Chapter 7 #2
And, as Carlyle had intuited, the only way to get it was….
“I fucking hate stakeouts,” Carlyle muttered now in the car that had been their home in the last week, ever since that meeting.
During normal work hours they rode their desk and did paperwork.
After they’d ostensibly clocked out, while the others chased down leads relating to Halsey Garber and his tentacle-like hold on the gambling industry in the state, Gideon and Carlyle sat here, keeping an eye on Jay Arnold, hoping to see Garber in person.
The man was oily and rancid, but all accounts said he stuck his oily and rancid fingers into all his personal pies.
“You only hate stakeouts because it’s my turn with the playlist,” Gideon said with satisfaction.
And here they were, stretched thin but reluctant to call it a night.
Jay Arnold had been closeted in the three floors of his Upper East Side apartment for the last week after working hours.
It was not the biggest or fanciest of the buildings in the area, although the size of the space was quite impressive.
Apparently Arnold had tried for five years to buy property in the neighborhood, and the sale had come through about a year after his appointment to his current job.
Next to Gideon, Carlyle spoke, and as he often did, he sounded as though he’d been reading Gideon’s mind. “Do you really think he felt bad about the dog?”
Gideon grunted. “Yeah. Why?”
“Because it’s… it seems so out of character for a man who has all this money and shit.” He paused, and Gideon let him search for words. “In my experience, men with that sort of bling have removed conscience from the equation.”
Gideon should have let the matter drop, but he couldn’t. Not after watching Carlyle grow these past six months.
“Was that your father?” he asked quietly.
All the oxygen left the vehicle.
When Carlyle did breathe again, it was slowly, in and out, as though he were fighting the impulse to do something he’d regret.
Like run.
“Yeah,” he said after that moment. Just that one word. “Not yours?”
“My dad’s rich. He was an engineer, super bright, has lots of patents, who went into finance.
Not really….” Gideon searched for words as well.
“Effusive,” he said after a moment, remembering how after his mother’s funeral, his father came in, sat next to him on his bed, and simply…
sat. Before he’d gotten up, he’d said, “I’m sorry, son.
I’ll try to find a nanny to watch you after school.
I know it won’t be your mother. I-I wish I was better at this. ”
And then he’d gone to prepare for dinner.
“Cold?” Joey asked, but not dripping with pity.
“Not really,” Gideon replied, surprising himself.
“In fact, he’s quite kind. I mean, he did fall in love with his assistant when I was twelve, and he’s really adorable around her.
He just grew up when men didn’t communicate their feelings.
He’s been practicing since he and Trish got together.
The other day he sent me a link to an article on finances and told me that he hoped I had a portfolio, but if I didn’t, he and Trish had plenty of inheritance to give me.
And I know that doesn’t sound exciting, but think about what he was offering—”
“Shelter,” Carlyle said, boiling it down to its most animal essence in one heartbeat.
“Yes,” Gideon said, nodding. “And every Christmas, every vacation, I head over to Dad’s house in the suburbs or Trish’s house in Pennsylvania, and they decorate or plan outings.
And nobody has asked me once if I have a girlfriend or demanded I produce offspring.
They just… you know. Talk. Dad’s still quiet, but he’s always glad to see me. So not cold, but not… touchy.”
Carlyle’s mouth canted up. “What do you suppose that’s like?” he asked, almost wistfully. “To live with someone you’re so comfortable with, you touch?”
“I vaguely remember it,” Gideon said. “From when my mother was alive. But not as an adult.”
“Your relationships?” Carlyle asked, and his eyes… darted.
The vehicle—a plain unmarked, nice enough to not get reported on this street—suddenly heated up in the October chill.
And Gideon knew exactly what he was asking.
“The women are all sleek and sophisticated and professional,” Gideon admitted with a quiet laugh. And then, carefully, “The men are usually in law enforcement—not a touchy-feely bunch. You?”
Again that sudden shifting of oxygen in the vehicle. “No cuddling,” he said after a moment. “With either one. Just sex. Touch and release, I guess.”
The coldness didn’t surprise Gideon, but the wistfulness—that cut him deep.
“Maybe we’ll know,” he said. “We’ll know when we’ve found someone real, when there’s lots of touching.”
He couldn’t help it. The fantasy flowed through him of rolling over one morning to find Carlyle in his arms. That wiry power, that subtle strength, the ruthlessness, the curiosity, the surprising gentleness that was emerging bit by bit….
Gideon hungered for it so acutely his stomach ached.
Carlyle turned to him slowly, while Bruce Springsteen—a mutual favorite—played “Secret Garden” softly on the stereo, and for a moment, Gideon thought, “Yes. I will let this happen. We will explode.”
And then in the corner of his eye, he saw movement.
In a heartbeat they were both on alert as a kid—he looked young, barely college aged if that—slunk into view.
His eyes were fixed on the lit window of Jay Arnold’s apartment building, and he was sobbing as he spoke.
Whisper soft, Carlyle killed the radio while Gideon lowered the window.
“But it’s been almost a month, Jay. Nobody will know. Please, I’ve got to see you. You… you told me you loved me. Was that bullshit?”
Gideon and Carlyle locked eyes for a surprising moment.
Blackmail.
Jay Arnold was a bachelor—that’s what his bio said. Famous for dating lots of high-powered women, but none of them for more than a week.
But he was also currently working under a conservative administration, with a direct line to what was left of the gutted Department of Labor and Statistics, and Gideon had a sudden insight as to why this boy was so very dangerous to Jay Arnold.
Blackmail indeed.
“But, but Jay…. Fuck.”
With a dispirited sigh the young man shoved his phone in his pocket and leaned back against one of the great trees lining the walk. He paused for a minute and wiped his face on the inside of his shirtsleeve and was going for something—probably cigarettes—in his pocket.
Before he could get them, Carlyle was at his side, and Gideon had to check the seat next to him to realize that his partner had made a decision without him.
Careful not to startle, Chadwick slid out of the car and shut the door with a muffled thud.
He watched as Carlyle held out a lighter for the kid’s smoke and then tucked it back in his pocket like he did stuff that smooth every day.
Gideon had literally seen the kid walk away from Kylie on her knees in front of a mound of paperwork that had slid out of her arms because it didn’t occur to him to help her.
“Thanks,” the kid muttered as he exhaled. “I’ve been trying to quit. Jay wants me to quit, but….” He sputtered what was supposed to be a defiant laugh into the moist, foggy air. “Fuck him.”
“I wouldn’t write him off yet,” Carlyle said, catching Gideon’s eyes as he drew near. “I would put actual money down on him blowing you off to protect you.”
The kid—well, maybe mid-twenties like Joey himself, but he seemed younger, dressed like a student or a barista or something not a vital part of Manhattan’s cutthroat political scene—frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, kid, if my partner and I are right, your rich, powerful boyfriend just double-crossed the devil to do his job and not out you to the entire nest of pit vipers he’s swimming with. He’s probably eating his heart out, thinking he’s trying to do right by you. Want to ask him?”
The kid’s hand fell to his side in the middle of raising the cigarette to his lips, and the smoke dropped to the ground to be killed by the wet leaves.
Gideon smiled to himself. Well, it wasn’t like Carlyle was wrong, but it was good to see he hadn’t changed completely. Gideon rather liked him the way he was.
“Maybe give him a few more details first,” Gideon said softly. “Kid? You got a name?”
“Kael,” the kid said, studying the two of them with a little bit of fear. “Like the vegetable but spelled weird. Kael Rogers.”
“Like Captain America, but with vegetables, right?” Carlyle asked, and Kael nodded, a surprised smile popping out.
“Sure. Who are you?”
“Well, the last time your boyfriend saw us, he”—Carlyle indicated Gideon—“was yelling at him so hard your boy left sweat prints on the wall he was backed up against.”
“That was Harding,” Gideon corrected with a faint whine. He was not that scary.
“Anyway, I would bet his boycott of America’s favorite veggie started that night. Would you like to hear the story?”
“Does it have to do with the mobster that started hanging around about six months ago?” Kael asked grimly, and Gideon and Chadwick locked eyes again.
“Very probably,” Gideon said, surprised that Kael had been around that long. “You want to tell us about him?”
Kael shuddered. “We… I mean, I knew I had to be his dirty little secret. I knew it from the minute I served his coffee.”
Gideon wanted a medal for pegging that right, but he let the kid continue.