by Lane Swift
Chapter 7
LOIS WAS losing her patience. Dante could see it in the way she stood in the office doorway, hands on hips, nostrils flared.
“Are you going to be long? There’s a man in the shop. He wants to talk to you about cock rings.”
Dante returned his gaze to the three monitor screens he had set up on his desk. Nothing had changed in the last ten seconds. “You know everything there is to know.”
“Yes. But I don’t have a cock. Neither do Kit or Selena. He wants to talk to a man.”
It wasn’t unusual. Many men were uncomfortable talking to a woman about sex toys for themselves.
“I’ll be thirty seconds.” Dante scribbled on his notepad: 1803. Lucas and Shaw at home as Lois angled her body into the room, craning her neck toward the monitors. “Your Lucas about to go for his run?”
“He’s not my Lucas.” Dante didn’t mention that so far Lucas had never been running before eight. Usually much later, ten or eleven. Or that he’d only arrived home from work ten minutes ago.
“You talk to him like he is.”
“It helps to pass the time.”
Ten days of external surveillance, during whatever time Dante could spare. That added up to a significant number of hours, staring at closed doors and empty streets.
“I still don’t understand why you’re doing this.” She jutted her chin at the monitors.
“You don’t need to know.”
“You’ve always told Kit and me when you were planning something. Like that bet with Thierry and Rashid. And the time you and Cecile secretly arranged for Thierry to be kidnapped.”
Dante wanted to smile at the recollection of Chief Superintendent Thierry Balon being bundled into the back of a black van, with his masked, leather-clad wife in the back, ready to take over the next part of their kinky adventure. Except the look on Lois’s face didn’t warrant any kind of mirth.
“This isn’t like those times.”
It should have been, but it wasn’t. Over the last ten years, once he’d befriended the likes of Thierry Balon and Rashid Khan, Dante might have dabbled here and there, planning what amounted to sometimes elaborate pranks. Always with consent. Or full disclosure afterward. In this way he entertained his friends, as well as himself.
Lucas, however, wasn’t benefitting from Dante’s intrusion, any more than Richard Shaw. Nor could Dante claim any entertainment from his current subterfuge. Watching Lucas, day in, day out, left Dante feeling increasingly seedy and grim.
“Shall I tell the customer you’re unavailable?”
“No. I’m coming.”
Lois returned to the shop floor. Dante took a last look at the central monitor, at Lucas’s front door.
“Stay home tonight. It’s too cold to be outside running.”
At the front half of Le Plaisir, several customers browsed or queued for purchases. Lois used her eyes to gesture toward the man looking for a cock ring. He was a tall, handsome, athletic type, his hair completely gray. He stood taller as Dante approached, like a man drumming up courage to face the gallows.
Dante held out his hand. “Good evening. How can I help you?”
“I find myself back in the saddle, after some years.”
The man’s self-effacing smile and friendly brown eyes warmed Dante to the core. He continued, his voice unsteady, reaching out for the corner of the central oak display table, “I’m a widower. But there’s still life in me. You know?”
“Of course there is. And now you have a lucky new partner.”
“I don’t know if she’s lucky. I certainly feel I am.” His eyes darted about the shop, then over his shoulder. “She’s younger and rather more adventurous than me.”
Some people, like this man, found it incredibly difficult to speak openly and frankly about the private and personal matter of their sex life. Over the years, Dante had learned the meaning of the various codes shyer people used, perhaps inadvertently, to describe their desires, their anxieties, and sometimes their problems. A quiet, matter-of-fact attitude was the best way to put them at ease.
“My assistant mentioned you’re interested in penis rings.” Dante motioned to the display behind them. “Might I ask if you had a particular type in mind?”
“No. I didn’t even know there was such a thing until a few weeks ago.”
The man followed Dante to the display. His face had turned from cool tan to hot cerise, and a thin sheen of sweat shone on his forehead.
This sort of customer was Dante’s favorite. Helping them to help themselves was an exquisite sort of seduction.
“Okay.” Dante opened the cabinet and pulled out the shelf. “These ones are targeted at enhanced stimulation, both for you and your partner. This one goes halfway along the penis and stimulates the woman’s G-spot during vaginal sex.”
“The ladies like that?”
“I wouldn’t know from experience. But I hear they do.”
The man apologized and didn’t take Dante’s offer to examine any of the products. Dante continued, “Then there are these. They provide additional stimulation for both partners, but also help the wearer to maintain an erection and/or delay orgasm. Some men also use these to heighten the intensity of their eventual climax.”
The man’s expression lifted. Dante smiled and said, “I can tell you from experience, these work very well.” It had been a while, but the recollection generated a frisson of heat that Dante couldn’t deny was a blush.
The man’s shoulders relaxed. “Good. I’ll take a look at some of those.”
Dante explained the biofeedback mechanisms used in modern rings and the range of customizable features. It became apparent, after some coaxing, that Dante’s customer was having trouble sustaining an erection. It was little wonder.
The man had lost his wife. He’d never had intercourse with another woman, before her or after her. He wanted to please his new, younger lover. Add to that his age—Dante guessed his late fifties, early sixties—and an inexplicable but obvious lack of confidence.
The man tentatively examined the three rings Dante had removed from their packaging. Dante surreptitiously checked the time on the wall clock.
“Would you like me to give you a few minutes? I expect I’m making you feel uncomfortable standing at your shoulder.”
“A bit. It’s silly. I know it is. I look at these young folks, so confident and open. No one cares anymore who you have sex with or whether you have sex at all or how you like to have it when you do. I wasn’t raised that way.”
“It’s not silly. Everyone is different, and everyone has different reasons for being here.”
“I expect you’ve seen all sorts.”
“You could say that.” Dante hadn’t planned on it, but he gave the man’s forearm a reassuring squeeze. “Take all the time you need. I’ve got to return to my office for a moment, but I’ll be back shortly. Or one of our other assistants will be happy to help you.”
Dante ought not to have fled. He ought to have completed the sale. But his screens beckoned.
Back at his desk, the three monitors, each displaying four live feeds, showed nothing out of the ordinary. Dante had installed cameras outside Lucas’s and Shaw’s houses. A dozen other of the live feeds Dante watched were public cameras, readily accessible online. The result was a real-time (though incomplete) view of Lucas’s route from home to work, plus some parts of his running routes.
Thus far, Lucas had run four times a week, for anything from forty to sixty minutes. Dante had mapped the routes as thoroughly as he could, working out Lucas’s most likely paths based on the time it took him to run from one camera to the next. It hadn’t been easy. Lucas favored parks and footpaths not covered by the camera network.
Rewinding the feed trained on Lucas’s front door, Dante played back at double speed. Nothing. Lucas was home. Shaw was still alive.
Dante made another note of the time: 18:27.
In the last ten days, Lucas hadn’t gone out except to work or to go running. He
left for his job at Excelsior Inc. at eight in the morning, taking the bus there and back, and arrived home shortly before six. From the looks of things, he didn’t own a car.
Today was Thursday. Lucas had run last Thursday. Dante had watched him, stretching on his doorstep. Hamstrings, quads, calves. Lucas was flexible and lean. More than once, Dante had reached and touched the monitor screen, imagining how it might feel to run his fingers behind Lucas’s knees, up his inner thigh. He’d also wondered if that was a line crossed. If he had officially become not impartial observer, but stalker.
He refused to think so. After all, he deliberately hadn’t invaded Lucas’s home. The cameras were placed outside. He’d restricted his electronic observations to publicly posted information: Facebook (hardly used), Twitter (never used except to retweet, but the users he followed was telling) and a partially filled in LinkedIn profile.
Dante reluctantly returned to the shop. His customer was nowhere to be seen.
“Lois?”
She emerged from the back room. “Right here.”
“What happened to my cock-ring guy?”
“He bought the Sensor Vibrate, some lube, and a couple of candles. He left a minute ago.”
“How’s everything out here?”
“Quieting down. Go on. Go back to your boyfriend.”
Dante growled under his breath, closed the internal door to the shop, and returned to his desk. He got comfortable, ready for the hour ahead, toeing off his shoes and removing his tie. He hadn’t been away from the monitors long, but to be on the safe side, he rewound the feed on Lucas’s front door two minutes and replayed, double speed.
His heart jumped. He rewound again, played normal speed, paused. At 18:28, Lucas Green had left his house, wearing a peacoat, trousers, and boots. Dante scanned the other monitors.
“He went out three minutes ago.”
Lucas couldn’t have got far. Dante wheeled on his chair to his right, to the Roseport Island map he’d pinned to the wall. Radiating out from Lucas’s house, he jotted down the handful of locations that had cameras Lucas might cross. Most streets in Lucas’s neighborhood were not publicly surveilled. Lucas could easily walk all the way to Roseport Quay to the south and the bridge to the mainland in the north without his movement being recorded or, more importantly, broadcast.
Dante swung back to the desk and the monitors. He closed down the windows monitoring Shaw’s property and the surrounding streets. Opened new ones that might capture Lucas en route to his unknown destination.
Dante’s mouth went dry. He whispered, “Where are you?”
Without taking his eyes from the screen, he took off his suit jacket. Licked his lips. And wished he had a pair of eyes for each of the live feeds running in front of him.
Time slowed. It could only have been seconds later when Dante saw him. He exhaled. Relieved. He drew closer to his monitor as Lucas crossed the Roseport Road and stopped at the bus stop, due south. The field of view wasn’t very wide, but he was there, plain as day, standing in the bus shelter, under the lights.
Dante had a moment to requisition one of the laptops streaming Livecam feeds he didn’t currently need. He opened a search window and pulled up the local bus network website.
“Great. Only three possible routes. Now let’s see where you’re going.”
Roseport Island spanned ten miles north to south, eight miles east to west at the widest point. Lucas was headed south from Roseport’s northern end, and therefore staying on the island. Surely he wasn’t going to Shaw’s place? Not at six thirty in the evening. Not on a bus.
“Dante!”
Lois stood at the doorway.
“What?”
“I said, would you like a cup of tea?”
“No. Come here.” Dante lifted his laptop. “Get a chair. I need you to take this.”
“I can’t. Selena’s on her own.”
“Where’s Kit?”
“Showing someone how to wear a harness.”
Dante groaned. “Please. I need you to pull up all the Island bus routes. It’ll only take a minute.”
He heard her huff and, from the corner of his eye, saw her dragging over the wingback chair. He didn’t dare take his eyes from Lucas. A bus had pulled alongside the stop. Lucas was getting on.
Dante pointed to his monitor. “Lois? Was that a 505? To Roseport Quay?”
She took the laptop, leaning into Dante’s monitor as she sat. “Yes.”
“Route. Tell me where it stops.”
Lucas had taken a seat by the window, on the left of the bus. His blond hair and dark coat stood in sharp relief against the bland gray of the bus.
“It goes down the Roseport Road to Milton, then the quay.”
“No, I need all the stops.” Dante moved back to the map, where he could marry the bus route with camera locations. “Read them out.”
“I’ve got to go.”
Lois moved—Dante saw in his peripheral vision—and then there was the jaw-clenching clatter of toppling plastic, at her feet, under the desk.
“What the hell?” Lois fell back onto the chair, bent down, and picked up one of the small black boxes. “What the hell are all these?”
“Lois. Where the fuck is this bus going?”
He regretted swearing instantly. He didn’t need to look. The taut, icy tone of her voice said everything. “Roseport Road, Milton Gardens, Milton, Roseport Station, Seafront, Old Roseport, Roseport Quay.”
Lois stood and thrust one of the toppled black boxes under Dante’s nose. “External hard drives. I’d say about twenty, thirty.”
“Saved camera footage.”
“All this? Are you insane?”
“Lois, please. I don’t want to lose him.”
“He’s going to Roseport Quay. He’s probably got a nice real-world boyfriend, and he’s going for a drink and something to eat. Like you should be doing.”
Dante grabbed the laptop from Lois’s hands. “It’s all right. I can do it myself.”
The bus had disappeared from view. Dante could pull up the other cameras, but if Lucas got off in the meantime, he’d have lost him.
Lois sat back down. “Give that to me. I’ll do the Milton end. You do the rest.”
They worked in silence, accessing the Livecams for every camera en route they could find. Dante knew it was an exercise in futility. He hadn’t done this properly. He’d been sloppy. He should have at the very least found a way to get close enough to Lucas to activate GPS tracking on his handset.
Dante went through the motions, knowing it was pointless yet unable to pull himself away. He and Lois sat as if in some sort of trance, transfixed by the motion of cars and buses and people on foot.
“I thought you were going to make tea,” he said.
“I can spare you ten minutes.”
Dante leaned across and kissed the side of her head. She stuck out a bony elbow and said, “Focus. These buses won’t drive in slo-mo just for your benefit.”
Five agonizing minutes ticked by until Lois spotted Lucas, still on the 505, emerging from Milton.
“Train station next.”
The station area was brightly lit, and the bus stopped in plain sight. Lucas stepped off. Dante thought for a moment he would head toward the trains, but he went in the opposite direction, crossing the road. Lois’s gaze moved with Dante’s to the third station camera.
Lucas lifted his arm and rang a doorbell on a block of flats.
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” Dante threw his head back and blew out a relieved breath. “He’s gone to see Avery.”
“That’s great.” Lois stood and folded her arms. “Why are you spying on him?”
Dante didn’t know how to answer. He really didn’t know whether he could bring himself to admit that he’d laid a wager on one man’s life and another’s soul. He didn’t know whether the wager had anything to do with why he was spying on Lucas anymore. Whether ten days of watching him had changed his mind. About everything.
“Dad?
” she said, in a small voice. “What’s going on?”
Lois was twenty-four. Clever and grounded but standing in front of Dante with her eyes pleading—and it wasn’t a ploy—she could have passed for that frightened nine-year-old child who’d hidden under the kitchen cabinets, protecting herself and her baby sister.
He couldn’t bear to let her go. Not yet. He bit the inside of his lip and wondered if he really was losing his mind. He almost said so, but the actual words that came out were, “I need to go out. I need to see someone.”
“Please tell me why. Why are you spying on Lucas Green? I thought you weren’t going to have anything to do with him. I don’t understand. Have you changed your mind? Are you going to help him?”
“What would you say if I was?”
She sat on the edge of the desk, assessing the monitors, the hard drives, and her father. Her face was heart shaped, and Dante had always thought that apt. She was the heart of their makeshift family, and if she left he didn’t know how he’d cope. But she was an adult, and so was he, and betting on Lucas killing Shaw had been a stupid idea from the start.
At last Lois put her hand on Dante’s jaw and said, “If you think it’s the right thing to do, then I’d say, please be careful. Because I couldn’t stand for anything bad to happen to you.”
“Nothing bad will happen to me. I’ll be careful. You have my word.”
Of course, Lucas might not want his help anymore. Dante wouldn’t presume. He’d have to ask him. Face to face.
Chapter 8
THE HEATER on the lovely hydro-electric state-of-the-art bus didn’t work. Lucas’s toes burned with cold before they hit the pavement, where ice sparkled in wicked patches.
Lucas had been out with Avery a couple of times during the summer months, in the sullen wake of Grace’s funeral. Then once for a cocktails just over a month ago, in October. He hadn’t much felt like socializing since Grace died in April. Every time had been a mammoth effort, and more so since the nights had drawn in.
Likewise, Lucas hadn’t been keen to go out when Avery had called him earlier in the day (on a whim, darling) to invite him out for cocktails. Except her voice had an edge of desperation, and Lucas feared an intervention. The last thing he wanted was an uninvited entourage of friends invading his house, telling him to pull himself together. They’d probably turn up while he was practicing with his gun, and wouldn’t that be inconvenient?