Hanging the Stars

by Rhys Ford

  For most people, the sight of a six-and-a-half-foot-tall golden-skinned, bright penny-haired man in curlers and a leopard-print onesie would be unique, perhaps even alarming. For Angel, it was simply Tuesday. More importantly, Justin, the curler-sporting ginger Viking in red bedroom slippers, wielded a crowbar and did not appreciate the Pizza Shack Bakery being shot up like a stationary paper-duck target at the county fair.

  The crowbar came down on the roof of the SUV nearly the moment the driver gunned the engine and its tires tried to grab at the damp asphalt. The back end of the car hit a ridge in the lot’s uneven surface, and Angel threw himself back toward the Shack, grunting when the bumper grazed his thigh. The hit spun him around, and Angel landed hard on his hip. Scrambling to get his legs out of the way as the SUV hydroplaned sideways, Angel hit his shoulder against the doorframe, then folded his knees up into his chest, praying the car wouldn’t jump the cement slab and hit him.

  The SUV’s massive tires chewed up the weeds growing along the edge of the bakery, grinding them into a choppy mess. Justin flung the crowbar at the retreating vehicle’s back end, and the bar struck the rear window. It hit hard, its edge leaving a spiderweb across the glass, but the window held. Another roar of its engine, and the SUV shot out into the fog, spitting loose gravel and torn-up greenery into Angel’s face.

  They were left with a moist silence, fog-damp and echoing, punctured through by their frantic gasps for air and the wail of police sirens in the distance. A gurgling cry startled Angel out of his pained fugue, and he reached for Justin’s outstretched hand, letting the tall man drag him to his feet.

  “Rome, I’m coming in now,” Angel warned his brother as he headed into the kitchen. “You okay, dude?”

  “Yeah.” Rome’s voice shook. “Can I come out? Is Justin out there?”

  “Yes, he is, but no, you stay there.” He wasn’t sure the SUV wouldn’t be back, and honestly, Angel didn’t want Roman to see what was left of the young man who’d held him up just a few minutes ago. “I’ll let you know when. Just stay there and be safe.”

  Angel grabbed a handful of bar towels from a bin. The pool of blood under the kid wasn’t much larger than what Angel remembered, but he had no way to gauge the time they’d spent beating at the SUV. He was stretched out where Angel’d left him, his eyes closed and his mouth open, his body shaking under Angel’s own trembling hands.

  “Justin, use the landline and make sure there’s an ambulance coming,” Angel ordered over his shoulder, pressing the thick pack of towels into the injured man’s wound. The blood was still hot, and the guy moaned under the staunching push. “They shot this guy who came in before they got here. He needs a doctor something bad.”

  “Shit, one of the baker bunnies? Wait, who the hell is that?” Justin craned his head in, the thick spray of freckles on his cheeks standing out as the blood left his face. “Oh God, honey, he looks… dead.”

  “I hope not,” Angel said, checking over the young man’s too-still body. His chest was moving, much to Angel’s relief, but his breathing was shallow and troubled. “Because the last thing he did in life was something pretty stupid. I’d hate to face God and have to explain I died holding a bakery up with a fake gun.”

  Two

  A DAY-OLD San Francisco regional paper was waiting for West when he climbed into the backseat of his town car. Its front page shouted in large black letters about a political scandal West Harris couldn’t have cared less about, but he knew his assistant, Agnes, left it on his town car’s backseat for a reason. Turning it over so he could see the stories under the fold, he was drawn to the column-wide color photo to the right of the lead story. It was bright, or as bright as news pulp could get, an achingly familiar face from the past come back to haunt his present in the worst possible way.

  Angel Daniels definitely wasn’t the same sixteen-year-old boy he’d spent a teenaged summer with. Not by a long shot. It was somewhat hard to tell from the photo, but West could see Angel’s long-lashed eyes were still a smoky gray, and his silken gold-streaked brown hair, while darker now, was still a bit of a wild mane around his hard-angled face. He’d filled out quite a bit, his lanky frame broader, with muscled shoulders and sculpted arms, while his once-cute features were now strong and deadly attractive. Still, no matter how many years they’d gone through, Angel Daniels still looked like he was a mouthful of trouble and a hell of a lot of dangerous. Exactly the kind of trouble West needed in his life when he’d found himself adrift and lonely one sweltering Half Moon Bay summer and definitely not the kind of trouble he needed now.

  West really could have done without seeing Angel Daniels’s face before he’d finished his first cup of coffee. Maybe even not before he’d had his fifth.

  “Shit, I didn’t need to see this,” West muttered to himself, settling into the car as Marzo, his bodyguard and driver, closed the door behind him. Angel’d gotten prettier—no, handsome now, West supposed as he tried to study the photo with a detachment he didn’t quite feel. “Definitely haven’t changed, have you, Daniels? Although I’d have thought by now you’d be dead from a drug deal or something. Instead, you’re now just a thorn in my side I’ve got to work to get out.”

  “You say something, boss?” Marzo asked through the slightly open window separating the front from the back. “Need me to get you something?”

  “No, I’m good, Marzo. Thank you,” West replied, folding the paper back before he fell into a stupid, useless melancholy over idiotic things.

  The newspaper was open again nearly as soon as they took their first corner.

  It was hard not to look for the boy in the man, but there were definitely traces there. The stubborn tilt of Angel’s half grin and the quirk of a dimple so prominent on his right cheek it showed up even in newsprint. It hadn’t just been Angel’s storm-cloud eyes to catch West’s hormone-enraged attention. It’d been the way Angel’d sucked a tear of pink cotton candy from his long fingers. West spent the night trying to hide his arousal, finally resorting to shoving ice down his pants to cool himself off, but it didn’t help much. Not since his eyes kept finding the lanky young man manning the Ferris wheel booth, and he’d memorized every worn spot and tear on Angel’s jeans before he’d gotten up the nerve to say hello.

  But God, that mouth. West’d known that mouth, tasted those lips back when they’d both been young and stupid, sharing an anger at the world and sheltering themselves in the disgruntled emotions that came with being a teenager. There’d been a lot of firsts with Angel, too many to count, and most were now regrets.

  Or at least that’s what West tried to tell himself as the town car pulled away from the curb.

  San Francisco was a dreary wash of grays and beige, lost in a lackluster downpour thick enough to wet the roads and feed the fog but not quite strong enough to wash away the metallic stink of a grimy city street. West stared out of the town car’s window for a moment, lost in contemplation as a crowd trudged across the intersection, a sea of bundled-up bodies spotted with weathered umbrellas carried by the less foolish. The stench of something drifted through the partially open window, a sour-green odor, possibly rotten vegetables or even a whiff of a neglected pond of water. It was difficult enough to parse out the caustic taint from the rest of the heavy soiled stink creeping into the sedan’s interior.

  Still, for all its stench, San Francisco’s busy streets were a damn sight more interesting than the cookies-and-milk existence his twin lived in.

  The car turned and then climbed Grant, passing under the dragon gate and the tourist foam at its base pillars. Frowning, West took a sip of his coffee, searing his tongue. Gasping at the hot bubble of air in his mouth, he cleared his throat to get his driver’s attention.

  “Marzo, did Agnes reschedule where my first meeting is?” West asked the thick-necked Italian man driving the sedan. The window partition rolled fully down, letting the scent of Marzo’s Earl Grey mingle with the strong black coffee West set back down in the cup holder between the backseats. �
�I thought we were at the office at nine for that deal with the fusion restaurant?”

  “No, boss. They were moved to tomorrow. This is the start-up tech place. Changed over to their Russian Hill office so they can do a demo. Agnes rescheduled their afternoon to this morning. Folder’s in the back with the paper and your coffee.” Marzo craned his neck to gauge the oncoming traffic at the intersection, straining the collar of his button-up shirt. “Aggie pinged me before I got the car out. Said to tell you to have IT look at your phone or something because she tried texting you, but nothing was going through.”

  “Strange. Seems to work for my mother.” West frowned at his phone’s screen. “But then knowing my mother, she’d send me messages via pigeon if she thought it would get her what she wanted.”

  He’d gotten at least six texts from his mother, mostly about needing money, and one from Lang asking him to join Lang’s family for dinner that weekend. His mother he’d simply ignore, leaving Derry to issue her funds, but Lang he’d call back personally, once he figured out which excuse he hadn’t used yet to avoid sitting at a table with his deliriously happy twin brother, Lang’s grease monkey of a husband and the hellspawn of a little girl they were raising.

  “Maybe a Sunday dinner isn’t out of the question.” Lang was in Half Moon Hell, but West wondered if he couldn’t be useful in reaching out to Daniels. Hell, he probably knew Angel on some level. If there was anyone who’d know a rebellious baker thumbing his nose at a resort development, it’d be his tree-hugging twin. “I need to—”

  His phone chirruped, and West briefly glanced at the screen before answering. “Morning, Derry.”

  “See the paper I left for you?” His former college roommate and current CFO of Harris Investments growled through the phone line. “Did you see that piece of shit on the front page?”

  “Really, Derr?” He took another sip of the coffee Marzo’d left for him, better prepared for its heat. The brew punched him in the face, dark and peppery with a hint of sugar. Tucking the phone against his shoulder, he asked, “Paper? You actually use the paper to get your news?”

  “Yeah well, sending you a text with a website link doesn’t have the same dramatic effect,” Derry argued. “You kind of need that slap of paper when bitching about a pain in the ass you’ve got over there in Half Moon. Now, how about if we talk about what’s really important—like getting that asshole out of there so we can develop that damned property.”

  “The lawyers say we can’t touch him,” West reminded Derry. “That contract my grandmother cooked up pretty much lets him manage that fleabag motel until he decides he doesn’t want to anymore. And he flat out owns the parking lot and bakery. Have you had any luck with him about selling? You said you were going to reach out to him last week.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Derry’s snort was loud across the phone line. “I had about as much luck with him as you did dating that quarterback in college. And we both know how that ended up.”

  “Very badly,” he conceded. “Hazards of growing up with private schools and tutors, I wasn’t good at reading social cues. I’m much better now.”

  “Better? You just don’t give a shit now, Harris,” Derry replied. “Fucking some twink up against a bathroom wall in a club doesn’t count as a date. You actually have to go out for dinner or maybe a movie. You’re just as bad now as you were in college.”

  They’d been outsiders, both out of step with the other boys living in the freshman dorm, a requirement West’d hated down to his teeth. His soon-to-be best friend arrived at the Ivy League’s hallowed halls wearing a too-shiny polyester suit and sporting the broadest hayseed accent West’d ever heard. There wasn’t any sign of that corn-fed farm boy in the sleekly groomed man who sat across of him at board meetings. Derry’s unruly blond hair was now ruthlessly cut short, and his speech was more of a mimic of West’s own private school tones than Lang’s. West still rather missed Derry’s old nose, but a childhood brawl left it bulbous and broken, not the image Derry imagined for his life away from the farms and fields.

  Now Derry Washington was everything West would have wanted in a lover—in control, influential, and just a little bit eager to keep West happy. It was just a damned shame Derry was as straight as West’s black hair and about as different from Angel Daniels as a man could get and still have a dick.

  “You listening to me, West?” Derry tsked.

  The sharp click jerked West back to the conversation, and he blinked, realizing he’d been staring at Angel’s picture in the newspaper.

  “Did you read the article? Asshole’s place got shot up, and he’s more interested in making sure his customers get their damned cupcakes than getting the hell out.”

  “It says they lost some equipment in the shooting, but a suspect was shot. Probably shut the place down for a day or two.” West skimmed through the article, putting his thumb over Angel’s face so he could read in peace. “Daniels could find it difficult to regroup. Didn’t you tell me the bulk of his business was wholesale? He might be ripe for selling after this.”

  “Might be. I’m going to see if I can get one of the girls to work him over. He might be more—”

  “Not going to work,” West cut his friend off. “Plays on my team.”

  “And you know this how?” Derry’s sigh was long-suffering and exasperated. “Never mind. Let me guess. Bathroom wall at a club or idling car in a park?”

  “Neither of which I do, I’d like to point out.” West returned Derry’s sigh. “Go for the loss of equipment angle. He can’t have a lot of cash on hand to replace that stuff or he wouldn’t be living in a motel.”

  “Could be he’s there because it’s close to work. Right across a parking lot he owns,” his friend reminded him. “That’s like what? A two-hundred-yard commute? And free rent for managing the motel. How shitty of a life is that? Might as well be in jail. Three square and a cot is better than this kind of crap.”

  “He’s used to shitty lives.” The coffee in West’s stomach turned sour, and he reached for the roll of antacids he’d tucked into his jacket pocket that morning. “The motel is probably an entire staircase from where he came—”

  West didn’t see the delivery truck until its grille filled the window on Marzo’s side of the car.

  The hit came hard, slamming West against the divider. Glass pebbles struck his face, scraping at his shaven cheek. Then a wave of hot coffee splashed over his arm, the cup ripped from its holder as the car was pushed across the road. The smell of burning rubber choked West’s lungs, and he tried to grab at the armrest, but he couldn’t seem to find it. His mind caught Marzo’s rain of curses; then the world faded into a buzzing din.

  Caught in the truck’s grille only for a moment, the sedan began to spin, lurching suddenly when its rear struck a hydrant, snapping it from its moorings. A gush of icy cold water pushed through the car’s torn back end, blasting at West’s twisted body. His bones rattled from the hit, and his stomach curled in on itself as he lost his bearings. The sedan tilted, its tires hitting something with a shuddering stop. Then West braced himself against the remains of the backseat as the car flipped over.

  Light and dark stuttered across West’s vision, the seat belt digging into his belly as he caught flashes of the street and buildings between the shadowy clips of the sedan’s crumpling roof. West tasted blood, his mouth filling with his swollen tongue and bits of glass. One caught against the roof of his mouth, and his only thought was of terror and of dying in a knot of metal and plastic on the side of a rainy San Francisco road.

  The world stopped churning around him, and West gulped for air. His chest hurt, and he couldn’t breathe around the fluids in his mouth and nose. All he could taste was the metallic burn of blood, and his lashes were wet, spangled with water, but his face hurt too much for him to try blinking. There was a great creaking, and it took him a good long moment to realize the mannequins in a clothing store’s windows he was staring at were sideways.

  No, his brain sludged a thought
through the pudding of his mind, you are sideways.

  Then the mannequins disappeared, replaced by Marzo’s bloodied face.

  It was good to see the Italian man he’d hired to watch his back. Less good to be coughing up red foam, but West was less concerned about what he was spitting out and more worried about the long trail of blood on his bodyguard slash driver’s forehead. He tried to find something to wipe it off with, but his arms weren’t working properly, and for some reason he needed to throw up.

  “Need another coffee, Marzo,” West mumbled around the glass he couldn’t seem to get out of his mouth. “Spilled this one.”

  “Yeah, don’t try to talk, West,” the man grunted. “Ambulance is going to be here soon. We’re going to get you out of this car and looked at, okay?”

  “The truck.” West blinked again, not liking the scratchy feel of his lids against his eyes. “Driver okay?”

  “Driver’s long gone, boss. Did a runner.”

  Marzo sounded far away, lost in a rush of crackling. West shook his head and instantly regretted it.

  “Don’t do that, man. Looks like you bashed your head in. Just wait, all right? And once we get you looked at, I’m going to find the guy driving that truck and rip him a new asshole.”

  “Just an accident, Marzo,” he ground out.

  “No, boss, this wasn’t no accident,” Marzo corrected him in a gentle voice at odds with his rough face. “Someone’s trying to kill you, sir. Again.”

  “OVEN’S A loss, Angel,” Frankie said, wiping his broad-knuckled hands on a rag. “Cost you more to repair than it would to buy a new one.”

  He was a big Southern man, tall and round but nimble on his feet and a lifesaver for Angel. Frank’d resurrected the Pizza Shack Bakery’s equipment from certain death so many times, Angel truly believed there wasn’t anything the older man couldn’t lay his hands on and heal. Hearing his oven had gone to meet its maker shocked the hell out of him. Angel studied the remains of his oven and let loose the word he’d been holding on his tongue since early that morning.