Hard Bitten

by M. K. York

  Lukas must just be getting back; he must have been on his way to bed when he called Mark. He’d be—what, eating, maybe, if he hadn’t gotten the chance to eat on the stakeout. Getting into bed. Maybe taking off his clothes—no. No, that way lay madness.

  Mark got up, giving up on sleep, and put on his sneakers. Time for a run. Maybe if he was lucky he’d get mugged and miss the circus he’d signed himself up for.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lukas woke up slowly, feeling groggy. His phone alarm was softly chiming and buzzing at the same time. He fumbled for it, turned it off. He sat up, rubbing at his face with his hands, and considered very carefully whether there was a way out of the night.

  The hell of it was, he hadn’t been dead set on repeating the surveillance until Mark had started in. But once he started thinking about it, it made sense—maybe see if this was a pattern, see what the deal was. And he didn’t exactly have a packed schedule at the moment, so it wouldn’t be the worst thing he could do with his time.

  And if there was something humming in his stomach, an almost-pleasant almost-terrible anticipation, that was something he’d pack up and ignore.

  He stocked the car—looking regretfully at the empty bottles he packed from long habit, that Mark would definitely laugh about, at least until he needed one; stashing the beverages and snacks in the back, even though he usually liked to put the cooler in the front passenger side on the floor, for easier access with a minimum of flailing. He grabbed the sunshade out of the trunk, ready to pop it open in the rear window.

  As it got closer to six, he started to fidget. He’d gone with his usual who-me clothes, a dark blue long-sleeved T-shirt that would help him blend in to the background—on nights he expected to have trouble, he’d even put on a beanie cap sometimes, to hide his pale, bright hair. He knew it made him look like an idiot. He left it off and told himself it was because he was far enough away it wouldn’t help.

  Right on cue, his apartment’s buzzer went off. He let Mark in.

  He hadn’t seen Mark in a while, just talked on the phone, and there was something awful and wonderful at once about seeing him, blinking owlishly up at Lukas against the backdrop of the rapidly darkening gray sky. He looked like maybe he’d woken up from a nap too. Not a bad idea. Most people had trouble with the schedule. It had fucked up his sleep, maybe permanently, but Lukas had never been good at sleeping to begin with. It seemed unreal that there were people who woke up feeling rested.

  “Can I come in?” asked Mark. Lukas stepped back.

  Mark looked around. Lukas had made a point of tidying up a little. “This place makes mine look like a pigsty,” said Mark, eyes wandering along the stark few pieces of furniture.

  “It’s minimalist.”

  “That’s one way to describe it.”

  “Are you just here to judge my life choices?” Lukas snagged his coat off a chair.

  “Pretty much, actually.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Mark followed him outside.

  “I don’t see your car.” Lukas knew all the cars that tended to park there, and they were all present and accounted for, with no unfamiliar vehicles. “Did you drive?”

  “Nah, caught an Uber up here. Figured if it was rush hour you objected to, you could drop me off after.”

  “Fine.” Lukas slammed the car door. It was a little cramped with all his gear in place.

  “Here.” Lukas handed Mark his camera bag. “You’ll have to hold on to these until we get started. I usually have a free seat for my stuff.”

  “Hey, cool, what is this?” Mark reached forward to touch the strip of Velcro across the dashboard.

  “For the beanbag.”

  “The what?”

  Lukas pulled onto 15th carefully. “Beanbag. Steadies the camera. So I don’t have to hold it, or deal with a tripod.”

  “What, seriously? I thought you’d have some high-tech solution.”

  “Beanbags are cheap, easy, and don’t break. You find me a better solution, I’ll try it.”

  Mark reached for the radio. Lukas smacked his hand away without looking.

  “Hey!”

  “I don’t feel like listening to the radio.”

  “I do! We’ve got at least, what, half an hour until we get there?”

  “Probably.”

  “And no music?”

  “None.”

  “What about my music? I’ve got some on my phone.”

  “No.”

  “What are you, the fun police?”

  Lukas didn’t dignify that with a response, just rolled his window down a crack before rolling it back up again in a hurry; the rain had started, a light stinging mist. “Damn,” he muttered.

  “What is it?” Mark looked alarmed.

  “The rain. Makes the video worse.”

  “You can still get it, though, right?” The lines of concern on Mark’s face deepened. “You don’t have to get closer. Right?”

  “Depends. I’ll try it from the same spot.”

  “Jesus Christ.” Mark turned to look out the window, propping his chin on his elbow. In the low light of the streetlights they passed, he looked younger than usual.

  “You’re twenty-six?” said Lukas, offhandedly.

  “Yeah. You?” Mark squinted at him sharply. “Thirty?”

  “Close. In a month.”

  “Oh, really?” Mark grinned suddenly, lopsided. “Aquarius?”

  “Is that—did you really just ask me what my sign is?”

  “Yeah.”

  “...yeah, whatever. Fine. It’s Aquarius.”

  Mark actually laughed, watching the road ahead of them as it turned into the bridge, and then they were driving through Queen Anne.

  “Taking the long way?”

  “It’s as good as the freeway.”

  “Aren’t you going to ask my sign?”

  “No.”

  “I’m a Leo.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I have a feeling by the time we get to ass o’clock in the morning you’re going to be thankful for any conversation we actually have left.”

  “I think we’ll survive without a lot of talking. I make it through these things just fine without any company most of the time.”

  “Yeah, but when you have the option of talking, I think you’re going to find it helps the whole process be a lot less tedious.”

  “Do you ever stop talking?” Lukas glared at the taillights of the car ahead of them, which had slowed to a crawl for no apparent reason. Probably lost.

  Mark shrugged. “Not often, no. I mean, what, do you think people go into law because they’re so good at not talking?”

  “Not like PIs.”

  “Yeah, no offense, but you don’t seem like most PIs I’ve met.” Mark raised his eyebrows. Lukas darted a quick glance at him, then back at the road.

  “No offense?”

  “I mean, most of them are like—they mean well but they’re kind of... They’ve got that played-football-in-college-and-then-didn’t-really-know-what-to-do-with-themselves-afterward vibe. Like, half of them will tell you about their favorite protein powder at the drop of a hat.”

  “And I don’t seem like that?”

  “No.” Mark drummed his fingers under the window. “You don’t.”

  “Well,” drawled Lukas, “thank you ever so much.”

  “See, that’s what I’m talking about. They don’t do sarcasm. Not like that.”

  “Is there a question in all of this?”

  Mark huffed out a laugh. “Good point, Counselor. Were you a jock?”

  Lukas let that sit for a few minutes, turning the wheel, listening to the soft hum of the pavement through the car. Finally, he said, “Yeah. Played football in high school.”

  “Oh yeah?” Mark sat up in interest. “What position?”

  “Wide receiver. Wasn’t good enough for college.”

  “So did you go for a degree?”

  “Started. Dropped out.”

 
“Oh.” Mark digested that for a minute. “That sucks.”

  Lukas shrugged, feeling the tightness in his shoulders. “Long time ago.”

  “How long have you been doing this PI gig?”

  “About five years.”

  “Damn, that’s a while.”

  “Yeah, it’s almost like I’m getting pretty good at it.” Lukas gave the wheel an unnecessarily rough jerk as they followed the curve in the road. “Like maybe I don’t need you hovering.”

  “Who’s hovering? I’m not hovering.”

  A horrifying thought occurred to Lukas. “You’re not armed, are you?”

  “What? God no!”

  “Good.”

  “You think I’d be stupid enough to—” Mark looked genuinely appalled. “I’m an attorney, we know better than that!”

  “You’d think you’d know better than a lot of things.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ve established that I’m a Leo, maybe the limelight is just irresistible.”

  Lukas blew out a breath. He was trying not to laugh. “Somehow I suspected that you’d be a problem.”

  “Oh, I’m a problem?” Mark raised his eyebrows in mock offense. That was the thing about Mark—he’d talk a mile a minute, talk your ear off, blow hot and cold, but what it came down to was that he would be endlessly forgiving. Elastic.

  “Like you don’t know it,” Lukas said dryly. That bought him a couple of moments of silence, but then Mark started in again, a running narration Lukas certainly had not asked for about his day, some of his more difficult clients. Water-cooler stories, he realized with some surprise a few minutes into it. He didn’t seem to need much encouragement to keep talking; he’d stop occasionally, look over at Lukas for something, but a nod or a grunt would get him talking again. It was soothing, actually, which Lukas would never have admitted. But knowing Mark would take the weight of the conversation while he drove was something like comforting.

  “—and then I said to Jen, ‘Maybe what he really needs is’—wait, are we there already?” Mark craned his neck around as they pulled into the parking lot. An even better spot was open, and Lukas backed into it smoothly, killing the lights.

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, okay. So what do we do now?”

  “You hand me my gear and I get set up.”

  Mark handed over the bag obediently enough, but kept up a running commentary. “Okay, the video camera I get, but what’s that for? Oh, hey, I see, okay. And this is for what?”

  Lukas sighed, fastening the lens. “Better distance.”

  “Oh, that’s cool!”

  “You know the more you talk, the more likely we are to get spotted.”

  “Jeez, fine, sure, is this where you do your best John McClane impression?” Mark settled back against the seat, folding his arms. At least he was quiet for a while.

  Lukas finished getting everything set up, twisting around to pop the sunshade open in the back window, making their silhouettes practically invisible. The trucks were rolling in and out—a bad thing, but also a good thing, since they were broadside to him and making sure no one was watching him set up. He couldn’t imagine the truck drivers particularly cared. They’d just want to get back on the road and make their money.

  After about ten minutes, Mark said, in a low voice, “God, this is boring.”

  “I am not even going to go into how much I warned you.”

  “You do this all the time?”

  “Pretty often.”

  “How do you not just stab yourself in the eye with an ice pick? Good Lord. I’ve been less bored at funerals.”

  “It’s not that bad.” At Mark’s disbelieving snort, Lukas felt compelled to add, “You get used to it.”

  “Maybe you do.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” That presence, their elbows perilously close, was unsettling him, made him feel prickly all over.

  “I mean you seem like—you’re very...chill.”

  Lukas couldn’t stop himself from audibly scoffing.

  “No, I mean it!” Mark shifted, sitting up, bringing one knee up crossed onto the seat. “You seem so quiet. You barely talk, most of the time. I mean, you talked when you were, uh, when you came over to help me with painting, but mostly you just—you listen.”

  “It’s an art. You should try it.”

  “Hidden depths, I’m saying. Like an iceberg.”

  Lukas didn’t say anything to that, obscurely disgruntled.

  “Not like that,” Mark said, quietly. “You—you know what I mean.”

  Lukas didn’t, particularly, and didn’t know where that was going to go, at any rate, so he contented himself with making a minute and unnecessary adjustment to the camera angle.

  A train whistle sounded, closer here than anywhere else in the city, a blaring noise just across the tracks. Mark jumped, although he clearly tried to shut the reaction down immediately.

  “You were here for, what, eight hours?”

  “More like ten.”

  “For...how long did the thing with the van take?”

  “About five minutes.” That was generous; the whole thing, start to finish, had been maybe four minutes.

  “Damn.” Mark shifted again, bringing his other leg up so he was sitting cross-legged, Lukas’s bag of gear on the floor. “That’s not a small investment. You seriously didn’t have any other jobs tonight?”

  “Dry spell. I assume you’ve heard of them.”

  “Well, yeah, although I don’t really get them.” Mark laughed, sounding tired. “There’s always people making questionable choices. And there’s always cops out.”

  “We’ll be lucky if nobody calls the cops on us.”

  “Yeah, what would you tell them?” Mark raised an eyebrow. Lukas was trying to keep his eyes focused forward, but he couldn’t help tracking Mark’s movements out of the corner of his eye.

  “Most of the truth. I’m a licensed PI. They’d probably tell me to run along.”

  “And how would you explain me?” Mark stretched.

  “Hey, don’t do that, you’re making yourself a big target. I’d say you’re an apprentice.”

  “Oh, really?” Mark laughed, sounding delighted.

  “It’s not completely wrong. You will learn something about what I do while you’re here.”

  “You’ve got a point! Definitely a point.” Mark settled back against the seat. He kept moving, near constantly, and it was going to drive Lukas crazy. “For instance, I’m already learning that this is so boring my brain is going to melt.” He went to pull out his phone from his pocket, and Lukas stopped him with a couple of fingers against his wrist.

  They both froze, barely breathing. Lukas pulled his hand back, cleared his throat, and said, “The screen light is a dead giveaway for our position.”

  “So you can’t even, what, check Facebook?” Mark was frankly incredulous.

  “That’s about right.”

  “Oh my God, I’m actually going to die of boredom here. I want that on my tombstone, ‘Died of boredom because he was an idiot.’”

  “Do you plan your tombstone often?”

  “Only when I feel like I’m going to die.”

  “Well, you won’t unless this stakeout goes a lot differently than the last one did.”

  “You’re just lucky the drug dealers didn’t spot you on the last one!”

  “Luck has nothing to do with it. Look.” Lukas gestured, keeping his hands below the level of the dash. “We’re parked so we’re head-on toward them. Makes the car less of a visible target. Sunshade in the back makes it harder to distinguish us in any ambient light. Mesh over the LCD screen, no using cell phones, so no light coming from inside the car. We’re far away and I’m using a telephoto lens. I’ve just got a narrow crack of visibility here. I’m facing forward so if we need to make a quick escape I just start the car and hit the gas and we’re out. You think any of this is coincidence?”

  Mark made an appreciative noise. “Okay, no, not when you lay it out like that.�
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  And that was the hell of the thing about Mark—he wasn’t about to grandstand, stick to his guns when it became obvious that he was wrong. He’d just incorporate the information and keep going, like a windup toy, like the Energizer Bunny.

  They passed the next few hours like that, Mark managing to be quiet and still for a while before bursting out in a restless flurry of movement, soft conversation. And more and more Lukas found himself wanting to answer—anticipating when Mark took in a sharp breath, before he’d start talking.

  This was dangerous.

  It was half past midnight when Mark suddenly froze, in the middle of a story about college. “Hey. Hey.”

  “I see it. Shh.” Lukas leaned forward and adjusted the camera. It was a personal vehicle, a real nice Mercedes sliding through the night silently. Ron Williams’s car.

  Mark, for once, managed to follow instructions, and he sat tensely next to Lukas as Lukas recorded Williams parking and jogging up to the building, letting himself in through the small door next to the big warehouse doors.

  “The fuck is he doing here at midnight on a Sunday?” asked Mark once Lukas had leaned back, satisfied that for at least a few minutes he wouldn’t be getting anything. He’d have to keep an eye out for Williams exiting the building.

  “I’m guessing nothing he wants to advertise.”

  They waited until he left the building, about fifteen minutes later. Williams looked around before he got back in his car. Lukas could tell that, next to him, Mark had gone totally still. Luckily he resisted the urge to duck; the movement would have just drawn eyes toward him.

  Once Williams pulled away, Lukas said, “Did I mention that people see movement better out of the corner of their eyes than they do head-on?”

  “What, really? And also, what the fuck just happened?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know. I’d like to get a look at his files. I bet he has two copies of the books, and the only stuff that goes into the computer is heavily edited.”

  “Black lines through it, redacted, right?” Mark shook his head, bemused. “I’m really starting to think this is a fucked-up situation.”

  “I could have told you that. I did tell you that.”