—What’s all over you? James asks me.

—Me?

—Yeah. It looks like you have blood all over your shirt and hair.

—Is it mine? I ask him, worried, wanting his help.

—You better put some ice on it, he says, like it is a chore I forgot to do.

—On what? I ask, and I check my nose with both hands. It is dry and cold like the rest of my face.

—To stop the bleeding, he tells me, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

—Does this hotel even have ice?

—There’s ice in the bucket. On the dresser.

I grab the ice bucket from the dresser, but there’s a thumb in there, so I don’t want to use it. I check my hands to see if it’s my thumb, but it isn’t.

—Who put this in here? he asks me.

—I didn’t do it, I tell him.

—Tell them you fell against the bathtub, he suggests.

—Who?

—Whoever is asking about the blood.

—Has anyone been asking?

—Not yet, he says, but you never know.

I’m not sure if he’s lying to me or not.

—How did all that blood get on the ceiling? he says.

I know better than to look up. That’s how they get you.

—It was like that when we got the place, I tell him.

—Was it? he asks, looking like he is genuinely trying to remember.

I tell him that when we got the room he had said, “This place is covered in blood. What did they do? Murder someone in here?”

—That’s not how I talk, he says.

I go in the bathroom and I try to throw up but I can tell if I do, I will start shitting blood. The ice cream comes out of my nose. It is sweet and cool on my tongue.

—Did we order room service? I ask him, the toilet bowl amplifying my voice, making it echo all porcelain.

—Yeah, he says from the other room. Yeah, maybe.

—I ate too much, I tell him.

—You are so fat, he tells me even though you can see my ribs.

In the bathtub there is somebody.

—There is somebody in here, I tell him.

—Does he know who got all this blood in the room?

—He’s dead.

—Oh. Well, does he have all his fingers?

—I can’t see his hands, I say.

The body is letting farts rip, like they sometimes do. Gas redistributing in a system that no longer works.

—Does he have any cigarettes? James wants to know.

—He’s naked, I tell him, trying not to breathe the egg farts through my nose.

—You fucking homo, he says, and he comes in the bathroom to look at the naked dead guy whose hands we can’t see.

—There’s a lot of blood, he says.

—There’s a lot of blood everywhere.

—Is this the guy we kidnapped? He asks me.

—This guy is Mexican.

—I didn’t know you were into Mexican dudes anymore. After Paco.

—Don’t talk about Paco, I tell him.

—Is that his blood on you? James asks me, but I don’t answer because I am worried that it is.

—We gotta get out of here, I tell him.

—We can’t. There are cops out front.

—Are they looking for us? Are they here about the dead guy?

—I don’t know, he says, screwing up his face. Could be.

The cop who comes to our door is young. Uniformed. Clean shaven. He tells us to stay in our rooms. Says there is a police response team on the street in front of the hotel.

—He’s got blood on him, James says to the cop and points at me, laughing.

—Shut up, I tell him.

—Maybe get him to the hospital?

—I am not going to the hospital. I am fine.

—Just stay in your room for now, he says, and moves on to the next room.

We hear him knock on the door of the next room, identify himself, and explain the same thing to them.

—Must be a shooting, James says as I close the door. Probably the same maniac who killed the Mexican.

I think about the guy in the bathtub farting out the last of his gasses, and I wonder which one of us is guilty.

—I am not going to the hospital, I tell him again.

—Fine, he says.

—Then where are we going?

I know we aren’t going to the hospital, because we never go to the hospital, but I know we are going somewhere. We will sneak out of this hotel room, and move on to some other place, leaving the dead guy to his fate. Or I guess he already met his fate. Leaving him to something anyway.

—We can go anywhere, James says to me. We can go wherever we want, now.