“It all happened really fast. They were arguing. Nez hit Scott in the head. Then Scott stumbled backward and just . . .”
“He just what?”
“He just died,” she confesses. “He got hit once and grabbed his head and just died.”
Dania is still speaking, but Steven can’t hear her. He feels as if he’s at one end of a tunnel while listening to her yelling at him from the other end. Everything he sees is red. He feels his blood already boiling and his hands shaking even worse than they were before.
The bruise on Scotty’s face.
Nez.
Scotty always had headaches.
Nez hit him.
“That man killed my brother,” Steven says to no one.
“It wasn’t like that.” Dania tries to touch his face again.
“Yeah”—Steven pushes her hand away—“it was exactly like that.”
In an instant, Steven has pushed Dania aside and is storming across the room to where Nez is standing behind his bodyguard. The look on the goon’s face when he hits the floor, gasping for air and clutching his neck, is almost worth the pain that surges up Steven’s arm. One swift blow to the throat will take down most men of any size; Steven learned that fact a long time ago. Years of working in bars and dealing with drunks who can’t handle their liquor has made Steven much quicker than people would guess. It also has made him better with his fists than anyone would have ever thought. The bodyguard is on his knees in an instant. Steven finishes him off with a right hook to the jaw that lays him on his back.
The look on Nez’s face is nothing less than terrified.
Steven pulls Nez off his barstool and shoves him into the corner. People are watching, but no one seems to care enough to get involved. If anything, they are entertained. Steven hears the band starting to play again and the heavy beat of the bass drum filling the air. He doesn’t realize that it’s not the bass drum at all, but the blood in his head as his heart pounds against his ribcage.
“You sonofabitch,” Steven screams at Nez, whose eyes are so wide, he looks as if he might start crying. “You ruined everything! You killed my brother!”
Steven wraps his fingers around Nez’s neck and squeezes. He watches the color in Nez’s face go from white to red to blue very quickly. Before Steven knows what he’s doing, he has reached into his jacket pocket. The inner left-hand pocket of his very nice, very pressed, unwrinkled sports jacket. From that pocket he pulls the bag of Scotty’s ashes. A second later, he’s tearing open the bag. Then he’s releasing his grip on Nez’s throat.
A second after that, he pours the remains into Nez’s mouth.
Nez gets Scotty’s remains all over his face, in his mouth, and down his throat. Steven holds Nez tightly against the wall as he sees his brother’s dust and bone spill everywhere. Nez chokes and spits. He falls to his knees and hurls up the filth that is all over his face and in his mouth. Scotty’s ashes are everywhere. Steven tosses the empty bag to the floor and listens to the pounding in his head as it gets even harder and faster.
Nez is on all fours now, gagging and close to puking. He knows exactly what it is that he just swallowed. He wipes Scotty out of his eyes and tries to spit out the remains that are still in his mouth. He looks ridiculous, crawling around on all fours, covered in Steven’s dead twin.
Steven simply stands over Nez, looking down at him with disgust. He notices that some of the ashes are on his own pants legs and shoes. He doesn’t care. He waits for the pounding to stop. He looks over his shoulder and sees that the bodyguard is slowly getting to his feet.
There is a hand on his shoulder, and Steven wheels around to punch whomever is grabbing him.
“Wait!” Dania’s voice is strong and loud. It snaps Steven out of whatever trance he’s in, and his head instantly is filled again with the sounds of the bar. Someone is laughing in the back. Nez is coughing on the floor. Steven takes Dania in his arms and holds her tightly against him. He feels her heart beating almost as fast as his.
“We have to get the hell out of here,” Dania screams at him, but she still sounds far away.
“What?” Steven asks, as if he didn’t hear her the first time.
“You do not want to go to jail here!” Dania screams at him, takes him by the hand, and practically shoves him out the side door. Steven finds himself in a dark hallway with a metal staircase that leads them all the way down to the street. Before he even realizes what’s happening, Steven feels the familiar heat and humidity of the nighttime air. He feels the pavement under his feet. An instant later and he feels the cool leather of the backseat of a taxi.
Another instant after that he feels Dania’s strong hands holding his.
“It’s okay,” she says, and holds him close to her. He catches his breath and waits for the thumping in his chest to slow down. He feels her hands touch his face and he buries it in her chest. He waits for his hands to stop shaking. When they do, he waits for tears that never come. Instead, he presses his face harder against Dania’s body and feels her grip get even tighter.
It feels as if an entire day passes as everything slowly calms down. Steven hears the sound of the car tires humming across the pavement. A car horn blows in the background, and the radio is playing what sounds like an Asian pop song. When he raises his head again he sees that Dania has obviously been crying, but she is fine now. She looks at him and shakes her head.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
“Yeah. You?”
“I am now. That was crazy.”
After another thirty seconds of silence, Dania suddenly smiles, and they both find themselves laughing. It starts with a couple of chuckles until they both just let go. The taxi driver looks confused in the reflection in the rearview mirror, wondering if his passengers are drunk or insane or both. There’s no reason for it—and he doesn’t know why—but Steven can’t stop smiling.
“I’m sorry,” Dania says after a while of them just staring at each other. “That I didn’t tell you sooner, I mean. About Nez and Scott.”
“Don’t be.”
“Still . . .”
He puts his hand over her mouth and shushes her. “It’s okay.”
“Do you mean that?”
“I have to.”
They say nothing for at least five minutes, both staring out the same window, watching the Christmas lights outside. Steven feels Dania’s thumb gently caressing the back of his hand. He can smell her perfume and her hair, and is a bit alarmed to feel himself getting aroused. He barely notices the taxi driver is whistling, which usually drives him crazy.
“That was amazing.” Dania breaks the silence and kisses him.
“I still can’t believe I did that.”
“Now do me a favor?”
“What’s that?”
“Take me back to your hotel.”
“Deal.”
With that, they are silent again for several minutes. Steven buries his head in Dania’s neck and kisses her skin. He smells her perfume that he has come to recognize. He smells her beautiful, long hair. He caresses every inch of her shoulders. His heart is starting to pound again, but he likes it.
“Do you feel bad?” Dania asks quietly as the cab pulls up to the hotel. “About what happened to the . . . ashes?”
“No.” Steven looks up at her and smiles. “I think it was perfect.”
“You do?”
“Yeah, I think Scotty would have loved it.”
15
Dania is humming a song under her breath, and Steven loves the way her body feels pressed against his. His pale white skin contrasts with her tan, toned figure. He smells her hair and her perfume together, filling his nose with a combination of exotic herbs and flowers. He loves the way her skin always feels warm.
It’s been several days of this, as well as many spicy meals and excellent nightlife. There has been shopping and parks and walks along the river. Dania has sung to him, and he’s lain in bed listening. She has slurped soup, and he has tried not to plug his ea
rs. It’s been so nice, in fact, that Steven has almost forgotten why he came to Singapore in the first place. When the thought does enter his head, he reminds himself that Scotty would want him to be happy. That, and he knows he’s doing exactly what his brother would be doing under the same circumstances.
It’s going to rain. Outside, the sky is getting dark and, even though it’s early in the day, the shadows are falling into the room in a way that makes it seem much later than it really is. The clouds are ugly and waiting to pour down upon the busy city. In the distance, the thunder he hears tells Steven that the best place to be is lying in this hotel bed with the pretty woman next to him.
He hears the thunder louder than she does.
He’s never commented on her breasts, which—obviously implants—still feel very soft and perfect. Worth every penny, they fill out her form just right. He is stretched out on his back, Dania lying out across him, her left leg crossing over his torso. She runs her strong hands across his chest as she sings quietly in his left ear. This is as intimate as it has gotten, but he could stay here like this for about a decade and not think a thing about it.
He knows that she’s only a few years younger than he is, but the difference might as well be at least ten years or more. Her tan skin is very smooth, and there’s not a wrinkle to be seen on her face. Even with her having lain here for what seems like days, her hair falls perfectly, as if it had been just washed and dried.
Dania is quietly singing “Christmas Time Is Here,” as if giving him an encore. Or finishing the song she didn’t get to complete in the bar a few nights ago. Steven watches the darkness fall across the room and lets her warm breath beat against his neck.
“I wish I could bring you home,” he says. “Back to Canada. I wish you could see it this time of year.”
“Your favorite time of year.”
“I bet you would love it.”
“I’m not very good with cold weather,” she says, and squeezes him tightly as she yawns. “Too many winters in London.”
“I don’t mind it. You’d think I would. Three-plus decades in Canada and you’d think I’d be more into the weather here. All this heat.”
“Maybe you just need to give it more time.”
Good luck, he thinks. My vacation time only goes so far.
“Maybe one day,” he says, “I can come back and spend more time.”
“Maybe.”
Steven feels her soft kiss on his shoulder, and he smiles. He can’t remember the last time he lay in bed like this with Robin, just staring at the walls and listening to the sounds of nothing. Feeling each other’s warm bodies and nothing more. With Robin, it seemed as if they’d reached a point where all they were doing was waiting for another chance to have sex. There was never time anymore to just relax and be next to each other.
“I have a coffee shop I always go to,” he says after a few minutes of listening to Dania’s breathing. “Right near my condo.”
“I prefer tea.”
“You can get that there, too. It’s just a Second Cup.”
“A what?”
“Like Starbucks, only Canadian.”
“Ah.”
“It’s just a few blocks down from where I live. On Eglinton Avenue.” He rolls over onto his left side and faces her. His eyes looking right into hers. “There’s a fake fireplace in the back. An electric one.”
“You people and your fireplaces. Right in the middle of the freezing cold. Looking to get as hot as possible.”
“You got it. But that’s where I sit, in the back of this coffee shop. Every chance I get. Sometimes several times a week.”
“And do what?”
“And? And do nothing. I just have coffee and sit by the fake fire. Look outside at the people in the cold.”
Dania kisses him and smiles. He can see her picturing him sitting in his coffee shop, drinking his pretentious latte—no whip cream—and watching the busy Torontonians walking on the sidewalk outside.
“There’s a window off to the side,” he says, “and I sit there, sometimes for a couple of hours, and just listen to the jazz on the radio or on my iPod. It’s very relaxing.”
“Looking at the snow,” she finishes his sentence. “I bet you love the snow.”
“When I’m not driving in it, sure.”
“I bet it’s beautiful this time of year.”
“It can be. When it first starts to fall and hasn’t turned to ugly, gray mush. And when the cars aren’t covered in salt and dirt.”
“Miracle on 34th Street.”
“You know that movie?”
“Of course! I wasn’t raised in a convent.”
He kisses the top of her forehead and smells her hair. As much as he loves being in this hotel bed and holding her as they wait for the rain to fall, he wishes he were home right now, with her. He wants to be sitting in the back of that coffee shop, watching the snow outside and listening to the music playing in the background. He could hold her hand and watch her watching the bundled up people on the streets outside.
Dania is humming again, but it’s a different song this time. Steven shuts his eyes and listens to her as she runs her hand up and down the length of his body. She caresses the hair on his chest and then moves down to his belly, then back up again.
Silent Night, Holy Night
All is calm, all is bright.
Her voice is so deep and sultry, so sexy. He imagines that, in another life, she was a cabaret singer in an old speakeasy. That maybe she’s the reincarnation of an opera singer or an entertainer from France during World War II.
Silent night, holy night ...
“I love to listen to you sing,” he says, even though she’s only humming.
“I’m glad someone does.”
“Puh-lease. Everyone loves it. I saw the way that crowd cheered when you left the stage.”
She rolls her eyes. “They’re all drunk. They’d cheer karaoke if that’s what they were given.”
“You’re being modest.”
“Maybe. It’s what I always wanted to do.”
“Singing?”
“As long as I can remember, I wanted to make music. To perform live.”
“And now you do. Mission accomplished.”
She chuckles. “I guess so, yeah. But I want more than Orchard Towers.”
“I would hope so.”
“I want to record,” she says. “Make an album.”
“Yeah?” Steven runs a hand through her hair and across her cheek and down her chest and across her belly. “The next Fergie?”
“Ugh.” She rolls her eyes. “Hardly. I’d rather be the next Etta James.”
“Even better.”
“I’d love to do an album of old jazz standards. Maybe blues. I don’t care, as long as I can do it and people will listen.”
“Hey, I’d buy it.”
She kisses his chest. “Thanks. That’s one.”
He laughs and feels her mouth on his chest. It gets him a little aroused but, rather than try to start anything, he simply pulls her close to him and squeezes.
It’s obvious to him now why Scotty wanted all that money. He was trying to help Dania make her dream come true. It’s taken several hours and a lot of piecing the puzzle together, but—in between his intense frolicking with Dania—he’s managed to figure out some of the code.
“Mick” obviously means “microphone.”
“RE” means “recording,” as in “recording equipment” or “recording engineer.” Dania has mentioned both several times over the past several hours.
“Studio” wasn’t about rent on his little apartment; it was about paying for time in a recording studio.
Steven smiles and laughs to himself. Of all the crazy jobs his brother ever had or tried to do, Steven had never thought record producer would have been one of them. Of course, with the right amount of money, it certainly wasn’t impossible.
Steven kisses Dania. He almost wants to tell her that, if she wants it, he’ll give her
the fifteen grand that Scotty wanted. He doesn’t know if she even knows that’s what Scotty was doing. But Steven is willing to give the money to her if it will make her happy. If it will make her dreams come true.
If it will get her away from Nez.
“What are you going to do? About Nez?”
Dania sighs and grimaces. “Ugh. Don’t remind me.”
“As much fun as it was shutting him down like that, I can’t imagine it helped your cause with that guy.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it. Nez isn’t going anywhere.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Tell me about it.”
“He won’t hurt you . . . will he?”
She rolls her eyes. “No, that would be bad for business. He would never be that stupid.”
“Why don’t you quit? You obviously hate the guy. Surely you can find another manager.”
“It’s not that simple. I can’t leave him right now. Not yet.”
“What are you, his indentured servant?” Steven gives her a serious look. He can’t imagine why she’d ever even think about going back to work for Nez, especially not after what just happened.
“Feels like it sometimes.”
“Whatever he’s got on you, I have a feeling it can’t be enough to stick with him.”
She looks up at him. “He hasn’t got anything on me. It’s just complicated, is all.”
“Apparently.”
“I really don’t want to talk about it.” She frowns. “Trust me, if I could tell him to go to hell, I would. Right now, I can’t do that.”
“It just feels like something more than a contract between a singer and a manager. I’ve never seen someone so controlling like that. Forget about everything with my brother—that Nez guy treats you like he owns you.”
“Let it go, sweetheart.”
Steven leans on his elbow. “I’m serious. He treats you like he’s your pimp.”
“That’s enough,” she snaps at him. It’s cold and quick. Steven holds his breath for a second and says nothing. Dania glares at him for a few seconds and then lets out a long, slow sigh. She rolls her eyes again and looks up at the ceiling.
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