Capital Treasures

"Well, we'll see," he said. "Why don't you cool off before you have to go. Go do some diving into the pool. You've got a great body. I'd like to watch."

"OK," Hardesty said, rising, still naked, from the lounge bed. "But there's only so far I'll go with something. I have to be a lot drunk and hopped up to let a man fuck me. I'll do the exhibition, but nothing beyond that. And, I'm white anyway."

"But heavily tanned, except that Speedo shadowing at your pelvis. Some guys find that arousing. But, yes, you're white and too old and built for my tastes. You don't have to worry about me on that. There's only so much loyalty I'll ask be proven."

"So, the exhibition you performed with Toby—fisting him—was testing my loyalty?"

"Not entirely. It was as much taking my pleasure with a talented courtesan. It did, however, assure me of your tolerance. I know how much you regard the young man."

Hardesty's laugh was a little nervous as he moved to the diving board. He wasn't used to being handled and controlled like this by anyone alive. He wasn't used to this at all.

When he came out of the pool, he found that another young guy had come onto the scene. He was a Thai, a really small, slim guy, looking really young, but Hardesty knew that looks could be deceiving. Davis was reclining on a lounge bed, with the Thai guy, naked, standing beside him. Davis had his hand on the guy's butt, but a couple of his fingers were buried. Both Davis and the Thai rent-boy, who was identified to Hardesty as Lek, were hard. Hardesty was getting there himself as he spied Lek, who was a real honey.

"One more thing before you go, Hardesty. I want you and me to do Lek here together."

"Is this a bonding thing?" Hardesty asked. "Is this yet another test of loyalty?"

"I want you and me to do this little guy together," was all the answer the police official gave.

"Another test of loyalty?"

"No," Davis laughed. "Because I want to share him with you."

"Who's on top and who's on bottom?" was all Hardesty said at that point.

Davis was already on his back on the lounge bed, so that's what they went with. Davis was on the bottom, with Lek skewered on his cock, facing him and palming the big black's pecs. Hardesty saddled up behind the Thai, worked his way inside Lek's passage on top of the already-buried black cock, while Lek moaned and groaned, declaring he couldn't take them both, but, in fact, taking them both. And then the big black, muscular bull and the big white muscular horse rode the miraculously yielding and able Thai guy into the next hour.

Hardesty wasn't in the least surprised when a photographer came onto the terrace to photograph the ride. The reason for the double was clear now—something of record to hold over Hardesty's head. This police department dude took every precaution when it came to loyalty, Hardesty decided. The reasons to look into this guy's background were multiplying.

* * * *

Out of habit, Hardesty didn't drive the unmarked car directly to the department. The habit, when in an unmarked police ride, was for a Vice cop—one specializing in the rent-boys, as Hardesty did—to do a drive through the area around Dupont Circle and 17th Street any time he went out and to take a survey of the rent-boys walking the streets. It wasn't really to hassle them. It was more to watch out for them and any threatening traffic that could be around and also to identify any new ones showing up. Each new one had to hear the "survival talk" from him. A few select of them needed to see his bedroom—but only if they'd heard about him and that was what they wanted.

The young Hispanic guy Hardesty saw at the head of an alley on P Street between 17th and the circle was new. He was really cute, the type Hardesty liked to tie up and have his way with—the rent-boy usually liked it real well too—so it was clear to the Vice cop that the guy was new to the street in D.C.

Hardesty was on the wrong side of the road. By the time he'd gone around the circle and come back another police car had stopped and two beat cops were out and talking to the guy. Hardesty pulled his car in behind them, got out, and showed his badge. They were from Robbery, not Vice. He could have pulled specialty and taken the guy from them and either taken him to the department or to his own apartment, depending on what the guy wanted, but he vaguely knew both of the beat cops and didn't want to take their grab. It was clear they wanted to take the guy in and register him to the street.

His name was Jose and Hardesty went down to the interview room when they'd all gotten back to the shop. He didn't stay long, though—just long enough to get an arousal off the guy. He was really cute—small, slender, narrow hips, a good face that hadn't been beaten in yet, and, most important, eyes for Hardesty. But Hardesty had stuff to check out at his desk before taking the subway to the airport and then walking the two blocks to the apartment house he shared with Toby, so he didn't check back right away. The other side of the coin was that he hadn't turned the car in yet. He could have offered the guy a ride back to his station after he was interviewed and have taken it from there, depending on what the rent-boy wanted. He tried out most of them on the streets and most of those not only wanted it the first time, they wanted it again and again. They got protection from a powerful cop out of it and a master's cocking. If they wanted to learn to manage a fetish, he was their man—he'd take them to but not over the edge.

"He's gone already?"

"Yeah, beat cop Number One said." It was his first night out there. He said he wouldn't be back.

Sure, that's what they all say, Hardesty thought, but he didn't say anything. He didn't want to diss either of these cops and they weren't trained in what to do with a new rent-boy taken off the street.

"Did you get any ID?" he asked.

"Sure. He had a driver's license. Illinois. Brand spanking new. We copied it and opened a file on him. His name's Jose Garcia. He said he was just passing through. Said he wasn't really soliciting. We didn't actually catch him with a hookup and he didn't really match up to the Robbery report we were working, so we had to let him go."

"The new license didn't give you a clue?" Hardesty asked, unable to keep that bottled up. "And all Hispanics with a fake ID name themselves Jose Garcia."

The two cops looked glum, so Hardesty let them off the hook. "No problem, though, if he's just passing through. If he's not, he'll be in again and we can do a deeper interview. If so, you might want to pull in someone from Vice to help you with that." He didn't say that they should have waited for him, a Vice detective, to come back before they cut the guy loose and he didn't ask if the rent-boy had volunteered to do one of them or both if they let him go, which was standard fare for the Dupont Circle male whores. And sometimes they got their wish. Sometimes Hardesty gave them their wish. He might have done so with this one; he really was cute.

And it wasn't just a matter of taking privileges with the street guys. An interview with an experienced Vice cop would include a lecture on self-preservation, tips on making it without getting cut up, and connections to get help if he had been cut up or was threatened with that. Realistically, it wasn't a matter of eradicating prostitutes from the streets of the city as it was to control their world and keep it from involving a more serious crime. If the rent-boys wanted to feel protected by mixing in with a police officer—which most of them did want with Hardesty—well, that was just establishing realistic conditions.

Any problem with Hardesty wasn't that he fucked them, really—they were out there to be fucked. It's that he was a rough and demanding top. But he only imposed that on guys who wanted it, and most of them volunteering for this life did want someone who made them feel it but who they felt confident wasn't going to go beyond limits. They also needed someone to teach them to handle fetish sex who wouldn't go too far with them. It was a symbiotic relationship. The eyes this Jose Garcia had given Hardesty assured him that the Hispanic honey wanted it from him.

As he was taking the subway home, he was thinking of this Jose Garcia and being new to the District. Could he be one of the whores Andre DuCard was bringing in? The address on the fake license—Hardesty was sure it was a fake—was in Detroit. Detroit was just across the river from Windsor, in Canada. As he had heard it, DuCard had come down from Ontario. Ontario was in Canada. So, maybe the Hispanic cutie was part of that stable. If so, Hardesty would meet him and have a crack at him one of these days.

He got to the Alexandria high-rise apartment in a horny mood. He shared a showcase two-bedroom, sleek, all-glass-walls apartment with Toby. At least the living area and Toby's master bedroom and bath were elegant and sleek. Hardesty was nested in the second bedroom, which also had a bath, but which was more "homey," with furniture from his parents' house, than sleek. But it was home and it was where Toby usually slept as well when he didn't have a john to entertain in the rest of the apartment. It also was purpose outfitted—with alarms and peepholes and everything needed for Hardesty to be both unknown if Toby brought someone home but also to be there johnny on the spot, able to see what was going on, if Toby needed him. A person couldn't even get through the door into the apartment without Hardesty or Toby knowing it even if they were in their separate bedrooms.

Hardesty entered the apartment with the question of whether Toby was mad at him for letting Jackson Davis manhandle him. Neither of them had had any inkling Davis would do that and Hardesty had flatly said he wouldn't—that Toby wasn't the man's type. He hadn't foreseen that Davis would want deeper pledges of loyalty than Hardesty was already giving him.

He needn't have worried, though. Toby wasn't there when Hardesty went to bed. But Toby was there not long afterward, working his way up Hardesty's legs and into his groin with kisses and licks and then, in the dark room, saddling himself on Hardesty's erection and riding him into the dawn.

So, Toby wasn't mad at Hardesty for not pulling him out of Davis's clutches when the going got rough.

Chapter Two: The Problem with Photographs

Toby Drake came to realize that the quite large, elegantly dressed Italian he had been engaged to escort to a Kennedy Center concert, dinner at the Fiola exclusive Italian restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue afterward, and then "whatever" not only had given his real name, Paulo Vincente, but, when he said he was a photographer, he'd failed to mention he was an acclaimed international-reputation photographer of the "beautiful people." It was a State Department undersecretary who came up to them to chat and to be seen with Vincente as a Washington Post social pages photographer fired off shots who revealed the source of Vincente's invitation to Andrea Bocelli's concert at the Kennedy Center that evening. He had been invited by Bocelli himself thanks to a photo spread Vincente had done on the Italian tenor for the Paris Match the previous month and would augment with photos taken during Bocelli's current U.S. tour.

Although Toby was standing right at Vincente's elbow, the photographer didn't introduce him to the State Department official. Toby hadn't expected that he would. That the diplomat didn't ask for an introduction, while smiling at Toby as if the young man was in the conversation when he wasn't, indicated that he jolly well knew what Toby's function was there.

Toby didn't realize that it wasn't just Vincente's or the U.S. official's photos the newspaper photographer was taking, with Toby in the center of the shot, if set back at bit, but that they were standing beside Susie Win, the widow of a famous ultraconservative four-star general who had headed up the China Lobby in the States and ruffled feathers in the political sphere by running for president twice and syphoning off a couple of percentage points of the ultraright popular vote. Win was a Chinese movie star and courtesan the general had picked up during an East Asia tour. But she was famous not only for her porcelain beauty and inscrutability, but also for her hostess status in D.C. political circles and her connections to what was left of the imperial and war lord factions that had retreated to Taiwan in the Communist takeover on the mainland. She was particularly notable for her use of her wealth and connections for China Lobby interests. She was one of the concert's sponsors, which, no doubt, was the reason the newspaper photographer wanted to get her and Vincente in the same photo.

What surprised—and both amused and slightly concerned—Toby, though, was that the ageless Chinese beauty had done the same as Vincente had in terms of who she'd brought to the concert. Susie Win wasn't as much as an inch over five feet. Her figure was perfect, her breasts firm melons, and she was poured into a vermillion satin strapless evening gown, with cleavage "down to there" and a slit up the side "up to there." Vying with her perfect porcelain beauty and lustrous black hair artfully crowning her head was the ruby and gold neckless that cascaded across her chest, with matching earrings dangling from her ears and bracelet on the white gloves rising up her arms. She could have her pick of rich and powerful unattached men in Washington as an escort. But she had come with a young, hunky rent-boy. And it wasn't just anybody in Toby's experience. By all accounts she must now be pushing sixty, but she easily would pass as forty. She took very, very good care of herself. She'd brought David Liu, the Andre DuCard stable rent-boy Toby had last seen at the deputy police commissioner's pool party being fucked by Toby's own roommate, the Vice detective, Hardesty.

Wouldn't it be something, Toby thought, for the morning Washington Post social pages to feature a photograph of Toby and David standing together, flanked by Vincente and Susie Win? Hardesty and his cohorts at the police department would get a laugh out of that.

As both Vincente and Susie Win were turned away to greet someone else, David Liu leaned over and said, "Can you meet me in the second-floor men's room before the interval bell is rung?"

In the men's room, Liu walked the line of cubicles to ensure they were all empty before coming over to Toby, leaning into a urinal.

"That was something at Jackson Davis's place last week," he whispered.

"Yes, you did well," Toby answered. "I told DuCard as much. I'll be happy to call on your services when I need to bring guys to another party like that."

"I was scared as shit. It was walking into the lion's mouth. Did you tell DuCard what the gig was—that it was at Davis's place—the new police big daddy?"

"No. I was just told to get a couple of willing guys that could take rough and that minorities were preferred. I'm surprised you know who Davis is."

"He's the opposition, man."

"What do you mean? Into the lion's mouth, did you say?"

"You know DuCard is trying to get established here. You're with a high-end service, so you don't know how it is down where Shawn Baker and I work. Next time, if it's Davis, can you get someone else? My pimp was trying to get in his good graces, but he found there's something fishy there working against him."

That was something to mention to Hardesty, Toby thought. "Sure, I can," he said. "The pay's the best there is. So DuCard is trying to get established here. Why wouldn't a high-level police official as a client be the best way to go in that direction? Every whore needs police protection."

"Davis is already hooked up, man. Didn't you know that? He's hooked up with the Peter Trace service, and Trace is trying to keep DuCard from getting in. If you could get me signed with Trace, that's what I'd like."

"What's wrong with DuCard?"

"He's into this all the wrong ways. I don't think a boy is going to last long with him."

"Like?"

"Like the talent is brought in reluctantly and sometimes beaten into shape before. Like there's stuff going on over and above the tricks—we have to case the joints for possible heist value."

"You rob the clients?"

"Not directly. But if they take us home, we're supposed to window shop for someone else DuCard is running—or so I've heard. Then later, yeah, we read that those guys have been robbed."

"Why didn't you tell Davis this while you were at his house? That's the quickest way to get switched to him."

"Standing between those two warring factions—DuCard and Trace—isn't good life insurance. And I'm not sure how neutral Davis is between those two. I'm told you're hooked up with that Vice cop, Hardesty. Although he's as kinky and rough as they come, everyone says he's straight as can be as a cop. He's also sex on a stick. Maybe you could—"

Someone came into the men's room at that point, and, with the door to the corridor open, Toby could see that the lights were flashing to pull everyone back to their seats for the second half of the concert.

"Get me something I can show Hardesty on this, and I'll see what I can do," Toby whispered. "You have my phone number."

He let it drop there. He wasn't going to get involved on the basis of just rumor. He'd gone with the fancy escort agency so he could float above street fights like this. Still, Hardesty might be interested if there was something in this—especially the part that Jackson Davis might not be quite the straight arrow Hardesty thought he was.

Toby returned to Vincente's side before it was evident that the Italian photographer even knew the young man had been gone. The man had been taken up with conversations, fawnings, and introductions so fully since they'd arrived here in the rented limousine that was included in the escort agency services on the short drive from the legendary Willard Hotel, where Vincente was staying, that Toby hardly thought he hardly needed to be there at all. The man was being fluffed up by others for free. Conversely, his fee was going to be covered regardless of whether the client noticed him at all. Perhaps this would be one of his least taxing assignments. Sometimes that was all the client wanted—eye candy to leave the impression they still could attract it.

After the concert had restarted and Toby and Vincente had resettled in the first-row seats in a dark box, Toby got the realization that this assignment wasn't going to be a breeze after all. In the darkness and with no one sitting on either side of them at the front of the box, the Italian took one of Toby's hands and moved it his basket. The man was hard and Toby could tell that he was huge. Toby dutifully traced the cylinder inside the tuxedo trousers and gave it a squeeze and a rub. It engorged even further and Vincente groaned. Toby took them big and even in doubles, but this one was going to be taxing. Was that a thick ring in the cock head? Yes, it was.

Dinner was fine at Fiola. The people at several of the other tables had come from the concert and they—and the restaurant staff—knew Paulo Vincente and fawned over him. As at the concert, Toby was at the man's side, but the international photographer didn't introduce him to anyone. Everyone appeared to know what Toby was and why he was with Vincente and not to care—they just wanted to bask in the man's fame.

On the drive in the rented limousine to the old, staid Willard Hotel, Vincente did pay attention to Toby. They sat close together, and Vincente, a walrus of a man, put an arm around Toby's shoulder, drew him closer, and they kissed. This was an important junction of the evening. Toby had been engaged to go to the man's hotel room—and more—if, having been in his company for the evening, that's what the client wanted. If not, the client would be left off at the hotel, Toby would be delivered to the apartment house in Foggy Bottom that the agency operated out of, and Vincente would get an early night and a smaller bill. Toby's cut would be even smaller and there would be a notation on his listing card.