P'town Murders: A Bradford Fairfax Murder Mystery (6 page)

Unlike Justin, however, Brad found himself alone as he entered his thirties, the decade all gay men dread as a threshold to diminishing dates, shrinking hairlines, expanding waistlines, and a time of swapping disco for karaoke.

Brad recalled another friend, a neurotic writer much concerned with aging. To stave off the inevitable, this friend had thrown himself a fortieth birthday party to mark the passing of his thirtieth year. That, he declared, had given him a decade of grace and moisturizing lotions, at the end of which he would hold his thirtieth birthday and declare himself thirty-something for ten more years.

Still, it wasn't age Brad feared so much as growing old alone. Watching the couple trudging over the dunes made him acutely aware of his loneliness. Something deep within him made Brad long to share his life with another, even while he realized he might spend his remaining years on his own. Who really wanted to be the partner of a secret agent for a nameless security organization? No one he'd ever met. It demanded too much.

In the first place, there was always the possibility that Brad's life might end suddenly, leaving his partner to deal with the loss. In the second place, there was an additional risk to the life of any potential partner. Often the families of such agents were easier targets than the agents themselves. Risking their lives to have sex was already daring enough for most gay men.

After joining Box 77 Brad thought he'd be fine on his own, but as the third year of loneliness wore on he found himself craving some sort of emotional intimacy. Of all the men he'd dated, there was one he'd found irresistible, someone so good and upright even Grace might have approved of him. Against all the rules, Brad had come close to disclosing his secret life to this man, a gentle, caring teacher of children with developmental problems. But after one-too-many broken engagements on Brad's part due to work complications, the man dropped him, suspecting he had commitment issues.

Brad was shattered. He did have commitment issues, but not of his own making. He just couldn't avoid the demands his work placed on him. Nor could he offer much of a home life to someone else when he might be sent off anywhere in the world at a moment's notice. It was better not to explain.

From that day on he'd resolved to walk a solitary path. He'd have no one to report to, no one's birthday to remember and no one to please. And on most days that was just fine—unless he thought about it too hard.

He watched the couple disappear over the dune on their way to the beach.

The phone rang. Brad sprang up, bumping his head on an exposed beam over the loft as he grabbed the receiver.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Mr. Multiple Orgasms," the voice gushed.

Brad blushed.

"It's me, Cinder. I can't talk long. I've arranged for you to come to a
soiree
this evening at the Not-So-OK-Corral. You can see for yourself what goes on there. Be sure to bring your spurs and lots and lots of cash."

Brad wrote down the address—or rather the lack of one, as Cinder said the house had no number. He'd know it when he got there from the widow's walk on the roof. It was also the oldest house on the street.

"Just a word of warning, cowboy," Cinder said. "It might be better for both of us if no one knew you were acquainted with either Ross or me. Mr. Hayden Rosengarten is one mean fairy godfather, as you'll get to see. He'd as soon shoot you as screw you out of a million dollars, which is apparently what he did to his last business partner."

On that curious note, Cinder exhaled a breathy farewell.

7

A little old-fashioned research seemed to be in order. Brad showered, then threw on his favorite Old Navy T-shirt and a pair of hiking shorts. He stuffed a bottle of Dasani water, some passionflower suntan oil, and a pair of binoculars into the bottom of his knapsack, then he stepped into his sandals, clicked his heels, and set off for the dunes.

It was too early to check out the bars, but if anybody knew of Provincetown's notorious guesthouse it would likely be someone in the sandy playland at the ocean's edge. If he was lucky, he might even find a source that could tell him about the infamous Hayden Rosengarten.

Sure enough, a parade of able-bodied men strutted up and down the beach. A cautious few were fully clothed, while others wore only bathing trunks. Still others wore considerably less. Men of every age, size, and bandwidth were on the prowl. Here were circuit party boys, leathermen, cha-cha girls, divas, cowboys, twinks, opera queens, silver foxes, urban lumberjacks, preppies, young hustlers, old wolves, gym queens, muscle tykes, clones, devastatos, and even a few rare beach sightings of the mysteriously intense alternatives. Together they comprised the glories of the Rainbow Nation, and then some.

Brad noted the comely muscles and shapely dicks swinging back and forth as their owners strolled like proud dog walkers exercising their frolicsome pets. As he trudged along, he had to remind himself more than once to keep his mind on the job, recalling Grace's admonition to take his work seriously.

Up ahead on an open patch of sand, an accessories queen with spiked orange hair and green earrings sat perched on a portable chair beneath a multicolored umbrella. A Walkman emitted a frantic cancan from the center of a yellow Eminem beach towel where an assortment of tanning lotions, lip balms, toe creams, CDs, a cherry cola six-pack, four paperbacks, even more towels (that somehow managed to look oddly sinister), and three pairs of sandals completed the scene. The whole thing resembled an over-earnest lawn sale.

Brad looked up and down the beach. There was no one else within fifty feet of this circus act. Maybe he was expecting overnight guests?

Whenever he found himself alone in a town, Brad always looked for the loudest, brashest person he could find. That would guarantee direct access to the latest gossip, best dish, and seamiest invitations to be had. A loud queen is an all-knowing queen, and he'd just scored a bull's-eye.

A swathe of gold medallions lay nestled between a pair of hairy breasts book-ended by nipples of the pencil-eraser variety. Bracelets jangled on the man's excitable wrists and a rivulet of oil ran down his stomach to pool in the crevasse of his navel. The face was bulldog ugly. If God had created this man in His image, then Brad was in no hurry to meet that God.

The queen's eyes roamed over him. Fingers scratched suggestively at a bulbous crotch straining beneath a skimpy pair of bathing trunks. Brad smiled behind his sunglasses. I'm a whore for my job, he told himself.

"Nice day," Brad said.

"If it don't rain."

Brad scuffed at the sand.

The man patted the ground beside him. "Have a seat, studmuffin."

"Neighborly of you," Brad replied, sitting cross-legged at his feet.

"Could get more neighborly." The queen shifted a stubby leg in a spray of sand and coconut oil, bringing his foot to rest on Brad's crotch.

"What brings you to these parts, cutie?" he asked with a leer.

"Oh, just escaping the wrath of Isabel and Arnie."

The face contorted. "You a Democrat?"

Oops!
Brad thought. Hush my big mouth!

"Nope," he said.

"Republican?"

Brad shook his head. "Nope." "You gotta be one or the other!"

Simpleton, thought Brad. "I'm an abstainer."

"Hmpff!
Never heard of them. Me, I'm a Republican and I
like
Arnold. I think he'll make a great governor."

"How's that?" Brad asked.

A ringed finger flashed imperiously. "Number one, he's rich." A second digit rose to join the first. "Number two, he's an actor. And that's what makes for a good show!"

And God help us all, thought Brad.

A fat pink tongue ran over the queen's lips. "I'm in insurance. What do you do, sweetheart?"

"Travel writer. I'm researching exotic ways to spend a weekend."

"It don't get much more exotic than this," the man said, flinging his arms out to encompass the dunes, the beach and the entire ocean view. Hands fluttered back to the hill of his stomach, hooking both thumbs under the waistband of his trunks. The leer returned with a vengeance.

"If you know what to do with it, that is..."

Brad felt the man's toes grope his crotch with genuine agility. Not in your lifetime, he thought.

"Actually, I was thinking more in terms of exotic guesthouses. Know of any?"

"Probably more than I should. I've stayed at a few in my day. Ever been to El Rancho? There's plenty goes on all night in that little rodeo. I've been known to get pretty exotic there myself."

Brad knew about El Rancho. It was a long way from the Not-So-OK-Corral in both location and reputation. He let his gaze travel suggestively down to the man's crotch.

"I was thinking more of the private part of town. I heard there was a place that costs as much for one night as most other houses cost in a month."

The man's face showed genuine surprise. "Really? How much?"

"Thousands."

"And what do I get for my 'thousands'?" he asked, running a hairy paw across his chest.

"All you can eat, snort, and blow in one night," Brad answered, resisting the temptation to call him 'monkey nipples.'

"Book me!" he cried. "I never heard of it, but I'll try anything!"

Brad ran a finger up the inside of the man's thigh. The spandex swelled and twitched. He lifted the man's foot from his crotch and dropped it onto the sand.

"I'll let you know if I find it," Brad said, rising.

"Why, you're nothing but a cocktease!" the queen snarled.

Here, it seemed, was the inverse corollary to his father's advice on good looks and sincerity: if you want someone to go away, disingenuousness works best.

Brad turned back. "I guess I'm just an actor at heart. I could run your country for you, but I can't be sincere for the life of me."

He lingered on the beach for another hour, asking every man he met about the mysterious guesthouse. Most of them were genuinely friendly and he didn't even need to flirt to start a conversation. Knowing how gay men loved their gossip, however, he was amazed to discover that no one had heard of it. Obviously, Brad thought, it's as exclusive as it's meant to be. Probably why it's successful.

He sat on a piece of driftwood and brought out his binoculars, scanning the beach. The passing parade of men kept its eyes peeled for Destiny. Like most children, and Blanche DuBois at the end of her tether, gay men still believed in Magic. They were all waiting for the one magnificent man who would come to claim them and transform their lives from a shabby beach shack into a seaside palazzo complete with interior fountains, marble mantelpieces, perfect brunch guests, and a history that included 'the day Madonna came to dinner.' On straight beaches, where dreams are downplayed, they're mostly just waiting for lunch and the next beer.

Brad caught a flash atop one of the dunes. He focused the lenses and, to his surprise, saw a pair of binoculars trained on him. Right, he thought. Now I'm someone else's prey.

He watched the binoculars watching him. After a moment, their owner laid them down on the sand. Brad could make out a lithe young man in a baseball cap sitting cross-legged on top of the dune.

Brad turned back to the shoreline and continued to scan with his binoculars. The whole time he felt the hair on his neck rise with the presence from above. He turned and looked back. The figure sat there, arms outstretched and palms turned upward as though waiting for rain. The brim of the boy's cap obscured his face.

Brad stood and made his way toward the dune. He scrambled upward, stumbling now and then as the sand shifted and pulled him back down. Once he fell into a thorny bush and scratched his leg, but he brushed himself off and kept climbing till he reached the top and stood before the figure whose position hadn't changed.

The young man sat in a contemplative pose, head cocked toward the beach and the brim of his cap pulled way down. He was completely and splendidly naked, right down to the bare chest that had never felt a razor in its life and the notable dick resting on the sand between his legs. The tattooed outline of a horse's head embellished his trim stomach.

Whoa!
Now here's a guy I could really go for, Bradford thought. Research be damned!

"Hi," he said, the beginning of an erection tenting his shorts. "I noticed you staring at me from up here." There was no response from the seated figure. Brad suddenly felt awkward, aware that he was now the one staring. "I like your... tattoo."

"You're bleeding," the young man said.

That's certainly an original opener, thought Brad. He looked down. Sure enough, his calves and shins were smeared with blood where he'd been scratched by the thorns.

"Wow, I didn't notice. Thanks."

"No problem."

"So what brings you to these parts?" Brad ventured, extending a hand.

The head lifted till he could see the boy's face. An aquamarine eye caught his own. "Hello, Bradford."

Brad felt his erection subside. "Ah, hi..."

"It's Zach," he said. "I guess you've forgotten."

"Uh, sorry, I..."

"Never phoned back?"

Brad felt anger surge where a moment before there'd been only simple straightforward lust.

"You told me you had a boyfriend!"

"I told you I was leaving him."

"You weren't fast enough."

"I dropped him the next day."

"Too late!"

Zach continued looking up at him. "You don't have much patience, do you?"

"I don't go in for serial monogamists."

Zach sighed. "I fell in love with you. What do you want me to do?"

Brad stepped back. "Nothing. Don't do anything. Just... stop following me."

Zach's face darkened. "Just because you fucked me once and I said it was the best thing that ever happened to me doesn't mean I'm following you. I come to Provincetown every year at precisely this time, so get over yourself like I get over myself every time I think about you."

"Whoa! Slow down there, little buckaroo. I'm sorry for accusing you of following me. I'm sorry we ever met, in fact. Though if you recall, that was
your
doing. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a lunch date."