By CLARE LONDON (14 page)

“What happened then, Max?”

That night…. “He’d met me after work. I was doing some cash-in-hand cleaning at the club, and we were going to go back to Stewart’s flat for coffee. I sometimes slept over on his couch, though we kept that between us.” Yeah, I’d been hanging out with Stewart instead of walking the streets, fixing up appointments. Like the other hundred-odd nights that I’d been Mr. Fixit in Peck’s world of peddling. Stewart and I were chatting and joking when I should have been out collecting the rest of the night’s money, then crashing on my mattress and wondering when I could steal enough of the takings to buy a fare to somewhere—anywhere—Stewart was going. Then…

“This kid lurched out from nowhere. He had a knife.” Stewart and I had been laughing at my clumsy attempts to do up his winter coat for him—he had his arms full of papers and files, and I was just glad to touch his warm body, his clean, comforting, civilized body, with my skinny fingers, trying to help him out in the cold night, to keep him warm. Then suddenly there was the flash of a blade, ice-white against the purple shadows. I instinctively twisted out of reach even as I turned to see who and what was coming.

“Stewart was knifed four times. One cut an artery, one half severed his neck. Blood everywhere.” All over his new suit and that damn coat. All over the pavement; all over me. “He gargled a bit, but it all bubbled out so damn fast I couldn’t believe it.”

“Shit, Max!”

“I’ve seen someone overdose,” I said. My voice sounded strained and alien. “And another kid die from the cold. In the morning, the life had just frozen away. She was a shell. And when I was new on the streets, I’d hear about kids who got run over because they were sleeping too close to the road. Shit happens and I knew that. But this was different.”

“Of course it was.” Louis looked very pale.

“There were rumors about Peck,” I continued. “That once he killed a kid who argued with him one too many times. Strangled him with his bare hands. Apparently it didn’t take long. And one of my group, Baz… the others told me he used to hassle Peck, wanting to be like him. Just stupid teenage hero worship. But Peck got annoyed and beat him really badly. Baz couldn’t think straight after it, went a little mad.” My heart seemed to be beating very fiercely. “I used to supply Baz just to keep him calm.”

“And Stewart…?”

“I’d never seen anything like it. It was horrific. And by the time I’d started yelling for help, the blood was easing off to a steady flow. That got slower and slower, and I knew he was going. No last dying words or all that shit. Just shock and blood and mess.” I turned away from my friends because I didn’t want to see the disgust and horror I knew would be on their faces, but also because I couldn’t trust the stinging in my eyes not to overspill into tears.

“Did you get a good look at who did it?” Jack’s voice was low.

I chose not to answer that directly. “Everything was too fast, too wild. I could barely focus. I launched myself at the kid, got in a punch, but I doubt I did him any damage apart from a sore belly. Then he kicked me in the nuts and I wasn’t a threat anymore.”

“The police?”

My mind had drifted back to the sounds and smells of that night—the odd coppery tang of fresh blood, the distant whoop of an ambulance siren, the sputtering lights outside the club. My aching balls and the knot of pure fear in my throat. “The paramedics were really quick, you know, considering the neighborhood. But I could see they wouldn’t be patching him up.”

Louis winced at my harsh tone. He was the only guy I’d ever known who could sob and still look okay with it. Which he was doing right now.

Jack’s eyes were wide and fierce, but it didn’t seem his anger was directed at me. “What did the police do? What did you tell them?”

No straight answer from me, again. I could remember the tears on my face that night as if they were still there. “The wound—I just keep seeing the wound. Never seen anything like it.” I rested my head against the back of the armchair and closed my eyes against the memory of such injustice. The way I’d felt then was still vividly, cruelly raw. The stirrings of hope in amongst the cynicism and the sagging self-esteem. I was going to change things, do it right this time. Someone wanted to help me and I had a friend. I was going to live up to what he wanted. But I never got the chance, did I?

“Max!” Jack’s voice snapped me back to the present. “How did you get away from that? You’re not telling me the whole truth.”

“Jack! Take it easy.” Louis turned to stare at his boyfriend.

I met Jack’s gaze. “No, I’m not, you’re right. I got away from that, Jack, because I ran. I saw the lights of the ambulance and heard the police sirens and I ran away.” Silence from everyone else. “I had my tips from the club pot and a couple of Peck’s dues I’d collected earlier in the day but hadn’t yet passed on to him. There was enough to get a late coach out of London. But even by the time I got to Victoria, I wasn’t sure where I was going. I just wanted out.”

“You didn’t wait for the police? You didn’t tell them your story?”

I couldn’t meet Jack’s eyes. “I thought I’d be in too much shit myself. They might have suspected me—they might have asked me what exactly I’d been doing with him. In fact, what I’d been doing for the past year. They would have looked me up on the records.” Where they wouldn’t have found a whole lot of official information. So then would come the awkward questions. “I didn’t dare stay around.”

“So you came to us?”

“Please.” I didn’t know what else to say. “I just didn’t know where else to go—what else to do. I got on the bus to Brighton and I called you. I know running out was a stupid thing to do. Cowardly. But when I saw he was dying, I persuaded myself I couldn’t have helped anyway.”

“And Stewart?”

“What?”

“Did he have relatives? A family?”

I stared at Jack, aghast. “I… he told me he was on his own, apart from a couple of distant cousins he never saw.”

“But didn’t it cross your mind that someone might need to know what happened, what you saw?”

No, it didn’t. I buried my head in my hands. “And all I did was bring it back down here with me. Landed it all on you two. It’s my fault.”

Jack sighed. Louis leaped off the couch and came to kneel in front of me. He put a soothing hand on my neck. “You didn’t kill him, Max. You panicked and you ran, but it was a mugging—pure chance. Of course it wasn’t your fault.”

I lifted my head to stare at him, and from the way he flinched, I knew that my expression still reflected the slide back to that world. My voice sounded weird, like someone else’s. “You still don’t have the full truth, though. You see, I did recognize the attacker—I did know him.”

“What the hell?”

“It was Baz—Peck’s pathetic little shadow. I knew he was damaged, but I never knew he was that violent. We’d kept him out of trouble for a long time, taking him around with us, trying to keep him away from Peck’s shitty world. Not well enough, obviously.”

“But you couldn’t—”

“Haven’t you been listening to me?” Now my voice was loud and angry. “I helped him get like that! He had no damn money, of course, but I’d share my supplies with him when he was desperate. I was the one who got him drugs, fed his habit, pushed him further and further toward the edge of madness until one day he obviously snapped for some reason—and Stewart was in the way. I might as well have put the fucking knife in his hand!”

That was it—I’d had enough confession for the night. I threw off their touch and the cloying air of their concern, and I lurched toward the door, holding out my hands to keep them away from me. Jack and Louis—great guys. Guys who’d found out their best friend had been a dealer and the worst kind of parasite. Tomorrow I’d face them. Tomorrow they’d tell me to move out. But tonight I had demons to keep me company instead.

“Max, wait!”

I paused in the doorway, though I didn’t turn around.

“We’ll sort something out,” Jack urged. “You’re different now, right?”

But that was the problem, wasn’t it? I was trying to be… and I was failing.

“Have you spoken to Seve about this?” Louis asked quietly. “Told him what you know about the London club?”

“No,” I said. Fear prickled at the back of my neck. “No point. You heard me say all the clubs were in on it—the whole Medina Group is run that way. And Seve’s one of the family. He’s part of it all.”

“You don’t know that for sure!”

“He’s a Medina.” I could hear the cynicism in my voice. “Of course I know for sure. He does what he likes.” And I didn’t want to get drawn back into that world again just because I couldn’t keep my hands off him.

It was never going to be worth it.

IT WAS eating away at me. He was. Seve. Seve. I dreamed him. Breathed him, heard him, tasted him. I woke up nights holding myself so tightly it hurt, and begging for it to be his hand on my cock, his fingers up inside me—

With a guilty pleasure, I listened to Jack and Louis making love at night downstairs.

I masturbated to thoughts of Seve, silently—a little ashamedly—but always exquisitely.

I was stupid and helpless and plain fucking angry.

I had to see him again.

IT WAS a Friday, a couple of days after I’d spoken to Jack and Louis about Stewart and the past year, a couple of days when I avoided them like I had some strange form of plague and didn’t want them catching it off me. I came home from work about seven and went up to my room as usual to wash and change out of my overalls. But this time I took extra time in the shower and way too long wondering which polo shirt from my meager collection to put on. Then I grabbed a sandwich and left the house, all without catching sight of the others. All for the good, really. I had personal business to attend to.

I lingered for a long while outside Compulsion. There was a fine sheen of rain spattering on my shoulders and head, and I hadn’t bothered to grab a coat. Damn, but I hated the rain. To me, it was the epitome of misery in its physical symptoms of cold and wet. At this early evening hour and with the looming gray clouds, the club looked half-deserted and totally harmless. There was no security on the door, just a weedy little management type. Even so, my ribs ached in memory.

Enough!

I marched up to the door and asked for Mr. Nuñez. I stood my ground when the Weed tried to tell me he didn’t know if Mr. Nuñez was available. I made the most of my extra four inches to stare him down. I knew what to do with weeds, and it wasn’t anything to do with gardening. Seve was there. I knew he would be.

Weed made some mumbled call into his radio, and I stood for another ten minutes, getting wetter. He pulled back into the relative shelter of the doorway, but I stayed out in the rain. Things had changed for me. For whole sections of time, I slipped in and out of another world—a far less comfortable one. A world where rain was the least of my troubles.

Seve came out a few minutes after that. He stared at me and I stared back, then he inclined his head in welcome like he often had before. He was dressed in a full suit today, obviously his working day look. He looked spectacular. It was probably designer—a soft, charcoal-gray fabric that hung from his broad shoulders with perfect elegance and hugged his narrow waist and hips. The plain white shirt shone with an expensive glare that I’d never found in the discount stores. His tie was subtly understated but probably silk. The damn clothes didn’t matter, of course, because all I could think of was the body underneath.

“Max.” His eyes had settled into a dark wariness. It had been a couple of weeks since we’d seen each other, since I’d pushed him away from Jack’s car and driven away. A couple of weeks since we’d last fucked. I didn’t want to recall any of these particular statistics.

“I think I know one of the men who attacked me, Seve.” I could feel trails of water running down my collar as the rain got heavier.

Seve didn’t answer. He seemed to be waiting for me to say more. His eyes were hooded.

“He’s called Peck. I knew him in London. He’s the lowest kind of scum, but then you probably know that. He’s on your staff, isn’t he?” What were the chances I’d meet up with the one guy in London I’d hoped never to see again? Was it luck or fate that I’d ended up frequenting another Medina venue—that my past would hang around me like the worst kind of storm cloud? And what were the chances Seve had the same kind of random luck? None, I reckoned. “Louis says maybe you don’t know what goes on at your family’s clubs. Maybe there’s some other source for your smart car and expensive flat and your loyalty to your family business. But I know things about it, Seve. Firsthand. And I find it hard to believe that you don’t.”

Seve spoke at last. The rain was beginning to make sodden patches on his shoulders. “Max, you’re talking nonsense. I don’t understand you. I checked the staff here after you were attacked, and yes, I believe I remember a man called Peck. My uncle sent some support from the London club just a couple of months ago. I didn’t know this man personally, I assure you, but I have sent all the staff that my uncle lent to me back to London with a report of their appalling behavior.”

I was shivering, and not from the rain. Peck had been here, I’d been right. Coincidence, or a deliberate plan?

“I want us to talk, Max, but these accusations are bizarre. I never sent those men to attack you. I didn’t know anything about it! And I don’t like the way you talk about my family’s business. My uncle runs a legitimate entertainment group. What else are you implying?”

There was a sharp edge to Seve’s voice. Should I have been more cautious? Weed was hovering in the background, though Seve raised a hand and gestured for him to stay back. There were a few people about on the streets, but they were hidden under umbrellas and scurrying back home. I was alone and relatively unprotected. But I was also wet, bloody angry, and I wanted to hit the very man I wanted to caress. “I don’t think it’s me who should be answering questions, do you? That’s not what I’m here for.”

Seve tilted his head. “What are you here for, Max?”

And in that moment, I knew he had me. What the hell was it I wanted? Seve to confess that he knew Peck, that he’d sent him to see me off? The look in Seve’s eyes was hungry for me, not angry that I hadn’t taken the brutal hint. And did I expect him to admit the illegal activities that his uncle’s business fronted so blatantly? Why should he, even if he knew? For my own edification? For some kind of revenge—or compassion for what I’d been through? Or… did I just want to see Seve again? Crap. It was all crap. He was right, I was in no position to accuse anyone about anything. I turned to leave.