“Most cops figure why bother, they won’t be missed,” Kelly said, finishing his thought. He nodded in agreement.
“What, we’re going to just sit here all night?” Doyle snarled from down the bar. A few heads in the crowd swiveled toward him. “Christ, let’s get this show on the road. Ever seen this kid?” Doyle shoved a copy of Randy Jacobs’s mug shot at the bartender as he swung past. The bartender’s eyes skimmed over him as he kept going, heading for the taps. “Buddy, you hear me? I asked you a goddamn question!” Doyle raised his voice at the end, drowning out the music. Conversation around them stilled. A few men put their drinks down and edged toward the door.
“Nice, Doyle. Subtle,” Monica muttered.
“Lieutenant Doyle, if you’ll just give me a minute,” Bennett said, putting a hand on his forearm. Doyle jerked, shaking it off as if it was contaminated, and glowered at the officer.
Kelly flipped open her badge with a sigh, any chance of keeping a low profile utterly blown. “Hi, Tony. Special Agent Kelly Jones with the FBI. We’re looking for information on this kid.”
The bartender reluctantly approached and took the picture in one hand. “Never seen him,” he said decisively.
“You sure? You barely looked at it,” Monica pressed.
“Listen, I can haul you down right now…” Doyle spoke over her.
“Lieutenants, why don’t you canvass the club, see what you can find out?” Kelly said. They both looked at her. Monica appeared hurt, but complied. Doyle opened his mouth to protest, then snapped it shut and shuffled away. Kelly watched as he approached an enormous man who was wearing a manacle around his neck, and hoped this wasn’t going to get any uglier. She turned back to the bartender.
Bennett was speaking to him in a low voice. Tony’s eyes shifted back and forth from him to her, indecisive. Kelly waited for them to finish.
“Tony thinks he might remember the kid,” Bennett said in a low voice.
“Yeah?” Kelly raised an eyebrow.
The bartender slowly nodded. “Name’s Randy,” he mumbled.
“Right, Randy Jacobs. He met someone here earlier this summer, an art dealer, and probably disappeared from the scene for a while. I’m thinking he showed up again, around the end of July. I need to know who he went home with.”
“Why? What’d the kid do?” The bartender’s brow furrowed. He was pushing thirty, T-shirt straining across his belly. With one hand he rubbed a carefully maintained five-o’clock shadow.
“He turned up dead.” Kelly held up the picture again.
“Damn.” The bartender whistled. “He wasn’t one of them in the woods, was he? Papers are saying you found a bunch of them.”
Bennett and she exchanged a glance. “I can’t confirm anything until we’ve tracked down his next of kin.”
“Won’t be easy to find them,” Tony said to himself. His gaze shifted back to Bennett. “You think this might be a gay thing?”
Bennett said, “Hard to say yet, but maybe.”
“Like the other ones, huh?” Tony bit his lower lip and shook his head. “With these kids you never know, figure they might have OD’d or something. One night they’re here, then no one ever hears from them again.”
“How many boys have disappeared?” Kelly asked.
Tony shrugged. “Man, over the years, who could say. Dozens of them. But again, these boys don’t go missed you know? Could be they got lucky and found someone to take care of them, straightened out.”
“Or they might be John Does in another jurisdiction,” Bennett concluded. “We’ve put up posters—I don’t know, what, five, maybe six times? Other boys reported them missing, said they never showed up somewhere they were expected. But again…”
“Yeah, I know. They could have gone anywhere.” Kelly sighed. “What about Randy?”
“Randy kicked around here for the past few years. Always managed to find someone, but then showed up alone again start of the next season.” Tony leaned across the bar and lowered his voice. “He was back, just about a month ago. Came in for the Wednesday night party.”
“Did he leave with anyone?” Kelly asked.
“Not that I saw. Sorry—wish I could tell you more.” He glanced across the room. “Tell you who could, though…”
Kelly followed his eyes. A tall, skinny boy was standing in the corner with a middle-aged man who had one arm slung around his waist. He was sipping a drink and regarding Kelly warily. Their eyes met, and he leaned over and murmured something to his companion. They started walking toward the door.
Kelly nodded to Bennett, who abruptly turned and walked to the far side of the room. Kelly strolled in the other direction, making as if she were going to the ladies’ room. At the last moment she veered, and the two of them cut off the couple near the exit. “Evening,” she said, flashing her badge. “Could we have a word?”
She directed the question to the boy. His older companion was already backing away, waving both hands. “Honestly, officers, he told me he was twenty.”
“Yeah, right.” The kid rolled his eyes. “Like then it would be legal. Freakin’ fool.” With a sigh of resignation he turned toward the wall, placing both palms flat against it and spreading his legs. “Whatever. It’s a warm bed and three squares, right? And my lawyer’ll have me out for the weekend.”
Bennett raised an eyebrow and jerked his head toward the older man trying to edge past him. “He can go,” Kelly said, then turned back to the kid. “I’m not arresting you.”
The kid turned back toward her. “You’re not?” She shook her head. “So what, then?” He leaned against the wall and dug through his shirt pocket for a pack of cigarettes.
“This.” She held the photo of Randy out to him.
He took it, squinting in the darkness. “What about him?”
“You know him?”
The kid shrugged.
“What’s your name?”
“Danny.”
“Danny what?”
“Smith.”
“All right, Danny Smith. It’s not too late for me to change my mind about arresting you.”
“Do what you want, lady.” His eyes wandered past her and he stiffened as Doyle approached. Kelly waved him off.
“Look, I just want to find out if you ever saw Randy leave here with someone.”
“There was the art guy…” the kid hedged.
“Other than him. It would’ve been after that, about a month ago.
“He’s dead, huh?” Danny asked. Kelly nodded in response. The kid shifted his weight to the other foot and lowered his eyes to the floor. “Figures. Randy always was a fuckup.”
“In what way?”
He twitched a hand through his hair, tugging it out from the roots nervously. “Always thought he’d find someone to take care of him, then every time he did, he’d blow it. Last time he was in here he said he was skipping town. Was going to head down to New York, humiliate his ex-boyfriend somehow. He was going to turn one trick to cover bus fare and…expenses,” he said the last with a slow smile.
“But he didn’t say how?”
“Nope. That was the last time I saw him, though.”
“And you didn’t see the trick?”
Danny shook his head. “Saw him leave around last call, alone. Pissed off about it, too.”
“Okay. Has anyone else gone missing, or had a problem with a trick getting too rough?”
“What, I gotta keep track of every dick in town now?” He chuckled as he scratched at one arm.
Kelly glanced down: track marks. “So that’s a no?”
“Let’s just say I take care of myself. Am I free to go, lady?”
“Yeah, you’re free to go.” She watched as he shuffled back to the bar and wrapped an arm around another middle-aged man.
“What do you think?” Monica asked, coming up behind her. Doyle was standing by the door, sulking as he waited for them.
Bennett joined them. “Kid tell you anything?”
“Not much that we didn’t already know. And I don’t think we’re going to get anything else here tonight.”
“Amen to that,” Monica muttered. “If I hear one more techno song, my head will explode. Let’s blow this joint.”
Dwight gnawed a nail as he watched the cops leave the club. They were finally getting somewhere, must have figured out where the boy got taken. Which meant it was time for stage two of his plan. He glanced at his watch, experiencing a flush of pride as he gazed at the face. It was an MTM, the same kind special ops guys wore, it said so right on the Web site. Shatterproof glass set in an indestructible case of stainless steel and titanium—cost him two weeks’ salary, but it was worth it. Most important thing in the field, he thought, gotta know what time it is. He’d read that somewhere once, or saw it on TV. The glow-in-the-dark hands read 11:30 p.m. Too early still for what he had to do. Dwight jiggled the pennies nervously in one hand as he sifted through various options. Not a good idea to hang around here, someone might take notice. Ma was at home, and she’d be pissed if he went out again. And the bars would be closing soon—he was no good at bars when he was like this anyway, so jittery he always spilled something and the last thing he needed was to call attention to himself.
Dwight wondered if he’d always be like this, jumpy out in the field. The Captain never seemed nervous at all, he thought resentfully, seeing him again in his mind’s eye. He’d been cool as ice, digging that hole, dropping in the bag, covering the mound with brush so it looked like the rest of the woods. Too cool to even notice someone watching from a hundred feet back. Dwight had to hand it to those night-vision goggles, man, they’d been worth every dime. Lately the urges were getting stronger, until he was almost overwhelmed by the need to find out what it felt like to be working on one of them. Watching the Captain, he’d felt all tingly, almost like he was turned-on. He’d pressed on the gauze covering his forearm, but the pain actually made the feeling more intense, not less.
He could pass the time by shuttling some hikers from the bars back to the trail, Dwight mused. Except he was in the company cruiser tonight, so they might assume he was a narc. ’Course, he could try to shake them down instead. Those kids were always carrying pot, if they were drunk enough they might figure him for a cop and would pay to be let off with a warning. He’d done it before, and it would be a shame to waste the cruiser, the boss didn’t trust him with it very often. Dwight had claimed that his own car was in the shop, not wanting to chance the Captain recognizing his Tercel if he was staking out the club, too.
Dwight was struck by a thought: maybe he could stop by the house in North Adams, see if any of the other fag boys were around. That could be a lot of fun, messing with one of them. And they would definitely be high, they always were. He tucked the pennies back in his right pocket as he started the car. Who knows, he thought, lips curling back over his teeth in a grim smile. Maybe this would be his lucky night.
“Where were you?” Sommers asked, arms folded across his chest. He was standing at the top of the stairs in a robe.
Jim stifled a yawn. “Out.”
“Obviously you were out, but who the hell were you out with?”
“Dude, chill. I was at Metro. Just felt like dancing.”
“Bullshit.” Sommers’s voice lowered a register, heavy with menace. “Larry called me, said you didn’t show. Don’t think you can dick me around, boy.”
“Whatever. You’re like my fuckin’ ma, you know that? It’s getting to be a real fucking drag.”
Sommers charged down the stairs, not bothering to close the folds of his robe as they flapped open. “You don’t like it, you little pissant punk, you can go sleep in the fuckin’ dump I found you in.”
“Fine.” Jim ran a hand through his hair and shrugged. “This was getting old anyway. Peace out, asshole.” He slouched toward the door.
Sommers paused at the bottom of the staircase, staring at the door as it slammed shut. He took a few faltering steps forward, stopped and went into the living room. He sank down on the arm of the couch. A breeze swept down the chimney flue, and he absentmindedly closed his robe and retied it.
His eyes lit on the end table and his brow furrowed. He stood and executed a quick turn, panning the room as his face darkened with rage. “Why, the little bastard…” he growled, fists clenched. The Dionysian figurine was gone, as was the Nan Goldin photograph he’d just acquired. Those two alone were worth close to a hundred grand. He marched into the kitchen, yanked the phone from its stand, then hesitated. What would the cops do in a situation like this? He could picture their faces, smug and disdainful, thinking to themselves that the old pervert got what he deserved. The Berkshire cops were known for not giving a damn, particularly when it came to offenses against the gay community. If he was lucky they’d fill out a report and bury it in a filing cabinet.
Sommers pursed his lips and slowly set the phone back down, crossed the kitchen and opened the basement door. The gloom at the bottom of the stairs lapped at his slippers. He’d hidden it well, in a Ferragamo box marked “photos” that was buried under the Christmas ornaments. At least he’d been smart enough to keep some of his things where the punks would never think to look, he thought angrily. It had been years since he’d used it. He’d better give it a good oiling first, he thought, as he flicked on the lights and descended. He’d make that little bastard pay for making a fool of him, if it was the last thing he did.
Eight
“So have you made any more progress?”
Kelly held the phone away from her ear as McLarty’s voice boomed through the receiver, then moved it back to her mouth. “Not much, thanks to the usual jurisdictional nonsense. Lots of red tape, the lab work is taking forever, and the two lieutenants assigned to me are still in a blood feud. But we have an ID on one of the victims, a young gay hustler named Randy Jacobs. We’re combing through the background of the last guy he hooked up with to see if there’s anything there. Apparently this isn’t the first kid from the gay scene to go missing.”
“Any chance the other victims were turning tricks, too?”
“It’s possible,” Kelly answered. “It would explain why we don’t have any missing-persons’ reports to match the vics we’ve found. We should know more when the rest of the DNA results come in. If you wouldn’t mind placing a call to the state lab in Sudbury, sir—”
“Absolutely, I’ll light a fire under their ass.” He paused before continuing, “You know, if you can prove any of these boys crossed the state line to turn tricks—”