Bounce

"Not physically. But he and Law were close, you know? He went a little loopy for a few weeks. But he's married, got two beautiful children, and they brought him back from the edge. I'm not asking you to work with a mental case. He's fine now, passed his psych exam with flying colours."

"It is. Believe me. We're short handed. Miami might think riddin' the world of a mutinous, murdering bastard is an unforgivable crime, but up here we don't much care about the politics of a place so far away it might as well be on a different planet." I didn't point out that Cuba really wasn't that far away. I already thought he'd lost his marbles. He finished his second beer in three swallows. "You have an answer for me that won't insult my sensibilities?"

"Ricardo Tubbs." I didn't tell him to shorten my name, I was about to but something stopped me. I'd gone by 'Rico' in Miami, I wanted a clean break, didn't want to hear an echo in Sonny's southern drawl every time Tyrone talked to me.

I dropped into the passenger seat, impressed when he started the engine and it didn't sound like it would leave us stranded half way to the crime scene. It was a clich�, but for the first time in ten years I rolled out with a stranger at my side. Still, at least I felt like I could trust him.

#

I handed over the keys to the Caddy along with my gun and my badge. I thought Sonny had done the same with the Ferrari keys. So when I turned up for a last goodbye at the marina, I was surprised to see him gettin' ready to leave in that snow white dream machine.

"Can I offer you a lift to the airport, in my stolen car?"

I had to laugh. The sheer bare-assed cheek of it was breathtaking. At that moment I think I loved him more intensely than ever before.

We said our goodbyes at the airport. He pulled the Ferrari up just shy of the Domestic Departure terminal and for a long while we just sat in silence. Then he turned to me and I saw his eyes were wet. There is a no more heart breaking sight than seeing a man you love more than life cryin'. I reached over, wound my arms around his neck and he hugged me so tight I thought he'd crush me.

"Take care, Sonny."

It was a minute before he answered and I knew he was trying to find his voice. "You too, Rico. Don't forget me, man."

Like I ever could. Ten years of practically livin' each other's lives, of seein' each other at our worst and our best, of trusting one another with our next breaths. I had to force myself to let him go, to sit back, open the car door and get out. I grabbed my bag from the trunk where the engine should have been and leaned back in for a last look at the man who'd changed me so much I no longer recognised myself.

"Goodbye, Partner."

And that was it. I closed the door on the best, the wildest ten years of my life and watched my heart and soul drive away with the roar of that engine and a single red flash of those brake lights. Then he was gone and I walked into the airport to catch my flight up here - back home.

# # #

Sonny:

South from Miami takes you to Key West and then it's on down to Cuba. That didn't strike me as the friendliest place to set down roots, besides, the last time I'd been there things hadn't worked out too well. So initially I drove north, took I95 to Port St Lucie, drove up to Kissimmee and straight through Orlando, got on I75 then jumped off at Live Oak and Lake City and onto Interstate 10.

I didn't stop anywhere for longer than it took to fill up the petrol guzzler I was drivin' until I reached Tallahassee. I knew an old friend who'd lived there once, owned a garage in Lafayette, but asking around I found he didn't live there any more and I wondered where he'd gone. I'd lost touch with so many people over the years. It made me think about Rico, and wonder if I was gonna lose him too.

I swore to myself I wouldn't let that happen. He'd promised to call Gina with an address once he settled, and I'd made the same promise, so through Gina we'd each know where the other had landed. It had seemed like an important thing to do at the time, now that arrangement felt like my only remaining lifeline when I'd cut every other one.

I left Tallahassee after two days and dropped down to Alligator Harbor, spent a night getting drunk in this rustic little bar close to the marina. I had a couple of shots for Elvis, my own druggy alligator who'd passed away from natural causes over four years ago. I sifted through some old memories, storing some away for safe-keeping, letting others remain for the time being at the forefront of my mind. I made some decisions too. I wanted a boat. Couldn't live on dry land for long, it didn't feel right. I thought perhaps if I could find some good fishing I could invest in a fishing boat and eek out a living that way, maybe take tourists on trips during the season.

I recalled Izzy bemoaning the busy city one day, and asking us, 'if it's tourist season, man, why can't we shoot them?' It brought a smile to my face, sitting in that bar on the hard wooden stool, getting splinters in my ass as the sun went down. I'd bet eight to five it didn't have the same effect at the time.

The next day I took Highway 98 and drove south until I reached a place called Apalachicola. I slowed down to read the Welcome sign; established in 1831, Gulf of Mexico Fishing Port. Perfect. I tooled into town.

I'd only come three hundred miles, but it was like crossing into another time. I found a rental place downtown and paid a deposit for a five night stay in a beach hut, which turned out to be a wooden cabin on the edge of the sand, overlooking the bay and St. George Island beyond. It was small but functional; open plan lounge and kitchen on the ground floor, with the toilet off the kitchen, double bedroom and en-suite shower upstairs. Parked outside, the Ferrari looked as wide as the cabin. But it was all I had left of almost twenty years being an undercover vice cop in Miami, no way was I givin' it up without a fight, and besides, no one had asked for it back.

I could have sold it, could have found someone who would pay upwards of a hundred grand for it. Not that I needed the money; Catie's death had left me with a small fortune - I hadn't touched a cent of it. I was used to seeing money, lots of it, used to being around cash that wasn't mine, and it had never held any real interest for me. If it had, I'd probably be dead or in jail by now. There were things far more valuable to me, and the Ferrari - while not exactly one of them - was a reminder of a fair few of those things.

Within a week I'd found a more permanent place to rent on St George Island. Getting to it by car was easy in theory - across John Gorrie Memorial Bridge to Eastpoint, and then across Bryant Grady Patton Bridge, which was almost too narrow for my expensive, flashy car. I'd bought a boat too, not a particularly impressive thing but I knew I could have it looking more like a fishing boat and less like a derelict ruin within a month or two.

I had no idea if either of these things would make me happy or contented. I didn't know if, after those months of working my magic on the wooden wreck tied to the mooring behind my rented home, I would be so mind-numbingly bored I'd have to use it to ship drugs from Cuba into Florida. I mailed my address to Gina, didn't write my name - just in case - although I did add a note about missing her, about hoping everyone was fine and that I sent my love. I had planned on calling her but when it came to it, I knew if I heard her voice I'd get straight back in the car and drive all the way home.

I didn't give a phone number either. There was a landline, but for the same reason I couldn't call her, I didn't want anyone calling me. The only person I gave that number to was my son Billy when I rang him on the cell phone number he'd given me last Christmas - a present from Bob, the guy I wouldn't let adopt him. Billy told me once he loved me all the more for that. I'd made one decision right in my life at least, it wasn't bad going. He asked all about Apalachicola, about where I was living, checked I still had the Ferrari he hoped I was going to give him for his eighteenth birthday.

"Not a chance, son of mine," I told him with a smile in my voice.

"I've time yet to talk you in to it." Two years by my reckoning. He was studying mathematics, physics and computing at school with a view to getting into the University of North Carolina to study Engineering. If I hadn't by then, I might have to sell the car just to pay his tuition fees. "Dad, what happened in Miami?"

I told him - not everything, not the details - but as much as I could. I'd always tried to be honest with him. And after I'd told him, all he said was, "Won't you miss Rico?"

I missed Rico more than I could cope with some days. I tried not to think about him, although I'd relented slightly in my determination not to bring my old life to this new one. I'd propped three photographs up on the mantelpiece above the open fire grate in the living room; a new one of Billy Caroline had sent me just before I'd left Miami, an old group photo taken on the boat back in the good days - me, Rico, Gina, Trudy, Stan and Zito - and one Gina had taken about a year ago, of Rico and I at a rare celebration of a job well done, at a quiet bar out of town.

I worked on the boat relentlessly, keeping busy, rising early and working long after there was enough light left to do so. It took seven weeks to finish it to the standard I wanted it finished by, but it was worth every hour I'd put into it. Twenty by ten, fitted with a Yanmar 50HP shaft driven diesel with fixed prop and a Mariner 10HP auxiliary outboard engine, just in case. It wouldn't outrun anything if someone came after me, but it could get me back to shore at a fair rate if I needed it to. It wasn't in the same class as my old cigarette boat, but it was mine, I'd restored it, and I was uniquely proud of it.

I called her 'The Ricardo'.

# # #

Rico:

Life in New York, as it turned out, wasn't too bad. Soon enough I found myself eatin' breakfast at a tall, round dining table in Tyrone's airy kitchen, with his wife feedin' me pancakes and his two beautiful young daughters asking me about life in Miami and if the diamond I wore in my ear was real.

Tyrone asked about it too, one hot day sitting in morning traffic trying to cross the Manhattan Bridge. Neither of us resided in Brooklyn. "I heard Kimberly askin' about your diamond but I didn't hear what you said. Is it for real?"

I hesitated, but in the four months we'd been working together we'd become friends and I trusted him. If not quite with my life. "Yeah, it's real."

"What was it, a gift or something?"

"Yeah, a birthday gift, couple of years ago, from my partner."

I watched his face. "Wow. That's some partner. I ain't never had a partner I liked enough to give a diamond stud to, not even Law, and we were close."

I thought maybe he'd drop the subject, especially as we started to move forward. But we made it maybe five feet and stopped again. "Tell me about him. You guys still in touch?" I didn't answer at first, and he took my hesitation as silence and held up his hands, "Hey, it's cool. I know some bad shit went down and if you don't want to talk about it�."

"His name's Sonny. And yeah, we're still in touch. Kinda." Kinda in that I'd called Gina, given her my new address and phone number in Soho, and she'd given me Sonny's address in a place called Apalachicola somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. It sounded just like him yet at the same time, it didn't. Sonny had obviously settled with his more harmonising side, his spiritual side, rather than the player inside him, and I wondered how long it would be before the boredom meant he was trafficking coke from Cuba in a stolen speedboat just for the thrill of it. There was no number for him, and I hadn't got around to writing. Neither had he, and although the thought of losing touch with him wasn't a welcome one, I was starting to realise that we were living utterly separate lives now, and our paths were never going to naturally cross again if we carried on like we were doing.

"'Sonny', sounds like a white boy's name."

"More tanned than white, but yeah, he is." White, with sandy blond hair, emerald green eyes and a smile that could light up Manhattan. Something deep inside me started to hurt.

"And he gave you a diamond."

I looked at Tyrone sharply but he wasn't meaning anything by it. He was interested. I admit it seems a little odd looking in from the outside, but Sonny and I� it wasn't odd. It was something he gave to me because he knew I would love it and I did - I do. It's a permanent fixture. It wasn't like he'd given me a diamond ring or anything�. Like I said, I could see how it looked from an outsider's point of view. No one who knew us had questioned it. Maybe they'd just known better. Or they'd been expecting it. "We were close."

"So why did you leave?"

"You know why I left."

"No, why didn't you leave together?"

I was relieved that whatever had been blocking our progress was finally shifted, and the traffic started to move. Not that I didn't want to give him an answer, I just couldn't.

Within minutes of entering the sweltering building we were exiting it again with relief. The air conditioning had quit for what seemed like the hundredth time that summer and although thankfully the heat wave had broken, it was still officially too damn hot. I hadn't realised at first how acclimatised I'd become in Miami - Ricardo Tubbs does not like to sweat, not in his clothes - and it was starting to wear down my determination not to give in, give up, and drive south.

It had crossed my mind so many times I'd lost count. Middle of the night, late in the evening, early morning, I'd stand with the keys to my 1982 Lincoln in my hand and wonder if it would make it as far as the sunshine state. Believe me, that name don't mean nothin' until you've lived there, but it's such a perfect description just thinking it made me seriously homesick. Everything in New York is primary colours - vivid reds, blues, black and white. Everything in Miami is pastel shades, camp as a drag queen and I loved it. I tried to explain it to Tyrone one evening over beers in a bar NY Homicide had long ago adopted as its secondary headquarters.

"The place is so alive, man, it breathes it into you."

He grinned at me. "That's all the pot in the air, Ricardo."

"Yeah. You're a joker, Ty."

"Seriously, you're tryin' to tell me New York ain't alive? You lived here long before you went south and turned native, Bro', you're tellin' me you can get more alive than this?" It was a different kind of life and that's what was so impossible to put into words.

And so I'd stand there, staring at the car, wishing I'd kept the Caddy and trying to talk myself out of the crazy notion of finding my partner - my ex-partner - and spending the rest of my life fixing boats and fishing. Something always stopped me; a simple yawn as my body tiredly told me to go to bed, a call from the Lieutenant telling me my day was far from over, or a wrong turn that would take me over the bridge into Brooklyn. I didn't have the courage and I've never considered myself to be a coward. I missed it so much - missed him - that perversely it made me all the more determined to stay and make it work again in New York, work like it once had done. There were some painful memories, but with Sonny gone there would be even more in Miami. What's the old clich�? You don't know what you've got 'till it's gone? I think I always knew what I had in Sonny; I just wasn't brave enough to hold onto it.

The body we'd been sent out to had washed up in the wake of the Statton Island Ferry. A couple of Japanese tourists had spotted it while making a home movie of their New York experience. That's one experience it doesn't mention in the holiday brochures, although it probably should. CSI and the coroner were there long before us and we got some strange looks as we made our way over to the yellow tape cordon, but we managed to get a look at the body in situ before it was efficiently shipped off to the morgue. In ten years I think I visited Dade County morgue exactly twice. I've been to New York's morgue at least once a week for the last sixteen.

A young crime scene officer was processing the body - 'Mac', they called him - and he gave us chapter and verse on the cause of death despite it being obvious even to an ex-vice cop. Or maybe particularly to an ex-vice cop. I remembered a witness once telling us what he saw - 'M16s, lots and lots of M16s'. I recognised the mess one of those things could make. The body had more holes than Swiss cheese and he was white, white like a body that had bled out into the ocean. Then an older crime scene investigator joined us, and handed me a little transparent plastic evidence bag - sealed - and we found out what all those strange looks in our direction had been about when we'd first arrived.

"This was in his hand, Detectives, all scrunched up."

The water had got to it and there were a million creases in the paper, but it was without a doubt a photograph. Two men standing against a bright blue sky, arms thrown casually around each other's shoulders. Me, and my partner, Sonny Crockett.

#

The Coroner gave us an estimated time of death - somewhere between eight and midnight. When I'd asked him about water temperature and the cool nights despite the hot days (as I said, I'd attended too many dead bodies in too short a time) he told me he'd meant eight in the a.m., not p.m. Still, it ruled me out as a suspect before anyone had even mentioned it as a possibility. I'd been with Tyrone all day - breakfast with his family, work from eight until eight, then a beer and a steak at his favourite brew pub. I dropped him home at just before twelve. It was starting to feel like that second marriage all cops have with their partners. The problem was, I felt like I hadn't yet got a divorce from my last one.

We sat in the same traffic - I swear - that we'd sat in on the way to Brooklyn only a couple of hours before. I hated the traffic in New York. I'd forgotten how bad it was. Sure, Miami has traffic, but it never all seemed to be in the same place at the same time. Tyrone drove and I sat in silence, staring at the screwed up photograph though the sacred CSI seal of the plastic bag. Eventually Mac would work out I still had it and he'd break something getting over to the bureau to retrieve it. I didn't want to lose the guy his job, but it was the first time I'd laid eyes on Sonny in months, albeit just a picture, and I couldn't tear my stare from it.

"Never seen you smile like that, Ric," Tyrone observed as he waited for the lights to turn red about a thousand cars in front of us. What could I say? I used to be a happy person? Even when things were at their very worst, I had a smile for Sonny?

"You're imaginin' it, man. I'm a smilin' kinda guy."

He shook his head as we started forward. "You smile, sure, Bro'. With my kids, with Rachele, but like that?" He nodded at the photo in my hands. "Nah." I didn't know what to say so I said nothin'. I could see the rise of the bridge in front of us. "Tell me something; of all the places to go, why did you come back here?"

"Where the hell else would I go, man?" This line of questioning was guaranteed to wind me up and he knew it.

"Hey, easy. I'm just askin'."

"You're always askin'."

"I'm tryin' to understand my new partner, you know? The guy whose hands I put my life in every day? The guy whose life's in mine?"

I knew I needed to apologise. I was over-reacting. He'd called me 'Partner' once and I'd gone ballistic. I hated the idea of having a partner who wasn't Sonny, because he'd made the word mean something else, something more, something other than just the guy I hit the streets with. 'Partner' to me meant 'best friend', 'confidant', 'shrink' and 'sounding board'. Someone who knew me better than I even knew myself. And once in a while it had meant a whole lot more than Tyrone, than anyone, would ever be again. Sonny and I had given our own, private answer to that often-posed question, 'what are partners for?'

Sonny and I had been partners in the word's true sense and staring at his photo I was starting to realise exactly what that meant.

"Ric?"

"I'm sorry, Ty. I'm just rattled, that's all."

"Yeah, well, I guess findin' a photo of yourself in a dead guy's hand will do that."

Finally we were on the bridge.

###

PART TWO

def: 'Bounce' - to land after freefall without the aid of a parachute

Sonny:

I had the dream again, the one where Rico's starin' down at me from above, like I'm lyin' down and he's lyin' over me, and he's smilin', happy, and so am I. Then his smile fades and his eyes melt and run like hot toffee outta his head. In the dream I'm screamin' but when I snap awake I'm just makin' this pathetic yelping sound and sweatin' like I've run a marathon in a heat wave. But the worse thing about it is the horror, that sick feelin' it's impossible to shake for the rest of the day.

I showered, put on a pot of freshly ground coffee and went out back to stare at the water like a lovesick puppy until the coffee was like treacle, thick enough to hold the teaspoon upright and strong enough to keep me awake for a week. I'd started havin' the dream in Tallahassee, the night I stopped over from Miami to here, where I ended up. Rico used to think I had a sixth sense, or second sight or some damn weird thing. But if he wasn't okay someone would have written to me. I made Gina promise before I left. She was a little pissed off I didn't ask the same thing of Trudy if anything happened to her, but I think she worked out years ago that after Tubbs came on the scene, she was always going to come second to him.

At the end of the path from the back of the house, 'The Ricardo' bobbed in the calm ocean. The idea to take tourists fishin' wasn't panning out as planned. When I bought the boat it had apparently slipped my mind that I'm not a people person. I'd taken some of the locals on a couple of trips though, and I'd been paid in fish and kegs of beer, so I decided that had worked out okay. But my fourth incarnation as a fisherman was suiting me less than my second as a serviceman and every time I looked at the ocean I felt an ache so deep for Miami it was all I could do not to get in the car and drive home. No amount of self-denial it seemed was gonna convince me the island was anything more than a stopover. It still felt like an interlude between two lives rather than an existence I could eek out over the next few years. I could leave anytime, sell the boat; I'd make money on it too after doin' it up, spending so much time on it. But I didn't know where I'd go and wherever I ended up I know it wouldn't be long before I left there too.

And there was another surprise too.

A young lady - Carolyn - who lived half a mile further along the shore, had come onto me a couple of times in the local bar; nothin' heavy, just a bit of gentle flirtin'. She'd made it clear it could go further if I wanted it to. The strange thing was, I didn't. And it wasn't that she had practically the same name as my ex-wife and the mother of my son. It wasn't that I wasn't attracted to her� or more, it wasn't that she was unattractive. She was beautiful in fact - shorter than me by a couple of inches, even in heels, and I loved that. Long blond hair, stunning blue eyes, and a very sexy smile. She was intelligent and funny. She reminded me a little bit of Catie, and not even the thought of those memories pouncing on me had put me off. The problem was that something inside me wasn't buying a love affair as a good enough reason to stay. After all, a love affair hadn't kept me in Miami, and then it had been the greatest love of my life.

So there I was, that morning, standing on the path behind my rented home, contemplating the meaning of my life and drinking coffee so dark the sun wasn't reflecting off its surface, when a shrill ringing sound caught me off guard. I jumped - literally - dropped the mug, reacted as if it had been a gun shot, when all it was, I realised belatedly, was the telephone. I'd never heard it ring before. Only Billy had my phone number and I'd always called him to save the kid money.

It was so odd that it took a couple of seconds for me to start inside, or maybe I was hoping whoever it was would ring off. But they didn't, and it was with the caution of a man handling a dangerous and unpredictable animal that I lifted the receiver from the cradle on the kitchen wall.

"Hello?"

"Crockett?" My heart started to beat so hard I could barely hear my old Lieutenant's voice at the other end of the line. "Sonny?"

"Yeah� Marty, it's me. How did you get this number?" There was a pause, a silence, aand Sonny felt like banging his head against a wall. "Sorry, kinda obvious. How are you?"

"Good. I'm good, Sonny." It sounded like it was an effort for him to say it; he'd never really been one for small talk. So I cut him some slack and reacted like I thought he'd probably expected I would. "What do you want, Marty?"

"Enrique Fernandez was found dead in New York this morning." He was back on solid ground, but I was suddenly treadin' water.

"I hate to remind you, but I quit a while ago�."

"He had your photo in his hand." Mine? I didn't even recognise the dead guy's name. "Yours and Rico's." Well, yeah, the chances were high - Rico and I had been almost inseparable. "Fernandez worked for Mandella Garcia." Shit. Garcia. But even those memories were overshadowed when he continued, "Tubbs and his new partner are investigating."

His words hit me like a blade to the chest - that initial, terrible sharp pain, followed by a nauseating ache that refused to quit. That Rico had been dragged or coaxed or bribed back to law enforcement didn't surprise me. No. Not bribed. My Rico wasn't for sale, never would be. What else was he gonna do in the Big Apple? And with the job came that inevitability of a partnership. But Rico� God, Rico was mine damn it! The force of the pain, the strength of the feelin', took my breath away and left me winded.

"Are you still there?"

"Yeah, Marty." I don't know how I managed to speak, but when I said, "I'm going up there," it was the first thing I'd been sure of since we took down Borbon in that other life I thought I'd left behind. How na�ve was I?

# # #

Rico:

The Coroner had got a print and the print had turned up a name - Enrique Fernandez - wanted for everything from petty theft to drug trafficking with outstanding warrants in New York and Miami. Tyrone and I had gone north, doing something apparently he'd sworn never to do.

"Ricardo Tubbs, meet the Cola brothers, Matthew and Luke."

'Cola' presumably because they were white� I didn't get it either, but then I didn't care. I turned on the charm with my usual consummate ease and within ten minutes Tyrone was holding a computer printout that touched the floor when he stood up and let it fall open.

"See, this is why I don't work Vice." It was a list of known connections stretching back years and reaching half way around the globe. A second printout followed. "Fernandez's record. This reads like a novel, Ric. Arrested in New York in '81 on suspicion of dealing along with two other guys, Paulo Lopez and Charlie Spotts. Released without charge. Arrested in Miami in '82, suspicion of receiving and moving, again released without charge. Arrested in Miami in 1983 along with a Mark Solari and charged with possession, did two years. Solari got off on a technicality - the warranty to search his house didn't cover the boot of his car where they found the coke." He carried on down the printout. "Fernandez disappears off the map for about a year then and reappears in New York, arrested for trafficking and this time he's defended by a hot shot lawyer who gets him off."

"Who was the lawyer?"

"Let me see� Alexio Montoya." The name didn't ring any bells.

"Then what?"

"He's arrested in 1986 yet again - this one ain't clever - in Miami, during a Vice bust� hey, Bro', that you? Mandella Garcia? Hey, Ric� you've turned white, man."

#

The bar was the kinda place Sonny would have loved - hidden away down some back street, tiny tables big enough to hold two Espresso cups and an ashtray, spilling out onto the uneven pavement. Inside smelt of ash, sweat and bourbon, and the patrons were shrouded in a layer of smoke, a protective cloak that hid them from the world. Not Tyrone's first choice that was for sure, but he went where I was going. We sat outside and when a young girl in black with long black hair came out Tyrone ordered two beers and I ordered a Jack Daniels chaser. He looked at me like he wanted to say something but didn't.

I didn't want him there - hadn't invited him but he'd come anyway, forcing his way into my car before I could get it into Drive. So he was with me, but no way was I gonna spill about Garcia. It was one of those weird ones, and there'd been a few during my time in Miami. Garcia was the weirdest of the lot, but he led to that redefinition of the word 'partner' that made it so difficult to have anyone else but Sonny play that role in my life.

We'd been undercover for months, on and off, working our way up the food chain, starting small, getting bigger and bigger deals, letting them all go down smoothly, until we finally got the call Garcia wanted us to move one-hundred and fifty keys out of Miami to the Caribbean to his distributor. It was what we'd been waiting for. But before he told us where and when he wanted to meet us, and we were kind of anxious to meet him. He had a place on St Andrews Island, and we were cordially invited to a house party one night.

Socialising with the bad guys was always Sonny's least favourite part of the job. But in we went, DJs and bow ties, lookin' like a million dollars, with no backup and no emergency exit. Not as much as a bullet between us. It was a party! What could possibly go wrong? We learnt our lesson that night, and what I did, I did because I already loved Crockett, even before any of the other stuff happened between us.

We partied. We met Garcia, he told us to enjoy ourselves and that in the morning we'd talk. That was cool. We had a couple of drinks, chatted to a couple of women, and when I went to bed around two Sonny was in the seemingly safe and capable hands of a blond lady who'd been whispering all the right things in his ear all night. I thought we were on for an easy ride. But a couple of hours later I was rudely awakened by one of Garcia's goons stroking my ear with the business end of a .45 and I started to think maybe I'd been wrong.

The house was quiet, all the guests gone. I'd guessed someone had talked - maybe someone at the party had made us - and the usual routine in that situation is restraint, a beating followed by one through the back of the head. So when we stopped in front of a white door and the goon opened it, two things struck me instantly, one with greater ferocity and a heightened sense of horror than the other. The room wasn't an office, it was a bedroom - Garcia's bedroom. And kneeling on the carpet with his hands tied in front of him and the twin of the gun holdin' me hostage pointed at his head by the twin of the goon behind me was my partner. That was something I'd seen too many times before, Crockett held at gunpoint. Business as usual, except for it being in a bedroom. But standing in front of Sonny, wearing nothing but an open silk shirt and silk boxers, was Garcia, stroking his own dick through thin black material, gettin' visibly, obviously hard, and I knew what was comin' next. Or, I knew what Garcia thought was comin' next; rape at gunpoint followed by a double execution somewhere far from the house.

Only I knew differently. I knew nothin' in this world would make Crockett open his mouth, and as he still had his pants on I guessed Garcia didn't want it any other way. I could read the stiff set of his shoulders, the way his head was turned away as far was possible with a .45 shoved against his temple. Sonny wasn't gonna suck any dude's cock, and his refusal would get him pistol whipped and eventually earn us both an early bullet in the head.

Me, on the other hand� well, let's just say it wouldn't be the first dick I've had in my mouth and leave it at that. I wasn't exactly playin' martyr on Sonny's behalf, although I would have done, so I got mouthy, so to speak. I figured he knew we were cops, businessmen didn't usually seal deals by sexually assaulting their transportation providers, so I told him Sonny had been in jail for contempt, that he'd been used, was damaged goods, psychotic, that he'd likely bite it off. I didn't look at Sonny as I said it.

Garcia grinned in a way I didn't like. "He bites, Tony here puts a bullet through his brain."

"Yeah, but then you're gonna have to slit his throat to get your penis out and hope some surgeon can sew it back so it works right. Come on, man, you want your cock sucked, let me."

He looked down at Sonny and obviously something in my partner's eyes backed up what I'd said. To my relief he swaggered over to me. "What's to say you won't do the same thing?"

"Because I don't want to watch my partner die. And I don't want to die either."

Garcia considered it and to my relief, he nodded. "Okay, cop. Make it good and I give you my word he walks out of here." Nothin' about me walkin' out with him, but that was okay. I had other ideas anyway. I didn't look at Sonny, kept my eyes on Garcia until his dick was in my mouth, then I closed them. He wasn't big, not compared to some of the guys I'd sucked off, but then I'd chosen to do them. I could feel the guy behind me, pressing the gun into the side of my head as he pressed his hard-on against the back of my skull through his pants. Kinda obvious that Garcia would employ like-minded goons but the interviews must have been a laugh a minute. I did glance once at the guy standing behind Sonny and surprisingly he didn't look into it at all, in fact his head was turned away from us in what might have been repulsion. That was good. That would help. Because after a couple of very long minutes, when Garcia's climax was close, when I had his complete attention, I pulled my head back suddenly and bit the head of his cock as I head-butted the erection behind me.

Both men doubled over in pain and I heard a grunt as Sonny took down the goon with the gun to his head. In a move faster than I'd ever seen, he grabbed the gun, shot the heavy once in the knee, turned and fired one into Garcia's crotch. The amount of blood was incredible, his screams were terrible, and even I wouldn't have wished that on the guy. But I understood why Sonny had done it, and God, at that moment I loved him fiercely for it.

It was hours before the local cops had cleaned up the mess. By then Castillo had arrived - a blissful sight after what the locals had put us through. It was something Sonny and I could rely on - Castillo turnin' up wherever we needed him to bail us out. Sonny insisted on taking us back to the mainland in the cigarette boat that we'd bought out to the island and truth was I was happy to go with him. Even though we hadn't told Castillo the whole truth about what had happened, it was like somehow he knew. If one of us had showed any emotion above and beyond the usual he'd have had us off on mandatory leave before we'd been able to utter a single word of protest, with the added joy of a visit to the department shrink thrown in for fun.

Ironically, I knew, even though I was okay with what had happened Sonny definitely wasn't. Once we got back to Bal Harbour, and to the St.Vitus Dance, and Sonny had thrown a frozen perch at Elvis, he erupted. Every word was predictable, his anger understandable, and his tears when they came broke my heart. I let him yell himself hoarse before I even tried to explain - listened to him demanding his right to take his own punishment and to not have to watch his partner throw himself on the sword on his behalf. Only when he'd run out of steam did I assure him I hadn't sacrificed my manhood to save his. I told him about the guys in New York and the one guy I'd had in Miami in all the years I'd been there. Reminded him that when he put his dick in a girl's mouth, he was handing over control of the situation to her. Garcia hadn't been a big deal, he'd handed control to me and I'd used it against him, but trying to convince Sonny of that wasn't easy. I'd known he wouldn't get it, I'd expected it to make things awkward between us for a while. It beat being dead and I knew we'd work it out.

Then I struck on an idea. "Imagine Garcia had been a lady," I caught his expression but forged on, "imagine she'd demanded you fuck her or she'd kill us both. And she wasn't too horrible, you know what I'm sayin'? Other than she had a gun to your head. You knew you could get it up 'cause you hadn't had it in too long. She'd really wanted you. Would you have done it?"

He thought about it for a long time then said, "Not sure I could get it up with a gun to my head." But by his tone I knew he got my point. It took a few minutes, but eventually he nodded, showing me he understood at least that I wasn't gonna be needin' any rape counselling.

"So� are we okay, Sonny?" Like I said, I'd imagined it would be awkward. But he looked at me with that intense expression in his eyes, the one that told me something deep was happenin' inside that complex mind of his. More. It told me he loved me.

"Rico� you saved my life; both our lives. We're more than okay. And if you think I'm gonna have a problem with you because you like guys, you're wrong, Pal. It ain't somethin' that bothers me."

I remember the silence that followed once he looked away; a silence that would have been broken by the sound of his churning thoughts if thoughts were audible. And me being the kind of guy I am, I decided to push it just that little bit further.

"When I was suckin' Garcia, did you look?"

I made sure my tone was teasin', somethin' I could laugh off if he reacted the wrong way. But he got all serious, shook his head, "Couldn't, man."

I dropped my voice to somethin' quiet, gentle; just askin'. "Why not, Sonny?"

He didn't speak for a few long seconds, started to give me an answer just when I thought I wasn't gonna get one. "I didn't what know it would do to me." I had to concentrate hard to hear him he said it so quietly. "Didn't know if I'd be repulsed or� or turned on." True Sonny Crockett honesty. "That scenario of yours; if Garcia had been a woman? Would you have watched?"

One thing about my partner; however hard I pushed, he pushed back twice as hard. But I owed him the truth. "No, I wouldn't."

"Why not?"

"Because I know it would turn me on, seein' you like that; aroused, hot, gettin' off on it." Of all the things I'd ever confessed to him, that had to be the craziest, the most intimate. Any earlier in our partnership and he would have hit me. Or maybe not - we've always been honest with each other, always been open.

As usual, Sonny topped me. "Knowin' you were watchin' me, knowin' I was turnin' you on� that would be really somethin'." He could take my breath away with the simplest of sentences. "Would somethin' like that destroy us, Rico? Or would it make us stronger?"

That we'd been able to have such a conversation made our partnership special - if not unique then at least extraordinary and rare. I looked at Trudy and Gina sometimes and wondered how much they told one another. Everything, probably, as they were women and that's what women did. Beautiful, smart women, too. I've read ladies described in novels as 'rare beauties' and Sonny was mine. He often reminded me of the wild cats in the New York central zoo, forever checking the perimeters of their confines, searching for a means of escape. Sonny wasn't meant to be in captivity. And wasn't that what Borbon had been? A way out? Even after everything�.

"Ric!" My head snapped up of its own accord and I looked at Tyrone leaning in close across the tiny table. "Tell me what happened with Mandella Garcia!"

"He's a pervert. And a couple of years ago he was castrated by a Vice cop shooting him in the balls." Tyrone's eyes widened. "Not me, my partner, defending my honour."

# # #

Sonny:

I didn't like the idea of leaving the Ferrari behind, but it would have taken too long to drive to New York and it was perfectly safe on St George Island locked down along with The Ricardo. Besides, I'd already decided to bring Rico back with me, at least for a couple of days, show him the results of my handiwork and prove to him I didn't need the adrenaline high of the job to live; I wasn't a junkie, I wasn't addicted.

So why did I feel more alive as I sat in Apalachicola airport waiting for my flight than I had done since leaving Miami? I wasn't fooling myself so how was I ever gonna fool a man who knew me better than I did? Who cared for me more than anyone else ever had?

I stared out of the window at the quiet runway lost in memories, remembering early on this kid I'd used to bust a trafficker called Montoya. This kid� he'd been shot by Montoya's brother at the airport. I was there when it happened - we both were - standing five feet away from him. Rico chased the guy down, killed him in self-defence. And when it was all over he tried to take me home. But I didn't move - couldn't move - and Rico sat on the floor beside me, stayed with me. No one came near us. Sounds corny but Rico's always been my safe harbour. How the hell did I ever think I could make it without him?

Of course, I might have been over reacting in one huge way. Fernandez might have jumped into the East River, or maybe someone had pushed him who'd never even heard of Mandella Garcia. Chances were Rico and his new partner would have a suspect in jail by the time I landed in the Big Apple. But if Marty's story about Fernandez having a photo of Rico and I in his hand was true, and not just some wild embellishment to get me on a plane out of the vacuum of my fishing paradise, then something kooky was going on and I wasn't about to let my partner - ex-partner - handle the heat alone.

As I sat in the sweltering lounge of the airport I couldn't help but recall Mandella Garcia; that fucking weird night on St Andrews - and the changes wrought in mine and Rico's partnership because of him. Marty told me once that Rico and I occupy the same space. He didn't have to tell me that a single glance at one another was all it took for us to formulate a strategy, previously un-discussed, and put it into play. It was a trait that had kept us alive for years. Garcia couldn't have known that, or he wouldn't have accepted Rico's offer that night. And I didn't need to be watching the rape of my partner's mouth to know when it was the moment to act. I didn't have to shoot Garcia in the balls but I wanted to. Whatever Rico wanted to call it - and he wanted to call it consensual because that four-letter R word was more than either of us could deal with - Garcia had taken something that absolutely had not belonged to him and for that reason, I castrated him with a bullet before he took anything from anyone else.

The eruption from me the moment we were safely back on the boat was a heady mix of anger, horror and fear for my partner's state of mind. Rico had been right; never in a million years would I have opened up and sucked that guy, but it didn't mean that he had to. We'd found our way out of worse situations, although we'd never been faced by a dick-wielding pervert before. New situation all round, and the way Rico had dealt with it scared the crap outta me. We'd talked, once I'd calmed down enough to see sense - or at least his version of it - and what we talked about led to something else, something entirely different, a couple of months later. It had led to a wonderful woman called Maybella, and to a night that blew both our minds.

# # #

Rico:

Remembering Garcia had brought with it a flood of memories and feelin's I knew I couldn't run from any longer. Truth was I'd left Miami and come to New York because I'd been too scared to see where Crockett's chosen road would take us. Now I knew I'd been lying to myself. Tyrone was right there, in my face.

"I'm your partner now, Ric! Talk to me!"

And I was shaking my head, denying it. At first I don't think he understood, but it didn't take long - he's far from stupid. "What the hell is it with you, Bro? I use that word and you act like I'm some monster sleepin' with your momma and tryin' to take your Daddy's place!"

Weird analogy.

"Sonny and I were more than partners, man."

"Long term it goes that way, Ric! You know what they say - that it's like a marriage without the sex." I kept my mouth clamped shut. "But that takes time. We'll get there but only if you give us a chance! Now I want to find the guy who dropped that body in the water for the unsuspecting tourists to find but I can't do it alone." I hesitated, but I knew he was right. Whatever I did later, for now we had to find Fernandez's killer. I nodded. "Okay, Bro! So, you knew this Mandella Garcia, did he have any special places in New York?"

I was about to say that I hadn't even known he'd ever been in New York. But then I remembered something - a brother, Nicholas Garcia, owned a club in the city. Someone along the way had mentioned it. It was our best lead, and ten minutes later, after a call to the Cola brothers in Vice we were on our way to Club Mandella. Named after his brother. Cute.

# # #

Sonny:

One thing I knew about Garcia, he had a younger brother who lived in the city. He'd always kept the kid out of trouble, been his guardian after their parents had died in a car crash and left them orphaned at the tender ages of eight and fifteen respectively. After he'd left college, Nicholas Garcia had been given a New York club by his brother and he'd turned it into a chic, successful place. Club Mandella was my second destination once the plane touched down, after the hotel.

I had the address for Rico that Gina had given me weeks ago, but as much as I wanted to see him, now I was in his city I had no idea, I realised, if he'd want to see me. Sure, nothing had happened to make me think that he wouldn't. But a million paranoid reasons were cycling through my head and at least half had to do with him having a new partner now. Someone else was playing that role in his life now - where did that leave me? Friend? Fuck-buddy? I hated that idea.

So I didn't go to his place. I went to Club Mandella, had a yellow cab drop me a block away in case the club's namesake was hanging around. It was an unassuming place, with clear, open windows out onto the street but no alfresco drinking. Inside the floor was dark, polished wood, with the bar and tables to match. Deep red cushions on the seats and atop the bar stools, white lighting that was surprisingly easy on the eyes. It was nice - stylish - but I couldn't help wondering if the colour scheme simply hid the blood more easily. I sat at the bar and asked the barman for a cold beer and a bourbon chaser. He fetched both drinks with quiet efficiency and I gave him a generous tip without askin' any questions. Later I'd ask and for a little extra he'd likely tell me, but for now I just sat, let the exhaustion of air travel wash over me, and soaked up the city again - maybe not my city, but still it was good to be back in one, like an ex-smoker lighting his first cigarette in six months.

As I sat there two guys came in from the blinding, blazing sunshine I didn't pay them any attention but heard the barman ask what he could get for them. The answer came back; two cold beers, a bourbon shot, and some information.

Just the sound of his voice was enough to finally realise the depth of my feelin's for him. I turned slowly, drank in his profile from the end of the bar, and when he didn't spot me, I dropped from the stool to my feet, took a couple of silent steps and smiled broadly as I greeted the back of his head. "Hello, Partner."

# # #

Rico:

I ordered the drinks and thought I saw something funny in the barman's expression even before I'd added my request for information. There was someone sitting at the end of the bar when we walked in, but I didn't pay them any attention. When I heard his voice, I thought I was dreamin', and I looked around at him slowly, not even believin' my own eyes.

A second later I'd closed the gap between us, his arms were around me and I hugged him like it had been years, not months, since I'd last set eyes on him. He said my name, grabbed me tight, and I knew that he'd missed me just as much as I'd missed him. His fingers splayed across my back, one hand coming up to cradle my head as he lifted his own and for a second I thought he was gonna kiss me. For a second I wanted him to. But his forehead came to rest against mine and I didn't care that it didn't look like some overtly macho guy reunion. I felt like I was holding a long lost lover in my arms, and to some extent that was the truth. His eyes were closed but I didn't need to see them to know what he was feelin'. Me too, Sonny. Me too, man.

# # #

Sonny:

First thing I heard was from the other guy was, "Hey, Ric� you gonna introduce us?"

Ric? Rico slowly pulled back and possessive, jealous bastard that I am I think I glared at the tall, dark man he'd walked in with, knowing instinctively that this was his new partner. I knew too by his expression that he recognised me, probably from the photo Fernandez had been clutching - too much possibly to imagine Rico carried a picture of us in his wallet.

"Tyrone, this is Sonny, my partner." His introduction wasn't needed.

I reached around him, shook Tyrone's outstretched hand. "Ex-partner, to be precise."

To my surprise Tyrone rolled his eyes as he firmly shook my hand. "No, believe me; at least as far as he's concerned, you two were never divorced."

That surprised me too - his choice of words, his tone� I glanced at Rico who was blushin' under all that dark. Tyrone looked at us both and I read the look in his eyes, knew we needed to tone it down until we could grab some time alone. "Listen, I think maybe we should find somewhere else to talk."

We moved to a bar a block away, close to where the taxi had dropped me off.

"So I'm guessin' this isn't a lovely co-incidence." That was Tyrone as we sat down in a private booth with our drinks; Rico I know had already drawn that conclusion. He was sitting next to me, shoulder touching mine in a way that was achingly familiar.

"Castillo, our old Lieutenant, called me; told me about Fernandez and the photo found in his death grip." Told me my partner was hanging out with another guy. Wasn't that the real reason I'd flown all the way up here?

While Rico reached into his jacket and pulled out an evidence bag with the photograph inside it, Tyrone obviously wanted to bring me up to speed. "Ric tells me you know Mandella Garcia, Fernandez's employer?"

I took the photo, not missing the opportunity to make skin-to-skin contact with Rico's fingers, trying to remember where it had been taken. It was ancient, my hair style was testament to that, shot on the boat one night. Maybe back when I used to host parties�. Then it came to me. It was my birthday! Six or seven years ago, Rico organised a party for me, just our closest friends, some good food, cold beer, and he bought me a cake, made me blow out the candles and make a wish. "How the hell did he get hold o'this?" I asked the bar in general, frankly amazed. I thought maybe Gina had taken it.

Next to me, Rico shook his head. "No idea, man. No idea why he had it, either; whether he died with it or it was put into his hand after he was killed. Either way, it reads like a warning to me."

I raised my head, caught Tyrone's eye and nodded. "We knew Mandella Garcia." Then I glanced back at Rico. "Think Fernandez was a warning from Garcia? Tellin' us he's out and gunning for revenge? The fact he turned up here and not in the Miami River says to me Garcia knows you're in New York. But I was the one who shot him."

"No similar message for you down in Albuquerque?"

"Apalachicola," I corrected him as I shook my head. "No message."

Tyrone shrugged. "This could have nothing to do with your friend, Garcia?"

"That would make this a coincidence and in this business there are no such things. Working Vice, you learn to view coincidence as a great big warning sign; something bad's about to happen and it's time to grab your gun or get outta there." How many times had I heard the words 'it's just coincidence, man' followed a single thundering heartbeat later by the deafening sound of gunfire and bullets pinging passed my ears? No. I'd shot Mandella Garcia in the balls a couple of years back for raping and humiliating my partner - not that Rico ever saw it that way - and now some kid who worked for him had ended up floating in New York's East River with a photo of Rico and I in his hand for Rico and this new guy to find. Back in Miami, a coincidence that huge would have had me shooting everyone in the vicinity not on my side before high tailing it outta there.

"So what's the plan?" I looked at Rico, the man I'd shared my life with for the last ten years, all except the past four months. He was sitting the way he always sat when he was thinkin' somethin' through, workin' somethin' out; on the edge of his seat, knees apart, hands together playin' restlessly over one another, eyes far away until they suddenly snapped back and focused entirely on me. I loved the way he did that.

"Best plan is still the one we'd all decided on. We need to find Garcia, and the best way to do that is through his brother."

"And if his brother won't tell?"

"Come on, Rico." I nudged him playfully. "We'll make him tell."

"What's this Garcia into anyway?" I glanced across at Tyrone. He learned fast. He struck me as a good guy, an intelligent guy, someone who'd watch my partner's back. Would he stand in the line of fire to take a bullet for him? I doubted it - too soon, too early. Within days of us first meeting I was devoted enough to Rico to lie for him, couple of weeks later I'd definitely have put my life on the line for him. It was so fast with us, like love at first sight, only some strange love neither of us had ever been able to define.

"Coke and sex."

"Heady mix. So from what I've picked up in the short time I've been hangin' with Ric, we're sellin' one or the other, right?"

I glanced at Rico with a tiny smile. I really was impressed and it took a lot to impress me. "Let's make it Coke."

He opened his mouth and I waited for the agreement, for the fine details. But instead, I saw that glint he gets in his eye whenever he's hit on a great idea liable to get us all killed. "No, let's make it sex."

###

PART THREE

def: 'Bounce' - to land after freefall without the aid of a parachute

Rico:

I don't know when to keep my mouth shut, my ideas to myself. Boston Prison, that was one of mine and Sonny didn't speak to me for about a month afterwards. Goin' under, pretending like the job was pissin' me off and gettin' out, gettin' into all the vigilante and bent cops stuff, that was another; not tellin' my partner being my giant mistake on that one.

'Let's make it sex'?! Who knew what that had come from? Havin' said that, I could probably take a not-so-wild guess. A chance to get my hands on my partner, ex-partner, all legit, was one my dick at least couldn't resist. And believe it or not, it wasn't an entirely sexual thing. I'd missed him touchin' me, missed touchin' him, missed the physical contact and the closeness. It had been the most real thing to me in the whole world and I'd missed it so much I'd felt it hurtin'. And yeah, at times I got off on it; Sonny's a physically gorgeous man; that's undeniable. His strength, his ability to protect himself and others, and his caring, his possessive, proprietary nature had rubbed off on me. Take that French chick who'd tried to twist him up and for a finale tried to kill me. I'd have been floating down the Miami River with a hole in my chest if he'd decided he fancied her more than he needed me.

"You can't sell sex to a eunuch, Rico." Sonny's patented 'patient voice of reason'. He used to talk to Billy like that.

Tyrone winced. "Pity. Girls are easier to get hold of than coke."

"No tellin' Nicholas doesn't swing the same way as his brother."

I shrugged. So I wasn't completely focused on the job. "We check, and if he doesn't go for us or the girls we offer him coke."

"Play it by ear?" Just like us to wing it, play it by ear. We were used to thinkin' on our feet when that was the only thing between keepin' breathing and takin' a bullet.

If he went for us, I didn't want to imagine how Mandella would react to the idea that the guy who robbed him of his manhood was fucking his brother, but we'd definitely get his undivided attention. Then all Tyrone had to do was bring the hefty force of the NYPD down on top of him.

Tyrone, who was busy shakin' in his head in our general direction. "It's too risky, bro." Then he nailed Sonny with a stare hard enough to hammer nails. "And don't go tellin' me 'risky's your second name, white meat."

Sonny smiled. "Wasn't about to. I don't have a second name. But Rico and I lived with Risky for ten years, he's a good friend." He leaned forward and I physically flinched when he patted Ty's knee. "Trust us, okay?" He finished his drink in one slug and got to his feet. I followed.

Tyrone stared up at us both. "Hey� what?"

"Time to go to work."

"You're seriously gonna bait this guy with yourselves?" He rolled his eyes. "You two lived in one weird-ass world."

Sonny grinned. "Welcome to Vice."

"Yeah, well�. you know, I think I'll wait here."

"Your choice, Ty." I put one hand on Sonny's shoulder. "Don't want to watch the masters at work?" There was that knowing look in his eyes again when he held out his hands.

"I'll catch the next show."

# # #

Sonny:

Rico's arm around me felt just fine as we strolled back into Club Mandella. Our impromptu reunion had apparently eased us in if the expression on the barman's face was anything to go by.

"Gentlemen, what can I get you? Champagne, perhaps?"

I glanced at my partner, hesitated, and nodded. "Why not?"

He slipped into the character like he'd been playin' it his whole life. "It's a bit early to be celebrating, isn't it?"

"Nah, we can celebrate again when we find him."

The barman expertly filled two champagne flutes with bubbly, not spilling a single drop. "And who would you gentlemen be looking for?"

We took two seats at the bar and Rico lifted his drink, chinked his glass to mine, eyes shining, before tipping it to his lips and sipping the bubbles, never lookin' away from me. My dick gave an appreciative throb and before I knew it I was thinkin' about how that mouth with those ice cold bubbles would feel wrapped around it. I was losing concentration fast and it was Rico who finally turned back to the barman.

"The owner of this classy joint, Nicholas Garcia. We've got an offer for him he won't be able to refuse."

"Nicholas Garcia isn't here at the moment." I reached for my glass, wrapping my index finger and thumb around the base of the bowl and moving them slowly up and down the long body, eventually lifting it, sipping it, deliberately doing to the poor guy what Rico had knowingly done to me. "But I tell you, if the offer includes you two, you bet he won't be able to refuse." Bingo. "He'll� be here tonight, late. It's jazz night."

I smiled sweetly. "Thanks." We drank our drinks and Rico slipped a note across the bar.

"Keep the change. Buy yourself someone� filthy."

The barman turned the same perfect red as his shirt and I swear I could feel his eyes burning my ass as we walked out. Mine and Rico's, probably; imaginin' a nice threesome.

Didn't do threesomes. Not with guys. It was what had got me into this mess in the first place.

#

"How'd you hook up?"

"Remember Lieutenant Dutton?"

"Dutton of when we were up here and he tried to have us thrown back to the 'gators?"

"Yeah. He found me, told me they were light, offered me a job."

"You work for Dutton?"

"No. Some dude called Larson. Solid guy."

We were sat in the courtyard garden at the back of Rico's place - a really great ground-floor apartment, light colours, lots of windows. Not quite what he was used to though - I used to love his beach house almost as much as I loved the boat. It wasn't a huge place, but the wrought iron spiral staircase climbing from the open plan lounge/diner/kitchen up to the bedroom gave it an erotic feel and after Maybella, I couldn't be in that house without getting a hard-on. Course, that came in useful now and again.

It was dusk, still hot - that damp heat I hated the first time - last time - I came up here with Rico. He had my favourite brand of beer in his icebox, which I was gonna ask him about but hadn't got around to yet, and we were sitting out there, drinking, him on the wooden bench he said the last owners had left behind, me on the low wall along the back, leaning against the high fence behind it. I lit a cigarette and expected him to say something, but he didn't immediately and when I opened my eyes I found he was watching me.

"Haven't seen you smoke in a long time."

"I gave up."

"I know."

"Only smoke now when I'm in New York." It made him smile.

"So where you been, Sonny? Where is Apalachicola?"

"Fishing port south of Tallahassee." I told him about my overnight there, about my day in Alligator Harbor and about finding the town I was living in. "You'd like it. Got a little house that's slightly smaller than the Ferrari." That made him giggle. "I restored a boat and named it after you."

He stopped giggling and his eyes went all soft. "Serious?"

"Yeah, man. Fishing boat. I thought I could take tourists out, you know?"

"You? Tourists?"

My turn to laugh. "Yeah, I know. Figured that bit out too late." See - Rico knew me better than I knew myself.

We fell silent, each lost in thought for a few long moments. Then he looked up, and he said, "I've been thinking about you, Sonny. Thinking about� that night, with Maybella."

Rico:

Maybella. Beautiful, sexy, sassy Maybella. We met her at this outta town bar called the Spiky Cactus. Not our usual type of place but we'd been out in the Caddy, tooling around, lookin' for somewhere different to have a drink, the plan being to grab some dinner afterwards before we both passed out from exhaustion at the boat or at my place, whichever was nearest.

The whole place was green; green walls, green floor, green lights lighting everything up green. At least the beer wasn't green as far as we knew. It had a hint of the grassy colour but we put it down to the neon cactus over the bar. They were playing Country and Western on the juke box, with its green rope lights dancing in time to the twangy music. Crockett liked that stuff but it had never really had any impact on my life. I was a rhythm and blues guy. Sonny likes jazz and rock. Two too different tastes; we could never live together, it would never work.

Half an hour after we arrived, the juke box was switched off at the plug and a real life County and Western band stepped up onto the stage - a fancy term for a few up-turned palets in one far corner of the bar - and started playing. Their singer introduced herself as Maybella. She was wearing a cream shirt, long black skirt, and a wide brown leather belt on her hips. Long, dark red hair, pouting red lips, beautiful brown eyes. God, she was gorgeous. I couldn't take my eyes off her for ages, and when I did finally manage a glance at my partner I saw he was equally as smitten as I'd known he would be. She was just his type.

And once she'd spotted us, there at the bar, she was making eyes at us throughout their hour-long set. She was going to go for Sonny, I knew that deep down, however hard I tried with white women he was usually the winner if we both made a play. No hard feelin's.

When they finished the set, she jumped down off the stage and walked over to us, confident, smiling, taking my breath away, and I'll never forget the way she looked at us, first at Sonny - predictably - then at me. Then she slipped one arm around Sonny's shoulders, and one arm around mine, and said, "So where are we goin' boys? Your place or mine?"

To say the idea had never crossed my mind before that night would be lyin', but I would bet everything I own, right down to my underwear, that it hadn't crossed Sonny's. He stared at her for a second, and I was about to duck out of the invitation, when he looked across at me and it was like being struck by a lightening bolt. For a second I couldn't breathe. No way, I thought, was he proposing what his eyes looked like they were proposing. And he must have known it, because he said, "How about it, Partner? Share?"

My dick was most definitely nodding. If I ignored it, it would give me hell over it, reminding me of the opportunity I'd passed up every time I reached for it. Like I was ever gonna pass up an opportunity like that, however nervous the thought made me. So I nodded, smiled like I was the most chilled person in the whole bar.

Maybella was smiling too. "Let's go then, I'm gettin' all wet standin' here."

We weren't far from my place. Maybella followed us in this little red sports car she had. We didn't speak a word on the drive there, but it wasn't an uncomfortable silence, it was a hot one, like we were about to something we'd both been waited to do for years, with the added frisson that we were about to cross a line we both knew we shouldn't cross, but it was too late to change our minds.

She loved the beach house with its privacy and its wrought iron spiral staircase up to the bedroom. She led the way, undressing as she went so that by the time she reached the top, she was gloriously naked. She pressed up against me, that round ass rubbing against my crotch as she beckoned Sonny forward and he moved into her arms, bending slightly to kiss her. I rubbed my hands down her sides, watched my partner's mouth move on hers as their tongues danced somewhere between. Then she pulled back from him, turned all the way around to face me, and I stroked my hands over her breasts while I tasted Sonny's saliva in her mouth.

She started to undress me, slowly, takin' her time, kissing my chest, nipping at my nipples, finally dropping my pants and briefs, taking my balls in the palm of her hand. For a single moment I forgot about Sonny, lost in her, and then a hand too big to be hers settled on my hip and I was suddenly, singularly aware of his presence. She must have seen something in my eyes, because she stepped around me, behind me, pressing against my back, my dick in her hand as she murmured, "You undress him." I think I shook my head. "Why not? He wants you to."

I wasn't convinced, but I never had known when to resist. "That right, Sonny? You want me to?"

He nodded. I couldn't believe he'd nodded. He even stepped up close, putting himself within reach. How the hell I was supposed to resist�. I swear my hands were trembling like a coked-out crackhead's as I put them at Sonny's sides, just above his hips and hooked fingers dancin' the St Vitus under the hem of his T-shirt to lift it over his bowed head.

Then I couldn't stop myself from puttin' my hands on his chest, stroking his skin, tracing the only mark - the bullet wound Angelina Montepina left him with: a small price to pay for him to be standing in front of me.

Maybella - I'd almost forgotten she was there - put her hands over mine and directed them down to his waistband. My fingers unbuttoned, unzipped of their own accord and without warning his hard, bronzed cock sprang free to salute me. I felt Maybella's deep chuckle behind me, let Sonny's pants fall to the floor, but I didn't touch him, not where I knew he wanted me to. Instead I murmured something utterly unintelligent and meaningless - possibly the age-old compliment, "oh man," - and palmed his heavy balls, rolling them gently. Then I sank to my knees and did what I'd been wanting to do since Mandella Garcia put his gun and his penis to our heads that fateful night; I swallowed Sonny's cock to the root.

# # #

Sonny:

I remember that night in such clear detail I can close my eyes and re-live every second, and believe me, I've done that about a thousand times, usually with my hand wrapped around my dick. We fucked Maybella, both together, in some kinda neat gymnastics - me from behind as she lay atop of me, Rico above us, pushin' into her nice and slow, drivin' her crazy - drivin' me crazy. I could feel him, his dick hittin' mine through thin layers of flesh. It was the hottest thing I'd ever done.

I remember her arching her back, dropping her hand to rest against my shoulder and pulling Rico down to us, kissing him then directing him to kiss me for the first time. Mouth to mouth. It was electric - and hey it's a corny clich� but I could feel his dick like he was fucking me through her and his tongue lying heavily against mine reminded me of how it had felt around my hard-on. I came hard, and I swear my orgasm had little to do with the woman whose body I was inside and almost everything to do with the man I was sharing her with.

# # #

Rico:

That night with Maybella changed things between us, of course it did. She left sometime in the early hours of the morning - kissed us both and headed out. I heard her car but I stayed in bed, watching Sonny over on the other side of the mattress, listening to shallow breaths huffed softly out through his nose, fallin' deeper for him with every dark, passing minute.

And as I stared at him across the narrow gap of my New York apartment courtyard, I couldn't work out how I'd thought I could live apart from him. He was staring right back at me and I knew at that moment he was thinking the exact same thing.

The silence between us stretched, pulled taut, and finally snapped.

He came at me, bottle hanging between his fingers, and I met him half way, both on our feet now, teeth clashing and lips crushing together before we got it right and his tongue was headin' for my tonsils. His free hand held me in place as if any second I was gonna break from him. Nothing to worry about there, Sonny. I wasn't goin' anywhere. I wrapped my arms around him, hands splaying between his shoulders and at the small of his back. I could feel him, diamond hard in his pants, and my cock was with him for every inch and more; two erections grinding against one another. Sixty seconds, ninety tops, and I'd have come in my pants like some horny kid.

"Ric?"

Fucking Tyrone!

Sonny pulled back, a wild look in his eyes. "You left the door open, man?"

"He's got a key."

I saw the flash of jealousy and my cock strained even harder to get back next to his.

"Ric?" My new partner was standing in the open plan kitchen cum living room, staring at us like we were some last piece in a puzzle he'd been mulling over for months. Which I knew he had. And I waved and called out limply,

"Hey."

#

We ran through the plan, Sonny checking his watch as we finished.

"Gotta go back to the hotel, get changed." Personally I thought Sonny was lookin' just fine in what he was wearin' right then, especially the way his cock kept twitching under the tight material of his pants whenever he looked at me. We needed to put this Mandella thing to bed real quick just so we could climb into one.

Ty trailed us out to the front door, Sonny in front, me not able to take my eyes from him; blond hair, slightly tense set of his shoulders, T-shirt damp with sweat between his shoulder blades - knowing he hated the New York heat more than I did.

"Ric!" The annoyance in Tyrone's call of my name told me he'd said it more than once. He grabbed me, pulled me back. Sonny turned and it was sheer instinctive habit that made me raise a hand to stop him intervening.

"You and him need to sort yourselves out first because I don't want you on the street so distracted. You're gonna get yourself killed, bro'."

I didn't know what to say, didn't know how to react that wouldn't shatter what fragile friendship we'd managed to build. I could never depend on Sonny to defuse situations; he always preferred to light the touch paper and stand just in range of the explosion. He took a step, faced off Tyrone.

"Hey, man, you don't want him on the street with you, that's fine, he'll be with me. We've lived half our lives out there."

"You think I'm a god-damn amateur?"

"No, man. But this is Vice. Specialised skills in a fucked up world."

Tyrone still had a death-grip on my arm. "Lived half your lives on the streets? Yeah, real hard lives. Ferraris, boats, Rolex watches and diamond studs." I glanced at Sonny, saw him not quite get the reference. Didn't matter 'cause he was smiling - that disarming one he used on men he was usually kicking in the nuts ten seconds later.

"Wasn't all beautiful cars and beautiful women, Dude. Hotels in Cuba are dumps. Drug dealers are paranoid and suspicious. Sitting with a muzzle pressin' into your temple ain't my idea of a good time, and prison is the pits. Believe me, the risk and the danger is not worth the payoff. But that isn't why we did it - isn't why we're doing this."

"So you're sayin' it's personal this time?"

I felt the grip slacken on my wrist. "It's always personal, Ty. That's Vice. It gets in your blood, gets in your soul. I told you, with Homicide you dance to the beat of the bad guys. With Vice, the idea is to get them to dance to your beat."

I'm a poet.

"You're a mad fucker, Ric." But he let go of me, looked at Sonny, then back. "So what do you two heroes need of the NYPD? Unless you think you can handle Mandella Garcia alone�."

#

Over the years we'd walked that line between who we really are and the personas we wore like a different wardrobe. Problem was, there was no other wardrobe. We lived the life - dipping into and out of our covers, sometimes having to switch so quickly, so unexpectedly we were never completely Crockett and Tubbs. The first time I remember seeing Sonny in anything but the Versace pants and tight designer shirts was the day out in the dustbowl town he'd unfortunately chosen to vacation in at the same time as three crazy sons-of-bitches wanted for armed robbery. He'd ditched the Ferrari, borrowed a friend's bike and hightailed it outta Miami. When me, Stan and the Lieutenant caught up with him he'd been wearing a ratty T-shirt and ripped jeans and the sight itself had been enough to unbalance me. How well did I really know Crockett? How much of the man I'd fallen in love with was Sonny's evil schizoid side, Burnett? For just a little while, I doubted everything, and that doubt hadn't come from Sonny trying to kill me, it had come from the sight of a stranger in cheap clothes riding a motorbike.

Having said that, by the time Sonny and I quit Miami we were back in perfect sync, like the workings of an expensive watch. And despite the months apart, nothing had changed.

There was a different crowd in Club Mandella than had been earlier in the day. Champagne corks were popping, flutes topped off with bubbles overflowing on to the bar.

We strolled in like we owned the city, arms casually around each other's waists, laughing at some untold joke, smiling easily at the barman who'd come on to Sonny at lunchtime. Breaking away from me, Sonny leant across the cold, smooth, granite bar, sunglasses between his hands, flirtation like a slash throughout his poise. I joined him as two glasses of the expensive stuff were slide across the bar towards us. "On the house," our barman murmured, and I saw a phone number written in ink on the napkin under Sonny's glass. He slid it out, pocketed it, smiled at the guy like he'd be calling.

I watched him watch Sonny lift the glass and tip the fizzy liquid over his tongue, watched his eyes roam. I couldn't blame him. Crockett's attire that evening - a yellow T-shirt slashed at the open, V-neck line to reveal smooth, flawless, tanned skin. This was over white pants which pulled tight around his ass with no visible underwear line, was enough to give a straight, celibate monk a hard-on. The barman was clearly sufferin' and he didn't know what I knew - that Sonny wasn't wearing anything under those pants, that with a touch to his crotch you could outline the thick weight of a restless cock aching to fuck. We'd have done it right there in the courtyard behind my house if Ty hadn't turned up.

I used to watch Sonny on the boat in just speedos and an open shirt, and wonder where the tan lines were, if there were any or if Sonny did indulge in some real worshipping of the sun when he was out on the ocean alone. It was a hot image.

"Gentlemen?"

He was instantly recognisable, the mirror image of his older brother. A short man in an immaculate black suit and white shirt, black hair combed back, dark green eyes like rough-cut emeralds in the club's lights. "Nicholas Garcia." There was no outstretched hand of greeting, no smile. I got the feeling he recognised us too. Maybe his brother had already introduced us in our absence. I remembered the photograph and immediately I was on my guard, feeling the tensing of Sonny's shoulders. "I hear you have an offer for me. Maybe we should talk in my office."

"I think we should talk out here." I glanced at Sonny, knew as well as he did if we stepped into a private place with this man we might not step out alive.

"Business should be conducted in private. Something my brother taught me. He was a great teacher." Was? Something was off. "But you know that, don't you, Detective Crockett, Detective Tubbs?" All for naught, as the saying went. His hand slipped into his jacket as he continued, "He taught you two the taste of each other, didn't he? He taught us all the taste of him and you two took him away from me." His voice never rose above its initial, summer-calm pitch and volume, but the anger behind his words, the grief and fury were palpable. I didn't need to see Sonny's reaction, didn't need Nicholas to explain what he'd said either. He'd loved his brother, somehow he blamed us from whatever had happened to Mandella, he'd brought us here with a simple photograph and now he was about to shoot us in the middle of his club surrounded by his patrons. What the hell did he care? I knew exactly how he felt. But I'd had restraint. And I'd had Sonny.

"Okay, man," I heard Sonny start to try to talk some sense into him, "we'll go through to your office. That way no one gets hurt who doesn't have to."

Too late. The gun was out in plain sight. One or two people had already seen it and were backing away. No one had screamed yet, but that was New York for you. The ones who made it to the exit would probably just go and find another bar to drink in, one without a crazy guy waving a gun around.

"We didn't kill your brother," I tried to reason with him although I suspected he was long passed that. This had gone so screwy so fast I'd barely had chance to take a breath.

"Might as well have done. Which one of your shot him and which one of you had his dick in your month?" Sonny didn't say a word. He had his eyes on the guy - neither of us were armed and there was a very good chance Nicholas was just going to shoot us right there, right then.

"I was the one who sucked him off," I told him softly. "He enjoyed it. Didn't he tell you that?" I wasn't being cruel, I was trying to distract him, trying to put his head somewhere else. "I enjoyed it too. But Sonny here, he has this thing for me and he got real jealous. You know what that feels like, don't you? You've been jealous of Mandella's lovers, since you were kids, because you loved him."

I could see him wavering. What I was saying was still wrong in his eyes, no matter what his older brother had told him, no matter how much he'd wanted it. It wasn't just a crime in his family, it was a sin. Murder, extortion, fraud, blackmail, drugs - these were acceptable past times. Incest most definitely was not.

"I'm sure he loved you too, Nicholas. Gave you this place, didn't he? Wouldn't have wanted you to throw it all away just because he died."

"He didn't die! He killed himself!" The gun was suddenly very deliberately pointing at Sonny - from that point-blank range, his guts would be dog food and he'd be dead before the ambulance arrived. "You castrated him! He couldn't live like that so he drowned himself."

I could guess where.

Then I'd turned up in town, someone had told someone who'd told Nicholas, and Enrique Fernandez had wound up as bait on his fishing trip to catch not only one of us but both of us. What had Mandella told him about us? That we were cops who'd tried to play him so he'd played right back?

"I shot him," Sonny was confessing, all calm and quiet. "I didn't mean to castrate him." Liar. "I was saving Rico's life. Mandella was gonna kill him. You'd have done anything for Mandella, wouldn't you?"

"He was my brother."

"Rico's my partner." Nicholas interpreted the word accurately enough, and the gun's aim dropped a few inches. Predictable. We'd lost our touch - we were talkin' ourselves into getting shot instead of out of it!

"Then maybe I should show you how Mandella suffered."

I heard the crack of the gun going off and for a split second I thought I saw a rose of blood on Sonny's white pants.

What I'd actually heard was a gun firing somewhere to my left. And what I saw was Nicholas' blood splatter the light linen, both before I heard Tyrone's voice instructing Nicholas to 'drop the weapon' just a second later. He wasn't dead. He was holding his wrist and looking through a bullet hole in his right hand, blood blossoming from the wound before he'd even started to scream.

The rest of the evening was surreal at best. Tyrone wanted to know everything - Sonny and I gave him the broad strokes and left the rest to his imagination, if he cared to imagine it. It was the early hours of the next day by the time we caught a cab back to my place.

"Does this city ever sleep?" Sonny asked me as we drove through the busy night streets.

"New York don't sleep," the cab driver told him in a perfect Hollywood-bred Manhattan accent. "New York never sleeps. That way, it don't miss nothin'."

It struck me as fairly profound at the time.

# # #

Sonny:

"Does it ever get cooler?"

"Winter. Then it snows until the whole world is white."

We sat outside, side by side on the bench, Espressos with bourbon chasers at gone three in the morning and for a long time neither of us said anything more intelligent than that. I didn't know what I wanted - all I knew was that leaving Rico was beyond what I had inside me right then. Before, when I'd left Miami, I'd been leaving a life gone sour, a job gone awry, and Rico was caught up in all that; Miami had been our connection, why would we have left together? But now, I was here in New York because of him.

"I've got a car waiting for me back home."

Rico chuckled. "It cracks me up that you stole it, man."

"It's the only thing I have, the only physical reminder that I spent twenty years as a Vice cop in Miami. Like all I have of Catie is a bank account."

"What about me?"

I shook my head. "Memories, tied in with everythin' else like you've always been there."

Reaching with one hand to the back of his neck, I had no idea what he was doing until he was putting his medallion around my throat, fastening it. "No, Rico�." I told him I couldn't, tried to stop him but he wouldn't let me. He'd had that pendant all the time I'd known him, for all I knew his brother had given it to him. But he left it there, picked up the bourbon and refilled our shot glasses, chinking his gently against mine. I dropped it back in one, feeling the burn at the back of my throat, watched Rico do the same, lifted my fingers to the chain resting around my neck.

"Ty's a good man," he told me, out of the blue. I couldn't disagree. He'd saved our lives back there, he knew what was between us but he hadn't freaked, hadn't even mentioned it. "You've no idea how often I've wanted to drive south from here."

"About as often as I've wanted to drive north?"

He looked at me, that intense expression in his eyes and it struck me hard how much I missed him, just how shallow everything seemed without his depth. "If we don't put our lives on the same path, Sonny, they won't ever cross again."

See what I mean?

I knew that, I'd known it from the moment I dropped him at Miami International four months ago. But I didn't know what to do about it. "You're building a life here, man�."

"It's not a life, it's a stopover."

Shaking my head again, I disagreed with him. "No. Apalachicola's a stopover - a rented cabin, restored fishing boat. But you've got a job, a house, a new partner�."

"I don't want a new partner, Sonny!" He let out a deep breath and quietened his voice. "I want you, man." I felt a little like crying, a little like shouting it from the rooftops. I felt like I did when I asked Catie to marry me; scared to death but like it was somethin' too good to walk away from. "It's always been you," Rico carried on, "you know that." He leaned forward and said what I hadn't the balls to say. "I don't want to live without you."

What the hell could I say to that? If I'd told him it wouldn't work out, he'd have let me walk away. Chances were it wouldn't. Likely we'd tear each other to pieces. But maybe not. We'd practically lived together for the last decade.

"Not sure taking tourists on fishin' trips is your thing either, man." But I knew he could tell by my tone that it was just a matter of words now. He sat up, dropped his head back and to the side to look at him with that smile of his, the cat that didn't just get the cream but the whole damn pie.

"I'd give it try, Sonny. Can't promise it won't be a matter of weeks before I'm transporting coke - "

" - from Cuba just for kicks?" I smiled and he threw his head back and laughed like I loved him doing, like I'd pictured him doing every morning when I stood out behind the cabin and stared at the ocean. "Nah. We need more action, more of a buzz. Maybe� Mexico?" He looked at me like I'd just offered him the world on a plate. "But I want to pick up my stolen car, make sure The Ricardo goes to a good home, get the deposit back on the cabin�."

"Strapped for cash, man?" He almost tripped over the last word trying to stop it, expression falling. "Sorry, Sonny�.."

I waved it away. "The passage of time and all that crap. I still haven't touched a penny of Catie's money. Mind you, if there was anyone she'd want me to set up some kinda life with it'd be you. She knew how much you meant to me."

We fell into a comfortable silence, drowned another two shots, then Rico took my hand and led me inside. It'd take some getting' used to, but as long as I didn't have to miss him every single day, I didn't care.

#

Epilogue

Castillo:

I was stepping into Lupe's Bar, so much on my mind I barely noticed it. The expression on my face, when my brain caught up with my vision and I turned back to look at the two men sitting in the car pulled up on the other side of the road, was presumably comical. But they weren't laughing. They were smiling; at me, at each other. I waved and they waved back, and as I watched Sonny's hand strayed to Rico's shoulder and rested there for just a moment too long.

I knew what it meant and I nodded once. They wanted my blessing, they had it.

Then the purr of the Ferrari engine fired into a roar and the white Testarossa sprang from its resting place on the other side of the street, racing away, mingling with the downtown traffic and vanishing out of sight. Presumably before I could ask for the keys back.