Versions of this encounter passed through my mind continually during the night, each one slightly different – not a cigar, but a cigarette or a candle, not a wine bottle,

but a cane or a statuette – each one like a shard of coloured glass hurtling in slow-motion through space after an explosion, each one vainly promising to form into a

solid memory, into something objective and recollectable … and reliable …

At one point, I rolled off the duvet, holding my stomach, and crawled across the floor through the glistening darkness to the bathroom. After another fit of retching,

this time into the toilet bowl, I managed to get up on to my feet. I leant over the wash-basin, struggled with the faucets for a moment and then threw some cold water on

my face. When I looked up, my reflection in the mirror was ghostlike and barely visible, with my eyes – clear and moving – the only sign of life.

I dragged myself back into the living-room, where the dim shapes on the floor – the smashed boxes, the crumpled clothes, the open briefcase full of money – looked

like irregular rock formations on some strange and dusky blue terrain. I slumped back against the wall nearest to the telephone and slid down into a sitting position on

the floor. I stayed there for the next couple of hours, as daylight seeped in around me, allowing the room to reconstitute itself before my eyes, unchanged.

And I came to some accommodation with the pain in my head, as well – so long as I remained absolutely still, and didn’t move, didn’t flinch, it obligingly receded

into a dull, thumping, mindless rhythm …

[ 27 ]

WHEN THE PHONE RANG BESIDE ME, just after nine o’clock, it felt like a thousand volts of electric current piercing my brain.

I reached over – wincing, my hand shaking – and picked up the receiver.

‘Hello?’

‘Mr Spinola? It’s Richie, at the desk.’

‘Hhhn.’

‘There’s a Mr … Gennady here to see you? Shall I send him up?’

Friday morning.

This morning. Well, yesterday morning by now.

I paused.

‘Yeah.’

I put the phone down. He might as well see me – see what he would be in for shortly.

I struggled to get up off the floor – each movement I made like another charge of electric current through my brain. When I eventually got up I noticed that I was

standing in a small pool of my own piss. There were blood and mucus stains on my shirt and I was trembling all over.

I looked down at the briefcase full of money, and then back at the phone. How could I have been so stupid, so vain? I looked over at the windows. It was a bright

day. I walked over to the door, very slowly, and opened it.

I turned, and took a few paces back into the room, and then turned again to face the door. At my feet, there was a large, crushed box, its spilt contents – saucepans,

pots, various kitchen implements – splayed out like intestines on the floor.

I stood there, an old man suddenly – feeble, stooped, at the mercy of everything around me. I heard the elevator opening, and then footsteps, and then a couple of

moments later Gennady appeared in the doorway.

‘Whoa … fuck!’

He looked around in shock – at me, at the mess, at the sheer size of the place, at the windows – obviously unable to decide if he was disgusted or impressed. He

was wearing a pin-striped two-button suit, a black shirt and no tie. He’d shaved his head and was sporting a three-day stubble on his chiselled face.

He looked me up and down a couple of times.

‘What the fuck’s wrong with you?’

I mumbled something in response.

He came a little further into the room. Then, side-stepping the mess on the floor, he made his way over to the windows, irresistibly drawn to them, I suppose – just

as I had been on that first visit here with Alison Botnick.

I didn’t move. I felt nauseous.

‘This is certainly a change from that shit-hole you had on Tenth Street.’

‘Yeah.’

I could hear him behind me, pacing along by the windows.

‘Shit, you can see everything.’ He paused. ‘I heard you’d found yourself quite a place, but this is amazing.’

What did that mean?

‘There’s the Empire State. The Chrysler Building. Brooklyn. I like this. You know, maybe I’ll get a place here myself.’ I could tell from his voice that he had turned

around now. ‘In fact, maybe I’ll take this place, move in here. How’d that be, jerkoff?’

‘That’d be great, Gennady,’ I said, half turning around, ‘I was going to look for a room-mate anyway, you know – to help with the repayments.’

‘Listen to this, a comedian with shit stains on his pants. So, Eddie, what the fuck’s going on here?’

He walked around the other side of the mess and came back into view. He stopped when he saw the briefcase of money on the floor.

‘Jesus, you really don’t like banks, do you?’

With his back to me, he bent down and started looking at the money, taking wads of it out and flicking through them.

‘There must be three or four hundred thousand dollars here.’ He whistled. ‘I don’t know what you’re into, Eddie, but if there’s much more where this came from,

you might want to think of investing some of it. My import company’s going to be up and running soon, so if you want in for some points … you know, we can talk

about a price.’

Talk about a price?

Gennady didn’t know it, but he was going to be dead soon – in a few days’ time, after his supply of MDT had run out.

‘Well,’ he said, straightening up again and turning around, ‘when am I going to meet this dealer of yours?’

I looked at him, and said, ‘You’re not going to meet him.’

‘What?’

‘You’re not going to meet him.’

He paused, breathing out through his nose. Then he stood looking at me for about ten seconds. The expression on his face was like that of a thwarted child – but a

thwarted child with a switchblade in his pocket. Slowly he took it out and flicked it open.

‘I thought this might happen,’ he said, ‘so I did some homework. Found out a few things about you, Eddie. Been keeping an eye on you.’

I swallowed.

‘You’ve been doing pretty well recently, haven’t you? With your business associates and merger deals.’ He turned and started pacing across the room. ‘But I don’t

think Van Loon or Hank Atwood would be too happy to hear about your association with a Russian loanshark.’

I looked at him, starting to feel a little thwarted myself.

‘Or about your history of substance abuse. Wouldn’t play too well in the press either.’

My history of substance abuse? That was history. How could he know anything about that?

‘It’s incredible what you can find out about someone’s past, isn’t it?’ he said, as though reading my thoughts. ‘Employment records, credit history – even personal

stuff.’

‘Fuck you.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so.’

As he said this, he turned and walked quickly back to where I was standing. He held the knife up near my nose and waved it from side to side.

‘I could re-arrange the elements of your face, Eddie, nicely, creatively, but I’d still want the answer to my question.’ He stared into my eyes, and repeated it, this

time in a whisper, ‘When am I going to meet this dealer of yours?’