Doug Allyn - Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 32, No. 13, Mid-December, 1987

McMahon was wearing a polyester navy blazer over gray slacks, plain white shirt, no tie. His large, amiable face was a bit flushed, as though he’d tipped a beer or two too many the night before, but he looked presentable otherwise, an over-the-hill jock, a stranger you might sit next to in a bar if you felt like talking.

The orange plastic office chair squeaked a protest as he eased down on it. Gomez passed him a Styrofoam cup of black coffee, and McMahon sipped it cautiously, wincing at the bitterness.

“So what brings you back to sunny Tucson, Andy? Business or pleasure?”

“Definitely business,” McMahon said, “a murder.”

“Yeah?” Gomez said, his smile fading. “Anybody I know?”

“Chris Wilde, the writer. I understand it’s your case.”

“It’s ours,” Gomez said cautiously, “what there is of it. It only happened yesterday. But I don’t get it. Why’s the DEA interested? Is there a narcotics angle I should know about?”

“The DEA’s not interested, Art. I am. It’s strictly personal.”

“No kidding?” Gomez grinned. “You into the gay scene now, Andy? You coulda fooled me, I never—”

“He was my brother, Art,” McMahon interrupted coldly, cutting him off. “Wilde was a penname he started using back in college, in honor of Oscar Wilde, I guess. Had it changed legally as soon as he was old enough. But his name was Chris McMahon once. And he was my brother.”

“Madre de Dios,” Gomez swallowed, “I’m sorry, Andy. I had no idea—”

“It’s not your fault. We ah, didn’t exactly brag up our relationship. Hell, I haven’t seen him in years, but — anyway, I want to know what went down, Art. All my mother could tell me was that Chris was killed in a race at Mount Lemmon. And that it apparently wasn’t an accident.”

“No,” Gomez said, “it wasn’t.”

“What happened?”

“There were support vehicles parked in the cutouts along the road up the mountain. One of ’em was a truck, an auto-hauler. Somebody broke into the cab and released the emergency brake, just as Wilde’s car was rounding the turn. The truck rolled into his path. And he—” Gomez swallowed. “His car went over the guard rail, Andy. Down the mountain.”

McMahon looked away. “God,” he said softly. Gomez said nothing. McMahon rose slowly out of his chair and refilled his cup from the grubby coffeemaker in the corner. “Did ah, did the car burn?” he asked quietly.

“There was a fire,” Gomez said, “but the medical examiner said Wilde was probably unconscious when it happened.”

“Thank God for that at least,” McMahon said, staring down into the dark brew. “How did the killer get down off the mountain? There’s only one road.”

“We don’t know for sure. Dirt bike, maybe. Some of the spectators were running around on ’em. And there was a lot of confusion after the crash. Woulda been easy to disappear in the crowd. Have you got any candidates, Andy? Any idea who mighta done this?”

“Sure,” McMahon shrugged, “about half my relatives, every Joe Sixpack in Arizona who figures gays ought to be shot on sight. Chris got national media attention because of his newspaper so you can probably add a few million more bigots to the list. How’s that for openers?”

“It’s a start,” Gomez sighed, “but I was kind of hoping for something more specific.”

“Chris told me once he’d been getting death threats since he founded the paper back in ’78, a dozen or so a week, and that every time he did a talk show about gay rights his hate mail doubled. He never took any of it seriously. Maybe he should have. Victor will know more about the threats than I do. Like I said, I haven’t seen much of Chris lately.”

“Victor Lasky, you mean? The guy who got burned?”

“What do you mean, burned?”

“At the mountain. He tried to — pull your brother out of the car. Got burned pretty badly, third degree on his arms and chest.”

“Sweet Jesus,” McMahon said softly.

“This Victor, was he your brother’s... boyfriend?”

“Boyfriend, lover, whatever. They’ve been together since college. I always thought — never mind. Where is he?”

“Tucson Medical Center, he — hold on, Andy. Where’re you going?”

“To see him. He’ll know about any death threats, and—”

“Andy, I’m sorry,” Gomez said gently, “I can’t let you do that. There’s no way this is a DEA case. You’ve got no jurisdiction here.”

“Hell, I’ve got no jurisdiction anyplace, Art. I quit the narcs almost two years ago. I’m retired now.”

“Retired?” Gomez said, openly skeptical. “You? What happened?”

“I got shot at in Panama and passed over for promotion in the same week, and it occurred to me it was time to pack it in. I was burned out, Art, sick of standing there like the Dutch kid with his finger in the dike while the dopers sailed by in their yachts. Counting service time, I had my twenty-five in, so I took an early out. At three-quarter pay and full bennies. The wonders of civil service, Art. You oughta try it.”

“And now you’re doing what? Fishing?”

“Nope, I work out of Detroit tracing witnesses for a couple of law firms. Everybody’s suing everybody these days. Business is good and I’m good at it. I can help, Art.”

“No, you can’t. Look, your brother was a national figure, maybe the preeminent spokesman for gay rights in the Southwest. By tomorrow I’ll need a bulldozer to get past the reporters in the lobby. I can’t cut you in. You know department policy on involving private citizens in an open investigation.”

“Actually I don’t,” McMahon said mildly. “What I do know is that a few years back I busted some gunrunners down in Nogales, and ah, one of ’em got away from me. He was just a kid, and losing him made me look bad. Real bad. Maybe it even cost me a promotion. By the way, how’s your nephew, Art? Still in law school, is he?”

Gomez stared at him, his dark eyes unreadable. McMahon took a sudden interest in his coffee cup.

“Damn,” Gomez said, shaking his head slowly, “I must be gettin’ old. When you walked in here I was actually glad to see you, Andy. I really was.”

“Come on, Art, you know I wouldn’t ask you to do anything that’d jam you up, but you owe me one, and I’m calling it in.”

“What do you want, McMahon?”

“To give you a little help, that’s all.”

“All right,” Gomez nodded, “I’ll tell you what. Other’n the preliminary work out at the mountain, nobody’s been assigned to this yet, and won’t be until tomorrow. So you’ve got today, Andy, or what’s left of it, but that’s all. And that’s the best I can do.”

“Then I guess I’d better get started,” McMahon said, crumpling his coffee cup and tossing it in the general direction of the wastebasket.

“Not quite yet,” Gomez said. “Just so we understand each other, McMahon, one, if you get anything, you forgodsake turn it over to me. And two, if anything comes unglued, we never had this conversation.”

“What conversation?”

“Yeah,” Gomez sighed, “right.”

“Hello, Victor,” Andy said quietly.

The man in the hospital bed swiveled his head slowly toward the sound of McMahon’s voice. His large, myopic eyes were watery, clouded with pain. His forearms and hands were wrapped in strips of greasy yellow gauze, and his forehead was bandaged. The normally tangled mass of his semi-Afro was scorched to the scalp in several places, and spiky with salve. His slender, patrician face was a raw, angry red, spotted with smears of white medication.

“Andrew,” he said at last, “it’s been a long time. I’m surprised you came. Or were you just in the neighborhood?”