Zero at the Bone

by Jane Seville

  D sniffed. “Caught up to him a couple blocks away. Tryin’ ta get over a fence into an alley. Drug him back down and he put up a bit of a fight, but, well….” He shrugged. “Just a dumbass kid. Thinks he’s never gonna die and it don’t matter ta him if anybody else does.”

  Finished with D’s cut, Jack just stood there and looked at him. “Didn’t think I’d be saving any lives this morning,” he said.

  “Didn’t think I’d be catchin’ no bad guys.” He met Jack’s eyes. “You were some kinda hero today, darlin’.”

  “So were you.”

  D flushed. “I ain’t no hero.”

  “Well, you’re my hero.” Jack took his hand and pulled him up off the back end of the ambulance. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

  “Ain’t they gonna want our names and shit?”

  “Probably. Let’s get out of here before they find us. We’ll call the police department later.”

  They went back to their car, still sitting by the pumps at the gas station. Jack popped the trunk and got a clean shirt. D waited by the car while he went into the gas station’s bathroom, scrubbed the blood from his hands, and changed out of his bloody shirt.

  He returned to the car and slid in behind the wheel with a sigh. D got in and buckled up, looking over at Jack, who was still just sitting there. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. I mean… shit just falls from the sky, doesn’t it?”

  D nodded. “Yeah. Gotta dance quick so it don’t getcha.”

  Jack smiled and started up the car. He backed out from the pumps and headed for the road.

  “Jack?”

  “What?” he said, his voice clipped. He was concentrating on navigating around the police cars and ambulances.

  “I love you.”

  Jack forgot his preoccupation. He stopped the car and turned to meet D’s eyes. They were full of calm certainty. D’s hand crept across the bench seat toward him. Jack grasped it tight. “Yeah?” He hated that needy little tone that crept into his voice, but D had never said that to him before. He knew it was so, but it was hard not to want to hear it.

  D nodded. “Yeah.”

  Jack leaned over and kissed him, lingering a bit past the point of politeness, not caring who might see. “Thanks,” he whispered against D’s lips.

  D pressed another kiss to his lips, and then drew back, smiling. “Let’s get the hell outta here, doc. Before a riot breaks out or a plane crashes.”

  Jack grinned and pulled the car into the open highway, pointed its nose east, and set off down the road, his hand still clasped tightly in D’s on the seat between them.

  Epilogue

  Six months later…

  ~~~~~

  “Well, looky here! Don’t you look all spiffy in that suit there.” Special Agent Frank Boorstein grinned and elbowed Agent Blansky as their newly minted Academy graduate, Special Agent Ernest Hough, came into the breakroom, clearly trying to be unobtrusive. He could not accomplish this, since the entire office had known he was arriving this morning and had been lying in wait for him.

  Hough blushed, his baby-faced cheeks going splotchy scarlet. “Thanks, Frank,” he muttered.

  “Guess they musta liked you when you were just a pencil pusher here if they asked for you back with a shield in your pocket.”

  Hough shrugged. “Guess so.”

  “Welcome to the big leagues, Ernie,” said Blansky. “Got your gun?”

  Ernie nodded, pulling his jacket open to show the gun in its holster. “I even know how to shoot it and stuff,” he said, cocking an eyebrow.

  “Hoo-hoo! Someone’s already too big for his britches!” Boorstein laughed.

  Hough cleared his throat, eager to change the subject. “So what’s this task force they want me for? It was all very hush-hush.”

  Boorstein sobered. “They’ll brief you on that soon. Who are you riding around with to start?”

  “Uh….” Hough consulted a piece of paper. “Don’t know him. Agent Dane?”

  Blansky and Boorstein exchanged a look. “Damn. They’re really throwing you into the deep end if they’re making you start off with Mr. D,” Boorstein said.

  Hough looked at them, apprehension coming into his face. “Who is he? He must be new.”

  “Been here ’bout six months. And he isn’t an agent, technically. He’s a consultant. But this is his task force and he runs it like a goddamned forced labor camp.”

  “He’s a hardass, huh?”

  Boorstein answered with uncharacteristic seriousness. “Mr. D could send General Patton running to his mama. You should see him handle the perps we bring in.” He lowered his voice a little. “Word around the campfire is that Mr. D’s so good with the criminal element because he used to be one of them.”

  Ernie was looking more and more apprehensive. “And they want me with this guy on my first damn day?”

  “He probably asked for it. He’s pretty choosy about who gets onto the task force. Might be he wants to size you up.”

  “Great.”

  Boorstein looked up. “Oh, speak of the devil… yeah, here he is.”

  Hough turned in time to see a tall man striding down the corridor, wearing jeans and a black jacket over a black T-shirt. He was just taking off his mirrored sunglasses as he headed for the breakroom where they were all standing. “Shit, here he comes,” Blansky said. “Don’t piss him off; he’s on edge. We had a case go real bad last night and Mr. D takes things personal.”

  Hough swallowed hard as the tall man entered the breakroom and stopped, hands on his hips. His eyes were sharp and cold and his squared-off jaw looked like it was in a permanent state of clench. “Where’s that fuckin’ incident report, Frank?” he bit off, his voice low and growly.

  “I e-mailed it to you this morning,” Boorstein said.

  “Coroner called yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Fuck, I gotta go down there and get the report my fuckin’ self?” Mr. D muttered, shaking his head at the floor. “Ain’t like we don’t know the cause a death,” he said, his voice going quiet. His eyes fell on Hough, who looked like he was fighting the urge to fall back a step. “Who the hell’re you?”

  “Special Agent Ernest Hough, Mr. D… uh, Mr. Dane.”

  “Oh, yer that new guy I’m s’posed ta fuckin’ babysit, like I ain’t got enough ta do.”

  “I have worked here before. I, uh… I did analysis before I went to the Academy, and uh… Frank and Jim here know me, and, well….” He trailed off. Mr. D was just looking at him flatly.

  “I look like I fuckin’ care ’bout yer life story? Find out soon enough if yer gonna stick ’round here long enough fer me ta wanna know where ya been in life. Frank, you got review board tomorrow for dischargin’ yer weapon and don’t lemme hear that yer givin’ them no shit ’bout it.”

  “You don’t have to go up for review when you fire your weapon; why should I?” Frank grumped.

  “I don’t gotta go ’cause I ain’t a pansy-ass Super Special Agent like yerself and I’ll shoot who I see fit and anybody who wants ta ask me why. Now you call me when the coroner get his thumb outta his ass, y’hear?” He turned and walked out without another word.

  Hough blew air through his teeth. “Nice first impression, asshole,” he said, mostly to himself.

  “Don’t worry about it. You wouldn’t impress him no matter what you did.”

  Blansky, who’d been quiet during this exchange, finally spoke up. “You guys want to know something about Mr. D?”

  Boorstein and Hough drew closer. “Yeah, sure,” Boorstein said.

  Blanksy smiled. “He’s gay.”

  Boorstein couldn’t help it; he laughed out loud. “You’re shitting me.”

  “Swear on my mother’s grave.”

  “He’s gay?”

  “Queer as a three-dollar bill.”

  “How do you know?”

  “’Cause I overheard him talking to Myerson about his schedule. Turns out he only lives in that loft
downtown when he’s working a job with us. When he isn’t working he lives up in Columbus. Got a house with some surgeon.”

  “Jesus, who’d be able to live with Mr. D?”

  “I don’t know, but he must have balls of steel.”

  Boorstein smiled. “Maybe not. Mr. D might be a hardass around here, but I bet he turns into a teddy bear when he’s home with this surgeon guy. Wait, you sure it’s a guy? If he just said surgeon, that could be a woman, you sexist asshole.”

  “No, it’s a man. Mr. D was asking Myerson when Franco’s trial is supposed to start, because he was trying to plan a vacation. Myerson asked where he was going. Mr. D said that this Jack had a big surgery coming up next week and after that, he wanted to take him someplace.”

  “Oh,” Hough said. “That’s nice of him.”

  “Yeah, we’ll see how nice you think he is the first time he makes you cry.” Boorstein shook his head. “I just can’t picture Mr. D sucking anybody’s dick.”

  Blansky drew back, horrified. “God, why would you want to? Jesus, Frank!”

  “Well! Can you?”

  “No, and I don’t want to start!”

  “You suppose he pitches or catches?”

  Blanksy threw up his hands. “I’m not listening to this anymore. Come on, Ernie. I’ve got your passwords.”

  ~~~~~

  D walked into Myerson’s office without knocking. He was on the phone and looked up, irritated, but just motioned D into a chair. He flopped into it with a frustrated exhalation. He ached all over, and not just in his body.

  Myerson hung up. “You look like shit.”

  “I should look like shit after what I let happen.”

  “I’m just going to record ‘it wasn’t your fault’ onto a tape and loop it over and over again.”

  “That won’t make it any less my fuckin’ fault.”

  “I’m not going to win this argument, am I?”

  D ignored him. “I got nothin’, Paul. Fuckin’ nothin’. I got no clue who done this. I ain’t never seen anythin’ so….” He stopped and started again. “I never seen nothin’ like that before. Whoever done this, they ain’t playin’ by the rules.”

  “There are rules?”

  “More like ways a behavin’ that make sense. Ways a minimizin’ yer risk and maximizin’ yer profit. But they ain’t doin’ that. It’s like they don’t care what happens to ’em, or if they get caught, and that is fuckin’ scary cause you cain’t predict what they gonna do.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s like….” He let the words die off, the ones that were to follow just too disturbing to let into the air.

  “What?” Myerson prompted him.

  “It’s like they’re getting off on it,” D said. “You want somebody dead, you do it fast and safe. What they done took time, it took will. They had ta have the stomach for it, and that’d be one helluva scary-ass stomach. It was risky, and professionals ain’t down with risk.”

  “You’re saying you don’t think this was a professional job?”

  “Christ, I don’t know what I’m sayin’.”

  “You’re about to fall over dead, D. Look, why don’t you go home? You were going to go back to Columbus tomorrow, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah, but that was before—”

  “Go. It’s mostly cleanup and forensics now. Go on home and take your week. See Jack. You know you’re easier in your mind when you’ve seen him.”

  D examined his fingernails. He had been thinking about Jack a lot since the death of Jennifer Nang the night before. It was all too easy to imagine Jack suffering a similar fate, given how close he had come to doing just that. His mind dwelled on Jack, safe in Columbus and blissfully ignorant of D’s torment, and the image of him there in their home, sleeping peacefully, exerted a powerful pull on D’s heart. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Think I’ll do that.”

  Myerson just stared at him. “You really are upset, aren’t you?”

  “Makes ya say that?”

  “Usually you’d fight me more.” Myerson watched him for a moment. “Frank can drive you home.”

  “That ain’t—”

  “D, your car was smashed to bits, remember?”

  “I can get one from the motor pool.”

  “Frank will drive you,” the SAC said, in that not-down-with-refusals tone of voice. D resigned himself, something he’d had to become accustomed to doing in this new and irritating world he’d gotten himself into where he had to answer to people. Sometimes. Unless they pissed him off.

  ~~~~~

  “Wow. Are you entering the Science Fair?”

  Jack just held out his hand for his coffee, keeping his eyes on the MRI scans he was examining. Portia put the cup in his hand and sat down in front of his desk. He took a sip, and then glanced up at her. “Vanilla?”

  “Thought you could use some extra sugar today.”

  “Hmph.”

  “Jack, you’ve been over those scans a million times.” She was glancing over his desk, littered with reports and diagrams and books and scans, plus a three-dimensional model of a young boy’s skull, badly damaged.

  He nodded. “I know. I just… want to be ready. It’s going to be a very complicated procedure.”

  “Which is why they wanted you, because you’re the best. Ease up.”

  Jack put down the scans and sat back in his chair. “You’re right. I just feel for the kid. Lost both his parents in the wreck, the least I can do is put his face back together properly.” He brought himself back to the present. Portia looked tired. “How long did that hip replacement take?”

  “Three hours. Kept getting bleeders.” She took a drink of her own coffee. “When’s the kid’s operation?”

  “Monday morning. It’s gonna be a marathon.”

  “Isn’t The Invisible Man coming home this weekend?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Shouldn’t you be at your house being all squirrely like you get?”

  “I beg your pardon, I do not get squirrely.” He made a face at her. “I don’t expect him until tomorrow afternoon, anyway.”

  “So you’re not coming to Dr. Avendale’s party?”

  Jack slapped a hand to his forehead. “Shit. Is that tomorrow night?”

  “Yep.”

  He sighed. “I guess I can make an appearance.”

  “You could bring D, you know.”

  “He hates that stuff.”

  “Jack, you put up with him being gone two weeks out of four, he can suck it up and come to a social event with you.”

  “I don’t put up with it, Portia. Our arrangement works for both of us.”

  “I don’t see how. I can’t imagine having Andy gone half the time.”

  “You’re not me, and Andy isn’t D. We were both bachelors for a long time, you know. No, beyond bachelors, we were practically hermits. I guess we both just value our solitude sometimes. Besides, when he’s here, he’s really here. I’m the one whose job creates issues. It really sucks when I get called in while he’s home.”

  “Does he get on your case about it?”

  “No, I just resent it.” Jack turned his patient’s skull over and over in his hands. “Anyway, he needs to do the job he’s doing,” he said, quietly. “And if that means I have to miss him sometimes, I’ll deal with it.”

  ~~~~~

  Frank didn’t talk much during the ninety-minute trip from Cincinnati. Mr. D sat in silence, staring out the window, probably resenting having to be driven home like a kid after soccer practice. He didn’t bother trying to draw Mr. D into conversation or glean precious nuggets of information about the man. He’d spent countless hours on stakeouts with Mr. D and hadn’t had any luck on that score so far; he didn’t reckon that an hour and a half in a car would inspire him to get personal.

  Besides, he was about to see Mr. D’s house. Where he lived with another man. That alone was more than anybody knew or had seen, even if he only got to glimpse the outside.

  As they got closer, Mr. D gave him reluctant directio
ns in barely audible grunts, guiding him off the highway just south of downtown into a quaint tree-lined neighborhood with brick-paved streets and modest, old-world houses that probably sold for at least half a million dollars each.

  “Here,” Mr. D finally said, pointing for Frank to pull up outside a brick home with a detached garage. He put the car in park.

  “Well, there you go, Mr. D.”

  The man sighed. “I s’pose I’d get called a rude bastard if I didn’t even ask ya in fer a coffee afore sendin’ ya back south,” he grumbled.

  Frank shrugged. “I wouldn’t say no to a coffee.”

  Mr. D looked at him. “Nor ta getting an eyeful a my private business neither, I guess.”

  “You want to blindfold me?”

  Mr. D grunted. “C’mon, then.”

  Frank turned off the car and got out, trying not to seem too eager. Mr. D fetched his overnight bag from the backseat and slung it over one shoulder, pulling out his keyring as they approached the house. He unlocked the door and entered, grudgingly standing aside for Frank to follow him.

  He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but the interior looked like anyone’s house, if a bit higher-end than most. The front room was one of those seldom-used sitting rooms. It was tasteful, but not showy. Mr. D dropped his bag near the stairs and headed into the house without a word. Frank followed along into the kitchen, which somebody had put a lot of money into given the appliances and cabinetry. It was an open kitchen, separated from a casual sitting area by a long island with the range and sink on one side and a bar with stools on the other side. The rear wall was a row of French doors leading out to a patio; the whole room was filled with light.

  Mr. D was scooping grounds into the coffeepot. “Nice place,” Frank said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Lived here long?”

  Sigh. “’Bout six months.”

  Frank wandered over through the sitting area. Past it was a den that looked a lot more lived-in. A comfy-looking leather couch, bookshelves, a flatscreen on the wall. He picked up a framed photo from the nearest shelf. It showed Mr. D and another man at what looked like the Grand Canyon. They were leaning up against the railing separating them from a very steep drop, blue sky behind them. They weren’t touching but they both looked happy and relaxed, smiling behind sunglasses. The other man was handsome and looked friendly; this must be the mysterious Jack. Frank wondered how on earth he’d ever hooked up with Mr. D. He couldn’t imagine his impenetrable co-worker looking for love in a bar or putting up a profile on OkCupid.