Half the Blood of Brooklyn

  —Where you hear that?

  He grins.

  —Seriously, man, you think Bird could move his action that close to Pike Street

  , and me and the boys wouldn’t know what’s what?

  —Even if it’s so, I only look after Society business.

  He takes a drag.

  —Joe, we go back?

  It’s a stupid question.

  We go back to the night I peeled him off the sidewalk after the Chinatown Wall had shredded his gang and left him broken. Some asshole cut his vein and bled him and then bled into him. Thought it’d be cute to leave him breathing. See if the Vyrus would take root and keep him alive. Alive or the next best thing, anyway. Lameass probably figured if Christian died it’d be no harm, no foul. If he lived he’d freak out, be torn up over what happened to his boys and do himself. Go out colorful. Didn’t figure I’d make the scene, do the right thing and clean up the mess before any cops or civilians got involved and found Christian still kicking.

  I could have bled him out. Could have tumbled him into the East River, just another floater for the patrol boats to fish out. But there was a time someone could have made the same call on me, so I figured I was due to pay that one off. Figured I’d get him on his feet, give him the score on the Vyrus and let him make his own call.

  Well I gave him the score. Filled him in on how the Vyrus was cultivating him. How it’d keep him sharp and strong and fast and pretty goddamn youthful for that matter, as long as he kept it fed.

  He asked the obvious questions.

  I gave the only answers.

  Blood. Human. As much as possible.

  Then I gave him some. And he liked it. Hell, we all like it. Just some can’t stand the thought that we like it. And what we have to do to get it.

  Tap as many veins as you like. Draw off just enough and leave behind a confused mugging victim or a zonked-out junkie. Hustle the blood banks, buy some green scrubs and lurk around the hospitals. Find a sweet Lucy who’ll open a vein for you as often as she can just because she loves to be used that way. Try lapping at your own slit wrists or sucking on a decapitated rat and get sick as a man guzzling seawater. Try it all to put off the one thing you don’t want to do, but sooner or later you’ll do it.

  And once you do, once you pop a blade through warm, healthy skin and feel the hot gush of living blood hit the back of your tongue, you’ll wonder why you waited so long.

  And then you’ll curse at how long you’re gonna have to wait till the next time. As few of us as there are running around, it’s still too many. We all start picking off civilians whenever we feel hard up, this island’s gonna be an abattoir. That happens, the lid blows off.

  We let them know we’re here, we let the real people know what’s lurking just underneath their lives, and we won’t last another night.

  We’ll all be in the sun.

  And what the Vyrus does to its host when it gets hit by the sun, it makes what my girl’s going through look easy.

  And it ain’t. That shit ain’t easy at all.

  I smoke and look at Christian and remember how he handled it when he was back on his feet. Way he handled it is, he found what was left of his gang, the Dusters. He managed to infect a couple. And they infected a couple more. After some months, when they had their shit together, they got on their hogs and hit the Wall. Massacre ain’t the word. I don’t know the word for what they did down in Chinatown. But the Dusters own Pike Street

  now.

  They haven’t been acknowledged as a Clan, but they could give fuckall as long as no one messes in their shit. And no one does.

  I flick a butt into traffic.

  —Yeah, sure, we go back.

  He fits his goggles over his eyes.

  —Then believe me when I say, What I got to show you, this kind of thing is everybody’s business.

  I get on the back of the bike.

  —Where we going?

  —Rivington off Essex.

  I put my feet on the bitch pegs.

  —Not the fucking Candy Man?

  He taps his toe on the shifter.

  —Yeah, the fucking Candy Man.

  And he takes me for a ride below Houston.

  The basement reeks of blood and ammonia and candy.

  —What do you think, Joe?

  —What do I think?

  I take another look at the poor slob spread all over the floor: arms and legs and hands and feet and head and bisected torso and ripped-out heart all laid pretty much where they should be, but with about a foot or so between various parts that should be connected.

  —I think we got a fucking Van Helsing on our hands.

  Christian claps his hands to his cheeks and bugs his eyes.

  —A Van Helsing? Ya think?

  I look at the big white Maytag refrigerator in the corner of the basement. Blood is smeared around the handle and drips from the seal at the bottom of the door, pooling on the floor.

  —Don’t be a smartass, Christian. Nobody likes a smartass.

  —You would know.

  I go to the fridge and tug on the silver handle. The blood around the seal makes a noise: two pieces of overused flypaper being peeled from each other.

  Two dozen slashed blood bags drip the last of their contents over the stainless steel shelves. A small flood of it washes out onto the floor.

  Christian walks over.

  —Any of it still good?

  I pick up one of the bags and hand it to him.

  He smells the ammonia it was laced with, the same ammonia that’s been splashed around the basement.

  He drops the bag.

  —That’s fucked up. What’s he think, the ammonia’s gonna hurt us?

  I dab my index finger in some of the blood.

  —Make for one hell of a stomachache. If he hadn’t poisoned it, I’d be licking the fridge clean right now.

  He pushes his top hat to the back of his head.

  —Well, sure, me too, man.

  He considers.

  —And still, might be worth the sick to have a drink.

  I smell the blood on my fingertip.

  —Won’t do you any good, ammonia killed it. Vyrus won’t want it.

  He kicks the fridge door closed.

  —Fuck.

  I wipe my finger on a piece of old newspaper I peel from a stack under the stairs.

  —Can you get a scent?

  He flares his nostrils, inhales, grimaces.

  —Ammonia’s overpowering most of it. You?

  I shake my head. I’ve been sniffing around like a hound and can’t get one good trace of whoever did it. The mess spilling from what used to be Solomon’s belly, the ammonia and the basement overstock are killing the subtler human traces of sweat and skin. If I’d had some blood today the Vyrus might be running strong enough to peak my senses, but I didn’t. And Sol’s is making me damn hungry.

  I toe the head on the floor and watch it rock back and forth.

  —When’d you find him?

  Christian is skirting a spill of intestine.

  —Swineheart and Tenderhooks rolled over here right after sundown looking to score. They didn’t know the shop closed for Sabbath and rattled the gates for a while before they went round to the alley side and banged on the trap. Smelled the blood. Twisted the lock off the trap and came down here. Saw this shit and freaked out. Came and got me.

  I poke around some boxes, shifting them, looking for God knows what. Moving the boxes releases sugary pink smells.

  —Swineheart and Tenderhooks got freaked?

  Christian points at the corpse.

  —This shit? You bet they did. Who wants to fuck with a Van Helsing?

  The answer is no one.

  Fuck with some kid who stumbled onto the wrong scene at the wrong time and managed to get out alive and declares a war on the undead and comes after you armed with holy water, garlic, and a crucifix? Sure, no problem. Holy water’s just gonna get you wet, garlic’s just gonna make your breath rank,
and a crucifix is just a stick with a guy nailed to it. Nothing special. A Van Helsing like that comes after you, all you got to do is get him someplace dark and give his head a twist. After that, it’s all a matter of how much of his blood do you drink right away and how much do you drain off and mix with an anticlotting agent so you can drink it later.

  But a real Van Helsing? That’s a different matter. A real Van Helsing knows that you bring a Vampyre down the same way you bring anyone down; only more so. A well-fed Vampyre won’t like taking a bullet in the leg, but it won’t stop him, not unless it hits the femoral artery and he bleeds out before he can stick a finger in there to plug the hole while it heals. And it’ll heal. Fast. A Van Helsing that knows that? Knows to put some large-caliber rounds into a Vampyre’s face, neck, chest? Or maybe to cut his or her head off? Or strangle him long enough to starve the brain of oxygen? Or has a handy tub of cement around to plant their feet in before dumping them off a bridge? Or has a big truck to run into them and roll back and forth over the broken body before the bleeding wounds can close and the bones knit? A Van Helsing who knows how weak we can become when unfed? Or how vulnerable to the sun? One who knows to look for the signs of feeding, the high mugging rates, the mysterious disappearances, the rumors among the squatters and the winos? A Van Helsing who really deserves the name? No one wants to fuck with that.

  I put a couple boxes of Sugar Daddies back in place.

  —Yeah, no one wants to mess with that. Funny, though.

  Christian is looking in the hole in the guy’s chest.

  —How’s that?

  I start up the stairs to the shop above.

  —Funny a Van Helsing gets all old school with the evisceration and the beheading, and the guy he’s carving up ain’t even infected.

  He follows me.

  —Yeah. Thought about that myself.

  He jerks a thumb back at the corpse.

  —Old Solomon never was a lucky one.

  I reach the top of the stairs and push the door open and the smells of roasted nuts and dried fruits and caramel and chocolate and high-fructose corn syrup and red dye number 5 and pure cacao and refined sugar and gelatin and all the other stuff that goes into the stock of the Economy Candy Store hits me in the nose.

  —Yeah, but he ran a great fucking candy shop.

  Christian walks past a counter, reaches into a glass jar, grabs a jawbreaker and tosses it into his mouth.

  —No lie there.

  Bottle Caps, Big League Chew, Pop Rocks, Almond Joy, Gold Mine bubble gum, candy cigarettes, Pixy Stix, 100 Grand bars, Chunkys and a couple hundred other varieties of packaged candies. And in barrels: roasted and raw cashews, peanuts, almonds, brazils, hazelnuts, pistachios and filberts. And in plastic buckets: dried cherries, apricots, apple rings, peaches and pineapple. And laid out on wax paper inside the glass cases at the front of the crowded shop: bricks of dark Belgian chocolate, turtles, white truffles, chocolate-covered pretzels and strawberries and orange slices.

  He bites down on the jawbreaker; his perfect teeth, polished and hardened by the Vyrus, crush it like an eggshell.

  —Before I got infected, ’bout half the teeth in my head were ready to fall out because of this place. Growing up off Water Street

  , my mom used to bring me and my sister up here after church on Sundays. Give us a buck to split between us.

  He rips open a Fun Dip packet, licks the white candy wand, dips it into the sugar powder inside and pops it in his mouth and sucks on it.

  —Still got that sweet tooth, man. When I first found out the business old man Solomon ran in the basement, the real moneymaker, I was a little disillusioned. Got to say. Kiddies upstairs getting fixed on sugar, Vampyres in the basement scoring. That’s kind of jacked up. Even in my book.

  I pick up a necklace, beads of pastel candies strung on a choker of elastic.

  —You got over it.

  He takes the candy wand out of his mouth.

  —Hey, get hard up enough, who isn’t gonna come see the Candy Man? Telling me you never darkened his doorway?

  I drop the necklace in the side pocket of my leather coat.

  —I was a Rogue. I didn’t have a Clan or a gang backing me up if I went off my home turf. Coming down here before I hooked back up with Terry, that wasn’t an option.

  He waves the wand.

  —Shit, Joe, we would have had your back.

  I go behind the counter and poke around in the drawers and the register.

  —Yeah, and that would have cost me something.

  He dips up more of the purple powder.

  —Never said nothing in life wasn’t free.

  I find the hogleg back of the counter and put it next to the register.

  —Never said you did.

  He points at the sawed-off double barrel.

  —Loaded?

  I pick up the gun and crack the breech and show him the two 12-gauge shells inside.

  He shakes his head.

  —Imagine keeping something like that around in a shop fulla kids.

  I snap it closed and tuck it into my belt at the small of my back, letting the coat fall over it.

  He takes a look.

  —Pretty good conceal. Long as you don’t start doing jumping jacks it won’t show too bad.

  I find a half-full box of shells and put it in the pocket with the necklace.

  Christian drops the remains of the Fun Dip in a wastebasket and wipes the back of his hand over his purple-stained lips.

  —Makes you wonder, though.

  —Huh?

  —Why he kept the gauge up here with the kiddies instead of downstairs where the real dangerous types were coming in.

  I walk to the stairs.

  —Solomon wasn’t stupid. Some junkie walked in here looking to clear out the register, he could handle that just by showing him the gun. Downstairs? Any infected stupid enough to try and knock out the only dependable dealer south of Houston would have to be stone strung out. Shotgun wouldn’t have been worth a shit. Hit a burner with both barrels, take his head off, his fucking body will walk across the room and rip you in half.

  —Know that for a fact, Joe?

  I’m half down the stairs. I stop and look back up at his silhouette at the top.

  —I know it.

  He starts down.

  —Still and all.

  —Yeah?

  —Shame he didn’t have it down here today.

  We hit the bottom and look at the corpse of the Candy Man.

  —Shit, Christian, he wasn’t one of us. Fuck did he think he had to worry about from real people?

  —Got a point.

  There’s a box of garbage bags in the corner with the cleaning supplies.

  I pick up a mop.

  —Ready to get started?

  —Sure.

  He tears a bag out of the box.

  —Why you think they done it?

  I stick the mop bucket under the tap in a big slop sink.

  —Could be the Van Helsing is only half smart. Killed him before he realized he wasn’t infected. More like, he knew Solomon was the Candy Man. Knew it would cause a shitload of trouble cutting off the supply down here. Did it Stoker style to make a point. Something like that. Fits with poisoning the blood in the fridge.

  He squats and starts picking up the smaller pieces.

  —Sounds about right.

  He drops a hand in the bag.

  —Sorry, Sol, you were a hell of a confectioner.

  Evie won’t talk to me.

  When I call, the night nurse says she’s fine, watching TV, but doesn’t want to talk to anyone.

  That could mean anything from she really is watching TV to she’s bent over her plastic bowl with chemo-heaves. I know which is more likely, but I try to pretend it’s the other.

  Not that she wants my sympathy. Not that she wants me lying in bed staring at the ceiling, chaining Luckys and thinking about the virus that’s eating her alive. Far as she’s concerned, I can fuck o
ff whenever I want and just stop hovering around asking how she’s feeling.

  Or I can do something to save her.

  Not that I take it seriously, all that shit. That’s just the chemo talking. The misery and the pain and the acid they’re pouring into her. She doesn’t really think I can do anything. She’s just fucking desperate.

  She’s just sick.

  Girl was sick the night I met her. I knew the score then and I got in the game anyway. Nothing’s changed between us. She’s still sick. We still don’t sleep together. I still eat my heart out every time I look at her.

  The pity party’s in the other room if you feel like joining it.

  I won’t be in.

  Only thing that’s changed is she’s dying faster. Faster than she was before. And faster than me. She’s dying really fucking fast.

  ’Course, she doesn’t know I’m dying. She doesn’t know shit about me. The nighttime schedule she chalks up to a sun allergy, solar urticaria. The guns and the rough and tumble and the padlocked fridge in my apartment and the donor blood I get deposited on her behalf so she always has enough for the transfusions she needs because of the anemia caused by the chemo? That’s all because of my job.

  Organ courier.

  Transporter of healthy tissues between those with perfect kidneys, healthy corneas, melanoma-free skin, pink lungs, unperforated intestines; and the miserable disease-wracked bastards with nothing but money. Nice work if you can get it.

  Except that it’s a lie.

  Yeah, I told my girl a lie. Just one on a long list. Once you skip over telling someone the part about needing to consume blood in order to feed the Vyrus that’s keeping you alive, there isn’t much room for truth in a relationship.

  So it’s built on lies. So if she knew what I am, what I do, she’d slap her hands to her face, scream NOOOOOOOOO and run from the room crying for help. Or not. Being Evie, she might just kick me in the balls for lying to her. Then she might ask a lot of questions. Then she might ask me if having the Vyrus in her would kill the virus in her.

  And I’d have to tell her the truth for a change.

  It would. The Vyrus will kill what’s in her. It will kill anything that invades and attacks its host.