A Friend in the Dark Read online

  The bartender didn’t ask what Rufus wanted. He just threw down a napkin on the sticky bar and raised thinning eyebrows.

  “No, thanks. But I’m wondering if you might have seen a friend of mine recently. Tall. Big this way,” Rufus said, holding either hand out from his shoulders and giving a vague description of Jake without coming out saying: my friend, the cop. “Blond hair. Butch.”

  The bartender pulled a grimy towel from his shoulder, flapped it once, and said, “Butch?”

  “Yeah. A guy with testosterone to spare,” Rufus replied.

  “Haven’t seen him.”

  “Anyone report a lost iPhone, then? It’s black with a matching butch case.”

  Those thinning eyebrows wiggled, and the bartender made a face. “Sure, I got it. In a box with all the other butch phones nobody bothered to pick up. Right there with their car keys and their wallets and a few stacks of cash.”

  “Aren’t you charming,” Rufus said dryly.

  “Buy a drink and I’ll be so fucking charming, your little pussy will squirt. Otherwise, get the fuck out.”

  “Mazel tov.” Rufus adjusted his sunglasses with his middle finger, turned, and walked back to the door. “Fuck this place,” he said to Sam.

  “That went well,” Sam said.

  Rufus stepped outside and started walking. “Queenie’s is the pits.”

  “The tips of your ears turn pink,” Sam said, following. “And the tip of your nose.”

  “It’s a sunburn,” Rufus said automatically, tugging his beanie down over his ears.

  Sam didn’t say anything, but the big dumb fuck was grinning, which was even worse.

  Rufus stopped to poke his head into a dry cleaners. A brief conversation with the owner confirmed no one like Jake had been seen in the shop, and no, they didn’t have a lost and found beyond unclaimed jackets, one as old as last December. Rufus tried again at a sushi joint, of which there had been a lost phone, but the hostess swore she’d chased the owner down the street to return it. More of the same at a Starbucks and even a nail salon. No one had seen anyone matching Jake’s description since he’d still been alive, and no one was admitting to having found an unclaimed iPhone.

  Rufus was well and truly agitated by the time they came to a stop at the next watering hole, the late-afternoon light turning the façade gold. Bar. That was the name of this place. It was probably supposed to be funny or ironic or some shit. The door was propped open, and hipsters moved in and out like the tides. At least it appeared night and day in cleanliness compared to Queenie’s.

  “His phone wasn’t moving,” Rufus told Sam. He sidestepped a group of college-age kids as he approached the open door of Bar.

  “I bet you know how to use your tongue,” Sam said. “Conversationally, I mean. Maybe try a little sweet talk this time.”

  Rufus paused in the threshold, took his sunglasses off, and stared at Sam. “I’ve been perfectly polite.”

  “Polite, yes. I said sweet talk.”

  “Whatever you say, Bruce Banner.”

  Bar looked like it had been picked up fully intact and moved from Williamsburg to Alphabet City. Tacky, weird art hung on the walls, and loud music played on the speakers by That Band no one’s ever heard of. Rufus moved around packs of patrons who probably haunted the front doors of NYU, SVA, and FIT by day, and noted that he sort of looked a lot like them. To an extent, anyway. Lots of skinny kids in preripped jeans. Rufus’s wardrobe came about its torn aesthetic through authentic wear and tear.

  He slid up to the bar—cleaner, much cleaner than Queenie’s—and waved a woman over. She was pretty. Brown curls to her shoulders, nose ring, some nice tattoos. Total lesbian, though.

  “Hey,” she said, voice low and smooth. “Something to drink?”

  Sweet talk. Christ. Rufus wouldn’t be able to sweet talk a paper bag if his life depended on it. He had two speeds—snark and asshole. It was that redheaded disposition, folks said.

  But still, he smiled his best smile and said, “Um, no, not right now. Actually, I’m looking for someone. Maybe you can help. Have you been working the last week? Friday or Saturday?”

  Tiny lines at the corners of her mouth were the only hint of a frown. “Yeah. Both nights, actually.”

  Rufus leaned both elbows on the counter while talking. “He’s a big guy. My height, but like three of me across, with blond hair.”

  “Your boyfriend?” Then she nodded at Sam. “Or his?”

  “Huh?” Rufus looked at Sam, then shook his head. “Not—no. He’s not my boyfriend, the guy I’m looking for. I mean, neither of them are. No one is anyone’s boyfriend. That guy’s just a friend,” Rufus concluded as he jabbed a thumb in Sam’s direction before staring at his feet.

  One eyebrow went up. She didn’t mouth the word friend, but it was obvious that she layered plenty of subject onto it. “Nobody like that. You can see what our clientele is like; I’m pretty sure I would have remembered your big, butch friend.”

  Ok, that time she put a little spin on the word.

  “Thanks,” Rufus mumbled to the floor. “What about a lost iPhone? Black. Obnoxiously large.”

  “Actually, yes. Holy shit. I’ve been holding on to it, hoping somebody would come by.” Then she smiled. “Kidding. But we can take a look in the lost and found.”

  “That was mean,” Rufus said.

  “Tell my girlfriend. She’s always looking for a reason to spank me.”

  “All you bartenders on A are nuts.” Rufus pushed back from the bar.

  “Hold on. I said we’d check lost and found, right? Meet me at the end of the bar.” She glanced at Sam. “What about big, dark, and brooding? He looks like he needs a drink.”

  Rufus didn’t bother to look at Sam that time. He could place the other man’s expression just fine. “Yeah, probably. Something on tap. He’ll pay for it. I’m a cheap date.”

  The girl’s nose ring caught the light as she grinned. “So this is a date?”

  “No.”

  She expertly filled a glass, leaving just the right amount of head, and slid it across the bar. “Hey,” she called to Sam. “Eight bucks. Freckles here says he’s a cheap date and you like draft.”

  Sam turned a slow, murderous look on Rufus before pulling the wad of bills from his pocket. As Sam paid, Rufus hurried to the end of the bar to wait for the woman. Eight bucks had seemed like a lot, but Rufus hadn’t drank at a bar in years, so his sense of cost was a little dated. It was easier to get piss drunk in the comfort of his home on gin toxic enough to scrub a tub clean. And it cost nothing, especially when Rufus was able to lift a bottle from his permanently stoned neighbor.

  “Thanks for checking,” Rufus said when the bartender joined him a minute later. “Sort of at wits’ end trying to find this phone.”

  She shrugged. “Kind of hope it’s in here. But kind of not, you know? I don’t even know what to do if it is. Do I give it to you? I mean, I guess I’ll have to ask Geoffrey. He’s the manager.” She lifted a cardboard box onto the bar top, slid it halfway to Rufus, and waved for him to join her in rummaging through the contents.

  Rufus poked at a few odds and ends. Someone had lost a shoe. Not a pair of shoes. Just the one. That’d probably been a rough night for Converse size 9. He found a fake ID at the bottom of the box, a pair of fashion glasses—the sort with no prescription—and one condom. Still in the foil, at least.

  “I don’t see it,” he muttered.

  “Did you lose that?” Sam said, nudging Rufus and looking at the condom. He had joined them without Rufus hearing him, which seemed impossible for the big lug.

  Rufus visibly jumped at Sam’s voice and hissed, “Jesus.” He stared at the condom for a beat before giving Sam side-eye. “No. I did not.” He shoved the lost and found back across the bar.

  “No joy,” the bartender said. “Sorry about that.”

  Rufus shrugged, waited until the woman left for a new customer, then asked Sam, “That beer worth eight bucks?”

  “
You’re about to find out,” Sam said, passing it to Rufus. “I don’t drink alone, and I don’t drink domestic. Not when I can help it.” He queried the bartender about other draft beers, settled on Sapporo, which Rufus couldn’t believe they had, and the bartender moved off to get it.

  Eyeing Rufus, Sam closed his index finger and thumb around Rufus’s wrist. The roughness and heat of his fingers shocked Rufus, especially after Sam’s earlier comment about being touched. Sam met Rufus’s gaze for a long moment, murmured, “Still dainty,” and then called down the bar for an order of loaded nachos. Then, releasing Rufus, he pulled out a stool and sat.

  Rufus put his hand to his chest, rubbing his wrist. He could still feel the impressions Sam left behind. Like his touch had seared through flesh and muscle and tendon and branded itself on Rufus’s bones. “We’re staying?” he asked, hearing how stupid and obvious the question was even as he spoke.

  Sam hooked the stool next to him with his heel and touched the tip of Rufus’s ear. “They’re doing it again.”

  Rufus plopped down on the barstool. He tugged his beanie off and set it on the counter beside his beer, showing off that, yes, in fact, his ears were pink from a blush. “I’m fair-skinned.”

  “It’s cute.”

  Cute. There it was again.

  “Are you fucking with me? Or should I say thanks?”

  Sam just gave him a slow blink. “I like it when guys say thanks.” Then, without waiting, “What’s your last name? Your real one, I mean.”

  Rufus looked away. He stared at his reflection in the mirror above the bar, realized what a mess his hair was from the beanie, and vigorously finger-combed it. He grabbed the tall glass next and took a long pull. Rufus lied. He always did. A petty thief turned CI didn’t share information that could be traced. That’s why he tossed his burner every few weeks. That’s why the apartment he’d grown up in wasn’t technically in his name. It’s why every scumbag he’d helped the NYPD put away over the past few years thought he was a Smith. A Brown. A Baker.

  Rufus put the half-empty beer down, looked sideways at Sam, and suddenly it was so difficult to lie. So difficult to spin a whopper to someone who’d dropped their entire life to come here and seek justice for Jake. “O’Callaghan.”

  “Rufus O’Callaghan,” Sam said. The bartender brought him his beer, and Sam took a drink. His hand shook in the middle of it, and beer spilled down his chin, spattering his legs. Swearing, Sam set the glass down hard and grabbed a handful of napkins. He mopped at himself for a minute. Then he shoved the wad of wet paper away. Then he shoved the drink away. He put his hands in his pockets and stared straight ahead.

  It was impossible to pretend Rufus hadn’t noticed the shakes this time. So he asked, because he was always of the mindset to just rip the Band-Aid off instead of peeling inch by inch. “PTSD?”

  Sam laughed, a hard, sharp bark. “No.” For a moment, it seemed like that would be the end of it, but then he added, “It’s called essential tremor. It’s not a big deal.”

  Rufus screwed with his hair again. “Do you take anything for it?”

  “Not right now.”

  “Oh.”

  “So.” Sam cleared his throat, and some of the stiffness in his posture eased as he glanced around. “This your scene?”

  Rufus snorted. “Hell no. This place is for new-age punk kids who’ve never heard of CBGB.”

  Sam actually smiled at that; this time, he managed not to spill any of the beer, although the tremor was still noticeable. When he set the glass down, he leaned on an elbow and turned to face Rufus, his eyes a mile deep and searching. “Tell me about the origins of punk.” He shrugged. “Or tell me about anything, really. Tell me a Rufus thing.”

  Rufus’s eyebrows shot up. That seemed a simple enough request: Tell me something about yourself. But had he ever been asked that before? “I’m a Gemini. That’s what people usually lead with….”

  “Gemini is the Twins, right? Christ, are there two of you?” But he said it with a grin.

  “No. Thank God. I can’t even handle me.”

  “You’ve handled yourself pretty well today.” Sam slid the wadded napkins back and forth across the bar, exterminating the lingering drops. “The cop you were working with got murdered, someone tried to scare you off, and you kept coming. I think you’ve been handling yourself really well for a really long time. Hell, you even handled me when I was a total asshole.” He shoved the napkins away again. “Sorry about that, earlier.”

  “You really don’t have to bullshit me.”

  Sam swiveled on the stool, and he caught Rufus’s seat and spun him so they faced each other. Sam’s body bracketed Rufus’s, and Rufus was aware again of the difference in size, of the way Sam sat, of their proximity and the radiant heat of Sam’s thighs pincered at his knees. Sam cocked his head as though searching for something, but when he spoke, his voice was neutral.

  “I never bullshit about what’s important to me. And you still haven’t told me a Rufus thing. Not a real one.”

  Rufus’s heart was beating so hard now that he thought it might crack his sternum. Was it because Sam was close—so close—touching, even, right fucking there for the taking? Or because he’d suggested Rufus was somehow important and no one but Jake had ever made him feel that way? Fuck. Maybe neither. Maybe it was merely because Sam was waiting for a piece of meaningful trivia to keep the conversation alive, something that would ultimately backfire, fuck Rufus over seven ways to Sunday, all because Sam’s thighs were warm and powerful and—he hadn’t stopped staring.

  Rufus could barely hear the music over blood rushing in his ears. He wondered if the flutter in his throat was visible. It had to be. It felt like a panicked bird trying to escape. His entire body was practically vibrating from the pressure and warmth of Sam’s touch through jeans and it was a painful reminder of how goddamn starved Rufus was for physical affection. He’d have given his left nut then and there for bare skin, caresses, a kiss.

  But Sam didn’t like to be touched. So no way was this going any further.

  “I’m ticklish,” Rufus blurted out suddenly. “The backs of my knees.” He smiled and laughed too loudly. “Want to hear a story about that?”

  Sam didn’t answer, didn’t move, didn’t even seem to breathe.

  “I was having sex with this guy—well, I was about to, anyway. Threw my legs up over his shoulders, but the jackass was wearing some ridiculous polyester shirt he wouldn’t take off, and every time he moved, the material scratched my knees and I started laughing. He thought I was laughing at him. He got angry. I tried to tell him what was wrong, but I was laughing so hard, I couldn’t breathe.”

  But Sam wasn’t laughing. The bartender brought the loaded nachos, and Sam handed her several bills and slid the food toward Rufus. After another moment, Sam said, “I’ll ask you again later. A real Rufus thing. Think about it.”

  “That’s real. I’ve never told anyone about it.”

  Sam was still sitting sideways, ignoring—or oblivious to—the shift in posture and conversation. He shrugged and said, “It’s a funny story.”

  Rufus picked up a chip topped with melted cheese and onions and meat, put it into his mouth, licked his finger, and asked around the bite, “What about a Sam thing, then?”

  “One for one,” Sam said. “I told you about—” He made a gesture to take in the spilled beer. “You still owe me a real thing. Not a story about how you limp-dicked a guy by laughing at him.”

  Rufus shook his head, grabbed another chip, and ate it. “I don’t think so.”

  Sam smiled suddenly, touching his own ear this time. “Doing it again.”

  “I know. I can’t help it. It’s an Irish thing.”

  “It’s—” Sam looked like he might say cute again, but instead, he said, “It’s new. For me, anyway. You’re new. Different. Christ, whatever, I don’t know what I’m saying. This whole place has really fucked with my head.” Sam riffled his hair, put his head in his hand, and then took a long
drink of Sapporo. “Never mind. I’ll stop pointing it out.”

  But Rufus slid forward on the stool, inching his knees a bit further between Sam’s thighs. “I’m different in a good way?”

  A long, slow exhalation followed. Then, simply: “I think so.”

  Rufus fiddled with his hair in order to keep his hands busy. He opened his mouth to respond, but whatever he was intending to say was forgotten and he blurted out, “Holy shit.” Rufus grabbed Sam’s shoulder, jerked back like he’d stuck his hand on a stovetop burner, then shifted on his stool in order to use Sam as a shield.

  Sam stiffened, his whole body locking up, and Rufus remembered: I don’t like being touched. When Sam spoke, his voice was a harsh whisper. “What? What’s going on?”

  “Behind you—don’t look. He’s sitting at a table near the back.”

  Sam didn’t quite close his eyes, but they narrowed, and he said, “Yankees cap on backward? Dark T-shirt? About your age?”

  “Yes, that’s—what the hell?” Rufus met Sam’s narrowed gaze. “Do you have eyes in the back of your head?”

  Sam just pointed at a mirror.

  Cheeks flushed pink, Rufus leaned a little to the right and peered around Sam’s shoulder. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  “Who is he? Why is this such a big deal?” Then Sam’s voice changed, suddenly hard with a note Rufus couldn’t quite place. “Ex-boyfriend?”

  Rufus made a disbelieving sound in the back of his throat and straightened. “He’s who I saw. When I found Jake.”

  Sam glanced down, repeating the words, the tone of his voice making lights go on in Rufus’s head: the phone pinging from Tompkins Square Park, and now this guy was here, waiting.

  “This is the guy who killed Jake?” Sam asked. “This is the guy who tried to kill you?”

  Rufus jerked his head once in a nod.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The worst part was that Sam couldn’t turn around; Rufus had told him not to. Everything else in Bar went on as usual: the clink of glasses, the miasma of hops and industrial nacho cheese, pickled jalapenos sharp over everything else. One part of Sam itched to get a second look at this asshole. But another part of Sam was distracted by how close Rufus was, by the faint smell of his soap, by the way a clump of hair over his ear stuck straight out in a fiery mess. Part of him was distracted by the way it had felt for Rufus to touch his shoulder. Overwhelming, that was the only word for it. The heat of his hand, the rasp of the inside-out cotton tee, the pressure.