Six Bad Things

promises he will do for his partners.

I’m sitting on one of the barstools in front of the kitchen counter. David Dolokhov is making coffee and toast.

– When Dylan needed money for his start-up, he went to the usual places. He went to California, to Sand Hill Road where the venture capitalists are, and asked them for money. But they did not give it to him. So he went to the banks. But he had problems with the SEC and his credit was bad. So he went to his family and friends. But they had given him money before and he had lost all of it. So he came to us. And we gave him the money. And with our money, he was able to attract more money, because money loves money. And at first, we were very happy. His company had an IPO. Very exciting. The stock. The stock, it topped at one sixty-four and one half! We were very happy. But Dylan? He is a greedy man. He is bound by laws of the SEC that prevent him from selling his shares just then, and he is greedy. Rather than using his new leverage to finance a loan to pay us back, what does he do? He uses the leverage to invest in commodities. A long story short, he trades on margin and the market craters and his margins are called and his personal fortune is destroyed. And his company’s own stock becomes valueless. And when we encourage him to sell off the company’s assets to repay our money? There are no assets. The company has been a shell game all along. So now, Dylan Lane is in the shit.

The coffeemaker beeps and he picks up the pot. He pours two cups and hands one to me. I lift it with my unburned left hand and bring it to my lips and sip, feeling the heat radiate into the burns on the right side of my face.

– So now Dylan hustles. He hustles this and he hustles that and he makes just enough as a hustler of this and that to make his interest payments. But he has dreams of being a big man again, and he is always looking for an opportunity to make enough money to pay us back. And then he hears the story of Henry Thompson and the four-and-a-half million dollars. And he comes to me with a proposal. He will, as he says, Buy the debt. But with what I ask? He still has no money. He will buy it, he says, on credit, and pay it off along with his own debt when he has the money.

The toast pops up. He butters it and cuts the slices diagonally and puts them on a plate in front of me.

– Eat.

I take a small bite and chew. It hurts.

– I ask Dylan his plan to get the money and he tells me that he has a man who will watch your parents and tell him if you appear. Well, this is bullshit. This is a bullshit plan. And I tell him no. And he leaves. And then nothing. Until a year passes. And my nephew is killed in Mexico.

He wipes the kitchen counter clean, tops off his own coffee, then comes around the counter to my side and sits on the other stool.

– My nephew, Henry. My nephew was an asshole. But his mother, the woman I swore to my brother I would care for, she loved him very much. And so I personally go to Mexico to discover what has happened. I arrive in Mexico last week, on Thursday. I go to Chichen Itza and see where my nephew died, and find out that when he fell, a man was with him on the pyramid. I go to the police and talk to the two men who have investigated the death, and they show me a photograph they have taken of you.

He widens his eyes and spreads his hands open. Shock.

– A coincidence! But not so much perhaps. I suspect my asshole nephew was in some way seeking to extort the money from you. I whisper in the ears of the policemen. I tell them a tale of treasure, and I promise them a share if they will arrest you and bring you to me. And they try. And you disappear.

He hangs his head and shakes it. Such sadness.

– But all is not lost. Because, Henry, because I know you have a friend. I know, we know, that someone helped you in New York, and we believe it is this same man who has recently moved to Las Vegas. I make phone calls. I call people we know from business and find out where this man is, and I make arrangements to meet him. You are running, Henry. Where will you run to, but to a friend? Or to family? I remember Dylan’s man who lives on your parents’ street. I look in my memory and I find the man’s name and I call him and offer him money to “keep his eyes peeled.” And I learn something. He tells me that Dylan has already paid him to watch. For a year Dylan has paid him. Dylan had asked for permission to pursue the money, and he had been denied, but he has paid the man anyway. Greedy. Liar. So I pay the man more money, and he does not tell Dylan that I know of this betrayal. And now, I fly to Las Vegas myself. And two things happen. Your friend in Las Vegas disappears, and the man in California calls me. He has seen you.

He holds his coffee cup up in a toast.

– And I tell him to call Dylan. Because, Henry, because you are a dangerous man. You have killed other dangerous men. There will be risks in dealing with you. I will let Dylan take those risks, and if he gets the money, I will take it from him. Because he is not a dangerous man.

– He has men.

– No. He does not.

I tear a corner off of a piece of toast.

– He is a liar, Henry. He will have told you that he has dangerous men, but he neither has the money to hire such men, nor the knowledge of where to find such specialists to do the things he will have threatened. To kill your mother and father at a whim. It is hard to kill people, Henry. The men who do it well are rare and prized. You should know that.

I push the plate of toast away. David Dolokhov pushes it back in front of me.

– Eat.

I take another painful bite.

– And now there is a great deal of farce, a great deal of following and losing and trailing. And new crazy men arriving to kill. And confusion. But when you run from California, I stay in Las Vegas to be near the home of your friend, where I think you may run to. And you do. I was here, Henry, watching when you came with your new friend and the large hound. I watched, and I realized something. You were searching.

He points an index finger at the ceiling. Eureka!

– You do not have the money. It is your friend all along. He has had the money, and now that you have come for it, he has run away so to keep it. And now I will watch what you do and you will find him for me. But that is not altogether correct, is it?

– No.

I tell him about sending Tim the money. He shakes his head again.

– And he took it to hide it from us?

– Yeah.

– And he came back for you, into the teeth of danger.

– Yeah.

– And you killed him.

– Yeah.

He nods. This is the way these things happen.

– He was a good friend.

– Yeah.

– But he did not tell you where the money is? Do not answer. Why else would you kill yourself? Or try. And what luck! I had lost you, Henry. I lost you almost as soon as I had found you. I fell asleep in my car outside of the Sam’s Town casino. And when I awoke? You were gone. I did not know where to look. But I still had Dylan. If you found the money, you would take it to him, and, so, good enough. And then a phone call from a man named Terry, an unreliable man. But I go to him anyway. And what do I find? Mayhem. Bloodshed. Grotesque.

He closes his eyes. That such things should be.

He opens his eyes.

– And so what now am I to do? Nothing. I can only wait and hope that you will contact Dylan and he will lead me to you. But! If I must wait, I will wait here, outside this building, and see perhaps if your friend makes a return. And last night. You come. With a woman and your friend with the hound, and you are hurt. And there is news on the radio of violence, and I know you have been in it. And I wait until you are alone. But still you are a dangerous man, and so I call for help. And while I wait, I see your friend appear! And he goes inside. And I wait, thinking that this will be it, the money is near and you will lead me to it, but no one comes out. A man arrives. My dangerous man. We come in here.