The Four-Night Run by William Lashner Read Free Book Online Page A

didn’t have a day like mine. I’ll bet he didn’t single-handedly whip the government in a court of law with nothing but his wiles and his wit. I’ll bet he didn’t feel death brush past his cheek and land on someone else’s shoulder. I’ll bet he didn’t take all his ready cash and increase it twentyfold in a game of chance with the odds set dead against him. I’ll bet he’s not looking to a long night of champagne and sex with a surgically enhanced cocktail waitress with magic hands and a mouth like velvet.
    He raised his brown paper bag and said out loud, “You might be a billionaire, Mr. Diamond, but tonight I kicked your ass.”
    And then, alone, he headed home.

8
    F INAL C IGARETTE
    As Scrbacek climbed the stairway from his office to his apartment, he thought about how nice it would be to keep climbing, to shuck off his raincoat, his shirt, his shoes, his pants, to keep climbing and keep shucking until he was in his sleeping loft, naked, feeling the pressure of the blankets on his body as slumber caressed his brow. One of his favorite things in the world was being awoken for sex by Dolores when she came in after her shift, the smoky taste of scotch in her mouth, the urgency of her hands as they kneaded him to wakefulness. It all took place in a hazy netherworld of pleasure. And afterward he would drift back into sleep as if he had just passed through the most perfect of dreams.
    But he stopped short of the loft. He put the champagne in the freezer and dropped onto his couch. He was too tired even to take off his raincoat, but he would wait for Dolores as she had asked.
    He just needed to keep his eyes open.
    If he could keep his eyes open, then he would be ready for her when she opened the door with the key he left behind a loose brick, and made her way up the stairs. His smile and a glass of very good champagne would act as salve upon all the slights that had marred the strange thing that had grown between them—an acquaintanceship charged with random bouts of goatish sex but always, at heart, an acquaintanceship. Their relationship was as convenient a thing as he could ever have hoped for, but it left her, he could sense, more than vaguely disappointed. Maybe tonight would be different. Maybe tonight he would kiss her gently without trying to rip off her shirt. Maybe tonight he would ask about her day and listen to what she said and feign real interest in how wonderfully her daughter was doing in school. Maybe tonight he would try to make her a little happy.
    He just needed to keep his eyes open.
    A cigarette. He could use a cigarette. He patted the pockets of his raincoat—nothing. He had foolishly given what he’d had left to the cheerful man sitting next to him at the blackjack table, and now Scrbacek had zilch. He rose and quickly searched the apartment, coming up empty before he dropped down again in his chair. He didn’t need to smoke, he just wanted to. He knew the difference.
    He had quit smoking once, for a girl. Jenny Ling. Everybody has one great failed love, and Jenny Ling was his. She was an earnest, liberal help-thy-fellow-human type who found the stink, the stray litter of ash, the yellowed teeth, the cancerous tumors, found all the by-products of Scrbacek’s habit decidedly uncool. Despite the startling banality of her insights into smoking, he had given it up for her, and had felt decidedly virtuous. It was his virtuous epoch, his time with Jenny Ling, but that love had failed, decidedly so, and he had taken up the practice once again.
    Now, trying to stay awake for a different lover, he could use a cigarette. But Dolores would bring him one, sweet Dolores—she was always good for a spare. He closed his eyes and thought about the way Dolores would purse her pretty lips as she tossed him her pack of Benson & Hedges. He would tap the pack against the arm of his chair, shake out a single slim cigarette, place its smooth surface within his lips, flick to life his lighter, bring the