Tough Love

by Heidi Cullinan

  “I’m not—” she began, but Sam cut her off.

  “She doesn’t have a pen. Do you?”

  The cute blond twink with spiky hair fished wildly in his pocket. “I’ll get one.” He turned to Caramela, worshipful. “I saw you at Herod’s. You were amazing. I’m switching my plane ticket and staying an extra day so I can see your next show.”

  “Amazing,” the man’s partner said, touching her arm, then pulling away as if embarrassed he had dared.

  Caramela felt dizzy. She didn’t know what to say. Thankfully Ethan appeared with a pen, and as she signed programs—her program, advertising her show—Ethan put his hand on the small of her back and spoke to her admirers, asking them how they’d liked the show, where they were staying, handing out complimentary drink tickets to his bar. When the boys went away, they made it about ten feet before they began to melt down and grip each other’s arms as if they couldn’t believe what they’d done.

  Caramela definitely knew the feeling. She’d just never been on this end of the exchange.

  Ethan deftly took his pen from her hand and replaced it into his vest pocket. “Well done, my lady.”

  “I still can’t believe this is happening,” she confessed.

  “Yes. I remember this part. If I might make a suggestion? Don’t waste too much time wondering if it’s real. Enjoy the ride. It won’t take you anywhere unpleasant. You have my personal guarantee. In the meantime—” He turned to her, catching her hand and making a slight and formal bow. “May I have this dance?”

  She laughed and took his hand. “Absolutely.” Even so, she glanced over her shoulder, collecting Steve’s nod of permission before she let Ethan lead her out to the floor.

  Ethan, it turned out, was an amazing dancer—he didn’t simply writhe against her but led her into something that made them seem like they were performers on Dancing with the Stars. He held her in a sturdy frame, tipping her back and running his hand down her cleavage before spinning her out again. Though he smiled at her, he was nothing but cool, and she let herself acknowledge that, had things been different, he’d have made an excellent papi. He seemed to think so too, and for the span of three songs, they indulged in the fantasy of what might have been, playing against their audience and their own pleasure. It was another unexpected thrill in a night so full of delights she had to breathe them in to make room for herself. Their fellow dancers made space for them, and a circle formed so people could watch. It was a scene right out of the movies and Caramela’s deepest imagination.

  Taking Ethan’s advice, she let go of her self-consciousness and her fears, and allowed herself to fly.

  Randy took a turn with her too—he was raunchy where his husband had been elegant, grinding against her ass and palming her crotch until she laughed and swatted him away. Sam came to dance also, and she found herself in the middle of a very pretty boy-sandwich. It was pure, honey-sweet heaven.

  Steve danced with her as well, but he pulled her off to the side, into the dark, holding her close and whispering naughty things into her ear. He was so naughty, in fact, that eventually she had to point out erections hurt a great deal in compression panties, and ruined the line of her dress.

  His only reply was a wicked grin and a lascivious tongue in her ear.

  They danced all night, in bar after bar, club after club, heading to Herod’s so Randy could teach Caramela poker and Sam could sing karaoke with Ethan in the bar. When they finally returned to the house, the first fingers of dawn were reaching across the eastern desert. Caramela lay in Steve’s lap in the limo, exhausted, sore, and blissfully happy.

  Then she realized something, and she turned her head so she could look Steve in the eye.

  “Crabtree wasn’t there.” Or Gordy. She touched Steve’s face, questioning silently.

  It hurt her to see how sad he looked, how much he tried to hide it. “There’s a little trouble.”

  Oh, Papi. She stroked his face. “You can go to him, you know. I’ll understand.”

  The pain on his face was like nothing she’d ever seen—not his usual stoicism, but deep, weary, guilty pain. “I can’t.”

  She rubbed her fingernail along his stubble. “Let me help you, Papi. Tell me what I can do.” He said nothing, and it made her ache, so much that she brought Chenco up, drew him out of his sleepy soup and begged him please, please help our papi.

  Chenco sat up, pulling off the wig and the nylon cap—hair wild, his face now a crazy mix of male and female, he hiked up Caramela’s dress, straddled Steve’s lap, and took his lover’s face in his hands.

  “Steve,” he whispered.

  Steve shut his eyes.

  Chenco sealed them closed with a kiss, one on each. Then he held his papi, whispered silly things, stroked his skin, and promised everything would be all right. When they arrived at the house, he took Steve straight to their room, bringing him along into the shower, kissing him, loving him.

  They didn’t make love, they didn’t play, and yet as he lay naked and wrapped around Steve’s big, strong, familiar body, Chenco didn’t think he’d ever loved anyone more. Caramela, wrapped along with him, agreed.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  THE DAY AFTER the show, Steve went to the casino. Sarah Reynolds met him with a sad smile and led him up an elevator to a small, cramped office stuck in the 1970s and decorated with jarringly off-tone and faded kitten posters along the walls.

  Crabtree sat at the olive-green metal desk, but he rose as Sarah ushered Steve inside. “Please, sit. Sarah, would you bring us some coffee?”

  “I’ll send someone up with a carafe directly, sir.”

  Steve took the sagging vinyl chair across from the desk when Crabtree pointed to it. Before he had himself settled, a heavyset busboy entered bearing a tray of coffee and mugs, blushing when Crabtree thanked him and passed him a casino chip. After pouring the coffee and adding two sugar cubes to Crabtree’s cup, the busboy disappeared, leaving the two of them alone.

  Crabtree cradled his cup in his hand. “So. I hear last night went well.”

  Steve reached for his own mug, but his fingers felt fat and clumsy. “It did. Caramela was a big hit. We took her out afterward.”

  Crabtree nodded. “Good.”

  Silence fell between them, and while Steve yearned for a cigarette, he didn’t ask, simply sipped at his coffee and tried to unclench himself.

  Eventually Crabtree sighed, sounding bone-weary. “My deceased lover, Billy Senior, used to say to me, ‘Evelyn, you snotty old bastard, someday you’re going to take on a bear that’s too much of a handful even for you, and I hope to God I’m there to see your pompous ass go down in flames.’ Well, I’m fairly sure I’ve found my handful. I might have seen it coming, though, if I’d known it’d be a pair who brought me to my knees.”

  This comment made Steve look up, and he was surprised to find the gangster giving him an accusatory glare. “What—are you talking about me?”

  Crabtree’s eyebrow arched. “Boy, you’re as damaged as he is, possibly more so.” When Steve sputtered, Crabtree set his mug down and waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, yes, the theatrics are commendable, and I’ll admit they had me fooled. Gordon Weste is not entirely sane, but then so few of us truly are. What he is, I have come to realize, is cunning, conniving, and selfish. He’s a high-functioning sociopath—so high functioning, in fact, he can distract one from noticing until it’s too late. Mostly, however, he’s selfish. Intensely, passionately selfish. Everything that has happened to him, I believe, he has asked for. And it all works—so long as you let him keep blaming you.”

  Sociopath? “But I am to blame. I left him. I didn’t help him.”

  “And are your parents to blame then for abandoning you, for not seeing you when you felt lost and untethered before and especially after the war? If I interview them, will they cry me more rivers, blaming their parents? Or perhaps your parents didn’t help you because the mailman put them under a magic spell, made them travel too much? Perhaps a wicked witch gave t
hem a potion?”

  What the hell? How had Crabtree known about his parents’ travel? And what the fuck, he didn’t blame anything on being abandoned. He hadn’t been…

  Abruptly dizzy, Steve dug his fingers into the arms of his chair, the creak of the vinyl like a gunshot in his overloaded mind.

  Crabtree sighed. “Oh, my dear boy. You didn’t think anyone would ever see you, did you? You hide behind your leather, you hole up in your rotting castle deep in the wilds of the abandoned orchard, but you never expected anyone would come to slay your dragons. Certainly the others never caught on—you gave them something else to see. Gordy would have been enough, but you found your dear Chenco too, and they latched on to him. He’s so darling, so pretty, with such a charming connection to Mitch, such a beautiful dream. They’re so busy with Crescencio they don’t bother to study you.”

  Steve’s palms began to itch. He wanted to leave, but a quiet voice warned him that wouldn’t be very wise. “I don’t…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes you do. You simply don’t want to hear it. But you must. You would have been content to go slowly down the drain with Gordy, but then you met Chenco and you woke up, Sleeping Beauty. He woke you, and you couldn’t bear to go to sleep again. Now you want to live your dreams, but you can’t. You have a monster in your past. The question is, do you know who the monster is?”

  Steve stared down at his legs. “Chenco called Gordy my madwoman in the attic. Except he said I was protecting him.”

  “Yes, I imagine that’s what he’d say. What do you think about it?”

  Steve made a rude noise through his nose, but Crabtree waited him out. “I think I’m a horrible, selfish bastard,” he said at last. He worked his throat then said, the words scraping past his teeth, “I think I’m the monster.”

  “Then you have a significant problem. If that’s how you truly see yourself, eventually you won’t be able to hide it. They’ll see too, and they’ll take Chenco away from you. Or worse…” Crabtree’s voice dropped to a dangerous pitch, “…they won’t be able to pry you away.”

  Steve began to sweat, a cold, sick perspiration born of terror and misery. “I need to fix this.” I can’t lose him.

  “Yes you do, boy.”

  Steve leaned forward. “Please. Please, tell me what to do. How to make this right.”

  “Open your damn eyes, Vance. Open them all the way and see, look at the truth right in front of you.” When Steve only stared at him, lost and confused, Crabtree threw up his hands. “Honestly. What did you do at Stanford, knit?”

  Steve caught his breath coming in short, panicked gasps, and he tried to take deeper draughts of air, but he couldn’t. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

  Crabtree gave him no quarter. “You need to face the monster, boy. I know you’re scared to do it, afraid of what you’ll see, of what he’ll see, but you need to open the door and face the beast down. You need to find it isn’t you, only the ghost of very old, very weary pain. You must face this one way or another. You cannot continue as you are. You’re either going to fix this, or you’re letting Crescencio go, and you’ll return to your Texas cave alone.”

  “I don’t want to be alone,” Steve whispered.

  “Then fix this. As much as Chenco deserves this to work—so do you, Steven. So do you.”

  I have no idea how to fix this, Steve wanted to say, but he only nodded and stared down at the desk, hoping this interview was over so he could leave, go to Ethan’s office at the house, shut the blinds and drown in silence.

  Crabtree picked up his coffee again. “Now, the other matter we need to discuss is your employment. I’m aware you do freelance web security in addition to general programming, but you need something steady. With increasing cyber attacks on high-profile businesses, I’m concerned about the safety of Herod’s servers. I would like you to examine our systems and provide me with a quote for necessary repairs, including suggestions for reliable contractors for any work you cannot complete yourself. You will, of course, be adequately compensated. Sarah has a dossier prepared. Sarah?”

  He’d pushed a button as he said the last, and Ms. Reynolds entered the room, smiling and bearing a spiral-bound file which she presented to Steve. “Here you are, Mr. Vance. Let me know if you find anything is missing.”

  Steve blinked at Crabtree. “You want me to…what?”

  “I want you to do your job,” Crabtree said, staring him down.

  He wanted…to hire Steve? Crabtree? Not Ethan? What? But as those flinty eyes bore into him, Steve remembered who this was, what he had done, what he could do, what Steve had seen him do only days ago with Gordy.

  He also realized Crabtree had, several minutes ago, told Steve his first name, which Randy had said the gangster never told anyone.

  He flipped open the file and began reading, and within a few lines he found himself sinking into the write-ups about code, about firewalls and system managements. This, actually, he did understand. And yeah, Herod’s needed a cyber tune-up.

  “I can do this,” he said, his voice much steadier than it had been since Crabtree had started stripping him away. After pulling his glasses out of his vest pocket, he pushed them up the bridge of his nose and went to work.

  AS THE WEEKS after Caramela’s first performance went by, Chenco became more and more convinced something was wrong with Steve, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. All he knew was Steve had gone from quiet to subdued to nearly scary. They hadn’t slowed down in the bedroom and the playroom, and Steve still came to every show, always wrapped Caramela up in his arms at the end, but the more Steve tried to act as if nothing were wrong, the more Chenco knew something absolutely was. He had no idea, however, how to make things right.

  He decided to talk to someone about it.

  While Ethan was most often working at his casino, he never seemed to mind interruptions, and when Chenco asked if they could talk, he didn’t hesitate to dismiss Ms. Reynolds and call up a car to take Chenco over to Bellagio for an early lunch.

  “I didn’t mean to use up so much of your time,” Chenco said as the driver closed the door behind him.

  Ethan waved this objection away. “That’s all right. I enjoy your company, and I could use a break. Besides, I enjoy checking out my competition.” He eased into his seat, his suit coat undone, his long limbs splayed around him. “Is everything going well? Are things in place for your performance next week?”

  “Yes. We’re doing a new JLo number, and Caryle is looking into some mild pyrotechnics. I think she has Crabtree greasing palms for a special license.”

  “Good. Now, tell me what’s bothering you.”

  The car was a sedate black town car, but it resonated in Chenco’s head the same way the exotic limo had the night they’d taken Caramela out. It was extra plush and lush and had a smoked divider between the front seat and the back. Chenco huddled in his corner, feeling dirty and small and self-conscious. “It’s Steve, actually.”

  Ethan said nothing, but he sat up a little straighter.

  Chenco fixed his gaze out the window, watching the big, busy city go by as the driver wove them slowly down the Strip. “Something’s wrong, but he won’t tell me about it. I think something happened the night of the show. But I don’t know.”

  “You asked him about that, and he said he wouldn’t talk about it?”

  Suddenly this plan to ask Ethan for help didn’t feel like a good idea. Chenco hunched forward. “I haven’t asked him anything. I’m pretty sure not only will he tell me nothing is wrong, he’ll work harder to keep me from ever being able to find out.” The air conditioning wasn’t on very high, and yet Chenco felt cold to his bones. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m making it up. I can’t tell anymore. It shouldn’t be like this. Everything was going so well. Then the night after Caramela’s first performance…I almost didn’t catch it. Like he’s been hiding a limp, and I caught it when it was bad, and now I’m always seeing it.” He tipped his head onto the headre
st and stared at the ceiling. So cold. “I don’t know. I shouldn’t have said anything. I can’t explain it.”

  For a moment, Ethan remained quiet. Then he said, “Chenco, how do you feel about heights?”

  Heights? Chenco shrugged. “I don’t really feel about them much in any direction. I’m not scared of them, but I don’t bungee jump or anything.”

  Ethan hit a button and lowered the divider. “A change of plan, Mark. Please take us to the Stratosphere.”

  “Yes, Mr. Ellison.” The partition went back up.

  The casino was on the north end of the Strip, and as soon as Chenco got a good look at it, he realized he’d heard of this one. The casino with the needle tower and rides on top. Ethan led Chenco through the lobby, waving to several people on the way and exchanging pleasantries, and when they came to the ticket counter for the tower, the cashier simply ushered them through with a cheery smile. They got to take a VIP elevator, and on the way up the attendant chatted familiarly with Ethan.

  “My husband has a long-standing affection for the Stratosphere tower,” Ethan explained as they exited to the sky lobby. “As an anniversary gift last year, I wheedled the owner and got us a kind of extra bells-and-whistles season pass. Randy usually brings me here once a week, but honestly I think he gets here every day when he can.” He pointed to a side door and led Chenco away from the rush of tourists heading to the main outdoor deck. “We have access to a private observation area.”

  The whole needle swayed a bit as they walked through a small hallway to a plain metal door, and Chenco wondered if this was such a good idea. Once Ethan opened it, however, Chenco gasped and followed him up to the rail. The view was stunning, a panoramic of the city and the desert beyond. The sun beat down hot and bright, and the wind whipped around them, reminding them how precarious their position was. Chenco held on to the metal, and Ethan leaned on it, looking down at the city below as he spoke.

  “I know you’ve heard versions of my story, of how I came to own Herod’s, how I met Randy. What you don’t know is what I was before all this happened.”