The Sapphire Express (15 page)

After my satisfying dining experience was over, I stopped at a secondhand bookstore to buy a certain history book and walked back home. Running with the Supreme still happily bathing in my gastric acids just didn’t seem like a good idea, and vomiting the ancient treasure would have been a disgrace of unprecedented proportions. There was no way I was going to take that risk, no way.

When I got home, I took an ice-cold shower and started whistling “Singin’ in the Rain”
loudly. I was a bad man, and that was, after all, what all bad, bad men did in the shower. The water was so cold that I heard my bones shrinking and begging me to turn the heat up, but I ignored their stupid pleas and just shivered in the man-made ice storm like a whistling January raccoon. I didn’t know why, but I was absolutely certain that I needed to be punished, punished hard.

I finally started to turn blue, and the chatter of my freezing teeth ruined the happy whistling and forced me to turn the water off. I got out of the shower and walked into the bedroom without putting any clothes on or even drying myself. I lay down on the eighth wonder of the world and remembered how magnificent it had been when I had seen the evening sun reveal Catalina for the very first time. Eden had been young and wet then, and she wanted to watch the palm trees when I penetrated her gently from behind. I was a man full of alligator’s blood, and the power of youth was at its strongest. It energized my blood like the cataclysmic death of a forgotten star and turned me into an invincible creature free of all worldly worries. My optimism could have taken down mountaintops, and everything was possible that night—everything except death and pain. A wise man could have said that I should have slowed down a little and stopped dreaming, but I would have just smiled at him because I knew that youth was the time that was reserved exclusively for dreams and naive self-confidence. Even if all my dreams would one day crumble like a sad tower of shit, I was still happy at that very moment when I believed in them unconditionally—when I though that everything was possible. That was worth more to me than knowing that I was wrong.

But maybe I should have, at least, acknowledged that I would only get weaker after that orgasmic night under the Pacific stars was over. That would have allowed me to cherish my wife’s perfect body like it was a rare visitor from Venus and marvel at my flexed biceps in the bathroom mirror for hours at a time. I would have appreciated my third erection of the evening like it was a gift from the heavens and run days and days on the misty hills with my powerful, indefatigable legs. I would have drank that whole bottle of Barolo and risen up early in the morning, unharmed.
Is it sad that a young man can’t see Geras rushing from the darkness even if his old father tells him that the son of Nyx is approaching fast? Is it sad that life takes away his powers just when he is ready to finally put them to work? Is it sad that he doesn’t believe in pain, even if it is already living inside his doomed body? Or is it all a blessing, a gift that can only be opened by the ones who are truly blind, the ones who refuse to let darkness in prematurely?

I opened the eight-hundred-page historical novel that I had purchased from the bookstore and looked at the table of contents carefully. I was already familiar with the book because Eden had given it to me for Christmas a few years back, and I had started to read it at least four times without being able to get past page 20. I was, however, fairly optimistic that I would finish the book on my fifth try because, for the first time in my life, the clock on the wall had more hours on it than I knew what to do with. I also felt like I needed to read the damn thing out of respect for Eden.

The book reminded me of my family, and I missed them like hell. I wanted to let them back into my thoughts so, so badly, but I knew that doing that would destroy me. I had finally reached a serene place where survival was remotely possible, and I was truly terrified of the old place where pain and tears were my only friends, where demons rode me like a school bicycle. If I ever allowed my mind to travel back there, all hell would break loose and I would go insane. I would put the Sig Sauer in my mouth and pull the trigger. That was pretty much guaranteed.

Two more lazy days passed like a silent ghost train, and the menacing veil of apprehension settled upon my bedroom, once again. Madness was pounding on my door with its hairy fist like I had stolen its skeletal bride, and I put my fingers deep into my ears and closed my bleeding eyes to the horrors that only reality was able to produce. I curled up under the blanket and shivered there in my lonely hole like a wounded grizzly that had missed the arrival of spring, and I wept, and I cried, and I goddamn screamed until my face turned so hot that I was sure that it was on fire. I was a rotten, languid piece of shit, completely unwilling to return to reality. Thank God for the sound of that angry thunder that woke me up from my slumber and forced me to reluctantly accept that I was still alive.

I got up, opened my computer hesitantly, and realized that it had been two weeks since the consultant went missing. The story was no longer in the news, and the stupid thing had died a quick death, just like I had expected. I was out of the woods, and it was time to go see Ramses and enjoy a few godfathers on my favorite barstool, and in the process, perhaps even a bratwurst or two. I also wanted to get my blood money because I had finally figured out what to do with it.
Oh, how glorious it was to rise up from the sweaty sheets and reintroduce myself to all the great things that the world had to offer. Oh, how fabulously wonderful it was to shut the door to my dirty cave and kiss the bright afternoon sun with my eager lips and smile a genuine, unpretentious smile. Oh, how glorious it was to tip my gentleman’s hat and say a polite good afternoon to the untainted forest birds. Oh, how fucking nice it was to be alive again.

I arrived at Johnny D’s around 5:00 p.m. The bar was almost empty, and dirty Ramses was smoking a bent Marlboro in front of the glorious collection of bottles that lived on the wall in front a hazy mirror that had been cracked by a flying object that most likely had been filled with flammable liquid.

When the greasy man saw me with his little marten’s eyes, he immediately put out his cigarette and started preparing a drink in a hurry.

I sat down on the stool, and he handed me a godfather that was filled to the brim and pushed a cup of dusty peanuts next to it. Then he looked at me enthusiastically, put his hand on my left shoulder and said, “Good to see you, man. I have your money. The bosses are very happy. It’s all in a bag in the kitchen. I will give it to you when you leave. How’s that sound?”

I dug a clean peanut from the bottom of the cup but didn’t say anything.

“Are you OK, man?” Ramses asked.

“Never been better. The best goddamn day of my life,” I said listlessly.

Ramses looked at me suspiciously and asked, “You sure you’re OK?”

“I am fine, Ramses. I just want to drink a couple of godfathers and enjoy the wonderful aroma you have in this joint. You should really capture it in small fancy bottles and sell it as cologne to the stinky college kids who come here every Friday. You could call it the ‘Smell from Hell.’”

“Are you in a bad mood, man?”

“No. I just feel dirty. You know, last night I dreamed about a planet that was the cleanest and the brightest place in the whole galaxy. All its fine citizens were always smiling, and they wore comfortable, clean suits—really nice, tailored suits. They weren’t really people, though, but creatures that didn’t smell bad or go to the bathroom. They didn’t have any weapons, and they didn’t eat because they thought that it was disgusting to look at someone munching on a greasy piece of chicken and licking his dirty fingers afterward. Sometimes they put on white gloves and drank cucumber water from spotless crystal classes. That was all they needed to survive. They didn’t have sex because they thought that semen and other body fluids were something truly sickening, and they would have killed themselves if someone forced them to live with a drooling human being who woke up in the morning, smelly and sweaty like a grimy Amarillo swine under the burning Texas sun. They were always composed, perfect, and kind. They didn’t even have to sleep, but they still looked young and fresh like a smiling high school valedictorian giving her speech under the bright Montana sky. They never coughed or contracted any filthy diseases that would have made their skin turn yellow or allowed filarial worms to eat their goddamn legs alive. They never used bleach to wash their fucking hands. You hear me, Ramses?”

The dirty bartender shrugged lazily and walked to a thirsty customer who wanted two beers and a shot of rye “as fast as humanly possible.” I looked at the grimy servant grumpily and continued sulking on my barstool and waiting for the godfather to elevate my mood and make me clean again.

After about ten minutes of successful convalescing, I ordered another godfather and said to Ramses, “I am going to go after this. You can bring me the bag now.”

“OK, but don’t open it here.”

“My mama didn’t raise a moron.”

Ramses nodded and disappeared into the bar’s private quarters, and soon came back with a black duffel bag in his right hand. He raised the flapper with his free hand and walked to me with a prideful swagger. Then he put the bag on the floor, kicked it under my barstool, and said, “It is all there, seventy thousand dollars. Cash money.”

I didn’t say anything.

“What are you going to do with it, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Blow it on prostitutes,” I said and left the bar.

I jumped into the Econoline and put the money bag behind the driver’s seat. I didn’t even look into the damn thing because I knew that it was all there. I wasn’t a man who tolerated bad math, and Ramses knew it. He might have been a dirty and disgusting dive bar bartender, but at least he was smart enough to understand that some mistakes were simply bad for his general well-being. What he didn’t know, though, was that I was going to drive straight to Randall’s truck stop—the same place where the consultant had picked up his victims.

The mighty van purred like an old reliable cat, and I arrived at the truck stop after twenty minutes of pleasant cruising. I took a deep breath and started scanning the dirty streets with my inexperienced eyes. Ragged vagrants and skinny addicts met my raptor’s gaze with their dying eyes, and it was evident that misery looked exactly the same in every face on planet earth. The money in my bag, or the needles and bottles in the addicts’ pockets didn’t change any of that.

The blighted sidewalks were cold and unwelcoming, and apprehension filled my broken heart when I saw a group of hard women standing on an empty street corner. I wanted to turn back and go home, but it was too late for that. I had already promised myself that a working girl would be in my van that evening.

I slowed down and pulled into a parking spot next to the women and started waving at them, but they didn’t seem very excited to see me. I opened the passenger window and asked with a wide smile, “Does anyone wanna to take a ride?”

The women looked at one another, and one of them with a snow-white wig lit a cigarette and yelled, “We ain’t getting in no creepy van, man.” Then she turned her head ninety degrees to her right and said, “She might, though,” and pointed at a woman sitting on a bench under a graffiti-stained bus stop shelter about two hundred yards from the group.

“Thank you, ladies,” I said and started driving slowly toward the solitary woman.

Then I heard a pebble hit the side of the van, and the wig lady started waving her phone above her head frantically while shouting at me in a hoarse voice, “We have a picture of your license plate, creep, so don’t you try anything funny, OK? You won’t get away with it!”

I waved at the group happily and whispered to myself, “Wow, am I really that goddamn creepy?”

I drove to the bus stop slowly and invited the lonely woman to come and talk to me. I tried to look as “uncreepy” as possible, and I gave her the warmest smile I had in my dusty collection of happy expressions. My face felt stiff and uncomfortable when I did that, and I was worried that the woman would run away screaming. But to my great surprise, she got up and walked to me without any hesitation whatsoever. Then she put her head halfway through the passenger window and asked, “Are you looking for a date, honey?”

“Uh, hi, yes, I am looking for a lady. Hop in, please.”

The woman opened the door fearlessly, sat on the passenger seat and put her purse tightly between her knees. I could tell that she was a little uncomfortable in my presence, but she almost managed to conceal her true feelings by utilizing the years of experience in dealing with unpredictable weirdos and horny bastards in scary cars.

I looked at her and noticed that she was quite a bit older than the other women I had talked to earlier. She was in her forties, I guessed, and her face carried the scars of a tough life and radiated terrible personal pain that she hadn’t been able to fully cover with her makeup. Her black leather jacket was faded, and her heels had lost half their length. She was wearing a red wig, and her cheap lipstick didn’t stand a chance against her chapped, flaky lips and was starting to peel off. Her black nylon tights had a long run in them, and she had tried to fix them with supermarket hairspray and nail polish. It was clear that she was sad and probably mad as hell, too—for a damn good reason.

“How are you today?” I asked in a comforting voice and started driving slowly forward.