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He didn’t serve the words with any particular malice, just fact. I had a feeling he’d admit to any manner of fuckups, but in this, his hands were clean and mine were dirty, and those were just the facts. I only had one more hand. “I’ll pay you,” I said, my voice so quiet that his eyes flickered up to mine questioningly. I repeated it. “I’ll pay you. Whatever you ask.”
The man was wearing sneakers that had to be older than Halley. It didn’t look like he’d had a decent haircut this decade. Not to be an asshole, but I thought that was my trump card. I’d give him a hundred thousand dollars, and he’d tell Kim I was a choir boy.
So when he shook his head, I was dumbfounded.
“What’s she paying you?” I pressed. “I’ll double it. Fuck, I’ll triple it. You know I’m good for it. You’ve seen where I live.”
If circumstances had been any less serious, I’d have hated myself for the words coming out of my mouth. But they were serious. And I was willing to do anything.
He smiled a little, that half-embarrassed smile, like even he thought I was making an ass of myself. “Yeah, boss. I’ve seen where you live. Listen though, that has nothing to do with this or that. I’m contracted, and that’s all there is to it. I just wanted to give you fair warning of what was coming. Give you a chance to, you know…” he spun his straw in his water.
“Spin it?” I guessed, watching the liquid swirl. It reminded me of the water in the toilet going down the drain, which was an apt metaphor for what was happening to my life right now.
“That’s it,” he said. He looked like he wanted to reach over and pat me reassuringly on the back, but he thought better of it. He stood, pulled a few dollar bills out of his pocket to leave on the bar, and left.
Taking any hope I had of getting out of this unscathed with him.
