Every Last Drop

Jeo Pitt 4 - Every Last DropHe waves a hand, shakes his head.—Come now, wasn't yer doin'. Ya didn't pull da trigger. An like ya say, me an you, we always bin professional wit one nother. —Yeah. Sure.I look north. —Know something? —What's dat?I look over my shoulder at him.—People down here who thought I was the badass, they must never have met you.He smiles, showing me horse teeth. —Well an1 its nice o1 you ta say so. —Ta, Hurl. —Ta yerself, Joseph.I start across the street. —An, Joe.I look back.Hurley covers his left eye. —Tink bout a patch. It'd suit ya, it would.How you know if you've successfully ditched a tail by going where you were supposed to and then where you were not supposed to, is you show up someplace where you really don't fucking belong. If they're there, your ruse has failed. The best way to avoid having your ruse busted in this fashion is to never reappear where your tail can follow you.Figure Hurley marching me right to the Coalition border at Fourteenth, andstanding there watching until I cross over, effectively blows that part of my plan.I need a cab.I need to get my distinctively one-eyed face into a fucking cab right away before the Coalition spotters that roost about Fourteenth make me. Naturally, my need being desperate, there's not a fucking cab in sight.I start trotting, making for Union Square. I should be able to score a cab. Worst case, I can jump the L train to Eighth Avenue.Border of no-man s-land.All I need is a little shard of luck and I can cross back over the border and onto turf where no one goes, before Predos tails pick me back up.Unfortunately, God has no luck to spare tonight.So when the limo pulls to the curb in the middle of the block and the back door swings open, I don't wait for anyone to point a gun at me before I climb—Was I unclear about both the urgency of this assignment and the need for utter discretion? Did I in some way fail to communicate to you that your onlyoption was to go directly to the Horde girl? Did I leave any room for confusion as to what the consequences would be if you failed to execute precisely as I told you?—No, you were actually very fucking clear about all of that. Did I do something that suggests otherwise?Predo makes a gesture taking in the downtown streets were leaving behind. —Does this detour not suggest otherwise?I lean forward from the rear-facing seat.—No. What it suggests to me is that I'm doing my fucking job. And, for the record, almost getting throttled in the fucking process.My shaking hand spills more cigarettes into my lap than even I can smoke at once. —Fuck.I shove them back in the pack, breaking several. —Fuck.Predo observes. —Nerves, Pitt?I get an intact cigarette in my mouth and light it.—Nerves? Hell yes. You ever had Hurleys paws around your neck? —I cannot say that I have.I spew smoke. —Well count yourself well fucking blessed.He leans forward, touches a slightly depressed square of leather on the bar to my right, it eases open, revealing a gleaming and perfectly unblemished ashtray. —Perhaps you should explain.I blemish the ashtray.—Ill explain. Ill explain that Horde is as nutty as her father. Ill explain that as nutty as she is, she knows to listen to Sela. III explain that only a fucking moron would see me on their doorstep and not have some questions about my loyalties.He looks out the window, watches as we glide past snarled taxis and buses, the limo apparently obeying some other set of traffic and physical laws. —Did you tell them about my mole?—How do I do that? How do I walk in the door and expose a mole in the first hour? How do I know something like that unless I'm around for a while topoke? No. What I did was tell them to put me to the test.—And?—And.I lean back. —And Amanda Horde told me to go downtown and talk to Terry Bird.Night outside.His face is doubled by the dark glass.Does he know the nervous beat of my heart is telling a story different from the one my mouth is? —And?I rub my forehead.—She's looking for an alliance. She's looking for one of the Clans to acknowledge her. She's looking for legitimacy. So where's the first place she's gonna look?It's possible that we turn a corner, but It's impossible to say for sure from within the infinite smoothness of the car.Predo's hands are folded in his lap, he unfolds them, looks at his manicure. —And you saw him?—Yes.—And he let you go?I wave a hand at all the expensive leather and wood. —Well here I am, right? —Yes.His eyes flick to my face and away. —Here you are.He touches the glass, leaving a fingerprint on his reflection, where a good Catholic would receive a smear of ash before Easter. —Tell me what you told Bird. —I told him the truth.His mouth opens as if to laugh, and closes without making a sound.I shrug.—Yeah, funny. But its what I did. I told him Horde wants a sit-down. —What else? —That's it.He studies the reflected set of his own blue eyes.—He wasn't curious as to how you effected your escape from the Bronx?—He didn't ask. And why should he? Far as he knows, I'm with Horde now.She's got the cash to get anyone out of anywhere.A slight nod allows this point. —And so.He blinks slowly. —What is it he wants?He looks away from his own reflection. —Hurley had his hands on your throat.He indicates the fading marks on my neck.—I can see that much is true. But what was it that compelled Bird to release you? I know him well enough to know he would not seriously consider formally acknowledging the girls organization. So what offer did you make to secure your freedom? Why are you not dead, Pitt? You did not, by any chance, sell me out?He tilts his head. —Did you?I stub out my smoke.—He wants money.I light a new one. —Your enemy is in the red, Predo.He makes a sound, could be amusement. —And you are to get it from Horde.—Yeah, funny how everybody's needs always seem to dovetail. —Funny.He watches me smoke. —Very well. Things shall proceed. Only.I let him watch me smoke, not trying to hide the sweat or the slight tremble in my hand, knowing I have ample reasons to fear. Not knowing which reasons he may be able to read, but incapable of hiding any of them. —I am curious.He leans forward. —What are you after, Pitt?We both watch smoke tremble from the end of my cigarette.He squints.—Something. A return to the Island, certainly.He leans back into his seat. —But why so desperate?Returns his gaze to the brightly lit night outside the dark glass. —I should like to know that. But, of course.He smiles at his face in the glass. —Of course I will know.He closes his eyes. —Before this is over.Dropped into the masses in Times Square, where my appearance is least likely to be noticed, I feel gravity's pull, again from downtown.Turning north, I strain away from it.Too many forces in play now. Too many tiny uncharted objects flying on random trajectories. An obscure path is best. Travel by the course others have plotted.Look for the chance to veer back to your own.My return is hardly unexpected. —Back so soon?I go to the liquor cabinet and get a glass and the bottle I'd started emptying during our last chat. —Looks like I'm a little more persona non grata than I thought I was.Amanda joins me at the bar. —That come as some kind of surprise?I raise my chin, display the almost faded bruises on my neck. —Didn't expect the fatted calf to be slaughtered. But I also wasn't figuring on having to face down Hurley my first hour back on the turf.Sela juts her jaw. —How's he look?I pour myself a drink.—Hurley? You know, looks like a guy you should have shot in the head when you had the chance.I raise my glass in her direction. —Seeing how happy he was to see me, I'd say you're best staying off hisbeat.She puts her hands on her hips. —Hurley never scared me. —Then, lady, you re a better man than me.I take a drink.Amanda scoops some ice into a glass of her own and pours vodka over it.Sela frowns. —You shouldn't be drinking. You're worn to the bone.Amanda clinks her glass against mine. —Joe's come home. I have to drink to that.She drinks to that.I drink, but not to anything at all.She crosses to Sela and gives her hand a squeeze. —Just chill a little bit, baby.Sela keeps a grip on the girls hand. —I'm trying to look out for you.Amada touches her cheek.—And you're doing a great job. But right now I need a drink. And I need you to be my girlfriend for a few minutes and not my fucking nanny.Sela takes a step back, removing her face from the girls touch. —It doesn't switch on and off. I do not work like that. I don't go from one to the other. Being your lover, that's not separate from being your bodyguard. And I can only keep you safe and healthy if you listen to me.Amanda sighs. —OK, I'm listening.She pulls on an attentive face. —What am I doing wrong now?Sela bares her teeth, covers them.—Aside from running your body down with stress and lack of sleep and too much booze and not enough exercise, aside from putting everything were working for at risk, putting all these people here who believe in you at risk by not taking care of yourself, aside from all that, you are inviting a major security risk into your confidence.She points at me. —He. Cannot. Be. Trusted.She points at Amanda. —And that is more true now than ever.She looks at me, shakes her head.—He just skipped down to see Terry Bird? Just went down there, had a little run-in with Hurley, and skipped back up here? How's that compute? Ill tell you how. It does not. First he's spying for Predo. Drops that gem on us and then, fa-fa, and he's gone.I raise my hand. —I never said ta-ta.She shakes her head.—Uh-uh, hold that shit in, Pitt. Don't get cute with my ass. You say I should do the smart thing and kill one of our own, kill that poor, starving, desperate son of a bitch in the basement? OK. Tell you what sounds like a smart move to me.Her long muscled arm extends and she points her fist at me. —Killing you sounds like a smart move to me.Amanda looks into her glass. —Don't say that, Sela.Sela slowly uncurls her index finger from her fist, taking a bead on my face.—He is dangerous. I said it before, He gets people dead. He's working both fucking sides. We don't know what they really want. We don't know what he really wants. And there's no way to be sure anything he tells us is the truth.I clear my throat and pick up the bottle. —Predo, he says he wants to know what your research plan is.I start pouring bourbon, decide I got no reason to stop, so I pour till my glass is full.—Wants to know, are you going to go public with the Vyrus, ask for help finding a cure? Or are you going to do like you said to me, keep it in-house? Says he wants numbers of members, security, layouts. Stuff he'd need if he decides he needs to send a crew in here. That's what he says.I drink.—What he doesn't say is that all he's really interested in knowing is if you can do It. What he really wants to know is if you're making any progress. He wants to know if a cure is possible. He wants to know if you can actually find it in this century.I get a smoke up and running.—Terry Bird, he let me go, said he'd let me back on Society turf if I came up here and poked around. Said he wanted me to arrange some back-channelcommunications. Said he wants to start a dialogue. See if there's common ground.I take my bottle and my glass and my cigarette and go to a chair and take a seat.—What he really wants is the same damn thing that Predo wants. And he wants it for the same reason.I point my cigarette at her.—Because, bottom line, if there's a cure, if the Vyrus is destroyed, it all goes away. The Coalition. The Society. All the alliances and backdoor deals and spycraft and manipulations go away. All the power, it goes away. They don't want that. And if there's a scrap of a chance you can come up with a cure.I drink whiskey. —They'll both want to know the best way to kill you yesterday.I take the picture Predo gave me from my jacket and drop it on the desk. —Name on the back of that is the last mole Predo has in here. I don't know for sure who Bird has on the inside, but he definitely has someone reporting to him on conditions in here. I was gonna take a guess.I point at the floor. —I'd pick that fat comic book geek you got living in the hall. He come over fromthe Society?Sela blinks.I nod.—That's what I thought. He's got it written all over his lazy fucking ass. Yeah, he's your man. So.I drink some more.—I guess that's two more people I'm gonna get dead. What / want, little miss junior psycho. Is for you to tell me what you meant before when you said business arrangement. As in, I want to know how much of your money you're going to give me if I help you feed the starving people in this building before they realize you re more valuable to them as a meal than as a savior.Amanda folds her arms, sets her jaw.—I'm Joe Pitt, and I'm here to chew bubble gum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubble gum.I wait.She unfolds her arms.—OK, Joe, well, I'm going to give you a whole lot of money. Enough to make you super wealthy. And really, you don't even have to do that much for it.She points east.—All we need you to do is take a quick trip to Queens and find out where the Coalition gets their blood.They have it, everyone knows they have it, she says.I don't argue with her.Why argue when someone s right? They do have it. And everyone knows they have it.Biggest Clan on the Island, and then some. And the only one that has enough blood to supply all their members. Only one can keep them fed well enough that they don't have to worry about someone going berserk and hitting the street to make a spectacle like the one Amanda and Sela are trying to keep under wraps. No secret that they got it. Hell, get down to it, its pretty much advertised.Best advertising you could ever have to attract Vampyres is a well-known reputation for keeping your members in the red.Why keep it a secret.But there is a secret. There is a big secret. There is the biggest secret.Where the hell does it all come from?Enough blood to keep hundreds, maybe over a thousand, members alive and kicking.You figure that some Vampyres are more equal than others, figure that guys like Predo are getting quite a bit more in their fridges than the average infected slob on the street, and then figure a minimum of a pint a week to keep the rank and file happy.I didn't pass math. Shit, I didn't pass anything. But I can figure that number in my head.Know what that number equals?Equals: Where the fuck do they get it a!!?A question most folks dwell on from time to time. But most definitely not a question folks like to ask out loud. Ask that kind of question out loud and someone might hear you asking it. And whether you're Coalition, Society, Hood or Rogue, you don't want to be heard asking that question.See, figure everyone comes up short from time to time. Everyone has their off quarters when they don't make quota. Which means everyone goes to the bank for a little extra now and again. Society, the Hood, they get pinched hard, can't keep their people healthy, they might be known to make a call, cut a deal.Only in emergencies, mind you, but shit happens.Don't it?So who wants to rock that boat?Answer: no one.Coalition doesn't want anyone to know where it comes from. You had the lockdown on what everyone wanted, what everyone needed, would you want to share where it came from?Don't lie. You're not that altruistic. No one is.Society and Hood need a little help now and again, they can't afford to look nosy. Can't afford to have their people look nosy.And Rogues? They cant afford to do anything makes anyone notice their unallied asses are hanging out in the wind waiting for someone to take a shot at them just because it will take one more mouth off the market.It's there. We all know it's there. It's the thing that just about the whole fucking Clan structure spins around.And we all pretend it doesn't exist.Shhh.Only someone crazy would poke into this shit. Lucky me, I know someone really fucking crazy.I sit there.I sit there some more.I look at Sela.—Shouldn't part of keeping her safe involve telling her when she's talking about doing something that will kill everyone?I hold up my hand.—No, never mind, I totally fucking forgot that your whole fucked-up Clan is based on trying to do something that's going to get everyone killed. —They have it, Joe.I look at Amanda. —You already said that.She turns in place, holding her drink over her head, rattling the ice cubes. —OK, OK, I know it's this total secret hush-hush thing. I know we're not supposed to talk about the hundred-pound pink poodle in the room.She stops turning and spreads her arms. —But the whole point is that were seriously trying to change things.She takes a sip.—And you don't change things by doing what everyone has always done before.She comes over and perches on the edge of her desk.—So here's the deal: We need more blood. Plain and simple. I can get a lot through the lab, from medical supply houses, but not as much as you d think. They mostly deal in plasma and other blood components. And the Vyrus only feeds on whole blood. Did you know that? Tried it. Tried using plasma. Tried using platelet serum. Not what it wants. So we need more blood.She blows out her cheeks.—But the Coalition wont deal with us. We could pay like way over market price, but they won't even open a fucking dialogue. Which is super funny considering how they kissed my parents' and my asses for so many years before I started Cure.She empties her glass. —So the thing is, we have to do something.Sela steps forward. —If you tell anyone about any of this, Pitt.I look at her.—Sela, if I decide to commit suicide, III do it with a gun like normal people. I won't do it by telling people about little chats I'm having to plot a raid on the Coalitions fucking reservoir.Amanda shakes her head.—It's not a raid. Were not even talking about that kind of thing. I'm talking about just some surveillance. Intelligence. That's all.She taps her own forehead.—I mean, think about it. They have to get it from somewhere. They cant just make it. They have to have a supplier. Maybe they have a bunch of them. I know that's, like, the most reasonable possibility. They've been around forever. So they've, like, built up these weird relationships. Totally backdoor stuff that no one can get in on at this point. They must get it from dozens of places. Hospitals. EMT workers. Blood banks. They bring it into a central warehouse or something. All we know is that when it comes in, it comes in from Queens.She leans.—What we need to know is, who some of those suppliers are. If we know, like, who to talk to, we can totally outbid the Coalition. Or we can force a deal. Tell the Coalition that they can either sell to us or they can face some competition in the market. See what they do when I throw some real cash into the supplyand demand equation and their suppliers start driving their trucks to our door. That's all.That's all.Just go to Queens. Just leave the Island right after I got back. Just go poke around the Coalitions biggest secret. The biggest secret.Just leave again.Just leave.Gravity pulls. Pulls at the center of me. Pulls at a part that I didn't know was there till I took it off the Island.If I pull too hard in the opposite direction, will it snap?Jesus. Who am I?I move the girls hand from my knee, I look at her. —Its going to cost.She does the eyeroll, letting me know again that I shouldn’t bother talking about things that she doesn't give a shit about.I nod, stand up. —OK. Maybe we should start by asking some people some questions.I look at Sela.—And then making them dead.Amanda slips off the edge of the desk. —See, baby, I told you he was the man for the job.Sela turns away.When the math is done, it's not two people I get dead, its three people I get dead. Amanda suggesting, not unreasonably, that maybe I could deal with the slob in the basement who caused all the problems for them the other night.One more. Sure. Why not? Who's counting at this point?Terry's mole, he cops to it. I don't have to touch him or even threaten to tear up his back issues of Amazing Spider-Man to get him to cop to it. I just let him watch while I deal with the others. Then I tell him I'll do him different, more easy, if he tells me if he's the one been making calls to Terry.He says he is.Could he be lying?Sure. Why not? I watched someone do what I do to Predo's mole, and / got given a chance to say something might let me avoid the same discomfort, I might lie myself.But I don't think he was lying.And if he was?If he was, then I guess it makes what I did to him that much worse. And if there's someone watching the things I do, watching and judging, that's one that will go against me. Assuming there's any more room in the AGAINST column.Doesn't matter, I couldn't let him live no matter what. Not after he watched. Not after he heard the questions I asked Predo's pawn.Far as that guy goes, mostly it's too bad he didn't know anything. Makes life that much harder for me. Certainly made death that much harder for him.But I'm not worried about it. Because no one is watching me. No one is judging me. No one is weighing my actions and making book on where my soul is gonna finish when the race is over.I'm the only one watching these things I do. I'm the only one counting. I know the number.And I've known for a long time what I've got coming someday.I'm not trying to get out of anything.I kill the guys. And I don't make it easy for them on the way out. Because I got no doubts they deserve it.Only maybe not as much as I do.Tough luck how that works out sometimes.—Hey. —Who? —It's Joe Pitt.I hear salsa music doppler in and out of the background. —What? —Joe Pitt. —Yeah? —Yeah. —And?I clear my throat.—Remember how you said you d rather I owe you one for when you need someone to have your back? —Yeah. —How d you like to make it two?I hear catcalls in Puerto Rican-accented Spanish, and her own retort: something about someone's dick and a knife and their throat. But my Spanishisn't good enough to get the subtler nuances.The catcalls fall silent. —You still there?I nod, even though she cant see it. —I'm here.The  phone  carries  the  sound  of a  train  crashing  and  screeching  on overhead tracks. —You ask a lot, Pitt. —Yeah.—I got ex-boyfriends, kind of guys never have a fucking job, you know? —Sure.—Kind of guys, they let a girl pick up every check, pay for their new Nikes, give them walking-around cash they're gonna use to take their shorty out later. Know what I mean? —Sure. —But you. You I never even broke off a piece, and you got them all beat.I shift the phone to my other hand so I can get at my smokes easier. —Yeah, I like to go that extra mile.—Yes, you do.—Yeah. So, not to waste anyone's time, I don't have anything to add to thepot. You want to help out or not?Esperanza grunts.—Girl likes maybe just a little sweet talk sometimes. —How bout that. —Yeah. OK. What is it?I get a cigarette in my mouth.—What it is, is it's funny you brought up ex-boyfriends. —How's that funny? —Funny like maybe I'd want to meet one of them.Silence. I look at the screen of the phone Amanda gave me to make my call, making sure the connection hasn't been broken. It hasn't.I put it back to my ear. —Hear me?—I heard you, Pitt. I'm just trying to figure out how to say ha-ha without it sounding too sarcastic.Getting me out is also on the tricky side.Seeing as the Cure house is smack in the middle of Coalition turf, getting anyone out is a trick.Figure that under normal circumstances the Coalition would weed out anyone tried to put roots in their turf. But there's nothing normal about Amanda Horde. Nothing normal about her or her big brain or her money or the Horde family name. She was right about the way Predo used to kiss her and her parents' asses.Before he plotted to have them all assassinated.Plot didn't work out.Someone got in the way.Chalk that up as yet another reason on the long list that Predo has for looking forward to the day he gets to watch me boil in the sun.But back before that little misunderstanding took place, the Coalition was neck-deep in dealings with the Horde family. And Horde Bio Tech, Inc. Far as I know, they still have holdings in the company. But the little girl holds all the important strings.Still, it's too late in the day for them to make a sudden move on her. She'stoo well connected for something like that. Too bright a star on the map of the sky. Not the Page Six fixture her mom was, but definitely someone the Manhattan gossip mill has an ear and an eye for.Poor little orphaned rich girls who run their family's biotechnology holdings and are always accompanied by their sexy but suspiciously muscular black female bodyguards tend to be a hot item from time to time.Figure the Coalition couldn't do much when she decided to open housekeeping on their doorstep. But figure they keep as many eyes on that house as they possibly can.Predo knew when I went in the first time.And he found out that I left.So I have to use an alternate route this time.—Don't be particular, Pitt.—I   don't  think   I'm   being   particular.   I   think   I'm   being   perfectly  fuckingreasonable.—There's no time for this shit. Just bag it and get in.—Oh, that's funny.—I wasn't trying to be funny. Shut up and climb in.—Fuck.But I shut up and climb in.Because Sela was right when she spelled out how it'd work. This is the best bet on short notice. But knowing something is the best bet, that's doesn't make it a sure thing.I lie down on the greasy, shit-stained, olive-drab sleeping bag on the floor. Sela kneels at the foot and pulls the zipper up. —Bunch up a little, Pitt. —Fuck.I pull my knees up, hunch my shoulder and duck my head.Amanda steps closer. —Hang on.Sela stops with the zipper at my chin.Amanda puts a hand on Sela's shoulder and bends to look down at me. —Hurry back, Joe. We need you.I wriggle deeper into the sleeping bag. —Yeah, and it's so nice to be needed like this.Sela yanks the zipper, catches some of my hair, and gives it anther yank, tearing the hair out and sealing me inside the reeking mummy bag.Then she grabs the top of the bag and drags me down the steps behind the building and out to the alley. —Hey. Hey, you could carry me, couldn't you?Her heel clips the back of my neck. —Shut up.I hear a gate squeal open, sounds of the street, an idling diesel.Then she hoists me high, and shoves, and I feel air beneath me, for a second, then a bunch of hard stuff.The tone of the diesel changes, gears grind, there's a jerk and the load in the back of the truck shifts and some more hard stuff tumbles on top of me.And we roll, the driver of the Waste Management truck hauling the construction Dumpster that had been parked in front of the Cure house, doing his best to hit every fucking pothole and divot from the Upper East Side, across the Queensboro, and down along Dutch Kill and Review Avenue to Maspeth.By which time I have found the zipper tabs are stuck on the outside and cut my way out with my straight razor, so I'm ready to vault out when we wraparound the back side of New Calvary Cemetery.Twenty-four hours?Not even that. Not one full day on the Island. And somehow, somehow I find myself someplace worse than the Bronx.You don't have to work hard to land in this kind of shit. You just have to let go of whatever you re hanging on to. The shit is right down there under our feet, waiting for anyone who cant keep their grip.The next bit, the next bit is the tricky part.Keeping your mouth closed when you go under.Maspeth.One of those names comes from an Indian word that got all fucked up. Someone told me once it means something like At the bottom of the bad water place.Swamp.Swamp and landfill.And the choicest landfill groomed, sodded, planted with nice trees, and filled with dead people.I lived in Maspeth, I'd look at those massive cemeteries lining the L.I.E.,Calvary, New Calvary, Mount Zion, Mount Olivet where they buried the unclaimed dead from the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, I'd look at them, and I'd look at the dust and the muck where the row houses and the tenements took root, and I'd start digging up dead people and dropping them in Newtown Creek.But I don't live in Maspeth.Finally, something going right.Standing at Fifty-fifth Ave. and Fiftieth, where my meet is supposed to take place, I get to celebrate that little fact for about a second before a dozen gibbering cannibal warriors with filed teeth and machetes come boiling over the fence from the truck-filled lot behind one of the warehouses that choke the dry land on either side of the Creek.Know what's funny?Nothing.No. Really what's funny is what I forgot.See, what with all the hubbub and urgency, all the need for me to speed on my way because shit is coming unhinged at the Cure house and this needs to be done last fucking year, what with all that, I forget to ask for a gun.How funny is that?Not funny at all.Not if you're the clown who just took a job to cross the water again. Not if you're that sad fucker who just made a call to make a date with some savages.Still, I almost laugh when I remember I forgot.Almost.Instead of laughing, I run. I make it across the street before the bare slapping feet catch me, and fingers capped with chrome claws drag me down.—She's a special lady. —I'm not arguing. —That's wise.I don't tell him that wisdom isn't a virtue I've often been credited with.As for him, he keeps his own counsel, clinking the honed tips of the claws on his right index finger and thumb against one another, in time to a drum no one else hears.—If I were a better man. If I had been a better man, she might be here.I let my eye take in the stifling abandoned shipping container we're all crowded inside of. Only Menace has a chair. The rest stand or sit on the piles of old books and newspapers that fill the whole container. —Think what she's missing.His claws stop clinking. —I do not care for sarcasm.I think for a moment, come up with nothing better, shrug. —I could try not talking at all. —That sounded like more sarcasm.I scratch my head. —Like I said, I could try not talking at all.He holds his hand high over his head, light from the candles illuminating the container reflected in points on the bias-cut sections of sharpened silver pipe fitted at the end of each of his fingers.—I could flay you and wear your skin as a cloak, and caper in the streets in the moonlight.He lowers his hand.—But some might consider that crass treatment of a guest.I nod. —Well, some people got no sense of humor, do they?He brings his hand to his chest, dimples the tight, brown skin over his sternum with the point of a claw. —I am one of those people.I take a good long look at Skag Baron Menace. The claws, the filed teeth, the bare feet with soles calloused to leather, the bracelets of finger bones, the broad blade of the machete leaned against the leg of the camp stool he's sitting on.I get a cigarette from my pocket. —Kid.I light up. —Why would I think you have a sense of humor?He nods. —Yes.He looks at his crew, all kitted out pretty much like himself. —Yes.He looks at me. —I see your point.He rises, picks up his machete. —We'll take a walk.He gestures and the candles are snuffed, dropping us into a black pit. Only light coming from the tip of my smoke.Breathing. Shuffle of bare feet. Claw scratching steel. Steel grating on steel as the lock-bar is unlatched and the door swung open by the sentry outside.In the starlight that filters in, Menace sweeps his machete in an arc, waving me ahead of him.I get off the floor and walk toward the door, waiting for the bite of the machete blade in my back, the rake of claws on my neck.But they don't come.Yet.Put your money on something happening down by the water. That's where I'd do it. So much easier to get rid of a body when there's some water at hand.Wedged into an angle created by the Kosciuszko Bridge, Fifty-sixth Road, andthe Newtown and Maspeth Creeks is a fish-shaped bit of land. The tail occupied by yet another warehouse. The body of the fish an open plain of concrete and asphalt, broken by empty foundations, corpses of abandoned refrigerators with the doors still on, swamp grasses pushing through the pavement, and a glittering sheen of broken glass that seems to pebble the whole surface in nearly even perfection.Menace walks on the glass, leading us toward the water. —I cannot say for certain, but I think this was once the home of Cord Meyers Animal Carbon Plant.I kick at some of the glass, rearranging the huge, senseless mosaic. —What the hell was that?He shakes his head.—I am not certain. But I believe this is where it was. Whatever it was. I simply like the name. It sounds ominous. Like much of the industry that found a home here after the American Revolution.He points with his machete at a truck yard over Fifty-sixth. —Cating Rope Works.Indicates a warehouse up the water. —Fisk Metal Casket Company.Another industrial mass. —Alden Sampson Oil Factory.Another. —And Peter Cooper's Glue Factory.He lowers the machete. —No need to wonder where the sinister quality in that name comes from.A damp, stinking breeze blows off the water. —Yeah, sure. Boiling horses. Dreadful.He stands at least a head shorter than me, looks up, shakes his free hand, rattling bones.—Esperanza said you had trouble with Lament. —I did.—She said you cut a deal with him to get away. —I cut a deal.The machete flickers through the air, cutting the tops from a thick tuft of grass shoved up through a crack in the concrete. —Not something to recommend a person, having cut a deal with Lament.I look at the distant lights of Manhattan, wonder if Maspeth is where III finally die. —Yeah, he seems to have a great fondness for you too.He balances the machete. —He mentioned me?—Yeah. Seemed a favorite topic. I was to judge, I'd say he goes to bed mumbling your name, and then dreams about nailing your head above his door.He smiles, moves the tip of his tongue from pointed tooth to pointed tooth, realizes what he's doing and closes his mouth. —Yes. I am certain he does.He looks north toward the Bronx.—And considering the roll he played in educating me, I do not imagine it is any coincidence that I have similar visions regarding his own head.I spit in the oily water we walk along. —He has one of those heads people think about cutting off. —Yes. He does.He rests the flat of the machete blade on his shoulder. —When he took me off the street, I thought it was the greatest piece of luck. Iwas finally going to be part of a crew. Make some money. Other kids, they would join crews. Soon after they would be showing up at school in fresh K-Swiss, And1. Hilfiger jeans. Burberry caps. Soon, the ones who lasted would have cars. Leased Escalades and Mercedes. Tricked-out Nissans.He frowns.—I wanted to be in a crew. Everyone I knew wanted to be in a crew. That was how you got things. Kicks. Clothes. Wheels. Respect.His frown deepens. —All the things a boy desires. That is a skill of Lament's.He catches his lower lip between the points of two teeth. —To know what young people desire.His teeth draw a bead of blood from his own flesh.—After I was infected by one of the older boys, I felt less as if I had been lied to, and more as if I were being invited deeper inside something special. Of course.He wipes the drop of blood away with the back of his wrist. —By then Lament had taken my name, christened me Menace. A process of physical starvation had begun, soon followed by a more intense deprivation when  he withheld blood. And physical abuse. And emotional abuse.  Theeasiest thing, the thing most of us did, was to surrender. After all.He drops the blade of the machete from his shoulder and angles it to catch a bit of the sliver-moon.—Once you have been told that you are worthless, and treated as if you are worthless, put in a place where you are all set against one another in a contest for one person's approval, approval that is never consistent in how it is rewarded, it is the easiest thing in the world to succumb to that conditioning and believe yourself to be worthless.He brings the blade up, touches it to his own forehead, like a warrior knighting himself. —But I am not worthless.He lowers the blade.—He had me cleaning. Digging out the piles of papers and magazines he had accumulated.He shakes his head.—I have no idea why the word caught my eye. I do not believe in destiny. For whatever reason, I saw it, and I needed to read about it. And so I did. I do not even remember the magazine. National Geographic? Time? It does not matter.He inhales, exhales a word.—Mungiki.He nods.—Kikuyu farmers. They banded together in defense squads against Nairobi government forces during a land dispute. The government was dominated by the Kalenjin tribe. Enemies of the Kikuyu. The Mungiki prevailed. And thrived. They moved into the cities, the slums. Provided protection, brought down crime rates. They did this through violence.He nods again.—Beheadings. Amputations. Vicious beatings. Torture. And they became a source of terror. Blood drinkers. Madmen. Savages so brutal, neither the police nor the military would go into their slums.I look at the long flat span of empty cement around us, the other Mungiki scattered about. I look at the water. Water's the way out. Whether I have to jump in it, or that's where they dump my body, it looks like that's where I'm going.He stops nodding. —They inspired me.He shakes his head. —Not that I knew anything about the Kikuyu. Not that I did, or do, have anycare about the Kalenjin. I was simply inspired that these put-upon people, outnumbered, the lowest, rose. Made of themselves something to be reckoned with. Regardless of their methods. They made me realize that I could fight back. I could leave. So I did.He shrugs.—Physical security is not a concern of Laments. He relies on his personality to keep his captives with him. Until he is ready to send them on their way. Escaping was relatively easy. But freedom. That was most difficult. I had already seen the uses of fear in my own conditioning.He tinks a claw against a bone that dangles from his wrist. —So. I set out to make myself fearful.He indicated the black leather vest worn open over his bare chest, the combat fatigues cut off at the knees. The outfit his crew sports as well. —I designed a uniform for myself and the friends I convinced to join me. And we did things. Engaged in acts modeled on the Mungiki. Are they still afraid of us in the Bronx?I flick ash. —They are.He points north.—And we are not even there.He lowers his arm.—It is strange. That causing fear in others can help produce freedom. But it is also true. It clears a path before one. Creates space, a perimeter within which one can operate with abandon. I am not saying that it is true freedom. But it is a start. And it has given us the space and time to become more dangerous.He brings a claw to his temple.—I am not the boy I was. I do not crave the material things of MTV culture. I am not the slave I was. I do not crave the attention and occasional kindnesses of Lament. I am not even the savage I made myself after my initial escape. I do not crave blood for blood's own sake. I am a rational man. I have made myself into this. I have read and studied and applied myself. I am clear in my thoughts. And in how I express them. While I cultivate mystery about my person in order to project the fear that frees me, I want none of that mystery in my speech. I am capable now of great subtlety. A word I could not have defined just a few years ago. I am capable of that subtlety, but I prefer bluntness. I am all these things, all my past selves, and my new self, because of one reason.He aims the claw at me.—Because I have a purpose. And succeed or fail, I have aimed myself solely at that purpose. With no time for anything else. And yet.He turns his hand over, shows me his pale palm.—Even a man with a purpose can have regrets. My own regret is that I could not convince Esperanza Lucretia to join me. Though I still have hopes that she might. So, seeing that you know her, and that she recommends you to me, I agreed to deviate my attention from my purpose to meet with you. In return, I will need you to do something.I wait.He looks away. —Tell her I miss her.I flick my butt into the water, pull out a fresh one. —Yeah, I know how that goes.I light up. —I can do that for you.He nods. —Well, then.He squats, puts the tip of the blade on the ground, folds his hands over theleather-wrapped grip. —What do you want?I inhale smoke, killing the smell of the rank water.—Like I told Esperanza.  I don't know Queens. She told me you two had history. I asked if she could reach out. —You asked Esperanza Lucretia to reach out to the Mungiki. —Not saying I was happy to be looking to talk to you. Just saying I don't know anyone in Queens.He looks up at me. —Then what you have to do in Queens must be very important.I think about the Cure house, and the blood they need. I think about Terry, and the money he needs. I think about Predo, and the information he needs.I think about me, and what I need. Where I need to be. Who I need to see.Feel the pull. —Yeah, It's important.I look at my burning cigarette.Say it out loud and you don't go back.Say it in the open air and there's no telling where the words drift.Say it. —I'm looking for blood.He raises an eyebrow. —Are not we all?I look up from my cigarette. —No, man, I'm looking for a whole lot of blood.He looks into my eye, nods, stops nodding. —Did I mention, Joe Pitt, that I do not believe in destiny? —Yeah, I remember something like that.He rises, looks me up and down. —Serendipity though, that is another matter.He glances at the water. —What's the worst thing you've ever seen, Joe Pitt?I look at him.I could tell him the worst thing I've ever seen. But he wouldn't see it the same as me. Tell someone the worst thing you ever saw was a dying girl being healed, they wont really get it. But I saw it. And it was bad. So I know better.He watches me, nods. —So you have seen many awful things.I still got nothing to say.Menace weighs his machete in both hands. —Have they changed you, do you think? The things you have seen?I find my lighter. —How the hell should I know.I flick the lighter to life, realize I don't have a cigarette in my mouth for it to light, and snap it closed. —You are who you are. See things. Don't see them. You are who you are.He studies the machete in his hands.—I was who I was. I saw terrible things as a child. And I was who I was. Taken by Lament, tortured, I saw more terrible things. And I was who I was. Changing, yes, but always who I was. I agree with that. But as I told you.He holds the machete tight in one hand, as he runs the palm of his other hand down the blade, cutting deep. —I am different now. Remade. By a purpose.He looks at the hand, watches the blood clot over the deep incision.—Remade by what I have seen.He shakes his hand, flecks of blood spattering the pavement. —You should go home, Joe Pitt.He looks at me. —Or risk being a different person when you leave later.He shrugs. —//you can leave later.I put my Zippo back in my pocket, take hold of my razor. —You saying something?His mouth twists down, tries to straighten, stays twisted. —Rope works. Steel caskets. Animal carbon. Glue factory.He swallows. —Do you think the swamp draws such industry?I slip my other hand in my other pocket, thread my fingers into the hoops of the brass knuckles. —Not following you, kid.He breathes deep a couple times, like a man trying to keep down his last tendrinks.—There are things. Things you have to see.Tears start in his eyes. —Go home, Joe Pitt.He raises the hand he cut, and the rest of the Mungiki encircle us. —We are Mungiki. Savages. We are born for this.He lowers his hand. —It will kill you.He bares his teeth. —It will kill us all.I lick my lips. —OK.I take my hands from my pockets, lighter in one hand, cigarette in the other. —I'm suitably freaked out.I light the cigarette. —Now tell me where I go to see this thing.He wipes tears from his face, leaving a small smear of his hands blood.—Not far.He points south. —English Kill.He nods at the Creek. —Do you know how to swim?The Mungiki don't have guns.Not that they have anything against them, just that they don't have much cash to procure them with. Under normal circumstances I'd consider it a bonus for the whole world that these guys are limited to machetes and handmade claws, but it does mean I can't borrow a gun for myself. —Not even a zip gun? —No. No firearms at all.I look at the rank water below my feet. —Shit.I look back up at Menace. —And you re sure I can't go on land? —No. This is the only way.—Shit.There's a splash as one of the Mungiki tosses an inflated inner tube, scavenged from one of the truck yards, into the water.I look at it bobbing on the scummy low tide. —What's that for?Menace squats next to me, angles his machete at the sandbar peeking from the middle of the Creek.—Mussel Island. Even at low tide the currents around it are strong. Hidden rocks. You can get pulled down into them and ripped apart. —Shit.He picks up a shard of glass between the points of two claws. —I will not see you again, Joe Pitt.I unlace my boots. —That's always a chance. —No.He drops the shard in the water.—I will not see you again. You will not come back. If someone comes back, it will not be you.I peel off my socks and stuff them inside the boots, shrug out of my jacket and pull off my shirt. —Do me a favor anyway. —Yes?I point at my clothes.—Hang on to that stuff. I got a feeling they'll fit the son of a bitch who does come back.He was right about the currents.The inner tube gets pulled from my arm and I get dragged under, sucking a lungful of contaminated creek water as I go down. I get spun, my shoulder bangs on the rocks, and then the current shifts direction and shoves me away from the tiny island and I break the surface gasping.I knew the water was how I was going out.I stroke hard, past the branch where fresh currents try to drag me down English Kill so they can crush me against the rocks below the silos rising above some kind of refinery. Farther down the waterway, I pass under the Grand Avenue Bridge, heavy trucks rattling the steel plates overhead. Ahead, the Creek splits. Disappearing beyond a huge warehouse and around a hardangle to my right, where Menace told me it dead-ends at Metropolitan. Crossing an invisible border into Brooklyn.Going that way is one of my options. But I don't want to go to Brooklyn. I've been to Brooklyn. And I'm not welcome there.On my left the water runs between an abandoned lot and a school bus depot, washing up against wood pilings at the foot of a nameless street.I grab hold of the long steel-and-concrete pier that anchors the middle of the bridge, the pivot on which it once swung open, when these waters were used as anything but a garbage disposal.Rising between the depot and the warehouse, tons of gravel are drawn up long conveyors, dust floats, hazing bright halogens, a nonstop roar of crushed stone and diesel engines. And a high, white-painted cinder-block wall.That's the place Menace told me about.The place where he got changed.I let go of the pier and swim down the channel to the bus depot, where there is no wall.Where I can see what scares the savages.Merit Transportation hasn't bothered with a wall or even a fence on the waterside of their depot.Why bother?Who's gonna swim up in heavily polluted water to mess around in a bus depot? And what are they gonna mess with? Some tagger is industrious enough to frog-man his way in by this route and spray bomb the side of one of the buses, you may as well give the little fucker a medal.No, there's no wall here. Nothing to keep out anyone mad enough to come in this way to do God knows what.Dripping, my skin coated in chemically mutated algae, I haul myself onto the slick rocks and crawl up until I can huddle between two buses, the halogens above the grinding yard next door casting deep black shadows for me to hide in.All I can see is the tops of those conveyors, raising the gravel high before it's dropped, churned, milled ever more fine.I get down on my belly and worm under a bus, keeping my eyes on the dirt, hoping to find an especially long butt that someone may have tossed aside. A butt and a match.No dice.Ahead, there's a row of buses parked perpendicular to a bare cementverge; beyond that, the wall that hides the gravel yard, topped with a long twisted spring of razor wire. Brightly lit.A tunnel would be nice.Or a shaped but silent charge, to blow a secret hole in the wall.Why am I doing this?I look at the dirt. I crook a finger and trace a name.Evie.I'd be lying if I said it gave me courage. I'd be lying if I said it heartened me. I'd be lying if I said it made me stronger, resolved in my intent. Hell, I'd be lying if I said that name did anything but open wounds and grind salt deep into the meat.But I get up and run.I vault onto the hood of a bus, hop to the roof, sprinting, sheet-metal footfalls on the roof of the bus lost in the din.The cement verge is at least six feet broad. The wall eight feet tall, the wire adding nearly two more feet.Jumping from the rear of the bus, my bare foot pushing off from the end of the roof above the emergency exit, I have a vision of myself, feet snagged in a tangle of razor wire, hanging upside down inside the perimeter of the wall,spotlights pinned on my body, guards closing in from every quarter.I look down, see my feet clearing the wall and the wire with inches to spare, then gravity catches me and sucks me down and smashes me into a gravel pile, crushing the air from my lungs and snapping three fingers on my left hand when I stupidly try to brace against the impact instead of going limp.Its even louder on this side of the wall. And brighter.Mounds of gravel and sand, the tower the conveyor belts climb and descend, a steel blockhouse of grinding machinery underneath, unpaved roads cut by eighteen-wheelers hauling open-topped trailers bringing in yet more gravel, smaller diesels with spinning mixers, painted in spirals, driving away with loads of cement. Everything gray, shot with patches and stripes of pitch-black shadow painted by the light towers above.I roll out of the light to the bottom of a gravel pile, into a shadow, waiting to hear a klaxon, the machinery grinding to a halt, commands shouted back and forth between heavily armed guards.Nothing happens.Machinery roars, lights blaze, trucks roll in low gear.I crawl to the edge of the pile and look for the enforcers who must be creeping up on me.And see no one but the drivers in the trucks, a couple silhouettes in a small shack near the conveyors, and a uniformed man sprawled in a folding chair at the distant gate, waving the trucks in and out with barely a glance.I duck back behind the pile. Wondering if I'm in the right place.Maybe Menace meant the warehouse on the far side of the yard. Maybe he meant one of the warehouses I passed along the Creek. Maybe he's a fucking nutjob and I'm chasing my own asshole around Maspeth because he thinks he saw something.Maybe he's a nutjob.He's fucking named Menace. He's given himself fangs and little handcrafted claws.