Whistling in the Dark (31 page)

"We'll go tomorrow afternoon," Harry said. "There's a Plaza address on the envelope."

"Spit-and-polish?"

"Yeah. Maybe I'll leave you home and take Sutton with me." The glint of humor faded from Harry's eye as he fixed a considering gaze on Sutton. Jack caught on and realized he was right.

"Mind coming with us?"

Sutton looked startled. "I was taking it for granted, since my job is at risk, too."

The funny thing was, he said it as if it were the only job in the world for him. Jack offered a flash of gratitude in his grin. "Good. So, tomorrow after lunch. Now can we get some supper?"

"And then some sleep," Harry said, standing. "And you've got to try, Jackie. I need you both bright and smart tomorrow. That means you can't wander all over New York at three in the morning." He sighed. "Sutton, you'll have to make sure he stays put, all right?"

"What?" Sutton's eyes widened. "You realize what you're asking?"

Esther's smile brimmed with her usual sympathy and Ox, agrin, offered Sutton an encouraging clap on the back. When even Harry chuckled, Jack dredged up some indignation out of principle. "You guys ought to form a nursemaid's league, run for office or something, and while you're at it, see if you can find some other poor sap to keep tabs on."

It had the desired effect of making them laugh. And if it was only a thin umbrella under a fresh downpour of worries, he was glad for it--and, as he followed them out, glad and thankful as hell for the four of them. Ox and Esther's optimism and Harry's determination made him feel better. But it was Sutton's concerned glance his way that did the trick of reassuring him.

Jack hadn't thought of love as a promise before--a promise that, even when the world was falling down around him, would stay kept. But without Sutton saying a word, he knew that there would be comfort when he couldn't sleep tonight. And tomorrow and the day after, there would be a home to go to, even if it was no more than a pair of arms around him and a head tucked close to his in the darkness.

It was promise enough to make the hours ahead bearable. And if Harry, Ox, and Esther noticed, despite the cover of night, that he'd slipped his hand into Sutton's as they tramped the windy sidewalk toward Broadway, none of them seemed to mind in the least.

- Thirty-Five -

Sutton attempted everything in his power to distract and tire Jack, but by two, Jack appeared no nearer dreamland than he'd been at ten. Drifting closer to that beckoning isle himself, Sutton snapped back to consciousness tinged with alarm when the mattress shifted under him. "Jack?"

"Go back to sleep."

"Where are you going?"

"Bathroom. You mind?"

"No further?"

"I might stray into the kitchen. Don't you trust me?"

"'Course I do."

"What a dope." A hand brushed his head before he drifted off again. It didn't seem long before the hand fell on his shoulder and shook him awake. "Come on, Mabel. Up, up."

Sutton blinked and saw Jack hovering. "Can't you sleep?"

"Get up. Let's go out."

"What?" Sutton rolled away from the shine of the hall light and pulled the blankets over his head. "We can't go out. We told Harry we wouldn't."

"I don't remember telling him that. Come on. Just a ramble 'round the corner." Jack crawled on top of him, an agreeable weight with teasing lips warming his skin. "Thirty minutes. What do you say?"

"I think I've figured out why you can't get to sleep." Sutton wrapped both arms around him. "You don't stay in bed long enough." He rolled over, pinning Jack under him with a determination to make him stay put. "Close your eyes."

"That was a dirty trick," Jack said, making a half-hearted attempt to dislodge him.

Sutton rested his forehead on Jack's. "Close your eyes." He tempered the rebuke with a sympathetic kiss.

"You know, I'd have gone on my own if you didn't trust me so damned much."

"Close your eyes," Sutton whispered. Threading fingers in the dark hair, he combed soothingly and Jack, a little frown still on his lips, followed orders. When Jack's arms snuck around him, Sutton hoped he might be willing to sleep after all. He hadn't really considered other temptations until Jack shifted restlessly and the press of muscle and too-warm skin hove sleep well out of reach. Arms tightened around him and he knew Jack was fully awake, too.

"That was an even dirtier trick," Sutton said, rising on elbows to look down into Jack's smiling face.

"Christ, it's your own fault. Climbing on me, warm and naked, and you think I'm just going to doze off?" Jack moved against him deliberately. "No use looking so stern, either. At least one small part of you approves," he noted, and fanned the flames with a graze of fingertips along Sutton's spine.

"Jack--" He backtracked. "'Small'?"

Laughing, Jack dragged him down and kissed him. Familiar with the shape and flavor of Jack's kisses, Sutton noticed in passing that this one was new. It communicated something more than simple desire--or seemed to. If he wanted convincing that Jack felt as he did, Jack obliged, with lips that pushed, almost furrowed over his skin--as if Jack ached to breach flesh and bone, and touch some place less tangible, a place conventional kisses couldn't take him. Persuaded in body, if not in mind, Sutton gave up wondering. If he was being taken in again, for the moment it felt glorious to be misled.

When they remembered the rest of the world's existence sometime later, they were breathless and beat, sheets and pillows in every direction and the room too hot for sleep. Jack seemed in no frame of mind to even try, so Sutton agreed to a walk, hoping against hope it would do the trick.

_{- - -}

The cool night air soothed and revived at once, and Jack walked with a purpose. Sutton assumed he had the club in mind, but when they passed the automat, Jack glanced through the plate glass and turned on his heel. "There's Theo. The show must've ended early." Jack grabbed Sutton's hand and pulled him to the door. "I know you're sleepy," he said, "so, look, just a little while, all right? And we'll go home, I promise."

Sutton followed him in, to where Theo sat stirring his coffee with the distant stare of a man some minutes out of touch with his surroundings. Sutton might have labeled his expression lovesick if he hadn't felt sure Jack would have teased him mercilessly for it.

"Hello, Glum," Jack said cheerfully, lighting on the chair opposite Theo's and nearly startling the life out of him. "Anything doing?"

"Jack." Theo's wide green eyes went to Sutton and a smile found his lips. "Sutton. Oh dear, now my heart will split in two for certain."

Jack paused in the midst of digging through pockets, ostensibly for change. "What's the matter?"

"Love in its first fresh bloom before my eyes and my own crushed and swept away as ashes in the cold morning." Theo sighed and resumed stirring.

"The fellow from the baths didn't want to sleep over?"

"Jack," Sutton whispered with a nudge and shook his head. "Theo, what is it?"

"Who is it, you mean," Jack said.

Theo groaned in agony and buried his head in his arms. Jack jiggled the handful of change and glanced at Sutton. "Pie?"

"Jack," Sutton said, exasperated, and Jack went to forage.

Theo sat up and combed slender fingers through his hair. "How do you put up with him? He has no sense of drama."

"Are you all right?" Sutton offered him a handkerchief which he accepted with a slight smile.

"I'll carry on, somehow. You look sleepy, my dear. Don't let Jack run you about too much or you'll always have dark circles under those beautiful eyes. Come to bathe with us?"

"Bathe?"

"Oh it's the loveliest feast for the eyes. And the hands, once you're acclimated," Theo said with a wink.

"You mean the public baths?"

Jack returned and, depositing three plates of pie on the table, helped himself to the biggest. "No baths tonight. Spilled your tale of woe yet?"

"Why no baths?" Theo asked. "It will warm our tired bones."

"My bones are fine, thanks. You just want to ogle Sutton in all his glory."

Sutton smiled. "You go there often?"

"You wouldn't like it," Jack said with a dismissive wave of the fork. "Besides, you're pining, right?" he said to Theo. "So let's hear."

Theo took a plate and sat back in his chair. "If you really want to know–"

"Trade for the pie. Go."

Theo rolled his eyes. "There was a supper party for Bill and his intended–"

"Don't tell me you were invited," Jack said.

"Oh, no. He wanted to borrow my tie pin, you know the one with the little emeralds? Well, very like emeralds, anyway--so I went around to give it to him and the poor lad was so down, I tried to cheer him up--"

Jack groaned. "Not at the party."

"Not at the--" Sutton stopped, realizing. "Oh."

Theo peeled away a piece of crust and chewed it disconsolately. "I'm really going to Hell, aren't I. First in line and all that."

"Not ahead of me," Jack said with cheer that made Sutton laugh. "So--you get caught?" He coughed and quickly swallowed down a mouthful of Theo's coffee. "Oh, God--not by the bride?"

Theo looked anguished. "Her mother."

Jack choked then, on helpless laughter. Sutton gave him a push. "Jack, really–"

"Oh, laugh," Theo said. "I suppose it is funny, if one's heart isn't broken."

"I can't believe a whole lot more of you's not broken," Jack said. "What in the world did she do? What did she say?"

Theo's shoulders lifted in a rueful shrug. "The poor dear couldn't stop wailing long enough to get a word out."

"Wailing?" Sutton's soul shrank in sympathetic horror. "That must have brought everyone, then."

"Oh yes, right up to the priest. Of course he just chuckled and said boys will be boys, but I do think the bride's family would have horsewhipped Bill and me both, if the attendants hadn't whisked us away."

Jack snorted. "The priest didn't say any such thing."

"Perhaps I said it," Theo mused. "It was such a hectic afternoon, I can't recall. But now--oh now, Bill won't speak to me or see me. And I've missed him dreadfully."

"He'll get over it. Wait a week and go talk to him."

Theo looked at Jack in disbelief. "You realize it's not exactly a minor set-to. The wedding's off. He's lost millions."

"All right, so wait two weeks. He'll be ready for some--" Jack's grin returned. "Consolation." It was too much for him and he leaned against Sutton, shoulders shaking. Sutton found it a challenge not to give in, himself. It was rather funny, despite the dreadful embarrassment Theo must have endured.

"He must forgive you sometime," Sutton said. "You're certainly not the only one to blame, if he was willing--" He cleared his throat. "There must have been some part of him that didn't really want to be married--" At Jack's snicker, Sutton sighed and nudged him again. "You understand what I mean."

"If I didn't, my dear, the blush would give it away," Theo said, patting his hand. "It's all right. You may laugh. At least you've the manners to try to restrain yourself. This Jack-knave, on the other hand--"

"Oh, hell," Jack said, as red-faced as Sutton but for a different reason. "Who wouldn't laugh? That's the funniest thing I've heard in ages."

Theo sighed in resignation and started in on the pie. "Quite a world, isn't it? No bother at all for them to push a gun in our hands and tell us to kill any number of fellows we can--but God forbid we should kiss one. A most contrary way to run things, if you ask me. And now this--" He upturned his palm to reveal two nickels side by side. "It's ten cents more than I gave her."

Jack's mouth dropped open. "Old Peabody? No--she couldn't have. On the level?"

Sutton followed their simultaneous glance to the matronly woman in the change booth, who shot nickels across the counter with dour concentration and lightning speed. "I wouldn't wonder if she made a mistake--"

"They don't make mistakes." The sympathy Jack aimed at Theo seemed a little too bright-eyed. "That'll teach you to strut around the 'mat in your old coat and scuffed shoes. You must've roused up her motherly instincts."

"Jack Bailey, you are a reprobate," Theo said. "A scoundrel. The knavest of knaves, I swear."

Neither the assertions nor the dark sparkle in Theo's eyes cowed Jack. "You'll let us know when she sets the date, won't you?"

Theo sniffed. "I won't have reprobates and scoundrels at my wedding."

"Going to be an awfully dull one, then..."

The conversation slipped away from Sutton as a voice unsettling in its vague familiarity drifted to his ears. He peeked around and matched face to voice–and the cold, sick feeling in his gut spread.

"Sutton?" Jack's hand circled his wrist. "What's the matter?"

Sutton whispered it. "Kent."

- Thirty-Six -

"Kent?" Jack looked around. "The one that put you in the hospital?"

"Hospital?" Theo said, eyebrows lifting as he looked at Sutton in concern. After Sutton explained, he nodded. "So those fading bruises you were sporting--"

Jack started to get up and Sutton grabbed his hand. "Don't. They're surely armed."

"Good point." Jack looked at Theo. "You still got the--"

"I do." Theo tucked his scarf under his coat and turned up his collar. "Nights are always a lot of fun with you, Jack," he said, grinning, and stood.

"Theo," Sutton whispered after him as he left the table. "Jack, what is he doing? You don't know how rough they are. They'll hurt him. Let's just find a policeman--"