Denis Johnson - Nobody Move

“Wednesday I go to court.”

“Yeah. I know you.”

“Nobody knows me.”

“You’re slightly infamous.”

“All lies,” Anita said.

“So!” Jimmy said. “John Capra didn’t die.”

“Nope. My old lady wanted alimony. That’s unacceptable. I cut her some slack. I walked.”

“Like a real gentleman,” Anita said.

“Yeah, it was, lady. I know twenty dudes would’ve taken her out to the Mojave and buried her alive for that shit.”

“I didn’t mean it,” Anita said.

Capra put his hand on the doorknob and stared at her, but he was speaking to Jimmy. “This one got the beauty that goes down to the bone. High heels or barefoot, don’t matter.”

“She can sing too.”

“I can’t tell if she’s powered by a lot of soul or a lot of psycho electricity.”

Anita said, “Do you always talk about people like they’re invisible?”

“Usually just women.”

It was one of those hippie-student pads smelling like cat shit, incense, a little dirty laundry, dirty dishes. She said, “Does somebody, you know — clean?” just to be a bitch.

“I said I owe him. I didn’t say I was his slave.” Capra shut the door softly behind him, and the windowpanes rattled as he went down the stairs.

Jimmy lit a cigarette and said, “Honey? I’m home!”

Anita said, “Is this a smoking room?”

“Yeah. I smoke.”

“Well, fine. Smoke.”

He blew smoke and opened what looked like a closet door. “Even a bathroom. No tub.”

Anita sat on the bed. “Jeez, the mattress is like quicksand, help!”

“Don’t get lost. I’ll be back.” He went out the door, and she listened to the panes rattle while he descended, and then she settled back onto the bare feather pillow. It stank. A few minutes, and someone shook the panes again coming up the stairs.

It was Sally — Sol — with sheets and a blanket. “Funky, funky, funky,” he said, “but it’s bigger than mine. I have a studio downstairs off the kitchen.” He stood by the bed looking haggard, though he smiled. “Might as well live near the job — I have to be in the kitchen by six a.m. anyhow. Can you stand it, honey?”

“Sure.”

“The renter just moved out. The plan is we clean it up and move in next week. Me and Jay.”

“You mean — you and Jay? Move in?”

“Move in. Me and Jay. That’s the situation.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Might as well take a shot. At least he’s not going anywhere. He’s stuck.”

“So you guys all knew each other somewhere. Alhambra.”

“Alhambra, USA. Jimmy burned up the life down there, huh? Fact is, there’s a real coincidence going on here. I got a little crazy down there myself.”

“Well,” she said.

“Who’s after him? Is it the cops, or is it Gambol and Juarez and all those nice people?”

“Gambol,” Anita said. “Who’s that?”

Sally still held the towels. Picking at the fabric with one hand. “So it’s Gambol.”

“I don’t know. The name just sounded familiar.”

“Gambol,” Sally said, “just keeps coming.”

“I don’t think Jimmy would hang around for somebody like that.”

“Then who’s Jimmy hanging around for now?” He looked at Anita. “Oh. Yeah.”

When Sally was gone, Jimmy came back with his duffel and their JCPenney shopping bags and set them all down beside the bathroom door. “The earthly goods.”

Anita said nothing, making the bed.

Jimmy put on a phony smile and stuck his hands in his pockets and watched. “How’s old Sally Fuck doing?”

“He seems nice enough.”

“He’s not, not nearly.”

“Who’s Juarez?”

Jimmy lit a cigarette.

“Or did he mean Juarez like the place?”

“Sally mentioned Juarez?” Jimmy took one drag and tossed his smoke through the bathroom door into the toilet. “Juarez is not the place. He’s a guy who owns a couple dumpy clubs and porn joints. Sally disappeared two or three years ago with a whole lot of money, and there’s a

bounty out for his head. It wasn’t Juarez’s money, but Juarez is the kind of guy who collects things.”

“Like bounties.”

“Yeah. You’re quick. Listen. Whatever you do, don’t talk to Sally about the situation.”

“What situation?”

“Exactly. You got it. Don’t talk to him.”

Mary understood her patient was important to Juarez. Juarez had promised her twenty thousand to get this man walking again. Juarez hadn’t said what he’d give her if things went wrong.

To Mary the patient didn’t look like anybody important. Long-limbed, long-faced, with a heavy brow and deep-set, melancholy eyes that made him seem thoughtful. But he was beginning to impress her as stupid. After every hypo of morphine sulfate he hopped on a cloud and held court for about thirty minutes. Apparently he’d once eaten a man’s testicles.

“Juarez ate one, and I ate one. Neither one of us puked. Because when I hate somebody, my hatred is bitter till I do something horrible to soothe it.”

He sat on the couch in Mary’s pastel-blue bathrobe, his wounded leg laid out on the ottoman. It looked like a bloated corpse. She knew it hurt.

“I itch all over. I gotta piss. I haven’t pissed in two days.”

“Honey, you’re on a morphine bash. You won’t be able to piss till it’s over.”

“I know that loser,” he said.

“Are you calling Juarez a loser?”

“Not Juarez. Jimmy Luntz.”

She brought him the bedpan.

He gave her the finger. “Get that thing away from me.”

“Just try and pee.”

“I can’t pee on cue.”

“Ha ha.”

“I like the way you laugh.”

“Honey, that was fake.”

In the nylon robe the patient looked ridiculous, holding his tool in his hand and steering it toward the metal pan, gazing at her contented, doped-up, expressionless. “Mary. Right?”

“Right.”

“You are what we call a hefty blonde. You look about forty.”

“I’m forty-four. Thirty-eight in the bust.”

“Forty-four years old? That’s okay. I used to like the young ones, but ever since my niece started growing a bust herself, I changed my taste. Now the young ones all look like my niece.”

Mary tossed the empty ampule under the sink. “Enjoy yourself, big guy. That was the last happy hypo. After this it’s just Oxycodone and Amoxicillin.”

“I’m trying to straighten her out. She got arrested for shoplifting.”

“Who?”

“My niece. Aren’t you listening?”

“Sure. And taking notes.”

“I’m trying to tell her a few things, get her lined up for the future. She says there is no future.”

“Pee, or put your dick away.”

“Her dad just died. My kid brother. Thirty-seven years old. Allergic reaction.”

“Reaction to what?”

“Fuck if I know.”

“You better find out. If it runs in the family—”

“Him and I were the last men in the family. Now it’s me. If I croak, the family name is erased.”

“What’s the name?”

“Just call me Ernest.”

“Not Ernie?”

“What do you think?”

“Okay. Ernest.”

“Yeah. Okay. What about a happy ending?”

“Not dying when somebody shoots you is about as happy as it gets.”

“Do you know what I mean? Like the massage girls? I mean a blow job. That’s a happy ending.”

“Happy for you, is all. For me it’s a mouthful of fuckwad.”

“What’s Juarez paying you for all this medical care?”

“Enough to get four acres in Montana.”

“I’ll put five on top of it.”

“Five what?”

“Five K.”

“For a blow job?”

“For nothing. For saving my ass. Like a thank-you.”