Dan Sharp Mysteries 4-Book Bundle (103 page)

Under the Eaves

Dan left the coffee shop thinking about Yuri Malevski's “wild boys.” He knew some gay men liked to get close to younger guys who appeared threatening on the surface — tattoos, muscles, rough talk. It was one way of making peace with the demons who'd terrorized them in high school, but few of them expected to be murdered in the process. Malevski, it seemed, had wanted a wild boy to domesticate. Apparently he thought he'd found that in Santiago Suárez, the missing Cuban. Ziggy, on the other hand, seemed to be more of a dark horse. He was a moving target waiting for an expert marksman to hunt him down. Whatever there was to be learned about him was still inside Lockie House.

Dan parked across the street. From the front stoop, everything looked the same. He punched in the numbers. Red turned to green. Definitely something to be said for all that accounting consistency.

It was still daylight, making the false twilight inside seem eerie. Dan's MagLite swept a beam along the floor. No need to announce his presence to the world outside. Had Fred MacGregor still lived here — Dan dispensed with formalities, feeling he knew the man well enough by now — had
Freddie
still lived here, this might be one of his at-home days when he received callers, but Dan wasn't in a receiving mood.

He made his way to the third floor and looked around. All was calm. He pressed the panel and watched it swing open, just the way things did in the movies. And why not? Movies had to take their inspiration from somewhere.

Ziggy's diary lay beneath the window where he'd left it, the baggie of dope still in place. He skimmed the pages, moving backward in time to when Ziggy first came to stay with Yuri.
My family
, he'd called Yuri's collection of friends and misfits. Still, he had his perspective right:
All families are weird
, he wrote,
so this one isn't that different from any other. At least I feel at home somewhere.

Dan could relate.

Yuri didn't seem to have asked for anything from Ziggy for his room and board. In fact, if the diary was to be believed, Yuri's interest lay more in rehabilitating the boy:
Need to get clean. Yuri told me that a month ago. I have to stop doing drugs and get my life in order. A little grass now and again is cool, he said, but he won't tolerate hard drugs in the house. He said my days of drug use are over if I want to live with him.

That, Dan thought, was a different Yuri from the one everyone else seemed to think they knew. Ziggy expressed admiration for Yuri several times in the passages he read. The only note of dissent lay with his feelings about Santiago, who appeared as the villain in the pages.
Santiago has another lover! I saw them together and now he hates me. He cheats on Yuri with everyone. Should I tell Yuri before he tries to get rid of me?
Two days later, Ziggy confided to the diary's pages that he'd told Yuri about Santiago's lover:
Yuri was furious. He said he didn't believe me, but they had a fight and now Santiago is gone
.

Rather than exult in his triumph, Ziggy felt remorse for having hurt Yuri:
Why do I always hurt the ones I love?
he lamented.
Way of the world
, Dan wanted to tell him. Oscar Wilde wasn't the first to note the sentiment. He read further till he caught the name
Charles
again. There was no mention of sex this time, just anger that Charles had told him he couldn't repeat the episode, being a “happily married man.”
Happily married!
Ziggy wrote.
Ha! That asshole. Then what was he doing with me?

An apt question, Dan noted, though there seemed little concern from either party on Lionel's behalf. He felt a surge of anger for the absent accountant. Why was it always the nice guys who got used?

He felt his emotions tug as he discovered that Ziggy had contemplated killing himself, his anger at being rejected by Charles compounded by guilt over having hurt Yuri.
Dear Darkness, I want to die
, he'd written.
I shouldn't care what Charles thinks, but
Yuri is my friend. I need to make him see I'm the only one who treats him well, even though he doesn't care. Instead, he treats me with disdain. Maybe I should just end this here and now.
Anger, confusion, manipulation, sadness. It was a regular soap opera in those pages. But, as Donny said, that wasn't unusual for someone brought up in care.

Dan heard a throat cleared behind him. He turned and saw large dark eyes set in a pale face. It could have been a vampire, if such things existed. Instead it was Ziggy, dressed in full Goth regalia, standing in the doorway watching him. Black velvet jacket over a black T, ruffled lace at the cuffs and collar; “Back in Black” emblazoned on his chest in case the visual hints weren't enough. He looked like a mourner dressed for a very theatrical Victorian funeral.

“Find anything interesting?” he asked softly.

“The mysterious tenant,” Dan said.

“Yes, I stay here when I want. Yuri gave me permission.”

He crept in and sat on the futon, legs crossed in front of him.

“That permission might have expired now that Yuri's dead.”

Ziggy cocked his head and regarded Dan curiously. “According to whom?”

Dan left the question unanswered. “My name's Dan.”

“I'm Ziggy, as you probably know from reading my diary.”

“Is that German?”

Ziggy gave a funny, lop-sided smile. “No, just a nickname from when I was a kid. I used to run funny, sort of zig-zagging. They called me Ziggy for short.”

“So, Ziggy. Aren't you worried about staying here since the murder?”

“I'm not afraid.”

Outside, a pigeon landed on the windowsill and began cooing to some invisible mate. Dan thought of the superstition about birds in the house.

“You're not afraid of being killed?”

Ziggy shook his head. “What would I lose? Yuri was my only friend.” He gave Dan a close look. “If you think I'm being dramatic, I'm not. It's the truth.”

“Who do you think killed Yuri?”

Ziggy reached for the bag of weed and produced a slender joint.

“Maybe some hustler.”

He lit it and took a toke, then held it out. Dan shook his head.

“Why do you think that?”

Ziggy stared at him for a moment, and then shrugged. “Yuri was in love with this Cuban guy named Santiago. Santiago wasn't very nice to him, so Yuri told him to leave. After Santiago left, Yuri went a little bit crazy. He wanted them to stay together. Like, probably forever. There were a couple of guys who stayed the night with him after that. Rent boys. Maybe he hired some hustler to come in and things got out of hand.”

“Had that sort of thing happened before?'

Ziggy took another toke and thought this over.

“Once or twice Yuri threw a couple of hustlers out of the house for behaving badly, but no one ever tried to hurt him before.”

“Did Yuri seem afraid before he died? Was there anyone in particular he worried about?”

Ziggy shrugged. “Not that I know of. But maybe he just didn't tell me there was.”

“Are you planning on staying here in the house?”

He shrugged again. “Till they kick me out, I guess. It's not like I have anywhere else to go.”

“I read in your diary that Yuri locked you out for a while.”

Ziggy glanced down at the pages. “He didn't like it when I did dope. Heroin, I mean. He said it was messing up my future. So he kicked me out and told me to come back when I got clean. I wanted to apologize, but I never saw him again.”

“It's ironic, but you stayed with some friends of mine. Donny and Lester.”

“Really?” Ziggy looked more amused than surprised. “You know Donny and Lester?”

Dan nodded.

“Cool,” he said, stabbing the joint out on a beam above his head. It dissolved in a flare of falling sparks. “Anyway, for now I'll stay here. At least until someone changes the code. Then I'll be screwed again.”

“How did you get back in last time?”

“Pure dumb luck. Yuri wasn't answering my messages. I thought he was mad at me for using, so I came over to apologize just as Irma was coming by. I sneaked in when she got here. I found the code on his phone that he texted to her.”

Dan looked at him. “Who's Irma?”

“Cleaning lady. She's a trip. Eastern European something or other. Wicked accent, like Bela Lugosi.” He grinned. “Irma thought Yuri was evil. She used to leave religious pamphlets around for him. He laughed whenever he found them.”

Dan recalled the picture of Jesus with the exploding heart. “What did Yuri think of Irma?”

Ziggy struggled out of his jacket, revealing a thin chest and arms. But no track marks, Dan noted. He was still clean.

“You mean, like, was he afraid of her?”

“Sure.”

“Nah. Yuri thought she was a joke. He loved teasing her, but he wouldn't fire her. I think he felt sorry for her. Santiago liked her. They were both illegals. I guess he could relate.”

“Why didn't Yuri marry Santiago and help him get his citizenship?”

“They talked about it. I think Yuri was testing him to see if he'd remain faithful. Santiago couldn't be faithful to save his life. Yuri wanted to rescue everybody. He should have been rescuing himself.”

Not bad advice
, Dan thought,
though a trifle late on the delivery
.

He felt Ziggy's hand on his forearm. The other snaked down to Dan's crotch. Dan pushed the hand away.

“Please!” Ziggy said. “Am I a freak? Do I look repulsive?”

“You're not repulsive,” Dan said.

“The last guy I had sex with said I was attractive.”

“Was that Charles?”

Ziggy's eyes flashed. “Did you read the entire thing?”

“No,” Dan said. “But I know Charles.”

“He used me.”

“He's in a relationship.”

Ziggy rolled his eyes. “I know. He's married to the accountant.”

“Married men don't stick around.”

“Tell me about it.” He gave Dan a sidelong glance. “What about you? Are you married?”

“No.”

“Then why aren't you interested in me?”

Dan looked the boy up and down.
Rule number one of the gay dress code
, he thought.
Don't wear make-up and skin-tight jeans unless you want to look girly.
But how to tell him he was attractive, even under that garish get-up?

“Can't you find me attractive?” he pleaded.

“You are attractive.”

He ran a hand over Dan's chest. “Then touch me.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty. Just touch me.”

Half my age
, Dan thought. He tried to recall the distinction between pedophiles and pederasts. Pedophiles had unsolicited sex with minors, while pederasts shared the bodies of willing, or in this case aggressive, younger men. As a teenager, he'd often been on the other end of the equation, but now he was the older one. A thousand thoughts went through his head: his discovery of sex with grown men, his fears at not being attractive enough, his worries at being discovered to be queer. Hell, most of his sex education had occurred beneath a train trestle in the clear light of afternoon once he realized the twelve-year-old girls who pursued him at school could do nothing to satisfy his sexual urges. It was their older brothers he'd wanted.

“Be a man. Touch me!” Ziggy commanded.

Dan sensed his own adolescent bewilderment and anger in Ziggy. Like this boy, he too had known what he wanted from men as far back as he could remember.

“Not while you're stoned,” Dan told him.
And not ever
, he thought to himself.

Ziggy must have sensed his reasoning. “It's because I'm too young. Don't worry, I'll say I was the aggressor. I went after you. I don't know why people always think it's the older person.”

“It's just the way people think.”

“Why aren't you married? Or are you? It's okay, you can tell me.”

“I'm not married. I told you the truth. Did you tell the truth about your age?”

“No. I'm only nineteen. So what's wrong with you then? Why aren't you married?”

“I'm not the marrying kind.” Better to discourage any further hopes on Ziggy's part, Dan thought. “Some days I'd rather have a good conversation than sex.”

Ziggy smiled. “What are you anyway? A psychologist?”

“No.”

“A cop?”

“I'm not a cop either, no.” He paused. “Have you had sex with cops?”

Ziggy nodded. “One.”

Dan decided against asking if it were Trposki. “I'm just trying to help out on the murder.”

“I thought you were a cop because you were reading my diary. I thought maybe you were looking for something to say I was a psycho and that I killed Yuri.”

“Did you?”

The face that stared at him was all seriousness. “Yuri was my friend.”

“Friends kill friends. It happens all the time. Sometimes it's just an accident.”

“I didn't kill Yuri.” Ziggy's eyes narrowed. “I'd be more likely to kill myself. If I did, I'd just lock the doors and unplug myself. No one could get in until it was too late.”

Dan thought of the diary entry he'd read. “I hope you won't. It's seldom that easy. Besides, you know what they say: it gets better. I can vouch for that. I come from a shit background, too, but life turned around for me.”

“Yeah, whatever. You probably didn't grow up in care. I grew up in care. It doesn't get better for someone like me.”

He looked away, as though they'd touched on something too raw to discuss.

“I'm sorry for intruding on your private space.” Dan turned to leave. “If you ever just want to talk or anything …”