Free Head Games (The Hector Lassiter Series) by Craig McDonald Page B

bathwater being drawn was like a siren's song ... so hard to resist. But I hung in there.
    Bud slipped off his jacket. He rolled up his sleeves a couple of turns. Unfastening his watch, he accidentally dropped it on the carpet. As he reached to retrieve it, his sleeve rode up. It was like a shot to the kidney:
    Christ, Are those fucking needle scars there just below the crook of his elbow?
    My stomach knotted tighter. Easy: could be a trick of diabetes-afflicted vision , I told myself. But I filed it away. I'd be watching. Particularly since this kid had my back. I sure as hell didn't need some junkie Tonto. And I really didn't need some inverted Sherlock Holmes and Watson relationship with the great detective's sidekick doing all the shooting up.
    "Hard to know when we'll get another chance to get some sleep, kiddo," I said, trying to sound friendly --- just like always. "So you try and get some rest, Bud."
    Fiske shook his head. "You should talk."
    I backed out, smiling and closing the connecting door between us.
    The bathroom door opened. Steam rolled out through the widening crack. Alicia was wearing one of my shirts, the sleeves rolled up several turns at each arm. And those rolled up sleeves instantly reminded me of my worries regarding Fiske. Fuck !
    She pulled a comb through her damp black hair, making tracks, and sat on the foot of the bed, tucking one dusky leg up under the other. I saw a flash of white cotton panties, and, just like that, Bud Fiske was forgotten.
    Alicia smiled uncertainly. "Everything is all right, Héctor?"
    "Getting there." I rubbed my chin; two days without shaving. I could feel --- hell, I could smell --- the dust and sweat on my skin and hair. And, of course, I was saturated in the stench of all of that cordite and nicotine. "Gonna grab me a shower." I smiled, shrugging and unbuttoning my shirt. "You don't have to wait up."
    Alicia flashed a knowing smile. "No, I don't."

    I finished shaving and sourly appraised myself in the mirror.
    Regardéz : Hector Lassiter at fifty-seven.
    The liquor was maybe a week away from putting some worrisome and irreversible weight on me. The capillaries in my nose and cheeks looked like they were ready to go. My once dark brown hair had faded to brindle and was now well on its way to gray.
    I wasn't the man I remembered being ... or at least not the guy I remembered thinking I was. No longer the man who could clear a bar or win the heart of any woman for at least the long week it would take her to tumble to the kind of man I really am.
    No longer the man who could endlessly write words that burned.
    I hitched a towel around my waist and padded out, massaging my aching ribs.
    I sat down on the bed. Alicia had the sheet up over her breasts. I stroked her bare shoulder. "You sure about this?" I asked. "I'm old enough ---"
    Alicia pressed her hand to my mouth and said, "You're old enough to know what to do."
    She turned the radio on, presumably to set the mood and maybe spare Bud the sounds through the walls.
    Johnny Cash for the nervous talk, "Give My Love To Rose."
    Foreplay: Mathis crooning "Chances Are"; Sam Cooke and "You Send Me." Tender, slow kisses and caressing hands. Holding close, moving slow and hard together, her arms tight around me; her legs wrapped around me too, making me forget, at least for that long, how much my ribs hurt.
    Afterward, hearts pounding at one another: Patsy Cline, "Walkin' After Midnight" ... Peggy Lee and "Don't Smoke in Bed."
    All my scars --- my new, Mexican darling raised her black eyebrows, her fingertips tracing the welts, the knife-blade furrows, the bullet holes and the ancient cigarette burns. She lingered longest on the crisscrossed whip scars covering my back and wondered aloud, "How in God's name?"
    "You really don't wanna know."
    Based on past experience, I'd made some of observations of my own. She'd had at least one child. I risked sharing my theory on that.
    "Her name is Azucena," Alicia confirmed with a sad smile.