Five Beautiful Boys

Mikey and Frank Argue

Mikey had manoeuvred himself into a sitting position and thought about his kidnapper, who was, quite bizarrely upstairs cooking them both a meal. He had seen two sides to this man, two very different sides and wondered if either were genuine or an exaggeration of aspects of the real person.

In his job as a prosecution lawyer, Mikey had met a lot of criminals. Indeed, it was why he originally thought he had been kidnapped; that someone he had sent down was now exacting his revenge. He had moved with his career and home was now Chicago where, he had to admit, he was a lot more careful when opening doors. It had simply not occurred to him to do the same at Gerard's and he had paid the price. Still, these men appeared not to know him as a lawyer and had no personal axe to grind. They simply knew him as Gerard's brother; their hostage to force Gerard to help them break into the bank.

Despite the people he met professionally largely being criminals, he was the first to admit that as a prosecution lawyer, he never got to see anything other than the crime facts and the evidence. The only time he ever saw the defendant was in the courtroom. That wasn't a failing on his part, that was just the way it was done; only the defence lawyer got to meet his client. Mikey thought about the story the man had told earlier about his arrest and wrongful conviction of assisting an armed robbery. He wondered too if he had sent any innocent men to prison in the attempt to win a case. The problem with being any sort of lawyer is the inability to draw conclusions and act upon them. If he thought a man was innocent but was assigned as prosecutor, he still had to make the case. Of course it was exactly the same for defence lawyers forced to defend people who were plainly guilty. A good defence lawyer could have a guilty man freed if he put a better case than his opponent. Equally, as had been the case with his kidnapper, a weak defence lawyer could effectively send a man to prison for a crime he didn't commit. The system was flawed, but he hadn't realised how much until now.

Mikey had never met anyone quite like him before and, because of all of this and more, he wanted to know more about him. One of his personas, he felt, was an act or, at the very least, an exaggeration and he wanted to know which. One minute he believed he knew, the next he was uncertain again. Mikey was unable to shake off the memory of their first meeting; he had been terrified and the man had only scared him more. Worried for himself and Gerard, Mikey had cried himself to sleep as the fear had consumed him. But then, if only to confuse him more, the conversation they had had earlier was touching and he really felt that he had been granted an insight into the real man.

His softer side seemed genuine enough, but Mikey was no fool, he had long since worked out that the man had an eye for him. Was the softer side the act for his benefit? An attempt to gain his affections? Mikey was certainly interested in him, but not in the way he wanted him to be, it was one of the reasons he had mentioned his ex-girlfriend. Momentarily, the man had seemed overwhelmingly disappointed, but had quickly recovered. Mikey got the impression that it had happened before.

Stirred from his thoughts, Mikey looked up as the door opened again and he heard what had become the familiar sound of his kidnapper's footfalls on the stairs. As odd as it seemed, he was actually quite pleased to see him descending the stairs. Mikey wouldn't deny that he was hungry, but he knew that wasn't the sole reason.

Now he was at the bottom of the stairs and Mikey was no closer to knowing the real man but he was intrigued. There was, however, something he needed to know first and foremost.

"What's your name?" Mikey asked only to receive a surprised expression from Frank.

It had not occurred to him that he hadn't divulged that piece of information. His brother knew, he'd even managed to remember it, but he realised now that he had never actually told Mikey. All that talking and he'd never even given him is name.