The General and the Horse-Lord (7 page)

G
ABRIEL
in the morning was a beautiful thing, lying on his belly, long legs sprawled across the bed, face shoved down into the pillow. John slid his hand in silky dark hair. Gabriel groaned, shielded his eyes from the morning sun. And well he should, John thought, studying the level of Patron Silver left in the bottle.

Kim burst through the door, carrying a cup of coffee, and he reared back like a spooked horse at the sight of two naked men where there should only have been one. “Whoa! TMI, Uncles, TMI!”

Gabriel shoved the pillow over his head. John threw the sheet over his fine bare butt and pointed toward the door. “Out.”

Kim turned to the door, eyes pinging like pinballs, biting on his lower lip to keep from grinning.

“Wait a minute. Leave the coffee. Is it hot?”

“Yeah. I made it in the Mr. Coffee. That new machine takes too long, and the French press doesn’t keep it hot long enough.”

“I told you that when you set it up.” John took the cup, gestured toward the door with his chin. “So go get another cup!”

Kim came back with two cups, handed one to Gabriel, who had dragged himself up against the headboard. “So! Now you’re both awake, can I run something by you?” He settled himself cross-legged on the end of the bed, grinning.

Gabriel turned to John. “Does he do this all the time? I mean, it’s just after six, right? I never pictured him as a bright and early sort of kid.”

John shook his head, never taking his eyes off Kim, who looked as delighted as a boy locked overnight in a candy store. “No, he’s almost always asleep when I go for a run. Afraid I would make him join me, I always thought. I would say this is an anomaly.”

Kim looked around the room, gave an exaggerated start when he spied the bottle of tequila. “Well, well, look at that! So I guess you two
are
gay, after all. I was starting to have my doubts.”

John set the cup on the bedside table. “Out.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I just wanted to ask you if you would come along as backup.”

“Backup to what?”

Gabriel drained the coffee cup, set it down. “What do you want to do?”

“I want to go back to my favorite bar. It’s not a pickup joint or anything. It’s a dance bar, you know? It’s where I go to see my friends. I hate not wanting to go out and be with my friends because I don’t want to run into him! It’s pissing me off! It makes me feel weak and stupid, and I want to stop feeling that way.”

All the fun was gone from his eyes now.

“So you want us to go with? To a gay bar?”

“Uncle John, I was just going to ask you. I mean, I understand the Horse-Lord has other commitments and I don’t want to get anybody in trouble. But, Uncle John, you still look like you could kick some serious ass, and I was hoping for a little….”

“For a little muscle. I get it. Sure, I’ll come. Want me to wear camo? Strap on a weapon?”

Kim studied him like he wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. “No, too butch. The boys would be all over you, and I don’t think I could take that. A tie might be nice, you know, the professorial look. Sort of a Matrix-ninja killer in a black suit.”

“Whatever that means. I’ll come with you if you want, Kim.”

“I’ll come too.” Gabriel was yawning behind his hand. “You haven’t thought this out, Kim. So what if the guy’s there and what if he starts hassling you? Laughing at you?” Kim’s face was furious now. “You need your two big uncles to drag him into the alley and pound the shit out of him? Or we can do it in the middle of the dance floor. You want to have everybody see him with his face on the ground.” The room was dead silent. “You’ve been thinking about it, right? How he made sure everyone looking at you pictured his mark on you. How everyone would know he did it to you. You want to do the same thing to him?”

“No, I don’t! I don’t want anyone to do to him what he did to me. You don’t understand me at all, Horse-Lord.” Kim was still furious, and John thought he heard a hint of tears in his voice.

“So explain.”

“I just want to go hang out with my friends.”

“With bodyguards. Okay, I’m cool with that.”

“No! Not with bodyguards! I just want… I want you to help me make a quick exit if I start to lose it, okay? Don’t let me embarrass myself in front of the guys.”

“Then what you need is a date.”

Kim covered his face with his hands and vented a tiny scream. “Please, God, give me a break from these two. You two are like so hopelessly last century.”

John was grinning. “Okay, yeah, that would work. You take Gabriel out dancing, and I’ll lean against the bar acting all pissed off and sullen, and whatever happens to the dickhead? Well, it’s dark in gay bars, right? You bring me in, then how I deal with him is no longer your concern, Kim.”

“Yes, it is my concern, and I don’t want to be responsible….”

John held up a hand to stop him. “You don’t have any kids, so don’t tell me how I need to follow your Greenpeace PETA pacifist butt into a gay bar to
not
take care of an asshole who only understands one thing.” He held up a clenched fist. “Now how about you fetch us some more of that coffee?”

Gabriel held out his empty cup without a word, and they watched Kim flounce out the door. “At least you didn’t tell him he was a soft-shell crab in the middle of molting,” Gabriel said. “You were kidding about the date, right?”

“Right.”

“You crack me up. We’re a lawyer and a professor. Our days of kicking somebody’s ass in a dark bar are long over. What are we going to do, bury him in paperwork?”

“Maybe.” John leaned back against the headboard and tugged on Gabriel until he rolled over, settled his head in John’s lap. He reached down, brushed the silky dark hair from Gabriel’s forehead. He looked happy, John thought, lighthearted and happy, like some burden he usually carried had been put down for the night. “You never spent the night with me before. You laughed in your sleep once, and it made me laugh too. I like sleeping with you.”

“I did sleep with you once. Remember… where was it, Frankfurt? That was ’88, I think. Or ’87.”

“Oh, yeah! Just outside Munich, my friend, and you tasted German sausage for the first time in a big outdoor beer garden. They kept bringing you those pints, and you were shouting, ‘Another sausage! And bring one for my friend!’.”

“God, those were good sausages. I don’t think I’ve had another one since that even came close.”

“I’m happy you’re here. In the morning light you still look like you did when you were a baby pilot.”

Gabriel reached up, traced the hair at John’s temple. John knew there was a little silver visible among the brown, and he wondered if Gabriel thought he was starting to look old. “John, I’ve asked Martha for a divorce.”

“Gabriel, I’m so sorry.” He looked down into his friend’s face, saw the sadness, the tiredness. “I remember how much… how much you wanted that to work. A family of your own, kids, and a real home.”

“I guess I thought it was just a matter of working at it, trying hard to take care of everyone, make them all happy. It’s been a hard lesson for me to swallow. That I can’t succeed at the things that mean the most to me. That I can fail at something so important. But I can’t change who I am, or how I feel, through force of will. And I’ve started to wonder… why can’t I be happy too? You know, why can’t I be myself? Is it really that hard? Anyway, I wanted to let you know. I’m moving out this weekend. Or sooner, if I get home and my clothes are scattered all over the street.”

“Is Martha…?”

“Pissed off and feeling vindictive. Looking for someone to blame. She’s gonna use the kids against me. She’s already telling herself it’s in their best interest.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her I didn’t love her anymore.”

“Move in with me if you want. I’ve got plenty of room.”

Gabriel shook his head. “That’s not why I told you. I just wanted you to know.”

“You have someone else?”

Gabriel shook his head, smiling. “No. No one else. Never anyone else.”

They looked at each other then, old friends, wondering how this would change things between them. Then Gabriel smiled up at him, and John’s heart turned over in his chest, and he leaned over and kissed him.
Never anyone else
. Not for either of them. He wondered if Gabriel knew how much he loved him. Maybe this wasn’t the time to say it, though. His life was too complicated already.

“John, Kim might be right. I mean, his idea about how to handle this. He might be right.”

“He is right. He’s very perceptive, very intuitive, and he believes in redemption. I would like him to have the freedom to continue to believe in redemption for the rest of his life. I believe redemption will only occur after I crush that fucking worm under my boot heel. I don’t want him to look at Kim and see weakness, not ever again. And he will, unless I bring a large deterrent to bear and shoot it up his ass.”

“Agreed. So what’s the current status?”

“I have a meeting with President Wainright today at eleven. I’m going to present the data I’ve collected and see what he plans to do. I sent him a copy a couple of days ago. The department head, the dean, and the VP have all pushed the buck upstairs. If he doesn’t fire this guy immediately, I’ll have to take steps.”

“Would you like to have counsel present?”

“Absolutely.”

G
ABRIEL
smiled to see his clothes hung up in John’s closet, but he didn’t say anything, just got dressed and went to work. He kissed John good-bye like he meant it, like he’d be thinking about that kiss all day. John was very rarely rattled by anything, but Gabriel’s heat, his passion, was deeper and stronger than it had ever been, even when they’d both been very young. John felt like some volcanic rock at his center was heating up, turning hot and liquid. He turned his thoughts away from heat and flowing lava, though, and gathered up the materials he’d need for the meeting with the university president.

He’d collected statements from Kim, and from the Department Head’s files on prior complaints. A report from a private investigator described four previous episodes of battery requiring medical care for three young men, none of whom decided to press changes. John had written a summary report, which included these facts, conclusions, and recommendations for action. The first of these recommendations, and the one not negotiable, was immediate dismissal from the university faculty. He had written similar reports for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and he had no doubt Wainright would be fully cognizant of this fact, reading the current report. A copy was ready to go to the board of supervisors, which included the dickhead’s father. But John would see if Wainright would act before he took that step and went over his head.

John wore a navy-blue suit made of fine Italian wool crepe that was as close to service dress blues as a suit could get and not be a uniform. His tie was red and gray stripes against a pale-gray shirt that made his eyes look like the North Atlantic in winter. People were always treated with more respect when they were dressed properly for the occasion, a lesson he had not been able to get through to Kim. Kim countered that occasions changed, but personal style was like a person’s skin. John had been reminded again that Kim’s soul was the color of butterflies, and he kept his tongue. The boy was still young.

Gabriel met him in the atrium of the president’s office, and they walked up together. Gabriel was wearing all black, with a very white shirt and a stark, thin black tie. It made him look faintly ferocious, a predator, and John studied the shiny black shoes under the break in the cuff. “Is this what Kim was talking about? Matrix-ninja killer?”

“I think I look like one of the Men in Black.” He looked at John. “Will Smith, not Tommy Lee Jones. You can be Tommy Lee Jones. You’ve got that stare down pat. Have had since you made Lt. Colonel. What’s my role here?”

“Just back me up. Look lethal.”

Gabriel nodded as the president’s admin came up the hall to escort them. “Yep.”

President Wainright was a big, hale, bluff sort of man who always greeted John by his military title. He’d been an amateur sailor in his youth, and was known for walking around Albuquerque wearing sailing gear. Today, though, he’d chosen to dress like a university president. “General!” He shook hands, darted an alarmed look at Gabriel, who stood silently behind John’s left shoulder. “So good to see you. I don’t know if I ever told you how pleased we all were when a scholar of your experience and reputation decided to join our faculty.”

“Thank you, President Wainright. May I present my counsel, Gabriel Sanchez?”

“So nice to see you! You look like you might have been a military man!”

Gabriel nodded. “I’m retired from the army. I served with General Mitchel in the past.”

“Really? How fascinating. You must have had a chance to travel?”

“Travel?” Gabriel was wearing his stone face, and John silently took the chair that was offered. “Lebanon, Iraq, Somalia, and Afghanistan in the ten years before law school. Some beautiful country there.”

“Oh, really?” President Wainright’s voice was a bit weaker. “Well, please, have a seat.” He turned to John. “So, General, I understand you have a report for me to look over?”

“I sent you a copy two days ago, President Wainright, so you could have a chance to read it before the meeting today.”

“Oh, yes, of course. I was able to read most of… really very concerning…. But please, call me Simon.”

“Thank you. And I’m John.”

Simon rubbed his hands together. “Good, fine. Now we’re all comfortable, let’s go through this, shall we?”

John stood up, lifted his briefcase. “Perhaps we could use the table, Simon?” He gestured to the conference table that took up the left side of the room. “There is a good bit of documentation, if you were to require it.”

John laid the paperwork into four piles. “You have a faculty member who is preying on young gay men, Simon. He has a history of assault and has not been held accountable.”

“John, why do you suppose, if this has been occurring, he has not been, as you say, held accountable?”