Nick & Carter Holiday #1
Monday, January 1, 1979
Happy New Year!
Nick and Carter are in Dallas for the opening of the newest of their Hopkins Hotels!
But Mother Nature is on a bit of a rampage and has left the Metroplex covered in sleet and ice and it's awfully cold.
But inside their new club - The Fourteenth Floor - the scene is sizzling!
Atop the Hopkins Dallas, close to five hundred gay men have paid a hundred bucks each (all for charity) to be at the biggest party in town!
The clock strikes midnight and Nick and Carter are dancing to Guy Lombardo just like they did when they first met.
But then one of the bartenders is seen running into the back in a frenzy.
And the General Manager of the hotel is found semi-conscious, bleeding from the head.
While Carter boogies on down with a circle of admiring fans on the dance floor, Nick is hard at work.
He's trying to discover what secrets might conspire to close the Hopkins Dallas and The Fourteenth Floor before either have a chance to fly!
Welcome to a year of holidays with Nick Williams and Carter Jones!
This is a series of short stories with each centered around a specific holiday.
From New Year's Day to Boxing Day, each story stands on its own and might occur in any year from the early 1920s to the first decade of the 21st Century.
Original Review December 2022:
New Year's Day, 1979 is a wonderful blend of mystery, humor, and heart that seems to follow Nick and Carter everywhere they go. This was the fist in the author's Nick & Carter Holiday series of short stories but as I was late to the party it wasn't my first, neither is it necessary to read in order as they jump around throughout the men's journey. As I have said in the others that I have read, I am not familiar with Nick and Carter's full journey, I hope to discover them in 2023 but it too is not necessary to have read prior these shorts. Would some of the names and places mean more? Maybe but not a must.
Since there is a bit of mystery involved here I don't want to spoil anything so I won't touch on the plot other than to say if this is how Nick tackles all his situations I look even more to reading his case history. Carter may not be involved as much here but it's obvious his presence is never far from Nick's mind. Hard to imagine a mystery so short being this good, could it be strictly down the talent of the author or the characters involved? In my opinion it's both but whichever it is, there is no doubt that these characters mean a lot to the author and in that we are given very entertaining gems.
Hopkins Dallas Hotel
2201 North Stemmons Freeway
Dallas, TX 75207
January 1, 1979
12:01 a.m.
It was a cold, icy night and Carter and I were dancing like we did when we were young.
The DJ had found an old version of Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians performing "Auld Lang Syne."
I closed my eyes as we moved around the dance floor, my left hand in his right and his other arm around my waist, holding me close, with mine around the small of his back.
We were celebrating the new year north of the equator for the first time in a long while. Normally, we went somewhere warm for the holidays, but that year, we decided to stay in San Francisco. It was the first time in more than ten years that we'd done so.
And the weather in Dallas had welcomed us with cold, frigid hands. As we were dancing, it was about 25 outside and the mercury was steadily dropping. Trees and power lines all over town were coated with ice thanks to the fact that it had been sleeting earlier that day. On TV, we'd heard how power was out in different parts of the city. Fortunately, the hotel had never lost power and had been able to take in a few guests who needed a warm place to spend New Year's Eve.
Our plane had arrived at Love Field on the previous afternoon, when it was a bit warmer. We'd been driven over to the hotel, which wasn't too far away.
We'd been greeted at the front door by Charles Marcus, the general manager. He'd previously worked for another hotel in the area. I wasn't sure which.
Charles had contacted me in the middle of November and invited us to spend New Year's Eve in Dallas. He was pulling together an invitation-only party which would be exclusively gay and held inside the private club at the top of the hotel called The Fourteenth Floor. He said he was selling tickets for a hundred dollars a pop and how all of the money raised would go to our foundation.
Since that was the case, we couldn't resist. I promised I would personally match whatever he raised and multiply his take by ten. If he could sell a hundred tickets for ten grand, I'd add another ninety and make it an even hundred. Easy enough.
When we'd arrived, he'd showed me his records. He'd sold just shy of five hundred tickets and to folks from as far away as Phoenix and Baton Rouge.
I'd congratulated him on a job well-done and written a check to him, personally, so that the total came to an even five hundred grand and he could pay out the whole amount to the foundation in one lump sum. After Carter and I were up in our suite, I'd realized that might have been a mistake for tax reasons and otherwise...
. . .
Once Guy Lombardo had finished singing, the DJ started up a disco version of the same song.
Carter let go of me and then began to do his usual boogie. It involved him swiveling his hips and grinding them up and down while doing a two-step dance move with his big feet that he'd picked up when we used to spend the holidays in Rio. When he got down on the dance floor like that, a small pack of admirers would always gather.
At 58, he was still the most handsome man on six continents (I'd checked).
And he looked like he could have been in his 40s. His reddish blond hair was only partially streaked with white. His muscles were just as big as they'd ever been. And, at 6'4", he still commanded most every room he walked into, even though there were plenty of kids, anymore, who were his height or taller.
We were both wearing the 1978 version of a white tie tux. Our outfits matched, even down to the bow ties, button-up vests, and white patent leather pumps. The only thing we were missing were top hats, but I had stopped wearing a hat back in the early 70s and had no desire to do so again.
His trousers were skin-tight and made of some kind of stretchy polyester. I didn't like how it smelled. Neither did he, but he'd decided the look was what counted. He'd practically bathed in British Sterling cologne, his new favorite scent, to cover up the chemical stench.
Cologne was a new thing for him. I didn't mind it. His sense of smell was much stronger than mine, so, if he could stand it, so could I. But I preferred a whiff of something simple, like Aqua Velva, when I kissed him.
My trousers didn't have the same awful odor, since they were made of wool and had a smooth silk lining, like they were supposed to. And I didn't wear cologne, either. I just splashed on after-shave and that was all I needed.
In any event, Carter was doing his moves and an admiring crowd was beginning to gather, like always happened. I stood where he'd left me and watched as he got down and grooved to the disco beat.
Whenever we went out to the discos, anymore, I always let him do his thing and enjoy being admired by the crowd. For myself, I preferred to find a nice spot where I could watch everyone as they moved and chatted with friends and attempted to hook up (and sometimes succeeded). I looked around to see if I could find any such thing.
After a moment or two, I spied the DJ's booth, which was elevated above the dance floor and across the room from where I was standing. Through thick glass that reminded me of a bank in a rough part of town, I could see the black kid who was manning the turntables. He had on a pair of big headphones and was smiling and nodding to the beat as he made a motion with his hand that made me think he was putting the needle on the next record.
Sure enough, the disco version of "Auld Lang Syne" faded away. I then heard a familiar count to two followed by the crowd cheering as "Le Freak" started up.
Most everyone who'd been standing on or sitting by the edges of the dance floor (single guys, by the look of things) made their way to dance to the song that had been popular for a while and didn't seem to be losing any steam.
Carter's admirers pushed him towards the middle of the dance floor. From what I could see, he appeared to be having fun. So did they. I smiled in admiration, happy to be watching and not part of the action.
With the crowd moving onto the floor, I took the opportunity to make a wide circle around the room in an attempt to find refuge in the DJ's booth. I was hoping that, since I was the owner of the joint, he might let me sit on a stool or something and watch the night away from a lofty distance.
. . .
On my way around, I decided to make a stop at one of the bars and pick up a rum and Coke.
"Mr. Williams!" exclaimed an enthusiastic redhead who had to be about 25, if that.
I smiled. "How's business?"
"Considering everyone shoulda stayed home in this weather, I'm doin' fantastic." He eyed my outfit and, with a grin, said, "Classy threads!"
"Thanks."
Giving me a professionally seductive smile, he asked, "What can I get you?"
"Dark rum and Coke on the rocks."
"Captain Morgan?"
I shook my head. "You should have a bottle of Gosling's. It's a requirement for every Hopkins bar."
He grinned. "We do. And we were wondering why we had it on hand. Every other place I've ever worked only had Captain Morgan. Is it your favorite?"
I nodded.
He laughed. "Gosling's and Coke. Coming right up." He turned and headed towards the middle of the bar.
He was wearing the same thing all the other bartenders were wearing: a tight black t-shirt with our logo ("Hopkins Hotels") just above his left nipple. On the back was a silk-screened image of the Mark Hopkins on Nob Hill in San Francisco in silhouette. Under that, it read, "Welcome to '79" in the same style as our logo. It was a special thing Charles had ordered just for the night.
Carter had mentioned how the silhouette should have been of the Dallas hotel. He had a point. With the three buildings (of varying heights) clustered as they were in a triangle along with their distinctive pyramid roofs, they presented an impressive outline from the freeway as we drove in from the airport. They were supposed to grab your attention and, apparently, they did.
According to Charles, the local papers had complained about them being too unique when the buildings were finally finished. More than one person had admitted to police that they were gawking at the hotel when they'd hit the car in front of them during rush-hour traffic.
One of the other bartenders walked by right then. A blond with a tight crew-cut and an earring in his right ear, he appeared to be in a bit of a rush. And he looked frazzled. In fact, he was in more of a rush and more frazzled than was normal for even a New Year's Eve. To be honest, he looked panicked.
I watched as he disappeared through a pair of swinging doors. Something told me to follow him, so I left a hundred-dollar bill on the bar and did just that.
Nick Williams Mystery Series
In 1953, the richest homosexual in San Francisco is a private investigator.
Nick Williams lives in a modest bungalow with his fireman husband, a sweet fellow from Georgia by the name of Carter Jones.
Nick's gem of a secretary, Marnie Wilson, is worried that Nick isn't working enough. She knits a lot.
Jeffrey Klein, Esquire, is Nick's friend and lawyer. He represents the guys and gals who get caught in police raids in the Tenderloin.
Lt. Mike Robertson is Nick's first love and best friend. He's a good guy who's one hell of a cop.
The Unexpected Heiress is where their stories begin. Read along and fall in love with the City where cable cars climb halfway to the stars.
Long before the Summer of Love, pride parades down Market Street, and the fight for marriage equality, San Francisco was all about the Red Scare, F.B.I. investigations, yellow journalism run amok, and the ladies who play mahjong over tea.
Nick & Carter Holiday Series
Welcome to a year of holidays with Nick Williams and Carter Jones!
This is a series of short stories with each centered around a specific holiday.
From New Year's Day to Boxing Day, each story stands on its own and might occur in any year from the early 1920s to the first decade of the 21st Century.
Saturday Series Spotlights
Author Bio:
Frank W. Butterfield is the Amazon best-selling author of 89 (and counting) self-published novels, novellas, and short stories. Born and raised in Lubbock, Texas, he has traveled all over the US and Canada and now makes his home in Daytona Beach, Florida. His first attempt at writing at the age of nine with a ball-point pen and a notepad was a failure. Forty years later, he tried again and hasn't stopped since.
New Year's Day, 1979 #1
No comments:
Post a Comment