Sixteen
Shaking Manny had been easy, far easier than Rook would have liked to admit. An overheard phone call and a reluctant refusal to join friends at a dinner gave Rook the groundwork to lay Manny a path straight out of the hotel room door.
Five minutes later, Rook was out the door himself.
“I’m not lying. I’m staying put.” Muttering to himself on the elevator got a few strange looks, especially from a silver-haired man dressed in a red tracksuit and cradling a small shivering dog of uncertain origins. He tucked himself deeper into the hoodie Dante’d left behind, covering most of the cut on his cheek. “I’m not leaving the hotel. Just that damned room. Not like I’m going to be up there wearing a metal bikini and waiting for sex.”
The dog and his human bolted as soon as the elevator hit the main floor. Rook’s last image of the pair was the canine’s ears flapping up and down as it peered back at him, its pointy muzzle smearing drool across the man’s shoulder.
“People,” Rook grumbled, walking toward the lobby.
He hadn’t been paying much attention to the hotel when they’d come in. Too tired to do anything more than lean against Dante and dig out the cards he had in his wallet, the only impression Rook had gotten of the main lobby was a huge space made up of glass, wood, and a hint of water. Seeing it again with a bit more of his senses about him, not much changed.
The hint of water turned out to be a three-story waterfall spilling down into a reflection pool, and he hadn’t recalled the scatterings of couches and chairs set up as conversation nooks throughout the long space. Waist-high black river stone curves carved the floor into smaller sections, long stands of orchids and bright green grasses providing a colorful break to the honey wood and pearl-painted walls.
And in true Los Angeles ennui, no one said a damned thing about him walking around in oversized sweats and black Converse sneakers.
After snagging an apple and a bottle of fizzy water from the concierge’s guest bar, he walked out of the hotel’s front entrance and straight into a wall of meat.
It was a familiar wall and not one Rook particularly cared for.
Big didn’t describe the man. Enormous came close, but Rook usually settled for gargantuan bordering on Godzilla.
And as usual, his temper was just as foul.
Standing a hair under seven feet, Stanley loomed over Rook, a bald block of suntanned muscle and snarl in sunglasses and a diamond earring winking from his right earlobe. As he reached for Rook, his hands blocked out what little Los Angeles sun could get around his mass. Then his fingers closed in on Rook’s arms, digging into his stitched-up wound. He gasped when his fingers went numb, and the apple went flying, hitting the stone-paved driveway in a wet splat. A second later, the bottle he’d tucked under his arm followed, bursting on the edge of a curb.
“Mr. Martin wants to see you,” the monster said, his voice pitched high, asqueaking tone at odds with his bulk. One of the valets stepped toward them, then pedaled back when the man’s snarl was turned on him. “You! Mind your own goddamn business.”
“Fuck you, Lurch.” A flash of teeth in the man’s scowl was enough for Rook to bite down on a painful yelp, and despite knowing he wouldn’t be able to break the man’s viselike grip, he struggled anyway, then regretted twisting about when a hot shock wave pierced through his shoulder. “Swear to God, if you don’t—”
“Let him go, Stanley,” Archie called out from a black town car idling in the driveway. “You’re hurting the boy.”
“Rather rip his head off,” Stanley muttered barely loud enough for Rook to hear, but he released Rook’s arm, then gave him a slight shove toward the long sedan. “Get in. He wants to talk to you.”
“Yeah, prepare to be disappointed.” Rook shook his sleeve out, twisting his arm around to get the feeling back into his fingers. “’Cause I’m not getting into that car. And you, asshole, owe me an apple.”
“Get into the car, Rook.” His grandfather gestured at his bodyguard. “Give him the keys. He’s afraid we’ll drive off with him.”
“It’s not fear if you know what someone’s going to do. It’s called awareness.” Rook caught the keys Stanley flung at his head. “Apples are inside to the right. And while you’re in there, see if you can’t find coffee for me and the old man.”
Archibald waited until Rook got into the car, then grumbled, “He’s going to kill you one day. It’s like poking a bear.”
“Yeah, as long as you’re alive, he’ll behave. Moment I get a call telling me you’ve keeled over, I’m buying a shotgun and a tank.” He shivered, suddenly grateful for the car’s warm interior, and unzipped the hoodie to get a look at his arm. Sinking down in the soft leather seat next to his grandfather, Rook pushed the fleece away from his shoulder and picked at his bandage. “Fuck, he’s dead meat if I’ve popped these stitches open.”
Blood speckled through the T-shirt he’d taken from Dante’s gym bag, and Rook gently lifted up the edge of the bandage Manny’d insisted he put on. His skin looked like a bad makeup job from an old horror flick, but from what Rook could see, his stitches held.
“Are you all right?” Archie frowned, peering at the shadowed wound on Rook’s arm. “If he hurt you—”
“You’ll fire him? I’m fine, but shit, he could be less of an asshole.” Rook snorted. “What am I saying? You like having a gorilla on tap. I’d have one too if it weren’t so damned much to feed him.”
“You’ve got your cop,” his grandfather sneered. “He hid you well enough.”
“I hid me, Archie,” Rook corrected. Spotting a tissue box on the front seat, he leaned over to pull a few out. Dabbing at the blood on his wound, he glanced over at his grandfather. “That how you found me? You had someone tailing Dante?”
“Odd. You used to call him Montoya. A lot can change in a day, can’t it?” Archibald shifted in his seat, running his fingers over the silver knob on his cane. “And no, nothing so old-fashioned as following him. I had my people tracking his credit card.”
“I paid for the room. With burners. Okay, he gave them the card to use, but it was still mine.”
“He bought a coffee and pastry at the lounge in the lobby this morning. Ah, here is the coffee.” The elderly man leaned over to hit the window switch as Stanley approached the car with two coffee cups swallowed up in his massive hands. Archibald took the cups, then passed one over to Rook. “Thank you, Stanley. If you don’t mind, Rook and I will sit here for a while and talk.”
“Hotel’s going to ask you to move this beast. You’re in the drop-off area. And I didn’t get my goddamned apple.” Rook slid the cup into a space on the console between the seats. “Seriously, why are you here?”
“I was concerned after you left the hospital, and then I get a report you were struck by a car. What did you expect me to do? Wait for someone to call and tell me you were dead?” Archie looked away, staring at the passing traffic. “I’m not used to this… worrying. Your mother I wrote off years ago. But you… I’m trying here, boy.”
They were too much alike. Rook knew it. He hated being controlled as much as his grandfather needed to control. Still, there was something darker than anger in Archibald’s expression, and when Rook brushed his fingers over his grandfather’s trembling hand, the old man blinked furiously at the dampness in his glittering eyes.
“I’ll not cry over you, damn it,” Archibald snapped. “If you’re going to leave, then leave. Or stay. Just don’t play cat-and-mouse games with me, boy. You’ll lose every time. I can—”
“You should have stopped right after the game comment, Archie,” Rook sighed. “Once you slide it into threats, it goes cattywampus, and you lose all your momentum. You’ve always got to take it a bit too far.”
Silence reigned in the car for a minute, then another, punctuated only by Archie’s noisy slurping. Rook broke the quiet first, rubbing at his injured arm as he spoke. “I was going to call you. I’ve been a bit out of it.”
“The clinic report said you were dehydrated—”
“Really, Archie?” Rook rubbed at his face. “You and me, we’ve got to get something straightened out. Actually, a bunch of things. The first being, you’ve got to get your nose out of my shit.”
“Why should I when you don’t tell me what’s going on?” Archie snarled back, any sign of the trembling old man wiped away. “I’m surprised you’ve lived as long as you have being alone. You’re a disaster looking for a place to explode, boy.”
Rook reached for the door handle. “I don’t need your help to live, old man—”
“Sure as shit needed me when you asked for a lawyer now, didn’t you?”
“And we’re back to fuck you, Archie.” He opened the door to slide out when Archie grabbed Rook’s wrist.
“Don’t. Just… don’t.” Archie tugged gently on Rook’s arm. “I’m not… good at this. Goddamn it, I don’t know what to do with you.”
“You don’t have to do anything with me, Archie,” Rook replied, dropping back into the seat and closing the door. “You just have to let me go and trust that I’ll come back. Because I’ll always come back, Arch. You just have to let me decide when.”
“And if you don’t come back? Like your mother?”
“I’d like to think I’m a better person than Beanie,” Rook quipped, getting a smile out of his grandfather’s dour mouth. “Just… don’t hold on so tight, Archie. I can’t… breathe when you do.”
“And your cop?” Archie tilted his head up, pursing his lips. “You ran to him when you needed someone. Instead of coming to me, your own flesh and blood. He hold you loose enough?”
“We’ll see, old man. For right now, yeah.” Patting his grandfather’s leg, Rook sighed again. “But that’s just for right now.”
“What do you mean you left him there alone?” Dante struggled to keep his phone tucked in between his neck and shoulder as he dug a room key out of his pocket. “Manny, he’s not—”
“I can’t believe this film won one Oscar, much less two! The Academy were idiots.”
The voice greeting Dante’s entrance wasn’t the husky charm of the man he’d picked up off a dive motel’s floor the night before. And the matching pair of odd-hued eyes glancing at him before turning back to the television certainly wasn’t what Dante expected to greet him after a long day of interviewing con artists and rescuing gray Persians.
Rook lay in a boneless sprawl across one end of the couch while his grandfather perched on the other side, his elbows sticking out on either side as he leaned on a cane. Half-empty bowls of popcorn and M&M’s had replaced the delicate swirling fish statue on the room’s coffee table, and the large screen television flickered with an old black-and-white movie Dante didn’t recognize.
“I can’t believe that woman was Glinda,” Archie groused, digging out a handful of buttery popcorn. Chewing around a mouthful, he waved at the screen. “She looked better in color.”
“That was filmed after this.” Rook gave Dante a negligent wave. “Well, this one came before Oz. There are two sequels filmed after. Without Grant, but they spliced some shots of him into the second one.”
“That all you do every day?” A tap of Archie’s cane drew Rook’s attention. “Watch movies?”
“Pays the bills,” he replied. “And before you say that you’ll pay my bills, remember the ticks you’ve got for grandchildren and how well they turned out.”
“Alex isn’t bad.” Archie made a face, nearly identical to his grandson’s, and Dante swallowed a chuckle.
“Alex also owns his own comic book store and doesn’t trot over to you every time he stubs his toe,” Rook pointed out. “Pretend I’m like Alex. Except much more of an asshole.”
“Isn’t that the truth. Montoya! In or out?” Archibald barked over the actors’ banter. “We’ve already had someone call security because we were being too loud. Said they could hear us guffawing or something. Through the walls, supposedly. What kind of shit hotel do you bring my grandson to where people can hear through the walls?”
“Lies. The walls are soundproofed. You left the door open.” Rook reached for a water bottle, and Dante saw him wince. “Fuck—”
“Turn it off. Kiss your grandfather good-bye, and time to get into a hot shower to loosen up those muscles, cuervo.” Dante strolled across the room to stand in front of the television. Turning it off, he held his hands up to the moaning complaints coming from the couch.
“He calls you tequila?” Archie stood up, leaning heavily on his cane.
Dante stepped forward to help the older man up and caught a disgusted look from both men. Rook stood, then headed to the door, slapping Dante’s ass as he went by.
“I’m old. Not dead. The day another man carries me, there’d better be a coffin around my body, boy.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to be courteous. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He stepped back, giving Archie room to get out. “And cuervo? It just means crow.”
“Because his name is Rook?” Archie gave Dante the evil eye as he toddled by. “What’s wrong with just calling him by his name? Something the matter with it?”
“Old man, stop stirring up crap.” Rook opened the door for his grandfather. “Want me to walk you down?”
“Did you just miss the part where I don’t need any help? Besides, you’re banged up to shit. Goddamned cop can’t even take care of you. Don’t know why you even want him around.” Archibald’s cane slapped the door as he reached out to squeeze Rook’s arm before he walked past.
“Because he’s got a really nice dick and knows what to do with it. I plan on seeing what his ass is like next.” Rook winked at Dante’s exasperated groan. “What? It’s not like he doesn’t know I’m gay, Montoya. Not a big surprise.”
“Jesus, the two of you—you deserve each other, I swear. Dear God.” Dante gaped. The casual, caustic banter between Rook and his grandfather was a far cry from what he and Manny had between them. “I can’t even imagine saying that to my grandpa.”
“Well, we like things honest between us, Montoya,” Archibald declared. “Call me later, brat. If I don’t hear from you by tomorrow, I’m sending Stanley after you.”
“I look forward to sending him back to you in a thousand little boxes,” Rook shot back. “I might even pee on them first. Night, old man. Tell that naked mole rat you call a bodyguard to drive safe. I’m not ready to take over yet. Give me a few months. Then he can kill you.”
Rook shut the door behind his grandfather, then turned to face Dante, a familiar cocky grin plastered on his handsome face. They stared at one another, and Dante studied the man he’d taken to bed the night before. As intimate as he’d been with Rook’s lean body, he knew little about the man inside. A few tidbits and dribbles, but other than what he’d learned investigating Rook’s crimes, Dante knew practically nothing.
And from what he could see, Rook rather liked it that way.
“Yeah, he stopped by once he found out you used your credit card downstairs,” Rook tossed off casually, walking by Dante toward the couch. He tossed the candies and popcorn into a bowl, swishing them together, then put it on the kitchen counter. “He put a tracer on you. Asshole. Told him not to do it anymore—”
Rubbing his face, Dante mumbled, “Does anyone in your family follow the law? Or should we just build a prison around the old guy’s house and call it a day?”
“Hey, I told him to cut it out.” Rook grabbed the back of the couch. “Shit, okay. That hurt.”
“Let’s get you on the bed. You can shower later. Stretch out, and I’ll bring you some meds. When was the last time you took something?” Dante slung his arm around Rook’s waist, easing under to take his weight. “Hold on, do you want—”
“Just fucking get me to the bed, ’Toya.” He hobbled forward, forcing Dante to keep up. “Sat too long. Lying down isn’t a bad thing. Meds were hours ago. Right before I kicked Manny out to go play with his friends.”
“He was supposed to stay with you.” Dante eased Rook down onto the pillows. “Don’t go anywhere—unlike the last ten times I told you that.”
The pill count in the bottle was higher than Dante would have liked, even with Rook’s distrust of a full dose. Talking to Rook was useless. Past experience told Dante he’d be in for a fight, and short of holding the man down to pill him like a cat, there wasn’t any way for Dante to get more in him.
“Could crush it up in water….” Dante glanced over his shoulder at the man lying on the bed behind him. Rook had one arm over his eyes, but his toes were kneading the air. “Speaking of cats. What are you thinking? Drug him and that’s it. He’s gone.”
Oddly enough, the thought of Rook walking out one final time left Dante unsettled. More than unsettled, disturbed. He came out of the bathroom and stared down at the mess of a man he’d fallen in with.
There was something to be said about lust. He’d slaked his thirst for men so rarely that when Rook crossed his path again, Dante was overwhelmed with the intensity of his want. Yet once wasn’t enough to slake the simmering heat inside of him, not where Rook was concerned.
Rook’s green eye peered out from under his arm, finding Dante in the room’s growing shadows. “You’re looming again.”
“I tend to do that around you for some reason. Here, sit up and take these. There’s some Tiger Balm I can put on you if you’re sore. Might be better than a shower.” Dante sat on the bed as Rook downed the pills. “So you kicked Manny out and got your grandfather here instead?”
“Nah, he was stalking me. I went outside for fresh air, and one of his goons grabbed me.” Rook sat back against the headboard, rolling his shoulder. “Literally, the fucker grabbed me. Archie hires some real assholes. And before you get all pissy, I’m okay. Mostly scared the shit out of me.”
“I don’t get….” Talking to Rook about staying in didn’t seem to be doing either of them any favors, but he was going to give it one more try. “Cuervo, someone is trying to kill you. You can’t just go take a walk outside until we figure out who the hell is doing all of this.”
“Once. Tried to kill me once. And hey, maybe they were aiming for you. You know, a vengeful admirer from afar who caught me staring at your ass.” He tried to shrug the whole thing off, but Dante caught the worry in Rook’s expression.
“I’d rather be doing other things to your body than picking up its pieces.” Dante cupped Rook’s chin, forcing him to look at his face. “Is it so hard to believe I don’t want anything to happen to you?”
“It’s kind of hard to believe someone wants me dead.” Rook let himself get manhandled for a second longer, then pulled away. “Why now? I mean, I’ve done some shitty things in the past but nothing someone would want to kill me for.”
“Dani? What did you do to her?” Dante angled closer to Rook. “Why would she be in your shop? You’ve never answered that. Not really.”
“I don’t have an answer.” Rook’s shrug was a study in minimalism, barely enough of a movement to be called a gesture. “Unless she was there to rip me off, but I don’t keep the high-ticket items there.”
“What are those?” He frowned, thinking back to what he’d seen at Potter’s Field. “Some of the things you’ve got in that place ran to the high hundreds. I know you paid stupid money for that decoder ring, but that checked out to be worthless, charity on your part. How much higher can that shit go?”
“Dude, I’ve got a few Lugosi and Karloff one-sheets that if I dropped them onto the open market would go for over three hundred thousand each. That’s just the tip of it.” Rook chuckled when Dante huffed in astonishment. “The thing is to go find stuff that’s worth something, buy as low as you can, and sell high. You’d be surprised at what people have in their attics.”
“Jesus,” Dante whispered. “What the hell can be worth that much? And who buys it?”
“Comics, cereal box toys they had to send away for… hell, even the right decoder ring can be worth thousands. My buyers are people with a lot of disposable money who like stuff from their childhood or even just a genre. Horror is big. So’s sci-fi. Fantasy’s making a comeback, though.” Rook patted Dante’s cheek. “See, I don’t do nickel-and-dime shit, Montoya. The shop’s so I can get rid of the piddly-ass crap and a nice place for me to live once I dumped a few dollars into walls and kitchen. But the good stuff’s in a warehouse in WeHo, behind a shit ton of steel, locks, and under temperature control.”
“What do you have that someone would want to kill for?” Dante got up to retrieve his notebook, needing to make notes. “Would Dani have known that? Or the Betties?”
“You talked to Pigeon, right?” Rook inched over to make room for Dante when he returned. “She’d know something about the Betties. I don’t know about Dani. They weren’t talking last I heard.”
“She gave me some background. I’ve got to tell you something. About one of the Betties.” Dante filled Rook in on the townhouse and the woman he’d found dead under the rubble. “She’d been killed at least two days before the place went up. That’s the official guestimate. Pigeon was in Chicago.”
“Jane. Who’s the other one in that pair? Madge?” Rook frowned. “Charlene. They were Charlene’s friends.”
“Charlene, who has access to your inventory,” Dante pointed out. “Would she have set you up?”
“Dude, Charlene can barely remember her bra size. She’s not exactly a criminal mastermind,” Rook snorted back. “She might have said something to one of them, but she doesn’t have access to the warehouse. I don’t think she even knows where it is. Or even if I owe it.”
“Someone else wouldn’t know that. They’d think you had that kind of stuff at your store.” The room phone rang, and Dante glanced worriedly at Rook. “Did you give anyone this number?”
“’Toya, it’s probably the front desk kicking us out. Archie was an asshole to the room service guy when he came up with the popcorn. I had to give him a fifty-dollar tip on the room charge to keep him happy.” Rook slid across the bed and grabbed the phone, groaning when he stretched. “God, this shit’s getting old. Hello?”
The blood drained from Rook’s face, and Dante caught the headset just as the phone tumbled from Rook’s hand. Grabbing at Rook before he catapulted off the bed, Dante spoke into the phone. “Hello? Can I help you?”
“Let me go, Montoya.” Rook struggled against Dante’s arm. “Fucking let me go. It’s Archie. Someone shot up his car close to the hotel. I’ve got to—”
“Sir?” A man’s voice echoed over the line, coolly professional and curt. “You’d better hurry, Mr. Stevens. Your grandfather is asking for you.”