Graciela got to her feet, patting her sidearm. “Got my permission slip right here,” she said. Inspector Frehley spoke into his radio as he walked from the office. Graciela followed, walking fast to keep up with the man’s longlegged stride. In the lobby, they were met by some of Campbell’s team members and hustled out to an armored van.
Graciela looked at the young men seated on two benches in the back of the van and a grin lit her face. “Looks almost like a SWAT unit,” she said.
“It’s awfully close,” the inspector said, taking the wheel. “Have a seat.”
Graciela slid into the passenger seat and belted herself in. “I assume we’re headed for the Kutters’ clubhouse?”
“You assume correctly. I hope we arrive in time to do some good.” Graciela nodded her vehement seconding of that notion and hung on as Frehley proved that he was much more than a desk jockey. She also clung to her fervent hope that Rick hadn’t phoned at the agreedupon time because he was too busy staying alive, and not because he was already dead.
~ Chapter Fourteen ~
RICK turned to stare at Billy as the remote hit the concrete floor with a flat cracking sound. The cop’s eyes went to the device and then back up to Billy’s face.
“You killed him,” Rick said in dawning comprehension. “Yeah, but it’s not nearly as satisfying as I thought it would be,” Billy said. Rick blinked away sudden tears. This was the person he’d considered letting into his heart? This cold-blooded siren capable of playing hard men like Gareth and Geordie, psychos like Novacelli, and even hot-shit undercover cops? Why had Rick let himself even begin to believe that Billy was anything other than what he appeared? The young man’s fathomless gaze focused on Rick as Rick leveled a gun at him. Billy held his arms out from his sides, hands open, took a deep breath, and waited to hear his fate.
“You’re under arrest,” Rick said. “You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an…” “I understand my rights as you have explained them to me, officer,” Billy interrupted. “Now that I’ve been Mirandized, can I sit? I don’t think my legs are going to hold me for much longer.”
“Get on the ground,” Rick said dispassionately, as the side door flew open. Paul Macross put his hands up when Rick pointed his weapon. “Easy, mate,” Paul said. “You can see I’m incapacitated, and I’m on your side anyway.”
“What does that mean?” Rick asked. “I can’t show you my badge because I’m working covertly, just like you, but my superior will be here in a matter of minutes. So, if you could refrain from killing me until then, he’ll show you all the badges you like and tell you that I’m a narcotics agent from Great Britain. Your DEA knows all about us.”
“Can I call you butter, since you’re on a roll?” Rick asked, feeling a little punchy. “Did you know I was a cop?” Paul shook his head. “Not until I called in about twenty minutes ago. I came here with Geordie, but he knocked me out and I woke just now. There’s a hell of a mess in the alley, by the way. I guess Gareth won’t be standing trial after all.”
“Where’s Geordie?” Rick asked.
“After he cold-cocked me, I have no idea what happened to him.”
“Maybe forensics will find two for the price of one,” Rick said. “We can hope,” Macross answered as tires screeched on asphalt out in the street. “Can I let them in?” he added.
“Go ahead,” Rick said, keeping his weapon trained on Paul. Macross opened one of the roll-up doors and held his hands above his head. In a few moments, the warehouse was full of British and American officers searching it from top to bottom. Graciela spotted Rick and pushed past Frehley.
“Esta milagro,” she said. “How you doin’, hombre?” Rick finally let down his guard and hugged his partner fiercely. Over her shoulder, he could see Billy being handcuffed and marched toward the door. “Hey!” he called out. “That’s my collar.”
Campbell Frehley looked over from his conversation with Paul. “Understood, Detective Miles. We’ll just take him into custody for now, if that suits?”
“Thanks,” Rick said, leaning wearily on Graciela. “God damn, I’m tired, Gracie.”
“Come on, mi hermano,” she said, putting an arm around his waist. “Let’s let the EMTs do their thing, and I’ll take you home.” “I’m not hurt,” Rick said. Graciela looked as though she wanted to disagree with him, but she held her tongue. With a glance at Frehley, Graciela helped her partner outside and commandeered a cruiser. In a few minutes, they were tooling along in the relative peace of the patrol car’s cabin. Rick let his head fall back and closed his eyes. He didn’t remember ever feeling this exhausted in his life.
Graciela glanced aside at her partner’s handsome profile. “Tell me,” she invited.
“Not yet,” he said without opening his eyes. Graciela insisted on helping Rick into his apartment and into bed. When she was sure that he was asleep, she checked in with headquarters. After a few words with her captain, Graciela was passed to Inspector Frehley. “Rick seems okay,” she said in answer to the Englishman’s question. “A little strung out, but what do you expect after what we saw in that warehouse?” She listened for a few minutes and replied. “Yeah, I’m sure Rick will want to do the interrogation. Let us know when you’re through with booking pretty boy. I’m going to hang here for now.” Graciela’s eyes drifted to Rick’s bedroom door as she listened to Frehley. “Yeah,” she said. “He just needs a few hours of sleep and he’ll be ready; you can bet on it. Thanks, by the way. This could’ve gone a lot differently. See you soon, cabron. What?” She laughed softly. “I’ll tell you what it means when I see you, if you haven’t figured it out by then.”
Snapping her phone shut, Graciela tapped it absently against her cheek. It was finally over and Rick was alive and unscathed, at least to the naked eye. She could see that something had happened to rock the foundations of Rick’s world, but the bad guys were dead, or under arrest, and they could go back to their normal lives now. Rick could go back to normal. Graciela pushed away the thought that his normal life hadn’t been all that happy and went to see what he had in the fridge.
“YOU ready for this?” Graciela asked as she and Rick got out of the
car at headquarters.
“Don’t insult me, Gracie,” he said. “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t capable of doing my job.”
“Okay,” she said. “Willem Rosen is already in the interrogation room. Blake and McCray prepped him.”
Rick made a face. “The GQ Twins,” he said.
“Come on, hombre,” she said. “They probably lulled Billy into a false sense of security with their sheer blondness.”
Rick smiled faintly, gladdening Graciela’s heart. “They must really be frosted that the case didn’t get handed to them.” “Now you mention it, I think I detected a slight chill in their demeanor,” she answered as they entered the hall that led to the interrogation rooms.
Blake and McCray were cool and professional as they congratulated Cruz and Miles on the collar, but it was obvious that they couldn’t wait to leave. They were used to heading investigations and it chafed them to play a secondary role to Beanie and Weenie. Rick and Graciela tried their best not to gloat as the other two detectives briefed them. As Blake and McCray walked briskly away, Campbell Frehley and Paul Macross approached.
“I’m pleased to know you,” Frehley said when he’d been properly introduced to Rick. “From what I understand it was your cool-headedness that kept the body count from being even higher. Good show.”
“Thanks,” Rick said. “That means a lot to me.” “Well-deserved,” Frehley assured him. “I’m on my way to another meeting with your superiors. Be sure I shall speak highly of you and your partner. I just wanted the chance to shake your hand and tell you that I admire you.”
Rick turned to watch Frehley walk away. “Your boss is a real class act,” he said to Paul. “He can be a right bastard when the occasion calls for it,” Macross said. “Your forensics people are still working the crime scene, but i
t appears that the drugs did go up in the blast along with a very nice vintage Lincoln and Mr. Gareth Carey.”
“Thanks to Mr. Willem Rosen,” Rick said bitterly.
“Whoa, mate. You’re making a mistake with this kid,” Paul said. “He may be guilty of bad judgment, but he’s a victim, not a perp.” Rick’s eyes didn’t soften at all. “I’m sure he’s got a heartrending story, but he broke the law. I can’t simply ignore that.” “Of course, you can. We make deals with killers all the time in exchange for testimony. Hell, we give some of them entirely new lives at the taxpayers’ expense. Why not Billy?”
“Why Billy?” Rick countered.
“He took care of Hairy Carey for us,” Paul tried a lighter tone.
“That’s not funny to me,” Rick said. “As far as I’m concerned, Billy Rose murdered Gareth Carey, and he’ll stand trial for it. I promise you that young man will not escape justice.”
“The two of you are the only ones that know what happened in that warehouse,” Macross said. “At least hear his story before you send him to hell.”
“He’s going to prison,” Rick corrected.
“For someone like Billy, what’s the difference?” Paul asked.
Rick had a quick, but graphic, mental image of Billy held bellydown on a bunk by a muscle-bound convict with a shaven head and swastika tattoos while the neo-Nazi’s buddies formed a line for the gangbang. “All right,” he said. “If Billy wants to explain himself, I’ll listen.”
“Don’t be too hard on him,” Paul said. “That’s all.”
“I’ll be fair,” Rick answered. “That’s all I can promise.”
“That’s all anyone can ask. I’m going to watch through the glass. You mind?”
“Why would I?”
“Just being courteous, officer. Why don’t you join me later for dinner?” “We’ll see,” Rick said.
“We’ll see what?”
“If we still feel like eating after talking to Mr. Rosen.”
~ Chapter Fifteen ~
RICK looked at the young man across the table. Despite the fact that Billy had been awake for more than thirty-six hours and had bruisecolored half-moons under his eyes, his appeal was still undeniable. Rick ruthlessly quashed the instinct to put his arms around the kid and crossed them over his chest as he sat back in his chair. “I’ll ask you the same question I asked when I came to work for Carey. What were you really doing with him?”
“It was more convenient for me to whore for one man than for several clients,” Billy said, his sweet voice tinged with acid. “Why do you have to be a whore?” Rick asked neutrally. “It’s what you do when you find yourself on the streets.”
“Why were you on the streets?” Rick was unrelenting. “You’re healthy, intelligent, and certainly attractive; why do you have to sell yourself?”
“You want to know why I was on the streets? I hope you have a few minutes, because I have to start at the beginning.”
“I don’t care if you start with the day you were born,” Rick said. “I just want the whole truth from you for once.” Billy gave Rick an odd smile and began to talk, sounding like a job interviewee giving an oral résumé. “The whole truth it is then. My father died when I was four. It turned out he’d never paid the life insurance premiums and we went from middle-class to poverty very fast. My mum cried a lot. She also drank a lot.”
Rick’s face was impassive. He’d heard too many stories that began much the same way. “We were on the dole for a while and then Mum got lucky. She met a doctor in the spirits shop, and he asked if he could see her. They were married less than three months later. He bought her all the liquor she could hold, gave her Seconal like candy, and didn’t demand much in the way of wifely chores. She thought he was a dream come true. He was my worst nightmare.”
Rick had a good idea what he was about to hear and braced himself. “My stepfather waited until I was twelve to start touching me,” Billy said. “He didn’t have actual sex with me until I was fifteen, but he made me touch him. He told me he’d divorce my mum if I said anything. I knew being poor again would kill her.”
“So you kept quiet,” Rick said. “I didn’t tell anyone,” Billy confirmed. “I started doing badly at school. I got into fights. I disrespected everyone in authority. All the usual symptoms. My stepfather convinced my mother that I needed to see a therapist. The therapist they chose was a good friend of my stepfather’s. They shared a lot of interests.”
Despite his resolve to remain unmoved, Rick began to feel queasy. “The therapist diagnosed me and prescribed a regimen of narcotics and weekly sessions,” Billy continued. “This doctor would drug me, and then he and my stepfather would take turns banging me.”
“That’s sick!” Rick blurted out. “Yeah,” Billy agreed. “But wait; there’s more. One afternoon, I was lying in a stupor on his couch with his cum drying on my face, and I heard him talking to my stepfather. Apparently, they belonged to some sort of organization of men like them. They were going to invite some of these men to a party where I was slated to be the entertainment. They were going to let these men shag me while they watched.”
“And that’s why you were on the streets?” Billy nodded. “That was the last straw for me. The thought of all those strangers made me feel as crazy as they claimed I was, and, the next time I was alone, I ran. I had a little money, but it went away fast, and I couldn’t think of anyone to call that wouldn’t call my mum. The night finally came when I had to sleep on the street.”
“Then you figured out no one would hire a runaway, but there was at least one way you could earn money, right?” “The first time I sucked some bloke’s cock in an alley…” Billy paused. “I felt so low. I couldn’t imagine ever feeling lower, but I was still very young.”
“How did you survive?”
“I was poaching on established territory, and I soon met the locals. Lucky for me, they were a lot softer-hearted than they wanted everyone to think. Mick, Scotty, and Ginger had an abandoned building they squatted in and they took me under their wing. There’s safety in numbers, but you have to be alone sometimes and sometimes tricks go bad. I got knocked around and raped a couple of times, and then I got arrested.”
Billy looked up, meeting Rick’s eyes. “That was the worst. The cops put me in juvenile lockup with a bunch of skinheads that had been picked up earlier. The gang took turns shagging me until the lazy-arse guards came back to check on us in the morning. When I got out of hospital, my friends were waiting. They commiserated with me, took me home to the flat, and tucked me in and went right back out into the streets. I brooded for days. I knew I had to do something, or I’d end up dead before much longer. I grabbed my jacket and walked to where the lights were brighter. A car stopped and I got in. That’s how I met Bevan.”
“Bevan Barrow?”
“Yes, Bevan Barrow, the prominent London pimp.”
“This isn’t funny, Billy.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Billy retorted. “Bevan took me home and got one of his women to clean me up. He told me over and over how beautiful I was, how fine, how I wasn’t meant for the kind of animals that roamed the streets and that I deserved better. I soon found out what he meant by better. Better was me in one of the many flats he owned seeing customers by appointment. Better was the client giving the money directly to him. Better was him being able to avail himself of my services whenever he chose.” Billy paused for a moment before he resumed speaking. “It wasn’t long before Bevan realized he wasn’t using me to full advantage. He put an end to my career as an ordinary whore and made me into something else. He sent me to live with what my grandfather probably would have called a kept woman. She taught me how to please a certain kind of man that lives outside the law, not just with sex, but other things. Bevan brought me home and used me as a reward. At first, if one of his men particularly pleased him, Bevan would give the thug a choice between a cash bonus and me. Later, like some Cockney sultan, Bevan would present me to visiting men of powe
r that were so inclined. I went where he sent me and did who he told me to do. I didn’t care anymore.”
“Drugs,” Rick guessed. “Yeah. By this time, I was addicted to drugs. It started on the streets of course, but Bevan had access to anything you could name and was happy to provide me with whatever I wanted. I was using meth and coke to keep me going and morphine to let me sleep without dreams.”
“I wish I could say I’ve never heard such a horrible story, but…” “Yeah, I know; it’s so cliché it’s tiresome, isn’t it? But why didn’t I just walk away? That’s what you really want to ask, isn’t it?” Rick nodded.
“Obviously, I stayed because that was where I belonged.”
“That’s not what Paul Macross says. He seems to think there’s something worthwhile in you, though it’s hard to tell what.” “I did get out of the life for a little while,” Billy said softly. “Well, don’t stop there,” Rick said. “Finish it. How did you go from gangster trophy fuck to this interrogation room with me?” “It’s kind of ironic,” Billy said. “I met an undercover cop.” “And what happened?”
“Bevan gave me to Arthur for the night to impress him. Arthur tried to make a go of it. Even got as far as foreplay before he balked.” “And you were on to him.” “Yeah, but I didn’t tell anyone. It seems to be a pattern of mine. The next time I saw Arthur, he was asleep in a chair beside my hospital bed. He’d saved my life. As luck would have it, his squad raided Bevan’s place as I was trying to quietly snuff it in the bath. Arthur found me and called an ambulance. After all the excitement was over, he could’ve gone home, but he went to the hospital so I wouldn’t be with complete strangers when I woke up.”
“Sounds like quite a guy.”
“Arthur Oldham was the best,” Billy said firmly. “None better.” “What happened to him?”
“He met me.” The young man crossed his arms on the table and put his head down.
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