Page 103 of Sinful Crimes for the Artistically Inclined
With his voice almost as low as hers, he added, “You look beautiful, by the way,” and she bounced back from the last rebuke admirably.
Joe wasn’t impressed by the ease with which Giordano reacted, or worse, didn’t react to Percy’s comments. He was less impressed still by the way Giordano intently watched Percy finally take his drink to his lips.
Percy’s sip was slow and quietly contemplative. “You’ve added bitters.”
“You noticed.” Giordano smiled.
Percy placed the drink down. “It’s entirely too much.” And without waiting to appreciate the way Giordano’s face fell, “Where’s Luca? He should be here by now.”
“He’s waiting for you.” Giordano tilted his head towards a nearby doorway, then tipped Percy’s entire cocktail down the sink.
Percy turned on his stool towards Joe, who was reeling from Percy’s rudeness, lost and unsure whether he should drink his own drink or not, wondering what kind of message it would send to either Percy or Giordano if he did or didn’t drink it. But Percy wrapped him in his all-consuming attention in the way Percy always could, with a squeeze of his knees, where he rested both hands while he spoke. “Handsome, Luca is Giordano’s brother and my business associate. He can help us with the passport. I’ll be ten minutes, then we’ll go for a walk, all right?”
“All right,” said Joe, hardly wanting to be left withGiordano, but apparently about to be left with Giordano, plus two drunk teenagers.
Percy kissed him, stood, then reached across and moved Joe’s cocktail down behind the bar. “Make him another. And make it properly this time.” Giordano’s eyes flared, Joe felt about to sink with discomfort, but Percy, walking away from them with a cigarette in his hand, threw over his shoulder, “You know no one else can do it like you. I’ve missed it.”
It pissed Joe off mightily, but even he had to admit that Giordano was a new sort of handsome when he broke a smile at Percy’s back, then stepped up to the bar, actually winked at Joe, and said, “I’ll make you something even better.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
DANGER MONEY
Percy loved and loathed Giordano in equal measure. He had been Percy’s second love and had subsequently become the one that got away. Well, one of the two that got away, but the one that was irretrievably gone, as opposed to the one he kept quietly on the back burner in case things didn’t work out with Joe.
Percy had always fallen in love far too easily, a failing he would readily admit, but that he had given up chastising himself for. And who could blame him where a man like Giordano was concerned?
They’d met at the University of Padua, and it was the sort of fast and easy romance that two artistically inclined young men might idealise. Percy had been introduced to Giordano’s circle and his brother, Luca, and with that contact, his lonesome criminal lifestyle took on a shade of order and camaraderie. Luca knew people. Luca could find things Percy wanted, Percy could get things Luca wanted, and at the end of the day, there was Giordano, right at the edge of it all, quietly enjoying their growing success, that Percy had always thought was fifty percent his own doing.
That was until Percy discovered Giordano had been a whore and a honey trap all along.
Not for him. Certainly not. Giordano swore up and down it had all been true and real and quite coincidental, but just as Percy could never settle the queasy feeling that came with knowing his lover was, and would continue to be, with other people, he couldn’t stand the thought that a second of their romance hadn’t been true and beautiful. Every memory was tarnished from the moment he found out, but rather than the dramatic heartbreak it should have been, due to their romantic idealism and their immaturity, the whole affair became a death by a thousand cuts.
Giordano moved to Palermo, Percy undertook his PhD in Padua, but Percy was so mixed up with Luca by then that they saw each other far more than they should have. Every time it started well, then ended badly. Giordano wanted only to be assured enough of Percy’s love to cut ties with everything and choose him. Percy wanted Giordano to sacrifice his brother and his family and his income and restore his faith with that one grand gesture before he would give an inch. Both were too young, childish, proud, hurt and resentful to tell the other, and so it went on and on. Percy was also half mad by then with the effects of the Necronomicon he had stolen, and after one particularly vicious argument, he finished their relationship with a vile dissection and brutal denial of everything they had ever had, skewed in a manner that left Giordano in pieces.
Percy continued to visit Palermo. He continued to stay in the hotel where Giordano worked. He slept with the staff and the clients and anyone else he fancied, and it didn’t matter that Giordano was turning tricks downstairs or next door or wherever the hell he was. Giordano’s work brought in business for Luca and for Percy and made them all wealthy in the process. So long as Giordano stayed out of Percy’s way, there was no problem.
Until today.
But it was all under control. An hour hence, he would walk back out of Giordano’s life, with Joe, and so they would carry on until it was nothing more than a bittersweet stepping stone to what he really wanted. Which, right now, was money. And a lot of it. Money to run and run and take Joe with him as far as he could.
Of course, it would all go more smoothly if Giordano told Joe nothing of their shared past, or of Percy’s illegal work, at least not before Percy could put his own twist on things, so he quickened his pace around the corner and into a hidden alcove where Luca sat with a pile of manilla folders, a near-empty cup of coffee, and a pen scratching across a sheet of paper.
“Luca.”
Luca looked up with his bright blue eyes and a warm smile. “Percy.”
They embraced, then took to their chairs, Luca almost invisible to anyone in the bar, but with a slim vision through the leaves of a palm nestled in a split in the wall. Percy took in the view of Joe and Giordano, and developed a new conundrum as to why Joe was looking surprisingly relaxed without him there. And what the hell kind of drink was Giordano making for him now?
Luca called him back with, “Who’s your friend?”
“My partner. Don’t worry. He’s fine.”
Luca scanned Joe with a sharp eye. “Did we know him in Padua?”
“No.”
“He looks familiar.”
