Freddy was quite the sight. Five foot ten inches of hip-shaking goodness. Thickly muscled but not over built, with a classical y handsome face. Broad nose, wide lips, and a supermodel smile. Freddy’s ass was the stuff of legends. And he could move it like nobody’s business: Watching Freddy dance could bring a dead man to erection.
Freddy is the twenty-six-year-old African-
American adopted son of a nice Jewish couple from Cleveland, OH. Raised rich, liberal, and white, he’s a strange mix of contradictions and common sense.
Butch and campy, Semitic and street, wel — read and foul-mouthed, Freddy never ceases to surprise me.
He’s also endearingly sweet, terrifical y loyal, and blessedly nonjudgmental.
Tonight, he was wearing black jeans that could have been painted on, and a white T-shirt tight enough to show the nipple rings underneath.
When I was a freshman at New York University, Freddy was student president of the school’s Gay/Straight Al iance. We had a brief fling, but, as it turned out, Freddy had a brief fling with pretty much everyone. Freddy was the guy everyone wanted, and, if they were passably attractive, could get.
I, on the other hand, haven’t slept around that much. Wel, not if you didn’t count the guys who paid for it. Freddy couldn’t understand my choice of profession, but I couldn’t understand his uncompensated promiscuity. So we made a perfect mismatch. Al wrong as lovers, but perfect as best friends.
I watched the guys watching Freddy for a few minutes before I joined him on the dance floor. “Hey, baby,” I said, grabbing his backside. “You got a license to drive that thing?”
“Sugar!” Freddy shouted. He gave me a big, strong hug. “So, are we on ful slut alert tonight?” he asked, eyeing my shirt.
“Mothers, hide your sons,” I warned.
But I wasn’t feeling it anymore. Now that I was at the club, my bravado was gone. I wished I were home in bed. Alone.
“Honey, when you go out cruising for some strange, it usual y means you’ve had a shitty day,”
Freddy said. “Come buy my black ass a drink and tel me al about it, bubela.”
“So, Twinkie boy,” he said as we sat in a booth in the quietest corner of the noisy bar, “what’s gotten in your cream?” I told him about losing Al en and finding Tony.
“Oy vey,” Freddy said, after hearing my tale of woe. “Talk about drama. You write that up as a screenplay with you as a woman, and Angelina Jolie and Ashley Judd wil be scratching each other’s eyes out to play that shit.”
“Like Ashley could last a minute against Angelina,” I said, trying to join in the joke. But my heart wasn’t in it. I put my head down on the table and moaned. “What am I going to do?”
Freddy tousled my hair. “Fuck Tony.”
“He didn’t even like it the first time.”
“No, I mean fuck him for not believing you. Solve Al en’s murder yourself!”
“Good plan,” I answered with sarcastic enthusiasm. “Let me get the Hardy Boys out of the backroom and you cal Nancy Drew!”
“Like that bitch would be any help,” Freddy answered. “If it weren’t for that dyke friend she hangs out with, she never would have cracked The Case of the Missing Dildo. Although,” Freddy continued, “I wouldn’t mind doing the Hardy Boys. That Shaun Cassidy had some back for a white boy.”
We sat in silence for a moment. Wel, as much silence as you can find in a club where Britney was playing loud enough to burst your eardrums.
“Tel you what,” Freddy said, “how about I help you?”
“If I were planning an orgy, you’d be the first person I’d cal. But I think we should leave the criminal investigations to the professionals. Tony wil put it together.”
“Honey, please, he can’t even figure out if he likes dick,” Freddy answered. “If you want Al en’s murderer to come to justice, you better break out some serious Charlie’s Angels action. Come to think of it, they were always going undercover as whores, so you’d be perfect!”
“A. I hate you,” I said. “B. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“Wel, let’s see, the man had a lot of money and two estranged sons who hated the fact that their father was a faggot,” Freddy observed. “Anyone else you know have reason to see him dead?”
I had to admit that Freddy had a point. Here we were five minutes into the case, and we already had two more suspects than the police.
“Not offhand,” I answered.
“What about crazies,” Freddy asked. “He know any?”
“Wel, judging from the crowd in the street tonight, about half his neighbors seemed certifiable,” I observed. “But this is New York.”
“OK, we’l start with the sons, then,” Freddy answered. “Homophobia and greed: two good motives right there.”
Just then, a six-foot-tal, cappuccino-colored Latino man interrupted us. He was handsome, but kind of seedy, too. “Hey, cutie,” he said to me, “I couldn’t help but notice your shirt. Think I could sample some of that creamy fil ing?”
“Gee,” I answered, “as subtle and attractive an offer as that is, I’l have to decline.”
“No problem,” he answered, smiling. “How about you, sexy?” he said to Freddy. “Wanna dance?”
Freddy looked up at the guy’s eyes, and then craned his head around to read the back of the menu. “How about I just take you home and plow you like the fields of Idaho, instead?”
“Sounds good to me,” said tal, dark, and easy.
“Honey, you don’t mind, do you?” Freddy said, getting up from the booth. “We’l get serious about crime solving tomorrow. Kisses!
I left too, and grabbed a cab home. Two A.M. The light was blinking on my answering machine. I checked the cal er ID: my mother. I’d get it tomorrow.
Tomorrow was a busy day. I had to be at my volunteer job by 11:00, which meant I should be at the gym by 9:00. For me, working out is not an indulgence. It’s a job requirement. I have to maintain the merchandise.
I stripped down to my boxer briefs and washed up. I felt like shit. A quick glance in the mirror showed I looked like it, too.
I got into bed and said a little prayer for Al en.
I was asleep before reaching amen.
CHAPTER 3
The next morning, I had a protein shake and my attention-deficit medication and hit the gym.
I was between sets on the leg press machine, lying on my back with my knees drawn up to my face.
Leg presses are supposed to infuse you with testosterone, but this position always felt gynecological to me.
Why did Al en have to be the one to die, and Tony the one to resurface? Why couldn’t it have been the other way around?
OK, that was cold. And I didn’t mean it.
Wel, not real y.
If I real y meant it, that would indicate that I stil gave a shit about whether Tony lived or died, and I didn’t want that to be the case.
No, the only case I wanted to deal with was Al en’s.
I finished up my workout, showered, and headed off to my volunteer job. Time to make the donuts.
“OK, everyone,” I cal ed. “You guys at the front of line are going to open a bag and put a sandwich and a
