Strange Bedfellows

by Rob Byrnes

  Even June, who barely had a life outside her blog, kept her hours there to a realistic limit.

  The desk placed in the hallway outside the elevator—the desk that had so concerned Grant—wasn’t important at all. They didn’t even bother locking it; no one was quite sure where the keys were anymore. They would stow the laptop in the main office, but that was the full extent of their security measures for Edward’s desk. If a building employee wanted to help himself to some paper clips, the team at June Forteene Enterprises could live with that. True, Edward seldom had paper clips—or a stapler, or a tape dispenser—but it was a very low priority.

  Of course, that wasn’t the case with the rest of what they considered a suite of offices, although “suite” never seemed like quite the right word to describe a string of two rooms—half of one of which was a supply closet—that shared nothing but a bleak common hallway on the fifth floor. But the only other tenant on the floor—a shady Bulgarian talent manager who barely spoke English—had vacated his office a few months earlier, and as long as that office remained vacant—and she possessed all the bathroom keys—she was going to take over the hallway and consider it a suite.

  Of course, despite an abundance of desks and computers, she was also running a place she called “Enterprises” with an unpaid part-time intern and an almost-unpaid assistant, so she was well versed in the art of deception. Would the Big Boys—and Girls—take her even slightly seriously if she was a private citizen blogging from home in her pajamas? No, they would not.

  Despite the flesh trade on the building’s first floor, the Eighth Avenue office offered some benefits, chief among them cheap rent for a convenient location. Cheap rent was important; even though controversies like the Times Square Mosque had built a large readership—and therefore higher ad rates and occasional speaking fees—she was hardly in the same league as Drudge. It was a goal but not yet a reality.

  But there were downsides, too, and when it came to all-important security, she knew those old wooden doors and frames could present a problem. But once the problem was identified, it was quickly resolved.

  June was practical enough to know—as a prominent and controversial blogger—that one break-in could put her out of business for a long time. Political paranoia alone would have done the trick, but the sketchy patrons on the ground floor with their Live! Nude! Girls! made her especially cautious. As a blogger, she depended on immediacy to spread her message, and if she were to go out of business for even a few short days while replacing computers and files when the Next Big Story Broke, she might as well consider herself as outdated as the typewriter. Her philosophy was, “Lose a story, lose a career.”

  The doors couldn’t easily be retrofitted, but one of her more conspiracy-oriented acquaintances—a security consultant who once allegedly did some work for G. Gordon Liddy but wouldn’t discuss details about that or any other aspect of his past—assessed the situation and resolved it to her satisfaction. Better yet, he did it as a gift from a devoted reader of her blog. The alarm system he installed was state of the art; if anyone tried to open one of the office doors after hours without the security code, not only would a backup dead-bolt system kick in, but the consultant would know right away…and he’d alert June and the police. Someone could still get in, but they’d have to work fast…faster, that is, than June, the consultant, and the police. And the consultant, June, and the police would work pretty damn fast if someone was breaking in.

  June Forteene now slept soundly at night knowing her office was secure. It was with that sense of reassurance that she prepared to leave work that evening. It was only 6:00, and no one but Republicans had humiliated themselves that day; therefore, there was no blog-worthy news.

  “Time to lock up, Edward,” she said, laptop bag over shoulder and keys in hand.

  He was sitting at the desk in the hall. The one with only three paper clips left in the top drawer and no stapler or tape dispenser.

  “Do you mind if I work late?”

  She narrowed her eyes, suspicion being her default reaction whenever someone said something she wasn’t expecting them to say, and almost as often when they did. “Why?”

  “I’m still trying to figure out this database program.” June’s eyes were still narrowed, and Edward felt a flutter of panic in his stomach. “I’m not asking for any overtime. I just want to be able to do right by you.”

  That eased her mind. Not much, but enough. She appreciated ambition and industriousness.

  “Do you remember the alarm code?”

  “I do.” He recited it back to her. “And I’ll make sure the office is locked up nice and tight before I leave.”

  June raised an eyebrow. Her gut still told her she should be suspicious, but damn if she could find anything concrete behind it. His earnest, corn-fed demeanor was alarmingly disarming.

  “Okay, then.” She pressed the elevator button.

  Edward smiled cheerfully. “See you in the morning!”

  After June disappeared into the elevator and the doors closed, he waited, studying the database with close to no interest. Two minutes passed…then three…He began to think she had really left for the night when a ding announced the elevator’s return.

  The door opened and June’s head poked into the hall.

  “Did you forget something?” Edward asked.

  She looked at him, sitting diligently behind the desk and studying the database just like he said he’d be doing. So much for her suspicions. One of these days she’d learn to trust people.

  “I thought so, but…I guess not.”

  “Well…good night, then.”

  “Good night again, Ed.”

  “Edward.”

  She smiled and the doors slid closed.

  When he was sure she was gone—really, truly gone this time, and not out on the sidewalk waiting for another opportunity to try to catch him at something—Edward made a beeline for June’s computer. It was password-protected, but that was no obstacle for him. The password was REAGANGIRL; June wasn’t nearly as spontaneous or imaginative as she thought she was. Plus, she had the password written down on the first card of her Rolodex, something he’d noticed during his first day of work but never thought he’d need to know until now.

  It took only a few clicks until Austin Peebles’s erection filled the monitor.

  He forwarded the image to himself, did what he could to erase evidence that he’d been on the computer at all, wiped his fingerprints from the keypad, and returned to his desk.

  Edward Hepplewhite was a recent graduate of the Southern Pennsylvania Bible College and proud of it. He was even more proud that his very first job was as an assistant to the legendary June Forteene, a true goddess and role model. He was pretty sure she was born Jewish, but so was Jesus, so he could forgive.

  Everyone—his family, his friends, his instructors and classmates at SPBC—had warned him about moving to New York City at such an impressionable age. Actually, they’d warned against moving to New York at any age, but especially at a relatively impressionable twenty-two years. Edward wasn’t stupid, and knew their concern had less to do with this modern Sodom than his own former proclivity toward sodomy, which gave him all the more reason to go. He had to prove—to them, and more importantly to himself—that he had conquered the homosexual demon that lurked within. Thanks to the recent “Beyond Sin” conference he’d attended in Washington DC sponsored by the Moral Families Coalition’s Project Rectitude, he was confident he was now right with God.

  But just to be safe, he rented an apartment in New Jersey and commuted into Sodom. There was no sense offering too much temptation to Satan. Weehawken was still far from heaven, but it was much more saintly than, say, the Lower East Side.

  And he had been saintly for the entire one hundred forty-four hours since he’d moved north…until he’d walk in on the singular temptation of Austin Peebles’s manhood on the screen of June Forteene’s computer.

  Edward Hepplewhite still didn’t understand why
that image was there or whom it belonged to, although he was confident June was not viewing it for prurient reasons. No doubt it was the private thingie of a liberal or some other sort of America-hater, and she would use it to destroy them. Therefore, Edward reasoned, it was all right to take a nice long look, because the image wasn’t a form of devilish erotica, but rather a tool to be put in the hands of righteousness.

  That’s what he told himself, at least.

  And so Edward sat dutifully at his desk in the hallway of the fifth floor, staring at the dingle-dangle on the screen and silently cursing its symbolic evil. And maybe touching himself every now and then.

  He stared at it for the next hour, as a matter of fact.

  If plans had gone as expected, June Forteene might have encountered three shady-looking men entering the lobby at the same moment she exited for the second time.

  But Grant, Chase, and their newest associate—Nick Donovan—were running late that evening.

  One of them needed a costume change.

  Nick didn’t live far from June Forteene Enterprises, so Grant and Chase agreed to meet him down the block from the apartment he shared with his mother to review what needed to be done on the job before actually doing the job. The explanation would be simple and straightforward, and take no more than five minutes. Then they’d get to work.

  That was Grant’s plan, at least. What happened next, though…

  “What the hell is that?” Chase caught a glimpse of something yellow and blue approaching from a half block away.

  Grant squinted. “Oh, hell no. It can’t be.”

  “I think it is.”

  And it was. Nick Donovan swaggered toward them, exuding confidence, determination, and strength. All of that was good.

  What wasn’t good was that he was wearing light blue tights and a yellow cape. And a black mask, but Grant and Chase almost overlooked the mask because it seemed comparatively normal.

  When Nick finally reached them, it took Grant a few beats to find the right words for the occasion. Then they came.

  “What the fuck are you thinking, kid?”

  Nick smiled, lifting his cheekbones a bit at the edge of the mask that covered his dark eyes until it almost disappeared beneath the dark wavy hair cascading over his forehead. He had an Irish surname but his DNA seemed to have come exclusively from his Italian mother.

  “Like it? I call myself…” He paused for dramatic effect. “Cadmium!”

  Chase swallowed hard. “Cadmium?”

  “You called?”

  “No, I meant…” Chase sighed and looked up into the canopy of tree branches. “You can’t wear this on a job.”

  Nick looked puzzled. “But you said we’d be like superheroes.”

  “I did?”

  “Don’t you remember? I said I didn’t think my mother would like me going on a job with you, and you said it was all right because we’d be stealing from bad people, and we’d be—”

  “Like superheroes,” Chase said, remembering. “But I didn’t mean that literally. That was figurative, is all.”

  Grant snarled. “You and your figurativing.”

  “If anything,” Nick said, “I think you two look underdressed.” He put his hands on his hips—a studied, super-heroish pose—and glanced back down the block toward his apartment. “My mom won’t be home for another hour or so. Let’s go back to my room and see if I have anything that will fit you.”

  If they were so inclined—and they weren’t—it stretched credulity to think Nick Donovan might have any tights and capes that would fit them. He was small and thin, the wiry type they might need on the job.

  Grant clenched his jaw and took a quick scan across the four corners of the intersection at Tenth Avenue and West Forty-ninth Street.

  “You’re making a scene. Everyone is staring. Go home and change.”

  “No one’s staring.” That was true, because, while most pedestrians and motorists had indeed watched Nick Donovan out of the corners of their eyes, they pretended they hadn’t seen a thing. Because they were New Yorkers, and that’s what New Yorkers did. A mugging, Madonna making out with Bieber, a naked screaming crazy person, a kid in light blue tights and a yellow cape…they’d always pretend they hadn’t seen a damn thing.

  Grant tried again, this time with more than a growl to his voice. “We’re not having a discussion here. You go to this job dressed as Cadbury—”

  “Cadmium.”

  “Don’t say another word. You go dressed like that and we’re all gonna get arrested. Follow?”

  “But—”

  “Dammit, it’s still daylight! You stick out, and sticking out is a bad thing in this business. Didn’t your mother teach you anything?”

  Now it was Nick’s turn to sigh. “You know she hasn’t, Grant. Once she got out of the business, she stayed out. If she even knew I was here with you right now…”

  The older men had pulled a few jobs with his mother in the past, until she decided to go legit and become a lawyer. After that, she told them to forget her number. But they kept her kid’s, just in case the crime thing was in the genes. Apparently it was, although it came costumed.

  Grant looked at the ground. “Okay, since your mother was a bad parent who failed to educate you about how to make a living in this business, I guess I’m gonna have to be your father figure. First thing—”

  Nick looked confused. “Father figure? You’re not planning to marry my mother, are you? Look, no offense, but even though she’s been married nine times and it hasn’t worked out yet, I still can’t approve of her marrying a gay guy. And I say that as a gay guy!”

  Grant looked at Chase. “Did we know that?”

  “Know what?”

  “Did we know the kid’s gay?”

  Chase shrugged. “I knew it. Just figured you did, too.”

  “We really need to start meeting new people,” said Grant. “It’s getting so everyone we know is gay. It’s like we’re trapped in a gay criminal ghetto.”

  “Well, there’s Farraday. And, uh…” Chase paused, unable to come up with another name. “Yeah, maybe we should meet some new people.”

  Grant turned back to Nick. “First thing you gotta know is to dress to be invisible.”

  “Invisible?” Nick was excited about that idea. “I wish!”

  Grant puffed out his cheeks and turned to Chase. “Why are these jobs always harder than they should be?”

  “Let me,” said Chase.

  “Least you can do since you brought him on board.”

  Chase tossed a dismissive glance at Grant and turned to Nick, putting one paternal hand on his caped shoulder. “Here’s the deal. Anyone who sees you dressed like this is going to remember you, and the idea is to not be seen. I mean, this Cadmium costume is great, and I’ll bet it’ll go over big on Halloween. But for now, for tonight, I have to ask you to go home and dress more appropriately.”

  “Appropriately.” Nick turned those dark eyes and heavy lashes hopefully toward Chase. “Like a darker-colored cape? ’Cause I have black, dark red. I have green, too, but your coloring is too pasty to pull that off.”

  “Ah, jeez,” Grant muttered, but otherwise stayed silent.

  Chase tried to steer Nick away from Grant. “Appropriately as in jeans, sneakers, and a dark-colored shirt. No tights, no cape…not even an eye mask. Understand?”

  Nick frowned. “I won’t feel very powerful.”

  “If it helps,” Chase said with a hopeful smile, “it’d be fine if you wore your Cadmium underwear.”

  “Cadmium does not wear underwear. See?” Nick stepped back to give him a full view of the costume. Too full of a view.

  “Ah, jeez,” Grant said again, before taking a step forward. He wasn’t as inclined toward diplomacy as his partner. “Here’s the deal, kid. Go home and change into real clothes like Chase just said. If you do that, you can go on the job. If you don’t do that, I am gonna personally kick your metallic ass all the way to the West Side Highway. Capisce?”
>
  Nick nodded. The Italian reminded him of his mother and made the conversation suddenly seem a lot more serious.

  “When I ask you something, you say ‘yes, sir’ or ‘no, sir.’”

  “Yes, sir,” Nick mumbled. Without another word he turned, and the cape rustled in the light breeze as he walked back toward his apartment.

  When Cadmium was out of earshot, Chase said, “Very impressive. You almost sounded like a father. Or a drill sergeant.”

  Grant shook his head. “Can you believe that costume?” He took a glance at his watch. “And now we’re behind schedule.”

  Chase probably would have said something reassuring about how they had flexibility in their scheduling and the job wouldn’t take too long anyway, but he didn’t have time before catching something out of his peripheral vision and dragging Grant into the bodega at the corner before he had a chance to object.

  “What?” Grant hissed.

  “It’s Kelly!”

  “Kelly…? Uh…uh—damn, she’s been married so often I can’t remember her last name. You mean Nick’s mom?”

  “That’s the one.”

  Which is when Kelly Marinelli Dennison DuFour O’Rourke Donovan DuFour Bell Spencer DuFour Capobianco pushed open the door to that very same deli and walked inside.

  They ducked around the aisle, trying to figure out which way she was walking from her footsteps and barely avoiding her when they guessed wrong and she turned the far corner. She would have seen them if she hadn’t been studying the label on a soup can.

  Grant and Chase moved and would have bolted for the front door but she reappeared, this time scanning the shelves for something, so instead they retreated to their original position.

  “Can I help you?” asked the clerk, an older Puerto Rican woman who’d been watching them bob and weave in the small bodega, and acted like it was something she saw every day.