by Laura Leone
Jesus. Oh, Jesus.
He hadn't had that nightmare in a while. And it had been particularly vivid tonight.
It had been years since he'd been back in that environment. He hadn't realized it would affect him so much. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised by it, though.
You could take the boy off the streets, but you could never completely wipe the streets off the boy.
The mind was a strange thing, Ryan thought dimly. He could swear he smelled old urine in a garbage-filled concrete lot, even though he was in his clean, comfortable bedroom. Probably the worst odor that ever invaded this apartment was Macy after he came in from a walk in the rain. Wet dog hair. Not a smell most people enjoyed in close quarters. Ryan didn't mind, though. It smelled homey to him.
Not like the sour, corrupted smell filling his senses right now, even though he knew it was only his imagination.
He got out of bed wearing only his boxer shorts, padded out of the bedroom on bare feet, and went into the kitchen. He got a pitcher of cold water out of the refrigerator and drank from it. Even after all this time on his own, drinking straight from the pitcher still felt rebellious. Catherine had forbidden it, like so many other bad habits, when he lived with her. He recalled that his mother had forbidden it, too, years earlier.
He wondered if Sara would also have asked him not to do it, if they'd ever... No, he shouldn't think about that.
She hadn't been on the balcony this morning before he left to go in search of his pickpocket, and she hadn't been there when he returned home in late afternoon, either. Her living room was empty the couple of times he gave in to the temptation to peer through her French doors. He thought he'd heard her front door close this evening and so he had looked out into the hall, but she wasn't there.
She was avoiding him.
It didn't surprise him; but it did hurt. It wasn't as if she didn't have her reasons, of course. Apart from whatever she thought about him being an escort—which, in fact, she clearly thought was appalling—she was bound to be both hurt and angry that he had lied to her for so long. That he had let her grow to care about him without telling her the truth.
Hell, who was he kidding. Let? No, he had tried to make her care about him. He'd known it was wrong, known that with all his heart. But he'd done it anyhow. He'd wanted her affection, and he'd gone after it. Even knowing how she'd be hurt.
Even knowing how I'd be hurt, too.
No, given his behavior, it wasn't surprising that Sara was avoiding him. And in addition to whatever guilt he felt about how long he'd waited to tell her the truth, he now also regretted he hadn't done it sooner because if he'd gotten it over with a while ago, she might be talking to him again by now.
Based on the optimistic assumption that she was ever going to talk to him again, that was.
If he could just talk with her about today... Then maybe his subconscious wouldn't be tormenting him tonight. Maybe he could exorcise the old despair and fear that rose up out of nowhere now. If he could just talk about the day with Sara, perhaps his memories wouldn't be assaulting him now as if they were from last week rather than from ten years ago.
Maybe, if he and Sara talked, she'd be able to help him decide if he'd done the right thing when he gave the boy that money.
Or if I should have given him more?
It wouldn't have killed Ryan to let the kid keep all the cash. Whereas not having the cash might kill the kid.
Living in the street, anything might kill that kid.
The boy had spirit, the streets hadn't destroyed that in him yet. But they probably would.
If he lived.
He seemed so vulnerable to Ryan. So young. He wasn't stupid, but he had more guts than brains. Being brave probably led him to make many mistakes; and mistakes were deadly for a street kid. He learned from his mistakes but, if his behavior as a pickpocket was any evidence, he learned slowly, through trial and error.
In a normal life, that would be fine. On the street, though...
What if I were someone dangerous? What if I had intended to hurt him?
It would have been so easy. If Ryan had been the wrong sort of man, the boy would have become a victim today.
Ryan snorted. Become? As if that kid wasn't already a victim.
He couldn't stop thinking about the boy. And by the time Ryan was asleep again, fragments of his life layering abstractly in his dreams over fragments of what he imagined about that boy's life, he had already decided what he was going to do in the morning.
Chapter Nine
Ryan went to the warehouse at dawn, too early for most people here to be up and about. He wore yesterday's jeans and a ragged blue shirt which he left open over a gray T-shirt. He didn't want to look like "some rich guy." Not in this neighborhood.
He crawled through the hole in the fence behind the smelly dumpster, then crept up to the warehouse. A rusted padlock secured the main doors. Rather than wasting time searching around back for an easy entrance, Ryan climbed up onto one of the broad cement windowsills and entered the building via a huge and mostly-missing window, taking care not to touch what little glass still remained. He jumped down to the floor, glad his sneakers prevented the drop from being noisy, and then crouched there for a moment, looking around.
As he'd anticipated, there were a number of people sleeping in here. Walking softly, he searched the entire warehouse. A few people were starting to wake up; but since Ryan looked innocuous despite his black eye—and perhaps even because of it—and wasn't making any trouble, they pretty much ignored him.
He found no sign of the boy anywhere, but Ryan believed he was bound to be in the vicinity. He wouldn't want to flop far from his stash. Deciding it was time to narrow the search, Ryan approached a couple who were emerging from beneath an old sleeping bag which they had unzipped and spread out to cover them both. The young woman had heavy, smeared eye make-up and oily hair. The young man was dirty and tattooed. There was a crack pipe by their makeshift bed.
When they noticed Ryan standing in front of them, he said, "I've been hired to find someone." This produced no reaction, of course, so he continued, "A kid. He hangs out here. About so tall." Ryan gestured with his hand to indicate that the kid's head came up to his nose. "Black hair, brown eyes, looks Hispanic. No visible marks or tattoos." Ryan thought for a moment. "His nose has been broken and healed a bit crooked."
"Oh!" After making this sound of recognition, the girl caught her boyfriend's hard glance and lowered her gaze.
"Dunno who you're talkin' about, man," the guy said to Ryan.
Ryan looked at the girl. "You know him." When she didn't respond, Ryan said, "He has relatives who want to help him. They're spending money on my services to find him."
"Well, they ain't spending money on us," said the guy.
"Actually," Ryan said, reaching into his pocket, "they've authorized expenses in exchange for information."
"Huh?"
"Tell me where the kid is, and I'll give you fifty bucks," Ryan clarified.
The couple looked at each other again. Ryan could tell he'd sparked their interest with that offer, as expected.
"How much do they want this kid?" the guy asked.
"Tell me where he is, and the fifty is yours," Ryan said.
"I can't say nothin' for under two hundred."
Ryan sighed. "That's too bad. Fifty is all I've got. Oh, well, thanks for your time."
He turned around and left them. Not surprisingly, the girl caught up with him about twenty yards later.
"I know where he is," she said. "The kid with the crooked nose. I can tell you."
He held up the money, but drew it back when she reached for it. "Show me."
She nodded. "This way." She led him through the warehouse and then outside via a small door—the easy access he hadn't bothered to find earlier. There, in what appeared to have been a loading area once upon a time, sat an old delivery truck which looked like it hadn't functioned in years. "In the cab," she said.
"
Thanks." Ryan gave her the cash and waited for her to go back into the warehouse, then he approached the truck and looked inside. Sure enough, the boy was asleep, his dark head sticking out from under a ratty blanket. Ryan tried the driver's door; it was locked. He assumed the other one was, too.
It was a good flop. Off the street. Unknown to the cops. The kid could lock the doors for safety, and the windows and mirrors let him see if anyone was nearby.
On the other hand, it was isolated enough that the kid was dead meat if someone got into the truck, or if he got out when it wasn't wise to do so.
Thoughts like these felt so familiar now, Ryan wondered if he'd ever really stopped having them every day. He'd thought he had, thought he had adjusted to the comfortable and mostly-safe lifestyle he'd been leading for years...
But you can never completely wipe the streets off the boy.
He sat down near the truck, out of the kid's line of vision and waited. After a while, he was sorry he hadn't brought The Architect of Time with him—another of Sara's mystery novels, which he was in the middle of reading now. Sara's writing was good company when he couldn't be with her. Really good reading, too. Who'd have guessed that a bunch of imaginary medieval people could be so interesting, or that Ryan would care so much what happened to the recurring characters from book to book? When he remembered how many times he'd bought a novel that he wound up considering a waste of his money, it really burned him that some idiot publisher had decided to stop publishing Sara's books when they were so good.
Tired from his restless night and early morning, Ryan was dozing a bit when he heard the door of the truck cab click open. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs and braced himself, suddenly wishing he'd spent a little of these past two hours planning what he would say.
The kid slid out of the cab feet first, rubbing one fist sleepily against his eyes.
"Good morning," Ryan said.
The kid gasped, flinched, stumbled backwards, hit his elbow on the truck door, cried out, and hopped around a little.
"Not a morning person?" said Ryan. "Well, most teenagers aren't, I guess."
The kid's expression turned to one of unconcealed horror as he recognized Ryan. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
"Watch your language," Ryan said.
"What the fuck, man?"
"Okay, forget I mentioned your language."
"What are you doing here?"
Good question.
"I was in the neighborhood."
"Yeah, right." The boy regarded him with open suspicion.
Wishing he'd thought of a smoother lead-in, Ryan asked, "Are you hungry?"
"Huh?"
"Are you hungry?"
The kid glowered.
"Would you like some breakfast?"
No response.
"I'm offering," Ryan said, "to buy you breakfast."
"Why?"
"You look hungry."
"What are you, a fucking good Sumerian?"
"Samaritan."
"Whatever."
Ryan remained seated on the ground, attempting to look unthreatening. But when you were a kid on the street, every adult was a threat—especially a man who kept tracking you down in isolated spots like this—so he knew the attempt probably wasn't working.
To break the silence, which was starting to grow tense, Ryan said, "What's your name?"
"You don't need to know my name."
"Mine's Ryan."
"So what?"
"So..." Just be honest, he advised himself. "You're living in this shit hole—"
"Watch your language," the boy said snidely.
"—you steal money, and you're a kid." Ryan shrugged. "That sucks. I was thinking about it, and it bothered me."
The kid looked wary and said nothing.
"So I thought I'd buy you breakfast."
"Where do I have to go for this 'breakfast'? You got a car waiting on the—"
"I'm not going to ask you to get into a car with me. Or go anywhere private with me." Ryan held his gaze. "We'll just walk up to the main drag and find a coffee shop."
"What do you want from me for this breakfast, man?" the kid said coldly. "Just tell me."
For some reason, Ryan suddenly heard his mother's voice in his head. He repeated what he heard there. "I want some good manners from you, young man."
#
Sara didn't see him for two days. During that time, she tortured herself to the best of her ability.
She couldn't sleep. She couldn't eat. She couldn't work or concentrate. She couldn't believe what Ryan had told her, yet she knew he was telling the truth. It explained so much—the secrets, the strange hours, the sudden assignments, the exquisite clothes and impressive accessories, his loathing of the police...
She'd thought she was falling in love with him, but, in fact, she didn't even know him.
Yet she did know him, because the man who had tenderly asked her to go to bed with him, and was then so gentle in his understanding when she refused, was precisely the man who'd become so dear to her that going two days without talking to him now was like going that long without food and water.
Ryan...
The charming, considerate man who'd practically been living in her pocket in recent weeks, the warm and generous friend whom she'd grown to trust and rely on...
"I've never liked anybody as much as I like you..."
...the man whom she fantasized about as a lover...
"I really wanted you just now. And for weeks before this."
...was actually a high-priced male prostitute who'd been having sex with other women practically every day since they'd met! All the while that Sara had been mooning over him and wishing he might become her lover.
"They had a tape of me doing the client, right there on the massage table."
Sara held her head in her hands, trying to block out the memory, trying to banish the images Ryan's word invoked.
"I got her off three times, and she never even looked at me."
Who was that guy? Surely he wasn't the same man who'd called Sara long-distance last week from his out-of-town assignment—
"I was hired to put her in a generous mood."
—because he was so worried about out how his hysterically shy cat had survived her appointment at the vet's office in his absence.
"The cops caught the whole show on camera. Including the part where I accepted payment from her."
Could this be the same man who companionably puttered around the kitchen with Sara several times a week? The same man who was trying to teach her some exercises to help ease the knots in her back caused by hunching over a hot keyboard all day? Who slavishly carried his fat, lazy dog up the stairs of this building whenever Macy balked and refused to keep climbing? Who'd accepted with enthusiasm when Sara had invited him to her private DVD marathon of old Thin Man movies two Sundays ago?
"I get paid to be good company. In bed, out of bed, whatever the client wants."
Was that the same man who'd already read three of Sara's novels and liked to talk about her work?
Well, sure, she thought bitterly. He's been perfect company to me, after all.
But he'd known her mind would travel in that direction, and so he had made a point of telling her he'd always been sincere with her... And she believed him.
Sara curled up on the couch, picked up the TV remote, and started channel surfing.
Yes, she believed him, damn it. And it made her miserable and confused.
If he had made a fool of her, played her—"worked" her—then she'd be mortified, wounded, and devastated now. But at least she would have some clarity. It would be over between them—whatever "it" was. He would just be the enemy now, the deceitful shit who had humiliated her. A man whom she would regard as a painful and embarrassing mistake, but a finished episode.
Instead, now she was chasing her tail and losing sleep as she tried to reconcile Ryan with... Kevin.
"And fucking her... Don't forget fucking her until she was limp."
Sara clicked the remote over and over, scarcely seeing the images which flashed past her on the television screen.
Now, instead of regarding Ryan as a former obsession to be forgotten as quickly as possible, Sara found herself wrestling with unbearable temptation. He wanted her—the way she wanted him! And the memory of his hands on her body, eager and possessive and recklessly demanding, the dark honey of his kisses, the smooth heat of his skin and the tickle of his breath, the way he groaned when she touched him, the way he knew exactly how to touch her...
Forget it, forget the way he felt, the way he tasted, the sound of his whispers...
But she couldn't forget it. She knew she wouldn't forget it if she lived to be even older than her Great Aunt Minnie—which was pretty damn old.
God, I want him. I want him so much.
She'd nearly locked herself in the bathroom last night to make sure she wouldn't go to him.
Because she didn't want Kevin, and she couldn't separate the two lives as cleanly as Ryan apparently could.
She shouldn't have left his apartment that night like a coward, fleeing the moment his back was turned. But she was weak with desire and afraid to let him see it. If he had asked her once more to stay, she might have done it. If she had looked into his tender gaze again, he might not even have needed to ask.
But she was disgusted, too, and so she fled.
My God, Sara, his dick was inside someone else only that morning. It's probably inside someone else right now.
She'd also fled because she didn't want Ryan to see her disgust. He'd gone far out on a limb to be honest with her, she'd already been hurtful in her initial reaction, and she didn't want to make things worse.
And now, for two days, ever since escaping his apartment while he was getting tissues for her, she'd been avoiding him: She waited until she heard him leave the building before she went out the door to run her errands; when she came home, she slipped in quietly and quickly, praying not to bump into him; when they were home at the same time, she stayed in her bedroom, so he wouldn't see her in the living room if he went out onto the balcony.