He trudged slowly across the bedroom, heading for the bathroom. He had just celebrated his thirty-second birthday the month before, but a casual observer might have thought him ten years older than that based on appearances. It wasn’t his body that was the issue. On the contrary, he was in pretty good shape. Broad shouldered and standing at five-ten, his arms, though covered with tattoos, were well muscled and powerful looking, his stomach was flat, and his chest, though also covered with tattoos, was equipped with a set of well-defined pectoral muscles. It was his face where those unearned years were apparent. Years of smoking cigarettes, snorting cocaine by the gram, and drinking alcohol like it was water, had taken their toll. There were permanent bags under his eyes, lines and wrinkles forming on his cheeks. Even his hair, which still hung down well below his shoulders, and which he had stopped dying black a few years before, looked tired and used. And it was starting to thin in the front—his forehead growing at the rate of a half-inch or so per year. Sometimes, when he looked in the mirror these days, he had a hard time equating the reflection staring back at him with the way he felt inside.
Who is that old fucker? he would wonder. How in the fuck did he get here? What in the fuck am I doing to myself?
He would handle such epiphanies in typical Matt Tisdale fashion. He simply stopped looking in the mirror so much, particularly when he first awakened after a party.
He employed such a strategy now. He emptied his bladder in the toilet, brushed his teeth, and then stepped into a shower as hot as he could physically stand. He shaved his face in the shower, operating entirely by feel. He then combed out his long hair, got dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a tee shirt that featured the name of an infamous resort in Cabo San Lucas, and put on his shoes and socks, all without so much as a single glance in the mirror.
There would be no epiphanies today.
Kim was still sleeping soundly so he made his way out of the bedroom and into the main part of the house. There was no sign whatsoever that a drunken, cocaine-fueled party with more than thirty guests had finished up its ten-hour run only six hours before. The tables were all clean and dusted, the debris removed, the hardwood floors and the carpets neatly vacuumed and swept, the dishes all cleaned and put away. That would be the work of Carmen, his housekeeper. At sixty-four years old, she was as fastidious about cleanliness as a career navy admiral. She worked tirelessly picking up the messes that Matt and his friends managed to create and she never so much as batted an eye or raised a brow when those messes included cocaine mirrors, used condoms, or even, on occasion, the odd strap-on sex toy. For all this she was paid quite well. Matt compensated her at thirty-six thousand dollars a year, plus room and board, plus a yearly Christmas bonus that was always in the five-digit range. His butler, Charles, and his cook, Louisa, were similarly compensated. Though Matt still harbored an intense hatred for Jake Kingsley and still considered him to be the primary catalyst in the death of Darren Appleman, their former bass player, he had learned much from him in the manner of how one should treat one’s servants.
Matt followed his nose into the kitchen, where Louisa, who always seemed to know just when he was going to get out of bed, was preparing a chili verde omelet for him. She greeted him with her usual ‘buen dia, senor’ and then told him breakfast would be served in three minutes.
“Thanks, hon,” Matt replied. “I hope you’re making it extra spicy today.”
“Indeed,” she said with a smile. She knew that her boss believed that spicy food was a hangover cure—the spicier, the better—and she had seen the condition of the house earlier.
At a small desk in the corner of the kitchen sat Charles, the butler, though he did much more than simply buttle. He was the titular supervisor of the other two servants and the primary accountant of all household finances. He kept track of Matt’s appointments and obligations, making sure to remind him and, when necessary, harass him to make sure they were attended. He arranged for all maintenance on everything that had to do with the house and made sure it was carried out. He was, as Matt often told him, “the most important motherfuckin’ thing in this house after my cock and my Strat.” Though Matt was not finicky about the attire of his servants, Charles would never be seen on-duty in anything less than a pair of dress slacks and a dress shirt with tie. He was dressed as such now, as he tapped away on the IBM computer at his workstation.
“What up, Chuckie?” Matt greeted him as he poured a large glass of fresh squeezed orange juice from a pitcher in the refrigerator.
“Good morning, sir,” Charles returned, not giving any indication how much being called ‘Chuckie’ annoyed him. “I trust you had a good time last night?”
“I’m thinking I did,” Matt said. “I’m pretty sure I scored a little threesome with Kim and a stripper in the wee hours, although I don’t actually remember it.”
“That would be the young lady I called a cab for at six o’clock this morning,” he said dryly. “She did indeed smell as if she might have been participating in such an activity. She told me that I should thank you for your hospitality and that she will be contacting Ms. Kowalski this week regarding the offer that was made.”
“Six o’clock huh?” Matt said thoughtfully. “No wonder I still feel drunk. I probably am.”
“Undoubtedly, sir,” Charles told him. “Would you like me to attempt to reschedule your meeting for today? I know you have a rule regarding business meetings while in a state of intoxication.”
Matt thought this over for a moment and then shook his head. “Naw,” he said. “The meeting is not until three o’clock. I’ll be okay by then. Besides, I really need to talk to that fuckstick, Crow about my album release. If I bow out today, he’ll do everything he can to try to put me off for another week or two. I can’t have that shit.”
“As you wish, sir,” Charles said. “I have the limo scheduled to pick you up at one-fifteen. Traffic should be light today since it is the day after a holiday. I do not anticipate it taking more than one hour and twenty minutes to get to your destination.”
“You the man, Chuckie,” Matt told him, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’m gonna need some blow when I get home. How’s the supply?”
“All that you laid out for your guests last night has been consumed,” he said.
“All of it?” Matt asked. “Jesus fucking Christ! That was ten grand worth of premo shit I put out.”
“It would seem your guests enjoyed themselves quite well,” Charles said. “You do still have three grams of Bolivian flake in your safe, as well as four grams of the Peruvian in your bedroom supply.”
“All right,” Matt said, nodding. “Go ahead and bust me out some of the Bolivian and put it in in the bowl in the living room. And have a nice Scotch and Pepsi waiting for me.”
“As you wish, sir,” Charles agreed.
“And you probably oughta start thinking about securing a new supply of blow for entertainment. After all, if this meeting goes as I plan, my album release party is coming up soon, and it’s going to be fucking epic.”
“I will start working on that today,” Charles assured him.
Louisa brought his breakfast over to the table. He thanked her absently and then sat down to eat it. His stomach grumbled at him at first, but soon the spicy chilis and the wonderful texture of her lovingly prepared meat started doing their work. The nausea and dizziness he had been struggling with began to fade—not as quickly as it would have with a few lines of coke, but it was a start.