The Losing Game

by Lane Swift

  At Lily’s house, and at work, Lily didn’t need anyone’s help going about her normal day-to-day business. At Lucas’s house, without a ramp, Lucas had to maneuver her wheelchair over his front step and into his living room. She couldn’t make herself a cup of tea in his kitchen or make use of his toilet without being lifted into the tiny room.

  Lucas hurried himself along. He dug out a tight T-shirt that he hadn’t worn in… it might have been close to a year, and jeans that would have been arse-hugging on a man with more rounded bum cheeks.

  Donning a blazer, he took a last look in the mirror. He tended not to look much these days. He’d lost weight. The blazer didn’t fit as snugly across his shoulders and around his middle as it used to. He could blame the running, but he knew it was the lack of eating.

  Suddenly Lucas realized he was absolutely starving. Fuck oysters, he was going to have a steak. A rare, bloody steak and chips with the thickest, creamiest peppercorn sauce.

  He belted downstairs.

  “Let’s go to the Lookout for dinner. Then dancing.”

  “Are you paying?”

  “I surely am, sister.”

  “Then the Lookout it is.”

  Lily dropped her car at her house, spruced and sprayed, and was ready in twenty minutes. They took a taxi to Roseport Quay and the lift to the top of Roseport Tower, to its zenith, and the Michelin-starred Lookout Bar and Restaurant. The waiter was delighted to be able to offer them a window seat, mandatorily wheelchair friendly of course, offering a panoramic view of the nighttime harbor and the sea. He was more delighted still (they hadn’t yet been handed a menu) when Lucas asked for a bottle of bubbly.

  “We have a Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label.”

  “That will do nicely,” Lucas said, without asking how much it cost.

  In the background an old-time balladeer—Dean Martin perhaps—soothingly sang a Christmas song. There was no avoiding it at this this time of year, but Lucas found that he didn’t mind. He and Lily clinked the rims of their champagne flutes together, then raised them for a toast.

  “To Avery Lister,” Lucas said. “The mad old cow.”

  Lily sniggered and drank too quickly. The bubbles brought tears to her eyes, which ran down her cheeks, along with her eye makeup. “That’s charming. What would you say if you were toasting me?”

  “Exactly the same. What would you say about me?”

  Lily wiped her face with the corner of her starched and sculpted serviette. “To Lucas Green, who’s been blue lately, but now he’s golden. Stay golden, Lucas.”

  Outside, beyond the glass, the sky was a swirling, inky nothing. The harbor below, at the water’s edge, was ablaze with yellow and white lights. But across the table, Lily was the most radiant thing in the visible universe. Her tight curls shimmered, and her eyes shone, and Lucas thought, I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you, and you’ve been right here in front of me the whole time.

  What else had he been missing these last months while he was lost in the fog of grief?

  Lucas ate until he thought he would burst. Lily licked the chocolate mousse off her spoon like it might be the last time she ever got to taste something sweet. Lucas insisted she have both of the crispy chocolate mints that came with the bill.

  They went to the Diamond Lounge, in the Roseport Quay Entertainment Complex, with heavy stomachs and light heads. Around a table big enough for eight or ten, overlooking the empty dance floor, they chased another bottle of bubbly (some cheap Spumante that Lucas knew would make his head rocket in the morning) with tequila shots.

  The full-body buzz of the alcohol exploded into a wild kind of euphoria. Lucas felt like he could fly. In a different sort of club, he might have thought about fucking, but dancing was good. Dancing was fan-fucking-tabulous.

  Lucas and Lily were the first on the dance floor. Lily spun her chair and rocked her head from side to side. Lucas pumped his arms and hips until his thighs burned and sweat ran down his temples and stuck his T-shirt to his back.

  He could have kept going like that, into the small hours, but Lily faked a massive yawn. Lucas pulled his handset from his back pocket and checked the time. Two hours had disappeared in what felt like an instant. It was after midnight.

  They took a taxi to Lily’s. Thankfully the driver had a broad back and strong arms, and was happy to help Lily where Lucas would have been a liability. At Lily’s, Lucas made herbal tea. Some strawberry infusion that smelled nicer than it tasted. In the living room, he flopped onto the floor, while Lily pushed out of her chair and lay down on the sofa by Lucas’s side. Just like Lucas and Lily in the old days. A thousand years ago.

  Lucas wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t mired in misery either. He seemed to be straddling some middle ground, one foot in each camp.

  “You know what, Lil?” Lying on the carpet, with the ceiling swimming above his head, Lucas spoke with a drunkard’s honesty. “I’ve done something really stupid.”

  He could have meant any number of things. There were so many to choose from.

  “What did you do, babe?”

  “About a month ago, Avery gave me a card. Not the prepaid credit card I showed you earlier. I’d forgotten about that until now. We didn’t go to the cashpoint.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ll take you in the morning if you like, before I drop you home. What other card?”

  “I still have it.” Lucas fumbled in his wallet, but the card wasn’t there. “Crap. I can’t find it. Anyway, it was for Le Plaisir. A sex shop in Old Roseport.”

  “Le Plaisir? I’ve been there.” She leaned over the edge of the sofa and gave Lucas a watery grin. “Did you buy something? Something kinky?”

  “No. Nothing like that.”

  Lucas recalled as well as he could, the conversation he’d had with Avery back in October and how she’d given him the card and suggested he speak to Dante Okoro at Le Plaisir. “So I went. And the owner, Dante Okoro, invited me into his office and gave me tea. Then I asked him if he could help me murder Richard Shaw.”

  Lily made a gurgling noise in her throat, like she was choking. Lucas rolled onto his side and a wobbly elbow.

  “Lily, are you all right?”

  “I think I misheard you. For a second there, I thought you said that you asked the owner of a sex shop if he would help you commit murder.”

  “No. You heard me right. I haven’t explained very well.”

  Returning to his position, on his back, like a stranded beetle, Lucas told Lily the rest. How Avery had given him the impression that Dante could plan him a watertight murder. How Dante had listened, and deliberated and finally had said he couldn’t help him (and what the fuck else was the poor man supposed to say?). But during the whole insane fiasco, Dante hadn’t lost his temper or laughed or called the police. In fact, if today’s telephone conversation was anything to go on….

  “He took me seriously. And it occurred to me that most people wouldn’t have.”

  Lily’s arm waved about over her head and in the direction of Lucas’s face. “Let me get this straight. Your friend Avery sent you to see the owner of Le Plaisir, who you thought could help you plan to kill the bloke who killed Grace. But it turned out you’d misunderstood, which, I’ve got to tell you, babe, is not that surprising from where I’m lying.”

  “That’s about it.”

  “And he’s the one taking you to Avery’s funeral on Thursday?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think he likes you?” Lily slurred. “Never mind. No need to answer that. He wants to see you again. He likes you.”

  “It’s not a date, it’s a funeral. I don’t think him offering to take me has anything to do with liking me. I think he’s the kind of person that would think it was the proper and polite thing to do.”

  She blew something resembling a raspberry. A flat raspberry. “If you say so.”

  Lucas recalled Dante’s office. The warm fire, the comfortable brocade wingback chair, and the chiming clock. Dante had blended into that elegance
, and he’d remained calm and poised throughout his meeting with Lucas when he could easily have thrown him out by the scruff of the neck, or worse.

  What could someone like Lucas have to offer a man like Dante Okoro?

  Lucas wasn’t in the habit of putting himself down. He was realistic about his looks. Not every man wanted a muscle-bound hunk or teenaged twink. And he could hold his own conversationally. But taking a step back from himself, looking at the whole package, he didn’t see himself adding up to the equivalent of a Dante Okoro. Lucas was like a quality cotton to Dante’s silk.

  Except…. What if Dante had called Lucas because he didn’t want to go to the funeral alone? Dante had known Avery since he was a boy. He must be devastated.

  The clarity that Lucas experienced in that moment belied the coma-inducing level of alcohol coursing through his veins, numbing his face, and souring his belly.

  During the evening that Lucas had gone to Le Plaisir, in one of his worst hours, Dante Okoro had been kind. Lucas had been too wrapped in anger to recognize it for what it was and, after he’d left, too humiliated to realize what he’d left behind.

  Month on month, Lucas had rejected kindness from Lily, from Avery, and then from Dante. By the same token, what he’d been unable to receive, he’d also been unable to give.

  Maybe Dante did want someone who’d also known and cared for Avery to go with him to her memorial. Maybe he had seen past Lucas’s crazy-talk and recognized a man who’d once known how to be kind. A man who could be kind again.

  “I’ve been walking around with my eyes shut, Lily.”

  Lucas reached for her arm and saw that she’d fallen asleep.

  He made sure her wheelchair was lined up beside the sofa, should she wake in the night and decide to retreat to her bed. He left on the small lamp on the bookshelf, plus the one in the hall and the one in her bedroom next door. He put on his coat and his shoes and decided to walk home. It was a good four miles, but he fancied the fresh air, no matter how cold and dank.

  Lucas wasn’t okay. And that was okay. Because he was getting there, step by step. Once he’d got rid of Richard Shaw (a man’s kindness only extended so far, and forgiveness was another matter entirely), the path to living his life would be free and clear. After Avery’s funeral perhaps Lucas would see Dante again, socially, unburdened by loss or grief. Or revenge.

  Avery would like that. She would be pleased. Lucas looked up to the heavens and blew her a kiss.

  Chapter 11

  ON THURSDAY, Le Plaisir stayed closed as a mark of respect.

  Dante showered and shaved, dabbed on cologne, and put on a crisp white shirt, fresh from the dry cleaners. He tied his black tie with a perfect triangular knot and set it in place with the gold and ivory pin that had belonged to his father and grandfather before him.

  Avery would have expected…. What would she have expected?

  Better than this, that was for certain. Dante could hear her saying, “You can’t stop the clock. Enjoy every moment for what it is, and move onto the next one.”

  He wished he’d made more of an effort to see her in recent years. It was too late now. Dante could no more turn back the clock as stop it. Time marched on.

  Dante stared at his reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of his wardrobe door. The waistcoat pulled around his middle.

  “What are you worrying about? Lucas? Because you could turn up in your pajamas for all Avery would care.”

  Avery had left the Okoro men for good when Dante turned ten. Yet those six years had made their mark, and that mark had deepened into something permanent and indelible in the years since. Avery had a way of making her presence known, from near and far. Dante would miss her.

  With an hour and a half to spare before he needed to pick up Lucas, Dante found Kit in the stockroom, halfheartedly unpacking boxes, knee-deep in cardboard and pulled tape. Dust motes floated in the air, illuminated by the overhead light. From where she knelt on the floor, she pushed her hair from her forehead with the heel of her palm and looked Dante over.

  “Very handsome. Are you sure you’re going to be okay, going on your own?”

  “I won’t be alone. I’m going with Lucas Green.”

  “Yes, but he’s not family, is he? You hardly know him.”

  Dante bristled at her tone, mainly because it sounded exactly like something he might say.

  Might have said.

  “It’s fine, Kit. There’s no need for you to be there.”

  Kit and Lois weren’t—hadn’t been—close to Avery. She’d been a remote figure in their lives—an old friend of their father’s.

  Kit continued scoring the tape along the boxes of new stock, folding back the lids, checking over the contents. “I’ll be done in here by lunchtime. Is there anything else? Only I thought while we’re closed I’d do a bit of my own Christmas shopping.” She paused with the blade resting at the seam of a box of books. “Sharps has got the day off. We might go together.”

  “Go ahead. I wanted to talk to you about him.” Dante reached for the knot on his tie and tried to loosen it.

  Kit’s shoulders lifted defensively. “What about him?”

  “How is he spending Christmas this year?”

  Dante remembered enough about Sharps (though not his real name) to know he didn’t have a family to speak of. He knew he worked as a porter at the local hospital and that Kit had met him when she started parkour, some five or six years ago. Where Kit had a background in gymnastics to kick-start the pastime, Sharps had only hours of hanging about on the streets and lampposts and window ledges.

  The shutters closed over Kit’s expression, yet the aggression in her voice was palpable. “He’s not sure yet. He’s down for a shift at the hospital, and then I expect one of our crew will have him over.”

  “It’s a shame he doesn’t have any family. Worse at this time of year.”

  “Nor would Lois and I if it wasn’t for you. We might not even be together.”

  “I didn’t mean…. What I was trying to say…. He’s like family to you, isn’t he?”

  Kit closed the penknife, slipped it into her back pocket, and stood, with her arms folded across her chest. She inhaled deeply. “I love him.”

  She opened her mouth to say something else but stalled. Dante didn’t interrupt. He was scared if he said anything, she’d clam up. That was Dante’s fault, and the shame scorched his face.

  “I know… I know I’ve been confused about this before. But he really gets me. He likes what clothes I wear and how I cut my hair, and he doesn’t care if I never wear a dress or makeup or if people think I’m a boy. Or if I feel like I’m a boy sometimes.” She hugged herself. “He likes me like this. And I like him. If you’d only get to know him, you’d see how nice he is.”

  “I’d like that. Perhaps he could come here for Christmas this year.”

  “For dinner?”

  “For the whole of Christmas. After we shut on Christmas Eve, to Boxing Day. Whatever suits you both.”

  Kit’s jaw dropped, and Dante’s chest tightened. How long overdue was he with the invitation?

  “You’re sure? Three days? He could stay for three days?”

  “Yes. If he’d… if you’d like.”

  “Where would he sleep?”

  “That’s between the two of you. You’re adults.”

  “Do you mean it? You’re not just saying it because of the flats? Because Lois and I are still going to move out. And I don’t want to ask him, and for him to say yes, and then have to tell him you’ve changed your mind.”

  “I won’t change my mind.”

  What a bitter pill it was to swallow—that Dante needed Kit and Lois more than they needed him. How many concessions had they made for him over the years? How much of his overprotectiveness had they forgiven because of how they’d come to be with him? If he’d been their birth father, would they have asserted themselves more?

  “I mean it, Kit. Ask him to join us.”

  “I will,”
she said, returning to the boxes of stock, more energetically than when Dante had come in.

  On his way out, he said, “When Lois comes home, tell her I’ve gone to see Jim. I’ll be leaving to pick up Lucas directly from the Rose and Crown.”

  “Okay. Take care, won’t you? Try not to be too sad. Avery had a good life, and she wouldn’t want you to be sad.”

  Dante’s first thought as he left through the back door for his car, was, Out of the mouths of babes. Only Kit was no more a babe than he was.

  Jim sat at his desk in his store-cupboard office at the back of the restaurant, amidst a pile of paper receipts and a press-button desktop calculator. He stood for Dante and smothered him with his embrace.

  “Sorry for your loss. I hadn’t seen Avery in years, but I always remember what a lively one she was. Kept your old man on his toes for a while, anyway.”

  “Thank you. She’d be glad to know she was remembered that way.”

  “Do you want a drink?”

  “No. I just wanted a quick word, before I go.”

  Jim motioned to a wooden folding chair propped against the wall.

  “It’s all right. I won’t sit.”

  When Jim perched on the edge of his desk, he crumpled a pile of papers under his thighs. He shifted to one side and shoved everything into an untidy pile, on top of another untidy pile of bulging manila folders.

  “What’s on your mind?”

  “I need to forfeit our wager. You can name the price. Kit and Lois are looking at flats this week. I haven’t told them yet—I thought I’d surprise them for Christmas—but I have some money put by to give them when they find somewhere. Also, I’ve invited Sharps for Christmas.” Dante stepped forward and pushed a large envelope balanced precariously half-on, half-off the desk into a more secure position. “It shouldn’t have taken a wager for me to do the right thing.”

  “That’s fine by me. I’m happy to call it quits.” The smile on Jim’s face was kind. Sympathetic. “And glad you got there eventually.”

  “There’s more.”