I’m busy myself, putting my blade to work on Lament. I have his scalp halfway down his throat before Digga kicks me and points out the bastard is already dead. I keep at it anyway. It’s something I promised myself I’d do when I got the chance. And you don’t get second shots at these things.
• • •
Percy’s not dead, but he’s gonna be.
– Fuck, Percy.
– Where’s Lament?
Digga looks at me.
– Pitt went all Geronimo on his coif.
– He dead then.
Digga widens his eyes and nods.
– Oh, muthafucka dead ah’ite.
Percy tries to nod himself, but too much of the muscle on his neck has been flayed away with his skin.
– Almost die a happy man, hearin’ that.
He looks at me. He’s still got his arm, but only the ring finger hasn’t been mashed by pliers. He points it at me.
– Pitt. ‘Member what I say when we last spent some time together, ‘bout cigarettes?
I’m standing a ways away, outside the van we found him in at the top of the park. Black windowless van, we didn’t exactly need a treasure map. We haven’t moved him from the back. Digga started to rip off the razor wire that was wrapped around him, but Percy told him to stop. He’d healed a little, skin had grown back around the wire in a couple patches. And it wasn’t like it was going to change things. It hurt less to just be still, I guess.
Now the younger man is huddled in the back of the van with his dying vizier.
I step a little closer so I can hear him better.
– Yeah, I remember.
His lips part, broken teeth inside, broken smile.
– Look at me.
I’m looking.
– Look at me, set up ta leave it all behind. An dyin’ just as much ta have a damn smoke.
I start rolling one.
His eyes close. Open. He looks at Digga.
– Lament layin’ ta hang yo ass. Literal like. Sonofabitch had it in mind ta off yo rhinos, take you in charge. Lynch you. Highest tree. Top of the rock.
Digga frowns.
– Don’t care. Don’t matter.
– Lissen yo ass.
Digga listens.
– I came up for to do some talkin’. Not like I stepped outta line. He just made up his mind his own self. Take me down. Cuz what I figured.
He looks at me.
– You got that ratty ass thing spun yet?
I lick it closed, lean in, put it between his lips and strike a match.
He inhales.
– Give half my immortal soul for a damn Pall Mall. He exhales.
– But this’ll do. Take it from me so’s I can talk some.
Digga takes the cigarette from his mouth.
– What’d you figure, Perce?
His chest starts working like a bellows. We can see the bones of his rib cage, gaps in the cartilage and muscle between them, expanding, contracting. Air whistles around his broken teeth.
– Damn. Damn. Damn. Ah hell. What I figured. They done up here. I went in, he had his boys and girls runnin’ they’s asses in and out all about. Tryin’ to make it look like they’s in they’s dozens. But they not. Got one arm, not one eye.
He looks at me.
– Speakin’ on which, you seen better days, Pitt.
I look him over.
– Look who’s talking.
We all have a little laugh. Percy’s laugh hurts. Hurts him to make it, hurts some to hear it. No use lying about it.
He smokes a little more.
– Saw the same faces runnin’ in an out. An Lament, he crazy, but not stupid. Not like that. Saw me size it up. Done deal after that. Can’t let me come back to you. Say, We got ‘em, Dig, let loose the hounds. ‘Stead, he had hisself a good old timey time. Chained me behind one of they’s cars, dragged me around circles in a parkin’ garage. An some other stuff. Oh, they brought back some memories they did.
Smoke floats into his eyes, he squints through it at me.
– Geronimo?
I shrug.
– I scalped him.
– Particular reason?
– You met the man, I need any other reason than he was breathing?
– No. No you did not. Sure as hell, he had it comin’.
Something cracks deep in him, he coughs, bile sprays from his mouth.
– Ah damn.
He curls the one good finger around Digga’s thumb.
– He was gonna string you up. Take off the head of the Hood an see if the body would die. How ‘bout that. But over now. They got no one up here. Left me all alone in this van. Top of the rock, an no one home but us black folks. Got to read somethin’ in that, my liege.
Digga closes his eyes.
– Don’t call me that shit.
– Uh-huh, heavy lies the crown. You wanted it, it yours now. I doubted, all these years, but you the man. Luther X left him no heir, but you the man now. Hail an well damn met.
Digga rubs his eyes.
– Shit.
Percy shakes his head.
– Got to run now. Got last things to say. Lissen close.
Digga opens his eyes.
Percy starts to whisper.
– Kill all yo enemies now. An Predo gonna call soon. Lookin’ for to bargain an armistice. Promise you stay in your place an he won’t cross One Ten. Send gallons of blood. An mean it too. Then he gonna march below Fourteenth. An when he got it sorted there, come back up here for yo head. That what.
Digga nods.
– What’s my play?
– You play is you take what he offers. Bargain it some, but take.
Digga shakes his head.
Percy looks at me.
– Pitt.
I nod.
– Take the deal.
Percy nods.
– Uh-huh.
I stop nodding.
– And when Predo turns south you shoot him in the back.
– Uh-huh, that the way.
He looks back at Digga.
– Be a hard-hittin’ brutha. Don’t take no shit. But cogitate before you act.
– Yes, sir.
Percy’s pupils expand like smoke, like the black is leaking into the rest of his eyes.
He turns them on me.
– An look to the young people an they’s baby.
I step a little closer.
– Where are they?
He manages to move his head, jerking his chin south.
– Seems they was disillusioned some by what they found up here. Said they needed a proper community for they’s child if it was to blossom. Talkin’ ‘bout the lady down south. One with all them big ideas ‘bout a cure an integration between infected an uninfected an all that. Seemed to think that was the right place for them an they’s unbounded love.
Digga squeezes Percy’s finger.
– They important, Perce, somethin’ I should do? Anything to what they think about that baby?
Percy manages to lift his head a little.
– Important? They’s kids damnit. Got they heads up they asses maybe, they just a couple of children young an in love. Got to be room for that. Ain’t no thing hard to think ‘bout.
Eyes on me again.
– Hey there, Joe Pitt. Got to be room left for love in all this, right? Mean, got to be room we go out on a limb, help just because. World where we been drinkin’ the blood of children raised in the dark. Got to be room to make somethin’ better. Shit. Help the young people is all. An for they’s baby, it more than likely just a baby. Shouldn’t need more reason than that.
His head drops back.
– An leave me the hell alone. Still Enclave. Gonna die proper from no blood. Die proper. Cut me a few times, let me go, cut me and let me go.
Digga doesn’t have a knife. I hand him mine. The Vyrus is almost dead in the old man, bled out too fast to find that place where he’d frenzy, past healing. The fresh cuts open and close like mouths for a moment, then hang gaping, the last little blood seeping out. Digga climbs from the van, closes the doors, hands me the blade, and walks away some. I stand there, listening as Percy thrashes inside, no screams, just dying as quiet as he has it in him to die.