Cole McGinnis 05 - Down and Dirty (4 page)

“I’ll think of something! Just… oops.” A piece of plaster broke off under Jae’s foot, and Ichiro’s heart came to a stuttering halt at the dusty trickle starting beneath his friend’s sneaker. “I’m okay. It was already cracked.”

“Like your fucking head.” Ichi knew he was talking to himself. Jae had other things on his mind besides his own mortality. Listening to his best friend’s cautionary tale of plummeting to death during an ill-advised wall scaling wasn’t at the top of his list.

Of course, in his own way, Kim Jae-Min was a perfect fit for Ichi’s older brother, Cole.

They both seemed to have a death wish, and they possibly could have scraped up half an ounce of common sense between them.

Which was why Ichiro insisted on accompanying Jae on his latest death-defying adventure of breaking into the old theater down the street from Ichi’s tattoo shop. Tagged as a historical building, the theater was a white elephant, too beautiful and cherished to tear down but woefully expensive to restore. It languished with a soft, decaying air, a once vibrant and gorgeous grand dame now faded and worn down.

The interior was mostly faux-Italian, full of sweeping plaster embellishments, lush velvets, and trompe l’oeil vistas meant to whisk theatergoers to a lush Vienna celebration. The balconies were reminiscent of gondolas, toothy woodwork and black with swirling gold curlicues amid a sea of spangled stars and dusky skies. A pair of balconies wide enough to hold two or three people sat near the top of the stage opening, once meant for an operatic chorus to stand in during performances, and it was one of these outcroppings Jae was struggling to get to, using a slender shelf nearly a story up off the theater floor as a bridge.

Someone in the theater’s past bricked off the platforms and removed the access stairs, most likely during its revival as a cinema. If Ichiro could go back in time, he’d punch that someone in the face, because watching Jae inch his way to one was going to give him ulcers.

“Should you be doing that anyway?” Ichiro couldn’t stand it any longer, and he paced down the side of the theater floor, walking down the steeply angled aisle until he was directly below his friend. “You were shot.”

“I was shot months ago, and the doctor said I could resume normal activity—within reason.”

“This is so not within reason.” Ichi’s heart leaped up into his throat as Jae reached the balcony and threw one leg over the balustrade. “I don’t think he’d agree being Batman was normal activity—or even close to reasonable.”

“This is nothing. You should see—oof—what Cole and I—”

“I don’t want to hear that. Not about my brother. Or you. I don’t need that in my head.” He took a few more steps, hovering beneath his friend. Jae’s camera swung from a strap around his neck, and the lens nearly caught against the railing when Jae slid over into the balcony. “I’m not sure I’m going to survive this.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be watching for security?”

“I’d rather we get arrested. Who is going to catch you if you fall? Me? I need my hands. I’m an artist. I swear I’m going to let you drop.”

“I’m not going to fall,” Jae promised, dusting his shirt off. He rotated his arm, unable to stop a slight grimace from showing on his face as he stretched.

“I saw that. How the hell are you going to get down from there without killing yourself?”

“I’ll grow wings. Now shut up and get underneath me so you’re not in any of the shots,” Jae scolded. “I’m losing light. The sun won’t be coming through those windows for long.”

Ichiro glanced up at the windows, the long panes once covered by blackout curtains now hanging in tatters from wrought-iron rods. Chains dangled down from metal rings set between the fabric, their ends heavy with elaborately carved wooden pulls. It’d been a risk to pull the curtains open. There were too many what-ifs involved—mostly whether or not the fabric would even hold together as it was gathered up to the end of the rods, but other than a heavy spray of dust and a few dead insects, the curtains parted easily.

He certainly wasn’t looking forward to pulling them closed—any more than he was excited about watching Jae extract himself from the tiny balcony above him to get back down to the theater floor.

“Just don’t kill yourself. I don’t want to have to explain to Cole why I’m bringing you back in a plastic baggie.”

“Please stop saying that. Besides, he wouldn’t blame you. I can hear him now—oh,
agi
, what have you done now? Like he can talk for all the stupid things he does.”

“Why do you let him call you that? It’s like calling you a baby. Like a
baby
baby. It’s kind of… strange.”

“Because it’s silly. He called me baby the first time, and I told him if he was going to call me that, it should at least be in Korean. It took me a while to figure out he meant it in a good way. I thought he was telling me I was a kid.” Jae sighed loud enough for Ichiro to hear. “So now it’s a word between us. I like it. It’s… warm. Hard to explain. Now shut up so I can work.”

“I can hear myself now. Sorry, but Jae’s a pancake, Cole. A Jae-Min pancake,” Ichi grumbled under his breath when Jae hissed at him from above. “Work fast. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

Snugged up against the wall, Ichi sniffed at the cloud of mold and dust surrounding him. The dankness of wet wood and soaked-through plaster clung to his nose, and he stifled a sneeze, rubbing at his face to make it go away.

He could appreciate the beauty of the theater. Even in its disgrace, the interior was gorgeous. Despite the flaking paint, black damp splotches, and disintegrating fabrics, the place had good bones, and the stonework was incredible.

Now if only Jae would hurry up so they could get the hell out of there before someone caught them.

A whirring click-snap song cheerfully went on above him, Jae’s camera furiously working to capture the theater before the golden light streaming through the dirt-splattered panes faded. He was about to check his phone to see if any of his prospective artists had gotten around to answering him back when Jae called out to him.

“Do you want to come over tonight? Cole wants to do a barbeque thing. He’s asked Bobby, and he was going to call you, but since you’re here with me—”

“Stupidly here with you, you mean.”

“Do you want to be fed or not?” Jae’s camera kept up its merry little mariachi tune. “Just a small thing. He got a new grill and wants to burn steaks on it or something. He said five, but you know him, he won’t start cooking anything until six.”

“Bobby, huh?” Ichi tried ignoring the tingling want in his crotch at the mention of the man’s name. “It’s like they’re Siamese twins or something.”

“Sometimes. Usually when they can get into the most trouble.”

There was something about the older man that gutted him. He wasn’t sure what. He’d never been drawn to the world-weary, sarcastic athlete before, but the grittiness of the man’s rugged features and rough voice grabbed Ichi’s balls and squeezed until he admitted he’d thought hard about Bobby taking him over the back of a couch or even on the inking table he’d brought out for Ichi the day Jae’d been shot. Ichi was fond of the man’s breadth, his shoulders and legs tight with muscle, and Bobby’s calloused fingers were long, thick enough to promise a good working of Ichi’s hole.

It was probably wanting what was bad for him, he’d thought the last time he’d checked out Bobby’s ass when the man walked by him in old 501s and a tight black shirt. He’d never been one for happily ever after—not like Jae and Cole seemed to have built up—but Ichi was damned and determined to at least be friends with whomever he shared his bed with.

No, Bobby Dawson looked like a good fuck—hell, even a great one, judging by the heft Ichi’d seen one day when the man came by in sweatpants—but he wasn’t a friend. Not by a long shot. And fucking Bobby—or being fucked by him—was bad news all around.

He knew that even before Cole warned him off, and if his brother said his best friend was no good, then Ichi probably should pay attention and stay as far away from Bobby Dawson as he could.

Probably.

“Anyone else or just the four of us?” Ichi called out. A crowd would be good to give him a buffer against Bobby’s proximity. Hell, he wasn’t sure if inviting all of Koreatown would be enough of a crowd to drown Bobby out of Ichi’s awareness. “Kinda small, no?”

“Maybe? I never know. Cole always ends up inviting a hundred when I think two are coming over.” The whirring stopped, and Jae’s voice dropped to a hushed panic. “Was that the front door?”

The creak was loud, as was the pair of male voices breaking through the dust-mote-heavy air. A crackle of a walkie-talkie battled with a querulous, authoritative demand to know who was in the theater. Another voice answered, distant and echoing from a speaker, informing those on site the police had been called and to avoid engaging if suspects appeared to be armed.

“Fuck that, Ralph.” The speaker’s thick Latino accent carried a hot anger through his voice. “I say we go in and show these kids they can’t break in here no more. This place deserves some fucking respect.”

“Sam, dispatch said to wait for the cops. I think we should—”

Whatever Ralph’s objections were, Sam clearly had no intention of listening to them, because a second later the curtains partially blocking the view to the entrance came tumbling down, and a plumped-up harbinger of doom in a button-strained security officer uniform walked in, then stood stock still, his gaze sweeping over the space. With his feet set and his legs spread apart, Sam put his hands on his hips, a blue Atlas straddling the remains of a carpet river, his eyes fixed on Jae standing above Ichiro. He raised the walkie-talkie to his mouth and began to inform whoever was on the other end of the radio that they’d caught the intruders and were moving in to apprehend.

“Fuck, get down!” Ichi pushed off the wall in time to see Jae swinging his leg over the balcony railing. Before he could blink, Jae’s camera tumbled down toward his head, and Ichiro had to stretch to grab it before it hit the ground. “Jae, what are you—oh shit!”

“Don’t drop me,” Jae warned as he slid down the side of the balcony to grip at the slight edge bulging at its base. Dangling above Ichi, he craned his head over his shoulder, watching the now steaming Sam barreling down the theater’s debris-covered aisles toward them. “Grab my legs and—”

“I’m not that tall!
No
one
is that tall. Shit.” Ichi looped the camera over his head, then stretched up to snag Jae’s feet. He could barely reach his friend’s toes, and the rubber of Jae’s Converses stung his fingertips. “Fuck—wait, shit.”

Jae let go.

Ichi grabbed anything he could, tightening his arms around Jae’s body as the man dropped. Something caught on the camera, probably Jae’s ass, and his neck jerked down with the added weight. Choking slightly, Ichi held on, the skin on his cheek roughed up from Jae’s torn jeans. With Ichi unable to do more than slow Jae’s descent, they tumbled to the floor, then rolled down the incline a few feet until they slammed into the stage’s front drop.

The wind left Ichiro’s lungs, and his head swam with tiny prickles of stars and hammers. Shaking off the hit, he tried getting to his feet but couldn’t find which way was up. A tug on his hands helped. Then the weight of the camera was off his neck while a torrent of pissed-off Spanish peppered the air.

Wood chips clung to his hair, digging through the strands to reach his neck, but Ichiro didn’t stop to brush them out. Not when he spotted Sam digging through the mounds of trash in a desperate attempt to reach them and Ralph, a thin, scraggly beanpole of a man, climbing over the auditorium’s back row to get to the clear aisle on the side they’d been standing on.

“Ichi, hurry.” Jae’s English was gone beneath a torrent of Korean, and Ichi stumbled to his feet, feeling every ounce of Jae’s weight along his bruised body. “Back door.”

“Back—” There was no time to talk about anything, not with Ralph clearing the rubble and rapidly moving toward them. Ichiro allowed himself to be dragged up the short flight of stairs to the stage and then into the cool confines behind a sea of backdrops and rolled-up canvases. A projection screen hung askew from its bar above their heads, and it swayed dangerously when Jae brushed against it. Ichiro didn’t like the creaking noises the enormous cracked sheet made, and when he tried to slip past its worn edge, he liked the rumbling shriek of its fabric tearing even less.

The wall of fabric tumbled down, striking Ichi in the shoulder as he went by. A wave of dust vomited up into the air, clogging Ichi’s nose and watering his eyes. Barely able to see through the stinging makeshift dust storm, he pulled back in alarm when he felt someone’s fingers on his wrist.

“Ichi, come on!” Jae exhorted, shouting through the noise of falling chains, ropes, and frightened security guards. “The door’s right there.”

They hit the back exit coughing up mud and gasping for air. The day’s heat struck hard, searing Ichiro’s eyes, and he blinked, trying to see through grit and tears. Jae spat out a mouthful of saliva and grime, smearing a trail of gray-speckled saliva across his cheek when he rubbed at his lips with the back of his hand.

“Jeep. Get in the Jeep,” Ichi ordered, already digging the keys out of his pocket. His chest hurt from where Jae’d hit him, and the back of his neck stung as if rubbed raw where the camera strap caught on his skin. Resigned to take inventory of his wounds later, he came up with the ring of keys just as the back door began to creak open behind them.

“Walk, don’t run,” Jae hissed in English, tucking his camera under his arm to hide it as much as he could. “If the cops see us—”

“They’ll see us less if we run. Go!” Shoving Jae forward, Ichiro headed to his Jeep, hoping his friend could keep up.

His legs ached a bit, and from the twinge in his knee, he knew he’d be icing the strained joint as soon as he collapsed someplace safe. Getting up to a full trot, Ichi limped around the corner and spied his waiting vehicle. A chirp of the alarm key opened the Jeep’s locks, and he slid in, hitting the ignition before Jae could get to the passenger-side door.