The Hired Man (2 page)

“
Phil?
” I turned around on my stool and got up. Anderson smiled broadly as Phil came over and grabbed me in a huge bear hug, which I returned.

When we released one another, Phil turned to Anderson and shook hands.

“Stuart,” he said warmly. “Good to see you.”

I managed to sit back down, and while Phil and Anderson exchanged a few words and Phil gave the bartender his order, I recalled my first meeting with him—known then as “Tex”—at Hughie's, a hustler bar not far from my office. He'd been in full Marlboro Man drag at the time, but I thought even then he had the Marlboro Man beat by a mile. Seeing him now, looking like he'd just stepped off the cover of a fashion magazine, only underscored the fact that Phil was an amazingly handsome—and sexy—piece of work.

But there had clearly been some dramatic changes in his life

Obviously it had been Phil who had recommended me to Anderson, and I was secretly very pleased to know he'd remembered not only me but what I did for a living. Still, I was curious as to the details. Anderson didn't strike me as the kind of guy who would spend much time in Hughie's (although you could never tell), and Phil was certainly not the same readily identifiable hustler I'd known. I was curious as all hell about what was going on but decided to let discretion be the better part of valor and see what I could pick up as the evening progressed.

Phil had ordered a Black Russian—another change from his beer-bottle-butch days—and he stood with his free hand casually on Anderson's shoulder.

“So, how long has it been, Dick?” he asked.

“Don't ask,” I said. “Too damned long,” and realized I meant it. I realized, too, that until I knew exactly what was going on between Phil and Anderson—which likely wouldn't exactly require a caliper and slide rule to figure out—I had better watch what I said. “You're looking spectacular, as always,” I said, “and it looks like you're doing well for yourself.”

I immediately hoped Anderson wouldn't take that last sentence the wrong way, but if he did, he didn't let on.

“As a matter of fact, I am,” Phil said, giving Anderson's shoulder a squeeze and exchanging grins with him. “I've been working through ModelMen for about six months now. A great outfit.”

ModelMen!
I should have guessed.

The ModelMen Agency, although less than a year old, was a hugely successful business venture that cleverly doubled as both a legitimate talent agency, specializing strictly in male fashion models, and an extremely discreet male escort service that provided…companionship…to very, very wealthy men like Stuart Anderson. That pretty much explained how Phil and Anderson had gotten together.

But I was still intensely curious as to how Phil had made the transition from diamond-in-the-rough street/bar hustler to this highly polished gem standing three feet away from me. I'd make it a point to find out when I could manage to talk to him alone, which probably wouldn't be tonight.

“They were damned lucky to get you,” I said, and meant it wholeheartedly. “I guess I have you to thank for referring Stuart to me.”

“Guilty,” Phil said, grinning. “You're kind of a hard guy to forget, and when Stuart mentioned he was going to hire an investigator to look into the backgrounds of his prospective management teams, I naturally suggested you.”

Trying (with only moderate success) to keep my crotch from reacting too strongly to that “hard to forget” line and cause me to strip him naked on the spot, I was glad when Anderson entered the conversation.

“If any of the applicants for the managers' jobs might be gay,” he explained, “I didn't want to risk his—or her—chances by putting the responsibility background checks in the hands of some potentially prejudiced straight investigator. Of course…” He grinned. “…I'm taking the chance that you won't go off in the opposite direction.”

“Guaranteed,” I said.

The maître d' came over to announce our table was ready, and we followed him into the dining room.

Phil really impressed the hell out of me at dinner. We hadn't done much talking the couple times I'd been with him, actually, but I did know he'd come from a lower-middle-class background and had never gone to college. That isn't to say he wasn't an intelligent and self-confident guy, but I never had the feeling he was ever too concerned about which fork was for the oysters.

I had no doubt he knew now. How, when, and where he'd learned was added to my “things to find out” list.

He talked easily with Anderson about stock trends and market shares and things about which I could barely venture an opinion. It was all blended together so smoothly and effortlessly it was as though he'd been that way all his life.

The food was, as always, excellent, and Anderson rather studiously avoided bringing up the wife and kids more than a couple times—and even then only peripherally. We didn't talk all that much about gay things, either. Just general conversation on a wide range of subjects.

Anderson, I decided, was one of those nice guys easy to talk with about whom I felt nothing in particular one way or the other. He was returning to Buffalo the next day but was due back in town Sunday evening to set up personal interviews Monday with any of the prospective managers my research had not eliminated. I made sure I had his office address and phone number and told him I would have my report waiting at his hotel—the Montero—when he arrived.

But Anderson had other ideas, apparently.

“No,” he said, “why don't you bring them around to the hotel first thing Monday morning, say around seven-fifteen? I'm in room 1485. I go for a twenty-minute run every morning at six-thirty, so that will give me time to get back and shower. We can have breakfast and go over your report—it will save me some time, especially if I have any questions.”

I really don't like being jaded, but I immediately had the mental image of Anderson opening the door in his robe, which would conveniently manage to come open when I stepped into the room. Still, he hadn't really even come close to making a pass, and it was unfair of me to think that just because his gay side was repressed most of the time he wouldn't be able to keep it under control. I was mildly embarrassed to realize I was using exactly the same kind of specious logic many straight men use against gays.

“Fine,” I said.

As we said goodbye outside the restaurant, I told Phil how good it was to see him again and asked him to please give me a call. He said he would, and when we shook hands, I got the definite impression he meant it.

Can crotches smile?
I wondered.

*

I'd been lucky enough, if lucky is the word, about six months before to handle a case for Mollie Marino, a lesbian who worked in the Clerk of Courts office in the City Building. Mollie's ex-husband had threatened to expose her sexual orientation to her notoriously homophobic boss, which would, at the time, have put her job at risk or at least effectively ended any chances she might have had for advancement. When I was able to discover the ex was dumb enough to be having a secret affair with his boss's seventeen-year-old daughter, that pretty much resolved the case then and there.

But Mollie was very grateful, and I'd been able to get priority treatment whenever I needed information on someone's arrest record, which I made a standard part of most of my background investigations.

After stopping briefly at my office to check for mail and phone messages, I wrote down the names and basic information from Anderson's résumés on a single sheet of paper, folded it, put it in my shirt pocket, and headed for the City Building. Mollie was, I was glad to see, on duty, and she accepted the list without giving it more than a cursory glance.

“When do you need it?” she asked.

“As soon as you possibly can without going out of your way,” I said.

She smiled. “Give me a call around three—I'll see what I can do.”

As they say, it's not
what
you know…

*

I was pleasantly—to put it mildly—surprised to find, on returning to the office, that I'd had a call from a Phil Stark. I don't think I ever knew Phil's last name, but I was sure it was him, and I hastened to return the call.

When the phone was answered, I didn't recognize the voice.

“Phil?” I asked, wondering if I'd been wrong and this was another Phil.

“No, this is Billy. Phil should be back in about half an hour. Can I have him call you?”

Billy, huh?
He sounded pretty young—and pretty sexy, if voices count.

“Yeah, if you would,” I said. “This is Dick Hardesty returning his call. I'll be in the office for a couple hours.”

“I'll give him the message,” Billy said. “Thanks for calling. Bye.”

Billy, huh?
my mind repeated.

Yes, ‘Billy, huh',
I answered.
Why in hell couldn't you have been born a Gemini instead of a Scorpio? There's more to life than your fucking crotch.

Like, for instance…?

I reached for the phone and called downstairs to the coffee shop to order lunch—a chef's salad, blue cheese dressing, and a large black coffee to go, then immediately took the elevator to the lobby. My order was waiting for me when I got to the cash register. Either Eudora or Evolla, the identical twin waitresses I was sure had voted for Coolidge, handed me the bill and the white paper bag. After all these years, I still couldn't tell them apart without their name tags, which they often did not bother to put on, or as I strongly suspected, frequently switched—the only oblique concession to humor (or any other emotion) I ever saw them display.
They
knew who they were, if nobody else did, though.

I didn't want to tie up the phone while I waited for Phil's call, so I spent the time looking through the phone book with one hand and eating with the other. I went through each applicant's past work history then checked for and wrote down the phone numbers of the companies/ organizations for which they had worked. A couple of the applicants had moved into the city from elsewhere, so that meant a little more work and some calls to Information. One of the women applicants had included phone and extension numbers in her list, and she immediately moved to the top of the heap in my estimation, which admittedly probably wasn't going to be much of a factor in Anderson's final determination.

The phone rang just as I was wiping a dab of blue cheese dressing off one of the résumés. I let it ring twice, which gave me time to move the salad safely out of the way, before answering.

“Hardesty Investigations.”

“Dick, hi. This is Phil.” Of course it was. “Sorry about the phone tag. I had an appointment for a haircut and just got back.”

“No problem,” I said. “And before I forget, I want to thank you again for referring Stuart Anderson to me. I really appreciate it.”

“Well, like I said, I never forgot our little get-togethers, and when Stuart said he needed some help, I thought of you immediately.”

“I owe you,” I said. “And speaking of get-togethers, I'd really like to see you whenever you have the chance. I want to hear all about what's been happening with you since you sort of disappeared.”

“I'd like that,” and he sounded as though he meant it. He paused then said, “Tell you what. My evenings are pretty much tied up, but how about meeting me at Hughie's Saturday afternoon around four-thirty?”

“You still go to Hughie's?” I asked, a little surprised at myself for being surprised to hear that he might.

“I haven't in a long time,” he said, “but I always say, you should never forget where you came from—you never know when you might have to go back there.”

“Phil,” I said, “I somehow suspect you've moved a bit beyond Hughie's. But it will be fun to see you, there or anywhere. Until four-thirty Saturday, then.”

“Looking forward to it,” he said. “So long.”

*

When my crotch finally allowed me to tear my thoughts away from some very interesting fantasies involving Phil, I started calling the phone numbers I'd written down on the résumés. As so often happens, one minute it was 1:45 and the next it was 3:00 and time to call Mollie at the Clerk of Courts office. The three résumés I'd managed to go through produced nothing but good-to-glowingly positive ratings, and I was rather hoping Mollie might have at least come up with an ax murder conviction to make it interesting.

No such luck.

“A total of three speeding convictions,” she said, “one destruction of property conviction—breaking a window at an abortion clinic during a protest rally—one assault and battery charge stemming from a mini-riot after a football game, and one violation of a restraining order issued by an ex-wife filing for divorce. Kind of vanilla.”

I agreed but noted the appropriate information on the appropriate résumé and promised Mollie I'd take her and her new lover Barb out to dinner one night soon by way of thanks.

*