Ian watched as Mickey downloaded an app that would allow Ian to record the conversation on his iPhone.
He dialed the number he usually used to call Phil. He wasn't using the speaker phone but he had the volume up so high he was sure Mickey would be able to hear both sides of the conversation. Phil picked up after one ring.
"Ian? Where the fuck are you?" he asked.
"If you're going to talk to me like that I'm going to hang up," Ian said.
He could hear Phil take a deep breath. "Where the hell are you, Ian?" he asked, his tone slightly kinder.
"Your place—the place where you said I'd be safe—was busted. You said I wouldn't get arrested for prostitution because I wasn't actually doing it, but they just came in and shut the whole place down and arrested everyone whether they were hooking or not. You were fucking wrong and I'm pissed," Ian said.
"I didn't know that place was under investigation. If I'd thought for a minute you were in danger you know I wouldn't have set you up there," Phil said.
"I had my own apartment and my own life. You took me away from that but you promised me I was safe! I could have done real time if I'd been arrested. It could have been my forth strike. That means twenty-five years, Phil."
"My lawyer would have made sure—"
"Oh yeah, your lawyer would have come in and said, oh no judge, he was just my client's gay mistress. He has to live there so Phil Jorez's wife doesn't know he likes dick. Like you would have wanted that on the public record! I had to handle it myself and I don't want to take any of your shit for how I did," Ian said.
There was a long pause, and finally Phil said, "What did you do, Ian? I swear to god, if you talked to the police, you know what happens."
"I didn't talk to the police, alright? My old boyfriend from years ago was working with the cops, thank god. I don't know what he does for them—like I fucking care. Goddamned traitor. Calls himself a fucking South-sider and he works for the cops? Anyway, he never got over me after I dumped him, and he told me if I moved in with him and kept him happy he'd make the charges go away."
"Did he?"
"His boss told me if I didn't stay in contact with them she'd arrest me. All Mickey has to do is tell her that I'm gone or I talked to you and they slap me with a warrant," Ian said. It helped that she'd said that right in front of the others so he would have heard about her saying that.
"And what's this Mickey guy like?"
"He was my first serious boyfriend. It's kind of pathetic, actually. I just have to smile at the guy and he does whatever I want. He'd do anything for me," Ian said.
"Sound like you like him," Phil said. His voice sounded dangerously close to jealous.
Mickey grabbed Ian's hand and Ian tried to let some of what he felt for Mickey seep into his voice when he talked to Phil. "He's not you, baby. You know I like my men tough," Ian said huskily.
"So come back to me and show me," Phil said.
"Where? You going to take me home to your wife? Make me live in another one of your brothels? You can't protect me right now. Mickey can. Unless you can take some evidence to the cops that proves I was just living there as a tenant, not an employee," Ian said, making his voice sound hopeful.
"Ian, you know I can't do that. Jessica and the kids are important to me. They're important to my image. You and I both know that a guy can be tough as shit and still be gay but the people I associate with don't think that. You know I'd rather take you out to fancy restaurants with my friends. You're hotter and classier than her. She's actually fucking embarrassing most of the time."
"Look, Mickey should be home any second. He can't know I'm talking to you. The cops don't believe I'm your boyfriend—they all think you're straight."
"Okay, Ian. You play the part of the repentant boyfriend, but don't forget who you really belong to. You're mine, and as soon as your cop gets sick of you, you're coming back to me. I don't want to have to pay a visit to your sisters."
"I know," Ian said.
"And we have to meet," Phil said.
"Meet?" Ian said. "Mickey watches me all the time! He's getting his sister to come make sure I'm okay. He says it's because he worries about me being alone because of the bipolar. I think he's worried I'm going to pawn his TV or something."
"He wouldn't be upset if you went out for a run, though, right? We don't have to hook up. I can survive without your dick for a few weeks. I just need to talk to you in person, okay? We'll meet in the park or something."
Mickey nodded his head. Ian suspected he thought that Phil would ask him to get information from the cops through Mickey at that meeting. "Yeah, okay. I'll text you when I can get away, okay?"
"Sounds good. I love you, Ian. You know I love you, don't you?"
"Yeah. Of course. I love you, too, Phil," Ian said.
Ian hung up and handed the phone over to Mickey, who stopped the recording and emailed it to himself. "That was fucking masterful, Gallagher. You're a fucking genius."
"How so?" Ian asked.
"You proved so many things in that conversation. You proved that he takes his wife, not you, out to meet his associates. Might be a good thing to play my boss to get her off your ass. I can see the wheels turning in her head…she's waiting to see if you'd work as a CI," Mickey said.
"You don't want that?"
"I don't want you in that kind of danger," Mickey said. "And I'm almost certain you wouldn't be able to work as a CI without getting back in bed with him. I promised you you wouldn't have to do that and I meant it."
"Which one's your boss? That tall black lady?"
"Yeah, her name's Jordan Marks and she's awesome," Mickey said. "But she's awesome because she's tough as nails, and I want you off her radar."
"I don't need your protection," Ian said.
"Oh, so you want to make a deal with the cops—twenty-five years in jail or wearing a wire to get your boyfriend to talk about his criminal activities, which he never usually discusses with you? You want to go back to living where that stupid fuck wants you to live and risk him finding out you're working with the cops? You want him doing whatever the fuck he does to people who betray him to you?"
"You know I don't," Ian said. He scowled at Mickey. "So that's why you taped it?"
"That's why I taped it, yeah, but considering what you two said to each other, I got a whole new plan in mind," Mickey said, grinning.
Ian felt heat coil in the pit of his belly at that grin. He'd never been able to resist that hot-ass shit-eating Mickey grin. "What are you thinking now?"
"I'm thinking I go to work tomorrow with two options to give to Jordan. Option one, we pull the wife in and play her that recording, and then get her to turn and give us information on Jorez. Seems she knows more about his business, and if she wants to stay in the States, we can use that because she's British, too. Option two, we play it for Jorez and get him to turn on his bosses and work for us or we play it for his wife and associates."
"He'd know I was involved! You promised me he wouldn't go after me," Ian protested.
"I'm already playing the sleaze-ball here. I'd say I didn't trust you so was using some spy app to listen to and record your conversations. It's completely possible, these days," Mickey said.
Ian tried to dial back his anxiety. "Or you could play the tape for his associates. Get them to turn on him for being gay," Ian said.
"That feels a bit evil, but I could get behind it," Mickey said. "It's not like he's a good guy or anything. Ian you were so amazing. You played it so perfectly. Like I never would have thought of actually acting pissed at him but he probably wouldn't have believed at word he said if you weren't."
Ian rolled his eyes, actually feeling bad despite knowing he was being an idiot. "He loves me, Mickey, and he's walking into this trap because he loves me. This feels really shitty."
Mickey looked livid for a minute, but he said nothing and went into the kitchen. He started setting the table in the dining alcove and then got the pre-made lasagna out of the oven and put it on the table. He mixed together a Caesar salad kit and sat down.
Ian sat down at the other place at the table and started to eat. He almost jumped when Mickey spoke, although his voice was unusually gentle. "Your boy is probably fucking up all over town. If you don't want me to use this conversation, I won't," he said. "We'll get him another way."
Ian looked at Mickey, remembering all the conversations they used to have about how guys were taking advantage of Ian, about how Mickey always thought people wanted him for his looks and nothing else. He remembered how mad it had always made Mickey when people called Ian a twink, like he was just some thing, not a person at all. He'd scoffed at Mickey for that at the time, but it made his heart ache to think about it now. Mickey had always respected him, loved him, for him. For who he was inside. They'd been best friends, and Ian hadn't realized it until that moment, ten years later, sitting down to dinner at Mickey's tiny table.
And he realized that Mickey would get Jorez on his own, or with the cops, and Ian would be free. And Ian didn't love Jorez at all. He hated him. Hated him. He'd been trying to get away from that sick fuck for years. And now Mickey was offering him a way not just to get rid of Jorez, but to actually help take him down.
"I want in on this," Ian said. "I want to use his feelings for me against him."
"You sure? His feelings for you might be the only good thing about him," Mickey said.
"If that were true, he'd treat me like I mattered. Like you used to treat me when we were together," Ian said. "He says he loves me, but I know what the real thing feels like. He threatened me, he threatened my family, and he treats his whores like sex-slaves, not employees. He deserves to go down, and I more than anything I want to be part of the reason he goes down."
"Thank fuck," Mickey said. "I thought for a minute you'd gone soft on me."
"Speaking of going soft, how the hell did you start working for the cops?" Ian asked.
"Can't we just eat?" Mickey asked.
"Please?" Ian asked. "I've told you every humiliating thing that's happened to me in the past ten years. Can't you just show me we're in this together? That we're still friends? Tell me how you got here?"
Mickey sighed and put down his fork. "I got a visit from Svetlana like three, four years ago. She was frantic. She'd heard from the old country or whatever that her father had gotten drunk and sold her youngest sister to the same people he'd sold her to."
"Youngest? How old was she?"
"Like two years older than Yev. Svetlana had never even met her. She was ten, at the time," Mickey said. He paused. "Svetlana wanted me to use my contacts, well, my father's contacts, and find her sister and buy her from whoever had her. I agreed to do it. It's different when it's a kid. I mean, I know it's useless to put these guys away because more guys will just come around and do the same thing. Fighting crime is like bailing out a sinking boat with a tea cup. You can never keep up."
"You don't have to justify being against children being sold as sex-slaves. Jesus, Mickey. What the hell happened? Did you find her?"
"I did. And I bought her. From a guy who was under surveillance," Mickey said.
"Holy shit. And the cops thought you wanted her for like—"
"Yeah. Guy with my family history? They thought I wanted to be her boyfriend or some sick shit. A little fucking kid. Anyway, Svetlana comes in, trying to claim the little girl as her sister so she don't get put in foster care or worse, get sent back to the people I bought her from. Her explanation for what happened was high-larious. She chewed those cops out good, said her useless, drunken, welfare-bum gay ex-husband was the only one who cared what happened to her sweet little sister when the cops didn't give a shit. Honestly, I think I want what she said that day to be my eulogy."
"And they believed her?"
"Eventually, after they looked into it and got DNA tests and everything. And Jordan asked me to help take those fuckers down. Said I'd gotten closer than they ever had and wanted to know how I'd done it. I started as an informant and then eventually they had to make me a consultant because I'd worked too many hours or something."
Ian considered Mickey's story, and then he froze as he thought of something. "I know Jorez uses drugs to get people to do things they wouldn't normally do, but he's not into anything like that, is he? Human trafficking? Slavery stuff?"
Mickey looked apologetic. "He is. We're not sure if he's involved directly or just working with people who are into it. That's what we're investigating him to find out."
Ian shuddered, thinking he couldn't believe he'd let a guy like that put his hands on him. "I'll help you take him down. Whatever it takes. I'm in this until the end."