When is it time to walk away? There is no walking away, no escape. Nada. When Harvey thought about the concept of nothing, he preferred to think of it in Spanish terms. Nada. Nothing seemed like much more finite term. A term with limitations. A Beginning. A Middle. An End. Nada seemed more eternal; he didn't know why. He didn't really understand what it was about the word that appealed to him, either. It wasn't as if he were fluent in Spanish; the only other Spanish words he knew were taco, burrito, and cervasa. Other than that, he was shit out of luck. Nada.
The clock on the wall was old. Certainly older than him. Maybe not as old as the room he was currently sitting in. The paint on the walls was mint hospital green and peeling the way that only lead paint can peel. The furniture was old, too... what little there was. A small wooden table and chair.A light hung fromt the ceiling over the table and provided the small room's only light; he had been in jail cells that were bigger. A small sink so dirty the white porcelain was stained beyond redemption and so old that the water coming out of the tap was spit warm and so metallic tasting it was virtually undrinkable. The toilet worked, but didn't have a sear. There was a narrow bed with a thin mattress that smelled of mothballs, bed bugs, and old sex. He didn't sleep on it, even though he had been waiting for more than 72 hours.
He hated these kind of deals. Sitting and waiting. Waiting and sitting. Sometimes he checked the time on his cell. He tried not to do this often because it only reminded him how slow the time was passing.
Harvey didn't have the personality for intrigue; so the longer he sat, the more he thought about walking out the door. He was starting to smell himself, and he wanted a shower, a good meal, and to get laid. It all seemed so pointless... all this waiting around. Waiting for what? He thought. Nada. But he sat anyway, rapping his swollen knuckles on the old wooden table and staring at the door. Sometimes he dosed off; but he slept the way his grandfather's hound dog used to sleep – aware and half awake. Sometimes he occupied his mind by imagining what he was going to do to Sanford when ran into that son of a bitch again. Sanford was the reason Harvey was sitting in a shit hole room for 3 days. Sanford was the go between. The messenger. The goddamned gopher. Sanford who said it was a sweet and easy deal, so long as he played along.
He was in the process of imagining the exhileration of breaking Sanford's bones one at a time – starting with the pinky because it hurts and because it never really heals right no matter what you do – when there was a knock at the door. Harvey instantly focused on the door, waiting for it to open. He stood up, prepared to meet whoever was going to walk through it. He thought of what he would say, what his offer was. He thought of Matilde, waiting for him, and thought of the way her body had felt the last time he touched it. He thought of the last hamburger he had eaten. Focus, he thought. Focus. Harvey focused on the door knob, waiting for it to turn.
The door knob never turned and the door never opened. Instead, a note was slipped under the door. A note and then nothing. Not event he sound of foot steps walking away. He walked over, bent down, and picked up the note. It was written in a neat, flowing script that reminded him of a woman's handwriting.
It read “Three days.”