The bulldog hung up the phone.
The guard to my left was suddenly at my side. Shoulder to shoulder.
Shit.
“If you’d go with Mr. Smith . . .” the bulldog said, nodding toward the guard.
I shifted my weight to the balls of my feet and tried to remember how far behind me the front door was. Should I make a break for it? I didn’t know where Mr. Smith intended to take me, but I was pretty sure I didn’t want to go there.
“. . . He’ll call the elevator for you,” the bulldog finished.
He looked at the guard. “Floor twenty-two, Matthew.”
“Very well, sir. This way, please.” For the first time, I saw the guard straight on. He was actually pretty cute, very tall and thin, with a long, horsey face that looked equally dopey and bright. He spoke in a clipped British accent that increased his adorableness by a factor of five.
His eyes twinkled with a manic energy that he struggled to keep hidden. He looked more like a mad scientist than a security guard, but I had no doubt he could handle himself if a situation turned hairy.
Much to my relief, this one didn’t.
“Thank you,” I said to the bulldog. Now that I was cleared for entry, he smiled again and looked friendly. I resisted the urge to pat his head.
I followed Matthew Smith to the azure-doored elevator, one of the few spots of color in the otherwise neutral entranceway. He called it by punching a six-digit number into the keyboard. No simple “up” and “down” arrows at El Santuario. Another layer of security.
I wondered if the people who paid millions of dollars to live here realized how much their luxurious homes felt like a jail. I felt lucky not to have been strip-searched before gaining entry, although, had Mr. Smith been doing the search, it might have been fun.
“Do enjoy your visit,” the mad doctor instructed me as the doors of the blue box he’d called for me opened. He gave me a little wink that made me wonder if he knew more about Mr. Ford than a simple name change could conceal.
“I intend to,” I lied.
30
The Porn Identity
For such a new and high-tech building, the elevator seemed to be taking an awfully long time to reach the twenty-second floor. But then again, maybe it was my nerves stretching out the minutes like a prisoner on the rack.
In any case, it was long enough for me to have the increasingly intense suspicion I was walking into a trap. But what? I was probably just being overdramatic.
The doors opened with a ping that made me jump. Nervous much? I pinched my arm. Get over it. I stepped into the chicly stark hallway.
Just as the doors of the elevator closed behind me, it occurred to me what was wrong.
What if I was mistaken about Lucas using a new alias?
Maybe Mr. Ford wasn’t Lucas at all.
Maybe it was The Patron who’d allowed the guard to send me up.
The Patron with a secret worth killing for.
I ran through the conversation with the bulldog again.
I said I was here for Lucas and he called upstairs.
Whoever answered, the guard called him “Mr. Ford.”
But he hadn’t said, “There’s someone here to see you,” had he?
He’d said, “There’s someone for your apartment.”
At least, that’s what I thought he’d said. I wasn’t paying that much attention, as I was mostly focused on not wetting myself.
Shit.
Shit shit shit.
Was that why Mr. Ford wanted to see me on the video? Because he knew it couldn’t be Brent?
So then why let me come upstairs?
Because he’d seen me and determined I wasn’t a threat?
Hadn’t I just been thinking how lucky I was not to look imposing?
Now, I wished I resembled a more muscular John Cena.
This was crazy. I was crazy. What was I doing here?
Freddy was right.
Tony was right.
I had no business playing Boy Detective.
I turned back to the elevator, relieved to see that on the residential floors there were no secretly coded keypads, just the same two boring buttons you find in every other building.
I was just about to press “down” when two hundred pounds of muscle ran down the hall and grabbed me.
The force of the impact, and subsequent restraint, knocked the wind out of me. I couldn’t breath. Or scream. Was I about to “disappear” too?
“Brent!” shouted an excited Lucas Fisher/Ford. He swept me off my feet and twirled me around. “My god, I thought I’d never see you again!”
Already woozy with panic and self-doubt, I was completely disoriented by this sudden embrace and dizzying spin. I didn’t even notice he’d gone from turning me to carrying me until we were inside his apartment and he’d kicked the door closed behind him.
“Oh baby, I missed you so much.” He pushed me against the door and brought his face around for a kiss. His body pressed against mine with a comfortable intimacy. Well, comfortable for him. For me, it was a little on the awkward side. Although, I suppose I should have been grateful that his initial embrace in the hallway, although overly enthusiastic, was the product of horniness, not hostility.
The tenderness of his touch played in sharp contrast to the hardness of his muscles. His pecs, abs, and quads felt like granite.
The other hardness he pressed against me was equally impressive. Had it been meant for me, I’d have been appreciative. As it was, I felt guilty, like I’d stolen his erection from someone more deserving.
His handsome face, even better-looking than on video, was radiant with joy.
Until a cloud eclipsed its brilliance.
Uh-oh.
There it was.
The second glance.
“Wha . . .” he began. He blinked in confusion. “You’re . . . you’re not . . .”
Suddenly, the arms that embraced me pushed me roughly against the door.
“You FUCK!” he screamed. “Who the FUCK are you?”
And . . . there’s that hostility I was worried about.
He reached down to put his hands around my neck. He didn’t tighten them. Not yet, at least. But I wasn’t about to take any chances.
Lucas had almost a foot in height and at least sixty pounds on me. I knew from years of self-defense training that wouldn’t do him much good.
I swept my arms up between his and quickly spread them apart, removing his hands from my neck. Had I felt truly threatened by Lucas, I’d have probably just kneed him in the balls at that point. It had the advantage of being a move I could pull off quickly and it always worked.
But once I did that, I doubted we could have a friendly discussion.
Instead, I dropped to my knees, darted between his legs before he had time to process what was happening, and was now in position behind him.
I considered pushing him against the door and bending his arm back to keep him in place. That way, he’d be forced to listen. But again, I decided on a more peaceful approach.
Because in the space of a moment, I knew Lucas hadn’t hurt Brent. Whatever his feelings for the boy were, he was unmistakably overjoyed at the thought of a reunion.
And given the confidence of that embrace, there was no way the relationship between them was unrequited. Lucas moved in for that kiss with no hesitation or fear. He knew it’d be returned.
At some point, outside of work and, I bet, behind Charlie’s back, Lucas and Brent had become lovers.
I didn’t blame him for being incensed to discover I’d lied to him.
I took a few steps backward and assumed a defensive stance. Legs wide for support and arms raised to protect my body and face.
I had a feeling that what I thought was a clever ruse to get myself into Lucas’s apartment was, instead, a cruel and heartbreaking deception.
I didn’t want to hurt him again.
But Lucas was enraged and built like a linebacker.
He turned and face
d me, huffing like a bull facing a matador. His nostrils flared with anger and his eyes blazed. He was flushed with anger, his cheeks scarlet and so hot I could feel their warmth from a foot away.
Even so, I was struck by just how beautiful he was. Too bad whatever came next could get real ugly.
I took another step back, readjusting my arms to a less obviously defensive position. I faced my hands toward him and hoped he could judge body language.
“I can explain,” I said.
“Not after I break your jaw,” he growled. But he didn’t step forward.
“Brent was my friend. I know you cared about him. I’m trying to find him. I came because I thought you’d want to help.”
Lucas had one of those broad, open faces that showed everything he felt. His eyes softened a few degrees but his teeth remained clenched.
“Why did you lie? Why did you say you were him?”
I could see Lucas was wavering between trust and anger. Hope and betrayal tugged at him in equal measures.
I took another step back. This seemed to make him even angrier. Or more suspicious. What had I done wrong?
I had to play him. But how? What did I know about Lucas Fisher, now Lucas Ford? Nothing.
Except . . . except I’d seen him before. In the first scene he ever taped with Brent. In most porn, by definition, you’re going to see a lot of skin. But in Lucas’s encounter with Brent, he also revealed what lay underneath.
The desire to be dominated.
From the first moments, it was clear how enraptured Lucas was by his younger partner.
The balance of power between them was striking. Despite Lucas’s age and size advantage over Brent, he immediately fell into the compliant role. Whether that was his general nature, or something triggered by the thought of being controlled by a smaller guy, I didn’t know.
For whatever reason, though, it seemed like surrendering to a little-brother type flipped a button in Lucas’s head. Amend that: flipped buttons on both of his heads.
During my years hustling, I learned a lot of lessons. One of the most lucrative was this: If a guy had a button, it always paid to push it.
“That’s enough,” I barked. I surprised Lucas, and myself, by reversing my slow retreat and briskly striding toward him. I put my hands on his shoulders and pushed him against the door. Not enough to hurt him, just enough to assert authority.
“Cut the crap,” I ordered. I got up in his face like a drill sergeant. Like a lover. “I said I was Brent because I had to talk to you. I didn’t know how else to get you to let me up.
“I’ve spoken to everyone else I could think of. No one seems to know where he’s gone. You’re my last hope, Lucas. You may be Brent’s last hope, too.”
Lucas was more than big enough to have pushed me away. Instead, he stayed where I put him. An obedient puppy.
For now.
I tried to affect a Christian-Bale-as-Batman deep voice. “So, here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to calm the fuck down, invite me in, and maybe even offer me something to drink. Like a normal person.
“Then, you and I are going to put our heads together and figure out where Brent is. Are you cool with that? Because, if not, I’m more than happy to leave.
“I came to help you, Lucas, not to get manhandled. So, why don’t you stop acting like such a little bitch and maybe we can get to work and find our friend?”
Lucas raised his arms to shove me back. I shifted my weight to my heels. If he came after me too strongly, I was ready to protect myself.
Had I overplayed my hand? Misjudged how hard to push? My natural instincts urged me to back away, but my martial arts training gave me the confidence to remain still until he made his move, so I could use his momentum against him.
I was glad I waited. Lucas surprised me. The arms I expected to attack me instead wrapped themselves around my back. The towering mountain of man meat that fueled the masturbatory fantasies of millions was hugging me with the fervor of a five-year-old reunited with his daddy after getting lost at the supermarket.
Also like a lost little boy who’d just been found, Lucas was crying. Big, gulping sobs that shook the both of us.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He held me tightly enough to be uncomfortable. I felt his strong muscles pressed firmly against me.
Also pressed against me was his hard-on. Just like the first time he hugged me. Only, that one had been meant for Brent. This one popped up just for me.
Apparently, my berating and pushing him around had an even more dramatic effect than I’d expected. Guess I wasn’t wrong after all. That button of his was pretty dependable.
Still, as his sobs diminished and I patted his back, telling him it was all going to be fine, the mood shifted from one of confrontation to comfort. As he calmed down, the strength of his embrace and his erection diminished in equal proportions. In a few minutes, both came to an end.
He wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. “You must think I’m a freak,” he said, his voice croaky and breaking. “It’s just, I miss him so much, and I thought you were him. Then, when you weren’t, I wanted to kill you. Not kill you, of course. Just make this whole mess . . . go away.”
He looked around for something. My guess was it must have been a tissue, because when he didn’t find it, he untucked his T-shirt and blew his nose into the hem.
“It’s just . . . I haven’t been able to talk to anyone about what happened. Not anyone. Not the truth. I couldn’t even tell them he’d gone missing.”
“You can tell me the truth,” I said. “In fact, I’m counting on it.”
“The whole story?” Lucas asked.
“I kind of think you have to,” I answered. “For a whole lot of reasons.”
I didn’t add that his mental health appeared to be one of them.
Lucas nodded, to himself as much as to me. He somehow looked burdened and relieved at the same time.
“Come in,” he said, a little dazed and off his game. He started down the hallway to the living room.
“Can I get you something to drink?” His voice had a robotic quality to it. He was trying to hold it together, but I also noticed he was doing exactly as I’d instructed.
Not quite like a normal person, I concluded. But close enough.
31
The Renegade
“Do you mind if I wash up?” We were passing a bathroom, and I needed a moment to collect myself.
“Go ahead,” Lucas said. “You want a drink?”
“Sure. Water’s fine.”
I closed and locked the door behind me.
The bathroom was chicly high tech. All polished aluminum and glass. The toilet was one of those tricked-out jobs with a built-in bidet, warming seat, and automatic disinfection. It made me wish I had to pee. Across from it, a fifteen-inch LCD screen was built into the wall. I guess reading on the john was passé.
The linen wallpaper, marble floor, and assortment of expensive, hand-shaped soaps spoke to excess wealth. Even the towels were designer, the letters KLN embroidered across their bottom. A play on “clean,” I supposed. For what they cost, I thought they could have spelled out the whole word.
I opened the medicine cabinet. No medicine, but as vast an array of cleansing, moisturizing, and toning products as I’ve ever seen. All of it was labeled as “anti-aging” formulations, or “youth serums.” Skin tightening creams, under-eye revitalizers, wrinkle reducers . . . if this stuff didn’t work, the only thing left was embalming fluid. I wondered just how old Lucas’s patron was.
I could handle myself in a fight, but I was glad I’d avoided one with Lucas. Still, I was flushed with adrenaline and my heart pounded alarmingly. I splashed my face with cold water and took a deep breath. I looked at myself in the mirror. My cheeks were blazing and my nostrils flared.
A few more deep breaths. Better.
Lucas seemed crazy enough for the both of us. I had to stay calm.
“Over here,�
�� Lucas called when he heard me close the door as I exited the bathroom. I followed his voice to the impressive living room.
Although it was early afternoon, Lucas had gotten himself a can of beer. He handed me a bottle of Evian.
When Lucas asked if I wanted to hear his “whole story,” I didn’t know he meant “from birth.” Yet, here I was, half an hour into Lucas’s recitation and he still hadn’t entered his Degrassi years. Nor was anything he’d shared—from the town in which he was born to the name of his best friend in the fourth grade—at all relevant. The only mildly interesting thing I’d learned was that he was an army brat, raised by a strict, commanding father of high rank.
I could probably tie that to his fetish for submissiveness, but it wasn’t a subject on which I wanted to dwell.
What was going on here? Why this diarrhea of the mouth?
He’s lonely, I realized. I looked around the room in which we sat and admired the Scandinavian furniture, the thick carpets, the original Rothkos and Mirós that hung on the walls. All this staggeringly expensive modernity was almost made moot by the floor-to-ceiling glass wall, which opened the room up to the most amazing view of New York City. A constantly changing, living tapestry of life in the world’s greatest city. I imagined it must be even more spectacular at night.
It was, I thought, the most beautiful cage I’d ever seen. Coming into the building, I’d been struck by how the redundant security measures made me feel like I was visiting a prison. Sitting with Lucas, I wondered if that’s how he felt, only from the perspective of the prisoner.
Here he was, ensconced in luxury, but unable to share it with anyone. I was willing to bet his mysterious sugar daddy didn’t encourage Lucas having friends over. Assuming he had any.
I bet Lucas rarely left this apartment. His patron wouldn’t be taking him on dates. At least, not anywhere there was a chance they’d be seen together. I had no idea how old Lucas’s supporter was, but if Lucas was an anonymous face, he might have been able to explain Lucas as an employee or nephew or something. But Lucas had a face recognizable from hundreds of pornographic movies. I didn’t know anything about his patron, but in my experience these men tended to be closeted or even married.
Third You Die (Kevin Connor Mystery) Page 23
