Night Swimming #2
“Bald,” Fucker One mumbled. “Bald and fat. Goatee. Black. Gray. Raspy voice. Black and gray?” He made a low moaning sound and then whimpered like a child. “Gonna puke,” he announced weakly, and Brady scooted backward while Nurse Carmichael made himself busy with a puke bag and then some wipes.
Brady wanted to howl. To grab Bobby Persons by his soiled red hoodie and force him to tell Brady the rest of it. Bald and fat with a black-and-gray goatee? Great. Described five guys on the force.
And if you counted mostly gray with a fringe of hair around a bald head, well, that was Arlen Cuthbert.
Brady’s breaths were coming short and quick now, and his vision was going a bit spotty.
He backed up across the corridor and down from the gurney so he could lean against the wall, wondering as he did so, was it safe?
Would one of his fellow officers take him out right here?
Why not? The captain of the station wouldn’t even launch an investigation.
Bobby had used the F-word—that was Arlen’s word.
Did they mean it in the classic sense, or did it just mean…
weak. Like the puny antelope waiting to be picked off?
Had Arlen called his family, checked up, decided Brady’s conscientious streak was bad enough, but his sexuality added in… ?
Oh dear God, one word from his fucking useless Uncle Jimmy and Brady would be toast.
He had no idea how close he was to hyperventilating and passing out until the helpful nurse appeared at his elbow with a clean puke bag.
“Here you go,” he murmured, holding it up to Brady’s mouth and making him take it. “That’s it, just breathe in here. It’s all good. Don’t worry. Ace’ll take care of it. You’ll be fine.”
Brady stared at the man in absolute surprise. “I’m sorry.” He breathed when he could. “Did you say Ace?”
The nurse nodded. “Yes. You’re the Brady who ate dinner at Ace’s house last night, right?
Had breakfast this morning?” His pretty face was not so smooth that he didn’t sport laugh lines.
“Ernie brought me and Amal some of your strawberry donuts early this morning. Don’t let the others tell you any different. They’re really quite delicious.”
Brady stared at him helplessly, his breathing starting to even out in spite of the shocks coming.
“I’m sorry, you are…?”
“Jai’s Little George,” said the nurse. He looked put out for a moment. “He didn’t talk about me last night?”
“He did,” Brady said, surprised. “Not by name. He… you have to understand, I’m not part of the club.”
George raised his eyebrows. “So are you telling your captain who you might know with a big fucking knife or a size fourteen steel-toed boot?”
Brady’s eyes widened as his suspicion was suddenly crystalized by this very helpful, very kind, man tending to Brady with as much competence and kindness as he’d shown the bank robber on the gurney.
“No,” he said. Oh hell no. “No,” he whispered again, thinking of Ace with the knife, or Eric, holding that Beretta so professionally by his side. “No,” he repeated.
George shrugged. “Welcome to the fucking club.”
Brady nodded, and a wave of nausea washed over him.
George patted his back gently. “You hang in there, chief. I’ll go get you some water. You may want to think about who you want to tell about what you just heard, though, and what your next move should be.”
“Run and hide?” Brady asked, his absolute aloneness hitting him then like he’d been dropped into a vast starless sky.
“Oh, honey,” George said, “I think it should be perfectly clear that someone’s got your back.”
Behind his eyes he was out under the desert sky with Eric, staring at the sunset, feeling oddly at peace. And then he was out with Ace, staring at the vast panoply of diamond stars against the black velvet sky.
See that light? Them’s my people.
Brady hadn’t had any idea what he’d been offered the night before.
He did now.
HE HAD ten minutes to get his shit together before the other nurse hustled in, Nurse Dara.
“George, there’s, like, six cops in the lobby, wanting to interrogate the prisoners. I told them they couldn’t, but they’re going to crash back here anyway. What should we do?”
Brady blinked. Oh God. “Do you have any security here?” he asked.
“One old retired cop currently kissing their boots,” Nurse Dara replied in disgust. “I recognize that I might have to give my life in service of the greater good, but protecting these bank robber dickheads does not fit the bill. What do you think we should do?”
“Where are the other three?” Brady asked.
“One’s in surgery and one’s getting prepped for a life flight. The military copter is—”
“Military,” George muttered. “Why didn’t I think about that.
Brady, while they’re all here, I think maybe you should take your department issue back to the station and grab your own vehicle.
Maybe call Ace—he can meet you and sweep it for bugs.
I’m going to get Constance in on this. I hate to break up his date night, but no.
No, we’re not pulling a Butch and Sundance here, not when Jai and I are going hiking in Tehachapi tomorrow.
I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks.
Amal, take care of him while I make some calls. ”
George strode off, and Nurse Amal Dara grunted.
“And I’ve been looking forward to having the house to myself for the same amount of time.
Here, Officer Carnegie. I can show you a little back door here, and you can go fetch your own car.
Trust me—leaving it at the station house isn’t what you want for your property today. ”
Brady glanced from Dara to the guy in the bed. “You didn’t hear what he—”
Amal Dara shook his head. “Let’s just say I recognize that boot print.
I’d give a whole lot of my life to not be on the wrong side of that shoe, if you know what I mean.
And not because it could do bad things to me, but because it would mean bad things about me.
George and Jai bought a house with three guest rooms so I could room in one.
You want loyalty in Southern California?
Try affordable rent and roommates who go out of their way to buy you your favorite ice cream. ”
While he spoke he guided Brady through the back corridors of the tiny hospital, opening a door into the long shadows of a late-winter sunset—and the back parking lot where Brady’s police issue SUV sat.
“Is everybody else parked in front?” he asked, thinking that there wasn’t much room for more than an ambulance bay and a couple of cars bringing patients to the ER.
“Yup. They’re assholes, and it’s a goat fuck. You could probably honk your horn like the General Lee and they still couldn’t catch you.”
Brady gave him a faint grin. “I don’t know how to thank you—”
Amal waved his hand. “I’m sure there will be a barbecue or a thing or something. Keep these assholes away from our little gay nirvana in the desert and that’s plenty of thanks, okay?”
Brady nodded dumbly.
He didn’t say that the “little gay nirvana” in the desert was possibly the only refuge for him in the world right now, but he sure did feel it in his bones.
HE KEPT his radio on, hands sweating on the wheel, until he was almost at the station.
Suddenly there was a squawk and a whole lot of conflicting protests about “That damn colonel kicking us out of the hospital!” and “Where the hell does he think he’s taking our prisoners!
” And then, almost exclusively, “Brady Carnegie, get your scrawny faggoty ass back here. What in the hell do you think you’re doing? ”
Brady listened to that and cackled, not sure why he was so delighted except he felt like a five-year-old playing hide and seek while his parents freaked the fuck out.
Still, when his cell phone rang with an unfamiliar ringtone, he shut off his radio, knowing he could get fired for that alone, and picked up his phone.
To his surprise and relief, Ace’s voice came through.
“So pick up your vehicle”—and God, that voice did not get any less sexy, did it?—“and meet me at the gas station by the burger joint near your apartment complex.”
“You know where I live?” he practically whimpered.
“Do I know where you—oh my God. You pretty much told us where you lived when you crashed breakfast in the cul-de-sac. Don’t bore me with details, Brady, this is serious.”
“Okay,” he said, feeling lost. “What are we doing at the gas station?”
“Switching your car out, and then you’re giving your keys to somebody who will go get your clothes. I think you need to take a vacation, don’t you?”
“But….” He tried to catch his breath. “Ace… I didn’t do anything?”
“Really?” Ace asked, the edge of sarcasm in his voice. “Did you really not do anything?”
Brady remembered that conversation he’d had with Eric the night before, the half-desperate one.
“I-I kept pushing to investigate,” he whispered.
“There… there was this cop with a phone full of kiddie porn, and his brother with a computer full of it, and they were both dead and… and wasn’t anybody going to see if this was bigger than them? ”
“And what have we figured out?” Ace asked grimly.
Brady’s head swam. “Probably not,” he answered, feeling so small. All his life he’d wanted to be a policeman. He’d had to move out here, south of hell, to do his job and not have to answer a thing about his love life, and it turned out that not being able to come out was the least of his worries.
“Probably not what?” Ace was talking slowly now, as though making sure.
“Nobody in my station house wanted to find out if this was any bigger than those two people, and nobody was going to investigate those murders.”
Ace grunted. “So what do you think ought to be done?”
“I have a friend,” he said, suddenly remembering. “In the FBI. I… I turned the investigation of Donnie Ray Kuntz over to her. She might help out. She’d know the proper channels. But first I need to get her that phone.”