The Sins of the Fathers

He moved to the other end of the bar to replenish someone's drink. When he returned I asked him if he had ever taken Vanderpoel home himself.

"Matthew, honey, if I had, I wouldn't have had that much trouble remembering him, would I now?"

"You might."

"Bitch! No, I was going through a very monogamous period at the time.

Don't raise your brows so skeptically, luv. It doesn't become you. I suppose I might have been tempted, but cute as he was, he was not my type."

"I would have thought he'd be just your type."

"Oh, you don't know me as well as you think you do, do you, Matthew? I like a bit of chicken now and then, I'll admit it. God knows it's not the world's best-kept secret in the first place. But it's not just youth that does it for me, you know. It's corrupt youth."

"Oh?"

"That luscious air of immature decadence. Young fruit rotting on the vines."

"You have a lovely way of putting things."

"Don't I? But Richard was not like that at all. He had this untouchable innocence. You could be his eighth trick of the night, and you would still feel that you were seducing a virgin. And that, dear boy, is not my scene at all, as the children say."

He made himself a fresh drink and collected for it out of my change. I still had enough bourbon left. I said, "You said something about the eighth trick of the night. Was he selling himself?"

"No way. He didn't get the chance to pay for his own drinks, but if he had one drink a night, it was a lot. He wasn't hustling a buck."

"Was he running the numbers?"

"No, one partner a night was all he seemed to want. As far as I could tell."

"And then he stopped coming in here. I wonder why."

"Maybe he got allergic to the decor."

"Was there anyone in particular he tended to go home with?"

Ken shook his head. "Never the same friend twice. I would guess that he came around over a period of three weeks, and maybe he paid us fifteen or eighteen visits in all, and I never saw him repeat. That's not terribly unusual, you know. A lot of people are hung up on variety. Especially the young ones."

"He started living with Wendy Hanniford around the time he stopped coming here."

"I gathered he was living with her. I wouldn't know about the time element."

"Why would he live with a woman, Ken?"

"I didn't really know him, Matt. And I'm not a psychiatrist. I had a psychiatrist, but that wasn't one of the topics we got around to discussing."

"Why would any homosexual live with a woman?"

"God knows."

"Seriously, Kenny."

He drummed the bar with his fingers. "Seriously? All right. He could be bisexual, you know. It's not exactly unheard of, especially in this day and age.

Everybody's doing it, I understand. Straight types are trying the gay scene on for size. Gay types are making tentative experiments with heterosexuality."

He yawned elaborately. "I'm afraid I'm a hopelessly reactionary old thing myself. One sex is complicated enough for me. Two would be disastrous."

"Any other ideas?"

"Not really. If I'd known him, Matt. But he was just another pretty face to me."

"Who knew him?"

"Does anyone know anyone? I suppose whoever took him to bed came closest to knowing him."

"Who took him to bed?"

"I'm not a scorekeeper, darling. And we've had quite the turnover here these past few months. Most of the old crowd has gone off in search of greener pastures.

We're getting a lot of smarmy little leather boys lately." He frowned at the thought, then remembered that frowning gives you lines and willed his face to return to its normal expression. "I don't much adore the crew we've been attracting lately.

Motorcycle boys, S-and-M types. I don't really want anyone killed in my bar, you know. Most especially my estimable self."

"Why not do something about it?"

"To be horribly candid, they scare me."

I finished my drink. "There's an easy way for you to handle it."

"Do tell."

"Go over to the Sixth Precinct and talk to Lieutenant Edward Koehler. Tell him your problem and ask him to raid you a few times."

"You've got to be kidding."

"Think about it. Slip Koehler a couple of bucks. Fifty should do it. He'll arrange to raid you a few times and give your leather crowd a hard time. There won't be any charges against you, so it won't screw you up with the SLA. Your liquor license won't be in jeopardy. The motorcycle boys are like everybody else.

They can't afford hassles. They'll find some other house to haunt. Of course your business will fall off for a couple of weeks."

"It's off, anyway. The little cunts are all beer drinkers, and they don't leave tips."

"So you won't be losing much. Then in a month or so you'll start getting the kind of clientele you want."

"What a devious mind you have, Matthew. I think it might work, at that."

"It should. And don't give me too much credit. It's done all the time."

"You say fifty dollars should do it?"

"It ought to. It would have when I was on the force, but everything's been going up lately, even bribery. If Koehler wants more, he'll let you know about it."