Eastern Standard Tribe Page 20

HongKong and clearly resented her reduced station, agreed to sign for the supplydrops he commed to various retailers around London.

  He was giving himself a serious crick in his neck and shoulder from workingsupine, comm held over his head. The painkillers weighted his arms and churnedhis guts, and at least twice an hour, he'd grog his way into a better position,forgetting the tenderness in his back, and bark afresh as his nerves shriekedand sizzled.

  Two days later and he was almost unrecognizable, a gamey, unshaven lump in thetiny kitchen, his nest gray with sweat and stiff with spilled take-away curry.He suspected that he was overmedicating, forgetting whether he'd taken histablets and taking more. In one of his more lucid moments, he realized thatthere was a feedback cycle at play here -- the more pills he took, the lessequipped he was to judge whether he'd taken his pills, so the more pills hetook. His mind meandered through a solution to this, a timer-equipped pillcasethat reset when you took the lid off and chimed if you took the lid off againbefore the set interval had elapsed. He reached for his comm to make some notes,found it wedged under one of his hocks, greasy with sweat, batteries dead. Hehadn't let his comm run down in a decade, at least.

  His landlady let Linda in on the fourth day, as he was sleeping fitfully with apillow over his face to shut out the light from the window. He'd tried to drawthe curtains a day -- two days? -- before, but had given up when he tried topull himself upright on the sill only to collapse in a fresh gout of writhing.Linda crouched by his head and stroked his greasy hair softly until he flippedthe pillow off his face with a movement of his neck. He squinted up at her,impossibly fresh and put together and incongruous in his world of reducedcircumstances.

  "Art. Art. Art. Art! You're a mess, Art! Jesus. Why aren't you in bed?"

  "Too far," he mumbled.

  "What would your grandmother say? Dear-oh-dearie. Come on, let's get you up andinto bed, and then I'm going to have a doctor and a massage therapist sent in.You need a nice, hot bath, too. It'll be good for you and hygienic besides."

  "No tub," he said petulantly.

  "I know, I know. Don't worry about it. I'll sort it out."

  And she did, easing him to his feet and helping him into bed. She took his housekeys and disappeared for some unknowable time, then reappeared with fresh linenin store wrappers, which she lay on the bed carefully, making tight hospitalcorners and rolling him over, nurse-style, to do the other side. He heard herclattering in the kitchen, running the faucets, moving furniture. He remindedhimself to ask her to drop his comm in its charger, then forgot.

  "Come on, time to get up again," she said, gently peeling the sheets back.

  "It's OK," he said, waving weakly at her.

  "Yes, it is. Let's get up." She took his ankles and gradually turned him on thebed so that his feet were on the floor, then grabbed him by his stinking armpitsand helped him to his feet. He stumbled with her into his crowded living room,dimly aware of the furniture stacked on itself around him. She left him hangingon the door lintel and then began removing his clothes. She actually used ascissors to cut away his stained tee shirt and boxer shorts. "All right," shesaid, "into the tub."

  "No tub," he said.

  "Look down, Art," she said.

  He did. An inflatable wading pool sat in the middle of his living room, flankedby an upended coffee table and his sofa, standing on its ear. The pool was fullof steaming, cloudy water. "There's a bunch of eucalyptus oil and Epsom salts inthere. You're gonna love it."

  That night, Art actually tottered into the kitchen and got himself a glass ofwater, one hand pressed on his lower back. The cool air of the apartment fannedthe mentholated liniment on his back and puckered goose pimples all over hisbody. After days of leaden limbs, he felt light and clean, his senses singing asthough he was emerging from a fever. He drank the water, and retrieved his commfrom its cradle.

  He propped several pillows up on his headboard and fired up his comm.Immediately, it began to buzz and hum and chatter and blink, throwing up alertsabout urgent messages, pages and calls pending. The lightness he'd felt fledhim, and he began the rotten business of triaging his in-box.

  One strong impression emerged almost immediately: Fede wanted him in Boston.

  The Jersey clients were interested in the teasers that Fede had forwarded tothem. The Jersey clients were obsessed with the teasers that Fede had forwardedto them. The Jersey clients were howling for more after the teasers that Fedehad forwarded to them. Fede had negotiated some big bucks on approval if onlyArt would go and talk to the Jersey clients. The Jersey clients had arranged ameeting with some of the MassPike decision-makers for the following week, andnow they were panicking because they didn't have anything *except* the teasersFede had forwarded to them.

  You should really try to go to Boston, Art. We need you in Boston, Art. You haveto go to Boston, Art. Art, go to Boston. Boston, Art. Boston.

  Linda rolled over in bed and peered up at him. "You're *not* working again, areyou?"

  "Shhh," Art said. "It's less stressful if I get stuff done than if I let it pileup."

  "Then why is your forehead all wrinkled up?"

  "I have to go to Boston," he said. "Day after tomorrow, I think."

  "Jesus, are you insane? Trying to cripple yourself?"

  "I can recover in a hotel room just as well as I can recover here. It's justrest from here on in, anyway. And a hotel will probably have a tub."

  "I can't believe I'm hearing this. You're not going to *recover* in Boston.You'll be at meetings and stuff. Christ!"

  "I've got to do this," Art said. "I just need to figure out how. I'll gobusiness class, take along a lumbar pillow, and spend every moment that I'm notin a meeting in a tub or getting a massage. I could use a change of sceneryabout now, anyway."

  "You're a goddamned idiot, you know that?"

  Art knew it. He also knew that here was an opportunity to get back to EST, tomake a good impression on the Jersey clients, to make his name in the Tribe andto make a bundle of cash. His back be damned, he was sick of lying aroundanyway. "I've got to go, Linda."

  "It's your life," she said, and tossed aside the covers. "But I don't have tosit around watching you ruin it." She disappeared into the hallway, thenreemerged, dressed and with her coat on. "I'm out of here."

  "Linda," Art said.

  "No," she said. "Shut up. Why the fuck should I care if you don't, huh? I'mgoing. See you around."

  "Come on, let's talk about this."

  East-Coast pizza. Flat Boston twangs. The coeds rushing through Harvard Squareand oh, maybe a side trip to New York, maybe another up to Toronto and a roti atone of the halal Guyanese places on Queen Street. He levered himself painfullyout of bed and hobbled to the living room, where Linda was arguing with a taxidispatcher over her comm, trying to get them to send out a cab at two in themorning.

  "Come on," Art said. "Hang that up. Let's talk about this."

  She shot him a dirty look and turned her back, kept on ranting down the comm atthe dispatcher.

  "Linda, don't do this. Come on."

  "I am on the phone!" she said to him, covering the mouthpiece. "Shut the fuckup, will you?" She uncovered the mouthpiece. "Hello? Hello?" The dispatcher hadhung up. She snapped the comm shut and slammed it into her purse. She whirled toface Art, snorting angry breaths through her nostrils. Her face was such a maskof rage that Art recoiled, and his back twinged. He clasped at it and carefullylowered himself onto the sofa.

  "Don't do this, OK?" he said. "I need support, not haranguing."

  "What's there to say? Your mind's already made up. You're going to go off and bea fucking idiot and cripple yourself. Go ahead, you don't need my permission."

  "Sit down, please, Linda, and talk to me. Let me explain my plan and my reasons,OK? Then I'll listen to you. Maybe we can sort this out and actually, you know,come to understand each other's point of view."

  "Fine," she said, and slammed herself into the sofa. Art bounced and he seizedhis back reflexively, waiting for the pain, but beyond
a low-grade throbbing, hewas OK.

  "I have a very large opportunity in Boston right now. One that could reallychange my life. Money, sure, but prestige and profile, too. A dream of anopportunity. I need to attend one or two meetings, and then I can take a coupledays off. I'll get Fede to OK a first-class flight -- we get chits we can use toupgrade to Virgin Upper; they've got hot tubs and massage therapists now. I'llcheck into a spa -- they've got a bunch on Route 128 -- and get a massage everymorning and have a physiotherapist up to the room every