“We just went to the pet store on Melrose. You’d be amazed what you can get for—”
“No, the overdose, Mitch. The overdose.”
Mitch rubbed his eyes. He looked ragged, spent. “Joey’s mom died,” he sighed. “Stage-four cancer. He hadn’t told anyone about it. That’s what caused his relapse, I think. I’m also pretty sure that’s why he’s been so… unlike himself recently. He took it really bad. He worshipped her, y’know—probably ’cause his dad was never around. But she was a piece of work, if you ask me. Remember that story he told Ed Rossitto about sitting under the piano while she played? Well, she never let him under the piano, it turns out. She’d lock Joey and his brother in their room when she practiced. The only time Joey got under that thing was when he broke out and she wasn’t looking. He fell asleep, apparently. Convinced himself she was playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto no. 21 in C major as a way of expressing her love. Tragic. He woke up screaming when he felt the boiling water on his legs. Poor kid. He still has the scars to this day. I think that’s why he can be so critical of people, y’know. He just does to them what she did to him.”
I honestly thought I might cry. The way Joey had told the piano story to Ed… he must have so badly wanted it to be true. “How could a mother do that?” I said.
“I’ve no idea—I think I’d be shoving pills down my neck, too, if I’d had that kind of upbringing.”
“But where did he get the drugs? Did he call a dealer?”
“God, no. When Joey’s using, he improvises. I caught him smoking the oregano off a frozen pizza once. So when he got the news about his mom, he just downed whatever was closest to hand, which happened to be a jar of maximum-strength aspirin. Thank God for Mu. She came home a few minutes later. Somehow got him into the Range Rover and drove him here. Then they gave him the pump and the gastric decontamination. Now he’s on charcoal tablets.”
“Charcoal?”
“Soaks up the drugs. No one knows about this, by the way, and I’m hoping to keep it that way. It might not matter, of course: The pee-test results come back from the lab tomorrow morning. It’ll be a miracle if he passes. Here, take this.”
Mitch handed me the blanket with BLT still inside. I tried to give it back, but not quickly enough.
“I’m going to get something to eat,” said Mitch, who by now was already halfway down the hallway. “It’s been a long night. Plus, the canteen in this place has a Michelin star. Oh—there’s some milk for BLT in Joey’s room. Bottle-feed him when he gets hungry. And call me if he shits himself. That’s a two-man emergency.”
“Did you switch your phone back on?” I shouted after him.
But he was gone.
With nothing better to do, I walked into Joey’s room. It was the size of a large Manhattan apartment, with polished wooden floors, and a north-facing wall made entirely from glass, which supplied a letterbox view over the Hollywood hills and the great terrestrial constellation of the LA grid system below. Facing Joey’s bed was a hundredinch flatscreen mounted on a steel frame, along with what appeared to be every type of gaming console ever invented. Elsewhere I saw basketball hoops, a Ping-Pong table, massage chairs, and an espresso bar.
Groaning from the stress of the day, I fell backward into a deep velvet sofa by the window. BLT nibbled at my cheek. It hurt, but I was too tired to push him away. His breath smelled of… whiskey and chocolate. What the hell had Mitch been feeding him?
I looked over at Joey. His face was a mass of gurgling plastic tubes. It was doubtful he’d be waking up any time soon. To the left of him, I noticed, was a filing cabinet on wheels—at least ten drawers tall. Written on the side, in black marker: “Lovecraft, Joseph T.—patient history.” And then, below that: “Cabinet 14 of 28.”
I wanted to laugh but didn’t have the energy. Instead, I let my head fall back onto the cushion and closed my eyes—and by the time I realized I was falling asleep, it was too late, or I just didn’t care. I was done. For once, everything could wait.
27
Love What You Do
WHEN I AWOKE, there was sunlight on my face. I was still on the sofa, but BLT