Fade To Midnight (7 page)

He shied away from analyzing the angel, though. She had saved his life and sanity. Whenever he slid into that paralyzed black hole in his head, he hung on to her, and she led him safely out. She'd led him out of the first coma, the one he'd been in when Tony first found him. She'd guided him back into speech again. Maybe a psychiatrist could explain her psychological function, but no thanks. He still needed her too badly to risk spoiling her magic with clinical explanations.

The first memory that had come to him after the waterfall had been of trying to convince some guy to help him, to believe him, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember what it was that he wanted the guy to believe. He remembered the man's disapproving face perfectly. Long nose, thin mouth, curled lip. But not his name.

It was maddening. Total amnesia had been more peaceful.

He remembered Osterman gloating over him. He remembered a blond, leering man with a thick red face, too. An open flame, coming toward his face. The sizzle of contact. And pain. So much pain.

There were gentler memories. A bearded man with a seamed, unsmiling face. Boys. A weathered house in the woods. A rough table, a kerosene lamp, like a scene from another century. Maybe he was remembering a past life. Pioneer days. Hah. This life alone was enough for him to wonder about. Spare him the red tape of past lives, too.

He needed more. Frames of reference. Names, dates. Hard data.

Concentrate, goddamnit.
He'd lost the thread. He stared down at the cards. They were floating, shifting. Double vision, glowing with a halo. His ears were ringing, tinny and sharp. He couldn't screen out the soaps and deodorants of the men around the table. The detergents their clothes had been washed in made his nose burn. The earthier smells of their bodies, their sweat, their breath. Chiliker's chronic lung infection, the alcohol emanating from the pores of the dealer to his left. Cigarette smoke, peeling paint, dust. Mildewy water damage.

The fetid stink made his head throb like a rotting tooth.

And everyone was waiting for him to snap out of his vague dream, get off his ass, and bet. Chilikers had checked, so had Laker.

Kev stared at the backs of his two aces. He couldn't take this tonight. He'd play like a hothead rookie, end it fast. “Seven thousand.”

Stevens blinked. “All-in, nine thousand five hundred.”

Chilikers eyes darted to Stevens. He hadn't expected that. “All-in, seventeen five,” he said, but his voice sounded nervous.

Laker folded, shaking his head.

Kev shrugged inwardly. What the hell. “I call. I'm all-in.”

They all stared at him for a long moment. 5.5:1 pot odds didn't technically justify his drawing odds, but he wanted it to be over, and he was feeling reckless. Angry. Twitchy. Acting out, like a bad little kid.

“Two players, all-in. Turn over your hands,” the dealer directed.

Kev turned his aces, and looked to his left. Stevens had flopped a set of queens. Chilikers had turned the flush.

“Pair the board,” Kev said.

The dealer burned the top card, and turned over a jack of hearts.

Full house. Aces full of jacks. He'd won fifty thousand bucks. Son of a bitch.

He flicked a few fifty dollar chips to the dealer as a tip, and walked out the door with fifty-eight thousand and change. Plus the title and keys to Chilikers' 2007 Volvo, which bit his ass, but whatever. More than usual. He usually averaged ten thou a night, and that was playing more carefully and consciously than he had tonight.

He limped out into the predawn chill. Chilikers was there, staring morosely at his Volvo, smoking a cigarette. The final blow for his infected lungs, no doubt. Kev crossed the street toward him. “Hey.”

Chilikers did not turn. “Two fuckin' outs,” he said, teeth clenched.

“More like seven. Eight, with Steven's quad Queen draw,” Kev replied quietly. “You were the 4:1 favorite. I just got lucky.”

Chilikers muttered something obscene under his breath. “Asshole,” he growled. “You didn't even have the fucking odds to call.”

“No. I didn't.” Kev gazed at him for a long moment. He fished the title and keys out of his pocket, and held them out.

Chilikers stared. “You won that,” he said slowly. “It's yours.”

“You paid,” Kev replied. “But I don't need it. Got no place to park it. Don't want to insure it, or deal with selling it. Take it back. Please.”

Chilikers looked tempted, but then his mouth hardened. He flung his cigarette down, stomped it. “What, feeling sorry for me, now? I don't need any fucking favors, freak. You won it. You keep it.”

Kev held his breath, teeth clenched. Whew. Before Twin Tail Falls, that interchange wouldn't have registered on his radar screen.
Walk away.
He already had a lawsuit in course for assault and battery.

He walked away, careful not to limp. So he was driving home, with Chiliker's unwanted fucking car. He refused to let himself feel grateful. His leg was better, but it would have taken forty painful minutes to stagger home on foot with a headache like this.

He peered up at the sky as he got into his new car. It smelled like Chilikers, he noted. Not good. But he'd unload the car soon. It was later than usual, and when the sun rose, it would drive long, cruel nails of light into his throbbing brain tissue. But with the wheels, he could afford to make a detour before he holed up in his dark lair.

He parked by the battered brick front building on NE Stark. A sign by the door read “ANY PORT IN A STORM.” It was a shelter for runaway teens. It provided twenty-four-hour-a-day crisis intervention, emergency shelter, individual and family counseling, transitional living programs for homeless youths, street outreach, emergency housing, help for kids who were addicted to drugs. He'd done some cyber snooping, and he liked the place. He pulled the wad of cash out, shoved it into the brown envelope he'd shoved into his coat pocket for that purpose, scribbled the name of the director, and sealed it up. He'd give them the car, too, if it would fit through the slot, but he wasn't up for anything that would require human interaction. His head hurt, his jaw hurt. He worked the envelope through the letter slot, waited for the
thud
. Saved him the bother of writing out a bank deposit slip.

He'd had some incidents, on these morning walks. He'd once brought a young prostitute to the door of Any Port, after saving her from being beaten up by her john. The john he left where he lay, moaning in the gutter. Fuck him. Punching a teenage girl in the face. Kev tried to be tolerant, but there were limits. Another time, he'd been ambushed by a couple thugs near this very shelter, but he'd flattened them with no trouble. All in all, though, his morning walks were mostly uneventful.

But Christ, his thigh hurt. And his ribs. His arm. Everything.

His reflection in the glass window in the door caught his eye. So thin, haggard, cheekbones jutting, cheeks hollowed. He stared at himself, seeking recognition in the face he saw. But it eluded him.

All he had now was what he'd made of himself since Tony found the bashed up wreck of his body eighteen years ago. That ought to be enough, but it wasn't anymore. Not since the waterfall. Memories were stirring, and his hunger to know more itched and burned, prodding him along with nasty, anxious urgency. Almost as if something terrible might happen if he did not succeed in remembering.

He parked by the unlovely brick warehouse building on NW Lenox that housed his loft apartment, an alley in the less swank, not-quite-gentrified-yet northern outskirts of the Pearl District. His hand shook with gratitude as he stuck the key into the lock…until he smelled Bruno's aftershave.
Shit.
He himself had taught Bruno to pick locks, back when Bruno was a delinquent teenager. Now, Bruno was a delinquent thirty-year-old, with skills more suitable for a career criminal. His own fault. He shouldn't have taught the kid to pick locks.

Bruno lay in wait, lounging on a stool and drinking coffee like he owned the place. The smell of frying bacon assaulted Kev's olfactory nerve like a wrecking ball when he stepped in the door. So did the perfumed cream that fop had smeared over himself after he'd shaved. The stink was enough to knock a brain damaged guy right on his ass.

Kev switched off the overhead, and pressed a switch that brought the shades over the high skylights. “What are you doing here?”

“Came to see you eat breakfast,” Bruno said.

Kev slowly took off the sunglasses. “Breakfast,” he echoed, in hollow tones. “Uh-uh.” He sank into a chair, rubbing the thigh that had gotten snapped in two places in the waterfall plunge.

“Played cards tonight?” Bruno asked.

His brother's tone put him on the defensive. “And? So?”

“Win anything?”

“Some,” Kev admitted, reluctantly.

“How much?”

Kev rubbed his eyes. “Don't remember,” he said. “Dumped it on the way home. I don't need it. That's not why I play. You know that.”

“Yeah, I know that. Mr. Pure doesn't need money. He floats above the grotty obsessions of us normal folk. That's exactly the elitist, improvident thinking that's always driven me nuts about you.”

Kev rubbed his aching head, feeling the thick ropy scars on his scalp. “I told you. It's not about the money. I do it for—”

“Yeah, you explained. I get it, insofar as a mere mortal could. You only cop a buzz when your brain is maxed to the limit counting cards. I'm not sure yet if that's technically cheating or not, but it definitely classifies you as a fucking weirdo. Not that this is any surprise to me.”

Kev snorted. “Quit it with the ‘mere mortals' bullshit, Bruno. I'm brain damaged, OK? I do the best I can with what I've got to work with.”

“That's negative thinking, dude,” Bruno said in a lecturing tone. “If you want to get your life back on track, you've got to—”

“I am trying!” The force of the words drove a hot nail of pain through his head. He held his fragile eggshell skull together with his hands until he dared to breathe again. “Or trying to get a life, period,” he amended. “I've never been on anything resembling a track.”

“What's wrong with your life?” Bruno demanded. “It was fine! So get back to it! You haven't worked since the waterfall, and you've been capable for months now!”

“You've got plenty of designs to develop,” Kev pointed out. “When you run out, I'll come up with more for you. Whenever you need it.”

“I'm not talking about what I need!”

Kev's lips twitched. “So this is to keep me busy? You think my mathematical masturbation will make me go blind?”

Bruno made an impatient gesture. “It's a waste. You need to get out, get some sun, get laid. You made us a fortune with Lost Boys. Are you going to just throw it all away to—”

“
You
made the fortune,” Kev said, with quiet emphasis. “Go make the piles of money without me. I'll be OK.”

Bruno looked frustrated. “But what the fuck? You're just sitting here in the dark, staring at your computer, obsessing about your past. Let it go! Start from where you are! Your life couldn't have been that good, considering how fucked-up you were when Tony found you!”

Kev couldn't deny it, but he couldn't agree, either. “I need to know where I came from,” he said.

“Why?” Bruno yelled. “What would it help? What'll it prove?”

Bruno was right. There was no reason to think knowing his past would make the quality of his life better. And there were many reasons to think that it might make it worse. But curiosity was driving him bonkers. He'd always wanted to know where he came from, but since the waterfall, that want was fueled by raw emotion, like burning rocket fuel. If the truth should prove to suck ass, he still had to know it.

But Bruno was on a roll. “What's wrong with the life you've got? You've got plenty of money, or would if you'd stop throwing it at the widows and the orphans. You've got me and Tony and Rosa for family. What are we, chopped liver? Too lowbrow for you?”

“Don't be stupid. It has nothing to do with you, Rosa, and Tony.”

“We're just not enough,” Bruno raged on. “You're fixated on that hole inside your head, instead of the life you've built. Ever thought that what's in that hole might be a big disappointment to you? You were in shit-poor shape when Tony got you. Whoever your people were, they didn't stand by you! They left you to die! Fuck them!”

Kev gazed at the younger man. “I won't blow you off. Even if I find my former family. You'll always be my brother. No matter what.”

Bruno looked embarrassed. “It's not about that.”

Kev just looked at him.

“Oh, shut up,” Bruno snarled. “Just shut the fuck up.”

“I didn't say anything,” Kev said.

“You didn't have to. It was the look on your face. Come on. Eat this.” He slapped a plate with a fried egg on a roll, bacon draped over it.

Kev swallowed back the clutch of nausea. No way to let Bruno down gently. He shook his head. “I'll take coffee,” he offered.

Bruno muttered something foul in Calabrese, and spun the loaded plate in the direction of the sink like a Frisbee. The crash of breaking crockery made Kev jerk, covering his ears. Jesus. That hurt.

He took off his coat and poured coffee, ignoring the anger radiating from the broad back of his adopted brother. He tried not to limp as he crossed the room. Any show of weakness set Bruno off.

He sat at his worktable and turned the computer on.

“Don't jerk off with that while I'm talking to you,” Bruno growled.

“I'm not jerking off,” Kev said mildly. “And if you do, I'll talk back.”

“With only half your brain? That irritates the shit out of me.”

Kev clicked his browser. “Half a brain's all I've ever had.”

“Hah. You could solve complicated higher math problems while simultaneously operating a nuclear missile launcher, analyzing weather patterns, and shaving a poodle. But normal folk call that bad manners.”