Nobody Move by Denis Johnson

framed me for it.”
He said, “Somebody has to be the designated bad guy.”
“Why can’t the real bad guy be the bad guy?”
“In this kind of situation, that honor goes to the cutest. You’re the cutest.”
“What an honor.”
“The one they’ll punish least. I’m not as cute as you. I know it’s cold-blooded, and I’m horrible and mean, but lift your head up and take in the scenery here. Does it look like prison? It’s over, and we’re both standing on the street.”
“Meanwhile, I pay eight hundred a month, and no job.”
“Babylove. Wake up. It’s over.”
“Eight hundred a month for life . How over is that?”
“Are you staying around?”
“What do you think?”
“I’m not staying around either. Why don’t we not stay around together?”
“Do I look that desperate? All I need in this world is half a tank of gas to get to the next man. And he’s a better man than you.”
“Don’t kill me. Don’t you know you can kill me, talking that way? I’m the one who’s desperate.”
“You lie and you lie and you lie.”
“What do you want? Just tell me.”
“I want to see you grovel.”
“I’m groveling now. How do you like it?”
“I love it. That tie must’ve cost two hundred dollars.”
“There’s more where that came from. Why don’t we share the wealth?”
She turned around and left. She didn’t look back.

    Later she drove by the house. He probably wasn’t home. No reason he’d be home at two in the afternoon. But his gray Lexus sat in the driveway. The Lexus didn’t mean he was home. He might be driving a second car. He could afford one. He could own eight cars by now. He could be heading a parade of newly purchased automobiles down Main Street. In her shaking hand the key chain jingled. She put the key in the lock. She swung open the door. He was home. “Babylove,” he said. “I’m pouring you a drink.”
Seven minutes later he went down on the floor by the bed. She said, “I like you on your knees, Daddyman.”
She saw tears in his eyes.
She was weeping too. “Now beg.”

    Ernest Gambol proceeded into the traffic and across the street looking neither right nor left, setting his aluminum cane down hard with each step forward. The pain was good pain. Different than before.
He entered the parking lot of the Circle K. As he passed behind the Wonder Bread truck idling out front, its reverse lights flared. He struck the nearest one with his cane and shattered it. He made his way to the pay phone, where he rested his weight on both feet equally and allowed four minutes to pass. He punched the buttons and called the pay phone out front of O’Doul’s.
Juarez answered. “Alhambra here.”
“It’s me.”
“Are you ready to laugh?”
“I’m ready.”
“You got your pants on?”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Are you ready?”
“I said I was.”
“Do you remember Sally Fuck?”
    PART
THREE

    MARY poured some bourbon over ice and asked Gambol, “Do you want a drink?” He’d already told her twice to shut up, but she couldn’t help herself.
Gambol, sitting on the couch in his boxers and Mary’s blue nylon robe, said nothing. He stared at his wounded right leg, outstretched before him on the ottoman. His brow looked even heavier than usual. He kept his lips clamped together. It didn’t seem possible, but maybe he was thinking.
Mary took her drink to the coffee table and sat beside him on the couch. Together they watched the final minutes of Law & Order . No conversation but the fraught dialogue of cops and crooks, no other sound but the ice in her glass when she sipped from it.
When the show was over, Gambol looked at his wristwatch.
Mary knelt on the floor beside the ottoman and parted the hem of his robe and examined the wound. He couldn’t appreciate the work. When it came to suturing, she was better than most doctors she’d assisted. “You’re healing fast, but I’m leaving those stitches in awhile. Seven days minimum for a wound to the proximal lower extremity. Ten days