BooksBarbecue
Back The Deal Goes Down
Chapters (55)
  1. Cover
  2. Other Titles
  3. Dedication
  4. CHAPTER ONE
  5. CHAPTER TWO
  6. CHAPTER THREE
  7. CHAPTER FOUR
  8. CHAPTER FIVE
  9. CHAPTER SIX
  10. CHAPTER SEVEN
  11. CHAPTER EIGHT
  12. CHAPTER NINE
  13. CHAPTER TEN
  14. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  15. CHAPTER TWELVE
  16. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  17. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  18. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  19. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  20. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  21. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  22. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  23. CHAPTER TWENTY
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  33. CHAPTER THIRTY
  34. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  43. CHAPTER FORTY
  44. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  45. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  46. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  47. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  48. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
  53. CHAPTER FIFTY
  54. CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
  55. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Snow is piled loose and ankle-deep all around us. God has a bottle of vodka and two glasses plunked down in it to chill. He has cigars, too. In a box to keep them dry. He has a lighter of precious metal that he said had been gifted to him by Putin himself. There are assorted recreational drugs in the box as well, pills and powder. Billionaires are often great hosts. God is drinking. He is urging me to drink. I know he could drink me under any given table, drink me underneath the warm bubbling water for that matter, leaving me to sleepily drown. I mime it as best I can, spilling when I have the chance, holding shots in my mouth without swallowing and spitting it out when his head is turned, to be stirred away by the bubbling water.

Elizabeth wants me to kill God.

If I do, will Nietzsche suddenly appear like an old-fashioned Russian icon, a flat halo of gold leaf around the outside of his head and spirochetes of syphilis filling up the inside of it?

What I want is to merely slip his wife, Kaylee, along with their son, Leo, out from under his ponderous embrace and away from his watchful eye and scurry them safely off to the States. From whence she could sue for some hundreds of millions, more than enough to keep her and her son in style, and satiate even Elizabeth’s greed. Temporarily.

God, of course, has his own aims and goals.

No matter. It is as perfect a moment as I, or even you, could wish for. Unless you knew what happened immediately before and immediately after.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

TRANSATLANTIC FLIGHT OR FIGHT

ON THE WAY TO AUSTRIA.

We sat beside each other. Allison and me. In relative luxury. Not maximum luxury. That would have been a private jet. Not even great luxury, which would have been First Class. Relative luxury. Business class. New York to Zurich. Nonstop.

Why did I bring her with me?

I didn’t have a plan that required a young woman. I was going to improvise. I could say that another person expanded the options. Or that I was worried about leaving her alone back in New York, to do something foolish, or get caught in some random twists of the thread of her fate, tangled with mine. That since she’d helped me solve a problem, she deserved a reward, the sort of thing the salesperson of the year might receive, a holiday at a posh resort.

A more—accurate?—honest?—best?—explanation was that it was a relationship.

We’d saved each other. We’d killed together. That should make people close.

—

Before that. In New York.