Revision of Justice (23 page)

I spent most of Friday in grease up to my elbows, working on the Mustang, while Danny handed me tools and offered his sympathy each time I took another piece of skin off my knuckles.

As the afternoon cooled, Fred fired up the barbecue to grill chicken drumsticks, which we ate with generous helpings of Maurice’s baked beans and cole slaw, and corn on the cob that Danny cooked in tinfoil. Fred, who was given a dieter’s half portion of everything, kept his grumbling to a minimum, and I did the same with my consumption of wine.

Maggie lay on the patio at Danny’s feet, while the cats sat next to Maurice on the chaise lounge, their eyes narrowed to slits of pure contentment. When the sun began to fade, Maurice brought out his old Rolleiflex and took a photograph of Danny and me together, with Maggie between us leading the smiles.

I cut up a cold, sweet watermelon for dessert and as I watched Danny chomping through his slice, I assured myself there was no way in the world he was dying. Maurice talked for a bit about how it felt like the old family was back together, and though he didn’t mention Jacques by name, I knew he was on everybody’s mind. The neighbors were playing vintage Van Morrison albums that evening—
Astral Weeks
,
Moondance
—and as the music drifted over the vined fence, we all grew sleepy listening to rocking Irish soul.

I asked Danny again if we might sleep together, and this time he agreed. He leaned on me going up the stairs, and we nodded off together nuzzling each other in my big bed, me in boxers, Danny in his baggy sweatpants, both of us with erections I was too tired to do anything about, even if he’d let me.

Just after breakfast the next morning, Saturday, we set out in search of Dylan Winchester, leaving Maggie in the care of Maurice and Fred.

We rode east out Interstate 10 with the windows open and our shirts off, letting the warm air wash over us like a blessing. During much of the two-hour drive, Danny napped with his head on my shoulder while I kept the radio low, listening to old Art Pepper tapes that swung on the mellow side.

As we headed into the furnace of the high desert, I felt cleansed by the broiling air, while the sight of the cactus-covered landscape delivered the welcome shock of open space.

From time to time, Danny woke and smiled sleepily at me. Once or twice, he poured me a paper cup filled with iced lemonade from a thermos Maurice had sent along with tuna sandwiches and homemade oatmeal cookies.

It was as if time had been suspended.

Danny and I were younger, two lovers on our first adventure together. There was no AIDS, no T-cell or viral load count, no hospital bed waiting for him on Monday.

If he was terminal, I didn’t see it. If these were his final days, his final weeks, I still needed convincing.

The highway rose and fell and rose with a rhythm that lulled and entranced us. Then, to the north, metallic windmills appeared ominously on a ridge like a platoon of soldiers swarming out of the hills, their arms collecting wind for hydroelectric conversion. As we rolled on, hundreds more spread out ahead of us like an army across the arid valley floor.

The resort communities of Palm Springs, Cathedral City, and Rancho Mirage sprouted up to the southeast, oases crowded with motels, restaurants, clubs, and boutiques, many of which catered to the lesbians and gay men who came in by the thousands for long weekends. In recent years, the area had become a haven for queers, with hundreds of gay cops trekking there annually for their Pigs in Paradise celebration and more than twenty thousand lesbians gathering during the Dinah Shore pro golf tournament each spring to drink and dance and tan topless beside dozens of hotel pools. I’d always avoided the Springs, and its pricey, suntanned veneer. Suddenly, it seemed like a good idea.

I turned to Danny impulsively.

“Let’s spend the night in Palm Springs. We’ll sleep in tomorrow and eat breakfast in bed and lay around the pool like a couple of tourists.”

“Like a couple of soft queers from the city, you mean.”

We both grinned.

“Why not? That’s what we are.”

“I’m strapped for cash. Until my next SSI check.”

“I’ve got enough.”

“Sure, if you really want to.”

“I want to.”

A few miles outside the city limits, we turned off toward the mountain community of Idyllwild, following Lawrence Teal’s hand-drawn map.

We left behind a shoulder-high forest of cholla cactus, yucca, and thorny buckhorn and climbed into pine country. The air grew cooler with each passing mile, the vistas broader. To the east, we saw the startling green of the wealthy golf and tennis communities beyond Palm Springs and, above them, dozens of tourist-filled hot-air balloons drifting in a rainbow of colors.

Then we took a sharp curve and all that disappeared while the mountains wrapped themselves around us.

A few minutes later, I spotted another turnoff indicated on Teal’s map and took it. We drove for a mile or two on a narrow paved road, pushing our way deeper into the national forest that wound around a few pockets of private land.

One of the parcels belonged to Dylan Winchester. I knew it by the carved wooden sign hanging over the massive front gate: W
ILD
H
ORSE
R
ANCH
.

The gate was comprised of six-foot walls of indigenous mountain stone with wooden doors between them that bore Aztec-style carvings. The walls ran in either direction for a hundred yards or more, before giving way to a lower fence of barbed wire partly camouflaged by trench-irrigated pine. It struck me that Winchester had gone to some expense to protect his hideaway from prying eyes.

I parked, got out, and inspected the big gate. It was locked tight. An intercom microphone was perched on a steel arm that rose from a small concrete island in the middle of the driveway entrance.

Just then, a powder blue MGB convertible came speeding down the road from the direction of the Springs. Inside were three boys wailing the words to “Y.M.C.A.”with all the energy of the Village People, if not the harmony.

Their rendition faded as the sports car slowed and pulled up alongside me.

“You a friend of Dylan’s?” the driver asked.

He was a slim, pretty kid, probably on the short side of eighteen, with medium-length dark blond hair and a wispy mustache and goatee that looked like spun gold.

“Old mate from Down Under,” I said, attempting an Aussie accent. “Wanted to surprise the old bloke. Brought him some videos from Thailand—very hot stuff.”

The boy grinned.

“We’ll get you in.”

He pressed a button on the intercom, leaned toward it, spoke his name, and moments later I heard the gate locks unlatch.

“I’ll handle the gate, mate.”

I pulled it open and the MGB shot through, its horn tooting as it disappeared up the drive.

When I’d closed the gate behind the Mustang, I followed the path of the other car. The asphalt-covered drive ended in a circle outside the main house, where several cars and vans were parked under a stand of ponderosa pines.

Two long-legged Akitas came bounding out from around one side of the house, barking like they meant business, but they quieted down when I offered each of them half a tuna on whole wheat.

The two-story house was put together with indigenous rock, like the walls below. It looked to be a century old, or close to it; on the second story was a wide veranda shaded by a gabled roof.

Stables, corrals, and grazing land occupied the property to the north. The rest of the acreage was meadowlike, running for a half mile or so up and around the house, then rolling into low ridges until it blended into the rising slopes of the San Jacinto Wilderness.

I left the car under branches heavy with needles, while Danny hunkered down for another nap.

The front door was locked. I looked through the adjacent windows across a large, cabinlike living room paneled in warm wood with beamed ceilings. I could see straight through the rear windows, onto a patio and pool area. Several young men were splashing, diving, or stretched out on lounge chairs. All but one or two were buck naked.

To the southwest, beyond the yard, was a rise that looked like it might provide a clear vantage point from which to survey the entire property. I left the yard, hiking across hard ground strewn with rock and chaparral, watching for rattlesnakes. The dogs followed, sniffing for more tuna.

As I reached the top of the rise, I saw a boy trotting a sleek, dark mare out of the distant woods coming in my direction. He pulled the horse up as he got close. He was naked, riding bareback, as taut and slender as a swimsuit model, with Asian eyes and cheekbones, and straight dark hair falling to his shoulders.

He stared passively at me for a moment, then kicked his long legs against the horse’s ribs and made a streak across open ground toward the house, his hair flying behind him, his bare rump lifting and settling on the horse with the easy rhythm of someone who was born to ride.

He galloped the horse past the house, where he turned her skillfully toward the mountain slopes, leaving a trail of golden dust in the early afternoon sunlight.

I followed the first leg of his trail while the dust settled and the dogs ran ahead, listening to the splash of naked bodies in the pool, and wondering if Dylan Winchester was among them.

I hadn’t seen so many naked teenaged boys since high school, when I’d lined up with the wrestling team for a physical, waiting for my turn to face the doctor and cough.

They were scattered over Dylan Winchester’s patio, around the pool, or in it. Every one was on the lean and pretty side, past puberty but not by much. It looked like Winchester had created his own modest version of the Playboy Mansion, populated to suit his boy’s camp tastes.

“You here to party?”

The question came from a slender black kid with bright, friendly eyes, molasses-colored skin, and a gold ring decorating his right ear. A neat patch of tightly curled hair cropped up below his waist; below that was a set of plump, purplish genitals with some growth still ahead of them.

“Don’t you guys worry about UVA rays?”

He grinned.

“Dylan keeps plenty of sunblock on hand.” The grin widened. “Sometimes he even helps us put it on.”

“Every inch, I’ll bet.”

“Yeah—you know Dylan.”

“Where is he, by the way?”

“I think he’s inside. You know—with Fernando.”

“Right, Fernando.”

“We don’t see too many older guys up here.” His brown eyes moved shyly away, then found me again. “I like older guys.”

“I’ll keep that in mind—?”

“Horace.”

“Horace.”

I crossed the patio past the pool and the sharp smell of chlorine. The lanky blond boy I’d seen earlier behind the wheel of the MGB stood on the end of the diving board, raised up on his toes, arms pointing skyward, showing a golden cushion of soft hair under each arm. The board sprang and the boy performed a nicely executed jackknife, while his buddies cheered and applauded.

“There’s beer in the fridge!” Horace called after me, and I gave him a wave without turning around.

I entered the living room, saw no one, and crossed to a hallway. The first door I came to was ajar, and I pushed it slowly open.

“Oh!”

There was a freckled redhead inside, standing before a bathroom mirror, a disposable razor in one hand and his flat chest lathered with foam.

“You startled me.”

A thin red line trickled from his left nipple.

“Horace told me I’d find Dylan down this way.”

“End of the hall. He’s with Fernando. Better knock first.”

“You’re bleeding,” I said, and left Red looking down.

I passed a screening room with overstuffed leather chairs and sofas arranged for viewing. Across the hall was another bedroom, its door wide open. Inside, two boys slept naked in each other’s arms, intertwined in the fashion of young lovers who have managed to sneak away to their own private world, safe from the torment of guilt and shame, if only for a stolen piece of time. I pulled the door quietly shut, giving them their peace and privacy, wishing I’d been as lucky at their age.

Then I was facing the door at the end of the hall. From inside came grunts and cries that sounded like two grown men in the heat of sex. I turned the doorknob slowly, soundlessly easing the door open.

Dylan Winchester was bent over the end of the bed, his bearded face and powerful chest on the mattress and his hairy butt raised in the air. His swimming trunks lay in a small pile around his ankles. His eyes were closed, his jaw locked.

Fucking him was the most flawless male specimen I’d ever laid eyes on.

He was roughly my height, as darkly bronze as I was blond and fair. His face was angular and smooth, with a bit of soft shadow on his upper lip and chin, and a profile that looked like the ideal Aztec warrior in every gay man’s collection of Latin fantasies.

His shoulders were broad and his arms lean but well muscled, cording up as he gripped Winchester by the hips and thrust into him with strong, controlled strokes. I couldn’t see a hair on his sculpted chest, none on his rippled belly, and only the softest trace on his long, brown legs.

Yet every inch of him was clearly a man, fully in command of the brawnier man beneath him.

Each time he stroked, he arched upward on his toes, thrusting his hips smoothly, while the muscles of his legs and butt tightened into knots of power.

It went on like that for another minute or two. Then the bronzed Adonis was grunting through clenched teeth and the hairy Australian was hollering the word
yes
over and over, his fist flailing at the stiff meat between his legs, until they were thrashing against one another, pelvis pounding ass, crying out like wounded animals.

When it was over, Winchester flattened out on the bed, his head turned my way but his eyes still closed, his thick forearms spread before him on the bed as if raised in surrender.

His lover moved with him, pressing his chest to Winchester’s back, while placing tender kisses in the damp tangle of Winchester’s auburn hair.

I let them enjoy another minute of bliss before I spoke.

“I hope I’m not interrupting.”

Winchester’s green eyes shot open and a millisecond later flared with rage.

“What the fuck!”

The Aztec god pinched the end of the condom between his fingers to hold it in place and pulled slowly out.

He backed away as Winchester came at me with his fist cocked.

“I’ll bash your bloody face in!”

“That wouldn’t solve anything, would it, Dylan?”

He grabbed my shirt front and held his fist at the level of my mouth.

“You’ve got two seconds to explain yourself, mate. Then I’m going to fucking kill you!”

“The last person you threatened to kill was Reza JaFari, and he ended up dead. I haven’t told the police that yet, but I could. Then there’s the matter of the cigar you dropped down on the terrace, roughly ten feet from JaFari’s body.”

Winchester trembled with unspent rage, but loosened his grip and lowered his fist. He glanced over his shoulder at the younger man and jerked his head toward a side door.

“Give us a minute, will you, luv?”

“You’re certain you want me to go?”

Fernando spoke perfect English but with a Mexican accent as pretty as a Luis Miguel ballad.

“I’d best keep this between me and the bloke here.”

Fernando wrapped the condom in tissue, deposited it in a waste can, slipped on a skimpy thong, and opened the side door. I heard the sound of splashing and laughter that ended as the door was closed.

“Talk to me about Reza JaFari, Dylan. No more bullshit. His connection to you, to the Kemmermans, all of it.”

Winchester slipped into a monogrammed velour robe, then sat on the edge of the bed, running his hands through his hair. I waited a moment, but he didn’t speak.

“It seems to me you’ve got two choices, Dylan. Talk to me, or talk to DeWinter with a lawyer present.”

When he looked up, I saw the face of a man who felt a lifetime of self-indulgence and deception catching up with him.

“If I talk to either of you, it’s the end of my bloody career.”

“I didn’t say I’d print it.”

“You didn’t say you wouldn’t.”

I crossed to the windows and drew back the curtains. Most of the boys were in the pool now, engaged in a free-for-all wrestling match, with an erection popping up now and then as someone got lifted or tossed.

“Boys will be boys,” I said. “Hmmm—not a bad title for a lifestyle piece.”

I faced Winchester, with the pool of naked boys cavorting behind me.

“You know—how a famous Hollywood action director spends his weekends away from the rat race.”

“You fucking vulture.”

“I’ve already spoken with Horace. I love the anecdote about the sunblock, how you like to lather up the boys from head to toe. Then there’s Red, who shaves his chest to keep you happy. Like my old boss likes to say, the story’s always in the details.”

“I should break your bloody neck for trespassing. Take the consequences.”

“My photographer too?”

Winchester was on his feet.

“You brought a bloody photographer?”

“He’s waiting in the car out front.”

Winchester stomped from the room and down the hall. At the front window, I pointed to Danny sleeping in the Mustang.

“He got some lovely shots of the Asian kid who rides a horse like Geronimo. And half a roll out by the pool. We’ll black out the faces of the kids. Use studio publicity photos of you. Maybe we’ll find a shot of you and Mel Gibson looking chummy.”

The rage slowly seeped from Winchester’s eyes. His muscular shoulders sagged heavily. He suddenly looked years older, weary from all the lies he’d carried for so long.

“I could use a beer.”

Fernando stood in the kitchen doorway as we approached.

“Fernando, meet Benjamin Justice. Reporter. Got me by the
cojones
, I’m afraid.”

Fernando nodded, but neither smiled nor extended his hand.

“Keep an eye on the boys for a while, eh? Put a capper on the beer. Get some food in ’em. That mountain road’s no place for a kid with a steering wheel in his hands and a belly full of suds.”

Fernando sliced me with a scathing look on his way out. Winchester watched him go.

“Have you ever seen anything more beautiful?” His eyes came around and studied my face carefully. “Or maybe blokes ain’t your cuppa tea.”

“We drink from the same cup, Dylan.”

His head swung back in the direction of his departing lover.

“He’s got a Mexican heart, that one. Big, open, full of passion. Christ, there’s nothin’ like a Mexican if it’s love you’re after.”

“Is that what you’re after?”

He was gazing out at the pool now.

“I fool around with the kids. Look at ’em ’til my eyes get sore. But I don’t fuck ’em, or put my mouth on ’em.”

He looked back my way.

“Fernando laid the law down about that a long time ago. He’s worth it, too, I’ll tell ya.”

I watched Fernando cross the patio to an outdoor shower on the far side, slip out of his thong, and lather himself with soap. In the sunlight, the droplets of water were like pebbles of crystal on his dark skin. I finally pried my eyes away; it was almost painful.

“He’s exquisite, I’ll grant you that.”

“Tell me something, mate. Since you seem to be every bit as queer as me, why do you want to do this to me?”

“I don’t want to screw up your life, Dylan. But there’s someone who means more to me than you do who could find himself in all kinds of trouble unless I put some facts together about Reza JaFari.”

“This someone is a bloke, I take it.”

“Yes.”

He nodded slowly, as if he finally understood there was no point fighting me.

“So that’s it, then.”

He opened a can of Foster’s and drank half of it down in silence. Then I followed him up a stairway and out to the veranda, where we settled into a pair of Adirondack chairs and looked out at the mountains.

“Ten years ago, me and JaFari, we had a little thing going.”

I pushed the story ahead, drawing on my conversation at Rimbaud’s with Lawrence Teal.

“You met at a party up at Nando Sorentino’s, dated Teal for a few weeks, then dropped him.”

“You should be workin’ for the fuckin’ CIA.”

“Hollywood’s a small town, Dylan. People talk.”

“Damn the fucking town. Sometimes I wish I’d stayed Down Under, makin’ me little films.”

He tilted his head back and guzzled more beer.

“Tell me what happened in Mexico, Dylan. When you were on location shooting
Full Contact
. Then connect it to what’s happened in the last couple of months up here.”

Winchester raised a hand to shield the sun and stared off across his land. The long-haired Asian boy had ridden back into view, joined now by the black kid named Horace on a saddled white stallion.

They waved in our direction. Winchester saluted them with his can of beer the way promiscuous straight men send calculated compliments and winks to impressionable young women.

We watched them turn their horses and disappear over a rise, the sharp hooves stirring up the earth.

“Once you get a taste of a beautiful lad,” Winchester said, “it’s like a hunger that gnaws at you forever.”

“Tell me about Reza JaFari, Dylan.”

He spoke as the dust settled in the distance on his lovely fantasies.

“Everybody knew him as Ray Farr back then. You already know that, I guess. He was a good-lookin’ kid with stars in his eyes. I had a romp with him. Then I went into pre-production on
Full Contact
. It was my first American movie with a decent budget, and I poured myself into it.”

“But JaFari still wanted to see you.”

“He’d gotten this idea he was in love with me.”

“Kids can do that the first time around, especially when they want the life you have. It’s what makes them such easy scores.”

“Whatever,” Winchester said tersely. “Raymond got a little crazy about it. I had to change my phone number, have him barred from the studio. Then I didn’t hear from him for a while, and I took the production down to Mexico.”