On the way home, I had the cab drop me off at the corner deli so I could grab some milk and a box of cookies. I figured if I were going to take a few days off, I could afford to gain a percent or two of body fat. Besides, I’d been beaten up and dumped today. I deserved to pig out.
Fuck it, I thought, standing in front of the Ben and Jerry’s assortment in the freezer case. I might as wel go whole hog.
I was trying to decide on which flavor of ice cream I wanted when my iPhone rang. I put the Bluetooth receiver in my ear and picked up.
“Hel o,” came the high, thin voice of Melvin Cuttlebeck. “We had a phone session scheduled for tonight?”
Melvin, my favorite wannabe S amp;M top. He was right. I had completely forgotten to put it in my calendar. Oh wel, he finished so fast we’d probably be done before I choose my dessert.
“Yes sir,” I said. “I’m ready.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I mean, ‘good boy.’”
He proceeded to rattle off a fantasy about restraining and torturing me. Of course, his version of torture ran along the lines of “I’m spanking your bottom now (but don’t worry, not too hard),” and “how would you like it if I gave you a real y dirty look?”
Why couldn’t al sadists be like Melvin? He’s so sweet that he taught me how to escape his own bondage devices. He indulges his fantasies without real y hurting anyone. Unlike a certain Harrington boy, I thought.
I left my microphone on mute, every once in a while coming back on to give Melvin an encouraging
“oh yes, sir, spank this bad boy’s tush,” or “oh, thank you sir, that hurts so good.”
I final y settled on Cherry Garcia and turned around to see the chubby but cute goateed young clerk was listening to my every word. He stared at me open-mouthed, his hands in his front pockets. I shrugged. He gave me a leering nod.
Sure enough, Melvin noisily reached his fulfil ment within five minutes. “Thank you very much,” he said formal y. “Sometimes after we talk, I can go a whole day or two without feeling il whenever I see my boss.”
“Glad to help,” I said. We disconnected.
“Wow,” said the clerk as he rang up my junk food orgy. “That sounded like… something.”
His forehead was beaded with sweat and his jeans made his excitement clear.
“It’s a living,” I answered.
“You into that stuff in real life?” he asked, looking at the bruise on my cheek.
“No,” I said, hoping he’d give me my change real y quickly.
He leaned over the counter and whispered, “I am.”
He pul ed the col ar of his shirt down to show me that he was wearing a dog col ar. “Woof!”
I nodded appreciatively. “Good for you.” I almost added, “Fido,” but thought better of it.
“Maybe one day we could get together,” he said.
I put my hand out for the change. He handed it to me, his fingers lingering in my palm for a second too long.
“I’m kind of seeing someone right now,” I lied.
“Me, too,” he said. “But I think my mistress would like you, too.”
“Let me get back to you,” I said, thinking, doesn’t anyone have straight sex anymore?
I opened the door to my apartment, noticing that the lights and radio were on. “I’m home,” I shouted.
My mother emerged from her-my! — bedroom.
“Bubbie,” she said, “how was your day?” Then she looked at my cheek and gasped, “What happened?”
“Oh,” I said. “Would you believe a crazy man on the street just ran up to me and did that?” I took my wal et out of my pocket. “He didn’t even want my money. Just hit me and ran off.”
“Poor baby,” my mother said, taking my shopping bag from me. “Oh, look-ice cream!”
She never did suffer from an overabundance of maternal concern.
“Oh,” she said as we sat at the kitchen table eating ourselves into oblivion. “I think that bitch Dottie Kubacki had one of her friends cal here tonight.”
“What do you mean?” I mumbled though a mouthful of chocolate.
“I picked up the phone and this deep voice said,
‘Tel the whore to stay away from us or someone’s going to get hurt.’ Can you imagine her cal ing me a
‘whore’ when she’s the one fooling around with my husband? What a bitch.”
I was pretty sure the cal wasn’t meant for her.
“It was probably just a wrong number,” I told her.
“Or a prank cal. It doesn’t sound like Dottie’s style.”
“The woman almost shot you to death!”
“Yeah, but to be honest, she didn’t know it was me. And I was peeping into her window at the time.”
“I stil say that woman is capable of anything,” my mother grumbled.
Just then, a crashing noise came from the window. We both turned to look.
Gunshots!
“Get down!” I shouted at my mother.
“What?”
I threw myself in her lap, knocking both of us to the floor. “Someone’s shooting at us!” I cried.
Apparently, Michael Harrington wasn’t going to be satisfied with a warning delivered by phone.
“Ow!” my mother screamed.
“Mom!” I would never forgive myself if my mother got hurt because of my involvement with the Harringtons.
“My hip!” she moaned. “Ow!”
Shit, she’d been shot!
I looked at her. “I’l cal the cops,” I told her. I was about to crawl to the phone when I looked at her again. “I don’t see any blood.”
“Of course there’s no blood,” she said, standing up. “You just almost broke my hip with that meshuggana move you pul ed. Are you trying to kil me?”
“Get back down!” I shouted, pointing at the window where more bul ets struck the glass.
“Someone’s shooting at us!”
“Those aren’t gunshots,” my mother said.
They weren’t?
I listened again.
The sound was more of a tapping then a blasting.
Ooops. OK, maybe I did overreact. Had I taken my medicine today?
“Someone’s throwing something at the window,” she said. “Rocks or… pebbles. I haven’t heard that sound since…”
Hip hurting or not, she ran to the window like a schoolgirl. She flung it open and we heard him outside: “Don’t sit under the apple tree, with anyone else but me, anyone else but me, anyone else but me…”
My father’s singing voice was legendarily bad, but my mother’s face glowed as if she was listening to Sinatra.
I joined her at the window. My father was standing on the street in a white tuxedo and tails. He held a bouquet of blood red roses. A white limousine was parked on the street behind him, the driver holding the door open.
A smal crowd gathered behind my father. More street theater. These are the moments New Yorkers live for.
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your golden hair,” my father cal ed.
My mother blushed and waved him away.
“Come on,” a guy who looked like a construction worker (and was actual y pretty hot) cal ed out to her.
“Give da guy a break.”
“Come, fair lady, upon my glorious steed.” My father gestured towards the limo.
My mother blushed and put her hands on her cheeks.
A
fifty-something
African-American woman shouted at us, “Honey, if you don’t get your ass down here, I’m going with him!” The crowd laughed.
My mother turned to me. “What do I do?”
“Wel,” I said, “you could hop on the fire escape and climb down, but since you’re wearing white slacks, I’d probably take the elevator.
“Should I forgive him?”
“I don’t think you have anything to forgive him for, Mom. He never laid a finger on Dottie Kubacki and you know it.”
My mother smiled wisely. “You see, what he’s doing now? I think this is what I needed.”
My father began singing again “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do…”
My mother leaned out the window. “If I come down, wil you promise to stop singing?”
The crowd laughed.
“You cal this singing?” my father asked. More laughter.
“What I cal it,” my mother said, “is very sweet.”
This time, the crowed “awwwed.”
“I’l be right down!” my mother shouted and she skipped-actual y skipped! — to the door. “I might not be back tonight!” she tril ed to me.
“You better not be back!” I cal ed back to her.
“I love you,” she said.
“Love you too, Mom.”
I watched for a minute as my mother emerged from the lobby door and ran into my father’s arms.
Given that she had at least thirty pounds on him, most of it in the bosom, I was surprised he didn’t fal over.
The crowd cheered. So did I.
And not just because I had my apartment back.
My father watched as the limo driver guided her into the backseat. When he closed her door, my father turned to me. “Not bad for an old man, huh?”
“I’m proud of you Dad,” I said, my eyes for some reason fil ing with tears. Must have been relief.
“Your old man, you have to admit, he’s stil got it,” my father said. “Now, you won’t miss her too much, wil you?”
“I’l survive.”
“You’re a good boy. Thanks for looking after her.”
“Thanks for taking her back!”
My father climbed into his seat and the limo took off. The crowd dispersed, except for Construction Guy who stayed looking at me. I looked back. I’d guess he was maybe twenty-eight or twenty-nine.
Dark skin and dark eyes. Italian or Latino. Built like a tank.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hi,” I answered.
“Pretty crazy family you got dere.” His accent was pure Brooklyn.
I laughed. “Yeah, wel, they’re the only one I have.”
“So tel me, cutie,” he yel ed up. “Think I could get you to throw down your golden locks, too?”
It was tempting. God knows I deserved something fun after the day I had. “It’s not a good time,” I said.
He pointed to my cheek. “I can see that.”
I chuckled. “Believe it or not, that’s the least of my problems.”
“Sounds like you could use a good massage.” He winked, grinning at the obvious lasciviousness of his suggestion.
That sounded good. “Some other time?”
“Real y?” he said. He grinned ear to ear. Damn, he was cute.
I realized I spent the past few years waiting for Tony or having sex for money.
It had been a long time since I dated an attractive boy just for the sake of a date.
“Sure,” I said, reassuring him as much as me. “I’d like that.”
“One second,” he said. With a great leap, he jumped up and launched himself onto the railing of the fire escape. He pul ed himself up to the first floor landing. “I’l be right dere.”
Monkey-like, he climbed the metal structure, displaying a natural grace and limberness that belied his muscular build. In a minute, he was standing by my window.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.” Up close, he was a total snack. “That was pretty slick.”
“Wel.” He cocked his head, “I’m a pretty slick guy.”
“I’m Kevin,” I said.
“Romeo,” he put out his hand.
“You’re kidding.”
“What?”
“You just climbed onto my ‘balcony’ and your name is ‘Romeo?’”
He shrugged. “That’s what they cal ed me. Romeo Raul Romero.”
I bit my tongue. “That’s quite a name.”
“Yeah, my parents real y had a hard-on for de letter R, huh?”
I smiled. “It’s a very handsome name, Romeo. It fits you.”
“Ya think?” He leaned in closer.
“Uh-huh.” I leaned in a little, too.
Romeo planted one on my lips.
In the movie Norma Rae, Sal y Fields is being pursued by an unattractive but intriguingly-Semitic liberal activist played by Ron Leibman. Just in case his every characteristic and frequent use of Yiddish wasn’t enough to let you know he was Jewish, they saddled him with the name Reuben Warshowsky.
In any case, at one point Rueben expresses his sexual interest in her. She kisses him, explaining that if the kiss is good, the rest wil fol ow.
If she was right, then Romeo was real y, real y good.
I know, it seems crazy that after the day I’d just had I’d be standing by my window under a ful moon being kissed by a beautiful stranger who scaled my fire escape. But on the other hand, would I ever get a better excuse for acting a little crazy?
You know what they say: When God closes a door, he opens a window.
I just happened to be kissing a dark-skinned boy with biceps the size of my thighs through that window right now.
I pul ed away. “That was nice.”
Romeo raised his eyebrows. “It gets better.”
“I bet. One second.” I got a pad and pencil. “Can I have your number?”
He wrote it down for me.
“OK, Romeo,” I said, “I have to crash.”
“If you don’t cal,” he warned, “I’m gonna be back out here in a white suit with flowers and a limo. And I’m gonna sing. If that’s what it takes.”
“How’s your singing?”
“My kissing’s better.”
I smiled. “Next time. Maybe I’l even let you use the front door.”
His face grew serious. He put his hand on my cheek. “Did a guy do this to you? Cause I’l fuck him up if you want me to.”
“No.” I told him the lie about the stranger on the street.
“A cute little guy like you needs some protection,”
Romeo told me. “I wouldn’t mind looking out for you.
If you wanted me to, dat is.”
“I take pretty good care of myself,” I said. “But I can always use a friend.”
Romeo extended his hand. “Friends, then. At least to start.”
“Friends.” We shook hands.
“OK,” I said, pushing him back. “I’l cal you.”
Romeo leapt up, grabbing a rung on the fire escape above me. He showed off with an effortless pul — up.
“I’l be waiting,” he said. He dropped back down, and ran down the fire escape, jumping off the last landing and landing cat-like on the pavement.
“Good night, cute Kevin,” he cal ed.
I waved goodbye and closed the window.
I cal ed Freddy and told him about my parents’ reconciliation and my flirtation with Romeo.
“Wow,” said Freddy. “That could be two times in one month you get laid without getting paid.”
“Ha ha,” I said, thinking that counting my last encounter with Marc Wilgus, it would actual y be three.
“No, I think that’s great. You have to wash that cop right out of your hair, darling. Ow! Watch the teeth!”
“I’m sorry?”
“Nothing, I was just saying that you’ve already gotten over Tony once. Just move on.”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” I said more confidently than I felt.
“That’s my boy. I’m very proud of-hey, what did I tel you about those teeth?”
“Umm, do you by any chance have someone there?”
“The boy from the coffee shop tonight,” Freddy said. “I think he’s part vampire.” I heard a muffled defense in the background.
“No, dear, those aren’t ‘love bites,’” Freddy said to his guest. “Love bites don’t break the skin. And it’s too hot to wear a turtleneck, so watch the hickeys, too. Mmm, that’s better.” To me: “So, what’s your next move.”
“Why don’t we talk tomorrow?” I said. “I don’t want to interrupt.”
“Darling, don’t be sil y. You know you always come first.” I heard the muffled voice again.
“Fine,” Freddy said to his guest. “Yes, you did get to come first. Now, be a good boy and get me a glass of water and maybe I’l let you come third, too.”
I heard Trick Boy walking away. “Is he any good?”
Freddy whispered, “Not bad. A little quick on the trigger, but I bet he’s got a lot more left in him. What I don’t understand is, if you final y got rid of your mother, why didn’t you have Hamlet…”
“Romeo.”
“Whatever. Why didn’t you have Romeo in for some hot man on man action? Most guys have to spend a few hours on an Internet chat line to have a sexy construction worker show up at their window.
And then he turns out to be a skinny accountant wearing brand new boots and a toy tool belt. As if that was going to fool me-I mean, someone. You had the real thing in the al — too-present flesh.”
“I’m thinking of maybe going out on a date with him first.”
“Kevin Connor on a date!” Freddy shouted. Oy, hold on, I think the earth just started spinning in the opposite direction.”
“Yeah, wel, don’t get too excited,” I said. “I’m just thinking about it.”
“Wel, it’s a good start. What about Michael Harrington? Any thoughts?”
“No, I’m waiting to hear from that computer guy I was tel ing you about, Marc Wilgus. Hey, wait a minute, he IMed me this morning on my way out the door. Let me cal him.”
“Go for it, Nancy Drew. Cal me in the morning.”
I cal ed Marc. “Can you come over?” he asked. “I’d like to tel you in person what I found out.”
I was incredibly tired. “Is it important?”
“Crucial.”
“Sure,” I said. “Give me twenty minutes.”
Fifteen minutes later, the doorman let me in. I took the elevator to Marc’s expansive penthouse apartment.
“Hey,” he said, opening the door. Then, “what happened?” He touched my cheek, gently.
I went in and lied again about the stranger in the street.
“That’s not true, is it?”
“What makes you say that?” I asked.
“Because I think you’ve gotten yourself involved in something very dangerous.”
I told him about the guy in the hotel. “I thought it might be related to the Harringtons, but I didn’t want to be paranoid.”
“I don’t think you can be too paranoid right now,” he said. “Let me show you.”
He brought me to his office. It was like walking into a super hightech computer store. LCD screens hung from the wal s and were perched on tables, where their displays were constantly flashing and updating. He took me to a large desk where three widescreen displays flanked an ergonomic keyboard. It was al very Minority Report.
“So, what do you run,” I asked, trying to sound smart, “Windows or Mac?”
Marc looked at me as if I’d asked if he slept with sheep.
“I run my own operating system,” he said. “Wrote it in high school.”
“Natch.”
Marc directed me to sit in the futuristic desk chair that seemed to mold itself to my body. He stood behind me, using a wireless mouse to run the computer.
“I ran that data mining program I told you about. It basical y looked for connections between the information you gave me that other investigations may have missed. Look at this.”
On the screen furthest to the left, he cal ed up the list of gay suicide victims that Tony had given me.
“You know who these are, right?” he asked. I nodded.
On the right hand screen he brought up what looked like the internal databases of The Center for Creative Empowerment Therapy. He pul ed up a file titled “Clientbase.”
“You got into their system?” I asked.
“I’ve gotten into the Pentagon,” Marc said. “This was nothing. Watch.”
He pressed a button and the information from the two side screens seemed to melt and merge into the middle screen. In a few seconds, the names of the suicide victims were on the middle screen, flashing in red, with the word “match” listed next to each one.
“What does this mean?” I asked.
“Al of the men who committed suicide were clients of Michael Harrington’s.”
Holy shit.
“So,” I said, “not only doesn’t his ‘reparative’ therapy work, but it drives his clients to kil themselves.”
“It may be worse than that.” Michael pressed more buttons. On the left screen a New York State Office of Taxation Web site popped up. Something about the Office of Probate. On the right, the financial records of The Center for Creative Empowerment Therapy appeared.
Again, the two side screens overlapped on the middle screen. When they were done, the same names were listed on the middle screen, but this time, for al but one of the men, the word “match” was replaced by numbers: 150,000; 75,000; 225,000; 50,000; etc.
“What are those numbers?” I asked?
“Bequests,” Michael answered.
To who?
“To The Center for Creative Empowerment Therapy. Almost al of the men who kil ed themselves left sizable donations to the Center in their wil s.”
A wave of dizziness passed over me.
“He’s kil ing them,” I whispered.
“I thought they kil ed themselves,” Marc said.
“Yes but no,” I said. “I think he’s directing them to do it. Think about it-his ‘therapy’ involves intensive hypnosis. It teaches his clients to hate their own sexuality. It makes them feel ashamed and sick.
“That might be enough to make some of them suicidal. Michael sees this. But if the client is sufficiently wel off, and maybe if he’s someone with no friends or family who are likely to ask too many questions, Michael doesn’t do anything to help him.
Instead, maybe Michael gives him hypnotic suggestions that he needs to provide more support for the Center. Maybe even provide for it after his death. Then, if the client offs himself, wel, who’s the wiser?
“Or maybe Michael even encourages the client to kil himself once he updates his wil. Who knows how much control over his clients he has?”
Marc looked even paler than usual. “He’s programming them.”
“Yes.”
Marc looked around the office. “But people aren’t computers. You can’t control them to that extent.”
“Maybe he doesn’t have to. Maybe he’s tried it with fifty clients, but it’s only worked with these. That would stil be enough to put…” I scanned the list,
“over a mil ion dol ars into his bank account.”
Marc sat down. “Wow. This is heavy.”
He wasn’t used to the real world intruding on his virtual existence.
“Yeah,” I said. “It is.”
Marc said, “I could forward al this to the authorities. I could do it anonymously. When they see what he’s doing…”
“It would mean nothing,” I said. “There’s no proof.
Michael could make the case that of course some of his clients kil themselves-they come to him because they’re unhappy to begin with, right? He gives them help and they grateful y provide for the Center in their wil s. Sadly, despite his best efforts, they stil wind up kil ing themselves. Who’s to say otherwise?”
“So, let’s send it to the press instead.”
“Same problem. They’re not going to risk a libel case based on coincidences.”
Marc’s eyes narrowed. “Then, let’s take him down ourselves. I can do it, you know. Erase his bank accounts. Foreclose on his house. I could download so much child pornography onto his computer that he’d be in jail for the next hundred years.”
Now, that was tempting. I knew there was a reason I liked Marc.
“I’d need to prove it to myself, first,” I said. “I could be wrong.”
“How can you prove it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Not yet.”
Marc put his hands on my shoulders. “Don’t do anything crazy. And don’t go near him again.”
“I won’t,” I said. “I’m kind of scared now.”
“You should be.” Marc stroked the back of my neck.
Marc’s touch was just reassuring enough to make me think how truly over my head I was. I gave a little shiver and then couldn’t stop. Al of a sudden, my teeth were chattering and I felt as if the temperature had dropped a hundred degrees. I started to shake.
“Hey,” Marc said, dropping to his knees, “hey.”
He put his arms around me and held me through my mini anxiety attack. “It’s going to be OK,” he said,
“nothing’s going to hurt you.”
“It feels safe here,” I told him, warming in his embrace.
“I know,” said Marc, “why do you think I never leave?”
My hero, the agoraphobe.