CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Well, the knee didn't look any better in the morning. Sirius sat staring at the swollen mass of purple flesh gloomily.

"Fuck."

"Indeed." I looked up at him. "You know I'm going to have to call that doctor when we get back to the penthouse, don't you?"

"Yes. And he'll tell Gary exactly how I did it."

Right. Somehow I didn't think it would be in either of our interests for the Sap to hear about last night's little fiasco. "Then we'll have to come up with a plausible explanation, won't we? Like … you thought if you took a Jacuzzi it would make you feel better, only you were still a little giddy and you slipped on the steps. Same scenario, different location."

He gave me a surprised look. "I thought you weren't going to tell any more lies for me?"

"It's not lying if they make you," I told him. "And, as I said, I'm a pragmatist."

He considered my suggestion. "If I did it at the penthouse, why didn't we call Stanton last night?"

"Because it didn't look this bad last night."

He sighed. "Gary's going to have a cow."

"He'll have the whole fucking herd. Talking of which, I've got to get you home." I stood up and went to fetch the kid's jeans. "He's calling this morning, remember, and we'd better be there or he'll jump on the first flight back."

"He probably will anyway, when I tell him about this." Sirius swung his legs off the bed, gasping in pain; he took his weight on his good leg and stood up awkwardly, leaning his right hand against the wall to steady himself. He took a cautious step. "Ow! Fucking bitch bastard knee!"

"Hold on, hold on." I suppressed a grin and hurried over. "I've got your jeans here."

"I need a fucking piss!" he snapped, lurching forward again.

"Then let me give you a hand!" I told him, dropping his jeans on the bed. "Christ." I grabbed his right wrist and ducked under his arm to take his weight. "I'm pretty sure you shouldn't be walking on that."

I manoeuvred him into the bathroom, trying not to think about the fact that my left hand had insinuated itself under his hoodie and was now grasping the soft, warm skin of his waist. I parked him by the john and left him to take care of his business, intending to have a quick wash and brush-up at the sink: unfortunately I paid more attention to the bruises marring the shapely backs of his bare legs reflected in the mirror before me than I did to my own face, which resulted in a horrible case of bed-head. I could only hope he was too wrapped up in his own problems to notice.

Once I'd got him back to the bedroom I sat him on the bed and went to dig out an old pair of my workout sweats. "I don't think we're going to get your jeans back on," I told him, kneeling in front of him. "These will be more comfortable, anyway." He said nothing as I carefully slid them over his injured knee and steadied him while he wriggled his good leg into the garment. I rolled the cuffs up so that he wouldn't trip over them, retrieved his sneakers and put them on his feet, grabbed my jacket and his jeans and then helped him stand. "Same as before – let me take your weight," I told him.

He nodded. I thought his knee was probably hurting badly enough at that point to have distracted him from any protests he might otherwise have made: except for the little hisses of pain that escaped him every now and then he stayed silent as I helped him into the elevator and down to the Jeep.

I figured it was early enough on a Sunday morning for the staff not to have arrived yet and so it proved: the car park was deserted when I pulled the Jeep into its designated slot. I was still thankful to have a private entrance though, because even at that hour I wouldn't have liked to try and smuggle the limping kid through Reception and the staff areas behind it which was the only other way to access the elevator. As it was, not even a pigeon spotted me half-carrying Sirius into the building and a couple of minutes later I was breathing a sigh of relief as I deposited my wayward charge back safely in the penthouse. Nothing short of his setting the place on fire was going to induce me to let him out again.

I figured it would look better if I rang the Sap with the bad news so I made the call from the couch with Sirius sitting beside me, his injured leg wrapped in more ice and propped up on the Sap's precious coffee table. I waited until he'd finished screaming before I tried to explain further.

"Gary, I don't know how bad it is. It doesn't look pretty."

"What does Stanton say?"

"I haven't called him yet."

"Why the fuck not?"

"Because I've only just seen it," I replied calmly. "Sirius called me on the suite phone just now and when I saw his knee I informed you immediately, as instructed." I winked at Sirius who actually snickered a little.

"Well, call him up now and tell him to get his ass over there!"

"Will he speak to me this early?" I asked. "It's not like it's a life-or-death situation and he doesn't know me from Adam."

I could hear him thinking. "Right. Right. I'll call him myself and explain. Just buzz him up when he gets there. Do you think you can manage to do that without fucking it up?"

"Gary, I think you're …"

"It's Mister Saperstein to you!" he yelled. "And I'm telling you right now, if this is the standard of care Vangard supplies then I've been badly misled! I'm going to have my lawyers sue Vance's sorry Limey ass for every cent he's got! You've only had charge of the kid for twenty-four hours and he's already picked up a virus, missed his show and now you're telling me he's hurt his fucking knee …"

The phone was snatched out of my hand. "Gary? Yes. It's me. Stop acting like a jerk." I could hear the Sap still ranting, and Sirius huffed. "I will, if you'll just shut up long enough for me to get a word in. It wasn't Mr. Kinney's fault, okay?" There was more yelling and Sirius started massaging the back of his neck with his free hand. Apparently he was getting a headache too.

He said nothing more until the tirade from the other end died down a little and eventually stopped. "What? No. No, I'm not saying another fucking word to you until you stop yelling and listen." The Sap didn't seem to believe him, so the little twat put the phone down on the couch beside him and proceeded to completely ignore the increasingly furious squawks coming from it. I had to cover my mouth to hide my grin.

Eventually, after it had been silent for a while, he picked it back up. "Well? Are you going to listen? You are? Okay. So this is what happened. Yesterday afternoon I started feeling pretty sick: my throat was sore, I had a headache and I felt like I was running a temperature. I used to suffer from laryngitis a lot and my voice coach always told me never to attempt to sing if my throat was sore because I could permanently damage my vocal chords. I explained all this to Mr. Kinney so he very kindly called downstairs and told them that I was cancelling my show, and I went to bed to try and sleep it off. I woke up about midnight and I was all sweaty so I thought a Jacuzzi might make me feel better, but I guess I was a little whoozier than I thought because I slipped on the steps and landed on my knee. I thought I'd just bruised it so I went back to bed thinking it would be okay in the morning. When I saw how it had swollen up overnight I called Mr. Kinney and he insisted that I should tell you before we did anything else." His eyes cut up to mine for a second and I felt a sudden connection between us, almost as though we were conspiring against a mutual enemy.

"Yes. Yes, I will. No, I won't. Yes. Look, don't worry about me, okay? I'm fine. Yes. Yes." The expression on his face changed: less irritated and more resigned, I thought. "Yes, I'm sure I will. Okay." He held the phone out to me. "He wants to talk to you again."

"Mr Saperstein," I said coolly.

He chuckled a little. "Sorry about that, Brian. I just get a little over-protective sometimes, as I'm sure you've noticed, but now I've spoken to Sirius and he seems okay, so I'll just wait to hear back from Stanton once he's taken a look. If he thinks the kid needs an x ray or hospital treatment he'll make all the arrangements, so just sit tight and wait for him to bring Sirius back."

"You don't want me to go to the hospital with him?"

"No, Stanton will take care of everything."

"Whatever you say." I remembered how Sirius had referred to Stanton as the Sap's pet doctor and I wondered how many other messes the guy had discreetly cleaned up. I'd like to bet this wasn't the first to centre around Sirius.

"Okay. I'll call him now. If there should be any changes of plan, I'll let you know."

"Fine." I put the phone on the coffee table and turned to Sirius. "He's going to call the doctor himself. We just have to wait for the guy to show up."

"Oh yes. Gary's a great organizer."

"Thanks for putting in a good word."

He shrugged a little. "I told you, I really wasn't trying to get you into trouble. I wasn't even trying to get myself into trouble … I just seem to attract it, somehow, and then everyone around me suffers from the fallout. Must be that malign influence at work again."

I studied him. He definitely looked back in the doldrums. "How's the knee?"

"I've had worse. Nothing a couple of joints and a shot of vodka wouldn't take care of."

I smiled. "Sorry, Sunshine, no can do."

"Ah well. I'll have to make do with another of your cigarettes, then. Good thing I like pain."

I clenched my jaw so hard I could feel my teeth creaking.

TBC