dS Fic: Safe House
Fandom, Pairing: Due South; Ray/Ray
Rating: NC-17
Length: 4000 words
Warnings: Very dark. Language, violence, dubcon.
Disclaimer: due South belongs to Alliance/Atlantis.
Notes: I'd like to give a shout-out to Team Angst for this one. I first got the idea in a brainstorming session with aerye. spuffyduds beta'd it, despite her comment afterwards of, "I need to take a shower now. Possibly with bleach and Brillo pads." nos4a2no9 beta'd this story twice, and that woman could take a guided tour through the nine circles of hell, and at the end offer some constructive criticism on how to make all just a little more painful.
Dedicated to: slidellra, the Team Romance Captain, who apparently needed a little noncon after her time in the pink glitter trenches, and wasn't sure if due South could provide it. Here you go, mon ami!
Summary: In the summer of 1996, two CPD detectives meet for the first time in a safe house on the outskirts of Chicago.
Seven days to Vegas
Fluorescent lights glared down on yellow linoleum and dingy white kitchen cupboards. A blond stubbled man wearing an old Cubs sweatshirt sat at the kitchen table. He smoked a cigarette and played solitaire, sleeves pushed up to his elbows.
At the sound of a key in the lock, his head jerked towards the door, where thick curtains obstructed the outside world. The door opened.
A tall, olive-complexioned man with thinning black hair and a well-cut suit entered the room. He had the tense, slightly frantic appearance of someone who doesn't like surprises, and is expecting a nasty one. The door closed behind him. There was a snick as the lock clicked to.
The two men looked at each other. The silence was awkward. After a few moments the mutual stare became challenging, almost threatening. The dark-haired man's hand ghosted towards his hip.
"Langoustini carries at the small of his back," the blond said, breaking the stare as he collected his playing cards into a pile.
The man wiped his right palm down the pleats of his trousers. "And just who are you supposed to be?"
"Me? I'm Ray Vecchio," the blond replied. "And seeing as were gonna be pals, I'll call you Armando."
Armando shook his head in disgust. "You have got to be kidding me. A blond?"
Ray saluted with his cigarette.
"What, they couldn't find a detective anywhere in Chicago that looked even remotely like a Vecchio?"
"Oh, they could. Had DeGrassi from the 15th all lined up to take the job. But it seems your lieutenant really wants you back at the end of this. He pulled some strings, got the CPD's most experienced undercover officer assigned to the gig."
"You?" Armando sounded insultingly skeptical.
"Me," Ray said matter-of-factly. "Far as the Feds know, you're spending this week teaching me how to be Ray Vecchio. When really, I'm here to give you a crash course in how not to be." Ray kicked the kitchen chair opposite him out a bit, inviting Armando to sit down.
Armando stood with his back to the door. "Well, here's a little tidbit to kick off the share time. Ray Vecchio doesn't smoke."
Ray took a final, luxurious drag and then let the smoke trickle out of his nose. "Yeah, that's why I'm quitting," he said, holding the cigarette out, filter-first, to Armando. "You want to start?"
"Langoustini doesn't smoke, either."
"True. Too bad, though. Breaking a habit or starting one is a good way to crawl into your guy's skin." He flicked the cigarette butt. It flew through the air, tip glowing orange, and landed in the sink. "Have a seat."
Armando stepped up to the chair and hesitated. "One question."
"Shoot."
"What exactly did you do undercover that qualifies you to teach me to be Armando Langoustini?"
Ray glanced down at the table for a moment. He shook his head in a tight 'no', and then looked back up. "Tell you what, Armando. Once you get through to the other side of this, if you still want to ask that question, I'll answer it."
"Fair enough," Armando said as he sat down.
Six days to Vegas
The TV was muted down to a murmur. Ray sat on the edge of the brown plaid couch, captivated by the flickering images on the screen. Armando was in a black leather armchair, reading the New York Times section by section. He had taken his shoes off, stocking feet buried in the dark shag carpet. Armando reached absently for a glass on the side table, sipped, and grimaced.
"This stuff is terrible," he said. "The Arts section next?"
"Right," Ray replied, eyes not leaving the television. "You always skip the rest of the News. And I don't think the buttermilk's supposed to taste good, it just settles your stomach so you can sleep."
Armando traded the paper in his lap for one on the floor. Pages rustled. He snorted a little laugh.
"What?" Ray asked, his body slowly turning as he tried to force the ball on the screen to stay in.
"This name, Billy Bob Thornton. Reminds me of a case where we had to go undercover as used car salesmen." Armando's voice was warm as he launched into the story. "And Fraser, he couldn't …" He trailed off, folded the paper back together, and laid it on the floor.
Ray groped for the remote, turned off the TV, and slid sideways on the couch to face Armando. "Yeah?"
"They won't let me call my partner."
"Who? The Feds?"
"That's right. Fraser's up in Canada for the month, running some training camp for little Mounties. They won't even let me say goodbye."
Ray tilted his head and watched Armando closely. "Huh. You think he might try to stop you from going, if he knew?"
"Fraser? No. I think … I think maybe he'll be proud of me. He's all about doing your duty."
"Sure, but deep undercover isn't anybody's duty. You've got to be a special kind of crazy," Ray said.
"Oh, Benny's all kinds of crazy," Armando said with affection. The humor slipped from his voice. "And me, I figure I'm just crazy enough."
"Well, you'll have a few hours once you get out of here, before they pack you onto a plane, right?" Ray asked.
Armando shrugged. "Yeah, I'll be checking in with the lieutenant."
"So call your partner. It's not like they can stop you. But, once you're under, you can't contact him."
"This, I know."
Ray drew his legs up onto the couch. "Yeah, but you'll want to, right? Some bad day, some night when you've had to do something so fucked up you don't even know who you are anymore, you'll want to. This one time, I thought I couldn't take another breath if I didn't hear Stella's voice."
Armando gazed steadily across the room. "What'd you do?"
"I was stuck in the car all night with this psycho skinhead. By morning, I had a clear picture in my head of what he would do to her if he ever found out. That pretty much killed the urge."
Ray took a deep breath and threw himself off the couch. "I'm gonna turn in. See you tomorrow."
Armando watched Ray disappear into his bedroom, a troubled expression on his face. He picked up his glass and drank every last drop of buttermilk.
Five days to Vegas
Two men sat at a table littered with the remains of some sandwiches and a few dozen files.
"This one, here," said Ray, pulling a file out from the bottom of a stack. "December 14 1990. Langoustini orders his steak well done. The waiter delivers it rare. Langoustini finishes his meal, and then has his boys bring the kid down to the basement and hold him while the man works him over. Doesn't order it done - he takes care of it personally." He slid a photo across the table. "Broken nose, bruised ribs, three broken fingers, 47 stitches."
Armando looked down at the barely recognizable face of the victim, and then tried to hand it back. "Yeah, I've seen it. Look, I grew up with someone a little like this. He's just another mobbed-up sociopath."
Ray looked at the picture in Armando's hand. "I don't think so. Langoustini didn't do this for kicks. He hurts people because it's good for business, or to make a point. He beat the crap out of that kid to teach him some respect."
Armando half-shrugged. "I don't really care why he does it. The Bookman has a reputation for unprovoked violence, so that's how I'll play him."
Ray jumped up, paced to the far wall and back. "No," he said. "If you were just going in for a few days, sure, you could play Langoustini. But this is long-term. Langoustini's boys, his associates, his enemies," he said, throwing open folders and spraying mug shots across the table, "these are some nasty motherfuckers. You walk in there pretending, like a sheep in wolf's clothing, and they will know. They will see it in your eyes."
Ray squatted down next to Armando, body tight, one hand on his shoulder. "There is only one way this can work. Only one. You've got to look inside, find that little piece of you that's like Langoustini. Then you feed it, let it out, put it in charge. And the rest of you just … just goes away until you're done."
Armando shoved Ray's hand away and stood up. "There is no piece of me that's like Langoustini," he said coldly, clearing glasses and plates off the table.
Ray stood up, squinted at Armando, and lunged at his back. He shoved Armando, hard, face-first into the kitchen cupboard. Glass shattered. Armando swung around, a broken glass in his right hand slashing in a vicious arc towards Ray's stomach. Ray danced out of strike range and slowly backed away to the far side of the room. He grinned unpleasantly.
"Everybody's got a little Langoustini in them. If it takes somebody trying to kill you to bring it out, don't worry. In five days, you'll be surrounded by people who'd kill you in a second if they knew."
Four days to Vegas
At exactly six p.m., the outside door opened. Ray took the box that was handed to him and passed it to Armando as the door was closed and locked from the outside.
"Smells like Chinese again," Ray commented.
Armando sighed. "We've got to get some groceries in here, so we can cook some real food." He placed the box on the table and started laying take-out cartons on the table. Along the side of the box he found the New York Times and a single, slim manila folder.
Ray was getting plates and glasses out of the cupboards to set the table when he heard a strange noise. He turned to find Armando choking on laughter, almost hysterical, as he stared down at the folder in his hands.
"Something funny?" Ray asked.
I took Armando a few moments to stop, as he scrubbed at his mouth with the back of his hand. "Yeah." A few more sniggers. "New intel from the Feds. Turns out that the Bookman likes boys."
Ray froze. "Little boys?" he asked cautiously.
"No, judging by these pictures, I'd say he likes big boys." There was a tinge of desperate hilarity to Armando's voice.
"All right," Ray said in calm, professional tones while his fingers twisted in his belt loop, "let's go through the file, see what's what."
Ray cleared the food off the table to the counter and shoved the box out of the way. Armando laid a dozen photos of rough but attractive blond young men out on the table and sat down to read the closely typed pages of surveillance reports. Ray pulled a chair around the table and sat next to Armando. For a few minutes there was nothing but the sound of turning pages.
"Well," Armando said, high-pitched and fast, after turning over the final page, "if the Bookman's been keeping it a secret, I can avoid the whole thing -"
"No." Ray cut him off. "This is a 'secret'," he said, fingers making quotation marks in the air, "that even the Feds know. Everyone close to Langoustini knows this. His staff, his associates, probably his enemies, he's just too scary for them to move on it. And it's not like the thing with the showgirls, that was off and on. This, this is a pattern. Every Monday night. Every week. It's been going on since they started surveillance, and it just took the suits until now to figure out why Langoustini's driver was picking up rent-boys once a week."
Armando buried his head in his hands. Ray stood up and started pacing around the room.
"They cannot do this," Ray said. "They can't spring this on you four days before you go under. So you just tell 'em that you're out. Okay?"
Armando spoke from inside the shelter of his hands. "I'm not backing out."
"Why not? This is the perfect excuse; fuck, this is a real reason why you cannot do this thing."
"I just … I've got to do this."
Ray spun around to look at Armando slumped in his chair. "Have the Feds got something on you? They do, don't they!"
Armando looked up, a faint, bitter smile on his face.
"Look," Ray continued, eyes flashing, his words spinning out faster and faster, "your lieutenant will look out for you, and I will, too. You would not believe some of the fuck-ups I've helped the Feds cover up, so you say the word, I'll call in some favors, buy you a 'Get-Out-of-Vegas-Free' card."
Armando stood up and straightened his tie. "You've got no idea what you're talking about. You read those files on the Iguano crime family. Drugs, gambling, prostitution, chop shops, guns, arson, murder-for-hire; they've got their fingers in every bloody pie in the American southwest. That shipping container full of dead Chinese girls they found off the coast of LA? Just another entry in Langoustini's books. I can bring them down. Just me. Nobody else. And it's not like I can stay here. Fraser's … I just can't. I've got my reasons. So I am doing this."
Ray had stepped back against the refrigerator. "Fine," he said with an angry shrug. "You want to go under, you do it. But think about it. Think," he said, pointing two fingers at the photos and sheets spread over the kitchen table, "about that."
Ray grabbed up a random take-out container and a fork off the counter and headed into the living room. He turned around in the doorway. "Because you seem like a good guy, a good cop. And, trust me, you do not want to go down this rabbit hole." Ray walked out.
Armando put the food away in the refrigerator. He sat down at the kitchen table and ran a careful finger over each of the photos.
Three days to Vegas
Armando sat hollow-eyed in his armchair early the next morning, a mug of coffee on the side table, rereading the contents of the new folder. Ray walked into the room, wearing just a plain white t-shirt worn down to nothing and a pair of old jeans. He leaned against the doorframe.
"Still here?" Ray challenged.
"Looks like it," Armando answered, standing up, letting the folder fall to the floor.
"Well, the good news is that Langoustini isn't a repeat customer. He likes a new guy every time, so you don't have to fuck like Langoustini. You just have to fuck," Ray, said, a nasty edge to his voice. "Ever been with a guy?"
"No!" Armando's voice was almost outraged, but didn't quite pull it off.
"Huh." Ray stepped closer, just outside of arm's reach. "So what makes you think you can do this? You got some little part in there that's up for it?"
Armando shrugged, clearly uncomfortable.
"Ever gotten a chubby in the locker room? Ever found yourself watching the swinging dicks more than the big tits in a porno?" Ray's voice turned soft, suggestive, intimate as fingernails on skin. "Ever woken up from a dream about that gorgeous partner of yours hard enough to pound nails?"
"Shut the fuck up." Armando muttered, staring at the carpet.
A strange look flickered over Ray's face and was gone. "Yeah, that's what I thought. So, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna see if you can actually get off with a guy."
Armando shook his head. "What about your Stella?" he asked, face flushed.
"Hasn't been mine for a while now," Ray answered with teeth bared. "If you can do this, fine, it's good prep for the job. You can't, or you don't want to try, I walk out that door and tell the Feds that, in my professional opinion, you are not capable of fulfilling the requirements of this assignment."
"Is that a threat?" Armando snarled, finally looking Ray in the face.
Ray laughed at him. "No, that was a fucking generous offer. Now, you're in luck, Armando. You don't have to buy me dinner, and I don't expect a cuddle afterwards."
Ray dropped to his knees. Hand on Armando's belt buckle, he paused and looked up. Armando stared down at him. His right hand tightened into a fist. Ray watched the movement, smirked, and tilted his head a little in a clear dare. Armando's hand slowly relaxed. He looked straight ahead, almost at attention, and didn't say a word.
Ray shrugged, unbuckled, unbuttoned, and unzipped Armando's trousers. He pulled gray briefs down over a cock that was already straining towards him. Armando shivered.
"If you close your eyes," Ray said, "you can picture whoever you want sucking your dick." Then he leaned forward and took the head of Armando's cock in his mouth.
Armando closed his eyes and rested his hands on Ray's shoulders. It was silent except for his harsh breathing overlaid with the soft, wet sounds of a blowjob. It wasn't long before Armando jerked, one quiet moan that might have started with a 'B' escaping his mouth before he bit his lip hard enough to draw blood.
Ray spat into his left hand and stood up, heading for the bathroom, leaving Armando swaying, pants around his ankles. A quiet voice stopped Ray just as he reached the threshold.
"I don't even know your name."
"I told you," Ray said, not turning around, "it's Ray." He pushed the door open, walked into the bathroom, and locked the door behind him.
Two days to Vegas
Armando was naked on the bed; face down, ass up, on the white sheets. Ray was kneeling behind him with just a t-shirt on, the back and the area under the arms wet through with his sweat. An open bottle of lube and a string of condoms lay on the bed next to them. Ray had two fingers buried in Armando's ass.
"You've got to relax, okay? Just relax, I'll make it good for you, I swear." Ray probed deeper. Armando flinched. "That feels good, right?"
Ray's right hand moved smoothly in and out as his left moved soothingly along Armando's back. "You're doing great. You can do this, you can do anything. Anything you want to, anything you need to."
Ray drizzled more lube over his right hand. "Three fingers now."
Armando's hands clenched, white-knuckled, on the sheets.
"Fuck, don't hold your breath! Come on."
Armando took one deep, shuddering breath, and then another.
"Okay, that's better. That's good."
Ray withdrew his hand and tried to open a condom packet. The lube made his hand too slippery; he had to use his teeth. He tried to put on the condom, but his cock was barely at half-mast. Ray looked down at the shivering, vulnerable man kneeling in front of him and shook his head.
"Just a second, Armando, I'm putting a condom on." He closed his eyes, grabbed onto his own dick, pumped a few times until he was hard, and then rolled the condom over his erection.
Ray paused with his dick nudging the entrance to Armando's body. "You can tell me to stop. Tell me, and you can go back to your nice family, and your nice neighborhood, and your nice partner. You'll never have to see me again. Just tell me to stop!"
Armando reached out, pulled a pillow to him, and buried his face in it.
Ray cracked his neck, took a deep breath, and pushed inside. Armando's body went rigid, every muscle in revolt against the intrusion.
"Shit," Ray hissed. "This is gonna hurt like fuck unless you relax." He smacked Armando's ass. The sound echoed loudly in the room.
Armando jerked away. Then his muscles loosened as a red handprint appeared on his skin.
Ray pulled out, thrust back in an inch further. "Yeah, okay," he panted, "this'll work." He moved back and forth until he was pressed deep inside. Ray rested his sweaty face against Armando's back and reached around for his dick. There wasn't much there; Armando was flaccid.
"Fuck. Okay, I'm going for it." Ray reared up on his knees and began to move, thrusting hard.
"Christ, you feel amazing, Armando. So hot and fucking tight. Just feel me. Let go and feel me moving inside you. Feel me brushing against that spot that feels so good. I'm hitting it every time, aren't I? Yeah."
Ray collapsed forward over Armando, grasping for his dick, which was swelling to a full erection. "I'm gonna jerk you off while I'm inside you. And you're gonna love it. You are, 'cause you have to. You have to, so you will. It doesn't matter who's fucking you. All that matters is that it feels good."
Armando was sweating, gasping, the sound muffled by the pillow.
Ray's hand stripped Armando's cock as he plunged inside his body. He licked his lips, spoke in a hoarse voice. "You can make those rent boys do anything you want, you know. Make them suck you, let them fuck you, fuck them, hurt them. Nobody's gonna say no to you, Armando, they wouldn't dare, you can do whatever the fuck you want."
Armando was moving underneath him now, pushing forward into his hand, back to meet his thrusts. "Ugh," Ray groaned. "Yeah, just like that. Feels great, right? So you move however you want, make it good. You see something you want, you take it. You want to come, right? Right? So do it. Do it. Do it!"
Armando shuddered, keening into the pillow, semen pulsing onto the sheets as he fell onto the bed. Ray drove into him two, three more times, coming with a snarled, "Fuck!"
Armando heaved him off, got up, and left the bedroom.
Ray carefully removed the condom and dropped it into the trash. Then he stood up and pulled his t-shirt over his head, wiped himself off with it, balled up the shirt, and tossed it into the far corner of the room. He remade the bed and lay down, avoiding the sticky patch of semen in the middle. When his head touched the pillow, he jerked up into a sitting position. The pillow was soaked. He turned it over, lay down on his back, and stared up at the ceiling for the rest of the night.
One day to Vegas
Armando sat at the breakfast table drinking coffee and finishing off an omelet. He looked calm and collected. Ray watched him from the corner. There were lines around Ray's mouth and his hair was matted down in the back. The clock ticked over to eight a.m. Armando stood up from the kitchen table and walked to the door.
Ray barred the way and broke the long silence. "You don't need to worry about anything back here in Chicago, okay? I'll look after your family, watch your partner's back." Ray held his hand out to Armando.
Armando took the offered hand and then slammed Ray up against the wall next to the door, left arm against his throat, bodies pressed together. Cold green eyes met startled blue ones.
"If you touch the Mountie. If you tell him anything. I will find you, I will shove my gun in that pretty mouth of yours, and I will pull the trigger. Capisci, Ray?"
The door opened. Armando walked out without a backward glance.
"Not bad!" Ray called after him as the Bookman disappeared into the bright sunlight outside.
The door closed. Ray closed his eyes and threw his head back hard against the wall, just once. Then he slid down the wall until he was slumped on the floor, knees hugged tight against his body.
Rating: NC-17
Length: 4000 words
Warnings: Very dark. Language, violence, dubcon.
Disclaimer: due South belongs to Alliance/Atlantis.
Notes: I'd like to give a shout-out to Team Angst for this one. I first got the idea in a brainstorming session with aerye. spuffyduds beta'd it, despite her comment afterwards of, "I need to take a shower now. Possibly with bleach and Brillo pads." nos4a2no9 beta'd this story twice, and that woman could take a guided tour through the nine circles of hell, and at the end offer some constructive criticism on how to make all just a little more painful.
Dedicated to: slidellra, the Team Romance Captain, who apparently needed a little noncon after her time in the pink glitter trenches, and wasn't sure if due South could provide it. Here you go, mon ami!
Summary: In the summer of 1996, two CPD detectives meet for the first time in a safe house on the outskirts of Chicago.
Seven days to Vegas
Fluorescent lights glared down on yellow linoleum and dingy white kitchen cupboards. A blond stubbled man wearing an old Cubs sweatshirt sat at the kitchen table. He smoked a cigarette and played solitaire, sleeves pushed up to his elbows.
At the sound of a key in the lock, his head jerked towards the door, where thick curtains obstructed the outside world. The door opened.
A tall, olive-complexioned man with thinning black hair and a well-cut suit entered the room. He had the tense, slightly frantic appearance of someone who doesn't like surprises, and is expecting a nasty one. The door closed behind him. There was a snick as the lock clicked to.
The two men looked at each other. The silence was awkward. After a few moments the mutual stare became challenging, almost threatening. The dark-haired man's hand ghosted towards his hip.
"Langoustini carries at the small of his back," the blond said, breaking the stare as he collected his playing cards into a pile.
The man wiped his right palm down the pleats of his trousers. "And just who are you supposed to be?"
"Me? I'm Ray Vecchio," the blond replied. "And seeing as were gonna be pals, I'll call you Armando."
Armando shook his head in disgust. "You have got to be kidding me. A blond?"
Ray saluted with his cigarette.
"What, they couldn't find a detective anywhere in Chicago that looked even remotely like a Vecchio?"
"Oh, they could. Had DeGrassi from the 15th all lined up to take the job. But it seems your lieutenant really wants you back at the end of this. He pulled some strings, got the CPD's most experienced undercover officer assigned to the gig."
"You?" Armando sounded insultingly skeptical.
"Me," Ray said matter-of-factly. "Far as the Feds know, you're spending this week teaching me how to be Ray Vecchio. When really, I'm here to give you a crash course in how not to be." Ray kicked the kitchen chair opposite him out a bit, inviting Armando to sit down.
Armando stood with his back to the door. "Well, here's a little tidbit to kick off the share time. Ray Vecchio doesn't smoke."
Ray took a final, luxurious drag and then let the smoke trickle out of his nose. "Yeah, that's why I'm quitting," he said, holding the cigarette out, filter-first, to Armando. "You want to start?"
"Langoustini doesn't smoke, either."
"True. Too bad, though. Breaking a habit or starting one is a good way to crawl into your guy's skin." He flicked the cigarette butt. It flew through the air, tip glowing orange, and landed in the sink. "Have a seat."
Armando stepped up to the chair and hesitated. "One question."
"Shoot."
"What exactly did you do undercover that qualifies you to teach me to be Armando Langoustini?"
Ray glanced down at the table for a moment. He shook his head in a tight 'no', and then looked back up. "Tell you what, Armando. Once you get through to the other side of this, if you still want to ask that question, I'll answer it."
"Fair enough," Armando said as he sat down.
Six days to Vegas
The TV was muted down to a murmur. Ray sat on the edge of the brown plaid couch, captivated by the flickering images on the screen. Armando was in a black leather armchair, reading the New York Times section by section. He had taken his shoes off, stocking feet buried in the dark shag carpet. Armando reached absently for a glass on the side table, sipped, and grimaced.
"This stuff is terrible," he said. "The Arts section next?"
"Right," Ray replied, eyes not leaving the television. "You always skip the rest of the News. And I don't think the buttermilk's supposed to taste good, it just settles your stomach so you can sleep."
Armando traded the paper in his lap for one on the floor. Pages rustled. He snorted a little laugh.
"What?" Ray asked, his body slowly turning as he tried to force the ball on the screen to stay in.
"This name, Billy Bob Thornton. Reminds me of a case where we had to go undercover as used car salesmen." Armando's voice was warm as he launched into the story. "And Fraser, he couldn't …" He trailed off, folded the paper back together, and laid it on the floor.
Ray groped for the remote, turned off the TV, and slid sideways on the couch to face Armando. "Yeah?"
"They won't let me call my partner."
"Who? The Feds?"
"That's right. Fraser's up in Canada for the month, running some training camp for little Mounties. They won't even let me say goodbye."
Ray tilted his head and watched Armando closely. "Huh. You think he might try to stop you from going, if he knew?"
"Fraser? No. I think … I think maybe he'll be proud of me. He's all about doing your duty."
"Sure, but deep undercover isn't anybody's duty. You've got to be a special kind of crazy," Ray said.
"Oh, Benny's all kinds of crazy," Armando said with affection. The humor slipped from his voice. "And me, I figure I'm just crazy enough."
"Well, you'll have a few hours once you get out of here, before they pack you onto a plane, right?" Ray asked.
Armando shrugged. "Yeah, I'll be checking in with the lieutenant."
"So call your partner. It's not like they can stop you. But, once you're under, you can't contact him."
"This, I know."
Ray drew his legs up onto the couch. "Yeah, but you'll want to, right? Some bad day, some night when you've had to do something so fucked up you don't even know who you are anymore, you'll want to. This one time, I thought I couldn't take another breath if I didn't hear Stella's voice."
Armando gazed steadily across the room. "What'd you do?"
"I was stuck in the car all night with this psycho skinhead. By morning, I had a clear picture in my head of what he would do to her if he ever found out. That pretty much killed the urge."
Ray took a deep breath and threw himself off the couch. "I'm gonna turn in. See you tomorrow."
Armando watched Ray disappear into his bedroom, a troubled expression on his face. He picked up his glass and drank every last drop of buttermilk.
Five days to Vegas
Two men sat at a table littered with the remains of some sandwiches and a few dozen files.
"This one, here," said Ray, pulling a file out from the bottom of a stack. "December 14 1990. Langoustini orders his steak well done. The waiter delivers it rare. Langoustini finishes his meal, and then has his boys bring the kid down to the basement and hold him while the man works him over. Doesn't order it done - he takes care of it personally." He slid a photo across the table. "Broken nose, bruised ribs, three broken fingers, 47 stitches."
Armando looked down at the barely recognizable face of the victim, and then tried to hand it back. "Yeah, I've seen it. Look, I grew up with someone a little like this. He's just another mobbed-up sociopath."
Ray looked at the picture in Armando's hand. "I don't think so. Langoustini didn't do this for kicks. He hurts people because it's good for business, or to make a point. He beat the crap out of that kid to teach him some respect."
Armando half-shrugged. "I don't really care why he does it. The Bookman has a reputation for unprovoked violence, so that's how I'll play him."
Ray jumped up, paced to the far wall and back. "No," he said. "If you were just going in for a few days, sure, you could play Langoustini. But this is long-term. Langoustini's boys, his associates, his enemies," he said, throwing open folders and spraying mug shots across the table, "these are some nasty motherfuckers. You walk in there pretending, like a sheep in wolf's clothing, and they will know. They will see it in your eyes."
Ray squatted down next to Armando, body tight, one hand on his shoulder. "There is only one way this can work. Only one. You've got to look inside, find that little piece of you that's like Langoustini. Then you feed it, let it out, put it in charge. And the rest of you just … just goes away until you're done."
Armando shoved Ray's hand away and stood up. "There is no piece of me that's like Langoustini," he said coldly, clearing glasses and plates off the table.
Ray stood up, squinted at Armando, and lunged at his back. He shoved Armando, hard, face-first into the kitchen cupboard. Glass shattered. Armando swung around, a broken glass in his right hand slashing in a vicious arc towards Ray's stomach. Ray danced out of strike range and slowly backed away to the far side of the room. He grinned unpleasantly.
"Everybody's got a little Langoustini in them. If it takes somebody trying to kill you to bring it out, don't worry. In five days, you'll be surrounded by people who'd kill you in a second if they knew."
Four days to Vegas
At exactly six p.m., the outside door opened. Ray took the box that was handed to him and passed it to Armando as the door was closed and locked from the outside.
"Smells like Chinese again," Ray commented.
Armando sighed. "We've got to get some groceries in here, so we can cook some real food." He placed the box on the table and started laying take-out cartons on the table. Along the side of the box he found the New York Times and a single, slim manila folder.
Ray was getting plates and glasses out of the cupboards to set the table when he heard a strange noise. He turned to find Armando choking on laughter, almost hysterical, as he stared down at the folder in his hands.
"Something funny?" Ray asked.
I took Armando a few moments to stop, as he scrubbed at his mouth with the back of his hand. "Yeah." A few more sniggers. "New intel from the Feds. Turns out that the Bookman likes boys."
Ray froze. "Little boys?" he asked cautiously.
"No, judging by these pictures, I'd say he likes big boys." There was a tinge of desperate hilarity to Armando's voice.
"All right," Ray said in calm, professional tones while his fingers twisted in his belt loop, "let's go through the file, see what's what."
Ray cleared the food off the table to the counter and shoved the box out of the way. Armando laid a dozen photos of rough but attractive blond young men out on the table and sat down to read the closely typed pages of surveillance reports. Ray pulled a chair around the table and sat next to Armando. For a few minutes there was nothing but the sound of turning pages.
"Well," Armando said, high-pitched and fast, after turning over the final page, "if the Bookman's been keeping it a secret, I can avoid the whole thing -"
"No." Ray cut him off. "This is a 'secret'," he said, fingers making quotation marks in the air, "that even the Feds know. Everyone close to Langoustini knows this. His staff, his associates, probably his enemies, he's just too scary for them to move on it. And it's not like the thing with the showgirls, that was off and on. This, this is a pattern. Every Monday night. Every week. It's been going on since they started surveillance, and it just took the suits until now to figure out why Langoustini's driver was picking up rent-boys once a week."
Armando buried his head in his hands. Ray stood up and started pacing around the room.
"They cannot do this," Ray said. "They can't spring this on you four days before you go under. So you just tell 'em that you're out. Okay?"
Armando spoke from inside the shelter of his hands. "I'm not backing out."
"Why not? This is the perfect excuse; fuck, this is a real reason why you cannot do this thing."
"I just … I've got to do this."
Ray spun around to look at Armando slumped in his chair. "Have the Feds got something on you? They do, don't they!"
Armando looked up, a faint, bitter smile on his face.
"Look," Ray continued, eyes flashing, his words spinning out faster and faster, "your lieutenant will look out for you, and I will, too. You would not believe some of the fuck-ups I've helped the Feds cover up, so you say the word, I'll call in some favors, buy you a 'Get-Out-of-Vegas-Free' card."
Armando stood up and straightened his tie. "You've got no idea what you're talking about. You read those files on the Iguano crime family. Drugs, gambling, prostitution, chop shops, guns, arson, murder-for-hire; they've got their fingers in every bloody pie in the American southwest. That shipping container full of dead Chinese girls they found off the coast of LA? Just another entry in Langoustini's books. I can bring them down. Just me. Nobody else. And it's not like I can stay here. Fraser's … I just can't. I've got my reasons. So I am doing this."
Ray had stepped back against the refrigerator. "Fine," he said with an angry shrug. "You want to go under, you do it. But think about it. Think," he said, pointing two fingers at the photos and sheets spread over the kitchen table, "about that."
Ray grabbed up a random take-out container and a fork off the counter and headed into the living room. He turned around in the doorway. "Because you seem like a good guy, a good cop. And, trust me, you do not want to go down this rabbit hole." Ray walked out.
Armando put the food away in the refrigerator. He sat down at the kitchen table and ran a careful finger over each of the photos.
Three days to Vegas
Armando sat hollow-eyed in his armchair early the next morning, a mug of coffee on the side table, rereading the contents of the new folder. Ray walked into the room, wearing just a plain white t-shirt worn down to nothing and a pair of old jeans. He leaned against the doorframe.
"Still here?" Ray challenged.
"Looks like it," Armando answered, standing up, letting the folder fall to the floor.
"Well, the good news is that Langoustini isn't a repeat customer. He likes a new guy every time, so you don't have to fuck like Langoustini. You just have to fuck," Ray, said, a nasty edge to his voice. "Ever been with a guy?"
"No!" Armando's voice was almost outraged, but didn't quite pull it off.
"Huh." Ray stepped closer, just outside of arm's reach. "So what makes you think you can do this? You got some little part in there that's up for it?"
Armando shrugged, clearly uncomfortable.
"Ever gotten a chubby in the locker room? Ever found yourself watching the swinging dicks more than the big tits in a porno?" Ray's voice turned soft, suggestive, intimate as fingernails on skin. "Ever woken up from a dream about that gorgeous partner of yours hard enough to pound nails?"
"Shut the fuck up." Armando muttered, staring at the carpet.
A strange look flickered over Ray's face and was gone. "Yeah, that's what I thought. So, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna see if you can actually get off with a guy."
Armando shook his head. "What about your Stella?" he asked, face flushed.
"Hasn't been mine for a while now," Ray answered with teeth bared. "If you can do this, fine, it's good prep for the job. You can't, or you don't want to try, I walk out that door and tell the Feds that, in my professional opinion, you are not capable of fulfilling the requirements of this assignment."
"Is that a threat?" Armando snarled, finally looking Ray in the face.
Ray laughed at him. "No, that was a fucking generous offer. Now, you're in luck, Armando. You don't have to buy me dinner, and I don't expect a cuddle afterwards."
Ray dropped to his knees. Hand on Armando's belt buckle, he paused and looked up. Armando stared down at him. His right hand tightened into a fist. Ray watched the movement, smirked, and tilted his head a little in a clear dare. Armando's hand slowly relaxed. He looked straight ahead, almost at attention, and didn't say a word.
Ray shrugged, unbuckled, unbuttoned, and unzipped Armando's trousers. He pulled gray briefs down over a cock that was already straining towards him. Armando shivered.
"If you close your eyes," Ray said, "you can picture whoever you want sucking your dick." Then he leaned forward and took the head of Armando's cock in his mouth.
Armando closed his eyes and rested his hands on Ray's shoulders. It was silent except for his harsh breathing overlaid with the soft, wet sounds of a blowjob. It wasn't long before Armando jerked, one quiet moan that might have started with a 'B' escaping his mouth before he bit his lip hard enough to draw blood.
Ray spat into his left hand and stood up, heading for the bathroom, leaving Armando swaying, pants around his ankles. A quiet voice stopped Ray just as he reached the threshold.
"I don't even know your name."
"I told you," Ray said, not turning around, "it's Ray." He pushed the door open, walked into the bathroom, and locked the door behind him.
Two days to Vegas
Armando was naked on the bed; face down, ass up, on the white sheets. Ray was kneeling behind him with just a t-shirt on, the back and the area under the arms wet through with his sweat. An open bottle of lube and a string of condoms lay on the bed next to them. Ray had two fingers buried in Armando's ass.
"You've got to relax, okay? Just relax, I'll make it good for you, I swear." Ray probed deeper. Armando flinched. "That feels good, right?"
Ray's right hand moved smoothly in and out as his left moved soothingly along Armando's back. "You're doing great. You can do this, you can do anything. Anything you want to, anything you need to."
Ray drizzled more lube over his right hand. "Three fingers now."
Armando's hands clenched, white-knuckled, on the sheets.
"Fuck, don't hold your breath! Come on."
Armando took one deep, shuddering breath, and then another.
"Okay, that's better. That's good."
Ray withdrew his hand and tried to open a condom packet. The lube made his hand too slippery; he had to use his teeth. He tried to put on the condom, but his cock was barely at half-mast. Ray looked down at the shivering, vulnerable man kneeling in front of him and shook his head.
"Just a second, Armando, I'm putting a condom on." He closed his eyes, grabbed onto his own dick, pumped a few times until he was hard, and then rolled the condom over his erection.
Ray paused with his dick nudging the entrance to Armando's body. "You can tell me to stop. Tell me, and you can go back to your nice family, and your nice neighborhood, and your nice partner. You'll never have to see me again. Just tell me to stop!"
Armando reached out, pulled a pillow to him, and buried his face in it.
Ray cracked his neck, took a deep breath, and pushed inside. Armando's body went rigid, every muscle in revolt against the intrusion.
"Shit," Ray hissed. "This is gonna hurt like fuck unless you relax." He smacked Armando's ass. The sound echoed loudly in the room.
Armando jerked away. Then his muscles loosened as a red handprint appeared on his skin.
Ray pulled out, thrust back in an inch further. "Yeah, okay," he panted, "this'll work." He moved back and forth until he was pressed deep inside. Ray rested his sweaty face against Armando's back and reached around for his dick. There wasn't much there; Armando was flaccid.
"Fuck. Okay, I'm going for it." Ray reared up on his knees and began to move, thrusting hard.
"Christ, you feel amazing, Armando. So hot and fucking tight. Just feel me. Let go and feel me moving inside you. Feel me brushing against that spot that feels so good. I'm hitting it every time, aren't I? Yeah."
Ray collapsed forward over Armando, grasping for his dick, which was swelling to a full erection. "I'm gonna jerk you off while I'm inside you. And you're gonna love it. You are, 'cause you have to. You have to, so you will. It doesn't matter who's fucking you. All that matters is that it feels good."
Armando was sweating, gasping, the sound muffled by the pillow.
Ray's hand stripped Armando's cock as he plunged inside his body. He licked his lips, spoke in a hoarse voice. "You can make those rent boys do anything you want, you know. Make them suck you, let them fuck you, fuck them, hurt them. Nobody's gonna say no to you, Armando, they wouldn't dare, you can do whatever the fuck you want."
Armando was moving underneath him now, pushing forward into his hand, back to meet his thrusts. "Ugh," Ray groaned. "Yeah, just like that. Feels great, right? So you move however you want, make it good. You see something you want, you take it. You want to come, right? Right? So do it. Do it. Do it!"
Armando shuddered, keening into the pillow, semen pulsing onto the sheets as he fell onto the bed. Ray drove into him two, three more times, coming with a snarled, "Fuck!"
Armando heaved him off, got up, and left the bedroom.
Ray carefully removed the condom and dropped it into the trash. Then he stood up and pulled his t-shirt over his head, wiped himself off with it, balled up the shirt, and tossed it into the far corner of the room. He remade the bed and lay down, avoiding the sticky patch of semen in the middle. When his head touched the pillow, he jerked up into a sitting position. The pillow was soaked. He turned it over, lay down on his back, and stared up at the ceiling for the rest of the night.
One day to Vegas
Armando sat at the breakfast table drinking coffee and finishing off an omelet. He looked calm and collected. Ray watched him from the corner. There were lines around Ray's mouth and his hair was matted down in the back. The clock ticked over to eight a.m. Armando stood up from the kitchen table and walked to the door.
Ray barred the way and broke the long silence. "You don't need to worry about anything back here in Chicago, okay? I'll look after your family, watch your partner's back." Ray held his hand out to Armando.
Armando took the offered hand and then slammed Ray up against the wall next to the door, left arm against his throat, bodies pressed together. Cold green eyes met startled blue ones.
"If you touch the Mountie. If you tell him anything. I will find you, I will shove my gun in that pretty mouth of yours, and I will pull the trigger. Capisci, Ray?"
The door opened. Armando walked out without a backward glance.
"Not bad!" Ray called after him as the Bookman disappeared into the bright sunlight outside.
The door closed. Ray closed his eyes and threw his head back hard against the wall, just once. Then he slid down the wall until he was slumped on the floor, knees hugged tight against his body.