by Alex Kidwell
The bedroom was not someplace he imagined anyone sleeping. The bed was big and brass, coated with the dust of years of neglect. Here was the source of the airless oppression; here was where it’d all ended. Cabbage roses, faded now from what Jed had to imagine had been vivid red to a sick pink, dotted the comforter which lay, pristine, under a plastic cover. There was a lamp on a table next to the bed, delicate lace doilies laid out like tearstains along dark wood. Here there was no worn and weary battered furniture. Here there was no splintering wood or torn upholstery. It was simply held, frozen, while time laid its gray cloth over it and forgot.
“Where do you sleep?” he asked, slightly impatient now, turning on his heel, studying Redford’s face. Whatever he’d been sent for, it wasn’t just lying out with a sign that said “Take Me.” And somehow, he thought old Movie Phone wasn’t someone you wanted to ask for clarification. “This isn’t your room. Where do you stay?”
Redford looked at him like his voice was unusual, like there had been barely any sound uttered in this house for a very long time. There was this fear in his eyes, lurking back there, like Jed was too big and bold, too much, and this thing, this horrible oppressive silence, had to be maintained. “This is—” He paused, taking a breath. Gathering his courage. “In the room down the hall.” There really was something sweet about him, though. Something lonely and wild and very sweet.
But he didn’t have time for it. Nor did he have the desire to figure out why some guy with gorgeous eyes and a hollow gauntness in his cheeks was haunting this place. Not his problem. “Fantastic,” Jed said, spinning around sharply and leading the way back down the hallway.
Padding after him was Redford, nearly silent unless he was listening for him. Jed could feel the other man’s gaze on the back of his neck as he pushed open the door to Redford’s room, increasingly desperate as he searched through things. “The neighbors, you said—are they okay?” Red murmured, voice so soft, not at all fitting with the scars across his face, two thin lines striping across the bridge of his nose and down to his cheek. His shoulders were rounded, curling in on him, and Jed felt a pang of guilt. The room only held more books. Not even a bed. Books and books, all genres and descriptions, even a full set of encyclopedias, which Jed hadn’t realized were something people actually owned anymore. In the corner was a small wooden toy, a carved horse, and Jed let his finger brush down the smooth nose of it with a sigh.
“Yeah. Yeah, Red, everybody is just peachy.”
You’ll know it when you see it, the instructions had said. The only thing in the house of any value.
“You wouldn’t happen to be hiding a diamond necklace or some priceless artifact around here, would you?” he asked, half hopeful, shoving his hands in his pockets and leaning back against the wall. Looking lazy, barely awake, Jed’s eyes were intent under lowered lashes, studying Redford carefully.
In contrast to the innocently shy bewilderment he’d previously been displaying, Redford’s expression grew a little suspicious, eyes darting from Jed to the open door of the bare room. “You said you were here to fix a leak in the pipes.”
Normally Jed would be making a joke about flushing pipes or possibly offering to strip search Redford to find what he needed. But he had that feeling, that sinking in his stomach that said he was about to get screwed with his pants on. Not in any fun way, either. Moving a step forward, eyes locked on Redford’s, he asked again, very quietly, “Please, Red, tell me you’ve got something else in the house. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just—” Cutting himself off, shaking his head and briefly closing his eyes, he shoved a hand through his hair. “Yeah. Leaky pipes. That’s what I’m here for. Never mind I don’t have a toolbox or a work order or, hell, a reasonable story. Jesus, do you just sit in here and get dumber? Come on, tell me where it is.”
Redford’s eyes went round, and if he’d been wary before, now something like actual fear began to dawn in his eyes, so goddamn naive that he’d just let a plumber impostor into his house without so much as asking his name. He moved half a step back, hunching in on himself. “Tell you where what is? There’s nothing here. Just me.”
Shit.
Swallowing hard, he paced away, rubbing his forehead as he thought. He might not have the highest moral code in the world. A hit was a hit, and he’d done his share. But he wasn’t in the military anymore. He got to pick his targets, his jobs, and he didn’t just grab someone for no damn reason. Fil, the bastard, had set him up. There wasn’t some priceless object. Just a scared guy in too-big clothes with really nice arms.
“Damn it!” Jed slammed his fist into the wall, dust sifting down over his knuckles. Redford flinched back at the noise and the sudden violence of the movement. With a sigh Jed bowed his head, closed his eyes, and ran through options. Easy way out was just to do the job. Redford wasn’t a match for him. It wasn’t what he’d been prepared for, but it was doable. He took him, turned him over, and collected a nice, fat check. Which was exactly what Movie Phone Asshole wanted.
There wasn’t a damn reason in the world why he shouldn’t do it. Except when he looked over at Redford, something twisted painfully in his chest, and he found himself already wondering where he could stash the guy until this blew over.
Damn it twice and fuck him sideways.
“You like beer?” he grunted, moving past Redford and toward the door. He wanted out of this house. That was for sure. “I need a goddamn beer.”
“You’re… you forced your way into my house, pretended to be a plumber, asked me if I had diamonds, and now you’re… asking if I like beer?” Redford blinked at him a few times, clearly not completely following what was happening. He still looked like he wanted to turn tail and bolt right out of his own house.
“Hey,” Jed protested, turning on his heel and holding up a finger. “Didn’t nobody force their way in, sweetlips. I knocked; you answered.” And yes, this was all probably a bit much. Sadly, they didn’t actually have time for a heart-to-heart special. “Look, I have probably about twenty minutes before my cell is going to ring. When it does, there’s going to be a man at the other end, asking if I’ve got you trussed up and locked in my goddamn trunk. So you, amigo, have got about fifteen of those minutes to help me convince myself that’s not a damn good idea. Got it?”
If people could spontaneously disappear into the wallpaper, it looked like that was what Redford was trying to do. It might almost work, too. The walls were drab, colorless, and the clothes Redford wore were a perfect match, as if he wore them just so he wasn’t noticed, so he really could vanish into the background at a moment’s notice. Unfortunately for him, the Houdini act wasn’t exactly working.
“I don’t understand,” he said quietly, wide eyes fixed on Jed’s face. “I haven’t done anything wrong. I’ve never been arrested, I—I pay my taxes, I swear.”
Jesus, he’d walked into some kind of Dickens novel. Redford was going to bust out a please, sir, I want some more and beg for porridge any second now. There was an innocence about him, that sweetness edged out with something in his eyes, something darker lurking. But despite his well-cultivated cynicism, Jed believed him. Whatever Fil wanted him for, it wasn’t some righteous crusade. And normally, Jed would protest that he didn’t care. All he wanted was to get paid and be left alone.
Yet he found himself shrugging. “I know.” Jaw tight, he held Redford’s eyes for a long moment, the tick of a wall clock counting out heartbeats, counting down breaths, while they existed just for that second inside each other. He was going to help this guy. Mother of God save him, but he was, he knew he was. A very sizable portion of money, his funding for that grand fishing vacation, and he was kissing it goodbye because of some scrawny guy with sea-storm eyes and baggy clothes.
“Beer,” he commanded wearily, nodding toward the door. “Possibly whiskey. Definitely whiskey.”
Before he could take a step, Redford’s voice halted him, embarrassed and hesitant. “Is this about the noise complaint? I apologized, I swear. It w
on’t happen again.”
All he could do was laugh. It was harsh; the noise caught in his throat, and Jed shook his head and clapped his hand on Redford’s shoulder. “Yeah, darlin’. I’m sure you can really knock down the walls.” The image of Redford causing any kind of ruckus was goddamn high comedy. Pulling Redford with him, he headed out toward the car. “Jesus, who do I have to blow around here to get some goddamn drinks? Just come on, Red. We need to talk.”
Chapter Three
Redford
THIS was a nightmare.
Redford would admit that his brain didn’t work all that well when he was scared, so he’d let Jed pull him out of the house, into Jed’s car, and drive them both to the nearest bar. The Elephant and Sparrow. It wasn’t a bar that Redford had been to before—to say that he didn’t leave the house much was something of an understatement—and he tried not to cringe too much as Jed took him inside.
The bar, somewhat like his house, looked as if it had been built decades ago and then forgotten in the midst of passing time. While Jed strode confidently toward a table, all charming grins and confident authority as he ordered drinks, Redford trailed behind him, nervous, rubbing a hand over his nose so that he didn’t sneeze from the smoke. The room smelled like sweat, old smoke, and older beer spills.
Jed must be some kind of law enforcement, he’d decided. CIA, FBI, something with initials and a lot of mystery. Redford didn’t know much about those kinds of things, so while the idea of Jed pretending to be a plumber and asking for diamonds was strange, he didn’t want to get himself into even more trouble. Jed had said that he was going to truss Redford up and put him in the trunk of his car. Was that legal? Redford doubted it. He also doubted drinking on the job was legal, but what did he know?
By the time his eyes had adjusted to the low light, Jed had already claimed a table and was waving him over. Redford wasn’t sure how to explain it, but Jed looked strangely in place, completely at home among the smoke and dark wood, the dirty floor and the copious amounts of leather being worn by the patrons there. Jed had changed in the car, slipping out of the workman’s jumpsuit and pulling on a flannel shirt, dog tags thumping lightly against a broad chest. And just like that, with one wardrobe change, he’d turned from an innocuous plumber to something more. Dangerous somehow, hard around the edges, and definitely not just some guy who wanted to fix his pipes. How had he missed that before?
Jed had placed two bottles of beer on the table, jostling for space with two shots of whiskey. His expectant, slightly impatient look had Redford scurrying over to join in. “Sorry,” he said quietly, eyes downcast to the table. “I’ve never been here.” Redford eyed the drinks. He’d tried beer once and hadn’t liked the taste. Whiskey was new to him.
This had to be about the noise complaint. Redford still felt so horribly guilty over that. He’d gotten his full moon routine down. He’d had the cage installed in the fairly well-insulated basement of his house for years now. Except the cage was getting old, and three weeks ago a portion of rust had eaten into the latch and it had given way. He’d have to replace the cage.
Maybe it was a good thing that Jed had come. Maybe they needed to round up monsters like him and put them somewhere that they couldn’t hurt other people. Redford hadn’t hurt anyone yet, but surely it was simply a matter of time.
Gathering up his courage, Redford chanced a look up at Jed. What little time he spent among other people was mostly spent avoiding their eyes, but Jed seemed to want to look into his. It was unnerving, and a whole lot surprising, because Redford had never seen anybody with eyes so green before. They reminded him of the forests he’d seen pictures of, of lush vegetation and dew-dappled leaves. Redford had always wondered what it would be like to visit one, to see something that achingly vibrant in person. He had a sneaking suspicion now, that it would be a little bit like staring into Jed’s eyes, that same tight leap in his gut, the same whirling heat in his chest, the awe and the longing and the strange rush of want.
“You’ve never been here?” Jed’s voice was like his personality, boisterous and demanding, flashing that smile around like he’d never been scared of anything in his life. It wasn’t all real, though. Something hid behind it, barely peeping around fraying edges. Redford might not get out much, might not even understand his fellow people too well, but even he could see behind Jed’s grin. Jed shifted forward on his chair, elbows propped on the worn wooden table, and knocked back his shot, chasing it with beer. “Jesus, it’s five steps from your house. I thought everyone went to their local bar. Isn’t it a rule, like wearing socks with sandals once you get past sixty?”
Long fingers fidgeted with the beer bottle, and Jed kept glancing away, toward the door. All that confidence, and yet Redford would have sworn he smelled nervous underneath the heady pine that was him, green and fresh, underscored by a sharp scent, like a candle wick that had just been lit. “So. About today. You don’t happen to have any enemies or anything, do you? Someone who’d, I don’t know, want to pay an unscrupulous bastard a nice chunk of change to whisk you away?”
Considering his answer, Redford reached out toward the small shot glass, raising it to his lips to take a hesitant sip. It burned, and he didn’t miss the amused look flashing across Jed’s face as he coughed, startled at the sensation. “No,” Redford croaked, rubbing his throat, frowning. “I’ve never been here. I don’t think it’s a rule. I don’t have any enemies.”
Jed talked a lot, and it was honestly a little difficult to keep up with him. He’d asked about four different questions right then, interspersed with his own commentary on his life and how things should go. As far as Redford was aware, no, nobody should be paying anybody to kidnap him.
The idea seemed to sink in right then, and Redford’s head shot up, wide eyes fixed on Jed’s. He’d been temporarily distracted by the horrible taste and burn of the whiskey. He wasn’t going to be drinking that again any time soon. “Somebody paid you to kidnap me? Who? What—what did I do?”
Jed’s hand, warm and solid, settled over his, fingers curling around his own. “Hey,” Jed said quietly, a dent curving between his eyebrows, concern and worry settling into the green depths of his eyes. “It’s okay. Whatever it is, I’ll help you figure it out.”
The touch lingered a moment before Jed pulled back, something else flashing across his face as he rubbed his chin and muttered to himself, “Jesus, I don’t know why I’m doing this.” Louder then, back to Redford, “Okay, look, I… do things. For people. It’s a kind of jack-of-all-trades thing. And two days ago, I got a call. Someone calling himself Fil hired me to acquire something at your address. That’s all I got so far, but I’m pretty sure this is low-key. I’ll just call the guy up and tell him no deal. Okay?”
Fil. Redford didn’t know that name, had never heard of somebody called that before. But someone named Fil had hired Jed to, what, kidnap him? Steal something from his house? That was why Jed had asked about diamonds. Well, Redford definitely didn’t have any kind of diamonds in his house.
“Okay,” he agreed tentatively, settling his hands on his lap. The skin where Jed had touched him was still warm. Redford didn’t know what it meant, but he rubbed a thumb over the patch anyway, frowning slightly. “He really didn’t say anything specific?” If he was going to have enemies, he’d like to know why, but apparently even the man hired to kidnap him or steal from him didn’t know why.
Shrugging, still with his gaze darting around the room, never landing on any one person for long but picking them all out, one by one, Jed took another long drink of his beer. “All the e-mail said was he’d lost something, and he was hiring me to get it back.” Jed’s gaze finally landed back on Redford. “Maybe it’d be a good idea if you stayed with me for a few days. The guy who called… let’s just say I’ve got a feeling of the not so great variety, okay? I think it might be wise if you weren’t at home until I fix this.”
“What?” Redford yelped, forcing himself to lower his voice to a whisper when he contin
ued, “I’m not going anywhere with you! You—you—” Taking a deep breath, Redford tried to calm himself.
It was okay. He was okay, he told himself. This wasn’t anything to be scared over. Just a strange man that had come into his place with the intention of kidnapping him, hired by an even stranger man, for reasons unknown. This Fil person had lost something and wanted it back. Redford had no clue what he meant. “For all I know, this is just a way of kidnapping me,” he finished, beginning to desperately wish he’d taken some sort of self-defense class.
He had to get out of here—Redford knew that, at least. It didn’t matter that Jed had extremely nice eyes. He had to leave, because if Jed was tricking him, then common sense said that Redford should immerse himself in the safety of numbers for a while. Though the idea scared him, nobody could kidnap him in public, right?
“Well, yeah.” There was that smile again, lopsided and charming. Jed leaned back in his chair, arms behind his head, muscles pulling lightly under the flannel shirt he wore. “But the devil you know, right?”
Caught halfway in the act of getting out of his chair, Redford froze in the awkward position before slowly sinking back down to sit. Logic was a cruel mistress, and unfortunately Jed was right. He knew, at least, that Jed had not made a single violent move toward him yet. He’d even reassured him when he was nervous, being completely open about this “job.”
“So tell me this,” Jed drawled conversationally, and Redford didn’t know if Jed was just distracting him so that he didn’t leave or if he was genuinely curious. “That bedroom in your house. Didn’t peg you for a roses-and-doilies kind of guy.”
“I’m not.” Redford’s reply was murmured, and he’d assume it had been too quiet if he didn’t see that Jed obviously heard. “It belonged to my grandmother. She died ten years ago. She raised me since I was little. I never wanted to go in there and mess it up.”