A Boy Who Came In from the Cold Ch. 07

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SadieRose
SadieRose
426 Followers

Rayne's pale green eyes widened slightly.

"You seriously want to film me again? For real?"

"If you are willing to work with me. The money will be good." Leland tapped the wad of Francs against his long brown thigh. Rayne's gaze flickered to the notes then back to his face.

"For real?" he said again.

"If you agree to play by my rules," Leland told him. "Ant says that you need a lot of money, and quickly. I can arrange for you to make that kind of money, but I don't work with whores and I don't work with Junkies. Do you understand?"

"I have to see a doctor?" Rayne chewed on his lip, his pupils widening slightly.

"Do you think that will be a problem?"

"I dunno," the younger man exhaled warily. "I think I'm clean but it's been a while since I had a medical check up."

"I will arrange it," Leland leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, the money cupped loosely in his hands. He was looking at Rayne's long, slim, pale arms. The boy put his hands behind him automatically. "If my medical advisor says you are clean then we begin shooting in five days."

"Jesus!" Rayne breathed the word out through lightly clenched teeth.

"You are not sure?" Those long brown fingers curled around the cash. Rayne shook his head at once.

"I... I can do it. I'm... just..."

"You are not sure about the examination?"

"Like I said, it's been a long time. I've... I've been..."

"You've been a dirty boy," Leland nodded his head knowingly. "Antoine has told me as much as he knows. I am not judgmental, Rayne Wilde. If you scope clean and you are willing I will give you another chance. Mess me about, lie to me, take drugs on my boat and I will make sure your bones rot at the bottom of the Med. Do You Understand?"

Rayne nodded his head silently. Leland seemed satisfied. He held out the money in one hand and his companion snatched it like a chameleon snaring a fly.

"You have about fifty pounds there," Leland said gravely, watching as the boy shuffled the notes from hand to hand. "You might want to find something to put it in. Don't spend it all at once."

Rayne flashed him a dazzling grin and blew him a kiss, then he was gone.

EXPLORING THE CAP:

The old-timer who had been tinkering with his motor launch when they arrived was still pottering about on his small boat when Rayne came virtually skipping back along the pontoon to the harbour. He waved and smiled and the boy shouted; "Bonjour!" as he let himself out at the small gate and set off in the direction of the handful of bars and small shops across the road from the marina. He bought a little turquoise suede pouch on a long cord fairly inexpensively from a shop that sold leather belts and handbags. It provided some small change as well and he tucked his money inside and hung it around his neck.

The initial strangeness of being naked on a public street soon gave way to curiosity about his new environment. Not everyone went from place to place completely nude but the majority of people that he passed seemed unhampered by clothing. He was surprised to find that the older visitors seemed to have fewer inhibitions. A lot of younger men and women still wore towels to and from the beach but the middle aged and the elderly let it all hang out quite happily. People stopped and chatted as if it was quite the most normal thing in the world to wander down to the shops or go for a morning stroll in the all together. He found a small arcade around a circular pool area where families congregated and children ran around splashing and playing together, naked as the day they were born. There was a supermarket on the ring of shops and he wandered in, bemused at the sight of a balding man in glasses pushing a trolley around, blithely nude.

He bought a can of French lager and some white chocolate. The girl on the till was wearing a denim skirt and a bikini top and he wondered if she got fed up of staring at limp cocks and saggy tits all day but when he asked her she just shrugged and did not seem to understand. There was a tobacconist's shop three doors along, which also sold a proliferation of inflatable dinghies, beach towels and lilos. He contemplated buying postcards but remembered Daniel's warning about not spending everything at once and restricted himself to a couple of 20 packs of Marlboro Lites.

Halfway down a covered street between shops selling skimpy outfits covered in sequins and buckles, exotic shoe stores and a handful of busy restaurants, he realised that he had left his lighter in his jeans back on the boat. He was contemplating going back to the shop to buy another one when he spotted a young man with a blond buzz-cut lounging in a tight tee-shirt and baggy shorts against the entrance to the shoe shop, smoking a roll up. Extracting a cigarette he wandered over and gestured towards the fellow's smoke with his own. The lad nodded and he bent his head towards Rayne's as they juggled cigarette ends until the young Englishman was able to exhale a grateful plume of smoke.

"Cheers," he said instinctively.

"Where you from?" asked the other lad at once, in an accent that was so familiar that Rayne initially wondered if he was dreaming.

"Kent coast," he said distantly. "Dymchurch, via London."

"Rochester," the blond told him with a grin. "Bloody 'ell it's a small world!"

"D'you live out here?" Rayne took a pull on his cigarette, shaking his head in amazement.

"I come up in the summer, work 'ere 'til October then I go down to Spain for the winter. My uncle's got a couple of shops in Malaga and Torremolinos as well as this one." He put the roll up in the corner of his mouth and extended a hand. "Phil Honeywell."

"Rayne Wilde," Rayne shook the proffered hand.

"For real?" Phil grinned at him.

Rayne nodded. "Hippy parents!"

"Mad!" Phil declared, still grinning. He looked Rayne up and down quickly. "You've not been 'ere long, 'ave you?"

"Where's the best place to get a tan then?"

"Depends what 'else' you want," Phil told him ambiguously.

Rayne sucked on the filter of his Marlboro, taking his time. "Such as?" he prompted when Phil did not elaborate.

"If you wanna be left alone then the top beach nearest the lighthouse is your best bet. It gets busy though and there's kids. If you go down a little way towards Heliopolis, the big crescent development, past the yellow bar it's more couples and singles but it's a bit cruisey sometimes, y'know what I mean." Phil eyed him speculatively all of a sudden.

"I don't mind," Rayne said, blowing a plume of smoke

"And then..." Phil added as if he had not spoken. "If you go a bit further, down past the residential bits and the blue bar, you get to the nature reserve. You wanna watch yourself down there, specially if you go on your own."

Rayne looked quizzically at him. "What d'you mean?"

"You wanna watch your bum. 'Cause you can guarantee that someone'll be watchin' it already!" Phil winked at him.

"Seriously?"

"Dead serious," the blond said with a shake of his head. "Predators, the lot of 'em. Stay on the beach if you go that far. If you go up into the dunes you're fair game."

"Fuckin' hell!" Rayne was laughing quietly. "Thanks for the warning."

Phil shook his head incredulously. "You're gonna go now aren't you? I can tell. You've got that look on your face!"

"Maybe not today," Rayne demurred, lighting another cigarette from his first before it expired. Seeing Phil's expectant glance, he lit one for the blond as well. Once Phil was drawing on the filter with a satisfied smile, he lowered his voice. "D'you know where I can get my hands on something a bit stronger than Marlboros?"

Phil shot him a look then beckoned him inside the shop for a moment. "What you after? Mary Jane?"

Rayne shook his head.

"There's a place up on the boardwalk that sells poppers and maybe a bit of speed if you're lucky," Phil whispered.

"Junk?" Rayne asked in a low, solemn tone.

Phil shook his head for a moment. "Not unless Giovanni's got anythin'. A couple of guys got busted in the spring for punting heavy goods. They've been extra vigilant this year, the cops. You can go down for a long time if they catch you."

"Where's Giovanni?" Rayne pressed him.

Phil managed a tight-lipped smile. "He runs a bar up on the boardwalk, next level, past the Collines, just before you get to the beach. There's a pool club up there and he's got a bar called the Laguna. Be careful if you get mixed up with Giovanni, Rayne." He looked deadly serious again.

"Bad Man?" Rayne Wilde winked at him. "Don't worry, I've had my share of bad men."

"They say he's Mafia," Phil whispered, pulling a face.

"Yeah?" Rayne's expression was sceptical. "Who's 'they' then?"

"Don't take the piss. You don't wanna end up in the Med in concrete boots!" the other boy warned.

"Do the Mafia still do that kind of thing?" Rayne teased him.

"You don't wanna find out," his companion said more solemnly. "Not before I take you down the dunes anyway!"

"Naughty boy," murmured Rayne with a grin. "You wanna take me down the dunes then?"

"If you fancy. Where you stayin'?" Phil held his eyes; brazened him out.

"With a friend of a friend on a boat in... what's the marina place called?"

"Ambonne. Anyone I know?" Phil was more cheerful now that the topic had steered away from the mysterious Giovanni.

"Daniel Leland, he's a film maker."

Phil's eyes went quite wide for a moment. "Yeah... I know," he said at last. "You're with Dan Leland? Bloody hell... I thought you were hot. That explains it."

"I'm not 'with' him. Like I said, I'm just a friend of a friend," Rayne wanted to ask more, Daniel clearly had quite a towering reputation on the Cap, but he held his tongue. It could wait.

"I get off at two thirty if you fancy a drink... or a shag," Phil said boldly.

Rayne managed a smile. "Maybe I'll see you then, in that case."

He left the blond a couple of cigarettes and went off in search of the Laguna.

More than one man met his eyes and checked him out on the way up to the beach. The pathway was flanked on one side by the towering Collines apartment block rising in stepped terraces, all fronted by broad balconies on his left. Towels fluttered like the flags of all nations from each balcony railing. To the right was a veritable warren of exotic gardens and single storey villas. People passed and greeted one another in a smorgasbord of different languages. Countless skinny, half-feral cats slunk along the borders, skulking beneath the broad leaves of colourful zinnias and dwarf palms.

He passed a supermarket and a small pizzeria; the aromas drifting out from the latter almost made his mouth water. There was a little arcade of shops in the cool shade beneath a concrete walkway and Rayne strolled by, browsing the windows distractedly until he emerged into the sunlight once more, standing outside a busy restaurant that overlooked the rolling blue of the Mediterranean. For a moment he stood catching his breath, a slender reed in the busy stream of people coming and going from the beach below. Ever so briefly he was a child again; entranced by the surge of the ocean and the endless stretch of golden sand. He had spent his earliest years in a small town on the Kent coast and the long beach of St. Mary's Bay had been his playground.

Even in the height of summer, the strand at Dymchurch had never been this busy. It seemed that everywhere he looked there were bodies stretched out on the sands, or lounging in deckchairs reading or talking. Children built elaborate castles or chased one another in and out of the rolling sea. Couples played beach tennis or flirted tenderly together. People wandered down to the water's edge to cool off then returned to their industrious tanning. Sometimes they gathered their towels and decamped to the restaurant or to one of the bars beyond it in search of refreshments. The human traffic to and from the strand was endless. Old and young alike seemed to congregate here, enjoying the blazing sun and the chance to disrobe completely.

As he stood there, looking around like a lost child, his gaze fell upon the colourful blue and gold sign above the entrance to a bar on the walkway that passed over the shopping arcade. There were colourful fish on a turquoise background, swimming happily in and out of letters made from bones and shells and pieces of driftwood, spelling the name of the Laguna. Rayne blinked and wandered back towards it, observing the portly German tourists parked out front on cushioned loungers, sipping tall cocktails and laughing raucously. It hardly looked like a hotbed of Mafia intrigue and dubious drug-dealing but Dan Leland had warned that nothing here was quite what it appeared to be.

He was still contemplating this when a cheerful voice greeted him in pidgin European; "'Allo, bonjour, guten morgen."

Rayne half-turned to face a lithe, brown-skinned fellow, possibly in his late thirties. He had dark eyes and hair that hung in oiled black ringlets past his shoulders, framing a handsome, latino face. The smile that split it was too wide and too white. He grinned like a shark scenting prey. Like many of the people who worked here, as opposed to the holidaymakers, he was not naked. Snug, pale blue jeans hugged his hips and he wore a fitted shirt of some purposely crumpled, white linen, open to his breastbone. A gold chain hung in the V of his neckline and he sported expensive looking, dark brown leather shoes.

"Francais?" he asked now, head on one side, looking Rayne up and down shrewdly. "Italiano?"

"No," Rayne said mildly, returning the look.

"English! Mamma mia!" The fellow pretended shock. He clapped both hands to his breast then lifted them to frame Rayne's face. "So angelic! You cannot be!"

"Sorry." The boy was trying not to smile but the corners of his mouth betrayed him.

"You want a drink or you going to stand out there and stare at my nice arse all day?" his inquisitor demanded, rather impudently.

"I'll 'ave a beer, yeah," Rayne said with another little quirk of his lips. "Are you Giovanni?"

The fellow had turned his head and was snapping his fingers, calling instructions in his own tongue or possibly in French, to the tall blond guy in a Hawaiian shirt that was working the bar. He put a hand between Rayne's shoulder blades now and ushered him firmly to a lounger with a parasol next to it.

"Sit," he commanded. "Who is asking?"

"I am." Rayne looked up at him, squinting a little against the sunlight.

The blond, who wore his long hair in a loose ponytail that cascaded down his back, brought two bottled beers and a pair of glasses on a tray. The dark fellow sat opposite Rayne and poured for them both. His sharp, almost colourless eyes flickered back speculatively to meet his customer's narrowed, curious gaze.

"What is your name little English boy?" he breathed at last, sipping his beer and smacking his lips appreciatively.

"I'm not a little boy. My name's Rayne."

"Like in England, it rain all the time," the man grinned like the Cheshire Cat at his own joke. "What for you look up Giovanni?"

Rayne took a good swallow of his beer. It was sweet and cold and tasted wonderful in the increasing heat of the morning.

"Someone told me that he might be able to sort me out with something I was after," he said quietly. "Someone told me that Giovanni was the man that could get me some proper gear."

At once the older fellow leaned towards him, touching a finger to his lips. He shook his head slowly, his smile reduced in wattage ever so slightly.

"We no talk business here," he explained cheerfully enough. "We drink, we shoot the breeze. Happy people, enjoying happy holidays, si?"

"Are 'you' Giovanni?" Rayne persisted, running a finger slowly up and down the condensation beaded flank of his beer glass. Beside them, three generations of the same family took up residence around a couple of tables and began a noisy conversation. The blond barman swept in and began to take their orders efficiently, tall and tanned in his baggy Bermudas and colourful shirt. Across the table in the shade of the parasol, the dark-haired man contemplated Rayne Wylde solemnly.

"You come into the bar. Have another drink with me, si?" he said at last.

"I've not got much money," Rayne ventured apologetically.

"You have a drink. On the house. And we talk about what you need, hmm?" The fellow rose and drained his glass, setting it back on the table between them like a challenge.

"Okay." Rayne echoed his manoeuvre and followed him back towards the bar. Within it was shady and cooler, drafts of air descending from the large ceiling fans above them. It was also empty, on a lovely day like this few people wanted to sit indoors, even in an open fronted beach bar. His host selected two more beer bottles and cracked them open deftly, sliding one along the counter towards Rayne with a practised hand.

"First question. You got no money, how you gonna pay me for these goods you want, hey?" he asked pragmatically.

"I'll get some money. I've just got nothing with me now," Rayne said, taking a swig from the neck of the bottle in his hand. "I just wanted to check... make sure my friend got his information right, you know."

"He was correct, but my services don't come cheap," the dark-skinned foreigner warned him more gravely, leaning on the bar to look him in the eye again. The blond returned from his interrogation of the huge family wearing a harassed expression. The pair exchanged a few words in a tongue Rayne did not understand and the blond glanced at him incuriously then made some comment that caused his dark-haired colleague to utter a bark of crude laughter.

Irritably, Rayne slid off his barstool and set down the bottle with a click. "If you're not gonna take this seriously then I'll pay for my drink and go elsewhere," he said in a warning tone.

Again the pair behind the bar exchanged a look. The blond busied himself pulling pints and making cocktails but his companion moved around the counter to stand in front of Rayne. He stood about a half head taller and now the feral smile was gone.

"You don't talk about this conversation to anyone, understand?" he intoned darkly. "Giovanni can get you what you want, but you pay what I say 'when' I say. Do you understand me? I don't play games with little boys like you."

"I'm not a kid," Rayne snapped back at him. "Just tell me what you want and I'll get the cash."

"You got a big mouth and you don't think before you open it," Giovanni hissed into his face. He jerked a long, brown thumb back in the direction of the toilets at the rear of the bar. "You wanna talk a deal then we go where we don't get heard."

"Fine." Rayne realised he was shaking and gritted his teeth. It would not do to look too desperate. He set off for the back of the unit and the other fellow came after him at once.

There was a small door with colourful leaded glass in front of him and he opened it and found himself in a long, narrow corridor where buckets and mops and assorted cleaning equipment had been stowed away hastily. The passage broadened after about five strides revealing a small, square room not much bigger than a cupboard, a basin with a soap dispenser hanging over it, a cracked mirror and a single w.c. with a wooden seat. There were movie posters on the lilac-painted walls, and cuttings from poster boy magazines depicting muscular young men in varying states of undress.

"Nice," Rayne remarked deprecatingly as he turned to face the older man. "'Are' you Giovanni?"

The fellow cracked his knuckles and nodded once. Rayne took a deep breath; he was just showing off, trying to be impressive. Don't mess about, he thought grimly. Cut to the chase.

"Can you get hold of some Junk for me?"

Giovanni sucked a breath through his teeth and pretended to consider.

SadieRose
SadieRose
426 Followers