“
“Okay.” I got out my wallet, dug out the emergency Visa card, and paid the tab. “Thank you.”
“
I stepped out. The rain was falling harder now, the wind gusting it straight into my face, and there was no one on the street in front of the canal. I thought about what I’d read about Venice sinking. Everywhere I looked, the lagoon was lapping up the steps and filling the doorways. Up ahead, I saw two men-the same ones in suits, smoking, that I’d talked to before-emerge out in front of me as if they’d been there waiting for me the whole time.
“So you found it,” one of them said.
“What?”
“Your little tourist trap.”
I turned and started walking in the other direction, and another man with a shaved head appeared in front of me, blocking my way, his gaze shifting up to the two behind my back. The bald one was young, wearing jeans and a shiny, puffy black coat that seemed like it was stitched together out of designer garbage bags. A second later I felt something hard and cold jab up against the back of my neck. Over my shoulder I could smell garlic and cigarettes mixed with overpowering cologne. One hand grabbed my shoulder, slamming me facefirst into the alley wall hard enough that I heard my incisors scrape off the concrete before I hit the ground. Pain burst through the left side of my face and I tasted blood, salty and fresh, as fingers rifled my back pocket, yanking out my wallet.
“Just take whatever you want,” I said, my tongue flicking off my newly chipped tooth. “Just-”
“Where is she?”
“What?” I said.
Then one of the men screamed.
All at once I heard feet scuffling above me and a series of quick, brutal thumps, like a glove stuffed with pennies smacking into flesh. Someone grunted, staggered, fell, and footsteps went slapping fast up the alley, through the puddles, and then there was no sound except for the rain.
“I see you have still not learned to fight.”
I looked up.
Gobi was standing in the alley in front of me, hands on her hips, with two of the men sprawled at her feet. For a second I didn’t know if what I was seeing was real or just a delayed result of head trauma.
She was wearing a short leather jacket with lots of buckles, and some kind of stretchy black micro-skirt, torn black stockings, and big chunky shitkicker boots. Her hair was dyed and chopped above the shoulders.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
“Perry.” She shook her head. “You do not look so good.”
“Yeah, well, I could’ve used you…”-I stopped and coughed hard, looked at my hand, and saw a little spatter of scarlet across my knuckles-“like, about twenty seconds earlier?”
“So use me now.” She extended one hand and I took it, lifting myself up. I was still getting my balance when she leaned forward, catching me in her arms, and I saw the little white scar across her neck, and all the rest of it came back from there.
8. “Never Let Me Down Again” — Depeche Mode
We crossed a dark bridge to the Centurion Palace Hotel. It was a sleek slice of L.A.-style architecture built inside what looked like a five-hundred-year-old palace on the opposite side of the canal, and to get inside we had to cross a wide courtyard of perfectly oval stones that crunched under our feet as we walked over them. She led me into a high-domed lobby with a chandelier made of curved glass tubes and long sofas arranged across the wide marble floor. From the concierge desk I saw a pair of high-cheekboned faces, incurious and androgynous, peering back at us from a liquid cloud of blue light.
“Lift is this way,” she said. “Follow me.”
I stepped into the brushed chrome elevator, feeling it rise smoothly upward, transporting us to some upper floor. There, Gobi kept me walking forward down the silent corridor. She swiped her keycard and we entered her suite, a series of rooms, one flowing into the next, opening out toward a balcony overlooking the canal. I saw a bottle of champagne on ice in front of the flat-screen TV, the counter scattered with her BlackBerry, jewelry, a jumbled pile of euros and foreign coins, her passport and lipstick.
“Take off your clothes.”
“What?”
“You are freezing with the cold.”
“Look, I should probably tell you something.” I managed to get the windbreaker off, turning one of the sleeves inside out as I pulled my arm free, then reached down to unbutton my pants. “Do you mind looking the other way?”
She cocked one eyebrow, then turned to face the wall as I peeled off my jeans, then my socks, and finally my T-shirt. “I’m involved with somebody. She’s back in the States.”
Gobi didn’t say anything, just pointed in the opposite direction. “Shower is through there.”
The bathroom was a green marble grotto. My reflection stared back at me from a full-length mirror, a skinny, pale American kid with a face that looked like two pounds of Genoa sausage. I kicked off my boxers and stepped into the shower. By now my teeth were chattering and it took me a moment to figure out the faucets, but once I did, the shower head rewarded me with an oscillating spray of hot needles that made my whole body realize that it wasn’t dead after all. Maybe things weren’t as bad as I thought. I breathed in steam, scrubbed myself twice, and stood there until the hot water started to go cold. After what felt like a long time, I stepped out and found a fluffy hotel bathrobe waiting on the back of the door. I was actually starting to feel human again.
“This is a really nice place,” I said, stepping out of the steam. “How can you afford a place like this?” No answer. “Gobi?”
A flicker of motion in one of the mirrors. “Over here.”
“I-oh.”
When she stepped out from behind the closet door, I saw that she’d slipped off the leather jacket. The top underneath it was lacy and black, with shiny thin straps that stretched across her clavicles.
“What are you looking at?”
“Just-your clavicles. You have really nice ones.”
“How are you with zippers?”
“Excuse me?”
She turned her back to me, tilted her head forward, and lifted up her hair from the back of her neck. “It’s stuck.”
“I told you I had a girlfriend, right?”
“I am only asking you to do my zipper.”
“Right.” The zipper slipped down easily. “Don’t you want to know what I’m doing in Venice?”
“No.”
“I’m touring with Inchworm, and-”
She turned around and kissed me, mouth open, tongue flicking up and in as her hands slipped into the bathrobe. I could taste the dry fruity flavor of champagne she’d just been drinking, and something almost bitter, like dark espresso beans or black licorice. From outside I could hear music and faint laughter down the canal. I drew back, catching my breath.
“Her name’s Paula,” I said. “She’s really cool. You’d like her.”
A smoky chuckle and she muttered something in Lithuanian.
“What?”
“I called you a stupid ass.”
“Why?”
“Is what you call a man who has a girl in his bed and still makes small talk.”
“We’re not in b-”
