Hidden Identity

Chapter 1

Chapter 1He saw the punch coming and in the time it took to have his nose smashed, Jimmy McSwain had three thoughts. The first was that this wasn’t the first hit to the face he’d ever taken, and the second confirmed it wouldn’t be the last. But it was the third thought that was the most important, because as much as he was going to take this hit, it was also going to be the last one his opponent would get in.

Jimmy McSwain always had a few tricks up his sleeve.

And he was remorseless when it came to payback. That’s the code he lived his life by.

Thoughts ended. Then came the thud.

As much as he braced himself for the impact, the actual moment when hard flesh met soft cartilage shook him to his core, stars lighting before his eyes. Still, he’d moved at the last minute and the blow wasn’t a direct hit. Still, he went wobbly in the knees. But his recovery was fast, his fist remaining strong, closed…primed. When the expected second punch came his way, he quickly raised his left arm, his thick forearm taking the brunt of the eager assault. What followed was his own thrust of coiled fist, and when it connected with the guy’s face, he heard an awful splat and felt the spray of blood hit his face, and then he watched as the guy went down without further fight.

“Told you, you don’t want to mess with me,” Jimmy said.

“f*****g faggot,” the guy replied with anger.

“Yeah, look who’s talking.”

His opponent was down for the count, lying in the filthy alley, his fancy suit disheveled, and just not from the fight. The guy had been busy inside, seeking s****l favor in a downstairs room. Maybe that’s why the single punch had taken him out so quickly, he was exhausted from other physical exertions. Thin streams of blood dripped from his nose, staining his white shirt, the pale smooth skin of his exposed, flabby chest. Jimmy had noticed him from the moment he’d entered the bar, sliding his tie off like a businessman on the prowl for some after-hours activity.

Yet it was barely five-thirty in the afternoon on a late-winter’s day. Happy hour had now taken a decidedly bad turn for Richard S. Hickney.

Dick, was how his wife referred to him.

Jimmy was amused by the double-entendre.

“Who sent you?”

“Who do you think?”

The man hesitated, wiping blood from his nostrils. “Sissy.”

Again, Jimmy was amused by the double-entendre. And he was right, he’d followed him here, he’d confronted him, he’d chased after him. The fight ensued.

“Actually, even if you’re right, I can’t reveal my client’s name. Code of honor.”

“Honor, who believes such idiocy. f*****g-A, who else would have me trailed? Not like I come home with lipstick on my collar.”

“Not unless you were into drag queens, and from what I’ve seen inside this dive, you’re not. Just a quickie downstairs with a guy wearing lots of leather. A dark lit room, shadows covering up your imperfections, combine that with a few shots of booze, sets a nice mood down there, eh?”

“You don’t know s**t,” Richard S. Hickney said.

“Sure, I do. Been coming to this place for years, but of course I stay strictly upstairs.”

“You’re a private investigator, and you’re gay?”

Jimmy nodded, smiling a row of white teeth where one of the front bottom ones grew slightly askew. “Here they just call me a private d**k,” he replied, “unlike yours.”

Amusement was not on the guy’s playlist today. “So what are you going to do?”

“Not hit you again, if that’s what you’re asking. And I would advise you to follow my lead.”

Jimmy then held out his hand, offering to help the man up. He was easily forty years old, with middle-aged flab at the waist, and normally, without all that blood, he might be considered to have a nice face. Not his type, Jimmy didn’t go for the closeted Jersey husband who worked in Manhattan and played after closing time with whatever boy-toy he found before returning to an unsuspecting wifey and the kids. Probably voted Republican.

Richard accepted the help and was soon on his feet, dusting off the grime of the alley.

“I guess I have some explaining to do,” he said, hanging his head low.

“Looks that way.”

“You’ll be reporting back, too, I assume?”

“I would like to get paid. That’s how it works.”

“How much?” Richard asked, his eyes lighting up at the thought of escaping unscathed.

“Sorry, don’t even try it,” Jimmy said, pulling out his wallet to show off his official PI license. “This means I’m legit, but even if it didn’t, my conscience dictates my actions and so I don’t do bribes and I don’t sucker punch my clients.”

“Just their cuckolding husbands?”

“You said it. When provoked, yes.”

“You tell Sissy this will probably end our marriage and ruin my life.”

Jimmy nodded. “Or maybe you’ll find it liberating. Nothing worse than being in the closet. It’s the one place you can’t hide from yourself.”

Richard S. Hickney straightened himself as much as he could while standing in the back alley of a notorious West Village gay bar, his handkerchief smeared red. He looked defeated, as though he’d gone ten rounds instead of one. He had nothing further to say, so he grabbed hold of the door they’d come through a few minutes earlier and disappeared in the swirling lights and music that thrummed against thick walls. He would wash up, grab his coat, slink back home. What else was there for him to do?

Jimmy waited in the falling light of dusk for a few minutes, using the time to text Sissy Hickney. Just saying he had a bit of news, full report and photographs tomorrow. His cell phone buzzed back moments later, the yellow smiley face upside down. The Hickney’s lives would change tonight, but in this city, where lived so many lives, where played out so many dramas, it was inevitable and perhaps necessary for d**k and for Sissy. That’s how the world moved, you either played by the rules or you got caught.

Jimmy was about to step back inside the bar and grab a beer.

Slings & Arrows, as it was named, had a pretty good selection of tap beers. He figured the one hard punch had earned him two beers, and then he’d see how the night went. It was just Monday, a fresh week, and clearly Richard S. Hickney had needed a quick fix after a weekend of constraining suburbia. But what about Jimmy McSwain, a creature of Manhattan, who knew its alleys and lived life by his own code, his own unfulfilled desires, what waited for him tonight?

His phone buzzed again, this time a call, not a text.

So much for those beers, so much for a night of uncertainty. He knew just what to expect from this call.

“Yeah, Ma, hi,” he said.

“Dinner’s in an hour, your sisters are coming. Mallory needs to talk to you.”

Monday, her dark night, Ma liked to cook and have her three children at the table.

Family meant everything to Maggie McSwain, and Jimmy was not one to turn her down.

* * * *

Tenth Avenue, 48th Street, it had been the address of the McSwain family for nearly thirty years, Joseph and Margaret McSwain having moved in after the birth of their third child, finally getting out from the crowded apartment of Maggie’s aging, demanding mother. Sure, it was only a block and a half away, but at least it was theirs, a place for the NYPD beat cop and his Broadway usher wife to raise two girls and one boy, the boy the middle child.

Jimmy returned to his home neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen, having taken the Number 1 train from Sheridan Square to 50th and Broadway. Night had finally claimed this early March night, the air cool but not as bad as it had been during a harsh, snowy February. A light wind ruffled the shock of brown hair that he wore longer than his mother liked, but hell, he was twenty-nine, and didn’t he get to make those decisions now? Didn’t stop her from commenting, didn’t stop him from enjoying a long distance relationship with his barber.

Once the six-foot Jimmy got to his front stoop, he took out his key and slid it into the first lock, gaining entry into a tight vestibule of metal mailboxes and discarded flyers. Rite-Aid was having a big sale on feminine hygiene products. He didn’t need them, and he certainly hoped the mood was positive enough inside the McSwain house with his mother and two sisters that he wouldn’t need to run out for them. Heineken twelve packs were going for $9.99. Maybe he’d run out anyway.

He pushed through the second door and hustled up the four flights of stairs. Having lived here for as long as he could remember, Jimmy was undaunted by the number of steps and used them as a form of exercise. It’s why he was in good shape, possessing tight abs, and strong legs. Those legs got him there in no time and soon he was walking into the apartment, smelling steaks sizzle on the stove.

“Hey, Ma.”

Maggie McSwain poked her head out from the kitchen. “You’re late.”

“Subway was slow.”

“Hmm, your usual excuse. Where’d you stop?”

“Ma, I was on a case,” he said.

“You picked up your phone, means you’re not on a case. Where’d you stop?”

She knew him so well. He’d actually gone back into Slings & Arrows for one brew.

“Never mind,” he said, opening up the fridge to extract a bottle of Heineken. His mother must have used that flyer already, stopping at the Rite-Aid on 8th Avenue that was not far from the theatre she worked at. He popped the top and took a long pull.

“You forget something?” Maggie asked.

Of course he had. Jimmy leaned over and planted a peck on her cheek.

“You’re hurt.”

“I’m fine.”

“You always say that.”

“I’m breathing. Walking.”

“In that case, you need a shave, and your hair is too long.”

“Ma, I had a case. How I look doesn’t matter. You on the other hand look great.”

She waved off his attempt at sucking up. “My day off, I mostly sat. I walk those stairs enough, eight shows a week,” she said, “Speaking of, you need a little pocket money, I got two shows for you, Wednesday night and Friday night.”

“I’m late both shows?”

“You think my staff takes off on early shifts?”

Maggie McSwain worked as the head usher, what the old-timers called the Chief, at the Harold Calloway Theatre on West 47th Street between Broadway and 8th, her job to make sure she had full front-of-the house staffing for the show. The job had all sorts of crazy rules, at least to an outsider, but for Jimmy who had heard nothing his entire life but coded phrases like early shift and late shift, in between shows, and double-shift, he was practically a veteran on the aisles.

“Mom, I told you, Jimmy’s going to be working elsewhere.”

Jimmy spun around to see his sister Mallory who had just come from the bathroom. She had short dark hair and today wore a stylish green suit that highlighted her chocolate-brown eyes. At least she’d taken off her pumps in an effort to relax. But as much as he loved looking at his successful sister’s fancy clothes, he was more intrigued by her comment. Mallory worked for a high-powered law firm on Madison Avenue and as a result had taken an apartment on the east side. She was the only one of them to get out of the neighborhood. Having just wrapped up the Hickney case, work sounded good, especially if it was coming from her firm. It wasn’t the first time and they paid well.

“What do you got for me?”

Jimmy felt the light smack of his mother’s hand against his head. “This isn’t a business meeting, at least say hello to your sister first.”

“Ow, Ma…hey, Mallory,” he said, kissing her, too, on the cheek.

Mallory rubbed her cheek. “Ma’s right, you need a shave. My gig is professional.”

He had really given shaving a thought and he guess he’d missed the last few days and the thick dark stubble had reached its scratchy stage. He waved off her comment, drank down his beer, and was told to sit at the table. He did as instructed, taking his usual seat on one side, Mallory sitting in her usual spot, too, opposite him. A lone chair accompanied hers, and when Maggie saw it empty she rolled her eyes and called out.

“Meaghan, dinner!”

No response and another minute went by with still an empty chair.

“I’ll get her,” Jimmy said.

“She’s probably wearing those headphone things, can’t hear a damn thing.”

Jimmy went down the hallway and knocked on the second door to the right. Again, there was no response and so he just turned the knob and opened it. Meaghan, all of twenty-two, was lying on her bed, talking on her phone.

“Jessie said you left the floor early,” she said.

A pause while the lone redhead in the family smacked gum.

“I’m not telling Ma, she hates this petty crap. Hey, not my fault Jessie was late getting back. You don’t leave the floor…wait…oh, hey, Jimmy.”

“Dinner’s ready, Ma’s calling you.”

“Gotta go,” Meaghan said and flipped her phone off.

Soon the McSwain family was seated around the table, the four of them in the same seats they’d sat in all their lives. The girls on one side, the lone boy on the other. Maggie at one head of the table, the other head empty, just as it had been for more than half of Jimmy’s life. They no longer kept a place setting, but Joseph McSwain, Jr’s, beer mug still sat there as clean as if he’d just taken it out of the dishwasher himself.

Holding hands, they said grace. Then they dug into a hearty meal of steak and potatoes.

“So, Mallory, what do you have for me?”

Maggie didn’t look pleased they were discussing business, but she sat and chewed and stared ahead at the empty chair opposite her. Like she was commiserating with the man who should be there.

“Missing person, actually.”

“Oh, cool,” Meaghan said. “Runaway wife? Angry child? Paternity issue?”

Meaghan watched too much Jerry Springer and Maury Povich in the afternoons. She had too much free time during the days since she worked her nights and weekends alongside her mother at the theatre.

“Ignore her,” Jimmy said.

“Story of my life.”

“Meaghan, let your sister talk.”

Peace restored, Jimmy continued. “What else can you tell me?”

“Actually, one of the senior partners wants to discuss it with you,” she said.

“Why me?” Jimmy asked, skeptical now that it involved someone rich.

Rich people liked to hire the poor to help them navigate dirtier worlds.

“Because I recommended you,” she said.

“Let me guess,” Jimmy said, “whoever is missing, he also happens to be gay.”

Mallory sipped her wine, but she nodded.

“Look at that, Jimmy, you’ve got good gaydar,” Maggie said.

She had no problem with Jimmy’s s****l orientation and she was always trying to fit in.

“No, Ma, that’s not what that phrase means…” Meaghan said. “Gaydar is, like, when you try and guess if someone’s gay or not. Like Chad at the theatre…”

“Oh, he’s just a nice boy,” she said.

The three McSwain siblings laughed and Maggie waved off their nonsense.

“So, Jim, anything you can do about that bruise on your nose before morning?”

“Guess I can cover it with L’Oréal,” he dead-paned.

They talked more as they ate, a congenial family who clearly enjoyed sharing meals and time together. Maggie would have it no other way. “So, who’s going to want dessert?” Maggie asked, her chair scraping against the floor.

Jimmy was already thinking about a bigger dessert, a huge payday from a hot-for-s**t law firm. “So, where should I meet you, and when?”

“Tomorrow, noon. You’ll have lunch with Mr. Rothschild and his wife, they want to discuss their son with you.”

“Why me?”

“Let’s just say you two have something in common.”

Jimmy nodded. He was guessing the Rothschilds son was gay. As though like knows like and a straight PI wouldn’t be able to help.

Mallory continued. “Eighty-second and 5th. Wear a tie.”

“Anything else?” Jimmy asked.

Maggie whistled as she set down an angel-food cake in front of them. “Jimmy, you dress nice and professional and don’t forget to shave. You want the job, dress like it.”

Sometimes she made Jimmy feel like he was ten-years-old. But if that was the case, he would be able to glance at the end of the table and see his ruddy-faced father downing a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer while saying, “Saints alone, leave the poor boy to himself, Maggie, you’re gonna turn him into some nancy-boy if you keep that up.” But Joey was gone and so he listened to his mother and how about that, a nancy-boy was what he was anyway.

“Yes, Ma.”

“Jim, why not wear one of those nice suits Remy gave you,” Meaghan said.

Silence fell over the table until Jimmy slammed his fork down. His brown eyes darkened further as he stared daggers at his annoying sister. Leave it to mother Maggie McSwain to come to the rescue, she who knew just how to steer the conversation away from unpleasant topics.

“This job Mallory’s got for you, Jimmy, I think it’s what they would call paydar.”