Boys of Two Cities

by Zack

  “No!”

  Mike nodded his head sadly. “I checked it out. It was like he said. Poor little Angelo was killed when a truck ran him down and the driver supposedly drove away. It was a set-up. So, yes, I did believe him. What could I do? I couldn’t tell you anything, or he would have found out. He threatened to have you tracked down wherever you were if you didn’t leave me, or if you found out why.”

  Gil jerked himself upright and sat on the edge of the bed, looking away. He shook his head from side to side disbelievingly. “Uh-uh. It’s a crock of bullshit.”

  A harsh gasp broke from Mike and he spoke brokenly. “From the first moment, Gil, I knew we were supposed to be together. That’s how I felt…how I feel. That’s why I’m here, to…to say sorry.”

  “Sorry! Is that it?” Gil gave a miserable snort. “You tore me apart. You made me believe you no longer cared and tossed me aside for someone else. You’ve been through hell, you say. Well, what do you think I’ve suffered! I thought about you every fucking day—”

  “You still love me…”

  Gil whipped his head around sharply, engaged Mike’s eyes for a second, and then let his head fall forward and cupped it between his hands. He said nothing.

  “Give me time. Let me explain better.”

  If Gil had an answer to make, it was interrupted by a shout from downstairs. “Gil, your father’s home and we’re about to throw together some cocktails.”

  He stood up, went to the door and cracked it open. “Okay, Mom, we’ll be down in a minute.” He pressed it firmly shut again. Mike kept silent, unwilling to disturb whatever was going through Gil’s head. He hoped it might be positive, a glimmer of understanding, but Gil’s next words dispelled the thought. He turned to face Mike, who had pulled himself to the bed’s edge, chewing his upper lip. “How did you know where I lived? I’m sure I never wrote the address anywhere.”

  Mike looked disquieted. “I’ve been searching for days, and then I bumped into somebody who knew your address.”

  Gil’s eyes narrowed. “Jeff?”

  Mike nodded mute agreement. “He didn’t want to at first. But he saw how upset I was.” He looked up in appeal and rose to his feet. “Please, Gil. Give me a chance. I need the time to convince you that what happened, I did for you. I know more about Rosen than you do and I couldn’t have borne it if anything happened to you because of me.” Mike took two steps toward him, but stopped the instant he saw Gil stiffen in warning.

  Gil’s expression was unfathomable, but his next words lightened Mike’s heart. “Lemme think about it. We’d better go down. Try to look happy.” He pulled the door open and went out.

  Mike didn’t know what to think as he found his way back to the airport hotel on autopilot. Fortunately, the evening traffic was light. He didn’t feel good about how things had gone. Perhaps I expected too much. He hadn’t expected Gil to fall on him in a loving embrace, but he realized how much he’d hoped for something warmer than the reception he’d received.

  Gil’s folks seemed like nice people, but the meal had been a terrible strain. Mike ate mechanically, aware only that the lasagna tasted a whole lot stronger in flavor than anything his mother made. It seemed full of meat with almost no béchamel sauce to lighten its texture and taste. But food wasn’t of great importance and even the little he managed now sat heavily in his stomach, churning around in company with his thoughts. He was sure he would never get to sleep, or get through tomorrow until…

  Sleep did not come. Gil tossed and turned in his bed, churning over the events of the evening. Seeing Mike again had opened all the wounds he thought he had begun to staunch. Yet every fiber in his body ached to believe. Neither of them had done much more than pick at the pasta and manage a desultory conversation, mostly about movies each had seen recently. It seemed the safest area of discussion.

  Gil had seen Mike out, and alone again on the porch the distance between them grew, Mike unwilling to press, Gil afraid to react in any way that might be construed as encouraging.

  “Can I come and see you tomorrow, after you get back from the shoot?” Mike finally dared ask.

  Gil’s eyes flicked restlessly this way and that as though he were seeking someone out on the street. “Maybe. Here…” he handed Mike a slip of paper with a number written on it. “Give me a call after seven and I’ll let you know. Where are you staying?”

  “The Travelodge at the airport.”

  For the first time Gil cracked a tiny grin and he saw it stab Mike to the core at seeing it. “Wow, you really splurged out.”

  Mike tried for a smile. “Yeah, I did.” Then his face fell. “I didn’t know you lived only six miles away. Knowing that my first night, it would have…” He lowered his head. Nodded once, and turned to walk down the path.

  By the time he reached the location on 2nd Street, Gil had decided to forgive Jeff, perhaps in part because he still felt confused about meeting Mike again. Some of him had reacted with the excitement that the English boy always aroused; some of him was deeply skeptical. In a five-minute break from filming, he tackled Jeff.

  “What should I think? What should I do?”

  Jeff frowned. “It’s your life, ol buddy. I can’t tell you what to do. What I can say is Mike told you the truth about Rosen. It’s all been coming out in recent weeks—his connection to international drug smuggling, the Miami drug wars, and so on. The best bet is that he fell foul of the Cuban cartel over some deal and that Griselda Blanco—the Black Widow—had him taken out by putting a bomb on his plane. Okay, none of this has been more’n press speculation, but you know what the Hollywood grapevine is like. There’s always a guy who knows a guy who knows the lowdown, and the man had his hands in some very murky business…which increasingly looks like it sometimes included murder.”

  Jeff gave him a lot to think about. In the meal break Gil went to the production office, housed in a large trailer parked down a little-used side street, and used the phone.

  “Hi Jan, it’s me. You got an hour or so free this evening? Great. About seven-thirty. See you then.”

  To his reliefe, Janice turned up on time and Gil quickly explained what had happened. At first she was irked at being asked as a kind of chaperone, especially when Gil admitted he had not said anything to Mike about her. “Really, I shouldn’t be here. This isn’t anything to do with me, and what’s this guy gonna think?”

  “It’ll be okay. Please Jan. It will help me if we can just hang out a little. Give me time to see how I feel about him again without the pressure of just being the two of us.”

  “You know how you feel about him. You told me…in detail. Or don’t you remember.”

  Gil shrugged and hung his head for a second. “Yeah, I know how I felt, but I mean I don’t know about now. I don’t…I don’t know if I can do it again.”

  Janice stared in exasperation. The door chime sounded. Gil looked frantic for a moment. Janice jerked her head irritably and he went to answer it. Mike appeared happier than at their last meeting until he saw Janice walk up behind Gil and his expression turned neutral instantly. He took a step back as Gil stepped down from the doorway.

  “This is Janice. A good friend of mine. We’ve known each other since high school.”

  Mike put on a smile, and said hello, as Janice came out onto the porch.

  “Hi, Mike, Gil’s told me all about you. Well, not everything, but…you know.”

  Mike was clearly nonplussed and disappointed. “Pleased to meet you,” was all he managed.

  “Can we take your car and go to Venice, walk about a bit?” Gil asked

  “Sure, if that’s what you’d like.”

  The three piled into the rental and Mike drove. “I remember the way,” he said. All three were lightly dressed for the hot weather. Gil thought Mike was wearing his favorite khaki safari shorts on purpose, which always made him look sexy. They were the same ones he wore in Rome, or similar. But then, Gil had opted for his beloved cut-off Levi’s (the ones that showed his balls when he
sat down if he wasn’t careful) and what did that mean?

  They strolled along the darkening boardwalk, no one saying much. After a bit, Gil slowed down deliberately to give Janice an opportunity to lead the conversation. At first he heard their words clearly, but then began to hang back, suddenly reluctant to take part.

  “He never told me much about his life here,” Mike told Janice. He glanced over his shoulder to see Gil some fifteen feet behind them, head bowed and gaze on the ground. “Everything developed between us toward the end in Rome. And then in London, on my territory, and I guess I was never curious enough to ask anything much. After all, not even his address or phone number.”

  “You sound regretful about that, not asking anything about here.”

  Mike thought about it. “Maybe I took him too much for granted.”

  “That’s not how I understand it. I ought to hate you for taking Gil away from me, but then…” she sighed. “Perhaps I took him too much for granted as well and just expected him back from the stint in Italy to pick up where we left off.”

  “And that was where, exactly?”

  Janice gave Mike a knowing smile. “Jealous?”

  He turned his head and looked frankly at her. “Yes,” he said guilelessly.

  She snorted. “Don’t be. We made out once, and that wasn’t much more than petting like kids. Oh, we talked about this and that as you do when all of life’s ahead, but…I guess I should have known. I just thought it was Gil, quiet and shy as usual.” Janice gave a low chuckle and a wry smile. “Instead, he was dreaming of getting his hands down a guy’s pants, not mine.”

  A bubble of the old flippancy rose in Mike’s throat, but he choked it off before he could say something in response that might upset Janice or that she might misinterpret.

  She turned serious again and leaned closer to Mike’s shoulder. “Look, you hurt him real bad. You knocked the stuffing out of him, and now you’ve shocked him. Give him some time. He doesn’t know if he’s coming or going, but I know one thing. Mike, he’s still totally crazy about you.”

  His stomach gave a lurch at the words and in natural reaction his eyes opened wide in hopeful query.

  “That’s why he came out to me. I think he craved approval from someone, and I was the only person he felt he could tell. Made me madder’n hell at the time, believe me. But…” she gave Mike the eye. “If he needed turning, I reckon he picked good. You never thought of trying the other side?”

  “Huh, thanks for asking.” Mike grinned. “But I think that really would ditch my chances.”

  * * *

  Janice took the opportunity to draw Gil aside when Mike stopped for a smoke. “That’s one hunky guy you got there,” she told him. Gil said nothing, just stared out over the nearly dark sea where the rising surf caught the city lights in twinkling lines. “He seems nice, too.” She punched him lightly on the upper arm. “I’m going to find a cab to get me home.”

  “Don’t go.”

  Janice removed his restraining hand gently. “You need time together on your own. I’ll just slip away. If you don’t get it together with Mike try and stop me getting him. He’s just gorgeous—it’s a crying shame he’s into guys. Such a waste. Ah well…” She leaned in and pecked him on the cheek. Then she was gone, striding off into the gathering night.

  Gil looked for Mike, but he was no longer standing where he had last been smoking quietly on his own. Instantly, Gil felt a pang of the old panic. Where was he? Then he saw Mike had walked off some distance to watch a handful of muscle beach boys doing calisthenics in a floodlit area of sand to a small gathering of admiring onlookers. Gil walked up to him and stood silently, also watching but also sneaking glimpses of Mike’s cuffed pants and the familiar bulge in their front. So damn sexy.

  As he came alongside, Mike asked, “What do you want to do?”

  Gil stayed silent, afraid to answer in any way.

  Mike half turned, but avoided looking Gil directly in the eyes. He said softly, “Can we just go some place where we can talk?”

  Gil thought for a moment, tempted, but hardened his resolve. His body wanted Mike again but his head still reeled. There was still too much hurt. He shook his head. “Not now. I think I’d like to go back home.”

  Mike completed the turn and reacted sadly to the coolness in Gil’s expression. He lowered his lashes and let his head drop a fraction. Gil saw his shoulders slump in defeat. “You don’t want to talk a bit more?”

  Gil sniffed. “I didn’t say that. Just not tonight.”

  Mike drove back to McLaughlin. Gil let himself out. “Thanks.”

  “Can I call you tomorrow?”

  Gil turned as he closed the door, hesitated. “All right, at about the same time.”

  Mike struggled to detect any warmth in the words but took hope from the fact of them. “Okay,” he said quietly.

  Gil shut the car door and without a backward glance crossed the dark avenue, momentarily caught in the glare of a streetlight, and disappeared up the pathway under the shade of the trees lining its side. Mike waited until he saw the sudden blade of light as Gil opened the front door, and then it was shut off as swiftly. He revved the engine and made a U across the four lanes and began the lonely drive back to the Travelodge.

  He felt drained by the evening and emptied of hope. Had his quest succeeded only to fail in its main objective? He couldn’t, wouldn’t give up after all this effort. Janice was right. Gil needed more time. The thought brightened his mind. He would hang in here and make Gil understand. I’m going to live through this, and when it’s all over I’ll never be angry again. No, nor any of my folk—that’s you Gil. If I have to lie, steal, cheat, or kill…and in a way I have. As God is my witness.

  Another sleepless night left Gil unfocused at work. He had followed the luminous path of the hands on his bedside clock through each hour. He was having trouble reconciling the story about Rosen with what happened that dreadful night when Mike convinced him that he was in love with Trevor. He recalled Jeff’s words: He’s one of those guys who wears his life on his sleeve. No shit. What you see is what you get.

  Well it hadn’t been the case that night in London. Yet, as he remembered the nightmarish scene in the Pizza Hut on Finchley Road—burned in his memory, he could see the stress the normally preternaturally calm Trevor had suffered…as though something didn’t ring true. Not to mention the agony in Mike’s eyes, which at the time Gil put down to the distress he was causing him.

  The working day dragged on and he kept replaying the events of then and those of now. Mike had come all this way after all. Would he do that if he were not telling the truth… What I can say is Mike told you the truth about Rosen, Jeff had said.

  * * *

  The following evening Mike called and Gil agreed to another trip to Venice, this time just the two of them. It seemed a neutral place. He knew Mike would have preferred something more intimate, but he sensed they were both terrified of rushing things as well, so there they were again. Not talking very much. After half an hour of wandering aimlessly, without looking at Gil, Mike asked, “What shall we do now?”

  Gil was unsure whether he meant what should they do next, like go on somewhere, or whether he meant what should they do about them, the big picture. What Mike said next hardly cleared up the conundrum.

  “Would you come back with me to my hotel?” He saw Gil’s instant reluctance, and rushed on. “I know they’ve only got a Denny’s, but they do a good hamburger and I’m famished.” He patted his washboard stomach under the cotton shirt. “Haven’t been eating much of late. I can drive you back after. I don’t mind. I’m getting used to Los Angeles roads…a bit.”

  Gil reflected on Janice’s advice. He still felt strange at being in Mike’s company again, but he had agreed to give the guy time, and they would hardly get that if he kept running away. “Okay. A burger.”

  A little under an hour later, they were seated in the diner, busy with people waiting for flights out or staying the night after
a late arrival. The hamburgers were giant-sized, and eating them helped avoid any intense talk. Instead they stuck to innocuous subjects between mouthfuls, but the very act of talking loosened up Gil up, which seemed to relax Mike. When the last crumb of bun and shred of coleslaw had disappeared, shared experiences began to bloom over coffee. Soon the conversation became more animated, until Gil looked at his watch.

  “Shit! Look at the time. I oughta be getting home.”

  “Are you working tomorrow?”

  “No, actually.” Gil waited.

  “I bought a bottle of gin and some cans of tonic from a—what do you call em—a liquor store just down the street from the hotel. And there’s an amazing machine that makes ice on my floor next to the lift—”

  “Elevator.”

  “So sorry, the ella vay turr.”

  They laughed easily at the old joke.

  “Come back to the room and have a drink first?”

  I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t… “You shouldn’t drink alcohol and drive,” Gil said. “You could get arrested.”

  Mike’s eyes mellowed. “Don’t make me then. You could call your folks and tell them we had a bit too much and so you’re staying with me tonight.”

  And then Mike did something Gil hadn’t seen him do for a long time. He stood up from the table, stuck his hands, thumbs out, in his pants’ back pockets, and bounced up and down a few times on the balls of his feet. The bumptious body language consumed Gil’s senses and he suddenly knew he could no longer refuse.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Return of the Silver Stud

  The room on the second floor looked out over the floodlit swimming pool situated between the hotel’s two wings. Gil gazed through the window, his mind churning one second and going blank the next.

  Mike had gone down the hall to the ice machine. When he returned with the rattling ice bucket, he quickly poured two measures of the gin over the half-moon-shaped ice cubes and popped a can. Gil listened to the fizz and the clunk as Mike put the glasses down on the glass-topped side table.