The combat zone, p.1
The Combat Zone, page 1
THE
COMBAT
ZONE
THE
COMBAT
ZONE
A CODY HARPER NOVEL
VINCENT WILDE
Copyright © 2017 by Vincent Wilde.
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or online reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published in the United States by Cleis Press, an imprint of Start Midnight, LLC, 101 Hudson Street, Thirty-Seventh Floor, Suite 3705, Jersey City, NJ 07302.
Printed in the United States.
Cover design: Scott Idleman/Blink
Cover photograph: iStock
Text design: Frank Wiedemann
First Edition.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Trade paper ISBN: 978-1-62778-210-4
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62778-211-1
This novel is dedicated to the members of the LGBTQ community whose voices have been stilled by violence, and especially to Charlie Howard, a gay man beaten and thrown to his death from a bridge on July 7, 1984 in Bangor, Maine. The three teenagers arrested for Howard’s death bragged to friends that they “jumped a fag and beat the shit out of him.”
CHUCKAHOMO BRIDGE - BANGOR, MAINE
FLORIDA BIKER T-SHIRT, 1989
“…everything human has its origin in human weakness.”
FRANZ STANGL – COMMANDANT OF TREBLINKA
CHAPTER
ONE
BOSTON - 1995
The tongue, crisp, pulls against the dry lips and powdery roof of the mouth. Jack’s skin is slick, spotted with sweat. The seat creaks when he shifts his legs. Uncomfortable, he moves farther down the row, closer to the aisle, where he can get a better look at the parade of potential victims. He will choose carefully, with one requirement in mind—he must be homosexual.
The video flickers, dims, and then brightens, hazy through a film of smoke. He places his right thumb on the pulse in his left wrist. Ninety-two beats per minute. Elevated, but not out of control. For a time, he ignores the sexual dance on the screen and the hover of men behind him, as time drifts like a boat on heated summer swells. He gorges on the sexual heat rising within him. His arms and legs tingle in anticipation of the deathly dance he has choreographed.
An acrid mix of smoke, disinfectant, and sex digs into his nostrils, and the smell awakens him to the screen where two men, naked and aroused, bend over a woman. The sexual abandonment goes on around him; grunts and moans of orgiastic pleasure.
A man, early twenties he guesses, eases into the seat next to him. He avoids any contact as the man eyes him, and a cold wall grows between them.
It’s no surprise that a man would cruise him. Jack’s been told he’s handsome—a bit rough trade—but with that label he attracts a certain crowd. He can charm sex from almost anyone, like coaxing a genie from a bottle. Women want him. He’s had his share. He desires them and responds to their bodies. But men want him too“—a feeling different from being wanted by a woman. An anxious rigidity tears at his body when he’s with a man. It is draining for him to have sex with men, but he goes through hell for the click in the head that brings him peace. He can smell the men in the theater. He longs to touch them as blue electric waves of sexual arousal over him.
The other man, dark and thin, freezes, unsure of his next move. He looks away for a moment, shifts in his chair as if he is about to leave, but changes his mind. The young man reaches for Jack and rests his fingers on Jack’s right leg. He rubs his hand up and down Jack’s thigh.
Jack must be cautious, certain that this prey is what he wants. “Not now,” Jack says. His gaze never leaves the screen as he pushes the man’s hand away. Bundles of nerve endings fire in unison.
The young man grunts, rises from the seat, and vanishes into the murk.
Men shuffle in the aisles. Some scurry around Jack. The seats squeak three rows in front of him. He watches the bobbing heads and hears the shallow moans of ecstasy.
Ten minutes later, the dark man passes near him ready to try again.
A good sign. This man is unfazed by rejection, willing to take a risk. Jack shifts, unbuckles his belt, and pushes his jeans down to his knees.
The man stares at the naked feast before him.
Sitting, legs apart, hands molded to his thighs, Jack is a giant, but the man who kneels before him is scum. Scum services him; scum knows its place on the dirty floor. The reel of hate rolls in Jack’s mind: the dirt and filth and guilt and shame. This forbidden attraction electrifies his senses—a craving so seductive he can only follow where he is led, puppet-like and numb. Long ago, he attempted to understand the prickly emotions that swamped him. But recently, like an addict, he succumbed to his cravings.
Jack offers no resistance as the man separates his legs with a gentle push from his palms. He shivers at his touch. The rough caress of his genitals shocks him into a vacant, dry world outside his body. A memory washes over him. He remembers the child he once was and despises him. He commands his mind to shut the fuck up.
Jack’s hands tighten over the man’s head and he pushes it with force into his crotch. In the flickering light, he memorizes the face, the eyes that somehow glitter when they look at him, the clothes of the man who kneels before him. Jack could kill him now—pull the knife from his jean’s pocket and slash it across the neck, the jugular blood spilling frothy and dark, but the risk is too great, the scream too loud, the death struggle too violent.
Instead, he will wait until the time is right, ease through the sex and coddle intimacy for the sake of the kill.
In the alley, Jack peers over the wooden fence. The city is still, mostly asleep, but this is the house he seeks. This is the address of the man who is a threat; the man who should keep his nose out of other people’s business.
Inside, two men move in front of the courtyard door. The light behind them throws soft shadows. What if they were stripped of this protection: the walls, the door, the curtains gone? What surprises Jack would have in store for him, the one he seeks. The other might have to be disposed of too—but he is insignificant collateral damage—a small glitch in his plan.
The lights go dark, the door swings open, and a face peers into the courtyard.
Jack ducks below the fence.
“Who’s there? I know you’re out there.”
The voice. Jack remembers it. He crouches and then scurries like a rat down the alley. When he stops under a streetlight two blocks away, he looks at his hands, spits into them, and rubs.
Blood is plentiful when you carve like a butcher.
He must wear stronger gloves next time.
CHAPTER
TWO
STEPHEN CROSS RANG MY BUZZER AT 10 A.M. MONDAY morning, June 26th. I ignored the first two rings because I was sleeping with a young man I had picked up the night before at the Manhole. The third and fourth rings seemed urgent, and, on a persistent fifth ring, I pulled on a cream silk slip and leather boots and headed down from my third-floor apartment. I stopped behind the green, pockmarked metal door at the bottom of the stairs. My building was less than top-notch South End—this was no Union Park. The gay gentry, if they ever ventured this deep into the wasteland, would sneer at my wretched quarters. The building’s foyer was prison-like, small, cramped, dark, and with a cement floor that clicked loudly when traversed in heels. Any trace of the building’s former elegance had vanished—another Boston dwelling lost to neglect in a declining neighborhood.
I peered out the small rectangular window secured by chicken wire. I recognized Stephen Cross through the cross-hatching, looking tired and pale. At first, I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Then I figured out he was mouthing the word murder. We had last seen each other six weeks ago at Café Ole, our usual meeting spot. Stephen’s dark hair framed a milky face. He looked too serious, too ghostly for a beautiful June morning in Boston. I hadn’t invited him over.
A fire burned in my gut, ignited by a smoldering crush. Despite my romantic fantasies for the man outside my door, I wished Stephen would leave me the fuck alone with the man upstairs. At least I had a chance with my trick. My excursion to the Manhole had been my first night out in a month.
Stephen had never set foot in my apartment. Few had. But the word murder intrigued me, so I opened the door and waved him in. Dressed in khaki shorts and a white T-shirt, he looked as if he had just come from the beach. The slight heft in his face betrayed his age. He was over forty. He wasn’t what some girls would call handsome, but there was a gentle strength in the structure of his face, which was accented by waves of black hair and dark brows over blue eyes. Too Byronic for some. Just right for me.
I coughed.
“Smoking too much,” he said in a sotto voce delivery.
This from a fellow cigarette sucker.
“Please, don’t start. Social smoker, indeed.”
Thin lines leading back from the eyes, others, deeper around the mouth, traced his face. I had to pick at him, otherwise I might place him on the pedestal of perfection. I was tempted to shove him against the wall and get nasty in the foyer.
“Who’s dead?” I asked, my common sense getting the better of my fantasy.
“Like to invite me up, Des?” His voice echoed up the stairwell. “I’d prefer not to talk here, if that’s okay.”
As our friendship had devel oped, I allowed Stephen to use the shortened version of my female drag persona, Desdemona. Everyone else addressed me by my Christian name, Cody Harper. Considering our history—what had drawn us together in the first place—what was a name between friends?
I looked at him hard and caught him blinking. His eyes were adjusting from the brilliant ocean blue sky outside to the cave-like atmosphere of my building. The morning was cool and pleasant, the happy summer tourist kind that only a Bostonian could truly appreciate.
“Your makeup’s running,” he had the nerve to point out.
I looked like a bad night at the local drag bar. My hair was a mess. The ultra blue eye shadow and frosty red on my lips had turned my face into Ronald McDonald on Quaaludes. What did he expect? The trick in my apartment had smeared my drag with his kisses.
“The brand shall go unnamed, but you can get it at Walgreen’s.” I started up the stairs. “Did you come to talk or give me a makeover?”
“You look better without makeup,” Stephen said, offering an opinion that extinguished the embers in my gut.
“On some subjects, advice should be given with caution.”
“I guess I don’t understand it. You make a damn good looking woman. Damn good. The first time I saw you in drag I couldn’t believe it. You were spectacular in a gold, shimmering evening gown. I can appreciate drag, but you look better as a man. You might want to cut the ponytail, too.”
I scowled. “The cosmetics and the ponytail stay.” I could tell Stephen’s eyes were following my ass, taking in the slip and the black lace-up military boots. I was as sexy as any man could be in a Donna Karan undergarment. “I have to shave my chest today,” I added just to get a rise. “Décolletage.”
“Must be rough on the Lady Gillette.”
We climbed three flights of stairs stained with coffee, soda, and God knows what else. When we got to the landing outside my apartment, I reached for a spare pack of Marlboros I always kept on the hall window sill. I pointed to a hole in the glass, chicken wired as well, and to the cobwebbed pattern of fractures.
“The times we live in,” I said. “A bullet, more than a month ago. I think the assassin miscalculated, thought this window was in my apartment. The gun was fired from an angle, below and outside. Such are the hazards of my profession.”
I didn’t know who had fired the shot. I had a few suspicions, but nothing I could prove, and I wasn’t about to go to the police. The bullet hole made for good effect, but I doubted it was fired to do me in, despite my off-and-on work as a bodyguard. It was more likely another random shooting in the city battleground. Stephen studied the powdery blotch on the ceiling.
I lit a cigarette with a flame-thrower of a Bic. “Fag? I asked.”
“Later. I’ve been smoking too much lately.”
I shrugged and opened my door. “Enter at your own risk. Just so you know, there’s a man in my bed. And watch the records.” To cross the room, Stephen had to walk around a few of my long-playing discs I’d tossed casually on the floor. Way too many books, Broadway cast albums, and theater posters crowded my studio apartment.
My homme du jour slept under the leather showcase tacked to the wall behind my bed: a collection of whips of various sorts, some ending in feather lashes, others stricter and less pliable; a cat-o-nine tails; chest harnesses with silver O-rings; leather collars with D-rings; Chaps; Jock straps; And an array of cock rings and dildos of various sizes.
Stephen gazed upon the slight young man with dark hair and smooth chest who slept in my bed. His thin wrists were secured by leather straps to the posts above his head. Danny was covered with a sheet from waist to feet, his legs splayed under the covering, his ankles tied to the bottom posts by straps as well. My trick showed an ample bulge that rose under the sheet at crotch level.
“Is he alive?” Stephen asked. “And legal?”
At times, I allowed my coarser incarnation to spring fullblown to the fray. People like Stephen brought that out in me. I got a perverse thrill not only from taking him down a notch now and then, but by pushing the boundaries of our relationship. I pursed my lips and hissed out a puff of smoke. I pulled down the sheet with a flourish and exposed the naked body under it. Danny’s penis, at first asleep, pulsed into an erection.
“Look’s alive to me,” I said. “Of course he’s legal. What kind of fool do you take me for? I picked him up last night at the Manhole. Have to show ID there. Great fuck, big dick. He snorted a little too much powder, but not enough to damage the plumbing.”
Stephen didn’t flinch. Or maybe he wasn’t paying attention. I’d given him enough of a show, along with free admission. I pulled up the sheet and sat in the overstuffed chair that took up the corner across from my bed.
“Throw me a fag,” Stephen said.
I tossed him the Marlboros.
“You doing coke again?” he asked.
I huffed in disgust. “I’m clean and you know it. Nothing’s changed since that deranged queen fired the .38 at my head.” Fortunately, the bullet had only traveled through the fleshy part of my left arm. Never trust a drag queen with a gun. “She’s still working the streets. We exchange cordial greetings now and then, like ‘Hello, motherfucker, been to target practice lately?’ Honestly, I don’t think she remembers shooting me.”
The memory made me itchy and irritable. Suddenly, I wasn’t in the mood for company. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts and my books, my silence restored. I looked at Stephen like a cat about to snag a mouse, intent and deadly. He caught my irritation.
“I came by to talk,” he said in a tone as timid as I could remember. “That okay?”
His question ended in a slight drawl. At times, I could hear Kansas all over Stephen. His years in New England had obliterated all but a trace of his dialect, usually his voice sounded as flat as a prime-time newscaster. But he would sprinkle his speech with “boys”, or “damn good”, or “put up”, instead of put away, his unconscious journey into regionalism. At times I’d think Ma and Pa Kettle were lurking around the corner about to crank up the jalopy.
“In the two years I’ve known you, we’ve never been in each others’ apartments. You can see I’m busy. What’s the emergency?”
His face darkened. “There’s been a murder.”
I was quite certain that Stephen, the good boy political writer from Kansas, had not killed his lover, John Dresser, the handsome, wholesome pin-up boy from Vermont.
“So why come to me?” I asked. In fact, I knew the answer— our strange, symbiotic relationship with violence.
“You know who’s out on the street, Des.”
“Hustlers, dealers, bad boys, small-time cons, grifters, yes. Murderers, no. Who was snuffed?”
“A nice boy from Dorchester. Garbage men found him under trash bags on Providence Street—where the hustlers hang. I’ve been to District already to get more information. This kid wasn’t out for money. Strictly middle class. No history of hustling.” Stephen tilted his head back and puffed smoky O’s toward the ceiling.
“People get killed all the time. What makes this one so special?”
“This one is different. The kid’s throat was slashed. The murderer left a signature—a swastika carved into the thigh. And, just to make sure everyone got the point, genital mutilation.”
“Nasty.” I crossed my legs and my slip bristled against my thighs. “How do you know the killer’s a man?”
“I don’t. The cops suspect it from the crime, the strength required to make the wounds. There were signs of a struggle on Providence Street. A lot of blood spilled. A couple of not-so-reliable regulars saw the kid in the Combat Zone around midnight at the Déjà Vu Theater. The truth is he disappeared for five hours only to turn up in the trash. The family’s devastated and ashamed. They claim he wasn’t gay, just lonely. Straight movies at the Déjà Vu, you know. The mayor’s hell-bent, on a jag, clamoring to shut down the Zone. The usual political windfall.”
He took another drag on the cigarette and stared at me. “Have you been there?”
Stephen was fishing, but I wasn’t about to bite. “I haven’t been to the Zone since sobriety kicked in. When I go out, I drink mineral water with lime. If I have sex, it’s with someone I’ve known for more than three minutes—at least three hours. Very PC, you know.”
