“Not Vi,” Sovereign says. “Oh, please, not Vi. I got little kids.” Blood gurgles in his throat, he tries to clear it and begins to choke and Joe clamps a handkerchief over his mouth and Sovereign keeps swallowing, breathing hard, but otherwise not struggling, as if the pain of the knife has pinned him to the door.
“I told you not to talk. Just let it go. I tried to do you a favor, man. Whitey wants you turned into hamburger. I let you off easy,” Joe says, removing his bloodied handkerchief from Sovereign’s mouth.
Sovereign is shaking his head no-no, trying to form words with his open mouth. A bubble of bloody spit breaks on his lips. All he can do is whisper. His body has slouched so that Joe looks into Sovereign’s dilated nostrils, which are throwing cavernous shadows. Joe leans closer to hear what Sovereign’s trying to say.
“Bullshit,” Johnny Sovereign manages. The word sends up a hanging, reddish spray. “You just wanted to see if it worked.”
“Fuck you,” Joe says. “You got a reprieve you didn’t even know you had. What did you do with the time?” But even as he says it, Joe realizes Sovereign is right. He wanted to see what the knife could do, and how stupid was that, because now he’s stuck talking with a dying mook. He should have just put a couple into Sovereign’s brain and walked the fuck away instead of getting cute, sitting here listening to birds chatter, beside a guy with his jaw grinding and red eyelashes pasted shut by the tears leaking down his cheeks as his life hemorrhages away, the muscle that once pumped five quarts a minute, a hundred thousand heartbeats a day — how many in a life? — no longer keeping time. Joe’s not sure how long they’ve been here. He wants the knife back but worries that if he pulls it out Sovereign will start to thrash and yell, and the wound will gush. Sovereign makes a sound as if he’s gargling, syrupy blood dribbles from the corner of his mouth as his head rolls to the side, and then he’s quiet. Tears dry on his cheeks.
“Sovereign,” Joe says. “Johnny? You still here?” Joe can hardly speak for the dryness of his own mouth. He’s aware of how terribly thirsty he is, and of how suddenly alone. Heat rays in as if the windshield of the Pancho is God’s magnifying glass. Now Joe can hear the name Sovereign was talking about — some 3 V’s bird repeating betty betty betty. He can’t sit any longer listening to the nonstop jabber of the last sounds Sovereign heard.
“Johnny.”
Joe digs the shotgun out of the gym bag. His handkerchief is bloody so he uses his jockstrap to wipe down the sawed-off shotgun he’ll leave behind, jammed in Sovereign’s piss-soaked crotch. He tries to ease out the stiletto. Blood wells up without gushing. Joe tugs harder but can’t dislodge the knife, maybe because his hands have started to shake. He’s drenched with sweat, and takes his jacket off. How did his white shirt get spattered with blood? He removes his shirt. The lapels of his powder blue sport coat are speckled, too, but the splash pattern that’s good for eating spaghetti makes it look as if the blood might be part of the coat. He wipes the car and knife handle down with the shirt. In the gym bag, there’s a wrinkled gray tank top with the faded maroon lettering CHAMPS over an insignia of crossed boxing gloves. Joe pulls that on and slips his jacket over it, and then, for no reason, fits the jockstrap over Sovereign’s face so that it looks as if he’s wearing a mask or a blindfold. At the shotgun blast, flocks rise, detonated from the factory roofs, and Joe imagines how on the top floor of 3 V’s the spooked birds batter their cages.
Friday afternoon, a red clothespin day at the Zip Inn. Ball game on the TV, Drabowsky against the Giants’ Johnny Antonelli, top of the fifth and the Cubs down 2–0 on a Willie Mays homer. The jukebox, Zip apologizes, is on the fritz. No “Ebb Tide,” no “Sing, Sing, Sing,” no “Cucurrucucu Paloma.”
Teo sits on a stool, balancing the quarters that he was going to feed to the jukebox on the wooden bar.
“One more, on the house,” Zip says. His white shirt looks slept in, his bow tie askew, his furrowed face stubbled, eyes bloodshot. It’s clear he’s continued the pace from yesterday. Teo turns his shot glass upside down. Zip turns it back up. “To Friday,” Zip says.
“We already drank to Friday.” Teo turns his shot glass back down. “We drank to Friday yesterday, and to Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.”
“We missed Thursday.”
“Yesterday was Thursday, we started out drinking to Thursday.”
“Yeah, but today’s fucking special.”
“Every day’s special. Isn’t that the point of drinking to them?” Teo asks.
“There is no point,” Zip says. “That’s the point.”
Teo shrugs. “So why’s today special? An anniversary?”
“Special’s the wrong word,” Zip says. He looks as if the right word might be doomed.
Something is eating at Zip, but Teo doesn’t know how to ask what. Yesterday, Teo stayed drinking with him until the afterwork crowd started filtering in. By then, Teo was half-loaded. He put the wounded Spanish pigeon back in his bowling bag and went home, tended to the coop, then fell into bed and, for the first night in weeks, slept undisturbed by dreams. “Look, compadre, if there’s something I can do …”
“Have a brew,” Zip says. He sets a Hamm’s before Teo, and a bag of pretzels, and rings up one of the quarters that Teo has balanced on the bar. “You bring your feathered friend with the bum wing?”
“No,” Teo says, “but I got something you been asking about.” From the bowling bag on the barstool beside him, Teo lifts out a blue head mask and sets it faceup, flat on the bar. The face has the design of a golden beak and iridescent white feathers that fan into flames around flame-shaped eyes. The luminous colors are veined with brownish bloodstains. “You wanted to see, so I brought it.”
“Goddamn.” Zip smiles, looking for a moment, like his old self. “This is what you wrestled in? Pretty wild. So, what was your ring name?”
“La Colibrí.”
“Like the vegetable?”
“It’s a kind of bird,” Teo says.
“You got the rest of the outfit in there?”
Teo unfolds the matching blue tights, and Zip holds them up, smiling skeptically at Teo.
“They stretch,” Teo says.
“Not that much they don’t.”
“Yeah, they do. I’m wearing the top. Same material.” Teo unbuttons his checked short-sleeved shirt. Underneath, he’s wearing an iridescent blue tank top. Its bulgy front is spotted with faded blood, like the canvas of a ring.
“I wish I could of seen you in the ring, amigo, must have been something.” Zip picks up the mask. He looks as if he’d like to try it on if he had two hands to pull it over his head. “Can you actually see to fight out of this?”
“Sure,” Teo says, “it’s got holes for the eyes.”
“Let’s see.” Zip hands the mask to Teo, and when Teo hesitates, Zip says, “Come on. What the hell?”
“What the hell,” Teo agrees, and pulls it over his head. It’s the first time in years that he’s worn it, and he’s amazed to feel a reminiscent surge of energy, but maybe that’s merely the whiskey kicking in on an empty stomach.
“You are one fierce-looking warrior,” Zip says. “You should come in here wearing the whole outfit, just amble in and sit down, open up your book, and if somebody asks, ‘Who’s that?’ I’ll tell them: ‘Him? The new security. Guards the hard-boiled eggs — which are now a buck apiece in order to pay for security. Salt’s still free.’”
On the TV, the Hamm’s commercial, “From the land of sky blue waters,” plays between innings.
“Can you drink beer through that?” Zip asks.