Traced Down

I boozed and cruised in the Cormorant Beach Club bar in St. Croix's Pelican Cove for four nights before he showed up. I didn't mind all that much. I was on an expense account, and two of the nights when it got close to bar lights out and he hadn't shown, I took the best-looking of the guys who were still hitting on me back to my room at the club, which also was a hotel, and let them hump me. Those paying my bills knew I went under men—that's why they'd sent me down here to the U.S. Virgin Islands. There was no reason they needed to know how often I would do so down here waiting and hoping on Sheffield.

We'd gotten the tip from more than one that he'd been seen hiding out here down in the Caribbean, seen at a gay bar both times. Coming down here and flashing his photo around produced the suggestion that the Cormorant Beach Club was the most likely place he'd show, although I'd been told he'd been seen at Freddie's Cave over in Frederiksted, on the island's west coast, where most of the gay life congregated, as well. So, I'd been moving back and forth between these two bars. I was surprised that he was still using the Sheffield name and just changing his given name from Kevin to Ken.

On the fifth evening, I was sitting with two guys, a blond bodybuilder from Boston and real honey of a black island native, when I saw him come in at last. I recognized him right off. He was bulked up in the chest and trimmed own in the waist a bit from his Chicago photos, well tanned, and his hair—auburn shot with gray, somewhat prematurely for his late forties age—was long, so he was going native down here to fit in. But he hadn't done all that much to change his look.

He looked as good as the two guys I was sitting at a table with and who were putting the make on me.

"I don't know, guys," I said. "Let me think about it." I fished a couple of twenties out of my wallet and dropped them on the table so they wouldn't think I'd just been stringing them along for free drinks and gave them a small smile with a "let me think about it" look and left them at the table. They'd been talking a double, and although I'd done that before, I didn't admit that to them. I didn't say "no," though, so, on another night, when I wasn't working, then maybe. As soon as Sheffield came into the place and leaned into the bar, I was on the clock.

I went to the bar and stood near him, but not right on top of him, leaving some space between us, hoping that the space wouldn't be filled until he'd noticed me, and I was in luck. I didn't have any fear that he'd be interested if and when he noticed me—I'd been briefed on what had been his favorite guys in Chicago—short and trim, dark haired and hazel eyed, with a ready smile—a dancer. I'd danced the pole while going through college, so I knew I was his type—flexible, limber, yielding.

I took a cigarette out and felt around for a match. He took the bait and had his lighter out and flaming before I found a light. "Thanks," I said and leaned into him and held his hand in mine while I took the flame. I looked up and gave him a "Yes, you can lay me" smile, and he closed the distance between us.

"What are you drinking?" he asked.

"Whatever the best beer that's going down here in the islands," I said.

"Ah, so you are just visiting," he said as he signaled for the bartender. When he appeared, Sheffield said, "My friend here wants the island's best beer. What say we start him with a Leatherback Reef Life?"

"Definitely a contender," the bartender said and turned to pour one from the tap behind him.

"So, you must not be just visiting," I said.

"Nope. I live here now. My name's Ken Sheffield. And I'm hoping you know what kind of bar this is."

"Tom Burnett," I said, accepting the beer put in front of me. "Yes, that's a good one," I said, after taking a swig. "Thanks for the referral. And, yes, I know what there is to find—and to get hooked up with—in this kind of bar."

"Bottom or top?" Sheffield asked, not wasting any time.

"I like the view from the bottom," I answered, knowing already that he was a top.

"Perfect. Do you dance, Tom? You move like a dancer. You look like a movie star. Did you arrive in St. Croix by taking a wrong turn from somewhere?"

I laughed. "Lots of questions. I'm looking for someplace to write. I'm a writer. Guess I'll have to move on, though, because prices are steep here for accommodations. Yes, I dance, and I'm no movie star, although I've done a turn in modeling."

"I would have guessed that. Pity about not being able to stay longer for your writing, but we'll have to see what we can get done while you're here. Writing's out of my league. I was a businessman. Wrapped it up in favor of the island life. Now I like to dance, drink, do a little cruising, and just be one with the island."

"So, you must have done well in business to have been able to wrap it up and go native so young," I said. It went with the mission for him to think I was a gold digger and did it for the money."

"I cleaned up, yes," he answered.

A businessman, right, I thought bitterly. When he was Kevin Sheffield, he as a conman shyster. Owned a business all right. Pharmaceuticals. Made a fortune on diabetic medicine at jacked-up prices and after a while wanted to increase his profit margin and so he adulterated the drug. People died. After he had absconded, he was found to have been making narcotics for the street as well. People died taking those, as well. In having disappeared ahead of the jailer, he'd become a story. I was an

L.A. Times

reporter, down here to do a "Where is he hiding?" story on him before somebody came to pick him up and drag him back to Chicago.

It was a pity, because he was a real good looker and had a great body and smile. He was a smooth talker too—just what I liked. But I guess that would be what a successful conman would be like—even one who was cold blooded about pushing shit that would kill people and making them pay their life savings to get what killed them rather than being what they thought would keep them alive.

"The band is back. I feel like dancing," Sheffield said. He already had a hand on my butt and I'd left it there. "You gonna dance with me, Tom?"

"Sure," I said. And he led me out onto the floor. He was a good dancer and I showed him that I was a great dancer, which pleased him greatly.

Later, as we were coming off the floor, he leaned into me, snuffling at the hair behind my ear and kissing me on the ear. "You gonna come home with me tonight, Tom?" he whispered in my ear.

"Sure, why not?" I answered.

A successful liftoff to my mission. I just had to be careful not to fall for this coldhearted bastard.

* * * *

God, he was good—and in a lover way. He held me securely in his embrace, my back nestled into his front, a strong arm embracing my chest, his other hand stroking me off, my right leg bent up to my stomach, giving him deep access as he fucked me slow and deep from behind. His lips were buried in the hollow of my neck, kissing me there and whispering how nice I was, what a good fuck I was giving him.

I could hardly believe this was the same Keith Sheffield, calling himself Ken now, who had passed killing drugs off on the unsuspecting sick in the States and waltzed off with these people's life savings.

We weren't just limp-wristed loverboys. We fucked. As we both got closer, Sheffield turned me on my belly. I reached up and grabbed a rung of his headboard with one hand, pushed my pelvis up with my knees, and reached under me with the other hand, grasping myself and stroking. Sheffield mounted me from on top, leaning over me, pressing his palms on my shoulder blades to hold me down, thrust inside me, and rode me high, with a deep bounce, to his ejaculation while I brought myself off almost simultaneously with my hand. Later, after we'd rested a bit and congratulated each other on athleticism and arousal worthiness, I turned him on his back and rode him in a cowboy, turning from facing him and palming his nubs to reversing and clutching his knees while showing him I, indeed, was athletic. I was also more than fifteen years his junior and a lot more flexible and slimmer.

He, on the other hand, was big cocked and as vigorous and virile as I could wish for. I was already regretting that I was here to expose the scumbag in the media.

It wasn't until morning, while he was fixing our breakfast in just an open robe showing his arousing muscularity and humming his pleasure of a job well done, that I had a chance to look around his bungalow. It had been dark when he'd driven me up here in an old Jeep Wrangler, saying he'd return me to the Pelican Cove resort the next day and all I got the impression of was a string of well-distanced low bungalows with tin roofs strung out along a ridge road overlooking some sort of narrow bay cut into the coast not more than a twenty-five-minutes' drive from Pelican Cove. Of course, on St. Croix island, no where was far from anywhere else.

Sheffield was said to have absconded with as much of $100 million in ill-gotten gains, but, if so, he hadn't had time to spend it on his ride or his digs. The Jeep was serviceable and useful on the ridge road in front of the bungalow, and the bungalow, although neatly kept and comfortable, was nothing luxurious. The view from the front screened porch down into what Sheffield had told me was the lush-foliage fjord-like Salt Bay on the northern central coast of St. Croix to the west of Christiansted was the major draw here.

The house was a low-slung concrete-and-shell composition building with a red tin roof. The building was entered from a full-width, deep screened front porch looking down the slope of the ridge, set above the parking pad off the road, into the bay into a full-width room that served as the living and dining room. Beyond that, to the left was a kitchen, open to the living area, with a kitchen island divider. Opposite that to the left was a study. Further back down a center hall were bedrooms on either side with a single bathroom at the end of the center hall. Serviceable and more than adequate for one and fine for two if they were compatible. I highly suspected that the other bungalows along the same ridgetop road were no more substantial than this but had families of seven or eight in them.

I wandered a bit as Sheffield worked on the breakfast. The previous night we'd gone directly from the front porch to his bedroom at the back without turning on any of the lights other than the hall light that already was on when we got there. I went first into the study, admittedly to see if he'd left any incriminating material out on his desk, but he hadn't. There was a family photo there, though—his family from his youth, I was sure. There was a husband and wife, an older son, which I took to be Sheffield, and two younger boys the same age and of identical description. I presumed they were twins. They were a handsome bunch, and I could tell they were Sheffield's family because of the resemblance of him and of his father in the photo.

Coming back into the front room, I looked more closely at what stood out in the bungalow. There were several floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in the room, as well as in the study. On display were detailed scale models of ships and airplanes. It was quite an impressive collection.

Sheffield called me over to the kitchen island and I settled on a barstool there in front of a hearty meal of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee. There must have been four eggs on the plate and I remarked on how big the meal was.

"I figured you'd want to build up your energy," he said, with a grin. He was standing on the other side of the island, in the kitchen area, and he had a plate in front of him heaped as high as mine was.

"So, you weren't disappointed last night?" I asked. "You want to go again."

"You betcha," he answered. "Best lay I've had this week."

"This is quite a place you have here," I said, moving on but glad that I'd made a favorable impression. I needed to. "Quite the view from here. Is it a rental?"

"No, it's mine. It suits me and it suffices."

"Had it long?" I asked. Kevin Sheffield had escaped Chicago not more than five weeks before and his scheme had collapsed suddenly. I wouldn't have thought he'd have had much time to create an escape plan and establish a hideout, but apparently I was wrong. He seems to have been planning his grab-and-go escape for some time. From the news clippings I'd assembled while tracking him down, he appeared to have been leashed to Chicago or Los Angeles or New York for years.

"I'm had it for eleven years now. I retired early and moved down here to hide out from the world."

I just bet you came here to hide out, I thought. What have you done with all the money you bilked out of the sick and dying? "Retired from what?" I asked, interested in what sort of lie he would come up with.

"Look around. Maybe you can guess."

"An interior decorator?" I asked, just to be snotty. There wasn't really anything wrong or tacky about how the place was decorated. It just wasn't done the budget he could afford.

"So, you saw them."

I gave him a quizzical look.

"The models of ships and airplanes. That's what I did—not personally. I owned a company that made these models for high-end collectors."

Well, at least he was very inventive in his answer to that question. Before I could pin him down further, though, he turned the topic of conversation to me.

"So, you say you're a writer," he asked. "What do you write?"

Now it was my turn to prevaricate. If I told him I was a newspaper reporter tracking down a nasty criminal on the lamb I was likely to be buried under the luxurious covering of vines and ferns in his bungalow yard. "I've written a few pen name novels," I answered, "ones that have sold well enough that I have an advance to work on another one. It's set on a Caribbean island like this one, so I'm here for the atmospherics. It's more expensive here than I thought, though. I'm afraid I can only afford to get it started here. I'll have to go back and do other work before I can get the book finished."

"What sort of novels? Mysteries? Thrillers?"

Can't get him spooked, I thought. "I write erotica—male porn. Gay novels."

"Ah, and last night? That will be a chapter in one of your books?"

"Last night could be several chapters," I said. "This breakfast is delicious. You could be a chef." That, I hoped, would end this direction in the discussion, but it did no more than bend it.

This was the delicate part. I needed to be around him more to get the necessary flavoring for my exposé on him. I somehow needed him to invite me to stay here with him for a while. That's why I tried so hard on the sex. I would have come here with him anyway—he was a real hunk—but I needed him to want me to be here for a couple of weeks.

"What sort of work would you have to go back to—and where?"

Here we go, I thought. I looked him straight in the eye. "I live in Los Angeles." That much was true. "I get freelance work editing movie scripts. But I also pick up work as a movie extra and I do some modeling, and . . ."

"And what?" he asked.

"I do some work for an escort agency." It had all been true except for the script editing, but I needed to have something connected with writing to tell him.

He laughed. "For mostly male clients, I'll bet. So, you do more than just write about it." Just as I had meant for him to do, Sheffield had gone right to the rent-boy mention.

"Yes," I answered. He was smiling. It had worked.

"I did wonder. You seem to have all of the moves down."

"I really want to make it as a novelist, though," I said. "That's why I was hoping the advance I got would cover the time I wanted to spend down here."

"A couple of weeks? A month?" he asked.

"A month maybe. I think I can hold out at the resort hotel for ten more days. But maybe I can get some paying action here to extend that."

"For action, I'd be happy to host you here for the month. I have a second bedroom, although maybe you wouldn't be using it much."

Bingo.

"It sounds like a deal," I said. "You're a real stud—probably a whole lot better than business I could drum up down at the resort."

He gave me a dazzling smile. "After we've polished off breakfast, we could drive down to Pelican Cove and get you checked out."

"Right after breakfast, or would you be interested in having an advance on my bed and board bill before we drive down?" I surmised that the way to keep this good thing going was to keep his tongue hanging out and him panting.

"I like the way you think," Sheffield said.

* * * *

He was in deep, taking long, slow strokes. I was close. From his tensing I could feel that he was too. The best way of waking up in the morning. He was covering me close from above, me on my back, legs spread and bent, my heels rubbing against the meat of his calves. His weight was fully on me from on top, between my legs, his arms stretched over my head, his fists grasping the brass rungs of his headboard, and leverage on his knees as he pushed deep inside me, withdrew, and pushed again. I was clutching him with my hands, one on one of his bare buttocks to aid the push and the other at his waist. My cheek was pressed into a circular tattoo on his left breast—the only tattoo I had seen on his body.

"This is it. I'm coming," Ken Sheffield growled. He tensed and held.

"Now, now," I whimpered. I'd already come, between us, lathering our bellies. "Shit!" I cried out as he came, deep inside me but in the bulb of his condom. Then, "Fuck!" as he held me tight and came again. "Fucckkk," at his third spasm.

He ran a hand into my sunny blond curls, arching my head back, and kissed me in the hollow of my throat. His lips moved up to mine and we kissed deeply. Then he laughed and rolled off to the side of me.

"Damn, that was a good one," he groaned.

"Yes, yes, it was," I answered, holding still, wanting to savor it, my left hand going to my cock, grasping it, and my right hand going across my body to touch him on his left nipple centering in the circular tattoo. I sensed him rolling the spent condom off and heard it hit the trash can next to the bed. We held there for half a minute, getting our breathing under control, before he half turned from me, opened the nightstand drawer, and fumbled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

"Fuck that was good," he repeated. "You are one nice piece of ass."

I took that as a compliment.

He lit up a cigarette, pulled himself up to a half recline against the headboard, and said, "You too? A cig?"

"No, thanks," I answered. "I don't smoke." I had known he was at least a casual smoker. I could smell it on him, although, combined with some sort of musky aftershave he wore, it gave him a masculine, "come on" scent.

I reached over and took his cock in my hand. I was surprised; he was still half hard. We could go again, if he wanted to. He was a virile man for his age. But he was in tip-top shape for his age too—more an outdoor work and exercise man than one who had been juggling corporate boardrooms. But then, I guess they had good bodybuilder gyms in Chicago for the corporate crowd.

I was about to ask him if he'd like to go on his back and have me ride his cock when we heard the shout and the banging on his door from inside the front porch. It was a boy's voice and it sounded frantic.

"Mr. Sheffield. Ken. You home? Come quick if you can. Papa's fallen off the roof and I think he's hurt bad."

"Shit!" Sheffield exclaimed, rolling out of the bed and stubbing his cigarette out in a tin ashtray on the nightstand while he reached for his shorts. "That's Sebastian Williams. I tried to tell his father not to work alone in patching his roof. He should have waited for me."

He padded down the hall but was only gone for a half minute before coming back, punching buttons into his cellphone and saying, "Could you put some coffee on and maybe throw together a breakfast sandwich. I need fuel, and I think this will take a while. And bring it up the road—to the left, two houses. Thanks, bud." And then he was gone.