No Rest for the Wicked (22 page)

“We're highly flammable,” I said.

A subtle shudder seemed to climb his back. “Nancy offered to give me a ride home.”

He hadn't looked at me since he'd emerged from Betsy's apartment.

“You'll stay and clear up this mess.” It wasn't a question. “What will you tell his family?”

“Betsy's got connections with the owner of this building,” I said. “She'll make sure everything that can possibly be done is done.”

He nodded. Head down and defeated. When he raised his hand to summon the elevator, his arm was shaking.

“Peter…”

“Call me when you hear about Drew,” he said over his shoulder, stepping into the elevator.

He didn't look back at me as the doors closed.

I'd know that lime green beach cruiser anywhere.

It was locked in a bike rack next to more of its ilk outside a neat block of small teak-and-glass apartments just off the UCLA campus.

I leaned on the lit buzzer next to his name until he answered. “Hello?”

“It's Adam.”

A long, long pause, but in the end Jonathan pressed the buzzer and let me in.

The man who answered the door looked much younger than the Jonathan I was accustomed to seeing at Peter's place. He wore loose cutoff blue jeans and old green Keds with the laces pulled out. His T-shirt proclaimed him PROPERTY OF SIMEON HIGH SCHOOL and his hair was scrubbed up into a peak at the front.

“C'mon in. To what do I owe this displeasure?” He threw an arm out at a worn navy blue futon couch and went to the refrigerator. “You want a Red Bull?”

“No thanks.”

I looked around the digs. Typical student housing probably. A colorless rug, boards-on-bricks bookcases filled with hefty volumes with such intimidating titles as
Roget's Thesaurus
and
Rethinking Gender, a History
. Posters taped to the walls and a kitchen that was more an opening in the wall filled with a hot plate and a refrigerator and a single drainer sink. A leggy plant that had been trained to encircle the window, with a rainbow sticker pasted against the glass.

It occurred to me that Jonathan probably took great pains to dress and act as a sophisticate around Peter. To look older.

See, you know you're old when you stop trying to look like an adult.

“My roommate's out,” said Jonathan, dropping himself into a wobbly wicker chair across from where I sat. “Too bad. I'd have hated to have you meet him.”

“I don't like you, either,” I said. “But we agree, don't we, that we want what's best for Peter?”

“Hah, yeah, that's right.” Jonathan shook his head, a grim smile on his face.

“I mean it.”

“You're a selfish prick,” said Jonathan. “All you want is what's best for
you
. I've told Peter so, repeatedly. But you've got some kind of hold on him.”

“Peter's loyal.”

“Peter's codependent,” said Jonathan. “If you really cared about him, you'd walk away.”

“A word of advice,” I said. I dug the envelope I was carrying out of my back pocket and threw it on the table. “Don't share your pop psychological evaluations of him with Peter. He's old school.”

Jonathan eyed the envelope I'd thrown down. “What is that?”

“Just do me a favor and don't tell him where they came from.”

With a look of suspicion, Jonathan picked up the envelope and extracted the tickets and itinerary. “What's in South Beach?”

“Peter wants to go,” I said. “God's honest truth. And he needs to get the hell out of here.”

Jonathan stuffed the tickets back into the envelope. “What's the catch?”

“Here's the deal. I'll admit that I have a slight advantage due to having known Peter half his life. So I figured, let's see who the better man really is, shall we? You'll have two weeks down there to pitch your woo, so to speak. If you can't win Peter over in paradise, then you aren't worth the trouble.”

Jonathan absorbed this for a full minute. “You're serious.”

“Dead serious.” I rose. “So you up for it?”

He gazed up at me. I could see the calculator in his head trying to do the algorithm and come up with whatever my devious plan was, but in the end the prospect of two weeks alone with Peter won. “Yeah.”

“I'll let myself out,” I said.

Those of you reading this know what happened next.

Drew's good-bye post yesterday, when he eulogized Caballo and announced that he would be shutting down this blog, pretty much told the whole story.

I can't add anything to that articulate note except an enthusiastic “fuck yeah.” Immortality is not what it's cracked up to be.

Stay in school. Don't do drugs. Get a degree from an accredited university in accounting.

Avoid going out at night or only go out in groups. Especially in parts of town where the boogeyman walks. And remember: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

And that's all I got.

You want worldly wisdom, you should consult the
I Ching
.

I told Drew I'd add a little about what happened with Peter and Jonathan. Not that I know all the details, of course. Not that I spied on them or anything.

Okay, hell yeah, I spied on them.

I sat on the roof of the condominium opposite Peter's for the next week, and I saw Jonathan arrive that night. I waited, watching the moon describe her long arc in the sky, but he didn't reemerge.

Of course I had to leave before dawn.

Knowing what a stubborn son of bitch Peter can be, I'd turned off my phone and I spent the next few days sleeping in a different little hidey-hole. One of the temporary shelters I'd found in Hacienda Heights that Peter didn't know about.

I kept watch on the apartment until one night when he climbed into his Mustang and I followed him as far as the exit to LAX. So that, I figured, was that.

Drew kept me busy for the next few days, writing to you guys on this blog. I gotta tell you, you're like family to me now, all you whack jobs. I'm gonna miss you.

Anyway, when I figured Peter was long gone, I went back to my digs under the Motion Picture Academy building and indulged in a protracted sulk.

Nobody but Peter and Caballo had known about these particular rooms. Caballo wouldn't be telling anyone soon, and Peter was still in South Beach. So I was on my feet and pressed against the wall by the door, on my toes and listening with my little bat ears one night, when footsteps began descending beyond the first basement level.

Plink plink plink
. By the second landing I knew they were high heels.
Plink plink
. By the time she'd rounded the corner, I'd recognized Nancy.

“Hello, Adam.”

There was something permanently threadbare and defeated about the woman, but as she stood in the doorway looking around the room, the standard issue GLOCK held ready in two hands, I noticed she seemed rested. She'd had her hair done. Was wearing new shoes.

“Early vampire chic,” she said drily. “Interesting.”

“I'm not much of a homebody,” I told her. “Beer?”

She raised an eyebrow when she saw me lift two cold ones from the tiny refrigerator. “You think they'll notice the additional power usage and investigate?”

“Nah. I only turn on the lights for company. You going to put away your piece, or am I going to talk to the muzzle of your gun?”

“Sorry.” She disengaged and reholstered the gun. “I wasn't sure what I'd find down here.”

“Guns are pretty useless, by the way.” I pulled out a chair for her, and she seated herself.

“Drew said he hasn't seen you around, and I was…curious.”

“So now you're working with Drew?”

“The FBI has asked me to head up a unit, and Drew is our most knowledgeable expert at the moment.”

“You're jerking my chain.”

“I am not.”

“Huh.” I twisted off the cap of my beer and we toasted the glass bottoms. “They know what he is?”

She shook her head. “Not exactly.” She'd turned in her chair so she could take in the bed I'd made in the corner. The worn love seat with its knitted throw. Peter's sister had given it to me last Christmas.

“What are
you
doing, by the way?”

“This and that.”

“Drew tells me Betsy has decided to disband your vigilante group for the time being.”

“It was getting a little out of hand,” I said.

Nancy drew on her beer and set it down. “You looking for something to fill your time?”

“I'm not working with the FBI, Dickes. Even I have standards.”

She managed a rueful smile. “I kind of thought you'd say that, but Peter suggested—”

“When did you talk to Peter?” I hadn't meant to sound so eager, but there you were.

She blinked. “Today. At work.”

He should have been in South Beach for another week. “Those bastards made him cut his vacation short? Damn, that sucks.”

“Peter's not on vacation.” She squinted at me.

I squinted back. “He went to Florida.”

“No he didn't. He took a couple days off when his sister arrived, but he's been at work this entire—”

“Hang on.” I let my brain catch up. “You said his sister is in town?”

“She and her husband stopped over on their way to some vacation spot. They've left by now, I'm sure. Peter told me they wanted him to go along, but he didn't want to miss the Policeman's Ball, so he decided to stay here.”

Every year Peter and I stood by the refreshment table and drank from the punch bowl cups, enhanced with a little J&B from my private flask, and watched the brass and unis dance with their spouses, exes, and girlfriends.

Nancy was watching me now, and the little smile at the corner of her mouth was sly.

“What day is it?” I asked her.

“The ball starts in an hour,” she said. “I'm not invited, of course, but I'd be happy to drop you off.”

* * *

“When will you learn to stay out of the rain?”

Peter looked like he'd been standing on the back patio under a dripping fir tree for more than a few minutes. His dress blues were dark with damp, and the curls of his hair were making little humid spikes at his brow.

“You have any trouble getting past the gate?” he asked.

“Everybody's stoned off their asses. I just kept to the shadows, and here I am.”

“Yeah, here you are.” Something about the way he looked, standing on the rain-washed steps in his pristine uniform, his cleanly shaved chin with the dimple on one side as he tried not to smile at me.

The music inside switched from “Brick House” to a slow number, and I stepped off the patio and walked through the damp grass toward the pond. “C'mere.”

Neither one of us can dance. And Peter's initial reaction to my spreading my arms was to laugh and wave me off. But he acquiesced quickly enough that I knew he was into it.

“Who leads?” he said.

“Hell if I know.”

So we wrapped our arms around each other and swayed from foot to foot while the music played.

Peter's skin was warm and his eyes were dark.

“I should be pissed off at you,” he said.

After all these years I've figured a few things out about how Peter works things. Yeah, even bricks like me get a clue eventually. “Good offensive move there, Peter. You know how much those tickets set me back?”

He let his head rest on my shoulder. Christ, it felt right there. “They didn't go to waste. My sister and her husband needed a break from the kids.”

We rocked in place. He smelled like wet wool and Old Spice. He turned his head, and the newly trimmed ends of his hair tickled my nose.

Hand on a Bible, that's what made my eyes water.

The music inside had ended, and I heard the smattering of applause. I could imagine it, having been to so many of those functions. The crepe paper and balloons. The stiff cardboard signs. Cops aren't comfortable with decorating, and they'd have purposely kept it sparse.

Peter and I, in our little clearing of moonlight, the lake beyond, and all the stars around us, definitely had the better venue. We'd stopped swaying back and forth but still stood with our arms around each other. Beyond the stand of firs a truck drove by, its tires hissing against the asphalt. Peter raised his head and listened to it, then he looked back at me, and I could see light shining brightly in his eyes.

“I love you,” he said. Just like that.

A year ago, I'd have, I don't know, wished for a hole in the ground to drop through, fallen over my own feet trying to get away. Or worse. Laughed at him.

“I know,” I said.

We smiled into each other's eyes, and I wasn't even a little bit tempted to bolt and run.

Okay, I was maybe 3 percent tempted. On a sliding scale, maybe 10 percent.

Then Peter's phone rang.

He stepped out of my arms to answer it, looking worried. Nobody wants to get called away from a romantic interlude to stare at a dead body, you know.

“Yes, I got your message. I'm sorry I didn't call you back. I've been busy…yes?”

“Who is it?” I whispered. I followed him as he backed away, and I got my hands around his hips again.

Peter covered the receiver and admitted, “It's Jonathan.”

“Hang up on him.”

“What? No.”

I tried, uselessly, to wrestle the phone from Peter. My physical strength was no match for the strength of the glare he leveled on me as he twisted away. But I did take the opportunity to get a good grope in. He slapped at me. “Stop that. No, not you, Jonathan. It's…never mind.”

Peter covered the receiver and hissed. “Stop it.”

I grinned and went to my knees. Right there in the wet grass.

Peter's eyes were hot as he watched me work the placket of his wool pants open. “N-no.

Nothing's wrong. My sister and b-brother-in-law…” His voice hitched as he tried to catch his breath.

“Hold on a minute, Jonathan.” His hand landed in my hair, and he tried to shove me. It was a pathetic attempt. No sane healthy male purposely pushes a mouth off his dick. Whether he knows he should or not.

I reached up and wrestled the phone from his hand. This time he gave in to me easily.

“Good-bye, Jonathan,” I said. Then I snapped it closed, turned it off, and threw it hard in the direction of the lake. We heard the
thunk thunk sploosh
as it landed somewhere over there. Then I went back to my task.