A Man Named Doll by Jonathan Ames (popular books to read TXT) 📗

to patiently feed me a salmon patty, mashed potatoes, and a salad. I was very passive and quiet, which pleased him, and after a few bites, I said, like it was no big deal, like none of this was a big deal: “How’s Monica? She doing okay?”

“Yeah, she’s fine. But I told you already, we’re not talking about her.”

“Okay. Okay.” I ate some more and then I said: “I won’t talk to you about her, but you know, the cops are going to find us. They’re going to find my friend in Costa Rica, and talking to him will lead them here.”

“Not going to happen,” he said good-naturedly.

“It is and you should let Monica go before they get here.”

“Shut up,” he said.

I shut up for a few more bites and then I said: “Listen to me. Grab the two hundred thousand I got for the diamond and take off. But let Monica go first. Come on—you don’t want her to be hurt. I know it.”

He put the fork down and said, genuinely angry for the first time: “Stop talking to me about the girl. Eat your food. Or I’m going to fucking make you go to sleep.”

I finished the meal in silence—I wasn’t a very good manipulator—and as he rolled the tray away, I said: “Why do you do this for Madvig? Kill people? Hurt Monica?”

He turned to me, pissed. “Why do you think? I do it for the money, asshole. And let me give you some advice: stop dreaming about any cops coming to save you two. We’ve got friends down south who we do a lot of business with and so you and the girl crossed the border into Mexico on Saturday—in your car—and you’ve been using your credit cards, having a good time, and then when we give the go-ahead in a few days, two burned corpses with your IDs are going to turn up, and then there’s going to be a mix-up in the morgue and the bodies will be cremated. So nobody’s looking for you, because they think they know where you are, and then you’re going to be dead. Except you’re not. You’re going to be here making money for us.”

Then he flipped the switch on the fentanyl and put me down for the night.

7.

In the morning, Ben bathed me again and I tried to pull my hand away, my second big escape attempt, so I could jab my fingers into his voice box, and it went nowhere. With my head strapped to the bed, I had no power, and Ben swatted my hand away like it was nothing. He was back to his genial self, and he said: “You’ll stop fighting after tomorrow,” and I wanted to say something like, “I’ll never stop fighting,” but I had spouted enough clichés, and the truth was I wondered if I had already stopped fighting.

After breakfast he took me for a walk, and I said: “Can I ask you a question?”

“About the girl?”

“No.”

He shuffled me down the hallway. “Then you can ask.”

“Why’d you kill my friend—the old man?”

“I didn’t kill him; Andy did.”

We came into the kitchen–nursing station. “I figured as much, but why did Andy kill him?”

“That old man pulled a gun on us.”

“But why? Why’d he do that?”

“The doctor looked at his records from the VA and gave him an exam and said he was too much of a risk to die during surgery. We can’t have the patients die here. Too many questions.”

“And with donors there’s no questions?”

“That’s right,” he said, and he laughed.

“But why’d my friend pull the gun?”

“Because he still had to pay the twenty-five thousand consulting fee, except he wouldn’t. He yanked out that nasty Glock, said he wasn’t paying, and tried to back out gangster-style.”

So it was how I imagined: Lou pulling the gun, backing into the elevator.

We went across the living room and stared out the window at the pool. “Me and the doctor would have let him go,” Ben continued. “It was only $25K, but Andy was carrying—he and his brothers, they like their guns—and I couldn’t believe it, but he shot the old man and the old man fired back. Straight-on head shot. No more Andy. Then your friend, the old man, got away and everything has gone to shit since.”

Just then a large black BMW pulled up in the driveway, and John, whom I hadn’t seen since Sunday, popped out of the driver’s side. Then he got a wheelchair out of the trunk, unfolded it, and opened the rear passenger door. An old man emerged, whom I recognized, and John helped him into the chair.

I had a terrible feeling, and Ben said: “That’s where your kidney’s going, buddy. Better get you back to your room. We don’t want to spook him.”

He started shuffling me back across the living room, and I managed to wriggle away from him, some last-ditch crazy hope, but bound at the feet and wearing the straitjacket, all I did was fall hard to the floor.

Ben lifted me up and looked at me, concerned. But I hadn’t injured myself.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said.

Then he started shuffling me back to my room, his hand tight on my neck, and he said, not without sympathy: “I’m sorry, buddy. What can I tell you? The rich like to live forever.”

“I guess they can afford to,” I said, playing the tough guy, cracking jokes, and Ben laughed, and I knew who the rich man was. He was the actor with the big nose from Maurais’s building. All those sitcom episodes were going to pay for my kidney, and it must have been more than real estate that Maurais had brokered in.

We got to my room and Ben strapped me to the bed and when he went to gag me, I kept moving my head, making it hard for him.

“Quit fighting me. I know you—you’ll scream and upset the old man.”

“I won’t. That’s not it. Just let Monica go, please. You have me. She