King of Her Desire

57

Sochi and Gerri cut up all this fruit and stuff for breakfast the next morning and then we all sat there at the table staring at it. Couldn't eat a bite, any of us.

I had the jiggly leg thing going on like I used to do in school, too. Kept waiting for someone to yell at me about it like all my teachers but no one did of course. They were fidgety, too.

I'd been up all night. So had Sochi. I saw a low light, probably from one of her candles, under her door late that night when I went to get something to drink after I'd tossed and turned for hours. Almost went to knock on that door, but we'd sort of agreed to at least try to get some sleep and not stay up all night talking or something.

You'd think I'd be too tired to wiggle. But I was crazy nervous. Cause in my world, the old one I grew up in, you always feel like there's some kind of asteroid heading your way, you know? Extinction level collision comin' atcha.

I used to tell people I learned about all these underground tunnels and things in the city from feeling like the sky was falling all the time. Got my first drug courier job because I could run around the whole damned city in those tunnels and washes and culverts and things. Cops got after me, I could duck down there like a rabbit into a warren right quick.

Ran into the odd snake or coyote but I was prepared. Ran into some odd, very odd people, too. There's a whole culture down in some of those tunnels. But I was their candy man. They didn't want to scare me away.

It's sort of like living underwater, looking up at a world of fresh air and freedom and wondering what that's like. And why you can't live like that.

That morning I felt like I was drowning for sure. I could see Gerri and Sochi exchanging little worried looks, but I could only give them half-hearted smiles.

And then Gerri reached over and touched my hand and said, "You know...the boy he told you about? Matt? We know that boy. Elliott and Ben and all of us."

"The boy who's father wants to work with me?"

"Oh yes. The father we know, too—incredibly talented man. That part, Matt didn't exaggerate. His son was abused by this wanna be producer. Same way Cosby did it, by knocking him out with drugs. That poor child wanted to be somebody on his own, not always in his father's shadow. So he jumped at the chance to do this stupid movie this guy'd been trying to do for years—that script had been to every studio in the goddamned world by then. It was never going to be made. So the kid goes to his house, drinks something, wakes up a day later, figures out what's happened—he couldn't take it. I mean, people knew about this guy so once they found out you'd been over there you were damaged goods."

"I think that happened to Toby, too," I said. "Maybe not exactly, but something bad. I remember something that singer girl said. That she heard things about him."

Gerri nodded and said, "Oldest story in the book. And of course you must've been his worst nightmare. Getting past all that. Being celebrated and...elevated..."

"I hate that place."

Gerri chuckled and said, "Elliott hated it, too. Which is why she left it."

"But she wanted me to go there, though. That freaks me out a little bit."

"It was a shortcut. If it worked, and with your moxie we both figured it would, you could do it for a little while and then take the money and run. Or run with it if you wanted to."