Joe Pitt 1 - Already Dead (20 page)

--If it did, she didn't say anything.

--She
wouldn't.
Was she
drunk
when you saw her?

--Couldn't say.

--Yeah, most people can't. I can. If she's awake, she's drunk. She make a
pass
at you?

--No.

She looks at me.

--
Uh-huh.
As
if.
So'd you fuck her?

--No.

She looks at me some more.

--You'd be the first, then.

--Not according to your mom.

She laughs. But not like anything is funny.

--So.

--Yeah?

--You know what happened to Whitney?

--I heard.

--That for real? That
Satanist
guy did it?

--That's what they say.

--Yeah.
Right.

She reaches in her bag and pulls out the partially eaten diet bar and starts picking at
the chocolate again. I watch her. I try not to ask. I fail.

--What?

Fool.

--Nothing.

--You think different?

You fool.

--No.

She picks a piece of chocolate, eats it, picks another and drops it on the floor; then
goes on like that, alternating a bite for a drop.

-Just.

-Yeah?

-I got the idea that, maybe. I don't know. That maybe she was
blackmailing
my dad.

She scrapes off a last bit of chocolate with her front teeth, looks the bar over to see if
she missed any, then tosses the coconut remnant into a corner.

It doesn't make any difference.

Say she was. Say Whitney took those pictures of them fucking and threatened him;
threatened to show them to his wife, who was looking for some kind of leverage to get
Amanda away from him; threatened to take them to the papers and smear his rep. Hell, she
might have threatened to just post them for anyone who wanted to gape at Dr. Dale Edward
Horde, founder, president, chairman and CEO of Horde Bio Tech, as he fucked an Internet
porn star. So say she was blackmailing him. So what?

I know what the kid doesn't. I know her dad and Whitney crossed paths down here, right in
this room, right on that square of cardboard not ten feet away from us. But by the time
they did, she had already crossed paths with something much creepier than Amanda's
pederast father. By the time he found her the carrier had already taken a bite out of the
back of her neck. Did he even know?

Figure it this way. He comes down here with some muscle, the same muscle that probably
killed Dobbs for him, and they found Whitney. Couple days after being infected, her brain
would still be pretty much intact. Her speech centers, even some of her short-term memory
might work. She might even have been fighting her new impulses, trying not to become what
she already was. Figure Horde and his goons confront her somewhere. She won't answer any
questions. They think she's being tough, but she's just having holes bored through her
brain by the bacteria. Doesn't matter, they find the pictures and whatever else she has on
Horde. But he's not done, wants to teach her a lesson, but wants to do it somewhere
private. Figure he remembers the place Dobbs found his daughter last year. Maybe that
makes it better for him, having her on the floor in here, makes it easier to think about
Amanda, makes it closer to what he really wants. Whitney wouldn't have been easy. The
smell of his living flesh so close would have made her crazy. His guys would have had to
hold her down while he raped her. And when he was done? What the fuck did he care. He has
the evidence now and if she talks to anyone it's just the word of a teenage runaway slut
against his. No contest. So he left her there. And the next people to see her were
probably the two fashion junkies who came looking for a safe place to fix.

But it doesn't matter. It doesn't change anything for me, just fills in a couple gaps. It
doesn't make my job any easier. It doesn't make me any less hungry. It doesn't help me
forget the little girl lying on her side next to me taking a nap. It doesn't make my cold
hand feel less of the warmth of her body as she curls tighter, pulling my chained arm
close to her. It doesn't make me any less aware of the cardboard sheet on the other side
of the room where I smelled the rank sweat of Horde fucking a still-breathing dead girl.

It makes no difference to me at all. I still have to get her home. I still have to find
the carrier. I still have to do the job.

I tell myself this.

But all the while I see pictures of Horde's neck in my hands, my thumbs digging a hole
through his skin and ripping open the throbbing artery. And I feel the hot blood splash
against my lips and chin as I fit my mouth over the hole. As if that will make the world a
better place.

Fool.

I am such a fool.

--You
really
allergic to the sun?

--It's called solar urticaria.

--Sounds like
VD.

--It's not.

--So what happens if you go to the beach or something?

--What happens if you stick your hand under the broiler?

--No
shirt

--No shit. ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ

--That's so
wrong.

--Yep.

--Were you born with it?

--Not really.

--So when was the last time you were out in the sun?

--Long time ago. You got any change?

We're on the corner of 10th and A, standing in front of a pay phone. I wiped most of the
gore from my face and hands before we came up and have my jacket buttoned to hide the
blood on my shirt. The holes in my hands have scabbed, but aren't healing nearly as
quickly as they would if I was straight. They ache and throb like my face and ankle. But
the needles keep me too occupied to worry about things like that. All my hurts will be
healed when I get some blood, but I'm running out of time.

--Here.

She's holding out her hand, change pooled in her tiny palm. I pluck out two quarters.

--What's your mom's number?

--The apartment or her cell?

--Cell.

She rattles off the number and I dial. She stands on one side of the phone, trying to make
it look like she's not with me. Pretty hard to do with the cuffs, even when they're
covered by an extra T-shirt from her bag.

--Hello.

--Ms. Horde, it's me.

Amanda looks at me.

--Joseph. I.

--I have her.

--Oh, I. Thank you, Joseph.

Amanda raises her eyebrows.

--She's just
so
relieved, isn't she?

I ignore her.

--Do you want to come and get her?

--Yes I. No. No, you should. Can you bring her here?

Amanda is making little kissy faces.

--Is she just
so
grateful to you? Can she just not
wait
to see me?

--Sure. What's the address?

She gives me an address on 81st off Park Avenue. Amanda is just looking bored now,
watching everything but me, and listening to every word I say.

--We'll grab a cab and be there in twenty minutes.

--Good. Good. Joseph?

--Yeah.

--Can I?

--What?

She doesn't say anything.

--You want to talk to her?

Amanda turns her head to look at me again.

--No. No. That's. Just. You better just bring her home.

--OK.

I hang up and grab Amanda's backpack from the ground.

--Let's go.

--Didn't want to talk to her
darling daughter?

--Guess not.

--Don't be shocked.

--I'm not.

I wave the backpack at a passing cab. It stops. I open the door and wait while Amanda
thinks about it. She looks inside the cab, looks at me. I gesture at the open door. She
shrugs and climbs

in. I get in after her and give the cabbie the address and we roll. She's looking out the
window. I'm gritting my teeth and a little gasp squeezes out between them.

She turns from the window and looks at my face, looks at my swollen and scabbed lips
stretched tight over my teeth.

--What's
eating
you?

--Nothing. Just shut up for awhile.

--And I was looking forward to another
chat.
As
if.

And she goes back to the window. And I go back to feeling the pain that's building inside
me. My veins have started to burn.

The hours spent in the school basement hiding from the sun have brought me closer to the
next phase of Vyral starvation. The stage where my body will simply shut down as the Vyrus
makes adjustments deep within my brain. I'm at the border now, this is as far as I've
gone. I know I can take the pain right here in this moment, but I don't know if I can take
what will come in the next minute or the minute after that or all the very few minutes
remaining to me.

So I grind my teeth and clench my right fist, my fingernails digging into the scabbed palm
of my hand. And I tell myself that she is not the answer. Tell myself that having the
cabbie pull over and dragging her into a dark alley is not the answer. But the Vyrus is
telling me a different story. That's OK, I can ignore it. I can ignore it just as easily
as I ignore our hands sitting on the seat between us, the chain joining them beneath a
retro Joan Jett T-shirt she picked up somewhere on St. Marks because she thought it was
cool.

--
Moooom,
I'm
hoooome.

The elevator from the lobby opens directly onto the foyer. It's no more or less than you'd
expect: large, but not too large; expensively appointed, but not too expensively
appointed; tasteful, but

not too tasteful; boldly decorated, but not too boldly decorated. All in all, the kind of
place I would expect to find a fabulously wealthy and dysfunctional family with ties to
the Coalition. But not too much like that. I wait for the inevitable housekeeper to
arrive, but none does. Nor does anyone answer Amanda's call. I look at her. She looks back
and shrugs.
What did you expect, a victory parade?
I smear my forehead against my shoulder, wiping some of the cold sweat away.

The sweats got bad just as the cab pulled up to the Hordes' brownstone. I had to ask
Amanda to pay the cab because Tom took the last of my cash. She looked at me like I was
lame, but I've gotten used to that. She got a key out of her hip pocket and let us into an
entryway that was similar in every way to this foyer. Then she led me into an elevator to
take us the two flights to the floor her mother occupies. This accompanied by one of many
sideways glances to see what I think of her folks keeping separate quarters. I notice the
glances, but I'm not giving much back, focused as I am on the simmering fluid hissing
through my organs, I'm starting to wish the cramps would return.

--Mom!

No reply.

--Come
on,
she's probably passed out.

, She storms ahead of me, dragging me by the cuffs as I stumble clumsily behind her. She
looks back at me.

--You want to try
walking
for a change?

I don't say anything.

--I
knew
it. You
are
a junkie, aren't you?

I don't say anything.

--Well come
on,
junkie. Get paid and then you can get rid of me and go fix.

She hauls me down the central hallway that runs the length of the brownstone. I catch
peripheral glimpses of a bathroom, a kitchenette, a large bedroom. All done up in the
not too
style. At

the end of the hall we come up against a closed door. Amanda slaps her knuckles against it
once, then shoves it open.

--Hey, Mom, I'm
hooome.

She gives my arm a jerk and I take a lurching step into the room and she holds her cuffed
hand up in the air.

--And look what
I
found. Can I keep it?

Marilee Horde looks up from the glass in her hands. She's sitting on a couch that matches
everything in her little sitting room perfectly. Her red-rimmed eyes flick dully from
Amanda to me to Amanda.

--Oh. Oh, Amanda. I'm. I am sorry.

Amanda drops her arm.

--You got
that
right, Mom.

Marilee's head drops back down and she stares deep into her glass.

--Sorry.

Amanda takes a step into the room.

--Mom?

The guy who knocks me out doesn't hit me half as hard as Hurley did. Then again he doesn't
have to, I'm already halfway there. I go down and out. Sorry thing is, the Vyrus doesn't
seem to care whether I'm conscious or unconscious. It just keeps hurting me.

Metal is rasping on metal.

--How much longer?

--Little while. Quicker if we go through his wrist.

--Just the cuffs, please.

I can hear them talking, but I can't see anything. My eyes must be closed, but rather than
darkness, they peer into a pale gray abyss. Then something bobs up out of the abyss,
something dark that suddenly resolves into a man's face.

--He's awake.

The rasping stops and another face appears looking down at me. Something waves in front of
my face. A hand.

--Uh-uh. His eyes are open, but he's not awake.

Yes, he's right, my eyes are open. The gray abyss is the ceiling of Marilee Horde's
sitting room. I try to shift my eyes to get a look around. They don't move. I try to
blink. Nothing. I am frozen. The hand that was waving in front of my eyes slaps lightly at
my cheeks.

--He's out.

A third face appears. I know this one, Dr. Dale Edward Horde.

--Not to tell you how to do your jobs, but is he, perhaps, faking it? The hand flourishes
and an instrument materializes between its fingers: a stiletto long and thin, a rainbow
glittering along its well-honed edge. The blade dips close to my right eye and the point
hovers there, eclipsing half of the world.

--I'd say no.

--I'd like a more conclusive test.

The blade darts down and I hear the faint sound of steel entering flesh and feel the
slightest tug in my cheek. No pain, but the taste of my own dead blood runs down the back
of my tongue.

--He's not home.

--Very good.

The stiletto reappears, blade now lacquered with crimson. A handkerchief flutters and
wipes away the blood. Then handkerchief, blade, hand, and two of the faces exit from
sight. Horde remains above me, gazing down, inspecting me. He purses his lips and pokes a
finger at my cheek. It comes back into view with a smear of blood on its tip. He looks at
the precious drop, rubs it between his thumb and finger, sniffs at it.