Murder in the City - 1. Chapter 1

Murder in the City

Hell.

Caleb was trapped in a surreal hell, watching a nightmare unfold around him. A hell of blood, gunpowder and light fracturing off the sidewalk. A hell where he stood, locked into immobility and helpless as he saw his lover fall to the ground. Blood spread a dark stain across Noah’s expensive shirt as a line of fire streaked across Caleb’s arm. Someone screamed.

That broke Caleb’s paralysis and he dropped down next to Noah, pulling off his own jacket and pressing it against the wound.

“Someone call 911!” he barked. A small crowd was gathering, but he could see Lucia through the throng of bodies, turning and running down the street.

He didn’t even care.

He was back in his hell again. Crouched on the ground, holding someone he loved as they bled, with the smell of blood and fear filling up his nose, tainting the back of his throat.

An ambulance arrived and he was being shunted out of the way, watching as his lover was examined, moved, and packed away into the ambulance.

He sat in the waiting room at the hospital. An intern had cleaned and bandaged the spot on the arm where one of Lucia’s bullets had grazed him. He wanted word on Noah’s condition, but no one wanted to speak to him. They would only talk to “family”, so he gave the nurse the number of Noah’s sister, who lived the next town over.

He had only met Noah’s sister Holly once, and was in no hurry to meet her again. He heard her before he saw her, the quick staccato of her boot heels as she stormed into the waiting room. There was a brief pause, the length of a heartbeat, and then she was approaching. “What the hell do you do to my baby brother?” she shouted. Holly reached him and gave him a hard shove, rocking him back into the chair. He didn’t resist her, didn’t even want to try. He was in hell and she was his second demon. Lucia was the first. “You dirty fuck, what did you do to him?” she screamed, her pretty face twisted and ugly. An alarmed nurse came running over and Holly wheeled on her next. “My brother Noah came in a while ago, how is he?”

The nurse spoke soothingly, guiding Holly away. Holly followed, but sent a scathing look over her shoulder before she went. “You just wait, you stupid faggot, when I find out what you’ve done to him, I’m going to-“

Caleb blocked out the rest of her threat. He didn’t care.

He was still there when Noah’s parents arrived, watched as Holly waved them over. Hopeful that he might be able to see how Noah was faring, he drifted over behind them.

Holly was talking to them in a low voice and her face darkened as she saw him approaching. “What do you want?” she asked as he approached. “Haven’t you done enough? I knew something like this would happen if he kept hanging around people like you. Not enough that you turned him homo, but he had to pick up a piece of scum from the streets to shack up with. What did you do, hire someone to knock him off, so you could have his money?”

“Holly!” Noah’s father snapped. Noah’s mother was pale. Neither of Noah’s parents had treated Caleb warmly but they had never shown Holly’s open hostility either.

“Stop it dear,” Noah’s mother, a soft-spoken woman with soft gray hair and eyes said. “This wasn’t his fault.”

It was his fault, Caleb thought, but didn’t say anything. It wouldn’t do Noah’s parents any good and Holly didn’t need more fuel to feed her fury. He would take the abuse. Anything to take his mind off the yawning pit of despair the thought of losing Noah opened up inside him. If he died, it would be his fault. He had brought Noah into his life. If he hadn’t done so, he and Lucia would never have crossed paths. Noah would have stayed in his safe upper class world, and Caleb would have continued to struggle in the slums, where he belonged. Holly was right. Directly or indirectly, it didn’t matter; he had brought this on Noah himself.

He turned away and nearly collided with a nurse hurrying by. He didn’t knock her down, but bumped her hard enough to send some of the charts she was carrying onto the floor. He automatically knelt down to help her gather them up. She glanced at him and gripped his wrist as he handed her the folders. “Give me a few seconds, then follow me,” she whispered to him. He gave her a puzzled look, and almost looked around to make sure she was talking to him. She shook her head briefly and walked down the hallway towards the staircase quickly.

He looked again at Noah’s family, clustered together and knew that there was no place there for him. There wasn’t before, and there wouldn’t be now. He went to the same stairwell and saw the nurse leaning against the wall right inside. She was wearing scrubs and had her long hair pulled back in a ponytail. She glanced at him, then down at the staircase. Voices echoed up the empty space and she gestured towards him, going up. He followed her up several stories and through a door leading to a lounge.

“Who are you? What do you want?” Caleb asked.

“I saw the scene with the family. And I know they aren’t going to tell you how the gentleman is. But I know what kind of relationship you have and it would kill me not to know how my boyfriend was doing if he was brought in. I’m not allowed to tell you this, so please don’t say anything that will cost me my job. But your boyfriend suffered a massive trauma to his chest.”

“What does that mean?” Caleb asked hoarsely.

“It means he is in bad shape. If he does make it through, it’ll be a rough recovery. The bullets penetrated the chest wall and damaged the lung before lodging itself against the shoulder blade.”

“Damaged?”

“We had to intubate him because his lung collapsed and he may need surgery. He also has a concussion from when he fell after he was shot. There is a lot of room for complications in an injury like this. Right now he is in critical condition.”

Caleb stared at her. The nurse shrugged.

“I wanted you to know. You deserve that.”

Caleb nodded, then walked towards the exit. It was very simple now.

Find Lucia. Kill her.

Then if Noah didn’t make it, he would kill himself. And everyone involved in this miserable escapade would be dead, and it would be over.

Finally.

* * *

Caleb glared up at a multi-story brick building, saggy with disrepair and clingy with weeds and broken fire escapes. He wasn’t sure of his location, but it looked close enough to his memory to chance it.

It felt strange being back in his old neighborhood, a place he used to call home.

Caleb stumbled up the stairs, depending too much on an undependable banister to keep his balance. He braced himself and slung his fist against the surface of an old door that he had sought often in the past. A few moments later, it opened a bare crack and a wide blue eye, ringed by thick mascara coated lashes, appeared, set in a soft pale face. Caleb could see a sprinkle of bleached ringlets and a white strap over a tanned shoulder.

“Yes?” The voice was female, soft and heavily laden with suspicious undertones.

“You’re not Rollo,” Caleb said, his heart sinking. He had gone to the wrong place after all, or Rollo had up and left.

The door opened another incremental inch, but the chain stayed in place, and the eye still watched him warily. He saw her turn her head slightly. “Baby?” she called.

A few seconds later, she moved out of his visual field and was replaced by the bulk of a massive, African American male.

“What the hell do you want?”

Caleb smiled in relief. “It’s Chaff, Rolls.”

There was a sliver of white teeth in the bulk filling the doorway before the chain unhooked and it swung open. “Chaff, man, get the hell in here,” Rollo boomed jovially, knocking Caleb into a smothering bear hug and almost sending him reeling to the floor. He stumbled inside, and saw a petite curly haired blond with a bit of a beer gut, shutting the door behind them and locking it.

“What the hell have you been up to?” Rollo asked, clapping Caleb’s arms. Rollo was one of the few people from his old life Caleb could actually claim to like. He stood at 6’4” and 300 lbs with skin the color of dark chocolate. A man his size would normally thought of as clumsy or boorish, but Rollo could move with amazing grace and dexterity and had hands that could be gentle as a whisper, or crush bones, depending on the situation. He also had limitless compassion and endless cruelty that he dealt out in equal measure. He was a living, breathing paradox of contradictions and Caleb had always gotten along with him, although he wouldn’t call them close.

“Around,” Caleb mumbled, the room swimming dizzily. Caleb wondered when the last time he ate was, and remembered the breakfast he and Noah had shared that morning. He saw Rollo’s gentle concern and felt absurdly like crying. Rollo led Caleb to a sagging, threadbare couch and set him down. “ChiChi, get some coffee on, will you?”

The petite blond with curly hair turned and padded into the kitchen.

“Long time no sees, Rolls,” Caleb said.

“I know.” Rollo said. “I heard you got a sweet gig in the city and moved on up. Why you slumming?”

“Gotta find someone.”

“Who?”

“Lucia Rios.”

“Shit, Chaff, what do you want with her? Leave the Rios’s alone, man, they’re bad news.”

“She shot my lover.”

Rollo cursed roundly, his voice whisper soft. “How? Why?”

Caleb shook his head. “She knows I killed Carlos all those years ago and she wanted revenge. She had been stalking me and-“ Caleb dropped his head and shook it wearily. He could even work up the rage he needed. He felt Rollo shifting on the couch, cursing again and felt like it all was happening somewhere else, far away from here. All that was real were the memories in his head, the sound of the gunfire, an alien sound in the high class, pampered neighborhoods that he and Noah had come to know, the light glinting off the sidewalk, the blood on Noah’s shirt and lips.

The blonde girl, ChiChi, came back and knelt down near him, pressing the coffee cup into Caleb’s hands. His hands shook and she put her own hands, cool and slender, over his and helped guide it up to his lips. The heat slipped up over his lips and down his throat. The familiar taste and smell along with the flow of caffeine into his veins helped clear his hand and turn his grief into focus. ChiChi disappeared to refill his mug and Caleb cleared his throat gruffly.

“Hey baby!” Both men turned and saw the girl standing in the kitchen, holding a coffee mug in each hand. “Look! I’m barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen!”

Rollo burst into a guffaw of laughter as she approached and gave Caleb another cup of coffee. She knelt down on the ground near Rollo’s feet and sipped from her mug. “Go easy on that stuff baby,” Rollo grumbled, rubbing her curls.

“I can have it after first trimester,” she chirped back.

“In moderation,” Rollo reminded her. She rolled her eyes.

Caleb felt embarrassed as he realized what he thought was a beer gut was actually a pregnancy that was just starting to show.

“Congratulations,” he managed. ChiChi gave him a sweet smile. It was a surprising balm to his wounded spirit. Sweet gentle feminine acceptance, the last thing he ever expected to find in his old haunts.

As he finished the second cup, Rollo sent ChiChi away to talk to Caleb in private. Caleb watched her walk away, a tiny little wisp of a girl, pale and golden. It was the last kind of person he would expect to see Rollo with, but life had surprises for all of them.

“So, you’ve got a bun in the oven,” Caleb observed.

“Well, she said it’s mine,” Rollo grumbled. “I’m getting one of those tests to make sure I’m the father and if I’m not, I’m kicking her sweet little ass back onto the street. I love her, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let any bitch two-time me.” His voice dropped. “So what are you going to do, Chaff? I know you didn’t come back here just to share your sob story.”

“I need a connection. I need someone who can tell me where Lucia is going to go. I doubt she is working alone. Someone gave her access to that gun and taught her how to shoot it and I’ll bet my ass it wasn’t Mom and Daddy.”

“Well it wasn’t her father,” Rollo murmured. “Carlos wasn’t the only Rios male that suffered a mysterious death. Someone capped off Daddy Rios a few years after Carlos died.”

“Shit,” Caleb breathed.

“I thought maybe you had done it,” Rollo confessed. “Some thought it was his wife, but she was too scared of that man to even look at him. But the man had no shortage of enemies, business and otherwise.”

Caleb shook his head. “Well, it wasn’t me. I never really gave them a second thought after Carlos was dead.” Except recently.

Rollo cracked his large knuckles, each one sending a gunshot ricochet throughout the small space. It brought up unpleasant echoes in his mind, shots fired at Carlos, shots fired at Noah. “Well, you need some rest, my friend. Let me make some calls, twists some arms and call in some favors. I’ll contact you if I find anything that might lead me to her whereabouts. Do you need a place to stay? You know I own this junk heap.”

Caleb shook his head. “No, I’m going back to our apartment. I need to call Noah’s office and let them know he won’t be in.”

Rollo stared at him. “Who is Noah?”

Caleb felt heat flood his face as he realized that Rollo was expecting his lover to be a girl. Caleb had known his preferences early on, but he had certainly never flaunted them. The last thing he had needed growing up was another reason for someone to target him. He kept his voice steady as he answered.

“Noah is my lover. He is the one who Lucia shot.”

Rollo gave him a long measuring look. “I never figured you for one of those wrist flapping faggots, Chaff.”

“I’m not.”

Rollo chuckled. “Well, at least I don’t have to worry about you trying to steal ChiChi away from me.”

Caleb smiled weakly and gave Rollo his cell phone number before he stood up. Rollo walked him to the door and gave Caleb a heavy slap on the back that sent him stumbling into the hallway. Caleb felt the dizzying sensation of déjà vu and vertigo, spinning around him as he walked down the dimly lit hallway, heavy with the stink of cigarette smoke and human waste; the little slices of desperate American life bleeding through the thin walls. Angry voices raised in argument, sitcoms blaring from aging television sets, babies wailing in protest. The old lower city lullaby that he used to fall asleep to.

Noah had never understood how Caleb would complain about not being able to sleep while at his place, how it was too quiet. But quiet had it’s own sound, that would kick itself up a notch at night, that would develop into a white noise inside his head. Quiet had a sound, had a presence that could be too overwhelming for Caleb to close his eyes and sink into. A car alarm blaring or a domestic squabble would break the encompassing nature of it, but that never happened in Noah’s haven and the quiet just sat there, covering him, surrounding him, and daring him to break it.

It was like it that night, in the apartment. Caleb had cleared Noah’s schedule, had informed the higher ups that Noah was hospitalized and would be out for several weeks.

If he survives.

Caleb lay on the bed and closed his eyes, felt the silence hover over him like a spider. It roared in his ears. He hadn’t called the hospital. He told himself it wasn’t worth it, because no one would tell him anything, but the truth was, he didn’t want to hear about Noah’s condition, didn’t want to hear the sympathetic condolences from a doctor who promised him that they did everything they could, but it was just too much.

"Right now he is in critical condition."

Caleb opened his eyes, staring in to the dark. Normally if he couldn’t sleep he would go for a run, or wake Noah and make love. Tonight he got up and went to the liquor cabinet. He would let bourbon be his comfort tonight. As Caleb downed the first glass and poured another, he remembered Noah, the night they met.

It was the worst cliché, eyes meeting across the crowded bar, but that was how it had worked. Caleb had been bartending the night and Noah had caught his eye, and his hand, as Caleb had reached over to give him his drink. Noah had kept returning to the bar and Caleb had left with Noah’s number in his pocket and the taste of his alcohol-stained kiss on his mouth.

For their first date, Noah had taken Caleb to a fancy restaurant where Caleb felt completely out of place. They had stayed for all of ten minutes, before Noah, seeing how uncomfortable Caleb was with wine lists and fancy dishes with unpronounceable names, suggested they leave the restaurant. Noah instead took him to a hole in the wall burger joint, where they ate in a booth in the back, laughed about the awkwardness in the high class restaurant and danced to songs playing on the jukebox. Caleb had followed Noah into his apartment for a nightcap and they had made out on the couch like a couple of horny teenagers until the early hours of the morning. Caleb had liked Noah’s attitude, how he carried self-confidence and intelligence but without the arrogance that usually came along with such qualities. He was just as comfortable in a three piece suit leading a board meeting or dining at a fancy restaurant as he was sprawled at home in sweats, watching football or kneeling naked in the bedroom, feasting on Caleb’s cock.

I won’t let you take that away from me, Caleb thought, the alcohol shooting through him, warming his limbs and damping his thoughts. You can’t take that away from me, you bitch.

Caleb slept poorly that night. He would find himself jolting awake, from dark twisted half formed dreams, turning to Noah and finding empty sheets. Then he would remember and the scene would replay itself over and over in his head, his pavement hell, and then he would fall back to sleep only to succumb to the demons of his subconscious again.

When the phone rang, Caleb wasn’t sure if he was awake or not as he groped for it, almost knocking it off the table.

“Caleb,” he growled into the phone, running a hand back through the mussed rat’s nest on his head.

“I’ve got a lead,” Rollo said from the other end. He sounded about as awake as Caleb felt at the moment. “I wanted to see if you wanted in on it before I follow up.”

“What kind of lead?”

“Guy in one of the pawns had a “pretty young chickadee” come in to try and sell an unlicensed firearm. She matches the description of your girl.”

“Where do you want to meet?” Caleb asked, already pulling on a pair of jeans.

* * *

Rollo met him not far from where he lived. Caleb got out of the cab and looked around, feeling more nervous and ill at ease than he did the previous evening in his old neighborhood.

“This way,” Rollo told him, and started walking. “I had the pawn shop owner track her back down for us. Apparently she was dressed like a higher class than he expected to see in that part of town and that’s one of the reasons he remembered her. When she tried to sell him an unlicensed firearm, he was suspicious that it was a cop trying for a bust, so he turned her away, but then he called her back after talking to me.”

“She likes to look expensive,” Caleb remarked, remembering the way she dressed and accessorized. She had no Gucci bag or Louboutin shoes or Cartier jewelry, but she wanted you to think she did.

“You can take trash and dip it in gold, but at the end of the day, it’s still garbage,” Rollo observed, his voice mild. Caleb knew there was danger under that smooth voice, simmering below that calm exterior. Rollo was fearsome when bellowing in anger, but the cool eyes and the even voice was where the trouble lay. The only time Rollo was ever calm was when he had a problem to take care of.

“So what happened after she called her back?”

“Dumb bitch showed back up at the store, eager as a little puppy.”

“And then?”

Rollo stopped next to a warehouse building, and pulled open the metal side door, gesturing Caleb inside. Instincts had him immediately on guard, and he stepped through carefully, eyes instantly straining to adjust to the darkened interior and his ears wary for an unfamiliar sound. There was dim light from weak fluorescents set up high in the ceiling and the floor was littered with dust, tools and sheets of plastic, signs of a construction project left half complete. Lucia was there, kneeling on the cold grimy concrete, head down, hands and feet bound with electrical wire.

Before he had left the apartment, Caleb had gone into the closet and unlocked the gun safe that housed his old pistol. It was one he had since he was young, living with his mom, to fight off the dealers if they got too rough with his mom, or tried to touch him. It was something that Noah had never tried to investigate or question. Perhaps he knew and didn’t want to ask. Perhaps he knew and didn’t care. Caleb doubted he would ever find out.

He pulled it out now and stood in front of Lucia. “Look at me,” he said.

Lucia didn’t move, didn’t give any indication that she even heard him. He knelt down, staring at her bowed head. Like hell she would do this to him. He wanted to see her watching him, wanted to see her eyes as the life leaked out of them.

“Look at me,” he commanded again. She remained still and Caleb gave her a nudge with the barrel of the gun, knocking it none to lightly against her chin. He could hear her teeth clack together and she finally lifted her head to meet his gaze. Even though he was expecting it, the loathing and disgust he saw in her eyes as she glared at him shook him, ever so slightly. He drew upon his anger; let it built up inside him and around him, covering him in a brittle shell of hatred and revenge.

“What’s the matter bitch?” he asked. “Upset that you got caught, that you weren’t able to scamper off like the pathetic little rat you are? Sad that I’m going to ruin your pretty face?” He traced her cheek with the barrel of the gun again. “Doesn’t matter, you’ll be dead anyway.”

“Fuck you,” she spat.

Caleb didn’t believe in hitting women, especially when the woman was tied and defenseless. But he did grab Lucia’s hair and pressed the barrel of the gun against the side of her head to make sure that she knew he was serious. “Tell me why,” he said, growling it thorough clenched teeth. His finger was heavy on the trigger and it took a conscious effort not to squeeze it, to keep the pressure off. “Tell me why you did it.”

Lucia jerked against his grip, mindless of the gun, staring up at him with hate blazing from her eyes. “So you would suffer. So that you would suffer as I did.” She was upset, the phony culture that had colored her voice when she approached him at the bar gone, replaced by her heavy Hispanic accent. “You took something important from me. So I did the same for you. You deserve it.”

“Carlos was a monster. I know that he was your brother and that you can’t help loving family, but-“

Lucia interrupted him with a long derisive laugh. “Fuck Carlos. I had no love for him. He was a bully, a pervert and a creep. I did not miss him.”

Caleb faltered a little bit. “Then what-“

“You took my protection you stupid fuck!” she screamed, coming up on to her knees, her upper body rearing back, like a snake ready to strike, managing to keep her balance despite her bound hands. “When Papa didn’t have Carlos to beat, to torture, to touch, who do you think he turned to? Did you think about that? He was Papa’s punching bag, and as soon as he was gone, it was me. You took him away and it ruined my life!”

Caleb shook his head. So selfish. So shallow. Just thinking about herself. How she suffered, and wanted to him to do the same.

“It was horrible thing that he did to you, and your brother. But it didn’t stop Carlos from being a monster and that monster killed my best friend. But I didn’t make your Papa be who he was. And neither did the man that you put into the hospital.” Caleb stepped back. Lucia stared at him, her eyes shiny with tears, her face defiant. He shook his head. How pathetic. He looked at the gun in his hands. He still wanted to pull the trigger. To aim it at her beautiful face and destroy it.

Just thinking about herself. Who was Caleb thinking of right now? Himself? He had killed Carlos because Carlos had killed Taffy. And Lucia shot Caleb because he had killed Carlos. And if he shot her because of Noah? When would this end?

“This wasn’t Noah’s fault. He didn’t even know you.”

“It was never about him,” Lucia agreed. “It was about you. You took something away from me. So when I saw you with the little joto, I decided to do the same. It was a much better alternative than to take your life. I want to watch you suffer.”

“And you thought I would just let you get away with it?”

Lucia shrugged the best she could. “I don’t give a fuck anymore. All I lived for was to get away from him. Then, it was about making people pay. Him first. Now you. So shoot me if you want to. I’ve done everything I’ve set out to do.”

He was hardly listening. He was thinking of Noah, remembering the confession he had made. Remembering the things that Noah had told him.

“You can argue right and wrong all you want. But I don’t think what you did is wrong.”

Would this be wrong? It didn’t feel right. It felt like anger and hate and bitterness. He remembered fearing that Noah would think him a monster.

Noah had instead called him courageous. Loving. Compassionate. But Caleb didn’t feel that way right now. Not when he was staring down a helpless woman, bound with cord and not even caring if she was alive or dead.

And it wouldn’t bring Noah back. Nothing would ever bring Noah back. This wouldn’t fix anything.

They had all been trapped, prey to the web of hate and revenge that bred monsters and criminals, the dangerous animals that roamed the streets of the lower city slums that Caleb had grown up in. The people he had worked so hard to get away from.

It could stop. The cycle could end. They didn’t have to remain trapped here. Someone just had to take the first step.

Caleb lowered the gun, and emptied the magazine. He looked at them for a long time.

Noah. God, he loved him so much. And Noah was in the hospital, fighting for his life and where was he? In an abandoned warehouse, watching a pathetic bitter woman sobbing her hatred onto the dirty floor.

“You’re not worth it,” Caleb decided. He knelt and put the gun and the ammo on the floor. He wasn’t going to bring them back with him. His old life stayed here. All of it. He was putting it to rest here on the dirty concrete where it belonged. “I would rather let you suffer.”

Lucia stared up at him, her tear streaked face shocked.

Caleb ignored her, and turned to Rollo.

“Thank you friend. I appreciate what you were willing to do for us. But I can’t do this any longer. Contact me if ChiChi wants work after the baby is born. I’ll set her up in the secretarial pool at Noah’s firm.”

Rollo nodded, calm as ever. Caleb shook his hand, clapped him on the shoulder and stepped out of the building. He was heading back to where he belonged.

Back to Noah.

* * *

Rollo watched his friend go. He could say this for the high-class city living that Caleb had gotten used to: it sure could make a man soft.

He looked at the bitch, who was still on the floor, sobbing, whether in relief or disappointment or anger, he couldn’t tell.

He went to the gun lying on the floor and picked up the pieces. He pulled his own gun, and aimed it at Lucia.

“Well, Caleb sure is a forgiving soul,” Rollo told her. She glanced up, seeing him through a watery veil of tears. “But I’ m not.”

Caleb, walking down the street, flinched a little as he heard the report of the gun. But he didn’t turn back, didn’t investigate. Just kept on walking. He hailed a cab and gave the driver the directions to the hospital. Noah was waiting.

* * *

Caleb walked to the ICU with a sense of cautious optimism. That was a good sign, he thought. ICU meant that Noah was still being cared for, and that meant that there was still life there. Lucia had tried to steal this from him, but perhaps she failed.

Holly had been sent home to get some rest and Noah’s parents had granted him access to the ICU for visiting.

Lucia was gone, one way or the other.

And as Caleb sat down next to his lover, his life, wrapped in tubes and wires, he found Noah’s hand and held it.

Noah opened his eyes.

And Caleb found all the beauty in the world in his smile.