Deadly Dreams Read online

  “Mmm. I haven’t forgotten.” Stanley smiled with remembered pleasure. “And a nice ride it was, too.”

  Tom grunted. “Maybe for you it was. I’m the one who can’t sit down today, though.”

  “Methinks you protest too much, Partner.” Stanley gave Tom’s rear—Tom’s very shapely rear, he couldn’t help noting—a playful swat. “And I still think Danzel and Korski.

  That’s alphabetical order, too.”

  They both looked at the office door’s frosted glass, trying to envision how it would look with their names on it.

  10 Victor J. Banis

  “And, what?” Tom asked. “Just ‘Detectives?’ Or, ‘Private Detectives?’ Or, what about, ‘Detective Agency’?”

  “No, ‘Private Investigators,’ I think. That’s sounds more, I don’t know, Sherlockian.”

  “Sounds pissy to me.”

  “Actually, I like it. I’ll have the sign painter do it that way.

  Danzel and Korski, Private Investigators.”

  Stanley went back into the suite of offices, three of them, beyond the door. The front room was the larger. A single window, its glass stained with the fly-victims of some previous tenant, was open now, letting in plenty of sunlight as well as plenty of noise from Seventeenth Street, just outside. There was a big, scarred wooden desk, a chair on wheels, and a wooden fan in the ceiling that clicked loudly with each cycle. Katonk, whir, katonk, whir, katonk…

  Beyond this room were two smaller ones, neither of them much bigger than a broom closet, with their own battered desks. The larger of the two, if only by a centimeter or so, had been designated Stanley’s office. It had a small window that looked out onto a brick wall maybe six feet opposite and that so far resisted any and all attempts to open it. The third room, Tom’s office, had no window at all.

  “Receptionist here.”

  “Can’t afford one.”

  “Well, I meant later, of course, when we’ve got a little money coming in. Boy or girl, do you think?”

  “Girl.” Tom grinned lewdly. “Nice and chesty.” He cupped his hands in front of his chest. “Long legs, small waist…

  Straight black hair, like, what was Mike Hammer’s chick, Velda?

  Zelda?”

  “Boy, I think. Tall, broad shouldered, big basket.” He turned and gave Tom a quick smile, to show that he was only joking, but he as quickly grew serious. “Tom, are you totally sure?

  About the department, I mean. You could stay on there. Just because I left…”

  DEADLY DREAMS 11

  “No. I’d have to pretend. About us. Everybody knows, knows we’re living together now. Hell, I’m not going to make a secret of it. It’s done. But the other inspectors would make cracks, to see how I reacted. They’d say things about…” He hesitated.

  “About me?” Stanley said. Tom nodded. “Well, so what? Let them.”

  “About both of us. And I’d end up busting somebody’s chops, is what. Besides, we’ve got this place now, rent’s paid for six months, so we’re stuck. Do you really think you could run a detective agency by yourself?”

  “No. I wouldn’t have to, though. I was a decorator, remember. Before I joined SFPD. I could go back to doing that. I made good money, too. And you could continue as a Homicide Inspector. We could still live together.”

  Tom came to where Stanley was standing, took him in his arms, kissed him—long, sweetly. “Partners,” he said in a husky voice when the kiss ended. “If we’re going to be partners, baby, we’ll be partners. And you don’t need to do any fag decorating…”

  “Excuse me?” Stanley lifted his eyebrows.

  Tom ignored Stanley’s response. “Like, that would make it better? Instead of making cracks about Danzel’s fag boyfriend, it would be Danzel’s fag decorator boyfriend.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t use that word.”

  Tom planted a peck on the tip of Stanley’s nose. “We’ll be just fine. Anyway, I can’t see my partner in that prissy shop where you used to work.”

  “Wayne Cotter is the most sought after decorator in San Francisco. And he has always said I was his most talented protégé.”

  “He wanted to get into your pants, is all. Did he, by the way?”

  “No.” Stanley thought it best not to mention the number of times Wayne had made the suggestion. Or that once or twice, he’d come close to agreeing.

  12 Victor J. Banis

  “Huh. The guy’s old, must be fifty. Probably can’t get it up.

  Anyway, what if I wanted a matinee some day? We couldn’t do it there.”

  “Frankly, I don’t think Wayne would care at all, as long as we didn’t frighten the customers or break any china.”

  “Probably he’d want to watch, though.”

  Stanley smiled, thinking of Wayne, who he had once described as elegantly lascivious. “Probably.”

  “No public performances. I like my whoopee private. This is better all around, our own little detective agency. Now, you gotta understand, baby, it’s not going to be like it is in those movies of yours and the books. In real life, it’s mostly pretty boring stuff. Tailing people, running background checks, sometimes we have to track down a runaway kid, or a runaway husband.”

  “Meaning, I don’t get to shoot anybody.”

  Tom grinned. “Stanley, you couldn’t shoot anybody if you had to.”

  “Why do I have this, then, if I’m never going to use it?” He lifted the top on the gift box Tom had just given him. Inside, a small black handgun, gleaming ominously, nested in red velvet.

  “Think of it as a prop. It’s not like the cop shows, where you start swapping bullets with the bad guys right out of the door. Most of the time, just holding a gun in your hand does the trick. No one wants to get shot. That’s the general idea, anyway.” Tom lifted the gun from the box, turned it around in his hand. “And this one is a real gem, Stanley, it’s the kind of gun lovers drool over.”

  “I can’t imagine anyone drooling over a gun.”

  “They do this one, believe me. Beretta Tomcat .32 semi.

  Same kind that James Bond dude carries. It’s like the, I don’t know, the Rolls Royce of handguns. I know how you like things first class. I figured if I was going to buy one for you, it had to be the best.”

  Stanley took the gun from him, weighed it in his hand. It was no more than five or six inches long overall, and couldn’t DEADLY DREAMS 13

  have weighed even a pound. He had to admit, if he could describe a gun as beautiful, this one was. He liked it, certainly, at least as much as he could like a gun—better at least than he had liked the Sig Sauer he’d carried when he was with the San Francisco Police Department, homicide detail; the same gun Tom had tucked now into his shoulder holster.

  Still… he laid the Beretta back in its red velvet nest, replaced the lid. “I’ll just leave it here, in the desk,” he said. “Until I need it.”

  “That’s fine. Hopefully you’ll never have to shoot it.” He chuckled. “Just as well, considering your history with them.”

  “I could, you know. Shoot somebody with it. Maybe. If I had to.” Which he knew perfectly well was a falsehood. It was one of the reasons—a big reason—why he had decided to quit San Francisco homicide. What kind of a cop could you be, if you couldn’t shoot anybody?

  Tom kissed him again. “No way. I’ll do the shooting stuff, if there is any. You’re a pussy.”

  “I just don’t like guns, is all, and I don’t like hurting people.

  Is that so funny?”

  “No. It’s part of why I, you know, why I care so much about you.”

  He did not, Stanley made note, say, “Why I love you.” That declaration was still unmade. Stanley sighed. Patience, Stanley, patience. This was the first time the big oaf had ever been involved with a member of his own sex. One of those things that took major getting used to. And Tom had surprised him with how totally he had gotten into the idea of “partners.” Like, moving in together. Which had been his suggestion.

/>   “If we’re going to do this, Stanley, I can’t keep getting up and going home every night,” he had put it. “What kind of a relationship is that?”

  “Just as a matter of curiosity, what kind of relationship are we going to have if you stay? As you see it, I mean.”

  “I don’t know. But something. We’ll have something. We’ll be something.”

  14 Victor J. Banis

  A friend of Stanley’s had told him not so long ago that when you lived alone for two years, you were spoiled for living with someone else. It had only been a few months shy of two years in Stanley’s case, and he had a notion that, if not spoiled, he was close to his pull-by date. So he wanted the arrangement, and he had lingering doubts about it as well.

  “There’s all kinds of pros and cons,” he said aloud.

  “Can you cook?” Tom asked, which Stanley thought was a bit of a non-sequiter.

  “Breakfast. You’ve already had it. Bacon and eggs.”

  Tom frowned. “That’s it?”

  “Most people think I do bacon and eggs very nicely.” In a frosty voice.

  “Well, sure, but what I meant was, that’s all you cook?”

  “Pretty much. I do frozen biscuits sometimes. The Pillsbury ones. Or just toast and jelly. I like raspberry jam. The imported kind, with the liquor in it. What’s wrong with a slice of toast and raspberry jam? And coffee, of course. I can make coffee.”

  “Didn’t your mother ever tell you, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach?”

  “I didn’t get my romantic advice from my mother, it was Chris. And he said it was an around-the-world.”

  “Jesus. Women are always dying to cook for me, you know, real food, meatloaf and pot roast and stuff. And pork chops.

  Do you know how many women love cooking pork chops for me?”

  “That’s great. Maybe we could hire one of them. She can bring her own pig, even. Or,” he brightened, “do you like Chinese? There’s a great take out place about two blocks away.

  The Peking Palace. Their hot and sour soup is to die for. And the egg rolls, and…”

  “We can’t eat Chinese every night.”

  “Why not? The Chinese do. What about you, anyway?

  There’s two of us going to be living here, right? You don’t cook? At all?”

  DEADLY DREAMS 15

  Tom grunted and shrugged. “I grill a mean steak.”

  “Well, there you have it. Problem solved. I’ll do breakfast and you do dinner.”

  Tom looked doubtful. “We’re going to have bacon and eggs every morning and steak every night?”

  “Well, it’s not that limited, for Pete’s sake. We can have biscuits alternate mornings, the frozen ones. And Chinese in the evenings sometimes, don’t forget the Peking Palace. Every other evening, even. Or, maybe sometimes for breakfast. Egg rolls. That’s kind of breakfast sounding, isn’t it? Besides, I have some great ideas for dessert.” He walked over to the window.

  “You know, I really need to wash this.”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” Tom said.

  “No, it’s really disgusting, all those dead flies…” He paused in mid-sentence and looked back at Tom. Who was wearing what could only be described as a lewd expression. “Such as?”

  “I’m thinking about one of those desserts of yours,” Tom said. He came to where Stanley was standing, turned him around by the waist. “Besides, we haven’t christened our new office yet, have we?”

  “Now that you mention it…”

  Tom guided Stanley backward, to the surface of the future receptionist’s desk, unbuttoned Stanley’s jeans and tugged them down. Paused to fumble a condom out of his pocket.

  “Always prepared,” Stanley said.

  “Like the boy scouts. Or is that the Marines?”

  “I’ve had plenty of Marines, but I never did it with a boy scout,” Stanley said. “Oh, wait, I forgot, there was this kid…”

  “Stanley, will you shut up?”

  “Oh, sure,” Stanley said, but after a moment, he added, “Uh, is the door locked? What if someone should come in…?”

  “You’re a suspect,” Tom said, lifting Stanley’s legs into the air. “I’m doing a search.”

  “What would I be hiding there?”

  16 Victor J. Banis

  “You’d be surprised. You never did any arrests, did you?

  Ask the uniforms about that some time.”

  “I’m not likely to see the uniforms these days. Oh, wait, now that I think of it, there was one, kind of hot, really, he looks perfectly straight, but I heard he likes to play. I could call him up and…”

  “I don’t think so.” Tom pushed in. Stanley grunted.

  “I meant…”

  “Stanley, you know I don’t like to talk and fuck at the same time.”

  “Oh.” Stanley was quiet for a few seconds, only grunting again faintly as Tom went deeper. “So, then,” he said, “how are you at whacking and fucking at the same time?”

  Tom reached down between them, took hold of Stanley’s erection, gave it a tentative caress. “You can wait and take your turn, after I’m finished,” he said. “If you want.”

  It was tempting offer. Stanley did like fucking his partner.

  And he knew that Tom was always willing, or mostly always willing, to accommodate him that way.

  He knew, too, though, that while Tom was willing, and no longer found it quite the endurance test that it had been initially for him, it was also not really something that he enjoyed, but rather, something that he did to give Stanley pleasure. It did, too, but…

  “No, do it this way,” he said, putting his hand on Tom’s and guiding it briefly up and down.

  Tom smiled down at him, said, “You got it, boss,” and proceeded to jerk Stanley’s dick in time to his own increasingly forceful thrusts. Which, unconsciously, he timed to the comments from the fan whirring above them: katonk, shove, katonk, shove, katonk, shove…

  Stanley came first, his dick erupting in a fountain of jism that splashed on Tom’s chest, and cascaded down over his still moving hand. The sight of it set Tom off as well. He began to pound furiously and, mere seconds later, buried himself to the hilt and let it fly.

  DEADLY DREAMS 17

  He lay sprawled atop Stanley for a long minute, both of them getting their breath back.

  “Crapola,” Stanley said all of a sudden.

  Tom lifted his head. “What?”

  Stanley raised up, frowning, and ran a hand gingerly over his butt. “I think I got a splinter.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  For Stanley, this partnership with Tom was a two edged sword. He wanted the relationship, by whatever name they called it. He wanted, in fact, to be married, if that were possible; but the impossibility for them was not a matter of California law, it was Tom’s refusal even to use the word.

  “We are not married,” he said obdurately, “and we are not getting married, period.”

  Stanley sometimes thought the perfect arrangement would be a long distance one. Not a long, long distance, but enough space where the two participants had the title and the privileges, and needless to say, regular whoopee, and plenty of room to exercise their personal freedom in between times.

  “If you loved him the way you always insist,” his friend Chris said, “this wouldn’t be a problem for you, Stanley. The real problem is, you love the idea of him, just as you love the idea of marriage. You want to be in love.”

  “Stendhal,” Stanley said. “Longing for the bliss, as he put it.”

  “That’s you, exactly. It’s the reality of things that gets in the way for you.”

  This was an argument they’d had more than a time or two.

  “That’s ridiculous. I do love him, totally.”

  They were having coffee at The Cove in the Castro, their favorite coffee and dish spot. Chris waved at the proprietress, Solange, for a refill, and regarded Stanley coolly across the table until it had been poured.

  “Okay, ‘spl
ain to me, Lucy, if you can. What exactly is it that you love about this man?”

  Stanley gave him a big grin. “He’s got nine inches. Big fat ones. Who wouldn’t love that?”

  20 Victor J. Banis

  Chris sighed. “There, see, that’s what I mean. The guy is a hunk, there’s no denying that. He’s drop-dead good looking, so macho he makes Rambo look like a sissy, he’s hung. In short, all the trappings of a gay porn fantasy. Take away those things, though, and your so-called love would go with them.”

  “Pish posh. I’d love him just the same if he looked like Quasimodo.”

  Chris snorted his disbelief. “Right. Let me ask you something, suppose he were ill, really ill. Suppose that big dick of which you’re so fond didn’t work anymore. Imagine that he’s dirty and he stinks, and he’s impotent and he has endless diarrhea. Are you still going to love him when you’re cleaning his backside every day?”

  “That’s a nurse’s question, you know.” Chris was a nurse in the burn ward at St. Alonzo’s. “You always see things in the worst possible light. And the answer is, of course I would.”

  “So you say.” Chris looked unconvinced. “Okay, let’s suppose something really, really dire, then,” he said. “Suppose he falls in love with you.”

  “Don’t you think I’m loveable?”

  “Don’t play footsies with me, luv. That’s not the point. The point is, whether this man might decide to love you.”

  “I’m hoping he does. I think he might have already, if you really want to know. He just hasn’t gotten around to putting it into words. He’s not an impulsive sort of man. He has to think things through. I’m just betting that the day will come when the pain of becoming a blossom will be less than the pain of remaining a bud. That’s kind of the whole idea, you know. That when that happens, he’ll fall in love with me. Totally.”

  “Is it, the whole idea?” Chris gave him a shrewd look. “Dear Little Buttercup, wasn’t a part of his appeal for you from the very beginning his unavailability? The fact that he was straight?”