by Ken Bruen
“What?” Dillon said.
“You s-s-s-said it was a r-r-r-rent collector.”
Thinking, Vive la difference, Dillon said, “Yeah? So?”
“J-J-J-Jaysus,” Sean said like he was going to go for Dillon. “I don’t believe it, I c-c-c-could murder yah. The Boyos told us s-s-s-s-stay clear of the G-G-G-Guards.”
“It doesn’t matter now, does it?”
“B-b-but G-G-G-Guards. That’s like b-b-b-blasphemy.”
Dillon stepped back and felt a sudden piercing pain in his foot. He almost screamed, but stopped himself in time. He realized he must have stepped on a nail or something, but didn’t want to look at it until he was back in the car. Then he said, “Let’s just get the bejaysus out of here.” He was thinking, Just me fooking luck to get that tetanus thing.
Back in the car, the pain in his foot was even worse. He turned on the car’s overhead light and saw the head of a thick nail coming out of the bottom of his sneaker. He had no idea how deep it was wedged into his foot, but it felt like it was hitting bone.
Driving down St. Nicholas Avenue, Sean said, “There b-b-b-b-better not be b-b-b-blood in the b-b-b-boot of me v-v-v-vehicle.”
Dillon yanked off his tennis sneaker – a three-inch-long rusty nail came off with it. He said, “Fook, and I just bought these shites at Modell’s.”
Thirteen
He had made someone else’s world a hell, and someone had made his world a hell. Supply-chain management for human suffering.
JOSEPH FINDER, Company Man
In the back seat of the cab, Max Fisher put on his curly blond wig. He knew he looked ridiculous – like a goddamn clown – but he figured it was better than nothing. He was still paranoid about why Detective Simmons never came back to talk to him and the last thing he needed was to be seen checking into a hotel room with his executive assistant.
When he went to work this morning he had no idea he’d wind up where he was now. His plan was to have a normal day at the office, get back to work, keep his mind occupied. But he had no idea how fucking tempting it would be to see Angela sitting at her desk, wearing one of her skirts that barely covered her butt-cheeks. Usually, he’d find some way to get her into his office and they’d have a quickie, but he knew that anything like that would be impossible today, and probably for a long time. Everyone was talking about how a detective was here last week, asking everyone questions about him and Deirdre, and if anybody had any “theories” about what might have happened. This proved to Max that he wasn’t being paranoid – Simmons was definitely on to him.
Trying to bang Angela now would be nuts, but Max couldn’t help himself. Knowing she was so close by, wanting her so badly, was driving him wild. Before lunchtime, he called her into his office, but left the door open. As she went over Max’s schedule for the rest of the day, Max winked at her. Angela saw him, immediately smiled as Max wrote, “I have to be with you” on a pad and slid it across the desk to her. She wrote back, “How?”
Like two students passing notes back and forth in a classroom, Max and Angela plotted out their strategy for meeting later on at the Hotel Pennsylvania. He figured it would be better to meet at a big hotel, where there was a lot of activity, than at a small hotel where they were more likely to be noticed. He often set his clients up with call girls at the Hotel Pennsylvania and they never had any problems. Besides, they were planning to take precautions. They’d arrive separately, check in under phony names, and he’d wear a wig. The wig was his idea. Angela wrote that she could go buy him a nice one during her lunch break. He tried it on in his office, knowing right away that it made him look like Harpo Marx, but deciding that it was worth it to be alone with Angela.
When he entered the hotel lobby, he looked around, made sure he wasn’t being followed. Surprisingly, people passing by didn’t give him funny looks – maybe the wig didn’t look as ridiculous as he thought. He’d already called the hotel from work and found out there were plenty of vacancies tonight and there wouldn’t be a problem booking a room at the last minute. He checked in under the name “Brown” and told the woman who was working at reception that his wife would be meeting him, when she arrived to please send her right up. Then he paid for the room in advance, with cash.
In room 1812, Max made himself comfortable – showering, and then lying in bed, relaxing, watching TV, his right hand slowly sliding under his boxers down to his crotch, touching what felt like a spot where the skin was irritated. He quickly took off his underwear to examine the area more closely. He discovered it wasn’t really irritation – shit, it was more like a blister, and there were several smaller ones there as well. They itched and hurt like hell. How could he not have noticed them before?
He rushed into the bathroom, sat on the toilet bowl, and leaned over his lap, examining himself more carefully. The longer he looked at the blisters, the larger they seemed to grow. He tried to squeeze them, but this only made the itching and pain worse. Soon the discomfort was unbearable. As usual, he thought the worst first and imagined he had ebola, smallpox, that flesh-eating virus. It had to be something horrendous.
After a few more minutes of total panic he realized he wasn’t dying, but the word “herpes” crept into the back of his mind.
When Angela came into the room, Max was still in the bathroom. He had started crying. Although he’d washed his face with cold water, when he came out of the bathroom Angela immediately knew something was wrong.
Max’s lips quivered – he couldn’t get the word out. Then he dropped his boxers and held out his penis for Angela to examine. He was trying to see if she seemed surprised, but she didn’t show any particular reaction, saying, “What’s wrong?” Then she said. “Oh, I get it. It’s some kind of joke, right?”
“Look closer,” Max said.
Angela got on her knees, said, “Is that all you’re worried about?”
“It looks like…” Max still couldn’t say the word.
“What?” Angela said.
His face turning red, starting to cry again, Max blurted out, “Herpes!”
“Herpes?” Angela said, like it was the most ridiculous idea possible. “That’s just a little rash, that’s all. Knowing you, you probably made it worse from all your feckin’ scratching.”
“They look like blisters to me.”
Angela laughed, said, “Jaysus, listen to you. You should go back to worrying about your heart, a wee rash and you’re blubbering like a big baby.”
Continuing to examine himself, Max said, “It hurts.”
“What do you expect, scratching yourself like a feckin’ monkey?”
“What about you?” Max said. “I mean you haven’t been having any symptoms, have you?”
Angela was sitting on the edge of the bed, taking off her shoes. She froze for a moment then said, “What do you mean?”
“I mean this,” Max said. “I mean you’ve never had any pain or seen any blisters or-”
“Are you asking me if I have feckin’ herpes?”
When Angela turned around Max was staring at her with a deadpan expression. She said, “You better stop this, yah bollix, before I really start getting upset.”
Now her eyes had all the fire and rage of an angry Greek woman in them. Max didn’t realize until now how lethal this Irish-Greek-combo thing could be. It was one dangerous mix.
Figuring he’d better soothe her, he sat down next to her on the bed and put an arm loosely around her back. He started kissing the back of her neck, under her hair, until she started to giggle.
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” he said. “I really am glad you’re here. You don’t know how horrible it’s been – being in that house all alone all week. A couple of times I almost gave in and called you. When I saw your name on that card the office sent me I couldn’t stop staring at your handwriting. It just made me miss you even more.”
Max turned Angela’s head toward him, started kissing her lips. Then he moved his right hand down her back, over that great ass and said, “God,
you don’t know how much I missed this.”
Angela freed herself. “I have to go pee.”
“Yeah, can I watch?” Max asked.
“You’re so funny,” Angela said without smiling as she went into the bathroom. He wondered, That was a joke?
Still sitting on the bed, Max said, “Have you heard anything from Popeye?”
“Why would I hear anything?”
“I mean through your cousin.”
“No. And I think it’s better if we don’t know anything, don’t you?”
“I guess you’re right,” Max said. “But I was ready to send a hit man after him a few days ago.”
“Really?” Angela sounded shocked or confused – Max couldn’t tell which. “Why?”
“The lunatic killed my niece. I mean she was just a young kid. When I found her lying there I was almost going to call the police and confess everything.”
“Well, thank God you didn’t do that.”
“You’re telling me,” Max said. “After the funeral, the whole picture started to come into focus for me. I mean it was a terrible thing that she had to die and everything, but it wasn’t as if Popeye didn’t warn me. What was the word he used? Pop. He said he was going to pop me if I got to the house early, so I guess he had to pop Stacy, God rest her soul. I mean if he didn’t pop her then we all would’ve been arrested by now, right?”
“Right,” Angela said.
“But the thing that still ticks me off is that whole alarm business. It was supposed to look like he was waiting for them outside, right? Like he forced them to disarm the alarm. But then what does that jerk-off do? He arms the alarm before he leaves. What was the guy thinking?”
“Maybe he was trying to make it look like nobody was there.”
“With two dead bodies in the foyer? This way, the cops know somebody gave him the code. I don’t even know why he bothered to steal that jewelry. Like the police were gonna believe it was a robbery?”
“Maybe they’ll think he made your wife tell him the code, or he memorized the code when your wife disarmed the alarm.”
Max thought about that, then said, “Eh, maybe, but it was still a boneheaded thing to do. And why, why did he have to take a crap in the house, on my Oriental rug? You know how much it cost to clean that thing?”
“Oh, stop with your worrying,” Angela said. “You’ll see. A few months from now, when we’re married, you’ll look back on all this and think how crazy you were acting. Oh, and about the shitting, I heard once that it’s not because burglars are, like, being disrespectful – it’s from adrenalin.”
Max thought Angela was full of shit, said, “You’re full of shit.”
“No, I’m serious. I read it in a book once.”
Max, who had never seen Angela read anything except magazines and the New York Post, said, “I thought you said you heard it?”
“No, I read it, in a book about burglars. It was the history of burglary in America and there was a whole chapter about shitting on the floor. Great book – you should borrow it sometime.”
Now Max was positive that Angela was just being all Irish again, spinning one of her stories that got more and more exaggerated with each telling. He didn’t think Greek women did that. He didn’t know a whole lot about Greek women and he was beginning to think he didn’t know a whole lot about women, period. Why couldn’t they just do lap dances and shut the fuck up?
Angela came out of the bathroom naked. She climbed into bed and pushed Max back, pinning down his arms.
“This is your night,” she said. “You can have anything you want.” The word want had that whole Irish accent thing going on, and it was so fucking sexy.
“I want you,” Max said, trying to mimic it.
“How?” Angela asked.
Max flipped her over and pinned her down hard. He said, “You know we won’t be able to do this again for a long time. It was way too risky to come here.”
“In that case,” Angela said, “you’d better make it good.”
Max started on top, then ordered her to turn over. His blisters – or whatever the hell they were – were hurting, but he decided to ignore the pain. Doggy-style was his favorite position. He liked grabbing onto Angela’s hair or squeezing her butt cheeks and imagining she was anyone he wanted her to be. For a while, he imagined she was Felicia, the stripper from Legz Diamond’s. That worked great, especially when he had his eyes closed. Then he heard something off to his right. He looked over and saw in the shadow near the door some guy in a wheelchair with what looked like an armful of towels.
“What the hell?” Max said.
“Jeez, I’m sorry, Mister,” the guy said. “I’m really, really sorry…”
Jesus Christ, the guy wasn’t just crippled, he sounded retarded, too.
Max told him to get the fuck out of the room and the guy started babbling about how he had to replace the towels and the soap and some other bullshit.
Max yelled, “Get out, you fucking moron!” and that got rid of him.
Max wanted to call downstairs and get that jerk fired but Angela said, “Oh, give him a break. He’s handicapped.”
“So?” Max said. “He should still know better.”
“He’s gone now. I’m sure he’s not going to say anything. He’s probably scared out of his wits.”
“Eh, I guess you’re right,” Max said and let himself fall back onto the bed. “Where were we?”
Angela turned around. Max grabbed onto her shoulders and squeezed hard, picturing Felicia.
Fourteen
Fear much trouble in the fuselage, Frederick.
THE ODD COUPLE
“It’s herpes all right,” Dr. Alan Flemming said to Max the next morning. “Simplex Two.”
Dr. Flemming was Max’s General Practitioner and they were in Flemming’s Park Avenue office. Although Dr. Flemming was probably only a few years older than Max, Max hoped he didn’t look that bad. Flemming had white hair, a hunched-over posture and a thin, wrinkled face. As Max had heard Angela once say about her Irish grandfather, his wrinkles had wrinkles.
This morning, Max had made an emergency appointment with Flemming when he woke up and discovered that the blisters on his penis seemed to have grown larger.
“You’re sure it’s herpes?” Max said. “I mean don’t you have to wait for the lab results before you can tell?”
“Of course I’ll need to confirm it with a Pap smear,” Flemming said, “but I’m ninety-nine percent certain of the diagnosis. But there’s no reason to panic – herpes isn’t exactly a life-threatening virus. All you have to do is keep the lesions dry and apply some alcohol or witch hazel. You also might want to wear loose clothes. If you wear jockeys, you might want to consider a switch over to boxers. It also might be a good idea to blow dry your genitals from now on rather than toweling dry. But whatever you do, don’t feel like you’re a bad person or something’s wrong with you because you contracted this. You can rest assured – millions of people in the world are going through the same thing that you are and it’s really not as bad as many people think. I’ve had patients who’ve gone for months, hell, years even, without experiencing any symptoms whatsoever. The outbreaks will usually only occur when you’re under a high level of stress or anxiety. With the tragedy involving your wife and niece, I’m not at all surprised to see you having an outbreak now. By the way, have you… been with anyone recently?”
“What do you mean?”
He knew exactly what he meant but he knew he couldn’t let on.
“The only reason I’m asking,” Flemming said, smiling assuredly, “is that herpes, in almost all cases, is a sexually transmitted virus. In all likelihood, you contracted it from someone and if you did it might be a good idea to warn that person.”
“Maybe my wife had it,” Max said. “I mean maybe she had it, but didn’t tell me.”
“Well, the only way she could’ve gotten it would be if she had – well, I don’t think that’s really important now anyway. After I h
ave Christine do a Pap smear – and we’ll also do some blood work – I’m going to put you on a medication to help suppress the virus and a painkiller for your itching and discomfort. Within a few days you’ll be as good as new.”
Max doubted that, doubted it a whole lot.
Flemming picked up his clipboard and started to leave the examination room. At the door, he turned back, smiled and said, “By the way, just as a precautionary measure, if you’ve been having unprotected sex you might want to think about an HIV test.”
“HIV?” Max could barely move his lips to say it, frightened to fucking hell. “Why? You think I have-”
“No, no, I’m not suggesting that at all. I’m just saying it’s best to err on the side of caution. Many people who have herpes also tend to be HIV-positive. That isn’t to say that you’re likely to be HIV-positive. But, given that you have already contracted one sexually transmitted disease, it might be a good idea to check for others.”
“Yeah well, I think I’d like to hold off on an AIDS test,” Max said.
“Are you sure?” Dr. Flemming said. “The sooner you know-”
“I’m not taking the goddamn test.”
Later, riding in a cab to his office, Max could barely breathe. There was no way in hell he was ever going to take an AIDS test. It scared him enough to have to call for his blood work from his cardiologist – he couldn’t imagine making a phone call to find out if he’d been sentenced to death.
Max had heard somewhere that the first sign of AIDS is sometimes lumps on the lymph nodes. Max wasn’t sure where the lymph nodes were, but he thought they were somewhere on his throat. Feeling around, he was convinced that he had lumps.
He screamed silently, Fucking lumps!
When he arrived at his office he hadn’t calmed down much. He marched past the receptionist’s desk toward Angela and said loud enough for everyone nearby to hear, “Excuse me, could you come into my office with me, please? I need to dictate a letter.”
