by Tinnean
“Mark?”
He placed a flat-billed cap on the shelf of the closet. “Yeah?” He turned and saw me staring at the clothes. He must have misunderstood my expression, and he nodded toward the jackets. “It’s gonna get cold.”
“Those are EMTs’ uniforms, Mark.” I took my overcoat and suit out of the carry-on and hung them beside his.
“I’ll explain the plan after dinner, okay?” He was supremely unconcerned, and I wasn’t really surprised to find that excited me. “I’m starved.”
“Are we eating out? I should have brought another suit.”
“And you’d stand out in this place like a sore thumb.”
“So you’ve said. Perhaps you should have bought me an extra pair of jeans.”
His eyes were alight with amusement. “You’re fine, Quinn.”
“I thought I was better than fine.”
“You are.” He came toward me, tipped my chin up, and brushed his lips over mine. “C’mon. This place has aired out enough. We’ll close the windows, get the beds made and shoved together, and get going. There’s a Chinese restaurant a few miles down the road.”
XXV
THE Peking Dragon was a small, storefront restaurant between a hardware store and an ice cream parlor. The bottom half of the large window was shielded by a simple dark green curtain. A neon dragon filled a good portion of the upper window, and unlike most Chinese dragons, this one had beautifully pinioned wings.
I paused in front of the ice cream parlor and wistfully read the menu that was taped to the window. For a small town, it had flavors that would rival Ben and Jerry’s. Not only were there five different varieties of chocolate and six of vanilla, but raspberry truffle, pistachio, and butter pecan.
Mark paused at the door to the Chinese restaurant. “Know what you want to have?”
“That crunchy pecan and maple syrup ice cream sounds good. Oh, you mean dinner.” I smiled, trying to pretend that once again I’d been teasing him, that I’d known what he was talking about all along. “Let’s see what’s on the menu, shall we?”
Inside, it seemed surprisingly cozy. The red-and-gold flocked wallpaper was covered with Chinese dragons, these without wings, and a picture on the wall gave the illusion of dragons in motion, soaring and dipping around a waterfall that spilled down to the rocks below. On the counter that separated the front of the restaurant from the dining area in the rear were the registers, take-out menus, and flowerpots of various sizes containing bamboo plants.
The restaurant wasn’t crowded at this hour, just a couple or two and a few families at most, although I imagined later it would have its share of Valentine’s Day celebrants.
“I help you?” A small Chinese woman smiled up at us. She was in a cheongsam that fit in perfectly with the décor. It was red and covered with golden dragons.
“Yes, we’d—”
“You do takeout?” Mark cut me a glance. “We’d like some takeout.”
“Yes, yes. Menu here.” She gestured to the counter and the pad of take-out menus.
I looked over the list of offerings. “Is there anything in particular you’d like, Hank?”
“You choose for me, okay? I have to pick up some things next door.”
“All right.” I knew we’d need propane for the oven, and the hardware store advertised it in the window.
“And don’t forget to get a couple of bottles of water.” He didn’t squeeze my shoulder, just murmured a few words to the hostess and left.
I picked up a pencil and began ticking off items. Wonton soup and egg rolls for Mark, hot and sour soup and shrimp toast for me, and for both of us boneless spareribs, General Tso’s chicken, and shrimp with lobster sauce. I thought again of the ice cream parlor. However, I rationalized, it was winter and there was a chill in the air. Instead, I opted for a large package of fortune cookies for dessert.
The woman read the order back to me, made a notation on it, then gestured to a chair and a cooler. “Help yourself to drinks. Order this size, drinks on the house.” She grinned and disappeared into the back of the restaurant.
The cooler held cans of soda and bottles of juice and water. I pulled out a couple of bottles of water and placed them on the counter, then sat down and made myself comfortable.
I took out my cell phone to check my e-mail. There was nothing, beyond an offer to enlarge my penis and a message from eBay stating someone had hijacked my account and requesting my password in order to clear up the matter. Since Mark seemed happy enough with the size of my cock and I didn’t have an account on eBay, I was about to hit “delete all,” when I had a thought. Mark might find this interesting, and why shouldn’t I let him have some fun with it?
Shortly after I finished forwarding it to his e-mail account, he returned, empty-handed. “Couldn’t you find what you needed?”
“I left the stuff in the car. So, what are we having for dinner?”
I told him and asked, “Does that meet with your approval?”
He licked his lips. “You bet your ass it does! General Tso’s is one of my favorites.”
I’d seen the containers of leftovers in his fridge often enough to know that, which was why I’d ordered it for him.
“I certainly have a large family, don’t I?” I remarked casually.
“Hmm?”
“Nell, those five children, a mother-in-law?”
“Oh, yeah. And you’ve got half a dozen brothers- and sisters-in-law, as well as a shitload of nieces and nephews.”
“Do I come across as the sort who’d insist on showing off pictures of my progeny to random strangers?” I was suddenly curious as to what he might think.
“No.” He glanced around casually, making sure not only that we were alone, but that there wasn’t any surveillance equipment on us. “You’re CIA, Quinn.”
“Oh. I see.”
“I don’t think you do, because off the clock? Not to random strangers, but yeah. You’d carry pictures with you. Didn’t your father? Doesn’t your mother?”
“Well, yes. But not of me a minute old!”
“You’re a doting dad. What can I tell you?”
He really saw me that way? Before I could ask him, the woman came out with two large brown bags in her arms. “I give you tea, mustard, and duck sauce, spoons and chopsticks, just like you say,” she said to Mark. “And two bottles of water?”
“Yeah. Thanks.” He reached for his wallet, but I touched his arm.
“I’ll get this.”
“Okay.”
I gave the woman a twenty and a ten, then folded up a few singles and tucked them into a tip box. “Thank you.”
It wasn’t a lot—we didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves—but a smile lit her face. “Thank you!”
“You’re welcome.” Didn’t the people in this town tip?
Mark and I each took a bag and left the Peking Dragon.
It was still standard time, and it was getting dark. Mark had gotten a car with remote access, and he used it now to unlock the doors. I opened the rear passenger door and placed my bag on the seat, while he did the same on the other side.
“I see you managed to get what you needed from the hardware store.” There were a couple of large plastic bags on the floor behind the driver’s seat.
“Yeah.”
We got in, closed the doors, and fastened our seat belts. I knew he’d fill in the blanks when he was ready. Meanwhile, the odor of Chinese food filled the interior of the car, and my mouth started watering.
“Okay,” Mark said as he turned the key in the ignition and put the car in gear. “Here’s the skinny. I picked up a half-dozen canisters of propane—just to be on the safe side. We’ll get rid of what we don’t use.”
“That’s kind of you to include me, Mark, but we both know you’re the forensic artist.”
“Yeah, well….” His cheeks reddened a little, and he cleared his throat. “I also got a bottle of household cleaner, a cookie sheet, tongs, and a spatula. A kettle to boil water s
o we can have tea, and a couple of cups so we can drink it.”
“Ah. I was wondering what we were going to do with the teabags that were included with our dinner.”
“Ya gotta trust me, Quinn.”
“I do.” Didn’t he realize that by now?
He reached across, and I thought he was going to pinch my hip, but instead he found my hand and held it for a long minute before giving a squeeze and then returning his hand to the steering wheel.
“Why household cleaner?”
“Can’t be too careful. We’ll scrub the place down before we go.”
“Ah. DNA. But what about the sheets and towels?”
“On Sunday, you’re gonna drive a couple of towns over and find a Laundromat.”
“Oh, I get to do that?”
“Wouldn’t want you to feel underused.”
“Underused. Yes, well….” I stifled a laugh. “I appreciate that. Are they open on Sundays?”
“This one is, yeah. Now, as to the rest of the stuff, I brought it with us. We won’t need that until tomorrow, though. Tonight we’ll eat, take a shower, screw around, and get a good night’s sleep.”
“‘Screw around?’”
“Jesus, all the stuff I tell you, and that’s what you pick up on?” He turned his head to grin at me, and his eyes were bright with desire. “I always knew you had your priorities straight.”
XXVI
IT WAS a pleasure watching my lover in action.
He went from window to window, making sure the almost invisible strings of gum he’d placed there were intact, and removing them. Finally, he squatted down in front of the door.
“Gum’s still here.” He tugged it off, straightened, and unlocked the door, still cautious. I didn’t tease him about it. Only when he was satisfied the cabin was unoccupied did he say, “Go on in. I’ll get the bags from the hardware store.”
I set the bags from the Peking Dragon on the table. In spite of the electric heat, it was cool in the cabin, and I went back out to find the woodpile. I might have been a city boy, but Grandfather had taught me to prepare and light a fire in the big fireplace in the living room at Shadow Brook. “It behooves a gentleman to know how to care for himself and his loved ones in all manner of situations,” he’d told me.
While I got the fire started, Mark hooked a propane canister up to the stove and filled the kettle with water.
“Mark, we really need to wash that.”
He gave me a look but didn’t argue it, just emptied the kettle. Once it was rinsed out, he filled it again and set it on to boil.
In a surprisingly short amount of time, the cabin had warmed, and we removed our jackets, hanging them from hooks by the door.
I rolled up my sleeves and washed the cups he’d bought, put a teabag in each one, then reached up to remove the wig I’d worn since the airport. My scalp was getting itchy.
“You… look good as a blond.” Mark’s cheeks were flushed.
“Hmm?” Dropping my hand, I smiled down into the bag and took the shrimp toast, egg rolls, and boneless spareribs from it. I spilled out the packets of mustard and duck sauce, and the rest of the teabags, and then sat down. “Do you want me to keep it on?” I had no quarrels with our sex life, but if he wanted to have me as a blond, I could bear with a little itchiness.
“I don’t need a blond in my life.”
“No?”
“I have you.” Mark came to stand behind me. He tugged off the wig and dropped it to the floor. When I started to turn, he said, “No. Stay put.” His fingers threaded into my hair, and he began massaging my scalp.
“Mmm.” I sighed happily. “You have magic fingers, Mark.”
“Like that, do you?”
“Yes. If you ever decide to leave the WBIS, I’ll hire you as my masseur.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“And I’ll keep you dressed in a toga. Or maybe just a towel.” I tipped my head backward and stared up into his eyes.
“Kiss me!” His eyes were dark with passion.
I curved a hand behind his head, brought it down to mine, and parted my lips.
“Mark.”
“Quinn.”
Our names were breathed into each other’s mouths, followed by tongues, but it was too tentative. I twisted away and surged to my feet, uncaring that I’d knocked my chair over. I curled my fingers into the front of his shirt and pulled him against me, but even that wasn’t enough. I wrapped a leg around his thigh, and there… there! His cock was hard, and I rocked against it.
His fingers dug into my ass, flexing, drawing me harder against him, and I knew there would be bruises in the morning, but it didn’t matter.
I began fumbling with the button and zipper of my jeans. Mark put his hand over mine.
“You’re not going to tell me ‘not now’, are you?” I growled.
“No, but as much as I want you, not on the table. There’d go your nice dinner, all over the floor. I’ve got a better idea!”
And the next thing I knew, the world had gone topsy-turvy as he got me in a fireman’s lift and carried me across the room draped over his shoulder.
I was laughing and almost giddy by the time he tossed me onto the bed.
XXVII
“I THINK you may have ordered too much,” Mark said afterward as he unpacked the rest of the food from his bag. He was barefoot, his jeans were zipped but unbuttoned, and he was wearing only an undershirt.
“We can always have the leftovers tomorrow.”
“Good idea. We’ll have a lot to do, and it will save us from having to go out.”
“All right.” The water in the kettle had boiled almost completely away, and while he refilled it and started it again, I went to the fireplace and put more wood on it. Then I returned to the small table, righted my chair, and sprawled in it, my legs comfortably spread.
He stared for a moment at the vee of my thighs. When his eyes met mine, they were smoldering with remembered passion.
In spite of the fact that we’d just made love, if he was up for another round, then so was I. I waited to see what he would do.
“Oh, those fools.”
“Excuse me?”
“How’d you ever get the name Ice Man?”
“What do you mean? I’m always the Ice Man.”
“Yeah.” He reached for a Styrofoam container of soup and lifted the lid. “Wonton soup,” he murmured, and he reached for the other one. “Except when you’re not.”
I was the Ice Man. That was who Mark had first been intrigued by. My stomach rumbled, and I decided not to pursue the conversation. “Is it still warm?”
“Warm enough.” He pushed the other container of soup across the table to me.
“Mark, I hate stating the obvious, but we don’t have any plates or bowls.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never eaten directly out of the carton?”
“Well… no.” Not even in college.
He said something in Chinese.
“Excuse me?”
“Live a little.”
“Ah.” I picked up a spoon and tasted the soup.
“How is it?”
“It’s not bad.” It couldn’t compare to The Trusty Tiger’s in San Francisco, but for a storefront restaurant in the Midwest, it was rather good. “When did you learn to speak Chinese, Mark?” I offered him a taste of my soup, uncertain if he would take it from my spoon, and inordinately pleased when he did.
“Mmm. As you say, not bad.”
“Not too spicy?”
“I’ve had spicier.”
“Are you going to answer me?”
The water was boiling, and he rose and filled the cups, then returned the kettle to the stove. “You mean it wasn’t in my files?”
I just smiled at him.
He shrugged. “When I was in the army. My commanding officer thought it might be a good idea.”
Was he going to let it go at that? I imagined I could find out more details if I looked into it myself—it wasn’t in my first, c
ursory study of his background—but I wanted him to tell me about it.
“Let’s save the spareribs for tomorrow, okay?” He handed me a pair of chopsticks sealed in white paper, and opened the other for himself.
“Whatever you say, M-Mark.” I’d been about to call him mon cœur, but it reminded me of Armand and his extravagant… and meaningless, as it turned out, terms of endearment. My tea had steeped enough, and I removed the teabag, using one of the chopsticks to squeeze the excess liquid out of it.
Mark opened the carton of General Tso’s chicken and made a show of selecting a piece.
I sighed and opened my own carton of shrimp with lobster sauce. I picked out a shrimp and brought it to my mouth, watching my lover as he expertly wielded those chopsticks.
I’d known he could use them; we’d dined at Chinese restaurants in Alexandria on occasion. I’d also seen a pair on his kitchen counter when he’d lived in Forest Heights.
And come to think of it, I hadn’t seen them since that time. Had they also been a casualty of the explosion that had ruined his apartment?
I’d have to do something to remedy that.
Abruptly I realized that Mark had been silent for some time. He’d removed the teabag from his cup and was staring broodingly into the dark, steaming liquid.
“Mark?”
He looked up at me. “I was bunking with a guy who’d been born on Taiwan.” It took me a moment to understand he was finally answering my question. “Ed Chen. He followed me to the WBIS. He was good. Not as good as me, but….” He raised his cup, and his throat rippled with each swallow. “Stupid fuck got himself killed.”
In South America. Not a pretty death, but that was one of the prices those of us who chose to be in this line sometimes paid. It hadn’t caused much of a stir in the intelligence community—an unknown agent from an obscure agency—