Chapter 4 – That's one step too far
To pass the time, Ace actually studied and did what he needed to… Of course, that didn't exclude some nightly visits to a few choice houses. A few families would return to their homes only to find that a window was cleverly opened and most of their valuables were missing. It was so easy during the spring and summer. People tended to visit each other like ants on a picnic and it was never hard to find a house that stood empty for the night. The winter was much harder. During the colder times of the year people preferred to stay home in the heat. Ace didn't blame them, he liked a warm home more during winter, too. It was way too cold to go jumping around houses and as soon as a little ice covered the big buildings it became a lot more dangerous than it already was.
On Wednesday, Ace found himself tempted when he was searching through a house and found two tickets to a vacation in France. He read on the tabs that the airplain left on Saturday, the same date that he had set to meet with Smoker. He looked at the tickets with a questioning gaze, as though the paper would and tell him what to do.
Carefully, Ace put them back on the shelf where he found them. The couple that lived here will need some comfort when they find out that all of their silverware, all of the woman's jewellery, and a fat wallet left behind by a careless person were all gone. Ace sent a linger look toward the two tickets before turning around and walking up the stairs to reach the window he had entered through.
Smoker had no idea, absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do. He couldn't concentrate on his work because his thoughts kept drifting towards the brat and the coming Saturday. He had tried coffee, he had worked out, and he had even bashed his head into a wall. Nothing helped, and he didn't know what to do. He had put people on the case of finding the two the brat had described, but so far neither of them had been located. He hadn't been given anything useful to work with, but the kid sat hard on all the crucial information Smoker needed for the Crocodile case. And, as it seemed at the moment, he wasn't ready to let go of it without a fight. Muttering to himself, Smoker thought of arresting the black haired brat for withholding information from the police. As if the rest of his crimes weren't enough to put him away for a long, long time.
Since he wasn't able to concentrate properly on anything different, a lot of Smoker's waking hours were spent thinking about that pest. If Smoker would have his way, the youngster ought to be behind bars this minute. Smoker hated that he roamed free, and that Smoker never was able to keep track of him. And the fact that Smoker needed him for the case slowly ate Smoker's pride from the inside. He had never depended on anyone before, and for it to be a criminal brat that he needed to trust was the worst situation imaginable. He was cocky, a thief, and way too young to be doing what he was doing. From his experience, many of the professionals were over forty years old, but this brat could hardly pass as twenty. It was clear that he had experience. What the hell had started his life of crime? One of the few things he did know about the brat was that he worked solo. There had never been any report about a partner in crime and somehow, Smoker felt that the brat wasn't one to work with people. At least, until now.
The grey haired man sighed and buried his face in his hands as he leaned backwards on his office chair. He needed to get rid of a problem—one with black wavy hair, freckles and a quite annoying smile.
And it all got worse when the boy didn't even give him peace at night. Smoker dreamt nightmares that the brat sat on his window sill, just like that time. Only this time the brat came into his apartment, and started walking around, and Smoker couldn't do anything. When he rushed into his living room where the brat had seated himself on the sofa, the black haired kid only said:
'Welcome home, Smokey. How was your day?' with a grin on his face.
Sweating and breathing hard, Smoker sat up in his bed, with the covers a tangled mess to one side. What the hell had just happened? The room was dark , but a faint source of light could be seen under the door, coming from the living room. Smoker knew very well that he had turned the light off before falling asleep. Something wasn't right. He threw away the covers and quickly got up from his bed, aiming for the door with fast-paced steps. Not even bothering to put on a t-shirt or something else to cover himself, Smoker swung the door open and rushed out of his bed room in nothing but a pair of loose sweat pants.
A faint crunching noise was heard from the other side of the room, and when he turned over to look, a too familiar orange hat was sticking up behind the back support of the leather chair that he had seen in his dream. Just like the don in the Godfather, the brat slowly spun the chair around and he looked into the eyes of Smoker.
"You're late, Smokey." he said and took another potato crisp from the bag he held in his lap. He slowly nodded towards the clock hanging on the wall. It showed almost ten to three. Smoker breathed in quickly, and tightening his fist, brought it swiftly towards the face of the brat. He tried to dodge, but his cheek caught a part of the punch. Ace closed his eyes for a second, but remained seated. Only for a second did he reveal that the punch had hurt, as though the upcoming bruise wasn't giving him away. The brat was either tough or great at playing it.
"What. The. Hell. Are. You. Doing. Here?", Smoker breathed.
"I'm visiting you." he answered, only with a slight slur. Ace's eyes fell from Smoker's face and examined his body, and nodded almost approvingly.
Ignoring the younger man's looks, Smoker yelled in his face: "But why?! You're in my house in the middle of the night!"
"Yes, I am aware of that." Ace said with a calm voice, but a cocky smile covered his face, despite his injured cheek. He took yet another crisp, and the crunching noise returned as he slowly moved his jaw. The sound was driving Smoker madder than he already was and he had to clench every muscle in his body to refrain himself from jumping on the brat and strangling him.
"Give me one reason why I shouldn't beat the shit out of you?" he breathed slowly. He knew too well he couldn't kill the brat, yet, but he could beat him to a bloody pulp.
"There would be blood on your expensive carpet?" Ace said and smiled. No matter how illegal his occupation was, he had gotten himself quite an eye for what was valuable. He fingered on the brim of his hat and looked innocently up at Smoker.
"And if you beat me, I won't be able to come on Saturday." He was confident in the fact that Smoker wasn't going to start a fight with him in the middle of the night. At least he hoped so. He knew very well that Smoker was many times stronger than himself, and the sight of a topless Smoker only supported his belief. Damn, the man was nothing but muscles. His jaw hurt like hell, but he'd be damned if he showed it. Smoker's punch had surprised him, but he guessed that he must have surprised Smoker himself by showing up at this hour. His visit actually had a purpose, though. He clenched his jaw and relaxed it, trying to convince the pain that he was okay, and it could leave his cheek now.
"Smokey, I just wanted to give you a late birthday gift", he smiled. His quick attitude had faded a bit since being hit, but he kept his cocky smile plastered to his face.
"Look out towards the parking lot." he said, as he didn't feel like drawing it out any longer. Smoker frowned, but did as Ace told him to. He squinted, trying to discover something out in the dark night. From behind him, he heard Ace whispering 'further left'. The man jumped a bit at the closeness of the other one. He hadn't heard Ace get up from the chair.
"Don't startle me like that", he mumbled, not looking at the boy. A small, small part of him felt very, very guilty about delivering a punch to the freckled face.
Looking further left as instructed, he discovered something dark under the lamppost. Even if the light was on, he could only make out a black shape, about the size of a human. Two seconds later, the shape moved. It was a man, tied to the post. Smoker turned around quickly, grabbed Ace's shoulders, and smashed him into the wall next to the window. Ace didn't have a single chance against the larger man.
Pinning the younger man against the wall, Smoker stood face to face with Ace, staring into his eyes.
"That's one step too far, brat. I won't let you fucking tie a person to a lamppost and get away with it." Smoker snarled, and practically baring his teeth at him. The grumpy police man wasn't the person you picked a fight with at three in the morning.
As the smell of Smoker's tooth paste hit Ace in the face, his heart started racing faster. This was unexpected. He never imagined Smoker would act like this, and Ace couldn't get a word out of his mouth as an explanation. Except the strong smell of the spearmint tooth paste that Smoker breathed, there was other strong senses; except the thin layer of sweat over his upper body, his breath smelled strongly of smoke and there was also a very faint smell of cinnamon.
Neither Smoker nor Ace moved a muscle for the following seconds. Hardly a palm's width apart, they both stared at each other, Smoker's stern eyes and Ace's big, black ones. Since the very beginning it had been Ace who controlled the rules, but now suddenly the roles had switched and neither of them were quite sure how to progress any further. Smoker's grip around Ace's shoulder started to hurt as Smoker buried his fingers into Ace's skin. Not wanting to get hurt even more, Ace broke free from his unresponsive state and quietly said:
"Call the cops, Smokey, and tell them that you caught one of Croc's underlings."
Smoker blinked surprised, but remained with Ace pinned against the wall. It took him some seconds to take in the strange information.
"Are you telling me that you caught one of his men?" He nodded towards the window, not letting go of Ace. "That man out there is one of Crocodile's men?"
"I haven't caught anybody. You caught him, Smokey." Ace smiled, a little more confident in himself now that he caught Smoker off guard.
"But...?" Smoker was more than confused at the moment.
"You caught him lurking in the bushes, right? Don't you remember?" Ace grinned and leaned forward slightly. For one second it looked like Smoker was doing the same, but once that single second was over, he let go of Ace and backed of.
"Why?" He asked, not giving anything away with his stern voice.
"I told you, it's my birthday gift for you."
"Don't give me that. My birthday is in March, months ago." he said and crossed his arms.
Ace smiled and scratched his neck. He shrugged his shoulders and grinned even wider.
"I guess I was wrong then." He walked sideways towards the other end of the living room, aiming for the kitchen door, but his way was blocked by a big and confused Smoker.
"Why, brat, would you do that? What do you have to gain by doing this?"
"It helps you to get rid of Croc." Ace said in a manner that gave Smoker the impression that it was a rehearsed phrase. Something was not quite right, and it bugged him. What was wrong with the brat?
"Let me leave. I did what I came here to do." The smile was gone from his face, and a serious tone was added instead, but still it looked as if the brat was hiding something from Smoker.
Smoker was seriously tempted to say no, to keep the brat in his apartment, but slowly moved away from the door; realizing that it was the sane thing to do in this situation.
Ace took some quick steps out to the kitchen and after a little while Smoker heard him leave through the window through which he must have entered. The older man still stood on the same spot, and let out the breath he hadn't realized that he kept in.
He needed to stop this, right now. The brat had a really bad effect on him, and he surprised himself. What had become of him? It wasn't like him to feel this way, and not towards some brat whose name he didn't even know. He looked out the window, but saw nothing but the man who was still was tied up. Remembering the brat's order, he picked up his phone and called the police man on night duty, and told him to send a car to his home address.
After ending the call, he sighed. With dead eyes he looked at the spot of the wall where they had stood so close to each other. The brat captured and pinned down had been so much different from the other, usual brat, and he didn't know which version he preferred.
It had been close, way to close. For a split second he had been on his way to get a taste of the mouth that smelled so strange. There had been apples, barbecue and a faint sense of gasoline. At that time, a place in his mind had been very busy wondering: if he kissed the boy, would he taste like fire? Smoker violently shook his head, and as he actually bashed his head against the wall he blamed the silly thought on the beer last night and the fact that it was past three in the morning. How was he now supposed to handle Saturday?
Ace's cheeks were flushed as he took every short cut he knew on his way home. No buses drove at this hour, and it was quite a distance between Smoker's apartment and Ace's small house. The long way in the silence of the night wasn't as comforting as usual. The visit at Smoker's place hadn't gone as planned. To be honest, it had gone straight to hell. They had been way too close, and he knew it. He had known from the very beginning that it was going to be interesting when he started bugging Smoker, but now he realized that everything came crashing down.
As he continued running, he shook his head violently. He was not getting attached to the enemy. He was using Smoker to gain his fame and to get rid of that bastard Crocodile. No way in hell was he falling for an old, grey haired, grumpy, well trained, and, damn it, good looking cop. And he did not want to kiss those harsh looking, smoky, cinnamon topped lips. This was not how he planned his life would turn out. That damn man had simply, brutally and probably without knowing it, turned his life upside down, and Ace didn't like the fact that he was enjoying it.
Here's a little fourth chapter. I am going to wait until chapter five until we all get to enjoy our dinner date. Hope you liked the chapter, and our poor heroes.
Love from SlowSunrise!