Did it get any better? And he never took this city of exploding money and opportunity for granted.
Especially on a night like this, on the roof of The Standard Hotel.
The view—out to the pathetic shores of Jersey across the river, baby high-rises looking on like someone not invited to the party, then out to the gaggle of boats and private choppers whizzing by Lady Liberty as if she had become a nuisance, like the homeless population.
Whose numbers seemed to be rising rapidly. Popping up here and there like cockroaches in one’s home.
That needed to be addressed.
There were times when he spotted a well-meaning tourist from some bleeding heart EU country dig into their wallet and pull out money, and feed the grimy machine that was these raggedy people, with their plastic bags, their cans, their carts, their clothes that had to be a health risk.
And he wanted to go over to those tourists, grab them, shake them— and say do that back in your own country, goddamn Gothenburg, Tallinn, even Paris.
Though he guessed these days the lightbulb had finally gone off in their little heads, back in their sappy countries.
The flood of people—migrants!—coming in, hitting them so hard, the challenge of the unemployed and of the angry and the desperate who sure the hell didn’t look French or Swedish.
All saying...
Ding-dong... we’re here.
And we are not going anywhere.
Yeah. Sooner or later, they’ll all get it.
And more than once, he thought how fortunate for the US of A that it has a big fat ocean between its shores and all that crap.
America... a melting pot? Home of the free? Huddled masses horseshit?
Yeah. Riiiight.
These days, not so much.
We didn’t have Europe’s plague.
And with the smart money flowing into the mega-million condos, spreading even to Brooklyn, Queens, as if all that money and development simply could not be contained.
No way that golden situation would change, no matter what schmuck got elected mayor.
He drained his Stoli on ice. The summer night air cool.
When he saw a girl.
Well, no. Not a girl. A woman, dressed perfectly for this evening. Dark eyes.
He could easily assess the cost of all she wore, the quality.
But it was the person in those clothes...
... that held his interest.
He smiled.
And waited.
*
Now...
In the room, he had lain down on the floor. Not cold, but with that sweaty covering that stone floors got.
And he thought.... always good at solving problems.
Right?
Right!
So how the fucking hell to solve this?
He looked up at the window, now a dull grey smear. Sun behind clouds, or maybe it was late?
What time was it?
Not a clue.
So he closed his eyes.
*
The woman came over to him.
And while he expected that, he didn’t expect that look in her eyes, locked right on his. Bold, as if this particular game was one she had played before.
Interesting.
And the closer she came, the more he could take in other aspects. The skyscraper stilettos, the black, brilliant.
Could be knockoffs.
Or they could be authentic Christian Louboutins.
Hard to tell without a close examination.
Which of course was in his flight plan.
The eyes, lips... a beautiful woman, especially with jet-black hair pulled back, and up. As if causal. But anything but causal.
She held that look.
“Nice night,” she said.
Only then moving her eyes away to look at the glittering city. This city now made—in his mind—for people like them. A kingdom for, of, and by the wealthy, or those who could—one damn way or the other—make themselves wealthy.
In this city, mention the words “real estate,” and well you might as well be talking about gold, silver.
Uncle Scrooge’s vault with its sea of coins and jewels.
Real Estate.
So unreal.
One thing he could tell, about this woman—he had developed antennae for such things—she was no pro.
Those operators, even when well masked and well-heeled, he could sniff out from a block away.
No.
So he smiled back.
“I’d say... a perfect night.”
And he resisted the cheesy phrase that dangled in his mind like sucker bait... for a sucker fish.
Made only more perfect by your arrival.
Less is more.
In most cases.
Not all.
She nodded, smiled. Looked down at his glass of Stoli, the cut-crystal catching candle-light, cubes glistening.
She didn’t need to ask.
“Would you like one?”
Another nod. The smallest smile.
Those lips... quite something.
And it took “quite something” to genuinely catch his interest.
He waved over to one of the rooftop bartenders.
The $20 tip he gave him for the first round, doing its work. And the bartender ducked under the fold-down end of the bar and hurried over to take an order.
Because, well, in his world that’s just the way things worked.
Chapter Two
He woke up.
Back achy, room chilled, his clothes damp.
The room dark. Night now, no real light, though a hint of something from outside made the blackness less than total.
He pulled himself up to a sitting position.
And when he turned to the left, he saw something.
Hard to make out. But he could smell it, and well... it smelled like.
Steak?
Really?
He reached out and slid the plate close.
A steak. God. A ribeye, or a strip, on the bone. Cool to the touch. Must have been sitting there for a while.
No utensils. And the smallest of paper Dixie cups filled with water.
He took a bite. Another. He killed the water in a gulp.
Aware that he needed to take a leak.
But he continued to munch on the steak; not the best he ever had, but not bad. Down to the bone, juices running down his chin.
Until—meal finished—he pulled himself up to a sitting position, then stood up.
In the darkness.
And he had only one idea of what to do now.
*
Then, as if choreographed, he was in a cab with her.
One of those new cabs, with a thick Plexiglas shield to protect the driver from passengers while the driver chatted away a mile a minute to Kabul.
And she seemed to fit him perfectly when he leaned close, bending into him.
And rather amazingly, despite his years of experience—his decades of experiences—he was suddenly a teenager who could not get enough of this woman.
Neither of them giving a damn what the driver saw, what he thought.
Going to her place, she had offered.
Her place, his place.
That didn’t matter.
Not on a night like his.
Except, once, when he broke away from a crazed kiss, he looked out the window.
Thought she had said Lexington Avenue. Near the Grammercy?
But this... this was the Lower East Side. And no matter how trendy Alphabet City had become, still not a patch of the forest he ever ventured into.
Or wanted to.
He was about to say something.
Least, that’s what he thought he was going to do.
Sure, mouth open.
The garish lighting and signs of crappy stores and bodegas flashing by, a near blur, until—
They were a blur.
His eyes shut.
*
Until—so many hours later—when he open
ed his eyes, his world had become this room.
*
He yelled.
“Hey! Someone?”
Loud, then louder. “Anyone hear me? Anyone!”
His voice a scream, as loud as he could make it, his throat actually hurting from the force of the scream.
Aiming his yells at the tiny window as if his screams would make it come to life, smears vanish, pop open. and whatever nightmare this was…
(Wherever that woman had brought him to... however she had brought him here...)
... would end.
Dust himself off.
Quite the story to tell.
But the yelling went on.
*
And on—until he knew that his full-throated yells had turned into a croak. An old man’s voice, scratchy.
He wanted water.
The steak had been so salty.
A reminder of a world gone?
The tiny paper cup of water nothing to slake that thirst.
And though he couldn’t really see anything in this box of a room, he knew that he’d have to pick an area.
Where he would behave like any caged animal.
Doing what any caged animal has to do.
No choice at all.
He opened his mouth. Maybe to make one more croak.
When he simply shut his lips.
Yelling.
Some plan, a voice inside his head said.
Nice work.
Nice fucking work.
*
The smeary window had a glow.
Daytime.
And he saw—at the bottom of the metal door, near a mailbox-like chute that he had not been able to pry open—a round metal plate.
Like the one that had been filed with a steak.
Now... there were...
What were they?
Crumbs?
He licked his cracked lips.
No water.
He guessed, there would be no more water.
And despite his thirst, he licked at those crumbs, taking time to spear each one like it was some wonderful morsel.
In between stabs at the metal plate, he looked up at the door.
He yelled at it.
But now that voice, the big man-like roar he had been able to do before, was gone... for good.
He bleated at the door.
As if it might respond.
*
Day into night. Night into day. Eventually, somehow, the plate disappeared.
He cried, and wondered if his tears, if shedding that water, would make him even more thirsty, the pain of his thirst now way beyond the hunger pangs.
His cage, this room, fouled. But that horrible fact, visible when there was some light, didn’t matter at all now.
Nothing mattered at all now.
And when he next slept, he drifted in and out of a dream, imagining the hotel rooftop where this, whatever it was, began.
The woman.
She did this.
But why?
And in asking himself that question, he slowly came to a very clear realization. His world, his money, his business, his operations.. well, could be a lot of people who might have gotten a little hurt.
Okay—a lot hurt.
Little people who did not matter one goddamn bit.
Could she be connected to someone like that?
Is that why he was here?
He started thinking about that when awake, his throat a dusty drainpipe. Lips cracked leather.
The ancient question.
The ancient demand.
Why me?
Except in this case, here were a lot of answers to that one.
*
Night into Day. Day into Night.
Barely moving, curled up.
Until—
There was a chair. Close to one wall of his box. A simple wooden chair. His eyes level with his legs. Until he raised his eyes.
And hanging from a thick curved hook that hadn’t been there before, dangling from the ceiling...
A noose.
He looked at the two things as if they had nothing to do with him.
Almost... as if, they had been put here due to some mad, insane logic as well.
And even now, with the agony of being so dry that he thought he could feel parts of his body withering, completely overriding his stomach pain, the hunger no competition for the thirst...
A grim joke occurred.
Looking at the chair. The classic noose, dangling, unmoving.
The joke: What are you in for, buddy?
But a joke that produced no ripple of movement.
And good thing... because he was sure that would hurt.
He went back to the one thing he could do here.
Lie on the floor. Close his eyes.
Wait.
*
He opened one eye, the other eyelid firmly pressed against the stone floor.
The one eye trained on the chair, the noose...
Then—noting something.
On the chair. A note. Small. Something.
And he started to crawl, using his hands, his arms that somehow could still function, to drag himself across the floor.
He thought—for only a second—of what he must look like.
Why, like those people who popped up in the streets, with their signs scrawled on chunks of cardboard. Curled up humans—barely human—with their begging cups, and bags, and filthy clothes.
Yeah—just like that.
No different.
And then, after such a long time, he was at the chair. But the thing was.. to reach what now looked like a card, he’d have to reach up.
Raise his body somehow.
One hand that had been clenched into a fist as if that might make his slow crawl easier, unclenched.
He grabbed a wooden chair leg. Did the same with his other hand, his totally dehydrated body screaming at each small expenditure of effort.
Until he was up, eyes nearly level to the seat of the chair.
And he could see the card.
Read the words on it.
The Hanged Man.
And... his hanged man looked as if he had been caught, trussed like an animal for slaughter, feet higher than his head.
Caught. Like an animal.
He knew what this card was. Had heard of such cards.
Told fortunes. The future.
Ridiculous garbage.
But then—eyes level with that seat, he raised his head a bit.
The noose dangling.
The card... the future.
Always have a plan.
The way he lived, he knew that when he took advantage of other people’s losses, their greed, their misfortune ...
They didn’t have a plan.
But he had one now.
*
And then like the slowest moving slug, he pulled himself up, using the chair to steady his slithering climb.
Until he was on his knees, then somehow, could get a leg up, to step up to that seat.
And then—as if he had climbed Everest—he was standing on the chair.
His eyes on the noose.
His buddy in this stone cell.
For the millionth time he thought... who could have done this?
The answer to that: rather simply.
They were legion.
As to why?
Well, that question didn’t need an answer either. Not with so many possible answers.
In moments he might collapse, to die a terrible, slow death on the floor, feeling each agonizing moment,
Or...
He reached up.
Noticing that his hands, so helpful in getting him here, were black claw-like things. He even thought he saw a spot with teeth marks. Had he chewed an index finger during the night, so desperate for anything wet?
Anything to put in his dry mouth.
He took the noose, the rope so thick and secure. So reassuringly solid.
Then—around his neck.
&
nbsp; Feeling as if that’s the place it belonged.
The next step in his plan... well, not something he had ever done before. But he’d seen it in movies, to be sure.
Knew how it happened.
Though the experience of it... well, that would be all new.
For a last moment... the “who” and “why” questions floated in his mind.
To which his now obsessed brain said... course, you know why.
But.
But something happened.
*
A click.
The door.
The metal door. So solid and resolute in its mission to keep him here.
Popped open...
Just like that.
A click, then opening a foot, or two. Open to the outside. To whatever was outside.
Whatever was waiting outside this universe that was his room.
He stared at it for a moment.
At his feet, the fortune-telling card. The Hanged Man.
And looking at that open door one last time, he turned away.
He had already dismissed that world. The outside.
I have a plan, he thought. No tricks for me.
And he made his already wobbly legs shake forcing them to wobble even more... until the chair rocked a bit, not enough.
Then more, the two front legs rising up, and now his weight thrown back, causing the chair to rock the other way, until—like someone jumping away from a sinking ship—
The chair tumbled to the ground, a fallen soldier.
And his friend, the thick rope—tight, snug, secure—grabbed at his dust pipe of a throat.
And while he swung back and forth in these seconds, mouth opening, a fish mouth, gulping... he saw the great fireworks display in front of his eyes.
Until—
Like all fireworks displays—
The sparks and rockets and explosions all gave way to the stillness of darkness, the stillness of night.
The stillness of nothing.
14
death
lee lawless
Upright: End, mortality, destruction, corruption’
Reversed: Inertia, sleep, lethargy, petrifaction, somnambulism
It was the second time in a week that the Duyvil Kill Police Department had had to respond to a crisis call at the cemetery, so of course this time it looked like foul play was involved.
Never Fear - The Tarot: Do You Really Want To Know? Page 29