Page 69 of Liquids

“This is the fucking Russian mafia, Marn,” I round on her. “Who knows if he’ll ever see any of it? He was torn to shreds, and they didn’t really give a shit; they just wanted him to finish the fight.” Tears clog the back of my throat.

June puts an arm around my waist and squeezes. “You know blood always looks worse than it is. They’ll be stitching him up now. He won a fight for them so they’ll be taking good care of him. That man said they had doctors, and Konstantin said they’re not going to harm an asset.”

“That’s what I’m worried about. That he’s some kind of asset to them now.”

“Come on,” Marge says, tucking her hand into my elbow. “There’s nothing we can do to help him right now, so let’s at least do a toast to Rig. That was brutal, and he fought really hard.”

God, she’s not wrong. But I can’t shake the image of Rig on his knees in the ring, covered in blood. Maybe a drink is the best option I have.

I follow them into their room, and though it has a brown nylon carpet and orange floral bedspreads, it’s clean and serviceable. We dig around for plastic cups and dredge up five from our various bathrooms, and we fill them with the leftover hooch from the flasks. Marni bashes her cup into mine and says, “Bottoms up!”

It turns out the little old ladies have a huge stash of booze tucked away in their purses, and by the time I stagger back to my room, I’m a bit tipsy. I knock back some water and press Rig’s number on my phone, but it goes straight to voicemail, so I send a flurry of texts. Eventually, I collapse on the bed and hope deep in my heart that neither Rig nor one of the little old ladies dies in the night.

I turn over to a key in the lock and the door opening, and a dark shadow moves into the room.

“Rig?”

“Hey,” he says.

“Oh my God! Are you all right?” I fumble for the light switch on the nightstand, gasping when I take him in. He’s covered in Band-Aids with more substantial bandages on his arms and face.

“He ripped you to pieces!”

“Yeah, the asshole. Fuck.” He sits down on the side of the bed, and I shuffle over to him, slide my arms around him, and rest my head on his back.

He rests his hands on top of mine and lets out a long sigh.

“Thank you for coming.”

“I wanted to come down to you. At the end. I …” I start.

He bows his head. “Just as well you didn’t, babe. Three people got shot before they managed to calm the whole thing down. I remembered tonight why I always said no to these guys.” He bends forward to ease off his shoes. “Everything fucking hurts. Fuck, but they’ve got an amazing doctor.”

I shift back on the bed as he moves back onto it. His face is a mess.

“Not so pretty now, am I?”

I grin at him. “You’ll always be beautiful to me, Rig.”

His eyes lock on mine. “I hope you mean that.”

My eyes wander over his face, and I smile. “Of course I do. What did the doctor do to you?”

“Tiny, tiny stitches mainly. I’ve been sitting in this guy Konstantin’s house while this female doctor did this careful stitching all over me. Been there for hours. She said I should be okay, a few scars, but nothing too bad. Might take some time to fade, she said. She’s a plastic surgeon here in the city. I’ve got to go and see some buddy of hers in St. Louis in a coupla days, and she’s given me all this cream to rub in … I don’t even know. Fuck, I’m wiped. I fell asleep while she was patching me up.”

Konstantin has a house? He must make good money working for the mafia. But I’ll think about that after I’ve inspected Rig’s stitches. He shifts around so he’s lying on the bed with his head on the pillow. I lean over him and peel back a couple of bandages on his arm to take a look, and he’s right, the sutures are amazing.

“Wow, this is incredible work, Rig.”

When I look up at his face, his eyes are closed.

“Yeah,” he says, and I can hear he’s falling asleep.

“Are you in pain?”

“They pumped me full of painkillers. I’m fine. Go back to sleep, Carl. Christ, I need to rest. I’ve been pummeled to death.”

I settle down next to him, turn on my side, and reach out to switch off the light. He shifts and curls into my back just like he always did.