The Losing Game

by Lane Swift

  “You need to be up and about. No loafing around in bed all day.” Sage’s bright, cheery eyes were a startling shade of blue, and his beard looked like it was sprayed on. His appearance seemed too beautiful to be real. However, the kind of android that could pass for a human was still safely in the realm of science fiction. Even if it wasn’t, Lucas doubted an android would smell quite so strongly of body spray.

  Lucas had the urge to say something crass. I need a shit and a shave. He opted for, “I’m getting there. Give me a sec.”

  “See if you can get up by yourself. If not, I’ll help you.”

  Twisting to one side, Lucas lifted his knees and pushed himself into a sitting position using his right elbow.

  “Brilliant. You’ll be out of here in no time.”

  “Except for this arm.”

  “In the old days, they’d have let that collarbone heal by itself, unless you had the cash to get it fixed. Once the doctors know more about what’s going on with the nerves in your arm, if you need it, you can have those fixed too.”

  Lucas didn’t need the lecture. Neurosurgery had come on in leaps and bounds since the 2020s. A child born with spina bifida, like Lily had been, could undergo reparative surgery in infancy that often resulted in full mobility. But for her, the technology and opportunity had come two decades too late.

  Visitors could come to the hospital from eleven, and Lucas was saved from further badgering as Dante arrived promptly, carrying a holdall that Lucas didn’t recognize. Sage moved on with an unperturbed spring in his step to his next victim.

  The passage of a day and the subsidence of the anesthetic had sharpened Lucas’s senses and memory. Dante looked sheepish.

  “Is that for me?” Lucas said, pointing to the holdall.

  “I didn’t know what sort of luggage you owned or where I would find it, so I took one of mine to your house.”

  Lucas didn’t mention that Dante had had no compunction sifting through his private life before. He knew contrition when he saw it. He swung his legs over the side of the bed.

  “You can put the bag here.” He patted the space next to him. “Would you mind giving me a hand unpacking?”

  Dante placed the bag on the end of the bed and paused, not letting go of the handle. It took a few seconds for him to return Lucas’s conciliatory smile. “How do you like the ward?”

  “It’s nice. Quieter than the last one. Thank you. You didn’t need to.”

  “I wanted to. You’ll heal quicker with the biofeedback chip and a better night’s sleep.” Dante then asked, “Do you remember much of yesterday?”

  “Everything.”

  Lucas reached for the zip on the bag. His fingers brushed over Dante’s, and the contact seemed to shake him.

  “Let me,” Dante said and unpacked Lucas’s pajamas and some socks onto the bed. “How’s your arm?”

  “They’re hopeful I’ll mend without neurosurgery, maybe close to completely.”

  “Only close?”

  “I don’t know. It’s too early to tell.”

  Dante removed a toiletry bag from the holdall, one that Lucas also did not recognize as his own. “You went to a lot of trouble. Thanks. I was about to head to the toilet. Can you give me a few minutes?”

  “You’re okay to walk? Do you need help?”

  “I can walk fine.” Lucas tentatively ran his fingertips over the side of his face, not at the epicenter of the swelling, but at its periphery. The skin felt tight, and the terrain beneath his fingertips foreign, but the pain wasn’t much of a bother. “I’m supposed to be moving around as much as possible. I’ve just got to be really gentle with this jaw. They’ve injected the site with something to take down the bruising and help the bone fuse, but it’s going to be vulnerable for a couple of weeks.”

  Dante didn’t look convinced by Lucas’s optimism.

  “I’m all right,” Lucas reiterated. “I’ll be back in a sec. I’m not going to shave, though. I haven’t quite worked out how to do that one-handed, or if I want to put any pressure on either side of my face.”

  Dante reached for Lucas, then withdrew his hand, as if he were unsure whether it was okay to touch him. “I think some stubble will suit you very well.”

  “You can sit. Make yourself comfortable. Unless you’re rushing off.”

  Dante unbuttoned his coat. “No. I’d like to stay.”

  Lucas went to the toilet and, while washing his hands, carefully avoided his reflection in the mirror over the sink. He hadn’t been going to look, but at the same time, he wanted to see what Dante saw when his gaze wouldn’t meet Lucas’s eyes.

  Bracing himself, Lucas stood in front of the mirror and visually examined his jaw for the first time. He’d been lucky, the doctor said, that he hadn’t suffered more damage to his jawbone or lost any teeth. Lucas didn’t dispute the doctor’s opinion, but he did dispute his luck. Luck had had nothing to do with his current situation.

  The tape holding down the dressing on his shoulder had peeled at one corner. Lucas’s bowels clenched as he gave it a tug. He lifted the corner tentatively, as if revealing the laceration one millimeter at a time, drawing out the experience by degrees, would make the horror more bearable.

  Incredibly, the line of stitches and his stitched-up skin didn’t look that bad. The scar running over his collarbone sliced directly through where the bullet had hit. The surgeon had done a neat job, reconstructing the bone by wrapping it with plates and screws. He’d explained speed was of the essence. After an accident, the body responded and was primed to repair a fracture. The biochemical responses that would aid healing would diminish quickly, and repairing the bone immediately allowed nature to do the rest.

  When Lucas returned from the patient bathroom, Dante had placed the empty holdall on the floor, under the visitor’s chair. He was standing with his arms folded behind his back.

  Lucas eased back onto the bed. “Please. Sit down. You’re making me nervous.”

  Dante pulled the chair closer and closed his hand around Lucas’s. “I’m sorry.”

  He seemed like he was building up to say something else, something important, but a couple of men in ill-fitting suits entered the ward. It was obvious who they’d come to see. Dante withdrew his hand and stood again.

  The first, a short middle-aged man with a double chin and acne, said, “Good morning, Lucas. We find you awake at last. I’m Detective Chief Inspector Cheung, and this is my partner, Detective Inspector Harper. How are you feeling?”

  Lucas didn’t like Cheung’s tone or his face. It had nothing to do with the blemishes and everything to do with his condescending sneer.

  “Tired but okay.”

  DI Harper, seemingly the good cop half of this partnership, said, “The staff nurse said it’s okay for us to talk to you for a few minutes.”

  Smooth as a freshly brewed espresso, Dante said, “Would you like me to step outside?”

  DCI Cheung responded. “No, it’s all right, Mr.…?”

  “Okoro. Dante Okoro.”

  “And you are friend? Family?”

  “Yes,” Dante said.

  Lucas couldn’t help his smirk, until he noticed Dante’s trouser leg, slightly trembling. DI Harper edged around the left side of the bed, scanning, presumably for a chair. When he didn’t find one, he looked for a moment as if he might perch next to Lucas on the bed. He settled for standing stiffly at Lucas’s side. DCI Cheung took post at the foot of the bed, where he kept a watchful eye on Lucas and Dante, making no pretense of doing otherwise.

  DI Harper said, “We were wondering what you could tell us about Saturday night. The paramedics on the scene said you were lucid when they arrived.”

  Lucas had slept for the largest portion of the last thirty-six hours. He’d also lain in bed awake, remembering what he’d said before he got to the hospital and what he would say now and how he wouldn’t be intimidated. Having Dante beside him helped. It would be far easier for them to corroborate this way.

  “Dante and I
went out for dinner. Afterwards, he dropped me home.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Around ten thirty. It was our first date, and after he left I was too restless and excited to go to bed. So I decided to go for a run.”

  Lucas searched Harper’s face for sympathy. DCI Cheung didn’t look as if he’d been touched by the euphoria of blossoming romance for a long time, if ever, but DI Harper had the fresh face of someone who might understand. Who might believe.

  “A run.” Harper tapped at the screen on his handset. “Do you run often?”

  “Yes. Four times a week at least.”

  Harper nodded. “Where do you go?”

  “All over the island. Wherever my legs take me.”

  DCI Cheung interrupted Harper’s gentle pace and rhythm. “So you went for a run. Then what?”

  “I was in Milton, wondering if there was a footpath that would take me onto the coast path. It was a clear night, and I thought it might be nice to run by the sea. I got near to that private road….” Lucas had created a picture in his mind so vivid he could describe it with perfect ease. “I didn’t see the two people standing in the layby until I was too close for them not to notice me.”

  “What happened then?” Harper’s tone was careful, coaxing. Was this an act that he and Cheung deliberately used as a means of interrogation? If so, they’d got it down pat.

  “I thought I’d just run straight past them, like I was minding my own business. I thought that if I turned around and ran away, that might look bad.”

  “Like it might incite them to chase you?” Harper clarified. “You were worried they might mean you harm?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any particular reason why?” Cheung said.

  “No. Just instinct.” Lucas reached for Dante’s hand. Dante took it, lacing his fingers through Lucas’s in a show of homosexual solidarity.

  Times had changed. Lucas knew of men Dante’s age who’d been legally married for over twenty years—since it had been legalized in England in 2014. But there were still enough bigots in this part of the world that Lucas was always and instinctively on alert. Regardless of Lucas’s sexuality, the two people—the two imagined people—loitering on that lane in Milton might have seen Lucas as a threat or a target. Either was within the bounds of reason.

  Lucas continued, “I thought I’d run past them. I didn’t see the fist coming toward my face. After, I think I blacked out for a few seconds. I found myself on my back, on the ground, and when I tried to get up, I saw one of them was pointing a gun at me.”

  “Did either of the two people say anything to you?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  Lucas went on to describe his two fabricated assailants in bland detail. Lucas thought, though he wasn’t sure, that they were both male. Neither of them spoke. From his description, they could have been any one of a thousand hooded young people, sinner and saint, walking the streets of Roseport Island this very moment.

  Lucas shifted against the pillows with a put-upon sigh. “I’m exhausted.”

  “You’ve been very helpful.” DI Harper closed the screen on his handset and put it in his inside breast pocket. “We’ve been concerned about drug dealing on that part of the island. It may have been that you stumbled upon a deal.”

  Lucas hadn’t finished his exhale of relief when Cheung said, “But what of the bullet, Mr. Green?”

  “It ricocheted off my collarbone and is currently embedded in my first rib.” The surgeon had elected to leave it where it was.

  “How inconvenient,” DCI Cheung remarked—as if Lucas, or the surgeon, had deliberately obstructed his investigation.

  “You’re welcome to look at the X-rays.”

  DI Harper, maintaining his role as good cop, made his way to the foot of the bed, thanking Lucas for his cooperation. “One last thing. Mr. Okoro, for the sake of routine, can you tell us your whereabouts at the time of the shooting?”

  “I was at home. In bed.”

  “Is there anyone who can corroborate this?”

  “Yes. My daughter, Lois. My phone records will show that I spoke to her on my handset before I came home. She waited up for me, to find out how my date went.”

  “Well—by the looks of things,” DI Harper said. Neither he or DCI Cheung waited for Dante or Lucas to respond. “Everything is in order.”

  If Lucas hadn’t known otherwise, he’d have believed Dante’s lie. Far from that worrying him, it left him relaxed and reassured. He closed his eyes. When he opened them, an hour later, Dante had gone. But there was a text message on his handset, which was charging on the bedside table.

  Sleep well. I’ll see you soon.

  In the afternoon, between dozes, Lucas ate a limp ham sandwich and a bowl of some orange chunks (that might have been chopped fruit) set in watery jelly.

  Lucas’s profound exhaustion didn’t assuage his fear that Shaw would be back for him. Perhaps Shaw was already calling in the heavies, in readiness for Lucas’s discharge from hospital. Next time, Lucas might not even feel the bullet opening his skull and acquainting his brains with the fresh air. He closed his eyes for the umpteenth time and tried not to think about it.

  Lily visited in the evening. She sailed into the ward with a trail of tinsel at her back. When she reached Lucas, she punched his leg.

  “You bastard. Any bloody excuse for getting out of the office party. Any bloody excuse.”

  Then she burst into tears.

  Lucas turned onto his good side, propelled himself off the bed, and plopped into the visitor chair. He put his good arm around Lily’s quivering shoulders. “I might make it yet.”

  “You idiot. I don’t care if you come or not. Look at your poor face. Your shoulder. Your arm.”

  “It’s all right. I’ll mend.”

  “Everyone’s asking after you at work. What happened? What shall I tell them?”

  Lucas must have taken too long to answer.

  “Lucas?”

  “Tell them I was mugged. I don’t know what else to say, and I really don’t feel like talking about it.” Hadn’t meant to snap. With forced cheer, he said, “What are you going to wear?”

  “I don’t know. What the hell does it matter? All I care about is that you’re okay.”

  “I am okay. I really am,” Lucas lied.

  What else could he have said?

  Chapter 24

  DANTE RUBBED his eyes. They felt like they were full of grit. For the fifth consecutive day, he kept vigil on Lucas’s empty house and the Shaw’s property. He had to be sure that his late-night visitation had had the desired effect.

  Lucas’s only visitor was the postman. Richard Shaw hadn’t left his house since he’d staggered in past midnight on Saturday, not an hour after shooting Lucas. His wife came and went daily, from Monday onward. Her Sunday-night trauma didn’t show on her face or the angle of her shoulders. Dante still felt sick for what he’d done. What he’d had to do.

  Dante’s private doorbell rang at six sharp, deliberately half an hour after Thursday closing at Le Plaisir. Dante opened the front door to Thierry and Cecile Balon. He’d been expecting them.

  “Cecile!” Dante clasped her hands in his. “You look radiant.”

  “And you never seem to age. I think you must be the devil in disguise.”

  Dante knew it was a lie, meant out of kindness. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy. He looked like a charred corpse.

  Dante turned his attention to Thierry. “Are you ready?”

  “Of course. Lead the way.”

  Dante unlocked the basement door, and they descended the stairs, Dante in front, followed by Cecile in her four-inch heels, and Thierry at the back.

  Sixty years ago, Dante’s grandfather had enlarged the building’s original cellar by excavating down an extra three feet. He’d tanked the walls and installed electricity, turning a useless damp hole into a clean and spacious storage room.

  Later, after Le Plaisir was running at full speed, Dante’s father r
efitted and transformed the basement into a private room for clients seeking custom items to enhance their sexual play.

  Dante had inherited the business eighteen years ago. He’d carried it on because he’d promised his father he would and then because it was something to pass on to Lois and Kit. That said, he did enjoy the custom work.

  The moment they reached the bottom of the stairs, Cecile gasped. “Dante, are they ours?” She swiftly crossed the room and reached for one of the hangers.

  “I’m sorry you had to wait so long. Do you like?”

  “I love. They’re beautiful. Thierry, they’re stunning, don’t you think?”

  Thierry stood at the foot of the stairs, clutching the bannister.

  “Chief Superintendent?” Dante asked, teasing. It felt good to leave his office for a while.

  “Don’t call me that in here,” Thierry said, without bite, and joined his wife. “Yes, my love, they’re perfect.”

  Dante kept a respectful distance while the couple admired their gear. “Would you like me to show you how to put everything on? Cecile, Thierry will need your help.”

  “Please,” Cecile said. “I want to make sure I have everything exactly right.”

  She continued to murmur in French under her breath as she stroked the leather, held it to her milk-white face, and inhaled its unique scent. Dante didn’t understand the words, but her pleasure was obvious. Already, her eyes looked heavy, half-lidded. She licked her lips.

  Cecile was more generously endowed at the hips than at the bust. Her corset, in dark maroon leather, had therefore been constructed to enhance her modest assets. Her leather trousers could be unlaced along every seam and had custom straps in place for a dildo. Thierry liked to bend over for his wife. His wife liked to tease and make him to beg for it first.

  “Thierry, sit down there,” Cecile commanded. “Dante, where should we start?”

  “Why don’t you try on your clothes? While you’re doing that, I’ll get the swing set up so you can see how to harness Thierry in place.”

  “Très bien.” Cecile pulled across the curtain to the changing area while Dante laid out Thierry’s gear on the low table in the center of the room. They had a few minutes. Cecile had a lot of laces to contend with. They were long enough for her to manage by herself, if she so desired, or not, if the mood took her.