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Beef Matson Archive - Chapter 5 & 6

A Person In A Position of Trust
A Beef Matson Mystery
by Rick Chris
© 2004 Rick Chris
Illustrations and photos ©2004 Rick Chris

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Chapter One - A Unseasonably Cold November

Beef Matson cuddled up snug and warm to the guy he had eyed in the bar and finally asked to come home with him. The other guy was cute, maybe around five foot nine, brown hair with some blond highlights on top and to Beef's delight, he had a lightly furry chiseled chest. Beef felt so perfectly relaxed as he snuggled close to this wonderful little hunk with the only sound that of a drapery cord rapping gently against the wall as a cool, damp breeze crawled in through the window. Then the other guy began to speak.
"You know," said the little guy, "I've been thinking this over. You're a private detective, right? Judging from your apartment you can't be making a a tremendous yearly income."
"What…?" asked Beef.
"Though I'm still in school," continued he little guy, "I expect an entry level accounting position of at least $60,000 a year when I graduate. Obviously, I expect anyone I get involved with to be on par with me financially especially in terms of a yearly income. Therefore, I couldn't really consider a relationship with you since you're not making anywhere near that. You're extremely good looking and have a wonderful body, so perhaps occasional encounters could be arranged when I feel the need for a release."
"Listen, you little twit…," began Beef, clearly very irritated.
"That's your phone, you'd better answer the phone," said the little guy.
Beef could hear the ring. It was his phone.
"You should answer the phone."
As Beef stirred himself to answer the phone. As he did the little guy suddenly disappeared replaced by one of the four pillows he had in his bed.
"A dream, thank God. That little twit was just part of a dream."
The only sound in the dim room was the drapery cord rapping against the wall. Then the phone rang again. Beef swung his hefty upper torso around to get the phone from the night stand. A quick glance through the window showed a early morning view of an unfriendly looking San Francisco Bay, cold looking with lots of low clouds. Beef cleared his throat and picked up the phone.
"Yeah, this is Beef," he announced.
"Randy? A little bit slower, Randy. You're kidding. When did this happened? You're kidding. Have you been charged with anything? Give me a break. Don't worry. I said don't worry. We'll talk about everything when…we'll talk about everything when you get back."
Beef stood up against the bed as he listened to Randy and then sat back down quietly listening for awhile to his assistant. Then he began to speak again.
"Sounds like it's all a bunch of crap. No, get your ass back here. Everything will be all right. Just jump on a plane and come back. Thing's will be a lot better with you back here. Don't worry. Look, you've got a great support network that can work for you here. Just get your things together and get your tush on a jet and come back here. Yeah, pretty chilly here. Pretty cloudy outside, looks really damp - it's two hours earlier here, you know."
Beef paused again to listen to Randy.
"Randy, you don't need that crap. From what you've told me about your family…well, whatever you call those people back there, sounds like something you could expect from them. Just get yourself back here and we'll work things out. Randy, I'll get some great professionals working on your side, just get your body back here. 'Nuff said? Okay, we'll talk about it later. I'll pick you up at the airport, just leave a voice mail for me about your flight number and arrival time. Okay. Take care. Bye."
Beef hung up the phone and stood up and stretched his naked body, thrusting his pelvis forward. Speaking out loud as he continued to stretch, turning his shoulders from one side to another, Beef grumbled to himself, "Man - Randy, it's amazing you turned out as good as you did after growing up with that bunch of low lives."
Beef bent a bit over and took another quick look at the foreboding weather over the bay. "It does not look one wee bit good out there, that's for certain."
The digital clock showed that it was almost a quarter to eight. "Kind of pointless to head back to bed now," said Beef again to himself, "Might as well seize the day."

Beef then made a short walk into his kitchenette and clicked the switch on the coffee maker which shortly began to awake with hissing sounds. Then Beef walked into the small bathroom and began to wash his face and then lather it with shaving cream. When he had finished shaving, the coffee maker was nearly finished brewing a pot. Then by the time Beef had grabbed a mug and put some cream into it, the coffee was finished. Beef took the cup with him back to the bathroom and began to turn on the shower faucets.
As Beef stepped into the shower, he began to wonder if Randy's problem was going to wind up being a big problem or a small problem. "Big or small, big or small…" he muttered as he braced himself against the first shot of the shower spray. The hot spray of water felt good as Beef drenched himself in the water. First he gave his teeth a good brushing and then rinsed his mouth in the shower allowing the water to flood his eyes and nose. Then grabbing the shampoo, Beef first washed his raven black hair and then grabbing the washcloth and the bar soap, vigorously scrubbed his body down. After rinsing himself down, Beef grabbed a spare bottle of shaving cream he kept in the shower. Squirting some shaving foam in his hand he then slapped the foam around his genitals. Grabbing a spare razor he also kept in the shower, Beef gave his testicles a quick shave. Though kind of a hairy guy, Beef liked his balls smooth and thought a trimmed genital area was more civilized looking, plus he just liked the feel.
Turning off the shower, stepping out and grabbing a big fluffy towel, Beef roughly dried himself off. "Oh yes," said Beef in a loud voice, "Now I feel alive." Beef admired his naked self in part of the bathroom mirror that was not fogged over. "Oh yeah boy, you are lookin' good." Beef strutted back into his bedroom. Beef enjoyed being naked in the comfort of his own digs and he especially felt good after the shower. The bedroom seemed colder, probably because of the shower but also because the a stronger breeze seemed to be blowing in through the open window. The drapery cord was now banging furiously against the wall and even the heavy drapes were shimmying around in the breeze. A chorus of fog horns and ship whistles was coming noisily through the window from the bay. This was joined by the siren of a police car and then by two noisy motorcycles. Then symphony was added to by some guy yelling in the street below. Beef shut the window and the room became pleasantly silent. The windows in the bedroom instantly began to fog up because of the humidity pouring out of the bathroom and the chilly air outside. Beef clicked on the radio. The first thing Beef heard was a commercial with Christmas music in the background. "If the commercials are upon us, can Christmas be far behind?", Beef commented.
After the commercial, weather news and a forecast came on. The forecaster told of how an early cold snap was affecting the western United States with temperatures already reaching twenty below in Montana and Idaho with no let up in sight. The forecast assured steadily deteriorating weather conditions for most of California with clouds, fog, drizzle and perhaps some steady rain promised for the San Francisco Bay area. The forecaster stated the present temperature to be 41 degrees.
"Ooh, I am going to need a boyfriend", announced Beef, "A warm cuddly, hunky boyfriend. At least for the duration of this cold weather. Yeah big guy, come cuddle with me!"

******
"…I swear it was giving Berry's mother the finger!"
The heart of a home is the kitchen - old proverb

Beef snagged a pair of white briefs and a pair of white athletic socks from a dresser drawer and put them on. He then went over to the small desk in his bedroom and toyed with the Rolodex until he found the card he was looking for. He pushed his finger down on the card until it stayed in place. The card read:
"Berenice (Berry) Starr, attorney at law. Vigorous defense of the rights of gay people." Beef clicked off the radio and pulling a chair under himself, began dialing the phone on the desk using the number from the rolodex card. The number he dialed range a couple of times and then was answered. A woman's voice said hello.
"Uh - Yeah, hello. Is Berry there? This is Beef Matson."
"You want to talk to Berry?", asked the woman. "Are you a friend of hers?"
"Yeah, she knows me pretty well", replied Beef, "I've worked with her before."
"Are you a boyfriend of hers?", asked the woman.
Beef was confused. "Uh…no. She has someone. A partner."
"Berry is a lawyer", the woman emphasized, "She would make an excellent catch for a guy…"
"Actually", countered Beef, "I'm calling about a business matter. This is very important…"
"I've been trying to get her to develop her social life focusing on some good male companion…" Something interrupted the woman.
Beef then heard voice in the background then some muffling of the phone with some rapping on the receiver. In the background Beef heard a new voice speak to the woman who had been on the phone:
"I'll get the phone. Isn't that movie you wanted to see going to be starting on cable pretty soon?"
Finally a familiar voice was on the phone.
"Hello? Can I help you?"
"This is Beef. Beef Matson. Bobbi, is that you? I need to get in touch with Berry."
"Oh, hi Beef! This is Bobbi. Berry isn't here; she had to run some errands this morning. Can I take a message for her?"
"Oh yeah, sure Bobbi. How are you doing? By the way, who was I talking to? She seemed to want to get Berry paired off with a boyfriend."
"Oh, I'm o.k., I guess, Beef. That was Berry's mother. She's going to be with us for the holidays.
Then in a slightly hushed voice, Bobbi decided to share some concerns with Beef.
"Sorry about her trying to hook you up with Berry, she's kind of aggressive that way. Beef, I don't know if I'm going to be handle this woman all the way through Christmas. She knows all about Berry and I but she hasn't giving up on trying to pair us, and especially Berry, with just about every guy she sees. It's like every year Berry's family goes through this thing of who's going to have her mother over for the Christmas holidays. The thing is, her mother is not very family oriented and she hates the holiday season, so I don't know why she has to stay with anyone for the holidays. Since she and Berry's father got divorced years ago she hasn't developed any relationship with anybody and she hates being around her kids, so like why is she even here? She bases her whole self worth on whether or not men find her interesting and as she is getting older and younger men are not showing interest in her, she's getting into a panic. She feels there's something wrong but she's decided it's because all men are going gay and that men are no longer going to be interested in women and this will be disastrous for women - or at least that's how I understand her. So she's on this kick where she wants to teach me to how to keep men interested in women - like copping feels of strange men in public. Then she tried to tell me how important it was to perform certain really organic sexual acts on men in just the right way. I told her that I just did not want to hear about stuff like that and she gave me this really puzzled stare. Yesterday, I took her grocery shopping with me and the woman wanted me to set up shopping carts to block the aisle so that she could trap men to force them to notice her. Occasionally I'd turn around to find that she'd taken off somewhere down the aisle, stalking some man. Then she was pointing out all these men she wanted me to hit on. It's like mother dear, what part of les-bee-awn do you not understand? Oh gawd!"
"Sounds like she's the holy terror of the supermarket," commented Beef. Beef decided Bobbi needed to vent, so he decided to continue politely listening.
Bobbi continued. "And you know, I love my kitchen and all the home keeping stuff and especially the holidays. Well, Berry's mother thinks anything having to do with the home or kitchen is some sort of evil Martha Stewart conspiracy to enslave women in the kitchen. She thinks that the kitchen is a just a place to put a frozen dinner in the microwave and sit around talking about where to pick up guys. So now when I'm trying to make my home really nice for the holidays, this woman is determined to let me know that she thinks my decorating and cooking is, well - stupid. Yesterday afternoon, I tried to get her in the Christmas spirit by getting the boxes of Christmas decorations from the basement. The best I got out of her was what a waste of time unpacking the decorations was since it would all be put back in the boxes in a few weeks anyway. And then it was how stupid the whole concept of decorating was, how dumb some of the ornaments looked and then…what was the point of decorating a house where just two women lived. Arrrgh! Then Beef, you know what happened next?"
"What?" Beef asked sympathetically.
"I unpacked the angel ornament that we put on the top of our Christmas tree and I looked at it and I swear it was giving Berry's mother the finger!"
"Oh please…", responded Beef.
"No seriously…"
There was a sudden muffled banging sound in the background which interrupted Bobbi.
"Do you want to check that out?", asked Beef.
"I think I'd better…right back," said Bobbi.
Beef waited a few seconds and Bobbi returned to the phone.
"Berry's mother bounced one of my microwave bowls on the floor. Didn't hurt it. It's good that I went to check, though. She was going to try to burn down the house. She had a bag of microwave popcorn set to microwave for seventeen minutes. Actually, that would be good. If she burns down the house and then there is no house for her to stay at and I can have a Christmas in peace.
"Just hang in there," interrupted Beef, "People tend to mellow out during the holidays."
"I can hope," replied Bobbi. "Maybe with a lot of strong hot toddys."
"Your mother-in-law likes hot toddys?" joked Beef.
"Not for her - for me," laughed Bobbi.
"Oh, please…" said Beef.
"I guess I'll just try to take one day at a time. You know even Mr. Jingles and the Lady Astrid stay away from Berry's mother, they hide when she's around."
"Mr. Jingles and the Lady Astrid?" asked Beef.
"Our cats," replied Bobbi, "Berry's mother is not a cat person. Anyway, this whole adventure for the holidays should be a culture shock for Berry's mother. I love to entertain during the holidays and our parties tend to be predominately lesbian. Mother is a wee bit, no, make that a whole lot, uncomfortable with groups of lesbians. So maybe that might take some of the wind out of her sails. It's like being man crazy is the only thing she knows what to do with her life."
Beef could hear more noises at the other end of the line.
"Just a minute, Beef", said Bobbi. "Berry's here, she's just coming in the door. Hold on."
There a was a pause for a few seconds and then another voice came on the line.
"Beef?" asked a female voice.
"Yeah, Berry?" said Beef, "I'd like to retain your services."
"Sure Beef," replied Berry. "Turn about is fair play since you've worked for me on a number of cases."
"Not for me exactly, but I'd like you to represent Randy, my assistant."
"Sure Beef, I remember Randy. What's the problem?"
"Well, no charges yet, but they may come up. Randy's been accused of child molestation. Supposedly, some children he baby sat for when he was a teenager. And a guy he lived with when they were both teenagers may be going to sue Randy for molesting him."
There was a silent pause on the other end of the phone line.
"Randy went back to Illinois to visit with the people he grew up with when he was a teenager. When he got there, they hit him with a lawsuit for molesting this other guy and had the police question him about molesting children he baby sat for back then." "Do you still want to handle the case?", asked Beef
"Of course", replied Berry. "Beef, have you ever noticed any inclination on Randy's part of a well…sexual interest in children?"
"Never. I've always observed Randy's tastes to be in a completely different direction. He prefers big hairy guys. I would find it very hard to believe that he would have an inclination for little kids.
"Randy's attraction to masculine men is pretty apparent," stated Berry. "In some of the child custody cases I've handled, molestation charges against the gay parent will sometimes surface. These always prove to be groundless. Usually it has to do when the other person seeking custody has some involvement with some right wing religious group and they try beating that tired old drum that a gay parent will be a child molester and therefore will be an unfit parent. I always find it suspicious when people wait for years and years, as in this case with Randy, to suddenly decide that some molestation had occurred in the past. Then on top of that, some right wing religious type seems to always turn up to give advice. It always leads me to think that perhaps there might be some other motivations lurking in the background."

Berry scheduled a time for Beef to meet with her in person for a more in-depth discussion of Randy's predicament. The appointment would require a drive out to the far suburbs where Berry had her in home office in the house that she and Bobbi owned, so Beef scheduled for a morning appointment with the idea that at least he would have part of the day left after the long drive.

Beef quickly straightened up the sheets and bed spread and grabbed a large teddy bear sitting in an overstuffed chair near his bed. He placed the bear in the middle of the bed.
"If you're really good, Fred, I'll get you a little bear companion for Christmas. Then you won't have to guard the place all day by yourself', said Beef shaking his finger at the stuffed animal.
Beef's apartment was modest but was nicely furnished with quality furniture and other furnishings which gave it the feel of a small house rather than a walk up apartment. Many of the items in the apartment, such as an ornate dressing mirror, a heavy chest and pieces of artwork, were given to Beef often in payment for his services as a private investigator. Mostly, the accent of the apartment was on comfort with the place having a secure and homey, but masculine feel to it.
Beef continued to dress, quickly putting on a pullover and a clean pair of jeans. He finished by putting on a pair of very clean white athletic shoes. Beef realized that he needed to start the day by getting some breakfast and the meager offerings of his kitchen just wouldn't satisfy his appetite. Beef paused a second and then thought to himself, "The Cozy Cup. I'll grab a bite there. It's still early enough so it shouldn't be that crowded." Beef grabbed his wallet and keys and then his warm winter jacket from the closet near the front door and left his apartment.

Cozy Cup was indeed a cozy coffee shop on the Castro. Cozy, but very popular with a loyal following of regular diners. When Beef got to the Cozy Cup the weather had deteriorated even further, with the wind blowing a spray of chilly mist from the north-northeast down Castro Street. As Beef approached the entry of the Cozy Cup, he had his jacket collar pulled high around his neck and had his hands thrust deep into the jacket pockets. As he opened the door to the restaurant Beef entered into a warm ambiance of laughter, conversation and music, "How Deep Is Your Love" by the Bee Gees drifted out of the loudspeakers as it played on the jukebox. The place had a friendly smell of breakfast and on this particular morning the cafe even had a fresh, clean smell to it along with a spicy smell of reminiscent of Christmas time. Beef noticed that someone had hung Christmas decorations throughout, modest decorations of some evergreens and lights which nevertheless gave the small place a cheeriness, especially on a dreary morning such as this was. Beef looked around for available seating. As of yet, no one appeared to be waiting to be seated but all the seats at the counter were already filled and looking further, Beef noticed that the last empty place was a booth in the back, so he walked back there and sat himself down. The Cozy Cup was an excellent place to people watch and the rear booth was good ringside seat. Blanche and Dorothy were the two middle aged waitresses who were on duty this morning. Blanche was a heavy set, outgoing woman who didn't take any grief from anyone and who frequently exchanged good natured barbs with the customers. Dorothy was a quiet, good natured person with a readily given giggle.

Blanche suddenly appeared at Beef's counter with a pot of coffee.
"Mornin' Beef, coffee this morning?"
"Of course, thanks!"
Blanche poured hot, steaming coffee into one of the Cozy Cup's standard heavy beige colored cups.
"Hey Blanche," inquired Beef as he poured a bit of cream into the coffee cup, "Is it my imagination or is the place a bit more spit and polish this morning?"
"If you mean clean," replied Blanche, "the owners had some cleaners come in this weekend and give the place a real going over for the upcoming holidays. Some little cleaning company run by a bunch of dykes. You should have seen these women, they were all about the same size, a bunch of short stocky gals. They went through the place like a bunch of little tanks, human cleaning machines. After they finished, I couldn't believe it was the same place, everything looked brand new and it even had a real fresh brand new smell to it. Now I even feel safe to eat here." Blanche laughed. "They even steam cleaned the fainting couch in the ladies restroom."
"You have a fainting couch in the ladies room?" inquired Beef. "Do you faint a lot?"
"Only when I have one of my dramas!" Blanche put one of her hands to her forehead and threw a glance up to the ceiling imitating the pose of a silent screen movie star and then laughed heartily.
Breaking the pose, she turned to Beef and asked, "Made up your mind or should I give you a couple of minutes?"
"The usual," answered Beef.
"You make it too easy, Beef. Give a holler if you need anything else. Like our Christmas decorations?"
Beef nodded.
"Dorothy helped put those up. She's got a lot more Christmas spirit than I do."
"Well, you've got a little Christmas spirit," noted Beef, "what's that Santa you've got pinned to your blouse?"
Blanche looked down at the little Santa head.
"Oh, one of the customers gave me this. Watch what happens when I pull the cord on his beard. Santa's nose lights up. Must mean he's got a snoot full."
Blanche laughed and strolled away to give Beef's order to the cook.

"I'll have the dildo supreme!"

Beef watched the ebb and tide of customers in the restaurant. Beef guessed that a number of customers had stopped in for breakfast before they headed downtown to do some early Christmas shopping. An older, white haired lesbian couple stopped at the register to pay their bill and pulled a Santa cap out of shopping bag and gave it to Dorothy, who put it on. A big, burly cop who had been sitting at the counter gave a guy he had been sitting next to a tender kiss and hug and then stood up and left to pay his bill. As these people left they were replaced by even more people who were coming in out of the chilly mist, so that there were now people waiting for available seating. Blanche continued to wait on customers sitting in the booths. At one booth a group of young gay men were feeling particularly frisky. Blanche took the orders of the other men in the group and then paused momentarily for one guy who had mischief on his mind.
"Well, Hon", she inquired, "Have you decided yet?"
"I think…', replied the joker, "I'll have the dildo supreme!"
Blanche arched her eyebrows disapprovingly and responded.
"Precious, what makes you think we would name one of our dishes after one of your boyfriends?"
The other guys in the booth laughed energetically and the embarrassed joker gave Blanche a legitimate order.

Beef's mind drifted back to Randy and he thought how Randy loved the Cozy Cup. Beef knew why. Randy loved old music and the Cozy Cup had a jukebox crammed full of old music. The jukebox was one of those new digital machines with an incredibly large selection of songs and the customers faithfully fed it coins so that the music kept on coming. It never failed to amaze Beef what people wanted to hear as all kinds of music from the middle and late 20th century came pouring out of the loudspeakers. Beef would observe how people's moods would change and they seemed to cheer up when they would hear some song from long ago they had forgotten about. It was always a guess as to what might be coming up next, be it a song by Steely Dan, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Brenda Lee, The Turtles or even some obscure song from the early 1950s. The music was sort of some sort of comfort food for the soul and it seemed to make coming into the Cozy Cup for breakfast or lunch much like coming home for dinner. Someone had apparently already put Christmas music into the jukebox because the next song up was "The Christmas Song" by Nat King Cole. This song had an immediate mellowing effect on the crowd as the conversations became slightly quieter. A young guy in another booth began to snuggle up against his boyfriend as the boyfriend chatted with a third guy seated in the booth. Beef looked at the plate glass windows at the front of the restaurant. The clouds had become thicker and he could see some heavy white raindrops against the backdrop of buildings, almost looking like snowflakes. Beef leaned back into his booth sipping the hot coffee. It did indeed for that particular moment feel just like Christmas. Now if only he had a warm, cuddly boyfriend.
"Here we go, Beef", said Dorothy, standing at the side of his booth with a tray. "Your usual. A Spanish omelet, hash browns, pancakes and orange juice. Shaken, not stirred." Dorothy winked.
"Shaken, not stirred," said Beef, in his best Sean Connery impression.
Dorothy did a double take.
"My gawd!" she exclaimed, "You sounded just like Sean Connery. How do you do that?"
"It's a gift," replied Beef.
"Sean Connery, my favorite." Dorothy held her hands to her chest.
"Mine too!" said Beef, winking.
Dorothy giggled as she walked away.

Beef had an enjoyable, mellow breakfast. He exchanged greetings with a couple of acquaintances who had also stopped in for breakfast. The time Beef spent at the Cozy Cup was mostly uneventful except when the jukebox played "C'mon and Swim" by Bobby Freeman(1) and some queen got up and decided to show the place he knew how to do the swim. Later, a young, slender African American postal carrier came in to deliver a few letters and she attempted stardom by doing a short expressionist dance to "Twine Time" by Alvin Cash and the Crawlers. She even got some appreciative applause from some of the customers and left, blowing a kiss to her fans.

"…maybe San Francisco has a lot of ghosts, a lot of gay ghosts."

Blanche stopped at Beef's booth and put his bill on the table.
"Thanks again, Beef and stay warm, looks like we're in for some rough weather."
Beef told Blanche about the weather forecast he had heard earlier in the morning. "I suppose a cold snap will make it feel more like the holidays," observed Blanche. "My brother was really into the Christmas thing," she remarked as she stared out the windows, becoming uncharacteristically wistful for a few seconds.
"Does your brother live in the area?" asked Beef.
"No…" Blanche paused, "He passed away years ago from AIDS. It's sort of strange but whenever I see some Christmas decorations I'm always reminded of him putting up decorations at his house. Sometimes I have such strong thoughts of him right around Christmas that I think he comes back to visit for the holidays. In spirit, of course. But I guess that's all pretty silly."
"It's not silly if it's important to you," said Beef.
Blanche looked around the restaurant a bit as if to see who was listening to her. "Sometimes I get to wondering about all the gay men who died in this city, if maybe San Francisco has a lot of ghosts, a lot of gay ghosts."
"I never thought of it that way," replied Beef, "You might have a point there."
Blanche smiled a brittle smile and went back to waiting on her tables.

*****

Just outside the Cozy Cup, three women and a young girl were observing the proceedings. The women were well dressed, two in suits and one woman in new designer jeans and very white sweat shirt with a large American Flag on the front. The young girl was dressed in an expensive looking outfit, a dress with matching shoes with her hairdo and manicured and painted fingernails making her look like a miniature beauty queen.
"There, that one in the back booth." Said one of the women pointing to Beef who was getting out of his booth and reaching for his jacket.
"That's the blond faggot's boss."
The other two women jostled to get a better look.
"What a beautiful man," observed another of the women. "It's a shame he's being wasted on this lifestyle."
The other women nodded in agreement.
"This one," continued the first woman, "has been a royal pain in the side to just too many people. But if we can take his little assistant down, they will both fall."
The other women smiled.
The little girl began making a clopping sound with her shoes.
"It's really cold out here", she complained. "Could we go inside and have breakfast?"
"No dear," corrected one of the women, "We would not want to go into this place. This is a sodomite place. We would not want to not socialize with sodomites, let alone eat with them. We'll get something at the hotel."
The three women and the little girl then walked down the street and got into a large, late model SUV.

Chapter Two - Meet Randy Hardwicke

Beef pushed up his collar as he walked out of the Cozy Cup and into still chilly morning air. The sky no longer looked as threatening as it did earlier and the sun was beginning to break through the clouds. The first thing Beef felt he needed to do in this business with Randy was to have a look around his assistant's apartment. A large part of him did not want to snoop around in Randy's place, but Beef realized that Randy's apartment would be the first place that would be searched if there would be an official investigation and better to be safe than surprised. Randy had left his apartment keys with Beef in case there were any problems while he was out of town, so this was simply a case of Beef taking a walk down Castro to Divisadero and down Divisadero until he reached the building where Randy rented a small apartment. As Beef strolled his thoughts turned back to how he originally hired Randy. He chuckled to himself as he remembered having an office for a very short time in a trailer owned by a friend of his and then a tiny office back behind a bar. Then as his business picked up he got his present office in the small building near the intersection of Market Street and Church and then finally he decided he needed an assistant so he could concentrate on the business and have someone else tend to the paperwork, the office and so on. Out of the small parade of applicants that he had interviewed no one seemed very enthused about the job, most were polite job seekers who seemed to be just looking for a job to tie them over until they found something better. Beef found the personalities of a couple of applicants irritating, he suspected a couple others as having a substance abuse problem and some seemed to have way too much attitude and even cast a disparaging eye at his humble office.

Where Castro meets Divisadero

Then there was Randy. Randy found out about the opening through some friends unlike the other applicants who found the opening in a classified ad. Randy apparently had decided the job was just something he wanted to do and again, unlike the other applicants, Randy showed up in a sport coat and a tie, a new haircut and freshly shined shoes. When Randy showed up for his interview as very last person Beef was to interview, the detective had just about had made up his mind to hire the least offensive of the previous candidates. However, there was something about Randy. Randy was a good looking guy, blond and shorter than Beef, around five foot nine inches. Some of the other candidates had been good looking guys, but Randy seemed to have something the others lacked, sincerity and enthusiasm. Randy told how he had just moved to San Francisco and was looking for a position that was stable and in return he would throw himself into the job and Beef's detective agency would be so much better as a result. Beef of course, did not believe that any effort by Randy would have much of an effect on his business but somehow this energetic young guy with a sincerity that seemed genuine along with an unjaded innocence touched Beef. When the interview was over, decided to hire Randy right then and there. Beef was amazed how Randy lit up at the news, as if Beef had just hired him for an executive level position rather than something on the lower end of the economic scale.

Randy did make true to his promise of having an effect on Beef's business. Randy it seemed, was a jack of all trades. Not only did Randy do a bang up job of organizing the files, finally getting them out cardboard boxes and into Beef's filing cabinets, but Randy tackled every other aspect of the office with aplomb and vigor. Over a couple of days, Randy cleaned the small office suite, both his little reception area and Beef's main office, like it had never been cleaned before. Randy even took down the venetian blinds, scrubbing them until they changed from dull lemon yellow to shiny eggshell white. Randy insisted the blinds probably had been hung around 1946 and had never been touched since. Beef's office began to look less of a relic and more alive and shiny. Randy rented a steam cleaner and cleaned the somewhat vintage furniture so even it had a newer look and much fresher smell to it. Randy quipped that he moved Beef's office forward from the film noir era to Cinemascope™ era. Randy's other abilities began to show when he fixed the hardware and software problems with the office computers and even networked his and Beef's computer. Randy even found a nice second hand stereo that someone had tossed out and installed it in Beef's office, wiring the speakers on the wall giving the office a feel of one of a more plush office suite. In fact, Beef found his clients becoming much more relaxed in his office; before it seemed like clients were always looking around at the file stuffed cardboard boxes and maybe expecting a rat to run across the room. Randy also acted as Beef's liaison to the other businesses in the building. The building had mostly gay owned businesses and the owners of those businesses were rather social, liked to have little get togethers now and then, especially for holidays. Beef was not into these social duties so it was nice to have Randy do this and maintain a good neighbor policy. On top of this, Randy was just pleasant to have around. Randy was almost always upbeat, occasionally liked to tease, and he would make wry comments though he would make a point of never being hurtful towards someone.

Randy

As Beef walked up Divisadero nearer to where the building that Randy had his apartment in, the scenery became more bleak and the buildings more run down. There were no houses that had that "painted lady" look in this neighborhood. Everything seemed to be a shade of gray. Finally Beef came to the building that contained Randy's apartment. As he walked up to the front of the building to look at the apartment directory, Beef spied an older man standing a few feet away on the sidewalk. The man rested his weight on a cane and appeared to be disabled, perhaps from palsy. A young woman stood beside the man, her body language and dress suggesting substance abuse and prostitution. The man called out to Beef.
"Who ya lookin' for?", the man yelled with an accent that would seemed to be more at home in a small Midwestern farming town.
Beef walked closer to the man and as he did, he became aware of an odor of urine and alcohol coming from the man. A little trickle of drool drained out of the man's mouth.
"I'm looking for Randy Hardwicke's apartment, I believe it's in this building." Answered Beef.
"Oh yeah, Randy. I know that Randy. He's the one on the top floor. He's got the top floor apartment." Responded the old man. The old man looked Beef over as if trying to decided what kind of profession Beef was in.
"Hey!" barked the old man. "That Randy, he in some kind of trouble? He involved in some drugs or something?"
Beef begun to walk to the front door of the apartment building and stopped, somewhat irritated turned and looked at the man.
"What makes you say that … about the drugs?"
"He's one of those gay kids." blurted the man. "They're always into drugs."
Beef just smiled a phony smile at the man and continued to walk to the apartment entrance. The young woman standing next to the man was whispering something to the old man and pulled him to walk with her down the street.

Using Randy's key, Beef unlocked the lobby door and as he walked into the small lobby of the building a stale smell of urine, cigarette use and just plain decay engulfed him. The building's interior was dark, with dark brownish gray carpeting in the hallways, woodwork painted dark brown and dingy, gray walls. The building seemed to be the total opposite of Randy's bright, optimistic personality.
"Good God, Randy, "Beef muttered to himself, " We have got to find you a better place to live."
Beef found the long, narrow stairway that made it's way up to the floor Randy's apartment was on. Randy's apartment seemed to be the only apartment on that floor. The other doors in the short hallway appeared to entries to storage rooms and one door probably lead to an attic. This floor at least had a fresher smell to it than the bleak hopeless first floor though it was still just as dark and gray.

As Beef got closer to the door of Randy's apartment, he became aware of a cleaner smell and then as he unlocked and opened Randy's apartment door, a fresh, wholesome smell blossomed out. Entering the apartment, Beef began to think of the scene from The Wizard of Oz where the movie switches from black and white to color. In stark contrast to the rest of the building, Randy's little apartment actually looked like a pleasant place to live. It had light, color and it was scrubbed so clean it looked like it did not belong in the slummy old building.

Beef decided to give the apartment a quick look over and be done with it. He decided to start with the kitchen. The kitchen was a small narrow galley kitchen with a small window at one end. Probably to supplement storage space, Randy had pots and other utensils hanging from the ceiling. As Beef entered the galley he bumped his head lightly on a large cooking pot hanging near the entrance. Obviously, Randy's shorter stature helped him avoid collisions with the things hanging from the ceiling. Beef quickly looked over the kitchen area. A paint job that Randy had apparently given the kitchen help disguise the wear and tear. Sharp, spicy aromas emanated from the small kitchen window where herbs grew vigorously from several small pots. Also on the window sill a small citrus tree smelled sweet with white blooms. Beef remembered Randy telling him how all his houseplants including some dwarf citrus trees were seized and destroyed at the border when he moved to California, so this little tree must be a replacement. Beef suddenly turned and walked out of the kitchenette, forgetting the large cooking pot at the entrance to the galley. The pot hit the side his head making a loud, low pitched gong sound like the sound of a bell in a Buddhist temple. Beef winced and grabbed the side of his head.
"You bitch!" he yelled.
Then Beef chuckled and motioned his hand towards the pot much like Curly of The Three Stooges would do and making a sound much like Curly would make.

The largest part of Randy's apartment was a long narrow living room area. Right outside the kitchen galley Randy had a small dinette table which was up against a window that looked out on the street and let a good amount of light in. A larger window was at the other end of the living room but it looked out at the gray wall of the building next door and as a result the rest of the living room was rather dark. Still, the room had a homey look of throw pillows and comfortable looking chairs. The living room was filled with a collection of furniture that Randy had gathered here and there, from rummage sales to dumpster "orphans". Randy told how he was able to pick up all sorts of things for free or next to free when the Internet bubble burst, often picking up something nearly brand new that someone had abandoned at a dumpster. Beef looked about and saw the stereo system remembered how Randy told him how he pieced it together and refinished a cabinet that he had found for it. In and about the cabinet was Randy's collection of CDs and even vinyl albums, most of it old music. On the walls there was a small gay art collection, much of it apparently prints clipped from magazines and nicely matted and framed. There was a small original painting signed by an artist named Rick Chris who Beef had never heard of. From Randy's apartment it almost looked liked Randy was making more than Beef was paying him. It was just that Randy was so darn industrious and creative.

Last to check out was the postage stamp bathroom and Randy's bedroom. The bedroom had a single bed, an end table, a dresser, a couple of small chests of drawers and a small desk on which Randy's computer sat. The small window in the room faced against the same gray wall as the living room window did so the room was dark and Beef switched on a light. Beef was becoming less and less motivated to look through Randy's belongings. Having worked closely with Randy, it was very difficult for Beef to perceive Randy as a child molester, however he knew that if there was to be an "issue" with his assistant, Randy's apartment would be thoroughly searched. Though even if he found going through Randy's apartment more and more distasteful, it was something Beef felt he needed to do. Beef turned on Randy's computer and the machine began to boot up. The computer was used, something else that Randy had acquired, fixed up and upgraded. Finally the computer was operational with the monitor contributing its glow to the room. Beef checked the Internet browser, its bookmarks and history files and found nothing incriminating. Next the detective explored the hard drive and similarly found nothing to suggest a sexual interest in children. Beef shut down the computer and looked over the rest of the bedroom.

The only thing left to explore was the closet, a small oblong space that ran the length of the narrow end of the room. Beef immediately noticed a pile of erotic men's magazines on the floor of the closet. He quickly browsed through the pile of magazines, all of which displayed men of a beefy and masculine nature, pausing only to admire a particularly interesting specimen. Clearly, Randy's interest in men were those of a much more mature nature. Outside of Randy's clothing there was nothing else in the closet except for some shelves at one end at the closet. Randy used these small shelves to display apparent mementos of his younger life. There were souvenir items, a couple small stuffed animals, small toys and a couple shelves devoted to framed photographs. There was a photo of Randy and another young man with their arms around each other, standing outside somewhere, probably in Illinois where Randy grew up.

"Beef Matson, my hero!"

On the floor under the shelves of this mini gallery, Beef noticed a book, a handmade scrapbook. He crouched down on the floor, slid the book out and began to page through it. On the pages of the scrapbook were taped photos and newspaper clippings, clippings about him and the cases he worked on. The scrapbook was a work of art, in which Randy was carefully preserving bits of Beef's career. There were photos of Beef's office and the building it was in. Photos of Beef at his office desk and Randy in the reception area along with photos of the little parties the other businesses in the building would occasionally have. No matter how small a newspaper clipping was, Randy had clipped and placed it in the scrapbook. Whether it was just a mention of Beef being at a social function or winning an award, or just even a mention of Beef's detective agency in a local directory, it had been clipped and placed in the book. Randy had even including all sorts of small, seemingly unimportant items such as ticket stubs, postcards and invitations in the book. As Beef reversed his paging through the book and returned to the inside of the front cover, he noticed something he had initially overlooked. A small piece of artwork that Randy had created on his computer and pasted to the inside front cover read, "Beef Matson, my hero!" Beef swallowed hard and then gently closed the scrapbook and carefully placed the book where he had found it. The detective stood up feeling somewhat disgusted with himself for snooping around his assistant's apartment. As Beef looked around at Randy's humble bedroom, a strong paternal feeling came over him along with an even stronger sense of determination. Whatever storm was brewing around Randy, Beef would shield him and bring his assistant through and out of it. He then left, carefully locking the door to Randy's apartment.

By the time Beef got to the building his office was located in the blue skies had retreated and he was being pelted with a few cold raindrops. As he entered the building, the large, vintage lobby had a sense of security and stability after coming in from the rain. Beef unlocked and entered his office, noticing it was musty, dark and cold after being abandoned for the weekend. Usually Randy had arrived at the office before he did and the place was bright and lit up when Beef arrived. Beef went directly into his office and turned on his desk lamp, and brewed some coffee. He then got out of his jacket, shaking the rain off of it first and hung it in the little office closet. First tending to a few necessary chores, Beef got himself a cup of coffee and checked his voice mail. Then, finishing that he sat back in his chair at his big desk for awhile noticing how dark and quiet his office was. He had left the door opened to the reception room where Randy's desk was. He had not turned on the lights in that outer office. Walking to the reception room with a cup of coffee in hand, Beef paused looking over the small room. How drab and lonely the little office looked without the lights being on and without Randy being there. Beef recalled that last year at this time, Randy was putting up Christmas decorations in the office. Beef decided that when Randy returned to the office, the first thing he would have him do is put up the Christmas decorations, that would make things a lot better.

******

As Beef had asked, Randy had left a message on his voice mail about when his flight would arrive, so the next morning Beef headed down to San Francisco International Airport to pick him up. Surprisingly, this errand down to the airport went smoothly. Randy's plane came in on time, the traffic at the airport wasn't bad and in no time he and Beef were heading back north to San Francisco.

Beef had noticed the change immediately. Randy's manner was sullen, his face ashen, he was radically subdued. It was as if the upbeat, optimistic Randy had left on vacation and this other Randy had come back in his place. As they drove north on highway 101 back to the city, Randy sunk back into his seat totally silent, a condition very much unlike Randy.
"Doin' O.K.?" inquired Beef
Randy turned his head toward Beef and while keeping his head down and just lifting his eyes towards the detective, spoke.
"There was a woman at the other airport, at O'Hare. She yelled at me in the airport. That I should be sent to jail for the rest of my life…for molesting kids. There was even a TV camera there filming the whole thing. Then the security people got rid of her…told her she had to leave. It was…not good."
Randy suddenly turned his head forward and stared down at his knees.
"This kind of business brings out the crazies. She was probably some sort of attention freak," declared Beef. You're back here now, you're in a safe place and for now, that's all that should matter."
Randy appeared unmoved and continued to stare down at his knees.
Beef spoke again.
"This would be a good time for you to tell me about your childhood, your upbringing. Maybe we can figure out how these idiots think they can try and pin this crap on you."
"I've told you all about my upbringing before," replied Randy with a flat tone to his voice.

********

Randy remained silent as his mind traveled back to his past. There were things about his upbringing that he would never tell Beef, that he would never tell anyone. He remembered a teenage memory, a time months after Aunt Marion had died and his Uncle Marty telling him that they needed to have a woman in the house to take care of things and that Uncle Marty had arranged for his niece Sharon to move in with them. He remembered Sharon moving in with her common-law husband and their infant son and her husband's teenage son from a previous marriage. At first it seemed nice to have more people in the big old house, than an ugly reality set in. It would usually happened on a weekend, a Friday or Saturday night. In the very early morning hours it would start with a banging on the front door of the house, a loud jangling of keys in the door lock, the door slamming open and cursing, lots of cursing. From his bed, Randy would next hear crashing in the kitchen downstairs and Sharon cursing, swearing and screaming, often at the top of her lungs. Randy would come to know that when Sharon and her husband would go out on a weekend night, this would be how Sharon behave when they returned from their evening out. Randy would come to know that Sharon's screaming, violent behavior would often last for hours, many times until dawn. Only the duration of the outburst was the only thing that Randy could be reasonably sure of, the actual drunken drama would vary.

Sometimes Sharon would be content to stand on the landing of the stairway and scream curses at everyone in the house. Other times she would hurl endless insults and curses at her husband, language which was previously unknown in the home Randy shared with Aunt Marion and Uncle Marty. During her dramas, Sharon seemed to be determined to show how outrageous she could be, how much she could get away with. Randy remembered the night Sharon begun to punch and kick her husband on the stairs and then Sharon switched tactics and began demanding her husband have sex with her on the stairway. Randy then heard their grunting and wrestling on the stairs with Sharon still swearing and cursing. He could hear Sharon's husband spitting on her and calling her a whore with Sharon laughing and giggling.

Another night Sharon chose to stand in the hallway outside the bedrooms and scream insults into his and Uncle Marty's bedrooms. Sharon screamed that both he and Uncle Martly were sexless morons and that she wanted them both to have girlfriends and described,in very salty language, how she expected to hear them having sex with women when she would arrive home from one of her weekend bar hops.

Another dark night Sharon chose to stay downstairs and entertain herself in the dining room by throwing every plate of Aunt Marion's china collection against the wall until she had broken every piece. There were nights when Sharon would become violently ill and crawl to the bathroom. She would scream at Randy to come and hold her hair while she puked, which of course Randy obediently did.

Randy remembered talking with Uncle Marty about Sharon's behavior. Uncle Marty, who was rapidly growing frail with his health failing, seemed to be reluctant to do anything about Sharon, worrying about who else he could have come in to take care of him and the household. He would tell Randy, "It's just the alcohol, she'll get over it."
Most of the time Uncle Marty would just refuse to talk about the subject. No one in the household would ever mention Sharon's violent behavior. Sharon claimed never to remember the night before, yet Randy would over hear her bragging about her behavior to one of her sisters on the phone. Sharon apparently not only remembered her drunks, but enjoyed them and used them to terrorize the household as her way to let everyone know she was boss. It was as if the happy house he had shared with Aunt Marion and Uncle Marty had disappeared, replaced by this nightmare world ruled by Sharon.

Then Randy remembered the night he finally decided to confront Sharon. The night Sharon had been particularly crude to Uncle Marty, as if she could have been any more crude and on that particular night Sharon's drama had gone on even longer than usual. His heart racing, Randy put on his jeans and a shirt, left his bedroom and confronted Sharon, telling her to have some respect for the other members of the household and for herself. He remembered Sharon standing in front of him, pausing for a second as if in disbelief. Then she let go at Randy, without saying a word, suddenly kicking him again and again, knocking Randy to the hardwood floor and kicking him until Randy was pushed up against the wall. Then Sharon began screaming, calling Randy worthless, a fairy, a fruit, a faggot. All Randy could do was form a ball on the floor and drape his arms around his ribcage as Sharon seemed to concentrate her kicks to that area. Finally, Sharon's husband walked over and casually said in a disinterested tone of voice, "I think that's enough", and the attack stopped.

The next morning Randy got breakfast for Sharon's little boy as he usually did after one of Sharon's "nights" while she stayed in bed nursing her hangover. Randy even brought ice water with lemon slices for Sharon when she complained about her "hot pipes". Randy learned it was important to stay out of Sharon's way even when she was not drunk since she would interpret any assertiveness as a threat to her authority though there were areas in which Randy would refuse to give in to Sharon. Randy for instance, insisted on his privacy when Sharon wanted to be able to see him naked, be it in the shower or in his bedroom. Often Randy would find solace in listening to Aunt Marion's record collection, that brought back comforting memories as a small child when Aunt Marion would play those recordings for him and the other times in his childhood when he would fall asleep listening to the radio in his bedroom that Aunt Marion had switched on to keep him company. Then one day Randy arrived home from high school to find that Sharon had the record collection carried away in the trash pickup; she complained that she was tired of listening to all the "noise".

These ugly memories of Sharon were memories that Randy had restricted to a closed area way back in his mind. The accusations thrown at Randy in the past few days had jarred these bitter memories into vivid recollection. Yet these were memories Randy would never tell anyone.

********

"Randy, you're fading out on me," said Beef, his hand grasping Randy's leg just above the knee and shaking it. "Just a quick chitchat about whatever you can tell me. While we're driving back to the city. Then it's all over and we got it all out of the way. Is that cool or what?"
Beef shook Randy's leg again.
Randy smiled a feeble little smile and began to speak. "From the beginning?" asked Randy.
"The beginning." Replied Beef.
"It's boring."
"Start boring me."
Randy heaved a large sigh and began. He recounted how he was raised by Marion and Marty Hardwicke who he called his Aunt and Uncle though they were not really related to him. His real mother was a woman called Estelle, who had been a housekeeper for the Hardwickes. Estelle was only eighteen at the time when she became pregnant. The Hardwickes were supportive of Estelle during her pregnancy, assuring her she had a place to stay and paid her medical expenses. Estelle would not reveal who the father was and Randy still did not know who his father was. A few weeks after Randy was born Estelle disappeared, leaving Randy behind with the Hardwickes. Marion Hardwicke raised Randy as her own child and Randy even thought that the Hardwickes were his real parents until they informed him otherwise just before he turned teenage. Marion and Marty thought it would be best if Randy referred to them as his aunt and uncle. Marion was convinced that Randy's real mother would someday return for Randy so she thought it would be best that Randy not refer to them as his parents.

Randy bore no ill feelings about his real mother, Estelle. From what he was able to learn about her over the years is that Estelle was a free spirit, or sort of child of the 1970s. Randy was her first child, but she had other children afterward with different fathers, so that Randy had half brothers and sisters around the country. And true to form, Estelle had abandoned all her other children. Randy had accidentally ran into her a couple of times when he was a teenager and that was the limit to his contact with his real mother.

The Hardwickes were already getting up in years and Aunt Marion's health began to fail as Randy neared high school age. Then during his first year in high school, Aunt Marion passed away. Randy and Uncle Marty lived alone for almost a year until Marty's niece Sharon moved in with her common law husband, their small child and her husband's teenage son from a previous marriage. Sharon had visited the house several times before moving in, wanting to move into the Hardwicke home even before Aunt Marion had died.

The arrangement with Sharon and uncle Marty lasted for a couple years until Uncle Marty also fell ill and passed away. Randy then shared the house with Sharon and her brood until Uncle Marty's sister, who was executor of the Hardwicke estate, had Randy move in with her and the Hardwicke house was sold to close the estate. Randy lived for a short time with Aunt Pamela and then after high school, moved out on his own, eventually making it to San Francisco.

"Okay, that's all fine and dandy," commented Beef," But where do you think they're trying to throw these molestation charges in?"
"Well, there's Rocky," started Randy. "Rocky is Sharon's stepson or whatever. He's from her husband's first marriage. Rocky is a year or two younger than I am and since we were around the same age, Sharon decided we should spend a lot of time together. There were nights when the two of us were in the house together and we would start to horse around."
"What exactly do you mean by horsing around?" queried Beef.
Randy sighed again.
"You know, we would just wrestle. Then it got to the point where we would pull each other's clothes off, the loser would be the one who got buck naked first. Then sometimes we would jack each other off."
"That's it…that's all you did?" asked Beef.
Randy, clearly uncomfortable, continued. "That's all we did. We were just kids, it was just raging hormones. We didn't even know what to do, it was just fumbling around."
"No penetration or oral…" asked Beef.
"No!" replied Randy, clearly irritated. "Nothing like that at all."
"Did you ever hold Rocky down…you know, when you were wrestling. That might be interpreted as forcing yourself on him."
"No. Rocky was a big jock in high school and he might have been younger than me, but he was bigger than I was. When he we wrestled, he always pinned me."
"Did you initiate the horsing around?"
"Sometimes. Sometimes Rocky would start it."
"This business about the other kids," continued Beef, "Where do you think that's coming from?"
Randy's shoulders sank as he stared down at the floor mat.
"When Sharon moved in with us, her sisters used to drop their kids off at the house and Sharon would have me baby-sit for them. That used to happen a lot. During summer vacation I would be baby-sitting a lot of the time. Sharon and her sisters used to drop off the kids and head off somewhere. I later found out that they were spending the day at a bar on the other side of town. They had boyfriends there I guess. One of Sharon's sisters…one of her daughters was fathered by a guy she was messing around with at the bar. Her husband doesn't know about it."
Randy shrugged his shoulders.
"I didn't do anything to any of the kids I was watching. I mean, what's sexy about kids? They were a lot of work and when you're in high school the last thing you want to do is spend a lot of time with a bunch of little kids. I took care of all those kids for Sharon and her sisters because I had to, but I really did not enjoy it. The kids liked me but probably because I would spend time with them. If Sharon's sisters had to spend any length of time with their kids they'd get nervous and start beating the crap out of them."

"So the whole thing about the little kids is pretty bogus, right?" stated Beef.
"Exactly." Answered Randy, sounding somewhat exasperated. Beef squeezed Randy's leg just above the knee reassuringly
"That's all I need to know. I'm on your side. What you need to do now is to try to relax and let me work on this for you."
For the rest of the trip into the city, Randy seemed less tense but still sat quietly in his seat, staring out through the window. Since Randy's vacation had ended prematurely anyway, Beef told him to take the rest of the day off. However, he told Randy to meet him at the office the next morning, Randy would need to go with Beef to visit with Berry Starr, the lawyer who would be representing Randy.

************

The next morning the weather could not decide if it wanted to be bright and hazy or foggy and gray, so it tried to do both. Beef picked up Randy at his apartment and they headed south to the Menlo Park/Palo Alto area where Berry and Bobbi owned a cottage somewhere near Stanford University. On the drive down, Beef treated Randy to breakfast from a drive-thru restaurant and they ate on the way as they drove down highway 101. Randy seemed in slightly better spirits after a nights sleep, but still rather flat and non responsive. Beef was concerned. It was as if someone had pulled the plug on his usually animated assistant.

Traffic wasn't any problem this particular morning and they made good time on the freeway. Soon Beef pulled up to the familiar house on a street with lots of shady trees. The sun was shining here and it was warm enough for Beef t leave his jacket in the car. Beef paused a second to let the slower walking Randy to catch up with him. The house had a 1930s bungalow look to it and Beef rang the doorbell next to the heavy wooden front door.

"You might say I'm dressed for sex-cess!"

The door swung open to reveal an older woman neither Beef nor Randy recognized. The woman stared at Beef and a slightly pregnant paused ensued.
"Hi, Beef Matson. Randy and I are here to meet with Berry," Beef announced.
Beef noticed that Randy had quietly moved directly behind him, as if to place Beef between him and this strange woman. The woman had a narrow, gaunt face with sunken eyes. She appeared to be perhaps in her sixties, yet she was dressed in clothes for a woman forty years younger, a tight fitting blouse and in particular, a minidress. Beef found himself staring down at the minidress and the woman's legs which clearly were not meant to be in a minidress. Beef began thinking of Bette Davis in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane".

The woman caught Beef's amazed glance and began rubbing the palms of her hands on her dress.
"You like this? I saw this on Ally McBeal and knew I just had to have a dress just like it."
The woman attempted a seductive grin and spoke again.
"You might say I'm dressed for sex-cess!"
Beef looked behind him and gave a perplexed look to Randy, who returned a perplexed look of his own. Beef gave his best smile to the woman and spoke again.
"Ummm…Is Berry around? We have an appointment with Berry for this morning," reminded Beef.
"Oh my yes!" responded the woman. "I'm delighted that my daughter has some male visitors; finally she's gone over to the other side of the fence and pursuing a normal sexual life. And with such handsome men as well!"
"I have a business appointment…" persisted Beef.
"Business?" inquired the woman, "What sort of business are you in?"
"I'm a detective. A private detective."
"A detective!" marveled the woman. "Arrest me!"
The woman attempted a pose of a seductress, leaning against the doorway, though she slipped and grabbed onto the door to steady herself.
Beef thought, "Oooo boy!" and felt Randy tightly grabbing onto his jeans belt loops for security.

Just then a familiar face of Berry Starr poked around the corner, observing the situation for a second and then Berry walked into the entry.
"Mother…?" she queried.
Berry's mother struck an authoritative pose and announced, "Your dates are here, dear."
"No mother," Berry heaved an irritated sigh, "A business appointment. Hi Beef, Hi Randy, come on in. This is my mother. Bobbi tells me you've already chatted with mother on the phone, Beef."
Beef and Randy exchanged greetings with Berry's mother who looked cheerful though somewhat perplexed. Hearing the chatter, Berry's other half Bobbi emerged from the back of the house and the group exchanged some initial chatter until Berry led Beef and Randy to her office. Berry's home office was in a sunroom at the front of the house. The office was roomy with a big old wooden desk, overstuffed chairs, bookcases and lots of hanging plants. Three sides of the room were windows which looked out on the street and allowed a hazy sunlight to flow in. Berry offered two overstuffed chairs that faced her desk to Beef and Randy and before sitting at her desk she clicked on an electric heater to take a chill out of the room.

"You'll have to excuse mother," apologized Berry. "I guess you can say she's rather…ahhh…hetero-centric. She doesn't have that house and home sort of focus and she doesn't understand Bobbi and I. I guess you could say she has her own issues. People tell me take after my stepmom, anyway. She's the one who encouraged me to become a lawyer."
Berry laughed a polite laugh and settled down into the chair behind her desk.

The three chatted about Randy's situation with Randy reluctantly repeating everything he had already told Beef. He told Berry how Sharon, the woman who lived in his house when he was teenager invited him back to Illinois to visit for the Thanksgiving holiday. When he got back to Illinois he was instead immediately served with a summons regarding Woody, a teenager who shared his home with Sharon, that Woody wanted to sue him for molesting him and "ruining his masculinity". Randy recounted how the police also interviewed him as a "person of interest" in possible other child molestation charges. During the course of the interview Randy's emotional energy quickly drained, his responses becoming more flat and robotic as Berry tried to ask more questions. About this time a slate colored cat emerged from beneath Berry's desk and announced itself with a quick meow. Berry looked down at the cat.
"Well hello, Mr. Jingles. So that's where you've been hiding yourself."
Mr. Jingles looked about and promptly jumped into Randy's chair. He stood in Randy's lap for a short bit with his tail held high and then laid down, encouraging Randy to pet him, which Randy began to do. Randy was more responsive to the questioning again while he petted the cat, which purred very loudly. Berry was wrapping up her questioning when a knock at the office door signaled another pleasant interruption.
The door opened revealing Bobbi with a serving cart. Mr. Jingles, showing his cat like independence, leaped off Randy and ran out the door.
"Refreshments!" yelled Bobbi. "You cannot conduct business in a civilized manner without refreshments. Thought you might like some hot coffee since this room is always kind of chilly plus I've brought some little snacks to nosh on."
Berry smiled over at Bobbi.
"Some snacks…?" asked Beef. "Looks incredible…smells incredible. What is all of this?"
"Oh, just some scones and cookies and a little something called…Midnight Bliss cake," replied Bobbi.
The group marveled at Bobbi's culinary skills and she left them as they sipped coffee and gobbled down the treats. The coffee break also helped to alleviate some of Randy's tension, while not upbeat, he was at least a lot less sullen. Berry announced she didn't have any more questions and settled back into her chair munching on a piece of Midnight Bliss cake.
"You know," observed Berry, "Some of our dyke friends accuse us of role playing, with Bobbi staying home and doing the kitchen thing. But I figure, we struggled for years to get where we are now. Ate a lot of macaroni and cheese and cups of noodles just to get by plus Bobbi worked for years in that thankless job as a high school counselor. Bobbi's parents never owned a house and she grew up in apartments and she's always wanted a real house and a yard and now we have that. So if the way we live takes the skin off anyone's nose that's their problem, not ours. Plus she is incredibly skilled in a kitchen. Love what she does in a kitchen. Love her."
Randy looked up from slice of cake he was eating and smiled a timid but affirmative smile at Berry. Beef noticed Randy's expression and was glad to see a bit of the old Randy shining through.

Berry had no more questions for Randy and he volunteered to take the dishes back to the kitchen. Beef and Berry stayed behind to wrap things up.
"What do you think?" asked Beef.
"I think," replied Berry,"That Randy is telling the complete truth and this whole business really doesn't have anything to do with him at all."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning that, well…I hate to use the term right-wing conspiracy but I think that these accusations may merely be a ploy to discredit you. For instance, Randy made the news this morning, the media spin seems to be that Beef Matson, the famous gay detective has a pedophile as an employee. They also showed a video clip of some woman screaming at Randy at the airport. I recognize that woman, Beef. The same woman shows up to protest at gay events, Planned Parenthood clinics and so on. I mean, it's like she's been assigned to do this sort of thing. And this business with this…the guy who brought the complaint against Randy…what's his name…"
Berry looked at her notes.
"Rocky…yes, Rocky. What's up with this dude? He waits all this time to decide that his masculinity has been ruined just because he and some other guy touched each other's winkies when they were teenagers? Give me one very large break here! I know a ton of gay men who are just oozing masculinity. So like ah…what's his problem?"

"You have to admit, Beef…" continued Berry, "That on some of the cases you've worked on for me and some of the cases for your other cases for gay clients, you've dug up things which were fairly embarrassing for some social conservatives."
"Well, maybe just a little bit." Teased Beef.
"Well, a little bit…"Berry stated sarcastically, "Let's say you've probably pissed off the right wing a whole lot. So it's not unlikely that there are a few people of that persuasion that would want to make life difficult for you. Maybe ruin you…?"
"Could be…", replied Beef.
"With that in mind, Mr. Detective," said Berry, "I think we need to be mindful of dirty tricks. I think some of them have already been played. The first one is obviously Randy being invited back to Illinois by his…sorry, but I'm going to be a wee bit judgmental here, trailer park trash relatives or non-relatives or whatever the hell they are. Then, as soon as he gets there, they hit him with a lawsuit and have the police haul him in for questioning. Excuse me, but why does the term 'low life' keep flashing in my mind? There's another ploy that's going on here. When you want to demoralize someone, you hit them at a time which has a special meaning for them. Like when they're just about to leave on a trip, on their birthday or during a holiday so that person ends up being depressed when everyone is happy. Makes your victim hurt more and be more vulnerable. I noticed this in my child custody cases. Accusations of child abuse always seemed to surface right around some time which was special for my client…usually during a holiday. So having these having these accusations about Randy come out right at the start of the Christmas season is so outrageously suspect, it totally boggles my mind."

Berry nervously rapped her fingers on her desk.
"There are other dirty tricks as well. Over the years when I've represented gay clients regarding employment discrimination or child custody cases I've run into a gamut of dirty tricks. I'm not sure what the purpose of it is except pure out and out harassment, maybe the other side thinks they'll to get me or the client to back off. Things like suddenly some strange woman would be trying to pick a fight with me in a supermarket, my car would get all scratched up, air left out of my tires and so on. The same thing would be happening to the clients, sometimes a bit more, graffiti painted on their houses, somebody they've never seen before trying to pick a fight with them in a bar… One lesbian I was representing in a child custody case found one day someone had filled her mailbox with manure. Some of this might be a way to provoke so the other side can say 'Look what horrible people we're dealing with'. So if some strange things start happening, be aware of what might really be going on."

A sudden rattling came from beneath the curtains next to Beef's chair and a cream colored cat suddenly scampered around the desk over to Berry.
"The Lady Astrid honors us with her presence! Where have you been, girlie, haven't seen you around in quite some time."
Berry reached down and petted her cat and the Lady Astrid immediately jumped into her lap, spun around a couple of times until she found a comfortable place, laid down and promptly fell asleep.

Petting the snoozing cat, Berry continued.

"…not since the transmission fell out of my broom in a ride over Redwood City."

"There are other things you have to be aware of, or careful of, as well. Years ago I was representing a lesbian client in a child custody case. The other side seemed to know everything we were doing ahead of time and both the client and myself were clueless as to how this could be. Then one day a straight woman I knew happened to tell me about a woman who told her all kinds of things about my client and myself. It turns out this woman, who'll I'll call Bessie - was a friend of my client and I knew her as well. Bessie's been around in the lesbian community for years and years and years. Plus, if you looked at Bessie, her looks scream butch dyke…middle aged, overweight, flannel shirt, jeans…the whole stereotype thing. It turned out that Bessie also was friends with a number of very right wing religious women, in fact, it turned out she was really quite chummy with her rednecked, right wing mamas. Bessie was so political and so outspoken, she likes to hear own voice, that no one every considered that she would be that tight with the other side. Then we began to notice that the only time Bessie would socialize with my client was when she wanted to pump her for information regarding the litigation. Then we began to realize other things about Bessie, like she wouldn't attend any gay events, she didn't really like being around other gay people; socially she seemed to prefer her rednecked mamas. So, I had another straight friend that Bessie did not know, chat with her just to find out where Bessie was really coming from. From this woman's chitchat with Bessie, we found out that Bessie was a totally different person than who we thought she was. First off, Bessie viewed herself as asexual or non-sexual and she does not identify with lesbians, she thinks lesbians are dirty and disapproves of the whole scene. Worse yet, she hates gay men like a red-necked guy would hate gay men. Primarily, she seems to be into trying to develop very codependent relationships with her right wing lady friends. Specifically, older women."
"Like a mommy thing?" interrupted Beef.
"Very much the mommy thing," continued Berry. "It's like an extreme mommy thing. Bobbi has her degree in psychology and she explained to me that Bessie is probably an acceptance and approval junkie and needs to get her fix through older women authority figures. Though Bessie likes to rant politically about this or that, she'll switch her views 180 degrees if one of her church lady friends tells her to do that. Anyway, we found that Bessie was trying to dig up proof that my client and, the rest of us for that matter, were involved with witchcraft involving satanic child abuse."
"You back into doing that again?" quipped Beef.
Berry rolled her eyes to the top of her head.
"No…not since the transmission fell out of my broom in a ride over Redwood City."
"Did you confront this Bessie?" asked Beef.
"No. Since I knew we had a mole in our midst, I thought it might be a good idea to put her to use…for our side. We began to give her all kinds of bizarre misinformation which she apparently took back to her rednecked friends. When we got to court, the other side began producing all this obviously ridiculous information…well, long story short. We won."

"Still socializing with Bessie?" "No, she seemed to have lost all interest with her lesbian friends right after my client's trial. No surprise there. I imagine now that I'm representing Randy, that if her church lady friends want her to, she may just suddenly decide she wants to associate with the 'dirty' lesbians again, of course, she may want to know a lot about what's going on with Randy." "Hmmm." Beef shook his head. "An interesting footnote to this is a rumor I heard about Bessie and the church lady who was her 'handler'. The story is that Bessie got to be quite smitten with this older woman and one day Bessie decided to hide out in the woman's home and then join her unexpectedly while the woman was taking a shower." "Must have been quite the religious experience for the church lady," observed Beef. "Probably more like 'Psycho' with a butch dyke twist," smiled Berry with a pert smile. "I hear the church lady promptly got a restraining order against Bessie, though Bessie is still in good graces with her church lady buddies." "Politics makes for some strange bed…" started Beef. "Indeed…" concluded Berry.

Bessie

Berry paused for a second or two and then continued. "I'm worried about Randy…he's taking this very hard. It was almost like it wasn't him in the office this morning. He's always so upbeat; this morning he was just so flat, so out of it."
"Yes, I'm concerned too," said Beef. "Randy's a pretty good guy. He's the most positive, nicest person I know. The only good thing I think that might come out of this is that Randy will finally cut off contact with those idiot people in Illinois. They don't deserve him, they are clueless as to what a gem Randy is. I'll keep a close eye on Randy. Randy likes Christmas, I'll try to get him occupied with that and maybe the holiday celebrations will insulate him against some of this."
Berry smiled.
"My real mother has never been into the parenting thing, but one good thing she did was give me my name. Mother liked to give her kids interesting names and she named me Berenice. I used to hate the name until one day I found out what it meant. It means 'Bringer of Victory'. Good name for a lawyer, don' cha think?"
Beef smiled and nodded.
"You know, I really try to put myself on the line for my gay clients," said Berry with an assuring expression." I approach my cases with a practical and pragmatic approach knowing full well what my clients are going through. I lost whatever fuzzy, sentimental idealism I had years ago. I remember on my very first job there was this woman who told me that the men at work were giving her a really hard time and as a result, she was a having a difficult time finishing her projects. So I decided to help her out in addition to my own work load. Well, she was very happy with me at first, then I found she was spending a lot of time hanging with the guys who were supposedly giving her a hard time. Then she started getting into me about meeting her deadlines and I started noticing that she was absent a lot of the time. Apparently, she liked to party and would show up late and leave early. She would leave me notes that she needed this and that by such and such a time and then she would take off. I found out later she liked to go to concerts and she thought nothing of dumping her work on me so she could go to one. I decided I did not like that at all plus my own work load was beginning to suffer. So I told her she needed to take responsibility for her own work. Then things got really bad - you know, no good deed goes unpunished. This woman got pretty belligerent and told me I had this obligation to help her and that I had made her dependent on me. She also wanted me to somehow get men in the office she was interested in, interested in her. It got to be so silly, it got beyond amusing. She'd throw her work down on my desk and scream at me that she wanted it finished."
"She played you…" added Beef.
"She played me up and down, backwards, forwards and sideways," sighed Berry.
"This woman refused to do her assignments unless I did most of the work for her and I simply didn't have the time to do both her work and mine. Bobbi explained to me that the woman probably had a personality of a narcissistic manipulative sociopath but that didn't comfort me much, I just wanted away from her. The whole thing ended up going to personnel. This other woman claimed that I had come on to her which was just so totally not true. Anyway, it turned out that the company was bleeding money and they decided that the best way to solve a lot of problems was to lay off everybody in the department. The other woman had a new job in a week's time. However, I could not get another job. Knowing how companies operate and share information, I was probably identified as a predatory lesbian. I tried making it on whatever temporary job-from-hell I could find and Bobbi supported us on her high school counselor salary. It was a very long journey, but I finally ended up with the small gay law firm I'm with now. I know that if you're gay, getting and keeping a job is not a piece of cake. Some of the clients I've represented in employment discrimination cases tell me tales of pure horror. So I'm very motivated about defending gay…"

Suddenly, the door knob on Berry's office door began to shake violently and the door quickly swung open. It was Berry's mother. The Lady Astrid awoke and looked up at the figure in the doorway and quickly jumped out of Berry's lap onto the floor, raced around the desk and stopped once under the chair Beef sat in. The cat peered out from behind Beef's ankle. Berry's mother jerked her head back and forth scanning the room and her gaze stopped on Beef.
"So," Berry's mother observed, "this is where you hide your boyfriends."
"Mother…", sighed Berry as she hung her head and stared down at her desk. "Beef and I are finishing up our business meeting."
"Beef…?" asked her mother.
"Mother," restated Berry, "I introduced you earlier to Beef."
Berry's mother attempted one of her sensual poses. "Yes, I know him. He's the one with the fabulous classic car collection. We were quite the couple a few years back!"
Berry's mouth opened for a few seconds without any words coming out.
"Mother, Beef and I need to wrap up some business now. Why don't you see if Bobbi will put on that CD for you that you like? You know, that Bette Midler CD?"
"Oh yes, I know," exclaimed her mother, "Bette Midler sings Rosemary's Baby!"
"Mother, that's Bette Midler sings Rosemary Clooney. Could you just leave us for a little while; I'll come chat with you in just a little bit."
Berry's mother smiled and turned around facing the door, but she stopped cold. Her mother stared at the door she had come in, the closet door in the office and the wall. She was totally confused; it was clear she had no recollection of how she came in or where she was. An expression of both realization and horror came over Berry's face.

************

In a office in a church building somewhere in the San Francisco bay area, sat three women. The oldest, a middle aged woman, sat at a desk while the other two women sat in chairs facing her. A young girl dressed in an elegant dress sat in a nearby chair playing with a beautiful doll while she swung her feet dressed in shiny black dress shoes back and forth in the air. The middle aged woman spoke while the other two women quietly listened. The woman looked about the room.
"I admit I might have had my doubts in the beginning, but the reverend has come up with some nice facilities for us. I think I will indeed pass on a complementary note to the powers that be about him. All we shall have this morning is just a short team briefing. First off, on a matter of team discipline, this office has a number of closets, so please do hang your coats in a closet. I do not want to see a coat lying on the back of a chair. Closets, not chairs, are for coats. That looks so terribly unprofessional…I will only remind you once and then consider it a breech of discipline."
The other two women showed little emotion, only slight smiles of agreement. They knew their team leader, Gloria, showed no mercy towards someone who did not follow her rules exactly. There had been a fourth member to their team, a woman who had the audacity to leave her coat on the back of a chair, not only twice, but three times. Gloria promptly had put her back on a plane to Colorado Springs.

Gloria had two file folders on the desk in front of her. One was marked "Beef Matson" and the other "Randy Hardwicke". Gloria placed her thumb inside the Beef Matson folder, lifted up the cover slightly and had one of her fingers flip through the pages inside.
"Our anti-sodomite project is moving very smoothly and if we continue our team effort, it continue to do so. Ultimately, the uppity sodomite Mr. Matson will be discredited through our efforts. The process of reforming Mr. Hardwicke is continuing; he will soon learn that continuing a homosexual lifestyle will only lead to, at best, displeasure. We will show Mr. Hardwicke that unless he begins having relationships with women, that his life will become more and more miserable. In fact, we have a little unpleasant episode lined up for Mr. Hardwicke today."
Gloria leaned forward and added much emotion to her voice. "I think it's so beautiful this process of breaking Mr. Hardwicke down and rebuilding him as a conservative Christian man. Think how wonderful this is…destroying a man completely so he can be rebuilt as a blond, blue-eyed heterosexual male that any Christian woman would be so thankful for. Don't you think this is so beautiful…?"
The other two women quickly nodded in agreement.

************

With two small Safeway bags of groceries grasped firmly in his hands, Randy trotted down the street on his way to his small apartment. Randy was beginning to put the events of the past few days at least a little bit behind him, stopping at the Safeway on his way home from the office to get some groceries with the intention to go home and regain some normalcy by making a nice dinner for himself. Randy was feeling good and his mind was too focused on making dinner to notice the car suddenly pulling up to the curb.
"Hey, fag boy!"
Randy turned to look behind him, a hulking young man was rapidly approaching him from a car full of youths. A door and windows of the car were open and a vibrating bass beat of hip-hop pounded from the car. There wasn't any time for Randy to respond, he stood, arms at his side, holding a white plastic grocery bag in each hand.
"Try staying away from the little boys, faggot!"
The youth stopped inches away from Randy and lifted up his arm as it to strike a blow. Randy flinched. Instead, the young man had a balloon filled with water. The youth flung the balloon at the side of Randy's head, it burst and flooded Randy's eyes and face with water and raced down the front of his clothes. The youths in the car screamed their pleasure. Randy shook his head to get the water out of his eyes, still gripping his grocery bags. Randy moved one of his feet to maintain his balance but since the pavement was now wet around his feet, his foot started to slide. The youth then slammed another water balloon into Randy's face and Randy lost control over his balance, falling to the ground. He instinctively let go of one of the grocery bags stretching out his hand to break his fall. He struck the sidewalk hard, the pavement stinging his hand. A young woman pushed her body out of the rear car window.
"Yeah, yeah!," she yelled, stretching out her arms with her hands placed in fists.
The young man stood above Randy, grinning. Randy placed himself in a fetal position, closing his eyes and wrapping his arms around his waist to protect his ribs, expecting the worst. Instead, the young man ran back to the car, laughing. With the entire group in the car laughing, screaming and giving each other high fives, the car sped off, leaving a scent of burnt rubber in the air.

Randy sat up, sitting in a puddle of water on the sidewalk. One of the white Safeway plastic grocery bags had split open and some of the contents lie on the sidewalk. Randy began to carefully place the contents back into the bag. The sidewalk was busy with pedestrians, but people just stood around staring at Randy, no one offered to help him. Suddenly, a voice spoke to him.
"Take my hand, dear. Let me help you up."
Randy looked up into the face of an frail, elderly black woman. She had her skinny arm stretched out to him. Fearing that he would probably pull her down on top of him, Randy politely refused the offer.
"No…no. I can get up. I'm O.K."
Randy quickly tied a knot in the torn grocery bag and stood up with the elderly lady standing beside him in an effort to steady him.
"Precious," she addressed Randy in a sympathetic voice, "Don't pay those kids no mind. Just no manners. They're gonna get themselves in a world of trouble before they learn any better."
Randy just nodded to the woman in agreement. All he wanted to do now was just get home. The woman spoke again.
"I used to have to put up with a lot stuff like this when I was younger. I remember my fourteenth birthday when my mother had bought me a beautiful white party dress. I was walking home from the store in my dress with some things for my birthday party when some kids jumped out of a car and threw green paint all over me and my dress. They thought they were being so funny when they ruined my beautiful dress. My mother would have choked them all if she'd got her hands on them."
Randy nodded and smiled a sad smile. The woman inquired if he had far to go to get home and Randy assured her that he didn't. With his clothes soaked, Randy began the chilly walk back to his small apartment. The little dinner for himself that he intended to be a new start would now be a melancholy event.

Chapter Three - Tangled Family Webs

Beef enters the lobby of the Harvey Milk Professional Building. (Click on the image above to see it animated.)

It was an early, damp and somewhat foggy morning. Entering the building his office was located in, Beef strolled past the small metal sign identifying the building as Harvey Milk Professional Building and he climbed the short flight of stairs which led up to the lobby with quick, lively steps. The lobby was deserted and the stores on the main floor were shuttered. This time of the morning the lobby had a stern silence, which on this morning was broken slightly by music softly coming from one of the shops. Beef knew the song, it was one that Randy had pointed out to him at the Cozy Cup. The song echoing down the hallway was "The Theme From Mr. Lucky" by Henry Mancini. The song gave the old lobby a 1950s flair and made the old building seem lively even though Beef was the only soul walking through the lobby. The was minimal lighting n the lobby this time of the day added only slightly by light coming in from outside and the night lighting that was left on in the shops. The bright red electric sign above the entrance to the Ruby Slipper restaurant was never turned off and it glimmered on the shiny, waxed terrazzo lobby floor. A sweet smell wafted through the lobby, over the usual smell of floor wax and institutional cleaner smell. Beef remembered. Tony, the owner of Just Desserts, the bakery in the building, had told him he was going to start offering donuts in the mornings, to give Krispy Kreme a run for their money, as it were. Business was slow and Tony thought he try to bring in some more income by targeting the morning commuters. Beef thought momentarily about stopping in to get some donuts for the office then decided against it, Tony and his staff might just be a bit stressed from getting ready for their first morning of a public offering of pastry. Beef would send Randy down later for donuts. The music seemed to be coming from Just Desserts and Beef could hear pans banging and loud talking coming from the store, apparently Tony and his gang were pretty busy.

As Beef continued his walk down the hallway, his athletic shoes barely made a sound on the floor as he quietly made his way unnoticed through the building. Though the detective seemed not to be aware of it, his proud strut and well fitting jeans displayed his hard butt very nicely, to the point observers would point out how well Beef's tush presented itself. Indeed, Beef's almost traditional costume of polo shirt, jeans, waist jacket and athletic shoes filled out by his athletic body, turned quite a few heads.

Suddenly, Beef made a hard right turn and opened an inconspicuous door which lead to a flight of stairs. He made his way up the drafty stairwell and opened the door to the second floor where his office was located. The second floor hallway was sedate, a wooden floor with a runner of fairly new dark blue carpeting down the middle. Beef stopped at the door to his office, a big wooden door with a fogged glass window with black lettering on it which said, "Beef Matson Private Investigations". Beef fumbled in his jeans pocket for a second and pulled out his keys. As he pushed opened the door, he notice a folded piece of paper lying on the floor. Beef picked up the paper and immediately identified it as a flyer from the buildings tenant association. The flyer was about the annual tenants holiday party and holiday season planning session, where the tenants would get together and try to think up ways to increase business traffic during the holidays. Beef tended to think of these meetings as a waste of his time, something that Randy would be more suited for; he would put the flyer on Randy's desk. Randy went to the meeting last year and seemed to enjoy it and even brought back a client referral for Beef.

Reading further, Beef noticed that the meeting would be held at Steve's Ruby Slipper, at least Randy would get a free meal out of the event. Beef thumbed through the list of tenants at the bottom of the flyer, wondering if any new tenants had come into the building. The tenants list read:

The Harvey Milk Professional Building Tenants Association

The Ruby Slipper Restaurant and Lounge
Love To Rub You Massage
Tony's Just Desserts, A Custom Bakery
Tic and Tac's Vintage Clothing for Modern Divas
Minerva's Aromas, Potions and Magick
Once Forgotten Vintage Furnishings and Goods (A second-hand department store)
And Toto Too, Pet Supplies
The Secret Garden, Florists
Carl and Jake's Hair Razin, A Barber Shop
Beef Matson Private Investigations
Dobratz's Investment Services
Gunderson's Photography And Talent Agency

Still the same tenants, Beef observed. Beef chuckled to himself recalling how Randy would report to him the nicknames some of the businesses had acquired. For intstance, Tic and Tac's Vintage clothing was run by two petite lesbians, one Asian and one African American, who were both life and business partners. Beef had no idea how they had acquired the names Tic and Tac. Their shop dealt in upscale vintage women's' clothing with Tic and Tac often traveling to Los Angeles bringing back costumes from motion picture studios for resale in their shop. The shop had a Hollywood studio wardrobe department look to it. Randy reported that the nickname for Tic and Tac's store was "Drag Queens Are Us".

Beef placed the flyer on Randy's desk in the dark outer office. It was obvious that Randy had not made it to work yet. Usually Randy would be in the office when Beef arrived, the door would be unlocked, the lights would be on and Randy would have turned up the heat so the office suite would be bright and warm. It was clear that Randy was still not his old self. As Beef opened the door to his office and switched on the light he turned back to look at Randy's empty desk. He would keep a close eye on Randy.

Randy hustled down the street just outside the Harvey Milk building. After having a hard time falling asleep and a fitful night's sleep, he had overslept. With a Bay Area Reporter that he had picked up from a newspaper box tucked under his arm, Randy hurried to the building entrance. As he turned to enter the building, a middle aged woman walking down the sidewalk suddenly altered her path and stopped directly in front of Randy, who lurched to a stop.
"Oh," the woman raised one of her hands to coyly play with her hair, "I'm looking for Little Orphan Andy's, am I going in the right direction?"
Randy noticed that the woman was standing way too close for a stranger, her big floppy briefcase-like purse banged against his thigh.
"Little Orphan Andy's? That would be in the direction you just came from," replied Randy, puzzled.
"Oh really?" responded the woman as if she were reciting a line from a play, "I just get so confused sometimes. You know what? What I really need to know is the direction to Cliff's Variety."
The woman smiled a sort of silly smile.
"Oh, you mean the Gay Home Depot," Randy said with a confused expression, "That would be on Castro street. But I'm not really sure if they would be open this time of the morning."
"Of course, of course. That's just fine, I just need to get my act together, don't I? You've been such a great help. Thank you so very much."
The woman reached her arm which was holding her purse around to Randy's back and patted him furiously. Randy looked at the woman curiously.
"Thank you so very much!", the woman repeated again, patting Randy on the back and then rubbing her hand rapidly in a circular motion. The woman then abruptly turned and quickly walked down the street, a devilish grin on her face. Randy shook his head and wondered to himself what had been going on with the woman. Randy turned again to enter the building. On his back was a paper that the woman had stuck to his jacket. Large lettering on the paper yelled out, "Pedophile".

There were a few people in the lobby of the Milk building as Randy walked optimistically through the lobby. As Randy passed them the other people stopped in their tracks and stared at the sign on his back. Tony from the Bakery happened to be in the lobby, hurriedly walking back to his shop. He stopped momentarily and exchanged friendly greetings with Randy. Then as Randy continued his journey to Beef's office, Tony's eyebrows arched in astonishment as he saw the paper sign on the detective's assistant's back. Before Tony could respond, Randy had disappeared through the doorway to the stairway, the sound of his rapid footsteps echoing and becoming fainter.

Randy entered the office suite. The door to Beef's office was open and he was standing next to his desk with a cup of coffee in his hand. He called out a greeting to Randy.
"Hey, big guy! How you doing?"
Randy scurried around the outer office turning on lamps and his computer.
"Sorry about being late," he apologized, "I had a late start this morning."
"No need to be sorry about anything," replied Beef as he walked into the outer office, "It's good to see you being late at least once in a while, I was beginning to think you were maybe you're too perfect." Beef suddenly spied the sign on Randy's back as his assistant bent over his desk adjusting some papers.
"Hold on a second there, fella. I think you've got a big piece of lint on your jacket." Beef quickly removed the paper from Randy's back and discretely held it behind his back.
"What was that?" asked Randy.
"Oh, some big gnarly piece of lint," lied Beef. "Did you happen to brush up against someone on the way here this morning?"
"Well, there was this goofy woman right in front of the building this morning. She asked me directions and then patted me on the back as if she was trying to burp me. That's probably were the lint came from."
What did this woman look like?" asked Beef.
"I don't know," replied Randy, "Just some middle aged woman, I've never seen her before, probably a tourist. You really are the detective. You've got to have descriptions of everybody. The 'Case of the Misplaced Lint'." Randy turned and smiled at Beef. Beef smiled back at Randy and put his hand lightly on his assistant's shoulder and squeezed it lightly.
"Yeah, you're right, I just can't stop playing detective."
At that moment there were a couple quick, sharp knocks at the heavy front door and it opened, revealing Tony from the bakery. He was holding a large box of donuts in his arms.
"Just thought I'd bring up a complimentary box of my donuts for you guys," announced Tony.
"Awesome!" exclaimed Beef, flashing a charming smile.
"Cool!" added Randy.
Tony placed the box of donuts on Randy's desk and opened the box. A vanilla-like scent filled the office.
"Wow," said Randy, "There's enough here for to treat the entire floor. Geez Tony, you're such an angel!"
As Randy decided on which donut to choose, Tony turned to Beef.
"Since I brought up the donuts," he queried, "Could ask you some business questions? In private?"
"Certainly", replied Beef, "Ply me with donuts and will more than happy to grant you a private audience."
Beef put his arm around Tony's shoulders and began to lead him into the detective's office.
"Hold my calls Randy, Mr. Stefano and I shall be in private conference."
Randy smiled as Beef pulled the much shorter Tony close to him, clowning as the two walked into Beef's office. As Beef closed the door, Tony's expression became very serious.
"Did you see that sign on Randy's back this morning?" he asked.
"Yes," answered Beef. "He doesn't know that it was there, I got it off his jacket before he noticed it. I suspect some woman put it on him just as Randy entered the building. He said some woman asked him for directions and then patted him on the back. That's probably when it happened."
"Thank God", sighed Tony, "I'd hate to think of him walking any kind of distance with something like that on his back. Who could be that hateful to do that?"
"Some idiot", Beef bit his bottom lip.
"I've seen those child abuse accusations about Randy on T.V." added Tony, "That's not Randy at all. Anyone who knows Randy would know that. I'm so glad you got to that sign before Randy saw it. By the time I saw the sign on his back, Randy was already running up the stairs. I was afraid that he would bad shape once he saw the sign so I brought up the donuts to cheer him up. It's enough that Randy is probably hearing all this stuff about himself on the media and then to have somebody pull a vicious stunt like this."
"Damn stupid people…" Beef mumbled as he placed the sign in one of his desk drawers. "Thanks Tony." Beef gave Tony a big bear hug.
Beef and Tony then had a conversation about notifying the other tenants of the building to keep an eye on Randy especially anyone appeared to be inquiring about Randy or stalking him.

After they had finished their conversation, Beef escorted Tony back to the hallway and staying in the outer office, he then turned his attention to Randy. The blond administrative assistant appeared to be busy bringing the office back to life and doing all the things administrative assistants do. Beef sat on the corner of Randy's desk and picked out donut from the box on the desk. The detective diplomatically began to carefully suggest that since Randy's case seemed to be in the media spotlight this might attract some unwanted attention from some right wing crazies and so Randy should be on his guard to watch for anybody acting strange or maybe following him.
"I'm not trying to make you paranoid, big guy," said Beef, "Just keep an eye open and make sure you let me know if you think there's any funny business going on. I need to know this."
Randy nodded.
"Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary so far?"
Randy shook his head no and focused his attention completely on his computer screen, as if he did not want to hear Beef. Beef looked intently at Randy's face and asked again.
"You sure you haven't noticed anything?"
Randy sighed and averted bringing his glance in Beef's direction, he stared down at his desk. He told Beef about getting hit with the water balloons the evening before.
"Randy!" exclaimed Beef, "That's exactly the sort of thing I mean. You've got to tell me about stuff like that. Don't keep anything to yourself, especially something as outrageous as that."
Randy sat sullen, not moving.
"Hey!" Beef put his hand under Randy's chin and brought his assistant's face up so he could look into his eyes. "Promise me you will let me know about everything that happens from now on, no matter how insignificant it might seem to you."
Randy, looking up at his boss, nodded meekly. Beef then had Randy tell him everything he could remember about the water balloon incident, descriptions of the youth, their car and so on, while Beef made notes. Telling Beef about the incident seemed to lift Randy's spirits, taking a load off his mind as it were. The assistant was in a cheery mood for the rest of the morning, even taking the box of donuts to share with the other offices on the floor. Beef decided that in an attempt to maintain Randy's positive attitude he would take his assistant out for lunch, to Randy's favorite restaurant, the Cozy Cup.

Beef decided to take an early lunch and he and Randy left the building about 11:30. The weather continued to be chilly and gray and the two men march down the sidewalk with their hands in their pockets, a brisk wind pulling at their jackets. The two entered the Cozy Cup a few minutes later, their faces rosy red from the chilly wind. Having made it to the restaurant just before the noon rush the men were seated immediately and service was quick. Customers who knew Randy went out of their way to greet Randy and show affection for him. To Beef, it was obvious that everyone had seen the news reports about the accusations of child molestation regarding Randy and it was equally obvious none of Randy's friends believed the charges.

It was a typical crowd for the Cozy Cup, pleasantly noisy with chatter and the jukebox which the faithful fed with coins. As the restaurant became busier Blanche and the other servers hustled to and fro bringing lunch to the diners. "The Stripper" by David Rose began to play on the jukebox and Banche began to perform an impromptu comic striptease. As Blanche slowly gyrated the crowd giggled and applauded. As Blanche began to slide her blouse off her shoulder, the crowd giggled more and began