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aeroport_artTitle: The West Coast Two-Step (4/9)
Characters: Brad/Nate, Ray, Poke, Walt, Rudy, etc.
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aeroport_art
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: western!AU
Word Count: 36k (4,600 this part)
Summary: 1888, Reno, NV. Sheriff Brad Colbert used to get along just fine...that is, until a morning shootout broke out in his town leaving three men dead. A babyfaced stranger by the name of Fick rolls in around the same time, and Brad ain't convinced the two events aren't related.
When Brad arrives at the office, he’s hardly surprised to find the rest of his men next to Ray’s desk, hunched like a bunch of strays around a bone.
In this case, Deputy Person seems to be the bone.
“…should’ve heard him, guys. He’s got a hard-on the size of Mount Shasta for this kid, following him around like Fick’s the last pussy on earth.”
A very loud, very obnoxious bone.
“Hell, he even ditched me to go see Manimal, and y’all know how much that felt-humping blockhead charges for his fucking hogwash! I hope Brad got something for his troubles at least, like a handjob or—”
Brad clears his throat. His men turn around in one complete motion, their faces predictably guilty (except for Ray’s as he turns around in his chair, predictably cheerful in a special sort of way).
Brad makes a show of sending icy looks to each lawman, one at a time.
Deputy Reyes, tall and beefy with sweat-glistening skin peeking through a too-tight shirt, smiles abashedly and shrugs under Brad’s gaze.
Walt, on the other hand, points to the back of Ray’s head and mouths, He started it. Brad snorts a little. Walt’s a cute kid.
When Brad moves on to lift a disappointed eyebrow at Deputy Espera, he just mirrors Brad with his own and says, “Shit, dog. You know nobody can shut him up once he’s on a roll.”
Brad keeps a straight face. He says magnanimously, “This is true. I do share the unfortunate burden of knowing how impossible it is to get our resident retard to quit jawing off like a young buck who just popped his girlfriend’s cherry.”
Ray quickly counters. “Come on, Brad. You can’t expect me to keep mum about the sordid love affair you’re having with our primary suspect.”
“Ray—”
“It’s really like, romantic and shit. You shouldn’t be ashamed of anything. Well, anything other than getting your ass stuffed full of cock on a regular—”
“Ray!”
Ray shuts up. He knows Brad’s limits—usually likes to exceed them—but he does manage to stop short of inciting actual murder. So far, at least.
“Let me just make this loud and clear to you impressionable, knitting-bee little bitches.” Brad says, staring his men down. “I like pussy. I like a good, old-fashioned dripping cootch. Usually around my dick, but sometime’s it’s just nice to look at and maybe eat out.”
A small chorus of mm-hmm’s break out among his men and Walt gets a faraway look in his eyes. Brad continues, “Even better is pussy you pay for, because then all that bullshit like feelings or complications fly right out the door. What’s the use in getting saddled with a backstabbing bitch when you can get a good fuck whenever you want it, how you want it, for the bargain price of a buck fifty an hour?”
Ray’s looking at Brad with that rare, sober expression he gets every time Brad starts getting cynical. It pisses him right the fuck off, but hell—at least Ray’s keeping his trap shut this time.
He’ll make it quick. “If I can make my dick happy anytime I like, why, in Christ Our Lord and Savior’s name—”
“But Brad, you’re Jewish—”
“—would I fuck up a serious investigation by chasing our prime suspect’s lily-white, Eastern ass when I don’t even like ass in the first place?”
There’s a long silence where Poke looks at him knowingly, Ray and Walt trade inscrutable glances, and Rudy breaks out into a mysterious smile before adding, “You know, Sheriff. You shouldn’t knock it before you try it. Something about a nice, firm ass raises my animal spirit.”
A disbelieving silence follows, wherein Ray breaks it by snorting, “Jesus Christ, Rudy. You’re such a fucking fruitcake.”
“Brother, I never said it had to be a man’s ass. You filled in that part all by your lonesome.”
Impatient to steer the dialogue out of its inevitable, downward spiral, Brad crosses his arms and taps his foot until everyone’s eyes turn towards him. Works every time. “You boys can continue your circle-jerk after the meeting’s over,” he says. “Or you can listen to the dirt I dug up today.”
Brad fills them in on how Nate’s actually a U.S. Marshal come to town, sniffing around the local opium market. It opens a floodgate as Rudy and Poke jump in, identifying two of their victims, Marlon and Brown, as partners in a bustling dope business back when shit was still legal.
It makes perfect sense that Marlon and Brown would follow the market underground, and when Ray mentions that Bob Raleigh was notorious for being a get-rich-quick kinda guy, always dabbling in shady business, Walt jumps in and starts weaving together a story that don’t sound half-bad.
“Bob Raleigh landed on a cheap source of opium,” Walt theorizes. “Marlon and Brown didn’t want nobody undercutting them, so they staked him out and killed him.”
“So what about those footprints leaving the site?” Rudy asks. “Fick’s?”
“No,” Brad answers. “Nate was standing closer to Marlon and Brown. You can tell by the entry wounds his gun left in Bob Raleigh’s corpse.”
“So we got a fifth party,” Poke says. “Shit, dog. This case is getting real fucking crowded. So who the fuck was selling opiate to Bob Raleigh?”
Brad takes the opportunity to suggest that Injuns might be involved. Casually mentions the assault at The Copper Tavern, unsurprised when his men start crowing, wanting immediate justice, but Brad calms them down.
“Patience, boys,” he says and reminds them that everything’s linked to the case—that they need to solve that first before picking off low-hanging fruit like a ragtag bunch of amateur hooligans.
From his seat, Ray thunks his head on his desk, then draws it back up. “Fucking Injuns,” he says. “You take a little land of theirs—okay, all their land—kill some of their wives and babies and shit and oh, boo hoo hoo—” Ray mimes rubbing away tears. “—they get all pissy and start trying to escape the beautiful resorts we’ve built specifically for their ungrateful, redskin asses.”
Brad doesn’t even try to rein in an amused smile. Fuck, Ray could be a millionaire selling the crap that comes out of his fucked up brain if he didn’t have the attention span of…well. Of Ray Person.
-----
The men start wandering back to their respective desks, but Poke adds one last riposte.
“Hey, we never did decide who gets to go to Sydney’s tonight.”
Brad’s ears perk. “Sydney’s, the whorehouse? God damn, men. The least you could do is wait ‘til I’m out of earshot before planning your evening debauchery.”
“Naw, dog—it ain’t for us. We figured out where your boy—”
“Poke,” Ray hisses, elbowing the Sergeant.
Brad rounds up on Poke, pressing his height to full advantage. “By all means, Sergeant. Don’t stop on Ray’s account.”
Poke shrugs, continuing, “Well, after doing a little recon on your boy Nate, we found out he’s hitting up Sydney’s tonight. Heard him request a girl named Marla…sounded like it weren’t the first time, either. White boy knew exactly which room he’d find her in.”
“That so?” Brad asks. The words comes out colder than he’d intended, and Brad feels his officers tense up. He says, in a more normal tone, “Good work. You boys continue working your leads.”
Rudy straightens up and turns to Poke, asking, “Hold on, brother. You said Fick’s with Marla tonight, right?”
“Yeah. What about it?”
“Before he died, Bob Raleigh was seeing this mistress, Marlena. You think she could be the same bird Fick’s meeting tonight?”
“He was cheating on his wife?” Walt interrupts. “Shit, that guy’s got more potential killers than California’s got deadbeat cowboys.”
While constructive discussion degenerates into debate over which state’s got the phoniest cowboys, Brad sinks deep into thought.
Out of all three carcasses found in Reno the prior morning, Bob Raleigh was the only body to have bullets traced back to Nate’s gun, which naturally leads him to assume Nate was on scene. This doesn’t account for the fifth party who was with Raleigh, however. Brad’s beginning to wonder if Marla made an appearance during the shootout.
But it doesn’t make sense, because Nate’s a U.S. Marshal and he’s looking for stockpiles of dope with his partner, Gunny. Why the fuck would Nate be at the hookshop now with a dead man’s mistress? She must be connected to the case somehow. And lest Brad forget, there’s a bloodthirsty pack of Injuns thrown into the mix as well.
Jesus Christ, Brad’s head hurts.
He snaps back into the conversation. “No, Ray, you may not use Trombley’s hat for a pissing pot when he ain’t there. You know the psycho’s got a little psycho of his own now, and that mini half-Mexican spawn needs his daddy’s unperturbed nurturing before he can grow up to be as bloodthirsty and hellish as he’s destined to be.”
Brad pauses for breath. “Now,” he says, turning to Poke. “Poke.”
“Yeah, Sheriff?”
“When did you see Nate at Sydney’s?”
“Just a little while ago. Thirty, maybe forty minutes back.” Poke reaches into his vest pocket and flips out his fob watch. “Yeah, in fact, he’s probably still there. At least, he should be if he’s getting his money’s worth.”
“All right, then. I’ll take Sydney’s—” Brad waits patiently for the jeers to come and go—”And the rest of you just make sure you got something to show tomorrow. Eight o’ clock in the morning, let me see those bright eyes and bushy tails.”
At that dismissal, the men finally break. Only Ray stays behind.
“Man,” Ray whines, “The only bush you’ll see will be at Sydney’s, you lucky asshole. We were gonna draw straws, Brad!”
“Fuck straws. I saved you a special present, Deputy.” Brad smiles widely and Ray brightens up like it’s Christmas morning at the horse track.
Brad fills in his Deputy Sheriff on the descriptions of all the Injuns he remembers from that afternoon’s shootout. Mentions specifically that Meesh was an easy target, and not entirely opposed to flapping his lips. Provided a strong enough incentive, that is.
With instructions to capture and interrogate an enemy, Ray Person looks more than placated.
He still manages to make Brad feel completely transparent, however, when he leans in conspiratorially to say before they split, “Go get ‘im, Brad. Let Fick know his ass is yours—not Marla’s, or any other Susie Rottencrotch’s. I believe in you, Iceman!”
“Understood, Deputy. Now get out of my fucking personal space, you’re giving me syphilis as we speak.”
Ray salutes, then starts flitting around his desk, preparing for his mission.
Brad turns around to head for the stable. He takes Hummer out and the two of them set a hurried pace towards Reno’s whoring district, just north of Chinatown.
With this latest information under his belt, Brad can safely assume now that Nate ain’t fucking around with the guy sharing his room at The Copper Tavern. The conclusion calms him…at least, it should because while Brad might not be the most religious of zealots or hell, even particularly disgusted by the idea of two guys fucking each other, even he knows a man oughta be with a woman.
But then he wonders, is it so much better that Nate’s sleeping with a dead man’s whore?
If Brad’s being honest with himself, both scenarios make him so cross he can’t see straight enough to shoot a target the size of Montana Territory. As for the reason why, that’s something a county sheriff working to solve a triple homicide and burgeoning underground drug trade just ain’t got time to waste on.
Through the hazy, dusty twilight, Brad turns down the main drag of Reno’s red light district. He approaches a three-story building. Flickering candlelight can be seen through the windows, and the white-painted sign of Sydney’s looms up large and bright.
-----
Brad winds up getting a girl himself. He can’t very well bust in on a patron at Sydney’s without warrant, so he does the next best thing by securing a position not ten feet away from his person of interest with only the thinnest, most non-discretionary walls between them, providing a serviceable condition within which to conduct his reconnaissance.
Doesn't hurt he’ll be getting laid as well. Brad's been wound up tighter than a clock since getting shot up at The Copper Tavern, and better to relieve himself now via a professional lady-of-the-line than to muddle through the next few hours of work as scatterbrained as he feels now.
"Missy, would you keep it down?"
Missy quits groaning like she been shot and looks up at Brad from between her legs. "Sheriff, you ain't been back to see me in so long, I done forgot the way you like to fuck."
"Well un-forget, Missy. 'Sides, I ain't just here to get my rocks off tonight. I got work to do, starting with your friend Marla next door."
"Mmm, naughty," she hums. In response, Brad twists his fingers inside her and Missy rears back, moaning salaciously.
After that, little whuffs and whimpers escape into the air as Brad dutifully fingers her. Don't nobody say the Iceman weren't a gentleman. All the while, he listens intently for any sounds next door. Walls so thin, he can just about hear a pin drop.
No pins, though, and not for lack of trying. Either Nate's a real silent kind of lover, or—Brad dares to think—perhaps there ain't any loving going on at all.
The very idea that maybe Nate ain't here to fuck his brains out sends a palpable sense of relief through him. It’s plenty conceivable, too…Nate’s connected to dead Bob Raleigh, so Nate and Marla could simply be getting together to talk about him. Yeah, could be it. Not every two individuals in a brothel gotta be fucking each other like animals.
Some guys and gals got class, and Mr. Nathaniel Fick just may be the classiest dude ever to grace Washoe County. Besides, it don’t make a lick of sense that a pretty boy like Nate would be paying for it. Brad’s seen the way women act when Nate comes up during questioning—their suggestive smiles, their lewd comments about where they’d seen Nate go and where they wished he were. Seriously, the way those damn girls act, Brad’s beginning to think they’d be paying Nate for some action.
Realizing the preposterous turn his thoughts have made, Brad centers himself back into the present. He’s got one mission at Sydney’s tonight, and he ain’t about to let bullshit thoughts fuck it up.
Well, maybe two missions; his dick’s hard and heavy between his legs. "Flip over," Brad orders, withdrawing his fingers from Missy with a wet noise.
At that moment, a loud thump ratchets out from Nate's room, followed by Marla’s smoky voice saying, Come here, baby.
A flicker of annoyance flares up in Brad’s gut, then settles down into disappointment. He quickly tamps it away. So Nate’s getting some ass—so the fuck what?
Brad ain’t doing so bad himself. Before him, Missy's on her hands and knees, ready to be taken from behind the way Brad likes.
As he rolls on a rubber and moves forward to grip the soft flesh of Missy’s round hips, Brad’s thoughts wander back to Nate. He wonders how Nate likes to take his women…wonders if his whore is spread out for him right now, warm and willing like Brad’s is.
Maybe Nate likes it nice and conventional, face-to-face as he fucks into her while soppily holding her stare.
Then again, remembering their fierce, alleyway dustup not twenty-four hours ago, it's possible Brad ain't giving him enough credit.
Maybe Nate likes it rough and dirty instead. Maybe he gets messy with his women, eating them out with an agile tongue and loving the way his face gets wet from their excitement. Maybe he fucks as hard as he punches—in and out like a bullet, getting off like it’s a precision sport instead of something to be lingered over, savored.
Brad wonders what Nate sounds like when he comes. He probably tries to stay quiet, but his grey-green eyes inevitably fall shut, his pink mouth drops open in pleasure…
“Ouch,” Missy yelps.
Brad automatically lets go of her hips. There are neat indentations in her skin where his nails dug in.
“Sorry, Missy," Brad says, shaking himself mentally. "Got distracted.”
“That so?” she asks coyly, looking over her shoulder and wiggling her ass at him.
Brad chuckles. He resumes his position behind her, placing one hand on her lower back and the other around his dick, guiding it towards her waiting pussy. Before he gets all the way inside though, another thud comes from Nate’s room. This time, it’s followed by Nate’s distinctive voice as he groans, Fuck.
Brad’s cock pulses in his hand. He quickly circles it at the base, squeezing tight to stave off the sudden throb.
“Hold on,” Brad grunts. He doesn’t want to fuck her like this anymore. “Your mouth—use your mouth.”
“That kind of night, huh?” Missy turns around and slides off the bed, falling to her knees until she’s looking up at Brad through dark lashes. “I don’t do this for just anyone, Sheriff.”
“I know, Missy, I know. Five extra, same as before. Now get to, would you?”
Missy smiles one last time before pulling the rubber off with a snap and opening her painted lips to put them over Brad’s dick. At the warm sensation, he lets his head roll back and groans as she sucks her way down to where his fingers still clutch at the base.
Through the fog of pleasure, Brad still makes sure he can pay attention to everything going on next door. There’s a shuffle of noise and Brad hears Nate murmur something unintelligible, speaking too low to hear.
Brad closes his eyes, lets the sound of Nate’s voice wash over him. Missy does a good job getting his cock down her throat, and he moves his hands into her hair. Somehow the silky strands don’t feel right, so he slides them down to hold her ears instead as her head moves back and forth in his lap.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Brad says huskily, his own hips moving in rhythm to meet her lips with each thrust. His mind is elsewhere, though—caught up with the task of making sure he can still hear Nate’s every move next door, it’s suddenly his ears he’s gripping, it’s Nate’s throat gulping him down like he’s freshwater in a desert.
“Fuck,” Brad groans, curling forward until he has to catch himself with one hand on the bed. The other hand moves to the back of Missy’s head, keeping her mouth in place as he fucks into it helplessly.
Slick, suctioned noises come from Missy’s throat as he gets his dick into it, trying to make her take him to the root. She’s done it once before—Brad trusts she can do it again. “Deeper,” he coaxes, and he feels her swallow convulsively, her gullet opening up enough to let him sink all the way in.
“That’s it.” Brad pets the back of her hair, imagining it’s short bristles instead. Jesus, if it were Nate here, dirtying up his knees like a two-cent whore—if it were Nate sucking Brad off with his mouth stretched wide, big eyes blinking up and watering from choking on Brad’s dick as he tries to swallow everything down…
“Fuck, Nate. I’m gonna—”
An angry clumping of footsteps echo through the wall and just as Brad teeters on the verge of coming, there’s a gunshot bang, the door to their room kicked wide open. The broken latch skitters uselessly to the ground.
Brad pulls himself back and throws Missy behind him as he whirls around to face their intruder.
In the doorway, Nate’s got one hand on the frame and the other balled up in a shaking fist beside him. “How dare you,” he says quietly between clenched teeth.
Brad tries to ignore how Nate’s fully dressed and buttoned-up proper while he’s sporting nothing but half-done trousers, cock jutting out from the fly and still gleaming wet from Missy’s devilish mouth. Ain’t like Nate’s noticing, though; his green eyes are fixed on Brad’s, challengingly.
“Missy, get out of here,” Brad says. Behind him, he hears Missy clumsily collect her clothes before dashing out the room under Nate’s arm.
Nate doesn’t blink. “How dare you,” he repeats, striding into the room with the tension of a tightly coiled spring.
The accusatory fire in Nate’s eyes makes it difficult not to lash back, but Brad schools his face into indifference and lazily replies, “I don’t know what I did to get your shorts in a twist, Fick, but I sure as hell ain’t the one interrupting a personal business transaction between two law-abiding citizens.”
Nate stalks forward and when he’s close enough, he hauls Brad aside and throws him against the wall, Brad’s back colliding with a loud smack.
Suddenly, Brad’s got his hands full of one very pissed-off Nathaniel Fick, who pushes a forearm against Brad’s throat hard enough to make it difficult to breathe.
Nate growls, “I’ve tolerated your busybodiness for days, now, even let you hold onto my gun until you got your head screwed on straight over this whole fucking mess, but I have my limits. And my limit ends at you getting a room next to me at a whorehouse—” Nate presses in with his body, paying no heed to the way Brad’s cock is trapped between their stomachs. “—and calling my fucking name out as you get your fucking dick serviced by the whore you paid extra to do the filthy shit.”
Nate drops his voice, low and dangerous. “Is that what you think about when you touch yourself? You think about me sucking your dick? Hardly original, you know. I know what my mouth looks like, and you sure as hell ain’t the first asshole wanting me to put it to use.”
The shock of his words makes Brad twitch so hard, it’s troubling. Shit, Brad’s done playing games, now. He’s done letting Nate dictate the situation.
In defiance, Brad grinds up against Nate, his hard dick a solid weight between their lower bellies. It works like a charm—Nate looks down distractedly like he’s only just noticed it, and Brad takes the opportunity to pry Nate’s arm off his neck. He twists around and, using his weight as leverage, slams Nate up against the very spot Brad just was.
“Mighty sure of ourselves, are we?” Brad growls, draping his body over Nate’s and bearing down so hard, Nate’s shoulder must feel like it’s about to pop right out. “Trust me, I’d take Missy’s deep-throating over yours any day. You probably suck cock like a wet fish. As for taking the room next to yours, you think I like moonlighting as your fucking shadow, Nate? All I want from you is a few simple answers, but if you ain’t gonna cooperate like a good little boy, I’m gonna have to get them out of you somehow.” Brad pushes down on his hold, eliciting a small gasp.
Nate’s a stubborn fucker though—says nothing and just goes back to struggling against Brad’s iron grip. “So it’s gonna be like that, huh?” Brad intones. “Well, how about this...instead of trying to get one straight fucking story from you, how about I tell you what’s going on, and you just nod your pretty head yes or no.”
Brad takes Nate's silence as agreement. “You shot Bob Raleigh." The way Nate freezes under his grasp confirms this, and Brad continues, "Bob was trying to run off with Marla, but you wanted her for yourself. So you made sure you’d get to keep her, by killing off the competition."
Nate makes a scoffing noise but Brad gamely goes on, "Hell, I bet all them dead boys were with you. Hired guns? Scoundrel dope-pushers, the lot of them, I bet they jumped at the faintest whiff of your crisp, new greenbacks. Sure bet they didn't count on getting killed, though. Well, you got what you wanted, Nate. You done got your little piece of tail, and now you want me off your back so you can make tracks outta this town, don't you?"
Under Brad's relentless grip, Nate chooses to stay infuriatingly silent, revealing nothing. He’s even stopped squirming around. In the darkness of the room, the sun long having sunk below the horizon, Brad can only hear the sound of his own ragged breathing—can see only the back of Nate's bowed head, and even that sight's half-obscured by the low candlelight.
Finally, Nate lifts his head. He turns to the side, face shadowed in profile as he says softly, "Your reputation precedes you, Iceman. Fastest draw in Nevada, never lost a duel. Always hit what you're meaning to hit, but never gratuitous about it, never cruel. Simply cold as ice…s’how you got your nickname."
Brad blinks. "What's that got to do with anything?"
Nate goes on like he hadn’t heard him, picking up in volume and confidence, "You're supposed to be the quickest mind in the West, too, and the sharpest eyes in the whole damned country. Coming out to the frontier, you'd think the Iceman were a fucking deity or something, the stories people tell about you. Can't figure out what all the fuss is about, though. Quite frankly, I'm disappointed in what I've seen so far."
Brad tightens his grip on Nate's wrist, trying to claw back the advantage quickly tipping in Nate’s favor, but he’s disturbed by Nate’s words and they both fucking know it. Probably doesn’t help that’s Brad’s still hanging out from his trousers like laundry hung out to dry.
Brad swallows grimly, "And you call me the busybody? You find out these fun facts from that piss-poor Injun you sicced on me?"
Nate's expression changes, his cocky mirth draining out like a bloodletting. "Someone’s trailing you?"
To Brad’s left, something captures his attention. It’s a glint coming off their window—chances are it’s just the dancing reflection of candlelight, but Brad trusts his gut and his gut's telling him otherwise.
“Sheriff?” Nate asks.
Brad’s eyes are still trained on the window though. He waits, holding himself statue-still until slowly, a face emerges from behind distant scaffolding. “There are men on the roofs,” Brad states, jerking Nate down to the hardwood floor and throwing himself on top just in time for their window to burst into a thousand pieces.
Beneath him, Nate's eyes are wide and surprised. Flying bullets or no, Brad returns his full concentration to Nate and picks up their conversation where they left off. "For all intents and purposes, I am a fucking deity,” Brad hisses. “I am a fucking warrior. You ever stop to think, Nate, maybe it’s just you federal cocksucks fucking up this case for me?”
Nate's mouth opens and moves, but anything he’s saying gets drowned out by a second, much closer gunshot that hits the mattress behind them with an explosion of feathers. Outside their door, the screams of a panicked crowd float over the bone-rattling rumble of people fleeing the whorehouse all at once.
In the ensuing breath, Nate’s eyes lose their bewilderment and he barks, “Pull up your fucking pants, Sheriff. We need to move.”
Back | Next
Characters: Brad/Nate, Ray, Poke, Walt, Rudy, etc.
Author:
aeroport_artRating: NC-17
Warnings: western!AU
Word Count: 36k (4,600 this part)
Summary: 1888, Reno, NV. Sheriff Brad Colbert used to get along just fine...that is, until a morning shootout broke out in his town leaving three men dead. A babyfaced stranger by the name of Fick rolls in around the same time, and Brad ain't convinced the two events aren't related.
When Brad arrives at the office, he’s hardly surprised to find the rest of his men next to Ray’s desk, hunched like a bunch of strays around a bone.
In this case, Deputy Person seems to be the bone.
“…should’ve heard him, guys. He’s got a hard-on the size of Mount Shasta for this kid, following him around like Fick’s the last pussy on earth.”
A very loud, very obnoxious bone.
“Hell, he even ditched me to go see Manimal, and y’all know how much that felt-humping blockhead charges for his fucking hogwash! I hope Brad got something for his troubles at least, like a handjob or—”
Brad clears his throat. His men turn around in one complete motion, their faces predictably guilty (except for Ray’s as he turns around in his chair, predictably cheerful in a special sort of way).
Brad makes a show of sending icy looks to each lawman, one at a time.
Deputy Reyes, tall and beefy with sweat-glistening skin peeking through a too-tight shirt, smiles abashedly and shrugs under Brad’s gaze.
Walt, on the other hand, points to the back of Ray’s head and mouths, He started it. Brad snorts a little. Walt’s a cute kid.
When Brad moves on to lift a disappointed eyebrow at Deputy Espera, he just mirrors Brad with his own and says, “Shit, dog. You know nobody can shut him up once he’s on a roll.”
Brad keeps a straight face. He says magnanimously, “This is true. I do share the unfortunate burden of knowing how impossible it is to get our resident retard to quit jawing off like a young buck who just popped his girlfriend’s cherry.”
Ray quickly counters. “Come on, Brad. You can’t expect me to keep mum about the sordid love affair you’re having with our primary suspect.”
“Ray—”
“It’s really like, romantic and shit. You shouldn’t be ashamed of anything. Well, anything other than getting your ass stuffed full of cock on a regular—”
“Ray!”
Ray shuts up. He knows Brad’s limits—usually likes to exceed them—but he does manage to stop short of inciting actual murder. So far, at least.
“Let me just make this loud and clear to you impressionable, knitting-bee little bitches.” Brad says, staring his men down. “I like pussy. I like a good, old-fashioned dripping cootch. Usually around my dick, but sometime’s it’s just nice to look at and maybe eat out.”
A small chorus of mm-hmm’s break out among his men and Walt gets a faraway look in his eyes. Brad continues, “Even better is pussy you pay for, because then all that bullshit like feelings or complications fly right out the door. What’s the use in getting saddled with a backstabbing bitch when you can get a good fuck whenever you want it, how you want it, for the bargain price of a buck fifty an hour?”
Ray’s looking at Brad with that rare, sober expression he gets every time Brad starts getting cynical. It pisses him right the fuck off, but hell—at least Ray’s keeping his trap shut this time.
He’ll make it quick. “If I can make my dick happy anytime I like, why, in Christ Our Lord and Savior’s name—”
“But Brad, you’re Jewish—”
“—would I fuck up a serious investigation by chasing our prime suspect’s lily-white, Eastern ass when I don’t even like ass in the first place?”
There’s a long silence where Poke looks at him knowingly, Ray and Walt trade inscrutable glances, and Rudy breaks out into a mysterious smile before adding, “You know, Sheriff. You shouldn’t knock it before you try it. Something about a nice, firm ass raises my animal spirit.”
A disbelieving silence follows, wherein Ray breaks it by snorting, “Jesus Christ, Rudy. You’re such a fucking fruitcake.”
“Brother, I never said it had to be a man’s ass. You filled in that part all by your lonesome.”
Impatient to steer the dialogue out of its inevitable, downward spiral, Brad crosses his arms and taps his foot until everyone’s eyes turn towards him. Works every time. “You boys can continue your circle-jerk after the meeting’s over,” he says. “Or you can listen to the dirt I dug up today.”
Brad fills them in on how Nate’s actually a U.S. Marshal come to town, sniffing around the local opium market. It opens a floodgate as Rudy and Poke jump in, identifying two of their victims, Marlon and Brown, as partners in a bustling dope business back when shit was still legal.
It makes perfect sense that Marlon and Brown would follow the market underground, and when Ray mentions that Bob Raleigh was notorious for being a get-rich-quick kinda guy, always dabbling in shady business, Walt jumps in and starts weaving together a story that don’t sound half-bad.
“Bob Raleigh landed on a cheap source of opium,” Walt theorizes. “Marlon and Brown didn’t want nobody undercutting them, so they staked him out and killed him.”
“So what about those footprints leaving the site?” Rudy asks. “Fick’s?”
“No,” Brad answers. “Nate was standing closer to Marlon and Brown. You can tell by the entry wounds his gun left in Bob Raleigh’s corpse.”
“So we got a fifth party,” Poke says. “Shit, dog. This case is getting real fucking crowded. So who the fuck was selling opiate to Bob Raleigh?”
Brad takes the opportunity to suggest that Injuns might be involved. Casually mentions the assault at The Copper Tavern, unsurprised when his men start crowing, wanting immediate justice, but Brad calms them down.
“Patience, boys,” he says and reminds them that everything’s linked to the case—that they need to solve that first before picking off low-hanging fruit like a ragtag bunch of amateur hooligans.
From his seat, Ray thunks his head on his desk, then draws it back up. “Fucking Injuns,” he says. “You take a little land of theirs—okay, all their land—kill some of their wives and babies and shit and oh, boo hoo hoo—” Ray mimes rubbing away tears. “—they get all pissy and start trying to escape the beautiful resorts we’ve built specifically for their ungrateful, redskin asses.”
Brad doesn’t even try to rein in an amused smile. Fuck, Ray could be a millionaire selling the crap that comes out of his fucked up brain if he didn’t have the attention span of…well. Of Ray Person.
-----
The men start wandering back to their respective desks, but Poke adds one last riposte.
“Hey, we never did decide who gets to go to Sydney’s tonight.”
Brad’s ears perk. “Sydney’s, the whorehouse? God damn, men. The least you could do is wait ‘til I’m out of earshot before planning your evening debauchery.”
“Naw, dog—it ain’t for us. We figured out where your boy—”
“Poke,” Ray hisses, elbowing the Sergeant.
Brad rounds up on Poke, pressing his height to full advantage. “By all means, Sergeant. Don’t stop on Ray’s account.”
Poke shrugs, continuing, “Well, after doing a little recon on your boy Nate, we found out he’s hitting up Sydney’s tonight. Heard him request a girl named Marla…sounded like it weren’t the first time, either. White boy knew exactly which room he’d find her in.”
“That so?” Brad asks. The words comes out colder than he’d intended, and Brad feels his officers tense up. He says, in a more normal tone, “Good work. You boys continue working your leads.”
Rudy straightens up and turns to Poke, asking, “Hold on, brother. You said Fick’s with Marla tonight, right?”
“Yeah. What about it?”
“Before he died, Bob Raleigh was seeing this mistress, Marlena. You think she could be the same bird Fick’s meeting tonight?”
“He was cheating on his wife?” Walt interrupts. “Shit, that guy’s got more potential killers than California’s got deadbeat cowboys.”
While constructive discussion degenerates into debate over which state’s got the phoniest cowboys, Brad sinks deep into thought.
Out of all three carcasses found in Reno the prior morning, Bob Raleigh was the only body to have bullets traced back to Nate’s gun, which naturally leads him to assume Nate was on scene. This doesn’t account for the fifth party who was with Raleigh, however. Brad’s beginning to wonder if Marla made an appearance during the shootout.
But it doesn’t make sense, because Nate’s a U.S. Marshal and he’s looking for stockpiles of dope with his partner, Gunny. Why the fuck would Nate be at the hookshop now with a dead man’s mistress? She must be connected to the case somehow. And lest Brad forget, there’s a bloodthirsty pack of Injuns thrown into the mix as well.
Jesus Christ, Brad’s head hurts.
He snaps back into the conversation. “No, Ray, you may not use Trombley’s hat for a pissing pot when he ain’t there. You know the psycho’s got a little psycho of his own now, and that mini half-Mexican spawn needs his daddy’s unperturbed nurturing before he can grow up to be as bloodthirsty and hellish as he’s destined to be.”
Brad pauses for breath. “Now,” he says, turning to Poke. “Poke.”
“Yeah, Sheriff?”
“When did you see Nate at Sydney’s?”
“Just a little while ago. Thirty, maybe forty minutes back.” Poke reaches into his vest pocket and flips out his fob watch. “Yeah, in fact, he’s probably still there. At least, he should be if he’s getting his money’s worth.”
“All right, then. I’ll take Sydney’s—” Brad waits patiently for the jeers to come and go—”And the rest of you just make sure you got something to show tomorrow. Eight o’ clock in the morning, let me see those bright eyes and bushy tails.”
At that dismissal, the men finally break. Only Ray stays behind.
“Man,” Ray whines, “The only bush you’ll see will be at Sydney’s, you lucky asshole. We were gonna draw straws, Brad!”
“Fuck straws. I saved you a special present, Deputy.” Brad smiles widely and Ray brightens up like it’s Christmas morning at the horse track.
Brad fills in his Deputy Sheriff on the descriptions of all the Injuns he remembers from that afternoon’s shootout. Mentions specifically that Meesh was an easy target, and not entirely opposed to flapping his lips. Provided a strong enough incentive, that is.
With instructions to capture and interrogate an enemy, Ray Person looks more than placated.
He still manages to make Brad feel completely transparent, however, when he leans in conspiratorially to say before they split, “Go get ‘im, Brad. Let Fick know his ass is yours—not Marla’s, or any other Susie Rottencrotch’s. I believe in you, Iceman!”
“Understood, Deputy. Now get out of my fucking personal space, you’re giving me syphilis as we speak.”
Ray salutes, then starts flitting around his desk, preparing for his mission.
Brad turns around to head for the stable. He takes Hummer out and the two of them set a hurried pace towards Reno’s whoring district, just north of Chinatown.
With this latest information under his belt, Brad can safely assume now that Nate ain’t fucking around with the guy sharing his room at The Copper Tavern. The conclusion calms him…at least, it should because while Brad might not be the most religious of zealots or hell, even particularly disgusted by the idea of two guys fucking each other, even he knows a man oughta be with a woman.
But then he wonders, is it so much better that Nate’s sleeping with a dead man’s whore?
If Brad’s being honest with himself, both scenarios make him so cross he can’t see straight enough to shoot a target the size of Montana Territory. As for the reason why, that’s something a county sheriff working to solve a triple homicide and burgeoning underground drug trade just ain’t got time to waste on.
Through the hazy, dusty twilight, Brad turns down the main drag of Reno’s red light district. He approaches a three-story building. Flickering candlelight can be seen through the windows, and the white-painted sign of Sydney’s looms up large and bright.
-----
Brad winds up getting a girl himself. He can’t very well bust in on a patron at Sydney’s without warrant, so he does the next best thing by securing a position not ten feet away from his person of interest with only the thinnest, most non-discretionary walls between them, providing a serviceable condition within which to conduct his reconnaissance.
Doesn't hurt he’ll be getting laid as well. Brad's been wound up tighter than a clock since getting shot up at The Copper Tavern, and better to relieve himself now via a professional lady-of-the-line than to muddle through the next few hours of work as scatterbrained as he feels now.
"Missy, would you keep it down?"
Missy quits groaning like she been shot and looks up at Brad from between her legs. "Sheriff, you ain't been back to see me in so long, I done forgot the way you like to fuck."
"Well un-forget, Missy. 'Sides, I ain't just here to get my rocks off tonight. I got work to do, starting with your friend Marla next door."
"Mmm, naughty," she hums. In response, Brad twists his fingers inside her and Missy rears back, moaning salaciously.
After that, little whuffs and whimpers escape into the air as Brad dutifully fingers her. Don't nobody say the Iceman weren't a gentleman. All the while, he listens intently for any sounds next door. Walls so thin, he can just about hear a pin drop.
No pins, though, and not for lack of trying. Either Nate's a real silent kind of lover, or—Brad dares to think—perhaps there ain't any loving going on at all.
The very idea that maybe Nate ain't here to fuck his brains out sends a palpable sense of relief through him. It’s plenty conceivable, too…Nate’s connected to dead Bob Raleigh, so Nate and Marla could simply be getting together to talk about him. Yeah, could be it. Not every two individuals in a brothel gotta be fucking each other like animals.
Some guys and gals got class, and Mr. Nathaniel Fick just may be the classiest dude ever to grace Washoe County. Besides, it don’t make a lick of sense that a pretty boy like Nate would be paying for it. Brad’s seen the way women act when Nate comes up during questioning—their suggestive smiles, their lewd comments about where they’d seen Nate go and where they wished he were. Seriously, the way those damn girls act, Brad’s beginning to think they’d be paying Nate for some action.
Realizing the preposterous turn his thoughts have made, Brad centers himself back into the present. He’s got one mission at Sydney’s tonight, and he ain’t about to let bullshit thoughts fuck it up.
Well, maybe two missions; his dick’s hard and heavy between his legs. "Flip over," Brad orders, withdrawing his fingers from Missy with a wet noise.
At that moment, a loud thump ratchets out from Nate's room, followed by Marla’s smoky voice saying, Come here, baby.
A flicker of annoyance flares up in Brad’s gut, then settles down into disappointment. He quickly tamps it away. So Nate’s getting some ass—so the fuck what?
Brad ain’t doing so bad himself. Before him, Missy's on her hands and knees, ready to be taken from behind the way Brad likes.
As he rolls on a rubber and moves forward to grip the soft flesh of Missy’s round hips, Brad’s thoughts wander back to Nate. He wonders how Nate likes to take his women…wonders if his whore is spread out for him right now, warm and willing like Brad’s is.
Maybe Nate likes it nice and conventional, face-to-face as he fucks into her while soppily holding her stare.
Then again, remembering their fierce, alleyway dustup not twenty-four hours ago, it's possible Brad ain't giving him enough credit.
Maybe Nate likes it rough and dirty instead. Maybe he gets messy with his women, eating them out with an agile tongue and loving the way his face gets wet from their excitement. Maybe he fucks as hard as he punches—in and out like a bullet, getting off like it’s a precision sport instead of something to be lingered over, savored.
Brad wonders what Nate sounds like when he comes. He probably tries to stay quiet, but his grey-green eyes inevitably fall shut, his pink mouth drops open in pleasure…
“Ouch,” Missy yelps.
Brad automatically lets go of her hips. There are neat indentations in her skin where his nails dug in.
“Sorry, Missy," Brad says, shaking himself mentally. "Got distracted.”
“That so?” she asks coyly, looking over her shoulder and wiggling her ass at him.
Brad chuckles. He resumes his position behind her, placing one hand on her lower back and the other around his dick, guiding it towards her waiting pussy. Before he gets all the way inside though, another thud comes from Nate’s room. This time, it’s followed by Nate’s distinctive voice as he groans, Fuck.
Brad’s cock pulses in his hand. He quickly circles it at the base, squeezing tight to stave off the sudden throb.
“Hold on,” Brad grunts. He doesn’t want to fuck her like this anymore. “Your mouth—use your mouth.”
“That kind of night, huh?” Missy turns around and slides off the bed, falling to her knees until she’s looking up at Brad through dark lashes. “I don’t do this for just anyone, Sheriff.”
“I know, Missy, I know. Five extra, same as before. Now get to, would you?”
Missy smiles one last time before pulling the rubber off with a snap and opening her painted lips to put them over Brad’s dick. At the warm sensation, he lets his head roll back and groans as she sucks her way down to where his fingers still clutch at the base.
Through the fog of pleasure, Brad still makes sure he can pay attention to everything going on next door. There’s a shuffle of noise and Brad hears Nate murmur something unintelligible, speaking too low to hear.
Brad closes his eyes, lets the sound of Nate’s voice wash over him. Missy does a good job getting his cock down her throat, and he moves his hands into her hair. Somehow the silky strands don’t feel right, so he slides them down to hold her ears instead as her head moves back and forth in his lap.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Brad says huskily, his own hips moving in rhythm to meet her lips with each thrust. His mind is elsewhere, though—caught up with the task of making sure he can still hear Nate’s every move next door, it’s suddenly his ears he’s gripping, it’s Nate’s throat gulping him down like he’s freshwater in a desert.
“Fuck,” Brad groans, curling forward until he has to catch himself with one hand on the bed. The other hand moves to the back of Missy’s head, keeping her mouth in place as he fucks into it helplessly.
Slick, suctioned noises come from Missy’s throat as he gets his dick into it, trying to make her take him to the root. She’s done it once before—Brad trusts she can do it again. “Deeper,” he coaxes, and he feels her swallow convulsively, her gullet opening up enough to let him sink all the way in.
“That’s it.” Brad pets the back of her hair, imagining it’s short bristles instead. Jesus, if it were Nate here, dirtying up his knees like a two-cent whore—if it were Nate sucking Brad off with his mouth stretched wide, big eyes blinking up and watering from choking on Brad’s dick as he tries to swallow everything down…
“Fuck, Nate. I’m gonna—”
An angry clumping of footsteps echo through the wall and just as Brad teeters on the verge of coming, there’s a gunshot bang, the door to their room kicked wide open. The broken latch skitters uselessly to the ground.
Brad pulls himself back and throws Missy behind him as he whirls around to face their intruder.
In the doorway, Nate’s got one hand on the frame and the other balled up in a shaking fist beside him. “How dare you,” he says quietly between clenched teeth.
Brad tries to ignore how Nate’s fully dressed and buttoned-up proper while he’s sporting nothing but half-done trousers, cock jutting out from the fly and still gleaming wet from Missy’s devilish mouth. Ain’t like Nate’s noticing, though; his green eyes are fixed on Brad’s, challengingly.
“Missy, get out of here,” Brad says. Behind him, he hears Missy clumsily collect her clothes before dashing out the room under Nate’s arm.
Nate doesn’t blink. “How dare you,” he repeats, striding into the room with the tension of a tightly coiled spring.
The accusatory fire in Nate’s eyes makes it difficult not to lash back, but Brad schools his face into indifference and lazily replies, “I don’t know what I did to get your shorts in a twist, Fick, but I sure as hell ain’t the one interrupting a personal business transaction between two law-abiding citizens.”
Nate stalks forward and when he’s close enough, he hauls Brad aside and throws him against the wall, Brad’s back colliding with a loud smack.
Suddenly, Brad’s got his hands full of one very pissed-off Nathaniel Fick, who pushes a forearm against Brad’s throat hard enough to make it difficult to breathe.
Nate growls, “I’ve tolerated your busybodiness for days, now, even let you hold onto my gun until you got your head screwed on straight over this whole fucking mess, but I have my limits. And my limit ends at you getting a room next to me at a whorehouse—” Nate presses in with his body, paying no heed to the way Brad’s cock is trapped between their stomachs. “—and calling my fucking name out as you get your fucking dick serviced by the whore you paid extra to do the filthy shit.”
Nate drops his voice, low and dangerous. “Is that what you think about when you touch yourself? You think about me sucking your dick? Hardly original, you know. I know what my mouth looks like, and you sure as hell ain’t the first asshole wanting me to put it to use.”
The shock of his words makes Brad twitch so hard, it’s troubling. Shit, Brad’s done playing games, now. He’s done letting Nate dictate the situation.
In defiance, Brad grinds up against Nate, his hard dick a solid weight between their lower bellies. It works like a charm—Nate looks down distractedly like he’s only just noticed it, and Brad takes the opportunity to pry Nate’s arm off his neck. He twists around and, using his weight as leverage, slams Nate up against the very spot Brad just was.
“Mighty sure of ourselves, are we?” Brad growls, draping his body over Nate’s and bearing down so hard, Nate’s shoulder must feel like it’s about to pop right out. “Trust me, I’d take Missy’s deep-throating over yours any day. You probably suck cock like a wet fish. As for taking the room next to yours, you think I like moonlighting as your fucking shadow, Nate? All I want from you is a few simple answers, but if you ain’t gonna cooperate like a good little boy, I’m gonna have to get them out of you somehow.” Brad pushes down on his hold, eliciting a small gasp.
Nate’s a stubborn fucker though—says nothing and just goes back to struggling against Brad’s iron grip. “So it’s gonna be like that, huh?” Brad intones. “Well, how about this...instead of trying to get one straight fucking story from you, how about I tell you what’s going on, and you just nod your pretty head yes or no.”
Brad takes Nate's silence as agreement. “You shot Bob Raleigh." The way Nate freezes under his grasp confirms this, and Brad continues, "Bob was trying to run off with Marla, but you wanted her for yourself. So you made sure you’d get to keep her, by killing off the competition."
Nate makes a scoffing noise but Brad gamely goes on, "Hell, I bet all them dead boys were with you. Hired guns? Scoundrel dope-pushers, the lot of them, I bet they jumped at the faintest whiff of your crisp, new greenbacks. Sure bet they didn't count on getting killed, though. Well, you got what you wanted, Nate. You done got your little piece of tail, and now you want me off your back so you can make tracks outta this town, don't you?"
Under Brad's relentless grip, Nate chooses to stay infuriatingly silent, revealing nothing. He’s even stopped squirming around. In the darkness of the room, the sun long having sunk below the horizon, Brad can only hear the sound of his own ragged breathing—can see only the back of Nate's bowed head, and even that sight's half-obscured by the low candlelight.
Finally, Nate lifts his head. He turns to the side, face shadowed in profile as he says softly, "Your reputation precedes you, Iceman. Fastest draw in Nevada, never lost a duel. Always hit what you're meaning to hit, but never gratuitous about it, never cruel. Simply cold as ice…s’how you got your nickname."
Brad blinks. "What's that got to do with anything?"
Nate goes on like he hadn’t heard him, picking up in volume and confidence, "You're supposed to be the quickest mind in the West, too, and the sharpest eyes in the whole damned country. Coming out to the frontier, you'd think the Iceman were a fucking deity or something, the stories people tell about you. Can't figure out what all the fuss is about, though. Quite frankly, I'm disappointed in what I've seen so far."
Brad tightens his grip on Nate's wrist, trying to claw back the advantage quickly tipping in Nate’s favor, but he’s disturbed by Nate’s words and they both fucking know it. Probably doesn’t help that’s Brad’s still hanging out from his trousers like laundry hung out to dry.
Brad swallows grimly, "And you call me the busybody? You find out these fun facts from that piss-poor Injun you sicced on me?"
Nate's expression changes, his cocky mirth draining out like a bloodletting. "Someone’s trailing you?"
To Brad’s left, something captures his attention. It’s a glint coming off their window—chances are it’s just the dancing reflection of candlelight, but Brad trusts his gut and his gut's telling him otherwise.
“Sheriff?” Nate asks.
Brad’s eyes are still trained on the window though. He waits, holding himself statue-still until slowly, a face emerges from behind distant scaffolding. “There are men on the roofs,” Brad states, jerking Nate down to the hardwood floor and throwing himself on top just in time for their window to burst into a thousand pieces.
Beneath him, Nate's eyes are wide and surprised. Flying bullets or no, Brad returns his full concentration to Nate and picks up their conversation where they left off. "For all intents and purposes, I am a fucking deity,” Brad hisses. “I am a fucking warrior. You ever stop to think, Nate, maybe it’s just you federal cocksucks fucking up this case for me?”
Nate's mouth opens and moves, but anything he’s saying gets drowned out by a second, much closer gunshot that hits the mattress behind them with an explosion of feathers. Outside their door, the screams of a panicked crowd float over the bone-rattling rumble of people fleeing the whorehouse all at once.
In the ensuing breath, Nate’s eyes lose their bewilderment and he barks, “Pull up your fucking pants, Sheriff. We need to move.”
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