The Good Cop (9 page)

Tattler
's number was an answering machine. I left a brief message mentioning Glen O'Banyon's name, the time and the place of the meeting, and saying we sincerely needed them to be there. I figured a mention of someone as powerful and well known as O'Banyon would, for the editor of a small paper distributed mainly as a give-away in bars and filled mostly with ads for other bars and little local bar-gossip columns, be sufficiently flattering to warrant their attending.

I glanced at my watch and seeing it was three thirty, figured I'd just have time to run down to Hughie's, have a quick beer (oh, I know, it was still pretty early in the day, but a beer's just a beer, and I'd feel funny just walking in, grabbing a paper, and walking back out—even bars have a code of etiquette) and make it back to call the
Bottoms Up
editor before it was time to go home.

Chapter 4

Hughie's was, is, and probably always will be Hughie's. Most people walking in for the first time would—as soon as their eyes became accustomed to the fact that no lightbulb in the place was over twenty-five watts—consider it really tacky. I liked to think of it as “lived in” which, for some of the hustlers who frequented the place, it almost was.

There was the usual number of hustlers, a few fewer johns than usual—business would pick up as soon as the office workers and young-executive crowd got off work. And, as usual, there was Bud holding sway behind the bar. I didn't think he'd even seen me come in, until I noticed him grabbing a frosted mug out of the cooler and pouring a dark draft. He had it on the bar by the time I walked over to it.

“How's it goin', Bud?” I asked, as I asked every single time I'd ever been in the place.

“Pretty good, Dick. You?” he asked, face expressionless as he took the bill I handed him and turned to the cash register. I was thinking, as I raised the icy mug to my lips, feeling a couple drops of condensation drip onto my shirt, that maybe I should buy Bud and myself little matching tape recorders, so that when we saw each other all we'd have to do is press the little button. “How's it goin', Bud?” mine would say. “Pretty good, Dick. You?” his would respond. Save us quite a few breaths over the years.

Bud headed back from the cash register with my change, but I just waved it off. He nodded and dropped it into the jar alongside the cash register.

When my eyes were able to discern more than just vague figures, I noticed a really cute, kind of skinny kid about two stools down from me, looking at me and grinning from ear to ear. I wondered at first if he knew me, then decided maybe he mistook me for somebody else. I nodded to him in a casual greeting which he apparently took as an invitation. He scooted over to the stool beside me. “How's it goin'?” he asked, using words I'd heard somewhere just recently.

“Pretty good,” I replied, playing a little Hardesty game with myself. “You?”

“Okay,” he said brightly. “I'm horny, though. Are you horny?”

One of the things I truly do enjoy about hustlers is their subtlety. If you want beating around the bush, go somewhere else. But rather than respond as I automatically wanted to (“Hey, kid, I'm a Scorpio. Scorpios are
always
horny!”), I didn't want to lead him on, so I opted for: “I just came in for a beer and a paper,” I said.

But then, not wanting the kid to think I was brushing him off—he
was
really cute, and hustlers
do
have feelings—I said: “How's business?”

He'd lost his grin only momentarily, then immediately got it back as he showed me his right forearm which, aside from a small, apparently self-applied tattoo, sported an obviously new if not very expensive watch. “I got this the other day,” he said like a proud little kid who'd been given an unexpected present. “A john gave me a fifty dollar tip!”

I smiled. “You must be pretty good.”

“Oh, I am! You really should check it out yourself.”

I'd noticed that instead of the ubiquitous beer bottle, he had what looked like a mixed drink—Coke and something, I guessed. It was nearly empty, and he raised his glass, tipped it all the way up to drain it, then set it slowly on the bar.

“What are you drinking?” I asked, then immediately realized he'd probably take it as an invitation.

“Just Coke. I don't drink.”

Well, that was certainly different
, I thought.

“Want another?” I asked, rather surprising myself, since I have a long-standing rule to never let myself get suckered into buying drinks for hustlers. But it was just a Coke, after all, and this kid got to me, in some odd way.

“Sure,” he said, still grinning. “Thanks.”

I motioned to Bud, who nodded, reached into the cooler, scooped some ice into a glass, then filled it from the mixes tap. He brought it over and put it in front of the kid. I handed him another bill and indicated he should keep the change.

“My name's Jonathan,” the kid said as he gestured his glass at me in thanks. “I just got here a couple weeks ago, and I sure like this town. Lots of rich guys here. Are you rich?”

I smiled again, looking at the kid in front of me and thinking for some reason of a puppy.

“No, I'm not rich.” I took another drink of my beer. “I gather you haven't been hustling all that long?”

He took a small sip from his Coke—I got the impression he wanted to make it last—and shook his head. “No, not really. Just since I got here. I'm nineteen but I tell everybody I'm 21. I've been trying to find a regular job, but they're really hard to find unless you've got a car, and hustling pays
really
well. Maybe I'll just do this for a while. I had the same guy pick me up twice now, and he gave me a fifty dollar tip
both times!
”

I strongly suspected that Jonathan was assuming fifty dollar tips were going to be common, and that he hadn't been selling himself long enough to find out what the life really was like for most hustlers. I didn't envy him the learning process.

He might have been conning me, but I think I've been around long enough to know when someone is and when they're not. And I didn't really think Jonathan was. He didn't have the usual tough-guy bravado hustlers adopt as a survival mechanism.

Give him time,
my mind sighed.

“You're serious about getting a real job?”

“Sure. But like I say, I can make a
lot
of money hustling. I've been working since I was 12. Not hustling, of course, but working. Maybe now I can take it easy for a while.”

Hardesty! Stay out of it!
my mind commanded.

But Jeezus, he's just a kid!
I thought.

And you can't save the world,
my mind responded, gently.

“Well, I tell you what. There's a diner on the ground floor of the building I work in, and I see they've got a sign in the window for a busboy. If you'd be interested, you could check it out.”

He grinned yet again. “Sure! I've been a busboy a couple times. Maybe I will. Where's this at?”

I gave him the address, then finished my beer.

“Well, good luck, Jonathan,” I said, extending my hand. I wasn't really surprised to know that I sincerely meant it.

“You aren't horny?” he asked, looking disappointed.

“Not right now,” I said, lying through my teeth, of course.

I got up to leave, and Jonathan quickly chug-a-lugged his Coke and got up, too. “Maybe you can show me where this place is?”

Hardesty! Don't be an idiot!

“Sure,” I said. I stopped by the door long enough to pick up a copy of
Bottoms Up
, then stepped out into the sunlight, an eager Jonathan at my heels.

*

All the way to my building, Jonathan talked. Talked and talked and talked. About having hitchhiked here from Cranston, Wisconsin, about his brother Samuel and his nephew, Joshua; about how excited he was to be out into the big world all by himself for the first time, about…well, you get the idea. And though he had no idea he was doing it, his words painted an impressionists' self-portrait: A picture of naivety, innocence, sweetness, and…okay, I'll use the reference again…puppy-dog…charm. I didn't know the kid from Adam, but my gut ached to think what he had in front of him. It wasn't my place to warn him, and what could/would I have said that would have registered with him, anyway?

We reached my building and went into the lobby—for some unknown reason the “Help Wanted” sign was in the small window looking out onto the lobby rather than in the larger windows facing the street.

Jonathan noted the glass-cased Building Registry.

“Which one's you?” I…reluctantly…though I've always deeply resented the fact that in this world you have to be guarded with people you don't know…pointed to “Hardesty Investigations, Suite 633.” It was far from being a “suite” but I guess they figured “room” would make it sound too much like a hotel.

“Wow!” Jonathan said, obviously impressed.

I offered him my hand again. “Well, I've got to get back to work. Good luck with the job.”

“Thanks a lot,” Jonathan said with a big smile. “And thanks for the Coke.”

I turned and headed for the elevator, leaving Jonathan staring at the “Help Wanted” sign.

*

I'd managed to reach Cathy Brower, editor of
Bottoms Up
, the only bar paper to give equal time and space to the city's lesbian bars. She, too, was planning what would be something of a first for the bar give-away—a front-page editorial—on the incident and the fact that a gay cop had come to the rescue of his own people.

Non-minority straights could not possibly begin—or be expected—to understand how deeply this incident was resonating in the gay community. What Joe Straight just naturally assumes—that the cop who protects him and his wife and kids goes home to his own wife and kids every night just like he does—was something the gay community had never experienced. This was only one incident, and one cop, but it was a true milestone for us.

Again, I didn't mention the true purpose of the meeting, but Cathy said she would attend. I just hoped we would be able to convince her to go along.

I stopped by Ramón's on the way home to talk to Bob Allen and let him know what was going on. Jimmy, the bartender, who never misses anything, joined Bob in saying that rumors were beginning to circulate in the community that Tom was going to be fired because he was gay. Even though Bob, at least, knew for sure that Tom
was
gay, once again the fact was that Tom had not been openly “accused”—a fascinating word, when you think of it—of being gay and that nobody in the department either knew it for sure or could prove it. Tempers were beginning to heat up, and some of the anger, amazingly, was directed at Tom. Why didn't he just come right out and say he was gay? Was he ashamed of it? Did he get married to try to hide it?

It's almost impossible to deal rationally with questions like that, and fortunately they were in the minority—again, no pun intended. Obviously those who asked them had no idea of who Tom was or what he was trying to do, or what was really at stake.

Bob's lover, Mario, came in and joined the conversation. He said much the same thing was happening at Venture, where he bartended, and undoubtedly at every other gay and lesbian bar in the city.

The thing that nagged at me was that I knew in my heart of hearts that if Tom were ever, as Richman had hinted at, asked directly if he was gay, yes or no, he would never deny it.

I told them about the upcoming meeting, and that I'd invited Mark Graser of the Bar Guild. Bob wondered if he and a couple of the other Guild members might be able to come, too, but said he'd call Mark to see what he thought. I encouraged them all to do their best to explain the reality of the situation to whomever would listen—that what could and should be done in a perfect world simply could not be done in this one; not at this time and in this place: That in order for the community to move forward, it had to stand still for the moment.

*

I was a little later getting home than I'd intended, and I had a couple messages from Jared and Phil and Tim, which I returned. Jared, who was in his final weeks of driving his beer delivery route, said basically the same thing as Bob, Jimmy, and Mario; that there was a split within the community between those who thought the fact of Tom's being gay should be shouted from the rooftops, those who were afraid Tom would be fired and were becoming preemptively angry at the department, and those relative few who criticized Tom for not striding out of the closet in a suit of white armor, waving the gay flag.

Tim had been hearing rumors, in his job as junior medical examiner at the City Building, of an openly gay cop on the force, and that he had to be fired in order to keep the department morally pure—which, considering the number of hypocrites and bigots still in positions of authority within the department, would have been laughable if the issue weren't so serious.

When Tim turned the phone over to Phil, I told him about meeting Jonathan at Hughie's, and how bad I felt for what I'm sure he'd be facing if he didn't get out of hustling.

“You do have a thing about hustlers and Hughie's, don't you?” he teased. I'd met Phil there, as a matter of fact, before he turned his life around and got out of the business. But then his voice turned a little more serious, and he said: “It's all up to him what happens. Some of the guys who were hustling when I was are still out there on the streets; some managed to get out; a few are dead. It isn't the life of glamour this kid apparently thinks it is now, and he'll find that out pretty fast. Are you going to see him again?”

“Not on purpose. I guess I just saw something in him….”

“Yeah, I know. But it's up to him. If he's smart, and lucky, he'll do okay.”