“How does he know this?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll keep an eye on him, find out what he knows and what he’s writing before it ends up in the paper. As soon as I get the details, I’ll e-mail you the names of the missing men so you can verify they were either members or worked for you. I’ll need an address and photo of each man.” He paused, knowing he had to tell Vargas the rest but, for some reason, wishing he could hold back. “He also thinks there’s a cover-up. You and I both know you’re not involved, but maybe someone else is.”
“Who? A member?”
“Maybe. I’ll need another list. The name of every cop, lawyer, judge, anyone connected with politics, or anyone who might want to hide the fact that they frequent a gay sex club. Anyone who’d have the power and influence to instigate a cover-up.”
The long exhale came across the line loud and clear. “At this rate I should just give you access to the entire database.”
“Might not be a bad idea.” When Vargas didn’t say anything, Walter added, “You can trust me.”
“I know that. I’ll get you the info. You sure I shouldn’t call this Kevin Price in and have a talk with him myself, then kick his ass out?”
“No. I can handle this. I’ve…made a connection with him.”
“A connection, huh?”
Walter ignored the dig. “I have a hunch he won’t write a story without the facts.”
“Sometimes people twist the truth to suit themselves and still call it the truth.” Vargas sighed again. “Thanks for keeping an eye out for shit like this.” The frustration in his voice was unmistakable.
“No problem. I’ll find out what’s going on and be in touch.” Walter hung up and returned to the screen with Kevin’s bio. And the photo.
He liked smart guys, and this guy was smart. He’d even fooled Vargas. Surprising considering Kevin’s nervous reactions at the club. He’d had his interview with Vargas when the Haven had been empty, not filled with men. Maybe it had been easier for him to put on a front without the sea of male distractions.
Or maybe it had been talking to Walter that had Kevin flustered. That thought had Walter wanting to play, to push the man and see how riled up he could get him with just a few words.
He stared at the photo of Kevin. One thing Walter knew for sure: there was more to Kevin than he could gain from a two-paragraph bio or from one night of observation.
He’d learned more from the kisses than anything else.
Kevin Price intrigued him, and he hadn’t been intrigued by anyone in a long time.
* * * *
Vampire Guy was a cop?
Kevin leaned closer to his computer monitor and read the story detailing the fatal shooting five years earlier. He sat at his desk in the middle of the cubicle-filled newsroom, his desk lamp and computer monitor two of the few lights on in the open room.
A handful of other employees usually filtered in and out at this hour. A paper the size of the
Daily Voice
always had someone working. Tonight it was quieter than normal.
Kevin often stayed late at the office. Or returned at the end of the day. Might as well spend his evenings working instead of going home to his empty apartment.
At work he could pretend he wasn’t lonely.
Tonight he’d been at it for about a half hour, making notes for the story at the Haven. He’d been about to head for something to eat before he had to get to the address Walter left on his phone, when Kevin had stopped and decided to run a search online.
Walter Simon. A former police detective, granted early retirement after a fatal shooting. Kevin scanned the search results and returned to the first story.
Two teenage boys are dead after a failed robbery attempt at a 7-Eleven at the intersection of Collingwood and Upton. The lone robber took a young shopper hostage and minutes later discharged his weapon after a brief verbal altercation with an off-duty officer who identified himself as police. Bullets struck the hostage as the robber continued to fire while he tried to flee. The officer, Detective Walter Simon, who’d been shopping in the store at the time, returned fire, wounding the armed man. Both young men were pronounced dead at the scene despite Simon’s attempts to revive them.
Kevin clicked another link, this one to his paper’s story about the shooting. He’d read back issues of the paper before getting the job, but somehow he’d missed this. Surprising. The story had made the news for weeks.
Today the internal affairs division of the city police department began an investigation of a decorated detective regarding an officer-involved shooting of an underage nongang youth.
He read more. The news coverage mentioned possible “use of excessive force,” calling it “an unjustified shooting.”
The details weren’t adding up. The kid had been armed. He’d taken a hostage. He’d shot someone.
Kevin browsed to another page. This one had a photo. A standard police-issue headshot of Walter in his dress uniform. He looked younger in the photo than he had at the club. Softer. Less like a vampire.
But still just as irritatingly sexy.
He didn’t have the lines at the corners of his eyes or the ones crossing his forehead that he’d had at the club. He still had the serious dark eyes, though. No porn Kevin had ever watched compared with staring into those eyes. Or kissing those lips.
He shifted in his seat, trying to will his body not to respond. He could not get a stiff one at work.
It had just been such a long time. Even before he’d left Sondra, they hadn’t had sex in weeks. Hell, months. A movie and dinner out was not the same as a blowjob.
Not that he and Sondra had ever had a great sex life. It had started off okay when they were twenty-one, but had fizzled out years ago until they’d become more friends than lovers.
He read more about Walter Simon. Several of the stories mentioned he was a gay man.
So he was out. All the way out.
A detective named Henderson, who also worked in the major crimes unit with Walter, hinted in several of the stories that Walter’s domestic problems at the time of the robbery may have been a factor in any wrongdoing on the part of the detective.
So much for the theory cops looked after their own. With friends like that, who needed enemies?
What were the domestic problems, and were they why Walter had left the force, or was it the shooting?
Kevin continued reading.
Henderson had been commended by the press for speaking out when it would’ve been easier to keep quiet, even though in the end the use of deadly force had been officially deemed justified.
“What are you doing back here?”
Kevin spun around. The back of his chair hit his keyboard and sent it flying sideways. The keyboard smacked into the cubicle wall at the edge of his desk, knocking down several papers that had been tacked to more papers covering every inch of the bulletin board.
Myles stood behind him, resting his elbows on the top of the short cubicle wall. “I should buy stock in whatever company makes those keyboards.”
“The other three were defective.”
“Sure they were.” Myles pointed to Kevin’s monitor. “Is he your contact?”
“Maybe.” Kevin glanced over his shoulder at the photo of Walter. Why did he have to look so good? Even in the standard drab employee headshot that usually didn’t flatter anyone. Kevin jabbed the Off button on the monitor. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to many people yet. Just him and another guy. I’ve got a meeting with him in an hour. He works with security at the club.”
“So there is something going on?”
“I think so. Looks like there may be another missing man.”
“Has this one been reported to the police?”
“It’s recent. But I don’t think so.”
Myles gestured to the monitor’s now dark screen. “I recognize him. He used to be a cop. He probably still has friends on the force.”
Kevin nodded. He did not want to talk about Walter.
“That fits the theory of a cover-up. Did you talk to anyone who’ll go on the record?”
“Not yet.”
Myles reached over the cubicle wall and picked up a stress ball from the top of Kevin’s file cabinet. The ball had the words
free your mind, embrace life
printed on its surface. A souvenir from Kevin’s time at a mandatory intra-office training seminar that had given him more stress than it relieved. He’d had to wait to talk to a source who’d finally come forward after he’d been trying to get him to go on the record for weeks.
“What’s up with you?” Myles rolled the ball in his hands, the words
embrace life
repeatedly flashing at Kevin.
Kevin threw him a dirty look. “I hate you sometimes.” He shifted in the chair. The leather pants squeezed his thighs and crawled up his ass for what had to be the twentieth time that night. He tugged at the pant legs. He should’ve gone home and changed.
“I’m a reporter at heart. Sue me.” Myles tossed the ball to the file cabinet. “Besides I’m older than you, and I’m your editor. I’m supposed to be all Obi-Wan on your ass.”
Kevin sighed and sat back. That had the pants riding higher. If he wore the damn things any longer, he would definitely need help getting them off. Which had him remembering where he’d be headed in an hour. “I want to nail this club, but I’m not sure I’m the right fit for this.”
“Fit?” Myles straightened and gestured in the air with one hand. “I’m not asking you to go in there and get fucked by every guy in the place. It’s an assignment. A story you brought to me. I thought you said if that place was involved in anything illegal, then you wanted to get to the truth. This isn’t something we can pass up.”
There could be any number of things going on at the club. Drug trade. Human trafficking. Snuff films. Those kinds of leads sold papers, and with the decline of print publishing, any story that sold more papers made for a happy editor.
Kevin sighed. “I just hate places like that.”
Myles moved to stand in the cubicle opening and leaned against the wall. His voice was softer when he spoke again. “’Cause they’re filled with fags?”
“No!”
“I didn’t think you’d be like that. Then what is it?”
“It’s just…disgusting. People paying so they can have sex with a bunch of strangers.”
“Well,” Myles said, “if whatever is going on is big enough, it might shut the place down.”
Right. And the best way to find out would be to stay close to the one man who seemed just as interested in what was going on.
That’s if he could trust Walter Simon. That’s if Walter wasn’t fucking Kevin over.
Or fucking Kevin period.
Thank God Myles was done with him. No way could Kevin sit there talking any longer with the thoughts he had running through his head. Mental images of more kisses, of intimate touches, of his bare legs draped over Walter’s shoulders as the man shoved inside him with powerful thrust after thrust.
Chapter Seven
Walter climbed the last step leading to the apartment building’s eighth floor and wiped the sweat from his brow, grateful for the five miles he jogged every day. He’d learned in his early years as a beat cop not to trust elevators. And never to trust whoever stepped inside with you.
The stairs were better. Easier to hurt your aggressor. Easier to escape if need be.
He continued down the hall toward apartment 8G, taking in the sounds through each too-thin door he passed, checking for any of them open on his way, and checking again for any that opened after he’d gone by.
The hallway smelled of piss and smoke. Scuff marks and scratches covered the paint-chipped walls. No decorative sconces lit the way. Just one bare bulb hanging from the ceiling every five yards. The gold-and-brown splotchy carpet beneath his feet didn’t have any padding to it. More like walking on a hardwood floor.
Not where he expected a member of the Haven to live. Monthly membership dues usually kept the clientele to men with a steadier paycheck than this place suggested.
Few things in life still surprised Walter.
He stopped next to the door for 8G. No voices. No television. He waited another minute and finally heard movement behind the door, scratching, and then the high-pitched whine of a dog.
Walter knocked and stepped back. No one opened the door or moved about inside even though the scratching and whining continued.
He tried again. “Seth Fisher?” Nothing. He removed a penlight from his back pocket and ran the tip of the pen along the top of the door frame. There weren’t many places in this hallway to hide a key. No potted plants. No smoke detector.
He gave up on the search. He pulled the bump key ring from his pocket and tried a couple of keys that were the best bet for the brand of lock. When he found one that fit, he slid it back out one notch, so it was almost all the way in but not quite. Applying slight pressure to the key, he tapped the end of it with the penlight and turned the key.
“Hey,” a low voice said. “You breaking in?” A young man in his teens stood a door away from Walter. A big kid, bigger than Walter in every way, and solid. He could make his high school football team without a touch of skill. He wore jeans too low on his hips to be comfortable, or practical for walking, and a gray Jimi Hendrix T-shirt. Did he even know who Hendrix was?
“You better not be breaking in.”
“I know who lives here. Just keep on walking.”
“I’ll call the cops if you’re breaking in.”
“I’m trying to find the guy who lives here, Seth Fisher. A friend of mine thinks he might be in trouble, and I want to help.” Walter removed the key from the lock and showed it to the kid, then opened the door a crack so the kid could see he’d gotten it unlocked but not enough for him to catch a glimpse of anything inside.
The kid narrowed his eyes and folded his solid arms over his chest, sizing up Walter with one look. He kept on staring. Finally the kid said, “His dog’s been whining all night.” He scrutinized the door to Seth’s apartment. A minute passed. Another. Maybe he’d seen through the bump-key trick. Walter didn’t want to outright lie to him, but he needed time to do a proper search of the place. He didn’t need the kid calling the police.
“I used to be a cop.” Keeping hold of the door, he handed the kid a business card. “Now I own a security company. Seth might be in some trouble. I really need to find out if he’s okay. Taking a look in his apartment will help me do that.”