Dear
Brian
Chapter Ten
The force of the bullet hitting his shoulder slammed Brian back against his chair, the bullet exploding out the back and burying itself in the wall behind him.
It didn’t actually hurt at first. He was mostly aware of the sound of the gun blast less than four feet away from him and the feeling of having been punched—hard.
Somehow he knew that he couldn’t move his left arm—even allowing for the fact that his hands were tied behind him. He felt as though he was somehow outside of his body, watching what was going on from some calm canter that was quiet and didn’t hurt and wasn’t bleeding. He flashed back to some of the really bad beatings that Jack had given him when he was a kid. This was sort of like that.
If he could just remove himself from what was happening, he’d be alright.
He could stand anything for a little while.
He always could.
He heard Dennis saying something about how he should know that he’d never have hurt him if he’d had a choice, if he hadn’t been forced. How this was all his fault because all he wanted was for Brian to love him and for them to be together and happy.
That was all he had ever wanted, since they had been at Penn State together and Brian had ignored him then, too. He had wanted them to be best friends, but he had hung around with that fucking lesbian and wouldn’t give him the time of day.
That was going to fucking change.
It fucking was.
The phone rang, Brian’s private line.
Idly he wondered who the shit was calling him now. Sorry, can’t come to the phone right now, could you please take a message?
After about the eight or ninth ring Dennis seemed to take it personally. “Answer the fucking thing.”
“My arms…” Right, they were still tied behind his back with his silk tie. Usually he liked being tied up. Not this time.
“Oh, Christ.” With none too good grace, Dennis went around behind him, releasing his hands. “Get the fucking phone.”
Painfully, he reached for the receiver. “Yes?…This is Kinney…Yes, he’s here with me now…Dennis Bream, we were college classmates at Penn, right Dennis?…He says that’s right…I’ll ask him—Dennis, would you like to speak to the police? A Detective Horvath is on the line…He says not right now, thanks…Me? Well, I’m shot, that’s why my voice sounds odd…In the shoulder…Yes, it’s still bleeding…No, it went through and out the back…I can feel blood dripping down my back, that’s how I know…Alright, I’ll tell him.” He hung up the phone.
“What will you tell me?”
“The paramedic says that if we could get pressure on the wound, it would help, otherwise I might bleed to death.”
“Where are they—the cops, where are they?”
“The lobby, down in the parking garage, out on the sidewalk. They’re evacuating the building.”
“What will it take for them to leave?”
“For you to give up.” Brian was still just sitting in his chair, his left arm lying limp on his left thigh, his other hand on the desk. His head was against the chair back. He was watching the other man.
Dennis came around the desk. Brian had taken his suit jacket off earlier; his white shirt was sticking to him with the blood. It occurred to him that if he’d worn his red shirt, it wouldn’t look quite so bad. He remembered someone telling him that it’s always worse if you look.
“You know, you really annoyed me when you took up with the blond. I mean, it was alright when you were just fooling around with him, I know you need to get out now and then, but it’s just been going on much too long.” He rummaged through Brian’s gym bag, lying behind a chair, taking out a tee shirt. He pressed it against the front part of the wound. It turned red almost immediately.
Brian watched it with some interest. He smiled.
“What?”
“I never really liked tie-dye,” It was starting to seriously hurt now. “That was my favorite workout shirt.”
“I’ll get you another.” Dennis seemed to be trying to figure some way to keep the shirt pressed against his shoulder, not seeming to notice that the exit wound was at least twice as large and bleeding more.
The phone rang again. Brian reached out his good hand. “Yes?…I’ll ask him. Janet Bryant wants to talk to you.”
“Who is she?”
“…They say she’s the negotiator.”
Dennis took the receiver. “This is Dennis Bream. Do you have my history and all that shit pulled up yet?…Good. So you know that I mean it…No, I don’t think that I want to do that…Are you shitting me?…No—wait, sure, why not—put him on…Is this Justin? Still visiting the grandparents, are you?…Good, you just stay there for a bit. He’s busy right now…No, he’s not dead you idiot, he answered the fucking phone, didn’t he?…Fuck off.” He hung up.
“Is Justin here?” Brian had almost sat up when he heard the name, but thought better of it when he tried to move.
“They said that he’s still in New York. I guess someone called him.” Dennis seemed distracted by the call. He seemed to have forgotten about Brian’s injury, at any rate. “Now, if I take a little walk, you’re not going to leave or anything, are you?”
“Why on earth would I do that, Dennis?”
Without warning he grabbed the injured shoulder, giving it a brutal shake. Pain exploded until it was all there was. It shot down his arm and his chest, down his back and up his neck into his skull. He could feel more wet warmth dripping down his torso and it was difficult to breath.
“I really dislike sarcasm, Brian. I just really don’t like it. Now you’ll stay here if I leave, right?”
He was unable to answer; all he could do was try to gasp in some air.
“Good. I won’t be long.” Dennis walked out of the room, gun in hand; he went down the hall to the conference room, the big one—the one that overlooked Point Park thirty-three stories below.
The phone rang again.
Fuck.
“What?”
Horvath was back. “Brian—is he out of the office?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re trying to distract him, get the fuck out. Now.”
Shit. He knew that he had to stand up if he was going to save his life, but it was just so fucking hard.
With effort, he pushed himself to his feet. The room swayed. He clutched the edge of the desk for support; his left arm a dead weight—that seemed to help for a second. He had to move, he knew that. He just didn’t know if he could. In a moment of clarity, he grabbed his cel from the recharging stand, made his way to the door using furniture for support, glanced down the corridor and made his way unsteadily as far as Cynthia’s desk. He looked up again—he thought that he could hear his voice, but it was coming from miles away.
He went through to the main work area, catching his foot on a chair leg. Sprawling, as he fell he heard Dennis shouting something from the other side of the moon. He forced his way up again, moving as far away from the conference room as he could get.
He heard more shots, heard more shouting, glass was breaking somewhere.
He tried to keep going, but it hurt so damn much and he knew he was going to pass out if he didn’t rest.
He went through the closest door, one of the ad exec’s small offices. It looked a lot like his old office used to, but this one had pictures of a wife and kids on the wall. Wilson. It was his office. Brian noticed that his computer was still on and that he had been working on the mock-ups for that candy company when he had run out.
They looked like shit, even when Brian was only half conscious. If he ever saw him again, he’d have to ream him.
Hearing someone coming closer, hearing Dennis swearing, he made it behind the desk, lying on the floor with his legs pulled up and wished he was as small as Justin, as small as Gus and hoped that he would be passed by.
He knew he was still bleeding and tried to tell himself that it had slowed down, but he thought that it probably hadn’t. How much blood did a person have? Five quarts, was it? Something like that.
He heard Dennis looking for him, heard him going from room to room, heard the occasional sound of another round being fired and he hoped that he was the only one still left on the floor. He remembered that he had his cel and wondered what number he could call—he didn’t know the negotiator’s number or Horvath’s. Shit. Well, maybe he could just order a pizza while he was waiting.
He tried to think.
911.
“Yes?”
“I’m in the Scaife Building downtown. There’s an armed man here. I need you to patch me through to the Detective Horvath. He’s here somewhere.”
“You’re name, sir and you’re location?”
Christ on a bike. “Brian Kinney, thirty-third floor. I’m shot. Just fucking connect me.”
“You’re injured?”
“I just told you that I’m fucking shot.”
“Do not curse at me, sir.”
“Get Horvath on the Goddamned line.”
“I don’t have to listen to that sort of language, sir.”
“Just transfer me, you cunt…” She broke the connection.
Fuck me.
Still bleeding, he watched with increasingly dulling interest as his blood formed a small pool around his upper torso on the floor, sinking into the rug. His last conscious thought was, “They’ll never get that out. Vance is going to shit.”
Dennis was starting to get really annoyed at the way the day was turning out. He’d thought that he’d go over to Brian’s office, scare the shit out of a few people so that they knew he meant business and then he and Brian could sit down and have a nice one on one talk. They would work out whatever the problem was with Brian accepting everything he had to offer and then they would have some dinner—he already had the ingredients at home and the chicken was marinating—talk a little more over wine, maybe while they were in the hot tub. They would go upstairs and make love all night. In the morning he would surprise Brian with fresh squeezed orange juice, some egg white omelets and they could take Gus to the park.
It sounded perfect, but it just wasn’t working out the way he’d thought it would.
First that cunt at the reception had flipped out when he’d asked her where Brian was at the moment, could she tell him that he had a visitor. He knew from the way she was acting that he really had no choice but to shut her the Hell up.
Damnit, he hated shit like that.
Then by the time he’d gotten up the three flights of stairs to Brian’s floor it was obvious that some kind of alarm had been sounded and the place was a frigging ghost town. It was just dumb luck that Brian was still there, really.
He’d had to tie him up—sure he’d had any number of fantasies about that, but this wasn’t the way he’d pictured it.
He felt terrible about shooting Brian.
Shit, he really felt badly about that, but he was just so damn angry at that point. He’d let everyone get out and then he’d admitted that Cynthia had called the fucking cops.
Shit.
All he had to do now was to find Brian and get them both home. He’d take care of Brian. He’d make sure that the bullet wound was clean and that it healed properly.
He’d been really upset when he saw how Brian had been thrown back against the chair the way he had from the force of the impact.
He’d hated seeing that, and he’d really hated the way the blood had splattered up on Brian’s face and back against the wall behind him.
Brian was just so impossibly beautiful, so frigging perfect—to see him with the red splashed up on him like that pretty much sucked.
Damn there had been a lot of blood.
It had soaked down his shirt to the waistband of his slacks and it was probably the same in the back.
Shit, he really had to find him to take care of that. He had to still be around here somewhere.
The phone in Brian’s office rang again. He walked in to get it. Amazing how sound carried when there was no other noise—no people, no computers, no Xerox’s or anything going.
“Yes?”
“Dennis? Is Brian alright?”
“What makes you ask?”
“Well, we haven’t heard from him in a little while and he said something about being hurt. Is he with you?”
So the cops didn’t have him either. “He’s fine.”
“Is he hurt? We’re a little concerned about him.”
“It was nothing. I told you he’s fine.”
“Could I talk to him?”
Fuck this. He hung up the phone and began a room-by-room search of the place.
Back in Wilson’s office Brian was starting to come around again. He was groggy and it was hard to think, but after a minute he remembered where he was and what was going on.
He listened hard, trying to locate Dennis, but the carpeting muffled most footsteps and he wasn’t really hitting on all cylinders anyway.
He’d just have to chance it.
Pulling himself semi-upright, he made it to the office door, pausing, hearing nothing and went back out to the corridor. He was about three quarts of the way to the near stairwell when he heard the phone ringing and Dennis talking, though he couldn’t make out what he was saying. The call was short and he sounded pissed.
He kept moving, staying low since he could no longer stand upright. He tried to keep his breathing as quiet as he could, knowing he was gasping for air.
He thought he saw movement out of the corner of his eye and froze where he was. The shadow passed without stopping.
Twenty feet to the fire door, fifteen, ten. He could almost feel the metal. His hand on the push bar, he leaned against it, knowing it would make noise, hoping that the alarm was disabled or broken or something.
Just as he felt the door move the ringing started—the cel. Jesus, the fucking cel phone. Could it be any fucking louder?
Pushing the door open, he went through, fell through as quickly as he could, trying to close the door to stop the phone ringing, to stop Dennis from trying to find him.
He took out the phone as he stumbled, fell down the stairs, dropped it, hearing it shatter as it hit bottom over three hundred feet below.
Down one fight and he barely managed to open the door to exit the stairwell. He knew that he would never be able to make it down to the ground floor under his own power and prayed—something he hadn’t done in years—that the elevators were still operating.
Pushing the button, he noticed, without caring, hat he left a bloody smear but he heard the machinery running and saw the lights by the lift doors come on.
Thank God.
A minute later they slid open. Pushing “G”, he propped himself against the wall and waited for the descent to end.
The police had seen the elevator moving, knew someone was likely making an escape and were there when the doors opened. Brian looked at them, lacking the strength to move. A paramedic moved over to him, catching him before he collapsed. A gurney was brought quickly, he was lifted onto it, strapped down and an oxygen mask was fitted over his face, all seemingly within seconds.
There was shouting and lights from news cameras. There were about a thousand police cars and ambulances, all with their lights going and people were asking him questions.
What was his name, was the madman still up there, was anyone being held hostage, how many were dead, were there any more wounded?
Horvath pushed his way through. Brian was barely conscious at this point. He repeated most of the questions so that Brian might be able to hear, to answer.
Yes, he was still up there. Yes, he was armed. No one else was with him as far as he knew.
Horvath patted his good shoulder as they loaded him into the back of the ambulance. Brian was vaguely aware that Vance rode to the hospital with him.
On the thirty third floor, Dennis was starting to realize that either Brian was a hell of a good hider or he had gotten away.
He had found traces of blood on the walls where Brian had braced himself as he made his way along the halls. He had found the dank stain on the office carpet behind the desk and on the push bar to the stairwell. It was obvious what had happened.
Brian had gotten away.
Turning, he walked back to the shattered window overlooking the street below. It was a large window, running from floor to ceiling, now completely void of glass after having had bullets pierce through it. The ambulance was down there and he could see a figure being loaded into the back, surrounded by a horde of people and television cameras, visible even from this high up. The doors were closed, the ambulance pulled away. He could hear the sirens as it left.
Stranding in the open window, he realized that he had misjudged, that he had lost.
He heard the quiet voice behind him. “It’s over now Dennis. I want to help you. Just come with me. You’ll see, it will be alright.” He could feel the woman moving closer.
Shit, it just hadn’t worked out the way he had thought it would.
“Dennis? Give me your hand, alright? I’ll make sure that no one bothers you or asks you any questions until you’re ready.”
He calmly leaned forward, enjoying the feel of the fresh breeze as he let himself fall.