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The hands on his watch arrived at ten and two like a careful driver; a nothing time, a left-hand tick, teaming up with the neon light buzzing from red to dark, red to dark, to mark the slow progression towards the morning. John lay back in the crumple of starched sheets on his bed-that-had-seen-better-days and worked his way down four fingers of bourbon, no ice. From the outside, the neon vertically identified this place as a HOTEL with VACANCIES, but at his angle, he just got the intermittent crimson pulse through his nets from dusk ‘til dawn.
The sounds of laughter, doors and footsteps that filtered through the walls told him he wasn’t the only one still awake; the good time girls and their paying guests were making the most of the night’s remaining hours. Sometimes John would lie in the red-black limbo and listen deliberately for those low conversations and noises of pleasure, closing his eyes and remembering when he could roll over in bed and there would be someone filling the cold space beside him – someone who wanted his company and didn’t care that he spent his days swirling in a milieu of lawlessness and smoke on the edges of society. Someone who didn’t care that the gun he’d carried wasn’t just for show.
But he was alone now in a different bed in a different room. The vestiges of his old life were slowly slipping further away as he slackened his efforts to keep a hold on them. His business had been good for a while, sure, although it was never going to make him rich - not unless he cracked and started accepting some of the pay-offs he was routinely offered by the bozos he investigated. John shifted uncomfortably in the frayed covers. He wasn’t in it for the money anyway, always taking on the hardest, hard-up, hard luck cases. They gave him a different kind of reward, but it was a hard grind, and it hadn’t been made any easier by that one case he wasn’t able to solve and couldn’t seem to forget… A girl who was there one day and gone the next, and he didn’t think he’d ever fully get to grips with that.
The final straw had been the fire at his office. Not only the building where he’d had his desk behind a brushed glass door with his name etched on it, but also the apartment where he slept. Everything he called his own was piled into that place, and while it may not have been fancy, it was him, and his. So when some vengeful player had taken the chance to kick him while he was down and get busy with a gas can and a spark, John knew he should’ve come out fighting, all guns blazing as bright as the flames. Yet somehow he’d found himself fading into the shadows to lick his wounds instead, no appetite for it any longer. He’d checked into the hotel a few days after that, lain down in the bed, and three months later it felt like he hadn’t even moved.
He sighed and took a pull on the whiskey. Maybe tomorrow he would drop a dime or two and find out if any of his old contacts had a lead on some honest work. He was strong and he could heave barrels or toss tarmac off a shovel. He just needed something mindless where he didn’t have to talk to anyone; a gig that would get him back on his feet without having to immerse himself in the world of two-bit shysters and dames in distress again. In another life, maybe he could’ve made the whole P.I. gig work long-term, but his ambition was in ashes, and as far as he could see right now he had nothing left worth rebuilding for. John realised with his next pull that he was swallowing air, so he dropped the empty glass on the nightstand to balance on a stack of week-old newspapers, and settled into the pillows. Perhaps if he was lucky, that one joy girl with the voice like music would sing him to sleep through the walls, and for a little while he could dream…
In the morning he was woken, too early, by a careful knocking at the door. He got as far as one elbow and dragged his hair out of his eyes; he knew he should be more up and alert at an unexpected call, but the headache coiled around his temple and the fatigue weighing down his limbs were making him a poor excuse for his former self. “Who is it?” he called.
“Winston.” The manager. Shit. The torn calendar on the wall over the bureau told John it was the fifth of the month – well, the sixth now, waiting for him to go over and scribble a thick cross through the previous day – and he was overdue another rent check Winston’s way. On top of the one from last month. What was there to say? Income was slow since he’d lost the taste for chasing cases and keeping up with messages, and of course no one really knew how to get a hold of him since his former business had unceremoniously burnt to the ground, anyway.
“No need to let me in,” Winston continued, which was just as well because the room John was renting from him wasn’t exactly looking its best right then, with the empty glasses, haphazard stacks of paperbacks, and overflowing ashtrays lying around. Not to mention the crowning glory of John’s unmade bed with his unclothed self tangled up in it. “Just a polite reminder that we do try to have some rules in this establishment, and I would be much obliged if you could update me, at your earliest convenience, on the likelihood of receiving the rent for your lodgings in the near future.”
There was a pause, presumably left for John to fill, but he stayed silent to give the impression he was passed out again. He had no answer.
“Come on, Jonathan,” Winston said, before adding more quietly, “you’re better than this,” as he walked away.
John listened to his footsteps recede down the corridor and let himself fall back onto the mattress, wondering if Winston had meant him to hear that last part. Yes, he probably had, and he wasn’t entirely wrong, either.
***
When he woke up for the second time, it was much later; the noise in the street was that of southbound traffic – the office workers and the people who catered for them during the day making their way to the bridges and tunnels that would take them home. So much for his plans to search up some employment himself. John lit a cigarette and squinted at the gaps in the nets. The glass behind them was already steaming up against the cold outside, night falling faster as Autumn wore on. He’d have to get something together before the manager really did lose patience with him and showed him the door. The red pulse of the sign was as constant as ever, and he wondered how he would sleep without it if he had to move on now.
After extinguishing the smoke, he opened the window to let some of the bracing air in and forced himself to do a cursory straightening up of the worst of the detritus he’d accumulated around the room lately, ditching the spent bottles and outdated papers, and cleaning the glasses in his bathroom sink before cleaning himself there, too. ‘You’re better than this.’ Winston’s words kept echoing back to him, and even if John hesitated to share the same level of conviction on it, he could at least pretend like he did and keep an orderly house. Determining not to spend another night in a row inside these four walls, he dressed in a suit that made up for reminding him of his former occupation by being soft and warm, and headed out to find somewhere else to hide himself quietly away for a few hours.
As he stepped into the front hallway of the hotel, Winston was gathering up some pocket-items from the desk and apparently readying himself to leave as well, halfway through buttoning a dark coat that looked woollen and far too expensive for these surroundings. It was fixing to rain outside and they were probably both about to get soaked. Bad timing, John thought. He didn’t have any more money now than this morning, so it was just going to be an awkward situation all over again if they talked. John slowed a step to let Winston come out from behind the counter and go ahead of him, his black shoes tapping on the linoleum, precise and orderly. Winston nodded as he passed in front and opened the door to go into the street, and John was relieved; it seemed like the manager had no appetite to reprise the rent speech from earlier, either.
John made his own exit and was going to walk in whichever direction Winston didn’t, but the man suddenly stopped, turning back to John on the cracked pavement right outside the hotel door. A cigarette packet, John registered; he was offering a cigarette. John couldn’t say why he didn’t just shake his head ‘no thanks’ – well, actually, it was because he could use the nicotine, and Winston smoked a high-end brand – but he got the feeling somehow that accepting anything from this man to whom he was already in hock was to move further on a journey down a slippery slope… Yet, he took the smoke, slotting it between his fingers and then putting it between his lips. John started feeling for his lighter in his worn slacks, and maybe he was slow or Winston was just fast, because he had struck a match and cupped it out to him before John had the time to do anything much more than inhale. “Thanks,” he mumbled.
“You’re welcome,” Winston said, and tucked the matchbook into John’s breast pocket with a smile. Then he turned on his heel and walked away; didn’t even light up himself. Yeah, there was something a little unusual about his style. John watched him for what he realised was objectively too long, before he shook himself out of his reverie and headed on his own way.
The rain was just beginning and John hurried through the streets to his usual seat in his usual bar, where Adrienne was behind the taps. “What’ll you have?” she asked him. The usual.
Sitting there passed the time, even if it did send his mind occasionally circling back to old questions, his habit of many years having been to think through his caseload with his elbows resting on the sticky counter of one gin joint or another. That unsolved case, there had to be more to it than he’d understood – he just had to figure out what it was. It didn’t make any sense, how such a promising young woman could be taken… She’d had no enemies, no sins to be spoken of. If Marcus was here right now, John knew he would’ve counselled him that there wasn’t always a reason behind these things; that sometimes it was just bad luck, but— No. If he could just think hard enough, in the right way, one day he would understand it.
Adrienne kept them coming and emptied the ashtray when it needed it, and the atmosphere was certainly better than staying cooped up in his room, so he didn’t begrudge putting what were damn near his last bills over her bar on a hot meal and a stream of liquor. By the end of the night he was feeling surprisingly good, and when Addy offered him a whiskey and a cheap cigar for the road, he figured he must have been fine enough company for her too, for all his silence.
Then he was standing outside the bar, air cool. The rain was coming down in earnest now, and the ripped awning over his head was providing precarious refuge in an encroaching sea of oily puddles. He lit the cigar to smoke a little before he walked, and the match head caught pink and bright in the darkness. In the flare, John saw the handwritten words on the inside fold of the matchbook he’d absent-mindedly pulled from his breast pocket: ‘Meet me – midnight.’ Winston, John realised. The outside cover had a flame pattern, orange on black like an inverse silhouette, and the name of a club that John knew: ‘The Vesta Box, open 8 ‘til late’.
Damn, he should’ve taken a look at the matchbook as soon as he’d been given it earlier on; should’ve recognised what a deliberate thing that was to have done – pushed your own matches into the pocket of the person you’d just lit for, when it was apparent they’d been in the process of going for their own light. What was Winston’s game? John had been trying to get a proper read on him ever since pitching up at the hotel, but the man was good at being mysterious in benign ways. He often gave John the impression he somehow knew him better than he thought he’d let him know, yet it never felt sinister… No, it was more that Winston seemed like he’d taken an interest in him and what he was up to, and was accordingly paying attention to all the little details of his existence he might be unconsciously exuding. Several times, John had noticed Winston glancing at his features, or making small talk that actually sounded like he was following the conversation for its content rather than out of politeness.
He thought about whether to follow the invitation he’d received, which was, presumably, itself to talk, until he was interrupted by the sight of a figure hurrying down the sidewalk in his direction. John stepped backwards, reflexively seeking shadows that unfortunately the lit doorway of the bar wasn’t going to provide. It didn’t help that the distinctive shape of the man’s rain-sodden hat identified him as a police officer, and John sucked on the cigar and squinted through the downpour. Don’t pay me any attention, he willed. Pay about as much as you have to finding out who torched my fucking livelihood three months ago. But as the man slowed and began to sluice raindrops from his sleeves, John realised it was just Jimmy, so there was no need to worry about the couple of blades and a cosh he was carrying in various parts of his jacket and boots, after all.
“Evening, John.”
“Evening, Jimmy.”
“You working tonight?”
“I’m not really working at all anymore,” John told him.
Jimmy’s face rippled into an expression somewhere between sympathy and pity, and John was afraid he was about to say something supportive about what had happened to him – Jimmy had been one of the few people who had come around to find John after it all happened, to check up on him and how he was doing. John wished he could feel more grateful for what he thought probably was his sincere concern for a fellow traveller, but the sense that Jimmy had also partly been there to make sure John wasn’t about to snap one night and paint the town red with fury and blood was something he couldn’t get past.
That wasn’t what he was going to do. Just like working at the moment wasn’t something he was doing.
Jimmy tipped his hat and made to go inside the bar, a free drink and a bit of warmth from Addy no doubt on his mind. With a parting glance to John, he mumbled, “Well, be careful how you go. It’s coming down like the Devil’s pitchforks out here.”
John nodded and drew on the cigar again, wreathing himself in smoke in lieu of replying, before carefully turning it backwards in his curled hand and stepping out from under the awning. The torrential rain hit his forehead like a cold shock, and the fuzziness that the night in the bar had settled into his brain started to dissipate a little, leaving his mind tightening up but his limbs still loose. He was glad Jimmy had gone inside and wasn’t watching his somewhat haphazard walk away through the drops.
Okay, so maybe he had turned in the direction of the Vesta Box automatically… Why not? He could go for a nightcap and it wasn’t very far. And since no one was stupid enough to be out in this weather aside from cops (aside from him and cops, John mentally corrected himself) it also happily meant that his chances of having to talk to anyone else on the street were slim.
***
The Vesta Box was located discreetly beneath a party venue of the kind that got hired out for weddings and retirement celebrations at night, and hosted interest-group meetings and social dancing for seniors during the day. The electrified sign announcing its presence was dripping rainwater from the corners of its casing, and John had half a worry that it was going to short out right over his head as he passed under it. The bar was down some stairs and through a door that was gate-kept via a tiny grille, and his own unsteady gait as he descended gave him pause – not so sobered up by the rainy walk, then. Maybe it was a little late in the day for this and he should turn around and head for home instead? Winston would no doubt just assume he hadn’t found the invitation – no harm done – and that was more palatable than making an ass of himself in front of the man after having spent several hours propping up the bar at Addy’s.
John took a deep breath and deliberately shook his head from side to side a few times. Well, the spin could have been worse, he supposed, and Winston had stipulated midnight. From one perspective, what did he expect? It wasn’t as if he didn’t know all of John’s recent habits… And from another, John really was intrigued to find out why he wanted to meet. Winston couldn’t merely be planning to remind him about the rent money from a ritzier location, and frankly the chance to see what he was like in a different setting – to exchange some conversation and share a drink together – was a prospect he was sorely tempted by. The manager was an enigma, simultaneously appearing both comfortable yet out of place overseeing the bedrooms and corridors of a creaky old hotel in the Village, and the opportunity to get to know some more about him was proving catnip to all the detective sensibilities John had been trying to leave in the past.
When he knocked on the door and the peep hole behind the grille slid across, he stayed silent as the doorman looked him over. He might not be working anymore, but his face card sparked recognition in all the underground places on this side of the city – it could still get him granted entry when he needed it.
The ambiance inside the club was smoky and warm, jazz records playing low from a Wurlitzer that glowed like a hearth, and the candles on the tables flickered and sputtered with the draught John brought in. He eyed the bartender, who seemed to intuitively know what he was going to ask for, his hand already reaching for the top shelf as John removed his waterlogged jacket and folded it over his arm. He collected his whiskey and leaned back on the bar, letting his gaze take in the time on the clock – about eleven fifty-nine – and the patrons at the tables around the edge of the room. Sure enough, Winston was sitting at a corner booth, nursing a Martini alone. He made no sign that he’d seen John come in, but there was no way he hadn’t. He was giving John his minute, he figured, before he would acknowledge his arrival.
John used his opportunity to look at the man, and it was certain that he fitted in more seamlessly to this stylish little cellar bar than the shabby hotel he called his business a few blocks over. His dark wool coat was spread out to dry on the back of the chair beside him, revealing a neat white shirt undone at the collar, as befitted someone drinking at midnight. John couldn’t help stealing a glance at the flash of tanned chest and dark hair visible in the open V as Winston finally looked up, the hand on the clock easing one tick forward to begin a new day. John took another gulp from his glass and walked across to join him. Winston’s pack of upmarket cigarettes lay on the table by the ashtray, and John pulled out the matchbook from his wet jacket and dropped it down to reunite them.
“Good evening, Jonathan,” Winston said.
“Winston.” John felt strangely unmoored by how easy it was to greet him and slide into the booth, as if they were two friends who met like this all the time, rather than a landlord and his fiscally-embarrassed tenant, invited to a late–night rendezvous apropos of… something John was about to find out, he supposed.
“I didn’t know if you would come.”
“I—” John paused and swallowed, the transition from the cold outdoors to the smoky bar catching his tongue and threatening to make him trip on his words. “I guess I’m a sucker for a mysterious message.”
Winston smiled and took a sip of his Martini as John soothed his throat with another pull on his whiskey. “Has your night been treating you well?” he enquired.
The buzz in John’s veins said it had. “Yeah.”
Winston smiled again like he could see that himself. “Good. I know it’s probably rather forward of me to say, but whatever you choose to do with your hours, spending some more of them outside the four walls of my establishment – as secure and functional as it is – is something I’m quite glad to see you doing.”
John shifted uncomfortably. Yes, he’d closed himself away in the red-black-red-black womb of that fourth floor room almost all the time in that first couple of months, and maybe he shouldn’t be surprised that the person who managed the place would notice the comings and goings in his building, but the fact of exactly how much the people who kept hotels running could tell about their guests was somehow easy to ignore in the day-to-day.
“You’re wondering why I asked you here,” Winston continued. “Would you like another drink?” He indicated John’s glass, about to be emptied on its next pass to his lips. John nodded, and Winston held two fingers up to the barman across the room. Clearly they were familiar enough with each other for Winston to enjoy table service here. “I have a proposition for you, Jonathan.”
John couldn’t stop his mind imagining several different ways the next sentence could play out. Usually when people opened up this conversation, they were going to offer him money to do something: look the other way; procure something for them – something tangible, or information – an advantage of some sort, or to commit some kind of physical act on their behalf. And John owed Winston money right now… two months of money and counting, so the man could easily figure he had the leeway to ask John for another kind of recompense.
A little voice in the back of John’s head added that there was a chance he was going to ask for a non-violent physical act, and the jolt of guilty warmth that set moving from somewhere deep in his core at the thought of it was a feeling John would have written off to the whiskey if he didn’t know himself better. Winston was a type; one John had to admit caught his interest in all the right ways. In the hotel in the light of day, in hallways and through the muffle of the door, their mix could be stilted and over-polite, but here in the low orange glow of the candles and the intimacy of the corner booth, it was easier to see the reality of this man and what he was like – friendly and self-assured, handsome and focussing all of his attention on John in a way that could very quickly bring heat to his face if he let it.
John waited for Winston to say more, to finish his proposal and indicate which of John’s theories for where this conversation was going to end up was correct. He had to wait in suspense for a moment longer as the bartender came over and cleared their empty glasses, replacing them with fresh – whiskey for both of them this time. Winston nodded his thanks and settled his hands around his glass.
“Jonathan, I know your line of work; your reputation too – you’re good at what you do.”
His first impulse was to shake his head and disabuse Winston of the notion that it was still his work, or that he was good at it anymore, but John stayed still – he had accepted the meeting, so there was an unspoken expectation to hear the subject out without interruption.
“And I think we might be in a position where we can help each other. I hope it won’t surprise you to hear that I am not intending my career as a hotel manager to remain at the level of the establishment I currently own, and I have the opportunity to expand, to move upwards, but for a few small barriers in my way.” He took a sip of the whiskey and John followed suit. It was rich and strong, the bartender clearly having upped John’s brand to match whatever it was that Winston favoured when it came to ryes, and it slipped down easy like a compliment. “You need to get back in the saddle—” Winston fixed him with a steady gaze “—and I need your skills.”
“You want me to investigate these ‘barriers’?” John asked, frowning.
“Ah…” Winston’s expression turned rueful. “Your other skills.” Part of John still wanted to entertain the fantasy that the proposition was going in the second of the two physical directions he’d been thinking of earlier, but he knew already it was going to be the first, and waited for Winston to say it out loud. “I would like you to kill someone for me; come and work for me, and we’ll both raise up together.”
There it was: cards on the table, beside the cigarettes and the matchbook. Winston was apparently well aware that John was a P.I. with a reputation for being unafraid to put down the bad guys for good. John swallowed another slug of the whiskey along with a surprising pang of disappointment that Winston’s request hadn’t been for something else. “You want me to be a trigger man, by your side?”
Winston nodded. “I have a feeling my ascension attempts are going to be greatly expedited if we are willing and able to make recourse to guns… lots of guns.”
John considered the gambit. However much he might have become apathetic to moving in the circles he had as a detective, he was self-aware enough to realise that a hefty element of that was situational; his personal life, losing the office, his home… It had all worked to drive him away from the P.I. business and into the strange limbo he’d been suspended within these last few months. And a limbo itself was something that you could either keep yourself in or move on from. Who was to say that his trajectory further away from everything that had happened to him couldn’t be as well effected by joining Winston’s ambitious climb as by heaving barrels or laying tar? John’s head swam with it all as he drank again, and for the time being he took the easy way out. “Let me think about it,” he told Winston. “I haven’t actually— picked up a gun for a little while.”
Winston leaned back, hands reaching for the cigarettes and shaking one out. “Take the time, but there is a certain window on the opportunity, just to make you aware.” He offered the pack and John took his second cigarette that day from the man, once again accepting the light from him as well. Winston’s whiskey, and his cigarettes, were so much better than the cheap bottles and loose rolling tobacco that underpinned John’s current habits: a taste of what he might graduate to if he took Winston’s job offer and they did indeed ‘raise up’ in the city together. He understood what Winston was asking for – a reliable right hand; someone who could protect and advance his interests with his skills. It wasn’t a one-off request to eliminate some ‘barriers’ in his way, but an offer with further promise down the line, and a way for John to move on from the things that had knocked him off kilter.
He breathed a lungful of smoke and held it down for a moment, forcing a little hitch in his chest as the oxygen his body was expecting didn’t come, followed by the gentle headrush that accompanied the eventual exhale. They smoked in silence for a while, until Winston checked his watch and looked at him with a careful eye. “If you’re ready to finish, we’re going to the same place, I presume?”
Going my way? Yes, John was getting around to the idea. He nodded, and when they both stood up, he briefly regretted doing those two actions quite so close together as his brain struggled to find its equilibrium amongst the movement.
“Okay?” Winston asked, expression falling somewhere between mildly amused and concerned as John got his bearings back.
“It’s been a long night,” John admitted, before retrieving his jacket from the seat and pulling it clumsily on. It was still damp from the walk over, and that was oddly less unpleasant than it should’ve been.
“Ah, maybe I wasted that Weller Antique on you, then. We’ll have to try it again sometime, when you’re in a position to fully enjoy its taste.” Winston smiled, and John decided he’d quite like to take him up on that – another drink with him, where maybe their conversation wouldn’t be entirely centered around business, and the night might not be quite so inhospitable and rainy. Walking through the dark city in the company of someone else was a pastime John habitually savoured when the air was clear and crisp, and it was a shame they were going to be hurrying and dodging drops on their way home this time instead.
Out on the street, the rain hit his forehead again, but its refreshing qualities were much weaker than when he’d come out of Addy’s, and when Winston straight away raised a hand to call over a cab that had been idling opposite the party venue, John was grateful that they weren’t going to get the opportunity to stumble through the downpour after all.
The cab windows were steamed up, and the driver had obviously been running the heat while he idled. John settled back next to Winston as they pulled away, and thought about the fact that their thighs were inches apart; belatedly he realised that was a result of his rather inelegant clamber in, and that Winston was either unbothered or polite enough not to openly react to having his personal space encroached upon by another man. John bit his lip and considered that a little more, before cautiously sliding his hand across from his own lap to rest barely against the side of Winston’s leg – a questioning little touch, just to see where he stood, John told himself.
Winston looked at him in surprise, but notably there was no trace of disgust or dismay lacing his expression, and after searching John’s eyes for a second, the surprise transitioned into a small smile. “That was unexpected,” he murmured, cutting a glance at the driver before dropping his own hand over John’s on his thigh, warm and calloused like he’d worked hard at something in his lifetime. “And please don’t take this in the wrong way, but let’s take a rain check—” He nodded at the drops pouring down the windows “—in all senses, to a moment in the future when we can explore that sentiment both fully dry.”
John slowly withdrew his hand and murmured his acquiescence. There were a lot of answers to a lot of questions being deferred to another time, tonight, but he had the impression that the deferral was only lessening the likelihood any of them were going to end up in a ‘no’. The cab turned a corner and John pressed back comfortably into the worn seat and closed his eyes.
***
The bed was warm and the pillows and sheets were holding him like he was fragile… John’s muzzy and half-awake thoughts floated up to him as he came to awareness next, and when he blinked a few times it worked to clear his vision but not his head. Fucking perfect, idiot, he admonished the John of last night for drinking enough to give himself a hangover he could feel again. It was early, still dim, and the red-dark-red-dark pulse of the neon was marking its metronome time. He squinted. The angle was wrong, the light casting from a different side than it should have been.
And then he realised all at once and with a start that it wasn’t his room or his bed, and his brain scrambled to recollect why that was. He felt a weight shift next to him at the exact moment he remembered who it would be. John supposed Winston had interpreted the jolt he’d made as him waking up, and now he was turning to look in his direction. “Feeling alright?” Winston asked him, his voice deep and low – intimate in the near dark.
“Yeah,” John replied, glad he was lying with his back to Winston, since he was sure that his face was running a gamut of expressions as he paged through everything he could recall. “I’m sorry—” He swallowed and his tongue tasted thick with tobacco “—I didn’t mean to… fall asleep on you.”
Winston’s weight shifted again. “No need to apologise. I’m half responsible; well, wholly responsible for you being here, specifically – I could have walked you up to your room when we first got back, and I didn’t.”
John wondered if this situation hadn’t just given him precisely the measure of Winston that he’d been puzzling about ever since they met: last night, he had been too much of a gentleman to take any advantage of John’s come-on, but he’d evidently struggled not take the opportunity for more time and proximity with a man he liked the look of. And was it only the look? Winston had been interested enough in how he was faring, from John’s remembrance of his comments, and the particulars of the job offer suggested he was genuinely looking for a person with his skills. Or one aspect of them, at least. ‘Guns… lots of guns,’ his memory supplied.
He was also quite curious as to whether having stayed the night in his bed was going to make Winston assume he was more likely, or less, to take him up on the offer of employment now. It had long been evident to John that guilt was generally the base motivation for nearly every action a person could take when it came to violence or sex or money (either that or greed, and he was as certain as he could be that neither he nor Winston were avaricious to any great degree), and it crossed his mind that Winston had entirely considered that looking out for him when he was drunk might make John grateful enough, or uncomfortable enough, to increase the chances of him taking the job.
Or, maybe he was just the kind of person who looked after others and thought nothing of offering a man his bed without expectation.
John tested the elasticity of his joints with a cautious stretch. Years on the P.I. beat, and the punishing routine of the army before that, had left him with a slow start on cold mornings. However, between Winston’s warm presence and the rather more opulent furnishings and quality of his room compared to John’s own, he found himself perfectly comfortable aside from the dull grit of the hangover irritating his eyes. He told himself that was the reason he wasn’t getting up straight away. “Thank you,” he finally replied to Winston. “I was a little full of myself, and whiskey, last night.”
“I meant what I said though,” Winston cut in quickly. Taking the opportunity to remind me in case I didn’t remember, John figured. “I very much do want you to consider working this job for me, and, to elaborate, that’s not in return for rent owing, or because I pity your situation or want you indebted to me in any other way.” He paused, and John found himself turning his head, rolling so that he wasn’t facing completely away. He looked at the red-dark pattern illuminating the room in flashes and creating rhythmic shadows on the ceiling, and he could feel Winston’s eyes on his face. “And I didn’t turn you down in the cab because I wasn’t interested.”
John remembered putting his hand on Winston’s thigh, which was as near to him at the moment as it had been when they were sitting in that backseat, and he knew how close their faces were when Winston was talking, how he’d put his own hand over John’s. “I’m sober now,” John said, and he thought that Winston could tell, even in the dim light, that he had surprised himself by coming out with that, from the way the man smiled and shifted in place a little.
“Are you asking me to invite you to get closer, this time?” Winston asked.
John’s mind went to the tobacco on his breath and the sweat on his skin. It was probably not the greatest timing for saying ‘yes’.
“I want you to do only what you want to do, Jonathan, in all things,” Winston continued. Then he pushed the covers from over himself and slid to his feet on the other side of the bed. “Unfortunately, I have to get up and be ready for a delivery. But please do think about the job, and… how you might want us to go forward,” he added, “and then talk to me again.” He gestured at the bed as he started putting on his trousers and shirt. “You’re welcome to stay in here as long as you like, and no one will pay any attention to you leaving later on; even if one of the girls does see you, we, ah, agree to look the other way when it comes to guests, as you must already know.”
Then Winston walked into the bathroom and John heard the water start running. He wasn’t sure if he believed Winston did have this early start, or if it was a little politeness on his part to make John’s morning easier, but he did believe Winston meant what he said about last night. John had been inadvertently honest in a way he probably wouldn’t have if he had been sober, but it seemed like honesty was something Winston appreciated, and that he just wanted to see if John would end up regarding his own decision to act on his desires as an honest mistake or something he wanted to follow through on.
And the guns, and the job… Could he take Winston up on his offer to be his button man?
John stretched and pushed the covers all the way down on his side, too; he was still wearing his trousers and they only looked marginally more creased than usual. He could see his jacket hanging on the back of a chair in the next flash of red, and as he got out of bed and went over to make sure he hadn’t somehow lost a knife or the cosh out of it in his apparent drunken haze last night, he saw that his shirt had been folded neatly on the seat, weighted there by a shiny Colt .45. For me? The water was still going behind the bathroom door, and John took the gun and tested the balance in his hand. Without letting himself think too hard about it, he reached around and tucked it into the back of his waistband against his undershirt. Then he pulled his other shirt on open, collected up his jacket and boots, and let himself quietly out of the hotel room to make the journey two flights higher to his own bedroom. He had a feeling that taking possession of a firearm again was going to be a good way of focussing his mind on whether it felt like something he wanted to go back to more determinedly, and that this was a fact Winston was perfectly cognisant of when he’d placed it for him to find.
***
By the late afternoon, having slept some more in his own bed and shifted the hangover he was embarrassed to have given himself in part on Winston’s expensive bourbon, John was lying back on the pillows and turning the .45 over in his hands. It was far from a new gun; he could tell from the look and feel of the wood and metal, and the little notches and scratches that had been carefully oiled over but unavoidably showed that this was a weapon that had seen good use in the past.
So, Winston either bought a used gun, or…
The possibility that the Colt was Winston’s own weapon – that the person who had used it and cleaned it and kept it so well was the same person who was asking John to use it for him now – was a strange feeling. Oddly personal, like Winston was trusting him with something very special, but also as if he wanted the gun itself to be one that he trusted was good enough for John to walk into a firefight with and be protected. It wasn’t loaded – John had taken out the magazine and ejected the chambered round as soon as he’d got back to his room from Winston’s. Now the discarded ammo lay beside him on the bed while John ran his fingers over the warm metal of the barrel.
He thought of Winston doing the same; his deft fingers and precise movements as he handled and took care of the gun. John wondered if he’d been a military man himself. Favouring a gun like this, coupled with his age and the last few decades’ events? It wouldn’t be surprising. Winston’s body seemed capable and strong, from his outward appearance at least, and John couldn’t help his mind straying back to it; to the flash of firm, tanned skin and dark hair that was visible beneath his open collar at the Vesta Box. Under the influence as John had been last night, his actions in the cab hadn’t been from a false desire – and he was pretty sure he’d finally put the pieces together with his damn detective mind of all the times that Winston had looked at him a little too long, or done something that showed he was trying to strike up a connection beyond their landlord-tenant relationship, to realise that they both saw something that attracted them in the other.
What would’ve happened if he wasn’t drunk last night, and Winston hadn’t asked him to wait and be sure? He would’ve remembered how he’d gotten to Winston’s room and into his bed, for one. John would hope he could’ve managed a smooth enough seduction – that he’d have got to watch Winston unbutton that shirt and reveal the whole of his solid chest for him to admire and touch. Maybe they would have kissed on the bed, like people somehow assumed men wouldn’t if they considered themselves ‘equals’ – well, that assumption was bullshit to John: if he got the chance to kiss Winston, you’d better believe he was going all in on it. He flexed his hand and splayed it over the gun, letting scattered images from the scenes he was imagining jumble in his mind. Between the tease of the daydreaming, and how sparely he was dressed since stripping down to his undershirt and pants when he’d first got in, it was easy enough for his other hand to settle over his groin as he contemplated the man he’d spent the night with, and it was only a moment before he was hard enough to want to push his underwear down and kick it to the side.
He would’ve stripped in front of Winston, too, and been as hard as this for him, he thought. And he would’ve stroked himself a few times to let Winston see what he looked like, like that; how turned on by him he was, how big… John started to stroke himself now, giving in fully to the urge to jerk off to the pictures in his mind’s eye of Winston leaning in to touch him, breathing in his heat and his sweat. Yeah, this was going to get good really fast.
It must have been serendipity that the exact moment John’s mind was bathed in the fantasy of Winston being there with him, hands on him, urging him on, that he heard the careful knock on the door and Winston’s voice coming through. “Jonathan?”
John’s mouth went dry at the sound, as if his body was forcing him to pause and consciously think about replying, and he stilled his hand on his cock as well. It twitched at the loss of momentum, achingly hard and showing no hint that the interruption at the door was going to be affecting that, either.
“Can I come in?”
John looked from the door to himself, lying in his undershirt with his pants discarded and his hand around himself, Winston’s gun and ammo strewn beside him on the mattress, and swallowed, getting his tongue and lips wetted up so he could answer. He presumed Winston had a master key. “Yeah, come in,” he called.
On opening the door, Winston’s face went through the same pattern of surprise to warm interest that John remembered from when he’d put his hand on his thigh in the cab last night, and John was relieved that he was once more proving to be a man who could take his clumsy seduction attempts in stride. Winston closed the door to the corridor hastily before anyone else happened past, and stepped towards the bed. “This is an… unorthodox interpretation of handling your pistol,” he observed, clearly taking care not to come any closer without an explicit invitation, but John could follow his eyes as they played over all the right places on his body. He was definitely interested in John’s cock, his bare legs, the flush of heat reddening his skin where his undershirt had rucked up.
“Your pistol,” John told him, and Winston’s gaze flitted from his cock to the Colt .45 and back again.
“Please don’t feel you have to stop on my account,” Winston said, and John was gratified to hear his voice was tight with his obvious arousal. Slowly he resumed stroking himself, and watched Winston’s eyes take in that movement, too. John stole a look down towards Winston’s fly, but in the slacks he was wearing, it wasn’t easy to tell if he had begun to get hard himself just from looking or not.
“I was thinking of you, right before you knocked,” John spoke again, letting his breathing hitch up a little at the end, feeling the renewed pleasure his hand was creating in the pit of his stomach and within the proud jut of his cock. “I was touching your gun and it made me want to—” He broke off, biting his lip “—made me want to touch myself.”
“Oh, Jonathan…” When John looked at Winston this time, there was no question that he was getting visibly harder, and it made John’s pleasure spike at the thought that they could connect like this on a physical level. If he wanted Winston to join in, he was going to have to invite him now, or the anticipation was going to undo him before he could even get the man’s hands on him.
“Join me.” He arched his back and shifted sideways a little to underscore the invitation onto the bed, and the loose bullet he’d ejected on the coverlet earlier rolled and bounced with the movement, getting lost in the space somewhere between his legs. Winston was toeing his shoes off and losing his jacket onto the chair, and then he was kneeling beside John, adding his hand over John’s on his cock and gently squeezing to make his grip tighter as they stroked. “Fuck,” John couldn’t help the curse that slipped out at how good it was – he could feel exactly how much Winston’s control of the speed and angle of their strokes was adding to the intensity of his pleasure by the fresh beads of wetness that were suddenly pooling at the tip of his cock and starting to spill over in a little rivulet to ease their way.
Winston’s breathing had picked up as well, and John saw his free hand slide for the Colt that was lying forgotten, finding it and running his fingers over its form. Then he hooked his forefinger into the trigger guard and manoeuvred his palm around the grip. John watched, transfixed, as Winston brought the gun up and rested it on his own thigh, and all the while the steady pressure of their combined hands kept moving smoothly against John’s straining cock, pulling him closer and closer to climax.
“Winston—” he began, not sure what he meant to say beyond that, but needing to let him know something, about how close he was, or what he needed or…
“Are you going to shoot for me?” Winston asked him, his finger tapping gently against the trigger as he started to draw the barrel of the gun along the edge of his thigh, then across to John’s, where he traced a figure-eight pattern for a little while before pressing the gun flat and hot on his bare skin from the tip of the barrel to the safety. The grip and the inside of Winston’s wrist burned like a brand where they touched him. John couldn’t help moaning at that, at the gun in Winston’s hand and their combined touch together on his body, and—
“Go ahead and shoot,” Winston told him. “Do it for me; show me how good you are.” And that was enough: the heady spiral of pleasure that had been winding up inside John’s core crested with a sharp burst of euphoria as he cried out and spilled over both their hands, gaze pinpointing on how Winston’s finger twitched over the trigger of the Colt in the moment of his release, before he had to close his eyes with the overwhelming wave that was shuddering through him.
When he opened them again, Winston was holding the gun loosely and sitting back on his heels, and impulsively, John sat fully up and caught his lips in a hard kiss. “Oh,” he heard Winston breathe the unformed sound of surprise, then he opened up to him and they were kissing deep and hungry. The .45 slipped from Winston’s hand and down to the mattress as John’s fingers felt for the fastening on his slacks, undoing them and stroking him fast while they kissed.
After he’d worked Winston over the edge too, John drew back and met his eyes, nearly overwhelmed again by the mixture of desire and satisfaction he saw there; a combination that could only have been mirrored in his own expression at that moment. They held each other’s gaze for a second before they both smiled, breaking the spell and starting the business of shifting around and wiping hands and fixing clothes.
“That was an answer, by the way,” John said after a moment. “Will I shoot for you – be your trigger man.”
Winston stopped halfway through picking up the discarded ammo and focussed on him. “You’re sure? And on its own terms, not because we just did this?” He indicated the bed. “I meant it when I said I want you to do only what you want to do, not ever anything that’s solely what I want to be done.”
John nodded. “Yes,” he told him. “I need a renewed direction; you know that, and I— I knew it. I just hadn’t worked out what it would be yet, but now I guess a few things have fallen into place.” He paused and looked ruefully at the rumpled covers and scattered clothes, realising that the dusk was already coming on and the red-black-red-black neon heartbeat was illuminating the far side of the room as steadfastly as ever. For once he wasn’t listening out for the sounds of people living their lives outside these four walls, but concentrating on what was going on inside them – himself, and the man in here with him. “I’ll take all your enemies out for you, Winston.” For us. “We’re going to rise to the top together.”
-fin.