The Dream Ender by Dorien Grey

anything.”
    “How about his friends?” I asked, though I remembered Jared telling me Cal didn’t have any.
    “He’s got a little circle of guys he tolerates or rides with, but he doesn’t let anybody get too close. For the most part, he could be straight. He’s got nothing but contempt for ‘faggots.’”
    “Is he into S and M?” I asked.
    Brewer shrugged. “You’d sure might think so to look at him and listen to him talk, but his contempt extends to anybody putting labels on him.”
    “So, what does he do in bed?” I wondered.
    “Any damned thing he wants to.”
    *
    Every now and then I do something totally out of left field, and when I hung up from talking with Brewer I found myself doing it again.
    I checked in the phone book for a listing for a Dr. Stan(ley?) Jacobson. There was none. Well, Jake had said his brother just got back into town after a year at the CDC, so I looked up the number of Mercy Memorial and called, asking to be transferred to Dr. Jacobson’s nurse.
    “Dr. Jacobson’s office,” a pleasant female voice said.
    I knew I didn’t stand the chance of a snowball in hell of actually talking to him right then, so I said, “Could I leave a message for Dr. Jacobson, please?”
    “Of course.”
    “Would you ask him if he could please call Dick Hardesty when he has a moment? I met him the other day while his brother was a patient.”
    “Do you need to make an appointment?” she asked.
    “No,” I said. “But it is rather important, and I would very much like to talk with him if I could. By phone would be fine.”
    I gave her both my office and home numbers. I felt a little guilty about bothering him, considering how busy he had to be dealing with an increasing number of AIDS patients, and didn’t hold much realistic hope he’d call, but I had a couple of questions about AIDS he would be uniquely qualified to answer—if there were any answers. To date, answers to questions about the disease were in agonizingly short supply. But, I rationalized, he might be able to help me do at least a little something to stem the tide.
    After hanging up, I agonized again about calling the numbers on my “ill” list. What in the hell could I possibly say to them? “Hey, I was wondering if you might know who killed you?” These poor guys had enough to worry about: I couldn’t see adding to their anguish. I knew I probably would have to do it eventually. Just not now.
    I did pull out the list of the nine—nine!—Male Call patrons who’d already died. I’d already talked to friends/roommates/lovers of three of them, and tried to look up the phone numbers of the other six. I found five. The first two I called were disconnected—including Mike Brisco, Jared and Jake’s friend. On two others I got answering machines, but at least that meant someone would get my message and, I hoped, reply. I left both my work and home numbers.
    I was able to only actually talk with one roommate of the dead, who had not been a roommate long and who had little of significance to report, other than to verify that the man had, indeed, been a Male Call regular, which I already knew. One did say, however, that his roommate seldom went to any other bar.
    *
    Joshua had just finished saying his prayers and hugged his parents’ framed photograph and climbed into bed for Story Time when the phone rang. I told Jonathan to start without me and hurried into the living room to answer it.
    “Dick? This is Stan Jacobson. I got your message. What can I do for you?”
    “I really appreciate your calling, Doctor—”
    “Stan,” he corrected.
    “Stan. I’ll get right to the point. There are rumors going around the gay community of someone deliberately spreading AIDS, and I’ve been hired to track them down to see if there’s any validity to them.”
    “Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said.
    “From what I’ve heard and those cases I know of, the time between becoming aware of being infected and death is