The Salvation Shark, Chapter 45

Becki

Anton has a change of clothes for us, though I don't understand how he folded them in his briefcase. We wait twenty minutes in a McDonalds to change our clothes in the bathroom. I struggle to keep my pantlegs dry. I don't change my shoes until we are outside. Anton gives our old clothes to a man sitting on a sleeping bag near a crosswalk.

At the hotel Anton requests a penthouse and must pay a deposit in cash when he tells the desk clerk we don't have any baggage. The clerk inspects each $100 carefully. We each have our own bedroom, though only one bathroom, and a balcony overlooking the city. I normally played the Meadowlands, some stadium up north. I might have the directions reversed, but before I could see any more than the buildings rising in the distance before I was whisked off to a show in Syracuse, or Albany, or Buffalo. The fans screamed the same in every town.

Our balcony overlooks Central Park. I did an appearance at a festival there after my second album. My official fanclub managed to invite almost every single person in the nation, and so many people arrived from out of town that my motorcade almost didn't make it from one location to the next. Since then, New York appearances have been limited to open regions where crowds can be managed.

Anton comes out on the balcony and stands next to me. “Right below us, two punk-rockers are beating the shit out of a bum.” His smile is so sinister, and I notice he has claws again. “They’re wailing on the guy with their skate boards, just because he’s there. Next week, when they do it again, they give him a concussion, which gives him a seizure, and he drowns in the river.”

“Do they get caught?” I ask but don't look at him.

"No one cares about a bum," Anton says. "Not here. He is mentally ill. His wife threw him out because he bit her. His name is Harvey Judstone, and he thinks he is a werewolf. His family barely remembers him. He will only be found because police are looking for someone else. You and I are the only people in this entire city that will ever know anything about him.”

I’m getting sick of Anton’s horror stories. “What about the boys?" I ask. "Why did they do it?"

“Why would they not do it? Harvey was the guy who growled at them when they walked home. They beat him and he stopped. One of the boys will kill a bum on purpose a year from now. He dies of an overdose when he his twenty-four, but he doesn't spend a single day in prison. You tell me if that's justice." He looks at me and smiles.

“I want a nap,” I say.

He sighs. “We’re going out later. You might as well get some rest.”

"Where are we going?"

"There is one more person you need to meet. He will convince you to help me. Then I can take you home."

We go inside and I lay down with my back to the door of my room. I hear Anton blowing cocaine and changing his clothes again. Without acknowledging if he knows I'm awake or not, he lays a change of clothes on my dresser. I didn't hear the door, were the clothes waiting for us? I can’t fall asleep until long after I hear him leave.

Go to Chapter 46