Second You Sin (37 page)

I put on the gloves and fished out Locke’s keys. I thought that maybe I should text Freddy and let him know what I was doing, just in case something happened. But that might be jinxy. I opened the door.

Sneaking into the office, I felt like a total criminal.

Considering I’ve spent the last few years il egal y getting paid for sex, you’d think I’d have that feeling more often, but no. The laws against prostitution are archaic and wrong. Break-ins and trespassing, on the other hand, you could make a reasonable case against.

The street lamps and flashing lights of Times Square made it bright enough that I didn’t need the flashlight in the main office. Unfortunately, it also meant that if anyone from the street looked inside, they’d see me. After relocking the front door, I dropped to al fours.

Why is it that no matter what I do, I keep finding myself in that position?

Trying my best to stay out of sight, I crawled across the office floor til I reached the door to Locke’s personal office. That was locked, too.

Luckily, the key to it was also on Locke’s chain.

As an interior office, Locke’s space had no windows. When I closed the door behind me, I was in pitch-black. Should I turn on the lights? They’d make it easier to snoop around, but the thought made me nervous. What if there was a gap at the bottom of the door and passersby could see a sliver of light leaking out? Probably, no one would think or do anything about it, but it stil made me nervous. Wel , more nervous.

I was already pretty nervous, and standing here in the inky darkness wasn’t doing anything to make me feel better.

I switched on my flashlight. A circle of light il uminated the wal opposite me.

Sneaking around Locke’s office in the dark was creepier than I thought it would be. Every surface had a picture of him, and in each one he seemed to be staring at me, saying, “You’re going to burn for this, son.”

First stop, the desk. I sat in Locke’s comfortable chair and opened the top drawer. Bingo. Right there.

A box of black eye patches.

Aye, matey.

Nothing incriminating in any of the other drawers.

Random papers, a bottle of hand lotion, a Bible, a brass letter opener, some gum. Where else could he be hiding something? I swung the flashlight around the room.

In the back was the credenza I’d observed earlier.

Yahtzee. Shining the flashlight at the floor, I careful y crossed the room.

The credenza had two wide drawers. Locked. I took Locke’s keychain from my pocket, but it held only the two front door keys. Crap. I put the keys down on the credenza.

Given Locke’s tendency to misplace them, I doubted he carried the credenza’s key on him.

Which meant it was probably somewhere in the office.

Back to Locke’s desk. I hadn’t been looking for a key before. Maybe I’d missed it.

I sat back down in his chair and opened the top drawer again. It must have been loose in its rail, because it made a banging noise as I pul ed on it.

I didn’t remember that from before.

I also didn’t remember the subsequent sound of footsteps and someone whistling as they got closer to where I sat.

This wasn’t good.

Someone else had come in.

39

Wide-screen

OK, best-case scenario: Someone was picking something up from the outside office. They’d get whatever they needed and leave. I’d be fine.

Second-best case: It was a cleaning service. I switched off my flashlight and listened like a bat.

A few seconds later I heard a key being inserted into Locke’s office door and the knob starting to turn.

Oh,
balls.

I slipped under Locke’s desk and made myself as smal as possible.

Someone turned on the lights and walked in. I couldn’t see who it was because of being under the desk and al .

Whoever it was, I hoped he or she wasn’t planning to sit at the desk.

Luckily, the footsteps seemed to be headed away from me. I turned my head and noticed that the wide side of the desk that faced into the room had a hole cut out, probably for computer cables.

Either that, or Locke was such a perv that, out of habit, he’d dril ed a glory hole there.

Speaking of pervs, yup, it was Locke in the office.

He was in casual mode, wearing a grey
Washington
Times
sweatshirt and a pair of new-looking jeans with a sharp crease pressed along the seam.

Pressed jeans. What a dork.

He was walking toward the credenza. “There you are,” he said, picking up his keychain, which I’d left there earlier. He put it in his pocket.

His phone rang. The ringtone was “God Bless America.” Told you he was a dork.

He wrestled his phone from his too-tight jeans and sat down in one of the leather chairs that faced the sofa with the flat screen over it. “Hel o . . . OK. No, I’m at the office. I had an opportunity to slip out so I’d figured I’d wait here. About an hour? That’s fine. No, I’l take a cab. Just cal me when he gets there.” Locke hung up without saying good-bye.

I decided he was a
rude
dork.

“An hour,” Locke muttered to himself. “Hmmm.” At least I knew he wasn’t staying the whole night.

But where would he be going at midnight on a Saturday night?

I had a feeling I knew.

Call me when he gets there.

Someone was arranging a hookup for him.

Locke walked toward his desk. I wil ed myself invisible. Halfway across the room, he veered left, out of my line of sight.

I didn’t like not knowing what he was up to. I was also getting uncomfortable scrunched under the desk. I was cramped, nervous, and real y had to pee.

Which was probably due to the nervousness, but that didn’t lessen the pressure on my bladder, which felt like it was about to burst like a water bal oon dropped from the observation deck of the Empire State Building.

OK,
I told myself, clenching my thighs together.

Don’t think about bursting water balloons anymore.

It’s not helping.

From the sound of things, Locke had walked to the door to lock it. It sounded like he jiggled the knob a bit to make sure it was secure.

He walked back to the far side of the room. I felt better being able to see him. He picked up a brass lamp on the end table by the sofa. He turned it over and ran his fingers along the circle of felt on the lamp’s underside. At a certain place, he stopped and pinched the edge of the fabric between two fingers. I heard the zipping sound of Velcro being opened.

Something fel from the hol ow cavity of the lamp and landed on the carpet. Too fast for me to see what.

What the hel was he doing?

Locke stuck the felt back into place and returned the lamp to the table. He bent over and picked up whatever had fal en out. Humming to himself, he walked to the credenza.

He brought whatever was in his hand up to the locked drawer, inserted it into the cylinder, and turned it.

So
that’s
where the key was hidden. I would never have found it there. Smooth.

Locke pul ed something from the drawer and put it in his front pocket. Then he grabbed something else and held it in front of him. With his back to me, I couldn’t see what he’d taken.

I had a moment of panic imagining that he somehow figured out I was there and had retrieved a handgun. I held my breath, waiting for him to order me out from under the desk. Or maybe he’d just shoot me through the glory hole.

OK, that sounded dirtier than I meant it to.

Locke walked over to the DVD player. His body stil blocked whatever he was doing, but I heard the familiar whir of the player’s tray opening. Locke opened the DVD case he’d gotten from the credenza, inserted the DVD, and pressed “play.” He picked up two remote controls from the coffee table and sat in one of the chairs that faced the TV.

He turned it on.

The menu for the DVD was displayed on the screen.
Hairy Squatter and the Horse-hung Prince.

An Al Boyz Production.

OMG. He was going to watch a porno.

It was official: This was the worst stakeout ever.

Locke picked the option to “Select a Scene” and navigated through two pages of choices until he reached number twelve.

Something told me this wasn’t the first time he’d seen this movie.

The scene started. An actor, whose bowl haircut and round glasses did little to make him look any younger than his midthirties, stood next to bearish older man. They both wore wizard’s gowns. “But, Lord Dicksalot,” the younger man said in a somewhat incongruous Brooklyn accent, “I don’t know a spel to raise the dead!”

“Oh yeah?” answered the older man. “How about a spel to raise
this?
” He flung open his robe to reveal that wizards don’t waste money on underwear.

“Lord Dicksalot! Your magic wand doth entice me!”

I had no moral problems with porn, but this dialogue was a sin.

Without his robe, Lord Dicksalot quickly fel out of character. “Then get on your knees and suck my big dick, boy.”

I could see only the back of Locke’s head and his upper back, but slight movements of his right shoulder suggested he was
really
starting to enjoy the movie. He stood up and reached into the pocket into which he’d placed the other item he’d taken from the credenza. I couldn’t read the label from where I was, but I knew the red and black bottle. Slide Away, a sexual lubricant. Looked like Locke was about to go to town on himself.

I was glad he faced away from me.

Locke tried to twist the cap off the bottle, but it was new and sealed in shrink-wrap. He struggled for a bit, but it didn’t budge. “Goddamn it,” he cursed.

Locke pressed pause and started walking toward his desk. Shit. I scampered as far back as I could.

As Locke walked around the desk, he was out of sight again, reappearing on the other side when he reached its front. He opened one of the middle drawers and lifted something out of it. I could see him only from the waist down, so I didn’t know what he’d taken.

I could, however, see that his magic wand was just aching to be waved.

“Might as wel use this, too,” he muttered to himself, opening the top drawer. It just missed hitting me in the head as it slid toward him.

Locke stood there fussing with something. My legs were cramped painful y as I tried to stay as low as I could. I raised my butt off my heels for a moment to relieve the pressure when Locke suddenly slammed the top drawer closed.

The back panel of the drawer smacked me in the forehead with the force of a basebal bat. “Ow,” I cried, fal ing off my heels, painful y hitting the side of the desk with my right elbow. The arm went numb down to my fingers. I felt blood dripping onto my cheeks from just above my eyebrows.

“Who’s there?” Locke demanded.

Stupid and dazed from the blow to my head, it seemed like a good idea to deny everything. “No one,” I answered.

“Get out of there,” Locke yel ed. He reached under the desk and grabbed me by my hair. “Now!” I crawled out, saying, “Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow.” Locke pul ed me to my feet.

“You!” Locke thundered. He glared at me menacingly. Wel , as menacingly as he could glare with only one eye.

The other was covered by a black eye patch.

In his right hand, he held the heavy brass letter opener I’d seen earlier.

He yanked my head back. I was too dizzy and disoriented from the blow to my head to fight back. I was also half blinded by the blood running from my forehead. I felt like I was going to throw up, and swal owed hard.

Locke pressed the tip of the letter opener against my exposed neck.

“If you know what’s good for you, boy, you better tel me what you’re doing here.”

40

It Had to Be You

For a guy who just a few hours earlier had been camping around the office like Harvey Fierstein starring in the Judy Garland story, Locke had a pretty strong grip. Given enough time, I was pretty sure I could get away from him. Unfortunately, time was a luxury I didn’t have. Locke pushed the tip of the letter opener a little deeper into my neck.

“I’m not playing with you,” he growled. “Unless you want me to carve you up like a Thanksgiving turkey, you better tel me what the hel you’re doing here.” That reminded me—Thanksgiving was next week.

I’d completely forgotten about it. I was considering inviting Tony to my parents’, but . . .

Focus, Kevin, focus.

Thanksgiving was going to be a moot point if I didn’t come up with something quick. Locke had kil ed at least four people. I wasn’t planning on being his next victim.

What did I know about him that I could use?

“I, I . . .”
What, Kevin, think!

I couldn’t catch my breath. I didn’t know if it was because of the way Locke was bending my neck back, or if it was fear constricting my lungs.

“I love you!” I squeaked through my distended throat.

“What?” Locke asked. He relaxed his grip just enough for me to straighten out my neck.

“I love you,” I said, making it up as I went along.

“Ever since I first saw you, I love you, I love you, I love you. . . .”

OK, maybe my resume was paper-thin and I’d never get a real job. But I’d spent the past few years of my life seducing men. That, I could do.

Locke let go of my hair and I col apsed to my knees, gasping for air.