pool house sometime but he was gone, door locked. Walking and walking—staggering almost. Cold and frightened! Nobody home! So I went by to Xandra’s. Kotku was not talking to me by then.”
“Man, you had some kind of serious balls. I wouldn’t have gone back there for a million dollars.”
“I know, it took some onions, but was so lonely and ill. Mouth all gittering. Like—where you want to lie still and to look at a clock and count your heartbeats? except no place to lie still? and you don’t have a clock? Almost in tears! Didn’t know what to do! Didn’t even know was she still there. But lights were on—only lights on the street—came around by the glass door and there she was, in her same Dolphins shirt, in the kitchen making margaritas.”
“What’d she do?”
“Ha! Wouldn’t let me in, at first! Stood in the door and yelled a long while—cursed me, called me every name! But then I started crying. And when I asked could I stay with her?”—he shrugged—“she said yes.”
“What?” I said, reaching for the shot he’d poured me. “You mean like stay stay—?”
“I was scared! She let me sleep in her room! With TV turned to Christmas movies!”
“Hmn.” I could see he wanted me to press for details, only from his gleeful expression I was not so sure I believed him about the sleeping-in-her-room business, either. “Well, glad that worked out for you, I guess. She say anything about me?”
“Well, yes a little.” He chortled. “A lot actually! Because, I mean, don’t be mad, but I blamed some things on you.”
“Glad I could help.”
“Yes, of course!” He clinked my glass jubilantly. “Many thanks! You’d do the same, I wouldn’t mind. Honest, though, poor Xandra, I think she was glad to see me. To see anyone. I mean—” throwing his shot back—“it was crazy… those bad friends… she was all alone out there. Drinking a lot, afraid to go to work. Something could have happened to her, easy—no neighbors, really creepy. Because Bobo Silver—well, Bobo was actually not so bad guy. ‘The Mensch’? They don’t call him that for nothing! Xandra was scared to death of him but he didn’t go after her for your dad’s debt, not serious anyway. Not at all. And your dad was in for a lot. Probably he realized she was broke—your dad had fucked her over good and proper, too. Might as well be decent about it. Can’t get blood out of a turnip. But those other people, those friends of hers so called, were mean like bankers. You know? ‘You owe me,’ really hard, fucking connected, scary. Worse than him! Not so big sum even, but she was still way short and they were being nasty, all—” (mocking head tilt, aggressive finger point) “ ‘fuck you, we’re not going to wait, you better figure something out,’ like that. Anyway—good I went back when I did because then I was able to help.”
“Help how?”
“By giving her back the moneys I took.”
“You’d kept it?”
“Well, no,” he said reasonably. “Had spent it. But—had something else going, see. Because right after the coke ran out? I had taken the money to Jimmy at the gun shop and bought more. See, I was buying it for me and Amber—just the two of us. Very very beautiful girl, very innocent and special. Very young too, like only fourteen! But just that one night at MGM Grand, we had got so close, just sitting on the bathroom floor all night up at KT’s dad’s suite and talking. Didn’t even kiss! Talk talk talk! I all but wept from it. Really opened up our hearts to each other. And—” hand to his breastbone—“I felt so sad when the day came, like why did it have to be over? Because we could have sat there talking forever to each other! and been so perfect and happy! That’s how close we got to each other, see, in just that one night. Anyway—this is why I went to Jimmy. He had really shitty coke—not half so good as Stewart and Lisa’s. But everyone knew, see—everyone had heard about that weekend at MGM Grand, me with all that blow. So people came to me. Like—dozen people my first day back at school. Throwing their moneys at me. ‘Will you get me some… will you get me some… will you get some for my bro… I have ADD, I need it for my homework.…’ Pretty soon was selling to senior football players and half