DAVID CAUGHT A CAB HOME, GRABBED HIS NINE, MADE A CALL, THEN DECIDED, fuck it, and got into his Range Rover and drove across town, to the McDonald’s down the block from Lorenzi Park, where Gray Beard and Marvin parked their RV. The doctors were right: his depth perception was for shit, and driving the car made him feel light-headed and a little sick. So he went inside, ordered a chocolate shake.
David found a table adjacent to the PlayPlace, watched twenty kids bouncing between the vibrantly colored slides and tubes and that disgusting vat of typhus they called the “ball pit,” David thinking that what was going to bring down the world was not greed and violence, but probably some virulent super flu born in the bottom of that fucking thing. But this was Vegas at ten thirty on a Saturday night—a bunch of feral kids running crazy, not a single adult to be found.
Before too long, Marvin sat down at the table next to David’s. Opened up his bag. Set out a quarter pounder, fries, a Coke. Took a couple bites.
“What’s going on?” David asked.
“Wanted to make sure you weren’t being watched,” Marvin said. “So we split up.”
“Smart,” David said.
“The news right on this shit?”
“You know as much as me,” David said.
“Don’t seem real. All I seen in the world, you’d think I’d be impervious. But I liked him. Weird to see his big ass under that sheet.”
“I need to go through his shit,” David said.
“We figured,” Marvin said. He was wearing a Lakers jacket, which he took off, set down between them. “Put that on. You look like a cop in that suit. People gonna remember you.” David stripped off his jacket and tie. Put on Marvin’s coat, which smelled like weed. “Fire alarm is gonna get pulled in about five minutes, so we can clear the streets a bit. Go out the back door, walk through the parking lot, turn right at Party City, you’ll see there’s a hole in the fence leading into the park. Fifteen minutes over by the Senior Center. You’re late, we’re on the move.”
“I understand.” He put out his hand, but Marvin looked at it like it was a rattlesnake. “Shake my hand, Marvin.”
Marvin set down his burger, shook David’s hand.
“Thank you for your help,” David said.
“Wasn’t a thing.”
“You could have flipped on me anytime,” David said.
“Bro,” Marvin said, “you made us rich.”
“Good,” David said. “Listen, I want you to know, I will never look for you.” A cop walked into the play area. He set out two cheeseburgers, a Coke, his radio. Marvin glanced his way, gave him a head nod. Cop flashed the peace sign. Weird fucking town. “But if you ever come looking for me, I will kill you. We good?”
“We good,” Marvin said. “Ask you one question?”
“One.”
“What’s it like?”
“What?”
“Being mobbed up. Is it like in the movies and shit?”
“No,” David said, “because movies end.”
GRAY BEARD’S RV WAS PARKED RIGHT WHERE MARVIN SAID IT WOULD BE. THE RV was black with a swoop of gold along the side. Thirty feet long. Pop-out sides. Tinted windows. It was a Thor Cyclone, top-of-the-line shit. Probably retailed for just under $200K. David couldn’t imagine that Gray Beard bought it through legit means, but who knows? They were, indeed, rich. David knew it wouldn’t last. This was the problem with mob fix-it guys. They didn’t have savings accounts. They didn’t have health insurance. They had money and pipe dreams.
The passenger-side door opened as David approached, and there was Gray Beard, except his beard was gone. “See what you’ve made me do?” he said by way of greeting. He looked both ways, then stepped aside, let David into the RV, which was half medical practice, half home. A real upgrade from when Gray Beard first operated on David’s face while sitting on a chair inside the tiny Winnebago shower.
“Where you headed?” David said.
“I was stationed out in San Diego; that’s home to me. Plus, Marvin’s mom is there. Hasn’t seen her in a minute.” He took David into the rear bedroom, where they had a king-size bed, surrounded by wood paneling, and a mirror on the ceiling. There were two large duffel bags on the bed.
Gray Beard said, “That’s all his shit. Soon as I saw the news, I burned his clothes and sundries. One bag is full of notebooks, charts, graphs; sure it has some meaning to you.”
“Okay.”
“Other bag, I figured, maybe someone could get it to his family. Photos and books and shit. Diplomas. That sort of thing.”
“Okay,” David said again.
He went into his closet, came out with a bag marked Hospitality Animal Care, handed it to David. “Syringes and enough pentobarbital to put down whatever you need to put down. If there’s a problem, also got enough morphine to do the trick, but autopsy will look for that.”
“How long does it take?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“You done it before?”
“Desert Storm.” He paused. “Then Marvin’s dad, a few years ago, by request.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No one’s come back to say so,” he said.
David put the drugs into the duffel of Matthew’s personal items, hefted the bags up.
