And then there was the drug testing! He had developed a little taste for marijuana while working for Matt. If he went back to his regular gig, the first thing they were going to do was drug test him. It was standard procedure whenever anyone returned from a leave of absence of any kind. If he tested positive for marijuana, he would not only lose his job, but likely his paramedic license as well.
Jesus fucking Christ, he thought as he entered the lobby of the building and approached the doorman who guarded it. How fast everything comes crashing down.
“Can I help you?” the doorman asked, eyeing Jim suspiciously.
“Uh ... yeah,” Jim said. “I’m here to see Matt Tisdale in twenty-three-oh-five.”
The doorman’s manner suddenly shifted from suspicious to subservient. “Ahh, yes,” he said, nodding. “You must be Mr. Ramos.”
“That’s right,” Jim said. “Jim Ramos.”
“Go right on up,” the doorman told him. “Mr. Tisdale is expecting you.”
I’m sure he is, Jim thought sourly. His hatchet in hand. He headed to the elevator, walking slowly. Oh well, it had been a good run. It had to end at some point. He made a vow to accept his dismissal with dignity and grace. After all, Matt would probably give him a decent severance payout, wouldn’t he? He thought maybe he would. Matt was abrasive, crude, the very epitome of misogyny, but he did take care of those who worked for him.
He rode the elevator to the top floor and then stepped out into a spacious hallway lined with oil paintings. The doors up here were quite far apart. He walked halfway down the hall until he came to the one with 2305 on it. There was a doorbell button there. It had a custom-made placard above it that read, in bold, raised script:
IF I DID NOT INVITE YOU HERE
DO NOT RING THIS FUCKING BELL
“Quaint,” Jim muttered. He put out his finger and rang the fucking bell.
A blonde woman answered the door. She was very attractive, dressed in a loose spaghetti-strap half shirt that showed off her impressive breasts and her smooth belly. Her hair was down on her shoulders. She had on a pair of tight shorts that displayed her legs quite nicely. Though she had no makeup on, Jim recognized her immediately. This was Mary Ann Cummings, who Matt had been boning for years. Jim had seen and enjoyed (and whacked off to) more than one of her feature productions (he was particularly fond of her performance in Mississippi Yearning, especially the scene where she and two other chicks had a dyke-out threesome down on the bayou).
“Hi,” she said with a smile. “I’m Kim.”
“Uh ... hi,” Jim said. “Jim Ramos.”
“Come on in,” Mary Ann (Kim! Her real name is Kim! Jim’s mind screamed at him) said. “Mattie’s expecting you. He’s in the entertainment room.”
“Uh ... thank you,” Jim said. “It’s very nice to ... uh ... meet you, Kim.”
“Thanks,” Kim said brightly. “It’s nice to meet you too. Thank you for saving Mattie’s ass all those times.”
“It’s what I do,” Jim said.
“And I hear you do it very well,” she said. “He talks about you all the time. He really considers you a friend, you know.”
“Really?” Jim said as he entered the living room of the condo. It was done up in modern style, with black and gray furnishings and glass tables.
“Really,” she assured him. “He’s not the most expressive guy in the world, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, but he really does like and respect you.”
“That’s good to know,” Jim said. I guess that’s why he didn’t fire me over the phone.
She led him down a short hallway and into a larger, more spacious room. This room had a large window that looked out over downtown Los Angeles and its high-rise buildings. The floor was hardwood. There was a huge television sitting on the opposite wall with several couches and recliners arranged around it. There was also a large bar in the corner. Matt was sitting behind the bar, a glass of what was probably Jack and coke sitting before him. He was currently using a razor blade to crunch up a few lines of cocaine. A bong with smoke still trailing out of the top of it sat next to that.
“Jim!” Matt greeted when he saw him. “How the fuck are you?”
“I’m doing okay, Matt,” Jim said, walking closer. Mary Ann (Kim!) patted him on the shoulder and then disappeared back down the hallway.
“Come on over and have a seat,” Matt said. “Set that football down somewhere.”
“Right,” Jim said, setting it next to the larger of the couches, suspecting that he was never going to pick it up again. He walked over and took a seat at one of the barstools.
“What can I get you?” Matt asked. “Seven and Seven?”
“Uh ... I’m good at the moment, Matt,” Jim said.
“Fuck that,” Matt scoffed. “Drink with me. And how about a little bonghit? My man Chuckie scored me some shit from Hawaii. You ever smoke Hawaiian bud before?”
“Uh ... no, I never have,” Jim said.
“You gotta fire up some of this shit,” Matt told him. “It’s the fuckin’ bomb!”
“Uh ... I’m good, Matt, really,” Jim said, thinking of that future drug test. Maybe he could use his savings to delay going back to work until the pot was out of his system? “Maybe we could just ... you know ... get to the subject of the meeting? I like to just get things out in the open as soon as possible.”
Matt nodded wisely. “That’s a good policy,” he said. “The fucking preliminaries bite, don’t they? But you have to have a drink with me. I fucking insist.”
“All right,” Jim agreed. “I guess I’ll take that Seven and Seven then.”
“My nigger,” Matt said. He pulled down a water glass and held it under the ice dispenser, filling it. He then poured the glass half full of Seagram’s Seven whiskey and filled the other half with Seven-up from the spray dispenser. He dropped a little plastic stirrer in and handed the glass over.
“Thanks,” Jim said, taking the glass.
“You need a lemon wedge or some pansy-ass shit like that?” Matt asked.
“No ... this is good,” Jim said, although he was accustomed to a lemon wedge in his Seven and Seven.
Matt picked up his own glass and hefted it. “To getting to the fucking point,” he toasted.
“The fucking point,” Jim returned, clinking his glass with Matt’s.
They drank.
“All right,” Matt said. “Here’s the deal. We need to talk about the rest of the tour.”
“Yeah,” Jim said sourly. “I figured that was what this was about.”
“You did?” Matt asked.
Jim nodded. “I’m pretty good at reading the writing on the wall, Matt,” he said.
“No shit?” Matt asked. “Why don’t you tell me what it says then?”
“Well ... it seems pretty obvious,” Jim said. “You hired me to get you out of SVT when it happened. Now you’ve had an ablation that fixed the SVT. You don’t really need me anymore. So, you brought me here to let me know my services are no longer required.”
Matt looked at him pointedly. “That’s why you think you’re here?”
“Of course,” Jim said. “What else could it be? I do appreciate that you brought me here to tell me in person instead of just doing it on the phone.”
Matt nodded his head a few times. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess that was pretty cool of me, wasn’t it?”
“It was,” Jim agreed. “And I understand why you came to this decision.”
“I’m glad you understand,” Matt said. “I’m sure you’ll also understand that I’m not going to be paying you for any of those hours after you gave me the Adenosine on the airplane.”