by Lou Harper
“I’m getting to it!”
“Pardon me!” There was a mocking tone in Sam’s voice.
“So we zigzagged around in the middle of nowhere for days, and it was totally boring. There was nothing but cornfields and barns, and dirty old heaps of crap that we waded through for hours. On top of it all, Terry turned out to be a total prick.”
“He expected you to bend over for him?”
“Well duh! That wasn’t the problem. Although…he had a teeny weenie and a fuck with him was over before it started, but I could’ve put up with that till Chicago if it wasn’t for the other stuff.”
“Sounds like a prick already.”
Jay nodded. “He had a real shitty attitude. Listening to him you’d think he was a genius and everyone else was an idiot, and the only reason he wasn’t rich was because the world conspired against him. He was either talking about his own greatness, or complaining how everything sucked. I couldn’t even change the subject because he could bitch about anything. What really pissed me off was that he acted like I was some stupid kid totally dependent on him, as if I couldn’t even tie my shoelaces by myself. I bet it made him feel like a big shot.”
“Clearly he didn’t know you at all.”
“Damn right! So there we were at a gas station, fuck knows where, and Terry went to piss. I was desperate, so when I spotted this truck driver about ready to pull out, I asked him for a ride. He said he’d do it for a blowjob. I said no problem. I didn’t even bother to find out where he was heading. And that’s how I ended up in Denver.”
“Did you give him that blowjob?” Sam asked with a lewd grin. Jay was getting the impression Sam quite enjoyed the story.
“Well I said I would, didn’t I? Several, actually. We fucked a couple of times in that little room thing that’s at the back of the cab.” The guy was sorta kinky, kinda like Sam. At least Jay had gotten that impression, but he hadn’t known the truck driver long enough to be sure.
“Sounds like you had a good time then.”
“Yeah, better than with that dick Terry, for sure. Mitch, Butch…whatever was his name, he said I could stick with him, and he was kinda hot, but all that riding around wasn’t my thing. It gets awful boring.” He gave Sam his fakest innocent look.
“If you start whining or ask if we’re there yet, you’re going in the backseat,” Sam groused in good humor.
The mountains got bigger and bigger as they drove west on the I-70. Jay spent the next hour admiring the landscape but eventually got bored. It was their third day on the road and he was feeling increasingly restless. It was hard to imagine that Sam didn’t feel the same, but if he did he hid it well. They stopped only to piss, pick up some food, and to stretch their legs. Sam was determined to push through Colorado and well into Utah before stopping for the night. The Rockies made one last effort to impress as the car wound itself through Glenwood Canyon. They succeeded—the sheer cliff walls, the Colorado River to the left, it all looked as fucking majestic and imposing as it possibly could.
“Check it out!” Jay pointed to the silver train snaking its way toward a tunnel on the far side of the river.
“Ever been on a train?” Sam asked.
“No. You?”
“A few times as a kid. Short trips only.”
“I bet it’d be more comfortable. We could walk around, go to the dining car. They probably have sleeping cabins. We could fuck while the landscape rolled by.”
“You like screwing in cramped spaces.”
“I like screwing anywhere.”
“Hm.” That was all that Sam had to say about that, but Jay hoped it meant that he planned to test Jay on it.
Utah was something else again.
“It’s like the surface of an alien planet,” Jay observed.
Sam agreed, but they were both too worn out to appreciate the view, so they kept on driving, in silence or listening to the radio. Sam had Jay tune into the local news channel several times, but fortunately it was all just the regular depressing stuff. Then Sam got lost in his thoughts again.
“A penny for them,” Jay broke the silence.
“Hm?”
“Your thoughts.”
“Ah. I was trying to work out how they connected Mikey to me.”
“The club?”
“Maybe, but that place had better security than Fort Knox. I think there was an easier way.”
“Like what?”
“Toward the end Mikey kept talking about making changes in his life. I’m guessing the shrink he was seeing finally got through. Mikey wanted to come out to his family. Not about the hardcore stuff, just about being gay.”
“That’s good, right?”
“Yeah well, he was having a hard time of it. He called me at home a couple of times. From his office.”
Sam went on. “If that PI dug into my phone records, they could find it.”
“That would ring alarm bells, right?”
“Yeah, no reason for a fancy lawyer and me to know each other.”
“In your line of work—”
“He didn’t practice criminal law. He dealt with rich people’s stuff. Wills and real estate, shit like that.”
“You cared about him.”
Sam’s jaw tightened. “It didn’t do him any good.”
“It wasn’t your fault—”
“The jury’s out on that. He sure as he’ll didn’t deserve—”
Sam’s face turned dark and his hands seemed to want to strangle the steering wheel. At that moment it wasn’t hard for Jay to picture him as the tough guy they’d send to scare the shit out of someone.
“Sam?”
He watched Sam flex his fingers and force the tension out of his body. It was an impressive display of self-control.
“Yeah?” Sam said at last.
“Did you ever kill anyone?”
Sam didn’t reply, but his knuckles rubbed over the faint scar along his jawline in a gesture now familiar to Jay.
“How did you get that scar?” he asked.
“Huh?” Sam gave him a quick, sharp look, as if he was surprised.
“You always touch it when something’s bothering you.”
A ghost of a smile played on Sam’s lips. “Remind me, kid, never to play poker with you.”
Jay let the “kid” remark go, and kept staring at Sam expectantly. There was a long silence, and he about gave up on getting an answer when Sam finally spoke.
“This guy, let’s just call him Al, he tried to cut my throat—that’s how I got the scar.”
Jay’s breath caught.
“I don’t hold it against him. I was sent to take care of him, after all,” Sam added.
“Why?”
“Strictly business. He tried to pull a fast one on the boss. Al had been in the family for a long time, he knew what he was doing. He knew the risks—you rip off the boss, you get whacked. It’s all in the game.”
“So you did?”
“A bullet to the head. It was quick.”
He stared at Sam, but couldn’t picture it.
“Does it bother you?” Sam asked in a carefully neutral tone.
He gave it serious thought. It was supposed to bother him, right? “I don’t know,” he admitted truthfully. “It’s so…abstract.”
“Hm. Well I wish I had just shot Joey and Nicky back then, probably Gino too.”
Jay weighed that statement for a moment. “If you did, we would never have met.”
“You say it like it’s a bad thing,” Sam replied, but that phantom smile was back.
There was a notion Jay’d been toying with in his head, and this was as good a time as any to share it.
“What if you’d never been in the Mob, and didn’t have to hide, and we’d just met in a bar or something?” he asked.
“That’s a whole lotta what-ifs.”
“Just try to imagine it.”
Sam appeared to do so. “I don’t know, Tiger. That would be a different version of me. Which version of you would I be
meeting? This one, or the one that hadn’t been pushed around by a string of dickheads?”
He had no answer to that, so they drove on in more silence.
As night fell, they pulled into a random motel in some small town that was no more than one block deep on either side of the road. It was just another rundown roadside motel from the outside, but inside it was hilariously tacky. The ceiling lamp hung from a thick gold-painted chain and the ceiling sparkled, giving the room a budget whorehouse ambiance. However, the best part was the painting on the wall—a pirate ship in front of a sunset of vivid oranges and reds. The ship itself was showing off golden highlights on its body and billowing sails. Jay thought at first it was painted on black velvet, but at closer examination it turned out to be some sort of black plastic.
“I was going to say that we never go anywhere interesting, but I take it back,” Jay snorted.
“Yeah, this room has a certain…”
“Je ne sais quoi?” Jay suggested. He recalled Jeff using that expression whenever he was blowing smoke up somebody’s ass.
“Yeah that.”
The next day was more of the same, and Jay was getting fidgety. Sam was good at self-control, but Jay could sense he was getting testy too.
“Are we going to Vegas?” he asked, studying the map.
“A town full of mobsters and cameras? No.”
“City of Angels then?”
“Bingo.”
Jay pressed on. “You think we’ll make it by tonight?”
“Sure hope so,” Sam replied, sounding surly.
“You know, road trips aren’t as much fun as I’d expected.” He knew he was poking the hornet’s nest, but couldn’t stop himself.
“You should’ve thought of that when you got off that bus.”
Ouch.
“My ass is sore, and not in a good way,” Jay grumbled some more.
“Tough shit.”
“I’m bored.”
“You’re a big boy, entertain yourself.”
“I could give you a blowjob.”
“Later.”
The next rest stop where they pulled over was a tiny parking lot with one unisex restroom that stank to high heaven. Jay held his breath while relieving himself. He found Sam behind the small concrete building, squinting at the landscape. He had one hand over his crotch, rubbing himself with a leisurely up and down motion.
“You said something about a blowjob,” he said, not even looking at Jay.
Jay glanced around. The parking lot was empty except for their car, and there was an anemic line of trees separating them from the road. Regardless, they could be discovered at any second.
Sam turned his head enough to meet Jay’s gaze. His eyes were hard, there was far more than just a dare in them. There was an unspoken command that Jay had no power or intent to resist. He sank to his knees in front of Sam. He freed Sam’s shaft from its denim prison and unceremoniously stuffed it into his mouth. Jay closed his eyes, and little by little tuned out everything but the taste and smell of Sam, and the heavy cock nudging at the back of his throat. He believed at that moment that he could do this, get on his knees and service Sam in the middle of a crowded room, fuck, in the middle of the town square, Sunday at noon, if Sam ordered him to. Just the thought of it made Jay’s cock twitch with excitement.
“Stand up,” Sam told him, after he’d been at it a while.
Jay reluctantly let Sam’s cock slip out of his mouth and stood. Sam unzipped Jay’s jeans and yanked them down. With the same movement he spun Jay around to face the wall. Jay reflexively braced himself against it and stuck his butt out. He wore a jockstrap as always—as Sam wanted him to—so he knew his ass was ready for the taking. Cold lube drizzled between his ass cheeks. He gasped as the blunt tip of Sam’s cock pushed against his unprepared hole, demanding entrance. Jay took deep breaths and concentrated on relaxing his muscles. Sam gave him barely enough time to adjust before pushing in farther. Sam was well slicked, but there was still a considerable burn. Sam didn’t seem to care. He held Jay’s hips with his large hands and began to pound away wholeheartedly. The metal zipper of his fly bit into Jay’s skin at every plunge. Only half-hard at the start, Jay’s cock reacted with aching interest.
“You can touch yourself,” Sam said, to his relief.
Jay folded one arm against the wall and leaned his forehead on it. With his other hand he stroked his cock to the beat of Sam’s thrusts. He came grunting and splattering his jizz over the wall and on his hand. Sam pumped a few more times before coming deep inside Jay’s ass.
Sam zipped up and walked back to the car without a backward glance, leaving Jay to deal with the mess. Without anything better at hand, Jay licked his own spilled come from his fingers, and pulled up his jeans. He found Sam already in the car, engine running. Unexpectedly, Sam took Jay by the nape and pulled him close for a kiss. Sam’s tongue invaded his mouth, no doubt tasting Jay’s spunk there. Sam pulled away with a smirk, and put the car in gear. For the next few hours all Jay was able to think of was the smarting of his ass, the lingering smell of sex in the car, and Sam’s jizz trickling out of him, soaking into his jeans. He even forgot to fidget or ask about their destination.
Chapter Ten
NT: How’s Florida?
SR: Humid. Got nothing so far. I’m telling you, this lead smells fishy.
NT: Keep looking.
Las Vegas was a jumble of billboards and lights. From a distance The Strip, where all the fancy hotels and casinos were, looked like Disneyland on crack. Past Vegas, the landscape grew monotonous. After an hour or so of it, Jay dozed off. He must have been out for hours, because when he next opened his eyes they were navigating the streets of Los Angeles. They stopped on what looked like an inner-city street—it was narrow, full of stocky buildings pressing against each other shoulder to shoulder, like football players at a huddle.
“Where are we?” Jay asked.
“Downtown, somewhere close to Little Tokyo.”
Sam double-parked in front of a two-story red-brick building. There were no windows, only a narrow steel door and a corrugated metal garage door a few feet apart from each other. Most of it was covered in graffiti. Sam got out of the car, pulled a bundle of keys out of his pocket and let himself in through the small door. A minute later the garage door rolled up and they drove inside.
“What the hell is this place?” Jay wondered out loud, looking around. A large open space stretched all the way up to the roof. There were stairs along one wall going up to what appeared to be a loft. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, as if nobody had been in there in years. The lights were on though, so at least there was electricity.
“It used to be a sweatshop, before it got converted into a living space,” Sam replied.
“What are we doing here? I mean, how do you have the keys?”
“I told you about my uncle Frank, right?”
“Yeah, he was in the Mob too.”
“No. He was connected. Frank was connected to a lot of things. He was an entrepreneur,” Sam said with a smile in his voice.
“Were any of his enterprises legal?” Jay asked, as a picture of this “Uncle Frank” started forming in his head.
“Hardly.”
“So he had a sweatshop here?”
“For a while. And other enterprises. When he died he left this place to me.”
“But then it’s not safe. They can find us here.”
“Well, that’s another thing about my uncle—he was as sly as he was paranoid. This building had never been in his name to begin with, and it’s not in mine either. It’s owned by some fictitious company.”
It still wasn’t adding up. “Wouldn’t his Mob connections know about it anyway?”
“Nah. Frank had good reasons to keep his various business ventures well separated from each other, and all of it hidden from the IRS.”
Jay got the sudden impression Sam was a puzzle with all those jaggy edges and pieces that didn’t seem to go together bu
t did anyway. If he just asked the right questions more of them might drop into place.
“So you had this place all this time, like you had the car and those fake IDs?” he asked.
“As Frank would say—a wise man always has a Plan B, C and D ready.”
“I see where you got your paranoia. So nobody knows about this place?”
“Not even the FBI.”
There was still one piece that didn’t seem to fit at all. “If you had this place all this time, why did you stay in Coldwater?”
“Back then, when the shit went down, the middle of nowhere seemed like the safest place to be. Mostly I just wanted to get away from it all.” Sam turned away from Jay and headed up the stairs, ending the conversation.
Jay had the nagging notion that Sam wasn’t telling the whole truth, there was something more to him burying himself in the middle of nowhere, but he couldn’t quite put puzzle it out. He stared at Sam’s broad back for a second, and then hurried after him.
The upstairs loft was a series of almost entirely unfurnished rooms and a kitchenette. Jay looked into the fridge—it was empty and room temperature. Sam pushed it out far enough to find the plug and connect it to the electrical outlet. The fridge hummed to life. There was a bathroom too—no tub, just a shower, sink and toilet. When Sam turned on the tap, the water came out brown with rust. He let it run. One of the rooms had a king-size, box-spring mattress on a simple bed frame, also covered in dust.
“Grab the other side and let’s turn this thing over,” Sam instructed.
Dust flew up as the mattress flopped back down, making them both cough. At least the other side was clean.
“This place will need some serious cleaning up if we stay here,” Jay said.
“Yeah, but not tonight. There are a couple of sleeping bags in the trunk of the car.”
They were both worn out and had no trouble falling asleep.
The next day Jay realized that there were skylights in the ceiling, but they were so covered in crud that the sunlight could barely filter through.
“Stop daydreaming and get dressed. We’re going out.” Sam walked through the room, razor in hand.
