But Wayne, shit, he just sat there behind the wheel, hummin’ some kind o’ sixties tune I couldn’t quite make out, not lookin’ at anything. It sort of ticked me off, ‘cause I was wonderin’ if he really understood what we were about to do. No, I was wonderin’ if he really cared. That’s what’s dangerous ‘bout doin’ the crime -- not carin’ about gettin’ caught. That’s when you fuck up an’ lead the cops straight to ya. An’ me, I’m a one-timer, already so I didn’t want to go down with a second strike. Or third, the way some DAs’d screw around with the law. So after a couple minutes of Wayne’s non-music, I was close to tellin’ the fuck to shut up an’ pay attention; but then he stopped all on his own.
I looked at him, an’ all of a sudden he looked really tired an’ -- I dunno, sad. No, not sad. Stunned. Like he’d just seen somethin’. A car wreck or disaster that he couldn’t take in.
“Curt,” he asked in this voice so soft I almost couldn’t hear it, “do you ever wonder at what you’re capable of? At what you’re really truly capable of doing?”
That spooked me. An’ relieved me, a little. Maybe Wayne was gonna back out -- which I almost wouldn’t have minded.
I shrugged an’ said, “Crazy question. Especially now.”
“Yes, it is. You know, I’ll be forty-six in three days, an’ I’ll see it as a grandfather.”
That jolted me. “What?”
“My oldest had her first child a couple months ago. A boy. Kendall. ‘Ken Doll’. I doubt she caught the irony when she christened him.”
“Wait, wait, wait -- whoa. Oldest? Daughter? As in more than one?”
He gave me a smirk. “How observant you are. I have four. Well, ‘had.’ I was forbidden contact with them once my wife learned I liked men more than I did her.”
“Shit, Wayne.”
“To put it mildly. It was not the sweetest of divorces. What’s funny is, I can understand why she was so upset. I’d kept it such a good secret for so many years, both before and during our marriage.”
“Why?”
“C’mon, Curt -- even in Los Angeles there are large pockets of fag haters. In the great Midwest, there are entire states of them. If you want to be accepted by people, do business with people, get ahead in any way, you have to be like them -- big dumb breeders who think art is a Norman Rockwell poster framed on their wood-panelled living room wall. But if you’re careful, if you toe the line, even if they have their suspicions -- so long as you have a wife and four children they’ll never say anything. Unless you’re fool enough to try something with one of their teenaged sons. And there were a couple...”
“That what got you caught?”
“Not exactly. I was smarter than that. I owned two store franchises from a company in Texas. I had to go down every now and then, so I bought a small house on a nearby river. Not far from a good-sized university. I was thirty pounds lighter, then, all of it muscle. I ran ten miles a day. I never had trouble picking a college boy up. That’s where I met Lenny, you know. He was doing his Master’s in Theater Arts. When we moved out here, he actually built up a nice little resume on television and low-budget features. He was even up for an Emmy, once, and I think a Spirit Award, though I can’t swear to that.”
“What happened?”
“Oh, one of the students I picked up freaked out and accused me of rape. It was just his word against mine, but I was still arrested and threatened with prison. My wife was called and told all about it by the local police. The charges wound up being dropped; it seems the boy in question had drug problems and was put in rehab by his parents. But I still lost my family. My businesses. Everything but the house in Texas. Once my wife knew what it was for, she didn’t want anything to do with it. So I sold it and moved here. Lenny came with me. We started over, together. That was seventeen -- no, eighteen years ago.”
“Shit, Wayne, you were younger ‘n me, now.”
“I was never younger than you.”
“Wait, dude -- wait, you had four kids; when did you get married, twelve?”
“When I graduated college. With a card that said, “Congratulations, Grandma.” Just to let her know I know. My 23rd anniversary would have been last Monday. I sent my ex flowers. My ‘fuck you’ to the bitch.”
“Shit, Wayne.” Knowin’ this sort of spooked me. An’ got me to wonderin’ too much about what we were plannin’, so I had to ask him, “You answer me a question?”
“If I can.”
“Be honest?”
He looked at me, that “I know what you’re up to” look flashin’ cross his face. “What is it, Curt?”
“You’ve never done this, before?”
“What we’re doing now?”
“Anything like what we’re doin’ now.” Like to that kid that accused him.
Wayne looked at me with this expression I couldn’t read. I didn’t budge, but lemme tell ya, I was ready in case he tried any kind of bullshit on me.
“Why do you ask?” It was more of a statement than a question, but I went ahead an’ took it as one.
“You’re too cool about it,” I said. “It’s got me just wonderin’. Wonderin’ how much practice you’ve had.”
He smiled. “You should see me on the inside. I’m
