Scenes From An Imagined Novel
"Jacob," Chris says, his voice clear and calm over the line, "he looks a lot like his mother."
"Where is he?" Decker demands again. He may as well not be speaking. Behind him, Rina's leaning against the wall, sobbing quietly. It's a steady, almost soothing sound.
"I imagine he was a beautiful boy," Chris says. "I can almost understand..." His voice trails off and Decker holds his breath. He should be calling a trace, he should be talking, doing anything, something. But he knows without needing to check that this is a pay phone somewhere in New York, that Chris won't have left fingerprints, won't have anything to tie him to Jacob's disappearance.
"You know about that?" Chris asks curiously. "What happened to your boys?"
"Yes," Decker says at last and he's lost this round. He turns around and looks at Rina, remembering the postal cutting, the secrets she kept, that he kept. A silent agreement about New York, about the Donnetis. One more secret he didn't guess. He wouldn't have thought it important anyway.
"Can I talk to him?" he asks and he can almost see Chris' smile, the slow curve and gleam of perfect teeth.
"I've booked you a flight tonight," Chris answers. "Two tickets. You'll have to find somewhere for your daughter to stay with." Chris pauses. "One for one, Decker. I won't take two."
Rage rises up, struggling past the glacial calm he's been holding onto since he came home to Rina and the FedEx envelope of photographs, all of them beautifully shot, beautifully framed, in all of them, Jacob facing the camera.
"Donetti," he says. "Put Jacob on the line and I'll come."
"Both of you," Chris says. "Here he is."
"Abba?"
"Jacob, Jacob," Decker says and then Rina stumbles against him, her hands reaching for the phone, and Decker lets go, his fingers cramped. Jacob's alive.
Terry's at the airport waiting for them. Decker scans the crowd automatically, but no Chris. Terry's eyes are red-rimmed, and she's thinner already. Her son's been gone ten days now.
Decker can't bring himself to touch her. He holds onto Rina a little longer than necessary, and she shakes him loose to go over to Terry. They don't hug, but then Rina turns to look at Peter and her face is drawn, beauty dimmed by grief. Standing together, they could be a mother and daughter, widow and orphan. Or mothers with dead children. He thinks suddenly of Hannah, waving goodbye from the Jenkin's front porch as they drove off to the airport and he steps back, picks up the bags. He looks away from their accusing faces.
He let Chris walk two years ago. Eight years ago. He tries not to think about it too often.
There's a file though, in the third drawer of his desk at the office. Mostly newspaper clippings, a few notes and some record copies. In the middle, tucked out of sight is a 5 by 7 of Chris, taken from a surveillance shoot. He shouldn't have gotten the photographs at all, but a couple of New York cops haven't forgotten him. There were three rolls in the packet they sent down, and he kept just one. Chris coming out from a restaurant with his uncle on a July afternoon. Sunlight through leaves, a grey crew neck and jeans, casual clothes with his hair mussed up, his hands in his pockets. He was smiling, almost laughing. He looked younger.
You had to know Chris to see that his mouth was swollen, that his eyes were flat and hard.
Decker walks behind the two women. They don't touch, but they talk in low, private voices. Terry's shoulders shake but then firm, and their steps quicken.
There's a car waiting for them at the curb, one of Chris' boys waiting. Terry doesn't glance twice at the driver, but climbs in. Rina hesitates and looks back at Peter. He nods and she closes her eyes briefly, her lips moving silently in prayer. Then they get in the car.
There are broken capsules on the counter top. Decker has to push aside spilt boxes of cereal to find the vials, the needles and the half-empty bottles. Sedatives, nothing major, all with prescriptions to Chris Decker. Someone with a sense of humor, Peter thinks then notices the date. They're from Chris' medicine cabinet, legit or as close as he comes.
There's enough to keep a halfgrown kid quiet for a month. A ziplock of brightly coloured tabs with hearts painted on them. Keep a kid quiet and happy for a long time.
The apartment's empty. Fingerprints the cops can get later. Decker touches things as lightly as he can, even with the gloves on. He's got an hour, maybe half before the FBI get here.
Gabriel slept in front of the television, a blanket still twisted round as a nest with a pillow, a ninetendo left by the side. No blood anywhere. Towels and soap in the bathroom. No clothes, nothing else that might be a kid's. Except the photograph of Gabriel, a sleeping golden child with a gun held to his head. The carpet was the same, the foot of the table in the photograph matched the foot of the coffeetable.
The right apartment, three hours too late. His phone rings.
"He's not here," Decker says. "They've moved him again."
The snick of the door locking, and then a slide of fabric against concrete. Decker knows that sound. Chris hunched on the floor in his safe room, knees to his chest. "You're getting slower," Chris says. "I need you to move faster."
Decker keeps scanning the apartment, shifting things carefully. "Where are the feds?"
"At the restaurant. You've got an hour at least." Chris breathing slowly in his ear, Decker goes through the kitchen drawers again. Cutlery, knives - he holds them up against the fluorescent lights and they seem clean, plates and then the junk drawer. Full of dead batteries, rubber bands, pencil stubs and receipts. He starts sorting.
"Jacob's sleeping," Chris says and Decker looks up, startled, almost expecting to see Chris leaning against the counter next to him. It's the earpiece, the way Chris' voice whispers into his head. He says nothing in reply, just listens to Chris' steady breathing and sorts supermarket receipts.
"He's sleeping stretched out on my bed. We're the same height, so I lent him a pair of sweatpants," Chris tells Decker. "They're loose on him, low on his hips."
"Stop," Decker asks. "Please." He's gotten used to begging.
Chris' voice softens. "I won't hurt him," he says. "I give you my word." A pause. "He's going to wake up soon. He'll be thirsty. Brush his teeth, drink some water. Bagels okay for him, Decker? Does he need anything special for eating?"
Decker's hands are shaking. He drops one of the dead batteries, and it rolls under the kitchen cabinet, vanishes. "Please," he says and he can hear Chris settle down, a rustle of cloth and then a soft sigh. They've played this game before.
"Rophynol," Chris says. "Glass of orange juice and some rophynol. He doesn't remember last night. Doesn't know why his own clothes are torn up, sitting shredded in a trash can somewhere. All that happens is he wakes up with a fuzzy head, a couple of weird memories. But he hasn't been hurt. A little sore, maybe, but it's nothing new, maybe."
"Fuck you," Decker whispers. He spreads the receipts out, focuses. They're getting sloppy. He can understand their fear. Three unmarked ones, the same prices. He knows the figure. He starts ransacking the cupboards, looking for the boxes.
"- and then he turns over, and he's crying a little, scared. Like I'm going to hit him. Force him. So I bend down and I kiss him, and he never expects that. Too scared to push me away, and it's not, well to be blunt with you, Decker, your son isn't exactly new to this. So he kisses me back. Nervous, but he knows what he's doing, knows how to use his mouth. And you know what his mother looks like, right? It's the same mouth, wet and open, and he says -"
The box is in the waste bin. Sterile bandages, a dozen for $2.99. Syringes and saline. Unmarked, but there aren't going to be a lot of off-book medics who still issue receipts. Who are stupid enough, or out of it enough to treat a gunshot wound a week after Chris Donetti shot one of his son's kidnappers.
"I've got receipts," he says and Chris shuts up for a second then starts asking questions.
The earpiece clicks lightly as Chris hangs up and Decker stuffs the receipts in his pocket, shoves the rest back into the cleared drawer. He glances at his watch. Thirty-five minutes to go.
He takes the elevator down.
He doesn't listen for Chris' voice whispering dirty things to him. He thinks about Rina instead, about Terry, the two of them waiting at a hotel, guarded by twenty-year-old thugs that worship Chris. He can see the thugs, the pretty faces and tight pants, guns outlined under leather, the way their eyes light up when Chris comes near them, when Chris talks to them.
Terry and Rina aren't quite real in his mind. He's been sleeping in his car for seven days, chasing Mafia or conmen or religious nuts or just ghosts, ghosts with a child not quite dead or alive, and when he closes his eyes, Christopher whispers to him about Jacob, about sex and the slide of heat, the short harsh sounds Chris makes when he's close to orgasm, the way his voice roughens when he talks about being on his knees, sucking cock, about Jacob pressed against a bed, drugged and confused, willing, Chris says, his tongue curling around the word, reluctant to let go of it. Willing for Chris, for touch, for warmth for sex. "And then I fuck him," Chris says and Decker bends his head against the steering wheel of his stolen car and closes his eyes, listening because he cannot stop, because Jacob is not quite dead nor alive too, as Chris touches himself, as Chris wins.
Gabriel is somewhere in New York. Alive, Decker thinks. When he finds the boy, when Terry is holding her son again and Rina has Jacob back, Decker will kill Chris. He's told him, and Chris agrees. It will happen. But first, they have to find Gabriel.
The gun doesn't waver. Decker doesn't expect it to.
"My uncle called," Chris says.
Decker nods, and waits. The gun stays steady, pointed at his stomach. It'd be a messy, painful way to die, he knows. Chris' eyes are glassy, shining. On anyone else, Decker might guess they'd been crying.
It's been sixteen days since Gabriel was taken. The earlobe might not be his. But then, Decker thinks with the slowness of a gun trained on him, of Chris' hands - Chris' hands - shaking, Gabriel has two ears. Symmetry.
"He got a package?" Decker says carefully. Chris nods. "You tell him where we are?"
He means it both ways. This apartment's clean, unmarked, but Joey Donetti knows his nephew. They've got photographs, they know the next house. They've got two duffel bags with enough weapons to leave them all dead, and Chris' hands are still shaking.
"How long have we got?" he asks, and Chris smiles, a crazy jagged smile and lowers the weapon and Decker realizes that he's not going to walk about the door.
"Long as we like," he replies. "My uncle's going to take care of Gabriel. He says he's missed having kids around the house."
Then Decker's sprawling on the floor, double-vision and his face throbbing. His nose isn't broken, nothing's broken. Chris has learnt exactly where to hit him. Chris hunkers down next to him, the gun cradled on his lap. "I'm angry," Chris says. "I'd kill you except I still need you. I gave my uncle some names that won't come up anywhere. We're going to get Gabriel before he does, you understand?"
Decker nods. He thinks about getting up, but this is the closest he's come to sleep in forty-eight hours, so he'll stay down. Everything is razor-clear and mirror-broken, nothing quite makes sense except the gun on Chris' lap.
"Get Gabriel first," he says. His mouth tastes of blood. He misses Rina. It's been four days since Chris let him call her.
"Get up," Chris says and Decker pulls himself up, stumbling on his knees. Then Chris puts out his hand, his palm flat on Decker's chest and Decker stops. Chris doesn't touch, except to hit. His hand is warm and strong. They're kneeling face to face. "I'm angry," Chris repeats and Decker nods. His head's throbbing.
Then Chris leans in and kisses him. The nuzzle of the gun pokes at his knee, and he hasn't shaved in a couple of days, beard growing in with the moustache. Blood in his mouth, then tongue. Chris kisses aggressively, pushing, sliding his mouth over Decker's. Their teeth knock, and then they don't, and Decker kisses back without thinking, because he's tired and because Chris' hand is at the back of his neck, steady and warm on his skin, fingers combing the hair at his nape.
Chris breaks the kiss; Decker remembers that later. "You or him," Chris says. His eyes are glittering, specks of green among the blue. You have to be this close to see that, Decker realises. "Jacob's asleep in the next room," Chris says. "I'd kill you, except I need you. I don't know if I need him."
Decker closes his eyes. He's awake, sharply violently awake. He sees Rina on their bed, her face lovely and open, smiling at him. Her hair's spread out over the pillow, black silk under his hand. The door opens with a creak but the boys don't wake. Peter looks in at them, asleep. They don't know what to call him yet, and he's not sure if he loves them. They're asleep, and Jacob's thumb is in his mouth, the dog looking up at him from under the bed.
"You need me," Decker says and Chris nods.
Chris walks over to the bed, a spartan single with tightly pulled cotton sheets and sits down on the edge of it, the gun on his lap, looking at Decker expectantly. "Take your clothes off," he says.
Decker tries to look at the gun as he unbuttons his shirt. He feels old. He is. Chris is twenty-five and sleekly muscled, shining in the way beautiful people are. Decker is past fifty, nearing retirement. He can run, but he's old, muscle under flesh and he was never more than good-looking to start with.
Chris' fingers stroke the gun. They run up and down the barrel and Chris shifts it a little in his lap. Lines the barrel up against his crotch, against the outline of his cock there. He's hard, and his other hand is flicking open his shirt, tugging it off.
"Faster," Chris says. "I'm going to fuck you, Peter."
Decker's gaze slips and he looks at Chris. Chris is biting his lip, staring. Hungry, Decker realises. Desperate. It's been a long time since someone looked at him like that. Rina doesn't have to. Decker pulls his shirt off, leaves it crumpled on the floor. The vest underneath, the empty shoulder holster. He toes off his shoes first, bends and pulls of his socks. Stuffs them into his shoes.
Chris has taken his shirt off, unzipped his pants. He's hard, stroking himself with one hand, the other curled round the gun. He doesn't look away from Decker.
Decker's hand goes slowly to his belt. His fingers are fat, clumsy. He can't remember how to unhook it, what to do. He looks at the connecting door, the one that Chris says Jacob is behind. Sleeping. Decker prays, wordlessly because he has never heard of a prayer for this before. There must be one. Deliver me from evil, protect me from harm, he thinks. Let Jacob sleep through this.
He pulls out his belt. Unzips his trousers. Pushes them down over his hips. Steps out of them. He's wearing boxers, and he pushes them down, steps out of them. He's two steps closer to Chris.
He's not hard. His dick hangs limply,, and he thinks, suddenly self-conscious, of the way he must look. Fiftyish, greying and padded. None of the smooth muscles that Chris has, the sheen of sweat on Chris's body as he waits, working himself with his hand. He knows about the surgery, looks as soon as he remembers it.
Chris laughs, a low throaty chuckle. "Looks the same," he says and raises his hand, strokes the gun barrel across his balls. Then he puts the gun on the bed, a click as the safety comes on.
"On your knees," Chris says, and Decker goes down between Chris' legs.
He's never done this, never thought about it, not really. He's been faithful to Rina for fourteen years, and he's never - Chris lets go of the gun and whispers "slowly, Peter. Slowly." as he slips his fingers still smelling faintly of gun oil, into Decker's mouth. Open, and then there's - it's at his mouth and he opens his mouth when Chris' fingers push, and he'd gag, but it's out, and then it's back, nudging at his lips, somehow blunt and smooth and strange, utterly alien. And Chris takes one of his hands and puts it high up on Chris' bare thigh, his thumb brushing against pubic hair, and he can feel the muscles in Chris' thigh clench when it pushes against his mouth again, when he opens and lets it in, doesn't gag this time.
Again and again. "Peter, Peter, fuck, oh god, Peter," Chris says and his hands are on the back of Decker's head, under his jaw, guiding him. He doesn't think of the women who've done this to him, doesn't think of anyone else. He can't. He puts his other hand on the curve of Chris' stomach, where his abdominals contract with every slow slide of his cock into Decker's mouth. He rubs his palm in circles there, his tongue in circles against the tip, and the taste of salt means a shudder from Chris, a jerking push and the murmur of Chris' voice in his ear. "Peter, Peter, Oh fuck, god. Peter."
He thinks, when Chris leans back, when Chris' hands force his mouth wider and his cock fucks his mouth faster and faster, that Chris will come over his face. In his mouth at least. Marking him. He pulls out and Decker closes his eyes, waits, but then he's pushed back, his knees creaking, his foot gone dead with pins and needles and he's against the bed, his head against the mattress and Chris' tongue in his mouth, frantic until Decker kisses him back, until Chris rises and falls against Decker, his wet cock sliding against Decker's thigh, and then a moment of heat, and Chris shuddering, trembling and Decker kisses him again, softly and Chris stills.
"I'll kill you," Chris whispers and Decker nods. He's very tired. The bed is soft.
Chris' hand goes down to where their bodies are joined by spunk, still wet. His hand closes over Decker's hardening dick,and it firms under Chris' hand. Thickens when Chris slicks his hand with spunk, runs it up and down. "I'm clean," Chris says and then he bites down on Decker's neck, sucks and Decker sighs a little, rises a little, his dick sliding wet-hot in Chris' hand.
He gets snow from outside, melts it over the fire. No water, no real heat, but they won't need a damn table if they're here for more than three days. Maybe, Decker thinks, he could hike back through the forest, find help. There's no food, but there's water and the kid's light, half-starved. Wrap him in a blanket on his back and head out.
Chris is fever hot, shaking with unreal cold. Decker gives him spoonfuls of icemelt to drink, dunks a strip of blanket in the cold water and wipes him down, then covers him with blankets again. The wound bleeds through the bandages, so Decker makes more. He's thinking half-seriously about the corpses he shoved out the backdoor and cannibalism according to jewish law, when Chris comes round.
"Gabriel?" he asks.
"Sleeping," Decker says. "He's still drugged, but his pulse, everything's fine. He's going to be okay."
Chris nods. He accepts another sip of water. "Hike out in the morning," he says. His eyes are feverbright, darker than Decker's ever seen them. "Promise," Chris asks, and Decker puts down the cup of icemelt and gets up. He walks over to the campbed where the boy is sleeping. Almost as beautiful as his father, golden curls and blue eyes. He wonders if it would be a crime to kill them both. Or just to leave them now. Go back to his family,
He tries not to think about Rina. It hurts, hurts like his ribs are broken. She won't give up looking for him, he knows. She'll find him in this cabin, or when spring comes, in the forest with Gabriel and Chris, and she'll know. Maybe, he thinks, looking at the sleeping child, maybe she'll understand.
"Tomorrow," he tells Chris.
Chris doesn't know who he is. He calls him Joey, Uncle Joey, Dad, Jenny, and then for his mother, over and over again. His voice is raw and broken, his lips cracked. Decker wets a cloth, trickles the water in, but Chris hits out at him, flinches from him.
"Chris, Chris, it's Peter," he says until the fever breaks and Chris looks at him with clear, exhausted eyes and says, "I'm going to die, aren't I?" and starts to cry.
He remembers taking the drawings of Terry from Chris, eight years ago. He didn't know what would happen then, but he remembers the way Chris' face had shifted from smooth politeness to real fear, to panic.
Chris is shivering, and the fire's gone out. They could start burning the house, but it's late and Decker's exhausted. He checks on Gabriel, still heavily asleep in the small sleeping bag. Then he takes off his parka, adds it to the blankets covering Chris, the flannel underneath too. When he's naked, he's shivering as well, until he gets under the blankets and lies alongside Chris. Wraps his legs and arms around him.
Chris is clammy and hot, the bandage sticking immediately to Decker's side as well. He's crying in broken, breathless gasps and he's dying. "What are you doing?" he asks but he doesn't try to move away. He probably couldn't.
"Body heat," Decker says. "Till tomorrow."
Then Chris folds himself up inside Decker's arms, his head against Decker's chest, and his shoulders rise and fall with each sob, a damp mess and Decker pats his back, croons to him "hush, hush, I'm here, I'm here", as if that would make a difference.
He wants to kill Chris, and when Chris presses his mouth against the hollow of Decker's throat, when Chris sighs and runs his hand against Decker's flank, says "I loved her, Terry, I loved her," and kisses Decker's face, still feverhot but hard and certain, his tongue covering the words he whispers as Decker holds him, there is still no doubt in Decker's mind. He wants to kill Chris.
He cradles him, rocks them together, legs scissored and Chris wincing until Peter raises himself on his elbows above him, fits them together, thighs and bellies, sweat and spunk and always, kissing. The blankets shift and they pull the blankets up higher, hidden in the dark heat underneath. Chris traces Peter's face with his fingers and Peter kisses his hands, then slides his mouth again on Chris', and when it's over, Chris sits up, his back against Peter's back, not quite upright because the bandage slips and the wound breaks open again, and stares at his sleeping son.
"I didn't know I loved him," he says and Peter nods and pulls the blankets around them, stained with blood and spit and spunk and sweat, but still warm. He holds Chris until he sleeps, and then, at last, Peter sleeps awhile.