Fic: The Big Freeze (Figure Skating RPS, Johnny Weir/ Stéphane Lambiel), Part 1
The Big Freeze
Figure Skating RPS (Johnny Weir/ Stéphane Lambiel, NC-17)
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and is not intended to reflect on the personalities or behaviours of the persons mentioned within. Pure fantasy.
Author's Notes: 14 324 words. Undying gratitude to Leksa who looks up the weird shit that I won't, joins all my separated words and says, "dude, no," when she should. Where would I be without her?
This story began as a series of prompts from the Bordellinos. tangleofthorns suggested a glass slipper, azurejay suggested the noir theme and intl_princess provided the lyrics below. intl_princess also provided a location prompt (London) which I also used, although I’m pretty sure she meant London, UK and not London, Ontario. The noir private detective theme informs the writing style (including a very unfamiliar 1st person past tense narrative) and the plot (and the title). If you’re familiar with the genre you’ll spot lots of tropes. Respect to noir re-inventionist movies like Brick and Bound for the inspiration.
Johnny Weir is a private detective. That’s all you really need to know.
Who is the lamb and who is the knife - Florence and the Machine.
Part 1
He came in to my office on Friday, looking every bit the European playboy with his silk scarf bundled around his neck and sunglasses perched atop his wavy hair. The scarf was Louis Vuitton. I noticed these things.
Stéphane Lambiel. I hadn’t seen him in years. He was still in the game, still a star in galas across Asia and Europe, and still in demand as a choreographer to champions. I left figure skating behind when I slunk off the ice in shame two years ago, but the curiosity was constant, and every now and then I’d catch a competition on ESPN, and see him smiling at the camera like he knew I was watching. When I wasn’t glad I’d put all that behind me, I was jealous as hell.
He didn’t bother with small talk. He sat in the chair on the opposite side of my desk and produced a glass slipper out of his Gucci manbag. He handed it to me with a crumpled piece of paper that had been smoothed out and refolded. “Someone is trying to kill me,” he said. The note said, “GO TO LONDON AND DIE.”
“London?” I said.
“London, Ontario,” Stéphane said. “The World Championships are in two weeks.”
It was nearly March. I’d barely noticed. I looked at the glass slipper: a six inch spiked heel covered in glass pieces. It reminded me of something. “This came with the note?”
"Someone threw it at me,” he said disbelievingly. I sympathised. It sounded crazy to me too.
"Where?" I said. Last I’d heard, he was working in Japan.
"In Los Angeles. I'm still working with Denis. "
"Are you sleeping with him too?" I didn’t know why I said it.
Stéphane brought out the worst in me. We may not have had anything that went beyond hotel rooms and broom closets, but I was possessive. And my love life wasn’t what it used to be in the glory days of competition. Stéphane reminded me that I should have appreciated things while they lasted.
He rolled his eyes. “Do you want the job or not?”
I held the note up to the light. I was a bitch sometimes but I could hold back when my income depended on it. And I never could resist heels. “Are you sure someone isn’t messing with your head?” I asked him.
“If it’s a joke, it’s not very funny.”
“Death threats seldom are,” I said. I’d had plenty.
He held his hand to his forehead like he had a headache. “You’ve no idea how stressful this is,” he said.
“When did it happen?”
“A few days ago. I was just leaving practice and I saw a car drive past and whoosh!” He gestured with his palm brushing past the side of his head. “It nearly hit me.”
“You didn’t see the licence plate?”
“It was dark. It happened so fast.”
“Did you call the police?”
He held up the shoe. “I’m sure they would find it very amusing.”
I agreed. Even I was having difficulty taking it seriously. “So why come to me?” I said. “Don’t they have private detectives in Los Angeles?”
“I had to get out of there,” he said. “And if I need protection, you’re the perfect person. No one would question your appearance at Worlds. You’re just another skater.” He paused. “Or you used to be.”
I raised my eyebrows. I had avoided being anywhere near an ice skating competition for the last three years. My reappearance would definitely be noticed. “I’m a private investigator,” I said. “Not a bodyguard.”
“If you find the person who threw the shoe at me, you’ll be both.”
The whole thing sounded ludicrous. A part of me wondered if this was Stéphane’s thinly veiled attempt to lure me back into the world of figure skating. Another part suspected he felt sorry for me. I couldn’t decide which disturbed me the most.
“In that case,” I said, “I need to know a few things. Firstly: are you sleeping with someone’s boyfriend?”
He glared at me. “No.”
“Are you sleeping with anyone?” He continued to glare. I leaned back in my chair and clasped my hands. “If you want me to solve the case, I’ll need to pry into your personal life.”
“I’m not sleeping with anyone,” he said.
“Can you think of any reason why someone would want you to stay away from Worlds?”
“No,” he said. “It’s ridiculous. I’m not even competing.”
He had a point there. I knew of skaters getting death threats, but never their support crew. And definitely not their choreographers.
“How long will you be here?” I said.
‘In New Jersey?”
“Close by,” I said. “I need to do a little research first.” This was a half-truth. I was in no hurry to go to Canada.
“A week or two,” Stéphane said. “Does this mean you’ll take the job?”
I wanted to say no, but I was too broke to be proud. And who was I kidding? I’d never been able to say no to Stéphane. “I’ll need an expense account,” I said.
“Anything.”
So maybe it was a pity hire. I tried not to think about it.
*
I used to live the glamorous life of a reality TV star and diva ice skater. I had a popular dance single (gold in Japan), a best-selling book, thousands of fans and more Balenciaga handbags than I had things to put in them. It all ended with a series of photos of me in a Jacuzzi with an ISU judge’s son and a law suit over my book. I was never good with money, and when the skating shows stopped calling, I had to sell the Balenciaga to pay the rent.
That was the story I told anyone who asked. The truth was more complicated: I was angry. Mostly with myself. The fiasco with the book had left me feeling naive and foolish, and the incident with the judge’s son just made me look stupid. I don’t handle humiliation well, so in a fit of self-loathing I stopped skating: walked off the ice and hung up my boots, never to return.
People had short memories, and the fans didn’t care how many boys I lured into a Jacuzzi. The law suit was crippling, but I could still do a triple axel, and when the paranoia died down, the invitations still came. It was my decision to give up skating, but it wasn’t because I didn’t have an audience anymore.
I sulked for a while, took up smoking (again) and all night parties, but the credit card bills didn’t stop coming and one morning, while lying in an unfilled bath with a hangover, I realised I needed to get a job. I live in Jersey and my skills are figure skating, languages and being a diva bitch whore from hell. Becoming a private detective seemed the logical choice.
It wasn’t a lucrative career. And it wasn’t pretty. I found cheating spouses, insurance scammers and lying “family values” politicians. I’d had people abuse, threaten and even spit at me. I got my hands dirty. Literally and figuratively. It was a whole new world.
Stéphane’s case wasn’t that much different to any other, despite the auspicious beginnings. I handled it the way I handle all my cases: by asking discreet questions and hoping for less than discreet answers. Fortunately, there were people in figure skating who still took my calls. Sometimes it was because they knew I could be trusted. At other times it was because they knew I had something on them. The latter was more common.
I had low-lifes, cheaters and hustlers on my informant list: bloggers, judges and commentators. Mostly, they told me what they thought I wanted to hear, fed me a few lines about Stéphane and some junior skater in Lausanne or Seoul and then asked me seemingly innocuous questions about how business was going. They were lying scum. I only kept them around because I had no one else and occasionally they knew things they ought not to.
There were always other avenues I could explore: an anonymous post on a bulletin board, a fake profile on Facebook or Twitter. Two years ago, I thought Google was confusing. These days, it was my weapon of choice.
As luck would have it, I soon got a hit off a bulletin board post. A nameless poster claimed to have information regarding Stéphane’s would-be attacker. They claimed it could only be handed over in person and provided a date and time along with a map of Jersey City. X marked the spot in a parking lot not far from my office.
It was clearly a bad idea. But I wouldn’t be much of a private detective if I didn’t take risks.
Then Stéphane insisted on coming along, and I knew an anonymous informant was the least of my worries. “I’m paying you,” he told me.
“It could be a setup,” I said.
“Then you shouldn’t go alone.”
He made a good point, although, in the event of an altercation, I doubted our prospects. Stéphane would protect his face before he protected me, and I would probably do the same. Still, in my experience, keeping the client happy was more important than solving the case. It wasn’t like I’d made a promise to serve and protect.
So we went together, in my car, took up a space in an empty parking lot while we waited for the informant to show. The informant was late and we wound up spending the time exchanging awkward conversation about how fucking cold it was while I tried not to think about the last time Stéphane and I were in a confined space together. It was hard to do. Stéphane made me think about warm nights in Tokyo with the sheets around my ankles and my hands gripping the bed head.
Damn. The memory was vivid. The car suddenly felt small and cramped. I needed a cigarette and I didn’t care if it was 15 below out there. I got out of the car, leaned against the trunk, lit up a smoke and sighed. It was cold and I couldn’t get my mind off Stéphane. This job was a bitch.
The door to the passenger side opened and Stéphane got out. He came around to where I was standing and leaned against the car next to me, pressing his hip to my hip and rubbing my arm for warmth.
“You’ve taken up smoking again,” he said.
“Don’t judge me,” I said. I took a long drag, as if to prove a point.
“I don’t think your contact is coming.”
“Just a little longer.” Some informants liked making you wait. It gave them a weird sense of power. And then some informants were just plain idiots who couldn’t tell if it was Tuesday or Thursday. God, I hoped it was the former.
Stéphane stood in front of me and pressed himself up against my chest. He slid his hands under my jacket and around the waistband of my jeans, coming to a stop behind the belt.
I froze. “What are you doing?” I said.
“Your informant isn’t coming,” he said. “And I miss you.” He undid the clasp on my belt with one hand. “We used to have such a good time.”
“You weren’t that great.” He was fantastic. I went through a string of one-night stands in my competition years, but I always went back to Stéphane.
“You don’t mean that,” he said, and he dropped to his knees in front of me and peeled down my zipper.
I took a deep breath. I was about to get a blow job from a client. I was sure there was some kind of rule about that in the private detective handbook. I probably should have intervened and stopped him before things got too out of hand, but I was weak and Stéphane’s mouth was gorgeous. My jeans went down around my hips with my underwear and I looked at the sky and prayed for willpower. It didn’t come.
Stéphane took my cock in his hand. I could feel his breath on me, warm and cold at the same time, as he held it to his lips. The blood rushed from my head and I moaned. It sounded like a cry for help.
Then I saw the headlights in the far corner of the lot.
“Someone’s coming,” I said.
Stéphane quickly let go of me and stood up. I felt the chill on my dick and reluctantly started pulling my jeans up and tucking myself back in. Whoever they were, I had to applaud their timing. I hadn’t had my dick sucked in months.
The car approached from the corner of the lot and came toward us with its high beams on. It got closer, and I held up my hand to shield my eyes. For a moment I thought it was going to keep going, crush us between the cars like pressed flowers.
And then it stopped, idling about 15 feet in front of us and revving the motor. I lowered my hand, but I couldn’t see past the light filling my vision.
A car door opened and closed. I tried to peer into the light, but I could only make out a shape. There was the sound of glass breaking beside me. The driver’s window. Stéphane grabbed my arm.
The car reversed and drove backwards out of the parking lot, its lights receding into the dark. By the time I could see more than its headlights, it was a black shadow against the buildings across the street, too far away to make out the make and model, let alone the licence plate.
“Johnny...” Stéphane said, letting go of my arm. He went over to the driver’s side of the car and looked inside. The glass was gone, only a few shards clinging to the edges.
I followed him to see what he was looking at. On the driver’s seat, amidst broken glass, was an object wrapped in paper and tied with string. I opened the door, took out the object and unwrapped it. A paperweight. Solid glass. I guessed crystal, but I had to look on the bottom to be sure. Swarovski. Someone had taste, as well as a good arm. And a weird sense of humour. The paper showed a colour print of me in my Poker Face costume. Nothing else. Now I remembered what the glass slipper reminded me of.
“That’s you,” Stéphane said.
No shit. If there was a message in this, it was obscure. “Someone is messing with us,” I said.
“Or trying to tell us something.” Stéphane took a step back, putting a safe distance between us.
“You’re not seriously thinking this has anything to do with me?”
“Maybe not,” he said. “But you have some interesting fans.”
“Oh, sure,” I said. “It’s my fans, and not one of the God knows how many ex-lovers you’ve been accumulating since Juniors.”
“What are you suggesting?” Stéphane said. “That I’m some kind of slut?”
“I’m just saying, you’re back in my life for three days and you’re already sucking my dick.”
He pressed his lips together tightly and folder his arms. It might have been the cold, but I could swear I saw steam coming out of his ears. “Fine,” he said. “Just - fine.” He turned around and stormed off across the parking lot.
“Stéphane!” I called after him. He didn’t answer. I wondered if he even knew where he was going.
I took out another cigarette and lit it. It started to rain. I thought about getting back in my car while I was still dry, but instead I let the rain fall on me for a while, flattening my hair and shrinking my cashmere scarf.
Damn Stéphane. Always had to be a biggest diva in the room.
I flicked ash onto the ground, watched it float on a puddle forming next to my feet. I opened the cart door, used my coat to brush glass off the front seat, and got inside.
Fuck it. I needed a manicure.
*
I called Stéphane’s cell in the morning. Twice. It went to voice mail both times. I worried about him for a while and then called his hotel and managed to confirm he’d made it back to his room, and that he still refused to speak to me.
Without anything better to do, I got dressed, got coffee and went to my office. I rented a few rooms above a laundromat in Newark in what used to be a clothing alterations and repairs store before the GFC sent them out of business. I’d had the lining of my mink restitched there before I sold it on Ebay and sometimes I wondered where they were now. A good tailor was hard to find. Along with the office, the rooms featured a kitchen and a bathroom which smelled like a curious mix of laundry powder and mold. But I rented it for the cheap overheads, not the aesthetics, and I took some comfort in knowing there was always something to clean. When I was stuck on a case, or waiting for an informant to call, I dusted the skirting boards or degreased the oven.
I unlocked the door and picked up the mail off the floor. It was catalogues, mostly. And a utility bill. I put them on the desk to ignore for a while and turned on the heating. It was always freezing here, except when it was boiling in summer. Today it seemed colder than it was out. I put my coffee on my desk and rubbed my arms, wishing I still had my mink. Financial circumstances had reduced me to shivering in a woollen coat with worn sleeves.
When the heating picked up, I sat at my desk, opened my laptop and went back through my emails to re-read the anonymous tip. It occurred to me that I might not still have a job. Stéphane hadn’t said I was off the case, but it would be difficult to continue if he refused to talk to me. Still, I didn’t need a client to investigate a threat, and someone had thrown Swarovski through my car window and implicated me. That made it personal.
Of course, now I not only had to ask who would want to kill Stéphane, but also, why include me in the process. Could there be someone out there with a vendetta against both of us?
Whoever it was knew us. They knew about our relationship and knew I couldn’t say no to Stéphane, even when he wanted to do something ridiculous like accompany me to a meeting with an informant. This left mostly former competitors: Plushenko, Lysacek, Buttle, Takahashi, Joubert, Chan, Abbott. I’d given them all reason to hate me throughout my skating career. I never could keep my mouth shut.
But Stéphane was like Bambi with skates and a Swiss accent. What had he ever done to anyone?
I put a line through Evan’s name. Poor Evan. He was hardly in a position to be making threats, let alone throwing bricks through car windows. Those bastards had really done a number on him.
Which reminded me: I knew where to find answers, even if I didn’t want to admit it. I had to go underground. Deep underground. The figure skating world looked sparkly and pretty from the outside, but underneath lurked a seedy underbelly, an affiliation of one-time household names and could-have-beens who kept the Zamboni blades sharp and the ice frozen. They didn’t have a name but we referred to them as the Conglomerate: a vague term for a vague presence. I’d been fortunate enough to avoid them in my career, but other skaters had been made or destroyed by the Conglomerate’s power.
The Conglomerate had chapters all over the country, but it was rumoured the real power brokers met in DC. I didn’t know where to find them, but I knew someone who did. And after I exposed a Nationals judge who was out to get him, he owed me a favour. I gave him a call.
“Johnny?” he said when he answered. He sounded surprised. Understandably. It had a been a while.
“Hey, Ryan, it’s been a while. What’s new?”
“What do you want, Weir?” Ryan was too smart to be fooled by small talk. There would be no going about this discreetly.
“I need you to get me a meeting with the Queen.”
“Are you kidding?” he said. “I don’t need to get involved with the Conglomerate, and neither do you.”
He was right. Neither of us needed that kind of trouble. Unfortunately, these were desperate times. “I wouldn’t ask,” I said, “but a life may dependent on it.”
There was a pause. “What have you gotten yourself into now, Weir?”
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
“I can get you in,” he said. “But I’m not hanging around and getting infected.”
“That’s all I need.”
“Fine,” he said. “Dress appropriately.”
*
I drove to DC that evening, got changed in my car and met Ryan outside Ford’s Theatre. I wore a sequinned bolero. He wore a waistcoat and tails. With the theatre beside us, we looked like we were in a play.
Ryan took me to a building further down the street, and we entered through the foyer. On the left was a door leading to stairs, and we went two flights down before we came to a door with a sliding panel.
Ryan knocked four times and the panel slid open. “Bradley,” Ryan said. “And guest.”
The door opened and I recognised Weiss. "Bradley," he said. "It’s been a long time.”
“Save the niceties, Weiss,” Ryan said, edging past him. “I’m here for business, not pleasure.”
“Weir.” Weiss sneered. “I guess it’s true what they say. Sooner or later, everyone comes to see the Queen.”
"Deep,” I said, following Ryan. “Where can I find her?”
Weiss inclined his head toward the bar. I nodded thanks, and we made our way through the crowd. I recognised almost everyone. A few, like Lipinski and Cohen, drinking cocktails in the corner, waved when they saw me, but most avoided making eye contact. Exile is contagious and, to these people, I was Typhoid Johnny.
The club was a US chapter but I saw a few internationals in the crowd: Petrenko and Yagudin sharing a bottle of red, Arakawa and Slutskaya carving it up on the dance floor. Arakawa had flown in under the radar. She was giving a speech at a Japanese University, according to her website. The Conglomerate was nothing if not discreet.
The big guns were at the bar: Yamaguchi, Hamilton, Eldredge and Kerrigan. Kerrigan whispered something in Yamaguchi’s ear and they laughed, like they shared a dark secret. I would have given my last fur to hear that joke.
Sitting an arm’s length away from Yamaguchi was the Queen. The seats next to her were empty, as if even the Conglomerate’s most powerful didn’t dare approach her. She wore a strapless white dress with a split up the side and white Nancy Sinatra boots. Her drink was blood orange. A Manhattan. She sipped it delicately, but she looked like she could kill me with a flutter of her false eyelashes.
“This is as far as I go,” Ryan said. “You’re on your own now.”
“I owe you,” I said.
“Forget it,” Ryan said. “Please.”
He left quickly, dodging Arakawa and Slutskaya and declining an invitation to join Yagudin and Petrenko on their second bottle of red. They say it’s hard to get into the Conglomerate, but it’s even harder to leave.
I took one of the empty seats next to the Queen. "Kwan," I said, nodding respectfully.
"Johnny," she said icily. “So good to see you."
"Don't get too excited," I said. I waved at the bartender and ordered a glass of champagne. "I'm here for information."
"Of course you are," she said. "The smart money is on Abbott, but if we talk to the right people, he'll take a fall in the free skate. Do you want in?"
"Still rigging the competitions," I said, shaking my head. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Evan still hasn’t recovered from your little experiment.” I had visited Evan in the institute last week. I hadn’t understood a word he said.
“Plushenko needed to be put in his place,” she said, checking her manicure. Even her fingernails were painted white. My champagne arrived. “Put it on my tab,” the Queen told the bartender.
“What about Takahashi?” I said. “What did he ever do to you?”
“We have an agreement with the Japanese.”
I looked over to where Arakawa was still shaking her booty with Slutskaya. The Japanese weren’t stupid. Arakawa was a plant, not a visitor.
But I wasn’t here to discuss politics. "Someone is trying to kill Lambiel,” I said. “I want to know who."
"What makes you think I know anything?”
“Lambiel is a prince,” I said. “No one wants him dead. Maybe someone wants him shaken a little? You won’t get blood on your hands, but you’ll shake up a skater or two if it means Worlds is on the 6 o’clock news.”
“Trust me, Weir,” she said. “We’ve got bigger fish to fry. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot of people missing from this room.”
I’d noticed as soon as I walked in. “The Canadians.”
“It’s a fragile peace,” she said. “They’re getting greedy.”
I swallowed a mouthful of champagne. I hoped they would all blow each other to hell. I’d toast marshmallows on the smoking embers of their corpses. “Then get me Boitano,” I said.
Her pencilled eyebrows went up. “Are you sure?”
Boitano was a long shot. I was truly desperate. “I’m sure.”
The Queen took a slow sip of her Manhattan and beckoned the bartender over. "Get me Boitano."
Boitano was a phantom these days, known to be at the beck and call of the Queen but never seen in the daylight. Two years ago he’d blown up his cooking show with a rogue duck flambe, and soon afterwards was speaking in riddles. I didn’t know what they did to Evan but, if the rumours were true, they had tried it on Boitano first.
The accident had sent him underground, but it also gave him something of a sixth sense. He knew things. Not (so much) telepathically, but from having his ear constantly on the ground, like a kind of osmosis. He was an information sponge. To the Queen, he was indispensable.
Boitano came toward us wearing a top hat and a tux straight out of Magicians Are Us. He smoked a cigar, holding it between finger and thumb like Groucho Marx.
"Johnnieeee," he said, blowing smoke in my face. He patted my hair and brushed his fingers across my sequins.
"Let him go, Brian," the Queen said.
Boitano took the seat on the other side of the Queen and chewed on his cigar. "He looks delicious," he told the Queen.
“He says someone is trying to kill Lambiel,” the Queen said.
Boitano held up his hands in surrender. “It wasn’t me,” he said, and he laughed at his own joke.
“I want information,” I said. I leaned forward onto the bar, putting my head in my hand coquettishly and batting my eyelashes. I wasn’t the twink I was five years ago, but I was still better looking than the last guy Boitano had been with. “I know you can give it to me,” I purred.
Boitano got off his seat and stood next to me. “I want to smell you,” he said. And he leaned in toward my ear and inhaled deeply. I could feel his nose against my lobe. I needed a bath.
The Queen gave me a ‘you asked for that’ look and drank the rest of her Manhattan.
“Lambiel,” I reminded Boitano.
Boitano put his hand to his forehead and concentrated on a point on the far wall. “It's a dame,” he said suddenly. He thumped his fist on the bar. "It's always a fucking dame."
"He means a lover," the Queen said.
"How do you know?" I said.
"This is figure skating," she said. “It might be a dame but it’s never a girl.”
Had one of Stéphane’s lovers finally had enough of his liberal attitude toward relationships? Admittedly, I could relate. Stéphane was here one day and gone the next. It could drive a man to desperation.
It wasn’t enough, but it was a start. And it was all I was willing to whore myself out for. “Your Highness,” I said, getting up off my seat and performing a small curtsey. I nodded toward Boitano. “Brian.”
“You’ll be back,” the Queen said.
I thought about Evan in the institution and Boitano smelling my hair. Unlikely.
Outside, it was raining. I leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette, mentally scrolling through a list of Stéphane’s lovers. It was a long and illustrious list full of divas, dancers and dramas queens. Unfortunately, none were so fashion forward as to suggest a penchant for throwing high heels, myself excepted. Stéphane was right. When it came it down to it, I was the best suspect we had.
I flicked my cigarette into a drain. I wasn’t getting anywhere standing in the rain and feeling persecuted.
I had to go back. I had to go to Worlds.
*
The Olympics had the glory, but Worlds brought out the divas. Maybe it was because there were no snowboarders or hockey players to hog the attention. And the cameras. At Worlds, it was all about figure skating: the sparkling costumes, the dazzling programs and the fleeting liaisons that fueled the gossip machine for the next year.
It used to be my playground. I’d always performed better off the ice than on it. Now I was checking into a double twin in a ‘family’ hotel with faded curtains and an odour I couldn’t identify. I figured I should probably be grateful. London, Ontario, isn’t Tokyo and even the one-stars were booked out for the World Championships. I’d had to bribe an official to get me this room. My file of dirt came in handy at times.
I hung my clothes in the closet and made a mental note to buy some cedar balls. Then I took a luke-warm shower and tried not to think about the mysterious stain on the tiles by the toilet. I wasn’t the princess I used to be. I had bigger things to worry about than the quality of the room service or whether the wallpaper didn’t match the carpet. Still, I shut my eyes when I got out of the shower and I concentrated on the scent of soap and shampoo. It didn’t quell that feeling of dread when my feet touched the slippery tiles, but it helped me ignore it long enough to get dry.
I got dressed and went out on the balcony to smoke a cigarette. The room overlooked an empty swimming pool that was probably an attraction in summer but looked out of place in March. Leaves had collected in the deep end, turning to mulch as the breeze swept dirt and insects into the mix.
Despite the full occupancy sign blazing at the front of the hotel, it was too cold for signs of life outside, and I was alone with my thoughts. My fingers were turning a red and the chill stung my ears, but there were times I preferred the cold. It sharpened my senses and focused my thoughts. I tucked my non-smoking hand under my armpit and turned my mind towards Worlds tomorrow.
I didn’t have a plan. This was my first problem. My coaches said I was never good at strategising. I made things up as I went along. It was my downfall but it was also my saving grace. When I hit rock bottom, I adapted and survived. I thought about Lysacek rotting in a mental institute and I knew things could have been a lot worse.
So maybe that was my plan? Show up, shake the figure skating tree and see how many sequins fell out. I hadn’t been to a competition in years, which meant my presence itself was probably going to cause a ripple or two. I had thought about going incognito, but with Chanel sunglasses and my last Balenciaga bag, it was unlikely to happen. I knew I should modify my wardrobe to suit my profession, but I had standards. And I still liked being looked at.
I stubbed my cigarette out under foot. The sun was going down and I needed to find food that wasn’t drenched in carbs and a cocktail to wash it down with. If I was going to survive the men’s short program tomorrow, I needed to start drinking now.
*
I arrived at the arena after the first group had skated. The glasses and collar on my coat hid my face, but from the looks on the faces of the people sitting next to me, I was still recognisable. Fortunately, I wasn’t exactly popular and they gave me a wide berth. After everything that had gone down after the scandal, I probably scared them a little. Those days were not my most diplomatic. I took a hip flask out of my bag, swigged a mouthful of pre-mixed cosmo and blotted out the crowd, concentrated on the ice.
There was no real talent in the early groups, but there was something heartening about watching guys who were just happy to be there. Stéphane used to say he missed skating for the joy of it. I used to wonder what the hell he was talking about. Now I envied the fourteenth-and fifteenth-placers, the ones for whom it was all still new.
By the time the last group hit the ice, the flask was empty. I leaned forward in my seat, feeling somewhat more engaged, even if it was just the cosmo keeping me alert. I knew these guys. Some of them I’d once called friends. In the final days of my downfall, I couldn’t even get them to look me in the eye. I crossed my fingers and silently wished every one of them would fall on their ass.
Denis Ten was on first, and I looked down the rows of seats to my right to see Stéphane hanging rink-side. He was leaning against the barrier, smiling and taking in the atmosphere. For a moment he turned around and looked up at the crowd behind him, scanning the faces like he was looking for someone. I was too far back for him to see me, but I tensed anyway.
The announcer introduced Ten and he skated out onto the ice, taking up his position with one arm skyward and the other on his chest. The music started and he went into his routine, tassels on his tasteful black costume trailing behind him as he went into his first jump. It was a nice program, graceful and balletic. Like Stéphane.
Ten finished his program to wild applause. I wished I had more cosmo. Ten was the best so far, but there were better skaters to come, including Chan and Abbott. Still, if the Queen was right about Abbott, then Ten was in with a chance. I asked myself if I cared. I didn’t.
I left my seat and went outside, hoping to hang around the mix and get Stéphane’s attention. I wasn’t looking forward to talking to Stéphane. If we were going to get anywhere at all with his case, I was going to have to apologise, and I had no idea how I was going to do that. Somewhat selfishly, I was also hoping for reciprocation. He was the one who accused me of trying to kill him. Calling him a slut hardly seemed to compare.
In the mix, journalists from all over the globe waited for the divas to grace them with their presence. I waved away a few curious types with microphones, but I couldn’t escape the odd camera flash. I gritted my teeth and smiled, tried to look like having my photo taken was akin to getting my teeth drilled. It was something of a lie. I was secretly pleased to get the attention. I never did want to be forgotten.
Waiting got boring fast. After listening to yet another rendition of, ‘it was not my best performance but,’ I sent Stéphane a text and asked him to come out and meet me. He appeared moments later, frowning and holding his hands out to the side, like I’d asked him to put on something pretty and come out dancing. A couple of photographers snapped his picture, but mostly they ignored us. Figure skaters are only stars when they’re winning. Former competitors are even less interesting than the losers.
Which was a problem, because for what I was about to do, I needed an audience.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said.
“I wanted to apologise,” I told him. I sounded genuine. I impressed myself.
He folded his arms. “Okay.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to imply that you were a slut. The situation was - tense.” That part was true. I was not my best when someone was throwing Swarovski at me.
“And?” he said.
“And?”
“You let me walk back to my hotel alone,” Stéphane said. “Did you forget that someone is trying to kill me?”
I tried not to roll my eyes. As I remembered it, he’d stormed off into the night on his own volition. “You thought I was trying to kill you,” I said. “I didn’t think you’d want to be in the same vehicle as me.”
“It was cold,” Stéphane said, pouting. He looked good pouting. He knew it, too. “I had to walk two blocks for a taxi.”
I had to drive home with the freezing air blasting through my broken window. I didn’t feel a lot of sympathy for him. Still, I needed to resolve the issue while there were still photographers hanging about. “It was thoughtless of me,” I said.
“Hmm,” Stéphane said. He brushed hair out of his eyes and looked unconvinced. Eventually, he said, “I didn’t really think you were trying to kill me.”
“Good.”.
“I was angry at you,” he said. “You can be so difficult.”
I knew that. It’s probably the reason we’d never gotten any further than a hotel room in the first place. I thought about saying something appropriately placating in reply, but then I noticed that Adam Rippon had come out to meet the press and there was a swarm of cameras following him.
I didn’t have time to ask for permission. I grabbed Stéphane at the top of his neck, pulled him toward me and kissed him square on the mouth. He felt stiff, resistant, but not enough to push me away. I put my arm around his waist and pressed up against him, mashing our bodies together in the most intimate way I could while fully dressed and in front of a crowd of photographers.
For a moment I thought he wasn’t going to respond at all, and the whole thing would look like a crazed stunt by a washed-up has-been desperate for attention. And then he followed suit, opened his mouth and kissed me back, like something had been switched on inside him. His hand went up my spine and then to my neck and we were kissing madly, going at it like teenagers, right there in the mix.
It felt good. It felt fantastic. I almost didn’t notice the sound of cameras clicking around me or the excited bustle of the crowd. When we finally pulled apart, people applauded.
Stéphane looked stunned. “What was that?” he asked. He was flushed from adrenalin and arousal. I wondered why I’d stopped. A moment ago, I’d wanted the press there, and now I wanted them all to go away so I could throw Stéphane against the wall and kiss him again.
“I’m sorry?” I didn’t know what else to say.
“What for?” he said. Someone shoved a digital recorder in his face and asked if we were dating. Stéphane looked at it like it had magically appeared out of the ether.
I grabbed his hand. “We need to get out of here,” I said, pulling him toward the women’s change rooms. He followed me blindly, not saying a word.
The women’s rooms were empty. I put a chair against the door, not expecting anyone to follow but not willing to take a chance. I needed fifteen minutes alone time with Stéphane. Now.
“Sorry,” I told him after I’d secured the door. “I was hoping to create a scene.”
“You succeeded,” Stéphane said. He stood a little too close. I took it as a good sign.
“I have a lead on your case,” I said. “I think you’ve got a spurned lover on your tail.”
“How do you know?”
“I can’t reveal my sources.” I didn’t want to tell him about the Queen. I wasn’t sure I could trust him with that information. I wasn’t sure I could trust anyone with that information. “I figured your would-be lover has me in his sights already and I wanted to flush him out.”
“Oh,” Stéphane said, the light dawning on him. “You were trying to make him jealous.”
“It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it,” I said. “I just wanted to be honest with you.”
“So what will you do now?”
“I wait for him to make a mistake.”
Stéphane made a face, an expression I couldn’t read. It made me feel a little nervous. “Sounds dangerous,” he said.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Do you have - protection?”
I reached into the pocket of my jacket and pulled out a Trojan. “Always.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“I know.”
He smiled slyly and took the Trojan out of my hands. “What were you planning on doing with this?”
“Maybe nothing,” I said. “But I like to be prepared.”
“What’s that saying?” he said. He stepped forward, forcing me to back up against the wall. He put his hands on my shoulders. “Waste not want not?” He leaned in and kissed me.
All thoughts of lying in wait for Stéphane’s mystery ex vanished as Stéphane started peeling my clothes away and pulling me toward the floor. It had been a long time since someone had touched me with care. I‘d spent too many nights in the back rooms of Newark’s tawdrier gay bars, getting fucked in a frenzy of claw-like fingers and awkward limbs. I liked to think of my life as less complicated now, but I missed this. I missed Stéphane.
Despite the ease with which we came together, the warning bells rang loud and long in my head. There were always warning bells with Stéphane. Usually, I plugged my ears and went with the flow. Why deal with the heart break now when you can put it off for tomorrow? This time I pushed them to the back of my mind, somewhere far away where I couldn’t hear them. What else could I do when he was on his hands and knees between my legs, sliding his tongue along the inside of my thigh? I was down and out, but I wasn’t dead.
He bent my legs back, pushed his hips flush against my ass and we did it like that, on the floor of the change rooms with my shirt hiked up around my armpits and his pants hanging around his thighs. We were out of rhythm, and a little rough, but I came quickly, my dick in my hand, come and lubricant a sticky mess on my fingers. He followed soon after, one last push inside me and he bent forward to moan into my neck as he shook his orgasm out.
For a long time neither of us moved. I brushed his hair out of my face, smoothing it against his temple. He smelled like shampoo.
Eventually he lifted his head off my neck and pulled his cock out of me.
“I’ve missed fucking you,” he said. He ran his hand lazily down my chest, collarbone to my navel.
“I’ve missed fucking you,” I said. We used to have a competition rule: leader chooses top or bottom. I wondered what the rules were now.
“Maybe you’ll get your chance,” he said. “I’m here all week.”
I wasn’t sure where I would be in a week. I sat up and looked around for my pants, suddenly remembering I had work to do. “I have a case to solve,” I said, getting dressed.
He lay on his back, raised his knees and pulled his pants and underwear up. “So professional,” he said.
“I’m saving your ass.” I looked down at him sitting on the floor, his knees held against his chest. It was such a perfect ass.
“I appreciate it.”
I bent forward and kissed him quickly. It was unusually affectionate for me. I couldn’t explain it. “Maybe later?”
“Maybe,” he said, smiling.
“I’ll call,” I said, taking the chair away from the door.
“Johnny,” he said. I turned around. “Be careful.”
“Why start now?”
Part 2
Figure Skating RPS (Johnny Weir/ Stéphane Lambiel, NC-17)
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and is not intended to reflect on the personalities or behaviours of the persons mentioned within. Pure fantasy.
Author's Notes: 14 324 words. Undying gratitude to Leksa who looks up the weird shit that I won't, joins all my separated words and says, "dude, no," when she should. Where would I be without her?
This story began as a series of prompts from the Bordellinos. tangleofthorns suggested a glass slipper, azurejay suggested the noir theme and intl_princess provided the lyrics below. intl_princess also provided a location prompt (London) which I also used, although I’m pretty sure she meant London, UK and not London, Ontario. The noir private detective theme informs the writing style (including a very unfamiliar 1st person past tense narrative) and the plot (and the title). If you’re familiar with the genre you’ll spot lots of tropes. Respect to noir re-inventionist movies like Brick and Bound for the inspiration.
Johnny Weir is a private detective. That’s all you really need to know.
Who is the lamb and who is the knife - Florence and the Machine.
Part 1
He came in to my office on Friday, looking every bit the European playboy with his silk scarf bundled around his neck and sunglasses perched atop his wavy hair. The scarf was Louis Vuitton. I noticed these things.
Stéphane Lambiel. I hadn’t seen him in years. He was still in the game, still a star in galas across Asia and Europe, and still in demand as a choreographer to champions. I left figure skating behind when I slunk off the ice in shame two years ago, but the curiosity was constant, and every now and then I’d catch a competition on ESPN, and see him smiling at the camera like he knew I was watching. When I wasn’t glad I’d put all that behind me, I was jealous as hell.
He didn’t bother with small talk. He sat in the chair on the opposite side of my desk and produced a glass slipper out of his Gucci manbag. He handed it to me with a crumpled piece of paper that had been smoothed out and refolded. “Someone is trying to kill me,” he said. The note said, “GO TO LONDON AND DIE.”
“London?” I said.
“London, Ontario,” Stéphane said. “The World Championships are in two weeks.”
It was nearly March. I’d barely noticed. I looked at the glass slipper: a six inch spiked heel covered in glass pieces. It reminded me of something. “This came with the note?”
"Someone threw it at me,” he said disbelievingly. I sympathised. It sounded crazy to me too.
"Where?" I said. Last I’d heard, he was working in Japan.
"In Los Angeles. I'm still working with Denis. "
"Are you sleeping with him too?" I didn’t know why I said it.
Stéphane brought out the worst in me. We may not have had anything that went beyond hotel rooms and broom closets, but I was possessive. And my love life wasn’t what it used to be in the glory days of competition. Stéphane reminded me that I should have appreciated things while they lasted.
He rolled his eyes. “Do you want the job or not?”
I held the note up to the light. I was a bitch sometimes but I could hold back when my income depended on it. And I never could resist heels. “Are you sure someone isn’t messing with your head?” I asked him.
“If it’s a joke, it’s not very funny.”
“Death threats seldom are,” I said. I’d had plenty.
He held his hand to his forehead like he had a headache. “You’ve no idea how stressful this is,” he said.
“When did it happen?”
“A few days ago. I was just leaving practice and I saw a car drive past and whoosh!” He gestured with his palm brushing past the side of his head. “It nearly hit me.”
“You didn’t see the licence plate?”
“It was dark. It happened so fast.”
“Did you call the police?”
He held up the shoe. “I’m sure they would find it very amusing.”
I agreed. Even I was having difficulty taking it seriously. “So why come to me?” I said. “Don’t they have private detectives in Los Angeles?”
“I had to get out of there,” he said. “And if I need protection, you’re the perfect person. No one would question your appearance at Worlds. You’re just another skater.” He paused. “Or you used to be.”
I raised my eyebrows. I had avoided being anywhere near an ice skating competition for the last three years. My reappearance would definitely be noticed. “I’m a private investigator,” I said. “Not a bodyguard.”
“If you find the person who threw the shoe at me, you’ll be both.”
The whole thing sounded ludicrous. A part of me wondered if this was Stéphane’s thinly veiled attempt to lure me back into the world of figure skating. Another part suspected he felt sorry for me. I couldn’t decide which disturbed me the most.
“In that case,” I said, “I need to know a few things. Firstly: are you sleeping with someone’s boyfriend?”
He glared at me. “No.”
“Are you sleeping with anyone?” He continued to glare. I leaned back in my chair and clasped my hands. “If you want me to solve the case, I’ll need to pry into your personal life.”
“I’m not sleeping with anyone,” he said.
“Can you think of any reason why someone would want you to stay away from Worlds?”
“No,” he said. “It’s ridiculous. I’m not even competing.”
He had a point there. I knew of skaters getting death threats, but never their support crew. And definitely not their choreographers.
“How long will you be here?” I said.
‘In New Jersey?”
“Close by,” I said. “I need to do a little research first.” This was a half-truth. I was in no hurry to go to Canada.
“A week or two,” Stéphane said. “Does this mean you’ll take the job?”
I wanted to say no, but I was too broke to be proud. And who was I kidding? I’d never been able to say no to Stéphane. “I’ll need an expense account,” I said.
“Anything.”
So maybe it was a pity hire. I tried not to think about it.
*
I used to live the glamorous life of a reality TV star and diva ice skater. I had a popular dance single (gold in Japan), a best-selling book, thousands of fans and more Balenciaga handbags than I had things to put in them. It all ended with a series of photos of me in a Jacuzzi with an ISU judge’s son and a law suit over my book. I was never good with money, and when the skating shows stopped calling, I had to sell the Balenciaga to pay the rent.
That was the story I told anyone who asked. The truth was more complicated: I was angry. Mostly with myself. The fiasco with the book had left me feeling naive and foolish, and the incident with the judge’s son just made me look stupid. I don’t handle humiliation well, so in a fit of self-loathing I stopped skating: walked off the ice and hung up my boots, never to return.
People had short memories, and the fans didn’t care how many boys I lured into a Jacuzzi. The law suit was crippling, but I could still do a triple axel, and when the paranoia died down, the invitations still came. It was my decision to give up skating, but it wasn’t because I didn’t have an audience anymore.
I sulked for a while, took up smoking (again) and all night parties, but the credit card bills didn’t stop coming and one morning, while lying in an unfilled bath with a hangover, I realised I needed to get a job. I live in Jersey and my skills are figure skating, languages and being a diva bitch whore from hell. Becoming a private detective seemed the logical choice.
It wasn’t a lucrative career. And it wasn’t pretty. I found cheating spouses, insurance scammers and lying “family values” politicians. I’d had people abuse, threaten and even spit at me. I got my hands dirty. Literally and figuratively. It was a whole new world.
Stéphane’s case wasn’t that much different to any other, despite the auspicious beginnings. I handled it the way I handle all my cases: by asking discreet questions and hoping for less than discreet answers. Fortunately, there were people in figure skating who still took my calls. Sometimes it was because they knew I could be trusted. At other times it was because they knew I had something on them. The latter was more common.
I had low-lifes, cheaters and hustlers on my informant list: bloggers, judges and commentators. Mostly, they told me what they thought I wanted to hear, fed me a few lines about Stéphane and some junior skater in Lausanne or Seoul and then asked me seemingly innocuous questions about how business was going. They were lying scum. I only kept them around because I had no one else and occasionally they knew things they ought not to.
There were always other avenues I could explore: an anonymous post on a bulletin board, a fake profile on Facebook or Twitter. Two years ago, I thought Google was confusing. These days, it was my weapon of choice.
As luck would have it, I soon got a hit off a bulletin board post. A nameless poster claimed to have information regarding Stéphane’s would-be attacker. They claimed it could only be handed over in person and provided a date and time along with a map of Jersey City. X marked the spot in a parking lot not far from my office.
It was clearly a bad idea. But I wouldn’t be much of a private detective if I didn’t take risks.
Then Stéphane insisted on coming along, and I knew an anonymous informant was the least of my worries. “I’m paying you,” he told me.
“It could be a setup,” I said.
“Then you shouldn’t go alone.”
He made a good point, although, in the event of an altercation, I doubted our prospects. Stéphane would protect his face before he protected me, and I would probably do the same. Still, in my experience, keeping the client happy was more important than solving the case. It wasn’t like I’d made a promise to serve and protect.
So we went together, in my car, took up a space in an empty parking lot while we waited for the informant to show. The informant was late and we wound up spending the time exchanging awkward conversation about how fucking cold it was while I tried not to think about the last time Stéphane and I were in a confined space together. It was hard to do. Stéphane made me think about warm nights in Tokyo with the sheets around my ankles and my hands gripping the bed head.
Damn. The memory was vivid. The car suddenly felt small and cramped. I needed a cigarette and I didn’t care if it was 15 below out there. I got out of the car, leaned against the trunk, lit up a smoke and sighed. It was cold and I couldn’t get my mind off Stéphane. This job was a bitch.
The door to the passenger side opened and Stéphane got out. He came around to where I was standing and leaned against the car next to me, pressing his hip to my hip and rubbing my arm for warmth.
“You’ve taken up smoking again,” he said.
“Don’t judge me,” I said. I took a long drag, as if to prove a point.
“I don’t think your contact is coming.”
“Just a little longer.” Some informants liked making you wait. It gave them a weird sense of power. And then some informants were just plain idiots who couldn’t tell if it was Tuesday or Thursday. God, I hoped it was the former.
Stéphane stood in front of me and pressed himself up against my chest. He slid his hands under my jacket and around the waistband of my jeans, coming to a stop behind the belt.
I froze. “What are you doing?” I said.
“Your informant isn’t coming,” he said. “And I miss you.” He undid the clasp on my belt with one hand. “We used to have such a good time.”
“You weren’t that great.” He was fantastic. I went through a string of one-night stands in my competition years, but I always went back to Stéphane.
“You don’t mean that,” he said, and he dropped to his knees in front of me and peeled down my zipper.
I took a deep breath. I was about to get a blow job from a client. I was sure there was some kind of rule about that in the private detective handbook. I probably should have intervened and stopped him before things got too out of hand, but I was weak and Stéphane’s mouth was gorgeous. My jeans went down around my hips with my underwear and I looked at the sky and prayed for willpower. It didn’t come.
Stéphane took my cock in his hand. I could feel his breath on me, warm and cold at the same time, as he held it to his lips. The blood rushed from my head and I moaned. It sounded like a cry for help.
Then I saw the headlights in the far corner of the lot.
“Someone’s coming,” I said.
Stéphane quickly let go of me and stood up. I felt the chill on my dick and reluctantly started pulling my jeans up and tucking myself back in. Whoever they were, I had to applaud their timing. I hadn’t had my dick sucked in months.
The car approached from the corner of the lot and came toward us with its high beams on. It got closer, and I held up my hand to shield my eyes. For a moment I thought it was going to keep going, crush us between the cars like pressed flowers.
And then it stopped, idling about 15 feet in front of us and revving the motor. I lowered my hand, but I couldn’t see past the light filling my vision.
A car door opened and closed. I tried to peer into the light, but I could only make out a shape. There was the sound of glass breaking beside me. The driver’s window. Stéphane grabbed my arm.
The car reversed and drove backwards out of the parking lot, its lights receding into the dark. By the time I could see more than its headlights, it was a black shadow against the buildings across the street, too far away to make out the make and model, let alone the licence plate.
“Johnny...” Stéphane said, letting go of my arm. He went over to the driver’s side of the car and looked inside. The glass was gone, only a few shards clinging to the edges.
I followed him to see what he was looking at. On the driver’s seat, amidst broken glass, was an object wrapped in paper and tied with string. I opened the door, took out the object and unwrapped it. A paperweight. Solid glass. I guessed crystal, but I had to look on the bottom to be sure. Swarovski. Someone had taste, as well as a good arm. And a weird sense of humour. The paper showed a colour print of me in my Poker Face costume. Nothing else. Now I remembered what the glass slipper reminded me of.
“That’s you,” Stéphane said.
No shit. If there was a message in this, it was obscure. “Someone is messing with us,” I said.
“Or trying to tell us something.” Stéphane took a step back, putting a safe distance between us.
“You’re not seriously thinking this has anything to do with me?”
“Maybe not,” he said. “But you have some interesting fans.”
“Oh, sure,” I said. “It’s my fans, and not one of the God knows how many ex-lovers you’ve been accumulating since Juniors.”
“What are you suggesting?” Stéphane said. “That I’m some kind of slut?”
“I’m just saying, you’re back in my life for three days and you’re already sucking my dick.”
He pressed his lips together tightly and folder his arms. It might have been the cold, but I could swear I saw steam coming out of his ears. “Fine,” he said. “Just - fine.” He turned around and stormed off across the parking lot.
“Stéphane!” I called after him. He didn’t answer. I wondered if he even knew where he was going.
I took out another cigarette and lit it. It started to rain. I thought about getting back in my car while I was still dry, but instead I let the rain fall on me for a while, flattening my hair and shrinking my cashmere scarf.
Damn Stéphane. Always had to be a biggest diva in the room.
I flicked ash onto the ground, watched it float on a puddle forming next to my feet. I opened the cart door, used my coat to brush glass off the front seat, and got inside.
Fuck it. I needed a manicure.
*
I called Stéphane’s cell in the morning. Twice. It went to voice mail both times. I worried about him for a while and then called his hotel and managed to confirm he’d made it back to his room, and that he still refused to speak to me.
Without anything better to do, I got dressed, got coffee and went to my office. I rented a few rooms above a laundromat in Newark in what used to be a clothing alterations and repairs store before the GFC sent them out of business. I’d had the lining of my mink restitched there before I sold it on Ebay and sometimes I wondered where they were now. A good tailor was hard to find. Along with the office, the rooms featured a kitchen and a bathroom which smelled like a curious mix of laundry powder and mold. But I rented it for the cheap overheads, not the aesthetics, and I took some comfort in knowing there was always something to clean. When I was stuck on a case, or waiting for an informant to call, I dusted the skirting boards or degreased the oven.
I unlocked the door and picked up the mail off the floor. It was catalogues, mostly. And a utility bill. I put them on the desk to ignore for a while and turned on the heating. It was always freezing here, except when it was boiling in summer. Today it seemed colder than it was out. I put my coffee on my desk and rubbed my arms, wishing I still had my mink. Financial circumstances had reduced me to shivering in a woollen coat with worn sleeves.
When the heating picked up, I sat at my desk, opened my laptop and went back through my emails to re-read the anonymous tip. It occurred to me that I might not still have a job. Stéphane hadn’t said I was off the case, but it would be difficult to continue if he refused to talk to me. Still, I didn’t need a client to investigate a threat, and someone had thrown Swarovski through my car window and implicated me. That made it personal.
Of course, now I not only had to ask who would want to kill Stéphane, but also, why include me in the process. Could there be someone out there with a vendetta against both of us?
Whoever it was knew us. They knew about our relationship and knew I couldn’t say no to Stéphane, even when he wanted to do something ridiculous like accompany me to a meeting with an informant. This left mostly former competitors: Plushenko, Lysacek, Buttle, Takahashi, Joubert, Chan, Abbott. I’d given them all reason to hate me throughout my skating career. I never could keep my mouth shut.
But Stéphane was like Bambi with skates and a Swiss accent. What had he ever done to anyone?
I put a line through Evan’s name. Poor Evan. He was hardly in a position to be making threats, let alone throwing bricks through car windows. Those bastards had really done a number on him.
Which reminded me: I knew where to find answers, even if I didn’t want to admit it. I had to go underground. Deep underground. The figure skating world looked sparkly and pretty from the outside, but underneath lurked a seedy underbelly, an affiliation of one-time household names and could-have-beens who kept the Zamboni blades sharp and the ice frozen. They didn’t have a name but we referred to them as the Conglomerate: a vague term for a vague presence. I’d been fortunate enough to avoid them in my career, but other skaters had been made or destroyed by the Conglomerate’s power.
The Conglomerate had chapters all over the country, but it was rumoured the real power brokers met in DC. I didn’t know where to find them, but I knew someone who did. And after I exposed a Nationals judge who was out to get him, he owed me a favour. I gave him a call.
“Johnny?” he said when he answered. He sounded surprised. Understandably. It had a been a while.
“Hey, Ryan, it’s been a while. What’s new?”
“What do you want, Weir?” Ryan was too smart to be fooled by small talk. There would be no going about this discreetly.
“I need you to get me a meeting with the Queen.”
“Are you kidding?” he said. “I don’t need to get involved with the Conglomerate, and neither do you.”
He was right. Neither of us needed that kind of trouble. Unfortunately, these were desperate times. “I wouldn’t ask,” I said, “but a life may dependent on it.”
There was a pause. “What have you gotten yourself into now, Weir?”
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
“I can get you in,” he said. “But I’m not hanging around and getting infected.”
“That’s all I need.”
“Fine,” he said. “Dress appropriately.”
*
I drove to DC that evening, got changed in my car and met Ryan outside Ford’s Theatre. I wore a sequinned bolero. He wore a waistcoat and tails. With the theatre beside us, we looked like we were in a play.
Ryan took me to a building further down the street, and we entered through the foyer. On the left was a door leading to stairs, and we went two flights down before we came to a door with a sliding panel.
Ryan knocked four times and the panel slid open. “Bradley,” Ryan said. “And guest.”
The door opened and I recognised Weiss. "Bradley," he said. "It’s been a long time.”
“Save the niceties, Weiss,” Ryan said, edging past him. “I’m here for business, not pleasure.”
“Weir.” Weiss sneered. “I guess it’s true what they say. Sooner or later, everyone comes to see the Queen.”
"Deep,” I said, following Ryan. “Where can I find her?”
Weiss inclined his head toward the bar. I nodded thanks, and we made our way through the crowd. I recognised almost everyone. A few, like Lipinski and Cohen, drinking cocktails in the corner, waved when they saw me, but most avoided making eye contact. Exile is contagious and, to these people, I was Typhoid Johnny.
The club was a US chapter but I saw a few internationals in the crowd: Petrenko and Yagudin sharing a bottle of red, Arakawa and Slutskaya carving it up on the dance floor. Arakawa had flown in under the radar. She was giving a speech at a Japanese University, according to her website. The Conglomerate was nothing if not discreet.
The big guns were at the bar: Yamaguchi, Hamilton, Eldredge and Kerrigan. Kerrigan whispered something in Yamaguchi’s ear and they laughed, like they shared a dark secret. I would have given my last fur to hear that joke.
Sitting an arm’s length away from Yamaguchi was the Queen. The seats next to her were empty, as if even the Conglomerate’s most powerful didn’t dare approach her. She wore a strapless white dress with a split up the side and white Nancy Sinatra boots. Her drink was blood orange. A Manhattan. She sipped it delicately, but she looked like she could kill me with a flutter of her false eyelashes.
“This is as far as I go,” Ryan said. “You’re on your own now.”
“I owe you,” I said.
“Forget it,” Ryan said. “Please.”
He left quickly, dodging Arakawa and Slutskaya and declining an invitation to join Yagudin and Petrenko on their second bottle of red. They say it’s hard to get into the Conglomerate, but it’s even harder to leave.
I took one of the empty seats next to the Queen. "Kwan," I said, nodding respectfully.
"Johnny," she said icily. “So good to see you."
"Don't get too excited," I said. I waved at the bartender and ordered a glass of champagne. "I'm here for information."
"Of course you are," she said. "The smart money is on Abbott, but if we talk to the right people, he'll take a fall in the free skate. Do you want in?"
"Still rigging the competitions," I said, shaking my head. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Evan still hasn’t recovered from your little experiment.” I had visited Evan in the institute last week. I hadn’t understood a word he said.
“Plushenko needed to be put in his place,” she said, checking her manicure. Even her fingernails were painted white. My champagne arrived. “Put it on my tab,” the Queen told the bartender.
“What about Takahashi?” I said. “What did he ever do to you?”
“We have an agreement with the Japanese.”
I looked over to where Arakawa was still shaking her booty with Slutskaya. The Japanese weren’t stupid. Arakawa was a plant, not a visitor.
But I wasn’t here to discuss politics. "Someone is trying to kill Lambiel,” I said. “I want to know who."
"What makes you think I know anything?”
“Lambiel is a prince,” I said. “No one wants him dead. Maybe someone wants him shaken a little? You won’t get blood on your hands, but you’ll shake up a skater or two if it means Worlds is on the 6 o’clock news.”
“Trust me, Weir,” she said. “We’ve got bigger fish to fry. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot of people missing from this room.”
I’d noticed as soon as I walked in. “The Canadians.”
“It’s a fragile peace,” she said. “They’re getting greedy.”
I swallowed a mouthful of champagne. I hoped they would all blow each other to hell. I’d toast marshmallows on the smoking embers of their corpses. “Then get me Boitano,” I said.
Her pencilled eyebrows went up. “Are you sure?”
Boitano was a long shot. I was truly desperate. “I’m sure.”
The Queen took a slow sip of her Manhattan and beckoned the bartender over. "Get me Boitano."
Boitano was a phantom these days, known to be at the beck and call of the Queen but never seen in the daylight. Two years ago he’d blown up his cooking show with a rogue duck flambe, and soon afterwards was speaking in riddles. I didn’t know what they did to Evan but, if the rumours were true, they had tried it on Boitano first.
The accident had sent him underground, but it also gave him something of a sixth sense. He knew things. Not (so much) telepathically, but from having his ear constantly on the ground, like a kind of osmosis. He was an information sponge. To the Queen, he was indispensable.
Boitano came toward us wearing a top hat and a tux straight out of Magicians Are Us. He smoked a cigar, holding it between finger and thumb like Groucho Marx.
"Johnnieeee," he said, blowing smoke in my face. He patted my hair and brushed his fingers across my sequins.
"Let him go, Brian," the Queen said.
Boitano took the seat on the other side of the Queen and chewed on his cigar. "He looks delicious," he told the Queen.
“He says someone is trying to kill Lambiel,” the Queen said.
Boitano held up his hands in surrender. “It wasn’t me,” he said, and he laughed at his own joke.
“I want information,” I said. I leaned forward onto the bar, putting my head in my hand coquettishly and batting my eyelashes. I wasn’t the twink I was five years ago, but I was still better looking than the last guy Boitano had been with. “I know you can give it to me,” I purred.
Boitano got off his seat and stood next to me. “I want to smell you,” he said. And he leaned in toward my ear and inhaled deeply. I could feel his nose against my lobe. I needed a bath.
The Queen gave me a ‘you asked for that’ look and drank the rest of her Manhattan.
“Lambiel,” I reminded Boitano.
Boitano put his hand to his forehead and concentrated on a point on the far wall. “It's a dame,” he said suddenly. He thumped his fist on the bar. "It's always a fucking dame."
"He means a lover," the Queen said.
"How do you know?" I said.
"This is figure skating," she said. “It might be a dame but it’s never a girl.”
Had one of Stéphane’s lovers finally had enough of his liberal attitude toward relationships? Admittedly, I could relate. Stéphane was here one day and gone the next. It could drive a man to desperation.
It wasn’t enough, but it was a start. And it was all I was willing to whore myself out for. “Your Highness,” I said, getting up off my seat and performing a small curtsey. I nodded toward Boitano. “Brian.”
“You’ll be back,” the Queen said.
I thought about Evan in the institution and Boitano smelling my hair. Unlikely.
Outside, it was raining. I leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette, mentally scrolling through a list of Stéphane’s lovers. It was a long and illustrious list full of divas, dancers and dramas queens. Unfortunately, none were so fashion forward as to suggest a penchant for throwing high heels, myself excepted. Stéphane was right. When it came it down to it, I was the best suspect we had.
I flicked my cigarette into a drain. I wasn’t getting anywhere standing in the rain and feeling persecuted.
I had to go back. I had to go to Worlds.
*
The Olympics had the glory, but Worlds brought out the divas. Maybe it was because there were no snowboarders or hockey players to hog the attention. And the cameras. At Worlds, it was all about figure skating: the sparkling costumes, the dazzling programs and the fleeting liaisons that fueled the gossip machine for the next year.
It used to be my playground. I’d always performed better off the ice than on it. Now I was checking into a double twin in a ‘family’ hotel with faded curtains and an odour I couldn’t identify. I figured I should probably be grateful. London, Ontario, isn’t Tokyo and even the one-stars were booked out for the World Championships. I’d had to bribe an official to get me this room. My file of dirt came in handy at times.
I hung my clothes in the closet and made a mental note to buy some cedar balls. Then I took a luke-warm shower and tried not to think about the mysterious stain on the tiles by the toilet. I wasn’t the princess I used to be. I had bigger things to worry about than the quality of the room service or whether the wallpaper didn’t match the carpet. Still, I shut my eyes when I got out of the shower and I concentrated on the scent of soap and shampoo. It didn’t quell that feeling of dread when my feet touched the slippery tiles, but it helped me ignore it long enough to get dry.
I got dressed and went out on the balcony to smoke a cigarette. The room overlooked an empty swimming pool that was probably an attraction in summer but looked out of place in March. Leaves had collected in the deep end, turning to mulch as the breeze swept dirt and insects into the mix.
Despite the full occupancy sign blazing at the front of the hotel, it was too cold for signs of life outside, and I was alone with my thoughts. My fingers were turning a red and the chill stung my ears, but there were times I preferred the cold. It sharpened my senses and focused my thoughts. I tucked my non-smoking hand under my armpit and turned my mind towards Worlds tomorrow.
I didn’t have a plan. This was my first problem. My coaches said I was never good at strategising. I made things up as I went along. It was my downfall but it was also my saving grace. When I hit rock bottom, I adapted and survived. I thought about Lysacek rotting in a mental institute and I knew things could have been a lot worse.
So maybe that was my plan? Show up, shake the figure skating tree and see how many sequins fell out. I hadn’t been to a competition in years, which meant my presence itself was probably going to cause a ripple or two. I had thought about going incognito, but with Chanel sunglasses and my last Balenciaga bag, it was unlikely to happen. I knew I should modify my wardrobe to suit my profession, but I had standards. And I still liked being looked at.
I stubbed my cigarette out under foot. The sun was going down and I needed to find food that wasn’t drenched in carbs and a cocktail to wash it down with. If I was going to survive the men’s short program tomorrow, I needed to start drinking now.
*
I arrived at the arena after the first group had skated. The glasses and collar on my coat hid my face, but from the looks on the faces of the people sitting next to me, I was still recognisable. Fortunately, I wasn’t exactly popular and they gave me a wide berth. After everything that had gone down after the scandal, I probably scared them a little. Those days were not my most diplomatic. I took a hip flask out of my bag, swigged a mouthful of pre-mixed cosmo and blotted out the crowd, concentrated on the ice.
There was no real talent in the early groups, but there was something heartening about watching guys who were just happy to be there. Stéphane used to say he missed skating for the joy of it. I used to wonder what the hell he was talking about. Now I envied the fourteenth-and fifteenth-placers, the ones for whom it was all still new.
By the time the last group hit the ice, the flask was empty. I leaned forward in my seat, feeling somewhat more engaged, even if it was just the cosmo keeping me alert. I knew these guys. Some of them I’d once called friends. In the final days of my downfall, I couldn’t even get them to look me in the eye. I crossed my fingers and silently wished every one of them would fall on their ass.
Denis Ten was on first, and I looked down the rows of seats to my right to see Stéphane hanging rink-side. He was leaning against the barrier, smiling and taking in the atmosphere. For a moment he turned around and looked up at the crowd behind him, scanning the faces like he was looking for someone. I was too far back for him to see me, but I tensed anyway.
The announcer introduced Ten and he skated out onto the ice, taking up his position with one arm skyward and the other on his chest. The music started and he went into his routine, tassels on his tasteful black costume trailing behind him as he went into his first jump. It was a nice program, graceful and balletic. Like Stéphane.
Ten finished his program to wild applause. I wished I had more cosmo. Ten was the best so far, but there were better skaters to come, including Chan and Abbott. Still, if the Queen was right about Abbott, then Ten was in with a chance. I asked myself if I cared. I didn’t.
I left my seat and went outside, hoping to hang around the mix and get Stéphane’s attention. I wasn’t looking forward to talking to Stéphane. If we were going to get anywhere at all with his case, I was going to have to apologise, and I had no idea how I was going to do that. Somewhat selfishly, I was also hoping for reciprocation. He was the one who accused me of trying to kill him. Calling him a slut hardly seemed to compare.
In the mix, journalists from all over the globe waited for the divas to grace them with their presence. I waved away a few curious types with microphones, but I couldn’t escape the odd camera flash. I gritted my teeth and smiled, tried to look like having my photo taken was akin to getting my teeth drilled. It was something of a lie. I was secretly pleased to get the attention. I never did want to be forgotten.
Waiting got boring fast. After listening to yet another rendition of, ‘it was not my best performance but,’ I sent Stéphane a text and asked him to come out and meet me. He appeared moments later, frowning and holding his hands out to the side, like I’d asked him to put on something pretty and come out dancing. A couple of photographers snapped his picture, but mostly they ignored us. Figure skaters are only stars when they’re winning. Former competitors are even less interesting than the losers.
Which was a problem, because for what I was about to do, I needed an audience.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said.
“I wanted to apologise,” I told him. I sounded genuine. I impressed myself.
He folded his arms. “Okay.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to imply that you were a slut. The situation was - tense.” That part was true. I was not my best when someone was throwing Swarovski at me.
“And?” he said.
“And?”
“You let me walk back to my hotel alone,” Stéphane said. “Did you forget that someone is trying to kill me?”
I tried not to roll my eyes. As I remembered it, he’d stormed off into the night on his own volition. “You thought I was trying to kill you,” I said. “I didn’t think you’d want to be in the same vehicle as me.”
“It was cold,” Stéphane said, pouting. He looked good pouting. He knew it, too. “I had to walk two blocks for a taxi.”
I had to drive home with the freezing air blasting through my broken window. I didn’t feel a lot of sympathy for him. Still, I needed to resolve the issue while there were still photographers hanging about. “It was thoughtless of me,” I said.
“Hmm,” Stéphane said. He brushed hair out of his eyes and looked unconvinced. Eventually, he said, “I didn’t really think you were trying to kill me.”
“Good.”.
“I was angry at you,” he said. “You can be so difficult.”
I knew that. It’s probably the reason we’d never gotten any further than a hotel room in the first place. I thought about saying something appropriately placating in reply, but then I noticed that Adam Rippon had come out to meet the press and there was a swarm of cameras following him.
I didn’t have time to ask for permission. I grabbed Stéphane at the top of his neck, pulled him toward me and kissed him square on the mouth. He felt stiff, resistant, but not enough to push me away. I put my arm around his waist and pressed up against him, mashing our bodies together in the most intimate way I could while fully dressed and in front of a crowd of photographers.
For a moment I thought he wasn’t going to respond at all, and the whole thing would look like a crazed stunt by a washed-up has-been desperate for attention. And then he followed suit, opened his mouth and kissed me back, like something had been switched on inside him. His hand went up my spine and then to my neck and we were kissing madly, going at it like teenagers, right there in the mix.
It felt good. It felt fantastic. I almost didn’t notice the sound of cameras clicking around me or the excited bustle of the crowd. When we finally pulled apart, people applauded.
Stéphane looked stunned. “What was that?” he asked. He was flushed from adrenalin and arousal. I wondered why I’d stopped. A moment ago, I’d wanted the press there, and now I wanted them all to go away so I could throw Stéphane against the wall and kiss him again.
“I’m sorry?” I didn’t know what else to say.
“What for?” he said. Someone shoved a digital recorder in his face and asked if we were dating. Stéphane looked at it like it had magically appeared out of the ether.
I grabbed his hand. “We need to get out of here,” I said, pulling him toward the women’s change rooms. He followed me blindly, not saying a word.
The women’s rooms were empty. I put a chair against the door, not expecting anyone to follow but not willing to take a chance. I needed fifteen minutes alone time with Stéphane. Now.
“Sorry,” I told him after I’d secured the door. “I was hoping to create a scene.”
“You succeeded,” Stéphane said. He stood a little too close. I took it as a good sign.
“I have a lead on your case,” I said. “I think you’ve got a spurned lover on your tail.”
“How do you know?”
“I can’t reveal my sources.” I didn’t want to tell him about the Queen. I wasn’t sure I could trust him with that information. I wasn’t sure I could trust anyone with that information. “I figured your would-be lover has me in his sights already and I wanted to flush him out.”
“Oh,” Stéphane said, the light dawning on him. “You were trying to make him jealous.”
“It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it,” I said. “I just wanted to be honest with you.”
“So what will you do now?”
“I wait for him to make a mistake.”
Stéphane made a face, an expression I couldn’t read. It made me feel a little nervous. “Sounds dangerous,” he said.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Do you have - protection?”
I reached into the pocket of my jacket and pulled out a Trojan. “Always.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“I know.”
He smiled slyly and took the Trojan out of my hands. “What were you planning on doing with this?”
“Maybe nothing,” I said. “But I like to be prepared.”
“What’s that saying?” he said. He stepped forward, forcing me to back up against the wall. He put his hands on my shoulders. “Waste not want not?” He leaned in and kissed me.
All thoughts of lying in wait for Stéphane’s mystery ex vanished as Stéphane started peeling my clothes away and pulling me toward the floor. It had been a long time since someone had touched me with care. I‘d spent too many nights in the back rooms of Newark’s tawdrier gay bars, getting fucked in a frenzy of claw-like fingers and awkward limbs. I liked to think of my life as less complicated now, but I missed this. I missed Stéphane.
Despite the ease with which we came together, the warning bells rang loud and long in my head. There were always warning bells with Stéphane. Usually, I plugged my ears and went with the flow. Why deal with the heart break now when you can put it off for tomorrow? This time I pushed them to the back of my mind, somewhere far away where I couldn’t hear them. What else could I do when he was on his hands and knees between my legs, sliding his tongue along the inside of my thigh? I was down and out, but I wasn’t dead.
He bent my legs back, pushed his hips flush against my ass and we did it like that, on the floor of the change rooms with my shirt hiked up around my armpits and his pants hanging around his thighs. We were out of rhythm, and a little rough, but I came quickly, my dick in my hand, come and lubricant a sticky mess on my fingers. He followed soon after, one last push inside me and he bent forward to moan into my neck as he shook his orgasm out.
For a long time neither of us moved. I brushed his hair out of my face, smoothing it against his temple. He smelled like shampoo.
Eventually he lifted his head off my neck and pulled his cock out of me.
“I’ve missed fucking you,” he said. He ran his hand lazily down my chest, collarbone to my navel.
“I’ve missed fucking you,” I said. We used to have a competition rule: leader chooses top or bottom. I wondered what the rules were now.
“Maybe you’ll get your chance,” he said. “I’m here all week.”
I wasn’t sure where I would be in a week. I sat up and looked around for my pants, suddenly remembering I had work to do. “I have a case to solve,” I said, getting dressed.
He lay on his back, raised his knees and pulled his pants and underwear up. “So professional,” he said.
“I’m saving your ass.” I looked down at him sitting on the floor, his knees held against his chest. It was such a perfect ass.
“I appreciate it.”
I bent forward and kissed him quickly. It was unusually affectionate for me. I couldn’t explain it. “Maybe later?”
“Maybe,” he said, smiling.
“I’ll call,” I said, taking the chair away from the door.
“Johnny,” he said. I turned around. “Be careful.”
“Why start now?”
Part 2