by Rhys Ford
“Seven,” I answered with a shaky grin. “Sometimes I even go out and get someone to cook it for me. But thanks for the food. I promise I’ll eat it.”
“I came over because I’ve got a job for you.”
“If it includes taking pictures of septuagenarian lesbians, I’m going to have to pass.”
“Nice use of a big word there, little brother. And if it did, then I wouldn’t tell you, just so I could see your face when you found out,” Mike snorted. “One of my clients’ son committed suicide. They swear he wouldn’t do that to the family and want someone to take a look at what happened.”
“People do that kind of thing to their families all the time.” Shrugging, I took another sip of my beer, leaning back into the softness of the couch. “It’s kind of what suicide does.”
“His father insists his son never would have done it.” Shaking his head, my brother sighed. “Look, I think he killed himself, but the father’s a big client. They use our security details all the time, and I can’t just tell him he’s full of shit because he doesn’t want to believe his son did himself.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Just look into it.” Mike slid a thick manila envelope out of his pile of papers and passed it over to me. Flicking open the tab, I saw the number of zeros on the check fastened to the top of a paper-clipped report. “Take some time, maybe a couple of weeks, and poke around what he was doing. There’s probably nothing there, but I want the family to feel like at least someone took a second look.”
“But the kid definitely killed himself?” The package held photos of a smiling young Korean, some by himself while others showed him with groups of people or with a thin-faced Caucasian woman. “This is his girlfriend?”
“Wife.” Mike dug through the photos and pulled out one of the young man holding a bowlegged toddler. “Not a kid, really. Late twenties, married, and already with a son. Good Korean boy by all accounts. Pride of the family and all that.”
“Kim Hyun-Shik? Am I pronouncing that right? Kim’s the last name, yes?” It was hard to roll the syllables off my tongue. I studied the young man’s face. He was good-looking, a pretty mouth set into a strong face. His black hair was shaped into a conservative brush much like my brother’s, and his eyes were dark and sparkling. There was love in those eyes for the young boy he held up for the camera, pride beaming out from his face.
I was jealous of that pride and love. It had been a long time since I’d seen that look in my father’s eyes.
“When did he die?” There were reports in the envelope: an autopsy report and lists of places that Hyun-Shik frequented. I recognized a few restaurants, and then a familiar name jumped out at me. “I know this place, Dirty Kiss. It’s… a guest bar.”
“Just a couple of weeks ago. And a guest bar, my ass. It’s a gay whorehouse,” Mike interjected. “Call it what it is, Cole.”
“Whorehouse just seemed a bit rough.” I shuffled the reports, looking for cause of death. “Most customers don’t even make it to the sex rooms. Female impersonators perform shows on the main floor. You have to be a member to get into the upper area.”
“Yeah, well, our boy made it to the upper rooms.” The label on Mike’s beer was taking a beating from his fingernails, its edge peeled back into strips. He was trying to act nonchalant, skirting around a question he wanted to ask but couldn’t. “You go there? For company, I mean? Not that it’s bad. You should get some, once in a while.”
“Mike, it was one of the places I ended up looking into when I was a cop.” The thought of paying someone to dance naked in front of me would have seemed like a good time a few years ago. Times definitely had changed. “I worked Vice, remember? There’s a lot of vice in places like that. The family knows he was a member?”
“I don’t know. He was found there, overdosed on a handful of pills. They didn’t get much when they pumped out his stomach.” He drained the rest of his beer, wincing at its warmth. “His father insists that Hyun-Shik wouldn’t kill himself but won’t talk about his son being gay.”
“A lot of fathers refuse to believe their sons are gay. Look at ours.” Mike shifted uncomfortably, and his face took on a very familiar twisted look.
“Yeah, about Dad,” he said, rubbing at the back of his neck. “He and Mom are coming for a visit in a couple of weeks. Maddy wants to know if you’d like to come to dinner. Maybe bring a guest.”
“Come on, Mike, don’t pull that kind of shit on me.” The beer was tasteless in my mouth, but I drank it anyway, anything to wash out the sawdust clogging my throat. “The old man doesn’t want to see me.”
“It’s been, what… twelve years, Cole?” His eyes were dark, almost moist in the lamplight. “When are the two of you going to stop being stubborn and at least meet halfway?”
Mike hated the schism in our family, hated being the bridge between me and my father. Our Irish Catholic upbringing was good at feeding the guilt that plagued both of us. Mike blamed himself for not being there that night when I told my dad about loving men, and I blamed myself for not being what my family wanted. I’d gotten over mine, but Mike was still working on his.
“Halfway to what?”
I could still hear the slam of the door behind me. The last face I’d seen before it shut was Barbara’s, my father’s second wife and the woman I’d called Mom all of my life. She still wore the look of horror she’d had on since I’d told them my biggest secret, hoping that no matter what, they loved me enough to still call me son. I’d been wrong. “You want me to hide who I am because Dad’s got a problem with it?”
“This isn’t about Dad. This is about you,” Mike said softly. “Tasha’s coming with them. She’s a sophomore now. She wants to see you.”
Our youngest sister had been three when I’d left the family. Other than pictures, I’d not seen her or our other two sisters in years. Mike was a master at playing me. No one else could coax me into doing things I didn’t want to do like he could.
“I’ll think about it.” I eyed my brother, looking for any sign of triumph in his face. “You smile and I’ll punch you.”
“I’m not smiling,” he said, fighting a shit-eating grin. “I’d bring her here if I thought Dad would go for it. Just come over for dinner and be pleasant. Maddy was serious about bringing someone. She thinks it’s about time you date.”
“Tell Mad Dog McGinnis that I’m fine being single.” Mike’s wife meant well, but she’d been on the outskirts of my spiral downward. Mike knew better. Other than not-so-subtle hints that I should get laid, he wasn’t going to push me into anything. “Besides, you think I’d want to inflict Dad on anyone I was interested in? Look how much shit he gave Maddy, and you’re the favorite son.”
“I’ve got to get going.” Glancing at his watch, he winced at the late hour. “Do yourself a favor and take a shower before you go to bed. You smell like one of those pine tree air fresheners you hang in the car.”
“Yeah, right.” I was tired all of a sudden, too many ghosts and relationships flying through my head. “I’ll lock the door behind you.”
“You going to take the job?” Mike gathered up his paperwork, shuffling the pages into their proper order. “I like the guy, Cole. He doesn’t expect you to find anything, really, but he’s got to do something. The kid was his only son.”
“Yeah, I’ll take a look around. I kind of knew one of the performers at the club there. She might be able to give me something.” I snagged the bottles and stood, stretching my body up until I felt my spine crack. A throb started along my ribcage, working outward in a steady, numbing circle. Dropping the glass into the recycling bin, I leaned against the archway and rubbed at the spot.
“Does it hurt?” Mike spotted me working at the spot with the tips of my fingers, worry creasing his heavy eyebrows. “When was the last time you saw the doctor?”
“It’s scar tissue, dude.” The keloid eased its grip on my tangled nerve bundles, and the muscles around the scar slowly began to relax. “
Nothing to do about it. I just have to deal with it.”
He didn’t look convinced. Mike was a worrier. He’d been my de facto mother for years. I didn’t see that changing. It got worse after Dad turned his back on me. If anything else happened to me, I was pretty sure he would move me into a spare bedroom of his house so he could keep a closer eye on me.
“Go home to your wife, Mike,” I said, pushing him toward the door. He might be stockier than me, but I had longer arms, and his halfhearted swing at me swished by my shoulder.
“Stop in on the Kim family before you go to that club.” He stopped on the stoop, holding the security screen open. “The father’s up in San Francisco, but his mother’s down here with the rest of the family. Mr. Kim said his wife’s taking it hard since the cops called to tell them about Hyun-Shik.”
“She knows someone’s looking into her son’s death?” The last thing I wanted was to show up on a grieving mother’s doorstep asking questions she wasn’t ready to answer.
“Yeah, I got the feeling Mr. Kim’s doing this for her. He didn’t say it, but that’s what I got when I spoke with him.” Mike was almost down the steps when I called out to him to stop. The porch light cast shadows over my brother’s face, his prominent cheekbones stark under the glare.
“What if I find something?” I asked. “What then?”
“Then, little brother.” He cracked a smile, back to being the superior sibling I’d known and loved all my life. “I expect you to chase it down and find out the truth. Put that pigheadedness of yours to good use. I don’t expect you to do anything less.”
THE water felt good on my body. What felt even better was washing out the last of the bark from my hair. I leaned against the tile, one hand holding my weight as I watched the dirty water swirl down the drain. The shower spray beat against my neck, and I worked the fingers of my other hand over my scalp, making sure there were no remnants of the night’s activities left. A minute leaf, newly formed and spring green, fell and bobbed on the current. I worked it down the drain with the edge of my toe. The color reminded me too much of Rick’s eyes. They were never that green, but he’d often worn contacts to pop their intensity, liking the startling effect against his tanned skin.
He’d been wearing them that night. Bright greens mocked me at times. The leaf was no exception.
Turning off the water, I grabbed a towel and scrubbed the water from my legs. A bruise was forming along the inside of my thigh, a long line of purple from the thick edge of the wooden fence. The mark ended at the edge of the gunshot scar on my leg, the smallest of my wounds. The bullet had torn through the muscle, passing straight through and embedding into the brick wall behind us.
It was the last shot taken, and I didn’t remember getting hit there.
I passed the towel over my chest and down over my stomach. If I woke up early enough, I could head down to the gym and get a few rounds in before I started work. Working out helped keep the scar tissue on my ribs limber, or so I kept telling myself. At the very least, it helped keep me in shape so I could outrun rabid old women with shotguns.
The nodule of tissue on my ribs was still florid, darker than the one on my chest, and prominent. Rubbing the reducing salve over the circular scars, I let my mind wander, thinking about the young man and his suicide.
There’d been a note of sorts amid the papers, a copy of a paper scrap scrawled with a few bits of Korean. The hand was masculine and strong, confidently marching the letters across the page. If Hyun-Shik was doubting himself, it certainly hadn’t shown in his handwriting.
I recognized the language with the circles and dashes from seeing restaurant signs more than from any knowledge on my part. I could speak English and passable Spanish, but Korean was far outside of my comfort zone. I might have had a Japanese mother, but other than knowing the difference between noodles and rice, I was about as Asian as a bowl of cornflakes.
“Need someone to translate that,” I mumbled to the empty bedroom as I hunted for a pair of boxers. My dresser was sadly lacking in clean clothes. I added laundry to my list of things to do in the morning. Something didn’t seem right about the note. It nagged at me as I turned off the light and lay back on the bed. “What’s there that made them sure it was a suicide? And why would you write your suicide note on a torn piece of paper?” But then that made as much sense as swallowing a bunch of pills at a karaoke sex club in Garden Grove.
Sighing, I closed my eyes, letting my fatigue finally take me. The last image I had in my mind as I fell asleep was of Hyun-Shik’s face as he held his son. The happiness there was at odds with the desperation of a man driven to suicide. But then, I told myself, everyone has demons they keep hidden. It’s when those demons fight free that we find out the truth of things.
Chapter 2
I COULDN’T blink away the clouds in my eyes. No matter how hard I tried, they wouldn’t clear. I tried to turn my head, but I was much too tired. The sheets were rough under my cheek, starched hard and fixed tight against the mattress. The room was fuzzy, but I knew where I was. The smell of antiseptic and bleach overwhelmed me. Despite the acrid stench, I could still smell vomit and urine under it.
There was another odor, metallic and bitter. I knew that smell too. It was blood. And there was a lot of it.
Machines beeped around me, a steady burp of noises and burbles, marking each of my breaths and heartbeats. There was a rhythm to it, my life counted off as each second passed. There were shapes around me, dark and light blobs that grew more solid as I blinked.
It hurt to breathe. Something was catching on my lungs, and there was a hard cylinder in my throat. I almost laughed at the irony of finally being able to swallow something that deep. I had a gag reflex that couldn’t stop once it started. It kicked in now, and I choked against the tube that kept my lungs clear of fluids. My body fought the foreign intrusions, but there was no hope for it. I was paralyzed, trapped in the cocoon of my immoveable body.
The room came into view, slowly becoming solid around me. A powder-blue paint covered the walls, and flickering lights reflected back at me from the chrome of the hospital bed next to mine. The faint, steady sound I heard under the blips grew louder, and I watched in horror as the linens on the next bed slowly turned crimson, the excess blood splattering to the floor as it dripped. Something lay on the bed, a familiar something, and I tried to speak, but no words could come out around the white plastic in my throat.
I knew those eyes because their brilliance haunted me. I watched, helpless and immobile, as Rick reached for me, his hand gnarled and shaking when he tried to span the distance between us.
An echoing boom took off Rick’s face, leaving only one of those spring green eyes staring back at me. His body twitched, trying to come to grips with its own death, and I screamed silently as his brains splattered into my mouth and onto my face. Blood spurted over me, tasting of Rick’s life as it drained away from him. Then the pain hit me, and everything went black.
The sentient part of my mind—the part that knew I was in a dream—screamed to get out. It knew Rick never made it to the hospital. I’d never seen him on a bed or hooked up to monitors. None of those things ever happened, but my subconscious didn’t care.
The chirrup of the machines continued, cold and uncaring, as Rick died all over again in my nightmares. Again. Always dying, and I’m always helpless to stop it.
THE ringing of my house phone was what woke me, an incessant tug of sound on my ears. I stank of sweat, and for a moment, the foul, cloying scent of blood filled my nose, but it dissipated as I struggled to clear the dream from my head.
Reaching for the receiver, I blearily looked at my alarm clock, wondering where the night had gone. It seemed like seconds since I’d lain down, but here it was, nine in the morning, and more than likely, Claudia was calling me from downstairs.
“Hello?” I know I sounded rough. My throat was raw, as if the tube had been real. Phantom memories, left over from the days after they took me off the hospital machi
nes. The scar on my ribs hurt, twisting nerves sending little shockwaves through my belly. And if that wasn’t bad enough, I had to pee very badly.
“Honey, are you coming in to work today?” Claudia’s accent was a thick molasses in my ears. She swore she’d never lived anywhere but California, but there was more than a hint of Southern in her voice. “Because if you’re not, then I’m going to bust your head open for making me come in.”
Ah yes, dear, sweet Claudia, who could probably bench press me with one hand behind her back. I hired her because she was friendly and wouldn’t scare off any fidgety clients that might walk through the door. She’d raised eight sons in the depths of Long Beach and gotten each one into college. There was steel under that soft exterior. I had no doubt in my mind that she could crack my head open with a flick of her fingers.
“I just need to wake up. Must have slept through the alarm.” I mumbled an apology to my sole employee. “I’ll be down in a bit.”
I wasn’t an idiot. Claudia kept me on the straight and narrow, as it were. She’d finally stopped trying to fix me up with her son, Marcus, having decided I probably wasn’t good enough for him, but she still treated me like I was one of her boys. I’d tried growing a mustache once, and it lasted all of half an hour. She’d come in, taken one look at me, and sniffed that I looked like trash. I went upstairs and took it off without even arguing. I would damn my father to hell with my last breath, but I’d be damned if I disappointed Claudia.
“Take your time. I’ve got coffee on and some apple pie down here,” she replied. “I’m going to be watching some of the morning shows. They’ve got some dancing dog on right now. Tell me, who the hell needs a dancing dog? You want to impress me? Get the damned thing to do dishes.”
I hung up after mumbling a goodbye. It’s best to cut Claudia off before she gets on a tear, especially when there was coffee and pie waiting for me. She might be bossy, but she kept my books in order and was as dependable as the sun. The morning she walked into my office to answer the ad I’d placed in the paper was the best day of my life.
