Salvation
“We have to get you to a hospital,” was the first thing Ben said after explanations had been made and introductions were out of the way. After learning about the blackmail, and the heroin, and the double identities, and, worst of all, the fate of the cab.
But frankly, Lee was too tired and upset and frustrated and worried to care about getting proper medical attention. Something wasn’t right here. Something didn’t fit. What was it?
“We’ve got to go back for him,” Lee said as he watched the country night rattle by.
Ben tried to not be too obvious in his disappointment. Here he was, knight-in-shining-Chevy, ready to take Lee home and tie him up and fuck him blind, but all he got from the man was an admittedly cute pout and a demand to return.
Plus, Ben’s arm hurt.
He gripped the wheel tighter and focused on the road, feeling the plastic slick beneath his palms. Get Karl back. Okay. He could do that. He owed the Agent that much, since he’d helped in the escape. And it was his car they were driving. But that didn’t mean Ben had to like it.
“Ben’s right,” came Darren’s sternly concerned voice from the back, his face all shadows and angles in Ben’s peripheral vision. “You need to have a real doctor look at that leg.”
“My leg will be fine,” Lee insisted. “Besides, I’m not the only one who’s hurt. But we can’t just throw Karl to the dogs – he’s your friend, Darren. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
Darren made a noise of concession and slumped back against the bench seat of the car. He looked over to Daniel for support, but the driver had fallen into a quiet doze. The Doctor smiled to himself and watched the man’s head bounce oh so slightly from one side to the other as he tried to keep it upright in his sleep. It finally tipped backwards and rested against the rear of the carriage, and Darren took the opportunity to slide closer to him on the seat.
It was cold in the car, he reasoned. Cold in the predawn hours, and he was upset and frightened that he’d never see his friend again. And the car was small. It was perfectly plausible that he could be sitting this close on accident. Besides, he could always just slide over if Daniel woke up.
* * *
When Karl was seventeen, his father had left.
He would get postcards from all over Europe, beautiful ruins and cities and rolling green countrysides. There would be small, spidery handwriting that curled into every blank spot of the card. It was an indecipherable code compared to the neat, block lettering of the address. All sorts of pictures would coat the front...anything from dandelion clocks floating on a Liverpool afternoon breeze to the calm, starry nightscape of Paris.
Karl had been halfway around the world without ever leaving New York by the time he was twenty two. He stashed all the postcards and half-written letters in an old penny-cigar box, and when it was late on a winter’s night, the glass half crazed with frost, he would read them all in order.
Everything in Karl’s life felt like it had been very much in order. Because his father had left, his family was always very careful to make things NORMAL for Karl. Normal life: His uncle helped him pick a university. His mother and sisters helped him with girl troubles. It was a very open, honest relationship.
He hated it.
When Karl had chosen to go into the Justice Department, he’d made sure to check with himself first: was he doing it for some sublime sense of validity in his life? Revenge for his father’s absence? Go into the United States government for employment. Save other people from a similar fate. How...noble.
Before he joined, he made sure that it wasn’t for any of these reasons.
No, it was much worse. Karl had joined out of entirely selfish reasons. He wanted to CHANGE THE WORLD. In all capital letters, block stenciling, underlined and bolded and painted up in red for everyone to see.
His first assignment was regulating the guidelines on soap manufacture.
His following assignments weren’t much better.
But soon (though not soon enough), Karl found himself hand in hand with a dangerous case – a witness protection case, featuring the stool pigeon from a gang bust that had gone pretty wrong, as wrong as anything can go in New York. The gang had gotten off free, and now the witness needed hiding. Karl did his best. He put the young man in Chicago.
Some years later, Jack McGurn would look back and wonder just how much his life had changed since he’d started running from the New York Mafia.
“Not much,” was Karl’s answer as they stared down at Lombardo. “Not enough, anyway.”
McGurn made an agreeing rumble and started to examine the locks on the cuffs. “What happened to the keys?”
Karl shrugged and kept silent. He had a feeling that they were probably still in the coat jacket he’d tossed in the back of his car, or maybe they had gone through the slats of one of the drains down in the middle of the floor here. Either way, Karl wanted Lombardo to stay tied up for as long as he could manage.
“Did you even try?” Karl found himself wondering.
“Try what?”
“Try to stay away from the mafia? Try to stay hidden?” Karl toed around the body, examining it as he would a beast at the zoo.
“Acourse I tried. What kind of a question is that?” McGurn had left his gun in the car, and Karl tried to fathom the wonderful irony that he was now plotting ways to kill the man whose life it was his entire goal, until now, to preserve.
No one comes between me and my fate, Karl told himself.
But what would that fate be? Not something that Karl himself could wonder about. Plausible things were easy, sure: start a nice white-picket-fence home out in the suburbs of Illinois, maybe Michigan or Missouri, become as quiet and interior as possible, and live out the rest of his life. Maybe meet up with the other boys once a year and rehash the adventure.
But the immediate fates were the ones that he was having trouble with. Would he live or die? Would he get the chance to speak with Capone face to face, one last time, to plead his case? Would he be buried with his badge? Would he drive his car again?
Karl never realized how much he liked driving that car.
But for now, he was safe. He had time. Capone couldn’t be reached until Lombardo woke up, and even Lombardo wouldn’t try to reach the boss this early in the morning. So he had three, maybe four hours to plan things. Assuming Lombardo didn’t try working him over a little earlier. Give him a few marks for good measure.
Shit. Karl hadn’t thought of that until now.
“So what now?” Karl asked, interrupting McGurn’s inquisitive stare.
“Well...” McGurn started, and then shrugged.
Never was the brightest of the people he’d had to protect, Karl thought to himself.
“Can I suggest something?” Karl asked.
“Sure, boss,” McGurn said.
“Let me go?”
“Sorry, boss.”
Karl nodded. “Had to try.”
* * *
Daniel woke up.
There wasn’t going to be much sleeping going on anyway, not on a country road like the one they were traveling, even if it was this late. Or this early. He tried to remember the last time he saw a clock, or checked his watch...it seemed a long time ago he’d been answering Darren’s patchy phone call in the bar. A long time since Daniel’d had a cigarette. He could use one now. And a stiff drink. Or to crawl into a bottle for three or four days. Or-
Hello.
Was that...Darren’s leg?
It had just shifted a little, and it was warm, warm in a way that couldn’t be the stock of his shotgun, which he suddenly realized was under his feet. Darren’s leg. Pressed against his. Oh.
He tried to picture it without opening his eyes, the long, lean strip of perfectly tailored suit lined parallel with his own overworn corduroy thigh. And suddenly it became a whole new dimension, because it wasn’t just Darren’s leg, it was Darren’s THIGH. They were touching.
Think, Daniel, he told himself. Where’s your hand?
And oh, it was so perfect he could’ve laughed.
Darren had settled into a calm meditation, letting Ben and Lee bicker quietly about rescue methods up front, and noticed when lights came into view. Michigan City. He wanted to tell Ben to stop so they could find a place to stay for the night, or to at least get more gas – how much more could they have, after all? – but he kept to himself. There seemed something almost crystalline about this moment. Too perfect – no, nice – to stop.
He might have a concussion, he was considering sleeping with a man he’d known for less than 18 hours, his friend was being held hostage, and it was nice.
Nicer when he felt Daniel’s hand slip onto his thigh.
He exhaled quickly, a little huff barely creasing the silence in the back of the car. Darren kept his view pointed out the window. It could be Daniel was still asleep. It could be unconscious. Maybe the car bounced it there.
Right.
He looked over and met Daniel’s waiting, sleepy gaze.
Was this what he would look like, the morning after?
Daniel smiled a little, a toothless, innocent smile, and squeezed.
Oh. Again.
This had to be...what? Pure Sin. Darren felt his own hands like liquid lead, wondering a thousand things (smooth enough, dry enough, big enough, hard enough) about them before lifting one, oh so carefully, and placing it on top of Daniel’s. Fingertips tracing the last three knuckles on their way to rest, feeling the way Daniel’s joints fit so perfectly into his palm.
Darren found himself remembering all the people he’d done this with. Two, he thought. Maybe three. Oh, he’d had plenty of sex – plenty of time for it, in between studying for his doctorate and finding a job. But the number he’d seduced...that was a different horse altogether.
He liked the way this was working. It was simple. Crazy, maybe, but simple.
“When did we turn around?” Daniel asked quietly.
“It’s too late for metaphysics,” Darren said, and boiled over when Daniel’s fingers unlaced from his own. The touch lingered in apology, but went to point out the window on Darren’s left.
“No, really,” he was saying, a little louder and more awake. “When did we turn around? We’re going back toward the hospital.”
Ben and Lee were still fighting, but it seemed like Lee was winning this time. Darren had completely missed the turn around...or maybe they all had, considering the unfamiliarity with the area. But when he tuned in to the argument up front, he realized Ben had, indeed turned the car. They were headed back for Karl.
The hospital loomed not far away, in fact, Darren noted without much surprise.
“We’ll need to refill when we get there,” Daniel was telling Ben, leaning forward between the seats. “There were some gas tanks in the rear of the grounds, probably for emergencies.”
“I’d say this constitutes an emergency,” Darren grumbled.
But he didn’t have time to say anything else, because a great explosion interrupted him. A breath later, a wave of fire rose into the sky, licking toward the new day and the setting moon in orange and fuchsia. The center was black, and it matched the sky.
The blat only lasted a moment, but it left a burned image in Ben’s eyes, and he had to turn his head and blink a few times. Spots still danced when he looked at the road again, and he sped up. “What was that?”
Darren swallowed, dry mouthed. “I’d say that was the hospital. I guess we don’t get those gas tanks, after all.”
tbc...