The Tied Man (41 page)

The answer was, pretty much immediately.  As I’d hoped, the rolled-up towel smacked into my broken ribs with a force that knocked the breath from me.  I welcomed the familiarity and waited for the pain to register.

‘
Get.  The.  Fuck.  Up.
’  Each word on a separate impact.  The wet towel was cudgel hard and Coyle was sufficiently skilled to ensure a good beating without leaving so much as a single bruise, but to my dismay I was a dispassionate observer, watching from the far side of the room as someone else got the crap beaten out of him for a change.  I had lost the ability to feel.

My lack of response infuriated Coyle, and he began to break sweat in his attempt to make me cry out.  ‘What’s the
fuckin’
matter with you?  You gone simple after a few days in the dark?’

I giggled at him; a high, child’s laugh that I didn’t recognise as mine. Once I’d started, I couldn’t stop myself, even as Coyle rained harder and harder blows down on me.  ‘
You can’t hurt me
,’ I gasped, the most hilarious punchline in the world.

Coyle finally stopped.  ‘Is that right?  So, shall we have a wee chat about Lilith and see if that’s still the case?’

The mere mention of her name did what any number of whacks had failed to do.  Coyle had just managed to rip my chest open and grab my heart.

‘Thought that would get your attention.’

‘I swear, if you’ve touched her...’

‘You’ll what?  Slobber on my feet?  Look at the state of you, you pathetic turd.  Anyway, it’d be a bit fuckin’ tricky to hurt her now, seein’ as she fucked off back to
Spain
three days ago.’

The hand around my heart squeezed tight. ‘No.’

‘What?  You think she was going to wait around for the gimp who’d got her finger-fucked on the kitchen floor?  She finished her pretty picture and ran, first chance she got.  Straight into the loving arms of that Gabriel fella, according to The Herald.  I’ll bring it down to show you on my next visit – a bit of light reading to while away the hours, eh?’

With that news, everything ended.  Coyle had won.  I hurt harder than I’d ever hurt in my life.

‘So
now
will you fuckin’ well stand up?’

I numbly staggered to my feet, using the rough wall as support as my wasted leg buckled under me.  ‘Need to get sorted.  Clean.  If I’m working...’ The words sounded thick and dead.

Coyle casually lit a cigarette and offered me one.  ‘I don’t think there’s anything left in your arse to wash out, is there?  Haven’t seen you eat anything for the past few days.’

‘I need...’ I repeated.

‘I really don’t give a shite what you need.  The nice gentlemen who’ve paid for your services want you as you come, so to speak.  Probably want to scrub the shit out of you themselves.’  He shrugged.  ‘Or eat it. Whatever it is you dirty bunch of bastards get up to.’  He threw the towel back into the basin.  ‘Now, do as you’re told  and I’ll even let you have a couple of vallies to take the edge off before your shift starts.’

*****

The simple task of walking to the dining room half-killed me, even with Coyle beside me with one hand clamped around my arm.  Like I was capable of running anywhere.

‘I read their letter,’ my attendant said.  ‘Jesus, you’re in for some fun tonight.  Almost worth abandoning my principles just to catch a bit of the action.’

I didn’t respond; I was too busy trying to keep one foot moving in front of the other. 

‘Ah, here he is now.’
Blaine
delivered her customary opening line as the door swung open.  She walked over to welcome me and Coyle patted me on the back, before leaving me to get on with my job.

‘Darling!’ 
Blaine
greeted me with a gushing warmth that suggested I’d been out for the day, rather than locked in her cellar.  ‘Come and meet
Chester
.’

The patio doors were flung open onto an ink-black night and the autumn air raised gooseflesh on my bare arms.  I aimed for the nearest chair and managed to shamble to it without falling flat on my face, and stood with both hands gripping the back to take a first blurred glance at my client.

He was a man in a well-preserved, gym-toned middle age, and a study in understated wealth.  Even without Coyle’s tip-off  I would have placed him as a Yank, with his sharply creased chinos and his perfect, sculpted hair.  He stood at well over six feet, and the width of his shoulders made him appear taller still.

‘Well, look at
you
,’ he said in a voice that was used to filling a room.  CEO of something or other, no doubt.  His accent belonged to one of those Anglophile northern states; I found myself thinking that Lilith would have known which one, right down to the guy’s zip code and house number, and just the merest thought of her made the pain surge through my narcotic barricade. 

‘
Chester
Hemingford.  Pleasure to meet you, Finn.  Please, call me Chet.’ Good ol’ Chet grinned with his million-dollar teeth and held out a massive paw of a hand.  His grip was soft, but the firm pressure from his fingers told me that he was already checking out his purchase.

‘Was I right?’
Blaine
asked him.

‘Oh hell, yeah,’
Chester
laughed.  ‘Got to admit, I was a little concerned when plans went awry, but yeah, you were one hundred percent correct, Lady Albermarle.’

‘
Blaine
, please.’

‘My apologies –
Blaine
. 
Tim
e to call the better half indoors, I think.  See if the scenery in here impresses him as much as your garden does.’  He strode to the open patio door, leaving a scent of something expensive in his wake.  ‘Ellis?  You want to come in and meet our boy?’ he called into the gloom.

‘Amazing view you have...’  the soft West Coast voice drifted in moments before I saw its owner.  Ellis was nearer to both my age and build, slight but muscular in black jeans and shirt, to match his dark, close-cut hair.  His American heritage was represented by a silver and turquoise belt buckle highlighting a slim waist, and I had an image of the two men working out side by side in a chrome-plated gym, giving each other big, sweat-soaked grins of encouragement.  I was just imagining a two-hundred pound barbell crushing Chester Hemingford’s windpipe when he gave a light cough.

‘Ellis Simonette, I’d like you to meet Finn...’  he began, but faltered as he realised
Blaine
hadn’t supplied him with my surname.

‘Strachan,’ I managed to recall.

‘Strachan,’
Chester
echoed.

Ellis’ acquisitive eyes glittered as he caught his first sight of me.  ‘Oh
wow
.’  The same response I’d given when I saw Lilith for the first time, but so very different in its meaning.

‘Isn’t he just?’ 
Chester
said with pride, as if he’d just hunted me down and dragged me into the dining room himself.  He turned to me.  ‘You’ll join us for dinner?’  One of those questions that wasn’t a question.

‘Of course he will,’
Blaine
replied for me, and placed a steering hand on my shoulder, directing me to a seat.  ‘It’ll give you boys some time to get to know each other.’

*****

I managed a couple of glasses of wine – something red, I think – that mixed with everything else in my bloodstream to add to the haze, but all my food was returned to the kitchen in the same state it arrived.

‘That’s one hell of a diet you have there,’ Chester commented as Henry – with two fading black eyes that made him look even more like a small, nervous owl – cleared away my untouched steak.  ‘Suppose that’s what helps keep that figure, huh?’

‘Something like.’

‘I thought Ellis was strict with all that macrobiotic nonsense, but you seem to be taking it to a whole new level.’  He gestured at his cleared plate with his fork.  ‘I don’t know how you can resist this stuff.  Some chef you have, Lady... Sorry,
Blaine
.’

Ellis patted his flat stomach.  ‘That’s LA for you.  A fat actor’s an unemployed actor.’

Their lovers’ banter became a hiss of white noise.  As long as I smiled or nodded in the right place every few minutes it satisfied them that I was part of the conversation, and it left me free to contemplate the rest of my life without Lilith. 

I hadn’t realised how much I had missed warmth.  My entire body craved it, as though that part of me that was Algerian could only be recharged by the sun.  I lay prone, letting my bones and skin absorb the delicious heat, and shut my eyes.

My eyes snapped open.  I couldn’t let myself switch off like this.  Not yet.  I even slept fully clothed, with a chair pushed against my door and the largest carving knife I could find under my pillow.  I clambered awkwardly from the bath, still unable to take any weight on my broken fingers, already starting to shiver as the frigid autumnal air crept under the bathroom door and clung on to me like a wraith.  Even if I banked the fire in my bedroom until it roared, the cold had taken up permanent residence at Albermarle Hall.

My track pants and sweater were folded neatly in the corner; I wouldn’t risk stepping out of the bathroom until I was fully dressed and ready for any eventuality.  I hadn’t seen Coyle since our encounter in the kitchen nine days previously and I was more than happy to maintain the distance between us. 

I hadn’t had any real contact with anyone since that morning. 
Blaine
still felt that I was still unworthy of her presence, and Henry simply placed a beautifully arranged tray of food outside my bedroom or the studio and ran before he had to make eye contact with me, leaving only self-loathing in his wake.

And Finn...  Picking at the remains of the stitches in my forehead caused less discomfort than thinking of him.  Everywhere I looked, I saw him.  Even in his absence he filled every corner of my shrunken world: when I ran I saw him in the gardens; he sat hunched and surly at the kitchen table if I called there to make myself a coffee; he curled into the chair in my studio as I began to add the last details of
Blaine
’s portrait. 

And when I lay in bed I could still feel his arms holding me close.

No matter how much I reminded myself that my obeying the rules was the only thing that kept him alive, it didn’t alter the fact that it had been nine long days since I had last seen Finn, and I missed him like a lost limb.

I attempted to set my coffee cup down in one of the two saucers that I could see in front of me, and managed to clip the real one so that the porcelain cracked and the spoon clattered to the floor.  ‘Shit.  Sorry,’ I mumbled.

They all must have known I was absolutely loaded, but whatever the hell was going on, my ability to appear human didn’t seem to be essential to my clients’ needs. 
Chester
continued to beam at me like he’d just picked me up at his high school prize giving, and Ellis hadn’t taken his eyes off me all night; the naked greed in his expression told me loud and clear that he wasn’t going to settle for a straight fuck and a kiss goodnight.

It started with a simple ‘Um,’ from
Chester
as he helped himself to a brandy.  Ellis placed his mineral water down in the centre of his place setting, and it was obvious that the pair of them were building up to some big proclamation or other.

‘The detail we were discussing – I take it that it’s still okay?’ 
Chester
asked.

‘Of course,’
Blaine
graciously concurred.  I reckoned she was passing herself off as first cousin to the Queen for this one.  Yanks went for that kind of shit.

The big man didn’t seem entirely convinced.  ‘Only it’s not the kind of thing most guys’d go along with...’

Blaine
took his hand  across the table.  ‘Yes, but we’re hardly ‘most guys’ here, are we,
Chester
?’ 

‘Well, no time like the present, huh?’
Chester
pushed his chair back. ‘Ellis?  You want to get the gear?’

This was the cue his partner had been waiting for.  He positively sprang to his feet to collect a black jacket from the high-backed chair by the fire.  He took something from the breast pocket and returned to the table.

‘This will only take a moment, Finn.’
Chester
gave me a kindly, almost avuncular smile.

‘What will?’

‘Well, Ellis and I, we need you kinda... relaxed tonight.  So this is just a little something to make things a little easier for you, really...’

That was when I saw Ellis open the pack that held two ampoules and a syringe and, too late, I tried to bolt.  ‘
Jesus no Blaine for fuck’s sake no, please no
...’ I garbled as I shoved myself away from the table.  As if I had anywhere left to run.

Blaine
was at my side in a second, turning her back on her guests so she could address me in private.  Her fingernails dug into my wrist.  ‘
Yes
, Finn.  That’s the word you’re looking for.’