Rufus stepped back as Chillingsworth swung the door open. Wren supposed the apartment belonged to him, so why should the man knock?
Dave Chillingsworth, though, for once did not look composed… or together. He looked stunned. Pale. His eyes wild. His carefully coiffed hair was mussed, as if he had been clawing at it.
“You okay?” Rufus asked.
Chillingsworth simply stared at him as though he didn’t understand the question.
Wren spoke up. “Come on in, Dave. Sit down. Can I get you some water?”
Like he was sleepwalking, Dave moved to one of the stools at the breakfast bar and plopped down on it. “That would be a good idea.”
Wren went into the kitchen, located a glass, and filled it with water. He handed it to Chillingsworth, who gulped its contents down in one swallow, handed it back to Wren, and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his navy blue sport coat. “Thank you, young man.”
Chillingsworth stared, for a long time, at the floor-to-ceiling windows directly ahead of him, his back to the kitchen.
Wren, and Rufus too, he supposed, was too confused to say anything. The man looked like he was in shock.
Finally he spoke. “There’s no way to say this without just coming right out with it. There’s not a way to sugarcoat it, to make this bitter pill easier to swallow.” Dave regarded first Wren and then Rufus, his pale eyes boring into each of them.
“Tonight something happened that’s never happened before, not in the history of À Louer.”
Wren couldn’t imagine what words would come out of Chillingsworth’s mouth next, could not fathom why the man—usually so composed—appeared so shaken.
Chillingsworth licked his lips. His eyes seemed to dull, darken. He stared straight ahead, not looking at either of them, and said, “One of our boys was killed tonight. Stabbed to death down by the lakefront, in the dark.”
His voice broke, and Wren was amazed that the man had emotions. Perhaps he had misjudged him.
Dave took a deep breath and went on.
“There were people all around.” Finally he looked at each of them in turn. “And not one person heard a scream. Not one person saw anything. They found his body under a bush.”
Wren looked over at Rufus, who was standing, back ramrod straight, eyes bright, his mouth hanging open. Finally Rufus said, “Who was it?”
Dave closed his eyes for second, as though composing himself. “It was Evan.”
Rufus gasped. Dave got up from his stool, went to Rufus, and wrapped his arms around him.
“I know, I know. You were close. That’s why I wanted to come here and tell you myself.”
Wren blurted out, “What were you? Lovers?”
Both men turned and glared at him, and Wren felt heat rise to his cheeks. Almost as the words emerged from his mouth, he was already regretting them, recognizing them as insensitive.
Rufus shook his head. “No. We were just friends.”
Chillingsworth drew himself up, and Wren could see some of the propriety returning.
“As you know, personal relationships among my employees, beyond friendships, are expressly forbidden.”
Wren nodded, still feeling kind of numb. He expected he would awaken any minute now, roll over, and see Rufus laughing at some other vintage sitcom. Maybe
Frasier
? But in real life, that kind of thing didn’t happen. At least in Wren’s experience, he could always discern dreams from reality.
Still, he wished this were a dream.
“Well,” Dave said, “I have a few more unfortunate stops to make tonight, delivering this sad news.” He started toward the door.
Rufus asked, “Any idea who did this?”
Dave paused, hand on the doorknob. “Lots of ideas. The sad thing is people in this line of work are often targets.”
Rufus laughed, but there was no mirth in it, only bitterness. “Yeah, especially when you have us doing what we’re doing. Your little extra profit center. That kind of shit makes people mad, mad enough to kill. Or didn’t you think about that?”
Dave smiled. “Rufus. You’re upset. I suggest you calm down before you say anything else you might regret.” Dave cut his gaze to Wren. Then he turned and opened the door. “I’m upset too,” he said without looking at them. He closed the door.
Wren came up to Rufus and put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?” he said softly.
Rufus shrugged Wren’s hand away. He didn’t answer.
Wren watched helplessly as Rufus dug in the duffel bag at the foot of his bed and drew out a pair of black Cons. He sat on the edge of the bed and slid them on, drawing the laces tight, staring out the window the entire time. He breathed hard, almost panting, and Wren wondered if he was trying not to cry. Standing, he glanced over at Wren, who had plopped down on his own bed, feeling helpless and out of sorts. Still Rufus said nothing.
Wren watched as he moved toward the door, watched as he went through it, stared at the closed door behind him as though Rufus would pop back in and explain himself.
He would stare at the closed door for quite some time. To Wren, in his stunned state, unable to process what he had just heard, it seemed like he spent hours gazing at that closed off-white door, when he knew, logically, it was only for five or ten minutes. Wren got up from the bed, shut off the lights in the studio, and went to stand by the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows.
He looked out at the dark void that was Lake Michigan, at the lights of Navy Pier and the city. Laying his forehead on the cool glass, he peered down at the sidewalk below him where, even this late at night, pedestrians still scurried. Vainly he searched for Rufus’s tall form among them.
Where had he gone? What would happen now? Would he return? Would Chillingsworth suspend operations now that one of their own had been—Wren could barely bring himself to think the word—murdered?
And if Dave did
not
suspend operations, what would Wren do if he called later tonight or tomorrow during the day with an assignment?
Wren sat back down on his bed, not sure at all what he would do, not sure at all that he should continue to stay here. He felt as though he had slipped through the looking glass, dropped down the rabbit hole, sailed over the rainbow, but this was not a fairy tale. This was real, and if it was a child’s story, it would be something authored by the likes of the Brothers Grimm—dark and horrific.
He sat in the darkness for a long time. Not that the darkness was all that dark. Wan illumination shown in from the city lights, and the longer Wren sat in the empty studio, the clearer and more defined its furnishings became. His gaze searched the room, and he knew this could no longer be home, not even temporarily.
Even before Chillingsworth had stopped by with his grave and awful news, Wren knew he had already decided this life, the life of an escort, was not for him.
He couldn’t do it.
He groped around on the nightstand for his cigarettes, drew one out, lit it, and expelled the smoke into the darkness. He knew Chillingsworth wouldn’t like it, but did that really matter anymore? He lay on the bed smoking and tried not to think. Smoking was the easier of the two, and Wren finished his cigarette within minutes.
If it weren’t for his growing feelings for Rufus—infatuation, love at first sight, however one wanted to label it—he would gather up his few belongings right now and go. He was certain he could horn in on his mom once the sun rose, whether she liked it or not.
But Rufus…. Where was he? Was he safe? The thought chilled him, knowing that some young man, a man whose picture he had seen so recently, had been stabbed to death—out
there
, where Rufus was doing God knew what. His mind’s eye conjured up a grisly image—the boy whose picture he had seen, lying in the dirt, a pool of blood black as night spreading out beneath him.
Wren shivered. He would have to stay here, at least until Rufus returned.
Wren lay on his bed for what seemed like hours, waiting for the oblivion of slumber to overtake him. But sleep tonight was elusive, always just out of Wren’s grasp. He did manage to drift off once for a few seconds but awakened with a jerk and a startled scream. He had dreamed of a bloody hunting knife coming toward him.
After a while Wren sat up and went into the kitchen. At the sink he slurped up water from the faucet with a cupped hand, then dried his hand on a dish towel hanging from the oven door. He switched on some puck lights that were beneath the cabinets. They imbued the entire studio with a soft glow, perfect for this time of night.
What time was it anyway? Wren glanced at the digital clock on the microwave and saw that it was a quarter after three. It seemed as though the whole world was asleep. Save for him.
Save for Rufus.
He wondered again—where was he? Why did he leave so abruptly? Of course he was upset, but wouldn’t it have been better to stay here with Wren, who would have gladly comforted him?
Thoughts of murder, bloody stabbings, made Wren fear for the life of his new love. Wren felt vulnerable, alone, and it was easy to imagine Chillingsworth coming to him in the morning to inform him that Rufus too was dead.
Such were the late night thoughts of the traumatized.
Wren moved to sit on the floor at the foot of Rufus’s bed. Idly he stroked the nylon of Rufus’s duffel while looking out at the darkness, wondering how his life had changed so completely and quickly from just a few days ago.
He turned his head and eyed the bag, fingering the tab on the zipper, flipping it back and forth. The bag was closed tight.
No. You wouldn’t. This is a guy you say you’re falling for, and already the thought has popped into that warped little head of yours to invade his privacy? Leave it alone. Get back in bed and try to rest, even if you can’t sleep.
But what if looking gives me a clue to where he is? What if it makes a little shortcut for me, so I know him better?
What’s the harm?
Wren knew, from the moment his hand lit on Rufus’s duffel, he was going to look inside. Perhaps it was the late-night hour. Perhaps it was his hunger to know Rufus better. Perhaps it was because he told himself that looking might somehow allow him to help Rufus if he had gone out into the night and gotten himself in trouble….
Perhaps you’re just nosy.
Whatever the reason, Wren couldn’t stop himself from pulling open the zipper, from sifting through the clothes inside, mostly jeans, cargo shorts, and T-shirts, until he came upon a hard rectangle in the bag’s bottom.
He pulled out the laptop and pressed the latch that would open its cover.
Now you’re really going too far.
But what if it revealed something about not only Rufus, but also about À Louer? Like that business Rufus taunted Chillingsworth about, something about people getting killed because of what Dave had forced them to do. What was that all about? Maybe the answer was right here—in Rufus’s computer.
He pressed the power button, half hoping the whole shebang would be password protected so Wren could put it away and not cross a line for which he would not be very proud of himself.
But Rufus wasn’t that paranoid. The screen lit up, and Wren saw it was a crowded mess of icons—for games, movies—some nasty porn!—Word documents, and photographs.
Wren glanced at the door, expecting Rufus to enter at any moment and catch him red-handed. He got up, crossed over to the front door, and ensured it was dead bolted.
He would have ample warning should Rufus come home, which Wren wished, more than anything, that he would. Soon.
He sat back down on the floor, wondering where to begin. He tried first to open Rufus’s e-mail and found quickly that access to Rufus’s Internet
was
password protected. He looked through some of the photographs. Many were older and revealed a more clean-shaven and conservative Rufus. Wren chuckled at these and wondered exactly how old the guy was anyway. He opened and closed several of the Word documents and saw nothing of interest, save for the fact that Rufus seemed to have an flair for writing. Several of the documents were story ideas, and one was a nonfiction piece he had written about being an escort. This Wren took the time to read but found little new information. One doc caught his eye, though, because it had such a poetic title.
A Phoenix Out of the Ashes.
He glanced over his shoulder once more and then clicked the icon to open it.
He began reading:
March 10
Someone said this about cocaine: enough is never enough.
If you’ve done coke more than once or twice, you know what that means. Coke short-circuits all the common sense regulators in your brain and makes you a traitor, even to yourself. It is almost like you’ve let a little demon in and it’s made you its Linda Blair. What I mean is, you can pretty much lose control after a few snorts… no matter what you promised yourself beforehand. It doesn’t matter if you’re getting zero pleasure from doing coke, it doesn’t even matter if it’s making you feel sick. You always want more, and usually the only thing that will stop you is running out.
And then the fun begins. It’s usually getting light outside by the time you’ve finished your eight ball or whatever and you feel so exhausted, but just try to sleep, just try, my pretty. You lie awake for hours, thoughts racing, heart pounding out some tribal rhythm, sweat seeping out of your pores, grinding your teeth. Close your eyes and it’s like they’re fitted with springs. Your lids will snap back open. This is when you begin to wonder why you do this stuff. You think disdainfully of how you’ve spent four hundred dollars this month on a drug that’s hurting you, and you promise yourself never again.
If I had a dollar for every time I’ve made myself that promise, I could probably pay myself back for all the money I’ve squandered on coke. I’ve thrown countless razor blades, mirrors, and straws out in the dumpster behind my building, promising myself that’s the end of it.
It never works.
For one thing, let alone it’s one of the most addictive drugs there is (next to cigarettes, and I’ve found I’ve never enjoyed smoking more than when I’m getting high), my dealer makes it very easy for me to—what’s the word addictive personalities use?—“slip.” Just pick up the phone, punch in Sam’s pager number, leave your number after the tone, and voila! Twenty minutes to a half hour later, the phone rings. And even before I do my first line, my heart is racing… with anticipation. Sam says, “Come downstairs, Rufus,” and he’s out there, pulled up to the curb, black Lexus idling. I get in and, keeping our hands low, we exchange six twenties for a tiny bag of white powder. So easy, so quick. Ordering a pizza is more trouble.