AFTER DINNER, they went dancing—as it turned out, not very far to go. The Inn had its own club too: a large space for dancing, a raised stage, empty for now, where a band could perform, two bars down either side, and above it all a kind of balcony. Though it was still early in terms of club hours, the dance floor and the areas in front of the bars were already crowded with many of the same people who had crowded around the pool a short while before, some of them still in swimwear.
“You know,” Stanley said, “whoever killed Barry Palmer could be here right this minute.”
“Probably is,” Chris agreed. Both of them looked at the crowd of men as if they might recognize the guilty party when they saw him.
“But how do you pick the deadly needle out of the innocent haystack?” Tom asked.
Stanley took a long look around. “I don’t think this particular haystack is all that innocent.”
“Lots of hotties here tonight,” Eddie said.
“You said it,” Chris agreed.
“Look at that cowboy over by the exit sign,” Stanley said, pointing. “Like the old saying, he looks like he was poured into those jeans and forgot to say when.”
“The VIP room is up there.” Chris indicated the balcony overhead. “I’m sure Frederick would okay our going up if anyone’s so inclined.”
The others looked as if they thought that was a good idea, but Tom said, “Better if we stay down here. I want you guys to move around, to mingle, see who you can fasten on that knew this Palmer kid. Maybe we can dig up some information.”
“And you will be…?” Eddie asked. He glanced in the direction of the dancers gyrating nearby. “You don’t dance?”
“He’s got some moves,” Stanley said in a cool voice.
Eddie grinned. “I can see that.”
“We were talking about dancing,” Stanley said. “Besides, Tom’s not much of a mingler. Not in gay bars. Come on, let’s look around.”
“I’m surprised he’s here at all,” Chris said when they moved off a few feet. “Tom’s not into the gay scene,” he explained to Eddie.
“He’s working on it,” Stanley said. Eddie gave him a curious look. “It’s called love,” Stanley told him, and didn’t miss the flash of disappointment on Eddie’s face.
Get over it, Stanley advised him silently.
TOM REMAINED by the bar, trying not to look uncomfortable and feeling completely out of place. He hated gay bars. He went to them only as an appeasement to Stanley, who had begun to feel cut off from his gay friends. Something Tom had thought a good idea, but Stanley had not been happy. If he wanted to keep Stanley happy, he had to make some adjustments in his thinking. If you wanted a relationship, you had to work at it. This was him working on it.
Stanley, Chris, and Eddie had drifted toward the dance floor, talking and laughing together. Tom watched them for a moment, glad anyway to see Stanley enjoying himself, and turned back again to face the bar.
“You must spend a lot of time in the gym,” somebody said beside him.
“Some.” Tom glanced in the direction of the voice, and saw a tall, lanky cowboy. The one, in fact, that Stanley had commented on a few minutes earlier, poured into his jeans. His hair was dark and straight, his skin desert-weathered, his eyes so dark they looked black. Tom wasn’t interested, but he was glad for someone to talk to. Apart from the too-tight jeans, the guy looked okay. He didn’t, in fact, look gay at all.
“Those are some massive biceps,” the cowboy said.
Tom glanced at his arm as if he’d never seen it before, and shrugged. “It’s just my arm,” he said.
“What do you do? No, don’t tell me, let me guess—construction work. Or, alligator wrestling. Or….”
“I’m a detective.”
“Oh.” For a few seconds, the man looked uneasy. People often did when they found themselves chatting with a detective—which, for most people, meant police detective. “Like, with the police, you mean? Here in Palm Springs?”
“No, San Francisco. Private detective.”
“Wait.” The cowboy snapped his fingers. “The detectives from San Francisco. Now I remember. Only I hadn’t heard you were so hot.”
“You’ve heard about us?” Tom was surprised. He had rather supposed their arrival here had gone unnoticed.
“Are you kidding? The town’s buzzing. First the murder, and then two big-time detectives swoop in from San Francisco to clear things up. Have you figured out who killed Barry?”
“Not yet. It’s a little early. We’re working on it, though. You knew him?”
“Everybody knew Barry,” he said with a wink. “He was… hmm, popular, I guess is the word. He hung out by the pool pretty much every day.”
“Only I hear he wasn’t always by the pool. Like, he disappeared inside from time to time.”
“To be expected.” This delivered in a cautious voice. “Barry was, um, desirable.”
“Are you one of the guys he disappeared with?”
The cowboy laughed drily. “I wish. No, he was beyond my pay grade. Way beyond. Which isn’t to say I didn’t sometimes fantasize about it. Barry was the kind of kid who inspired you to think of stuff like that.”
“Well, as it turns out, he inspired someone to kill him. You got any thoughts who or why?”
“He was a hot tamale,” the cowboy said evasively. “I expect there were plenty of guys who’d kill to get a piece of that.”
Tom looked at him directly. “You, for instance?”
The cowboy laughed again at the suggestion, but there was a hard edge to his laughter. “No, no, I like ’em alive when I fuck ’em, preferably alive and moving, but in a pinch I’ll settle for alive. Say, pardon my manners,” he said, pointedly changing the subject, “I’m Randy Patterson, by the way.”
“Tom Danzel.” They shook hands. Patterson’s grip was firm, manly. And held maybe just a shade too long.
“So tell me, Tom Danzel, when you’re not solving crime in Palm Springs, what does a private detective with big biceps do in San Francisco?”
“Ah, you know, the usual.” Tom freed his hand, resisted an urge to wipe it on the leg of his trousers. Smarmy was the word that popped into his mind. “Wrestle alligators. Beat up people. Overturn cars. Can I ask you a question? Where were you last night? Say between midnight and maybe three in the morning?”
“Here,” he said, unconcerned. “Like most nights. When the bar closed, I hung around by the pool for a while, then I split. Why, you think I offed Barry?”
“Somebody did. Just like to keep things sorted out.”
Another laugh, this one more genuinely amused. “Can I buy you a drink?” Tom hesitated. “Just to be neighborly,” Randy added, projecting total innocence.
“Uh, sure, I guess so.” Tom was definitely out of his comfort zone now. Was that a pass? He couldn’t tell if the guy was just being friendly or hitting on him. Where was Stanley, anyway? Tom glanced toward the dance floor, but Stanley and friends had disappeared. “Ah, a beer, I guess.”
“Oh, we can do better than that for a famous visitor.” Randy gave the man behind the bar a smile and a wink. “Paco, how about a race horse for my friend here?”
The bartender gave Tom a measuring look and shrugged. He poured some vodka into a tall glass and turned his back on them. Tom glanced past Randy, looking for Stanley again, and saw him engaged in animated conversation with Chris and Eddie. A fourth young man had joined them and looked to be very interested in Eddie. Someone had taken the bait. Well, sure, why not? Eddie was a cute little thing. He could see why Chris had hooked up with him.
When Tom turned back to the bar, the bartender was just setting a tall glass on the counter in front of him. No ice in the glass, but it was steaming slightly. Tom picked it up, looked at it curiously for a few seconds. What kind of drink steamed? Randy and the bartender watched him closely.
Stanley had finally noticed the transaction and walked quickly over. “What’s that?” he asked, indicating the glass with the steam lifting off it.
“This guy bought me a drink,” Tom said. “It’s a… what did you call it?” he asked the cowboy.
“A race horse,” the cowboy said, biting back a grin.
“For crap’s sake,” Stanley said, and behind him, Chris laughed aloud. “Put that down. Don’t you know anything?”
“Not about this shit. Why, what’s in it?”
“Vodka and piss,” Stanley said.
“Oh.”
“Didn’t you see the bartender filling it up?”
“He had his back turned.” Tom set the glass down on the bar gingerly, as if it might explode.
“I’ll take it,” an effeminate older man a few stools down said.
“Hey, you,” Tom said to the cowboy.
Randy put his hands up in a defensive gesture. “Sorry. I thought you knew what I was talking about. No harm done.” He turned, laughing, and walked away, disappearing into the crowd around the dance floor.