—What are you doing here?
—How is Carter? Is he OK?
—Look, I don’t have time to go into the details of his condition with you, Damien. It’s Damien, right? Just hold yourself available. The police will want to ask you some questions.
—The police?
—My brother was taken from his car and attacked. He has severe head injuries. Right now he’s having pieces of his skull removed from his brain. I would say there’s a reason for the police to be involved, wouldn’t you? Now, could you please step aside? I need to take this call.
—What’s your problem, Cornelius? Can’t you just talk to me for a minute? I’m as worried about him as you are.
—You seem to have a very high opinion of yourself. Of your importance in the scheme of things.
He bustles out of the building, ignoring the receptionist, who is jabbing a finger at a large “no cellphones” sign on the wall. I’m left reeling from his hostility, from the disorientating thought of Carter lying under a green cloth with surgeons peering into his skull. I am a participant in this, I want to tell him. He’s my best friend. This is my story too. Out on the street, it seems impossible. People are going about their business, shopping, heading to work, while Carter is up there in an operating theater, on the verge of death. This is my story too. I would shout it out loud, but no one would listen.
HE MUST HAVE STOPPED AT A LIGHT. Maybe someone flagged him down. They pulled him out of his car and beat him unconscious. The police had a witness, a woman. Two, possibly three assailants. She wasn’t sure. They had hammers and a baseball bat. Afterwards they got into his car and drove away, leaving him there, spread-eagled on the ground in the middle of the intersection.
Unexpectedly, Leonie hugged me. My body went rigid under her touch. Her hair smelled of cigarette smoke and burned plastic. She was swathed in a black shawl, like a Spanish widow. She looked exhausted. We sat down at a filthy Formica table in a sandwich shop near the hospital, jostled by impatient office workers as they stood in line to pay for lunch. I was eye level with some woman’s oversized bag, which grazed my face every time she turned to talk to her friend. Leonie’s skin had broken out round her mouth. She had a raw, uncared-for look.
—Have you seen him?
—He’s out of surgery. They have him in the ICU.
Hunts Point. I’d never even been to Hunts Point. I barely knew where it was. Why would Carter drive all the way out there? Leonie spoke so softly that it was hard to hear her over the soundtrack of the lunchtime rush, top forty radio on little blown-out speakers. I had to strain to catch her voice, though she was only two feet away.
—She’s a hooker, the witness. The cops think that’s what he was doing, looking for sex.
—You’re joking.
—I know you’re, like, his sheltered friend, but you have to see how it looks. Why else would he be in Hunts Point? That’s, like, beyond the hood. He wouldn’t be stupid enough to try to score on the street up there. You guys have a number, right? A guy who delivers?
—He was going out to buy records. He had a lot of cash.
—There’s some twenty-four-hour record store in Hunts Point?
—From a guy, a collector. But he doesn’t live up there. He’s in the East Village.
—How much cash?
—I don’t know. Corny wrote him a check at his party for fifty thousand dollars.
—Corny did that? You’re sure? As much as that?
—Carter told him it was an investment in the studio.
—What was he thinking?
—I’m not sure I follow.
—Tell me the truth, Seth. I won’t bite your head off. Believe me, you’d be surprised who uses hookers.
—What truth?
—Is this something the two of you do together, drive up to the Point and bang crack whores? Is it, I don’t know, part of Carter’s black thing?
—His what?
—You know what I’m talking about.
—He isn’t some degenerate.
—Yes he is. Just be honest with me. Do you get up to this ghetto shit with him?
—Of course not. I swear.
Leonie, asking me that question. I felt nauseous. I couldn’t hear properly. That was the problem. I couldn’t hear.
—Can we please go outside?
She looked up at the people in line, porting their plastic clamshells of salad. A man was calling out his sandwich order over the distortion. Pastrami, he was shouting. On a croissant. Leonie picked up her bag and we left.
I was relieved to be out on the street.
—I want to see him.
—It’s family only, for now, Seth. You understand. I ought to go.
I still felt sick.
—Hold on. How do I get news? No one else will tell me what’s going on.
—You can call me. Or I’ll call you.
She walked away from me down the street. A ghost in jeans shorts and a black mantilla. Lost in the dirty white light.
TOXIC 14TH STREET. Gum melted into the sidewalk at the crossings, volatile hydrocarbons lacing the air. I don’t know what else I can do. There’s no other move I can make to help Carter, so I’m shouldering open the door of the bar and stepping down into the darkness, down where the damned sip their drinks and watch cable sports. The air conditioner rattles, an insect buzzing that almost drowns the commentary. Was Carter here last night? Did he sit at the bar or in one of the booths? Did his eyes take time to get accustomed to the low light? I squint to pick up a trace of him, some sign on the worn linoleum floor, reflected in the glazing of the framed fight cards.