Beneath the Stain - Part 2 (3 page)

Trav nodded. “Wrecking Ball” had been playing in his temporary
apartment since he’d walked away from Terry. God save Bruce
Springsteen.

“Well, this kid could be that guy. He’s got so much inside him. But it’s not going to happen unless someone gets him to rehab and makes his life regular and shows him how to fucking survive, you hear me?”

Trav sighed. “Babysitting?”

Heath glared at him. “You remember Private Banneker?”

Oh God. Trav swallowed against a sudden dry mouth and the memory of eyes popping out of a swollen face and the haunting swing of feet four feet above the ground. He’d checked. Goddammit, he’d
checked
to make sure Banneker was clear, didn’t have any goddamned thing to harm himself with inside his cell.

Fucking kid had ripped his fatigues on a rough spot under the bunk and found a way to hang himself.

“Horrible fucking memory,” Trav breathed, trying to clear that image from behind his eyes. Stupid kid. It was a three-month offense, max. Three months and a demotion. He couldn’t live through three months and a demotion? Trav had learned after that. Learned to talk the prisoners down as he locked them up. Learned to make it practical, a thing they could handle instead of the end of their lives.

“Yeah?” Heath asked, rubbing his face restlessly, his own voice shaking. “Wasn’t great for me either.” Heath had been the one to find Banneker. They’d bunked together then, and Trav had been the one to help him through the nightmares.

“You’re saying this kid’s gonna—” Trav couldn’t even make himself say it.

“I’m saying someone needs to hold this kid’s hand for a while.”

Heath looked Trav square in the eyes, and for once, he wasn’t wearing the contact lenses he called his Hollywood Blues. Trav found the honesty in his plain, average brownish eyes refreshing.

“Babysitting,” Trav said, but he winked as he said it and stuck out his hand to shake on the bargain. “When do I start?”

“Tomorrow morning,” Heath said, taking his hand. Square and firm and trustworthy—one of the reasons Trav had stayed friends with Heath through the military and beyond.

“Let them know I’m coming,” Trav warned.

Heath grimaced. “Frankly, I don’t think it’s gonna matter.”

T
HE
WEIRD
thing about the Burbank Hilton was while from the inside it looked over the entertainment industrial town of Burbank, from the freeway it looked sort of gracious in a tacky West Coast way.

The best part of the view from the fifteenth floor was the swimming pool almost directly below the window from the hallway.

Trav sighed and put his suitcase down next to the bed. The boys were in the suite across the hall—they did not yet know he was there. The
hotel
knew, and had politely asked if he’d be able to pay for all of the damages incurred by the other members of his party.

He’d been politely surprised that the charges were under $5,000.00. The nest of stoners (as he’d been calling them in his head) had lived there for nearly a month, and apparently poor old Gerry had died there. Trav had actually seen worse.

Now he was standing at his window, looking at the swimming pool, wondering which would be worse: answering the text Terry had just sent him before he went in to face down the pack or saving it for the cherry on the shit sundae when he was done.

With a sigh, he figured he’d never been good at putting unpleasant things off. Rip-off-the-Band-Aid was his favorite school of thought. And of course as soon as he thought that, his phone buzzed again.

You don’t want the chess set?

Trav closed his eyes. They’d met playing chess. One of the clubs Trav used to belong to had held some sort of tournament, and he’d been between jobs. Terry had been fun to talk to, spontaneous where Trav was not, flirty and funny. A simple dating progression: dinner on the first date, movie on the second, the park on the third, bed on the fourth. Somewhere in there had been an exchange of medical information, a decision to use condoms, and then an informed decision to go without. Six months of that, and they moved in.

Terry had bought the set—something nice, with pretty blue and red stone pieces and a marble board—for the one-year anniversary of the day they met.

Which had been about three and a half years ago.

No thank you. You keep it.

God, that’s fucking cold.

Was there anything else you needed?

Yeah. I need to know if you ever loved me.

Trav closed his eyes for a moment, remembering the way they’d wake up slowly on Sundays, maybe make love, maybe not, then gravitate to the kitchen and bowls of plain old oatmeal from a packet in Trav’s blue stoneware bowls. They’d sit and play chess in their pajama bottoms, and Terry’s dark hair would fall in his eyes when he was thinking. Trav would push it back, and Terry would smile at him shyly, as though he was aware he lost time and place when he was concentrating.

Oh God.

Wow. It’s taking you a long time to answer.

Yes.
He took a deep breath after he sent the text and then typed the next one quickly.
Yes, I loved you. That’s why we need to do it this way. I can’t see you face-to-face while we do this.

He was breathing hard, and he forced himself to stop. Just stop. This was irrelevant.

Trav, I’m sorry.

Fuck you. Contact Heath if you have any questions.
Terry knew Heath—they’d had him and whatever girlfriend over to dinner more than once.

Ruthlessly he turned off his phone, tucked his key in his pocket, and left the room.

H
E
KNOCKED
on the door and was not particularly surprised when a girl opened it. She wore cutoffs and a red-striped spaghetti-strap tank top, no bra, and her skin was the pale copper freckled variety of the true redhead. Her hair—thick and layered around her face—hadn’t been dyed or gelled or messed with, and she smiled winsomely with full lips.

“Hello,” she said softly. “You must be the new guy, right?”

“I’m Trav Ford, the new manager. Are the boys—”

“Jefferson?” the girl called behind her. “Stevie? Your new guy is here. The one to take over for Gerry.”

From behind the girl, he heard two male voices. “No, goddammit, Kell, don’t you go—”

A big, battered, meaty hand wrapped around the girl’s arm—not rough, but it wasn’t the touch of a lover either. “Move, Shelia. This shit’s important.”

“Okay, Kell,” Shelia said. “Don’t need to shove, I’m moving.” She smiled sunnily at Trav while she stepped aside. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Ford. The boys will be happy to start playing again.” She sauntered into the hotel room, which was sort of cavelike, with the lights dimmed and the strong smell of pot smoke and patchouli, and Trav was left face-to-face with the oldest Sanders brother.

“Mr. Ford?” Kell Sanders said, shaking his hand. His grip was strong but sort of spread out, but maybe that was because his paws were massive. Trav wondered how he managed to play guitar with such a mighty claw, but this wasn’t the time or the place. “Pleased to meet you. Come in. We, uhm, tried to clean up and all. I mean, the maids have been real nice helping us, but, well, Mackey sort of lost it when Gerry died, and that’s why they needed to replace the table and the window. But come in, ’kay?”

Of all the things, Trav had not been expecting
that.

He took two steps into the room and looked around. The coffee table in the middle of the conversation pit held beer cans and a recently cleaned ashtray, as well as a couple open boxes of pizza in the middle. Ah, lunchtime.

The end tables held the bongs.

Dirty food containers, beer cans, wine bottles, and the occasional dime bag lined the counters. A faint scatter of green herbal powder ringed the edge of the garbage disposal, making Trav think they’d cleaned up just a little too quickly, and there weren’t any dirty needles in the sink, but there weren’t any clean glasses either.

Trav grunted.
Could be worse.

“Pleased to meet you, Kell,” he said after a pause that he’d
calculated
to go on too long. “Is everyone else here?”

Kell had a huge head and buzz-cut brown hair, a few moles around his mouth, and eyes that reminded Trav of a landed fish—sort of suspended open. He was wearing an Outbreak Monkey concert T-shirt, well-ripped in the armpits and around the neck, and jeans that had no ass, just a series of frayed strings, wearing thin, where the ass used to be. When he turned around and looked back into the living room and paused, Trav honestly believed he was counting people.

“Uh, I think Mackey’s still in his room,” Kell said. “Uhm, this here’s Blake.” A kid with a wispy mustache, scraggly brown hair, and an addict’s skinny build raised an unenthusiastic hand. He was dressed a little better than Kell—his shirt was some sort of store brand, and he wore a matching vest with his newish jeans, but his eyes were bloodshot and at half-mast. Awesome.

“And my brother Jefferson, and his friend Stevie.”

Jefferson and Stevie were sitting on the love seat together, and Shelia had just taken her place between them, burrowing like a bunny into the back of the couch. She laid her head on the shoulder of one young man and wrapped her hand around the thigh of the other, knocking Trav for a loop. That relationship did not look usual, he thought before mentally smacking himself away from judgment. The boys themselves were dressed in contrasting shirts—the one on the right wore yellow and the one on the left wore green—but the logo on the front, another expensive store brand, was the same. With their matching round faces and matching sandy hair, they were weirdly twinlike.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Ford.” The twin on the left kissed Shelia’s temple, and she scooted fluidly into the other twin’s lap. “Here, I’ll go get Mackey.” The young man stood up and turned to his twin for a sec. “Stevie, do you know if he’s got anyone in there?”

Kell grunted. “I think he was stoned enough to be gay last night.”

To Trav’s surprise, the twins met eyes grimly.

“Yeah, Kell,” the one who must have been Jefferson said, his mouth flat, “that’s why.”

Kell darted a look at Trav and grimaced. “When he’s sober, he’s with girls,” he said defensively.

Jefferson and Stevie shook their heads in tandem.

“C’mon, Mr. Ford,” Jefferson offered politely. “You can help me get him up.”

Trav was surprised enough to follow Jefferson to the room at the far end of the suite. “When he’s sober, he remembers to ask girls to beard for him,” Jefferson said quietly. “Kell doesn’t like fags.”

“Fan
tastic
,” Trav muttered savagely, not even sure he could put words to what he was thinking. “He calls me a fag, I’ll break his fingers.”

Jefferson’s shoulders slumped, and right there Trav had a sudden moment of sympathy. His sister was a little older than he was, but he also had a brother, a younger one, who had gone to college on scholarship and had shortly thereafter spawned the first of the requisite children to make up for the brother who probably wouldn’t have any, and whom Trav saw once or twice a year. They loved each other. They talked. They hugged at Christmas. They called or texted or e-mailed every week or so. How much would Trav love Heywood if they worked together, lived together, partied together, knew the cracks of each other’s asses like the backs of their hands?

“Don’t break his fingers,” Jefferson begged, like he believed Trav meant it. “Break his jaw if you want—he doesn’t sing a lot of backup, we’d be okay without him there—but Mackey don’t need to find another guitarist. It’d kill him.”

Trav blinked at Jefferson with real confusion and wondered what he’d find on the other side of the door.

“Mackey!” Jefferson banged on the door. “Hey, Mackey! You ready to get up? The new management guy is—”

The door was opened by a tall, thin, dark-haired boy with guyliner smudged heavily over brown eyes and mascaraed lashes. He was wearing a leather jacket and, as they talked, belting a spiked belt around his waist.

“Sh,” he said, squinting at Trav and Jefferson. “He’s sleeping.”

“Who are you?” Trav asked.

The guy shrugged. “A fan. No one you’ll see again. Just—” The kid shrugged again and looked away. “Don’t wake him up, okay? He doesn’t sleep good.”

With that the boy pushed past them, through the living room, and out the door.

“Bye, faggot,” Kell muttered under his breath as the front door closed, and Trav sighed. His jaw—that was right. Break his
jaw
, not his fingers.

The boy had left the door open a little. Trav looked at Jefferson, deciding the guy didn’t look too scary—a little red-eyed and sleepy, but not scary—and said, “’Kay. You wake him up, I’ll throw away whatever he’s getting stoned on, okay?”

Jefferson looked away. “Man, I wouldn’t want to be you.”

Together they ventured into the room.

At first all Trav saw was the pharmacy and the mirror with the powder on it next to the king-size bed. His first thought was
Thank God no pipes!
The coke mirror was nasty enough.

His second thought was
Where the hell is Mackey?

The bed was rumpled and well used, with little spots of blood on the far side. The trash can by the bathroom held dime bags, used condoms, an empty bottle of gin, a bloody needle, and a dirty spoon with a sponge in it, but no Mackey. No Mackey in the bed, no Mackey in the bathroom, no Mackey in the closet. Trav made himself busy, pulling housecleaning gloves from his back pocket and using them to pick up the coke mirror and two mostly empty bottles of vodka, all of which he threw away, while Jefferson looked in the bathtub and under the bed. He started going through the pill bottles, surprised when he saw that about half of them had
McKay James Sanders
on the side.

“Xanax, Percocet, Valium… and look. Three different doctors.”

“Huh?”

Trav looked over to where Jefferson was rooting through the comforter that was stuffed between the bed and the wall. “The prescription drugs,” Trav said. “They’re not legit—”