The Hired Man (37 page)

“I noticed he'd put pillowcases on the pillows, which I thought was kind of odd―Gary's not the domestic type. I found out why that night when I went to bed. I bunched one up, and a little puff of feathers shot out of one corner. The thread had come loose, and there was maybe a half-inch hole, which I fixed with a safety pin.

“I was pissed to think Gary knew damned well it was torn, but he figured he could just pass it off to good old Matt, who'd be too stupid to realize he was being pissed on again―it's classic Gary.”

He looked at me, long and hard.

“Billy was killed with a pillow, wasn't he?” he said.

Again I felt that cold chill. I nodded.

“From what I know.”

“I guess Gary's right,” he said, “I
am
stupid. I never put two and two together. The cops never told me how Billy died, and I never knew until they came in to get those fucking pillows.”

He was quiet for a moment then sighed.

“So, I've had it,” he said, calmly. “I've got no alibi at all for the night Billy was killed, I can't find the guy I tricked with the night Anderson died, and as far as the cops are concerned, my being completely gay doesn't mean shit since I've got kids. They probably think I spend most of my free time on Pussy Patrol—hell, that's what
they
'd do if they had the chance.

“So, unless I can find that guy, I'm really, really screwed―and they'll probably arrest me before I can find him.”

His assessment of the situation was pretty accurate.

Time to take the plunge.

“Okay, Matt,” I said, readjusting my position on the couch so I could face him more directly. “We're pretty much down to the wire here. I want to believe you, and if there's anything I can do to help you, I will, I promise. But I know damned well there's more going on here than you're willing to tell me, and unless I know everything, you're going to take the fall.”

He took a long drag off his cigarette and walked over to the closest ashtray to stub it out quickly.

“Won't do much good,” he said. “I can't prove anything, and nobody will believe it, anyway.”

“Try me,” I said. “And start by telling me just why Gary is trying so hard to set you up.”

He shrugged, then sighed.

“You're sure you want to hear it all?”

“I'm sure,” I said.

He took a deep breath and began.

“I told you that, even when we were in the Corps, Gary was obsessed with the fact that his mother had dumped him when he was a kid. I told you he swore to get even when he found her. It wasn't a matter of
if
he found her. I knew he would.”

He reached into his pocket for another cigarette and, finding the pack empty, got up from the couch and went into the kitchen for another. Returning to the living room, he sat back down, opened the new pack and lit up before continuing.

“Gary played me from day one,” he said. “I think he had his plan all laid out even before he met me. If it hadn't been me, it'd have been some other sucker. He led me on, and I let him. I knew he liked women, too, and that didn't bother me—apples and oranges. But whenever he talked about the future, it was always ‘we'―him and me.

“And then he found Iris, and called me. Shit, I was like a little kid, and I couldn't wait to get out to Vegas to be with him.” He looked at me and gave me a sad little semi-smile. “Sounds pathetic, doesn't it? Well, when you've lived all your life being something you're not, and when you've never had anybody who really gave a shit about you, you're pretty open to somebody who makes you think they might actually…well, you know.”

I knew.

“So, I got to Vegas, and I met Iris, who turned out to be a pretty decent lady in spite of what she'd done to Gary. Even though I'd always known he was a real con man, I was surprised at how he worked her. Even I thought he'd changed his mind about getting even. They were like best buddies, and Gary never said a word to make me think otherwise.

“Of course, I never brought the subject up; I was just glad he'd found her and assumed that, when he got to know her, he'd let all that other shit go.”

He sighed and remained quiet for a moment. I wasn't about to butt in.

“We used to hustle the casinos to make extra money,” he continued, “and that's how Gary met Arnold Glick. Most of the guys we hustled were pretty well off, but Arnold was
really
loaded! And when Gary introduced Arnold to Iris… Well, I should have started getting wise right then, but I didn't.”

He glanced at me just long enough to check my reaction to all this, I guess.

“I'd found a job working as a bouncer at one of the strip clubs, and Iris got Gary a job with some executive she knew at an insurance company, and Iris and Arnold got married, and everything was fine. Gary was doing pretty damned well selling insurance―con men make good salesmen―and he convinced Iris that she and Arnold should take out huge policies on one another. Arnold is getting up there in years, after all.

“I thought he did it just because it would really boost his commissions. He already had her wrapped around his little finger.”

He looked at me as if to see if I was still with him. I was.

“Then one of Arnold's real estate ventures—the plans for Belamy Towers—really took off, and he decided to move here. Iris insisted that Gary and I move, too. I'm not really sure what Arnold thought of that idea. He's sure no dummy, but he doesn't say much, and just lets Iris have whatever she wants.

“About the time of the move, Gary brought up the subject of a male escort service. It was a natural―he and I both hustled, Iris had had that little ‘school,' as she called it, Arnold had quite a few rich bi friends. So that's how ModelMen got started.”

I'd begun to have an inkling of where all this was headed but set it aside to concentrate on what Matt was saying.

“Then Arnold sold off a couple of his business interests back in New York and made a killing.” He paused for a second. “No pun intended. That's when Gary sprang the trap on me.

“He waited until one night just after we'd had sex. Again, I should have seen something was coming. We'd taken a week off and gone to Hawaii, and all the time there, he never once took off with a woman. It was just him and me, and he kept talking about everything ‘we' were going to do in the future.

“So, as we're lying there, Gary tells―not asks, tells―me what we're going to do. We're going to kill Iris and Arnold. Calm and casual. Nothing to it. We'll kill Arnold first, so all the money will go to Iris―that was just in case Arnold has some relatives we didn't know about who might put a claim on the money if they both died together. Then we'll wait awhile and kill Iris so all the money will go to us.
Us,
he said! I realized at that instant how fucking stupid he thought I was, that I'd fall for that!”

He looked at me again for my reaction, but I was too zeroed in on what he was saying to register one. I was in my mind-as-sponge mode, just soaking it all in.

He sighed, put out his cigarette, and started to reach for another then decided against it.

“Part of me wanted to think he was joking, of course,” he said, “but he wasn't. I just lay there beside him and listened to him talk. He wasn't just thinking out loud. He'd had it all figured out since God knows when and was just waiting until the right moment to tell me. After sex is always good.

“Gary's spent a lot of time studying Iris. He knows exactly how she reacts to things, so he could be almost positive the scenario he'd come up with would work exactly as he planned it.”

He paused again, looking at me. I didn't say anything, but let my eyebrow ask the question.

“Arnold doesn't like opera,” he said. “Iris loves it. Gary would buy tickets for himself, Iris, and me for a Sunday night, when Johnnie Mae was off. Arnold would stay home alone. We'd make a point of going over during the day Saturday so I could drop some hints that I wasn't feeling very well― probably coming down with the flu, I'd say.

“Iris would be concerned, of course—she does enjoy the role of mother hen. Sunday evening, we'd pick her up at the house and I'd do my ‘I'm really feeling rotten, but I'll be brave' routine. Iris would insist we not go, I'd insist that she'd been looking forward to it, Gary would suggest I go home to bed while he and Iris went ahead to the opera. Iris would object, but I'd say it was a good idea, and she'd go along.”

As happens so often when I'm fascinated with something, I sat there completely tuned out to the world, only seeing Matt's face, only hearing his voice.

“So, they drop me off here on their way to the opera. I come into the apartment and wait. As soon as they get to the theater, Gary suggests they should call to see how I'm doing. Either Iris will want to call, or Gary will be sure she gets on the phone. I say I'm feeling worse and am going to go right to bed. If Iris doesn't suggest I leave the phone off the hook so I can sleep, Gary will.

“They go in to the opera, I leave the apartment by the back way, drive my car―which I'd have parked a block or two away earlier―to Arnold's via back streets, pull up through the service alley. Gary's left the pool gate open. I go in, kill Arnold, make it look like a break-in and robbery, and go home. Gary arranges for Iris to insist on stopping by the apartment on the way home from the opera, and there I am, fast asleep in bed, the phone off the hook.”

I found myself shaking my head―I'm not sure if it was in disbelief or because of the intricacy of the scheme and the fact I could see it actually might work exactly the way Matt described it.

He counterbalanced my head shake with a slow nod, and continued.

“The furor dies down, I've got a pretty good alibi supported by the grieving widow, and Iris inherits the Glick fortune. We wait several months―once Arnold is dead, Gary can afford to bide his time for a while, especially to avoid suspicion―and then Iris has an ‘accident.' A fatal one, of course. The exact details of that part of the plan he hadn't worked out yet, but I was sure he would.”

Now it was his turn to shake his head.

“He actually expected me to go along with it!
I
do the dirty work.
I
kill Arnold―and I'm sure Iris, too when the time came―and then
we
get the money. Oh, sure…like I'm actually dumb enough to believe that.

“I told him no. I wouldn't have any part of it. I think that really blew him away. Here he's been grooming me to be his lapdog ever since that first day on the bus in boot camp, and I tell him no.

“He dropped it for the moment but kept coming back to it. How ‘we' could have anything we wanted, do anything we wanted, go anywhere we wanted. And when I'd say no, he'd just clam up and go out for the night and pick up a woman. Sometimes he'd bring her back here and fuck her in the guest room, hoping I'd get jealous, I guess. I knew he was sending me a message.

“He started getting more and more insistent, until one night we had a really big fight about it. That was just a couple days before I went with that guy who got me fired. My own fucking fault for letting Gary get to me.”

Apparently figuring he'd talked long enough without getting some feedback from me, he fell silent until I asked, “And you think Gary killed three people just to get even with you? I'm sorry, but…”

Matt shrugged. “See? I told you. Let's just forget it.”

No way, Charlie!
I thought.

“Hey, no, I'm sorry,” I hastened to say. “I want to hear it all. Go ahead, please.”

He looked at me as if he wasn't sure but then shrugged again. I guess he figured that if he had a chance of anybody buying his story, it would be me. It sure as hell wouldn't be the cops.

“I'm not saying he set out to kill anybody just to get even with me,” he said, “but it sure turned out that way. Anderson may well have been some sort of accident, for all I know, but once he was dead, Gary wasn't about to risk taking the blame. Not when I was available. He stole that knife set because he knew I…uh…like to take a souvenir every now and then. Those were pretty expensive knives. Maybe he thought at first he could just keep them and tell anybody who might ask that I'd given them to him. Either way, he saw it as a perfect way to get me to do what he wanted.”

How did he know about the knife set?
I wondered but decided to wait to see if he was going to have an explanation.

“He called me a couple times that next week, wanting to talk, hoping to get me to change my mind. Kept saying how he missed me, how we could still be a great team. I didn't buy it, and that pissed him off. Gary's not used to not getting whatever it is he wants, especially not from me.

“I'd try to shift the conversation anywhere but where he wanted it to go―ask him about the guys at ModelMen, made the mistake of telling him I was thinking about giving Billy a call. The next thing I know, Billy's in a Dumpster. I should have known right then that Gary had done it, but…”