Chapter Twelve #2
the audience’s heartstrings like their majestic Valjean and
Javert.
His
thoughts became disjointed. He should get himself to bed, he knew.
But he was suddenly too tired to move, and his sleepy brain had
caught some trace of Sasha in its electrical flickering. Something
so clear that Laurie, when he inhaled, could smell him, could feel
his skin against his palms. Smiling, letting go, Laurie followed
him into the dark.
* *
*
Cold air
woke him at dawn. Unwillingly he watched the vivid tapestry of his
dreams bleach out to black-and-white, then fall apart in cobwebs.
That was the trouble with passing out here on the sofa, he
reflected, sitting up stiffly. Waking with a crick in his neck and
chilled to the bone. The contrasts between his night world and this
were sharper than if he’d at least come around in his bed, where
combined lingering scents of his own and Sasha’s allowed him a few
seconds’ cushioning fantasy. Well, it was Saturday. He could go
back there for a while, drag the duvet over his head and slip away
for a little longer, try to catch the tail of the dream the chill
in the room had interrupted. With him on the heath once more—only
this time it had been summer—Sash lying in the long grass beside
him, trailing a fern leaf down Laurie’s chest, over his solar
plexus, and down his naked belly. Smiling, shivering, Laurie swung
his legs off the sofa.
God,
though, it was cold, even for a one-bar-fire flat. Glancing over,
Laurie saw he’d left it on. Fire hazard as it was, at least it was
free. It wanted to be, he thought. It was doing nothing. The living
room was freezing, as if…
As if a
window was wide-open. Laurie stared at the room’s far wall, trying
to make sense of its differences. What he could see of the sky
beyond the railway lines and the terrace beyond them was stunningly
clear. Only a first luminescence, not so much dawn as the distant
promise of it. The nights were getting a bit shorter, he had begun
to notice, though normally he did not see it until he was outside.
The windows on the railway side of the building were gray with
diesel. Now Laurie could pick out silver blue from the first trace
of rose, and every single fading star.
Yes. The
veiling glass was gone, the window shoved high as it would go. The
other difference on that side of the room was the dim human shape
occupying the space between the window and the sofa—dead still, as
if watching in silence for God knew how long. Laurie’s heart shot
up in his chest, so hard he thought it would burst. His throat
closed, squeezing his cry to a whisper. “Sasha!”
“No.” The shape moved, and Laurie saw his mistake. Sasha’s
elegant silhouette would have fitted twice into the bulk now
outlined against the translucent dawn. Too sleepy and astonished to
feel fear, Laurie knew only the swipe—like a vast descending
wing—of loss, of renewed sorrow. The voice was not dissimilar.
Soft, loaded with velvety intonations. Romanian… “Why, gajo? Is
that the way he lets himself in? Through the window, or”—the human
darkness took a step toward him—“or do you open your door to him,
like the little polone you are?”
Laurie barely had a second to begin to wonder what he had been
called this time—let alone who this thug was, although
gajo brought back plenty
of memories. A fist like a lump of kebab meat fastened in his
shirt. The room shot around him through a hundred and eighty
degrees, window exchanging place with the door. The edge of the
sink unit punched him in the stomach, and its metal draining board
leapt up to smack the side of his face. Once, then again, as his
assailant swapped the grip on his shirtfront for one at the back of
his neck—and a third time, which made him care less about
everything somehow. He was just vaguely glad he’d cleaned it. He
could smell disinfectant, and the depressing tang of old food,
eaten joylessly and lonely, which rose up from the sink no matter
how thoroughly he scrubbed. Then connections formed in his ringing
skull. The accent. John Kucharski’s story of a vengeful father who
would not let go. He heard himself say, with surprise that he could
still talk and take an interest, “Are you…are you Stefan
Petrica?”
Laughter shook his assailant. Yes, a vibration. Silent, but
Laurie felt it through the hot bulk pressed tight to his back. The
grip had moved again—from his collar into his hair, which
the Les Miz director was making him grow for the sake of the revolution.
Probably little suspecting how much it would hurt when grabbed and
twisted. “Stefan!” the dark voice echoed, a harsh explosion up
against his ear. “For a little fish like you? You’re joking.”
Laurie’s scalp burned as the grip yanked him upward. A thin line of
cold, like a wire, stung suddenly against his throat—but you need two hands to
garrote someone, don’t you? Just the blade of a knife, then. Almost
a relief. “Where is he? Where’s Stefan’s brat?”
“I don’t know!” For the first time, Laurie was glad that it was
true. Wildly glad—this thug could do as he pleased with him, and
still it would not lie within Laurie’s power to betray Sasha again.
Some suicidal gleam of amusement went through him at the stupidity
of Interpol agents and Romanian heavies, and he added, as he had to
Kucharski, “Do you think I’d…bloody tell you, if I
knew?”
This
time his assailant laughed aloud. Laurie guessed he didn’t like his
victims too docile. “Oh, you will. You will, polone. You
soft-skinned gaje never know how much pain you can feel, until
you’re shown. And I’m in no hurry. We can have a little fun while
we wait.” He shifted, and his grip left Laurie’s hair. His movement
brought the heated press of his erection up against Laurie’s
backside. “Come on. You’re used to it, aren’t you, little faggot? I
know you let Stefan’s boy fuck you. It’s not like you don’t know
how.”
And now
fear struck at Laurie like a snake. Not of rape—although, Christ,
he did not want the long, hot shaft now unzipped and shoving at
him, could not imagine it tearing up into his flesh—but what it
would take from him. What it would wipe out. He had been Sasha’s in
that way. Only once, but for always. Laurie didn’t know when that
resolve had burned into his mind, but there it was. He didn’t know
what life would bring. All he knew was that he had done with that
part of it, until and unless Sash came back to him. A bed in a
rusty, damp caravan. A sleeping bag spread out for warmth. “Sasha,”
he whispered—no more than a movement of his lips. A promise. A
good-bye.
He felt,
with an indescribable shudder of mind, flesh, and bone, the knife
blade burst the skin.
A soft
thud. Laurie caught his breath to silence it. Behind him, he felt
the big man go still too. Laurie could not define it. It was as if
a cat had jumped into the room. No. Larger. A panther or one of the
mythical beasts that haunted English fields and started black beast
panics in the countryside.
Then a
sharp command in a language he did not know. In a voice he
absolutely did. He jolted upright, suddenly able to—his assailant
had jerked up too. He felt himself dragged backward, the knife
following, searing its hot ice across his throat. His vision
reddened and sparked, and through its glitter, he saw… God, he saw
Sasha, poised against the brightening sky.
Sasha
said, in English this time, “Luca, drop the knife. Let go of
him.”
Laughter rumbled against Laurie’s ear. He wasn’t surprised. He
couldn’t see how Sasha had a hope in hell. He was just as Laurie
remembered him—upright, slender, beautiful. His dark eyes somehow
full of their own light. Perhaps he was hoping to influence
Luca—Luca, for
God’s sake, a name like a crown of daisies on a bear—by charm
alone. Well, it should work, from Laurie’s point of view. Joy
seized him, despite the terror of the moment. “Sasha! Oh, God.
Sash!”
“Yes. It’s all right, ves’tacha. You’ll be okay. Just stay very
still.”
Luca
dragged him back another step. He was still laughing, but it had an
edge to it, as if for some reason he was afraid. “Don’t be stupid,
Alexandru. Your father wants to talk to you; that’s
all.”
“Fine. I’ll talk. Just let him go.”
The grip
on Laurie slackened. “All right. Give me the gun, and he’s
yours.”
The gun. Sasha shifted, and Laurie
saw that his hands were not empty. There was a dull, blue-black
gleam between them. Laurie observed, with nausea, how Sasha’s
fine-boned fingers curled around the grip. He knew bugger all about
guns, but this was a serious one—heavy and large, with what he
guessed to be a silencer thickening its muzzle. He swallowed,
sucking in a breath as the pressure vanished from his throat. A
foreboding seized him.
“Sash,” he whispered. “No. Don’t give it to him.”
“It’s okay, Laurie. Stand away from him. He’ll let you
go.”
Luca
did. Sasha advanced a couple of steps, his gaze on Luca unwavering.
The gun clicked—the safety going on, Laurie guessed—and he held it
out in one steady hand. “Take it. All right. Now, let’s
go.”
Luca
backed up toward the door. Sasha followed calmly after, smiling
faintly. “Don’t go with him,” Laurie said, low and urgent. “Don’t
trust him. He’s gonna hurt you.”
“Don’t worry, Laurie. I’ll come back to you, okay? I love
you.”
Laurie
watched the flicker of disgust pass over Luca’s face. It didn’t
bother him, though he thought it pretty rich from somebody who’d
been about to rape him. What bothered him was the grim smile that
followed it. The hardening. Luca, to this point, had not had time
to do up his pants, and the gaping fly lent an element of grotesque
comedy to the scene. He reached the door. Laurie, whose job it was
to read and reproduce human faces, to portray convincingly their
million nuances of feeling and intention, saw what he meant to do.
“Sash! No!” he cried, and reached out to grab Sasha’s arm. “He’s
been sent to kill you.”
Luca