“It wasn’t who he was, but he wanted it to be. I tried to keep as close an eye on him as I could. I wouldn’t let him go to the Male Call without me. I had to protect him. He was my kid brother, for Christ’s sake!
“He went home with a couple of the guys there, but he always checked with me first so I’d know who he was with. If I said no, he didn’t go. And I told him never to go into the back room. Going home with someone was one thing, but the back room was strictly off limits. He didn’t belong there—it would be like tossing chum into a shark tank.
“Then one night I was busy talking to someone, and the next thing I know, I see Paul coming out of the back room. I had a shit fit, but he swore he’d just gone to look in to see what was going on. He said he hadn’t done anything, so I believed him, but I was still pissed.
“Then, a couple months later he started getting sick. Then he got sicker. And sicker. And I…” He leaped from his chair and said, “Excuse me, I’ve gotta take a piss.”
He hurried out of the room. A minute or so later, I heard the toilet flush, and he returned and sat back down in the rocker, picking up his story.
“Just before he died, he told me he’d lied to me. That he had gone into the back room that night and he’d had sex. He said Cal had been cruising him all night, and when I got distracted talking, Cal motioned for Paul to follow him into the back room and he did. He asked me to forgive him for lying to me.”
For a moment, he clamped his lips together, and his face looked as though it was going to break into pieces and crumble off his skull. My gut ached for him.
“Can you imagine that?” he said, pulling himself together. “He’s dying, and he asks me to forgive him! Two days later, we both died.”
All I could do was shake my head. “God, Don, I’m so sorry,” I finally managed to say. “Did you do anything about Hysong after you found out he’d given it to Paul?”
He took a very deep breath and resumed his rocking. “When he told me, I was more concerned with him and with being with him. I couldn’t have left him even for a minute, and I didn’t. But the day after I got back from the funeral in Duluth, I bought a gun and I went down to the Male Call that night to wait for Cal. I was going to kill him the minute he walked in the door.
“I had it all planned. Six bullets. I’d shoot him in each knee first then blow his balls off then shoot him in the stomach, then the chest just below the heart, then in the head. I wanted him to know exactly what was happening to him and why.”
“But you didn’t,” I said.
“Only because Cal didn’t come in that night. And because Carl had been watching me every second and knew what I was going to do. I don’t know how he knew—I probably had it written across my forehead. But he came over and took me back to his office and sat me down and talked to me for three hours. He convinced me the worst thing I could do for Paul would be to rot in jail for the rest of my life for a piece of shit like Cal.
“He told me that if Cal had given it to Paul, that meant he had it himself and that he was bound to die the way Paul had died and that shooting him would just put him out of his misery quickly. That he’d suffer a lot more dying the way Paul had.”
“What happened to the gun?” I asked.
“I gave it to Carl. He locked it in his safe. I guess it’s still there. I stayed away from the Male Call for a couple of months just because I didn’t want to have to face Cal.”
“But you did start going back,” I said.
He nodded. “Yeah. I really like the Male Call—it’s the only place in town where I feel really comfortable, and I was becoming a hermit. So, I started going back and kept as far away from Cal as I could. I didn’t even look at him if I could avoid it. I tried to warn everybody I could about him, until I was sure he’d come after me, but he didn’t.”
Obviously, I’d just found one of the major sources of the rumors.
“So, why did you go to the meeting at Jake’s?” I asked.
“Because I thought the guys were going to talk about killing Cal, and I wanted to tell them what Carl had told me. But we ended up just talking about ways we could make Cal’s life as miserable as he’d made ours. And you know, even though shooting Cal was too good for him, I’m glad somebody took him out.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But the cops arrested the wrong man. That’s why I’m trying to find out who really did it.”
Gleason simply shrugged. “Good luck,” he said.
*
I left shortly thereafter and headed back to the office, hoping one of the other guys from the meeting might have gotten my message and called.
On the way, I went over my conversation with Gleason. I really felt sorry for him—it was clear he felt responsible for his brother’s death. And he’d been open about wanting to kill Cal, something I don’t imagine he’d have admitted to if he really had done it.
I found it very interesting that Carl Brewer had talked him out of it. I’d had Carl on my list of potential suspects, but if he’d killed Hysong, why would he risk getting caught stealing Jake’s gun when he had Gleason’s right there in his safe? So, on the one hand, that might remove them both as suspects. On the other hand, Gleason may have been counting on my being thrown off-track, and Carl Brewer might not have wanted to have the murder weapon traced back to a gun in his safe.
Shit! Why can’t life be easy?
No messages on my machine, and I was just turning around to go back downstairs to grab something for lunch when the phone rang.
“Hardesty Investigations.”
“This is Frank Reed, returning your call.”
Frank Reed? I realized I hadn’t heard his real name before—Jared had referred to him as “Butch.”
“I’m glad you called,” I said. “I wanted to talk to you about Cal Hysong’s death.”
“What about it? I heard they think Jake did it, and I’d like to shake his hand. Why are you calling me about it?”
“Well, it’s kind of complicated,” I said. “I’ve been hired to look into the circumstances leading up to Hysong’s death, and I understand you and several other guys from the Male Call had a meeting shortly before he was killed.”
“So?” he demanded. “Does that mean I had something to do with his death?”
“I wasn’t implying that it did,” I said, calmly. “This is all just part of the information-gathering process, and I’d really appreciate it if we could meet face to face for a few minutes to talk.”
There was a long pause, then, “I suppose, but I don’t know what you’re looking for or what I can possibly tell you.”
“That’s what private investigators do—we look at bits of seemingly unimportant or unrelated information and see if they might fit into a bigger picture. Sometimes, the pieces fit, sometimes they don’t. So, when would you be free? We can meet wherever’s convenient for you.”
Another pause. “There’s a coffee shop near me, on the corner of High and Gibraltar—Alexander’s. You know it?”
“I know where it is, yeah.”
“I can meet you in front of the place today at two thirty.”
“Great. I’ll see you there. Thanks.”
*
Gertrude Stein said, “A rose is a rose is a rose.” She could just as easily have said “A coffee shop is a coffee shop is a coffee shop.” Alexander’s was…uh…a coffee shop. Large windows faced both streets, covered with mostly raised Venetian blinds. There was a recessed doorway with a menu posted on the window beside it, a long counter along the inside wall with maybe a dozen round stools, orange-plastic-upholstered booths along the outer walls and under the windows, and in the middle were four or five tables, with red-and-white checkerboard plastic tablecloths. High ceilings with ceiling fans making a half-hearted effort to stir the air—you know the place.
I got there about 2:25, having driven around looking for a parking place on the side street where there were no meters. I spotted Reed half a block away, though I’d never seen him before. One thing about leather men—when they’re not in leather, they tend to look just like everybody else. But for some reason, the second I saw Reed approaching, I thought, Fireman. Don’t ask me why; I long ago gave up trying to figure how my mind comes up with these things.
Nice-looking guy, about my height and build, probably a couple years younger. I’d noticed recently that more and more people seemed to be “a couple years younger” than me, and while I chose not to dwell on it, I was very much aware of it.
“Dick Hardesty?” he asked as he came up to me.
I extended my hand. “That’s me,” I said as we shook. “Do you prefer Frank or Butch…or Mr. Reed?” I added with a grin.
“Butch,” he said. “It has nothing to do with leather—my dad started calling me that when I was four.”
“Obvious prescience,” I said, and he returned the grin.
“Or wishful thinking,” he replied.
We entered the coffee shop and took a booth under the side window. There were only five other people in the place, including the waitress.
“Menus?” she called from behind the counter.
“What kind of pie you got today, Janice?” Reed asked.
“Cherry, coconut creme, blueberry, and apple.”
“Cherry,” he ordered. “And coffee.”
Both he and the waitress—Janice, unless Reed was into making up names—looked at me.
“Coconut creme and coffee,” I said, raising my voice just loud enough to cover the fifteen feet between us.
Reed and I small-talked while waiting for our orders.
“Your day off, I gather?”
He nodded.
“I was out running when you called,” he said. “I was really surprised to get your message. Still am, as a matter of fact. What’s this all about?”
Janice was approaching with a coffeepot and two paper placemats in one hand, and two small plates of pie in the other. How waitresses manage to do that without dropping things all over the floor always amazes me.
The coffee cups were already on the table, inverted on their saucers. She pulled two paper-napkin-wrapped silverware sets out of her apron pocket and got everything set up for us.
“Cream and sugar’s over there,” she said to me, indicating the ubiquitous array of condiments lined against the wall as though awaiting a firing squad.
“Thanks,” I said.
“You need anything else, just let me know,” she said pleasantly but without smiling, and then returned to her station behind the counter.
When she’d gone, I got to the business at hand. “You heard an arrest was made in the Hysong shooting?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I heard.”
“Well,” I said, “Jake didn’t do it, that’s for sure. I’ve been hired to find out who really did it.”
“Isn’t that what the police are for?”
“The D.A. has pretty much tied the police’s hands. He’s more interested in chalking up another conviction than in making sure they arrested the right guy. And when it comes to a dead gay guy, one fag’s as good as another to pin it on. No point wasting the taxpayers’ money on trying to make sure you have the right one.”
“So, how did you find out about the meeting?” he asked after washing down a forkful of pie with a large swig of coffee.
“I’ve been contacting guys from the Male Call, and Jared and Jake are good friends of mine,” I explained. “They mentioned it. One of those seemingly insignificant facts I like to collect. I understand everybody there had it in for Hysong.”
“You could say that,” he acknowledged.
“Anybody there with a particularly strong grudge?”
He set down his fork and looked at me. “That’s all pretty relative,” he said. “Every guy there had damned good reason to kill that bastard.”
“Including you.”
“Including me,” he agreed. “But I didn’t. And I can’t imagine that any of the other guys did, either.”
“But you did talk about killing him,” I said.
He picked up his fork to scoop another bite of pie into his mouth then followed up with more coffee.
“The subject did come up, sure,” he said. “How couldn’t it? Hysong deserved what he got. But that’s all it was—just talk. Don Gleason said that if Hysong gave AIDS to others, that meant he had it himself and it was a lot more fitting for him to die the way the guys he infected had died, and he was right.
“What we mostly talked about was our forming up teams of two guys to take turns following Hysong everywhere he went and not giving him the chance to give it to anybody else.”
“And what happened with that idea?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Not much, I’m afraid. We talked about getting together again that weekend, but Jake and Jared were going out of town and Cal was killed that following Monday. That sort of settled the matter.”
Although I knew the answer before I asked the question, it was an obvious one.
“And what, precisely, did you have against Hysong?”
“I had sex with him,” he said.
I looked at him. “So did a lot of guys, apparently. They weren’t all at the meeting.”
He shrugged, but I sensed there was something he wasn’t saying.
“Something you’re not telling me?” I pursued. “Did you have sex with him more than once?”
He shook his head strongly. “No way, and I wouldn’t have had sex with him the one time I did if…”
The waitress appeared with more coffee, and Reed said nothing more. When she left he didn’t pick up where he’d left off until I said, “If what?”
“I’d known Cal for a long time,” he said. “We got along okay, and sex was never an issue. He knew me well enough to know he wasn’t my type, physically. But that one night he made it clear it was time we got it on—without actually coming out and saying anything.