“Maybe this is a bad idea,” he says.

  “The man is on borrowed time,” says Numi, leaning forward. “Maybe we can waste a little more of it?”

  Eddie is a smart guy and gets Numi’s drift: get to the point or get the hell out of here.

  “Right, sorry. Shit. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t need your help, Jimmy. Wait, that didn’t come out right. I mean, I should have been here anyway. I’m a shitty friend.”

  He is a shitty friend, but I don’t kick a man when he’s down. I look over at Numi, a very un-shitty friend. Numi is sitting back again, eyes half-closed, looking somewhere beyond the table and into eternity, for all I know.

  “It’s okay,” I say.

  My friend is acting strange. Eddie is generally the picture of cool. Or, at least, that’s what he always projected in the past. Now, not so much. His eyes seem unhinged, moving around in his skull like a compass going apeshit. He’s having trouble focusing on any one thing. He runs his fingers through his greasy hair. I’ve never known Eddie to have greasy hair. The Eddie I remember cared a lot about his looks. Too much, perhaps. His knee is bouncing, too. I figure Eddie is either on something or something’s really wrong.

  He finally nods to himself, looks down. Then he closes his eyes, which is probably a good idea since he can’t seem to focus on anything longer than a nanosecond. He takes in some air, holds it, and then says, “Olivia’s missing.”

  I sit forward. Or try to. My sitting forward consists of a minor tremor that runs through my body, followed by virtually no movement at all. Sitting forward, or other such wasted movements, is a luxury for the healthy.

  Even though I have not seen Olivia since my disease reared its ugly head, she kept in touch with me via text or e-mail or even Facebook. Whether or not Eddie knew we kept in touch, I didn’t know or care. The e-mail exchanges were light and frivolous, rarely touching on anything heavy, other than she missed seeing me and was sorry I was going through what I was going through. Her concern seemed genuine, and I always appreciated hearing from her. I knew she cared about me and she knew I cared about her. That she never stopped by to see me was, I figured, more Eddie’s doing than hers.

  “What do you mean by missing?” I finally ask.

  Eddie looks from me to Numi and says, “It means I haven’t seen or heard from her in almost forty-eight hours.”

  Chapter Three

  “Did you two have a fight?” I ask.

  He looks away. “Kind of. Remember my friend Jewel?”

  I do. I also remember Eddie cheated on Olivia with Jewel... on more than one occasion. How and why Olivia stays with him, I still don’t entirely know. But she has.

  “I remember Jewel,” I say evenly. “What about her?”

  My skin is burning now, actually reddening. Still, I don’t move my arm. The burning makes me feel alive, and, for all I know, this might be my last sunburn. Numi stares impassively forward, but his attention is still on me, even if he isn’t looking directly at me. He is like a dog who keeps its ears directed toward its owner, ever alert for walks or treats or both. If I should make any movement, Numi’s gaze will snap to me. So, I make no movement. No indication the sun is burning me. Numi would adjust the umbrella, or insist we sit inside. I enjoy the burning. I enjoy it more than I should. A small wind blows over us, although I am perhaps the only one who feels it. I close my eyes for a few seconds and feel the sun, and I briefly feel more connected to the earth than I ever have. I relish these small moments. I wish I had relished them more when I wasn’t living on borrowed time.

  Eddie finally answers: “Two weeks ago, Jewel committed suicide.”

  The words hit me like a gut punch. Even Numi turns his head slightly to regard Eddie. For the stoic Nigerian, this is akin to a cartoonish double take. I look at Eddie’s face for signs of grief that his on-again, off-again mistress took her own life. He dips his head away from my intent gaze and when he lifts it again, his expression is neutral.

  “How does her suicide correlate with Olivia’s disappearance?” I ask.

  Numi chuckles and says, “Correlate.”

  Eddie takes in a lot of air and leans forward. But doing so puts him just that much closer to me, and so he leans back a little. “Lately, Olivia’s been pretty vocal about me not seeing Jewel anymore, even as friends.”

  “Do you blame her?”

  Eddie shrugs. He doesn’t like talking about it. I honestly think Eddie thinks cheating isn’t a big deal. God, how was I ever even friends with him? Maybe it is a godsend he’s not in my life anymore.

  He says, “I guess not.”

  “Did something happen recently? What got Olivia upset?”

  Eddie doesn’t immediately answer, and I wait, knowing there’s more to the story. Numi waits, too. Numi can out-wait a polar shift.

  Eddie’s knee continues to bounce. Perhaps faster than before. Finally, he says, “Well, maybe Jewel and I had been hanging out more often than usual.”

  “By hanging out, do you mean sleeping with her?”

  Eddie shrugs, a defensive gesture. “Yeah.”

  “Did Olivia find out?”

  “I’m thinking she did.”

  “But you don’t know for sure?”

  “No. She never mentioned anything.”

  “Do you think Olivia killed Jewel? That it wasn’t suicide?”

  Eddie shrugs and seems to consider this for the first time. His knee stops bouncing. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything, Jimmy. That’s why I’m here.”

  “What do you want me to do, Eddie?”

  “Help me find Olivia. It’s not like her to be gone so long, or for me not to hear from her.”

  I know Olivia has left Jimmy before. I know this because on one such occasion she stayed with me. Eddie hadn’t liked that, but Eddie didn’t have a choice. I had been a perfect gentleman during her stay, but Olivia and I had, once again, shared some quiet moments together.

  I think about my words carefully before I say, “Do you think there’s a possibility Olivia left you because you’re a lying, cheating scumbag?”

  Eddie looks up sharply. “That’s a shitty thing to say.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “But these days I speak my mind. I figure what’s the point in holding back?”

  “Well, it’s still shitty of you to say it like that. Even if you’re right, why would she leave now? Jewel’s dead. Cheating on Olivia with her is moot.”

  “Maybe she’s had enough of your shit, Eddie. Maybe she sees herself ending up like Jewel. I don’t know, but I do know one thing.”

  “What?”

  “She deserves better than you.”

  Eddie rises to his feet, chair scraping back. I don’t know what he intends to do, but he doesn’t get far. Numi grabs Eddie by the forearm, making no other movement. Hell, even his eyes are still half-closed as he stares ahead. He looks, if anything, bored. It’s a well-cultivated illusion. Numi, I know, sees everything.

  “Sit down, cowboy,” he says.

  Eddie doesn’t like to be grabbed, and he doesn’t like Numi, either. I see him look away and contemplate leaving. If he leaves now, I know I will never see my friend again, and perhaps I will never see Olivia again either. I always assumed I would see her at least one more time. Yes, I want to see her again to say goodbye.

  “I probably shouldn’t have said what I said, Eddie, but you know how I feel about you cheating on her.”

  “Because you love her.”

  “Because I care about her,” I say. “Sit down.”

  He doesn’t sit immediately, and Numi hasn’t released him either. Finally, he shrugs the grip off his arm and sits again, folding his arms over his chest.

  “Good,” I say. “Who saw her last?”

  “The friend she was staying with.”

  “When?”

  “Almost two days ago. She told a friend she was going to take a hike in Elysian Park.”

  “When did she leave you?”

  He thinks about it. “Eight days ago.”

  “She had been with her friend the entire time?”

  “Yes, as far as I know.”

  “What’s her friend’s name?”

  “Karen Fitch.”

  “Do you know where she lives?”

  “Yes, in Echo Park. I can get the address for you.”

  He lapses into silence, and so do I. All of us know Elysian Park is where my brother disappeared some twenty-two years ago. My brother was nine years old. Eddie must have told Numi about the Elysian Park part, which is why he allowed Eddie to see me. Numi, my watchdog.

  I think my face might have twitched, but I try to keep it together when I ask, “Did she go alone?”

  “Yes.” Eddie is watching my face carefully. He knows how closely this is hitting me. Too damn closely.

  I count back two days. That would have been July fifth. If she had gone to Elysian Park on the fourth, I would have understood. People hiked and picnicked there to watch the fireworks at Dodger Stadium. I have done so a few times myself. Back in another lifetime.

  “Did she hike there often?” I ask. The question spills out before I can correct it. I’m already using the past tense for Olivia. That gut feeling.

  “Yes... she loves to hike. You know that.”

  “I haven’t seen her in two years, Eddie. I’m not sure what she likes anymore.”

  Eddie just nods. I can tell he’s reminding himself what a shitty friend he has been. I wonder if Eddie knows Olivia and I had been Facebook friends. I chide myself for thinking in the past tense again.

  I nod to Numi, who picks up his notebook and pen. I ask Eddie a few brief questions. Numi begins writing, taking notes for me while Eddie answers my questions. When I’ve gotten the most I can out of him, I lapse into silence. I’m completely spent. More than spent. I’m nearly catatonic.

  “Meeting’s over,” says Numi.

  “What?” says Eddie, startled. “Just like that?”

  “Just like that,” says Numi. “The man needs to rest.”

  Eddie looks at me, and I nod, or try to. He gets it. As he stands he says, “Help me find her, Jimmy. I don’t know who else to turn to.”

  “I will,” I say, and mean it.

  Eddie considers shaking my hand, decides against it. He settles for a half nod. “I’m sorry this happened to you, Jimmy.”

  “So am I.”

  He’s about to say something else, thinks better of it, and walks away.

  Numi watches him go. Eventually, he looks at me, and at my reddening arm. Makes a small, disapproving sound, and adjusts the umbrella so that the shade falls across my forearm.

  Chapter Four

  I’m stretched out on my couch in my apartment in Los Feliz, which is a trendy, hilly district above Hollywood. I never pronounce Los Feliz correctly. Three years in this place and I still sometimes screw it up. There’s the gringo way and the Spanish way, except I can never remember which is which.

  Then again, I’ve got bigger fish to fry.

  Numi has already helped me onto my couch. Without his help, I might still be back at The Coffee Bean, slowly burning alive and hopped up on lattes.

  Most of my life, I’ve been uncomfortable touching other men. Hell, I’ve even been uncomfortable getting too close to women, too, which is the reason I’m alone to this day, but that’s a whole other issue.

  Mostly, I am uncomfortable receiving help from anyone. My disease changed all that, of course. Now I’m forced to rely on help from another person. To rely on a man. A gay man, no less.

  But I’ve drawn the line at help in the bathroom. I tell Numi if I fall over on the toilet, then I guess I’m just meant to die on the toilet. Numi just shakes his head. That he would help me in the bathroom blows my mind. What friend would do that? Numi would. Still, it’s just too much for me to handle. I’m already uncomfortable enough as it is.

  Twice, I have fallen in the bathroom. Once, I knocked myself out, hitting my head on the doorjamb. Hours later, I awakened in a pool of my own blood. I never told Numi about it, and luckily, my hair hid the goose egg.

  I just might die in the bathroom after all.

  Anyway, Numi places the remote control on the coffee table next to me, along with my cell phone, my Kindle, and a bottled water. He tells me he will check on me in a few hours, stands briefly at the door, watches me silently, and then leaves.

  I have mixed emotions about Numi. He is a good friend—of that there is no doubt. That he overly fusses over me, there is no doubt of that, either. Admittedly, his homosexuality is sometimes in my thoughts; meaning, I wonder if there is more to why he helps me so much. I wonder if he likes me in a different way, perhaps more than just friends. Whether or not he does shouldn’t matter. But it does matter, and it makes me keep him at arm’s length. It is also, I suspect, the reason I snap at him sometimes.

  Whether or not I hurt him with my snapping, I don’t know. But I suspect I do. I try to not do it. I try to be a better person, and then I remember I am dying and I don’t care if I am a better person. after all, what does it matter if I grow as a person if I’m going to die soon?

  Still, I don’t want to hurt Numi, but I hate needing his help.

  I think these thoughts as I rest my eyes, suddenly aware Numi also tucked a blanket around me. I don’t remember him tucking a blanket around me. Sometimes my mind leaves me. I can’t explain it entirely. Sometimes I’m here, but then sometimes I’m not. My thoughts are often scattered and hard to nail down. I feel like death will occur when my thoughts are so scattered that my mind never returns. It is a scary thought, but a real one.

  I try not to think about it too much.

  A part of me wants to sit up and read, or turn on the TV, or do anything other than just lie here, but moving doesn’t seem to be an option. If Numi were here, I would ask him to turn on the TV. He’s not here, though. I want him here, but I don’t want him here.

  My sickness forces me to grow closer to Numi. I don’t want to grow closer to him. I like our comfortable distance. There is no comfortable distance anymore, not when he’s putting on my seat belt for me.

  When my eyes close, the chaotic images come. The chaotic images worry me. Mostly, they don’t make sense. Sometimes I will see snatches of something that does make sense, only to watch it quickly morph into something incomprehensible. I’m certain I’m losing my mind.

  As I watch something that starts out as an octopus, only to morph into balls of light and then streaks of colors, I try to sleep.

  I know I am close to death because whenever I lay back and close my eyes, I never, ever want to sit up again. Or open my eyes again. I can feel the cancer in my lungs, eating away at me.

  With thoughts of death, losing my mind, and disease, it’s no wonder I can’t sleep. And as I flit in and out of consciousness, waiting for death, waiting for Numi, wanting to be alone, but not wanting to die alone, my cell phone rings from somewhere. It sounds far away, and the ringing somehow merges with the chaotic images in my thoughts. I know the ringing is coming from my cell phone, but I don’t care. I don’t even care my mind seems broken and scattered and gone. I especially don’t care about my dying body. But I do care how good it feels to rest.

  So nice. So nice...

  Sometimes the swirling images, the indescribable prisms of lights, morph into people. But often just one. Usually this person seems to be standing nearby, often in the corner of this very room, watching me. I’ve even gone as far as to open my eyes to catch whoever is in the room with me, but no one is there. I’ve made it all up. My dying mind has made it all up.

  Sometimes, I call out to Numi, expecting to find my friend in the room with me, but he’s not. I’m all alone with my scattered, incoherent thoughts. Dying is the ultimate hallucinogen. The final hallucinogen.

  But now, as the phone continues to ring, one of these bright beings of light steps forward. The blazing white image is someone I recognize. Someone I’ve grown quite fond of. It is Olivia, Eddie’s missing wife. She has beautiful black hair that’s oddly translucent in the light. She doesn’t smile and I see why: her mouth is bloody. So is her neck. Her neck, I see, has a deep gash open down to her throat. If I look hard enough, I can see inside her throat.

  Sweet Jesus.

  I gasp and sit up, and the vision is gone instantly. I scan the room wildly, but I’m alone. Late afternoon sunlight splashes across my apartment living room. I blink hard. Olivia, complete with her open neck, had been standing right here in the light.

  My phone is still ringing. Numi had set it to ring nearly a dozen times before it goes to voicemail. He wants me to have the extra time needed to get to it. What Numi wants, he gets.

  Still looking around, shaken by the bloody image of Olivia, I reach for the phone and swipe it on. I don’t bother to see who’s calling. Hell, it’s all I can do not to drop the damn thing.

  “Hello?” I say. Or I think I say. My mind isn’t entirely here.

  “Jimmy,” says a vaguely familiar voice. “They found her.”

  Chapter Five

  “Who is this?” I ask, slurring my words. “Found who?”

  “It’s Eddie. They found Olivia.”

  “She’s all right?” I ask, although I already know the answer.

  “No. She’s not all right,” he says.

  I sit up on the couch, now fully in the moment. My scattered thoughts seem to retract back, like an explosion played in reverse. I’m here in the present, which means my earlier conversation with Eddie hasn’t been a dream after all. These days, reality and dreams are difficult to differentiate.

  The vision...

  “Where did they find her?” I hear myself ask. I can feel bile rising in my throat.

  “Laurel Canyon.”

  If he says something else, I don’t hear it. I hear nothing past the words “Laurel Canyon.” I discover I’m now sitting up and sucking in air.

  Not related. Impossible.