Hush Money

He was drinking red wine. And I could tell that he’d been doing it for a while.

“Good to be the best at something,” I said.

The bartender had bright blond hair and an earring. The bar had Brooklyn Lager on draught. I ordered one.

“So what you want to talk about, Mister World’s Straightest?”

I saw no reason to vamp on the subject.

“I’d like to talk about the blackmail doodle you guys were running with OUTrageous.”

“Huh?”

“I’d like to talk about the blackmail doodle you guys were running with OUTrageous.”

“Doodle?”

“You guys were discovering closeted gay people and threatening to out them if they didn’t give you money. I’d like us to talk about that.”

Walt finished the rest of his wine and motioned to the bartender.

“I’m going to switch to martinis, Tom.”

“Belvedere,” the bartender said, “up with olives.”

“You got it,” Walt said.

I waited. Walt watched as the bartender mixed his martini and brought it to him. The bartender put out the little napkin, set the martini on it, and went away. Walt picked up the martini carefully and took a sip, and said “ahh.” Then he looked at me, and as I watched him, his eyes began slowly to fill up with tears.

“Whose idea was it?” I said.

Tears were running down Walt’s face.

“Willie and I have been together for seven years,” he said.

His voice was shaky.

“Long time,” I said.

Susan and I had been together for more than twenty, with a little time out in the middle. So I didn’t actually think seven was a long time, but it seemed the right thing to say at the moment.

“I never cheated on him,” Walt said.

He drank most of his martini and then stared wetly into the glass, twisting it slowly by the stem as he talked.

“And here he is stepping out with Amir Abdullah,” I said.

Walt looked at me as if I’d just leaped a tall building at a single bound.

“I’m a detective,” I said. “I know stuff.”

Walt finished his martini and gestured for another.

“That son of a bitch,” he said. “He used to be Prentice’s boyfriend, you know that?”

Walt was monitoring the construction of his second martini, and when it arrived he sampled it immediately. He wasn’t paying much attention to me.

“So what about the blackmail?”

“Willie and I didn’t know anything about it. We were serious about OUTrageous.”

He studied his martini again for a time. His face was wet with tears.

“Then when Prentice died, Amir came to Willie and me. He explained what Prentice had been doing. He said that it had a wonderful justice to it, that queers without the courage to come out of the closet could at least be made to contribute to those of us who were loud and proud about it.”

“Good to take the high road,” I said.

“He said Willie and I ought to continue it,” Walt said. “Said that it was a proud tradition.”

“He want a cut?” I said.

“No. He said he didn’t need the money.”

Walt ate the single big olive from his martini, in several small bites.

“Willie loved it,” Walt said. “He’s always been more rebellious than me. Always ready to give the finger to the straight world.”

“What’s this got to do with the straight world?” I said.

“During Gay Pride he’d march in outrageous drag,” Walt said. “Once he went as a priest with the collar and everything, only wearing a skirt, holding hands with two altar boys.”

“That ought to shock them in Roslindale,” I said.

“I was always kind of embarrassed by it,” Walt went on.