He took two long steps across the room and into Joe’s space—close enough to floor him, close enough to kiss him. The wary flicker in Joe’s eyes suggested he wasn’t sure what way Cal was going to go either. His throat bobbed awkwardly as he swallowed and looked down at Cal. There wasn’t much space between them. Cal licked his lips slowly and leaned in until their bodies touched fromshoulder to thigh.
“You got it,” Cal said. His lips grazed Joe’s throat as he spoke. The skin was freshly shaved and sharp with soap. “Next time I’ll leave you to get the shit kicked out of you.”
He reached past Joe and grabbed the cup from the table to take with him as he left. The coffee wasn’t as bad as Joe had made out.
THE DOBBINS’Sfront door was locked, and a heavy length of chainwas doubled through the handles to underline the point. It didn’t mean it was closed.
Cal cut around the side of the building, past drifts of old food wrappers and drained, crushed beer cans discarded against the wall, to the door at the back. He heaved it open with a grunt, and the corner of the heavy, metal-cored door scraped the existing groove in the old, concrete a millimeter deeper.
Itwas dark inside. The windows were papered over, and only a couple of the gas-yellow neon strips were lit. Cal stood for a second to let his eyes adjust and wondered how much of a fuckup he was about to make. In the boxing ring, a kid, all sharp bones and ragged jeans hanging off his bony hips, bounced off the ropes and cursed in a sharp, clear voice.
“Mind your fucking tongue,” Malcolm said ashe tossed a towel in the kid’s face. He veered over toward the side of the ring and lifted his chin in Cal’s direction. “You want something, mate? Cos… fuck me!” Surprise and delight spread in a wide, gleeful smile over Malcolm’s face as he saw Cal. “Holy hell. Cal? Is that you?”
Well, Cal thought wryly, too late to slink out now. He shoved his hands into his pockets and headed toward the ringas Malcolm ducked between the ropes. The rest of the bar had turned around to check out what was going on. Most of them shrugged and went back to their beer and conversations. A couple of Cal’s old mates downed theirs and slunk off to the bogs. Behind the bar, Gwenie, who’d managed the place with her tits jacked up to her chin in defiance of time and gravity for as long as Cal had been coming there,grabbed the phone.
Malcolm jumped down off the ring and threw his arms around Cal in an enthusiastic hug. He roughly thumped Cal’s shoulders as he rocked them from side to side. His exuberance squeezed a laugh out of Cal, despite his reservations about whether this was a good idea or not. Malcolm had always been a hard guy to resist, whether he wanted to cheer you up or talk you into jackinga car from outside a dickhead lawyer’s house.
When Cal told El he didn’t miss any of his old friends, he’d lied, the same way he lied to Joe when he said he’d stay out of his business. Still, what they didn’t know wouldn’t come back to bite Cal in the ass.
“Where the hell have you been?” Malcolm asked as he grabbed Cal’s shoulders and took a step back.
“Jail.”
Malcolm had the grace to lookashamed, but it didn’t last long.
“Yeah, I meant to visit,” he said as he stepped back and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. He tweaked the corner of his mouth in a shrug. In the ring behind him, the two kids scuffled and battered each other with padded fists. “But, well, you know how it is. After you fucked up that last job the way you did… writing was on the wall. Boss wanted you tolearn your lesson.”
A sour mix of anger and resigned amusement sat in the back of Cal’s throat. He did know how it was. That was why he hadn’t come back around since he got out….
“What else could you do?” he asked.
“’xactly,” Malcolm said. He bobbed up onto his toes and threw a mock one-two punch flurry at Cal’s stomach. “My hands were tied.”
Cal palmed Malcolm’s forehead and shoved him backa step with a snort and a grin. There was no point in being pissed off at him. It wasn’t the movies. Thieves robbed from the rich because that was who had the good shit, and they gave to the poor to get their car washed. No one hung out with crooks because you figured they’d be loyal and upstanding. Fun, sure. Cal could still remember the giddy rush the night he and Malcolm boosted the lawyer’sflashy BMW. They hadn’t even sold it on, just driven it into the Serpentine and left it to the swans. Best night of Cal’s life up to that point, and the lawyer who’d fucked over Malcolm’s dad had deserved it.
But once the adrenaline faded, that memory wouldn’t even get a round in. When the shit hit the fan, it was Boy Scouts like El who’d stick around. They might not be fun, but neither wereprison visits.
“Is Van in?” he asked. “I need a word.”
Malcolm waved a hand at the bar. “Gwennie can buzz you up,” he said. For a second, the happy-go-lucky front slipped and Malcolm tugged on his earlobe. “There’s other car thieves on the books, Cal, and time served don’t mean shit anymore. Don’t be picky. Take what you’re offered.”
He didn’t need to put the rest into words. They both knewwhat he meant. Break a few knees, shake down a couple of shop owners, shed a little blood to buy yourself back into favor. It was the sort of work Cal had always sidestepped. He’d never had the stomach for it.
If that was the price of entry, maybe there was more than one reason for Cal to go straight.
“See you around,” Cal said with a last slap to Malcolm’s shoulder as he turned away and pickedhis way through the tables to the bar. Behind it Gwennie polished a salt-glazed glass with a grubby cloth as though she’d ever get it clean and waited for Cal to ask, “I need a word.”
Gwennie fished the key to the back out of her cleavage and handed it over. It was about as warm and damp as Cal expected.
“You know the way,” she said as she grabbed a beer from under the bar. Only the one. Sheheld it out. “Take this up with you, would ya? My knees aren’t what they were.”
Cal shrugged and took the beer. He was—technically—still on call. If Joe decided he wanted a midnight run to the coast, Cal needed to be sober for it.
“Sure,” he said. “I get the tip.”
Gwennie smirked at him with apricot-painted lips. “Yeah, I’ve heard that about you.”
She flicked her cloth over her shoulder andstrutted down the bar to pour a round of shots for some nervous, sweaty kids about to do something stupid. Cal remembered being them, but he’dthoughthe’d grown out of it. Apparently, he mused as he bounced the beer in his hand, not so much.
