Laszlo only hit him once, across the mouth and hard enough that when Skelter sat up on the carpet he tasted blood from his split and throbbing lip. "You dumb asshole," Laszlo said, "you stupid fuck. Cutting a deal with feds. Shit, not even cops. Feds! You only had to wait, she'd have gotten you out. All you had to do was sit tight for a few hours, you stupid fuck."
"I didn't know that," Skelter said, knowing it wasn't an excuse. He'd been scared. Laszlo had almost killed him this morning.
"Just a couple fucking hours." Laszlo opened his fingers, closed his fist tight again. The trace of blood on his knuckles, dripping onto their fancy pile rug, was Skelter's blood, which he didn't wipe off. "Chain waited, Chain didn't talk to nobody. And oh, look, he made it back before you."
But Chain never talked to anyone, if he could help it, and he didn't talk at all when he was behind bars. And Chain hadn't had a gun to his head. Laszlo's gun, and Laszlo's hand had been shaking.
Skelter had been scared. Not when it happened; you can't truly be afraid when you aren't able to move, when you can't even feel yourself shiver. He had only been able to watch, then.
After, though. For all the weird shit he'd seen before, this was different. That guy with the purple eyes--inhuman, impossible eyes--glaring, and he hadn't been able to move, hadn't been able to feel. Like he had already died but his spirit had gotten stuck in his corpse. Watching and listening and unable to do a damn thing. Even Laszlo hadn't been able to do anything.
Later, sitting in the jail cell, remembering, Skelter had thought he might be going insane, and they had asked, that pair in the long coats. He'd known what they were, they might as well have had 'Agent' tattooed on their foreheads. But they had asked, and the way they had asked, they knew something. They understood. So he had talked. It wasn't about getting free. They could tell him he wasn't out of his mind.
"It was close," Laszlo said. "The cops almost caught him. And when she finds out why it was so close--"
"Sorry," Skelter said, not sure if he really meant it. If the police and those agents had caught the guy, he'd be out of reach, and maybe that would be for the best, not to ever see those unnatural eyes again.
"Sorry. Fucking right you're sorry," Laszlo cried, rising fury shaking in his voice. Skelter flinched away, knowing the coming kick wouldn't be pulled the way the punch had been. But fighting back would only trigger Laszlo's real rage; better to take it now. He tightened his stomach, bracing for the boot's steel toes.
The blow didn't connect, though, because Chain grabbed Laszlo, big arms wrestled around his wiry frame. "Enough," Chain said. "It won't change anything."
He had him in a half-hearted headlock, diffident, massive strength that Laszlo struggled against for only a bare second before relaxing. When they were younger, Laszlo's anger would last for hours, days, rages against the world; even Helter hadn't always been able to calm him down. Now his temper burned out even faster than it rose. Chain, sensing him calm, loosened his hold enough for Laszlo to twist free.
Skelter climbed to his feet, ignoring Chain's extended hand . "I'll go talk to her," he said. "I can explain what I did." No good suggesting that they not go to her at all. She would find out eventually either way, and the reprieve before she did wouldn't be worth it.
They had tried keeping something from her once, he and Chain, when they had first started this work. They wouldn't again. Laszlo had warned them. He had learned that lesson before Chain and Skelter had joined him; how he had been taught, Skelter had never heard.
"No," Laszlo said. "I'll tell her myself." Like he always did, good news or bad.
Laszlo must already have reported to her once, earlier today. According to Chain, he had already left the hospital by the time the cops had released Chain, but he hadn't returned to the apartment until an hour after Skelter had made it back. She must have gotten him out so quickly so he could tell her what had happened that morning. Then she let him come back here to find out what went wrong this evening, that the cops had so nearly captured her prize.
"I'll come with you," Skelter said. "It was my screw-up." His fault.
Sometimes Laszlo let them come along. Not tonight. "I'm going by myself. You'll stay here," he stated, as flatly as he had been angry before. "Don't need you fucking up anything else."
"Then I'll come," Chain said, stepping forward to Laszlo's side, his deep voice calm and low.
Chain was scared, too, Skelter realized. For all his strength he hadn't been able to move then, either. Maybe he had also heard the purple-eyed guy in his head. Not talking, but telling him to be still in a command that wasn't spoken but had to be obeyed, as the brain's orders to one's own muscles had to be obeyed. Him, and Laszlo, too; probably they'd all heard it. Sit down. Don't move. He'd had to listen. He would have had to listen even if the order had been, Don't breathe.
"No, you'll stay here to babysit," Laszlo told Chain. "Fuck knows what Skelter'll do, we leave him alone."
"Shit, I'm not a kid--"
"Sure you are," Laszlo said. "A little kid, so scared he was going to piss himself. Too scared to keep his mouth shut." Laszlo stepped close and Skelter couldn't step back, not when it was a challenge like that. He wouldn't back down, until Laszlo was so close they were almost touching, nose to nose, and Skelter could feel the heat of him through the leather jacket, through the jeans. Maybe Skelter just imagined it, but Laszlo always seemed to radiate a presence like heat, like inside him was a fire that could burn him up, melt him down. Even now, when he was smirking, a little angry, amused smile.
"That was your favorite knife, wasn't it," Laszlo said, while Skelter stared over his shoulder at the penthouse's picture window, seeking his reflection in that broad dark mirror, instead of the one in Laszlo's eyes. "And the cops bagged it. Evidence. What are you going to hold to get to sleep tonight?"
"Fuck you." But it was his favorite. Helter had given him the switchblade, had shown him how to use it. Just the basics, and most of that was just showing off, how to shine light on the blade, make yourself a menace. Real knifework he'd learned later, and most of it self-taught. But his brother's hands were on that blade, his touch imprinted in the handle. Wielding it was to relive those lessons five or six years past, on the hot summer streets, he just a scrawny kid, slicing and gleaming through the heat haze rising from the asphalt, while Helter grinned and parried with a broken ballpoint pen.
The switchblade was still his showiest weapon, the best threat, and they'd been out to scare, last night and this morning. If he'd known their assignment would go so wrong, he would have brought a different knife. If he'd known he would be made to drop it, his fingers forced open by that unspoken command, so the knife had clattered to the store's tile floor, and he had fallen after it.
Laszlo's hand holding the gun to his head, and that same hand came up now to Skelter's face; he saw it rise in the window's mirror. Laszlo's fingers touched his temple, where the bullet would have entered if Laszlo had pulled the trigger a half second sooner, if that guy in the sweater hadn't jumped him.
Skelter thought he might still smell the gunpowder on his hand, a faint sulfur trace. "You never did like guns," Laszlo said, and his voice was different, his face different, too, when Skelter finally looked. The smirk was gone, in its place the same expression he'd had then, this morning, blank and shocked. White enough that he might collapse on the spot, like Skelter and Chain had.
If Laszlo had pulled the trigger. Been forced to pull the trigger. Trapped in a disobedient puppet body, while that monster with the purple eyes pulled the strings. Terrifying.
Skelter wanted to cup his hand around Laszlo's hand, press it to his cheek and lean into the warmth of his palm. Wanted to say that he was scared, wanted to ask Laszlo to stay the night with him, wanted to kiss him.
But the look in Laszlo's hazel eyes, then and now, wasn't the same fear as Skelter's or Chain's, wasn't the same shocked incomprehension. This was a different terror, not of the unknown, but of all too much experience. Skelter had seen that look on Laszlo's face before.
"Laszlo, what was he? That guy with the purple eyes? Why does she want him so bad?"
"I should know? How the hell would I?" Laszlo yanked his hand back like he was the one being burned. "What she tells me, I tell you two. Whatever she wants us to know."
"Is he like her?" Chain asked. The way he said it, carefully but without hesitation, meant he had been thinking it over for some time already, and had reached no certain conclusions.
"Shit, I don't know." But Laszlo was lying, at least partly, or else he wouldn't have answered so casually. He listened to Chain, usually. "Maybe I'll ask her! She likes to talk sometimes, you know. Tells me all kinds of damn things. Maybe she'll let me in on this secret. Maybe she'll let me in on all of them, and I'll never have to ask her or tell her anything again."
"Don't ask her," Chain said, but the way he bowed his head, he wasn't ordering; he was asking. Begging. For him and Skelter both.
"I gotta go. Before she sends someone to find out what's taking me."
"I'll go with--" Chain began.
"You'll stay right here, like I told you. Not just dumb but deaf, too? Shit, no wonder you can't keep a girlfriend," Laszlo said, with a smirk that showed he knew just how deeply that stung. "I'll be back whenever." He turned away, opened the door. "Don't wait up."
"Laszlo!"
He was gone, and Skelter had a moment that he thought he might charge out the door after him, or else his legs might give out and he would fall on the floor again. Neither happened, however; instead Chain rested a hand on his shoulder, a light touch for such a big hand, and looked at him inquiringly.
"I'm okay," Skelter lied, and didn't shrug off the hand. He looked up at his friend, searching Chain's face for anger at Laszlo's parting shot, but there was none.
He could see the traces of fear, though, see that this morning had shaken Chain hard enough to put cracks in that stone face. "You heard him, didn't you, that guy with the eyes. Was he in your head, too?"
Chain nodded.
Is he like her, Chain had asked. "You really think she's like that? That she can do that, too?"
Chain's dark deep eyes often said more than his mouth, but they went silent now, plain brown, shallow. He shrugged, removed his hand and turned away. That was taboo, never spoken of, even between just the two of them. What she did. What she could do.
"She's just a crazy bitch." Skelter wouldn't say that in front of Laszlo, either. In his mind it sounded defiant, but aloud it was pathetic. Laszlo would never say it. Laszlo knew better than him what a lie it was.
"So she came and posted your bail and got you out?" Skelter asked, following Chain through the living room to the polished black and silver expanse of the kitchen.
"Her man came," Chain said, and Skelter had to fight a shudder. He'd met that man a couple times. On the outside he looked ordinary, a regular middle-aged guy. But there was something wrong with him, something not there in his eyes. Or maybe it was what was there that freaked him. She was there. Where only he should be.
One day they might look in Laszlo's eyes and see the same. See her, instead of Laszlo.
Skelter tried not to think very much about that man.
"And they just let you out of jail? Shit, man. That's psycho." No way should it be that easy. There shouldn't be any possibility of bail, not for him or Chain. Not once they were caught. Multiple homicide suspects don't walk. Suspects, hell, the cops must have found proof on at least a couple of the bodies. They'd left enough of them, and it wasn't as if they'd been that careful. Especially not at first.
They had run across cops before, but this was the first time he and Chain had actually been taken in since they had joined with Laszlo again. And neither their names nor their stats had apparently raised any flags in the police records. That was messed up. The cops wouldn't just go and lose a couple major felon profiles.
Her doing. Same as this apartment was her doing, a place this huge, downtown, all to themselves. Skelter had never even set foot in a penthouse before it. And the credit cards, a new set every few months, with different names, and never any bills, or credit limits. Laszlo had bought his bike on one, a new high-end Kawasaki, and the card had swiped through without a blink from the dealer. Cash withdrawal, too, for whatever they couldn't swipe for. If she cared about what charges they made, she had never said.
The easy life. She didn't even have much for them to do, usually.
Chain handed Skelter a package of frozen peas and carrots from the refrigerator. Skelter took the plastic bag dubiously, until Chain pointed at his jaw. "It's swelling."
"Oh. Yeah." He applied the cold bag to his split lip. It wasn't bleeding anymore, just sore to the touch. By tomorrow he wouldn't remember it unless he looked in a mirror.
Chain studied him, with such curious focus that Skelter finally mumbled around the pack, "I'm hungry. You hungry? Let's make something." It would be better than ordering out, sitting and waiting, doing nothing. He opened the cabinet, hunting one-handed for a can of beans, but when he located them, Chain took the can from his hand and set it on the counter.
"Do you think he's insane?" Chain asked.
Skelter picked up the can, put it down again without bringing it to the electric opener. "Shit, you've known Laszlo almost as long as me," he said. "You've been tight with him longer. Was he ever, you know, sane?"
"But it was different, before."
Different, yes. But two years ago, Chain hadn't worn that cross around his neck, and would talk and swear like a regular guy, without measuring each word. Two years ago Skelter hadn't known the sound a man makes when his throat is slit, hadn't known the sound Laszlo makes when he comes.
Two years ago Helter was still alive to calm Laszlo's wildest tempers, to hold him and kiss him and fuck him. Laszlo would go out with Helter, get in fights or get wasted and make fun of Chain, whipped by the girlfriend into studying; and Skelter was no one to Laszlo, just the kid brother of his best friend, to whom he'd toss the occasional can of beer, or who he let borrow his gun to show off on the street. And they'd never heard of her, none of them.
Chain had never said, and Skelter had never asked him, but Chain probably thought it was a sin, probably thought they were going to Hell. Probably thought it didn't matter because they were going anyway, so they might as well enjoy what they could. Skelter would tell him as much, except he'd always had a problem thinking of it as a sin at all.
When Skelter was growing up, there had always been his brother, and then, later, there had always been Laszlo with Helter. That was before there was right or wrong; that was just the way it was. They had been fourteen, the first time he had seen them; he'd been eleven, old enough to know the words, but they didn't mean anything to him, any more than the real meaning of bastard. Like there was something wrong with him, just because the man who had fathered him had been a deadbeat addict who'd od'ed before he was born.
Laszlo and his brother were the two toughest guys he knew. No one in their right mind on the streets would call Laszlo or Helter a fag, not if there were ten of them and Laszlo alone. He might just laugh it off. If he didn't, though--wouldn't be worth it. And Skelter would never have thought of calling them that, not quite realizing what it really meant. Fucking faggot. Not quite realizing it could be this, Laszlo with his brother underneath, his brother's buzzed head thrown back and his fists clenched into the couch cushions, as Laszlo bore down, pink skin pale against Helter's brown. Skelter's fists had clenched, too, but he hadn't figured out why, not then. Helter had seen him in the doorway and suddenly sat up, making to shove Laszlo off as he told his little brother, "Get out of here, Salvatore, vete."
But Laszlo had just grinned at Skelter, ruddy hair hanging over his eyes, a slow flat grin with his tongue red in his mouth, and said, "The kid can watch if he wants," and Skelter had felt hot all over, not just his face flushing, but everywhere, like a fever, like his blood was boiling. That had been the first time he had felt the fire that burned inside Laszlo.
They ate on the couch, he and Chain, with the TV blasting a one-way dialogue of rap. No matter how loud or late it was, they had never gotten any complaints.
By now Laszlo would have made it across town to her place. It wouldn't be too late for her; she would see him right away. He would be explaining to her what happened, how the agents had found her prize, how stupid Skelter had been, while she sat with her hands folded in front of her, watching him with slanted yellow eyes. A tiny, slender, white-skinned thing that was not really a woman at all, in a black dress or black silk pants, and hair so midnight black the highlights went blue. She had pointed ears, Chain had observed once. Like an elf's in a movie, but Skelter never remembered to look, the few times they had met her.
The guy today had had ordinary round ears under his copper hair, an ordinary tanned face, ordinary clothes. Adam, Laszlo had called him, an ordinary name. Everything ordinary, until he raised his head and his violet eyes caught the light.
But he was long gone, fled to God knows where. Skelter couldn't blame him. Even a monster like that, to know she wanted you--no wonder he had run. Skelter wondered if the guy's friends had gone with him, the punk girl and the guy in the sweater; and the blond geek they'd been questioning, though him they might have hurt bad enough for him to need a hospital. Not a fighter, but fucking stubborn all the same.
The police had taken Laszlo to the hospital, too, but he'd walked out only a little later, when she had needed him.
Skelter hadn't slept since a nap the previous afternoon, over twenty-four hours. Lying on the sofa, thinking and trying not to, he closed his eyes. Drifting awake sometime later, he found the lights had been turned off and a blanket thrown over him.
In the moment before he opened his eyes, he smelled a musty, mildewed odor, and thought he was back on the battered couch in Helter and Laszlo's apartment, the flat in the condemned building they'd rented the month they had both turned eighteen and could legally move out. Skelter had gone over all the time, crashed there more than with his mom and her latest jerkoff, even if it was further from the school. It counted as a two-room because someone had started to build a wall splitting the studio down the middle, but the project had been abandoned partway through and the unpainted wall was crumbling, plaster dust tracked over the floor. Sleeping in the front room, he'd hear Helter and Laszlo in the back, behind the wall but close enough to touch if he could just reach through the plaster. In that cramped space they could never be far away.
But he wasn't lying on that old foldaway couch he and Chain had helped them drag from a dumpster, with the doubled quilts laid over the mattress not thick enough to block the springs poking out. Warm faux suede under him, not ripped vinyl, and when he opened his eyes the dark room was too big around him, illuminated by the TV in watery shades of blue. The vertigo of that empty space drove away the illusionary memory.
Laszlo wouldn't be back tonight, so Skelter could have had the king-sized bed to himself, but the couch was comfortable enough. The television had been turned low, but not muted, the faint voices and music a relaxing drone in his ears.
Chain, who liked quiet to sleep, as he liked quiet everywhere, could have gone to his bedroom on the other side of the penthouse and shut the door. But he was here when Skelter looked over the couch arm, sitting in the nearest armchair with his head bowed, the television's buzz masking his muttering. The blue glow flickered over the rounded swell of his heavy shoulders and the echoed curve of his shaved skull, glittered on the black straight angles of the cross in his hands.
Not for himself; he never prayed for himself. But a prayer for every man he had killed, every night, wherever their souls had ended up. Twenty-nine, now, and it took him over an hour. Eventually, Skelter thought, Chain might kill so many that he wouldn't have time to do anything but sleep and pray. Maybe Chain was waiting for that.
Skelter never prayed, nor went to the funerals nor visited the graves. Thirty-six, so far. He had touched every body with his hands. He wouldn't recognize their faces now, but their blood had been hot, all of them. It was enough to remember that.
The sofa under him was soft, thick and plush; the television wasn't a blinking box perpetually on the fritz, but a new widescreen, with a cabinet full of junk and half a dozen accompanying remotes. None of them even watched TV that much, but Laszlo liked electronics, sometimes, had gotten all excited buying the stereo set-up. Though not as excited as the day he had found that old couch.
The blanket over him now was one of the quilts they'd laid on it, Skelter realized. It had been Laszlo's, he must have kept it. Or maybe she had found it for him. Even after dry cleaning and sprays the worn cloth still had a faint musty smell. They probably should just trash it. Buy more comforters, something that matched the sofa's dark maroon.
The easy life.
"I'm going dancing tomorrow night," Skelter decided aloud. Sunday was the worst night for it, but some places were always on. His age wasn't an issue, not if he had enough cash on him.
Chain looked up from his cross. "I'll go with you," he said, knowing that for Skelter 'dancing' was done half in clubs, and half in the alleys behind the clubs, with heartbeats setting the rhythm and knives flashing instead of strobes.
It was fun either way. "Hell with that, I don't need a babysitter."
Chain didn't say anything. No point to arguing now; tomorrow he would just come. As if Skelter could do anything to stop him. Like the gorilla joke--where does a two-hundred-fifty pound killer go? Anywhere he wants. He didn't even need to pretend he enjoyed clubbing.
"Fuck you, fuck Laszlo. I ain't a kid." And Chain didn't treat him like one, usually, for all he had a year over Laszlo. Four years older than Skelter, but he'd never pulled any kind of big brother crap throughout their vocation, when they'd worked together, when they'd killed together. Skelter didn't have a big brother anymore. That was the point.
"Helter," Chain said, and Skelter jerked; he couldn't remember the last time Chain had spoken his brother's name. "He asked us to take care of you," Chain said, more slowly than usual, as if he weren't sure he should be saying it at all. Usually if he wasn't sure he wouldn't say anything. "Laszlo and me. He asked both of us. Not too long before he died."
Skelter had known already. Helter had always told him so--'You ever need anything, and I'm not there, Laszlo will be there. And if Laszlo's not there, then you go to Chuck. Always. Anytime.' He'd remembered. He had gone to him, when Helter was gone and Laszlo wasn't there. "So that's why you care."
Chain looked at him steadily. Miniature square reflections of the television were playing in his dark eyes. "No."
Chain was a friend. That he knew. "It's why Laszlo does, though." Skelter pulled up the quilt around his shoulders, like he was cold, though it wasn't the kind of cold a quilt could help. Even Chain's hand on his shoulder, solid and steadfast, didn't have the heat he needed.
When he fell asleep again, he dreamed he was in their old apartment, with the plaster crumbling, chasing down cockroaches with the switchblade while Chain tried to help the bugs escape, and Helter offered pointers, and Laszlo, high on cheap blanks, just threw back his head and laughed.
Laszlo didn't return the next day. The day after, come evening, the TV was on, cycling between sitcoms and the news that they weren't really watching anyway. Skelter fooled with a handheld game, trying to catch the last dozen. Chain was reading, one of his big leather-bound books, maybe the Shakespeare. Probably Faust; Chain liked Faust. No, Faust wasn't by Shakespeare, but the other guy, the one who got stabbed in that movie. Chain said that was how he really had died. Well, knife fights could be dangerous.
A little after sunset, the locks clicked, the door opened, and Laszlo swaggered in, just like that, shrugged off his jacket and dropped it on the chair closest to the entryway. He looked okay, maybe a little tired, but he could have just come from nothing worse than a few couple hours with one of the girls on the street a few blocks down. No falter in his steps, but Skelter put down his game and Chain put down his book, and they both followed Laszlo to the kitchen, where he was getting a beer from the fridge.
"Want one?" he asked Chain, who nodded and accepted a bottle.
"There's some pizza left," Skelter said, in case he had missed the box on the counter.
"Not hungry."
"You okay?"
"Yeah," and then Laszlo coughed, and kept coughing until the bottle fell from his fingers and he was kneeling on the floor, fighting to breathe. When he finally stopped there was red all over the linoleum. Skelter got a length of paper towels to sponge it up while Chain laid a hand on Laszlo's back.
Laszlo caught his breath and pushed off Chain's steadying hand, shoved his hair out of his eyes and stood by dragging himself up via a cabinet handle. "Laszlo?" Skelter asked, the wad of towels dripping in his hands.
"I'm fine, I'm fucking fine," Laszlo snarled, coughed again and choked it back. His lips were bloody. "What kind of assassin are you, looks like you're gonna puke at a little blood?"
"That's not a little blood," Chain pointed out.
Skelter picked up the beer--only a bit had spilled--and held it out to Laszlo. "Here."
"Never mind." Laszlo batted it out of his hands, so the bottle smashed against the side of the counter in a burst of glass and froth. That violence was accidental; his eyes were closed as he leaned against the counter, breathing through his mouth in long, shallow pants.
"Laszlo," Skelter said, but Laszlo brushed him away, too, as casually as the bottle. Hand splayed on the counter, he straightened up, moving like an old man, cautiously, not to strain his chest. Broken glass crunched under his boots.
At Chain and Skelter's expressions, he grinned, not a reassuring smile, showing bloody teeth, sick and dangerous as a rabid dog. "I'm fine."
He dug in his pocket. "Almost forgot." He dropped something on the counter with a clink.
The switchblade. Skelter picked it up. "But the cops got it--how..."
It could have been Laszlo; it could have been her. He didn't want to know. He just slipped the knife into his jeans pocket, feeling it settle, a slight, reassuring prod against his thigh. "Thanks."
"I'm going out." Laszlo didn't look at either of them. His stride across the room was as steady as when he had entered, his hands not even brushing the walls, needing no balance or support. He grabbed his jacket as he left, and then the door slammed and they were alone again.
Some hours later, one or so past midnight, the deadbolt rattled. Skelter was at the door before it could be unlocked, threw the bolt and yanked the door open, and Laszlo stumbled in. He was shit-faced and lit up on something that made him jittery and giddy and expanded his pupils so there was barely an outline of hazel around the glassy black.
He struggled out of his coat like he was Houdini escaping from a straitjacket, staggered in a full circle before he finally wrenched it off and let it fall on the floor. "I'm fine," he told Skelter, who hadn't said anything, just closed the door and locked it behind him.
"You coulda got killed, getting that fucked up on the street," Skelter said.
Laszlo laughed, loud and jagged. "Fuck them up, anyone wanna try. She gave me another gun, you know."
"Like you could aim, like that."
"Like I need a gun anyway, to damage some asshole," Laszlo said, swinging a wide punch at empty air, but he was too high to be angry, really, and close enough that the reek of alcohol made Skelter dizzy. Close enough to see the sheen of sweat that made his skin glow pink under the halogen's brightness, and then Laszlo fumbled to switch off the lamp.
"You didn't have to finish off the hit the sec you bought it," Skelter said. He was backed into the corner between the closet and the bedroom door, Laszlo blocking the way, his face a white streak in the dimness, slouched and unsteady but still taller than Skelter, and always stronger. "At least could've waited 'til you got back here."
"No fucking fun, drinking with guys who won't drink," Laszlo said, but still not angrily. He met Skelter's glare, and saw something in the shadows across his face enough to catch his bombed attention, staring at Skelter openly, open-mouthed, like a surprised little kid. "Even if they're fucking beautiful."
So wasted he couldn't walk straight, but not so wasted that he couldn't kiss, and Skelter was glad enough for the corner, the wall pressed to his back, or else they'd have both been knocked sprawling. Laszlo's hands burned, his mouth burned, all of him fire, raising a fever, contagious delirium.
Laszlo growled against his neck, and Skelter shivered, slid his hand up under Laszlo's t-shirt, around his back, to pull him closer. But then Laszlo twisted his head away, though he still had Skelter pushed to the wall, arms and legs trapped under his. Skelter looked over his shoulder and saw Chain's bulk, silhouetted against the unshaded window, watching with an unreadable expression.
"Get out of here, Chain," Laszlo said, "nothing here you want to see," and he grinned, that wide, red-mouthed, inviting grin, as he ground against Skelter, and Skelter tried hard to remember how to breathe.
Chain watched the two of them a moment longer, then nodded. "Glad you're back," he said, and walked away, letting his feet fall heavily on the floor to mark his footsteps back to his room.
It was dark in the bedroom, once Laszlo kicked shut the door, too dark to see the furniture they maneuvered easily around to fall onto the bed. Just enough light seeped under the door for Skelter to make out Laszlo's outline over him.
Skelter knew two Laszlos here. One of them who laughed and made him laugh, who would tickle and tease, playing games, how far can this go, how long could he endure. And this Laszlo, shoving down, shoving against him, all heat and aching urgency.
One of those Laszlos was Helter's, the Laszlo his brother had known all those years. The other was the one so popular with various whores, both boys and girls; and maybe her as well, though neither he nor Chain had ever asked. Which Laszlo was which, however, Skelter had never figured out. And they both made him writhe and pant and gasp his name, begging.
Both Laszlos preferred the dark, and that Skelter understood. He looked like his brother, he and Helter had both always heard that, and the resemblance had only become stronger as they grew up. He was small like his brother, slim and agile, built for speed, Helter had said, though he was strong, too, despite his height. 'Maybe you'll be stronger than me,' and his brother had meant it proudly. They had the same black hair, straight and fine, though he liked his long, while Helter had kept his short and teased him for looking like a girl.
Even their faces had been stamped with the same features--'as pretty as your mama's,' one of their mother's dipsticks had said. Unlike Helter, he hadn't meant it as a joke. Helter had at least managed a beard, a scruffy sparse excuse for a goatee; Skelter couldn't even grow that much. But otherwise they might have had the same face, same nose, same pointed chin, same lips.
Except their eyes could never be mistaken. The same large, round shape, but Helter's eyes had been like his father's, dark to the point of pitch black; and Skelter's were apparently from his own father, clear gray shading to green in sunlight and blue indoors.
In the darkness, his face must feel like his brother's face, his body like Helter's body. In the light Laszlo would have to see his eyes, unless he closed them all the time, and then it would just be darkness anyway.
Later, when Laszlo had dropped off into restless unconsciousness, Skelter turned on the lamp by the bed, lay back down beside him and just looked. Laszlo was naked on top of the navy sheets, on his side facing Skelter, limbs and back curled in, hugging his shoulders protectively in his sleep.
Skelter didn't touch him; drunk or sober, Laszlo was a light sleeper. But with his eyes he followed the contorted line of his figure, matching present image to the memory of that body against his, caressing in his mind those long legs, the vivid heat between his thighs, imprinted on his own skin. Those arms had locked around him like iron, but the hard muscle was soft curves in the lamplight. The gel stiffening his hair had run with sweat; his hair lay in flattened, soft spikes against the pillow, red-brown glinting with gold under the yellow lamp.
The lamplight also colored his sallow skin, casting a warm sheen over the freckles scattered across his shoulders. Laszlo had always been fair-skinned, the type to burn in the summer sun, but he was paler now than Skelter remembered. Maybe just a trick of the light.
But his cough was no trick, a deep hacking from the lungs. Skelter tensed, his own shoulders going rigid as Laszlo's shook with the cough, once, twice, three times; but then it stopped, subsided into nothing worse than a slight wheeze. He muttered in his sleep, rolled over, away from Skelter and the lamp's glow.
Whatever he had drunk tonight would be a lot more potent than cough syrup. It did the job; there was no blood on the pillow or on his lips. As long as it worked. Skelter wondered what he had taken with it. Something to kill pain. Laszlo probably hadn't cared what.
Helter's death hadn't changed that. Laszlo had never been careful, never needed to be. He never had a bad trip, hardly even got hungover. He'd mainlined heroin twice and decided it wasn't worth the money, like that, so easily. Helter had done less and it had still been enough. Too much. He'd tried to stop, Skelter had begged him to. He'd tried, and failed.
Laszlo never tried. He just did as he wanted--as she wanted, now. She wanted him clean for a month, he would be, without so much as a tremor in his hands. If she didn't care, he'd have his fun.
Skelter didn't trust any drug, whether sold on the streets or in stores--like legal meant anything, like a pharmacist's chemicals could be any more guaranteed than the poison that had killed his brother. No way to be sure. Smoking killed, they'd said that in school from kindergarten on. Alcohol killed faster, and more pathetically; the schools didn't need to teach that. He didn't touch any of it anymore. He was going to die anyway, sooner rather than later, most likely. Maybe in a fight, maybe by her hand. It would still be more of a choice than Helter had had. His master had been as bad as her, in its way.
But Laszlo didn't care, even after seeing Helter die like that. Or maybe he had cared once, and couldn't anymore. Maybe he'd seen enough worse things since then.
He never talked about what happened, not what she said, not what she did. If Skelter or Chain asked, sometimes he'd reply it was nothing, or none of their business, or not as bad as whatever it looked like they were thinking. He'd say it like he didn't realize how obviously he was lying, how scared he could look if he were caught off guard. Sometimes maybe he did realize, because instead of answering he'd just leave, come back later like he had tonight, blasted out of his skull, totally unable to give any answers at all.
It should have been him this time. Skelter should have gone to her himself, told her himself. He'd been the one to panic, not Laszlo; Laszlo had done all she had asked. Not Laszlo's fault that her prize had escaped. If Laszlo could go to her all these times, and always come back, Skelter could go once. Take the punishment. Pay the price.
Except Laszlo had promised Helter, all that time ago, to take care of him; and whatever else Laszlo seemed to have forgotten or lost, whatever he didn't care about anymore, that promise still mattered.
Sometime before morning, Skelter felt Laszlo jerk awake, a shudder through the mattress. Mostly asleep himself, Skelter blinked in dazed disorientation, automatically reaching for his knife under the pillow as he sat up.
But there was no one in the room, the door still closed, the drapes still drawn. He hadn't turned off the lamp and by its light he saw Laszlo, still facing away but coiled into a tighter ball. His shoulders were hunched. Shaking.
Skelter was never prepared for Laszlo's nightmares. He had them rarely--or else silently, sleeping quietly, not thrashing--and Skelter only guessed at the bad dreams from the way his eyes might snap open, or how his breathing might suddenly be rapid even though he was asleep and unmoving.
"Laszlo?" Skelter said.
Laszlo's fingers were curled into his arms, nails dug in almost enough to break the skin, whitened flesh bulging taut under that grip.
"Laszlo?" When there was no answer, Skelter tentatively tapped his shoulder, then gripped more firmly when that touch got no response. The shaking was worse when he could feel it directly, spasmodic tremors vibrating through him like another pulse. "Laszlo, it's okay. Wake up. You're back here now. You came back tonight, remember?"
Laszlo should have snarled something and batted off his arm. Or else grabbed his hand and pulled him in and proved he was awake. Instead he just kept shaking, and Skelter jerked all the way awake, sat up and leaned over him and shook him by his shoulder. "Hey, come on, Laszlo."
Laszlo's eyes were open, but empty like a dead man's, looking at nothing, even when Skelter waved his hand before them. "Snap out of it, come on." If he'd overdosed, if the stuff had been cut bad, he should have had a reaction before now. Helter--Helter had known almost right away, even if it had been too late, he'd realized the high was wrong. But Laszlo had acted same as usual; he had certainly seemed fine a couple hours ago.
"Laszlo--" He should go get Chain. Call the hospital, even if they hadn't been able to do anything for Helter--
Laszlo shuddered again, his eyes snapping into focus like a switch had been flipped. With a strangled gasp he rolled over toward Skelter, clawing feebly at the sheets. Skelter tried to grab his flailing arms, couldn't get a grip on his wrists, so he wrapped his arms around Laszlo's shoulders and pulled him closer, an unsure embrace.
But Laszlo calmed immediately, settled between Skelter's legs with his head against Skelter's chest. His eyes closed, but he was far too tense to be asleep.
"Laszlo?" Skelter asked. "What's wrong...something wrong?"
"Fine. Had...had a dream," Laszlo said, muffled, but coherent, abrupt as he ever was. "Just a dream."
He still was shivering, even with Skelter's arms around him. It wasn't that cold. "You're awake now," Skelter said. Tentatively he brought up one hand, cupped the back of Laszlo's head. Laszlo tensed, then relaxed, not trying to shake off the touch, and Skelter stroked his hair, stiff with sweat.
Laszlo's ear was pressed to Skelter's chest, listening to his heartbeat, and his breathing slowed until it was in time with Skelter's own.
"Ahora estás despierto. Está bien," Skelter said. You're awake, it's okay. Spanish never came as easily to him as it had to Helter; his mother had stopped speaking it before he was born, so what he had picked up wasn't child speak but the harsh street dialect. But Helter used to slide between Spanish and English like they were merely two accents, and Laszlo would try to match him. He had even less background than Skelter, but he knew enough to get by, and he learned fast, like he learned everything fast. Some nights he and Helter wouldn't speak any English, just for fun.
Some nights now Laszlo would listen to Spanish when he wouldn't anything else. But now he went rigid again, made a motion like he would shove away, but his arms were caught under Skelter's.
"Dreamed..." he muttered, "...dreamed you--I was dreaming you died."
And now Skelter went still, heard his own breath catch, and forced himself to exhale, inhale again, so his heart would keep beating. He closed his eyes. "No, no he muerto. Aquí estoy," he said, as his brother would have. "I didn't die, I'm alive, I'm right here with you."
Laszlo in his arms moved, sat up, the heavy weight of the head against his chest lifting, tickling hair brushing his skin. Skelter opened his arms so Laszlo could pull away, felt the mattress move under him as Laszlo shifted back, but he kept his eyes closed.
"You are here," Laszlo said, and it wasn't any voice Skelter had ever heard from him before, soft, and young somehow, not in pitch so much as its wondering appeal, like a child begging for something, looking for something.
Skelter felt a touch against his cheek, fingers stroking down his face, so gentle he opened his eyes in surprise. He was looking almost directly in the lamp, and it blinded for a second, a red spot dancing in his vision.
"You're here," Laszlo said again in that same dazed hoping voice, staring into his eyes, and then he caught Skelter's chin more firmly and kissed him.
When Skelter awoke, the daylight glimmering at the edges of the curtains was brighter than the lamp, and he lay alone in the middle of the bed. He got up slowly, pulled on a t-shirt and jeans, and wandered out into the apartment.
Chain was making pancakes in the kitchen, even though it wasn't Sunday morning. Laszlo was most of the way through the first batch, smothering the final bites in extra syrup. There was a glass of orange juice on the table by his plate, and an open bottle of beer. Skelter didn't ask which he was drinking from. The bottle might have been Chain's from last night.
"Morning," Laszlo said. He was wearing only a pair of jeans, new black, so his skin glowed white against them, and he had showered, his rusty hair water-streaked and spiky. "Thought we were gonna have to eat your share for you."
"No way." Skelter got a plate from the dishwasher, brought it to the stove. Chain flipped a couple pancakes onto it with a short-order cook's quick dexterity. 'Missed your calling,' Laszlo had told him more than once before, not exactly ironically.
Chain's pancakes were damn good, though, even without blueberries or chocolate chips. He made them from scratch. He couldn't have learned from his mother, not with her working three jobs and popping pills to keep herself awake through the third shifts, so it must have been something he learned from Estelle. And Skelter wondered if Chain knew that even though he never spoke her name aloud, he was still shouting it with every move he made.
Skelter didn't bother with a fork, just folded one pancake in half and reached across to dip it in the leftover syrup on Laszlo's plate. Laszlo grinned, pushed the plate over to him, and licked the residual stickiness off his fingers, one at a time.
"She doesn't have any plans for us," he said casually, tipping his wooden chair back on two legs and bracing it with a bare foot against the table leg. "Not for the next few weeks, probably."
His voice was light, steady, and his eyes were clear hazel, not bloodshot. He never did get hangovers.
If he remembered anything of the night before, it didn't show anywhere on his face. Not last night, not the two days before that. Clean slate. And no cough in his throat.
"Let's go to the movies," Laszlo said. "One with the steep seats and the big-ass screen. What's playing now? We want something with explosions, lots of shit blowing up and a real soundtrack. And boring parts, so we can make out," and he grinned at Skelter, too obvious to be a leer. Not wanting but anticipating.
Chain rattled the skillet against the burner like he was clearing his throat, pointedly. Laszlo threw the fork in his general direction. "Yeah, shut up. Anyone bitches, we'll rent the whole fucking theater. And rent you a girl. There's a new one working O'Brady's. You'd like her. Curly hair, real sweet."
"Sounds good to me," Skelter said, starting on his third pancake and mumbling around it, "The movie, I mean. Though Chain getting some, that's good, too."
Chain's pan clattered again, rather more forcefully than flipping pancakes entailed.
Laszlo laughed, loud, then leaned forward, rocking the chair back onto four legs with a thump. He reached toward Skelter before he could duck, grabbed his chin and turned his face toward the sunlight. Pressed his fingers in a little, on his jaw, not hard, but Skelter winced. It had been a few days, so the bruise from Laszlo's punch didn't really show anymore under his brown skin. But Laszlo's fingers were directly on it, finding the invisible sore surely.
He hadn't touched it once last night. The look in his eyes was different now. Not really an apology at all.
"Next time she uses us, don't fuck up," Laszlo said, quietly enough that it shouldn't carry to Chain in the kitchen. Though Chain was very good at listening. "I don't know how many more chances we get."
Before she took all this away, the table and chairs and the sun shining through the wide picture window. The stove Chain was cooking over and the king bed they slept in and the movie they were going to see, and Laszlo would rent the whole theater if he had to.
Before Laszlo went to her one night, and didn't come back.
"I got it," Skelter said, pushing Laszlo's hand away. He got up, returning to the kitchen for more of Chain's pancakes, and if his eyes were stinging, it might have been nothing more than the stove's smoke, or the aching pressure of Laszlo's fingers against his bruised jaw.