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FAKE First Year Together: A New Day (May)	By : BrittColumbia Category: +. to F > FAKE Views: 14597 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own FAKE, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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   FAKE
First Year Together: A New Day (May)

         Chapter 11

Pairing: Dee/Ryo

Rating: Chapter 11
is rated "Mature". There's no sex in this chapter. One little smooch
is as close as we get. However, this story is really starting to move. Please
read and review. Reviews make me feel loved. If you're one of those people who are waiting for the story
to be completed so that you can read the whole thing at one go, I totally
understand. But if you're reading chapter by chapter, send me a little love why
don'tcha? As usual, chapter 12 is up on my LJ site already. The address is http://brit-columbia.livejournal.com/

Spoilers: To Volume
7

Timing: Set in May
directly after Book 7 ended

Summary: Ryo is coming
to terms with the changes in his relationship with Dee, as well as his new
sexual identity. Meanwhile, Dee and Ryo are searching for a young runaway. This
story explores homophobic attitudes but is primarily a love story between two
men.

Disclaimer: I do
not own these characters. They are the property of Sanami Matoh. I am not
making any money from this. Oh, but I created Thomas and Mike Abernathy,
and they are not based on anyone living or dead. If your name is
Abernathy, sorry about that! Jim is Bikky's friend from Book 1 in the
manga. He was one of the three boys who got pre-Camp bear-beating tips from
Dee.

Author's notes: I
believe in a strong and equal Ryo and Dee.

Thank you, Blue
Simplicity, for beta-ing this chapter TWICE and kind of under duress at
that. I'm grateful to you.

         FAKE First Year
Together: A New Day (May)

         Chapter 11

"Hey
Ryo?"

"Yeah?"
Ryo glanced up over his glasses at the teenager's guarded face.

"Can
I talk to you for a sec?"

"Of
course, any time, B." Ryo closed his book and put it on his
nightstand. The mattress rocked a
little as Bikky sat down on the edge of the bed. The light from the bedside lamp sparked gold off the fine
hairs on his arms. Bikky took a moment to compose his thoughts, and while he
did, Ryo watched him. The rounded limbs of the boy's childhood were slowly
disappearing, and were being replaced by a muscular angularity and the budding
promise of manhood. For the first
time, it hit Ryo that his happy life with Bikky wasn't going to continue
indefinitely.

"Well,
I got this friend."

"A
good friend?"

"Nah...Not
close. More like a friend of a
friend."

"And?"

"Well...he's
having some problems with his dad."

"You
wanna tell me about it?"

"This
kid is a fa-- he's gay, or 'bi' or something, I think. And his dad... His dad has a problem
with that."

"Um. What kind of problem?"

"A
smacking-around kind of problem. A
"Get-the-hell-out-of-my-house" kind of problem."

"Bikky,
that sounds pretty serious," said Ryo, sitting up straighter and leaning forward
a bit. His heart was already going out toward the unknown teen whose father was
actually hitting him and ordering him out of the house just because of his
sexual orientation.

"Well,
yeah, it is. He's in trouble, and
I...well, you got any suggestions?"

"Bikky,
how old is this boy?"

"Same
age as me. Maybe a bit
older."

"Where
is he now? Is he at home?"

"He's
stayin' with a friend, sort of."
Bikky looked down at his hands.

"What
do you mean, 'sort of'?"

"His
dad kinda kicked him out and he doesn't have a real place to stay right
now. He's just stayin' with
friends, but that can't go on for long, you know. His friends have their own
troubles."

"Has
he contacted any child welfare agencies?
Social services?"

"Uh,
no, I'm pretty sure he hasn't.
He's scared to."

"Scared?"

"Of
his dad. He's apparently a pretty important guy."

"But
I thought his dad kicked him out?"

Bikky
sighed. "I don't really get
it, either. It seems kinda
complicated."

Ryo
was looking at him steadily.
"Would you like me to talk with him?"

"Yeah."
Bikky nodded. "I been telling him about you. But you have to promise him that you won't immediately call
his old man."

"Well,
you know, his father may have to be contacted at some point, but I promise I
won't do it immediately. Will
that do?"

"Yeah,
it'll have to, I guess."

"So
when is this meeting likely to happen?"

"I
dunno. I haven't seen him for a
few days on account of being GROUNDED. If I could be temporarily, just
temporarily, mind, 'ungrounded', I could go find him."

"Nice
try, B. Doesn't your friend have
access to a telephone?"

"If
he does, I don't know the number."
Bikky's eyes met Ryo's frankly.
"He's moving around a fair bit. I don't know who he might be with now. It's gonna be hard
tracking him down if I have to try an' do it by phone."

Ryo
gave this some thought. Was the whole thing just an elaborate scheme for Bikky
to get out and meet his friends?
He wouldn't put it past him, especially considering how the boy had been
acting lately. However, his gut
told him that this time his foster son was telling the truth.

"How
much time do you need?"

"Just
gimme a few hours after school tomorrow. If he's not all the way over in
Brooklyn or something, I can probably track him down and set up a face to
face. When are you gonna be home
in the next little while?"

"Dee
and I are still on first shift for the next two weeks. Friday was an unusual thing because we
covered for co-workers who wanted to watch basketball, remember? That means
we're home around dinnertime. You wanna bring him home for dinner?"

Bikky
grimaced and looked away. "I
don't think he's gonna go for that right off the bat."

"Well,
do you want us to meet you guys at a coffee shop, or some other neutral place
before dinner?"

"'Us'?" Bikky's voice indicated a hint of disapproval. He was still pissed at Dee for that
whole prison thing yesterday. He
was also a little surprised by how quickly Ryo's face seemed to close this
time. For so long, his foster-dad
had been kind of apologetic about Dee. Now, it was...Shit. Things sure had changed.

"Yes,
'us'. Dee and I are a package,
B."

Bikky
didn't answer right away and Ryo waited him out. Finally, the boy shrugged and spoke. "Okay, I'll see
what I can do."

^&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&

"Yeah,
but why do we have to meet them in McDonalds?" complained Dee. "Couldn't we have met them in a
nicer place? With better coffee?"

"Well,
it was Bikky's suggestion," said Ryo. "And just when did you start getting so picky about
your coffee, anyway?"

"I
dunno. It's gotta be your influence. Thank God we're not eating dinner here! We're not, right?"

"Well
no, no matter how loudly those french fries call to us. We're going to have something healthy
at home later."

"What's
for dinner, anyway?"

"I'm
hoping that Bikky's friend will want to come home with us. It may be that the boy hasn't been
eating properly. I'll probably
make something fast, like pasta.
Or maybe rice and chicken.
I'll ask them what they want."

"Well,
whatever you cook, I'm sure it'll be delicious, as usual. I'll wash the dishes after, if you
like." Dee couldn't believe
that that last sentence had just come out of his mouth. You are so whipped, buddy, he silently told himself.

But
it had made Ryo look at him with affection, so Dee grinned happily. He adored it when Ryo looked at him
like that. It made him feel ten
feet tall. It made him feel loved.
Then it made him feel frustrated because he couldn't pull his darling into his
arms and give him a good nuzzle right there in the middle of McDonalds. That reminded him again that he wasn't
happy to be in this den of fast-food iniquity, and his face clouded over.

"Why
did he have to pick one with a 'Play Place'?" he grumbled.

"Oh,
I don't know," said Ryo.
"Don't you like watching the kids play? I do." His
eyes followed a laughing little girl as she came down the blue plastic slide.

"It's
not the kids I mind, it's the way their moms are watching you, like a pack of
lions surrounding an oblivious...wildebeest."

Ryo
laughed. "I'm a
wildebeest?" he asked.
"Aren't they kind of funny-looking?"

"Well,
I was gonna say an oblivious 'gazelle', but then I thought a wildebeest would
be more butch."

"Am I butch?" Ryo looked at
Dee with interest.

"You're
one tough sonofabitch, Ryo. But
you're so quiet about it that people sometimes miss that about you."

Ryo
gave him a shy smile. "They're checking you out, too, you know."

"Maybe
I should kiss you and dash all their hopes."

Dee
leaned a little closer to him and tried not to glare at a tittering pair of
women near them who seemed to have Ryo in their sights. Man, there was more potential action
here than at a singles' bar. He'd
have to tell Ted about this place, and then get some free pizza out of him in
exchange for the address.

"Dee."

"Uh-oh,
here comes one of the lions."

"Dee!"
Ryo shook Dee's sleeve. He was
looking in the opposite direction.

"What
is it, babe?" Dee's eyes flickered briefly to the pretty woman who had
approached their table. He hoped she'd heard.

"Look
out there. In the parking lot. That's Bikky, and -- and I think...Dee, is that
Thomas Abernathy?"

"Jesus,
yeah! What the fuck? He's gonna
run, Ryo. This might be our only chance."

"Quick,
get up and take the back door." Ryo abruptly turned toward the woman who
was now standing hesitantly next to their table. "Miss," he said, "Is there something I can do
for you?"

"Um...yes,
if you wouldn't mind," she said, smiling in relief that he had finally
noticed her.

"Would
you like to sit down?" Ryo stood up and offered her his seat. He quickly took Dee's empty seat so
that now his back was to the room and he could no longer watch Bikky's
approach, nor be seen from afar by his foster son's companion.

"Ehrm,
well, sure. Thank you," she
said, and looked at him a little shyly. Once seated across from him, she stared
at him for a moment, then blushed and looked down. "I'm sorry to bother you like this," she began
hesitantly.

"You're
not bothering me at all," said Ryo, hoping that his sudden tension wasn't
apparent in his face or voice.
"Go on."

"W-well,
you see, that's my little girl, Julie, over there, the one who keeps going down
the slide."

"Yes,
I saw her. She's
adorable." He forced himself
to smile, but even though he was feeling edgy about Thomas, it wasn't that
hard. The child WAS adorable.

"I
-- Oh gosh, here I am yapping away, and I haven't even introduced myself! I'm Karen, by the way." She extended her hand.

"Randy," said Ryo, shaking her
hand with a smile. "You were
saying?"

"Well,
I'm here alone, and I need to go to the restroom for a minute and I didn't want
to drag Julie out of there when she's having so much fun and all and you seem
like a very nice man, Randy, and I was wondering if you would watch her just
for a moment?" she said, all in a rush.

Ryo
knew very well that Julie's mother had just detached herself from one of
several small groups of women over by the play area, so she was by no means
alone. However, he couldn't
discourage her just yet because he had decided that she was going to help him
keep from turning around until the Abernathy boy was too close to get away.

"Are
you sure you want to trust me? I
mean, how can you be sure I'm not, you know, a dangerous person?"

"Hey
Ryo!" That was Bikky's voice,
from the sounds of it, about a dozen feet or so behind him, slightly to the
left. He held up a hand, but
didn't turn his head. "Just a
minute, Bikky, the lady is talking."

Behind
him, Bikky frowned. This was
definitely weird.   Jim and
Tom didn't notice anything though, and they continued moving a few steps closer
to Ryo, who was sitting with some blond chick. Where the hell was Dee? Bikky looked around, but didn't see him. The blond chick had finished saying something
like, "You could never be a dangerous guy," and Bikky spoke up again.

"Where's
the moron?"

Ryo
twisted gracefully out of his chair in one fluid motion, and looked at the
three boys.

"Hi,
guys," he said softly, hoping Thomas wouldn't recognize him right away
until he at least had him in a handshake.
Unfortunately, Thomas' eyes widened in alarm as soon as he saw Ryo's
face. Uttering an expletive, he lunged toward the door. He had reckoned without Jim, who had
the misfortune to be in his way, and by the time he had maneuvered around him,
Ryo had him by the back of his hoodie.
Ryo pivoted so that he was now between the boys and the door. In a flash, Thomas had shrugged out of
his hoodie and was running toward the back door, with Ryo right behind
him. Get him Dee, he willed silently, and sure enough Dee did. Dee
was good at latching onto running kids, thanks to his years in the orphanage. Bikky, Jim, and all of the lions stared
with open mouths.

By
the back door, Thomas was struggling in Dee's powerful grip and yelling for
help.

"This
is a kidnapping! Someone please
help me! I don't wanna die!" he shouted.

The
lions were glaring. Little Julie
who had crept out of the play area, was crying, and clinging to her mom, who
also looked scared.

Ryo
stepped up and took Thomas by one of his arms to back up Dee before a concerned
citizen could step forward and attempt to rescue the kid.

"NYPD!"
he shouted, and flashed his badge with his free hand.

"Melodramatic
little bugger, ain't he?" growled Dee. "Don't worry kid, you're not
gonna die, unless you're planning to eat the food here or something." Carol had made Dee watch the DVD of 'Supersize
Me' recently, and it had made a big impression on him.

Ryo
looked at Bikky, whose face was thunderous. Uh-oh, he
thought.

"What
the hell is up with arresting my friends? This is the second time in less than
a week! He didn't do nothin'!"

"Bikky!"
Ryo warned. "We're not arresting him. We just want to talk to him."

"But
we ARE gonna cuff you if you don't settle down," Dee informed Thomas, who
ceased struggling and hung limply in Dee's grasp.

"Let's
go," Ryo said. "You too,
Bikky."

"How
about me?" Jim asked hopefully.
Whatever happened next, he sure didn't want to miss it, and he was
pretty sure that there would be food involved one way or another.

"Let
him come," said Bikky sarcastically to Ryo. "Just in case you get an
urge to arrest him too. He'll be right there for your arresting
convenience."

"That's
enough, Bikky," Ryo said firmly. "Okay, everyone, out to the
car."

"Where
are we going, anyway?" That was Thomas' voice.

"Someplace
that's a little less of a zoo than this one," said Ryo, who briefly caught
Dee's eye, but kept his face straight.


&^&^&^&^&^&^

"Jeez,
talk about coincidence! You know
we gotta call this in," Dee had muttered to his partner in the car. Ryo hoped that the boisterous dialogue
in the back seat would cover those words.

"Let's
just wait a bit, okay? Until after we've asked him a few questions," Ryo
had replied in a quiet voice.

       Now
they were sitting around the kitchen table of Ryo's apartment. A big pot of spaghetti was boiling away
on the stove, and Jim had been put on sauce-stirring duty.

Ryo
poured coke for the boys out of a two-liter bottle. When Bikky had seen Ryo
taking it out of the trunk of the car, his sugar-hungry eyes had lit up because
Ryo didn't normally keep soda in the house.

"B,"
Ryo said. "Why don't you and
Jim go to your room and get started on your homework, while Dee and I talk to
Thomas?"

Thomas
looked a little alarmed and quickly said, "I don't mind if they stay. They know all about me, anyway."

"Okay,
if you don't mind, we're willing to stay," Bikky said, looking hard at
Ryo, still feeling quite mistrustful.
He had brought this boy to his foster father because he thought he would
be able to help. He had never
expected Ryo and Dee to be chasing his friend through McDonalds and manhandling
him out of there, practically in handcuffs. "After all," he added. "We're the closest
thing you got to a lawyer right now."

There
was an ever so slight tightening to the set of Ryo's mouth, which no one would
have noticed except Dee, Bikky, or Aunt Elena, if she had been there. Thomas didn't see it at all. After all, he had his own problems.

"So,"
Ryo said to Thomas. "Why did
you leave home?"

Thomas
shifted uncomfortably. "I've
got a problem with my dad. I think Bikky musta told you something about
it."

"Did
he hit you?"

"Yeah,
a few times. He's got a--a problem
with my sexual orientation."

Dee
was amused by how matter of factly Thomas said 'sexual orientation'. Bikky scowled into his coke. Dammit, if constantly being surrounded
by guys who turned out to be gay wasn't just turning into the story of his
life. Thank God for Carol, or his
reputation would be ruined.

"How
about your mom?" Ryo asked.

A
little frown appeared between Thomas' eyes. "She's out a lot," he said. "She doesn't hit me or anything,
but she's not like a typical mom."

"Does
she stand up for you when your father hits you?"

Thomas'
lips tightened. "Nah,"
he said. "She doesn't get
involved. She says, 'Oh no not this again,' or something like that, then she
goes to her room. She says we have
to work it out between us. Besides, he usually saves the worst beatings for
when she's not home, anyway."

"How does she feel about your, ah
'sexual orientation'?" Dee asked.

Thomas
took his time answering. Bikky
glanced jadedly over at Dee, expecting to see more amusement, but to his
surprise, saw only compassion instead.

"She
thinks it's abnormal. Disgusting.
She-- she's worried about germs and diseases." Thomas took a shaky breath and burst
into tears.

"Take
it easy there, buddy," said Dee, patting the boy's shoulder.

"Hey,
man, you want some more coke or something?" asked Bikky, clearly
uncomfortable.

"Just
let him cry," said Ryo.

Behind
them, Jim maintained an invisible presence, and industriously stirred the
sauce.

~~~~%%%~~~~~~~~~~~~~%%%~~~~~~~~~~%%%~~~~~~~~~

         Ryo handed the phone
to Dee. "Chief wants to talk
to you now. Thomas, the Chief
talked to your parents and they're willing to let you stay with us for a couple
of days."

"Cool!"

Dee
took the phone and went into the bedroom. When he came out, Thomas, Bikky and
Jim were in front of the TV squabbling over video games. Ryo was sorting spare bedding.

"Hey,
guys, pause the game for a sec," Dee said.

"Screw
you, dork-head," said Bikky automatically, but he did as Dee asked.

"Tom,
our Chief wants to set up a meeting with your parents on Wednesday, if
possible. It's just a meeting, and
no one is going to force you to go home with them if you're not ready to do
that. Ryo and I will be right
there with you, okay? And in the
meantime, you got about 48 hours breathing room. That's the best we can do at this point. You on board with this?"

"Umm..."
The happy smile had disappeared from Thomas' face, and he sat with slumped
shoulders, looking years older than he should. "Suppose I don't wanna go home with my parents after
the meeting -- what's gonna happen to me then? Juvie Hall?"

"No,
because you haven't been charged with any crime," Dee said. "You'll be going into temporary
foster care, but I don't know in which of the boroughs. It may not be Manhattan. That's really all I can tell you at
this point."

"I'm...
Thank you for helping me like this, Detectives. I really do appreciate this, but...you don't know my
dad. This is not gonna turn out to
be good, I just know it. He said he was gonna send me to Juvie Hall where I'd
get the crap beaten out of me, among other things."

"Oh,
we know your dad," said Dee with a sidelong look at his partner. "Don't we, Ryo?"

"Yeah,
we've met him already," replied Ryo, with a little warning frown in Dee's
direction.

"Well,
then, you know what an asshole he is!
And how he's always right and everyone else is always wrong."

Ryo
looked at the desperate boy sympathetically. "Yeah," he said finally. "We couldn't help noticing that he has some very strong
views about right and wrong. But
even though your dad's a cop, he can't send you to Juvenile Hall just because
you ran away from home."

Thomas
was still looking doubtful, so Bikky slung his arm around the boy's shoulders
and whispered urgently to him for a moment.

Ryo
cut them off by saying, "No he CAN'T go back and hide out with Karl. I'm afraid that's no longer an option
because he's in custody. And his
name's Eddie, anyway."

         Bikky blinked at him a moment in
surprise. "Huh?" he
said. "Don't you cops
communicate with each other? Eddie
was bailed out first thing this morning."

"What?"
exclaimed Ryo and Dee in unison.

"It
was probably my dad," sighed Thomas. "Jeez, I hope Karl is
okay."

"Thomas,"
said Ryo. "I think you'd
better tell us what's REALLY going on."

%^%^%^%^%^%^%

Not
far from Wilson Lloyd High School, Eddie was busy removing the deadbolt from
the door of his most recent home.
He was sorry to leave it, as it had been one of the few places he'd been
able to live in where he had felt really secure. It was windowless, which had
pros and cons, and the plumbing didn't work, which was a definite con, but the
door had been made from some kind of solid old wood reinforced with a steel
plate. No one could have kicked
that door down in the middle of the night and caught him by surprise. With a sigh, he put the tools back into
his tool kit and tossed the dismantled lock apparatus into a box in his
shopping cart. It was really too bad he had to move. He had taken a room over at the Westington, a dive hotel on
Hammersley. It was just a
temporary measure. He never felt
safe whenever he had to stay there.
But this place had been made by the cops. Bikky's new dad and his partner had forced him to unlock the
door that time they followed the kid.
Mike knew too, of course, but then Mike wasn't one of the cops he had to
worry about. Mike had come through
as usual, getting him out of that holding cell he'd spent the weekend in. Even a room at the Westington would be
better than that.

Mike
had been waiting for him here this morning, wanting the damn cell phone. Eddie had tried to stall, of
course. He owed that much to
Tommy, poor kid. There had been a strange look in Mike's eyes when Eddie had
tried to tell him that the cell phone had gone with the boy. It was a look that caused Eddie's
finely-honed sense of danger to tingle warningly.

"You'd
better give me that phone, boy, or by God, I'll lay you out," Mike had
muttered, his Irish lilt coming out stronger as a result of the anger that was
always so close to the surface in him.
Eddie had known it was no use.
But still, as he handed it over, he spoke a word for Tom.

"Come
on, Mike, go easy on your kid this time.
You lose your temper too easy with him. He's a good kid, you know?"

"He
USED to be a good kid," Mike had corrected. "If I let up on him now, he'll descend all the way down
into the very bowels of degeneracy, and I won't be having that in MY
family."

Eddie
had tried one more time, but Mike had cut him off. "When you've been a father for any length of time,
Karl, that's when you can come and preach to me about how it's done. Until that day, I'll thank you to keep
your mouth shut. Got that boy? Mouth shut. "

Eddie
shivered as he remembered the pointed way that Mike had looked at him as he
said those last two words. He knew
it was a warning. Mike's eyes had been much colder than he had ever seen them
before. But, hey, who did Mike think would listen to a homeless, jobless guy
like him?

The
sound of a human voice emitting low but anguished sobs cut across his
thoughts. The noise was coming
from a small form huddled in the shadows at the mouth of the alley. Eddie pushed his loaded cart in that direction. The sobbing abruptly stopped and the
figure tensed and seemed to try to make itself seem even smaller.

"Who's
there?" Eddie called softly,
but got no reply. He moved a
little closer. "Tamara? Is that you?"

She
raised her tear stained face from where it had been pressed against her knees.
"E-Eddie?"

"Yeah,
it's me. Are you okay, sweetie?"

"N-not
really," she mumbled, and rising stiffly came toward him. He knew from the way she walked, from
the sound of her voice that she was messed up pretty bad, even before he saw
her.

"What
happened? A trick go
sideways?"

"Yeah. Didn't wanna pay. Look at me, Eddie." Her voice
seemed all bruised, like her face.

The
light in the alley wasn't very good, but he could make out the split and
swollen lip, and the puffy eye, partially obscured by stringy dark hair.

"You
should go home, Tamara. You know
you can't work like this."

"Tried. But Rick threw me back out. Told me not to come home until I'd
earned my quota."

"That
Rick's a hard guy," Eddie sighed.

"That's
a nice way of putting it."
Her voice was coming out a little slurred from the damage to her mouth.

         "When
you gonna quit this life, Tamara?"

"When
I don't need the junk no more, honey.
You know how it is."

"
Yeah...I do. Just wish it could be
different for you."

For
a moment he thought she was going to start crying again, but then she shrugged,
and even made a poor attempt at a joke. "How about I just keep buying them
lotto tickets instead?"

"I
think for now, you'd probably best come home with me," Eddie said matter
of factly. He glanced down to
where her spindly legs ended in 4-inch platform heels. "Can you walk in those
things?"

"Sure
you wanna do that? Rick's gonna be
pissed."

"Oh,
Rick and I got history together. I
got a couple of things on him, anyway. He always was a prick, but we mostly get
along. You hungry?"

"Maybe." She tried to smile, but the attempt
ended in a grimace of pain.

"Well,
I got some soup here. We'll heat
it up when we get to my new place, okay?" Eddie was rummaging purposefully in his shopping cart, from
which he fished out a bottle of aspirin.
"But I think you could use a couple of these right away, huh?"

"Thanks
Eddie. You're a good
guy." She clutched the
aspirin to her bony chest and a fresh tear escaped and rolled down her cheek
before she could stop it.

^%^%^%^%^%^%

"My
dad and Karl go way back. They
have some kind of relationship. I
think Karl helps Dad with his job.
He told me he works for him."

"Why
do you call him Karl while Bikky calls him Eddie?" Ryo asked.

Bikky
answered. "Eddie goes by a
few different names."

"Why
do you think it was your dad who bailed him out of police custody?"

"He
didn't bail him out." Thomas' mouth twisted
fractionally. "Bail involves
money, right? My dad is a super cheapskate. I'm sure he just pulled some strings."

"Has
he done that for Eddie before?"

"I'm
pretty sure. I mean, you guys can
do that kind of thing, right?"

"Not
exactly," said Ryo.
"It's not that easy."

"Do
you know what kind of work your dad's got Eddie doing?" Dee asked.

"Nah. Both my old man AND Karl said it was
better for me not to know. But
Karl is scared of my dad, I know that much."

"Has
your father threatened him?" Ryo put down the pile of sheets and blankets
that he had for some reason been holding throughout the conversation so far.

"I
think so, but I'm not sure. Dad
was really pissed about a cell phone video that Karl took."

When
Dee asked if Thomas knew what was on the video, the kid was silent for so long
that Dee began to think he should repeat the question.

But
then Ryo spoke.

"It's
you, isn't it? You're in the
video."

         Thomas
raised miserable eyes to him and whispered, "Yeah."

&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&

         "Don't
give me that crap. I want to know
WHO," insisted Dee.

       The
duty officer shrugged. "I'm
telling ya, I don't know who it was.
Call came from on high that Mr. Calvetti figured prominently in an
ongoing undercover investigation that would fall apart if he wasn't back out on
the street in 48 hours. So we
cooperated. Why the hell should I
stick my neck out?"

"You
said 'on high'," Ryo put in.
"Who, specifically? Which office?"

The
man looked back and forth from Dee to Ryo, clearly uncomfortable. "Like I said, it was all by the
book. Why the hell do you guys care?" he said. "Is that druggie loser part of a case you're working
on?"

"He
was our bust," Dee spoke forcefully.
"And I don't believe that crap about how he's key to an undercover
op. If there was something like
that going on in our jurisdiction, I think I would have remembered the
memo."

"Come
on, Lyle," said Ryo. "We
just wanna talk to whoever made that call and get this straightened out. It doesn't need to turn into something
big."

"Well..."
Lyle hesitated, weighing his options.
"You should talk to Ned Shaver up in Narcotics. He's the guy that called me."

The
two detectives looked at each other, identical frowns on their faces.

       "Is
he 27th?" Ryo asked.

"Um,
no. He's Bronx. But you didn't hear any of this from
me, okay? I don't want to get caught in the middle of a pissing contest between
you guys."

&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&^&

"Voice
mail again," Ryo informed Dee, and hung up. "But I didn't think leaving him a second message would
do anything to promote our cool, calm and professional reputation."

"Huh? But we don't have a cool, calm and
professional reputation," said Dee, reaching for his coffee.

"That's
right, we don't. Largely thanks to
you having a problem with the 'calm' part."

"Me?"
Dee sputtered through a mouthful of coffee. He glared indignantly at Ryo, who had the grace to
blush. "I can think of a few
times--"

Ryo
held up a hand. "I'm
sorry," he said. "I'm
not one to talk, especially since Friday.
But did you have to leave Ned Shaver such an obnoxious message? If I were him, I wouldn't be in a hurry
to call us back."

"Oh,
I would," growled Dee.
"I would fucking LOVE to respond to a message like that."

"Call
me psychic, but I have a feeling that this guy's gonna drag out telephone tag
with us for weeks."

"Hey,
I know a sure-fire way to make the phone ring," said Dee, getting up from
his desk and edging toward Ryo, whose eyes widened in alarm.

"Dee,
I'm warning you-- You'd better not-- mmph!"

As
Dee's mouth abruptly fastened on his, a thousand self-defence moves flashed
through Ryo's mind, the result of years of Karate training, but as usual, he
couldn't bring himself to employ any of them on Dee. Dee's mouth was all hard muscle and soft lips and tasted
like coffee and chewing gum. Ryo
couldn't imagine a woman kissing him with such power and intensity. There was really no comparison. But a moment later, he pulled back. It
was dangerous to do this at work, and Dee ought to know that.

"Dee,
not now. Not here. Stop."

"Aw
come on. We haven't made the phone
ring yet. Just give me ten more
seconds."

"You
always say that, and then it always turns out to be way longer than ten
seconds."

Ryo
tried to push Dee back, but Dee resisted and leaned down to kiss his cheek and
his hair.

Suddenly
they both heard a startled female voice behind them.

"Oh!"
she said. "My goodness,
I'm...I'm...oh my God."

"Can
we--- Oh, it's you, Megan."
Ryo was a bit flustered.
Megan was Drake's latest girlfriend. She was a patrol officer from the 19th.

"If
you're looking for that no-good guy of yours, he's starting off his day at the
shooting range," said Dee easily, and then gave her a smirk. "What's the matter? Didn't your boyfriend tell you about
me?"

"You
too?" cried Megan. "What
IS it with this precinct?"
She swept out and banged the door behind her.

"Well,
good morning to you too," said Dee sarcastically.

Ryo
was glowering at him, and his face was bright red. "You agreed we weren't going to announce our
relationship to the people at work," he snapped. "What do you wanna bet that she tells Drake, Drake
talks to JJ, and the chief dissolves our partnership by lunchtime?"

"Dude,
you're sweating a non-issue. What
did she see? Me trying to kiss you
and you trying to shove me away.
That's been business as usual for the last two and a half years."

"I
hope you're right," growled Ryo.
"Now stay on your own side of the office for the rest of the
day."

"What? Suppose I need to borrow a pencil? Or use the computer?"

"You
have lots of pencils and you always complain about how much you hate this
computer. Keep your hands off me
AND the stuff on my desk."

"Fine,
I won't touch, then. "Dee held up both hands. "But you can't stop me
from looking."

Ryo,
however, wasn't paying attention.
He had pulled out his notebook and was flipping back through the
pages. A minute later, he was
dialing the phone.

         "You
can start working anytime now, Dee," he said, giving his partner an irritable
look

Dee
pretended to sulk and reached half-heartedly for the pile of files on his
desk. He picked up his coffee cup
and found to his delight that it was empty. Now he had a reason to go downstairs to the break room, and
perhaps come back up via the roof.
He unconsciously patted his shirt pocket for the reassuring feel of his
cigarettes. A man couldn't work until he'd had a good hit of caffeine and
nicotine, now could he?

Picking
up the stained and battered plastic Knicks mug that he used for drinking coffee
or sometimes throwing at the wall whenever he was mad enough to, he turned to
Ryo to ask him if he wanted coffee.
Ryo, who was speaking into the phone, just shook his head, and then Dee
remembered that he still hadn't replaced Ryo's broken coffee cup. A pang of guilt shot through him, and
he resolved then and there to take care of it in the next 24 hours. Well, okay, 48 at the most. And in the meantime, he'd bring up some
coffee for his partner in a Styrofoam cup whether he wanted it or not. He quickly left the room before Ryo
could get off the phone and stop him.

When
he came back, his blood pleasantly buzzing from the five-sugar coffee he'd
drunk and the two cigarettes he'd smoked in rapid succession, he was all
charged up and ready to turn on the charm if Ryo got snarky about his somewhat
extended absence. But it turned
out not to be necessary.

"Dee!" Ryo called out as his partner entered
the room. "I've got
interesting news."

"What's
that?"

"Remember
how Abernathy said he was going to get back to me with his wife's cell phone
number?"

"Right. And he didn't exactly do that, did
he?"

"Nope. But after a few phone calls to Cingular
and Verizon and the like, I got it."

"And?"

"And
when I called the number, she answered, 'Alan, darling, thanks for getting
back to me so quickly!'"

"No
shit?" Dee started grinning.

"No
shit. And when she realized it was
me she was pretty shocked."

"Yeah,
she must have been."

"And
now she's quite interested in talking to us. Much more so than she was before." Ryo was grinning too.

"Let
me guess. Before we next contact
her husband."

"Well,
she said she was actually going to reschedule a pedicure..."

"For
little old no-account us?"

"Yeah. We've got a meeting at 2 pm
today."

Dee
hooted and they both burst out laughing.

%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%

end
of chapter 11
- 10
- 11
- 12
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