Hostage (19 page)

“Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Mills?” asked the security guard, poking his head out.

“Maybe not.”

The guard then turned to the bronzed woman, calling, “Welcome home, Mrs. Fitzgerald. How was Hawaii? Did you have a good flight back?”

“Everything was perfect, but, ish, I can’t believe there’s still ice on that lake out there!”

Todd scooted right by her, out the door, past the woman’s husband, then around the front of the limo. Waving, he caught the attention of the chauffeur, who was just opening the driver’s door.

“Hey,” began Todd, “I have an emergency and I don’t have time to wait for a cab. I need a lift, just a couple of miles. Will fifty bucks do?”

The driver, a young man with blond hair and wearing a black uniform, looked at him and without a pause replied, “Fifty bucks will do quite nicely, sir.”

“Great.”

Todd opened the rear door before the chauffeur had a chance and threw himself into the deep, cushy seat. As the driver started up the car and began to pull away, Todd gave him Rawlins’s address. What choice was there? Where else could he look? Rawlins had said something about looking for someone else, some other guy, but who in the hell could that be?

Wait a minute, thought Todd as the limousine turned right onto the parkway. Maybe Rawlins hadn’t parked in the guest parking area after all. Perhaps he’d just pulled over on the parkway as he sometimes did. Hoping that was the case, that Rawlins was parked somewhere on the street and was slumped in his car pondering his life, Todd turned around and looked out the rear of the Cadillac. Along the well-lit road was a string of cars, but none of them belonged to Rawlins, not even the one with the blazing headlights that pulled out after the limo.

So if he hadn’t
gotten it from Todd, then from whom?

Like a refrain from a nightmarish song, those words kept whizzing through Rawlins’s head, and he drove through the dark as numb as he was exhausted. It didn’t make sense, it was incomprehensible, this death sentence he’d just been handed. Why in God’s name couldn’t it have been just a chronic sinus problem? Assuming he’d never understand why HIV had struck him, then at least he hoped he’d be able to see how it had happened.

If not Todd, then…

His mind started flipping through his lovers. He saw faces of men with dark hair, broad shoulders, quick smiles. Okay, so he had a type, more dark than not, more easy than intense, more traditionally masculine than gender-bender. No matter how sexy or gorgeous, however, none of them had touched his heart, not really—not, at least, until Todd, which was what made him different. Just the sight of Todd’s smile always seemed to defuse Rawlins, and that in turn relaxed him amazingly, which always had the wonderful end effect of arousing him.

But now…

Whether or not he was HIV positive or had progressed into AIDS seemed irrelevant. The first meant more time—but was that time to loll about in despair and hopelessness?—and the second meant the fire was already blazing and the question was whether it could be controlled.

For a brief moment he wondered if this was really possible, then he stopped himself. Of course it was, not simply because AIDS was what he’d always feared—as if it were the great punishment for being a homo, some corner of himself was always sure he’d get it—but, quite simply, because it made perfect sense. The chronic sinus infection, for one. The nagging sense of exhaustion he’d felt over the past months, for two. So how long? How long had HIV been floating around in his body, nibbling away at his defenses? And how long did he have to live?

And who the hell had given it to him?

He believed Todd. Rawlins had seen the shock, the horror, when he’d told Todd what he’d learned at the doctor’s today. He’d stared into Todd’s eyes, knew that Todd was telling the truth, that Todd had had a test, just as he’d told him before, and the result was negative. So Rawlins hadn’t contracted the virus from Todd, and he prayed he hadn’t passed it to Todd, for he couldn’t bear that type of responsibility. So that really left only a few other possibilities who could have infected Rawlins, didn’t it? And of those possibilities, didn’t it really mean only one guy? Sure, and he knew exactly who, the handsomest of them all. With the others Rawlins had been no dummy, but with this one he’d made one critical mistake. Simply, he’d had way too much to drink. End of story.

Oh, shit, Rawlins thought, his eyes filling with tears. He was going to die because of three or four too many bourbon and sodas and a one-night stand.

Images of Curt came at Rawlins, smashing into his mind. Curt, doubled over in tears, sobbing not only because he’d found out that he had AIDS, but that the man he loved more than anyone else—his Mr. Wonderful—had just walked out the door. Curt, laughing at the array of medications—over fifty pills a day—he was supposed to take. Curt, refusing mashed potatoes because the thrush in his mouth was so thick that even the blandest things tasted foul. Curt, blathering a string of nonsensical crap about changing the world. Rawlins saw all that in his mind’s eye, and his own future scared the shit out of him. Why not a car crash? A house fire? Why AIDS?

Rawlins drove around Lake Calhoun once, twice. As if circling his past he went around and around the soggy but still frozen body of water. God, how many times had he biked, jogged, walked around this lake? How many times had he swum in it, canoed on it? He recalled that one magical Fourth of July when he and a couple of pals had swum out into the dark waters as fireworks exploded in the night sky and accompanying music was broadcast over the lapping lake. Was there anything better?

And then he was turning on a side street. It could be the absolute worst thing, perhaps entirely stupid, yet Rawlins knew he had to see him. Perhaps get mad. Perhaps cry together. Perhaps find solace. But if it had, indeed, been Matthew who had infected Rawlins with HIV some two years ago, then there was no holding Rawlins back, not now, not tonight. Among other things it would clarify Rawlins’s true health status—he’d know for sure that he was HIV positive only, for didn’t it usually take eight to ten years to progress into AIDS? Hadn’t he once read that?

As far as Rawlins knew, Matthew still lived just a couple of blocks east, right in Uptown. The small house—that was it—nestled midblock. Sure. Rawlins recalled two years ago going down to the Gay Times, that mega gay bar where boys danced for hours to throbbing beats, queens dragged in their finest boas, and lusty connections were made. That steamy summer night Rawlins had drunk way more than he usually did and then ran into Matthew, and right then, that evening, the chemistry had been fiery and fun. As some disco diva wailed away, they had groped their way through one dance, then stumbled out into the parking lot. But then Rawlins was faced with an incredibly complex question: Should he really do this, go home with Matthew? In the end the booze and the lust got the better of Rawlins’s judgment, and he hopped in Matthew’s car and they drove south toward Uptown and Matthew’s house, where they’d parked alongside the garage.

As they had approached the rear of the house, Matthew tackled Rawlins, felling him in the grass and saying, “You are so incredibly sexy.”

Rawlins—knowing in his heart of hearts that he shouldn’t be there and he shouldn’t be doing this because, after all, who in the world had a worse reputation than Matthew?—had stared into that face and replied, “And you are so incredibly handsome. But you know, I shouldn’t be here. This is really stupid of me.”

“Oh, shut up.” Matthew had laughed, rolled across the ground and right up to the back steps, where he reached under one of the stairs and snatched a shiny brass key. “Bingo! This is the key to fun!”

Too many drinks, Rawlins thought now, staring up at the gray house. Otherwise it wouldn’t have happened, Rawlins wouldn’t have gone home with Matthew. There would have been no pushing at the boundary of safe sex. And he’d be okay today. How fickle life was. Once he’d avoided being broadsided in his car by a mere second or two simply because he’d slowed to change the radio station; otherwise he certainly would have been killed. Years ago, before he’d been promoted to detective, he’d been involved in a backyard chase where the suspect had turned and fired directly on Rawlins; had the bullet not struck his badge and deflected into his shoulder, Rawlins would certainly have taken one in the heart. But not now. No avoiding this. A microscopic virus had burst from Matthew’s body into Rawlins’s being.

The lights were off, but Rawlins didn’t care. He’d heard Matthew was sick. He’d heard he wasn’t all that far behind Curt. So maybe Matthew was at his parents’ or maybe he was in the hospital. Or maybe he was just asleep, lolling about in night sweats. It didn’t matter. Rawlins got out of his car, followed the front walk up to the house, then continued around the left side. The backyard was a plain of brown frozen grass, the trees spindly and leafless, but it was funny how much he remembered. Back then—just two simple years ago—the grass and oaks had been lush with summer. They’d parked back there by the side of the garage. Rolled right here. And, recalled Rawlins, moving toward the rear steps, Matthew had reached under here for a key.

Now groping under the treads, Rawlins found it immediately. There was a nail, and on that nail hung a key. He took it in his palm, and even in the faint light from the alley could tell the key was no longer bright and shiny. He shrugged. So much time. Then he climbed the back steps, inserted the key, unlocked the past, and entered Matthew’s home.

He stood in the kitchen and recalled the light in the hood above the stove. Walking through his memories, Rawlins now crossed the kitchen, fumbled for the switch, and flicked on the light over the gas burners. And, yes. Matthew had gone straight for the sink, turned on the faucet full blast, and grabbed a glass.

“Want some of the Mississippi’s finest?” he’d asked.

Rawlins had declined, just stood there watching as gorgeous Matthew chugged the water, a dribble of it curling down his chin, his throat, and disappearing into the hair poking from his T-shirt. And then they’d gone through that door.

Rawlins now stepped over to the opening, proceeded through the dark and to a lamp at the edge of the living room, which he turned on, just as Matthew had done that night that had more than likely begun the end of Rawlins’s life. And then Rawlins was proceeding up the staircase, the stairs creaking just as they had back when Rawlins, one hand groping Matthew’s ass, had eagerly followed him upward. That’s right, he recalled. Up and into the bedroom. They hadn’t even hesitated. To bed… to bed…

It was dark upstairs too, and he stopped at the top, peered into the darkness. Just then he heard something—floorboards moaning under the weight of another’s step?—and for the first time wondered if someone else was in fact home. If Matthew wasn’t here, could there be a lover? A roommate?

“Hello?” called out Rawlins. “Is someone here?”

No reply. Rawlins doubted Matthew was already dead—somehow he would have heard—but perhaps he was in fact lying in a hospital or hospice. Lying and waiting, just like Curt. Rawlins looked to his left, stumbled back into his memories. Yes, they’d gone in there, the front bedroom. He was surprised at how clear it still was, that one night of big lust. As if it were an obsessive fantasy that he’d been playing and replaying—which he hadn’t—Rawlins saw it all. Now standing in the doorway to the bedroom, he peered in, studying it as if it were the scene of a crime. The chamber was flooded with pale light from a streetlight, as it was then. But something… something was wrong, thought Rawlins, studying the black metal bed, the dresser. Of course. Back then they’d stumbled in here, ripped off their clothes, and collapsed naked on a futon on the floor, which had lain there, right there by the window. Now there was a bed to the right and—

He heard it distinctly now: a footstep. Someone else was here, and Rawlins slowly and calmly turned around. An ancient light switch snapped and the hall light burst on, outlining the tall but excruciatingly thin figure of a man, his head shaved, cheeks caved painfully in. Yes, he had
the look
—even his eyebrows were gray—and there was no way Rawlins would have recognized him had he not been standing in this man’s house. Of course this was Rawlins’s personal ground zero. Of course he’d gotten it from him.

But why the gun?

“Hello, Matthew,” said Rawlins, his voice surprisingly calm as he studied the man outlined by the harsh light. “It’s me, Steve Rawlins.”

“Gee, long time no see.”

He nodded toward the pistol now trained on him. “Don’t worry, I’m not a burglar. I just needed to stop by and say… say hello.”

“I was wondering when the fucking cops would get here.”

“Really?” he replied, his police instincts all but nonexistent tonight.

“It just never occurred to me that that might mean you.” Matthew asked, “Anyone else with you?”

“No.”

“You positive?”

Not at all understanding what was going on, Rawlins replied, “Absolutely.”

“How did you find me?”

“We had a memorable night together, I guess.”

Maybe Rawlins wasn’t angry because he’d used it all up on Todd, blasting him with his cannons of fury. Maybe he wasn’t angry because he was shocked at how awful Matthew, the handsomest man he’d ever slept with, now looked. Then again, he realized, this was it, the end of his search. He’d found square one, the spring, the source, the well of his infection. There was nothing else, no more pieces to gather to make the picture complete.