Neely Tucker - Murder, D.C.

ELLIOT SAID THEthing wasn’t at his apartment but at a friend’s, and that this guy, he’d bring it to them. So they flagged a taxi and wound up in Georgetown, Sully letting Elliot tell the driver where to go. This turned out to be a bar called the Giraffe, on M Street, right on the main drag. They took a booth at the very back, set behind a partial wall of exposed brick. The waiter came, they ordered, and Elliot looked uncomfortable.

“The first time we talked?” he said, taking off his bow tie. “Right after Billy died, and you came to meet me at the cafeteria? I really wasn’t all that sure who you were. I sort of held out on you. I mean, you didn’t know anything. No offense, I mean.”

“None taken,” Sully said, wishing he’d smacked the little prick the first time. “I never know much about anything.”

Elliot looked at him, nodding. The kid didn’t even get sarcasm.

“But then? A day or two later? After Billy’s funeral?” Elliot said. “They came by my apartment and asked if I had a key to his place, if I had been in there since he died, if-”

“They?”

“-if-they, those guys? The thugs Billy’s mom hired. Or that dickhead she works for.”

“We’re back to the investigators now.”

“Whoever. They wanted to come in and look around, can you believe it? In my place. I said, ‘What are you looking for?’ and they said, ‘We’ll know it when we see it.’”

“You didn’t let them in.”

“Of course not,” Elliot said. “The way Delores treated Billy, the things she said about me? No no no. Of course I had a key to his place. We were partners for more than a year! You think I’m going to tell Delores that, just hand over my key?” He blew out his lips, getting worked up. “I told them to fuck right on off. One of them, the one with a shaved head, he called me ‘faggot’ and ‘cocksucker.’”

“That’s not good.”

“It’s insulting.”

“This one with the shaved head, he have these big shoulders? Little pug nose?”

“Yeah. That’s him. That’s just the one.”

“He’s the one who shoved me into a car at Billy’s funeral,” Sully said.

“He did?”

“Yeah. They’re sort of pricks, whether they think you’re gay or not.”

“He better be glad he didn’t shove me ,” Elliot said. “Not in my-”

“So what happened? After he went all homophobic.”

“They left. They were kind of disgusted. You could tell.”

“No threats?”

“I don’t think they’re the kind who make threats,” Elliot said. “I think they’re more the kind that just do it.”

“I think you’re probably right.”

The waiter came, set down a Basil’s over ice for Sully and a Cosmopolitan in front of Elliot. The kid looked at it, then took an exploratory sip, leaning over and slurping from the martini glass without picking it up.

“They didn’t come back, but I was pretty pissed,” he said, puckering his lips after the drink. “Intimidation? Butch boys? Please. I’ve put up with that since high school. Football players. So, look, to get even, I went over to Billy’s place the next day? With a couple of friends? We opened the door, took one step inside-and that was it. They had turned the entire place upside down. Bookshelves knocked over, furniture shoved around. We got out before we got blamed for it.”

Sully added a tiny splash of water to his Basil’s, took a respectable pull. God, it was fine. Quitting this… “Billy was dealing drugs,” he told Elliot. “Maybe they were trying to clean it out. Or maybe one of his connections came looking for his stash after they shot him.”

“Why do you keep saying that?” Elliot hissed. “What is this with the drug thing? You put that in that story, something about his rehab, drug problems-”

“He was a dealer, getting deep into it,” Sully said. “Delores told me. Shellie told me. Billy got popped in the Bend. I mean, he was dealing, so-”

“Bullshit,” Elliot said, shaking his head, tapping the table. “Oh man. Oh man. That’s what they told you?”

“Yeah.”

“You got suckered. No no no. Billy had-God love him-Billy had depression issues, sort of a bipolar thing-”

“Right, that’s what they told me.”

“And he was therefore terrified of drugs. Mental about it. ‘I’m crazy enough as it is,’ I can hear him now. Not a toke, not a toot.”

“Maybe he-”

“I knew him since his freshman year,” he said, shaking his head. “We dated off and on, more in the past two years, a lot this past year. Never saw him do anything harder than beer. He had friends from high school, Sidwell? And they’d say the same thing. Billy, he liked beer, at least sort of, but he was really very… fragile.”

“How you mean, ‘fragile’?”

“Delicate. He could be very giddy, a little loud at times, but there was a brittleness to it, if you knew it well enough to spot it. His moods, they’d fluctuate. Really not good self-esteem. He had weight issues, just mortified if he gained five pounds. Sometimes he stayed in bed and read all day. He wasn’t, wasn’t, really all that easy to know.”

“His mom said he wanted to be a rap star.”

Elliot rolled his head back and laughed, loud enough for the bartender to look over.

“So, I’m guessing-”

“ Billy? Hip-hop? What, RuPaul does rap ?” The laughter bubbled out of him, rolling across the place.

Sully sipped his bourbon and waited.

“I’m-” Elliot coughed, dabbing his eyes-there were little dewdrops at their edges-and he gave in to another round of it, squinching his eyes shut tight, waving his hand back and forth, then patting his chest, taking in air. “Okkkaaay. Sorry. Okay. Okay. I’m done. That rap business, though. Billy.”

“You’re telling me his mother lied to me.”

“Yes, I, I am,” Elliot said. “Billy was Tinkerbell with dreadlocks. He made Luther Vandross look like a middle linebacker.”

“Somebody, guy I talked to, said Billy made Little Richard look butch.”

“That would be somebody who knew Billy, yes.”

It had always bugged him, getting hustled, getting played, and here it was, smacking him in the face. People lie right to your face and you got no idea. Jesus. He had sailed right by it, never doubting the rap star thing because it came from his mom. Rich, nice house, high on the social meter… and he’d gone for it, the circumstances coloring his vision, the weight he’d given her story. Would he have given Dee Dee’s mom that sort of break? Nah. His own bias, assumptions, biting him in the ass. It was what you got for trusting anybody further than you could throw them.

“But why-why would she lie to me?” he said. “If everyone knew he-”

“Oh, c’mon, don’t be dense,” Elliot said. He all but snorted. “Delores didn’t want to know Billy was queer, and she didn’t want you to put it in the paper. She was so concerned with the family image , with getting invited to the White House each Christmas, with her precious clients. She wanted Billy to be a brand-new version of his dad. Who was, like, this Marine, a hard-ass, decorated, blah blah, then a lawyer. Billy wasn’t like that. He was a terrible disappointment. They fought about it. She-”

A stocky young guy, had to be another college dude, sidled up to the table, holding a tote bag, THE STRAND emblazoned on the side. “Elliot,” he said.

“Oh, Todd, hi.” He stopped, looking at the bag. “You brought it. You wonderful man. You can just set it on the table.”

Todd did. Two thick manila envelopes slid out, heavy things so stuffed with paperwork that the top of the envelopes could not be closed. Sully had to rescue his whiskey before it got toppled over.