Donna Tartt - The Goldfinch

“Help how?”

“By giving her back the moneys I took.”

“You’d kept it?”

“Well, no,” he said reasonably. “Had spent it. But—had something else going, see. Because right after the coke ran out? I had taken the money to Jimmy at the gun shop and bought more. See, I was buying it for me and Amber—just the two of us. Very very beautiful girl, very innocent and special. Very young too, like only fourteen! But just that one night at MGM Grand, we had got so close, just sitting on the bathroom floor all night up at KT’s dad’s suite and talking. Didn’t even kiss! Talk talk talk! I all but wept from it. Really opened up our hearts to each other. And—” hand to his breastbone—“I felt so sad when the day came, like why did it have to be over? Because we could have sat there talking forever to each other! and been so perfect and happy! That’s how close we got to each other, see, in just that one night. Anyway—this is why I went to Jimmy. He had really shitty coke—not half so good as Stewart and Lisa’s. But everyone knew, see—everyone had heard about that weekend at MGM Grand, me with all that blow. So people came to me. Like—dozen people my first day back at school. Throwing their moneys at me. ‘Will you get me some… will you get me some… will you get some for my bro… I have ADD, I need it for my homework.…’ Pretty soon was selling to senior football players and half the basketball team. Lots of girls too… friends of Amber and KT’s… Jordan’s friends too… college students at UNLV! Lost money on the first few batches I sold—didn’t know what to ask, sold fat for low price, wanted everyone to like me, yah yah yah. But once I figured it out—I was rich! Jimmy gave me huge discount, he was making lots of green off it too. I was doing him big favor, see, selling drugs to kids too scared to buy them—scared of people like Jimmy who sold them. KT… Jordan… those girls had a lot of money! Always happy to front me. Coke is not like E—I sold that too, but it was up and down, whole bunch then none for days, for coka I had a lot of regulars and they called two and three times a week. I mean, just KT—”

“Wow.” Even after so many years, her name struck a chord.

“Yes! To KT!” We raised our glasses and drank.

“What a beauty!” Boris slammed his glass down. “I used to get dizzy around her. Just to breathe her same air.”

“Did you sleep with her?”

“No… God I tried… but she gave me a hand job in her little brother’s bedroom one night when she was wasted and in a very nice mood.”

“Man, I sure left at the wrong time.”

“You sure did. I came in my pants before she even got the zip down. And KT’s allowance—” reaching for my empty shot glass. “Two thousand a month! That is what she got for clothes only! Only KT already has so many clothes it is like, why does she need to buy more? Anyway by Christmas for me it was like in the movies where they have the ching-ching and the dollar signs. Phone never stopped ringing. Everybody’s best friend! Girls I never saw before, kissing me, giving me gold jewelry off their own necks! I was doing all the drugs I could do, drugs every day, every night, lines as long as my hand, and still money everywhere. I was like the Scarface of our school! One guy gave me a motorcycle—another guy, a used car. I would go to pick my clothes from off the floor—hundreds of dollars falling out from the pockets—no idea where it came from.”

“This is a lot of information, really fast.”

“Well, tell me about it! This is my usual learning process. They say experience is good teacher, and normally is true, but I am lucky this experience did not kill me. Now and then… when I have some beers sometimes… I’ll maybe hit a line or two? But mostly I do not like it any more. Burned myself out good. If you had met me maybe five years ago? I was all like—” sucking in his cheeks—“so. But—” the waiter had reappeared with more herring and beer—“enough about all that. You—” he looked me up and down—“what? Doing very nicely for yourself, I’d say?”

“All right, I guess.”

“Ha!” He leaned back with his arm along the back of the booth. “Funny old world, right? Antiques trade? The old poofter? He got you in to it?”

“That’s right.”

“Big racket, I heard.”

“That’s right.”

He eyed me up and down. “You happy?” he said.

“Not very.”

“Listen, then! I have great idea! Come work for me!”

I burst out laughing.

“No, not kidding! No no,” he said, shushing me imperiously as I tried to talk over him, pouring me a new shot, sliding the glass across the table to me, “what is he giving you? Serious. I will give you two times.”

“No, I like my job —” over-pronouncing the words, was I as wrecked as I sounded?—“I like what I do. ”

“Yes?” He lifted his glass to me. “Then why aren’t you happy?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“And why not?”

I waved my hand dismissively. “Because—” I’d lost track quite how many shots I’d had. “Just because.”

“If not job then—which is it?” He had thrown back his own shot, tossing his head grandly, and started in on the new plate of herring. “Money problems? Girl?”

“Neither.”

“Girl then,” he said triumphantly. “I knew it.”

“Listen—” I drained the rest of my vodka, slapped the table—what a genius I was, I couldn’t stop smiling, I’d had the best idea in years!—“enough of this. Come on—let’s go! I’ve got a big big surprise for you.”

“Go?” said Boris, visibly bristling. “Go where?”

“Come with me. You’ll see.”

“I want to stay here.”

“Boris—”

He sat back. “Let it go, Potter,” he said, putting his hands up. “Just relax.”

“Boris!” I looked at the bar crowd, as if expecting mass outrage, and then back at him. “I’m sick of sitting here! I’ve been here for hours. ”

“But—” He was annoyed. “I cleared this whole night for you! I had stuff to do! You’re leaving?”

“Yes! And you’re coming with me. Because—” I threw my arms out—“you have to see the surprise!”

“Surprise?” He threw down his balled-up napkin. “What surprise?”

“You’ll find out.” What was the matter with him? Had he forgotten how to have fun? “Now come on, let’s get out of here.”

“Why? Now?”

“Just because!” The bar room was a dark roar; I’d never felt so sure of myself in my life, so pleased at my own cleverness. “Come on. Drink up!”

“Do we really have to do this?”

“You’ll be glad. Promise. Come on!” I said, reaching over and shaking his shoulder amicably as I thought. “I mean, no shit, this is a surprise you can’t believe how good.”

He leaned back with folded arms and regarded me suspiciously. “I think you are angry with me.”

“Boris, what the fuck.” I was so drunk I stumbled, standing up, and had to catch myself on the table. “Don’t argue. Let’s just go.”

“I think it is a mistake to go somewhere with you.”

“Oh?” I looked at him with one half closed eye. “You coming, or not?”

Boris looked at me coolly. Then he pinched the bridge of his nose and said: “You won’t tell me where we’re going.”

“No.”

“You won’t mind if my driver takes us then?”

“Your driver?”

“Sure. He is waiting like two-three blocks away.”

“Fuck.” I looked away and laughed. “You have a driver? ”

“You don’t mind if we go with him, then?”

“Why would I?” I said, after a brief pause. Drunk as I was, his manner had brought me up short: he was looking at me with a peculiar, calculating, uninflected quality I had never seen before.