Pent Up
By Damon Suede
PENT UP: Mix business with pleasure and take cover.
Ruben Oso moves to Manhattan to start his life over as a low-rent bodyguard and stumbles into a gig in a swanky Park Avenue penthouse. What begins as executive protection turns personal working for a debonair zillionaire who makes Ruben question everything about himself.
Watching over financial hotshot Andy Bauer puts Ruben in an impossible position. He knows zero about shady trading and his cocky boss lives barricaded in a glass tower with wall-to-wall secrets and hot-and-cold-running paranoia. Can the danger be real? Is Andy for real?
What’s a bullet catcher to do? Ruben knows his emotions are out of control even as he races to untangle a high-priced conspiracy and his crazy feelings before somebody gets dead. If his suspicions are right, Andy will pay a price neither can afford, and Ruben may discover there’s no way to guard a heart.
For all the secrets that break us and the promises that make us.
CHAPTER ONE
SOME GUYS are born with a target for a face.
At 8:17 on a Monday morning, Ruben was stomping up Broadway through rush-hour pedestrians when an elbow jabbed him in the ribs and shoved him sideways. Hot coffee sloshed onto his belly and pants and splattered onto the sidewalk along with the lid.
Really? His blocky knuckles dripped caffeine. Some asshole had knocked it all over him.
His free fist tightened. He spun to spot the guilty son of a bitch. “Hey!”
Ruben’s face got him into plenty of scuffles. Stony scowl, dark skin, proud nose. Strangers swung at him often enough that he didn’t mind anymore and took advantage of their fear whenever he could.
Step up. Ruben crushed the cup and what was left of the coffee gushed up and out. He said nothing as he scanned the nervous faces, allowing the menace to bake off him. Step to me, junior.
But the elbow’s owner had vanished, and the commuters around him jostled away like Ruben was radioactive. No one said a word.
He had stopped for real java to wake him up for his first day. Not that syrupy Starbucks shit, but hand-roasted perfection from a tiny Peruvian lady he’d found around the corner from his brother’s office. She always had a line and he didn’t care.
“Jeez.” He stopped and swatted at his soaked belly. He’d already removed his borrowed jacket on the 6 train and sweated through his shirt crossing Central Park South. The windy day was hot enough that it might dry before he reached the office.
His bull’s-eye face had gotten him in trouble again.
Ruben eyed numbers on the buildings. He looked at the map on his phone again. He hadn’t figured out the streets and the avenues yet. He had been in New York three weeks, ditching Miami as soon as his divorce was final. Fuck Marisa and fuck the Sunshine State.
Ten months of not drinking and living in a motel had kicked his ass all the way to Manhattan. He’d found an AA meeting in the neighborhood and started to look for a sponsor in the city.
New start, new life.
He’d caught a jetBlue flight right onto his kid brother’s doorstep. He arrived with all his hair, two changes of clothes, and plenty of experience beating the shit out of people. Anything was possible.
Half a block from the office, pounding footsteps on the concrete made him turn to look over his shoulder. Someone yelped in surprise back at Ninth Avenue.
“Stop!”
Twenty feet up on the crowded sidewalk, a skinny man in a windbreaker sprinted right at him, knocking angry New Yorkers out of the way. He sported a thick walrus mustache and clutched something black. Gun?
“Stop him!” A thirtyish dude in a suit sprinted hard, catching up in the cleared wake. “Hey!”
Both men were running directly toward Ruben, and the rush-hour mob gave him no room to maneuver. When he tried to step clear, an old man on his right pushed back with a glare.
Skinny walrus plowed into the commuter crowds, elbowing suits and secretaries out of his way. No one interfered. Typical.
Hard to tell who the bad guy was, but to be truthful, Ruben had no shits to give.
None of my fucking business.
He could see the door and all he wanted to do was get off the street. Already, Ruben was late for work and had no intention of sticking his beak in. He’d bounced and brawled enough to know trouble when he saw it chugging at him on rails. He was hemmed in by shuffling commuters and too big to slip between them.
The red-faced pursuer kept chasing, slower but steady, the tie flapping over his shoulder. He barked again breathlessly, “Wallet. Hey!” A picked pocket, then.
No time to react. Ten feet now, Walrus looked up, right at Ruben, then lowered his head to rush like a bull. On purpose most likely ’cause Ruben hadn’t moved back.
Fuck you.
As Walrus rammed into him, Ruben shifted left and twisted, extending his arm, and caught his waist. Instead of releasing him, Ruben hoisted the narrow body into the air on his shoulder and flipped him sideways into the newsstand at the curb. Candy bars and magazines smacked the pavement.
“Asshole.” Ruben stood and wiped his cheek, and the crowd pulled back, gawking. He stepped on the skinny arm and clawed the wallet from the scrabbling hand. He tugged, the wallet gaped, and without warning a sheaf of $100 bills whipped loose into the hot breeze churned by the traffic. Good job, Oso.
The crowd went berserk. Pedestrians knelt and scrambled to scrape the cash off the sidewalk and street as Walrus tried to get to his feet, slipping on shredded newspapers.
Ruben was so broke that even one of those hundreds would’ve made a difference, but he couldn’t make himself crouch. “I can’t believe these—”
“Hey!” Footsteps. The suit in pursuit had reached him, red faced and out of breath, running right over the money. “Thank—”
Ruben pushed through the pandemonium. “Where’s a cop? Huh?” He looked at the shameless crowd stealing in plain sight. One girl was holding her phone up, taking pictures or video of folks scraping and squabbling over the crisp bills. “Where’s a goddamn cop?”
Movement and growls behind Ruben made him turn. Walrus had staggered to his feet, knocking over a pile of New York Posts that slid across the sidewalk as he loped away, kicking the other thieves aside. So fast everything almost felt staged.
“Thank you.” Closer now, the wallet’s owner didn’t sound upset. “Thanks.”
Ruben looked up as the other guy pushed in front of him: handsome with a square Anglo face like a goddamn bull’s-eye.
Talk about a target.
Ruben had always thought his resting thug face picked fights for him, but this one? Shit. Practically begged to be mugged or popped.
“Beautiful, man. Amazing.” He smiled at Ruben, still shaking his hand.
Jesus, he’s good-looking.
“You’re a life saver.”
“Uh. I didn’t save shit.” Ruben gestured at the bold thieves around them.
“I don’t care about the money. No.” He shrugged and riffled through the wallet, checking for something besides the cash, maybe? “Doesn’t matter.”
Ruben was too late and annoyed to pay much attention.
“Yeah. Great.” The coffee stiffened Ruben’s shirt in the sultry June air. He had zero interest in sticking around to explain to cops. The way he looked, he needed to tread careful here. “Whatever.”
A faraway siren scattered the rest of the commuters. Back at the newsstand, a paunchy vendor salvaged the papers he could still sell, cursing at no one and everyone.
Ruben swiped at his chest again. The spill didn’t show too much on his brother’s suit but the shirt was a goner. “Damn it, damn it.” His brother could bitch him out later for screwing up his first day. Like always. He pushed through bodies toward the office’s fron
t doors.
Empire Security had an itty-bitty suite Charles had leased next to a nail salon far west of Columbus Circle, over near the river. A ten-minute walk from any subway station. Ruben knew nothing about Manhattan, but from the battered grates and overflowing garbage cans he figured the rents were lower in this area for a reason. Charles loved to cut corners, so his firm was called “Empire” because that was the name painted on the door when he moved in: Empire Salvage. Charles had replaced “alvage” with “ecurity.”
As Ruben reached for the elevator button, he sensed someone in his blind spot. Company.
“Hold up.” Wallet dude stood right behind him, shifting his weight in a two-thousand-dollar suit with his gold tie still crooked from running. Handsome but a little goofy. Late thirties, couple years younger than Ruben. Not skinny or thick, more of a medium build. Glossy ash-brown hair and a jaw too square to take seriously, like a corny dad in a minivan commercial.
Is he following me?
“Uh. I didn’t take your money.” Ruben’s skin tightened. Go away. He looked back in the direction of the scuffle. “You shoulda stayed out there to talk to the cops.”
“Same.” The man smiled, flushed but not sweaty. His eyes were a strange blue-gray, soft as felt.
For the first time, Ruben clocked the expensive clues he’d missed outside: the razor-cut hair and four-hundred-dollar dress shirt. Manicured hands, buffed and pink. On his wrist, he sported a seven thousand dollar Ebel watch. Handmade loafers. “Look, I gotta—” He nodded at the Empire Security sign.
“We’re going the same way, then.” He let Ruben step through. “Allow me.”
Allow you what?
Ruben scowled as he poked the button for his floor. “Empire?”
“Appointment.” He eyed Ruben’s arms and shoulders. “You got some fucking moves, huh. Soldier? Fed?”
Ruben shook his head. He’d dropped out of boot camp so long ago it didn’t count. “Not really.”
“Gotcha.” The guy seemed to be waiting for a signal. “But security now.” He nodded sagely as if that explained everything.
Ruben stared at the numbers overhead, his inner freak detector blaring. He plucked at his drying crotch and wished for a swallow of the coffee he was wearing. “I’m late already.”
“Me too.” His stalker didn’t move. Just that intense scrutiny which made his skin prickle. “Sorry about before, the—” The guy snapped his mouth shut, biting down on whatever he’d almost shared.
Off-balance, Ruben swiped at the cooling splotch of coffee on his slacks. Terrific.
“I’m Andy.” He didn’t blink. “Bauer.” Huh. The exaggerated jaw practically begged for a left hook, such an obvious target it made his square face seem familiar. He smiled crookedly, revealing one deep dimple.
Ruben snuck another skeptical glance. “Do I know you?”
“No. I owe you, man.” Like Ruben, he stood a couple of inches under six feet, but he seemed glued together out of felt scraps. Raggedy Andy. Ruben had twenty pounds on him easy.
Ruben looked down at the greasy linoleum. This is what he got for giving a shit. He was gonna show up for his first day at work late, wet, and ignorant, followed by some Anglo weirdo who looked like a handsome punching bag. Could this elevator be slower? He’d bet money this loaf of white bread had never thrown a punch or held a gun in his life.
That face.
Ten bucks said Andy Bauer didn’t curse. Twenty bucks said he played Frisbee with an Irish setter.
He seemed to be holding his breath, so Ruben did too. Freaky. The elevator arrived and they both stepped inside.
Fifty bucks said he’d never talked to an alcoholic greaseball. A hundred, all Bauer’s friends were as uptight and lily white as he was.
Nobody can be as honest as this guy looks.
And so, Ruben ducked into his brother’s office ten minutes late with a good-looking lunatic in tow, ready to be bitched out.
The trim receptionist turned back to wave him toward the office, her ass like a plum, high and sweet. They’d met a couple days ago, and she only knew him as her boss’s loser brother. She barely looked at him. “Mr. Oso? Le esperan.”
He nodded at the Spanish and pretended he understood so she’d smile and stop talking. He was Colombian, so people assumed, but he only spoke about ten words of español. “Good morning,” “Thank you,” and “Fuck off, I don’t speak Spanish” marked the outer limits of his conversational abilities thanks to poor, snobbish grandparents who’d given up everything to come north to the Land of the Free-range Idiots.
Behind him Bauer said something to her and she made friendly chatty sounds.
Charles poked his head out and knocked on the door frame. “Wanna introduce me to your buddy?”
Bauer chuckled.
“We don’t know each other.” Ruben nodded a silent apology at his brother. He could feel Bauer approaching him from behind but didn’t turn. “I think he’s yours.”
Charles sported one of his Hawaiian shirts: hibiscuses and starfish on teal. He collected the ugly things and wore nothing else, even under suits. Back in Florida, everyone made fun of the habit, but Charles dug the comfort and the color, still pretending to be a mobster when he could get away with it.
“Andy Bauer. I’m your nine o’clock.”
“Charles Oso.”
Handshakes. They stepped into the cramped office.
Bauer turned back to Ruben. “And you are?”
“Ruben.”
Charles sat down. “How—?”
For the first time, Ruben looked Bauer straight in the eye and was a little startled to find him staring back with unblinking intensity. Baffled blue-gray eyes, soft and hidden as dust bunnies. Bauer spoke without turning. “He tossed a mugger for me downstairs.”
“Ruben is joining us from Florida.” Charles rummaged in the heap of files composting on his desk.
Bauer looked between them. “You look like brothers.” Uptight little nod.
They did: same square build, same Colombian beak, same crappy clothes… except Charles had gotten tubby and wasn’t sleeping on anyone’s couch. Ruben had wrestled in high school and had his father’s barrel chest; he couldn’t touch his toes, but his knuckles could crack a windshield. Besides, Empire wasn’t exactly the Secret Service. In lieu of a loan, Charles had thrown Ruben a job, paying him to get his shit together.
Charles nailed Ruben with a don’t-fuck-it-up glare, but he spoke to the handsome stranger. “Point is, I’m giving you my best, here.”
Bauer looked to be loaded and paranoid. “I’ve considered hiring a private investigator, except security is the real issue.” He kept fidgeting and combing Ruben with those weird light eyes, as if trying to place his face.
Ruben cracked his knuckles quietly. Something didn’t fit. “Private investigation isn’t something Empire offers.”
“But security is.” Charles waved Ruben’s objections away.
“I appreciate it.” Bauer spoke with a lowish voice, not deep but hushed… like he needed extra air to get words out. “I know the whole thing sounds crazy.”
Charles turned to Ruben and they shared a glance that felt like an eye roll. This job sounded like bullshit. Charles knew he needed the money, and maybe this was some kinda bone, beginner-friendly and screw-up-proof. A favor for a client?
If Ruben hadn’t been late he could’ve gotten the 411 from his brother, but that was his own fault. Long as someone paid him, he’d guard an outhouse.
“We’re going to need details.” Charles flapped a sheaf of paper onto his cluttered desk. “I got a contract here. Formality, but still.”
Ruben stole another glance at their new client, which gave him a funny feeling he couldn’t name.
Charles’s mobile rang and he held up a finger to answer it. He looked to Bauer. “Why don’t you fill Rube in?” That quickly, Charles had ducked out and Ruben was low man on the pole. So much for felt scraps.
Taking his brother’s chair, Ruben let his wide
shoulders brush Sir Whitebread anyways, just to let him know who’d be in charge. Well, as in charge as you can be when you’re surviving on Burger King and your little brother’s pullout. Ruben had the indigestion and the crick in his neck to prove it. He wasn’t twenty. Hell, he wasn’t thirty anymore. He’d turned forty-one in January and his body didn’t bounce back the way it had.
“What’s the situation, exactly?”
Bauer stared right at him. “Precarious.”
The unblinking scrutiny made Ruben squirm. Was this guy a bigot? A queer? No, just… odd. Ruben flipped open his pad, a leather journal that fit in his hip pocket. Time for a list. Plus it gave him somewhere to look that felt less intense. “For example?”
“Well, it’s an office in a residence. A few employees and most of them work from home. But I have clients in and out at all hours.”
And you chase muggers in broad daylight. Right.
“Look, way you nailed that guy, I figured you for an off-duty cop.” Again that intense stare.
“I dropped out of the army.” Ruben had ditched boot when Marisa had her first miscarriage. “But I can fight and I take orders fine.”
“My situation is…. What’s needed here is something a little more….” His mouth couldn’t make the word. He plucked at his pants.
“Off the record.” Ruben nodded. Tighty-whitey wanted some brown hands to do his dirty work.
Sure enough, Bauer gave a sigh of relief. “Nothing crooked, you understand, but I don’t want to run the risk of compromising any of my clients because I’ve got Dudley Do-Right riding shotgun.”
Ruben squinted and then forced his face to relax. “So you’re looking for…?”
“More of a Dudley Do-Wrong?” Money to burn, then. A whale had floated into Empire’s little lagoon. “A bodyguard.”
Ruben looked up at that. “Executive protection.” Why did he have a bad feeling about this? He throttled the thought and focused on landing as much cash as possible. Hell, maybe a place to crash. “Twenty-four hour?”
“Work hours, I think.”
Lucky me. Ruben could imagine how Raggedy Andy’s fancy guest room compared to a Spanish Harlem walkup. Privacy mattered enough that his current digs won there. He had enough headaches without a head case down the hall.