I can’t think of another joke.
All I can think of is the truth.
Damn.
—No. I didn’t make it up. It’s there.
She’s someplace quiet, I can hear her breathing. The breathing stops like she might say something, but she doesn’t.
Then she does.
—You left them there.
She’s right about that. Isn’t she.
—Well. I tell ya, Lydia. If I’d had my Pied Piper gear with me, I’d have played ‘em a tune they could have all followed me out to. Just didn’t happen that way.
—Fucker.
Again, she’s right about that.
—Want to get this all off your chest now, or you gonna keep dragging it out? I only ask ‘cause if you’re gonna drag it out I might set the phone down while I go to the bar for a drink.
—Hey, Joe?
—Yeah.
—Have you noticed something?
—Tell me.
—I’m not laughing at your jokes. Know why?
—Because you never have?
A plucked-wire tone comes into her voice, making me glad I’m not in the same room with her.
—I’m not laughing because the idea of someone uncovering an underground concentration camp and spreading news of that camp, setting off a war, and then running away from the consequences and responsibilities embodied in his discovery and subsequent actions, I’m not laughing because the idea of that doesn’t leave room for anything to be funny anymore. I’m not laughing, Joe, because you’re not funny. Sad. Pathetic. Cowardly. But not funny.
—You haven’t asked why I called.
I’ve been making a cigarette while she talks. I light it now.
—I’m calling because I need your help.
I take a drag.
—Now tell me that’s not funny.
She doesn’t tell me any such thing.
Instead, she says something of her own that’s funny.
—We have to go and get them out.
This cigarette, why isn’t it a Lucky?
—If they’re really down there, we have to go and get them.
I mean, I’ve been up top how many hours now?
—Everyone is fighting, but they’ve already forgotten the point of what the fighting is about.
I’ve got a pocket full of Chubby Freeze’s money.
—We need to do what’s right. We need to go and get those kids.
Why haven’t I walked into a deli and bought a carton of Luckys already?
—I have Fury and the rest of my Bulls. We have some weapons.
Distracted. That’s why.
—We have vehicles.
I keep getting distracted.
—But we can’t just drive over to Queens and go around in circles.
Every time I think of a Lucky, something distracts me.
—We need to know exactly where it is. How it’s set up.
What is she talking about?
—You know where it is. You were inside.
Is she?
—We need you, Joe.
Crazy.
—You’re crazy, Lydia.
—Yeah. But tell me it’s not funny. Us needing each other. Give it to her, it’s funny.
—What’s Terry say to your little plan?
She grunts.
—Terry says there’s no point in going over there if we don’t know where we’re going. He says you’re the only one who knows. He says that even if we found you, we couldn’t trust anything you say.
—Because I’m me.
—Yes. But if you were with us, we’d know. You’d have to steer us right if you were with us.
—Because you’d kill me otherwise.
—Yes.
—Fuck, Lydia, put it like that, how can I resist. Sign me up, I’ll be right there.
—It’s the right thing to do.
I don’t laugh exactly, but I maybe chuckle.
She doesn’t.
—Fuck you, Joe.
—Yeah, yeah.
She inhales.
—You haven’t told me what kind of help you need.
I have a little whiskey at the bottom of my glass, and then, suddenly, I make it disappear.
—I’m not gonna make a deal, Lydia.
—What do you need?
More whiskey in my glass.
I signal the bartender.
—I’m looking for Chubby Freeze’s daughter.
A sound, like Lydia’s tapping her teeth with her thumbnail.
—The baby.
—Comes with the rest of the package from what I hear.
—Who wants her?
—Chubby. You meet her or her boyfriend?
More tapping.
—Terry kept them sequestered. Shaping the message was his line. But the message was already shaping. People heard about them and their baby, they started thinking fantasy. Heard some savior talk. Like that kind of belief and faith hasn’t caused the world enough pain. They had ideas of their own, I guess. Slipped off. Terry was irate. He thinks she’s important. Symbolically.
—She’s a little more than symbolically important to Chubby.
More tapping,
—Sure, but I don’t know where she is.
—I didn’t ask.
Tapping stops.
—You know where?
—I have a lead.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
—And?
—You might be able to help me get there.
—And?
I take a hit off my drink.
—Ever talk to Sela these days?
—No.
—Too bad.
—No. I mean, no. I mean, not there. Is she there? Is that where she? With the baby?
—Could be. Last place she was headed.
—Joe. That place. Joe. It’s gone wrong in there.
—Yeah, Predo’s trying to starve them out.
—No. It was already going wrong. Joe. Some of our people who joined up, they tried to leave Cure. We got word from them. There are things happening in there. Chubby’s daughter. The baby. They can’t. Are you sure?
—Lydia.
—Get them out, Joe. Get them out.
—I don’t even know how to get in.
—You.
She raises her voice more than just a bit.
—You fucking asshole! You go through the front fucking door, you asshole!
—Coalition.
—It’s East Seventy-third between First and Second, you asshole! Take a fucking cab, jump out, run up to the door and start knocking! What the fuck are they going to do, shoot you in the middle of their own fucking turf? Fuck!
She may be onto something.
—Hey, Lydia.
—Fuck. What?
—So I was right, calling you, you did kind of help.
—Fuck you.
—Sure. And something for you too, sweetheart.
She’s catching her breath after all the excitement.
—What?
I measure it once, start to measure it again, making sure I want to cut before I do, but hell with that. I just chop the fucker up.
—You want to launch a raid on that hole. You might try asking Terry for directions.
She’s all caught up with her breath now.
—Terry.
—Yeah. Him.
—Don’t fuck around, Joe.
—Hey, lady, like you said, I was there. I saw it.
I finish my drink.
—Trust me, I’m not fucking around.
—Terry.
—Just saying you should ask.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
—You know, Joe, there’s a second half to that joke.
—Don’t say.
—Sure. Goes, How do you know when a gay guy is on a second date?
—Tell it.
—What second date?
We don’t laugh, either of us, but it doesn’t mean we aren’t amused.
—See ya around, Lydia.
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—What’s really funny?
—What?
—I almost hope that’s true. She hangs up. Lydia Miles.
A sense of humor. The world must truly be coming to an end.
I celebrate with a last drink, pay my tab, roll a cigarette for the walk to the Impala, hit the sidewalk, smell bleach, take a second to wonder why the guy scrubbing the sidewalk with a push broom is wearing such nice shoes with his coveralls, and then another guy in coveralls and nice shoes pops up and points a bright orange toy rocket launcher at me and I just finish reading the words LESS LETHAL printed on the weapon’s stock before he pulls the trigger and a 40mm shell loaded with five wood slugs hits my chest, breaks a few ribs, slams me into the wall, puts me on my ass, and keeps me there while he shoots me a couple more times. Not that he needs to.
So, turns out the Coalition doesn’t have any problem with shooting it up on their own turf after all. I’ll give them points on restraint to the extent they used the riot gun, but it was still quite the spectacle. And it hurt plenty. Generally, a gun like that, you want to be at least twenty or thirty feet from your target, skip the rounds off the ground so they break up and pepper the legs of your average unruly mob. It’ll leave a mark, but who can’t live with a charley horse? From five feet out, put square in your chest, things get a little intense.
I move, feel the loose ends of ribs grating against each other, and stop moving.
A few of the wood slugs bounced upward off my chest and got me in the face. When I open my eyes I feel dry blood crack, same when I open my lips.
I’m looking at a concrete ceiling, fluorescent lights. Smells like gasoline, exhaust fumes and motor oil. I hear an engine starting somewhere, echoing, squeal of rubber.
Parking garage.
—Asshole.
I turn my head. It hurts. All I get for the trouble is confirmation that I was right, I am in a parking garage. Black SUV nearby. Couple limos farther away. A ramp coming from a lower level. No ramp heading up. We’re at the top.
—Asshole.
Oh yeah, and I also get a look at the guy who shot me.
He’s out of his coveralls now, stripped down to black suit. Just a little of the bleach smell they used to cover their Vyrus scent clings to him. But he still has the orange riot gun, and he’s still pointing it at me.
—Asshole.
I finish casing the situation and look at him.
—Are you talking to yourself?
He nods.
—Funny, asshole.
He shoulders the gun, takes a bead on my face.
—Next round is pepper juice.
—Got it.
—Do anything I don’t like, gonna get it in the face.
—Got it.
—Find out what a face full of pepper juice feels like.
—Said, I got it.
—One move I don’t like, bang!
—Yeah, like I said, I got it. Clear on the pepper juice in the face. Now will you shut the fuck up so I can lie here and think quietly about how good it’s going to feel when I shove the barrel of that thing in your mouth and empty it down your throat.
Bang!
It’s a new one on me, shell full of pepper juice in the face. Blinds my good eye. Goes up my nose, gets in my ears, in my mouth, so much of it I swallow some. I vomit and that sure helps my ribs out. It hurts so much I have to move. I crawl in little blind circles, screams echoing, blotting out the sounds of the cars below.
—Asshole! Shut up! Knock that shit off before I hit you with another baton round.
Voice is close. He kicks me in the thigh. I crawl and scream and vomit a little more. He kicks me again. I slump against his leg, screaming, rubbing my face into his leg, trying to get the burning off. He grabs me by the hair to pull me away.
Which is how I know he’s not pointing the riot gun at me anymore. So I wrap both arms around his legs, pull them out from under him, hear the crack when his skull hits the concrete, reach up his leg and find where it meets the other leg and grab a fistful of what’s there and start squeezing and yanking and twisting, use my other hand to make a fist and start hammering the middle of his stomach, hear a clatter of plastic and metal, see a blur of bright orange next to me, pick it up and swing it like a club, bringing it down over and over on the place where I think I see his face.
By the time my eye has cleared enough for me to get a look at how I did, there’s no point in emptying the gun in his mouth, but, like with Lament, I said I’d do it. Laughing when I get another look at that legend printed on the stock.
LESS LETHAL
But just enough.
Anyway, kind of a shame about emptying the thing. Seeing as it means I don’t have anything lethal or otherwise when I climb off the enforcer’s dead body just as another limo tops the ramp, pulls to a stop, and three more enforcers get out and grab me and hold me down while Dexter Predo exits from the back of the car.
—Pitt.
He takes off his jacket.
—I can’t tell you.
He undoes a button on his white shirt, tucks his tie inside.
—Just how pleased I am.
He undoes his cuffs and rolls his sleeves to his elbows.
—How unequivocally delighted.
He takes a pair of calfskin black gloves from a back pocket and snugs them onto his hands.
—Imagine the odds.
He reaches in the open door of the limo, comes out with a small black doctor’s bag that looks like a prop from an old movie.
—Meeting like this.
He walks over to where I’m pinned, steps across my body and stands over me with a foot on either side of my torso.
—It could only happen through sheerest luck.
He lowers himself and sits on my chest.
A rib end pokes my lung.
—Or if someone were idiot enough to park a known Hood vehicle in a high-surveillance area of Coalition turf.
He sets the bag next to my head and twists open the brass clasps.
—Leaving it there for nearly an hour.
He takes a pair of green-handled shears from the bag.
—While he slips into a bar for a few drinks.
He opens and closes the shears, testing the action.
—How fortunate for me that you are just such an idiot.
He looks at the enforcer holding my left arm and the guy shifts his grip and puts a knee in my shoulder and lifts my hand from the ground and I ball it into as tight a fist as I can.
Predo shows me the shears.
—Through a long process of elimination, over many years, I have found that the compound action of a good pair of hoof rot clippers allows for the easiest and cleanest severance.
He nods and the enforcer starts to pry at my fist.
—Now, we could start small, work our way up, but I feel we’ve covered so much ground already in our relationship. So many threats unfulfilled. At this juncture, I think we can do away with the formality of gradualism and move directly to actions that make a distinct impression. Permanency can be difficult to accomplish in this line. You’ve lost an eye already. And what’s another toe, really? A man of your experience, what can I do that has not already been done?
Trying to open my fist, the enforcer has broken my pinkie and ring fingers to get what he’s really after. But he has it now.
Predo points.
—Do you know what separates us from the animals, Pitt? Our thumbs.
He fits the open shears around the base of mine.
—Our opposable thumbs are what allowed us to become users of tools. And our use of tools is inextricably linked to the development of our brains.
He looks at me.
—But you, Pitt, with your profound and recurring idiocy, you can undoubtedly spare a thumb.
He squeezes.
—Perhaps even two.
The blades pass through the skin and meat and bone in a single smooth snip that proves Predo was right. They really are the best tool for the job
.
My thumb on the ground, he decides to change tack for the moment and snip off my broken little finger next. One knuckle at a time.
I manage to stay with the show for the first two knuckles, by the third I’ve blacked out.
Not wondering if I’ll wake, but if there will be anything left of me when I do.
I’m gonna die.
Not a news flash or anything. We all live under the same headline. But I’m gonna die here and now. Soon, anyway. In however much time it takes Predo to whittle me down to dead.
I know I’m right because I’ve felt the same thing so many times before. By now, I know exactly how it feels to know that you’re about to die. And in all that time, it only ever happened once. And that lasted for less than a minute. I’m not saying it makes me feel optimistic about my chances here, but it does make me feel like there may be a play left in my hand.
All I have to do is sell people out.
• • •
I come to.
Count my fingers.
Still got five on the right hand and three on the left.
That’s the good news. Bad news is, Predo’s still on my chest, has the shears fitted at the top knuckle of my left ring finger, and seems to have just been waiting for me to open my eyes.
—Ah, there you are, Pitt. Welcome back.
He clips the knuckle, and I lose another fingerprint.
He moves the shears down about an inch.
I sell someone out.
—Digga’s going to backstab you on the treaty!
He doesn’t take the knuckle, but he doesn’t move the shears from the finger either.
His brow furrows.
—I told myself.
He squeezes the shears just enough to break the skin around the knuckle.
—I told myself I’d finish the whole hand first.
A little more pressure and I can feel the blades touch bone, the scrape of steel.
—Before I asked what you could possibly be thinking that would make you do something so monumentally stupid.
He stops squeezing.
—When we both know, truly, that despite your best efforts to prove otherwise, you are not at all stupid. And, Pitt.
He closes his eyes and gives his head a little shake.
—I do not at all appreciate your interjecting here and causing me to rethink my plan of action.