by Lyndsay Faye
“I’m taking them seriously, I’m taking them so seriously that . . .”
When Benjamin trails off, Horatio follows his line of sight. His friend stares in bafflement at an empty balcony. Security shoves their way through the crowd, the Danes still ominously absent, and Benjamin studies a railing as if he’s being visited by an angel.
With an audible frizzle, all the lights go out.
Screams clang against each other, glasses break from every direction, a chorus of wild suggestions vents forth. Horatio has enough wit to put the sword on the ground before someone is impaled. He was close enough to Benjamin that when his friend reaches blindly backward, they’re connected, sure of each other by touch alone.
Horatio has never been afraid of the dark—but he doesn’t know where Trudy Dane is. And there’s already been one assassination attempt too many.
“Right, we’re off.” He tugs Benjamin toward the gleaming red emergency exit signs, which aren’t being stampeded yet because Trudy’s swag bags are reason enough to remain on the Titanic while the orchestra plays “Nearer, My God, to Thee.”
“Wait, I thought I saw—”
“No. Come with me.”
“She said she’d make everything clear tonight, she said she’d help—”
Horatio will not collapse over this. He simply will not.
“We’re going.”
“But Lia—”
“I’m not disputing this with you. Move.”
Benjamin complies, overpowered by bulk and determination.
And if Horatio thinks he saw a flicker like an afterimage of someone on that balcony—someone with wild hair and a familiar gauzy gown covered in glittering flowers—then he’s mistaken, and there’s nothing more to be said about it.
It’s only a few more yards to the door. Nearly there, nearly safe. They can see one another painted in hellish scarlet by the light of the exit sign when an almighty crash occurs, a miniature explosion, and Horatio has never been more certain of anything: It was the centerpiece Jessica was thrown against like a worthless doll. Either off balance from her collision or deliberately tipped.
And he can’t help but surmise that it landed square on top of Jeremy.
* * *
• • •
Benjamin’s hand is the only anchor keeping Horatio from flying out the cracked window of the taxi into the breath-warm night air. Streetlights stretch into eerie taffy. Every car’s crimson brakes glow with a sinister aura. Horatio replays peering up at the balcony dozens of times, and after each, the Lia figure is left more brittle, like a piece of potting clay that’s been worked for too long.
“Music,” Benjamin announces.
He’s much calmer following the altercation with Jeremy. Or he’s much calmer after staring up at the spectre of his late fiancée. Horatio doesn’t want to know right now.
“Is the only reason we recognize the name Willie Nelson,” Horatio supplies.
“Nah,” Benjamin dismisses, though he smiles. “He’d have been a famous marijuana advocate. The Harvey Milk of wake-and-bakers.”
“Occasionally I can’t fathom why I speak with you.”
“Me neither, seriously. It’s mind-blowing. No, music, I need to look at this case like music, considering what we understand now. There’s a rubric, a system. There has to be.”
Horatio hums. Is this what lightning rods feel like after they’ve conveyed elemental energy from the sky to the ground? They turn off the West Side Highway, losing sight of the glimmering New Jersey shore.
It cannot have been Lia.
It looked exactly like Lia.
An enervating cocktail of fear and desire and bafflement are pulling Horatio under. He’s nearly fully submerged when Ben snaps at the cabbie, “Whoa, stop right here.” Then quieter, “Yeeeeah, that’s what I should have predicted from this system. That looks right. Son of a bitch.”
Horatio jolts upright. Their building is surrounded by flashing squad cars. Cops mill about on the sidewalk. Tape cordons off the steps to their front door. One of the policemen is on a radio, one writing in a notebook, another directing a pedestrian to the other side of the street. It looks like a crime scene from the telly.
Because it is a bloody crime scene.
“Drive!” he orders. “Benjamin, Fortuna and Norway will be here.”
“Yes, and?”
“And Norway will notice a taxi idling across the street from her investigation.”
Horatio twists around fully just before they turn a corner. A stretcher is being carried out the front entrance, one with a not very bulky figure under a sheet. He can barely make out Fortuna’s bulk following Norway’s trim figure, and every follicle on his arms bristles in dismay.
“Did you see the third car illegally parked?” Benjamin asks dully.
“Not as such.”
“One of our town cars. Mom was fast, though I guess it was an easy conclusion . . . Paul shows up to eliminate me, Paul vanishes, where else could he be? Point to you, Mom, I didn’t expect you to leave your own gala to throw me under the bus.”
“Hello, where am I taking you people?” the driver demands.
“The Four Seasons,” Ben calls. “Central Park South, east side of the park. And step on it, or whatever they say in the movies. Speedily, please.”
“The Four Seasons?” Horatio studies him. “Why on earth would we go there?”
“Because we wouldn’t go there.” Benjamin’s eyes lose their glow as he slumps against the opposite window, a light-year away from Horatio. “Never on earth would we go there. But seeing as we’re in hell, it’s just the spot.”
* * *
• • •
Two years ago, when Lia Brahms was found frozen to death in a public park, Horatio’s life went from low-grade excruciating to unbearably simple.
Benjamin was in a bad way. After the screaming, which was finally ironed out chemically, and after he read a gutting letter at Lia’s funeral, he refused to leave their old flat.
Horatio put sheets on what had been Benjamin’s bed and settled in for the long haul. His friend would sit under their wall of Sharpie quotations, eyes tracing things Lia said. Adding ones when he recalled them. Novels and curriculum were abandoned in favor of poring over the lovers’ gargantuan text thread. The Sunburst strummed out bizarre chords warping classic love ballads.
Horatio was the sole person he’d tolerate other than Ariel or occasionally Jackson. So Horatio went with Jackson to the sleek West End Avenue residence Benjamin and Lia rented when they moved in together, the two men packed his belongings, and they brought them back to the Washington Heights flat Horatio thought he would never abandon. And since Jackson neither needed to impress nor intimidate Horatio, he remembers that grief-washed day of mournful work was punctuated by honest conversation.
We appreciate the care you’re taking of Benny, Jackson said as they collected clothing, vinyl, electronics. He’s closed to us in some ways. I’m grateful you’re up to the challenge.
Horatio swallowed, thanked him, fought not to think of Lia falling into an endless sleep in a bed of snow and cigarette butts. He brought Benjamin the daily allotments of Bernardo Brothers. He got Trudy to find a psychiatrist who made house calls. In increments, Benjamin came back. One day he showered without being marched to the loo, one day he vanished for a nerve-wracking six hours that turned out to have been a walk in Central Park. After a month he was functioning, after two he could laugh.
Horatio was single-mindedly devoted through every second of it. It was simple. His own schedule fell into place like grains of sand, the hourglass containing them his loyalty to Benjamin.
The six-month mark passed. The year anniversary.
Then Horatio gave the most ill-advised blow job of his life, Benjamin dismissed the event as a check on Horatio’s scorecard, and one month of grotesque normalcy
later, Horatio was shaking with tears on a transatlantic flight home.
Therefore, he forgives himself for being somewhat at a loss over sharing a Four Seasons hotel room with Benjamin Dane.
They haven’t any luggage, but when the desk clerk saw Benjamin’s credit card, that apparently became an opportunity instead of a detriment. His friend rattled off items Horatio cannot recall. He stands in the middle of the living room—there’s a living room—not knowing what to do. The décor is all pleasant neutrals, like a beach with the saturation turned down. Beyond the sitting area with its couch, desk, mini-bar, etc., is a queen-sized bed he’s not going to consider yet.
They’re on the thirty-seventh floor. The lights of Manhattan shine like a pretty toy world.
Horatio goes to the floor-to-ceiling glass. All those biographies swarming about, the incessant flow of cabs ferrying strangers. The vast blank rectangle of Central Park, and that’s not even empty, it’s crawling with crosstown pedestrians and joggers and people without roofs seeking them among the spreading trees. It’s dizzying. Ordinarily New York fits Horatio—his size, his curiosity, his efficiency. He feels outside of himself. As if he went too far being a chronicler and is trapped observing.
Benjamin investigates the fridge. “Come on, Four Seasons, you can do better than this. Oh well, the concierge will solve it soon. Horatio, I get that you’re, you know, out of your element, but could you maaaaybe please stop looking like someone’s about to jump out from behind a curtain and catch you in a luxury hotel?”
“Apologies.” Horatio loosens his tie. “It’s been a rather eventful evening and I’m knackered.”
“Oh god, too true, I’ve never seen you hold someone at sword point before. And you gotta admit the gala would not have been complete without it. That was, like, the ultimate aesthetic check mark.”
“If you say so.”
“Excuse me.” Benjamin holds a pair of neat brown drinks. “I’ve had a crap day, too. Here’s to it ending in a couple hours?”
They clink glasses and they stand, gazing down at the city, two men who know one another like they know their own flesh. Many minutes pass watching the traffic and imagining where people have been. Where they might be going to.
“Weird to think about how empty all that is,” Benjamin comments.
“How so? It seems outrageously full to me.”
Benjamin gestures with his tumbler. “Scientifically, there’s almost nothing there, and I’m not even talking about the spaces that look empty. Even inside the solid objects. This right here?” He raps on the glass. “Tiny particles bound and repelled by powerful forces with massive gaps in between. And this?” He waves at the building they stand inside. “Primarily the, like, blanks between protons and electrons and such.”
“By that token, we’re made of mostly nothing as well. That’s almost Eastern of you, philosophically speaking.”
Benjamin looks pained. “No. You . . . no, you aren’t. You’re here. You’re solid matter. You might be the only solid thing in the multiverse, Horatio.”
Horatio doesn’t know what to say.
“And despite the fact that all this is mostly nothing,” Benjamin adds lowly, “I’m touching you right now. From a foot away, invisible particles buzzing around as if we were both swarming with comets. Me in your skin, you in mine.”
Horatio doesn’t even have an early draft of a response to this before brisk footsteps approach in the hall. A discreet knock announces the concierge service, and a gentleman passes Benjamin several shopping bags. He trades them for a twenty-dollar bill and tosses them on the carpet, kneeling to rummage.
“Two sets of sweats in distinctly different sizes—oh nifty, I did not ask for cashmere joggers, but fine, try to impress me. Two bottles of pretty decent cab, one Tullamore D.E.W., toothbrushes, socks, boxers, snacks, this is a good job he did. You, sir, are getting an early Christmas bonus.”
Horatio doesn’t realize tears are pooling until he scrapes them away. Of all the times to feel so utterly lost.
He needs you.
Horatio clears his throat. “So the plan is to hole up in a couple-thousand-quid-a-night hotel room?”
Benjamin’s head lifts. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
“For how long?”
“I dunno. Forever?”
“Those police officers will be watching our flat, we can’t go back there, it’s the first place they’ll try to trap you. They’ll trace your credit card here as well.”
“Kinda aware of that, but the warning is appreciated.”
“What are we going to do?” Horatio folds his arms around his torso, feeling sick. “They found Paul Brahms bled out from an unreported bullet wound, they could charge you with manslaughter or god forbid—no, never that, but you just gave this, this public speech to reset the beginning, except it proved the worst possible person was the one who definitely had something to do with it, and I can’t sodding think straight and I can’t let anyone hurt you and you’re going to be taken into custody because of your own mum and I—”
Benjamin deposits Horatio in the nearest chair. Then he slides his knees in against the seat arms and Horatio has a lapful of his friend, which is shamefully wasted if he’s also having a panic attack.
“Er, sorry.” Horatio tries to breathe. “That was appalling, please erase the last thirty seconds or so.”
“Nah.” Benjamin tugs Horatio’s hair, shaking it loose. “If you’re going to defend me with a sword, I’m going to make sure you don’t lose it from the strain. Anyway, every sensation we’ve ever experienced is still knocking around in there someplace if the residue theory of memory holds true. I can’t erase it. It’s the pathways we lose track of.”
“Benjamin, what did you see on that balcony?” Horatio asks hoarsely.
His friend flicks his eyes to the gleaming electric metropolis beyond the window. All the shapes and shadows and what flits between them unseen. He stays that way for a long time, contemplating the universe outside their fishbowl.
“What I wanted to see,” Benjamin says at last. “You know, as prisons go, this one isn’t too shabby. I could do this for maybe the next five or ten years without suffering much.”
“You’d not consider it undue torment to stay at a five-star hotel with a bloke who fancies himself a genie ready to pop up with cashmere and good scotch?”
“Nope, it would be just this side of bearable, I figure.”
“You really are horridly out of touch, do you realize this?”
“What? Oh god no, that’s not what I meant,” Benjamin protests, embarrassed. “I’ve never been picky that way. How fast did I move out of that townhouse and in with you? You could stick me inside a marble and I’d consider myself a king of infinite space, as long as I had good dreams.”
Horatio imagines Benjamin’s recent dreams and sees the translucent figure on the balcony. His stomach twists.
“What sort of dreams?” he rasps, not certain he can cope with the answer.
Benjamin’s head lists fondly. “Ones about you.”
Horatio makes a hurt sound but then they’re kissing, Benjamin’s lips pliable and urgent and Horatio’s hand sliding up his chest to his face. Horatio’s mouth gives way. His friend is right. Any place can be a prison; but if all his dreams were of Benjamin, he would have something that meant more than his freedom. When he pulls back, Benjamin targets his neck instead and Horatio gasps.
“Let me,” Benjamin hums. “You always take care of me, and how often am I going to get to take care of you in an iconic hotel? Don’t answer that. You want me, you did from the beginning, and I can give that to you. Let me—”
“Jesus Christ.” Horatio pushes his friend’s shoulders back. “Is . . . is that what this is? You aren’t even interested, you just think well, he’s earned it?”
“No!” Benjamin denies, aghast.
“Becau
se if so—”
“Stop it, Horatio.”
“You don’t have to, to indulge me, you don’t have to dress me in a designer tux and make yourself want me, I don’t—”
“Shut up,” Benjamin snaps. “I’ve been shit at this. No, that’s not quite right, I’ve just been shit, absolute shit, period.”
“You aren’t shit, you’re possibly the kindest—”
“For over a year now. Whatever happens tomorrow, I need you to understand something tonight.”
“Never mind me, we need to focus on—”
“Listen,” Benjamin commands.
Horatio stops talking.
“Most people’s feelings override their logic and thus their decision-making. Christ knows mine do, right? But you’re different. It would never occur to you to manipulate others, broadcast your emotions to get something you wanted or to change theirs. And your feelings don’t affect the things you know to be true, or change what you believe is right. Those stay constant. Do you have any idea how insane that is?”
Blood migrates to Horatio’s cheeks. “Good lord. I’m in no way out of the ordinary.”
“That’s a load of garbage,” Benjamin growls. “There’s no one else like you.”
Nothing emerges when Horatio’s lips part. He’s got it backward. There isn’t anyone like Benjamin, he should be saying that about himself. Surely Horatio is a dime a dozen, just an average scholar with an even temper, a solid brain, a love for good storytelling, and too much educational debt.
“Are you still listening?”
“I, yes,” Horatio manages.
“Are you sure you are?”
“I think so?”
His friend leans forward until their brows are touching. “While you were gone, I . . .” Benjamin takes a steadying breath. “I wore you in my heart. Every day.”
“Benjamin,” Horatio says, shocked.
“No, I did. I do. More things in earth and space exist than you ever dreamed, you know.”