trying to sound like a New Yorker.
“So?” Angela said, putting on a bra. “Did you or didn’t you put peroxide on that?”
“Couldn’t be bothered,” he said.
Angela leaned forward, taking a closer look at the foot.
“You probably need a shot for that, you know, or you’ll catch tetanus.”
“I’ll catch anorexia if I don’t get me grub,” he said.
Angela finished getting dressed – putting on jeans and a black T-shirt with “My Boyfriend’s Out of Town” in red across the front. She sat down on the bed next to Dillon and rested a hand on his lap. For a while there was silence except for the sports commentator babbling, then Dillon said, “I was watching South Park before and Kenny is dead again, you see that one?”
“I think so,” Angela said.
The food arrived and Angela and Dillon sat on the bed together eating the shrimp lo mein and barbecued spare ribs directly from the cartons. Finally, Angela decided it was a good time to break the bad news.
“Something happened today,” she said, “but before I tell you you have to promise not to get mad at me.”
“What?”
“You have to promise.”
“What is it?”
“You’re gonna get angry,” Angela said. “I can tell it already.”
“Just tell me what the fook it is, you’re spoiling me dinner.” Christ, she thought, she never saw a man eat so much and still stay skinny as a wet rodent.
Dillon’s nostrils flared. He looked the same way he did before he stabbed that cop.
“All right,” Angela said. “Remember how I told you I was with my boss last night at that hotel?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Well something happened that we didn’t know about. Something that could be bad.”
“Stop whining and tell me what it is.”
“Well, there was this guy,” Angela said, “and he took some pictures of us.”
“You mean like a Guard?”
“No, not a cop – definitely not a cop. He was in a wheelchair and – anyway, he came to the office today and he showed the pictures to Max.”
“What were the pictures of?” Dillon asked.
“Just of us, you know… in bed together.”
“So? What’s he going to do with them, beside play with his own self?”
“If the police see them it’ll show that me and Max were together, that we could’ve planned the murder.”
“But the police haven’t got the pictures, the gimp in the wheelchair does.”
“That’s where the bad part comes in. He wants money for them. A lot of money.”
“You mean he’s trying to blackmail you?”
“He’s trying to blackmail Max.”
“And you’re sure this fooker isn’t a Guard?”
“I don’t know what he is,” Angela said, remembering again how Bobby Rosa had looked at her. “But Max thinks it’s a big problem. He wanted me to get you to get rid of him.”
Dillon sat calmly for a few seconds and Angela thought, Hey, that wasn’t too bad. Then he suddenly threw his carton of food against the wall on the other side of the room. Angela covered her ears as Dillon stood up and kicked the top of the TV set with his right foot, then roared as the pain hit his already inflamed sole. He said, “You’re going to get the hiding of yer life, you hoor’s ghost!”
Dillon began hitting her in the face, slapping her with his open hands. Angela didn’t know how she got out of the apartment. She ran down the stairs, nearly tripping several times. She walked toward Second Avenue, not realizing for several minutes that she was barefoot.
She went into the Rodeo Bar, on Second Avenue and Twenty-eighth Street. She sat at the dingy half-empty bar and then realized she had no money. She told the bartender she was “waiting for a friend” and stared at the hockey game on TV.
She became aware of a guy sitting on the stool next to her. He was young, around twenty-three, in a business suit and she saw a couple of other guys – his friends – giggling to each other. The guy said, “Hey, is this Woodstock or something?”
Angela was confused for a second then realized he was making fun of her for being barefoot.
“Just leave me the feck alone, yeh arsehole!”
The guy, looking terrified, went back to his friends.
Angela left the bar and headed toward home. She approached her apartment building, hoping Dillon had calmed down a little. Food and weed usually took his edge off, but she knew it was only a matter of time before he really lost it. Then she thought about Bobby Rosa again. The guy was really into her – that much was obvious. And, yeah, he was in a wheelchair, but there was something about him that made her think he could take care of himself. But could he take care of Dillon?
Angela didn’t have the key to her apartment. She kept ringing the buzzer, but Dillon wouldn’t answer it. Finally, after nearly an hour, someone leaving the building let her in and she went upstairs. The door to her apartment was open.
Dillon was sitting on the bed, watching videos and reading his damn Zen book. He said, “I wouldn’t go in that bathroom if I were you. That fookin Chinese food, it was off.”
Angela went to the fridge and poured herself a glass of soda.
Dillon said, “While I was in there on the bowl, shittin’ out me organs, I was thinking this guy in the wheelchair is our problem too. I don’t trust that bollix, Max. If he cracks, he’s taking us down with him. You know that, right?”
Angela didn’t answer.
Dillon said, “So my question is how much should I charge?”
“Charge?”
Dillon glared at her like she was stupid.
“For blasting a guy in a wheelchair.”
Sixteen
Muggers are plain creepy.
Max said to Kamal, “Have you ever had herpes?”
They were in Max’s kitchen where Kamal was busy cooking Max’s macrobiotic meals for the rest of the week. Three pots were going on the stove and Kamal was chopping up beets and potatoes.
“Herpes?” Kamal said pausing with the cutting knife in his right hand. “Why do you ask that?”
“No reason,” Max said. “I mean it’s not like I think you’re gonna infect the food or anything like that. It was just something that was on my mind.”
“No,” Kamal said, still looking confused. “I do not have any venereal diseases.”
“Ah-ha,” Max said. “So you haven’t been tested for herpes.”
“No, I do not believe so. Unless it was part of my regular physical examination.”
“Very interesting,” Max said. “Very very interesting.”
Now Max was almost one hundred percent sure that the little Indian guy had been banging Deirdre, probably had been banging her for some time. The last time Max had had sex with her must have been three or four months ago and he must have caught the virus then.
