the basketball team. Lots of girls too… friends of Amber and KT’s… Jordan’s friends too… college students at UNLV! Lost money on the first few batches I sold—didn’t know what to ask, sold fat for low price, wanted everyone to like me, yah yah yah. But once I figured it out—I was rich! Jimmy gave me huge discount, he was making lots of green off it too. I was doing him big favor, see, selling drugs to kids too scared to buy them—scared of people like Jimmy who sold them. KT… Jordan… those girls had a lot of money! Always happy to front me. Coke is not like E—I sold that too, but it was up and down, whole bunch then none for days, for coka I had a lot of regulars and they called two and three times a week. I mean, just KT—”
“Wow.” Even after so many years, her name struck a chord.
“Yes! To KT!” We raised our glasses and drank.
“What a beauty!” Boris slammed his glass down. “I used to get dizzy around her. Just to breathe her same air.”
“Did you sleep with her?”
“No… God I tried… but she gave me a hand job in her little brother’s bedroom one night when she was wasted and in a very nice mood.”
“Man, I sure left at the wrong time.”
“You sure did. I came in my pants before she even got the zip down. And KT’s allowance—” reaching for my empty shot glass. “Two thousand a month! That is what she got for clothes only! Only KT already has so many clothes it is like, why does she need to buy more? Anyway by Christmas for me it was like in the movies where they have the ching-ching and the dollar signs. Phone never stopped ringing. Everybody’s best friend! Girls I never saw before, kissing me, giving me gold jewelry off their own necks! I was doing all the drugs I could do, drugs every day, every night, lines as long as my hand, and still money everywhere. I was like the Scarface of our school! One guy gave me a motorcycle—another guy, a used car. I would go to pick my clothes from off the floor—hundreds of dollars falling out from the pockets—no idea where it came from.”
“This is a lot of information, really fast.”
“Well, tell me about it! This is my usual learning process. They say experience is good teacher, and normally is true, but I am lucky this experience did not kill me. Now and then… when I have some beers sometimes… I’ll maybe hit a line or two? But mostly I do not like it any more. Burned myself out good. If you had met me maybe five years ago? I was all like—” sucking in his cheeks—“so. But—” the waiter had reappeared with more herring and beer—“enough about all that. You—” he looked me up and down—“what? Doing very nicely for yourself, I’d say?”
“All right, I guess.”
“Ha!” He leaned back with his arm along the back of the booth. “Funny old world, right? Antiques trade? The old poofter? He got you in to it?”
“That’s right.”
“Big racket, I heard.”
“That’s right.”
He eyed me up and down. “You happy?” he said.
“Not very.”
“Listen, then! I have great idea! Come work for me!”
I burst out laughing.
“No, not kidding! No no,” he said, shushing me imperiously as I tried to talk over him, pouring me a new shot, sliding the glass across the table to me, “what is he giving you? Serious. I will give you two times.”
“No, I like my job—” over-pronouncing the words, was I as wrecked as I sounded?—“I like what I do.”
“Yes?” He lifted his glass to me. “Then why aren’t you happy?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“And why not?”
I waved my hand dismissively. “Because—” I’d lost track quite how many shots I’d had. “Just because.”
“If not job then—which is it?” He had thrown back his own shot, tossing his head grandly, and started in on the new plate of herring. “Money problems? Girl?”
“Neither.”
“Girl then,” he said triumphantly. “I knew it.”
“Listen—” I drained the rest of my vodka, slapped the table—what a genius I was, I couldn’t stop smiling, I’d had the best idea in years!—“enough of this. Come on—let’s go! I’ve got a big big surprise for you.”
“Go?” said Boris, visibly bristling. “Go where?”
“Come with me. You’ll see.”
“I want to stay here.”
“Boris—”
He sat back. “Let it go, Potter,” he said, putting his hands up. “Just relax.”
“Boris!” I looked at the bar crowd, as if