Huston - Joe Pitt 5 - My Dead Body

Joe Pitt 5 - My Dead Body Charlie HustonIf youre listening to this Im dead.(laughter)Could be thats maybe only funny to me right now. Listen to a little more of this and could be itll be funny to you too. But probably not. My guess, anyone listening to this wont find much amusement. If you believe it, that is. You dont believe it, youll probably just about die laughing. I would.I wonder how I did die.So many goddamn options. The mind fucking boggles. But probably I just got plain shot. Course, seeing as how many times Ive been shot before, it must have been a well-placed bullet. Or just a lot of them all at once. Then again, I knew a guy in my line who got machine-gunned more than once and lived to tell about it both times.(laughter)Lived to tell about it. Thats funny. But you got to be in on the joke.I was put in on the joke when I was sixteen. Happened in a bathroom at CBGB during a Ramones gig in 77. What it was, a guy was paying me twenty bucks to hand-job him, and while I was doing it he chewed a hole in my neck and started slurping.(laughter)Okay, maybe you had to be there.That guy, if I could have ever got my hands on that guy. I got my hands on plenty of other people I had a problem with. But Im not the type to keep score.(laughter)Trust me, the jokes dont get any better the rest of the way.What I notice about getting older, things that seemed funny before just seem boring or stupid or sad. Things that shouldnt seem funny at all suddenly have a lighter side. No, thats not it. Nothing lighter about it. More that things you never thought youd laugh at you find yourself laughing at because you got no other choice. Like the alternative is you go digging under the sink for some Drno to guzzle.(laughter)See what I mean.Tell the truth, this is the most Ive laughed in forever. Not literally forever, Im not that old. But, yeah, something about this is hitting the funny bone.Probably its the idea of you, whoever you are, listening to this. For you, this is one of two things. Either its the lamest prank ever, or its too little too late. If youre listening to this, either everything has blown up and everyone knows everything, or it hasnt. Either way, Im gonna tell it.So.So, hey, heres some trivia for you. Did you know a pregnant woman has about forty percent greater blood volume than a woman whos not pregnant? Take a woman, shes a hundred and ten pounds. Her blood volume is about seven percent of that. Seven point seven pints. Or thereabouts. Call it eight pints. Over her first two trimesters shes gonna add forty percent more volume. Little over three pints. Going into her last trimester, shes hauling eleven pints.More than a fat man.That much blood, you can stretch that two or three months. One body in the ground and youre above it for another sixty to ninety days.Well, two bodies in the ground.Whats that worth, that extra forty percent, over a regular person and their seven to ten pints, whats that extra worth?The blood of a pregnant woman and her baby, whats the price on that?(laughter)Im not laughing cause I think its funny. Its just Im all out of Drno. So.Just tell it like it happened. Thats what she said. Like talking is a gift I have or something. Well, better talking than writing. You had to make sense of this by reading my chicken scratch youd be crying not laughing.So.And that wasnt a rhetorical question by the way. I know the price. The blood of a pregnant woman goes for about twenty grand. Thats the price in dollars anyway.Theres all kinds of prices you can pay for such a thing. Parts of yourself that will never grow back.But thats the story. And Im supposed to tell it. Like it happened.So okay.So Im a Vampyre. Spelled with a Y instead of an I. Capitalized like its a name. Dont ask me, just tradition I guess. Anyway. Vampyre with a Y, thats the real deal. With an I, thats for scaring babies.Im the kind that scares everyone.And when this started, I was a secret. Lived in an apartment, just like you. Well, just like you if you kept a mini-fridge of blood. When it ended, I was living in a sewer. Downward mobility being a danger to my kind.Should be a punch line for something: Vampyre in a sewer.But its not.Its my life.(laughter)Still, it makes me laugh.So.This is what happened.I can feel it, that little extra bit of heat. And smell staleness in the air. Heat and carbon dioxide, a combination that equals life. Something breathing and exhaling, the air filling its lungs, the oxygen being absorbed. Something warm and breathing, you can count on at least one thing about it. Its full of blood.Ahead of me in the dark, something alive.Alive for now anyway.I didnt expect him to be so much trouble to find. When he ran down Freedom Tunnel he was soaked in the cripples blood; so not like there was much chance Id lose the scent. I figured to stroll after him, kick some garbage every now and then to let him know I was there, keep him running until he keeled over gasping and wormed his way into some crack in the walls. I figured the hardest part would be deciding if I wanted to let him cut me a little while I reached in to drag him out, or if I wanted to look around for something I could ram down his hiding place a few times until I cracked his head open.Then he went shit-diving.I dont know if it was a plan he had, the way he went spastic and cut up the cripple makes me think planning isnt his forte, but when he dropped out of the train tunnel and wallowed in a bank of sewage that had washed up in the storm drain below he put me off the scent.Went from tracking a guy who smelled like an abattoir to a guy who smelled like a porto-potty. Which pretty much describes the way everything under Manhattan smells.Got dicey after that. Cagey little fucker realized I wasnt right on his ass, he started to calm down a bit, caught his breath some, stopped panting so much, stopped stumbling so much, started picking spots he could hole up a minute at a time and be quiet. If thered been any kind of light at all Id just have started throwing rocks at him until he went down. All I needed was one of those odd reflections you get down here sometimes. Sunlight filters through the grates over the train tunnels, a spear of it finds its way down a sluice, it reflects in some runoff from the sewers and you find a whole section of drain takes on a haze of light. Enough so you might see an idea of your hand if you held it an inch from your eyes. Thats you. Me, Id see a damn sight more than my hand. But even my eyes need some light to work with. Something to reflect off the surfaces and show me what they are.Instead Im blind. Whether that means its night up top I couldnt say. Been some time since Ive kept track of the hour. Used to be I knew sunup and sundown like my own heartbeat. But after you miss a couple hundred of each you start to lose that sense.The guy ahead of me is just as blind, but he knows the drains. Been down here I dont know how many years. Since he was a kid most probably. Since someone kicked him loose to make his way on his own and he realized the tunnels might be dark, but they were a better place for not getting fucked with than the streets. In the land of the lost, no one empties a gas can over you and lights a match just to see what happens next. Sure people kill each other, but not for no reason other than youre sleeping in a gutter in their neighborhood. Everyone down here has slept in more than one gutter. They got nothing to prove. When they kill down here its for something that matters. Stove fuel. A bottle of wine. A dead guys good boots.What the guy breathing out carbon dioxide up ahead of me killed the cripple over I cant say. What it was made me take off after him is a little easier to figure.Figure it was because he did it near the mouth of Freedom Tunnel not far from where the graffiti kids come crawling around to see the work that Amtrak never bothered to paint over when they started running trains through there again. Figure theres no telling if one of those kids might have seen it happen and might be up top right now talking to the cops about murder in the tunnels. Mostly the cops are pretty fucking happy not to do any enforcing down here. Let justice take its own course. But a nasty slashing witnessed by a Columbia fine arts student might encourage them to put together a squad of troopers with helmets and shields to come down here, break up the shanties, club some skulls and drag some asses up top for a grilling and a few days in one of their holes.Not that Im any too likely to get caught up in a sweep like that, but I have an interest in the moles maintaining something like a stable community. More stable it is down here, the less likely theyll get spooked and spread out. More stable it is, the more moles get drawn in. The more moles, the more camouflage for someone looking to be lost.And the more to eat.Im not fattening up or anything. Far from it. Rarely been leaner have I. But in a population dominated by drunks and junkies, its generally not too hard to find someone passed out or on the nod who you can tap for a pint in the darkness. Dont get greedy and you can hit a vein just about any time you need one.So figure thats one reason I took off after the guy. To keep my good thing from getting fucked with. But figure it was probably more about all that blood hitting the wall in a spray. The smell of it was a punch in the face. My eyes and my mouth watered and I was on my feet and running after the guy before I even thought about cops. Before I thought about anything else, I was thinking how nobody was gonna care what I did to this guy. How it was gonna be dark in the tunnels while I ran him down. How good it was gonna be to rip a hole in him and drink until I was so full I was gagging on him. How I wanted a damn drink after all the sipping Id been doing.No, I dont know why he killed the cripple. And I dont much care. I just care that Im blind right now and he knows the drains better than me and hes just there, him and his blood. Question is, did he stop because he hit a dead end, or because he thinks hes got a play he can make.Cold shit is bumping against my ankles and flowing toward him. Theres a loud gurgle and suck a few yards ahead.My first month down here, I found myself in a drain like this, just trying to map out the new turf, thought I was as deep as it goes, took a step and found out it goes deeper. Dropped straight about eight yards, hit brick and cobbles, a shard of rust snagged the back of my thigh and ripped it knee to ass. Lost enough blood before the wound started to clot that I went spinny-headed. That time I had a flashlight on me. Hadnt been using it because I wanted to learn how to work the dark, but I had it on me. If I hadnt, if it had broken in the fall, Id maybe never have found my way out.I dont have a flashlight this time. I go down a suck hole and Ill be gone. Little fucker up there, laying for me, thinking hes got this wired now that were on his turf, hes got me wanting to make things hard for him. But I got to know where he is first.I wonder how crazy he is.And I make a play to find out.--Hey.Nothing.--Let me ask you something.Still quiet.--Whyd you go and kill the cripple?He inhales, like a guy about to say his piece, then lets it out, says nothing.I keep up my end of the conversation.--Mean, just because he was a cripple, that doesnt mean you didnt have a reason for killing him. Just cause the guy didnt have a lower body, that doesnt mean he didnt do something to deserve it. I knew a guy, blind, blind as a bat blind, couldnt see shit. Know what being blind did for his personality? Nothing. Guy was a prick. A blind prick. A drunk, blind prick. Closing time at this bar I used to work the door, someone had to always walk this blind prick home. When I drew that short straw, Id walk the fucker to a vacant lot, let him pass out on the ground. Hed come in the next night, be a prick about the deal, tell people what Id done. Know what they did? They patted me on the back. All of them knew he deserved it. A guys a cripple, that doesnt mean hes charming.I hear him licking his lips, just dying to say something. But he doesnt. I do.--Maybe not, though. Maybe your cripple was a great guy. Could be youre a crazy asshole who lost his shit and cut up a perfectly good cripple for no reason other than you got tired of listening to his wheels squeaking.--He stole my fucking girlfriend.That was really all I need, just the sound of his voice, the echo behind it as it bounced off the drain walls and ceiling, that pretty much pins him down for me. Close enough I can jump over anything between us, a few yards maybe, no worry about going down a suck hole. Once Im on him there wont be anything at all to worry about.But my curiosity gets hold of me.--He stole your girl?--Yeah. Motherfucker. Weve been shacked five months. Fucker, that chair, mans got not just no legs, got no stomach, nothing, fucking pathetic. Sits up on Fifth Ave and just rakes it in. Everyone else going broke, legless motherfucker always has a bottle to wave at the ladies. Asked her, what hes got I dont got. Already know what he aint got. Got no fucking dick.--What she say?I hear his spit hit water.--Says he got class.We both think about that for a second. His curiosity gets hold of him.--Why the fuck do you care? Fuck you run after me? Seen you around, one-eye, never had a beef. Never saw you chum up with the cripple. Why the fuck you chase me down here? Motherfucker, into my drains. Been in the tunnel how long? You know shit down here. Come after me. Youre fucking the crazy one. Come after me in the drains. Whyd you do that?I check my footing, make sure theres nothing to slip on under the soles of my boots.--You got something I want.He laughs.--Motherfucker, you got the wrong man, I aint got shit. All I had was a girlfriend. Cripple got her. Now all I got is a blade. You want to come and get it?--No, you can keep that, I got my own.I jump, push off, arms out, leaving my feet as if to make a tackle in a football game, except leading with a fifteen-inch amputation blade I found in the rusted tangle of an old shopping cart at the mouth of an outlet three months ago. I used a river stone to hone away the rust, losing about two millimeters of the blades width in the process, but after wrapping a quarter of a roll of yellow friction tape around the tang to replace the bone handles that had rotted away, I had a serviceable piece of cutlery that could fend off most trouble just through the act of slipping it from the drop sheath Id rigged inside my jacket with a section of bicycle inner tube and more tape.This guy never gets a chance to see it. Not unless the sensation of it coming in under his rib cage and pushing up into his right lung is so distinct that it paints a picture in his minds eye. Normally Id jerk it around a little once its in there, make sure things get settled quick, but we go down hard with me on top and the blade making a new hole for that carbon dioxide to hiss out of and that knocks the blade around more than enough. Hes not exactly dead when I pull it out, but near enough not to quibble with me when I poke a hole in his neck and catch the last few strong pulses of blood from his carotid before things become official. After that I have to get a good seal with my lips against his skin and suck pretty hard. When my mouth pulls off, it sounds like the half-clogged drain nearby.Do I feel bad about it, killing a sad man who just went a little nuts when he lost the only thing he cared about to maybe a sadder case than he was? Yeah, I do feel bad about it. Thinking of where Ive been in my life, where I could be right now, the kind of plays Ive made over the years that put me down here, I feel very bad about it.Im not saying Im better than this, just that I dont like where Ive come to. Even if it is my own fault. Id been the type to get along and go along a little more, Id be doing OK.Not that it matters.I changed who I am, Id have to change everything. I changed who I am, Id never have made it as long as I have. I changed who I am, and likely as not shed never have looked twice at me.Thinking about her while Im drinking this guys blood in the filthy dark makes the taste go sour in my mouth. Not that I stop. Im no fool. Eat what you kill.I finish it, as much as I can take, then roll the corpse toward the sucking sound and feel the current grab him and pull his foot from my hand and hes washed down to a lower place. I find the wall and use it to guide me back around the hole and out the way we came. Its too dark to know how bad I look, how much blood is coating my mouth and cheeks and chin and neck, but Ive looked at myself in the mirror before so I have a pretty good idea. When I find some light Ill clean up a little. Not that itll require a great deal of grooming.Standards down here being what they are, a man only has to do so much to pass as human.Theres not much to know.A guy living in the sewers, what do you need to be told that you cant figure out for yourself?Figure he fucked up somewhere along the way. More than once. Figure hes got enemies. Many. Figure hes got reasons for not just running far away. One reason is, hes got nowhere to go. Never been out of the City. Another reason is, he has certain minimum requirements as far as living conditions.Anonymity. If not crowds to get lost in, then a place where no one cares who you are or what youve done.Darkness, he needs. Night is best, but protection from solar UV rays will do. Too many of those and he erupts in a welter of pustules and wet scabs. Seen pictures of guys with severe eczema? Picture that in your mouth and ears and nose and on your eyes. Thats what the sun does.And people, he needs. Not to practice his social graces, but as a food supply. Blunt, but there it is. Not like Im hiding anything. No food supply, he starves in short order, goes crazy just before he dies, crazy strong and crazy fast and woe betide the motherfuckers in his immediate proximity when it happens.Sound like somethings been left out of the equation?Yeah.Figure theres a girl.Guy living in a sewer. Theres got to be a girl in the story somewhere. My story, its thick with them. Lost girl, rich girl, smart girl, dyke girl, crazy girl, tough girl, pregnant girl. Over the years, Ive dealt with all of them. Dead girl. Yeah, her too. But only one matters. My girl. A girl worth sitting in filth for. Waiting. Watching. Feeling the walls of the tunnels for vibrations that will tell you something about whats going on up top.What the hell is going on up there? Whos bought it? Whos still kicking? How are the cards coming off the deck and wheres my play? Confused? Well come late to a tale, you got to expect to have to tread a little water.Last thing is this, Im not the way I am because of god or the devil. Im like this because its who I am. Im a bastard. That I happen to be a bastard that got infected with something called the Vyrus that turned me into something called a Vampyre, thats just bad news for a lot of people who happened to cross my path over the years. Not because Id have left them alone if I wasnt infected, but because being infected makes me a damn sight harder to put down than Id have been otherwise. Some people, theyll argue against that. Theyll tell you theres something mystical about the Vyrus. Some will tell you its nothing but a bug, a bug that makes us special, makes us dangerous. Some will say it makes us sick, makes us need to stick together, makes us better off if we went public and got help. Some will say that we need a cure. Some hover around the top of the fence and put off making a choice about which yard theyll jump into.Those people, theyre all at war against one another.My bad.Id have kept my mouth shut, it wouldnt be happening. But that girl, I needed to see her, and I needed a distraction to make it happen. Starting a war seemed what the occasion demanded.Looking back, I maybe made a mistake. Not about starting the war, but listening to the girl. When she said to leave her where she was, I shouldnt have listened. I should have dragged her out. Id done that, wed be gone from here already.So I like to think. In the dark. With nothing else to think about. Sit and brood on what I should have done. What lives saved. Which throats slit.Even a guy like me, we get one go-round, and regrets come with the ticket.Just I never had time to entertain them before. And now theyre all thats come to the party. Makes me want to kill.Chubby Freeze finds me curled in a ball in the shack I took over from Q-line Dave after he went under the tracks of the Hudson Valley Express.Chubby makes a lot of noise coming up on the shack, which is good. It keeps me from acting rashly and slipping the amputation blade behind his windpipe and pulling it toward me. But it doesnt keep me from putting it at his throat while I ask him what the fuck hes doing down here. What does keep me from putting the knife to his throat is the gun his boy Dallas is holding on me.Probably for the best. Me and Chubby, weve always been friendly for the most part, Id hate to kill him without a good reason. Of course, the fact hes found me is a pretty good reason. But Id maybe like to know if theres anyone else knows Im down here.If theres killing to be done, Id just as soon have a complete list.--You dont look well, Joe.Some people, they feel strongly that the obvious must be stated. Me, Id take it for granted that some poor son of a bitch holed up in the tunnels was gonna look like shit and spare the commentary. Not that it hurts my feelings, just that theres only so much time in a mans life, so why waste it stating whats clear to start with.Chubby squints and purses his lips.--No, you do not look at all hale.I point at the grease stains on the trouser cuffs of his three-thousand-dollar custom-made suit.--Youre gonna need some sprucing up yourself, Chubby.He fingers the material gathered in pleats at the front of what passes for a waist on a man that big around.--I made a point of wearing one of last years. I generally give them to a charitable organization when my new wardrobe arrives from Hong Kong, but Ive found its wise to hold back one or two. For grubby work.I nod at Dallas, the pretty boy with the well-defined muscles and the gun.--That what I am these days, grubby work?Theres more gray in Chubbys afro than when I last saw him. More fat being held in by the five-button vest he sports. More wrinkles around the eyes. Its cold in the tunnels this time of year, our breath puffs out white. Even so, Chubbys top coat is draped over the arm Dallas isnt using to point his gun. The fat man has worked up a sweat coming down here.He fingers a handkerchief, a plain white one, not the blue and white silk that fans from his breast pocket, matching his tie.--Im not certain I could say what kind of work you are these days, Joe. Its been some time since we crossed paths. Some time since anyone has crossed your path. Id hazard to say that the nature of your work these days is a subject for wild conjecture.The place is lit by a fluorescent bulb Q-line Dave scavenged from a demo site somewhere up top. It hangs from a hook of coat hanger thats been twisted around the scrap-wood beam that supports the sagging sheets of waterlogged Sheetrock over our heads. Power comes from a daisy chain of extension cords that snake and tangle through the shanties; little more than bare wires wrapped in electrical tape in some places, they disappear into the darkness, running to a source Ive never bothered to explore. The head of our Nile down here. Theres a dozen blackouts a week from people tripping over cords in the dark. The lifers live in fear of the real thing: some city engineer noticing the drain and cutting the juice.I wouldnt miss seeing the surroundings, but I dont have much to pass the time other than reading the moldy paperbacks that get passed around. Right now the light is bright enough for me to see that Chubbys eyes arent just decorated by new wrinkles, theyre also cracked with red.I move for one of the patch pockets on my Ben Davis mechanics jacket. I took it off a greaser who came down slumming. Clinking along the tracks with a sack of Thunderbird pints, looking for an experience he could impress his friends with. He left in his underwear and a pair of yellow plastic flip-flops someone with a kinder soul than I gave him so he wouldnt shred his feet on the broken glass and ballast lining the tracks. I got the jacket mostly because he was a big guy and it didnt look to fit anyone else. Which is to say that I got the jacket because Im pretty much the biggest guy down here. I had another jacket, about the only thing I owned that I cared about. I left it topside.Better not to think about that jacket. Or whos holding it for me. Its a distraction. Something I dont need when Dallas lends a little more emphasis to the way hes pointing that gun at me because he doesnt like me sticking my hand in any pockets he hasnt gone through first.I put my hand in the pocket anyway.Dallas wags the barrel back and forth a little, like the thing is shaking its head at me.I nod my head at him.--You go ahead and pop one off.I fill my hand and it comes out of my pocket.--Id rather take the bullet than go another second without a smoke.He flinches when he sees the fluorescent flash off whats in my hand, but give the kid credit, hes not half-cocked, gives himself enough time to see the lights just reflecting off the cellophane on my pouch of Bugler. Truly, Im grateful hes a touch gun-shy. I want the smoke, sure, but I was just talking big about the bullet being a fair trade.I pull a paper from the cardboard sheaf tucked inside the pouch and fill it with cheap dry tobacco. Given my choice, Im a Lucky Strike man, like my father before me, may he and my mom both be suffering in a miserable ditch somewhere. Not that I want to introduce a note of bitterness to the story. In any case, store-bought smokes come dear, and I cant make a pack last more than an evening. I can tease out a pouch of Bugler for a couple days. If anything might drive me to the surface and into the eye of the shit storm up there, its the taste of a Lucky.I lick the strip of glue at the top of the paper, roll it up, strike a match from a pack with an advertisement for a phone sex line on the cover, and get the thing going.Chubby pats some more sweat from the back of his neck.I tear the spent match from the book and flick it into a corner littered with a couple thousand of them.--Tell me, Chubby, who is it up there doing all this conjecturing about me?He refolds his handkerchief and slips it into his pocket, smoothing the front to be sure no bulge shows to ruin the hang of the material. Not that is really hangs on him. Clings, more like.--Im not one to name names, Joe.--Unless its a name youd like to see dealt with.He takes a moment to consider his manicure.--Ive never been one for spite or rage. Any dealings Ive had with you have concerned business. And I dont recall either of us ever expressing any squeamishness about how matters were closed. Not I when I asked for details. Not you when youve been paid.Im still sitting on the ground, a chunk of broken concrete digging into the back of my thigh. I reach under my leg to move it.Dallas, a little more relaxed after the tobacco incident, doesnt wave his gun around this time. Which makes me feel better about my chances when I whip the chunk of concrete at his head. It doesnt bounce off his skull, more like it skips off it when his head is snapped back. Either way, he drops the gun without shooting me, and he drops himself immediately after. I dont bother to go for the gun. Dallas wont be making a move for it anytime soon. And if Chubby decides to make a play, I trust I can reach over and scoop it up a full minute before he manages to bend his knees to stoop.I blow some smoke his way.--Sorry, Chubby, I know hes your boy and all. Just the gun was a distraction.I grind out the butt end of my cigarette, get out the pouch and start rolling a fresh one.--So about those people youd hate to name, what were those names again?He clears his throat, shakes his head.--He was only doing as I instructed him to do, Joe.--You should have known better.He nods.--Yes. Yes, I suppose that is true.I light up.--Never had guns between you and me before, Chubby.He looks around the trash and debris in the shack for something he might sit on, but its all half-rotted, so he stays on his own two feet.--Thats also true. But then you were always a somewhat known quantity. As I said before, your actions and intents are mired in uncertainty now. And these are dangerous times. I didnt know what I might expect from you, having found you in circumstances such as these.He waves his fingers at the place.--A man could come to anything down here.I scratch the side of my nose with a broken thumbnail rimmed with someone elses dry blood.--Howd you find me, Chubby?He shakes his head.--Joe.--I need to know how you found me.The shake travels from his head, his cheeks tremor, the roll of fat at the collar of his shirt, his whole body begins to wobble.--Joe. If you could.I push myself into a squat.--Chubby?Tears are starting from the red eyes, filling the wrinkles, washing down to his chins.--I think I need.I get to my feet and cross the space between us and catch his arm before his legs collapse.Recently fed, Im strong, I can break bones, shatter teeth; called upon, I could tear a healthy mans leg from his body. But still I have to strain to keep from dropping Chubby when he goes limp. I manage to ease him to the ground, half-sprawled on his side, sobbing.--I need to sit. I need to sit. Im sorry about the gun, Joe. I. Oh, Joe.I pick up Dallass gun, in case this is a play to get his hands on it. But I know its not. Just that the gun makes me feel better.Chubby rolls onto his front and pushes his face into the dirt and cries louder.I walk back and forth a few times, smoke. Keep touching the gun.Chubby wears out after a while, gives a heave, and rolls to his back. I reach out and he takes my hand and I pull him forward as he scoots, then he leans his back against the four-by-four at the middle of the shack. It groans, some hunks of plaster drop, the whole structure lists an inch or two to the left, and it settles.Sitting strains his trousers at the waist. Unable to get a hand in his pocket, he pulls out the blue and white handkerchief.--Shes gone, Joe.I grind the cherry of my cigarette between my fingers.--Whos gone, Chubby?He wipes snot from his upper lip where its turned the dirt to mud.--My girl, Joe. My daughter, Joe. My little girl. I cant find her.Sitting there in the ruined suit he wore here for grubby work, wiping at the dirt thats given him a tear-streaked Kabuki face.Saying it over and over, about his daughter.Like it should mean something to me.I maybe owe Chubby.Was a time he did me a solid when I found myself on the wrong turf. Vouched for me. Put his name behind mine. Backed me when DJ Grave Digga, president of the Hood, would just as soon cut my windpipe out and blow a tune on it while I bleed all over him.I did him back for it, some errands that qualified as grubby. Could be were all square.Then again, could be, you put a hard eye on those books and they show an outstanding balance still due.I maybe owe the man.Still, I wanted to, I could just rip that page right out from the book. I have the blade, I have the gun. Where I come from, either one closes all accounts.Better yet, neither one of these guys is infected. Neither one carries the Vyrus. They know enough to do a little business with us, but theyre both clean. Truss them up, find some place cool to stash them, they could last weeks. Fit as Dallas is, fat as Chubby is, theyd last. I could be better fed than Ive been the whole last year.I think about it.But its just the tunnels talking to me.Its not me. Not really.Thats Chubby Freeze there in the dirt. Crying about his lost daughter. Looking at me like I can help.And I know theres no question of how things lie between us. I aint gonna kill the man.I look up at the crumbling ceiling. Think about the thousands of tons of stone and concrete hanging overhead. The City above. I think about the war I started up there. What would be waiting for me if I went up top, started poking around, showed my face.Chubby is watching me, waiting.I look at the cigarette between my fingers.--I cant help you, Chubby.He spits into the dirty handkerchief and rubs it across his forehead, leaving a smear.--Yes. Well. To be expected.I shrug.--In your line, a missing girl, you know plenty of people for something like that.He raises his eyebrows, exhales, long and tired.--Surely. The pornography business is rife with young ladies disappearing or wishing to be disappeared.--Youve had to find them before.--Yes.--You know people.--Yes.--You know everyone, Chubby.A slight smile, the first since he came in from the dark.--Yes, I do. And yet. And yet.He waves the handkerchief at the decaying interior of the shanty.--Here I am.He nods at Dallas, still inert other than deep breathing.--With my favorite young man.He touches the handkerchief to each corner of his mouth, first one, then the other.--Bearding the wounded lion in his den.He gives the handkerchief a shake and a little flip and tucks it back in his breast pocket, fanning it perfectly, filthy or not.--Why, I wonder, would I do such a thing? Take such a risk. When I could simply hire the detective of my choice.I think about life with a sky overhead. Governed by the sun. The way we perform up there, shadow-puppet lives. Hiding what we really are. Hiding it from the world, from ourselves. Down here Im almost myself. Almost my nature. Almost the predator the Vyrus would have me be. It comes easy. Whats up there always came hard. Even before I was infected.This man, what hes lost. Trying to find the lure that will tease me to the surface. Into the air. Where I might drown.I clear my throat, dry as dust.--I get it, Chubby. But it doesnt change things. Shes found some trouble on my side of the street, gone lost with the infected, I cant help that. Its bad news for her, but its got nothing to do with me. Hell, I didnt even know you had a daughter.He dips a hand inside his jacket, draws out a photograph pinched between his index and middle fingers.--Would you like to see her?I raise a hand.--It wont change anything.He offers the photo.--I have a fathers vanity.I dont take the bait.He gives it a little shake, dancing the line in front of my face.So I look, to get it over with, to say no one last time, to make him leave, to be alone again.He raises his shoulders.--I wont say I was shocked, a man in my line, as you say. I certainly know all there is to know about the birds and the bees. Not exactly disappointed either. As little time as Ive spent with the girl, I cant afford to disapprove of her choices, not if I want to have any kind of relationship with her. But still, a father has feelings about these things. At first I thought shed come to me for the obvious reason. If that had been the case, I could have solved her problem in any number of ways. But she didnt consider it a problem at all. The young today are so very different than we were, eh, Joe?Im still looking at the picture. Young, very young and pretty girl, Chubbys beautiful gold eyes, otherwise she must take after her mother. Slender limbs and face, but round in the middle. Say about seven months round.Chubby nods.--It makes a difference, Joe?I dont say anything.He nods again.--Evie said it would make all the difference to you.Chubby knows everyone.He knows a one-armed barber named Percy. Percys got a bad case of being a Vampyre. Runs with the Hood. One of Grave Diggas people. How most people know him. But he runs sideways too, like most people deep in this life, runs connected in ways that cant be seen.Percy is Enclave.He doesnt hole up with the rest of them in that warehouse they keep downtown. Starving themselves, letting themselves be warped by the hunger of the Vyrus, striving for some kind of transmutation no one but them understands. Even so, hes Enclave going way back. Way I gather, some years back when the Hood was coming together under the original man, Luther X, Percy got inspired. Felt the color of his skin more than the content of his blood. Left Enclave turf, split uptown. But like a man who left the church to fight a war on foreign soil for reasons that have nothing to do with his god, he cant get the stink of religion off himself. Once Enclave, always Enclave. And he knows some things about what goes on with them, what goes down in their warehouse.I know a little about what goes on in that place, myself.I know a little about some of the people in that place.Evie.Girl with my jacket. Which is only right. She gave it to me.Chubbys tied both his handkerchiefs together so he can put them around Dallass head. Dallas himself is too fuzzy to get his fingers to tie the knot themselves. But not so fuzzy that he doesnt remember who threw the concrete at him and put a gash in his forehead that is most definitely going to fiddle with his prettiness. Hes sitting on the ground, trying to throw me nasty looks, but his eyes keep going crossways, ruining the effect.Chubby stands behind him, having gotten to his feet with just a little help, arranging the makeshift bandage so that it doesnt pinch the boys ears.--Her mother was a contract player from several years ago. When we still worked in VHS. The dark ages. Before instant gratification became imperative. To think porno was once a communal event. Stag parties. Adult theaters. Do you remember Times Square, Joe? Forty-second Street? The Deuce?I remember the Deuce. The block of Forty-second between Seventh and Eighth. Wall-to-wall peeps, skin shops, XXX marquees. I remember being thirteen, things so loose back then I didnt even have to pretend I was sneaking in, just put my money on the counter. Setting up shop in the back row. Hand jobs, five bucks a pop. Business overhead was a jar of Vaseline and a pack of Handi Wipes. Got myself through a whole summer of squatting that way. Somewhere in there was a bust, passed back to Child Services, another foster home. Back out the door after a few weeks. Now the Deuce is franchised end to end. I havent been there in years, its off my turf, but Ive seen the pictures.Im not nostalgic. Its no better or worse than it was. Different whores, different johns. Some people get off on fucking, some get off on fast food. People can ruin themselves however they want, its not my business.But it is Chubbys.He spreads his arms.--Adult film was for the aficionados in those days. Men who made an effort to seek it out. Or it was a right of passage. Boys with their collars turned up, trying to find out what their teachers were talking about in sex ed class. Looking to glimpse some tittie. Ass. A beaver shot. And getting so much more than they had imagined.He lowers his arms.--Now, entirely amateur. Not only do they all know what a rim job is by the time theyre eleven, but theyre considered uptight if theyve not webcammed themselves giving and receiving one and posted it to their Facebook page.Im sifting gravel through my fingers, thinking about buried things, against my will.--You were talking about your girl, Chubby. And how you found me.He pats Dallass shoulder and moves away from him.--I was, I was. Just illustrating a point about her mother. That, while she postdated the era of celluloid, she was nonetheless of a more civilized generation. And she raised our daughter well. My little girl is not one to be involved in sordid matters. Her predicament is an affair of the heart.A cracked jewel of green bottle glass lies in my palm. Same color green as a bottle of Cutty Sark. I think about a drink.--You want to tell me your girls no slut, just say so. Youre getting wordy in your old age, Chubby.He raises his eyebrows.--Joe, the way your boot bends when you squat, Id say youve lost a toe. Your knee sounds like broken crockery when you walk. You have one eye.--Your point?He lowers his eyebrows.--You aint the motherfucker to be talkin as to how a man is or isnt agin his best.I smile.--Ah, theres the Chubby Freeze I know.He snorts and adjusts the knot of his tie.--Well, bid him farewell. That is the only appearance he will be making in this concern.I drop the bit of glass.--How you found me. Thats my concern.--Yes.He reaches inside his jacket and takes out a leather humidor.--While not of loose morals, my girl is adventurous. Romantic. Overly so. Not weepy about it, but a touch light-headed in her desire for somethingpoetic. And a child of her generation, she is also wired. She met a boy online; having chatted with him at length, she was not the type to balk at meeting him in person. In a public place, of course. She is no fool. And while that may not be the prologue one would expect for even the most modern interpretation of Romeo and Juliet, she did fall in love with him. The courtship, I gather, was brief. As is typical these days.He slips the top from the humidor, pulling it loose with a slight pop.--The boy.He takes the end of one of the cigars between his fingers and draws it free.--Was not.He studies the length of the cigar, inspecting it for tears.--He was not.Satisfied with the quality of the cigar, he offers the business end to Dallas, who bares his perfect teeth and nips away a tapered quarter inch.Chubby grunts, thumbs a bit of leaf from the end of the cigar.--The boy was nottypical.He offers me the humidor.--I dont suppose?I shake my head and roll another cigarette.--Not my thing.He nods, caps the humidor and puts it back inside his jacket, his hand coming out with a silver lighter roughly the size and shape of a .12 gauge shell.--Youre missing out on a fine smoke.I light my own.--You were telling me the boy was infected.He ignites the lighter, holds the end of the intense blue flame just below the end of the cigar and gives a few puffs, rotating the cigar to bring it evenly to life.--Yes. That was the point I was driving at.--And she found out.He releases the button on the side of the lighter with a snap, the flame dies, and he wraps it in a fist.--Yes, she did.--And she dug it.He takes the cigar from between his lips and lets loose a cloud.--Against all better judgment, yes she did.I stand up, brushing dirt from my backside, not that it makes me look any cleaner.--A girl would have to be pretty adaptable to take something like that at point-blank and roll with it. I mean, tell a girl youre a Vampyre, out of the blue, thats generally an invitation to be considered a nut job. Most girls, they exit laughing or screaming. Depending on the type.He doesnt say anything.I do.--Unless she had some idea that things like that are real. She have some idea that things like that are real, Chubby?Hes studying the cigar again.--It is possible, that in an effort to entertain and impress her, that I may have told her one story too many. With too great a level of credibility.He looks up from the cigar.--Fathers, whether they admit it or not, do so want to be thought cool by their children. And vampires have quite the pop culture cach. Forbidden fruit of every shape and hue. I was able to suggest, without telling her more than the basics, that there might be more to the myth than capes and fangs or dewy teenage boys.I start poking in some corners of the shanty, looking for odds and ends Ive tucked here and there.--Out of curiosity, you happen to know what kind of site they met on?He makes a gesture with the cigar, sketching a vague notion in smoke.--Something to do with damned or insatiable thirst or eternal languor or something. Dot com.I find one of the things Im looking for. Two small steel rings attached to each other by twenty-eight inches of braided steel wire. This I got from a tunnel camper. Urban explorer type. What he expected to use a wire saw for down here I cant say. Maybe it was part of his normal camping kit. Maybe he thought hed use it to saw his own leg off if it got pinned under something. Anyway, he made out OK. Never knew what knocked him on the head. Most likely never missed the pint I took from his veins. He was too well equipped and carried too much ID for me to empty him. Probably had a whole crew who knew he was going spelunking in the tunnels. Missing a day too long, search parties would have started. But the saw looked useful, so I pocketed it. Figured he be happy he woke up without having fallen and broken his neck. Wouldnt notice one item gone.I havent had occasion to use it yet, but the strangest things come in handy in my line.I put the wire saw in my pocket.--Damnedinsatiablethirsteternallanguor. Dot com. So fair to say she was looking for something specific.He looks at the floor.--Fair to say, yes, fair to say.--And the boy. One of those infecteds likes to cruise Goth and vampire sites looking for a Lucy? He out trolling for someone he could tap for easy pints?Chubby looks up.--No. No. I dont think so at all. I think, forgive me the sentimentality, I think the boy was looking for someone to talk to. He struck me as, if anything, annoyingly earnest. I think, perish the thought, that he was lonely. With, perhaps, some tendency to overplay the roll of doomed and undead, he was certainly feeling genuinely isolated. Confused. Desperate, I would say, for something resembling normalcy. I am not at all unacquainted with the type. My business draws them like flies. Young men and women, out of their depths, looking for something they can cling to. It has long been one of the hallmarks of my professionalism that I aggressively vet my applicants and accept only those who I trust to be most willing, able, and adaptive to the rigors of a life in porno.Its not actually bullshit. Everyone knows Chubby is a cut above pornmeister. No junkies. No self-mutilators. No bipolars. No chicken. He runs a clean shop. Hi-tone freaks who like to fuck on camera, and coldhearted pros. And he takes care of his people. Full-time staff and freelancers. Chubby doesnt leave anyone to swing in the cold if a bust comes down. Or any kind of stalker trouble. I ran security on his studio more than once. I wont lie and say it was a happy place, but I never found anyone shooting up to get loose for an anal gang bang, or being slapped around because they didnt want to do a face fuck.All in all, Chubbys a gentleman scumbag.I find the other item I was looking for. A one-foot length of bicycle inner tube packed tight with sand, stitched shut at both ends with heavy thread. Lighter than you expect when you heft it, itll drop just about anyone when you lay it across the back of their skull. It goes in the pocket opposite the wire saw.--Sure then, you know a lost soul when you see one. The boy was a helpless kitten looking for acceptance in a cold world. So whyd he take your daughter somewhere you cant find?He shakes his head.--Its not me they ran from, Joe. The boy.He brings the cigar to his lips, realizes its gone out and lowers it.--The boy was pledged to the Coalition.Im looking at the gun I took from Dallas, checking to see if its anything I can rely on. I look up from it.--Shit.Chubby nods.--He crossed onto Society turf to meet my daughter. And stayed.--Shit.He takes a step my way.--Things up there. Joe. In the past, if I wanted to know anything about what was happening, it took an effort. Subtlety. One had to mind ones Ps and ones Qs. Simple awareness of the Vyrus was a threat. Now. Its hectic. Word of bizarre goings-on reach my ears unbidden. There are rumors. Not among the straight citizens, not yet. But at the borders and fringes. Things are being said. In barrooms, massage parlors, shooting galleries, after-hours clubs, street corners, and, Id dare say, in police precinct rack rooms when the bottle is being passed about. Things are being seen. Disbelieved most often, but they are seen. And reported on. Blogs. The tabloids even. Serial killings unlike anything since Jack the Ripper. That is the tone. There is a palpable tension on the street. Anyone who lives close to the edge of things feels as if something is coming. The straights itch. A second shoe is expected. An ill wind. Metaphors of every kind. In an atmosphere such as that, it takes very little for tempers to flare.The gun is OK. Its an automatic. Its black. The barrel has a hole at the end big enough for something serious to come out of it. The clip is loaded. And I cant find Made in China stamped on it anywhere. Itll do what its supposed to.I stick it in my belt at the small of my back and pull the jacket down over it.--What happened, Chubby? Straight.--What happened.He snaps the cigar in two pieces and lets them drop from his fingers.--Terry Bird accepted the boy into the Society. He cannot compete with the Coalition in terms of troops and arms, but he is an effective propagandist. Young man crosses battle lines for love, to the only place where such love will be accepted. Society turf. Infected and uninfected.I grunt.I can hear Terry pitching it in my head. Its, you know, Joe, its exactly what weve been talking about. A story of acceptance. This is the kind of thing, this is a uniting kind of thing. Or some shit like that. Playing with his John Lennon specs and his ponytail, selling his version of the revolution. Years of old blood dripping from his hands the whole time. A show Ive seen before.Chubby places the toe of one of his formerly well-shined shoes on half the broken cigar and grinds it into the dirt.--It raised Dexter Predos ire, having one of his own raised up as a Society poster child. And then things became rather more complicated.He places his hands on either side of his belly.--She started to show. Needless to say, the idea of this baby has generated passionate debate. Bird seems to think it could be the thin edge that would allow him to take the Vyrus public. Predo sees the opposite. Interrace breeding has always been a taboo that takes many blows to shatter. A certain air of imminent danger crept into the debate. It appeared they might become targets for kidnapping or assassination.He drops his hands from his belly.--And they disappeared.--And you called Percy.--Someone I care deeply about is missing in the midst of Vampyre warfare. There is only one person I want looking for her. And that person has dropped from sight. So, yes, I called Percy. He knows people. And he is an old friend. I was born and raised in Harlem. When I was a small boy, before they went underground, the Hood were our Black Panthers.--And he told you about Evie.--He suggested there was a young woman, Enclave, who might have a line on you.