Six Bad Things_ A Novel - Charlie Huston [120]
It’s dark outside. I’ve left only one light on and moved the coffee table over the bloodstain where Tim’s body was. Dylan stands in the open doorway, looking at me. He licks his lips and points back outside.
—I have someone with me, Hank.
Liar.
I nod.
He takes a step into the apartment.
—Anyway, I know it’s not necessary to tell you that, I’m just making a point.
He closes the door. I wave him into the living room. He’s nervous about coming farther inside. But he’s greedy, so he does.
—Well, Hank. You look a little worse for wear.
I nod. He nods back.
—So. Shall we?
I point at the cardboard box next to Tim’s stereo. He walks over to the box and opens it and sees the big chunks of Styrofoam inside. I pull the Anaconda from between the sofa cushions and point it at him.
Dylan raises a finger as if to make a final point.
—Your parents, Hank, think of your parents.
I do.
I love you, Mom and Dad.
And I prove it.
DAVID DOLOKHOV’S dangerous man comes out of the bathroom and takes the gun from me and tosses it on Dylan’s body. He takes my arm and leads me to the door and down the stairs and up the block to a silver Lexus. I get in the front passenger seat. The dangerous man nods at David Dolokhov, who sits in the driver’s seat, and then walks away. Dolokhov starts the car and drives down the street.
—My daughter wants a nose job. She is sixteen and she wants a nose job. Why? There is nothing wrong with her nose. She has my nose. Is there anything wrong with my nose?
I look at his flat and crooked nose, and shake my head. He smiles.
—Of course there is not. For me, this is a perfect nose. But for my daughter? She has a point. And I love her. So for Christmas, I will get her the best nose money can buy.
He stops at an intersection, looks both ways, and turns left.
—I tell you this to warn you, Henry. Because the truth is, the man who will work on you? The man who will change your face? I would not let this man near my daughter’s nose.
THE NEXT day Miami gets pummeled by Oakland. The final score is too embarrassing to believe. But in the late game, I get to watch Detroit run back the first kickoff of sudden-death overtime for a game-winning TD over the Jets. And that’s fun. So next week the Dolphins and the Jets will square off in a winner-takes-all game for the division.
The motel is in Henderson, I think. The room is big. It has to be for the pieces of rented hospital equipment to fit. The doctor comes and looks at my face and says we should wait until the burns heal, but Dolokhov says we need to hurry. So the doctor gives me something to make me sleep.
I sleep.
EPILOGUE
DECEMBER 25, 2003
Final Day of the
Regular Season
It’s Christmas Sunday.
I am not home.
The doctor stops by to look at my bandaged face. He nods a few times and makes a joke about not being able to unwrap me yet, and then he leaves.
My face feels swollen and hot, but I have a button in one hand that I can push when the pain is too much. I push it quite a bit. In my other hand, I have the remote control for the TV. I use it to see things. I have been seeing things all week.
I see a computer graphic, a map with the faces of dead people, and a series of lines tracing their deaths to me.
I see my friends in Mexico. Pedro on his front porch, shaking his head and denying that he ever knew me. He looks OK and I’m happy to see that, but it also makes me sad because it reminds me that I will never swim again in the Caribbean and have to sit on my porch afterward with cigarettes in my ears. And, behind Pedro, I think I see one of his children in the background playing with a cat. And that makes me smile. It hurts to smile, so I stop.
I see Leslie and Cassidy being interviewed, and someone asking Cassidy if she was scared of me, and her saying that