Three of Cups, Reversed
Beware of gossip from an old friend
It was raining again when I left the house at quarter till nine.
I paused at the bottom of the stairs and wrapped my muffler around my neck more tightly. There was about an inch of water in the courtyard, and water was still spilling over the side of the fountain. Loren McKeithen hadn’t called yet, but I was tired of waiting around. I wanted—needed—to do something other than sitting around smoking pot. If asking questions at the Brass Rail could help back up Taylor’s story, well, I’d probably have better luck with their clientele than the cops.
Taylor was still staying at Mom and Dad’s.
Much as I hated him not being home with us, it was the best option we had right now. He’d have too many questions about the apartment, for one thing—there’s no way he wouldn’t notice the missing rug or the new television or the new frames for the art—and telling him the truth wasn’t an option. I’d napped for a couple of hours and when I’d gotten up, Frank and I both agreed it was best to keep Taylor out of the Colin mess as much as possible.
The longer we had before we had to come up with a cover story for the changes in the apartment, the better.
Sure, eventually we’d have to deal with it, but later was better.
And there was also the little matter of it not being safe. I didn’t want Taylor to be around in case another Russian operative showed up looking to kill Colin.
So, when Mom called around seven to let us know Taylor was doing as well as could be expected but she thought it was a better idea for him to stay there overnight, we didn’t argue with her. Mom and Dad’s TLC and spoiling was exactly what he needed right now—and no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t spoil anyone the way Mom could.
It also broke my heart that his own mother wasn’t there for him.
I hoped I’d get the chance to slap the snot out of Teresa Sobieski Wheeler at some future date—even if it meant driving up to Corinth, Alabama, myself to make it happen.
When I went out the front gate I checked to see if anyone was watching the place. I didn’t spot anyone who looked out of place or suspicious. I locked the gate behind me and walked to the corner. There weren’t many people out on the street. The cold must have everyone bundled up warm inside. All the doors to Café Envie were closed, and most of their tables were empty. I thought about getting a hot chocolate with some brandy to warm me as I walked the ten blocks or so to the Rail but decided not to.
If it got too cold and wet for me, I could always flag a cab or summon a Lyft.
I kept my head down as I walked up Chartres Street. The Rail wasn’t near the other gay bars or the Fruit Loop, as we locals called the stretch from the 700 Club to Café Lafitte in Exile at Dumaine and Bourbon. It was actually right up the street from the Royal Aquitaine—the longest walk from my apartment for any of the Quarter gay bars. I cut over to Dauphine at Dumaine. The lights were on at Mom and Dad’s, and I decided I’d stop by on my way back home to make sure Taylor was fine. Mom and Dad were usually up all night anyway, their apartment was about halfway between the Brass Rail and my place, and I could warm up there. I hated leaving Frank alone at home by himself, but he said it was okay—he wanted to do some online research and was also going to keep trying to reach Angela Blackledge.
I felt better than I had. Spending some time napping and cuddling Frank was just what I’d needed. I still needed more sleep, but I wasn’t tired as I’d been, and my mind was functional.
I couldn’t stop wondering how the Russian could have gotten into our apartment. If he’d been waiting for Colin—how did he get in? Neither the front gate nor the door to the garage had been tampered with. There were no signs of forced entry on my apartment door. The shutters had been latched from the inside and the windows locked.
Could Colin have been lying?
It wouldn’t be the first time Colin had lied to me, to us, but this was the first time I’d wound up as an accessory after the fact.
If I’d come home twenty minutes earlier…
I pushed that thought out of my head.
I was feeling pretty frozen all the way through when I finally got to the Brass Rail. It was too early for anyone to be working the front door charging cover and checking IDs, but a couple of guys were standing around outside shivering and smoking cigarettes. Dancers, most likely. Eric was into younger guys, so of course he’d want to go to the Rail.
But the guys who danced at the Rail? Some of them danced there to pay for their drug habits, others had a wife and a baby at home and this was the best way for them to make some money, and some of them could be had for as little as twenty bucks. Rail dancers rarely made the transition to the other gay clubs where they could make more money…but then, who knows? Maybe they made more money than I had dancing at the Pub.
Stop being such an elitist snob, I told myself as I pulled the front door open, a blast of warm air washing over me.
Oh, yeah, I was definitely taking a cab home.
An old Donna Summer song was playing softly in the background. The televisions were all tuned in to a showing of It’s a Wonderful Life on some cable channel—George and Mary were walking home from the dance where they’d fallen into the swimming pool. The lights above the bar were on, and it was brighter inside than I ever remembered seeing it. There was a Christmas tree in the back room, past the pool table, where a couple of shirtless tattooed young men were playing. Their sweatpants hung down low enough to show their underwear. Dancers, most likely. Christmas lights twinkled along the bar. The guy behind the bar was pouring a vodka tonic for one of the two men sitting near the cash register. They were the only non-employees in the place. Both appeared to be older men, late fifties, maybe early sixties, and were sitting at the bar as far from the door as they could get. I shivered again as I took a seat at the other side of the bar.
“Scotty! Long time no see! How you doing?” the bartender asked as he put a napkin down in front of me. “What can I get you?”
“Something hot,” I replied, casting around in the darkest recesses of my brain to try to conjure up the bartender’s name without luck. He looked familiar, and I’m pretty sure at one time I’d known his name. I was surprised to see him still working there. I met him back when my old workout partner David and I would come down here after a few drinks at the Pub or Good Friends to kill some time and slip some dollars to the dancers…but whoa, that was over fourteen years ago. This same bartender had worked here then. He was short, maybe five feet five on a good day, and I’d always thought he was cute back then. He had a compact little body and had always been in good shape. He looked the same, only now there was some gray in his dark hair and lines on his face I didn’t remember.
It really pissed me off I couldn’t remember his name.
Oh, well, I figured. At least I hadn’t slept with him. That would have been worse.
Or had I?
Stupid aging memory.
“You really don’t want our coffee,” he replied with a grin. “It’s terrible even when it’s fresh. How about a hot buttered rum?”
“That’ll work,” I replied. I wasn’t a fan of rum, but something warm sounded good, and butter is never the wrong choice. “Were you working last night, by chance?”
“Every night except Monday and Tuesday,” he replied, pouring some rum and a dollop of butter into a coffee mug.
I pulled out my phone and scrolled through the photos till I found a good one of Taylor. “Do you remember seeing this guy last night?”
He finished making my drink and placed the steaming cup on the counter. I wrapped my cold hands around it, the warmth tingling through my hands and making me tingle a little bit. I took a sip. It was perfect. The rum and the hot water warmed me up from the inside as he looked at my phone, and the butter made the rum somehow taste richer and sweeter.
He frowned. “I’ve seen him around, yes. But I—” He gave me a wish-I-could-help-but look. “I work five nights a week, people look familiar. I couldn’t swear to it he was here last night. You care if I ask Leonard and Sam?” He gestured over his shoulder to the two older guys sitting at the other side of the bar.
“By all means.” I took another sip. It was warming me up, and the glow was starting to spread down my arms and legs. I’d have to get some rum for the house and learn how to make these, I thought. Who knew hot buttered rum was the perfect antidote for being cold?
The bartender carried my phone over to the other men, and I could barely hear what he asked them. One of the men looked over the top of his glasses at my phone and then looked around the bartender at me. “Your young man was here last night,” he called over to me. “I saw him. But he wasn’t alone.”
I picked up my mug and walked around the bar. I took my phone from the bartender and slipped it back into my pocket. “So, you saw him?”
He nodded, nudging the other man with his elbow. “Right, Sam? This is that tall kid you thought was so cute.” He gave me a look. “Better looking than most of the guys dancing last night.”
Sam tilted his head back and looked at my phone, squinting. “Yeah, that’s the kid who was with that television asshole. The Grande Dames guy.” He snorted. “Never liked that guy on television, either. And he drugged that boy, if you ask me.”
That got my attention. “What do you mean? Did you see him do something?”
“And what’s it to you, anyway?” Sam asked me, a suspicious look on his face. “What business is it of yours?”
There were several ways I could play this: I could whip out one of my business cards and present this as a case I was investigating—which was true. Or I could play the concerned uncle card, which was also true.
Or I could do both.
I exhaled. “The tall kid is my nephew.” I pulled out my wallet and slapped one of my business cards down on the bar, along with a ten for my hot buttered rum. “He was out with this Eric Brewer last night, and the last thing he remembers is being here. He swears he wasn’t drinking, but he doesn’t remember anything after getting here.” I shrugged. “It sounds to me like this Eric Brewer dude might have slipped him something.”
Leonard snapped his fingers. “Eric Brewer. That’s his name. Yeah, they were here last night. Remember, Marty?” he said to the bartender, who was putting my change down on the bar along with a receipt. “Brewer was making a big deal out of being a TV star, tipping the dancers with fives and tens, buying people drinks.” He turned back to me. “Your nephew is right, he wasn’t drinking.”
“Only ordered water.” Marty the bartender nodded. “I remember now. He was here last night, with Mr. Big Shot. I didn’t know who the guy was, I don’t watch much television—I’m always here at night. But my barback last night, Felipe, knew him from TV.” Marty shook his head. “I didn’t pay much attention. But he was drinking Bombay Sapphire martinis. Extra olives, and dirty. He bitched because we didn’t have glasses.” He rolled his eyes.
“How long were they here?” I left a couple of ones on the bar as a tip.
“A couple of hours.” Leonard thought for a minute. “It was about two when they got here, I think. Yes, because I noticed them right after I looked at my watch. I only stay here until three,” he explained. “The dog needs to be let out around then, so I leave here and walk home. I was checking my watch to make sure I hadn’t stayed too long.”
“Every fifteen minutes.” Sam interrupted. “You could set a clock by it. After one thirty, every fifteen goddamned minutes he checks his watch instead of just setting his phone alarm.”
“Fuck off, Sam,” Leonard replied casually. “Anyway, they stood over there by the ATM machine,” he pointed to where the ATM sat, just inside the fire exit door, “and Mr. Big Shot, who wasn’t even five nine if you ask me, got them some drinks. He started getting the dancers to come over. I think he even got Rocky—was it Rocky, Sam? The lap dance?”
“Yup, Rocky was the one,” Sam agreed.
Please, please, tell me the lap dance was for Eric.
“The kid clearly didn’t want the lap dance.”
“I felt sorry for him, all right,” Sam went on. “He was so embarrassed. And then Mr. Big Shot got him another drink. It was after that the kid started acting funny, like he was wasted.” He clucked his tongue. “I thought it was funny he got drunk so fast. You can’t trust them television people.”
“I don’t understand why people do that kind of thing,” Leonard said. “Shoot, why drug someone when—no offense, Marty, pretend you don’t hear me—some of the dancer boys are more than happy to do you right if you’ve got some money?”
Marty started whistling and walked away, lifting up a panel in the bar to walk through and heading back to the stockroom with a bucket for ice.
“I thought for sure he was going to buy Rocky for the night when he got the lap dance,” Leonard sniffed, taking a sip of his drink. “I mean, I didn’t see him actually put anything into your nephew’s drink. All I know is he was back there getting a lap dance and Mr. Big Shot came back to the bar and ordered a couple of drinks, took them back there. And the next time I see him, Rocky’s back up on the bar and your nephew looked wasted, was weaving, Mr. Big Shot was holding him up, you know? If the kid wasn’t drinking, then what the hell else happened back there? He slipped him a Mickey, all right, or whatever it is they do nowadays.”
“This isn’t the 1950s, Leonard.” Sam snorted. “A Mickey. This isn’t a Frank Sinatra movie. He slipped him a roofie. And they left after that, right? He helped him out the front door, at almost three?”
“Almost three. I left about ten minutes or so later,” Leonard confirmed. “I didn’t see them on the street, either, but I wasn’t looking for them, either.”
“Thank you.” I got out my pen. “Do you mind if I get contact information from you?”
They both gaped at me. “Why?”
“I may need you to talk to the police, to confirm my nephew’s story.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Sam shook his head. “I don’t know about talking to the police. I mean, I didn’t really see anything.”
“Me, either.” Leonard chimed in.
I took a deep breath. “Look, you both seem like nice guys. My nephew? The one you saw last night? The guy he was with, Eric Brewer, well, he was murdered last night. My nephew was in the suite with him, but he was unconscious. He says he was drugged, wasn’t awake, didn’t know what was going on, doesn’t remember anything after he got here. I may need you two to back up his story.”
“I don’t know.” Sam looked down at his drink.
“Coward,” Leonard snapped. He took my business card and wrote his name and phone number on the back of it. “I’ll be happy to help your nephew. I can’t imagine how terrible it would be to be falsely accused”—he practically shouted the words at Sam—“and have no one believe you. How about you, Sam?”
Sam turned red but mumbled, “I’m not talking to the police.”
Leonard rolled his eyes. “I’m glad to help you, Scotty.” He gestured with his head at Sam, and whispered, “He had a bad experience with the cops. You leave him to me.”
“Thanks.” I gave him another one of my business cards. “You call me if you think of anything else.” I started to turn away, then gave him another one of my cards. “Can you give that to Rocky and ask him to call me? The more people we have who can confirm my nephew’s story, the better.”
“If he’s dancing tonight, you can count on me.” Leonard winked and dropped both cards into his shirt pocket. He looked at me again. “Didn’t you used to be a dancer?”
“Not here,” I replied, grabbing a plastic cup and pouring my cooling drink into it. “But yeah, I did.”
“You used to dance at the Pub!” Leonard smiled, delighted. He winked at me. “I never forget a pretty face.”
“Thank you.” I felt oddly flattered.
“You remember him, don’t you, Sam?” Leonard elbowed him again. “You used to have a thing for him, remember?”
I flushed, but Sam wouldn’t look up. “Thanks, guys.” I waved goodbye to Marty as he came out of the stockroom carrying the buckets of ice. I went out the front door and into the bitter, strong wind. I gulped down the rest of my drink and tossed the cup into a garbage can as I hurried down Toulouse Street to Royal, tucking my hands deep into my pockets. I crossed the zoo that was Bourbon Street on a Saturday night—which was a lot more crowded and happening than I would have thought, given how cold and wet it was, but people love to have a good time no matter the weather. I turned left onto Royal Street. The Royal Aquitaine was right there across the street, the enormous gray building looming in the darkness.
If only we hadn’t gone to that stupid party.
I hurried down Royal Street. Sure enough, when I reached my parents’ tobacco shop, the Devil’s Weed, all the windows in their apartment upstairs were ablaze with light. The hot buttered rum had worn off and I was cold.
I wanted to see Taylor, just to make sure he was okay.
My phone vibrated as I made it to the iron gate to the back staircase. I checked it as I fumbled with my keys. The text was from Serena: Darling, I just heard about darling Taylor. Such nonsense! That boy wouldn’t hurt a fly. Can you make it to brunch tomorrow? I may be able to help.
Any port in a storm, I thought, unlocking the gate and stepping inside, slamming it shut behind me. Being out of the wind was a lot better, but it was still cold. I pulled off a glove and typed, Any help would be greatly appreciated, What time?
One? came back almost instantly.
Perfect, see you then.
I dropped my phone back into my pocket and climbed the steps to the kitchen door. I didn’t bother knocking. I unlocked it and stepped into the warmth. “Mom? Dad?” I called. There was jazz music coming from the living room, and the thick green smell of burning marijuana. I walked across the kitchen. Mom was taking a big hit off an enormous glass dragon bong, and Dad was sitting in an easy chair. He smiled at me. “Come in, son!” he beckoned. “Have a hit.”
Mom expelled an enormous cloud of smoke. It never ceased to amaze me how a woman in her early seventies could inhale so much smoke. She held out the bong to me. I took off my jacket, gloves, and hat before taking it from her and sitting down in the empty easy chair. “Where’s Taylor?”
“He got up for a while but went back to sleep,” Mom said as I took a big hit of my own off the dragon. The bong was enormous and required a lot of lung power to suck up enough smoke to get a hit. I thought my lungs were going to explode before I could feel the smoke settling into my lungs. I put the bong down, held it for a moment, and let it go.
Almost instant relaxation. Mom and Dad always have the best weed.
“How’s he doing?” My voice sounded raspy, and I started coughing. Mom handed me a bottle of water.
“As well as can be expected,” Dad said. He shook his head. “As much as I’ve seen, I am still shocked by the evil that people are capable of. How’s Frank handling everything?”
I was tempted to tell them everything—but couldn’t. I couldn’t place the burden of what Colin had done—what Frank and I were in the process of covering up—on them. No sense making the situation worse.
“As well as can be expected.” I waved off the bong when Dad offered it to me again. “No thanks, I’m good. I shouldn’t even be here. But I found some guys at the Brass Rail who can back up Taylor’s story—they saw them arrive and Taylor was fine. The bartender only served Taylor water, but somehow he was wasted and barely able to stand on his own when they left.”
“It’s like that show is cursed,” Mom said. “Both that bastard rapist producer and Chloe Valence murdered on the same night.” She shook her head. She hated the shows, talked all the time about how much they demeaned women and dehumanized the cast—but she never missed a minute of any of them, had an opinion on every feud, and followed some of her favorites on social media. “That’s got to be a nightmare for the network. I wonder what they’ll do about the show.”
“Well, obviously Eric can’t host the reunion show, that’s for sure.”
“I like that lawyer Storm got for Taylor, that Loren McKeithen,” Mom went on. “I’ve met him before at fundraisers. He’s a shark, and that’s what we need. The police aren’t going to hang this on our Taylor.”
I grinned at her. I was pleasantly stoned, and I was feeling the glow from the hot buttered rum. I got to my feet. “Well, tell him I stopped by and I love him. He wasn’t upset we had him stay here?”
“He wasn’t upset—I told you, the boy needs a mom right now.” Mom was putting a couple of buds into a baggie for me. “Here, take this. This is better than the stuff we got you last week.” She kissed me on the cheek. “You tell Frank there’s nothing to worry about. We’ve got you all covered.”
As I went out the back door, I thanked the Goddess again for my family.
I was the luckiest gay man alive.