This was crazy-how would he survive two more days in Robertsdale? He needed food and more booze, not necessarily in that order.
He left the room, headed back to the motel’s office. The sun was as bright as car headlights shining directly in his face. Did the sun, like, ever set in the south?
The blond kid at the desk was on the phone again. Max had to wait till he was off, but this time he had to be polite about it-after all, the kid could be his meal ticket.
When the kid ended the call, Max offered his widest, most congenial smile, and said, “I have a bit of a…um…er…um…problem.”
Max let the smile linger and then realized the kid was looking at him in a weird way. Max was clueless for a few seconds, wondering if staring was another side effect of the kid’s mental disorder, and then realized it was because of the missing tooth.
“Oh, yeah,” Max said. “Cap fell out last night. Fucking dentist. When I get back to the city, his ass is so fired.”
Max continued smiling.
The kid went, “So how can I help you, sir?”
Southerners, they were so goddamn polite. You can stick a knife in a guy’s back and he’d go, Thank you, sir. Have a good day now, hear?
“Yeah, well, I seem to’ve, um, er, lost my wallet. Not my wallet itself-I still have that five-dollar piece of shit. I’m talking about what was inside it-the cash, credit cards. You know, my money.”
“Sorry to hear that, sir.”
Sure he was.
“So I was just curious,” Max said, “did I happen to leave a credit card with y’all at the desk?”
That was the way, slip in “y’alls” and Southern-speak whenever possible. Max wanted to show the kid that deep down, despite all their differences-like level of intellect, etcetera-they were one and the same.
“No, actually, sir, you’re all paid up.”
What the fuck? Max never, ever paid for anything in advance. He almost shit himself-literally. He cut a nasty booze-fart then asked, “What?”
“The Chinese guy paid for your room, up front in cash, sir.”
The kid was smiling, like he knew. But knew what?
“Chinese guy?” Max said. “What Chinese guy?”
“He seemed like a friend of yours. He had his arm around you.”
The kid gave another knowing, smirking look.
Max remembered, when he’d woken up, feeling some pain in his rectum. He’d thought, hemorrhoids? But was it possible that….
Oh, God, Max didn’t even want to go there. If this wasn’t a wake-up call he didn’t know what was. From now on, no more mixing Scotch and vodka. He had to draw a line somewhere, right? And didn’t Chinese, like, wear off fast? Five minutes later, you wanted more? Holy shit.
“Whatever, whatever,” Max said. “So the room’s paid through the weekend, right?”
“No, actually, sir, you were supposed to check out today. The Chinese guy-that’s right, said his name was Bruce. Yeah, he took off early this morning.”
Max was thinking, Bruce! Fuck, if that wasn’t a gay name, what was? Wait, Bruce Lee wasn’t gay. He’d had a kid anyway. And Bruce and Demi had had a whole litter, hadn’t they? There was still hope.
“Look, here’s the bottom line,” Max said. “I don’t have any money, and I won’t have any money till Monday morning. So what I need you to do is front me.”
“Sir, we can’t-”
“Look at me, kid. Understand who you’re dealing with. I’m Maximilian Fisher. I’m a man of wealth and fame.”
The kid looked confused. Shit, the missing tooth, the dirty wife-beater, and the farting wasn’t helping Max’s cause.
Max went, “You’re not superficial, are you…sorry, what’s your name?”
“Kyle,” the kid said. “My mom and dad, they were big Twin Peaks fans.”
Not in the mood to hear the kid’s life story, Max said, “Okay, okay Kyle…Look, what I need y’all to do right now is look beyond what you see in front of you. Ignore appearances, ignore perceptions.” Max realized he was using big words; he had to dumb it down, keep it to one or two syllables, or the kid would get confused. Max went, “Just because I don’t look rich, don’t mean I ain’t.” Shit, that was too dumb. He didn’t want to offend the moron. Bringing the level of conversation back up, Max said, “Look, Kyle, I’ve dabbled in Buddhism, okay? I’m not a monk or anything like that, but I meditate, get into myself, you know? And what I’ve learned from my studies, I mean the bottom line of all of it, is that the real world is bullshit, it doesn’t even exist. What really exists is what doesn’t exist at all-the inner self. So let’s talk to each other, one inner self to the other here and-”
“Sorry, Mr. Fisher, I can’t front you on the room.”
Fuck Buddhism. Max wanted to strangle the dumb hick.
“You have Web access at this shithole?” Max asked.
“Yep, we sure do,” Kyle said, “but-”
“Lemme show you a thing or two,” Max said.
Max got behind the desk and went online. Although his company, NetWorld, had gone belly-up, the Website was still live. When Kyle saw the picture of Max sitting on the red Porsche with the two D-cup blond bimbos alongside him, below the company slogan NETWORLD OR BUST, his eyes nearly left their sockets.
“You like those knockers, huh?” Max said.
“Yes, sir, I sure do but-”
“Would you like to meet these girls?”
Long pause, then Kyle asked, “Are they here?”
“No, but I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” Max said. “Next time I’m in Alabama, I’ll bring Cindy and Bambi with me, and you can take them up to a room with you, and spend the whole weekend banging their brains out. How’d y’all like that, Kyle?”
“That would be pretty nice,” Kyle said. “But when y’all planning to be in Robertsdale again?”
Thinking, When fucking hell freezes, Max said, “Next weekend. I’m here on business and I’ll bring the girls with me. What do you say?”
Kyle stared at the monitor for a while longer-did Max see drool? The kid had probably never met a girl outside of church.
Finally Kyle got a hold of himself, said, “Okay, sir. Sounds cool.”
Max shook Kyle’s hand firmly, sealing the deal. Then Max felt his stomach rumble-the mini-mart on the other side of the office, with the Cheez Whiz and the Pringles and the cans of Bud-especially the cans of Bud-was looking mighty good.
“I’ll tell you what, Kyle,” Max said. “How about we add a little rider to our deal? Cindy has a twin sister, Lolita, looks exactly like her except her garbanzos are a cup size larger. Lolita loves Southern guys. How about I toss Lolita into the mix and you let me raid the mini-mart this weekend?”
The prospect of three girls at once was too much for Kyle. He looked like he was going to have a stroke, or an orgasm, or something massive and, yep, that was drool all right.
He went, “G-g-go on. You can take all the food you want, Mr. Maximilian, sir.”
Max went up to his room with a few six-packs of Bud and munchies to last the weekend. He had never been a beer man-the low alcohol content didn’t work for him-but as he began to guzzle the brews he found after nine or ten he had a pretty good buzz going. Then he kept up a “maintenance level” of one or two an hour, like he was on alcohol cruise control.
In New York, he’d been eating healthy-well, trying anyway. He had a bad heart; even with Lipitor, his cholesterol was a mess and when was the last time he’d taken Lipitor? The Pop-Tarts alone were probably clogging the shit out of his arteries, but, Eh, the beer was cleaning ’em out. Checks and balances, right? You take some shit, then you wash it down with good vibes. Max was so blasted he had no idea what the fuck any of this meant but, hell, he’d drink to that.
Sometime Friday night, Max passed out. When he woke up on Saturday-unless he’d missed a day, not exactly beyond the realm of possibility-he started drinking again. The routine was getting was old fast, but unless he went sober, he had to keep the brews flowing.