It was Darryl Hart who had run out of air.

Barrie met me at the door, his eyes red and puffy. He wore a pair of khaki twills and another wool cardigan, its elbow patches rubbed raw. He blurted out his message before I got to the top of the outside stairs. For a moment we just stood there. Jonathan worked to hold back tears while I, once I registered the name and digested the news, wondered why Barrie had called. But the November cold finally penetrated my jacket and I nodded my way through the door.

“What do you mean ‘dead’?” I never let surprise spoil the quality of my questions. We stood in a long muted-pastel hallway as the “D” word hung heavy in the air.

Jonathan’s mouth opened, but he was smart enough to ignore me. He motioned, then walked us through a misshapen doorway on the left-hand side of the hall. The opening led into a small dark room dominated by a modern free-standing, self-contained fireplace, its embers an empty threat to the chill.

Jonathan shrugged me toward the furniture, and I walked through stacks of magazines and books while he knelt beside the fireplace and rekindled the flame. His back gave me a few moments to look around the rest of the room.

Away from the fireplace’s black enamel ugly, and the stack of New England logs, the odd tomblike room wasn’t half bad. A couple of Pollock repros, naives, and an enormous number of books lined all available wall and floor. Their warmth softened the cave like atmosphere, especially after the fire cast a warm glow over the comfortable second-hand furniture. I looked around and noticed there were no windows.

Barrie caught my wonder. “Strange about the windows, isn’t it?” He turned back to check on the fire. “Don’t know what this room was originally used for. I discovered it when I renovated. Much too big for a closet.” He seemed relieved to make small talk.

I could wait. “Discovered it?”

He knelt and pushed at the fire with a long metal poker. “Yes. I stripped the hallway down to its bones and found this odd little doorway. Here we are, one serious urban archeology dig later.” He stood, turned toward me and planted his feet, his knuckles bloodless where he gripped the iron. “The police are calling it an accident.”

I remained cautious. I had been used too many times recently to simply climb right in. “Calling what an accident?”

He took a deep breath, walked to the couch, and sank into its corner. The metal stick half thudded, half clanged as Jonathan dropped it onto the small Oriental throw and the floor. “Darryl was found drowned in Quarry’s End.”

I felt my stomach fall as if I’d been dropped into a hall of distorted mirrors. Barrie plunged forward while I forced my shocked bewilderment into the background.

“The police say it was an accident or suicide. Darryl had two ounces of cocaine in his pocket. According to them, if it had been a sour drug deal, the coke wouldn’t have been there.” He put his hands to his head. “When I tried to tell them about Peter’s death they were polite but patronizing.”

“Patronizing?” I trod softly, the twenty-year echo loud enough.

“They invited me downtown to see the numbers. A ton of people have died in that quarry in the last twenty years. They said it was coincidence.” He opened both hands. “I’m sure plenty of people have died there, but this was no coincidence.”

“Why not?”

He looked at me with a ravaged face. “The two people I planned to live with die in the same way in the same place?”

Planned to live with? The look between Barrie and Darryl in the butcher block bar flashed into my head. My nerves turned kinetic, though a calmer voice prevailed. “I didn’t know you were going to live with Darryl?”

He reached into his sweater and came out with his blue packaged cigarettes. I grabbed for my own. Jonathan leaned across the couch to an overloaded end table and found a deep amber ashtray. He placed it on the floor between us and sat back up. “We loved each other.”

I couldn’t stop my mouth. “Did you love Peter the same way?” A New York Post picture of a depraved Midwestern social worker showing police his burial sites steamed through my mind.

Jonathan stared at me open-mouthed. “You never found out about my relationship with Peter, did you?”

“Nothing more than what you told me. I guess you didn’t tell me everything.” I was surprised at my coolness. Despite the shock of Darryl’s death and its similarity to Peter’s, I wasn’t ready to white-coat Barrie.

His expression didn’t look any better, but a small ironic smile played at his lips. “I was certain you had discovered my relationship with Peter and could understand why I’m so upset.” He reached forward, stubbed his cigarette into the ashtray, and at once lit another.

I finished mine and did likewise. “You thought wrong,” I said. “But I’m here now.” I left little doubt as I took my leather and placed it on the floor.

Jonathan stared at the gun but made no comment. When he met my eyes some of his strength had returned. “I lied to you when I said I’d moved into The End after Peter’s death. I moved into the neighborhood because of Peter. I was a cruiser; he worked the street. He made his money selling his body to suburban men in big cars—like me.”

I started to interrupt, but he waved me quiet. “Just wait. Before you start judging, you ought to know what you’re condemning.”

“I haven’t condemned anything yet.”

“Don’t kid yourself. I’ve been down this path enough to know it’s one-way.” He sounded resigned. “Peter hustled since he’d been ten. He was fifteen when we met and no amount of smoothness could hide, at least from me, the desperation of his life.” He bowed his head and said quietly, “It wasn’t very different from my own.

“I grew up in the Forties and Fifties”—he raised his head and met my eyes—”when growing up gay was worse torture than now. A world of locked doors, fear, denial. By the time I was twenty, the hiding had become self-hate. By thirty, the hate played out in highway rest areas, public restrooms, and backseats of cars. Anonymous sex was the most someone like me could hope for.”

He took a deep drag and flicked his ashes toward the bowl. “By the time I was thirty-five, cruising had nothing to do with pleasure. Sex was simply a way to forget about my life.”

I couldn’t keep my doubts, or my prejudice, quiet. “Look, Jonathan, I didn’t come here to learn about your sex life. I came here because your name came up in a conversation about drug-dealing. You tell me two boys you fucked died the same way, one with coke in his pocket. Sounds like I’m at the right address.”

His face turned red. “Whoever connected me with drugs is a damn liar! Whatever my sexuality, I am not about the business of destroying lives.” His eyes scratched at my face. “You can think what you damn well like!”

“I think you’ve run drugs for twenty years. You used Peter until you were through with him, then did the same with Darryl.”

He was on his feet instantly. “You filthy lunatic! You’re disgusted by my relationships so you turn me into a sick, murdering queer! Someone like you might really make me kill. Just get the hell out of here!”

He stood over me, panting heavily, his eyes full of scorn. I let the moment ride and pushed the pieces around the board. “Sit down, Jonathan. I believe you.”

He debated with himself, but returned to the couch.

“I’m not gay-bashing,” I said. “It’s you I’m having trouble with.”

Jonathan met my angry stare. “Me and everything you ever heard about old gay men and young boys.” He tossed his head and snorted. “I told you this was a one-way street. But I’ll try it anyhow. You know what happens to pretty boys, don’t you? Well, Peter was approaching a hustler’s middle age. If anything, our relationship kept him out of jail. And, frankly, I don’t know who was the benefactor to whom. My relationship with Peter taught me that when you care about someone and they appreciate you for it, you have less time to hate yourself.” He looked away. “More time to learn to love.”

Jonathan’s face sagged as he stood up and walked to the fire. From my seat he appeared to be embraced by the flames.

His bone-marrow honesty was compelling, loosening my ties to the Moral Majority. I knew the score in The End, if not the play-by-play. I still didn’t know what the hell I was involved in, but Jonathan no longer reminded me of someone from the newspapers. “Sometimes power gets confused with love,” I said.

He stepped around a short stack of books and wearily sat back down. “Yes, it does. And I’m sure there was that between us. But don’t discount the awareness and strength Peter brought to the relationship.” He read the expression on my face. “Don’t look so dubious. The street taught Peter plenty, despite his years.

“If our difference in age and stature had become destructive I would have done what was needed. You see, Matt, I could be honest and do right by Peter. He had been nothing but abused his entire life. I could give to him. To both of them. Three lives were going to be better off. How many relationships, of any sort, can you say that about?”

I tried hard to smell bullshit, but couldn’t. Still, Jonathan had had plenty of time to twist his theories under the lights. I hadn’t lost my skepticism, just its fire. “So say I buy it?”

He waved his hand. “There’s been too much blood under the bridge for me to sell you anything.”

“That’s an interesting expression.”

He looked as if he’d been slapped. Talking about Peter had given him relief from the present. “Did Darryl deal drugs?” I asked.

He sat back in his seat, his anger seeping into confusion. “Not that I knew.” “You had suspicions?”

He shook his head. “Have, not had.” “Go on.”

“I told you. The police found him with cocaine.” “You didn’t know anything about him selling?”

He almost got angry again but checked himself. “I knew he sometimes had small quantities. That’s all.” His hand swiped at the air in front of his chest.

“But now you wonder? What did Darryl do for money?” “He was a musician.”

“Around here?” “Here and Florida.”

I shook my head and shrugged.

“It’s easy to see today,” he said, low, bitterness in his tone. “But I never had cause to question.” He looked at me defiantly. “And even if he did deal, he deserves justice.”

Justice. I wanted justice for my roll in the snow, Jonathan for Darryl’s death, perhaps Peter’s as well. I didn’t hold out much hope for either of us. “How did the police get your name?”

He cocked his head. “A friend in the department who knows about my life. It was a courtesy.” “No one asked you to come down and identify the body?”

“No. Does that mean anything?”

“It means they probably found family.”

He looked disconcerted and I watched him squirm unhappily in his seat.

I got up and looked over his shoulder at the fire. “You didn’t know he had family?” “He told me they were all dead.”

I shrugged and walked to the fireplace. The flames had settled into a small, steady crackling, and I thought about throwing on another log, but it would probably put the damn thing out. “Sounds like there was a lot you didn’t know.”

I lit a cigarette. “You may not have known about his dealing, but you’re too smart not to imagine Darryl doing it.” I waited.

Jonathan read my mind because he joined me at the fire and picked up the tongs. “Last night I began to imagine a lot of things.”

I walked away from him. I didn’t think he dealt—or murdered. Darryl probably used Jonathan’s initials for cover. It would be easy enough to find out whether J.B. translated into D.H. What wasn’t easy was Barrie’s relationships. “What did Darryl usually drink?”

“Drink? Screwdrivers, why?”

I ignored his question, walked over to a mini refrigerator, and opened the door. Six beers lined the back wall. I took one out and twisted the cap off. “You want?”

He looked over at me from the fireplace. “Thanks.”

I opened another, walked back to the now blazing flames, and handed him his bottle. The fire licked the outside of the black enamel as we stood red in its light. “Why did you call me?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

He looked thoughtfully at me, doubt flashing across his face. He closed his eyes, then held the beer against his cheek. “I want you to find Darryl’s killer.”