Page 17 of Red Rooster

Based on his apartment, Lanny Webb was not the sort of person who would have wanted to befriend Jamie.

The décor consisted of Ikea pieces and a few bachelor pad staples. All the latest electronics, but no art of any kind. Jamie spotted a few framed family photos on top of the bookshelf in the living room…a bookshelf filled with CDs and stacks of magazines, predominantlyMen’s HealthandShooting Times. The spare bedroom had been set up as a home gym, and the fridge was a blend of takeout containers and protein shakes, bags of dried apricots and domestic beer.

A portrait emerged in Jamie’s mind of a gym rat turned cop with no hobbies or interests aside from working out and paging through the occasional magazine. On his cursory walk-through, he didn’t spot so much as one real book.

How boring.

Hownormal.

His own room, in all the apartments he’d ever lived in, had always been a menagerie of art and half-strung canvasses. Coffee table books and computer printouts, museum-bought prints of his favorite inspirations to keep him fueled. Christmas lights and paint-streaked jeans and stacks of library paperbacks. He’d always kept orchids in the windowsill, usually a beta fish in a glass bowl. He’d surrounded himself with color and chaos and all the things that made him feel artistic.

And yet he’d never had much of a personal life. No steady girlfriend. No late nights out at bars, uproarious stories to tell after the fact. His life was small, closely-held, and unremarkable.

Lanny Webb, by contrast, was the sort of man who started bar fights, fucked women in public restrooms, and inspired the envy and aspiration of the men around him. His apartment was dull, but his life was not.

He’d never been able to decide which was the more pathetic existence.

Jamie sat down on the black leather couch and wondered what the hell he was supposed to do now.

His stomach growled, but nothing in Lanny’s fridge sounded appealing. Since the bastard creep who’d bitten him – Chad, the others had said his name was – hadn’t robbed him of his money, only his life as he knew it, he still had about fifty bucks cash in his wallet and all his credit cards.

New York was a big city. What were the odds someone would recognize him? Besides, no one other than his roomie and a handful of classmates even knew him. And Trina hadn’t told him to stay inside, only to lay low.

A takeout menu was taped up by the microwave, but he dismissed the idea immediately. He wanted to go out, breathe in city air, see the day without his glasses for the very first time. He wouldn’t stay out long, just enough to grab a late breakfast and stretch his legs a little. He’d come right back after.

Nodding to himself, he went to shower.

~*~

Lanny had met Trina’s dad a year ago. He’d been down from Buffalo, where he and his brother owned a moderately successful furniture business, and he’d swung by the precinct to take Trina out to lunch. Plenty of silver in his dark hair, sun and laugh lines on his face, but still trim and healthy-looking, Steven Baskin had spoken with a flawless upstate accent, but maintained an air ofotherall the same. He had Trina’s vivid blue eyes – Nikita’s eyes, Lanny now knew – gunmetal in some lights, oceanic in others. Something about the Slavic tilt of his brows, in the crooked, secretive smile hinted at bitter winters and the indominable spirit of a people whose oppressors had never managed to crush them. Steve Baskin had been born in America, but he was Russian through-and-through, and Lanny had decided he wholeheartedly approved of it, that day they’d shaken hands in the detective bullpen and Steve had invited him to come grab meatball subs with them.

But if Nikita Baskin was therealRussian of the bunch…well, Lanny wanted to change his opinion on record. Trina’s family sucked.

“I’m not gonna fucking just attack somebody,” Lanny griped. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

Nikita just hummed and signaled the bartender for another round. Since they were the only ones at the long mahogany bar at the Lion’s Den, the man stepped right over and refilled their tumblers with vodka.

“Okay, two things,” Lanny said when the guy was gone. “One: I fucking hate vodka. Especially at ten a.m. And two: if you’re so worried I might go nuts and bite somebody, do you really think getting me drunk is the best strategy?”

“You won’t get drunk,” Nikita said, downing his own shot. “At least not for a while. And it takes the edge off.”

“I don’t have an edge.”

Nikita turned to him slowly, gaze hooded and unimpressed. “You’re all edge, my friend.”

“I’m not your friend.”

“On that we are agreed.” He made another little motion and the bartender returned. “Drink your vodka.”

Lanny did, if only so Nikita would shut up about it. It warmed him, like all good liquor, but this was his third shot and he didn’t feel the usual rush of lightheaded giddiness that normally accompanied drinking.

“So what? We’re just gonna do shots all day?” His phone vibrated inside his jacket pocket, reminding him that he had an unread text. “’Cause I’m supposed to go to work.”

“Not today you’re not.”

“Oh, fuck you.” Lanny started to push back from the bar–

And Nikita reached out too fast for comprehension and locked his hand around Lanny’s wrist.