Second You Sin Read online

  “Heavens no.” She waved her hand as if shooing away a fly. “My husband does. If he didn’t have that smal release, wel , I don’t know where we’d be today.” She looked at my T-shirt. “Maybe you have a card?”

  I was about to answer when something amazing happened.

  Randy’s eyes popped open.

  “Freddy!” I cried. “Look!”

  “Holy shit,” Freddy said.

  “Randy?” I asked again, leaning in to him as close as I could. “Randy, can you hear me?”

  I

  quickly

  flashed

  on

  my

  favorite

  singer/actress/directress Barbra Streisand singing

  “Papa, Can You Hear Me?” and had to resist the urge to set my words to music.

  Focus, Kevin, focus.

  Randy coughed, the sound like a clogged pipe when the Drano begins to work.

  I gently put my hand on his face. “Randy? You’re OK, sweetheart. You’re going to be fine.” I felt as if I might start to cry. “Can you hear me?”

  A tiny voice, a bird, slipped from his lips. “Dude,”

  he said in the softest whisper I’ve ever heard. “What hit me?”

  This time I did cry, a great sob of relief that I couldn’t contain.

  “Aw,” Randy said, a little stronger. “Is that for me? I could eat you up like . . .” Then his eyes rol ed back into his head and his whole body convulsed.

  He was gone.

  “Randy?” I cal ed. “Randy!”

  My words were drowned out by the sirens of the ambulance barreling its way toward us.

  The doors of the ambulance exploded open as two paramedics rushed to Randy’s side. One of them was a youngish guy with short hair and a slim build. His partner was a similarly fit-looking young woman.

  For a second, it was like I was watching the scene on TV. It didn’t seem real. I couldn’t move. Freddy had to pul me out of the way. “Let them help,” he said.

  “Who can tel me what happened here?” the male paramedic shouted as he wrapped a blood pressure monitor around Randy’s arm.

  It took seconds to tel him: speeding car, sudden impact, flight.

  “Does he have any medical conditions we should know about?” the paramedic asked. His nametag said he was Ross Vergood.

  Do steroids and recreational drug use count in a situation like this?

  “Nothing I know of,” I answered.

  “He’s a prostitute,” the annoying woman with the gay husband offered.

  The paramedic cocked his head. “Huh. I can see that working out for him. Nice arms. Anything else?”

  “He was conscious for a minute just now,” I said.

  “But then something happened—it looked like some kind of seizure.”

  The female paramedic fished into Randy’s shorts and pul ed out a slim wal et. She held up a white card she found there. “He’s epileptic,” she cal ed.

  The rest happened in a flash. An IV was attached to Randy’s arm and he was transferred to a stretcher that folded up and slid into the back of the ambulance. “Is anyone coming with him?” Ross asked.

  “I am,” I said, climbing into the back. Freddy was hot on my heels.

  “Me, too,” Freddy said.

  “Sorry, just one,” Ross said.

  Freddy put a hand on Ross’s arm. “What if I say please? ” he asked, squeezing just enough that Ross could feel the strength and heat of Freddy’s grip.

  Ross looked at him hungrily.

  “Pretty please?” Freddy said, taking his hand away but not before letting it casual y brush against Ross’s chest.

  “Fine,” Ross said. “The more the merrier.”

  His partner gave him a dirty look. “Hey, it’s just like that time at the women’s basketbal game, remember?” Ross said to her. “That player with the busted kneecap? Her coach? ”

  His partner blushed and nodded.

  Freddy leaned over to me. “I bet paramedics get lots of tail,” he whispered.

  “I heard that,” Ross said, as he watched Randy’s vital signs.

  “Let’s go,” his partner said, slamming the doors shut.

  As she did, Chanel-lady cal ed to me, “Hey, what about your card?”

  4

  Isn’t It a Pity?

  Two hours later, Freddy and I were in the hospital’s cafeteria. Randy was in critical care. Unconscious, but stable. Other than the fact that he had a few broken bones and remained unconscious, he was in a lot better shape than you’d expect.

  “He must have a thick skul ,” the ER doctor said.

  Um, yeah.

  A bored-looking pair of police officers took a statement from me. I described the car that hit Randy as best I could. I told them I didn’t get much of a look at the driver, other than to notice he was a white male. Or a white woman with short hair. Or, for that matter, any other light-skinned race or ethnicity. I think he or she was wearing sunglasses, but I could be wrong. Something like sunglasses, anyway.

  The officers obviously thought I was an idiot. They gave me their cards and told me to cal them if I remembered anything else. They couldn’t have seemed less interested.

  Meanwhile, Freddy got Ross the paramedic’s card. Ross couldn’t have seemed more interested.

  Funny world.

  I absently picked at my salad while Freddy, with his characteristic relish for everything that’s bad for you, dug into his chicken fingers and fries as if he hadn’t eaten for days. He washed it back with a non-diet cola.

  He always ate like this and you could stil do your laundry on his six-pack.

  I hated him.

  The whole way down to the cafeteria we hadn’t said a word, just walked side by side as old friends do. My mind was ful of white noise. It felt good just to be quiet.

  A loud clearing of Freddy’s throat signaled the silence was about to be broken.

  “So,” he said to me, lifting one eyebrow in a sinister arch, “who do you think did it?”

  “Did what?” I had to admit his fries looked good.

  “Tried to kil Randy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do you mean, what do I mean?”

  “I mean: What are you talking about?”

  “Have you taken your medication today?” Freddy asked. He was referring to my Adderal , which I take twice a day to manage my attention deficit disorder.

  Without it, I tend to get fuzzy-headed, forgetful, and disorganized.

  “My morning dose,” I answered.

  Freddy raised his hands in the universal gesture that means see, I knew I was right.

  I fished out my keychain, to which I had attached a can of Mace and a smal pil vial. I took one of the little pink pil s and washed it down with my bottled water.

  “Feeling better?” Freddy smirked.

  I stuck my tongue out at him.

  “Stop flirting,” he cautioned. “And put that back.”

  I looked at my hand, which, al on its own, had snatched a French fry off his plate.

  “Too late!” I said, jamming it into my mouth.

  Freddy pul ed his plate closer to him. “Seriously,”

  he said, “you have any suspects?”

  I thought about what Freddy was saying. “You think someone tried to kil Randy? On purpose?”

  “Naturellement!”

  Freddy

  exclaimed.

  “It’s

  elementary.”

  Freddy was very bright, but he often found himself a few steps behind. I could see he was proud of himself for having a theory about this before I did.

  I wasn’t into hearing his crackpot ideas right now, but the good news was he was so pleased with himself that he didn’t object when I grabbed another fry off his plate. OK, a handful of fries. It had been a stressful day.

  “What makes you think,” I asked with my mouth ful ,

  “that Randy was run over on purpose?”

  “Darling,” Fr
eddy said, “it was practical y dawn on a Sunday morning.” It was after noon, but Freddy was on gay time. “Where was the person rushing off to? No one in their right mind goes to church anymore—no offense, dear.”

  I sneered and took a long swig of his cola. Was there anything more delicious than carbonated sugar?

  “The road was empty. Al those open lanes and the driver’s speeding right along the curb like that?

  Why?”

  I had to admit that was weird.

  “And you said the car just kept on going, right?” I nodded. “OK, I can see not stopping, that’s why they cal them ‘hit and runs.’ But to not even slow down?

  Not for a second? As if he”—Freddy stopped, remembered his political correctness—“or she, didn’t even notice? How do you hit a person and not even notice? Especial y one as dishy as Randy.

  Honey, you could spot those shoulders from an airplane.”

  “Hmmm,” I said, as if deep in thought. I took a chicken finger off his plate.

  “And you can’t remember anything about the driver?”

  “No,” I said. “It was like I told the cops. The whole thing happened in an instant. The only thing I remember noticing, because it stood out, was he . . .

  I think it was a he, was wearing sunglasses. Except that’s not right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know.” I imagined my mind as a filing cabinet and I rifled through it, trying to find the right memory. “I remember thinking that it looked more like his eye was missing. Like there was darkness there.”

  “Oh my God,” Freddy said. “Randy was run over by a Terminator. But one of the cool ones, not one of those stupid transformers from the shitty Christian Bale movie.”

  “Doubtful,” I said, glad that Freddy was entertaining himself as I stole another fry. Or three.

  “OK, so we have a speeding car where you’d never expect to find one, Randy hit as if the driver were aiming at him, and a cybernetic kil er on the loose. It sounds pretty dodgy to me,” Freddy summed up.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Plus, you were there,” Freddy said.

  That got my attention. “And?”

  “Wel , darling, isn’t this your kind of thing?”

  A few months ago, another friend of mine was kil ed under suspicious circumstances. Although the police cal ed it a suicide, I suspected otherwise.

  After making a bit of a muck out of it, and chasing after a few wrong suspects, I actual y solved the case. Wel , kind of. It’s a long story.

  In any case, Freddy seemed to think I was now a magnet for murder.

  “If it is,” I said, taking a big hit of his soda while simultaneously reaching for another chicken finger,

  “don’t you think you’re in danger being here with me?”

  Freddy slapped my hand away. “The only danger I’m in is of starvation,” he snapped. “Eat that green stuff you got.”

  “But it’s not as ful of tasty goodness as your food,”

  I whined. “Besides, stop acting like I’m Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween. I’m not tripping over dead bodies every other minute.”

  “Not every minute,” Freddy admitted. “What were you and Randy talking about, anyway?”

  I told Freddy we had only been chatting for a few moments. “He was going to tel me about someone he tricked with,” I remembered.

  “Who?”

  “We never got to it. It was just then that he was hit.”

  “Huh,” Freddy said. “Do you boys talk about that kind of thing much? Who your clients are? Because I thought you took some kind of confidentiality pledge, like doctors and their Hypodermic Oath or something.”

  “Actual y, no. It’s not so much a pledge, though. It just gets boring after a while. I mean, we’ve slept with al kinds of people.”

  “Famous people?” Freddy asked.

  “Al the time. Can you imagine how hard it is for someone who’s real y wel known to get some?

  Going out to a club is, like, impossible, and a Manhunt profile’s going to get them into the National Enquirer real fast.” I was thinking of a certain male singer from a popular reality show whose online escapades became national news. “Even openly gay celebrities want to be discrete.”

  Freddy leaned forward, suddenly more interested.

  He dangled a chicken finger temptingly. “Tel me about three famous guys you’ve boffed and you can have this,” he purred.

  My years of gymnastics training have made me limber and strong. I’ve also studied Krav Maga, the official self-defense system of the Israeli Defense Forces. I can strike silently, stealthily, and fast.

  I had that chicken finger out of Freddy’s hand before he even saw me move.

  “Hey!” he said. “No fair using that kung fu stuff!”

  “‘The Force can have a strong influence on the weakminded, ’” I reminded him.

  “Whatev.” Freddy sighed. “If Randy was going to tel you about someone who hired him, it must have been pretty juicy.”

  “Probably,” I admitted.

  “Someone with a secret,” Freddy continued.

  “Possibly. But pretty much everyone who hires a rentboy wants to keep it secret.”

  “And maybe . . .” Freddy gave a dramatic pause, looked around as if afraid someone might be listening, and lowered his voice. “Maybe it was a secret worth kil ing for.”

  “We had one of those in our last murder,” I reminded him.

  “So?” Freddy asked.

  “So,” I said. “What are the odds?”

  “In your case, darling? Always even money.”

  5

  Can’t Help Loving That Man

  After Freddy got himself another plate of fries and a milkshake (I real y, really hate him), we went back to the ICU. The nurse told us there was no change in Randy’s condition. I was instructed to cal the next day.

  Freddy and I parted soon after.

  “Remember, we have that thing tomorrow,” I told him.

  “Lamb chop, how could I forget? It only promises to be one of the most fabulous parties in New York,”

  Freddy gushed. “It’s engraved in my mind in letters of fire. I shal spend the entire day tomorrow fasting and bathing in champagne. I may even get a Brazilian.”

  “Ouch,” I said. “Just shave.”

  Freddy smiled condescendingly at me. “Not that kind of a Brazilian, darling. I mean, an actual person from Brazil. This guy who works out at my gym. I may invite him over before we go to the party. Just to take the edge off.”

  “Be on time,” I told him. We kissed and said good-bye.

  I headed back to my one-bedroom apartment in Chelsea. My semi-boyfriend was coming over, and I needed to get ready. I didn’t get that much time with him, and I tried to make the most out of every opportunity.

  It was late in the afternoon and the air was getting colder. I shivered in my leather jacket and wondered if my sweatshirt was dry enough to wear yet. I decided that even if it was, wearing dried piss wasn’t that much better than wearing it wet.

  It was a ten-minute walk to my place; I strode briskly to stay warm.

  Could Freddy be right? Could Randy’s accident have been . . . not an accident? There were suspicious elements, but the whole thing seemed far-fetched. Freddy loved drama; this was probably a product of his overactive imagination.

  Of course, that’s what my semi-boyfriend said when I told him I thought my friend and patron, Al en Harrington, had been kil ed last summer. Turned out I was right.

  Could Freddy be, too?

  My head was spinning. Had I taken my medication this afternoon? Yeah.

  Tony was my semi-boyfriend due to his total inability to commit to me. Worse, he was unable to commit to being gay. Since we both had dicks, that made being with me a problem for him.

  Tony was my first love. We grew up together on the same street on Long Island, New York.

  I always wanted him.

  Tony was—is—absurdly handsome, with dark
Italian skin, darker eyes, and the silky black hair of a pony. His strong cheekbones point the way to plump, kissable lips that any Hol ywood starlet would endure endless Botox injections to have.

  His body, which grew more muscular and defined with each passing year, was always lean, hard, and graceful. When we were kids, I remember being fascinated by the way he walked, bicycled, played stickbal , and wielded a joystick.

  Even his smel was a turn-on for me. I remember once, when I was twelve and he was fifteen, he was kicking a soccer bal around with some friends on a fal day that surprised us al by suddenly turning warmer.

  “Would you hold this for me, Kev?” he asked, tossing me his denim jacket. It was redolent with Tony’s scent—like just-mowed grass with a little musk—and I got a little dizzy inhaling his pheromones. I also got an erection so intense that I immediately understood something about myself that up til then I had just suspected.

  Not that it was huge problem. I had grown up on MTV and around my mother’s beauty shop, both of which were always ful of gay men. Stil , it’s hard to be different, to know that you don’t quite fit in. While the other boys were hanging up posters of Beyoncé, Shakira, and some girl from a Disney musical whose nude photos surfaced online, I had on my wal a signed eight by ten of Barbra Streisand from A Star Is Born.

  OK, maybe it seems weird that my early crush on Tony is inextricably entwined with my love for Barbra.

  Like I grew up on Tony, I also was weaned on La Streisand. Literal y. My mother told me that she’d often play Barbra’s Greatest Hits while nursing.

  (BTW, while that information may have helped me understand my obsession with Babs, I wish my mother kept it to herself. Any reference to the fact that I once suckled at her oversized breasts makes me a little dizzy.)

  My mother was—is—a huge fan of Barbra’s. In her shril , piercing soprano, she constantly sang along to the soundtracks of Hello, Dolly! and Yentl.

  When I sat down and watched my first Barbra movie, Funny Girl, at the impressionable age of eight, I immediately related to her. Barbra often played the smart, wisecracking girl who, despite her charm and offbeat appeal, was never good enough, or sufficiently pretty or, in one way or another, not quite appropriate for her leading man.