fucking minutes. Sixteen. Seventeen . . . you want I keep this hourglass bullcrap up?”
Butch shook his head and went back over to the Pit’s sofa. Sitting his ass down, he went to take a drink from his glass of Lag and was surprised to find the thing empty. Instead of refilling it, he put the sturdy cylinder of crystal on the coffee table.
“So I met an old friend tonight.”
V leaned out around the forest of his monitors, one black slash of an eyebrow lifting, his diamond eyes sparkling. “What’s her name.”
“I didn’t say it was a woman.”
“You don’t have to. That guilty tone is a driver’s license with a picture.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Wasn’t it?”
Butch shot up to his feet and went to the door to the outside. Then he turned around and walked back to the rack. And back to the sofa.
Fucking sunlight.
“Look, cop,” V said as he pushed away from his keyboards. “I was just pulling your leg. You would castrate yourself before being with another female. But what’s the deal?”
“She was a friend of Janie’s.”
“Jesus . . .” V crossed his arms over his chest and kicked out thick-socked feet, using one of his subwoofers as an ottoman. “Why didn’t you say?”
“I’m talking about it now, aren’t I.”
V nodded down the hall. “You tell Marissa?”
“No, but it’s not a thing.” When Vishous just stared across the sitting area, Butch wanted to throw something. Like maybe the Foosball table. “I’m serious. It isn’t.”
“Sure it’s not. Absolutely not. You wanna talk about the weather? What Fritz is serving for First Meal, maybe?”
Butch put his hands up to his hair and grabbed onto the shit. “Her name was Mel. I haven’t seen her for like . . . I mean, twenty years? Maybe longer.” He pictured the bustier he’d helped remove. “She turned out different than I thought she would. She and Janie were supposed to be married by now, like my sister Joyce. Couple kids. Husband who works at a job that pays enough so they can stay home.”
“So what happened to her?”
“Not any of that. Not by a long shot—she, ah, yeah, she moved to Caldwell. She used to be a model down in NYC. She collects clothes, just like I do.”
“Used to be a model and moved out of Manhattan? She’s an escort—”
“I didn’t fucking say that,” Butch snapped.
“Don’t have to.”
Butch rubbed his eyes and reflected that his roommate’s penchant for piercing insight was really fucking annoying sometimes.
“Did she ask you if you wanted to pay her something?” V said. “And did you say no, but even as your mouth formed the answer, your brain went in a different, more naked direction? One that, even though you would never, ever pursue it in real life, made you feel bad for the mere thought?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I have that solace at least. She took a bath in front of me, as a matter of fact. As beautiful as she was, I didn’t feel a thing below the waist, and that’s the God’s honest.”
“Well. Look at you being all choirboy and shit. I’m honestly not surprised, true? And listen, you’re referring to her in the past tense. Just thought I’d point that out to your overactive conscience.”
Butch just shrugged. “I’d first run into her a few nights ago, see. Randomly, downtown. She was on her way to a club, I was coming out of the garage after I parked the R8. And last evening, after you and I talked? She was there on the street when I came out. She’d been . . . hurt. Bad. By a man.”
“Shit. Did you send her into the human system?”
“She refused to go.” Butch picked up his glass and took a sip from the empty, proof positive that addictions were part biochemical, part muscle memory from habit. “I took her to her home. You know, to make sure she got there.”
As images of all those cuts and bruises played through his mind, he winced. “I’m sure she’s fine.”
“You’re not sure, at all.”
As wild, paranoid conclusions jumped around his skull, Butch threw them all out, one by one. Or tried to. “I think I’m just exhausted.”
“Nah, come on, you look like you’ve been on a tropical vacation for a month. If you glowed from health any more than you do right now, you’d be a fucking night-light.”
Butch let that dig go.
“I’m not seeing her again.” He cleared his throat. “I’m just going to forget about her. Besides, she promised she wouldn’t