First You Fall Page 3

  Plus, he had a hard-on.

  “Do what?” I leaned in a little closer and stood up on my toes. “This?” I brought my lips closer to his.

  “Please…” he said, a starving man refusing a meal. “I told you, I can’t.”

  I got closer, my lips a mil imeter away from his. He didn’t back away.

  But I did.

  “OK, then,” I said, extending my hand. I gave him my butchest handshake. “Thanks for coming by.”

  Tony stepped backward and I slammed the door.

  Fuck you, Tony Rinaldi. If I never see you again, it wil be too soon. I hope your dick fal s off.

  After Tony left, the waterworks started again. This time, the feelings were mixed: sadness, anger, frustration, fear.

  It had been a long time since I cried. Now, twice in one night. This was not good. This was not me.

  I looked at my watch. Midnight. Stil enough time to meet Freddy at the club. I traded my T-shirt for a tank that said “Twinkie” on the front and “Fil ed with creamy goodness” on the back.

  No time for subtlety. I was going out to get laid.

  I hooked my earbuds into my iPhone, put on my favorite podcast, the funny and fabulous Feast of Fools, and walked the ten blocks to Blow, the la test club to open in my neighborhood of Chelsea. It has a large bar area, a smal er dance floor, and an even smal er back room.

  I found Freddy exactly where I expected to, dancing alone, eyes closed. I also found the usual gaggle of guys watching him, some surreptitiously, some goggle-eyed.

  Freddy was quite the sight. Five foot ten inches of hip-shaking goodness. Thickly muscled but not over built, with a classical y handsome face. Broad nose, wide lips, and a supermodel smile. Freddy’s ass was the stuff of legends. And he could move it like nobody’s business: Watching Freddy dance could bring a dead man to erection.

  Freddy is the twenty-six-year-old African-

  American adopted son of a nice Jewish couple from Cleveland, OH. Raised rich, liberal, and white, he’s a strange mix of contradictions and common sense.

  Butch and campy, Semitic and street, wel — read and foul-mouthed, Freddy never ceases to surprise me.

  He’s also endearingly sweet, terrifical y loyal, and blessedly nonjudgmental.

  Tonight, he was wearing black jeans that could have been painted on, and a white T-shirt tight enough to show the nipple rings underneath.

  When I was a freshman at New York University, Freddy was student president of the school’s Gay/Straight Al iance. We had a brief fling, but, as it turned out, Freddy had a brief fling with pretty much everyone. Freddy was the guy everyone wanted, and, if they were passably attractive, could get.

  I, on the other hand, haven’t slept around that much. Wel, not if you didn’t count the guys who paid for it. Freddy couldn’t understand my choice of profession, but I couldn’t understand his uncompensated promiscuity. So we made a perfect mismatch. Al wrong as lovers, but perfect as best friends.

  I watched the guys watching Freddy for a few minutes before I joined him on the dance floor. “Hey, baby,” I said, grabbing his backside. “You got a license to drive that thing?”

  “Sugar!” Freddy shouted. He gave me a big, strong hug. “So, are we on ful slut alert tonight?” he asked, eyeing my shirt.

  “Mothers, hide your sons,” I warned.

  But I wasn’t feeling it anymore. Now that I was at the club, my bravado was gone. I wished I were home in bed. Alone.

  “Honey, when you go out cruising for some strange, it usual y means you’ve had a shitty day,”

  Freddy said. “Come buy my black ass a drink and tel me al about it, bubela.”

  “So, Twinkie boy,” he said as we sat in a booth in the quietest corner of the noisy bar, “what’s gotten in your cream?” I told him about losing Al en and finding Tony.

  “Oy vey,” Freddy said, after hearing my tale of woe. “Talk about drama. You write that up as a screenplay with you as a woman, and Angelina Jolie and Ashley Judd wil be scratching each other’s eyes out to play that shit.”

  “Like Ashley could last a minute against Angelina,” I said, trying to join in the joke. But my heart wasn’t in it. I put my head down on the table and moaned. “What am I going to do?”

  Freddy tousled my hair. “Fuck Tony.”

  “He didn’t even like it the first time.”

  “No, I mean fuck him for not believing you. Solve Al en’s murder yourself!”

  “Good plan,” I answered with sarcastic enthusiasm. “Let me get the Hardy Boys out of the backroom and you cal Nancy Drew!”

  “Like that bitch would be any help,” Freddy answered. “If it weren’t for that dyke friend she hangs out with, she never would have cracked The Case of the Missing Dildo. Although,” Freddy continued, “I wouldn’t mind doing the Hardy Boys. That Shaun Cassidy had some back for a white boy.”

  We sat in silence for a moment. Wel, as much silence as you can find in a club where Britney was playing loud enough to burst your eardrums.

  “Tel you what,” Freddy said, “how about I help you?”

  “If I were planning an orgy, you’d be the first person I’d cal. But I think we should leave the criminal investigations to the professionals. Tony wil put it together.”

  “Honey, please, he can’t even figure out if he likes dick,” Freddy answered. “If you want Al en’s murderer to come to justice, you better break out some serious Charlie’s Angels action. Come to think of it, they were always going undercover as whores, so you’d be perfect!”

  “A. I hate you,” I said. “B. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

  “Wel, let’s see, the man had a lot of money and two estranged sons who hated the fact that their father was a faggot,” Freddy observed. “Anyone else you know have reason to see him dead?”

  I had to admit that Freddy had a point. Here we were five minutes into the case, and we already had two more suspects than the police.

  “Not offhand,” I answered.

  “What about crazies,” Freddy asked. “He know any?”

  “Wel, judging from the crowd in the street tonight, about half his neighbors seemed certifiable,” I observed. “But this is New York.”

  “OK, we’l start with the sons, then,” Freddy answered. “Homophobia and greed: two good motives right there.”

  Just then, a six-foot-tal, cappuccino-colored Latino man interrupted us. He was handsome, but kind of seedy, too. “Hey, cutie,” he said to me, “I couldn’t help but notice your shirt. Think I could sample some of that creamy fil ing?”

  “Gee,” I answered, “as subtle and attractive an offer as that is, I’l have to decline.”

  “No problem,” he answered, smiling. “How about you, sexy?” he said to Freddy. “Wanna dance?”

  Freddy looked up at the guy’s eyes, and then craned his head around to read the back of the menu. “How about I just take you home and plow you like the fields of Idaho, instead?”

  “Sounds good to me,” said tal, dark, and easy.

  “Honey, you don’t mind, do you?” Freddy said, getting up from the booth. “We’l get serious about crime solving tomorrow. Kisses!

  I left too, and grabbed a cab home. Two A.M. The light was blinking on my answering machine. I checked the cal er ID: my mother. I’d get it tomorrow.

  Tomorrow was a busy day. I had to be at my volunteer job by 11:00, which meant I should be at the gym by 9:00. For me, working out is not an indulgence. It’s a job requirement. I have to maintain the merchandise.

  I stripped down to my boxer briefs and washed up. I felt like shit. A quick glance in the mirror showed I looked like it, too.

  I got into bed and said a little prayer for Al en.

  I was asleep before reaching amen.

  CHAPTER 3

  Meeting Mrs. Cherry and the World’s Nicest Sadist

  The next morning, I had a protein shake and my attention-deficit medication and hit the gym.

  I was between sets on the leg press machine,
lying on my back with my knees drawn up to my face.

  Leg presses are supposed to infuse you with testosterone, but this position always felt gynecological to me.

  Why did Al en have to be the one to die, and Tony the one to resurface? Why couldn’t it have been the other way around?

  OK, that was cold. And I didn’t mean it.

  Wel, not real y.

  If I real y meant it, that would indicate that I stil gave a shit about whether Tony lived or died, and I didn’t want that to be the case.

  No, the only case I wanted to deal with was Al en’s.

  I finished up my workout, showered, and headed off to my volunteer job. Time to make the donuts.

  “OK, everyone,” I cal ed. “You guys at the front of line are going to open a bag and put a sandwich and a container of soup in it. You pass it down to the next person, who puts in a yogurt and an apple. The last person rol s the bag closed and affixes an address label. Questions? Comments? Concerns?”

  I was talking to a group of local high school students, who were volunteering with me at The Stuff of Life, a charity that brings meals to homebound people with AIDS. I run the lunch shift a few times a week. The students were there for the day. We have different organizations that staff our lunch shifts: churches, businesses, schools, and even dating services have al brought in volunteers.

  The fifteen students were lined up at tables in The Stuff of Life’s vast, stainless steel kitchen. They seemed like a nice group, a little bit restless, but polite and wel — behaved. Normal y, I would have enjoyed their company, but today I couldn’t help but feel preoccupied.

  A skinny girl who stil thought Goth was hip, raised a hennaed hand. “Do these sandwiches have, like, ham in them? Because I can’t touch them if they do.

  I, like, don’t eat meat.”

  “Actual y,” a pretty blond girl next to her said, “she can’t touch them if they have any food in them, because she’s like, anorexic.”

  “I am not anorexic,” Goth girl replied. “I’m just not like you. I don’t eat everything I see. Or everyone.”

  The other kids issued a col ective “oooh.”

  I was afraid things would turn into a catfight, when Blondie said “You know the only one I eat is you, honey” and kissed Goth Girl on the lips.

  “God,” said another girl, “do you two have to be such total lesbians al the time?”

  Goth Girl looked at her watch. “Umm, yes, we do” and gave her girlfriend another kiss.

  This time, the crowd gave an “awwwww.”

  “OK, everyone,” I said, “assuming no one else wants to start making out, let’s get started.”

  An obviously fey boy raised his hand and jumped up and down. “Oooh, sir! Sir! I’d like to start making out!” Everyone laughed.

  “Nice try, kid, but how about you make some lunches instead?”

  “And, ladies,” I said to the happy lesbian couple,

  “you’l be happy to know the sandwiches are tuna.”

  After the lunches were made and the students left to make the deliveries, I went to visit The Stuff of Life’s director of volunteer services, my friend Vicki. Vicki is a sleek power dyke, who wears her jet black hair in a pompadour that makes her resemble a young, prettier Elvis Presley. Her black jeans and black western shirt tucked into a wide black leather belt with an oversized silver buckle only increased the resemblance.

  “Hey, boy,” she greeted me. “How’s tricks? And I do mean ‘tricks.’” She winked broadly. Vicki thought the fact that I hustled was the biggest hoot this side of non-vibrating strap-ons.

  “That’s so funny.” I frowned. “I’m laughing on the inside.”

  “Whatever,” she said. “So, how were the kids today?”

  I told her about the two little lesbians.

  “That’s so cute,” she said. “I wish I could have been that open in high school. I didn’t have the nerve to hold my girlfriend’s hand til I was a senior in col ege. God forbid someone thought I liked girls or something.”

  It was hard to imagine that Vicki had ever been mistaken for a heterosexual, but I decided to hold my tongue.

  “So, how are things, real y?” she asked. “You look down.”

  I told her about Al en.

  Vicki was sympathetic. “Oh, Kevin, I’m so sorry for you. I knew Al en, too. He was on our board of directors. He was a great guy, a big contributor, too.

  He worked a lot with Roger Folds, our development director.”

  Freddy had suggested I talk to people Al en knew.

  Roger seemed like a good place to start. I asked Vicki where he sat.

  “At his home, as far as I know. He’s been out for week.

  “It’s weird,” she continued. “Roger’s on a kind of sabbatical or something. He broke up with his partner a few months ago-walked in on the guy sucking off the UPS man or something. Anyway, he got real y depressed, and said he needed some time off to ‘find himself,’or some shit like that.”

  “You don’t sound too sympathetic,” I said.

  “Roger’s a big old drama queen. It’s cute at first, but when you’re responsible for raising mil ions of dol ars for an organization that feeds sick people, you should real y pul your shit together.

  “You know, now that I’m thinking of it,” Vicki continued, “I think he and Al en had some kind of fal ing out. I seem to remember him saying something nasty about Al en, but I don’t remember what.

  “But he’s been talking al kinds of crazy shit lately.”

  I asked Vicki how I could get in touch with Roger.

  She gave me his home number.

  I left The Stuff of Life at around five. I had a working date at six, so I decided to go see Mrs. Cherry before heading home to shower and change. On the way, I cal ed Roger Folds, but he didn’t pick up. I left a message.

  Mrs.

  Cherry lives in

  Hel ’s

  Kitchen, a neighborhood in Manhattan which is always halfway between ghetto and gentrification. For awhile, they cal ed it “Clinton,” but it didn’t stick.

  In today’s heat,

  Hel ’s

  Kitchen seemed appropriate.

  Mrs. Cherry buzzed me into the building and I took five flights of stairs to the top floor, where she had bought and combined three apartments into one.

  She opened the door and I was greeted by the combined smel s of Chanel Number 5 and stale marijuana.

  “My darling, darling boy,” she enthused. “Look at you. Look at you! Turn around.” She squeezed my ass. “Yes! Look at you! No wonder you’re one of my top boys.” She took my T-shirt and pul ed it up to my chest. “Look at that flat bel y, those rosy nipples.

  Absolutely delicious, perfect.” She pinched the skin around my waist. “You see this, though? I shouldn’t be able to squeeze even this much. I want you to have the body fat percentage of a fifteen-year-old bulimic virgin, darling. Can you do that for Mama?”

  Mrs. Cherry might have been appraising me like the prize horse in her stable, but she did it so blatantly and affectionately that I wasn’t offended.

  At 5 foot nothing and about 200 pounds, Mrs.

  Cherry was no great beauty. Her heavy makeup, large beehive wig, and outrageous jewelry made it impossible to ascertain her true features. God knows what she looked like when not in drag.

  Wearing a large flowered caftan with a string of gardenias woven into her hair, she resembled a large, mobile botanic garden.

  Mrs. Cherry guided me into her vast living room and sat me in a dark purple velvet couch piped with gold brocade, under a gold chandelier, and next to a marble fountain. Mrs. Cherry’s place is huge and as ornately decorated as a New Orleans brothel. She once told me she took the set design of Brooke Shield’s Pretty Baby as her inspiration.

  “Darling,” she said, in her usual breathy whisper “I heard about Al en. Such a terrible, terrible loss. Such a nice man. And such a good customer! Tel me everything you know.”

  It was ninety-seven degr
ees outside, but you could have kept veal fresh in Mrs. Cherry’s apartment. I could barely hear her over the five air conditioners she had running.

  I told her what I knew about Al en’s death and about running into Tony.

  “A mystery,” Mrs. Cherry enthused. “I love a mystery.” Mrs. Cherry plucked a smal fan from her artificial bosom and waved arctic air into her face.

  “Wel, I don’t love this mystery,” I answered. “I hope they find out who kil ed Al en.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t talking about that mystery, darling. I meant the mystery of your ex-lover’s sexuality. Does he want to suck your dick, or not? Of course, he’d be insane if he didn’t. Even I want to suck your dick, and everyone knows I’m a big fat dyke.”

  I couldn’t always tel when Mrs. Cherry was kidding. I’m pretty sure she didn’t know, either. But that was part of her charm.

  “But you’re right; Al en’s death is curious, too.

  Hmmm… you know what we need, darling?” she asked. I shook my head. “Cocktails!”

  Mrs. Cherry disappeared behind a beaded curtain and returned moments later with two perfect martinis.

  “I’d offer you something stronger,” she said, handing me my glass, “but I know what a boy scout you are. Besides, you have a date tonight, remember?”

  I assured her I did, and we talked some more.

  When I was ready to leave, she gave me a peck on the cheek. “Now, go make yourself beautiful, darling,” she said. “And make Momma some money.”

  I got home at seven and had a protein shake. I checked my answering machine. Cal er ID showed I had another message from my mother. That was two in two days.

  To say that my mother is high maintenance would be like saying that Lindsay Lohan enjoys an occasional drink. Or, used to enjoy. Let’s give Lindsay a break, OK?

  My mother’s messages often ran for several minutes, during which she’d either lecture me on how I should be living my life, or detail the minutiae of how she was living hers.

  I couldn’t deal with her just now, but I promised myself I’d listen to her messages tomorrow.

  The next cal came from a law office. “This is Susan Oliver cal ing from Messner, Baker, and Stern. This message is for Kevin Connor. Mr.