The three looked at me with a queasy expectancy, as if my acquaintanceship with Sturdivant and Gaudios – the precise nature of which they had guessed with no trouble at all – would have clued me in on their idea of any obligatory “condition.”
I said, “Is the condition sexual?”
I was making a stab, having eliminated political conditions, spiritual conditions, and astrological conditions. This was based on my investigator’s knowledge of how extortion often works once you eliminate cash as the desired currency of exchange.
Radziwill said, “Jim and Steven have a hot tub. You have to get naked and get in it with them.”
“Don’t forget the dog,” Josh put in.
“They have a fluffy white terrier,” Radziwill said as the other two watched me react. “You get in the hot tub with Jim and Steven and What-Not. You all drink martinis – the dog has one, too. And then the fun begins. If you want to call it that. I have to say, they do let the dog out before things really get going.”
“I’m sure you’d never convince Rick Santorum of that,” I said, trying unsuccessfully not to visualize any of this. “But can’t people just say no, thank you?”
“You can say that, yes,” Fields said. “But if you do – and everybody knows this – then difficulties suddenly arise with the loan. Jim says, oh, by the way, the market has gone south, and my finances are looking dicier than they did last week, and the rate on the loan will have to be half a point above the market rate instead of half a point below. At that point, the loan recipient either shuts his eyes and slides into the tub, or he heads over to Great Barrington Savings Bank to get the best deal he can.”
“And Bill Moore… slid in?”
“It’s how he got the down payment on his house,” Fields said. “Bill has a federal pension, but he left the government with very little in savings. He said the hot-tub experience was icky and humiliating, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as some other things he did during his years in Washington that he had no way of avoiding without jeopardizing his career and livelihood.”
“Bill’s dick was his collateral,” Radziwill said. “The loan department won’t accept that at Great Barrington Savings Bank, so far as I know.”
“Unless you get Arthur Homler as your loan officer,” Josh put in, and they all chuckled.
My mind began to force to the surface shameful memories of sex I had had in earlier years for reasons other than love or fun. But I shoved these thoughts back down into their seamy cerebral storage bins. At any rate, Bill Moore seemed to be beyond an age where he would be willing to make his body available in exchange for mere money, or would even be requested to do so, no matter how humpy a forty-eight-yearold he was. Fields seemed to suggest, and perhaps this was the answer, that Moore was a man who had known deep shame previously and was more prepared than some men would be to degrade himself. Of course, another plausible explanation was, a blowjob is only a blowjob – if in fact that’s what we were talking about here.
I said, “How much does Bill owe the toads?”
“It’s down to around thirty-four thousand three hundred,” Fields said. “It was forty, but the front end is mostly interest. Just like it is with the banks.”
“And you think Sturdivant and Gaudios see you and your marriage to Bill as a threat to their recovering their loan?”
Radziwill said, “Barry is sooooo dangerous, doncha know? After all, he killed Tom Weed, didn’t he? And Jim and Steven know Barry can barely stand them. Not to put too fine a point on it.” More Texas inflections.
“Bill must not be too crazy about Jim and Steven either,” I said.
“He despises them.”
This was Jim Sturdivant’s “dear friend” Fields was speaking of. So it was true. I had been had. But where to go from here? Rapid disengagement loomed.
I said, “How many clients like Bill – if client is the right word for it – do the toads have?”
“We know of four,” Fields said. “There may be others too embarrassed to admit they’ve been to the tub. We know of several who have respectfully declined. Or who have not so respectfully told Jim and Steven to go fuck themselves.”
“This is highly unusual,” I said. “It’s really a weird way of getting recreational sex. If they have all this money and no one is eager to hop in the tub with the toads and their doggie, why don’t they hire call boys? Men of their background and means have been known to take this approach. Does one of the toads have a background in finance or banking or something that makes them want to get off by injecting interest rates into the sexual equation? I have to say, this is novel.”
“Jim was a corporation mouthpiece, and Steven’s family had a couple of restaurants in Springfield, and apparently he did well on his own in banking,” Fields said. “What they do with their hot-tub operation is less about money than it is about control. It’s about making local gay men beholden to them, and about letting others know they can get away with it. It’s more a power trip than a money trip, I think.”
If what Fields was telling me about Sturdivant and Gaudios was true – sex in a hot tub in return for discounted interest rates – there still seemed to be an important element missing, psychologically or practically. There were too many simpler, easier ways to attain both sex and social preeminence for those who sought them. There had to be more to this.
I said, “Barry, I do understand why you’re upset about being investigated just before your wedding to Bill. It must be annoying – and embarrassing. Do you have family around here who might get wind of my nosing around about you? Family members who might be planning to attend the wedding?”
Radziwill grew suddenly alert, but Fields just laughed. “Nice try, Don. What did the toads tell you about what I told them about my family?”
“It has not been established,” I said, “that Sturdivant, Gaudios and I discussed you or anything about you. Perhaps I was dining with them this evening to analyze the musical pros and cons of the Tanglewood season. Levine is reported to be doing a bang-up job. I heard the Mahler was spectacular and the Mozart excellent, too. Or maybe our dinner at Pearly Gates wasn’t musical at all, and I was meeting with the toads to negotiate a loan for myself.”
Hazel-eyed Josh, still in his waiter’s green and black getup, jumped right in. “Hey, I heard you with the toads talking about Barry and about Tom Weed’s death. And about asking around town about Barry. I wondered what it was you were talking about, but it was definitely about Barry, so don’t try to deny it.”
They all looked at me balefully.
“Josh,” I said, “isn’t there some high-end-restaurant protocol about customer confidentiality? You’re quite the little Aunt Blabby.”
“And you’re quite the fucking ’stick your nose in other people’s business’ sleazy private eye asshole fucking jerk!” Fields spat out, suddenly flaring. His blue eyes blazed, and he seemed as if he might lunge at me but was working hard at controlling the impulse. Radziwill and Josh tensed and watched Fields and me somberly.
I said, “Barry, a few hours ago I knew much less about you and your situation and relationships than I know now. Had I known earlier everything you have just told me – providing that all of your story is true and that you’re not withholding anything material – I might not have continued with my investigation. And what I’m thinking now is, I should just back off and get out of everybody’s hair here in this pleasant town. Are you reassured by that?”