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.“Yesterday.” It had been at the Antlers, but around back, at the dumpster.Gary hoped no one had seen him.“Sit down, I’ll get you something.” Some things hadn’t changed; Allan was still a sucker for a hungry person, so maybe he wouldn’t throw Gary out right away.Surely he’d wait until the food was eaten, postponing going back into the storm by twenty minutes, or until Mark got a look at who was here.Rummaging noises from the tiny kitchen reached into the living room, where an unfamiliar brown brocade couch sat by a blue recliner that Gary recalled as a great prop for sexual antics.He had trouble visualizing pudgy Allan and long, lean Mark splayed all over each other in the recliner.Maybe they did it on the couch.Now he didn’t want to sit down on anything.The timer pinged, and Allan returned with a bowl of soup and a chunk of crusty bread, which he placed on the “dining room” table that sat adjacent to the narrow kitchen.“Eat it really slowly -- I’m done cleaning up after you.” Instead of sitting down at the opposite chair, Allan disappeared to the back of the apartment, where the sound of running water drew attention to itself by stopping.The amazing food that Allan could create hadn’t changed -- Gary forced himself to savor the lush red concoction that could only be one of Allan’s traditional Hungarian recipes, since he’d never met bacon in tomato soup anywhere else.The soup lost its tang when the voices came through the thin walls.“Gary Richardson just showed up.He’s a wreck.”“Don’t feel too sorry for him.He left a lot of wreckage behind.”Mark didn’t sound so gullible any more.He still rescued people for a living, though.Maybe Gary could play on that for a night of shelter.He didn’t think his other reason for seeing Mark would carry much weight.Much too little, way too late, was the general consensus among the people he’d already spoken to.He finished the soup, knowing that his hosts were delaying seeing him for as long as they could.He couldn’t blame them.“Hello, Gary.”Damn, Mark looked as good as ever; a little older, a lot less bouncy, but with the fine brunet hair that he’d let grow down to his collar and the warm hazel eyes that never used to look so suspicious.Gary remembered kisses and a lot more with the wide, sensuous lips, and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’d get punched for letting the memory show on his face.Allan stood with him, half a head shorter than Mark’s six feet one, stocky but still fine to look at, with his dark brown hair cut very close and the squarish face made unique with the cleft chin.Gary had fucked both these men.And he’d fucked them over.Now he was dependent on their good will, which by rights should be non-existent.He had to hope that they were bigger men than he’d ever shown himself to be, because fast talking wasn’t going to get him far with these older, wiser versions of the young men he’d played like pianos.“Hello, Mark.”Before the silence grew more uncomfortable, Allan spoke again.“Are you still hungry?Truth and Gary were intermittent acquaintances, but he’d been trying to get more familiar with it.“Yes.” Allan took the bowl back to the kitchen, and Mark sat down at the table.“Why exactly are you darkening our door after, what, four years?”There had been a time that Mark had turned those angry eyes on people who had questioned Gary’s veracity, not on Gary.“Our door” didn’t mean what it once meant.“It has been a while.How have you been?” Gary dug into the second bowl of soup nearly as eagerly as the first.He really wanted to get outside of the food before Mark pitched him out.“Once I picked up the pieces of my shattered trust and got on with my life, fine and dandy.” Mark glanced over at Allan, who had pulled his chair near enough that his knees were probably touching Mark’s under the table.“I’m not flat broke anymore.”Not that there had been all that much to take, Gary reflected, but he’d gotten it all.“Don’t take that as an invitation to reach into my pocket again, or I’ll break your arm.” The broken trust had been put back together with all the pointy edges out.“I believe you.” Gary mopped the bowl with the heel of the bread, manners sacrificed to hunger.“I don’t do that any more.”“Really? When did you stop?” Allan challenged him.“You were still at it three years ago.”Allan’s nest egg had been a little more substantial, a little harder to winkle away.“Look, guys, I fucked up.You have no reason to believe me, I know.You and everyone else who did business with me.” Had these two compared notes on him? If they had, a frosty night in the car was a whole lot more likely.Wapiti Creek didn’t lean toward homeless shelters.“But even if you don’t, I’m not likely to be able to do anything to anyone for much longer.”“Why?” Mark radiated disbelief.“The Securities and Exchange Commission is preparing a case against me.I hear enough through the grapevine that I figure they are going to pop me any time now, and I can do one of two things.I can let them try to make restitution with what’s left, or I can do it myself.” Gary reached into his pocket and pulled out a small sheaf of envelopes.Sorting through, he dealt one out on the table to Mark, and one to Allan.“If I do it, then the right people get paid back.The ones who were hit the hardest.If they do it, the fat cats get most of it because I took the most from them.”“You aren’t running off to some warm place with no extradition treaty?” Allan was openly skeptical.“Don’t think I didn’t consider it.” Gary snorted ruefully.“Places where I could get the money in and then hang around to enjoy it aren’t as plentiful as they once were, and there wasn’t as much cash as you might think.Rich people’s toys are really hard to liquidate these days.” The proceeds from trading down the Escalade to the econobox out in the parking lot largely went into those envelopes.He’d been tempted to break open an envelope or two once he’d run out of ready money, but which one? If someone didn’t get paid back when those around them did, that was the fast track to the SEC getting a call.He didn’t dare call attention to himself by using a credit card.The Rolex on his wrist was worth about a hundred bucks at a pawnshop, assuming he could even find one that would do business with him within a hundred miles, and he hadn’t so far.Mark cracked the envelope and riffled through the bills inside.“So, about twenty cents on the dollar from what you stole?”Gary flinched at the word.He’d put them into investments, which only worked out for him, the broker.He’d sold them dreams -- he hadn’t stolen anything.A little voice deep inside suggested he wouldn’t be making this pilgrimage if that were true.“That’s how it shared out for all the Wapiti Creek folks.Nobody else is getting a cent unless the SEC can magically sell a condo that’s already been on the market for six months.”Allan hadn’t touched his envelope, glaring at Gary instead.“So why the big change of heart and the paybacks? Are we supposed to turn into grateful character witnesses?”“I’m going to lose it all anyway
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