My Busboy Page 21

  Bucky apparently had other ideas. And that worried me greatly.

  “So where’s the cat?” Bucky asked again, casually pulling a short knife from the waistband of his trousers. It looked like the sort of knife a fisherman might use. A sharp narrow blade, maybe six inches long, with serrated edges on the back for scaling fish. The handle shone white, like ivory, but was probably some knock-off plastic imitation, sparing the life of one more African elephant, which was pretty much the only positive thing I could see about the knife at all. The blade glittered blue in the overhead lights and gave the impression it was sharp as hell. I hoped I would never be in a position to find out for sure.

  I remembered Chaz, lying right this minute in a hospital somewhere being treated for cuts administered by this very knife.

  “You attacked Chaz,” I said, finding it a little hard to keep the accusatory tone from my voice.

  Bucky shrugged. “Had to be done. That guy is an even bigger pain in the ass than you are.”

  I decided not to follow up on the tacit insult in that comment. I had more important things to worry about. Surviving was one of them. Protecting Dario was another.

  “How did you get into the condo?” I asked, stalling for time, wondering what the hell Dario and I were going to do to get out of this situation. “Before, I mean. When you tied up Clutch.”

  Bucky sucked at his ruined teeth, studying my face, flipping his eyes from me to Dario, then back again. “You learn a few useful things living on the street,” he said. “It’s not all fun and games.”

  “Bucky, I know you’ve had a hard life. Still, it’s no reason to—”

  Bucky squinted his eyes up at the ceiling, as if not wanting to hear what I had to say about anything. “Shut up, Robert. Even your voice is annoying as hell.”

  Still stalling for time, I tried another tack. “I only wanted to help you. What more could I have done? If it’s about the books, my fame is pretty much gone. Two weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List six years ago, and I haven’t had a hit since. You can’t be jealous of my writing, Bucky. There’s nothing left to be jealous of.”

  “That’s not true,” Dario said quietly, causing Bucky to stare at him in amazement, then throw his head back and howl with glee.

  “My God, even when his life is on the line, the lad is loyal to a fault! Worried about his boyfriend. Still stroking his lover’s fucking ego.”

  Bucky’s eyes socketed to me—suddenly cold and seething with rage. “It had nothing to do with your writing, you egotistical prick! I don’t give a shit about your writing or your asinine books. It’s about your happiness! It’s always been about your happiness! I figure you’ve simply had more than you deserve, and it’s time to put a stop to it. That’s all it is, Robert. Nothing personal. Just—you know—being equitable. Tit for tat, and all that. You’ve had your share of happiness, and now my putting it to an end will give me mine. Couldn’t be simpler.”

  Obviously for our benefit, Bucky tested the sharpness of the blade in his hand, sheering his thumbnail down to the quick as if he was slicing through a chunk of cheese. Watching him, Dario’s shoulders tensed. His posture went rigid. Still staring at the knife, he shuddered. I coolly pressed my palm into the small of his back, trying to calm him. He didn’t exactly relax, but I saw a new sense of purpose harden his handsome face. The steel in his eyes was suddenly as sharp as the blade in Bucky’s hand, and I knew no matter what happened, I could count on Dario not to fall apart in the clenches.

  We were in this together, and we’d get out of this together.

  “Why did you steal the computer?” I asked, merely making conversation, trying to lower the tension in the room.

  “So no one could track his threatening e-mails,” Dario said quietly, answering the question for him.

  “We did track them,” I said. “You know that. They led to the city library.”

  “Makes sense,” Dario said. “Those computers are free to the public. A hundred people a day probably use them. It’d be hard to trace any one user. I’m sure Bucky knew that.”

  “As a matter of fact I did,” Bucky said. He tore his eyes from me and centered them on Dario. I saw a flash of regret spark his eyes for a second, or maybe a flash of jealousy, but it was quickly replaced by a cool glint of hatred. “Cute and smart too,” he said with a sneer. “You’re a lucky man, Robert. You’ve always been a lucky man. This little busboy might have made you happy if I’d given him enough time to do it.”

  “He’s already made me happy,” I said. “Whatever happens next, you’ll never be able to take that away.”

  Dario’s hand squeezed mine. He stepped an inch closer to my side, as if drawing courage from my presence, which was odd since I was actually drawing courage from his.

  “We’ll see about that,” Bucky said, his words iced with cold promise.

  My cell phone jangled from the coffee table where I’d dropped it when I went to answer the door. All eyes in the room turned to stare at the thing as it buzzed and vibrated and jiggled across the tabletop, spinning in a noisy little circle like a deranged bumblebee.

  Before I could make a move toward it, Bucky lifted his foot and scraped it to the floor, where he stomped down on it, killing the sound immediately. Shards of plastic crackled beneath the sole of his shoe. One pathetic little whine and beep and my new iPhone gave up the ghost forever. Six hundred bucks down the drain. Not that money was high on my list of priorities at the moment.

  “Your phone’s out of order,” Bucky said.

  “That’s okay. It was cumbersome anyway.”

  Bucky laughed. “Cool to the end.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that, so I changed the subject. “So why, Bucky? Why are you doing all this?”

  Bucky stared at me as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, what he was hearing. “Why? Why? You have everything, Robert. I have nothing. It isn’t fair.”

  “We live with our decisions,” I said. “Your life is what you made it. Just as mine is. It was the drugs, Bucky. If only you hadn’t fallen into the drugs.”

  He yawned as if he had heard that line of reasoning at the rehab facility and wasn’t particularly interested in getting another dose. “Yeah, yeah. Blah, blah. The drugs don’t alter the facts of life, buddy. I had to even the playing field. Why should I cower down there on a street corner, shivering in the winter and melting in the summer, shitting in gutters and fishing through trash cans for food? Why should I live on the occasional nickel tossed to me by assholes like you while you sprawl out over my head in this high-rise luxury condo with your fucking cat and your twelve-year-old boyfriend? I had to take it away from you, Robert. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “He isn’t twelve, he’s twenty-one. And take what away?” I asked, sincerely wanting to know. “You realize it’s all an illusion, right? My fame, or whatever you think it is. It’s gone, Bucky. I outlived it. What exactly do you think you have the power to take away?”

  His eyes narrowed into two cruel slits, burning directly into mine. I had the impression that Bucky saw or felt nothing in the world aside from his hatred for me at that moment. Other than that, there was nothing left for him to embrace. He had no other goal in life but to see me brought down to his level. And the horrifying thing of it was, maybe I did understand. Maybe in Bucky’s shoes, I would have felt the same way.

  “Tell me,” I said again, still stalling for time. “You didn’t answer my question. What is it you think you have the power to take away?”

  “Everything,” he said calmly. “I have the power to take away everything.”

  Dario surprised us both by pointing to Bucky’s arm. The one with the angry scars. “You stabbed yourself! That’s why your knife wounds are on your chest and only one arm. They weren’t defensive wounds like the doctors said. They were self-inflicted. You’re right-handed. That’s why all your injuries are on your left side. I can’t believe the cops didn’t see through that.”

  “Sherlock Holmes,”
Bucky smirked. “And just so you know, the cops only see what they want to see. They see whatever they think will make their job easier. Justice doesn’t factor in. I’m the opposite. To me, justice is everything.”

  Glaring at Dario with a wicked sneer, he pantomimed wringing an invisible neck of pure air with his bare hands, like a homicidal Marcel Marceau. The widening of Dario’s eyes made Bucky emit a satisfied chuckle. The bastard was really enjoying himself. It was like he fed off fear, and at the moment my living room was offering up a smorgasbord.

  I put an arm in front of Dario’s chest and eased him back to stand behind me. I didn’t trust Bucky with that knife. One lunge and it could be all over. At least this way, he would take me out first and give Dario a chance to run.

  I started blathering on, trying to fill the desperate silence while I worked on a plan inside my head. The blathering came easy; the plan was coming up short. Still, I had to stall for time. Maybe that had been Detective Stone on the phone. Maybe he was beginning to wonder why I hadn’t answered. Maybe by now he had asked himself why my phone was suddenly no longer functioning. Maybe he’d even stop by to check on us, make sure everything was okay. Which it most certainly was not.

  “You haven’t wasted your life, Bucky. Not yet. You’re still young. You can still make something of yourself,” I pleaded, trying not to preach, but trying not to sound frightened either. I needed Bucky to see reason, although even I knew it was pretty much too late for that. What I really needed was to buy us more time. Even a few minutes might make a difference. “I’m sorry you’ve been through so much. I am. But if you do this, if you hurt us, you’ll be throwing away the only chance for a better life you have left. You don’t want that. You haven’t done anything yet that’s too bad. You’ve only hurt one person, Bucky, and that could be argued down to a petty offense by a good lawyer who understands the consequences of a drug-addled mind. But if you injure anyone else, it’ll be too much for the authorities to overlook. Come on, Bucky. Don’t do it for me. Do it for yourself. Put the knife down. Let’s talk this over. Let’s get you back into rehab and help you start over. You’re still my friend, Bucky. I still want to help you.”

  Bucky stared at me as if I was the biggest fool he’d ever seen in his life. He was flipping the knife in his hand now. Blade, hilt, blade, hilt. There was an astonishing grace to the way he did it, as if he was born with that knife in his hand. As if he had memorized the weight and feel of it, the balance, the graceful way it twisted and somersaulted through the air as it sprang from his fist. The gleaming of the knife as it caught the light was almost hypnotizing. As I gaped at it, the blade seemed to grow keener, as if the very air itself were sharpening the edge. Flickers like cold flame strobed from the blade with every perfectly timed flip.

  A trickle of blood appeared on Bucky’s arm. It was his good arm, the uninjured arm. It seemed Clutch had scored a few points when Bucky stuffed him in that pillowcase. Good pussycat. I’d have to remember to give him a can of sardines later, if I survived the night. Clutch deserved it.

  Bucky’s renewed glare of anger caught my eye. It was as if someone had flipped a switch inside his head, infuriating him all over again.

  He opened his mouth and every ounce of my attention was suddenly centered on him. Dario too, I assumed, since he had such a grip on the back of my belt that I was finding it hard to suck in a breath.

  “Sorry, Robert,” Bucky said around a sneer. “I’m afraid it’s time to get this show on the road. The time for chatter is over. And frankly, the thought of talking this over with you anymore makes me want to throw something. You, preferably. Maybe over the railing. I practiced on the cat. Maybe I can perfect my technique on you.”

  Then his eyes settled on Dario’s horrified face. “Or maybe it’d be more interesting to see if your little boyfriend knows how to fly. Christ knows he’s flitty enough. What do you think?”

  A cold fury poured through me. “I think if you touch him I’ll kill you.”

  Bucky threw his head back and cackled out a blistering laugh. “Writers!” he cried. “Always so imaginative! Always making shit up!”

  I took Bucky by surprise by laughing with him. “Like the woman who attacked you?”

  Bucky’s eyes lit up at that. “I thought the woman was a nice touch. But Chaz!” he snorted, spittle flying through those awful teeth of his. The meth scars turned bright crimson in his face as if they were backlit with a red light bulb somewhere inside his head. “What a coward. He pleaded with me not to hurt him, you know. I had to kill him. No way around it, really. He would have turned me in. I didn’t mean for him to see me creep up on him, but he did. He always was a miserable little whiner anyway. Pining after you all those years. He’s better off dead.”

  I was surprised to see Dario’s smile spring to life. “He isn’t dead. He’s in the hospital right now and expected to survive.”

  Bucky swiped the knife back and forth across his pant leg like he was sharpening it on a whetstone. He stared at Dario with cool eyes that registered nothing. If he believed what Dario told him, it didn’t seem to make much difference. The hatred that burned in his eyes for the two of us was obviously the only thing still anchoring his universe.

  For the first time, I understood Bucky might be truly insane. And the moment that thought entered my head, my fear ratchetted up a dozen notches. Still, I didn’t have much time to palaver the point. Whether or not Bucky was a blithering lunatic seemed pretty low on the list of things to worry about at the moment.

  No one is coming to help, I said to myself. No one knows we’re in trouble. Do something now or we’ll never get out of this alive. Save Dario. If nothing else, save Dario.

  Dario, still held tight to my side, turned his eyes to me as though through some psychic connection he’d heard the thought that had just swept through my head. He tensed against me. His eyes were wide and darting everywhere at once, but they were determined too. Dario wasn’t a coward. That much was obvious. I was scared to death, but Dario looked mad. Good and fucking mad. And ready to try anything.

  At that moment, the dynamics in the room shifted when Clutch padded out of the bedroom. His fur had lain down since we saw him last so he didn’t look quite as angry as he had earlier. The only anger in the room came from Bucky now. Not that that was necessarily a blessing.

  Clutch mewed plaintively from the bedroom doorway as if wondering what all the hubbub was about. When he did, Bucky turned toward the sound.

  He cursed in exasperation when he saw the cat standing there in front of him. “So you didn’t fly away after all,” Bucky said. “Too bad.”

  Clutch hissed and his hackles rose when he gazed upon the man who’d stuffed him in a pillowcase and dangled him two hundred feet over the city streets. Obviously, Clutch never forgot a face. Or an act of cruelty.

  With Bucky’s back to us for the very first time, I acted. More out of fear than bravery—but at least I acted. It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t even smart. It just happened. As if a single thought had stuttered through both our heads simultaneously, Dario acted at the same moment I did.

  While his attention was diverted, Dario and I charged across the room and hit Bucky from behind. He went sailing forward and smacked the wall. The knife flew from his hand. Pictures clattered to the floor. A floor lamp tipped over, the light bulbs shattering like gunshots. Clutch howled and tore back into the bedroom. Dario, Bucky, and I landed in a tangle of arms and legs and scuttling, flailing fury.

  Bucky gave his head a shake and struck out in every direction. Scrabbling around on the floor with one hand for the knife he had dropped in the fall, he swung his other arm back and forth, frantically trying to connect a fist with anyone holding him down. He spotted the knife at the same moment I did. Before he could lay a hand on it, I grabbed a fistful of Bucky’s hair, yanked his head back, and kicked the blade out of reach. It went skittering across the living room carpet and bounced out onto the balcony, where it came to rest against a stack of flowerpots in the cor
ner.

  “Get the knife!” I screamed to Dario, and a heartbeat later Bucky’s elbow shot out and caught me in the throat. My vision darkened. I gasped for air, clutching my neck. I couldn’t breathe, but still I didn’t let Bucky go. Holding on to his shirt with one hand, I continued to grab and claw at Bucky’s hair with the other.

  Dario tore away from the two of us, freeing himself from the melee. He half crawled, half ran toward the doorway, where he tripped on the lintel and crashed face first onto the balcony floor outside. Still scrambling forward, a desperate blur of arms and legs, he scraped and crawled his way toward the knife, desperately trying to get at it before anyone else.

  Bucky shot another elbow into my face and tore himself free from my grasp as stars flashed before my eyes. I tasted blood and the plastery grit of a shattered tooth. A thunder stroke of pain crashed through my head. I felt a fistful of hair still in my hand where I’d ripped it from Bucky’s scalp.

  “No!” I screamed as he slipped out of reach. “Dario, look out!”

  I shook my head to clear my vision and stumbled after him. I heard a sound behind me. The cat? The door leading out to the hall? Was someone banging on it? What the hell was that noise?

  It didn’t matter. I had to get to Bucky.

  I still tried to suck in a decent breath of air while, with a sinking heart, I saw Bucky stumble through the balcony door and tackle Dario, both of them crashing into the railing and leaning precariously over the top rail as if about to topple over.

  I wailed in terror for Dario, but Dario had some fight in him.

  He kicked out and swept Bucky’s feet out from under him, and thank God they both crashed to the floor away from the railing.

  Again I shook my head to clear my vision. I reached out to the wall, trying to brace myself, trying to regain my balance, trying to drag myself to my feet. A little air was getting into my lungs now, so I stumbled upright and raced for the balcony to give Dario a hand.