When Max had been released from the precinct, he’d spotted the tail on him right away. Spotted the tail-man, he had this shit down cold. He’d also seen cops around outside when he went out for chores-i.e., to buy cigars and load up on booze. The cops weren’t uniforms and they weren’t holding up NYPD signs, but they might as well have been. Max, especially when he was coked up, knew everything that was going on around him and he had amazing instincts. Put one cop in Yankee Stadium with fifty thousand screaming fans and Max would pick the cop out, no problem. It was like Max was born with sonar for this shit.
One afternoon, when Max left his apartment, he did his usual cop search, immediately spotting the son of a bitch-the black guy sitting at the table in the sidewalk café across the street and up the block. Then, as Max headed up the block, he spotted something else. Blonde hair, big knockers-could that possibly be…?
Max’s hand was up, hailing a cab, and a cab pulled up, nearly running over his goddamn foot. When Max looked over again she was gone.
“Come on, buddy, get in my cab,” the driver said. “I don’t have all day.”
Max got in, trying to look back to confirm, Was it her?
It couldn’t’ve been, Max decided later. What the hell would she be doing in America, after all this time? Nah, it wasn’t her-it had to have been a hallucination. Or maybe it was just paranoia. Okay, okay, so now he was up to 10 out of 23 on that coke addiction test. Maybe he shouldn’t’ve ripped the thing up so quickly.
The hallucination, or whatever it had been, reminded Max of how lonely he was. Yeah, he had Kyle around, but Max was physically lonely. Since Felicia had been killed there had been a big gap in Max’s life-well, two gaps, about the size of a pair of 44-double-E’s. The thing was, Max was a relationship guy. Without a loving, caring, big-titted woman at his side he felt incomplete. Yeah he was a metropolitan dude, but at heart he was a romantic, a one-woman man. Sure he played around, but no biggie, that was just for show, to impress the troops. But deep down he was a Paul Newman type really-one woman, one love. Damn straight and, hey, maybe he’d invent a salad dressing too. Fuck, the possibilities were, like, endless.
Funny thing was, Max had been thinking about Angela for a couple of weeks now, wondering where she was, who she was with, if she was happy. Maybe that’s why he’d thought he’d seen her, because she was prominent in his thoughts. So much had happened since the last time they’d spoken that it was hard for him even to remember what had gone wrong between them. He couldn’t remember any fights they’d had or any real conflict. Okay, she’d given him herpes, but aside from that Max could only remember the good times-the blowjobs, the quickies on his desk at his old office. You know, the Hallmark moments.
The next morning Max couldn’t get out of bed, depression kicking in big time. Even the thought of getting up for a little nose candy and some Scarface didn’t have any appeal. Kyle, God bless the kid, noticed Max’s state and tried to help, but The M.A.X. just couldn’t be reached. Max was even thinking about retiring the The in The M.A.X. He just didn’t feel worthy.
Man, this being depressed shit sucked big time.
Then, the next morning, Max noticed Kyle was gone. He thought maybe the kid had gone out shopping or to Blockbuster to get another Meg Ryan movie, but then it got to be afternoon and there was no sign of him. It was very unlike Kyle to disappear for even a couple of hours without leaving a note, or saying where he was going and when he’d be back. Sometimes Max felt like he was the stupid kid’s father. And there was another virtue right there, his fathering side, his nurturing streak. No wonder people flocked to him-he had enough love to go around.
Max wondered if the cops had picked Kyle up and Kyle was busy confessing, implicating Max in the shootings, but the sad thing was that Max didn’t really care. Having to spend the rest of his life as some queer’s fuck hole seemed like a better option to Max than lying around in bed all day, feeling so, so…so worthless.
Sometime in the afternoon, the doorman called up, said there was a package for Max at the front desk marked URGENT AND PERSONAL. Max didn’t have the energy to go down to get it so he had one of the porters bring it up. Max was so not himself that he gave the porter a five-buck tip. The porter, shocked, went, “You feeling okay today, Mr. Fisher?”
Max couldn’t even muster the energy to fire back with one of his usual zingers. He just smiled meekly and muttered, “Have a good day.”
The package was about shoebox size-actually, it seemed to be a shoebox. But there weren’t shoes in it-it was way too light for that. An envelope was attached to the box and there was a note inside the envelope. Max took out the note. It read:
NOW WHO’S A DICK?
Even more confused, Max opened the package. It was wrapped up with lots of tape, and then inside there was crumpled-up newspaper. Max was starting to think it was some prank, maybe that cop Miscali playing head games with him, and then he got to the plastic bag, looked like one of those Ziplock things. There was something inside the bag, something long and pink.
Max held up the bag, studying the contents, and then it hit him. If he hadn’t been so depressed he would’ve screamed-fuck, he probably would’ve run for his life-but in his current state his only reaction was to drop the bag on the floor and back away very slowly.
Twenty-Two
There are few more lethal creatures than an Irishwoman with a grudge.
Angela had been casing Max’s apartment and, Jesus, she’d nearly blown it. The other day he’d come out the front entrance, right on to Second Avenue, and nearly seen her. His face had taken on a stricken look, but then a cab had pulled up and distracted him, giving Angela a chance to duck out of sight.
She hated to admit it, but the bastard looked pretty good. He’d lost weight and was wearing a classy suit-shame about the beige, but it looked like Hugo Boss. He still made her stomach turn, and yet he had a certain air about him now, like he’d finally gotten it together. She liked that he was clean-shaven as Slide’s bearded Arab look was starting to bring her down big time, not to mention scare the living crap out of her. She was impressed with how Max had hailed the cab-no frantic arm waving, just a hand barely raised and then the cabbie had screeched to a halt, knowing a player when he saw one.
The next morning Angela was back in front of Max’s building when she saw Kyle, the young kid from the newspaper article, coming out the front door. He walked to the corner, waited for the light to change.
He had a forlorn country boy look about him, as if he’d hiked over here from the Ozarks or some place like that. He had a kind of cute face-in a lost, helpless sort of way. Best of all, as she walked up to him, swinging her hips slowly back and forth, she saw he was blushing. Every woman knows that when a guy starts blushing you’re going to be adding notches to the bedpost.
Angela said, “Hey, handsome, anybody ever tell you you look like Brad Pitt?”
Angela had used lots of pick-up lines over the years but her “Pitt-Depp technique” had been her most effective by far. It went like this-if the guy had blond hair she told him he looked like Brad Pitt; if he had brown hair she told him he looked like Johnny Depp. Guys soaked that shit up every time.