The Little Death Read online

  He ran around Heat, cutting down a side alley between it and a closed Chinese takeout. I followed, but more warily, as it seemed like the perfect setting for a mugging or a gang rape or a mugging during a gang rape. But I had my gun, so at least it was unlikely to happen to me.

  There was a door, but from the way Sloane pulled on it uselessly, I could tell it was locked from the inside. “I wouldn’t knock,” I told him, as he looked like he might. “That’s the best way to get a security guard out here.”

  He gave me a frown. “Then what do we do?”

  I grabbed his arm and pulled him into a really nice pocket of shadows. “We lie in wait like a good stalker.”

  But I wasn’t sure about this. Blondie had looked terrified, why I don’t know, but that seemed to be an odd response. As it was, he eventually came out with a bouncer, who discussed some sort of reality show with Blondie as he walked him to his car. “Damn it,” Sloane whispered, once they were out of earshot.

  “Let it go. We’ll get him another time.” Although honestly I didn’t know if I wanted to come back with Sloane. If everyone reacted to him this way, my investigations would be over before they began.

  Although Sloane was a bit agitated, he remembered to be seductive and invited me back to his place. I declined, saying I had to go home and feed my cat. No, I don’t have a cat.

  I went back to my office to do more research. The owners of Heat were indeed Dennis Weiss and Thomas Erskine, but more unremarkable people you’d be hard-pressed to find. Erskine also partly owned a club in another city, but otherwise they seemed like private people who didn’t get mentioned a lot anywhere. Which was weird, as this wasn’t the age of the private person. Everything you did was noted somewhere, posted on Facebook or Twitter or somewhere, even if you didn’t want it noted. So how were these guys so good at ducking notice?

  Red called me, and I almost didn’t answer the phone, but there was no way that debt collectors would be calling so late. He said it had taken a lot of digging, but as far as he could tell, the Serpent Club was an exclusive, private sex club that was hard to get into. So hard, Red couldn’t tell me where it was or how you got into it, because he didn’t know. No one had been able to tell him. He was still looking, but from the bits and pieces he’d put together, it was for very rich guys who wanted to hook up with very young guys. So, skeeves.

  If Sander did join this sex club, why? He was certainly psyched about it, if you could believe his Twitter feed. Then again, what would be in it for any young guy who entered that club? Presumably they were looking for sugar daddies. You’d think that a place where rich, presumably older guys looking for lots of more or less anonymous sex wouldn’t get emotionally invested in any one guy, but weirder things have happened.

  Something wasn’t adding up, but I was damned if I knew what it was. I had a swig of some whiskey, hoping it would spark something, but all it did was make me hungry.

  After hitting way too many dead ends, I decided to call it a night. It was night, right? I have to admit, having a second floor office above a Laundromat doesn’t afford you too many great views, and I keep the blinds closed most of the time. It could be three AM or three PM and I probably wouldn’t know. It should have mattered, but it didn’t. Ever since Spencer’s murder and Kyle’s abandonment, time had become a relative thing. Meaning I really didn’t give a fuck. Echo City was pretty much a twenty-four-hour city anyway, so it never really mattered.

  I had just exited the building, taking the side door into the alley beside the dry cleaners, which was always nice and quiet. Except I saw movement in the dark, and I would have said it was just one of the homeless who occasionally staked out the neighborhood, except most of the homeless weren’t carrying baseball bats. I saw him take a swing at my head and ducked it before he could make contact, coming up to grab the bat before he could go for strike two.

  Problem was, while he was keeping me occupied, someone sneaked up behind me and cracked something hard across the back of my skull.

  Stars exploded across my vision, and I hit the asphalt like a twenty-pound sack of shit. I was conscious enough to see the leather boot coming right for my face before it kicked me straight into darkness.

  6

  I CAME to, seeing a sickly green haze in front of my eyes, and I had a moment to wonder if I had been tossed into a toxic waste pit before I realized I was looking at the pale green walls of Mercy Hospital.

  I hurt all over, like I’d been shoved into a car crusher and spit out a cube, but they’d given me enough drugs to give it all a hazy overlay, meaning I could still feel the pain but didn’t much care about it. I tried to get off the gurney I was on, but it took more of an effort than I anticipated.

  “Stop that,” a familiar voice said. I let my head loll to the side so I could see the dark figure coming up to my bedside. It was Kyle, still in his patrolman blues, although his black hair had the wild, messy look of a night off. Concern made his dark brown eyes look bigger and sadder, which was something, ’cause Kyle often reminded me of an anime character brought to life, only with less pointy hair. “You’re not getting out of bed.”

  “Yeah I am,” I protested, even as I continued to struggle to sit up. I soon became aware that I wasn’t going to be doing that right away, but I wasn’t about to concede that either.

  Kyle put his hand on my chest, pinning me down with little effort. He kept giving me those puppy dog eyes, like he used to give me to win an argument when he didn’t want to fight. “No, you’re not. You’re going to lay there and tell me what happened.”

  “Ooh, I just had a flashback to our third date.”

  Kyle stared at me, refusing to even crack a smile. “What the hell happened, Jake? I dropped by your office to make sure you weren’t drinking yourself to death, and found you a bloodied heap in the alley.”

  That struck me as odd. “Why do you care if I drink myself to death?” Then there was the other point. “No one was there?”

  “No. You were just laying there, looking like the victim of a kicking contest. You couldn’t have been mugged, though, ’cause your wallet and gun were still on you. Did you get in a fight?”

  “In a manner of speaking. I was jumped by a couple of guys with baseball bats.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Hell if I know. They needed to practice their swing?”

  Kyle scowled down at me, refusing to be amused. At least I thought I was funny.

  Kyle used to think I was kind of funny too. Although we met under less than auspicious circumstances—he’d arrested me in what was a genuine misunderstanding between me and a bastard blackmailer who was harassing a client (the charges were dropped, as the blackmailer in question didn’t want any of this to go to court)—we hit it off and started seeing each other. Maybe we moved too fast. We’d been dating two weeks when I found myself living at his apartment, but that was due to necessity since my apartment house was burned down. (Seems the downstairs neighbor didn’t realize making meth was a slightly flammable prospect.) Maybe I drank a little too much, fine, but sometimes it was the only thing that made the headaches and the memories go away. He nagged a bit, but I was a functional drunk, so it wasn’t that bad.

  After Spencer died, though, I may have hit the bottle harder, so much that it filed a restraining order against me, and Kyle’s nagging kicked into hyperdrive. Eventually I found a place to stay, just in time for him to kick me out. In a manner of speaking. I never liked ultimatums, and his “get help or I’m leaving you” bullshit was emotional blackmail. I don’t handle shit like that well. I should have known it wasn’t going to work, though. Not only is Kyle kind of uptight most of the time, and, of course, a big slab of police-issue bacon, but he was eight years younger than me, just the right age to never quite get all my references and make me feel as old as sin. He was sexy as hell, though, and sometimes just looking at him made my heart hurt, although I wasn’t gonna tell him that.

  As for what the guys who were late for batting practice were
doing, I figure they were sending me a message. If they didn’t want my twenty bucks and glow-in-the-dark condom, then they were just trying to get a point across. What point, beyond the fact that they thought my looks would be improved with some amateur bat-based plastic surgery, was unclear.

  Had to do with the Granger case, though. Of that I was sure. Someone didn’t like me poking my nose in, but who and why? Curious. Why was an amateur—but very hot—gold digger like Sloane Granger attracting so much negative attention? It made me wonder. Well, when my head wasn’t ringing like a gong.

  Kyle decided to write up a report for me, even though he was off duty, and I told him I really wanted to spend the night at my place, because I couldn’t sleep in hospitals, and also I couldn’t afford it. Eventually I got through to him, and he went to talk to the doctor, a harried woman who looked like she needed a three-week vacation somewhere hot and languid. She told him I should be watched for the next twelve hours or so, to make sure I didn’t have a head injury that would kill me, but otherwise there was no need for me to stay overnight. I might have had some broken ribs, they weren’t sure, but that wasn’t something that needed me taking up precious hospital bed space. Kyle said he’d take me home, but only if I went to his place so he could keep an eye on me. I had no choice but to agree.

  Kyle took me home, and I was so doped up on pain medication that nothing hurt, but I also didn’t have much of a memory either. I vaguely remember him helping me into his apartment, walls white as snow and rooms as neat as a Martha Stewart layout, but beyond being gently placed on his bed, everything else dimmed.

  He could have put me on his couch, but he didn’t. Was he really that worried about me? I could still taste blood, and sometimes it seemed like I could feel my whole face throbbing in time with my heartbeat, but I kind of hoped I wasn’t beaten that badly.

  I slept deep, dreamlessly, the peaceful sleep of the incredibly drugged. I did awake at some point, having to piss, and only then did I feel the warmth of him. Looking, I saw that Kyle was asleep beside me, his back to me, which was probably for the best. When I stumbled back to the mattress, still in the haze of the drugs but starting to feel certain aches, I was careful not to wake him before getting back into bed. I snuggled next to him, though, enjoying the warmth of him, the smell of his skin.

  Yeah, we couldn’t make it as a couple, but I did like Kyle. Not always, but he was the one who got away. I supposed I would always love him and always regret what may have been, but there was nothing I could do about it. Life moved on, whether I wanted it to or not.

  I woke up again later, this time feeling hands on my body, Kyle caressing my chest. It took me a moment to realize he was searching my rib cage for breaks, but when I opened my eyes, sleepy, feeling the aches for real this time, I met his clear brown eyes, now the color of whiskey. He was kneeling beside me, and he stopped feeling for breaks as he saw I was awake. He was going to say something, his lips parted, but he paused as I wondered if I could mentally will him to do something. I wanted him to kiss me. I was half awake and half aroused, the drugs making my skin feel almost unbearably warm.

  Somehow it worked. Suddenly his mouth met mine hungrily, our tongues wrestling, and it was like we had never been apart. It was funny, but it was almost like our bodies were on autopilot, that we needed each other like oxygen, like water, something necessary to survival. It was passionate yet comfortable, his skin rubbing against mine, the scrape of his stubble against my chin, the way he sighed my name like it was the most beautiful thing in the world. The weight of him was solid and familiar, and it felt like home.

  Usually I topped, but I let him this time, content to let him take the lead, to fuck me. I wanted to feel him, see if my muscle memory of him was still the same. I don’t know why it felt so good to have him inside me, to breathe in his breath as he kissed me, to dig my fingers into his skin until he groaned, but it was almost better than the drugs. I couldn’t even feel the bruises anymore; pleasure overwhelmed any lingering pain.

  In retrospect, I hated my neediness, which surprised me. I just wanted him like I wanted a good slug of whiskey, and he seemed to have the same effect on me. I won’t lie—the sex was incredible, and afterward he kissed the sweat off my face and whispered, “I’ve missed you so much, Jake.” I stroked his sweaty hair and almost told him I missed him too. I did, but I didn’t want to admit it.

  We slept tangled together until the pain returned and woke me up. It was difficult to slip out of his embrace without waking him, but I managed. I decided to go back to my place to shower, but before I left, I couldn’t help but lean over and kiss Kyle on the forehead. I studied his sleeping face for a moment, just in case I never saw it again.

  I’ll admit it, my heart hurt as I left. I didn’t know if I would ever stop loving him, which made me feel like a complete pussy. I really needed a drink.

  I also needed to think, so after a quick stop home for a shower and a slug, I went to Sully’s for some advice.

  It was technically before opening hours, but Lau always made an exception for me. But because it was still morning, he wouldn’t give me a whiskey; he would give me a screwdriver, though (orange juice made it full of vitamins, or at least more like a breakfast food).

  After telling him about the bartender at Heat, he went behind the bar and made a call to someone he called “White,” asking him about the blond at the club. He listened for a couple moments, then wrote something down on a notepad. As soon as he hung up, he slid the piece of paper across to me. “His name’s Tyler Cross. His address is there.”

  I looked down at it. According to this, Tyler lived on Fountain Street, which wasn’t the best neighborhood, but made sense for a bartender who couldn’t have made much money. “How the hell did you manage this?”

  Lau shrugged one massive shoulder, and it looked like a boulder rolling downhill. “All us bartenders know each other. Or at least they know me.”

  “Damn. I shoulda come to you in the first place.”

  “You shoulda. Would’ve saved you some time.” Lau studied me closely for a minute, the moon of his face blocking out the sun of the Budweiser sign, and finally said, “I really need to get you an ice pack. And maybe some base. You an ivory, or more like a summer beige?”

  “I ain’t wearing makeup. And this isn’t the first time I’ve been beaten up, and, knowin’ my luck, probably not the last.”

  Lau frowned at me, like I was being the difficult one. “You should leave ’em to the cops, you know.”

  “Yeah, ’cause they’re so wildly competent.” Well, Kyle was, but I wasn’t sure about the rest of ’em. Echo City wasn’t known for its crack crime fighters.

  They weren’t my priority, though. I decided to start with Tyler and see where he took me. At least it would get my mind off Kyle.

  7

  TYLER looked a bit like a sex doll come to life, something he emphasized by answering his door shirtless and wet, wearing nothing but a blue towel wrapped around his narrow waist. His abs were so ripped you could’ve grated cheese on them. Believe me, I was tempted, but I hadn’t brought my lucky wheel of Gouda with me.

  He didn’t look happy to see me at all. “You’re the guy from the bar.”

  “Name’s Jake,” I said, flashing him my detective badge. No, there’s no such thing as a detective badge unless you’re a cop, and that was what this was. A badge that belonged to a cop named Stewart Hickey. He’s probably replaced it by now, but no civilian’s gonna know this was his mysteriously missing badge, nor were they gonna know it didn’t really belong to me. I never let any of them examine it too closely. “I was wondering why you ran out so fast.”

  He exhaled and slumped against the door frame, in that way that everyone did when suddenly confronted by a cop. “I thought you were with my ex-boyfriend.”

  “We all hate our exes, but that’s a bit much. Can I come in?”

  Tyler didn’t want to let me in, you could see the doubt in his eyes, but it was doubled by the fact that i
f he refused, he’d look suspicious. That’s the thing with cops—you were damned if you did, and damned if you didn’t. He glanced back behind himself, like he was making sure he hadn’t left out anything that could get him arrested, and then stood back, opening the door wider. “Yeah, okay.”

  I stepped inside, giving him a polite nod while simultaneously checking him out. Not bad, but again too plastic for my tastes, too phony, but I suppose I went for darker guys anyway.

  His place was modern gay bachelor: tastefully matched furniture surely beyond his pay grade, lots of matching colors and patterns, clean enough that you could eat off any surface if the opportunity presented itself. There was also some kind of men’s magazine on the glass-topped coffee table, showing a half-naked guy presenting his chiseled chest to the world. Yeah, that’s a magazine for straight men, wink wink, nudge nudge. The three-room apartment smelled of coffee and expensive hair conditioner.

  Without waiting to be asked, I slumped down on his sandalwood-colored sofa and sat with an open, comfortable posture, legs apart and arms at my side, looking like I was settling in for the night. I wanted to make him nervous, and it looked like my simple body language fake had already started working. “What is this about, detective?” He stood there dripping on his sky blue carpet, shivering slightly in the air-conditioned cool but trying not to show it even as his nipples became as pointy and hard as crow’s beaks.

  “Why don’t you tell me about this ex-boyfriend? Who is he?”

  I could tell Tyler wanted to continue asking me what this was about, but like most sensible people, he was afraid if he pressed the issue too much, I’d consider him “belligerent” and make him pay for it. Save for Kyle and a few of his ilk, the Echo City cops weren’t known for their reasonableness. “S-Sander Granger. You weren’t with him?”