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Rain comes down in sheets and hammers its fists against the windshield of the motor-carriage. The man in the driver’s seat watches as the thick heavy drops run together and create moving patterns on the glass. He takes a moment to appreciate the way this looks in the glow of the street’s solitary street-lamp. In profile, he is very still. He considers taking a cigarette from the packet in his breast pocket to help pass the time, but conscience, and a smaller, more selfish reason tells him he must wait. His own breath steams the window and fogs the surface of his glasses.
He will give himself thirty minutes before growing concerned, where upon he will step out of the vehicle and into the cold dark night without so much as an umbrella to drive off the staving rain.
When it comes to Harry du Bois, he often acts in spite of his better judgement. This fact no longer surprises him.
***
‘I’M EXTREMELY DRUNK,’ yells Harry Du Bois. This astonishes approximately no one. ‘INTOXICATED. JACKHAMMERED. SOUSED IN THE SAUCE. LOCKED AND LOADED. PARALYTIC. And whatever other words there are that I can’t think of right now, since I’m so drunk I can barely sit on this very tiny barstool. Is this a bar for children? Is that a thing? That should definitely be a thing.’
For the first time in his shitty amnesiac life it is in fact a total lie. The novelty factor nearly punches him in the face. Harry slaps his forehead down on the sticky bar at the stupid mundanity of the realisation that he is, in fact, more sober than he has been for months, sitting in the seediest dive of the entire Industrial Harbour with a beer clutched in his sweating hands.
Very convincing, says the fly floating proboscis-down in his drink. They should make you the King of Undercover. But, man why pretend when you could have the real thing? Alcoholism is for life, not just for funerals! No expiry date on that bottle!
That seems like a fair point, thinks Harry, peering down at his pint. For being dead, the fly looks pretty happy about the situation. Its legs are spread in a cheery sort of wave as it floats there in his glass, drifting on a minute amber tide. The glass is filled with alcohol and scummed with froth. Enough to drown in. Harry has never wanted to swim so badly in his life; he wishes the glass was big enough for him to stick his head in and inhale, imagines coasting on an ocean of beer, the hoppy taste filling his lungs.
Look at it. It’s barely alcoholic. Surely he can have a sip.
All around him, men of varying levels of inebriation and abdominal obesity swill the manly brew with abandon, clutching onto cool, sweating pint glasses. Oh baby, what he wouldn’t do to quaff it down, show them how it’s done! For all he knows that portrait at the back of the bar is of him, BEER GUZZLER OF THE MONTH, a beloved familiar face before the whole memory loss / identity crisis / getting-shot-and-preventing-a-smallscale-war series of events interrupted his nightly routine. They probably have a drink named after him.
One Atrophied Disco-head coming right up!
No more world records for you, bratan, growls Harry’s hindbrain. No more easy money drinking til your opponent hits the floor. The only records you’ve got are the sad kind. The eternally skipping kind. Mouldering in a second-hand waste bin, untouched and eternally half-price, just like you.
He has been sober for three months, two weeks, and five days, not that anyone’s counting. Kim is the only one in the precinct that hasn’t remarked on the fact that Harry spent a solid two weeks throwing up and sweating through his rotation of unclean shirts, after which he no longer comes into work with his face red with liquor and speed, stinking like a bar floor took a shit in his mouth.
Still, Harry gets the impression that his partner is proud of him. It’s in the way Kim looks at him each morning. The eyes behind the glasses performing a quick catalogue of Harry’s physical and mental state: finding him upright and semi-coherent yet showing no sign of surprise at each minor miracle. What he wouldn’t do for that silent approval.
Just a teensy bit pathetic for a man sliding past middle age too fast to even wave as it goes by.
Harry’s reflection looks back at him with deep commiseration. Barman, there’s the saddest cop in Revachol in my drink, he doesn’t say. Someone help him. Or at least tell him to get some sleep. The shadows under his eyes have shadows of their own. A whole shadow family lives in the crags of his face. His muttonchops are downright tragic. Did something die there, Harry-boy, or is it just your expression that’s lost the fight with rigor mortis?
It’s better than the old expression of pain, but that isn’t saying much.
‘Are you planning on drinking that, or what,’ asks a deep voice, startling Harry from his moribund revery.
He looks up to find Axel “Pigfucker” Sorensen, dockworker and suspected ringleader of the smuggling group responsible for the corpse Kim and Harry had fished out of the harbour not three weeks ago, leering down at him with his teeth bared in something resembling a smile. The nickname came from a well-documented dislike for cops, Kim was quick to assure him, not because of any unsavoury past encounters with unfortunate livestock. Harry suddenly knows what it feels like to be one. The grin is wolfish.
‘I, ah.’ Harry hedges. ‘Nothing like a delectably flat beer at the end of a long day, right?’
The imperative Observe But Do Not Engage With Suspect flashes across Harry’s mind with lightning speed, and promptly dies on impact. Whoops.
Sorensen frowns. ‘Not really. No.’
‘It gets you drunk faster,’ says Harry. ‘Being flat. Ask anyone, it’s a totally real thing that I didn’t just make up right now.’
‘Takes longer to drink, waiting to lose the fizz.’
‘Yes. Well. Faster doesn’t always mean more quickly!’ Harry tries for a look of intense wisdom, probably ends up looking constipated instead. ‘Less haste, more speed. Speaking of speed...’
‘This is a boring fucking conversation. I was gonna ask if you were drinking that any time soon so I could offer to buy you the next one. Fucking hell, man. You got a name?’
Free drink = friendz 4 life, chimes in the degenerate drunkard that shares the same body as him. Here’s a guy that’s got your best interests at heart. Tell him everything! What’s the harm?
Harry sticks out his hand. ‘Lazlo Bicep,’ he says. He’s still bitter Kim and Jean Vicquemare, the old traitor, had both banded together to tell him that under no circumstances could he use Raphaël Ambrosius Costeau as a fake name. Harry had sulked for days. Killjoys, the lot of them. No sense of art or pseudonymic passion!
‘I’ve seen you around. Can I ask you a question?’
‘Is that the question?’
‘You’ve been watching me all night.’
‘That isn’t a question, more of an observational statement,’ chokes Harry, playing it extremely cool. Ice Bear Sarcophagus type cool. ‘I look at people all the time. It’s one of the limited ways to develop fleeting connection with your fellow man in this grey wasteland we call Life.’
‘Yeah, well, I thought you might be a man looking for a fuck. I know I am. You looking for a fuck, huh?’
The question gallops across Harry’s mind like a maniac horse, its rider left in the dust. He’s barely aware that he is not about to be beaten to death by a hardened smuggler for the crime of being an undercover cop, let alone take in the fact that the smuggler in question is propositioning him with one meaty hand nestled on his arm.
‘You mean, have homo-sex,’ Harry says. ‘With you. A homo-sexual.’
‘If that’s how you wanna put it, sure. Got a problem with that?’
If Precinct 41 was going to set up a honeytrap, surely they would have sent Kim. Who wouldn’t want Kim? So self-assured in his own skin, all hard lithe edges under that bomber jacket like a freakishly neat panther, crows feet around his eyes as capable of conveying a silent laugh as well as any stern stare of disapproval. Many of Jamrock’s finest degenerate lawbreakers had cracked under that stare.
Harry thinks maybe he’s cracked too, just in the opposite direction.
What was he thinking about? Oh yeah. Any homo-sexual in his right mind would lay down his life for Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi, not proposition Harrier Du fucking Bois of the unfortunate facial hair and sad sack figure. No accounting for taste, mon semblable, whispers his belt buckle. Now, back to business, are you going to GET SOME or NOT?
‘I have a very sad penis,’ Harry announces, thinking of Kim and the holy grail of professionalism. ‘I think it’s diseased. Whenever I eat a pickle I feel a pang of kinship, on account of the textural and visual similarities between the two.’
‘Right.’
‘I’m also very drunk.’
‘I see.’
‘Since we’re being candid, it’s been so long since I’ve been touched I think I’d probably just cry. Big girly sobs. Snot. Probably not what you’re looking for.’ As with many of Harry's erstwhile conversation partners, a look of mild disgust and pity lumbers across Axel Sorensen’s face as he decides how best to extricate himself from the vicinity without prolonging the encounter.
Harry would grin, if it wouldn’t be so very very stupid.
‘Besides, you’re out of my league,’ he continues, plumbing the depths of his tragic soul. His voice trembles like a notebook left open under a ceiling fan. ‘You deserve someone with a magnificent spirit and an even more magnificent dick. They’re out there somewhere, waiting. Go to them.’
An awards acceptance speech has already finished percolating in Harry’s mind by the time Sorensen removes his hand and walks away with an awkward shrug, clearly deeply disturbed by Harry’s choice of wording. Pleasure, not business, Harry writes down in his notebook. He checks his watch. The glass is deeply scratched but he can just make out the time: 1.35am.
He is half an hour late for his rendezvous with Kim.
Shit.
He hasn’t seen Kim in days, apart from their brief, rushed debriefings slotted into the time it takes Harry to walk the mile from his temporary lodgings in a flea-bitten bunkhouse to the harbour and back. The thing is this: he misses his partner. Undercover is all well and groovy on paper, but in reality Harry spends a lot of it feeling substantially more wet, sore, and uneasy than he does when he and Kim hit the streets together. Kim keeps him in line. Like a spirit level with glasses and motorcar fetish. Spirit guide? muses Harry. No, Kim would hate that. He makes note to bring it up the next time they see each other.
This is a great deal sooner then he expects.
Someone slides onto the stool next to him. It must be raining outside: his new companion is dripping water onto the floor in distinctly wet sort of way. Clearly one of the harbour’s seals has grown legs, climbed out of the ocean, and sauntered into the nearest bar for a stiff drink of anything other than fresh saltwater. Primo detective work in action, baby.
‘One hardball,’ says the person who is disappointingly not an enchanted walking seal. Either that, or it’s a seal doing a very good impersonation of Harry’s partner and friend, Kim Kitsuragi. On second glance, it is his partner and friend Kim Kitsuragi.
Kim catches his eye and winks.
The feeling of sudden warmth and surprise that had bloomed in his chest at the sight screeches to a handbrake halt as Harry realises just where they are.
It’s not safe for Kim to be here. Half the Industrial Harbour crime syndicate is sitting less than ten feet away, looking big and definitely mean. The idea of getting knifed and dumped in the choppy seawater suddenly becomes a great deal less tolerable if Kim is included in the equation — but then again, the opportunity is too good to waste.
Harry knocks over his drink with precision, right over Kim’s already-soaked sleeve. ‘Fuck!’ exclaims Harry. ‘How clumsy of me. Lemme help you out there, buddy.’
He underscores this with a huge, theatrical shoulder-slap as he grabs the nearest wad of napkins and dabs at Kim’s sleeve. No one even spares them a glance.
Kim’s eyebrow twitches.
‘It’s quite alright,’ he says. ‘The rain will wash it out. You can buy the next round if you want to apologise.’
‘An excellent idea.’ Harry flags down the bartender and orders two more beers, secretly elated at the circumstances after the initial panic fades: sitting in a bar, buying Kim a drink. It’s all he’s imagined for months. Kim makes a point of never drinking in front of Harry, whether from tact or abstinence he can’t tell, and he’s never known how to casually phrase the question without setting off one of Kim’s work-life personal boundary alarms. ‘Haven’t seen you around before.’
‘That’s because I’ve just started working at the Industrial Complex. You’re looking at Ren Katsumura, Assistant Loading Manager.’
A grin splits Harry’s face. ‘Is that right?’
‘Yes. I’m very good with machinery, I have have a degree at the Stella Maris Technical Institute, and what else…’ Kim pauses. ‘Oh, yes, I have a dog.’
‘Family?’
‘One wife, seven kids. You know how it is.’
Harry snorts into his fist. ‘As a father of ten, I completely understand. I’m convinced.’ He sticks out his palm. ‘Nice to meet you, Mr. Katsumura. Jim Jamrock, at your service.’
Kim shakes his hand. An image of their first meeting supersedes the present: Kim in the lobby of the Whirling-in-Rags, poised and polite and perfect in the face of Harry’s hangover like a minor deity. The indescribable sense of brotherhood that had told Harry, yes, this one was good. Better than you. Make him trust you and you’ll be bonded for life, however long that may be. You just might want to stick around.
‘So why are you here, anyway?’ whispers Harry, still clutching his hand.
‘You’re late.’
‘You might be too, if we’re not careful. This guy’s got a cop radar, man. There’s the teensiest possibility I’ve been clocked. ’
‘What,’ says Kim, very levelly, ‘would make you think that.’
‘He asked me to sleep with him. What if it was a test? Like, “cop say ‘what,’” out the undercover narc, that kind of thing.’ The scenario grows legs and runs away on him as a queasy certainty settles in his gut. ‘Oh my god, I should have said yes.’
‘There is no precedent for law enforcement officers to prostitute themselves in pursuit of their duties. In fact, it’s expressly ill-advised. Aside from the moral issues, the paperwork’s a real nightmare. You did the right thing.’
‘Yeah, but now he knows I’m a Mega Hetero-Narc. The whole thing’s blown.’
‘Do you think it’s possible he simply wanted to sleep with you? No ulterior motive?’
Harry takes a quick inventory of his body. Unfortunately, it’s still the one he had five minutes ago. ‘Are you kidding? Have you seen this?’
This meaning, well, everything Harry’s got going on. Fake mermaid tattoo and seaman's cap included.
‘Yes, detective.’ To Kim’s credit, his face is pure composure. His glasses have steamed up from the change of temperature indoors, making him even harder to read. ‘To certain subsets of homo-sexuals, you could be considered…fairly attractive.’
‘Blind ones, you mean,’ Harry says, then mentally hits himself: Kim can barely shoot the broadside of a flaming barn without his spectacles. The presumption of it makes him cringe in his boots.
‘It’s not such an implausible concept, is all I’m saying. Though if you feel your safety has been compromised, we should of course continue with the planned extraction contingency.’
You used to be a sex-god, sonny, growls Harry’s libido. Tell him it’s very-fucking-plausible, thank you very much. Show him how we do it round here.
‘Maybe you’re right,’ says Harry, modest to the core. ‘Don’t need to jump the gun yet, seeing as no one’s shanked me yet. I’m still in the game. How’d you know where to look for me, anyway?…Are you having me tracked? Have you installed a chip in my brain?’
‘You’re an undercover operative in a dangerous smuggling ring, of course the RCM likes to know where you are at any given time. But, more specifically, since you missed the debriefing after your shift —’
‘—I was with some of the guys, I could hardly say, ‘Excuse me gentlemen, while I pop across the street to confer with my constable colleague who is definitely not skulking in the shadows like a harbringer of righteous, righteous justice —’
‘I don’t skulk. It’s reconnaissance. Anyway, you missed our fallback meeting and this is the only barroom between the harbour and Coal City —’
‘So here you are.’
‘Here I am.’
‘To check in on me.’
‘To see if you’re safe and not under duress, yes. Perhaps I was…over-concerned.’
‘I’m sober,’ Harry says, hastily. ‘I only smell like beer because I spilled most of it on myself earlier, but I haven’t drunk anything all night. You believe me, right, Kim?’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
Kim says this very carefully, as if Harry is in danger of shattering at the slightest touch.
A silent pause stretches between them. Harry winces at his own idiocy, and tries to think of something else to say. The case. They can always talk about the case.
He leans in and murmurs, ‘There’s an inbound shipment on Friday. There’ll be five men, maybe more, I couldn’t tell. You see that red-haired guy in the corner?’
To his credit, Kim doesn’t turn his head. ‘Yes.’
‘That’s Benoît Nieman. Odds are he’ll flip on the others if pressed. He’s been saving up to get the next airship out of here, poor fucker. Got himself a woman and a kid.’
‘If they knew he’d be dead already.’
‘Precisely. Nice bit of leverage for whoever might want to use it.’
Kim keeps facing the bar, but his eyes glance over Harry in the long mirror behind the rows of decorative antique pilsner bottles worth their weight in tare. ‘Case aside, how are you doing?’ he asks, with diplomatic casualness. ‘How’s life as a docker treating you?’ ‘
‘I think I was made for it,’ Harry says, philosophically. ‘My hands are big meaty lifting machines. I am an outstanding example of the exploited labourer putting his body on the line as one more cog in the capitalist machine — a terrifically strong, jacked cog. Look, I’ve got calluses.’
Kim pokes one. ‘Very impressive.’
It strikes him how familiar and unmasculine this must look to any observers, one man eagerly holding out his hands for another man to touch in the middle of a crowded bar, after a closely whispered argument. Let's back things the fuck up. Time to blend in! Time to get macho!
Harry slaps the bar and says in a carrying bellow, ‘That’s TOUGH talk for such a PUNY fellow, friend.’
The drunk beside them startles awake, then deposits his face back into his spreading puddle of gin.
‘What are you doing?’ Kim hisses under his breath.
‘Keeping our cover,’ Harry whispers back. ‘It’ll be fun, I promise.’
Kim rolls his eyes and says loudly: ‘All I see is a ham sandwich past its prime, sir. Forgive me for saying things as they are.’
Nice. Bringing in the race theory. One point to Kim. The RCM academy should hire them both to teach the Keeping Your Cover: Keeps You Alive training seminar, Harry decides, grinning at the thought.
‘There’s only one way to solve this,’ he cries in deep macho abandon. ‘It’s time! To wrestle!’ Someone cheers. ‘Bartender, clear a space.’
The bartender moves their glasses with such resignation, Harry figures this must be a nightly occurrence. Good. They’re just another pair of drunk, angry men with repressed rage issues and an inability to talk about their issues without resorting to the most basic kind of Cro-Magnon violence.
Harry makes a big show of stretching, cracking his knuckles in the most obnoxious way possible. Kim removes his driving gloves and rolls up his sleeves, very slowly, maintaining eye contact the whole time. Is it just him or has the temperature gone up? Why else would sweat suddenly gather at Harry’s too-tight collar?
‘Hands,’ announces the barman in a bored voice. Harry and Kim clasp hands, glaring daggers at each other.
Kim’s palm is a warm, comforting weight. The veins in his arms are deeply noticeable, disappearing into the snug shelter of his jacket. Did Harry know that? He felt like it was the kind of thing he ought to know. Are you honestly going weak at the sight of Kim’s arms, like a character in a cheap historical romance? Are you going to swoon?
PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER, COMRADE, yells the part of him that misses the smell of sweat, socks, and unwashed gym mats of Couron’s finest underachieving secondary school. IF HE’S NOT OUT IN TEN SECONDS, IT’S FIFTY LAPS FOR YOU. WHY ARE YOU HERE?
‘I’m here to win,’ Harry mumbles dutifully, right as the barman says:
‘Commence! ’
He squeezes Kim’s hand. Kim squeezes his back, and begins to exert a downward pressure that it surprising for his size and physiognomy. Harry frowns and exerts an equal level of pressure back.
A small crowd has gathered. Mildly-interested drunkards urge them on, yelling well-intentioned bad advice, but Harry ignores it all. The trick is to wear your opponent down, he remembers bellowing every morning in the lead-up to the inter-school armwrestling championships. Make him think he’s nearly got you, but save the best til last. Come out fighting. Just like Contact Mike would always say —
The muscles in Kim’s arms strain under his shirt. Harry tries to focus on his own grip, but Kim’s hand looks good as well, all bony and pale-knuckled as he forces Harry’s arm toward the surface of the bar. It's cheating, honestly, making eye contact while he does that. Harry blinks, and feels the back of his hand hit wood as Kim slams his arm all the way down with a triumphant grin.
‘OW,’ Harry yelps at the top of his lungs, with strangled dignity. ‘You wouldn’t think to look at him, but this guy’s a real macho man! We have a winner, ladies and gentlemen. I take back everything I said about this man’s parentage, mother, homeland, and dog. I think he may have crippled me for life!’
The spectators reluctantly exchange money with each other and return to their own tables, slapping Kim on the back and shaking their heads at Harry.
Harry clutches his shoulder and grimaces. ‘I think I need a time out. Bathroom?’
‘Oh,’ says Kim with realisation. ‘Yes. We ought to check if you’re okay.’
Harry stumbles off the bathroom, making faces of extreme pain and suffering, while Kim follows at his heels. The bathroom is thankfully empty, apart from a few squashed bugs on the mirror and an entire culture of mould growing on the ceiling. It is a supremely ugly environment. Harry feels a certain kinship. He slumps against the sink and watches Kim shut the door behind them.
‘You went a little overboard, but I think suspicions have been allayed, for now,’ Kim notes, slipping his gloves back on with a small smile. ‘No one’s paying us any mind. Good thinking, about getting some privacy.’
‘I’m serious. I think you dislocated my shoulder, for like, real.’ There is a localised fire spreading around Harry’s right scapula, wreaking havoc on the delicate cartilage, tissues, and nerves that happen to live there. ‘Talk about dedication to the role. Ouch.’
Kim withdraws his finger from where he just poked Harry in the shoulder. ‘Just checking.’
‘Does this count as an injury sustained in the line of duty? Do you think they’ll give me a medal?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, detective.’ Kim lifts his hands in the air. ‘Do you trust me?’
‘With my life, but you know that alre—’ Harry says, then howls in pain as Kim grips his arm firmly with both hands and wrenches his shoulder into place. ‘MOTHERFUCK ME, THAT HURTS.’
‘All better.’
‘Never become a lazareth, Kim, your bedside manner is terrifying. How about a little warning next time?’
‘Actions speak louder than words.’
‘No shit. Words like: I’m here to cause you incredible pain and permanent appendageal damage.’ Harry massages the joint and concedes, yes, it does feel a lot better. ‘Now I know why you mostly work with dead people, Lieutenant’
‘Hah hah. Very funny.’ Kim’s hands are still on the juncture between his neck and arm, but he makes no move to remove them. It’s soothing. Harry gulps and tries not to make it apparent how little he has been touched in the last six years. Now is not the time to pop a stiffy. ‘You didn’t have to let me win, you know.’
‘I would never do that.’
‘Are you telling me Dexter — no, Sinister — is losing its edge?’
Harry grins at the mention of his dumb nickname for his right-hook, that Kim had even remembered it. ‘I was momentarily distracted. The best man won.’
‘Well, that’s kind of you to say, but you may have lost some serious money for a few of the men outside. I’d proceed with caution when exiting the establishment in case they decide to take the matter up with you later.’
None of this registers with Harry. He’s too busy staring at his partner while an unbearable panic rises in his throat.
‘You’re so cool, Kim.’
Kim squints up at him, as if looking for a punchline. He finds none. Harry braces himself for Kim to remove his hands, to get back to business, to remind them both of why they are here in the Industrial Harbour’s most unhygienic bathroom adjoined to a room full of hardened cop-killers, but the moment never comes. Oh god, bleats Harry’s addled brain. This is it.
Right then, the door swings open with a queasy creak and the Pigfucker Sorensen himself walks in, tugging at his fly. His eye meet Harry’s.
There is an electric moment as Harry considers the situation — him and Kim, two purported strangers, standing in a men’s restroom with barely a foot of space between them, clearly engaged in some kind of private interaction — before he seizes on the only possible course of action. He grabs Kim by the lapels of his bomber jacket and kisses him.
Or more accurately, mashes his face against Kim’s jaw while Kim’s hands reflexively tighten on his shirt for balance. Their lips don’t even meet. Kim smells good, like rain and brilliantine and motor-oil, and Harry has to restrain himself from dragging his fingers through his short slicked hair, while the part of him that has been wondering just what it would be like to hold Kim like this cracks open his pounding heart and feasts on the pieces. It’s just for cover. Don’t mess it up. You can apologise later, but for now keeping sucking on his face like your life depends on it.
It must look pretty convincing, because Sorensen makes a noise of disgust and looks away. There’s a jangling of a belt and the faint trickle of piss in the ceramic urinal, the heavy sound of Harry’s own stifled breathing in his ears.
‘Could have just said you had a fuck-buddy,’ grunts Sorensen as he heads for the door, pausing to shrug at Kim. ‘Guess someone enjoys a wonky dick.’
The door swings shut.
Harry relinquishes his hold on Kim and considers the advantages of drowning himself in the nearest toilet.
‘I have a normal — it’s not — ’ he starts to choke, then stops at the look on Kim’s face. Now is not the time to talk about anyone’s dick, the face says. ‘It was the first thing that came to mind. I’m sorry.’
Kim just stands there, hands loosely held at his sides. His eyes look very opaque behind his glasses.
‘Do you…have to put that in the report?’ A swell of nausea floods Harry’s stomach. He’ll be suspended for sure. Maybe Kim will put in for a request for a more self-controlled partner, or even transfer back to the 57th without so much as a backwards glance. ‘I think I’m going to puke.’
He braces himself weakly over the sink, the feeling simmering in his gut. His own deranged reflection looks back at him, eyes wild, hair dishevelled: for the first time in a long time, he recognises himself. There he is. Harry du Bois the professional fuck-up, relationship killer supreme.
He tries not to notice Kim in profile, pointedly not looking at him. It reminds him painfully of how it had been with Dora in those last days. He’d take screaming over silence any day.
‘…So,’ Harry says after a long pause. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
The butterflies continue their assault on Harry’s stomach. He can almost see them, big brown furry ones fluttering around in his darkened insides— or are those moths? They’re the ones with fur, right?
‘Do you?’ Kim’s voice is cutting.
‘Only if you want to, sure. We’re both grown-up people with developed interpersonal skills. Hit me with it.’
‘The only thing is, Harry, you tried to kiss me, then said you needed to be sick. I’m not sure there’s much to discuss, and I don’t know if I want to go there right now. It’s tiring, and I’m already exhausted as it is.’
Harry laughs. He can't help himself.
Kim thinks that he kissed him, then panicked over the fact that he kissed a man. Perhaps that would have crossed his mind if it were anyone other than Kim, but right now it feels totally absurd. The fact that Kim could believe Harry could treat him like that comes as a real blow to his morale, but it doesn't put him down for long. Always come back swinging!
‘I get sick all the time. Remember Martinaise? You’ve seen me throw up my breakfast more times than you can count —’
‘Sixteen times. In the past quarter.’
Kim’s expression is still flat and unreadable. Come on, Harry-boy, say something good. ‘Okay, so you’ve been counting. That’s, uh. Weirdly flattering, I guess…’
The door slams open again. They both watch a drunk docker stagger to the urinal, then to the sink, where he gazes over at Harry with bleary-eyed focus.
‘Want some jerky, compañero?’
The question comes as a not-unwelcome distraction. Harry nods mutely, and accepts the strip of jerky the man unearths from his overalls with a mumbled thanks. It’s like eating shoe leather. The docker proffers the bag to Kim, who reluctantly takes a piece. They stand there chewing the jerky in silence. The saltiness feels good for Harry’s stomach; it’s settling, and a distraction from the yammering array of voices in his head. Perhaps he should kiss this random drunk man in thanks, as a way to prove to Kim that he has no problem with the concept of swapping spit with men in general — but before he can act on the idea, the drunk docker gives them both a friendly pat on the shoulder and stumbles back to the bar.
Leaving them alone once more.
‘I don’t have to mention it in the report, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ Kim says at last. ‘We had our debriefing. You gave me a shipment date and proposed a tactical approach for recruiting a potential CI. There’s nothing else to say. We can forget it.’
‘I’m the one with the amnesia!’ Harry lets his indignation rear its head despite himself. ‘Doesn’t even make the report. Am I losing my touch? Is this what it’s like to be a diminished man past the height of his prime, so sad an animal even my instincts turn out wrong?’
‘As a detective, your instincts have always been very good.’
It’s kinder than Harry deserves. He tries to loosen his tie, then remembers he isn’t wearing one. ‘Not good enough, apparently.’
‘Harry,’ Kim sighs, dragging a hand across his face. ‘I’m not entirely sure what you want from this exchange.’
‘I want to make you scrambled eggs,’ Harry blurts, before his brain can catch up to his mouth. ‘In my kitchen. I want us to eat them together.’
‘…Okay.’
‘I want to walk you back to the Kineema and watch the sun come up. I want you to listen whatever radio station you like. I don’t want to think I could ever feel sick from being near you, apart from if you gave me food poisoning or something, I don’t know, I’ve never had your cooking but I can’t imagine you being bad at it. I’ll eat anything, you saw me eat that cake off the station floor last month—’
‘Detective,’ Kim says. ‘Harry.’
‘I wouldn’t mind,’ Harry concludes, helplessly. ‘I’d let you give me food poisoning, Kim,’
Harry closes his eyes. If only he could slip into the primordial darkness, he wouldn’t have to see how he has embarrassed himself yet again; this is it, a tragicomic finale to a career peppered with both pathetic and catastrophic mistakes. If a revolutionary firing squad were to appear and finish him off, he would accept his fate with such earnest gratefulness it would mortify them all.
Then again, he’s glad Kim is the one to end his life. He has the right.
The moment lives and dies behind his eyes. The tension is killing him. He cracks open a lid.
Kim is still there, unmoving, staring at Harry as if he is a specimen rarer than the Insulindian Phasmid. The look on his face is one that Harry can only describe as…fond. Kim looks at Harry, sweating and half out of his mind with worry, and hands him some small portion of grace. A faint smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
‘As it happens, Lieutenant Double-Yefreitor,’ Kim says, ‘I am an excellent chef.’
Harry makes a croaking sound that might pass as a noise of polite interest. He thinks his nervous system is about to give out from the strain.
‘I’d offer to prove it to you, but I believe you said something about eggs. If you’re still offering I would like that very much.’
‘Oh?’ squeaks Harry. He coughs, then says: ‘I mean. That would be great. I’d like that too.’
‘Well then.’
‘Well.’
Harry swings his hands together a little manically, trying resist the urge to sink to his knees and genuflect at Kim’s feet. They are two normal people agreeing to an egg breakfast. Why is his heart leaping out of his ribcage? It’s always possible he’s having another heart attack, but a heart attack never felt this good. He kissed Kim and the world is still in turn, still filled with all those fluctuating opportunities to destroy and to save: just another day at the shitshow factory that is his life.
‘After you, detective.’
This is what he has missed the past week. Brushing shoulders with Kim as they leave the room together and head out on the trail of the night.
‘Look, Kim. They’ve got a pinball machine. Are you sure you don’t want to —’
‘You’ll only lose. Again. As the reigning arm-wrestling champion, I get to say where we go next, and I say no pinball. Forever.’
‘Never say never,’ Harry grins. He doesn't have to see Kim's face to know that he is currently rolling his eyes. For this he will make this man the best scrambled eggs the world has ever seen, or die in the attempt.
***
Two men step out of the bar. A flash of orange sparks in the gloom as the taller man leans down to light the smaller man’s cigarette. They laugh. The sound of their voices fades as they walk side by side into the wet, gleaming night, into a city made up of the stink and light of their fellow men.
A carton of eggs sits in a darkened fridge. It waits for the morning to come. Outside the fridge, the beast that is Revachol dreams of a red sunrise.