King Perry (23 page)

I glance once again at the opposite sides of the second-level promenade and squint until I see his gaze follow mine. “Meet me at the loading dock behind the hotel. You’ll have to go around the block to get at it from the correct side. Back up into the alley.”

“Okay,” Perry says, clearly not thrilled with these instructions.

I look him in the eye and say, “Don’t drive crazy, but don’t dawdle.”

If I weren’t so focused right now, I’d ask him if he likes
dawdle
.
W
comes across as relaxed as far as consonants go and, depending on his neighboring letters, outright lazy. But this is no time for lazy
w
, time to get to Work.

“Got everything with you?”

“Yeah.”

“Ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes,” Perry says without much of a smile.

“Hey,” I say sharply, and his eyes jerk right to mine. I step in closer. “Making love with you in the shower was amazing.”

He nods and unclenches. “Yeah, I liked it too.”

I nod, my business concluded, and stride away.

See, Perry, I can be vigorous too.

I
N
LESS
than fifteen minutes, Perry revs the rental van engine behind the hotel.

I lurch awkwardly across the cement loading dock with what appears to be a large black box, and I set it down carefully outside the van. I yank open one door, then the other. Perry hears my hurried movements back there, and I ignore his “What are you doing?”

After loading my cumbersome package, I shut the van doors carefully and quickly, creating as little noise as possible. I race to the passenger side and hop in.

I have to suppress a desire to grin at him; he didn’t disturb the tarps. He trusts me.

“Drive. Go.
Now.
”

“Crap.” Perry puts his foot on the gas, and we zoom down the alley. “What the fuck did you do? What was that metal scraping in the back?”

We emerge at the street, and Perry hits the brakes a little forcefully, causing us to jerk. I strap on my seatbelt. The box in back makes a noise.

I say, “Make a right turn. Careful of that woman with the bag.”

“Did you steal something? A chandelier?”

“Not a chandelier.”

“You stole something,” he says. “You goddamn stole something. You are a fucking ex-con, aren’t you? All that Alcatraz bullshit; I bet you can’t handle the outside world. You’re a fucking criminal.”

“Turn here. Go two blocks and then get in the left lane. Two blocks.”

I’m getting ready to take the wheel if he freaks out any further.

“
Holy crap, it’s alive.
I hear it back there!
You fucking psycho!
You—”

He interrupts himself and listens; he calms instantly.

“It’s quacking.”

“Yeah. Turn up here. Left lane. C’mon, switch lanes, Perry. Focus up. You’re driving.”

He turns on his left blinker.

For a few extra seconds, we are silent.

He says, “You stole one of those ducks.”

I squirm for a moment in my seat and turn to him. “I’m not really a fan of the word
stole
. Could you use another word? Maybe something with an
x
?” 

Eleven

“
T
HE
show ducks from the lobby,” Perry says, seething. “You stole one.”

I remain quiet.

“Famous ducks. You stole a
famous
duck.”

“Honestly, I don’t think it’s that famous,” I suggest meekly.

When he snaps his head toward me, I adopt an earnest expression. “I don’t think people actually, you know, know his
name
.”

Perry grips the wheel tighter, displaying a level of stress I did not see even on Alcatraz. This is new. His eyes dart around the street, regularly checking the rearview mirror for signs of chase. Though he did nothing wrong, I’m glad to see he feels responsible. He rubs his eye socket with vigor, a word I can’t seem to let go of this weekend.

Perry’s right. I do have word issues.

San Francisco’s streets feel particularly jammed at this moment with swerving cars and trucks too big for these narrow lanes. Saturday people threaten to spill into traffic and occasionally do, trusting that everyone will watch out because they’re pedestrians. The closeness of the city presses upon us in this moment, brave souls standing in the street, waiting for a break in traffic. Even the crisscrossing power lines threaten us, suggesting we’ve got nowhere to run, not even up. We’re doomed.

“Take a left on Divisadero when we get there.”

He obeys, but we ride in angry silence. Well, near silence, broken only by chattering from the back of the van. The duck sounds happy; he’s on an adventure.

“He was sad,” I say and make puppy dog eyes. “Didn’t you see him marching? He kept trying to go rogue, but all his duck brothers and sisters kept pushing him back.”

Perry slouches back into the driver’s seat. “They all walked that way. Seriously, why do you fuck with me like this? Why are you—what are you going to do with it?”

“Wuv it?”

Perry shakes his head. “No way. I’m not doing community service because of your warped sense of humor. I had started to get into this—”

“By the way, he’s a duckling. I stole a duck
ling
.”

“I don’t actually give a shit that it’s a minor, Vin. I’m not taking a misdemeanor or paying a fine. You’re on your own for this one, pardner.” He adds an ironic flip to the last word.

“I know,” I say, keeping my voice soft. “It’s all on me. All legal and financial consequences.”

I’m glad to hear that despite this latest outrage, he still refers to me as “pardner.” Sure, he means it sarcastically, but our strained connection remains intact. We have weathered the awful cake-dropping incident, which tightened our bond instead of weakening it, steeling him for this greater abuse of his trust and good will.

“There could be jail time,” he says. “If the hotel presses charges, I bet there’s jail time.”

While he fumes, I steal a few glances.

His icy blue eyes, tense jaw, the rigid arm muscles—yes, everything sizzles off him, broadcasting his fury. I would guess he’s asking himself why these things keep happening to him, when all he wanted was a fun weekend. Why is the world never just easy?

We’re both quiet for a moment, and it’s the good quiet, where softness keeps leaking in. I believe our new friend likes the back of the van.

Now that we’re out of the financial district, zipping along Divisadero on rolling hills, Perry unclenches a tad, perhaps because we’re further away from his work environment. Maybe the roller coaster hills have a therapeutic impact on drivers here, an unconscious reminder to breathe deeper, go slower, because the next hill’s a big one. I might be able to touch him soon without his jerking away.

When I decide we’re close enough to our destination, I break my silence. “Pear, I’m sorry I dragged you into this. The first night I stayed there, I found the duck room by accident while wandering around. They live in these cages, super-deluxe, floor-to-ceiling cages.”

“Was the room locked?”

“A little bit, yes. But they’re
cages
. I realized that together, you and I might free that little guy, make a bigger world for him. Even a deluxe cage is still a cage. “

“You can’t do that, Vin. He’s domesticated. He’ll die out in nature.”

“He’s young. It’s not too late for him to go wild. The ducks have to perform every day, and they never get a day off. It’s literally the Hotel California for that little guy, Perry. He can never leave.”

“You’re going to get caught,” he says, a note of sadness coloring his scolding.

“Am I? Did you get the impression that I often got caught on Alcatraz?”

“This is different.”

“We’re going to free the little guy. He’s going to have a whole big world to explore instead of a straight line from the lobby to the third floor. His wild duck nature will kick in and he’ll be fine. He’ll have an awesome life.”

Perry grunts. He hasn’t forgiven me, but his anger grows softer. “You’re unbelievable. Possibly the worst weekend—”

“It’s cool,” I say, moving my warm hand to the back of his neck, feeling the tense muscles radiate heat. “It’s all on me. My responsibility. They would never let him fly in that hotel. Don’t you think a duck ought to fly?”

Perry responds to my massage almost involuntarily, his breath beginning as an angry exhale but ending with an inaudible trickle. I bet my touch reminds him of getting fucked last night as he drifted to sleep. My fingers move in small circles, coaxing, pleading, reminding him that I am sometimes not a dick, and I can love him. I add pressure and heat against the tight cords in his neck as Perry resists me and yet is unable to resist at the same time.

Your first ducknapping is never easy.

“Take this exit.”

I thought a sensory memory might be useful this weekend, to relax him instantly, so I programmed one as we fucked. The erogenous zones can be linked so that rubbing a man’s neck makes his balls tingle and his butt throb, and he licks his lips but doesn’t consciously recognize why. I spent a good deal of our Alcatraz lovemaking creating this trigger, even if he wasn’t fully conscious for half of it. Sensory memory is fun.

I squeeze and release his neck like a rubber ball, and he shudders out a wave of irritation, one that shakes his shoulders and sends a long shiver the length of his back.

He might not blow up.

Who am I kidding?

This is it.

“Pull over here. We’re going to park right there: overflow parking.”

“No, Vin. Not off the Golden Gate Bridge. He’ll hit the water and splatter. Or the wind—”

“Okay, fine. The duck stays in the van. We both need some time to chill out for a few minutes, to think this through. Park right there. Good. I brought us a change of clothes, so get to the back.”

“It’s a parking lot. We can’t change here.”

“Just our shirts. Go.”

Perry slams the door, but he meets me behind the van where I reach under one of my tarps and pull out a tie-dye Iowa Hawkeyes T-shirt and an orange sun visor. I extract a camera with a neck strap, and after I’ve fussed with his visor, I hand it to him.

“The visor is too over the top.”

“Not here, Perry. We’ll blend in. Put it on.”

I plunge my hands under the tarps again, ignoring his protests. I pull out a fresh white T-shirt and a John Deere cap with that yellow-stitched stag forever leaping across the green. I wouldn’t want Perry to half strip in the parking lot alone. What he does, I do; we are a team. The king who gifted me this John Deere cap predicted I might need it one day, and apparently, that day is today. Thank you, mighty King of Curiosity. Please send us both your great love. Send us A Curious Army.

After we change clothes, I make Perry serve as my lookout, a job he does not relish, while I remove the heavy cover from the duck cage to make sure our little friend has enough food and water. The duckling makes extra noise at this new freedom, running back and forth, checking out his changed surroundings, greeting us loudly whenever he gets close to our side of the box.

Perry glances around, but nobody’s near enough to hear.

I’d love to joke with Perry over our duck’s jerky scrambles, but Perry may not find this as cute as I do. The little guy twice runs to his dunking tank corner and throws his head underwater. His playground is spacious. Fitting, after all. He is a minor celebrity, as Perry pointed out. I’m glad I got the big cage.

I say, “Let’s go.”

“We can’t leave him here. He’ll die.”

“I cracked the windows. He’s got enough food and water for a while.”

“He’ll cook in the sun.”

“It’s not warm enough for that, and we won’t stay long.”

“People will hear him,” Perry says, adopting a new air of calm, something that I suspect he uses with difficult bank customers. “Vin, this is not the place to hide a stolen duck. Think about this.”

This is not good, this slight detachment. I’m losing him.

“I need a few minutes,” I say, pleading. “Give me that, please, Perry, and let me think about this here. I need you. We’ll see the pretty bridge and chill out. I’ll come up with something.
Please.
”

When I see from his rage that my earnestness has bought me a few more reluctant minutes, I lead us from the van, following the trickle of tourists toward our common destination. He walks ahead of me by a step or two, and once or twice turns around to make a suggestion.

But I nudge him forward and say, “Quiet. Not here.”

A moment later he says, “We could put him in a cab, and pay the cabbie to take him back to the hotel for us. Anonymously, Vin. Nobody would know.”

“I thought of that,” I say, hesitating. “But a cabbie could take our money and then make more if he sells our duck to a pet store. We’ve got to keep calm. Let’s not talk about it for a minute, let me think.”

“We’ll go to my bank. I can get out $300. They can’t—”

“Perry—”

“Vin, I didn’t sign up for this. Alcatraz was bad enough.”

We head through a curved tunnel, under the 101, as we cross toward the tourist plaza. Other pilgrims join us, a few feet behind or ahead, chattering with excitement, so we keep our voices low.