by Damon Suede
Andy closed his eyes. The rhythm of the car rocked his skull against the leather upholstery. “You ought to learn, one of these days.”
“To dress?”
“Spanish. Might come in handsome.” He snorted in slow motion and looked back. “Handy. That is.”
“Sure. Right after I finish medical school and my MBA, before I start my talk show on the space station.”
Andy smiled and sighed, square jaw clamped. “It’s not that hard. Beautiful language besides. Claro.”
Clearly. He’s teaching me.
The town car veered to the left, and Ruben had to grip the door to keep from being shifted against his boss’s strong legs. They passed under some kind of bridge and then slowed to a stop. They inched along in the Park’s crosstown traffic.
He could imagine himself on Andy’s terrace, staring down at Central Park. He looked out the window at the passing trees: nature boxed in so a few penthouses had something to look at.
Andy rolled his head to watch Ruben watching him.
Buddies. Yeah, right.
Andy pushed himself back, shifting his weight. His hand scraped Ruben’s and… remained on the seat, separated by a millimeter or two. The light hair on his wrist brush-brushed the wisps on Ruben’s, rocked by the car’s motion.
Ruben swallowed. He wanted to slide the hand away from the delicious feathery scrape, and at the same time wondered how long Andy would leave it there. He wondered what would happen if he closed his dark square paw over Andy’s, laced their fingers and squeezed. He could imagine the way their knuckles would intersect and the exact pressure of Andy’s smooth palm against his. That skin.
Occasionally the car jostled them as it navigated potholes and pedestrians, gently rocking their shoulders, but their two hands stayed nailed to the firm, soft leather, barely touching, but touching nonetheless. That warm strip of Andy’s hand made it hard to breathe.
Why didn’t Andy move his arm back? Then again, why wouldn’t Ruben? As the car glided under the black trees, Ruben’s whole being, all his attention, tightened around the half inch of faint contact between their skin. Ruben imagined he could feel Andy’s pulse, then realized he was hearing his own as it jarred his skull.
If the brushing contact wasn’t an accident, removing his hand first would send a clear message. Easier to leave it there in case.
In case of what?
In case he was a queer? In case his boss was another? In case they needed to go out together to spend another fifty thousand American dollars to buy nothing in particular in a room full of strangers? The money and the man had gotten all jumbled in his head.
Maybe that was it. Ruben had gotten sucked in by all the sloppy luxury and forgotten whose it was. He wasn’t gay, just broke, sober, and lonely. Even if Andy was some kind of closeted homo, he had no interest in playing house with some middle-aged macho he’d known for a few days and rescued from a couch. Ruben had clocked the predator in him. If Andy wanted a dude, he’d lease some Calvin Klein model with a trust fund and a degree in corporate espionage.
And still, and still…. The butterfly stroke of Andy’s wrist hairs dried his mouth and pricked his eyes, and Andy had no clue. I want him.
All too suddenly, the car sliced out of the trees across Fifth, headed east.
I’ll quit in the morning.
The unwelcome thought landed cold and jagged inside his head. He needed to find an apartment and a real job. Andy needed a high-end security service protecting him. And they did not need to be hanging out together under any circumstance, at least till he’d gotten himself sorted. Ruben would do what needed to be done.
When they turned south onto Park Avenue, Andy blinked… handsome, lazy, and expensive. “I really could use a walk; clear my head.” His biscuity skin looked warm under the tux shirt where he’d unbuttoned. “C’mon. We gotta date, huh?”
“I don’t think so.” Ruben tugged at his collar. “I’d like to ditch the suit.”
Andy smiled strangely.
“No. I mean put on some jeans. If you’re trying to go get mugged, I don’t want to mess up my new rags.”
“You’ll come?” A smile lit up Andy’s square face.
Sirens ahead. Flashing emergency lights strobed the inside of the limo as it glided to a stop. They both craned to see.
Two firetrucks in front of the Iris. A crowd of annoyed rich people squawking, the older ones in robes.
Ruben didn’t wait for the driver to open the door. “We’ll hop out, Eli.” He climbed out and Andy followed.
“No date.” Andy looked annoyed and petulant.
A black Irish doorman tried to herd the tenants back inside. “…False alarm. Very sorry…. Yes, ma’am, we have.” The other doorman was trying to stem the tide lurching under the lobby’s greenwall. “Elevator’s broken.”
A flash of Peach saying those exact words. Take the Steps, kiddo. Ruben didn’t smile.
Andy’s hand rested against his lower back. “Two secs.” He sauntered to the front desk, barging past the oldsters and too drunk to care. He ducked his head and murmured a moment with the porter.
Ruben stared at his boss’s handsome profile until he realized he was staring. Deliberately turning 180 degrees, he stepped into the elevator mob. Selfish disappointment simmered in his gut. He’d leave tomorrow and that’d be the end of this insanity, but he’d hoped.
A moment later, Andy joined him, hip to hip. “Break-in upper floor.” They shared a look.
Paranoia is catching.
Ruben asked, “Think you can climb thirty-six flights fucked up?”
“No, Rube. You’re gonna carry me upstairs.” He squeezed Ruben’s neck playfully, sending a sharp, sweet jolt down his spine and legs. “Or forget your damn clothes and we could catch that walk.”
Seriously?
Anxiety rippled through Ruben. About thirty people remained in the lobby. They could duck out for ten, and by the time they got back….
Ruben lowered his head. “You don’t wanna check upstairs?”
Andy leaned against him. Could he be that bombed?
The alarm stopped blaring and the silence rang in his ears. The entire lobby lowered its collective shoulders. The elevator doors opened.
Ruben wavered. Why not, huh? Central Park was so close. They’d be back in—
“Mr. Bauer?” Black Irish was back. “We have a situation.”
The doorman’s face was all guilt and apology. Maybe he could get fired for that kind of breach. “Your assistant surprised an intruder.”
“How?” Andy’s voice hardened and his tipsiness seemed to evaporate.
Ruben’s fists tightened. “Hope?”
“She wasn’t injured, but she’s shaken up.” He ushered Andy and Ruben to the front of the line past the undisguised irritation of their neighbors. “The NYPD should be here in the next three minutes.” His eyes flicked back to a squabble at the front desk. “Scuse me, sir.”
The other tenants piled on, glaring at them, but said nothing. In the silent elevator, Andy looked green but stone sober.
He fidgeted with Peach’s menthol croak in his ear: Kiddo, you’re always exactly where you’re supposed to be.
Once they passed the eighteenth floor, Ruben started to say something, but Andy shook his head. Looking at the muttering gray heads still with them.
And then they were at the top. The door slid open on the little foyer, and Hope stood there with her arms crossed under her breasts, a blue cold pack in one hand. “I fucked up. I fucked up, Mr. B.”
“You stop that now.” Andy spoke gently, no longer slurring. How had he sobered up so fast?
“Are you hurt?” Ruben scanned her quickly.
She looked seriously rattled. “Asshole smacked me. Knocked my noggin really, but my damn sister hits harder than that. I was more surprised than anything.” She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of one hand. “I heard that stupid fire alarm, but I always ignore it. Thirty-plus flights? Fuck you. I’m too claustro and w
ho the hell clogs a staircase during an emergency? Dicks.” Grim laughter.
Ruben spoke calmly. “Hey, it doesn’t matter. The cops will be here to take your statement.”
Hope and Andy looked at each other for a beat. She took a shuddery breath. “So the alarm’s bleeping and I was in the office finishing up the spreadsheet for Brussels, and I heard something crash in your bedroom, y’know? I thought you’d ditched the museum early, so I climb the stairs to check. Big guy came out of your room and popped me cold.” She pressed the ice pack to her left eye. Her skin was so dark Ruben couldn’t see the bruise yet.
“Jerk! I didn’t even think. I swung back and he goes over the rail—bam—Hit the floor like a sack of onions. Bastard. I didn’t even go down, just called the police from my cell. Alarm was going off already so I couldn’t hit the panic—” She started to shake.
“You oughtta go to the hospital anyways.” Ruben looked at her for permission and cautiously checked her cheekbone and temple.
“I don’t break easy.” She sniffed. “I ran to the other side of the apartment in case he popped up. Then when I looked down the hall he’d split. He musta split.”
Andy thrust his hands in his pockets, looking guilty as hell. “So sorry, Hope. This is my fault.”
After weeks of thinking the threat to Andy was imaginary and taking the paycheck anyway, Ruben felt like an asshole.
A knock on the wall, and Hope flinched.
Two cops walked into the apartment and badged. “Hope Stanford?”
Ruben waited for the assumptions, but to their credit, they didn’t leap to any conclusions about the weepy black girl and the scary Hispanic guy wearing a shoulder holster. For once, his bull’s-eye face didn’t drop him in shit with the police. Must’ve been the tuxes. Money makes everyone so polite.
Andy led them to the dining room to sit down and left Ruben to his thoughts. How had the intruder escaped? Hope had had time to make half a call before he’d vanished.
Ruben doubled back to the elevator to check the waste closet that maintenance cleared twice a day. A low door at the back opened into the back stairs and service elevator the porters used. No signs of entry, and the bags blocked it besides.
Think.
In the dining room, Andy was asking the cops something in a guilty undertone. He sounded shakier than Hope, actually.
Ruben doubled back toward the living room. Next to the powder room, a narrow door opened onto the B stairs. Again, probably designed for exit during a fire.
The alarm was a decoy. The intruder had cleared the building so he could make his way upstairs with no one watching the monitors.
Except this exit hadn’t been jimmied or cracked either. Ruben looked around at the apartment’s layout.
Behind him the cops asked the boilerplate incident-interview questions.
Ruben walked to the cavernous living room with Manhattan stretched out in sequins to the south. Had some intruder actually scaled the building? Yesterday he’d have laughed at the paranoia.
Where was the rathole?
On a hunch he slid the terrace door open and moved out into the sultry air. The traffic below was muffled by distance. Following the guardrail, he skirted the whole apartment. No furniture or plants out of place. Inside Hope mimed the encounter again.
Ruben reached the outside of the guest room underneath Andy’s and around to the office without finding so much as a dead bug. Then he saw.
Jimmied door. Bloody streaks.
“Motherfucker.” He spun and jogged all the way back to the living room. He raised his voice. “He broke the lock on the service door by the Jacuzzi.” This place had too many bolt-holes.
The cops blinked at him.
How could he make them understand what was happening up here?
Andy stood up. “He’s back there?”
“No. Long gone. But the bolt’s cracked and there’s blood.”
Hope smiled at that. “Good. I knocked him hard.”
“Not a lot, but enough to test. I didn’t want to disturb anything.”
The younger officer stayed with Hope while she called her fiancé, and the elder let Ruben show him. When Ruben returned Andy was pacing in the living room.
“And you said I was paranoid.” Andy looked white. “Thank Christ you’re here, man.”
Yeah, about that.
“Some help I was.”
“You were. You are.”
By the bar, Hope cleared her throat. She had her purse over her shoulder. “Mr. Bauer, I’m gonna go to the hospital with the officers. Get checked out.”
Andy nodded. “Good. Great. You want me to call your fiancé, your sister? We could come with you?”
She shook her head. “John’s coming to meet me. Oso, you keep an eye on him. I need this job.”
When she’d gone, Ruben plucked at his lip. “You gotta hire a real outfit that can keep this place secure. I’m not sure—”
“I am.” Andy’s voice dropped and he stepped close enough to grip Ruben’s elbow, his eyes hard and cold. A muscle ticked in his angular jaw. “Look, they sent one guy. Far as anyone knows, you’re just some client. You’re my secret weapon.”
“Fine. Great. Bang bang. But you may wanna trade me in for a scarier model.”
Andy’s flannel eyes looked baffled. “Why?”
“Because I give a shit. Seriously. Andy? You’re not safe.”
“I been saying.”
“Well, I finally believe you.” Ruben nodded.
“Good. All the more reason you should be staying.” Andy squared his shoulders. He looked scary and scared, both. “And I’d like you to move in. I’ve got the room. Whatever room you want. You come up with a quote and I’ll pay.”
As if. “Andy, I can’t. That’s not possible.”
“Why?”
Ruben closed his mouth. Making sense of his feelings was like trying to eat spaghetti with a spoon. How could he explain something he didn’t understand himself?
“Just a couple weeks. Till the deal is done.” Andy looked sweaty and pale. “Please, Ruben.”
Shit. Voice, eyes, hand on his arm… all pinned him to the spot.
He couldn’t leave now, leave Andy in the lurch, at least not till Empire could sort out someone else to come in. Except he knew that Empire Security wasn’t up to this job. If he left, some overfed cop who didn’t give a shit would be swapped in, and Andy would get hurt for real.
If he really cared, if he wasn’t a coward, what choice did he have?
He’d have to move into the Iris temporarily. Just a few days, at least until he could convince Andy of hiring a bigger executive protection outfit for his own safety. After all, another week at the outside in a cushy apartment with a guy he’d started to consider a friend. Friend-ly, at least. His feelings shouldn’t be a factor.
How bad could it be? How much worse could it get?
Andy watched his face, waiting for the answer.
Oh man.
“Okay.”
CHAPTER SIX
THE BEST way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.
The next morning, with his entire life loaded into a duffel over one shoulder, Ruben stepped off the elevator into maniacal shouting.
“I want to die! I hope I die!” Andy was flushed and snarling in the hallway. “No.”
The fuck?
To his left, the paunchy Yugoslavian porter opened and closed his mouth a few times. He carried a toolkit and a red and gray box. “Mr. Bauer, all apartments must be outfitted with a carbon monox—”
“And we are. That’s great. If there’s any problem, you should take it up with the board. Oh wait, I’m on the board!”
Andy’s exaggerated anger almost seemed like a joke. The porter had no idea how to react. “You’ve already paid—”
“Thank you, no thank you.” As if the penthouse had spat him out, Andy ejected the poor guy without ceremony. “Let me suffocate and die in peace.”
The unused detector sat on
the hall table.
Ruben moved out of the foyer, waiting for Andy to direct that rage at him. Nope.
Andy nodded at it. “Toss that.” Ruben picked up the brand-new box and shrugged. Perfectly good CO detector. Waste. More paranoid bullshit. “Hope let them in by mistake.”
“What the hell was that about?”
“Fucking bug. Fucking surveillance.”
“Well, may be. But are you sure, Andy?”
“Test it! You test that shit and see.” Andy’s waist buzzed and he pressed the earpiece into his skull, spinning away as if Ruben had vanished into the floor.
“Uh.” Ruben lowered his duffel. “I guess we’re done here.”
That evening when Ruben ran down to grid-check the car, he scooped up the box to toss it in the recycling, but when he’d gotten downstairs realized he still had the package in his hands.
“Crazy.” He’d take it home and install it at Charles’s apartment. His brother would be safer and Andy none the wiser. He carried the detector back to his room and stuffed it in his bag. He’d get rid of it next time he swung by 109th Street.
That second week, Andy took Ruben everywhere, as if they really were college buddies and business partners. The clothing helped Ruben blend, but no further threats materialized. He had to acknowledge that living up here on Park Avenue made New York way easier. He got to sleep in an actual bed, meals were free, and the commute was about twenty yards. They were roommates is all.
Except Ruben caught himself staring at Andy for reasons that had nothing to do with security. Being somewhere else made no difference. He told himself it was procedure, but the lists and sweeps became another way for him to get closer.
Andy had become a sexy puzzle with no solution.
THURSDAY AFTERNOON Ruben got his first three-hundred-dollar haircut and finally got a chance to spy on Andy undetected.
“Haircut.” Soon as Ruben got off the elevator, Hope popped her head out of the office and pointed outside to the terrace. “He said you’re both looking scruffy.”
He ran a hand over his short hair and raised his eyebrows.
Hope shrugged but didn’t reply.
He sighed. “Time to polish the goon, I s’pose.”