Retribution

After Hardesty was gone, having taken his time showering, Jan remained lying on his back on the bed, his pelvis elevated by the pillows, his legs spread and bent, rocking himself slightly with the leverage of his feet—unable yet to close his legs, his channel gaping and sore. Humming to himself. Fully satiated and thinking ahead to Hardesty's next visit to Justine's.

Chapter Two: Under the Ice

"What gives?" Hardesty asked the new partner he'd been given in the D.C. Homicide Vice Unit, Glen Whitehall. When Hardesty had stepped out of the taxi into the parking lot of the Georgetown University boat house on the Potomac River, Glen was there, taking charge of a gaggle of beat cops who were standing around with their hands in their armpits and wisecracking with each other. Cold air was coming off the river and Hardesty pulled his leather jacket closer around his body.

Whitehall was a strapping young, athletic, and all-American-looking blond who was on his first detective assignment. He'd been a beat cop up until a couple of months ago and was being drummed out of the service when the Homicide Vice unit chief, Crane, had plucked him out of the discard pile. There wasn't anything wrong with his copping ability. It was more that he'd been found cavorting with prostitutes too much. But Crane's outfit was made up of detectives who could cavort with and use prostitutes, which is why Hardesty was in the unit. The difference was that Whitehall's vice was with females and Hardesty's was with males. So far, though, although the two did a bit of dancing around each other, Hardesty's seniority and quicker wits were recognized by the young blond, and they were doing OK with each other. Whitehall was sufficiently happy to still have a job he liked and was smart enough to know he could learn from Hardesty.

It probably helped too that neither saw the other as competition.

Hardesty's weakness was for young blond men, but he liked them of slight build and a bit more androgynous than Glen Whitehall, who was well over six foot and of linebacker build. Besides, both men were power tops.

"Stiff in a car," Whitehall answered. "Merry Christmas."

Hardesty looked around the parking lot, which wasn't large. Space was at a premium here. This was a high-priced-spread section of the city on the line between the federal city and the preexisting river town of Georgetown. To the east of the boathouse along the shore of the river was the infamous and ultraexpensive Watergate complex. To west the Gothic buildings of Georgetown University, a venerable Catholic institution, rose on a hill. It wasn't hard to pick out what car Glen was talking about. There was one civilian car in the lot—a sleek, black Mercedes S550 coup. The rest of the cars in the lot were cop cars. The Mercedes was isolated from the rest of the world with yellow crime scene tape. Even from here Hardesty could make out the vanity plate on the Merc: It was a D.C. plate, CURTIS1.

"A stiff that required Homicide Vice to be called in on Christmas morning?" Hardesty asked.

"Come on over," Glen said. "Judge for yourself."

The body was in the backseat of the Mercedes, leaning toward the center of the backseat. The cause of death was obvious. There was a bullet hole in the guy's temple. It hadn't bled much. He was young and blond and naked.

"Why, because he was young and naked?" Hardesty asked Glen. The half dozen uniformed cops who were standing around were looking very interested in what was going on. Some looked slightly embarrassed, but a few were nudging each other and looked like they were just busting out to make a crack or two.

"Because he is naked and young and probably not the owner of this car," Glen said, "but also because, you can't see it from here, but I have it on good authority that he has a dildo up his ass and something else too, something special. The guess is a rent-boy who was popped during sex."

"Something special?" Hardesty asked.

Glen drew Hardesty's attention to the body's dick.

"Holy fuck," Hardesty said. "That's a sounding rod sticking out of his dick. This was a serious backseat ride, interrupted in faglio delecto."

"I think the term is in flagrante delicto—in the act," Glen said with a straight face. Hardesty was ever needling Glen about his college education and pushing him to say something Hardesty could claim was queer baiting, but Glen never bit. He had a tight little smile on his face, though.

"I think my version fits this case better," Hardesty said. "Who does the chariot belong to?"

"It's been called in. It's a slow day for research though. Christmas and all."

"I doubt this is Curtis. I guess prints will take even longer."

"They've been scanned, yes, and sent in," Glen answered. "Not much else we can do here for a while, though. With the holidays it will take extra time."

"Not much else to be done than post a couple of beat walkers and find a Starbucks nearby that's open."

"There will always be a Starbucks open nearby," Glen said, "even on Christmas Day."

"Ain't that the truth." Hardesty's eyes went to a cop who was walking quickly and with determination in their way from the boat launch area on the river.

"You the guys from Homicide Vice?" he was asking as he approached.

"Yo," Hardesty asked, "And you are?"

"Thomas of the Fifth Precinct. Found something. You're going to want to see this. Over by the river."

"Where? What?" Hardesty asked as he followed the policeman over to the edge of the water. The river was iced up a good fifteen feet out. There were skid marks from a kayak that had been pushed out into the river—or Hardesty assumed it had been a kayak. There was a rack of them over against the wall of the boathouse and one of the slots was empty.

"So, someone's gone into the river," Glen said as he walked up beside Hardest and Patrolman Thomas.

"Yeah, but that's not the point. Can you see him?"

"Him who . . . oh shit," Hardesty said. Whitehall had joined in the "Oh, shit" part. They were looking down into the ice at the edge of the boat launch. A face was staring up at them from under the ice. It was a man. His eyes were bugging out and his mouth was open in a silent scream. There was a bullet hole between his eyes.

"Well, fuck," Hardesty said, his voice disgusted.

"What the hell?" was Glen contribution. "Suppose it's Curtis Whoever?"

"Afraid not? I know him," Hardesty said. "He's Russian. His name's Victor. At least that's the name I heard he goes by. I don't know a last name. But he's a bad ass." What he didn't want to say was that he'd seen the man a couple of hours ago—at Justine's. He was one of Justine's special clients. This was getting dicey. Glen knew about Justine's, but he didn't know everything there was to know about Justine's. Hardesty's chief, Crane, and the department certainly didn't know about Justine's—Hardesty hoped. Crane knew Hardesty could tap most of the male prostitutes it town—but not his relationship with their pimps and houses. How was he going to handle this, And . . . "I want to see the stiff in the car again," he suddenly said, turning and moving back to the parking lot.

The passenger door was open and the front seat was pushed forward. He leaned into the car, grasped the dead young man's chin, and turned the face to him.

"Shit." It was Leslie from Justine's.

He stood up from the car and took a long look out toward the river, at the Key Bridge, which spanned the river from Georgetown to Roslyn on the Virginia shore.

"What is it?" Whitehall said. "You recognize this one too?"

"His name—his professional name—is Leslie," Hardesty said, a bit of sadness in his voice. Leslie had been a fun and willing lay. He could take it. Well, short of a bullet in the temple. "It's right that we were called. He's a rent-boy. Guess it's our case after all."

They both turned their heads at the sound of a siren-blazing arrival of another cop car and watched their captain, Crane, climb out.

"Hey, hey, the gang's all here now," Hardesty said, as the captain approached. He didn't look the least bit happy. "What brings you out on Christmas Day, Captain?"

"Beats me," Crane answered. "I got a call from topside to get my ass over here pronto. And it looks like it's not a moment too soon," he said, as they all watched the arrival of another vehicle—a black Cadillac Escalade, the jittery blue and red lights going bananas behind its grill. Two formidable-looking men in black suits hopped out of the back of the SUV and strode over to the Mercedes.

They looked inside. "Fuck," one of them said. "The boss knew this could get messy."

The boss? Hardesty wondered.

The other one turned to Crane, recognizing him as the senior on duty. At the same time he flashed a badge, which they all recognized. Secret Service. "This the only one?" he asked.

Crane shrugged. "I just got here."

"There's another one under the ice over by the boat ramp," Whitehall answered.

"Shit," the man said. "Maurice, over by the boat ramp, the cop said. Another one over there."

All five of them, the agents in front, with Whitehall leading them, trooped over to the side of the river and looked down into the face under the ice.

"Isn't him," one of the agents said.

"Isn't who?" Hardesty asked. They didn't answer.

"Looks like he'll keep until the team gets here," the other agent said, and they turned and trooped back to the Mercedes.

"What team?" Hardesty asked, a bit more belligerently. Again neither agent answered him. He was about to say something else, but Crane put a restraining hand on his arm and gave him the "iznay" look. Fine, Hardesty told himself. Two can play the silence game. Let them find out who these guys are on their own. They went back to the car and the agents approached the vehicle from different sides and leaned into the car.

"Fuck," the one of the agents said, standing up from where he'd been feeling around in the car. He'd come up with a gun. Hardesty immediately recognized it as a Glock G30S, military issue. A compact pistol for easy concealment but with a big .45 payoff.

"Where'd you get—?" he started to say.

"Doesn't matter," the agent answered in a monotone. "Kid was shot with a .22, it looks like. This would have taken his face off. Same with the face under the ice." He looked sternly at the three Homicide Vice unit detectives. "So, you guys didn't see this pistol. And you can fuck off now."

The other agent produced a plastic bag and the first agent put the pistol in it, took the bag back to the Escalade, tossed it in the backseat, and returned.

"That's part of the crime scene," Hardesty said. "Shouldn't that have stayed in the Mercedes?"

"What? I didn't see anything," said the agent who had taken it to the Escalade.

"I told you the kid wasn't shot with it. It's government issues, like this one," the first one, the one evidently taking the lead, said. He patted a holster under his armpit. "We wouldn't want to muddy up the issue with an official-issue piece, would we?" His chin was jutting out like he was daring Hardesty to disagree with that, and then, when Hardesty, with a looked shared with Crane, wasn't quick to do so, he went on giving instructions. "Two of the uniforms should stay until our team can get in here. An ME been here yet?"

Crane looked at Hardesty, who looked at Whitehall, who said, "No, sir. Not yet."

"Good. You can call yours off. Our team will handle everything from here. You sure no one has seen another man around here?"

Well, there's that at least, Hardesty thought. These guys have lost someone—a man—and he's of more concern to them than these two dead guys are—these guys who I have some idea about who they are and the Secret Service probably doesn't yet. Maybe the guy they were looking for had something to do with a license plate that read "Curtis." He set his jaw. Leslie was a rent-boy, and someone he knew—that meant he'd be damned if he lost interest in this case. And he, at least, had someplace to start. Leslie wouldn't have made it out of Justine's this morning without Justine's permission.

"Nobody I've talked to has seen evidence of anyone else," Whitehall said to the agents. "It looks like someone might have taken a kayak out into the water, though. The rack by the boat launch is unlocked, there's an empty space, and there are drag marks on the ice, going into the water."

"Fuck," one of the agents said.

"Yeah, we were told he takes a kayak out on the Potomac nearly every day," muttered the other agent. The two of them turned and walked back toward the boat launch. Whitehall made to follow them, but Crane stopped him.

"You heard them. They're taking over," Crane said. "It would be a good time for us to leave."

Hardesty dug in his heels. He looked to see that the two Secret Service agents were far enough away that they couldn't hear him. "I know the young man in the Merc," he then said. He couldn't bear to call him a stiff or a vic. "He's a rent-boy."

"One of yours?" Crane asked. "One you've been laying or one you've been using as an informer?"

Whitehall gave them an embarrassed look and went over and stood next to an unmarked car from the unit.

"Yes," Hardesty answered, not separating the two actions. "We're as good for this case as those monkeys are with what we know so far."

"I said we might as well leave here now, Hardesty," Crane responded in a low voice. "I didn't say we had to roll over on investigating the case. The kid in the car being a rent-boy is good enough for me for us to do some of our own investigation. You want this, or are you too close?"

"I laid him, Cap; I didn't love him. Yes, I want to follow this until upstairs takes it away from us."

"OK. You can ride back to the unit with me. We'll discuss what we've got while we're riding."

Hardesty turned a hard look toward the two Secret Service agents who were milling around the drag marks on the ice. Something big was going on here. He could smell it. These goons could worry about some bigwig all they wanted. He was worried for justice for Leslie. And he knew where he had to start—back at Justine's where he'd last seen both Leslie and the guy under the ice.

Chapter Three: Case Not Closed

It was Jim, not Justine, who met Hardesty at the door of the male brothel in the exclusive Kalomara section of Washington, D.C. Out of makeup and the flamboyant dress, he was just any other balding late-middle age man of commanding height and beer belly.

"Hardesty," he said with a mixed response to having the vice detective on his doorstep in the cold sunshine of a late morning Christmas Day. Hardesty was necessary to him—and he even liked the man—but he was wearing on Justine's rent-boys and he'd brought a cop to the brothel's door the previous night. "Back so soon? None of the young men are here today. I gave them Christmas Day off."

"When was the last time you saw Leslie?" Hardesty asked.

"I don't know. Sometime last night. What—?"

"I think we'd best discuss this inside," Hardesty said, and he didn't wait for an invitation to brush past Jim and move into the downstairs parlor. He sat in a wingchair and motioned for the brothel's madam to sit in the one facing it at the fireplace. The fire was out and the stockings had been taken down. Leslie's stocking? Had all of the guys opened their stockings that morning before leaving and Justine knew then that Leslie wasn't there?

The Christmas tree was still behind the chair where Jim sat, albeit not as impressive unlit and in the daylight as it had been the night before. Hardesty now saw that it wasn't a real tree but was an artificial one that had seen better days. Jim had seen better days too. In the daylight, so had the wingchair he was sitting in and the carpet on the floor. Paid for sex always was more tawdry in the daylight than at night, Hardesty had come to believe.

"I haven't come here for pleasure, Justine." Even when he was out of drag, Hardesty would maintain the name pretense for the madam. "I won't hold back. I've just come from a crime scene in Georgetown. Leslie has been found in the back of a swank automobile with a bullet in his head."

Hardesty gave the madam a moment to absorb that, but he looked carefully into the man's face, gauging the reactions as they went from shock to pain to concern to a wariness about the eyes.

"I'm sure you knew he wasn't here this morning."

"Yes, I did," the madam answered quick enough. "He was checked out for the night. I wasn't expecting him back before this afternoon."

"You knew who he was with, didn't you?"

"Victor paid to take him out for the night. A Russian businessman took him for the night. You saw him here last night. He has a client. For the money they pay me, I haven't shown a lot of interest who that client is. The best I can do is set it up so you can connect with Victor—without him knowing I set it up, I hope. He has rough friends. Ones you probably don't want to make enemies of either. You have to help keep my operation out of this. Leslie. He can't be traced back to here. That's what we need you for."

Interesting that this would be the madam's priority concern, Hardesty thought. And he didn't believe for a nanosecond that Justine had no idea who Victor was pimping for. But then, perhaps sensing how callous and revealing he'd been, Jim doubled back, shielded his eyes with a hand, squeezed his eyes shut in search of tears that didn't quite come, and murmured, "Poor Leslie. Poor, poor Leslie."

"That's not what I've come about," Hardesty said. "I covered that for you before I got here." Hardesty was as aware as Justine was what was expected of him to maintain privileges here. "I've contacted a pimp who will acknowledge Leslie was his. If you come up with $12,000 in cash, he'll even cover the burial. It needn't come back to you if you can keep your men in line and on the same page."

"I can handle them," Jim said, looking up, not a trace of "thanks" or gratefulness in his face. He knew how valuable the services here were for Hardesty. Hardesty could pick up any rent-boy on the street he wanted, of course, but he couldn't get one as high class as the ones he got here—other than the one Jim knew he had in his Crystal City apartment—nor could he easily get one who would go as far as Hardesty sometimes wanted to go. "Then why did you come here? You could have told me this over the phone."

"I think not," Hardesty said. "I believe I've told you not to do business like this over the telephone. I don't control all aspects of police work in the district."

"Point taken," Jim answered icily.

"I've come because I'm going to investigate the crime and I have competition in that. I want to know whatever you do about who Leslie was entertaining regularly and the circumstances under which he left here last night. The Russian, Victor, is dead too. I last some him circling Leslie in this room last night."

"Victor? Victor's dead too? Shit."

"Leslie couldn't have gone out of the house without your permission. You say he went with Victor?"

"Yes," Jim answered.

"Why? Victor could have had him here."

"Victor did have him here. But, as I indicted, he does pimping duties for another client. He said that other client wanted Leslie for the night. Victor paid me for the service. This isn't unusual."

"And who is the other client? Don't try to tell me you have no idea who it is?"

"I just know him as Mr. T. He's someone with power and influence, though—even for Washington—I can tell you that. He first came to us on referral. High level referral and a lot of cash."

"Referral from who?" And then when Jim didn't answer, Hardesty leaned over and put a vice grip on the man's forearm. "Referral from who, Jim? There is a limit to what I'll do for you for privileges here, and I could get you shut down in an hour and take one of the men for my own use. There's only so much I need from you."