Left on St. Truth-Be-Well

by Amy Lane

  “Not just yet,” Glen said thoughtfully. “Let’s go over this timeline again….”

  Carson sighed and let his gaze wander. A deputy, blond and just as void-looking as Glen, was wandering around the gathered crowd and asking them lazy questions. Carson seriously doubted he was going to discover anything that way, but, hey, watching Carson get grilled like a shrimp skewer couldn’t have been much fun either.

  By the end of it, Carson really was homicidal. But as he turned away to go, that didn’t stop Dale’s voice, with that even Florida keel, from washing over him and tumbling some of the bad mood away. “Carson, which room you in?”

  Carson had to think for a second. “Jesus, I don’t know. Your brother wrote it down when I knew my ass from my elbow. C’mon, Glen, cough up. Which room am I in?”

  “Uh… wait… oh, here. Twenty-three. Why do you want to know?” Glen eyed his brother suspiciously, and Dale smiled slowly, all white even teeth.

  “’Cause I’m hoping before he leaves, me and Carson might get in a little bit of sex. You want details on that too? You have spent the last hour up his ass, haven’t you?”

  Glen’s eyes bugged out, and Carson erupted into a full-blown cackle. “Jesus, and he says I’m mouthy!”

  “You are mouthy!” Glen scowled. “Now get the hell out of here before I bring you in for questioning!”

  “Yeah, that’ll be entertaining. You can ask me how I breathe through my nose!”

  “Carson, goddammit, go back to your room!” Dale snapped, and Carson shot him a dirty look. But he went. By God, he went, leaving Dale on the hotel green, arguing with his brother about whether he was obligated to remember the name of the last guy he’d seen Stassy with.

  So now Carson was in the shower, trying to wash the stench and the dead body away, and focusing on what he could do for Stassy, who apparently had leapt into the deep end with the sharks, wearing lead weights on his feet and no body armor anywhere else.

  He stepped out of the shower, toweling his hair, and ran straight into Anastacio Malinowski, Ivan’s favorite sister’s kid.

  “Stassy?” Oh Jesus, the kid had seen better days. His blond hair was unwashed, and it hung lankly over his eyes, his Armani T-shirt was filthy, and his high-end jeans had real holes. “Jesus, Stassy, what the fuck are you doing here? The cops are fucking looking everywhere for you!”

  Stassy seemed to shrink in on himself. “I saw Uncle Ivan’s car here—and damn, these places are easy to break into. You’re not gonna tell them, are you, Carson? If I go to the cops, I’ll never find Toby! I really gotta find Toby. He saw that dead body in my room and just… just freaked out. I don’t think he’d ever seen a dead body before.”

  “Well, it didn’t do a lot for me, neither,” Carson muttered, wanting a whole other shower. “How did that dead body get into your room, anyway?”

  Stassy shook his head. “See, that’s the thing. We don’t know! We came back from breakfast, and I was just about to call my mom and tell her about….” Stassy’s pale, grime-washed face actually flushed under the dirt. “You know. About Toby. About you.”

  “About me? Jesus, Stassy, I kissed you in a broom closet!”

  The shyness vanished, and the look of irritation Stassy sent him was pure Ivan O’Leary. “About being gay, idiot! I was going to tell her that I was gay, and that Toby and I wanted to move in together, and that I’d finally found someone worth telling the world, okay?”

  Carson did a mental feint, and the blow to his ego blew right by. “Yeah, yeah, I hear you. A grope in the broom closet isn’t nothing to tell the world.”

  Stassy’s shyness returned. “Well, you know, Carson. You sort of sleep with anything that moves, right?”

  Pow! And that one clocked him right in the kisser. “You were my first broom closet in about six months.” He swallowed and breathed out slow. “I… you know. I liked you, Stassy. You were giving me the eye. After my last girlfriend, you were… you made me feel good about myself, right?”

  Stassy studied his shoes, so dejected Carson couldn’t go on.

  “You know, it’s okay. You found Toby, and I said I liked you. It wasn’t, like, huge crashing waves of lust or anything.” And he’d know about crashing waves of lust, right? The memory of a warm hand on the back of his neck when he’d been thinking about going into shock was strangely comforting right now.

  Stassy’s expression was so relieved, Carson pinched the bridge of his nose. God, the kid looked tired and he was probably hungry, and he was definitely freaked out about his boyfriend.

  “Look, you go take a shower, and I’ll see about getting you some food. If there’s a knock on the door, don’t panic. It’s a friend, okay?”

  Stassy nodded eagerly. “Carson, you got something for me to wear? Man, I left all my clothes in that hotel room and—”

  “Ew.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. I’ve got some clean sweats in the bottom of my pack. I was gonna do laundry today, you know, before I found the dead man, so how ’bout you wear the sweats, and I’ll be back with some clean clothes, okay?” It meant he had to recycle his jeans and wear a tank like a low life, but hell, he’d take the last pair of clean underwear, so he figured it was all good. “Put on the sweats. I’ll call for some pizza and leave you some cash.”

  Stassy nodded dumbly, and Carson reached out and ruffled his greasy hair. “Okay. Go hop in the shower. We’ll sort this out when you’re less of a disaster.”

  Stassy smiled, his full lips making divots at the corners and his brown eyes widening to Bambi-size, and Carson felt a tiny ping in the direction of his heart—but not a sexual one, really. Mostly, he just felt like someone should be taking care of this kid besides his mob boss Uncle Ivan.

  When Carson came back from the hotel laundry room about an hour and a half later, Stassy was asleep, about half a box of pizza cooled on the front dresser, and Dale sat quietly flipping through channels from his place on the other queen bed in the room.

  “I see you found your guy,” Dale said when Carson opened the door and Carson about jumped half a mile.

  “Yeah,” he said, picking up the armload of laundry he’d dropped on the floor. “Found him. Jesus. I take it he let you in?”

  Dale nodded, then stood and helped him with the laundry, which was pretty hilarious, because all he was doing was dumping it on the bed. Dale looked at the pile of jeans, T-shirts, socks, and underwear, right where his feet had been, and then eyed Carson up and down.

  “Well, since you took my spot, the least you could do is change your shirt.”

  Carson glared, because A, that had been his plan, and B, Dale was sort of a bossy fucker, and Carson didn’t want him to have the upper hand.

  Dale looked evenly back, those amused blue eyes unblinking, and Carson knew his chest and neck were blotching with embarrassment as he peeled off the beater and grabbed a worn polo shirt from the pile.

  He paused before pulling the shirt over his head, saw those eyes on his body, and blotched more and harder. He swallowed and pulled the shirt down, trying to talk as he went. “So, he’s here, but do we have to tell your asshole brother?”

  “I object to that. I’m an asshole—my brother is a dick.”

  Carson snorted. “All I know for sure is you both have one of each. Do we have to tell him?” His voice softened. “The kid is worried shitless about Toby. Apparently they were moving in together and he was going to come out of the broom closet and everything. It would be great if we could find Toby and maybe prove he’s not our bad guy before he has to spend time in jail.”

  Dale grimaced. “Yeah. I can see what you mean. Even the broom closet is too rough for that kid. Toby must be out of his mind to leave him.”

  Carson made a sound that was mostly worry, and Dale met his eyes and sobered.

  “Yeah. Okay. That too. Here. Now that you’re—” He paused and smirked. “—dressed, let me take you crosstown. There’s a little café there, we can get something to eat, and—”

/>   “I can just have pizza,” Carson objected, and Dale gave him that don’t fuck with me, city boy glare, so he shut up.

  “I was going to say, Toby’s brother works in that particular café, if that means anything to you.”

  Carson looked at the pizza box and sighed. It smelled like good pie too. “Well, I guess no one makes good pizza outside of Chicago,” he muttered, sliding out of his flip-flops and into his loafers. He grabbed his keys and room card off the little table and then took two steps to the door only to be stopped by Dale’s hand on his bare arm.

  “It’s going to rain,” he said softly, and they both looked at his hand circling Carson’s bicep for a moment. “You need to bring a sweater.” Dale had changed into jeans and a sweater too, since the morning. It only made sense.

  Carson nodded and took a step back, only to find Dale hadn’t moved.

  “I gotta get my duffel,” he said, but his voice sounded weak in his own ears.

  “He’s too young for you,” Dale said seriously, like his touch wasn’t burning Carson’s skin and turbobursting his heart as they stood.

  “I know,” Carson said, shrugging. Dale’s hand remained. “I was never any more than a grope in the broom closet to him anyway.”

  Dale nodded and started a slow massage with his thumb. “And what was he to you?”

  This time Carson made the shrug stick. “Same thing.” He pulled away. “Here. Let me get a sweater.”

  Carson grabbed his hooded sweatshirt, the one that said Columbia College, and then headed out the door. He turned to check that Dale shut it all the way and was going to walk to Ivan’s blue Honda Element when Dale let out a guffaw.

  “You drive that?”

  Carson was still raw from the whole question of Stassy, and the look he turned to Dale was, by his own reckoning, a little bit hunted. “This is Ivan’s car, smartass. I don’t have a fucking car, because in the fucking city of Chicago, you don’t need one. Why? Do you have a wood-paneled Ford?”

  Dale shook his head and whistled. “No, but that’d be sweet. I’ve got a pickup, and I’m sorry I chapped your ass raw. I just didn’t think this would be the kind of thing you’d drive, that’s all.”

  Carson grunted and clicked the little remote to unlock the doors. “My dad had a Caddy,” he said reluctantly. “Nice one. Big, racing green, soft-top, all-white interior. I had to sell it when he died, to cover the funeral. Man, I hated to see that car go.”

  He’d fastened his belt and turned the ignition before Dale spoke up. “How’d he die?”

  “Heart attack. I eat like a fucking champion and run every day. They run in the family.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You hardly know me. Be sorry for Bridget, she’s the one who had her heart broken.”

  “Yeah, Carson. You don’t get your heart broken. Any fool can see that.” There was something obnoxiously gentle in that even voice, and Carson didn’t want to deal with that.

  “Well, don’t try being the one fool who wouldn’t,” he snapped and pulled the car to the ocean road. “Where the hell am I going?”

  “Right. Toby’s brother’s restaurant is down about two miles.”

  Carson drove, saw the grocery store, the nail salons—one of them painted in bright green, which cracked him up—the strip malls, and the many, many hotels and restaurants of a resort town. He watched a couple in late middle age get out of a Chevrolet Suburban in front of a sort of swank place that looked like a riverboat, and grunted.

  “Would you look at all the old people. And they’re damned fit too. Who are all the skinny, active old people in the big fucking SUVs? What the hell kind of population is that?”

  It was Dale’s turn to cackle. “Snowbirds, Carson. Haven’t you heard of them?”

  “I’ve heard of them, but I’ve never seen the species.” God, traffic was pissing him off. He passed another SUV going exactly the speed limit and wondered if he’d read the limit wrong. Everybody went the fucking speed limit here—was there something he didn’t know about?

  “They live in the city in the spring, summer, and fall, but come down for the winter. These particular snowbirds are getting ready to migrate back. That’s why they’re all at the grocery store for cleaning supplies. It’s time to clean out the old cottage and go home.”

  God, that was fucked up. “You know, this place isn’t bad. If they can afford to live here for the winter and the spring, why do they take off during the summer?”

  “Because it’s hellifically hot and humid. Slow down.”

  Carson did so on instinct. “What? Why?”

  “Because the speed limit is not a suggestion here, Carson. It’s a rule.”

  Carson curled his upper lip. “Are you shitting me?”

  “No, I’m totally serious. Glen will pull you over.”

  “Okay, okay, okay—see? I’m slow now. Perfect. I win the speed-limit competition. Were you shitting me about it being too hot to live?”

  “No,” Dale said shortly.

  “Well, then, you seem like a smart guy, if a little bossy. Why do you stay?”

  From the corner of his eye, Carson could see Dale’s dreamy, half in love smile. “Man, the waves are outrageous. It’s the only time of the year we get Southern California surfing out here.”

  “Wait a minute, isn’t that hurricane season?”

  Carson didn’t even have to look at Dale to see that beatific expression just light up his face with holy joy. “Yeah—dude, it’s fucking amazing.”

  “Oh my God, you’re insane!”

  “Yeah, but I’m not the one who gets up and bares my soul for a crowd. I think you’ve got to be crazier than me, hands down!”

  So Carson started talking about his passion some more and running through his schtick, which mostly consisted of stuff that happened to him during the day he “gussied up” a little for public consumption.

  “So,” Dale wanted to know, “are you thinking this is going to be a profession, or what?”

  Carson sighed. “Probably not,” he confessed. “It would be great if I woke up tomorrow and was the next Jon Stewart, but really? Not gonna happen. I can amuse old people over dinner, though. That’s fun. So, yeah. Professional waiter by day, stand-up comedian by night. There you go. That’s me. Ignoring my college degree one day at a time.”

  “What’s your degree in?”

  “Communications.”

  Dale laughed, this gorgeous, rolling boom from his stomach, and Carson shot him an annoyed look. “What is so fucking funny?”

  “You are. You’re totally using your degree, idiot! Except for the common sense part of it. Seems like you’re leaving that part behind!”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not exactly like I’m doing something super exciting with my life, either.”

  “Are you happy?” Dale asked, sounding serious.

  Carson thought about it, remembered the raw feeling of not being Stassy’s best thing, even when Stassy was too young and too callow to be his. “I’m lonely,” he admitted, and then felt like an asshole. “Never mind. I’m fine. Perfect. Wonderful. Forget I said that.”

  “I don’t have a college degree,” Dale said, like that was supposed to make Carson feel better.

  “Do you want one?”

  “I keep taking classes,” he answered, shrugging. “I must have sort of buried ambition somewhere. But it’s like, the classes are important because you learn stuff, and that’s good to know, but they don’t need to get me anything, right?”

  “Really? You just… just…. God, what’s the fucking word? Intrinsic. You just take classes for their intrinsic value?”

  Dale seemed to consider that. “Yeah. Exactly. Who says the school needs to get you anything but smarter, right?”

  Carson laughed. “I guess if you’re eating, there’s no reason it’s got to do more than that.”

  “Right? Food and dental are good too, but seriously. Four walls, three squares, and a roof, and I’m a happy man.” Dale nodded with emphasis, like so
mehow this was the discussion he’d wanted to have his whole life, and Carson was sort of glad to give it to him.

  “What, you never wanted to travel to Europe?”

  “They got waves in Europe?”

  “I got no idea.” Carson sort of wished he did, but they laughed at that, and when he spoke next, it was with a little more thought. “Well, maybe a little more ambition, you know? I got a year pass to the art institute, every freakin’ year. Someday, I want to go see where all those paintings come from.”

  “Yeah? That would be awesome. I took a couple of art history classes last year. Man, those people’s lives were fucked up.”

  Carson laughed. “So, well, yeah. I guess ambition has its downside.”

  “So why fuck with it, you feel me?”

  Carson glanced at him, saw that lazy smile, those blue eyes, and even more importantly, that keel—that even, ocean-rolling calmness, and thought, No, but maybe I want to.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I got you. Do the things that make you happy. Maybe plan for retirement. Don’t stress about it too much. You’re a freaking Zen master, you know that? Where do you get health and dental?”

  “Well, Toby may volunteer at the youth center, but I’ve got an actual job title. I took part of the afternoon off just for you.”

  Carson grunted. “Appreciated. If you got health and dental, why’s your brother such a dick to you? And is this where I turn off?”

  “Yeah, go right, and Glen’s a dick because in high school he had to take the remedial classes. Gave him an inferiority complex. That’s okay, though. His job has helped take up some of the slack.”

  Carson pulled into the strip mall, then turned into a parking spot in front of the Big Blue Seafood Café, which he assumed was their destination. Then he looked at Dale full-on to see if the obnoxious little shit was yanking his chain.

  He saw the telltale quirk of the lips and swore. “Jesus, you’re an asshole, you know that? You’re lucky he didn’t kill you for being a dick!”

  That warm sea-rolling laughter broke again, and Carson had to take a deep breath before slamming the car door shut. Damn. Just…. He swallowed and rubbed over the warm place in his gut that started to vibrate with that laugh. Just damn.