“Did he -- what happened to Paul Kane?” In some of my drug-induced dreams Jake had shot Paul Kane to keep him quiet. In some of my dreams he shot me.
“You mean the psychotic murdering bastard who shot you? He’s currently in jail busy planning a lawsuit against the LAPD and claiming that you framed him.”
I laughed, and Guy said, “I’m glad you think it’s funny.”
“Not funny, no.” I grimaced. “I had all these grandiose ideas of bringing Kane to justice. Now I’m just grateful to be alive. Grateful Jake didn’t…”
I didn’t want to remember those long minutes when I had believed Jake had set me up, that his fear and paranoia had led him finally to murder.
“You mean because you were asking him to betray his lover?”
I shook my head. “I was asking him -- insisting -- that he come out. There was no way he could arrest Paul Kane that his relationship with him wouldn’t be revealed. It didn’t matter if I got Kane to confess or not. However Paul Kane went down, Jake was going down with him.” I closed my eyes. “In a manner of speaking.”
I was aware of Guy removing my meal tray, sitting back down next to the bed.
“How’s Peter?” I asked after a bit, resting my eyes.
“Young.”
I smiled faintly. “He’ll get it over it.” After a while I said, “Maybe I wasn’t fair to Jake.”
And Guy said dryly, “No?”
“I couldn’t understand why…”
“He wanted to be friends if you weren’t going to be together?”
That was the thing about Guy. He always seemed to know what I was thinking before I did myself. I nodded and moved my hand on the coverlet. His hand slipped under mine, fingers closing warmly about my own.
He said, “Maybe you weren’t unfair. Maybe it was just harder for you to let go of your dreams.” His thumb lightly traced the pulse beat in my wrist. He added softly, “Harder than it was for me.”
I turned my hand over and laced my fingers in his.
* * * * *
The next time I opened my eyes Jake was there.
I smiled.
It must have been a lousy effort. He said, “I won’t stay long.”
He looked pale and tired. There were shadows like blue smudges under his eyes. His arm was in a sling. Yeah, I got life support and Jake got a dashing sling; that was pretty much par for the course.
“Not like I have to be somewhere,” I told him.
“I think your mother is summoning security even as we speak.”
They must have been taking their time because I had the impression he’d been sitting there a while. Or maybe I’d dreamed someone was stroking my hair.
“How’s the shoulder?” I asked.
“I won’t be throwing out the first pitch at Dodger Stadium anytime soon.”
“I thought you were going to sing the national anthem.”
In fairness, it wasn’t very funny. Clearing his throat, he said gruffly, “I wanted to…thank you.”
My mouth tasted horrible, gluey. Like tapioca. I swallowed. “Sure.” I offered him another flicker of a smile. “Likewise.”
Not just for keeping Paul Kane from feeding me to the fishes. They’d told me my heart had stopped before we’d made it back to harbor. Jake had kept me alive long enough for the paramedics to do their bit -- no doubt with Paul Kane reminding him of all the reasons he shouldn’t bother.
He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. The lines around his eyes had lines of their own.
“You okay, Jake?”
His smile seemed an effort. “I think that’s my line. How are you?” His eyes moved to my bandaged chest and shoulder.
I started to shrug, remembered in time. “Pretty much stoned.” I considered his question reluctantly. “I don’t know. Everyone seems to tiptoe around that.”
And it was freaking the hell out of me, although I didn’t want to admit it. I turned my head, studied the monitors and medical equipment. I thought ungrateful thoughts.
“Hey.” I looked back. Jake’s gaze held mine. “You won’t be leaping buildings in a single bound, but from what I gather you’re expected to return to your pre-op condition.”
His eyes never wavered and I relaxed a little. “Would that be before or after I was shot?”
He twitched a grin. “And being the thrifty guy you are, I know you’ll appreciate the two for one special you got. Bullet hole patching and valve repair all for one low, low price.”
I said, echoing him on a long-ago November day, “You shop around, you compare prices, you get the surgery right for you.”
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. I said belatedly, “I’m sorry about Paul. I know you cared about him.”
I couldn’t decipher that expression.
“What’s going to happen to him?”
“He’s going to be tried for murder and attempted murder.” His eyes met mine and he said carefully, “They’re not going to press the attempted rape and kidnapping unless you insist.”
I appreciated that. Not a very dignified fate, the one Paul had planned for me.
“They’ve got plenty to nail him with,” Jake said. “Even without the Langley Hawthorne homicide. They found the digitoxin onboard the Pirate’s Gambit. ”
Kane wasn’t stupid, so it had to be arrogance. But then you expected arrogance from pirate kings. And ruthlessness. And daring. Kane had them all -- along with a slew of other gifts from the gods.
Jake’s smile faded. He took a deep breath and said, “I’m quitting the force.”
That was a shocker. I didn’t know what to say.
“It’s the right thing to do,” he said. “The honorable thing. The lies, the double life -- you were right. I’ve compromised my position.”
Continuing to see things in black-and-white, career change notwithstanding. No one judged himself more harshly than Jake. “What will you do?”
“I’m thinking of going into the private sector.”
Again, I couldn’t think of anything to say. I couldn’t picture him as…what? Security guard in a bank? Armored car driver?
Into my silence he smiled sheepishly and said, “I was thinking of opening my own agency.”
“You mean like a PI?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow. Sam Spade.”
It seemed unreal. I couldn’t imagine Jake as anything but a cop.
He was watching my expression. “I don’t want to hit you with too much at once.”
“There’s more?” I smiled but I felt cold inside -- like the hypothermic chill that hits you after major surgery.
“I don’t know if this matters to you or not. I mean, matters in the same way it would have once.”
I swallowed hard. Closed my eyes to keep him from seeing what I was feeling.
He said steadily, “I’ve asked Kate for a divorce. I told her the truth. All of it. Everything.”
I gritted my jaw hard.
“I talked to my family. I told them that I’m homosexual.”
My jaw ached but I couldn’t prevent moisture from leaking out beneath my lashes and itching its way down my face.
He said, “Does that still mean anything to you?”
I opened my eyes. Saw his expression through the prism of unshed tears, and took a deep, unsteady breath.
“Yeah,” I said. “It means something.”
THE END
Josh Lanyon
Josh Lanyon is the author of four Adrien English mystery novels. THE HELL YOU SAY was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and is the winner of the 2006 USABookNews awards for GLBT fiction. Josh lives in Los Angeles, California, and is currently at work on his next book, THE GHOST WORE YELLOW SOCKS.