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Thursday; 11:50 p.m.
The job sours in Ramsey’s gut long before there is any real sign of danger or sloppiness.
Jack notices--of course they do. But they’ve been wrong about Ramsey often enough that they’d stopped trusting instincts a long time ago. And Jack has been working with him long enough to know Ramsey won’t talk about it, even if asked.
So tonight, even as they can feel Ramsey turning and hardening, they ignore him.
Ramsey is glad for it.
The two of them keep a low profile in a black Oracle between the boardwalk and the Vespucci marina when the feeling clenches at the bottom of Ramsey’s belly. It’s something like nausea. Somewhere something is going wrong--or is sitting on the precipice of going wrong. Staring down into a chaotic abyss.
“Run a touch,” Ramsey orders. He doesn’t stop looking at the sea, doesn’t turn to peer at Jack in the dim light. They lift the radio and begin the check-in procedure.
“All points please touch with your 20,” Jack says, asking the boys for their locations. Their voice is cool, casual.
“Dennis on 01,” Gavin says.
“Charlie on two.” It’s Michael.
“Dee 03,” Ray says.
They wait for Ryan. Another beat.
“Fucking Haywood,” Ramsey says, shaking his head slowly. There it is. The source of that feeling.
“Mac, I need your 10-20. Please advise,” Jack says cooly.
Nothing.
“Anybody have visuals on Mac?” Jack asks. Even now their voice betrays nothing.
Ray and Gavin both buzz back with a negative, but it’s not surprising. The two men are positioned nowhere near Haywood.
“Charlie, do you have a visual on Mac?” Jack asks, slower.
No answer.
“Charlie, do you copy?”
It takes real concentration, now, for Ramsey to keep his eyes on the ocean. He wants to turn and face Jack, to look at the radio in their hands as if it would elicit a faster response from Michael. But it’s illogical and he won’t do it.
“What the fuck,” Jack says under their breath--not into the radio, just into the interior of the Oracle. Ramsey controls his breathing.
“Roger, Frank, I have visual on Mac,” Michael says then. “He’s turning his fucking radio to the right channel now.”
“Mac at 04, sorry,” Ryan says.
The feeling of unease is still at the edge of Ramsey’s brain.
It’s not simple nerves. Ramsey has been a professional criminal for 23 years--more than half his life. He’s been doing this longer than anything else, and he’s unfazed by the fact that every job could see him coming home to the penthouse with a smaller staff than the one he left with. Simply stepping outside of those reinforced doors meant taking their lives into their hands.
No, it’s not that.
And if not that, then something real.
Ramsey’s mind moves through the facts like hands on rosary beads. Fact: each of Ramsey’s staff members is positioned to play to their best strengths. Fact: the current team has been on the job four years without a fatality--the longest Ramsey has ever kept a crew alive. Fact: the staff has intercepted deliveries like these without his help before.
But.
Fact: the safety is making them complacent.
Fact: complacency makes this team bored.
Fact: boredom makes this team take stupid risks.
---
Ten minutes pass before the sour feeling manifests itself in reality.
The package has come ashore and the boys are in place. Geoff lets Jack direct the action, and they adeptly move the men around like chess pieces from the safety of the black sedan. Smooth and calculated.
Until it’s not.
“Mac and Charlie are not at the drop,” Ray says, the abrupt change in volume making Jack jump in the driver’s seat. Ray sounds frantic. “Do you read me Frank? I repeat: Mac and Charlie are not at the drop. Shit Jack, I don’t know where Ryan and and Michael are and they’re not responding.”
Jack--the calm center of the crew’s world--clicks the watch at their wrist, starting a timer. Time has a tendency to warp for all of them when a job goes south, and it’s important to keep an eye on how long their radio silence really lasts.
“Hearing this?” Jack says, looking at Geoff. The boss stares out towards the beach.
“Hearing it,” Geoff says. “I want my eyes on them.”
---
“Roger,” Jack says over the radio. “Frank has been advised.”
Ray’s heart is pounding from his place on the rooftop. He’s lost Ryan and Michael in his scope.
“Dee, keep trying for a visual on them,” Jack orders.
Yeah, what the fuck did they think Ray was doing?
“I don’t--Gavin, how long can you hold them?” Ray hisses into the radio.
“I can buy you two minutes, boy,” Gavin says, warm and calm. “Maybe a smidge more.”
“I’m gonna need more than a fucking smidge dude--”
The fact that the two of them are so calm is making Ray even more insane.
“Jack, what’s the boss say?” Gavin asks.
There’s a long pause and for a moment Ray’s panic ratchets up. He’s not ready to extract himself and Gavin if they’re the only two left on the radios.
“Boss exited the Oracle a smidge ago,” Jack says, finally.
“Your call then, love,” Gavin says.
“Buy the time,” they say.
---
3:30 a.m., the same night
“You can tell me what’s the matter or I can go sleep in another room,” Ramsey says.
He won’t drag the conversation out of Michael. Not tonight. The adrenaline has worn off, the sex did nothing to comfort either of them, and his guts are grinding now like they’re full of gravel instead of whiskey and water. Geoff can sense that he has something to say and the fact that he’s not just out with it is irritating him.
Michael snorts.
“I know you’re not one for pillow talk, but that’s a little abrupt.”
It’s true. The sweat hasn’t even cooled on their skin.
“Something’s on your mind and I’m not playing 20 questions with you,” Ramsey says.
Michael pushes away from him in the bed and flips to his back. He stares up at the ceiling fan. He looks a little hollow around the eyes and Geoff wars with himself, wants to pull him back and wrap an arm around him with bruising strength and breathe into his hair and pretend like sleep could come to him tonight.
Instead he remains motionless, looking at Michael.
It’s a stand-off for a 90-second span. Finally Geoff decides to make good on his promise, sitting up and slinging his legs over the edge of the mattress. He’s about to rise and find a change of clothes in his dresser when Michael starts to speak. Geoff stops, sits, listens.
“I know you care about me,” Michael says, “in whatever way it is that… you know, you’re able to.”
“You make me sound like I’m handicapped or something,” Geoff says, not looking at him.
“That’s not what I mean,” Michael says.
“Then you should’ve left it at ‘you know I care about you,’” Geoff says. He doesn’t mean to bait Michael’s temper but he watches himself do it, knows he’s doing it. When they talk--when he gets like this, it’s like watching something on television and having no power to change the plot.
He looks at Michael then, as if maybe the contact beyond words could help explain why he can’t budge off this mood. And... it does. Michael’s expression softens when he turns, the beginning of a hard scowl melting away.
“Go on,” Geoff says, finally.
“Sometimes I realize I could die and you’d still be ok,” Michael says.
It’s clearly what he’s been chewing on all night, mulling over since the incident with Ryan.
The irony cuts Geoff, but he fixes his jaw. Telling Michael everything he doesn’t know about that evening would be more effort than it’s worth.
“And when I die, you won’t be ok?” Geoff asks.
“Christ, don’t put it like that.”
“A 40-year winning streak seems awfully unlikely to keep on,” Geoff says.
“Not getting killed isn’t a winning streak, Geoff,” Michael says. He’s pushed himself up in bed and he sits on top of the sheet naked, drawing his legs up to his body. “It’s just surviving.”
“Not in our line of business,” Geoff says under his breath. Michael narrows his eyes at Geoff.
“But no,” Michael says, picking up the line of thought. “I wouldn’t be ok.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Geoff says. He tries to soften his voice. Fails. Hopes he sounds fond, anyway, but really can’t tell. “You’re the toughest kid I ever met.”
Michael puffs a breath through his nose. It does feel a little ironic to say about Michael right now with his frame made smaller by the position, his whole body looking slight, curled in on itself against the headboard of the king bed. Thin bones and freckles and curls. A methodical, career killer housed in a package that you’d probably trust to babysit your kid.
“Yeah, I’m steel when I work. That’s why you hired me,” Michael says. “I’m not talking about work.”
“There’s not a difference for me,” Geoff says. “It’s all me, work or not.”
“I’m aware of that,” Michael says. “And the more I learn about it, the more it scares me.”
“I care about you more than anything,” Geoff says. “More than anybody. How often can I say it?”
“You don’t hold me back from anything,” Michael says. “What does it feel like when you put me on the front line?”
“Terrible,” Geoff says without hesitation. “Bad. Like I want to drink myself to death. Like I want to turn myself in. Like I want to go straight and get a house with a front yard and a golden retriever and a six figure job at an investment firm where I wear a goddamn suit and tie everyday.”
Michael chuckles a little at that.
“You wear a suit and tie most days, Geoff.”
“By choice,” Geoff says through a grin, hoping maybe this has broken the tension, hoping maybe the conversation is over. It’s not.
“Then why do you do it? Why risk it?” Michael asks.
The irony is so thick it almost has a taste in Geoff’s mouth now.
“You’d rather I hold you back?” Geoff asks.
“No.”
“You want to be on the front line, Michael,” Geoff says. “If I held you back, you’d find a reckless way to get closer. I’d rather know right where you are and what you’re up against from square one.”
“You’re never even concerned, though.”
“You don’t know that.”
“And what would you do if I got hurt?”
“You get hurt all the time. I’d take you to the boys, just like we did for Ryan tonight.”
“But if I died?”
Ramsey tries to imagine it, but even without the exercise in fantasy he already knows the answer.
When he responds, the words are ice in Ramsey’s mouth:
“If you died, I would raze this city and start over somewhere else.”
It may be what Michael expected to hear, but it’s clearly not the answer he wanted. There is a long pause and Geoff lays back down in bed, pulling the sheet to his hips.
“Sometimes I wonder how long I can do this,” Michael says.
“Then retire,” Geoff says, softly. “You can still live here--work logistics, be our support.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
Another pause. The penthouse is quiet, feels suspended above the city. Geoff’s mouth has gone dry and for a moment he thinks maybe Michael has fallen asleep sitting up. But then he moves, sliding under the sheet, turning away from Geoff.
“You can have anything, Michael,” Geoff says. “But I can’t give you what I haven’t got.”
---
4 a.m., the same night
Geoff slips out when Michael does fall asleep.
He makes his rounds on the way to the kitchen.
Haywood’s door is open and the room is dark.
The man had taken several shots during the action, but they were blissfully clean, the full metal jackets bruising through him. Plenty of blood and chaos--just like Ryan liked it. Another few scars to add to his collection.
Kdin had responded to the call immediately and met them at the loading dock, ushering Ryan inside and only shuddering a little this time at the man’s smeared face paint.
Jack’s left their door halfway open, too. Old habits die hard and paranoia is part of survival. Even with the penthouse’s security, everyone wants the best sightlines they can get, the best ability to hear whatever is happening in the rest of the floor.
Boundaries for the crew are easy: if someone is fucking and they don’t close the door, you leave them alone and try not to listen unless invited.
Four years go, the six of them had traded privacy for safety and never looked back.
Geoff hears the two of them in spite of himself, the lilt of Gavin’s accent, the bass of Jack’s reply, shared laughter and the creak of a bed frame.
Geoff has a pang of regret that the four of them hadn’t bedded together and ridden the last throes of adrenaline as a group rather than pairing off as they had. It would’ve at least pushed Michael’s troubling thoughts further away. Maybe after he saw the sunrise, Michael would’ve abandoned that line of thinking and never even brought it up.
Ray isn’t anywhere and it doesn’t surprise Geoff. Neither of them sleeps well even on the best night, and rest after a job is a virtual impossibility for the two men. Geoff guesses he’s taken a motorcycle from the garage for a ride through the mountains, or gone back to visit Haywood.
The kid didn’t mind watching surgery and if Jeremy or Matt or whoever was on duty that night wanted a break, Ray could always be counted on to have a steady hand and a good knowledge of what instrument Kdin needed next. Kid could’ve been a PA if he hadn’t been cursed with the same thirst for anarchy that they all share.
Geoff realizes he’s been standing at the bar. Not sure how long.
His hand finds the decanter he wants. A generous pour of whiskey, neat. And on a whim he produces a cigar, mellow and illegal, and trims it. He drops a lighter into the deep pocket of his robe, balances the glass and the cigar in one hand, and mounts the stairs to the roof.
---
“You mind company?” Geoff asks, approaching the pool.
Ray’s got his pants rolled up to the knee and he’s dawdling his legs into the rooftop pool as he cleans the pieces of his rifle. Geoff hadn’t expected him up here, but his slight figure had been a pleasant surprise.
“Yeah boss, real rude of you to barge in on your own roof,” Ray says warmly. Geoff just hums, breathes the liquor vapors rising off of his glass, doesn’t make a move to sit down.
“Jesus, come on,” Ray says, turning now and looking up at him. He pats the granite next to him. “Can’t you see I saved you a spot?”
Geoff smiles then, places the glass and cigar down, retrieves the lighter from his pocket, and tosses his robe onto a lounge chair nearby before carefully sitting down and dipping his own legs into the pool.
The night is hot and humid and the air feels as good on his back and chest as the cool water feels on his legs. He takes a sip of whiskey. Ray is polishing something carefully, holding the piece of bright pink metal up occasionally to check his progress from another angle. Geoff’s employee looks wan and ghostly in the eerie light reflected up from the pool, patterns moving across his skin as they both agitate the water.
“You tell him what happened?” Ray asks.
“He doesn’t need to know,” Geoff says. “When Ryan’s back on his feet, I don’t need the two of them fighting.”
“You’re the boss,” Ray says with a little shrug, not looking up from his work.
“What does that mean?”
Ray stops and considers his words.
“He already has a hard time believing you care about him,” Ray says.
“Christ, you got my bedroom bugged Narvaez?”
“Why--did he say something?” Ray asks
“Yeah,” Geoff says. “What you just said is the Cliff’s Notes version. How’d you know?”
“Michael said something about it this week,” Ray says.
“What did he say?”
Ray looks at him in a way that makes him instantly uneasy. Like he feels sorry for Geoff.
“He asked me if I thought you were capable of love,” Ray says.
“Wow. Ouch.”
“Yeah, that was my general reaction,” Ray says. “I don’t think he meant it. He’s just… Michael is figuring shit out for himself.”
“What did you say to him?”
Ray chuckles a little under his breath, goes back to polishing.
“I said first of all, just because I’m ace doesn’t mean I’m the fucking expert on a-whatever whathaveyou,” Ray says. “And second of all, I said you’re aro--not a fucking robot.”
“There’s a difference?” Geoff jokes. He holds the cigar between his teeth and begins to light it.
“Yeah,” Ray says seriously. “There’s a difference. A robot doesn’t flip his fucking dogshit and go awol over two minutes of radio silence from his boyfriend.”
“Fair enough,” Geoff says around the cigar.
“A robot doesn’t slit two dudes’ throats and stomp a third one’s brains in just because he’s not sure if his totally capable employee is capable of defending himself from a few grunts trying to sneak up on him.”
“Were you watching me the whole time?”
“Jack told me to keep an eye on you after you left the Oracle,” Ray says. “You know they don’t like it when you pull that shit, boss. I kept you in my crosshairs. Michael didn’t hear a thing.”
“That’s what worried me,” Geoff says, alternating pulls from the cigar and the drink.
“Michael would’ve,” Ray says. “You didn’t even let those assholes get close before you--.”
“Michael might’ve,” Geoff corrects.
“And if it was Gavin off the radio for two minutes--still think you would’ve lost your fuckin’ marbles?” Ray asks, hitching an eyebrow at him.
Geoff sets the glass down and leans back, cigar clamped between his teeth. He splashes the water a little. He doesn’t want to answer this question.
“Hm,” is all he offers.
“Say it out loud,” Ray says. “It’ll be good for you.”
“You my fuckin’ guidance counselor now?” Geoff asks. Before he can reply, Geoff lays the cigar over the top of his glass and lets his body topple headfirst into the pool with a terrific splash. The cold water squeezes the air in his lungs and he emerges gasping, feeling especially alive. He strokes away from Ray.
“Great, splash me and swim away,” Ray says. “Real mature.”
Geoff floats, lets himself feel weightless for a moment. He paddles back, though, propping his elbows on the corner of the pool and shaking off his hand before retrieving his cigar.
“Watch it,” Ray hisses, shying away from the flying water droplets.
“If it was Gavin, I wouldn’t have gone,” Geoff says. “He can handle himself.”
“So you’re saying you can trust Gavin more to take care of himself than Michael?” Ray asks, sounding dubious. “Gavin’s a goofy cunt.”
Geoff chuckles deep in his throat.
“We should get him business cards that say that,” Geoff says. “We could change his official title to ‘Goofy Cunt.’”
“That’s not his official title?” Ray jokes.
They pass a moment. Ray moves on to cleaning a new piece of the gun.
“You should tell him what you did,” Ray says. “You don’t have to say why. Or I can tell him.”
“What does it matter?” Geoff asks. “He’s just going to blow up at Ryan over the whole situation. You had to have heard him raging on the way back here--about how if those gunshot wounds didn’t fuck him up, he sure was going to after the needless distraction Ryan caused in the middle of a job.”
“He’s always pissed, that’s his thing,” Ray says. “He’ll get over it. But he thinks you sat in that sedan sharing a nice calm evening with Jack while he was MIA for two goddamn minutes. You think that feels good for him?”
“I’m sure it doesn’t, Ray,” Geoff says. He’s finished the booze faster than he intended and he sets the glass down a little too hard. “I’m sure no part of being involved with me past having me as a boss feels good in the least, and trying to understand why he wants that fries my fuckin’ brain.”
“Uh, at the risk of being a fucking Hallmark card,” Ray says, rolling his eyes, “it’s because Michael loves you, boss.”
“He’s a moron.”
“And you love him too, even if you’re a fucking glitch about expressing it.”
Geoff frowns at him.
“So I should tell him I lost my cool and put all of our lives in danger and did a sloppy job of snuffing three pricks tonight--to what? Give him proof I care?”
“That’s… literally exactly what I’m saying,” Ray says.
Geoff sighs. His cigar has gone out in his hand and he doesn’t care to relight it. He drops it, lays back, lets himself float away from the edge of the pool, staring up at the clear sky. The light pollution of the city washes everything in orange, but when his eyes adjust, he can see pinpricks of white. Stars.
“It’s easier to talk to you, Ray,” Geoff says up into the air. “Sometimes I wonder why I didn’t end up with you instead.”
“Because I don’t like you enough to let you fuck me,” Ray says, not missing a beat. “Pretty sure your patience would’ve worn thin pretty quick on that.”
“I like you, Ray,” Geoff says through a laugh.
“I like you too, boss,” Ray says. “Just not that much.”
“I feel like I don’t disappoint you,” Geoff admits. He moves to tread water before Ray can reply. “Actually, let me rephrase that. I feel like everything disappoints you, so I don’t feel like an anomaly.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
Geoff bobs in the water. He’s already adjusted to the temperature and everything feels warm. For the first time that night, Geoff feels safe--Michael sleeping in the room beneath them, Gavin and Jack in each other’s arms, Ryan getting stitched up by people Geoff trusts, and Ray here with him, cleaning that stupid pink gun. Even with the dischord, even with Michael mad at him--or whatever it is that the kid is feeling--Geoff feels something like happiness. It’s almost a physical sensation, like the boundaries between what is Geoff and what is not-Geoff have gone fuzzy and the skin separating him from the pool water is just a metaphysical formality. He floats.
The noise of the city is punctuated with gentle splashes as Ray dawdles his legs over the edge.
“Would you tell him for me Ray? What happened tonight?”
Ray doesn’t look up from his work.
“Yeah,” he says. “I will in the morning.”
Geoff dives then, the world loud but muffled in his ears, forcing his eyes open under the water, watching the patterns paint the concrete walls of the basin--and he swims to the deepest part until his chest scrapes against the pool floor, lungs burning for air.