by Riley, A. M.
with my excuses as I shouldered open the door. Something along the lines of
“disoriented upon finding himself in a morgue” or something.
8
A. M. Riley
Up the two flights of stairs, and of course somebody had left the door
propped open. I saw the man probably responsible for this little security
violation, standing outside having a smoke. He kind of turned his head as I
passed, but my legs were made of lightning and before he could even open his
mouth, I'd rounded the corner, leaped through the ivy, and was over the
Hurricane fencing and halfway down the block.
I paused to look down in surprise at my bad knee. Near death experiences
seemed to suit it because it was working like a kid's knee. Like the seventeen-
year-old tight end's knee it had been long ago.
East Los Angeles is no place to be without cash or credit cards, wearing a
dead man's clothes, especially in the middle of the night, so the first thing I
thought was I needed to call a friend and get out of there. Of course, the
problem with that was having a friend to call. So then I thought of Peter. Peter
who just never seemed able to say no.
We all have a Peter. Even mofobags like me have that friend who always
gets the one phone call from jail. Yeah. For me, that's Peter.
It took me three pay phones before I found one that still worked and
placed a collect call “to Peter from Adam.”
As soon as the operator announced the caller, Peter cursed and hung up.
Oh, right, Peter thought I was dead. So I called again, except now, while
the operator was telling him that this was a collect call for Peter from Adam, I
spoke over her. “Hey Pete, it's me. I know you think I'm dead but—”
He hung up.
This obviously was not going to work. I looked around. I was steps from
the 101 freeway overpass, the feet of the thick concrete pylons used as
makeshift beds for sleeping street persons. Looking more like trash and
bundles of rags there in the shadows. It was not my proudest moment, okay,
but I was desperate.
“Hey, gimme your cash.”
Immortality is the Suck
9
The poor guy looked up at me with one eye. The other eye didn't seem able
to open. His semitoothless mouth gaped as I just searched his pockets until I
found a few bucks and some change.
Then I jogged back down to the UCLA medical center and waited at the
bus stop with a couple teenagers in colors, a night shift nurse still wearing
scrubs, and some goon who stank worse than the morgue, and took the bus
headed toward Venice, where Peter lived.
10
A. M. Riley
Chapter Three
Peter and I had a history. I sat on the bus, while it made its slow, lurching
way down Wilshire Boulevard and let myself dwell on that. Thinking about
what sort of reception I might expect. Because, you'll remember, Peter was
there when the LAPD closed in to arrest me. Or, I suspected, they would have
closed in if I hadn't bled out there in his arms.
Peter crying and begging me not to die should have warmed the cockles of
my heart, I guess, but mostly it worried me.
Because when I say history, I mean it in every sense of the word. I'm
talking a proverbial encyclopedia's worth of history between us.
Peter and I met at the police academy. I was out of the Marines, battle
scarred literally and figuratively. I won't go into why I mustered out, but let's
just say it was a mutual decision. There's not a hell of a lot of options for ex-
military, despite what you see on the recruitment ads, so when I heard the
LAPD was bringing in a “New Wave” of officers, I decided to give it a shot.
I passed the academy entrance exam by the skin of my teeth. An 80
percent, when the lowest possible score was an 80 percent. Peter, on the other
hand, was straight out of the UC school system with a degree in criminal
justice. He'd probably passed the academy exam with one eye shut.
We shouldn't have been best buddies, but Peter, bless him, had glommed
onto me that first week and had stuck like glue ever since.
“How's it going?” I looked up from my book. The young, buff, golden boy I'd
noticed that first day stood on the other side of the library table. LAPD blue polo
Immortality is the Suck
11
shirt stretched over hard round muscles. Strong neck, square chin, dark blue
eyes. He smiled.
I covered my paper with its erasures and unfinished equations and said,
“Great.”
A hand across the oak table. “Peter.” We exchanged greetings. “You know,”
he said, pulling out a chair and straddling it, “you're gonna be top of our class in
ballistics.”
The rifle range was the only place I didn't feel like an idiot. “I've got a leg up,
I guess. Been using a gun for five years now.”
That steady gaze. Peter could make you feel like he read your soul.
“Marines or Navy?”
I felt a smile crack my face for the first time in days. “I'm no squid.”
“Where were you stationed?”
“Used to be a little village in Afghanistan called 'Timba.' Now it's called 'pile
of rubble.'”
Years later, those dark blue eyes searching mine could still make something
turn over inside me. “That where you got that scar on your knee?”
He must have noticed it when we were doing our laps. I felt an
unaccustomed warmth beginning in my chest and rising. “I was lucky the docs
were able to paste me back together. It's ugly, but it works fine.”
“It's not ugly. Bet all the ladies think your war wound is sexy.”
I let my gaze drop to my paper. “Listen, I've got to get this done.”
A pause. I could feel him gazing at the top of my lowered head. “I had stats
the last year of college,” he said. “So this time is like a review for me. Tell you
what. I'll help you with the stats if you give me a few pointers on the range?”
I looked up and he was giving me another one of those smiles. I found
myself smiling back. “Deal,” I said.
Peter was probably half the reason I'd made it to graduation. We'd stayed
in touch afterward. Even when we'd been assigned to beats on opposite sides of
12
A. M. Riley
town, we still met once a week for a dinner or to watch a game. Peter was why
I'd headed straight for Homicide too, if I were to be honest. He and I studied for
the exam together and he was, once again, one of the main reasons I passed.
Don't get me wrong. I was a pretty good cop. The LAPD sets a standard,
just like the Marines. And, just like the Marines, I knew exactly how far I could
push it before it became a problem. I took care to never push it that far.
But Peter was always headed for glory. He was a supercop. And me, well,
the highlight of my career was those few years I partnered with Peter in
Homicide. Then, I drifted into Vice, where I found a calling working undercover.
And that's when it all started heading south.
Just to be clear, the LAPD does not indulge undercover officers in the use
and abuse of drugs. But over the course of the next five years, I became adept
at the
utilization of loopholes, a line here, a snort there, until one day I woke
up and I was hooked. I still busted bad guys, but I was circling the drain. It all
came to a head one day when Peter dropped by my place unannounced and
found me on the floor with a needle in my arm.
Short story long, he gave me an ultimatum. Clean up and come clean with
the head of Vice, and he'd be there for me. Keep up what I was doing and he'd
walk away. He sat me through withdrawal and maybe he thought he'd
accomplished something. Maybe he had. I wasn't what you'd call clean, but I'd
kicked the crack and that was saying something.
The chief of Vice hadn't been what you might call supportive but they were
decent enough to treat me like they would any officer wounded in the line of
duty. I'd been on a three-month leave when the Bureau of Alcohol and
Firearms had approached the chief of Vice with a proposition. Same short story
even longer, that's what had led to me infiltrating the Mongol Outlaw
Motorcycle Gang. I was perfect. I knew the distributors; I was in trouble with
the law. The OMG embraced my evil ass. Which took me to the present day.
Thing was, between Peter and me, there was the other history. The one in
which I'd show up at his door, unannounced, and no matter what, no matter
Immortality is the Suck
13
when, Peter would let me in and we'd do it on the floor, against the walls, and
in the shower for a few days and then I'd split.
These days I guess they'd call us fuck buddies. Peter was the man you
called when you woke up in a jail in Tijuana, the one who came out in the rain
when your ride blew a flat on the 110. The two a.m. booty call.
Peter crying while yours truly met his justified sorry end? Was a
disturbing occurrence and one to contemplate with due consideration.
But then the bus halted at my stop and I jumped out instead.
Down by the Santa Monica Pier, along the bluff's edge, there's a walkway
that's always thick with pedestrians, dog-walkers, and bums. I blended into the
flow, moving southward toward Venice where Peter lived.
I was still hopped up, muscles tight and fast, and I was horny as an old
goat. Maybe it was the fight, maybe it was thinking about Peter, or maybe it
was the whole “nearly dead” thing, but my cock seemed to feel an imperative
need to shoot its proverbial wad, and so, as I cruised down the boardwalk, I
was also cruising the occasional tight little bit of flagrant fanny that walked by.
Finally a guy I was staring at stared back and held my gaze, and I was
doing a u-ey without a second thought and following him instead of heading to
Peter's.
He was young, maybe midtwenties. Long, messy blond hair, loose T-shirt,
cut short so I could see his ass twitch as he walked. Slacks loose and too big
for him, held up by a belt. Of course he knew I was following him. He idled at
the light, crossed, and walked slowly down the sidewalk, ostensibly window-
shopping, then quick as a wink, he hung a left and disappeared into a narrow
passage between two buildings.
I'll bet you're thinking how dangerous this is. How risky. See, that's what
I've always liked about tricks. I never know what might happen. And that little
bit of apprehension is all it takes to push me into the zone.
14
A. M. Riley
This time when I came around the corner, I saw exactly what I was hoping
to see. Big recycling barrel, crumbling concrete wall, topped by barbed wire
fencing. And blondie, leaning against a railing so that his hips thrust forward
provocatively, grinning at me as I sauntered up.
“Hey,” he said.
I nodded, giving his lean body an appreciative once-over. “Hey,” I said.
Small talk accomplished, he unbuckled that big belt and dropped his
pants. He was commando, unshaved. I could see that the blond on his head
came from a bottle. His pubes were dark and glossy. From them, like the
stamen from the throat of an ebony flower, jutted a sweet little pale prick. I
licked my lips and undid my jeans. Watching him stroke himself, his prick
lifting and filling.
“I don't have a glove,” I told him, pushing my zipper away from my
straining dick.
He reached into a breast pocket and tossed me a foil packet. All right
then.
Then he turned around, showing me a high tight boy's butt, and I was out
and sheathed and pressing myself in just like that.
The guy grunted and grabbed hold of the brick wall with one hand and the
railing with the other. It was so good, I disappeared into it. Holding his hips in
both hands so that he was up on his toes, my hips pumped like a piston, like a
locomotive, hard and fast.
God it's the best, absolutely the best, fuck I've ever had.
“Jesus Christ,” the guy said. And I realized I had him up off the ground.
Then I was coming up that tight bum, so hard I saw the proverbial light.
Christ. Gasping for breath, I staggered back and heard blondie curse.
Belatedly, I realized that I'd just dropped him. He was sprawled there, pants
down, half holding himself up against the wall. Staring at me like I was crazy.
Immortality is the Suck
15
“Sorry,” I said. I helped him stand up, looking him over. His prick was
limp and spunk drooled down his right leg. He looked dazed.
“Jesus,” he said again. “What are you on, man?”
“Did I hurt you?”
“Hurt me? Fuck.” He shook his head as if to clear his brain. “I think my
prostate saw God, man.”
I decided to take that as a compliment. “Okay, then, see you around.”
Because I'd remembered Peter by that time, so I took off down the alley. When I
looked back, he was still staring at me.
* * * * *
I figured the first thing I was going to do when I got into Peter's place was
eat something. I was so hungry my stomach felt like a live animal was in there,
gnawing away at me. I had those shakes you get when your blood sugar is
crashing and, weirdly, I was horny again.
Peter's condominium was in one of those old mission-style courtyards,
with a security gate installed in the original arched doorway. I pressed his
number on the call box installed outside.
“Hello, it's me,” I announced to the machine. “Let me in, man. I need to
talk to you about the situation I'm in.”
Nothing.
I jogged around to the back where the garages are lined up on an alley.
Through a grimed, painted shut little window, I could see Peter's Mustang,
parked next to the old beat-up Caddy he used when he went to those places in
Los Angeles the 'Stang was too pretty to go. So I went around to the front and
pressed the bell again.
“Peter, I know you're home.”
Even if he didn't pick up, Peter would press the buzzer to let me in. Under
almost any circumstances. So I pressed the bell again.
16
A. M. Riley
“Peter, fuck it, man. Let me in.”
The buzzer didn't sound that would release the lock on the gate, but a
minute later, footsteps thundered on the concrete stairwell off to the left of the
do
or and Peter appeared. Red in the face, he hit the gate and yelled, “What
the…” Then he staggered back, staring.
There's a fountain set into the wall opposite the gate. One of those jobbies
you might see in Mexico, with multicolored tiles and a bowl shaped like a fat
flower, and Peter almost fell into it, backing away from me. One of his hands
went out and grabbed the lip on the fountain, splashing water, and his mouth
opened and closed like a fish gasping for air.
I waved.
Peter kept going whiter and whiter, gasping as if he couldn't catch his
breath. He looked like shit, quite honestly. In his boxers and a filthy T-shirt.
Looked like he hadn't shaved. His eyes were red and swollen and when he
wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, he swayed a bit, like he'd been
drinking.
“You going to let me in?” I said.
“Who are you?” he whispered.
Now it was getting ridiculous. “I'm cold. I'm hungry. I haven't got a sou on
me and you're the only person I could think of.”
The look on his face as he opened the gate was one I'd never seen before. I
didn't know if he was going to hit me, kiss me, or throw up on my shoes. He
chose none of the above. Just put his hand over his eyes, turning and
stumbling up the stairs to his apartment.
“Peter!” I yelled to his retreating back. But he ignored me.
When he arrived back at the door to his condo, he slammed it in my face. I
waited a minute, but he didn't come back to open it and when I tried the
handle, I found it locked.
Immortality is the Suck
17
I knocked on the door for a long time. Peter finally came and opened it. He
just stood there and stared at me and then he said, “Figures,” and turned
around and walked back into his place. I followed.
Peter's a meticulous kind of guy, but the place was trashed. Beer bottles
all over the living room, blanket on the sofa like he'd been sleeping there. Peter
went over to his little kitchenette bar and picked up an eight-ounce glass with
