Dreamspinner Press Years One & Two Greatest Hits

by J. M. Colail

  “Fine,” Jack said, neutrally.

  “You need a beer?”

  “Buzz off, Geoff,” Gloria snapped.

  Geoff’s face fell immediately. It was almost comic. “I just… uh, sorry.” He slunk back around the table, chancing one more glance at Jack.

  “That was uncalled for,” Jack said, quietly, although he was secretly grateful.

  “He’ll live.”

  MEGAN SAT in Jack’s living room, the lights off, waiting for him to come home. I should just walk up to the guy, or wait ’til he’s home and ring the damn bell. I’ll probably give him a heart attack.

  All of which was true, but the stealth mode was hard to give up, especially now, and part of her wanted to see how he’d react.

  The keys turned in the lock and the door swung open, Jack silhouetted from the dim light from the streetlamps outside. He had a messenger bag over his shoulder and a scarf wrapped around his throat.

  Megan reached over to the lamp at her side and clicked it on.

  Jack didn’t make a noise or waste a movement. Fast, almost too fast for her to see, he had a gun out from somewhere and he was around in a tight circle, the gun up and pointed at her. She grinned. “Good. You’ve been staying sharp, I see.”

  He sagged, breath whooshing out of his chest in a rush. He lowered the gun. “Jesus Christ, Megan!”

  “Of course if I’d really been a bad guy I wouldn’t have turned on the light; I would have just shot you.”

  “I guess it’s a good thing you’re not a bad guy, then,” Jack said, slipping the gun back into his bag. He tossed it aside and crossed the room to embrace her. She hugged him back, reassured by how solid he felt in her arms. “Goddamn, I’m glad to see you.”

  “Me too. I would have been here sooner, but I’ve been… a little busy.”

  He pulled back and she saw his eyes flick all over her face. “Your surgeon did a good job,” he said. “Your scars are barely noticeable.”

  “Yeah, well even barely noticeable is a bit of a liability for me. Do you think they’ll keep fading?”

  “Sure.” He turned her face to one side and palpated her most visible scar, a vertical line near her ear. “This one might never go away completely. Are you using any creams or vitamins? I can recommend something.”

  “Yeah, I’m using every product known to man.”

  “That’s all you can do, then. Make sure you drink lots of water all the time. Hydrated skin heals better and minimizes scar tissue formation.” He smiled. “Feels weird to be giving medical advice. These days, the only advice I give is which mystery writer a customer should read next.” He put down his messenger bag and unwound his scarf. “I guess Churchill must have told you where I am.”

  “Yep.”

  “How’d you get him to do that?”

  “A good blow job is very persuasive.” She busted out laughing at the stunned expression on Jack’s face. “I’m kidding. I wrangled an appointment to the Marshal’s office as a special consultant on anti-assassination tactics.”

  “And what does this consultant job entail?”

  “It entails me coming to Witsec once in a while and saying smart things. Oh, and having access to their database.”

  “Nice.” He was making coffee. “So….”

  “I haven’t seen him,” she said, her voice quiet with understanding.

  He nodded, quickly. “Sure, whatever.”

  “Jack, it’s all right to want some news. It’s been three months.” She sat down on his couch. “All I can tell you is that as of two days ago he was alive and all right. He texts me once a week, just to let me know he isn’t dead.”

  He came into the living room and handed her a cup of coffee. “Well, that’s something.”

  “He’s pretty deep underground. I don’t know how he’s doing with his plan, whatever his plan entails.”

  “I thought he might have told you more than he told me.”

  “No, not really. Just the goal. Get the brothers off your back.”

  “I wish I could do that myself. I hate that he’s out there endangering himself for my sake.”

  “I know you do. But we both have to let him do this. It’s a way to—”

  “Atone,” Jack finished.

  She nodded. “Yeah. Atone.” She cocked her head, watching Jack’s profile. “Jack… are you all right?”

  He sighed, fidgeting with his coffee cup. “Compared to what?”

  “You’re having doubts, aren’t you?”

  “No!” he said, too quickly.

  Megan cleared her throat, proceeding cautiously. “Is that ‘no’ meaning ‘yes’?”

  Jack started to deny it again, then hesitated. He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said, quietly. “I guess it’s just that… well, a lot of things that weren’t important then are starting to seem important.”

  “Such as?” She thought she knew, but she wanted to hear it from him.

  He snorted. “Oh, nothing significant. Just little things, like that he’s killed people. A lot of people.”

  “Bad people.”

  “That makes it right? What if somebody decided I was bad? Plenty of people would think so, because I’m gay. That would make it okay for them to kill me?”

  “There’s a difference between judging someone bad because they raped a five-year-old and judging that someone’s bad because he’s gay.”

  “Is there?” Jack sat back. “Do you know what his final job was?”

  She nodded. “An art dealer who was laundering pieces looted by the Nazis.”

  “Right. That guy probably never hurt anyone in his life; not physically, anyway. He was an art dealer. Did he deserve to die?”

  “You know, it wasn’t D who thought he deserved it. He didn’t hire himself for the job, you know.”

  “No. But he sure as hell judged the guy bad enough to take the job and cash the check.” Jack rubbed his face with one hand. “None of this mattered… then. Now all I can think about is whether it was real.”

  “You’re not sure it was real?”

  “I don’t know what to think!” he exclaimed. “Sometimes I wake up and for a minute I’m sure I must have dreamed it all. Did it really happen? Does he even exist? If I told anybody in my life now they’d never believe me. I wouldn’t believe me, either.”

  “It was real, Jack.”

  “I know it was. I’ve got the scars to prove it. That’s not even the scary part.” He didn’t go on.

  “You’re not sure what you felt was real,” Megan said, quietly.

  “It felt real at the time. It was just him and me against the world. Not in some Kerouac, misunderstood way but a very real, bullet-ridden way, and everything was polarized and refracted and it had to be one way or no way. I had to love him so I wouldn’t fear him. I had to make him love me or he’d desert me.”

  “Is that how it was?”

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know.” He leaned forward and put his head in his hands. “I don’t want it to be, but I’m afraid it might be. And now everything we went through, even the good stuff, the talking and the sex and the protecting, it all feels tainted by some nebulous truth that I’m not even sure exists.”

  “You’re overanalyzing this.”

  “Oh, you think?” he snapped. “That is my special gift.” He dropped his hands, and she saw how tired he was. Tired of thinking about this. “Sometimes I have this secret shameful little hope that he just never comes back. Then I won’t have to find out. I’ll be able to just keep those months we had together in my head, and look back and remember him without having a reality to mess it up. I’m terrified of him coming back after doing God knows what to make me safe and finding out that what I felt wasn’t real, or even worse, that it was real but it isn’t enough to keep us together. I’d almost rather never see him again than get him back and lose him the way everybody else in the world loses relationships. Break up like regular people. We’re not supposed to be like that. We’re supposed to die in a hail of bullets or
part tragically and pine forever. We’re not supposed to reunite only to split up over money or intimacy issues or sexual boredom or whatever else splits people up.” He slumped in his chair, his eyes falling closed. “What I had with D was the most intense, most exciting, most passionate connection I’ve ever had with another person in my life. But I’m afraid that if we try for anything more permanent, we’ll lose it.” He glanced at her. “God, made quite a speech, didn’t I? Sorry.”

  “No, it’s okay. Everything you said, it’s all valid. Those are all legitimate concerns. But of all those words, only two really matter.”

  “What?”

  “’I’m afraid.’”

  He nodded, sighing. “Yeah.”

  “You just have to ask yourself if you’re going to let that fear win. It’d feel awful to lose him in some mundane way, or find out that what you had wasn’t what you thought it was. But I have to think it’d feel worse never to try.”

  He rolled his head on the chair cushion to look at her. “You’re right, of course. Like I could ever just give up on it now because it’s scary. Isn’t it always scary?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Megan sat up straighter. “I have to be on my way, Jack.”

  “So soon?” he said, frowning.

  “Never a dull moment.” She got up. “But I’m glad to find you well and safe. I’ll be sure to pass that along.”

  He stood up and walked her to the door. “Can you pass something else along?”

  “If I’m able.”

  “Tell him… tell him to meet me on Christmas Day. I can’t see my family, I have nothing else to do. Tell him I just need to see him, even if it’s only for a few hours. Tell him I begged and got down on my hands and knees and made a shameful spectacle of myself.”

  She smiled. “Meet you where?”

  Jack looked away. “He’ll know where.”

  She nodded. “Okay. I’ll tell him.”

  December 25, 2006

  JACK’S STOMACH was in knots as he drove through Redding after six-plus hours on the road from Portland. He could have flown, but given travel times and security procedures it was almost quicker to drive the near seven hours that would bring him from his home in Portland to the house his dreams still placed him in.

  He’d round the corner and he would or would not see a car in the driveway. Even if you don’t see a car, he could still be there. He could have hidden the car. He could have taken a cab. He could have dropped in from the sky.

  He rounded the corner. No car in the driveway.

  It was almost noon. He might arrive later. If he’d ever gotten Jack’s message at all, or if he had any intention of honoring his request. Jack thought the chances of D showing up here were no better than even, if that. But it wasn’t like he couldn’t show up himself; if there was even the remotest chance, he had to be here.

  He parked his car in the driveway and just sat there for a minute. The place looked the same, if a bit overgrown. All that gardening for nothing.

  He got out and went around to the little chink under the foundation where they’d hidden a spare key. It was there. Jack went to the front door and took a breath, then unlocked it and stepped into the surreality of memories that had started to feel disjointed from too much handling.

  For all the time he’d spent looking back on his time here, actually seeing the place again was… odd. He’d misremembered a few details that now felt more real in the incorrect recollection than here in reality. He set down his overnight bag (optimistically packed) and stood there, the stale air filling his lungs.

  He went into the kitchen. Coffeepot, kitchen table, patio doors. The backyard, unkempt and forlorn. He saw his own shadow learning to shoot, learning to fight, that day that D had smelled the sun on him. They’d cleaned the kitchen before leaving; nothing remained of their time except possibly fingerprints, although Jack wouldn’t have put it past D to have wiped the place down like a crime scene.

  He steeled himself and went to the bedroom.

  The bed had been slept in. He would have bet money on it. He’d made the bed himself before they left, with his usual anal-retentive precision. Someone had made it, but it was crooked and a little disheveled-looking. He would not have left it like this.

  But it was not the bed that caught his attention; it was the note that had been left on it.

  He had no idea how long he stood there staring at it. He’s already been here. He intentionally came on a day he knew I wouldn’t be here so he could avoid me. He slept in the bed.

  He’s not coming.

  He picked up the note with numb fingers and sat down to read it.

  12/24

  Jack,

  Merry Christmas, bud. Sorry I can’t be there with you having some eggnog or whatever. I just can’t do it. I’m not strong like you. I couldn’t be there and see you and spend a day with you and then leave again. Leaving you on that warehouse floor felt like part of me tore off and stayed behind and I can’t just visit that part until I get to sew it back on for good.

  Nice of you to invite me, tho. Megan said you’re doing ok. Working at a bookstore. Kinda made me laugh a little to think of you there. She said you looked real good. All healed up, not so much as a limp. That was a load off my mind.

  I’m doing okay. Things are going about like I thought, except it’s taking longer, but don’t everything always? Damn frustrating, but I can’t rush it or it’s all gonna fall apart. I know you’re probably curious about what I’m doing, exactly, but I can’t tell you. Just one thing I want you to know is that I kept my promise. I haven’t killed anybody and if all goes like I plan, I won’t have to. Thought you’d want to know that.

  Damn, but I miss you awful. Seems like every dark-haired guy on the street turns into you. Not that I’m looking, ha ha. I don’t look at other guys. If I had any kind of way with words maybe I could tell you all kinds of nice things about how I feel and what I think and all that, but I don’t have to tell you I ain’t that guy. All I can say is you got no idea how tempting it was to stay in this house and wait for you, but I gotta be strong if we’re gonna have a chance later.

  Don’t be mad at me for ditching you. I know you’ll understand.

  Can’t believe I wrote this much, damn. Looks like something of you rubbed off on me, doc.

  There’s stuff I’m still waiting to say to you, Jack. Things I want you to know. But I’m damned if they’re going in a fucking note.

  See you soon (I hope),

  D

  Jack read it three times. Maybe there was some kind of code embedded in it that would lead to some secret location where D was waiting for him.

  Oh God, you really have drunk the Kool-Aid with all this cloak-and-dagger stuff, haven’t you?

  If there was a code, which he doubted, he didn’t get it.

  He put the note aside and flopped backward onto the bed, kicked off his shoes and burrowed under the covers. He buried his head in the pillow and smiled; a faint smell of D remained.

  Jack got out of bed and stripped naked.

  This is weird, Jack.

  Fuck weird. He was here, he was right the hell here.

  He got back into the bed and shut his eyes, imagining D right where he was lying, just the day before. Possibly only hours before, depending on what time he’d left.

  He rarely allowed himself the luxury of remembering the sex he’d had with D. It was too depressing. He’d jerk off to gay porn instead, or imagine getting a blow job from Anderson Cooper. D was not willingly allowed into those fantasies, probably for much the same reason D had refused to meet him here.

  Now, he just went with it. He let it wash over him and wallowed, his mind sinking deep into a mudbath of erotic memories. Within seconds he was painfully hard.

  That slow blow job he gave me at the hotel in Baltimore. The first time I topped for him, that little look over the shoulder he gave me, his hips in my lap….

  He hadn’t even gotten to the really good stuff before he was going off.

  Shit
. That was some kind of a record.

  Relax. You can do it again in a few minutes.

  He sighed.

  Merry Christmas, D.

  INTERLUDE

  VALENTINE’S DAY. Just pour lemon juice in my eyes.

  Everybody was buying cards, and schmoopy books about lurve. This holiday wasn’t exactly gangbusters for bookstores, but some guys had cottoned onto the fact that a good book or a DVD lasted a lot longer than flowers, so it was certainly busier than usual.

  Jack was putting in an hour at the register, being his usual charming self and chatting with the customers. Stay busy and don’t think about it.

  Gloria came behind the registers during a lull. “Brought you a latte,” she said, handing him a cup.

  “Thanks. I’m off in an hour anyway.”

  “You wanna go out? We can do the Single People Anti-Valentine Fatwa thing.” Her eyes were full of understanding behind all the black Goth eyeliner.

  Jack shrugged. “I don’t think so. I just want to go home and stare at my cell phone.”

  “You think he might call?”

  He sighed. “Not in a million years.”

  She rubbed his arm. “I hate to see you looking so down in the mouth,” she said, sticking out her lower lip. Jack had told Gloria a little more about his situation since first admitting it to her months before, just enough so she understood the situation but not enough to give anything away. She straightened up, putting on a smile. “You ever think maybe you ought to just get laid?”

  Jack snorted. “Frequently.”

  “You could walk into a gay bar and take your pick, you know. He wouldn’t hold it against you.”

  “No, I don’t think he would. I might, though.”

  “Jack, it’s unreasonable to expect you not to get any at all during an involuntary, open-ended separation.”

  “I know. Maybe I’ll get to that point. Just… it’s too soon.”

  “Okay, I get that.” She patted his arm again. “And if you’d like to dip your toes in the other side of the pond, you know I’m available.”