The Angels of Catastrophe by Peter Plate Page B

needs. I’m big enough to admit it.”
    Durrutti felt bad for him. “You and her, that was quick.”
    â€œNot quick enough. She was getting on my fucking nerves. She was staying at my place. Just for a few days, she said. While she was apartment hunting. I like being clean and keeping things neat. Well, the babe,” he laughed bitterly. “She didn’t even flush the toilet behind her when she used it. I don’t need that kind of insensitivity. Seriously ... how do you have sex with someone like that?”
    Durrutti mulled over the question and came up with one of his own. “Can we go look for Jimmy?”
    The silence from Maimonides was oppressive. He said in a phlegmy tone thick with doubt, “You want to do this
now? I’m resting. I don’t want to get dressed. Can’t it wait? What’s the big rush, anyhow?”
    â€œI’ve got a hunch about him.”
    â€œYou have not. You have zero. This Jimmy Ramirez, is that all you have on your mind? You got the hots for him or what? It’s not healthy. So you’ll find him tomorrow, not today. Take a break, will you? He’s been around here for a zillion years. He ain’t leaving. They should put up a memorial to him: Jimmy Ramirez, born and died at Hunt’s Donuts.”
    â€œLook, I’ve got a dilemma here—”
    â€œStop,” Maimonides groused, putting an end to their conversation. “I don’t want to think about your dilemma or whatever it is. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Your problems can wait until then. Good-bye, shorty.”

    Durrutti stayed in his room, feeling pensive. He didn’t know what world he was living in. He felt like he was carrying his soul on the tip of his tongue. Then came a knock at the door. Three hard knocks. A familiar voice, broiling with indignation, yelled, “I know you’re in there, Ricky Durrutti! Open up!”
    It was Ephraim Rook. Durrutti sat on his bed and broke out in beads of sweat. This was unexpected. This was not wanted. Ephraim hated him for sleeping with Sugar. He didn’t forgive the younger man for insulting him like that. Durrutti wished it had never happened.
    â€œLet me in, Ricky! You and me need to talk!”

    Being polite with Ephraim was a task. It required athletic stamina. He shouted back through the wall. “What for?”
    â€œYou know what for! C’mon, open the fucking door and let me in!”
    It was hard to believe they’d ever been friends. Somehow, things like that never lasted. Ephraim sounded like he was in agony, and at the end of his rope. Durrutti went to the door and threw it open. It was either that or listen to the old fart pound away on it.
    Ephraim swept past him into the room. Buff and hale for a man his age. He was bedecked in an eel-gray, thousand dollar Armani suit. His kinky orange hair, what was left of it, had been cut to camouflage his eroding hairline. Dermabrasion had eliminated the cystic acne scars on his seamed face. Clumps of gold jewelry hung from his wrists and stubby fingers like Christmas tree ornaments. A diamond stud glittered in his left earlobe.
    He wasn’t in a good mood. Getting cuckolded by Durrutti had depressed Ephraim. It made him feel useless and vengeful. Twirling his car keys in one hand, he appraised his tormentor. “Look at you. You’re skinnier than the fucking sausages they make these days.”
    A dialogue with Ephraim was never promising, unless you had a special aptitude for it, like talking to someone speaking in tongues.
    Rook eschewed to sit on the edge of the bed and sat down on the windowsill after running a well-manicured hand over it—even his fingernails looked expensive. He said, “Ricky, I’ve got be honest with you.”
    Durrutti owed it to Rook to hear him out. He’d
screwed the man’s fiancée on a whim. Listening to him was the least he could do. “About what?”
    The aging money-man