Bad Things by Varian Krylov Page B

off the lens, contemplated the vacant display panel, then rotated the camera around in his hands, looking for the power button.
    “Please,” Carson’s voice was tight with indignation at recognizing his powerlessness. “It took me almost a year to save up for it.”
    Xavier turned the camera on, and the display lit up, a miniaturized image of the room, then, as he re-aimed, Carson, down on the floor, cuffed to the support beam.
    “Yeah? How much does a camera like this cost?”
    Carson looked annoyed by the question. “The body was only twenty-five hundred. But the lens was almost three.”
    “Three hundred?”
    “ Three thousand.” Carson looked like he might be about to get sick.
    “ So this,” Xavier hefted the weight of the camera up and down, and Carson looked like he might jump out of his skin, “cost over five thousand dollars?”
    “ Yes.” Oof. So angry.
    “ It must take amazing pictures, then.”
    He fiddled with the dials on the lens, trying to get Carson in focus.
    “A camera doesn’t take good pictures. That’s like saying a hammer makes beautiful buildings.”
    Xavier laughed. “A five thousand dollar hammer damn fucking well better build me something beautiful.”
    He clicked the button, and there was Carson’s frustration and rage, frozen on the tiny screen. And when he pushed an arrow next to the screen, a different image appeared. An old woman. Xavier grabbed the thick, long barrel and showed the back of the camera to Carson.
    “ Who’s that?”
    “ None of your fucking business.”
    “ Your mom?”
    “ Those are private.”
    Xavier laughed. Really fucking laughed. Was he actually serious? Sitting there cuffed in his basement because Xavier had just caught him digging through his computer and who the fuck knew what else, whining about his privacy?
    Xavier started clicking through. Mom in the garden. Mom with the cat.
    “ Seriously. Fucking put it down. You’re going to break it.”
    “ Now, now. You were careful not to break my computer. And I’ll be careful not to break your camera.”
    Cityscape.
    Angled slice of a building interior.
    Homeless guy.
    “Please stop. I’m sorry for what I did. It wasn’t even my idea.”
    Xavier looked at him. Waited. But that was it. That veil slid over Carson’s eyes again, and his lips went stiff. He’d rather protect Max and his circle of slavers than whatever he had on the camera.
    Fine.
    More street photography. He was pretty good, actually. Not terribly unique subject matter, but something about the mood. Xavier was seeing L.A. through different eyes, which was saying something, since he’d lived there all his life. First in Echo Park with his family, then Silverlake with Elena for a few years while she was slowly rebuilding the person who’d occupied the shell emptied by those three men, and now—fuck, had it really been six years already?—Venice. But here, on this luminous rectangle in his hands, a different L.A. Photography didn’t often do that for him.
    He gave Carson a quick, appraising glance. Looking for the man, the artist he’d never guessed was in the affable but slightly skittish bartender behind the counter, politely, even cautiously flirtatious with the girls, and even with the clientele, in that way really good-looking straight men can be with other men. Their way of charming the masses who’d resent them, otherwise.
    But that re-appraising look didn’t suddenly discover the artist behind the mask of the loquacious mixologist. All Xavier found in that twilight gaze was a bright constellation of desperate fear. Not the startled, confused fear that had ignited at waking up bound in Xavier’s basement. Now there was a life-draining, horrified dread sapping Carson’s strength, and he was slowly slumping, like he had a leak, an invisible cut draining him of all his blood, leaving him limp and pale and sheened in sweat.
    Xavier’s heart thumped heavily and began to beat faster. Maybe there was something right there