Mason shifted in his sagging seat, uncomfortable. He stood and paced as he told me the rest of his tale.
“Green-lighting that project was one of the few things I’ve done in my career that I honestly regret. I knew Lucas was in over his head with Brent. I also knew, although only from what Lucas had told me, that the feelings weren’t reciprocated. Had I been thinking of Lucas, instead of how much money I’d make, I would have said no. In my heart, I knew that putting Lucas through more weeks of intimate contact with Brent would wind up hurting them both.
“But I said yes. And
More Than Friends
was one of our biggest hits ever.
“But it came at a price.
“Halfway through its taping, Brent came to see me. He told me Lucas was being inappropriate. That he’d told Brent that he loved him.
“Brent said he was kind to Lucas, but he made it clear he wasn’t interested. He explained he was already involved with someone.
“But Lucas insisted they were ‘meant to be.’ He called Brent at all times of the day and night, brought unwanted presents to the set, threatened to hurt himself if Brent wouldn’t see him. It got ugly.
“One night, about a week after filming
More Than Friends,
I realized I’d left something in the office that I needed at home. I got there around ten and found Lucas had broken into my office. He was looking for information about Brent. Pictures, Brent’s home address and phone number, anything he could find.
“When he saw me, he burst into tears. He knew he was out of control but couldn’t stop himself. I called my therapist right then and there. He agreed to talk to Lucas on the phone and they made an appointment for the next day.
“Things seemed to settle down after that. Lucas told me my therapist referred him to another doctor and that he was going weekly. Brent told me the harassment stopped. When the movie came out, we sent them out to do some publicity together and there were no major problems.
“But there were minor ones?” I asked.
“Brent never gave me details. But I could tell something still bothered him about Lucas. For the most part, though, things went well.
“I never put them together in another movie, however. Lucas asked about it a few times, but I put him off. He lobbied hard for a sequel to
More Than Friends
. So did a lot of people at the company. The movie was a huge success.
“But, believe it or not, money isn’t the only thing I care about, Kevin. I cared about those kids, and I thought keeping them separated was best for both of them.
“A few months later, Lucas gave me an ultimatum. He came into my office wild-eyed. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. He’d lost a lot of weight.
“Emotionally, he was all over the map. One minute he was crying, saying Brent broke his heart. Then, he was yelling, blaming me for keeping the two of them apart. He said if I didn’t promise him another movie with Brent, I’d ‘never see him again.’
“I didn’t know what he meant. Was he saying he’d leave SwordFight? Was it a suicide threat? Or, was he implying I’d never see
Brent
again? I tried to get the answer from him, but he ran out of my office in tears.
“I didn’t know what to do. So, I called my therapist again. Believing that Lucas might have been making a serious threat to hurt himself—or someone else—I asked my therapist if he could give me the name of the doctor to whom he’d referred Lucas. I thought the only responsible thing to do would be to tell his doctor what Lucas had said.
“My therapist confirmed that he’d given Lucas a referral. But Lucas had refused to take it. Lucas told him that he was fine, that it was Brent who had the problem. To the best of my doctor’s knowledge, Lucas never saw anyone for treatment.
“Lucas had lied to me about seeing a therapist. It broke my heart. What else had he deceived me about?
“The next day, I found out. I received a news release that Lucas had signed an exclusive contract with one of my competitors, Hardman Studios. Those kinds of deals take weeks of negotiation, if not longer. Lucas brokered it behind my back.
“But I wasn’t upset. I was relieved. At least I knew what he meant when he said I’d ‘never see
him
again.’ His leaving SwordFight was the least awful of all the possibilities. I felt sorry for him, though. Hardman’s a shitty shop, and, sure enough, they never used Lucas properly. He made one or two films with them, then dropped off the radar completely.”
“So, he
also
went missing?” I asked, sitting up straighter on the bed. That was two boys from SwordFight gone into the ether. Seemed like a big coincidence.
“Who knows?” Mason said, chuckling. “Maybe they ran off together.” He must have seen the distress in my face.
“Oh, Kevin. Don’t look so appalled. It’s obvious you think there’s something . . . sinister going on, but I implore you to use your common sense. Boys who work in adult movies don’t submit formal letters of resignation. This is how ninety-nine percent of them leave the business: They just stop. They don’t return your calls, they change their numbers, they move on.”
I believed most of that. But it didn’t explain why Brent hadn’t said good-bye to Charlie or let him know where he was. There was something hinky here. I could feel it.
“Trust me, Kevin. No one would rather believe Brent is out there willing to return to the business more than I would. That adorable child brought in
millions
. There’s no one at SwordFight who would have wanted to see him hurt.”
Hurt was the least of it. Maybe I’d stumbled across one too many murders in my time, but Brent’s total disappearance made me seriously wonder if someone might have killed him.
If so, who? One of Tony’s rules as a homicide investigator was to follow the money. Most murders that weren’t crimes of passion involved either the quest for financial gain or the fear of financial loss. Since it seemed like losing Brent must have cost Mason a lot of money, he made an unlikely killer.
But between Charlie, who hated Brent’s double life, and Lucas, who loved him too much, the whole crimes-of-passion angle seemed like a real possibility.
“Do you have any idea where I could find Lucas?” I asked.
“I can answer that question,” Mason said. “But it’s going to cost you. Ready to start taping again? Turn around and let’s check out your back.”
This was the last step before I’d have to pull down my pants. And, even if they never used it, I didn’t want these creeps having video of me in my underwear.
I may have been a whore, but it was always my decision who got to see me naked. Mason and Pierce weren’t about to make the list.
23
Flesh and Blood
I stood up slowly and felt the dripping down my back.
Yuck. So gross.
Good.
I turned around slowly. Now that I’d shown off my chest, this was the next reveal.
“Oh my god,” I heard Mason whisper, “that is . . . oh.”
While the job Steven Austen did applying the scar to my chest was masterful, the disfigurement he applied to my back was nothing less than horrific. A mess of pimples, boils, and welts scattered across me like the ugliest constellation in the universe. He’d even filled some of them with a viscous white liquid designed to “pop” when pressure was applied—an effect I achieved when I sat down with my back against the headboard.
As I gave Mason a few moments to process the train wreck in front of him, I reached into my pocket and took out what appeared to be a tube of ChapStick. It was actually a tube of Vicks VapoRub, which I applied under each nostril. To Mason and Pierce, though, it should have looked as if I was using lip balm.
I tucked it back into my pants. While my hand was in my pocket, I unscrewed the other vial in there and let the liquid contents seep out.
“Uh, Kevin,” Mason said, trying to keep his voice steady. “It looks like you have some kind of . . . rash.”
“I do?” I said, aping surprise. I craned my neck trying to see. “Really? I don’t see . . .” I twisted a shoulder as far as it could go. “Aw, crap,” I said. “It’s back.”
“It?” Mason asked. He sounded ready to run screaming out of the room into the nearest decontamination chamber.
“After my operation—the one on my chest that left the big scar,” I clarified, just to make sure they remembered how bad I looked from the front, “I had to take some immunosuppressive drugs to keep my body from rejecting the new valve they put in my heart. Annnnyway . . .” I drawled Valley Girl style, “the doctors warned me it could lead to breakouts.”
I took a few steps backward, getting closer to Mason. “It happened once before, but it wasn’t too bad. How does it look now?”
Mason instinctively backed up, too, the reptile part of his brain directing him to flee in case my condition was catching. “It looks . . .” He stopped, but not because he couldn’t find the words. I heard him take a cautious sniff. “What is that
smell?
”
After the third time I’d found a tube of VapoRub in Tony’s work pants, I’d asked him why he always carried it when he was working.
“In case I have to attend an autopsy,” he’d explained, “or an especially grisly crime scene. A little menthol under the nose blocks out the worst of the stink.”
Even through its protective mask, though, I could make out the sickening scent of the ethanethiol I’d poured out a few moments ago.
Steven Austen wasn’t the only one of my co-workers who’d assisted me today. Oliver, the maintenance man, helped me figure out how much of the noxious chemical I needed to release to pull off the illusion that my artificial rash smelled even worse than it looked. Ironically, the first time I’d come across ethanethiol was the day I met Brent. Oliver had been transporting to storage a tank of the stuff, which was usually used as an olfactory alarm in case of a gas leak.
Turns out, a quarter teaspoon of the stuff was enough to empty a room faster than a canister of tear gas.
“It might be the pus,” I answered Mason, using the grossest word I could think of. “From those weeping sores, I guess.”
“Oh my god,” Pierce exclaimed. “That is vile!” Unlike his boss, he didn’t try to cover his disgust under a veneer of good manners.
“I’m out of here, man. I think I’m going to . . .” Pierce made a retching sound and ran out of the room.
“I, um, I have to go, too,” Mason said. I swung around to face him and observed his pallor was a shade of gray I’d never seen on a living person before.
His Adam’s apple looked like it was doing jumping jacks in his throat in its efforts to suppress his gag reflex.
“Wait,” I said. I grabbed his forearm. His eyes widened in surprise at the strength of my grip. Or, it might have been the nausea making him look like that. Didn’t matter.
“You promised to tell me where I might find Lucas,” I said.
“I don’t know,” he said, trying to take the shallowest breaths possible. “But he’s still in the city. About two weeks ago, Kristen LaNue says he saw him in a club. By the time he made his way over, though, Lucas was gone.”
“Was he sure it was—”
“Yes!” Mason shouted. His complexion had now gone from gray to green. He slapped a hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he said, his words muffled. “I really have to . . .”
I made the quick calculation that whatever small chance remained he had anything useful to tell me was outweighed by the increasingly likely possibility he was about to barf on me. I let go of his arm.
“Listen, I’m sorry about the breakout,” I called, as Mason headed as quickly as possible to the exit. “Maybe we can try again when it clears up?”
Mason made a strangled sound as he flung open the door. It could have meant, “Sure,” or “Are you kidding me?” or “Drop dead.”
I didn’t care. I’d gotten what I’d come for. A few more answers and a little more insight.
There wasn’t anything else I needed from them except . . .
I walked over to the video camera Pierce had been using. Sure enough, it was a model similar to the ones we had at
Sophie’s Voice
. I found the “eject” button and removed the digital tape he’d been using. I put it in the pocket that
didn’t
have the ethanethiol in it.
I knew from bitter experience that the camcorder could appear to be shooting even if you’d forgotten to load it. I figured Pierce would assume that’s what happened.
No reason to leave them with anything with my image on it. Between my luck and Mason’s greed, he’d probably find a way to sell it to the three men in the world turned on by open sores.
I put my T-shirt back on and looked around. A fire exit. Most excellent. I was sure everyone would appreciate my leaving without passing through their offices and lobby on my way out. I grabbed my backpack and was out of there.
So much for my film career.
Fade to black, bitches.
A block and a half away, I found an alley between two apartment buildings. I snuck behind a Dumpster and hoped no one came by.
Acutely aware of just how bad I must smell, I took the video I’d grabbed from Pierce’s camera and put it on the ground next to me. Everything else, including my pants, sneakers, T-shirt, and socks, I threw into the Dumpster. I opened the package of baby wipes I’d picked up on the way to Mason’s office and used them to clean off as much of the ethanethiol as I could.
I bent over to wash off my feet. As I straightened back up, I saw a tall, muscly guy somewhere in his thirties leering hungrily at me.
“Hey, cutie,” he called. “Looking good.”
Shit. “Um, thanks.” I covered my crotch with my hands.
“
Come
here often?” he asked, putting an emphasis on the first word to drive home his double entendre. He chuckled at the cleverness of his own lame joke.
“No, I just had a wardrobe malfunction,” I said, reaching for my backpack. Inside, I had clean versions of everything I’d just thrown away. I had no intention of trying to make it home in my ethanethiol-soaked clothing. “I gotta change and get going. Sorry.”
“Aw, come on, baby,” my alleyway admirer purred. Apparently, the fake scar on my chest didn’t bother him. At least, not enough to deter him from attempting a public encounter that might be hot in the kind of videos Mason made, but would probably get us arrested in real life. He cupped his crotch in case I hadn’t figured out what he had in mind.
“Really not interested,” I told him. “So, if you’ll excuse me . . .”
Instead of retreating, he started walking toward me, rubbing himself. “Please. Don’t play hard to get, you little tease. Standing out here naked like that. You know you want it, baby.”
I’ve taken down bigger guys than him in my life. Part of me would have enjoyed teaching this asshole a lesson with my martial arts.
But I really was not in the mood.
Better to just give him what he wants and let him go for it. I had a feeling it wouldn’t take long.
“You’re right,” I said, squeezing my own junk as his gaze wandered over my body. “I do want it, man.”
Alleyman grinned wolfishly and started unzipping his rapidly expanding slacks. “I’m going to slip it to you so good, sweet cheeks.”
Forget the ethanethiol—this guy’s rap was going to make me vomit.
“Yeah,” I said, “give it to me from behind, lover. It’s so hard to find a real man like you”—I turned to show him my still-illustrated back—“who isn’t afraid to let a little thing like leprosy come between him and a good time.”
His gasp-gag indicated he’d gotten close enough not only to get a good look, but a good whiff, too.
“Uh, look at the time!” he shouted. “I gotta go!”
He almost tripped trying to simultaneously run and zip himself back up.
“Go?” I asked as he recovered from his stumble. “I thought you wanted to
come
.”
How clever is that joke now, asshole?
Two minutes later, I was dressed and headed home. While my wipe down and change of clothing helped, I figured I was still too stinky to get into a cab or on the subway. It was a thirty-minute walk back to my apartment, but I could use the time to think.
I had to figure out my next move.
Two blocks later, I realized my next move was to go backward.
Crap.
I’d left the videotape Pierce had shot on the ground by the Dumpster.
Crap.
I ran back. With each footfall, I thought the same thing.
Crap.
Crap.
Crap crap crap crap crap.
I turned the corner and spied the Dumpster. No tape.
Crap!
My best guess was that Alleyman came back. Maybe he’d scored some antibiotics and figured he’d take the plunge after all.
He’d probably enjoy the video, the creep. How long before he uploaded it to YouTube, where the whole world would have the opportunity to see me looking like a kinky leper?
My heart pounding, I ran behind the Dumpster and got on my hands and knees to look underneath. There.
There
.
There it was.
The anxiety flooded out of me like air from a burst balloon. I was deflated with relief.
I must have accidentally kicked the tape out of sight while getting dressed, and then forgotten about it.
It could have fallen into anyone’s hands. What was wrong with me? How can someone be so careless with a
sex video
of himself?
Well,
I answered myself,
if it’s good enough for Paris Hilton, Rob Lowe, and at least one Kardashian . . . and those are just the celebrities we know about.
Times like these I reluctantly wondered if maybe the two men who knew me better than anyone in the world weren’t right: I had no business playing “Kevin Connor: Boy Detective.” I didn’t possess the . . . attention to detail the role required.
It wasn’t just a matter of flubbing my lines—I was lucky I hadn’t gotten myself killed.
Although I
had
come really, really close. At least twice.
But, I thought cheerfully, putting the video into my front pants pocket and patting twice to make sure it was secure, what’s life without a few challenges? It’d be boring if we only did the things that came easily, right?
It was either that, or I was an idiot.
I chose to believe the former.