“Sure.” Yamane watched as Rory finished dressing his wound and taped off the bandage. Rory was looking at him with such an expression of devotion that Yamane had to look away.
“Yamane, I just want you to know I’ve never been as happy as I am here with you,” he said. “I wish I could freeze time and just stay here forever.”
“Me too,” Yamane whispered. “I feel the same way.”
Rory took Yamane’s hand in his and shyly pressed a kiss onto his injured palm. Folding Yamane’s fingers gently over it, he said, “Here, that’s for you, for now.”
Ethan Calderon headed for the back of the sprawling Palm Desert estate, looking for his boss. “Where is she?” he asked two men who sat idly in the game room on the way out to the sun-drenched patio. One of the men jerked his head toward the pool house.
“I wouldn’t piss her off right now, though. Matt’s in the hospital getting stitches, She’s still postal about that mess up in Long Beach.”
“Yeah, well. I’ve got something that she’ll like this time.” He waved a piece of fax paper in his hand. He ran across the terrace and knocked on the pool house door.
“Come,” Amelia Gianfranco shouted over the sound of some ear-piercing kind of kiddie music. He got a good look around when he walked through the door and wished again he’d finished up law school after he quit the force. Working as a PI didn’t pay enough, and he knew damn well what he was doing here could cost someone his life. “I’ve got him,” he told the woman, turning his back on his conscience once and for all. “They vetted the boy toy to play the high-limit tables at the Venetian. What do you want to do?”
13
Rory finalized plans for Mystère with the concierge and was just shaking the man’s hand when a newlywed couple entered the lobby in their wedding clothes, followed by a large group of festive-looking men and women. Yamane watched them.
“Cute, aren’t they?” Rory asked. “They look younger than me.”
“I can’t imagine. I wonder if I believe in love.”
“Everyone believes in love, Yamane. I just think people lose hope, is all.” Yamane looked at the bride, radiant in her modest white dress.
“We could crash their reception and dance,” Rory teased.
“Absolutely not. Your body should be registered as a lethal weapon when you dance.”
“That’s a very nice thing you just said.”
“Like you didn’t know. I want to eat and then shop with you for more clothes.”
“Okay,” Rory said. They chose a casual restaurant and sat down at a table on the “patio” inside the mall. “Really, I can’t like this place. It’s all just an illusion, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Yamane agreed.
“I’d like to make enough money here to find someplace isolated to hide with you for a while. Someplace natural where we could walk under a real sky.” He looked up pointedly, then away. “But I guess eventually you have to go back to work… I have school…”
“Yes.” Yamane looked through the menu. “I have work and deadlines.”
Rory shot Yamane a look. “At least don’t act like you don’t give a crap, will you?” Yamane was appalled. “Rory, do I really give that impression? Is that what you think?”
“No, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Vegas gets to me… I know this has to be harder on you.” He pulled a box out of his pocket. “I was going to wait to give this to you, but here in the dappled Venetian sunlight you look so lovely.” He pursed his lips.
“Rory, you don’t have to get me something every time you go out! I’m not a little kid.” “But I see that isn’t stopping you from eagerly opening the box.”
“Duh! It’s jewelry, isn’t it?” Yamane gasped as he opened the lid of the largish box. Inside was a chunky neck chain, which matched his bracelet in style, but instead of a heart it had a sizable gold padlock with a tiny white gold key dangling from it.
“Do you like it?”
“What a stupid question, of course I like it! It’s beautiful.” He swallowed.
“It’s actually a working lock, which is why the mechanism and key are white gold. They told me white gold is alloyed to be stronger than yellow gold. Here, I’ll help you put it on.” He got up and moved around behind Yamane.
Yamane pulled the hair from his nape as Rory placed the chain around his neck, first opening then closing the little padlock that held it on.
As he slid the lock around to the front where it was meant to be worn, Rory’s hand brushed against Yamane’s collar and moved it aside slightly. Yamane felt his hands still. What seemed like an hour passed before Rory returned to his seat.
“Rory,” began Yamane, hardly knowing what to say. He knew Rory had seen the marks on his neck and would know exactly what they meant. “I --”
“Don’t,” Rory said quietly. “I understand. Please don’t say anything.” Rory was silent for a long time. “Just don’t be reckless, okay? You’re in danger, and you’re precious to me.”
Yamane could have withstood a tirade. He could have gotten back up if Rory had hit him. He could have held his head up if Rory walked out and never said another word to him. But to call him precious in that sweet southern drawl… Yamane wanted to die. He got up and left the restaurant, left Rory, without a backward glance.
Rory dropped some cash on the table. Not seeing, not caring, which way Yamane went, he returned to the room. He packed his things, took half of the roughly twenty-four thousand in cash he’d won from the room’s safe, and left Yamane a note telling him the combination, along with the tickets for Mystère.
Why he was walking away even he couldn’t have explained, except that when he’d seen the bite mark on Yamane’s neck he had been faced with such blinding jealousy that he knew he would have preferred to die in the ocean at Terminal Island than feel it for one second longer.
A rational corner of Rory’s brain still wondered what the hell he’d been expecting. He had told the man he didn’t want him. He’d lied about everything, and it didn’t surprise him at all that Yamane had found pleasure elsewhere. Rory tried to place himself in Yamane’s shoes. He knew he was wrong to feel betrayed.
Unless… More than once he’d looked at Yamane and his own plumbing had been fully engaged. And since Yamane had come into his life, his plumbing had widened its trajectory, aiming itself not simply at the feminine entities that he’d seen, but encompassing and including the more attractive male ones as well. And damn. None were as hot as Yamane.
For the first time, Rory admitted he might be as slow as those people who’d called him Forrest at the Anime Expo thought. He’d always admired male beauty in art. Sculpted bodies, chiseled faces, washboard abs, and tight asses. But he’d never put himself in the picture with a man, and now, he found he didn’t have a choice.
Since meeting Yamane, Rory imagined himself in the picture with men all the time. It was as if he’d finally given himself permission to want one, and oh, crap, did he ever want one. He wanted Yamane. Loved him. Needed him. He wasn’t hardwired to want the fair sex exclusively at all, and Yamane was gone before he’d even had a chance to realize it.
Rory left the room, went to the lobby, and talked to the concierge he’d spoken with before. He gave the man his cell number in case of emergency. He turned out to be every bit as helpful as Avery said he would be. Rory gave him five hundred dollars and told him briefly about the experience they’d had in Long Beach. The man, whose name was Alexander, was sympathetic, and said he would try to keep an eye on Yamane. Rory told him if there was anything Yamane should need, he was to call.
“You realize there are thousands of people here. I’ll do my best, but…” Alexander said. “Thank you,” said Rory woodenly. “That will be fine.”
Rory found himself on the street looking up at the giant property, wondering how things had gone so horribly wrong. He might have gotten through lunch somehow. He might have choked down his food, swallowed his regret, and started a new dialogue with Yamane. They might have gone for a w
alk, or shopped for clothes, or looked at the moon together. But Rory saw the marks on Yamane’s beautiful body and Yamane knew it. And it was Yamane who walked away.
Rory headed up the street. He had to find another hotel, another poker room, and another phony glass sky to gaze up at while the greed and the desperation swirled around him like toxic waste.
Amelia had her entourage of men carry her luggage to her rental car. Ethan knew she didn’t really care how they got to the hotel; she just took off and left them standing in the blistering Nevada sunshine cursing her.
Ethan Calderon gathered up his team and rented a second car. The four men headed for the Venetian. Strictly speaking, he felt they should be looking at poker rooms in all the major hotels, as he was certain Rory Delaplaines hadn’t had enough cash to bankroll a tournament at the Venetian when he left Long Beach, and he knew without capital, Rory couldn’t afford a room there. Amelia wanted them to focus on the Venetian; she had no grasp of the larger picture. Still, working for Amelia got him a free room, so he couldn’t complain. He wouldn’t complain if Rory Delaplaines lived through this and killed her either, as long as his room was paid for first.
“Shit,” said Ethan, after parking the car. “Either that kid has friends around here, or he’s one hell of a poker player.” He walked through the lobby to the registration desk, got his keys, and was informed that Amelia was already in the hotel in the luxury tower suite she’d reserved. Ethan walked to his suite with his three new best friends, whom he privately referred to as Manny, Moe, and Jack. Hired muscle is as hired muscle does, he thought, watching them walk ahead of him. Two of the men couldn’t put their arms down they were so bulky, and the third had been hit so many times either as a child or in the boxing ring he acted as though everything came at him down a long cardboard tube.
“This is it, guys.” He inserted the card key in the lock. Throwing down his duffel, he checked the phone for messages from Amelia, grateful to find none. She was probably tearing the wings off flies or something, and he’d hear from her later. Not for the first time he thought of killing her and just asking Ran Yamane and Rory Delaplaines to make a donation according to their conscience like they do at art museums and historic homes.
Everyone was tired from the hectic way they had packed up and flown to Vegas, and the screaming fits the boss had thrown at every turn hadn’t helped. Ethan took the opportunity for a quick shower, leaving the bulk twins and their slow companion to man the phones in case they were needed. He had no doubt whatsoever Amelia would be roaming the phony Italian landscape looking for any sign of her quarry before they were ready. After that he wasn’t likely to get a shower or sleep for a long time.
I’ll find them, and then I’m out.
Amelia paced around the beautifully appointed room. For some reason, it enraged her to know that her prey was flourishing in this level of luxury. She’d hoped to find Yamane in a seedy wino hotel somewhere, cringing in terror. That he’d been shampooing his much- beloved hair in marble baths made her livid. The first thing, she thought, the very first thing she would do to Yamane would be to wax all the hair off his genetically perfect body.
Yamane opened his third pack of cigarettes. He’d walked from one end of the strip to the other in the merciless heat, smoking cigarette after cigarette and thinking. He’d braided his hair as best he could and ditched his coat in a garbage can. Wearing cheap sunglasses he’d purchased at a kiosk, he could be just any long-haired Asian guy in a button-down shirt and jeans. It was hard to imagine Amelia could find him on the Vegas strip, but he still knew better than to take stupid chances. He sat down on a bus bench, hugging his knees to his chest and hiding his face from the still-fierce late afternoon sun. He knew he was already sunburned; it would probably hurt for several days. Thanks to Amelia, Yamane knew he could live with physical pain. It was nothing compared to the pain he felt in his heart.
Yamane looked at his hands, naked now without a pen to draw with or a sketch pad. The one time he’d left the hotel without his messenger bag. There was no hope for it; he had to return to the Venetian, to the room he shared with Rory, where he could get his things and clear out. Making up his mind, he began walking again, but not before throwing his cigarette on the ground and squashing it mercilessly, leaving its corpse there to be kicked into the gutter by fools.
Rory was in the last three players at a sit-and-go table in the poker room at the Mirage. Something small and angry inside him made him go for the kill. He played looser and took more chances than he ever had, but still he was winning. Go figure; he’d lost the only thing in Vegas he cared about, but cards were another matter.
One of the cocktail waitresses gliding around the room had long dark hair like Yamane’s. He’d seen her from the corner of his eye when she had her back turned, and it had slammed into him like a wrecking ball that he’d gone and left Yamane behind. Rory smiled at the waitress and turned on his charm for the sake of using it on someone. She’d already indicated that she’d be happy to meet him after her shift was over at two. He radiated warmth knowing he’d be long gone by then.
Inside, Rory was frozen with a kind of shock and grief, which, like the artificial everything around, didn’t touch him. He didn’t want food, drink, sleep, or sex. He existed only within the space of the table, the sound of shuffling cards and the rhythm of the game dictating his life. As the dealer button rotated, he looked up to see the time and realized it was almost nine. By eleven fifteen, he’d taken down the other two players. He tipped the waitress with the hair like Yamane’s a hundred dollars and left the room, getting his cash and carrying it carelessly in the pocket of his trench coat. He’d gone from one sit-and-go to another all day and he’d done well. He left the hotel, carrying his messenger bag and pulling his ugly little pilot case. He looked up and down the strip, wondering which of the hotels he’d call home for the night.
He ended up strolling into the MGM Grand Hotel about an hour and two miles later, basically because it was green. He was tired and he didn’t care anymore. As he walked into the lobby and up to the registration desk, he wondered if Amelia would swoop out of the sky on her broom to try to kill him again. He began to pull cash out of his pocket, handing over whatever they asked for to obtain the room, which he reserved under the name Georges Pompidou.
By two in the morning he was asleep in one of the bungalow suites, taking time only for a brief shower before his head hit the pillow. His last thought was that he could be with the pretty cocktail waitress, who had Yamane’s hair, or that he could even have been with Yamane himself. He looked at the stack of cash on the table next to his bed and thought, I am such a loser.
When the noise of Rory’s cell phone first penetrated his consciousness, he looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings. Where the hell was he? He shook his head. Phone, he thought. Since he’d never carried a phone before, he wasn’t yet accustomed to listening for it. He snatched it off the nightstand.
“Yes?” he snapped. “Yes, I’m here.” He looked at the clock. Ten a.m. already?
“Is this Rory Delaplaines?” asked an unfamiliar voice.
“Yes, who is this please?” Rory sat up. He felt light-headed and a little sick.
“It’s the concierge from the Venetian. You remember you told me to call you if anything strange happened?”
Rory was instantly alert. “What? Tell me.”
“Last night one of our guests was stabbed. People said they’d seen him with a woman who asked a lot of questions about a man with long hair who dressed like a Chinese girl. A few minutes later, some of the lobby staff saw a small man with long hair, sunglasses, and a messenger bag run out the front door like a bat out of hell.”
Rory was already pulling on his clothes from the night before. “Did anyone grab the woman? Crap.” He was tossing everything into his case. “Did they get her?”
“No. They found the guy in the men’s room, and by the time they realized what happened, she was gone. They have security looking over the tap
es now. Good thing the place was crawling with doctors when she did him; it looks like he’s going to make it.”
“Alexander, I totally owe you.” He raced from his hotel room. “You are a saint.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here when it happened. I’d have seen him run by, I think,” said Alexander. “Frankly, I thought you were nuts thinking I’d notice anything unusual about one guest in thousands.”
“Well, actually, Yamane’s one in a million. He gets noticed a lot.”
“I can see that. I hope you find him.”
“Keep my number if you notice anything else, okay? I’ll always be grateful.”
“Thank you, sir. Good-bye.”
Rory punched the elevator button many more times than necessary in his impatience. As soon as it came, he jumped in, headed for the lobby. He prayed Yamane’s mind was working the same way his was, and if it was, that he’d had the presence of mind to take Rory’s car and run.
As long as Yamane got out of Vegas safely, he couldn’t care less what happened. He gave the startled doorman a shove and hailed the first cab he saw. After giving a street address to the driver, he fidgeted, tapped his foot, and looked frantically around until the dismal motel where he and Yamane had originally stayed came into view. “I was never in this cab. You were never here, do you understand? Drive somewhere else, I changed my mind, you never stopped here.”
The first thing he saw after he paid off the bewildered cab driver with a fifty-dollar bill was that his car was still there in the parking lot where he’d left it.
He took out the old-style metal key and unlocked the door to the motel room. At first, in the dim light inside, the grungy room looked empty and his heart sank like a stone. From his vantage point he could see the bathroom, the closets, and the beds, but all were deserted. He heard a small noise, the tiniest whisper of sound, as if a child were trying to hide but unable to hold his breath for long enough. He looked under the shabby table and saw Yamane curled up between the torn rolling chairs, with his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them.
Drawn Together Page 11
