Chapter 24


Waking was different these days.

He remembered a time - either fairly recently or ages ago, he couldn't really say which - when he had adored the sensation of waking at his leisure, cocooned in his cozy nest and luxuriating in the fact that he could choose whether or not to greet the day with energy and enthusiasm or simply slip back under the covers and drowse for as long as he liked. But, regardless of the method chosen, he had always made the transition from sleep to waking almost instantaneously, if not always enthusiastically.

That was no longer true. The process had changed.

Waking now was like stepping through a series of veils, each slightly less opaque than the one before it, ranging in color from a deep obsidian cobalt to the palest Alice blue.

Blue, of course. What else would it be? And would he ever again catch a glimpse of any variation of that color without comparing it to the only blue he ever truly wished to see again?

Shit!

It was harder to awaken now, even though he much preferred being awake these days, since the texture and the quality and the intensity of his dreams had changed so drastically.

Not that he hadn't had dreams before. He had always had dreams, but, until recently, he had been much more skilled at pushing them away and locking them into airless little vaults deep inside him, places which he would never choose to visit and from which those dark and twisted images could never escape.

Now, the vaults, it seemed, were full - almost bursting at the seams. Too full to contain the nightmares as efficiently as they once had.

Sometimes now, during the transition to waking, those images managed to wriggle free from their containment and follow him toward awareness.

. . . a pale spark of firelight, illuminating messy hair and a distinctive profile, barely glimpsed . . . and a voice that felt familiar, but not quite right . . .

Brian Kinney had never lived in fear. Not even at the worst moments of his life. Never until . . .

. . . blood, bright as a fucking neon sign, pooling on dirty, cold cement, painting Rorschach inkblots on skin as pale as fresh cream, on a body limp and unresisting, cold and unresponsive under his hands, without a single nuance of breath or heartbeat to indicate that it was anything more than a lifeless mannequin.

Something in him had died that night, there in that dark, empty parking tower.

Something that had erupted out of his heart before falling, crushed and lifeless, into those dark vaults deep in his core; something he hoped never to see again.

He had learned what real fear was on that near fatal evening, and it had taken up residence inside him, in the place vacated by . . . whatever it was that he had lost.

He had never quite succeeded in ridding himself of its toxic effects. It was still - and always would be - indelibly bound to his worst nightmare.

Still, the dreams that had assailed him lately, if not quite as unbearable as the piece de resistance of his collection, were proving difficult to manage. Like the one he'd endured just hours earlier. He did not remember details - a circumstance for which he was profoundly grateful - but he did retain bits and pieces of images. Enough, at least, to allow him to realize that something . . . something was different in this one; that he had seen something, or experienced something, or realized something he had not confronted before.

Something he was absolutely certain he did not want to know.

". . . most important lesson of your life . . ."

And then . . . something else that he not only wanted to know, but wanted to hold close to him, but couldn't.

He was shaken by a deep tremor, before deciding it was better to waken than to linger on the fringe of sleep - and risk epiphany.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself to be the object of scrutiny by three pairs of eyes, each conveying a different message - impatience, concern, and, in the case of Chris McClaren, something he could not quite identify.

The first and closest of them - as blue as any he'd ever seen (Goddamn blue . . . again) - were staring at him with unveiled irritation, completely disinterested in whether or not he was ready or willing to awaken. Nurse Beck had informed him - during one of their remarkably frank little chats - that Rick Turnage would never win an award for his bedside manner. And she was dead right.

"Beauty sleep's over, Kinney," he said without preamble. "We need to get started."

Brian glanced toward the window, where the sky was still filled with storm clouds and rainwater still ran in rivulets down the glass. "If you'll check with my social secretary," he drawled, with a glance toward McClaren, "I'm sure you can schedule an appointment that isn't in the middle of the fucking night."

"It's after eight," said Turnage, sounding confused.

"Exactly." Brian closed his eyes, ignoring the grin on Matt Keller's face.

"Come on, Brian," said his primary physician. "Just answer a couple of questions, and you can go back to sleep. Until they bring your breakfast, that is - which should be in about five minutes."

"What is this?" Brian demanded. "A hospital or a torture chamber?"

Keller's smile was suddenly tender. "Now is that any way to talk to the man who just returned from a special excursion . . . to Starbucks?"

One hazel eye opened, revealing a glimmer of interest. "Starbucks?"

It was a bit of a surprise to everyone in the room how quickly the patient was able to push himself to a sitting position and make a creditable grab for the tall cup the physician was holding.

"Ahh, not so fast," said Keller, just eluding the groping hand. "Questions first, latte later."

"Coffee first," retorted Brian, "or go find your own fucking answers."

"Oh, for Christ's sake!" snapped Turnage. "Give 'im . . ."

Chris McClaren shook his head and stepped forward, taking the Starbucks cup from Keller and then seating himself on the side of the bed to allow Brian easy access to the magic elixir.

"All right," said Turnage, after waiting just long enough to allow for a couple of swallows. "Provided you're sufficiently caffeinated now, maybe we can proceed. What I need, in order to finalize arrangements for your treatment, is photographs. Professional quality close-ups, if possible. From as many angles as possible. Do you have anything like that?"

Brian sipped again, and nodded. "Talk to Cynthia. There should be plenty in the files."

Turnage blinked. "You have professional photographs of yourself, in your business files?"

"It's an advertising agency, Doc," Brian replied, tongue firmly in cheek. "Image is everything."

"And besides," laughed Matt Keller, "he's Brian Kinney. Reigning king of Liberty Avenue, immortalized in song, story . . . and glossies in every gay magazine, newspaper, and nelly-bottom hope chest in the greater Pittsburgh area. One word, and you'll have more photos than you'll know what to do with."

Turnage, however, was no longer listening. He was focused instead on his Pocket Palm, busily entering notes and calling up data.

Brian lay back and turned once more to stare out the window, wondering briefly if the sun would put in an appearance today - or ever again. He was tired of the cold, tired of the grayness, and hungry for . . .

. . . warm, firm hands, ghosting over his skin as strong arms moved to wrap around him, and soft, familiar lips touched his throat, as a voice murmured against him. "He has nightmares . . ."

"Brian!" Chris McClaren was leaning over him, immediately aware that he had . . . lost himself somehow, between one moment and the next.

"Someone . . . was here." It was just a whisper, barely audible.

McClaren stared down at him, before drawing a deep breath. He did not believe in lying to the individuals under his protection, and he would not start now. But he was tempted, for he was pretty sure he knew where this was leading. If he was correct, Brian was just taking the first steps on a very long, very difficult journey, and, uncharacteristically, the FBI agent wished there was some way to spare the man the ordeal. But there wasn't. If he was ever going to be able to move beyond what he'd been forced to endure, he had to face what still lay ahead of him.

"Yes. Someone was."

Brian's eyes were suddenly filled with a bleak loneliness that was painful to witness. But it was a shadow that was gone almost before it could be seen, to be replaced by steady resolve. "Why?"

"You . . . had a rough night."

"Are you in pain?" Keller was standing close by, green eyes very bright in the morning dimness.

Brian huffed an impatient little sigh. "That brings up an almost irresistible urge to point out what bears do . . . in the woods."

Keller grinned. "I'll take that as a yes. However, Lt. Horvath called a few minutes ago and asked that we hold off on your joy juice for a bit. He needs to talk to you."

"But maybe," Brian pointed out - very reasonably, he thought - "I don't need to talk to him."

McClaren felt and quickly suppressed a surge of sympathy. He had realized, almost immediately, that Kinney was not and never would be one of those individuals who found catharsis or healing in the simple act of talking things out, but some things simply could not be overcome by avoidance. "No choice, Bud," he observed. "You probably don't remember it, but your first interview wasn't particularly productive. Just be grateful he waited this long."

Brian shifted then, trying to find a comfortable position, and McClaren adjusted the bed controls accordingly, raising the head of the bed as Keller eased the patient up to allow him to reposition pillows and blankets, one arm bracing his longtime friend against his chest like a cherished infant.

"Fuck!" Brian snarled. "Would you please stop treating me like a fucking invalid!"

"Sorry, sweet cheeks," the physician replied easily, "but, for now, that's what you are. So . . ."

Both Keller and McClaren went silent, noticing a quick look of surprise in Brian's eyes as he moved to adjust his morning erection, some tiny little nuance of satisfaction in his expression indicating that he was delighted to find it just as firm and demanding as it had always been; then he felt something crinkle against his skin, something tucked into the strip of bandage that rode low on his torso.

"What is that?" asked Keller, as Brian extracted a folded piece of paper from its place against the softness of his belly.

McClaren smiled, remembering pale hands stroking and caressing a bare chest and the bandages that obscured parts of it, and pushing beneath blankets to touch whatever could be touched, as a slender body nestled against Brian's sleeping form. "Looks like someone left a calling card."

"Well?" Keller, fully aware of his friend's hunger for privacy, carefully avoided letting his eyes drop to the crumpled slip of paper as Brian unfolded it and stared at it in silence, but he never took his eyes off Brian's face. Thus he saw, as McClaren did, the quick flicker of something in the depths of those hazel eyes - something there and gone within the space of a heartbeat.

"Nothing," Brian replied after the faintest hesitation. "It's nothing."

But when McClaren reached for the paper, Brian shook his head. "It's . . . private," he finally managed, tucking the note beneath his pillow and resolving any doubt that might have remained in the FBI agent's mind, about who had left the rumpled message.

Fortuitously, from Brian's point of view, a disturbance at the door announced the arrival of a radiology tech with a wheel chair, precluding further conversation. "Mr. Kinney?" Brian managed - barely - not to wince away from the bright, slightly shrill greeting as cheerful middle-aged woman bustled into the room. "They're ready for you in x-ray."

Brian grimaced and glared at Matt Keller. "Not again. By the time I get out of here, I'm going to glow in the dark."

"Hey," replied Keller, raising his hands in quick denial. "This time, it's not me."

"That's true," said Turnage, still making entries on his PDA. "I ordered this set. I need to get a fresh perspective on how your healing is progressing, so we can determine when we can get you out of here."

The patient glowered. "I'd be doing handstands - and juggling - if I could just make myself believe that I won't be jumping out of the frying pan straight into the fires of hell."

Turnage blinked, but didn't argue. In fact, he shrugged. "How much is that face worth to you?"

Brian's gaze was remarkably steady. "Almost as much," he said flatly, "as it's worth to you."

The plastic surgeon watched in silence as the patient was transferred into the wheelchair and wheeled out into the hallway where two individuals waited to escort him down to the x-ray department - one uniformed police officer and one rather nondescript young man who would maintain a discreet distance from the subject of his surveillance, but would watch everyone and everything around him and be ready to act accordingly.

"Smart-ass!" It was barely a whisper, and Rick Turnage might not have even realized he'd spoken aloud, if Matt Keller hadn't snickered in response.

Brian's old friend regarded the plastic surgeon with a smug smile. "Trust me when I tell you," he said with an unmistakable air of satisfaction, "he's only just begun to confound you. I'm pretty sure that he's going to be your Starry Night but, by the time he's done with you, you'll be lucky if all you lose is an ear."

Chris McClaren allowed himself a small grin as the two physicians exited the room, still snarking at each other.

Then he did what he knew he must, although he wasn't particularly proud of himself for it.

Brian Kinney was a much more private man than most of his acquaintances would have believed, and McClaren respected that facet of the man's personality. But right now, under these circumstances, secrets were a luxury Brian could not afford and his protector could not allow.

With a sigh, he pulled the slip of paper from the place where Brian had saved it, and read the lines scrawled upon it.

Then he wished he hadn't, as there was nothing there that anyone needed to know. It contained only the pain and hope of one heart, reaching out to touch another. But it was, of course, entirely too late to let it go unread - untouched - unsullied by the horrors of this serial tragedy.

I'll claim you
In the youth
Of some new existence,
Before there have been
Other promises
And old fears.

I'll look in fields
Where yellow flowers grow,
Remembering how you loved them so,
And on some hill
Where the wind blows free,
And sets the flowers dancing,
I'll hear you
Call my name,
And I will turn and you'll be there,
And I'll hold you again.*

McClaren spent a moment staring out into the gloomy morning before he carefully returned the folded, crumpled paper to its hiding place, handling it with the reverence it deserved.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


At this point, he thought, he had progressed beyond pitiful, all the way down to pathetic, which, of course, reminded him instantly of how that particular word sounded when employed as a condescending insult by one Brian Kinney.

But it was undeniable, nevertheless. When you'd sunk to the level where hospital cafeteria coffee had become acceptable - even passable - you had lost all sense of taste or propriety. Even though he'd never been a big coffee drinker - not nearly at the level, for example, of Brian Kinney, caffeine junkie - he was intimately familiar with the good stuff, as any Kinney associate would have to be.

But this - he stared down into his stained and discolored mug - this was something that one might use to peel paint from the walls, in a pinch. And yet, he drank it without complaint. In exactly the same way that he chewed on a bagel with the consistency of wet cardboard.

He could have called for aid, of course. His mother, Debbie, Cynthia, Daphne, Emmett - any or all of them would have come to his rescue, hauling in coffee and sustenance from Dunkin' Donuts or Starbucks or IHOP - or the Liberty Diner. All he had to do was ask. But somehow, he didn't, because he couldn't. And he hadn't a clue why not.

He could not explain it, but he felt compelled - more and more with every passing hour - to handle the situation without accepting help from anyone; it seemed somehow as if the real world around him was withdrawing inch by inch, falling away into a featureless blur.

Brian Kinney, rubbing off on him? Maybe. He didn't know. He only knew that he had to do this his way.

He spread a little cream cheese on his bagel, hoping to render it slightly less bland and more palatable, and thumbed through the slim book that lay on the table before him.

During this entire nightmare, he hadn't been able to find much for which to be grateful, beyond the obvious fact that Brian had survived his ordeal - after a fashion. But there had been one pleasant consequence. Much to his surprise - and almost against his will - he had made a new friend; someone who would never have been so much as a stray blip on his radar before he had come to this place and found his life caught up in tangled skeins of improbability. Which, he supposed as he took another sip of his coffee, served to prove that life did not progress by any definable logic.

Cedric Lasseigne had been sitting in the lounge area of the Rehab unit the first time Justin had walked into the area, looking for . . . in truth, he had no idea what he'd been looking for. Distraction, maybe? A cause to champion? A way to feel as if he could contribute something worthwhile? Or, perhaps, just a means to help him pass the time between one Brian sighting and the next. He still didn't know. But he was, nevertheless, grateful that he had made that particular choice, for it had provided an unexpected dividend.

There were a number of small tables scattered around the perimeter of the lounge area, and a number of different kinds of games in progress when Justin had wandered in. Dominos, checkers, several varieties of card games, even one Scrabble match, each drawing its own group of onlookers and hecklers. Patients, visitors, and staff members, all clotted together in pairs or trios or groups, interacting, chatting, sometimes squabbling.

Except for one person, seated alone at a small table near a corner window. The man was not particularly remarkable, except for the fact that he was the only person in the room who was not a part of a group - and he had a thatch of silver white hair that was so bright it almost seemed to glow and so thick that it was literally standing on end. On the table before him, a chess board sat ready for use, complete with pieces, but he was not playing. Instead, his face was literally buried in a book, with several more stacked beside him on the corner of the table.

Justin was never quite sure what had drawn him toward the solitary figure, especially since his initial impulse had been to seek companionship elsewhere as the old man seemed a likely victim of Alzheimer's or some equally disturbing form of dementia. Yet, somehow, for reasons he would never fully comprehend, he found himself standing behind the man, reading the book titles over his shoulder.

"Hey," he said, recognizing an old, worn copy of Huckleberry Finn, "I've read that one."

Without missing a beat or raising his eyes, the elderly man replied, "Or course, you have."

Justin hesitated. "How do you know which one I'm talking about?"

"Have you read them all?" the voice - rough and heavily accented, but cultured nonetheless - retorted.

"No," Justin admitted, ducking his head to discern the other titles and finding none of them familiar.

Abruptly, the man closed his book and raised bloodshot gray eyes to meet Justin's gaze. "Veneration of Mark Twain is one of the roots of our current intellectual stalemate."

Justin blinked. "Huh?"

The old man sighed and laid the book he was reading flat on the table, and thumbed through a few pages until he found what he was looking for. Then he repeated himself, while moving his finger across the page. "Veneration of Mark Twain is one of the roots of our current intellectual stalemate."*

Justin smiled. "You were reading what's in the book."

"Actually," replied the elderly man, "I was reciting it from memory. I'm afraid Mr. Toole was not terribly fond of dear old Clemens."

Interested in spite of a little voice in his head screaming that he should be running away as fast as he could, Justin took a seat across from the man, and regarded him steadily, noting pale skin, mottled with age spots and veined with a fine network of wrinkles, skin that was so thin it was almost translucent, and noble features that hinted of a strong bone structure beneath the ravages wrought by time. "I thought everyone loved Mark Twain."

"Mostly," said the man. "But Toole was nothing if not a contrarian. He found the greatest pleasure in exposing the clay feet of other people's sacred cows."

Justin opened his mouth to remark on the dangers of mixed metaphors, but closed it again as he realized that the comment, as stated, made a certain kind of twisted, sardonic sense, and, being a big fan of twisted humor, a la a certain Liberty Avenue stud, he decided to pursue a different verbal gambit instead.

"Who's Toole?" he asked.

The man closed his book and laid it on the table, pushing it forward so Justin could read the title, barely legible on the worn and faded cover. "A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole," he read.

"Let me guess," said the older man. "You've never heard of it."

Justin shook his head. "Sorry."

The man shrugged. "It's your loss, Son. Not mine."

"It's that good?"

The man's smile was bittersweet. "I'm an old drunk who hails from New Orleans - traits that some sanctimonious individuals would probably describe as redundant," he replied, "and this book is, well - it contains the heart and soul of the life in my beloved city. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1981, and the man who wrote it had been dead then - by his own hand - for more than ten years, never knowing that he had created a masterpiece. I always thought that was just wrong. If a man can create such an incredible work of art, shouldn't he know it? Shouldn't someone have recognized it while he still lived? And, if they had, might he have made different choices?"

Justin, for a moment, was caught up in thoughts of his own art and how it would feel if it should remain forever locked away from the individuals for whom he had painted it, if . . . someone should never see it. "Yes," he said softly. "Someone should."

"My name is Cedric Lasseigne," said the older man, holding out a gnarled hand to shake, "and I shouldn't presume to judge the book for you. You ask me if it's that good, and all I can honestly say is that it is - to me. You'd have to decide for yourself."

Justin grinned. "Isn't that what teachers are supposed to do? Tell people what they should and shouldn't like?"

Lasseigne's eyes skittered away from Justin's scrutiny. "I wouldn't know."

"I'm Justin," said the young artist. "Justin Taylor."

"And are you a reader, young Justin Taylor?'

Justin was surprised to feel a warm flush stain his cheeks. "Not so much," he admitted. "I've . . . been busy."

Lasseigne smiled. "Yes, of course. The world is a busy place. But I repeat, it's your loss."

Justin gestured toward the chess set. "You play?"

One eyebrow - silver to match the hair - climbed toward the hairline. "No. I just like to sit here so I'll look like one of the intellectual snobs who do."

Justin's flush deepened. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to sound . . ."

"Condescending? Arrogant? Patronizing?"

"All of the above," the blonde conceded.

Lasseigne laughed, and, despite the hoarseness that betrayed a lifelong addiction to nicotine, the sound was rich and full and pleasant. "I'm a southerner, Young Taylor. Not an imbecile. And as hard as it might be for a product of Pennsylvania Social Register breeding to understand, the two are not necessarily synonymous."

Justin grinned. "Faulkner was a southerner. And Caldwell, and Tennessee Williams and Thomas Wolfe. And Harper Lee."

The southerner's eyes softened a bit, as he looked at Justin - really looked at him - for the first time. "And you've read them all, no doubt."

"No." The flush was back and heating up. "But I've read some of them."

Lasseigne grinned. "Let me guess. American Lit 101."

"Well . . . yeah. Mostly. But I have seen A Streetcar Named Desire, like a dozen times, and I actually read To Kill a Mockingbird, just because a friend . . . just because I found it lying on a friend's bedside table."

The flush grew even deeper as he recalled the first time he'd come across the book, as he'd knocked it to the floor in a mad, desperate scramble for condoms and lube.

There was no way, of course, for Lasseigne to discern the reason for his embarrassment, but a glint in the man's eyes suggested that he might be seeing more than he should. "A very good friend, no doubt."

"Yeah. He . . . is." And he could not quite avoid the flinch that touched him as he realized he'd almost spoken in the past tense.

Lasseigne regarded him in silence for a moment or two, and, once again, Justin had a strange feeling that the man was looking straight through him, and seeing things he should not have been able to see. "So," he said finally, "are you open to new experiences, young Justin? Would you care to explore more of the work of southern writers?"

Justin shrugged. "Sure. Only . . . no Faulkner, OK? I don't need any help in finding things to be depressed about."

Again, Lasseigne laughed. "OK. We'll avoid Dickensian themes . . . and Pat Conroy. How about poetry? Got anything against that?"

Justin opened his mouth to express complete disinterest, but then he remembered that his disinterest was not - quite - as complete as it once had been. Once more, the specter of Brian Kinney seemed to linger in his mind, with a murderous expression on that beautiful face, threatening dire consequences should his young blond lover ever reveal his surprising fondness for certain specific verses. "Well, if you're going to ask me to read Whitman, we've reached an impasse. But once in a while, I do come across a few lines that I don't completely . . . hate."

The old man smiled, and Justin found that he was beginning to bask in the warmth of the southerner's hard-won approval. "In that case," said Lasseigne, as he extracted a slender volume from the stack before him, "we'll start with baby steps. Which, with poetry, is sometimes a very good thing. Just give this one a try."

Justin accepted the small book, noting that it was just as worn as the others in the stack, and that the faded gilt of the title was barely legible. When he prepared to open it, the old man reached out and stopped him. "Just . . . let it open, at random," he suggested. "With poetry, it either grabs you, or it doesn't, and logical progression is not part of the process."

Justin managed - barely - not to roll his eyes, thinking to himself that his first impression might have been right after all; the man was certainly old enough to be experiencing bouts of dementia.

Then he opened the book and scanned the lines printed there.

And understood exactly what the old man had been trying to tell him, as he read about a star that had thrown its fire against the heavens and grown cold and died long before the poet was born, and he felt his breath catch as certain lines seemed to reach for him, to touch him with gentle fingers and explore the limits of his heart.

Lasseigne had simply smiled, and when they'd parted company later that day, after a hard-fought chess game and discussions over subjects ranging from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina to Broadway's reception of Jersey Boys to the merits of Creole cooking as opposed to Tuscan cuisine, Justin had walked away with the book of poetry tucked under his arm, a gift from a friend he had not expected to make.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~.

Somehow, the sweet, short verses had become his mantra, his means of coping with the tiny victories and defeats of each day, and today would be no exception. He heard them constantly now - in the percussive rhythm of rain against the windows, in the cadence of footsteps hurrying down the hallway, in the babble of voices in the waiting rooms, and the rise and fall of traffic in the streets; they had become the background music of his life.

He sat and played with the handle of his coffee cup, and flipped the book open. By this time, it was as if it had been trained to open to the right page, and the words touched him again, as they always did.

It does not matter.
For it is the light
I follow,
Not the star.
It is the beauty,
Not the source.*

He could not explain exactly why it meant so much, or why it translated as it did in his thoughts. He only knew that it was Brian's face he saw as he read it, and Brian's voice he heard reciting it in his mind.

He closed the book and tucked it safely into the backpack beside him - safe and protected and waiting for the right moment, when it could be offered as a gift, the perfect means for conveying the perfect message, undoubtedly inspiring the recipient to respond with a perfectly beautiful, characteristic smirk.

Sometimes he thought he couldn't stand to wait another minute; sometimes he thought he would wait forever, if that's what it took.

"Well, well, well." The voice was sharp and hard as a blade. "The prodigal returns."

Justin didn't need to look up to identify the speaker, so he didn't. He found it much easier to contemplate the dark sludge in his cup than the malice he knew he would see in night dark eyes.

"Hello, Ethan. I thought you were off serenading the crowned heads of Europe - or something."

"I was." The violinist dropped into the chair opposite Justin's, and clasped his hands in front of him. "But one grows weary of all the glitz after a while, and longs for the simple life."

Justin grinned, unable to contain the urge. "You could always go back to peddling your art on street corners. That's pretty simple."

He looked up then, just in time to surprise a fleeting look of outrage in those dark eyes before it was quickly suppressed. One quick sweeping glance revealed that Ethan's life had been good, of late, if the well padded body was an accurate indicator. He wasn't actually fat - probably never would be, given his frenetic metabolism - but he had definitely not been going hungry. Of course, even if he'd still been rail thin, the beautifully tailored Hugo Boss jacket would have proclaimed his success resoundingly. Justin wondered if the violinist had chosen the style and designer out of some sub-conscious urge to try to one-up a certain stylish ad exec. He allowed himself a little smile as he realized that, if that had been the goal Ethan set for himself, he had failed miserably, as nobody wore Boss quite as spectacularly as Brian Kinney.

"That's something I don't miss in the least," said the fiddler. "My days of scrambling for pennies are long gone."

Justin nodded. "So I hear. Your tour was a success then?"

"As if you didn't know," retorted Ethan. "I'm sure you followed my progress. Madrid was wonderful, but Berlin . . . ahh, Berlin was a particular triumph."

"I'm sure it was," Justin replied. "Your grandfather would have been proud."

"Yeah. He would. So . . . what about you? Rumor has it that you were the toast of the New York art world. Until you threw it all away to come running back to Pittsburgh, to resume your post as boytoy to the mighty Kinney. But wait . . . he's not so mighty any more. Is he?"

Justin closed his eyes and swallowed the resentment that was threatening to choke him, knowing that an outraged response was exactly what Ethan was hoping to provoke. So, instead of venting his anger, he managed a cold smile. "What is it - exactly - that you want here, Ethan? I'm sure you have more important things to do."

"Not really. I guess it's petty of me, but I couldn't quite resist the urge to find out how it feels. What it's like to have deserted the person who should have been your soul-mate, the love of your life, to go running back to a beautiful face and body that's nothing more than a memory now. Tell me, can you even stand to look at him now?"

Justin finished the last of his coffee, and gathered his trash before rising to depart. He had meant to go without saying anything, but he found, ultimately, that he wasn't quite noble enough or forgiving enough to manage that. So he chose to express himself instead, speaking very softly. "First of all, Ian . . ." He surprised himself with a quick, brilliant smile, "You were never my soul-mate, nor the love of my life. You were just a convenient fuck who managed to convince himself he was so superior to everyone else - so prodigiously gifted - that he was above the constraints of such elementary things as common decency and honesty. And second of all, if you think Brian's beauty has anything to do with his face or his form, then you're even more stupid and superficial than I thought you were when I left you." He turned away then, but paused before making good his escape to look back once more. "And thirdly, if you're very, very lucky, you might find out one day that setting the world on fire - music or art or whatever world it might be - means nothing if your heart is empty while you do it."

The violinist started to rise, the anger in his eyes fading abruptly to be replaced by something shifting and indistinct. "Justin, wait. I wanted . . ."

"Oh, and by the way," Justin interrupted. "I forgot to thank you. I'm not sure how you found out so quickly, unless you were keeping tabs on us while you were out conquering the music world, which would seem a little pathetic to me, but - hey, what would I know about life in the musical stratosphere - but if you hadn't been kind enough to send me that tabloid photo, I couldn't have gotten here so quickly."

The anger returned in full force. "You're making a fool of yourself. Word on the street is that he doesn't even want you here. So how long are you going to hang around, like some pathetic little lap dog, waiting for him to fuck you over again?"

Justin's eyes were suddenly very soft and unfocused. "As long as it takes, for I can't think of anything - anything - I would rather do than get fucked - over or otherwise - by Brian Kinney."

Anger fading again, giving away this time to desperation, and there was no disguising it. "No. Justin, please. I've never been able to let go of . . . us. Brian's gone, and, with him out of the picture, you and I can have it all. A perfect beautiful life. I can give you everything you ever wanted, everything he was never willing to give you."

Abruptly, Justin was no longer angry; instead, he felt only pity. "Ethan, there is no us, and whatever I might want, you can't give me, because . . . it's Brian that I want. He's everything to me. And he will never - never - be gone, because he lives . . ." His smile was achingly gentle as he touched his fingers to his chest, "right here."

"No, Justin," Ethan cried, "You can't just walk away. You can't . . ."

"Ethan, I love Brian; I always did. I just let myself get distracted by you and your romantic bullshit because I was young and stupid and I didn't understand what I really wanted. Now - I'm sorry. I don't mean to hurt you. But you and I were just a mistake. That's all."

"He turned you against me," snarled the fiddler. "That's all he ever wanted."

"No, he didn't," Justin answered gently. "You managed that all by yourself."

He sighed then, as he saw the cold, hard brilliance flare to life once more in Ethan's eyes and knew there would never be forgiveness in the musician's heart; he would forever see Brian as the enemy, the man who had stabbed him in the back and stolen what should have been his. He would never understand that Justin had never belonged to him in the first place, that Justin had always belonged to Brian.

The cold, bitter stare was unnerving and served to suggest that Ethan would bear watching.

Justin turned and walked away, wondering idly just how many enemies Brian had managed to make for himself in the course of his lifetime.

And the answer, he thought, was frighteningly simple. Too many.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Here! Wrap up in this."

Brian turned toward the speaker just in time to snag a woven blanket out of the air, to prevent it from dropping over his head. "What the fuck?"

"Wouldn't want you to get cold," replied Chris McClaren, as he took his place behind Brian's wheelchair, dismissing the radiantly adolescent volunteer who had been instructed to escort the patient back to his room. The girl, blonde and pretty in a delicate, porcelain-doll way, looked as if she might want to argue, pale gray eyes regarding her charge with more than a trace of interest as she recalled the laughter they'd shared about Carrie Underwood's methods for dealing with a cheating boyfriend in her hit song that was just barely audible on the girl's iPod. In the end, however, she settled instead for blushing in response to Brian's murmured word of thanks and the slow smile that bandages could not quite obscure, prompting the FBI agent to note her dreamy-eyed stare and realize that Kinney's charm was not only a lot deeper than he'd originally realized, but was also virtually without conscious volition. It was as natural and effortless as breathing, and he wondered how many nights the girl would spend fantasizing about something that was not even remotely possible, although there was no way for her to know that. Unless she was a tabloid reader, of course.

Brian adjusted the waistband of the silk pajamas Cynthia had run out to buy for him on the occasion of his awakening from his coma - Brian Kinney, after all, would not be caught dead, or comatose, in a dowdy hospital gown - and pulled the collar of his cashmere robe more tightly around his torso as he raised a cryptic eyebrow toward his FBI protector. "Unless you're planning an Arctic expedition, I think I'm dressed appropriately."

"Not to mention elegantly," replied McClaren, speculating on whether or not the cinnamon-colored robe might have cost more than one of the suits he usually wore to the office when he was not in undercover mode. (It had.) He then stepped forward to spread the blanket across Brian's lap, before returning to his position behind the wheelchair. "No Arctic explorations," he explained, digging in his pocket to extract a bright rectangular box. "Just thought you might be up for a little foray into Marlboro country."

Brian grinned. ""You keep this up and you might even turn out to be remotely fuckable."

"You wish," McClaren laughed, and then deliberately looked away so he would not see the quick smile that just touched the sensual lips barely visible beneath snowy bandages.

"So," Brian said softly as he was propelled toward a sliding glass door that opened onto a covered terrace, "what's this going to cost me?"

McClaren shrugged. "I figured it'd be easier to face your third degree if you can feed your nicotine addiction at the same time."

Brian grinned. "And you need a cigarette every bit as much as I do."

The FBI agent knew there was no point in denying it. "That too. You're a terrible influence."

"It's my calling in life," Brian replied, taking a deep breath as they emerged from the building. It was silly, of course, to entertain the notion that a single inhalation of decidedly damp, undoubtedly polluted city air could cleanse the lungs of all the toxic residue of a hospital environment, but he couldn't ignore the fact that it felt ridiculously therapeutic. Of course, with his next breath, he would take in a whole new set of toxins, the kind with which he'd been poisoning himself since he was fourteen years old.

"God bless Phillip Morris," he exclaimed as he felt the familiar burn fill his lungs, and the first hint of the buzz that a renewed acquaintance with nicotine would provide.

"You know," McClaren said slowly, after lighting his own Marlboro, "you could treat this as an opportunity to break a really bad habit."

"Said the pot to the kettle," Brian pointed out with a grin. "But you're missing the point. My addictions are the things that see me through the bad times, so why mess with success?"

"You do know that smoking causes wrinkles, don't you?" Only after he'd spoken did McClaren recognize the horrible irony of what he'd said, as he realized he was grateful for the bandages that still obscured most of Brian's face, making it unnecessary for him to read the grimace of pain he was certain his remark had caused.

"Not a problem any more," Brian replied, very softly, head back and eyes half-closed. "Besides, excuse me while I enjoy the first rush I've had in weeks, so kindly keep your observations to yourself."

"I'm sorry, Kinney. That was a thoroughly stupid, thoroughly brainless thing to say."

"True though." The response was flatly spoken, unemotional. "And that's the one thing I appreciate more than any other." He opened his eyes then, and regarded his protector steadily. "So do us both a favor, and don't start second-guessing what you say to me. I don't need empty reassurances or pious platitudes or subtle evasions. You speak your mind, and I'll speak mine, and we'll get along just fine. And if you're occasionally insensitive, I promise not to go all Lana Turner on you. I'm a lot less fragile than you apparently think I am."

McClaren was startled into a broad grin. "On, no, Stud. Whatever else I might think of you, I don't consider you fragile. In fact, you're probably one of the toughest motherfuckers I've ever come across. So let's make a deal, shall we? Because of the circumstances, we both have to go through this charade. Play the game, so to speak. But between the two of us, truth. Just truth. Okay?"

"Truth," replied Brian, with a droll smirk, "or nothing at all."

McClaren laughed. "You always leave yourself an escape hatch, don't you?"

"Be grateful for what you got," Brian chuckled. "Now shut up and enjoy your vice, unless, of course, you think you could score something a little higher on the scale of intoxicants."

"I'm an FBI agent," McClaren retorted, as he blew out a series of smoke rings.

"Which means your sources are top of the line."

The agent snickered. "Yeah. They are."

"I 'm going to pretend," said Detective Carl Horvath as he stepped through the doorway, "that I didn't hear that."

"But I'm not." Emmett's eyes were bright with laughter as he came forward and wrapped Brian up in a hug that was almost strong enough to make the patient flinch away from the grip. Almost.

"Welcome back to the real world, Baby," Emmett breathed as he dropped a kiss on the dark thatch of Brian's hair.

Despite the fact that he rather enjoyed Emmett's gentle touch, Brian looked up at him with wary eyes. "What are you doing here?" he asked, none too patiently.

The third member of the newly arrived group moved forward then, reaching out to just touch Brian's arm in a gesture that was half greeting, half comfort offered. "You brought him into this," said Lance Mathis, "by putting him in charge of Babylon. He's here because he needs to be kept in the loop, so he can take appropriate measures to protect your business, your patrons, and your friends."

Brian did not exactly roll his eyes, but he came very close. "Okay," he said finally, turning his head to look up at his chief interrogator, "let's get this over with. What exactly do you want?"

Carl moved around to take a seat on weathered wooden bench at the outer corner of the covered terrace, checking all around to make sure they would not be overheard by any eager eavesdropper. "I want," he said firmly, "to know anything you might have remembered since our last discussion."

Brian was silent for a moment as he watched how the group sorted itself for participation in this little contretemps. Horvath faced him squarely - of course - but both Emmett and Mathis chose to take places to his right, relatively close to him, as if to spring to his defense if necessary. Most interestingly of all, however, Chris McClaren remained standing at his back, his arms braced against the top of the wheelchair, with his hands only inches away from Brian's shoulders. For a brief moment, Brian actually turned to look up at him, as if to question what - exactly - he thought he was doing. But in the end, he chose to say nothing, feeling just slightly comforted by the warmth at his back, until he realized it was inappropriate to take comfort from such an ambiguous detail, and decided, instead, to give in to his annoyance.

Thus, when he decided to answer Horvath's question, his tone was decidedly antagonistic. "What makes you think I've remembered anything more? I told you what I had to tell you."

Horvath remained placid and unperturbed. "I'm asking," he said quietly, "because this is not my first rodeo, Mr. Kinney." The form of address was deliberate, and Brian recognized it as such. This was not his best friend's pseudo-stepfather speaking to him, nor the soul mate of the woman who was - sometimes - his alternative mother. This was a well-trained, highly skilled detective with the Pittsburgh PD, and Brian understood that he needed to remember that. "I've dealt with this kind of assault before, and while there are instances when the memories are never recovered, that usually happens with people who . . ." He paused for a moment, and Brian noted the soft trace of sympathy that flared in the man's eyes. "People who are too frail or too frightened - or maybe just too young - to be able to deal with them." Then he smiled. "Granted, you're a lot of things, Friend, but frail or frightened just doesn't apply."

"You forgot young," Brian pointed out - deadpan.

Horvath grinned.

Brian took a moment to consider his response and take another deep drag from his cigarette. Then he nodded. "Okay. Yeah, I've remembered a little bit more. But it's all just bits and pieces. I can't make sense of it - can't quite connect the dots. Yet."

Horvath nodded and took a deep breath. "My better half suggested that I take cover before making this suggestion to you, and I'm pretty sure she's right. I should probably be wearing body armor."

"How is Debbie?" Brian asked quickly, wanting to know and, at the same time, dreading it.

"Concerned. Upset."

"Pissed off at me?" Though it was worded as a question, it was pretty obvious that Brian already knew the answer.

"You hurt him pretty badly, Brian. But then, you already know that. Don't you?"

Brian chose not to answer.

Horvath's smile was weary. "You don't have to say anything. I already know."

It was Emmett that turned to stare at the detective then, green eyes alight with speculation. "Do you? Have you really figured it out? That's surprising, Carl. Some of us have been stumbling around in the dark for years, and still aren't sure we see the whole truth."

The detective glanced at Brian, noting the growing disquiet in dark, stormy eyes. "That's because some of you - most of you - are so caught up in how you feel about certain things, that you can't be objective. I don't have that problem."

Chris McClaren tried not to laugh, but was not entirely successful, so that he was forced to try to disguise his chortle as a wheezing cough. He thought he was moderately successful, except of course for the one person he most wanted to fool. Brian's eyes glinted ice cold as he turned and looked up at his FBI protector.

"So what 'suggestion' do you require protection for?" demanded Brian, once McClaren had been glared into silence.

"I realize," Horvath replied slowly, "it's a matter of some pride to you that you've managed to handle almost everything in your life, without requiring any assistance from anyone. I even realize that you're probably infuriated to have to allow people to look out for you now, and try to keep you safe from further harm. But that's just the way it has to be, and you're going to have to live with it, for as long as it takes. But you're never going to be able to get past this, to put your life back together and regain your ability to face whatever the world throws at you, until you let somebody help you."

"Such as?" The tone and the words were clipped and frozen and as rough as dirty ice.

Chris McClaren took a deep breath. "He's right, Brian. You can't do this alone."

"I've been doing it 'alone' my whole life." Brian's voice was very low, very steady.

"I know that." It was, somehow, suddenly as if only the two of them - protector and protected - were alone in the world as McClaren leaned forward to drape his arms across Brian's shoulders and speak directly into his ear, while the rest of the group suddenly seemed to take a metaphorical step back, to focus on fresh spates of rain blowing off the roof or the spiral of smoke from Brian's cigarette or the pattern of cracks in the concrete floor. Indeed, on anything but the two principles of the scene. "But you've never had to come back from something like this. Never."

"I'm a fag," Brian sneered, twisting to look up into brilliant blue eyes, and struggling to pull free of the arms that restrained him. "A queer. A cocksucker - and I've been hated for it my whole life. You think I'm going to let these . . . these fuckers break me? You think . . ."

McClaren held on, not tight enough to inflict pain or damage, but tight enough to prevent Brian from twisting free. "Yeah, I know. You've been hated, like every homosexual has been hated. But, until now, no one was ever bold enough to try to make you pay for it. No one ever hated enough to torture you, to try to destroy you. To make it personal, about you. And that kind of hatred - it's not something you can choose to tolerate or understand. And it's not something you can just shrug off. You need help."

Brian pushed then, pushed hard in an attempt to free himself, but he had still not regained all his strength, and McClaren was a young man in his prime and well trained in the physical arts. "Stop it!" he snapped. "I'm not going to let you go. And I'm not going to let anybody hurt you - ever again."

But if he'd expected Brian to give in easily, he'd been very much mistaken. "I am not some pathetic little weakling who needs your protection." Brian was almost snarling and managed, finally, to push McClaren away.

The FBI agent moved quickly to a position at Brian's feet and stared up at him, his eyes clear and filled with resolve. "Nobody is ever going to mistake you for a weakling, Brian. But all of us need help sometimes. Even you."

"And you?" Brian retorted. "If this is True Confessions, let's hear about your needs."

McClaren grinned. "OK. I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours. Only, can we delay the soul-baring for later? Right now, we need to concentrate on trying to catch the motherfuckers who did this to you. And, in order to do that, you're going to have to face your memories. All your memories."

Brian huffed an impatient sigh. "Look, I don't know anything. I haven't remembered anything new except for a few bits and pieces."

McClaren nodded. "But you will, because it's all there inside you. You just need a little help to grab it."

Brian looked up then and found himself the object of scrutiny of the entire group. "Fuck therapy!" he snapped. "I'm not talking to any shrink."

"Hey," said McClaren quickly. "There are shrinks . . . and there are shrinks. And I'm not talking about therapy. Not any kind that you'd recognize anyway. You just need to talk to the right person."

"What the fuck are you babbling about?" Brian's patience was obviously at an end.

"I'll tell you later."

Brian rolled his eyes. "Why don't you do something useful then, and give me another cigarette?"

McClaren hesitated for a moment, studying the shadows moving in hazel eyes, before nodding and pulling two fresh cigarettes out of the pack, somewhat surprised to realize that he and Kinney had reached a point where they were able to communicate without the actual need for words.

"What about your leads?" he asked Horvath as he returned to his place behind the wheelchair. "The pawn shop? The watch?"

Carl smiled. "Well, there's good news and not so good news. You'll be glad to know we got your watch back."

"Okay."

"Okay? That's all you have to say?"

"What did you expect me to say?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Lance Mathis. "Maybe, thanks for getting my $30,000.00 watch back."

"Fuck the watch! Did you get the guys who hocked it?"

"Bloodthirsty little shit, aren't you?" McClaren muttered.

Horvath struggled to suppress a smile, surprised to discover he was enjoying the repartee between the two young men. "Actually, that's one reason I wanted to talk to you. I have some photos for you to look at - to see if you recognize anyone."

Brian sighed. "I'll take a look, but I don't know if it'll do any good. I didn't get a good look at all their faces, although I got to know their fists fairly up close and personal."

Horvath nodded, glad to see that the infamous Kinney sarcasm was still working at peak efficiency. "You needn't worry. We have plenty of forensic evidence to connect these punks to the crime, even if you can't identify them. They're going down for this. No doubt about that, but the problem is that these two were just hired muscle. It doesn't look as if they had any direct contact with the masterminds behind the whole thing, although it's still possible they know more than they're saying. One thing's for sure though. They're scared shitless, which would seem to indicate that they know enough to figure out that keeping their mouths shut is their safest bet."

"So they're a dead end?" Brian said slowly.

"Not necessarily," answered Lance Mathis. "They're in custody, and the cops are still working on them. Plus there's the fact that they were part of the mob that almost killed you, Brian, and it doesn't really matter why they did it. Whether or not they provide any more information, they're going to get what's coming to them."

Brian nodded. "Let me see the photos."

Horvath stood and extracted a sheaf of documents from a briefcase and handed them to Brian, who hesitated before accepting them. "And by the way," said the detective, "we do have some promising leads - information that has nothing to do with these two thugs. This investigation is far from over."

Brian sighed, and regarded the detective with a skeptical gaze. He did not actually state that he was very good at recognizing bullshit when he heard it, but it was in his eyes.

Then he looked down at the documents he held in his hand, scanning from one face to the next. Twelve individuals, two photos each. Mug shots, he supposed, since the shots featured full face and profile. Most of them were unfamiliar. Until he glanced at the first face on the bottom row of the second sheet.

Sharp, aquiline features, deep-set dark eyes, a nose that had been broken sometime in the not-too-distant past, and a spider tattoo just below the ear, a tattoo he had seen before, although he had not remembered it until this moment. Brian closed his eyes, and heard the echo of a voice as it snarled in his mind. "Somebody give me a knife and . . ."

"This one," he said, speaking clearly and refusing to allow any trace of a tremor in his voice. "I think I broke his nose."

"Excellent," answered Horvath, making no effort to hide the note of approval in his voice. "Anyone else?"

Brian shook his head. "Sorry. That's the only one I recognize."

A sudden gust of wind drove a spate of raindrops into the covered area, and Brian shivered, prompting McClaren to pull the wheelchair further back under shelter, allowing them all to pretend that the reaction had been due to the chill in the air, rather than the memories dredged up by the photograph. "Turning nasty out here," said the FBI agent. "Let's get you back inside."

But fate was not quite finished with young Mr. Kinney yet. As he was turned toward the building, a slender figure came through the door, so intent on lighting the cigarette dangling from perfectly molded lips that he did not see who was coming toward him until they were almost face to face or, more literally, knee to knee.

Everyone froze, as no one could figure out what to say to ease the awkwardness.

No one except Brian Kinney, who would probably have been just as speechless as everyone else if he'd only stopped to consider - but he didn't.

"You smoke too much," he said softly, going very still as he drank in the sight of the young blond who had frozen in place when he'd realized who was looking up at him. Huge blue eyes seemed even bluer than usual as they reflected the flame of the match he was still holding.

Justin did not bother to try to suppress the grin that touched his face. He could see nothing of Brian's expression, and there was no opportunity to evaluate body language as his former lover was completely swathed in clothing, bandages, and blankets, except for one tantalizing patch of bare skin just visible within the collar of the robe. But there was, nevertheless, no mistaking that sardonic wit, biting but contained perfectly within four precise words.

"I enjoy my addictions," Justin answered.

At that instant, the flame flared against his fingers and he dropped the match. "Shit!"

Brian chuckled, knowing he shouldn't but unable to restrain himself. "The obvious thing to say would include a reference to 'playing with fire', but I don't think I'll say it."

"Right. No one could ever accuse Brian Kinney of being obvious. You . . . all right?" Justin took a deep breath, unwilling to let the moment go.

"Yeah. You?"

The grin flashed again. "Better now."

Another pause - roughly nine months pregnant. "You shouldn't be here."

Justin shrugged. "Yes, I should."

Brian stiffened, already regretting his unguarded moment. "No, you . . ."

Leaning forward abruptly, Justin reached out and stroked his hand over that small patch of skin, ignoring Brian's slight recoil. "Save your breath," he whispered. "I'm not leaving."

Brian looked away quickly, but not quite quickly enough to prevent Justin from spotting the swift stirring of shadows in the depths of those incredible hazel eyes.

He wanted to speak out, wanted to fall to his knees and beg Brian to put an end to this charade and open his arms and heart to allow Justin to return to the place where he belonged - the place at Brian's side. But he was too slow and too uncertain and too afraid to risk inciting Brian's anger, so he said nothing, watching in silence as Brian left him there, alone against the backdrop of the growing storm, with Ethan's taunts still echoing in his mind.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Your photographer is very good," said Rick Turnage as he inspected the array of photographs spread out over the polished fruitwood surface of Cynthia's desk.

She nodded. "Only the best for Kinnetik. And the model's not bad either."

The surgeon nodded his agreement. "He said that all this is just part of his business. Is that true?"

Cynthia's smile was of the Cheshire cat variety. "True enough," she explained. "But if you're asking if there's an element of narcissism in having that face immortalized in a series of Kodak moments . . ." She shrugged. "He's Brian Kinney, a man with his fair share of flaws, but false modesty isn't one of them."

"Well, in this case," Turnage replied slowly, as he selected three of the shots and tucked them carefully into his briefcase, "it's a stroke of luck that we have them. Reconstructing a face is always easier when there's a perfect image of what one is trying to achieve."

Cynthia sat back in her custom leather executive chair and regarded him with a pensive expression. "Can you really do that?" she asked finally. "Can you really restore him?"

"If I can't," the surgeon answered absently, once more caught up in studying one of the photos before him, "no one can."

Cynthia laughed. "You and he should get along just fine, provided you don't kill each other along the way."

"He could have been a model," Turnage observed.

"He was," she replied, opening a file drawer in the credenza behind her desk and extracting a slender folder. When she opened it and laid it before him, he saw a glossy magazine ad featuring a buff, beautiful young body on a surfboard, acres of golden skin gleaming under brilliant sunlight. It was not a close-up shot so the face was not distinct, but the figure was, nevertheless, unmistakable.

"The Freemont-Briggs people offered him a fabulous contract. Wanted to make him the poster boy for their BareBronze suntan oil. That one ad increased their sales by almost thirty percent."

"But he turned them down," he said quietly, not really asking.

She smiled. "And I'll bet you know why."

"Because the one in front of the camera is not the one calling the shots."

"Precisely. And I think Brian always knew he was meant for bigger things - from his perspective anyway. He was in college at the time, so he definitely enjoyed the money they paid him, but it was never more than a means to an end."

Turnage looked up then, his eyes taking in the elegance of the setting and the woman at its center. "Can you handle all this? While he's gone, I mean."

She leaned back and regarded him coolly. "It's a lot to manage," she admitted, "but he seems to think I can. I've spent many years trusting his judgment, so it's a little late to start doubting him now. How long do you think he'll be gone?"

"That depends."

"On what?"

He took a deep breath. "On how successful my efforts are, how quickly he heals, and . . ."

"And?"

"On when he considers himself ready to face the world again."

She smiled. "You almost said 'if', instead of when. Didn't you?"

Turnage frowned, obviously annoyed. "Do you second guess him too?"

"Every day," she laughed. "It irritates him too, but it allows us to work together almost seamlessly."

"He's asking a lot of you," he observed. "I hope you're well compensated for your efforts."

She paused for a moment before answering, and something in her tone suggested that he had struck a particular nerve. "In ways you could never imagine," she answered finally. "So, in Kinney vernacular, don't fuck this up, Doctor. Granted he has his share of enemies, but you'd be amazed by how many friends he has and how much he matters to them."

"Are you threatening me?" he asked, amused by her temerity, almost in spite of himself.

"Of course not." Her tone said otherwise. "Just making sure you understand that this is a high stakes game you're getting into."

He took a deep breath, and told himself that he wasn't really intimidated by this blonde vixen and her not-so-veiled warnings. Nor was he going to allow himself to be distracted by subliminal stirrings.

"When are you leaving?" she asked, suddenly a bit uncomfortable under the scrutiny of eyes that seemed to grow bluer by the moment.

"Tomorrow, I think. Provided all the lab tests and x-rays show what I expect to find."

"And all the arrangements have been made? Living arrangements, nursing care and PT, serving staff? Everything?"

"My assistant is very efficient," he answered sharply. "I don't leave things to chance."

"And security?" There was no trace of softness or tolerance in her voice now. This was strictly business.

"That I'll leave to the FBI," he retorted. "It's not my area of expertise."

"Maybe not," she agreed, "but you might just make sure that your assistant - and your people, in general - understand the need for discretion here. I don't have first hand experience in such things either, but I trust the judgment of those who do, and the consensus of opinion seems to be that the people behind all this might not be content to just let it be."

"You really are trying to scare me, aren't you? I'm taking him away from the scene of the crime. He'll be 600 miles from here - and from anybody who might want to hurt him. Isn't that enough?"

She shook her head. "Is it? Money has very long arms, Dr. Turnage. I just want to make sure you know the score. You need to be aware of . . ."

"The only thing I need to be aware of," he interrupted, "is my patient's medical condition and what I can do to fix it. The rest is not my concern."

To his surprise, she laughed. "You really are a single-minded bastard, aren't you?"

The physician smiled, and reached out to tap the photo of Brian Kinney that was closest to him - a profile shot in which the man was looking down at something, eyes obscured by a thick sweep of dark lashes. "I have a feeling that you have a particular fondness for single-minded bastards," he retorted, tongue tucked firmly in cheek.

Cynthia stared. Single-minded bastard or not, the surgeon was a spectacular treat for the eyes and the senses, and she was dismayed to note the heat of a flush touch her face. She quickly busied herself with gathering up the photos and returning them to the files.

"You know," said Turnage, a speculative gleam rising in his eyes, "it would be helpful to me - in deciding how to proceed with treatment - if I knew more about him. Habits, lifestyle, health history - that sort of thing. Maybe we could have dinner? To continue our discussion."

Cynthia compressed her lips to suppress a smile. "I'm sure you already have his medical records. Isn't that sufficient?"

"Not really," he replied quickly. "The more I know about him, the better my chance to give him what he wants."

"Maybe you should talk to his friends. They might be able . . ."

"Maybe," he interrupted. "But somehow I doubt it. I think you know him, better than almost anybody."

She hesitated for a moment, lost in a memory of a slender blond teen-ager who had, somehow, always known Brian better than anybody else ever would - even when they'd only just met. "Maybe," she conceded finally. "Almost."

"Very well then." Turnage's smile had turned slightly smug. "Dinner?"

"Sorry," said a new voice from the doorway. "Wouldn't want to interrupt anything important." Lance Mathis's tone was flat, unemotional, but something in his dark eyes suggested a certain degree of satisfaction.

"Of course you wouldn't," replied Turnage, watching carefully to see if there was any unspoken emotional current between Brian Kinney's administrative assistant and his chief of security, but there was nothing to see. Or nothing, at least, that either was willing to display.

"You and I," continued Mathis, meeting Turnage's gaze, "need to have a discussion. About the arrangements you've made for Brian."

"The FBI is fully aware . . ."

Mathis's smile formed quickly, but it did not reach his eyes. "If the FBI screws up and something happens to Brian, they have to answer to Washington and their superiors. On the other hand, if I screw up and let him get hurt - again - you don't even want to know how many people I have to answer to, some of whom will have my balls on a barbeque pit before you can whisper the first of the many 'Mea culpas' you'll be saying before they - and I - are done with you. So, you let the FBI do their thing, while you provide the information I need to help me do mine. Understood?"

Turnage was outraged. Nobody had ever talked to him like that, and he wasn't about to stand for it. "Fuck off!" he snarled. "Who do you think you are?"

"I'll tell you exactly who I am," Mathis replied, glancing toward Cynthia and noting the tiny smile she was wearing. "For now, I'm prepared to be your best friend, your staunch companion. But if something happens to Brian Kinney because of information you withheld from me, I promise you that I will become the worst nightmare you can imagine. But hey!  Cheer up. If it makes you feel any better, we can have our little talk over dinner. You were looking for a dining companion, weren't you?"

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It was a hell of a lot easier watching blond boy eye-candy fidget around at the airport (especially when said blond boy was Playgirl-centerfold material) than playing homeless
vagrant on a cold Pittsburgh street, thought Jared Hilliard. Especially when the most eagerly anticipated feature of spring had yet to put in an appearance (in that the temperature still hovered around the freezing mark in the wee hours) while the most thoroughly dreaded feature was in full queen-out mode (in that the rain looked to be around for an indefinite stay).

Luckily, he wasn't quite as destitute as he appeared to be - appearances being everything in the world of clandestine surveillance. He was wrapped up tight in a huge plastic tarp, with tears and gashes artfully applied at strategic spots, and his face was obscured by the hood of a soiled and stained poncho, which looked more battered than it actually was, and an artfully applied layer of grime. He also looked decidedly bulkier than usual, due to the multi-layers of cold weather gear that were concealed beneath the plastic, including a ragged old army jacket, one shoulder showing through one of the strategically placed rips in the plastic, displaying a faded patch - the unmistakable image of the Screaming Eagle - the emblem of the 101st Airborne. Though the rest of his garb could be considered a disguise, the jacket was his own - a worn, but treasured remnant from his years of service.

The night was bitterly chill, but he did not feel it, having spent hours preparing himself for his little masquerade. In fact, he was almost too warm, and was beginning to regret the battery-powered socks that were making his feet sweat inside a pair of worn and run-down regulation combat boots.

He had arranged his little tableau with precision, although it appeared to be completely haphazard. Tucked tight within his plastic shelter, he was wedged into a tiny V-shaped alcove, formed by the intersection of a graffiti-adorned brick wall and an oversized dumpster with its cover thrown back and leaning against the building. Thus it provided some small protection from the ceaseless rain, but - more importantly - it blocked the light from a flickering streetlamp at the corner, and provided a measure of privacy for Hilliard's more covert activities. He had scattered a couple of empty screw-top wine bottles around him, along with a few empty Vienna sausage cans and the de rigueur cigarette butts that were such an inescapable part of street life, even though such items were now - literally - worth their weight in gold. Then, he had insulated his attire with layers of crumpled up newspaper - a common ploy among street people to ward off the chill of the night, and he nestled now into his makeshift shelter, head down and shoulders scrunched against the weather, with a lopsided plastic storage box, protected by a black garbage bag, wrapped tight in his arms - the equivalent of a bag lady's shopping cart, thus completing the illusion of a homeless drifter, attempting to survive the elements.

Of course, if anyone had been able to see through the layers of plastic, they would have been shocked to discover a state-of-the-art laptop computer, which was part of a wireless network that included an incredible array of electronic devices, including bases at Kinnetik, at police headquarters, and at a temporary command post set up by an FBI team. In addition, it had access to the ultra-efficient surveillance system that had recently been installed on the nondescript-looking brick building on the opposite corner, at the intersection of Fuller and Tremont.

Hilliard tried to convince himself that it would be okay to just huddle in his makeshift shelter and concentrate on staying dry, but some niggling little thing in the back of his mind insisted otherwise. Thus it was that he divided his time equally between surreptitious checks of his laptop's display and regular sweeps of the area around him. In addition, he appeared to be muttering to himself almost constantly, when he was, in fact, wired for sound and communicating with other members of the security network that was in place for only one reason: to protect Brian Kinney and his domain.

It had been a relatively quiet night, but Hilliard was still on edge. He had no specific reason to be apprehensive, no explanation for why he was anxious. Yet there was no denying the gnawing sensation in the pit of his stomach. He drank endless cups of coffee from a thermos concealed alongside his laptop (which did absolutely nothing to soothe his gut, of course) and hunkered down under his cover, careful to reveal as little of his face as possible when pedestrians wandered by. Residents of this area - and those just passing through it - tended to ignore street people, unless something out of the ordinary caught their eye, and Hilliard's bright blue eyes tended to do that, being startling against dark bronze skin, so he was careful to avoid meeting the gaze of anyone who came too close.

He watched obliquely as a painfully thin old man shuffled by, a scruffy-looking hound at his side, both huddling under a length of plastic sheeting that the man wore like a shawl, and Hilliard hoped the two were headed toward some kind of refuge for the night. There was, he knew, a homeless shelter a couple of blocks over that provided a dry place to sleep and breakfast to all comers - no questions asked - but he doubted that animals would be welcome there. The urge to leap up and offer assistance was almost impossible to resist, but resist he did. If he compromised his cover, the price to be paid might be much worse than a lonely, uncomfortable night for an old vagrant and his dog.

He did, however, indulge in a bit of mumbling, which would sound like nothing more than gibberish to any casual observer, but said plenty to his contacts - enough, at least, to motivate someone to emerge from concealment a couple of blocks away and intercept a weary old Vietnam veteran who suffered from a form of Alzheimers which reduced him to wandering around in a mental fog and living off the scanty, episodic generosity of strangers. It would not provide a permanent resolution for his problems, but it would assure that, for a few nights at least, he would find refuge that would allow him and his dog to be safe and warm and well fed - at least until he wandered off again and lost himself in the grayness of the city, in the grip of a renewed state of mental fugue.

Hilliard would have liked to believe that it was this particular encounter he had been awaiting all evening, but, somehow, he knew better. He continued his clandestine surveillance and his masquerade, exchanging ribald remarks with a couple of prostitutes who had come up empty on this cold, clammy night and were making their way back home with empty pockets. Then came a carefully scripted confrontation with a patrol cop who gave him just enough grief to seem plausible but stopped short of actually rousting him out of his grubby little nest.

After that, the traffic grew thinner, as the clock on the old brewery warehouse down the street ticked past midnight. Within the next hour, lights began to go off in the various businesses situated nearby on Liberty Avenue that catered to evening clientele - coffee shops and video rental stores and neighborhood bars and a bowling alley, although the night was still in its infancy for places like Woody's and the Meat Hook and Babylon.

The rain continued to fall, neither waxing nor waning, and the temperature continued to drop, and Hilliard was no longer sorry for having worn the battery-powered socks. The wind, which had been gusty and capricious all day, had finally died down, and the area was now enveloped in a deep, abiding silence that was only emphasized by the muted roar of the rain. It should have been soothing, but - somehow - it wasn't. He shifted beneath his tawdry shelter, and winced as a cold rivulet found its way beneath his layers of polypropylene and traced a path down inside his collar, causing him to flex his shoulders and twist his head to the left as he rubbed a gloved hand across the nape of his neck. And that was when he saw it.

It wasn't really a body, so much as a shadow of a body. But it was enough, because it was definitely in a place where it was not supposed to be.

A quick glance up at the top floor of the building that was the focus of his surveillance recorded the extinguishing of one interior light and the igniting of another, all according to a random pattern determined by the computer-generated security system. All was exactly as it should be within Brian Kinney's loft, but the same might not be true of the area around it.

"Heads up!" Hilliard's muttered warning was little more than a whisper, but it was more than enough to gain the immediate attention of those at various locations on the other end of the connection. "At my ten o'clock," he continued. "Movement in the access area by the hardware store."

"Could be a dog," observed a voice in his ear.

Hilliard was very still, eyes locked on the thick darkness of the entrance to the tiny lane that provided access to the alley that ran behind the old hardware store and the other buildings along Tremont Avenue, including the one at the corner. It was pitch black there, and he could discern nothing at first - not even with the aid of the small but powerful binoculars he pulled from a pocket of his jacket. Nothing at all - until there was a quick flicker of flame, which burned for only a fraction of a second before being extinguished.

"Not unless Fido's taken up smoking," he said quickly.

"How many?"

"Two, I think - but there could be more."

"We're moving in," said another voice.

Hilliard took a moment to check out the display on his laptop, making sure that the feed from the concealed cameras that overlooked the alley behind Brian's loft was clear and unobstructed. The alley, of course, was pitch black, except for a few squares of light from windows in adjacent buildings, but the darkness was not an issue as the surveillance units were equipped for detection of infrared wavelengths.

"Hold on," he said quickly. "If we play this right, it might be our chance to get inside - with a little luck and perfect timing."

"You think they'll try to break in?" A female voice - probably one of the FBI monitors.

"I doubt it," said someone else. "If they run true to form, they're only interested in causing as much damage as possible. Vandalism takes time, and they have to know there's an expensive alarm system in place. So they'll probably go for faster, easier ways."

"In that case," said Hilliard, getting to his feet and freeing himself from the constraints of his plastic protection, "I think this is my cue."

"Better be razor sharp, Friend." That was Mathis, undoubtedly monitoring everything from his office at Kinnetik. "If you fuck it up and something happens to his loft, he's going to have your balls."

"Is that supposed to be a threat?" Hilliard grinned when his response resulted in a long, uncertain beat of silence.

"Just . . . be careful." Mathis sounded as if he might be on the verge of laughter - or not.

"Yeah. Keep me in the loop, but wait for my signal before you spook 'em."

Hilliard stood and took a moment to adapt himself to the character he was portraying, adjusting body language and posture to reflect the appropriate street persona. Then he began to move down the sidewalk, using the shadows wherever possible to avoid drawing attention to himself, but being careful not to appear to be doing anything more than trying to walk down the street and shield himself from the nastiness of the night. No one watching would have clued in on the fact that his demeanor was assumed while his focus and determination were unswerving. Despite an apparently casual gait, he was moving very quickly.

"Camera four's got 'em," said Mathis very softly. "I only see two, but there could be a look-out still hiding in the passageway, so watch your step."

"Any clue what they're up to?"

The security chief's response was quick. "Well, one of them just busted out a pane of glass on the window at the bottom of the stairwell, and the other one just pulled something out of his coat that looks an awful lot like a Molotov cocktail, so . . . better hurry, Hilliard, because there's not much time to lose."

"OK, I'm in position. You can . . ."

He never got a chance to finish the sentence as a remarkable number of things occurred at that exact moment. Bright halogen bulbs flared into blinding brilliance, bathing the entire alley in harsh, shadowless light, while a shrill alarm rose to a piercing shriek that threatened to shatter the eardrums of anyone who was too close to it. At the same time, one of the two would-be vandals hurled his home-crafted incendiary device into the building through the broken window, and Jared Hilliard came streaking around the corner so suddenly that the two hoodlums could only stand and stare at him, obviously not quite sure if he was real or some kind of demented apparition. At that moment, the fate of both young hoodlums was already sealed, as the surveillance cameras recorded clear and irrevocable evidence of their part in the crime.

But the play had only just begun.

"What the fuck are you doing?" yelled Hilliard, grabbing both teen-agers by the collar and pushing them ahead of him down the alley. "Are you crazy? Don't you know the fag that owns this place has got the God-damned cops in his pocket, and enough money to have a security system that makes Fort Knox look like a neighborhood pawn shop. Unless you want to spend the next twenty years getting fucked up the ass by some prison gang, you better fuckin' run."

"But . . ." One of them was stumbling, and struggling to catch his breath.

Shit! Hilliard barely managed not to roll his eyes. Just his luck, in trying to fake the perfect, skin-of-their-teeth escape, to get stuck with a fucking asthmatic juvenile delinquent.

"I said run, Boy!" he snarled, and the sheer volume of it was apparently enough to scare the kid right out of his short-windedness and into a full-fledged panic that motivated him to run like the wind, no longer worried about whether or not he could breathe. They sprinted into the night, the two youths being herded and guided by the big man who seemed to know, instinctively, how to avoid the paths that would have led to their immediate capture.

Jared Hilliard managed, by virtue of a mighty effort, not to smile.

Behind them, flames spread quickly around the base of the old staircase, as the alarm sirens continued to shatter the night.

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* I'll Find You Again --- Jim Metcalf
* A Confederacy of Dunces --- John Kennedy Toole
* Starlight --- Jim Metcalf

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