Cole McGinnis 05 - Down and Dirty (12 page)

“I still can’t believe they took your gun.” Ichi exhaled, a hot burble of air coming up from his belly. “You did
nothing
wrong. It’s…
this
… is wrong. Why? Why would someone
do
this?”

“Because they can, little brother,” Cole murmured, giving him another tight squeeze. “And I’m going to find out why. Or at least how it connects to Sheila. A lot of people have been hurt because of her. It’s time someone put a stop to all of that shit.”

I
CHIRO
THREW
up after the short ride back to Cole’s house—in the bushes, in Cole’s downstairs bathroom, and finally a few dry heaves in the kitchen sink as Jae rubbed the small of his back.

“Your brother—he does things according to his nature—fearless and without thought but always for the best. It’s why I fell in love with him,” Jae murmured in Korean. “I know it’s hard to understand why he does things.
I
don’t understand half of the time—all of the time—but I know he has a good heart and he… can’t stop caring about people.”

“He could have gotten killed today, Jae-ah.” Ichi spat a mouthful of water and bile into the sink. “I’ve got Megumi leaving me messages about naming her kid because she’s happy she’s pregnant and wants me to be a part of her daughter’s life then there’s my brother on the other side of things, trying to die. It’s like Life and Death are circling me, and you’re telling me he does it because he
cares
about people?”

“If you were that woman—if you were someone clinging to life and scared, wouldn’t you want Cole to come help you?” Jae patted Ichiro’s back one final time. “Come eat dinner. You’ll feel better.”

D
INNER
WAS
congee, one of Ichi’s favorite dishes. Sadly for his taste buds, it tasted more like paste than rice porridge. The flecks of frilled fungus too closely resembled lungs for Ichi’s imagination, and he could only get a few mouthfuls down before he gave up and switched to beer.

He should have been comforted. There were familiar tastes, familiar sounds of his brother and Jae talking as their cat nudged him for bit of chicken.

But in the middle of the familiar—Ichiro felt like nothing would ever be the same again.

“Cole-ah, quit picking at the food and eat.” Jae scraped at the bottom of his bowl. “There’s nothing in there you haven’t already had.”

Even the admonishment was a common refrain as his food-cautious brother poked and picked at the food in his bowl. They’d set dinner up in the living room, using a massive apothecary chest set between a trio of sofas as their dining table. Ichi slumped back into one of the couches and rested his beer on his knee. Neko, Jae’s tiny chinchilla-furred cat, spotted Ichi’s lap and bounced her way across sofa cushions and a table edge to take possession of it. Kneading carefully, she then squatted on Ichi’s stomach and set her face to full smug, purring as loudly as her petite black body could.

“So you think this woman you’re looking for—the one the cops are now looking for—April—do you think she will lead you to Ben’s wife?”

“What?” Cole looked up from his congee dissection. “What about April? This stuff’s crunchy. I didn’t hear you.”

“You’re still going to look for April?” Ichi asked softly. “Even though you know someone killed the people she lived with?”

“Yeah. Kinda have to, dude.” Cole spoke so casually about walking into a fire he couldn’t control, and Ichi winced, recalling the drops of blood splattered over a hot sidewalk. Talking through a mouthful of fungus, Cole continued, “I can’t just let it go. Especially since those people were killed. Something’s up with April Bahn. It might not have anything to do with Sheila but—how can I just let shit slide?”

“Do you want him to do this, Jae?” Ichi looked to Cole’s lover for support.

From the resigned look on Jae’s face, there was none forthcoming from his corner of the room. He might as well have asked Neko to fetch him another beer.

“Cole-ah is going to do it whether I like it or not.” Jae refilled his bowl from the congee pot set in the middle of the apothecary table. “So long as he doesn’t get hurt, I can’t say anything. But if he gets killed, then….”

“Then all this is yours.” Cole gave a quick grin, sweeping one arm in front of him as if showcasing the living room for a game show.

“You already gave me the long storeroom for my studio. I don’t think I need anything else.” Jae shook his head. “I’d rather have you than the house.”

“I’ll do my best.” Cole caught the pained expression on Ichiro’s face and reached out to him. “Ichi, we’re joking—”

Suddenly the air in the living room was too hot to breathe, and as his lungs filled with the scents of food, cat, and people he loved, Ichi felt his insides beginning to burn. They were so cavalier—too casual about talks of death, especially Cole’s. Ichi couldn’t take much more. It was too surreal, a Fellini scene cut from a movie too macabre and foreign to be shown.

“Do you know what my family thinks of Americans? What they told me when I said I was coming here?” Ichiro lifted the cat up off his lap and set her aside. “They think you’re like children. Very dangerous, silly children with weapons. I used to think they were being naïve, but now I’m not so sure. What about your family? Jae? Me? The others? Don’t you think about them?”

“I guess I think we’re all kind of family,” Cole said quietly. His brother’s gaze was as wide-eyed as the first day Ichi met him, and what he’d assumed was an innocent gullibility now shone through for what it truly was—Cole’s foolhardy conviction to throw himself into the middle of danger—even at the expense of his own life. “Whether we’re blood or not. It’s kind of who I am, Ichi.”

“Even if it gets you killed?” Ichiro asked softly. His brother couldn’t see—wouldn’t see how scared Ichi was inside. Or it didn’t matter. As if
Ichi
didn’t matter. Or Jae. Or anyone.

For a second, Ichiro wondered if he’d merely switched from admiring one selfish man—his father—to admiring another.

“Even then, kid. Because someone’s got to do it,” Cole answered. “And that someone might as well be me.”

“And you’re okay with it, Jae-ah? Letting him do this?”

Jae-Min paused a moment before responding. “He wouldn’t be Cole if he were any different, Ichi. It pisses me off and I worry, but that’s who I fell in love with. That’s what comes with love. You have to take the good with the worry.”

Jae’s willingness to let his brother throw his life away—for nothing, for no one he knew broke Ichi, and he stood up to dig his keys out of his pocket. “I… can’t. This kind of thing—it’s too much. I’ve got to go.”

Cole followed him out to the front door, grabbing at Ichi’s hand when he closed his fingers over the knob. Ichiro’s anger blazed, seeing Cole’s silent plea for understanding in his brother’s light green eyes. Unable to get past the lump in his throat, Ichiro pulled his brother into a tight embrace, crossing lines he never thought he’d cross when growing up in Tokyo. Of the two brothers his mother’d left behind, Ichi knew he’d grown fiercely protective and fond of Cole. What he admired the most in his older brother was now a curse.

“Do not get killed,” Ichiro muttered into his brother’s ear. “I just fucking got you. Don’t let anyone take you away from me. Just… don’t.”

W
HEN
THE
phone rang late at night, Bobby always expected it to be Cole. It usually always was. Double-digit-hour calls were usually Cole, sometimes to talk or even to see what he thought about a line of inquiry he’d stumbled upon. He’d spent the day at the gym, his uncle’s nursing home, and then digging up his neighbor Myrna’s rooftop garden so the septuagenarian could grow her next batch of tomatoes.

Not that he for a moment believed the former burlesque dancer’s resin-laden, pungent, leafy plants were ever going to actually bear tomatoes, but it was a lie they both agreed to.

And after Bobby’d turned down her offer of brownies, she’d forked over cases of local craft brews, claiming she’d gotten too old, and alcohol went to her head.

Funny enough, he’d gathered up around seventeen gin and vodka bottles during his rooftop excursion, drained sacrifices of Myrna’s weekly get-together with some of the girls she’d shared a stage with.

They were up there now, their husky laughter coming in through his open windows. The air was fragrant with car exhaust, smoldering Purple Haze, and grilling tofu burgers. He’d been about to start on one of Myrna’s gifts when the phone rang, and his life crashed into a confusing pile of emotions around his feet.

“No idea what the fuck I’m—” It was Ichiro. Bobby was certain of that. “Bobby, I… fuck.”

“Hey, where are you?” Drunk came to mind. Or maybe roofied. Ichi was pretty, and he could see some asshole slipping something into the guy’s drink. “I’ll come get you—”

“No, I’m… downstairs.” Ichiro was smoking. He could hear the other man pull in a drag on a cigarette and slowly let it go, only to draw in another right afterward. His breathing was shaky, hard across the phone line, and Bobby’s heart clenched. “Do you mind if I come up?”

“What’s wrong? Shit, I’ll come get you. Is Cole okay?” The past twenty-four hours he’d tried to slough the man out of his mind, but no amount of hard work or beer seemed to be doing the trick. Now with Ichiro showing up on his doorstep, it didn’t look like Bobby was going to shake his want of the man any time soon. “Are
you
okay?”

“Yeah. No. Fuck, Bobby. I’m… fuck.” Ichi’s words fragmented, dissolving into Japanese. Words Bobby
did
understand broke through, mostly death and tragedy. The clench turned into ice when Ichiro mumbled, “God, I’m so scared, Dawson.”

A second later Bobby was out the door, his bare feet hitting the hallway at a brisk run. The stairwell was a blur, and he was through the foyer in a split second, his bare toes digging into the plush runner near the entrance. Panting, he emerged into the cool, humid air, looking around the parking lot for the broken man on the other end of his phone.

It only took Bobby a moment to find him, a long, slender figure leaning on a powerful Harley, straggly trails of smoke curling around his silhouette.

The walk across the parking lot was a short one but a trial of nerves with his bare feet. Bobby didn’t care. A pebble bit into his heel, but he avoided what looked like a broken juice bottle lying near the curb. At some point he’d have to get on management about maintenance, but for right now, the only thing—the only person—he was focused on was the scared, hollow-eyed man whose trembling hands could barely hold up a lit
kretek
.

Ichiro crossed the distance between them in a blink. In the space of a glimmering moment, Bobby’s arms were full of sweet-smelling, shivering man.

“I’ve got you, Sunshine,” Bobby whispered into Ichiro’s sweat-damp hair. “No worries. I’ve got you.”

S
HOCK
TURNED
Ichiro’s skin to ice. His lips were nearly blue by the time Bobby got him up into the loft, and his teeth rattled when the warmed interior air washed over them. He’d been too heavy for Bobby to carry the length of the building, even if he’d wanted to unman Ichiro by carting him around like some princess in a video game. Instead he’d slung Ichi’s arm over his shoulder and looped his own around the man’s waist, taking most of Ichiro’s weight. Once inside, Ichiro began to shake, his skin going clammy against Bobby’s neck. Cradling Ichiro against him, Bobby gently walked him to the couch, urging the man to take just one more step.

“Cole…. God, there was so much… blood.” Ichiro’s words tumbled out of him in spurts. “Not Cole… but everywhere, you know? And they act like—nothing. Like it’s nothing. And Cole’s all ready to go right back into it—”

“Baby, let’s get you sitting down and something hot in you.” Bobby’s shin hit the couch, and he nearly toppled over with Ichi in his arms. Swearing, he jerked back, righting himself, then removed Ichi’s arm from around his neck. He laid Ichi down into the cushions, then grabbed a bright rainbow-hued afghan from a nearby chair to tuck around Ichi’s body. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

It seemed like every second ticked off another eternity by the time Bobby was able to get back to the couch. Armed with instant Vietnamese coffee heated from the hot water spigot on his coffeemaker, he juggled the mug and a small bottle of Jack over to Ichiro’s side.

“Thank you,” Ichiro chattered through his teeth as he took the cup.

“That’s my boy, polite down to the death,” Bobby murmured, scrunching in to sit on the edge of the sofa’s cushions. Brushing Ichi’s hair from his face, he waited until Ichi took a good swig of the coffee, then offered him the whiskey.

“No. Too… much. Drunk already a bit.” Ichi’s fingers were cold on Bobby’s wrist when he pushed away the offer. “Just coffee.”

“Okay, just coffee. Mind if I finish my beer, and then you and I can talk about what’s going on here, Sunshine.”

The silence was broken with laughter—old women above them getting stoned and drunk, living well under the orange-tinted Los Angeles evening sky. Bobby leaned forward, about to get up to close the windows, but Ichiro held on, his fingers digging into Bobby’s forearm.

“Please, don’t go.” The shivering was slight but still there, and Bobby felt it through his skin and into his bones. Fear lodged itself someplace deep inside of Ichiro’s psyche and was spreading, taking over his usual calm and swallowing up the vestiges of anger lurking in the corners of his deep brown eyes. “I’m so cold inside. And I don’t know why.”

He was going to regret it, but Bobby knew a cry for comfort when he heard one. No amount of blankets would take away the chill Ichi caught, but touching him would… damn them both. He needed to be touched, to be told it was all right, and Bobby’d drawn the short straw.

Or the long one if his dick had anything to say about it.

“I’m not going anywhere, Sunshine.” Draining his beer, he glanced up at the muted sky outside. “God help me.”