“It is not,” Bennie said.
“You ever heard of HIPAA?”
“You ever heard of omertà?”
“I have a right to some privacy,” Sal said.
“No you don’t,” Bennie said.
“You enjoy watching them pop the piss tube out of me last week?”
“At least I’m not watching you take shits anymore,” Bennie said. “Most people wipe sitting down, Rabbi.”
This was how it had been for the last month. Once Bennie found out Sal had been keeping his own books while Bennie was under house arrest, their relationship changed. Sal wasn’t exactly in a position to give a fuck, considering he was somewhere between twilight sleep and outright coma from Christmas through the end of January, ever since some coked-up MMA fighter sucker punched him at a bar mitzvah, causing most of Sal’s face to collapse like a house of cards.
His face wasn’t like anything, really. It was a sui generis event, as his doctor liked to say, whenever he brought his interns in to view the reconstruction, Sal feeling like an exhibit at The Cripple Zoo, motherfuckers he wouldn’t trust to park his car shining lights into his mouth, peeling back his eyelids, digging into his ears, touching his hair, one guy sticking a fucking pinky in Sal’s nose, moving it side to side, Sal memorizing his nametag—Dr. Brennan—and his face in hopes of one day catching this motherfucker on the street.
Sal was pretty sure Bennie hadn’t bugged his hospital room. Not even he had that kind of game. But he was certain that he had a janitor or two on the payroll, maybe even a nurse with a gambling habit. For sure had eyes on him. Ears were another matter.
The doors opened onto the third floor and a fucking goon in a sweat suit got in, made his way to the back of the long elevator. Sal couldn’t remember his real name—his memory had been shit of late, which was of some concern, since he had a photographic memory, but that was probably just the propofol hangover—but he’d seen him with Bennie before.
He picked up Bennie’s dry cleaning and Starbucks. If he was driving Bennie to court or meetings, he always wore a Kevlar vest beneath his sweat suit or over his wifebeater, like that’s just how goons dressed on Casual Friday now. Sal was pretty sure he was a cousin or something. Maybe a nephew? Bennie liked helping the younger generation get into the family business. Didn’t mind putting them in harm’s way, would let them break someone’s arm for a debt or for touching one of his favorite girls at the Wildhorse. Sal thought his name was Avi.
“Really?” Sal said, quietly. “You bring muscle to the hospital?”
“One of us has a reputation to consider,” Bennie said.
“If I wanted you dead,” Sal said, “we’d be having this conversation over the Ouija board.”
The doors opened and Bennie put a hand on Sal’s shoulder, let the goon out first. He reconned the elevator bank and then motioned both men out.
“You ain’t the only bad guy in town, Rabbi,” Bennie said.
“YOU LOOK FIFTEEN YEARS YOUNGER,” BENNIE SAID ONCE THEY SAT DOWN with their food. His guy was at a table by the door, about twenty feet away.
“I look like my father,” Sal said. When was the last time he saw his father’s face? Ten minutes before he came tumbling out of the IBM building. His eyes in the rearview mirror. The shadow of a beard on his face. The smell of Ivory soap. His father stalking into the building, looking both ways before he walked into the doors, a thing he always did, a thing Sal always did, too, always checking to see who might be coming up behind you.
The plastic surgery had brought out Sal’s eyes, pulled the skin back and tightened everything up, which at first gave his face a kind of reptilian flatness, but now that he’d begun to heal, there was definition to his face again. Something like . . . character. He’d always looked like Dark Billy Cupertine, he knew that, just as his own son, William, looked like Sal Cupertine, but the re-restructuring of his face had done the one thing genetics hadn’t, which was remove any of the softness of his mother’s traits. He couldn’t see Arlene at all in this new, old face.
His mother. Jesus. Where was she? Was she looking for him? It was like this now with Sal. He’d drop a pebble in his mind and he’d try to track the ripples.
Sal took a bite of his cheeseburger. It was like eating his own tongue. He put on some ketchup.
Nothing.
Mustard.
Nothing.
Sal eyed the salt.
“Problem, Rabbi?”
“Tasteless,” he said.
A smile crawled across Bennie’s face. “They didn’t tell you?”
“What?”
“Your sense of taste is gonna be fucked up for a bit.”
“What’s a bit?”
Bennie shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said, “I didn’t listen to that part of the tape.”
Sal set the cheeseburger down. “This is funny to you.”
“A little bit, yeah,” Bennie said. He was picking at a Cobb salad. “Makes you feel any better, this salad is for shit.”
“Since when do you eat salads?”
“Since I decided I didn’t want to die of a heart attack before I had the chance to figure out how to get all my money back.”
“Technically,” Sal said, “it’s my money. I earned it.”
Bennie coughed. Then coughed again. Then coughed until his eyes started to tear. He took a sip of water. “Now you got me fucking choking to death on your bullshit.” He coughed again. “Did I tell you I would provide for you? That you would get your cash? Did I tell you that?”
“You did.”
