Nightcrawlers nd-30 Read online

  “Well, while I was-”

  The phone rang just then and cut her off. The call was for me, and by the time I finished with it Tamara was involved in a call of her own. I meant to pick up the conversation again, find out what she’d seen that was bothering her, but the press of other business kept getting in the way. Well, if it was anything important she’d come to me about it eventually.

  Just before I left the office I called Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Redwood City. The last frayed thread of Russ Dancer’s wasted life had snapped at 1:57 that afternoon.

  8

  JAKE RUNYON

  The first victim of the gay bashings had been a printer and graphic artist named Larry Exeter. Time: a few minutes past midnight on April 4. Place: an alley off Eighteenth Street, not far from where he lived. He’d gone out for a walk around the neighborhood “to get some air.” Two men had accosted him on the street, dragged him into the alley, beat him senseless with fists and an “unidentified blunt instrument.” A resident in one of the flanking buildings had heard the commotion, looked out his window, yelled when he saw what was going on, and the perps ran. Neither Exeter nor the citizen had been able to supply detailed descriptions of the men or their vehicle. Exeter’s injuries were serious enough to require hospital treatment, but the beating had been interrupted before any major damage was done: three cracked ribs but no broken bones or internal damage.

  Runyon got all of this from the police report, through one of the agency’s contacts at the SFPD. Joshua hadn’t been able to remember Exeter’s name, and Gene Zalesky had professed not to know him, either. Exeter’s Seventeenth Street address was given in the report, but no phone number; and there was no listing for him in the white pages. A check revealed that he shared an apartment with a David Mulford, who did have a listed number.

  Runyon had a window of free time around three o’clock. He tried Mulford’s number then, and the man who answered owned up, reluctantly, to being Larry Exeter. High, thin, timid voice and an attitude to match, he kept saying, “I just want to forget what happened, get on with my life.” Runyon danced with him, playing it low-key and mentioning his son several times, and eventually talked him into a face-to-face meeting. “But you can’t come here,” Exeter said. “David.. my partner… he wouldn’t like it.”

  “Any time and place that’s convenient for you.”

  “Does it have to be today?”

  “If you can manage it. The sooner the better.”

  “Well… I should go out for groceries before David gets home. The Safeway on Market and Church, you know where that is?”

  “You want to talk while you’re shopping?”

  “No, no. Across the street, on the first block of Church, there’s a coffee shop… Starbucks. I could meet you for a few minutes around four-thirty.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  The second thing Runyon did was to finish up a preliminary background check on Gene Zalesky that he’d started the night before. Financial status and credit rating: solid. Employment record: likewise, twelve years with Coastal Banking Systems. The only blot was an arrest fourteen years ago for soliciting-evidently one of those police stings in which he’d propositioned an undercover cop-and the charges had been dropped for insufficient evidence. Honest, law-abiding citizen, from all indications. So why had Zalesky lied last night? What had scared him enough to suddenly withhold information?

  Larry Exeter was in his late twenties, slight, sandy-haired. Soft white skin, washed-out blue eyes. Colorless manner to go with his timid voice and monochrome appearance. If you had to sum him up in one word, it would be meek. One of the biblical inheritors.

  Runyon was waiting when Exeter walked slow and stiff into the Starbucks, a plastic grocery sack dangling from each hand. The walk and a long, nearly healed cut along his jawline were the only outward signs of the beating he’d taken. He picked Runyon out of the dozen or so patrons as easily as Runyon had recognized him, came straight to his table.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Exeter said when he sat down. It was 4:31 by a clock on one of the walls. One minute late. An apologizer, too-the type of person who would always be sorry for something, eight or ten times a day, every day of his life. “The lines at Safeway at this hour

  …”

  “No problem. Buy you a cup of coffee?”

  “Thanks, but I don’t want anything. I can’t stay long.”

  “I won’t keep you.”

  “I have to start dinner.” He made it sound like another apology. “David doesn’t like it if I don’t have food on the table when he gets home.”

  Runyon nodded. That kind of relationship. The dominant and the submissive, each of them getting exactly what they wanted out of it.

  “Just a few questions. What can you tell me about the two men who attacked you?”

  “Not very much.” Exeter closed his eyes, popped them open again. “In their twenties, I think. One of them heavyset, the other… I don’t remember anything about him except that he was wearing some kind of hooded jacket. It all happened so fast. I was just walking, minding my own business, and all of a sudden there they were. Grabbing me, saying things, dragging me into that alley…” The memory was vivid enough to produce a visible shiver.

  “What exactly did they say?”

  “The usual slurs. Faggot. Queer. Boyfucker.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “I don’t remember. My God, I’ve never been so frightened in my life. I thought… I really thought they were going to kill me. And for what? Just because I was born different from them. Men like that..”

  Runyon said, “Everybody needs someone to look down on.”

  “I’m sorry… what?”

  Line from a song by Kris Kristofferson, one of Colleen’s favorites. But he said instead, “They’re blind haters. Different scares them, threatens them. They can’t understand or accept it, so they look down on it, hate it, try to destroy it.”

  “Neanderthal behavior.”

  “Neanderthals and assholes-the world’s full of them.” Exeter laughed a little, ruefully. “Amen to that.”

  “So you were out for a walk when it happened, is that right?”

  Hesitation. Eye shift.

  “That’s what you told the police. Not so?”

  “I… well…”

  “I’m on your side, Mr. Exeter. Better be honest with me.”

  Another hesitation, longer this time. Then, “I was afraid David would find out where I’d been. He was out of town on business, he has a sales job with IBM and he travels a good deal. Usually, I stay home, but sometimes… I get so lonely I just have to go out for an evening…” Another apology.

  “Where’d you go that night?”

  “Castro Street. One of the bars.”

  “Which one?”

  “A place called The Dark Spot.”

  The Dark Spot again.

  “David doesn’t like it much,” Exeter said, “I suppose it’s too tame for him. He’s into… other things. So I only go there when he’s out of town.”

  “Do you know Gene Zalesky?”

  “Gene? Yes. Those animals beat him up too.”

  “How well do you know him?”

  “Not very. Just casually.”

  “The Dark Spot one of his regular hangouts?”

  “Well, I’ve seen him there a few times.”

  “Kenneth Hitchcock? Must know him too.”

  “Yes, I know Kenneth. He… well, never mind.”

  “What were you going to say?”

  Eye shift. “It’s not important.”

  “Suppose you let me be the judge of that.”

  “It’s just that… well, you said he’s your son’s partner.. ”

  “Whatever you tell me goes no farther than this table.”

  Exeter said uncomfortably, apologetically, “He’s a flirt.”

  “Meaning what, exactly?”

  “With the customers. Some more than others. He…”

  “Comes on to them? Makes da
tes with them?”

  “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t.”

  “Gossip or rumors to that effect?”

  Exeter avoided eye contact again. His pale face wore little beads of sweat now. “There are always rumors,” he said.

  “About Kenneth and Gene Zalesky?”

  “No. No. Gene likes… well, younger guys.”

  “How young?”

  “I didn’t mean that’s he a pedophile, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “I’m not thinking anything, just asking questions.”

  “I’m sorry, I…” Exeter shifted position, winced, and made a pained sound in his throat that evolved into a series of short panting breaths. It was several seconds before he spoke again. “My ribs… they’re not healed yet. I still have trouble breathing sometimes.”

  Runyon nodded. “We were talking about Gene Zalesky’s preferences.”

  “Young men. Late teens, early twenties. Kenneth Hitchcock must be almost thirty.”

  “Any young men in particular?”

  “No. He’s not into long-term relationships.”

  “Ever see him with a young blond guy with an angelic face?”

  “… Angelic?”

  “Zalesky’s description.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “What is it?”

  All of a sudden Exeter was scared. “I have to go,” he said, “David will be home, I can’t… his dinner…” He started to get up.

  Runyon caught his arm, held him. “Who is he, this young blond guy?”

  “Please, I…”

  “What’s his name?”

  Fidgety silence. Then, “Troy.”

  “Troy what?”

  “I don’t know his last name. He… oh, Christ!”

  “What’s got you so upset, Mr. Exeter?”

  “I can’t… if David ever finds out…”

  “You and this Troy, is that it?”

  “One night, that’s all it was,” Exeter said miserably. “A… one-night stand. David had been away two weeks, a business trip to Hong Kong, I was so lonely… it just happened…”

  “When was this?”

  “Last month, three or four weeks ago.”

  “Where’d you meet Troy? The Dark Spot?”

  “Yes.”

  “Take him to your apartment?”

  “My God, no. We went to his room… Troy’s…”

  “Room? A hotel?”

  “No, an apartment house not far away.”

  “What apartment house? What address?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Sure you do. It wasn’t that long ago.”

  “I was… I had a lot to drink that night. Somewhere in the neighborhood. Uphill toward Market. I swear that’s all I remember.”

  “Is Troy a regular at The Dark Spot?”

  “Recently. I saw him there two or three times before that night.”

  “With Gene Zalesky?”

  “I’m not sure… maybe…”

  “How about a redhead with freckles?”

  “No, I don’t think so. But he was… popular, you know? Different guys…”

  “Promiscuous?”

  “Yes. But safe sex, he was smart about that.”

  “Is he one of the customers Kenneth Hitchcock flirted with?”

  “Well, he liked to sit at the bar.”

  “Last time you saw him was when?”

  “Not since we… that night.”

  “But he does still hang out at The Dark Spot?”

  “I don’t know, I suppose so. I’ve only been there once since… the night I was attacked… and Troy wasn’t there then.” Exeter glanced nervously at the wall clock. “I really do have to go. If I’m not there when David comes home, he gets very angry.”

  “We’re almost done,” Runyon said. “Does Troy have a car?”

  “Car?”

  “Did he drive you to the house where he lives?”

  “Oh. No, we walked. It wasn’t far.”

  “So you don’t know if he owns a car.”

  “I’m sorry, no. Why are you asking all these questions about Troy? He couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the bashings.”

  Runyon said, “No more than The Dark Spot could,” and let it go at that.

  Gene Zalesky wasn’t home. Or if he was, he wasn’t answering his doorbell.

  Next stop: The Dark Spot.

  Runyon had been to the heart of the Castro, the section between Market and Twentieth Streets, a few times before. Driving and walking both, familiarizing himself with the area and with Joshua’s world. He’d done some background research on the district as well, for the same reasons. Twenty-five years as a gay ghetto, beginning in the pioneering days of gay liberation in the early seventies; the days when dilapidated storefronts and bars and other rough edges were considered a righteous emblem of the oppressed homosexual cause, and almost all the businesses catered to gays and lesbians. The ravages of AIDS had nearly destroyed the Castro in the early nineties. When it began to show signs of life again, it was no longer a closed community; chain stores and upscale boutiques and fast-food outlets and other businesses catering to straights as well as gays elbowed in and slowly changed the face of the neighborhood. Yuppie families moved in, too, buying up and renovating some of the old Victorians. Now rainbow flags flew openly next to American flags, shops dispensing clothing and symbols of gay culture rubbed shoulders with others peddling urban chic and Starbucks coffee and Radio Shack computers, old-fashioned meat-market clubs like The Dark Spot and Queer Heaven stood cheek by jowl with brew pubs and sports bars.

  At five-thirty on a week night, the district’s jammed streets and sidewalks were a heterogeneous mix of gays and straights, whites and a variety of ethnics. Young mothers with kids in tow walking next to men in tight leather pants and open leather vests with nothing underneath. Suits and ties, motorcycle jackets bristling with studs and looped with chains. Orange spiked hair and crew cuts. Elaborate tattoos, body piercings, nose rings, nipple rings, and wedding rings. Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll coexisting, sometimes peacefully, sometimes violently, with family values and the conservative urban lifestyle.

  But in essence it remained the seat of Gay Power. The huge rainbow flag that flew permanently at the corner of Market and Castro attested to that. So did the annual Gay Pride Parade that drew thousands from all over the West Coast. So did the big celebration that had taken place there recently, when the U.S. Supreme Court finally struck down the antiquated Texas sodomy law and proclaimed that gay Americans had a constitutional right to private sexual relationships.

  None of its ambience had much impact on Runyon as he walked through it. Nor would it have in its early gay-ghetto days. A vice cop he’d known when he was on the Seattle PD had referred to the gay district up there as a “polyglot of perversion,” but he’d never seen it that way. The gay scene, diluted or not, was no different from the straight singles scene-the gay clubs no different, for that matter, from women’s clubs or garden clubs. A little more dangerous late at night, a little more desperate because of the threat of AIDS, but otherwise just people with common interests and outlooks gathering together for companionship, camaraderie, pleasure. Trying to make their lives a little easier, to put a little joy into them. Trying to keep their hurts at bay.

  All pleasure was, when you got right down to it, a staving off of pain. The pain of living, the pain of dying. The ones who could manage it were the lucky ones. He wasn’t one of them. There had been no pleasure for him since Colleen died, just the pain. Work was the only thing that dulled the ache, allowed him to go on, and then only for brief periods. Establishing some kind of connection with Joshua might help some, but in the heavy baggage between them there was no room for joy. Understanding, a father-son detente, was the best he could hope for.

  So he walked here alone, a misfit among the straights, a misfit among the gays. The proverbial stranger in a strange land. Funny thing was, there was a kind of small, cold comfort in being
part of Joshua’s world, his misfit son’s strange land, if only for a little while.

  The Dark Spot turned out to be no different from fifty, a hundred other bars he’d visited, gay or straight, on business or otherwise. Blue lights and blue neon so dark it was almost black. Loud music, loud laughter. Men packed along the bar, men dancing, men with their heads together at tables and in dark corners. The few who glanced at him glanced away again immediately. Cop written on his face and the way he moved. Straight cop at that: avoid at all costs.

  He stayed just long enough to scan the crowd and satisfy himself that neither Gene Zalesky nor a young, angelic-faced blond nor a redhead with freckles was among them. He spoke to no one. There was nothing for him here alone, no answers to any of his questions. The only way anybody would talk to him in The Dark Spot was if he came with a guide, a member of the fraternity.

  Joshua?

  Under different circumstances, he could at least ask. But after what Larry Exeter had told him, no. He’d have to find somebody else. Or some other way to get the information he needed.

  9

  TAMARA

  Here she was, back for another fun evening in San Leandro. All set to rock ‘n’ roll.

  Yeah. Right.

  All set to abuse her tailbone again.

  Nobody home at 1122 Willard.

  Nobody home at 1109 Willard, either.

  Almost eight o’clock and both houses were dark, driveways empty, no cars parked in front of either one. Sure, somebody might be in a lighted room at the back that she couldn’t see from here. Or how about sitting in the dark like a humongous spider? There goes that imagination again, girl. Keep it up and you’ll start scaring yourself, be rolling your eyes and shaking your booty like Mantan Moreland in one of those crappy Charlie Chan flicks. Feets, do your stuff.

  Well? Gonna just sit here or gonna move?

  She got out of the Toyota-parked in the same puddle of tree-dark as last night, her own little reserved space-and locked the door and crossed the street to 1122. Through the gate, up on the porch, ring the bell, wait, ring the bell again, wait some more-just like last night, deja vu all over again. DeBrissac wasn’t home. Wasn’t answering the farty doorbell, anyway. Dag. Wasn’t anything worked out easy for her these days, seemed like.