Whistle Pass (8 page)

Charlie looked around at the cloth seats, the ivory-colored steering wheel, the chrome door handles and window cranks, and the carpeting. “Nice wheels. You jack it?” He dug the pack of Luckies from a pocket, then tossed the pea coat onto the backseat. He flicked his wrist to pop the end of a cigarette out, but Gabe’s hand on his stopped him. The skin was warm, the touch soft but firm, and Charlie’s body went rigid.

“No, I didn’t steal it. I borrowed it from the used car dealer. Told him I wanted to test drive it for the weekend. And… I promised him I wouldn’t smoke in it.”

In no hurry for Gabe to remove the hand from his, Charlie leaned over to the pack and bit down on a cigarette tip. “You’re not. I am.”

Gabe’s free hand wrapped around Charlie’s fingers, clutching the pack of smokes. “Please.” The voice was whisper gentle. Charlie’s nipples hardened at the tone, soft as a tongue on his throat. “I promised.”

Charlie’s mouth dried. He tried to squeeze saliva to his gums and lips. Had it been so long a man’s touch could make him react this way? Or was it this man? This hotel manager he had nothing in common with and nothing to offer. He blinked, jerked his hand out of Gabe’s, and looked out the side window. “Okay.” His voice cracked. He swallowed a ball of dust. “I won’t smoke.”

A key clicked in the ignition, and the engine revved to life. “Thank you. Where do you want to go?”

“Cruise up and down the side and back streets. We’re looking for an aqua Chevy convertible.”

Gabe shot him a side-glance. “Johnny Upton’s car? What for?”

“I’m betting he’ll break into my room while I’m out and the cops are in the station changing shifts. Unless he’s got a key.” He swiveled in the seat and fixed his gaze on the manager. “Everybody else in this town seems to have a key, maybe he does too.”

G
EARS
ground their inability to comply with the driver’s demand. Gabe’s ears went straight to broil.

“Don’t you have to push in the clutch first?”

“It’s been a while since I’ve driven anything. Okay?” He depressed the clutch, shifted into reverse, and eased off the pedal as he backed out of the parking space. He stepped on the clutch pedal again, slid the lever into first, and headed up the street. “Why would Johnny break into your room? He’s pure trouble, but he’s more the type to burglarize liquor stores and empty tourist cabins.”

“The picture. Johnny was part of a welcoming committee when I checked in to your hotel. They had to be after something. That picture’s the only thing I can think of anybody would want.”

Gabe’s stomach churned acid up his throat. “Was one of them a man who’d been in the lobby?”

A rustle on the seat as Charlie turned. His brow dipped; his voice growled. “Red Dot cigar smoker. I take it you know him?”

Shit.
“Yes. Our police chief, Howard Perkins. Charlie, he’s nobody to fool with. Rumor is, there’s more than a couple bodies on the bottom of the river.”

“And you people let him get away with murder? Nobody’s tried to stop him?”

“They weren’t locals. Chicago, I heard tell. Probably gangsters. Who knows who the people really are that come out here?”

A ruptured laugh erupted out of Charlie. “Rumors? Stories over beer? Howard Perkins is a killer because you heard it from somebody who heard from somebody who heard it? You buzzin cuzzins do anything except run your motor mouths around here?”

Gabe compressed his face to a befuddled mass. “Buzzin cuzzins?”

“The waitress at the restaurant called me one.”

Gabe laughed. “No. ‘What’s buzzin cuzzin’ is slang for ‘what’s new’. A greeting. Where you been, Charlie? You a fream?” His chest bounced under his laughter. Charlie’s eyes flamed straight through the jocularity. Gabe stopped laughing.

“Watch what you call me,” he snarled. “You aren’t any different than I am. Just a different hiding place, is all. There! There’s the Chevy. Find a place to park a block or so away.”

Gabe parked the DeSoto in the shadows of some oaks. Irritation buzzed his brain. “This punk greaser’s breaking into one of my rooms? One of
my
rooms.” He glanced at Gabe. “A
fream
is somebody who doesn’t fit in.” He returned his focus to the Chevy. “Are we going to pound this asshole?”

“Pound?”

“Sorry. Are we going to beat the young man? Thrash the varlet within an inch of his life?” He jammed his eyelids closed until pain snaked across his forehead.
Why am I so mad?
Gabe took a deep breath of clarity. He mixed his words with the air as he exhaled. “I’m not hiding. This is my hometown, where I was born. Where do you live, Charlie Harris? You wear boots like I’ve never seen before. You don’t seem to know much about what’s going on in the world. If anybody’s hiding, it’s you.”

“The boots are specially made. In between the layers of sole is an eighth-inch piece of steel. I’m a lumberjack. I cut down trees to make telephone poles. Too many of the men were stepping on jagged branch stubs and jamming them through their boots into their feet. The company came up with the steel plate idea, and there’s a lot less injuries now. And I never said I wasn’t hiding. I know I am. But if you really don’t believe you are, you’re an idiot, and I don’t take you for an idiot.”

Charlie touched his arm. Gabe jerked back.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you. I just noticed you’re wearing jeans, combat boots, and an army jacket. You were in the service?”

“Korea.” Buried memories crawled out of the graveyard in his mind. He kept his eyes focused on the Chevy, away from the visions. “I didn’t see any combat, though, just a lot of men who did. Alive and dead. I had to talk to them all.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was the admissions clerk for a mobile evacuation hospital. Wherever fighting was taking place, we packed up and moved to be as close to the wounded”—he swiped at the tears—“and dead as possible. I was the guy who had to positively identify what was left of men who weren’t men anymore, just pieces of meat.” He clenched his jaw, gritted his teeth, and tried to will the visions back to their graves. Some retreated. Some didn’t.

Gabe grabbed the steering wheel and wrenched it in his hands. His face was coated in tears and sweat. “My country would let me do that. My country’s willing to let me try and live with those nightmares. But my country says I can’t love who I want. I can’t live the way I want.” He turned to Charlie. He closed his eyes against the pain. Opened and closed them again. “What the hell did we fight to protect, Charlie? Just what kind of freedom did those men die for?”

Charlie pulled him close, stroked his hair. “I don’t know. I don’t know, Gabe.”

Gabe pushed in, placed an arm over Charlie’s shoulder and around his neck. For the first time since coming home, he felt… safe. His heart pounded in his chest. He rubbed his cheeks dry on Charlie’s shirt. A tidal wave of desire swept over his body. Short snaps of breath pulsed in and out of him. His fingers dared to find the nape of Charlie’s neck, the taut, leathery skin. He slid his hand upward, into the dense hair.

“Gabe,” Charlie whispered.

He craned his neck, searching out Charlie’s lips. Gabe pulled Charlie’s head to his, parted his lips as Charlie’s warm breath feathered against his skin. His stomach folded on itself. He tightened the muscles to quell the tremors of fear.

“Gabe. Johnny just got in his car.”

“Shit.” Gabe snapped upright. The wash of heat over his face changed from desire to embarrassment. “I got it, I got it.” He fumbled at the key. Johnny whipped a U-turn and shot past them up the hill to the bluffs. The key turned, the engine started. Gabe slapped the shift into gear and sped after the Chevy, already lost in the darkness.

“Crap,” Charlie huffed. “We can’t find out who he’s meeting if we lose him.”

Gabe’s eyes widened. “You think he’s going to meet somebody?”
Compose. Compose, Gabriel. He just said that.
But the kiss of breath had awakened longing he hadn’t known had gone to sleep. He wanted Charlie Harris.
Talk about rotten timing
. He beat away the thought with his eyelids.

“Yeah. Old Johnny boy wouldn’t know what to look for on his own. Now he has to report he didn’t find it.”

Gabe grinned. Maybe he could actually help Charlie with this. And the knowledge felt good. “I think I might know where’s he’s going.” He pushed the gas pedal down to keep the motor chugging up the steep hill to the bluffs. Wheeling the car around a turn, the incline doubled. Gravity pulled him back in the seat.

“What the hell? This is almost straight up.”

“Hospital hill. The hospital sits on top of the highest point of the bluffs.”

Charlie angled a look toward him. “He’s going to the hospital?”

“The water tower’s across the road from it. If the police chief sent him to your room, that’s where they’ll meet.” The car rounded a curve and onto the crest of the bluff. Gabe pulled into the hospital parking lot and turned off the engine.

He pointed to a dirt road at a break in the trees. “That service road goes to the water tower. Last I knew this was still the only way in and out. We can wait right here and see who shows up.”

“Last you knew?” A chuckle rose out of Charlie. “You used to hang out up there in the dark, did you? Here I thought I was the only one getting laid behind a tree.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Gabe groused, then paused. He smiled. “Okay. It was exactly like that.” He leaned his back against the door. “Except the first time.” His smile expanded. “The first time was a disaster. It was so bad it didn’t happen. Does that still make it the first time?”

Charlie folded his arms over his chest and grinned. “I have to hear this. Spill the beans.”

Gabe chuckled. “How’d you know?”

Charlie drew his head back. “Know what?”

“I was still in school. I’d met a boy at a basketball game in a town north of Whistle Pass. We met under the water tower one night.” He held out his open palms. “You know, they don’t exactly teach how two men should do it in health class. We were both virgins. How do you tell your mother you don’t want to eat her pork and beans because you’re going to get laid?”

Charlie cracked up. Laughter rolled out of him. “You didn’t.”

“Oh, yes, I did. I was on my hands and knees. He spread my cheeks, and just when the head of his hard-on hit me, I blasted a note that could have sent factory workers to lunch break.”

Charlie gripped his sides. His lips quivered; even more laughter spilled.

“Gets better.”

Charlie twisted around, snorted glee. “Oh, God. How?”

“We were in the backseat of his car with the windows up.”

Charlie’s head tossed back and forth. “Stop. You’re killing me.”

“You’d have sworn a skunk died in there.”

A black Cadillac came around the curve and entered the lot. Gabe grabbed Charlie and pulled him to the seat as the headlights swept over them. “Get down! It’s Perkins.”

The Cadillac slowly cruised past. The purr of the motor grew louder. Wheels squeaked on the pavement.

“What’s he doing?” Gabe whispered.

“Checking the lot, would be my guess. Doesn’t want any witnesses to the meeting.”

The car passed by them again. Charlie poked his head above the door trim. “He’s heading up the service road.”

Gabe sat up. “Now what?”

Charlie’s gaze remained focused out the window. “We wait. Just like with Johnny, Perkins wouldn’t know about me or the picture if somebody hadn’t told him. When he comes out, we follow him and find out who he’s getting his orders from. I’m gonna have a cigarette.” He grabbed his coat and climbed out.

Keeping his eyes on the lane, Gabe leaned against the door but watched Charlie out of his peripheral vision. Charlie walked to the end of the parking lot, illuminated under three pole lights, and lit a match. A splash of yellow momentarily painted his face. Gabe shivered. The man was so gorgeous. He’d come so close to kissing him but didn’t know if the kiss would have been welcomed, or returned. He chewed on his lip, then chuckled.

Here he was in a car obtained under false pretenses, spying on the town’s police chief, over a picture he had no business knowing about. God only knew what the outcome of all of this would be. If worse came to worst, he might have to leave the town he was born in and never return. He crooked a smile. For Charlie, he’d do it all over again. The corner of his smile collapsed.
Why?
The question furrowed his brow. Why, indeed. A running shadow sat him upright.

The figure bounded across the road into the lot. Gabe turned to shout at Charlie, but the man was nowhere in sight. Gabe sank onto the seat with his head up enough to see who ran past.

Johnny Upton blew by, hands covering his face. A parking lot lamp’s light flashed red. Gabe swallowed hard. The hands were covered in blood. Johnny stayed on course to the Emergency Room door and flung it open. Charlie appeared out of the shadows and jumped in the car. The Cadillac rolled out of the service road and turned on its headlights once it was traveling north on the hardtop street.

“Let’s go.” Charlie looked at Gabe. “If you still want to. Otherwise, you can wait here.”

Gabe turned the key and started the engine. He slipped the car into gear. “In for a penny, in for a pound.” He goosed the accelerator, and the DeSoto flew onto the roadway. “What do you think happened to Johnny?”

Charlie shrugged. “Failure comes with a price.” He lowered his brow. “Ours might too. You still have time to change your mind.”

Gabe rolled his shoulders to shed the tension. He responded to the question by giving the engine more gas.

“You’ve some guts, hotel manager.”

Gabe beamed at the compliment. “You too, logger.”

C
HARLIE
wasn’t sure if he would have returned the kiss or not. He wouldn’t have pushed Gabe off him, and that awareness didn’t comfort him. He’d come here out of love for one man, and now a total stranger had set his heart banging against his chest when the heat of Gabe’s mouth brushed his lips.
Eye on the prize, Charlie boy.
He rubbed the back of his neck and glanced at Gabe. Just what the prize might be was starting to confuse him.