by J. P. Bowie
Seeing Eric’s car parked on the side of the road, he pulled in behind it and, as instructed, called the number Garcia had given him.
“I’m here,” he muttered when Garcia picked up. “What now?”
“Come in, of course. I will meet you on the terrace.”
As he pushed his way through the door at the top of the steps that led to the terrace below, Nick could see Garcia looking up at him. He stopped halfway down, and for a wild moment thought of diving from his vantage point onto the man below him.
“Careful, Detective…” As if he had read Nick’s mind, Garcia raised his hand and Nick could see the black snub-nosed Beretta he held. “Please do not try any heroics. You would be dead before you reached me.”
Nick descended the rest of the way and stood facing his enemy. Garcia had changed radically since the last time Nick had seen him. He now wore a full beard, black as his hair, but shot through with gray, and he was much heavier than Nick remembered. Back in the days of his trial, when Nick observed him in the courtroom, Garcia had been tall and slim with an air of elegance and distinction. He was still tall, and his added weight made him look all the more powerful. However, in Nick’s mind, heavier meant slower.
“Lift your shirt, Detective, and turn around.”
“I’m unarmed.” Nick said.
“That is for me to determine.”
Nick stood still while Garcia patted him down. “You may turn around and face me again, Detective.”
“Where is Eric?” Nick asked, his voice pitched low and quiet.
Garcia’s smile was cruel. “He regained consciousness a few minutes before you arrived. He was extremely offensive, so I had to restrain him.” He waved Nick forward toward the house, keeping his gun trained on him.
“Let him go, Garcia. He’s no threat to you.”
“But of course he is. After I kill you, he will want to avenge your death, just as I must avenge Joseph’s. So you see, I have no choice but to kill him first.”
“You bastard,” Nick muttered.
Behind him, Garcia gave a mirthless chuckle.
“Nick…” Eric struggled to free himself from the chair he was tied to. “Nick, I’m so sorry.”
He looked pale and ill and Nick felt the first stirring of fear in the pit of his stomach. Eric could die here, he thought. He swung round and glared at Garcia with eyes as hard as stones.
“What have you done to him? He’s sick—”
“Just a little sleeping draft to stop him being a nuisance while I waited for you,” Garcia said. “Unfortunately, it can make a person feel quite ill. Not that it matters. Soon he will sleep again—this time for good.” He waved his gun at Nick. “Go sit beside him and comfort him if you wish, but I am afraid he will need much more than comfort, when he sees what I have in store for you.”
Nick walked quickly to where Eric sat, slumped forward, supported by his bonds. “Let me untie him. He’s too weak to be of any threat to you.”
Garcia’s mouth twisted with displeasure, but then he nodded. “Very well, but if he makes one move that I dislike, I will shoot him. Understand?”
He watched intently as Nick untied the rope that held Eric to the chair. A sinister snigger escaped his lips as he watched Eric fall forward into Nick’s arms.
Nick laid him gently on the floor. “Eric, listen to me,” he whispered. “Don’t make any sudden moves. Just lie there and rest till you feel better.” He smoothed Eric’s hair back off his damp forehead.
“Such a touching scenario.” Garcia’s voice was filled with loathing. “Tell me, Detective Fallon, what does he enjoy more—you sucking his cock, or taking you up his ass?”
“Why would that interest you, Garcia?”
“It does not. It is merely that I have never been able to understand what one man can see in another.”
“Then perhaps you should have asked your son, Joseph,” Nick said with a certain relish. Garcia was going to kill them both anyway. Maybe he could take away some of that pleasure from him.
“Ask Joseph?” Garcia’s face darkened. “What are you talking about?”
“Your son was gay, Garcia.”
“Liar!” Garcia screamed. “You would defame him in your last hour alive? You are an even greater abomination than I thought.”
“I don’t care what you think of me,” Nick said, his voice calm and steady. “But I’m not lying. Joseph was gay, and he was in love with a friend of mine, Sam Valance. Sam was killed in the same raid that took Joseph’s life.”
A sudden realization seemed to dawn on Garcia. His face twisted as he remembered that moment when Joseph had been shot. He had been running towards one of the detectives. He had always believed Joseph was attacking the man to protect him—his father. But now? He shook his head, wrenching that memory from his mind. “You’re lying,” he finally gasped.
“No, Garcia, it’s not a lie. Sam and Joseph were shocked to see each other in that room. Neither one had any idea that they would both be there at the same time. It should never have happened—”
“You are telling me that my son was a faggot? That he was being fucked by a cop?” Garcia’s scream of high-pitched laughter prickled the short hairs on the back of Nick’s neck, while beside him, Eric moaned in distress.
Christ, Nick thought, I have to get him out of here and into a hospital. Garcia’s going to flip!
“You.” Garcia aimed his gun at Nick’s head. “You will tell me you are lying before you die. Tell me that what you say about my son is a lie. My son was a good boy.”
“Yes, he was a good and loyal son,” Nick said. “And he loved Sam Valance. They were lovers.”
“Noooo!” Garcia screamed again. He grabbed Nick by the hair, shoved the gun into his face and forced him to his feet. “You will die all the harder for this,” he hissed, his spittle spraying Nick’s face. “You will suffer before you die. You will beg me to kill you!”
“Listen to me Garcia,” Nick panted, looking squarely into the other man’s eyes. “The only one responsible for your son’s death is you. You put him in harm’s way. He died because your crimes resulted in a police raid that you should have seen coming. You were sloppy, Garcia, careless and sloppy, and as a result of that a lot of people died, including your son and two good cops, one of whom your son loved. You’ve destroyed a lot of lives, Garcia. I hope you’re not a religious man, because no amount of prayer is gonna save your ass from hell!”
With a cry of outrage, Garcia pushed Nick away from him. His face was almost black with fury and tears of rage welled in his eyes. “Do you think for one moment I believe any of these lies? How easy it is to defile another’s name when they are gone and cannot defend themselves.”
“You may see the truth as defilement, Garcia,” Nick countered. “But I don’t. Joseph was a good kid, and he loved you. The fact he was gay doesn’t change that.”
“Stop saying that word or I’ll kill you now.” Garcia’s voice was flat and deadly. “You have denigrated my son’s name enough. No more. Not one more word.” He waved the gun in the direction of the chair. “Sit there.”
Nick knelt by Eric’s side and put a hand on his forehead. His eyes were closed, but his breathing appeared regular. Probably better that he’s passed out again, Nick thought. If this ends badly for us both, at least he won’t know anything.
“I said sit,” Garcia barked. “Leave your bitch alone.”
“He is not my bitch,” Nick said quietly. “He is my lover. You’re not in jail now, Garcia.”
“I saw a lot of your kind in there,” Garcia sneered as he glared at Nick. “They were everywhere, preying on the innocent boys.”
“Innocent boys? How innocent could they have been? They were in jail for Chrissakes.”
“But they were innocent of perversion.”
“Whatever.” Nick shook his head with impatience. “Are we about to have a philosophical discourse on the need for prison reform?”
“You are much too impertinent for a man in you
r position, Detective Fallon.”
“So, bite me. And you can cut the Detective bit. I’m not a cop anymore, just a PI.” He gave Garcia a long look. “This isn’t your usual style, is it, Garcia? You don’t usually play around with your victims, just shoot ’em and get out quick. What’s the deal here? What kind of game are you playing?”
“You’re forgetting the near miss at the cemetery, De—Mr. Fallon. If I had killed you that day, there would have been no need for my coming all this way to finish what I had started. But, since I had to invest a lot more time attending to your demise, I thought I would have a little fun, at your expense, of course. A game, you called it. I like that—a deadly game. One that will end with your death.”
“And how much fun has it been so far?” Nick asked with a smirk. “It’s certainly been a barrel of laughs for me. And then, you got to hear a bit of family history that had been hidden from you—”
“I warned you,” Garcia snarled, advancing on Nick, gun raised to strike him on the head.
This is what Nick had been hoping for, an enraged Garcia, about to lose control and become careless. As the big man swung the gun down at Nick’s head, Nick blocked the blow with his arm and drove his fist into Garcia’s crotch. His breath exploding from his body in an agonized moan, the bigger man stumbled backward, but did not fall as Nick had hoped. Clutching his groin with one hand and wincing with pain, Garcia aimed the gun at Nick’s head and fired.
Eric, regaining consciousness, gasped with horror as he saw Nick’s body jerk back from the impact, then slump to the ground and lay still.
“No,” he groaned. “Please…no.”
Chapter Ten
He was standing in a long darkened hallway. From somewhere, perhaps in a room at the end of the hall, came the low murmur of voices and the sound of deep but gentle laughter. He moved with caution toward the sound, feeling his way by running his fingertips along the wall’s rough papered surface. The voices, though still only whispers, came more clearly to him as he approached a door at the end of the hall. He paused. There was something very intimate in those sounds—a sigh, a soft moan, a murmured response. Perhaps he shouldn’t be there, listening.
He felt a prickle of embarrassment as he stood outside the door, which he could now see was slightly open. With a gentle touch of his hand, the door swung open and Nick’s eyes widened as he recognized Sam and Joseph lying on a bed in the center of the room. They were both naked and totally immersed in one another. Nick took an involuntary step back, yet his eyes remained riveted on Sam’s muscular back as he moved in a steady, sensuous rhythm over the young man who lay beneath him and who gazed into his face with loving, tender eyes. Nick gasped as the two men turned their heads and saw him standing there watching them. They both smiled, then Sam said, “Nick, come join us.”
He stepped into the room…
“Nick, please wake up.”
He was aware of someone lying close to him. He could feel the warmth through his clothes and cool lips on his cheek.
“Eric, is that you?”
“Nick. Thank God you’re awake.”
His eyes fluttered open and Eric’s pale, anxious face came into focus. Sam and Joseph—it had all been a dream. He struggled to sit up, then yelped as a knife-like pain arced through his head.
“Don’t move,” Eric muttered. “He shot you in the head.”
“How come I’m still alive?”
“I guess his aim was off. The bullet grazed your skull and knocked you out, but I can’t see any serious damage. It didn’t bleed much, but you’re gonna have a helluva bruise there.”
“And who said being hard-headed was such a bad thing?” Nick grabbed Eric’s arm. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I came to just before you punched him in the balls. I’m glad I saw that part. But when he shot you, I thought you were dead, and I just lost it. Then he started yelling at me to shut the fuck up. He looked at you, said something about you being hard to kill, and I realized you were still alive. I told him I used to be a paramedic and I could stop the bleeding. He said okay, because he wanted you to feel real pain when you woke up.”
“Nice guy,” Nick muttered, sitting up. “Ouch. Jesus, that hurts. How long have I been out?”
“Ages—it’s after midnight.”
Nick looked around him at the bare room lit only by a single naked bulb hanging from the ceiling. “Where the hell are we?”
“Downstairs, in a kind of a basement. The door’s locked. I tried it earlier.”
“Windows?”
Eric shook his head. “Looks like we’re trapped till he comes to get us… Uh, Nick?”
“Yeah?”
“He said something about you defiling his son’s name.”
“I told him Joseph was gay, and that he was in love with Sam.”
“Was that a good idea?”
“What difference does it make? He’s planning to kill us anyway. I just wanted to put a little crimp in his style.” He put his arms around Eric and held him close. “Just now, I dreamed about Sam and Joseph. They were making love, and then they—” Too much information, he thought. “Well, then it got fuzzy and I came to, thank God.” He kissed Eric’s forehead. “I’m sorry I’ve gotten you into this mess. This is like my worst fears come true. I tried so hard to stop him from knowing about you…” Nick paused, his brow furrowed in thought. “Come to think of it, how did he know about you working at Peter’s gallery? Only Doreen and Rich knew that—and Tom Carradine. That son-of-a-bitch. He must have told Garcia where to find you.”
“Maybe he had no choice,” Eric said.
Any further conversation was stilled by the sound of a key turning in a lock. The door was thrown open, and Garcia entered the room.
“Up, both of you,” he commanded. He trained his gun on them and then handed Eric a length of rope. “Tie his hands behind his back. Quickly, and don’t try to fake the knots. I’m watching you.”
Eric looped the rope around Nick’s wrists and tied it off. Garcia gave the rope a vicious yank to tighten the knot and then swung a length around Eric’s neck like a noose.
“So now I have you both nicely corralled,” he chuckled. He tugged the rope, leading them toward the door. “The game continues, Mr. Fallon. Let us go back upstairs and see what I have prepared for you both.”
In the living room above, Garcia had lit a fire that cast a cheerful glow on the walls and ceiling. The irony of that was not lost on either Eric or Nick. In the center of the room stood a table covered with a plastic sheet.
“The previous owners were good enough to leave some items in their garage that I have found useful.” As he spoke, Garcia unloosed the rope from around Eric’s neck and pushed him toward the table. “Lie down there.” He looked at Nick and smirked. “Let us see just how much pain your friend can endure.”
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Garcia sniggered. “We’re going to have a little fun with your friend.”
“You’re going to torture him?” Nick yelled. “What the hell is with this hokey crap?”
Eric, looking at the implement Garcia held in his left hand, was not quite sure that there was anything hokey about what Garcia intended. Garcia’s smirk grew more pronounced as he waved a pair of garden cutters at Nick.
“No, Mr. Fallon, I’m not going to torture him—you are.”
“Now you’re really out of your mind,” Nick said, struggling to free himself. “If you think I’m going to hurt him, you’re insane.”
Garcia sighed loudly. “If you refuse me my little pleasures, I will have to put a bullet in your knee, then perhaps somewhat higher. So why don’t we start with your friend’s little finger—then after he stops screaming, we will consider what our next cut will be.”
Nick stared at Garcia, trying to determine the next step he should take. If he agreed to torture Eric, Garcia would have to untie his hands. He could stall…
“Okay, Garcia.” His eyes met Eric’s as he walked toward the table.
He hoped he had managed to convey in that one look the fact that he had no intentions of going through with Garcia’s demands. “I’ll do it. Cut me loose.”
Garcia’s laugh was bone chilling. “You see, Mr. Jamieson? Do you see just how deep his love is for you?”
“What are you playing at?” Nick rasped.
“I was experimenting,” Garcia said with a deal of smugness. “You profess to love one another—be in love. Yet, at the first sign of physical danger to yourself, Mr. Fallon, you are prepared to inflict considerable pain on the man you say you love. Of course, I knew all along that such a thing could not be. No maricón is willing to die for another.”