"Depends on what?" he croaked.
"On whether I'm satisfied with the quality of the information you give me."
"You'd go to the police?"
"Sure."
"This is blackmail. This is fucking blackmail!"
The mind reeled. "Nathan, are you raising moral objections to my exposure of your practice of selling information on people's private sexual activities to a man who then published the information in the newspapers? Are you presuming to question me on ethical grounds?"
He twitched once but otherwise sat looking glum. "It was just dish," he finally said. "I don't see why you don't get it. I know about you, Strachey, and I know you're gay, and I don't see where you get off acting so fucking holier-than-thou. Don't tell me you never dished anybody."
" 'Dished'? You made thirty-two hundred dollars tax-free this year providing a lunatic with information on who went into which hotel room with whom, and sometimes what kind of stains were left on the sheets, and condoms in the wastebaskets, and every other piece of crud you could come up with, and you call that 'dish'?"
"Yes. I do. And maybe if you'd lighten up a little, Strachey, you would too. I'm just being gay. I don't know what the fuck you're trying to be. Gay people have been doing each other forever, and gay people will be doing each other until the end of time. That's just a part of being gay, and maybe it's about time people like you faced it and quit trying to pretend you're something you're not!"
I wished Rutka were there to hear those words. Here was the kind of classic gay self-loathing-"internalized homophobia"-that John Rutka had despised and fought against with every atom of his being, and it turned out to be coming from a man who had played a critical part in making Rutka's antihomophobia campaign possible. It was as if enlightened gay thought existed not on a spectrum but in a circle, and the evilest underside of the circle was where, facing each other from opposite directions, Nathan Zenck and John Rutka met. One outed gay people because he loved them, ostensibly, and one because he hated them, and it all amounted to the same thing: oceans of pain and conflict and nothing to show for it.
I said, "Either you answer my questions to my satisfaction, or I will go to both the cops and the Zantek Corporation with everything I've got. You choose, Nathan. How's that for gay people doing each other till the end of time? Of course, I haven't got till the end of time. I'm going to give you about twenty minutes."
"I'll get you for this."
"You will? How?"
"I'll blacken your name from Niskayuna to Selkirk."
"No, please."
"I mean it."
I felt as if I'd been caught in a time warp. Next he'd be addressing me as "Bitch." I said, "I'll just have to live with the horror of it all."
"You laugh about it now. But you wait."
I'd had enough. "Just shut up and answer my questions, you pitiful anachronism, or I swear I'll ruin your life."
That did it. He clamped his mouth shut and sat there stewing in his silk suit. I felt silly and ashamed meeting Zenck on his own terms, but he didn't know that, so I went ahead and did what I had gone there to do.
"When you first heard that John Rutka had been killed," I said, "who did you think of first? Who did you think might have done it?"
He had probably been expecting something a little more pointed and specific than this, and he appeared to relax somewhat. "I really have no idea who killed John. It could have been dozens of people. How would I know? I was just shocked."
"That's not what my question was. Who did you think it might have been? What went through your mind?"
"Well, Bruno Slinger, naturally. I know his balls went into orbit when John outed him. You just don't fuck around with Miss Bruno, Miss Queen of the New York State Senate."
"Do you know Slinger?"
"Doesn't every cute guy in Albany under the age of a hundred and six know Miss Bruno? I can't imagine he hasn't popped your cork."
"Did you ever hear him threaten Rutka?"
"Not personally, I didn't. But I get all the best dirt."
"What did you hear?"
"Just that Bruno said people like Rutka should be exterminated like roaches. I can't remember who told me exactly, but I heard it more than once."
A phone next to Zenck rang once and he picked it up.
"Yes?" He listened. "Well, you'll just have to handle it. I do not wish to be disturbed." He listened again. "We are not. Winston, you handle it." He slammed the receiver down.
"Who else did you think of," I said, "when you heard John had been killed? Bruno and who else?"
"Oh, I don't know. Ronnie Linkletter. He was going around saying John should be boiled in oil. Stuff like that. Naturally, I'd think of dear Ronnie."
"Were either Slinger or Linkletter into S amp;M at all? Tying people up with chains or whatever?"
"I never heard that. I don't know. They never left any chains here. I'd have heard about that."
"And sold the information to John Rutka?"
"Why not? He was buying, and why shouldn't I sell him what he wanted if I had it? That's what makes the world go 'round."
It was becoming apparent that there wasn't anything Zenck knew that might be useful that wasn't already in Rutka's files, because Zenck had sold the dirt to Rutka, who put it there.
I said, "Who's the All-American Asshole Mega-Hypocrite?"
"The what?"
"Did Rutka ever mention a mega-hypocrite-somebody who was gay and closeted and deserved more than anybody else to be outed? Somebody who was sicken-ingly or even dangerously hypocritical?"
This involved a moral consideration that might simply have been outside Zenck's ken. He looked baffled. "I wouldn't know about that. Miss Bruno, maybe. After the job she did on that law some gay people were in favor of against beating up fags and what have you. I wouldn't really know who else it could be." He glanced at his watch. "You know, Strachey, delicious as it is sitting here being whipped with your rubber hose, I do have other responsibilities to attend to. Could we wrap this up in about, say, half a sec?"
"No, we can't. Where were you last night between six and nine, Nathan?"
He simpered. "Right here, honey-chile. The same place I am every night Monday through Friday from six P.M. to two A.M. Now, I think I am going to have to ask you to excuse me, Donald. People are starting to wonder what we're doing in here." He started to stand up.
"Sit, Nathan. I'm not finished."
He hesitated, got into a sulk, and sat.
"Who else performed this sleazy snooping service for Rutka besides you?"
He sniffed. "Just Jay, that I know of. Jay Gladu. Isn't he in the records too?"
Jay Gladu-JG. "Just answer my questions, please. Who else?"
"He's the only one I know about. I just happen to know Jay because he's in the hospitality and guest-accommodations business too. If you want to call it that."
"He's where-at the Sheraton?"
This got a snicker. "You must have him mixed up with someone else. Jay runs a hot-sheet motel on Central Avenue, the Fountain of Eden. Who's at the Sheraton? John never mentioned that he had a contact there."
"I'll ask the questions, Nathan, and you'll answer them. Whose initials are the letters DR?"
He sniffed and thought. "DR?"
"DR, yes."
"Zantek has a hotel in the D.R.-the Dominican Republic. It's a full resort and convention facility, and we had a sales meeting down there two years ago, the Surf 'n' Smurf. That's the only D.R. I know of."