'One more question,' Paula said, smiling. 'The name of your friend's bar.'
10
Someone Else's Dreams Larison stepped off the bus at the Greyhound station in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The ticket he'd bought was for Scranton. One was as good as the other, he just didn't like going where the ticket said he would. He knew no one was watching-paying cash and moving by bus was the most secure and anonymous means of travel left in America-but there was no downside to layering in another level of security, either.
He slung his bag over his shoulder and started walking, his boots crunching quietly on the cement sidewalk. The sun was setting behind the tired-looking buildings to his right, but the air was still suffused with a stagnant heat. He didn't care. A little sweat, a little body odor would make it less likely that anyone would take an interest in him or recall his passage after he was gone.
He headed south along Market Street, knowing he'd find a hotel soon enough. In his worn jeans and faded flannel shirt, his unshaven face obscured by a Cat Diesel hat, he knew he looked like a tradesman of some sort who'd lost his job in the hollowed-out economy and was looking to find another. Nobody important, but not a criminal, either, just a down-on-his-luck guy moving away from something sad and toward something maybe a little better, interesting to nobody, not even to himself.
More than anything, he wished he could have spent these days with Nico in San Jose. Or better yet, on the beach in Manuel Antonio, where they'd first met. Costa Rica had become a kind of symbol in his mind, a shorthand for forgetting everything about his past and living the way he wanted to, with the person he wanted to. But he couldn't afford to go there now. He was too tense, for one thing. Nico, who could read his moods like no one who'd ever known him before, would intuit something was wrong. Also, for now, Larison preferred not to cross international borders. He wanted his remaining few contacts with the government to come from a variety of entirely random eastern seaboard locations, including the last contact, when he would instruct them on how to deliver the diamonds. After that, he would vanish like smoke.
For a moment, the thought of vanishing made him feel almost giddy. Because it would seem like vanishing only from his enemies' perspective. From his own standpoint, it would be more like… more like being reborn, like his real self finally stirring to wakefulness. And once that part of him, the real him, the self he'd denied and obscured and hidden for so long, was awake, the dreams would stop, wouldn't they? Yes, that would be one of the best parts about waking up, that the dreams would finally end. They'd belong to someone else then. They couldn't touch him in Costa Rica.
He'd gone there for the first time five years earlier, while on temporary duty training the Honduran government's praetorian guard in intelligence gathering and interrogation. He'd heard of Manuel Antonio, supposedly a gay paradise on Costa Rica's Pacific coast. It was a short flight to San Jose, and from there, a short drive to Manuel Antonio. Of course he hadn't told anyone where he was going, he was just taking a few days to himself. He was married, and people naturally assumed he was being tight-lipped because he was chasing whores and wanted to be discreet. No one cared about that sort of thing. Getting a little strange tail was considered one of the perks of temporary duty and was ironically protected by its own informal 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy. He was happy to have people think it of him. It wasn't so terribly far from the truth and was therefore perfect cover.
Manuel Antonio lived up to its billing: white sand beaches framed by swaying palm trees to one side and blue surf to the other; dozens of lively bars and clubs and restaurants; nothing but young, toned men, all relaxed, fearless, looking to hook up. He remembered thinking the moment he arrived he would have to find a way to get back, it was that good.
He'd met Nico on Playita, one of the surfing beaches. Nico was riding a board in and then paddling it back out, sometimes with some other surfers, other times alone, and Larison was watching from the sand, admiring the way Nico got the most out of his waves, enjoying the occasional flash of brilliant teeth against smooth, cappuccino- colored skin, the lean muscles that stood out whenever he cut back against a wave or moved his arms to recover his balance. A few times, as he got close to the beach, Nico caught his eye and smiled. Larison smiled back, wondering. He guessed Nico was at least ten years younger. Some guys liked hooking up with someone older, more experienced. Some didn't. He knew which he hoped the gorgeous creature on the surfboard would be.
After about a half hour, Larison had walked down the hot sand and stood with his feet in the cool, clear water. He watched Nico surfing in, glad to see he was heading right in his direction.
Nico rode in about twenty feet from the beach, then slowly sank into the water as the wave's force depleted. He picked up his board and waded over to Larison, smiling, rivulets of water running down his skin, his chest and shoulders broken out in gooseflesh.
'You like to surf?' he asked in Spanish-accented English.
Larison was surprised. When he didn't want to be spotted as an American, he was adept at projecting something else, and thought he had been. 'How do you know I speak English?' he asked.
The smile broadened. 'You seem so happy. I think maybe you've never been here before.'
Larison should have been irritated or on guard that this guy had made him. But he wasn't. In fact, for reasons that just then he didn't really understand, he felt secretly glad.
'Well, you're right about that,' he said.
'So? You like to surf?'
Larison smiled. 'I like surfers.'
A blush appeared behind Nico's tan cheeks, a blush Larison found surprisingly disarming, even endearing.
They had dinner that night, then made love in Larison's hotel room. Larison was ordinarily aggressive in bed, and usually attracted men who sensed the conflicted rage in him and wanted to be on the receiving end of it. But Nico brought out something different in him, something much more gentle, even tender. They'd spent the next two days and nights together, and Larison had concocted an excuse to delay his return to Honduras for two days more. He would have tried to stay even longer, but Nico had to return to San Jose, where he had a small architectural practice. They drove back to the capital city together in Nico's old Jetta. As they sat in the idling car at the curb of the airport passenger drop-off, there were a dozen things Larison wanted to say, none of which he could find the courage to articulate.
'Do you want to see me again?' Nico asked, as Larison hesitated, his hand on the door handle.
'Yes,' Larison said, meeting his eyes and then looking away, both hopeful and terribly afraid of what might be said next.
'I want to see you, too.'
Larison looked at him again, hoping Nico would see how much his words meant, and understand why Larison couldn't answer.
'You're married, aren't you?' Nico said.
Larison looked away, ashamed but also strangely grateful for Nico's ability to read him, to understand what other people could never see.
He wanted to lie. Instead he found himself nodding, unable to meet Nico's eyes.
'It's okay,' he heard Nico say. 'I thought so. I'm glad you told me.'
'It's… complicated.'
'Of course it is,' Nico said, without a trace of sarcasm or condescension.
'Can we… let's just see what happens. I want to see you again. This feels different.' He couldn't believe what he was saying. He swallowed. 'Special.'
'I'm out, you know. Everyone knows I'm gay-my family, my firm. I don't really want to go back to halfway in the closet, you know?'
Larison nodded, his mind a roiling mass of emotions. He'd never had this kind of conversation before, with anyone. He'd never even imagined having it. He never would have dared.
'But I would do that,' Nico said. 'For you.'
Larison looked at him. He couldn't speak. He felt an excitement that was becoming indistinguishable from panic.
And just then, in that mad moment, gripped by impossible hope, Larison felt something bloom in his mind. An idea-no, not even an idea, just a possibility, a possibility he'd never considered before but whose contours he was
