'Well, maybe instead of doing all those things you're demanding I do, I should do what I first thought when Sandy gave me your threatening note. I should just arrange to have you killed.' He grinned.
'Is that something you do to people routinely, or would I be receiving exceptional treatment?'
'I can't answer that. It would be giving something away.'
Hoping I was guessing right about Gladu, I said, 'I'm not impressed with your chemically induced bravado, Jay, and I'm getting bored with your line of utter bullshit. I want answers and I want them now. Who do I talk to around here to get them?'
He blinked twice, tapped his fingers on the bed frame, and said, 'You can talk to me. I have the answers to your questions, and I'll give you the answers in return for one thousand dollars.'
I sighed. 'Jay, how would you like Cityscape to do a story on the Fountain of Eden as the Albany area's most popular quickie heaven, where the elite meet to fornicate, except the management spies on the customers and sells the information to political dementos like John Rutka and also tries to sell it to private investigators working on murder cases? The story would be a natural for Cityscape, and I'd be happy to supply the paper with the evidence that would pretty much put you out of business.'
'I'd hate that,' he said with a little slit of a smile and the same bright eyes. 'If that happened, somebody might arrange to kill me.'
'Could be.'
'I have to admit, Strachey, that you've got me backed into a corner. So I've decided that I will answer your questions.' His eyes got even brighter. 'And then later I'll arrange to have you killed. Months from now, or even years, when you're least suspecting it.
You'll be walking down Lark Street. Or you'll be home doing some blow, or you'll have your tongue wrapped around your boyfriend's willy, or you'll be lying in bed looking through Mirabella. And all of a sudden- ka-powie! — you're a piece of Center Square roadkill!'
I said, 'You're full of shit, Gladu.'
'You think I am, don't you?'
'Yes.'
'You're right.' He guffawed.
'I know.'
'What were the questions you wanted answered? I forgot.'
'First, tell me how it worked-your data-gathering methods. Who were the actual spies?'
'Sandy in the daytime picks up quite a bit. She's got the tube on all the time and remembers faces, so when some local mega-celeb shows up she'll spot him right away and make a note of it. She gets five bucks a pop for a regular spotting, ten for media heavies like Ronnie Linkletter. I've got two queens who alternate nights- Royce and Lemuel, who live over in the house-and they know everybody and don't miss a trick. They're devastated that Rutka is dead, because now there's nobody to sell their dirt to.'
'They knew the dirt was going to Rutka?' 'Sure, I told them. Not that they cared. A dollar is a dollar. Being a bitch is being a bitch whether it's politically correct or not. For them, it's just a hoot.'
I said, 'I've been through Rutka's files, Jay. And I have a pretty good fix on who was spotted here, and when, and who they were with, and what kind of lubricants were left behind, and used condoms in the linen and on the floor, and roaches in the ashtrays, and all the rest of the detritus of hundreds of happy romps at the Fountain of Eden. What I'd like is any additional information you can give me on one man in particular: Ronnie Linkletter.' Gladu sniffed a couple of times to clear his nostrils and his mind.
'I knew you were going to ask about Ronnie.' 'Why?'
'Because I thought maybe he had something to do with Rutka getting offed.' 'You thought Ronnie did it?' 'No-not that he was actually the one.' 'Then what? What made you think of Ronnie at all?' Gladu sat forward now and struggled to stay in focus.
'Well, for one thing, Ronnie was one of the people John was really after-somebody he just had to uncloset. There were these three people John used to talk about as the dudes he wanted to get the most. One was Bruno Slinger, on account of how he helped kill the queer-bashing law or whatever that was. When John finally got Slinger he was high for a month. Of the three big assholes on his list, Bruno was the first one outed. Then Ronnie was the one he wanted, partly because he was so popular in Albany, and famous, but there was another reason, too.'
'What was that?'
'It had something to do with Ronnie's boyfriend, somebody he met here every Wednesday night from seven till ten, when he had to get back to Channel Eight and get the weather report ready for the eleven o'clock news. When John found out who the boyfriend was, then he really wanted to get Ronnie.'
'Who was the boyfriend?'
'I don't know. I thought I knew, but I guess I don't actually know.'
'Explain that, please.'
He was sitting cross-legged in the center of the bed now, rocking gently, and measuring his words. 'Well,' he said, 'the boyfriend always arrived after dark in a raincoat with the collar turned up and wearing a baseball cap with the brim pulled down.'
'What team?'
'Nobody ever got close enough to see anything like that. Although Lemuel and Royce tried their best to get a look. But they were never quick enough. The dude would drive in after Ronnie was already here and the room was paid for, and he'd slip inside the room with the curtains shut. They were always in unit fifteen, down at the end. Ronnie would reserve it and Lemuel or Royce would hold it even if we got busy, because Ronnie and his honey were always punctual.'
'How did Rutka find out who Ronnie's boyfriend was if Lemuel and Royce didn't even know?'
'Through the license plate of the car he drove. We had that much. John and I both have DMV contacts and we found out who owned the car. It's some nobody in Pine Hills. I've got his name written down over in the office. I don't know how, but John figured out that Ronnie's mystery boyfriend was somebody who borrowed this other guy's car every Wednesday night, and it was somebody he wanted to drag out of the closet even more than Bruno and Ronnie. He got Bruno, and then he got Ronnie. But I don't think he ever outed the third one, the one he wanted the most. I'm not sure why, but I think John was scared of this one.'
'What makes you think so?'
'From the way he talked. He always referred to this one as the All-American Mega-Hypocrite. He was some hot-shit something-or-other who was a deep closet case, and I got the impression he was one dangerous asshole.'
'Did he threaten John?'
'No, I don't think he even knew John was onto him. John never said so, anyway. For a while John was always working on a way to get a picture of Ronnie and the Mega-Hypocrite in bed, or a tape or something. But I wouldn't go along with that. I didn't want anything traceable to me or my business. You don't stay in the motel business pulling shit like that.'
Mr. Situational Ethics. I said, 'When did Ronnie and the mystery man break up? Or did they? It's Ronnie's story that they broke up.'
'All I know is,' Gladu said, 'they stopped coming here about two months ago, and it wasn't long after that that I heard Ronnie and Bruno, John's first- and second-favorite outees, were getting it on together at the Parmalee Plaza. Well, that's cozy, I remember thinking. I don't know what became of Mr. Mega-Hypocrite. Maybe he scared Ronnie off too. Though with Ronnie, it looks like the bigger and meaner they are, the siffer his dick.'
'It looks that way.'
'At the time, I thought maybe they didn't come back here because of what happened in unit fifteen later that night after they were here for the last time. But I don't see how they could have known about it. We kept it quiet. You didn't hear anything, did you? It's not in John's files, is it?' He looked apprehensive.
'I don't know if it's in the files, because I don't know what you're referring to, Jay. Clue me in.'
A pause. Then: 'The mirror fell off the ceiling in unit fifteen. I guess all those hours of fucking over the years loosened some screws and one whole six-by-four-foot section of mirror over the bed in that unit dropped off. If anybody had been in the bed at the time, they could have been killed.'
We both looked up at the mirror above Gladu and winced. Long metal flanges held the mirror sections in place. It looked as if the flanges were screwed into the old ceiling beams. We saw ourselves up there looking back
