Vic Meets Brian
From Sokushinbutsu
##9##
midazolam
The guy who came to the door was Brian. He came asking after Steve, the kid.
I sweated bullets knowing the coke was in the ceiling and Brian seemed stoked when I got nervous. It was the day after the police raid. We had coffee. He asked me how much I knew about the kid.
He showed me his shield and an FBI I.D.
“Nothing. I only ever saw him half a dozen times. He paid rent early, in cash. He was barely ever here. I go out in the day. I have an office.”
“What is it you do, Vic?” He was curt like he was trying to get a rise out of me.
“I was in futures trading and investment. I'm essentially retired.”
“How old a guy are you, Vic?”
“I'm 53 and I'll be 54 next week.” I really just wanted Brian and his fat ass out of my house.
He was wearing a pale suit jacket and pants. The holsters strapped to his back fat strained against the cloth. He'd turned one of my kitchen chairs around and rested his hand on the top of the back, up between his tits.
With his other hand he kept pulling his cigarettes out of his pocket and putting them back. It was like watching someone else's baby cry. I put an ash tray in front of him so he'd quit. He immediately lit up.
“He lived in your house with you.” Brian blew out smoke that waited til he finished talking.
“He just needed a room. We only had drinks together once. I'd seen him around. He seemed like a good kid.
“My attorney told me what they had on him- nothing. The detectives she talked to said they were gonna catch him with the car. There was nothing here. I don't know what they were gonna get him on.”
“What's that supposed to mean?” Brian was accusatory now.
I put my hand out between us and counted fingers while I listed, ”They were after him for coke. There was no coke.”
Another finger, “They said he knew a guy at the airport or a DEA guy who tipped him off. They were gonna roll him when he went in to pay the rental car company. To get the DEA guy or the airport guy.”
Brian looked concerned.
I was about to put up another finger.
He took a drag of his cigarette and dumped his coffee into his mouth.
He crunched out his cigarette. I'd forgotten what great punctuation they make.
I recalled that Brian didn't smell like a smoker when he walked in. I wondered how he’d done it. Maybe it was his first one of the day. Maybe there was some secret FBI anti stink. I recalled learning that the gene that makes western people stink when they sweat is turned off in Japanese people. I recalled the Thai prostitute and the shitty hotel in Bangkok and I wondered if there’d been anything secreted into my coffee. One time a kid at a party in Chicago handed me a vape pen that had ketamine in it.
It took me what seemed like forever to recognize who he meant when he said, “You guys would've got along great.”
I started to shove my coffee with my elbow and Brian pulled the cup away as I lay my head down in the crook of one arm. I recalled him saying, “I have some questions I’d like to ask you.”
I woke up on the couch.
I remember the first few times I blacked out. It was uncomfortable not to know what had happened, but before I quit drinking all-together and moved here, I had got used to it.
I called Fati when my head got clear and I told her the whole thing.
“Are you fucking with me right now, Vic?” It was nearly five p.m. She'd just got home from here.
“Nope, he fucking drugged me and tucked me under a blanket on my own couch.”
“We're into something fucked up here.”
“We!?” I said.
“If you didn't want me on board you should've called a shrink, not me. This is juicy. I'm in.”
I wandered into the kitchen while Fati fussed on her end of the phone.
“That's fucked up. .. He washed the dishes!
“He was probably just double checking.”
“He knows who Steve is, Vic.”
“Fuck, no he doesn't.”
“Fuck yes, he does. He said, ‘You guys would've got along great.’
“He knows him!
“This is juicy.”
I thought about the cocaine in the ceiling above the kitchen.
Fati was the most patient listener I knew until I remembered she was on the clock.
“Would you believe me if I told you the FBI publishes a roster?” she said.
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“They don’t exactly, but the police can get one so they don't have to trust that the spooks are who they say they are or so higher ups in a precinct can call off detectives who accident into a federal thing.”
“That tracks, I guess. What are you gonna do?”
“I’m gonna try to figure out why an FBI guy who is helping a cocaine guy would drug an ex futures brokerage guy. I probably won't be able to do anything, but maybe he’s a bad apple and we can help get him off the streets.”
“He wasn’t a fat guy, but he had a wide ass.” It seemed important for me to add.