Carolina Connections

"Ty hasn't been around lately and isn't responding to messages we send to Thailand. And there was a bit of a blowup there, but, no, I wouldn't expect you to go to Thailand. The one who is missing is Patrick. It's complicated. Maybe it would be best if you came to the shop and we discussed this there. There are some things you should look at if you are considering taking the case. Are you doing anything today? Now?"

I was planning on fucking him again, but a private eye needs income as well as getting his rocks off, and I'd done a lot in the release department the previous night, so...

"I've got nothing today that can't wait. So, sure. I can go over with you now, after we've dressed... unless it would be awkward for you to show up with the man you stayed out all night with, fucking. I mean if you need some sort of excuse to give your wife."

"Oh, Megan probably won't even know I was gone last night," he said, as he turned and headed for the bedroom to put himself back into that expensive suit I took off him in the hotel the previous day.

Well, he did say that the situation where he lived was complicated, I thought, as I shoveled all of the dirtied dishes and cooking gear into the sink.

Odd Man In: Furniture Store Work

They'd memorialized their business partnership in a large blowup of a photograph framed and hung on the wall in their shop on College Street. I was in the ground-floor furniture showroom, waiting, as Kevin Grimes went to the shop offices on the floor above to bring down the women partners, his wife, Megan, and the missing partner, Patrick Thornton's, wife, Haley.

There were five of them in the photograph, taken in some sort of exotic setting, a restaurant, I think, in a wooden pavilion suspended over a pond covered with lily pads. Bangkok, I guessed, as Kevin said they had been living there when they came up with the idea of this furniture import business. They were all very attractive and young--two couples and, in the middle, an odd-man out. Odd man out in another way too, as the two couples were white, all all-American blonds, and the man in the middle, older by several years from the others, was a muscular, tattooed black man. This, I surmised, was Ty Thanawat, the man Patrick had worked with at the U-Tapao Airbase on the gulf southeast of Bangkok. Doing what, I didn't know. Kevin hadn't told me. I'd assumed when he mentioned it that they worked for the U.S. Air Force there, but I had then checked. The U.S. Air Force had pulled out of that base a long time before Patrick claimed to have been assigned there.

The two couples were slim yuppy types. Thanawat was hardened, almost thuggish, but as sexy and attractive in his own way as the four others were. If anything, he looked like the one in control of the rest. He reminded me of me. I was surprised to find he was black. Kevin had said his father was American and his mother Thai. I hadn't thought that his father was black, but that must be the case.

The two couples were quite lovey-dovey in the photo, Kevin with Megan and Patrick with Haley--I knew which was who because the four of them had signed their names on their photo. Ty was separate, seemingly in a separate world. He hadn't signed his name. Still, the photo conveyed to me that Ty was the one in charge. I reminded myself to find out who put this business venture together. Somehow I didn't think that all five shared in command equally.

"We look so young and innocent, don't we? That was the celebration dinner for the contract we signed with the Thai furniture manufacturer. That made all of the rest of this possible. Kevin tells me you have come to save us."

I turned to see who was speaking. It had to be Haley, still beautiful after the more than a decade between when the photo was taken and now. And I didn't really sense worry in her. She was giving me "the eye," and the touch of her hand on my forearm was blazing hot. It was her husband who had gone missing and she was coming on to me like I could carry her over to one of the beds on display and lay her out.

"You must be Haley Thornton," I said, backing up a step, which almost had me rubbing up against the other blond beauty of the female contingent, Kevin's wife, Megan. She was giving me "the eye" too. If these two turned this heat on for male customers coming into the shop, they must sell a whole hell of a lot of furniture in here, I mused. "Yes, Kevin is asking me to try to find your husband. Has he been gone long?"

"We're not sure. Patrick is a free spirit. He moves around a lot." The answer came from Megan.

"We?" I asked, looking at Haley and then at Kevin, who had joined us.

"I was in Charleston a couple of weeks ago, working with the shipping company, and he was gone when I got back," Kevin said.

"And that was how long ago?" I asked Kevin. It was obvious that the women weren't going to pin the timing down for me.

"I got back ten days ago."

"Did you file a missing person's report with the police?"

"We aren't interacting with the police any more than necessary." This was volunteered by Haley.

"We thought we'd try the private investigator route first." This was voiced by Megan.

"As Megan said, Patrick moves around a lot," Kevin said. "He likes the casino life. But he's always been here for the company meetings where we finalize the restocking order from Thailand. He and Ty are the financial officers. At least one is necessary to sign off on an order. Ty's in Thailand--we assume. We haven't heard from him in a month."

So, it seemed they weren't as worried about Patrick being a missing person as they were that he was a missing signature on their furniture orders. Well, it wasn't for me to judge. "I probably should start here with any indications of where he's gone and how long he intended to be gone. If you want me to try to find him, I'll need to go through his business papers and take a look in his apartment."

"Sounds like a plan," Kevin said. "I'll take you up to the apartment first and then to the office. I'll show you the whole place."

"Don't be gone long," Haley said, smiling at me. "Maybe we can all go out to dinner tonight--become better acquainted."

"Not tonight, I'm afraid," I said. "But that sounds good to me for doing some time. We'll have to set a date for that." I wasn't really putting them off. This was one of my afternoons to visit DaJon at the Caldwell Correctional Center at Lenoir, east of Asheville. Dinner with this crew should be interesting, though. Really friendly girls, I thought. Even to each other. We left them arm in arm with each other while Kevin took me out into the building's foyer at the side of the shop. It only took an elevator ride two levels up for me to start to catch the drift of the lifestyle here.

"Might as well see it all," Kevin said, as he let me into the apartment on the third floor. I think he showed me that one because he wanted me to understand how things were here. The apartment was very feminine in décor. There were two bedrooms. Each one seemed to be permanently occupied--the closets filled with women's clothes--only--and women's accessories and jewelry strewn around both.

The photos I saw around told me all--and even a bit more. Most of the photos were of Megan and Haley in various places at various time, posing together. They seemed very much into each other. In addition, there were a few photos of them with Ty Thanawat--and the two women seemed very much into Ty in those photos as well.

Kevin stood there and watched me take it in. Eventually, he said, "This is Megan and Haley's apartment. Patrick and I have the one on the next floor up."

Ah, so. That would be why Haley couldn't pinpoint when Patrick was no longer here. She didn't really care all that much where Patrick was, at least at night, outside of the business hours.

In the men's apartment, I ascertained that Patrick's closet was nearly bare. Whatever toiletries he used were gone as well. The décor of the apartment was more masculine and only one of the bedrooms was being used as a bedroom. The other one was a study, with two desks in it. The bedroom held one king-sized bed. I had no reason to be surprised. Kevin had spent the night in my bed. Seeing the arrangement here, it was understandable that the pairings, regardless of what the public saw, was Megan with Haley and Kevin with Patrick.

Which left Ty where? He was in several of the photos in this apartment of guys doing guy things. I was getting the impression that maybe he was the glue that held all of this together--not the odd man out but rather the odd man in. Probably all five of them were some level of practicing bi.

But he was missing too. At least he hadn't been checking in.

I spent an hour in the office on the second floor, going through Patrick's file. But the files didn't give me a clue about where he might be or why or any more about this business. I was getting the vibe, though, that, just as the pairings here weren't what they had seemed to be, the business might not be all that it seemed to be either. I had let Haley's comment that they didn't want to get attention from the police flip by when she said it, but that didn't mean it didn't set off warning bells in my brain.

"Maybe I should take a look in Ty Thanawat's apartment while I'm here," I said. "You indicated he had a smaller apartment on the top floor."

"I don't think I have a key to his apartment," Kevin said. It was clear that he didn't want to discuss that further. I had a notion to ask him what they'd do if there was a fire up there, but I didn't press the point for now. What I did do was to consider that this could be a missing person's case for two rather than one.

I wasn't reassured that this was a simple case when I noticed, upon leaving the shop on College Street, that the same black SUV with smoked windows that had been parked across the street, with the windows not smoked enough for me not to be able to tell there was someone in the driver's seat, was still there. I knew surveillance when I saw it. Was it here for the furniture shop or one or more of the shop's owners, present or missing? The police, the feds, or someone else altogether?--maybe it was even either Patrick or Ty watching the other partners?

Odd Man In: Prison Work

It's funny how you can be going along in life with various aspects of your activities running on separate tracks and then suddenly the tracks merge in the most unexpected ways. That's what happened while I was visiting with DaJon at the Caldwell Center that afternoon.

I was greeted at the guard shack by a massive body builder senior guard, who went by the name of Swede and who could have appeared as The Hulk in a movie. Tall and broad, bullet-headed and heavily tattooed, and built like Mr. Universe, Swede scared most everyone off and thus led a pretty lonely life. But he was top dog at the Caldwell Center and, to help smooth DaJon's stay here, although DaJon had no idea I was doing it, I had befriended Swede. I did so to smooth DaJon's incarceration. When I came to visit DaJon I also was coming to visit Swede. He'd meet me at the guard shack at the entrance to the facility, smooth my way into and out of the visiting room, and then, when he got off duty, we'd go for dinner, the lifting of a few, and gym time or something similar. He was a nice guy, just mainly lonely to show for his gruffness and thuggish look, and I decided I might just continue visiting him after DaJon got out. We got along well because, although I wasn't nearly as big as he was, I was perceived to be on the thuggish side too. And I think my tattoos are prettier than his are.

"Everything going good with DaJon?" I asked Swede as we walked across the lawn of the minimum-security prison to the admin building. "He fitting in OK?"

"DaJon's fitting in just fine. He's still with Big Mike and as long as he is he won't get trouble from any of the others. He keeps his nose clean here. We've got him in the same cell with Big Mike, which keeps the problems down. What they do at night is their business."

More like it was Mike's business whether DaJon liked it or not, I thought. But it had been the plan, for DaJon's own good.

Big Mike was a big black bull and he'd been just what I'd advised DaJon to hook up with for protection when he got in here. DaJon had managed to do that. He was half black himself, black father and white mother, but he'd favored his mother strongly, and there wasn't much more than a hint of black in him. His mother must have been a beauty, because he was too--which was an advantage to a guy walking the streets but could be a lot of trouble for the guy in prison. DaJon would get topped regularly here, but at least, as long as it was Big Mike, it would be just by one guy who was big and powerful enough in the system to protect him. And DaJon was a streetwalker on the outside, something I hadn't interfered with while he was with me, so being fucked regularly by a big black bull would be something he could handle.

Or maybe DaJon was handling two, I thought, as I looked at the broad back--tapering down to a much smaller waist--of Swede as I walked behind him. I wouldn't be surprised if Swede was topping DaJon regularly too, in an agreed arrangement with Big Mike. If so, at least DaJon was doubly--and very solidly--protected here. That's what a small, good-looking, effeminate male prostitute and former drug dealer needed to survive in prison.

"Has DaJon been keeping clean here?" I asked, as we walked.

"As much as any of them in here do," Swede answered. Which told me DaJon wasn't completely off the drugs.

"Nothing hard, I hope."

"No, nothing hard," Swede said. "I see to that. But a joint now and then helps us all to pass our time here."

"I understand," I said. And I did. I was mostly off cigarettes now myself, but it had been a long haul and there were situations where it was just the thing to calm down my nerves and help me through a rough night. "He's not dealing in here, though, is he?"

"No, he's not dealing in here," Swede said, quite definitively. I believed he could say that. I was pretty sure that Swede himself was a main dealer here.

"So, here we are," Swede said. "I'm off at five. There's a new steak house just outside Lenoir and I thought I'd go to the firing range afterward and then an hour in the gym."

"Sounds like a dream date," I answered. "I'll be here in the parking lot at five."

Swede let me into a large room with tables and chairs spaced widely about. Two guards stood, dozing on their feet, at either end of the room. A woman and baby were talking with an inmate at one table, a lawyer and the man he couldn't keep out of prison but obviously now was working an appeal for were jabbering, none to quietly, at another. And there was DaJon at a table, looking well-fed and content, maybe even a bit cocky, all alone at a third table. He rose as I approached. I think both of us wanted to embrace, but that wasn't permitted here.

"You're lookin' great, Ryan," DaJon said, as we both sat down, across the table from each other. "Man, I wish they allowed conjugal visits in this shithole."

"I'm hoping you're getting taken care of well enough. You know what I told you about that."

"Yeah, I know," DaJon said. "Yeah, I'm hooked up in a cell with a black bull who pretty much runs this place on the inmate inside. Big Mike. He keeps the rest off me and all I have to do is be friendly with everyone and not rag on anyone. I stay quiet in the background, just like you advised me to do."

"And outside the inmate group--the prison power--you keeping OK with them, DaJon?"

"Yeah. I give it to a senior guard--name of Swede--too, and that takes care of me on both ends of the power structure here."

So, that was confirmed. I was more relieved--for DaJon--than a bit ticked that Swede was doing him too. But I didn't leave it at that. "You keeping clean? Are you getting supplied--maybe by this Swede guy?"

"Nothing hard. Just some MJ and similar. Nothing hard. I want to get out of here. I know now to stay away from the hard stuff."

"And especially from dealing it," I said. He hadn't directly answered the question whether Swede was supplying him or not, but I didn't really want to know the answer to that.

"But you, you doin' OK?" DaJon asked, to change the subject from where he didn't want it to go. "You been getting work?"

"I've just wrapped up a case of getting a wayward husband cooperative in a messy divorce case," I said. "That resolved quicker and neater than I thought it would. And I have a new missing persons case starting up--maybe. There are some wrinkles to this one I'm suspicious of and not too wild about. Guy named Patrick Thornton, part of a weird partnership setup in an Oriental furniture store in downtown Asheville."

DaJon snorted and laughed. "A place on College Street?" he said.

"Yes," I answered, giving him a confused look--and this was where, as I noted before, separate bits of life intersected in a strange way. "Why, you know the place?"

"Yep." He gave a little laugh. "It was my connection. Where I got the stuff I dealt that put me in here. Patrick Thornton was my supplier. They ship the stuff in from Southeast Asia in that furniture they're importing."

Kaching. Just like that, some things about this new case were becoming clearer--but, at the same time, more complicated.

The rest of the visit went as expected. Dancing around whether DaJon would come back to Asheville--and to me--after he got out of here. Neither one of us wanted to tackle that one at this point. What else he might be doing. How much we'd both like to be alone with each other somewhere for an hour. On this last point, there seemed to be less of a discussion and less heat involved each time I visited. He was obviously getting as much as he could want from me from Big Mike and Swede here and I wasn't exactly celibate myself on the outside. I didn't think there would be any "after" for us, and I was content with moving on from there. I didn't want to just abandon him here, though. I'd continue visiting him to the end and let the chips fall as they may afterward.

I wouldn't just pick him up from here and immediately drop him when his time was up, either. I'd give him whatever help he needed to adjust to life on the outside--this time better than he was doing when he got put in here, I hoped.

At 5:00 I was in the outer parking lot of the Caldwell Correctional Center, waiting for Swede. I'd already learned that he was going to be in charge when we got together, so when he appeared I got out of my four-year-old Dodge Ram and went over and climbed into his beat-up 1995 Dodge Ram, thinking of Swede as sort of just a more down-and-out version of me. He seemed like such a puppy dog when I showed up that I knew he led a pretty lonely life of feeling odd man out in the civilian world. As a former special ops guy myself, I fully understood that feeling.

The steakhouse was fine. The clientele was the construction worker good-ole-boy variety that I knew Swede was comfortable with. Even here, though, they seemed to steer clear of Swede and do no more than give him slight nods of recognizing he was in the house and had established his right to be here. The restaurant served man-sized steak and a hundred varieties of beer. From there we went to the firing range and we each popped off pent-up energy shredding the shit out of paper targets. Then it was Gold's gym in a strip mall with one foot out of Lenoir, where we exercised shirtless and openly admired each other's manliness. We both knew we were going to fuck later. He had more tattoos than I did. Mine were far better quality--and in color, in contrast to his blue and black. Mine was a full half-torso coordinated design. His looked like he'd done them himself while holding a hand mirror in one hand.