HE’S IN THE GUEST ROOM doing lat sets with his father’s dumbbells when his cellphone vibrates that he has a message. He goes to voice mail.
“Sam, it’s Jake. You need to get your ass back here. That guy you hit in the bar—Bellic? I just heard he’s been moved back to the ICU. I don’t know why, but he’s not getting better. Listen, you better get back here, or you’re going to be seriously fucked.”
Sam listens to Jake’s message a second time. Then he erases his friend’s voice. Closing the phone, he sets it on the weight bench.
His face is dripping. The tendons in his wrists are trembling strangely.
He gets up and walks through his father’s house to the kitchen. He pulls a beer from the fridge and twists off the cap and drinks until the bottle is empty.
It is late afternoon in California. In Connecticut, he thinks, the sun will be going down.
He turns and vomits into the stainless-steel sink.