[Mystery]

[Government Gay cover]

An Excerpt from Chapter Two of Government Gay

By Fred Hunter

[After having been threatened, even attacked, by two strangers in a gay bar the night before, Alex Reynolds tries to forget it even happened, but:]

My name is Alex Reynolds and I'm a commercial artist -- freelance. I work out of our home. I went into commercial art because I'm pretty good, but I'm not up to painting the Great American Landscape. The biggest campaign I've worked on was for Skedaddles. It was one of those restaurants where you can take your kids, so nobody in their right mind eats there. Peter and I ate there once so I could get a feel for the place while I was working on the ad, and I've never been in a restaurant where the staff ran so much or smiled so horrifically. Every single one of the wait-staff had pasted on their faces the type of smile that looks like it's held in place with a heavy coat of varnish. At first I thought the restaurant's name referred to the speed of service, but I came to realize Skedaddles actually means, "Eat and get out." But I drew a great ad for them. I drew the best curly fries you've ever seen. They actually looked like they were smiling. And as a few of my friends pointed out, any resemblance to bed springs was purely subliminal.

Peter Livesay, my husband, is a salesman at Farrahut's, a rather exclusive clothing store for rather exclusive men. There is no Farrahut, and nobody knows where the name came from. The store is owned by Arthur Dingle, which serves as both his name and his description. Peter has been really successful as a salesman there, which he attributes to his expertise, but I attribute to the fact that the clientele is all on the fey side and really like having him help them into and out of their clothing.

My mother, whose name is Jean, does nothing for a living at the moment due to the fact that my ex-father neglected to change the beneficiary of his various life insurance policies before he was run over. As my mother said at the time, "That bloody bastard was insured up his bloomin' arse!" That was the last time my father was referred to as a "bloody bastard" in our home.

My mother owns the townhouse in which we live on west Fullerton. It's a three-bedroom affair with a large living room, a dining area, and a kitchen just big enough for the three of us to get in each other's way.

Saturday morning -- the morning after my escapade at Charlene's -- we had breakfast in what is know in modern architecture as the "breakfast nook," which is actually an enclosed porch with windows on three sides, so the sun pours in. It juts out of the back of the building, just off the kitchen, and has gardens planted directly behind it.

Mother was clad in a white kimono with a jade dragon printed up the back. It is one of the collection of kimonos she acquired on the trip to Japan she took to celebrate the death of my father. Somehow when she makes breakfast in one of these flowing robes I always expect the sleeves to catch fire, and for her to go up like some sort of crossbred phoenix, but she always manages to get through breakfast without being bothered to rise again. Mother does most of the cooking, not by design but because she enjoys doing it.

Peter and I were just polishing off the last of the eggs when the front doorbell rang and Mother went to get it. Before opening the door, she peeked through the living room window for a moment (as is her habit). The she went to the front door and opened it. I don't know if I was just wary because of the previous night or if I've developed a strip of paranoia as I've ploughed into my thirties, but I got up and went over to the kitchen doorway to watch.

At the door was a man I can only describe as swarthy. I don't know what that word means, but I'll bet you'd find his picture by it in the dictionary. He was overtly handsome, but carried himself as if he were unaware of it. He had dark hair and dark skin and dark eyes, and was wearing a dark blue suit.

"What is it?" said Peter from the porch.

"I think it's a Mormon traveling alone," I replied. Peter made a face at me and went back to his eggs.

"Mrs. Reynolds?" said the man.

"Yes?"

"I'm here about an incident that took place last night in a bar called Charlene's."

My heart dropped into my stomach. I don't think I'd ever been involved in anything before that could be called an "incident."

"Yes?" said my mother patiently.

The man smiled and said, "My name is James Martin, "I'm with the federal government."

He reached into the inner pocket of his suit coat and pulled out a small leather folder. He flipped it open in an attempt to flash his badge at my mother, but she refuses to be flashed in any form. She grabbed his little folder in mid-flip and examined his badge with the scrutiny of a dermatologist searching for melanoma, then handed it back to him.

"It doesn't say on there what branch of the government you're with."

"We don't usually give out that information," he said as he slipped the folder back into his inner pocket.

"Well, there you have me," said Mother, "I don't usually allow uninvited federal agents into my home."

He smiled in a way that said "Touche" and "You'll pay for that" in one slick gesture.

"I'm with the CIA."

"The CIA?" Mother repeated slowly, her brow furrowing.

I knew I would have to buy a pack of Tums before the day was out.

"We have information that someone from this house was involved in an altercation in that bar last night, and I'd like to speak to him."

"How do you know that?" said my mother, and I noticed her stiffen -- probably a reflex from having been in England during the war -- or at least, having seen movies of having been in England during the war.

Mr. Martin smiled and said, "The young man took a cab home from the bar." As if that explained everything. then he added, "May I come in?"

"All right," said Mother, but her reluctance was implicit.

It was at this point I thought I'd better join the proceedings, so I came into the room and said, "What's this all about?" in the most befuddled tone I could muster.

"This is my son Alex," said my mother, then she turned to me and said, "This is James Martin. He's with the government."

Martin extended his hand and I shook it. His hand didn't tighten or go limp. It just stayed in mine for a moment as if it were there on sufferance, then he pulled it away.

"I understand you had a little unpleasantness last night," he said.

"Yeah?" I said. "How do you know that? Did someone complain?"

"No."

"I didn't file any complaint, either, so I don't see why you're here."

"You didn't file a complaint?" he said. "I'm pleased to hear that."

That completely stumped me. "Why?"

At this point Peter wandered into the room and said, "What's up?" Martin looked to my mother and said, "Is this your other son?"

"Hardly."

There was a little pause, then Martin said, "I see." I didn't like the way he said it.

"I need to talk to you about last night," said Martin. "And it would probably be better if we were alone."

"They know all about last night, so they might as well stay."

"I see," he said again.

Mother motioned him to the couch and he sat. There is a coffee table in front of the couch, and we all pulled up chairs on the other side of it, so we looked sort of like a panel about to grill a student.

"Why are you glad I didn't report it?" I asked, not about to let the interrupted part of the discussion drop.

"Because it's not the type of thing we'd like any sort of ...interference in," he said smoothly.

"Interference? I wasn't interfering in anything. I was just having a beer!"

Peter turned his head toward me and gave me a look so pained you would've thought I'd just broken wind at a high tea. "I think he means interference from the police," he said, and turned to Martin and added, "Is that right?"

"Correct," said Martin. "First I need to ascertain if you were a willing participant, or if you just...stumbled into it."

"I was just having a beer!" I said. "Minding my own business. And then I went to the john and these guys pulled a knife on me!"

Martin looked at me doubtfully for a moment, then said, "That's not the incident I was talking about."

"Mr. Martin," my mother cut in her severest tone, "I'm afraid none of us knows what you're talking about. My son was roughed up in that bar last night." "Roughed up" sounds very quaint with an English accent: it came out something like "roofed up."

"We're aware of that," counter Martin. "But I was talking about his contact with our man."

"What man?" I said.

"You spoke with him."

"I spoke to a hundred men last night!" I said.

"A hundred? Really?" said Peter in a playful tone that was meant to get me to calm down.

I ignored him. "Which one are you talking about?"

"A big man. Very pale. Dark, limp hair. Bags under the eyes. Brown eyes."

"Sweaty?" I asked.

"Um-hmm."

What went on between the dough-man and me had been so slight and innocuous that half of me wanted to believe that this whole thing -- the attack, my flight, and this man sitting here in our living room -- was just some sort of elaborate joke. On the other hand, this man was sitting here and had identification, so I knew it couldn't be a joke. North by Northwest shot back into my head, and I had that same sick feeling I'd had last night, only worse: this guy looked a hell of a lot more threatening than Leo G. Carroll.

"We'd like to know what passed between you."

"We?" said Peter.

"My department," Martin replied without looking at him.

"Nothing passed between us," I said.

"He was seen speaking to you."

My wariness hit the wall there. I took a deep breath and said, "Look, Mr. Martin, my family and I aren't used to being questioned by a total stranger. I think if you want to know anything else, we need to know what the hell this is all about."

Martin sighed and looked down at the floor for a minute, then addressed the three of us with the utmost seriousness that we've come to expect of the feds through years of bad movies: "Before I tell you anything, I need your assurance that it will go no farther than this room. We are dealing with highly classified information, and I wouldn't tell you anything about it at all...if there were a choice." Here he looked at us as if we were being very bad little children. "But be that as it may, I need your assurance as good American citizens that what I'm going to tell you will go no farther." He looked at my mother and added, "Yours, too."

Mother bristled and said in her most offended upper-crust British accent, "I believe we are still allies."

"And she's a damn sight more acceptable in this country than we are," Peter grumbled under his breath.

Martin looked at us as if we were alien in more ways than one, took a deep breath, and then went into a formal recitation: "I can't tell you everything about this matter, it deals with national security. What I can tell you is that the man you spoke with at the bar is named Victor Hacheck. He contacted my department some time ago and said that he had some very sensitive information he would like to share with us."

"In exchange for what?" said Peter.

"Naturalization," said Martin simply. "We instructed him to take a flight to O'Hare. We thought that Chicago would be an unlikely place for foreign agents to be looking for someone who was planning to pass inside information to the government, so he was instructed to come to Chicago, and we set up a time and place for him to pass the information to me."

"At Charlene's?" I said incredulously. A lot of very weird things have happened at Charlene's, but probably the last thing I'd expect is for state secrets to be passed there. But then again, that was probably the point.

"No," said Martin with a tinge of disgust that I begrudged him. "At a bar on Rush Street."

"Did he get the directions wrong?" said Mother. It was impossible to tell whether or not she was joking.

"No, but somebody else got them right."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," said Martin patiently, "that we weren't the only ones there. I was waiting for Hacheck on the east side of Rush Street, across from the bar. I wanted to see him first and size him up."

"Admirable," said Peter wryly.

Martin glanced at him and continued, "He arrived just before the appointed time, stood around outside the bar looking up and down the street. I was just about to cross to him when he looked south and a startled look came over his face. He bolted. He was pretty fast for his weight. He ran north, up North State Parkway, and then I saw what he had seen -- two men."

"The clay people!" I said excitedly, and felt stupid almost the minute the words were out of my mouth.

"The what?" said Martin.

"I'm sorry, the guys that roughed me up."

"Yes. They were about a block away when Hacheck took off, and they took off after him. I followed."

"You followed?"

"Yes. They went north to Goethe, west to Wells, and north up Wells until Hacheck ducked into the bar."

"And you followed," I said.

"Yes."

"I didn't see you in the bar."

"Maybe you weren't being as...observant as you might have been."

I said, "Hmmph."

"The government has spent a lot of money to bring Hacheck over here and set up a safe house for him with a new identity and all that goes with it, only to have him bolt."

"Not of his own volition," I pointed out.

"Perhaps," he said, sitting back on the couch and folding his arms.

"What do you mean?" Mother asked. "Why else would he disappear?"

"Stranger things have happened, Mrs. Reynolds. Maybe he just didn't have the money for the flight, and wanted to get out of Russia very badly. Maybe the whole thing was a scam for free airfare."

"You can't believe that," Mother replied.

"As I said, stranger things have happened. He may not have had anything to sell, and instead of trying to bluff his way out with me and the government, he disappeared. It's easy enough to do in a country this size."

"But what about the two men who were chasing him?" asked Peter. "Surely you don't think they were a scam."

Martin shrugged. "That could've been something completely different. Maybe they thought he had money."

"Not if they'd seen him," I said. "Besides, you said he ran when he saw them, not the other way around."

"What do you mean?"

"He must have recognized them."

"Who knows?" said Martin with another shrug. "Maybe they reminded him of the Nazis of his youth. We can never tell with those people."

"I bristled at his use of the phrase. It's been used on my own minority so many times.

"But what information was he going to give you?" asked Peter.

"I don't know the whole of it, and what I do know I can't discuss." He turned his searchlight-like eyes on me. "And that is why I need to know what passed between you."

I looked at him for a minute. In a way, after that story, I wished I had more to give him. And in a way I was glad I didn't.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"No, nothing. Nothing passed between us."

"Mr. Reynolds," he said with an evenness that sent chills up my spine, "he was seen talking to you. Can you tell me what he said?"

"All he said was, 'Is this place always this noisy?' or something like that. I thought he was trying to pick me up."

"And what did you say?"

"Um-hmmm."

"That's all that passed between you?" said Martin in an extremely doubtful tone.

"That's all."

"Could it be that he passed something to you?"

I gave him a look that I hoped was as withering as I wanted it to be, and said, "We hardly got close enough for that sort of thing."

His patience became even more measured. This guy didn't have any sense of humor. "What I'm asking you is did he give you anything?"

I shrugged and replied, "He gave me a light."

Martin didn't so much as twitch, but I could sense his interest. "He lit your cigarette?"

"Are you smoking again?" Mother demanded. The look on her face told me I'd better not be.

"No," I stammered. "Well, yes, but just that once. I only do it when I'm..."

She cut me off with "Honestly, Alex, we've had this talk over and over again. I won't have you smoking. You know how dreadful and stupid it is, and besides -- "

I was almost glad when Martin cut her off.

"Could you save that for another time?" He turned to me. "This is important: what did he do when he lit your cigarette?"

"He lit the damn thing," I said with enough irritation to let him know that I didn't like him talking to my mother or me that way. "He just lit the thing. He didn't say, 'Permit me,' or anything like that. Of course, he probably didn't know that we were supposed to be in some kind of Sherlock Holmes movie or something."

Martin closed his eyes, just for a second, then he said, "What did he do then?"

"I don't know. I didn't watch him."

"He didn't say anything else?"

"I didn't want him to," I said. I was getting really hot under the collar now. "I wasn't inviting any more conversation. I didn't want to talk to him."

Martin sighed and said, "If you had, we might know what happened to him."

That really got me, because I was not having this guy's fate put on me just because I treated him the way I'd treat anyone I wasn't interested in. I said, "Look, I was just there for a beer, not to scout for the feds."

"Calm down, Alex," said Mother.

"No, really!" I turned to Martin and said, "It's not my fault you lost your man, and it's not my fault that I didn't make small talk with him about Soviet-American relations."

A silence fell among us. Martin looked at me for a moment and then said, "Did he give you the matches?"

"No," I answered after a pause, unable to hide my incredulousness.

"What did he do with them?"

"I don't know. The next time I looked, he and his matches were gone."

Martin drummed his fingers on his knees for a moment and looked steeped in thought. "The men who attacked you, what did they say?"

"They said something like they saw him give it to me, or they saw him talking to me, and I didn't know what they were talking about. I talked to a lot of people at the bar, and nobody gave me anything."

He scrutinized my face in a way that made me want to sink into the carpeting and disappear before he said, "Are you sure you're telling me all you know?"

At this my mother drew herself up to her full height, rested her hands on the sides of her kimono like a Japanese empress in a musical comedy, and said, "My son does not lie, Mr. Martin. Now, will that be all?"

"I'm sorry," he said to her so self-effacingly that it made me wonder if it was possible to blush on cue. "I really didn't mean to imply that he would."

My mother showed him to the door, and Peter and I followed close behind. Once there, Martin turned and gave me a slip of paper on which he'd written his phone number.

"If you should remember anything else, will you call me?"

"Um-hmmm," I said as I looked at the paper.

With this he turned on his heel and strode down the front steps and the walk.

Mother closed the door after him and turned to me, her index finger pointing accusingly at my chest.

"Don't you ever go to a bar again!"

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