Breaking the Waves (2 of 6)
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[Part One] | [Part Two] | [Part Three] | [Part Four] | [Part Five] | [Part Six]
Breaking the Waves
Part 2 of 6
****
He was still in Falcone's basement. It was the smell and the darkness that convinced him--old piss and stale vomit and the sour stench of his own fear. Blood, too. Blood that had soaked into the floor from whomever they'd kept down here before him. And burned flesh. The goon who'd worked him over--cruel bastard, really got off on pain, and in his head Ray had named him "Frankie"--had set the iron down on the floor and left it switched on after he'd finished introducing Ray to the "press" setting. No matter how long he lived (not long, Ray thought, not long) he thought he'd never be able to forget the smell of his own flesh as it cooked slowly on a hot iron.
But the voices drifting upstairs belonged to the TV, not Frankie's men, and he wasn't chained, naked and shivering, to a radiator.
But the fear-stench was real, yeah. That was Ray.
He rolled over onto his back, nausea coiling through his belly as his stiffened muscles started to unclench. The real pain would come later, so sharp and so bright that he wouldn't be able to breathe, to move, to think. The queasy feeling in his gut right now was just preamble.
He rubbed at his eyes and tried to focus, tried to calm his breathing, tried to think. His mouth tasted bitter, like fear, and his throat felt sore and dry from trying not to cry. "Residual trauma," they'd told him at the hospital. At least he hadn't had the dream. If he had, he would've woken up screaming, and whoever was watching TV downstairs would have come running. And Ray really didn't want Kowalski-or, God forbid, Benny--to come charging upstairs and find him trembling from the aftershocks of that dream.
Slowly he eased up into a sitting position, his fucked-up back letting him know it was Not Happy about sleeping curled up in a tight ball. Ray leaned back against the headboard and closed his eyes, trying to get himself together enough to swing his feet off the end of the bed and stand up.
It was funny: the pain in his mind was worse than anything he'd actually feel if he tried to stand. It was the goddamn thought of moving that hurt, and the idea that he'd fall or twist the wrong way and add to the damage that Falcone's goons had caused in that basement. But the pain--or the fear of it--was like anything: he could get past it. If he could survive that dream every night since Benny had pulled him out of Falcone's basement, he could damn well make himself climb out of bed, go downstairs and play host. And the sad thing was, if Fraser and Kowalski weren't around, he wasn't sure he'd have a reason to get up. Maybe ever.
Eyes closed, deep breath, and once those sharp stabs of pain faded and his feet hit carpet, he was okay. Standing, heart pounding, breathing heavy...but okay.
Ray stripped out of his stinking, sweat-soaked shirt and pants and took a long, hot shower in the master bathroom. He stood under the spray until his skin was flushed and pink and his fingertips wrinkled. The heat helped his back start to unclench, and if he waited long enough for the small bathroom to fill with steam, he wouldn't have to risk catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror.
Dressed in a fresh, long-sleeved linen shirt and a clean pair of khakis, Ray smoothed a hand over what remained of his hair and followed the TV noises downstairs.
The house was dark and deserted, except for the living room. Someone had left a lamp on in there, and Ray could hear the dialogue from some old Hitchcock thriller--Cary Grant asking too many questions, trying to get himself shot.
Ray blinked at the screen, and then glanced over at the couch. The light from the TV flickered bright-dark-bright over Kowalski, who was sprawled out on his back, his legs propped up against the arm of the couch, the remote balanced on his chest. Kowalski was sound asleep, but he wasn't snoring or drooling or anything: he just looked peaceful. Ray half-wanted to shake him awake and ask how he did it. How Kowalski could sleep so peacefully while Cary Grant talked about murder and betrayal on the screen was beyond Ray's understanding.
Ray grabbed a blanket from the back of the couch and arranged it gently over Kowalski. It was a little chilly in the house, since Ray kept the A/C turned up for Fraser, and Kowalski was only wearing a thin pair of knit boxer shorts. His chest was all goose-pimply and--yeah--cool to the touch. Smooth, too, and Ray could feel the cords of muscle and the hard bone in Kowalski's shoulder. It almost felt like--
Christ. Was he petting Kowalski, now? Ray jerked his hand away, holding his breath until he was sure that Kowalski wasn't going to wake up and bust him in the jaw.
The guy was a guest, he reminded himself, and not a piece of meat. And he didn't really want to touch Kowalski. Or at least...at least he didn't think he did.
Or maybe he didn't trust himself to stop at touching.
Ray closed his eyes, and thought about how the fear of pain was worse than the pain itself.
It had been worse, much worse, when Frankie-the-Goon had flicked on that iron and set it on the floor so Ray could watch it heat up. If he would just face his fears, at least a little, he could begin to control his reactions, get some power back. It doesn't have to scare you, he thought. Just reach out, and get it over with. Stop hiding.
He brushed his fingers lightly over Kowalski's chest. Kowalski's skin was a little rough where his body hair came in, those sparse, wiry patches over his pecs different from Ray's. Nice skin, Ray thought, and shivered when he encountered the faint
white-ridged scar of a bullet wound high on Kowalski's chest.
"Frase, stop. Tickles."
Kowalski's whisper was sleepy, drugged. His face hadn't changed, and his body was still loose and relaxed, but Ray snatched his hand back. Christ, if he'd woken Kowalski...
He moved away so quickly he stumbled back against the coffee table. When he recovered his balance, he edged further away from the sofa, praying that Kowalski would think it'd just been a weird dream.
He got out of there. The bang! of the screen door closing behind him was loud in the still, silent night.
Ray headed for the beach, deliberately ignoring the voice in his head that suggested he should have loaded up on the drugs before even thinking about walking anywhere. But he needed to be near water. The ocean helped him think. It was the size of it, really. It made him feel small, his problems and anxieties shrinking down to a tiny dot on the edge of oblivion. That's how thinking about God made him feel--so big, and he was small. So small.
The sand was still warm from the heat of the day, and when Ray reached the water's edge, he dropped down and dug his bare feet into the sand, trying to ignore his protesting muscles, trying to pretend he wasn't really going crazy. Just a dot on the map, he thought. Small small small.
The sound of splashing cut through his pathetic attempt at losing himself. There was someone out there, and Ray held his breath until the flash of white limbs and the smooth, regular sound of an experienced swimmer's powerful strokes clued him in.
Benny. Benny was out there, swimming in that too-big ocean. His pale body cut cleanly through the dark water, and he looked like a broken-off piece of the moon, white and glowing in the black sea.
Maybe he knew Ray was watching from the beach. With Fraser's super-senses, it'd be a fair bet, but he didn't move toward the shore. Ray watched as Fraser struck out for deeper waters, cutting through the waves like he'd been born in the ocean. Watching him, Ray could believe that Fraser would never stop, never tire. He could just go on and on forever, go on being a part of that big thing that made Ray feel small. So small.
An image swam before him, Fraser's face covered in bloodspatter, a .9 mm held steady in a hand that did not shake.
Ray closed his eyes, breathing through the panic, trying to think of Fraser giggling about dogsleds at the border, or reciting interesting and unusual moose facts as they paddled through the sewers of Chicago. Even picturing a limp, fucked-out Fraser sprawled in the midst of rumpled sheets, his big hands twining in Kowalski's hair...even that was better than seeing the blood on Fraser's face. And the look in his eyes, the look that had pulled up a chair and settled right into Ray's head: the look Fraser had worn when he found Ray in that basement in North Miami and calmly blew Frankie-the-Goon's head off.
Clouds were coming in off the sea. Ray couldn't find the moon anymore, or the stars. Fraser was lost in the deep, dark ocean.
The TV was off when he finally went back to the house, and the couch was deserted. Kowalski was up and puttering around the kitchen. Eleven-thirty at night, and Kowalski was making coffee. No wonder the guy couldn't sit still.
Ray opened his mouth to say something about it, but he lost his train of thought when Kowalski glanced up at him, his eyes sharp and evaluative behind those ridiculous thick-framed glasses.
"You see Fraser out there?" Kowalski asked. He was gathering up coffee mugs, and sugar. Ray watched the bones and muscles in his back move and contract as he opened various cupboards and drawers. There really was no fat on the guy whatsoever.
"I think you're violating state health codes there, Kowalski," Ray muttered, looking away deliberately from the bare golden skin of Kowalski's back. "Put a shirt on when you're in the kitchen, okay?"
He'd expected Kowalski to tense up and get angry or defensive. He knew the guy had a short fuse: Stella had told him a couple of stories about her "touchy" ex-husband. She'd even tried to convince Ray that living with a time-bomb was exciting. But Ray had been around enough hair-trigger Italians to know that a quick temper got old, fast.
His dad had had a real short fuse. So had Tommy Falcone. So had Armando Langostini.
But Kowalski surprised him. Instead of getting mad, he turned around and gave Ray a long, slow look. Then he slouched back against the kitchen counter, leaning on his elbows. Ray couldn't take his eyes off Kowalski's smooth, muscled stomach, or the sparse, barely visible trail of hair that arrowed down Kowalski's belly and vanished under the waistband of his boxers. Those obscene boxers: anybody could see he filled out the Y-front like a prizewinning...
"What are you worried about, Vecchio? Think I'm contagious?" Kowalski asked, his tone all lazy suggestion. And Jesus, that smile. Slow, and feral. That was a fuck-me smile.
There was no air in the room. None. Ray couldn't breathe, and Kowalski slouched there like an offering laid out to the gods of Boystown didn't help. Ray swayed on the bar stool, gasping in air desperately until he felt the solid warmth of Kowalski's hand on his shoulder, steadying him.
"Fuck, I'm sorry," Kowalski was muttering. "I don't know what I was--"
Ray swallowed and shook his head. "I just got dizzy. Happens. I'm okay." But Kowalski didn't move his hand. He waited until Ray's breathing evened out. Kowalski had just been fucking around, using some of that loose-hipped hustler's charm to throw Ray off his game a little, maybe cheer him up. It was a joke. Ray knew that. He'd freaked out over nothing.
Some undercover operative he'd turned out to be. He didn't know what was up and what was down, anymore.
Ray opened his eyes to find Kowalski watching him intently, all of that earlier ease and teasing sensuality gone now, eclipsed by concern.
"I'm fine," Vecchio repeated, angry now. Most guys would've cleaned Kowalski's clock for flirting like that. What the hell did Kowalski want from him?
"Hey," Kowalski said, shifting back on the couch so he wasn't leaning over Ray. "I'm sorry. That wasn't cool. It was a dumb joke, and I'm sorry." He looked so young and sincere in those glasses, and Kowalski's chest was pale and boney like some skinny kid's.
He licked his lips and frowned. "It was me and my fucked-up body, like I said. My back hurts, and I got dizzy. It's--" he stumbled over saying it, "it's fine. A joke. I get it."
Kowalski grinned, looking relieved. Not like a stupid kid would look relieved, though. Like he was honestly sorry to have upset Ray, and he wanted to make it right. "Okay," Kowalski said, jerking his chin in a funny half-nod. "I'll get your coffee."
Ray settled back on the couch, twisting around to find a better position for his back. In an eerie replay of that morning, he heard Kowalski mutter a question, and half-expected to hear Fraser's soft, deep-voiced reply.
"Vecchio?"
"What?"
"You take sugar?"
Ray blinked. He'd been trying to stay off the caffeine--he had enough trouble sleeping as it was--but coffee sounded pretty good right now. Nice of Kowalski to offer. "Uh, yeah. Just a little. No cream, though."
He heard the rattle of cups and the soft "plink!" of metal against cheap porcelain as Kowalski doctored the coffee.
"You got any chocolate candy? I ran out of my own stash."
What the hell? "Candy?"
"Yeah, y'know, M&Ms, Smarties..."
"What the hell is a Smartie?"
"Never mind." Kowalski came back into the living room carrying two mugs and the sugar bowl. He set it all down on the coffee table and proceeded to dump spoon after spoon of sugar into one of the mugs. It made Ray's teeth hurt just watching him.
"You never answered my question," Kowalski said, measuring out one more precise scoop. He leveled it off carefully and squinted at the little mound of sugar before nodding to himself and stirring it into his cup. Ray wondered why he even bothered to measure. Why didn't he just pour the whole damn jar into his cup?
"What question?"
"Did you see Fraser out there?"
Bloodspatter and blowback. The sharp tang of gunpowder. Frankie-the-Goon with a precise little hole between his eyes and a gap the size of Texas in the back of his head, and all of it reflected back in Fraser's calm blue eyes.
"Nah, I think he was swimming pretty far out. Didn't see him." He covered the lie with a quick swallow of his coffee. He didn't feel like going thirty rounds with Kowalski tonight on why he and Fraser weren't exactly speaking.
Kowalski nodded, like that had explained something to him. "Your coffee okay?"
Ray took a sip. Just sweet enough to taste without covering the rich flavor of the Jamaica Blue Mountain blend. Perfect.
"It's okay. Yours?"
Kowalski took an experimental sip and made a face. "Could be a little sweeter."
They sat there quietly, listening to the gentle lapping of the waves that filtered in from outside. Kowalski was fidgety, but he did seem to know when to shut up, and that was one point in his favor. At least he wasn't trying to tell a bunch of dumb Inuit stories.
"He doesn't sleep," Kowalski said softly, so low and quiet that Ray almost didn't hear him at first. "Not since he tracked you down. He takes off after..." Kowalski stammered and blushed a bit. "He leaves once he thinks I'm asleep. Stays out all night, sometimes. Just swims, or walks on the beach. Comes in before dawn and pretends he's been in bed the whole time. Won't talk about it, won't let me ask questions. I don't--" Kowalski sighed. It was a long, beat-up, broken-down sigh that mirrored the way Ray had felt every second since he spotted Tommy Falcone in that Cuban coffee shop all those months ago.
Kowalski's world was falling apart, and he didn't even know how to hold it together, much less fix it so that everything would go back to the way things were before. And it was all Ray's fault. Bad as he felt about what Fraser had done--had been forced to do--at least Fraser had been in it. Kowalski was just an innocent bystander. Like Stella, with her sad, tight silences and soft frown and empty closet. Collateral damage.
"Has he...has he said anything about it? Anything at all?" Ray asked, staring at Kowalski's distorted reflection in the blank TV screen, if only so he wouldn't have to look at his own.
Kowalski drummed his fingers on the arm of the couch and stared down at his mug. "You know Fraser. Talking's not really his style, at least when it comes to the stuff that matters."
Whose style is it?, Ray wanted to ask. Sometimes it seemed like they were all trapped in silence, all waiting for the creak on the stair.
He sighed and leaned back, rolling his head against the back of the couch. His neck hurt. His back hurt. Everything hurt.
When he opened his eyes, Kowalski was staring at him, his blue eyes thoughtful and a little sarcastic. A bit like Dief's eyes, actually, which kind of creeped Ray out. Why hadn't he ever noticed how much like the wolf Kowalski was?
"What?" he snapped, tiredly. Kowalski had the grace to look embarrassed for a second, and then his expression hardened. Stubborn, yeah. Ray recognized that look, too.
"Your back."
"What about it?"
Kowalski tucked his leg up under himself, his movement making the couch dip. "I could--"
Oh, Christ. Ray rubbed at his eyes. That nap he'd taken hadn't done much for the low-grade exhaustion he'd lived with ever since he'd gotten home from the hospital. Nothing much seemed to help. "What the hell kind of game are you playing, Stanley?" He tried to put as much venom into it as he could. Ray had spent years cultivating a hard-guy voice, and it'd kept him alive in Vegas, but the question sounded weak even to his own ears. He just sounded tired, and scared.
"No game," Kowalski murmured, easing over closer to him on the couch. "You're hurting. And I'm pretty good at neckrubs."
Ray kept his eyes on Kowalski's hands. It seemed safer than looking at his face, much safer than looking at his body, but the longer he looked at Kowalski's lean, long-fingered hands, the harder it became to say no. At this point, he wasn't sure he could even remember how to say the word.
Kowalski kept talking in a soft, coaxing voice. "Just--let me help. I want to help you, Vecchio."
Ray finally lifted his head to look at Kowalski's face, and he could see that, yeah, the guy meant it. Kowalski might have been a jittery bastard, all rough edges and tough-guy posturing (when he wasn't slouched and spread out in fuck-me invitation) but he wasn't a liar.
Ray had known enough of those to spot the difference.
Kowalski was sincere. He wanted to help Ray. He wanted to make Ray feel good. Fine. Ray'd give it a shot. It's not like he'd lose control of himself the second Kowalski put his hands on him, after all. Ray was an adult. He'd been married, and divorced, twice. He'd survived Vegas, a mob hit, a week-long torture session with guys who could snap Kowalski like a toothpick, and he'd even suffered months of painful physical therapy and Fraser not being able to meet his eyes.
Ray could handle a massage from Kowalski, no problem.
Even from Kowalski in nothing but his thin little boxers.
"My shirt stays on," he said.
***
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