Chapter Text
Willing and able,
both hands on the table
I can only choose
Fact over fable, throw out the rules
—MONOWHALES, Out With The Old
***
It seemed like a good idea at the time. Although, as Gator kneeled on the cold concrete floor, waiting for punishment, he sort of figured that was the problem with bad ideas. They always looked so good, at first.
Probably he should have sat on this one a bit more, but it had fallen so easily into his lap, and it would have been so damn sweet if it hadn’t gotten fucked to hell and back.
Easy, clean. The first win he’d had in a long damn.
Stupid. Nothing was easy, and he was a goddamned fucking dumbass for thinking it would be.
In his head, his Dad’s voice sounded smug. “Tried to raise you to be a winner, and look at you now. Pathetic.”
Gator grimaced, trying to force that voice to shut the fuck up. Roy Tillman didn’t give a shit about him, probably never had. Why the fuck should he care what that asshole thought, then?
He shouldn’t.
He did, though.
Didn’t seem to matter what he did. Left North Dakota, put over 600 miles between him and there. 600 miles, two years.
Nothing changed. Well, maybe not nothing. He’d changed, at least a little. Not much. But the person he’d been and the person he was now clawed at each other, and no matter what, they both still lived under the threat of what his Dad had wanted him to be.
Strong, smart. Unbreakable. A winner.
Used to be he’d thought he was all of that and then some. It had been easy to delude himself, once upon a time. Turns out he was just another sad-sack small-town loser who peaked in high school.
Hadn’t thought that’d be him, but there it was.
Truth was, he’d done it to himself. He wasn’t smart, didn’t understand much of anything, but he understood that well enough.
Gator had lived his whole life according to Roy’s view of the world, and after everything that happened—
A dark, cold room. Nothing to keep him company but the growing hunger and fear in his belly. The certainty of rescue dying just a little day by day…
—it had occurred to him that maybe that hadn’t been such a good thing to do.
Admittedly, living life according to himself hadn’t seen him fairing much better. When he’d first left Stark County, he’d been angry. Fucked up about what had happened and maybe even more fucked up about what his goddamned Dad had done about it.
Which was to say, absolutely jackshit.
He’d picked a lot of fights those first few months after. Lived on the road, staying in crappy motels, trying to figure out how to spend most of his time piss drunk or high for as little money as possible.
Sometimes he took the pills the doctors gave him, but mostly they didn’t seem to do shit. Fucking quack doctors didn’t know anything about what was wrong with him, so it wasn’t a big surprise that the meds were useless, too.
After a big black-hole of time that turned out to be three and a half months, Gator finally pulled himself out of the self-pity-party he’d been throwing himself and settled in Chicago. Mostly because that was where his car broke down, and he lacked the money to fix it.
That was two years ago. He’d managed to kick the worst of the drugs-and-booze habit, although, for a while, he’d only traded those vices for another one. One that could even numb him out just as good, sometimes.
When he’d started at the Chicago PD, he’d vowed to turn it all around. Be the kind of person he wanted to be, even if that person was at odds with who his Daddy wanted him to be. The kind of man Roy Tillman would call a loser. A pussy.
What was really hilarious was that he’d failed at that, too. Couldn’t even be a kind of pathetic, pussy loser properly. That was a real gut-buster, truly. For all he wanted to do good, to be good, it hadn’t even been six months before he’d fallen back into old habits.
Taking bribes and looking the other way, covering for other officers when cocaine or guns just got lost from the evidence room. Fuck, after a minor bust on one of the city’s more notorious crime bosses, Gator had even helped himself to some of that evidence himself.
The guy was supposed to be a psycho, but no one could deny he sold quality shit. The handful of pills Gator pilfered did more to help him than a whole bottle of whatever the fuck the doctor had him on.
It was that exact mobster (gangster? drug lord?) that he found himself in the clutches of now. He should have known better than to fuck with this guy, what with the kind of insane reputation he had, but thinking shit through had never been his strong suit.
Besides, Ronnie had insisted he had it all sorted out. And like an asshole, Gator believed him. It should have been easy; Ronnie had a buyer lined up, and everything was fine. They were taking the whole load off their hands in one go and for a very sweet payout.
The drop should have been smooth. Set down a duffle-bag, pick up a briefcase full of cash. Celebrate with the kind of bender he hadn’t allowed himself in a long damn time. Get wasted, spend a weekend fucking around with someone, not bother to get their name. He was gonna pay off his debts and then do something smart with the rest of the cash.
Find some way to clean it, then invest it or some shit. Start to build something for himself, finally start his goddamned life.
And now here he was, probably about to die slowly as a maniac peeled the skin off his arms.
He knew about this guy. He did shit like that.
They were holding him in some warehouse, someplace on the edge of town, Gator thought. He couldn’t have said for certain, though, on account of how he’d been tied up in the trunk during the drive. They’d tied him up but hadn’t blindfolded him or put a bag over his head, which he was relieved about.
He couldn’t take going through that again.
By his best estimate, he’d been kneeling on the cold floor going on an hour now (the pain had faded long ago, replaced by a numbness that was actually kind of worse), and he’d yet to actually see the guy he’d been called in to face.
He’d fought some when they’d first opened the trunk and dragged him out, but it hadn’t been much. The car ride left him wanting to hurl, and he was so fucking scared of everything happening all over again he’d been close to tears. So he’d struggled, sure, but it hadn’t done much.
Now there was nothing left to do but wait.
At the far end of the room, a door opened, and a group of three men walked in. Gator eyed them, shifting around as they approached. The two hands on his shoulders held him fast, their fingers tightening as the men came closer, in case he tried to flee.
Like he’d be able to get anywhere with both fucking legs asleep.
The three men stopped in front of him, and one of them stepped up. He smiled down at Gator.
Edward Munson. One of the biggest players in the city’s drug trafficking scene for the last four years. He was young, maybe only a few years older than Gator, but he’d already established a ruthless hold on the territory he’d claimed, forcing out old heavy hitters and taking what was theirs for himself.
There were a lot of rumours about Munson. About the kind of man he was, the kind of things he did. Rumors that he was a Satanist, didn’t just kill or torture the people who fucked with him, but sacrificed them to the fucking devil.
Since leaving Stark County and his Dad behind, Gator had been going back and forth on the whole God thing himself, but it didn’t matter. It was hard to unlearn a lifetime of the fear of God in just a few years, and the thought of all that devil-worshipping witchcraft shift scared the piss out of him.
That wasn’t the worst of it, though. The rumours he’d heard were one thing, but they weren’t nearly so bad as the bona-fide truth.
Gator had seen the pictures, looked through the file. Couldn't remember the guys name, he’d been some rival of Munson’s, and it was considered a cold crime long before he’d got to the city... but they’d showed it to him all the same.
Wanted to make sure he knew the kind of man Munson was.
Gator didn’t know how long it would take, to peel the skin off someone’s arms like that. The hands all the way up to the elbows. Would it have been fast, did it take hours?
He really didn’t want to find out.
All in all, Gator had a lot of ideas in his head about who Edward Munson was, and he wasn’t totally sure the real thing was living up to it. The person in front of him didn’t look like a drooling, raving maniac. He looked like some dude.
Average height, kind of average build. Munson wore a plain black t-shirt tucked into black jeans with a studded belt. Tattoos covered his arms, and he wore thick black leather cuffs on both wrists. His hair was long, kind of curly, but neat and tidy. He smiled down at Gator, and it did not meet his dark eyes.
“Deputy Tillman, I presume?” Munson asked. Gator just stared up at him, hoping he looked tough but mostly just trying to keep his shit together. His heart had started rabbiting around his chest, and his knees were shaking weirdly against the floor. “You know why you’re here, Deputy?”
Gator grunted something, but it came out garbled, his voice breaking on the words. Munson raised an eyebrow and Gator scowled. He cleared his throat, tried again. “Not a Deputy,” he snarled. “Not anymore.”
Munson nodded, and gestured at one of the guys he’d walked in with. They handed him a file, which Munson flipped open. “Yeah, we know that. But my guys did some digging on you, and I guess that’s just how all the articles referred to you.” He shrugged. “'Deputy Gator Tillman in Hot Water Again,’” Munson read, lowering his voice in an impression of a news announcer.
“So what?” Gator asked. “That’s old news.”
Munson appeared unconcerned. He flipped the page. “Sure, but it paints a picture, y’know. Tells me what kind of man you are. Hold on a sec, though, there’s more. He cleared his throat. “’Stark County Deputy Reported Missing; Foul Play Suspected.’”
Gator squirmed. He’d taken a quick look online to see what people were saying about him, when he’d been in the hospital, but mostly it just churned his stomach, so he hadn’t got far. He didn’t know what was out there, what Munson might’ve found.
“’Deptuty Tillman Still Missing; Reports of Hostage Demands,” Munson went on. He glanced up, smirking a little. “There’s a quote from your father, in the article,” he told him.
Gator winced. He knew what was coming, but Munson clearly wanted to make a meal out of it. He crouched down in front of Gator, staring at him as he quoted the article, apparently from memory. “’The official position of the Stark County Sherrif’s Department,” Munson said in a quiet voice. “’Is that we do not negotiate with criminals.’”
He could feel Munson’s eyes on him, but Gator refused to meet them. Instead, he stared at Munson’s shoes. Black combat boots, probably steel-toed. Gator had a pair just like them.
“That’s pretty cold, Deputy,” Munson said. “How long did they have you for?”
“What, you couldn’t find that out, too?” Gator muttered. One of the men holding him gave him a shake, but Munson held up a hand. He waited, patient. “A month.”
Munson whistled, standing back up. “That’s fucked,” he said. “Seriously, that’s some fucked up shit. I feel bad for you, Deputy.”
Gator’s head snapped up, a burst of anger blooming in his chest, even around his terrified heart. “Yeah, pretty fucking weird way of showing it, bro,” he snapped. “You wanna offer some real sympathy, how about you tell your goons to let me up?”
To his surprise, Munson grinned. He nodded to the goons, who hauled him to his feet. They even cut the zip-tie holding his hands behind his back. Then they let go, and Gator’s legs promptly gave out, sending him crashing to the floor. “Aw, fuck—”
The floor came up to greet him with a swift jolt of pain to his head. He managed to get his hands under him, breaking the fall a bit, but his forehead still bumped against the concrete.
Groaning, Gator rolled over onto his back, staring up at the high warehouse ceiling. Munson’s grinning face appeared in his view.
“I’m thinking that didn’t go how you thought it would,” he said, his voice taunting. He was having fun. Enjoying himself. Gator sneered, but was in too much pain to say anything else. Feeling was coming back to his legs now. He tried to hold back a groan. It didn’t work.
“Ow, ow ow, oh fuck—”
Minutes passed. Gator lay on his back, suffering as pain flooded his legs. Munson and his men just watched, waiting. Finally, the pain subsided, and he managed to sit up and stumble to his feet.
“You good?” Munson asked. “Wanna cry a little more or can we talk now?”
“Wasn’t crying,” Gator mumbled, dusting off his jacket.
Munson ignored him. “Let’s try this again, huh?” He clasped his hands together. “Deputy Tillman, do you know why you’re here?”
Possible answers flickered through Gator’s mind. He could deny it, pretend he didn’t know jackshit, but he didn’t think it would do any good. Start pleading, maybe? Just right off the bat, go in begging and offering him whatever he wanted. Might appeal to Munson’s ego, and that wasn’t nothing.
Gator knew well enough how much ego could make a man stupid.
In the end, he figured there was really no point to any of it. So he just went with the truth.
“The drugs,” he said in a flat voice.
Munson nodded. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Deputy isn’t as dumb as he looks. Got it in one, very nice.” He stepped forward, his eyes narrowing. “Let’s keep that winning streak going, yeah? This next question is important, so seriously, think hard and make sure the answer is the one I want to hear.” He raised his eyebrows. “Where are the drugs?”
Gator cringed. It wasn’t lost on Munson; all semblance of good humour drained fast from his face. He waited for the answer. “They’re... uh... they’re gone.”
“Gone?” Munson repeated, his voice edged like a knife. “Elaborate.”
“Um... I mean like, they’re gone. Really gone. I uh... lost ‘em.”
Munson blinked a few times. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he asked. Gator shrugged, doing a full-body cringe now. “You lost them? How?” He grabbed Gator by the scruff of his shirt and yanked him forward. “How?”
“Look, I didn’t know they were yours!” Gator insisted. He wanted to say it wasn’t my idea, but like fuck was he dragging Ronnie into this, too. “Okay, it was—I found the drugs, alright? They were at the station, I think it was a bust. But, um,” his eyes darted around the warehouse, as if he could find the right answer somewhere on the walls. “They weren’t logged or nothing, so I just kind of, y’know, took ‘em. Thought I could sell them, make some fast cash.”
This story was only part bullshit, but Munson still seemed to be listening, so Gator plowed on.
“I had a buyer lined up, was supposed to meet them at a park to make the trade.” Gator squeezed his eyes shut, feeling sick at the memory. By now there was no way he hadn’t set some kind of world record for worst luck ever. “I was waiting for the buyer, and then my fucking Capitan showed up. He was getting a goddamned hot dog, spotted me and came over to say hi—I panicked, alright?” He stared at Munson, whose expression was statue still. “I threw the duffle bag in the trash, figured I’d go back for it later. But um... when I went back...”
“It was already gone,” Munson finished, releasing his grasp on Gator’s shirt. Gator stumbled back. “Jesus Christ. Fuck—!” He swore and kicked over a nearby folding chair.
One of the goons grabbed Gator by the jacket. “Want us to hold him for you, Eddie?” he asked. “You can get in a few hits, blow off some steam?”
Munson— Eddie— shook his head.
“Okay, boss, just say the word.” The goon let go of Gator’s jacket.
“I didn’t know they were yours, I fucking swear,” Gator repeated. “It was just, I don’t know, bad luck! I mean, all the fucking hot dog stands in this fucking city, and he has to go there?” He gave a feeble laugh. “Crazy, right?”
Munson pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes and took a few breaths. “Okay, new question,” he muttered, turning back to Gator. “Do you have any idea how much those drugs were worth?” This time the question was apparently rhetorical, because he didn’t wait for an answer. “200.”
Gator’s mouth opened. Apparently, their buyer had been planning to seriously rip them off—the offer had been about half of that. “For just that bag?” he asked.
“Yup,” Munson said. “Now, here’s where we have a problem, Deputy. Actually, I think you might want to sit down for this.”
“Uh, no thanks, I’m good—”
The two thugs who’d held him to the floor before were behind him again, and before he could even think of fleeing, they had him by his arms and were dragging him over to the far end of the warehouse, where a table and chair sat. They forced him down into the chair, holding him for good measure. Munson said something in a low voice to one of the other guys, who left the room.
“Our problem, Deputy,” Munson continued, walking over to the table where Gator was being forcibly kept. “Is that we’ve now got this debt between us. Now, if you’d had the drugs, we could have considered the debt settled. No fuss. But you don’t... and I’m going to take a wild guess and say you don’t have the money, either.”
Munson looked at him, and Gator’s face must have confirmed that for him. “Thought so,” he said. “It’s a lot of money, I get that. Typically, I give a week for people to pay me back, but I know that’s not realistic.” He leaned in and put two hands on the table. “One week is the usual offer. Then I start taking fingers. But in this case, I don’t think a finger is going to cut it.”
“A week?” Gator choked. “That’s nuts, man, come on! I can’t get 200 thousand in a week, it’s impossible. Please, we gotta, there’s gotta be something else—”
Munson shook his head. “No, sorry, you’ve got it wrong.” He stood up straight, crossed his arms over his chest. “A week is what I told your partner, Ronald Fitzpatrick, seven days ago.” Gator swallowed. “Right as he sat where you’re sitting now. And he told me a story very close to yours, but with a few key differences.”
A wave of nausea rolled over Gator, and his heart pumped so hard he thought he could hear the blood pounding in his ears. They got Ronnie, got Ronnie a fucking week ago. He was probably dead by now, fuck.
Wait. No, that wasn’t right. Ronnie had texted him, texted him four fucking days ago. Saying he was going out of town for a bit, visiting relatives in Arizona. Said he’d bring him a Grand Canyon magnet or some shit.
The room spun a bit as the truth hit him.
“He told me about going to the park, about trying to sell the drugs. About almost being caught by your police Capitan getting a goddamned hot dog.” Munson tilted his chin down, fixing Gator with a steady gaze. “Except he said that his partner Gator Tillman had gone back for the drugs. And that we should take it up with you.”
Gator closed his eyes again, wanting the spinning to stop. Ronnie had sold him out. That fucking limp-dicked shit-eating sonofawhore, he’d fucking ratted on him. Motherfucker was supposed to be his goddamned partner—two fucking years they’d had each other's backs, and the goddamned asshole had turned on him!
Munson wasn’t done speaking, and Gator opened his eyes and tried to listen over the blood pumping in his ears. “So, you see the problem, right? The offer of a week is over, and Ronnie has flown the coup. That leaves us with you. And the debt.”
The door slammed back open, and the guy Munson had sent out came back into the room. Except now he had something, some fucking weird contraption that kind of looked like a table cigar cutter. Except the cigar it could cut would've been fucking huge, like the size of a human hand—
Gator’s eyes went wide. He tried to get up, to get the fuck out of there, but the men standing behind him slammed him back in his seat. “No, no, please, come on, you don’t gotta—”
The cigar cutter was placed on the table in front of him, and one of the goons grabbed at his jacket, yanking it off him. They flung it aside and took hold of his wrist, forcing it on the table.
“Like I said, a finger isn’t going to cut it,” Munson went on. “This has been a real shitshow, I mean, my own cop fucking robbing me? Taking my shit to Branson Wood?” He shook his head, a muscle working in his jaw.
This new information was having a hard time connecting in Gator’s mind. That Ronnie had been on Munson’s payroll, that he’d stolen the drugs and not got them through a bust, like he’d told Gator. That their buyer was apparently Branson Wood, another big-name in Chicago’s drug scene.
None of that seemed so important though, at the moment. Not when his hand was being held on the table, and no matter how much he kicked and struggled, he wasn’t any closer to breaking free.
“I can’t get my drugs back, and I’m not holding out hope for the money, either. Your partner already used up the week.” Munson leaned in again, putting his face close to Gator’s. He smiled and again, it didn’t touch his eyes. It was hollow, empty. “You’ve got one use now, Deputy. And that’s as a blood sacrifice.”
They pulled the cigar cutter closer and lifted his hand toward it. The dual blades glinted under the harsh warehouse lighting. Gator’s mouth started moving, babbling at first, but he forced himself to form some kind of coherent sentence.
“Wait, wait, I got something—I can get you something! Something you’ll want, really!” Gator sputtered. His hand was shoved into the cigar cutter, and Gator’s mind screeched. “Seriously! Dirt, on a fucking Senator. It’s good! I fucking swear, wait—!”
Gator couldn’t see anything but the twin blades above and below his hand, but Munson must have made a gesture or something, because they pulled his hand out of the cutter unharmed. He looked up, wild-eyed, and found Munson staring at him, expectant.
He clutched his wrist to his chest, rubbing it protectively. Any minute now, he was pretty sure he was about to pass out.
“I, it’s...” he swallowed, shaking his head, trying to get a grip. He couldn’t fuck this up. “I've got something. Blackmail material.”
“Right, you said that,” Munson said. “Go on."
“Just you,” Gator said, casting his eyes around at the goons. “The more people who know about it, more chance of it leaking. You’d lose your leverage.”
Munson considered this for a moment. “Alright, I’ll hear you out. But you better not be wasting my time, Deputy,” he drawled. He nodded at the others in the room, giving them a signal to clear out.
Most of them turned and headed to the door without question, but one of them—one of the big guys who’d held Gator down as they’d waited for Munson to make his appearance—hesitated.
“You sure, boss?” He glanced suspiciously at Gator, who'd stood up and moved away from the table and the cigar cutter.
Munson raised an eyebrow at the guy, and Gator figured he was about to catch hell for questioning him. It was the kind of question that his Dad never would have allowed. His word was law, and questioning it wasn’t an option—especially not in front of someone they were trying to shake down.
But instead of giving the guy shit, Munson grinned. It was the first time Gator had seen a smile that looked something close to genuine. “You worried about me, Danny?” he asked, his tone playful. “Wanna stick around and protect me from the big bad Deputy?”
Danny crossed his arms over his broad chest, looking unimpressed. “I’m not stupid, I know you can handle it.” His eyes darted toward Gator. “Just don’t trust him, is all.”
Munson chuckled, shaking his head. “You don’t need to, okay?” he said. “Trust me.”
That must have been all Danny needed, ‘cause he turned around and left without another word.
Munson looked after him a moment, then turned to Gator. “Sorry about that, Deputy.” He grinned, another too-wide smile that showed all his teeth.
Gator’s fingers twitched, itching to move to a gun holster that wasn’t there. He ground his teeth. He hated that Munson kept doing that, calling him Deputy. He knew full well he wasn’t no more, and it felt like he was mocking him. Laughing at him.
“You wanna know what I got or what?”
Munson spread his arms wide in a do-tell sort of gesture. He leaned back against the metal table, crossing his arms, fixing Gator with an expectant look.
“Senator Hawley, you know him?”
He snorted. “’Course I know him,” Munson said flatly. “Mister Christian Family Values, put the women back in the kitchen and the queers in the ground.”
Gator nodded. That was him in a nutshell.
“Six months ago, he was campaigning for reelection, yeah? Brought his whole family along with him. Stayed in Chicago about a week. He’s got his own security, of course, but this is a big city so they brought in some guys from the force just to make sure nothing happened and all.”
Munson leaned forward a bit, clearly getting interested. “And I’m guessing you were one of those guys?”
Gator nodded. “Spent a week with them, sometimes in close quarters. And I got my hands on something… something on the son.”
Senator Hawley had two kids, a son and a daughter. The daughter was 18, a parrot for her father’s beliefs about women. His son, Jeremy, was 25 and following his Dads footsteps in right-wing politics.
They presented themselves as this perfect, squeaky-clean family. It was part of the Senators whole image, the perfect family man with all the right values.
Gator had known it was bullshit even before he’d been assigned to their security detail, but even he had been impressed about how much bullshit it had turned out to be.
“The son?” Munson repeated. Gator shifted on his feet, seeing the interest drop a little from Munson’s face. He needed him to take this, it was fucking all he had. “Alright, what?”
“Pictures,” Gator told him. He swallowed, tried to wet his lips with his tongue but his mouth was dry. He did his best to keep the desperation out of his voice, to stay calm. Like he wasn’t going to get maimed if this didn’t go over. “The kind of pictures Senator Hawley would give his left nut to stop from getting out. Family is the guy's whole thing, right? Him and his upstanding, God-fearing family.”
Munson nodded, apparently considering this. He hemmed and hawed a bit, but Gator could see he’d got his attention back.
“Go on,” Munson said. “What’s he doing in these pictures?”
Gator grinned. Couldn’t help himself. Stupid, really, ‘cause if Munson took the bait, he was still fucked, but hell, at least he’d keep his goddamned hand. Even so, relief flooded his body in a wave. He had a shot, at least. Might still be able to get out of this.
“More like who’s he doing,” he said, overcompensating for the nerves and sounding too-smug even for his own liking. “It’s uh, it’s some guy, right? I mean, Christian Values Jr., but these pics, I mean, he sure knows his way around a cock.”
He laughed, and it was an awkward, uncomfortable sound. Jesus Christ, please let this be enough. He could not stress enough how much he did not want Munson sacrificing his hand to Satan.
“Pictures... of Senator Hawley’s son fucking a man?” Munson said. He tilted his head to the side. “I mean, people could just say it’s photoshop.”
“They’re polaroids,” he said, the words coming out in a rush. “Some people will call bullshit, but I’m telling you, bro, they’re the real deal.”
Munson chewed his lower lip, his brow furrowed. “What can you see? Are we talking Rated R?”
“X-rated, porno shit,” Gator insisted. “Best closet thing you could get to a full-on sex-tape.” Munson frowned, still considering, and Gator knew he had to sell it now or risk losing him full-out.
“Seriously, you show the Senator even one of those photos, and you’ll fucking own him. No way he doesn’t do everything he can to keep them locked up, man.” He raised his eyebrows, no longer bothering to hide his desperation. “It’s not just a blurry, grainy Bigfoot-style shot of some guy getting off. I’m telling you—there’s like ten photos, different angles, clear as day. Up close and personal, Senator Hawley’s son sucking and fucking.”
Gator swallowed again. His mouth was like sandpaper now and it felt like his heart was trying to jackhammer right up through his throat and out his mouth.
Munson looked at him. “Show me.”
***
In the two years he’d been living in the city, he’d lived in four different apartments. This last one was a shithole with month-to-month rent and neighbours that were always yelling through the wall. But he hadn’t seen any rats and barely any roaches, so it was a step up from the last shithole.
Gator let Eddie in and flicked the lights on, dropping his keys off on a little table by the door. Most of the furniture had been there when he’d moved in, it was part of the appeal of the place. And the less stuff he had, the easier it was to pick up and go when he wanted to.
It wasn’t like he didn’t want to own any real stuff, or find some real place to live. He did. That’s what the money from the drugs was gonna help him do. Get a real place, start a real life. Maybe start feeling like he had a life, at all.
Pretty fucking low bar, and he’d still managed to miss it, smacking his head for good measure on the way down.
“Stay here, I’ll get the pics,” Gator mumbled.
Munson nodded, looking with obvious distaste around the room. “You just move in?”
“Yeah.” He’d moved in six months ago.
“Place is disgusting,” Munson said in a conversational tone.
“Yeah.”
He left Munson out by the front door and went to his bedroom. The pictures were stashed in a box, which itself was duct-taped to the underside of his bed. Lowering himself to the floor, Gator coughed as a puff of dust rose up. He groped for the box, located it by touch and then struggled ripping off the tape for a minute.
Finally, the tape gave. Box in hand, he overturned the contents on his bed, sorting out the 20 or so polaroids from the rest of the junk—an old necklace that was the only thing he had left of his Mom, his birth certificate and passport (that was expired now but when the fuck was he leaving the country anyhow) and dime bag sized amount of Ambien, which Ronnie had got for him on the street.
Ronnie had all kinds of connections, which made sense now. Probably he’d got ‘em from the madman waiting out in his apartment right now.
He stacked up the polaroids and swept the rest of it back in the box, lingering a second on the bag of Ambien. He only used them when he was really sick, when it finally got too much. Tried not to make a habit of it, but it worked so much better than whatever the fuck he’d got from the doctors.
After a moment’s hesitation, he put the drugs back in the box. Whatever happened in the next few days, he had a feeling he’d need to stay alert.
Gator picked up the stack of pictures and started flipping through them, pulling out ones he didn’t want Munson to see and tossing them back in the box. Most every picture showed two men, although a few featured one or the other on his own. He leafed through, selecting pictures that had the clearest view of Jeremy Hawley, but not the other man. Not his face, at least.
“That them?”
Gator jumped, whipping around to find Munson standing in the doorway, leaning casually against the frame. He grinned, seeing the look on Gator’s face. “Trying to get one over on me, Deputy?”
“No,” Gator snapped. “I said to wait out there, is all.”
Munson sauntered into the room and grabbed the pictures of his hands. He grinned, looking down at the pornographic display. “Shit, you weren’t kidding,” he said quietly.
Gator just shrugged, and tried to stop his hands from shaking as he reached for the lid of the box, wanting to get the other pictures firmly out of Munson’s view. He was leafing through them, staring intently at the naked tangle of limbs offered from each polaroid.
He just had the lid back on the box when Munson looked up, frowning. “Wait a second—” his eyes moved from Gator’s oh-shit-oh-fuck face to the box on the bed and in a split second he’d snatched it up.
“Hey, that’s mine—” Gator made a grab for the box, but Munson shoved him back with one hand. He thudded into the chest of drawers against the wall, the wind knocked out of him for a second. “Come on, man, give it!”
But it was too late. Munson had the box open, was pulling out the rest of the pictures. He gathered them into a neat little stack, a wolfish grin growing on his face. It made Gator think of that story, about the little girl in red. My, my, what big teeth you have...
“Deputy,” Munson said, his smile getting bigger and bigger with each picture he looked at. “You’ve been holding out on me.”
Gator gulped. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Munson raised his eyes from the polaroids. “Don’t you?” He turned one picture around for Gator to see, like maybe didn’t know exactly what was in every single one already. “This isn’t just the Senator’s son fucking some guy.” Munson’s dark eyes flashed, alive in a way they hadn’t been before. “This is you.”
Gator blinked. The fuck was he supposed to say to that? Denial didn’t seem like much of an option. The picture Munson was holding up was pretty clear; it was one taken by Jeremy as Gator had fucked him. There he was, clear as day, kneeling between the senator’s son’s legs, biting down on his lip as he concentrated on railing the man on his bed.
“What gave it away?” Gator asked, resigning himself to his fate. Something in the pictures had tipped Munson off, made him suspicious. Made him go for the box in the first place.
“Your tattoo, genius,” he said, tilting his head to the side.
Gator shut his eyes, pulling a hand down over his face. Fuck, of course. He had his jacket back on now, but they’d ripped it off him back at the warehouse, when they’d been getting ready to alleviate his wrist from the attached hand.
It was probably visible in a bunch of the photos, even when his face wasn’t.
Munson snickered, returning his attention to the lewd photographs. “Christ, these are something...” he muttered. He let out a low whistle, shuffling and reshuffling the pile. The hair stood up on the back of Gator’s neck, watching him. He didn’t like this, didn’t like Munson having this on him. Seeing him like that.
But then his smile slipped a little, and Gator’s heart tried to shoot out of his chest all over again. “What?” he demanded, suddenly nervous. “What’s the look?”
At first, there was no answer, but Munson’s hands stilled on the pictures. He stopped turning them over and dragged his eyes away again, bringing his gaze up to meet Gator’s. “It’s not enough.” There was no glee in his voice anymore, and his eyes were cold and distant once again.
“What, come on, why not?” He was whining now, full-on pleading, but he didn’t even care. This was all he had. “It’s what I said, ain’t it?”
“It is,” Munson agreed. “But it’s not enough. Not on its own. I mean, it’d be one thing if it was the Senator himself, but the son? It’s not the same.” He hesitated for a moment, something that might’ve been regret crossing his face. “I can give you a week.”
“What?”
“A week,” he repeated. “The usual offer. Raise the money, pay me what I’m owed. You get me that and we’re square, no need for any bloodshed.”
“A week?” Gator’s mouth hung open. The room was suddenly too hot, and it felt like there were snakes squirming around in his belly. “To get 200K? How? How the fuck am I meant to do that?”
Without even meaning to do it he stepped forward, maybe to plow past Munson and head out of the room. Maybe out of the apartment, out the building, into the cool fresh air. He didn’t know, just knew he felt trapped and scared and like he was about to hurl.
Munson’s eyes flashed and he shoved Gator back again, harder this time. He looked mad now, like it was so inconvenient for him not to have the pictures work out. Like Gator had wasted his time on purpose or some shit.
“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Munson hissed, backing Gator against the dresser. “It’s not my problem. People do it, okay? All the fucking time. They get me what I’m owed because they know what happens if they don’t.”
“I-I can get some—”
Munson jerked him back by the jacket, shaking him. “Not some,” he snapped. “All. We’re not negotiating here, okay? Even if the pictures were enough, I’d still be getting screwed. You said it yourself, I can’t tell anyone about them. So, to everyone else, it would look like I let you go for nothing. My reputation takes a hit, and maybe suddenly everyone thinks they can just do whatever the fuck they want, walk all over me.”
Munson’s eyes bored into his, and his lip curled. “Maybe a few years ago it wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but that fucking coward Wood has been edging into my territory, stealing my clients... fucker thinks he’s untouchable.” He shook his head, turned his attention back to Gator. “It’d be one thing if I could get the drugs back, but you said they’re gone. So I need my money... or I’m taking it out of your flesh, understand?”
That look flickered over his face for another split second, the one Gator thought of as regret. That wasn’t really it, though, not totally. He didn’t regret what he had to do... but he wasn’t so happy to do it, either.
Sort of funny, considering he was meant to be a devil-worshipping sadist, after all.
“I can give you something else,” Gator blurted, not knowing at all what the something else was. All he knew was that he needed to keep his fucking hand, and he would give anything to do it. “Okay, I hear you, the pics ain’t enough on their own! So, so I find something to sweeten the pot with, huh? Something you want.”
Munson just shook his head. He eased up, moving back just a fraction of an inch, releasing his hold on Gator’s jacket. “You can’t,” he said bluntly. “If my reputation is going to take a hit, it needs to be worth my while. And you’ve got nothing I want.”
Even as he said it, he couldn’t seem to stop his eyes from going back down to the polaroids still clutched in his hands. Watching Munson stare down at the pictures, it suddenly clicked.
Bullshit, he had nothing he wanted. He sure as fuck did.
“I do,” Gator said, his voice shaking just a bit. “I got something you want.”
Munson frowned. Gator reached forward and took one of the pictures from his hand, holding it up. For a long moment, Munson just stared at him. Then his eyes narrowed in that dangerous way.
“The fuck are you suggesting?”
Gator shrugged, trying to keep his breathing even. “I think you’re smart enough to figure that out, yeah?” He tilted his chin up, trying to sound cocky and confident instead of scared out of his fucking mind.
This needed to work, ‘cause if it didn’t... he had no more cards left to play.
Munson’s eyes were wide. Not angry anymore, but not excited either. They flicked from Gator’s face to the picture he was holding up and back again. He chewed his lower lip, then wet it with his tongue. “What are you offering?” He spoke quieter now, his tone almost hesitant.
Like Gator might be pulling the sort of shit he’d seen in those old cartoons, offering him a football to kick only to yank it away at the last second.
Gator lowered his own voice to match. “What do you want?” he asked.
Eddie gave him a hard stare, wheels and gears clearly turning in his mind as he did some kind of mental math. Two hundred thousand dollars taken out of his flesh was one whole hand. Gator wondered what it added up to, if he took it from his flesh this other way.
“One week,” Munson said.
“Huh?”
“You heard me. One week. You’re mine for seven whole days, Deputy.” His eyes drifted down Gator’s body, still backed up against the dresser. That smile was back again, the one that made Gator think of hungry monsters. “One week to do whatever I want with you. Deal?”
Gator gulped. “Deal,” he said.