Psychopath by Keith Ablow

punishment. 
    Not Dillard and company.  They’d ratted him out. 
    He stood up and walked to the mirror over his bureau.  He was ripped.  His torso looked like a gladiator’s armor — perfectly defined pecs, a six-pack abdomen, not an ounce of fat anywhere.  He flexed his arms and watched his biceps bulge rock-hard.
    That’s what they all were:  hypocrites.  To think that Dillard had turned him in for having marijuana in his locker when Dillard had been one of his best customers.  The scumbag had been nursing a habit of an ounce a month until he’d decided to start in on Billy about his dreadlocks — joking at first, but then going overboard and really hassling him.  From Jamaica, mon?  Off de island, mon?   So Billy had cut him off.  Cold.  Not a single joint.  Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
    That was the real reason Dillard had wanted to fight:  he was hungry for his smoke and couldn’t get it.
    Billy leaned closer to the mirror and inspected his nose ring, making sure the piercing was healing up.  Then he stepped back and sat at the end of the weight bench.  He laced his fingers behind his head, rotated his shoulders left and right, stretching before his next set.
    Walsh throwing him out over a bag of reefer was a real joke in the first place.  Could anybody seriously believe the dean wasn’t having himself a couple martinis every night he went home to his five-foot wife with the thick legs and bright red lipstick?  How was that different than having yourself a joint?  Or a line?  Other than the government taking a cut of the profits on the booze?  Also, booze could destroy your liver or make somebody roadkill, whereas pot and an occasional blast wouldn’t hurt you at all.
    He lay down on the weight bench and gripped the bar overhead.  He’d added ten-pound plates to each side, bringing him up to 220 pounds.  He took a deep breath and pushed the bar off its pegs.  He lowered it to his chest.  Then he blew all the air out of his lungs and pressed the bar back up.  Solid.  He did another rep, struggled through a third.  On the fourth, his pecs shook from his effort to slow the bar as it fell.  His arms felt as though they might give out.  But he reached deep inside himself and imagined that the bar wanted to rise, that gravity was working in reverse, that all he had to do was work with it.  He shut his eyes, craned his neck and pushed with everything he had, gritting his teeth as he powered the bar back up, extending his arms, holding the weight steady a split second before letting it crash back onto the steel pegs.
    "Nice," Clevenger yelled over the music, from just outside the room.
    Billy sat up, breathing like a bellows, covered in sweat.
    Clevenger nodded at the stereo.  "Mind lowering that?"
    Billy walked over and dialed down the volume.  "You could have spotted me," he said, turning back to Clevenger.  "I almost lost it there."
    "No, you didn’t," Clevenger said.  He stepped into the room.  "Not even close."
    "Two-twenty," Billy said.  "Four reps."
    "A new record," Clevenger said.  "Congratulations."  He nodded at Billy’s cell phone on the floor beside the weight bench.  "I tried you on my way back from the airport."
    "I didn’t hear it," Billy lied.
    Clevenger nodded.
    "I talked to Peter Fitzgerald today," Billy said.  "I start work tomorrow."
    "Good," Clevenger said, in a reserved tone.
    "Ten bucks an hour," Billy said, injecting more enthusiasm into his voice than he felt, hoping the energy might propel the discussion past any mention of the drug test.  "And these guys who run the tugs turn out to be—"
    "Talk to me about the drug test," Clevenger said.
    "I couldn’t get there," Billy said automatically.  He reached for his T-shirt.
    "I’ll go tomorrow," he said, pulling it on.  "First thing."
    "What do you mean you ’couldn’t get there?’ "
    "By the time I finished at the shipyard it was like four-thirty, and I promised Casey, this new girl I