Runaway Model (24 page)

If he could have trusted Nigel, he would have already made the swap.

But he didn't. How could he be sure that Nigel would keep his end of the bargain? It was the worst-case scenario if both he and Stoney landed in the same trap.

With Bryce's army at his back, he'd have a chance.

Until then?

He'd have to stay well clear of the omnipresent Mr. Nigel. Stay away from the flat. Stay out amongst the good people of the world.

A clear December night is a beautiful thing in Manhattan.There were tourists, shoppers, light, and life. People laughing. The tinkle of bad Christmas carols from the shops and pubs. On a night like this, it was easy to see why John Lennon fought so hard to stay here, never knowing he was making an appointment with his own death.

Sometimes Kyle walked. Sometimes he went down into the tube and up again.
The subway
.

Lower Manhattan. He walked past the place where the towers fell on TV when he was five years old. It was a tourist attraction now.

The skyline never looked more beautiful than it did at night from the Staten Island ferry. Why not? He melted into the press of tourists. They all lifted their mobiles to snap photos as the ferry pulled away from the dock.

Kyle was the only one who didn't have a phone.

Old people always said the Christmas season came earlier now than it used to. They blamed the shopkeepers. Kyle wondered when Christmas used to start. Lennon died on December 8. Had he had a chance to see the Christmas lights of 1980 before he was shot down?

Yoko asked that people never use the killer's name. Never make him famous. Born so long after the assassination, Kyle didn't actually know the name. But he'd heard the story that he shot Lennon in the back for being more popular than another singer of the day.

He didn't remember the other singer's name. Didn't matter.

The point was Stoney couldn't become a second Lennon killed for a freak's obsession with another man. Bad enough to be killed for being yourself.

Kyle couldn't let that happen. He'd give his own life to save Stoney.

No two ways about it.

He'd do it.

But he wouldn't throw away his life for nothing. Stoney wouldn't want him to.

The Statue of Liberty, the sea, Staten Island. Everyone had to get off and then back on before the ferry sailed back to Manhattan. It made no sense to Kyle. But that was the rule.

They were ten or fifteen minutes from landing when someone knocked into his arm.

Kyle wasn't even surprised. Roman Nigel had been on the ferry all along. Kyle's eternal shadow.

"The time for games is over now, Kyle. I'm going to talk, and you're going to listen."

"I'm listening, mate." What else could he do?

The perv took Kyle's elbow. They might have looked like father and son trying not to lose each other in the crowd. The music of their English accents would add to the illusion they were nothing more than tourists.

"It's time to go, Kyle. You're mine now."

"I want evidence that Stoney is all right. I'm not going anywhere with you if he's already dead."

"Fair enough."

The ferry docked. The crowd pushed forward. Kyle didn't like going wherever Nigel steered him, but he didn't see quite what else he could do.

A café lit with sickly yellow lights. The kind that can't get a license to serve alcohol. So they serve overly-carbonated soda and stale coffee instead.

People would say the pie was good even though it was too sweet.

A depressing place even if he wasn't being scooted into a booth so a madman could sit too close beside him.

"Two coffees, love," Nigel said. Unlike Kyle, he thickened his English accent when he spoke to Americans. He knew it would make them like him. "One apple pie, one chocolate pie."

Kyle poked his apple pie with a fork.

"Eat it. It's fruit. And you're too thin."

"I'm a fucking model. I don't eat pie." Kyle dropped his fork with a clatter.

"Teenage rebellion, innit?"

The pushing-sixty waitress smiled a shaky smile at Nigel and backed away to serve her next customer.

Kyle had ordered a cranberry juice. She'd brought cranapple, its cheaper little brother. He took one sip and put down the glass.

Nigel took out a phone. Kyle's phone. Tapped the screen. Handed it to Kyle.

He didn't have to scan Kyle's face to unlock the phone. The fucker had broken in somehow. The lock screen was gone.

"It's a live feed," Nigel said.

A dark room, lit by a TV news program playing on the 46-inch monitor in the background. Today's news, today's weather, today's fucking stock prices on the ticker at the bottom. Stoney was slumped half-sitting on an air mattress in front of it. His head twitched from time to time. His eyes moved frantically under closed lids. He seemed to be trapped in a nightmare, and yet he couldn't wake up.

"He's sick. You can see that, you fucker. You have to let him go get help."

"It's the drug." Nigel didn't seem too concerned. "It'll wear off. He'll be fine."

"Please. Just let him go. When he's free, I'll come to you."

"It doesn't work that way. You come to me of your own free will. Then I'll let him go."

"Interesting definition of 'own free will.'"

"Do you actually want to sit here and debate this?" Nigel took a bite of the chocolate pie. A small bite. Kyle guessed it was made from boxed pudding. "For once in your life, you're going to do what you're told."

Did he have any choice?

"Tell me this," Kyle asked. "How did you find me tonight?"

Nigel smiled. He made a gesture as if pulling a coin-sized object from Kyle's ear.

"What's that then?"

"Amazing device, this little tracker."

"You planted that on me? When you lifted me mobile?"

"You never felt a thing, did you?"

Roman Nigel had been a step ahead all the time. He'd been toying with Kyle for his own pleasure. It was a game of cat and mouse.

A game the mouse never wins.

Kyle was up against a force beyond his control. He had to face facts. The eighteen-year-old hero in him longed to save Stoney. But he couldn't.

"I'm not going with you, mate. I go with you and now you've got both of us. I have nothing to bargain with."

Kyle couldn't get out of the booth past Nigel without making a scene. Very well. He'd have to make a scene.

Nigel put his hand on his arm. "Wait, Kyle. Listen to me. You have to trust me now. You have to start learning that I'm your only real friend."

"Some friend."

"I have absolutely nothing to gain by holding onto Stoney Rockland. He's a nasty man with nasty habits. He smells of whiskey and stale cigarettes. Why would I keep him when I have you?"

"So you'll kill him."

"Why would I kill him and risk attracting the attention of the law?"

Kyle would listen for two more minutes. "If you intend to start making sense, you'd better start now."

"If you vanish, it's just another flaky runaway model who decided to go back to England. Nobody's going to lose any sleep looking for you. Not even your agent."

It was true. Chance hadn't missed a beat when Michel got arrested. If anything, he'd made more money by rebooking Michel's clients with Kyle. If Kyle vanished, Chance would move on to the next pretty face. There were a lot of them in New York. More of them arriving every day.

"If Stoney Rockland vanishes before his final concert, we've got the entire country up in arms. NYPD. The FBI. Maybe the State Department. Even the fucking tourism commission. It will be a publicity nightmare. This generation's John Lennon. Only it's worse than Lennon because he's still at the peak of his career. They'd never stop looking for him. They'd never stop looking for his killer."

It did seem logical.

"All right, mate. I'm yours. But if you double-cross me, if I ever find out you hurt a hair on Stoney's head..." Kyle left the threat unfinished.

Nigel pulled a small blue bottle with an eye dropper cap out of his jacket. Squirted a full bulb of milky liquid into Kyle's cranapple juice.

"I don't need that, mate," Kyle said. "No, mate. I'm coming peacefully like, innit?"

"Drink it," Nigel said. "Drink it or I'll inject it. It doesn't matter to me."

The thought of Nigel poking him with a needle that had been God knows where was enough to make Kyle drink. He felt sick almost right away but he knew it must be a hysterical reaction. The drug couldn't possibly work that fast.

They left the diner arm-in-arm, twined around each other like the greatest of friends. Like lovers. Kyle's skin crawled. What had he let himself in for?

But he couldn't just leave Stoney in the creep's clutches, could he?

He had only a blurred impression of how they got to the squat. Something about a taxi. Something about Nigel laughing with the driver about how his young friend had a bit too much to drink. Kyle's knees were rubber.

His mind was a bit rubbery too.

"Here," Nigel said. It was some random street corner. "We'll walk from here. Clear our heads."

The driver took his cash and zoomed off. Kyle felt himself being walked into an alley beside a nasty boarded-up building. Some of the boards were loose. Nigel eased him down on the garbage-strewn ground for a minute. Kyle didn't much want to sit but he had to. He hadn't the strength to stand unsupported.

Nigel pushed aside the loose boards. Picked up Kyle under the arms. Walked him into darkness. Dropped him again while he put the boards back in place.

The smell of black mold made Kyle sneeze.

The only light came from the flat-screen TV on the stripped air mattress behind Stoney. No audio. Stoney heard them come in. He moaned softly and tried to sit up. The air mattress made a sort of squeaky sound beneath him. He slumped down again.

Kyle felt sick. Stoney looked like death itself. There was no way they could just let him go. If they dumped him on the street, he was so helpless he'd be mugged straightaway.

"He's dying," Kyle said. He found his legs and shrugged off Nigel long enough to sit down beside the rocker. He felt the sweaty heat in his forehead. "We have to take him to the hospital. Please, Roman." Kyle hated to use the creep's first name but he'd have to get used to the taste of it in his mouth. Anything to make Nigel listen. Anything to save Stoney's life.

"He won't die." Nigel wasn't impressed.

"He's bad sick, mate. He's got a fever like. You can still walk away from this. Please. We had a deal."

Nigel sat down too. He was too close to Kyle. Too close to Stoney. "I'll honor the deal but I'm not going above and beyond the deal. Stoney can stay here and sleep it off. He's free to call for help when he comes to. We'll be long gone."

"Long gone where?" Kyle's thoughts seemed to stutter for a moment. Had he already asked that question? The drug and the flickering light from the silent TV were doing his head in.

"Do you really need to know that?"

"I need to know you have some kind of fucking plan, mate."

Nigel's smile flickered yellow and orange in the light of some TV advert. "You won't remember anyway. I'm talking to myself."

Good. Keep talking.
"Even if I forget about it later, maybe I just need to know for now." Kyle's tongue felt thick between his lips. He was starting to have real trouble getting the words out.

But he had to find out as much as he could about where he was going. He had no idea of how he'd get the information to anybody who could help him. But he had to try. He couldn't just give up.

As Kyle held a bottle of water to Stoney's lips, Nigel slipped his arm around Kyle. He tried not to react, but he supposed Nigel could feel the tension in his shoulders. Up close, the creep smelled of coffee and cheap aftershave. It wasn't enough to block out the stench of piss and black mold.

Stoney. No use denying it. It wasn't enough to block out the stench of Stoney.

He stank.

How long had he been held captive on this bed?

How long could the drug make Kyle a captive?

A fuzzy moment.

What were they talking about? Kyle didn't remember.

He'd lifted his own mobile off Roman Nigel. He didn't remember doing it but he must have done because he felt it back in his own jacket. Nigel hadn't noticed. He was patting Kyle on the back the way you'd pat a baby—making those circular stroking motions. Comforting if it was your mum patting you like that.

Creepy if it was your stalker.

Another fuzzy interval.

What was Nigel saying? Something about an airstrip in New Jersey. Something about meeting a plane. He was standing over there now. Oh. He was talking on his own mobile to somebody else. A pilot for the plane?

The mobile. Good thing Nigel had broken his lock. Kyle couldn't have scanned his own face without being noticed. As it was, tapping in what he was overhearing without looking down was probably the hardest thing he'd ever done.

No. The hardest thing was to nerve himself up to slip the mobile into Stoney's pocket. Kyle slumped a little closer to the sweaty rocker. Held his breath.

Stoney moaned but didn't move.

Kyle glanced at Nigel. The perv's face was lit from below by something on the screen of his phone. He was frowning. But it wasn't his face that held Kyle's attention. It was the black handgun on his hip.

Should Kyle really give up the phone? Maybe he
should
punch in those magic numbers. Nine one one. It would be so easy. Let the police deal with the situation. Except right now Nigel held two hostages—and Kyle couldn't make that gamble with Stoney's life. He could gamble himself but never Stoney.

Kyle had to go through with the trade. Had to hope that, once he was free, Stoney would realize the clue Kyle had left on the phone.

For now, he prayed Stoney was out like a light. Prayed he wouldn't notice Kyle's deft fingers.

If Stoney woke up at the wrong time. If he registered a reaction. If he gave away the game. If he asked, "What's that then?"

No more what ifs. Now.

Kyle slipped the mobile into the pocket of Stoney's jeans.

Held his breath. Waited.