Hanzai Japan: Fantastical, Futuristic Stories of Crime From and About Japan by Unknown Read Free Book Online Page B

probably wasn’t exactly sanitary with the needle. You may have to get on the cocktail.”
    “Unless it’s a goddamn screwdriver, I’m not interested in a cocktail.” But I knew she was right, and that’s what scared me the most.
    She flipped around on her phone and got up to find a piece of paper. “There’s a clinic that’s open on the Upper West Side,” she said. “Ask for Christeen, she’s a friend of mine, she can get you what you need, and if you give her the address of the place where you got inked, she can send in the health inspector. You got insurance?”
    “Thanks, Obamacare.”
    “Get showered and dressed,” she said. “It’s only open until three; I’ll call ahead and let them know you’re coming. She’ll hold a spot for you. I tutored her idiot kid last year, she kinda owes me.”
    I took the slip of paper she held out. “Thanks Luce,” I said. “When I get back, lunch is on me.”
    “I’d insist,” she said, grinning.

    Fuck, the subway was hot. I forgot the 6 wasn’t air-conditioned and the crowds only made it worse. The train lurched into 42 nd Street and a fat guy in a fedora and a Family Guy T-shirt lurched against me. My arm hurt so bad it was all I could do not to scream. I thought about Luce and my dick got hard with rage and hate. After all this, she had better fucking sleep with me. There was no fucking reason not to except that she, like most women, got off on watching me sweat while she pranced around the apartment in those little boyshorts with her big ass hanging out. I got a tattoo for her, a tattoo that hurt like hell, and she sent me to the doctor like I was too stupid to do it myself.
    The train started up again and I stumbled against a rail-thin blonde. My arm was crawling like scrambled porn and anxiety wound barbed wire around my chest as I thought about my audition. Why was I going through this, I wasn’t going to get in. Wait, what? I don’t take fucking ballet; it takes three drinks just to get me on the dance floor and you couldn’t exactly call what I do there dancing. There were too many people on this train, all brushing against my arm. Somewhere I wondered if my little brother was ever coming home, if all the numbers of the universe made sense, how beautiful my girlfriend was going to look when I handed her the ring in my pocket. …
    When the train screeched to a halt at 77 th I shoved and stumbled through the crowd to get out. A homeless dude with a cart full of beer cans knocked into me and I vomited canned tuna and Mad Dog onto the empty downtown rail. An MTA officer tapped me on the shoulder. “Are you all right?” he asked.
    “I’m fine,” I gasped. “I just need some air.” The whole universe felt like it was crashing in on me; I couldn’t get my brain straight, I just needed a moment to clear it all out and start again. I swore that if I made it out of this alive, I was never, ever, letting some shot girl—no matter how fucking cute she was—spike my drink.
    I huddled against a grimy metal girder until the path was clear enough to go through. Passing through the turnstile, I brushed against a Moby-looking douche with a Steely Dan T-shirt and horn-rimmed glasses, making a mental note to swing over to Bleeker Street Records and see if they’d managed to find me a copy of Kamakiriad.
    I stumbled across the street, taxi horns snarling at me, and flopped onto a park bench. I fumbled for my phone, exerting all my last effort to find Luce’s number. “You have to come get me,” I said. “I think I’m losing my fucking mind.”
    “Where are you?”
    “Meet me at Pretzel Logic,” I said.
    “What?”
    “Pretzel Logic!” I insisted. In my head it made perfect sense. How was she not getting this?
    And then she got it. “Fifth Avenue and 79 th ,” she said. “Miner’s Gate. Why didn’t you just say that?”
    “I don’t know,” I moaned. I didn’t know, I didn’t know anything, nothing made any fucking sense. “Just please come