by Gregory Ashe
“Shaw? It’s Truck.”
“Jesus, where are you?”
“I just needed to be out of the way. I heard that they’re looking for me. Kicking in doors. They beat up a kid pretty bad, I heard, because they thought he knew where I was.”
“What are you talking about?” Shaw found himself sitting up straight, trying to think clearly. “Who?”
“They’re like the Terminator, Shaw. They just keep showing up.”
Exhaustion and the leftover effect of the Ambien made the world swim around Shaw, and he blinked, clutching the receiver until plastic bit into his hand.
“Waggener and Taylor,” Shaw said.
“That’s them,” Truck said with a note of awe. “How did you know?”
Why, Shaw wanted to know. Why had they been looking for Truck?
And then he thought about Dzeko and the break-ins. Break-ins at the houses of police officers. Dzeko, who wanted to know more about those break-ins. Who wanted to talk to Truck.
“What do you have, Truck?” In his mind, Shaw saw Truck stepping inside Dzeko’s office. “What did Dzeko want?”
“Shaw, just come get me, all right? I’ll tell you all about it. Just—before those lunatics find me.”
“All right, I can be at the spa in—”
“No, man. No way. They’ve already been there. I barely got out of there without them seeing me.”
“They’re out of commission, Truck. Both of them.”
Silence met Shaw.
He let out a breath. “Fine. Where are you?”
“Pick me up at the Amtrak station. Twenty minutes.”
“Where are you now, Truck? I’ll just come get you.”
But the call disconnected. Shaw swore. He marched up and down. He tripped over North’s chair, which still lay on the floor. And then he limped to the Mercedes and drove.
To his surprise, Truck was waiting at the passenger pickup outside the Amtrak station. Truck’s dark, curly hair was tied up in two pigtails with bright purple ribbon, and a matching purple t-shirt stretched across hir big shoulders, the front of the tee displaying a full declension of nonbinary pronouns: ze / hir / hir / hirs / hirself. Ze had a duffel bag slung over each shoulder, and ze tugged them onto hir lap as ze sat in the Mercedes.
“Throw them in the back,” Shaw said.
“No way.”
They drove back to the Borealis office, and as soon as the garage door rolled down, Shaw said, “All right, let’s see it.”
Truck’s eyes dropped toward the bags, and ze sighed. Then ze worked the zipper on one of the duffels.
“Holy hell,” Shaw said, pulling out a banded stack of cash. “Tell me from the beginning.”
Chapter 33
TRUCK WANTED COFFEE. Then he wanted tea. Then he wanted herbal tea. Then he wanted lemonade. Then he wanted an Urban Chestnut microbrew. Then he wanted lemon heads, which he said was what he had asked for the first time.
“You did not,” Pari said. “You said lemonade, and I drove all the way to the Save-A-Lot to buy you some. I only have twenty-eight miles left before I need an oil change, Truck, and I wasted three of them on you.”
“Lemon heads are a hard candy,” Truck said. “Why would I want lemonade?”
“Because you’ve asked for a million other drinks. Shaw, why did you bring this moron back to the office?”
“He currently has almost two million dollars in his possession, that’s why.” Shaw looked up from the stacks of money he was counting.
“Oh,” Pari said, her eyes moving back to Truck, up and down. “I’m sorry. You probably did say lemon heads. I’ll just run out and get them.”
“It’s not his money, Pari. He doesn’t get to keep it.”
“Oh.” Pari seemed to consider this. Then she poured the lemonade in Truck’s lap and left.
“Wow,” Truck said, his eyes and mouth in O’s of wonderment.
“And can you believe she’s single?” Shaw said, tallying another bundle of cash.
“No way. No way, Shaw. No way. Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Like, single and ready to mingle?”
“Maybe back whenever people still used that phrase.”
“You’re not, like, boning her on the side?”
Shaw actually lost his count at that point and stared at Truck. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Oh. Right. Because North’s all up inside you now.”
“He’s not—we’re not—” Shaw felt his face turn to fire. “You can’t say that.”
“No, remember, a couple of days ago we were talking about this and you were telling me how you like him because he chokes the shit out of you and you black out right when he—”
“I never said—you were the one who—Truck, just shut up. Ok?”
Truck sighed and stared after Pari. “Single,” he breathed.
Shaw finished his count. Almost two million dollars, all neatly bundled in stacks of hundreds and fifties. Non-sequential bills. Shaw was willing to guess that the small amount missing that would have made up the full two million had gone to satisfy Truck’s various cravings.
“All right,” Shaw said. “From the top.”
“I just found it.”
“No way.”
Truck nodded. Then he started to chew his lower lip.
“Truck?”
Truck was looking sidelong at the door, still gnawing his lip. “Hm?”
“The truth.”
“That is the truth. I just found it.”
“And Taylor and Waggener just randomly started looking for you.”
“It’s not their money. I took it from that pretty boy you used to—” Truck’s head whipped back to Shaw. “Hey. That’s not fair.”
Shaw shrugged. “You took this from Jadon?”
“Yeah. That lawyer lady, the one I had to talk to. She said I was supposed to follow him around and find the money. She said she’d clean things up for me, make sure I didn’t have to go back to prison. But then I saw how much money there was, and I thought I could hire a pretty good lawyer with all that money.”
“Go back. Dzeko sent you to follow Jadon and find this money?”
“Yeah.”
“She didn’t tell you where Jadon got it?”
“Nah.”
But Shaw could guess. Jadon had found it stashed in Waggener’s house. Or in Taylor’s house. Or in some out-of-the-way storage unit. Shaw figured he was looking at the remaining money that had disappeared in the Nickel Heights drug bust. Shaw thought about the string of break-ins, cops getting robbed, and now he thought he knew where Jadon had gotten the money. It hadn’t been Truck who had been doing the break-ins. It had been Jadon. Somehow, he had come to suspect Waggener and Taylor and who knew how many other police of corruption. He had tried to follow the money. Shaw thought about how Jadon had looked before he had been attacked: the dark circles, the weariness that went beyond the flesh, the sense of frustration and anger mixing inside the man and becoming combustible.
“He couldn’t prove it,” Shaw said to himself, barely able to believe the words. “So he hit them where it hurt.”
“The balls,” Truck said.
Shaw barely heard him. He left Truck downstairs, fighting with Pari, and headed up to his bedroom. He collapsed on the bed. Lying there, Shaw thought about two million dollars in cash. He thought about Waggener and Taylor and the Nickel Heights bust. He thought about Dzeko’s first election and a string of dead gay boys who had propelled her into office. And he thought about a shadowy figure, the real Slasher, who was still out there, somewhere, hiding. And then his thoughts reached a black chaos where he wasn’t sure what he felt anymore, and he drifted. Sleep, but not really sleep.
Footsteps woke him. Footsteps on the front stairs, coming up through the separate entrance. Shaw listened, trying to determine who was coming. North rarely used those stairs; Jadon had preferred them. In that strip of conscious
ness between waking and sleeping, Shaw thought it might be Jadon, somehow recovered enough to leave the hospital. And he had come here.
The footsteps moved across the living room, down the hall. The door was shut, but Shaw saw the light come on, and it was only then that he realized it was night, and a gray panel of light from the street was the only illumination in his room. A shadow moved along the yellow strip under the door. The closet doors in the hall opened and shut. Sweat needled Shaw.
The soft tap at the door brought Shaw upright.
“Hey,” North said from behind the closed door.
Shaw licked his lips. “Hey.”
“Can I come in? Just for a minute, I promise. I won’t . . . I won’t take up a lot of your time.”
Sitting up, Shaw pulled his knees to his chest. “Yeah.”
The door opened; the bedroom lights sprang to life, and Shaw saw North, covered his mouth, fighting a giggle. Or a sob. His eyes stung, and he had to wipe them clear.
North stood in the doorway wearing the Ryo costume that Shaw had bought: a white dress shirt buttoned to the top, no tie; white trousers; white shoes; a white overcoat that fell past North’s knees. He’d even flattened his thatch of blond hair over his forehead, as close as he could come to the anime character’s haircut. He took a step into the room, stopped, and shoved his hands into the coat pockets.
“You look familiar,” Shaw said, wiping his eyes again.
“I want to talk about this,” North said. “About a lot of things, really. But I promise I’ll be quick.”
Shaw nodded.
North took another step forward, jerking to a stop in the center of the room, as though he were on display for Shaw. The white shirt was thin, and it clung to North’s chest, displaying the planes of dense muscle. North crossed his arms. He dropped them to his sides. He shoved his hands into his pockets. He crossed his arms again.
“I like anime.”
This time, the giggle escaped, and Shaw had to scrub at his eyes to keep the laugh from turning into a sob. “Ok.”
“I’ve never told anyone that. Not my parents. Not anybody in high school. Not anybody at Chouteau. Not Tucker. Not you.” Red slashed North’s cheeks. “I don’t know why I’m so embarrassed of it. Some of it has to do with my dad, but that’s kind of a copout. And some of it has to do with me, the way I feel like I have to be all the time. Tough, I guess. That’s not really the word, but you know what I mean. And I think maybe that’s the part of me you like, and this nerdy shit, I don’t know.”
“I like you,” Shaw said. “All of you. I like that you like twinky boys in anime shows. I like that you wear boots. I like that you own a hard hat. I like that you cried when we watched Buffy.”
“I’m a grown man. I mean, for fuck’s sake, I came out when I was fifteen, and I’ve never hidden who I was since. But—” He ran an arm over his forehead, and Shaw could see the sheen of sweat. “Jesus, I feel like I’m going to pass out. If I pass out, just, I don’t know, drag me outside and let the dogs have me, ok? I don’t know why, but this is scary for me. It’s silly. I know it’s silly. But it’s scary too, and I never wanted to share this part of myself with anyone.” He stopped then, biting down so hard that the muscles in his jaw stood out.
“It’s ok,” Shaw whispered.
North just shook his head. He squeezed his eyes shut.
“You and all those thirteen-year-old girls will have a lot to talk about at the next club meeting.”
A laugh escaped North. He was still squeezing his eyes shut, and then he covered his face with one hand. “This is so fucking stupid. I don’t know why this is so fucking scary for me.”
“It’s ok. It’s ok.”
“It’s not ok, Shaw. What I said to you, it wasn’t ok. The way I treated you, that wasn’t ok. I am really sorry. I just need you to know that I was scared. I am scared. I’m so scared of losing you that it . . . it’s got me out of my fucking head, ok? And when you said you wanted to keep looking for the Slasher, all I could think was that it still wasn’t over, you still weren’t safe, and I thought about feeling that way, that sick feeling that I could lose you, and I . . . I just couldn’t, Shaw. I couldn’t take it. And then,” he smiled bitterly and peeled his hand away, blinking red eyes at Shaw, “I went ahead and fucked it all up and lost you anyway.”
“You didn’t lose me, North. I’m right here.”
“This,” he pointed to the costume. “This is terrifying for me. I wish you could feel my heart right now. But I did it because . . . because I want you to know that I’ll do scary things to be with you. If you want to go after the Slasher, if you want to hunt him down in Singapore, if you want to charter a boat and sail to Antarctica looking for him, I’ll do it. I’ll be so scared I can’t breathe at night, but I’ll go because I want to be with you.”
Shaw breathed in. He smelled the fresh polyester of the costume. He tasted the Irish Spring soap on North’s skin. He breathed out, surprised that his hands were steady, and he said, “Come here.”
“I’m sorry for what I said, Shaw. I’m so sorry.”
“Come here, North.”
“If you want me to go away and never bother you again, I will.”
“North, come over here.”
“If you want me to, I don’t know, prove how sorry I am, if you want me to—”
“Please. Please come over here.”
North took the first step, and as he crossed the room, Shaw slid to the edge of the bed. He spread his legs, catching North’s hand and tugging him forward to stand in the vee of his body. North’s breathing was irregular, huge gasps and frantic efforts to exhale slowly. His hand shook inside Shaw’s. Shaw set his free hand on North’s waist, the thin white shirt like gossamer, the heat of North’s body like a furnace. He slid his hand up, resting it on North’s chest, feeling his frantic heartbeat.
“What happened?” he asked, examining the bandage on North’s chin.
“It doesn’t matter. Shaw—”
Shaw shook his head. “You . . . you were right. About me being fixated on the Slasher. About me not realizing how lucky I am, what a good life I have. About me not being willing to let go. You were right about a lot of that.”
“No, I was wrong, I shouldn’t have—”
“North, please.”
North nodded and swallowed.
“But you were wrong about one thing. What’s happening between us, that’s not about the Slasher. Not really, anyway. It’s about me. It’s about me being afraid. The Slasher started it, North. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that. For a long time, I was afraid to let anybody see me. I have that scar. And I . . . I’d seen Carl die, and I didn’t want anyone to touch me. And then Matty happened. And then, when I was with Jadon, I . . . I just couldn’t. I’d get dizzy, feel sick. I’d go away inside my head because I was scared, and I was so tired of feeling scared, so tired of being hurt.”
“Shaw, I don’t ever want you to—”
Shaw shook his head. When North fell silent, Shaw tried to speak again. His voice was thick; he wasn’t even sure if what he was saying made sense, but he had to get the words out before he froze completely. “I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want you to know how messed up I am, how scared I am. I didn’t want you to realize that I’m no good in bed, that I’m scared of people touching me, that I hate being vulnerable because I feel like my whole life is being vulnerable. I didn’t want you to know because I’ve loved you for so long. And now you know.
“I want to go after the Slasher. I want to get justice. I want the man who was in the alley with me that night. If you want to work with me, I want you there. I want your help. But now that you know about me, about this,” he gestured to himself, the bed, the room, “I don’t want you to feel obligated. You don’t have to be my boyfriend. I’ll be happy—” He could barely speak; tears ran down his cheeks. “I’ll be happy if you’ll just be my friend.”
Then he couldn’t talk anymore; he was
crying too hard. North ran one hand over Shaw’s buzzed hair, back and forth, back and forth. Then, gently, his hand shifted to the back of Shaw’s head, cradling Shaw against him, Shaw’s tears soaking the thin, white shirt.
“Is it my turn to talk again?” North asked. His voice was steadier now; it had regained its familiar smolder.
“No,” Shaw said. “I don’t want to talk anymore. Please let’s not talk anymore.”
North sat, the mattress sagging under his weight. He slid an arm around Shaw; his free hand found Shaw’s chin and turned it up. “We’ve talked about this, right?”
“You told me you hated it. You told me you feel like a monster. And I hurt you—”
“I was mad. And scared. And I was being an asshole.”
“You told me I don’t trust you. Dr. Farr said I didn’t trust you. And you were both right. I’m so scared sometimes, but I was even more scared of thinking that what we had . . . that it wasn’t perfect. I couldn’t face that. I couldn’t even let myself think it.”
“I was wrong too. I didn’t realize how deep this went, Shaw. I should have listened to you. But it’s not permanent, baby. We can figure it out.”
Shaw shook his head again.
“You don’t want to figure it out?”
“No, I do. I just—I don’t know. Can we talk about this another time? Can we just . . . just take a break? For tonight, I mean. Just until tomorrow.”
“Let’s try one thing first.” Metal jingled, and North pulled a pair of handcuffs out of the overcoat. “I found these in the hall closet.”
“Oh God,” Shaw said, his face on fire as he tried to hide in North’s shoulder.
Laughing, North said, “I think it’s hot.” He pressed the cuffs into Shaw’s hands. “I’m sorry for what I said when I was mad, Shaw. I want this to work. Whatever it takes, I want it to work.” He nuzzled Shaw’s cheek. Shaw twisted away, still trying to bury his face in North’s shoulder. North came at him again, kissing, lots of kissing, and then nipping at Shaw’s ear. “Please, Shaw. I put on this Ryo costume. I really think I deserve my full birthday present.”
Shaw pulled away from North’s chest, blinking, shifting the cuffs in his hands. The metal was already warming. “North—”