The Dirt Peddler Read online

  “Does he know you’re gay?”

  “I haven’t a clue. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. It’s not as if I really gave a shit. But I’ve found out one thing over the years: if you’re rich enough, or powerful enough, or if someone needs you badly enough, it doesn’t matter who you sleep with.”

  I shook my head and joined him in the grin. “You’re getting a big kick out of this, aren’t you?”

  He gave a raised-eyebrow shrug, still grinning. “Hey, I get so little pleasure out of some of these cases, don’t begrudge me.”

  We small-talked while we finished our beers, and I noticed the blond walk out with the guy he’d been talking to. As he reached the door, he turned to me, gave a small shrug and a wink, then left. My crotch was muttering curses, but I ignored it.

  As O’Banyon and I were getting ready to leave, he reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a business card, which he handed me.

  “Here’s Tunderew’s number. I told him to expect your call.”

  I took it without looking at it, and stuck it in my shirt pocket. “If he’s as big a pain in the ass as you say he is, I just might tell him to go fuck himself.”

  “Yeah, you might,” O’Banyon said with a grin as we walked toward the door. “I made it clear to him that this was just a referral and you were your own man when it came to deciding what cases to take, so I’m off the hook. If you turn him down and he blames me and wants to find himself another lawyer, I wouldn’t lose much sleep over it.”

  We shook hands as we reached the sidewalk, and went our separate ways.

  *

  Walking back to my office, I pulled out the card and looked at it, “Tony T. Tunderew, Best-Selling author of Dirty Little Minds.” No ego there. There wasn’t any address, but there was a phone number. I stuck the card back in my pocket, found my car in the lot across from my office building, and went home.

  Jonathan was in the kitchen, talking to Phil and Tim, his two goldfish, and Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, recent Tropical Something-or-Other additions to the new, larger aquarium Jonathan had conned me into getting for him as atonement for a minor argument, which I obviously lost.

  When he saw me, he grinned as though he hadn’t seen me in years, then quickly turned to the refrigerator from which he extracted my evening Manhattan. Apparently I was a little later getting home than I’d thought. He started to reach into the freezer for some ice cubes, but instead set the glass down and came over to give me a lung-emptying hug.

  “Glad you’re home.”

  “Me too.” As we released the hug, he started to turn back toward the refrigerator, but I stopped him. “I can get it. You want a Coke?”

  “Sure. How did it go with Mr. O’Banyon?”

  He followed me into the kitchen, where I handed him his Coke before I reached into the freezer for my ice cubes.

  “Fine. I met him at Hughie’s for a beer. He referred a case to me.”

  Plopping a couple ice cubes into my glass, I closed the freezer door and turned to put my free arm around Jonathan’s shoulders. “Let’s go in and sit down, and you can tell me about your day. Have a good one?”

  We sat, as always, side by side on the couch, thighs touching.

  “As a matter of fact, yeah. We delivered some trees to New Eden today, and guess who I saw?”

  I of course hadn’t a clue. “Who?” I asked after an appropriate pause.

  “Remember when I first met you I told you one of the other hustlers from Hughie’s used to let me crash at his place every now and then?”

  “Uh…yeah, I remember, sort of.” Jonathan has his own logic and his own way of getting from point A to point B. I’d learned just to go along and it would all become clear in time.

  “Randy. Randy Jacobs. You remember. Anyway, he’s at New Eden now! It sure was good to see him. I’m really glad he got off the streets. He’s doing really well out there; he’s working in the office and everything.”

  New Eden was one of a number of very large, very profitable, tax-exempt farms run just outside major cities across the nation, owned and operated by the Eternal Light Foundation. In turn, the Eternal Light Foundation was, when all the governing committees and advisory boards and assorted boards of directors were stripped away, two people: the Reverends Jeffrey and Barbara Dinsmore, rising stars in the conservative skies of this great nation. The stated purpose of these New Edens was to take in homeless, throwaway kids, the ones no one wanted or everyone else had given up on, and put them in an environment of hope. Sort of like the local M.C.C.’s Haven House, but on a much larger scale, and it was of course not limited to gay/lesbian kids as Haven House was.

  Each New Eden was as self-sufficient as possible. Eternal Light kids worked the farms, built the barns and sheds, repaired and maintained all the farm equipment in exchange for room, board, rehabilitation, education, and counseling. The profits from the farms were plowed back into the expansion of the Foundation’s good works.

  Surprisingly, from all accounts the approach appeared to be actually working, and the Dinsmores had recently been featured on the cover of Time. While there was absolutely no doubt that Eternal Light was set in rock-solid Christian fundamentalism, the Dinsmores were smart enough to keep it very low-key. No fire-and-brimstone bible thumping, no mandatory seven-days-a-week religious services, no passing out religious tracts at the airport or selling flowers on the streets. You had to give them credit for that. And since they were able to walk such a fine line between the religious and secular aspects of their foundation, they had access to corporate funding not available to more overtly religious organizations.

  “I’d like to ask him over sometime,” Jonathan said, bringing me back to the moment. “I think you’d like him.”

  “Sure. That’d be nice. Can they come and go as they please?”

  He took a sip of his Coke before answering. “I think they can have one night a week, as long as they say where they’re going, and they have a ride back and forth to town…and they have to be back by midnight.”

  “Whenever you want. But I’m curious why you’d be delivering trees to New Eden. It’s a farm; you’d think they’d have enough trees of their own.”

  Jonathan grinned and nudged my leg with his. “Well of course they do. But these are for around the Dinsmores’ new house: some flowering dogwood and Japanese cherry.”

  “A new house, huh? A little ninety-seven-room cottage with an indoor polo field and trout pond?”

  He gave me a look of mock disgust. “Jeez! What a cynic! No, no trout pond or polo field. It’s a nice house, but it’s just a house. Maybe four bedrooms?”

  Now that came as quite a surprise, given the tendency to excess of some other doers-of-good-works who had been making the headlines in the past few years.

  “Well, you ask Randy over whenever you want.”

  Jonathan beamed, as only he can.

  “Great! We’ll be going out there again tomorrow. I’ll ask him then.”

  *

  At the office the next morning, I waited until about ten o’clock to call the number on Tunderew’s business card. I figured rich and famous authors probably liked to sleep in in the morning. They could afford to.

  There were two rings at the other end of the line, then a click and a woman’s voice: “Mr. Tunderew’s office.”

  An office! I’m impressed! I made a note to remind myself to write a book someday.

  “Is Mr. Tunderew in?”

  “No sir, he’s not. May I take a message?” There were sounds in the background, which I couldn’t quite make out, but seemed familiar.

  “Could you tell me where your office is located? Perhaps I can drop Mr. Tunderew a note.”

  “Ah, well, I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you that, sir. I really don’t have an address. This is Mr. Tunderew’s answering service.”

  Aha! The sounds in the background were other operators taking other calls for other clients. ‘Mr. Tunderew’s office!’ Right! So much for my writing a book.


  I gave her my name and number and told her that I was calling in response to his conversation with his attorney, Glen O’Banyon. She thanked me, and we hung up. Well, at least he had a pretty high-class service—I didn’t hear her popping gum.

  While I waited, having no idea how long the wait would be, I looked in the phone book for the address and phone number of Bernadine Press. I figured I’d be needing to contact them at some point. Somewhat to my surprise, the phone rang just as I was turning the yellow pages to Publishers. “Hardesty Investigations.”

  “Mr. Hardesty, this is Tony T. Tunderew…”

  Gee, thanks for putting the middle initial in there, Tony, I thought. I wouldn’t have had a clue which Tony Tunderew this was without it.

  “…my secretary just told me you’d called.”

  Your secretary. Sure, Tony.

  “Glen O’Banyon tells me you’re having some sort of problem.”

  He gave a dramatic sigh. “I’ll tell you, Mr. Hardesty, since Dirty Little Minds first hit the NY Times Best Sellers list…”

  Just in case I didn’t know, I thought.

  “…I’ve had nothing but problems. Fame is a hard taskmaster.”

  Okay, so now that we’ve firmly established the fact that you’re famous and a pompous ass, can we get on with it? my mind asked.

  “So which particular problem can I help you with?” I asked, although of course I already knew. I just wanted to see how he’d handle it.

  There was a slight pause and the sound of throat clearing.

  “Well, I can’t go into it on the phone. We should really get together to discuss it. And I like to get the measure of the people I deal with before committing myself to anything.”

  Hooo, boy! Like he’s doing me a favor!

  “Of course. Why don’t I come by your office and…”

  “Uh, no. Why don’t we meet for lunch today? At the Brambles, say?”

  The Brambles was a caviar and truffles restaurant located in the main building of the Birchwood Country Club—the city’s most exclusive. The Brambles deigned to accept reservations from non-country-club members, as long as they were rich and famous. However, it did have its own entrance to keep any non-Birchwood members from getting too close to the real members. I sincerely doubted that Tunderew was a member of the country club, but I knew damned well he’d like me to think he was.

  “Well, that’s very nice of you, Mr. Tunderew, but I’ve got a pretty full schedule today, and the Brambles is quite a distance. Could we make it at Michael’s?”

  I could have, of course, just suggested he come by my office, but I suspected that he preferred to be out among his adoring public. Michael’s was one of the oldest restaurants in the city: good food, not cheap but not in the Brambles’ price range by any means. It was quite popular with the business set, so I figured Tunderew wouldn’t consider it too far beneath him.

  There was another slight pause and then, “Yes, Michael’s will be fine. I’ll call for a table. Twelve or twelve thirty?”

  “Twelve thirty will be fine. I’ll look forward to it.”

  “Fine. I’m sure you won’t have any trouble spotting me. I look exactly like the photo on the dust jacket of my book.”

  I did not want to burst his little bubble by admitting I’d never so much as picked up a copy of Dirty Little Minds and so hadn’t a clue what he might look like. Well, there was a bookstore two doors down from Michael’s, which I’m sure he knew. I’d take a quick run in there and check. And I was mildly bemused by the fact that he didn’t ask how he might be able to spot me. I’m sure he didn’t care.

  *

  Michael’s was within walking distance of my office, so thanks largely to a blustery wind at my back all the way, I made it in plenty of time to go into the bookstore to see if I could find a copy of Dirty Little Minds. Since fully one half of an entire display window was stacked with them, that didn’t prove to be much of a problem. I went in, idly picked a copy off the nearest table, and turned it over. Tony T. Tunderew turned out to be a rather handsome man who for some inexplicable reason reminded me of a used-Mercedes dealer or an unctuous maître d’. He was wearing a bulky-knit turtleneck sweater of the type favored by Cape Cod fishermen and famous authors, leaning against some sort of rough-wood wall, staring intently into the camera, his arms folded across his chest.

  I laid the book carefully back on the pile and left.

  I paused briefly, upon catching a glimpse of myself in a window, to quickly run a comb through my hair so I didn’t look quite so much like I’d just stuck my finger in a light socket. When I entered the restaurant, I made a quick look around the crowd—Michael’s always did a good business and it was, after all, the lunch hour—but no sign of Tunderew. I noted there were two tables—one toward the far wall and one in the center of the large front window, with small “Reserved” cards, and I was pretty sure I knew that if Tunderew had called for reservations, which one was for him.

  A moment later the door opened and a dapper-looking Tony T. Tunderew entered, wearing a neat blue blazer over a smoke-grey turtleneck sweater. He looked as though he had just gotten out of the barber’s chair, and despite the gale-force winds didn’t have a hair out of place. I hate people like that.

  He didn’t even look at me as he headed toward the door to the dining room, until I said, “Mr. Tunderew?”

  His eyes immediately went from my face to my hands, apparently to see if I was an adoring fan carrying a copy of his book. Seeing that I wasn’t, he must have made the connection, because he said, “Mr. Hardesty?”

  We shook hands and exchanged the usual requisite greetings as a waiter came up with two menus.

  “Mr. Tunderew’s table, please,” Tunderew said, and the waiter smiled, nodded, and gestured us into the room. We followed him to—where else?—the table in front of the window.

  “I’ll have a vodka Gibson,” Tunderew said as soon as we were seated and as the waiter was handing us the menus. “Three onions,” he added, and the waiter nodded again, then looked at me.

  “Whiskey sour.” I figured if we were into slightly obscure drinks, I’d go along.

  After ascertaining that we would wait a few minutes before ordering, the waiter went off to get our drinks.

  “So exactly how might I be able to help you?” I didn’t see much point in wasting time.

  Tunderew tugged at the collar of his turtleneck with an index finger, then reached for his glass of water.

  “I’m being blackmailed,” he said after taking a sip of water and replacing his glass on the table.

  I tried to look as if I hadn’t known all along. “Any idea who?”

  He looked at me with mild disdain. “I know exactly who.”

  That rather caught me by surprise, since O’Banyon hadn’t mentioned that part—if Tunderew had even told him.

  The waiter arrived with our drinks and asked if we were ready to order. We asked for more time, and he left.

  “And exactly what does the blackmailer think he has against you?”

  He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Totally circumstantial bullshit.”

  Somehow I doubted that. “If you know who it is, have you confronted him…or her?”

  Tunderew shook his head strongly from side to side. “Oooh, no! I’m not going near that little piece of shit! I don’t want to give him an ounce of encouragement!”

  Well, that was all pretty cryptic, I thought. “May I ask why?”

  “Because I can’t afford a scandal, no matter how ridiculous, of course.”

  “And this particular scandal might involve…?”

  His look changed to one of total disgust. “My being a faggot.”

  Chapter 2

  I couldn’t resist the temptation.

  “And are you?” I asked, taking an oddly perverse delight in watching him turn beet red.

  “Of course not!” he spat, a fate-worse-than-death look of revulsion on his face.

  “Then on exactly what is he bas
ing the blackmail? And how did you find out about it?”

  We both took a healthy swallow of our drinks while he regained his composure. Then he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out an envelope, which he slid across the table to me. I took it and opened it. There was a single sheet of paper inside with the typed words: “Check #2501 is worth a hell of a lot more than $375. Say, $10,000? Cash. POB 324, 1815 Mercer Blvd. By the 15th.”

  I returned it to the envelope and slid it back across the table to him.

  “And exactly why might Check #2501 be worth more than $375? What was the $375 for?”

  He stared at me for a long moment, slowly rotating his glass with his thumb and middle finger. Finally, he took in a deep breath and said, “There was this faggot who worked at Craylaw and Collier in the research department…Larry Fletcher…a real pansy….”

  Well, now, there’s a word that went out of fashion somewhere around 1927, I thought, in a not very successful attempt to remain calmly objective.

  The waiter returned to the table and we broke off the conversation long enough to look quickly at the menu and order. Actually, I didn’t really have to look. Michael’s was one of the few places in town that served a Monte Cristo sandwich, complete with a powdered sugar top and mint jelly on the side, and I ordered it every time I had occasion to come in. And while our conversation thus far had pretty much taken my appetite away, I wasn’t about to deny myself a Monte Cristo.

  Tunderew watched the waiter depart, then resumed his story. “Anyway, this little Nurse Nancy took a real shine to me, always hanging around, always asking if there was something he could do for me—well, I sure as hell could figure out what that little fudge-packer had in mind.”

  Where in hell does he come up with this stuff? my mind asked casually, as an alternative to my reaching across the table and ripping his lungs out.

  Apparently mistaking my silence for intense interest, he kept right on.

  “I had a pretty high-pressure position at C&C, so I let him do some little look-up things for me. He was in faggot heaven! All I had to do was ask, and he was right there. I used to get a kick out of giving him a best-buddy smile or maybe a little wink—especially when I knew that he might have to bend company policy to get what I wanted. He’d practically cream his jeans. I even had him running errands for me during his lunch hour. Made my life a lot easier, that’s for sure.” He gave a little self-satisfied chuckle. “We had enough faggots at C&C to open an interior decorating studio—I’ve heard that old man Collier was a little light in the loafers himself, and liked to hire his own kind.”