Chapter 14
“SHIT, IT’S a Tesla 101X!” Steve allowed his hand to glide over the curves of the matte black wing of one of the fastest electric cars in the world. “You didn’t pay for that with the proceeds of a couple of hackfests. What do you really do? Hack into bank accounts?”
Nick’s face formed a lopsided smile as the driver and passenger doors slid open with a faintly discernible hum. “Like it?” he asked as he threw Steve’s bags on the back seat. “It’s not quite the latest model, but we’re going to get that in a few months.”
“We?” queried Steve as he stepped into the black interior of the car. It was softly illuminated by the glow of hundreds of hidden LED lights. As he sat down, the lights shifted slowly through indigo to lilac and then a deep red.
“Blimey, it’s like a fuckin’ disco in here,” Steve commented as Nick pushed the driver’s seat back into place and sat alongside him. “What music you gonna play me on the drive? Donna Summer?”
By way of an answer, Nick touched a pad on a side console, and a mellow woman’s voice, singing a cover of the Carpenter’s song “Close to You,” filled the inside of the car.
“You’re kiddin’ me!” said Steve. “You’re into Rumer? I love her music.” He waved his hand from side to side in midair, conducting the easy lyricism of the song.
“No one believes me when I say I like this stuff. They all think I should be into British punk, or some ersatz American copy. But not me.” His hand paused in midbeat, and he turned to look at Nick. He reached over, laid the palm of his hand on the back of Nick’s head, and pulled him close. Their foreheads touched, and their eyes locked for a few seconds.
It was Nick who moved first. He brought his hand up to pull Steve’s head closer while he hungrily explored the inside of Steve’s mouth with his tongue. Steve reciprocated, stimulating the back of Nick’s mouth with his own tongue. He leaned in farther to Nick and lifted himself off the seat to get closer.
Nick’s hands slipped down from Steve’s neck to the front of his jeans. Expertly, the American’s fingers undid Steve’s button fly and worked their way inside his briefs. Steve could feel them exploring around the base of his rapidly hardening cock. All the while, Nick’s tongue caressed and explored deep inside his mouth. Steve wrapped both hands around Nick’s head and pushed it back and then down, redirecting the warm, moist, relentless stimulation to pleasure his penis. He leaned back against the passenger window as he felt Nick’s tongue explore every erogenous point on his cock.
Suddenly, he felt a stab of pain around his perineum. He pulled away and sat back in the seat, massaging the base of his penis.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he asked. “I’m not into cutting or shit like that.” Angrily, he carried on rubbing as the initial sharp pain subsided.
“Sorry, Steve,” said Nick, “I need to cut my nails again, I guess.” The lopsided smile reformed on his face. “Anyway, I thought you might be into a bit more pain than that.”
“Yeah, well I’m not. I don’t do piercing.”
Nick reached for his seat belt, secured it, and rapidly reversed the Tesla out of the parking space. He paused to look across at Steve.
“It’s probably not a good idea for us to get up to much in this car anyway,” he said. “Jeff would be livid if I got cum on the upholstery. Wait until we get to the loft. If he’s back from his business meeting, we can have a threesome if you like.”
“I think I’ll call this a night,” Steve replied, fumbling with the buttons of his fly. “Just take me to my B and B, it’s supposed to be round the corner from your place. The guy from GayBnB said he’d be up late, and I should get me some sleep.”
“Suit yourself,” said Nick. He put the car into drive, and they shot toward the exit of the parking lot, screeching to a halt just before the barrier. While Nick lowered his window and dealt with the exit ticket, Steve shoved his hand inside his briefs to explore the injury he felt between his legs. Gingerly, he used the tips of his fingers to trace the contours of the skin. The pain was rapidly disappearing, but he could definitely feel a tender spot around the edge of his scrotum.
Steve looked up to see Nick watching him with amusement.
“Want me to take over?” Nick asked with the same lopsided smile. “You can still come back to the loft if you want.”
“Just drive, mate, will you?” replied Steve, withdrawing his hand and fastening the last few buttons. Nick shrugged and turned up the music, and the Tesla shot out of the parking lot toward route 101 and the city.
IT WAS well after one in the morning when the white Lexus pulled up outside 101 Grain Street. A single streetlamp lit the discreet entrance to the building. Clouds had gathered overhead, and a chill wind blew in from the bay. Jeff shivered as he stepped out of the car.
Robbie lowered his window and leaned out. “I’ll do that delivery for you to Jeremiah’s place first thing in the morning. But if you need a pimped-up driver this weekend, Jeff, just remember I’m performin’ at the gig down in Santa Clara.”
Jeff laughed. “Yeah, no problem, Robbie. You can dump the uniform now. Anyway, I’m not moving from here this weekend. It’s the hackfest, and I’m going to be busy myself.”
Robbie tipped his head to one side. “Lookin’ for new programmers, or lookin’ for new meat?” he asked, a grin revealing his expensive, perfect set of white teeth.
Jeff laughed. “Whatever comes my way, Robbie. I’m getting a bit old to expect too much anymore.”
Robbie waved his finger at Jeff in mock admonishment. “Shame on you for talking that way. I know you too well. You like your menfolk lean and young and your womenfolk a bit more mature. And from what I’ve seen,” he continued, “there’s a constant stream of both just lining up for you.” He dropped his hand and laid it flat on the door panel of the Lexus. “I imagine you got what you wanted tonight, didn’t you?” He grinned again.
“Yeah, Robbie.” Jeff smiled. “You could say that.”
Jeff closed the car door, waved his arm in salute as the Lexus eased away from him, and crossed to the building entrance. Once inside, he took the industrial-style elevator to the top floor. As he opened the heavy iron gate, he could see a large cinema screen flicker in the loft space ahead of him.
“Hey, Nick,” he called out. “You still up?”
Nick’s head appeared above one of the long black leather couches ranged in front of the screen. He had stripped off his shirt, and his lean, muscled torso glowed in the reflected light from the cinema screen. Jeff noticed he was rewatching an episode of Queer as Folk.
“How many times are you going to watch that series?” Jeff asked mockingly, carefully placing a leather satchel down on a steel-topped table, hand-built for Jeff by a designer in Carmel. “It’s gotten so old now. Other queer TV is available, you know.” He pulled off his jacket and began to unbutton his shirt. “I’ve got to get out of these damn clothes. I feel like one of the mannequins in Nordstrom’s window.”
Nick rested his hands on the back of the couch and straightened his arms, flexing his neck and the muscles across his back.
“This is classic television, Jeff. No one’s come close to achieving what Russell T. Davies did on British TV in the ’90s.” Nick started to do push-ups on the back of the couch. “This first show blew the minds of those uptight Limeys. Anal sex, rimming, and masturbation, all in one episode? And Stuart’s so hot, even with all that hair.”
Jeff had heard this from Nick many times before. He took his cue to prompt for the next section of the critique. “And the American version?”
Nick stopped in mid muscle-flex and looked witheringly at Jeff.
“Tame but worthy. Why does American drama always have to be about ‘issues’? Why do they have to lecture us? Just give us a good onscreen fuck. That’s what we want to see. Talking of which—” Nick leapt over the back of the couch and swaggered toward Jeff. “—wanna know where your new British protégé is right now?”
Nick reached into his
back pocket and took out his mobile phone. He pulled up a map on the screen showing downtown San Francisco. A red dot pulsed over a street a few blocks away.
“So you got a tracker on him?” asked Jeff with admiration. “Did you manage to fuck him as well?”
Nick grinned. “Not sure he was in the mood after the injector did its magic. Fucking difficult doing it virtually blind, in a car, with a guy who’s pretty damn hot.”
Jeff’s fingers paused on the last few buttons of his shirt. “Where the hell did you put the tracker?” he asked.
“Right between his two pleasure parks,” Nick replied triumphantly. “I was hoping to carry on with the oral and distract him, but I guess he’s a bit oversensitive just around there.”
Nick shoved the phone back in his pocket and helped Jeff remove his shirt. He caressed Jeff’s smooth chest for a few moments, gently massaging his nipples between finger and thumb. Jeff groaned appreciatively. Nick squeezed a little harder, then paused.
“So tell me, why did I need to go to all that trouble with the injector? Why couldn’t we just track him with his mobile, like you’d normally do?”
Jeff sighed and gently took Nick’s hands in his.
“We know he’s a bright guy. So if he goes off anywhere special, he could be wise to us and simply leave his phone behind. Or just turn the thing off.” Jeff placed his hands on Nick’s shoulders and pushed him to his knees. “Okay?”
Nick looked up with a grin for a moment, then started to unbuckle Jeff’s belt.
“Has this one been busy tonight?” he asked, patting the bulge on the front of Jeff’s pants. “Did the lady get the attention she was looking for?”
Jeff held Nick’s head firmly in both hands. “She’s not complaining. Tanya Gould is going to be useful to us for a while yet. Tonight she yielded some very useful information from World Resources Inc.”
Nick looked up at Jeff. “Voluntarily?”
“Let’s say she offered no resistance. Although I’ll admit she knew not what she did.” Jeff caressed Nick’s head and began to massage the lobes of his ears. “I need your help to check I got everything before we send it on to Charter Ninety-Nine.”
Nick unzipped Jeff’s fly, pulled down his pants, and wrapped his hands around Jeff’s firm thighs. He looked up with the puppy-dog face that was always an instant trigger to give Jeff a hard-on. But tonight, Jeff continued to hold Nick’s head away from him.
“Fuck, Nick, I think this is going to have to wait. It’s morning, or close to it, in the rest of the world. We should get the new information to them as soon as we can. And there’s another reason.”
Nick swore and stood up. He helped Jeff pull his pants back on.
Jeff walked over to the table and held up the slim leather satchel he had placed there a few moments earlier.
“I slipped Tanya’s laptop out of her room as I left. Robbie’s going to take it back to the Montgomery Street Bar and Grill first thing in the morning. That way, she’ll just think she carelessly left it there.”
“Carelessly?” repeated Nick. “Imagine the news reports if that got out. ‘Director of Operations for world banking security company WRI leaves laptop in restaurant.’ She’d be toast.”
Jeff took the laptop out of the satchel and placed it on the table. “Well, just like the major banks that WRI serves, it seems their security is pretty shit.” He opened the laptop and started it up. “While we were in the restaurant, I watched her log in to her account without even double-touch security. No fingerprint, no iris scan. Nothing. I’ve seen tougher security on porn sites.”
Nick walked over to Jeff and wrapped his arms around his waist. “This is going to be gold dust for the Ninety-Nine,” he said. “That means everything’s ready.”
Jeff turned to face Nick. “No, it’s not. There’s still more to be done. And if we don’t retrieve the Dormant Gateway chip that’s gone missing, we can’t risk planting the histories. All we can do with this information from Tanya is rob a few banks.” He watched the smile form on Nick’s face. “And no, that’s not enough. The Ninety-Nine have been planning this for five years. We’re not going ahead until the DG chip is recovered.”
“So what’s the British skinhead got to do with it?” Nick hoisted himself up on the tabletop and sat cross-legged in front of the laptop. “Have you got the log-in, by the way?”
Jeff picked up his jacket and retrieved a memory card from the pocket. He walked over to a console near the cinema screen and inserted the card. A few moments later, a video of Tanya in the restaurant filled the screen.
“Here. You can watch what she typed. Shouldn’t be difficult.” He went to stand square in front of Nick. He placed his hands either side of him on the steel surface of the table.
“As for young Steve Brown. He’s our best chance for recovering the DG chip. And we’ve been told to do whatever it takes to get the information out of him. Could be fun.”
Chapter 15
DOMINIC LEANED against the wall outside XXL and inhaled mouthfuls of the warm evening air. He felt angry and humiliated. He had been rebuffed and rejected in almost equal measure during the twenty minutes he had spent fruitlessly peering at men’s faces in the shadowy maze of narrow corridors forming the cruising area on the upper floor of XXL. He did not feel the same thrill for encounters in darkrooms that he knew Jonathan still experienced. To Dominic, the artificial setup seemed comically serious and pseudo macho. It depressed him to see scores of men stand in the dimly lit corridors, waiting for anonymous physical fulfillment. It reminded him how he used to feel at school when the boys were lined up on the football field as the seniors picked their players. He was usually one of the last to be chosen.
Dejectedly, Dominic turned his back on the noisy hubbub of Sitges gay nightlife. He headed for their honeymoon apartment a few hundred yards away, located in a quiet street of modern holiday apartments. As he approached the entrance to the six-story block, he fumbled for the passkey in his pocket. He opened the heavy entrance door and stepped into the dimly lit lobby, walked over to the elevator, and pressed the call button. The doors opened immediately, and Dominic stepped into the small steel cabin. He selected the sixth floor, the doors closed, and the elevator climbed slowly to the top of the building.
The entrance to their holiday apartment was opposite the elevator and slightly to the left. When the elevator doors opened, Dominic could see immediately the front door to their apartment was ajar.
“Jonathan?” he called as he stepped out the elevator. There was no response.
Dominic paused. He knew the door had been shut when they left earlier that evening. He knew because he had locked it himself. Dominic looked around. The emergency staircase was to the right of the elevator. Handy, if he needed to make a rapid exit. There was a bright red fire extinguisher hanging on the wall opposite. It was the only potential weapon he could see.
Dominic stood on the hinged side of the front door, extended his arm, and slowly pushed it open.
“Karl Michael? Is that you?”
Still no response. The door opened straight into the large living room of the apartment. The main lights were on. Opposite him, Dominic could see the glass doors to their balcony. One of them was also open. He remembered distinctly he had closed and locked them before they left, despite Jonathan’s mocking comments about cat burglars at six floors up.
Gingerly, Dominic stepped into the living room. He checked there was no one behind the door. At first glance, everything seemed to be in its place. Books and papers were on the round glass-topped dining table, where he and Jonathan had left them. Dominic looked across at the small kitchen area. Empty glasses and a partly finished bowl of olives were still on the countertop. There was no other apparent sign of a burglary, only the open front and balcony doors.
He turned to the bedroom on his left. The door was slightly ajar, and he could see the bedside lights were on. Dominic paused and listened intently, but he could hear no sound. He contemplated taking one of the kni
ves from the kitchen to protect himself before he ventured into the bedroom. But he had never used one in combat before. If there was an assailant hiding in the bedroom, he reasoned, he risked handing him, or her, the perfect weapon to kill him with.
Summoning his courage, he strode forward and slammed the bedroom door fully open. No one leapt out at him. Dominic felt confident that any would-be burglar had gone. But someone had been here. Clothes had been tipped out of drawers, pulled from hangers in the wardrobes, and deposited in a pile by the window. The bedding had been ripped from the bed and the mattress upended on the floor. Through one of the open wardrobe doors, he could see the steel door of the room safe had been forced.
Dominic picked his way through the debris to get to the safe. As he passed the chest of drawers, he stopped. When they left the apartment for dinner, both their mobile phones had been sitting on top of the chest, plugged into their chargers. Now they were no longer there.
Dominic sat down heavily on the bare bed frame. “Shit,” he said out loud. “So how the hell do I call the police at two in the morning when I haven’t got a phone?”
“I TELL you I’m fine, really. All this fuss. I’m very grateful for everything you’ve done, but I’d really like to go home now.”
Jonathan’s protests were met with an amiable, uncomprehending smile from the orderly who pushed his wheelchair along a neon-lit corridor, heading for ward B21 in l’Hospitalet. When Jonathan had arrived at the ER reception fifty minutes earlier, Gabriel had been very helpful, explaining to the admissions doctor what had happened. Jonathan was impressed at the speed with which the hospital had dealt with him and how quickly they had found a bed to admit him to a ward for one night’s stay, “for observation,” as Gabriel had explained.
The Deadly Lies Page 10
