You know what they say: When God closes a door, he opens a window.
I just happened to be kissing a dark-skinned boy with biceps the size of my thighs through that window right now.
I pul ed away. “That was nice.”
Romeo raised his eyebrows. “It gets better.”
“I bet. One second.” I got a pad and pencil. “Can I have your number?”
He wrote it down for me.
“OK, Romeo,” I said, “I have to crash.”
“If you don’t cal,” he warned, “I’m gonna be back out here in a white suit with flowers and a limo. And I’m gonna sing. If that’s what it takes.”
“How’s your singing?”
“My kissing’s better.”
I smiled. “Next time. Maybe I’l even let you use the front door.”
His face grew serious. He put his hand on my cheek. “Did a guy do this to you? Cause I’l fuck him up if you want me to.”
“No.” I told him the lie about the stranger on the street.
“A cute little guy like you needs some protection,”
Romeo told me. “I wouldn’t mind looking out for you.
If you wanted me to, dat is.”
“I take pretty good care of myself,” I said. “But I can always use a friend.”
Romeo extended his hand. “Friends, then. At least to start.”
“Friends.” We shook hands.
“OK,” I said, pushing him back. “I’l cal you.”
Romeo leapt up, grabbing a rung on the fire escape above me. He showed off with an effortless pul — up.
“I’l be waiting,” he said. He dropped back down, and ran down the fire escape, jumping off the last landing and landing cat-like on the pavement.
“Good night, cute Kevin,” he cal ed.
I waved goodbye and closed the window.
I cal ed Freddy and told him about my parents’ reconciliation and my flirtation with Romeo.
“Wow,” said Freddy. “That could be two times in one month you get laid without getting paid.”
“Ha ha,” I said, thinking that counting my last encounter with Marc Wilgus, it would actual y be three.
“No, I think that’s great. You have to wash that cop right out of your hair, darling. Ow! Watch the teeth!”
“I’m sorry?”
“Nothing, I was just saying that you’ve already gotten over Tony once. Just move on.”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” I said more confidently than I felt.
“That’s my boy. I’m very proud of-hey, what did I tel you about those teeth?”
“Umm, do you by any chance have someone there?”
“The boy from the coffee shop tonight,” Freddy said. “I think he’s part vampire.” I heard a muffled defense in the background.
“No, dear, those aren’t ‘love bites,’” Freddy said to his guest. “Love bites don’t break the skin. And it’s too hot to wear a turtleneck, so watch the hickeys, too. Mmm, that’s better.” To me: “So, what’s your next move.”
“Why don’t we talk tomorrow?” I said. “I don’t want to interrupt.”
“Darling, don’t be sil y. You know you always come first.” I heard the muffled voice again.
“Fine,” Freddy said to his guest. “Yes, you did get to come first. Now, be a good boy and get me a glass of water and maybe I’l let you come third, too.”
I heard Trick Boy walking away. “Is he any good?”
Freddy whispered, “Not bad. A little quick on the trigger, but I bet he’s got a lot more left in him. What I don’t understand is, if you final y got rid of your mother, why didn’t you have Hamlet…”
“Romeo.”
“Whatever. Why didn’t you have Romeo in for some hot man on man action? Most guys have to spend a few hours on an Internet chat line to have a sexy construction worker show up at their window.
And then he turns out to be a skinny accountant wearing brand new boots and a toy tool belt. As if that was going to fool me-I mean, someone. You had the real thing in the al — too-present flesh.”
“I’m thinking of maybe going out on a date with him first.”
“Kevin Connor on a date!” Freddy shouted. Oy, hold on, I think the earth just started spinning in the opposite direction.”
“Yeah, wel, don’t get too excited,” I said. “I’m just thinking about it.”
“Wel, it’s a good start. What about Michael Harrington? Any thoughts?”
“No, I’m waiting to hear from that computer guy I was tel ing you about, Marc Wilgus. Hey, wait a minute, he IMed me this morning on my way out the door. Let me cal him.”
“Go for it, Nancy Drew. Cal me in the morning.”
I cal ed Marc. “Can you come over?” he asked. “I’d like to tel you in person what I found out.”
I was incredibly tired. “Is it important?”
“Crucial.”
“Sure,” I said. “Give me twenty minutes.”
Fifteen minutes later, the doorman let me in. I took the elevator to Marc’s expansive penthouse apartment.
“Hey,” he said, opening the door. Then, “what happened?” He touched my cheek, gently.
I went in and lied again about the stranger in the street.
“That’s not true, is it?”
“What makes you say that?” I asked.
“Because I think you’ve gotten yourself involved in something very dangerous.”
I told him about the guy in the hotel. “I thought it might be related to the Harringtons, but I didn’t want to be paranoid.”
“I don’t think you can be too paranoid right now,” he said. “Let me show you.”
He brought me to his office. It was like walking into a super hightech computer store. LCD screens hung from the wal s and were perched on tables, where their displays were constantly flashing and updating. He took me to a large desk where three widescreen displays flanked an ergonomic keyboard. It was al very Minority Report.
“So, what do you run,” I asked, trying to sound smart, “Windows or Mac?”
Marc looked at me as if I’d asked if he slept with sheep.
“I run my own operating system,” he said. “Wrote it in high school.”
“Natch.”
Marc directed me to sit in the futuristic desk chair that seemed to mold itself to my body. He stood behind me, using a wireless mouse to run the computer.
“I ran that data mining program I told you about. It basical y looked for connections between the information you gave me that other investigations may have missed. Look at this.”
On the screen furthest to the left, he cal ed up the list of gay suicide victims that Tony had given me.
“You know who these are, right?” he asked. I nodded.
On the right hand screen he brought up what looked like the internal databases of The Center for Creative Empowerment Therapy. He pul ed up a file titled “Clientbase.”
“You got into their system?” I asked.
“I’ve gotten into the Pentagon,” Marc said. “This was nothing. Watch.”
He pressed a button and the information from the two side screens seemed to melt and merge into the middle screen. In a few seconds, the names of the suicide victims were on the middle screen, flashing in red, with the word “match” listed next to each one.
“What does this mean?” I asked.
“Al of the men who committed suicide were clients of Michael Harrington’s.”
Holy shit.
“So,” I said, “not only doesn’t his ‘reparative’ therapy work, but it drives his clients to kil themselves.”
“It may be worse than that.” Michael pressed more buttons. On the left screen a New York State Office of Taxation Web site popped up. Something about the Office of Probate. On the right, the financial records of The Center for Creative Empowerment Therapy appeared.
Again, the two side screens overlapped on the middle screen. When they were done, the same names were listed on the middle screen, but this time, for al but one of the men, the word “match” was replaced by numbers: 150,000; 75,000; 225,000; 50,000; etc.
“What are those numbers?” I asked?
“Bequests,” Michael answered.
To who?
“To The Center for Creative Empowerment Therapy. Almost al of the men who kil ed themselves left sizable donations to the Center in their wil s.”