“He’s not my friend.”

“I gave him all the bars on Avenue B for dealing and he fucked me over. You can never trust a junkie. I have to say that it’s my own damn fault.” He seemed to be speaking more to G and the fat boy than to me.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” I said. “But he’s dead. I’m telling you the truth. You could call the Senton Hotel and ask them if someone died there last night. He was in room sixty-three.”

The old man was quiet. “If he died, it wasn’t our shit,” he then said, not really to anyone.

He opened a drawer in his desk and then came around to my side. He was shorter and more squat than I realized, maybe five foot five, but there was a large black gun in his hand and so it didn’t really matter. He said something to G in Spanish and G shoved me down to my knees. I don’t think the old man liked me towering over him.

Then he pushed the gun against my mouth. “Open up,” he said. I didn’t. I glanced for a second at the girl; her eyes were terrified and she was kicking out her legs. G took a step toward her and she stopped the kicking. The old man said it again, “Open up,” but I didn’t. Then he smacked me across the jaw with the handle of the gun, making sure to hit the bone. I opened my mouth then and he put the gun inside. I tasted the grease and the metal.

“That bastard has nine lives. All junkies do. I don’t think he’s dead. He got away from these two maricons, jumping out a window, should have broken his neck then, and they bring me this Jewish bitch. I don’t need her and I don’t need you. I need Vincent. I want my money.” He swirled the gun around in my mouth, knocking it gently against my teeth. I stared at his yellow hand holding the gun, his thick blunt fingers. Lisa must have been with Vincent at the apartment when G and the fat boy showed up; Vincent went out the window, left his cell phone, and they took the girl. I thought of that dog. “But he doesn’t have my money,” the old man went on, “and tells you to call G and act like he’s dead to get out of it. So you fucking tell me where Vincent is hiding!”

“He’s dead. OD’d,” I said, and with the gun in my mouth I sounded horrific, like a deaf-mute, my words all strangled.

He violently raked the gun sideways out of my mouth, breaking my front teeth on purpose. I screamed and my mouth filled with blood.

Then he hit me across the face with the gun, doing it very hard this time, using the barrel like a knife and opening up my cheek.

“Is he really dead? Don’t lie to me!”