Hostage (16 page)

“Do you have it… Do you have it too?”

Todd suddenly understood. It made sense. Of course that was why Rawlins had attacked him with such fury. Oh, shit.

“No, I’m okay, Rawlins. You know I tested negative.” Todd knelt down next to him. “Give me your hand.”

“But—”

“I’ll be careful.”

Rawlins gingerly held out his bleeding left hand, and Todd wrapped a towel around it. First one, then the second for added protection.

Todd tightened the towels and said, “Tell me what happened.”

“I…” he began, and then stopped.

“You went to the doctor’s?”

Rawlins nodded.

“And what, you got the results from some tests?”

Again Rawlins nodded.

Which meant, realized Todd, that of course Rawlins had had blood drawn last week. “Why the hell didn’t you say anything before?”

Shit, never mind. That was a conversation for much later. Just stay focused. For now just get all the facts.

A hope flashed through Todd’s mind, and he asked, “Are you HIV positive or is it… is it AIDS?”

The first meant there was more time. Time meant a greater chance. A chance for the new drugs to do their work. A chance for yet more drugs to be created.

“I’m probably just positive.” Rawlins shrugged, wiped his nose with the back of his right hand. “But my doctor won’t say for sure, not until he knows my T-cell count.”

“Rawlins, we’ll get through this. We’ll make it.” They had to, thought Todd. “They’re doing all this great stuff now, all this wonderful stuff, you know, with the protease inhibitors and all that. They’re talking about AIDS becoming a manageable disease, and—”

“Fuck you!” shouted Rawlins, kicking at Todd and pushing him away. “That’s exactly what I used to say to Curt. ‘Oh, don’t worry, you’ll make it, there’s AZT, and they’re doing all this great stuff now.’ And that’s exactly what he used to say to his friends. ‘There are all these great meds out there. Don’t worry, the scientists are working around the clock.’ And did any of them make it? No, they’re dead as dirt. Did they not suffer? You bet they did. Oh, Christ, don’t you remember the pain Curt was in? And you know what? I’m spent. I’ve had so many friends die and I gave them all my courage, all my strength—little good it did—but now I don’t have any energy left for myself.”

Todd was on his feet. He was at the balcony, sliding shut the large door. And then he just stood there, staring out at the lake, at the distant planes circling the airport like blinking fireflies. He saw all that, just as clearly as he saw what lay ahead—all the tests, all the pills, all the stress and fear, all the desperate hope. Could he do it? Did he have the strength, the stamina, to be a martyrlike caregiver? He didn’t know, not really. Couldn’t be sure. Michael, the first guy with whom Todd had had a serious relationship, had been murdered, and Todd didn’t think he could go through it again, invest and lose it all, have someone else die. And right then, right at the same time, he realized that Michael’s murder was somehow easier than this was going to be. Michael had been whole when he’d left this world. Michael was gone in a blink.

Yes, he realized, HIV and AIDS were some kind of horrible test, just what of he had yet to learn.

His eyes beading with tears, Todd knew only one truth, and he said, “I don’t want to lose you, Rawlins.”

“Guess again—you already have.”

“But—”

“Get real.” Rawlins clutched the towels around his hand, then pushed himself up. “You know, I thought the same bus that hit Curt missed me, but I was wrong. I just turned my back for an instant and didn’t see it coming. And now it’s got me under the wheels and it’s about to—”

“Stop it!”

“Oh, Todd.” Rawlins took a deep sigh. “You can’t go back in the closet on this one, you can’t hide in the dark. This is reality. This is here, now. And you know what? We’re done, we’re over.”

Todd turned around, stared at Rawlins, who stood in the middle of the faintly lit room. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I saw how freaked out you used to get when we went over to Curt’s. I saw how scared you were, how you shut down when you saw his emaciated body. Face it, man, you can’t handle it. You can’t. You’re going to leave me just like that shit left Curt.”

“Stop it!”

“Trust me, AIDS is too faggy for you.”

“What, you’re telling me that I flunked some kind of test?” shouted Todd, wondering at the same time if he’d been that obvious. “Well, fuck off! And if that’s the way you feel, then get the fuck out of here. I don’t need this!”

“See? You’ve got your career. You don’t need this and you don’t want it,” said Rawlins with a half smile, and then turned and started for the door.

Todd, horrified at what he’d just said and what was now happening, called, “Wait!”

“Forget it, Todd. We’re over, we’re done. You can barely take care of yourself, let alone someone with a terminal illness. Trust me, it’s better this way. Better that we both face up to things and that the truth comes out now instead of… instead of later.”

Oh, shit. This wasn’t what he wanted. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

Starting after him, Todd shouted, “Rawlins, you can’t go! You—”

As he headed for the door, Rawlins stopped, slowly turned around. “You know what I’d do if I were you? I’d get myself tested again. Of course, you won’t be absolutely sure for another six months or so, but I’d go right out tomorrow morning and take a test for the HIV virus. And while you’re waiting to find out, you can curse me all you want. I’m sorry, Todd. I really am. I thought I was okay.”

As if he’d been slapped, Todd just stood there. Oh, God. He hadn’t thought about that. Not really. And his mind whizzed through their history of sex, sorting who’d done what to whom. They’d been wise, they’d been smart, but they were talking about a virus, a little, tiny, microscopic thing that traveled in bits of bodily fluid. So what about the time they’d woken up at something like three in the morning, groping with lust? They’d had sex in some kind of blissful, dreamy fog, but what had they really done? And what about—

“Goodbye, Todd.”

He looked at Rawlins, knew there was no stopping him, and realized that right then he wasn’t so sure he wanted to anyway.

“Where are you going?” asked Todd.

“To find the guy driving the bus. If it wasn’t you who hit me, I have a good idea who did.” Rawlins shrugged. “I don’t know why it’s so important for me to put all the pieces together, but it is. I suppose if I can’t understand life, then the least I want to understand is my own death.”

Todd said nothing, just stood there in some kind of shock as he let the person he loved most in the world walk through his door and out of his life.

First you have to
find a thread, thought Lyle Cunningham as he started up his pickup truck. Just one single, loose thread. And then you pull. More often than not, things start to unravel, leading you closer and closer to the crux of the whole damn thing. Right now he saw a number of the pieces—the outspoken and controversial Clariton, the blond woman he’d spoken to at the autographing that morning, later the very same woman in the very same black coat and the two men who’d abducted Clariton—and it was just a matter of trying to find how everything was stitched together. When Lyle had phoned his boss just a few minutes ago they’d both speculated that the gay television reporter, Todd Mills, somehow fit in. After all, who knew what his agenda might be? Was it purely coincidence that the kidnappers were AIDS protesters and the kidnapping had taken place while Mills was doing the interview? Could he have somehow been in on the planning or somehow manipulated the interview or given the kidnappers access to the building? Perhaps not. Perhaps all of the above.

Of all the things, that was what Lyle hated most about gays. On the one hand they wanted to be accepted, to not be discriminated against. Sure, Lyle got that. What he didn’t understand, though, was their exclusivity, their reverse discrimination. Either you were a member of their tribe—and therefore trusted—or you weren’t. And if you weren’t, you were always suspect. In essence gays wanted to be equal but separate. He saw how they hung out together. He knew they preferred to do business within their own community. He saw how they scorned and laughed at the very people from whom they begged acceptance and tolerance. And it disgusted him.

Leaving his home, Lyle headed west toward Uptown, that trendy, very successful, and very gay neighborhood. If he was right, he thought as he drove along, that one loose thread he was searching for could be found over there, in that area. It wasn’t going to be easy. Of course not. In fact, now thinking about it, he wished he’d made himself some coffee, brought some food, a pillow. Okay, so he’d stop for a burger, some fries, and a lot of coffee.

Right. He should get tanked up on caffeine because, after all, this could be a very, very long night. There was one residence in particular that he was going to scope out, and who knew how long he’d have to wait before he saw any action.

With a cotton swab
Matthew dabbed at the spot on his forearm where he’d just been poking around with a special syringe, one treated with the anticoagulant Heparin. Okay, that was done, they’d all contributed, so on with the frigging show. On to the big event. Now if only this goddamn headache would stop. He just stood there in the middle of the room as a swath of pain cut through the back of his head and, seemingly, all the way to the back of his eyes.

“A bad one, hey?” asked the subdued Tina, seated on a chair and still clutching her bottle of Gatorade.

“Yeah…” He turned to Elliot and ordered, “Look harder, Elliot!”

“Jeez, I’m looking, I’m looking!” said Elliot, pawing through a liquor box full of pills and medicines. “Sorry, Charlie, it just ain’t here.” He picked up one bottle, read the label. “You know, you were really stupid to go off your suppressant therapy meds.”

“Shut up.”

What really scared Matthew was the prospect of a seizure, the one thing he didn’t want to happen now. A while back when he’d had a full-blown grand mal, he’d not only collapsed but had also vomited, lost control of his bladder, and been unable to speak for hours. He couldn’t afford to lose control of anything right now. Matthew had been on an antibiotic to battle the cryptococcal meningitis for a long time, but then he’d stopped because he was taking so many pills, something like sixty a day. This headache, he realized, was exactly what he had felt before the other seizure had struck, and he’d left whatever pill was designed to battle this specific thing at home. Great.

“Fuck it,” he cursed. “Let’s just get on with it.”

“Oh, fab!” said Elliot, jumping to his feet, then lunging toward a canvas bag. “I’ll get the camcorder. This is going to be fun. Don’t ya just love home movies? I mean, they’re so… so
je ne sais quoi
funky. So stupid. So real, ya know?”

Okay, thought Matthew. He could deal with the headache and the possibility of a seizure. But if Elliot didn’t stop acting like an idiot he was going to kill him. All this blather. This nonstop bullshit.

“Just give me the goddamn camera,” demanded Matthew.

“Oh, a little testy, are we?”

“Elliot, calm down,” chided Tina.

“Okay, okay. But can I help it if I’m the only one who feels tip-top today?” Elliot turned, squinched up his eyes, stared at Matthew. “Say, you really don’t look so good, ya know. Really pale. How bad’s that head, say, on a scale of one to ten? Is it a three or… or maybe it’s all the way up to a nine?”

“Give me the camera!”

“But, Matt buddy, maybe we need to pay some attention to this. Of course, it could be the first sign of cryptococcal meningitis, as you fear. Or it could be a mere tension headache, a migraine.” Elliot put a finger to his cheek, tried to recall that chapter. “Or it might just be a simple sinus infection. Icky. People with AIDS get lots of those. I, myself, have had three bad ones. All that green snot. Say, I know a lot about this stuff, don’t I? Did I ever tell you my hero is Commander Data on
Star Trek?
Gosh, if only I could know as much as him.”

A thunderlike rumble grew in some distant corner of the building, a rumble that in turn built and built in Matthew’s head. He squinched his eyes shut, pressed a hand to the back of his head. He couldn’t take it. He was going to go nuts, his head was going to split right in half. But then he opened his eyes because, of course, first he was going to jump on Elliot and wring his neck.

“Goddammit, Elliot, give me the fucking camera!”

“Just be cool, pal. I’m only trying to help. If we know what’s happening to our bodies then we can deal with it. It won’t be such a mystery, so strange and—”

From the side of the room where she sat on a chair, Tina pulled back her disheveled hair with one hand and looked at him with sunken eyes. “For God’s sake, Elliot, just shut up and do like he says!”

With a shrug and a big, dramatic roll of his eyes, Elliot said, “Jeez, you two are something else, just a couple of big babies.”

A lightning bolt stabbed through Matthew’s head, he again clenched shut his eyes, and the next thing he knew the camera was in his hands.