Richard Stevenson - Death trick

"I have no idea."

"Do you think he's innocent?"

"Yes. Of course he is."

"How can you be that certain?"

"Because I know that Billy hasn't got a violent bone in his body."

"Uh-huh." I shifted, tried unsuccessfully to cross my legs. "I've gotten the impression that Billy is rather an angry young man. How does he let it out?"

Deslonde laughed. "Yeah, Billy is not one of the more relaxed people I know. What he does with all that indignation is he runs off at the mouth a lot. He can bend your ear for days on end about the world's four billion homophobes. I'm a realist myself-I told him maybe he ought to shop around for another planet."

"Maybe he's the realist. We seem to be stuck on this one."

He rolled down the window and flipped the roach onto Trucky's gravel drive. He exhaled and said, "For some of us the realistic thing is to find a way to eat and pay the rent. Try coming out as a radical faggot when you spend thirty-eight hours a week at Sears Automotive Center. I don't mean to sound melodramatic, but I thought you'd understand that. Or are you independently wealthy?"

He looked at me with his beautiful skewed smile again, but this time there was a hardness in his eyes. I wanted to do something to show him how I really felt about him. I shifted position again.

"I know what you're saying," I said. "There's neurotic secretiveness, and then there's discretion. I am not opposed to discretion. I've even been known, from time to time, to indulge in it myself."

What had I said? He'd been watching me, and now suddenly he burst out laughing, a big robust ha! ha! ha! ha! He gave my thigh a quick squeeze and then, still smiling, lit another joint.

I said, "About Billy Blount-remember him? Billy Blount?"

"Oh, right. Billy Blount. Let's talk about Billy some more." He grinned and passed me the joint.

Our fingers touched.

"What about, uh, Billy's parents? How was his relationship with them?"

"They must be a pair," Deslonde said. "I've never met them, but Billy talked about them sometimes, and they sounded like real horrors. Tight-assed old family types. He wasn't crazy about them, and Billy was frustrated with the way they hated his being gay. But I wouldn't say they really preyed on his mind much. He just stayed clear of them, and that made life easier."

"They said he brought a trick to their house last month."

He shook his head and laughed once. "Oh, boy, what a screw-up. I'd asked to use Billy's apartment that night-my straight cousin was job hunting in Albany and staying in mine, and I had a friend I was going to sleep with coming up from Kingston-so Billy said I could have his place and he'd take his chances in the park. It was one of those gorgeous hot nights, and you knew everybody'd be out. So he meets this hunk from Lake George, see, and he's really turned onto this guy, but they've got no place to go. It was dumb-Billy knew it-but they went to the Blounts' place, which was right across the street. His parents weren't supposed to be back from Saratoga until Labor Day, and-well, you know the rest. Bingo."

"No, actually I don't. I was wondering what they managed to accomplish in the way of sexual bliss on that mahogany museum piece?"

He looked uncomprehending. "Come again?"

"They spent the night on Mrs. Blount's antique sofa. Or so I've been told."

"That's crap," Deslonde said. "They spent the night in Billy's old room. They were downstairs smoking and about to leave when the Blounts busted in with guns blazing. They were pissed, and Billy really was embarrassed. I don't think he's seen them since."

"So his relationship with his parents was strained and unhappy. But there was nothing about the relationship that struck you as-a little weird?"

"Weird? No. Awhile back-a long time ago, it must have been-the Blounts did something that still makes Billy furious when he thinks about it, something that hurt him a lot. But he never told me what it was. It was something so painful he couldn't even make himself talk about it. But since I've known him he hasn't been bothered by them very much. It's as if they hardly exist."

Another new perspective. Why was I surprised? It was nearly always like this, Rashomon with a cast of sixteen.

I said, "I've got to find him and talk to him. He hasn't been in touch with you?"

"No, I wish he would. I'd like to help him."

"Who are his other friends? Somebody might know something. Has he ever mentioned out-of-town friends?"

"Here in Albany there's a guy named Frank Zimka who Billy sees once in a while. We've all gone out together a few times. He lives off Central-Robin or Lexington, I think. Sort of a weird guy, actually; he deals dope, and I get the idea he hustles. I could never figure out what Billy saw in him, and when I tried to find out, Billy didn't want to go into it. He just said something like, 'Oh, Frank can be fun sometimes.' Except if Frank was ever a barrel of laughs or whatever it is he has to offer, it definitely was not in my presence.

"Then there's a black guy over in Arbor Hill Billy sleeps with once in a while. I met him a couple of times, too, and they seemed to have a nice simpatico relationship. Nothing very intense, but nice. His name is Huey something-or-other. He's a construction worker or something and he's into martial arts. I think it's Orange Street he lives on.

"Out of town, I don't know. Billy had some radical gay friends once who live on the West Coast now, I think, and he might be in touch with them. When he quit the movement in Albany-the guys here are too wishy-washy for Billy the revolutionary-he talked about moving out to California, but by then his friends' organization, whatever it was, had fallen apart, so he didn't go.

I don't know what their names are out there."

Frank and Huey were two of the first names written on the back cover of Billy Blount's phone book. Along with Deslonde's and one other.

"Did he ever mention somebody by the name of Chris?"

"No," Deslonde said, trying to remember. "I don't think so. Who's he?"

"I don't know. A name Billy wrote on his phone book. And a number."

"Call him up. He might be helpful. Or cute. And discreet." He chuckled.

"I will," I said, shifting again. "What about an Eddie? This would be someone out of Billy's past he'd be excited about running into again."

Deslonde shrugged and shook his head. "Unh-unh. Never heard of him. No Eddie."

"You mentioned your old roommate. Dennis, was it?"

"Dennis Kerskie."

"How long ago did he leave Albany?"

"More than two years ago-almost three. Dennis went off to the forest in Maine to live off berries and write his memoirs."

"Was he an older man?"

"Twenty-two, I think. He and Billy were a hot item for about two months until one day Dennis suddenly decided to purify his body and give up french fries, Albany tap water, and sex. He'd read a leaflet somebody handed him in the Price Chopper parking lot, and his and Billy's relationship deteriorated very rapidly. Dennis left town about two weeks later, and I don't think Billy ever heard from him again. I know I didn't."

It was ten to four and people were starting to drift out of Trucky's and head for their cars.

"Just a couple of other things. Were you with Billy the night he met Steve Kleckner?"

"For a while, I was. I gave him a lift out here, but then he got this heavy thing going with the Kleckner guy, and when I was ready to leave around one, Billy said to go ahead, he had a ride. I told all this to the police. Should I have?"

"It happened. I'm sure they got the same story from other people, so don't sweat it. How was Billy acting that night? Unusual in any way?"

"No, I wouldn't say so. He looked like he was having a good time. Actually, so was I. I'd met this tall number named Phil and went home with him. Real nice. Somebody I wouldn't mind running into again."