Page 2 of The Damage Man

“‘In filth it will be found.’” Evan continues toward the man, unrushed. “It means that the thing we need is in the last place we want to look. In this case, the world’s only vintage vodka.”

The hand emerges, gripping a petite Ruger Lite Rack LPC. The man holds it loosely aimed between Evan and the asphalt, expecting a grand reaction.

“Nice pistol,” Evan says. “They make it for grown-ups?”

The barrel jerks up and Evan strips the pistol from the man’s grip and punches him once in the nose, high at the bridge to drive his head into the cinder-block wall. The noises hang in the air like comic-strip sound effects—crunch of cartilage, smack of bone into concrete.

The man slides down the wall, his jacket pulled up above him like a tattered parachute.

His nose is a mess, eyes tearing, rolled to white. His mouth gapes, rasps fluttering a wispy mustache.

Evan turns to Russell, who is leaning back on the heels of his worker boots, and proffers his hand.

“Evan.”

“Rusty.”

“What’s with your friend?”

Rusty runs his hand across his close-cropped hair, his scalp glistening with sweat. “My son owes the wrong guys money. He’s out of time. I asked for a meet to possibly extend and—fuck, fuck—I don’t know what to do now. You shouldn’t have hurt him.”

“He shouldn’t have pointed a gun at me.”

Evan crouches over the semiconscious man, digs out a wallet. The license photo shows a healthier-looking Cyrus Holt, sans wispy beard, doing his best to look upstanding.

His head is lolling from the blow, so Evan cups his chin and rights it before snapping a photo of his face with his encrypted RoamZone phone. When he lets go, Cyrus tips over and groans into the asphalt.

Rusty is spinning in slow circles, palming the top of his head. “What am I supposed to do now? What am I supposed to do?”

Evan says, “That’s on me now.”

Footsteps crunch broken glass behind them and then the Tinsel Town Tipples clerk appears, gripping a handle of Chopin.

He pauses briefly to take in the tableau in the alley and then continues, unfazed. “If no Kauffman, then the Chopin,” he says, shaking the bottle at Evan. “I give good price.”

Cyrus stirs, cheek mashed to the ground. “Guy, guy. I think I might … I think I might be dying.”

Evan says, “You’re not dying.”

Cyrus pants and squeezes his eyes shut with a thumb and forefinger. “How d’ya know?”

“That’s a different punch,” Evan tells him.

“God, oh God,” Rusty tells the midmorning sky.

“Finest vodka, my friend,” the clerk says to Evan’s back. “Both made of potato.”

“Kauffman isn’t potato-based.”

“Eez potato. Say here!”

“Chopin is. Not Kauffman.”

Cyrus rolls onto his stomach, lifts his torso a few inches off the ground, tries to crawl on all fours.

Wielding the Chopin, the clerk sidles closer, poking his head in front of Evan. His full-moon face is red, agitated. The placement of features on his head seems arbitrary—the scrunched eyes, nose, and mouth floating on the bald orb. “Potato!”

“Kauffman,” Evan says, “is made from the wheat of a single harvest.”