The Good Cop (17 page)

*

Unsure of exactly when Richman might be coming over, I decided not to go back to the office. I did stop at a pay phone to make a quick call to Phil, to see how he and Jonathan were getting along—I was sure Tim wasn't home from work yet. And I did feel a little guilty for imposing on them, especially since I really didn't know Jonathan all that well. I knew, of course, that when he was in the second grade he had found a kitten while on the way home from school and his mother had let him keep it and he named it “Oscar” and that he'd had it for ten years until it went out one day and never came back and…things like that. I found his eagerness to share every single aspect of his life oddly charming, but couldn't expect others to see him the same way, especially when exposed to it all day long.

Phil answered on the second ring.

“How's it going?”

“Fine.” I could almost see him grin. “He's quite a kid.”

I found it interesting that Phil, who wasn't in actual fact all that much older than Jonathan when I'd met him, and still was quite a few years away from collecting Social Security, thought of Jonathan as a kid. So did I, pretty much. Sort of like a kid brother….

Oh, sure,
my crotch said.
Who the hell do you think you're kidding?

“Has he talked your arm off yet?”

“Just to the elbow,” he said, good-naturedly. “I keep wanting to offer him some milk and cookies. You want to say ‘hi' to him? He's feeding the fish.”

“Sure.”

I heard Phil say something and a moment later Jonathan came on.

“Hi, Dick!”

“You doin' all right there?”

“Oh, sure! Phil sure is a nice guy.” He then lowered his voice to just above a whisper and said: “And
hot,
too! Is his lover half as hot as he is?”

“You'll see. But don't go getting any ideas, hear?”

He sounded crestfallen. “Of course not!” There was a slight pause, and then: “I'm waiting for you.” Four simple words with two very different meanings, and I didn't have any doubt which one he meant. Most of me hoped he was teasing, but some of me…care to guess which part?…was more than a little flattered.

He's nineteen, chicken hawk!
my mind said, disgustedly. I realized that I was being a tad hard on myself: nineteen was hardly chicken, but it was still under my ‘not-'til-they're-twenty-one' rule, no matter how stupid that rule might seem to other people. And I realized, too, that with all that had happened to him in the past few days, he very well might be confusing gratitude with, well, something else.

I asked to speak to Phil again, thanked him again for taking Jonathan in, and told him to give my best to Tim and if he needed me for anything, to call and ask if I'd talked to Jared recently—I'd know to get back to him right away.

Chapter 7

Though I knew Richman's visit wasn't going to be a social call, I stopped and picked up a six-pack of bock beer, just in case, and was home by 5:15. I had a couple messages, from Jared and Bob Allen but didn't dare return them until I'd had a chance to call them from a pay phone and let them know my line was tapped.

At almost exactly 5:30, the buzzer rang and I pressed the entry door unlock button and waited for Richman's knock.

We shook hands at the door and he came in and took a chair. I offered him a beer but, as I expected, he passed.

“My wife's expecting me for dinner, so I can't stay long.”

I took a seat on the couch across from him and leaned forward, elbows on my knees.

“So what happened?”

Richman sighed and sat back in his chair. “Well, I first talked to Captain Offermann, who is one of Chief Black's strongest allies—and who, I can assure you, was far less than happy to have Officer Brady's homosexuality confirmed—and he got us in to see the chief almost immediately. The upshot is that the chief called Cochran in for a private meeting, and apparently they've reached something of a standoff, if not exactly a truce. If your friend Jonathan agrees not to press charges against Giacomino—he can always do that later if he wants to, after things settle down—Chief Black has agreed to not pursue it and Giacomino's links to Cochran, in exchange for Cochran's agreement not to press the Brady issue. I suspect those links go a lot deeper than we know.”

He sighed, and I knew it was a precursor to something I didn't want to hear. “But this is a pretty shaky standoff, and I'm not sure it will hold. Cochran may not use a frontal assault on Brady, but you can be damned sure he's not finished. Cochran's a rabid homophobe, and he sees this Brady affair a golden opportunity, not only to discredit Chief Black by his association—however loose—with Brady through his wife, but to rid the department of gays and anyone else who thinks the department needs to move forward.

“The minute Cochran heard that Brady'd been in a gay bar prior to the shooting, he wanted him out. He wanted to put Brady on suspension immediately pending an inquiry into the ‘circumstances of the shooting'—which means the probability of Brady's being gay. When Chief Black vetoed that idea, knowing full well that he'd have the entire gay community up in arms, Cochran was furious. Suspending Brady would have given Cochran and his boys a pulpit and a theme for their attacks on what they see as the undermining of the ‘moral foundations of the force'—which is to say, the status quo that has kept the good ol' boys in power all these years
.
”

“And the phone taps?”

Richman shrugged. “Another ‘iffy' area. Cochran of course vehemently denied having any knowledge of it, but Chief Black made it clear that if they didn't stop immediately, he would have no choice but to do whatever it takes to root out the responsible parties and have their jobs. I think Cochran got the message, but we'll have to see on that one, too.”

He was silent a moment, looking at me steadily.

I told him about the two cops following us, and that I had taken Jonathan out of Haven House and led everyone there to believe he had returned to Wisconsin. I didn't tell him where Jonathan was now, other than that I was sure he was safe, and he didn't ask.

“Those two are poster boys for the way the department used to be run, and the way I'm afraid it's likely to be run again if Cochran is able to force Chief Black out. I just hope they were trailing Jonathan looking for an excuse to pick him up, or at least to know where to look for him. I wouldn't imagine that Joey G. would have told Cochran about his encounter with Jonathan: He sure as hell wouldn't want Cochran to know he picks up male hustlers, but if Cochran finds out about the plates and makes the connection between Jonathan and his golfing buddy, Joey G., he'll readily be able to spot the implications for himself.”

Shit!
I remembered that Tom and I had mentioned Giacomino's link to Jonathan and the van over the phone! If Cochran hadn't known about it before, and if he was behind the phone taps, he sure as hell did now! I told Richman what I'd remembered about that part of our phone conversation, too.

He shrugged. “Well, I'm sure Cochran would have put the pieces together on his own eventually. But if I were you, I would urge your friend Jonathan to stay off the streets. Hustling can be a dangerous occupation under any circumstances, but right now, for him in particular….”

He didn't have to spell it out.

“He will.” I was once again painfully aware of the threat Jonathan posed to both Cochran and Giacomino and therefore the potential danger he might be in. Without Jonathan, Giacomino was off the hook and so, by extension, was Cochran.

“So,” Richman said with a long sigh, “all we can do now is sit back and watch what happens. Officer Brady is returning to work Monday, I understand. We'll see what happens then.”

He left a few minutes later, leaving me to try to convince myself that everything would work itself out in time, and that the worst was over. But I didn't believe it for a second.

*

The rest of Thursday night and most of Friday was half a jumble, half a blur. I'd determined, shortly after Richman had left Thursday night, that apparently the phone tap was off—I'd called Bob Allen to ask if he'd like to run out and grab a quick dinner, and listened for the telltale “clicks.” There were none. Still, I determined to be a lot more careful of what I said over the phone in future.

Any illusions I'd had about things calming down were pretty much shattered Friday morning when I got to work to find a phone message from Reverend Mason. It seems that just after breakfast that morning he had a visit from the police, looking for Jonathan. They told the good reverend that a hustler fitting Jonathan's description had robbed a john late Thursday night and they wanted to take him in for questioning.
Uh huh.
They did not explain how they knew where to come looking for him. The description of the two cops did not fit what I remembered about the two from Richman's office, which made me even less happy, since it meant it was no longer just the original two cops who were looking for Jonathan.

When Reverend Mason told them Jonathan had returned to Wisconsin, the cops asked to speak with a couple of the other kids, all of whom told them the same thing. Whether they believed it or not, I didn't know. But they went away.

I'd talked to Jared Friday—from a pay phone—to sketch in what had been going on. He said he had to run up to Mountjoy for the day, but that he'd be at Tim and Phil's party. One of the reasons I'd called, I realized, was that it suddenly occurred to me that Jared and I had not gotten together for a little…uh, socializing…in far too long, and I was hoping to remedy that. As a matter of fact, my crotch reminded me, now that Tim and Phil were together, my little ‘stable' of regular tricks had dwindled dramatically. I'd have to do something about that as soon as this whole thing was over with.

I hoped Tom would be around to provide frequent…uh…social opportunities, but I knew his life was pretty hectic right now, and since I knew our relationship would never be more than it was now, I couldn't see any point to limiting my sex partners to just one.

Friday night I determined to go out and pick up a trick, just so I wouldn't forget how. Not the best of ideas, since because while my crotch was all for it, the rest of me was too distracted to really enjoy it. I walked into the Marlin, had two beers, started talking to the guy next to me and…well, you know. We went to his place, and I was back home by shortly after midnight. I was more than a little ashamed of myself, Saturday morning, to realize that I couldn't even remember his name. I decided that sex is a lot more fun when you really want it rather than when you just go through the motions from habit or some vague physiological urge.

*

And then it was Saturday. I spent the morning doing Saturday things: Paying bills, doing the dishes that magically pile up until there's no room in the sink, grocery shopping, etc. I stopped off at the laundromat and was oddly glad to see Jeff behind the counter. He gave me a very sexy smile—
Does he have any other kind?
I wondered—as I hoisted my full duffel bag onto the scale in the little alcove beside the cash register.

“Can I leave these and pick 'em up later?”

“Sure,” he said, still smiling. “Can I play with them first?”

“Be my guest,” I said, laughing.

“Still holding to that ‘21' thing?” he asked as he wrote out a receipt.

I was a little surprised at myself to realize that while Jeff and Jonathan were only a little over a year apart in age, having met Jonathan had somehow rather weakened my resolute stand on the age issue. Still, there was a considerable difference between eighteen and nineteen—well, nearly twenty.

“Alas, yeah,” I said.

“Pity,” he said, handing me the receipt.

We exchanged grins and a wave, and I walked out feeling somehow mildly frustrated.

After leaving the laundromat, I headed for Reef Dwellers, a big new tropical fish store that had just opened a branch in The Central. I was pretty sure that's where Tim and Phil had gotten their aquarium, and since I had no idea what specific fish they were looking for, I got them a gift certificate for whichever one(s) they wanted. I had to practically drag myself out of the place, having become mesmerized by the incredible number and variety of the specimens gliding serenely through the water of the variously sized and shaped tanks. I'll bet they didn't have to worry about having their phones tapped.

A quick stop at the card shop next door, and I was ready to party.

I'd thought, as Tim had suggested, of asking Tom, Lisa, and Carol if they would like to come to the party, and had in fact broached it while Tom and I were getting dressed after our last meeting, but he indicated that they'd probably better pass, and I understood. I really would have liked to spend more time with Tom over the weekend, but realized that probably wouldn't be a very good idea under the circumstances.

I did give Phil and Tim a call from a pay phone, to see if they needed anything for the party or if there was anything I could do to help, but Tim, who answered the phone, assured me that they had plenty of help from their houseguest, who had volunteered to serve as bartender for the party as well. I was relieved, since it had occurred to me that perhaps Jonathan's being there might be even more of an imposition while they were trying to get ready for a party. But I got the impression Tim was favorably impressed by Jonathan, though of course neither of us mentioned him by name. Still, I realized that since this whole mess didn't show signs of being resolved any time soon, I was going to have to think about making other arrangements for Jonathan. I was beginning to feel a little bit like Harriet Tubman working on the Underground Railroad.

*

The party was scheduled to start at 7:30 and, knowing Tim, I was sure he'd have enough food for the Spanish army, so I just had a grilled cheese sandwich and a small salad before I left the apartment. I was, of course, ten minutes early, and forced myself to walk around the block twice before going in. Even so, I was still the first guest there.