Convicted

by Kim Fielding

  “Aren’t you afraid the desk clerk will think we’re a pair of faggots?”

  “Gonna ask for two beds. And I don’t give a shit what the desk clerk thinks.”

  Des trailed him into a tiny lobby that smelled of cigarettes and onions, and he remained silent while Kurt rented a room from a woman who seemed as if she wouldn’t care if they were gay purple aliens, as long as they stayed quiet and didn’t trash the place. Kurt retrieved luggage from the car trunk and let them into their ground-floor room. It smelled of cigarettes but not onions.

  “This is yours.” Kurt dumped a small black duffel bag on one bed. “Spare clothes, razor, toothbrush… all that crap.”

  “Mine,” Des murmured, stroking the black fabric of the bag. He appeared slightly dazed, like a man just awakening from a deep sleep. He’d been that way most of the day, actually, and Kurt couldn’t blame him.

  Kurt sat at the desk, took out a notebook, and began recording the events of the day. He would have preferred to go straight to sleep, but experience had taught him that taking notes now, with everything fresh in his mind, would make his life easier later when he had to type up his report. He’d filled an entire page and was about to begin another when he glanced up and discovered Des standing uncertainly beside the bed.

  “What?” Kurt demanded.

  “Can I shower?”

  Dammit. “You don’t have to ask permission for everything, man. Just follow the basic rules, okay? Stick close to me, keep your mouth shut around everyone else, and follow orders when I give ’em.”

  “So after I bathe I can watch the telly? Whatever I want?”

  “Just keep the volume down.”

  Des’s wide smile was free of artifice or irony. “Thanks.” He looked as if he were going to say something more, but then he shut his mouth and ducked his head before hurrying into the bathroom.

  He sang in the shower, badly. It was distracting. And he was in there for such a long time that Kurt grew worried. Kurt was about to break down the bathroom door when the water stopped. A variety of clanks and rattles came from the room after that, and Kurt tried to return his attention to his notes, but the words swam in front of him. He probably needed reading glasses. Fuck.

  Kurt was rubbing his eyes when the bathroom door opened and Des stepped out—completely naked. “Forgot my kit.” Des didn’t seem to be in any hurry as he sorted through his suitcase and chose clothing. He must have been used to nudity after years of prison searches. Kurt had been nonchalant about it too, during his time in the Army, but that was years ago. And yes, there was the locker room at work, where he and other agents frequently chatted as they showered and dressed, but that wasn’t the same as being in a small motel room with someone. With a murderer he barely knew.

  But Des seemed oblivious, clutching a pair of tighty-whities and petting them as if they were precious, then setting them aside and choosing an identical pair instead. He had a magnificent body, with a washboard stomach and bulky chest and arms. No sign of impending middle-age spread, which made sense for a man who’d had no access to junk food and all the time in the world to exercise. He must have been gifted with lucky genetics as well. He had exactly the type of meaty ass that Kurt favored, with thick thighs to match, and his cock—

  Was not something Kurt should be thinking about, let alone looking at.

  “I’m getting ready for bed.” He lurched into the steam-damp bathroom and slammed the door.

  Kurt—in flannel sleep pants and an old T-shirt— fell asleep quickly despite the television and the man in the other bed, and only one nightmare disturbed him. When he woke up, early sunlight was stealing in around the edges of the drapes. Des was already sitting on the edge of his mattress, fully dressed.

  “I’m not usually allowed to sleep so late.” He looked pleased.

  “Why do they make you get up early in the prison?”

  “I haven’t any idea.”

  Prison administrators, Kurt figured, were probably a lot like military officers: eager to impose a bevy of rules ostensibly intended to improve their charges but more likely meant to simply make people miserable. He got out of bed and stretched. He wished he had time for a run, but they had a long drive ahead and needed to hit the road.

  “I thought maybe you’d cuff me to the bed last night.” Des sounded light and conversational, but his eyes looked serious. “Not that I minded a bit of that when I was a free man, but that was just for play.”

  Resolutely pushing aside the image of Des splayed naked on a bed, limbs chained to the posts, Kurt grunted. “I’m not going to waste time like that. I told you—if you run, we’ll find you.”

  “But aren’t you afraid I’ll do something to you in your sleep?”

  Kurt barked a laugh. “No. I’m not afraid of that.”

  “You don’t think I’m capable of it?”

  “Every human is capable of killing. Every damn one.” Not wanting to pursue the subject, Kurt marched into the bathroom.

  It wasn’t long before they were ready to leave. Des packed their bags in the trunk while Kurt went to the office and checked out. After they were back on the freeway, Kurt stopped briefly for coffee and fast-food breakfast sandwiches, which Des rhapsodized over, and then neither of them spoke as they ascended mountains and crossed into Wyoming. Kurt kept his eyes on the road and his thoughts on work—mostly—while Des took in their surroundings. The views were pretty enough, Kurt thought, and he even smiled when Des grew excited over seeing pronghorn antelope.

  “Wonder what it would be like to live somewhere like this,” Des mused at long last. No houses in view, just rocky hillsides and vast ranches. “I grew up in Belfast and outside of Chicago… well, you knew that already, didn’t you? How about you? City boy or country?”

  “I’ve lived in LA my whole life.”

  “Los Angeles. I’ve been there. I expect it’s changed since then, but I remember the palm trees. You could walk out of your house every day and feel like you were on holiday in a tropical paradise.”

  “Palms are still there.” Kurt had never imagined himself on vacation as he drove around the city. He wasn’t at all certain what his idea of a vacation would be, since he hadn’t taken a proper one in years.

  Silence reigned for countless miles, until Kurt’s stomach began to complain and his bladder chimed in. He took the exit for the next town.

  “There’s a frontier prison museum here,” Des said cheerfully.

  “You want to tour a prison?”

  “Not really. I expect it’s not as posh as mine anyway.”

  Kurt snorted.

  He found a Denny’s just off the freeway and decided that was good enough. He felt the stares of staff and customers as he took a seat inside, but he’d expected that. Not many brown faces in this part of the country. Nobody was openly hostile, in any case, and the waitress was pleasant as she took their orders: a hamburger for Kurt and a huge breakfast-for-lunch extravaganza for Des: pancakes, sausage, eggs, and potatoes. “You’re going to make yourself sick eating like that,” Kurt said.

  “It’ll be worth it. I’m trying to get as much decent food as I can, while I can. And coffee.” He sniffed happily at his mug. “Lovely, lovely coffee.” He didn’t seem to notice the way everyone kept looking at them, or maybe he just didn’t care. He’d tucked his long hair behind his ears, but it kept escaping. Nice hair, now that it was clean: thick, and the type of dark blond that would probably lighten if he spent time in the sun. At which point his pale skin would likely go red, and perhaps freckles would sprout across the bridge of his nose.

  Grumbling under his breath, Kurt glared at his paper placemat. When he got home, he really needed to have a good long fuck session with Vaughn. Or maybe even hit a club or two despite the alcohol temptation he’d face there. Why wasn’t there an easier way to get laid, especially for men who collected AA pins? LA was a big city. Surely there were plenty of others out there like him: gay, sober, not exactly young, and looking for nothing but a satisfying rol
l in the sheets.

  “What scared you last night?”

  Kurt snapped his head up. “What?”

  “In your sleep. You were…. Something was after you, I think. You made some noise.”

  Shit. Maryann used to complain he’d wake her with his dreams, and nowadays the worst ones sometimes brought Jason running in to check on him. He hadn’t thought about how Des might react.

  Undeterred by Kurt’s silence, Des leaned forward and dropped his voice. “I guess a Bureau agent has seen plenty of things to haunt him. Lots of monsters.” He wasn’t mocking. Just interested and maybe even a little sympathetic.

  “I don’t dream about the Bureau.”

  “Then, what?”

  “I was in Nam.” Kurt didn’t know why he admitted the truth. Maybe it wasn’t worth the effort to avoid it.

  “Oh. Dreaming of being shot at, then.”

  “Yes,” Kurt lied.

  “I expect I was lucky. Too busy running around to get drafted. If I’d stayed back in Belfast, I might’ve been caught up in the Troubles instead.” He frowned. “How did they end, then?”

  “How did what end?”

  “The Troubles.”

  Kurt paid less attention to international politics than he should, but he caught the news now and then. “They haven’t ended. People there are still fighting.”

  “But it’s been so long!” Des shook his head and then tucked his hair out of the way again. “That’s a bloody shame. My family were nationalists, you know. My dad died during the Border Campaign, when I was hardly out of nappies. At least, so my mam said. Her stories tended to change. All I remember is a man who drank and shouted a lot, and then he was gone.”

  Although Kurt had read some of this in Des’s file, it was different to hear it from the man’s own lips. It wasn’t merely intel; it was his life. A young boy deprived of his father and shortly after shipped across the ocean to live with relatives he’d never met. According to the file, Des’s mother had later died—Des would have been in his teens—and his siblings had scattered across the United Kingdom. None had ever tried to get in touch with Des.

  The waitress brought their food and they both dug in, Des with more enthusiasm than Denny’s usually engendered. He poured a lot of syrup onto his pancakes and sausage and smacked his lips over the eggs. “They’re real, from real chickens. Not powdered chemical shit.”

  Kurt ate his hamburger and tried to update his calculation of when they’d reach Florida.

  Of course they didn’t make it anywhere near Florida that day, but they did manage to get halfway through Nebraska before Kurt grew too exhausted to continue. He checked them into a chain hotel and fell asleep while Des was still in the shower.

  Kurt woke before dawn the next day, but again Des was awake and ready, sitting at the little table and leafing through a magazine he’d picked up somewhere. That day Kurt pushed his limits, taking them almost a thousand miles to the outskirts of Nashville. He was glad to be covering the distance, but the farther south he went, the less comfortable he felt. He kept remembering his parents’ stories about having to see each other in secret back in Arkansas, where their relationship would have brought violence and prison. Hell, his father’s uncle, who was a sharecropper, had been lynched in Arkansas shortly after World War I.

  But Kurt had little choice—he needed to get Des to Florida—so he gritted his teeth and reminded himself that this was the nineties and things had likely changed.

  Oddly, Des’s company helped him feel better. Happy to have anyone to talk to, Des chatted as he rode, sharing memories from his youth and observations about everything they passed. Despite all that had happened to him and everything he’d done, Des seemed an optimist at his core, a man who could find delight in something as small as a misspelled sign or a pair of large dogs hanging their heads out the window of a small car. Kurt didn’t do much talking himself, but Des nattered on regardless. The one subject he never broached was his time with Larry.

  After Nashville, the route took them almost due south through Georgia and then finally over the Florida border. But that still left them with a distance to go. “Why the hell did you go to Orlando?” Kurt asked. He’d been wondering that for days.

  Des’s expression grew grave. “Larry said it was a good place to hide. So many tourists that nobody would pay us any attention. Which was true. I know this sounds silly, but I wanted to go to Disney World while we were there. It’s such an American thing to do, isn’t it?”

  Kurt had taken Jason to Disneyland many times. “Did you go?”

  “No. Larry said I was being stupid. We weren’t there for very long anyway. Three weeks, I think. I mostly stayed in our motel room, where it was nice and cool. Florida’s too hot for an Irishman.” He laughed humorlessly. “I’m more suited to desert nights, I expect.”

  “But those are dry. Isn’t Northern Ireland damp?”

  “I think so. I don’t remember, really. But have I told you about my Aunt Molly? She was a mermaid.”

  Chapter Eleven

  They reached Orlando far too late to search for boxes, so Kurt simply found a convenient hotel and checked them in. It was quite fancy, with a large swimming pool surrounded by sculpted shrubbery, and a lobby gift shop full of souvenirs. The hotel also boasted two restaurants, and after stowing the luggage in their room, Kurt and Des headed to the nicer one. “I’m tired of hamburgers,” Kurt explained.

  Des didn’t mind the food he’d been eating on the road, but he wasn’t about to complain—especially when he saw steak and seafood on the menu. “It’s expensive,” he commented. Prices for everything nowadays shocked him, but this place ran especially dear.

  “Bureau’s good for it. Order what you want.”

  Nodding, Des reached for the wine list, but Kurt stopped him and pulled it away. “No alcohol.”

  “Bureau rules?”

  “My rules.” Kurt’s usually generous mouth pinched tightly. “Eleven years sober now, and I intend to stay that way.”

  Interesting. Kurt didn’t speak very much, and when he did he was terse and distant. An agent doing his job. But every so often he let the man show through, almost as if he couldn’t help himself. Des imagined the real Kurt Powell as a prisoner trapped within the body of a federal agent. Desperate to get out yet allowed only brief appearances in the world. At first Des had assumed the professional shell was a matter of necessity, owing to the nature of the job and the fact that Kurt was transporting a murderer. But now Des wasn’t so sure. It seemed to him that the real Kurt, vulnerable and human, had been locked away even before the Bureau had swallowed him up.

  Kurt surprised Des by ordering salad, broiled fish, and rice. “Not very hearty,” commented Des, who asked for the biggest steak on the menu. God, he’d never dreamed he’d get to taste steak again!

  “I haven’t been getting any exercise these past few days.”

  “There’s probably a gym here.”

  “I’m too tired to use it. Anyway, I like to run, but it’s too muggy.”

  “How about the pool?”

  Kurt shook his head. Then he seemed to consider for a moment. “You could go for a swim if you want.”

  “Naked?”

  “I’m sure they have trunks in the gift shop.” He looked so serious that Des realized the offer of the pool hadn’t been merely a tease. Kurt honestly meant it.

  The enormity of it all hit Des as hard as a blow, and he dropped his head into his hands. Soon enough he’d be back in a cell; all of this would seem like a dream, and nobody would speak with him the way Kurt was.

  “You all right?” Kurt’s voice was low and urgent. He touched long fingers to Des’s forearm, not quite brushing against the bracelet with the tracking device.

  Des looked at him. “Why are you doing this?”

  “What?”

  “Granting me so much.”

  Kurt looked bewildered. “We made a deal.”

  “You didn’t promise me anything about steak and swimming poo
ls. You didn’t have to. You could have told me you’d keep me locked in the boot of your car when you weren’t needing me, and I’d have agreed. I’d have said yes to anything just to see daylight.” His throat felt as raw as if he’d been screaming for hours.

  “Has nobody ever showed you kindness?” Kurt’s brow furrowed.

  The waiter appeared with their food before Des could answer. He didn’t know what he would have said. Kindness was relative, wasn’t it? His mam, unable to care for him, had sent him to the States instead of an institution. The Chicago relatives had taken him in when his mam insisted and had let him go without a fuss when he ran away. Larry had paid his way and shared a bed—as long as Des remained useful. The Bureau had let him live. Someone might have considered any of those a kindness.

  But no use ruining a fine meal over those memories. The steak was more delicious than he had imagined, the potato rich with butter and sour cream, the vegetables exactly tender enough and bright with freshness. Kurt urged Des to order dessert, and so Des enjoyed the tang of Key lime pie while Kurt sipped a decaf.

  As they walked toward the elevators, Kurt paused in front of the gift shop. “Swimming trunks?”

  “Nah,” Des said, smiling. “I don’t know how to swim.”

  For some reason that made Kurt laugh—one of the few times he’d done so in Des’s presence. There was nothing cruel in it, just honest amusement. “I have another idea then.” Those hazel eyes were sparkling. He walked into the shop and Des followed.

  They went straight to a wire rack stuffed with paperbacks. “Help yourself,” Kurt said.

  “I can buy a book?”

  “Buy a bunch if you want. Bureau’s paying.”

  Des had never been much of a reader before going to prison. He’d dropped out of school at fourteen—he hadn’t been a diligent student even before then—and when he’d first landed in his cell, he’d struggled to get through a single page. But with little else to do, he’d persevered and gradually increased his proficiency. Before long, reading had changed from a chore to a delight, his way of escaping from misery, in mind if not in body.