Chapter 17

When Mikel walked into the kitchen the next morning, the only person he saw was Nicola. As he surveyed the room, he wondered if Architectural Digest had vomited white porcelain and mashed up the undigested mess with Roman Greco retro to create this affront to his humanity. “Where is everybody?”

“We’re on hospital time,” she said, drinking a cup of tea from the pot in front of her. “Hospitals always have us up and moving early. The rest of them are still asleep.” Her long T-shirt sleeping gown with the pink teddy bear on the front was another unexpected contrast that Mikel could not have imagined yesterday.

He sat down across from her. “Sleep well?”

“I had strange dreams,” she said. “I dreamed that cars crashed into ours and machine guns fired, and people wearing sunglasses were blown up, torn apart, and turned into road jelly. The sunglasses survived though, a worthwhile purchase if you’re the smart, savvy consumer.”

“Cute,” Mikel said, pouring himself a cup of tea. He had been hoping for real coffee. “You were just reliving our adventure.”

“It wasn’t a pharma induced hallucination?” Nicola said with a dash of indignation. “I was too doped up to appreciate it, fuck ‘em all.”

Mikel took a seat across from her. “The pharmaceuticals got you through a bloody, horrible, bloody day and kept you moving towards home.”

“You said ‘bloody’ twice,” Nicola said. “Did I really stick my hand...?”

“Yep, and it was the bravest thing I’ve seen in all my days. You were not going to see me do it.”

“Don’t tell mother.”

Mikel chuckled. “I wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing. Even my concierge edited the story for your mother’s consumption. Are you ready for today?” She gave him the teenager look of annoyance. “Solanio Bartolucci is supposedly visiting us this morning. He wants to make a pitch for some of my connections.”

“He has a small dick,” she said.

“Old news,” Mikel said, wagging his finger. He blew on the liquid before taking a sip. “Considering that he committed statutory rape, and you were the victim, I thought you might want a head’s up.”

“If we’re lucky, ole’ dad didn’t change the combination on the gun safe,” Nicola said with narrowed eyes. “If you can distract him for a minute, I can take care of his small dick problem.”

“I don’t think the judge will let you off with time served in rehab for that one,” Mikel said.

She clucked her tongue. “They would need to find the body first. This is a big house on a big plot of land. A lot of shit has gone down here, and no one knows. No one.”

“Spooky and provocative, but I’m not taking the bait this morning,” Mikel said. “What time did your father arrive last night? When I went to bed, he had not yet arrived.”

Nicola shrugged. “His car isn’t in the driveway. I don’t know if he made it, and I’m not knocking on my parents’ door to find out. ‘Let sleeping ‘rents lie,’ I say.”

“Spoken like a true teenager found anywhere across the land,” Mikel said. “Back to serious, what do make of what happened yesterday? You may have still been drugged to the gills, but you saw it all.”

“What did one or both of my parents do that provoked someone to send out assassins to take me out?” Nicola said. “I thought that sort of retribution disappeared after the Mexican Civil War ten years ago.”

“Your father basically raped Sicily three or four years ago; he truly fucked them over. If the Mafia was still relevant, then maybe they would have sought revenge,” Mikel said. “The mafia of old typically took out the person, not their family unless they were in the way. Did you ever think that they could have been targeting me?”

“A columnist for the pathetic lovelorn? Hardly. I can see it now: you told my girlfriend to leave me because I was a misogynistic asshole with a violent streak, forcing me to send my well-dressed, overly armed buds to mow you down. Yeah, and I own an expensive SUV, and can afford the ammunition for, not one automatic assault rifle, but three. Hahaha.”

“Sarcasm in the morning is a mite sharp on the ego, if I do say so,” Mikel said. “Should I trust Sal?”

“Why are you asking me? I’m just a teenage drug addict with the hospital release form to prove it.”

Mikel sat back in his chair and slouched. He spoke softly, “You’re a self-medicating victim of rape without any family support. Go find yourself a therapist of your choosing and a support group. Whatever you need is not here as far as I can tell.”

Her lower lip quivered for a moment and then stopped. “Freak,” she whispered as she rose from her chair and walked quickly out of the room. Mikel listened to her run up the steps to the second floor.

“How to Make Friends and Influence People,” Mikel said to himself as he refilled his cup. “I think I need to reread the text.” As he poked through the delightful tidbits wrapped and packaged in the refrigerator, he heard a door slam upstairs. A moment later, the heavy thuds on the stairs confirmed that someone was coming to intrude on his momentary peace.

“Did you hear the news?” Aubrey said with her hands on her hips.

“No, I have not had time yet this morning,” he said. “Trouble?”

“China has lost its electricity,” she said. “I have business there and not a single goddamn phone is going through to the mainland. No one knows when it will be restored.”

“I think it will be a long time, if ever,” Mikel said. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Tea? The goddamn world is ending!”

“Well, not immediately and certainly, China going down the tubes is not a reason to forego a morning cup of tea. Civilization is functioning here.” Mikel held up a teacup and wagged it slightly.

“Fine, pour me a cup,” she said as if she was disgusted with herself for capitulating. She took the cup and then a sip before sitting down. “Do you realize how many people are going to be out of work by the end of the day if they don’t get that grid back up and running?”

“They are out of work,” Mikel said. “My sources told me that the A.I. were maintaining the grid for the Chinese government until the grid was beyond repair. We’ve reached that point obviously. The Chinese failed to invest in their infrastructure and now, well, it’s too late for China.”

“This is a global economy, Mr. Barajas,” Aubrey said. “If China goes down for good, the rest of the world is going to collapse like dominoes.”

“Except for Africa,” Mikel said. “Two dozen African nations had their foreign debts canceled in one fell swoop. You can always move your factories there as they now have money to spend.”

“My clothes lines are manufactured in Myanmar with Chinese textiles,” Aubrey said.

“Those circumstances are going to be difficult to navigate.”

“I need to call Whitaker. The bastard never left the city last night and now, the bottom falls out of my business when I have orders waiting to be filled. He had better have better communications with Asia than I do. Where is my goddamn phone?”

“I did not see you come downstairs with it,” Mikel said with a shrug.

“That’s right; I threw it across the room when I couldn’t get through to my fabric broker in Guangzhou. I need to fetch that device and get my ass down to the gym. After last night’s fat fest, I’m going to need extra hours on the bike. I think it was one of those WASPY cunts in Newport who said, ‘you can never be too rich or too thin’ and the words have haunted us for generations.” She stormed off and stomped up the stairs, informing Mikel from where the daughter learned the behavior.