A little smirk creases Tom’s face.
—That’s right, asshole, better make some room.
I let them go past.
—How’s that perimeter, Tom?
They keep walking.
—Everything secure?
Walking.
—You pick up Terry’s dry cleaning while you were out?
He keeps walking, but throws me the bird over his shoulder.
Tom’s got it in for me about as bad as Predo does. Those guys ever came across me dying in the streets, they’d kill each other fighting over who got to sit closer to watch me go. Whatever, doesn’t change the fact that he’s a world class punk. And about as easy to get a rise out of as a thirteen-year-old’s prick. But I keep doing it anyway. Man’s gotta have hobbies.
Terry can social me this and security me that, but what it boils down to is he doesn’t want anyone to know I’m looking into this. Not even his own people. Especially not his own people. Fair enough. Terry wants this done quiet, he knows what that costs. He knows me digging around on Society turf without an explicit license from the council could get hairy. And he’ll pay for that. Slippery as he may be, Terry always comes across when the bill is due.
So me, I’m feeling pretty good about things. A gig that should take care of my rent and empty fridge at the same time? What’s not to feel good about? I even got a couple leads. I can go poke around Doc’s, see if anyone noticed if The Spaz had company that night, do a little sniffing around in that vicinity. Might turn something up. But I’ll save that for later. Right now I got another idea. Someone in this town’s figured out a new way to get high. And if getting high is involved, I know the man to talk to.
—Hey, Phil.
—Aw shit. Aw fuck.
He tries to duck off into the crowd. I hook the collar of his shirt and tug him back.
—I said, hey Phil.
He turns around, adjusting his collar, flipping it back up James Dean style.
—Oh, hey, Joe. Didn’t see ya there.
—Yeah, well, it’s dark in here, so I see how that might happen.
—Yeah, dark in here. Couldn’t see ya cuz of all the dark.
He smiles at me, lifts his drink to his mouth and tilts the glass just enough to wet his lips. He’ll drink like that all night. Has to, he’ll only buy the one drink. When no one’s looking he’ll snatch up any glasses left unattended and suck them dry before the owners can turn from the jukebox. But that one drink he paid for, he’ll nurse that all night. It’s like a badge of honor he can show a bartender or doorman if they question his right to be here. Hey, man, I paid for my drink and I got a right ta finish it. Only way he’ll toss that thing down is if someone offers to buy him another.
—Buy ya a drink, Phil.
He brings the glass up, vacuums the contents and nods.
—Yeah, that’d be great. I was about to offer, but sure, thanks.
A waitress bustles past and I lift my chin. She gives me a harried half smile, too busy right now to work the charm for a tip.
—What? What?
—Double bourbon, rocks. And…
I look at Phil. He glances at the bar, cataloging the bottles on the top shelf.
—Oban neat.
She starts to leave. Phil grabs her arm.
—And a water back.
She nods and starts to leave again, but he still has her arm.
—And no ice in the water.
—You don’t let go my arm I’m gonna piss in the glass.
He lets go of her arm.
—Jeez, what a bitch. What crawled up her cooz?
—You, Phil.
He giggles.
—Yeah, yeah. Sure like to, Joe. She’s a piece.
He brings up his glass again, tilts it, lowers it, and looks into it sadly, having forgotten already that he emptied it. He reaches between a couple sitting at the table next to us and sets the glass down. He looks at me.
—Sure could use a drink.
He’s trying to sad-puppy-eye me. Problem is his eyes are betraying him. The pupils are screwed up to the size of pinheads, the whites marbled red, his irises, usually muddy green to start with, are a sickly diarrhea shade, and I’d swear there’s sweat breaking out across the damn things.
—Jesus, Phil, what the fuck you on?
He bounces up and down on his toes, his enormous blond pompadour swaying.
—A bender.
—Of what?
—Uh, the usual, man.
His eyes scan the ceiling, searching for the contents of his bloodstream.
—Bennies, couple bumps of crank, little freebase.
The cocktail waitress appears with our drinks. She hands me my whiskey.
—Double bourbon, rocks.
And offers Phil his.
—Oban neat, water back, no ice.
Phil looks at the glasses.
—I didn’t order those, I ain’t paying for those.
I hand the waitress some cash.
—I got it, Phil.
He smiles and takes the glasses.
—Thanks, Joe. I was about to offer, but thanks.
The waitress takes off. Phil guzzles the water.
—Jeez, needed that.
He squeezes between the couple again to set the empty on their table.
—Well, see ya ’round.
He turns to go and I snag him again.
—What’s the hurry, I just got here?
—Sure, sure ya did, Joe, but I got a thing I got to get to.
—What’s that?
—A, you know, a thing.
—No problem, Phil. We’ll have a little talk, then you can go to your thing.
—Sure, sure. Um, hey, but I gotta hit the can first. Take a leak.
—Fine by me.
He just about sighs with relief. I put my hand on his shoulder.
—In fact, why don’t I go with you? We can talk in private. Long time since we had a private chat.
His free hand goes to his face, covering the crooked nose and the scarred cheek I gave him last time we had a private chat in a bathroom.
—Hey, no, that’s OK, I can hold it.
The couple at the table are collecting their coats.
—Here, we can sit here, let’s talk here, Joe.
—Sure.
We sit at the little table. I stare at him and he stares down into his expensive Scotch, turning the glass around and around with his fingertips.
—How many days you been on the bender?
He jumps.
—Uh, what? Oh, uh…
He starts counting on his fingers. Finds them inadequate to the task.
—Couple weeks maybe.
—Not too healthy.
He carefully weaves the fingers of his right hand into his pomp and scratches his scalp.
—Well, healthy, you know? I mean, healthy? Not really my MO.
I smile.
—Nah, guess not.
He draws his fingers clear of his hairdo and wipes greasy pomade on his tight black jeans.
—So?
—Yeah, Phil?
—So, ya got something to ask, Joe? Cuz if you’re just looking to break my chops or bounce me off the walls I, not that I’m looking forward to it or anything, but if that’s the plan, I kinda wish ya’d just get it over with cuz I really want ta get on with my evening and see if I can’t maybe score a little something to keep me going a little longer.
—Going for the record or something?
—No, no, just, you know me, just that I got my hands on this bag of bennies and I, you know, don’t have such great self-control so I kind of just did ’em ’til they were gone and by then I’d been up however long and I thought I’d keep the party going, but, jeez, I been up so long now, when I come down the crash is gonna be murder and I really don’t want to deal with it if I can, like, put it off.
—Sound reasoning.
—Yeah, that’s what I thought.
—Speaking of drugs, Phil, you hea
r of anything new?
—Anything new?
—Like a new product going around?
His ears literally prick up.
—New? Something new going ’round? Ya on to something new? What’s the deal? It like an up? There a new up out there, Joe?
—Settle down. This’ll be something for people like me only.
He screws up his eyes, trying to focus.
—People like you? Like what, like nonusers? Shit, man, I’m not into the light stuff. You know me.
I lean across the table.
—Focus for a second here, Phil. I’m asking if you’ve heard about a new drug out there.
I point my finger at my own chest.
—Something for people like me.
I point the finger at his chest.
—As opposed to people like you.
He concentrates, looking from my finger to me to his own chest, then back at me.
—Oh! Oh, shit! Oh, yeah! Oh, I get it.
He points his finger at me.
—Some shit for people like you.
He points at himself.
—But not for people like me.
He grins.
—I get it.
He wets his lips with Scotch and his eyes wander off.
I slap the table.
—And?
His eyes come back around.
—And? Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, I heard about that shit. The new deal, the shit the new kids are into. ’Course I heard about that shit, who ain’t? Shit, Joe, where ya been, under a fucking rock?
—Wish I could get my hands on it, whatever it is. Try some of that shit.
—It’d kill ya.
—Me? Naw. Never.
—It’s cutting through the Vyrus, Phil. It’d kill ya.
—Well, OK, sure, maybe, ya put it that way, maybe. But if anyone could hack it, it’d be me.
—’Spose it would.
We’re walking down A, leaving Niagara behind us. Phil wants to score and the place is dry.
I could just beat it out of him, give him a good one every time his mind starts to wander, but with the amount of speed he’s pumped into his system the past two weeks it could take a lot of slapping around. Not that I’m opposed to slapping Phil. Not that I’m opposed to beating the hell out of him for that matter. A worm like Philip, he was pretty much born to be slapped. Christ, he was any more of a Renfield he’d be stuffing his face with flies and cockroaches. God only knows how Phil ever found out about the Vyrus, probably by being somewhere he shouldn’t have been, but he’s been existing on the edge of the community for some years now. Really, it’s kind of a miracle none of us have killed him yet. Guy’s right hand’s been keeping secrets from his left for so long he doesn’t even know which is which at this point. But he won’t fuck around with me anymore, not after the last time. He used up his last Fuck-With-Joe-Pitt Coupon about a year ago. I made his face look different when he cashed it in. He tries to play me again and I’ll take it clean off. So we walk down to the Cherry Tavern.
The guy working the door takes one look at Phil and me and shakes his head.
—Uh-uh. We’re full up.
A couple teenage girls come giggling up. He glances at their fake IDs and waves them in.
He’s in his early twenties, his arms and chest pumped too big for his legs. He’s all high on working the door at this East Village meat market, enjoys being the man who decides which guys get in for a crack at all the underage pussy he lets in, and which do not. Me and Phil, we’re a little long in the tooth for this place. Me, I’m very long in the tooth for it, but I don’t look it, wearing my age as well as I do and all. Far as he’s concerned we’re a couple trolls who are gonna fuck up the ambience. I could do some things, I could grab his balls and give ’em a yank, I could bounce his skull off the door, I could just put a hand on his shoulder and squeeze until he gets the point. Instead I pull out a twenty.
He plucks it from my fingers.
—Happy hunting.
The Cherry has turned the corner about four or five times going from shit-hole to hot spot and back again as a new crop of NYU kids comes in each year. Right now it looks to be on the downward curve. It’s doing a brisk trade in binge-drinking hipsters, but they’re not fucking in the bathrooms. I drag Phil to the bar and order three of the specials: shot of house tequila with a Tecate back. We work our way through the hormones to the back of the bar where we find some open space and take a seat at the tabletop Ms. Pac-Man machine.
I put two of the specials in front of Phil.
—Drink up.
—Thanks, Joe. I was gonna buy, my round and all, but thanks.
He takes a sniff at one of the glasses. He pulls a face.
—Jeez, Joe, not the best stuff.
—Yeah, well you know the Cherry, not big on the fifteen-dollar Scotches.
—Yeah. Place is a dump.
He downs one of the shots and follows it with beer. I do the same.
—So talk to me, Phil.
His eyes are dancing over the tightly packed crowd, searching for anyone who might be holding. I snap my fingers in front of his face.
—The new shit. I’ve been under a rock, so tell me about it.
His eyes never leave the kids in their low-slung jeans, Pumas and hoodies, trying to spot the telltale hand clasps of drugs being passed off. But he talks.
—Yeah, the new shit, it’s like all the rage. Not, you know, thick on the ground or anything, but, like, the thing with the cutting edge crowd, the new kids are bringing it in.
—New fish found it?
—Yeah, that’s the vibe I’m getting. Like this isn’t the kind of thing the old farts, no offense, Joe, but not the kind of thing the old farts are into. That a monkey fist?
He’s pointing at a bulge about the size of an eight ball of coke in the tight pocket of a girl’s cords.
—Not my specialty.
—It is, it’s a monkey fist. That chick’s holding. Watch my beer, I got to go talk to that chick.
I grab his wrist before he can get up.
—Not yet.
—C’mon, man, I got to get in on this.
—Sit. Drink. Talk.
He watches her edge into the bathroom followed by a couple of her friends.
—Aw, man, gonna be nothing left.
I push the last shot of tequila in front of him.
—Drink.
He downs the shot.
—Anyway, not the kind of thing for the senior circuit is what I’m hearing. Taboo shit, scandalous and exotic. Frankly, shit piques my interest in the worst way.
—You see anyone do it?
—Naw, naw. All happening behind closed doors like Reefer Madness or something. Stories you hear, about these intimate rave kinda scenes with everyone hitting the new shit and freaking out and fucking wolves and bats and shit. You know, that kind of thing.
Right. Bat-fucking. That kind of thing.
—Where you get these stories? There aren’t enough new fish around for a scene like that.
The girl in the cords comes out of the bathroom, monkey fist significantly depleted. Phil rolls his eyes.
—Aw, man, aw shit. I knew it. Fuck.
—Where you getting these stories, Phil?
—I don’t know, around, you know, just, in the air. Shit like that, it’s just in the air.
—In the air and I haven’t heard about it? Terry Bird hasn’t heard about it?
He chugs beer, some of it overflows his mouth and runs down his chin. He wipes it with the back of his hand.
—In the air for people like me, man, people looking to score. You, Joe, you got a one track mind; you’re like this worker bee always trying to, like, you know, get what you need, always working a job. May as well be nine to five. And Bird, he’s like the establishment down here. May still be fighting the good fight with the Coalition, but far as the kids are concerned, he’s pretty much The Man himself. New fish aren’t looking to fight the power, they’re looking t
o maybe have a good time, enjoy life while it’s, you know, youngish. Think they’re gonna come above ground to chat it up with a guy like you?
He’s looking at me now, talking to me without watching the room. I stare at him. He snatches up his other beer, takes a drink, tilting his head back to break eye contact.
—Anyway, that’s, like, about it, I guess. All I got anyway.
—Uh-huh.
—Yeah, that’s it.
He drinks some more beer.
—That was quite a speech.
A little more.
—Where you get a speech like that, Phil? All them ideas?
He finishes the beer, shrugs.
—I dunno.
He points.
—Hey, hey, that look like—?
I cover his hand with mine.
—I said, Where’d you get a speech like that?
He tries to tug his hand free of mine, but I keep it pinned to the table.
—Speech? Jeez, Joe, that’s no speech, that just the speed rapping, just the old oral diarrhea. Just, like, whatever garbage rolling around my head getting cleared out by the speed. You know that.
I press down on his hand.
—Who you been talking to, Phil?
He clenches his teeth.
—Talkin’ to?
—Phil, I’m gonna crush your hand. You’ll never cut another line again. Who you been listening to?
He’s grabbed onto my wrist with his free hand, trying to pry himself loose.
—Um, yeah, well, yeah, I could have been list’ning to someone, to this guy.
—What guy?
—Guy goes by, The Count.
I lift my hand. He snatches his back and massages it.
—Jeezus, Joe, didn’t have to do that. Could have broke the damn thing. Ain’t ya had enough fun whalin’ on me over the years? Ain’t enough enough?
—Where do I find this guy?
—Got me. I mean, really, got me. The guy ain’t like no friend of mine or nothin’, he’s just a guy who’s around who I crossed paths with a couple times.
—Set something up for me.
—Aw c’mon. That could take all night. I got things of my own to deal with, I got a high to maintain here and you already got me off my schedule. As it is I don’t know how I’m gonna score, gonna have to rely on the kindness of strangers or something to get by, and now you want me to invest my few remaining energies in taking care of your business? That ain’t right, Joe, you know that ain’t right.
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