by J. S. Cook
“Do you have any idea where he might be?” I told him what Octavian had said, about the caves in the Southside Hills. “Could he be there? Is there anywhere in the city where someone would hide him, if they wanted to keep him on ice?”
“Oh, there’s lots of places.” Ricketts leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “Stoyles, there are houses up there on Temperance Street that have tunnels leading out of the basement and down to the waterfront. There’s old buildings down on Water Street with false walls and ceilings in them, and crawl spaces underground. Picco could be anywhere. I certainly wouldn’t take the word of Jonah Octavian as gospel—but it wouldn’t hurt to take a look.”
A constable knocked at Ricketts’s door, then stuck his head inside the office. “Someone here to see you, Sergeant. Picco’s sister. She says someone broke into their house overnight and stole some money.”
I FIGURED it would be best to wait for cover of darkness before venturing over to the south side of town. The last thing I needed was for some overzealous neighbor to come snooping around before I got a decent chance to check things out. I didn’t necessarily trust Octavian any more than I trusted anyone, really, but I didn’t see the harm in having a look around.
I got lucky with more than just the dark, because as soon as the sun went down, a thick, fishy-smelling fog, the likes of which is legendary in these parts, dropped to the ground like a big wet curtain. You couldn’t see a hand in front of your face—let alone an ex-pat American poking around the waterfront.
I didn’t want to risk my car being seen and identified, so I packed a few things into a rucksack and made the journey on foot, heading west on Water Street toward the South Side. What Octavian had called caves were actually storage bunkers for ammunition to feed the great guns at Fort Amherst, located at the harbor’s mouth. Each bunker was equipped with a set of double doors, and each had a full complement of locks. In short, it was the perfect place to hide someone, at least in the short term. Nobody ever went in there unless the city was under direct attack. These days, the threat was much more likely to come from the roving U-boat packs that roamed the coastline, looking for a gap in the island’s defenses, but the Kriegsmarine rarely came too close to the harbor, at least not since the installation of an antisubmarine net across the Narrows.
Ricketts had provided me with a rough, hand-drawn map showing the approximate location of the caves. I knew Picco could be in any one of them, or somewhere else entirely. The best thing to do under the circumstances was to check each one in turn, so I did, while the fog turned into a kind of misting drizzle that soon soaked me to the skin. The doors gave me surprisingly little trouble, especially given the lock-picking skills I’d learned from Packy Burns back in Philadelphia. I held my breath in hopes that the military police wouldn’t take a sudden interest, and prayed the beam of my tiny flashlight wasn’t visible beyond a couple feet. The last thing I needed was a full military escort, arriving with sirens roaring and guns blazing, just as I was breaking into a munitions bunker. I’d be out of Newfoundland so fast my head would spin.
The first three bunkers yielded nothing but the smell of mold and gun grease; the fourth bunker had been sealed some time ago, the entranceway bricked over. I hit luck on the fifth. The door was wooden and, thanks to the rivulet of water cascading down the cliff face, had rotted nicely. I popped open the padlock with a screwdriver and kicked a hole in the door big enough to get my fist in. There was some business with deadbolts, and I swore a blue streak for a couple minutes while I fiddled around with that, but finally I was in.
The place was as dark as the proverbial tomb, so I had no idea how far back it went. I reached out my arms, but I couldn’t feel the walls, and I couldn’t feel anything else either—clearly it was empty of munitions. I shuffled my feet along the floor, but it was slow going. My small flashlight didn’t penetrate very far into the darkness ahead, and the absence of sound was disorienting.
I stopped and looked at my watch, and then I heard it: a small noise, a sound like someone clearing their throat. “Hello?” There was a scuffling noise to the rear of the cave, and I moved toward it. “Picco, is that you? It’s Stoyles, Jack Stoyles. Where are you?” No one answered, but I heard that same sound again, deep and guttural. On a hunch I shone my flashlight toward the back of the cave, and that’s when I saw him, Alphonsus Picco, bound hand and foot and gagged, lying slumped against the damp rock wall. His uniform was gone, and he was wearing civilian-style trousers and a long-sleeved shirt. When I reached to undo his gag he scooted backward on his heels, the fear in his eyes unmistakable. “I’m not going to hurt you, I swear.” I reached out for him and untied the knot at the back of his head, then moved to undo the bonds holding his hands and feet. His wrists were raw from the pressure of the ropes; he yelped in pain when he tried to stretch his legs out to their normal extension. “How long have you been here?” I handed him my canteen full of cold water, and he drank thirstily.
“Is my sister all right? She doesn’t know where I am. She needs to know I’m all right.”
I assured him she was fine and got busy tending to his wounds. The weals on his wrists weren’t as deep as they’d initially appeared, and I was able to clean them with a little water and apply a dressing. I filled Picco in on the situation, and when he was finished, I asked the question I’d be dreading: who had given him the money?
“I don’t know nothing about no money. If that was dropped off at the house, it’s got nothing to do with me.”
“Your sister said that your mother was dead, but could the money have come from your father?”
Picco stared at me like I was insane. “My father’s dead, boy. There’s just me and Norma.” And, when I told him what his sister had said, he explained, “Yes, well—my father was a drunk. He worked down there at the rail yard. He went to work drunk, and he came home drunk. One day he stepped in front of a locomotive that never had time to stop.” Picco’s gaze slid away from mine. “We told Norma he went overseas in the war.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
He made a dismissive noise. “There’s lots that you don’t know. Keep that to yourself.” He nodded at the canteen. “Thanks.” It must have galled him to say it.
“You’re welcome. Picco, who brought you here? Did you see their faces?”
“No. I was on duty in the lockup when they brought Bull Parsons in. He was drunk. Then Willie Harris never showed up for his shift, so I told the sergeant I’d go in his place. I was walking up Baird’s Cove, headed towards the courthouse, when these two fellows were walking one on either side of me.”
“Did you notice anything about them?”
“They had accents—not like yours, I mean. I can’t describe it.” When I asked him if he remembered what they’d been wearing, he could only say they were nicely dressed—they didn’t seem like normal dock workers or laborers, but more like businessmen. “Them fellows that were on the boat, the day Johnny Mahoney got killed—well, these two talked like that.”
“They were Greek.”
“Could be.” He wrapped his arms around himself and shivered. I took off my jacket and draped it around his shoulders. “Thanks. I suppose you’ll be throwing this in my face forever now, hey?”
“What are you talking about?”
He jerked his chin at me. “Coming over here to get me, bringing me a drop of water and giving me your coat. You won’t let me forget this, will you?”
Like most Newfoundlanders, Picco hated the idea of charity, and given our history, hated it even more when it came from me. The idea that he might somehow owe me something was repugnant to him. “Oh, I’m sure you’d do the same for me, right?”
He huddled farther into the coat. “Yeah. I suppose.”
I laughed in spite of myself. “Come on, let’s get out of here. Think you can walk all right?”
“I very much doubt, Mr. Stoyles, that either of you will be walking anywhere.” A dark form, rendered strange and insubstantial by the shifting fog, sto
od silhouetted in the doorway; the gun he held trained on us was entirely real and solid. “Backs against the wall, the both of you, and please don’t make me shoot you. It would make a deafening repercussion in such a space as this, and my ears are really very delicate.”
The man was Jonah Octavian.
Chapter 6
I FELT Picco tense up against me, and I reached out a hand to steady him. In the semidarkness of the cave, his face was white and scared-looking. “Octavian, I don’t know what’s going on here. How about you give me something to go on?”
He laughed. “I am not required, Mr. Stoyles, to give you anything besides a bullet—which I will, all in due time.” He turned his attention on Picco. “Constable, I wonder if you would mind handing over my five hundred dollars?”
Picco’s eyes narrowed. “I haven’t got your money.”
“Then perhaps you could tell me where it is?”
“I don’t know where it is.”
Octavian was a moving blur; his gun hand came up with frightening swiftness and clubbed Picco in the side of the head. The young policeman dropped like a rock.
“What the hell did you do that for?” Everything in me wanted to charge him, knock the smarmy bastard to the ground, and beat the hell out of him, but he had a gun and I had nothing. I wasn’t that suicidal, and I knew Octavian was cold-blooded enough to pull the trigger.
“I dislike being lied to, Mr. Stoyles.”
“He’s telling you the truth! His sister came into headquarters—she told Ricketts that someone broke into their house overnight and stole the money.”
“Stole the money?” He advanced on me, reached out, and grabbed my collar. “Stole the money? Mr. Stoyles, do you think me feeble-minded?”
Picco groaned from somewhere behind me. “He’s telling you the truth, boy.”
“Maybe it was you.” Octavian waved the gun, covering both of us. “Maybe you broke in and stole the money, hm? Perhaps it was Constable Picco’s friend, Mr. Parsons. Was that why you let him go, Constable?”
Picco managed to drag himself to his hands and knees; he wavered there for a moment, then spat out a mouthful of blood. His voice, when he spoke, was pure venom. “Go fuck yourself.”
Octavian rushed at him and kicked him in the ribs; Picco yelped and lay still. I told myself to keep calm. Octavian probably wanted a reason to smack me around, and I wasn’t about to give it to him. “We don’t know where your money is. I suggest you ask your buddies for that information.”
“I think I will leave the two of you here until your memories improve. Yes, I believe that is what I will do. Perhaps a day or so, perhaps longer.”
“I don’t get you, Octavian—why’d you bother telling me where Picco was?”
Octavian’s eyebrows rose. “Because I knew you would go there. I know your type, Stoyles: if there is even the slightest possibility of hope, you do not hesitate. There is something in you that has to be a hero. I find this quality often in Americans.” He shrugged. “I suspect you know much more than you are telling, but I could not walk into your cafe on a weekday afternoon and force you to tell me where my money is. I am not a barbarian. But here, in this—” He gestured at the dripping walls of the cave. “—place, deprived of food and water and eventually of air, you will soon be eager to tell all.” He reached for my rucksack and took out the tools I’d brought with me. The canteen was still somewhere to the rear of the cave. With luck he wouldn’t see it, and we could use it to catch the water dripping off the walls. “I will take your screwdriver and all your other little toys. I should hate for you to hurt yourselves while I am away.”
“You son of a bitch. Is this why you tried to frame Julie Fayre? To get her out of the way so your company could swoop in and gobble up the goodies?”
Octavian gazed at me for a moment, the black eyes empty and flat. Then he laughed, stretching his lips over his teeth and opening his mouth wide. “Julie Fayre? If you believe her to be innocent, you are an even bigger fool than I supposed.” Octavian settled the gun butt against his palm. “The money, Mr. Stoyles. I will be back for you in… let us say a day or two. Good-bye.”
I watched him back away until he was swallowed up by darkness, and after a moment, I heard him throw the padlock on the door. Even with the hole I’d made on my way in, there was no way I could get us out without tools. That damned padlock would stay on the door until someone came and took it off.
I went to where Picco was and helped him up. “Did he hurt you bad?”
“Not the first time I’ve been smacked in the mouth.” He allowed me to clean the blood from his face with the tail of my shirt. He was obviously feeling that kick in the ribs Octavian had given him, because he didn’t fight me when I rewrapped my coat around his shoulders.
Since there was nothing much else to do, we settled down to wait. With any luck, someone—hopefully Ricketts or his men—would find us. Without luck? I preferred not to think about it.
OCTAVIAN HAD taken my flashlight, so I couldn’t see my watch. Time gets strange when you’re locked up in a place without any lights. Picco slept for a while, curled up on the floor and hugging his knees, while I sat with my back against the stone and listened to the sound of dripping water. After a while, all the little noises blurred together, and there was a strange sound underneath, almost like a voice.
Shall I let the sails out, or does this satisfy you? His voice was close, almost whispering in my ear, and his warm hands smoothed the naked skin of my back. I do believe you would be perfectly content to drift forever. His lips touched my nape; he was kissing his way down my body, and the heat of the sun soaked into my bones, blissfully warm. I rolled onto my back and he came into my arms and we were kissing one another. I wanted him so bad it was like a taste in my mouth. I love you, I love you, I love you—
A noise yanked me out of my dream, jarring me awake, and I sat bolt upright, forgetting for a moment where I was. The darkness of the ammunition bunker pressed on me from all sides; the sun was gone and someone was sobbing in their sleep.
“Picco.” I groped my way to him and shook his shoulder.
He woke, grabbing my arm. “Stoyles.”
“Yeah, I’m right here.”
“Can’t see a frigging thing.” His voice was groggy, clouded with sleep. “Wonder what time it is.”
“I dunno.”
Picco sounded like he was shivering. “Why is it so cold?”
“Cold?” The air was damp, but it wasn’t unpleasant, not exactly. “Are you cold?”
“I’m freezing.” He seemed reluctant to admit any weakness, especially to me.
“Come over here.”
“Why?” I couldn’t see him, but I could easily imagine the gleam of suspicion in his pale eyes. “What are you going to do?”
“Will you shut up and come over here?” The rock formed a natural ledge big enough for both of us; the cave wall sloped backward. I fashioned a makeshift cushion out of my rucksack and put it behind his head, then pulled him up so he was lying against me.
“Right on—this is nice and fruity. Well, you can forget about it. I’m not your bum chum—”
He made to crawl away, but I pulled him back, wrapped my arms around him, and nestled his head against my shoulder. “Stay put. You have a fever, probably from that smack Octavian gave you.” I laid my palm against his forehead. He was burning up. This was bad; this was very, very bad, especially since an untended fever could fry his brains. As much as I disliked Picco, I wouldn’t have wished such a fate on anyone.
I held him in my arms as the hours passed and his fever mounted; he clung to me and whispered nonsense while I drifted in and out of sleep. I dreamed Picco’s crucifixion picture came to life and stood over me, all sinew and throbbing muscle. The figure reached for me and pulled me into his embrace and kissed me hungrily, his tongue delving into my mouth. Then I was back on the sailboat, lying under the Egyptian sun, touching and being touched by the man from my dream, his long, graceful fingers cupped around m
y balls, rubbing and squeezing, dragging me deliciously to climax.
There was a mouth at my neck and Picco’s hand was cupped around the bulge at my crotch. I woke with a gasp and caught hold of his wrist, but he twisted away from me.
“Please. I’ve never had—” He licked his dry lips.
An invisible hand squeezed my heart. I traced the curve of his bottom lip with the pad of my thumb. “You’re not well,” I whispered. “It wouldn’t be right. I’d be taking advantage of you.” He was beautiful—how had I never noticed? That narrow, clever face, lean and pale, and his strange gray eyes with their long lashes, his taut, slender body, well-muscled and erect. Maybe it really was as people said. Maybe the other side of hatred was… something pretty damn erotic.
“I don’t care.” He held tight to me, sobbing with want. “Please. I’ll never tell a soul. I swear. I swear it on the Bible—”
His mouth was fever-hot and his kiss was eager but clumsy, but Constable Picco was a very fast learner, and he felt real good in my arms. His body’s heat burned into me. I felt him unbuttoning my shirt, but in the complete darkness of the cave, it was impossible to see what he was doing. His mouth pressed against my bare chest, tongue flickering briefly on each of my nipples, and my body jerked forward, grinding itself against him, and I listened to myself groaning. It wasn’t enough. Lying in this filthy cave with him wasn’t nearly enough. I wanted to lie naked with him on clean sheets, our bodies sliding deliciously against each other, speaking with hands and tongues. I all but tore the buttons off his shirt as I stripped him, but the buckle of his belt was a little easier. His cock was hard, blood-warm, and filled my hand; he groaned at the touch, a ragged, anguished sound.
I bent and took him into my mouth and sucked him, working him with my lips and my tongue while his fingers beat an agonized tattoo against my scalp. His lean young body heaved, his breathing ragged and uneven as I sucked harder, drawing him closer and closer to his climax, and then his fists clenched and he gave in to it, shouting something unintelligible. I drew back and stroked him as the orgasm shuddered through him, leaving him limp and voiceless. He came into my arms, and we found each other’s mouths in the dark.
