Matt was fucking exhausted. It was morning and they'd been circling around New York for hours, first in Manhattan and then all the way east, through Flushing and past Queens, further and further along the interstate until they hit Jericho.
A sleepy little rich suburban town. Population: 13,000.
Matt didn't care. He hadn't slept all night. He was dry as a virgin on prom night, wading in the shores of a really bad dream, getting caught in riots and evading mafiosi with his bullet-ridden El Camino.
He was sure he was going to wake up any second now, passed out in a puddle of his drool in his Koreatown apartment back in LA.
God, if only.
Mello was waiting for a phone call that never came, sleeping in the passenger seat. The sun was shining over the cloudy blue skies and they were crawling along a nice little Jericho neighborhood with picket fences and manicured lawns.
Matt's back was killing him. His leg was going to spazz out from pressing the gas pedal all night.
They were low on gas. Matt was low on cigarettes. Actually, Matt was low on everything humanly possible. His stomach growled in the quiet of the car.
Fuck, he was hungry.
The radio played quietly as Matt turned another corner into another identical neighborhood. Mello didn't let him listen to the music stations. It was all news, day in, day out.
"You have to make sure the cops aren't looking for us," he was bitching, back when the dawn was still over the sky. "If they get a suspect description, we're hiding in New Jersey."
Well, nothing too bad. Just this, for the fourth time in the morning: There was a homicide in the New York Centurion Hotel Downtown. Police are still searching for one suspect. Around 5'7"-5'9" in height—
Yeah, whatever. Mello never left the car, never left the room, never left anywhere. He was fine.
The mafiosi were probably sleeping in their rooms in Brooklyn, safe and sound. Only Danny was lying at the foot of Matt's bed, bled out in his underwear.
Matt shook his head. Cleared his thoughts. He didn't want to think about that.
He eased into a crawl, parking on the side of the neighborhood and shifted gears.
The car stopped. Matt sighed, leaning his head back on his headrest, stretching his shoulders, popping his spine with a nice, loud crack. He fumbled with his pack o'cigs, still tucked in his pockets, and looked miserably at it.
One stick stood in its lonesome behind the aluminum foil, rolling around sadly.
There was a convenience store just down the block from here. Matt could grab cigarettes there. He'd left Mello alone in a car before, back in LA, and nobody had been any the wiser.
And there was a Chinese restaurant just across the street, tucked beside the rich houses. TAKE-OUT AVAILABLE.
Matt could scarf down about three chow meins right now. Maybe he could even shoot up in the bathroom if Mello stayed asleep.
Matt turned off the engine. The silence in the car woke Mello up.
Matt glared. Fuck. No bueno.
Mello shifted from his blanket of his red coat, inhaling sharply in the dead of morning. "Where are we?" he asked, his voice soft.
"Jericho," Matt answered roughly. "I'm starving. I'm gonna get some food."
"Wait," Mello said, clearing his throat as he sat up. He wiped his eyes with his leather gloves, and then palmed his cell phone from his pocket, flashing the subscreen. "Any calls?"
"Nope."
Mello swore under his breath, and Matt sighed, looking back out the window at the Chinese restaurant, a kid skipping school skateboarding past.
"Look." Matt looked back, cracking his neck. "I'm gonna get some takeout. We can eat in here if it bothers you."
Mello nodded, sitting up and grabbing his gun from his waistband. He cocked it, blinking a few more times to stay awake.
"You want coffee?"
"Yeah," Mello answered. "Get me some food, too."
Matt rolled his eyes, opening the car door and stepping out into the cool morning air.
The sun shone into his eyeballs. He was naked without his goggles, but he couldn't be assed to find them through the duffel bags. His boots were heavy on his feet as he tried to walk over the asphalt, and he wondered why he didn't come prepared with a pair of slippers.
He limped over to the restaurant across the street, lipping his last cig from the pack.
It'd been thirty goddamned minutes, and he'd left his PSP in the car. Matt wasn't usually impatient, but goddamnit, was there nobody fucking working in this place?
He could have gotten high already. He stood up from the seats and rang the bell at the cashier, staring at the empty black eyes of a lucky cat as it waved at him with its paw. The girl working there popped up from the back of the kitchen again, her ponytail swishing over her head as she stared at him annoyedly. "What?"
"I've been waiting for half an hour now," Matt bitched.
"Ten minutes," she answered.
"You said that twenty minutes ago," he grumbled, peering into the empty kitchen. "Did you even start making the food?"
"It's coming."
If Matt hadn't already paid, he would have just left. But he was hungry and he craved chow mein and goddamnit, if he couldn't get high, then at the least he was going to get his fucking food.
"Is it gonna be faster if I dine in?" Matt asked.
She sighed, leaning back and shouting something in Chinese into the kitchen. A gruff man answered, and she turned around, staring at him. "Dine-in is five minutes."
Matt rolled his eyes, shaking his head. "Okay," he grumbled, taking a step back. "I'll be back. I'm doing dine-in."
The girl ducked back into her corner, out of sight from the cashier. Matt turned around and left, listening to the little tune that played over the speakers as he opened the door.
He walked back out of the restaurant to the car. Mello was sitting there, his sunglasses on, staring at him as he came back cautiously.
Matt walked to the car, gesturing for Mello to roll down the window. Mello leaned over to his side and opened it.
"They don't do take out," Matt called out.
"What?" Mello made a face. "It says right there on the fucking sign."
"I don't know." Matt reached the car. "I've been waiting for half an hour and I'm going to kill myself if I don't get food soon. So let's go."
Mello grit his teeth, sighing in a way that sounded like a hissing snake. He glanced around him cautiously, and then back at the restaurant, his hand still tight over his gun.
"Fine," he said. "Ten minutes."
Matt sighed, jerking his head. "Yeah, yeah. Let's go, c'mon."
They walked back to the Chinese restaurant with their duffel bags in tow, Mello's hood firm over his head even though the weather was in the high 50's. They opened the door again, the chime beeping a bing-bong again as they walked in.
Mello stayed behind, grabbing a newspaper from the stand. The girl stood up to welcome them, but stopped when she saw Matt and jerked her head to a table. "Five minutes."
"Yeah, okay," Matt mumbled, moving through to the few tables tucked in the corner of the joint. He pulled out a chair with its back to the door with a loud scrape.
Mello followed, sitting diagonal from him. Their duffel bags lay beside them on the chairs like their plus two's, quiet and heavy.
Mello pulled out his newspaper, rustling the sheets of paper and spreading it out over his face. Stealthy. Matt looked up at the TV, playing the news above Mello's head from the corner of the restaurant.
NBC. New York was already over the homicide — it just showed up as a small text that scrolled by. The lady onscreen was doing a talkshow with some guy who looked famous, talking about dog-sitting.
The girl came by with two waters and slithered back to her corner. Matt sighed, cracking his neck again, and leaned his face against his cheek, looking away from the TV screen to the red altar in front of the EMPLOYEE ONLY entrance.
The bearded god of fortune smiled back at him, staring at him with rosy cheeks. I know what you did last night.
Matt closed his eyes and opened them again. The bearded god of fortune was smiling at him knowingly.
Matt shook his head. He was starting to go nuts without sleep.
He jolted back awake from a nap he didn't know he was taking as their food sailed in front of them, steaming and looking as oily as he felt shitty. The girl sauntered away, leaving the check between them, scribbled with illegible numbers, and Matt looked up at the clock.
Five minutes on the dot.
"Take-out Available my ass," Matt grumbled, grabbing the wooden chopsticks from the table and snapping them off.
He dug in. Chow mein for days.
They were ass-deep in food, eating to themselves quietly. The only sound in the restaurant was James Blunt, playing over the speakers quietly.
You're beautiful, it's true...
Yeah, this chow mein was the most beautiful damned plate of noodles Matt had ever had.
Mello's phone rang from the table.
Matt looked over, his face stuffed. Mello put down his chopsticks, balancing them over his bowl of soup, and eyed the phone.
It buzzed, blinking and ringing loudly in the tiny resto.
Mello flipped it open, giving Matt a look over his sunglasses as he did. "Hello?"
"Mello, it's Hal," the other end said. The restaurant was so quiet that Matt could hear their conversation almost perfectly. "I got your message. Where are you?"
"Jericho," Mello answered, turning away and crossing his legs.
"We're in another building in Manhattan right now," the woman's voice said. "I can't tell you where just yet. You'll have to stay put."
"Okay," Mello said coolly. "Keep me updated."
He flipped the phone shut.
Mello set the phone back onto the table, turning back to face Matt. The song ended, and the radio announcer started talking again.
Matt raised his eyebrows, slurping the noodles and setting his chopsticks down self-consciously, like it was rude to do anything else.
"We have to find a new place to crash," Mello said when Matt swallowed.
Matt nodded.
"Five minutes," Mello said, standing up, his chair scraping over the checkered tiles. "I'll wait in the car."
He grabbed his phone off the table, leaving the newspaper behind. His soup looked barely touched.
The door bing-bonged, and Matt was alone.
Matt shook his head, shovelling the rest of the noodles into his mouth like a starving zombie. As always, Mello had left him to foot the bill. Such was life as a paypig.
Matt looked up to the TV idly as the announcer said, "It's a beautiful, sunny day in New York City today." The screen panned to a shot of the towering, glistening hotel building, shining in the light of the new day.
Matt paid the bill, and left for the bathroom. Just a little hit wouldn't hurt.
They pulled up to a shady little motel at the corner of the Jericho Turnpike, the outer walls painted a garish orangey-pink. Matt stopped the car at a parking spot, joining only a few other cars in the whole lot, and got out with one of the duffel bags.
He left the remainder of his system and Mello behind, probably to polish his gun and wait for someone to shoot at him again.
Matt did, however, manage to get Mello to give him $100 upfront for the room. Mello grumbled, but handed over Benjamin Franklin with minimal dispute.
Matt strolled proudly towards the entrance, the flag waving above the motel sign. God bless America. He pulled the tinted door and stepped into the cool, air-conditioned lobby, his goggles tinting everything with the familiar glow of orange once more.
A brown-haired girl sat at the front desk at the end of the room, chewing gum, her chair turned to Gossip Girl on TV. Matt glanced at the concession stand as he ambled up to the desk, his hands in his pockets.
"Hi," he said. She looked up, standing up from the chair. "Can I get a room?"
"How many nights?" she asked, her voice shrill.
Matt squinted. "Uh… not sure."
"Okay, no prob. Our daily rates start at 90 a night," she said. "You can call down and extend if you want."
Matt nodded, slipping the hundred onto the counter easily. "You got a room with two beds?" he asked.
She looked back, leafing through her booking binder. "Uh… oh yeah," she said, popping her gum as she pointed a chipped red nail to a room. "We got some."
"Yeah, let's do that then. Get me one on the second floor," he added.
More time for Mello to prepare for an ambush. Matt was a good accomplice.
He pocketed his change and the key to room 201, nodding his thanks. She waved at him as she sank back into her chair in front of the TV, and Matt walked back to the door and pushed it open, walking out into the sun.
Mello told him to go in first to check the place out and make sure it was clean, so Matt walked past his El Camino towards a sign that pointed to the 200's. He walked up the stairs to the room at the corner of the building and stopped at the door.
Room 201. The plaque was scratched, yellowing with age.
Matt opened the lock, half-expecting for someone to be sitting on the bed with a captive bolt gun, blowing him back onto the street and shredding his organs. He opened the door, shining the light into a crack on the maroon carpet.
The room was empty. Cracked wallpaper and stains, but clean enough.
Matt sighed, shaking his head. He was losing his fucking mind. He kept having these thoughts pop up when he wanted them least.
He needed sleep. That was the answer.
The garishly patterned blankets looked inviting as long as he didn't think about what and who had been on there before his check-in. There was a dank, musty smell that lingered in the air, too, but Matt didn't want to investigate.
Matt closed the door and locked it behind him, throwing his duffel bag onto the bed where it sunk down comfortably into the cotton sheets. He cracked his shoulder, massaging it as he breezed past the bedroom to check the bathroom, turning on the lightswitch.
The fan whirred on, illuminating the tiny bathroom with cold light. The bathroom was empty and clean, if not claustrophobic. No complaints here.
Matt switched the light back off. He walked over and sat himself down onto his bed, sinking down into the cotton and almost falling off.
What the fuck?
He looked back, frowning. The mattress was bigger than the bedframe, the corner drooping where Matt had sat down.
Jesus Christ, they were staying in this shithole for God knew how long. Mello was going to be breathing down his neck more than ever before because, and he quoted, "they know who you are too."
Matt was locked in. Mello was locked in.
If Matt wanted another shot, it was now or he was forever holding his peace.
Matt shook his head to himself, readjusting so that he wasn't falling off the bed. He'd stocked up enough for another month in Brooklyn yesterday, and he would fucking love to just nod the fuck out right now, but he'd just shot up an hour ago. Any more was pure gluttony.
Besides, he was so fucking exhausted that one more hit could knock him out until the next morning.
Mello was going to find him, blow through the door and shoot him in the head.
Just like he had with Danny. Face down and bloody.
Matt shook his head, hitting his forehead to clear his thoughts.
Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.
He'll scan the place and leave. The faster he finished, the faster he could conk the fuck out.
Matt pushed himself off the lopsided mattress, unzipping his duffel bag. He pulled out his clothes, tossing them onto his bed with a grimace, and then peeled through his systems to find Mello's scanner.
Mello just told him to focus on the vents and the decorations, and to disassemble the phone for bugs or taps. Matt thought it was all terribly over-the-top, but fuck, he wasn't going to ask any questions anymore.
Matt turned on the scanner and hovered it over the ugly wall painting of New York hanging over their beds. No hits. The crappy little lamp shaped like a tulip. The too-small bedframe. The old TV set straight out of the 80s, tucked inside of a huge shelf.
The scanner buzzed quietly, waiting. No hits.
Nothing to worry about.
Matt stomped over to Mello's bed with his boots on, sliding the scanner around the vent expelling lukewarm stinky air. He went into the bathroom, staring at the glass shower door. He tried the shower head, placed too high up on the ceiling to be comfortable. He went outside, to the bolted door, the stinky air conditioning, the smoke alarm that was flashing its Battery Low signal.
Nothing.
He went out and then did another circle around the room, stopping at the door at the blinds, the rods, the standing lamp.
Clean as the Virgin Mary.
Matt turned off the scanner and tossed it back onto the bed, rummaging through the bag for his toolbox. It was the redux version, small and only carrying the essentials.
He sat at the head of his bed carefully, unplugged the landline, and started to take it apart.
There was nothing in the receivers. Nothing in the speakers. Nothing in the buttons, nothing in the back.
Safe like condoms.
He left the phone dismantled on the bedside table and his shit strewn all over his bed as he walked back out of the hotel room, locking the door behind him. He walked down the stairs to his car, the blue chrome sparkling in the setting sun.
The metal was ridden with bulletholes over the length of the hood, lodged in the cargo back and the back window. Yes, very inconspicuous. Matt needed to do something about that sooner or later.
Later rather than sooner. Matt needed his beauty sleep.
The sun was harsh against the pink walls of the motel, turning them bright orange. Matt circled the car and unlocked it on his end, bending down to look at Mello, who was sitting there with his gun in his hands like he was ready to kill anything and anybody.
"We're clear," Matt said, handing him the key. Mello took it, sliding into the driver's seat. "Come on. Let's go. I wanna go to bed."
Mello looked down at the key, getting out of the driver's side, and slammed the door shut. Matt locked the car as Mello walked away, his sunglasses on, sauntering with his glowing red jacket up the staircase to Room 201.
Matt woke up. The sky outside was dark, sapphire blue, and the bed underneath him was soft and cozy, smelling like linen and cotton and fried rice.
He rolled over, tossing under the sheets, and saw Mello across from him, sitting on the nicer bed.
Mello had changed. He was wearing a long-sleeved black shirt, eating a bar of chocolate as he stared at his laptop screen, set over his crossed legs.
Matt closed his eyes again. Nah, he didn't want to wake up yet.
He'd been dreaming about driving. He was in the desert, his windows rolled down, buzzing just a little bit behind the wheel. Nothing but him in the long stretch of sand and cacti, driving and driving and driving with no one else around.
That was paradise. Sounded like paradise, anyway. Headed up to the Grand Canyon for the weekend to see Amy after her shift at the diner. Back when things were easier.
Back when things weren't this.
The TV was on in the motel, playing the news. Everyday it was the fucking news. Matt wanted to go to sleep and just never wake up, but he opened his eyes and glanced over at the clock.
He'd been out for three hours. Something that smelled like guilt made him shove the warm blankets down to his waist and sit up groggily.
Matt was running on empty. But for some reason, he kept going.
Matt swung his legs over the side of the bed, shaking his head to himself as he grabbed his goggles off the bedside table. His breath was rank, he was sweaty, and he was still exhausted.
He fitted the goggles back over his eyes, walking to his duffel bag strewn beside the TV shelf. The bag was already unzipped, lying open like a body in the middle of an autopsy. He thought briefly about shooting up again, just to feel like he was back in the dream one last time, but decided against it.
He could do that tonight. After Mello went to sleep.
Now was awake time.
Matt grabbed his toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste. He didn't pack soap. He was using the hotel shit, but he forgot to bring it.
Whatever. Water was better than nothing.
"You're up," Mello said coolly. His voice set a note of dread into Matt's brain. Another here comes. "You feel better rested?"
Matt looked up from his bag. "Not really," he said honestly. "Did you sleep?"
"Yeah, a little."
Matt nodded, largely disinterested, and grabbed the corner of the shelf to hoist himself up, his bones creaking the way up. He walked across the room to the bathroom, turning on the flickering lights to brush his teeth.
His face looked gnarly in the tiny mirror. Bruised with yellows and greens under ashen skin. He looked away and shoved the toothbrush into his mouth, scrubbing out all the shit from his tongue. All the chow mein and the cigarettes and the—
Matt spat, the foamy paste tinged with blood as it rolled down the sink.
Fuck. He needed to get cigarettes still.
He should have just stayed asleep.
Matt walked back out after he was done, glancing at the TV as he sat back down on the bed. His breath was minty-fresh, and he had to do another convenience store run.
Food, essentials, maybe some soap would be good.
He pulled his boots off the carpet and set them upright, sliding his feet inside.
"Last night, at the New York Centurion Hotel Downtown," the news reporter said on the news. Matt looked up. "Daniel Spingola, aged nineteen, was found slain in one of the rooms. He was a loving son, a high school basketball star, and—"
The TV screen had a close-up headshot of Danny, smiling widely, his hair longer and curlier than when Matt had met him. Testimonials had written themselves over the screen. The world is a darker place without our Danny.
"The suspects are still at large. We now have information that there were two suspects, not one, two suspects who fled the scene. Both of them were around 5'7"-5'9" tall. There is no other physical description available. If anybody has information, please call—"
A phone number flashed up onscreen. Before Matt could see clearly, the channel flipped to a nature documentary.
Matt looked over to Mello, holding the remote controller with an outstretched arm, poised like a gun.
Mello looked back at him, expressionless. "Are you heading out?"
"Yeah," Matt said, dropping the boot back onto the carpeted ground with a muted thump. "I was gonna get some cigarettes at the convenience store." He paused, adding out of politeness, "You want anything?"
Mello nodded. "Soap."
"Yeah, that's on the list," Matt responded. He was going to get the cheapest soap there, and Mello wasn't going to bitch about it.
"You should get something for your car," Mello added, putting the remote down on the bed beside him. "Car paint. At least something for the bullet holes."
There it was. Matt sighed again, scratching his head. "Yeah. I will."
On the screen, two seals flopped around on the bright white snow, eeking and ooking. The voiceover narrated, "The Antarctic fur seal is enjoying a nice day out in the sun with his mate…"
Matt wished that was him. He grabbed his boot again, putting it on his other foot. He zipped it up and glanced back up at the end of the bed as something caught his eye.
His heart sunk and his stomach churned. The dress shirt and the black slacks sat there, the collar still reeking of Axe body spray.
Blood on the sheets. Blood on the carpet.
Blood all over Matt's hotel bed.
Danny was nineteen. The same age as Matt. If Matt had died last night, there wouldn't be any testimonials. They might find a MySpace photo of him from London, back when he still used MySpace, but that was it.
Harry Sachz, a Louisiana native, died alone in his home from a heroin overdose a week ago. He had no friends, no family, no girlfriend. The neighbor found him after she complained that her apartment started to smell…
"I can't believe we killed that guy," Matt said aloud, before he could even stop himself. He looked back at Mello, who glanced over at him. "Danny, I mean."
Mello didn't respond.
"He was our age," Matt continued, unable to raise his voice above a quiet mumble. He didn't know if Mello could hear him over the TV. "He had a girlfriend in a sorority. Whole life ahead of him and whatnot."
"He was a criminal," Mello replied.
"Yeah? And what does that make us?"
Mello kept staring at him, but he didn't say anything back. He moved his laptop off of his thighs, shutting the cover.
Matt read it as a sign of respect. All things considered, especially coming from Mello.
"He told me about his nonna," Matt said. "Like, she lived in Little Italy, and he was going back to her place last night to visit her."
"That was a lie."
"I know," Matt responded defensively. "I know. I know it was a lie."
The nature documentary continued in the silence. The Antarctic fur seals had a mating season between November to January. The most spectacular breeding grounds were in South Georgia.
"Just," Matt said, in the silence. "I can't believe it. It feels so wrong."
"There's no such thing as wrong," Mello replied coolly.
Matt frowned.
"He was the enemy," Mello said, his voice chilly, serious. There was a Near-like quality to it, empty of emotions like he was reading from a fact sheet. "He was sent out to kill me. He saw my face. It was either him, or us."
Matt stared at him, speechless. He wanted to say something to refute it, but he couldn't find the words.
Mello was so matter-of-fact about it that it was scary. Matt wanted to ask just how high Mello's body count was to be able to talk like this at nineteen, but he didn't.
Too high for Matt to know. He didn't want to know.
"Do you know how old L was when he died?" Mello asked suddenly.
Matt shook his head.
"Twenty-five," Mello answered proudly. "Far too young for someone as brilliant as he was."
There was a resolute expression on Mello's face. Calmer and cooler than a cucumber.
Suddenly Matt remembered when he'd last seen that expression, the night Mello first met up with him again in that bar in Atwater Village. I'm glad you aren't dead.
It set in belatedly that Mello was only here because Kira didn't kill him, because the explosion didn't kill him that night. Because Danny didn't kill him, because all those guys in cars kept missing when they shot.
Matt was glad Mello was still alive, too.
Matt breathed in. Mello was staring at him. No power games. Openly, calmly, respectfully. Like when they were kids.
But they weren't kids anymore. Matt knew that. Their childhoods had been over before it even began.
Matt shook his head, shrugging as he pulled up his boots. "Yeah," he said, softly. "I guess you're right."
Mello nodded, breaking their eye contact. "I am," he responded. "I know I am."