The Informers - Bret Easton Ellis [80]
I wake up because someone is banging on the door. It’s late and the sun is high and coming through the window, hitting me full in the face, and I get up and look around and don’t see Peter or Mary anywhere and I get up thinking maybe it’s them at the door and I walk over and open it up, tired, groggy, and it’s a young tan guy with blond hair, blow-dried, in pretty good shape, a tank top, boat shoes, baggy shorts, Vuarnets, and he’s standing there looking at me like he’s all the things I want.
“What do you want, man?” I ask.
“I’m looking for someone,” he says, adding “man.”
“Someone’s not here,” I say, about to close the door. “I don’t care anymore.”
“Dude,” the guy says.
“I just want you to go away,” I say.
The guy pushes his hand against the door and walks past me.
“Oh, man,” I say. “What the fuck do you want?”
“Where’s Peter?” he asks me. “I’m looking for Peter.”
“He’s
not here.”
The guy looks around the apartment, checking everything out. He finally leans against the back of the couch and after looking me over asks, “What in the fuck are you looking at?”
“I’m not even too mad,” I say. “I’m just really tired. I just want everything to be over because I can’t deal with it anymore.”
“Just tell me where the fuck Peter is,” the dude asks.
“How the fuck should I know?”
“Well, dude”—he laughs—“you better find out.” He looks at me and says, “You know why?”
“No. Why?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“Yeah, I just said I wanna know why,” I say. “Come on, man, don’t be a prick. It’s been a harsh week. We can be friends if—”
“I’ll tell you why.” He stops and dramatically, in a low voice I’ve become accustomed to, says, “Because he is in deep”—he stops, then—“deep”—and another pause, then—“deep shit.”
“Is that right? Yeah?” I ask casually.
“Yeah, that’s right,” the tan guy says. “Señor.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll tell him you showed up and all.” I open the door for this guy and he moves near it. “And I’m not a Mexican.”
“It’s a simple message,” the guy says. “I’ll be back and if Peter doesn’t have it you are all dead.” He stares at me for a long time, this guy, eighteen, nineteen, thick lips and blank handsome features that are so indistinct I will not be able to remember them, give Peter any particular characteristics, in five minutes.
“Yeah?” I gulp, closing the door. “What are you gonna do? Tan us to death?”
He smiles in a sweet way as the door slams shut.
I stay home from the car wash waiting for Peter or Mary to show up and I don’t even know if they are going to show up and I’m not even sure what “it” is, what the surfer was talking about, and I just sit on a couch staring out of a window onto a street not looking at anything. I cannot even think about how Peter came and fucked everything up, because everything was fucked up to begin with and if Peter didn’t come this week it would have been the one after that or one next year and in the end it’s hard to think it makes a difference because you always knew this would happen and you just sit there staring out the window waiting for Peter and Mary to roll back in so you can surrender.
I tell them about the surfer who came over.
Peter walks around. “I think I’m gonna shit or something.”
Mary starts saying, “I told you I told you.”
“Get your shit together,” Peter tells us. “We’re getting out of here real fast.”
Mary is crying.
“I don’t have anything to bring with me,” I tell Peter. I watch him walking around nervously. Mary moves into the back room, flings herself onto the mattress, stuffs a hand into her mouth, gnaws on it.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Peter shouts.
“I’m getting my shit together,” she sobs, writhing on the mattress.
While she’s back there Peter comes up to me and reaches into his back pocket and hands me a switchblade and I ask, “What’s this for, dude?”
“The