neil withdrew his hand from my legs, sipped his vodka, and set down the glass. “AIDS happened. Rascal Tyner’s career ended in 1983, when he was felled by AIDS during the early days of the epidemic. Condoms were not yet standard equipment in porn videos, and his death taught the industry a painful lesson.”

  “Now I remember,” I said, sipping from my own glass, which had turned sweaty in my hands. “The story was widely reported during the onset of the ‘gay plague.’ It made sensational headlines for a month. All the newsweeklies did cover stories. I wasn’t ‘out’ yet—it would be many years before you helped me find myself—but the story sure caught my attention. It made me curious.”

  “I’ll bet it did.”

  “I mean, it made me curious about Rascal Tyner. I recognized that his death was tragic, but I couldn’t imagine all the hoo-ha over his videos. There was a colleague at the paper whom I knew to be gay, so I asked him why these particular videos were considered so special. The next day, he left a cassette on my desk with a note: ‘A picture’s worth a thousand words. See for yourself.’ I took it home, and that night I got my first glimpse of gay porn—and Rascal Tyner.”

  “Well now,” said Neil with a grin, having never heard this story before, “I guess you were curious. You got a first-class initiation. What’d you think of it?”

  Evasively, I answered, “It was…interesting. I could appreciate that he’d developed a following.” In truth, I’d found the tape mesmerizing. Alone in my apartment, I watched it through several times that night. And I now realized that ever since, I had carried with me erotic visions of the long-gone porn star named Rascal Tyner.

  “Which tape did you see?”

  I shook my head—I couldn’t possibly remember the title after so many years. “Some commemorative anthology, lots of scenes spliced together.”

  “My God, that must have been Rascal Tyner’s Hottest Hits. It was released in the early eighties, rushed out within weeks of his death. It was the very first tape in my collection, the one Roxanne bought for me in college. I’ve been a fan of Hot Head Video ever since. And you know what? Even though that compilation of clips is umpteen years old, I still consider it the best.”

  Offhandedly I asked, “Do you still have it?” I swirled the remnants of my drink and drained the glass.

  “Of course. It’s back at the loft with the rest of the collection.”

  We fell quiet, watching the dance of the fire for a few moments.

  Then Neil had an idea—one that I could have predicted. “Hey,” he said, sitting upright on the edge of the sofa, “Roxanne is driving up this weekend. She checks the loft for us now and then. Why don’t I ask her to bring up the Hottest Hits tape? It’d be a hoot—a trip down memory lane, so to speak.”

  “If you want. I don’t care.”

  Truth is, after so many years, I couldn’t wait to get another look at it.

  Thursday, September 21

  CALL IT MISTRUST. CALL it a skeptical hunch. Go ahead, call it paranoia. Whatever name best labels it, a nagging suspicion kept telling me that Dumont’s district attorney was somehow involved in the Carrol Cantrell case—if not in the murder itself, then possibly in planting the extortion note that had thwarted the investigation, “outed” Doug Pierce, and threatened to influence the outcome of an important local election. After all, the impending obscenity trial gave Harley Kaiser a clear conflict of interest in all this. What’s more, Roxanne Exner, a shrewd judge of character with an insider’s view of the law biz, had derided Kaiser’s hot-dog tactics before she’d even met him. So…I invited the man to lunch.

  My purpose, of course, was not to break bread with Kaiser, but to sound him out. Perhaps over a meal, one-on-one, he would let slip a detail or two that could shed light on his true role in this. When I phoned him that Thursday morning to extend the invitation, I needed some pretext (chummy we weren’t), so I told him that I felt the need to atone for interrupting his lunch with Pierce on Monday when Roxanne and I joined them at their table.

  “I appreciate the thought, Manning,” he told me dryly on the phone, “but no harm was done. No payback is required or expected.”

  He was ready to hang up, so I fudged, “Actually, Harley, there’s a matter of some importance—and delicacy—that I’d like to discuss with you. It regards the Register’s endorsement of Doug Pierce.”

  “Oh?” His voice now carried the distinct ring of interest. “When would you like to meet, Mark?”

  “How about high noon? First Avenue Grill.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  And he was. I arrived a minute or two past the hour to find him waiting near the door. Dumont had weathered the season’s first hard frost overnight—a few weeks early—and the dawn had broken bright but cold. So we both wore topcoats that day. Meeting inside the entrance to the Grill, we greeted each other and shook hands while shrugging out of our coats, an awkward little duet that would become better-practiced as the season grew colder. The hostess took our coats while ushering us to my table between the fireplace and the window. A
shaft of noontide sunlight angled through the plate glass, confirming that the earth’s axis had tipped.

  Our waitress appeared with menus, offering drinks. I ordered a Lillet, hoping that Kaiser might also opt for alcohol (the better to loosen his lips), but he ordered coffee instead, “black and hot.” He emphasized these instructions to the waitress with a nod of dismissal, which wagged his mound of poodle hair.

  Unfolding my napkin and dropping it to my lap, I asked, “Did Deputy Kerr mention that he came into the office for an interview yesterday?”

  “He did,” confirmed Kaiser, unfurling his own napkin with a snap. “Rather, he mentioned that he was going to. I haven’t spoken to him since the meeting.” Kaiser leaned forward, no more than an inch. Through the faintest of smiles, he said, “I understand that the paper was reevaluating its endorsement. What happened?”

  I needed to weigh my response. Both the meeting with Kerr and the present lunch with Kaiser had been called under the same false pretext. Kerr now knew that the real purpose of yesterday’s meeting was to evaluate the authenticity and origin of the extortion note, which he himself assumed to be spurious. Kerr was also aware that he had raised my own suspicions of Kaiser. Had any of this been conveyed to Kaiser? Or was Kaiser on the level just now when he told me he hadn’t spoken to Kerr since the meeting? It was possible, even likely, that Kerr had been avoiding contact with Kaiser, not wishing to report what we’d discussed.

  Waffling, I told Kaiser, “Our meeting was inconclusive. If the Register is to retract its endorsement of Doug Pierce, we have to feel certain that his implication in the Cantrell murder wasn’t a setup. If Doug has committed a crime, he’s obviously unfit for office. But short of that, I’m still reluctant to switch our endorsement to Dan Kerr. As you know, we have some serious philosophical differences.”

  Kaiser nodded. “Obscenity.”

  “Some call it censorship.”

  “I’m not here to dither over semantics,” he told me, sitting back in his chair, pointedly putting some distance between us. “The law is clear. The sheriff’s job is to enforce it; mine is to prosecute violators. If the current sheriff has a problem with that, he should be replaced. If, far worse, he’s a criminal, he should be behind bars.”