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Billie knows he’s trouble the moment she sees him, all blonde hair and blue eyes and solemn intensity, wound up like a coiled spring as he demands to know where Henry is. At first she thinks maybe he’s a cop – but she doubts it. Cops always look like someone wanting to be nobody, and this kid looks like no-one wanting to be somebody. What the hell does this kid want with Henry?
“Luther Coleman sent me,”
Four words, Billie thinks later. Four words to change my life.
Billie doesn’t like him. He’s cocky, thinks he knows everything. He’s even dumb enough to think he knows more than Henry, who’s trying his best to give the best advice he can.
Not that the kid hears him. Johnny Hooker doesn’t listen to anyone, and Billie’s damned if she knows why Henry thinks that he of all people can get through to him.
But Henry likes the kid. Billie can see it in his eyes when he looks at him, eyes filled with warmth and friendship and something which Billie can’t – won’t – name.
She sees the looks Hooker sends Henry, too. She ignores those entirely, dismisses them as nothing – more than nothing – when she can see that they’re anything but.
Billie thinks Hooker’s too cocky for his own good, and she tells Henry so.
Henry laughs. “Don’t be so harsh, Billie!”
Billie falls quiet at that, trying not to let the hurt show on her face. Harsh? She’s a prostitute, for Christ’s sake! Of course she’s harsh – she has to be…
Henry should know that. Of all people, he should know that.
But Billie isn’t so sure that Henry knows anything anymore.
Henry trusts Johnny Hooker. Henry, who doesn’t trust people, trusts this kid, this fool, this intruder upon their world. Henry is a friend to this kid – Henry who is a friend of many yet never returns it to anyone.
Not even Billie.
Henry is her companion, her protector, her lover.
But he is not her friend. And nothing she ever does will change that.
*****
At first, the canny ability Johnny has for getting himself into dangerous situations is nothing than a mere irritant in Billie’s life, like the sticky residue spilt milk leaves behind.
It was only when Johnny appears at her door at three in the morning, blood all over him, that she actually begins to worry. She tends to his wounds as he and Henry argue, knowing that whatever happens, Henry won’t cancel the operation. He will do it for thrills, for the chase, for revenge.
For Johnny.
Henry is in love with Johnny Hooker.
She knows it, even if he doesn’t.
She has eyes; she sees the way they look at each other. The looks she used to ignore and dismiss as nothing when they’re anything but.
Billie thinks that those looks are getting worse as the days go by.
It won’t be long now. That’s if it hasn’t happened already.
Damn, Billie curses herself, over and over. Damn, damn, damn.
Billie knows that whoever Henry’s ever been with, he’s always been restless, searching for something out there on the horizon. She realises that he doesn’t know what he’s searching for; just that he’ll know it when he sees it.
Billie is no exception. He’s always been restless, searching, waiting for that perfect mystery creature to appear.
She always knew that one day she’d lose him.
She just wishes that she didn’t have to lose him to Johnny Hooker.
That’s all that’s in Billie’s mind as she watches the two men rock together, bodies entwined and coated with sweat.
Billie has been expecting this. It’s no shock, yet she finds that she still surprised. By what, exactly, she doesn’t quite know. Maybe that she still held the hope that she was imagining it all. Maybe because she never thought she’d actually see them.
Maybe because she never thought Henry would be unfeeling enough to take Johnny to the bed she and Henry shared – and it was her bed more than it was his – to do...this.
She tells herself that she could have handled the sight of them together if it were rough – the harsh breathing, the sight of bite marks on both their necks. She could have handled it if it were just two guys fucking around.
She could have.
But it’s not. And she can’t fool herself otherwise.
How can she?
How can she, as she watches Johnny’s hands – with a tenderness she didn’t even know he possessed – guide Henry up and down, up and down in his lap? How can she, as Henry clings to Johnny like a limpet, as if he never wants to part from him? How can she, as she watches Henry’s head fall back, face painted with ecstasy, as Johnny shyly wraps his long fingers around Henry’s weeping erection.
But it’s not the sight so much as the sounds which are Billie’s undoing. The moans, the sighs, Johnny’s soft reassurances, Henry’s soft keens…
“Johnny…Johnny…”
Billie’s breath catches when she hears it, Henry calling to Johnny like that. Henry never called to her when they made love…
All Billie ever gets is silence.
All she ever gets from Henry was a tolerance of her presence.
And Johnny gets this.
Johnny gets everything, and she gets nothing.
Her mother’s voice fills her ears, echoing from years ago, “You keep this whoring up and no man will ever give you anything but money!” Her mother had set out to hurt her, and she did.
But it didn’t hurt anywhere as much as this. The sight of it, and the cries that fall from Henry’s lips as he comes, his whole body shuddering as he spurts all over Johnny’s hand…
Billie forces herself to turn away. It’s too much…
But she doesn’t think to block her ears, doesn’t think.
“Henry!” She cringes as Johnny’s wailing cry assaults her senses.
No, she thought. No, stay quiet, you! You don’t–
Don’t what? Deserve this? Henry chose him, and chose him over you.
Billie hears them laughing softly. They’re not laughing at her, of course, but it feels like they are. They don’t even know that she was there, peeking in at them through the slightly-open door.
Invisible, Billie sinks back into the shadows.
*****
Billie isn’t quite sure what to think as she sees Johnny follow Henry out the door. She knows they’re both leaving – they have to, that’s the whole point of the damn con; Lonnegan has to never see them again or he’ll know they’re not dead. And then they really will be dead.
But did they have to leave together? It’s like salt being rubbed into her wounds. Wounds she doesn’t deserve in the first place.
Of all people, Billie silently asks Johnny’s back. Why did I have to lose him to you?
But then they smile at each other, and Billie realises that she can’t refuse them their happiness.
They deserve it.