Garner working as a waiter at an upscale restaurant with a growing attraction to a man named Alonzo, who always asks to be put in his section for dinner. One night after work, the man is assaulted while trailing Garner. Garner goes to his aid, but is shot for his trouble.<br><br>Taking time off from work to recover, Garner is resting on a park bench when Alonzo suddenly appears at the other end of the bench. Garner never saw him approach. He asks why Alonzo is trailing him.<br><br>After some hesitation, Alonzo explains he wants to recruit Garner to help fight against others who systematically hunt people like himself. Garner isn’t inclined to get involved in anything dangerous, but he does finds Alonzo more and more attractive, so he agrees to consider the idea. As he learns more about Alonzo’s bizarre and dangerous subculture, what Garner really wants to know is whether Alonzo is romantically interested in him at all.

Call to Love

The stakeout, apparently, was in the seedy part of the city, between the downtown core and the warehouse area adjacent to the docks. Here there were a few houses, some tenements, and old small-scale industrial buildings, some unused and others turned into lofts for artists and various forms of small business.


They reached the building, which was situated on a side street, entered through a metal door, and climbed a set of solid but old wooden stairs. Vera knocked on a metal door that had the figures 3Astenciled on it in white paint. After hesitating and giving Garner a look that seemed to say, Here goes!—she tried the door. It opened and they stepped into an enormous room that was mostly empty. At one end of it they could see several work tables next to several banks of electronic equipment.


Chapter 18