Talk.
“At which point, my loving wife,” Liam says, “you’re supposed to say something like, ‘You’re not worthless, Liam. They’re all wrong about you. They’ll see.’”
Pam snorts a line. “‘You’re not worthless, Liam. They’re all wrong about you. They’ll see.’”
“Fuck you.”
“Not lately,” she says. “You’re usually too stoned to get it up.”
“Or I’m getting it somewhere else.”
“God bless her, whoever she is. Good luck to her.”
“I loved you!” Liam shouts suddenly. “I gave up everything for you!”
Liam tightens the roll on the dollar bill, leans over the coffee table and snorts another line of coke.
Then another.
Then he wipes his nose. “You’ll see. You’ll all see. None of them could handle Sal. Not Danny, not Marvin, nobody. Nobody but Liam. You’ll see. You’ll all see. You just watch.”
“Okay, Liam.”
Are we seriously out of blow? she thinks.
Seriously?
Sal knows he shouldn’t have done it.
Knows he shouldn’t have called Alex.
But he needed a place to hide, a place to recuperate; more than anything, a place to find some comfort.
Some beauty in this fucking life.
He lies in bed looking out the window of Alex’s small apartment in Westerly. It’s not much of a view, the train station across the street, but it’s peaceful.
His arm is okay. The bullet went straight through without breaking bone or severing an artery, and the doctor, although scared shitless, patched him up and sent him on his way.
Sal ditched the work car in Providence and got on a train to Westerly, where he called Alex.
Wasn’t sure how that would be received, but Alex told him, sure, come right over. When he got there, Alex saw his arm and asked, “What happened to you?”
“Wrong place, wrong time,” Sal said. “Look, I need a place to lay low for a little while . . .”
“Of course. Sure.”
Alex was more than a host, he was a nurse. Put Sal to bed, brought him Tylenol, soup, took him into the shower and washed around the bandage. A few days later, when Sal felt better, Alex made gentle love to him.
Afterward, lying beside him, his finger tracing patterns on Sal’s thigh, Alex asked, “So what do you do?”
“Do?”
“You know, for a living.”
“I have businesses,” Sal said. “I have a car dealership, a hauling business . . .”
“You’re mobbed up.”
“Nah.”
“What do the guys think,” Alex said, “about you being gay?”
“I’m not gay.”
Alex laughed. “You were sure gay a few minutes ago.”
“No, it’s just . . . I like you.”
“I like you, too.”
Sal knows he’s going to have to leave sooner or later, probably sooner. Go out and face whatever’s in store for him.
I did what Peter wanted, he thinks, I took care of his Marvin Jones problem, so he’s probably going to back me on the Frankie V thing, shut down the gay rumors. Either Frankie will have to eat shit or I’ll have to kill him.
Which Peter will allow.
Because what’s the worse offense, a guy being gay or a guy falsely accusing a guy of being gay?
Then again, maybe I fucked myself. With Marvin dead, Peter doesn’t need me anymore and he’ll throw me to the dogs.
Alex has gone out to 7-Eleven to get some shit for breakfast, so Sal gets up and uses his phone.
“Sal, what the fuck?” Chris says. “Where are you?”
“Where do I stand?”
“What do you mean?” Chris asks.
“You know what I mean.”
“That shit Frankie’s been saying?” Chris asks. “Nobody believes it. Come on.”
“If I come back,” Sal says, “I’m going to have to shut his mouth.”
“You do what you have to do, Sal.”
So that’s it, Sal thinks when he hangs up. I get a pass on the gay thing and a green light on Frankie.
Okay.
Alex uses the phone booth outside 7-Eleven. “He’s still here.”
“You’ve earned your two grand.”
“It’s five now,” Alex says. “The two was for picking him up. I want another three for . . . the rest.”
“Greedy prick.”
“I’ve let that pig fuck me for a week,” Alex says. “I made him chicken soup. Three thousand is a bargain.”