Lake on the Mountain: A Dan Sharp Mystery by Jeffrey Round Read Free Book Online Page A

wanted? He’d said goodbye to his aunt and cousin the night before, then told his father at breakfast he was leaving. Gaunt and grey-faced, the man grunted a response — whether in acknowledgment or disbelief, Dan couldn’t tell, just as he could never tell what any of his father’s cryptic communications meant.
    After an exhilarating day hitchhiking, Dan found himself in Toronto with an empty belly and no bed. He bought three chocolate bars from an all-night grocery and slept on a park bench the first two nights, amazed by the shadowy forms flitting past till the early hours. Now and again, one of them crept close to investigate while Dan held his breath until they left again. It seemed the city never slept — and he had barely. The Yonge Street Mission took him in the third night. He tried pan-
handling when his funds ran out, but the people he asked seemed more intimidated by him than sympathetic.
    A kid at the mission told him about hustling. There was money to be made, he said, as long as you could stomach the sex. That wasn’t a problem. Dan had already experienced sex with older men. He recalled the snuffling, grubbing hands that pawed under his T-shirt and down his sweatpants in the shadows beneath the railway trestle back home. Apparently he had what they liked. He got a reputation for an ability to time his orgasms with passing coaches, earning him the nickname Train Trestle Danny.
    When he arrived in Toronto, he was already an adult in body. One Saturday in July he stood on a deserted corner in the downtown strip known as Boys Town. For once he was lucky — in a relative way. The man who stopped his Mercedes to chat up the ungainly teenager with the adult’s body had been kind and not unattractive. He reminded Dan of his grade nine shop teacher, Mr. Dalton, a gruff man with hairy arms and shirtsleeves permanently rolled back. Dalton had been an erotic fixation for Dan, who conjured the man’s image to trigger his masturbatory fantasies.
    Dalton’s look-alike invited Dan to his home in Leaside. Dan thought he was talking about a place outside Toronto, but the man assured him it was only a fifteen-minute ride to where they were headed. Money was never discussed. Dan was too nervous to bring it up, and the man had an assuredness that said he knew what he was doing.
    As they drove along the tree-lined streets, Dan was struck by how little the neighbourhood offered the casual viewer. He wondered who lived behind the tidy, curtained windows where light spilled over the sills like the first star at twilight. He considered how much you’d have to earn to live there. Certainly more than he’d ever make.
    Dan hadn’t minded the sex. The man — Bob Greene — was courteous and hadn’t asked Dan to do anything he wasn’t comfortable with. Afterwards, Dan pocketed the fifty dollars, blushing at Bob’s compliments. It was the first time anyone had made him feel attractive.
    Bob was experienced at picking up boys. He knew life on the streets was anything but glamorous, and could be hazardous. He also knew hustlers came in two types: the ones you could trust and the ones you couldn’t. Most fell into the latter category sooner or later. Bob knew Dan was new at the game. But he was polite and eager to please. The next morning, when Dan didn’t seem in a hurry to get back on the streets, Bob invited him to stay for the day.
    They spent the morning by the pool. In the afternoon, they walked around the neighbourhood. To Dan, Toronto was Yonge Street — the Eaton Centre and downtown strip with its sex shops, sporting goods chains, and fast food outlets. Beyond that, it seemed to sprawl without boundaries. You could walk all day without reaching the end of it. Here was another gleaming new part of it. With its staid brick homes and sturdy elms, Leaside represented the kind of family environment Dan had never known. It was a world away from the bleak mining town where he’d grown up.
    Two months later, Bob picked him