Page 3 of Lost Little Boy
I took off as fast as I could to get to the entrance, just as the ambulance turned down the alley, the headlights providing a way for the paramedics to see Mr. Burger and the man on the ground. The police followed, parking up and exiting their car.
“What happened?” The first officer on the scene asked as they approached, both hands on their sidearms. It was enough to scare the hell out of me.
“I-I w-work here.” I pointed to the Liberty Building, freaked out of my mind. I’d never had issues with the police since arriving in Virginia, and I wasn’t looking to have them again.
The other officer removed his hand from the butt of his gun and stepped closer. “It’s okay. Calm down. I’m Officer Kit Lange. This is my partner, Officer Katie Green. We get teased about being Kit and Katie, trust me.”
The policeman had a friendly smile, which put me at ease. “I’m Perry Castle. I work as a janitor on the first and second floors. I was on my way home, and when I came out to dump the trash, I heard something behind the dumpster. When I moved it, well, I thought it was a cat, but I felt down there and figured out it’s a man. I couldn’t see anything, really, because the bulb’s broken. I pointed to the light over the loading dock.
Officer Katie nodded. “Okay, then what?” She had a pad out and was taking notes.
“I tried to turn on my phone flashlight, but it died. I ran to the loading dock and rang the bell for Mr. Burger. He’s the night security guard. He came out to help and then called y’all.”
Officer Katie nodded. “Okay, Mr. Castle. Can you stick around for a bit? Officer Kit will get your information in case we have more questions but let me see what the paramedics have found.”
I nodded, following her at a distance back to the ambulance. Mr. Burger was talking to Officer Katie as I watchedthe paramedics work on the injured man. He was tall, his sock-covered feet hanging off the gurney they put him on.
I heard Mr. Burger say, “I believe it’s Wexler Grassley the third. He lives in New York, but he comes to the Arlington office on occasion. Mr. Grassley, Jr., is planning his retirement next year, and it’s been said that Mr. Grassley the third is taking over as president of the company.”
“Can I get your information, Perry?” I turned to see Officer Kit standing behind me. He’d been taking a lot of pictures on his phone, but now, he was speaking to me.
I gave him my address and phone number, and after they took Mr. Grassley away, Officer Katie looked through my bag and checked my coat before she returned them to me. She said it was a precaution, but I was sure they suspected I could be involved in whatever happened to the man.
Before I left, Officer Kit winked at me. “Be careful getting home. Don’t worry. We know you had nothing to do with this.” That was a relief.
Chapter Two
Wexler Grassley, III
“I’m not getting any younger, Wex. It’s time you started making yourself known around the office, son, and that’s not a suggestion. This will all be yours and Nancy’s when I’m gone, andyouneed to be more hands-on so the employees respect you.” My father’s rant was like a brokenrecord.
I left the DC area when I went to college, and nowhere in my five-, ten-, fifteen-, or fifty-year plan had returning to DC been onmyradar. I worked for the family business, damn near seven days a week. I, at least, wanted my nights to myself.
My father demanded I relocate to DC so he could keep an eye on me, not because he believed I was a business savant who could take Grassley Industries into the stratosphere. It drove him crazy that he didn’t know where I was or what I was doing every minute of every day. I, however, had no desire to live under my father’s thumb at the ripe old age of thirty-five.
One silly arrest for possession of marijuana, twenty-two years ago, had classified me as a delinquent in my father’s eyes. He believed he needed to keep an eye on me so I didn’t stray from the straight and narrow, as he’d dictated since I was fifteen. At that time, he’d forced me to spend my sophomore year of high school at a private boarding school for troubled youth.
The time there had taught me a lot of shit—some of it, heart attack inducing, if the old man ever found out about it. Besides, the pot wasn’t even mine. I was holding it for one of my school friends.
“Dad, I’m not cut out to work in an office like you. You already have someone more than capable of running thecompany in Arlington. Flying out of New York is more convenient for me, and you know it. You moved to New York for that very reason when Granddad ran the company, and you were the vice president of the export division. You only moved back to DC when Granddad got sick and you bitched about flying out of Dulles every time you went out of the country.”
My older sister, Nancy, was the vice president of the exports division of Grassley Industries, an international import-export company that had been founded and run by my grandfather until he died. It was handed down to my father and his brother, Reginald, who passed away a year ago in a scuba diving accident.
I handled the import side of the company, making deals with companies, small businesses, and single artists all around the world to import their goods into the United States to sell their products through many distribution channels. I was fair to the folks I did business with, just as my father had been before me and my grandfather before him. I enjoyed the traveling required to do the job and wasn’t looking for a change anytime soon.
I was a single guy living in Manhattan and enjoying my carefree bachelor days. Who gave a fuck if I didn’t have a plan to settle down and marry the boy next door. The idea of finding the perfect boy next door seemed likea pipe dream I’d probably never consider sharing coffee with, much less a whole life. That was my parents’ reality, not mine.
I wanted someone who would give me a run for my money but would let me love them and care for them as we made a life together. I wasn’t about to settle for anything less than a spirited boy who wanted to enjoy the life I could provide for him. Of course, telling that to my father was like grabbing onto a live wire.
“You’re right, your sister is good at what she does, but, son, she has two children to raise and can’t devote the time it takes to keep the company successful. It’s your time to take over, Wex. This is our family legacy at stake.” I could tell he believed it was his final word on the matter. I disagreed.
“Look, Dad, I’ll be in DC tomorrow for our monthly family dinner as expected. We can fight about this when I get there on Friday evening. I’ll come by the office around five, and we can get a drink, okay?”
We hung up just as the cab arrived at my destination, The Playground. It was a multifloored building housing a huge BDSM club on Little West 12th Street near Washington Street located in a former meatpacking warehouse that was for sale after the kosher meat company that owned it decided to move the operation to Yonkers. My friend,Oscar Leone, used to be a commercial realtor in New York City. When the building went on the market, he snatched it up for a steal and converted it into four distinct kink clubs, one on each floor with a very vanilla bar on half of the street level next to the building lobby. It had something for every kink lover in the tristate area.
Myclub du jour was The Play Pen, a place for Daddies to meet girls and boys, littles and middles. The Play Pen had space for different tastes—video, pinball, board, and foosball games for middles and activity areas for littles featuring dolls of all sorts, coloring books, blocks, stuffies, race car tracks, and a sandbox for excavating toys where treasures were buried.
There were parties and special events nearly every week, but I didn’t attend those often because I was a Daddy without a boy. I went to The Play Pen every third Thursdays because that was the meet-and-greet night. Unattached Daddies and littles took over the place to meet, and hopefully, find their compatible other half, or even just enjoy some fun to test the waters with a partner.
