Infected Freefall

by Andrea Speed

  But while it seemed good on the surface, it could be terrible. Maybe Mr. Asshat had gotten bored. Or maybe he’d decided that the time for talking was done, and the time for action was nigh. Fuck it—he’d find out soon enough.

  There was a brief tug of war between hungry and tired, but tired won, so he simply went upstairs, letting the dim moonlight illuminate his path. He didn’t really need to see anyways; he knew this house, how everything was laid out. He didn’t need to see to know what was where.

  Once he made it to the bedroom, he quietly stripped, piling his clothes on the chair before slipping into bed beside Dylan. Roan had bought new sheets and blankets, an attempt to move on even in a merely cosmetic sense, and he still wasn’t used to the feel of them against his skin. It was weird what you got used to without realizing it.

  He didn’t want to wake Dylan up, but the shifting mattress seemed to do it, and he turned toward Roan and opened his sleepy eyes. “Hey there.” He must have glanced at the clock on the nightstand behind him, as he quickly added, “Wow, that was one long tail.”

  “Yeah.”

  Dylan cupped his face in his hand as he brushed one of his legs against his. This was still nice; he still missed the warmth of another Human being when it wasn’t there. “Anything happen?”

  He wanted to say, “I’m a hostage situation away from superherodom. Do you think I have an ass for spandex?” But instead he said, “Nope, not really. How’d your night go?”

  “Oh, dull. It was a really slow night for some reason.”

  “Cock ring show in town?”

  He smirked, too tired to laugh. “I think I’d have been informed if there was. I’m glad I grabbed one of your books before I left, ’cause I ended up reading most of it. Not that the boss was happy about me reading on the job, but there was no one to serve drinks to for long stretches.”

  “Tell him reading makes you look smart, and smart guys are hot.”

  “Only to some.”

  “I don’t like himbos.”

  He kissed him softly on the bottom lip, letting his hand trail down his chest. “I know. It’s very sweet of you.”

  “I’m a weirdo.”

  “Stop that,” Dylan said mildly. He snuggled closer, and Roan put his arms around him as Dylan nestled his head into his neck. He must have washed his hair before he went to bed, because Dylan’s hair smelled faintly of green-tea conditioner.

  Roan could hear birds start chirping outside, as it was just about four in the morning, and out here some of the songbirds beat the sun by a good hour. Not many, though, so it wasn’t too distracting. He concentrated on Dylan’s breathing as it slowed and deepened as he fell back to sleep, and tried to copy him. He was tired, and yet not quite tired enough to fall asleep.

  Maybe because somewhere, in the back of his mind, he had this awful feeling that something bad was going to happen, that he had dodged so many bullets that his luck was bound to turn. You could fight a lot of things, but odds and entropy always got you in the end.

  Roan just wondered who Mr. Asshat was, and what they would do when they finally decided to pull the trigger.

  2

  Exodus Damage

  ROAN dreamed that he was pleading to someone that he was trying. He didn’t know who, or what it was about, but, with jumbled dream logic, he was sure it was the most important thing in the world. He was desperate to convince this person he was trying, and he could feel his heart pounding even in his dream, anxiety spiking and punching through the dream state.

  So when his alarm went off, he felt like he lurched out of sleep, the beeping so annoying he wanted to slap it across the room—and almost did, but decided he didn’t want to spend any more money on replacing broken alarm clocks. He turned it off and lay there for a moment, aware he was sweating and his heart rate was just starting to slow. Birds were chirping loudly outside his window, but it was a gloomy day, so light was filtered, as if through a dirty aquarium.

  He heard soft footsteps in the hall, so he wasn’t surprised when he heard the bedroom door open. (He really needed to oil that hinge.) Dylan padded in and asked, “You awake?”

  “Sadly.”

  Roan heard a rustle of paper and smelled that curious soy ink newspapers used now, and Dylan asked, “Were you ever going to tell me about this?”

  Roan opened his eyes and saw that he was holding out a folded square of the paper, opened to the inside of the local section, where they had these tiny articles about the crime beat. There was an article titled “Robbery Thwarted By Customer.” Oh terrific. Hadn’t it happened too late to make the morning paper? How fast was their turnaround time? The small article—and it was printed in small font—was only two paragraphs long, identified him and the would-be robber by name, but they couldn’t just leave it at names. Oh no. He was identified as “Roan McKichan, a private investigator with ties to the police department.” That would come as a shocker to most of the police department.

  He looked up to see Dylan looking down at him with his dark eyebrows raised curiously. He wasn’t quite angry, but he was clearly wondering if he should go there. Roan sighed and rubbed his eyes, buying time. “It wasn’t a big deal. It happened on my way home. I just didn’t feel like talking about it last night. Or this morning. Whatever.”

  Dylan sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. He looked only slightly more awake than Roan did, dressed in sweatpants and an old “Ski Mojave” T-shirt. Roan could smell eggs and toast, and hoped he’d made huevos rancheros. “Technically, it’s afternoon, but I made breakfast anyways. Wanna join me, hero?”

  That last bit was weary, not sarcastic, so he took that as a good sign. He assured Dylan once he joined him downstairs he’d tell him everything, which would give Roan time to edit his story. He took a quick shower, washing away the sweat and letting his adrenaline levels even out. He didn’t know why fragments of such a banal dream could disturb him so much, but it did. An anxiety dream? Who was he failing? Dylan? He knew that one already. If he was going to be troubled by dreams, they could have the decency to tell him something new.

  He really wanted codeine. He briefly considered even just popping half a Tylenol codeine, which was the equivalent of scarfing a baby aspirin, but ultimately he decided not to. He could at least try, for Dylan, even if he didn’t know it. He tossed on some old jeans and a tank top, mainly because they were the first items he pulled blindly out of the drawer.

  He was greeted by the sharp scent of dark espresso and the mellow sounds of Sun Kil Moon on the stereo, as Dylan usually liked to listen to music when he cooked, and he had gotten the espresso maker out of the closet, unaware that it had been a wedding present from Paris’s parents to the both of them. Roan was sure if he told him he’d put it away, but Roan had never told him.

  Dylan had made a kind of tofu scramble that was better than it sounded, and Roan told him an abbreviated version of what had happened at the convenience store last night. He stopped it at the throwing of the tea, implying that stunned the robber enough that he was able to subdue him until the cops arrived. He didn’t see it as lying, more as just simply not admitting he was getting more freaky as he got older.

  Dylan did have some good news, although he didn’t seem very thrilled about it. He’d got a showing at a downtown art gallery, but not one of those smaller avant-garde places where he often had showings. It seemed the “big” city gallery had decided to highlight local artists, and he was chosen after someone else fell through, and one of the artists actually in the show recommended him. It’d be in two weeks, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to do it. He was sure that no one in the gallery actually knew who he was, save for Reiko, who had recommended him. He felt like he was being tossed scraps, and on top of that, he had no idea what he’d show. Roan encouraged him to pick out his most “meaningful” pieces (Dylan said he didn’t have favorites, as he just couldn’t judge his own work that way), and to include at least one of his “bleeding hardware” series, if only for him. He was promising he’d go wi
th Dylan to the debut showing, and Roan had no idea what he’d wear to an art gallery soiree (in fact, he was relatively sure that none of his clothes were nice enough), when the phone rang and probably saved him from sinking into even deeper trouble.

  It was a man who identified himself as Chris Spencer and wanted to make an appointment today, as he had a case for him. Roan was going to fob him off on Fiona to set up an appointment, but he sounded desperate, and Roan couldn’t kid himself—he needed the money. So he said he’d meet him at the office within the hour. He didn’t need to tell Dylan, as he’d heard what Roan said, but thankfully he didn’t blame him at all. He totally understood needing the money.

  Once he changed into slightly more presentable clothes and checked the weather, he decided to take his motorcycle anyways, as he felt he needed to get some better adrenaline going. He had a black leather trench coat that Paris used to tease him was de rigueur for the “stylish gay Nazi” and wore it, in hopes it would keep some of the sputtering rain off. The results were mixed.

  The office was supposed to be closed today, so Fiona wasn’t here (he hadn’t expected to get through with the Faraday case so quickly), and as he opened the place he realized he missed her. It was nice to have someone bright and sarcastic hanging around the office, keeping him on his toes. Also, keeping him mostly sober.

  He had time to put on a pot of coffee and call Holly Faraday. Accidentally, he called her home number and got her and Dallas’s machine, so he quickly hung up and called her work number. There he got her voice mail system. Did no one answer their phone anymore? He left a bland message, identifying himself and asking her to call him as soon as she could. It was unlikely anyone would intercept her work voice mail, but he still had to keep client confidentiality.

  He was finished with that when a man came through the door. He was a bit on the short to average size, about five five and one hundred and forty pounds, wearing a brown-plaid flannel shirt and heavy work jeans, with scuffed brown work boots to match. He was blandly handsome, not a bad-looking guy, with nut-brown hair and piercing blue eyes in a pleasantly round, open face. He was also carrying a Jack-Bauer-style man purse, but Roan tried not to hold that against him. He had a strong grip when he shook his hand.

  Although no one else was here, he invited him back into his office out of habit. Roan took his seat behind his desk, where he felt most comfortable anyways, and Spencer took the seat in front. Roan had barely gotten settled when Spencer blurted out nervously, “Will you hear me out before turning me down?”

  Oh, that was never a good sign.

  Spencer told him his five-year-old son had gone missing from Bishop Park eleven years ago, and the whole thing had become a “cold” case at the police department several years ago. There was a sketch of a possible suspect, but it was so vague it could have applied to almost any white male, and no evidence was ever found. It was like his son, Keith, just stopped existing, dropped off the face of the earth.

  “If it’s a cold case, and eleven years old, I don’t see how I could help you,” Roan told him honestly. “Any evidence that may have existed is long gone, and if the cops couldn’t find anything back then, I can’t believe I’d find anything now.”

  Spencer nodded through this, his eyes occasionally moist but tears never falling. “I know. I know it’s more than likely you won’t find anything, but I want to make one last effort at it to tell myself I tried. I don’t want to be haunted to my grave by it, like Elliot, although I can’t see how I wouldn’t be.”

  “Elliot?”

  “Keith’s father.” Roan stared at Spencer curiously until he added, “I was Keith’s mother back then.”

  Okay. He loved it when things got complicated for no reason at all. “Female to male?”

  Spencer nodded. “I transitioned four years ago. I was in therapy before Keith’s disappearance—I was a depressive, an alcoholic, just so miserable. I got married impulsively at a young age and got pregnant, hoping that that would make me feel more feminine, because I never did feel like a woman, and I tried so hard because I got tired of being taunted as a ‘dyke’. But it didn’t work, I felt even more like a failure, and I know some of the guilt I feel about Keith’s disappearance is that I was a horrible mother and didn’t deserve him in the first place.” He paused briefly, closing his eyes, forcing back the tears. Then he continued. “After his disappearance, my marriage to Elliot, which was dicey anyways, just fell to pieces. We blamed each other and both crawled into separate bottles. I ended up in the hospital, and it was there that I first met someone who was transitioning, male to female in that case, but I realized that maybe I would be happier if I actually was a man. I saw a therapist about it for three years, because I didn’t want to do it just because I hated myself so much after Keith’s disappearance, and then there was the thought that if he reappeared miraculously after all these years, he wouldn’t recognize me as a man. But I lost all hope after the police made it a cold case. I did research, and I knew that—any television shows aside—cold cases usually ended up permanently buried. One or two might get solved, tied to another murder or rape case, but it was the police equivalent of the dead letter office. Once a case ended up there, it was lucky to be heard from again. It was funny, but Elliot wasn’t really surprised at my sex change. He said he always figured I’d have made a better guy.” He smirked in a bittersweet way. “My family didn’t feel that way—my mother still won’t talk to me. My sister does, though, she and her husband are pretty cool about it and my partner, Fletcher.”

  “You’re gay?” Well, why not? The funny thing about switching gender was it didn’t mean your sexual preferences changed. If you liked women before, you would after; if you liked men before, you would after. Gender really wasn’t tied to sexual identity, although some frightening people insisted the opposite.

  He smiled. “I like men. I like being a man. I’ve never been happier. Well, within reason.” Spencer’s smile faded, and he rubbed his eyes. “Every year, Keith’s birthday rolls around, and I find myself staring at birthday cakes in bakeries, wondering if he’d be into sports or cars, or be the total opposite of me and be into musicals and fine arts. Maybe all of the above. Maybe he would have been a Renaissance man. Is a Renaissance man.” The accidental shift in tense made something in his jaw twitch, throat muscles briefly spasming, and he took another moment to get his emotions under control, hands knotting anxiously in his lap. “I guess I rediscovered hope when I heard that story of that kidnapped boy who was found living with a sex offender several years after he disappeared. Do you remember that?”

  “I do, I read that in the paper. But you do know that—”

  “Such discoveries are rare? That most kidnapped children are killed shortly after their abduction? Yes, I know. But after Elliot died—two months ago, in a drunken driving accident—I started talking to the detective who had the case. He told me they really hated cases of missing children going into the cold case files, and he was trying everything he could, but nothing new had come up. He told me he was talking to a friend of his at the local paper, hoping to get an article published about it, but so far nothing’s come of it.”

  “Who’s the officer?”

  “Sadowski. Umm… Gabriel Sadowski, I think.”

  Roan nodded. “He’s a good one.” And he was. He was one of the last old-fashioned cops, although not old fashioned in the “let’s beat up some black guys and queers” way. He was one of those nose-to-the-grindstone detectives, one who followed any lead, no matter how slim, and really worked the snitch angle by being kind to his street contacts. He had to be nearing sixty though, on the verge of retirement.

  Spencer opened his man purse and started pulling out Manila envelopes, putting them on his desk. “I have copies of all the files I was able to get. He couldn’t allow me access to all the case files, but he let me see some.”

  Roan inwardly groaned. He didn’t want to take this case. All he could do was take his money—there’s no way he could find anything th
at Sadowski didn’t. The boy was gone, probably having already rotted away to bones in a shallow grave somewhere, and he’d only be found by chance. But… maybe he could talk to Sadowski. Maybe he could point him in directions he wasn’t able to follow. Spencer really did seem genuinely miserable, and how awful would that be, to have your child disappear one day and then never be seen again? They may as well have never existed at all. Maybe it would have been kinder for everyone if they hadn’t.

  Roan slid papers out of the envelopes. Initial police reports, transcripts of the original 9-1-1 call, and anonymous tips (all of which were disproven), the initial sketch, as described by a woman at the park that day who saw a boy who may have been Keith leaving with a man (a man who looked a bit like ’80s era Tom Petty, or every other white guy arrested on Cops), pictures of Chris (then Christine) and her husband Elliot—a true study in contrasts. She was a slightly hippie-ish looking woman, somewhat plain, with long brown hair and a troubled gaze, while Elliot was a handsome black man who’d made an unfortunate choice in eyeglasses or was just a really big Elvis Costello fan. And pictures of Keith (whose last name, like Chris’s at the time, was Turner), a chubby-faced boy with café au lait-colored skin, doe eyes, and a frizzy nimbus of fine black hair.

  Roan mentally ordered himself not to get sucked into this. He could be no help at all, and this would make him feel horrible for not being able to help Chris. But as he was sliding the papers back in their envelopes, he said, “You know you’re probably paying me for doing nothing.” Oh goddammit.

  Spencer nodded. “I know. Money isn’t an issue for me. I work for the Sanitation department, and Fletcher works for the DOT. We’re not poor.”