Capital Treasures

Chapter Three: Treasure-Bait Setup

Toby’s timing was perfect. He arrived back at the Alexandria apartment from the Willard Hotel night with the Italian photographer just as the coffee had perked and Hardesty was reaching for his coffee cup in the cupboard. As Hardesty heard the key in door and looked up to the monitor to see that it was his roommate, he took down another cup.

“It’s early. I didn’t expect you back this early.” Hardesty looked at the clock. It was 9:15. Yes, Toby was earlier than he expected, but he himself was late in getting into work—not that he worked a set-hours schedule. He must be getting old, he thought. He’d indulged a good bit more than he intended with playing with indoctrinating rent-boys two nights running—the small Thai guy, Lek, two nights previously and Jose Garcia just last night. He was feeling it in his bones. He wasn’t up to the exercise as much as he’d been ten years earlier. Maybe it was time for him to settle down. He looked at Toby and considered how Toby perceived the world and decided not to think about this further—at least not right now. Good thing his business wasn’t a 9:00-to-5:00 job. He’d never manage that.

“The client has a late morning flight back to Europe. We had breakfast at 8:00.”

“Was—?”

“He was very good, yes. It was a good assignment. We last had sex at 7:00. He knew how to fuck.”

“I was going to ask how the concert was—how Andrea Bocelli was?”

“His singing was great too. I don’t know how he is in bed, but he’s a good-looking man. I’d spread my legs for him—without asking for a fee.”

“My, you’re chipper today.”

“As I said, the client was very good in bed, and the evening before was a cultural hit.” Toby smiled, accepted the proffered cup of coffee, and glided off to his bedroom. Twenty minutes later, he was back, with just a towel around his waist, having just come out of the shower, with cellphone in hand, and looking concerned.

“Shit,” he said. “I should have checked my phone earlier.”

“What’s up?”

“David Liu. One of the guys I brought in from Andre DuCard’s stable for the police guy’s pool party. Remember?”

“Yes.”

“He was at the Bocelli concert at the Kennedy Center last night, escorting Susie Win. He took me aside and said he wanted to talk with you, noting that he knew who you were, what you were to me, and that you were at the pool party.”

“OK, and so?”

“He led me to believe that DuCard was up to something that scared him—that pushed his boys into more illegal territory than prostitution. I told him I’d set up a meet with you, but that he should get some evidence of what he’s talking about to show you. I just opened my messages and he’s sent me these photos. Take a look.”

“OK.” Hardesty look at the first couple of photos. “Not sure what I’m looking at here.”

“It’s a plush bedroom,” Toby said. “I recognize the necklace in that case. Susie Win was wearing it at the concert last night. A real attention getter—it drew your eyes right to her tits. And that must be her home safe she’s putting it in.”

“OK. That fits with something I’m working on now—the suggestion that DuCard is combining his pimping operations with thefts. I just fixed up a case where the other rent-boy you brought to the Davis pool party, Shawn Baker, stole some stuff from a john. The thought was that might be this DuCard side operation at play, but it turns out it was just Baker being mistreated and swiping the stuff in the heat of the moment for revenge. I’ve been working on lowering the temperature. I’ve been out there looking for him tonight, but—”

“Holy shit,” Toby exclaimed.

“What?”

“Speaking of Shawn Baker. This is him. Liu sent me a photo of Baker being loaded into a van after a bunch of guys were taken out. He’s being manhandled and he’s been beaten up.”

“Here, let me see. Those two thugs with him are DuCard’s men. And this next photo. This is Tony Petrocelli walking by the van. He’s one of DuCard’s muscle men. Liu sent you these photos? Can you call him back? Now?”

Toby tried but he got nothing as far as raising Liu. “Nada,” he said. “He’s not picking up and it isn’t going to voicemail.”

“I don’t like this,” Hardesty said.

“Don’t like what?” Toby asked.

Before Hardesty could answer, though, the apartment was buzzed from the building entrance hall. Hardesty had a monitor on the lobby. “I don’t like that, either,” he said, pointing at the monitor. “Those two guys. The same guys you have in a couple of those photos—the ones of young guys being unloaded from the van and Baker being put in.” He paused to call the apartment house security desk. “Charlie. Two guys are buzzing me from the lobby. Don’t let them in. I’ll try to get rid of them, but I don’t want them in the building.”

“Got it,” the security guy answered.

“Hi, guys, this is Vice detective Hardesty,” he barked into the intercom. “This is my apartment. I recognize you. You’re Andre DuCard’s guys. We’re talking now on a running video of you two, with the video feeding back to police headquarters. Whether it gets erased or not depends on what you do and say right now. What are you ringing my chimes for?”

“We were told this was where a rent-boy, Toby Drake, lives,” one of the guys said into the speaker. He was sounding nervous. He hadn’t expected to be talking on tape to a hardboiled and powerful Vice unit detective, but he was too dumb not to try to do what he was sent to do.

“He does. He’s my rent-boy.”

Hardesty looked at Toby, who gave a pained expression at hearing that. Hardesty realized that was going too far in his relationship with Toby, but he hoped Toby realized it was said for a purpose to get these goons to back off.

“He’s not here,” Hardesty continued speaking into the intercom. “What does DuCard want to talk to him about?”

“Umm, I think we were supposed to talk to him direct.”

“Well, that’s not going to happen. You go back to DuCard and tell him I’m standing between him and Drake. He wants to talk to Drake, he talks to me first. In fact, I think he and I need to meet and talk before any of this goes further. We need to talk about side operations, for instance. You go back and tell him that. You ain’t gettin’ in here today. You tell DuCard to talk to me. It might do him some good. And tell him that what he might have wanted to talk to Drake about is by the boards now. Whatever he had to reveal that gave DuCard the vapors is in the system already—and not from Drake. Got that? He—and you—are to leave Drake the hell alone. He’s not part of any of this.”

They didn’t answer. But they didn’t stay around either.

“What was that all about?” Toby asked.

“If Liu sent you those photos and they have him and his camera now, DuCard knows who the photos were sent to. I want you to go to ground until I get this fixed up.”

“I don’t know if I can—”

“I know that you can. For now, I want you to move over to Paul’s apartment, if he’s home. I’ll make some calls, including to your escort agency. It shouldn’t take long, but I need to talk to DuCard. Go pack—and call Paul to make sure he can take you in. Trust me on this. Oh, and resend those photos from David Liu to my phone.”

Toby didn’t argue, which wasn’t necessarily a good sign, and Hardesty understood that it wasn’t. After he has resent the photos he went off to pack. Paul was a neighbor who lived down the hall from them and, being actively gay and highly cooperative, was the nearby hideout of choice, when needed. He was in his early sixties, but he was a very well-preserved former male model, tall and trim. He was a personable, rugged Western type, having starred in a series of TV cigarette commercials in the sixties, and, miraculously was still alive because he’d never smoked. Most notable about Paul, though, was that he had a ten-inch dick with which he drove the boys wild and he was a very good friend of Hardesty’s and Toby’s. He could be counted on to hide and protect. That didn’t mean he refrained from using if the guy let him.

As Toby was packing and between phone calls Hardesty was making, he got a call directly from Deputy Police Chief Jackson Davis. “I want to give you a heads up that I’m taking another case from the investigating unit and giving it to you, at least for now, because I think it’s connected to the DuCard mess I’ve assigned to you.”

“Burglary again?”

“Yes, but more. Homicide is involved. A jewelry heist, but the victim is dead this time—and she’s a biggie. Susie Win. She was seen at a concert last evening with one of DuCard’s rent-boys, and she was found today on her bedroom floor with her safe empty and jewelry listed on her inventory list missing. Go to the Watergate Complex. You’ll be met in the lobby by your partner, Whitehall. I called you at work first but you weren’t there.”

Hardesty didn’t miss the sting in the tail there. Where his attention went was to how quickly and totally what he was learning from Toby’s contact today was melding with the case load the police official who seemed so anxious to dump on Andre DuCard was handing to him. And thus far he couldn’t argue with Davis’s reasoning. He made one more telephone call, made sure Toby got to Paul’s apartment, and went out to drive to the Watergate Complex.

* * * *

Hardesty gave the steering wheel of his Hummer H3 a pound as he headed to the 14th Street Bridge over the Potomac River from Crystal City toward the Watergate on the District side. He’d screwed up and it was only after a visibly displeased Toby had walked out of the apartment for the short trip up the corridor to Paul’s apartment that he fully realized how badly he had done so.

He had taken immediate charge and given directions on what Toby would do in the dilemma that had presented itself, punctuated by the attempted visit by Andre DuCard’s goons. That had made the physical threat to Toby obvious. He had received photos from David Liu that were damning to DuCard’s business. They plopped the issue directly in Hardesty’s case-load lap and should, by rights, take Toby out of danger as just a conduit that no longer needed to be plugged up to prevent the evidence from getting into the hands of the authorities. But DuCard didn’t know that, so the threat to Toby existed. Hardesty had taken immediate, unilateral action to protect Toby. Toby also knew that too, but that Hardesty took full command pointed to the weakening of what had been the strong link in the unlikely chain that held the cop and the young male whore together.

Hardesty hadn’t presented the dilemma and allowed Toby to work out for himself the inevitable path they needed to take. Hardesty had swept through, taken control, and not permitted Toby to make the right decision on his own. Hardesty had asserted senior-partner status. That Toby had understood this was clear in the expression and his coolness while he prepared to move to Paul’s apartment. Hardesty could call DuCard off and he’d do that, although he’d want Toby out of the way for a while anyway to ensure DuCard didn’t do something stupid. But what could he do to make it better with Toby?

Turning on the blue light on the roof of the Hummer en route to show he was on duty and on call, he pulled into the entrance of the Watergate Complex garage. The riverside complex solidly owned its place in history as the scene of the 1972 Democratic Party headquarters burglary that had set off the resignation of a U.S. president, Richard Nixon, and it still was one of the most prestigious addresses in a city running on prestige. He flipped open his ID and was flagged in. He found a visitor’s spot and made a call before going up to the lobby of the building Susie Win’s apartment was in.

“Hi, it’s me. You in place and making nice-nice with Paul?” he asked when, thankfully, Toby took the call.

“Yes. I’m settling in now,” Toby said, by which he meant he was sitting on Paul’s lap, both of them naked, and had just lowered himself on the former cigarette commercial stud’s cock. Paul liked to take his helpfulness in personal services, Paul and Toby got along famously in sexual relations, and Toby never could resist sheathing a ten-inch cock. Paul, still movie star handsome and trim, was second only to the Washington Monument in phallic magnificence in the nation’s capital.

“I think we should talk about where you go from here for a few days, a week or so. I can smooth this over given a little time.”

“Yes,” Toby answered, waiting for where this was going.

“What do you think? Do you have any ideas?” Hardesty asked. This was the danger point. How this went might very well upset the delicate balance in their relationship. Hardesty had an answer of his own, but he needed to see if Toby could get to that answer and retain full control for himself.

“Yes, I’ve given it some thought already,” Toby answered. “I could see if the escort agency can give me some short-term work out of Washington.”

“That sounds like a plan,” Hardesty said, giving a sigh of relief. It was exactly what he’d thought as well. Now, to continue over the delicate ground. “So, you’ll call? They might need some reason to make sure it happens, and I think you might need some backup there. You could go to the top and put it to Justine—and tell Justine that I could fill her in on the need. I could go talk to her if I had an appointment. Best to be covered in person rather than by phone or e-mail. No trail that way. I’m not sure, but I think this includes some internal police issues as well.”

“Sure, I’ll call Justine. If she can see you, I’ll e-mail a time and place to you. Nothing else to give it context.”

“Great. Thanks, Toby. This will blow over. We’re good?”

“Sure,” Toby said, a bit too breezily, though, for Hardesty’s comfort, before their link was disconnected.

Glen Whitehall was in the lobby of the Watergate apartment house to show Hardesty the way to Susie Win’s apartment, but after giving Hardesty the apartment number, he said, “Sorry. I can’t go up with you. The top brass has thrown us all out of the apartment and sworn us to secrecy.”

“The top brass?” Hardesty asked.

“Yep. Jackson Davis showed up, took one look, told us all to button our lips and he’d find out if we didn’t, and sent us away.”

“Davis showed up himself? He’s up there?”

“Yep,” Whitehall answered.

“What’s so secret?”

Whitehall made a closing gesture across his mouth and said, “Button your lips, the big man said. You need to be surprised on your own or he’ll be after my tail. I’ll wait down here in case you are still on the case after you’ve been up there and you need me to do anything without knowing why I’m doing it. This is way above my paygrade.”

“You know I’d tell you more if I could,” Hardesty said. “Not that I’m told much more than you are.”

“Yeah, I know. It sticks in the craw, but I know it’s not you holding back.”

“So, we’re good?”

“Yes, we’re good.”

“That’s more important than anything going on upstairs,” Hardesty said. This seemed to go down smoothly with Whitehall, and Hardesty took the elevator upstairs.

Ten minutes later he was standing by Susie Win’s body on the apartment master bedroom floor beside Jackson Davis. They were the only two people in the apartment at this point, although one forensics team had come and gone. They’d come before Jackson Davis arrived and left very soon thereafter. He was holding the film they took in his hand.

“Well, this is awkward,” Hardesty said, looking down at the body. Win had been beaten pretty badly and her nightgown had been ripped away. It was questionable whether she’d been molested. Hardesty thought not. The beating seemed to have been more from shock and disgust than lust. “Who do you think knew?” Hardesty asked.

“Not many. I ran it by Boyd, who knows where all of the bodies in this town are closeted, but he didn’t know. He snorted at me.” Boyd Bartlett was the chief of police in Washington, D.C., and had been for twenty years. To be able to hold that position here for that long you had to be a very clever politician and to have the blackmail files of a J. Edgar Hoover.

“That’s actually a nice-sized dick. I wonder how he—or she; did it?—hid it all these years. Do you think the general knew what he’d married?”

“Yeah, I’d think so,” Davis answered. “So, what’s missing and should help us find the bastard is a ruby and gold necklace—impressive enough to be worn by an empress. She was wearing it last night at the Kennedy Center. We got these photos from the Post. She’s wearing the necklace in the photo that belongs in that case over there and the open safe in that bookshelf. Any jewelry that was in there is gone. He didn’t take any paper.”

“He?” Hardesty asked.

“Can you see a woman beating anyone down like this? No, she woke and fought him. He beat her and then when he found out she was a transvestite—that she had a dick—he beat her harder—to death—out of disgust.”

Hardesty understood there were those who had that reaction; he wasn’t one of them. People were what they were or what they wanted to be, if they had the money and guts to make a change. He looked around the room. “I see there are a couple of security cameras. When your guys arrive, they should be able to get a picture of what went on here.”

“The cameras have been checked, I’m told. No film. And they don’t live feed anywhere. Just for looks, I guess.”

“That’s strange. Why would there be cameras at all if they weren’t functional?” Hardesty said, but, looking at Davis, he realized that this wasn’t a path the deputy chief wanted followed. What was strange, he realized, was that someone had already been permitted to check if Davis wanted to shuffle the department’s forensic team out and bring his own in. It made Hardesty wonder if there had been footage after all—or, more likely, there was tape but Davis wanted to see it himself before anyone else to make sure it supported the narrative he preferred.

Davis jumped in on a switch from the cameras back to the photograph. “I know who we’re looking for. That’s why I called you in. Look at the photo. See who escorted the guy—I can’t bring myself to say ‘her’—to the concert last night.”

So, Davis was the kind of guy who didn’t accept the Susie Win’s of the world, Hardesty thought. Tough on him.

Hardesty had seen what Davis was talking about in the Post photograph. David Liu was standing beside Susie Win in the photo. What caught his attention, though, was that, next to them, stood Toby Drake with a man who evidently was the Italian photographer who was Toby’s date for the night. Hardesty knew Davis had seen Toby too and knew what the relationship was between Hardesty and Toby. The man probably thought this was another chit Davis would be holding over Hardesty’s head to keep him on the team.

“That rent-boy is from Andre DuCard’s stable,” Davis said. “I have my own forensic team on the way to write this up my way. I’ve talked with Boyd and he’s talked with Win’s executor. There apparently are no close relatives. They’ve agreed to keep this aspect of Susie Win under wraps—to just move ahead with a quick cremation. The coroner is on board with writing the autopsy report we all want. This is the political capital of the world. We can get this done. My team will collect fingerprints. I know what they’ll show, but I want you on DuCard’s tail now. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Hardesty said. He wondered if Davis’s team would lay the fingerprints Davis wanted here if they weren’t already here. He rightly took the “Do you understand?” as Davis’s good-bye, and he left the apartment and went to the garage to fetch his Hummer.

When he got there, he saw that the passenger door was slightly open. He approached with caution. It didn’t look like there was any damage, which, to him, meant nothing was taken—that something was deposited. He hoped it wasn’t a bomb. He loved this Hummer.

It wasn’t a bomb. The grocery store plastic bag on the passenger seat contained Susie Win’s ruby and gold necklace and matching earrings. There was assorted other major jewelry items in the bag as well. Hardesty figured out that these were the pieces of what was taken in the burglary that couldn’t easily be pawned once it had been associated with a murder.

There was a note as well. It said, “It was a Peter Trace setup. Tony admitted it. The murder wasn’t a mistake. It was to set me up. As you suggested, let’s meet. Call me.” The note wasn’t signed, but there was no mistake who it was from: Andre DuCard. The detective also wasn’t surprised by the claim it was a setup, or that the setup would be by Peter Trace. He’d had some inkling of this by how hard Jackson Davis had been pushing the DuCard scenario upstairs.

This was getting more dicey by the moment. It was time to check with his source in the Trace operation. But first, he needed to offload this fortune in jewelry and start establishing some backup.

* * * *

Hardesty drove to police headquarters, greeted Larry at the front desk, and nodded to a raised-eyebrows Glen Whitehall further on. But he kept moving—to Captain Crane’s office. The captain, a handsome, squared-away black man, thankfully, was alone in his office. He’s eyebrows went up too as he saw what Hardesty hauled out of the grocery store bag he was carrying. The captain rose from his desk, shut the door, and ushered Hardesty to a seat in front of his desk.

“I wondered when you’d need some help,” he said. “Is this about our new deputy police chief?”

“Partially,” Hardesty said, pulling the bits and pieces of evidence of something or other from his various pockets.

After a long confab, he left the captain’s office, with Crane reaching for his phone. Whitehall stood up from his desk as Hardesty approached, but he was waved down again. “I’ll bring you in on this as I need you and if I can get away with using you,” Hardesty said, “but I’d like to keep you safe and out of it, if possible. Trust me on this, partner.”

Whitehall chose not to say anything. He picked up a file on his desk, opened it, and pretended to be reading it. The look of concern didn’t leave his face.

Hardesty paused at Larry’s desk. “Captain Crane told me to ask you to research the openings at the chief level of cities far away from here, Larry. Could you do that for him?”

“Is he thinking of trying to change jobs?” Larry asked.

“We’re hoping it doesn’t come to that,” Hardesty said, and then he’d left the unit. He’d stopped in the hallway to make the first of two calls. He’d continue with this, but it was time that he moved Toby up in priority. He made a cellphone call to a house in Kalorama, in northwest Washington, D.C.

“This is Vice detective Hardesty,” he said. “Please put me into contact with Justine.” When Justine came onto the line, which was within the minute, Hardesty having that level of clout and regard in his world, he didn’t have to make a request.

“Toby called, and we fortuitously have the right assignment for him for a few days in Europe,” Justice said. “I hope that meets with your need. We’re already working on the travel arrangements—for as soon as possible.”

“Yes, it does, thanks,” Hardesty said to the manager of the Toby Drake’s exclusive premier male escort agency. “But I need to talk to you on another, related matter—face to face and in private, if possible. When and where can you be available?”

“I’m always available to you, doll, as are any of the men here. I’m in Kalorama. You can come by any time today. I’ll be here. I rarely leave here.”

“Thanks, Justine, you’re a lifesaver.”

“As I said, I could be anything you like.” There was a cackle on the other end of the line and then it went dead.

His second call was to Andre DuCard, and the rapidity with which the call went through to him personally told Hardesty DuCard was anxious to talk to him.

“I didn’t order anything like that, Hardesty,” DuCard said as soon as the connection was made. “I was a setup, I tell you. The jewelry heist, yes, but not the other part. And it wasn’t just because Tony is rapidly antigay and got a nasty surprise the woman had a dick. When I wrung him out, he admitted he isn’t really my guy. He’s working for Peter Trace. You gotta believe me on this one. I gave the jewels over, didn’t I?”

“I don’t see that you had a choice on the treasure,” Hardesty said. “Those rocks are radioactive now that they are connected with the death of a very important person, who the public isn’t going to know had a dick, by the way, and you need to keep it that way.”

“Gotcha on that. I’m not surprised.”

“It was Tony? Tony Petrocelli?”

“Yeah, Petrocelli. You gotta believe he whacked that whatever it is for someone else, not me.”

“What’s happened to Petrocelli?”

“I got him on ice. I want him to admit to the cops who he’s really working for.”

“Relax—a bit—Andre, and don’t do anything stupid at this point. I believe you, and I’m working on it. You and Trace need to reach an accommodation, though. I’ll do what I can on that, but you’ve got to become part of the solution, not the problem. Got that?”

“Yes.”

“A couple of other things before we can deal, though. First, all Toby Drake did was receive photos he didn’t ask for, and he turned them over to me.” Hardesty knew it was pushing the truth to say Toby didn’t ask Baker to send him the photos, but DuCard wouldn’t know that. “So,” he continued, “Drake is out of the picture now, got that? He’s untouchable now. This is nonnegotiable.”

“Accepted.”

Hardesty wanted to believe him, but Toby meant too much to him—he fully realized that now. He still wanted Toby to be well out of the area while this was going down, one way or the other.

“And the two rent-boys in your stable, Shawn Baker and David Liu. It better not be too late on them. The boys on the street are my concern. I have a photo of Baker, beaten, being put in a van. And I haven’t heard from Liu. What have you done with them?”

“You think I had them rubbed out?” DuCard said. “This ain’t the movies, Hardesty. These boys are treasures. They are my bread and butter. We’re moving them to Las Vegas. They’ve been schooled, but they’ll be able to work again soon. Money in the bank.”

“You’re going to need to prove that to me before we can go on,” Hardesty said.

“You want I should have them call you and assure you?”

“Yes.”

“What, now?”

“Yes.”

“They’re on the road.”

“Get them on the phone.”

“Well, OK, I’ll have them call from the van.” He did, Hardesty talked to them enough to know they weren’t happy but they were alive. He assured them they’d stay that way if they didn’t make waves, although he may need one or both of them back to help him in any court cases coming out of this. “Andre will be good with that. It will help him out,” Hardesty said.

DuCard called him back and they had a short discussion on who would do what.

“OK, I understand” DuCard said at the end of the call. “You’re straight up, Hardesty. That’s why I came to you.”

Hardesty laughed. “I’m as bent as you are, Andre, or as Peter Trace is. That I am is our one chance of smoothing all of this out and making something work that doesn’t start a bloody street war. Hang tight until you hear from me.”

The next call, coming to Hardesty, as he was waiting for his usual Impala to be brought out of the car compound, was from Jackson Davis.

“Turns out the cameras in the bedroom did link into a private security service,” Davis said.

“Good to hear,” Hardesty answered. Just as I figured you’d be telling me is what he was thinking. “Did they see anything we can use?”

“They saw it all. The dumb cluck didn’t even check to see if there were cameras watching him. It was Andre DuCard’s man, Tony Petrocelli. He got mad finding Susie Win was there. He thought she’d be away, and then he went berserk when he found the ‘she’ was more of a ‘he.’ We need to raid DuCard’s place and bring him in.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to do this more quietly, chief?” Hardesty asked. “Give me a couple of days and I’ll get a warrant out for Petrocelli and bring him in on the sly. Wouldn’t that be better than storming into DuCard’s operation?”

Davis hesitated. Hardesty could tell that the man was happy with the idea of storming DuCard’s gates, but a private pickup was more in keeping with how the investigation had been set up, so it would be suspicious to go off plan.

“I could handle all of it myself—just me—nobody else pinned to it,” Hardesty said, knowing that would appeal to Davis—that it would keep him from the spotlight on an investigation that was going his way already. That did the trick.

“Sounds good. You do the collar and the booking, Hardesty. Good man. I won’t forget you on this.”

I can pretty much guarantee that you won’t, Hardesty thought as he clicked off. The Impala was there and it was time for him to roll. He’d be driving up to the exclusive Kalorama area to powwow with Justine, but first he needed to see if his snitch in the Peter Trace camp, Jose Garcia, could help him.

* * * *

Hardesty lay back in the seat of the Impala behind the driving wheel, maintained a grip in the hair on the back of Jose Garcia’s head, and helped control the mouth moving up and down on his cock. His other hand gripped the tail of the belt he had looped around the young man’s throat, pulling on that rhythmically to make it tighten and cause the young man to gag a bit as he gave him head. Jose had said he wanted to feel used, and this was about the extent that the Vice cop could manage in the Impala behind the closed gas station near the intersection of R and 18th street just north of DuPont Circle. Hardesty had taken the rent-boy off the street a couple of blocks away and was reintroducing him to who was boss before quizzing him on what he had learned and determining if he too was in danger.

He didn’t get into the quizzing part until, gurgling, the rent-boy had taken three blasts of his ejaculation at the back of his throat and sat back up in the passenger seat, gave the cop a shy smile, and cleaned his lips and chin off with a tissue.

“Did I—?”

“You did fine, Jose,” Hardesty said. “We’re good. How are you doing with the Trace stable?”

“Good, I think,” Jose said. “I’m still getting mixed in. Have been to a couple of front-office parties and been mixing it up with Peter’s guys. I think something’s about to happen. They do a lot of whispering and seem very nervous.”

“You say they bring you in for their front-office parties. I want to show you some photos to see if any of these guys have been at the parties.”

Jose scrolled through the photos on Hardesty’s phone. “Yeah, that’s Jack. He seems to be one of the big daddies. He’s a real bull—a big black bull. He cocks hard.” Hardesty had shown him a photo of Jackson Davis, the deputy police chief.

“How about any of these three guys?” He showed him the photos of the two thugs putting Shawn Baker in a van and of Tony Petrocelli walking by them.

“Yeah, that guy, the one walking by the van, has been there, at Trace’s crib.” He identified Petrocelli. “Hey, I’ve seen the guy they’re putting in that van on the street before. He looks beat up good. Is he OK?”

“Yes, he’s OK now. I want you to be OK too, Jose. I think it’s time to get you off the street for a while and out of Peter Trace’s stable.”

“I can’t. I need the dough and I don’t have any place to go where Trace’s muscle can’t find me and throw me back on the street.”

“I’ll find you someplace to hide out for a while and take care of you there. And I’ll find you a safe stable to work in. I don’t want you going back to Trace’s stable for a while. I’ll drive you someplace now. It’s a house. It’s stocked, and one of the neighbors will make sure you have what you need.”

Hardesty drove up into Northwest Washington where Hardesty owned a small fifties-style brick rambler on a quiet, middle class street that he’d inherited from his parents and that he kept as a place to live, if needed, but more usefully, as a secret place to hide out or stash someone he was trying to hold out of circulation. The house and furnishings were in shabby condition, but even such a small house as this would be beyond Hardesty’s means in the District if he’d had to buy it, and it represented his biggest financial asset, so, as long as he could continue to hack the real estate taxes on it, he’d keep it as one of his most valuable tools. It certainly was going to come in handy as a temporary stash point for Jose Garcia.

And now, he morosely thought, it was a place he could retreat to if Toby threw him out of the Crystal City apartment.

“Here’s a burner phone with the number of another burner phone I’ll have locked in. Call me if there’s anything you need or if you think anything suspicious is going on.”

“I have a cellphone.”

“I know, but I don’t want anything about you getting back to the bad guys—and I’m afraid some of those bad guys are in the police department. Don’t use your own cellphone and don’t call me again on my work phone. Don’t even turn your cellphone on. Got that?”

Garcia acknowledged that he did. Hearing that the police department itself was a concern sobered him up.

After getting Garcia settled and bringing in the middle-aged neighbor widow, who was a retired policewoman and who kept an eye on the house for Hardesty and anyone he hid there to meet and establish a support schedule for Hardesty’s “guest,” the Vice cop was on the road again, staying in the Northwest section of the city but going to the contrasting fabulously wealthy Kalorama area, favored by embassies.

Justine, the manager of both the exclusive male escort agency that represented Toby Drake and of the equally exclusive male brothel, named Justine’s, discreetly housed in a foliage-masked Tudor-style mansion set among foreign embassies on a tree-lined street, met Hardesty at the front door and escorted him to her office. Hardesty was one of Justine’s nonpaying clients, with privileges, because he helped keep Justine’s open. If there was going to be male prostitution in the city, and that was a given, Hardesty’s view was that the safer and more luxurious venues for it merited his support. Justine took care of her boys, and she hired and trained young men who took very good care of the clients and their fetishes.

Justine also took care of Hardesty. He had full privileges at her club when and as he liked. She looked on him as a trainer for her stable in the more testing acts and positions.

The very capable manager was tall and zaftig. And today was being Justine rather that Justin. Hardesty had known the manager—biblically—in both guises, and the two got along very well. Justine was the gatekeeper and madam of one of the more exclusive male brothels in the nation’s capital. She normally met Hardesty with a smile, as he was one of her more helpful protectors as well as being a favorite client of her boys. Today, there was a bit of concern in her expression.

“Scotch?” Justine asked as they settled in.

“What I have to discuss with you means I’m on duty.”

“Getting Toby Drake on a plane is official business?”

“To some extent, but we were handling that on the phone. I have something else, something, sensitive to ask you about, and that would be police business.”

“So, the better scotch?”

“Sure, why not?”

“We have tickets I can give you putting Toby on a plane from Baltimore/Washington International. You said you wanted to avoid Dulles or National, I think. He’ll be in Antwerp for a few days. It takes off at 9:00 in the morning, so I’ll have a car pick him up at your apartment at 6:00.”

“Thanks for the arrangements. No need for a car. I’ll drive him.”

“You sure? From talking with Toby, I wasn’t sure that you two are totally good.”

“I screwed up in not including him enough in this decision, but I’ll be making it good.”

Justine gave Hardesty a searching look, but the issue wasn’t pursued. “There’s something else you need to talk to me about?”

“Yes. The case I’ve been given has the Peter Trace and Andre DuCard organizations at each other’s throats. I’m afraid this is headed for something bloody and their boys might be in the middle of it. Your operation might be hurt too. I have my own problems with the Trace people but a little leverage there. I have a lot of leverage with DuCard. I wanted to check on something with you on tamping this down.”

“That doesn’t sound too serious.”

“It has a police department angle to it too. One of the big brass playing favorites.”

“Ouch. I’ll help you if I can, of course,” Justine said. “I have seen that the two are inevitably fighting over territory.”

“DuCard is the new one. Trace already had the Dupont Circle territory. Do you know of any streets in the city where DuCard could move that wouldn’t threaten Trace and could be lucrative enough for DuCard? Or is there someplace we can get DuCard’s operation off the streets and into safer houses?”

Justine thought for a couple of moments. “There are two new areas that haven’t filled in with street boys yet. The Southwest waterfront area around the new baseball stadium is one. Putting the stadium there has completely changed the complexion of the area. Some of the most popular movie theaters and clubs once brought traffic to O Street, but now they are under asphalt—the stadium parking lot. And then there’s the new National Harbor area down river on the other side of the I-95 Woodrow Wilson Bridge.”

“Thanks, I’ll work with DuCard on moving to one of those. There’s another issue. Do you have room for another guy—a good-looking Hispanic?”

“Do you have a photo?” Hardesty showed her one of Jose Garcia’s “all of him” poses. “Very nice. I could give him a spin.”

“Thanks. I’ll bring him for an interview. He’s with Trace now, but I’d like to get him out of that situation.”

“Speaking of boys, would you like a free go while you’re here today? The boys were bidding on who would get you if you have the time. I have a couple of new ones who need training on what you like. And I ordered one of those plow belts you like to use—or you might like to use a sling.”

Hardesty looked at his watch. He’d done what he had to do for now today and it was only the late afternoon.

“Sure, why not?” he said, with a smile.

He used the plow belt, a wide strip of black leather, with handles on each side. A strong man could use it to put a bottom on his stomach or the small of his back, depending whether he was to be fucked from the back or the front. The top gripped the handles, held the bottom in place on the plow belt, feet off the ground, and pulled him on and off the buried cock. It was Hardesty’s favorite sex aid. He was given a fresh, blond, an achingly handsome nineteen-year-old, in training as a brothel boy named Nathan, with hopes that, with extensive training, he could rise to the Toby Drake level of high-class male escort.

Hardesty enjoyed the tension releaser from the last couple of busy days, Nathan enjoyed being used by a legend in the city, and Justine got some training done.

Twilight was falling when Justine saw Hardesty to the door, gave him a searching look, and said, “Don’t take Toby for granted. He hasn’t seemed settled of late. He’s a real treasure.”

“Yes, he is,” was all that Hardesty was able to think to say in response.

* * * *

Toby, naked, was tied to Hardesty’s bed, spreadeagled and restrained at the four corners, facing the ceiling, and his pelvis raised on the bolster fashioned just for this. Hardesty, also naked, was kneeling over him, his face hovering over Toby’s, watching the pained-pleasured expression on the young man’s face as Hardesty’s right hand, clothed in a greased-slathered black leather glove, slowly worked its way inside Toby’s channel up to the knuckles. Toby cried out in pain-passion as the knuckles breached the sphincter muscle and went deeper. The rent-boy began to pant heavily and to rock rhythmically on the fist as it sank lower, up to the wrist. Hardesty lowered his head, taking Toby’s hard cock in his mouth and sucked him off while the young blond fucked himself on the fist.

Hardesty wasn’t being especially cruel, although this was a turn-on for him and when Toby signaled he couldn’t take it anymore, he’d pull his fist out, cover Toby with his body, penetrate, and fuck the hell out of the young man, with both of them bucking and fucking in full satisfaction and sexual release. Toby had asked for this, both because he had to do it occasionally to be able to stretch to accommodate it when a client demanded it, and as his last, memorable fuck with Hardesty before taking off for Belgium. That’s exactly how this session seemed to Hardesty—maybe their last session forever together—and that’s how the session ended, in a passion-consuming bucking and fucking that was as intense as any they’d had before.

“Justine tells me fisting might be part of the Antwerp assignment. I want to make sure I’m still loose enough for that,” Toby had said when he asked for it and Hardesty had thought of balking.

Hardesty complied when he might not otherwise have gone so fetish extreme, having just enjoyed himself with the plow belt and a fresh rent-boy, because Toby had been morose since Hardesty returned to the apartment and while he was packing. It was a mood the young man rarely displayed, and it scared the shit out of the man.

Hardesty apologized profusely for taking such heavy command on putting Toby into hiding without including him in the decision. Toby brushed the issue off, but Hardesty wasn’t convinced that heavy-handed mistake on his part had blown over. That was emphasized early in the morning while Hardesty was driving Toby up the Baltimore-Washington Parkway to what had once been named Friendship International Airport, between Washington and Baltimore, but closer to Baltimore.

“Your return ticket has been left open, Toby. Do you have a return pinned down? Do you want me to meet your plane?”

“I’m not sure when I’m coming back or if it will be from Antwerp.”

“Why not? Are you thinking of going someplace else after Antwerp?” Hardesty asked. What he was afraid of was hearing that Toby wasn’t coming back from Europe at all—or not back to Washington, D.C.

“I might be going to Paris for an interview.”

“An interview for what?” Hardesty was almost too afraid to ask that.

“While Justine was making arrangements for the Antwerp assignment, she learned that her affiliate escort agency in Paris was looking for someone like me. I may go to Paris and look into that.”

May? All Hardesty could think of saying to that was, “Interesting.” He knew that Toby had turned his face toward him in the darkened car, but he couldn’t bring himself to look. This was a minefield just like the one that had gotten him in trouble with Toby earlier in the day. Toby’s independence. He couldn’t tell Toby what to do—that would push him toward Paris.

“I’ll park in the garage and come in with you.”

“No, don’t. Drop me off at the departures. I already have my boarding pass. I’ll be going directly to the point where you’d have to leave me.”

“OK, then,” Hardesty said. He didn’t want that to sound sad, but he was sure it did. What it didn’t do was encourage Toby to say anything more.

Hardesty pulled up to the terminal. Toby opened the passenger door. Before he got out of the Hummer, he turned to Hardesty and almost said something, but didn’t.

“Take care of yourself,” Hardesty said. And then he added, but not until Toby had exited the vehicle, closed the door, and headed to the terminal doors, “And come back to me. Please come back to me.”

Why, he thought, was he too proud—and clumsy—to be able to say that so that Toby could hear it?

To be continued.