Richard Kadrey - The Perdition Score

“Let me guess. You ran into a tall midget with an iron hat. Or a small giant carrying a lunch box.”

“The truth is more embarrassing, so let’s go with that last one.”

“Please tell me you at least won the fight.”

I sip the drink. It tastes like gasoline and burns just right going down.

“I won, all right. But I shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

He picks up and tosses a couple of drink coasters some customers left behind.

“Then why were you there? I thought your looking-for-trouble days were behind you.”

“That’s the problem. They are most of the time. I want them to be, but sometimes … it feels like if I don’t hit something my brain will go nuclear and run out my ears.”

Carlos gives the bar a quick wipe-down and pours himself a drink.

“I know your problem. Seen it a thousand times before. Before I bought this place, when I was a little niño, I barbacked at a cop bar over by Rampart. The ones still working, most of them had their heads wired on right enough, but the old-timers? The retired ones or the bad ones that were exiled to desk duty? They could chew their way through steel. You killers, you men of action, take you out of the game and you’re always a month from eating your gun.”

I swirl the Aqua Regia around in the glass.

“Thanks for your concern. It’s touching. Really.”

“Don’t be so sensitive,” says Carlos. “Those guys, they didn’t have your advantages.”

“Such as?”

“The things you can do. The places you can go.”

I finish my drink.

“That’s the problem. I can’t go places anymore. I can still do everything I used to, but I don’t have anywhere to do it.”

“And you being you, you go looking for trouble and you’re going to find it.”

“Finding it’s not the problem. Not looking like I found it is. Chihiro would hate it, and my boss, he wouldn’t be too happy either.”

Carlos opens the cooler under the bar, puts some ice in a clean rag, and hands it to me. I hold it to my bruised eye.

“Then it’s just me that’s amused watching you twist yourself in knots,” he says.

“I don’t like lying to people, but I’m not built to be, I don’t know, a regular person. I was born to break things. Even my father said so.”

“A natural-born killer.”

“That’s what the old man said.”

Carlos pours me more Aqua Regia.

“Your problem is you’re all Koyaanisqatsi . You remember that movie?”

I nod. “A hippie music video ninety minutes too long.”

“The whole thing is only ninety minutes.”

“Yep.”

Carlos uses a finger to draw a shape on the bar in the moisture left from the rag. A little yin yang sign.

“Aside from its virtues as a film, the word Koyaanisqatsi means ‘life out of balance.’ That’s you, my friend. You go from crazy hit man to a pencil pusher on some board of directors or something with no steps in between. Of course it’s going to make you a little crazy.”

“And I’ve lost the Room. It’s not just that I could travel through it. I used to think that was it, but it’s not. The Room was always my place. Somewhere I could hide from this world, Heaven, and Hell. No one could touch me there. It’s the only place I ever felt …”

“Safe,” says Carlos.

I look at him.

“I don’t know.”

“Of course you know. You lost your happy place and now you’ve given up the thing that kept you alive all these years. Your fists. That’s not the recipe for a happy life.”

“So, what do I do?”

“You got yourself Koyaanisqatsied. Now you have to get yourself unkoyaanisqatsied.”

“Yeah, but how?”

Carlos shrugs.

“Take a pill. Get a cat. Follow the yellow brick road. I don’t know. I’m not a shrink. But this isn’t the first time you’ve come in with bruises on your face or hands and I’ve helped you hide them. I’ll tell you, though: I don’t like lying either. Chihiro is good people. Come to me to talk anytime you like, but me helping you hide your sins? Tonight is the last time. I’ve cut off drunks and junkies and now I’m cutting you off. No more ice after tonight.”

Someone pushes past me and orders shots of bad Scotch. I look at my hands. Some of the knuckles are swollen, but not so much you’d notice if you weren’t looking for it. I hold the ice on my eye. No wonder the pit boss thinks I’m an ex-con. I am. Only I did my time in Hell and I came out with exactly the same problems all those cons have when they get out of federal or state pens. Candy and Julie nagged me about PTSD a few weeks ago. I didn’t want to listen. I still don’t, but maybe they’re onto something. Maybe this fighting on the sly isn’t fixing anything. It’s me feeding whatever is wrong with me. So, what do I do about it? I stop is what I do. No more fights. Carlos is right. I need a dog. I need a doctor. I need something else that doesn’t make me a chump and a liar every time I open my mouth.

Then I remember something. I take out the box and put it on the counter.

“Carlos, you’re a man of spirits and exotic liquids. Have you ever heard of something called black milk?”

He hands the guy his lousy Scotch and thinks for a few seconds.

“Never. What is it?”

I open the box and take out the vial.

“This. Only I don’t know what this is.”

He takes the little glass bottle and holds it up to the light. Shakes it a little.

“Where did you get it?”

“It was a gift. Of sorts.”

“More secrets? Who gave it to you?”

“No one I can talk about this close to such shitty Scotch. You should be ashamed of yourself for selling it.”

The guy who ordered them turns to me.

“Hey, I like this stuff. Who made you king high shithead of Scotch?”

I start to say something, but he backs up a step and his mouth opens like a roast pig waiting for an apple. The guy is slumming it tonight. He tried to dress down because he knew he was coming here, but the manicure and the million-dollar college ring give him away.

“Oh shit,” he says. “You’re him. I heard you hang out here. Can I buy you a drink?”

Carlos waves the guy off.

“Not tonight, man. Come back at Christmas. He’ll be a chipper fucker by then. Won’t you, Stark?”

I look at Carlos, not at the groupie.

“Thanks, but I have a drink.”

“Then, can I get a picture with you?” he says. “I swear it will only take a second.”

“What did I just tell you, pendejo ?” says Carlos. “Not tonight.”

Out of the corner of my eye I can see the guy turn from Carlos to me and back to Carlos. He holds up his hands.

“Fine. Be an asshole. You’re not that special, you know. I’ve met lots more cool people here and what do you call them …?”

“Lurkers,” I say.

“Yeah. Lots more interesting ones than you.”

I look at him.

“There’s lots here that love guys like you. Just be sure to check your wallet before you go home.”

He takes the cash for the drink out of his front pocket. He slaps himself on his back pocket, hoping to hit imported hand-tooled leather. By the look on his face I’d say he came up empty.

“Shit,” he says, and checks another pocket, coming up with his iPhone. He looks relieved. At least he can still text his buddies about his night with the wild people on the bad side of town.

He thumbs the phone on and says, “Please. So the night isn’t a total loss. Just one picture.”

“Get out,” says Carlos. “You don’t listen, so you can’t stay. Move. Now.”

I look at Richie Rich.

“Better do what he says or he’ll hit you with a coconut carved like a monkey.”