Chapters (60)
- DAW Books Presents
- HAPPY HOURINHELL
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Dedication
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- prologue
- one
- two
- three
- four
- five
- six
- interlude
- seven
- eight
- nine
- ten
- eleven
- twelve
- interlude
- thirteen
- fourteen
- interlude
- fifteen
- sixteen
- seventeen
- eighteen
- nineteen
- twenty
- twenty-one
- interlude
- twenty-two
- twenty-three
- twenty-four
- twenty-five
- twenty-six
- twenty-seven
- twenty-eight
- twenty-nine
- thirty
- thirty-one
- thirty-two
- thirty-three
- thirty-four
- thirty-five
- thirty-six
- thirty-seven
- thirty-eight
- thirty-nine
- forty
- forty-one
- forty-two
- forty-three
- forty-four
- forty-five
- forty-six
- forty-seven
- forty-eight
- epilogue
“If any of the next words out of your mouth are ‘loved and lost,’ kid,” I told him, “I will hit you in the face so hard that your eyes and ears and all your other facial features will run around to the back of your head to hide and never come back. Never ever. You’ll spend the rest of your angel life looking like a Mister Potato Head someone dropped from a tall building.”
“See! You’re still funny.”
I closed my eyes again. “I’ve been to Hell already. Why are you doing this to me?”
“Because we want to get you out of here,” said Clarence. “You need to get cleaned up. You need some air.”
“What I really need—well, you’ll know it’s happening about the time you realize that screaming isn’t helping you any.”
Clarence sighed and rolled his eyes. “Sam, can you get through to him?”
Sam laughed. “Shit, he never listens to me. He wouldn’t be in this situation if he did.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” But I was still keeping my eyes closed. I hadn’t entirely given up hope that these people talking so loudly in my apartment were just another nightmare of the kind I’d been having plenty of. “Seriously, you give the worst advice since someone suggested Lincoln take in a play on his night off.”
“That’s an old one, you pathetic lush.” He turned to the kid. “You can tell he’s perking up when he starts thinking he’s amusing again. Don’t tell him the truth or he might panic. Let’s get him into the shower.”
It wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d remembered to pay my utilities. There would have been hot water.
We went to Oyster Bill’s, on the waterfront.
I wasn’t really going to be revived that easily, but I’d run out of mixers a couple of days earlier and the combination of straight booze and leftover bits of congealed fast food was killing me. Since I’d been in no condition to find my car, I’d started cutting the vodka with things like maraschino cherry juice. I made White Russians with little tubs of coffee creamer. After all that, I was more than ready to have a few drinks mixed by a professional. (Actually, this is slightly overstating the skills of the bartender at Oyster Bill’s. Both he and the cook are obviously either relatives of Bill’s or his old prison buddies, and both know just enough not to kill any of their customers. But on the plus side, the place also has a jukebox full of agonizingly horrible seventies and eighties pop music.)