by Rhys Ford
I gave in to the inevitable and let the shower pound the stink out of my flesh. Unfortunately, cleanliness is next to sobriety, and by the time my skin no longer smelled like Lynchburg, I remembered Jae breaking my heart.
The water felt even colder on my face, especially when my eyes were hot with tears.
“Fucking son of a bitch.” It hurt. Somewhere deep inside me, the pain grew, frothing up into a geyser of anguish that choked the air from my lungs. The last time I’d felt so desolate, Mike’d been holding my hand and telling me of Rick’s death.
That’s how Bobby found me. Curled up into a ball and screaming for the broken pieces of my heart to quit stabbing my chest.
A COUPLE of hours later, I was sitting up in my bed, cupping my hands around my third cup of hot black coffee while Neko played Hunt the Toes across my bedsheets. She’d scored a few hits, nearly drawing blood from my big toe, but the taste of her kill didn’t seem to satisfy her, and she continued to dance across the end of the bed, viciously attacking my feet. It felt good to have her, something tangible of Jae’s to hold onto while I made sense of my crumpled life.
Bobby sat down on the bed next to me. He’d given up trying to get me to eat something, but I’d eagerly accepted the coffee. My face hurt from crying, and I was fairly certain I’d engraved tile patterns into my knees from my time in the shower. Leaning in close, he raised his hand, and I flinched, earning a reproachful look.
“Why would I hit you?” he grumbled, sliding his fingers over my scalp. The contact felt good, good enough to make me start purring, and it eased the aching tenderness in my skull.
“Maybe because every time your hand comes near my face it’s got a glove on it?” I reminded him in between sips of coffee. My mood dipped again, wallowing in the shallows of my despair. “What made you come over?”
“Jae called me.” I must have looked shocked, because Bobby left off his petting to kiss my cheek.
“Huh.” I tried not to let jealousy cloud my judgment, but I failed miserably. “What the fuck was he doing calling you?”
“Because he loves you and he’s worried about you.” For a best friend, Bobby seemed to forget whose side he was supposed to be on. “He needs some time, Cole. His sister showing up out of the blue fucked him up—”
“Didn’t do me much good either,” I pointed out.
“You didn’t do him any favors kissing her.”
“She was wearing my clothes. In his house. I thought it was him. From behind! She even smelled like him. Who the hell would think it wasn’t Jae?” My voice broke and I looked away, not trusting my temper any further. Another sip of coffee and I could breathe again, the ache roiling back to a dull roar. “What am I supposed to do now? How the hell am I supposed to do shit without him?”
“Did he say you two were over? Did he tell you not to come back? Did he kill that fucked-up forever you’ve got going on in your head?” Bobby asked softly. “Because he told me he just asked for time. He needs to deal with his sister running away from home and finding out he’s gay. That’s a lot of crap on his plate right now.”
“He’s supposed to ask me to help eat the crap off his plate,” I murmured. “Not shove me away from the table. We’re in this together. He promised me that, Bobby. He promised me he’d stand by me in all my crap, but when it’s his shit, I’m supposed to keep dancing on without him? That’s fucked-up. That’s not what I want.”
“That’s what he wants,” he reminded me. It was a harsh reality and one I was choking on. “So, what are you going to do?”
Sobriety sucked. Nearly as much as heartache but burning my body with whiskey didn’t seem like it was going to last. Sooner or later, I was going to run out of whiskey, and I could only hope Bobby didn’t run out of patience before then or I’d have no one to throw me into the shower.
“Grow some balls and answer me, boy,” Bobby growled. “What are you going to do?”
“Guess I have to give him time,” I sighed. “I just hope he comes back to me, dude, because right now, I feel like Ben came back to finish me off.”
“You survived that, kid.” The bed dipped when Bobby grabbed me, his arms choking me into a tight hold. “You can survive this. No matter what happens between you, you can survive it. And I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
IT TOOK me a few days to get back on my feet. I wavered between leaving Jae sappy love poems on his voice mail to removing the battery from my phone so I would stop leaping for it every time it rang. After leaving a Gone Fishin’ sign on the office door, I called Claudia’s oldest to tell him whichever kid he was sacrificing to the altar of familial duty was off the hook for a few days. The volcano was set on pause, and I’d be resuming tossing virgins into the fiery pits of hell in a little bit.
Mike called a lot, and I shoved off any discussion about Jae, Ichiro, and the price of tea in China. Instead we talked about silly things and what Maddy was up to. Our younger sister’d left to go home a week ago, and she e-mailed often, claiming she missed us and wanted to live in Los Angeles. Mike and I both knew once school started, she’d be into the thick of classes and popularity contests and we’d be a far distant second to a new pair of skinny jeans.
There was even a phone call to Madame Sun, giving her a short update on what I’d been up to. I didn’t get into Gyong-Si poaching on her territory or my suspicions that her rival or Eun Joon Lee’s husband could have had a hand in his wife’s death. Mostly, I reassured her I was looking into things and she didn’t seem to be cursed.
I’d spoken to everyone I knew except the one man I loved the most. Instead of wallowing, I did the stupidest thing I’d ever done in my entire life.
I cleaned.
Like crazy cleaning. Pulling all the furniture from the walls and vacuuming kind of cleaning, then going through the fridge to toss out mustard bottles I’d never opened. By the time I was done, the place smelled like Pine-Sol and my body hurt in places I’d only gotten to ache after some intense sexual acrobatics.
There were tears. I was man enough to wait until I was in the shower and the smell of Jae’s soap on me grew too much for me to handle. My body hurt from the pain bubbling up in my belly, and I bent over, letting it ride through my skin and bones until I couldn’t breathe any more. It happened every time I took a shower, but I wasn’t strong enough not to step into my self-imposed glass prison and smear my lover’s scent over my own skin.
I slept in his sweats, washed his laundry, and put his clothes neatly away in the drawers I’d emptied for him. I ate kim chee only to have the spiciness of his after-dinner kisses on my mouth. His cat lay with me on the bed, and we both curled up on Jae’s side, stealing each other’s warmth.
At my darkest moment, I picked up my phone and texted saranghae to his phone. Just that. Nothing more. I knew what it meant. I’d known since the first time I’d heard it leave his lips, even though I didn’t understand a damned word of Korean. I just needed him to know my heart was his, even as I reeked of cleaning solutions and sweat. Every fucking piece of my heart was his to hold.
I could do nothing but wait. And clean.
About a week later, after I’d showered and collapsed onto the couch, Neko crawled out of where she’d been hiding and flopped onto my lap, obviously worn out from her lengthy battle with dust bunnies. From the smell of her breath, she’d found the wet food I’d left out for her in the kitchen, and, after a few head butts against my arm, she flopped over onto her side and squeaked, demanding a belly rub.
It was about all my body could deliver, and I scritched at her fur, firing up her soft, purring rumble.
“Okay, cat. Time to do something other than take apart my house.” I opened my laptop, called up Madame Sun’s files, and went over the details of the case.
The last thing I wanted to do was to dig through someone else’s problems. I longed to wallow in the mud I’d made from my tears and the ashes of my heart. I wanted to swear until my voice was cracked and rough, using up every cuss word I knew. B
ut I’d already done that and nothing had changed. My phone was still bereft of Jae’s silky voice, and my bed was dead cold by the time I stumbled up to it.
“The woman’s nuts. The fortune-teller. You know that, right, Neek?” I spoke to the cat’s twitching belly. “Why the hell would someone be killing off her clients? And why the hell do I give a shit?”
The cat, of course, had no opinion other than giving me a dirty look for pausing in midrub. Disgusted by my lack of attention, she lifted her leg up to begin another epic grooming session.
“Still, two definite victims and a guy dying of a heart attack. Did someone help him with that? A gun to the head could trigger a pretty good panic. Someone killed May Choi and Eun Joon Lee. Question is, was it the same person?” I murmured. “Unless you’re me, getting shot doesn’t happen every day, because God fucking knows I’m getting shot at like it’s damned hunting season and I’m dressed like Duck Dodgers.”
I couldn’t put my finger on what was nagging me about the case. It was cut-and-dry. People died from violence, especially if they were in the wrong place at the right time.
Bobby hadn’t gotten back to me about any domestic calls to the Lees’ place, but admittedly, neither one of us had been thinking about the alleged conspiracy against Madame Sun and her clients. I’d have to wait for something more concrete before I started flinging poo at Gyong-Si, but the guy made my skin crawl. He was a part of this mess. I just needed to find out how.
“Fuck it.” I closed the laptop. “Time to start poking my nose into other people’s shit. Since we don’t have a butler in the mix, Neek, let’s start with the next best thing, the assistant.”
There wasn’t enough time for me to not think of Jae, but I needed to fill my brain with something else. If I didn’t do something soon, I’d do something crazy, like go over and make love to him on the kitchen counter, or worse, finish off what Ben’d started on me.
I found Vivian Na’s phone number and grabbed my abandoned cell phone from its charger. Turning it on was a mistake, one of the many I’d made over the past few years of my life. It flared to life and proceeded to scold me about my missed messages and calls. None were Jae, so I ignored them all, punching in Na’s number.
She answered on the second ring with a lilting Korean-flavored voice made for selling sex. When I identified myself, her dulcet tones flattened to a chilled professionalism I admired so much I’d have hired her if I hadn’t already been missing Claudia’s brassy nosiness. Madame Sun had told her to expect a call from me, but I could hear the irritation in her voice. No, Ms. Na wasn’t very happy to hear from me at all.
“I don’t see what I can do for you, Mr. McGinnis.” She clipped her words off, forming them out then snipping them closed. “I told Madame Sun we had nothing to do with the murders. They’re just coincidences.”
“One is a coincidence, but two is a bit sketchy. I just want your thoughts. Even if it’s just to ease Madame Sun’s mind.” The way I was talking Sun’s discomfort up with everyone I spoke to, people were going to start chasing her with a butterfly net. “Maybe we can meet up someplace. Talk over a cup of coffee, then I’ll be out of your hair for good.”
Her sigh was heavy enough to drag down a zeppelin if she’d been on one, but giving in, she rattled off an address. “I’ll be there in half an hour. Can you make it by then? I’m supposed to meet someone for dinner, but there’s a bakery nearby. We can have coffee or something.”
“Yeah, I can do it in half an hour,” I said, glancing at the clock. I would have to take surface streets. Thankfully, the address was in Koreatown, not downtown, because by the time I fought my way out to the 101, down the freeway, and back across Wilshire, she would have enough time to eat a seven course meal and watch an opera before I got there.
I left Neko in deep contemplation of her toes, grabbed the keys to my Rover, and headed down Rossmore toward Wilshire. Turning left onto Sixth, I was surprised to find a long line of cars waiting to be valet parked. I checked my wallet for some cash and handed control of the Rover over to a smirking kid who barely looked old enough to have been weaned, much less be responsible for my car. Sending a prayer of gratitude to my insurance company, I found the café Vivian spoke of.
It was more of a coffee and hookah café than a bakery, despite what the sign said. Situated among other Korean restaurants and clubs in an enclosed courtyard-like building, the place did a brisk business. With its outer windows on the street, the café’s entrance faced the interior driveway, cutting out most of the district’s traffic noise. The place’s glass-encased outside seating was nearly overflowing with packs of young Asians, and I had to shoulder past a small group of frill-headed young men, their black hair cut short and shaved down the sides to form a thick brush. I wasn’t certain when the Roman centurion look came back into vogue, but they were fiercely clinging to its style.
None of the men looked enough like Jae to tug at my guts, but a few were handsome enough to earn a second glance. I didn’t take that second glance. My insides were too dead, and when they began to playfully chatter in Korean, it was enough to make my heart sick. I missed hearing the language. It was all I could do to push through the heavy doors and head inside.
It was then that I realized I had no idea what Vivian Na looked like.
Luckily, she spotted the uncomfortable, confused Sasquatch blundering about in the herd of lithe, nubile young Koreans and waved me over.
Vivian was nothing I expected. Where Madame Sun was a stereotype of a Korean grandmother, her assistant looked as if she could be strolling down the runways of Paris, swinging her bony hips to sell outrageously expensive clothing.
Sleek couldn’t describe her well enough. From her prominent cheekbones to the razor-sharp bob framing her delicate face, Vivian Na oozed high maintenance and expensive trysts. Draped in what had to be designer clothes, she wore them carelessly, her body a sensual slither as she crossed the short distance between us to shake my hand.
Her fingers were cold, brushing the plump of my palm. I felt the scrape of her nails briefly on my skin, a light scoring most men would probably equate with sex and the bite of her manicure into their backs. The brief smile on her coral-painted mouth went no further than her lips, and anything she might have said to me was lost in the hail of gunfire and the windows shattering behind me. Grabbing her did no good. Her body was hot, slick with blood, and full of holes, and I was left with the remains of her face splattered all over my chest.
Chapter 8
THE shooting was nearly over before it truly began to sink into my head. There is a long moment when the brain can’t quite catch up to what’s happening—the loud pounding booms nearby, the screams of people, and then the smell of blood. Nothing makes the brain freeze over more than the smell of human blood in the air.
Even if someone’d never smelled that much human blood before, the brain knows it’s been spilled. The small remains of a primal lizard consciousness perks up and is ready to scatter at the scent of its species’ own blood. It sticks to nostril hairs, and for a long, panicked moment, the brain wonders if the blood it’s sucking in belongs to its own meat suit.
That’s usually when the screaming starts. Either because the pain hits or the terror that it might. But most of all, it’s because blood is all you can taste, and you drown in it, trying to find some dark corner where the chaos can’t reach you.
I couldn’t save Vivian Na. She was gone before I’d taken another breath. But I could drag a terrified young woman under the tables. Her friend was silent, sobbing into her own hands, and I reached through the noise and flying glass, snagging her around the waist to drag her to safety. She fought me, raking my bare arms with her long nails, slicing me open. I bled, shallow scratches of pinkish water, nothing like the ocean of red spreading out around us.
The gunshots were only whistling echoes in my eardrums, leftover burns among the continuing screams. Fear grew to horror, and the crying began, the women I’d pulled under the table included. Kee
ping my head down, I scrambled to my feet and nearly stepped on a slender young Korean man clutching his leg, blood seeping slowly from his fingers.
My side argued with me, the muscles twisting around their captured nerves and scar tissue. Spasms dug their claws in deep, and I had to huff my breaths to ease away the pain. It fucking hurt, but probably not as much as the burning hole through the kid’s thigh.
“Hey, it’ll be okay.” Any thought of going anywhere but right to his side was gone. The blood wasn’t spurting, but the bleed was constant. I grabbed a few of the linen napkins from the table and gently peeled his hands back.
His jeans were soaked through, and I pressed down on the wound, staunching the flow as best I could. He blinked, and I swallowed, caught by the pain on his face. He looked nothing like my lover, but all I could think about was Jae. I’d done this once, pressing my cold fingers to Jae’s broken skin to hold his blood in. Hopefully, I’d have the same luck with the kid as I did with Jae then. The ashen clamminess on his skin was normal, I told myself, and one of the women I’d yanked aside crawled out to touch my arm.
“Is it over?” She was shaking, shock ripping through her as brutally as the bullet tore through the young man I was pressing down upon. “Are we okay?”
“Yeah, you’re fine.” I nodded over to the other woman. “See how she’s doing. Dial the cops if you can. We need to get some help down here.”
I needn’t have bothered telling her to call 911. Sirens were cutting through the air before she crawled back under the table to retrieve her phone. A few feet away, Vivian Na’s body cooled, her life turning the floor sticky as people ran through her pooling blood to get to the door.
