Whiskey and Wry (Sinners Series) (13 page)

He found his laundered clothes on the dining room table, with an unwrapped toothbrush and a disposable razor taped to an unopened package of briefs. A piece of paper on the small stack was gouged with Sionn’s heavy handwriting, black-inked lines racing to the edge.

Got these home and found they were the wrong size. Figured they’d fit you. Going to crash. Wake me when you get up. I’ll make us something to eat. You were snoring when I came back with food the first time. Thought I’d let you sleep.

The toothbrush looked new, and Damien thumbed its bristles as he padded to the bathroom, his clothes and a pair of the too-small-for-Sionn briefs tucked under his arm. Half an hour later, he felt stripped of the grime layered on him from sleeping at the flophouse and working the pier, his gums tingling from the mint paste he’d found on the bathroom counter. He sloppily folded the sweats and shirt he’d gotten from Sionn and left them with the rest of the underwear on the table, unsure if Sionn intended him to stay or if he’d go back to the flophouse.

He’d squeezed as much of the water as he could from his hair and toweled it dry until his scalp squeaked. One of the scars along his skull ached a bit from the soaking, and he rubbed at it absently, calming the tangle of nerves lurking beneath its surface. A brief peek into the kitchen revealed a coffee machine too complex for Damien’s still-sleep-groggy brain.

“Fuck, I need a hit of joe.” A quick glance out the window helped him figure out where he was. “Okay, there’s a coffee shop down there, and you, Damie, are fat on cash. Quick walk. Hell, long walk. Too fucking squirrelly.”

He left Sionn a note, debating kissing him good-bye, but then thought better of it. His attraction to the man was a dangerous thing, but Damie couldn’t keep himself from stopping near the front door to take one last look at Sionn before he headed out.

They were similar in height, but Sionn definitely had more muscle on him. His shoulders barely fit across the couch cushions where Damien’d sprawled out comfortably, and the thin cotton pants Sionn wore were pulled tight enough under him for Damien to see the lines of muscle along his thighs where the morning sun hit the fabric. He definitely wore underwear. A thick line of elastic peeked out from the waistband of his pants where Sionn’s tee rode up a little, a hint of sun-bronzed skin showing above the white strip. Despite the briefs, Sionn’s crotch lay heavy with the weight of his sex, a thick curve of flesh outlined under layers of cotton.

Damien could only really see the man’s mouth and the beginning of a beard darkening Sionn’s strong jawline, but it was enough to make him want to cross over to the couch and straddle the man. It was hard not to want to kiss Sionn awake and taste the morning on him before it was washed away under mint and water. Even worse, Damien imagined licking off the musky sheen of sleep on Sionn’s body, a hint of sweat and soap over the stretch of gold skin near his hip.

“God, this is more than I wanted… right now. But fuck, I want this. I’ve
got
to be fucking crazy.” His heart began to pound, an erratic fluttering beneath the scar holding his chest together. Snagging a black hoodie from a coat tree by the door, Damien sniffed at the sleeve, hoping to catch a whiff of Sionn on it. A hint of man lingered, and he smiled, partially satisfied. “Okay, coffee first. Lust later. If he lets you back inside.”

He was walking out without any way to come back in, and Damien checked the lobby for a buzzer. Luckily, a strip of punch tape with “Murphy” labeled a black button on an intercom speaker and assured him he could at least call up. The wind smacked him in the face as soon as he stepped out onto the sidewalk, but the fleece kept most of it off of him. Pulling the hood over his head, Damien turned up the hill, working through the burn of his muscles when his legs protested the steep incline.

Half an hour later, he’d begun to regret his need to walk off his energy. The cold crept in to strangle the city, and the once-promising sun slipped back behind a veil of threatening gray clouds. He turned around and headed down one of the alley cut-throughs, hoping it would shave off some walking time so he could grab two cups of coffee before begging Sionn to let him back in.

Something about the surrounding brick walls and battered green dumpsters made Damien’s feet stumble, and he dropped his pace to stand in the middle of the narrow space. There was definitely
something
about the alley that grabbed some part of his brain and held on, sinking its fingers into his thoughts until he was shaking from the want of knowing.

Even the crackle of thunder off in the distance didn’t jolt him from the spot, and Damien turned on his heels, taking in his surroundings. The cement beneath him was stained green from years of runoff and algae, and the blackened grout between the weathered brick of the buildings’ walls shone white in spots from halfhearted, futile scrubbing near some of the doors. The space felt closed in, barely wide enough for three people to walk side by side, and what little sun able to reach between the tall buildings had been replaced by the alley’s encroaching shadows.

Several white-painted wooden signs hung over security gates and green metal doors, most covered with dark red
han zi
to identify the businesses they belonged to. Above him, windows were being closed as residents living in the tiny apartments above the main street woke for the day and found the cold too much to take.

Behind one of the metal screen doors, someone was beginning to cook. The sound of food hitting a sizzling wok was soon followed by the aroma of garlic and seared meat. Somewhere close by, someone was speaking Cantonese loudly, a harsh and scolding patter answered by a softer, grumbling voice.

He padded forward, drawn to a single fire escape hung above the restaurant’s back door, unable to take his eyes off of the seemingly innocuous black metal grating. It was all so… familiar, tugging at him until a throbbing hooked through the base of his brain and traveled up into his eyes.

“I
know
this place.” It was too fucking familiar. Something about where he stood called out to him, and Damien skimmed his fingers over a rust-speckled iron ladder leading up to the platform above him.

Some hopeful soul had great plans for a flower bed, a long burnt-orange ceramic box filled with yellow and violet pansies. A pink plastic bin sat on its side, probably to avoid it filling with water during the season’s heavy rains, but Damien wasn’t really seeing what was there.

Instead, he saw the alley in his mind, in the dead of long ago night when he’d been broiling in his own anger.

There’d been a club he’d just played at—Dino’s. It’d been a shitty gig, with a couple of guys he’d played with before, but nothing had gone right. The drummer showed up drunk, and the bassist was out of tune for most of the set. Half an hour into the show, the manager yanked the power from the stage, and they’d been left there, standing in the reverb of their dying strings.

He’d walked out. Packed up his guitar and left the club, too pissed off to demand payment for what was probably the worst fucking set he’d played in his entire life. Instead, he’d stepped out the back door, simmering with an anger hot enough to melt glass, and stalked down the alley toward a destiny he’d never even imagined having.

There was no sign of the singer, not in the shadowy darkness of the alley’s feeble lighting, but the voice—that voice—snared him in a golden web he couldn’t break through. Even through the heat broiling his thoughts, the raspy pour of want and blues filled him with something indescribably beautiful, and Damien knew he wanted…
needed
… to write for that voice.

Instead of a plastic bin, there’d been a mongrel of a boy, barely old enough to be left home alone, much less possess the kind of sorrow Damien heard in his singing. Unable to do more than stand there, frozen to the cement, Damie listened to a voice someone stole from heaven and gave to a skinny, dark-haired waif leaning against the brick wall of a Chinatown fire escape.

“He was singing… Joplin.” Damien turned quickly, drinking in his surroundings. Glancing back up, he only saw pink plastic and bobbing flower heads, but then… back then… there’d been a suspicious-eyed, lanky teen with a bee-stung mouth and a filthy attitude born of hard street living. “
He found me on a staircase of steel, nowhere near Heaven, a Devil making a deal. Come on down, son, my Satan said with a grin, Come with me and we’ll make Sinner’s Gin.
”

The words came easily, the music flowing through him and into his fingers. He’d laid down the notes for Miki’s song… that moment when he’d looked up and told the oil-splattered street rat that they were destined to take the world by storm. He’d laughed at Miki’s
fuck off
and talked to him through the metal grate, urging him to take a chance on a crazy, pissed-off guitarist with nothing to lose.

Damien wasn’t prepared for the headache when it hit, nor for the rush of blood bursting from his nose, but the tide of memories overwhelming his senses made him want to dance, even as he was driven to his knees from the pain.

T
HE
morning was ripe with possibilities.

While most people abhorred the rain and cold, Parker found it satisfying, a balm on any ruffled feathers of his soul. It soaked into his skin, plastering his clothes against his body, hugging him with its cold embrace. He took a moment to stand by the gate, hidden from the camera sweep by the building’s outer brick wall.

Those few seconds before he stepped into a planned job were the best. Anticipation rippled through him, and he shivered, reveling in its sensual pleasure. Checking the fit of his latex gloves, Parker snapped the bands and bounced a step forward, testing the off-brand sneakers he’d bought for the job.

The knives he brought with him were ground-down throwaways he’d stolen from a swap meet vendor nearly two weeks ago. Cheap steel, they would only hold their edge for less than half an hour’s work, but they would be enough. He wasn’t planning on keeping to just one, especially since there’d been three paring knives in the bundle he’d dropped into the paper bag of clothes he’d brought with him to mask his theft.

If he got to all of the people on the list his employer gave him, he would need to get more blades. That alone was enough to make him hard. This time, he thought as he checked his camera for the security code he’d been sent, he would go for something expensive, maybe even a specialized edge. A few random killings with that knife and the cops would be off sniffing at a serial murderer, taking any heat off of him.

Breaking in was easy enough. People placed a lot of faith in small pieces of metal and bolts to keep the unsavory away, but those were simple to thwart. With a long piece of steel hooked into the lock, the tumblers fell under Parker’s twisting slide and the deadbolt clicked open. Poised, he stood silent, waiting to see if someone had been near enough to hear the lock shift, but no footsteps came toward the door, and no one called out to see who was there.

“Grab the tape feed,” he murmured to himself as he slid into the house. There’d been a rough schematic of the residence, detailed enough for him to pinpoint where a server hummed away in a pantry, saving the video feeds from the three cameras set up on the outside perimeter. If he couldn’t pull the drive out, he’d have to be happy enough with destroying it somehow. “Maybe they’ll have a can of peaches I can pour into it. Sugar is hell on electronics.”

From the looks of the place, it was empty, but Parker knew better. Somewhere in the echoing rooms his target waited for him, unaware and peaceful. A few beeps, then the security panel flashed, giving him a green light to continue.

“Excellent.” He almost kissed the box, then thought better of it, not wanting to leave behind any trace of his entry. He closed the door behind him, relocked the deadbolts, and took a deep breath, savoring the moment anew. “Ah, time to get to work.”

He pulled one of the knives from his jacket, drew it out of its newspaper coffin, and walked softly through the front room. Little sounds gave life to the place, wood floors sighing as they breathed and the rattle of an air conditioning unit set someplace on the roof. Filmy curtains wafted against tall windows, driven by the artificial wind coming through vents set near the high ceiling.

T
HE
old woman left him feeling dissatisfied, an itch left unscratched under his skin, and Parker struggled to figure out the why of it. Lying in a rented motel room after the dusky-skinned whore he’d hired left, he’d smoked the last of the woman’s cigarettes, pulling cheap smoke into his lungs as he played with his softening penis.

Everything about the kill should have worked for him. It should have driven him to a height of sexual release without him needing to satiate himself with a common hooker, but instead, he’d left the hostel and sought out one of the many streetwalkers roaming the area.

The knife work was orgasmic, a soft, sticky peeling back of flesh from bone, but the experience was lacking something. With the rather bored yes-oh-Gods from the whore’s painted mouth still ringing in his ears, Parker jerked upright, suddenly realizing what was missing.

“She couldn’t scream. Damn it, I needed her to scream.” He cursed himself for tearing a strip of duct tape off the roll and putting it over the old woman’s mouth and nose. There’d been a fear of someone hearing him work so he’d taken precautions, but in doing so, he’d been left only with the snick of meat falling away and then the final gurgle of her blood draining down into the tacky carpet.

He wasn’t going to make the same mistake this time.

S
IONN
was practically frantic by the time he found Damien.

He’d woken up and known he was alone. Something about the loft had shifted, a stillness that left him unsettled. Telling himself the man was in the bathroom, he lasted three seconds before he got up off the couch and found the loft empty. The guitar by the door reassured him somewhat, but the note left for him brought the cold panic back to his belly.