“Shut the fuck up and let me finish my cigarette.” He blows another smoke ring, a feral mouth with feathered teeth.
I don’t know what comes first, the footfall close by or my realization that we’re waiting for someone, but then a door behind me cracks open and Harvey shrinks back into himself, stubbing out the cigarette in a swoop of ember and ash. There’s a brief flash of dry heat on my back before the door closes again, and then a tall figure treads toward the table, his flip-flops smacking against his heels. He wears a thin black t-shirt and three quarter shorts, as if he prepared for this in a hurry and didn’t have time to buy vacation clothes, and when he turns, the light catches his face long enough to highlight his features.
My stomach flips, hard and fast.
“You’ll be wondering who I am, and why you’re here,” he says smoothly. No accent, besides the usual US twang. His confidence evens everything out. “Has he been wondering, Harvey?”
“Loudly.”
“Well.” He pulls his distinctively familiar mouth into a small, lop-sided smile. “That doesn’t surprise me at all.”
You could say he resembled me, if I’d been put through a rack and stretched just enough to seem older. Leaner. He’s narrow but strong, has a way of holding himself that says he could crack a brick across your skull; he has my nose, my strong cheekbones, my ashen blond hair. It’s like looking into a dusty mirror and then sneezing enough to distort the reflection.
“I guess this solves my first question,” I say.
“And what would that be?”
I set my gaze on him. “Which one of us is prettier.”
He laughs, almost too loudly. “You’ve got your priorities just so, ain’t you?” A stronger accent creeps in, right at the end. If I was at my best, I might be able to recognize it, but the important thing is, he’s putting this shit on. Performing.
“I don’t have room for a lot of priorities right now.”
“Correct.” He drags a chair along the uneven floorboards and plants it just a few feet from mine. There, he sits opposite, right in a curdling vein of sunshine that cuts him in half. His upper lip curls. “You stink.”
“What did you do to me?”
Come on, come on. Take the bait. I know you want to brag, you fucker.
“Not much. The best is yet to come, I’d say. Isn’t that exciting?”
“So exciting, I pissed myself.”
“That’s my fault.” He cocks his head, his brow creasing pensively. “Or technically, the fault of the drugs. Isn’t that one of the things the drugs do, Harvey?”
He nods from his hunched position in the corner. Grunts.
“They make you seizure too. Is your tongue sore? You’re talking like a fucking mongoloid, so I’m guessing you had a few. Probably swallowed a good lot of blood.” His eyes widen as he says blood. It’s barely noticeable, but it’s there. “They make you bite down, and all there is to bite is…well. I’m sorry about the chain situation. And the tape. Really, I am, but you can’t be too careful.”
“How courteous.”
“I have a problem, Aeron.”
I wait. Give him the space to elaborate. He’s already a talker; I’ve got no choice but to let him run with this, even if his breath smells like a garbage truck on a hot day.
“But I’m a problem solver. You are too—I can tell. See, thing is, you’re mad. And you’re frightened—don’t worry, it happens to the best of us now, doesn’t it?—but if I untie you, and you’re mad and frightened, you’ll try to hurt me. In doing that, you’ll only hurt yourself.”
“And why’s that?”
“I’m not a kind man.”
I swallow on a dry throat. “Makes two of us.”
“It’s not a competition.” He smiles again. Fuck me if he doesn’t look oddly charming, even amid his own stench. “But I don’t want to keep you tied up. It’s not what civilized men do.”
“Then you’re right. We do have a problem.”