DAVID AWAKES EARLY the next morning, well before six. He didn’t think to close the blinds in his room when he finally went to bed last night, and the eastern sun now skims across the water and through the window, reflected in the dresser mirror, targeting his bed. It hurts to open his eyes.
His nipples are sore. His face is sore, abraded by the night-stubble of another man’s beard. And his penis is sore. But these are minor agonies, the price of an evening’s pleasure, a bargain by any measure.
He lies in the bedroom at the far end of the cabin, alone. He and Manning shared every known intimacy (and invented a few new ones) in front of the fire last night. With their repertoire exhausted, it was finally time to sleep, and each took to his own bed. Half awake now, blinded by daylight, he kicks the covers off the bed and feels his genitals. His morning erection invites attention, and the escapades of a few hours ago are still fresh enough in his mind to fuel some steamy jack-off fantasies. So he gives it a shot—but quickly concludes that his efforts will get him nowhere. There’s simply nothing left for now.
Lacking sufficient energy to get out of bed and close the blinds, he rolls over, shading his face with an arm. There’s time for more sleep, but it’s so quiet up here—no traffic, no car alarms, no garbage trucks, nothing. Well, birds, sure. A hungry duck. God, that’s annoying. And what’s that other sound? Movement in the cabin, beyond the living room. Mark. Was that the door? Someone is being careful to be quiet, but David has definitely heard the sound of the screen door.
He puts on his glasses, gets out of bed, finds his workout shorts, steps into them, and pads out of the bedroom to explore. There’s a light on in the bathroom, as if Manning was in there earlier, while it was still dark. The living room is much as they left it last night—no particular disarray, just a couple of empty glasses. The spent embers of the fire smolder like a tired cliché, a tangible metaphor, there in the grate.
David pokes his head through the doorway into Manning’s bedroom and finds that he’s already up and packed, bed made—what a neatnik. But Manning isn’t in the room. The outside door is open, so David crosses to it, folding his arms over his chest to shield his cold-sensitive nipples from the damp morning air. Through the screen, he sees Manning with a terry cloth towel, wiping one of the car windows, wet with dew. He’s scrubbing intently, frowning. “Hey there,” says David, speaking in a stage whisper that seems appropriate to the early hour.
Manning looks up. “Hey there, yourself.” He smiles. “Sorry if I woke you.”
“No, of course not.” Awkward pause. David asks, “Why the big rush?”
“No rush.” Towel in hand, Manning comes to the door and steps inside. “I had trouble sleeping. Thought I’d better make myself useful.” He sets the towel on a dresser and unzips his jacket. Seeing that David is shivering, he closes the door. “By the way”—he gives David a hug, not a kiss, nothing intimate—“good morning.”
David holds on to Manning a moment longer than Manning intended. “Yeah. Good morning.” He pecks the side of Manning’s face.
“Let’s talk, David.”
“Sure.” David sits on the edge of the bed, hands folded in his lap.
Manning paces once in front of him, turns to address him, but does not look him in the eye. Predictably but uncertainly, Manning begins, “About last night …”
“Mark,” David interrupts, “let me make this easier for you. I know you’re committed to Neil. I don’t want to wreck what you’ve got, and even if I did want to, I doubt if I could. I understand that you have qualms about what happened, and because you do, I do. But I’ve got to tell you—it was prime.” He grins up at Manning, his boyish features flushed with the morning-after glow of a sated libido. He really is a sight, sitting there on the bed, twiddling his toes. It’s enough to lure anyone into a quick romp.
Manning isn’t blind, and he’s only human. His knees go weak at the very thought of what he could have—right now, again—if he gave the slightest hint of interest. His guilt, after all, is already complete. They have plenty of time. Another hour’s ecstasy may prove anticlimactic, but it won’t make his soul any blacker, and he’ll get no gold stars for refraining. He need only extend a finger to touch that little silver barbell, and David will be ready for action. They may never have this opportunity again.
But even as Manning weighs these possibilities, he knows there’s a flaw to his premise. The cold truth—the summation of the issue that robbed his sleep—is that he feels little if any guilt about last night. What troubles him most this morning is the feeling that he should feel guilty, plus the knowledge that Neil will never be able to appreciate the incident so analytically, if he finds out about it, and Manning is further vexed by the question of how much, if anything, he should tell Neil.
He knows, as surely as he breathes, that he was powerless to ignore the unexpected stimulus that confronted him last night. He was sapped of his will. Not that he was morally weak or lacked integrity, but rather, he simply could not fail to react as he did. Any jury of twelve reasonable peers would surely conclude that he must be held blameless, not guilty.
This morning’s situation, though, is another matter. By virtue of last night’s experience, he now knows exactly what erotic power David holds over him. Last night was something like temporary insanity, but that’s a defense that cannot be invoked twice. Opening himself to future sex with the kid would brand Manning with the blackest, lowest stripe of guilt. Even so …
He tells David, “You’re right. Last night was indeed ‘prime’—I’d be a liar to tell you otherwise. But it can never happen again, David. It will never happen again. Do you understand that?”
“I understand.” He sighs. “I don’t like it, but I understand.”
Confident that they’re in sync, Manning sits next to David on the bed, telling him, “I hope this won’t affect our relationship—at work, I mean. You’ve been doing a great job for the Journal, and during the past week, I’ve truly grown fond of you, getting to know each other as we have.”
David’s grin almost erupts into laughter.
“I mean,” Manning clarifies, “I’ve grown fond of you as a friend. Neil has, too. I hope we can continue to see each other socially, the three of us.”
“I wish Neil had been here last night,” says David.
“So do I. Then nothing would have happened, and we wouldn’t be in the midst of an awkward conversation this morning.”
“Like hell.” David is wide-eyed. He rests his arm across Manning’s shoulder. “Neil could have joined us. Talk about rad!” He isn’t joking.
Manning offers no comment.
“Hey,” David continues, dropping his arm, drawing one knee onto the bed so he can face Manning, “why not? I don’t want to come between you guys, but in the literal sense …” He trails off suggestively.
David has painted a vivid picture, and Manning’s mind sketches at least a dozen variations of the contorted scene. Might David’s suggestion be something that Neil would actually buy into? Manning knows that it would signal a subtle but deep shift in their relationship. What would it mean? As a couple, would they be stronger or weaker as the result of it? He tells David, “It’s an intriguing notion, but not yet. I don’t know if I’m ready for that, or ever will be.”
“Squaresville.”
Rising from the bed, Manning shrugs with a smile. “I’m old.”
“Sure, Gramps.” David also rises, plants his hands on his hips, and eyes Manning up and down. “All I know is, this kid got the workout of his life last night.”
Really? Well. Manning decides that if he doesn’t switch topics, this conversation will get him into trouble. He suggests, “Why don’t you start putting yourself together? I’ve got some fussing to do with the car, then we can tackle a major breakfast before we leave.”
That sounds just fine to David. Nodding, he starts to leave the room, but stops in the doorway to the living room, facing Manning. He leans against the jamb, nipple ornaments glistening. Big smile. “Seriously, Mark. It was incredible last night.” And he turns, leaving the room.
Manning stands there mulling all that has happened, uncertain how or when to broach it with Neil, then he shakes his head, dismissing these thoughts for now. He grabs the damp towel that he dropped onto the dresser and picks up another, a dry one. Zipping up his jacket, he opens the door and steps outside.
Though it did not rain overnight, everything is wet with dew, including the car. Parked beneath the drooping branches of pines, its black paint appears beaded and frosty, littered with needles and flecks of stuff dropped from the trees. After yesterday’s long drive, Manning wanted to get the car washed, but he and David haven’t left the resort since their arrival, and now it’s almost time to return. Since the car is normally garaged overnight, Manning was unprepared for the sight that awaited him this morning. At first disheartened (he can’t stand the idea of setting out for a long drive in a dirty car), he then resolved to take advantage of the situation. Since the car is thoroughly wet, he can at least wipe it down, hoping to swab away yesterday’s road film as well as the overnight detritus from the trees—sort of a sponge bath. It’s worth a try, Manning tells himself, making a mental note that he should always store paper towels and some glass cleaner in the trunk.
He starts with the hood, the most crucial target of his efforts. He picks away needles one by one, then sets to work with the bathroom towels, the damp one followed by the dry one. Swirling the second towel, hoping to buff up a shine, Manning soon learns that while he can dry the car, he cannot clean it. It was peppered with droplets of sap, invisible beneath the dew, but now smeared by the towel, causing a random pattern of ugly swipes to appear on the paint. He cannot simply whisk away the grime—hot water, sudsy with detergent, is needed to cleanse it.
Giving up on the hood, he works his way to the side panels. And then he notices it. A stone, possibly an errant chunk of gravel that had spilled from a driveway to the road, has dinged the front passenger’s door. There’s a dimple in the metal and, at its center, the period-size crater of a missing chip of paint.
The sturdy sedan, which was perfect, in which Manning had invested his pride as well as his cash, has been tainted. Though the damage is slight—indeed, this loss of automotive innocence was inevitable—it must be patched, quickly and thoroughly, lest it spread, corroding the car to its very frame.
Manning rubs the pitted, exposed metal with his fingertip, nursing the wound with a dab of spit.
Only a few minutes later, on the top floor of the Journal Building, Lucille Haring boots up her computer terminal in Nathan Cain’s unlit outer offices.
When she arrived, she caught the security guard dozing at his post and told him she’d seen men shot for less. She was joking, but never cracked a smile, and the guard fumbled with his key to admit her. While passing through the door, she asked, “Did the Colonel spend the night in his quarters?”
“No, ma’am. He left the tower before midnight.”
Good. She gave the guard a curt nod, shut the door behind her, and marched straight through the labyrinth of quiet rooms to her desk.
It will still be nearly two hours before the rest of the staff arrives, but she needs all the time she can get—there’s work to be done.
Her computer clicks and whirs, displaying cryptic start-up messages on its monitor. It pauses now and then for passwords, like a dog begging for scraps of breakfast. When she enters the codes, the machine churns onward, gobbling the information from her fingertips. While waiting for this electronic feeding-frenzy to digest itself, she sits erect in her chair, drumming the desk. Shafts of orange morning light angle in through the room’s windows, partly obscured by the hulking cabinetry that houses yet another phase of the office’s newly installed computer power.
At last the desired prompt appears on the screen. What is her command? Though she knows she is alone, she instinctively checks over both shoulders before proceeding. She unbuttons the breast pocket of her pleated jacket and fishes out a little key, which she uses to unlock the file drawer of her desk. From the drawer she removes an unlabeled folder and spreads it open on the desk. Inside is a stiff cardboard envelope. And inside that is an unlabeled diskette. She slides the disk into her A-drive, types a command, and hits the “enter” key.
As the computer begins to churn, Lucille Haring holds her breath. Outside the window, an unmanned scaffold winches into view, hauling more equipment roofward. Then a message appears on the computer screen: “Welcome, Mr. Cain.”
Lucille Haring smiles—she’s in.
By midafternoon, Manning is seated back at his desk in the Journal’s city room. He’s been away only a day and a half, but there’s a pile of pink slips by his phone and enough voice mail to crash the system. He’s barely made a dent in all this when Daryl waltzes into the cubicle with another fistful of messages. “My my, gorgeous,” he coos, “aren’t we casual today? Tennis, anyone?”
Manning didn’t think to pack his office “uniform” for the trip to Door County, and he didn’t want to take time to stop at home and change while driving back into the city. He wears a white camp shirt, chinos, and topsiders. He tells Daryl, “Not that it’s any of your business, but I was on an overnight assignment.”
“Where?”
Manning grabs the sheaf of pink slips. “Wisconsin.” He tries to organize the mess of notes, diskettes, files, and morgue folders that clutter his desk.
“Huh?”
“For Christ’s sake, Daryl, it’s a state. North of here.” He looks up from the rubble. “They make cheese.”
“Oops.” Daryl flashes the whites of his eyes. “Sounds like bwana got up on wrong side of the bed this morning.”
Manning exhales. He swivels his chair to face the copyboy. “Sorry, Daryl. As a matter of fact, I didn’t sleep well. The Nolan and Zarnik stories are getting more convoluted, raising lots of new questions, but no answers. What’s more …” He hesitates, then stops. He was going to mention his car’s door-ding, but that would sound absurdly trivial. “Never mind. This hasn’t been my best day.”
Daryl knows that Manning is investigating Zarnik’s identity; the reporter confided that much of the mystery to him on Monday and asked him to do some research in the Journal’s morgue. Responding now to Manning’s despondency, Daryl moves behind the chair and places both hands on Manning’s shoulders. His tone is instantly soothing. “There there, sugar. You just keep digging. Keep your eye on the coveted Brass Bird.”
“Thanks.” Manning reaches up to pat one of Daryl’s hands. “Sorry to say, the Partridge committee would be singularly unimpressed with this investigation.”
Daryl steps in front of Manning and parks on the edge of the desk. “What have you got so far?”
Manning has other things to do right now, but a summary might help focus his thoughts. He tells Daryl, “Zarnik is a fraud, but who is he, and why? I’ve learned that he’s probably a professional actor and that he may have some connection with the Christian Family Crusade, but there’s nothing to suggest a motive for his claimed astronomical discovery, which is bunk. The Pentagon has expressed interest in his research methods, which are nonexistent, fearing that the time lag between his announced discovery and its independent verification may open a ‘window of opportunity’ for something menacing, but what?”
“I see what you mean, love—plenty of questions, damn few answers.”
“Not yet, at least. What really intrigues me, though, is the possible link between Zarnik’s ruse and Cliff Nolan’s murder. I couldn’t help sensing a connection from the very moment when I discovered Cliff’s body. His laptop computer was missing, and it has never been found. He was working on a story when he was shot, and I have every reason to believe that it would have exposed Zarnik as a fraud. The woman next-door to Cliff said that he was playing loud music on the night he was killed, and in fact, when I found his body two nights later, the stereo system was still humming loudly, cranked to the max. I wondered what music was playing when Cliff was killed, and I just got an answer.” Manning plucks one of the message slips from his desk.
Daryl leans forward, but can’t read it.
Manning tells him, “Jim, my detective friend at headquarters, left word that the last CD played on Cliff’s stereo had no fingerprints on it. It was a recording of the Verdi Requiem. I should have guessed.”
Daryl’s mouth hangs agape as he ponders this revelation. “Sorry,” he says after a moment, “I don’t follow you at all. What was playing?”
Manning repeats, “The Verdi Requiem—the traditional Catholic Mass for the Dead, as set to music by Giuseppe Verdi. He was a nineteenth-century composer of grand opera and other large-scale works. The Requiem is one of his most enduring and ‘popular’ pieces, probably the most bombastic. It’s a very long setting of the Mass, requiring a huge orchestra and chorus. The point is, I don’t know anyone who sits down and actually listens to the whole thing. The part that everyone likes is the “Dies Irae” section, near the beginning. It opens with four explosive bursts of sound, depicting the wrath of doomsday. Played loudly enough, those blasts could easily mask four gunshots. Cliff had four bullets in his back.”
“Okay …” says Daryl. Having never heard the music, he’ll have to take Manning at his word. “But there were no fingerprints on the disc.”
“Exactly. CDs are fingerprint magnets. That disc should have been covered with prints—Cliff’s prints. The fact that there were none at all means that the disc was almost certainly handled, cleaned, and played by the killer, not by Cliff.”
Daryl nods. “And that brings us back to the central question: Who killed Cliff Nolan?”
Manning inches his chair closer to Daryl, who leans forward to listen. With lowered voice, Manning tells him, “I now have five possible suspects. First, there’s the actor who is posing as Zarnik. His obvious motive for murder would be to avoid exposure as a fraud by Cliff, but why the whole ruse in the first place?
“Second, there’s Lucille Haring, who works up in Nathan Cain’s office, on loan from the Pentagon. She’s a computer wiz, with access to drafts of reporters’ stories, even as they’re being written. The Pentagon may have some involvement in the Zarnik scam, and Haring would have known that Cliff was ready to blow the whistle. What’s more, she’s a lesbian, and Cliff had threatened to expose her to the military brass, which would be the end of her career—so she was plenty motivated.”
Daryl asks the obvious question: “Have you talked to her?”
“I’ve been trying,” Manning assures him, “but we can’t seem to connect. I got another voice-mail message from her today—she can’t meet tonight or tomorrow night because she’s ‘terribly busy with an important project.’ It sounds like a runaround, and I should probably just confront her upstairs in her office during the day, but I don’t want Nathan Cain to get wind of this till I have some firm evidence.”
“A wise precaution,” Daryl agrees. “Who else?”
“Third on my list is Carl Creighton, a prominent local attorney who was possibly being extorted by Cliff. He apparently has some connection with both Zarnik and the Christian Family Crusade—but what’s their role in all this?
“Fourth is Dora Lee Fields, Cliff’s next-door neighbor, a real character. She’s an Elvis impersonator, a CFC member, and a pistol-packing redneck who threatened to kill Cliff for some peace and quiet—she couldn’t stand his loud music, and it was loudest on the night he died. She may be trying to divert suspicion from herself, but she told me that Cliff had a visitor that night, a tall man with a limp.
“And that brings us to suspect number five, Victor Uttley, Chicago’s cultural liaison to the world. He was at Saturday’s party—that tall, effeminate number with a limp from a recent Rollerblading mishap. He’s the one responsible for all those expensive ads that have been running this week, congratulating Zarnik. So he has an interest in Zarnik’s discovery, which we know to be a sham. What’s more, he’s well connected in the theater world, and we’re reasonably sure that ‘Zarnik’ is an actor. That might be an important connection, which is why I asked you to do some research on Victor Uttley.”
Manning glides his chair back a few inches, dropping his arms to his sides. “And that, I’m afraid, is all I’ve got.”
Daryl taps one of the manila folders on Manning’s desk. “You’ve got a morgue file on Uttley. I dug out everything I could, but there wasn’t much—a couple of tepid acting reviews, a metro story about his appointment to the mayor’s office, a few mug shots from his agency.”
As Manning thumbs through the folder, Daryl adds, “You’ve also got a shitload of messages from him. He’s antsy to talk to you. In fact”—Daryl plucks one of the slips and dangles it in front of Manning’s face—“he’ll be stopping by the office this afternoon, right about now, hoping to catch you.”
Daryl has barely finished his sentence when David Bosch pops into the cubicle. “Hey, Mark.” He’s winded and grinning. “Guess who’s out front.”
Daryl picks lint from his sleeve, showing no interest in David’s news. At the same time, he notes with great interest that David’s casual attire is virtually identical to Manning’s.
“Okay,” Manning tells David, “I’ll bite. Who’s out front?”
“Victor Uttley! I happened to hear him tell the receptionist that you were expecting him, so I said I’d run back to get you.”
“Damn, what a coincidence,” says Manning, straight-faced.
This prompts a chortle from Daryl, who’s busy admiring the contour of David’s firm buttocks. When David notices the direction of Daryl’s gaze, Daryl looks up to tell him, “Nice pants.”
“Oh. Thanks.” Then David tells Manning, “So … grab your notebook.”
Obediently Manning rises, picking up his notes, his calendar, and his Montblanc. Noticing that Daryl’s gaze has returned to David’s pants, he says without inflection, “Stop that.”
Oblivious to the subtopic, David asks Manning, “Mind if I tag along?”
“I insist,” Manning tells him, clapping an arm over his shoulder. “After all, you’re part of the team.” And they start off down the aisle together, affording Daryl a nice view of both backsides.
Daryl calls after them, “Oh, David?”
He turns. “Yeah?”
“How was Wisconsin?”
“Sweet, man.”
Uh-huh. Daryl smiles, rises, and strolls off in the opposite direction toward the heart of the newsroom, where he’s late for switchboard duty.
Manning and David escort Victor Uttley into one of the little conference rooms that surround the reception area outside the editorial offices. It’s a stark closet of a room with white, undecorated walls, badly scuffed by chairs on casters, clumped around a center table.
“Have a seat and get comfortable,” Manning tells Uttley, adding, “or at least try to.” Manning shrugs an apology for the tight quarters, shuts the door, then joins David and their guest around the table.
Uttley winces as he sits, trying to find a comfortable space for his lame leg. “Thank you, Mark,” he says, “for seeing me without an appointment.” His lanky frame and long features appear drawn and emaciated in this sterile environment, which is too brightly lit, seemingly from nowhere.
Manning replies, “Sorry I’ve been so hard to reach. David and I have been working on a story that took us out of town. Have you met, by the way?”
They mention having seen each other at Saturday’s party, shaking hands to make it official. As they reach across the table, their chairs shift position, banging the walls.
“So, Victor,” Manning continues, flipping open his pad, “what is it that you’ve needed to see me about?”
Uttley hesitates. Through a skittish laugh, he says, “Actually, I understand from Neil that you’ve been wanting to see me.” He pulls one of his skinny cigarettes from an inside jacket pocket and lights it, not bothering with the holder, not bothering to ask if anyone minds.
“Come on, Victor. You’re first. What’s this about? I spotted you downstairs in the lobby Monday morning.”
He sucks his first drag, then blows the smoke sideways, over a shoulder. “I wondered if you’d seen the ads we ran—from the mayor’s office—congratulating Professor Zarnik.”
Manning snorts. “They were hard to miss. And while the Journal appreciates the revenue, I must admit that the ads baffled me. From the mayor’s perspective, what’s the point—to pump up the prestige of the city?”
“Precisely!” says Uttley, suddenly energized, fluttering both hands. “A city’s self-perception is a tenuous, gossamer thing.” The orange dot of his cigarette traces circles in the air. “We owe it to the citizens of Chicago to seize any opportunity to remind them that they inhabit a miraculous urban playground of culture and science.”
David stifles a laugh. Catching a glance from Uttley, he pretends to cough, shooing smoke with his hands.
Uttley looks about for an ashtray, but there is none, only a lipstick-stained Styrofoam cup left on the table from a previous meeting. There’s an inch of coffee in it, to which Uttley adds his cigarette, extinguishing it with a hiss.
“Thank you,” David mumbles through another feigned cough.
“Anyway,” Uttley continues, “I just wanted to make sure you had seen the ads. Plus, the mayor asked me to convey his personal thanks to you for breaking the story and helping to spread the city’s good name.” He smiles.
“Do express my gratitude to the mayor,” says Manning, aping the smile. This doesn’t make sense, though. Uttley could have simply phoned the message, or sent a card, maybe a plant. Why all this skulking-about, this urgent face-to-face meeting? Uttley’s behavior has been more typical of an informant’s, a “source” who’s about to impart a hot tip. But this is nothing. Manning tells him, “I was only doing my job.”
“Your humility,” says Uttley, “is a credit to your profession.”
Oh brother. “I was wondering, Victor, if perhaps the mayor’s office could be of assistance in facilitating some background research for another story I have planned—it has nothing to do with Zarnik.”
“We’ll be happy to try. Is this the matter that Neil mentioned on the phone yesterday, the laser show?”
David looks to Manning with a quizzical blink, having never heard of this story.
“That’s right,” Manning tells Uttley. Then he explains to David, “At the end of Saturday night’s human-rights rally, some new laser technology will be used to display a huge pink triangle over the stadium; special projectors are being installed on top of the Journal Building and two other towers. The sky show will continue every night for a year, throughout the run of Celebration Two Thousand. Nothing has been published yet about Saturday’s finale—it’s being kept as a surprise. But once people get a look at it, there’s bound to be widespread interest in how it works. So …” Manning turns to Uttley. “I’d like to arrange access to one or more of the projection sites to get a firsthand look at the equipment.” He opens his datebook. It is Wednesday—the week is half gone already. “I’d like to do some snooping by Friday. Any later, it’s anyone’s story.”
Uttley tells Manning, “One of the projectors is on top of this building. Why don’t you just hop on an elevator and take a look?”
David looks from Uttley to Manning—it’s a logical suggestion.
Manning tells them, “Let’s just say I have my reasons. Can you help me?”
“Probably. I’ll let you know by tomorrow. We’ll shoot for Friday.”
“I appreciate it, Victor.” Manning makes a note in his calendar and closes it. While capping his pen, he thinks of something. Uncapping the pen again, he flips open his steno pad. Adopting a chatty, conversational tone, he says to Uttley, “Even without the laser spectacle, it sounds as if the opening ceremonies on Saturday should be sensational. Neil tells me you’ve had a hand in the planning, Victor.”
He puffs with pride. “That’s putting it mildly. The mayor’s office is keenly aware that Saturday’s program will affect the world’s perception of this city for years to come. Planning is crucial, of course, and I’ve tried to keep an eye on the committees.”
“I’ve always been something of a music buff, so I’m especially interested in that aspect of the festival. I understand there’s a possible glitch in lining up the Three Tenors.” He pauses, deciding to gamble, then asks, “Is it true that Paganini may cancel?”—naming not a reigning tenor, but a long-dead violinist.
“That’s just a rumor,” Uttley assures him. “All systems are go—he’ll be here.”
“Oh, good,” says Manning, adding with wry understatement, “I wouldn’t want to miss that.” He jots a brief note, telling himself, This guy wouldn’t know Bach from Bruckner. If he could mistake Paganini for Pavarotti, he surely lacks sufficient musical knowledge to synchronize four gunshots to the “Dies Irae” of Verdi’s Requiem. Victor Uttley did not kill Cliff Nolan. As suspected, Dora Lee Fields may have invented the man with a limp.
Manning closes his notes and pockets his pen. The meeting, it seems, is finished.
Victor rises from his seat, extending his hand. “I’m glad we finally connected. If there’s anything else—”
“Actually,” Manning interrupts, “there is one other bit of unrelated business I wanted to discuss with you.”
“Oh?” Victor settles into his chair again, scraping the wall.
“You’re an actor,” says Manning. “Correct?”
“I was, yes, but my new position leaves no time for such pursuits.”
“Of course,” Manning tells him, “but I understand that prior to your cultural-liaison days, you were building a promising career within the professional theater here.” That’s a stretch, Manning knows, but he’s trying to ingratiate himself.
And it works. “The critics seemed impressed,” says Uttley. “I was starting to get consistently favorable press. But … civic duty called.”
“Might one say, then, that given your background, coupled with your new position, you’re thoroughly ‘connected’ to the theater scene in Chicago?”
“Oh my, yes.” Victor squares his shoulders. “And beyond.”
Manning again flips open his notes. “Excellent. The reason I ask is that I may have use for a contact within the theater world. I’m sniffing out a future story that could turn into something of an exposé. It involves a prominent figure—a local woman who’s been getting some publicity recently—who I have reason to believe may be an impostor, a professional actress. If that’s the case, do you think you’d be able to help me identify her?”
Uttley leans forward on his elbows, beads Manning with a stare, and lowers his voice. “If she’s ever worked in the Midwest, I probably know her.”
“When I’m ready to get the investigation rolling, can I enlist your help?”
Uttley leans closer. “My hard-earned background deserves compensation.”
Manning leans back easily in his chair. He doesn’t bother to hush his words. This is business. “I can’t authorize that, but my editor can. I’ll speak to him. This could be an important story, and we need a source.” Manning closes his notebook.
“He wanted money?” asks Neil that evening, seated at the center island of the kitchen. He and Manning have arrived home within minutes of each other.
“Most informants do,” says Manning, pouring vodka over ice. “The difference is, most aren’t so brazen.”
“Why did you tell him the impostor is a woman?”
“Uttley’s weird. Something told me not to tip him that I suspect Zarnik. It’s a detail he doesn’t need to know yet. Even though I no longer suspect him of Cliff Nolan’s murder, I haven’t ruled out the possibility that Uttley could be involved in the Zarnik ruse. He’s demonstrated a conspicuous self-interest in Zarnik’s discovery, fake or genuine, by running those ads.”
“Tantalizing idea,” says Neil. “But frankly, I don’t think Victor’s that clever.”
Manning laughs. “Neither do I.” Garnishing the two glasses with orange peel, he hands one to Neil.
Rising for a toast, Neil tells him, “Welcome home, Mr. Manning. It’s been a long thirty-six hours—and yes, I counted every one of them.”
Before drinking, they take a moment for a leisurely kiss. Their embrace is made clumsy by the cocktails in their hands, but it’s good to be back in each other’s arms, and neither one flinches at the few drops of alcohol spattered down their backs.
Holding tight, Manning is secure in the innocence of his attraction to David—it could never possibly threaten his bond with Neil. Their identity as a couple is rooted far below the fertile topsoil of sex, deep in the spiritual substrata where their intellects, their shared past, and their planned future are nurtured. By any reasonable measure of commitment, they are “married.” And yet, Manning knows that he cannot simply dismiss last night’s transgression as an inconsequential slip. The marriage—Manning’s sense of their marriage—has been damaged. It’s up to me, Manning tells himself, to focus and to fix it. And Neil doesn’t even have a clue.
“What’s wrong?” says Neil, sensing an unexpected intensity, something almost desperate, in Manning’s hug.
Manning holds him at arm’s length. “I missed you. Being apart isn’t good for us.”
“I’ll drink to that.” And Neil does so.
Manning also drinks. “How’s everything shaping up for this weekend?”
Neil considers before responding. He strolls to the main space of the loft, toward the sofa that looks out through the windows. Manning follows. Neil sits, telling him, “Now that you ask, I realize that the whole project is finally winding down for me. Sure, the next couple of days will be hectic, but come Saturday, my committee days will be over. I look forward to getting my life back—getting our life back.”
“You have no idea how good that sounds,” says Manning as he sits next to Neil, close, thigh to thigh, wrapping an arm around him. “I’m sorry things have been so … uncertain lately. I haven’t had much time for ‘us.’”
“No need to apologize,” Neil assures him, dropping a hand between Manning’s legs to squeeze his inner thigh. “We’ve both been busy. That’s life.”
Manning’s been busy, all right. “I’ve got an idea,” he says. “It’s Wednesday, ‘date night.’ May I have the pleasure of your company at dinner, Mr. Waite? How about that trendy new bistro everyone’s yapping about—what’s it called?”
“Bistro Zaza. But we’d never get in.”
Manning won’t be deterred. “I’ll call the office and have someone in Features phone for us. Ten-to-one they’ll think we’re food critics. You watch: We’ll get the best table in the house, and they won’t keep us waiting at the bar. But”—Manning raises a cautionary finger—“we’ll come home for ‘dessert.’”
“A thoroughly intriguing proposition,” says Neil, sliding his hand from Manning’s thigh to the crotch of his chinos. “But I’ve always been sort of a pig about dessert. Let’s have it now—and I’m not talkin’ tiramisu.”
Yow. “Should I call the office first?”
“Later, big boy.” In one deft move, Neil has set their drinks on the coffee table, knelt on the floor, and unbuckled Manning’s belt.
Manning laughs, getting into the spirit of Neil’s spontaneous foreplay, when the phone rings. “I don’t believe it,” he says. “Not again.”
Neil looks up with a good-natured frown, wondering aloud, “Is nothing sacred?” They stare at each other through another ring or two. Then Neil says, “It might be important.”
“That’s what has me worried.” But Manning can’t let it ring. There’s a phone on the console table behind the sofa—he lifts the receiver. “Yes?”
“Hello, Mark? It’s Roxanne.” By the sound of all the background noise, she must be calling from the convertible.
“Hi, Roxanne. What’s up?”
Neil, hearing this, gets playful again, unzipping Manning’s pants.
Roxanne asks, “What’s up, yourself?” Her manner is breezy, almost giddy. “You sound … funny.”
Dryly, Manning tells her, “Let’s just say you caught me at an awkward time.”
“Oh.” She is momentarily subdued. Then she hollers, “Hello, Neil!”
“Hi, Rox,” he shouts back, giving up on the project at hand.
Manning asks them both, “Shall I pass the phone?”
“No,” says Roxanne through a laugh, “I was calling you, Mark. About Carl.”
“How … is he?” asks Manning.
“Never better. In fact, he’s right here. We’re driving home. We’d like to take you two to dinner tomorrow night—it was his idea.”
Manning chooses his words carefully, thinking that Carl may be able to hear their conversation over the car’s speaker phone. “Is everything all right regarding yesterday’s meeting? You’re sounding rather lighthearted this evening.”
“Couldn’t be better. I was way off base, Mark. We can’t wait to tell you the news.”
“I’m listening,” Manning reminds her. “So tell me.”
“Unh-unh. Too important. Only at dinner.”
Manning covers the mouthpiece to ask Neil, “Dinner tomorrow okay? I need to have a talk with Carl anyway.” Neil nods. Manning says into the phone, “Fine, Roxanne. Where and when?”
“We were thinking, there’s this marvelous little bistro we haven’t tried. …”
“Zaza’s,” says Manning, “but you’ll never get in.”
“Nonsense,” she snorts. “The office can reserve for us—plenty of pull. How’s eight o’clock?”
“Sounds great. We’ll be there.”
“With bells on. ’Bye, kids.” And she’s gone.
Neil gets up from the floor and perches next to Manning, retrieving their drinks from the coffee table. “What was that all about?”
Manning zips his pants, takes his glass from Neil. “We’re double-dating at Zaza’s. Roxanne and Carl can’t wait to tell us ‘the news.’”
Neil nearly chokes, spitting an ice cube back into his glass. “What? Did she mention the m-word?”
“No”—Manning sips—“but she was ditzy as a schoolgirl.”
Neil flumps back into the sofa. “It just can’t be—Roxanne married?” He blinks. “Besides, I thought Carl skulked off to a meeting with the Christian Family Crusade. How would that lead to this?”
Manning swirls his ice. “Maybe they gave him a sermon on family values.”
“Smart-ass.” Neil leans forward, sets down his glass, and starts to unbutton Manning’s shirt. “Gee,” he says wistfully, not watching what he’s doing, “do you suppose they want us to stand up for them?”
“I doubt it.” Manning sets down his drink, watching Neil’s fingers work their way down his chest. “They probably want us for ring boy and flower girl.”
“If they do,” says Neil, pulling Manning’s shirttail free of his pants, “I get dibs on the ring.”
“Like hell you do.” Manning lunges at Neil, and they roll from the sofa to the floor, Neil on top. If they were really wrestling, Manning could doubtless pin Neil, but he doesn’t even try, submitting to Neil’s mastery, arms outstretched in defeat.
On his knees, Neil straddles Manning’s hips and fully parts the shirt, baring Manning’s chest, which heaves from the exertion of their brief struggle. Neil leans forward to kiss Manning’s chin, then trails his tongue down Manning’s neck to his chest, where Neil notices the nipples, hardened like purple pebbles. He sucks one of them into his mouth, clamping it with his teeth. Manning gasps, but doesn’t move, eyes closed to heighten a fantasy. Then Neil bolts upright, back on his knees.
“Hey,” he says, “I forgot. Did you ever get a look at David with his clothes off?”
Manning’s eyes are open now, and his panting stops abruptly. “Yeah,” he answers. “As a matter of fact, I did.”
“Well …?” says Neil, eager for details. “Is he really built?”
“Yes, he is,” Manning answers dryly, tempted but not daring to give a few more details. Overcoming a momentary pang of guilt, he nudges the memory of Door County from his head, telling Neil, “I thought you were ready for ‘dessert.’”
Neil pauses, grins. “I’ll get the whipped cream.”