THE CROWD by the pool seemed to have multiplied since they’d glanced at it coming in. Several heads turned their way when they came out onto the patio. Tom, as usual, got lots of admiring glances. Something about him was like catnip to gay boys. Stanley had ever to be vigilant.
A thin man of middle height stood up from a table in one corner—a power table, Stanley would have called it, and he guessed this was their host, Frederick.
He took in Frederick in quick snapshots as they came toward him—expensively layered salt-and-pepper hair, pale watery eyes, a mouth with almost no lips, and those undistorted by smiles. He wore a white Hermes shirt with a butter yellow ascot at his throat and white linen trousers that had obviously not come from Wal-Mart.
He watched them without expression as Chris led the way across the patio, weaving in and out among crowded tables, saying hi to a few of those they passed. It was typical of Chris, Stanley thought, that it had taken him no more than a day or two to get to know many of the regulars.
“Frederick,” Chris said, “these are the friends I told you about, Tom Danzel and Stanley Korski. This is Frederick, the manager.”
They shook hands all around. “Frederick Ralston,” Frederick said. “But you can call me Frederick. Everybody does.”
“Not Freddy?” Stanley asked.
Frederick gave him a chilly look. “Frederick,” he repeated firmly. “Please, won’t you sit down?”
Frederick asked if they wanted drinks, and when they did, summoned a waiter with the slightest flutter of his fingers. They made small talk while they waited for the drinks.
“Did you fly in?” Frederick asked.
“Drove down,” Tom said. “I’ve got some metal in my hip. Gets them all excited at the airports.”
“I had a friend who forgot about his Prince Albert,” Chris said.
“What’s a Prince Albert?” Tom asked.
“It’s a ring through the foreskin,” Stanley said. Tom winced.
“Talk about embarrassing,” Chris said. “Apparently the security help had never heard of one, so he had to show them. I’ll bet that made for a lot of excited conversation afterward.”
The drinks came—another Dos Equis for Tom, a pitcher of margaritas for the others, a Perrier for Frederick, however. “I’m working,” he said, toasting them with his glass.
“So, this guy, this Barry….” Tom came to the point. “Did he have a last name, incidentally?”
“Palmer. His name was Barry Palmer,” Frederick said.
“Okay, Barry Palmer. We hear he was here a lot of the time. Did he work for the motel?” Tom asked.
Frederick drew himself up with a haughty air. “Inn. We prefer to call ourselves an inn. You may have noticed our sign when you arrived. It’s about a block high, and it says in bright red letters, The Winter Beach Inn?”
“Okay, inn, then.” Tom was unimpressed by the show of grandeur. “And this Barry Palmer worked for your inn?”
Frederick frowned. “Well, not exactly,” he said in a somewhat hesitant voice.
“He was a guest, then,” Stanley suggested.
“Umm, not exactly a guest, no.” Frederick and Chris exchanged glances.
“So, what is not exactly a guest and not exactly an employee?” Stanley asked Chris. “You mean he just hung out at the bar?”
“Don’t look at me,” Chris said. “I’m not in that league.”
“What league is that?” Tom asked. Chris gave Frederick another look.
“He was… if you must know, we call them icing,” Frederick said. “Just among ourselves, you understand.”
“Icing?” Tom gave him a puzzled look.
“Yes. As in, the icing on the cake.”
“The cake being…?”
“This, obviously.” Frederick made an expansive gesture with his hands that took in the patio and the palm trees—and the swimming pool, with naked and mostly naked men clustered here and there, in the water and out, on beach towels and chaise lounges, and seated at the glass-topped tables with their lavender umbrellas shading them from the desert sun. “The Winter Beach Inn. The ambience. The over-the-top rooms, the enormous pool, the bar, the restaurant—it is one of the best restaurants in Palm Springs, if you’ll pardon my saying so.”
“One of the best I’ve eaten in anywhere,” Chris said with enthusiasm.
“Thank you. We try to be. It’s what our clients expect of us.” Frederick gave him a watery smile and turned his attention back to Stanley. “But when I refer to the ambience, I mean more than anything else, a matter of style. We’re not like other resorts. Even our rooms are created especially to charm our visitors.”
“We’re in the Joan Crawford suite,” Stanley said. “Those robes with the padded shoulders, the whole setup. It’s wonderful.”
“Of course it is.” Frederick took the compliment in stride, as if it were expected. “It’s meant to be wonderful. We know our clientele. We cater to their tastes. This is the place to stay now in Palm Springs, for gay men certainly. We have more requests for bookings than we could possibly accommodate. We turn people away every day. The Joan Crawford, by the way, is one of the most requested suites.”
“The closet is full of wire coat hangers,” Tom said.
The movement of Frederick’s lips might have been a rare smile, but carefully smothered. “Our little joke. By the time you return to your room, you’ll find that they have been replaced. I assure you, we want our guests to be happy. When we asked your friend here, he said he thought you’d be very pleased with the Joan Crawford suite. As a matter of fact, we moved someone else to accommodate you.”
“We are pleased. And we’re very appreciative too,” Stanley said. “I do know you’re fully booked.”
“Yes. But your friend recommended you highly. And I would like to see this whole unpleasant business dealt with as expeditiously as possible.”
“You’re not confident in Detective Hammond?” Tom asked. “Or the Palm Springs Police Department?”
Frederick gave him an oh-please look and pursed his lips as if he’d bitten into a particularly sour lemon.
“What exactly is it you’re expecting of us?” Tom asked.
“I should think that would be evident. We want you to resolve this unpleasantness. Find out who murdered this boy—if he was murdered. My impression was that he died from a snake bite.”
“He was murdered,” Tom said in a no-argument voice. “The snake bite was faked.”
“Well… that is doubly unpleasant,” Frederick said. “That being the case, then, I want you to find out who murdered him and bring this whole business to a close. Preferably keeping the Inn out of it.”
“I don’t see how that would be possible,” Tom said. “You are involved, like it or not. The body was found here, the victim was a regular. We can’t make the facts go away.”
“Perhaps not, but you can certainly minimize the damage to our reputation. And no, I don’t think the local police department would concern themselves on that score.”
“You have my word, we’ll get everything straightened out for you,” Stanley promised. “Have no fears.”
“I still want to know more about this icing business,” Tom said. “I’m not clear on that yet.”
Frederick gave him a scornful glance. “It’s surely not that mysterious a concept. Look, apart from being the best, we’re also one of the most expensive resorts in town. We charge more because we’re worth more. Which means we mostly get a pretty wealthy clientele. Which in our case means mostly older gay men. And older gay men appreciate the cake, everything we offer here, but they want the icing on it too.”
“Pretty boys,” Stanley said, glancing about the patio. There were lots of pretty boys to be seen.
“Bingo. Yes. As you can readily see, the prettiest. And young. They are the icing on our cake.”
“So, what you’re saying is, you hire B-girls,” Tom said. “Or B-boys, in this case. To keep the johns happy.”
“No, we don’t employ them—this isn’t a bordello. As I said of Barry, he was not on the payroll. Neither the Inn nor I make a penny off of any of their interactions. We just let nature take its course.”
“But you give nature a little nudge here and there.”
“Have you ever been to a Hooters?” Tom’s expression answered the question for him. “I suspected as much. Do you think those women are hired for their intellects and moral characters? We don’t hire these young men. We simply encourage them to come here instead of some other place.”
“And to hang around,” Stanley said.
“Exactly.”
“Encourage them, as in…?” Tom lifted an eyebrow.
“We make it as—” Frederick hesitated. “—as pleasant for them as we can. They get free drinks at the bar, if someone isn’t buying their drinks for them, which usually happens after the first one. If one of the older gentlemen isn’t buying a young man’s drinks by the second round, the young man is probably not going to become a regular. The same with their meals. The first is on the house, the others are generally paid for by their new gentleman friends. Occasionally one or the other of the young men spends a night, again free.”
“In return for what, exactly?” Tom asked.
“Mostly in return for being here, for being young and handsome, for being decorative. Which boils down to keeping the older clientele interested. And coming back again and again. They come here, the older men, they stay here because there are always good-looking young men hanging around, dozens of them, scores even, at the bar, at the pool, dancing in the cabana. A veritable feast for gay eyes. Older gay eyes especially.”
“And these young guys are available,” Tom said.
“I should think some of them are,” Frederick agreed. “Most of them, perhaps. We leave that up to the individuals involved.”
Stanley nodded. It was standard practice in gay bars everywhere. A smart bartender bought the occasional free drink for a handsome young stud because it sold lots more drinks to the guys at the bar drooling over him. He had just never heard of it on such a grand scale before.
“And I’m supposing that sometimes it turns into a feast for more than just the eyes?” Stanley said.
Frederick sniffed. “As I have said, that is entirely up to the individuals involved. We neither encourage nor discourage that kind of liaison. Of course, the young men know perfectly well that it’s to their advantage to be friendly to the older gentlemen. And yes, certainly, sometimes a pair of them retire to a room together. Or, as I’ve said, there are sometimes sleepovers.”
“Like rather grand pajama parties,” Stanley said. Again, Frederick’s lips moved just enough to suggest a smile without actually displaying one.
“Does money trade hands?” Tom asked. “Say, at these pajama parties?”
Another sniff. “I wouldn’t know. That’s their private business and none of mine. As I said, we aren’t operating a bordello. Whatever these people do on their own is strictly up to them.”
“But aren’t you being just a trifle naïve?” Stanley asked. “You must know—”
“Oh, look, we’re not fools here,” Frederick snapped impatiently. “And neither are they, the young or the old. I have no doubt that sometimes the gentlemen involved reward their new friends for pleasures received, though it probably is not as crass as just shelling out dollars for doughnuts. All kinds of things happen. Drinks get bought, as I’ve already said, dinners paid for, couples go out on the town, gifts are given.”
“And sometimes cash?” Tom insisted.
“I’m sure that happens too. For a young man struggling along on minimum wages as a busboy or a hamburger slinger, it can all be very welcome. But there’s also a lot more to it than that. This isn’t like standing on a street corner hustling for dollars. I think that most of the young men who come here are hoping something special in the way of a friendship will develop, something a bit more permanent than a free dinner or a few hundred dollars slipped into a pocket.”
“A few hundred?” Tom looked amazed. “They get that kind of money for getting their flutes tootled?”
Frederick, though shorter than Tom, nevertheless managed to look down his nose at him. “This is not a tawdry setting, and the moneyed gentlemen are, most of them, very moneyed. They are used to the best, and they can afford to indulge their tastes. It’s entirely up to the individuals involved, let me remind you, but if any of these young men you see around the pool there are pleasuring the older gentlemen they’re seated with, and there’s anything less than five hundred involved, I should say they’re undervaluing themselves. That’s just my opinion, of course.”
“And the other stuff?” Stanley said. “The sugar daddies, the long-term relationships. Do the young icings find them?”
“Sometimes. Often enough to keep the dream alive, I should say. I do know that one of our young men, a regular by the pool there only a short time ago, lives now in Hollywood with a name producer—and no, I’m not going to mention the producer’s name, but you would recognize it if I did so.”
“And no doubt the young man is soon to be starring in movies,” Stanley said.
“Perhaps. That’s not my concern. But I rather suppose it’s what all of the young men, or the majority in any case, are hoping for. If not movie stardom, a comfortable billet somewhere certainly. And it does happen from time to time. It’s why they’re here, the naked ones and the ones showing off big baskets and laughing maybe just a little too loudly at jokes they have surely heard scores of times before. None of this is new, you know. It’s been going on since the young Greeks did their exercises in the raw, and the older Athenians came to ogle them and shop for a new boyfriend. Everybody trades what they’ve got for what they want. Simple barter, regardless of what the moralists would like to make of it.”
“Not so simple,” Tom said, “when a young man ends up dead.”
Frederick gave him a chilling look.
“And young Palmer was one of the icing crowd,” Stanley said.
“Yes, I’ve already said so.”
“He got his drinks free, his meals… a room?”
“Drinks, yes, I think that’s a given, and probably some meals. As to a free room, no, not from us, but that’s not to say he didn’t spend an occasional night here without having to pay for a room. He was an attractive young man.”
“Had he found himself a special friendship?”
Frederick shook his head. “That I couldn’t say.”
“Couldn’t? Or wouldn’t?” Tom asked.
“Either. That’s another part of what we offer our guests, discretion. These men, many of them, are not the sort who want rumors circulating in gossip columns. We keep reporters away, and if we find out that anyone is leaking tidbits—it has been known to happen—they are permanently barred from the premises.”
“A wall of silence,” Stanley said.
“A wall of discretion,” Frederick corrected him firmly. “It’s to everyone’s benefit, young and old alike.”
“I’m a little curious. I can see that the older gents would like it that way, but in what way would this wall of discretion, as you call it, benefit the young men?” Stanley asked.
Frederick raised an eyebrow. “Some of those you see by the pool are almost certainly in the military, for starters. The Marine Corps has a major presence just over the mountain, at Twentynine Palms, and the naval stations are not so far away.”
“And they come here for rest and recreation,” Stanley said.
“Exactly. And it isn’t only the military either. I know of one young man who is married, to a woman, I mean, and I can see him across the patio just now, flirting blatantly with a wealthy, older industrialist. These are not just your typical young gay boys, don’t you see? They wouldn’t suit our older gentlemen if they were. Those gentlemen are looking for an ideal, perhaps a dream from their own youth, the perfect male, handsome, hung, straight….”
“But they’re not straight, are they?” Stanley said. “Not if they’re looking for sugar daddies.”
“Oh, but people can be very good at fooling themselves, wouldn’t you agree? Take a look at the young men around you. They look straight, don’t they? They act straight. There’s not a limp wrist to be seen. They could be the boy next door, the college jock, the schoolmate you had a crush on years ago who didn’t know you existed. They are fantasies, but fantasies come to life.”
“Like Westworld,” Chris said, brightening. “You know, Stanley, that old movie with Yul Brynner.”
“People went there to experience their adventure fantasies,” Stanley said.
“Yes, it’s much the same thing.” Frederick nodded. “Only the fantasies here are different. How often in life do you get a second chance. How often can you make your sexual dreams come true? Men do here, I tell you. And if it isn’t the whole truth, it’s as close as these men are ever going to get, and they are old enough, and wise enough, to know that. They may be looking for love, but they know the limits to what they’re going to find.”
“In this case, it was a deadly kind of love, wasn’t it?” Tom said.
“Those who are not sensitive to love are ignorant of its power.”
“You said you’ve got more bookings than you can handle, but when he had a plumbing problem, you moved Chris from one room into another one, an empty one. How was that possible if you’re booked solid?” Tom asked.
“A last-minute cancellation. Even we have them. Our guests are, many of them, extremely busy people. Things come up. We don’t charge cancellation fees for that reason, though most hotels do. We try in every way to accommodate these gentlemen, and they reward us with their patronage. Some of them come to us every weekend. And some, the locals, spend part of nearly every day here. You can see for yourself, we are quite popular.”
“We’re supposing that the killer stashed the body in Chris’s room by mistake,” Tom said. “Somebody knew the room was empty….”
“Anyone could have seen the previous occupant check out. They would assume the suite was empty.”
“But whoever it was apparently didn’t know that the room had been immediately re-rented.”
“Exactly. Which eliminates hotel staff, I should think.”
“But not the guests.”
Frederick glanced around the patio as if one of the men in the crowd there might raise a hand to identify himself. “No,” he said, his voice cautious, “not the guests.”
“You keep saying we,” Tom said. “Who else…?”
“I represent the owners,” Frederick said in his haughtiest voice. “For all intents and purposes, I am we.”
Meaning, Tom thought, he wasn’t going to give them any names. That wall of discretion again.
A young Latino man in tight black trousers and a formfitting white shirt approached and handed Frederick a note on a silver tray. Frederick glanced at it and then up at Chris. “You have a guest, Mr. Rafferty,” he said. “For dinner, he says.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Chris said, rolling his eyes. “Eddie. My date from last night. In all the excitement, I forgot I had invited him for dinner.”
“Not a problem,” Frederick said. “We encourage our guests to have guests. Of the appropriate sort, of course.” Meaning, Stanley supposed, no toads welcome.
“Oh, he’s definitely appropriate,” Chris said with a grin. “Cute as a bug.”
“In that case, bring the young man in,” Frederick told the waiter.
The Latino left and was back in a moment, leading a very handsome young man of Japanese descent to the table.
“Eddie, Eddie Ishiguro,” Chris introduced him around.
“Will you all be having dinner as well?” Frederick asked Tom and Stanley.
“Oh, please do,” Chris said.
“Yeah, sure, I could eat something,” Stanley said. “It’s been a long while since breakfast.”
“I could eat a horse,” Tom said.
“We don’t serve horse, I’m afraid, but I believe they have seafood on the menu for today. Pepe,” Frederick addressed the waiting Latino, “show Mr. Rafferty and his guests to table number seven in the dining room. Number seven,” he explained, “is the house table. You may be assured of the best service.”
On the way inside, Stanley gave Chris a nudge. “You were out with that last night, and you came home to a dead body?”
“You know my batting average with tricks,” Chris said. “I never end up with the live ones.”