Chapter 6 – Chapter 6

"Yes, Paul, is there? . . . you know we really shouldn't be seeing each other until this blows over. You don't really need to be here today. Everyone would understand."

"I think I do need to be here today and that we should get some things established right now," Paul Worth said, as he pulled the shade down over the window in the door to the office of Fifth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals justice Jim Peters and turned the lock. He undid and threw to the side his tie and started unbuttoning his shirt as he walked across the carpeted floor toward where Peters sat behind his vast mahogany desk. Peters watched the younger man, Justice Alba's law clerk, with bugged-out eyes. There was a deep rumble in his throat.

"I want to do it with you in your judicial robe and nothing else," Paul said in a low, hoarse voice.

Ten minutes later, just in his black judge's robe, Jim Peters was hunched down in his padded executive chair, his legs, sheathed only in his knee-high black silk stockings held up with garters, draped over the arms of his chair. He was panting heavily and moaning, as, crouched over the chair, just in his open white shirt and knee-high socks with garters, Paul Worth was gripping the arms of the chairs under the bent knees of Justice Peters and straining his pelvis forward. His cock, encased by the condom he'd walked into the office wearing, knowing what his objective was, was inside Peter's anal passage and moving deep and slow.

"Yes, yes, oh god yes," Peters croaked before Worth dipped his face down, took Peters' mouth with his, and moved into a punishing, possessive kiss.

They held there afterward after both had ejaculated.

"This is dangerous. We really shouldn't—" Peters murmured.

"But then you never could resist me, could you? Do you want me to do it again?" Worth said, his voice mocking and perhaps with an edge of hysteria to it.

"Yes, oh, yes."

"And then, later, you can fuck me."

"Yes, yes."

"We need to settle on something first then, Jim. I did you a big favor—a huge favor. And now I'm at loose ends. I need something from you to continue protecting you."

"What? What do you need?"

"I need a job, and I don't wish to take anything lower than what I have now—law clerk to a federal appellate judge."

"But all of us have law clerks already. . . maybe when Alba is replaced."

"That's not soon enough or good enough, Jim. The best way for you to keep me happy and quiet is if I am your law clerk. I can give you all of the loyalty and servicing that I gave Luca."

"But I have a law clerk already. Cary Ulster."

"And I'm sure there will be some way to create a vacancy in that position."

"I think you need to be very careful on how far you push me, Paul," Peters responded, leaving the two of them staring hard at each other, belying the position they were in, Worth still crouched over Peters in the chair, his cock going flaccid, but buried up in Peters' passage and Peters' arms and legs stretched out in supplication, clearly being dominated.

Rising from the chair, retrieving his clothes, and dressing, Worth said, "We need to discuss this further. Dinner at your house? I'll bring carryout. I'll have it warming in your oven for whenever you can make it home. Then it will be your turn."

Paul had locked the door to the justice's reception area, but he had neglected to lock the side door into the office of Peters' law clerk. Cary Ulster, young, tall and willowy, cute, and red-haired, had nearly walked in on the men having sex on Peter's chair—nearly. He'd heard the sounds of passion and had just cracked the door open enough to see what was happening. He also heard what the two were hatching on getting rid of him so that Paul could be Peters' law clerk.

"Note to self," he murmured, "bring it out into the open and have it out with him tonight." This was a man he had sex with too. He didn't appreciate the competition on that level any more than he did having his job put into jeopardy.

* * * *

At the same time, across the French Quarter, in Mike Kavanagh's hotel room, the coroner's office tech, Manny Lopez, being held captive by Kavanagh, was riding the detective's cock far more freely. He was captive in that his wrists were handcuffed behind his back as Kavanagh lay on his back on the bed and, hands on Kavanagh's sternum and facing toward his feet, the young Hispanic man moved up and down and revolved on Kavanagh's shaft. Manny's vocal responses were muted by the ball gag in his mouth as a precaution against calls to the hotel desk from hotel rooms up and down the corridor.

It wasn't Manny's idea to be bound; it admittedly was a preference by Kavanagh in maximizing his pleasure, which needed a boost in this circumstance not because Manny wasn't sexy and good at taking the fuck but because he wasn't Kavanagh's preferred type. Manny obviously didn't give a fuck how Kavanagh screwed him, however—just as long as he did.

All Manny cared about was what was happening now. All Kavanagh cared about was what he might learn afterward. Yes, Mike felt a bit guilty about this. It didn't stop him from doing it, though, which, when he thought about it, didn't make him much "holier than thou" than Captain Monroe and New Orleans City Hall. He was from the NYPD, though, so this gave him only a short pause to give play to any feelings of guilt.

Grabbing Manny's waist, Kavanagh took command, slamming the young Hispanic's channel vigorously up and down on the staff, while Manny writhed, gasped, and cried out the pain-pleasure of his rough taking through his ball gag. Manny ejaculated, but Kavanagh held off, repositioning the young man's body so that Kavanagh was sitting on the end of the bed, with Manny impaled on his dick and in his lap, facing away from him, legs streaming around and behind Kavanagh's hips, Manny's handcuffed wrists wedged behind Kavanagh's neck and his torso tautly bowed back, while Kavanagh pulled his channel on and off the cock to his first and Manny's second spouting of seed.

Twenty minutes later, the two of them stretched out against each other, Manny no longer handcuffed or gagged and each fisting and stroking the cock of the other, Kavanagh murmured, "If you want, there's time, I think for another—"

"Yes, please," the Hispanic medical technician pleaded.

"There's something you could help me with . . ." Kavanagh whispered.

"What? Anything."

"The disemboweled bodies of two young men went through the morgue recently."

"Parin and Brandon, yes. I remember them."

"And my unit's research clerk just this morning."

"Yes. He was on the table when I returned from the judge's apartment this morning."

"That was Brent. He was supposed to bring up the address for me where Steve Parin lived—in the Garden District, I think. It would make everything faster for me, and I'd show my gratitude, if someone could look in the records in your office for that address. No privacy issues involved. The guy is dead."

"Sure, no problem. As soon as I get back to work."

"Which won't be for a little while yet," Kavanagh said, as he rolled over on top of the young Hispanic, and Manny cried out at the painful angle Kavanagh imprisoned the young man's arms up his back and power with which he thrust his cock inside Manny's ass to—in gratitude for Manny's help with the address—resume the fucking.

When Kavanagh made it back to his desk it was to find that there had been three hang-up calls into his landline work telephone. He didn't have time to wonder what those were about—he was just a consultant and that was mainly used as a tip line; his colleagues called him on a cell phone—when the phone rang again.

A muffled voice said, "Can you put me in contact with someone working on the Justice Alba death?"

"Yes, that would be me, Detective Mike Kavanagh. Who is this?"

"It doesn't matter who this is. Just a heads up. Alba's death wasn't an accident. Look into the past. You might want to search Jim Peters' house."

And that was that. The caller disconnected.

"Jim Peters?" Kavanagh said out loud. "Where have I heard that name before? Oh, yes, I think . . ." He reached for the documents Monroe had sent him on the dirt dug up on Luca Alba. He'd remembered rightly. The name of the current appellate court judge and Alba's law clerk earlier for which there were rumors of a sexual relationship was . . . Jim Peters.

While digesting this, he received Manny Lopez' phone call giving him Steve Parin's address—or, as he'd previously been told, the address of the mystery man working in the Herbert Federal Building who Steve Parin lived with in the Garden District. The address was on Magazine Street, in another one of those large apartments in a refurbished old mansion in an exclusive residential area. Using a reverse telephone and address directory the police department found essential, he discovered the name of the actual owner of that address. No surprise. It was Jim Peters.

Kavanagh experienced a twinge of guilt and regret on what he'd done to get Lopez to give him information, but he needed to start somewhere in cracking this case. He did have a rule about hooking up with a work colleague, but if he worked hard at rationalizing it, he probably could convince himself that the coroner's office wasn't really the same as the police department. He couldn't lie to himself. He knew if he had an opportunity to nail Manny again, he would do so, even though Manny wasn't his favorite type. And the way Manny was purring after the second time Kavanagh had spiked him, the detective was quite sure Manny would be game for it.

The problem was that Kavanagh did like variety from time to time and he had to get his rocks off with a young man at least daily or he was a grouch. Nobody liked him when he was a grouch, so it was a favor to everyone around him when he laid someone daily. He was going for two today, he thought, as he considered his plans to nail that sweet waiter, Kyle, at the Dauphine Street coffee house tonight.

It was getting dark and he was hungry and feeling overwhelmed with easy help. When Marco and Felix returned, having spent hours canvassing those assigned to the Herbert Federal Building and working regularly on the streets surrounding it but not having come up with much that would help their investigation into the clown-face serial murders, Kavanagh sighed and rose from his desk. As he put on his suit coat, he called out, "Just a possibility, but you might check out if you can find connections between any of the victims and an appellate court justice by the name of Jim Peters, or whoever is listed as his law clerk—or anyone on Justice Alba's staff."

He knew he should follow up on the tip about Peters' place, but the information was thin and suspicious—just a bit too pat. Maybe Marco and Felix could come up with something that would justify a search warrant. He didn't have much doubt what the warrant could say they were looking for. Since the caller seemed to be so much in the know of what happened to Alba, they'd be looking for a pillow with blood and cosmetic stains and the scent of death on it. One certainly hadn't been found in Alba's apartment.

"You getting somewhere on your case, good buddy, or ours?" Marco asked, jovially enough, considering how long he and Felix had been pounding the pavement and pursuing thin air.

"Maybe both," Kavanagh said, as he headed for the door.

"You aren't holding out on us, are you?" Felix added.

"Nope," Kavanagh answered as he hit the door. "At least not any more than your system here is holding out on me," he muttered as he got out into the stair hall, where they couldn't hear him. He liked Marco and Felix. It was Monroe's idea to keep his investigation close to his chest, not his.

Getting out on the street, he had to wade his way through drunken and weaving festival revelers making the most of the last day of the All Fools' Day festival as he tried to get to the steakhouse he'd been dreaming about for hours. God, he'd be glad when tomorrow came and the street festival would be finished. With luck, he thought, this insidious clown-face serial killing would end with the end of this festival as well. But it was a double-edged sword. If the serial killings stopped, it would be that much harder to find the killer.

Finding it harder to try to move against the flow of the revelers, he turned and headed east, across the French Quarter, on Dauphine and then down the Esplanade to Frenchmen Street. At the corner of Charles and Frenchmen, a golden boy with spiked red hair accosted Kavanagh.

"Hello, gorgeous," the glittering sprite said. "Why no costume or are you a plumber going as a businessman tonight? You look like a good sport and a real bruiser. We could have good sport together. I'm in the mood for a rough fuck. No charge."

Kavanagh was sorely tested, even though the willowy red-headed young man, body covered with gold glitter, wasn't precisely his type. He even gave the young man's crotch a feel and let the man cup his package as well. The golden one whistled, with a comment on how big and ready Kavanagh was—and indeed the detective was half hard from the view of all the luscious bared man flesh he'd waded through in the French Quarter. But Kavanagh had gotten release earlier today by fucking Manny Lopez, and, although his libido said he was good to go again, his needs weren't immediate. Besides, he was saving himself for the cute waiter, Kyle, for later.

"Sorry, on the job," he muttered, as he let his suit coat open so that the young sprite could see the badge attached to his belt. The effect was immediate; the golden sprite disappeared back into the crowd, and Kavanagh, somewhat regretfully, as the offer had been a tempting one, continued onto Frenchmen's Street.

The nightclubs here were in full swing as well and he was slowed down by encountering an overabundance of men to his liking, many of them indicating liking of him as well, but eventually he made it to the brothel, where he wanted to see if Madame Zena had reappeared yet. She hadn't, and this time Sam 1 was a bit worried and asked if Kavanagh would ask for some discreet help at the police department to locate her. Kavanagh said he could, accepting a blow job from Sam 1 as just a friendly gesture.

If Kavanagh thought that the relief of a blow job would tamper his libido down after having milled through a street clogged with barely dressed and luscious young men propositioning him, he was mistaken. If he could have afforded it and wasn't saving himself for trying to be at the coffee shop on Dauphine when Kyle closed it up that evening, he would have stayed for a more testing dalliance with one of the Sams, but after zipping up and leaning down and sharing a bit of his cum with Sam 1 in a kiss, he was off again in search of a steakhouse with a free table for one.