“Sons of bitches!” Harvey shouted at long last. “Those ignorant, bigoted bastards!”
Sara said nothing.
Harvey stood up, his rage mounting with each passing second. “How could I have been so stupid? I knew it and I didn’t do a goddamn thing. Of course Markey was working for them, the callous son of a bitch.” He shook his head. “Sanders and Jenkins, I expected it from — but your father, Sara — he calls himself a man of medicine. A healer. Yet he joined forces with them. What kind of man is he?”
Her voice was soft. “I don’t know.”
“They’re going to pay. The world is going to know what they did.” His shoulders slumped, and the tired aura surrounded him again. “It’s a constant battle, Sara. It never ends. Bigots, homophobes, naive people. AIDS has so many strikes against it, I sometimes wonder if we will ever be able to rid the world of it.”
He moved back to his chair and sat down heavily. He spun the chair one hundred eighty degrees and stared at the photograph of his brother. “Do you remember when the AIDS scare first began?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“There was talk of locking the carriers in concentration camps, remember? There was even talk of quarantining all known homosexuals. Nazi tactics, Sara. That’s what it started with. You don’t hear much talk about that now, but in a way the threat to gays is greater now than ever.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Guys like Jerry Falwell and Ernest Sanders have become more subtle now. They have the same bigoted aim, but they take a different approach. And it works. People fall for it. We are bombarded by arguments that say AIDS will never become an epidemic in the heterosexual community. Respected doctors like your father say it every day. But the larger question is not the severity with which AIDS will strike the heterosexual community, but why we feel it is necessary to argue the point so vehemently.”
“I don’t understand.”
Harvey’s voice was both passionate and pained. “Okay, let’s assume for a moment it is true. It’s not. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume your father is right and that AIDS will be a true epidemic only amongst homosexuals and intravenous drug abusers. So what? If your father and his cohorts are not being discriminatory, as they claim, why should it matter what segment of the population is being killed by the virus? If we found out that AIDS was only killing little girls between the ages of five and twelve, would someone dare come out and say, ‘Don’t worry. It won’t affect you’? Of course not. Homophobia fuels these people, Sara. It’s a battle we constantly wage. The tune has changed but the song is still the same.”
“So what do we do?”
“We scrape and claw and battle back. We do everything we can to fight them. We go to the media and destroy them.”
“But it might make them panic. If they are holding Michael…”
He nodded, stepped back. “I see what you are saying. Have you told Lieutenant Bernstein?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“Not to do anything until he gets back.”
“Where is he?”
“In Bangkok.”
“What is he doing there?”
“He said he might have a lead on something.”
“Christ, I hope so. We could use a break.” Harvey leaned forward. “So what are we supposed to do in the meantime? Sit around and let the murderers stay free?”
“Max isn’t so sure that Sanders is behind the murders or the kidnapping.”
“Then who?”
“He doesn’t know. He just said he has his doubts.”
“And what about you, Sara? Do you have your doubts?”
“I guess I do.”
“Well, it makes sense to me,” Harvey said. “Sanders kidnapped Michael to stall the clinic, plain and simple. Markey knew that I was the only person who had worked on Michael—”
“And Eric.”
Confusion crossed Harvey’s face for a brief moment. “No, Sara. I mean, as far as having physical contact with the patient. I gave Michael all his SR1 injections. I always drew his blood. I—”
“Eric took his blood too.”
Harvey stopped. “When?”
“I don’t know. A day or two before he was kidnapped.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course. I was right there. Is that a problem?”
He shook his head. “It’s just weird,” he said slowly. “I left strict instructions for no one to do any lab work or give any medication to Michael except me.”
“Maybe he didn’t see them,” Sara said. “Or maybe he forgot.”
“Maybe,” Harvey agreed, but he did not sound convinced.
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“I will,” he said, “as soon as he gets back.” Harvey looked up and tried to smile reassuringly. He failed. “Don’t look at me like that, Sara. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“Hey, Joe, you want live sex show? Pea shooting contest, huh? Sound good, Joe? Pea shooting contest?”
“Pea shooting contest?” Max repeated.
“Yeah, sure, Joe. You like pea shooting contest. She aim straw and bust balloon. Guess what she blows with. Huh, Joe?”
Max, no stranger to quirky sexual situations, was not sure he understood what the Thai teenager was talking about. He also wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Years ago, before he had met Lenny, Max and a couple of friends spent a week in Amsterdam’s red-light district. They had seen a show where a woman projected various objects across a room using a certain part of her anatomy. Admittedly, most people would consider Max’s sexual orientation bizarre, but he failed to see the show’s eroticism no matter which particular sexual persuasion you happened to follow. More like watching an amazing pet trick or a strange magic show.
“What you say, Joe? You want nice woman. Make your head spin all the way around.”
An interesting image. “Which head?”
“Huh, Joe?”
“Never mind. No, thanks.”
He forced his way through the clusters of sex merchants, keeping his eye on the pink neon sign that read “Eager Beaver.” Two men stood at the door. The smaller man greeted Max with a wide smile and a firm handshake; the larger greeted him with a menacing glare. Mutt and Jeff.
“Welcome,” the little one shouted above the loud disco music. “Please come in. You find everything you want here. No cover charge.”
“Thanks.”
Max ducked past the sumo-sized doorman and entered the Eager Beaver. The interior decorator must have worked on the original
The music was strictly
“Swing it, baby!” a man yelled.
The girl smiled and obliged. She got 100 Thai baht (four dollars) for her trouble. She lowered herself toward the man, enticing him to add to her booty, but he waved her off.
