The Two Gentlemen of Altona (Playing the Fool, #1)

by Lisa Henry

“Holliday Park,” Mac answered pleasantly. “I’ll see you all later.” He headed for the door. Paused. “Jeff? Just for future reference. Do we let con men use our desk phones?”

  “The situation hasn’t exactly come up before,” Jeff mumbled.

  “But what do you think the answer is, based on what we’ve seen today?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Okay, good.”

  Mac headed for the door, snagging a donut from a half-empty box by the auxiliary building’s coffee machine.

  “Actually, I guess Bureau eats donut,” he said to himself, licking glaze off his fingers. He strode down the hall, out the main entrance, and into the sunshine.

  Henry lay on the bed in room 222 with Jeff’s phone resting on his chest. He ought to have given it to Stacy to take somewhere far away, somewhere in the opposite direction of the Man Inn the Moon. But he was still holding it. He wasn’t dumb enough to turn it on—he’d only hang on to it until he could sell it for a few bucks—but he played with the idea of staring into that glowing screen, maybe making a call just to send out the Bat-Signal to the FBI.

  Part of him thought maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if McGuinness found him. Except McGuinness had warned him if he fucked up, he’d be charged with everything he could possibly be charged for. Which was what? Impersonating a cop? Failure to return a test-drive car promptly? Everything else—the scams, the forgeries, the hand mucking, the petty thefts—that was all hearsay.

  Okay, fleeing the FBI. That was probably the big one now.

  If he got caught, he was completely and totally fucked. So why was he lying here with a stolen phone, entertaining a fantasy in which McGuinness—Mac—tracked him down? Mac’s big hands were on him, forcing him into the back of a car. Mac shouted and grumbled at him, his voice deep and rough. Henry felt an odd sense of relief just imagining it. He’d be back in FBI custody, and no one from Maxfield’s gang could get him there.

  Idiot. That was a holding cell. Once you’re in prison, you’ll probably get stabbed or brained with a pillowcase full of Coke cans or some shit ten times worse than what Maxfield’s guys would do to you.

  If Mac found him, it sure as fuck wouldn’t be a rescue. And if he was behind bars, he’d never be able to help the people who needed him. There were people who needed him, right? He wasn’t just a fucking burden on everyone?

  He stretched, letting one arm dangle from the bed. Played with the volume buttons on the side of the phone for no reason. He really wasn’t sure why he’d stolen it. Just that Jeff had been right there with the phone sticking out of his pocket . . .

  Henry liked having the upper hand. Liked playing dangerous games and winning.

  Maybe he wanted to play with McGuinness and the FBI some more. Maybe that’s why he’d taken the phone.

  Come and find me, McGuinness. You can chase me all you want, but I’ll always get away.

  A bed creaked in the next room, and Henry sat up, his heart rate accelerating slightly.

  He took a deep breath.

  He wondered sometimes what Viola would think, if she could have seen him now. Wondered if she did see him. If she knew what he was up to. Maybe the connection they’d shared wasn’t something that could die.

  He didn’t know if that was a comforting thought. If she’d be proud or horrified by what he’d become.

  No, he knew.

  He swung his legs off the bed. Maybe he could find a pay phone and call Remy.

  He shoved the phone in his pocket and headed outside.

  Mac had made it halfway around Holliday Park when he got the call.

  “Penny?”

  “We’ve got a track on Jeff’s phone. It’s in Plainfield.”

  “Where?” Mac tried not to pant.

  “Plainfield. Do you want me to call the local cops?”

  “Not yet.” Hell no. Mac wanted to keep this very much internal, thanks. The fewer people who knew about this clusterfuck, the better. “He make a call on it?”

  “No. We think the phone’s on standby, because we’re getting a signal every few minutes or so. He must not have removed the battery.”

  Mac grinned. “Little shit’s not as smart as he thinks. Any word on who he called?”

  “We’ve got a cell tower. We’re waiting on the carriers to provide us with their records.”

  “Tell Calvin and Dwayne to start heading out, and tell Jeff to come and pick me up.”

  “On it.”

  Mac, finding his second wind, jogged toward the street.

  He waited, reminding himself to be civil when Jeff arrived. This was as much his fault as it was Jeff’s. Did you lend your phone to a con man? No. But you also didn’t let a con man spend fifteen minutes in a bathroom clogging the fucking toilet, then lose him in a parking lot. Henry was . . . Charming wasn’t the right word. Some people might find him charming, but Mac found him obnoxious.

  Persistent. Henry was persistent.

  Besides, Henry’s comment about Mac being a real popular guy rankled. Maybe in Henry’s line of work it helped to be a popular guy, but in Mac’s world, what mattered was whether or not you could do the job. And Mac could do the job.

  Jeff pulled up, and Mac got in the car. “Hey,” Mac said gruffly.

  “Hey.”

  That was all they said for the first ten minutes of the drive.

  “Sorry, Mac. About the phone thing.”

  “Shit happens.”

  Mac was surprised to find he wasn’t actually that annoyed. In fact, provided they located Henry without a bullet in his head, he’d be almost grateful. He didn’t look so dumb now for thinking Henry was a detective, did he?

  “I’ve been a little distracted,” Jeff went on. “It was a . . . an eventful weekend.”

  Mac thought he remembered Jeff saying something about taking his family fishing this weekend. “Trip go okay?” he tried.

  Jeff gave him a tight-lipped smile. “Wild. My seven-year-old, Teddy—he’s not so bright. The older one’s great; smart as a whip. But Teddy’s a man’s man, you know? All about hunting and fishing. So we’re outside, trying to start a fire. And then I see Teddy shoving bittersweet berries into his mouth.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah, I may be not be very outdoorsy, but even I know you don’t eat bittersweet. So I’ve got my hand down Teddy’s throat, trying to get the berries. Some jogger goes by on the trail and thinks I’m strangling my son. And of course he pukes everywhere.”

  Mac shook his head, laughing. “But he’s okay?”

  “He’s all right.”

  “Least he likes being outdoors. Lina can’t get her kids away from the TV.”

  “I guess. I was an indoor kid, so it always amazes me how much he likes being outside.”

  Mac hesitated. Figured he could at least try to keep the conversation going. “My family used to go fishing now and then, up at our cabin. Never did get into the whole being-one-with-nature thing.”

  Jeff laughed. “Sure. You and I were made for something a little different.”

  “Suppose so.” Mac glanced out the window.

  “Funny,” Jeff said after a few minutes. “You’d think Maxfield would be cake after Rasnick.”

  Mac wasn’t sure if that was an insult or not. And did Jeff have to say cake? “Rasnick was a bigger fish. But Maxfield’s just as hard to nail.”

  “Ah, I miss the days when we were hunting ol’ Jimbo. And Rasnick’s wife—she was a dish, yeah?”

  Mac grimaced, remembering Flora Rasnick and her brittle, platinum blonde hair. A petite, timid woman who’d briefly shown her claws after Rasnick’s arrest. Not happy about the obvious joy Mac had felt shoving Jimmy’s head into that wall.

  “Be great if I can help take down Maxfield. Maybe I’ll even get some credit this time.” Jeff laughed, but it sounded hollow.

  Jeff had helped Mac and Val tap Rasnick’s landline once they’d figured out where Jimmy and Flora were living. Good work, sure, but the idea for the tap had been Val’s.

  �
��You pissed you didn’t get promoted?” Mac asked.

  “Nah. I’m more of a man behind the curtain.” He drummed the wheel. “So what are you doing with Page once you catch him?”

  “Doing?” Mac glanced at him. “Dragging him back to the office and interviewing him. Then running him over with my car and making it look like an accident.”

  Jeff took the Plainview exit. “I didn’t think he was that bad.”

  “He stole your phone.”

  “I do need that phone back.” Jeff paused. “Nice guy, though. Otherwise.”

  Mac ignored the twitch in his jaw and texted Dwayne that they were on their way.

  A knock on his door. “Room service, Mr. Page.”

  Henry was grinning before he even opened it. “Remy!”

  Remy hugged him, and wriggled out of his grasp when Henry tried to hold on a bit too long. He tugged his sleeves down over his skinny wrists. “So . . . Henry. What can I do for you tonight, babe?”

  “Ah, save the sweet talk for someone else.” Henry sat down on the bed. “I need a makeover.”

  “Mmm. I’ve been saying that for years.” Remy chewed the ring in his lip. “Okay, take your shirt off and get in the bathroom.”

  Henry stood up and stretched. “What did I say about that sweet talk?”

  Remy swatted him on the ass. “Naughty.”

  Henry pulled his shirt off and dropped it on the floor. He tossed his glasses on the bed, and headed for the narrow bathroom. There was hardly enough room to move in there. He wet his hair under the shower, draped a thin hotel towel around his shoulders, and sat on the toilet lid.

  Remy opened his bag. “What color do you want?” He flipped his hair back. It was streaked purple at the moment. “Maybe you can be a pretty emo boy for a while, hey, babe? Black would look great on you.”

  “Okay.” Henry closed his eyes as Remy snapped on his gloves. It felt good when Remy massaged his scalp. There weren’t many people that Henry trusted to get this close. It was nice to relax for a moment.

  “You running from someone?” Remy asked quietly.

  Henry opened his eyes, then closed them again as the fumes from the hair dye stung. “Got mixed up in some shit, yeah.”

  “You gotta be more careful.” Remy slicked Henry’s hair up into strange whorls and rubbed his fingers along the hairline behind his ears. “Okay, we leave this for ten minutes, then wash it out. What sort of cut do you want?”

  Henry blinked through the fumes as Remy stepped away. “Whatever you think.”

  “Something spiky. With gel. Like a boy from a manga.”

  “You think I can pull that off?”

  “Of course you can.” Remy sat on the bathroom floor. He drew his knees up and rested his arms on them. His left sleeve slid up. He tugged it back down, but not before Henry saw the tracks.

  “You using again?”

  Remy didn’t meet his gaze. “A bit.”

  Henry exhaled slowly.

  And Remy was the one telling Henry to be careful.

  They sat in silence for a while, then Henry asked, “Have you got enough money?”

  “Yeah,” Remy breathed. “Thanks.”

  Enough money that at least he wasn’t turning tricks to get his next hit.

  Henry had tried a few times in the past to get Remy to stop using. Occasionally it worked, but never more than a few months. Stacy said you couldn’t help an addict until they wanted help. Maybe she was right. But it hurt that Remy rarely seemed to want help. That his addiction had somehow become the biggest thing in his life. Bigger than the people who cared about him.

  Less addictive than coffee, bullshit.

  “Carson’s looking out for me,” Remy volunteered at last.

  “Carson’s an asshole.”

  “He’s okay.”

  No, Remy, he isn’t.

  Last time at the Court, Henry had walked in on Remy giving Carson head. Which would have been nobody’s business but their own if Carson hadn’t been laughing about just what the little fag would do for twenty bucks. Henry hated men like that. Fucking hated them. And Remy should have hated them too.

  Remy checked his watch. “Okay, I’ll get the scissors and let’s wash it out.”

  Henry bent over the sink. The water was warm, and Remy’s touch was soothing. Black droplets splattered in the sink and swirled down the rusty drain. He watched until they ran clear, and then Remy took the towel from his neck and briskly rubbed his hair dry.

  It reminded him of . . . not his mother’s touch, but Viola’s. She’d always looked after him better than their mother ever could. He missed her more than he could bear.

  Remy took the towel away, and Henry tried to straighten up to see in the mirror.

  “Stay there.” Remy put a hand on the back of his neck.

  He heard the snip of the scissors.

  Ten minutes later, Remy let him look at his reflection.

  Strange, what a simple dye job and haircut could do. He didn’t look like a conscientious student anymore. He looked like a punk kid. The haircut had taken at least five years off him.

  Remy rested his chin on Henry’s shoulder. “You look hot. I brought you some clothes too.”

  They returned to the bedroom, and Henry stripped while Remy lounged on the bed and watched him. He pulled on the faded jeans, and the too-tight T-shirt with a rip in it. There was mesh stitched underneath the tear, pulled tight across his nipple. Henry looked like he should have been standing on a street corner somewhere. Gloria Maxfield would never have let this guy into her house. It worked, though.

  “Let me do your eyes,” Remy said.

  Henry sat on the bed, watching Remy’s face as he worked. Remy chewed the ring in his lip again, his tongue darting out to flick it occasionally. Henry tried not to blink as Remy ringed his eyes with black liner, then smudged it with his fingers. He finished with the eyeliner at last, dropped it back into his bag, and held up something else. Lipstick. Dark purple lipstick.

  “Hold still. Don’t smudge it.”

  When he was done, Remy grabbed Henry by the hand and dragged him into the bathroom. He stood behind him, his chin on his shoulder and his arms around his waist, as they both stared at his reflection.

  Jagged black hair, spiked on top. Dark, dark eyes and a pouting, unsmiling mouth.

  Remy grinned. “You look fucking hot.”

  “My own mother wouldn’t recognize me.”

  And hadn’t, for at least three months before she’d died.

  Remy hummed happily and headed back into the bedroom.

  Henry stared at his reflection a moment longer. New hair. New look. A new name as well, as soon as he picked one. Not that he had the money to throw around on new documents at the moment, given that he’d never hit payday with Gloria, but Stacy would help him out with that. She knew he was good for it. He didn’t put his money straight into his arm.

  He walked back into the bedroom to find Remy holding Jeff’s phone.

  “Who’s Baldy?” Remy asked. He slid his finger across the glowing screen. “Penny says Baldy must not have gotten his coffee this morning.”

  “What are you doing?” He snatched the phone. “Why’d you turn it on?”

  “Playing Candy Crush. You’re only up to Level Thirteen, so I’m helping you out.”

  “It’s not my phone! Fuck!” He stared at the screen. “You turned it on, and it’s not my phone. Shit. They’ll track it now.”

  “Babe.” Remy swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “The battery was still in it. If you’re talking the feds, they can track it anyway.”

  “Shit.” Shit, all this time he’d been sending out the Bat-Signal anyway. “I need you to do me a favor.”

  “What?”

  “Can you take this with you? Maybe leave it on a bus or something?”

  Remy’s face fell slightly. “Now?”

  They’d fucked before. Plenty of times. They’d also spent a lot of time not fucking, just lying together under the covers in a bedroom
at the Court, holding hands. They’d shared a lot of secrets too. Secrets about big guys, and dark rooms, and the way the sound of a doorknob turning in the middle of the night could still make their blood run cold.

  “I wish,” Remy had whispered once, “that I’d done what you did. Wish I’d never put a needle in my arm instead.”

  Henry wished that too.

  Henry turned in Remy’s embrace and pressed his purple lips gently against his. “Please, Remy. This shit I’m dealing with, I don’t want you mixed up in it.”

  Remy clung on a moment longer, then stepped back. “Okay. Just promise me you’ll take care of yourself?”

  Henry thought again of the track marks on Remy’s arms. “I will. You too?”

  “Promise,” Remy said.

  Plainfield.

  Somewhere in a fifty-yard radius of this particular block of urban decay was Henry Page. Or at least Jeff’s phone. Mac was pretty damn sure when they found the phone, Henry wouldn’t be with it anymore.

  “What’ve we got?” he asked, pulling on his sunglasses and squinting into the sun.

  Calvin leaned in the car window. “Couple of warehouses, and a motel. The Man Inn the Moon. Two floors. Ten rooms on each. That’s got to be our best bet.”

  “Okay, you and Jeff start at the back. Dwayne and I will go in from the front. We’ll take it floor by floor. Any movement, let me know straightaway.”

  “Got it.” Calvin jogged back to his car.

  Mac’s phone buzzed. “Penny?”

  “The phone’s moved since the last signal we got,” Penny said. He could tell from her tone that she wanted to be out there with them. “Heading westward.”

  Shit.

  Mac stared down the street, but couldn’t see any movement yet.

  “Mac?” Jeff asked him.

  “Keep tracking it,” Mac told Penny. Henry probably wasn’t in the motel; probably never had been. But they had to consider the possibility that if Henry was stupid enough to steal a car and get pulled over for having no plates, he might be stupid enough to hole up in a motel with an FBI agent’s stolen phone. “We check the motel, room by room. Let’s go.”

  Henry was just about ready to bail. The longer he stayed here, the less comfortable he felt. He liked that the motel was out of the way and that he could monitor anyone coming or going. But he wished there was a crowd to lose himself in if he needed to.