Diversion 2 - Collusion (6 page)

Normally, between field assignments Lucky utilized the department’s “Wheel of IP Addresses” program to contact Internet companies offering prescription meds without a prescription. He’d make the buy and have the goods analyzed. If they turned out to be valid, the seller faced charges for dispensing drugs unlawfully, and usually without a license. Fake drugs piled on counterfeiting charges as well. Illegal imports carried international ramifications.

Checking with government agencies for current licenses came next. Saps who’d tried to rip the public off wound up out of business—a task as soothing to Lucky’s nerves as popping bubble wrap, and far less annoying for his cube mate. But for every illegal Internet pharmacy taken down, two more cropped up, a neverending cycle. And job security.

Today, with one case following closely on the heels of another, Lucky surfed the Internet, not for Viagra ads, but for information on the life-saving drugs no one seemed able to find. Three main manufacturers, one closed due to process violations caught in a random FDA audit, another in the middle of major renovations, and the third struggling to keep up with increased demand from the other two’s customers. A shipment of raw materials held in customs. A warehouse fire. Contamination found in a batch of bottles. No damned wonder the US found itself in the middle of the worst drug shortage in decades.

Lucky printed out a listing of unavailable drugs for later use. A forceful sigh called his attention to Bo, doing research at the next desk.

“It isn’t.” Damn, the showdown he’d hoped to avoid.
“Oh? Do you expect me to believe Walter, who has access to
your personnel files, got the date wrong?”
“Yup.”
Bo kicked his bristling down a notch. “Then when is your
birthday?”
Lucky turned his full attention to his partner and braced for a
fight. “Yesterday.”
“Yesterday? You mean, you let me come over and didn’t
bother to tell me it was your birthday?”
Why did people have to make such a big fucking deal about
birthdays?“What difference does it make? You came over, right?” “What difference does it make?” Bo repeated Lucky’s words,
three octaves higher. “What if I’d wanted to take you out? Buy you
a gift? Get you a cake?”
Lucky snorted. “It’s no big deal. It’s just another day on the
calendar.” He strained his ears. Was Walter calling him? At the
moment, he’d even accept a distraction from Keith.
“We’ve been dating since before Thanksgiving. Don’t I
deserve to know these things?” The anger fled Bo’s face.
Dating?
“We’re not dating.” Lucky’d rather deal with anger
than have a kicked puppy peering up at him from beneath a fringe
of sootblack lashes. Anger didn’t trigger guilt. “We’re…we’re
seeing
each other,” he amended.
Bo leaned back in his chair, arms folded across his chest. “And do you mind keeping your voice down?” Lucky thanked
the gods of ornery behavior for having a desk located outside of
hearing range of the nearest other cube. His anti-social ways had
earned him banishment years ago to the far side of the supply
room, separated from the rest of the department by a bank of
industrial-sized file cabinets. The best cube in the house. No way
in hell did he want busybodies underfoot, prying into his social
life.
Spying the envelope on Bo’s desk, Lucky turned the tables.
“How about this, Mr. William Patrick Schollenberger III? Don’t
you reckon you shoulda told me your name? I’m not in the habit of
sleeping with strangers.” Lucky shut up before Bo called him on
the lie. Of course, preBo fucks shouldn’t count.
Bo emitted a snort. “I thought you did.”
Damn, Lucky should’ve used that answer for the birthday
question.
“It’s not like I’ve hidden anything from you,” Bo argued. “If
you ever spent time at my apartment, you would’ve noticed my
mail by now, and even an embossed family Bible with my name on
the cover.”
Not the “apartment” thing again! Lucky opened his mouth,
ready to make the usual denials. Bo cut him off. “Which brings me
to my next point. You don’t seem to have a problem being together
as long as no one finds out and it’s at your house.”
“What we do outside of work is nobody’s damned business but
ours, and I’m comfortable at my place. Don’t you like it?” Bo produced a half snort, half sigh, the kind of noise Charlotte
referred to as “long-suffering.” “Your house is a pig sty, Lucky. I
can barely walk from one room to the next without tripping. Me
coming over requires a trip to the grocery store, ’cause you never
keep food on hand. And don’t flatter yourself that I haven’t figured
out why you bought the store out of mushrooms last night. It’s so
I’d cook them and you’d keep the leftovers.” He dropped his voice
to hiss, “Damn it, Lucky, I’m your lover, not your maid.” Visions of steamy sex, following an actual meal this time,
began to fade. “Come over, tonight. We’ll talk about it.” “No, if I come over, we’ll fuck, we won’t talk.”
Sounded like a plan. “And you don’t like fucking because?” “Am I just a fuck to you? And a cook? Is that all I am?” “No! You’re an
incredible
fuck!” Lucky’s intended joke
missed the target.
Redness crept up from Bo’s collar. He glared at Lucky, chest
swelling with each breath, and in a voice so low Lucky strained to
hear, muttered, “Sorry, but I have other plans tonight.” He stood,
snatched up his jacket, and headed down the hall.
“What the fuck got his knickers in a twist?” Lucky asked a
dirty coffee cup. He’d only allowed a handful of men to stick
around longer than one night, and of those, Bo alone recognized
him for who he was, warts and all, and didn’t try to change him—
unless forcing him to take better care of himself counted. Bo gave,
expecting nothing in return. In return, Lucky gave nothing. He spied Bo’s manila envelope containing a new identity,
apartment keys, and other pertinent information lying on the desk,
along with the letter addressed to William Patrick Schollenberger
III. Well, the nice thing to do would be to remind him he’d left
them, right? Wait a minute, though. Lucky didn’t do nice. Was Bo asking too much for Lucky to come over every now
and then? Lucky stared at a glass watering ball protruding from the
Christmas cactus’s soil. Sometime during the last few months, an
ornate ceramic pot had replaced the cheap plastic container that’d
come from the store. No brown marred the plant’s glossy tendrils,
no dead blooms. A plant. A damned, fucking plant, still green
when most of the cactuses it’d shared a shelf with at the nursery
probably hit the trash the moment Christmas ended, or died of
neglect shortly thereafter. Bo cherished everything, whether or not
it cherished him in return. A plant. The man cared so much for a
damned plant. How much more did he care for people? Jade gave way to rust, the tender shoots withered to blackened
husks hanging over the sides of the pot, forlorn lovers cast aside. In
Lucky’s imagination, the beautiful ornamental shuddered and died.
If Bo ever stopped caring…
Lucky took a deep breath and let it out slowly. His choices lay
before him. Go home, sulk, and hope Bo continued to water him
on occasion, or make things right.

“You look like shit, boy!” Luc ky accused his reflection. He put aside a comb in favor of a brush. A few strokes didn’t improve matters. “Now you look like better-groomed shit.” No help for it, he needed to wash his hair. Ten minutes later, he swiped away a cloud of Bo-scented fog to try again.

“You still look like you, but cleaner.” No help for it. Some people were born gorgeous, others weren’t. Lucky sure as hell hadn’t won the genetic lottery. Maybe Bo suffered from poor eyesight.

He squeezed an unfamiliar tube of toothpaste from the middle. Minty freshness exploded on his tongue the moment the brush hit his mouth. Not bad. Not bad at all. He rinsed and dropped his old fashioned toothbrush in a glass next to Bo’s battery operated model and wiped a layer of dust off a bottle of mouthwash. No, he wasn’t trying to impress Bo, not really, but it was here. He could do a taste check.

What if he’d driven the man away? Sex aside, he enjoyed the company, and quiet evenings watching TV or fixing supper. Truth be told, he wouldn’t mind those evenings happening on a more regular basis, but wasn’t yet ready for the whole live-together thing. Besides, if anyone at work found out…

Bo had been right in Florida when he’d mentioned the “no fraternization” department policy, and more than one office affair ended with both parties being fired. And while Walter didn’t tolerate his team badmouthing each other, the SNB wasn’t immune to gossip. Lucky didn’t give a rat’s ass about what folks thought of him. In fact, he didn’t like them much so why should they like him? Well, except for Walter. Lucky squeezed his eyes shut. While Bo had sneaked past Lucky’s defenses, Walter had merely chiseled patiently away, spending years wearing a hole in Lucky’s armor.

Push come to shove, technically, Bo and “Simon” were alrea dy in a relationship the day Simon Harrison joined the department. Their preexisting relationship overrode policy, in Lucky’s eyes. But how about the rest of the department’s? Or Walter’s? Or the big dogs Walter answered to? And would the receptionist’s smile turn to a sneer if she knew Bo left work in the afternoon to head over to Lucky’s and do the nasty?

He propped against the sink, opening his eyes to glare at the mirror. “You’re a free man now,” he said. “Walter can’t say a whole lot about what you doon your own time.” But he did have a say about Bo’s. Bo fell onto Walter’s team the same way Lucky did—by fucking up royally in the outside world. Lucky’d never asked how long Bo had to work off, or the probation details, because he sure as hell resented talking about his. If anyone found out they’d shared more than a house together while on assignment, the shit would hit the fan—and ricochet back on Bo.

What the hell did Bo want with Lucky anyway? Regardless of a new name and expunged criminal record, deep down inside dwelt a petty, two-bit felon, whose own family kicked him out.

Charlotte say, imagining a swat upside the head for good measure. “Yeah, yeah. I hear ya, girl.”
He stopped brooding to get dressed. Which T-shirt? The blue

or the green? Bo said the blue brought out Lucky’s eyes. Lucky put on the green. Bo might read too much into the blue. Boxers, jeans, socks, and tennis shoes completed the outfit.

He loaded up two grocery bags with las t night’s leftovers and pushed aside Starbucks cups to put them on the passenger seat of his car.
Damn, I left the envelopes at work.
Oh, well, he’d have to come up with another excuse to drop by unannounced.

Despite Bo’s jab, Lucky had been to Bo’s apartm ent—twice. Once to drop Bo off after work when Bo had taken his truck to the shop, another time to help him set up a bookcase. Lucky stayed long enough to get laid both times and left. Something about sleeping in someone else’s house gave him the creeps. Bad enough he spent nights alone in hotel rooms and rentals while working. To stay where a person lived, though, didn’t sit well. Maybe he’d never gotten over his feeling of not quite belonging when he’d lived with his rich lover, Victor, the one who’d taught Lucky the value of a hardstolen dollar. While he’d become spoiled by the kind of lifestyle Victor provided, a paid-for car, a low rent duplex, and being in control of his own life allowed him freedom and a sense of security. No one needed the power to yank the rug out from under Lucky’s feet.

He parked his car near Bo’s truck and trotted up to the door. Wouldn’t Bo be surprised? The door didn’t budge. Damn! He’d have to alert Bo anyway, to buzz him up. An elderly lady approached, leading a yappy little mutt on a leash. She swiped a keycard through the reader and Lucky opened the door, squeezing through behind her. The dog sniffed his leg but decided he wasn’t a tree or a hydrant. Smart dog.

Lucky rode the elevator, ignoring the woman’s inquisitive gaze.If she didn’t ask, he wouldn’t tell.
He got off on the second floor. A dozen doors lined the hall. A baby wailed from the first apartment, and a “A Packers’ Fan Lives Here” sign adorned the door of another. Lucky rapped knuckles against the forth and held his breath. Not a sound came from within. His heart fell. Had the guy been serious when he’d claimed earlier plans?
Looked like Bo wasn’t at home, despite his truck in the parking lot. Lucky shuffled his feet away from the door until it opened and a blearybrown eye peered through the crack. “Lucky? What’re you doing here?”
Hallelujah! Lucky sagged against the doorway. “You gonna let me in?”
“Wha…? Oh, sure.” Bo stepped back, opening the door wide. Though barefooted, he still wore his work clothes, slightly rumpled now, and his normally styled hair appeared sleep-tousled.
Lucky dropped the grocery bags to the floor and ran his fingers through the waves at the back of Bo’s head, pulling him down for a kiss. Bo’s anger seemed gone, for he returned Lucky’s greeting. “Mmm… Good to see you, too,” he exclaimed after pulling away. “But you said you weren’t coming.”
Lucky bit down on his tongue before “I intend to
come
all right” escaped. Canning the asshole remarks just once might keep Bo from saying anything more about being just a fuck. “I changed my mind.”
He locked his mouth with Bo’s once more and danced them toward the couch. Once step, two steps, three steps…What the fuck? The back of the couch shot backward and Lucky crashed to the floor, clawing at empty air. Bo landed on top of him, laughing. Lucky cracked an eye open and glared up at a brown recliner. Where was the old tan and gold sofa with the springs sticking out? “New couch, I take it,” he mumbled.
“Not brand new. I got it about a month ago.” Bo struggled to his feet and extended a hand to help disentangle Lucky from the Hell Bitch’s second cousin. “It’s only two sections, and both sides recline.” He demonstrated by plopping down on the monstrosity. Two pillows and a blanket lay on the floor. “It sleeps good,” he added, “and will be nice and comfy for us to lay back and watch TV.”
That’s right, Bo hated sleeping alone and preferred couch to bed if Lucky weren’t there. How many nights could he have been here, both of them sleeping better, if he weren’t so doggone hardheaded?
“It’s real nice, Bo. Or should I say, ‘William.’” Bo’s smile vanished. Damn it, why did Lucky always have to put his foot in his mouth when things were otherwise going great?
“William’s my dad. I’m Bo.”
Bo’s dad. The no account asshole who’d tied Bo to a headboard and gone out drinking, leaving his son convinced the house was burning down around him, and too traumatized to sleep in a bed alone afterward. Not to mention backhanding the kid every chance the bastard got. While Lucky wasn’t much on meeting family, he’d sure like some time alone with Bo’s dad. In his travels for Victor, he’d explored some wide-open spaces where he’d driven for miles without running across a single house. They’d never find the body.
And Richmond Lucklighter, Simon Harrison, Marvin Barkenhagan, Reginald Picklesimer—yeah Lucky could relate to hating a name. “I can’t say that I blame you. I bet you didn’t learn to spell your name until, what? The tenth grade?”
Lucky half-hearted attempt at a joke brought a chuckle and a hint of smile back to Bo’s face. “What’s in the bags?” He gestured to the two sacks sitting inside the door. “You bring dinner, or you moving in?”
Crap. Lucky hadn’t even packed a change of clothes. Bo must think he planned to fuck and run. “I just put these on. If you suddenly decide to lock the door and not let me leave tonight, I can wear ’em again in the morning.”
“Look, Lucky. About that—”
Not good. This early on a Friday night left plenty of time to get up to mischief. Maybe Bo hadn’t been lying about having other plans.
“I’m sorry about what I said. You’ve been a private person from day one. You’ve got your issues, I’ve got mine. However…” Bo paused, drawing in a deep breath before pushing on. “We’ve been seeing each other six months, and I don’t know you any better now than I did when we shared a house in Florida for work. Don’t you find that odd?”
“Four months,” Lucky murmured. He perused the apartment, noticing the little touches added since his last visit. The bookcase he’d helped assemble held a variety of books and sculptures, mostly of dragons and gargoyles, perfectly aligned with talons and toes all facing forward. Bo had a fantasy fetish?
“What?”
“Four months, if you take two off for me being an asshole and playing dead. And if you deduct the time we spent apart working separately out of town, three months.” Lucky scoped out the rest of the living room. Nothing out of place but a pillow, a blanket, and maybe Lucky.
“Yeah. Okay, we’ve seen each other for
three
months. But even at three months, haven’t I earned the right to take you out for your birthday? Damn it, Lucky! Cut me some slack here.”
Actually, Lucky didn’t find anything odd about
not
flopping down on a couch and confessing his life history. Victor had certainly never asked a lot of questions. Of course, Victor had ways of finding out without asking. Lucky recalled coming home one day to cake, a brand new Mustang, and plans for a weekend in Vegas, Victor’s gifts to him, back before Lucky swore off birthdays. He never bothered to wonder how Victor found out the date or what he wanted. Victor paid people for information. Bo, apparently, expected to be told directly.
“It’s not like I’m holding back on you or anything,” Lucky confessed. “I figured if you wanted to know something, you’d ask.” Or do as Lucky did and Google. And if Google didn’t cough up the answers, well, there were reasons Walter assigned Lucky to teach Bo to track suspects. Only, Bo’s sense of honor wouldn’t allow him to practice the skills without a professional reason. The “scruples” thing again.
“Back home that’s called prying,” Bo said.
“Not at my house. My folks called it ‘forewarned is forearmed.’”
Bo tilted his head to the side, the wrinkles on his forehead relaxing. “Where’s home?”
Lucky paused before answering, seeking ulterior motives for the question.
Lighten up, dude, he only wants to know where you grew up.
No harm in the truth. “Tobacco farm north of Raleigh. Mom and Dad still live there. My youngest brother’s probably still there, too.”
“You don’t talk to them?”
“They disowned me ten years ago, after I got busted.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. They’re not.” Lucky swallowed past a lump in his throat. “They were told I died last December.”
Bo’s mouth dropped open. “You let them believe you’re dead?”
“I don’t see a reason to tell them any different. Do you? Besides, I made a few enemies in my day. Knowing I’m alive and where I am would put them at risk.” Please let Bo buy the half- truth and turn a blind eye to the needles digging into Lucky at the mention of parents who wouldn’t talk to him. One phone call, with enough time to plead his case. That’s all Lucky had wanted. After the third time they’d picked up the phone and slammed it down without even saying hello, he’d learned his lesson.
Bo scooted closer. “I guess you did the right thing. But it’s gotta hurt. I mean, even after the shit my father did to me, he’s still my dad, ya know?”
Lucky shrugged off Bo’s sympathy, pretending not to care about the loss of his family. He’d gotten good at pretending. “Life hurts. I’m used to it. I still got Charlotte and her boys.”
A laugh lifted Bo’s features. “Yeah. Tough lady. Looks a lot like you.”
Lucky shot Bo a puzzled glance. How the hell did he know what Charlotte looked like? “How do you know?”
Bo gave Lucky an “Oh, please!” eye roll/scowl combination. “For one thing, you keep a picture of her on your desk whenever it’s visible beneath the clutter. And remember, I tried to find you once I figured out you weren’t dead. She ran me off with a shotgun.”
Oh yeah, Lucky’d forgotten. Sounded like Charlotte—now. Why she couldn’t bring herself to stand up to her abusive ex remained a mystery. “Sorry ’bout that,” Lucky said.
“Sorry your sister pulled a gun on me?”
“I’m sorry I left without telling you goodbye. It seemed the thing to do at the time.”
“That’s okay. I found out better.” Bo wove their fingers together and leaned farther back on the couch. He held tightly, the grip nearly painful. “My mom always said I’d go to any length to get the last word in.”
A weight gathered in Lucky’s chest. How he wished he’d handled that whole situation differently instead of leaving Bo high and dry. “For what it’s worth, I wrote you half a dozen emails. I never had the guts to send them.” Lucky winced, recalling a few beers, a computer keyboard, and a bit of unprecedented mushiness. Thank God, he’d trashed the drivel before he’d hit “send.”
“Why not?”
“Why not? Look at me. I’m a low-life ex-con not good enough for his own kin. You’re a college educated hotshot going places.”
“You forget. I’ve staggered down dark alleys, too.”
“But somehow you managed to scrape it off.” And there, in a nutshell, was the single quality that drew Lucky to Bo, the flame Lucky warmed himself by. Bo didn’t dwell. He got over the little shit and moved on. Maybe Bo could teach him how to pull that off.
“I choose to learn from the past and live in the now.”
Lucky chuckled, releasing a pentup breath. “Now that’s exactly the kind of new age crap I expect from you.”
Bo stiffened. Lucky gave him grief often enough about his free-spirited logic. “You should try it sometime.”
“Nah, that’s what I got you for. You wouldn’t want to be outta a job, would you? My own personal new age guru.” Lucky pursed his lips. “Muwhaa!”
“And dietician. Don’t forget dietician.” Bo’s lips eased back to reveal a grin.
Lucky attempted to kiss the smart-assery out of the man. A slow play of tongues, unhurried caresses, stoked the flames higher than a passionate encounter with anyone else. Who needed supper? Hell, who needed to even breathe?
Bo wasn’t finished talking. “Let me ask you this… You’re not used to being part of a couple, are you?”
Part of a couple? Even during his years with Victor Lucky hadn’t considered himself part of a couple. “I told you I lived with Victor, but we did our own thing when we weren’t together. I didn’t answer to him, ’cept about work, and he sure the hell didn’t answer to me. You?”
“I had a few boyfriends in college, nothing too serious. They were mostly frat boys out for a good time. We may have been close in age, but worlds apart otherwise. And I developed a hopeless fascination for a straight guy while in the Marines. So I guess we’re both two blind squirrels hunting a nut.”
Once more Lucky bit down on a snappy comeback involving “nut.” Intimate moments probably weren’t the right time, although he hadn’t had much experience with intimate moments. They lay in silence for a while until Bo contracted the couch. “C’mon, I’m hungry. Let’s fix dinner. We can finish the conversation in the kitchen.”
Bo’s kitchen matched the rest of his current life—tidy and organized to the point of obsession. The few canned goods Bo allowed—he usually didn’t abide tinned vegetables due to complaints of excess salt—sat neatly arranged in the pantry, labels facing out at precisely the same angle. Silverware lay tucked into compartments in a drawer, unlike Lucky’s own silverware drawer where he simply threw in spoons and forks and untangled them the next time he needed one.
While Bo prepared the marinade, Lucky cleaned and stemmed the mushrooms, scraping out the gills like he’d been shown—the reason his earlier attempts at grilling portabellas didn’t turn out like Bo’s. His still didn’t, but why cook them himself and risk less than perfect results when Bo got them right every time?
“These would have been better over charcoal last night,” Bo commented, while tossing a few veggies and some tofu cubes into a saucepan to stir-fry.
“I’ve no complaints about last night.” Nope, not a one.
“Anything else you want to ask?”
Was there? What should Lucky know about the man he slept with? Walter eliminated most of the biggest issues with a thorough background check, though only the extremely paranoid would ask about any criminal history worse than a misdemeanor, right? What kind of questions would
normal
people ask? “Where’d you grow up?” That was a normal question, wasn’t it?
“Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Now my turn. Did you have any pets when you were a kid?”
Lucky rinsed and patted the mushroom caps dry before passing them to Bo to marinate and place on the indoor grill. “I lived on a farm with plenty of animals, but you probably wouldn’t call them pets.”
“You didn’t have a dog or a cat?”
“At any given time we’d have a dozen or more barn cats hanging around, but we kids weren’t supposed to tame them.” A memory came to mind of a much younger Lucky trying to sneak a kitten into the house. His father hadn’t approved. “If you tamed ’em they’d hang out on the back steps begging a meal instead of chasing mice in the barn. Of course, Mom always kept one cat in the house as a mouser.”
“Cats, huh? You strike me more as a dog person.”
“We had those, too. We always kept a pair of Great Pyrenees to watch the goat herd, keep foxes and coyotes from picking off the kids.”
“Cool. I’ve never seen one of those before.”
“Beautiful animals, easy going most of the time, but they’d kill a fox in a heartbeat.”
Bo sighed. “I miss having pets. I’m not home enough these days to take care of one.”
“I’m sure old lady Griggs wouldn’t mind you cuddling one of her critters if you wanted.” Lucky envisioned Bo, sitting on the landlady’s porch with a lapful of cats.
Questions about school and old friends occupied their meal, and they’d moved on to early loves by dishwashing time. Bo elaborated on having fallen madly in love with the straight fellow Marine who’d broken his heart by getting married, and Lucky made it a point to avoid overanalyzing any encounters lasting longer than twentyfour hours. Not that he’d tell Bo. The past should stay in the past.
Lucky stepped up behind as Bo stood at the sink, elbow deep in soapy water. He rose up on his toes to whisper in Bo’s ear, “You like my mouth on you, don’t ya?”
Bo moaned a response.
Lucky exhaled against Bo’s ear. “And you like riding me, but what else turns you on?”
He blew another puff of warm breath across the back of Bo’s neck. Bo shivered and answered without turning around. “Why do you think I’ve been trying to get you to come here?”
Leaving the dishes half-washed in the sink, he dried his hands on a dishtowel and silently left the room. Lucky didn’t hesitate to follow down the hall to the lone bedroom.