I hear her shift the phone, her short fingernails clicking against the mouthpiece as she brushes her hair out of the way.
– I'm off tonight.
Tuesday, one of her nights off. Date night for us.
– Yeah, babe, probably not a good night for it.
She makes a little sucking sound, her tongue pulling down from the roof of her mouth. It's the sound she makes when she's starting to get bugged.
– Right. 'Cause you got the thing you're working on.
– Yeah.
– 'The thing that got Leprosy killed.
– Evie.
– That you won't tell me about.
– Not now, OK?
– Even though I was the one washing Lep's blood off you.
– I said not now.
– OK, then when, Joe? When do I ever get to know what you're up to?
– Just. Not now.
– Not now. Where have I heard that before?
She pushes all the air out of her lungs; it's the sound a person makes when they're trying to keep their cool, the one Evie makes when her cool's already been lost.
– There's only so much a girl will take, Joe. Even a girl you can't fuck.
She hangs up. And can you blame her?
So that's one more thing for me to deal with. I'd like it to be at the top of my list, but it's not. Instead my list reads something like this:
1) Find carrier.
2) Find Horde girl.
3) Find out who is spying on me.
4) Call Terry.
5) Deal with Predo.
6) Make up with girlfriend.
Oh, and at the top of that list you can add, GET SOME BLOOD. But the phone call is the only one that looks doable right now, so I call Terry.
– Joe, I really wanted to talk to you, man.
– We're talking, Terry.
– Yeah, but the phone. Not the same as sitting down face-to-face, you know.
– I could see you later tonight.
– No, no good, I have to go uptown tonight.
– Uptown?
– Above a hundred and tenth.
– Hood?
– Grave Digga is talking war parties again and I want to see if I can mellow him out.
– Tomorrow night, then.
– I may have to crash up there a couple nights. I got transit on a boat, but the pilot can't guarantee a return trip. And the way things are with the Coalition these days, I don't think they'll be laying any passes on me to cross their turf.
He's right about that. At the best of times the Coalition wouldn't be looking to do Terry any favors, but with all the dust being kicked up down here they'll be twice as hardcase about it. And that's assuming they don't know he's going to talk to the Hood.
The Hood is an offshoot of the Coalition. Back in the sixties, about the same time Terry was organizing the Society, Luther X organized all the blacks and Latinos in the Coalition, split them off and took control of everything above One Tenth. A truce was negotiated and the Coalition ceded the territory, but they didn't like it. All the same, things were pretty peaceful between them until last year. Last year someone stuck a couple knives through Luther's eyes and his warlord DJ Grave Digga took over the Hood. He went on a purge and claimed he found Coalition agents in the Hood who had assassinated Luther. Since then he's been sending raiding parties below the border and trying to get Terry and the Society to hook up with him to wipe out the Coalition. Not my problem.
– Then I guess we'll just have to talk now. What do you want?
– Just wanted to talk with you, have a little communication about everything that's been going down.
– I mean, what do you want for getting the Dusters to pick me up?
– Hey, Joe. That was an act of humanity. I know what it's like up there. Your girl calls me and tells me you went to meet some client and you're not back? Then she tells me the meet was uptown? What am I gonna do, not care? And from what I hear, you needed the help. Christian tells me you were zonked out on the sidewalk with a bunch of homeless people, getting ready to work on your tan.
– Yeah, so what do you want?
– What I want, what I wanted, man, was to rap, make sure you're OK. You don't want to come over, that's your business- We're all free to do as we please.
– I don't like open accounts, Terry. What do you want?
He chuckles.
– I know. Joe don't take nothing from nobody, good or bad. I was just trying to do the right thing by a guy who used to be my friend. A guy, by the way, I still think of as a friend.
– Funny, last time this friend saw you, he ended up getting a couple ribs cracked by your mick thug.
– That wasn't personal, Joe, that was politics. I needed to throw Tom a bone to keep him from going radical on us. That was for the greater good. And I'd prefer it if you didn't use terms like mick.
– OK, Terry, you'll let me know when you want to collect. In the meantime I'll throw you this. Tom was right, someone else was poking around at the school, looking into what happened with those shamblers.
– Victims of Zomb-
– The fucking walking corpses, whatever you want to call them. Someone else was taking an interest.
– Any idea who?
– All I know is that it's someone very private, someone doesn't like to leave anything behind, not even a scent. Sound like anyone you know?
He's quiet for a sec. I let it dangle there.
– No, I don't think so, Joe, no one I know.
– You might want to keep your eyes peeled. Because whoever it is, they're creeping around on your turf.
I hang up. Let him chew on that. Maybe he'll poke around and find something out. Be nice to have someone doing my dirty work for a change.
There's still time till the sun goes down, time to kill before I can go looking for the girl and the carrier.
The girl and the carrier.
Something snaps together in my head.
Oh fuck.
I smell my hand. It's not there anymore, I washed it off in the shower. I go to the heap of dirty laundry in the corner. I throw the burnoose to the side, find the black jeans I had to wear to the Cole last night because Lep's blood had ruined my suit. I hold them to my face and sniff, cigarette smoke, the dirty pavement I slept on, my own sweat. Same thing with the shirt I wore. But he touched me, I know he did, shook my hand and gave me that fake hearty slap on the shoulder. Where's my jacket? I slide open the closet door and take my jacket off the hanger. It's the nice one, the lightweight leather sport coat Evie bought me. It's got a scuff on the sleeve from last night's nap on the sidewalk. I put my nose against the right shoulder and inhale.
There it is, that smell. The one I smelled on my hand last night after Horde and I shook. That odor from the school. That musky sex scent that was all over the cardboard mattress and the zombie girl. It was on Horde's hands. It was all over him, but I couldn't smell it because the reek of Leprosy's blood was still in my hair and nostrils.
They have names, the shamblers from the school have names. The boys' were Joey Boyles and Zack Blake. The girl's name was Whitney Vale. That's the one I care about.
She was nineteen, born and raised in Nyack. Her mom says she split as soon as she turned eighteen and she'd only seen her a couple times in the last year when she showed up to ask for money. The dad's been a no-show since she was born. She was working part-time as a bag checker at one of the used record stores on St. Marks. The manager says she hadn't shown up for a week or two. I get all this off my computer when I check the sites for the Times, News and Post. I try Googling her name and get the articles I just read along with the AP coverage, and some creep claiming he has nude pics of her that he's willing to sell.
I look at the clock, it's 9:11 P.M. It'll be dark enough for me to go out now. I get up from the computer and pull on a T-shirt and the leather jacket. It's plenty hot out, but I need something to cover the revolver I stuff in the waistband of my black jeans.