May 12, 2013
Tim Burton
I asked the girls, “How long has this party been going on?”
“Two, three days. I dunno. We haven”t been paid.”
They were evidently only too happy to get out of the room if given the money. I handed over most of what I was carrying in cash. They counted it”$1,470. They said it was short a thousand. I told them if they didn”t leave in five seconds I”d have the police arrest them for conspiring to deliver narcotics. I pointed at the powder on the table, glass pipe, AirMiles card…
I closed my eyes and started counting: “Five. Four. Three…” To my amazement, when I reopened my eyes, the girls had gone.
“Mickey,” I called through the door. “You gotta finish this job. I can help you.”
“How can you help me?”
“Come out, we”ll discuss our options.”
No movement audible. I waited. Then I heard a thud, a cry”and the sound of a shower curtain pulled off its rail.
I braced myself and smashed into the door, synchronously twisting the doorknob just like on TV. The shit worked! What I found on the other side, however, was definitely not working.
Mickey was on the floor, twitching like a caught fish. I saw a bottle of Rx pills. The label was ripped off them.
I decided against calling Jennifer or an ambulance. Mick would never forgive me. I devised my own plan. I called my guy Nazario, citizen of Tijuana and fixer extraordinaire. I told him how things stood: “He can”t walk, can”t talk. I need to get him out of the hotel and to a private doctor as soon as possible. Ayudarme?”
Nazario’s response was positive (“Are you kidding? You and me, we”re like blood brothers!”) I gave him the hotel and room number. Mickey was writhing at sporadic intervals. I cleaned the evidence up as best I could, then sat on the bed and waited.
No sooner had I sat down than Nazario arrived. Five-foot-six, tattoos, grade-two shaved head, and ivory-button cowboy shirt. It was spooky how fast he got here. For a moment I wondered if he”d been supplying Mickey.
He gave me un abrazo, which killed my suspicion. All smiles and pumping fists, he was apparently delighted to see me. Only after reaffirming our bond did we turn to Mickey lying on the bathroom floor.
“We carry him down the emergency stairs,” Nazario decided. “My pickup’s parked at the bottom. Let’s go.”
And so it was that we hefted Mickey’s body out of the hotel without anybody observing. We jumped in the truck, Mickey propped between us. Nazario slapped him to check his condition. “You got a doc?” I asked.
“I got a doc,” he confirmed. He reversed and put his foot on the gas. Ten minutes later we”re in a poor suburb, parked outside a dilapidated breeze-block home, dead cacti (strafed by knife wounds) in the front yard. Throwing daggers at a cactus is the Tijuanan version of the English playing croquet. We pull Mickey to the door.
“Put him there,” a voice said, indicating a sofa. This was no clinic; it was the man’s home. A TV set was the only decoration. The man wore an unbuttoned white doctor’s coat (bare chest beneath) board shorts, and plastic sandals. A stethoscope not in use since the 1970s hung around his neck. He might as well have been an actor in a nurse-themed porno movie.
“You”re a doctor, right?” I asked.
“Puta madre, si!” he replied.
Nazario whispered: “Online degree, University of Mexicali.”
I gulped. “What’s wrong with my friend?”
“One hundred dollars,” he came back. “For consultation. Drugs are extra.” He walked on back to his study, where an ancient PC plus endless envelopes, boxes, and packaging filled the room. At least a carving of Jesus on the cross was affixed to the wall.
“You want meds, I got meds. If I don”t got what you want, Sammy in Manila can get it here, UPS, in thirty-six hours. Special offer on Oxys today: Buy two hundred, get twenty blue diamonds. Generic, not Viagra””
I interrupted: “What does my friend need? He’s in a coma!”
“He’s breathing, no?”
“I need him more than breathing,” I exploded. “I need him walking and talking and”thinking!”
“Xanax?” the doc asked me. He pointed to the end of the office”past an ambulance trolley, evidently stolen from the hospital with whose name it was still labeled”where a grand, hi-tech refrigerator was standing. Glowing. Like the Starship Enterprise. “What’s in there?” I asked.
“That’s for my platinum-select clients. Top-grade, brands-only. Xanax?” he persisted.
For the first time since Mickey went AWOL, I was at a loss for words. Platinum select? The doc began checking records on his decommissioned computer. It was only then I noticed he was wearing rubber gloves.
I turned to Nazario. “Dude,” I told him. “This isn”t working for me.”
“OK. But what we gonna do with that?” We looked at Mickey on the sofa, his eyes rolled back.
“I need help getting him back into the US.”
…On this note, Gato, I must leave you. It’s 2:36 and my intravenous ozone appointment is at 3PM. Keeps me young, savvy?
“Til next time, when the final chapter of our story can be told. Until then”
Bombay
