(1)
They ran up the alley, stumbling into each other as blood-soaked shoes slipped on rain-slick pavement. "Shit," Archie muttered, gripping Horatio's arm tighter. "Shit, shit, fuck."
Horatio didn't bother to acknowledge him, just kept moving along with a kind of grim, mechanical determination. He was breathing in short, pained hisses from between clenched teeth, but shoved away any attempt Archie made to support his weight.
"What the fuck was that?" Archie asked finally, stopping in the center of the alley and jerking Horatio around to face him. "What the fuck were you thinking?"
"Not now." Horatio pulled his arm free and glanced back behind them. "We've got to get out of here."
"I just want to know what the hell was going on in your head."
Horatio turned and resumed his stumbling walk, and Archie followed, managing to keep his mouth shut until they got to the car. Horatio collapsed into the front seat, cursing under his breath and reaching up under his jacket.
"Are you all right?" Archie thanked God and whatever Pellew's boys had done to the engine, because it caught away and started taking them toward safer streets.
"I've been better," Horatio muttered, squinting up at the canvas top. "Fucking roof leaks. The seat's all wet."
"You're getting blood all over it anyway. What the hell were you--"
"Just watch the damn road." Horatio slumped lower in the seat and glared out at the rain. "I'll live."
"Unless I kill you." It came out flatter than he intended, and as soon as it was out of his mouth he knew that, considering the events of the night, it was the wrong thing to say.
Horatio looked over at him, face carefully blank, then turned away. "Just drive."
Archie bit into his lower lip until he tasted blood, shook his head, and drove.
***
When they reached their apartment building, Horatio gave into necessity enough to let Archie help him up the stairs, but stepped away as soon as they were inside. "Call the boss and let him know," he said, turning toward the hallway that led to the bedrooms. "He's going to want us to come down and tell him about it in person, but see if you can put him off till tomorrow."
"Right," Archie said, staring at the red streak Horatio's hand left on the wallpaper. "I'm not going out in the fucking rain again."
"Don't fight with him." Horatio stopped and looked back over his shoulder, frowning. His hair was wet, plastered down over his forehead and hiding the cut that must have been there to produce the watered-down blood streaking the rest of his face.
"He wouldn't give you the job," Archie said dryly, but for the second time that night a joke fell very much flat and Horatio just stared at him. Archie shook his head and reached for the phone. "I'm not stupid. I'll take care of it."
He finally caught a piece of luck, the first time all night-- Big Eddie was in a good mood, but not so good that he demanded they come right down to the Indy and celebrate. The next day would be just fine to hear about how his boys took care of the problems sniffing around the edge of his business. Problems with pistols and former boxing careers who lived at the top of a goddamn high-rise.
Archie finished the carefully worded, seemingly-neutral conversation and took a deep breath as he hung up the phone, staring down the hallway. Horatio had left the bedroom door open, a square of light spilling out on the floor. The carpet needed brushing. Archie shook his head and started down the hall, carefully ignoring the slowly-growing anger in the hopes that it would go away. There was no room for anger or panic while the job was going down; all that had to wait until later, and Archie was good at setting it aside. But now it was later, and there was blood on the wall and on the floor, and streaking the jacket Horatio had tossed over the footboard of the bed.
"Bastard ruined my suit," Horatio said as Archie stepped into the room, not bothering to look up. He was standing with his back to the door, holding the dove-grey material of his vest and staring down at it, rubbing at the dark stains with his thumbs as if that would somehow clean them away. One of his suspenders had slipped down off his shoulder, and he shrugged that arm irritably. "Goddamn it, this was a good suit, and it wasn't cheap, either--"
Archie tore the vest out of his hands and threw it across the room. Horatio stared at him, irritated. "All right," he said, crossing his arms and taking a step back. "Go ahead, then, have your temper tantrum."
"You're complaining about your suit," Archie said, enunciating each word carefully. "You fell down a fire escape, and you're complaining because you wrecked your suit."
"I didn't fall down the fire escape." Horatio actually seemed to be offended.
"All right, you were pushed."
"And I took him with me," Horatio said, just a bit too smugly, and all the anger he couldn't take on the job flared up through Archie. Before he realized it, he had caught Horatio by the shoulders and shoved him back against the wall, earning a grunt of pain and an irritated look but no resistance. Thank God, no resistance, because Archie wasn't entirely sure he wouldn't punch Horatio's face in just on instinct. That would make him a popular man on the street, being the one who messed up Eddie Pellew's pretty boy. Wouldn't make him popular with Pellew, though.
And anyway, he didn't actually want to hurt Horatio, he just wanted to make sure he had the bastard's attention. "And why, exactly, did he have the opportunity to push you down a fire escape?" he asked, glaring into Horatio's eyes from an inch away. "Oh, yes, because you dropped your gun."
"I thought you had me covered," Horatio said, squirming a little under Archie's hands; not enough to spark anger, but just enough to remind him that there were bruises under his hands and prompt him to ease the pressure a little. "You always have me covered."
"Well, I didn't this time, did I?" Archie said, dropping his head and staring down at the floor between them, suddenly drained as the raw energy of adrenaline vanished. "I had my own problems." Problems that were about six foot two inches tall, built like a brick shithouse, and sincerely motivated to kill him. "But you didn't pay any attention, you just went flying in there to take that guy yourself, even though you'd dropped your damn gun--"
"It was out of bullets," Horatio said, so seriously that Archie couldn't help but look up at him in wonder. Horatio could go to every picture the Marx Brothers put out, he could take notes on them (and sometimes did), but he was still never going to have the slightest grasp of irony.
"It was out of bullets," Archie repeated, nodding slowly, and then he started to laugh. Horatio smiled, relieved that the tension in the room had eased, and even soaking wet and half bloody, he was so damn pretty when he smiled that Archie had to kiss him.
When they broke apart, Horatio was still smiling, though it was a great deal less sweet and more smug. "I take it I'm forgiven?"
"More or less," Archie said, tugging the other suspender off Horatio's shoulder and untucking the bloodstained shirt. "Unless you're bleeding to death under those clothes and haven't bothered to tell me."
"Just bruises, I think," Horatio said, before Archie unbuttoned his shirt and uncovered a long, shallow slash along his shoulder. "Oh. Except that."
"Brought a knife to a gun fight, huh?" Archie frowned at the wound, but it seemed to have already stopped bleeding; shallow enough not to worry about, though they'd have to clean it out with something.
"Fortunately, so did I," Horatio said, nodding at the suit jacket. "Most of that blood is his."
"That's what I like to hear." Archie nodded with approval and finished peeling Horatio's shirt off him, tossing it over with the ruined vest. "Can you raise your arms, or am I going to have to cut this off?" The undershirt was a loss as well; with his luck, Horatio would decide that losing one set of clothes necessitated a visit to the tailor and Archie would spend an entire day watching him agonize over patterns and fabrics and God knew what all. Horatio was worse than a girl about his damn clothes.
Horatio moved the injured arm experimentally and winced. "Go ahead and cut it, I suppose."
Archie pulled out his own pocket knife and pulled the fabric out taut, then dragged the blade down it from collar to hem in a smooth stroke. Horatio raised one eyebrow at him and smirked.
"You know how to handle a blade, Kennedy."
Archie grinned and helped him out of the shirt. "If I didn't know you'd fallen down a fire escape tonight, I would think you were being dirty-minded."
"I'm going to be in a hell of a lot of pain in the morning anyway," Horatio said, catching Archie's wrists and looking him in the eye. "Might as well make the most of things before the stiffness sets in."
Archie grinned and let Horatio tug him towards the bed. "And I suppose that since you managed to nearly get yourself killed tonight, I'll be expected to do all the work?"
"That was the plan, yes," Horatio said, releasing one of Archie's hands so he could start unbuttoning his trousers.
Archie twisted his other hand free, taking advantage of Horatio's distraction, and caught him around the waist, spinning him around and pinning him facedown to the mattress. "You're damn right you're going to be sore tomorrow," he muttered against Horatio's neck, grinning as Horatio squirmed and pushed against him. "I hope you don't expect mercy."
"From Blue-Eyes Kennedy, Eddie Pellew's hired gun?" Horatio laughed as Archie's hands tightened warningly around his waist. "I didn't just get off the boat, I know better."
"If you call me that again, I really won't show you any mercy, Prettyboy," Archie said, invoking Horatio's own strongly disliked nickname. It earned him a glare over a shoulder that quickly faded into a grin, and obedient stillness.
"Fair enough," he said. "Consider me your target, Kennedy, and I hope you're armed for the job--"
"Oh, don't worry about that, Hornblower," Archie said, letting go of him to start shedding his own clothes. "I know better than to bring a knife to a gunfight. And we'll just have to see which one of us runs out of bullets first..."
(2)
On most nights, the Indy was the only place in town worth going, and if you happened to be in Eddie Pellew's employ, that was doubly true. If you weren't there, or out on a job--well, where were you? What could you possibly be doing that you didn't want to do under the boss's watchful eye? Maybe you wanted to go down to the basement and explain it to Eddie personally. Or...no, maybe you didn't want to do that at all.
Archie shook his head and took a long drag on his cigarette. There probably were more entertaining ways to spend every damn evening than sitting here drinking, smoking, and watching Horatio win at cards, but they weren't worth getting his legs broken. And Pellew used to not mind if they took off for a few days when things were slow, got out of town for a bit and had a little fun that wasn't organized and approved. Once this whole thing with Hammond settled down, it would probably be like that again. Just had to wait it out.
Not that it looked like old Black Charlie was going to come to his senses any time soon. No, he just kept picking away at the edges of Pellew's turf, trying to expand past what was his, and so far Eddie seemed content to just deal with each incident as it came, dragging this thing out for a whole hell of a lot longer than Archie would have if he was in charge. Archie would've taken the war to Hammond a while ago, laid it on the line, figure out who had the goods once and for all instead of this back-and-forth bullshit.
But nobody ever asked Archie's opinion.
He sipped at his drink and watched Horatio lay down another neatly arranged hand of cards. "Gin," Horatio said, breaking into a smile as Oldroyd cursed and threw down his own hand. It wasn't a smug smile, but one of pure delight, as if he was surprised that he'd won--which he probably was, given that Horatio never seemed to anticipate any outcome until it came around in its own good time. Even if his beating Oldroyd at cards really wasn't any more remarkable than managing to tie his own shoes in the morning, as Archie had pointed out to him more than once. That was Horatio for you. It had been long enough since the incident with the fire escape that most of the bruises had faded to invisible, from this distance. The smoke-haze inside the Indy helped with that, making the card game look almost mysterious and ritualistic instead of painfully commonplace.
Archie ground out his cigarette in the ugly brass ashtray--Pellew had some kind of a goddamn nautical theme in the Indy, and the ashtrays were all etched with images of tall ships in full sail on the briney main, or whatever you called it. One particularly drunk night, Horatio had remarked that putting out a cigarette on the ship was likely to set the poor thing on fire, wasn't it, and ever since then he'd made a point of only dropping his into the vaguely indicated waves. Archie preferred to aim right for the sails. It was funny for a minute, anyway. He pulled the pack of cigarettes from his pocket and tapped another one into his hand.
"Archie." Horatio was leaning back from the table, his chair tipped onto two legs, the hand he'd pressed to the table edge really the only thing keeping him balanced. "Share?"
"Don't you have your own?" he mumbled, rummaging through his pocket for his matches.
"I'm out," Horatio said, leaning back an inch farther, his head tilted back so he was looking at Archie almost entirely upside-down. "Come on, be a sport."
"There's a girl walking around here selling 'em, you know," he said, shaking the match out and tossing it into the ashtray as well. "You cheap bastard."
Horatio rolled his eyes. "Archie..."
"Oh, all right." He tossed the pack at Horatio, who caught it in his free hand, the whole precariously balanced enterprise wobbling wildly but somehow managing not to fall. "Take 'em, I've got to piss."
Horatio regarded him solemnly for a moment, still upside-down, one eyebrow arching even higher--lower?--in question. Archie would have been a liar if he said he didn't consider it for a minute--wouldn't be the first time, God willing wouldn't be the last--but in the end he shook his head and got to his feet. "Give Oldroyd a chance to win some of his money back," he said, nodding at the cards still strewn across the table. "Luck's gotta run out on you sometime, Horatio."
Horatio made a face and let his chair settle back to the floor, fumbling for his own matches. Archie wove his way between the tables, nodding acknowledgement here and there but not bothering to stop and chat. Wrong mood for it; wouldn't want to say something that an ambitious little fuck would take back to Pellew just to make trouble.
The back hallway and the water closets were deserted, much to his relief. He scowled at the wall as he opened his fly and went about his business; he really needed to shake this irritable cloud that had been following him around. It didn't do any good for the foot soldiers to get impatient waiting on the generals; the generals didn't give a damn. Even though, in theory, he and Horatio were supposed to be a little higher up than foot soldiers--and shouldn't have been sent out on pointless errands like they had been lately, not even worth taking the best gun out of its case, just show up and make a few threats and not even get to do anything, didn't Eddie understand that this was driving them out of their minds...
Horatio would say that the boss had his reasons, and it was their job to wait quietly until Pellew decided to share what they were. Horatio was a big believer in obedience and following the rules, for a hired killer. Archie had pointed out the joke there more than once, but Horatio never did think it was funny.
He fastened his pants back up and glanced around the dingy little room. No good reason why he hadn't accepted Horatio's silent offer; they'd snuck back here and sucked or jerked each other off more times than Archie could count offhand, getting off on the risk of getting caught as much as the contact. Jesus, the things Eddie Pellew didn't know were going on right in his own place. His two best enforcers or not, he'd drag them both back into the alley and give them a matching set of bullets in the brain if he ever caught on that he had a couple of sissies on his team. Archie wasn't holding his breath waiting for discovery. Eddie could be remarkably good at fooling himself sometimes, when it came to little things like Black Charlie Hammond, or Horatio.
He checked his hair in the mirror and headed back out into the main room, stepping carefully around the other tables and watching Horatio toss down another hand. Horatio was smiling, broad and cheerful as a kid on Christmas, looking sharp as a movie star in his new suit, the one he'd agonized over and had re-cut three times before he was satisfied. Archie had to admit he looked good in it--pinstripes suited his height, and the color was one Archie couldn't imagine anyone else outside Hollywood pulling off: dark wine-purple, striped in pale grey. He'd bought a new fedora with a band to match. Such a goddamn dandy.
He didn't bear much resemblance anymore to the kid Archie had met down in old Jimmy Keene's outfit down in Ohio, that was for sure. Horatio had been all bones and gawkiness then, dressed in handed-down clothes that were threadbare at the knees and elbows, wide-eyed and terrified of the whole operation. Archie couldn't help but take pity on him, the poor kid; he hadn't been born to it or stumbled in young, like most of the guys. He'd played by the rules, gone to school all the way up to his first year of college, before his old man would up on the wrong side of the rackets and had to pay up or eat lead. Sending his son to work for Keene was the only kind of payment he could cough up, so Horatio picked up a gun for the first time at seventeen.
He was a fast learner, give him that much. Archie settled back down at his table, accepting a fresh drink from the waitress and putting his feet up on an empty chair. He remembered the first time Horatio had done a solo job--Archie went with him as lookout, but Horatio had to go into the room, hold the gun on the guy, pull the trigger all by himself. Archie had stood in the hallway, leaning against the wall next to the half-open door, listening as Horatio oh-so-politely asked the man to kneel down on the floor so that Horatio could get a better angle on the shot and not make a mess of the room. The target had, understandably, been less than enthusiastic about the idea of making Horatio's job easier, and told him so in no uncertain terms.
Archie found himself smiling, sitting there in the Indy and watching as Horatio took yet another round of gin rummy off Oldroyd, remembering that gawky kid stepping out of the room with his nose wrinkled up in distaste, frowning down at the fine spray of blood on his pants. "It's all over the wall," he'd said, waving one hand back over his shoulder. "All over the goddamn place. What a mess."
"Let the police worry about the mess," Archie had told him, holding his laughter back as best he could as he hurried Horatio down the stairs and out of the building. "First rule--clear the scene fast."
By the time Eddie Pellew called them up to the big city and the big-time, Horatio could pull off a job without mussing his hair, forget getting any blood on his clothes. There was a running joke in Eddie's crew that one of these days Hornblower was going to head out to a job wearing a milkman's uniform, just to prove he could make it home still snowy white. Archie would never admit it in Horatio's hearing, but he actually had money riding on that chance.
Horatio tipped his chair back again, frowning up at Archie. "Your drink's lonesome," he said, jerking his head toward the barely-touched glass.
"That's its problem and not yours, I'd say," Archie replied, without heat. Horatio rolled his eyes and groped around blindly on the edge of the table for the pack of cigarettes.
"Want these back?"
Archie shrugged. "Keep 'em." Horatio's frown deepened, a sharp crease appearing between the quirked lines of his eyebrows, and Archie pushed down the urge to trace it with his finger.
"You want to get out of here?" Horatio asked, rocking the chair experimentally and coming perilously close to dumping himself on the floor. "One more hand and we can go. You look tired."
"If you're done," Archie said, trying to sound indifferent. No reason Horatio should have to cut his fun short just because Archie was feeling sullen. But he hoped Horatio would want to leave; he was getting a headache sitting here doing nothing, and if he drank to pass the time he'd just end up saying something he shouldn't.
"Just the one more," Horatio said, shrugging. "Be nice to get home and get forty winks." He grinned a little, just in case Archie was dumb as a post and missed the meaning in his eyes and his earlier not-quite-proposition. Archie shook his head, smiling despite himself. Horatio wasn't too hard to figure out, not at all.
"Sounds like a plan," Archie said, taking a sip of his drink. He'd finish that one while Horatio played his game, and then they'd get the hell out of the Indy. Best plan he'd heard in a week.
"'Scuse me, boys," came a voice, and Horatio let his chair thump back to the floor as Styles stepped up to their tables. "Boss wants to see you downstairs."
Archie took another drink as Horatio put out his cigarette and tossed the cards aside. A trip down to the office. Maybe the night at the Indy wouldn't be a total waste after all.
(3)
Horatio Hornblower was not a nervous man.
To most, that would have seemed like a statement of the obvious: a professional killer could hardly afford to be twitchy, unless he wanted to wind up six feet under or doing ten to twenty in Jackson. Those who knew him better--and there were only a handful of those in the world, including the man currently accompanying him down the stairs below the Indy to where Big Eddie kept his office and the most valuable of his secrets--might have argued the point, but more for fun than out of conviction. In the end even Archie would give in and say that Horatio wasn't a nervous man, he was a man with anxious tendencies. Or something similarly cryptic that would leave Horatio spending the rest of the night vaguely toying with the possibility that he might have been insulted.
But in the end, not an individual given to fits of panic. Horatio was of the opinion that he went through life on a fairly even keel. Except when he walked down this particular flight of stairs into the basement and the short dark corridor that led to Edward Pellew's office.
He'd helped drag bodies back up those stairs. He was pretty sure being nervous about being down here wasn't anything to be ashamed of.
"We haven't done anything, Horatio," Archie said patiently. "Quite literally, we have done nothing for days. So don't worry about it. He's probably just going to open a bottle of something decent, tell boring stories for a while, and try to convince us we need to spend a weekend down at Kitty's, catching the clap and having our manly needs met."
Horatio managed a weak smile and shook his head. "You're hoping that's not all," he said. Archie had been bored out of his mind lately, and doing an awful job of hiding it. Subtlety wasn't Mr. Kennedy's strong point.
"Well, of course I'm hoping that he's going to ask us to drive a bomb into Charlie Hammond's headquarters," Archie said, rolling his eyes and shoving his hands into his pockets as they waited for Pellew's bodyguards to finish their passwords and open the damn door. "But I don't have that kind of luck."
Horatio considered that for a moment--he'd been itching to try his hand at building bombs for a while now, had even bought a book on the subject and had been reading up in the evenings--but dismissed it regretfully. Pellew tended to react to Horatio and Archie's more dramatic ideas with a mixture of amusement and alarm, followed by a very firm "No" and instructions to find a more low-key way of getting the job done. Spoilsport, Horatio thought wistfully, then quickly clamped down on the thought as the door opened, just in case Big Eddie could read his mind.
"Kennedy, Hornblower," came the booming greeting as they stepped through the door. "Sorry to pull you away from the fun upstairs. Having a good night?"
"Yes, boss," they muttered in unison, carefully resisting the urge to glance around the cluttered little office. Curiosity didn't do anyone any good in their line of work.
"You should come join in," Archie said, rocking back and forth on his heels. "Not much of a good time sitting down here, I guess."
Horatio winced. Questioning the boss's choices--even trivial ones--never seemed quite wise in his opinion, but that was Archie for you.
But Archie was also luckier than he gave himself credit for, because Pellew brushed the vague challenge off with a laugh. "I was going to--I was looking forward to it, sharing a few drinks and some laughs with you boys--but then something came up." He tapped his fingers against a sheet of paper on the desk, one covered with an elaborate scrawl of notes and probably due to be destroyed inside of the next twenty minutes. "Something I couldn't put off for tomorrow, I'm afraid."
"Something requiring our particular skills and expertise?" Archie asked with a smirk, and Horatio winced again at his flip attitude. He couldn't deny that anticipation was beginning to stir in his gut, though--he wasn't chafing from boredom as badly as Archie, but he wouldn't object to having something to do.
"No, I just called you down here to see if the rumors about Hornblower's new suit were true," Pellew said, rolling his eyes. "Which I guess they are--purple, Horatio? Really?"
Horatio stared at him, knowing that his mouth had fallen slightly open but unable to think of a single thing to say that might allow him to close it. He heard Archie chuckle beside him, and lavishly illustrated thoughts of homicide danced briefly through his head, before Pellew banished them with a wave of one hand and the sharp sound of the other one smacking against the desktop.
"No time for screwing around, boys. I've had word that Hammond's brought Jack Foster into town."
Horatio's eyes went wide, and Archie whistled. "Dreadnought Foster? Really, boss? But he's one of Howe's, and they've got nothing up here--"
"Not unless Charlie wants to make himself some allies," Pellew said, scowling at the page of notes again. "Which is exactly what he's trying to do, and I need you two to make it clear that I'm not going to sit around and let him."
"You want us to take out Foster," Horatio said carefully. Thank God they could speak clearly down here in the office; when they got assignments over the phone, the instructions were so cryptic that half the time he went out with no real certainty about whom he was supposed to kill. He still had an uneasy feeling that he'd gotten it wrong more than once...
"Yes, Hornblower, I want you to take out Foster," Pellew said, crumpling up the paper and holding the end of his cigar to it. "I'd give it to you in writing if not for the obvious practical drawbacks."
Horatio clenched his teeth and ignored that. "That won't bring any trouble from Howe?" he asked, shifting away from Archie as his friend kicked him in the ankle to express amused sympathy.
"Only trouble on Hammond for not doing a good enough job of protecting him," Pellew said, letting the paper drop to the floor, where it flared out to ashes. "Assuming, of course, that Hammond doesn't do a good enough job." He glared pointedly at them.
"Don't worry, boss, we'll take care of it," Archie said, right on the edge of bouncing with excitement. "What's the timeframe?"
"He got into town today," Pellew said, grinding the ashes down against the cement with his heel. "Probably won't be here long. I'd say tomorrow night if you can manage it."
Archie glanced at Horatio, who frowned and then nodded. "We'll talk to our man in the morning," he said, squinting up at the ceiling. "He'll be able to get us the itinerary. Might even be able to catch him right out in front of the Calypso, if you want to make a statement."
"Don't get yourselves arrested," Pellew said, putting the cigar back in his mouth. "But I wouldn't mind letting Charlie know where he stands."
Horatio kicked Archie's shin with perhaps slightly more energy than necessary, but he knew well his friend's opinion of when and how Pellew should've sent that particular message, and wasn't sure Archie didn't have enough booze in him to say it out loud.
Archie glared at him, but kept his mouth shut, and Horatio smiled blandly at Pellew. "We'll take care of it, boss."
"I hope so," Big Eddie said, taking another paper from his desk and studying it as if the two of them were no longer in the room. "It would be a pain in the ass to replace you."
***
William Bush reacted to Horatio's phone call the same way he always did, with a kind of patient and weary despair, followed by a meeting in which he handed over all the information they needed. The same way it always was, the intel was as neatly organized as if Bush was a bookkeeper and not a driver, that vaguely-defined catchall job description that involved very little time behind the wheel.
"You're the best snitch in the business, Billy," Archie said cheerfully, lighting up a cigarette. Bush stared at him with cool disgust.
"Yes. Well." He turned back to Horatio. "Won't be in the business much longer, I'm afraid. I told Charlie I want out, and he's letting me go. I'm moving down south. Somewhere where they don't have winters, you know what I mean?"
"Sounds like a good plan," Horatio said wistfully, thinking about trying to run down stairs coated in three inches of ice, with the cops on your tail and then the car won't start because the block's frozen... "We'll miss you around here, William."
"Huh." Bush shook his head and accepted the cigarette Archie offered.
"Hammond's letting you out?" Archie asked, tucking the pack away and offering matches in turn. "Nobody ever really gets out, you know, William."
Bush shrugged. "Well, if he ever calls me up I'll come running, of course, but why would he need to?" He raised one eyebrow slowly. "I'm just a driver."
Horatio shook his head and grinned. "You're the eyes and ears of the world, that's what you are, William."
"Huh." Bush tossed the half-smoked cigarette down and crushed it under his heel. "I've gotta get back. So I guess I shouldn't be out in front of the Calypso tonight?"
"Might be better to take a powder," Archie said easily, and with a final shake of his head, Bush sauntered out of the alley and away.
"What'll we do without Billy?" Archie asked once he was gone, shoving his hands in his pockets and leaning back against the wall.
"Guess we'll have to find another snitch," Horatio said, squinting out at the street traffic. "Got anybody you've been working on?"
"Couple prospects," Archie said, "but let's worry about tonight first. We've got time and place, now let's go home and take a nap, clean the guns, you can spend half an hour choosing your wardrobe..."
"And while I'm doing that you can comb your hair," Horatio shot back, pulling out his own pack of cigarettes. "Think it'll go easy, tonight?"
"I doubt it," Archie said with a grin as they stepped out onto the sidewalk. "But would it be any fun if it did?"
(4)
Time dragged before a job, minutes feeling like hours while you waited for the clock to wind down from daylight to evening. When the action was actually going down, everything moved double-quick; the slowness of the hours before must be some kind of law of conservation, balancing everything out.
Horatio lay stretched out on the bed, flat on his back and staring up at the ceiling past the end of his cigarette and the slight haze of smoke. It seemed like every breath had to be dragged up from the soles of his feet, traveling slowly up through his limbs and torso. There wasn't quite enough air to fill his head; he felt detached, distant, drifting not-quite-attached to his body...
"Your stuff's all ready?" Archie asked from the floor, where he was sitting cross-legged and tucking his tommy gun away in its case.
Horatio exhaled slowly and nodded, eyes still fixed on the ceiling. There was a water stain shaped like a kid's stuffed bear, next to a lump in the molding that looked like a train, if you squinted. A goddamn toy shop above the bed. He'd never noticed that before.
Archie was talking, he realized. "I'm sorry, what?"
Archie stood up, stretching the kinks out of his back and looking at Horatio oddly. "I asked what you were thinking about. You're looking all moody over there."
Horatio looked at him for a moment. Archie hadn't washed up yet; he was still wearing the ragged old clothes he'd thrown on that morning to meet with Bush. Horatio had already washed his face and wet down his hair, but was just wearing his undershirt and trousers until it was time to go out. He was suddenly very aware of that, lying there staring at Archie across the room, aware of that he was stripped-down, that he didn't have his gear on yet.
"Do you ever think about what we do?" he asked, sorry the minute the words crossed his lips, knowing that if he'd just had his damn shirt on, they never would have.
Archie blinked. "What do you mean?"
"Nothing." He looked back up at the ceiling, the bear and the train, and blew a final puff of smoke at them. The cigarette was almost burned down.
"No." Archie walked over and sat on the edge of the bed, frowning at him. "You've got something stuck in that head of yours, and we'd better get it out now, before we're armed and trying to get the job done."
Horatio sighed and took the butt of the cigarette out of his mouth, grinding it out against the headboard and tossing it over the edge of the bed. "It's just...what we do. We kill people. Do you ever think about that? What it means? It's not...it's not exactly right."
"No," Archie said, "I don't think about it, and you shouldn't either. It's not going to help anything, and it might slow you down at a bad moment. Put that stuff out of your head, Horatio, if you know what's good for you."
Horatio felt his teeth grind against each other and his jaw clench, a tic he'd always had when there wasn't anything he could say. He stared up at the ceiling, ignoring Archie, even when his friend's hand landed on his stomach and shook him slightly.
"Hey," Archie said, pressing down harder until Horatio gave in and looked at him. Archie's eyes were narrowed, his face intent, and he was looking at Horatio not like a friend or a lover or a partner, but like any other guy off the street he wasn't sure he could trust. "I need to be able to count on you tonight. You're going to be sharp?"
Horatio stared into his eyes, hypnotized for a moment by this other Archie, the one who came out on bad nights and before big jobs, the harder, colder Archie that usually stayed out of sight inside his old friend. That laughing kid had been hauled off to the pen in Jackson, and when he came back he brought the other Archie with him...
"Horatio," Archie said, more harshly. "Can I count on you?"
Horatio swallowed. "Have I ever let you down?" he asked, watching Archie's eyes. They narrowed a little, and Horatio's breath caught in his chest, wondering if this time Archie was going to say it.
He didn't. Archie's face relaxed into a slight smile, his eyes softening again, and his hand eased on Horatio's stomach, uncomfortable pressure turning into a caress. "No, you never have," he said, stretching up across Horatio's body. He braced his free hand next to Horatio's shoulder and leaned in to kiss him, gently as if in apology for the sharp words, coaxing his mouth open and caressing inside with his tongue. Horatio shifted beneath him, letting him settle his weight against Horatio's chest, and for a moment Horatio's troubles faded into a pleasant haze of taste and warmth.
"There," Archie said when they broke apart for air, smirking down at him. "That clear your broodiness away?"
Horatio smiled slightly, rubbing his hands down Archie's back. "Helped a bit," he said.
"I'd offer to help some more, but we probably need to get going before too long." Archie slid off him and stood up, running a hand through his hair and squinting out the window. "We need to be in place in an hour or so, I guess. I'd better go wash up."
Horatio nodded and reached for the cigarettes on the bedside table, lighting another and resuming his study of the ceiling as Archie left the room. As soon as his friend was gone, the moody thoughts crawled back out of the woodwork, sinking down into his head as the afternoon light faded into the shadows of his room. So Archie wouldn't say it, that didn't make it any less true: Horatio had let him down, the one time that mattered, the one job that made all the difference.
Horatio let out a slow puff of smoke, mouthing the name that nobody who worked for Big Eddie ever said out loud anymore.
Jack Simpson.
Smilin' Jack, not in the inner circle and never going to be, but a solid mid-level Pellew man who probably knew more than he should have, because he always had his nose in everyone else's business. Old Jackie, with his temper and his jealousy, who didn't like it one bit when Eddie took a shine to the new kids come up from Ohio.
Jack Simpson, who went over to Charlie Hammond's side, but not until he sold his last job for Pellew out to the cops and left his partners holding the bag. Or at least, the partner who was on the scene when the police kicked the door down. Not the one Jack had told to take lookout, who just had to stand there and watch while the cuffs went on and his best friend got hauled off downtown. Archie went from a holding cell to a courtroom to the state pen inside of a week. Horatio went back on the job with a hollow pit in his stomach and an empty apartment waiting for him every night. Jack Simpson, by all accounts, went up to Canada to manage Charlie's boys on that end, where he was somewhat less likely to meet a turncoat's end.
It was too dark to see the shapes on the ceiling anymore. Horatio stretched out slowly and sat up, putting out the cigarette and squinting at the clock. Time to get dressed and get moving.
No reason to be thinking about Jack Simpson; nobody had heard from him since then. Probably still in Canada, if he was even alive. He wouldn't dare set foot in this town again. Eddie Pellew had a long memory, and no sympathy for traitors, especially one who cost him a perfectly good soldier for a two and a half year sentence.
It should have been five. Horatio did allow himself a small, grim smile of pride as he buttoned up his shirt, thinking about that. He let Archie down that day, but he made up for part of it with Judge Moncoutant. The old man kept a pretty steady hand signing that parole form, considering he had a gun to his head.
Horatio had gone down to Jackson personally, the day Archie got out; he met him at the gate, handed him his coat and his gun and a pack of smokes, and drove him back to the city. They didn't talk much on that drive, or for a few long days after, until the night Archie came into Horatio's room and they spent the hours until dawn fucking like they were trying to remember how it all worked. And after that things were mostly normal, if you could call their lives that. They still didn't talk about prison, or how he got there. They didn't talk about Jack Simpson.
Horatio still didn't know why he was thinking about the man at all, right now. He needed to focus on the job. Foster was the target tonight, a very different Jack. And even with Bush's intel, this wasn't going to be a cakewalk, and he needed his brain to be in gear.
"Ready?" Archie asked from the doorway, and Horatio turned to face him, raising his hands in a silent request for inspection. Archie nodded approvingly; for a night job, they wore similar dark suits, with long coats and broad-brimmed hats waiting for them by the door with the gun cases. Tonight they were shadows.
"Let's do this," Horatio said, nodding back at him and heading for the door. He briskly pushed all the uneasy thoughts aside, giving himself a good mental shake and an order to get down to business. There was work to be done.
***
It actually turned out a lot easier than it should have.
Bush's estimates had been accurate to within a half-hour; his car pulled up outside the Calypso and discharged Jack Foster and two other men out onto the sidewalk. The three staggered the ten feet from curb to doorway, laughing and cursing in the chilly night air, already half-drunk and not paying the slightest attention to what was going on around them. A bad idea, in Eddie Pellew's town.
The car pulled away from the curb and took off down the street. Horatio and Archie gave Bush the courtesy of an extra five seconds to clear the space in front of the club before they opened fire.
It was all so easy. Horatio was actually a little disappointed, as they hurried up the alley to where they'd left the car. This was Jack Foster, one of Howe's boys from the big leagues; this job should have had some kind of a challenge to it.
"Huh," Archie said, shaking his head, as they climbed into the car. "I didn't think popping Dreadnought Foster was going to be like walking down to the corner for a pack of smokes. Now what are we going to do for the rest of the night?"
Horatio shrugged, settling down lower in his seat and glancing out the window at the half-lit streets. "Guess we'd better go to the Indy," he said, starting to break down his gun and stuff the pieces back in the case. "Tell Eddie how it went--"
He broke off suddenly, staring up the street. He'd seen that car when they got into position hours earlier, parked just like that on the corner with the driver behind the wheel. Long damn time for a civilian to be sitting in one place. And now that he thought about it, that corner was just about halfway between where they'd left their car and the Calypso. Decent view of both places, if you were of a mind to try.
Horatio felt an uneasy prickling along his spine. He couldn't see any more than a shadowy outline of the driver, but he had the oddest feeling...
The car pulled away from the corner and turned down the street running perpendicular to Horatio and Archie's route. In thirty seconds it was gone too far to see at all. Horatio turned away from the window and stared down at the gun in his hands as if he'd never seen it before, his mind blank.
"Horatio?" Archie said, glancing over at him. "If we get pulled over, I'd rather not have to explain that."
Horatio stared at him, baffled, until Archie gestured impatiently at the gun parts. "Put it away," Archie said, laughing at the look on Horatio's face, in a good mood as always when a job went well. "And cheer up, we're not dead. It was a good night. They can't all be exciting, I guess."
"A good night," Horatio said, slowly settling the gun in its case and latching the lid closed. No pointing being paranoid. No reason to get worried. They weren't dead. "Yeah. I'll drink to that."
(5)
Ordinarily Archie resented being sent out on this kind of job--he was not an errand boy, goddamn it--but he had to admit that sometimes they could be downright entertaining. Horatio had pointed out in the car that really, being asked to do this was flattering, because it meant that the two of them were considered intimidating. Of course, he'd said that before they encountered their target, who turned out not to need very much intimidating at all.
All bark and no bite. You won't go far like that, kid. "Look, Bunting," Archie said patiently, shooting an amused glance at Horatio, who was leaning against the wall by the window and looking thoroughly disgusted by the man's sniveling and carrying on. "Eddie's willing to cut you a break. Maybe you just forgot to turn that money in. Mistakes happen." "They happen once," Horatio said darkly, and Archie hid a smile as Bunting went off on another wailing round of explanations and apologies.
"We don't care about that," Archie said when Bunting paused to breathe. "All we want is the money. Give it over, and Eddie's willing to let it go. No consequences."
"This time," Horatio added, and Archie winced, afraid that was going to send Bunting into an utter tailspin of despair. There's a knack to this sort of thing, and Horatio just does not have it, he thought. Fortunately, he had other talents that made him more than merely decorative, though he certainly was that, especially right now, slouched against the wall and staring at Bunting like he was something particularly unpleasant scraped off the bottom of a shoe. He does snotty and superior a little too well for his own good. One of these days somebody's going to try to wipe that look off his face.
"Oh, for Christ's sake, will you just get the money?" Horatio snapped, reaching the end of his tether. "I swear, I'm tempted to shoot you just on general damned principles."
Archie bit down on the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing as Bunting produced a knapsack from under the bed. He handed it to Horatio, who checked the contents quickly and nodded at Archie, giving Bunting another look of disgust before heading for the door. Archie shrugged and followed him out, tucking his gun back in its holster and managing to make it all the way to the stairs before he started to laugh.
"I don't see what's so funny," Horatio huffed. "The man is an embarrassment. He's the kind of guy who makes the rest of us look bad. He's what gives the whole operation a bad name..."
"Right," Archie said. "Not the shooting people or breaking the law."
Horatio rolled his eyes. "I thought you didn't think about that stuff."
"Just because I don't dwell on it doesn't mean I'm not aware of it." Archie opened the stairwell door a crack and squinted out into the street. "Plus, I just have to point it out when you're being a hypocrite."
"I am not a hypocrite," Horatio said, giving him a genuinely offended look as they stepped out onto the pavement and started back toward the car. "I just think that if you do decide to do the job, do it well."
"Your work ethic is an inspiration to us all--" Archie began, cutting off when Horatio came to a sudden stop. "Horatio?"
Horatio was staring down a cross-street, a peculiar expression on his face. Archie followed his line of sight and didn't see anything to deserve that. A few stray cats nosing at trash cans. An old man walking with his hands in his pockets. A blue sedan pulling away from the curb and driving slowly away. "Horatio?"
Horatio shook his head slowly and shifted his gaze down to the pavement. Archie recognized the look on his face--chin tucked, brow furrowed, eyes distant--as the one that meant his friend was putting bits and pieces together in his head to make something entirely new. Sometimes that led to something brilliant; sometimes to profound disaster. At any rate, they couldn't stand there on the sidewalk, quite literally holding the bag, until he got it worked out.
"Horatio," he prompted again. "The street's for walking, you can think in the car."
"Hmm," Horatio muttered, still distracted. "Right." He looked up and suddenly his expression smoothed out, bland and indifferent as if he hadn't a worry in the world. "It's nothing."
Archie refrained from rolling his eyes; while picking a fight in the middle of the street had a certain amount of appeal, it was nothing compared to the attraction of coaxing an admission out of Horatio later through careful application of reward and punishment. He could never keep a secret for very long once Archie decided he really wanted to know.
But right now, they had to take the money back to Eddie over at the Indy. Business before pleasure, always, even when that business ran on other people's hedonism.
***
Eddie was in a celebratory mood that night. By the time they made it back to the apartment, Archie could barely remember his own name, much less that he'd meant to drag some information out of Horatio.
The next morning, of course, he much preferred the idea of gouging out his own eyes to seeing or speaking to anyone. He was about half tempted to renounce his profession and begin touring in support of Prohibition; they'd been right all along, it was the devil's drink, if it could do this to a man...
He wallowed in his misery for over half an hour before he even managed to drag himself to the kitchen and make a pot of coffee, and was well into his second cup before he realized that the reason he had not yet been forced to engage in human conversation that morning was that Horatio wasn't there.
He checked the handful of rooms in the apartment by way of confirmation, but he was right: Horatio had somehow risen from his bed that morning not only able to function, but able to function in public. "It would be very easy to hate that man," Archie informed the coffee pot as he poured his third cup.
An hour later, when Horatio still hadn't come back, he got dressed and walked down to the corner to buy the morning paper and a pack of cigarettes. The old man at the newsstand said Horatio had been by a few hours before, and he hadn't seen him since. Archie took his things back to the apartment and had time to make it through the first three sections and chain-smoke a quarter of the pack before the door opened and Horatio came sauntering in. He had the same carefully blank look on his face as the day before, the one that probably fooled most of the idiots on God's green earth but that announced to Archie in Hollywood Technicolor that Horatio was hiding something.
Still, he felt human enough by that point to muffle his irritation and play the game. Direct confrontation was his method of preference, but it tended to put Horatio on the defensive, which more often than not was a one-way ticket to sulksville for the rest of the afternoon. "The prodigal returns. Where have you been all day?"
Horatio shrugged, hanging his jacket up on the hook by the door. "Went for a walk."
"Long damn walk," Archie said lightly, folding up the paper and pushing his chair back a little from the table. He studied Horatio carefully, for a long enough moment that the man began to fidget and finally turned toward the hallway in an effort at retreat.
"Where'd you go?" Archie asked, and Horatio hesitated, ducking his head.
"Just around," he said, gesturing vaguely with one hand. "I ran into some of the guys, got to talking."
Archie took a moment to consider if there could possibly be a single thing more out of character for Horatio than sitting around shooting the shit in the middle of the day. "Who, exactly?"
Horatio glanced back over his shoulder at Archie, irritation beginning to show in his face. "I was just taking a walk, Archie."
"Horatio, you are the world's worst liar." Archie dropped some of the false cheer and levity from his voice and expression; unlike Horatio, he eventually got tired of dancing around a subject and never getting anywhere. "What have you been up to?"
Horatio glared at him for a long moment, then suddenly sighed. His shoulders slumped and the cool façade fell away like it had never existed. He turned and walked over to the table, sitting down across from Archie and pressing his hands flat against the wood. "All right," he said, sounding as tired as if he'd been running a marathon all morning, instead of...whatever he'd been doing. "If you really want to know. I suppose you ought to...I didn't want to tell you until I was sure, but I suppose now I'm as sure as I'm going to be, and if I don't tell you, you might find out in less than favorable circumstances, and--"
"Horatio," Archie said, reaching out and grabbing his arm to get his attention. "Take a deep breath and start at the beginning."
Horatio stared at him, then gently pulled away and folded his arms over his chest. "I went to see William Bush."
"I thought he was leaving town." Archie frowned and settled back in his chair. Horatio never went to see business contacts alone. It wasn't a very smart move.
"He's leaving this afternoon. I caught him while he was loading up his car." Horatio swallowed and fidgeted in his chair. "Lucky that I did. I wanted to check with him about a...hunch I had. I've seen a car, a few times, at our last few jobs...and the driver looked familiar. I thought I was going crazy, it couldn't be who I thought, but I couldn't shake the idea, so I asked William..."
"Focus, Horatio," Archie said, feeling more uneasy by the moment as Horatio twitched and rambled. This was not Horatio's normal behavior at all, and far enough outside the ordinary to set off every mental alarm Archie had set up after this many years as partners. "What did Bush say?"
"He confirmed what I thought." Horatio sighed again and all the tension seemed to drain out of him; when he met Archie's eyes, he just seemed exhausted. "Hammond's going for broke, Archie. He's taking a stand and openly challenging Eddie, and he's brought back one person who can sum all of that up just by coming into town. He brought Jack Simpson home."
(6)
They never talked about prison.
They never talked about two and a half years lost, two and a half years of fighting to hold on to anger and identity in the face of the crushing monotony and casual cruelty behind the walls. They never talked about how Horatio didn't visit, because Archie wouldn't see him the handful of times he tried. It would have been too hard, if he'd had to see actual proof that the world outside was moving along without him while he ground away in place. He said no every time they asked him if he wanted to see his visitors, and after two or thee tries Horatio got the hint. Always was a quick study.
But then Horatio pulled strings or made threats--Archie was fuzzy on the details; they never talked about that either--and got him out on parole. Horatio was waiting when he stepped through the gate, and drove him away from there, but they didn't talk about it, not on that drive and not any time after.
If they didn't talk about life in the joint, and they didn't talk about how he felt about getting out, they sure as hell never talked about what had gotten him put away in the first place. Not what, and not who.
Now all the things they never talked about had walked back into the middle of their lives and tossed a grenade onto the table. And they didn't have a way to talk about it. They didn't even have the words to start. But that was all right with Archie, because he didn't want to talk about it. He just wanted to kill something.
***
Horatio kept his mouth shut for most of the drive to the Indy, right up until Archie wrestled the car into park at the curbside. "Don't lose your temper," he said then, his body angled toward Archie but his eyes carefully fixed straight ahead out the windshield.
"I don't really feel like kissing anybody's ass tonight, Horatio, not even Eddie's." The only reason they were at the Indy at all, instead of going up one street and down another taking out every Hammond man they knew of until they smoked Simpson out of whatever rathole was hiding him, was Horatio's argument that maybe Big Eddie didn't know Simpson was back. If they brought the news to him, he might give them some backup and significantly increase their chances of making it out alive. The logic had gotten through to Archie eventually, but this still felt more like a waste of valuable hunting time than anything else.
"Don't lose your temper," Horatio repeated, and then he did turn to look at Archie. His face was blank again, and his eyes cold; he had his professional face on. Archie didn't see that look very often, and usually he didn't like it when he did--it was unusual for Horatio shut down at him like that, and usually meant trouble in the valley. Tonight, though, he was hard-pressed to care. "No matter how pissed off you are, Archie, he's still the boss, and you can't just go storming in there and shoot your mouth off--"
"Maybe you want to take care of it yourself," Archie snapped, slamming the heel of his hand against the dashboard. Horatio didn't flinch, just kept staring at him in that same icy way. Like I'm a goddamn mark he's sizing up.
"Might not be a bad idea," Horatio said evenly. "You're taking this personally."
"Fuck you." Archie threw the door open hard enough that the hinges groaned in protest. He stalked across the street and into the Indy, dimly aware of Horatio cursing softly and following behind him.
The main room was a blur of voices he didn't hear and faces he didn't see; just noise and color. He shoved past a few thugs to get to the stairs, and distantly heard them shouting after him and Horatio telling them to take a hike. Let 'em try to pick a fight if they wanted. He'd be fucking happy to oblige.
He reached the office doors and almost went for his gun when Styles didn't get out of his way. Some last trembling shred of self-control held out, God only knew how, and he managed to say through clenched teeth "Need to see the boss."
Styles looked at him for a moment, then glanced back over his shoulder, where Horatio must have been standing. Archie felt like his skin was too tight, like he might explode at any minute, and this bastard was checking with Horatio for approval, like Archie was some kind of a goddamn dog and Horatio was promising to keep him on a tight leash--serve 'em both right if he did start shooting--
"Tell the boss it's important," Horatio said flatly, still hanging back behind Archie's shoulder. It took a minute for that to sink through the rage in Archie's mind; Horatio wasn't stepping beside or around him, wasn't taking a piece of this as his own. This was all Archie's show here, and that cooled him off a little. Horatio was disclaiming any hold on that imaginary leash. "Got some news for him."
Styles slipped back through the big doors to whisper back and forth with the other bodyguards, and Archie took the moment to breathe deeply, order his thoughts, and try to unclench his fists. He heard soft, rustling movements behind him and glanced over his shoulder to see Horatio standing with his hands in his pockets, staring up at the gloomy concrete of the ceiling, still blank and cool and giving nothing away. He had his game face on, and Archie couldn't tell what he was thinking; if this was a waste of time, or if Archie was being irrational--taking it personally, he said, of fucking course it's personal--or maybe he was just calculating the most efficient ways to search Hammond's side of town. Or maybe he was figuring out square roots for fun. Who the hell knew, with Horatio.
"Okay," Styles said, holding the door open for them. "Come on in."
Pellew was sitting behind the big desk, as always, but he wasn't smiling this time. He raised one eyebrow as Archie and Horatio stepped into the room, and drummed his fingers on the desktop. It wasn't every day that two of his foot soldiers demanded an audience. He didn't want it to turn into a habit. "So you two have something important to say?"
"Jack Simpson's back in town." Archie didn't see any reason to throw in anything extra. That was the part that mattered, the only thing that did.
Pellew nodded slowly. "I heard."
"You heard?" Any tension Archie had managed to shake off in the hallway came back doubled. "Why the hell didn't you say anything?"
Archie felt Horatio's hand brush against his arm, a warning, but he shook it off. Fuck caution and fuck Pellew, if he knew Simpson was back and wasn't going to do anything--
"I just found out an hour ago, Kennedy," Eddie said, staring coldly across the desk. "And I wasn't aware that I was supposed to keep you at the top of my need-to-know list. I was pretty sure I got to decide who needed to know what around here. You think I need to revise that policy?"
Archie choked on what he wanted to say in reply as Horatio's hand grabbed his arm again, this time squeezing painfully. "It's a direct challenge, boss," Horatio said calmly. "Hammond's saying you can't police your own turf, or take care of traitors."
"I am so fucking lucky to have you two geniuses working for me," Pellew said sarcastically. "I'd never have figured any of that out on my own, Hornblower."
Archie yanked his arm away from Horatio. "What are you going to do about it?" he asked, managing to keep his voice low and cool. It wasn't as hard as it might have been; all of a sudden the rage bubbling up through his body seemed to have turned to ice.
Pellew glared at him. "I know you've got history in this, Kennedy, but that doesn't mean it's any of your goddamn business what I'm planning to do."
"We just want to know where we stand, boss," Horatio said softly, staring off into the corner of the room, and Archie suddenly wanted to burst out laughing as he realized that if he was an attack dog that Horatio kept on a leash, Horatio was a nervous household pet afraid Pellew might take it into his head to kick him instead of scratching his ears. Bullshit, all of it.
These two don't matter anyway, the new icy-rational voice in his mind decided. Nothing does except getting to Jack.
Pellew looked back and forth between them and then leaned back in his chair, folding his hands over his stomach. "I'm not ready to act yet," he said abruptly. "Things are still in motion. I've got stuff to get in place. I promise, Kennedy, we will take care of Simpson. Nobody sells out my guys--or me--and gets away with it. But the time isn't right. Hold on just a little longer."
Archie felt his face twisting up into what might have resembled a smile, at least in outline. From the look Horatio gave him, it wasn't much of one, but Pellew didn't seem to care.
"That's all for now," the boss said, pulling a sheet of paper from his desk and frowning at it. "Go upstairs, have a drink, relax a little. You looked about half ready to blow your top, Kennedy, you could use a little unwinding. Don't worry about Simpson, we're gonna take care of it."
"Just not yet," Archie said, privately amazed at how normal his voice sounded.
Pellew made a vague sound of affirmation and kept staring at the paper. Horatio turned and walked out the door, and after a moment, Archie followed.
"Just be a little patient, Archie," Horatio said as they walked back up the stairs. "Let Eddie work it out, he knows what he's doing."
"Eddie's afraid," Archie said, his voice still light and conversational, like it was coming from someone else entirely. "He thinks Hammond might have the goods to take the town after all, if they go up head to head, and he doesn't want to find out for sure."
Horatio's eyes darted around frantically, making sure no one heard that. "Archie," he hissed. "Watch your mouth."
Archie shook his head and pushed past his friend, cutting across the main room and heading for the door. Horatio hurried behind him, saying his name over and over, but Archie ignored him until they reached the street.
"Archie," Horatio said one final time, exasperated, and Archie whirled to face him. Horatio's arm was stretched out--he had been reaching to grab at Archie's elbow yet again--and Archie knocked it aside.
"Fuck him, Horatio." Archie stared straight into Horatio's eyes, hoping that just this once Horatio would really look at him, and pay attention to what he saw. Maybe just this once, he would get it, all of the stuff Archie had never told him. Why there was no way he couldn't take this personally. Why this one thing, just this one thing in the whole goddamn world, mattered. "And fuck you, too, if you don't get it. I'm not going to sit around and wait for Eddie to pull his head out of his ass and take care of this. I don't give a damn if he approves or not. I don't give a damn if you help me or not. I am going to find Jack Simpson, and I am going to kill him."
Horatio's mouth fell open, and he blinked at Archie for a long moment like he'd knocked all of the words right out of his head. Archie shook his head and walked away. "Where are you going?" Horatio asked hoarsely. Archie didn't look back. "Home," he said. "You coming?"
There was a long silence. "I'll walk," Horatio said finally. Archie shrugged, got into the car, and drove off into the night.
***
It was probably only a twenty-minute walk between their apartment and the Indy, but Archie had been home for over an hour before the door opened and he heard Horatio's steps across the creaky floorboards in the hall. Archie wasn't asleep; he didn't think there was a chance in hell he'd sleep that night at all. Too much to think about. Too many memories, too many plans, too much stuff in his head to sleep.
The footsteps stopped, and he turned his head. Horatio was standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the hall light so Archie couldn't see his face. Just a shadow, an outline: tall, lanky frame, shoulders slumped with exhaustion, one hand braced against the door frame and the other raking slowly through his hair.
"I'm with you," Horatio said quietly. He waited a moment, then dropped his hands to his sides, turned, and walked down the hall to his own room.
Archie stared out at the hall light for a long time, then rolled to face the wall and closed his eyes tightly. He probably should try to get at least a little sleep.
(7)
Horatio was starting to think that he knew what it felt like to go mad. The world and people around you suddenly becoming inexplicable and strange? The overwhelming urge to run screaming into the street and refuse to come back until things went back to the way they were before, the way you thought they ought to be? The growing conviction that you were the only one making any sort of logical sense in a world of...of...talking fish and...
"Coffee, boys," the waitress said, placing mugs down on the table in front of him and Archie. "You said you're expecting one more?"
Archie nodded at her, then glanced at Horatio. "You look like hell." He dumped what to Horatio's eyes was an excessive and painful amount of sugar into his cup. "I take it you haven't been sleeping."
"And you have?" Horatio took a sip of his own coffee--properly black, as coffee should be--and silently willed it to burn the fogginess and hysteria out of his brain. "I would think you'd have even more to keep you awake."
"There's nothing to worry about once you have a plan."
"We don't," Horatio pointed out. "Have a plan. We have, maybe, half a plan."
Archie shrugged. "And in twenty minutes or so, we'll have the other half, and then we'll take care of this." He glanced around the diner, then looked at Horatio, and his expression softened a little. Not his eyes, though; those had been cold as ice for days now. Horatio took another sip of his coffee and wished it were hotter. "Besides, I don't worry like you do, remember, Horatio?"
No, you just run off half-cocked, go against the boss, and probably are going to wind up at the bottom of the river. "Right," he said, turning to look over his shoulder at the door. "I don't know if our friend is going to show up."
"He'll be here." Archie rolled his eyes. "You know he likes to keep us waiting. It lets him make an entrance. He should've been an actor, not a cop."
Horatio winced; it really wasn't a very good idea to go throwing that word around when they were trying to have a meeting on the q.t., but the very last thing Archie seemed to want from him lately was any suggestion based on caution or good sense. He wasn't so fond of getting punched that he was going to ask for it.
"There," Archie said, squinting against the midmorning glare off the dirty window. "Just parked across the street. Is that another new car? I swear he has one every time we see him."
Horatio shrugged and took another sip of his coffee. "Funny how no one ever notices that and wonders how he manages it on his salary," he mumbled.
Archie laughed. "I'm sure they wonder, they just know better than to ask."
He had a point. Even people meeting Detective Frankie Edrington for the very first time tended to get the hint that asking questions wasn't advisable. And if they did try it, the first two or three bizarre and circular non-answers were usually enough to put them off.
And if they still kept trying...well, it wasn't unheard-of for Frankie to stop a conversation with his fists, he just considered it an absolute last resort. Seemed to think it was beneath his dignity. "I try to leave that to the hired guns and ruffians," he'd said, with that way of looking down his nose that left Horatio not quite sure if he should curse or shoot or just quietly walk away. Damn Frankie anyway.
And here was the man himself, swanning into the diner like he owned it, telling the waitress to bring him tea with lemon, if she had it, and sliding into the booth next to Archie. "Gentlemen," he said dryly, and Horatio's hand tightened around his coffee cup.
"Frankie," Archie said, grinning at him. "How's tricks down at the office?"
"Protecting our fair city from the thugs who roam the streets, as ever, so on and so forth..." Edrington smiled slightly. "And how are things in the seedy criminal underbelly?"
"We were sort of hoping you could tell us," Horatio said, shifting back in his seat and stretching his legs out under the table. And now we start the goddamn dancing, he's like Fred Astaire over there...which I guess makes Archie Ginger, since he's the one who can keep up with him...shit, I need another coffee.
"Were you." Edrington smirked.
"Frankie," Archie said coaxingly. "Be a pal and help us out. You know we'll make it worth your while."
Horatio finished the last cooling sip of his coffee and waved for another. Edrington glanced back and forth between them for a moment before settling back in the booth and turning serious.
"I suppose you're interested in Jack Simpson," he said, and Horatio winced as Archie kicked his ankle under the table. Yes, yes, you knew he'd already know what we wanted, you're just so damn clever. "What I've heard is..."
***
"Told you Frankie would have the goods." Archie looked up at the sky and grinned, jingling his keys in one hand. "I think we're just about set, Horatio."
"Just about." Horatio got into the car and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. The coffee wasn't doing its job; he actually felt worse than when they walked into the diner. Of course, that might have been more because of Edrington's information, which had cost them half of what they had on hand and was complete enough that they were actually going to go ahead with the insane plan Archie had cobbled together.
You helped make the plan, you jackass, and you'll help him pull it off or you'll get plugged right next to him. That's what you decided, and you are not letting him run a dangerous job without you again, not ever, not out of your sight for a minute...
"Let's head home," Archie said, sliding into the driver's seat and giving him a worried look. "And you can get a nap before we go talk to this guy tonight. I wouldn't want to give you a gun right now, the way you look."
Horatio shrugged, dropping his hands from his face. "Actually, I need to go to the Indy."
"What for?"
"Pellew called this morning." He knew without turning his head that Archie was scowling. "Whatever you think of how he's handling this, Archie, he's still the boss and I can't just blow him off." He slumped down lower and closed his eyes, too exhausted to be the tough guy. "Unless you want to come fish me out of the river tomorrow morning. And honestly, it's your call, I don't give a damn at this point."
There was a long silence, and he was about to open his eyes and make sure Archie hadn't gotten back out of the car and walked away when his friend spoke again. "Don't say that." His voice was low and uncertain enough that Horatio did turn to look at him, and when Archie's eyes met his the coldness was almost gone, it was almost all right--
"Don't say that," Archie repeated, then cleared his throat and turned the key in the ignition. "All right, the Indy it is. You can get home?"
"Matthews will give me a ride," Horatio muttered, forcing down the vague disappointment that didn't mean anything and wouldn't do any good. "You go home and work on turning our half a plan into a plan."
***
Archie hit the floor, the solid thunk of his body meeting the boards loud enough that it knocked all the thoughts right out of Horatio's brain, and he flung himself forward.
Damn it, some part of him gibbered, too low and primal to be considered actual thinking. Damn, damn, damn...
Just squeezing information out of a low-level Hammond man. Just finding out one goddamn thing: whose basement they'd stashed Jack in for now. That was the kind of information this Peter Hunter would have--the only information this guy would have--and it should have been easy, not rapidly turning into a running gunfight through an entire fucking apartment and why did this nobody tough-guy have such a goddamn big place anyway?
He ducked behind the couch and fired in Hunter's general direction--last seen over by the kitchen door, as good a target as any--then crouched low and began to reload, cursing under his breath and trying to shake the icy, sinking feeling that this whole fucking balls-up mess was his fault. There wasn't time to worry about that right now, save it for later...
There wasn't time before to be worrying about what Pellew said, but that didn't stop you. Idiot.
He took a deep breath and darted across the room to the kitchen door, hoping like hell that Archie had scraped himself off the floor in the entryway and was coming to cover his back. And hoping that Archie wouldn't hesitate for that half a second that Horatio had, back at the doorway, because his mind was still in Big Eddie's office that afternoon.
"I don't want to see you following Kennedy into trouble, Horatio. You've got potential, kid. If you play your cards right, this city could be yours one day. I'm not kidding you. I've thought you were someone to watch out for since the day you walked through that door."
He twisted around the doorframe, spotted Hunter hunched behind the table, and fired twice, ducking back again when the shots were returned.
"I know, I know, he's your friend, you came up together. That's sweet. But he's not that kid anymore, Horatio, don't fool yourself. Prison changes a guy. Getting hooked on revenge changes a guy. You don't know him as well as you think you do, anymore."
"I know Archie, boss."
He jumped to the other side of the doorway for a better angle, wincing as two more bullets flew past and missed him by bare inches, sinking into the wall.
"Are you sure?" That cold, assessing look, sizing him up, reading all of his secrets right off his skin. "Are you sure that if you get between Kennedy and what he wants, right now...are you sure he won't shoot?"
Horatio fired once, twice, three times, and then the gun clicked empty. He stared down at it for a few agonizingly long seconds, the lump of metal in his hand, a useless lump of metal now and he was out of bullets...
Dimly, distantly, he heard Hunter cursing behind the table and fumbling with his own gun. He's reloading, his brain prompted, logic cutting through the numb haze. You've got a few seconds. Go.
He dropped the gun to the floor and launched himself across the kitchen, knocking a chair out of his way and half-crashing to the floor, crawling under the table and throwing himself against Hunter. He got one knee down on Hunter's elbow, pinning the arm with the gun to the floor; he drove the other knee into the man's stomach, knocking the air out of him for an instant. Just long enough for Horatio's hands to close around his throat and tighten, tighten, tighten...
His heart was pounding, the blood rushing through his head so loudly he couldn't think, even if he wanted to. He didn't. He was tired of thinking, tired of worrying, tired of trying to find logic and order and sense in all this, when it didn't make sense at all, the things that mattered didn't come in order. Images flashed through his mind faster than logical thought ever could, a mixture of memory and supposition and fear. Archie walking through the prison gate, Archie hitting the floor in the hallway, Archie running a comb through his hair and laughing, Archie aiming a gun at Horatio's face and pulling the trigger, Archie, Archie.
"Horatio." A hand closed on his shoulder and he jerked away, shocked out of his stupor. He fell back across the floor, suddenly realizing that his hands ached from clenching around Hunter's neck, that he couldn't quite open them all the way, and that Hunter was very, very dead.
"Horatio." He looked up, toward the sound of his name, and saw that Archie was kneeling next to him, his face twisted with concern. "Horatio, are you all right?"
Horatio found he had to clear his throat twice before he could speak. "Killed our source," he mumbled, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. "Sorry."
"It's all right," Archie said, still looking at him like he wasn't sure Horatio wasn't going to fall completely to pieces right there on the floor. He rested his hand on Horatio's shoulder again, and it was like an electric spark shooting through Horatio's body. That light touch was the first thing he'd really felt in days. "Dumb bastard wrote it down, Horatio. Right out in the hallway by the phone."
Horatio barely heard him. The blood was still roaring in his ears, and he was staring at Archie's face, and suddenly he had the answer he couldn't find back in Pellew's office.
"...if you get between Kennedy and what he wants...are you sure he won't shoot?"
Yes. I'm sure. And if I'm wrong...it doesn't matter, because I won't be between him and the target. I'll be beside him.
"Horatio, are you sure you're all right?" Archie moved closer, frowning, looking up and down Horatio's body for any sign of blood, taking his hand away. Horatio couldn't stand it; he lunged forward again, seizing Archie's shoulders and pulling him down, pressing their mouths together in a fierce kiss before he could object.
They kissed for a long, frantic moment, and Horatio thought he could almost hear Archie's heart pounding as loudly as his own when Archie pulled away. "I can't say I don't like the idea," Archie said, laughing softly, "but we just shot up an apartment building, Horatio, somebody must've called the cops. We've got to go." Horatio's hands tightened on Archie's shoulders, and Archie shook his head, standing up and tugging Horatio to his feet. "Come on."
Horatio followed him, still numb and whirling, clinging to his odd epiphany that yes, he would give anything for Archie. The loyalty he owed Big Eddie really didn't surpass what he gave to his friend. It was shocking, to realize that, and invigorating at once, and he somehow had to get all of it across to Archie but he couldn't seem to find any words in his head at all.
Archie half-dragged him down the stairwell, still talking about how Hunter had left everything they needed to know right there by the phone, in black and white, thank God for fools and small favors. Horatio barely heard any of it, just trying to keep his balance down each short flight of steps, until they reached the bottom. He grabbed Archie's shoulder again, spinning his friend to face him and then shoving him back against the wall. Archie gasped out an irritated question, but Horatio ignored it, falling heavily to his knees on the concrete and fumbling with the buttons on Archie's trousers, beyond thought or rationality or anything except the need hammering in his chest and his pulse and his head. He needed to touch Archie, taste him, somehow communicate the devotion that had only now made itself clear to Horatio himself. It was burning him, white-hot and searing its way through his heart, and he had to get it out or he sure he would die, there on the concrete floor of a filthy stairwell with another man's death still fresh in his hands.
"Jesus Christ," Archie gasped as Horatio's mouth closed around his cock, his head thumping sharply back against the wall. "What the hell do you think you're--"
One of Archie's hands came up to rest in Horatio's curls, touching him but not pushing him away--thank God--tensing against his skull. The contact was like throwing the switch to complete an electric circuit; Horatio felt the hysteria and wildness flowing out of him, into Archie, and being replaced by the cold surety that fueled Archie's purpose at the present, and the strength that was always there.
Adrenaline or the absurdity of the situation or Horatio's own frantic aggression or a combination of the three; Archie came quickly into Horatio's mouth and Horatio swallowed it down, slumping to the floor as the madness all drained out of him at once. Sheer exhaustion replaced it, but not the numb stupor of the last few days. Useful exhaustion, meaning that he would sleep, and in the morning he would be ready to help Archie move forward with the plan.
"You're a crazy son of a bitch," Archie chuckled softly, closing up his fly. "I'm never going to understand what's going on in your head, Horatio." He held out his hand and helped Horatio to his feet, still laughing to himself as he straightened Hornblower's tie and pushed his hair back off his forehead. "You magnificent bastard..."
Horatio just looked back into his eyes, feeling himself begin to grin like a fool and hardly caring. Archie shook his head and let his hand linger there, just brushing Horatio's face.
The slow creak of hinges broke the moment, causing them both to step back and look up. All the way at the top of the stairs, on the level of Peter Hunter's apartment, the door to the hallway was swinging open. They stood as if hypnotized, Archie's hand still caressing Horatio's cheek, as Detective Frankie Edrington peered out around the door and then straight down the stairwell. He blinked slowly, then raised an eyebrow at them.
As always, from Frankie that spoke volumes.
Edrington stepped back, the door drifted shut, and Horatio and Archie hurried out of the building and into the comforting shelter of the night.
(8)
It was another two days before they were ready to put their plan in action. Horatio still wasn't convinced that it was an entire plan; seventh-eighths, maybe, at best, but Archie wasn't willing to wait any more.
"What exactly are you afraid of, Horatio?" he asked, studying the construction on their living-room floor. "That it's going to blow up? It's a bomb. It's supposed to blow up."
"I don't want it to blow up in my face," Horatio pointed out, running his hand through his hair and frowning helplessly at the book of instructions. "This isn't exactly as clear as it could be, and I had to adjust all the numbers for the size of the explosion we need, and I hope to hell I didn't screw it up..."
"It'll be fine," Archie said dismissively, prodding the device with one foot and laughing when Horatio flinched. "We just need a big show of light and noise, Horatio. Enough to draw him out of the building and into the open. You're so jumpy!"
"There is a bomb in the middle of our apartment, and you are kicking it." If that wasn't a reason to be jumpy, Horatio never wanted to meet one. "Anyway. You're sure you want to do this tonight?"
"Tonight's the night." Archie moved over to the window and looked down at the street. "I've waited long enough."
Horatio watched him uncertainly. Archie had been less closed and distant since the incident at Hunter's, brimming with enthusiasm at being able to move forward and take some action. If ever there was going to be a moment where Archie might finally talk about some of the ghosts that followed him around, this was probably it. Horatio wasn't sure if he wanted that conversation, or if he never, ever wanted to have to look those ghosts in the face.
"I deserve this," Archie muttered, resting his head against the window frame. Horatio swallowed hard.
"He stole two and a half years from you," he said.
Archie chuckled bitterly. "He stole more than that."
"Archie..." Horatio took a cautious step forward, but stopped when Archie shook his head and turned away from the window, facing him with a bright, false grin.
"No need to worry about that, Horatio," he said. "After tonight, it won't matter. It'll all be wiped clean."
Horatio wasn't sure it was quite that simple, but he held his tongue, and nodded, and was rewarded when Archie's smile softened into something more genuine.
"Let's pack up your friend there," he said, tilting his head toward the bomb, "and get her settled in the car, and then I think we're ready to go, Horatio. No more waiting."
"No more waiting," Horatio echoed, swallowing down the vague uneasiness that wouldn't leave him alone, the sense that there was something they weren't accounting for, weren't thinking through. "Right."
***
He only felt worse about the whole thing when Archie dropped him off at the end of the alley and drove off to park the car in the right place for a getaway. This part was where, in his opinion, about an eighth of the actual plan was missing. It was necessary; the major drawback of doing this independent was the fact that they had nobody to back them up. But he didn't like being separated on the job, especially not something like this where the stakes were so damn high.
Could you be more of a damn girl about this, Hornblower? Get to work.
He shoved the doubts out of his head and moved up the alley, finding the cellar door they'd marked the day before and letting himself inside. According to the notes from Hunter's apartment, Jack was hiding out in the building next door. Horatio would rig the bomb up to the boiler here, hurry up into the street and around the corner to meet Archie covering the building's entrance, and wait for the explosion. Jack and the others would come running out, and then...
Horatio frowned a little at that, dropping to his knees beside the boiler and fumbling open the case holding the disassembled bomb. He didn't have much time to do this, and he couldn't afford to waste any of it worrying about just what the hell they would do with Jack Simpson once they had him at gunpoint. Archie had refused to discuss past that point, even to say if he was going to shoot the man on the spot or drag him off somewhere for...private discussion.
He began fitting the pieces together, his hands working automatically to match the memorized images from the book. It wasn't that he objected to roughing someone up in principle--he'd be a world-class hypocrite if he did. But always before, it had been for the good of the organization, and at someone else's orders. It had been cold, detached, just part of the job. He'd never gotten any pleasure out of doing it, and it never seemed like Archie did, either. This time...he didn't know what this was going to be like. He didn't know what he'd see in Archie's face if his friend started going after Simpson, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know.
He settled the last bit of metal into place, tightened the last screw, and settled back on his heels to study his work. He pictured the book again, and compared the two...it looked just about right. No, it looked right. He couldn't delay any longer. Placing the thing carefully at the base of the boiler, he took out his matchbook and lit the fuse.
In his rush to get up the stairs, he almost fell on his face, the logical fact that it took a fuse a certain amount of time to burn meaningless next to the knowledge that there was a bomb behind him. He reached the alley and slammed the cellar door behind him, scrambling across the pavement to lean against the opposite wall and catch his breath. First stage down, now to meet Archie...
The cool click of a pistol being cocked cut through the harsh sound of his breathing, and he froze.
"Well, well," drawled a voice he hadn't heard in years, far too amused and far too close. "Look at what we have here, boys. The Prettyboy himself, big as life. Isn't that a nice surprise?"
Horatio ducked his head lower, swallowing hard and biting down on his tongue to keep from cursing. He didn't have to turn his head to know that they'd played right into Jack Simpson's hands.
"You know, the two of you are so famous for being good-looking," Jack went on, tapping the end of the pistol against the side of Horatio's head. "Funny how nobody ever mentions your brains. Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised." He leaned in closer and spoke right into Horatio's ear, voice almost breaking with giddy delight. "How many tough guys do you know who would ever leave anything in writing, right out where it could be found? I knew Kennedy was dumber than shit, Hornblower, but I thought Big Eddie's favorite boy might do a little bit better."
"Just do it," Horatio said, eyes still fixed on the pavement at his feet. "Don't drag it out all day, Jack, someone might come along and see you. First rule is don't hang around too long, remember?"
"Oh, the little snot's going to teach me some lessons, is he?" Jack laughed again. "That's a good joke, Prettyboy, considering that I've been doing this longer than your sweet little ass has been alive, and I'm the one holding the gun."
Besides the one ticking down the probably-few seconds he had left to live, a second clock in Horatio's head was beginning to trouble him. The fuse should've burned down by now. The whole thing had been set up to damage the basements and not reach the street, but he should have heard it, should have felt the rumbling coming up through the ground...
It definitely should have happened by now. The bomb wasn't going to go off. He'd gotten it wrong. Fuck.
"Saying your last prayers, little snot?" Simpson sneered in his ear. "Well, I hate to disappoint you, but I'm not going to kill you quite yet. Leaving you here for Kennedy with only half your skull intact would be nice, but I think there's something special about making him have to put all the pieces back together if he wants to have a funeral, don't you? I'm going to break you down like a jigsaw puzzle, kid." He stepped back and called over his shoulder at the backup he must have had, considering that he wasn't a crazy idiot operating on a half-formed plan. "Get him in the car."
Hands closed around Horatio's wrists, yanking him away from the wall and shoving him forward. His own hands were tied behind his back, and his gun pulled from its holster, before something hard cracked across the back of his head and everything went dark.
***
Archie looked at his watch, at the front door of the building, at the corner that Horatio should have come around five minutes ago. Something had gotten blown to hell, and he had no idea what, except that it wasn't the basement like it should have been.
Half of him wanted to run back to the alley and see if Horatio was having trouble with the bomb. Not that Archie could do anything about that, but he could at least yell at Horatio to hurry his stupid ass up. And he'd be able to see Horatio with his own eyes, to be sure that nothing...else had gone wrong.
Nothing else possibly could have gone wrong. He swallowed and stared at the door again. If he left his post, and Simpson came out of that building, then what the hell was he going to do? If Horatio was just dawdling or having another fit of nerves, and made Archie miss his chance at Simpson, he would never forgive him.
And if Horatio was in some kind of trouble back there, and Archie didn't go and help him, he would never forgive himself. Cursing under his breath, he slipped out of the alcove that had been sheltering him and hurried toward the alley.
It was empty. He stopped and stared, his mind going blank with confusion for a moment. What the hell...Horatio knew where he was waiting, there was no reason for him to leave by the far end and no way Archie wouldn't have seen him exit otherwise. The cellar door was closed again; Horatio couldn't still be in the basement. Where could he possibly have gone?
He moved farther into the alley, looking around for any kind of clue. He spotted one soon enough, and a bullet to the head couldn't have stopped his heart faster.
The case. The fucking briefcase that Horatio had used to carry the bomb. It was lying carelessly against the alley wall, like it had been dropped. Horatio didn't drop things that might, on the slightest chance, come in handy later.
He stared at the case for a long moment, then looked down at the far end of the alley. The end he couldn't see from his post opposite the door. Couldn't see the entrance to the alley, couldn't even see the street. Couldn't see a car pulling up, people getting out, people getting back in, maybe with an extra passenger...
He exhaled slowly, leaning against the cold brick wall for support as his knees went weak. God. You fucked up this time, Kennedy, you fucked up but good, and he followed you.
So Hunter's notes were a trap. He should've guessed that. He should've known that. Five minutes of actually thinking, instead of just repeating over and over all the ways he wanted revenge...he would've known. If he hadn't cut Horatio off every time his friend tried to analyze weak spots in the plan...he would've known. He hadn't bothered to take the time.
And now Horatio was going to pay for it.
Well, think NOW, damn it! He forced himself to go back over everything they'd heard about Hammond's operation in the last few weeks, everything Edrington had said, every casual remark by the other guys at the Indy, anything Bush had mentioned in their last meeting before he left...
William Bush.
Archie stepped away from the wall. William Bush had left town.
William Bush had moved out of a very nice little house only a few blocks from that very alley, a house owned and paid for by Charlie Hammond for the benefit and comfort of his loyal men.
That nice little house was standing empty right now, since the day Bush had left, which happened to be only a handful of days after Jack Simpson had arrived.
Or maybe it wasn't empty at all.
Archie was running before he even realized it, back up the alley to the street and up to where he'd left the car, running the way a made man should never have to run, because a made man shouldn't ever be afraid of anything. He'd tried to live up to that as best he could over the years, even in prison, he'd told himself to never be afraid.
Right then, jumping into the car and fumbling with his keys, he was afraid. He was scared shitless. But maybe it was still all right, because he wasn't afraid for himself at all, only for Horatio.
(9)
Archie forced himself to circle the block twice around Bush's house, scanning the street and surrounding houses for possible lookouts. Every fiber of his body was screaming at him to just pull up in the driveway and charge the house with guns blazing, but being careless was how they wound up in this mess in the first place. He had to step with caution now, or Horatio would...
He couldn't quite finish the thought, and shoved it away before fixating on it could paralyze him. He had to focus. He had to come up with a strategy that wouldn't get him shot. He was almost sure that Horatio was still alive for the moment--Jack would want to play a little before he pulled the trigger. The amount of time before Jack got bored wasn't unlimited, though, so Archie needed a good plan quickly, and what were the odds of that, look at the shit plan he'd come up with when he had time...
He was panicking. He cut the chaotic stream of thought off sharply, pulling the car up the curb. No sign of a lookout. Maybe Hammond had given Jack only a few guys for backup and company. That seemed reasonable, but there was no room for error here.
He'd parked on the next block over, two houses down, and he cut through the side yards to reach the little house. Maybe Hammond had thought it was a great joke to house one of his guys in a family neighborhood like this, or maybe William Bush just liked the quiet. At any rate, Archie felt like an invader from Mars, walking across these neat green lawns with a gun under his jacket and murder on his mind. He actually was followed by a couple of dogs, for Christ's sake. And not guard dogs trying to rip his legs off, either, but fluffy house dogs who wanted to be petted. One of them was called home by a girl who couldn't have been more than ten years old. Archie wanted out of this neighborhood as fast as humanly possible. But only if Horatio went with him.
He reached the door of William's house and peered in the window. He was looking over the sink, into an empty kitchen. Some dishes on the counter, a newspaper on the table. Nothing to say that anyone was home at all. He tested the kitchen door: locked. Probably the only door on this street that was. Not that it mattered. He pulled the straight pin from his lapel and probed at the lock for a moment, forcing his breath and hands to steadiness. Normally this was Horatio's trick, and Archie was happy to leave it to him, but he knew the basics and he right now he didn't have a choice. First piece of good luck all day: it was an older house, the locks were cheap. He got in without breaking a sweat.
He slipped through the kitchen and into the hall, placing each step carefully and sticking close to the wall. He drew his gun as he moved, listening carefully for laughter, cries of pain, a radio, breathing, anything that might give away their location.
If they were even in this house at all. What if he had the wrong fucking place?
Then Horatio's dead and you killed him. But you don't know that yet. Now think, damn it, if you had some torturing to do, where would you do it?
Well, in this happy little paradise, you'd take it out of sight. Downstairs. All the bad stuff's down in the basement, just like at Pellew's.
He tracked further along the hall, past a bedroom and a storage closet. The last door was open slightly, like it had bounced off the latch instead of catching. Someone goes down the stairs, pulls the door closed behind him, but not hard enough to latch it...doesn't look back and catch it, maybe because he's got something he's trying to get down the stairs, something big and awkward like a body? Could be, could be. Or it's been open like this since Bush left, and nobody's in the house at all, and I'm wasting my time--
He tugged the door open and stepped to the top of the stairs, staring down into the dark. The stairs turned halfway down, so he couldn't see into the basement. He moved down a step, then another, listening. It was quiet for a moment, and he felt panic rising up at the back of his throat again. Damn it.
Then the dull sound of flesh impacting on flesh, followed by laughter. "Oh, where's Pellew's tough boy now?" Archie's hands shook a little at the sound of that familiar, hated voice--with fear or rage, he wasn't sure which. He moved down another step, forcing himself to take deep, slow breaths, to keep thinking, to not jump around that corner and fire blindly away.
Another thud, and Archie flinched by reflex, too able to imagine the cause of that sound. He couldn't hear any moaning or crying out; apparently Horatio's formidable self-control was holding out. Or else he was already unconscious.
The hand holding the gun was steady now. He took another step and peered around the corner, finally able to see what he was up against.
His eyes instinctively sought Horatio, and found him at the far end of the room, held upright by two men, one gripping each of his arms and keeping him on his feet. Horatio definitely wasn't holding himself upright; he was slumped between the men, his head bowed, and Archie's hand tightened dangerously around the gun when he saw the amount of blood covering Horatio's face.
"Come on, Prettyboy, don't you have anything to say?" Jack taunted, stepping in close to Horatio and grabbing him by the chin, forcing it up so Horatio was looking at him. His voice dropped on the next words, low and mocking and amused. Smilin' Jack, with the upper hand at last and loving every minute of it. "Didn't Kennedy tell you what happens to boys who won't play nice?"
Horatio's eyes were open, and he seemed to focus on Jack's face, glaring with foggy defiance. "Especially pretty boys who think they're tough guys," Jack said, tugging at Horatio's collar, pulling it straight and patting the knot of his tie. "Think they're smart. Think they don't have to listen to those who've been around the block a few times." He drove his fist into Horatio's stomach, and Horatio twisted under the impact, ducking his chin again and closing his eyes against the pain.
Archie saw that a good portion of the blood was coming from Horatio's mouth; he'd probably bitten through his lip trying to keep quiet. Of course. Horatio Hornblower would never admit that anyone could make him break, not until the absolute limits of his endurance.
Archie could hear every shallow, rapid breath Horatio dragged in through his clenched teeth, could smell the blood and the sweat from across the room, could see the fat crimson drops sliding down Horatio's face and staining his clothes. Horatio was shaking, a fine tremor running through his whole body like a plucked guitar string, and Archie had a sudden flash of memory from when he was a kid. A stray dog had gotten into the barnyard and chased one of the horses for two hours, back and forth and up and down the fencerows. By the time they scared it off, the horse just stood in the corner and shook, just the way Horatio was now, until it fell down dead from shock. Burned up from the inside.
Jack was still talking, smirky goddamn bastard, talking and pulling something out of his pocket. "Just because I went up north for a spell doesn't mean I didn't have friends back here, you know, Hornblower. I had friends all over the place. Friends down in Jackson, even." Horatio still didn't look up or open his eyes, but Archie saw the slight change in the tension of his body; he was listening. "They were happy to keep me up to date, and pass messages along to my old pal Archie." Whatever he'd taken from his pocket, now he was slipping it onto his hand--brass knuckles, oh, fuck. "Did he tell you that we kept in touch? No, I guess it's not the kind of thing he'd want to talk about, even to his very closest friend..." Jack dragged one finger over the broken skin of Horatio's lower lip, and Horatio flinched back. "And you two are close, aren't you?" Jack chuckled. "Best fucking friends." Archie's breath caught in his chest, afraid he knew what was coming next, ugly images darting up from memories he'd locked away as deeply as he could.
"Or didn't he tell you?" Jack shook his head and patted Horatio's shoulder, like he was consoling a buddy down at the pool hall. "What kind of a friend is that, keeping secrets?"
Horatio looked up, then, cold anger and contempt cutting through the bloody mask over his face. "You wouldn't know anything about it," he said hoarsely. "You probably never could even get a dog to stick around with you-- even your own mother probably--"
Jack drew his hand back and cracked Horatio across the face, the metal around his knuckles connecting solidly with flesh and bone. Horatio's whole body went stiff, a low, agonized moan torn from his throat, and as a fresh burst of blood fell to the basement floor, Archie found himself raising the gun and sighting down the barrel without conscious thought. One shot, then another, and the men holding Horatio up dropped like sacks of flour.
Jack whirled to face the stairs, mouth open in shock, and Archie held the gun steady, aiming for the center of his forehead. He forced himself to look straight into Jack's eyes, to not waver for an instant; Jack was like a rat, give him a half a second of opportunity, and he'd disappear into a hole in the wall.
"My aim's gotten better, Jack, did you notice?" Some distant part of his mind was amazed by how light and steady his voice was. Archie walked down the last few steps to the floor, and Jack backed away from him. Archie didn't let himself look away from his target, but half of his mind was fixed on the sounds from the far end of the room. Ragged, harsh breathing broken up with dry sobs of pain and muffled curses. At least that meant that Horatio was awake.
He stepped to Jack's left, and the man turned to stay facing him, which meant that Archie could see Horatio over his shoulder. He had dropped to his knees on the floor, one hand pressed down to support his weight while the other held his handkerchief over his face. The white fabric was already almost soaked through with blood.
"Horatio," Archie said, locking eyes with Jack again. "Can you walk?"
There was a short silence. "Yes," Horatio said finally, his voice muffled and strained. "I can walk."
"Can you drive?"
A longer silence, broken up with harsh, unhappy breathing as Horatio considered it. "I think so. Not across state lines, maybe, but..."
"Just have to make it to the river," Archie said softly, watching Jack's eyes widen at that, watching the raw fear flicker across his face. He didn't feel the flare of joy he'd expected at that, the vindication he'd been craving for years. He didn't feel anything.
"I can get you to the river," Horatio said, and though Archie didn't dare look, the scraping sounds and fresh round of curses told him that Horatio had forced himself to his feet.
"Come on, Jack," Archie said, jerking his head toward the stairs. "Let's go for a ride."
*****
Thank God that everyone in town knew better than to go anywhere near this part of the river after dark.
Horatio stayed up on the street with the car--Jack's car, helpfully sitting right there in the driveway with a full tank of gas and the keys in the ignition--while Archie walked Jack down to the end of the pier. They stood there for a moment, Archie's gun pressed to the base of Jack's skull, Jack looking out across the water. On the other side, the people of Windsor were going about their business. They knew better than to look too closely at the shore, either.
"I suppose now you're going to want to get some of your own back, kid?" Jack sneered. "Make me bleed a little like you did? You've been planning this out for years, I bet."
"I have," Archie said, nodding slowly. He had. He had planned out every moment, every way he was going to make Jack Simpson hurt, and he'd imagined the fierce joy he'd get out of every moment of it. He'd been waiting for years for this, for the sweet taste of revenge.
And now it was just dust and ashes and someone else's blood. Horatio's blood. All of this running and chasing, all those years of holding all that anger inside where he could keep it nice and hot, never believing that anything could be as important as revenge, and he'd almost been right. There was one thing in his life that was more important, and tonight he'd almost lost it.
He was tired, standing there holding a gun to the back of Jack's head. He was tired of all of it, and all he wanted was to go back to Horatio and go home.
"I doubt you've got the balls to go through with it," Jack said.
"You know what, Jack?" Archie shook his head and steadied his hand. "You're not worth the effort."
Everyone in this part of town knew better than to look up at the sound of a gunshot, either. The body fell forward into the dirty, fast-moving water. Archie threw the gun in after it and walked away.
***
Horatio was sitting on the hood of the car, holding the sleeve of his jacket against his face. The handkerchief had become soaked through and useless before they made it halfway to the riverfront.
"Let me see," Archie said, gently prying Horatio's hands away from the fabric and tossing the jacket aside. He held Horatio's jaw and tipped his head back, frowning at the rapidly darkening and swelling bruises and the vicious left turn Horatio's nose took in the middle.
"That's no good," he muttered, carefully probing at it with his fingers. Horatio flinched back away from him, and Archie shook his head. "Brace yourself, Horatio," he said, wincing in sympathy and gripping the back of Horatio's head with one hand. He covered Horatio's nose with the other and firmly snapped it back into place.
Horatio's face turned a sickening shade of green under the bruises, and he let out a low, animal wail of pain that quickly disintegrated into cursing. Archie found himself smiling as he fished his own handkerchief out of his pocket and brought it up to Horatio's face to stem the fresh tide of blood. "That's pretty fresh coming from you, Hornblower," he chuckled. "You've never even met my mother."
Horatio shook his head and looked up at him, his eyes glazed with weariness and pain. "What now, Archie? Is it over?"
"It's over." Archie eased himself up on the hood next to Horatio, still holding the handkerchief in place. "We should get you to a hospital, have this taped up..." He stopped and chuckled again. "We're not going to be able to call you Prettyboy anymore."
"Thank God," Horatio muttered, shifting to face him. The movement obviously hurt; he probably had cracked ribs and bruised kidneys to go with the mess they'd made of his face. Archie would lay bets that his entire torso was a solid mass of bruises. "But I meant a little more generally than that...what now?"
"Hammond's not going to be too happy." He stared down at the river. "Probably will use this as the excuse to kick off war with Pellew."
"Pellew was suspicious," Horatio said, easing back from Archie's hand. "About us being up to something...I'm not sure he won't put it all together."
"Especially with your face like that. What would we tell him you did to yourself?"
"Fell down another fire escape?" Horatio shook his head. "Into a pit of alligators, maybe."
"Hmm." Archie reached out to dab at his nose again, giving up when Horatio pushed his hand away. "He might forgive us. Well, you, anyway."
"I'm not going anywhere without you." Horatio set his jaw in the familiar stubborn line, glaring at Archie, and the fierce look combined with his battered face was almost too much for Kennedy to stand.
"I didn't think you would," he said, looking away at the river again. "Well. We could make a run for it."
"We'd have to go a hell of a long way if we don't want him to find us."
"Maybe California." Archie chuckled at the thought, winding the bloody handkerchief between his fingers. "What do you think of California?"
"I've never thought about it at all." Horatio stared up at the sky. "What's in California?"
"Beaches. Swimming pools. Hollywood. You could meet Marlene Dietrich."
Horatio turned his head to stare at Archie. "What would I do with Marlene Dietrich?"
"A question the men of America ask themselves every day," Archie nodded solemnly.
Horatio rolled his eyes. "Would this car even make it to California?"
Archie considered it. "Probably not, but one of Edrington's might."
"I don't even want to think about what he'd charge us in interest." Horatio closed his eyes, shoulders slumping with exhaustion and pain. "It's completely insane."
"We'd be burning all of our bridges." Archie shook his head and slid off the hood, offering Horatio his hand and helping him find his balance. "I think we can afford to sleep on it."
Horatio gave a short, broken laugh. "I'm not going to be able to move in the morning, forget about running."
"Don't worry," Archie said, opening the passenger door for him. "I'll cover you."
[the end]