Drag and Drop, copyright 2008, 2009, by Etienne. All rights reserved.
If the idea of two men loving each other and expressing that love in a sexual manner offends you, then you have clearly come to the wrong place. Feel free to leave.
With special thanks for the editing skills of the talented TalonRider.
Drag and Drop
A George and Mike Adventure
From Chapter 7:
“You’ve got that right. Carl had played the DVD of Little Henry at home often enough, and Jim somehow recognized the gestures.”
“So what’s your plan?”
“Want to fly down to Savannah for lunch?”
“Babe, the thought doesn’t move me to tears,” he said, “but I know it’s important, so sure. What shall we do with Thor?”
“We’re going to have to call his favorite playmates to come take us to the airport,” I said. “We can leave him here in their care. Can you arrange that while I call the Captain?”
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“Sure.”
I drafted an e-mail and sent it to Captain Bridges at home, along with the e-mail from Carl. Then I picked up the telephone and called.
“You’re supposed to be off duty this weekend,” Captain Bridges’ voice said in my ear.
“I know.”
“What can I do for you?”
“Do you know anybody in the Savannah Police Department?”
“No, but I think the Sheriff knows their Chief pretty well,” he said. “Why?”
“Check your e-mail, and call me back,” I said.
The line went dead. Five minutes later the telephone rang.
“Okay,” he said, “what do you want to do?”
“Mike and I are going to fly down to Savannah for lunch,” I said. “We might even have to stay the night. I want to talk to Henry, and I need local assistance for that.”
“I’ll get back to you.”
I composed an e-mail to Carl while waiting for the telephone to ring. I was still waiting when Mike came upstairs.
“It’s all set,” he said, “the boys will be here in a bit.”
“What did you do?” I said, “walk up to the end of the driveway?”
“Yep. We get just enough signal strength up there to use the cell phones. The twins were at home and, more to the point, not doing anything that won’t wait.”
The ringing of the phone prevented me from replying. I picked up the receiver.
“Chief Malcolm Butler in Savannah will be expecting your call,” Captain Bridges said. “He will probably refer you to one of his Captains, so I gave him your new rank. Take down this number.” He read the number.
“Got it,” I said. “I’ll call him on the way to the airport.”
“Good hunting, and keep me posted.”
“Will do,” I said to a dead telephone line.
I shut down the laptop, put it in its case, and grabbed my briefcase. We went down to the deck to wait for the boys, but not until we made certain that Thor’s food and water bowls were full.
When we heard the car approaching, I locked the door, and we went down the steps.
“Where’s Thor?” Zeb said, as he relieved me of my briefcase and computer bag.
“Probably in his bed,” I said. “He’ll be waiting for you when you get back from the airport.”
“Great,” Zeb said. “We’re spending the day doing a lot of required reading, because we have to work tomorrow and Monday.”
“Yeah,” Zeke said, “and we can do it just as easy here as at home, and the food is free.”
As soon as we reached the airport, I called Carl, and gave him our ETA.
“We hope to be back from Savannah by bedtime,” I told the twins. “We’ll call you and let you know.”
“Help yourselves to food and drinks,” Mike said.
Just before I climbed in the plane, I called Chief Butler in Savannah, and told him when he could expect us. Carl and Jim were waiting for us at the Savannah Airport. Mike turned the plane over to the general aviation people, and we walked over to Jim’s car.
“Do you and Jim know where the Police Headquarters are, Carl?” I said.
“You bet, Lou,” he said.
“Why don’t you let Jim drive, so you and I can talk freely.”
“Sure, Lou.”
He and I got in the back seat, and Mike got in front with Jim.
On the way downtown, I said, “Okay Carl, listen up. I’m going to tell you something that you will find out Tuesday anyway, but it’s become necessary to tell you now. Until then, don’t tell anybody else, okay?”
“Sure, Lou,” he said, “Mum’s the word.”
“The Chief here will be calling me Captain,” I said, “and I am a Captain, effective Wednesday.”
Carl started to say something, but I stopped him.
“Wait a minute,” I said, “there’s more. I’m going to introduce you as Sergeant, because that will be your new title on Wednesday.”
“What about Sergeant Sanchez?” he said.
“She’s getting my job.”
“And the Captain?”
“I can’t tell you that, yet,” I said. “It’s still a huge secret, but there’s going to be a total reorganization at the top of the building. Don’t ask me anything else. The Sheriff will be making the announcement on Wednesday.”
“Can I congratulate both of you?” Jim said, from behind the wheel.
“Sure,” I said, “and thanks, but right now, we’ve got bigger fish to fry. Speaking of congratulations, how in the world did you spot our boy on stage just by his movements?”
“I don’t know, George,” Jim said. “I’ve watched that damn DVD at home so many times, it’s engraved on my brain. When I saw ‘Enrique’ on stage last night, something clicked.”
“Enrique?” I said.
“That’s his stage name,” Carl said.
“Clever,” I said, “it sounds almost like a variant of Henry.”
“Actually, I think it is just that,” Jim said.
We reached the Police Department, parked, and went inside. I identified myself to the desk Sergeant, and he had somebody lead us upstairs.
Chief Butler was a tall trim man, who appeared to be a few years older than Chief Bridges. Once the introductions had been taken care of, I asked him if Mike could set up the laptop somewhere, so we could show him what we had.
“Let me take you next door to my small conference room,” he said, “but first, I’ll call my Captain in here. He needs to sit in on this.”
He picked up the phone and issued a couple of instructions, then he led us down the hall.
Mike set the laptop up on the table. After a minute, a short, slightly pudgy forty-something guy entered the room, and was introduced as Captain James Nichols.
“Okay, Captain Martin,” the Chief said, “you have the floor.”
I led him through the drag queen murders, and our search for Miss Henrietta and the mystery man.
“Look at these two videos,” I said, “and tell me what you think. The video on the left was taken with a cell phone in a Savannah bar last night, and the one on the right was filmed at a talent contest down in Orlando some time back.”
Mike took that as his cue to start the show. When it had finished, the Chief said, “Do that again, please.”
Mike started the show over again.
This time, at the end, the Chief said, “Damn, it’s the same guy, isn’t it?”
“I think so,” I said. “What about you, Captain?”
“No doubt what-so-ever,” he said.
“And you recognized this guy last night just from his motions?” the Chief said to Jim.
“Yes sir,” he said. “Carl has played that DVD so many times at home, that it’s sort of burned into my brain. I saw ‘Enrique’ on stage last night, and something just clicked.”
“We downloaded the video into Jim’s laptop,” Carl said, “and sent it to the Lieutenant, excuse me, the Captain.”
“You’ll have to excuse Carl,” I said, “he only just learned of his and my promotions on the way here from the airport. They won’t be announced until Wednesday.”
“Now that we’ve all agreed that this local guy is your boy,” the Chief said, “what do you want to do about it?”
“There’s no warrant out for him,” I said, “only a locate, but do not detain. I just want to talk to him. Hopefully he can look at our sketch, and identify the guy that’s been looking for him, and has killed five drag queens in the process.”
“And if he can?” Captain Nichols said.
“Then I have no further interest in him,” I said, “nor, I suspect, will the folks in Orlando, Tampa, and St. Petersburg. I’m happy to have him stay safely hidden away here in Savannah until we catch our murderer. We may need Henry to testify at a trial, but we’re a long way from that at this point.”
“How do you plan to catch this guy, once you’ve identified him?” the Chief said.
“I have a plan,” I said. I told him the plan that I had formulated on the way from Asheville.
“I think that should work,” the Chief said, “if your perp is so desperate to find Henry, he ought to take the bait.”
“Let’s hope so,” I said. “Meanwhile, I hope somebody is at that bar now, who can provide an address. I’d like to get back to the mountains and finish my weekend off.”
“It’s none of my business,” Captain Nichols said, “but isn’t all that flying back and forth expensive? You must have a good expense account.”
“It helps when you live with a pilot,” I said, pointing at Mike, “especially one who runs his own business, and can borrow a plane from an extremely grateful client of his almost any time he wants to.”
“What business are you in, Mike?” the Captain said.
“Computer network services,” Mike said, “and the grateful client is a huge firm of ambulance chasers.”
“That would explain it,” the Captain said.
“We topped off the fuel tanks in the plane before we left Asheville,” I said, “and we’ll top them off again, when we get back. I’ll turn that in on an expense report. It’ll probably be less than a mileage reimbursement for driving down here from the mountains.”
“Okay, Jim,” the Chief said, “I’ll leave this with you. Keep me posted.”
He shook hands all around, and left the room. By this time, Jim and I were on a first name basis, and he asked us to follow him downstairs. When we reached the desk Sergeant, Jim excused himself to go speak with the man at the desk for a minute or two.
When he came back to where we were waiting, he said, “We’re in luck. I have one Detective who has a lot of contacts in the gay community. He knows the owner of the Bar, and will meet us there.”
Carl and I rode with Captain Nichols, and Mike got in the car with Carl’s Jim.
In the car, Jim said, “So, George, how many gay officers are there in the JSO?”
“As far as I know,” I said, “only myself and Carl, and I’m the only one who is out.”
“That can’t have been easy,” Jim said.
“No, it wasn’t,” I said, “but about seven years ago I got tired of playing games. I went to my Captain, he went along with the idea, and I went public.”
“That took balls,” he said, “especially here in the South.”
“What do you know about this Bar?” I said, changing the subject.
“The Basement,” he said, “was a popular gay bar back in the early seventies. It lasted quite a few years, but finally closed. The owner of the present bar decided to revive the name, but in a different location.”
We arrived at the bar, and found a Detective waiting for us. He and Jim conferred for a minute, and the Detective went inside the bar by himself. He emerged a long five minutes later, and reported that he had a name and an address.
“Do you think they’ll call him and warn him that we’re coming?” I said.
“I don’t think so, Captain,” he said. “I made it quite clear that we only wanted to talk to the guy.”
“Let’s go, then,” Jim said.
The Detective got in his car, and led us to an old apartment building not too far from downtown Savannah. Jim and Mike stayed behind in Jim’s car, while the rest of us climbed the stairs to the third floor.
Captain Nichols knocked on the door. After a minute or two, our boy Henry answered. It took a while to convince him that we weren’t there to arrest him. Finally, he invited us in, and we sat down in his tiny living room.
“Why are you people looking for me?” he said.
“Because this guy is looking for you,” I said, “and he has killed five drag queens in four cities in the process.” I handed him the artist’s sketch.
He took it, looked at it for a long minute, and said, “Shit, that’s Leonard, except his hair used to be a lot longer.”
“Leonard who?” I said.
“Leonard McPhail,” he said. “I went out with him a couple of times, but there was no chemistry. Not only that, he’s hung like a horse and wanted to play rough, so I told him no the next time he asked, but he wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Jesus, I moved three times in six months. It cost me hundreds of dollars in lost deposits. I thought I was finally safe, here in Savannah. You guys aren’t going to fuck it up for me, are you?”
“No, Henry,” I said, “we’re not. Tell us what you can about Leonard, his address, his work, and his family, and we’ll go away. You won’t hear from us again until we catch him and bring him to trial. Then, you might be called to testify.”
“How can I believe you?” he said.
“Because when Captain Martin gives his word, he keeps it,” Carl said.
“Right,” Henry said, “but he’s got bosses, what about them?”
“Trust me, Henry,” Carl said, “as one gay man to another. When the Captain gives his word, you can take it to the bank. He’s the youngest Captain in the Department, and the only out gay man in the department. He has friends in high places, and clout.”
“Okay,” Henry said, “what choice do I have?”
We spent the next thirty minutes or so pumping Henry for information on the elusive Leonard. When we had finished, he said, “What happens now?”
“We’re going to set a trap for Leonard,” I said. “A bar in Central Florida, I’m not sure yet which one, is going to announce that ‘Miss Henrietta’ will be the featured attraction on a Friday and a Saturday night. We think that will draw him out.”
“It might just do that,” Henry said. “What can I do?”
“Do you have any old publicity photos of yourself as Henrietta?” I said. “They might come in handy.”
“Sure,” he said. He went to his tiny kitchen, rummaged around in a drawer, and emerged with a couple of glossy 8 x 10s. “Will these do?”
“Perfectly,” I said, taking them from his hand. “What I want you to do, is stay here in Savannah, where you’re safe. Sergeant Johnson will keep you posted as things develop.”
“God, I hope I’m safe,” Henry said. “I like it here, and I’m tired of moving around.”
“Your face and body looked a little fatter on stage,” I said, “how did you manage that?”
“I learned how to use makeup to alter the contours of my face,” he said, “it wasn’t difficult. In fact I found a couple of helpful articles on the internet. And I used foam rubber around my waist. I thought it might help keep me from being recognized.”
We thanked him, and returned to our cars. We stood by the cars talking for a minute. Captain Nichols said, “have you guys had lunch?”
“No,” I said.
“We haven’t, either,” Carl said.
“The rush should be over at Mrs. Wilkes’ Boarding House,” Jim said.
“I’ve heard about that place,” I said. “Lead us there, and the JSO will treat.”
“You’ve got it,” he said.
We caravanned to the famous eating establishment, and spent a wonderful hour plus over Southern dishes, served family style. Carl and I got a little better acquainted with the guys from Savannah, which couldn’t hurt - you never knew when contacts would prove helpful in the future.
Captain Nichols and his Detective went their separate ways, and Jim drove us back to the airport. They walked us to the plane, and while Mike got things ready for takeoff, I said, “Remember Carl, you absolutely must look surprised on Tuesday, when I call the team into my office to give them the news.”
“Don’t worry about that, Lou, oops, I mean Captain,” he said. “I can do it.”
“That was a good piece of detection, Jim,” I said. “Are you sure you don’t secretly yearn for a job on the force?”
“Not on your life, George,” Jim said. “I’m quite happy doing what I do.”
We called the twins, told them when to expect us, and took off into the wild blue. At the cabin, I sent a detailed e-mail to Captain Bridges. I also sent Clarence Ivory a full account, and told him what I thought we should do. I sent Janet a copy of that message, and shut the computer down.
I went downstairs to the bedroom and stripped. Then I stroked myself to erection, and walked to the front door. I stepped out onto the deck, and walked over to the hammock. Mike was lying in it, eyes closed.
“You look so comfortable,” I said, “I guess I’d better go inside and take care of this myself.”
“Say what?” he said, and he opened his eyes, and blinked.
“Race you,” I said.
I was in the bed, propped up on the pillows, long before he finished undressing.
The rest of our weekend was relaxing, and best of all, uneventful. In light of all that would be going on at the office Tuesday, we flew home late Labor Day afternoon, instead of Tuesday morning.
I spent most of Tuesday at my desk, keeping the paperwork monster at bay. I had summoned the entire team to my office for a four o’clock meeting. When they had assembled, I asked Janet to close the door, which she did.
“What’s going on, Lou?” she said.
“Big things,” I said. “Have any of you heard any rumors about changes within the department?”
“Not really,” she said. “I think we all more or less know that something is going on, but nobody seems to have a clue.”
The others nodded in agreement.
“Okay,” I said. “Here’s the deal, and you may not, repeat, may not tell anyone about this until tomorrow. Are we clear on that?”
I was greeted with a chorus of ‘Yes, Sirs.’
“Starting at the top,” I said, “it will be announced tomorrow that I have been promoted to Captain.” I held up my hand to silence them for a moment.
“There’s more,” I said. “Sergeant Sanchez will be taking my post as Lieutenant.”
The smile of surprise on Janet’s face was priceless.
“Any questions?” I said.
“Yeah,” Sam said, “who’s taking her place?”
“I’m shocked, Sam,” I said, “that you can’t figure that out. Whom do we all know and love that got the highest score on a recent test?”
This time it was Carl’s turn to grin from ear to ear.
“Way to go, Carl,” Sam said. His sentiments were echoed by everyone else in the room.
“Lou,” Janet said, “what’s happening to Captain Bridges?”
I pointed up, and said, “He’s moving to the top floor.”
“As Undersheriff?” she said.
“Not that,” I said. “You’ll have to wait until the Sheriff makes his big announcement. I don’t want to steal his thunder.”
“What about the team?” she said.
“The team stays intact,” I said.
“Wow,” Joe said, “I’ve been around here long enough to know how unusual that is. Usually when there are a lot of promotions, they move people around, just for the heck of it.”
“True enough,” I said, “but it’s not ‘just for the heck of it.’ The theory is that as people rise in the ranks, they need to be exposed to different working conditions and supervisors. However, ours is a unique team, and it has an unprecedented record of success. Captain Bridges and I were able to persuade the powers that be that it should stay intact, at least for the foreseeable future.”
“That leaves an opening for Detective,” Janet said.
“So it does,” I said, “and I’d suggest that you and Carl spend a few minutes looking at the test scores, so you can make a good choice. You might even want to run your choices by the rest of the team - if any of the high scorers have some bad personality traits, one of you is bound to know about it.”
“Thanks, Captain,” Janet said, “we’ll do just that.”
“Now,” I said, “we need to talk about crime for a minute.”
“Which one?” Janet said.
“Dead drag queens, of course,” I said. “Not everyone in the room knows this, but there has been a development. Sergeant Johnson, you’re the one who put this together, why don’t you tell everyone else what happened over the weekend?”
“It began when Jim and I decided to go to Savannah for the weekend,” Carl said. “In looking around at what was happening in Savannah, we learned that there was a new gay bar in town that wasn’t on the list of bars in this case. So, we went to it Friday evening.” He paused for a minute.
“You’re talking about your buddy, Jim, right?” Sam said.
“Yes, I’m talking about that Jim,” Carl said, “but he’s not just my buddy, he’s also my partner.”
“You mean partner, as in gay?” Joe said.
“Yeah,” Carl said, “I do.”
“Whoa,” Sam said, “I didn’t see that one coming.”
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Mrs. Wilkes’ Boarding House:
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-To be continued-
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