– Joe?
I hand him the tobacco pouch again.
– Hit me.
He starts to roll.
I point the barrel of the shotgun up and down the stairwell.
– So you still haven’t told me what the fuck.
He hands me another perfect smoke.
– Well, fuck, Joe, I thought it was pretty abundantly clear by now. Coalition cut off the blood, and shit got all fucked up.
I light up, take a drag, shake my head and tap the barrel against his chest.
– No, I mean, what the fuck?
He nods.
– Oh, right, yeah, well. You know, man, I guess I just kind of wore out my welcome everywhere else.
I blow a cloud over his head.
– Say it ain’t so.
He nods.
– Yeah, right? Because what have I ever done but try and help everybody out?
– If by help out you mean sell out, then I get what you’re saying.
– Now is that?
He finds some umbrage somewhere and runs with it.
– I’m saying, Joe, is that? Here we are, you and me, some of the last of the old school, here we are, getting reacquainted, I’m rolling your cigarettes for Jesus sake! Here we are and, come on, here we are like almost having a nice conversation for the first time in forever, and you have to take on like that. Like I’ve never been on your side. Like I. Joe.
He shakes his head slow.
– It’s a discouragement is what it is, Joe. That’s what it is.
I raise a hand, the one that’s not all there.
– Don’t wear it out, Phil. You been on my side like you been on everyone else’s.
He lifts both arms over his head.
– Exactly! I’ve done for everyone! Who doesn’t have me to thank for something or other I done to help out? And now when things get tricky out there, when a man was thinking maybe he’d get his chance to really shine, helping out, you know, for whoever needed it, everyone gets all uptight and decides they don’t want me around. Mean to say, Joe, they tried to bump me.
– Who was at the front of that line?
– Terry is who. Calls me up, asks me to come see him. Terry Bird, all polite. As opposed to just telling me to do whatever the fuck or else. I don’t hear or else at the end of a service request, I know the jig is up. I was going out the fire escape, someone was kicking in the door. Tried to use my phone drop to Mr. Predo, got a suspiciously warm welcome to Coalition turf. Nuh-uh. Come in out of the cold. I seen that fucking movie at Film Forum once. Came to last resorts, this was the place. All my old regulars got no love left, I got to find new love. Sad. What kind of appreciation is that? Trying to cap a useful asset like myself. None. It’s none appreciation. It’s, I don’t know what it is.
– It’s expedient.
He drops his arms.
– See, and there you go insulting me and doing it using words that I only sort of know what they mean.
– Means it was the smart play.
He stares at me, shakes his head.
– Well, thank you very much, Joe Pitt.
I lift my shoulders.
– Don’t take it hard, Phil. You played the center against the middle and the ends against the top and bottom so well, when the chips were finally down they all decided you were too dangerous to live.
He smiles.
– Yeah, yeah, you know, put like that, almost kind of flattering. Too dangerous to live. Make a cool tattoo.
I lean the barrel of the shotgun on my shoulder.
– So it’s not all bad.
Howls drift up from below.
I take a drag.
– And you roll a mean smoke besides.
He smiles wide, shows blank spots where he used to have silver caps to replace the teeth I knocked out of his jaw. Pawned, I suppose.
– Thanks, Joe, that means something. Coming from you and all.
He looks down a little.
– Say, Joe?
– Phil.
He looks up a little.
– What happened to your fingers?
I furrow my brow, look at my left hand, shake my head.
– Damn. Where the hell did I put those?
We have a little laugh.
Phil Sax. He’s not all bad. Just he’s an untrustworthy dirtbag is all.
That’s probably why I stick the shotgun in the back of his neck when he starts to unlock the door at the top of the stairs. Why I hiss at him to keep it zipped when someone on the other side asks what’s up. Why I kick him in ahead of me and follow only after he stumbles in and no one blows any holes in him. Why I go in barrel first, crouching, at an angle.
Why it goes all sideways at that point is because when Sela jumps from the blind corner at my far left and I turn and try to put one in her gut before she lands on me, I find out that as bad as things have got in here they haven’t yet got to the point where anyone is giving Phil a loaded weapon.
Shame on me for not checking that one.
Advantage Sela, on me, grabbing a fistful of hair, lifting my head and slamming it into the floor, raising a fist that will likely collapse my face. Good hand is attached to the arm pinned under her left knee, bad hand is free, clawing at her eyes, just enough fingers to do that. Wonder if I’ll feel the second punch, or if the first will do the deal. Fuck, I hope so.
– Sela!
The fist grazes my skull, feels like being grazed by a sledgehammer, splinters the floor next to my head.
– Baby, come here, baby.
Sela’s nostrils open, then her mouth. She leans her face to mine, I’m waiting for her to bite, and she’s gone, jumping like a tick, and I can feel an imprint of her hot skin where her legs and thighs and bottom rested against me.
And I smell blood.
Up on an elbow, those two fucking ribs broken yet a-fucking-gain, I take a gander at what it looks like when everything goes completely off the rails.
The room takes up most of the top floor. Large parts of it have been turned into a lab. Steel tables, refrigerators, computer equipment, things that look like they analyze stuff, test tubes, an autoclave. Hell, there’s even Bunsen burners. Just missing a Tesla coil to make it a complete mad scientist setup. Another part of the room is devoted to another kind of business. There are a lot of guns scattered around, cases of dehydrated high-energy and high-protein meals. Cases of whiskey and vodka, jugs of water, batteries, a couple small gas-powered generators. A bank of flickering CCTV screens, most dead, with an occasional jump to a picture of the front stoop, the stairwell, one of those empty barracks, and a night vision-green view of a row of steel doors in a basement. In front of the screens, a length of 2×4 with a series of knife switches screwed into it, wires running to a hole in the floor. The office consists of a big wood desk covered in papers and uneaten meals, three computer monitors, a model made out of sticks and little balls and geodesic blocks. Across the room are two open doors: through one I can see a bathroom, through the other it looks like living quarters.
A couple things are especially riveting. Start with a row of glass jars, big-ass jars, along one of those steel tables, each with a head floating inside. But that’s not the showstopper. That’s the young lady sitting at the desk.
Young, beautiful, brilliant and rich, Amanda Horde always had it all. Including a bonus set of whacked-out parents. Still, long as I’ve known her, she’s been looking for more. Looking to do something special. Cure what ails us. Even though she’s not one of us. Girl on the edge of things, special she is.
And at the moment, her half-starved Vampyre lover’s mouth is latched over a cut on her forearm.
She runs her fingers across Sela’s forehead.
– That’s right, baby, it’s OK. We’re OK.
She looks at me.
– Joe.
I look at her.
– Hey, Amanda.
She gives a flat smile.
– Can you come over here and give me a hand, Joe? I mean, mostly she’s fine, but sometimes it takes a little extra work to pull her off once she gets started.