– Don’t even, yo. Playing for the Dodgers would have sucked.
I shake my head.
– Dodgers suck.
They look at me.
– Yo! Turns out Scarface knows some baseball after all.
Shit.
– Not really. My dad, he was a Giants fan. I just know enough to know the Dodgers suck.
Miguel tugs at the bill of his Cyclones cap.
– Well that’s the basics, man.
Jay laughs.
– No shit. Get that down and the rest of the game is easy. So, yo, where we gonna get our drink on?
Drink. Are any of the places I used to know still here? Shit, would they want to go to any of those dives?
Miguel adjusts the A/C.
– What about that Hogs & Heifers spot? That’s by our hotel, right?
Jay reaches between us for the stereo volume.
– Yo, Julia Roberts got topless in that place or some shit. I’m in.
He cranks the bass and “Bombs over Baghdad” shakes the car.
THEY ALMOST GET me clean.
I come out of the hotel and start toward the restaurant the concierge told me Miguel and Jay went to for breakfast. A car is parked a little ways down the street. Two men in the front seat. The passenger gets out, a young guy in expensive jeans, his black hair heavily gelled and styled back from a sharp widow’s peak. He flicks a cigarette butt into the gutter and walks briskly around the car with his hand out and a smile on his face.
– David wants you.
His accent is thick. Russian. I stop for a second, long enough for him to get a couple steps closer. Then I see the one still in the car. Another young guy. One with spiky blond hair and pop-star sunglasses.
They’ll have guns.
I don’t.
I run.
I WAKE UP on a couch, jet-lagged and groggy. I grab my bag and take it to the bathroom. I turn on the light and my hand reaches automatically for the medicine cabinet. I tug on the edge of the mirror a couple times, trying to open it, thinking about starting the day with a Percocet maybe. Then I remember where I am. Miguel’s suite at Soho House.
No one else is around. The bedroom is empty, no sign of Miguel or the bartender he brought back. The other couch looks like Jay and his girl spent the night having a rabid pillow and champagne fight. Thank God I was so wiped out. I can’t imagine having to lie there sleepless and witness that.
I shake my head and try to open the medicine cabinet again; and again go through the process of remembering my pills going down a toilet in Vegas. Right, Henry, you’re in New York and you have no pills. OK, at least that’s settled. Then I realize that this mirror isn’t shattered and covered in black tape. I close my eyes. But it’s too late, I’ve already seen myself. And I look like shit. Fine, let’s get it over with. I open my eyes. Yeah, I was right the first time: I look just like shit. Eyes bagged and bloodshot, hair sticking up on one side, my skin nearly as pale as the scar on my face. I lean closer. I hadn’t realized how much gray there was in my stubble. I knew I was getting old, but no one wants to see the evidence of it right there on his face. That just sucks.
I go to switch off the light, but stop and look at myself again. Cleaned up, I look a little better. Could I spend the rest of my life looking at this face? Strange thought. I still haven’t gotten used to the idea that I might have one of those, a rest of my life. Besides, if I want it, I still have to kill Anna Dolokhov.
I find a note next to the phone, written on thick hotel stationery.
J
PS
Good looking out last night. I guess so.
HOGS & HEIFERS sucks.
It’s packed with tourists hoping to catch sight of a star, not realizing that a true celebrity hasn’t stooped to dancing on top of the bar here for a good many years. It’s a sad scene until Miguel and Jay get the party started. Within an hour Jay is on the bar with his shirt off dancing to “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” and Mike is getting lessons from one of the bartenders on how to spray Bacardi 151 from his mouth and light it on fire. Miguel does get recognized, but the response is pretty temperate. I mean, most of these people came hoping to see Julia Roberts’s tits after all.
I find a corner by the pool table and try to stay out of the way. Miguel comes by on his way to the bathroom.
– Man, hey, man. This place is great, right? I love this shit.
He’s having the night of his life. Why shouldn’t he be? He’s a twenty-one-year-old millionaire who just had a monster game, and everybody loves him. I’d feel good, too.
– So, do me a favor.
He glances at Jay, dancing a two-step on the bar.
– Slip me your phone, bro.
I look at him.
He leans against the wall next to me.
– Jay has mine and I need to make a call.
Jay looks in our direction and hoots. Miguel hoots back, trying to look like we’re talking about nothing at all. He looks at his watch.
– I have to make this call.
He wants to make a bet. He wants to call his personal Russian bookie and lay a bet and get deeper into David’s hole. Fine. Jay can say what he wants to say about having an easy life, about getting in on something good, having friends and all that shit. But David’s already made me an offer. All I have to do is kill someone. That, and don’t fuck up with Miguel.
He has his hand down low, open and waiting.
– The phone, bro.
Not my fucking problem.
– No problem.
Not my problem, his problem. Just the one problem he has in his superstar life. The one huge fly in the otherwise perfect ointment. Let him ruin his life. Me, if I had had the chance he has, I would never have pissed it away.
So I put my hand in the pocket where my phone is, and I wrap my fingers around it, and I nod my head.
– Sure thing, Miguel.
Not my problem
I take my hand out of my pocket. And it’s not holding the phone. And I point at Jay.
– Except the thing is, your mom over there? He says you aren’t allowed.
He looks at Jay and back at me.
– That’s harsh.
I shrug.
– Take it up with him.
