Dating Rules And Pretty Fools - 27. The Promise He Made

Chapter Twenty-Seven – The Promise He Made

They wouldn’t hurt him, not until it was for their own benefit, Hudson kept telling himself as he hurried back into the building. Just as he entered, he came close to crashing into Watkins, who seemed keen on getting out at the exact same moment.

“Vegas,” the man barked at him, “whenever I look for you, you’re never here. Get to work already.”

“What do you need me to do?” Hudson asked, wondering at how calm the words sounded coming out of his mouth, given the circumstances.

“We have an entire group of wannabes. They’re for the website mainly, but they will also open for the main act for the premiere. You need to make an album that we can present to our guests the moment they step through the door. A souvenir, you may well call it.” As he explained Hudson’s job, the man seemed to calm down some, but there was a certain nervousness in his movements that couldn’t be easily overlooked.

“Everything fine, boss?” Hudson asked.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Watkins asked, irritated. “Well, if you want to know so much, the police got Twinlight turned inside out on a fool’s errand, or so it seems. And let me tell you, that wasn’t on my ‘to do’ list. Someone will have to answer for this crap.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Hudson said. “That place is as clean as a whistle.”

Watkins gave him a long suspicious look. “As opposed to this one?”

Hudson put his hands up. “I didn’t mean it like that, boss. Who knows? Maybe it was just a rival, trying to get a rise out of you.”

“Yeah, maybe. Too bad I’m too busy to look into that shit. And those souvenirs? You’re still in charge, right? Come on, get to it already.”

Hudson nodded like an eager to please employee and walked in the opposite direction from Watkins. Gavin was the kind of guy who was always careful to conceal any traces of his activity, and Hudson was counting on him, but with the big operation underway, there were multiple pairs of ears and eyes getting involved. Watkins was buried up to his nose in the opening of the new club, so maybe he wouldn’t have time to look into why Twinlight got the earlier visit from the police.

Hudson didn’t work with maybes and false hopes. He needed to find Otis, and his conviction that his beautiful boyfriend was somewhere in the building was growing stronger by the minute.

***

“So, you think yourself smart, don’t you?” Angel hissed while bending at the waist and getting into his field of view.

Otis moved further away from this young man who kept trying to get into his personal space, without having any consideration for what counted as boundaries. He had worked so hard to understand them, and it had always seemed like he was the only one around coming up short where the myriad rules for social interaction were concerned. And yet, this other person seemed to trample everything in his path. From kidnapping him to behaving like this.

The whole situation would have been a lot better if only he had a pair of socks. Without understanding why, the sight of his own bare feet made him feel vulnerable. With not one kind face in sight, he couldn’t afford to feel that way. The power, the strength had to come from within. He clasped his hands together and pressed them between his knees while bending over, forcing himself to become as small as possible.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Angel asked. “Ah, you’re one of those guys. Hard in the head. I don’t get why he wanted you here.”

“Who is he?” Otis asked. Under such dire circumstances, the more he knew, the better his chances were of finding a way out.

“The big boss. He brought you here, so he must think there’s something to be done with someone like you. Probably as an opening act? I somehow doubt it. You’re as stale as day-old bread. Your clothes are so lame. Whatever. You will be naked, anyway.”

“The scarred man,” Otis said slowly.

Angel smacked him over the head with his small purse. It didn’t hurt, but it made him feel humiliated, as if he was an animal that had to be mistreated to behave. At his startled reaction, Angel began laughing. How could such a beautiful person appear so ugly? Otis watched the way the corners of the other’s mouth curled up, making his face appear similar to that of a nightmarish clown. His eyes gleamed with darkness and they seemed to give away nothing. It was a bad look, Otis just knew it.

“You’re so stupid,” Angel added. “Don’t you dare talk like that in front of the big boss. He might eat you for breakfast instead of making you part of the opening. Eh, I guess you’re not going to be around here for long.”

“No. The scarred man,” Otis said stubbornly, “told me that he loved me and that he would take me home with him.”

At that, Angel gave him a long look while his eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Now, you’re just making stuff up. There’s no way a nobody like you--”

The door opened, admitting the man called Watkins. Otis stared at him, unblinking.

“This guy is a complete nut case,” Angel accused, while pointing a finger at him. “He keeps making stuff up about the boss. Can’t we just get rid of him? Send him away with a boot in his ass?”

“Stop getting on my nerves,” Watkins said shortly. Although the man with his cold eyes had seemed to Otis to be completely in control, when he interacted with other people he appeared to be a person experiencing a lot of stress. There was a small twitch at the corner of one of his eyes, and his hands trembled from time to time.

“What do you want me to do with him?” Angel asked.

“As long as the boss wants him alert and awake, nothing. Before he goes on stage, make sure to give him the same medicine as you’ve given Jasper until now.”

“You know, I tried to keep the guy under treatment, but that gorilla of yours stopped me.”

“Who was in Jasper’s room?” Watkins asked abruptly. “You know you have to keep an eye on things.”

Angel rolled his eyes. Otis watched the interaction taking place before him with the utmost care. These people were holding him, and at least one other person called Jasper, hostage. He didn’t know what to think about the term ‘medicine’ as it came out of Angel’s mouth, but he had to believe that it was something terrible. Maybe it was a way to get rid of him, anyway, but in the way a lethal injection would send someone away, out of this life completely.

He had considered death, even his own, before. The people at the hospital that had treated his burn had said between themselves that he’d been lucky not to be at home when the fire that had killed his mother started. He didn’t know why they called it luck. It had happened only because his mother had made sure he would run away. And then, she had been unlucky enough to die in the fire. Unlucky sounded like a rude word under the circumstances. Otis had looked up the word ‘tragedy’ in the dictionary long afterwards, but not even that explanation had put a stop to his questions about the whys and the what-ifs.

Angel continued talking, swinging his hands in a strange fashion as if he needed to make sure the polish on his just done nails dried. Otis hadn’t noticed any polish on Angel’s nails.

“I’m talking about Vegas. He is so concerned I’m giving Jasper too much of his vitamins. What a douche. I bet he wants to score with that guy. Really, you should warn him about touching the merchandise, okay?”

“Hmm, so Vegas was worried about Jasper? How quaint,” Watkins commented.

Vegas was a place, not a person. But maybe it was someone who took his name after a place, like Utah, the bartender at Twinlight. His visit to that club seemed to have happened a lifetime ago. And in that other lifetime, Hudson had taken him from there and kissed him.

Some memories hurt, but not all of them hurt the same way. What would Hudson think when he didn’t find him home tonight? Maybe he’d think that Otis went away on a trip without telling him anything.

“And even Jackie sided with him,” Angel continued his rant.

Jackie. That was a name Otis knew. But it could all be just a big coincidence.

“If Jackie did,” Watkins replied, “it means that you really went overboard with Jasper’s medicine.”

Angel pursed his lips and then clucked his tongue. “No, I didn’t. They are a pair of assholes, that’s all. And you know what? I don’t think we need to hide behind words while in front of this guy.” He pointed at Otis. “He’s so stupid that he doesn’t understand why he’s here. What’s he going to be? Some extra?”

“He’s going to be part of the main act.”

“What?” Angel raised his voice. “No freaking way. Wait, I mean… he’s going to… you know?” He pointed with his head in Otis’s direction again.

“No. The boss has big plans for him.”

“Okay,” Angel said slowly. “What kind of plans?”

“That’s none of your business,” Watkins said and looked at Angel, his eyes narrowing in what Otis could only interpret as displeasure. “Now, before the show, make sure that he gets the treatment, too. Just like Jasper. Although it’s not going to be his only appearance, we don’t want to scare him more than necessary. He needs to last. Do you understand?”

“Whatever. I’m only an employee, always at your service. So, who’s going to be the third? One of the newcomers? No one’s pretty enough, in my opinion, but I guess they’ll do for one big act, am I right?” He began laughing.

Even the way Angel laughed made Otis feel his skin crawl with unpleasant apprehension.

“Oh, we got our line-up ready,” Watkins said.

Angel was looking somewhere else, so he wasn’t aware of how Watkins was looking at him. Otis observed everything, trying to interpret all the cues, as his therapist had taught him. Right now, a part of him wanted to warn Angel about something. Watkins was looking at the young man as if he had bad intentions regarding him. Otis couldn’t tell what those intentions were, but there was something akin to hatred in Watkins’s dark stare. No one looked at someone else that way without being the villain in a movie and watching their next victim.

But maybe, the people he was observing, his eyes dry and itchy from not blinking for too long, were both villains. And the victims were people like Jasper and him.

Who was that Jackie they were talking about? It was a silly thing to hope that it was the same Jackie he knew. From the short conversation between Watkins and Angel, Otis got the feeling that Jackie and that Vegas person were trying to be good people. Of course, he didn’t know them and assuming such things about individuals that were complete strangers to him was not the correct way of thinking.

***

“Have you solved whatever stuff you needed to solve?” Jackie asked him, talking in a low voice. “Because you keep looking at the door as if you’re expecting some ghost to walk through.”

Hudson pursed his lips. He was snappy, ordering the boys around to take pictures of them, and from time to time, went to the laptop provided by Watkins so that he could upload them to the site on the go. There was a lot of work to do and not enough time. It hadn’t been bullshit, about his not being able to go back home until the big opening.

“It’s all under control,” he murmured at Jackie.

“Hey, man, don’t keep me in the dark,” Jackie said. “I can help you. Just give me more to do than telling me to keep my eyes peeled and my ears open. I’m so tense you could cut me and blood wouldn’t come out.”

“You’re doing just fine. Now entertain our entertainers for a bit. I need to make a round and see if everything’s in place.”

Jackie threw him a suspicious look but didn’t add anything. Hudson nodded to him briefly and then went out the door.

There couldn’t be a lot of places where they could hold Otis. If he was there. No, he pushed the doubt away from his mind, he had to be there. Why Watkins had chosen to do something as bold as that, to kidnap Otis, who was Hudson’s neighbor, was beyond him. There was no time to dig for whys, but he could search the place.

He walked down the long corridor. There were several doors on each side, most of them converted from what must have been the offices on-site when the industrial building was still in use. They were holding Jasper in one of them, so it was only natural for him to think that Otis would get the same treatment.

The thought sent a chill down his spine. Carefully, he tried one door and looked inside quickly. It was empty and appeared to be a sort of a storage room for now. He still had five more to try. No, four, if he counted out Jasper’s room. Should he count it out? What if they put Otis in there, too? That should be his next target, but he doubted the door was unlocked. If there was something inside – or better said, someone – they considered valuable enough, they wouldn’t leave it open for anyone to walk in. That was another good pointer. He would have to consider it a sign and identify the locked rooms to inspect them later, at night. Since the big boss expected it of him, he would have to spend the night there and continue to work on the last details. That worked just fine, because that would leave him enough leeway to search the place.

But first, he needed to identify the locked rooms, to reduce his searching area. He was about to try a second door, when a door opened at the end of the hall, and Watkins and Angel walked out, arguing about something. Hudson retraced his steps, moving as quietly as possible. However, he wasn’t fast enough, and Watkins noticed him.

“Vegas,” he called out to him, “how is the album coming along?”

“It’s coming,” he replied.

Watkins and Angel reached him, and the older man grabbed Hudson’s arm, forcing him to walk back down the hall with him. It was as if the guy was trying his damnedest to get him away from there. That only served to send his entire alarm system flaring.

“Are there other models besides the guys I have with me?” he asked.

“No,” Watkins said brusquely.

Had it been just his imagination or had Angel just opened his mouth to say something?

“What about our star here?” Hudson asked, wanting to hear the young man speak and see what he had to say.

“Don’t be stupid, Vegas. I’m the guy who works from the sidelines this time around.”

“The sidelines?” Hudson stole a glance at Watkins. “But I thought--”

“Angel is right,” Watkins cut his words short.

So, Angel had no idea he was going on stage. Hudson didn’t like it, but maybe that was a sign that the first show of the new club wouldn’t go to the worst of extremes from the get-go. Still, he expected the show to be a whole lot different from any other clubs that functioned in the world of law-abiding citizens. That wasn’t even the right way to put it. This club was an abomination, with no ties whatsoever to humanity, not even that of the lowest kind.

“He’s our little busy bee,” Watkins added and caressed Angel’s cheek, making the young man lean into his touch like a spoiled pet.

His eyes looked dead as he stared at Angel, and Hudson noticed. He recalled the night of the raid again; who or what had spooked Angel that one time? He shook his head. If Angel was going to be among the sacrificial lambs, he would get saved along with everyone else. Until then, he had to keep his mouth shut, although he wanted nothing more than to push Watkins out of his way and run to the door he and Angel had just walked through.

No rash actions or decisions. He had noticed the gorillas hired by Watkins around the place. Some of them were obviously packing heat, as he had observed before. The whole point was to get everyone out of there alive. His plan was to release Otis before everybody else. There was no way to tell how hairy the situation would get once opening night rolled around and the police flooded the place to put behind bars a lot of people to whom such a thing would easily be called mercy by anyone with a beating heart.

He had to bide his time and ignore the pang in his chest and the pounding blood in his ears. There was no room for error.

“That’s too bad,” he said. “Angel would look great on our website. The pics I took of him at the beginning of my working with you got the most likes.”

“Yes, yes, you’re an artist, and so is Angel,” Watkins said and pushed them both to walk in front of him. “But we need to focus on the task at hand.”

“Vegas, why are you sucking up to me? By the way, I’ve already told our boss here about how you didn’t let me give Jasper his vitamins.” Angel’s pout wouldn’t fool anyone.

Hudson tensed, but only for a moment. “Any more of your tender loving care and we might not have anyone to go on stage on opening night. Really, I could barely get anything out of him. And he needs some proper food, not your vitamins.”

“I trust your judgement, Vegas, in this case,” Watkins said. “Angel tends to go overboard sometimes. And we don’t want a corpse on stage, just someone pliable enough to play with.”

Hudson felt a muscle twitching in his jaw but forced a smile anyway. “I thought so, too. But he will get some proper food once this is over, right?”

“Of course,” Watkins said in a voice filled with fake concern. “He was just a bit too stubborn when we got him back, but he’s lucky that our usual audience is in love with the unresponsive type. Also, for your peace of mind, Vegas, since you seem to care so much about these boys, a doctor saw him just yesterday. He’s as healthy as a horse, and after his performance, once we show him what a big success he was, he is definitely going to reconsider his position with our company.”

“I’m sure of it,” Hudson replied. “I should get back to work, then.”

“Go,” Watkins said. “And you, Angel, make sure to take a cold bath. It looks to me like you’re starting to sag in places.”

“What? Where?” Angel asked in a scandalized tone.

Watkins’s laugh was ugly and unsettling. “Here and there. You can’t stay young and beautiful forever, can you?”

“I sure can,” Angel replied aggressively. “Just you wait and see.”

“I don’t think I have the patience. But as long as you want it strongly enough,” Watkins said, without finishing his sentence.

Hudson hurried toward the room where the boys were waiting for him. Angel didn’t know. He had no idea that he would be part of the opening act. Watkins had something against him, but what? So far, Angel had seemed to do his boss’s bidding… except that he had been trying to hide for a while, or at least that had been what Watkins had wanted him to believe.

They were all twisted and psychopathic. Hudson included Angel in that category, as well, and his money was on Angel knowing what was truly going on. Still, he must have fallen out of favor, and he was now in line for paying the price. But for what? Disobedience? Betrayal?

All in good time. Hudson moved his feet as if they were made of lead. He couldn’t hurry. This time, he would do it right. Not like when he had promised Pete to always have his back only to fail him so miserably later. This time, his promise to Otis, and all the other young men who didn’t know what dangers and darkness lurked under the façade of the new club, would be kept.

***

“We’ll have to sleep in here,” Jackie announced when he finally wrapped up the final adjustments to the album he had been working on for hours and shut down the laptop.

“It looks sort of cramped.”

The other guys were there and some had gone to sleep, huddled together on the big bed.

“These are for us,” Jackie told him. He pointed at two sleeping bags that were already arranged on the floor.

As he had worked, his mind in two places at the same time, Jackie had come and gone several times, bringing food for the guys along with other refreshments.

He was about to ask Jackie more about the particulars of the arrangements when he thought he heard something. A soft click. A frown etched its way between his eyebrows, bringing a new headache with it as he walked over to the door and pressed down the handle.

“What the hell?” he murmured under his breath.

Jackie was by his side in an instant. It looked like the young man was trying to remain glued to him at all times, or at least in his very close proximity. It was like having a rescue dog brought from the shelter. Hudson wasn’t against it because he could only suspect what sort of dark thoughts were going through the young man’s head, given their circumstances.

“It’s locked,” he explained after trying the door one more time.

“What?” Jackie sounded as alarmed as Hudson felt. “Come on, it got stuck or something?”

“Wait,” Hudson said. “Maybe it’s because they don’t want any of these young people roaming the place at night.”

“You think?” Jackie asked, his voice ripe with irony. “The fuckers locked us in here, and that’s weird as fuck.”

Hudson heard his phone ping and went back to the desk on which the laptop lay to grab it. He showed the message to Jackie.

See you all in the morning. Sorry for the inconvenience, but there is too much equipment to worry about with so many people around. Consider it a way to avoid theft. And wanderings off. We have a show to run.

“These guys aren’t real,” Jackie whispered. “We should break the fucking door down.”

Hudson was about to tell him to keep it quiet so they didn’t alert the others about the strangeness of the situation, when Jackie reached inside his jacket for his own phone.

“Just great,” he said with a grimace. “The boss just sent me a similar message. Apparently, tomorrow they’ll get more security and the place will be better guarded. Like, what the hell do they want more security for? They got like a dozen bouncers here already. I think there are as many of them as there are models.” He pointed at the guys sleeping soundly on the bed.

Hudson didn’t like it, either. More security meant more trouble for the final operation. He would have to let his people know as soon as he got a handle on everything that was going on. That had to wait until tomorrow.

“Then, I guess we’ll have to sleep like this,” he concluded and knelt by the side of one of the sleeping bags.

“This is utter crap if you’re asking me,” Jackie mumbled angrily. “They better open this door in the morning or I’m going to break it down and then ask for their shitty explanations.”

They turned off the light and then lay on the floor.

“Hey, Vegas,” Jackie called to him in the darkness.

“Yeah.”

“When you’re around, I’m not that afraid.”

“Good to know.”

“Okay. But you don’t think I’m lame because of it, right?”

“Not at all.”

“Okay, good talk.”

“Sleep, Jackie. We’re going to need all our strength.”

They would, without a doubt. Hudson wondered if he’d be able to do as he’d ordered Jackie, and his thoughts went to Otis. Where was he? Was he really in that room that he didn’t get to inspect, after all? What was he thinking? Was he afraid? He was different from most people, but getting kidnapped must have shaken him to the core. And Hudson wanted to be close to him and soothe all his fears before they engulfed them in their ugly embrace.

***

He had carefully inspected the lock on the door for what must have been hours. Since he lacked his usual tools, his efforts so far had been in vain. Still, that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t continue to try. Only that he needed to stop for a while and rest. Since that visit from hours ago, no one had come to see him again. He felt the pangs of hunger, and he could tell that the effects of dehydration added to the mind fogginess he was experiencing at the moment. Was he meant for the slow death of starvation? He should have drank that soda, but no, Otis shook his head, feeling resolute in his decision. If it had been poisoned, he wouldn’t be alive right now.

The scarred man spoke many words, and they seemed to indicate that Otis would remain alive for a while, but one thing he had learned about the outside world was that, too often, people said one thing and meant another. Unlike him. And that made him stand apart from the rest and make him feel like he didn’t belong among them.

He flexed his fingers to get rid of the numbness. The lock wouldn’t give in so easily, and Otis didn’t have the right tools with him. He could always improvise and innovate, but he had searched the room for anything that could remotely be used as a lockpick, and he appeared to be out of luck.

No, he shook his head again, he wouldn’t think in such self-deafeating terms. Only that he needed to rest for a bit and steer his thoughts away from food and water. He rested with his back against the door. In movies, victims shouted and banged against the door, demanding to be let out, but that was a counterintuitive thing to do. If the bad people had average intellectual capabilities, they wouldn’t keep their victims in a place someone could hear them, someone who could let them out. Also, they wouldn’t realease their prisoners just because they shouted at the top of their lungs for them to do so.

He needed to conserve his energy, especially since he had had nothing to drink or eat for what seemed to be at least an entire day from dawn till dusk. He couldn’t be entirely sure without a watch, but it felt like it was night.

He had checked the room. There were no windows. There had been at some point in the past, and Otis could tell they had been walled up, the marks of where the paint had gone over the hard to miss ridges still obvious to a careful eye.

At one point, if the thirst and hunger got too bad, he might have to yell, anyway. Not in the hope that he would be miraculously released, but to ask for at least a drop of water. More than a drop, actually. He was so thirsty now, his tongue felt like a block of sandpaper in his mouth.

His head snapped in the direction of a sound. Someone was turning the knob. He quickly got to his feet and stepped away from the door. His eyes remained unblinking, set on the slowly turning knob.

The movement stopped. Whoever was there probably meant to scare him. Or give him false hopes. He felt a need so strong to start shouting, but he held back. And then, another sound, like the scraping of a tool against metal.

Someone was trying to get inside, and they didn’t have a key. Otis made a move toward the door, but then stopped. The person on the other side was working in complete silence except for that soft scraping. That meant they didn’t want to draw attention, and they were there to get him out.

Otis felt a whimper climbing up his throat. He wouldn’t jeopardize the rescue mission, if that was what this was. However, he moved close to the door to listen to the sounds of his impending release. Could he signal the person on the other side that he was there?

He knew what to do. He tapped softly against the door. The scraping stopped, so he continued his tapping to the rhythm he had learned from a short video on Morse code. Maybe the other person knew it, too.

The scraping resumed and then stopped, seemingly abruptly. Otis wanted to tap his S.O.S. again but hesitated. If his would-be rescuer had stopped, there could be many reasons for it. He listened carefully, his neck craned until it hurt, but nothing followed.

He counted. One minute passed. Two minutes passed. He was sweating while he waited, and that wasn’t good since he was already so dehydrated.

At the four-minute mark, the door opened, and he jumped to his feet, ready to meet his rescuer.

“Happy to see me?”

Otis took in Gideon Keres with wide eyes. What had happened? Without a doubt, the rescuer had been forced to interrupt his operation.

“I’m thirsty,” Otis said mechanically.

“Angel didn’t bring you food and drink?”

“No, no one has been here for hours,” he lied.

***

Hudson wanted to slam his fists against the wall in frustration. He had been so close. And his conviction that Otis was there only grew. Who else would be smart enough to send him a message?

TBC