Harlan's Race

anybuddy. I shudda had a Medal uv Honr for somma the shit I pulled in Soweast Asia. Az it is, nobuddy knows but tha fly onna wall.”
    Chino and I drove the Jaguar home, with the two happy drunks in the back. Russell was busy quoting some Chinese general I’d never heard of, named Sun Tzu.
    We went our ways to separate bedrooms. Russell was still cautious about letting his household staff know. This time, my guest room was a goddam king’s chamber, all gold ormolu and Oriental brocade, warm and fire-lit, drapes closed. Cedar boughs were fragrant on a vast marble mantel supported by two naked marble maidens. It connected discreetly with Chino’s room through a shared bathroom. When I’d turned out the light, Chino’s dark form appeared in front of the blazing fire. He shed tux and cummerbund, flicked on the bedside radio, found a Latin station in New York. A pulsing rumba filled the room softly.
    Shucking his boxer shorts, he looked so different already
    — firelight bathing his limbs, movements slow with muscle-pain but more relaxed. When he kneeled beside me, his eyes were already wanting touch.
    “?Te gusta vivir?” I asked, running my hands up his thighs. ‘You like being alive?”
    “Cada dia mas. More every day.”
    He gave me the first deep kiss. “I hope you’re not hearing any wedding bells,” he whispered.
    “Not with you, buddy. I know better.”
    I was the ultimate hustler, paying him for my life by helping him sieze his own back. My hands, fingers, tongue, went deeper than before. I gave him a kissito that lasted an hour, all over his body, loving him with his language, sexy talk in Spanglish against his skin. His dead silence broke and he was gasping quietly. “My heart... more ... asi ... like that... ayyyy ...” I wrung the first deep cry out of him.
    Sometime toward dawn, I was dreaming again. That mystery athlete turned his head as I drew even with his shoulder. In place of that face of death that I’d always seen — Billy’s face, Chris’ face — the face was a man I didn’t know. We were matched stride for stride, immensely long strides that took us across wooded hills, and green lakes nestled deep in laurel glens. Suddenly, I jumped awake.
    Chino had started up on one elbow beside me. He was breathing like he’d been running. The radio was still playing static-y music, and he shut it off.
    “What?” I whispered into the silence, heart racing.
    Had he heard something? Were they coming to get us? My hand reached to my .45, on my side of the bed. But Chino just lay there. His eyes looked at nothing, full of wondrous dread.
    “Did you dream?” I asked quietly.
    “It only lasted a second. But it was so real,” he murmured. “He was just standing there. That’s all. But it was so real.”
    “Did you get a good look at him?”
    “Oh, yeah.”
    Chino lay back down, into my arms. His eyes were wet. “He must have been hiding inside of me all this time,” he said.
    Next morning, at breakfast, Russell silently handed me several bulging files. I had noticed how careful the old spy-master was, about discussing Operation LEV. in his own house. Flipping, I saw photo-copied and hand-written pages on the narrowed field of LEV. possibilities — all collected by himself and by dirtbag gumshoes that he’d hired without telling them the whole story.
    His commitment to helping us get justice for Billy was impressive.
    The first file was tabbed MARY ELLEN. Russell had found out that my ex-wife had hired private detectives and bodyguards herself, and was keeping close tabs on Michael. He’d been unable to determine if the deal included a hit on me or not.
    Second file was UNC. This person was conjectured to be unconnected to my past life, but morally and mightily offended by Billy’s and my existence on Earth — enough to team up with Mech. Russell had found little to flesh out the file.
    The GROUP file held reports on right-wing extremists who had shown anti-gay bias. Some of these groups were public, political, and well-known. Others, of a more paramilitary nature, were covert. Russell had just discovered that Mech was connected with one such shadowy group, Joshua Force, based in California. Russell was trying to put one of his own men in place right in the Joshua Force, but the group was wary about new members.
    The fattest folder was DENNY FALKS, my Penn State runner. He’d wanted me, then turned on me when I rejected him. The file told me new things. Denny’s fingering me