After getting a couple of Watney's on draft from Prentice and asking him to join us when he got a minute, we checked into the back booth. A semicircular affair with high-backed walls, it offered all the privacy a frightened closet case could want. I liked it because it would ensure privacy in our interview. One company must make the cushions for all such booths. Otherwise, how could all the seats be the same dull red color mixed with a multitude of matching rips and tears in the fabric?
As occasional hairdresser, bartender, and hustler, Prentice Dowalski lived one of the more unconventional lives I knew of. Whimsy and chance seemed to be his ruling passions. On a given night he might turn down a thousand-dollar hunk of a trick for some little old man who'd saved for a year to pay fifty dollars for half an hour. Prentice talked about his two arrests as if they were a lark, claiming he'd seduced two or three cops each time.
Instead of lifting the partition and walking over to us, Prentice hopped to the top of the bar, twirled his legs over and around, and jumped down. He'd changed clothes from church. Now his pants clung tightly to his ass, hips, and legs, clearly outlining his dick and balls. The modified muscle shirt emphasized thinness rather than muscularity. Thin combined with cute can cover a multitude of sins.
We got breezy greetings and slaps on the back. He sat with his right arm draped around Scott's shoulders, body intimately pressed close, left hand disappearing under the table.
Scott gave him a mild look. “Sorry, I'm taken, and if you don't move your hand in two seconds, it'll come back broken.”
Prentice whooped with laughter, moved a discreet six inches to his left, and folded his hands primly on top of the table. His tenor voice existed just this side of an annoying whine.
“You guys are so
married
. I bet you've never cheated on each other.”
Nine years we've been together. At the beginning we promised each other we'd be faithful. I never have cheated. Neither has he, or I'd like to think I'd know if he had. Now, of course, any sane gay couple didn't cheat, or had to cheat so very, very carefully it was hardly worth it.
As a hustler Prentice had told us numerous times quite sanctimoniously how careful he was to do only safe sex. I hoped for his sake he wasn't giving two guys in their late thirties a line he thought they wanted to hear.
“Sad about Father Sebastian,” I said.
“A great old guy. I'll miss him. I mentioned I sold my body for a living to that other priest, that Larkin guy. I thought he'd have a stroke. Didn't faze Sebastian. Asked me if I made a good living and if I was happy. Never brought it up unless I did first. Neat guy.”
I asked if he agreed with the older people's idea that there was something strange about Father Sebastian's death.
“Yep, sure, they're real adults. Stuff like that's important to them.”
He returned to the bar to fix a round of drinks and did his jump, twirl, and hop routine coming and going over the bar. Youthful energy can be nauseating at times.
“What'd you go down to see Father Sebastian about last Sunday?” I asked.
He tried feigning confusion, threw in a little indignation, and settled into a pout. “Who says they saw me?”
I gazed at him levelly. He turned to Scott, whose blue eyes have bored through tougher defense mechanisms than Prentice ever dreamed of. Mine in particular. Scott stared calmly. Prentice gave a guilty gulp and said, “Okay, so I went to talk to him.”
“About what?”
Prentice evinced a pronounced stutter as he blushed and squirmed out his explanation. He'd been talking every week for some months with Father Sebastian about going to confession. His chosen profession provided the major obstacle. Prentice
wanted to make a real confession. As he put it, “A get-into-heaven no-strings-attached deal.” Father Sebastian sympathized, but he wanted a commitment about quitting or at least cutting back on the hustling. He himself had no special problem with Prentice's job, but he thought the church and God might. Prentice saw the logic in that idea and agreed to meet with Father Sebastian each week, at least to talk over his sins, working up to a confession. Prentice had gone down to set a time for later that night. He claimed he left the priest humming quietly.
He looked at me head down, eyes and lashes raised à la Lauren Bacall. The effect was less than enchanting. He couldn't pull it off. I couldn't picture him going to confession either, but I didn't detect any lie in his voice. Maybe the kid wanted to get out of the life. Maybe he'd found someone who'd listen to him and take him seriously as something beyond a sex object.
“There is one thing I should add.” He smirked.
I encouraged him with a nod.
That night he'd seen Bartholomew enter the john, heard the old guy cough and spit. The john was a four-by-four cubicle across the hall from the sacristy. When there weren't a lot of people or noise you could hear men's or women's piss hit the water. Prentice reported this last with great relish.
So at least three of them had made unadmitted forays to the basement a short time before Father Sebastian's death. With the john so close, any number of people could have come down and used it.
Prentice interrupted my reverie. “What you really want is the totally deep dish I know on all the board members.”
I raised an eyebrow.
He did the round of drinks routine and returned. “You're ruining business.” He pointed discreetly to a well-dressed elderly gentleman alone at the bar. “You're looking at a thousand-dollar trick,” he said.
“Talk,” I commanded.
Mainly he knew about Priscilla and Monica. The younger
woman had made a play for the older. Monica'd rejected her, none too gently. According to Prentice's source, whom he wouldn't name, Priscilla still had the hots for her. “I think it must be Monica's tits.”
I gave him a questioning look.
“They're huge,” he informed me.
I hadn't noticed. I don't pay attention to a woman's endowments. Now, a guy's crotch I can talk about fold by crease. There's nothing like a hot basket, tight ass, broad shoulders, and solid stomach muscles.
He continued. “Anyway, just recently dear Priscilla got pitched from an all-woman's commune apartment house after only three weeks.” Prentice heard they'd got fed up with her more-politically-correct-than-thou attitude and ditched her. Monica let her live in the back half of the third floor of the house they used to put the newspaper together. Prentice had been to Monica's mansion, too, actually three houses on Wellington Avenue between Broadway and Clark that she'd bought and had renovated into one huge place. “Furniture to die for. Each room better than a showroom. Class from floor to ceiling. Ten-foot Art Deco sconces from Vienna flanked the front door. The main fireplace was faced with bird's-eye maple applied in a grid.” He went on to describe numerous other examples of chic elegance. He'd taken a number of the gentlemen he entertained to parties there, explored every crevice, and promised himself he'd have the same someday.
Several new customers came in. He swung over to serve them.
The last of the newcomers proved to be Brian Clayton. He spotted us and hurried over.
“Neil said I might catch you here,” he said.
We invited him to join us. He grabbed a Heineken and sat down next to Scott. He dithered a few moments, being the shy fan, but Scott's used to that and put him at ease. They talked curve balls and strikeouts for several minutes. Brian had a great
deal of advice on how to pitch to certain hitters. Scott bore it all with equanimity. He'd gone through that before.
Prentice saw Brian and didn't rejoin us. Brian said, “I wanted to talk to you guys. Partly because of Scott. I still can't believe you're gay. Are there otherâ”
Scott cut him off. “Sorry. I've never asked how many gay athletes there are, and I don't care.”
“Sorry. Curious, is all.”
Scott nodded noncommittally.
Brian also wanted to talk murder. After a wary glance to see that Prentice was at the other end of the bar and couldn't hear, he said, “I'm not in with the other board members. They're real cliqueish. A bunch of my buddies got together. We wanted somebody on the board from those of us who were newer so we wouldn't be ignored anymore.” This was one of the reasons he paid close attention to new members each time. He wanted to get to them before the other faction did. Eventually he and his group wanted to vote the others out. Seems Neil had ignored them, and they were totally fed up with Priscilla. I could picture Neil freezing them out. The old A-list gay syndrome from years back lurked very near and dear to Neil's heart. The old queen considered class and custom the cornerstones of western civilization.
“That Priscilla's a bitch.” Clayton continued, listing her many sins and slights. “I never knew so many ways a person could be rude. At one meeting I counted her nasty comments: none directed at Monica of course, four at me, three at Neil, eight at poor Bartholomew, six at Larkin, two at Prentice, none at Sebastian.”
He never saw any of them socially. Bartholomew and Prentice followed the lead of the others in treating him as an outcast. He resented it. He explained that he told us all this because he had knowledge of their movements that Sunday. “I want you to know I'm prejudiced against these people from the start, so you can judge fairly when you hear what I have to say.”
I gave a nod of encouragement.
He took a sip of his beer, wrapped his hands around the green bottle, and looked again to see where Prentice was. Leaning closer and continuing in a whisper, he told us that after Mass on Sunday a week ago he'd been waiting for his lover, Arnie, whose parents were in town, making him late for church. He'd watched the door continuously in anticipation of his imminent arrival. He emphasized this several times. Then, after Father Sebastian had gone down to change, all six of the others had at one point or another gone downstairs, Priscilla being the last, before Brian himself. No one else from the congregation had descended. None of them knew he'd been watching.
When he'd gone downstairs to go to the washroom, he'd heard noises in the sacristy. “I went in and”âhe gulped, then continuedâ“I saw him die. It was terrible.” He paused to pull himself together.
“That must have been awful for you,” I said, to break the silence.
“Yeah,” he said weakly. He took a sip of beer, shuddered, then resumed.
“You seem like okay guys. I think I can trust you. Sometimes with those others it's a fucking zoo. They don't have to be outrageous or obnoxious every minute. Even Monica and that damn cigarette holder are stupid.” He didn't know what to do with his knowledge. He didn't want to go to the police. He felt a certain loyalty to protecting his own. He also was afraid the cops might think him stupid or might even suspect him. After our meeting with the whole group, he wanted to talk to us. So when Neil came back and told them we might be going to Bruce's, he decided to stop by.
“How did you get along with Father Sebastian?” I asked.
“He was always good to me. Went out of his way to make me feel welcome. If someone killed him, I'd like to see them caught. I can't believe anybody would murder him.”
We chatted with him awhile. A nice enough guy, I guessed. He left.
A wrinkled hand gripped the side of the booth. Moments later
the head of another Faith board member, Bartholomew Northridge, peered around the side of the partition.
“May I sit with you?” he asked.
I invited him to join us. He glanced cautiously around the room and fearfully back toward the doorway. Then he tottered over and dropped into the booth alongside Scott with so much force I thought he might break some bones. He licked his lips, coughed, took out his hanky, and spit into it.
“Monica said you'd be asking me questions about Father Sebastian's death.” He clutched one quivering hand with the other. “I didn't kill him.”
I told him we weren't going to accuse anybody, just find out what happened. I told him he'd been seen and heard downstairs.
His hands began wandering over his body, nervously picking at nonexistent lint, scratching his head, rearranging the wisps of white hair that gathered randomly on top. He began rocking, back and forth in unconscious motion.
“I'm scared,” he said.
Gently, I tried to find out of what. He stared at me mutely for the longest time. Finally, his washed-out gray eyes rested on Scott.
“You're famous, aren't you?” he whispered.
Scott nodded.
“When I was young, I was attractive enough to have all the sex I wanted. Now I can barely afford to pay for a little human closeness once a month.” A tear glittered in the old man's eyes, rolled down his cheek. He looked at Scott. “May I touch you?” Scott immediately moved closer. Their eyes met and the old man stopped shaking. Gingerly Bartholomew reached a hand out. It landed first on Scott's shoulder. Scott's blue eyes bathed him in warmth. From tentative pats and caresses of his shoulder Bartholomew rubbed his hand over the flannel shirt-covered arm down to the wrist. The angle they sat at in the back of the booth let me catch only glimpses of the next movements of Bartholomew's hands as they moved to Scott's
kneecap. Then, with eyes downcast, he moved his hand nervously up Scott's thigh. He renewed the body rocking with his hands inches from the folds of Scott's crotch. My lover didn't flinch. His eyes waited for Bartholomew to look up. With a wrench of courage, the old man brought his eyes up to Scott's. The rocking stopped again.