Lake on the Mountain: A Dan Sharp Mystery (18 page)

Ralph did an anxious little dance at the back door, wanting to be let out. Then he came back in and settled on his bed in the corner. Ked wasn’t due for another two hours. There was nothing further demanding Dan’s attention.
Me Time,
he told himself. It had been weeks since he’d been jogging. His leg muscles ached with anticipation.

He stood on the rise over Riverdale Park with its view of the downtown skyline. The city spread out like a medical cadaver, the skin peeled back to reveal the working organs, muscles, and nervous system. It seemed incredible to think he’d lived here for twenty years. He padded across the metal footbridge, down the stairs, and turned north. His run took him through a drainage tunnel echoing with the chirps of mechanical frogs — some civil servant’s idea of an ecological joke — under the arches of the Bloor Viaduct. Above, subway trains and rush hour traffic raced along as the 905-ers abandoned the city for another day.

His feet pounded the trail as his mind melded with the green space whizzing past. He climbed a gradient running headlong with the Don Valley Parkway — more cars escaping the city. Here the path headed toward Pottery Road and the supposed haven of leafy suburbs or, if you turned right instead of left, on to Scarborough, where it was said that bad Torontonians went when they died. (The good ones, presumably, going to Vancouver.)

A helicopter hovered overhead, stuck in the loop of rush-hour traffic reports. A posse of bikers passed in the other direction, heading for the lakeshore trail, always crowded with roller-bladers and dog walkers these days. Dan preferred the quiet of the valley where passersby were less frequently encountered.

Now and again, the Don River appeared through the trees in patches of brown flecked with yellow foam. Toronto was probably the only major city in the world to relinquish the chance to commercialize a river running through its centre. While that might have seemed an ecologically sound choice, in reality the river had been slowly poisoned by surreptitious chemical dumps and garbage spills, and left to fill instead with abandoned shopping carts, stolen bicycles, and cast-off tires. Merchants would have shown more concern for its appearance and welfare. Dan thought of Ked’s enthusiasm for the decrepit world of
Blade Runner
. Perhaps some enterprising young dreamer would one day populate the Don’s turgid depths with robotic fish to accompany the chirping of the mechanical frogs.

He came to the top of the rise. He’d meant to take this time to think about Bill, but instead he was worrying about water pollution. A chorus of images from the weekend jarred his thinking. He remembered the rush of betrayal he’d felt hearing Bill confess his love for Thom. It went a long way toward explaining why Bill found intimacy so hard. Dan, on the other hand, had no such difficulties. It had been easy to devote himself to Bill, though common sense told him his lover wasn’t as dedicated in return. Did it ultimately matter? Was the cool affection Bill showed him enough? Maybe the other would grow with time. Or maybe he just needed to recognize when he’d been kicked in the balls.

With a sudden swoop, the helicopter turned away from the valley, disappearing in the clouds. He’d just topped the hill, his breathing nicely measured, when he saw the biker in full riding gear racing toward him. The guy braked a few feet off — the near-collision hadn’t really been that near, all things considered.

The biker flipped up his sun visor and smiled. Two travellers meeting on a lonely road. He leaned down to unstrap a water bottle from the bike frame. “Is this the way to Pottery Road?” he asked, taking several long gulps.

“No,” Dan said, breaking his pace. “This way heads down to the lake. You probably just passed Pottery Road. Didn’t you cross a roadway a few minutes back?”

The biker laughed softly and admitted he had.

“That was Pottery Road. If you head back and turn right under the bridge, you’ll hit Broadview. A left would take you to the Bayview Extension.”

The man nodded. He seemed to be checking Dan out. “Are you Dan Sharp?”

“Yes,” Dan said, perplexed. He usually had great recall for faces. Maybe it was the helmet. “Have we met?”

“Oh, you don’t know me,” the man said. “But I’ve heard of you. You date Bill McFarland, don’t you?”

Dan cocked his head curiously. “Yes.”

The man gave him a thorough once-over. “I saw you in a video. You’re pretty sizeable.”

Dan shook his head. “Who showed you a video of me?”

The man laughed like it was a private joke. “Bill did.”

The path extended in both directions, giving a good vantage to oncoming traffic. They were alone on a windy hill.

“Would you like a blow job?” the cyclist asked. “There’s no one around.”

Dan clenched his teeth. “No, I don’t want a blow job.”

The cyclist persisted. “I’d love to get my lips on it.”

Dan’s hands went out palms-first, pushing him up against the wire fence. If he could, he would have pushed him and his bicycle down the hill and into the bramble.
Fucking Bill,
he thought.
How fucking dare he?
Dan held a fist in the man’s terrified face. “How would you like your lips on this?”

“You’re a fucking madman!” the cyclist choked out.

Dan relaxed his grip and the man slid down the fence to the pavement. “Pottery Road is that way,” Dan said, pointing. He took off at a trot.

Dan heard a match being struck on the other end of the phone as he tossed a shoe into a corner. Sweat ran down his chest under his nylon trainer where he lay sprawled in the living room chair. The dampness in his crotch was making his balls cling to his shorts. He’d started by recounting the incident on the trail, followed with a review of the events of the weekend, and ended with a full confession about his bare-backing tryst with Sebastiano. He tossed the other shoe into the corner and waited.

“Tell me you didn’t just say that,” Donny said.

He’d sympathized with the story about the lustful biker and listened respectfully as Dan detailed the events leading to Daniella’s death, but now he was angry. Quietly angry. “Okay, I really don’t want to know any of this, but it’s too late because you’ve already told me.” All this in a calm, cool voice. “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth.” He took a drag on the cigarette. “Do I have to list all the men we know who are no longer alive because they did something like that — just once — and paid for it with their lives?”

“I know. I know how stupid it was.”

“Good. Glad to hear it. But what I’m wondering, what I’m dying to know, is what you’re going to do about it. And by ‘it’ I mean that piece of shit you’ve been dating for the past year.”

“Let’s not get — okay, okay — I suggested counselling a couple times, but he’s not interested.”

Donny made a strangled sound. His tone was pure exasperation. “Of course he’s not interested! It’s a perfect arrangement — for him. He gets all the sex he wants and keeps you hanging on hoping for more. But the man is not capable of more. Meanwhile, he makes videotapes of the two of you having sex without your knowledge to show to his locker room buddies and god knows who else. And just so you know, those counselling things never work. Jamie and I tried it just before we broke up.…”

“I didn’t know that. What happened?”

“We ended up sleeping with our counsellor. Then we broke up.”

Dan pressed a forearm across his eyes, shutting out the light. His post-jog endorphin high was fading and the fatigue setting in. “So what are you suggesting?”

He heard another drag followed by a quick exhalation — important things needed to be said. “I’ve given you my opinion on that one a dozen times already. Get rid of him. Bill treats you like a rent boy because you let him. Ask yourself this: with all his wonderful bedroom acrobatics and his classy townhouse and rich friends and artfully dyed but rapidly thinning hair — does he feel anything for you?”

“Even if he doesn’t, how does that make me a rent boy? I always pay my own way.”

Donny harrumphed. “It makes you a rent boy because he’s interested only in one piece of your anatomy … and it isn’t your heart.”

“How do I know what he feels for me? Maybe Bill doesn’t even know what he really feels.”

“Does he know your middle name? Has he memorized lines from your favourite movie? Does he make camp references to your mother’s side of the family in public or whisper your secret nickname in stirring undertones during sex?”

“Well, the latter, at least.”

Donny paused. “Really?”

“I’ll never tell you what it is, so don’t ask.”

Donny snorted. “As if I need to ask.”

“You might be surprised.”

“If it’s not ‘Beercan,’ I will be.” The cigarette noises started in earnest again. “Remind me — how long have you two been dating?”

“A little over a year.”

Donny whistled. “A little over a year! And how many times has he slept over at your place in that time?”

“You know Bill doesn’t sleep over.…”

“So therefore none.” The tone said it would brook no opposition. “And in that time you’ve slept over at his place, what … twenty-five, maybe thirty times?”

“Something like that. Maybe less. It’s only on the weekends when Ked stays at Kendra’s place....”

“There are fifty-two weekends in a year … you see what I’m saying?”

“No, I don’t actually.”

“I’m saying that out of consideration for you he could have split the difference and stayed at your place some of those nights.”

“It’s not important to me.”

“Apparently not. Out of curiosity, how long was your last relationship?”

“With David Bonner?”

“You tell me. I don’t keep track of your boyfriends.”

“Three … maybe four months.”

“Right. I seem to recall he was CEO of some import firm. Very successful, too. What happened to him?”

Dan lifted his arm from his face and looked out. Rain clouds had gathered. “David was insecure. Apparently my size bothered him, because he felt I was out of his league. I told him size didn’t matter but ...”

“The second gay lie!”

“What’s the first?”

“Take your pick: I’ll love you forever or I won’t put this on the Internet. Ba-dump. What happened to him?”

“I got tired of telling him it was all right. It was such a drama just to get him into the bedroom. I eventually stopped returning his calls.”

Donny made a flushing sound. “What about before that? Who came before David?”

“Perry Donaldson. That only lasted a month.”

“I remember him — the accountant. Also very successful. Nice guy, but a terrible pianist. What happened there?”

“Perry had a huge hang-up about his mother. He could never see me on Fridays because that was their night to speak on the phone. She hated that her only son was gay and he was tormented by guilt over it. I told him if he wanted to see me then either he had to set his mother straight or stop complaining about her to me.”

“And he didn’t?”

“No and no.”

“So he got the big flush too?””

“Yeah … I guess so.”

“And what about Gordon, that nice banker in Rosedale?”

“I never dated him.”

“No, but you were friends. Good friends, in fact. Why haven’t I heard you talk about him in a dog’s age?”

Dan hesitated. “We don’t really … talk anymore.”

Donny jumped on this. “Why?”

“It got too difficult. He was always too busy to do anything.”

“I think you said you saw him flirting with Bill.”

“That too. It pissed me off. I don’t think that’s acceptable behaviour from a friend, no matter what anybody says about the gay moral code.”

“And I say you’re right. No one should flirt with your man in front of you. Behind your back’s another story, but I’m not telling that one right now. Are you seeing a pattern here, Danny Boy?”

“No — should I?”

Donny sighed. “I’ll say. You date these highly successful guys or become friends with them till they piss you off, then they all get the royal flush and you withdraw your affection. It’s how you punish people who get close to you.”

“I don’t think that’s — am I really that complex?”

“No, you’re that simple.”

Dan felt the sting. “Well, what would you suggest?”

“Get some loyal friends and a lover without hang-ups? I don’t know.” Donny exhaled impatiently. “Did you ever get close to any of them? Close enough that you thought you might have been in love?”

“Not really. But I was fond of them.”

“Ah! The big revelation — you were
fond
of them. How sweet.” Donny was silent for a moment. The cigarette started up again. “Just out of curiosity, will you tell your therapist about your Brazilian weekend adventure?”

“No! Are you crazy? I tell him I dream of cuddly bunnies, not urges to kill myself. I want out of those fucking sessions.”

“Can I assume that if you lie to your therapist, then you probably don’t trust him?”

Dan tried for a confessional tone. “You’re the only one I trust,” he said, but Donny resisted the efforts to pacify him. “I hope you realize that’s a compliment.”

“Oh, I do! And I’m sure you’re
fond
of me, too.”

“I resent that ...” Dan began, but Donny cut him off.

“And now for the
question du jour,
Mr. Sharp. Apart from that little
mishap
on the boat between Bill and his dear friend Thom, do you still cling to the pathetic fiction that you have an exclusive relationship with Miss Doctor?”

Donny had never pushed him this far before. He seemed to be going for broke. Dan’s voice hardened. “I don’t hold proprietary claims to his body, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It is what I’m asking and, no, you don’t, because if I told you the places I’ve seen him in, and the positions I’ve seen him in, and the men I’ve seen
in
him....”

“Okay, okay!” Dan interrupted. “Just tell me you haven’t had him.”

“I’m not that low that I’d steal a friend’s lover. Or that desperate that I’d fuck someone I despise.”

There was another pause followed by a long, slow inhalation. Dan could almost hear the nicotine seeping through Donny’s lungs and into his bloodstream. He wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of a response.