Political Abuse

“I wish to thank our guest panel tonight for this very interesting discussion on the explosive news of sexual abuse in Congress. This is just the beginning of what I know will be much discussion on the unraveling of this issue, and we will certainly have Representative Washburn, Mr. Goldstein, and Detective Hardesty back on Channel 9’s This Is Washington show soon to delve deeper into this issue.”

With that, Washington, D.C., CBS WUSA Channel 9 political commentator, Ted Colver, signed off his live 8:00 to 9:00 p.m. television political talk show and the strong lights on the set dimmed. Colver remained on the set, saying his good-byes to Wisconsin congressional House member Sara Washburn, while the other two guests, Hardesty and a young man, Jacob Goldstein, were ushered by Colver’s research assistant Doug Quillen over to the side of the set, where there were refreshments. Hardesty was a detective in the Washington police department’s special Vice Homicide unit. Goldstein was a Senate page who was one of the accusers in the large number of sexual abuse cases that had become public in the previous two weeks. Quillen had been with the television political commentator since before Colver left Congress for TV land.

At the refreshments table, Hardesty, who looked more like a target of Vice Homicide than one of the unit’s leading detectives, exchanged the pullover sweater and sports jacket he wore on set to make him look more dignified than did his usual clothes, a tight muscle T-shirt and black leather jacket. Doug Quillen had taken the sweater and jacket off his own back. Hardesty just hadn’t given any thought to the fact that he’d be appearing on television this evening. There was no reason why he should have; he had been brought in at the last moment.

The situation with the charges cropping up all over town of past sexual abuse, of both women and men connected with Congress, had just exploded with revelations popping up here and there, and the media shows were scrambling around to cover it. Ted Colver, a former U.S. senator, was among the political commentators in Washington with the clout and connections for his program to be at the top of the list to watch for developments. Sara Washburn, a once-striking blonde in her fifties, had written an expose of sexual harassment of women in Congress over the previous thirty years. Her explanation of waiting so long was that she only now was in a position to weather the inevitable “attack the victim” backlash such accusers would—and were—being subjected to.

Goldstein, a nineteen-year-old Jewish boy from a wealthy New York family, who was a Senate page while studying government at Georgetown University, was involved in another side of this story. He was one of several male pages who was accusing congressmen and congressional staffers of sexual harassment. In his case, he was charging Jim Zeller, the legislative assistant of a senator, who was now being connected with much deeper crimes, including trafficking and the deaths of prostitutes who had been brought into D.C. It was the deeper aspects of this case that were connecting Hardesty to the issue and had included him in the panelist invitations on this TV show.

Hardesty was interested in interviewing Goldstein on what more he knew than he was telling, and as Hardesty exchanged Quillen’s jacket and sweater for his own leather jacket, he was given an indication that Goldstein did have more to reveal.

Ted Colver had come over to the young, quite good looking and well-built, if a bit short, page and said, “I understood that you might have more to say about Jim Zeller and his connections to prostitution in congressional offices than you spoke of today, Jacob. I would like to have you back on the program if you can tell us more. If you are willing to talk further—and we can make arrangements to pay for your time—please coordinate with my man, Doug Quillen, here on a mutually available date.”

“That would be fine with me,” Goldstein answered. “And perhaps you’ll have Mr. Hardesty back then too.”

Hardesty was fingering the unique belt he was wearing. What was around his waist was corded black leather. Hanging down from that on one side were about twenty strands of black leather. Hardesty himself had the aspect more of a thug or an older Army Green Beret or Marine than a policeman, although it was true that more and more of the commando-style soldiers were joining police departments. Hardesty, who went by the single name, had pushed hard and unrelentingly past forty—that showed in the gray struggling with the black of his buzz cut and in the close-cropped mustache and beard. And he’d had a hard life, as evidenced in rugged features and a nose beaten slightly off kilter. But he was arrestingly muscular, and he evoked a strong sensual attraction for women and men alike who liked rough men and manhandling. Jacob Goldstein quite obviously was such a young man, as he had been flashing signals of interest at Hardesty from the time they’d met on the set.

There were no secrets anymore on Goldstein’s sexual preferences. He had been outed as soon as he started making claims in public about the homosexual abuse in the halls of Congress. He didn’t claim he unwillingly engaged in the homosexual sex, sometimes kinky or extreme fetish. His story was that men in or connected with Congress was engaging in it too—and often in great contradiction to how they were voting and pontificating in Congress.

In the interest Goldstein projected to the vice detective, the young man did not lack hope, because one of the reasons Hardesty closed his vice cases so well was that he was a captive of the vice himself. He was a gay power top, and he worked so well in the world of rough male trade in the city because he was in that world himself. He readily recognized the signals of interest that Goldstein was projecting—and the young man readily admitted that his connection to Jim Zeller had included willingly having had sex with the man and other men Zeller led him to after the congressional staffer had pursued and seduced him—and Hardesty couldn’t say he didn’t return the interest in the smaller and younger Mediterranean-type handsome man. That said, Hardesty’s primary interest in Goldstein was professional—what the young man knew and wasn’t telling. Personally, Hardesty gravitated toward the young, small blond, somewhat androgynous type, men more like the young male prostitute he lived with.

Hardesty knew Goldstein was making an offer when he was looking at the strands of Hardesty’s unusual belt and he knew the nature of the offer because the belt was a whip and wearing one was a signal of sadomasochistic sex. Goldstein was signaling knowledge and interest. His offer was brought home after Colver and Quillen had walked off and Goldstein said, “We’ve never met before, Mr. Hardesty, but we have at least one mutual friend.”

“It’s just Hardesty. And who would that be?”

“We both know Jeremy Brand. He’s told me about you. He used to be a Senate page.”

“Yes, I know he was a page,” Hardesty said. He also knew more about Jeremy Brand, though. Brand had decided he liked being a male escort better than being a Senate page and had left his congressional position and linked up with one of the male brothels in northwest Washington, Justine’s, in the fashionable northwest embassy section of Kalomara. Hardesty had a protective relationship with Justine’s and mined those working there for information on what was happening in the male prostitute world. Jeremy was one of Hardesty’s snitches and Hardesty was one of Justine’s nonpaying clients, with privileges, because Hardesty helped keep Justine’s open. Jeremy specialized in rough sex practices. Hardesty had used him in the past.

“If, as Ted Colver says, you have much more you can talk about concerning the operations Jim Zeller is involved in,” Hardesty said, putting a hand on Goldstein’s forearm and being rewarded with a shudder from the young man, “I think you should talk to me.”

“Maybe, but not here. And I would like some assurances. I haven’t driven here. I was going to get a taxi, but maybe you could drive me home.”

“And we can have a little talk?”

“You can have just about anything you would like to have. There isn’t anything Jeremy would do that I won’t.”

Goldstein guided Hardesty in the detective’s nondescript police department sedan to the Alto Towers apartment building farther in on Wisconsin Avenue toward the center of the city from the television station located near the National Cathedral and American University on upper Wisconsin. The red brick Alto Towers had been elegant and expensive when built in the 1930s; it still was expensive because everything in Washington, D.C., was expensive and this was a good address section of the city. It had seen its better years, though, and had not kept up with the times in amenities and elegance.

Hardesty pulled up in front of the building and left the car on idle. “So, is there more you can tell me—and then more after that?” he turned to Jacob Goldstein, sitting in the passenger seat, and asked.

“Drive around to the back of the building,” Goldstein said. “There’s a parking garage for the apartment house back there. You can park in my roommate’s slot. He’s gone for the weekend.”

So that answers that, Hardesty thought. The lad has the apartment to himself tonight.

He drove to the slot and parked. He wasn’t surprised that it was in a remote, dimly lit section of the garage. He looked expectantly at the Jewish nineteen-year old. Hardesty knew he was nineteen, because Colver had mentioned that in introducing Goldstein. The lad was legal. Hardesty had a time-honored method of extracting information from young men who obviously were attracted to him and to what he could provide.

“I could tell you a lot—a lot that would be interesting to the police,” Goldstein said. “I’d need protection, though, as I wouldn’t want to get in trouble myself.”

“Protection from prosecution. Are you saying that you procured other pages for Zeller’s prostitution ring?”

“I’m not saying anything without some form of protection.”

“And what might that be?”

“I know what you do with Jeremy Brand. If you did that with me too, I could as easily accuse you as any of the men you want me to accuse. That would make me feel better about your protecting me from trouble.”

He leaned over and kissed Hardesty on the lips. Hardesty kissed him back. “What do you have in mind?” he asked.

“Jeremy tells me you have the biggest, thickest one he’s ever had. Is he right?”

“Feel free to find out for yourself, if you like,” Hardesty said.

Goldstein reached over, unzipped Hardesty’s jeans, and fished his cock out. It was erect, championship thick, and long. “Holy shit,” Goldstein murmured. “Jeremy says he can hardly get it in his mouth.”

“You can try, if you want.”

Goldstein wanted. He leaned over and worked on getting the cock in his mouth—and then proceeded to suck it off. Hardesty reclined his seat and let the young man work on it, to milk it to an ejaculation.

The young man sat up in his seat and wiped his mouth off with his handkerchief. “I want more protection than that. I want you to come up to my apartment and use me hard, hard enough that it would get you kicked out of the police department if I told them what you did and produced this handkerchief with your cum on it.”

“You’re not scaring me, Jacob,” Hardesty said. “Reach under your seat and pull out what you find.”

Goldstein did. He pulled out a series of four velvet-lined black leather cuffs, linked together with large silver rings.

“We go upstairs, I’ll use more than the whip on you. I’ll use those restraints. You’ll let me do what I want to do with you because you won’t be able to stop me. If you want proof of what I did, I’ll be happy to take photos. Do you still want me to go upstairs with you?”

“Yes,” the young man said, his voice thick with want.

* * * *

The rooms were small in the apartment, but it was well furnished. There were two bedrooms. Hardesty knew that rent for an apartment like this would run at least $2,500 a month. And there were the furnishings on top of that—not something someone can live in in Washington, D.C., on a college student’s stipend or what they paid pages in the Senate, or even both together.

They stood there inside his living room, facing each other, more than six paces between them.

“Where does the money come from for this apartment, Jacob?” Hardesty asked. “Was Jim Zeller paying you for sex?”

“No, but . . .”

“But what?”

“The men he paired me with paid me. But not that much.”

“Were these men senators and congressmen?”

“Yes, and some lobbyists and foreign diplomats and a judge, but I’m not saying more than that until I have something on you too. And none of that money went into this apartment. I own this apartment, and Zach pays me rent for his half. His parents are gazillionaires.”

“And your parents? Are they the ones who bought this apartment for you?”

“Fuck me first. Then I’ll tell you.”

“I won’t fuck you at all unless you prime the pump with the information I know you are holding out. Look at me, Jacob.” Hardesty had unbuckled and unzipped his jeans and pushed them and his briefs down to the floor. He stood there, holding his massive erection in his hand and the hand whip he’d been using as a belt in the other. “Do you want me to fuck you?”

“Yes . . . and more.” It came out in a strangled voice. “Jeremy told me I’d never again be fucked by anyone like you if I got you to do me. He said you’d make me feel it. I haven’t really felt it since before I came to Washington.”

“Is an old man paying for this apartment, Jacob? Someone in New York. Someone who pushes a half-hard small cock inside you, dribbles his cum, and then goes to sleep?”

“Yes. Most of the men Jim sent me to did the same.”

“Strip,” Hardesty commanded, and then he pulled the leather jacket off his back and the black T-shirt over his head and he was naked. His torso and biceps were hard-worked muscular, with veins prominently standing out because they had no fat to run through. The torso was marked with scars from knife slashes and a few pockmarks from encounters with bullets luckily placed. This enhanced the image of the man as a thug but also increased the danger of him and Jacob’s arousal. His pecs were bulging, his nipples rock hard. He was swishing the hand whip against his thigh. Jacob sucked in air at the sight of him.

“I said strip, Jacob. Either strip and follow every command I give you for the rest of the night or I’ll dress and leave.”

Jacob stripped. Hardesty walked around him, touching him here and there, swishing the strands of the whip against his own thigh. He put his lips to Jacob’s ear and said, “Did Jeremy tell you I reloaded fast—that I would take you again and again?”

“Yes.”

Hardesty pushed the young man down to his knees. The hand holding the whip was raised and he struck Jacob’s bare buttocks with the strands of the whip—not hard, but hard enough to shock and sting. The young man flinched and yelped.

“And is that what you want? You want to feel it like you’ve never felt it before?”

“Yes.”

“And then you’ll tell me more about Jim Zeller and your relationship with him and who you did for him—by name?”

Jacob hesitated.

“I’m a cop, Jacob. I’m only giving you what you say you want to get this information. You will give it to me, won’t you?”

“Yes,” it was almost a sob

Leaning over, Hardesty grabbed Jacob’s head by the hair and cruelly twisted him around and took the young man’s lips with his. His other hand, with the butt of the whip in it, grabbed the young man by the balls and twisted them. Pulling away from the kiss, Jacob yelped.

“Is this what you want?” Hardesty asked.

“Yes,” Jacob said, panting. “Use me hard. Jeremy said you’d take me totally—that I’d never forget it.”

“Bend over that chair arm.” Jacob did so and then Hardesty gave Jacob another taste of the whip on his buttocks.

“Yes, yes. Fuck me!” Jacob cried out.

“Kneel to me. Suck me,” Hardesty commanded, and Jacob slipped off the arm of the chair and to his knees in front of Hardesty. He took Hardesty’s cock in his mouth, to the extent he could, and gagged as Hardesty fisted his hair and made him take more of the cock than he could easily manage.

Hardesty dragged the young man up to his feet by pulling on his hair. The young Jewish guy had quite a mass of black, curly hair to get a good hold on. “If you’re going to have to piss in the next couple of hours, I suggest you do it now. You’re going to be tied up for a while.”

Whimpering, Jacob went into the bathroom. The apartment appeared to have only one, with old-fashioned tiles on the walls, but it was a large bath. The floor had been carpeted. Hardesty followed the young man into the bathroom and watched him start the stream of piss into the toilet. Hardesty came close behind him, his erection pressed into the small of Jacob’s back. He reached a hand around and held Jacob’s cock in his hand while Jacob pissed. The young man leaned forward, panting, and pressed the palms of his hands into the tiles on the wall behind the toilet.

Hardesty looked up at where that wall met the ceiling and laughed. “Well, lookee there,” he said. Two wrists restraints were dangling from the top of the wall. “Did you bring Zeller and men he sent to you here, to this apartment? Was this a place of business for you?”

“Yes,” Jacob admitted. He moaned as Hardesty cuffed the young man’s wrists, with his arms stretched over his head. His buttocks jutted out from the toilet. Hardesty whipped him with moderate strokes on the buttocks, legs, and back.

The whipping, which was more for the effect of the snapping sound than to do damage, stopped, Hardesty rolled on a condom, saddled up behind Jacob as he leaned over the toilet with his arms raised and restrained, and, holding Jacob’s hips between his hands, forced his cock inside Jacob’s channel and pumped him, while the young man babbled and writhed under him. Jacob shot his load into the toilet. Hardesty continued pumping him until he too came.

Fifteen minutes later Jacob was bent over on the floor, the restraints he’d pulled out from the passenger seat in Hardesty’s sedan being put to use. His head and shoulders were pressed to the bathroom carpet and his legs were bent and pulled up into his chest. His ankles were cuffed in the middle two restraints in the line of cuffs and his wrists in the two outer cuffs. Hardesty whipped his ass again and then was mounted on his raised buttocks and was riding his red, welted ass hard to another ejaculation.

When he had come, Hardesty leaned over and whispered in Jacob’s ear, “Now, let’s talk about Jim Zeller and the prostitution operation you and he were involved in.”

“More. Plow me again first,” Jacob whimpered.

The cop usually would inform the submissive at this point in time and Hardesty gave the directions, the young man didn’t, but he liked the idea of fucking Jacob again so let that pass.

Hardesty released Jacob from the restraints, growling, “We’ll go to the bedroom. I want you to ride me.” In Jacob’s bedroom, Hardesty found restraints at all four corners of the bed and an X-frame, with restraints, in a walk-in closet, but he didn’t employ either. He pulled another set of restraints from the nightstand drawer, which he did use. This was a belt for Jacob’s waist with wrist cuffs attached at the side, keeping Jacob’s arms trapped at his side while Hardesty lay on this back, with Jacob riding his cock in a cowboy and Hardesty clutching and spreading Jacob’s buttocks cheeks and slamming his channel up and down on Hardesty’s impossibly thick cock.

Releasing Jacob from the restraints, Hardesty turned Jacob on top of him so that they were stretched out with Jacob’s head pushed into the hollow of Hardesty’s chest. Hardesty laced his arms through Jacob’s pits, trapping the young man’s arms above his head. He laced his legs through Jacob’s, raising and spreading the young man’s legs. He fucked up into Jacob’s channel for another creaming.

They both collapsed on the bed then, Jacob’s body stretched out over Hardesty’s.

“Make me a list,” Hardesty whispered in Jacob’s ear.

“There’s one in the nightstand drawer,” Jacob squeaked between gasps.

Hardesty pulled the drawer out and saw that there was a list. He couldn’t read it in the dim light in the bedroom. But he trusted that he had given Jacob what he wanted and would get cooperation. They dozed for nearly an hour, awaking enough for Hardesty to roll on top of Jacob, between his legs, and give him a more conventional, full-attention deep fuck. Then they dozed again.

Something awakened Hardesty just before 5:00 a.m. The bed was empty next to him. It took him some time to realize that what had awakened him was a popping noise. He rolled over with a groan and rolled out of bed.

The apartment’s entry door was standing open. Jacob’s body, in a dressing gown, was puddled inside the door. Hardesty rolled the body over. The young man had been plugged right between the eyes. He’d been shot answering the door without checking through the peephole who was out there. But maybe he knew who shot him and opened the door because he hadn’t expected it coming.

* * * *

There wasn’t anything Hardesty could do for Jacob anymore and he’d seen more than his share of dead bodies—even ones with a third eye created for them, so, other than regretting the young man was dead, he wasn’t the focus of Hardesty’s attention for the moment. Hardesty did regret he was dead, of course. He had been really cute and was a good lay—and he’d been serious about taking pleasure from being whipped, bound, and fucked hard. Not only that, but he also was going to be a witness in a police investigation. But that was all in the past now.

First thing Hardesty did was to close the door to the public corridor, although he was careful to see the angle at which it had been opened and to return it to that angle when he left. The second thing he did was to pull his own service gun from its holster under the leather jacket and do a creeping walk through the apartment to make sure that whoever had offed Jacob Goldstein hadn’t come in and was gone. Obviously the assailant hadn’t known that someone was in the apartment with Jacob, which was lucky for Hardesty. He wouldn’t have stood a chance. Next was a trip to the nightstand drawer for the list Jacob had promised only to speak ill of the dead with a “Why that sneaky little shit” when he found out the list gave the names of area restaurants, not men.

Then he went to the kitchen, pulled a couple of paper towels and the bottle of hand sanitizer conveniently found placed next to the sink, and did a rubdown of surfaces he might have touched in the bathroom and bedroom. He fished the used condoms out of the wastebaskets—two in the bathroom and three in the bedroom—rolled them in a paper towel, and stuck the towel in his jacket pocket. They weren’t all his, but he had no way to distinguish which ones were. He pulled the restraint set he’d brought and, leaving the door open at the proper angle, went down the back staircase to his car and drove across town to the diner near police headquarters that he often breakfasted at. The paper towel with the condoms went into a dumpster behind a closed gas station between the apartment and there.

At the diner, he ordered a full breakfast—the fucking had left him ravenous—and ate slowly, contemplating the state of play and waiting for a call from dispatch about a murder of someone his unit was interested in at the Alto Towers. None came in. It was Sunday morning and the door into Goldstein’s apartment was nearly at the end of a hall, so chances were good none of the neighbors had stumbled upon the open door and dead body yet.

At 7:30 a.m., he was back at the Alto Towers to “find” the body himself. He called the find in to his unit immediately.

“Sorry, Lieutenant Crane. This is the Senate page I was on TV last night with. He indicated he could tell us more about Jim Zeller, so I arranged to come to his apartment this morning. Somebody beat me here. He’s dead at the door to his apartment. Yes, I’ll stick around to keep an eye on forensics until you get here.”

And that was that. Hardesty hoped he hadn’t left any “to do” out in covering his tracks. It wouldn’t make any difference in the least that he’d been there, fucking the guy before he was zapped. It would just be an inconvenient wrinkle in the case. Hardesty hadn’t offed him and he hadn’t learned much of anything from the cute Jew that he’d have to account for. He wasn’t abandoning the dead man. He’d take extra efforts to run his murderer down. He wanted to be part of that. If he were put at the scene when the hit went down, he, at the minimum, would be taken off the case. He very definitely wanted to be on this case. It was personal now.

It was just too bad that Jacob got in the way of a bullet. He was a good, rough-fuck lay and he had promise as someone who could help Hardesty out in the long run with some of his kinkier position ideas and restraint combinations. He’d clearly been a major player, though, and had been up to his neck in the prostitution ring. And he clearly had been a liability to someone.

But at least the detective had pleasantly gotten his rocks off several times in a stretch of the day—if you didn’t count the snitch he’d knocked about and plowed in a cheap hotel earlier in the day. And he’d gotten off his favorite way, manhandling some little guy who couldn’t get enough of the pain and the big stretch of a monster cock. Jacob had worked valiantly to handle what Hardesty had put in him. He had wanted to be able to claim he’d taken a bull elephant.

Hardesty would have regretted the loss more if he’d gotten more information and had put a protection promise into place. Jacob had been coy with him, so, other than how close Hardesty had come to being offed himself, it pretty much was a wash in the world of guilty feelings.

* * * *

Hardesty remained at the Alto Towers apartment until 10:00 in the morning. His current Homicide Vice partner, a woman, Carrie Evans, a statuesque and buxom redhead, who was susceptible to the same vice Hardesty was, but with women, came in with the forensics crew. She was a straightforward, no-nonsense detective, who had the public interest at heart but who believed what they didn’t know didn’t hurt them. So far Hardesty had gotten along with her just fine. His usual partner was off on prolonged undercover operations on the other side of the country.

“You aren’t wearing gloves,” she said as soon as she came in and first saw Hardesty, who was following the forensic crew around wondering what he might have forgotten to clean up. “Is there meaning to that?” she asked.

Always perceptive and straight to the point was Carrie Evans.

“I found the body,” Hardesty answered. “I had an appointment to meet with Goldstein at 7:30 this morning.”

“Which means what in going around this apartment without gloves on post crime? Should we be talking about this in another room?”

“Maybe we should go out into the corridor,” Hardesty said.

When they got out there, she fired from the hip again. “Were you inside this apartment before, Hardesty? Are you leaving more prints to cover up prints they may find here? You want to make sure you have a reason for your prints to be found?”

“I told them that I searched the apartment when I arrived—that I wanted to be sure the murderer wasn’t still here.”

“And they bought that?” It was clear she wasn’t buying it. It was equally clear, though, that having gotten the gist of his problem.

“So far, and I think they will if we keep our voices down.”

“So, you were here before? Isn’t this the guy who was blowing the whistle on a congressional prostitution ring? Were you fucking this guy right before he was murdered?”

“Which of those questions would you like me to answer?”

“All of them.” She laughed, which came out in a robust honk. Everything about the woman was robust. They played this game often, but, in the end, they didn’t hold out with each other. That’s what kept the partnership solid. Plus, they’d been together long enough to know that the other cut some corners but they were always focused on getting the perp—the right perpetrator.

“Yes, the victim was one of the accusers in the Jim Zeller case—the primary one. I was on Ted Colver’s TV show last night with him.”

“I caught the TV show,” she said. “You should have worn a suit. You make the unit look like thugs. What you wore didn’t fit well. Not yours, I assume.”

“I was called in at the last minute. I was in my working clothes. I’m not sure I even own a suit.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t. So, after the TV show, you were with this guy last night. Here? And you were just lucky that the shooter didn’t realize you were in the apartment?”

“He needed a ride. I drove him home.”

“And you came in. And you gave him a ride? Both before and after you came in? You drove him home, in more ways than one?”

“He knew more than he’d been telling. He pretty much hinted that to Ted Colver last evening. He more than hinted it to me and wanted to exchange information for sex. I needed to try to find out what that was.”

“So, you were here last night and you fucked him, and your prints are all over him and his bedroom.”

“Something like that.”

“And you actually found him before 7:30 this morning.”

“I was in the bedroom when he was popped at the door. I didn’t see who did it. I didn’t hear a gunshot. I was asleep on the bed. The shooter must have used a silencer. It wasn’t a casual hit.”

“But it wasn’t you who did it.”

“Nope. And I didn’t get the information I wanted. He told me he’d say more, but he was dead before he got around to it. He told me he’d written a list and put it in his nightstand. It was just a list of restaurants he liked. He lied to me.”

“Any leads?”

“Maybe. One or two. I’ll check them out.”

“And you’ll let me know when you need a partner?”

“I thought you and Sophie were off for a frolic in Florida tomorrow.”

“I am, but they have cell phone reception in Florida.”

“Good to know.”

“And if you need me, I’ll be here, at your side.”

“Even better to know. Thanks, Carrie.” Then the two, having reached a comfortable accommodation, moved back into the apartment. Carrie looked around the place.

“He doesn’t live alone, does he? But he was set up to sleep alone most of the time. There’s a second bedroom and it certainly isn’t his taste. There’s a roommate?”

“Yeah,” Hardesty said. “He told me there was a Zach somebody who also was a Senate page. Both from rich families. Goldstein’s family bought this apartment and Zach’s family was paying a high rent for his share. Zach’s off somewhere for the weekend.”

“He’s going to have quite a surprise when he gets back,” Carrie said.

“Yeah, including me,” Hardesty said. “He’s one of the leads I want to follow. If he’s a Senate page, he might know as much about the prostitution ring as Goldstein did. And he certainly knows some of what Goldstein was using the apartment for. Did you see how this place is equipped? This is a regular sex shop. It’s like that this Zach guy was doing everything that Goldstein was—that sex for pay was more than covering the rent here.”

“You mean you didn’t bring in the hanging cuffs, the X frame in the closet, and the other sex toys to aid you in your interview with the victim last night?”

“I took what I brought in with me when I left,” Hardesty answered.

“So forensics won’t find any used rubbers around in wastebaskets here?”

“If they do, they aren’t mine.” Hardesty gave her a level stare. And then, as she held his stare, he said, “I took mine out with me and tossed them safely.”

“There were others?”

“Yes, but I couldn’t distinguish them from mine.”

“Because they were all Trojan Magnums?” she asked, giving a honking laugh.

“I didn’t check. Chances were great they had nothing to do with the shooting, though.”

“You sure you want to handle this alone for a few days?” Carrie asked.

“You and Sophie have a ball in Florida. I’ll have something for us to work on together when you get back.”

She nodded her head. They understood each other. She knew he’d been straight with her—that he was going to be all along and that they were just bantering to get there—and she knew she wasn’t going to be cut out of this investigation. From there, they worked efficiently as the forensics crew wrapped up the crime scene.

“You look bushed,” she said as the big hand on the kitchen clock in the apartment was moving to the ten position. “We have all the notes we need. At least let me file the report, which you can see after getting some shuteye. That will keep your name from being at the top of the page. Then I can go off to Florida feeling I’ve been useful until I can get back from paradise.”

“Sounds good,” Hardesty answered, as he got up from the dining table and moved toward the door. “And go ahead and put the six used rubbers you found in the roommate’s wastebasket in the report—and the toys you found in his room. I didn’t go in there other than to make sure it was clear.” What that did was let her know he hadn’t fucked the roommate in this apartment too. “ And it suggests that this Zach is a player too,” he added.

“Roger that, Kimasabe,” Carrie responded as she started filling in the crime scene report in the laptop she’d arrived with. Her parting shot was, “The condoms in the roommate’s room weren’t Magnum XLs, so I knew they weren’t yours anyway.”

Hardesty snorted. “Got that right.”

* * * *

He got home, across the Potomac, in Alexandria, Virginia, in twenty minutes from upper Wisconsin Avenue. It was a Sunday, or it would have taken at least twice that long. Washington, D.C., police officers were supposed to live where they worked, in the District, and Hardesty could technically say he did, as he had inherited a small, one-story rambler in Northwest Washington that he still kept as a hidey hole. But he didn’t functionally live there. He lived across the Potomac, in Crystal City, an Alexandria urban enclave to the east of the Pentagon and stretching along the runways of National Airport, which had been renamed Reagan Airport in recent years and had been refurbished rather than replaced with high-end real estate. The airport took up some of the most expensive real estate in the world, but as it was almost in sight of the Capitol building and could still get a senator or representative on a takeoff runaway for his or her home district in an hour, the airport was still there.

Weary, Hardesty let himself into the fifteenth-floor Crystal City apartment, which had spectacular views from all rooms across the Ronald Reagan Airport runways to the national memorials and the Mall. He was happy to see that the warning light by the door wasn’t on. He needed some down time at home. His apartment mate and lover, Toby Drake, was working a private party somewhere over on the Chesapeake Bay for the weekend, but he could be coming back today, and there always was a chance he’d bring a client back with him for an even more private party here at the apartment.

It hadn’t been Hardesty’s decision to move across the river. Housing was expensive, to be sure, in D.C., but the small fifties-style rambler in the Northwest section he had inherited had done him well for a decade. But he couldn’t argue with the view from here. It was a splashy apartment, which was the impression it was supposed to give and the service it was meant to provide. Hardesty couldn’t look down his nose at Jacob Goldstein and Zach Taylor living in a luxury apartment meant as a rent-boy sex nest. He was doing so as well.

The apartment had two large bedrooms, each with its own bath, the one off the showcase bedroom more luxurious than the one off Hardesty’s bedroom, and a living-dining-kitchen great room sheathed on two sides by plate glass windows with an extraordinary view. He hadn’t picked out the furniture used throughout most of the apartment either. It was all chrome and white leather, the leather so that it would be easy to wipe down. He’d never feel like this was home, but he was weary enough this morning after the night and earlier morning he’d had not to care about that. It was all part of an effort to keep his life together and not lose Toby, his roommate and also a high-end male escort who was his lover.

If the warning light had been on, he’d have known that Toby was entertaining a client and that he should find someplace else to crash. Luckily, there was an old maid of a guy, Paul, down the hall in a smaller apartment who would be happy to take him in on short notice for the night in exchange for a cuddle and a quick fuck, although they both preferred to be sharing a young guy, who Paul often already had in bed, than doing each other.

The apartment was part of Toby’s escort service set up, with neither Hardesty nor Toby paying the whole fare. The service paid more than half the rent, but you could bet that the money came out of Toby’s earnings. Except when he was an escort, he was Todd, not Toby. That’s how Hardesty had first met him, as Todd, and it was the name under which he’d first fucked and fallen for him.

Even as Todd, though, he was Hardesty’s ideal match—still young, at twenty-five, but looking five years younger: small, blond, fun to be with, movie-star handsome, with a channel that fit Hardesty’s shaft like a glove, and fine with Hardesty’s style that could get rough when he was unleashed. Todd was accustomed to demanding fetish sex partners. The two of them had been together for four years—if both of them having a separate, active fuck life could be considered “together.” It was as close as Hardesty could demand, though, and there always was hope for something closer. Inevitably, Todd would age out of the escort business, and Hardesty hoped to be there then to begin a new phase of their relationship. He would age out of the life of a Vice cop who could get whatever he wanted however he wanted in the not-too-far-distant future himself.

Hardesty was coming out of the shower wearing just a towel when he heard the slight buzzing and saw the flashing red light next to the door out into the living area that signaled that Toby, now in his professional name mode, had returned and wasn’t alone—that he was working. Hardesty turned off the low-sound alarm and moved to the panoramic eyehole in the door that gave him a sweeping view of the living area. Toby and his john couldn’t be seen in the living area, so Hardesty went to his peephole into Toby’s bedroom. They were there, but were out of sight, in Toby’s sex-toy closet. Toby was being worked, probably on the X-frame from the moans and groans he was making—but he didn’t seem to be in much distress.

It wasn’t just the opportunity for voyeurism that brought Hardesty to the peephole, although he readily admitted that he liked watching Toby being fucked by another man, if the man was presentable and was doing a good job of it. Watching Toby performing with another man revved up Hardesty to fuck Toby himself. A lot of this came from the sophisticated techniques Toby used with clients. He used them with Hardesty too, but it’s different in being able to watch how they were being employed rather than experiencing them being employed on you.

Hardesty watched primarily because Toby had said that it made him feel safe that Hardesty would, unbeknownst to clients, who had no idea Hardesty lived there too, monitor the living room entertainment, which could become risky and demanding. Toby only took clients to the second, larger and more plushily furnished bedroom if he felt completely safe with them—and when the coupling included the apparatuses that were stored in Toby’s walk-in closed. When he wasn’t being topped by a client in the main bedroom, he slept in the other bedroom with Hardesty.

Hardesty reached the door in time to catch the client, who Hardesty did a double take in seeing, as he recognized him, with his trousers off. The tall, slim, older gentleman with gray hair and a dignified bearing even with his pants off, was perched on a bar stool at the living room side of the kitchen island, and Toby, small, blond, and strikingly handsome, was knelt on the carpet in front of him, giving the older guy a blow job. The older guy was sipping from a glass that appeared to have scotch and ice in it.

If Hardesty remembered rightly, the ice was only in the drink because this was only noon and on a Sunday, and it would appear unseemly for the man to be seen drinking his scotch neat this early in the day—or on a Sunday. He came from a traditionally dry state well-known for its illegal moonshine.

The man turned slightly on the bar stool, and Toby, kneeling in front of him with his arms embracing the man’s thighs and his hands on the man’s sides moved with him. Hardesty could see Toby’s back then and the red welts on them. He drew in his breath and fought the urge to explode from the room and strike out at the man for having whipped Toby, something he went ballistic when he saw another man had done to Toby, even though his own demons had led him to do much the same to Toby and others. He had no reason to conclude that this was the same man who had recently whipped Toby, though, so he dulled his senses. If Toby needed help, he’d signal for it. If not, he was just doing what he did in his profession. If truth be told, seeing the welts increased Hardesty’s own arousal.

One thing was for sure. Toby had had a taxing weekend, a weekend that continued.

As Hardesty watched, the tall man, nearly a foot taller than the diminutive Toby, stood up from the bar stool and said something to Toby that Hardesty couldn’t hear. They had discussed having the living room wired for sound that he could monitor in the bedroom, but they hadn’t gotten around to putting in a system yet. Toby stood off from the man and slowly stripped off the red stain bikini pouch he was wearing, with the older man watching him and finishing his disrobing as well.

Hardesty sucked in air and felt himself going harder. Seeing his lover completely naked always had that effect on him. The older man wasn’t that bad looking for his age either, and he had the added interest of being hung and erect.

The man fucked Toby on a large leather ottoman directly in Hardesty’s line of vision. What Hardesty could see was the crouched-over figure of the older man from behind, his buttocks clutching and releasing as he fucked Toby. All Hardesty could see of Toby were his perfectly formed legs raised and athletically spread beyond the torso of the older man, who gripped Toby’s ankles, splitting the younger man’s legs as wide as possible while he fucked him in a missionary position.

Toby was mouthing off about how expertly the older man was fucking him in the standard arousal language rent-boys all over the world used to make their johns feel adequate to the task. For the decibel level Toby was reaching with this performance, Hardesty didn’t need a listening system. He imagined that Toby was being fucked well, though, as the older man set up a pistoning pace and was arching his torso back and making a good bit of “I’m having a ball balling you” noise himself. Hardesty had seen what the man was swinging, so if he’d gotten all of that inside Toby, he was sure Toby was giving the client his money’s worth.

Hardesty unknotted his towel and started stroking himself off as he was watching. He loved watching Toby getting a good fucking from a client.

Half way through the fuck, the john turned Toby, fucking him from behind now, with Toby belly down on the ottoman. Toby’s legs were spread behind him and they were bouncing and his fists on his flung-forward arms were balling and unballing to the rhythm of the older guy’s relentless and fast-paced thrust. Toby was finished off with an explosive jerking of them both, and Toby escorted the man back into the other bedroom and, presumably, to the bathroom there so that he could shower.

Toby came back out in a silk dressing gown, gathered up the man’s clothes, and returned to the other bedroom. Then nada for a good fifteen minutes. Hardesty had stopped stroking himself when the client had ejaculated at the ottoman. He stood there, waiting for the men to come back to the living room. Fifteen minutes was a bit long without any observable action. Hardesty went over to the adjoining wall between the bedrooms and again took up a position at the peephole there, with a view of the master bedroom bed. The older man was on the bed, on his back, and Toby, naked again, was riding his cock in a cowboy.

So, he was an important client, one that Toby was keeping very happy. And Toby was servicing him in the bedroom, so he must be safe. Hardesty went to the bed, stretched out, and dozed. He wasn’t asleep yet, though, when he heard the door to the outside corridor close.

“Was that who I thought it was?” he asked when he came out of the bedroom, still naked, regaining his erection when he saw Toby standing there, naked as well.

“Hi. I wasn’t sure you were home,” Toby said. “So, you were watching?”

“Yes. You seemed to be into it.”

“He’s got seven and a half inches and a hell of a backstroke,” Toby answered. “And, yes, that was Senator Pender of Alabama. It was his party I was working this weekend. He brought a couple of us in to work the men he wanted to impress. So, as he said, he wasn’t able to taste the goods himself this weekend but, having paid the escort service top dollar for me, didn’t want to go away without dipping his wick.”

“Did you have a good time?”

“Some of them were almost as rough as you are,” Toby said.

“But not quite, so you didn’t have as rough a weekend as you would have liked. As you can see, I’m hard.”

“Yes, and as you can see, you being hard is making me hard.”

“And I came equipped.” Hardesty moved the hand he’d been holding behind his back around to in front of him. Dangling from it were two sets of double cuffs and a string of anal balls.

“Oh shit!” Toby exclaimed.

“So, do you want to play or are you too tired and want to go to bed. I was thinking of doing you out here on the ottoman. I got jazzed up seeing Pender fuck you here.”

“Well, let’s see. Perhaps I just take that question to my good-luck coin.” He went to where he’d folded and place his clothes when he’d come into the apartment and then stripped for Pender. He fished around in a pocket and came up with a silver coin the size of a silver dollar but much more beaten looking. Hardesty knew that it was a Roman coin from the third century called a Silver Antoninians Hercules. It was the Hercules part that Toby found amusing, and he used it whenever he wanted to make a decision with a flip of a coin.

“So, heads or nonheads?” he asked. “You call it.”

“Heads,” Hardesty called out.

“That’s it. So you fuck me on the ottoman,” Toby said cheerfully.

“What if it had been nonheads?” Hardesty asked.

“Nonheads would be that you’d fuck me on the ottoman,” Toby answered. They both laughed and Toby put his precious coin away.

Hardesty put Toby on his back on the ottoman and cuffed his wrists to his ankles on both sides so that he was immobile. Toby cried out for him at a higher decibel level than he’d given the senator while Hardesty played hide the string of graduated anal balls and then jerked them out. Hide them and jerk them out. Then, having pulled out a Trojan Magnum XL condom packet from one of the several places condoms were deposited around the room, and while Toby was panting hard with five anal balls inside him, Hardesty crowned himself, jerked the balls out of Toby’s ass, thrust inside him, and fucked the shit out of him.

Toby screamed for him, came for him twice during the process, and told him how much he was loving it—that, indeed, it had been a very tame weekend in the sexual satisfaction department.

They were both zoned out, exhausted in the bed in their shared bedroom when Hardesty’s cell phone went off.

It was Lieutenant Crane, Hardesty’s boss.

“You awake, Hardesty?” the police lieutenant barked into the phone.

“I am now,” Hardesty answered.

“We missed one. The offing of the Goldstein guy should have warned us.”

“What’s happened?”

“The link above him is gone. Jim Zeller was knifed in his cell this morning.”

“I thought he was tucked away in an unidentified federal facility.”

“He was. But his lawyers had to know where he was. We couldn’t deny them access to him. And now he’s dead. Knifed by an unknown perp. And now this case has just gotten dicey.”

“I’ll come in,” Hardesty said, sitting up in bed and rolling over to a sitting position on the side of the bed.

“You didn’t get much sleep last night if you’ve been at the Goldstein scene. You won’t be worth much without some sleep. Come in at the regular time tomorrow morning. Maybe we’ll have some leads for you to start on then.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Hardesty said and rang off. He turned in the bed and saw that Toby’s eyes were open.

“So, you going to get some more sleep?” Toby asked.

“What do you think?” Hardesty said, reaching over and cupping the young man’s balls.

“I know that look,” Toby said. “I think you want me to open my legs to you.”

“You think right,” Hardesty growled. He took a moment to open the nightstand drawer, retrieve a condom, and snap it on, and then he rolled over on top of Toby, as the young man reached over his head to grasp the rungs of the brass headboard. And then they were off to the races, with Hardesty thrusting inside Toby in a bouncing power fuck that had the bed shimmering.

“So, you missed me this weekend,” Toby called out between pants.

“This much. And this much. And this much,” Hardesty answered, with a forward thrust of his hips with each declaration.

They were truly zonked when the next phone call came through. This time it was Toby’s cell phone on top of the nightstand on his side of the bed. He rolled out of the bed as he clicked the phone on and headed for the bathroom, so as not to wake Hardesty up. Hardesty, of course, was awake and stayed that way until Toby came back.

“Sorry, I said you’d see this guy,” Toby said, seeing that Hardesty was awake. “He’s on his way over here now.”

“What guy?” Hardesty asked.

“Zach Taylor. He was at the party I was at this weekend. One of the other escorts. He says he has to talk to you—and that maybe you can get him protection.”

“Zach Taylor? Doesn’t ring a bell,” Hardesty said. He knew precisely who Zach Taylor was, but he didn’t want to bring Toby in on this. He always wanted to keep Toby separated from his cases, but that wasn’t always possible. And it always made his cases messy. In this case, Taylor coming to him saved him time and effort in tracking Taylor down.

“He says he is Jacob Goldstein’s roommate. He went home to find his apartment a crime scene and his roommate dead. The cop staking the apartment out dropped your name, which Zach remembered in connection with me. So he called me. He says he’s scared he’s next and wants you to get him protection.”

“Ah. Ringadingy. That Zach. Yeah, I want to talk to him.” It seemed Toby had an angle in this without Hardesty being able to keep him totally out of it. Hardesty reached for his cell phone and hit the direct line to Lieutenant Crane. “Yeah, guess I’m still on the job today, chief,” he said. “But before I get on the Zeller angle, I have Goldstein’s roommate coming over. I think he might be as useful to us as Goldstein—and maybe even Zeller—would have been. See what you can do to set up protection for this guy. And don’t tell Zeller’s lawyers where he will be stashed.”

Hardesty didn’t have to wait until Monday to start following the leads he had. One of those leads was coming to him. Now.

(To be continued)