– Still not back?
– No. Got a message from the drop, though. The Coalition's raising some kind of stink, clogging up all passages across their turf. Know anything about that?
– Nope.
She stops on the corner of 9th and B.
– I go this way. What about you?
I point the opposite direction.
– Home.
– Sure about that?
– Nowhere else left.
She nods.
– Anything else?
– Got a smoke?
She shakes her head.
– Give my money to the death merchants at the tobacco companies? You should know better.
– Right.
She stuffs her hands in her back pockets.
– The girl?
– If you don't hear from me tomorrow, wait for Terry. He'll know what to do.
– He usually does.
– Yep.
At home I get cleaned up, and in bed with a cigarette. Every time I take a drag the cuff still hanging off my wrist bangs against my neck. I could pick the lock, but my wallet with the picks is on the opposite side of the room. Too far away. I put my cigarette in the nightstand ashtray and take hold of the dangling cuff. I begin to twist it round and round. The chain bundles and knots and the cuff still locked on my wrist digs into the skin. I crank the loose cuff once more and wrench my locked wrist in the opposite direction and the chain pops, one broken link shooting across the room. I put the sawn-through cuff on the nightstand and pick up my cigarette. I rub my wrist, massaging the red skin under the single cuff I now wear like a bracelet. I spin the bracelet around and around and think about the girl that it had been locked to.
And I lie in the dark, sucking smoke into my one good lung.
When I finally sleep I dream. I don't dream about the girl or her mother or her father. I don't dream about Whitney Vale or Evie or the wretched things that raised me. I dream about a darkness. And I see all the details I had only glimpsed in that room.
The way the darkness seeped into the room through a crack in the air. How it cut the space between Horde and myself. How it passed through Horde, passed through him as he would have passed through a mist. How it flapped and shivered as with pleasure, gliding up to the shadows in the corner of the room. The things bulging from within the darkness, trying to get out. The shapes bulging from it, pressing it outward from the inside, like people trapped inside a black sheath of rubber. The hole it cut in the shadow. The last shape, digging from within it, before it inked the shadow black and disappeared.
The shape like an oily black relief of Horde's screaming face.
– Stop screaming, Pitt.
I open my eyes. They're already here.
– Little early, guys.
Predo has set the chair from my desk next to the bed and is sitting in it. He looks at his watch.
– It is nearly midnight. You have slept all day. Now it is time to get up.
– Yeah, guess you're right.
I sit up in bed and stretch.
– I'd offer you guys some coffee or something, but I don't like you. So. I throw off the covers and move to get up and Predo's giant holds up a hand.
– If you could just stay on the bed for now, Mr. Pitt.
– Yeah, sure.
I grab my smokes from the nightstand, light up, lean my back against the wall and sit there in my shorts and undershirt, and smoke. Predo lets it go for a minute, then gets tired of it.
– Where is the girl?
I take a drag. I think I can feel some of the smoke going into my right lung. A good sign.
– Say, Mr. Predo.
His eyes tighten, but he waits for it.
– Know what I'm noticing?
He waits.
– No? OK, I'll tell you.
I stub my cigarette in the ashtray.
– I'm noticing how you're not asking what happened to the Hordes.
I grab the pack of Luckys and knock a fresh one out.
– When last seen, one of your enforcers was with them. You'd think he'd have called in by now. But he hasn't. Know how I know he hasn't?
I flip my Zippo open.
– Because I killed him.
I thumb the wheel.
– But I have a feeling you already know that.
I light the butt.
– And that you don't give a fuck.
I close the lighter with a snap.
– Care to comment?
He temples his fingers and presses them to his lips.
– May I have a cigarette?
I pass him one. He taps it against his thumbnail then places it carefully between his lips and leans forward. I flick the Zippo to life and hold it out. He dips the tip of the cigarette in the flame, inhales, leans back and exhales with a slight cough.
– Filterless.
I close the lighter and put it back on the nightstand.
– Yeah.
He takes another drag, exhales without coughing this time.
– One of the advantages of the Vyrus. I do not personally take advantage of it often, but when I do, I prefer filterless. More flavor.
– Yeah.
– You are right.
He picks a flake of tobacco from his tongue.
– My agent did fail to report when expected.
He shakes the tobacco from his fingertip.
– Another of our agents went to the Horde residence and reconstructed some of the action that had taken place there. Based on that reconstruction, and my knowledge of Dr. Horde's predilections, I was able to make an assumption as to where he had taken his… party. The agent went to the school. Yes, I do know about the Hordes and their man. And my agent. And you are correct about something else, as well. I do not give a fuck.
He takes another drag, but pulls a sour face this time and shakes his head.
– What does that say as to how I feel about you?
He drops the freshly lit cigarette to the floor and steps on it.
– You see, you are mistaken about what is happening in this room, Pitt. You think you are maneuvering yourself into position for some kind of bargain. You hope to leave this room not only with your life, but with information, and perhaps some kind of profit. It is true that there is a bargain to be struck here, but what lies in the balance is not your life, but rather the manner of your death.
My cigarette burns a little closer to my fingers.
– You have killed an agent of the Coalition. And so you will die. Put simply, you can tell us where the girl is right now, and we will kill you in some quick and relatively painless manner. Or, if you prefer, you may withhold that information, and force us to extract it from you. After which, we will drive to a location in New Jersey which I understand is excellent for viewing the sunrise. Need I be any more blunt?
The heat of my cigarette's cherry reaches my fingers. I bring it up to my face and eke out a last drag before putting it out. I hold the smoke from that last drag, then jet it out my nostrils.
– I know Horde was the carrier.
I pick up the cigarette Predo crushed on rny floor.
– Yeah, I know, a statement like that is pretty much a conversation killer.
I drop the crushed cigarette in the ashtray.
– Where do you go from there? So let me expound a little bit. Just so you know I know what the fuck I'm talking about.
I gather my thoughts. And hope they don't fall apart too quickly.
– Say you're a man like Horde. Say that in addition to owning a company like Horde Bio Tech, you are also its top researcher. And just for the sake of argument, say you also happen to be a very sick motherfucker who happens to have access to certain facts about how things work on the darker side. That's our side, Predo. Oh, I'm gonna get dressed now.
I scoot to the edge of the bed. The giant takes a step toward me, but Predo shakes his head and he stops. Standing is tricky, but I manage. Predo watches as I shuffle to the closet.