Club last year. I had bad reports on both of them.'
'They're both still locked up?'
'And will be for a long time. I've kept track of those two.'
'What about S amp;M? Any practitioners? I don't mean the exotic stuff-tarring and feathering and whatnot- but just your plain, old-fashioned, down-home, wholesome types of S amp;M-hoods and thongs and chains and so forth. Chains especially I'd like to hear about.'
He leaned back now, thoughtfully, with his hands behind his head, displaying his exquisite biceps and perfectly tanned armpits. 'I can't answer that,' Scott said. 'For one thing, it's confidential. And anyway, there are too many of them for the information to be of any use to you. There are ten or twelve regulars I can think of right off the top of my head who like the feel of metal.'
'Other kinds of metal, too? What do you mean? Pie plates?'
'No, just chains.'
'Ah.'
'Channel Eight said Rutka was tied up in the house that burned down. Was he bound with chains? Is that why you're asking?'
'Yeah.'
'I'll have to think about that-think about different people. You know, Strachey, anybody can go into a hardware store and buy as many feet of chain as they want and have it cut into lengths or anything. I've done it myself. Chains are not just something people use for sex.'
'I suppose that's true. What about this?' I said. 'I've got three sets of initials. I think they belong to people who know their way around gay Albany. Especially closeted gay Albany. I want to know if these initials mean anything to you.'
'I don't know about this. But go ahead.'
'J.G.'
Now he gave me his profile. The Thinker. 'Maybe. I can't think. Maybe.'
'D.R.'
'Mmmm. I don't know. Hmm.'
'N.Z.'
'Oh-N.Z. Right. Nathan Zenck.'
'Nathan Z-E-N-C-K?' He nodded. 'Who is Nathan Zenck?'
'He's the assistant manager of the Parmalee Plaza on Wolf Road. He's the night manager, I think.'
'Of the hotel or the restaurant?'
'The whole thing. What are these initials? Should I be telling you this?'
'Yes, you should, but I can't tell you why. It's confidential.'
'I can relate to that.'
'Tell me about Nathan.'
He sighed, shifted, readjusted his genitals. 'He's gay, kind of cute, forty or forty-one, unattached. Travels with the guest accommodations crowd. Likes to party. Nathan's a mover, too. He's been in Albany for two or three years, but I don't imagine he'll want to hang around here. He'll cut out soon. He wants the big time-San Juan or Orlando.'
'What else about him?'
'I don't know. What else is there? His sign, his favorite color? What do you mean?'
'I don't know what I mean. Anyway, this is a start. It's been helpful. I appreciate it, Scott.'
He leaned forward now across the coffee table that separated us and looked at me and let me catch his scent. He said, 'You want me, don't you?'
'Sort of.'
'It'll cost you.'
I began to laugh, and then Scott S. Scott joined in, so that he wouldn't be left out, and he laughed too.
I stopped by my office, on Central, which I generally avoided in summer since the air conditioner quit early in Reagan's first term, but I wanted to pick up my mail and use the phone. I called Bub Bailey, who told me that the medical examiner had confirmed beyond doubt that the body found in the burned house in Handbag the previous night had been that of John Rutka.
I said, 'They're sure?'
'The gunshot wound in the foot, and of course the dental exam. It's the dental that does it. It's as good as fingerprints.'
'So that's that.'
I half-listened while Bailey went on about the missing files and how critical they were to his investigation. I kept thinking about John Rutka being forced from his house, and chained, and shot, and burned to not much more than ash. Until this moment I hadn't entirely believed it. My reserve of disbelief had salved my conscience over abandoning Rutka when he had pleaded with me not to-even with his scams, maybe he had known he was in real danger-and I had clung at some level to the notion that Rutka was still alive so that I could shake him until his head swam and tell him one more time exactly how little I thought of him.
Now I had no hope of any of that and my headache was back, and I deserved it and worse.
I passed on to Bailey what Joel McClurg had told me about the candidate for outing whom Rutka had confessed to being deeply afraid of, but I said I didn't know anything about the files. He muttered something and we both hung up. I found some aspirin in the back of my top desk drawer. The stamp on the back of the container said, 'Use before Dec. 1979,' so I took three. end user
15
Nathan Zenck had a telephone listing at an address on Old Tyme Lane in Guilderland. I reached his machine but left no message.
I picked up a sub and ate it in the car on the way out to Handbag, where I wanted to see how Sandifer was holding up.
His car was gone and the house was locked up. Out back, a sheet of plywood was leaning against the porch and an assortment of new boards was stacked nearby, along with a roll of screen. Somebody had already started preparations for repairing the fire damage.
On Broad Street I passed the Rutka hardware store, turned around, and pulled into the lot. The place looked prosperous. A big area of the parking lot had been fenced off for a lawn-and-garden department, and the big fleet of red lawn mowers on display looked formidable enough to clip Argentina down to the roots.
Inside, past the appliances department, I asked a clerk, 'Is Ann Rutka around? Or is that not her name?'
'She's using Rutka again. Ann's up back.' He pointed.
Wooden steps led up to a long platform that overlooked the entire store. There was no wall with a oneway glass to spy through and spot shoplifters, just a low railing and a row of desks stacked with catalogs and invoices. Maybe a hardware store was too wholesome a place for shoplifting to occur in. Or maybe shoplifters believed that if they were caught stealing from a hardware store the owner would kill them. It felt like a complex atmosphere to be in.
A woman behind a pile of invoices at the desk nearest me pointed to the farthest desk on the deck, separated from the others by a modest fence of low bookcases filled with parts catalogs.
'Ann Rutka?'
She looked up from a cluttered desk and peered at me with dark eyes from under a heap of ringlets. Rutka's sister was as handsome and well put together as John had been, and she dressed as casually, except her T-shirt wasn't from Queer Nation but bore the logo of a manufacturer of electrical pumps.
'I'm Donald Strachey. I knew your brother and wanted to tell you how sorry I am.'
'Thanks.' She looked skeptical and didn't put her pencil down. 'The funeral's Saturday at nine-thirty at St. Michael's. You're welcome to come.' She had a musically nimbly voice that poured out like gravel on the move.
