Scott said, "No, the boys are cool. They know I won't put up with shit. And I'm more careful now who I hire. I run background checks. I want guys from stable homes who preferably attend church. Would you be interested in doing some background work? I use the Fricker Agency, but sometimes they get sloppy."
"Backgrounders are a little unexciting for me at this stage of the game, Scott. I guess not."
"Of course, so much of my business now is electronic. And for that you don't need good character. The business is changing."
"You mean phone sex?"
"I have a suite of offices over in Corporate Woods. You should drop in sometime, Strachey, and see my operation. I advertise in Outweek, the Native, the Advocate, and the rest. The color glossies of the hunks come from an agency in L.A. and cost me an arm and a leg. But I've got this roomful of trolls over by the interstate I pay six bucks an hour to, while the callers cough up a buck a minute. You don't need choirboys for an operation like this. Just some horny old farts who'll show up on time and talk dirty for eight hours. With the labor surplus around here, it's like printing money."
"I don't suppose you have to worry about the Japanese competition."
"Hey, don't bet the farm on it. I was up to tar and feather my broker the other night and he was telling me how the Japs are getting into female retail sex in Mexico now. They've got whorehouses in Baja and Guadalajara where you can go down in the early evening and see the women doing calisthenics and marching up and down and singing the company song."
"I guess you were speaking metaphorically when you said you went up to tar and feather your broker. Or were you?"
"I do it at his place in Saratoga. He has a pool, and a grill where we can heat the tar. Not to boiling, the way they used to in the olden days. Just so it's soft enough to apply. Weird, huh? It's how he gets off. I go up once a week when his wife's down shopping in the city, and I bring a crew and tape it. Hey, it's getting hot out here. Are you sure I can't offer you a drink or a line or something?"
I said, "No, it's a little early in the day for my glass of port. But you can be your wonderfully hospitable self by telling me something."
"Maybe."
"Without mentioning names-I know you don't do that-were any of your regulars people who were outed by John Rutka?"
He stood up now, casually adjusted the organs inside his shorts, and sat down again. "I can answer that, yes," he said. "Two were outed and about ninety-two were scared shitless they were going to be next. For a guy who thought it was so great to be gay, Rutka was some pain in the ass to gay people, that's for sure."
"Did any of your customers seem especially unhinged by being outed, or by the prospect of being outed?"
"I know what you're thinking. When I heard Rutka had been murdered, I wondered the same thing. Who hated him so much or was so afraid of him he'd kill him to shut him up? I don't know. Like I say, every gay person in the closet in Albany hated Rutka's guts. But I never heard anybody say they were actually going to do anything. I'd remember."
"What about this? Have you or any of your staff run into customers who were violent, or seemed capable of great violence?"
"Two," he said without hesitation.
"Can you give me the names?"
"Sure. Fortunately, they're both in prison. Lars Forrester, the Troy bank exec they nailed for embezzlement. And Nelson Lunceford, the state insurance regulator who strangled his valet in the locker room of the Fort Orange Club last year. I had bad reports on both of them."
"They're both still locked up?"
"And will be for a long time. I've kept track of those two."
"What about S amp;M? Any practitioners? I don't mean the exotic stuff-tarring and feathering and whatnot-but just your plain, old-fashioned, down-home, wholesome types of S amp;M-hoods and thongs and chains and so forth. Chains especially I'd like to hear about."
He leaned back now, thoughtfully, with his hands behind his head, displaying his exquisite biceps and perfectly tanned armpits. "I can't answer that," Scott said. "For one thing, it's confidential. And anyway, there are too many of them for the information to be of any use to you. There are ten or twelve regulars I can think of right off the top of my head who like the feel of metal."
"Other kinds of metal, too? What do you mean? Pie plates?"
"No, just chains."
"Ah."
"Channel Eight said Rutka was tied up in the house that burned down. Was he bound with chains? Is that why you're asking?"
"Yeah."
"I'll have to think about that-think about different people. You know, Strachey, anybody can go into a hardware store and buy as many feet of chain as they want and have it cut into lengths or anything. I've done it myself. Chains are not just something people use for sex."
"I suppose that's true. What about this?" I said. "I've got three sets of initials. I think they belong to people who know their way around gay Albany. Especially closeted gay Albany. I want to know if these initials mean anything to you."
"I don't know about this. But go ahead."
"J.G."
Now he gave me his profile. The Thinker. "Maybe. I can't think. Maybe."
"D.R."
"Mmmm. I don't know. Hmm."
"N.Z."
"Oh-N.Z. Right. Nathan Zenck."
"Nathan Z-E-N-C-K?" He nodded. "Who is Nathan Zenck?"
"He's the assistant manager of the Parmalee Plaza on Wolf Road. He's the night manager, I think."
"Of the hotel or the restaurant?"
"The whole thing. What are these initials? Should I be telling you this?"
"Yes, you should, but I can't tell you why. It's confidential."
"I can relate to that."
"Tell me about Nathan."
He sighed, shifted, readjusted his genitals. "He's gay, kind of cute, forty or forty-one, unattached. Travels with the guest accommodations crowd. Likes to party. Nathan's a mover, too. He's been in Albany for two or three years, but I don't imagine he'll want to hang around here. He'll cut out soon. He wants the big time-San Juan or Orlando."
"What else about him?"
"I don't know. What else is there? His sign, his favorite color? What do you mean?"
"I don't know what I mean. Anyway, this is a start. It's been helpful. I appreciate it, Scott."
He leaned forward now across the coffee table that separated us and looked at me and let me catch his scent. He said, "You want me, don't you?"
"Sort of."
"It'll cost you."
I began to laugh, and then Scott S. Scott joined in, so that he wouldn't be left out, and he laughed too.
I stopped by my office, on Central, which I generally avoided in summer since the air conditioner quit early in Reagan's first term, but I wanted to pick up my mail and use the phone. I called Bub Bailey, who told me that the medical examiner had confirmed beyond doubt that the body found in the burned house in Handbag the previous night had been that of John Rutka.
I said, "They're sure?"
"The gunshot wound in the foot, and of course the dental exam. It's the dental that does it. It's as good as fingerprints."
"So that's that."
I half-listened while Bailey went on about the missing files and how critical they were to his investigation. I kept thinking about John Rutka being forced from his house, and chained, and shot, and burned to not much more than ash. Until this moment I hadn't entirely believed it. My reserve of disbelief had salved my conscience over abandoning Rutka when he had pleaded with me not to-even with his scams, maybe he had known he was in real danger-and I had clung at some level to the notion that Rutka was still alive so that I could shake him until his head swam and tell him one more time exactly how little I thought of him.
Now I had no hope of any of that and my headache was back, and I deserved it and worse.
I passed on to Bailey what Joel McClurg had told me about the candidate for outing whom Rutka had confessed to being deeply afraid of, but I said I didn't know anything about the
files. He muttered something and we both hung up. I found some aspirin in the back of my top desk drawer. The stamp on the back of the container said, "Use before Dec. 1979," so I took three. end user
15
Nathan Zenck had a telephone listing at an address on Old Tyme Lane in Guilderland. I reached his machine but left no message.
I picked up a sub and ate it in the car on the way out to Handbag, where I wanted to see how Sandifer was holding up.
His car was gone and the house was locked up. Out back, a sheet of plywood was leaning against the porch and an assortment of new boards was stacked nearby, along with a roll of screen. Somebody had already started preparations for repairing the fire damage.
On Broad Street I passed the Rutka hardware store, turned around, and pulled into the lot. The place looked prosperous. A big area of the parking lot had been fenced off for a lawn-and-garden department, and the big fleet of red lawn mowers on display looked formidable enough to clip Argentina down to the roots.
Inside, past the appliances department, I asked a clerk, "Is Ann Rutka around? Or is that not her name?"
"She's using Rutka again. Ann's up back." He pointed.
Wooden steps led up to a long platform that overlooked the entire store. There was no wall with a oneway glass to spy through and spot shoplifters, just a low railing and a row of desks stacked with catalogs and invoices. Maybe a hardware store was too wholesome a place for shoplifting to occur in. Or maybe shoplifters believed that if they were caught stealing from a hardware store the owner would kill them. It felt like a complex atmosphere to be in.
A woman behind a pile of invoices at the desk nearest me pointed to the farthest desk on the deck, separated from the others by a modest fence of low bookcases filled with parts catalogs.
"Ann Rutka?"
She looked up from a cluttered desk and peered at me with dark eyes from under a heap of ringlets. Rutka's sister was as handsome and well put together as John had been, and she dressed as casually, except her T-shirt wasn't from Queer Nation but bore the logo of a manufacturer of electrical pumps.
"I'm Donald Strachey. I knew your brother and wanted to tell you how sorry I am."
"Thanks." She looked skeptical and didn't put her pencil down. "The funeral's Saturday at nine-thirty at St. Michael's. You're welcome to come." She had a musically nimbly voice that poured out like gravel on the move.
"I'd like to," I said.
She looked at me, waiting.
"I'd also like to give you something," I said, and took out the five-hundred-dollar check Rutka had written as a retainer when he hired me to protect him.
"What's this?"
"I'm a private investigator and John had hired me as a security consultant. This was the retainer he paid me, but I quit after only a few hours. I thought you might want this back for whoever has to straighten out John's finances. Or should I be giving it to Eddie Sandifer?"
She put the pencil down but didn't move otherwise. "No, I'll take it. I'm the executrix, it turns out. Can I ask why you only worked for John for a few hours?"
"Well, I think that has to be between him and me."
"Don't bullshit me, please. I get enough of that. You couldn't put up with him, could you?"
I shrugged. "No."
"Sit down. Do you have a minute?" She motioned me to a tubular chair with a cracked seat.
"Sure."
She flicked a Chesterfield out of a pack and lit it. "What do you mean, he hired you as a security consultant? Do you mean bodyguard?"
"Something like that. He said he wanted protection."
She looked at the date on the check. "John hired you yesterday, and you quit yesterday, and somebody killed him last night. You really are up to your ass in this, aren't you-how do you say your name?"
"STRAY-chee, Don. As in Lytton.' Great-uncle Lyt."
She shot smoke back over her shoulder to the air conditioner that rattled in the window frame. "So what are you doing here? Are you feeling guilty? You could have mailed me the check."
"I'm feeling partly responsible."
"I'm not a priest and I can't tell you that you'll be forgiven, Don. But you said that you quit because you couldn't put up with my brother. I believe it. John drove people apeshit. Did he lie to you?"
"Yes, it's my belief that he did."
"Oh, that's your belief, huh? Listen, nobody in Handbag ever believed a word John said. Nobody in Handbag who knew my brother ever trusted him any farther than they could toss him. You just happened to catch on fast. Good for you. Don't feel guilty."
"I guess you and your brother weren't close."
She snorted smoke and her breasts bobbed twice under the sump-pump T-shirt. "We put up with each other. For Mom and Dad's sake. That's why I don't understand something. If John trusted you, maybe you know enough to clear something up for me. How well do you know Eddie?"
"Not well. I'm getting to know him."
"They weren't breaking up, were they? My brother and Eddie?"
"That wasn't my impression. Why?"
She shook her mountains of curls. "Eddie brought me a copy of John's will. Eddie just found it this morning. I checked with our lawyer, Dave Rizzuto, who was about to call me anyway, and he says it's a good will. It was written and filed last month, and John left almost everything to me. To me-the house and his half of the business. All Eddie got was the cash John had on hand and his dirty socks. That's weird."
"Was Eddie upset?"
"I think he was. He seemed surprised, and I think hurt. There's three or four K in John's bank account Eddie will get, but it's the business that's worth real bucks, and of course the house. I'm glad to have it, I'll tell you. My divorce was final in June and I've got three kids who'll all be in college at the same time in a couple of years. But I can't figure out why me if they were still boyfriends. Eddie has been John's real family practically since he's been an adult. Eddie and the activists. So if John trusted you, maybe you know what's going on. John didn't trust too many people. Are you gay?"
"Yes, I am."
"Are you out?"
"Sure."
"Well, that would help. I don't think John trusted any straight people-'breeders,' he called us-and the people who really set him off were gay people who pretended they weren't."
"I'm aware of that. As is much of the northeastern United States."
"You might be surprised to know," she said, "that John's campaign to drag gay people out of the closet didn't bother me at all. I can't stand phonies either. We are what we are. Pete, my ex, wasn't too crazy about John going around yelling about queers-this and faggots-that. 'How can he use those words?' Pete'd say. 'If he caught me calling a queer a queer, he'd go apeshit.' Pete missed the point. Pete always missed the point. But John's carrying on was all right with me.
"One of the things I'm really sorry about was that we were never close enough for me to tell him how proud I was of the way he went off to nursing school and pulled his shit together. You'd never believe what a fuckup John was as a teenager. I'm six years older and I was away at school and missed the worst of it, but I heard the stories. And then he went ahead and turned out okay for John. I sure wish I had the chance to tell my dickhead little brother how I felt about him."
"Maybe he knew," I said. "And he was telling you he knew by leaving you the family house and his half of the business, and he was telling you that he was still part of the Rutka family."
She jabbed out her Chesterfield in a filthy dish full of butts and gave me a look. "You must watch too much television, Donald, and you've gone a little soft in the head. The Rutka family hasn't been a family for a long, long time. I don't even know why John stayed on after Mom and Dad died. There was nothing for him in Handbag. He and I hardly even spoke to each other. I'd tell him changes I was making in the business, but he wasn't really interested. He just wanted his share of the profits. He never said boo to my kids and not much more to me. No, it wasn't family that kept John in Handbag. I don't know why he stayed. It's
a total mystery to me."
She fired up another Chesterfield and saw me watching her take a deep drag. "I know," she said, "I know. Soon."
I drove over to the Rutka house and found Eddie Sandifer out back prying up charred boards from the back porch.
"I talked to the chief," he said. "I told him I thought John sent his files to Utica for safekeeping."
"Utica? I thought we decided on Rochester."
"I changed it to Utica because I don't really know anybody there and I don't think John did either."
"Did Bailey seem to buy it?"
"I doubt it. But what's he going to do, beat the truth out of me with a rubber hose? This is Handbag." He ripped up another floorboard and flung it onto the heap out in the yard.
"I hate to do this to a decent guy like Bub Bailey," I said. "But this is the way it has to be for now."
"Hey, I'm cool."
Given the company he'd kept for a decade, I supposed he was. "I think I may have found who one of the sets of initials in the payout ledger belongs to. Have you ever heard of a Nathan Zenck?"
"What's he? No."
"He's a hotel manager in Colonic"
"Never heard of him." He was ripping away at another board that kept splintering and leaving jagged shreds of itself behind.
"I met John's sister," I said. "She told me you'd been by the store."
Sandifer stood up now and wiped the sweat off his face with the side of his arm. He stood there looking as if he was about to speak but was afraid of whatever might come out.
I said, "Ann told me about the will."
Now his shoulders began to shake.
"She was surprised," I said. "And she said you were surprised too, and hurt."
Tears rolled down his face. "Why did John do that?"
I shrugged lamely. "You knew how strange he could be."
Sandifer said, "I don't need the money-it's not that. I can work. But I was like his family. I was more like his family than his real family was. He told me that once. It was hard for him, but he told me. So why did he stiff me?"
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