Fearless Leader (Juxtapose City) (25 page)

The problem though, was that Black couldn't honestly claim that.

He was willing to work his ass off for what he wanted. He was much like Sundhill in that when it came down to business he did his job with a passion and commitment to success that couldn't be questioned.

It was outside of the working hours that Black's biggest problems lay.

His eyes flicked to the hotel, thinking of Starr and Captain Dickerson ensconced in a room. He didn't want to know what they were doing. If he was meant to know the captain would tell him. Maybe he was being willfully blind but after his experiences, ignorance was the only form of bliss he would gladly indulge in. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

He acknowledged that it didn't have to be this way though. If he was with Sundhill maybe all of Dickerson's demands would stop. Black rarely succumbed to the uselessness of hoping but for a brief moment he allowed it. If Sundhill took Black under his wing all of it
had
to stop. Sundhill wouldn't permit it. He'd be able to put an end to something that Black, with his sense of obligation, could not.

You're grabbing at straws. You still don't know for sure what Sundhill's intentions are.

True words, but it couldn't stop the dream. Black needed one. His last one had been ground into dust beneath the heel of the one who was supposed to have taken care of him.

What a fool he'd been. He was afraid he was on the verge of becoming one again.

Calyx bent over his knees and vomited onto the carpet. Over the sounds of his retching he could hear Razzy whimpering beneath the thick, wet sounds of flesh striking flesh. Razzy's pain and hopelessness made Calyx's head feel as though it were a swollen melon atop his neck. Worse though, was the sadistic pleasure that hovered like a shadow at the edges of the empath's consciousness courtesy of Captain Dickerson.

Calyx wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and turned his head to look back at the other men. Dickerson had just delivered another backhand to the drug dealer's face, knocking Razzy's head to his shoulder where it lolled there as pink-tinged saliva poured from the corner of his bloody mouth.

"Lieutenant Black keeps me informed of every step he and his team takes," Dickerson explained as he straightened and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his hand. "While it pained me to undermine his intention to bring you in for arrest, Razzy, I needed to get my hands on you without his knowledge. I didn't want to have to field his questions about your whereabouts since you wouldn't be going anywhere near a court of law." He laughed, sending a chill of foreboding across Calyx's skin.

"You sent JC1 to pick him up, didn't you?" Calyx demanded. "They picked him up just before JC2 got there. No wonder the teams hate each other if you're constantly playing them against each other."

"Competition keeps the men sharp," Dickerson replied, tossing aside the soiled handkerchief. "Besides, if Black had done his job the way he should have he would have taken Razzy down that night instead of waiting until the next morning. That’s laziness. He's only got himself to blame for missing out on Razzy's arrest."

Though Calyx was aware of the real reason Black hadn't returned that night he wasn't about to share his knowledge with the captain just yet. He had a feeling he would have to play his cards close to the vest to survive this little soiree.

Dickerson had tucked his gun into the butt holster at his back when he'd started beating Razzy and now pulled the weapon free and casually aimed it at the semi-conscious dealer. Razzy looked at it through swollen eyes and whimpered pathetically.

"Presumably you don't want me to kill your friend," Dickerson said, smiling at Calyx. "So why don't you tell me what you boys talked about that night? It must have been important for him to risk sending you a message at JC2."

Calyx, who'd been bent over his knees while he'd been sick, straightened and leaned back against the solidity of a wall for support for his shaky knees. His need for a Bliss tab was almost violent. His senses felt raw, as though electricity had ripped along them. Captain Dickerson hadn't laid a hand on him so far but he hadn’t needed to; Calyx felt Razzy's agony as clearly as if it were his own.

"Razzy wanted to see if I'd turned into the snitch the streets think I am," Calyx answered carefully. He wanted to feed Dickerson just enough of the truth to satisfy his curiosity but his major disadvantage was that he didn't know what Dickerson wanted. How much of his conversation with Razzy that night was already known by the captain?

Dickerson answered that with a shake of the head. "Not good enough. Don't play coy. Tell me everything he told you or I'll shove this gun down his throat and make you pull the trigger."

The tension that had been steadily mounting in Calyx's head became too much. "You know what, sweetheart? Fuck you. Go ahead and kill him. I'm sick of this. Razzy's a stupid punk who doesn't know anything. This muscle job isn't going to work, Dickhead."

Dickerson's smile was shaper than a blade. "That's
Captain
Dickhead to you."

The captain holstered the gun. It was Calyx's only warning. Older man though he was, Dickerson was a trained combatant. Eyes widening, Calyx tried to dive over the bed but he was caught by the back of his shirt and slammed against the wall. A fist to the kidneys made him cry out and crumple to the floor. As soon as he hit the carpet the kicking began. Calyx wrapped his arms around himself, trying to curl into a ball as Dickerson's foot connected with his body.

Razzy's pain vanished from his head. All he felt was his own.

"Genesis," Calyx whispered as best he could with his face mashed against the wall. "He told me about Genesis."

You pathetic bastard. Snitch.

"What about him?" Dickerson demanded.

Calyx wanted to resist. But why bother to now? He'd lost his illusions of being a tough guy right around his sixth kick to the ribs. They both knew it was a matter of time before he spilled it all. If there was one lesson from the streets that Calyx had taken to heart it was recognizing the moment when self-preservation became more important than pride.

"Razzy told me that Genesis wants to take me out."

"And?" Dickerson prompted, tightening his grip in Calyx's hair until the empath was sure it was being torn out by the roots.

He groaned. "Genesis wants to get rid of JC2."

He expected the hand to release him. But the captain wasn't through.

"Does Lieutenant Black know about any of this? Does he know about Genesis?"

Calyx stared at the wall. A fan of blood -- he assumed it was his own -- dripped slowly down the painted surface. He wanted to keep his mouth shut. He despised not knowing whether his answers would help him and Black or hurt them. But holding out was no longer an option. "He wasn't in the room. I don't -- I don't think he knows."

Apparently it was the answer Dickerson wanted to hear. The grip on Calyx's hair loosened but didn't disappear. Instead, a large hand took hold of one of the empath's arms and dragged him up from the floor. Aching and nauseous, Calyx hung limply in the harsh grip and allowed himself to be turned around. Captain Dickerson smiled at him as though none of the previous violence had occurred.

"That wasn't so difficult, was it?" Dickerson said, amused. "You could have saved yourselves the trouble by being straight-forward from the beginning."

"Yeah," Calyx said warily, licking his split lip. "Whatever you say, sweetheart."

"And now that I've gotten the information I needed I no longer need this piece of trash."

Captain Dickerson calmly raised the gun to Razzy's forehead and pulled the trigger. The back of Razzy's head sprayed the wall.

Calyx lost it. He screamed, hissing and snarling like a feral cat as he flew at Dickerson. He managed to claw the older man across the face, leaving a runway of bleeding tracks down one cheek, before Dickerson backhanded him with the butt of the gun. Light exploded across Calyx's vision and the fight left him. He fell like dead weight onto the mattress. He thought his jaw might be broken.

Stupid, asshole. He just ruined his chances for a blowjob.
He laughed but then forced himself to stop before he became hysterical. He lay quietly on the sheets as Dickerson roughly rearranged his limbs and began to strip him of his clothing.

"Your timetable for seducing Lieutenant Black is considerably shorter," Dickerson told him, yanking Calyx's pants off so violently the seams ripped. "In fact time has just about run out."

"Fuck you, then," Calyx croaked painfully, already starting the process of distancing himself from what was being done to him. He felt the bed dip beneath the weight of the other man as Dickerson knelt between his legs. "Black despises me. He'll never let me into his bed. You may as well kill me now."

"Oh, no. You have your uses yet. Don't presume to know more about Lieutenant Black than I do," Dickerson told him, a flash of anger in his voice. Calyx heard the sound of a zipper lowering but his mind was already drifting away. "I'll share a secret with you: Black isn't as cold as he appears to be. In fact his major weakness is that he's strongly motivated by his sympathies. And I know every one of them." Fingers dug into the empath's hips. "You should thank me, Starr. I'm going to make your job easier. I'm about to provide you with a first-class ticket into his heart."

Calyx bit back a snarl of outrage as Dickerson thrust into his body. Blood filled his mouth from his torn lip. Years of ingrained response kicked in. He relaxed his body completely, allowing Dickerson to move inside his body without tearing him.
Come on, sweetheart,
a voice in his head coaxed,
you've done this before. You'll survive it just like every other time. You've done this before.

But the reminder didn't help. Tears slipped from his eyes and softened the burn of the sheets against his face. He
had
done this before. More times than he should have had to.

Captain Dickerson drew his suit jacket over his shoulders and patted down his freshly washed hair. He grabbed the plastic bag full of blood-stained towels and carried it with him into the living room. Razzy's body was lying in a body bag beside the bed, waiting to be picked up and discreetly disposed of by a member of JC1. All other signs of the former Bliss dealer had been thoroughly wiped clean from the hotel room.

Dickerson dropped the bag of towels beside the body bag and turned to study the naked body lying huddled and shivering within the bed sheets. Perverse satisfaction filled him as his eyes mapped the bruises and scratches marring the empath's pale skin. Starr looked like the typical rape victim. He looked perfect.

Dickerson picked up the empath's pants and the shredded remains of his ridiculous shirt. He tossed them onto the naked back, noting how the blood red shirt matched the sheets now.

"Get dressed," he ordered, pulling out his PRU. "You're meeting Lieutenant Black downstairs. Don't think I'm carrying you either."

He watched with perverse satisfaction as the empath slowly curled in on himself, clutching the clothing to his stomach. A flash of lust flitted through the captain as he watched the slender limbs slide over each other, still sticky with various fluids. Starr was definitely his favorite toy, no question about it. Dickerson thought he might have to schedule a session like this more often.

Greedily drinking in the battered body before him, Dickerson called up Black.

"I'm done with him," he told his protégé. "He'll be waiting for you in the lowest level of the parking garage. He's a little... homesick," he added with a laugh. "Don't make him wait for long."

Now all he had to do was hope that this gamble paid off. Watching Starr slowly and painfully begin to dress, Dickerson knew that if this latest move back-fired, there might be hell to pay.

Calyx kept his eyes on the floor as Captain Dickerson dragged him by the arm through the service hallways of the hotel. The larger man's shoes echoed firmly as they walked. Calyx's footsteps sounded like those of a misbehaving child being pulled after his father -- stumbling and petulant.

They made their way through the maze of echoing halls with a surety that made Calyx question the captain's familiarity with this particular hotel. It appeared as though he wasn't the only lucky victim to have had a fling here with Dickerson. What a pity. He'd felt special.

Calyx smiled absently, tendrils of his hair sticking to the blood that still leaked from a split on his lip. At Dickerson's orders Calyx had made himself as presentable as possible before leaving the scene of the crime. His pants and shirt were ripped but their edgy style didn't make their condition obvious to the casual observer. His face was a mess -- bruises around one eye, shadowing the high slash of a cheekbone and spreading like a purple stain over the curve of his jaw -- but long hair could hide most of that.

His only other obvious handicap was one he was determined not to show. He did his best not to limp. He didn't want to give Captain Dickerson the satisfaction of knowing he had hurt him. Yeah, there was no pretending he hadn't been anything but completely fucked. But giving in to the limp was conceding too much. So he'd been raped. Big fucking deal. He'd survived worse. Calyx Starr was a pro. No one could break him, least of all Captain Dick-for-brains.