Retribution

All of the eyes in the room were on Hardesty as he walked back into the squad room. They didn’t waver in their stare when Larry came in behind him and slipped, gingerly, but with a grin he couldn’t control on his face, back behind his desk.

Glen Whitehall was at his desk, which was facing and touching Hardesty’s, leaning back in the chair and with his feet on the desk. He too had a grin on his face.

“Your hair is wet, Hardesty,” he said. “How’d your hair get wet?”

“I gymed downstairs before coming up,” Hardesty said as he dropped the reports on the Georgetown boathouse case on Glen’s desk. He’d picked them up from Larry’s desk as he’d passed. “Here, read these; we’re still on the case and we’re going for a ride.”

“You sure about that?”

“About going for a ride?”

“No, about the case still being open. But, first, about Larry. You don’t gym. I don’t know how you get away without gyming and still being muscled up like you are.”

“I do gym. Just not with you. We go to different gyms. We have different lifestyles, if you haven’t noticed.”

“Which brings us back to your hair being wet and Larry’s hair being wet. Did you shower together? Is he a good lay?”

Hardesty took a deep breath, ending in a sigh. Did all the guys in the squad have to be so fast on the uptake? They were all still looking at him. “Any guy with a hole is a good lay in the dark, Glen, if you are healthy and need it regularly. Or any woman, in your case.”

“Three reports here and we got the case only yesterday morning. And it was Christmas. You’ve been a busy beaver,” Whitehall said, fingering the reports Hardesty had dropped on his desk. “And you started without me.”

“It was your day off and Christmas. You told me you were going to get laid. I assume you accomplished that.”

“Oh, yes. But I worked the evening shift. Out on the street.”

“So the lay you got would be professional, cost free, and ever so accommodating that you didn’t run her in?”

“You know me so well, Hardesty,” Whitehall said, with a grin. “Her name was Claudia, and you’re right on the money. She was ever so grateful not to be hauled in on a Christmas night. Thoroughly professional. A great blow job and a cunt that pulled your dick right in and worked it hard.”

“I’m so pleased you had a nice Christmas present,” Hardesty said. “Now get your butt out of that chair and let’s go for a ride up to Wesley Heights.”

“I don’t think so; not quite yet,” Glen said. “Crane will want to see you in his office. I’m sure it’s about the boathouse case. I wouldn’t be surprised if a kibosh was going to be laid on the case.”

Hardesty turned his head. He could see all the way into Crane’s office. The door was open. Nearly everyone else could see into the office too, and now he knew that he might have been mistaken about the looks he’d been getting from the guys and gals in the squad room. One of the Secret Service hunks he’d met--without a name--at the boathouse murder scene was talking with Crane. Crane saw Hardesty and motioned him into the office.

“The agent here,”--Crane didn’t give a name--“wants to assure us of something, Hardesty,” he said when the detective entered the room.

“It’s a good case,” Hardesty said defensively. “It’s a good case for us with or without Talmadge.”

“That’s what I want to assure you of,” the agent said. His delivery was smooth. He was used to impressing people and having his way. Hardesty was thinking that, if he were a bottom, the agent was just the sort of guy he’d let have his way with him. But, as it was, he was competition, and thus someone to be wary of. “We’re happy to have you run the case on the two vics you’ve seen.”

“The Russian mafia guy too?” Hardesty asked.

The agent raised an eyebrow. So, he hadn’t figured them as knowing Victor--or Pietr, his real name--was Russian mafia. But the agent took it well, quickly regained control, and said, “The Russian too. He’s not official. The Russian mafia here isn’t the same as Moscow. So, investigate those deaths. Just leave Talmadge out of it. We’re confident that if you find the shooter for them, you’ll be doing justice for Talmadge too. It just isn’t something for the public to know. And don’t go considering the CIA as being responsible. Talmadge was doing their bidding still; they didn’t want him dead.”

It was Hardesty’s turn to do a double take but to try not to show it. It hadn’t occurred to him that this was a CIA retribution hit--presumably for one of theirs being in bed with the Russians. He’d have to consider that now. He wasn’t fooled by the agent’s attempt to put him off that scent.

But Crane must have read him. He broke in and said, “No consideration of the Agency, Hardesty. Upstairs has vetted that. We’re to believe that--because we’re assured it’s true--and stay away from that path. We’re told that if we break this case, it will be someone else. And if we don’t approach it with that understanding, we’ll lose the case.”

The agent stood up from his chair. “Do we have an understanding here?”

“Yes, we have an understanding,” Crane said. “Hardesty, tell the man we have an understanding and get on with the investigation.”

The instruction was clear. Either Hardesty said it, or there was no investigation. The special agent had come all the way down here to tell Hardesty not to pursue a possibility that he hadn’t even considered before the special agent mentioned it.

“We have an understanding,” he said. But, whether or not he’d said it, he was determined to pin the murders on the right shooter. He stood and walked back into the squad room. All eyes followed him, this time Larry’s eyes, which were dazed and worshipful, were the most noticeable. At least, Hardesty thought, they weren’t watching him because he’d spiked yet another one of the unit clerks who revolved through that job here.

* * * *

“Don’t look now,” Hardesty said, “but check out the Black Escalade that pulled in a block behind us at the same time we parked . . . I said don’t look.”

“How can I see what you’re talking about if I don’t look?” Whitehall asked. “Yeah, I see it. Feds tailing us, do you think?”

“That would be my guess. The feds do love their black Escalades. Nice digs.” The two detectives looked up a short hill that ended in a Tudor façade that spread a good distance between one lot line and the next. It was the address for Curtis Talmadge the records research had surfaced. Hardesty was thinking, though, that it was more the residence of Mrs. Talmadge--Maria--than it was for Curtis. He chose to believe Jan’s description that the P Street townhouse in Georgetown that looked lived in by a man of academic pursuits--and kinky gay male sex interests--was where Curtis spent more of his time. And without a Mrs. Talmadge around.

Hardesty’s perception that a man didn’t spend much time in this house was heightened when a battle ax of a maid let them in, showed them into a frilly living room, and disappeared. The blowsy blonde who then appeared--Maria Talmadge--was a bit of a surprise. First, she was foreign looking and had an accent. Hardesty thought Russian, which he then thought was a fascinating fact. Second, she was voluptuous, albeit well into her forties--Hardesty had expected older, considering that her husband was retired from the government--and she had an unapologetic eye for the two men. She also was discerning. Although both of the detectives were hunks in their own, separate ways, Maria Talmadge latched immediately onto Glen Whitehall, the heterosexual of the two. And she didn’t let go.

At the first opportunity, Hardesty leaned into Glen and whispered, “Yours.”

“Ahead of you there, good buddy,” Whitehall answered. He was sitting with an open-legged stance, as if it would be too painful on his dick and balls to bring his legs together--and maybe it was--and he’d unbuttoned enough of his shirt to show her blond curls at his neckline. She didn’t miss a beat. In a blink of an eye--faster than the eye could discern--she was showing more deep cleavage herself. Later Hardesty decided she’d even seen Glen readjust himself and, rightfully, had taken it as signaling. She certainly steamed straight ahead into declaring that she wanted him inside her.

After introductions, turning down an assortment of drinks because they were on duty, passing on condolences on the passing of her husband, telling her how nice her place was, and having it established that they could have a tour of the house, if they liked--with Whitehall showing interest and Hardesty not--Hardesty asked a few innocuous questions: Did she have any idea who might have been upset with her husband? No, certainly not. Was he active in any businesses, sports, or clubs in his retirement where he might have come in contact with the wrong elements? He was heavily involved in the stock market, but no businesses where he’d come into conflict with anyone; he kayaked, going out nearly every day on the Potomac, but kayaking was a solitary sport; and just clubs involved with his government career. She didn’t offer that his government career had been as a master spy tracking down and exposing other spies.

“How about home life?” Glen asked. “Were you and your husband on good domestic terms?”

“Do you mean did we satisfy each other sexually?” She asked, turning her attention solely to Whitehall and jumping into the question as if she’d anticipated it and was dying to talk about it. “My husband was older than I am,” she told Glen, laying a manicured hand on his knee. “Considerably older than I am.” This undoubtedly was true, but hardly with the gap she was inferring. “We were a modern couple. He went his way. I am heavily sexed . . .” She let that swirl there for a few more seconds than necessary for Whitehall to get the clear invitation. “. . . and, no, he didn’t completely satisfy me. But he was tolerant of me. I went my way as well.”

She shifted in her chair, posing to drive home the notion that her way could be a lot of fun.

“Is this your only home? Yours and your husband’s?” Hardesty asked. Maria turned and looked at him as if she only now realized Hardesty was in the room--and wasn’t all that happy that he was.

“We have a flat in Paris, of course,” she said. Hardesty wondered if that sounded as evasive to her as it did to him.

“Two pistols are registered to your husband,” Hardesty said. “We think we have one of them, but do you know where the other pistol is?”

“What would I know of guns, or at least that kind of gun?” she asked. She was looking directly into Whitehall’s basket. Truth be told, he was a little excited from her attentions--her innuendo and her hand on his knee--and he was noticeably on the rise within his trousers.

Hardesty decided that she was being too evasive on the questions and that they were unlikely to find out what they wanted to know through direct questioning. It was time to get inventive. “You offered a tour of your house, Mrs. Talmadge,” he said, rising from the chair he’d been sitting in. “My partner here loves looking at old houses, and I should make some notes on this visit while everything is fresh in my mind. How about I go out to our car and work on the notes, while you give Detective Whitehall here a house tour?”

“Splendid idea,” she said, popping up from her chair and sending her pendulous breasts to jiggling within her tight blouse. She obviously wasn’t wearing a bra.

Hardesty noted that the black Escalade, with smoked windows so he couldn’t see how many were in the front seat was still parked a block behind him when he went out to the car.

And Glen Whitehall noted that Maria Talmadge had a beauty mark high up on one of her inner thighs when he was knelt between her spread legs as she lay back on the foot of her frilly-coverleted bed, and sucked on her clit and raised his arms to weigh and squeeze her breasts and thumb her nipples.

It wasn’t long at all before she was pulling at his bare biceps, encouraging him to kiss up her belly and breasts and cover her and, as she moaned and rubbed her heels against the back of his thighs, enter and start to pump her. As he fucked her--and she energetically fucked the young stud back--they whispered to each other. Most of what they whispered about were favorable comparisons of Glen’s length, girth, vigor, and virility against an assortment of other lovers, but, in between the sex talk, Glen managed to pull out some of the other information they wanted.

A bit more than a half hour after Hardesty had gone to the car, Whitehall appeared at the passenger window. He was disheveled, but he looked fairly happy.

“Her husband’s townhouse on P Street in Georgetown. Here’s the address.” He handed Hardesty a piece of paper through the window.

“OK, get in, and we’ll go over there.”

“Can’t. I’m not finished with her. Or she’s not finished with me, more to the point. We don’t have all our questions answered.”

“And you want to shag her some more,” Hardesty said.

“She’s got a bottomless cunt and her beef flaps have a mind and sucking technique all their own. You’re damn right I want to shag her some more. She’s starving for it. And she’s every bit as good at it as Claudia was last night.”

“But is she a natural blonde?”

“Alas not. Her curlies are brown, but I just bypassed that and went for the gold.”

“OK,” Hardesty said, with a deep sigh. “I’ll go in and call a blue top to come out here and wait for you to be done. Pull more information out of her, if you can. And remember that she isn’t just a honey pot; she’s a suspect.”

Whitehall hightailed it back to the house like he was running the Kentucky Derby.

As he pulled away from the curb, Hardesty’s thought was, I wonder what the Escalade will do. Do they follow me or stick with Romeo?

They followed Hardesty.

* * * *

Even without the address, the house he sought on P Street, just a couple of blocks off Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown, an area of eighteenth-century, mostly small, townhouses at sky-high prices was recognizable. Jan had gotten it spot on. It was a mustard yellow-painted brickwork. That fit in here, but almost everything else was faced with genuine mellow-red antique brick or was wood painted in muted colors. The house was narrow and three stories on top of an English basement. It couldn’t be more than two bedrooms, as Jan had told him that most of the ground floor was a garage entered from the alley running along the back of the row of townhouses.

Whereas the house wasn’t a surprise to him, the one who answered the door and gave him a look moving from appraising to “I could eat you with a spoon” gave him a jolt. He hadn’t given a thought to the possibility that the name “Kim” was for a young man, rather than a woman. But of course he should have, considering what Jan had told him about what went on in this house. He was young, blond, a bit obviously gay--certainly clearly a submissive, and, from the look he gave the detective despite being shown a badge, ready and willing--and small of stature, but perfectly formed. Pretty much Hardesty’s menu of choice. Hardesty knew immediately that he was going to fuck him. Kim seemed to know that too and to approve of the idea.

He was dressed all in black--a shiny silk lounge suit. Hardesty decided that he must know that Curtis Talmadge was dead. Otherwise he’d be outfitted in flashy colors. Hardesty’s eyes began to assess how he was going to go about undressing the young man quickly and efficiently and decided there wouldn’t be a problem.

The young man confirmed the assumption that he knew Curtis Talmadge was dead. “You must have come about Mr. T’s death,” he said. “Please come in--the living area is upstairs.” And then, fluttering his eyelashes at Hardesty, he added, “The bedrooms are above the living area. I’m here all alone. And I’m very, very bored.”

What Hardesty zeroed in on was that Kim called Talmadge Mr. T. That dovetailed into the information that Jan had given. He had matched up Justine’s special client with the dead man in the kayak. He wondered how close behind him the Secret Service was in figuring that out.

“Yes, I do have a few questions about Mr. Talmadge. May I come in?”

“You may come anyway you like. Yes, by all means come up. The men in black have already been here, turned the place upside down, taken a bunch of stuff away, and given me a deadline to be out. But I’ve got a lawyer, and I’m betting when the will is opened, this house will be mine. But enough of my troubles, I--”

“Men in black? There have already been men here going through Talmadge’s stuff?” They were going up a narrow set of stairs from a small foyer at the entrance level that ran back through a wide, arched doorway, through a formal dining room, with a kitchen beyond that. “Who were they?”

“Who were any of the men Mr. T was cavorting with? There were his secret friends and then the Russians. The Russians came in rumpled brown and some of Mr. T’s former friends from work came in black and slinked in through the garage in back.”

“The Russians?”

“Yeah. Coming in at all hours of the day and night--disturbing our play time.”

“So, which were the men in black who’ve been here going through the house? I’ve just started with this case. The house really should have been locked down by the police. Were they these secret friends you mention or Russians?”

“Yes, both. First the spooks and then the Russians. The Russians were mad they got sloppy seconds, but they were more fun than the spooks. I was bored, and a couple of them wanted to play. Big brutes they were. And by big--”

They had reached the next level, which was one long living space, divided by an archway. Very expensive furniture and loaded bookshelves taking up most of the wall space. “What was going on here?” Hardesty broke in. “Did you know that Talmadge was a retired CIA officer--a senior one?”

“He never said and I never asked. It was enough that he paid the bills and took care of my needs. And I have very special needs.”

They had seated themselves on two close-facing leather loveseats. Kim leaned forward and put his hand on Hardesty’s knee. “I have a confession, Mr. Hardesty. I know your name. And I know you by reputation. We have mutual friends--Leslie and Jan. Do you remember them? You’re every inch the mean-looking, sexy hunk they said you were. I am highly sexed, and I like special treatment--the sort of play Mr. T also liked. I’m upset that Mr. T is dead--mainly because I don’t know where I’m going to find a playmate now who is challenging. I’ve been bored out of my mind the last two days. Leslie and Jan told me that no one does them better than a cop named Hardesty does. I’m sure you have more questions for me, and I have answers. But I have needs. Let me be blunt. I want you to fuck the answers out of me. I understand you have certain skills.”

“Like what?” Hardesty said. As Kim had spoken, he’d gone down on his knees in front of Hardesty. He’d run his hands between the detective’s thighs, and Hardesty had widened his stance, letting Kim rub his inner thighs with his hands. If Hardesty didn’t stop him, he was going to get a blow job right there and then.

Hardesty didn’t stop him. He got the blow job and a quite expert one it was. He lay back in the sofa, with his arms running across the top of the back, while, with the exclamation of “God, they were right; you’re hung like a horse,” Kim fished Hardesty’s cock out and sucked him to a throbbing erection.

“What special way do you want it?” Hardesty murmured when it was getting close to where the choices were to ride or blow.

“I hear you’re great with restraints. And what do you know about using these?” Hardesty lowered his face to see what Kim was talking about. The young man was holding a box of sounding wands open for Hardesty to see.

“I know quite a lot about using those, actually,” Hardesty answered.

They did it in what had been Talmadge’s bedroom. Kim said it would give him a thrill to do it there. Hardesty was sitting on the foot of the bed, legs spread a bit, and feet on the floor. Kim was in his lap, facing away from him, and imprisoned, under Hardesty’s total control. The young man’s arms were wrapped around Hardesty’s torso and bound at the wrists behind the detective’s back. His ankles were bound to Hardesty’s ankles. His channel was fully possessed by Hardesty’s cock, which wasn’t pumping. He was just holding inside, throbbing inside the tight sheath of the young man’s passage.

The box of sounding wands was open beside where they were sitting and Hardesty was on the third, ever thicker and longer one, twirling it down into Kim’s urethra channel and slow fucking the young man’s penis, before he started asking questions. Kim was panting hard and making clear he was loving every minute of it.

“Tell me more about the visits by what you call the spooks and the Russians. Did they come at the same time?”

“No, always separate--and I got the impression they may not have known about each other. Oh shit, yes, that feels so . . . so . . . yesss.”

“Where did Victor fit in?”

“He’s Mr. T’s gofer guy. Does everything for him. Brought me in from Justine’s--and then, later, Leslie and Jan. Haven’t seen him here since Christmas, though. He must have gone back to the Russians.”

“Back to the Russians? He was with them?” It appeared that Kim didn’t know yet that Victor and Leslie were dead--or at least was pretending he didn’t. He wouldn’t tell him unless he had to.

“Yes. He is Russian. I always thought he was with them. He was never here when the spooks visited.”

“And Talmadge’s wife. Were you kept entirely separate from her?”

“Talmadge’s wife? You mean Maria? Oh, shit, oh shit.” Hardesty had moved on to the next larger sounding rod.

“Mr. T didn’t have a wife. Maria was more for when he needed to pretend he had one. A real cunt that one. They fought all the time. Had quite a row right before the last time I saw him, he said. waved a gun around at him. He said she wanted to send me and the others away. She always seemed to know what was going on here, according to what Mr. T said. I think she and Victor had something going. She’s Russian too, you know . . . Oh, fuck. I think that’s enough. I think I’m gonna blow . . . oh fuck, yesss! It’s so thick. God, you know what you’re doing with these things.”

“I hear tell that you waved a gun around at him yourself the night before he died.”

“So what? We fought now and again too. Victor took the gun from me. Doesn’t matter much, though. Mr. T died of a heart attack, didn’t he? Didn’t he? Oh, fuck, I’m going to come . . . I’m going to fuckin’ come.”

And then he did, his cum already burbling out of his hard cock as Hardesty pulled the rod out.

Then, reaching down and releasing Kim’s ankles and moving out from under the young man’s bound arms behind his back, Hardesty pushed Kim belly down on the mattress on the foot of the bed, his wrists still bound behind his back and his ankles and thighs bound together, buried a fist in Kim’s back to pin him to the mattress, mounted his ass, and fucked the shit out of him with a monster cock moving in a tightly constricted channel.

He left the young man spread-eagled on the bed, restraint free, of course, on his belly, purring and grinning.

* * * *

Hardesty left the townhouse and climbed into the unmarked cop car he had parked next to a hydrant, confident there would be no ticket because beat cops had lists of the license plate numbers of unmarked cop cars. Scanning the area as was his habit, he looked to see if a black Escalade was still monitoring his movements. It was. He wondered if these guys would follow him now or would stay parked. They remained parked as he pulled away from the curb. But, as he moved down the street, he whistled, seeing that a black side-door van pulled out of a parking space down the street and was following him now. A tag-team operation? How did he rate such attention, he wondered.

He needed to do some thinking. There were too many candidates floating around for having been the shooter in this case, and some of them were government and some of them were international goons. He had to go over all of it in his mind again. Instead of going directly back to the department, he drove over to the nearby Georgetown boathouse. The boathouse was closed for the winter, so he could wander around the scene of the crime and down to the water’s edge by his lonesome. The university was out of session for Christmas week and there was no boating run from the boathouse in this season anyway. Talmadge had been an exception. Those managing the boathouse said that he had gone out in his kayak nearly every day of the year no matter the weather and had special privileges at the boathouse, having keys and being able to get all of his gear himself.

Talmadge was a special privileges kind of guy. So why was it, Hardesty wondered, that he had wound up dead, with a bullet in his back, in the shallows on the Virginia shore of the Potomac? Was it espionage or something domestic? The accompanying deaths of his Russian gofer and of a rent-boy had to play out logically in the scenario. Talmadge had his boating gear on when they found him. What would be the sequence of him in the act of shoving off into the water with his kayak, with his Russian gofer at his side, to take a bullet and slip under the ice and yet there to be a rent-boy in the backseat of his car, naked, and shot in the act of sex? Would Talmadge have left a dildo up the young guy’s ass and a sounding rod in his penis, gotten dressed for exercise, and been ready to go into the river when Leslie was shot in the car? Would Leslie have left the dildo and sounding wand in place after Talmadge had played with him and left the car? This didn’t all fit together.

When Hardesty was ready to leave, he realized that he had been wandering around the scene of the crime and thinking it through--without being any more clear about events than when he’d come here--for over an hour. He was cold as ice and he saw that the black van was still lurking about. He was not a happy camper.

When Hardesty got back to the squad room, Glen Whitehall was sitting at his desk, leaning back in his chair, with his feet on his desk, and looking all fat and happy. There wasn’t much new in that, though.

“Was she as good the second time?” Hardesty asked.

“Better. She rode me,” Glen responded, a Cheshire cat expression on his face. “And rode me and rode me.”

Hardesty’s attention went to what was laying on Whitehall’s desk blotter: a pistol, with a silencer--a Ruger SR22, to be exact.

“Where’s that from?” he asked, giving Whitehall a sharp look.

“Just where you suppose it’s from. It’s from the nightstand next to Maria Talmadge’s bed.”

“You know it’s not legal--it won’t hold up in court, if that’s the murder weapon--that you took it to check it out.”

“I didn’t take it illegally. I found it while she was in the bathroom and when she returned, I quizzed her about it. She said she’s scared--and she certainly acted like she was. And I know why too. But I read her a line. I told her it wouldn’t do her any good the way it was now, that something had happened to it the last time it was fired. It needed some work on it to be able to fire again. It was a load of bull, but she swallowed it. She let me take it to fix for her and return it.”

“So, why haven’t you sent it for a ballistics check yet?”

“I wanted you to see it--to gloat a little bit about the sacrifice I had to make to get it.”

“Fuck that. You enjoyed the hell out of screwing her.”

“I enjoyed her screwing me more. Drains a man dry. But it was all for the job. I was busy pursuing why she was so scared. She’s not who she was pretending to be.”

“I know that. Talmadge’s live-in punch, Kim--who is male, by the way, of the small, blond rent-boy type--told me she wasn’t really Talmadge’s wife.”

“She’s more than that. I had her prints run quick quick, and--”

“How’d you get that done so quick? It’s only been a couple of hours.”

“Thanks to you. I told Larry you needed the prints run yesterday, and after the slight embarrassment, he got them run immediately.”

“Small embarrassment?”

“Her print was on an open condom packet. I had to tell Larry that it was my condom packet to bring him out of a snit in thinking it might have been yours.”

“Ah,” Hardesty said, and laughed.

“As I was saying, the print was run quick quick. She isn’t Maria Talmadge. The name came back on a Russian who came here on a tourist visa four years ago and was never recorded leaving the country. Her name--get this--is Nadia Stanislova. Get it?”

“No, what’s the kicker?”

“Stanislova. Same name as Victor’s real name, taking Russian forms into account--Pieter Stanislov. Sister or wife, maybe? More controllers of Talmadge than servants, maybe? Russia or the Russian mob?”

“Shit,” Hardesty said.

“Yes, shit. What have we gotten ourselves into, Hardesty?”

It wasn’t something Hardesty could answer. He was still mulling it when he hit the pavement to drive out to Wesley Heights and have another go at Maria, or Nadia, or whoever she was. Thus, he wasn’t sharp enough to observe until it was too late that a black van with side sliding doors pulled up beside him on the street; the door opened; two goons dressed in black jumped out and grabbed him, pulling a hood over his head and handcuffing his wrists behind his back; and pulled him back into the van, which sped on down the street, hardly having stopped at all for the grab. They slammed him to the floor and he felt the weight of four size thirteen shoes pinning down his twisted body.

* * * *

He could have been handled more delicately to be sure, but the ride was to a building, with a familiar sound in the background and not to the edge of a river, so he wasn’t in the mood to complain much. He was dragged out of the van and into a building and plopped down on a folding metal chair. He didn’t have any trouble discerning where he was. He knew that the sound was of a bowling alley, and that he heard the roll of the ball start in the farther distance and hit pins in the nearer distance told him that he was somewhere behind the pin-setting machines.

The hood was pulled off and he was sitting, facing a big, fat thug, with two goons, younger and in better shape, standing to either side of him and between him and the desk that the thug was sweating behind. They all looked Slavic. The Russian mafia element was revealing itself. And they were all trying to look mean but not terminally mean--terminally for him. He sensed this was more of a social call than a last-ride meeting.

“Good that you could join us, Detective Hardesty,” the thug said. The goons hadn’t said anything in the van--they’d put him on the floor under their legs, with someone else driving--and they didn’t say anything now. “I won’t keep you long. I just wanted you to know that I am sincere in what I’m going to tell you.”

“OK, I’m listening,” Hardesty answered. He checked out the pieces the two goons were packing. They both were lovingly caressing .357 Magnums, the revolver of choice for thugs everywhere, especially Russian ones. It wasn’t the caliber Hardesty was shopping for in this case.

“You being here in my house, where I could do as I like with you means you can believe what I say.”

Yeah, if you can convince yourself so, Hardesty thought, but it’s not what he said. “Shoot,” is what he said. He only thought later that that might not have been the best choice of words.

“I’ll only say it once. There are rumors that you are liking my guys for icing the old spy and the guy named Victor.”

“You mean Pietr? Pietr Stanislov?”

The thug looked a little surprised. “Whatever,” he said. “You need to know that this wouldn’t have been in our interests. We were happy with Talmadge, and Victor was one of ours. So, we need to be looking elsewhere for who’s behind those hits.”

We? Hardesty wondered what that meant but didn’t pursue it. He was more interested in trying something else out. “And Nadia Stanislova too? Is she one of yours? A babysitter for Talmadge?”

“I think we’ve discussed enough,” the thug said. “And you can just sit back and watch now. This hit was in my house, and we can take care of it faster and more quietly than the D.C. cops can. So, don’t get in our way.”

“It’s my case. I don’t really want help.”

“I was afraid you’d need some convincing. You live in a fancy apartment across the river, don’t you?--with your son.”

My son? Hardesty thought. These guys are dumber than I imagined. “It’s not any of your business where I live--and who I live with.”

“Your son’s a hooker. Did you know that? I’m gonna have my men here take you home and give you a taste of what we can do. After that maybe you’ll take us serious and stay out of our way.”

Hardesty was about to say something smart back to him, but whatever he said was muffled by the hood coming back down over his head and him being hustled back out of the building and onto the floor of the van.

At his apartment door, he refused to produce a key, so Goon Number One just pulled him around in front of the peephole and Goon Number Two rang the door buzzer. And then again. After the third ring, the door opened to Toby, dressed just in a silk robe, starting to say “Forgot your key?” before, .357 Magnums waving in the air, the goons pushed Hardesty into Toby as they threw themselves into the apartment. Toby was pushed as far as the ottoman, where he landed on his back. Goon Number Two landed on top of him, between his legs, and it was immediately evident he was going to stay there for a while.

Goon Number One pulled Hardesty, his arms still tied behind his back over to where they stood by the kitchen counter. “You get to watch this a while,” the goon said.

What “this” was was Goon Number Two holding the barrel of his .357 Magnum to Toby’s head and unzipping himself and pulling out his own gun, which was erect, as the goons probably knew what they planned to do before they got here. It wasn’t hard to gain access to Toby’s ass, as he’d only been wearing a short, silk robe anyway. Toby didn’t fight the goon as the man, crouching between Toby’s thighs with Toby lying on his back on the ottoman, positioned himself, spiked Toby, and began to plow him. The goon got into the fuck so much--and Toby was taking it so well--that the .357 Magnum found its way to the floor beside the ottoman.

Goon Number One only forced Hardesty to watch Toby being fucked for a few minutes before he started pushing Hardesty over toward a couch. “Now you,” he said. “Bend over the arm of the couch. It’s gonna be me and you.”

Now Hardesty did panic. He wasn’t a bottom. He had fleeting thoughts of trying to get to the gun he kept on a shelf on the other side of the kitchen island, but he was being shoved in another direction from that, and there was the little problem of his wrists being tied behind his back. Goon Number One had him bent over the sofa arm and was lying on top of him and pulling his trousers and briefs off his buttocks, when the situation changed.

“OK, let’s stop this party right here,” a voice boomed out from across the room. Paul, naked as a jay bird had come out of the show bedroom. He was holding a revolver of his own that trumped where the goons had theirs. He approached Goon Number One and pulled him off Hardesty while rummaging around in the seat cushion where his revolver had been dropped in his excitement and quickly had possession of the one Goon Number Two dropped beside the ottoman as well.

“Now, you two stand away, over by the door.”

Toby piped up, though. “Aw, Paul, I think this one is about to blow. Let him finish first.”

So Goon Number One was hustled over to the door, Paul released Hardesty’s wrists and gave him one of the .357 Magnums, and they all stood around humming, as Goon Number Two resumed humping Toby to an ejaculation. When he was done, Toby pushed the goon off him, surprised him with a pop in the mouth with his fist, and growled, “That’s for not asking nicely.”

“Just to call a truce, I’m going to let both you boys go home in one piece,” Hardesty said, restoring their revolvers, without the bullets, ushering them--embarrassed--out of the door with a “You don’t need to tell your boss you didn’t fully accomplish your mission. But my son enjoyed Egor’s attentions. Looks like he has a nice cock and a decent backswing. He fuck you well, Son?”

“Yes, he fucked me very well . . . Dad,” Toby answered as the men were hustled out of the apartment and the triple locks were thrown.

Toby was giving Hardesty a funny look, but it was Paul who asked, “Son?”

“You had to be there,” Hardesty answered and then laughed. “But did we interrupt something going on in the bedroom.”

“We were waiting for you,” said Toby.

“Not really,” Paul answered. “But we’re happy to cut you in. Jan’s back in the bedroom too.”

It was the first time Hardesty and Paul shared in doubling, doing Jan first and then Toby.

* * * *

It was still dark and had only been a couple of hours since the Russians retreated, but Hardesty had dozed off and was awakened by the buzzing of his cell phone on the night stand. The lamp on the stand was on, set on low, so it wasn’t totally dark in the room. Hardesty was stretched out on his side next to Jan, who was on his back, his arms stretched over his head and his wrists tied of on the headboard. His ankles were tied together too. He was asleep and didn’t waken at the sound of the cell phone. It was likely that he was exhausted. The open box containing sounding wands rested on the other side of his thighs from where Hardesty was stretched. Five of the wands were out of the box and scattered around on the bed. Hardesty had used five of them before Jan had shot his load, and Hardesty had stroked himself off in sympathy.

The bed was swaying again. Toby was lying on his back on the other side of Hardesty, his butt on the edge of the foot of the bed, and his heels rubbing on Paul’s hips, as Paul crouched over him, fists buried in the sheets on either side of Toby’s biceps, and was fucking Toby in long, languid, smooth strokes.

Hardesty reached up and released the restraints on Jan’s wrists and continued his hand motion over to the cell phone. Putting it to his ear, he growled, “Speak.”

“It’s Glen. Time for another trip back to the yellow house in Georgetown. I think it’s the guy you called Kim. Shot between the eyes in his bed. Pretty messy. It looks like he was tortured first.”

“Shit,” Hardesty whined as he started crawling over Jan’s still-sleeping body.