January rushes forward and pulls him into a huge hug. “Eli, everything’s okay.”
“That’s the fucking problem,” he says into her shoulder. “That’s the whole problem.”
As she comforts him, Doc and I look at each other.
“Drink?” I suggest.
“Couldn’t have said it better myself.”
We grab bottles of Johnnie Walker Black Label and Dom Perignon. Adriano finds a box of fancy Turkish cigars and we all take one, forcing one into a still-weeping Eli’s hands, and sit on the conference table and drink and smoke. When our bottles are significantly lighter, Doc gets to his feet and presses his cigar end into a nearby painting of a cow skull. “Okay, let’s go.”
“And do what?” January asks.
“I have some ideas. Hang on a sec.” Doc sprints away, returning a few minutes later with a bag of golf clubs.
“You want to play golf?” I ask incredulously.
“Are you fucking high? No.” He tosses the bag on the floor and pulls out a nine iron and brings it down on the bar, smashing the wood into splinters.
We all wince.
“Stop it you, degenerate crackhead,” Eli snaps, sounding like himself for the first time since Bianchi left.
Doc turns, a manic smile on his face. “Why? Bianchi’s men have taken all the good shit. Bianchi himself said we can do whatever we want. Why not fuck it all up?”
He brings the club down on a row of bottles sending glass and brown liquor everywhere and despite my aching shoulder I kind of want to join him.
“It seems pointless,” January says but I can hear that she’s into the idea too.
Doc points his club at her. “Exactly. Come on guys, Parker’s dead, and none of us got to kill him. Let’s fuck up his house.”
The sun, now high in the sky behind him, adds a poignancy to his speech that Doc doesn’t deserve. I heft myself onto my feet and grab a club. “Let’s do this.”
“Yay!” Doc squeals in a valley girl imitation. “Tits, you in?”
Smiling, January bends down and grabs a golf club. “Where do we start?”
“Anywhere we fucking want.”
It’s so much more fun than it should be, sprinting from room to room, sometimes seriously fucking things up, sometimes bashing a single lamp or ugly painting before running away laughing. The house is already messed up by Bianchi’s men, but there’s plenty to destroy. We break ping-pong tables and game consoles, tear ridiculous portraits of Parker off the walls, and break the frames. Adriano and I wait for January to leave the room then piss on them, laughing like five-year-olds. I thought Doc was cracked for suggesting this, but I feel a thousand times lighter. I’m alive and everyone I love is alive too. The only person who seems to be suffering is Eli. He’s too old money to appreciate the catharsis of what we’re doing.
“That’s Corinthian leather,” he moans, as Doc, who’s found a machete from somewhere, runs the blade through a couch and pulls out the stuffing.
“That’s an original Lovisa,” he tells Adriano, who’s set his sights on a statue of a naked woman.
“Fuck Lovisa,” Adriano says, swinging his driver into the porcelain. “Fuck all of it.”
We find a room with a giant wooden soda dispenser. January, and I lie under it, drinking from the taps as Doc and Adriano turn others on, soaking us to the skin with pomegranate kombucha and Inca Kola. When we’re done Doc dices the whole thing up like firewood.
“I’m gonna set it on fire. I want to burn this whole place down.” Doc dumps a full bottle of Hennessy over the wood, wild joy on his face. “Who’s got a light?”
“Wait,” Eli steps forward and I’m convinced he’s going to pull rank and stop us. Then he produces a box of matches. “Go on, Domenico.”
Doc turns and kisses him right on the mouth. “I fucking love you, Eli.”
“Goddamn you,” Eli spits, wiping his face.
“Oh my God,” January whispers. “Doc called himEli. He actuallysaid it.”
