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should’ve understood the chain of events that my defection from Eternal Gratitude would cause. I have only myself to blame for the things that took place thereafter. More telling, I wouldn’t have been able to stop anything.

 
    FOURTEEN
    2-Time and Rita spent the remainder of the afternoon at Eternal Gratitude. 2-Time intuited Rita was upset about me and tried to soothe her. “Fuck Ricky. He was a figment of our imagination. A projection of our fantasies. He existed only because we wanted him to.”
    Rita couldn’t look at 2-Time. The less money they had, the harder it was for her to be near him. “Ricky isn’t genuine?”
    â€œOh, he is real, sugar, too damn real. He’s a doppelgänger.”
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œA mirror of you and me.”
    â€œI don’t see him in my mirror.”
    â€œDon’t be silly,” 2-Time pooh-poohed. “Ricky was our hope to get rich. He fucked up and now that won’t happen. The kid is handicapped. He doesn’t have what it takes. He’s too ghetto.”
    â€œRicky was a competent oracle.”
    â€œThe hell he was.” 2-Time shook his head. “Ricky was low-rent with no vision.”
    â€œYou guys treated him like dirt. He deserved better.”
    â€œForget that. And we’re fine without him.”
    2-Time’s bluster sounded weak, even to himself. After Bellamy left Eternal Gratitude, he and Heller got into a tiff about how much angel dust 2-Time was using. Heller wanted him to join a harm reduction program. What a hoot. Heller could screw himself. The pious asshole.
    If that wasn’t enough, 2-Time had gotten a scary phone message from a friend saying the feds were planning to shut down all the Life clubs in the city. Before he could process what it meant, he also learned Tommy Doolan was on his case.
    Doolan was the senior Department of Public Health official overseeing the city’s clubs. Somehow, through the grapevine, he’d gotten drift of Heller and 2-Time’s robberies. It was a bad scene. Doolan had the power to revoke Eternal Gratitude’s license to operate. 2-Time was blue and said no more to Rita.

 
    FIFTEEN
    In my mind’s eye I saw Heller was as tense as 2-Time. He was listening to the raindrops pinging against his living room’s windows. His discomfort started when he and Mitzi went to lunch at a North Beach bistro. An old Italian place on Stockton Street. The waiter told them dairy items were off the menu, due to Fukushima-related contamination. Some vegetables like spinach were also too hot. Plus, he’d run out of potassium iodide, the over-the-counter anti-radiation tincture. Heller hated the tincture. It made his heart beat too fast.
    As a bonus, Heller had the joy of receiving another telephone call from 2-Time. His partner was tripping, flying high on stress, kvetching that Tommy Doolan had him under a microscope and the Department of Public Health was going to investigate Eternal Gratitude.
    The feds said the rainfall was safe, the regional contamination levels were insignificant. Nobody bought it. When it rained, the streets were deserted. Yesterday the newspaper said the rain contained iodine levels fifty times higher than normal. Since it was raining nearly every day, the radiation was accruing, similar to equity on a house.
    Some people were already getting sick, struck down real fast. For most, years would pass before they even knew they were ill. That was the mystery of radiation sickness. You never could figure out when it would hit.
    Mitzi waltzed into the room.
    â€œDaddy?”
    â€œI’m not your daddy. Stop calling me that. Jesus.”
    â€œOkay, okay, I’m sorry.”
    â€œWhat do you want?”
    â€œWhere is Ricky?”
    â€œI’m afraid he’s gone.”
    â€œWhere to?”
    â€œI don’t know. Wherever failed oracles go. Bellamy is damaged goods, baby.”
    â€œIs he out there in