Sick City

by Tony O'Neill

“Pat . . . I . . .”

  Trina’s mouth hung open for a moment. She was staring right past Pat now. Pat turned to follow her gaze. A car was pulling up in front of Tyler’s apartment. “Shit!” Pat hissed. “Get down!” Trina hunched down, and Pat slid his ass to the very edge of the driver’s seat so that only his eyes were peering over the steering wheel. He watched as Jeffrey got out of the car and slammed the door behind him.

  “Can you see that motherfucker?” Pat hissed. “Who is he?”

  “Oh, shit,” Trina said, “that’s Jeffrey. He’s one of Tyler’s friends. Fuck!”

  “He’s a junkie?”

  “Yeah. He just got out of rehab. I guess he came back for his bag. . . .”

  “What bag?”

  “He left his shit with Tyler when he checked in. Tyler said he left a bag of dope, valuables, all of his shit there.”

  Trina sensed Pat’s body coiling tighter, a cobra about to strike.

  “He was supposed to pick it up last night. That’s why I didn’t say anything, Daddy!”

  They watched as Jeffrey rang the bell. Getting no answer, he pushed the door softly. Then he walked inside, leaving the door ajar.

  · · ·

  Trina watched from the corner of her eye as Pat put his hand to his motorcycle boot, feeling for the handle of the blade. She kept her goddamned mouth shut this time.

  “One Mississippi . . . ,” Pat was breathing, “two Mississippi . . .”

  As soon as the door had opened, Jeffrey knew that something was wrong. He stepped into the living room and almost slipped in the not-yet-congealed pool of blood that had spread out over the hardwood floor. He saw the body, lying there, duct-taped to the chair. He didn’t even check if Tyler was still alive. There was so much blood. He was covered, fucking drenched in blood. His eyes were open, turned up toward the ceiling. Jeffrey choked back a yelp. He turned away quickly, before the image could be etched onto his psyche too deeply. He looked at his feet, but when he did he became aware of how much blood was on the floor. He fixed his eyes on the bedroom door and tiptoed toward it.

  Inside, he saw the safe, yawning open, obscene and empty. The entire room had been turned over. Drawers hung open, clothes lay in piles on the floor. He looked up to the ceiling, toward the entrance to the crawlspace. It was still closed. He stood on the bed, leaving bloody footprints on the duvet. He reached up to the crawlspace entrance and pushed it aside. He put his hand there and felt around, thinking for one heart-stopping moment that the bag was also gone, before he touched the strap and pulled it down on top of himself. He found himself momentarily confused as he stared at a picture of Eddie Murphy in a space suit. Then he remembered Tyler’s spiel about how this tote bag would be valuable one day. The memory sent Jeffrey’s stomach lurching again. Tyler was dead. He was dead, right here, lying in the next room.

  He felt the weight of the bag’s contents and stepped down to the floor again. He didn’t hear the front door creaking slightly as he peeked inside of it. Everything was there. The film canisters. The Ziploc baggies, stuffed with drugs. The handgun. He reached in and rested his hand upon the weapon.

  “Don’t fucking move,” said a voice from behind him. “Don’t fucking breathe. Listen to everything I say, or there’s gonna be two dead motherfuckers in this house.”

  Jeffrey felt his guts turn to ice. He had the cool, heavy gun in his grip.

  “When I say so,” the voice said, “you’re gonna turn around slowly, with the bag in your hand. Okay? Then you’re going to throw the bag over to me. Do you understand? Say YES if you understand.”

  Jeffrey tried to say yes, but it came out as a dry croak.

  “Pick up the bag.”

  Jeffrey slid his right hand with the gun still in it through the strap. He lifted the bag up, with the gun pointing forward.

  “Now turn around, slowly.”

  Jeffrey did as he was told. He had never pointed a gun at another human being before. He knew that the thing was loaded, because Bill never kept an unloaded gun in the house. But he did not know if the safety catch was on, or if it was, how to take it off. He knew that the gun’s only real use was as a prop to intimidate the voice that was behind him. When Jeffrey rotated 180 degrees, he found himself staring at an unfamiliar figure.

  The man was tall. Very fucking tall. He was dressed in grease-stained Levi’s and scuffed motorcycle boots. His torso was muscular, with not an inch of fat on it. He wore a wifebeater that exposed a lot of that sinewy frame, and flapping open around his shoulders a gaudy Hawaiian-print shirt. There was a gold pendant around the neck, encrusted with jewels. The face was stony and emotionless, and there was no mistaking the lack of humanity in the eyes. They burned straight into Jeffrey. They were the eyes of death. In his right fist was a six-inch bowie knife, the blade curved upward slightly at the tip, and the backside of the blade had vicious-looking serrated teeth. Jeffrey’s mind flashed to the bloody remains of his friend, out in the living room. Barely breathing, he stood there, dangling the bag from his right hand, keeping the handgun pointed at Pat.

  There was no movement for a moment, as each man took in the other. Jeffrey waited for Pat to say something, but he did not. Pat seemed unperturbed by the grinning visage of Eddie Murphy looking at him. The eyes registered the gun—pointing straight at his chest—with barely a flicker.

  “I want the knife,” Jeffrey said.

  Pat did not move. Jeffrey raised his voice a little and said, “Drop the fucking knife.”

  Pat extended his hand and held the knife between his thumb and forefinger, the blade pointing straight down. Every movement was painfully slow, as if he were still toying with Jeffrey despite the fact that there was a gun pointing at him. Jeffrey tried to control the twitches and shivers that threatened to tear through him. Pat tossed the knife, and it clattered against the wood floor. It spun around, finally coming to rest between the two of them.

  “Now back away. Slowly,” Jeffrey said.

  He watched as Pat started to walk backward, glaring at Jeffrey the whole time.

  “If I was you, I wouldn’t do anything . . . stupid,” Pat said.

  “If I was YOU,” Jeffrey hissed, “I’d shut the fuck up in case I got myself shot.”

  Jeffrey walked toward Pat, keeping the gun on him. When he was standing next to the knife, he bent his knees slightly and picked up the knife slowly. He straightened up again.

  “I’m going to back out of the apartment now. If I see you trying to follow me, then I’m gonna kill you. Now keep your ass put.”

  With that, he walked slowly out of the bedroom. He kept his eyes on Pat, who was as silent and still as a statue. Pat tilted his head slightly and followed Jeffrey’s gaze out of the room like a hawk watching a mouse. Walking backward out into the living room, Jeffrey felt himself almost slip again on the blood. It was congealing, he could feel the soles of his feet sticking to the floor. He briefly considered shooting Pat just to be sure, but he knew that if the gun didn’t go off on the first attempt he would be dead before he could figure out how to get the weapon to work.

  · · ·

  When he was across the room and Pat was in danger of disappearing from his line of vision, Jeffrey made a break for it. He slammed the front door shut and sprinted across the sidewalk. He wrenched open the car door, tossed the bag inside, and took off with a squeal of tires.

  Trina watched, dumbfounded, as a gun-toting Jeffrey made his escape. When Pat didn’t come racing out of the house, she thought for a brief, mad moment that Jeffrey had hurt him. As she thought this, Pat burst out of the building and jumped into the driver’s seat.

  “What HAPPENED?”

  “Shut the fuck up!” Pat hissed. “Where did he go?”

  Trina pointed dumbly to the corner where Jeffrey had made a left moments ago and disappeared from view. With a squeal of tires, they took off. Gripping the wheel with white knuckles, Pat made a vain attempt at catching up with Jeffrey. Trina, hysterical, kept demanding to know what was going on. At t
he corner, Pat made a left and sped down the block before reaching another intersection. There was no sign of Jeffrey. Trina was still whining, and talking, and demanding to know what was happening. When he could take it no more, Pat locked his arms straight ahead to absorb the impact and slammed on the brakes as hard as he could. The car screeched to a halt, and Trina smashed face-first into the dashboard. She hit it with a sickening crunch and bounced back again into her seat.

  “Jesus fuck! Jesus fucking shit fuck!” Pat was screaming.

  Trina was holding her nose. The backs of her hands were slick with her blood. The shock of the impact made her mute for a moment.

  “He’s GONE. He’s fucking GONE!” Pat hissed.

  “I dink I boke my dose,” Trina said.

  “Shut up! I lost the bastard! Shit!”

  Pat stuck the car into Drive again, and they took off. Trina started to sob as she felt the blood seeping between her fingers. The pain in her nose was almost unbearable. It felt as though she had hot needles inserted between her skull and her flesh. Her vision blurred, went gray. Pat looked at her, cursed, and then back at the road again.

  “Now we got a problem,” Pat muttered. “Now we got a real fuckin’ problem. Fuck!”

  ——————

  In some faceless Hollywood bar full of yuppie scum, tourists, and dental assistants from the Valley, Jeffrey raised the glass to his mouth. He drained it. His hand was still shaking. Jesus Christ. He clutched the Pluto Nash bag tight to his chest. Feeling its weight against him comforted him a little. The bourbon burned at his guts, and nausea tore through him. He held it in. A woman laughed unexpectedly behind him, and he jumped as if he had heard a shotgun’s blast. He took the bag into the bathroom and locked himself in the stall. He opened up the envelope full of heroin. He stuck his key in it and allowed himself a generous blast in each nostril. He sat with his head against the cool tiles, waiting until he felt the heroin come on, taking the edge off of the terror that burned inside of him. He started to feel anxious indoors, so he walked out into the streets again, holding the bag with trembling hands. Warmed over inside from the dope, he wandered Hollywood Boulevard, like a shell-shocked ghost. He needed to be surrounded by people. Anonymous, dull, unthreatening people. He found himself smiling at them. Smiling at the fat tourists who thronged around Mann’s Chinese Theatre. Smiling at the street people, and the buskers, and kids out on dates. He did this for an hour, just walking, and smiling that lobotomized smile, and holding the bag to his chest like it was his own child. And then the shaking started, an uncontrollable shaking that wracked his entire body, and he walked as quickly as he could down a darkened side street. The whiskey vomit came, a violent purging. He vomited, and vomited, and when there was nothing left, he retched hopelessly while supporting himself against a skinny palm tree. When he was done the tears were streaming down his face, and he felt lightheaded and euphoric.

  Oh God, oh God, he thought. That is what Sharon Tate must have looked like when Bill saw her. Smeared bloody crimson. The smell of copper and death and fear. Ripped apart, gutted like a fucking animal. This fucking film is cursed, he thought, jinxed. I killed Tyler. He fucking died because of me. I should have left this fucking thing in Bill’s safe. Walked away and never come back. Oh Jesus fucking Christ.

  He knew that there was only one thing to do. He had to go get as high as possible.

  ——————

  When they finally pulled into the motel Trina asked in a little-girl voice, “Are we dill goi-g do Dan Fra-disco?”

  Pat glared at her.

  “No. Now we got something I have to take care of. . . .”

  “We deed to get out of down, man! We can’t day around here. . . .”

  · · ·

  The blood was everywhere. It was all over her shirt, her hands, and her face. Goddamnit to hell. Pat shook his head.

  “Where does this faggot live?”

  “I dunno. Uh, shit, I don’t know. He’s dust a dunkie. He scores from Dyler. I don’t know much aboud him.” Trina was crying.

  “He saw my face. He pointed a gun right at me. He took my knife. He’s dead fucking meat.”

  Pat rolled the car into the parking lot. He killed the engine. He said, with something approximating tenderness in his voice, “Let me look at you.”

  In the gloom of the car, he removed her hands from her face. The nose was swollen grotesquely and was now pointing to the left.

  “Iz id bad?” Trina asked in a whisper.

  “No, baby. It’s gonna be fine.”

  “Do I need do see a doc-dor?”

  Pat shook his head. “No doctors. I can take care of this.”

  Trina’s guts turned to ice, but she retained a cool composure.

  “Am I dill pri-ddy?” she asked.

  “Sure, baby doll. You’re a knockout. Now let’s get the fuck inside and figure out what the hell we’re gonna do.”

  The Indian behind the reception desk watched them as they walked in. He picked his nose and turned his attention back to the TV before any trouble started.

  · · ·

  In their room at the Motor Home Lodge with the TV on, the money and drugs spread across the floor, and the blinds drawn, Pat removed the ice pack from Trina’s ruined nose. Trina was crying a little now because Pat was still insisting that he could fix the nose himself. “I just gotta crack it back into place,” he was saying. “You won’t even feel it until it’s done. You wannit to set like that?”

  “I wand some more heroin,” she said, “I need more. I can dill feel id.”

  “I don’t want you going over on me. You’ve taken a lot already. Let’s just get this shit over with, baby girl. Watch the TV. Concentrate on the TV.”

  “Pad?”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry for be-ig a bidch. I dow you dow bess. I was dust scared.”

  Pat nodded. On the TV was a black-and-white image of a 1980s porn star being sodomized. The top of the screen was distorted, like they were watching an old VHS copy of the movie. Pat straddled her, and with his weight on her chest she started to sink back into the mattress, the effects of the heroin cutting through even her terror, and she looked at the screen and tried not to think of what was coming next. She tried to find the part of her brain where the heroin was and focus on it. Focus on that warmth radiating out from there, focus on that and block out the feeling of Pat’s thick, scarred fingers getting into position on either side of her nose. On-screen the woman’s breasts were bouncing toward the camera, like pendulums counting down the seconds until the agony. Oh, Christ, just do it already. . . .

  · · ·

  When the nose snapped, Trina’s howl shattered the silence of the motel. In the room next door, a fat man in a greasy undershirt froze for a moment when he heard Trina’s scream. Then he shrugged, turned his TV up, and pulled a beer from the fridge. On TV they were showing a Cops marathon. Perching on the edge of his bed, he looked at the screen and his face went slack.

  PART TWO

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Randal sleepwalked through his final two weeks at Clean and Serene before he checked out into the waiting arms of his brother. During the graduation ceremony, as he and twelve others received a fake gold coin with a Dr. Mike mantra stamped onto it—“It’s as easy as simply saying NO”—Randal watched the doctor sitting at the back of the room, checking his watch and looking anxious to be elsewhere. Over the past week the doctor’s involvement in the running of the place had become almost nil. Randal wondered if he weren’t hard at work on another piece of shit TV series. He gave Johnny D a hug, and slapped the palms of several red-cheeked, track-marked guys whom he had become friendly with.

  “Good luck, baby.” Johnny D grinned. “Be good. And if you can’t be good, be safe. . . .”

  “Hey, Harvey,” Randal said as he slumped into the passenger seat of Harvey’s Lexus, idling outside of the facility, “what’s up?”

  “What’s up?” Harvey crackled. “My
little brother was on fucking VH1, that’s what’s up!”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Detoxing America, bro! I saw you, wolfing down those goddamned tacos, hanging out with the dude from the Nosebleeds. . . .”

  “Aw, come on, man. They didn’t show me, did they? That’s the last fucking thing I need.”

  “Well, they blurred your face, but I’d recognize that skinny fucking ass anywhere. I TiVo’d it for you, man. You can check it out yourself. You look good, bro! You’ve put on weight.”

  “Great,” Randal said, staring out the window, “that’s just great. I smoke a little ice and you’re disgusted with me. I end up on fucking reality TV and you’re acting like I just won the lottery or something. Your value system is really fucked up, man.”

  Randal stared at his brother like a sullen child for a moment, and then cracked a smile. Harvey started laughing and gave his kid brother a playful slap as the car took off. “Keep it up, shitpants,” Harvey grinned, “and I’ll send your wise ass to Dr. Phil. . . .”

  As soon as he was settled into his room at Harvey’s Spanish-style villa in Brentwood, Randal started trying to get hold of Jeffrey. Only tracking down Jeffrey was harder than Randal expected. He initially answered his phone the first day that Randal called.

  “Hey, man. Yeah, look; this is kind of a bad time. Huh? I’m in the Mark Twain. It’s a hotel on Wilcox and Hollywood. I’m staying here. Really, though, it’s not a good time. Huh? Room? 317. There’s no phone here anyway. You can’t call me here. Just call the cell. I’ll call you, bro. I’ll call you. . . .” Then the line went dead. After that, Randal couldn’t manage to get Jeffrey to pick up again. Something in Jeffrey’s voice alarmed Randal. He sounded hoarse and frail, altogether different from how he had seemed inside of the facility. Randal immediately assumed that Jeffrey was using drugs again. Maybe he was ashamed and trying to hide it from him. But that didn’t make sense either. Randal couldn’t give two shits whether Jeffrey was getting high or not, but he sure as hell did care about the business proposition they had discussed inside.