A Champion for Tinker Creek, page 30
I looked around us. There were shorelines on three of our sides, indicating we were somewhere in the middle of Esperanza Bay with the largest and darkest mass of shore directly in front of us. “That way, I guess.”
He started to row.
* * *
After Agent Blake left with the drives, I started fielding calls from other media outlets seeking comments and interviews about the story. All the large papers sought interviews along with national and even international broadcast outlets. By the time I’d finished the last, one o’clock had rolled around.
I headed upstairs to grab a sandwich when Agent Blake called. “So, what’s up?” I asked.
“That guy O’Hara left a clear thumbprint on one of the bathroom mirrors at that Breaker Street house,” he said, “and the guys on the video keep talking about an admiral. We’re thinking that’s most likely Deutsch. We also may have lucked out on Manny’s abduction.”
“How so?”
“A taxi driver called in that he was just down the street from Manny’s on his way to pick up a fare when he was almost hit by a speeding white contractor’s van with New York plates. He couldn’t get the whole number, but he got the first three digits and the make, so we’ve reached out to New York state for a possible ID on the owner.”
“Great!”
He paused. “There’s some other news too.”
“Okay.”
“The Coast Guard has reported some kind of explosion at sea on Esperanza Bay, almost two miles out.”
“So?”
“I’m just letting you know. It’s probably not related at all, but I’ve learned to distrust coincidences.”
“Wait. Are you telling me you think Manny and Eva were on a ship that blew up in Esperanza Bay?” I could feel as well as hear the stress in my voice as part of my heart fell into my abdomen.
“No, I’m not saying that. I’m just letting you know something that might turn out to be relevant later. It may be they’d been on the boat but were taken off before. It may be that the boat explosion was totally unrelated. We just don’t know.”
“God, do me a favor, please don’t share this with Arthur Porter. That poor man’s got enough to worry about now. Go ahead and pass on the news about the van, though.”
We hung up.
Carolyn Mondial called. “Hello, Lyle. How you holding up?”
“Just getting through another hour.”
“Well, this might help. The court clerk just left after coming to see little ole me.”
“Really?”
“Yes. We’ll be at the top of Judge Klinefeld’s docket no matter when we manage to get back into his courtroom,” she said. “His Honor apparently read the Record story this morning and totally understands. All we have to do is let the clerk know the day before, and they will schedule us.”
“Phenomenal,” I said.
“And here’s what’s weird about it, because judges are so tight-lipped about their opinions. The rumor is that Klinefeld called the state attorney’s office this morning and asked if kidnapping to get a civil case dropped could be charged under the obstruction of justice statute.”
“Wow.”
“So, we haven’t won yet, but this morning looks a lot better than yesterday morning did.”
“Except Manny and Eva are still not here,” I said. And, sadly, I hung up.
* * *
Until I started trying to row that little boat with me and Eva on it, I’d thought I was in pretty good shape. I mean, of course, I didn’t have Lyle James’s level of fitness, but then who does? But I didn’t have a bad physique for a gay boy who was never that much into sports and had a job where I sat down a lot of the time. Then came rowing that tiny boat with two people in it, and any thoughts I had about my fitness rocketed out the window.
Rowing that damn boat was the hardest physical thing I have ever done.
“Oh my God,” I gasped, lifting the oars from the water to let their hand grips rest against my legs. “Whoever guessed that moving a little boat would be such hard work?” Sweat poured down my back and gathered like a string of soggy diamonds in my hair.
“Of course it’s hard work,” Eva snapped. “Why do you think the members of the crew have such muscular physiques? They row everywhere.”
I ignored her and dipped the oars back in. My head pounded and I wished we’d brought some water, but I knew I had to keep rowing to get us home. After going a bit more, I heard the clear sound of fabric being torn. Eva had removed her blouse and was ripping it into strips, leaving her only in a sports bra.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “I don’t think we need bandages.”
“No, but we both need something to keep the sweat out of our faces. You more than me. So, I am making us something.”
She tied two of the strips together and handed them to me. “Bring those oars in for a moment and fasten this around your head.”
I did what she said, appreciating how quiet and peaceful the bay felt as soon as I stopped rowing. The current carried us along in the direction we wanted to go, But the sun beat down.
“You look like an actor in an apocalyptic movie,” she said. “Like Heart of Darkness or Apocalypse Now.”
“I read Conrad in school, but I don’t remember a book called Apocalypse Now.”
“It was a movie,” she said. “Released before you were born. It’s about the war in Vietnam and madness.”
I put the oars back in the water and kept on rowing. Now that the current ran with us, it felt like we traveled wonderfully far with each stroke.
“Why do you think the boat blew up?” she asked. “Do you think it was a bomb?”
“I don’t know. It could have been.”
“We didn’t see any bomb.”
“We didn’t exactly search either. I think it might have been an accident. It was an old boat. Who knows when and how they maintained it.”
“Did you hear that?” she asked suddenly.
“What?”
“That sort of whiny buzz.”
“No,” I said, and then I did.
“Look there,” she said, pointing. “It’s a drone! We’re here! We’re here! Look at us!” she shouted.
For the first few moments, I couldn’t see anything against a stubborn cloud, but soon I picked it out and joined Eva’s shouting, lifting the oars to make us look bigger. The machine hovered above us for about two long minutes, then it zoomed away in the direction we were headed.
“Is that a good thing or not?” I said.
“I’m choosing to think it is.”
“Why?”
“Because that was a photo drone. I recognized it from when I was looking to buy one last year. And I read where local emergency services have started using them to do things like find lost people.”
“Let’s hope,” I said, resuming rowing. After another twenty minutes she pointed at the horizon behind us.
“Look,” she said.
And there, against the edge of the sea, came a red and white tugboat after us. I pulled in the oars and set them down. Despite my arms feeling like jelly and my back sensing nothing but pain, never before had I been as happy.
* * *
Agent Blake called again. “I’m coming back down to Bonne Chance,” he said. “I think we may be coming up on the end of this.”
“Are you serious? That’s great news.”
“Not necessarily. Coming up on an end might not mean coming up on the end we want.”
“What do you mean?”
The Bureau had found out the white contractor’s van had been stolen two weeks prior. Tips had located it around some old warehouses near the Buccaneer Pier. When agents had followed up, they found the van, along with the bodies of the two men who had been occupying 217 Breaker Street in Eva’s videos.
“They’re dead?” I felt like the floor fell away underneath me. “I thought Deutsch wasn’t violent.”
“He’s not, or he hasn’t been. Forensic analysts and detectives are all over the warehouse now. I expect we’ll know more in a few hours.”
I shook but I made myself ask. “Was there any sign of Manny or Eva?”
“Not yet,” he said, “but certainly nothing to indicate they had been killed.”
I let my breath out slowly.
“I’ll be back in your office in under an hour,” he said, hanging up.
I longed to go upstairs again. My gym’s cool steel called to me with its order, precision, balance, control, and strength. None of the things I felt like I had right now.
But Parker had his hands full with a difficult transmission job, and nobody else was free enough to watch the office. I sat at my desk and tried to focus on invoices and keeping my heart and my head on the same page.
I realized how much I had changed. Before I met Manny, I never let anyone get close enough for me to care for them. Eva, my bar-prowling compatriot and soulmate in everything non-romantic, didn’t have that hold on me. But Manny did. And rather than be alarmed by that or resentful of it, I felt happy about it. Or I did until the notion of losing him made me feel sick inside.
Blake rang back.
“What’s up? You got something?”
“Okay, this is a heads-up just for you,” Blake said. “Both of them are safe.”
“Oh, thank God.”
“They’re both on a St. Michael’s Harbor fireboat due at municipal pier in about ten minutes. From there, they go to St. Clair’s.”
“Are they—”
“They’re dehydrated and need to get checked out, but otherwise seem fine. If you leave now, you’ll get to St. Clair’s right before they do. I’ll hold off calling the family or anyone else for fifteen minutes. That should be enough to let you two have a little time to yourselves before the world comes crashing in.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Don’t mention it. We’re going to want to interview him later because the investigation’s ongoing, but you guys deserve at least a few moments alone.”
I made the distance to St. Clair’s in about ten minutes and hurried into the emergency room reception area. Head ER Nurse Nancy Benedict recognized me from my previous visits as she hurried along a hall.
“Well, Mr. James. This is a surprise. How can we help you?”
I lowered my voice. “An ambulance is bringing my two friends, Eva Almisra and Manny Porter, in right now,” I said, and her eyes registered surprise. “I want to be allowed in the room when they’re being seen.”
“Yes, that’s true, they are,” she said. “How did you know that? And we don’t let anyone into our exam rooms.”
“Then how about just Manny? He’s my fiancé, and he’s just been through a terrible experience. Please.”
She glanced up the hall. “Okay, go down to Exam Room Two and wait. I’ll make sure he’s taken there when he arrives. But you have to stay out of the nurse’s way. And if the doctor comes in and kicks you out, you have to leave.”
“Scout’s honor,” I said, giving her my best salute.
“Oh, get in there before someone sees you,” she said, laughing.
I slipped down the hall into the room. It had a bed with a curtain rod around it, a bank of instruments, gauges, and hook-ups.
I didn’t hear them arrive at first. The ambulance brought them up to the door without lights or sirens. A flurry of announcements over the hospital’s public address system summoning medical staff to the ER and then scurrying feet alerted me before the door swung open and Nurse Benedict rolled Manny’s wheelchair inside.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” she said, shooting me a look before she left.
I tried to hide my shock. Despite Blake’s reassurance, he looked terrible. A significant sunburn covered his head, face, neck, and hands and had swollen his eyes to mere slits. He had a dirty band of cloth wrapped around his forehead, and his dried and chapped lips and mouth looked like a gash against his face. While I recognized the suit, I knew from the smell he would never wear it again.
“Manny, I’m here.”
“Lyle! Oh God, Lyle! You’re here?” He reached out. I took a step or two closer to let him find me.
“Oh Thank God. Thank God,” he moaned as his hands got my waist. “I’m blind. I can’t see anything but a little bit of light. Everything hurts. I can’t really move my arms. I thought we might die, and I would never…never see you again.”
“Shh, shh,” I said, struggling to keep my own emotions in check. “That didn’t happen. I’m here. You’re safe. We’re safe.”
I tried to hug his shoulder but quit immediately as I saw him wince.
“And I’m pretty sure you’re not blind. Your eyes are just too swollen to see, that’s all. You’re just all swollen, like you’ve just had one of those shocks that some people get from bee stings.”
“Oh, great! I look like the Elephant Man?”
“Oh no! Of course not. Yes, you’re all red and swollen and oh my God, you smell bad, but you’re still Manny and oh thank God you’re here.”
“Is that why you’re not hugging me? I’m ugly and I stink?”
“Not at all,” I said as a few tears escaped my eyes. “You’re looking better to me right now than you ever have. And if I’m not hugging you, it’s only because I’m afraid of hurting you, that’s all. Because, Manny, that is the last thing that I want to do. Ever.”
I dropped to my knees in front of his wheelchair, allowing him to feel my face and head with his smelly, swollen hands.
“I love you,” I said. “If you asked me how much right now, I wouldn’t have the words to tell you. A few days ago you told me how you felt about me, but I wasn’t ready to respond. But this experience has changed all that. All I’ve done since you got taken is work to bring you back safe and sound because, Manny Porter, I want you in my life, like Father Joe says sometimes, forever and ever amen.”
“You’re crying,” he said tracing my wet cheeks with his fingers. “Oh my God, Lyle. I want to hug you so bad, but I can’t.”
“Shh. Shh. Don’t worry! Soon. There’s time. Doctors and nurses are coming soon and we’re all gonna help you get better. I think I hear them now,” I said, because I did. A rising kerfuffle of voices, feet, and wheels swept into the room.
As Nurse Benedict predicted, the doctors evicted me as well as Manny’s parents, who had arrived at the room with them. I might have been annoyed at this if Manny’s mother, a severely dressed older lady, hadn’t taken one look at him and dropped in hysterics to the floor, needing two nurses to help her out of the room into someplace quiet.
I met Agent Blake in the ER reception area, and he suggested I head back to Bonne Chance, at least for a couple of hours, but I declined.
“Parker said to tell you the phone’s been ringing off the hook from media and someone has to start making some decisions.”
I called Carolyn Mondial from the hospital family room and asked if she could help by fielding the media calls, at least for a couple of days.
As soon as they put Manny in a room, I headed in to be with him. All they had done was sedate him, so his red, swollen face against a white pillow still hid those features I knew so well. But I didn’t care. He was Manny and he was here. I settled into the chair next to the bed.
* * *
I woke up like someone turned on a light switch in my brain. One second asleep, the next wide awake. I was in a darkened hospital room. An IV bag dripped clear fluid into a vein in my right hand, and when I turned my head a little, I saw Lyle slumped in a chair next to my bed, fast asleep.
“Hey, stud,” I said in a low voice.
“Wha…what?” He jerked awake.
“What’s a hunk like you doing in a place like this?” I tried to smile at my lame line but stopped when it hurt.
“Looking after my boyfriend,” he said, stretching those amazing arms in either direction. “How you feeling? How much pain do you have?”
“Mostly I’m thirsty,” I said. “And the pain’s not too bad yet. How long have I been out?”
He glanced at the clock over the door. “Like six hours. Do you want me to call the nurse?”
“No. I like hanging out with just you for now.”
He shot me one of those lovely crooked Lyle grins. “You would never believe how good you look right now,” he said.
“Yeah right!” I crowed, touching my cheek. “I can tell my face is still swollen.”
“Doesn’t matter, all that’s incidental,” he said. “You’re here right now. Twenty-four hours ago, I didn’t know if you ever would be again. That’s all that matters.”
Lyle slid his hand over to mine. “Can I touch you?”
“Yeah, just don’t grab me or anything.”
He hooked one of his fingers into mine.
“I love you, Jose Immanuel Porter,” he said. “I think part of me has loved you since the moment I saw you standing in that stupid L&F line. And I don’t even care that you’re a reporter. All the other reporters in the world can be terrible. I’m just lucky enough to love the one who isn’t.”
“And I love you, Lyle James,” I said. “I loved you from the moment I watched you trying to heat up soup with one hand instead of asking for my help. And even though you frustrate the shit out of me sometimes, I haven’t looked back since.”
He brought my finger up to his mouth and kissed it. “I wish I could lie down with you,” Lyle said.
“Um, do you have a medical kink I don’t know about?” I tried to wink at him.
“No, not to fool around. Just to be close to you.”
“I don’t think the bed’s wide enough for two,” I said. “But we could see if they would let you put the aloe stuff on me. I feel like I’m due for another one of those soon.”
“That’s a great idea,” he replied.
* * *
The next day, after Manny had improved enough to be allowed out of bed, I wheeled his chair down the hall to Eva’s room. She was asleep with her feet elevated a bit when we arrived, so when she awoke about twenty minutes later, she found us sitting on either side of her bed.
