Exquisite Corpse (28 page)

“Getcher ass up
against
dat wall—”

“Motherfuckin nigger pervert—”

The first remark came from a fat white cop, the second from a slight, slender black one. Their absurdly tiny NOPD scooters idled at the curb. Their hands were, variously, gripping the back of the musician's neck hard enough to dimple the skin; on the back of the guy's skull, shoving his face into the rough brick wall; yanking his arms behind his back, handcuffs ready.

Tran tried to say something, some wonderful crime-tale cliché like
Hey, you got the wrong guy,
but he could not make his mouth work. He swallowed, trying to moisten his raw throat. His saliva tasted of blood and come. Some of his teeth felt loose. Worst of all, he was still drunk.

He couldn't think of a single reason to stay for the rest of this scene, so he closed his eyes and invited blankness into his head, and blankness accepted his invitation.

By the time Jay rounded the corner of Barracks Street, a small crowd had already begun to gather around the bleeding boy on the sidewalk. The cops had released the musician, who stood rubbing his sore neck and glaring at them. A pair of tourists from Alabama wandered by, lost in search of Bourbon Street, and stopped to watch the action.

“Looks lak somebody needs to call a ambulance,” one of them remarked.

“That won't be necessary,” said Jay, coming up quickly, getting between Tran and the cops, but not too close to the cops. “He lives with me. I'll take him home.”

Jay knelt beside Tran and pulled him into a sitting position against the wall. Tran's eyes fluttered open. For a long moment he stared at Jay.
If he starts screaming, I'm through,
Jay thought. But there was no sign of recognition in Tran's pain-dulled eyes. After another moment they slid shut again.

“He lives wit' you, huh?” asked the white cop. “What's he doin' bare-assed out on the street?”

Jay met the cop's rheumy gaze with unwavering honesty. “I'm afraid he had too much to drink. He's not used to it, and we argued. He ran out before I could stop him.”

“What's his name?”

“John Lam.”

“How 'bout you?”

“I'm Lysander Byrne. I live up on Royal.”

“Lemme see some ID.”

Jay handed the cop his driver's license with two bills folded discreetly under it. Catching the flash of green, the other cop waved an imperative hand at the onlookers. “Y'all go on, now. Nothin' to see here.”

“That boy's hurt,” the musician protested. “Look, he's just a young kid—”

“He's twenty-one,” interrupted Jay.

“Looks about fifteen to me,” one of the tourists said.

“Got blood on him,” the other pointed out.

Everyone looked at Tran. It was true: though not immediately noticeable in this half-light, several dark smudges of blood stood out against the pale skin of Tran's face, chest, and legs.

“Mr.—” The white cop consulted Jay's license. “Mr. Byrne? Know why he's bleedin'?”

“I saw him fall as he was running away. Probably banged himself up then.”

The black cop bent to examine Tran more closely, then straightened up and pointed to the bite mark on the boy's nipple. “He did that to himself, too?”

Jay shrugged. “I did that. I'm not responsible for his sexual proclivities, but I do try to indulge them.”

The cops glanced at each other. Utterly unlike in every other way, their faces bore twin expressions of distaste. The white cop handed Jay's license back, scissored gingerly between thumb and forefinger. Apparently he was willing to take his chances with the money. “Mr. Byrne, I suggest you take
your, uh …
friend
home and keep him there until he sobers up. I see him on the street in this condition again, I'll arrest him.”

Jay nodded, smiled. Someone else might have found this performance humiliating. He was savoring the cops' cluelessness, their utter belief in his act. “Thank you, Officer.”

“Hold up a minute!” The musician gestured at the cops, at Jay. “That kid looks hurt bad to me. I say he needs an ambulance.”

“Zat right, nigger?” The black cop took two steps toward the musician, pushed his skinny face into the older man's seamed one. “Well, I say he
doesn't.
And I say you need to get your black ass outta here while you still got the chance.”

The musician looked at the other cop, at the limp form of Tran, at Jay who met his gaze without sympathy or rancor. He looked around for the two tourists, but they had done a quick fade. At last he hitched up his instrument case on his shoulder and walked away toward Decatur Street, shaking his head in disgust.

“I'll just take him home now,” said Jay.

Luke blazed through the streets of By water and Marigny, past Victorian cottages and camelbacks and shotguns, old houses mostly rickety but painted a spectrum of colors. Here and there a house was boarded up and ravaged with graffiti. But as he approached the Quarter, the streets took on more of a genteel-homo air, a rainbow flag or windsock fluttering from every other porch, a pink triangle or a
SILENCE = DEATH
sticker on every other car bumper. In these lovingly renovated, tastefully appointed homes, people were making dinner, having sex, getting dressed to hit the bars, dying of KS and PCP and CMV and crypto and toxo and a hundred other incomprehensible horrors the rest of the world just called “AIDS.”

Or living with those horrors. Soren liked to stress that distinction:
Are you dying of AIDS, Luke, or are you living with it?
He'd always had a sarcastic comeback. Tonight he would answer the question truthfully, one way or another.

He had no idea what he meant to do. Assuming he could even find Jay's house, how was he going to get in—ring the doorbell?
Uh, good evening, Mr. Byrne, sorry to disturb you at this late hour, but after all the horror stories my ex has probably told you about me, I'm sure you're real eager to let me in so I can rip your fucking THROAT OUT
… No; what then? Forced entry? What the hell did he think he was
doing,
anyway?

He wished he had kept Johnnie's gun.

He wished he had a needle and a ready vein.

For a moment Luke thought of bypassing Royal Street, going instead to a certain bar or two, looking up one of his old acquaintances, the kind of old acquaintances who always hang around junkie bars mopping up the tears of fallen angels. He had money in his pocket; he could score enough heroin to keep him high for days, to stop his heart.
Let it go,
said something in him.
Let Tran go where he will. Leave them alone. Show yourself some mercy.

But the stronger part of him—the part that had been angry all the time for more than a year now—would not allow it. Junk was too easy. Tran was his rightful lover in this world. He had shucked the ballast of WHIV, and he no longer cared whether he finished his novel. This was the real story, the only one whose ending he still cared about.

He crossed Esplanade into the Quarter. This end of Royal Street was dark and empty. The air smelled of wood smoke, a lonely autumn scent. As he walked, Luke checked the finials of every wrought-iron gate for pineapples. In this way he happened to catch sight of the commotion taking place halfway up the block on Barracks.

Police scooters at the curb, their whirling bubble lights lending the scene a sick stroboscopic quality. Two blue backs,
one broad and one narrow, both topped by small round heads that sat atop their shoulders without the interruption of necks. A tall, coolly handsome blond man gripping the arm of a naked boy whose long black hair hid his face. As the blond man pulled him upright, the raven sheaf of hair fell back, and Luke saw that the boy was Tran. Which must mean that the blond man was Jay.

His heart clenched. Pain corkscrewed through his chest and down into his belly. He hadn't eaten in two days, so his bowels probably weren't about to turn traitor on him, but the familiar cramps wrung his gut anyway. He hadn't known what he was going to do before; what the hell was he going to do
now?

The cops were getting on their scooters. They were going to let Jay have him. This registered in Luke's mind more clearly than the dark smudges of blood on Tran's skin, more fully than the shock of seeing Tran naked and helpless on the street:
They were going to let Jay have him.
And Jay could not have him.

Luke leaned against a building and gathered his strength. He'd been awake since dawn; he'd watched one friend blow his brains out and had strenuous sex with another; he'd walked two miles in a highly pissed-off state of mind; he'd missed three doses of various medications. He was tired. Anyone would be.

Even so, he pushed himself away from the building and walked as quickly as he could up Barracks.

Jay saw Luke coming and recognized him at once. He'd never seen Luke before, but the leather jacket and battered boots, the badass stride, the ghastly-handsome face left no doubt as to the identity of this new character.
Luke always carried a razor in his boot,
he recalled Tran saying.
After he got sick, he said if anyone fucked with him, he'd slash his wrist and throw blood in their eyes
…

Jay wasn't afraid of a little blood. Razors didn't worry him much either. But what if Luke took Tran away? Andrew would be disappointed, maybe even angry. Maybe even angry enough to leave. And Tran would remember what they had done to him; perhaps his injuries would require medical attention. Doctors would ask questions, and talk to cops, and these two cops would remember him and find out he'd lied …

Silently he calculated the contents of his wallet. He'd given the cops fifty dollars each. Would another fifty make them turn a deaf ear to anything Luke might say? Jay thought so, but he wasn't sure. Better make it a hundred more apiece. He put his hand on his back pocket, not taking his wallet out, just letting the cops know it could happen.

“I know that boy,” Luke said. He was out of breath, and his eyes looked quite insane. “What'd you do to him? What's wrong with him? Tran?” He moved forward, reaching for Tran. The white cop put out a meaty arm and blocked his way.

“You know this guy?” the black cop asked Jay.

“We've never met, but I've heard about him. He and John are, uh”—Jay coughed discreetly into his free hand—“a thing of the past.”

That look of distaste passed between the cops again.
Give them something they don't want to hear,
Jay thought,
and they won't listen as carefully.

“His name's not John!” Luke yelled. “It's Vincent Tran! Dammit, I
know
him!”

“Oh yeah?” the white cop asked. “How come he ain't actin' like he knows
you?”

“Can't you see something's fucking
wrong
with him? Tran, it's Luke, baby, come on, Tran,
look
at me …”

Jay had been supporting most of Tran's weight with one arm; now he wrapped the other around Tran's chest, protective new boyfriend confronting psycho-obsessive old one. “He's fine, Luke. I'll take care of him. Why don't you just try to take care of yourself?”

He saw a flash of pure murder in Luke's eyes. This man was not someone to underestimate. There was madness there, obvious and gaudy. Jay turned back to the cops and took out his wallet. “Look, do you want to see some ID?”

“We alr—” The words died on the white cop's lips. “Yeah. Lemme see your driver's license.”

Sleight of hand wasn't one of Jay's strong points, but he tried to fold the two hundreds under the license with a modicum of discretion. Luke, of course, missed nothing. “You goddamn filthy crooks. You'd lick this pedophile's ass for another hundred.” He tried to shove past them, his hands clawing for Tran. The cops moved simultaneously, quick as snakes, pinning Luke's arms behind him and wrestling him up against the wall. It had to hurt, but his furious expression never changed, and his burning eyes never left Jay's.

The white cop bent to speak in Luke's ear, though he didn't lower his voice. “You got any more smart mouth to give us, asshole? 'Cause if you do, you get to take a ride in the cruiser with some of our buddies. Now we're gonna give these gentlemen an escort home, and you're gonna turn around and walk the other way. Understand?”

Luke remained silent. The black cop gave his pinned wrists a jerk.
“Understand?”

“No, I don't understand.” Luke ground his face into the wall. He was nearly sobbing. “I don't understand how you can find a kid naked and bleeding on the street and give him back to the guy who probably did it to him. I don't understand how you can take a bribe from that freak and forget about the kid's safety. I don't even understand what he's doing with Jay instead of me.”

The white cop jammed a knee into Luke's back. “Faggot, if I hear
one more word
outta you—”

“He's just upset,” said Jay. “Please let him go.”

The cops, remembering where the grease on their palms had come from, dropped Luke's arms and stepped away from
him. Luke remained against the wall, his face pressed into the cold bricks.

Jay wanted to get Tran back to the house before he began to come out of his stupor. “Shall we?” he asked. The cops mounted their scooters and puttered off so slowly that even with Tran in tow, Jay was able to stay a few steps ahead of them.

As his peculiar entourage turned the corner of Royal Street, Jay glanced back over his shoulder. Luke was flattened against the wall, gripping it with both hands, holding himself up by the fissures in the brick. His shoulders heaved convulsively. Jay could still hear his sobs.

He almost felt sorry for the man.

Tran awoke to a world of pleasure and pain.

The last thing he remembered was being out on the street, naked and cold. A hazy memory of Luke's face tantalized him. Had Luke been there? He thought so, but the whole scene seemed so unreal, a distant nightmare that was quickly eclipsed by the present one.