Read Online Lucky Bastard by S G Browne - Free Book Online

and I’m getting sucked into a black hole.

W hen I wake up, I’m on the floor in a room the size of a leprechaun’s walk-in closet, with no windows and no furniture, just a liter of bottled water on the hardwood floor and a rack of fluorescent lights buzzing into my eyes and frying my brain. My head is pounding and my mouth feels like a used box of cat litter.
    The clumping kind.
    I close my eyes and roll onto my hands and knees, groping for the water bottle. Once I find it, I unscrew the cap and drink more than half of the contents before I realize I should probably have stopped to think if it was poisoned.
    Oh, well. Too late now.
    By the time I drain the last of the bottle, my headache is beginning to fade and my mouth no longer feels like it’s filled with Fresh Step. I look around the room and wonder where I am, if I’m still in San Francisco, and how I’m going to get out of here. The door seems like the logical choice,from the other side of which I hear male voices, though they’re not speaking English. Sounds more like Cantonese.
    A light switch is on the wall next to the door, which I presume is locked. The door, not the wall. Though I wouldn’t be surprised either way. But when I turn the knob, the door opens and I step into a mostly empty room with hardwood floors, wall-to-wall dust, a single window, a curtain covering another doorway, and a table surrounded by four old Chinese men playing mah-jongg.
    “Mei,” says one of the old men without looking up. “Get our friend a chair.”
    The old man is the same one who drugged me in Huntington Park. Apparently, he and I have different ideas about friendship.
    I still don’t know where I am, but it looks like I’m in the city, somewhere in Chinatown. It also looks like the curtained doorway is the only way out, unless I want to try the window. Which I don’t.
    A young Chinese woman in a white shirt and black pants appears through the curtained doorway carrying a chair, which she sets near the four men who continue to play mah-jongg. She bows to the old man, then vanishes through the same doorway.
    Maybe it’s the hangover from the drugs, but she looks familiar.
    “Feeling better?” the old man says, still not looking up from the game.
    “I could use something to drink,” I say, taking a seat.
    “Mei!”
    Seconds later, Mei returns with a tray and a pot of tea with five cups.
    I was thinking more along the lines of whiskey. Or maybe a shot of tequila with a lime and some salt. I’d ask for a margarita, but that would probably just be pushing my luck.
    “Oolong tea,” says my host as Mei sets the cups on a nearby table and fills them. She never glances up or makes eye contact, but something about her still makes me think we’ve met. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t at Starbucks or Peet’s; otherwise she’d probably throw the cup of tea in my face.
    She finishes pouring the tea and exits the room in silence. Before she leaves, I catch a glimpse of a blue bikini top beneath her white shirt, and I realize she’s the same hot young woman from Huntington Park.
    I grab a cup of tea and inhale, then I take a sip of the steaming brew, half expecting to go numb and pass out again. But I can still feel my extremities, so I’ve got that going for me.
    I glance around the room, which is decorated in early hovel. The walls are yellowed and peeling, the hardwood floors scuffed and water stained. Battered venetian blinds cover the only window, and the single rack of fluorescent lights buzzes uncovered next to a crack in the ceiling. The only decoration is a ceramic lucky-cat sculpture, its leftpaw raised, sitting on a small, solitary shelf by the curtained doorway.
    “You know,” I say, after taking another sip of tea, “for someone who’s supposed to have bought up as much luck as you, I was expecting accommodations that were a little less, I don’t know, crack-addict-prostitute.”
    “You should have accepted my earlier invitation from my men,” says the