A Deadly Kind of Love Read online

  “Like he said.” Stanley scooted his chair an inch or so closer to Tom’s. “It’s mostly pretty boring.”

  Chris cleared his throat.

  Tom seemed oblivious to any hidden meanings. “You know what we need? We need to talk to one of these rent boys.”

  Chris gave Eddie a look. “Well, if you want to get in on the action, there’s something you could do. They’re having a dance tonight. How about if we do a little fishing, and you’re the bait?”

  Eddie blushed—rather becomingly, Stanley had to admit. “You think these guys would find me that interesting?”

  “Everybody gets tired of eating the same thing over and over,” Stanley said. “Even rich old men.”

  The waiter returned with a cart, took their dinners from it, and set them on the table. Tom glowered at the plate filled with rice—but not white rice, this was a funny black color—and some cut up green stuff he couldn’t put a name to, with what looked like large white bugs atop everything.

  “Is this an octopus?’ he asked, holding one of the white bugs up on his fork.

  “It’s squid,” Chris said.

  “This is called Pacific Rim cuisine,” Stanley said.

  “Huh. Not the best rim I’ve ever had.” Tom pushed his plate aside, finished the beer, and signaled for another one.

  Pauli was back in a few minutes. He whisked away Tom’s plate and sat another in front of him, this one with an oversized hamburger, oozing bloody grease, on a toasted bun.

  “This is the best I could do on short notice,” Pauli said. “Unfortunately the cow was busy elsewhere.”

  Tom took a bite, wiped some juice from his chin, and grinned up at the waiter. “Delicious,” he said. “I owe you one.”

  “I’ll remember that.” Pauli smiled back. He caught the look Stanley gave him, and his face went blank. “Is everybody else fine?”

  “Peachy,” Stanley said in his driest voice. He was used to it, though. Tom had some scent that drove gay boys crazy. Women too. And Pauli was Italian. Italian men, he had decided long ago, learned to flirt while they were in the cradle and only stopped when they were on the wrong side of the grass.

  Still, he liked to keep any potential poachers at bay. Tom wasn’t into guys, but you never knew when somebody might change his mind. After all, he had. Someone else might get lucky too. It was best to maintain vigilance.

  Chapter Nine

  AFTER DINNER, they went dancing—as it turned out, not very far to go. The Inn had its own club too: a large space for dancing, a raised stage, empty for now, where a band could perform, two bars down either side, and above it all a kind of balcony. Though it was still early in terms of club hours, the dance floor and the areas in front of the bars were already crowded with many of the same people who had crowded around the pool a short while before, some of them still in swimwear.

  “You know,” Stanley said, “whoever killed Barry Palmer could be here right this minute.”

  “Probably is,” Chris agreed. Both of them looked at the crowd of men as if they might recognize the guilty party when they saw him.

  “But how do you pick the deadly needle out of the innocent haystack?” Tom asked.

  Stanley took a long look around. “I don’t think this particular haystack is all that innocent.”

  “Lots of hotties here tonight,” Eddie said.

  “You said it,” Chris agreed.

  “Look at that cowboy over by the exit sign,” Stanley said, pointing. “Like the old saying, he looks like he was poured into those jeans and forgot to say when.”

  “The VIP room is up there.” Chris indicated the balcony overhead. “I’m sure Frederick would okay our going up if anyone’s so inclined.”

  The others looked as if they thought that was a good idea, but Tom said, “Better if we stay down here. I want you guys to move around, to mingle, see who you can fasten on that knew this Palmer kid. Maybe we can dig up some information.”

  “And you will be…?” Eddie asked. He glanced in the direction of the dancers gyrating nearby. “You don’t dance?”

  “He’s got some moves,” Stanley said in a cool voice.

  Eddie grinned. “I can see that.”

  “We were talking about dancing,” Stanley said. “Besides, Tom’s not much of a mingler. Not in gay bars. Come on, let’s look around.”

  “I’m surprised he’s here at all,” Chris said when they moved off a few feet. “Tom’s not into the gay scene,” he explained to Eddie.

  “He’s working on it,” Stanley said. Eddie gave him a curious look. “It’s called love,” Stanley told him, and didn’t miss the flash of disappointment on Eddie’s face.

  Get over it, Stanley advised him silently.

  TOM REMAINED by the bar, trying not to look uncomfortable and feeling completely out of place. He hated gay bars. He went to them only as an appeasement to Stanley, who had begun to feel cut off from his gay friends. Something Tom had thought a good idea, but Stanley had not been happy. If he wanted to keep Stanley happy, he had to make some adjustments in his thinking. If you wanted a relationship, you had to work at it. This was him working on it.

  Stanley, Chris, and Eddie had drifted toward the dance floor, talking and laughing together. Tom watched them for a moment, glad anyway to see Stanley enjoying himself, and turned back again to face the bar.

  “You must spend a lot of time in the gym,” somebody said beside him.

  “Some.” Tom glanced in the direction of the voice, and saw a tall, lanky cowboy. The one, in fact, that Stanley had commented on a few minutes earlier, poured into his jeans. His hair was dark and straight, his skin desert-weathered, his eyes so dark they looked black. Tom wasn’t interested, but he was glad for someone to talk to. Apart from the too-tight jeans, the guy looked okay. He didn’t, in fact, look gay at all.

  “Those are some massive biceps,” the cowboy said.

  Tom glanced at his arm as if he’d never seen it before, and shrugged. “It’s just my arm,” he said.

  “What do you do? No, don’t tell me, let me guess—construction work. Or, alligator wrestling. Or….”

  “I’m a detective.”

  “Oh.” For a few seconds, the man looked uneasy. People often did when they found themselves chatting with a detective—which, for most people, meant police detective. “Like, with the police, you mean? Here in Palm Springs?”

  “No, San Francisco. Private detective.”

  “Wait.” The cowboy snapped his fingers. “The detectives from San Francisco. Now I remember. Only I hadn’t heard you were so hot.”

  “You’ve heard about us?” Tom was surprised. He had rather supposed their arrival here had gone unnoticed.

  “Are you kidding? The town’s buzzing. First the murder, and then two big-time detectives swoop in from San Francisco to clear things up. Have you figured out who killed Barry?”

  “Not yet. It’s a little early. We’re working on it, though. You knew him?”

  “Everybody knew Barry,” he said with a wink. “He was… hmm, popular, I guess is the word. He hung out by the pool pretty much every day.”

  “Only I hear he wasn’t always by the pool. Like, he disappeared inside from time to time.”

  “To be expected.” This delivered in a cautious voice. “Barry was, um, desirable.”

  “Are you one of the guys he disappeared with?”

  The cowboy laughed drily. “I wish. No, he was beyond my pay grade. Way beyond. Which isn’t to say I didn’t sometimes fantasize about it. Barry was the kind of kid who inspired you to think of stuff like that.”

  “Well, as it turns out, he inspired someone to kill him. You got any thoughts who or why?”

  “He was a hot tamale,” the cowboy said evasively. “I expect there were plenty of guys who’d kill to get a piece of that.”

  Tom looked at him directly. “You, for instance?”

  The cowboy laughed again at the suggestion, but there was a hard edge to his laughter. “No, no, I like ’em aliv
e when I fuck ’em, preferably alive and moving, but in a pinch I’ll settle for alive. Say, pardon my manners,” he said, pointedly changing the subject, “I’m Randy Patterson, by the way.”

  “Tom Danzel.” They shook hands. Patterson’s grip was firm, manly. And held maybe just a shade too long.

  “So tell me, Tom Danzel, when you’re not solving crime in Palm Springs, what does a private detective with big biceps do in San Francisco?”

  “Ah, you know, the usual.” Tom freed his hand, resisted an urge to wipe it on the leg of his trousers. Smarmy was the word that popped into his mind. “Wrestle alligators. Beat up people. Overturn cars. Can I ask you a question? Where were you last night? Say between midnight and maybe three in the morning?”

  “Here,” he said, unconcerned. “Like most nights. When the bar closed, I hung around by the pool for a while, then I split. Why, you think I offed Barry?”

  “Somebody did. Just like to keep things sorted out.”

  Another laugh, this one more genuinely amused. “Can I buy you a drink?” Tom hesitated. “Just to be neighborly,” Randy added, projecting total innocence.

  “Uh, sure, I guess so.” Tom was definitely out of his comfort zone now. Was that a pass? He couldn’t tell if the guy was just being friendly or hitting on him. Where was Stanley, anyway? Tom glanced toward the dance floor, but Stanley and friends had disappeared. “Ah, a beer, I guess.”

  “Oh, we can do better than that for a famous visitor.” Randy gave the man behind the bar a smile and a wink. “Paco, how about a race horse for my friend here?”

  The bartender gave Tom a measuring look and shrugged. He poured some vodka into a tall glass and turned his back on them. Tom glanced past Randy, looking for Stanley again, and saw him engaged in animated conversation with Chris and Eddie. A fourth young man had joined them and looked to be very interested in Eddie. Someone had taken the bait. Well, sure, why not? Eddie was a cute little thing. He could see why Chris had hooked up with him.

  When Tom turned back to the bar, the bartender was just setting a tall glass on the counter in front of him. No ice in the glass, but it was steaming slightly. Tom picked it up, looked at it curiously for a few seconds. What kind of drink steamed? Randy and the bartender watched him closely.

  Stanley had finally noticed the transaction and walked quickly over. “What’s that?” he asked, indicating the glass with the steam lifting off it.

  “This guy bought me a drink,” Tom said. “It’s a… what did you call it?” he asked the cowboy.

  “A race horse,” the cowboy said, biting back a grin.

  “For crap’s sake,” Stanley said, and behind him, Chris laughed aloud. “Put that down. Don’t you know anything?”

  “Not about this shit. Why, what’s in it?”

  “Vodka and piss,” Stanley said.

  “Oh.”

  “Didn’t you see the bartender filling it up?”

  “He had his back turned.” Tom set the glass down on the bar gingerly, as if it might explode.

  “I’ll take it,” an effeminate older man a few stools down said.

  “Hey, you,” Tom said to the cowboy.

  Randy put his hands up in a defensive gesture. “Sorry. I thought you knew what I was talking about. No harm done.” He turned, laughing, and walked away, disappearing into the crowd around the dance floor.

  Chapter Ten

  STANLEY SLAPPED Tom’s arm. “I turn my back on you for five seconds, and you’re already in trouble.”

  “Well, how was I to know? You know I don’t know anything about this scene, and you weren’t here.”

  “Fine. Just do me a favor. The next time somebody hits on you, refer them to me, okay? As in, I’m your boyfriend, remember?”

  Tom looked in the direction in which the cowboy had disappeared. “He was hitting on me? By ordering me a glass of piss? You gay guys are really weird, you know that?”

  Stanley slapped his arm again. “And don’t say ‘you gay guys,’ okay? You’ve got a boyfriend. Like it or not, you sing in the choir.”

  Tom signaled the bartender. “Dos Equis,” he said. “Make this one straight, okay?”

  “Sure.” The bartender gave him an apologetic grin. “I thought you knew….”

  “’S okay, just a plain beer this time, is all.”

  Eddie and the newcomer had joined them. “This is Larson,” Eddie introduced the young man with him. Larson was little and dark-skinned, his chin beard-stubbled, and he looked a bit uncomfortable about talking to them. “He knew Barry,” Eddie added.

  “The dead kid?” Tom was glad for a change of subject.

  “Barry, Barry Palmer,” Larson said, glancing around as if to see who might be listening. “Well, sure, I knew him, but that’s all. I mean, not in any Biblical sense, just to see him around. But the thing is, I was just telling Eddie….” He hesitated.

  “What?” Tom asked.

  Larson looked Tom up and down, seemed to like what he saw. “The thing is, Barry had a boyfriend.”

  “As in a significant other?” Stanley asked.

  “Hmm, I don’t know how significant. I mean, they both played around. Here, with the daddies, at least. But I think they were maybe lovers. For sure they were fallback for each other.”

  “Is he here?” Tom asked. “The fallback? What’s his name, anyway?”

  “Jeff. And no, he’s not here. I haven’t seen him for a couple of days. Which is kind of unusual, really. These guys, Barry and Jeff, they were regulars, hardly ever missed a day. And they were really popular. They disappeared regularly.”

  “Inside,” Tom said.

  “Yes. If you know what I mean. Two or three times a day, sometimes more often than that.”

  “With the rich guys?” Stanley said.

  “Pretty much. But I saw the security guard giving Barry a blow job a couple of days ago, though, and for sure he’s not rich.”

  “Where was this?”

  Larson jerked his head in the general direction of the gates. “In that little security room, you know, by the entrance. Anyway, Mario, that’s the security guard, he couldn’t afford Barry’s rates, so it had to be a freebie. Or, well, some guys turn on to uniforms, I guess.”

  “Yes, sure, I know a lot of uniform queens,” Stanley said. “But… a security guard?”

  Larson shrugged. “Maybe he was doing the guy a favor. Or maybe it was love. All I know is, I happened to glance in there as I went past, and the lucky joker was down on his knees and seriously sucking. But that’s all I know. Like, I didn’t stop to ask them what it was all about. I couldn’t help being a little envious, though. I made a pass at Barry myself not very long ago, and he turned me down flat. He just about laughed in my face.” He shook his head, clearly still perturbed by the memory. “I mean, if you’d seen that pole. It must have been ten inches. And here this dude was chowing on it for free. Doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

  “Still, it sounds like this Barry could afford to pass around the occasional freebie. Him and his friend, Jeff, they must have been making a lot of bucks from their other playmates,” Tom said.

  Larson shrugged cautiously and lowered his voice, looking over his shoulder again. “I don’t know about that.”

  “Or you don’t talk about it?” Tom suggested.

  “That’s right. It’s a good way to get eighty-sixed.”

  “Tell me something,” Tom said. “Do you ever disappear inside with one of the guests?”

  “Maybe. From time to time. I wasn’t in Barry’s class, though. But, say, listen, I’d rather not get into that. If the management finds out you’re talking about that stuff, you’re out of here. No one wants that.”

  “The goose that lays the golden egg,” Stanley said.

  “Well, we know what happened to Barry’s golden eggs,” Tom said, “but what do you think happened to his friend, Jeff? Do you think he got scared and ran?”

  Larson shrugged again. “It’s hard to say. If he knew that his boyfriend had been whacked
….”

  “Only, he disappeared before then, right?”

  “I guess. If he disappeared. He might have just gone off with a daddy. But there’s something else. Jeff was, well, it’s sort of an open secret, but he was kind of kinky. He was the go-to for the edgy stuff. You know, if somebody wanted to play a little rough, or a little dirty. Bondage. Water sports. Stuff like that. A lot of the daddies knew about that. You’d be surprised. People can be weird.”

  “Huh,” Tom said, staring at where the cowboy had disappeared, thinking. Water sports meant piss, didn’t it? He still had to learn a lot about the gay scene, but that much he already knew. He wondered if there was a connection between this Jeff and the cowboy who ordered drinks with piss in them. Seemed an odd coincidence.

  “Where did this Barry live, if you know?” Tom asked. “When he wasn’t hanging out here?”

  “He had a place in Cathedral City. I think Jeff lived there, too, or he was there a lot, anyway. I got that impression. I was only there once. I… well, I was trying to get something going, you know. With the two of them. But, like, nothing happened. With them, it was cash on the line. Or one another, I guess. Except for that security guard.” He said it in a way that indicated it still rankled.

  A Japanese man in a dark suit strolled by just then and paused to say, “Why, Eddie, is it not? Hello. I have not seen you here before, have I?”

  “No, it’s my first time, Nakamura-san,” Eddie said.

  “And you are enjoying yourself?”

  “Very much.” Eddie beamed, apparently flattered to have been noticed.

  “You are here with friends?” The newcomer gave the group a quizzical but friendly glance.

  “Yes. Mr. Nakamura, may I present my friends Chris Rafferty, Tom Danzel, and Stanley Korski. They are from San Francisco. And this is Larson.”

  “Yes, Mr. Larson and I are acquainted.”

  “Mr. Nakamura is head of operations for Mikosa Industries in Los Angeles,” Chris said.

  “And, increasingly, in Palm Springs,” Mr. Nakamura said.

  Stanley looked impressed, but Tom’s face was blank. “Movies,” Stanley said. “Rising Sun Studios.”