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“Knock knock.”
Not the start of a joke, Ryan presumes, watching Torquemada saunter into the cell – just no more glass to tap on, here. Little things like that he’d come to take for granted, living in Emerald City as long as he had, and their absence here annoys him – if only because it makes assholes think they have a free pass to pull shit like this. “Can I help you?” he asks.
Torquemada raises his eyebrows. “You’re supposed to say, who’s there.”
“Right. My bad.” He gives the guy a once-over, wondering what he wants this time – or in general, really; the fag had latched onto him since they moved, always hanging over his shoulder while he played cards in the rec room, standing behind him in line at the cafeteria, shit like that. Never said anything of any importance, just little questions and comments here and there, all casual, no discernable pattern to any of it. It would be easy to just assume he had an admirer – wouldn’t be the first time, he thinks, remembering Scott Ross with a vague disgust – but he knows better than anyone what testing the waters looks like.
Coming to his cell, though – that was new.
So, T-man: you finally gonna ask me to get in on your little Destiny scheme?
Only thing he could imagine the guy might want from him – again, aside from the seemingly obvious, but Ryan had made it clear from day one. “Thanks for the compliment,” in response to a gentle sniff over his shoulder, some quip about pheremones, “but I’m not into guys. Sorry.”
Torquemada had merely looked amused. “Don’t worry about it, sugar,” he’d replied, and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’m not into straight boys.” Then he’d grinned to himself and strolled away, whistling a few long notes as he went.
Had felt like some sort of taunt (didn’t seem like the truth, given how the guy had practically thrown himself at Alvarez when he’d first arrived in Em City – but if everyone else was going to pretend that never happened, well, so would Ryan) but he hadn’t been able to figure out what kind, exactly, so he put it out of his head.
He had other shit on his mind – figuring out the new rules of a new prison, dealing with his fucking father (who had not become any less of a raging cunt after Cyril had – gone), coping with the absence of Gloria.
Just trying to figure out how to not go fucking insane.
So if the fag wanted to amuse himself by playing little fucking games, let him.
“Make it quick,” Ryan says now, rummaging through the pile of laundry at the foot of his bunk for a towel, “I’m about to head to the showers.”
Torquemada’s gaze flickers down to the clothes, then back up to Ryan’s face. “Excellent,” he says after a moment. “I’ll join you.”
Ryan laughs wryly. “Wasn’t an invitation, hermano.” Not that he really cared – after 6 years in prison, he’d long ago abandoned any awkwardness around the idea of showering with other men – and, truth be told, it wasn’t the worst thing in the world to have company. Someone to watch your back, at the very least.
Something tells Ryan, though, that he’s better off watching his own back than having Torquemada as a shower buddy.
Not like a guy with one working eye could do much looking out, anyway.
“Oh, I don’t need an invitation.” Torquemada steps past him and leans down – deftly plucking the towel he’d been looking for out of the pile, a tiny sliver of white cotton that had just barely poked out the side – slings it over his shoulder. “I’m an expert at gate-crashing.”
“Do what you want.” Not much time left before the showers closed for the day, and Ryan doesn’t feel like spending it on a pointless argument. “C’mon, hand it over.” He reaches for the towel, and Torquemada lightly steps back out of arms’ length, wraps it around his neck like a scarf.
“Have we no manners? Even in prison, it’s best to remain civilised.”
“Towel.” Ryan snaps his fingers, extends his hand again. “Now.”
“Say please.”
“Stop being a dick.”
Torquemada smirks. “You can borrow one of mine,” he says, and walks out of the cell, not bothering to check if Ryan is following. Ryan watches him go, irritation boiling in his gut.
Is he fucking serious?
Clock’s ticking, he reminds himself, and the irritation flares further.
Don’t have time for this bullshit.
Ryan shoves his hands in his pockets and stalks off after him.
---
Ryan nods at Alvarez as he enters the cell he shares with Torquemada. “’Sup.”
Alvarez just grunts, not looking up from the beat up issue of Playboy he’s got spread across his pillow. He’s chewing on a fingernail, looks stoned out of his mind – guess the rumors are true, Ryan thinks, although how many of them is hard to tell. He never took Alvarez for a fag, never heard any stories about him before Torquemada had ended up in Em City (well, there was the one about him and Guerra, but that he’d filed away as pure gossip – maybe not, though, he thinks, looking down at Alvarez again. Guess you never know).
He’s looking at girls, though, so that’s one point in his favor.
Ryan directs his attention back to the person he’s actually here for, who’s kneeling down behind the bunks with a clean set of clothes folded under his arm, pulling out a towel from his own laundry stash. He stands up, offers it to Ryan.
“Yeah, thanks, but I think I’ll just take my own.”
“It’s clean.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about.”
Torquemada just gazes at him coolly, his arm still extended. Ryan licks his lips. Clock’s ticking.
“Look, I respect the power move you’re trying to pull here, and under different circumstances, I might play along, but I don’t have a lot of time here, so let’s cut the bullshit. Just give me back my towel.”
Torquemada cocks his head to the side slightly, a faint smile playing at the corners of his lips. Still not saying anything.
Fine. Switch tactics.
“Alright. Give it back before someone gets hurt.” He takes a step towards Torquemada, who doesn’t flinch, just turns his half-smile into a full one.
“Nobody’s getting hurt,” Alvarez says suddenly in a gravelly, slightly slurred voice. “You wanna hurt each other, leave.”
Ryan raises an eyebrow at Torquemada, who stares back for a moment before finally sighing, rolling his eyes. “Just messing around, O’Reily,” he drawls, tossing Ryan his towel. “Can’t take a joke?”
Ryan catches it, turns on his heel to head for the showers –
Hears footsteps behind him.
For fuck’s sake.
He whirls back around, meeting Torquemada’s amused gaze. “Hey, don’t you have something more productive to do?” he demands. “Guy like you running a racket like yours, gotta have a lot on your plate. More important shit to worry about than bothering a nobody like me.”
“Oh, don’t sell yourself short, sweetheart.” Torquemada crosses his arms, leans against the wall – he’s in the same dark blue jumpsuit as everybody else now, and the bleach is nearly gone from his hair, but from the way he carries himself it’s like he doesn’t notice the change, still acts like he’s dressed in bizarre finery, looking down on all the little people. “You’re anything but a nobody, if the rumors are true.”
“Yeah, well, don’t believe everything you hear.” Ryan turns back around, continues walking down the hall – tries to ignore the fact that the footsteps have resumed.
“Anywho, it’s funny you should mention,” Torquemada continues, following way too close for Ryan’s liking. “I have a little proposition for you. Thought you might like to discuss.”
“So discuss. And back up.” Ryan quickens his pace for emphasis.
Instead, Torquemada steps in front of him. “I was thinking we could chat somewhere a little more private.” He holds up the towel, dangling it from his fingertips. “Such as...”
“Look, man,” Ryan says, impatient. “You wanna come with me to the showers, be my guest. It’s a free fucking country.” He’s vaguely aware that that’s a stupid thing to say when they’re inside a prison, but carries on, “Just get the fuck out of my way, alright?”
“Touchy, touchy.” Torquemada steps aside, then gestures forward. “Lead on, handsome.”
---
The showers are nearly empty at this point, everyone else having gotten their shit together long before the area was closed off for the day, leaving only a few stragglers. It’s why Ryan normally likes to come at this hour – he’s had to keep his head on a swivel more than he’d gotten used to, another little thing he took for granted in Em City. Nice to have less people to worry about, now that he no longer has Cyril to watch his back.
Less nice to get here so late he feels he needs to rush, but whatever.
“Don’t do anything weird,” he warns as he strips. “I don’t need you staring at my cock or whatever.”
Torquemada snorts. “Not much to stare at,” he replies dryly, casting a pointed look downward as he turns away to undress.
Then he stops, looks down again.
“What? You change your mind?” Ryan resists the urge to turn away, hide himself somehow.
Torquemada’s gaze flickers back up. “Mmm,” is all he says before facing the wall, unzipping his jumpsuit.
It’s an obvious attempt to unsettle him, so Ryan purposely ignores it – or tries to, anyway, but it gets under his skin a little bit. Like he said, he doesn’t want the guy checking him out, and that was all it was, just faggot shit.
Right?
He runs his hand over the long scar across his stomach – faded memory of the bullet that almost killed him, all those years ago. Didn’t think about it much, these days; used to it by now, and most guys were polite enough to avert their gaze when it was visible – although, he thinks grimly, if Torquemada had proven anything in the past 10 minutes, it’s that despite his huffiness about manners, he clearly doesn’t give a fuck about being polite.
Whatever. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t care.
Guy wants to look at scars, let him.
“So what’s your proposition?” Ryan asks, balling his clothes up and balancing them on the shelf just outside the wet room. “Your boys aren’t pulling their weight? Or girls, or whatever?” he adds, recalling glimpses of him whispering in Fiona’s ear in the cafeteria, flanked by the other Em City fags. Whether it was them or the Sicilians handling the dealing was anybody’s guess, though Ryan suspected it was a bit of column A, bit of column B. “Looking for a new dealer?”
“My people on the inside aren’t the problem.” Torquemada shakes out his jumpsuit, rolling it up against his chest. “My people on the outside, however, are proving” – he turns, reaches past Ryan to place the rolled up jumpsuit next to his stack of folded clothes on the same shelf – “difficult,” he finishes.
“Okay. What’s that got to do with me?” Ryan avoids looking at him as he scoots past to step into the wet room, turning on the spray. Closes his eyes and allows himself to relax ever so slightly as the hot water hits him, soothing the tension in his muscles.
Easy contender for the best part of his day – even feeling Torquemada’s eyes burning a hole in his back.
“You gonna stand there and watch or come talk shop?” he calls, tilting his face slightly out of the spray and wiping at his eyes so he can open them – nearly jumps out of his skin when he sees Torquemada standing to his right, turning on his own shower.
Jesus, the water really does hide sound pretty well.
Should do more deals in the shower from now on.
He normally keeps his eyes straight ahead as much as possible while he’s in here – guys in prison don’t like getting eyeballed in the showers, funny how that is – but he figures with the dead eye facing him, he’s free to sneak a look, so he does.
Torquemada’s got his hand up against the wall, leaning over slightly so that his face is pointed down at the floor, letting the water run down his neck and back. Slender, but more toned than Ryan would have expected – for all his simpering, he must work out at least semi-regularly. Where, Ryan has no idea – he’s never seen him at the gym, and he’s looked.
Not for any weird reason, obviously.
Just to make sure the guy wasn’t following him around in there, too.
Ryan lets his gaze linger a bit longer, watching the rivulets trickle down his shoulders, down hairless arms – does he shave them? Ryan wonders, glances down at his legs – also smooth. He shaves them. Weird. His eyes move back up, skipping over Torquemada’s cock – don’t need to see that, he tells himself, physically blinking away the image that has already burned itself into his retinas – jumping in the opposite direction to his ass, which he also doesn’t need to see, the curve of which also burns itself –
What the fuck are you doing?
This is why he normally keeps his eyes to himself. Wandering eyes, wandering mind, and for some reason the place his mind likes to wander sometimes is straight into fucking Faggotland. Christ.
He needs to get a grip.
Ryan forces himself to look at Torquemada’s face, only his face, water dripping from the top of his head. Guy. Guy. Not a fucking girl. Not someone you’re attracted to. A man, with a fucking beard and everything. A stupid fucking beard.
He feels himself relax somewhat.
Yeah. The guy looks stupid. And his ears kind of stick out, too. Dumb.
Ryan scans for more shit to make fun of. Long eyelashes, tiny droplets clinging – nope, stop, except –
Fag’s got his own fucking scar, doesn’t he.
A small, jagged line running from the edge of his bottom eyelid – had darkened with age, rather than gone pale and whitish like Ryan’s, likely due to the difference in skin tone. Would probably stand out more, if it wasn’t greatly overshadowed by the milky eye above it.
Gross. Creepy. Ugly.
Right?
Looking at the eye, Ryan doesn’t actually feel any sense of revulsion. It’s like a living marble – white iris just barely visible through the clouds, flitting back and forth along with its dark brown partner. Not that he can see that one at the moment, or even the one he’s meant to be focusing on all that well – Torquemada’s eyes are half-lidded as he stares at the floor, and he blinks languidly, opens slightly pouty lips to spit delicately at the drain and purr,
“Take a picture, sugar. It’ll last longer.”
Ryan feels his blood run cold, jerks his eyes away and shifts his body somewhat so that Torquemada can’t see – he can fucking see?
“What, it’s fake?” Ryan says, hoping he sounds casual, knowing he almost certainly doesn’t. “Some kind of contact?”
“Hmm? Oh, no. Lucky guess.”
Jesus Christ.
He feels like he’s about to pass out. Looks down at his dick –
Nothing.
All in his head, locked up safe.
“People like to stare.”
“Huh?”
“It doesn’t bother me.” Ryan sees Torquemada straighten out of the corner of his eye, turn around to put his back to the wall. “Had it awhile. Used to it.”
It takes a few more seconds for Ryan to finally register that he’s talking about the eye.
Thank fuck.
He glances around the rest of the wet room, sees that there’s only one guy left, now, the others toweling off and getting dressed.
Nobody saw shit, ‘cause there was nothing to see.
“What happened?” he asks, mirroring Torquemada’s pose, lathering up his chest and arms. “You get in a fight or something?”
“Mmm. Or something,” Torquemada replies, then, after a pause – “You really wanna know?”
Ryan shrugs. “Don’t really care,” he says, which isn’t entirely true – he’s somewhat curious. “Do what you want.” Whether Torquemada goes ahead with his proposition or gives him some information he might be able to use later, either way it’s a win for him.
“Well.” Some kind of gentle floral scent wafts over to him, whatever soap Torquemada’s brought with him definitely not something he got from the commissary. Smells nice, Ryan thinks for a moment, then shakes his head as if to dislodge the thought. Stop.
“I was out for a drive one night with a boyfriend of mine. Luis,” Torquemada says the name fondly, wistfully. “We were coming back from a party. A bit under the influence, which wasn’t very bright of us, I suppose, but you never really think about these things until it’s too late. Laughing, talking, kissing, having a grand old time.”
Ryan regrets leaving the offer open. Doesn’t wanna hear about guys kissing. Gross. He continues lathering with his own soap, nothing flowery or perfumey, just normal soap from the normal commissary. Because he’s normal.
“It came out of nowhere – one second, just the lonely night road stretching out endlessly in the headlights, and the next –” There’s a pause, and then, “he tried to swerve to avoid it, but we were going too fast, reflexes too slow to avert destiny.” Ryan can hear the smile in his words at the stupid pun. Was it even a pun?
“We hit it at full speed. The car was totalled.” Torquemada goes quiet for another moment, longer this time, but Ryan says nothing, doesn’t look, just continues with the soap, working his way down.
“Poor Luis didn’t make it. Dead on impact, they told me later. I was the lucky one, supposedly, although I don’t quite know if I was. Dear Luis was at eternal rest, but me?” He sighs. “I have to live with this ugly, permanent reminder – of the night that stole my love from me, forever, in an instant.”
The next long silence stretches out, and Ryan figures that’s the end of it. “Great story,” he says. He finishes squishing soap between his toes, then stands up straight and looks Torquemada directly in the face. “Any of it true?”
Torquemada gazes at him impassively. “Nope,” he replies, popping the p. His lips twitch up slightly at the sides, and then he turns away, starts rubbing something into his hair. “It is a good story, though, isn’t it?”
“I’ve heard better. What is it you usually say you hit? Deer?”
“Mmm. Depends on who I’m telling it to. Deer, another car. A moose, once.”
“A moose?” Ryan laughs despite himself. “Are you serious?”
“As the grave, sweetheart. You don’t like the moose? I think it’s good imagery. A forest behemoth, the wilderness come alive.” He closes his eyes as he continues rubbing tiny circles into his scalp, hums pleasantly to himself. “Spooky.”
“Yeah, but a moose? In New York? Someone actually bought that?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised what some people are willing to believe.”
Ryan isn’t – knows all too well. Interesting to hear it from someone else, though: not like most guys in here were honest or anything, but for the average man on the street the game was obfuscation – hiding one’s intentions by withholding information or saying whatever the opposite of the truth was. Few understood the real artistry that lying could be – that once you figure out what a guy wants to hear, you can make him buy whatever it is you wanna sell.
Makes him respect the guy a bit more, fag or not – and also makes him realise the story about the scar probably hadn’t been idle chit-chat, but part of the pitch. An equal mix of I’m worth working with and tread carefully.
Well, message received.
“So.” Torquemada steps back under the spray. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“The one on your stomach.” Torquemada drags his finger lazily across his own stomach, indicating Ryan’s scar, and Ryan realises he’d been making the mistake of looking again. Eyes up front. Business.
“Got any good stories about yours?”
“Nah. Nobody ever really asks.”
“Mmm. Aren’t you lucky.” The same wistful note in his voice as before, but subtler this time, doesn’t feel as performative.
Maybe it was just chit-chat, then.
“Well, anyway. On to more important things.” Torquemada runs his hands over his face, smooths back his hair. “I’ve been having some trouble with the distribution.”
“Uh-huh.” Ryan mirrors him again, back facing the wall, looking out at the now-empty shower room. “What kind of trouble?”
“Oh, the usual.” A dismissive wave of the hand. “The connect I established when we first arrived proved unreliable. Started making noises about, oh.” He looks skyward and taps his chin, in a show of pretending to think. “How much he needs this job, not getting paid enough, et-cetera. Very tiresome. Then he started getting mouthy, which” – he makes a clicking noise with his tongue, shakes his head slightly – “didn’t work for me, let’s say.”
“Uh-huh,” Ryan says again. “That the hack who fell down the stairs last week?” He’d assumed that was some sort of job, but hadn’t connected it to Torquemada – which means the guy must be doing something right.
“Terrible accident,” Torquemada confirms. “Who knew silly threats could lead to such unstable footing. I hear the fall snapped his neck, clean as anything.” He shakes his head ruefully. “Que triste.”
Sort of stupid to brag about it to a relative stranger, but he guesses everybody’s got to start somewhere. If it’s meant to be part of the pitch – more peacocking – it’s wasted on Ryan. Torquemada’s no Nino Schibetta, no Enrique Morales, and no Adebisi – and none of them lasted long enough to show the fag how completely out of his depth he is in comparison. “Still not sure where I’m supposed to come in.”
“Well.” He turns to face Ryan, and Ryan can almost see the wheels turning as Torquemada considers him, tries to figure out his angle. The assumption that there needs to be an angle is probably for the best, but at this point, Ryan is just itching to get it over with.
Just ask. Just let me do something.
He’s been so bored.
Could have continued selling in here – Torquemada’s instincts are correct, he does have the means to set up a new connect – but he hadn’t had the motivation. Tired.
Depressed, Beecher had said. You’re grieving, it’s natural.
Stupid.
What had happened to Cyril was bound to happen eventually. Only a matter of time, and time ran out for them. It is what it is.
And anyways, after Beecher’s psycho lover got them all shipped off from what he had come to re-appreciate as a pretty sweet gig, as far as prisons go, his opinion wasn’t worth jack shit.
“A little bird told me,” Torquemada finally says, “that you have connections.”
“And?” Eager as he is to play along, there’s no point in letting Torquemada know that – need to put up the illusion of resistance. “Lots of guys in here do.”
“Mmm. True. But few have any that aren’t connected to my competition.”
“What, the Irish don’t count as competition?” He had meant it as light banter, but once the words leave his mouth he realises his mistake – he’s actually annoyed, and it shows. He takes a page out of Torquemada’s book, clicks his tongue and shakes his head. “Hurting my feelings: bad move, ese.” He turns off the spray, wipes his face.
“I’m sure the Irish have had their heyday,” Torquemada replies smoothly, turning off his own shower. “But that was before my time, and you have to admit you’re looking a bit sparse at the moment.”
“Wouldn’t count us out, if I were you.”
“Wouldn’t come to you at all if I did.” Ryan can feel him peering at him, trying to gauge his reaction. “And who knows? Maybe if things go right, nobody will ever again.”
Ryan laughs dryly. “Nice save.” He walks out of the wet room, grabbing his towel and scrubbing at his hair. “Yeah, I got a guy,” he says, drying his face, chest, arms quickly before wrapping the towel around his waist. “What’s in it for me?”
“You mean besides furthering the glory of your tribe?” Torquemada takes his time drying off, gently patting down his skin. “That’s not enough?” A teasing smile plays at his lips.
“Gonna need to see some dinero, pal.”
Torquemada spreads his hands, teasing smile graduating to full-on smirk. “Afraid I don't got any on me, at the moment.”
“25 percent,” Ryan says, reaching for his clothes. Torquemada laughs.
“You’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
“Ten.”
“Fuck off. Ten. I’m not doing it for less than 20.”
“Establishing a connect, how hard could it be? A simple phone call? Two?”
“If it’s so simple, why don’t you do it yourself?”
Torquemada ignores this. “Not like I’m asking you to do anything else. No dealing, no enforcing. Just arrange a meeting, is all. One time only.”
“Alright, you’re new at this, so I’ll cut you some slack, but let me explain to you how this shit works.” Ryan steps into his jumpsuit, zips it up to his waist. “Setting up the connect is just the start, and it’s not as easy as it looks. Look at what happened with your last guy. You rushed into it, didn’t vet him, and had to figure out a way to break ties without risking not only your operation but getting more time added to your sentence. Now that shit worked out for you this time, but it could have gone wrong in a million fucking ways, and if you keep acting sloppy your luck’s gonna run out. You gotta take your time, find the right guy. Not just the first guy who might be open to doing business, but someone you can see yourself doing business with long-term, who’s not going to cave at the first sign of trouble. You following me?”
Torquemada’s grabbed his own clothes now, dressing as slowly as he dried off. “Following,” he says.
“Good. Now, secondly, even after I find you this guy, he’s not going to want to talk to you directly, and believe me, you’re not gonna want to either. Keep a safe distance, so if it all goes tits-up, your hands stay clean. It’ll be my ass on the line, not yours, so I expect to receive due fucking compensation.” Ryan pulls his shirt over his head, extends his hand for a shake. “20 percent. Take it or leave it.”
Torquemada looks thoughtful, zipping his own jumpsuit up to his neck. “20 percent,” he murmurs, as if to himself – flexes his hand, rubs at his throat. “Hmmm.”
Ryan resists the urge to keep talking, keep convincing – Torquemada’s made his pitch, he’s made his. It’s a good deal, and as green as he is Torquemada surely recognises it (even while probably also recognising that a 20 percent cut is the highest possible number he could have reasonably asked for – but hey, the guy came to him, not the other way around).
All he’s gotta do is wait for the confirmation.
Just do it.
Torquemada turns to face him, walks forward slowly.
Shake on it.
Instead, he uses his left hand to gently push Ryan’s extended arm down and out of the way and reaches out with his right, lightly brushing his fingertips against the exposed skin where Ryan’s shirt just barely rides up, him having neglected to tuck it into the jumpsuit before going for the handshake.
Ryan stiffens, but doesn’t flinch, just keeps staring him down.
Just trying to psych you out. Another power play.
Can afford to play along, this time.
“I can give you 20 percent of my cut,” Torquemada says in a low voice, not meeting Ryan’s eyes – fixated on the little patch of flesh. “Don’t know if my current partner would be amendable to splitting the full profits.”
“Right,” Ryan responds. He can feel the fingers sliding upwards, the full hand placed against his stomach now, one finger hooked in front of the shirt to pull it up further. “Do you think I’m stupid? You’re just offering me the 10 again.”
“It’s 20 of a sort.”
“Full 20, or no deal.”
Torquemada clicks his tongue, keeps moving his hand until the shirt is hiked up to just below Ryan’s chest, his scar on full display. He slides his hand to the side to keep it exposed, then his left comes up, thumb slowly tracing the line up, feather-light, just barely grazing the tissue – then pulls it back down suddenly, pressing in harder. Ryan shivers involuntarily, and immediately curses at himself for doing so – Torquemada chuckles softly.
“Sure you don’t have any stories?” he asks, his eyes travelling up to meet Ryan’s. Smug mouth, but something else in his eyes – piercing, challenging. His thumb starts travelling back up, up, not stopping this time, going past the top of the scar, under the shirt, onto Ryan’s chest, towards Ryan’s throat and Ryan wonders, distantly, whether or not he made the wrong call, whether he should have just slapped the guy’s fucking hand away from the start, told him to fuck off the second he walked into his cell –
Nah.
“Car crash,” Ryan says. Torquemada raises an eyebrow. “Me and a hot señorita going 150 up in the mountains. Semi came out of nowhere, smashed into us.”
“Semi? You would have died.”
“I don’t think you know how big a fucking moose is.”
And he reaches his own hand out, presses his own thumb into the scar directly under Torquemada’s eye.
Torquemada’s hand freezes at the base of Ryan’s throat, and Ryan can feel his own pulse thumping under Torquemada’s fingertips. He presses in further, as if to push the faintly raised tissue into the hard line of Torquemada’s eye socket.
“20 percent,” Ryan repeats, and whatever his heart is doing, at least his voice is steady. “Final offer.”
They hold their positions for a moment, staring each other down – Torquemada’s the first to break, laughing suddenly. “20 percent,” he agrees, pulling his left hand away, giving Ryan’s shirt a little yank downwards with the other. He pats Ryan on the shoulder. “I’ll talk to my people.”
“You do that.” Ryan tucks his shirt in, zips up his jumpsuit, blood pounding in his ears. His limbs feel somewhat shaky, like he’d just slammed back 3 coffees in a row. “Pleasure doing business.”
“Oh, the pleasure is all mine, sugar,” Torquemada sings as he saunters off, snatching his towel off the hook and casting Ryan a final parting glance over his shoulder as he leaves the shower room.
Ryan exhales, feeling his whole body relax, muscles he hadn’t realised he’d been tensing.
Fucking hell.
Got what he wanted, even if he had to run around in circles to get it.
Doesn’t make it easy, does he?
Ryan grabs his own towel and heads back to his cell, wheels of his own turning now. Going to have to get started on setting up the connect, put out some feelers. Not going to be able to do much more than that until Torquemada gives him a bit more information about his operation – supplier, amount of product, required frequency of product movement, etc – and wouldn’t even if he had that information now, not until he gets paid some sort of advance.
Still, it’s nice to have a plan in motion.
---
Beecher’s back in the cell when he gets there, sorting through the laundry. Ryan tosses him the towel – a bit too fast, Beecher’s hand coming up awkwardly as he tries and fails to react in time. “Too late to go to the laundry room,” Ryan says, plopping down on the bottom bunk. “It’s almost 4.”
“Just getting it ready for tomorrow.” Beecher pulls the towel off his shoulder, inspects it. “What’s this?”
“Uh, a towel?” Ryan peers at him. “You going crazy again, law-boy?”
Beecher huffs. “I meant, whose is it.”
Mine? Ryan thinks, and then –
Oh, you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.
Ryan pushes himself off the mattress and snatches the towel from Beecher’s grasp.
There it is, inked into the tag on the end:
AT.
When the fuck did he switch it? While they were getting dressed? Before they got into the shower? In his fucking –
Ryan shakes his head. Doesn’t matter. Point is, he let his guard down, let the fag get one over on him. He thinks back to Torquemada’s smug look as he walked off, the faint air of amusement that had surrounded him the whole time – assumed that was just his natural fucking state.
Maybe it is.
He doesn’t fucking know anymore.
What’s more, he doesn’t care.
Let him play his little fucking games. As long as I got money coming my way, he can do what he wants.
He tosses the towel back to Beecher – gently, this time. “Must’ve picked up the wrong one in the shower,” he says. “Mine now.” Beecher just shrugs, places it on the pile.
Ryan sits back down on the bed, kicks off his shoes. Swings his legs up onto the mattress and lays down, arms crossed behind his head, letting his mind wander – thinking about who he can call, figuring out how he’s going to spin it. Replaying the conversation with Torquemada, scanning for any details that might be worth storing away for future use.
Lean muscle, wet and glistening under the fluorescent lights.
Warm hand on his chest.
Hard bone under his fingertips.
Ryan squeezes his eyes shut tightly.
Wandering fucking mind.
“Hey, Beecher,” he says, opening them again.
“What’s up?”
Ryan sits up again, unzipping his jumpsuit to the waist and pulling up his shirt to just below his chest. Beecher looks at him uncomprehendingly, and he grins.
“I ever tell you how I got this scar?”