The Losing Game

by Lane Swift

  Lois clamped her hand to her mouth, then lowered it enough to say, “Oh God. That’s awful.”

  Lucas clenched his fists against his thighs. “She’d been wearing a high-visibility jacket and a helmet. If the driver had been paying attention to the road, he would have seen her, but even if he hadn’t, the auto-driver should have stopped his car, which means he must have turned it off. If that wasn’t bad enough, after he hit her, he drove away and left her on the side of the road. Probably because he was on his way home from a lunchtime drink at the pub.” Lucas dropped his gaze to his lap. “If he’d stayed and called an ambulance, she might have survived.”

  Unquestionably Dante had expected a tragedy. At no point had Lucas struck him as the type of man to murder for personal gain. Thus, Dante had braced himself—as ineffectually as the New Year’s Day swimsuit-clad bathers who ran into the sea on Roseport beach. And just like those naked, naïve, boneheaded thrill-seekers, his blood froze.

  “He was caught?” Dante asked.

  “Yes.” Lucas cleared the hoarseness from his throat. “One of the houses on the road had a security camera pointing into the street. It captured his registration number and the exact time he hit her.”

  “Surely the case went to court?” Lois said.

  “Yes. It did. And for killing my sister, Richard Shaw earned himself a six-month prison term, suspended for a year. Plus, two hundred hours of community service and a one thousand pound fine. He’s currently enjoying his freedom without a dent in his comfort.”

  Lucas hunched over and pinched his forefinger and thumb over his eyes. Helplessly, Dante looked to Lois. Each tick of the clock seemed to become increasingly louder as he struggled to think of what to say.

  “That’s unbelievable.” Lois hugged herself, like she was chilled. “A suspended sentence?”

  “Yes.”

  She went on, “How could the judge…?”

  “Privacy laws, apparently.”

  Bitterly Lucas looked at Lois and Dante in turn. “And the fact that Richard Shaw’s uncle used to be the Police and Crime Commissioner for Hampshire. He plays golf with ex-policemen. He’s got money.” Lucas’s chin tightened as he finally bit out, “He must have been laughing all the way through the trial.”

  Dante’s stomach tightened with a knot of guilt. He didn’t want to hurt Lucas. The man was already in so much pain. But Dante had chosen to walk this path, and he couldn’t turn back. If he was to give Lucas’s appeal full consideration, he had to understand it, fully.

  “Don’t you think killing Shaw is harsh? It was, after all, an accident.”

  Lucas didn’t flinch.

  “Shaw paid for three pints that day as well as his lunch. I know it’s not proof that he drank them, but he did. I know he did. The rest. I have a memory stick. The court transcripts are on it, and my details should you want to contact me.” Lucas reached into his coat pocket and placed the stick on the coffee table between them.

  Of course Lucas hadn’t flinched at Dante’s question. He’d been in court. He’d had his heart ripped out of his chest and crushed beneath the heels of Richard Shaw’s defense.

  Dante pressed his fingers to his forehead. Before him, Lucas vibrated with tension.

  “I’ll pay you. Just to read the transcripts. Then you can decide whether to help me.” He paused. “Avery said you like a challenge. That you can do anything you put your mind to.”

  You can do anything you put your mind to, baby.

  That’s what Dante’s lover Flynn had said, in the beginning, when he’d been coaxing the young Dante, barely out of his teens, to join him in more than a carnal capacity. He’d appealed to his ego, and it had worked. But that young man was dead and gone. Both of them were.

  Lucas would do what he would do, but Dante would not, could not be a part of it. He said, “It doesn’t matter whether I read the transcripts or not. It doesn’t matter whether I believe that this man Shaw deserves to die for what he did. I can’t help you.”

  Lucas must have expected multiple rejections, because when he played his final card, it was an ace, a diamond, and it cut straight to Dante’s heart.

  “Wouldn’t you do the same in my shoes? Wouldn’t you do it if it had been someone you loved?”

  Like Lois or Kit.

  Dante shuddered at the memory of that dark, moonless, icy night when Lois and Kit came into his life, and for all intents and purposes, Flynn went out. It had been a night not unlike tonight. Dante pushed the recollection away as Lucas drank his tea.

  Lacing his fingers together, Dante mustered every ounce of his resolve. “What I would do is irrelevant. I don’t believe you have it in you to kill anyone. That’s a good thing. Something you should value. Go home. Mourn your sister, and move on. Killing Shaw won’t bring her back.”

  Lucas’s eyes filled. Dante had to look away. Anger he could deal with, but not tears.

  “Shaw has to pay for what he did. For what he’s stolen.”

  Dante glanced at Lois. Her gaze firmly locked on the fire. Dante longed, more than anything, to reach out for her hand. Except he couldn’t. He wished he could tell Lucas what killing a man would do to him. He couldn’t do that either, especially not with Lois at his side.

  “Listen to me. You don’t want to do this.”

  His words sounded hollow and useless, though he’d meant them from the depths of his soul.

  Lucas stood and snatched his coat. “Forget it. I’ll do it without your help.”

  “No.” Dante leapt from his chair, rounding the table, close enough to Lucas he could have grabbed him and shaken some sense into his lithesome frame. “You won’t. You can’t.”

  “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I can do.”

  Lucas’s pain and grief was still fresh and palpable. It physically hurt Dante to say to him, “Forget Shaw. Forget you came here, and I’ll do the same. No harm done.”

  “No harm done? No harm done?” Lucas jabbed his finger against Dante’s chest. “Pardon me, Mr. Okoro, but fuck you.”

  As if on cue, the mantel clock struck the half hour. Lucas pushed past Dante and rushed for the door. Lois followed.

  Heart pounding, Dante wove around the furniture to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a large gin with a splash of tonic.

  Kit came in through the private door, flopped onto the sofa, and pushed a whole cupcake into her mouth. She chewed and swallowed quickly, then said, “What did he want?”

  “To avenge his sister’s death, by murdering the man who ran her over with his car.”

  She scrambled upright and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “What the hell?”

  Dante explained, “He’s prepared to do the killing part. He wanted me to plan it for him.”

  “What? What did you say?”

  “What do you think? I said no.”

  Kit’s mouth hung open, as if the thought, the mere concept that anyone might set Dante the challenge of planning a murder was too big for her head. Dante downed liquor, as if that would help him forget. Forget Lucas Green. Forget Flynn. Forget the life before.

  Kit reached for another cake. She held it to her lips but didn’t eat.

  “Why would he think you could help him with something like that? How…?”

  “Avery sent him.”

  Kit didn’t remark, as if that explained everything. Thankfully. But after swallowing a mouthful of cake, she said, “Do you think he might do it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Driven to it, a man could do any number of dreadful things beyond what he thought himself capable. Dante knew that as well as anyone.

  No. Not true.

  He knew it better.

  Chapter 4

  LUCAS SKIDDED on the pavement as he fled Le Plaisir and Dante Okoro, unbalanced by a gutful of anger and humiliation.

  Rounding the corner out of Old Roseport, he slowed. He walked to the bus stop, his shoulders hunched, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. On the bus, he sat near the front, behin
d the staircase, out of sight of the driver and the security camera.

  Of course Dante Okoro had turned him down. He’d expected it. What he hadn’t expected was for it to wind him like a punch in the stomach, like the man had spat on Grace as she lay on the roadside dying, waiting and hoping someone would see her and get help. Fist clenched, Lucas ground his knuckle into the rivets on the side panel of the bus until the skin broke. He got off at the next stop.

  Lucas walked blindly, from the top end of Roseport Quay into Landport. In truth, the moment he alighted from the bus, he knew where he was headed.

  He sidestepped the tattered bin bags spewing their contents across the pavement. He kept his head down, avoiding eye contact with the occasional wanderers: prostitutes and pimps, addicts and dealers, good-time boys and gals and androgynes. No cameras monitored these lowly streets. Half the streetlights didn’t work either.

  The Nag’s Head dominated the street corner. It had been popular once with Roseport Island’s glut of sailors, plus students and all manner of outliers on the lookout for company. Music sounded through the open door. Lucas hadn’t been here for years, but the shabby facade hadn’t changed. Maybe the inside would also be the same.

  As he entered, a couple of heads turned in Lucas’s direction, then away again. He targeted the widest space at the bar and leaned in with a note.

  The barman—a bear with tattoos covering his face and neck—noticed him immediately. “What can I get you?”

  “A pint of bitter.” He scanned the taps. “Bangers.”

  “Good choice. You must be local.”

  “Used to be.”

  A voice to Lucas’s left piped in, “Bitter? I never would have guessed. I prefer something sweet myself.”

  A young man with red glitter nails looked Lucas up and down with a sultry sweep of dark lashes. He tipped his empty cocktail glass in Lucas’s direction and moved closer, enough that Lucas could smell the honey-scented wax slicking back his hair. A carefully placed cliché of a black curl nestled on one side of his forehead.

  The man was handsome and sure of himself. Not as intriguing as Dante, and not as polished, but he had a hint of promise in his eyes.

  “What are you having?” Lucas said.

  “Malibu and pineapple.”

  Lucas smiled, and it felt strange. Unworked muscles pulled at his cheeks.

  “What?” The young man slid his glass onto the bar, in the direction of the bartender, and pouted his plump red lips as if he was terribly offended. “That was my dear old grandma’s favorite drink. She was from the islands.”

  “The Caribbean?”

  “No.” He laughed heartily. “The Thames. Born on Sheppey, grew up on Canvey.”

  Lucas joined in the laughter, automatically, and from somewhere deep in his belly. “And now here you are on Roseport.”

  And here I am. Flirting. Wasn’t that a turn up for the books?

  The bartender unobtrusively exchanged the drinks for Lucas’s twenty. The young man—in his head, Lucas called him Malibu—clinked his glass against Lucas’s.

  “Cheers.”

  Lucas returned the gesture and sat on the bar stool next to his newfound companion. Tonight, as far as his other plans were concerned, was a wash. He couldn’t do anything about anything. He might as well kick back for a change, since the offer had fallen—almost literally—onto his lap.

  Lucas and Malibu talked about nothing. The words were a device to allow them to look each other over. To work out whether the drink was just a drink or a prelude. Lucas really only listened when Malibu explained that the Nag’s Head had changed hands recently.

  “The loos are off-limits now, if you get my drift.” He drained his glass. “The landlord’s got ideas about sprucing the place up.”

  Cracked plaster clung to the walls, threadbare upholstery covered the booth benches, and several unsavory-looking stains added to the general nastiness of the sticky burgundy carpet. Already some of the ragtag assortment of drinkers loafing about the place were precariously close to horizontal, and it wasn’t yet seven o’clock.

  The landlord had his work cut out.

  Some people don’t know when they’ve bitten off more than they could chew, Lucas thought, swirling the last of his Bangers bitter around the bottom of his glass.

  “Want to go somewhere?” Malibu asked quietly. He looked like he half expected Lucas to turn him down.

  “Like where?”

  “My place. I’ve got a bedsit on Festive Road.”

  “Maybe.” Lucas wasn’t completely naïve. This could be a setup. But he didn’t have anything of value with him except the cash in his wallet—sixty in notes. He hadn’t brought his handset. He had nothing on him worth stealing.

  “I’m not going to ask you for money,” Malibu said. “I’m not a skank.”

  “I didn’t think you were. I just hadn’t planned on….” No, that wasn’t true. That wasn’t true at all. “I didn’t bring anything. Protection.”

  “That’s all right.” Malibu slipped on a vintage denim jacket over his tee and patted the breast pocket. “I’ve got it covered.”

  They left immediately. Malibu’s jacket offered scant protection against the cold. He turned up his collar and walked quickly, looking straight ahead, never down, lightly sidestepping every obstacle from the pub to his house. Lucas followed in the wake of his sweet perfume, eyes darting from the pavement, to the street, to the play of Malibu’s buttocks against his tight jeans.

  Muffled pulses of life—cheery voices, music, dogs barking—drifted into the street through curtained windows, from house, after house, after house. They stopped outside a narrow terrace, which was conspicuously silent, with an unlit passageway to one side.

  “Down here.” Malibu took out his handset and shone the top light at the ground. “Mind the cracks. The one at the far end almost cost me a tooth when I first moved in here.”

  Lucas took a final glance in either direction, along the empty street, and followed Malibu through the passageway. It opened into a courtyard. A rickety metal staircase clung to the back wall and led up to a door.

  “You’ve got your own entrance?”

  “Yeah. Nice, isn’t it? It’s the only reason I live in this dump of a neighborhood. That, and it’s cheap, and no one round here is interested in spying on each other.”

  The door opened into a tiny hallway, barely big enough for them both. Malibu switched on the light and opened a second door into a small, rather untidy bedsit-style living area. It smelled of cheap vanilla candles. Artificial. Lucas folded his coat over the back of the lone chair.

  “Come here,” Malibu said, slipping out of his jacket and letting it fall to the floor. He took Lucas’s hands in his and lifted them to his lips. “You’ve cut yourself.”

  He kissed the wound on Lucas’s right knuckle, without breaking eye contact. The cut wasn’t bleeding anymore. Malibu kissed away the last of the sting.

  Lucas hadn’t been touched with this generous kind of affection for a long time. He rocked back on his heels and gasped for breath. Malibu chased him for a warm, wet kiss on the mouth. He tasted of Malibu rum and pineapple—of course he did—and it made Lucas smile. And burn.

  If, up to this moment, Lucas had been in any way halfhearted, he wasn’t any longer. Driving lust ignited as instantly and quickly as the flames in Dante Okoro’s office fire. Lucas bustled Malibu to the bed, tearing off his clothes and Malibu’s as they went tumbling. Lucas closed his eyes, consumed by the sudden sensations rocketing through his nervous system. Roaming hands, pinching and grabbing, needy and urgent.

  Malibu’s cock tasted salty, musky. Lucas sucked Malibu mercilessly, then bent Malibu’s knees to his chest and took him fast and deep. Malibu’s eyelids fluttered open and closed. Between sighs, he muttered filthy curses that sent sparks up Lucas’s spine.

  The bed creaked, and the headboard banged against the wall. Lucas didn’t slow. Malibu came hard, forearms pressed to the headboard. Lucas swirled his fingertips
in a globule of the cooling semen pooled at the base of Malibu’s sternum and sucked them into his mouth. With the sharp, salty taste of him on his lips, Lucas thrust out his last, eyes shut tight.

  Fuck.

  He pulled out slowly, removed the condom, tied off the end, and slumped facedown at Malibu’s side. Malibu rolled a cigarette. Lucas rolled onto his back.

  “My name’s Adam, if you’re interested.”

  Adam lit up and held out the mouth end of the rollup, offering Lucas a drag. Lucas declined both the cigarette and the unspoken invitation to give Adam his name.

  “I’ve got to go soon,” he said.

  “I thought so.”

  Lucas waited for Adam to finish his smoke, as his skin cooled and his heart slowed. Next door, someone thumped noisily down the stairs. Outside, in the distance, car tires screeched, and a siren wailed.

  Above the window, the wallpaper had peeled away from a patch of damp. Only then did Lucas notice the musty stench, creeping over the smell of sex and sweat and perfume. Suddenly he longed for home and his own bed.

  While Lucas hastily dressed, Adam wrapped himself in a thin, black cotton robe and sat in the chair, one leg crossed over the other. He rolled a second cigarette he didn’t light, but held it between his forefinger and thumb, poised as if he was about to throw it, like a dart.

  “Will you do me a favor?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “Answer me one question. Honestly.”

  “That depends on the question.” A small rush of heat ran up Lucas’s neck. He wasn’t obliged, and he didn’t have to be honest. But still.

  “What are you looking for?” Adam’s mouth was less attractive without the sheen of lip gloss. His eyes were kind, though. Dark, dark brown and wide open, like infinite space and possibility. Lucas softened.

  “Who says I’m looking for anything?”

  “You are. I know you are. No one like you turns up at the Nag’s Head unless you’re running away, or you’re looking for something. I’m thinking the latter. Am I right?”