The Price You Pay Page 4

But the drugs are so good I can remember the times before that and feel her arms around me and that is nice.

  I’m going to hate tomorrow. That’s when they’ll turn this off. They’ll tell me it’s for my own good, don’t want to make an addict, they’ll start giving me fucking ibuprofen. Fuck’s sake. They’ll be right. I’ll still hate it. But then I’m going to hate everything tomorrow.

  Woman comes in, French African, face like a mother. Bedside manner says she doesn’t like me: good. I know that look. She saves her compassion for when you’re going to die. I smile at her.

  Put that away, she says. Won’t do you any good with me. I know your kind.

  What kind? Except I can’t say that because my mouth’s got no spit. Clahhhkt gigh?

  Kind comes in with a beating like that, she says. Did something to deserve that, didn’t you.

  No. But I’m going to. (Moch pfuh kgunn.)

  Drink some water, tough guy.

  I drink.

  At least you’re not humming any more.

  Was I humming?

  All the damn time.

  Oh yes. I remember.

  That’s just great tough guy.

  Mm mm mm hmm hmm hmm hmm.

  That’s just great.

  I hum my little hum.

  DAYS LATER. CAN SPEAK AGAIN. Make a call. Ringeddy ring and la la la.

  Charlie you up?

  Yeah boss I’m in the office.

  Charlene works flexible time. She hates mornings. Statistically: more intelligent people are messy and like to stay up late. I don’t care when she works which is why she works for me. That and the cocaine. Charlene is a designer and a semi-pro digital criminal and she is fond of cocaine. She and cocaine are not in a committed relationship, they are friends with benefits. She is literally the only person I have ever met who could quite happily just stop taking cocaine tomorrow. She does not take cocaine when she is working; she takes cocaine when there’s not enough work. Then she gets bored of taking cocaine and she goes out and finds more work.

  When she is not building card skimmers and running untraceable low-end bank fraud via the glorious new motherland of crime that is called the internet, Charlene designs wraps and other branding for the Pale Peruvian Stallion. The name is hers too. She said it evoked a classic 80s Escobar shamelessness coupled with ironic self-knowledge and a hint of porno, and that sophisticated people would totally put that up their noses. She was entirely right.

  Charlie I need a makeover. I need a whole new look.

  A thang?

  Sure why not?

  Cool beans can do.

  Charlie my nose is broken, I’ve got some cracked teeth, what are we doing about that?

  Shit boss really?

  Really really for realz.

  Don’t do that you sound like my kid sister.

  Well anyway.

  Okay then something a little piratical maybe—wait are you going to get the nose dealt with, like surgery?

  Not any time soon. Ten days until it’s what it’s gonna be for now.

  Okay then definitely pirate, how do you feel about maybe some gold teeth?

  Negatory Charlie I will need to move around unseen in the night no man shall know my name or recognise me by my exciting shiny teeth.

  Cool just ordinary teeth gotcha. Take a couple days to tone in okay?

  And then Charlie take the week off. Get out of town. Actually stay out until I call you. There is some heavy shit going down.

  Things gonna get rough?

  I’m about to take steps Charlie, I got no idea what’s gonna shake loose but I figure no reason you should be around for it.

  Received and understooded boss. I’m gone.

  Bye Charlie.

  I was the Cardinal. Now I’m Jack Price. Humming my little motherfucking hum.

  HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR CHECKING ME OUT. Like prison but expensive. I’m shitting you I have no idea what it’s like leaving a prison because I’ve never been in one and I never will.

  Sorry you’re leaving us Mr. Price—just my little joke of course hahaha. We’re always glad when people walk out on us please sign here and here to indemnify the hospital against any consequences of your early departure contrary to medical advice please do not seek further prescriptions of the drugs you have been taking as there is a note on your file.

  Pops the absolute last thing I want is more of this fairy juice in my blood. I hate narcotics. Clue is in the name: a drug that makes you sleep. Enough people sleep their lives away. Sleep through school because it’s boring, sleep through college and first jobs because the other kids are mean, sleep through a marriage, a divorce. Sleep through their own death. Fuck narcotics. And fuck meth and cocaine while we’re at it, which make you too hyper to know that you’re awake. Fuck LSD unless you are using it for all the medical applications we’re not allowed to know about because that is a goddam hippy counterculture drug and we all know that drugs are for the one per cent not the fucking Occupy Movement. That’s just the law of nature. Fuck all of those things. Give me booze and coffee and adrenaline and sex and I will give you a real person and I will give you a fucking Dalai Lama Gandhi Einstein of living from one instant to another and amen.

  Pops signs me out and gives me the fishy eye because I’m limping off like a guy with a bat in his hands looking to Al Capone somebody’s shit and that is exactly what I am. I am a guy who got the message and I have words. I have words and I have responses and emotions I need to express, like give voice to, like poetry.

  Told me not to ask questions. Told me to mind my own business. Told me with their fists and their feet. Should have fucking asked nicely. No need for this at all. No need of any kind whatsofuckingever.

  Should just have left me alone or killed me is all I’m saying. Seriously misunderstood who you’re dealing with. Probably would have gotten bored asking about Didi and fucked off on my own account maybe. Maybe not if I’m honest. But I got a lot on my plate what with this whole commercial enterprise involving the distribution of branded cocaine to the digital city. There was just no need. That’s the key. These cracked ribs and my fucking imperfect sideways nose which I have guarded my whole entire life so that I would not look like my sponging dad or my sour damp median middle-management-impotent-sweat-stained-front-row-of-the-strip-club-jerking-off grandpapa, both of whom got their looks rearranged at one time or another in discussions over late payment.

  Just.

  No.

  Need.

  And the thing is that now there’s this perceptual issue this business issue that I have mentioned. There’s a question of directionality, of who puts whose dick in the wringer. Sure I am like totally atomised. I am the criminal enterprise of the next century I got no structure no hierarchy no conventional apparatus as such, but all the same it needs to be understood that I am all the same the guy who does the dick-putting. I turn the handle. But right now there is this perceptual issue I mentioned in which during what you might call my personal time someone has—mistakenly and no doubt for reasons that seem good and sufficient to them—someone has reversed the natural course of human events. It’s a mythical problem by which I mean that it’s a classic not that it’s not real. It is a Joseph Campbell issue is what. The whole order of things in the universe has been uprooted and unless that order can be restored there will be a vortex of destruction: rains of fish, snitches in the hedgerows and a plague of cops.

  So this is a holy quest is what: a divine restoration of the flowing river of the wounded land.

  But before that obviously: teeth.

  THIS PLACE IS TOO DAMN WHITE. White walls in high-vis like super reflective. Everything is white. It makes your teeth look very yellow in the mirrors which is what they want. Makes your skin look pale and sick which is what they want. Welcome to cosmetic hell and of course they can admit you to beautiful h
eaven—for a price.

  A Price. Heh.

  Hi Mr. Mowbray how can we help you?

  I need five minutes with your Doctor Greene if I may call it an urgent financial matter. I know it’s real irregular Miss…oh okay I know it’s real irregular Sonja but it’s important and I will put this here—that’s ten thousand dollars in cash—and if you in any way feel that you have been disrespected by me when I have spoken to Doctor Greene or if you feel your professional position has been diminished with him then it’s yours okay? In your sole estimation right so it’s entirely up to you.

  I really—wow gosh that’s—

  It’s what we call a surety Sonja it’s like my bet against myself but don’t worry this will be okay. He’s between patients I gather so I’ll just let myself through okay?

  I gosh I wait well I—

  Thanks Sonja.

  HI DOCTOR GREENE how would you like to make five hundred thousand in ten minutes?

  I beg your—

  That’s what five hundred thousand looks like. It’s legal and entirely clean there’s no downside here for you. It is quite heavy though so you will probably want to call a cab or something. What I want is I want these teeth fitted in my mouth with a—what is that stuff called I have it written down—anyway like a permanent bond fixture what you do with some kind of light-activated adhesive laser arrangement?

  Yes we have that facility.

  Well okay these teeth here they’re caps made specifically for my recent injury and they are prepared for that kind of adhesion but I obviously cannot do it myself so what I would propose to you is I sit down here in this chair and you go right ahead and fix them and then I will walk out and leave the money and what happens to it thereafter is entirely up to you. Oh and by the way Sonja can keep her ten grand as well she’s sweet.

  Sonja would you ask Ms. Miles to step in here we’re going to oblige this gentleman and I’m afraid Mr. Crofts will have to wait. If he turns up it will be about ten minutes do apologise for me. Now sir let’s get you all comfy. Oh. These are rather well done. They won’t be as elegant as some of our top lines but they’re certainly—yes they’ll do very well and of course they’re very durable oh I see yes there’s a sort of force distribution frame that’s very well done. Tell me do you happen to know who designed this approach it’s novel but I rather—

  I’ll put her in touch she’s extremely smart you’ll like her but if you don’t mind I’m on the clock—

  Why of course. Ah here we go…Sir?

  Yes?

  Can you stop humming for a moment?

  Oh sure sorry.

  Here we go.

  NEW MOUTH NEW CLOTHES, HAIRCUT. Barber cuts my hair like I’m made of rice paper I got so many bruises. Fucking Frankenstein. Do not do not tell me that was the professor, I know. The monster never had a name.

  I have a name. I have a name and a thin hard face with purple bootprints on it. I have thin lips split in three places and when I smile the teeth are like a quilt or maybe like geology. I have brown bedroom eyes that are swollen half shut, and my nose, my goddam nose, now is like a little bit of history repeating, like I should let my hair grow in Saigon and lose my job on the twenty-second floor and make a bad investment on a horse called Crossroad Guitar. Screw heredity and screw history and most of all screw you I have opinions. I have views. I am going to sit in the share chair and tell you a story.

  I give the barber extra because the stitches on my scalp make her want to puke. I am a dramatic-looking motherfucker right now.

  Mm mm mm hmm hmm hmm hmm…

  See that right there? That is my little hum that I have been humming. It is my little happy hum. You know what else it is? It is the sound of a cellphone number. Because I was the Cardinal. I am Jack Price. I remember the first ten items on the ticker for every day in 1998. And now I remember this too.

  I am Jack Price.

  Dial the number. Nice lady in an office, got that midtown sound like expensive like corporate. Office has real walls not those fake ones. You can tell by the quality of the sound. These people own their real estate.

  Good then. Good.

  I get my briefcase and I go see a man.

  HI, SWEETHEART.

  Guy on the reception desk does not like that at all. Fucking baseline homophobia still inherent in our society is what and I figure if he really sat down and thought about it and examined his soul he’d be ashamed and that would make him a better person but who has time for that in the modern world so in a way I’m helping him here.

  Guy is big like a Texas farmer, round head round face round arms. Gym muscle with plenty of ring time. No hair to speak of, making sure to wear his elastine suit jacket just a little small so that we can all see that it stretches when he moves, like yeah okay (sweetheart) you’re a really strong guy. Figure he goes by some name like Ted or Butch or Chuck.

  Hi, Ted or Butch or Chuck says. Sir. Just enough of a gap in between to mean that guys who come in here with broken noses looking like hell generally leave again without taking a meeting or getting offered coffee.

  I’m Jack Price I have a meeting with Mr. Linden.

  Actually I just called Mr. Linden’s temporary assistant and told her I was dropping by and she said no but I told her I needed five minutes with Linden and it was about Didi Fraser and she should tell him I was coming and then at that point her responsibility would be at an end and she said okay. Temps understand the nature of the world better than permanent employees.

  I give Ted or Butch or Chuck a bored face. He gives it back.

  I say: Men’s room?

  Through that door, sir. Dorothy? Yes, I’ll hold.

  I go to the men’s room and pee. Then I go back to the waiting room.

  I didn’t catch your name, I tell Ted or Butch or Chuck.

  I’m Oliver. Sir.

  Well, fuck me in the ear. Okay, your name is Oliver, are you also a fan of Fellini and Truffaut and do you like postmodern architecture?

  No, sir.

  No?

  No. Truffaut is overrated, the result of an admittedly successful promotional campaign conducted by himself in which he deified Alfred Hitchcock who was a sociopath. Fellini’s persistent reputation rests on one shot in 8½ which film schools require their students to watch, and the postmoderns are negatively shackled to a modernist form that never entirely expressed itself because materials science was insufficient to yield actual instances of its highest form. They pre-dismiss what is yet to flower. Sir.

  Are you fucking kidding me with this, Oliver?

  In no way sir.

  Are you security here or are you in law school?

  I am both, Mr. Price. Hold on. (Touching his earpiece.) Yes Dorothy. Yes. I understand. Mr. Price I’m sorry Mr. Linden will not see you. I regret sir. You should now depart.

  Open the briefcase: got a hip flask in it. Show it to him. Stage magic.

  Oliver, you’ll be wanting to get your huge ass off that chair and come out from behind your desk.

  Why is that sir?

  Because I am going to count to three Oliver and then I am going to kick up a ruckus. When they find you, you’ll want to be out in front of the desk so that it’s clear that you made the effort or they’ll fire you. Don’t worry—

  I was going to say it won’t hurt, but, unfortunately, it will.

  Oliver gets up. Takes a while. Figure he’s not actually as tall as Big Billy but he makes up for that by being filled with perilous intent. He’s way wide, like a minivan. Guy no doubt takes up two maybe three seats at his local arthouse cinema when he’s watching Frank Capra movies and eating my bodyweight in popcorn. I take a big step back and he follows, and I take another. Now I go, got my back almost to the door.

  Oliver do you carry any sort of weapon or are you just meat?

  Oliver has one of those teles
coping batons which he should not have but that’s fine. I thumb the door release and joggle the door as if I’m thinking I should get out. Door doesn’t open. Wouldn’t open because I didn’t press the release all the way. Wave the hip flask. Sluice, spit it back in the bottle. Nothing special: high-alcohol mouthwash and low-toxicity disinfectant. Do not swallow.

  Oliver isn’t fooled:

  Sir. I do not recommend this course.

  Yeah, well.

  It does not seem to me that your last physical entanglement went well for you sir.

  Three guys jumped me, Oliver, on an off night, in my own place to which only I have a key.

  Very well sir. Lay on.

  The fuck? Lay on. What even is that? I take a pull from the flask, hold it behind my lips.

  You got to understand that Oliver here and I have just built up something of a rapport. We are friendly now, and most people honestly find it a bit tricky to go from that position to the one where you’re eating another guy’s ear. And indeed Oliver is most people. He expects me to take a swing at him, or maybe he thinks I’m going to try to kick out his legs. That would be a great strategy if we were in some kind of sports event. No question, you take a man’s base and he is going down. A few good shots by nimble Jack while huge slow Oliver swings haymakers would look great on TV. Of course, there’s no reason for Oliver to be slow. I mean, he’s big, but that doesn’t mean he’s a claymation puppet. He’s taken time out to show me how damn slow he is, which means he thinks he’s pretty much not. Yeah, well. I did not come here to demonstrate my prowess in some obscure Silesian fighting style. I came because I want to talk to Linden and the quickest way to do that is to run up the north face of Mount Oliver and rip parts of his skin off with my teeth.

  Plus also there’s this perceptual issue and I need to address that. Did you see what Jack Price did to the security guard? And he fucking liked that guy!

  Yeah well business is business and I am business.

  I jump into his arms. I’m solving a problem like Maria: group hug! Oliver doesn’t know what the fuck is going on. Big guy like him no one wants to grapple. They got compunction. Doesn’t occur to them how bad it can get for Oliver before he can turn a hug into a submission hold. Climb him like a curtain. Did you see what Jack Price did? Fucking perceptual issue? Perceive this.