Chapter Text
There’s a lounge appended to the lobby of the hotel. As they pass Vincent pivots on his heel, tugs at Neil’s lapel, and offers a smile by way of suggestion. He leans in with a sultry rasp: “Buy me a drink.”
Neil spares a glance at the bay of elevators, its shining gateway to foregone conclusions, and then follows without complaint. Here they can take up with spontaneity, meander their way through temptation. After three months, what’s another 30 minutes of delayed gratification? No harm in playing at the regular courtship scenes they’ve decided to only pretend to envy. They succeed, sometimes, at pretending.
Truthfully, Vincent needs it to take the edge off. Since the beach he’s been shaking, a private disaster. He’s worried that Neil can tell. Neurochemical pyrotechnics on another level, this crazy firestorm of emotion. It was supposed to be easier this time around. Instead it’s worse, amplified, like the first electric hit after a long stint clean. Stone sober and he feels like he’s just railed a line. Being around Neil has got him all worked up.
The lounge is lively but not crowded, a low-ceilinged retreat draped in inviting curtains of shadow, forested with potted arrangements of regional flora. The vibe is California Dreamin’, dark paneling and abundant palm fronds, decor and design just shy of kitsch. They weave through a waist-high stand of candlelit cocktail tables and stake out a spot at the bar. Here they can be comfortable and comfortably seen. L.A. is not Chicago, and the Wild West grows tamer every day, an expanding oasis of swimming pools, golf courses, and theme parks. Here the lawless ingenuity of gangsters is more profitable as defanged nostalgia product. The times, as Dylan said, are a-changin'. Neil flags down the bartender for a round of mojitos, and Vincent calls after him to make it a double.
Glasses in hand, they look at each other. Vincent’s breath catches in his throat. He clears it and recovers himself. Lifts his arm for a toast.
“Well, what do we want to drink to?”
Neil thinks it over. “St. Joseph,” he decides.
Vincent swallows hard. His eyes travel up and down, once more taking in the miraculous sight of a free man, real and present before him, alive and well. In one piece, in good spirits, healthy and unharmed.
Yeah. He’ll drink to that.
“To St. Joseph,” Vincent agrees.
They knock glasses and knock them back, Vincent quite vigorously, with fast, thirsty gulps. Thankfully, Neil issues no comment.
“How much time do we have?”
“My room’s booked through the end of the week. But for the next two, I’m at your disposal.”
“That long?”
“All quiet on the Midwestern front.” Vincent’s smile wilts a little. He’s already downed most of his glass and motions to the bartender for a preemptive round two. “Doctor’s orders, so . . . better to spend that time with you, y’know? That is, if you can spare it. I don’t want to impose.”
“What’s that mean, ‘doctor’s orders’?”
This is what he gets for trying to rip the Band-Aid off before the clothes come off. Neil’s face falls with a look of such devastating concern that Vincent doesn’t know whether to slug him or crumple to his knees, beg forgiveness.
“It’s nothing. Administrative optics, really. A formality. Brass prescribed me a couple weeks paid R&R, that’s all.”
“Why? What happened?”
Vincent shrugs, eyes averted. “Flamed out, I guess.”
“Vincent.”
“I fell, all right? Took a spill. Like Jerry Lewis. It’s not serious. Will you quit looking at me like that?”
“You fell.”
“Keeled over after a bust.” Like this is spurious editorializing on behalf of the department, quite mendacious. “I was dehydrated. Working some tough cases. Hadn’t slept. It was just one of those things.”
Neil exhales heavily, tugging a hand down his chin. He looks in his glass for a long moment and then follows with a longer drink.
“Listen. Neil—”
Neil cuts him off irritably. “If anything ever happened to you, I’d—”
It falters just as sharply. He shakes his head scornfully, refusing to entertain the possibility. He won’t allow it. On Vincent the effect is worse than any reproach.
“Neil. C’mon, baby, it’s nothing.”
“You have to be careful. You understand?”
“I am. I know.”
“In your line of work . . . ”
“Fuck you, my line of work! What about yours!”
“This isn’t about me!”
“You’re right! I don’t want to know!”
“Vincent—”
“What!”
“Please. Promise me.”
“All right! OK.” It’s the please that does him in, a word that otherwise receives little use in Neil’s curt, no-bullshit vocabulary. “I promise.”
It’s not like he’s a stranger to running on fumes. But every man has got his limits.
He doesn’t burden Neil with the details. Bad enough that he’d fainted—the word makes him shudder with disgust—in the line of duty, fizzling out on the pavement like some delicate South Side flower, an invalid. He feels even more pathetic about the basic psychology, the situation it had been his intention to address. Work is the only medicine he knows, and when the sickness is a hole in your heart and a storm in your head left by a man thousands of miles away—how the hell else is he supposed to cope? To occupy his anxious mind, knowing what Neil’s doing to earn his keep? The shit he gets up to while Vincent’s away. Christ, the beautiful bastard has got it all backwards, the whole thing turned around on him. But it’s useless to argue. He knows that Neil is as stubborn as he is.
“Don’t get bent outta shape,” he says instead, reaching under the bar for Neil’s hand and tugging once at his fingers, dialing up the charm. “A little TLC and I’ll be right as rain. That’s what I got you for. You know how in Victorian England they used to send people to the seaside to convalesce?”
Dubious, Neil softens. “No.”
“Well, it’s the same concept. Except instead of Margate I got L.A. and Neil McCauley’s magic healing touch. I’ll be under your strict supervision.”
He mugs suggestively. Emphasis on strict. Neil concedes a tight smile.
“If you say so.”
They let the silence linger until the tension dissolves. It doesn’t take long. Neil’s frustration can’t hold against what awaits after cocktail hour, past a trip up the elevators and a closed door. Once they’re in there together, safely sequestered, that’s it. Nothing else matters. The grim machinery of regular life, the big ugly mess that they’re in, it all falls away. It'll be just like Chicago, with more palm trees and nicer weather.
He goes to finish his mojito and wags his eyebrows over the lip of the glass. It does something to him, the way Neil looks at his shoes to hide his muted laughter. He’s not ordinarily the sentimental type, but one kiss on the beach and a date at the bar and he feels like a car accident.
It’s hard precisely because it’s so easy, the magnetic attraction, the sparking rapport, how they fit together like two halves of a whole. If it could only be this easy forever. Neil swears that it will be, swears he’s making things happen, the kind of grand declarations and fairy-tale promises that get far more decent men than either of them into top-tier trouble. They live in a world of realities, not dreams, and theirs is harsher and bloodier, more complicated than most. Still, Vincent wants nothing more than to believe him. At this point he’s got no choice, sorry lovesick schmuck that he is. He swallows down the lump in his throat with what’s left of his drink.
“Every day, huh?” he asks, plunking the empty glass down on the bar. Another full one is waiting for him. He’s only buzzed—why couldn’t Neil have ordered scotch? Antsy, he fires up a cigarette.
Neil looks at him squarely. “That’s right.”
“Sounds like an occupational hazard.”
“Not at all.” He shakes his head once, resolute. “And the plan has not changed. I got the moves mapped out. Doesn’t hurt keeping my eyes on the prize.”
“You’re not just saying that? So I don’t worry myself sick about you?”
“I never lie to you.” With that restrained, self-effacing smile. “And you’ll do that anyway.”
Times change, but Neil is not so fickle. He’s as steady as Vincent’s ever seen him, confident, self-possessed. There’s both fierceness and serenity to his composure, a sort of mystic certainty that signals either delusion or higher wisdom. Vincent prays it’s the latter. Neil has no idea, the depths of his fear. How crazy he’s been going these intervening months. It would run anyone ragged, the maddening combination of longing and terror. At night he gets himself off to various filthy imaginings, snapshot memories of their trysts in Old Town, then tosses and turns in his sweat-stained sheets, haunted by the knowledge of Neil’s deadly trade.
Every night he watches the 11-o’clock news, chewing his nail beds to shreds. Every score, every city, he wonders. So long as he doesn’t see Neil’s face floating next to the network anchor, he’s content to be left wondering. Whether it’s a bank in Baltimore or a jewelry store in New York, any hit big enough to make headlines could theoretically be Neil and his crew. Every dollar or every diamond, an investment in their great romantic escape. Though he disapproves on principle, it’s not on account of moral rectitude that his stomach turns. It takes more Jack Daniels than he’s proud of to settle it.
“I missed you,” Vincent says feebly.
“Every day?”
“Hey. Since when do you know how to tease?”
“I learn from the best.”
Naturally. But his arm slinks around Vincent’s waist. As always, his touch is a comfort, precious consolation. Neil reads him like a book.
“Yeah,” Vincent sighs. He feels the weight of the jet lag suddenly, the crash of sustained adrenaline, deferred exhaustion. He nods solemnly. “Every day, every night . . . weekends . . . holidays . . . ”
“You could use a vacation.”
The soothing motion of Neil’s thumb over his hip stops him short of an X-rated retort. He could use a stronger drink in the meanwhile, or a hole in the head.
He leans into the touch, tucking his head under Neil’s chin in a sideways embrace. Out here a couple of guys cozying up in a bar doesn’t turn so many heads. And Neil doesn’t shy away. He casually plucks the cigarette from Vincent’s fingers to steal a drag, sneaking a hand under his shirt at the small of his back, discreet as palming a wallet. The sudden heat of his skin jolts Vincent to attention. He scans a nervous glance around the room, remembering himself. Neil turns his face back to his with a finger.
“Let ‘em look.”
“But—”
“We’ll never see them again.” He sweeps Vincent’s hair off his forehead. “I want them to know.”
“What, know what?”
“That you’re mine. That I am a lucky man.”
It about knocks him over. Vincent reddens furiously. Weak in the knees, at a loss, he takes a frantic drag off the cigarette and searches helplessly for an ashtray. No luck. Where does Neil get off, selling him these Old Hollywood lines with those big brown bedroom eyes, Mr. Bad Boy Nice Guy, totally incongruous, perfectly harmonious? And Vincent’s buying.
Off the clock and in over his head, a well-timed wisecrack is his best defense mechanism. He fumbles for levity.
“Unbelievable. He means it, too, this shit. You believe this guy?” He turns his head to and fro in appeal to some unseen audience. “And look at me, here I am swooning over it. Eating it up.”
Neil smiles knowingly. The ice rattles in the glass as Vincent retrieves mojito number two. He manages to bolt down half of it before grimacing from the headache and pushing the rest aside. At least now he’s thoroughly tipsy, the better to manage the fearsome intensity of his love, the nightmares of loss that have followed on its heels, neither of which he is equipped to handle. He’s got a handle on physical imperatives, at least, prepared for what comes next. For what he’s going to ask Neil to do to him.
“C’mon, you smooth-talking son-of-a-bitch. Time for you to take me upstairs.” He tugs at Neil’s sleeve. “Mach schau, mach schau.”
Neil endures this with dignity and good humor, patiently extracting his wallet to settle the bill. He tosses a pair of twenties on the bar and downs the rest of his drink. At last, he looks meaningfully at Vincent, and sustains piercing eye contact as he laces their fingers together. He presses a kiss to Vincent’s knuckles, proud to play the dashing suitor, the gentleman thief, appearing quite pleased with himself. Also alarmingly handsome. Vincent stares at him in fake outrage, bemused, smitten.
“You ready?”
“What are you, gonna escort me?”
“Why not?”
“Neil, somebody will see us.”
“So?”
“So . . . ”
So indeed. What the hell does he care? Thousands of miles from cold hard Chicago, ensconced by a drunk and disinterested crowd, they can get a head start on that happy ending he keeps hearing about. While Neil secures their futures robbing banks. Sure, why not? The lights dim suddenly, adjusting for the hour, a more appropriate nocturnal ambiance. Somewhere unseen the bartender turns the stereo up. It’s The Brothers Johnson. “Strawberry Letter 23.”
Vincent laughs in spite of himself, in spite of the odds, at the forces conspiring against them. Neil’s fearless ease is contagious. Right now, he’ll take all the fearlessness he can get.
“Fuck it.” He shrugs and flashes a grin. “Let ‘em look.”
If you arrive and don’t see me, I’m going to be with my baby.
Glasses abandoned on the bar, cares and worries temporarily forgotten, they beat a brisk escape the way they came. The jaded California clientele and suntanned tourists pay them no mind. The din of the lounge recedes behind them.
Their arms swing, hand in hand, for as long as the low light protects them.