The Hardest Thing

translators, men or women. We didn’t talk to each other, that was one of the rules, and if you were introduced you just kept your mouth shut. But we all knew. Jesus, some of the guys I recognized from the clubs and gyms. Nobody was fooled. All these fat old men and their pretty young companions. All of them big believers in family values.”
    “Did his wife know?”
    “She doesn’t care. Nobody wanted to rock the boat, and Marshall trusted me to keep my mouth shut. After a couple of years I was his exclusive property. He owned the place where I lived, he was my only source of income, and he didn’t like me going with anyone else. I took my profiles down, and if I tried to meet other guys he always knew about it. I felt like I was being followed every time I left the house.”
    “And were you?”
    “They told me that if I ever opened my mouth I would disappear, just like that. I knew too much.”
    “You knew Marshall was gay.”
    “More than that.”
    “Criminal stuff?”
    He nodded, and just then the food arrived. The waitress fussed around with mustard and mayo and eventually left us alone. We waited till she was well out of earshot, and Jody continued.

    “Once in a while, Marshall used me for other jobs. ‘Entertaining’ his business associates. If they wanted a girl, Ferrari found them a girl. If they wanted a boy, he sent me.”
    “Thought you said he was jealous?”
    “Not if I was useful to him. Sometimes I just had to take these old guys out for dinner, sometimes they wanted sex. Some of them weren’t too bad. Better than Marshall. But afterward, he wanted all the details, everything they’d said and done.”
    “Blackmail?”
    “At first I thought he was just a dirty old man. But eventually I realized there was more to it than that. He was using me—and Ferrari made all the arrangements.”
    “What kind of arrangements?”
    “Dinner dates. Weekend trips. They were always rich-looking older guys. Some of them liked to talk, so I knew what they were—politicians, property inspectors, that sort of thing.”
    I could hear them now, the fat cats talking themselves up to impress the cute kid with the available ass. “So Marshall used you to sweeten his deals?”
    “I guess.” He frowned.
    “And if they wouldn’t play ball, he threatened them with exposure?”
    Jody drew pictures with his finger on the table top. Marshall’s business style was becoming a lot clearer to me—he bribed the right people with sex and money, but if they refused to support his crooked property deals he turned to blackmail. A profitable sideline for Julian Marshall, or his core business? Was this why he wanted
Jody out of town in such a hurry? Was he covering his tracks? I never bought that story about the gunman in 54th Street. Who tries to kill a secretary—or even a hustler? But if Marshall was under investigation…
    I met Jody’s troubled gaze. He wanted to tell the truth; my dick had got me that far.
    A couple of locals walked into the bar and sat down nearby, eyeing us with hostile suspicion. “Come on,” I said, “let’s eat up and leave.” I paid, and we walked slowly back toward the motel. “Nobody can hear us on the street.”
    He didn’t talk for a while, just fell into step with me and, every so often when there were no vehicles near us, reached for my hand. We overshot the motel and headed out of town, where the sidewalk ran out and there was nothing but grass and trees and a rapidly dwindling twilight.
    “It all changed when Peters died.”
    “Who was Peters?”
    “Trey Peters. Sounds like a movie star, right? Looked like a bum. Sleazy bastard, never as clean as he should have been. I hated going with him.”
    It wasn’t just the cool evening air that made me shudder.
    “He worked for Marshall a long time back, then left to set up his own company. Started off as a property inspector, then he became a developer in his own right. Not as big as Marshall Land, but big enough to be a rival.”
    “And I thought you were too dumb to understand what was going on.”
    “I went with Peters a couple of times to hotel rooms,
didn’t think much about it. Then one day, Ferrari told me to go in with a wire.”
    “Did he say why?”
    “He told me that Peters was back in the firm now, that he and Marshall had cut a sweet deal over a development in Queens and that to celebrate I was going to look after Mr. Peters and do anything he wanted to do.”
    “So they sent you in with recording