‘Sammy? Nah, not Sammy, Mr Hughes. Ancient history, Sammy is - has been since Christmas.’ The old man rambled on, words muffled round the permanent half-mast cigarette spilling tubes of ash down his mac. Words that included ‘Colman’ and ‘new kid’ and ‘pretty boy’, but Hughes had stopped listening to the flood.
‘You sure, Paddy? It’s important.’
Important wasn’t the word. More like vital, or desperate, or his bloody career on the line, and Mackay’s too if the old guy was right. If only they’d checked with him first, instead of storming in. If only they’d played the good guys for a change.
‘Course I’m bleedin’ sure. Aren’t I telling you? You only got to go round the clubs come Friday night - soon see fer yerself.’ He removed the fag-end long enough for a noisy swig from his beer and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
‘Surprised you didn’t already know. Been common knowledge on the streets for weeks.’
And we should have known, Hughes thought. Should have known, should have checked, should have bloody thought for a change. They’d been tracking Colman for months, convinced he had a finger in every dirty pie from fraud to racketeering to full-blown organised crime. But the wily bastard was too smart for them, moving on, never leaving a trail, laundering every last tuppence through a maze of offshore accounts convoluted enough to baffle a homing pigeon with GPS. But he did have one weakness - he liked boys. Rent-boys, usually, in any shape or size as long as they were clean and pleasing to the eye - and legal, if only just.
Young Sammy had been the latest in a long unsavoury line and they’d been so intent on using him to trap his powerful friend they hadn’t stopped to check the facts. He kicked savagely at Paddy’s bar stool, slopping the old man’s pint half way to his mouth.
‘Oi! What d’you do that for? Said I’d help and I’m helping, aren’t I?’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ He didn’t have time to coddle the old soak. And Sammy had even less time than him. Not that they’d kill him, of course. But leave the kid to Mackay’s tender mercies and he’d suffer a fate worse than death. Hughes knew, none better, just what his thug of a partner was capable of. He’d been on the receiving end often enough, the only difference being that he liked it - the loss of control, the stolen sinful pleasure that bordered on pain, and the heavy body that held him down. And Mackay enjoyed it too, for all the opposite reasons. Give Mackay a body to work his brutal magic on and he’d be there with his tongue hanging out.
There was a word that described Mackay to perfection, and that word was psychopath. As young Sammy might be finding out.
He left Paddy to his spilled beer, shrugging his collar higher and pocketing his hands as he hit the rain-slicked street outside the bar. Darkness had descended and neon signs striped the sodden pavements in flickering backwards imprecations to ‘eat, sleep, breathe Coca-Cola’ or ‘see the topless girls’. Ignoring them with the ease of familiarity, he lowered his head against the rain. The car, by some minor miracle, was still intact. He wrenched open the door and was already reaching for the mobile before he remembered - he'd forgotten to charge the bloody thing. He’d have to find a pay-phone instead.
The first two he tried were vandalised to hell and back - daubed with graffiti, stained with stinking urine and with all the wires pulled free. The third still worked, but it didn’t help him much. ‘Boss is in a meeting and can’t be disturbed,’ was the laconic reply and when he asked for Mackay the same bored voice said ‘Him too.’
There was nothing else for it - he’d have to deliver the message himself. And hope to God he wasn't too late.
The hope was vain. He knew that the instant he saw the guard outside the interview-room door. Statue-still the man stood, arms folded across his chest, an immoveable barrier to whatever was happening in the room behind. And Hughes could see movement through the obscured glass of the door. Not the ugly, urgent movement of a beating, thank Christ, but that didn’t mean it was all right.
‘Okay if I go through?’ he asked, expecting to have to argue the point.
‘No problem, Mr Hughes, the boss said to let you past.’ And the policeman-plod feet shuffled aside to grant him passage.
So, he was one of the favoured few, was he? One of those hardy souls trusted to witness the real way the department worked? That was a new development - Mackay must have put in a word. He could hear the lazy voice now.
‘Yeah, Hughes is all right. One of us. Not too fussy how he gets results - saw it myself on that blackmail case.’
Most of the time, his partner was right. Up to a point. And that point had just been reached. The interview rooms were supposed to be sound-proofed but the groan still percolated right through the glass; without further thought he turned the knob and went in.
Stark fluorescent lighting and a lack of furniture left little to the imagination. In a plastic chair in the corner sat the boss, reading a file, watching over his specs and making notes, for Christ’s sake. Young Sammy, or what could be seen of him, was bent unceremoniously over a table with his pants shoved down his legs. And Mackay, with his back three-quarters turned, was plastered against the kid’s backside, ramming into the shadowed cleft between his legs, so hard the table feet were squeaking on the floor. Hughes felt a moment’s thrill at the sight and had to clamp it down. Sammy might be a cheap street-whore but he didn’t deserve this.
‘Better get off him,’ he gravelled. ‘You’ve got the wrong bloke.’
Mackay turned at that, a grin ghosting through his exertions. ‘Fucking hell, Hughes, you’ve got lousy timing.’
And was echoed by the boss. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, man. He’s an important suspect and we need to question him.’
‘Doesn’t mean treating him like dirt. Sir.’
The boss remained unimpressed. ‘You know as well as I do that we’ll use any means necessary if a suspect isn’t cooperating.’
‘Yeah, come on, mate. What the hell were we supposed to do, pat him on the head and send him on his way?’ Mackay panted, still thrusting although his pace had slowed. Hughes wasn’t sure if that was a good sign, or not.
‘Anyone thought that maybe he wasn’t cooperating because he doesn’t know anything?’ he said at last, allowing the disgust to colour his voice. ‘I already told you. He’s the wrong man.’
There was a pause as the repercussions of that sank in, and then Mackay pulled out of his victim, tidied himself away without a word, and sat with his arms and ankles crossed to await further orders. The sudden shift from arousal to patient composure unnerved Hughes. Psychopath all right.
The boss, though, was inclined to bluster. ‘Are you sure? Our information was that…’
‘Your information was wrong,’ Hughes interrupted. ‘I just finished talking to old Paddy at The Bar. He says Colman's been with a new lad since Christmas.’
‘That’s right,’ the object of their discussions piped up, one hand reaching for his pants. ‘He’s seeing Carl now. You know - that black-haired bitch what works down Bridge Street. I ‘aven’t seen Mr Colman in months. I don’t know nothing!’
‘We’ll see about that,’ the boss said, but he was fishing now. They knew, all of them, that without the link to Colman they couldn't keep Sammy here. Best let him go before he got onto some hotshot lawyer and started screaming wrongful arrest.
‘Here,’ said Hughes, handing him his sweatshirt, and they stood awkwardly, not meeting each other’s gaze, watching while the kid got dressed.
‘See that he gets home,’ said the boss, and with a jerk of his head indicated they were dismissed.
In the corridor Hughes and Mackay locked eyes. Psychopath he might be but they were still partners.
‘I’ll see to this,’ said Hughes. ‘You go and get yourself cleaned up.’
‘Yeah, thanks. Think I will.’
Slinging his jacket over one shoulder the big man strode off whistling, apparently suffering not a moment’s twinge of remorse. And Sammy? Hughes regarded the kid with his hands on his hips, not liking the sideways sneaking stare he got back. Too much triumph in that gaze by half. His hands itched to smack it off the pretty face. Just because he’d got them off his back - literally and figuratively - didn’t mean he could crow.
‘Come on,’ he said, snapping his own chain of thought. ‘Let’s get you cleaned up and all. You can come back to my place.’
‘Okay, Mr Hughes, ta very much.’
Back at his bomb-site of a flat he gave the kid free run of the bathroom. Half way through the splashing that followed, he walked in. The kid was in the shower, naked, and hadn’t drawn the curtain. Was that hurry, or the deeply ingrained urge to work no matter what? Hughes wasn’t sure, but he watched Sammy anyway, the wet young body shivering in the draught from the open door. Fetching little thing really, all eyes and hair, if a bit old for a rent boy. Must be on the wrong side of twenty by now and probably finding work hard to get - especially now Colman had left him to it.
If Colman had left him....
Holding out a towel - his excuse for barging in - he said, ‘Thought you might need this.’
‘Ta.’
The kid eyed him for a moment, and Hughes noticed the exact instant when the eyes flicked below his belt to check him out. Definitely still at work. Not that there was anything for him to see. Although there might be if he stayed here much longer, watching the water run down the kid’s back and part the twin halves of his bum like a cascade through domed rocks. It was hard to look away, especially with Sammy pouting over his shoulder like that.
‘Get yourself dry and hop it into the bedroom. I need to see if Mr Mackay hurt you,’ he growled.
Sammy grinned, seeing straight through the subterfuge like the canny street urchin he was.
‘Give us that towel, then.’ He rubbed himself down deliberately, stroking the length of each limb in turn, leaving his back to Hughes and teasing him by propping one foot at a time on the bath to dry between his toes. The move showed his arse off to perfection, as he doubtless intended it to. If the kid looked now there’d be something to see all right.
‘Bedroom,’ he said, and turned and led the way.
There was a patter of footsteps on lino as Sammy followed, and the springs of the bed dipped to his weight, and squeaked.
‘This okay?’
‘No, on your front first’ It was better when he couldn’t see the kid’s face, or the impudence – accusation even - that challenged from his eyes. It was better, too, that he couldn’t see that different cock, or the thin ribs and thinner arms and legs. From behind, most blokes looked the same: long back, knobbly spine, the powerful jut of buttocks, the single dark eye between. Concentrate on those and he’d be okay.
One thing for sure - the kid was enjoying this fuck more than the last, if the succession of grunts was to be believed. In fact, the kid was enjoying it more than he was. Business before pleasure, Hughesy old son - and this wasn’t, after all, Mackay. Wasn’t his weight, or his voice in Hughes’ ear, cajoling him on. Wasn’t his arms, corded with the strain, braced either side of his head. Wasn’t Mackay’s rough stubble catching on his chin, or Mackay’s thick-veined cock ramming him into next week. A fuck was a fuck, though, and not to be turned down. He continued to thrust until Sammy cried out.
Half-muffled by the pillow, it sounded like ‘Mack’. For a moment Hughes was baffled. Surely the kid couldn’t be crying out for Mackay after what his partner had done? Slowly, very slowly, the cogs in his brain met and meshed. Not ‘Mack’, but ‘Max’. Max Craig, Colman’s Mr Big. The top boss himself, a link in the chain so high that the air he breathed contained less oxygen than that of everyone else. Well, fucking well. No wonder Sammy had looked so triumphant. He’d taken them all for a ride.
But now the ride was over, in more ways than one. The realisation cooled Hughes’ ardour, and he couldn’t be bothered to finish the charade. Work was more important than sex, unless it was Mackay, and sometimes even then. Easing himself out of the kid’s body he rolled over, waiting for the haze of almost-pleasure to clear.
‘Oh well, if I’d known you wanted him for yourself....’
The caustic tone cut through the haze like wind on a foggy day and he tried to remember when he’d given his partner a key. Oh yeah. Christmas. He’d hoped - don’t laugh - they could make something together. So far, it hadn’t worked.
He sighed. ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’
‘Came to see if he was all right.’
‘You’re kidding.’
The faint grin vanished. ‘I’m not a complete bastard, whatever you might think.’
‘But you’ll do anything you’re told?’
‘Was only following orders.’
‘And if those orders had killed him?’
Wide shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. ‘It’s my job. Yours too. You don’t exactly pussyfoot about when it suits you.’
And that was closer to the truth than he wanted to think. Scowling, he said, ‘Maybe not, but if pussyfooting gets better results then I’ll do it. Amazing what you can get out of a bloke with a bit of kindness.’ Point made, he was quite enjoying this, enjoying turning the tables on Mackay, enjoying the knowledge that this time, his methods had worked. Any means necessary, all right.
‘Yeah?’ The blue gaze turned wary, as though his partner wasn’t sure what was coming next.
‘Yeah. He’s all yours. Take him back in if you like.’
‘What? But I thought you said Paddy said....’
‘Paddy told us what he saw, but he didn’t tell us why. Colman’s got a new bloke all right, but he didn’t dump Sammy - Sammy dumped him.’
‘You what?’ Shocked eyebrows swooped upwards, twin crows’ wings, to merge with Mackay’s hair.
‘Yeah. Got someone new himself, hasn’t he? Someone bigger than Colman – his boss! We play this right, we could nail Max Craig himself.’
‘Jesus!’ Mackay breathed. ‘So he did know more than he was letting on. Little bitch.’
The little bitch in question had been quietly getting dressed, for the second time that day. Hughes let him get on with it; they could scarcely take him back to HQ stark naked, whatever the entertainment value of such a move. He didn’t expect the sudden cyclone of movement, the flinging of arms and legs and the protesting shriek of springs as their quarry launched himself up and out and through the bathroom door.
‘Oi!’ With the advantage of being dressed and on his feet, Mackay charged past the bed in outraged pursuit.
Hughes lay back and watched the inevitable as the door banged shut on the end of his partner’s nose.
‘Fuck!’ said Mackay before shaking the woodwork with the staccato beat of his fists. ‘Come out of there, you little shite!’
But the only sound was that of breaking glass as the window was flung wide and mugs knocked off the sill. Young Sammy was climbing out.
‘Well don’t just sit there, come and get this door open. The boss’ll have our balls if we let him get away.’
Hughes shrugged. ‘Let him go.’ And couldn’t repress the wince as Mackay span round, anger darkening his face. Sarcasm to blazing rage in thirty seconds flat - a psychopath, all right.
‘Are you mad? I’m not letting him get away. He could run straight to Craig and warn him off.’
There’d been times in the past when he’d been downright scared of Mackay and his moods, but this time he had the perfect answer, and this time the thrill was turning him on.
‘Don’t worry, he’s not going anywhere. This place is on the third floor and the fire escape’s round the other side. He’s got three choices - he can jump to his death, climb back in, or dangle till we’re good and ready to fetch him. He won’t be doing much warning any time soon.’
His partner’s face had cleared, a small but appreciative smile lurking in his eyes. He risked adding, ‘Got your handcuffs on you?’
‘Yeah, always have. Why, think he’ll cause trouble?’
Hughes had been slithering his jeans down his legs. Now he kicked them off, and hauled his t-shirt over his head. ‘Wasn’t him I was thinking you could use them on,’ he said, and made a Mackay-sized space on the bed.
‘Do the little sod good to dangle for a while, don’t you think?’
His partner was grinning now. ‘You’re all right, Hughes,’ he said. ‘One of us. Not too fussy how you get results - saw it myself on that blackmail case.’
Hughes grinned back, even as he licked his lips at the powerful body being exposed to his gaze. His partner was right. Up to a point.
Any means necessary, all right.
© F Glass 2008