Dan Sharp Mysteries 4-Book Bundle by Jeffrey Round

Donny or Ked usually filled him in.
    The Black Eagle wasn’t known for being a hustler haven. It was primarily a leather bar, a netherworld of S&M accoutrements catering to a clientele that identified with a vaguely threatening, power-oriented sexuality. Skinhead and biker looks were popular. Dan’s ruggedness fit right in. He’d once gone home with a man he’d met on the upstairs patio, only to discover his apartment decorated with Nazi paraphernalia. He hadn’t stayed long enough to find out if it was a joke.
    The out-of-work bodybuilder planted outside the front entrance threw Dan a smile. Steroids had given him pectorals a drag queen would envy, while anti-virals had finished off the effect by reinventing his face. Dan always felt he’d passed some sort of mutation test by coming here. He pulled out the picture of the runaway.
    The man looked it over and smacked one fist into the other. “Kid like that comes in here and we’d kick his ass out in a second,” he said. “Don’t need that kind of trouble — those kids have their own places to go to anyway.”
    “What about in the daytime when no one’s on the door?”
    The bouncer tilted his head toward the entrance. “Ask Charlie. He’s on the main floor.”
    Dan went in. The interior carried an aroma of stale beer and body odour while suggesting scenes of torture and imprisonment rather than anything overtly erotic. In fact, a little sex appeal would have cheered the place up, but the premises evoked an aura of pain inflicted in lieu of pleasure. Dan considered physical abuse the dull side of the sexual imagination. He’d stopped going there when one too many pickups expressed disappointment at his gentle touch.
    “Do you want to strangle me a bit?” one suggested, after a few minutes of foreplay. “It might make it more exciting. Besides, you look the type.”
    “I’m outta here,” Dan said, the door slamming behind him before the man could even protest.
    “How come a big hunk like you is so sweet?” another asked, clearly disappointed at not having his endurance limits tested. “I was hoping for a little abuse.”
    Dan flexed his biceps. “Who said abuse was free? Usually I get paid to hurt guys like you.”
    The man pulled a face. “I’m only thirty-three. You’re crazy if you think I’m going to pay for sex!”
    Dan retrieved his underwear and pulled it on. “Ever been to a bathhouse?”
    The man gave him an odd look. “Of course.”
    “Then you’ve paid for sex.”
    In the bar on the main floor, heavy metal music ground through the speakers. The place was empty apart from a shirtless bartender who looked like a double for Jim Morrison right before his drunken downward spiral. He looked Dan over approvingly.
    “Hi there.”
    “Evening,” Dan said, to put things on a formal level. “You Charlie?”
    “Yep. That’s me.”
    Dan pulled the picture from his case and laid it on the bar. “Ever see this kid in here?”
    Dan could see him calculating whether he was a cop. The bartender shrugged — it wouldn’t matter either way so long as the kid wasn’t in there now. “He looks pretty young. I doubt I’ve seen anyone under twenty in here yet.”
    A few doors up the street an early crowd had gathered in Woody’s. Heads turned at his approach. Woody’s was an upscale pub, a preppy bar for kids with clean good looks. Dan seldom rated more than a passing nod from this crowd. From experience he knew he looked like one of two things: rough trade or a hustler on the make.
    Inside, he almost ran into a drag queen. Bricklayer hands and Maybelline eyes. Forget-me-not blue. She was Anybody’s Girl. She looked at Dan and flashed a smile: Our Little Secret . Dan smiled back. Why be unfriendly?
    Cosy and comfortable, Woody’s favoured décor over theme. Drag routines on slow nights and amateur strip shows mid-week, the bar managed to keep its clients happy without leaving them awash in Gwen Stefani and Britney Spears videos. For a while it