Richard Stevenson - Death trick

I said, "I didn't know Steve. What was he like?"

He squeezed his eyes shut with his free hand. "A nice kid," Truckman said, shaking his head.

"Oh, such a nice sweet kid Steve was. But-naive. God, was that kid naive! Steve was naive, but he was learning, though, right? Steve was young, but he was catching on. We all have ideals, right? But you've gotta be tough in the way you go about it. A means to an end, right?"

He was beginning to slur his words. I said, "Right."

More bourbon.

I said, "Mike, you're drunk."

He shook his head. "Nah, I'm drinking but I'm not drunk. Anyways, Floyd's out there, the doorman. Floyd can run the place if I feel like taking a drink. Floyd can do it, right?"

I nodded. I asked him why anyone would want to hurt Steve Kleckner.

He rolled his eyes at some imaginary companion off to my right. "Christ, how would I know the answer to that? You'll have to ask the sonovabitch who did it, right? If the goddamn cops ever catch up with the little shit."

"You mean Billy Blount?"

"Hey, the Blount guy did it, dinnee? I thought everybody knew that- the kid Steve left with here that night. With here. Here with."

"Did you know Blount?"

"Nah, but I saw it happen-saw Steve and that little shit turn on to each other. I mean, don't get me wrong, right? I was glad to see it, honest to Christ, I was. I was glad to see Steve being so up for a change. Christ, moping around here the way he was, I just wanted to pick Steve up and shake him."

"How come he'd been down?"

Truckman emptied his glass and brought a new bottle of Jim Beam from his desk drawer. He kicked the drawer shut and filled his glass as well as a second one. He said, "Join me."

"I've got a stein of your fifty-cent horse piss outside. Thanks, I'll stick with that. Why had Steve been depressed?"

"Dunno. Maybe his rose-colored glasses fell off." He drank.

For an instant I wondered if Kleckner had actually worn rose-colored glasses, like Gloria Steinem's. It wouldn't have been unprecedented at Trucky's.

I said, "Had he talked about it?"

"Nope, unh-unh." He poured the drink for me that I'd declined.

"Had you ever seen Steve with Blount before?"

"Not that I remember. The cops asked me that. Fucking cops."

"Why 'fucking'?"

"Oh, you know, Don. You should know. Cops."

"Have they been hassling you?"

"Nothing to speak of. Drink up."

"Vigorish?"

"Nah. They fucking hadn't better try."

"What did you tell the cops about that night?"

"What all I knew, why shouldn't I? That Steve and the Blount kid danced, and horsed around, and left about an hour before closing. Shit, Steve could of done a lot better than that kid, a fucking lot better. And now look what happened! It's just a tragedy, that's what it is, a fucking terrible, terrible tra-guh-dee."

His eyes were wet, and he tugged out the hankie and wiped his face. Then, more bourbon. He said, "Don, you're not drinking."

I sipped. "Do you ever wish you'd stayed with the state, Mike? You had a nice neat, clean life down there."

He snorted messily. "Hah, that's all you know! At the department it was everything but murder.

Hell, no! I'm doing what I wanna do, Don. And no way- no way — am I gonna lose it, right? You wouldn't. No way, baby."

I said, "Business looks good."

"Yeah. S'good." He gazed down morosely at his drink.

"I want to talk to your bartender after closing."

"S'up to them. Floyd'll be locking up. I'm cuttin' out at four."

"Heavy date?"

"H-yeah. Real heavy."

"The cute number in the witty jersey?"

"Nah," Truckman said. "Not him. He's for later." He shut his eyes and laughed bleakly at some private joke.

"Well, I suppose you could do worse." "Oh, I do-ooo do worse." He gulped down the rest of his drink. "I sho nuff do. Hey. Don. How 'bout a drink?"

I guessed Truckman knew more about Steve Kleckner's recent life than he'd told me, but he was in no condition to be reasoned with, or pressured, or led. After Truckman's office the stench of smoke, poppers, and hot sweat outside it was a field of golden daffodils. I found Timmy at the bar talking-shouting- to a sandy-haired man of about thirty in a plaid flannel shirt.

Timmy leaned up to my ear and yelled, "I've got one!"

"One what?"

"One friend of Billy Blount's. Don, this is Mark Deslonde. Mark, Don Strachey."

He had soft brown eyes, a fuzzy full beard, neatly trimmed, and a tilt to his head that was angled counter to the slant of his broad smile. I didn't know whether he practiced this in front of a mirror, but it was devastating, and if Timmy hadn't been there it would have had its effect on me.

Not that it didn't, a little.

I said, "Can we go somewhere?"

He smiled again and said okay and slid off his stool, and as we turned toward the door, Timmy cupped his hand over my ear and said into it, "You can do me a favor one of these days."

I said, "See you around-Tommy, wasn't it? I've really enjoyed myself and I hope we run into each other again sometime." I kissed him on the forehead. He laughed lightly.

Deslonde and I went out and sat in the Rabbit. The air was frosty, and a cold, luminescent half-moon hung over the motel up the road and across Western from Trucky's parking lot.

"You're friend is nice," Deslonde said, still grinning. "Is he your lover?"

"Sort of," I said. What the hell was I doing? "Well, yes. He is. We don't live together."

"That's smart. It makes discretion possible. I lived with my ex-lover for three and a half years. It was great for the first two. Until one of us started fooling around once in a while, and because we were living together, this was noticed. Nothing heavy, right? Just the occasional recreational indiscretion. But

Nate was Jewish enough, or insecure enough, to believe in monogamy, and that was the beginning of the end."

I said, "Do you have regrets?"

"Sure."

"Timmy says you're a friend of Billy Blount's."

"Yes, I know Billy. Your lover-whom you don't live with- says you're a detective. But not a cop, right?"

"Right. Private."

"Then you'd have a license."

I stretched out and dug my wallet out of my hip pocket. He studied the laminated card, and I put it back.

Deslonde said, "Smoke?"

"Love it."

He took a joint from his shirt pocket and lit it. We passed it back and forth while we talked.

"I'm working for Billy's parents," I said, determined to concentrate on something other than Deslonde's face. "They want to help him."

"I'm sure they do," Deslonde said evenly. I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic.

"How do you know Billy?"

"My old roommate and Billy were involved for a couple of months, before Dennis freaked out and took off for Maine. Billy and I kept running into each other in the bathroom in the morning, and one day I gave him a lift out to Colonie. I work at Sears."

"Sportswear?"

"Automotive supplies."

Strachey, you ass. "Right," I said. "Billy works at the, ah, Music Barn."

"I live right up the street from Billy on Madison, and he started riding out to Colonie with me regularly. Sometimes we went out together, or with other people, out here or to the Bung Cellar.

We got to be pretty good friends after a while. Billy's really one of the more stimulating people I know and quite enjoyable to be around. In fact, I've become very fond of Billy over the past few years. There's nothing sexual in the relationship; it just didn't work out that way. Billy and I talked about that once. We both found each other attractive, but sometimes the chemistry just isn't there, right? And then other times it is." He looked at me and grinned.

"Yeah," I said. "Funny how that works." I could feel the damn thing stirring. I said, "Where do you think Billy might be?"