He turned off the TV and trudged to the kitchen, where he emptied the refrigerator and started repacking it with Mountain Dew. Before long, the doctor walked in the door and asked Tool what in the name of God Almighty he was doing.
"What's it look like?" Tool said.
"But I'm expecting company!" Charles Perrone pulled a bottle of white wine out of a brown bag.
"It'll fit," said Tool. He held up his throbbing hand. "Hey, take a look here. See if it's infected."
Charles Perrone reacted as if a tarantula had been thrust in his face. Stumbling backward, he said, "I told you, man, I'm not that kind of doctor."
"Then what hell kind are you?" Tool advanced upon him, snatching the bottle of wine.
"I'm a biologist, not an M.D.," Charles Perrone said. "I study water pollution." He grimaced when the goon presented his punctured knuckles for inspection.
Tool said, "Some guy's mouth ran into my fist. Don't it look infected?"
"There's bandages and antibiotic cream in my backpack. I'll get some for you."
" 'Preciate that."
As Tool cleared a space in the freezer compartment for the wine, he wondered why a doctor of water pollution would need a bodyguard.
His voice calmer now, Charles Perrone said, "See, I've got a friend coming over in a little while."
Tool shrugged. "Goodie for you."
"What I meant is, maybe you could put on some clothes."
Tool glanced down at himself. "Actually, I'm pretty damn comfy as is. Mebbe I'll just go to bed."
"Thank you," said the doctor. "Thank you very much."
Chaz went into the bathroom, shut the door and dug the blue pills out of his pocket. His golfing buddy had said it would take about an hour; said to go easy the first time, figure out your tolerance level. Chaz gulped two of the tablets and washed them down with tap water. In the mirror he saw that Tool had pissed in the toilet bowl with the seat down and hadn't bothered to flush.
"Pig," Chaz grumbled. He swathed one hand in tissue and vehemently pressed the lever.
What was that moron doing in here anyway? Chaz wondered. He probably clogged the toilet in the guest bath with all that goddamn oily hair.
After a hurried shower, Chaz phoned Ricca and asked her to come over.
"Have I got a surprise for you," he said.
"I'm not in the mood."
"Oh, come on."
Ricca said, "I don't feel good. I'm going to bed early."
Chaz Perrone wasn't particularly astute at reading women, but he picked up on the fact that Ricca was upset.
"We'll talk when you get here," he said. "I'll make it all better."
"I told you, Chaz. I'm staying home."
"Not tonight. Please? Don't do this to me."
"Call me over the weekend."
"Wait, Ricca-if it's about what happened at lunch? Everything's back to normal, honey, that's what I'm trying to tell you. Bigger and better than ever, I promise-"
"You're not listening," she said curtly. "I'm whipped. I've had a shitty day, and now I'm saying good night."
The line went dead. Chaz Perrone cursed and slouched on the bed. It was for Ricca that he'd purchased the blue pills. He had wanted to demonstrate to her (and, admittedly, himself) that his problem was temporary and easily surmountable.
Now there was movement inside his underwear; slow but deliberate, the way an awakening snake uncoils. Anticipating the mother of all erections, Chaz despaired at the prospect of having no one with whom to share it. The clock was ticking inexorably toward readiness, but the possibilities for a partner were woefully limited. Unlike some of his friends, Chaz had no female fuck buddies to call upon in times of sudden need. The women with whom he had sex typically stopped associating with him as soon as the seedy core of his character came to light, usually within two or three months of the first assignation. Consequently, the names in Chaz's little black book fell into two categories:
former girlfriends who detested him, and current girlfriends who would eventually detest him.
With Ricca mysteriously out of commission for the night, Chaz's only backup was a dippy New Age reflexologist who went by the name of Medea. He'd met her during a round of golf at Boca North, where she offered massages at a juice bar between the ninth green and the tenth tee. Chaz had slept with Medea only three times, with mixed reviews. While she was avid enough as a lover (and as lithe as a howler monkey), she owned several annoying habits, including a proclivity to hum during intercourse. Her favorite tune was called "Tribal Dream," which Medea claimed had been written secretly for her by a man named Yanni. Another unendearing trait was the ritualistic lathering of her unclothed self (and, by contact, Chaz) with warm patchouli oil, the minty stink of which clung to the skin as obstinately as gum turpentine. No less distracting was her flamboyant taste in fashion. Chaz shuddered, recalling the night that her earrings (which could have doubled as hang gliders) first snagged and then painfully uprooted a tuft of his chest hair.
Finally, there was her goofball devotion to reflexology, which she insisted on practicing upon him before every sexual encounter; brutishly wrenching his limbs and fingers, clumsily corkscrewing his neck. For days afterward, Chaz would gulp Advils like popcorn.
That was Medea. She couldn't have sounded any happier to receive his phone call.
When she arrived at the house, Chaz was waiting at the door with the bottle of wine and a world-class boner.
Joey's memories of her family had lost detail over time, but in her mind she carried an indelible image of her parents arm in arm and smiling. That was how they appeared in most of the photographs she had saved-a close, contented couple. She remembered constant laughter in the house; her mother, in particular, found abundant humor in everyday life. Such an outlook must have been useful for operating a casino, a factory of human folly.
Now Joey imagined Hank and Lana Wheeler looking down from heaven and whimsically wondering if their only daughter had gone off the deep end. There was no denying the comedy of her predicament-
hiding under the bed while her husband was trying to line up a hot date.
"Have I got a surprise for you," Chaz was saying into the phone.
Apparently the unflushed toilet had not alerted him to the presence of a hostile intruder. Joey watched his pale, blue-veined feet pace the carpet. How easy it would be to reach out with the steak knife and spear one of those plump, hairless toes.
"Oh, come on," Chaz urged, in a tone well familiar to his unseen spouse. "We'll talk when you get here. I'll make it all better."
Joey studying her husband's toenails, hoping that some exotic swamp rot from the Everglades was pullulating invisibly beneath them.
"Not tonight. Please?" Chaz, turning it on. "Don't do this to me."
Ha! thought Joey. She's blowing him off.
"Wait, Ricca-if it's about what happened at lunch? Everything's back to normal, honey, that's what I'm trying to tell you. Bigger and better than ever, I promise-"
Now Joey had a name to attach to the presence at the other end of the line. Ricca. It rang a bell. Wasn't that the name of his hairstylist? Mrs. Charles Perrone idly flexed her fingers around the wooden handle of the steak knife.
"Shit," Chaz muttered, Ricca evidently having hung up on him. The box spring squeaked as he sat down heavily on the bed.
Sulking, Joey surmised. She eyed his bony pink ankles with their faint circumscribed tan lines. One bare heel displayed a nasty blister, the result of an ill-fitting golf shoe. The blister looked raw and quite painful, Joey thought, absently testing the point of the blade against her thumbnail.