"Strange?" I asked.
"I can't quite place it. It's something in his spirit."
"Spirit? Geez, Babs, you been reading those New Age books, again?"
"I'm a fucking spiritual person, Stephen! Don't make fun of mybelief system! And stop calling me Babs."
"I'm sorry! I was just kidding."
"This is serious. I'm afraid he's going to get into trouble orsomething. I can sense these things."
"You want me to talk to him? See if I can help him out?"
"Would you?" I could see her anger melt. "It would mean a lot tome if you did."
"My pleasure," I said, blowing her a kiss. "Anything for you, babe."
In the rush to get out of my apartment, I must have grabbed a box of Greg's stuff by accident.
I almost never watched T.V., and had no reason to tape anything, so I figured it had to be his. He was always sitting in front of the boob tube, watching some old movie.
I looked though the box, mostly skeches of nude bodies. I found an old Enya CD, some Polaroids of Greg and Drew, an "I'm not gay, but my boyfriend is" t-shirt that was mildewed, and some dirty magazines.
I kept the magazines, took the Enya CD to give to Barbra and threwthe t-shirt in the garbage with the sketches.
Then I put the tape in the VCR.
From the positioning of the camera, it was difficult to make out thefaces of the two guys screwing on the videotape.
The lighting wasn't very good. Adequate enough to get an eyeful of what was going on, a lt of dick and bobbing ass, but no face.
Unil one of them turned around.
I ran the tape back and forth a few times, until I thought I recognized the face.
It was Eric Lewis.
Since I wasn't going to be asking Greg anytime soon about whathe'd been doing with the tape, I decided to file it away for laterreference.
A man can't have enough aces.
Not if he wants to win the game.
