Diversion 2 - Collusion (8 page)

“Here, why don’t you take some of this with you?” Bo loaded plastic containers filled with potato salad, beans, and leftover mushrooms into a mini cooler.

Lucky would have preferred a few more days off to discover what else about Bo he’d missed out on, and why Bo wouldn’t answer the question about being alone. In a few short hours, they’d be back to square one, coworkers who, in this case, couldn’t openly acknowledge one another.

Bo dragged his suitcase into the living room. Lucky wondered if he’d packed the rubber dildo, adjusting himself when his cock took notice of gutter-worthy thoughts. Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen it fall from the drawer earlier—not that he’d been looking. He’d never be able to look at the man again without picturing the uninhibited creature from Friday night.

He sighed and studied his watch, wishing for enough time for another round, and maybe a chance to use Bo’s toy again and further discuss what else lit the man’s fires. “I hate to run,” he said, meaning every word, “but I need to get home, get my shit together.” Why hadn’t he brought his duffle over last night?

“Okay, I’ll bring the cooler and meet you at the office to pick up our cars.”
In the light of day, Bo seemed bashful, reserved. Was he still pissed at Lucky for not attending the department get-together, or mentioning his birthday? Stepping up from behind, Lucky wrapped his arms around Bo’s waist. They couldn’t part on a bad note. “You are so fucking hot.” He trailed his lips across Bo’s neck.
“Really?” Bo nestled back into Lucky’s embrace, releasing a deep breath.
“Really. And first chance we get, we’re gonna explore what else you’ve been keeping from me.” After a parting pat to Bo’s backside, Lucky retrieved his gift from the coffee table and sauntered to the door. If he looked back, he might never leave.

Lucky and Bo followed a young woman in Sunday-go-tomeetingclothes across the parking garage. “Here’s yours.” She handed Lucky a set of keys. “Sign here, please.” Oh dear God, no! Who in their right fucking mind deliberately painted a car chicken shit green? And not any old garden-variety chicken shit green either, but a fucking ugly-assed, glow in the dark chicken shit green, like a Rhode Island Red ate radioactive corn or something.

Scowling at the Pimp Daddy Special Chevy Malibu, Lucky scribbled a signature on a clipboard-bound form. He gave a rim an experimental tap. Spinners? Who the hell had owned this piece of shit? “Toss in a pair of fuzzy dice and a hooker or two and I’ll be set. Is this the best we got?”

“Well,” the lady answered with feigned sweetness, “we had a pretty decent Mazda, until
somebody
totaled it last year.”
“Now wait a doggone minute! I—”
“The car is fine,” Bo said, cutting Lucky off.
“Oh, that’s his vehicle. Yours is this way.” She clip-clopped on impossibly high heels around a column, Lucky and Bo trailing behind, and handed Bo the keys to a late model Acura RDX. “Now you better take good care of this one. It’s a seizure from a raid and scheduled to go up for auction next month.” Bo signed on the dotted line, a little more readily than Lucky had.
“Why do I get a piece of shit, and he gets an Acura?” Lucky pointed at the deep burgundy SUV.
“Him, hospital big-wig. You, basement-dwelling package wrangler. Any more questions?” She flipped a strand of chestnut hair over her shoulder, smiled pleasantly at Bo, and stalked off.
“What’d you do to piss her off?” Bo asked, leading the way back to Lucky’s car.
“Hell if I’ve ever laid eyes on her before. Is she new?”
“Judy? She started about a year ago. From her reaction I figured you’d had a run-in at some point. She sure doesn’t seem to like you much.”
Lucky cut a sharp glare at Bo. “Judy? Been getting friendly with the staff?”
Bo’s eyebrows rose, the corners of his mouth fell. “I need cars for assignments. She gets them for me. She also looks after the cactus when I’m away. Yes, her name is Judy, she’s twenty-seven, has a two-yearold daughter, and loves Braves baseball. It’s called conversation. Two people talk and learn things about each other. You’d know this if you’d come to the picnic yesterday.”
Why did the rest of the world care about other people’s business? Lucky didn’t flat give a damn what others did. Not usually, anyway. Bo gave the pimpmobile’s rim a nudge with the toe of his shoe. “It’s certainly not much to look at, is it?”
Lucky didn’t feel the comment answer-worthy. Instead he popped the trunk and loaded two duffels from his Camaro, while Bo schlepped a Pullman case to the Acura. The cooler containing supper warranted a spot on the front passenger seat, along with a backpack carrying his laptop.
He finished arranging his bags to find Bo standing beside him. “Sure you don’t wanna stop by and find out where I live?” Bo asked.
“I’d love to, but by the time we get settled in, it’ll be time for bed. And we both gotta get up in the morning.” No need to draw out the inevitable, or risk blowing their cover on day one.
Their gazes met and held. What should he say?
Take care, we’ll fuck when we can?
Or maybe,
Bye dear, have a nice day?
In the end he managed, “Take care of you.”
“Take care of you, too,” Bo replied.
They bumped fists and Lucky climbed into the Malibu. He followed Bo out of the garage, eyeing himself in the rearview mirror. “‘Take care of you?’ Damn, I’m lame.”

“It’s the seven levels of hell!” Lucky stared up at the apartment building, double-checking the address. Nope, no mistake. While he hadn’t exactly been raised in the lap of luxury, his parents’ farmhouse beat this rundown crack house by a country mile.

A skinny, twenty-something man in blue jeans and nothing else lounged in a folding chair outside the main entrance. Lucky shivered. Why didn’t the guy at least have a shirt on? They may be in South Carolina, but April wasn’t exactly balmy. Especially not in the shade.

He slung the straps of both duffels over one shoulder and grabbed the cooler and backpack, lugging it all in one trip in case the Malibu wasn’t there when he got back. This didn’t look like the safest of neighborhoods. After fighting traffic for three hours, he didn’t rightly care. Maybe the original owner would steal the ugly- assed piece of shit back.

“Which way’s the elevator?” Lucky asked the man displaying his body in sixty degreeweather. Not that he didn’t have a nice body. Not as nice as Bo’s, but the guy probably didn’t sleep alone unless he wanted to.

Mr. Shirtless laughed. “Elevator? Where do you think you are, The Ritz? The
stairs
are that way.” He jabbed a finger at the building’s front entrance. Loaded down, Lucky trudged up seven flights of stairs, muttering obscenities under his breath at the sorry fuck who’d made his arrangements. Probably the same woman who’d given him the Malibu. A palmetto bug scurried out of his way.
Oh shit!
Only right that hell came equipped with the nasty fuckers. If they lived on the landing, chances were, they weren’t above invading apartments. Great, just great.

It took Lucky a few tries to wrestle open the door to apartment 7C. He dropped his belongings and hurried through the apartment, flipping on lights to flush out uninvited multi-legged guests. He searched the tiny living room, shoe box sized bedroom, bathroom barely big enough to turn around in, and finally the kitchen, which was more a closet someone managed to squeeze a refrigerator and a stove into that opened onto the living room. No creatures scuttled away, but the mouse trap under the kitchen sink didn’t bode well for pest-free living.

Somewhere a Salvation Army Family Store was missing furniture, but otherwise the place appeared livable. He pulled out his work cell phone and texted news of his arrival to Walter. Duty done, he typed out a message to Bo on his personal phone.
“Hope yr place is better n mine.”

With no microwave in sight, Lucky reheated his beans and mushrooms in the oven, and munched a barely edible dinner, the beans too cold and the mushrooms too hot. He jumped when his phoned chimed. Screw dinner—he dashed into the living room to read:
“S ok. Wish U were here.’”

Yeah, I do, too
. Lucky caught himself smiling at the phone in his hand. What the hell? A few good mind-blowing fucks and now he behaved like some love-sick teenager? Okay, more than a few.

He fired up his laptop, thanking the gods of Internet connection for a signal. Hmm… What to say? Three drafts hit the recycle bin. The fourth attempt showed promise.

Does he have a toothbrush at your place and do either of you ever cook for the other? Is he your one and only or are you still fucking around?

Lucky reread Charlotte’s reply three times, adding up the equation a bit differently. Toothbrush plus him and Bo in a kitchen plus monogamy equaled complication. He closed his eyes. Candlelight played over Bo’s whipcord lean muscles in a memory. Maybe Bo was a complication worth having. But hell if he’d tell Bo.
* * *

The Malibu survived the night on the street in front of Crack Central. Its rims and tires, however, did not.
“There’s gotta be a special place in hell for assholes who make me call the keeper of the cars this soon,” Lucky snarled. Maybe he should get Bo do it, since he’d gotten friendly with the woman. The guy who apparently owned no shirts sat by the front door. “You see who did this?”
“Nope.”
“No, of course not.” Day started on the bad note, Lucky left the car on cement blocks like he’d found it and called a cab, trading one hell for another—a nine to five job.
He emailed the theft report to Walter.
Let him deal with it.

Reggie, get over here.
The bastard went on and on like some broken record. Lucky trotted over to his coworker’s side. Was the smoke pouring from his ears enough to set off the fire alarm?

Sammy, a heavyset, pimplyfaced kid who couldn’t have been old enough to legally drink, handed a clipboard back to a man leaning against the door of a delivery van. The van driver watched like a hawk as Lucky and Sammy unloaded generic-looking gray totes. None were the double-sealed variety used to transport controlled substances.

They loaded their bounty onto a cart. The shipping clerk stepped out of her mini-office and snatched the paperwork off the totes, logging in receipt before returning the forms to Lucky. “Take this up to the pharmacy,” Sammy instructed, probably enjoying the hell out of ordering around the new guy.

Lucky squashed down a smile. It wouldn’t do to show eagerness to a supervisor younger than most of his socks. If the guy knew how badly Lucky wanted inside the hospital to catch a glimpse of his partner, he’d probably wind up leg-shackled in the basement. He rode the elevator up to the second floor and scanned for tall brunets while wheeling the cart down the hallway to the pharmacy.

“Got something for us?” a too -perky woman asked when Lucky scanned his ID badge and let himself in, as he’d had to do in other areas of the hospital. Fort Knox had nothing on this place, security-wise. Lucky approved.

A balding man approached, wearing a white jacket similar to the one Bo’d worn while playing pharmacist at a bogus pain clinic in Florida. His pale skin nearly matched his jacket. Sheesh, did the guy have something against getting outside every once in a while?

“You won’t find Mr. Danvers down here with us mere mortals,” the pharmacist drawled. “He doesn’t leave the crystal palace unless he has to.”

“The crystal palace?”
“The fourth floor,” the woman explained, her pink smock marking her as a pharmacy tech, if Bo’s explanation of the color- coded pecking order in pharmacies held true. Pharmacists wore white, techs didn’t. “He’s in purchasing and doesn’t come down here often.”
The pharmacist sniffed. “Probably won’t come down at all now. Did you get an eyeful of his hot new assistant?”
“Yeah. If I worked with the guy instead of you, I’d never be late to work. He’s got a body that’d stop a truck.” The woman grinned, teeth flashing against her dark skin. Lucky wanted to grab them both by the back of the neck and clang their heads together. She redeemed herself slightly by adding, “But Danvers is too straight to notice the hottie. Me, on the other hand? I appreciate the Lord’s bounty in all flavors and colors.”
“Honey, back in the day, I’d have that lovely man wrapped around my little finger.” The pharmacist signed for the cartons with a flourish and traipsed off. Two more pharmacists and another tech milled behind a counter.
In your dreams, shithead.
“Don’t mind him, he’s harmless,” the woman said. “I’m Ava, and he’s Martin.” She hiked a thumb in Martin’s direction.
“I’m Reggie. Just started today.” Reggie! Bah!
“Nice to meet you, Reggie. Don’t let Sammy give you too hard a time down in receiving. He likes to pretend he’s more than he is if you get my drift. Stand up to him. He’ll back down.”
Imagining Bo’s elbow nudging his ribs and a hissed
Be nice!
Lucky managed a semisincere, “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got syringes to fill.”
The hours ticked by, with Lucky hauling cases up to the pharmacy, kitchen, or general supply department.
He clocked out at five P.M. What time did Bo get off? A text message waited on his cell phone.
“Dinner w/ salesman. TTYL.”
Shit. Another lonely night. Had Bo learned anything yet? What about the dinner meeting? Maybe he needed Lucky to tag along to keep an eye on things.
And that’s the only reason you want to go?
his conscience asked.
While some jerkoff wined and dined Bo, Lucky munched Chinese takeout, parked on the couch in his tiny apartment.
Thumpa, thumpa, thumpa
from the apartment next door shook the walls. “Hey! Turn your fucking music down!” he bellowed, banging the wall with his fist.
The volume fell for a full ten minutes before ramping up again. “Crack heads.” He perched his laptop on his knees. No new emails from Walter or Bo. Nothing from Charlotte. Another damned office get-together in the works. Two new shortage drugs added to the FDA website, none removed. He sighed. A quick run to the border back during his time with Victor and he’d have scored enough meds for the center to run for weeks. They might not be FDA approved, but he’d have gotten them.
Where did the salesman take Bo? Joe’s House of Pizza? Or some swanky place with linen napkins and crystal goblets. The kind of place Bo always wanted to go but Lucky said no. Was the salesman a fussy old senior, or some red-hot yuppie-type fresh out of college? Lucky formed a mental image of a charmed Bo, laughing at some two-bit pillpusher’s flattery. Maybe Lucky shouldn’t follow Bo to his meetings. If he did, he might smash in a face if the sales rep so much as looked at Bo with intent. Not that he’d be able to follow even if he wanted to, with his damned car still up on blocks while someone in accounting wrangled with insurance and paperwork issues. And with a car checked out, he’d pay hell getting reimbursed for a rental. He’d take cabs.
With nothing to occupy his time, Lucky ambled off to bed. He tossed and turned. The moment his eyes closed, a
Boom!
From next door jerked him awake. Meth lab explosion?
Sniff.
No smoke. No sirens. He turned on the bedside lamp and texted Walter.
“Get warrant, arrest my neighbors.”