Whistling in the Dark

by Tamara Allen

  And after all the mouthing off he'd done about fighting or giving up...

  But he had never felt so goddamned lonely and it was tying ever-tighter knots inside him. He bathed without lingering, dressed, and went down to the sidewalk. There, he sat with his back against the warm plate glass and watched people pass by. Some greeted him, throwing inquisitive glances through the window, but no one stopped in. The magic Sutton had made was gone, along with the crowds and the excitement and the hope that tomorrow would be better.

  The bell tinkled and Jack reluctantly looked around. Harry leaned out, irritated--and worried. It was a look Jack hadn't seen in a while.

  "'Morning, Harry."

  The worry retreated as the stare narrowed. "You waiting for an invitation?"

  A suitable retort stuck in Jack's throat and he looked away. Harry came out to sit beside him. "Where's Sutton?"

  "I gave him back to his family."

  Harry blinked. "Hold on. What?"

  "Look, you know it means a lot to me, how you've understood about--well, you know. Things. But not everyone wants to understand the same way. And--" He let out a tired breath. "Sutton can't live like I live."

  Harry snorted. "Who could?"

  Jack turned to look at him. "You knew, didn't you? How good Sutton is. That he could be playing places like Carnegie."

  "That's what this is about? The nonsense that we've been holding him back?"

  "Part of it. You knew?"

  Harry leaned his elbows on his knees, chin in one hand. "I knew Sutton needed something he wasn't going to find just rushing off to audition for the symphony or whatever you've had in mind. I figured maybe he was looking for some of that understanding you mentioned. Figured he'd found it with you."

  "Shows you the good of figuring things, I guess." Jack got up and went inside. The old and familiar welcomed him. Always before, it had comforted when he felt at his worst. This morning, it left him all the more lonesome.

  Harry followed him in. "The zookeepers were here a little while ago."

  Jack wandered to the end of the aisle and stopped in sight of the piano. "Don't suppose he'll miss me for long."

  "Woody? He ain't going to miss you at all." Harry gave him a light push toward the office. "Come on. We've got to go over the October expenses."

  "You really know how to pep up a fellow's Saturday."

  They worked through the morning and Harry didn't ask him about the night before or mention Sutton once. When Harry came back from Ida's with lunch, Jack broke down. "You're not going to say anything? At all?"

  "I thought you didn't want to talk about it."

  "I don't."

  "Well, I ain't talking about it."

  "Good." Jack pushed aside his sandwich. "I'll clean the yard since they got that damned croc out of there."

  "Ox already did."

  "Yeah? Where is he?"

  "He and Esther went to visit Woody."

  "Ida let her go?"

  Harry chuckled. "Seems Ida's a little in awe of Esther today. Probably after hearing her sing on the radio. Or maybe she's afraid Esther'll quit, what with all the folks coming by to congratulate her." He put down his sandwich and took a swig of soda. "But we're not talking about that."

  "Esther tell you about all the job offers Sutton got?"

  Harry's gaze went sharp. "Is that what this is about?"

  Jack shook his head. "Part of it, maybe. I don't know."

  "Just because the kid might be touring, that's not much of a reason to end things," Harry said. "He won't be gone forever."

  It would just seem like it. "It's better this way. Better than slipping apart day after day. Look, we've known each other barely a month, all right? Hell, we're not even promised in Topeka."

  Harry looked baffled. "What?"

  "I think we've got customers." Jack slipped out the door.

  They did have customers throughout the afternoon--most coming by to ask about the radio program, a few staying long enough to buy a token, as if they knew Jack needed cheering up. It didn't help. He wondered how long the business would last without Sutton. There was always the old idea of playing records, but it didn't appeal to him and selling never would. It was the waiting. Always waiting for someone to come and buy. The prospect of doing that the rest of his life left him cold. Sutton and Harry both had encouraged him to live on his own terms. If he waited any longer, he would never do it at all.

  During the supper lull, he wandered back to the office. "Harry?"

  Harry looked at him warily over the top of a ledger. "We not talking some more about it?"

  Jack made a face at him before dropping into the chair opposite his. "I was just thinking. Esther'll have the noose around Ox pretty soon and along with a raise, maybe he ought to have a promotion."

  Harry nodded slowly. "Your job, I take it?"

  Jack shifted in the seat. "Keeler's been looking for a partner. It's the sort of work that'll keep my hands busy and my head--you know?"

  Harry kept nodding. "Permanently?"

  "A couple of years, anyway."

  "What about radio?"

  "I don't think I'll be interested in sending anything out for a while. Fixing sets and maybe building some new ones--that's the next best thing." Jack tried to grin--not too convincingly, he guessed, when Harry didn't so much as smile back. "Honestly, it's no good thinking about it now. I can't. I just--can't."

  "Christ, Jackie." That gentle tone again. Jack couldn't look at him as he went on. "Your heart ain't been broke enough this year? You won't make it to twenty-three at this rate. Unless that's your plan, I think you better get your coat and get over to the station before that train leaves."

  "I'm not going. He doesn't want to see me. Believe me, after last night--no."

  Harry picked up the telephone receiver and held it out. "Ring up the station. At least tell him good-bye. Tell him you're not really an ass, but that you just went all noble--"

  "It's better for him than being hopelessly tangled in the mess I've made of my life." Jack got up but Harry didn't let him get far.

  "You're just going to break his heart, instead?"

  "Hearts mend. Reputations don't."

  "Not just running scared?" Harry posed it softly, but the question still stung like hell.

  "He's meant for bigger things." Jack held on to the door knob. Amazingly, it didn't crumple in his grip. "There's no future for him with me."

  "If your dad was here, he'd tell you what bullshit that is. Since he ain't, I'll tell you. Sure, I don't understand all that's going on between you and Sutton, but I can tell what's love and what ain't. Sutton seemed pretty damned happy with you."

  "When he's cut his ties to his family and has no one in the world but me, what's he going to do when something happens?" Putting it into words deflated his heart, leaving it lying low somewhere inside him. "He'd have nothing left, Harry. Nothing and no one."

  Harry exhaled as if he had gotten the answer to a question he'd been asking for a while. He got up and came around the desk. "You ever think maybe that's a chance he was willing to take?"

  "Well--"

  "Anyway, who says something's going to happen? You're doing better. Even Sutton thought so."

  Doing better. The idea wouldn't sink in. Since France, he'd daydreamed of the future without ever quite believing in it. "Sutton really said that?"

  "He said you slept better, so I figured..." Harry straightened Jack's tie and gave it a pat. "Sutton does you good, Jackie. And it ain't easy to believe, but I think you were doing him some good, too. Finding someone like that--well, let's say it ain't likely to happen every day of the week. So you sure as hell can't let an occasional attack of nerves stop you..." He sighed. "Jack, you made it out of France with your life. Go live it, will you?"

  Jack couldn't deny he wanted to. But where would it get him? It took a lot to make Sutton sore, but he'd been sore last night, stunned, and hurt so fierce, no amount of apology could win him over. Not even David could have hurt him half
so bad.

  It was no use even trying. So Jack couldn't exactly figure out why he had the receiver in his hand and his heart in his throat as tried to get a connection. "Central...hello? Harry, what the hell's the matter with the line?"

  Harry put a steadying hand on his shoulder. "Must be jammed up. Give it a few minutes."

  Jack hung up the telephone and grabbed his coat and hat. "I'll be back in a while, okay?"

  "Yeah, okay. That's fine. I mean--Jesus. Good luck." Harry dug into his pockets. "Here, for the cab." Jack headed for the door, Harry stuffing money into his coat as he went. "Hurry, kid."

  Jack hurried, with the terrible conviction he was about to make an utter fool of himself in front of Sutton, his family, and anyone else within earshot. He reached the station at record speed after tempting the cabbie with a generous tip. Lighting from the cab, he didn't stop running until he ran out of places to look, and asked a porter for help. "You got a seven o'clock bound for Topeka?"

  The porter chuckled. "We got a six-forty-five on its way to Chicago. Be in Topeka tomorrow." He dangled a pocketwatch that read ten after. "You supposed to be on that train?"

  Jack's chest ached, not just from the mad running about. He didn't have the fare for a ticket to Topeka. He knew Harry would lend it to him, but by the time he got back to the shop, he'd started to wonder if it would be anything other than a wasted trip. After last night, Sutton had surely vowed to keep as much distance between them as he could. And didn't Sutton have enough to face, just going home?

  Harry's hand fell on his back. "Ring the next station and leave a message for him. Tell him--well, you can figure that out."

  He couldn't even begin. "What can I say in a couple of lines?"

  Harry handed him a pencil and left him alone to work on it. Jack sat for a long while with the pencil poised over the paper while the train took Sutton further away. Words wouldn't come that got anywhere close to saying what he felt. He picked up the telephone and while the line went through, hoped he could compose something in his head that would make Sutton understand.

  It didn't come out like he had in mind. Worse, he was damned near ready to bawl like a baby by the time he'd gotten it out. "Would you read that back?" he mumbled to the clerk.

  The woman on the other end of the line read it with a clipped efficiency that made him cringe. "'Didn't think I could top all the other times I was ever wrong in my life. Did last night. But nothing tops how sorry I am. Never meant to hurt you, honest to God. Please come back on the next train or I will come to Topeka to make a bigger fool of myself.'"

  "That's it. Thanks." He dragged a wrinkled handkerchief from his pocket and something clattered to the floor. The button from Sutton's coat. Jack picked it up, the trace of himself Sutton had left behind, and cupped it in his palm. Sutton had left behind a lot of traces, every one leaving a permanent imprint. Jack knew why it could never have been Lewis or Miles or anyone else. Only Sutton knew what to do with him. There was medicine in music, to be sure, but music was just one of the languages Sutton spoke--and not the one that had eased Jack's heart and banished his blues. If that was love, he wanted no other tonic.

  He had to go. While he believed Sutton still loved him--still wanted to, despite the trouble it was--he had to pack his bags, borrow the fare from Harry, and head for Topeka. He couldn't take another minute of waiting. With any more time to think, he'd convince himself it was hopeless. He would believe he'd had love and he'd chased it away for good.

  If only the goddamned telephone would ring.

  He might have stayed forever rooted beside it, if not for the refrain of a familiar song, a tender Let Me Call You Sweetheart he was surely imagining. After every terrible thing he'd said to Sutton, it couldn't be real.

  Somehow he found his way out of the office, certain he would wake any instant, because Sutton couldn't be sitting at the piano, playing serenely just as he used to--could he? Maybe the shop had a little magic left. But if Sutton was his old spit-and-polished self, it didn't conceal the strain in his face. Jack wanted to burst out with the regret flooding him, wanted to take back every stupid thing he'd said, crush it into oblivion, and fill the terrible distance between them with all the words waiting inside.

  "You came back."

  Well, that was a start. Just maybe not a good one.

  Sutton continued to play. "You still owe me ten cents." He was quiet, with the reserve Jack remembered from their first meeting. His gaze stayed on the sheet music, but he scooted over, giving Jack room to sit.

  Jack did, a small smile on his lips and a lump in his throat that nearly choked him. He presented the button between two fingers. "Take an IOU?"

  Sutton's hands rested on the keys. He looked at Jack, with eyes that Jack thought might finish off his heart for keeps. He wanted to say so damned much. "It's the real thing. Good for a lifetime and then some, if you still--" His throat closed and no more words would come.

  Sutton accepted the marker. "I still." Hurt lingered in the lines around his mouth. "I've always. Don't you know?"

  Jack wondered how to make him understand. "You're on your way up. The last thing you need is a lunatic hanging on your coat-tails."

  "Hanging on my coat-tails?" Sutton looked mystified. "Through everything, you've been beside me, holding my hand. You never let go."

  Until last night. "Yeah, but you know what I mean. You can't look at this like one big romantic dream."

  "I can't?" Though Sutton seemed somber, the hurt had eased and affection warmed his voice. "Why not?"

  Jack let out a breath. He had to say all of it, for better or worse. "Things could go wrong. I could go wrong." He met Sutton's eyes. "I might wreck. You know it. And I can't wreck you, too." He forced the question out from where it had been burning a hole in him. "What if I crack up? Jesus, what if I do? Then what the hell will you do?"

  The gray eyes were gentle and embracing, even as Sutton's hand slipped into his and held on tight. It was one hell of an answer. Jack laughed shakily. He was going to lose what good sense he had left--for sure, if Sutton kissed him.

  After last night, after everything, Sutton did--and Jack had to think looking at it like a romantic dream might not be the worst thing. "I'm sorry. Sorry about every--you know." Words didn't stand a chance of expressing it, so he grabbed on tight and buried his face in Sutton's neck.

  Arms enfolded him. "You'll be all right. I'll keep you all in one piece with radio tubes and blueberry pie and the most unseemly devotion there is."

  Jack sniffled. "Pie sounds all right. And the rest of it, too. I've got a couple of pennies in a jar somewhere."

  "I may have a nickel or two." Sutton drew back, a wary glint in his eye. "You must vow you'll never again do what's best for me without warning me beforehand."

  "I still think it would've been for your best." Jack let out a weary breath and tried on a tentative smile. "It just sure as hell isn't for mine."

  "Such a shady character. You would really have come all the way to Topeka?"

  He'd overheard. Jack felt a twinge of embarrassment. "Your folks would've had conniptions--"

  "No, I think they'll be all right. Anyway, they're on their way home."

  "But you--"

  Sutton shifted closer. "Remember when you asked if I'd ever been in love?"

  Jack nodded. "You said you didn't know." A corner of his mouth lifted, grin wanting back. "Sort it out?"

  Sutton laughed. "Sorted, yes," he said, with a lingering kiss by way of illustration.

  Despite the gladness warming him through, Jack couldn't shake a lonely feeling. "I don't know how I'll get by when you're away, touring."

  Sutton looked surprised. "Did you think I would leave you here? I told them I'd want my manager with me. That I couldn't do without him."

  "You're kidding. Me? And they said you could drag me along?"

  The excitement Jack had doused the night before shone new in Sutton's face. "You might want to stay home, if you're interested in the other offer we receiv
ed last night. The fellows who set up the transmitter for the concert want someone to come in on their plans for a daily sort of radio program like we've done and I told them you were just the man for it."

  "Really?" Jack couldn't take it in. An honest-to-God radio transmitting station, just like he'd imagined. "But I'd miss working with you. Think you'd play for them, too?"

  Sutton's gaze narrowed ever so slightly. "You're going to be awful trouble, believing you've got me wrapped around your finger."

  The front bell jangled a warning and Harry appeared. Jack couldn't help a grin then, one that made his face ache. "Harry, guess what?"

  "Guess? I've got eyes." Relief watered down Harry's dubious tone. "Glad you're back, kid. It'll put an end to all this moping around."

  Sutton looked at Jack. "Moping?"

  Jack's grin softened. "You can go ahead and be awful trouble, too, if you want."

  "God knows you got the best teacher in the world for it," Harry said. "Let's close, already."

  Jack couldn't resist. "Business supper?"

  Harry merely snorted at that. "Your manager's over at Ida's, flirting with the waitress, so you'll have to lock up--" He broke off as Sutton sprinkled the air with a playful chorus of I Love You Truly. Harry made a face at them both. "Ain't you two got something better to do--" Jack opened his mouth to answer and Harry fixed him with a baleful eye. "I'm going." He tossed the keys to Jack. "You and your piano player can close up."

  Harry clapped Sutton on the back as he left. When the door closed, the bell wishing them good-night, Jack settled against Sutton, one arm draped around his shoulders. Still a perfect fit. "So. Pie and coffee?"

  "You have the money for it?"

  Jack shook his head. "But Ida was going to feed me last night, so I figure the offer still stands."

  "And if it doesn't?" Sutton had resumed playing, something new, perhaps of his own creation. Playing softly, for the two of them.