Even the Lucky Star had surrendered, boarding up its doors and windows after six weeks of intrepid, gas-guzzling service to the gaming community.
Rusty turned, the pain subsiding somewhat, and looked at Zielinski, his eyes pleading. “Why are you doing this to me?” he whined.
“Why? I don’t fucking know why. Why did the power go out, Rusty?”
“The thing from the sun?” Rusty asked. He wanted to understand but truly didn’t.
Zielinski shook his head, impatient. “I wasn’t actually asking. I know why the power went out. Look, your thinking is wrong. You’re thinking like it’s last year, but it isn’t, Rusty. It’s this year. You gotta hurry up and get your head around that.” Zielinski leaned in, a born explainer. “See, last year, things made sense. Last year, you walked into the grocery store, you paid a fair price, and you came out with your dinner. This year, you beg somebody to sell you a week’s worth of groceries for a thousand dollars. If you’re lucky, they say yes, and you eat. If you’re not, they beat you to death, take your money, and they eat. There’s no cops to call, there’s no phone to call them on. And if you do see a cop and manage to flag him down, what happens?”
He turned to Espinoza. “What happened to that lady on Elmhurst? That cop she let in her house?”
“Raped her and killed her.”
“He raped her and killed her,” Zielinski repeated. “So they say. Broad daylight, in her own house. Is it true? I don’t fucking know. Nobody knows. Nobody knows anything anymore, except that you never walk too close to an apartment building, unless you want to get a bucket of shit dumped on your head. And that if the Illinois Guard rolls up on your block for a few days you better keep your head down and keep walking so you don’t get shot in the face.” He gestured to his left—“Last-year thinking”—and to his right—“This-year thinking. You get it? You see the difference?”
Rusty held his throbbing hand, choking back tears. “We were partners. I treated you decent. Always. I tried to bring Celeste back home, didn’t I?”
Zielinski sat forward, livid. “Did I ask you to do that? Did I? No, I did not! I did not ask you to interfere in my family. Never once did I ask that. All you did, Rusty, was fucking remind me of you. I told you exactly what I wanted a week ago, and you have not done what I asked.”
Rusty drew in his breath, shaky, and tried not to sob. “I paid you back. I don’t deserve this.”
“Me neither!” Zielinski shouted. He took a breath, calming himself. “I followed the rules. Most of ’em. I buy and sell things; I don’t kill people. We used to all get to live that way. Now we don’t have that luxury.”
“What did I do wrong?” Rusty asked, plaintive.
“You had money. That’s what you did wrong. You had a lot of money, Rusty, a quarter of a mil, and you flashed it around at the Star and you let me see it. I watched you piss huge amounts of it away. And what did I do?”
Rusty just looked at him.
“No, this time it’s an actual question. What did I do?”
“You took it from me.”
“Yes! I took it from you, before you could lose the rest of it. I took it because I am stronger than you. Don’t look for morality here. I took it from you, and I ate. And my wife and my four kids ate, and Espinoza’s family ate. And now it’s gone, and we’re hungry again. But you had that money once, and that means you can get more. I don’t know exactly where you got it, but I got a pretty good guess. Everybody knows about your brother-in-law.”
“He’s not my brother-in-law.”
“Well, he sure the fuck used to be.”
“I haven’t talked to him in years.”
“Then he’ll be happy to hear from you.”
“I don’t have a phone. There’s no phones.”
“I bet you’ll figure it out. See, I think you’re a smart guy, Rusty. Your problem is nobody ever counted on you to be smart. To figure things out. I’m counting on you.”
“I’m telling you, Z, there’s no way to—”
Zielinski gestured to Espinoza, turned to look out the window, and listened to the sharp crack of Rusty’s other pinkie finger as Espinoza broke that one too. Rusty screamed, a thin, high-pitched shriek that bounced off the walls of the dirty room. Zielinski turned back.
“Please stop screaming.” He waited. After a bit, Rusty’s screams turned to whimpers, and Zielinski continued. “Do you know how much of the earth had electric power before this happened?”