Light Before Day by Christopher Rice

beauty, as long as he always met the challenge of delivering the perfect one-liner.
    "I was at the funeral, too," Billy said. "I saw you walk out."
    "He died of a drug overdose in a bathhouse," I said. "Suddenly all of his friends are standing in front of his family talking about how the party won't be the same without Paul—"
    "With a martini in one hand and a cigarette in the other," Billy finished for me. "I know. I stayed for the whole thing." He met my stare. "The way you walked out—that took guts, Adam.
    Actually, I'm not sure if it was guts or just nerve. There's a difference between the two, don't you think?"
    I shrugged.
    "You made a lot of people angry," he said. It sounded like he was one of those people. I wasn't about to apologize to him.
    "So I'll see you at the next party?" he said.
    "No you won't," I said. "I'm laying off for a while."
    He made a small sound in his throat. "Sounds like Corey got his wish after all." He got in his car and drove off. As soon as his taillights disappeared, my thoughts drifted back to an afternoon in late April.

    The April day when Rod called to tell me that Paul Martinez's body had been discovered that morning by a cleaning crew up at a gay bathhouse in Hollywood, I was planning to take my Jeep into the car wash. Three days later, after I walked out of his funeral in a righteous rage, I decided to pick up where I had left off.
    By the time I pulled into the Twin Palms Car Wash on Sunset Boulevard, I had managed to lighten my limbs and put the world in soft focus, thanks to the nickel-plated flask my mother had given me for Christmas. I didn't notice the attendant taking orders until he stepped back from the BMW in front of me.
    He was over six feet tall, with a tight helmet of jet-black hair, long dark eyes deeply set beneath the hard line of his brow, and a Roman nose that looked prominent only in profile. His broad shoulders stretched the back of his white button-up, and everything about him looked hard and unyielding until you got to his full lips and sleepy eyes.
    I rolled my window down and he placed a hand on the edge that was so heavily veined it looked sculpted. "Your left brake light is out," he said in a deep voice that matched with the fantasies his body inspired. "If you get pulled over, they'll put points on your license. When you leave here, you should go to an auto body place and have them take care of it."
    I tried to speak and failed.
    "You could also stop at Koontz Hardware down the street. They might have the right fuse. We don't do that kind of work. That's why I'm telling you all of this."
    "Sorry," I mumbled.
    "Uh-huh," he answered quietly, his eyes locked on mine. "You might also want to get some breath mints and get rid of that flask that's on the floor of your passenger seat."
    "I just came from a funeral," I managed. "How about giving me a break?"
    The hard look in his eyes didn't change, but his top teeth hooked his lower lip in a gesture that wasn't nearly as determined and masculine as the rest of him. Suddenly he jerked back from my window and asked for my order.
    I pulled forward to the vacuum station, wondering if the words new car smell would be the last I would ever say to one of the most attractive men I had ever encountered. I caught him staring at me as I walked toward the car wash's main building as if he thought I was about to hold the place up and was prepared to take action.
    In the men’s room, I splashed my face with water and succumbed to the vision I had been trying to avoid for several days. I saw Paul Martinez walking down a dark and narrow corridor, his stubby limbs lacquered with detox sweat and his towel slipping from his round waist. The walls pounded with piped-in techno that did little to cover the cries of drugged lust coming from the stalls around him. He tried to pull various men into a slow and swaying embrace until each of them realized he was waltzing to the beat of Paul's fading heart and pulled away with the naked