On Sunday, after a leisurely brunch at Plum, Toby, without much hope, tried the Internet again. He was delighted to find that this time he could connect. Once on, he spent a couple of hours showing Sam how to open the browser and how to use the search engines.

"Can we get into that place Martin used?"

Toby showed him how to get there, but before they could search for Martin they had to sign up, create a profile and give the site a credit-card number. "I think," Toby said, "we'd better just make someone up. If Martin is still using the site, we don't want him to come across us by accident."

"You can do that?"

"Sam, the first, and maybe the most important, thing you have to learn about the Internet is that a great deal of it is not what it seems. Especially people, but other stuff, too. These sites don't know who you are, so you can be anyone you want."

"Then, how do you know what to trust?"

"Instinct mostly. And experience and caution. For example, you never give out any personal information unless you're sure just who is going to get to look at it."

They ended up profiling a rather drab man and gave him the screen name Sucks. They figured that very few of the guys on the site would have much interest in a bland guy called Sucks. For the picture they just put "Later." Then they could begin to explore.

Their first search-for Martin-turned up about fifty hits, so they tried his whole name, Martin Shields. Nothing. They tried his screen name-WhatUWant-but still found nothing.

"Well, that tells us something," Toby said, quitting the search.

"It does?"

"Sure. He's taken himself off the site. Would he do that just because he's decided to commit suicide? I don't think so. A guy with suicide on his mind probably wouldn't think about that, or, if he did, he'd probably leave the information and pictures alone, as a reminder that he was once alive."

"You mean like a kind of memorial to himself?"

"Exactly."

"Son of a bitch."

The next day Sam called Officer Andy again. This time he was in, and Sam asked him to have a drink with him-and Toby. Andy said he couldn't make it until Thursday.

"Well, then, it'll just have to wait until Thursday."

"You sound anxious about this, Sam. I could probably break away earlier if it's urgent."

"No. It can wait until Thursday. Tell you what, how about meeting us at Spencer's, at the bar? Around six? You have time for dinner?"

"Sure, as long as you're paying. I live on a cop's salary, remember?"

Sam laughed. "Of course, I'm paying. After all, you're doing me a favor."

"Well, I don't know about that, Sam, but whatever you say. I'll see you guys then."

The next night was another Prime Timers dinner, this time in the Terrace Room at the Hilton. Cocktails were served at the pool bar, and quite a crowd of men was standing by the pool, watching and discussing a couple of very hunky young guys who were showing off for them in the water. It was a very nice show.

"Martini?" Sam asked Toby when they finally got up to the bar.

"I don't think so. This heat calls for gin and tonic. Tall, with lots of ice."

They took their drinks and watched the show in the pool.

"Nice, aren't they?" It was Matthew Stevens, the Coroner's Office supervisor.

"Yeah, but I'm surprised that they're wearing Speedos. Don't most young guys wear those baggy board shorts?"

Matt nodded. "Most guys wear them to hide their maleness. It's called modesty. I call it fear of the erection."

Sam turned to Toby. "How about it, Toby. What's your take on board shorts? You're the right age."

Toby shook his head. "Never wore 'em. I learned pretty quick that Speedos, like honey, attract a lot more flies."

Matt nearly fell in the pool laughing.

Dinner was good but not as good as the dining room at the Hyatt, according to Toby. "We ought to go there some evening, Sam." His eyes twinkled. "We'd get a fifteen percent discount."

"You make the reservation. I'm available any time. As you know."

Toby grinned and leaned close to him. "You're also ready any time." He let his hand brush lightly across Sam's crotch. "Like now. What have you been thinking about?"

"You want to get a room? Find out?"

"No. Go home. The dessert looks terrible. You don't."

They said their goodbyes and went home-to bed.

On Thursday evening, Sam and Toby were waiting in the bar when Andy walked in. He looked around, spotted them and went over. "Hi, men. I was afraid you wouldn't recognize me in clothes." Sam and Toby both laughed, and when Andy realized what he'd said, he laughed, too. "I mean civilian clothes. Not the uniform."

"We'd recognize you the other way, too, Andy," Sam said, finding that he really liked this guy.

"Yeah," Toby added. "Come around after the house is finished, and we'll prove it to you."

Andy blushed, which only served to make them like him more.

They elected to have a drink at the table rather than at the bar. Once Henry had seated them and they had ordered drinks, Andy said, "Well, Sam, what's this all about?"

"It's about Martin Shields, the man who lived in the condo next door to mine."

"Oh yeah, the guy who committed suicide."

"That's the one. Only he wasn't the one."

Andy looked startled. "Huh?"

Toby spoke up. "We think maybe it was someone Martin found on the Internet, someone who looked a lot like him."

Conversation stopped while Henry served their drinks and gave them menus.

"He could find such a guy?"

"Must have," Sam said with a shrug, "because it sure wasn't Martin in that bathtub."

They all sampled their drinks, and Andy looked straight at Sam. "How do you figure that? I mean, I saw the body, and I saw Martin Shields' driver's license picture. Bad as the picture was, it sure looked like it was the same guy."

"Or a look alike," Toby added.

"Look alike? Do you really think he could find some poor bastard who looked like him? Someone to murder, for Gods sake?"

"He had to, because that wasn't Martin in that bathtub. See, Martin wasn't circumcised. The dead guy was."

Andy looked from one to the other of them. "Uh, Sam, can I see you for a moment? Over there?" He indicated the bar.

"That's okay," Toby said with what certainly looked like the beginnings of a grin. "I have to go to the men's room anyway." He got up. "Order for me, will you, Sam? In case..."

"We'll wait for you," Andy said. "Go ahead. This won't take long."

Toby left, and Andy turned to Sam. "Okay, so how do you know this Martin guy wasn't circumcised? Seeing him around that well-known pool? Or in the gym, in the showers, say? Or did you... I mean..."

Sam laughed. "I thought you cop guys were hard-bitten and had seen, done, and asked everything."

"Well, we are, and we have. But, I don't know, you're becoming kind of a friend, and it's hard to ask a friend some of these questions."

"Okay, Andy. I'll spare you the questions. I know Martin was not circumcised, because I had sex with him. Several times. Oral sex. And you know what? It's hard not to notice something like a foreskin when it's in... Well, you get the idea."

Andy nodded towards the hall to the rest rooms. "He know about it? About you and this Martin guy?"

Sam nodded. "There's lots of things Toby doesn't know about me, but only because he hasn't asked or it's never come up in the conversation. Same with me about him. But you know? We-neither one of us-was a virgin when we fell in love. And you know something else? We're also men, so... Some day, given the right circumstances-and the right guy-we might... well, we might branch out once or twice. But only as a couple. As Toby likes to put it, only as a package deal." Sam drank part of his drink. "That's a very long way of saying yes, Toby knows about me and 'this Martin guy.'"

Andy heaved a sigh. "You want to know something? I envy you guys. I envy the way you can talk about sex, I envy the free and easy way you spread it around and think nothing about it. I envy your attitude, and I probably envy the number of times you guys find someone to get you off."

"That's good to know. Thank you for being... well, for being you. Now, if you'll excuse me for a moment, I'll go and see if Toby needs help."

In the men's room, Sam gave Toby a ten-second rundown of his conversation with Andy. After that, dinner was fun, almost like three old friends having a meal together. At the end, over dessert, Andy said, "I haven't any idea where this is going to go, but I'll have a little talk with the lieutenant. I don't know what he's going to say about it, or even if he's going to believe I haven't been smoking something out of the evidence room."

Sam nodded. "Tell him what you need to. Tell him everything."

"I may have to do that. We'll see. And thanks for the dinner. I've wondered what this place was like."

"And?"

"It's good!"

On Saturday morning, just waking up, Sam was slowly rubbing Toby's belly, enjoying the smoothness of the skin and the little forest that ran down to connect with his pubic hair. When Toby quietly groaned and stretched luxuriously, Sam whispered, "You up for some breaking and entering this morning?"

Toby pushed Sam's hand down until it encountered his hardness. "I don't know about the breaking part, but I'm sure up for some entering." He rolled up on his side and patted Sam, so he'd know just what it was that Toby wished to enter.

Sam kicked the sheet off of them both and reached for the lube.

After coffee, a shower and a breakfast of French toast, sausage and raspberry syrup, Toby asked what the breaking and entering thing was all about.

"Well, technically it's not breaking, just entering. I want to get into Martin's condo and look around, see what we can find. Maybe he had an address book he forgot or some letters or something that will tell us about the guy in the bathtub."

"Don't you think he'd get rid of anything that might even imply that he had had a visitor that night?"

Sam thought for a moment. "Probably. But what if the guy just sort of dropped in and Martin killed him on the spur of the moment? He might not have had time to get rid of everything."

"You know, Sam, there's one thing that bothers me. Why hasn't anyone missed this guy?"

"Maybe they have. But how would we know? This has to have been a casual trick, Toby, someone who probably didn't know Martin except on the Internet.

"I suppose," Toby said, but he didn't sound convinced. He thought for a moment. "So tell me, Sam, just how do we enter without breaking?"

"Because I think I know where a key is. If the gardeners haven't thrown it away."

"Do you think we should wear disguises? Or maybe masks?"

Sam laughed. "I don't think that'll be necessary." He thought for a moment. "But you probably should wear gloves, just in case. I don't think we should leave any fingerprints-especially yours, since you've never been in the place."

And so, armed with latex gloves from under the sink, they went next door. Sam explained about the fake rock in the little garden by the front door. "I sure hope we can find it in a hurry. You never know who might come along and wonder what we're doing."

Toby looked over the garden. "There it is," he said, pointing.

Sam picked up the rock Toby had pointed out. It was the hollow one with the key inside. He looked at Toby, "How'd you do that? How'd you know?"

"It doesn't fit in with the others. The coloring is wrong, and the shape is different from the other rocks." He shrugged. "I don't know; it just didn't look like the others."

Sam muttered something Toby couldn't hear, took the key out of it's hiding place and inserted it in the door. The door opened.

Toby had a sudden thought. "Do you suppose there's an alarm?"

"I suppose there is, but it's not armed. It didn't go off when I found him. And he's not around anymore, so who'd even know the code to arm it?"

"Good point."

They went inside and closed the door.

"Hey," Toby said, "it's cool in here. Someone's obviously paying the light bill."

"Just like everything else." He turned and looked directly at Toby. "I tell you, the man's still alive and somehow paying the bills. I wonder if whoever he killed had money."

They spent a couple of hours looking around the place. They checked his answering machine but there were no messages except one from some guy wanting to know when they could get it on again. "Lucky guy," Toby observed. "He probably didn't look enough like Martin."

The speed-dial buttons were all labeled with people or places they knew, and the two that Toby tried turned out to be just what they said. They did find an address book in Martin's desk and the page with the last of the R's and the beginning of the S's was torn out.

"I wonder what that's all about?" Toby said, holding up the address book.

"Maybe the guy was listed in there and Martin just tore out the page with his name."

"Doubtful," Toby replied, glancing through the intact pages. "Most of the names in here look like guys who live here, in the complex.."

Sam shrugged. "Let's check out the rest of the place."

Upstairs, in Martin's bedroom, they found one whole wall covered in framed photographs, drawings and even a few paintings. "Did you ever ask him what this was all about, Sam?"

"No. To tell you the truth, I've never been up here." Toby raised an eyebrow. "No, really. When we played, it was always in the living room or out on the patio, in the spa." He looked at the pictures. "Do you see a common thread?"

Toby nodded. "They all have red hair, at least red pubic hair. Those two," he pointed, "are bald."

Sam thought for a moment. "You know, I seem to remember him telling me once that he had a real thing for red pubic hair, especially if it was a bright, coppery color. And long. He was really into long pubic hair." He stopped and then laughed. "Even mine, which, as you may have noticed, is not at all red."

"Yes, I do think I've noticed that. But it is long. And silky. And..." he went closer to the wall and looked carefully at a couple of the photographs. "Looks like a guy at work: the Desk Manager." He looked more closely. "But it isn't."

"Then how do you know... Never mind."

Toby grinned. "I know in exactly the same way that you know Martin isn't circumcised. Come on, I want to see the rest of the place."

The bathroom was something of a mess, with some blood stains on the floor and bathtub. They went into the guest room, but it looked completely untouched. Then, as they were starting down the stairs, Toby pulled back.

"Let's look in the guestroom again," he said. "Like the dead man's dick, something about it isn't right."

Toby stood in the doorway of the guestroom and let his eyes roam around, looking for something that might not belong or maybe was out of place. It took a few minutes, but he found it. "That book," he said, pointing to the dresser. "If it was something for a guest to read, it should be over on the nightstand, the one with the light. It's also upside down, lying on its cover. Let's see what it is."

He walked into the room and picked up the book. "Sue Grafton. By the title, a couple of years old." He opened the book, looked at the flyleaf and then ruffled the pages. Then he ruffled them again, letting the book open where it wanted to. Where it fell open, there was a small white card, used as a bookmark. "Hey! What's this?"

"What's what?"

Toby looked closely at the card in the book. "The book mark. It's a business card from an outfit called Iron Construction in... Wyoming?

Sam stepped into the room so he could look over Toby's shoulder. "Natrona, Wyoming. I wonder where that is?"

"Well, I'll be damned," Toby said. Look at who's card it is. And he's a Senior Vice President, too"

Sam looked closer. "Clark Shields? Must be some sort of relative."

Toby looked around the room. "I suppose the book could have been here for some time, from a past visit, but I don't think so. Martin was too neat to leave it on the dresser for too long."

"Well," Sam said with a shrug, "we'll probably never know."

"Oh yes we will."

Sam looked mystified.

"We'll call him up. Or rather, you will. Ask him. Maybe he can even give us some sort of clue as to where Martin might have gone."

Sam wrote down the information from the card and put the book back on the dresser. "I'll call Monday. Now, let's get out of here."

On the way out they checked the kitchen and found an empty margarita-mix bottle in the trash along with an empty pharmacist's pill bottle that had contained Sonata. There was also a half empty bottle of Amatitán tequila on the counter-the very dark, heavy kind, 146 proof.

"Well," Toby said, as they locked the door behind them, "now we know how he missed the drugs in his drink. That tequila has a pretty strong taste."

Later, they went to their favorite Mexican place for dinner. They skipped the margaritas and had gin instead.

The next morning over a breakfast of Toby's Swiss cheese, spinach and shrimp omelets, they tried to figure out what to do next. The one obvious thing was to call Iron Construction in Wyoming and talk with their vice president was. Sam said he'd do that first thing Monday morning.

"The question is," Sam said, "where the hell is Martin?"

"He may have simply taken over the dead guy's identity. Couldn't do that in Palm Springs, of course, but he might if he went somewhere else, some big city like New York or San Francisco. Who'd know?"

"I suppose. But damn it, Toby, a guy just doesn't disappear into the woodwork, does he? I mean, New York? San Francisco?"

Toby didn't answer for a few moments. Then he grinned and said, "We haven't a clue, so, since we can't go to him, we'll make him come to us."

"And just how might we go about that?" Sam asked skeptically.

"The same way you get a fish to come and sample your hook. You use bait. In this case, handsome, red bait." He started thinking out loud. "We use Zach, my red-haired friend at work? We take pictures of him and make up a profile, same as we did for Sucks, but we make this one very desirable as well as available and put him up on a couple of sites like OlderAndBetter. Sooner or later, Martin is going to come across him and contact him. Bingo, we find our man."

Sam thought for a moment and nodded. "You think that might work? Would the guy at work do it?"

"I don't know, but I'll ask. He's pretty adventuresome, so he just might."

Late that afternoon, they decided to go to the pool for a swim and to see who might be there. It was a very hot day, so there weren't many guys, and those who were, were in the pool. They went to the locker room to get out of their clothes and found several more guys in the showers.

Outside, they jumped in the pool and found that it was refreshingly cool. They saw Howard and commented on it.

"Look in the spa, and you'll see why," Howard said.

They swam over to the place where the spa water poured in a little waterfall into the main pool. The water was downright cold. Toby pulled himself out of the water and went to look in the spa. When he did, he burst out laughing.

"It's ice, Sam. A big block of ice in the spa." He jumped back in and they swam over to Howard.

"You can thank Pete Addison for that," Howard said. "The ice guy comes around every Sunday at noon and throws a couple-hundred pounds in the spa. Cools the water down nicely." He looked up and waved. "Well, Duane finally made it out of the E.R."

Duane went into the gym for a few minutes and reappeared in the uniform of the day: naked.

"Hi, guys. Enjoying the cool water?" he asked, giving Howard a kiss. "I just love it when they put the ice in." He let himself slip under the surface of the water for a moment and then came up, shaking his head and wiping the water out of his eyes.

They chatted about nothing for a while, and then Howard said, "Hey, you guys doing anything Friday evening? We're grilling some lamb chops-the sweetest, tenderest lamb chops you've ever tasted."

"We get them from a little ranch up in the Sierras," Duane added. "Run by a guy who used to be a biology teacher-and his partner. They know what they're doing, at least as far as lamb is concerned."

Sam looked at Toby, who nodded. "I love lamb," he said.

"So it's a date. Six-thirty, Friday."

They chatted with some of the other guys in the pool and then decided it was time to go home. In the locker room getting their clothes, they looked into the showers to see what might be going on. Someone they hadn't seen before was standing under one of the shower heads with the hot water beating on the back of his neck. In front of him, on his knees, was Mike Armstrong, doubling the pleasure. There were a couple of other guys watching.

"Looks like fun, huh, men?" It was Pete Addison. He stepped between them and put his arms around their waists. "You gonna jump in?"

"I don't think so," Sam said, taking hold of Pete's dick. "But you seem to be up for it."

"That I am, Sam. It's been a dry weekend so far." He patted them both on the ass. "Think I'd better go get in line."

Pete went over to the man standing under the shower and kissed him.

"You want to join them?" Sam asked.

Toby, who was slowly becoming erect, turned to Sam. "Well, I sure would like to be doing what they're doing, but that guy looks like a real pro. Maybe we should go home and practice. Make sure we know how to do it right."

"I'll let you practice on me if you'll let... Well, you get the idea."

He did.