The Hardest Thing

believers. Oh, he was squirming by this time, because nothing turns a man like Marshall on as much as stealing bread from the mouths of widders and orphans.”
    “That’s not what Jody told me.”
    “We didn’t get around to discussing that kind of thing.” His hand rested on my thigh. “Anyway, I heard enough. He’s frightened.”
    “I could have told you that. One of his goons tried to kill me this afternoon.”
    “What? Someone’s been here?”
    I confessed my little afternoon stroll and what came of it. He had my pants off within moments. “Jesus, Dan, what the hell did you think you were doing?”
    I shrugged. “Getting some fresh air.”
    “These aren’t some little local thugs we’re dealing with here. This is serious stuff, boy.”
    “From what I can see they’re amateurs. They’ve made three murder attempts so far, and they’ve all failed.”
    “They were warnings. You think they couldn’t have killed you and Jody if they wanted to? Jesus, Dan, nothing’s easier.”
    Was he right? Did the guy in the Starlight Motel let
me disarm him on purpose? And what about Jody’s encounter with a gun on 54th Street? Had that even happened?
    “Point taken. What next?”
    “We’ve made our move, they’ve made theirs. They may not yet know that we’ve seen Jack Rendell, but they’ll soon find out. They know you’re in the City, and they know where you’re staying. Marshall’s ready to skip town, because he knows the net is closing. It’s a question of who moves first—the cops or Marshall. All we can do now is wait.”
    And so we waited. We stayed in Martin’s apartment, only venturing as far as the shop on the corner for food. He wouldn’t let me out on my own, and he wouldn’t leave me in the apartment. If it wasn’t for that little hit-and-run, I’d think he was the possessive type. We talked over and over what had happened, trying to figure out if anything Jody told me was true, wondering whether my little “accident” on Riverside Drive was a warning or more, anticipating Marshall’s next move. Occasionally the phone rang—Jack Rendell or his associates reporting on the investigation into the Trey Peters case, digging up some interesting facts on Marshall Land and their shady employee, Enrico Ferrari. When Martin told Rendell about Marshall’s vacation plans, all hell broke loose. And everyone said the same thing: Stay where you are. Don’t answer the door. Don’t leave the building. Report anything suspicious .
    When we were all talked out, we took a shower and spent a while in bed, and I must say there’s some truth in the old belief that pain in one part of the body
distracts you from pain elsewhere, because after Martin had fucked me again, my bruised, swollen knee felt a hell of a lot better.
    We slept and ate and fooled around a bit more, and in between times Martin took phone calls.
    By evening we had learned two very important things. First, there was a pretrial hearing in three days at which a judge would consider the evidence against Julian Marshall and his associates in connection with the death of Trey Peters. If the evidence was insufficient, it was unlikely that the case would ever come to court. Secondly, Marshall Land was about to finalize a deal transferring substantial holdings to a company in Liberia.
    “Why don’t they just arrest him?”
    Martin stroked my chest; we were lying naked on the couch. “Because they don’t have enough evidence to charge him yet.”
    “They’d arrest him if he was some bum on the street.”
    “Correct. Welcome to my world, Dan.”
    I hope I’m painting a cozy picture: me and my new Daddy in a smart apartment in Morningside Heights, playing with each other while the cops and lawyers do the real work. And that’s how it should have stayed—but the enemy was a little smarter, or more desperate, than we had calculated.
    The phone rang at precisely nine o’clock, at which time Martin was sitting back on the sofa wearing a white terrycloth dressing gown, his legs wide apart and me kneeling between them, making up for lost time. Though I’m usually the commanding officer in such
scenes, I liked being Daddy’s boy for a change. The phone rang as I was enjoying the challenge of attempting to get both Martin’s balls in my mouth, and he was rubbing my bald head in encouragement.
    “Martin…nnnnghff!…Kingston, hello? Hi, yes…”
    And then he froze, one ball in my mouth.
    “Oh, Jesus. Linda? Hello? Linda? What? Who