Harlan's Race

Scrambling, sliding down the steep slope, braking by hanging onto tree trunks, the two of us reached the bottom. It was hot down there, and full of echoes and trash. When we got to Chris, he was still breathing. His head was bloody, the red trickles just starting from his mouth and nose and ears. We approached him cautiously, Chino with his gun drawn. There was no underestimating this man. But he didn’t spring to life. His eyes stared up at us, sick with serious injury. His face was pale with shock.
    Panting, Chino kneeled and grabbed him savagely by his shirt. The man winced with internal injuries. “Go on — kill me,” he groaned, “please kill me.”
    ‘Where’s your spotter?” Chino barked.
    “Alone,” came the gasp from bloody lips.
    I was riven with emotion, unable to believe more than that Chris had snapped after I rejected him last summer. That this was just the rare and extreme case of faggot looniness and pique. But Chino’s face was convulsed with cold fury. He was about to finish Chris with a hand chop, a pressure. The autopsy would probably reveal nothing inconsistent with injuries suffered during the fall.
    “Don’t,” I panted, grabbing my friend’s arm.
    “Fuck you, man.” Chino threw me off. “Don’t protect this piece of shit.”
    I grabbed him again. “I’m protecting you. You don’t know who’s watching. You want to do time for this? Why?” We grappled briefly. “Look at him ... The fucker’s dying ...” I kept panting.
    Biting his lip, Chino suddenly pulled himself together and let Chris go. Tears were running down his face.
    ‘Yeah,” he said.
    Up above, we could hear squad car sirens. When the cops finally reached the bottom of the ravine, Lance and Bob were among them.
    By the time we all got back to the platform, most of the crowd had left. A few rubberneckers hung around smelling trouble. President Mason had clawed things together again, and poor Joe Park had gotten his gold medal with little attention. The sound van had left, and Front Runners clean-up crews were clearing the trampled lawn of trash.
    Denny Falks walked over to me and commented dryly, “Goddam, Harlan. A guy comes over to you to say hi, after how many years is it? ... and all hell breaks loose.”
    If two gutsy “real cops” hadn’t taken our side, the Front Runners race security might have been collared by the LAPD. As it was, evidence forced the LAPD to pay serious attention. Finally they had to grudgingly commend the two queer bodyguards for their restraint and their handling of the situation, without firing a shot.
    When Lance and Bob had yelled enough bay-man obscenities, and the LAPD had searched the bottom of the ravine and emptied out that latrine, they found the parts for a strange-looking little .22 custom rifle. It was made to be quickly assembled from four pieces. The short gun-barrel and silencer, when it entered the park so openly that morning, had resembled a rusted, old bicycle pump. The rust ensured no glint. The stock had fitted inside the bicycle seat. And the scope looked like a water bottle — the kind that cyclists strap to their bikes. In the latrine, the sniper had managed to take the gun down and jam the scope and silencer out of sight in the shit. When Chris left the area, he still had the parts to reassemble it into a hand gun.
    The flattened round, laying in the dust where I’d stood, was a .22 Magnum, like the one used to kill Billy.
    As Chino had said once, spook work is slippery. So is what people believe to be truth. Like my red lines in the Bible, the day’s events had left us staring into deep space, where up is down and straight is curved. By that night, Chino and Harry had stripped me of my illusion that Chris had acted out of simple aggravated queer spite. A call to Russell in Palm Springs had activated Russell’s network, and our keen-eyed old owl already had learned that Chris knew Richard Mech.
    A monstrous war story of radical rightist politics, blackmail, guilt and obsession began to unfold.
    John Sive, Chino and I rode to the hospital in a detective lieutenant’s car. In spite of serious injuries, Chris was still conscious. He’d insisted that his wife not be called. He’d told the LAPD that he’d talk, but only to me. The LAPD was somewhat embarrassed about their fumbles that day, so they agreed.
    A tormenting hunger to understand was overwhelming me. What had possessed Chris? Why had I let a personal myth blind me to danger? Why hadn’t I