Infected: Lesser Evils (23 page)

“Well, help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge. I don’t think we have any orange juice, but we have an assortment of random crap. You’re free to have whatever you want.”

“Hot sauce?”

“You’re free to drink it, but only if I can film it for YouTube.”

Kevin was dressed in a dark but semicasual suit and a dark navy tie, which would have told Roan he was getting ready for court if the time hadn’t. “Testifying today?” Roan guessed, as he searched the fridge. Kevin had some blueberry pomegranate juice, which he figured was good enough, and he saw a huge ceramic bowl full of pasta and red sauce on the second shelf. He could smell it vaguely—Parmesan and Romano cheese, garlic, tomatoes, peppers—and it made his stomach grumble.

“Yeah. All about a minor drug bust. Nothing very exciting.” While paperwork was the worst part of being a cop, having to testify in court was probably second, as long as you didn’t count some of the general Human misery. A lot of testifying in court wasn’t as interesting as many procedural cop shows would have you believe. It was boring most times, lots of waiting to testify, and your testimony was often just reciting whatever you wrote on your initial report. It was a way to kill an entire day and hardly do anything at all, which could be good or bad, depending on various circumstances. Roan still had to testify occasionally, owing to cases or stuff he did for the cat squad or Dennis Caldera, and it was never anything but dull and anticlimactic.

Roan held up the bowl of homemade ravioli. “Can I have some?”

“Sure. But are you sure you don’t want some toast or eggs or something?”

He shook his head as he searched Kevin’s cupboards for microwavable dishware. He found it, and wondered how come he was making himself so at home in another man’s house. Especially since he was such a dick to the guy. “No, this smells good. Umm, about yesterday—”

“Look, don’t sweat it. It was… I dunno. I’m sorry I forgot about Dylan being the main witness on the case. I don’t know how I did that.”

“Yeah, well… it could’ve escaped your mind. It’s not like we talk about it a lot. And, umm, about Parker—”

“Yeah, about him.” Kevin sat down at the kitchen table with a sigh, almost covered up by the thunk of his coffee mug. His back was to him, but Roan picked up the tension. He just ladled ravioli into the microwave-safe bowl and waited for Kevin to say whatever he was working up the courage to say. Finally, he said, “You were right. But since I have the feeling you always think that, you’re probably not surprised.”

He put the bowl in the microwave, and put a paper towel over it so the sauce didn’t splatter. “Right about what?”

“I, um… you’re going to make me say it, aren’t you? I hired him once.”

Roan felt his stomach twist in a nauseated way, even though he hadn’t popped his pills yet. “Oh Jesus, Kev….”

“Save me the speech, okay? It was years ago. I went up to Everett, way out of my jurisdiction, and I never told him I was a cop. I never expected to see him again, okay? That was the whole point. But then a couple months later he moved down to Seattle, and coincidentally into my beat area. Luckily he’s been cool about it all, he never threatened to expose me or anything. He didn’t care.”

Roan sat in a chair across the table from him, but Kevin was looking down at his coffee cup and wasn’t meeting his eyes. “Is he blackmailing you?”

Finally Kevin looked up at him, scowling in annoyance. “No! Of course he isn’t! I just said he wasn’t like that.”

“But you’re taking a huge risk in letting him stay here.”

“I know. But he’s really trying to go straight—pun absolutely not intended—and he needed a place to go where he wouldn’t be tempted by his old lifestyle. Could you get more square than my house?”

“No. But… do you hire a lot of hookers?”

He gave him a hard stare. “Don’t you give me shit.”

“I’m not. I just want to understand what’s going on with you.”

“What’s going on with me?” He snorted derisively. “What I wanna know is, where’s all this anonymous gay sex going on? If the fundies have taught me anything, besides gays being the biggest threat to democracy the world has ever known, it’s that gay men are always having tons of anonymous, meaningless sex, usually in public restrooms and Boy Scout meetings. So why can’t I ever find any of this action? I’m lonely, okay? And I’m a chunky black cop. I’m not a big hit at clubs, which are usually twinkville anyways, and I can’t stand the vanity and posing. Ugh. I just wanna meet a guy, you know? A nice guy. They don’t have to be stunning, like your men, just someone who doesn’t mind having a cop boyfriend who likes quiet nights at home. Why is that so hard to find?”

Roan didn’t even know where to start. God, he really needed to take his pills. “So you’re hiring prostitutes to meet a guy? Have you tried e-dating?”

“No, I know I’m not gonna meet a guy hiring hookers, okay? I don’t do it that much, and I always feel shitty when I do. But I’m lonely, Roan. Yeah, I’ve tried dating services, but the ones that cater to us are usually concerned with just hooking up. Which, again, I wouldn’t mind, but guys aren’t exactly beating a path to my door.”

Roan scratched his head. “What was that comment about my men being stunning? You think I require that?”

“No, but it’d be weird if you didn’t get good-looking men. You’re a hunk magnet. Prob’ly ’cause you ain’t exactly hard on the eyes, and you got that whole macho man thing goin’ on.”

“If you start singing the Village People, I will kick you.”

He smirked, idly stirring his coffee. The microwave beeped, letting Roan know he had a valid excuse to get up. “Come on, you know you have the macho thing. It’s half tortured action hero, half bad boy. And who doesn’t love either of those? C’mon.”

“I am not a bad boy! How am I a bad boy?”

“Wow, take your pick. But I’m gonna go with the fact that you are just incredibly fucking dangerous. You are a SWAT team all by yourself.”

“I’m not that bad,” he complained, aware he had made an accidental pun.

“I wouldn’t fuck with you.”

“My whole life has been an attempt to get people to stop fucking with me.”

“Okay then, mission accomplished.”

“No, not really.” Roan got the steaming bowl of pasta from the microwave and after digging a fork out of a drawer, sat back down at the table. It smelled great, and the pomegranate blueberry juice didn’t taste that bad.

He was taking his first bite of ravioli when Kevin added, “Oh yeah, Dylan went and picked up Fox from the hospital last night, and when he came back, he asked me if I could do a records check on a guy named Pierce Hockney. He said he’s connected to this tainted burn thing.”

He mulled that over as he chewed. He’d told Dylan about Pierce, but he hadn’t said that much about him. “Was he gone a while?”

Kev had to think about that for a moment. “I guess so. Parker and I watched a couple of
Breaking Bad
episodes before he came back.”

“So, a couple of hours? Traffic couldn’t have been that bad.”

“Not at that time of night, no.”

Suddenly it struck him. “You were watching
Breaking Bad
with a meth addict?”

“Former meth addict. He’s been clean for two months.”

“Still, is that wise?”

“It’s a good show.”

“I know it’s a good show, I’m just saying it’s weird.”

“It is weird, I guess. But no, he’s not tempted by scenes of people using rock. Is that what you were wondering?”

“Kinda.”

Kevin shrugged. “It’s fiction. He can handle it.”

He nodded, not sure what to say. It did seem like the kind of irony that was either funny or sad. “This is really good,” he said, gesturing to the pasta.

Kev smiled faintly. “I’m a great cook. Look at what those guys are missing.” After a moment where he sipped his coffee and Roan enjoyed another bite of pasta, Kev asked, “So what do you think Fox and Dylan were up to?”

“Knowing Holden? Investigating. He doesn’t like to be sidelined for too long, and I’m sure Dylan is worried about me.” Yeah, he’d only cried like a hysterical teenager at a Justin Bieber concert, and taken half a bottle of heavy-duty painkillers—why would that make Dylan worry? Jesus, he was a piece of work sometimes. He’d kick his own ass if he could.

“So you’re not worried that they have a thing?”

He laughed, and briefly choked on a piece of ravioli. As soon as he was able to swallow it and stop snickering, he said, “Oh hell no. Dyl is civil to Holden, but I know he doesn’t like him very much.”

“Why not?”

“Hard to say. I think mainly ’cause he really doesn’t get him, which I can understand. I think Holden likes being difficult to fathom.”

“All I know about Fox is he’s one of those clever bastards that you don’t want to turn your back on.”

“Yeah, that’s him.” He paused, long enough to consider whether or not he should ask, and figured what the fuck. “You and Parker aren’t involved, right?”

“No. I’m just helping him, that’s all.”

“Okay, just making sure.”

Kevin had to leave for a brief stop at work before court, so Roan was able to eat the rest of his inappropriate breakfast in general silence. Did it strike either of them as hypocritical that a vice cop was known to consort with prostitutes, or that he was allowing a notorious pill popper (Roan) into his house? Sure, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a cop who was as pure as driven snow. Ideally, the sins were minor—and Roan couldn’t help but think theirs were (but he would, wouldn’t he?)—and you weren’t as corrupt as a politician, but that happened too.

Not that there weren’t honest, pure cops. There were tons of them. But Roan didn’t trust most of them. Everyone fucked up; everyone was a hypocrite to a certain degree. Those who insisted most vehemently that they weren’t and never were, were usually the biggest liars of them all.

After eating and taking his pills, he wandered back upstairs, still sleepy. It was only hunger and an overwhelming need to piss that had got him up in the first place. That and nagging feelings of guilt.

Dylan was sleeping on his stomach, the blankets covering him only to his shoulder blades, one arm hanging down the side of the bed. It was funny to say someone had a good-looking back, but damn, Dylan had a good-looking back.

Roan took off his shirt and crawled back into bed, trying not to wake him up, but then he leaned over and kissed his shoulder blade. How could he help it? He was gorgeous and far more than he deserved.

Roan snuggled up against him, Dylan muttering in his sleep and nestling against him too, and he fell back asleep, trying not to think about how he had crushed a skull with his bare hands.

He was dreaming of mud and blood, of running through a jungle of buildings and trees, when his cell phone ringing woke him up. He’d taken it out to check his messages, but lost his nerve. He wasn’t going to answer it, but he didn’t want to wake up Dylan, so he snatched it from the nightstand, and muttered a semi-intelligible, “What?”

“Well, ain’t you a ray of sunshine?” Doctor Rosenberg rasped.

With a sigh, he rolled over onto his back and rubbed his eyes. “I’ve had a bad week. What’s gone wrong now?”

“Nothing that I know of. I just wanted to know if you’d made any headway on finding the asshole who created the fake lepidysine.”

“I’d call you if I had. All I’ve got are breadcrumbs. I don’t know if any of these things will lead anywhere. Is that it?”

She snorted bitterly. “You are a prickly bastard today. Well, maybe this’ll distract you. Your blood reacts differently to the fake lepidysine.”

He pondered that a moment, not sure what to say. “Um, how? What does that mean?”

“The first dose, it’ll react like any normal virus. Second dose, it barely reacts at all. It’s figured out it’s false, a hormone analogue, and attacks it.”

Roan stared up at the stuccoed ceiling, which looked like dried cottage cheese. “What does that mean exactly?”

“Well, a couple things. You know this drug ain’t gonna kill you, right?”

“Of course,” he lied. No, he didn’t know that, but in retrospect, of course it wouldn’t. Most of the people died of rapid transformation-induced shock (called, according to Dee, RTS), while the secondary cause of death was the drug basically turning brains to mush. He had such a drug immunity that if his brains weren’t mush by now, they were never going to be, and if he was susceptible to RTS, he’d have been dead after his first partial change.

“Okay. The thing is, no other infected blood that we’ve tested reacts this way. If we dose a sample, and give a second dose, it reacts with the same intensity.”

“So my virus is smarter?”

“A simplistic way to put it, but yeah. It has an adaptive immune response, basically. Part of what makes you unique is the symbiotic nature of the virus and you.”

“Symbiotic?”

“It gives you things, and you give it things. In this case, it’s learned to mimic an immune response.”

Was that even possible? He wanted to ask, but he didn’t want to hear
It is for you, freak-o
. “Does this help us at all, or did you just want to clue me in on my freakishness?”

“It opens the door for finding an antidote.”

He felt a brief acid burn in his stomach. “An antidote to what?”

“The weapon, the fake lepidysine. If your virus can tell the difference, the others should be able to with proper tuning. We just need to isolate what your virus creates to negate the pseudo-hormone, and synthesize it for mass production.”

“That’ll take years.”

“Probably. But at least we know we have the option. And that you don’t have to worry about getting exposed to the drug.”

“I wasn’t worried.” He wasn’t; he didn’t know why. Maybe because he loved drugs too much to be afraid of them. “Do you think… do you think there’s a cure? Maybe somewhere in my blood?”

“You mean a cure for the virus?”

“Yeah.”

She was silent for a long time. He could hear static on the line, some kind of electrical interference that was probably in the lab itself. Finally, she said, “It’s doubtful, but now you have me curious. I wonder what would happen if your virus met the standard lion virus.”

“Are we hoping for
Thunderdome
here? Two viruses enter, one virus leaves?”