coral.”
“It’s called Sandy Sunset,” I tell him. “Part of a new color scheme my stylist turned me on to.”
He eyes my face and hair for a moment, then gives a nod of approval. “The colors are interesting. Darker than I might have guessed for your complexion, yet it works. And your hair! It’s to dye for. Get it? To d-y-e for?” He laughs and tosses his own blond locks before taking another drag on his cigarette.
“Your stylist is obviously talented,” he says through a haze of exhaled smoke. “Who is it? Will you share? Or is it a big secret?” He sighs and takes another drag. “It’s so hard to find anyone good these days.”
“I’ll share. But you might not like her. She’s a bit…different.”
“Oh, I don’t care about that,” he says with a wave of his hand. “I mean, come on. Look at me.”
He has a point.
“Her name is Barbara Moyer. She works at the Keller Funeral Home in Sorenson. I don’t know the number but you can reach her if you call the funeral home. That’s where her, um, salon is.”
“A funeral home? How twisted,” Chris says with a wicked grin. “I like it. I’ll definitely have to check it out. Thanks, girlfriend.”
“Sure. Tell Barbara I sent you.”
“I will. Now, let me return the favor. I understand from Georgie Porgie that you want to know something about Mike Halverson.”
I nod and wait as Chris takes another drag off his cigarette and surveys the room. I sense he is someone who won’t be rushed, who will dish on his own time and on his own terms. So I wait. In the interim, I watch him closely, enthralled with the way he oozes sensuality without being blatantly sexual. I study his mannerisms, his gestures, the subtle shifts of his legs, and his overall body language. I try to memorize it all, figuring if I can learn to be half as seductive as he is, my social life will improve by leaps and bounds.
“Well, Mikey was a character, I’ll tell ya that,” Chris says finally, exhaling a long, curling plume of smoke that spirals lazily toward the ceiling. “He was a real sucker for the GQs.”
“GQs?”
“Yeah, you know the type. Three-piece suit, Yuppie airs, money to burn. Problem is, a lot of those guys spend their lives in the closet.”
“George said he thought Mike had hooked up with someone a few months back. And that’s why he stopped coming in here.”
“He did meet someone,” Chris says, looking off across the room again and taking another drag on his cigarette. “I don’t think they ever came in here together, though. Mike generally came in alone. But he sure did talk about the guy. Let me think….” His eyes squint with the effort. “I can’t remember Mikey ever mentioning a name, but he said the guy was a big shot of some sort. Lots of money, very handsome.”
“Any idea how long they were seeing one another?” I ask.
Chris shrugs. “Last time I saw Mikey was probably two months ago or more. And I think he’d been seeing this GQ for a while at that point.”
“Did you know that Mike had AIDS?”
Chris makes a cute little pout. “Ooh, no, I didn’t. Not sure anyone else did either.” He shakes his pretty head and I again find myself amazed that there is a man somewhere inside that body. “Usually word of something like that gets out rather quickly. So I suspect Mikey wasn’t telling. That’s bad. Very bad.” He pauses a second, cocking his head to one side and staring off into space. Then he looks at me and says, “Do you think that’s why he was killed?”
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “Right now I’m just trying to get a handle on who he was and who he knew.”
“Well, I’ll tell you this,” Chris says, stabbing out his cigarette and leaning across the table to speak in a conspiratorial whisper. “I’ve never seen Mikey like he was the last few times he was in here. He was all goggle- eyed and couldn’t stop blabbering on about this new boyfriend and their future together. He had that look—you know the one—the look that says this one is different. I think Mikey was genuinely in love. And if what he said was true, the two of them were meeting several times a week at the Grizzly.”
“The Grizzly?”
“That’s a little motel over near Fond du Lac. It’s a popular stopping-off point, if you know what I mean,” he says, wiggling his perfectly tweezed eyebrows suggestively. “It’s owned by a brother and sister who have set up one whole section to cater to the”—he pauses and makes little quote marks in the air—“fast-food crowd. It might be worth asking them if they know who Mikey was seeing. They’re generally pretty tight-lipped about who their customers are, but Calvin’s here tonight and I do believe he has a bit of an in with the owners. They might tell you something if you were to take Cal along.”
He pauses and fans his face with one hand. “Calvin,” he says with a tone of reverence. “Don’t you think that sounds terribly masculine?” He says the name again, more breathily this time, as he glances around the room. Finally his gaze settles on the dance floor.
“That’s him out there,” he says. “The bald guy in the leather jacket.” I look and see a well-built man of medium height dressed from head to toe in leather. He is dancing—quite well, I notice—with a thin, freckle-faced guy who has an unruly mop of curly red hair.
“Would you like me to see if Calvin’s willing to help you out?”
“Yes, please,” I say. “Thanks, Chris.”
He removes a compact from the small purse he has slung over his shoulder. Flipping it open, he checks his face in the mirror, primping his hair a bit before he snaps it closed. “How do I look?”
“Stunning,” I say with all honesty.
His smile broadens as he hoists himself up and straightens out the wrinkles in his skintight skirt. He sashays his way to the dance floor and I watch in amusement as he expertly corrals Calvin and steers him away.
“Damn,” Dom says, his tone respectful. “He’s good.”
Chris brings Calvin to our table and introduces him. Up close I see that Calvin has huge, soulful brown eyes that seem to twinkle with some hidden source of humor. His voice is deep but softly sensual and whenever he speaks or smiles, the ends of his moustache tease dimples in both cheeks. And speaking of cheeks, the physique is quite nice too—muscular, tight, and tanned.
And gay. Damn it.
As soon as the introductions are out of the way, I explain the story all over again to Calvin, including the fact that Halverson had AIDS and was brutally murdered by someone. “I understand the need for discretion at the Grizzly,” I tell him. “But we need to know why Mike Halverson was murdered. It could be we have some sort of homophobic vigilante on our hands.”
I don’t actually believe that, but I figure it can’t hurt to make Calvin feel as if he is doing something righteous and in favor of the overall gay good by helping us talk to the motel owners. I take Calvin’s slight nod as evidence he agrees and push a little more.
“Any chance you might be willing to introduce us to the owners?”
“Sure,” he says. “I can’t promise they’ll help, but I’m happy to give it a shot. When do you want to go?”
I look at Dom, my eyebrows raised in question. He gives me back a shrug of indifference. “Can we do it tonight?” I ask, turning back to Calvin.
He considers this, then smiles. “Why not? Just give me about fifteen minutes to tie up some loose ends here.” With that, he rises from his chair and disappears into the crowd. I thank Chris for his help and watch as he stands, smoothes the lines of his skirt, and scans the room for his next target. Then he, too, disappears into the crowd.
While we are waiting for Calvin, Dom and I order a couple of beers and spend some time rating the moves of the Travolta imitators on the dance floor. After the promised fifteen minutes have passed, I start searching for Calvin but spot another familiar face instead.
“Oh, hell,” I say, giving Dom a nudge with my leg. “Looks like we aren’t the only ones to zero in on The Cellar. Lookie there.” I nod toward the main entrance. “That tall, dark, and handsome fella over there by the door is Steve Hurley, the homicide detective on the Owenby case.”
Hurley sees me, waves, and heads toward our table. “Well, hello there,” he says when he reaches us. Grinning smugly, he grabs a chair, spins it around backward and straddles it. For the first time in my life, I am envious of a chair.
“Detective Hurley. What brings you out here on a night like this?” I ask.
