Charlie Huston - Every Last Drop

His jaw tightens, clicks twice, he nods. -Yeah, yeah. Sure. That makes a difference. Urn.

He points at his nose. -Too late.

I fold the razor. -No, man.

I slip the razor into my pocket. -It's not too late.

He queases a smile.

— Great, Joe, that's great. You know I want nothin' but to help an old buddy like you. Never want to waste a second of your time. Time being, you know.

He rubs fingers against thumb, hopefully. -Time being money. You know what I mean. -Yeah, I know, Phil.

I take my hand out of my pocket. -I just thought wed do this one the old-fashioned way.

He sees the brass knuckles on my fist. -Aw, Joe, we coulda worked it out like gentlemen.

I give him a closer look at the knuckles.

Much closer.

He slams into the wall and drops in a jumble on the floor.

I stand over him, using one of his old dirty wife beaters to wipe the blood from brass. -Shut up, Phil.

I point at the crushed mass that used to be his nose. -Just feel lucky you still got that fucking thing.

— I need to know how it stands.

— Right, right.

— There a bounty?

— A? A what? A bounty? Jeezus, man, what do you? A bounty?

I knock the brass knuckles on the side of the sink where he's washing the blood from his face. -Stay focused, Phil.

He flinches. -Yeah, focused.

He looks in the mirror, sees the bib of blood spread over his shirt. -Oh for fuck! Maaan. That sucks.

I clink the knuckles again.

He snaps to.

— Yeah, focused. Yeah, bounty. Yeah. Like I was sayin? Fuck do you think, Joe? Stab Terry and all. You think there's a bounty? Fuck yeah, there is. -How much?

He pulls a baggie from his pocket, starts sorting through the pills inside. -Man, this II teach me to focus exclusively on the ups. I mean, fuck, I don't

got a single painkiller in here.

He fingers a couple chalky white pills from the bag and pops them in his mouth. -Still, any port in a storm.

I slap the back of his head and he coughs and the pills fly out of his mouth, bounce off the mirror and drop to the floor.

He stares at the pills, one resting at the edge of the pube-clogged scum-grate in the middle of the room, the other rolled to the base of a toilet inside one of the doorless stalls. -Oh, that, that was utterly unnecessary. That was totally fucking flagrant.

I put a finger beneath his chin, raise his eyes to mine. -Phil, perhaps I'm not communicating my urgency here.

I fit my hand around his jaw.

— Its early in the morning and you re burned out, distracted. I know. It's hard for you to focus. But.

I exert pressure, squeezing the hinges of his jaw.

— If you pay attention, you'll notice that I'm talking more than I usually do, giving you more chances than I usually have in the past to tell me what the

fuck I want to know before I give you some new scars.

His jaw creaks. Phil whimpers. -That might give you some idea of just how thin your ice is.

I stiff-arm him into the wall, careful not to shatter his jaw. I don't want to shatter it yet, not until he's talked. -And just how bad things are going to get if you don't focus immediately.

I relax my hand and take it from his jaw. -How much, Phil, how much has Terry put on my head?

He works his jaw up and down, listens to it click, rubs it. -Twelve pints.

I look at him. -Again? — Twelve pints. -A blood bounty?

He wipes some of his own blood from his face. -What I said.

The door swings open and Phils next-door neighbor comes in wearing a

stained bed sheet like a poorly wrapped toga. She walks past us, eyes all but closed, goes into a stall, hikes her sheet, sits and places her elbows on her knees with a yawn.

I grab Phils shoulder and aim him at the door. -Come on.

He looks back at his lost pills, straining against me. -Just a sec, man, just a sec, really, man, I can't afford to let that shit go.

I shove him at the door. -Yes, you can.

He bangs out into the hallway and I follow him. -Twelve pints.

He walks backward, trying to get a peek through the swinging bathroom door.

— Man, that fucking chick is gonna snag my shit. -Anyone scooping that stuff off the floor is hard up enough to deserve it.

He raises a hand. -Well there you go, man, you just described me.

I give him another shove and he bounces off the door to his room.

— Twelve pints is an interesting number, Phil.

He gets the key from his blood-stippled high-waisted trousers. -Fascinating, I'm sure. But, like, you don't understand what I got going here.

He points at the bathroom.

— That chick there gives it up for anything. Mean, I could probably lay off some NoDoz on her and come away with a hand job. Thing is, I'm not saying / wouldn't eat the shit on the floor back in there myself, but with this deal I don't have to. I can just give them to her and still get a hummer out of it.

He sticks up both thumbs. -It's win-win, man.

He lowers his thumbs.

— But if she sees them on the floor she'll eat them just out of fucking curiosity. Man, I'll be out the pills and the hummer.

He points both thumbs down. -Lose-lose. -Hey, asshole.

The girl stands in the open bathroom doorway.

Phil points at himself.

She nods. -Yeah, you. That stuff you gave me, that was like total bullshit, wasn't it?

He shakes his head. -What, huh? No, no, that was good stuff, I wouldn't, you know.

She puts her hands on her hips and the sheet falls off one shoulder, exposing a tit topped by a scabbing Betty Boop tattoo. -Yeah, like you said you wouldn't cum in my mouth either.

He shakes his head.

— That was like I told you, like an accident, like I lost focus for a second at the point of impact and next thing I knew, BANG.

She narrows her eyes. -Yeah, bang, my ass.

Phil puts a leer on. -Hey, if that's what you're into.

She makes a fist and starts down the hall.

— Don't even, you dick. Cumming in my mouth is one thing, but that shit you gave me was almost all baby laxative.

Phil backs into his door. -Hey, no way.

— Bullshit. I've had the runs all morning. -Look, this is the big city, you got to expect shit to be cut a little.

The girls door opens and a guy with too many gym muscles sticks his head out. -What the fuck, that the guy ripped you off?

Phil raises a righteous finger.

— Ripped off? I. Man, I never in my life. This shit is like a calling for me. I. Out of the kindness of my, I, I, like I barely have any shit for myself and I cut a deal with this girl, throw her a little help when she's in need and now. I.

He folds his arms. -I'm fucking insulted.

Too Many Muscles comes fully out of the room, bare-assed, showing the rest of his muscles. -Fucking rip-off artist.

Phil opens his mouth and I dig a thumb under his arm and turn him to his own door.

— Open it.

He looks at me.

— Sure, sure, just no one likes being called a rip-off artist. -Open it.

He opens the door.

Too Many Muscles is trying to catch my eye so he can flex and make it clear that I shouldn't fuck with him. The girl is shaking her fist in Phils face, her voice rising, telling him she better get some good X off him if he expects another blow job. The corridor is filled with smells of shit and smoke and sweat and fungus and incense and fast food and spilled cheap wine and puke and the residue of the last corpse that rotted unnoticed in its room for a week before it was found.

It's distracting.

So distracting I don't register for a beat that Phil never put his key in the knob I locked before we went to the bathroom to clean his nose. So distracting I don't hear what I should hear, don't smell what I should smell. So distracting that after I shove Phil into the room I stand frozen for a moment when the side of beef disguised as an arm comes out of the dark room and fists a gloved collection of bratwurst into the collar of my jacket.