Richie was only taking limos from now on. They had so many places to throw up. He returned the ice bucket and climbed into the front seat with Eddie.
"Watch your elbows," said Eddie. "I think it's your girlfriend."
The limo moved forward another foot. One lane west and three cars down, so did the cab.
"I don't have a girlfriend." Richie fiddled with the radio until Eddie knocked his hands away. "Even if I did, I doubt she'd be trying to kidnap me."
"Half your jokes are about your hot girl—"
"I told you I don't write my own jokes, right?"
"Well, your fake girlfriend, then," said Eddie.
Richie squinted. Eddie was wearing a white button-up shirt with black slacks. At first, he assumed it was a uniform, but he was starting to think that was just the sort of thing Eddie wore. Eddie could be the most boring person he had ever met. Richie was fucking fascinated.
"So what about her?"
"There's a stereotype in Hollywood about beautiful girls being gold diggers."
"You're just trying to find a nice way to call me ugly."
"You're not ugly," said Eddie, and for a second, Richie actually believed him. It was how he said it— like it was a fact, and Richie was an idiot. "You are disgustingly tall, though. Scooch down in your seat a little, will you?"
"Why?" Richie asked, already scooching.
"They might try to shoot you, and I'm in the way."
"You are now," said Richie, straightening back up. Something cracked. "Maybe I should drive?"
"You are not driving my limousine." Eddie shook his head. His hair looked so soft.
Richie had a devastating thought. If Eddie wasn't wearing a uniform, then he probably didn't have a matching cap.
"Oh, come on, it's already dented."
"That is not a reassuring affirmation of your driving ability."
"I'm from LA," said Richie. "I'm automatically a better driver than you."
Eddie looked like Richie had just insulted his mother. "I am a professional."
"In New York! No one drives in New York. There's too much traffic."
"That doesn't make any sense."
"Your face doesn't make any sense," said Richie, and for a second it didn't. Eddie looked almost fond. Sort of awestruck. The only person who looked at him like that was his Lobby Godbaby. "So what do we do now?"
Eddie shrugged, without taking his hands off the wheel. "Well, we could lead them to the police station, but they would take off. The license plate won't help since they obvious stole the cab. I texted 911, but the police found out it was you and mentioned something about a Pool Noodle Incident."
"Oh, yeah," said Richie. "I may have, uh, lived here for a while. Wow. New York cops have a longer memory than I would've thought. And life expectancy."
"I don't wanna' know," said Eddie.
"I don't want you to know," Richie assured him.
He sighed. "Well, at least they can't get away either. Until the cab shift change at 7:00 P.M."
"Is it almost 7:00 P.M.?" he asked. "Ah, man. I'm gonna' be so late."
"I thought you weren't in a hurry."
"I'm not, but my manager likes to confiscate awards when I'm late to pick them up. Do you have any Allinol?"
"Any what? That's not a drug. Is that a joke? Like I say, 'Allinol?" and you say, "You're just another brick in the wall?" asked Eddie, like a crazy person.
"No," said Richie, not at all like a crazy person. "It's how they killed Rod Torque Redline in Cars 2."
"They— What?"
"They killed Rod Torque Redline with Allinol fuel. He made a 'your mother' joke, and a 'your sister' joke. In one joke. Car was a legend. Never mind. What about sugar?"
Eddie squinted, but he probably wasn't wondering if Richie's outfit had a matching cap (Bobby had confiscated it). "Sugar?"
"Yes, honey?" Richie batted his eyes. What was wrong with him? "Um, I could get out of the car and put sugar in their gas tank. You know. Like how they killed the car in Justine."
"That ending sucked," said Eddie. "They should have—"
"Crushed it!"
"—moved to another continent," he finished.
They looked at each other for a long moment, before Richie absolutely had to break the silence. Really, it was Eddie's fault for not letting him blast talk radio.
"Guess we're not soulmates."
Eddie raised an eyebrow. Richie couldn't convey that much disdain with a whole set, let alone an eyebrow. "Because we didn't finish each other's sentences?"
Richie shrugged one shoulder. "Well, I was kind of hoping. On the off chance I die sprinkling these five packets of In the Raw— insert obligatory sex joke here— into a maniac's gas tank, I have a confession to make: Even if I had a girlfriend, she would be fake. I mean— I'm gay."
Richie had said it. Out loud. To one (probably) stranger, not TMZ, (although the stranger would probably out him on TMZ). But. It was like in cop shows, when the suspect gets caught outright or in interrogation, and he says, "At least I don't have to run anymore," except gay people didn't run.
"Some gay people run," said Eddie, which was when Richie realized that hadn't been in his head.
"That's just compulsive heterosexuality," said Richie.
"I'm not going to out you on TMZ," said Eddie.
"You're not?"
"TMZ doesn't care about B-Listers."
Richie pressed a hand to his chest. Mostly, he was being dramatic, but he was also surreptitiously checking his pulse. It could not be good for someone's heart to go that fast. This was exactly why he didn't run.
"You know sugar won't actually disable a car," said Eddie. "Not unless you have, like, a lot of it. More than five packets of— I'm not saying it."
"They were in your car."
"Here." He pressed something into Richie's hand. "Take the Smart Water."
Richie took the Smart Water. "Why?"
"Gas floats on water, so that bottle should be enough to flood the fuel pump."
"It's so sexy that you know that," said Richie. "Wish me luck."
"I should go." Eddie grimaced.
"What because you're short?"
"I'm average-height! You're just a…" He seemed to struggle for a moment. "Leggy Sasquatch."
"Ooh, new tour name." Richie popped the door, just enough to slip through, and dropped to the street. He knew Eddie's grimace had come from the thought of crawling, rather than the risk of imminent death, but, "I'm not letting you risk your life. A man has to take responsibility for his fake girlfriend."
Richie four-leg raced in between the idling cars until he reached the stolen cab. The silhouettes of three men were barely visible in the shadow of the surrounding skyscrapers. He opened the gas access door and dumped in the entire bottle of Smart Water. Feeling foolish and more than a little anticlimactic, Richie crawled back to the limo.
Eddie leaned over him to shut the passenger-side door, arm stretched out like a soccer mom.
"Done?"
"Done. Now what?"
"Play I Spy?" Eddie suggested dryly. "No. Shit. We should call the cops again. I'll just give them a fake name this time."
"If Mickey won't go to the Matterhorn, bring the Matterhorn to Mickey," said Richie.
"And an ambulance. I'm seriously concerned about the possibility of a concussion." Eddie reached for Richie's head and started checking for bumps, and Richie was really, really glad Bobby had confiscated the hat. "When they rammed us, for a minute, I… I thought you were dead."
"No, I get that a lot," said Richie. "That's just my face."