Page 450 - Some Dance to Remember

420 Jack Fritscher

“Handsome men threaten you.”
“Wrong. Handsome men don’t threaten me enough. Colt shoots gay
fantasy for design queens. I shoot straight, abusive reality for nasty queers.”
“That makes your stuff scary. No one’s scared of Colt models.”
“Terror makes my stuff a new style of porn: straight men abusing gay
men. Who else has glorified rough trade?”
“Terror is your hard-on.”
“Sexual terror is the last closet. I know. My customers love it. I’ll gross
over fifty thousand this year without ever leaving this penthouse. That’s
why I can afford to be grand. I owe it all to the boys who ring my bell.
You may meet Colt models at a gay cocktail party, but you’ll never meet
my boys. My boys are boiled eggs and beer, not white wine and quiche.”
“How do you say in English,” Ryan said. “Chacún a son goût.”
“You need to know these things,” Solly said. “You’re my heir apparent.”
“I like the fifty-thousand part, but I don’t want you dead. You’re the
only friend I have left in San Francisco.”
“Tiger threatened me last night.”
“Your one true love. Your adopted son?”
“You haven’t seen him in a year. My little boy has been working out.
He weighs 190 pounds and both his arms are tattooed.”
“So what are you worried about? You said murderers don’t have
tattoos.”
“Usually. Last night he showed up, stoned as usual. He took a look
around at all my new stuff and said, ‘I should probably rob you, but you
know me too well, and you’d probably laugh at me, and then I’d have to
hit you.’ He has a knack for escalating violence.”
“Change your locks.”
“I told him it was only a matter of time before he went to prison.
He’s lucky he’s still out. He’s a one-man crime wave. He’s got a couple of
minor bench warrants out. He admitted he used a gun to hold up a trick
on Polk Street. Robbing. Shoplifting. It’s all gone for drugs. Hustlers and
drug addicts are the same thing.”
“Get rid of him.”
“I can’t. I love it when he calls me Dear Old Dad.”
“Hustlers always say what you want to hear. You told me that.”
“I’ve known Tiger since he was nineteen. He’s twenty-three.”
“Has it been that long?”
“You’ve been somewhat distracted the last few years.” Solly paused. “I
feel fatherly toward him. He’s what keeps me from killing myself.”
“So you’re waiting for him to kill you?”

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