Strange Bedfellows

by Rob Byrnes

  Chase popped his head out from behind the shelving, smiled, and nodded no, but Kelly’s voice called out, “Flour?”

  “Against the wall over there,” said the clerk, pointing directly at Chase. Kelly’s footsteps approached, and they scrambled to the rear of the store and around the center shelving units. Spotting a curtain separating the store from the stockroom, they ducked inside.

  “Gentlemen, you cannot go back there,” they heard the clerk call out from the front counter.

  Chase tried to mask his voice. “Just looking for the bathroom.”

  “No bathroom! You go to McDonald’s!” She pointed out the window. “Two blocks!”

  And things should have only gone downhill from that point, but then they heard Kelly ask, “Can I pay for these?”

  “I’ll call the police!” yelled the Puerto Rican woman. But first they heard her agree to ring up Kelly’s soup and flour.

  Back behind the curtain, Grant whispered, “She still looks good.”

  Chase nodded. “Curvier than I remember, but she wears it well.”

  Grant agreed. “She used to be so great on the long con. Too bad she became a lawyer. A legit lawyer.”

  “Probably trying to set a good example for her son.” Chase giggled. “You know, Cadmium.”

  Grant didn’t think that was very funny at all.

  They waited until she was gone, and then the two men emerged from behind the curtain.

  “Sorry.” Grant shrugged to the clerk as he walked past the counter.

  “What? No sale?”

  In return, she got a smile from Chase. “Nice store you’ve got here.” Then he, too, was outside on the sidewalk. The clerk eyed them warily through the dusty front window.

  They watched Kelly Capobianco’s curvy frame as she carried her plastic grocery bag away from them. They had dodged that bullet but knew their problems were far from over.

  “If she gets home and figures out her son’s on his way to a job, she’s not gonna let him leave,” said Chase.

  That was exactly what Grant had been thinking. “Maybe we’ll be finding out if this is a two-man job after all.” He felt at his pants pocket and was reassured at the slight bulge his fingers found. “Of course, we could always drug her.”

  “Yeah, right.” Chase laughed, but then he saw Grant’s face and the laugh vanished. “Uh…what exactly are you talking about?”

  Grant was matter of fact about it. “I brought that knock-out stuff.”

  Chase’s eyes widened. “The drug? You brought the drug?! I thought we discussed that!”

  “We did.” Grant patted the pocket again. “And you lost the argument. Sorry, I forgot to tell you.” When he realized Chase was angrier than he’d expected, he figured maybe he should try to calm him down. “No one says we’re gonna use it. I just figured I’d bring it in that one-in-a-hundred chance that June woman is working late.”

  Chase shook his head. “I do not approve of this.”

  “I know.” Grant stared down the street and watched Kelly—about the same height as her son, just curvier now—climb the stairs to the front door of her brownstone. “For the record, I would prefer to keep it and drug Jamie Brock again someday. That was kinda funny. But it’s a tool we might need. That’s all.”

  Chase fumed in silence for another fifteen minutes while Grant repeatedly checked his watch, mostly because there was nothing else to do but look at Chase fuming. He was about to suggest they give up on Nick and try to do it alone when he saw the young man drop to the sidewalk from the fire escape in front of his building.

  “Looks like Spider-Man escaped his mother and is ready for business.”

  Chase stopped moping long enough to look, half-afraid he might indeed see Nick in a Spider-Man costume. But, no, he appeared to be dressed as instructed: jeans, a black shirt, and sneakers.

  “Almost didn’t make it,” he said, after jogging the last stretch. His thick hair seemed to keep bouncing long after the jog. “My mom came home.”

  “We saw,” Grant said.

  “She didn’t want me to go out, so I told her I’d be playing video games in my room. Locked the door, came down the fire escape, and here I am!”

  “And about time. Let’s roll.”

  They were almost an hour behind schedule. It was time to stop fooling around and get to work.

  The “getting into the building” part of the job was almost too easy. It was a few minutes before seven o’clock, and while many of the building’s employees had left for the day, there were still enough people moving around the lobby that it was no chore to blend in.

  But when the elevator doors opened onto the fifth floor offices of June Forteene Enterprises, they could see that the rest of the job could be a bit more difficult. It was apparent the place hadn’t closed up shop for the night. The lights were all on and, somewhere in the background, a radio talk-show host was ranting about something or another. No one was sitting behind the front desk, but the door leading into the main office was wide open.

  Grant motioned Chase and Nick back into the elevator and they rode it to the lobby.

  “You think she’s up there?” asked Chase when they were standing outside the sidewalk watching the occasional, slightly embarrassed man slip into see some Live! Nude! Girls!

  “I don’t know if she’s there, but someone is. The thing is, I can’t go back up there. If it’s that guy from this morning and he recognizes me, there can only be trouble.”

  Chase nodded at his predicament while Nick studied a man walking out of the very adult storefront and adjusting his fly.

  “You think men just go there to meet women?” he asked. “Or do they maybe meet other men, too?”

  “Find out on your own time.” Grant got back to the matter at hand. “You two are gonna have to go up alone and assess the situation. If you run into a guy with a stupid red sweater vest and stupid hipster glass frames, I can’t be involved. If anyone else is there—especially if that someone is June Forteene—you’d better come get me.”

  Chase, trailed by Nick, took a few steps toward the building entrance when Grant stopped him.

  “Here,” he said, offering up the baggie full of chalky powder. “You might need this.”

  “Grant, you know how I feel—”

  “I do. I just said you should take it. Whether you use it or not is your call.”

  Chase frowned and reluctantly stuck the baggie in his pants pocket.

  The desk was still empty when Chase and Nick returned to the fifth floor. But this time, without Grant, they felt a little more comfortable taking a look around.

  And the first thing they saw was a giant erect penis on the laptop monitor sitting on the desk in the hallway.

  “My, my, my!” Nick put his face close to the screen and studied it so closely that his mother might have warned him he’d go blind for at least two reasons, only one of which his optometrist might have thought to warn him about. “What’s this?”

  “That,” said Chase quietly, “is what we’ve come to get.” And then he thought, It can’t possibly be this easy, can it? Grab the laptop and run, and be done with the job?

  He shook the thought away. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. It never was.

  Nick finally pulled his eyeballs back a half inch or so from the screen. “So we’re here for a photo of a penis? Why? There are millions of them on the Internet.”

  “That’s not just any penis. That’s what you’d call a famous penis. That’s the picture we’re here to erase. Y’see, if you zoom out there’s also a face in the picture.”

  “Cute?”

  Chase feigned disinterest. “He’s okay, I guess.”

  Nick reached for the keypad. “Let’s see.” He zoomed the photo back. “Oh, he’s really cute! Wow!”

  “Ya think?”

  The younger man kept staring at the monitor. “Hell, yeah. I’d totally do him. He’s really hot for an old guy!”

  That stopped Chase. “Wait…old?”

&nbs
p; Nick didn’t bother lifting his head. “I’m twenty-one. My old is a lot different from yours.”

  Chase didn’t like that but supposed he had been there once.

  “How’s about we get to work?” Chase took a look around the hall. His eyes settled on the open office door. “I suppose we’d better take a look and see who’s still here. Don’t touch anything.”

  Nick finally averted his eyes from the monitor and whispered, “I hear ya, Grandpa.”

  Chase didn’t say anything, but thought, I’m beginning to understand how Grant became Grant.

  They stealthily slipped across the threshold and into the office, which was—unsurprisingly—nothing more than a room full of desks, computers, and paper. Although given the ground-floor tenant and the first image they’d encountered when entering June Forteene Enterprises, they’d be forgiven for expecting otherwise.

  The disembodied voice of the radio host blathered something inflammatory about a trade agreement with the Solomon Islands as they crept through the room. Chase, who actually knew what they were looking for, saw nothing that struck him as the single repository for images of Austin Peebles’s manhood, and that depressed him a little bit. It would mean that every piece of electrical equipment would have to be taken out that night.

  Usually, a job like that would have made Chase a very happy man, and would have paid the rent for the month. But this night they had two jobs, and dragging a half dozen computers and God knew how much other crap around Manhattan would only slow them down.

  And they still didn’t know who was in the office: June Forteene, or the guy in the red sweater vest, or someone else. Someone was there, and they’d have to figure that out before making another move. It wouldn’t do to be caught walking off with the computers.

  They didn’t have to wait long for the answer to that question, because—over the radio blather—they soon heard a voice.

  “What are you doing in there?!”

  Chase’s instinct, as an experienced criminal, was to drop his frame below the closest desk. Try to stay compact; try to hide. Those were the instincts and experiences of a professional kicking in.

  The newbie stood frozen like a deer in headlights in the middle of the office, unprotected and open.

  Which is why Nick—standing as tall as someone Nick’s height could stand, and unprotected by anything but bare floor—was the one who got caught.

  Chase, compact and hidden on the far side of a desk behind the door, was safe…for that moment, at least.

  The pro wondered how the newbie would handle himself. He wished only professional curiosity was at stake, but knew that both of them—and Grant—had too much riding on it for this to be an academic exercise.

  To his credit, Nick played it cool, never once glancing in Chase’s direction. Meanwhile, a man who could only have been the one Grant encountered earlier that morning—red sweater vest and all—entered the office from the hall.

  “I asked what you’re doing in there,” he said again, setting the bathroom key on top of a desk. He was trying to act tough, but sounded more skittish than they were.

  Chase moved his head just enough to see Nick. He was smiling and had somehow made himself look like the most innocent man in the tri-state region.

  “Do you work here?”

  “Of course. Why?”

  Improbably, Nick’s smile seemed to broaden. “I’m here as a concerned citizen. Did you know there’s an adult video establishment in your building?”

  Red Sweater Vest blushed slightly. “Of course I do. I have to walk past that den of perversion every time I enter or leave the building. But what about it?”

  “We need to shut it down.”

  The man eyed him warily. “Who are you again?”

  “A concerned citizen.” Nick coughed into his hand. “A very concerned citizen.”

  “I meant your name.”

  “Oh. The name is John.”

  “John what?”

  “John, uh, LaMarca.” Behind the desk, Chase frowned. “Did you know that men are receiving sexual favors in that peep show?”

  The blush spread until Red Sweater Vest’s face matched his clothing. “I have no idea what goes on down there. I don’t want to know.”

  “And not just from the Live! Nude! Girls!” Nick exclaimed every exclamation point.

  There was a long pause before Red Sweater Vest could speak again. “You mean homosexual gay sodomy is occurring in this building?”

  Nick nodded vigorously. “We have to stop it.”

  “But how can I…?” Red Sweater Vest leaned against a desk and fanned himself with a floppy hand. “Mr. LaMarca, I appreciate your concern, and I will definitely discuss this with my boss. But now you’ll have to go. I need to lock up…”

  Nick stood his ground. “Don’t you care?”

  “Of course I care. But this really should be dealt with at a higher level. I mean…” Some of the color began to fade from his cheeks. “I haven’t been in New York City for a full week. I certainly don’t know where to turn.”

  “Less than a week? Wow! Maybe you need a buddy to show you around the city.”

  Nick’s voice had taken on a slight purr, which came as more than a little surprise to Chase. With much of the action blocked from his hiding spot, he wondered what, if anything, had inspired Nick to lay on the seductive tone and think it might help…although he supposed the fact that Red Sweater Vest had been looking at a photo of a phallus before they walked in was as logical a starting point as any.

  For his part, the other young man—the one who actually belonged there—sounded increasingly flustered.

  “I, uh…That’s very kind of you. But as you can see I’m very busy, and, uh…”

  “Are you sure?” The purr deepened, and Chase began to wonder when Nick would go full-on Eartha Kitt. “Because I really know my way around.”

  “I…I…”

  “Around and around and around…”

  “Uh…I, uh…” Chase didn’t have to look to know that Red Sweater Vest was in full blush.

  And then Nick—who’d already pushed quite a bit more than Chase would have pushed—took it another step further.

  “By the way, I couldn’t help but notice the dick shot on your computer screen.” A long, awkward pause followed before he asked, “Is it yours?”

  To which Red Sweater Vest said something that sounded like, “Gahhhhh!” Which was followed by the sound of two feet stumbling toward the desk in the hall. He’d just listened in on either the best attempted seduction or the best mind-fuck—or maybe both—ever.

  Chase lifted his head from behind the desk, and this time saw Nick’s face not six inches away.

  “How’m I doing?” the kid whispered.

  Chase bobbed his head agreeably. “You’ve got game.” And then, because they were dealing with a man—a self-righteous one at that, who also seemed to be a hypocrite, not that the combination surprised him much anymore—he decided that maybe Grant’s drug might come in handy after all. It was an impulse he knew he would not have had if they’d been interrupted by a woman, and that sort of bothered him. It was sexist and unprofessional to treat some victims better than others, even if the fairer sex had been represented by June Forteene herself. But that was the way he’d been raised. He was an Old-Fashioned Gentleman when it came to stealing things and drugging people.

  He slipped the baggie into Nick’s hand. “Put some of this into his drink.”

  Confusion clouded Nick’s face. “I have to take him out drinking?”

  Chase shook his head. “Water…coffee…Anything.”

  “Oh! Gotcha.” Nick’s face disappeared and Chase slid back to the floor behind the desk.

  The conversation that followed was hard to hear, since almost all of it took place out by the elevator, but after a few minutes voices were raised and Chase was sure he heard a scuffle. He started to emerge from behind the desk, only to take a step back into the shadows when Red Sweater Vest staggered into the office
and slammed the door behind him. He shuffled to a panel on the wall and punched in a few numbers, and then—mission already accomplished—stood stiffly and swayed a few times before crumpling indelicately to the ground.

  It was only when the guy was flat on his back that Chase approached and saw that he was out every bit as much as Grant and Jamie had been out. Red Sweater Vest wouldn’t interfere with them for at least the next five hours.

  And then Chase heard the sound of Nick’s voice, looked up, and saw him leaning through the still-open transom window.

  “Don’t open the door,” Nick warned. “I’m pretty sure he set the alarm.”

  Chase, perplexed, glanced at the wooden door. “He set the alarm?”

  “I think so. When he figured out I drugged him, he made a dash for it. Said something about locking things down. Also that I’d be going to hell.” Nick looked down from his perch at the comatose assistant splayed across the floor. “Gotta give him credit for being a loyalist.”

  “Why didn’t you stop him?”

  “I tried—didn’t you hear us wresting out here?—but he got away from me. Sorry about that.” Nick shrugged the best he could, considering his narrow shoulders were the only things holding him in the transom frame seven feet above the hallway floor. “That’s one of the disadvantages of being on the small side.”

  Chase looked at the narrow transom window where Nick was perched. There was no way he was getting up there, let alone through it.

  “You’d better go get Grant.”

  Chapter Eight

  Grant Lambert took one look at the lock and decided he wouldn’t even risk it. All that wiring meant he might get through, but someone would be there before any of them had a chance to do much except get arrested.

  “So what am I supposed to do?” Chase called out in the direction of the transom. “Stay in here with the drugged guy until someone turns off the alarm in the morning? That doesn’t sound like a very good plan.”

  He heard Grant’s voice on the other side of the wooden door, but had a hard time making out his words. So he hollered at the transom again.