7.

When they were downtown at Broadway and Colfax, Alex suddenly stopped as they were walking toward the Adam’s Mark Hotel, and turned to go the other way, obviously unsettled.

Marty followed after him. “What is it?” he said.

“This way,” said Alex in a low but insistent tone. He continued to scuttle back the way they had come.

When Marty caught up to him, he said they had to get back to the apartment.

“What in hell are you talking about?” said Marty. “What the fuck?”

“I just saw Kelly Lyle,” he said.

“Who the hell is Kelly Lyle? Some chick you don’t want seeing you fat or what?”

“Kelly Lyle is a guy,” said Alex. “A kickass fucker too. I used to know him back in the early ’90s.”

Alex explained the whole story. About how he’d been with Kelly, whom he described as six foot five and built like a monster--about how they’d been walking to Alex’s car and a very drunk Kelly had smashed a car window by swinging a heavy set of keys at it hard, to retrieve the purse on the passenger side seat. Before he knew what had happened, they were taking off in panic in Alex’s car. Someone got Alex’s license number and the police arrested him and he told them the whole story, how it was Kelly’s fault and he’d just panicked. He gave them Kelly’s address and they thanked him and let him go.

“And then what happened?” said Marty.

“And then I don’t know. Kelly disappears and I assume he’s in jail and the police never pick me up about it again.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” said Marty. “You were an accessory. You’re just as guilty as him.”

“That’s why I figured they picked him up,” said Alex. “If they hadn’t picked him up for it they would have come back again for me.”

“They would have come for you and him both.”

“I’m telling you that’s what happened. It may not make sense but that’s what happened.”

Marty convinced him to wait a few blocks away while Marty went alone to pick up the hotel applications. Then they took the bus back. All the ride Alex couldn’t stop talking about the crowd of people that Kelly Lyle had sent to intensive care for one reason or another. But Marty got the feeling that most of these stories were second-hand mythology that surrounded the man, that few if any of these stories were directly witnessed by Alex.