He’d been trying so hard to minimize what had happened, to be fine, to be ready to bounce up the next day and go to the FBI and let bygones do their thing. But reality hit him so hard his legs almost gave out. A knife really had been plunged repeatedly into his stomach. Being punched, he was sort of used to. But the damage the baton had done was staggering. He really did look like he'd been hit by a car. Everything had really happened, and was worse than he remembered.
JOHN
“Nick’s having a rough day,” said John, pinning his phone between his shoulder and ear while he rummaged through the fridge to check their stock of cream at Mari’s request.
“Does he need to go to the doctor?” asked Mari, her voice suddenly sharp with worry.
“It’s psychological.” John hesitated. “Look ....can you come home early? I’m not sure what to do, I’m not that good at reassuring.”
Mari chuckled. “Yes, you are, sweetie.”
“I feel like I’m treating the poor guy like an injured dog. All I seem to do is pet him and try to feed him things, and when we talk I manage to tell him he’s a torture victim and an abused child. He needs someone around who -- doesn’t zero in on crime and punishment with every thought.”
Mari chuckled. “Okay. I can see that. I’ll come home early, and don’t make dinner. I’ll bring something that will make Nick eat.”
John grimaced. “We have about two cups of cream,” he said, following through on his errand. “And - don’t be too sure about Nick eating. I tried getting yogurt down him this morning an’ you’d think I was making him eat deep-fried cockroaches.”
“He’ll eat,” said Mari with absolute certainty. “Now, I have to go. Give Nick a scratch behind the ear for me.”
John grinned. “Bye, hon. Love you.”
He finished climbing the stairs just as he hung up. “Mari said to give you a scratch behind the ear for her.”
Nick chuckled. “Not even gonna ask for backstory on that one.”
“Wise man.”
MARI
John didn’t understand that he only frightened people who didn’t know him. To those who did ....herself, Nick ...he was the most reassuring person on the planet. Nick was in far better hands than John thought he was.
But he did have a one-track mind, and tended to keep digging down the same hole until he found something or drove everyone around him to the brink of strangling him.
John knew Nick liked attention, and liked to be pampered, and that was what he was doing spoon-feeding the poor guy yogurt. Because John lacked a certain dimension in his own mind, he didn’t grasp that Nick thrived on experiences.
He’d loved being showered with giftly affection by Kelly because it was an experience. He loved visiting art shows because he got to experience how someone else’s mind worked. He loved the experiences of excitement and danger in the FBI.
Nick wouldn’t find a lot to relish in being spoon-fed store-bought yogurt in the bed he’d been trapped in for days, like some hapless nursing-home patient. That was no experience worth living for.
This would be.
Moro opened the front door, and gestured her three helpers in. “Shhhhhh.” She pressed a finger to her lips. They quickly unpacked their goods while she made normal noises in the kitchen, slipping the gelato into the freezer for later.
Being a TV producer constantly immersed in the world of NYC cooking shows gave her access to the city’s best chefs, caterers, and bakers at the drop of a hat. It also gave her the occasional flexibility to leave work early to arrange a special dinner for her husband’s dearest friend.
She stomped up the stairs, with the three men creeping along behind. Nick and John were there, an endearing sight with Nick’s cat burglar and John slumped against the bed in his chair reading aloud and Nick’s eyes half-closed in appreciative, drugged contentment.
There was something special about the sight. Warm and soft and intimate in a way that softened her. It was too bad Nick would inevitably go back to his apartment when he was healed. Their home felt more complete with both men in it. The two were so close that Mari could sense the strain in John when Nick wasn’t around.
Mari waved the first man in, and he set up a triangular, glistening, chromed Davik Leed table with one side facing the bed so that Nick could sit comfortably on the bed with a pillow at his back. Then two triangular Leed chairs for herself and John.
She set the orchid centerpiece she was holding in the center. It formed the lid to a sterling and crystal dessert platter holding an authentic Tiramisu from the finest pastry chef on her extensive contact list, rum and mascarpone included. The fragrant orchids and the scent of the rum danced together in an intoxicating play of sensation. A quick call to the pharmacist had assured her that small amount of alcohol wouldn’t do any harm.
The second man laid down the place settings of fine Belgian linen, leaded crystal and solid sterling silver. Then he and the third sat down solid silver serving trays which had been on warmers in a vented and insulated carrier ever since leaving the kitchen. Under the lid were servings of long, thin fresh ravioli stuffed with red beets and drizzled with a sage butter sauce. The main entree was a veal and chestnut cannelloni with mushroom wine sauce, and there was a side salad of fresh raspberries, huckleberries, and marionberries drizzled with honey.
Nick’s eyes brightened, and he looked almost like Ochre presented with a steak, nose twitching in disbelief. The servers vanished, and they sat down to eat.
John’s eyes widened when Mari pulled the cork on a bottle of wine and poured for all three of them. He shot a look at the row of orange bottles on the nightstand, every one of them bearing some personification of booze with a disapproving line through it.
Mari smiled and pressed a fingernail under a tiny line of text on the bottle. Non-alcoholic.
Nick was a changed man. He dug in with sheer bliss on his face, and ate like he hadn't eaten in days. Which, to be fair, he really hadn't.
"Oh. My. God. Mari, I love you."
Mari grinned, more relieved than she would ever admit to see Nick looking alive again. He was transformed from hospital patient to Nick Aster, debonair charmer with an incorrigible spark in his eyes and a ready grin.
Nick took a sip of the wine, blinked, and then his nose wrinkled as his jaw dropped. “What - is - that?” He shook his head as if to clear the flavor.
“Oh, control your inner wine snob.” John downed a swig so as to be able to assure Nick that it wasn’t that bad.
He almost gagged. “Oh -- kay. What -- ack.”
Nick gave him a mocking glare. “Are you trying to poison me in my hour of weakness?”
“Oh, come on,” said Mari, looking slightly hurt. She sipped at hers, and immediately spat it back in the glass. “What -- they told me this was decent!”
Nick sampled another sip out of morbid curiosity. “I’m pretty sure a guy named Merle can do better with a toilet, some sugar packets, and a rotten orange.”
Mari gagged and held the glass away from her body. “Are we sure this isn’t his handiwork?”
“Maybe it’s one of those prison craft projects,” suggested John. “I heard this one guy in Oregon started a bread company when he got out. Stuff tasted like regurgitated bird food.”
Nick grinned. “Well, to be fair, prison food tastes like regurgitated ....newspaper. Overcooked regurgitated newspaper that’s been sitting out a couple days. He probably thought the bread tasted awesome by comparison.”
Ochre, with ever a keen ear for rejected human food, approached with a hopeful expression. Mari tipped her glass in his direction for sampling. Ochre stuffed an eager snub nose in the glass, then stopped, recoiled, and backed away slowly.
“You tried to feed me stuff the dog won’t even touch?” said Nick, faking a plaintive whine.
“Okay, okay,” said John. “We’ll have something more your style next time. What exactly constitutes overcooking the regurgitated newspaper? Extra hour or two in the oven, or do you simmer it on
the stovetop ‘til it loses all its flavor?”
"I prefer mine burnt. Just leave it in the toaster until the smoke detector goes off."
“More wine?” suggested John, picking up a glass and wafting it in front of Nick’s nose.
“Why do you do that?” complained Nick.
“Because annoyed Nick is adorable,” said John. “You’ve got this cute little glare ....”
Nick gave him a wide-eyed look of indignation.
“And there it is,” said John. “Adorable.”
Nick groaned. “Sadist.”
John’s watch beeped, and he checked his wrist. “The sadist now reminds you to take your meds.”
"You're a really lousy sadist."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Charged Up
JOHN
“They still thinking about charging ‘im?” asked John.
Special Agent Dan Fisher, lead investigator on the Rikers case, glanced uncomfortably around the Langley’s living room, trying to see if Nick was in earshot. “Yeah. He took a hat from one of the guards?”
“Yeah ....”
“So he’s up against two counts of theft now. Cell phone and the hat. Receiving and possessing contraband, assault, vandalism, conspiracy - they’re making it sound like he was on a one-man crime spree.”
“To which the sane and legal reaction on their part was assault, torture, reckless endangerment, and cruel and unusual punishment? I think we still got the edge,” said John, balling his fists.
“We do,” agreed Fisher.
“You still don’t want to tell him?” asked John.
“While there’s no warrant, there’s no need to put him through that fear,” said Fisher.
John frowned. “How likely is it they’ll actually issue an arrest warrant?”
“Very unlikely,” said Fisher. He scratched his military-cut salt-and-pepper hair. “It’s a desperate negotiation tactic. If they actually took it to court, it’d introduce evidence of what they did to him and their case would go down in flames of public outrage.”
“My biggest fear is nobody’ll care what they did to him,” said John. “Public already seems to ‘ave okayed dragging un-charged suspects into dungeons and torturing them, so long as we’re inflicting terror in name of fighting it.”
John had to turn and walk away. Fisher was reserved, controlled, professional. A little too dispassionate for John’s taste, but John could recognize his own emotional over-involvement and wanted to hide it.
Fisher followed, and with him a slight odor John finally identified. Had the agent been drinking? John poured them both coffee.
Agent Fisher accepted his without a smile or a nod of thanks. “It was the FBI that blew the whistle on Guantanamo for real. We cared.”
“People have died of neglect and mistreatment in Rikers before, and -- I think I read a newspaper article and that was it,” said John.
Fischer looked at John with a frighteningly cool sort of honesty, fiddling with his glasses. “He’s not a homeless black man with a mental illness, Middle Eastern, or a pregnant prostitute. He’s a sexy, smart white guy with a nonviolent record. The public will back him.”
John turned away. He wasn’t convinced that was the case. Or that this agent particularly cared about Nick. “You gonna be able to do anything, Fisher?”
Fisher planted his fists on his hips, and shifted to a wide stance. “You know the job, Langley. We collect evidence and make arrests. What judges and city administrators do is out of my hands. I’ll never be able to make Aster whole.”
Fisher was tough and he was cynical, two inevitable by-products of working violent crimes. But his humanity was still there, and it was hurting.
“We can do more than collect evidence and make arrests,” said John. “We can set an example of how to do law enforcement right. We can show the victims, by our handling of the case, that they’re valued by society.”
Thin, bright sunlight filtered into the living room, bathing a very content Ochre in a morning haze of light and dust particles. John picked up a framed photo of himself and Nick that rested on a table nearby. Side by side, arms wrapped around each other’s backs, goofy grins, John trying to drag Nick away from the couch and Nick slapping at him. Pure joy on Nick’s face.
John handed it to Fisher. “I promise you, he won’t care who gets what jail time. He just needs to know what was done to him is unacceptable to the justice system. He’s a ward of that system and at its mercy.”
Fisher looked at the photo, and some of the hardness in his eyes yielded. “That is one lucky felon.”
“I’m one lucky FBI agent,” said John.
Fisher handed the photo back. “That’s the system he’s a ward of, and that’s mercy. Sure, I’ll show him he’s valued by society. But he’s valued by a person, and that’s worth a whole lot more than an abstract construct like ‘society’ or ‘system.’”
JOHN
John frowned. He’d come upstairs when he’d heard raised voices. Fisher was flat-out interrogating Nick. And Nick was acting not like a cooperative crime victim, but a suspect. Some of it was understandable. Of course Nick wasn’t going to tell a Federal investigator who slipped him a cell phone, serious contraband in a prison.
Fisher gave John a frustrated look. “He won’t talk about what happened in the yard, not even who stabbed him. It’s some fucking criminal code of conduct snitch bullshit.”
“It’s not bullshit,” said John. “It’s a matter of life or death for Aster. There’s a reason sometimes I turn my back and let him go through his contacts on his own. Snitching on guys like you’re asking could get him murdered.”
“Stay out of this,” muttered Fisher.
John stepped back and leaned on the doorjamb, watching the train wreck itself. Nick was less forthcoming than a Russian spy about the entire incident.
Fisher, clearly unprepared to deal with an uncooperative victim, lost his cool and started nearly yelling at a man lying in bed recovering from near-fatal injuries.
Fisher lunged forward in unthinking frustration. “Damn it! I’m fighting for you, you little shit.” He clenched his fists, and yelled. “I’m trying to help you!”
Nick flinched away, curled his knees in front of his stomach, and hid his face in folded arms. Then he simply froze and waited to be beaten. John stopped his furious charge at Fisher when he saw the agent’s face. It was pale, and filled with guilt.
Fisher dropped to his knees beside the bed. “Hey. Hey. I’m sorry. I got mad. That doesn’t mean I’d ever hurt you. Ever.”
Nick didn’t respond, and Fisher gave him a soft touch on the arm. John frowned. Fisher's hand was shaking, and his breathing was shallow and rapid, almost as though he were having a panic attack. This was a side of the controlled agent that John never would have guessed at.
“I’m furious,” said Fisher. “I’m so fucking furious at the people who did this to you, and the people protecting them, and the people who don’t care, that I can’t even see straight.”
Nick started breathing again, and after a few moments, looked at Fisher. “I’m -- I really, truly don’t want to be difficult. I appreciate you. People like you make the human race worth being part of.”
“But?” asked the agent.
“I have to live in the same world where this happened to me. Any day, I could wake up and be sent back to prison. I could end up in Riker’s again. I can’t afford to piss off inmates or prison guards, not if I want to survive.”
Fisher frowned. “Then why the hell’d you take the cell phone?”
“I’m either brain-damaged, or a real moron.”
“Okayyyyy,” said Fisher. “I’m gonna skip right on over that one. I’m not asking you to be a snitch. We know who stabbed you, it’s on tape. I want you to help me take down corrections officers who brutalized you.”
Nick let out a low chuckle. “Spoken like a man who’s never been to prison.”
Fisher pushed his glasses hard against the bones of his nose. He
was still kneeling by the bed. “The hell’s that mean?”
There was dark humor in Nick’s expression. “If those COs end up in state prison ....where does New York send its violent criminals again? Sing Sing. Now, if you were possibly gonna be thrown behind bars with the men who beat the hell out of you, would you want them harboring a grudge or not?”
Fisher’s jaw went slack. He hadn’t thought of that. “Okay, just give me background. That fight -- when the inmates were laying into each other and getting taken down by the guards, it’s really hard to tell on lousy footage who the aggressors are.”
Broken Blue Lines: Love. Hate. Criminal Justice.: An FBI Crime Drama / LGBT+ Love Story Page 13
