Nick glanced at John. “Damn, he is nice. Will you take lessons from him, please?”
John swatted him with a file, something that made him grin and flinch at the same time. Nick had a feeling this was going to be a part of their routine now. At least until only the grin was left, until Nick stopped seeing fists and batons coming his way and just saw a playful FBI agent with a file folder.
Nick looked at Neil, who was watching with something that looked like understanding and compassion.
“Okay,” said Nick to both agents.
“Pick you up at your place tomorrow morning?” asked Kasdan.
“Sure.”
Kasdan handed Nick his business card. “Call me if you decide not to come in. I’m serious about the chicken soup.”
“I like being at the FBI,” said Nick. “It keeps my mind off other things. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“I like him,” said Nick, watching Kasdan retreat.
“You can walk all over him, you mean. He’s way too nice to keep you in line, but I don’t imagine you can get into too much trouble in this short a time.”
Nick fiddled with a pen. It was too soon to even contemplate someone “keeping him in line.” Not with holes in his stomach and the horror of watching someone beat him fresh in his mind. Even John’s slap with the file had made him feel sick.
“Lay off for one fucking week, John.”
John responded with a gentle pat of his arm. After a minute he spoke just as gently. “You want me to walk on eggshells, or help you work through this?”
Nick met John’s eyes. Intelligent, sweet, caring. “Help me. But just remember the wounds are really fucking raw right now.”
John’s expression darkened. “I know. I know.”
NICK
Theo and Alice gave Nick a warm welcome back to his apartment, while Nick tried to hide that he was dizzy, his entire body was aching after the day at the office followed by the stairs up to his apartment, and he was a little shaken by the sudden move out of the shelter of the Langley’s home.
“Be right back,” said Nick with a chipper smile. He barely made it to the bathroom before throwing up. Then he curled up on the floor and waited for it to stop spinning like a fair ride.
Alice was saying something unintelligible, he realized after a bit.
“I want off,” said Nick, groaning.
“Off what, sweetheart?” asked Alice, tucking something soft under his head.
“The ride. I want off this damn ride.”
She patted his shoulder, and made him take his pills. He had to smile when she pressed a bottle of Perrier into his hand in place of the obligatory plastic cup of water. He was at Alice’s, all right.
The mother of a man named Nick had befriended in prison, Alice Green was Nick’s private savior. She let him live in the upstairs penthouse of her tasteful luxury home, and mothered him in the way she wished she could her imprisoned son. Considered one of the most influential black painters in the country, she was not so privately thrilled to have the man who’d most successfully forged her work living in her penthouse.
Far from hating Nick for having done it, she frequently told visitors that the day she learned Nick Aster had forged one of her paintings, she knew she’d made it as an artist.
Slowly the world spun back into focus, and he began having thoughts of his bed, and how it would be more comfortable than the bathroom floor. He rolled onto his knees, and Alice helped him stand, and hugged him tight while she steadied his steps.
Nick sniffed. Theo was cooking something. Smelled kind of good. Alice helped him into bed, pulled a blanket over him, and kissed him on the cheek. “You’ll get better.”
Nick managed a weak smile. “Love you. Always -- saving me -- when I need it.”
He meant it. Something of these bruises would always linger in his soul after they faded from his body; he knew that from experience. But they would be overshadowed by Alice kissing him on the cheek, and Theo’s fierce loyalty, Mari caressing him in her arms while he cried.
By Daniel Curry backing him even after his attempted escape.
Kelly, showering him with everything chocolate and plunking that perfect-in-every-way cat burglar down on his chest.
US Marshal Gary Wills, sitting down in that awful, bloody mess and bandaging his ankles with sensitive care.
And John. Nick closed his eyes. That week would stay with him forever, and he would feel not pain and fear but love and protection.
Theo and Alice pulled up chairs next to the bed, and Theo served chicken stew made with fresh pasta, and garlic bread. It was a wonderful pairing, and eating it actually settled Nick’s stomach.
Theo was behaving strangely. He was oddly quiet around Nick, and kept sort of studying him, and the anklet.
“What’s up, Theo?” asked Nick finally.
“I’m disconcerted,” said Theo.
“And why?” asked Alice.
“The Fed and I have been ....bonding. A little. It’s like discovering Darth Vader has a soul, and is passionately devoted to my best friend. I’m trying to comprehend.”
“He cares,” said Nick simply. “Even when I can’t be Nick Aster.”
“But he can’t possibly. Not -- and do the things he does to you.”
“Theo, what he’s done to me is pull me out of a maximum-security prison and let me live a life of my own, and treat me as a human being who has feelings and who matters. Prison is nowhere near the horror you think it is, and it’s so much worse than you can possibly imagine. Nobody who hasn’t lived it could ever comprehend what John’s done for me ....”
Nick looked away. “After I tried to run, when he had them put that second anklet on me, I was so miserable. I got to tell him that, and let him see it, and have him care about the fact that I was a person and this hurt. He -- held me.”
“And how do you possibly overlook that he’s the one who did it to you in the first place?” asked Theo, baffled.
“Because in prison, I would’ve been stripped, chained up hand and foot, shoved and yelled at until I believed my life was over and I had no value or place in humanity or even the right to breathe, and finally locked up in a concrete cell smaller than my bathroom with no human contact and forgotten. If he’d driven me to Sing Sing instead of his house, that’s where I would be right now, and nobody would care if I was throwing up or in pain or hungry or scared or cold. John was utterly haunted by the fact that he grabbed my wrist and it started bleeding. With John, I got to complain about something as trivial as a second anklet, and have him care, and hold me in a warm room in a safe house. I was loved and forgiven. You can’t possibly understand how much that means.”
Theo’s lower lip quivered a little, and he looked away. “I’m an orphan. Yes, I can.”
Nick reached out and squeezed Theo’s hand. Theo wasn’t big on touch as reassurance. But every so often, he let it through. Like tonight.
JOHN
John was pressed back in his seat as the plane took off, and he closed his eyes and tried not to worry about Nick. He and Neil Kasdan seemed instantly comfortable with each other, and John had been unable to locate anything in Kasdan’s history, anywhere, that indicated any kind of a mean streak. His main flaw as an agent, in fact, was that he was overly softhearted.
With the threat of arrest and untold horrors lifted, John believed Nick sincerely didn’t want to run. If anything, he was anxious to redeem himself after his foiled escape attempt.
They’d moved Nick back into his apartment into the capable care of Alice and Theo. Alice, he was fairly certain, would have no qualms about dragging Nick into a firm hug and refusing to let go, if he needed it.
Kasdan would be picking Nick up at his apartment late, at eight, so he didn’t have to push himself getting ready for work.
Everything was perfect. But nothing ever was perfect where Nick was concerned.
Nick had been plotting something at work the day before, and not just the complete abdication of his case.
Nick didn’t do revenge. Not the violent kind, and as far as he could tell, Nick didn’t possess even a mildly vindictive nature.
But nor did he passively accept being victimized, shrink from danger, or let serious bad guys go unstopped. There had been something behind those Judo remarks. If Nick was going to engage the enemy, he was walking a very tight rope indeed.
John simply couldn’t risk letting him fall without a net. When the plane landed, he’d call Gary Wills and put him on alert, and tell him about Kasdan, and Nick’s change of address.
Wills and Nick had become quite fond of each other, and that meant they could fight back to back if they had to.
John looked out the window at the clouds and landscape dotted below and wondered if he could interest Nick in a hobby. Something safe to occupy his attention. Playing with fire, or training circus tigers.
NICK
Nick occupied himself on his phone while he waited downstairs for Kasdan. He’d launched his little plot before finding out that John would be leaving town, and was having uneasy thoughts.
He checked the news sites. They were starting to pick up the story. The previous day, activist blogger Marion Day had received a copy of the agreement between Nick Aster and the NYPD.
Nick had sent it anonymously, with a skillfully worded implication that Aster had signed it out of fear of retaliation.
She pounced. At midnight, Marion Day’s website posted the news that Nick Aster had been victimized once again by an overbearing city police department. The NYPD had strong-armed him into signing away his right to sue and to press charges against his attackers.
Day posted the agreement to her site, where in context Nick’s liberal concessions looked like he was desperate to avoid arrest and had given away the farm to assure he wouldn’t face retaliatory charges.
It was too late for second thoughts. Nick suspected Special Agent Dan Fisher would storm Kasdan’s desk and demand a confrontation no later than noon. Either that, or he would simply release the photos on his own, with no sideways nudging on Nick’s part.
Kasdan picked Nick up at his apartment, was charmed by Alice, and had espresso waiting in the car.
“You sure you really want to come to work?” asked Kasdan, grimacing in sympathy as he helped Nick lower himself into the passenger seat.
“Ow. Ow,” whispered Nick, gritting his teeth at putting his weight on the bruises. It passed fast though.
“Positive,” said Nick, giving the very worried agent a reassuring look.
“Okay. But - um - Agent Langley said you can be too stoic for your own good --”
Nick burst into a giggle. And he hadn’t even hit the espresso yet.
“John called me stoic?”
“Ah - he might have worded it a little differently,” admitted Kasdan.
“Stoic?” The most deliciously absurd images of the past week at the Langley’s were flitting through Nick’s mind. He adjusted his tie. “Yup, that’s me, all right.”
“Okay, whatever,” said Kasdan. “Just -- tell me if you want to be taken home, or if there’s anything I can do to make you more comfortable, all right? I feel like a bit of a monster asking a guy who can barely walk to come into work.”
“You didn’t ask, I did,” Nick reassured him. This agent was sweet. He looked genuinely worried, in a guileless sort of way.
Neil got behind the wheel and cast another anxious look at Nick. “Is the coffee okay? Did you get breakfast?”
Nick met the agent’s concerned gaze, and grinned. “You know you aren’t actually babysitting me, right? I did survive years in state maximum security.”
“I just -- John said to take care of you. And that agents have been really horrible to you in the past.”
“Eh, what’s a cold-blooded bullet to the leg here and there between enemies?” asked Nick, hoisting his coffee cup in a toast.
Kasdan returned the toast and pulled away from the curb.
“I saw Agent Langley smack you with that file. Kinda confused me after he’d read me seven different lectures about trauma and sensitivity.”
Nick couldn’t keep an affectionate smile off his face. “That’s John Langley in a nutshell.”
“Good guy?”
“Awesome guy. We’re weird together, don’t worry about it.”
Kasdan chuckled, looking far more relaxed.
Nick relaxed, breathing in the crisp morning air. It was welcome after spending so much time indoors the past week.
NICK
Neil and Nick worked well together, soon establishing an easy rapport over the intricacies of beryllium enhancement and leaded glass filling in rubies sold as un-enhanced.
When lunchtime came, Nick begged off, citing his obvious difficulty walking. As soon as Kasdan closed the door behind him, he checked his phone. The mainstream news sites were running wild with Marion Day’s story, and the handsome PR Captain Chris LeBlanc was doing his job with polish and a complete lack of foresight.
If Aster had any true brutality claim, posited LeBlanc with a knowing smile, why on earth would he have signed away his right to sue?
No, this was simply a con artist looking to smear an honest police department. In the interests of saving the public the potential cost of a lawsuit, the LAPD had reluctantly agreed to offer Aster immunity for his crimes committed in custody. Aster had absolutely not been threatened or coerced.
Nick grinned. Could not be any more perfect.
Next, Nick turned his attention to Assistant Chief Chad Starr. Theo had looked into him because he’d been the loudest and nastiest voice calling for Nick to be charged. And because neither John or Nick could stand the guy.
He had a beautiful record. No excessive use of force complaints, no alleged civil rights violations, and his arrests stuck. As he rose through the ranks, every division under him experienced a surge of closed cases, with none of the allegations of evidence tampering, illegal searches, or racial bias that usually accompanied a dramatically higher than normal closure rate. He was as golden as the braids on his uniform.
And oddly, he never got humiliated at trial.
In fact, his cases and those of his subordinates rarely seemed to go to trial.
Suspects seemed to just magically be open to plea bargains when he was around, opting for prison time rather than bother with a trial that might result in an innocent verdict.
Nick studied the pompous little brat’s photo, and the pieces snapped together. He pulled up his notes on the un-named whistleblower at Rikers.
The whistleblower had suspected that the higher security, more violent, sections of the jail were being used to force suspects into pleading guilty, by creating an unbearably abusive environment that they would do anything to escape, including sign plea deals for prison time. Going to prison meant getting out of Rikers.
Probably in the beginning, Starr had whispered instructions for an inmate to have a rough time of it. But now, the culture of mistreatment had spread so far, it seemed COs assumed that they were encouraged to make the lives of pre-trial suspects hell. Starr had put his career ahead of any shred of humanity, and who knew how many lives had been destroyed because of it.
Starr was the perfect candidate to feed to Fisher. He was the sort of cruel public official Fisher was desperate to take down.
Fisher was a bit of a mess, but he did the job right. He was up to exposing and prosecuting Starr, and hopefully a decent number of the more brutal guards. Nailing the man most responsible for the culture of abuse in Rikers wouldn’t end it, but it would at least give the tide a chance to flow in the right direction.
It might provide Fisher the sort of redemption, and reassurance in humanity, that could save a good man from self-destruction.
The door flew open with a bang, and Nick grinned.
“Hi, Fisher,” he said without looking up. “Right on time.”
Nick felt sorry for the man. He was furious, but his eyes took on a haunted look every time he took in Nick’s bruises, and his bandaged wrists.
“Why the hell did you sign that agreement?” asked Fisher.
Nick shrank back in his chair for effect, even though he wasn’t the least afraid of Fisher. The agent’s broken reaction when he’d scared Nick at the Langley’s said it all.
“I told you, I wouldn’t be a part of this. You don’t need me, and --” Nick paused, considered, and went for honesty. “I’m terrified of being taken back there. I was so scared, I tried to run away from the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Broken Blue Lines: Love. Hate. Criminal Justice.: An FBI Crime Drama / LGBT+ Love Story Page 19
