7 The Lion's Den
Father Bristol was not pleased to be called to the Memorial. No one was ever pleased. It didn’t look like much, just a rose garden around a Romanesque fountain. There was a very nice rose bush in a beautiful red wood pot. The rose had lovely yellow flowers. The Gardeners and several other men were digging a hole much deeper than a normal rose would require.The father sat on the only bench, right in front of the fountain, clasped his hands together, pressed them to his forehead, and prayed. He would always come back to Alfred’s estate, where some things were safe and protected from the world, but nothing good ever came from a visit to this garden.
“Let’s go to the garden, shall we?” Alfred asked as he stood. In that same movement, he had Gael by the arm and hauled him up to his feet too.
“Allie, I’m sorry,” Gael begged. “I’ll be good. I promise.”
“Now, now, we’re past all that, Gael my love. Choices were made and now we have to live with them, don’t we?” Alfred placed his hands on Gael’s shoulders and spun him around, so he could tie his wrists behind his back. “Relax your arms, Gael. I don’t want you trying to avoid your fate.”
Gael grimaced. “He’s a doctor. He’ll be missed.”
“It’s New York. People go missing all the time, especially if they’re as funny as Dr. Walker obviously is.”
“It’s not obvious!” Jack snapped back as a couple of Alfred’s men caught him by each arm and escorted him towards the Memorial Garden. “Just what do you think you’re doing?! You’re a very poor host!”
“Jack! Shut up,” Gael screamed, a loud shriek of sound in defiance of the somber atmosphere.
Pretty much everyone who had been at the dinner party scattered. There were some who would migrate out to the Memorial Garden, but most went off to private rooms with a companion for the evening. Whichever direction they went, they weren’t going to be any help to Gael and Jack.
As the men nearly carried Jack out of the dining hall, all his calm disappeared. He’d spent one afternoon with the red headed man, but there was something to Jack that Gael wanted more than anything else in his life. He wanted the man’s kindness and faith in humanity, the love what glowed in his touch, the rich mellowness of his voice, the warmth in his hands, and he wanted these things like he’d never imagined wanting anything. It was as if that tiny little meeting, the chaste little kiss in Jack’s flat, it was like it opened a window into another world for Gael.
Gael knew very well what the Memorial Garden was and honestly, he’d always expected to end up there. Most of Alfred’s lovers did. His life before Jack had barely anything that suggested that growing old and living through endless struggles was a prize to be had anyway, but now he had this view of a whole new world. It wasn’t just for him, but for Kate-Marie, Ian, Finn, and Emily too.
Alfred didn’t expect Gael’s head to hit him in the solar plexus hard enough to knock him down. In a fairly fluid motion, Gael dropped to the ground in a roll, bringing his body through his arms to get his wrists in front. Running after Jack, he chewed at the knot in the rope around his wrists. He didn’t have any firm plans, but he wasn’t going to let anyone hurt Jack!
The knot at his wrists was free by the time he skidded out of the dining room and into the hallway. He didn’t know what their plans were and he was afraid they’d kill Jack before he could even get to him. The skid turned into a near lunge towards the back of the house.
He needed weapons! He regretted not grabbing a knife or two from someone’s plate. Running, he wrapped the rope around his hands, readying to use it to strangle anyone who got in his way. He’d known these people for years, been friends, a member of the gang, Alfred’s pretty songbird, but if they laid hands on Jack or got in his way, he’d end them.
“Gael!” Anita yelled.
Anita was Alfred’s number person and Gael didn’t want to stop to talk to her, but like everyone else in the gang, he’d long learned that if Anita speaks, you listen. She had a husband in the Memorial Garden, from when she’d tried to leave Alfred’s service. Gael didn’t really stop, he slowed enough to recognize that she was tossing him a gun belt. He caught it out of the air, letting the rope fall.
“Gael!” Alfred screamed. “I am going to ruin you! Come back here you little shit!”
Gael was not great with guns. He’d fucked up more people with his rosary as brass knuckles than he had with a gun, but he’d take what he could get. Heart racing, he made the last second decision to not take the direct path, but to go through the kitchens.
They were crowded, full of all the workers that fed Alfred’s guests. The most direct route was down the work tables in the center, so without even breaking stride, Gael made the leap to the copper plated table. In fancy dress still, he half danced, half ran the length, trying not to kick over anything or listen to the head chef screaming his name. Everyone wanted to call his name!
The kitchen was on the second floor with floor to ceiling glass doors that allowed large food products to be brought in. Gael tucked his head and never even stopped. Glass shattered outwards like sharp rain. For a moment Gael felt like he hung in the air, legs running on empty air, until the world shifted and he hit the lawn below.
It was unbelievably perfect timing. He came back to his feet right in front of the men who had hold of Jack. Gael pulled both revolvers, cocking them with his thumbs like a dime novel hero and hoped like hell that was how it actually worked. “Let him go.”
Gene shook his head. “You know I can’t do that, Gael. You trying to get us all in a hole?”
“If I have to. Jack isn’t part of this and I’m not going to let anyone hurt him.”
Gael did not see the punch coming from behind him as Alfred’s chief of security put him on the ground.
“That is now how you use pistols, little boy.” The big man took both pistols from Gael’s limp hands, then stripped him of the belt. “If you draw, you need to fire.”
A couple other guys grabbed Gael up by his arms and dragged him along the path towards the Memorial Garden. Once there, he was bound much more securely, wrists to his ankles, while kneeling in front of Alfred. “Welcome back, my little dancer.” Alfred pressed a very nice black fedora down on Gael’s head. “I know you wanted to be buried in that one I gave you a couple of weeks ago, but this one is brand new, custom made just for you, so that’s probably better.”
“Please let him go, Alfred, please.”
“Don’t beg, Gael. It’s unbecoming. If you speak again, I’ll have you gagged. Now though, I did want Dr. Walker to have a chance. It’s like Gael’s last wish.”
“This is entirely savage!” Jack said, indignant. He was still held by both arms, firmly in the grasp of the same gangsters who had dragged him out to the garden.
“Yes,” Alfred replied, a very satisfied grin on his face. “What’s mine is mine, Dr. Walker. Now, if you will give me your word that you will never see Gael again, I will let you walk free.”
“What happens to Mr. McNeil?”
“That is not your concern. He is mine. I bought him a long time ago. Though if you can’t give your word, I shall happily offer you the services of our community priest. He will be happy to marry you and you and Gael will be together until death do you part.”
“I will never leave him,” Jack said resolutely, chin lifting. “My Lord brought me to him, blessed me with love for him. I will stand by him until the Lord calls me home.”
“Oh my goodness,” Alfred said, motioning a chair over so he could sit down. “They do make unusual men in Kansas, do they not? Well, Gael? If you reject this Kansas boy, I’ll let him go.”
Tears flooded Gael’s blue eyes, bouncing out on his cheeks. “I hate you Jack, you choir boy. I never want to see you again! You fucking virgin!”
“He doesn’t mean that,” Jack said firmly, glaring at Alfred. “You are so cruel and self-centered. If you hurt him, I will go to the police.”
“I own the police.”
“I will go to the Federal Bureau of Investigations! You are not above the law.”
Alfred rubbed both of his temples. “Fine then, kneel Dr. Walker and the good father will marry you.”
“I’m not Catholic,” Jack objected.
“So you don’t want to get married?”
Jack knelt in front of Gael and tenderly wiped away the tears running down his face. “Don’t be afraid, my dear. We are Daniel in the lion’s den, but the Lord will protect us according to his will.”
“I’m sorry I got you into this.”
“No, don’t be,” Jack said, leaning forward to very gently press his lips to Gael’s pale lips. “The moment I met you I felt real and if that is all of life that God is to give me, it was worth every moment before and after.”
“I have to protect my family,” Gael said, crying still. “I need a few more days.”
“We only get what we are given. Have faith, my love.”
“Marriage is a sacred rite,” Father Bristol said, “In the very early church, marriage between to people of the same sex was possible. There is no sex in Heaven or in God’s eyes. In the interests of time, we will make this short. Do you both consent to marital bonds between you?”
“Yes,” Gael said, feeling a sense of peace.
“Yes, with all my heart,” Jack said, leaning in for one more kiss.
“Fine!” Alfred growled. “You two are so sweet your blood would probably ferment. Cut them loose.”
The ropes holding Gael were quickly and willingly cut by the men who had tied him up.
Still towering over them, Alfred grabbed the hat back off Gael’s head. “Galen will always be mine, always. Nothing will ever change that. So think on that, Dr. Walker. Someone get them a ride home.”
