A Deadly Kind of Love Page 5

  “Yes. But your friend recommended you highly. And I would like to see this whole unpleasant business dealt with as expeditiously as possible.”

  “You’re not confident in Detective Hammond?” Tom asked. “Or the Palm Springs Police Department?”

  Frederick gave him an oh-please look and pursed his lips as if he’d bitten into a particularly sour lemon.

  “What exactly is it you’re expecting of us?” Tom asked.

  “I should think that would be evident. We want you to resolve this unpleasantness. Find out who murdered this boy—if he was murdered. My impression was that he died from a snake bite.”

  “He was murdered,” Tom said in a no-argument voice. “The snake bite was faked.”

  “Well… that is doubly unpleasant,” Frederick said. “That being the case, then, I want you to find out who murdered him and bring this whole business to a close. Preferably keeping the Inn out of it.”

  “I don’t see how that would be possible,” Tom said. “You are involved, like it or not. The body was found here, the victim was a regular. We can’t make the facts go away.”

  “Perhaps not, but you can certainly minimize the damage to our reputation. And no, I don’t think the local police department would concern themselves on that score.”

  “You have my word, we’ll get everything straightened out for you,” Stanley promised. “Have no fears.”

  “I still want to know more about this icing business,” Tom said. “I’m not clear on that yet.”

  Frederick gave him a scornful glance. “It’s surely not that mysterious a concept. Look, apart from being the best, we’re also one of the most expensive resorts in town. We charge more because we’re worth more. Which means we mostly get a pretty wealthy clientele. Which in our case means mostly older gay men. And older gay men appreciate the cake, everything we offer here, but they want the icing on it too.”

  “Pretty boys,” Stanley said, glancing about the patio. There were lots of pretty boys to be seen.

  “Bingo. Yes. As you can readily see, the prettiest. And young. They are the icing on our cake.”

  “So, what you’re saying is, you hire B-girls,” Tom said. “Or B-boys, in this case. To keep the johns happy.”

  “No, we don’t employ them—this isn’t a bordello. As I said of Barry, he was not on the payroll. Neither the Inn nor I make a penny off of any of their interactions. We just let nature take its course.”

  “But you give nature a little nudge here and there.”

  “Have you ever been to a Hooters?” Tom’s expression answered the question for him. “I suspected as much. Do you think those women are hired for their intellects and moral characters? We don’t hire these young men. We simply encourage them to come here instead of some other place.”

  “And to hang around,” Stanley said.

  “Exactly.”

  “Encourage them, as in…?” Tom lifted an eyebrow.

  “We make it as—” Frederick hesitated. “—as pleasant for them as we can. They get free drinks at the bar, if someone isn’t buying their drinks for them, which usually happens after the first one. If one of the older gentlemen isn’t buying a young man’s drinks by the second round, the young man is probably not going to become a regular. The same with their meals. The first is on the house, the others are generally paid for by their new gentleman friends. Occasionally one or the other of the young men spends a night, again free.”

  “In return for what, exactly?” Tom asked.

  “Mostly in return for being here, for being young and handsome, for being decorative. Which boils down to keeping the older clientele interested. And coming back again and again. They come here, the older men, they stay here because there are always good-looking young men hanging around, dozens of them, scores even, at the bar, at the pool, dancing in the cabana. A veritable feast for gay eyes. Older gay eyes especially.”

  “And these young guys are available,” Tom said.

  “I should think some of them are,” Frederick agreed. “Most of them, perhaps. We leave that up to the individuals involved.”

  Stanley nodded. It was standard practice in gay bars everywhere. A smart bartender bought the occasional free drink for a handsome young stud because it sold lots more drinks to the guys at the bar drooling over him. He had just never heard of it on such a grand scale before.

  “And I’m supposing that sometimes it turns into a feast for more than just the eyes?” Stanley said.

  Frederick sniffed. “As I have said, that is entirely up to the individuals involved. We neither encourage nor discourage that kind of liaison. Of course, the young men know perfectly well that it’s to their advantage to be friendly to the older gentlemen. And yes, certainly, sometimes a pair of them retire to a room together. Or, as I’ve said, there are sometimes sleepovers.”

  “Like rather grand pajama parties,” Stanley said. Again, Frederick’s lips moved just enough to suggest a smile without actually displaying one.

  “Does money trade hands?” Tom asked. “Say, at these pajama parties?”

  Another sniff. “I wouldn’t know. That’s their private business and none of mine. As I said, we aren’t operating a bordello. Whatever these people do on their own is strictly up to them.”

  “But aren’t you being just a trifle naïve?” Stanley asked. “You must know—”

  “Oh, look, we’re not fools here,” Frederick snapped impatiently. “And neither are they, the young or the old. I have no doubt that sometimes the gentlemen involved reward their new friends for pleasures received, though it probably is not as crass as just shelling out dollars for doughnuts. All kinds of things happen. Drinks get bought, as I’ve already said, dinners paid for, couples go out on the town, gifts are given.”

  “And sometimes cash?” Tom insisted.

  “I’m sure that happens too. For a young man struggling along on minimum wages as a busboy or a hamburger slinger, it can all be very welcome. But there’s also a lot more to it than that. This isn’t like standing on a street corner hustling for dollars. I think that most of the young men who come here are hoping something special in the way of a friendship will develop, something a bit more permanent than a free dinner or a few hundred dollars slipped into a pocket.”

  “A few hundred?” Tom looked amazed. “They get that kind of money for getting their flutes tootled?”

  Frederick, though shorter than Tom, nevertheless managed to look down his nose at him. “This is not a tawdry setting, and the moneyed gentlemen are, most of them, very moneyed. They are used to the best, and they can afford to indulge their tastes. It’s entirely up to the individuals involved, let me remind you, but if any of these young men you see around the pool there are pleasuring the older gentlemen they’re seated with, and there’s anything less than five hundred involved, I should say they’re undervaluing themselves. That’s just my opinion, of course.”

  “And the other stuff?” Stanley said. “The sugar daddies, the long-term relationships. Do the young icings find them?”

  “Sometimes. Often enough to keep the dream alive, I should say. I do know that one of our young men, a regular by the pool there only a short time ago, lives now in Hollywood with a name producer—and no, I’m not going to mention the producer’s name, but you would recognize it if I did so.”

  “And no doubt the young man is soon to be starring in movies,” Stanley said.

  “Perhaps. That’s not my concern. But I rather suppose it’s what all of the young men, or the majority in any case, are hoping for. If not movie stardom, a comfortable billet somewhere certainly. And it does happen from time to time. It’s why they’re here, the naked ones and the ones showing off big baskets and laughing maybe just a little too loudly at jokes they have surely heard scores of times before. None of this is new, you know. It’s been going on since the young Greeks did their exercises in the raw, and the older Athenians came to ogle them and shop for a new boyfriend. Everybody trades what they’ve got for what they want.
Simple barter, regardless of what the moralists would like to make of it.”

  “Not so simple,” Tom said, “when a young man ends up dead.”

  Frederick gave him a chilling look.

  “And young Palmer was one of the icing crowd,” Stanley said.

  “Yes, I’ve already said so.”

  “He got his drinks free, his meals… a room?”

  “Drinks, yes, I think that’s a given, and probably some meals. As to a free room, no, not from us, but that’s not to say he didn’t spend an occasional night here without having to pay for a room. He was an attractive young man.”

  “Had he found himself a special friendship?”

  Frederick shook his head. “That I couldn’t say.”

  “Couldn’t? Or wouldn’t?” Tom asked.

  “Either. That’s another part of what we offer our guests, discretion. These men, many of them, are not the sort who want rumors circulating in gossip columns. We keep reporters away, and if we find out that anyone is leaking tidbits—it has been known to happen—they are permanently barred from the premises.”

  “A wall of silence,” Stanley said.

  “A wall of discretion,” Frederick corrected him firmly. “It’s to everyone’s benefit, young and old alike.”

  “I’m a little curious. I can see that the older gents would like it that way, but in what way would this wall of discretion, as you call it, benefit the young men?” Stanley asked.

  Frederick raised an eyebrow. “Some of those you see by the pool are almost certainly in the military, for starters. The Marine Corps has a major presence just over the mountain, at Twentynine Palms, and the naval stations are not so far away.”

  “And they come here for rest and recreation,” Stanley said.

  “Exactly. And it isn’t only the military either. I know of one young man who is married, to a woman, I mean, and I can see him across the patio just now, flirting blatantly with a wealthy, older industrialist. These are not just your typical young gay boys, don’t you see? They wouldn’t suit our older gentlemen if they were. Those gentlemen are looking for an ideal, perhaps a dream from their own youth, the perfect male, handsome, hung, straight….”

  “But they’re not straight, are they?” Stanley said. “Not if they’re looking for sugar daddies.”

  “Oh, but people can be very good at fooling themselves, wouldn’t you agree? Take a look at the young men around you. They look straight, don’t they? They act straight. There’s not a limp wrist to be seen. They could be the boy next door, the college jock, the schoolmate you had a crush on years ago who didn’t know you existed. They are fantasies, but fantasies come to life.”

  “Like Westworld,” Chris said, brightening. “You know, Stanley, that old movie with Yul Brynner.”

  “People went there to experience their adventure fantasies,” Stanley said.

  “Yes, it’s much the same thing.” Frederick nodded. “Only the fantasies here are different. How often in life do you get a second chance. How often can you make your sexual dreams come true? Men do here, I tell you. And if it isn’t the whole truth, it’s as close as these men are ever going to get, and they are old enough, and wise enough, to know that. They may be looking for love, but they know the limits to what they’re going to find.”

  “In this case, it was a deadly kind of love, wasn’t it?” Tom said.

  “Those who are not sensitive to love are ignorant of its power.”

  “You said you’ve got more bookings than you can handle, but when he had a plumbing problem, you moved Chris from one room into another one, an empty one. How was that possible if you’re booked solid?” Tom asked.

  “A last-minute cancellation. Even we have them. Our guests are, many of them, extremely busy people. Things come up. We don’t charge cancellation fees for that reason, though most hotels do. We try in every way to accommodate these gentlemen, and they reward us with their patronage. Some of them come to us every weekend. And some, the locals, spend part of nearly every day here. You can see for yourself, we are quite popular.”

  “We’re supposing that the killer stashed the body in Chris’s room by mistake,” Tom said. “Somebody knew the room was empty….”

  “Anyone could have seen the previous occupant check out. They would assume the suite was empty.”

  “But whoever it was apparently didn’t know that the room had been immediately re-rented.”

  “Exactly. Which eliminates hotel staff, I should think.”

  “But not the guests.”

  Frederick glanced around the patio as if one of the men in the crowd there might raise a hand to identify himself. “No,” he said, his voice cautious, “not the guests.”

  “You keep saying we,” Tom said. “Who else…?”

  “I represent the owners,” Frederick said in his haughtiest voice. “For all intents and purposes, I am we.”

  Meaning, Tom thought, he wasn’t going to give them any names. That wall of discretion again.

  A young Latino man in tight black trousers and a formfitting white shirt approached and handed Frederick a note on a silver tray. Frederick glanced at it and then up at Chris. “You have a guest, Mr. Rafferty,” he said. “For dinner, he says.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Chris said, rolling his eyes. “Eddie. My date from last night. In all the excitement, I forgot I had invited him for dinner.”

  “Not a problem,” Frederick said. “We encourage our guests to have guests. Of the appropriate sort, of course.” Meaning, Stanley supposed, no toads welcome.

  “Oh, he’s definitely appropriate,” Chris said with a grin. “Cute as a bug.”

  “In that case, bring the young man in,” Frederick told the waiter.

  The Latino left and was back in a moment, leading a very handsome young man of Japanese descent to the table.

  “Eddie, Eddie Ishiguro,” Chris introduced him around.

  “Will you all be having dinner as well?” Frederick asked Tom and Stanley.

  “Oh, please do,” Chris said.

  “Yeah, sure, I could eat something,” Stanley said. “It’s been a long while since breakfast.”

  “I could eat a horse,” Tom said.

  “We don’t serve horse, I’m afraid, but I believe they have seafood on the menu for today. Pepe,” Frederick addressed the waiting Latino, “show Mr. Rafferty and his guests to table number seven in the dining room. Number seven,” he explained, “is the house table. You may be assured of the best service.”

  On the way inside, Stanley gave Chris a nudge. “You were out with that last night, and you came home to a dead body?”

  “You know my batting average with tricks,” Chris said. “I never end up with the live ones.”

  Chapter Eight

  PEPE SEATED them at a large table in the corner, from which they could see everyone else in the dining room and everybody could see them. Another power table, Stanley thought. A waiter—also handsome and young, an Italian type—introduced himself as Pauli and took their orders for drinks. He was back in a moment to pass the drinks around.

  “May I suggest your dinner?” he said.

  “I’d like to look at a menu,” Tom said.

  “I’m afraid we don’t have a written one,” Pauli said. “Our offerings vary each day, sometimes from hour to hour, depending on what’s freshest and best. It’s simpler for us to tell you what we have. Just now we’re serving—”

  “I’ll have a rib eye,” Tom said. “The biggest one they can find. Rare. Just slap the cow on the butt and send her in.”

  “We don’t serve steaks, sir.”

  Tom gave him an astonished look. “I never heard of a restaurant that didn’t serve steaks.”

  “Our chef’s special tonight is abalone with pan-seared vegetables topped with squid and a sea salad on the side. As an alternative, we have—”

  “I’ve been having the chef’s specials,” Chris said quickly. “So far everything has been really good. That’s what I’ll have,” he told their wa
iter.

  “Me too,” Eddie said, and Stanley said, “Sounds good to me.”

  “And for you, sir?” Pauli raised a pencil-thin eyebrow at Tom.

  “Well, fuck it,” he said, “I’ll go along with the crowd. You better bring me another beer, though. I think I’m going to need it.”

  The waiter went. Stanley sipped his margarita, and Tom took a long draught of beer. “I don’t care what that Frederick guy says. He’s running a whorehouse,” he said to the table at large. “Which suggests some possibilities. Any of the studs hanging around underage? We could be talking statutory, all kinds of charges. Which could mean blackmail.”

  Eddie blinked and looked from Tom to Chris.

  “Tom and Stanley are detectives,” Chris explained to Eddie. “They’re here to investigate a murder.”

  “A murder? Here, at the Inn? I heard someone died, but I thought he’d been bitten by a snake.”

  “It was made to look that way,” Tom said.

  “And no,” Chris said, “I doubt anybody’s underage. The ones I saw drinking, the bartender was pretty careful to check IDs. I don’t think the management here wants that kind of trouble.”

  “Blackmail sounds like a possibility, though,” Stanley said, thinking. “There are a lot of wealthy men in Palm Springs, and a lot of them apparently hang out here. That could be something.”

  Chris shook his head. “Today? In Palm Springs? It’s just not that big a deal anymore, is it? I mean, even movie stars are coming out of the closet. Rock stars, athletes, you name it. It might make somebody a little unhappy, but enough to murder over it? I can’t see it.”

  “So how long are you here for?” Eddie asked Tom, looking at him from under lowered lashes.

  “Till we find our murderer,” Tom said.

  “That sounds exciting.”

  “Nah. Detective work is pretty boring. Most of it’s just thinking things out. That’s Stanley’s department, the thinking stuff. Every once in a while you get some action. That’s where I fit in.”

  “I’d like to see you in action,” Eddie said in a low voice, his long dark lashes fluttering.