“It’s funny,” Van said quietly. “I never figured out of the three of us, that you’d be the cliche.”
“And what does
“It means you’re the one angling to live fast, die young, and leave the good-looking corpse.” She got up and tucked the check into her jeans pocket. “You’re going to self-destruct or something. It’s becoming pretty obvious that I can’t stop it, either, any more than I can stop you drinking.”
“Would it make you happy to know I haven’t had a drink since my brother’s funeral?”
“You think that’s a fucking achievement? Sober for twenty-four hours? Call me in a month, tell me the same thing.”
“I will.”
“I don’t think you will. I don’t think you’ll be able to.”
She went to the door, ready to leave and join her guests. I followed her out, into the hallway. The party noise rushed at us, loud voices and the thunder of music. We walked back to the main room together, but just before we hit it, Van put her hand on my arm and stopped me.
“Whoever it is, whatever they have on you, they’re never going to stop,” she said. “They’ll bleed you until you’re dead, and then they’ll pick over your corpse. Think about that.”
Then she waded into the room, taking hugs and laughter, pulling admirers into her wake exactly like what they were—groupies following a rock star.
CHAPTER 27
I was out the door and halfway to my car when Hoffman caught up with me, saying, “Hey, wait a minute.”
“No,” I threw over my shoulder, and kept going. I heard her sneakers slapping in puddles as she accelerated, long strides, coming alongside. She reached the Jeep ahead of me, put herself between me and the driver’s door. It was cold enough that her breath made clouds with each exhale.
“Please get out of my way,” I said.
“Look, you’re not a suspect, it’s okay to talk to me.”
“I don’t want to talk to you. Hell, I don’t want to see you. You weren’t even supposed to be here tonight.”
“I was invited.”
“Well, that was Van’s mistake, and I shouldn’t have to suffer for it.”
Hoffman gave a half-laugh. “You really have no idea how to deal with me, do you? Your gaydar went off and you went straight to the bunker.”
“If that’s what you want to believe.”
“I think we both know it’s the truth. I think we both know you’ve been waiting for a nice butch to come along and take care of you for a while now.”
“I think we both know you’re full of shit,” I said, or at least started to say, but everything after “think” was lost in her mouth, because she started kissing me.
She was fierce about it, and a flicker ran through me, urging me to resist, but there was another one, stronger and hotter, and that was the one I went with, feeling the cool of her sweat and the heat of her skin and the warmth of her body against the chill of the air. I pressed myself into her, and she put her hands on my hips and pulled me with her as she stepped back, and we moved, me pushing up on tiptoe to keep my lips to hers, as she got me around to the back of the Jeep and out of the light.
Her fingers came up, touched my neck, light on my collarbone, and I tried to touch her back, but she wouldn’t have any, batting my hand away and pinning me to the back of the car with a thigh between my own. The pressure transferred to muscles, my knees shaking, and she put her mouth on my neck, and it felt wonderful and strange, that softness against the bruise there. I let my head rest against the Jeep, feeling the cold metal and glass on my back, and I pulled air loud, pulled it again louder when her hands went under my shirt.
There were stars visible through the trees, and the music was still whispering in the background, and I heard her breathing, quick and sure, and my own, more ragged, louder. She growled from her throat, her hands shifted, my breathing caught, resumed, faster. Her mouth brushed my ear.
“Jesus God, I want you,” she murmured.
And it was so nice to be wanted, and she rocked against me, and I thought I would dissolve, and there was no panic and no fear, and for a euphoric moment, there wasn’t even me.
Then she was pulling away, catching her breath as I tried to catch my own. She gave me another kiss, the ferocity gone.
“You’ve got my number,” Hoffman said. “Give me a call.”
CHAPTER 28
It was just eleven when I got home, and I locked up and set the alarm, thinking that whatever had just happened, I was happy for it. That lasted until I saw the “all portals secure” message on the LCD.
Like the alarm had done me a damn bit of good thus far. Like I was going to be able to sleep in my bed tonight feeling anything close to secure.
I took a long shower, realized that I wasn’t ready to sleep just yet, and pulled on some clothes. There was a last, lonely beer in the fridge, and I opened it, lit a smoke, and went down to the music room.
He waited until I’d set the bottle down and was reaching for the Les Paul, and I heard the sliding of nylon on nylon, and then he grabbed me from behind, easily, like he did this sort of thing all the time. I started to scream, first in surprise, though terror was next on the list, but there was leather suddenly covering my mouth and nose, fingers strong and hard pressing with the one hand while he wrapped his other arm around my middle, pulling me back, pinning me to him.
I struggled, just blind panic, my feet lashing out in the air. My right toe hit the stand for the Les Paul, and it toppled and took one of the Strats and the Godin LG with it, sending them all into my Marshal half-stack with a crash. His grip stayed tight on my face, and he was pinching my nose, and I was suffocating. I got my hands up on his arms, trying to break the grip that was killing me, and I realized I’d never had the strength to do that kind of thing, and I never would.
There was sound in my ears, feedback, high-pitched and ascending, but with a fuzz beneath it, like white noise. I tried biting the hand over my face, but my teeth touched nothing but leather. It felt like I was drunk, and I could feel my hold on his fingers and hand slipping.
A voice broke through all the noise in my head, hanging in my left ear, terrifying because of its lack of feeling.
“Thing about a soundproof room,” the Parka Man said. “You can scream all you want.”
Then he pitched me forward, letting go of my face, and I felt the concrete beneath the padding on the floor, and I slammed into the guitar stands. The headstock of the fallen Strat caught me in the right side, in the ribs, and it hurt and made me cry out with what little air I had remaining. I tried righting myself, gasping, and he came at me again, pulling me up by my shirt. Threads popped in his grip.
“Go ahead, scream.” The voice came from beneath the hood, behind the mask, and I saw his lips for a second in the cutout, thin and curling. From the corner of my eye, I caught the movement of his free hand, and it disappeared, and then my belly was crushed.
I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t see, the world swimming. He must have dropped me then, but I don’t remember it. I was still choking for air, but now I couldn’t inhale, it was as if my diaphragm had frozen, locked in a sustain. Nothing coming in, nothing coming out, and I was going to die without making a sound.
Parka Man dropped a knee beside my head, grabbed my hair again in one gloved hand. He lifted my face, twisting, making sure I could see him, making sure that I couldn’t see anything.
“Cops,” he said. “Talking to you, you talking to them.”
