Joe Pitt 3 - Half the Blood of Brooklyn (21 page)

--Joe.

--Still hiding the delicate inner workings of the ecosystem from your nearest and dearest.

--This is, man, this is very serious. So I'm, you know, clinging to my cool here and asking
politely. Where?

--Hey,
man,
here's a question for you.

--Not now, man.

--What was it like when you were in the Coalition? What was it like being all cronied up
with Dexter Predo, you fucking fraud?

He puts a hand to his temple and rubs.

--I'm wondering, Joe. I'm wondering if you can possibly be as stupid as so many people
think you are. I'm wondering if I have been wrong about you all these years and you really
are the idiot people talk about you being, you know, behind your back.

He picks me up and throws me across the kitchen and I smash into the cupboards and hit the
floor and shattered dishes rain over me.

He comes for me.

--I mean, hey, man, do you really think anyone would give a shit about that crap?

He grabs me by the ankle of my bad leg and swings me around and my back hits the table and
it explodes around me and I keep going and I put a dent in the refrigerator door and eight
of my ribs break.

He comes for me.

--Think about it, man, you know, the Society, it was created by a revolution against the
Coalition. You know who starts revolutions? Citizens!
Yes,
I was in the Coalition.
Everyone
was in the Coalition. You think that's a secret?

He takes me by the hair and punches me in the face twice and shakes his bloody fist.

--It's not a secret. Yeah, I was an enforcer for the Coalition. I don't, you know, go
advertising it around or anything, but it's not a secret. How do you think I learned about
power, Joe? How do you think I learned about corruption? And when I learned those lessons,
know what I did? I, you know, matured and changed. Like a normal fucking person. You think
Lydia doesn't know? She knows. But that's because she bothered to learn some history.
That's because she knows something about Hegel and revolutionary dynamics. She knows that
every thesis has an antithesis and that if you want to get anywhere you have to, man, you
have to create a synthesis. And that, you know, that doesn't just, like, happen. That
takes work. And you need tools to get it done. So I'm asking you, Joe, seriously now, to
drop the crap before I lose my cool.

He jerks my head from side to side.

--Tell me where the Count is.

Somewhere inside the fridge a bottle broke and OJ is leaking out onto the floor. I watch
it drip.

--Yeah. Alright, I get it. I get it. I'll tell you.

I look at my oldest friend through the blood in my good eye.

--He's gone Enclave on you, Terry. So,
you know,
all you got to do is run over there to their turf and grab him.

He lets go of my hair.

He rocks back on his heels and drops to his ass.

He looks at the floor between his legs.

--Joe. Oh, man. Oh, man. Man. Do you?

He looks up.

--Do you not get it at all? Has it all just gone over your head, man?

He waves a hand above his own head.

--Is it all just up here in the ether? Because let me break it down. There's a war. There's
a war being fought and it's heating up, man. The new faces from Brooklyn, why are we
trying to sort through all those rejects for the ones we can use? Because we're gonna need
them. It's getting unstable. The Island is getting unstable. And it can't last like this.
We have to have, man, this is the deal, we have to have something new. It can't go like it
has forever. We have to try something new. And we need every resource. We need, God, I
wish it were not so, but we need money. We need the Count's money. And. More than that.

He touches the blood on his knuckles. The Vyrus.

--They are trying to figure
this
out.

He shoves his hand at me.

--Predo and the Coalition. They are studying this. And they have resources that we don't
have. The Count. We needed him to learn shit. We needed his, you know, expertise. Such as
it was. We can't. If you want synthesis to happen, man, if you truly want two things to
become one new stronger thing, the two have to be balanced and equal. Otherwise you just
get one thing eating up the other. And shitting it out.

He lowers his hand.

--So please, man, please, tell me, you know, tell me you're fucking with me.

I look him over. This man. He took me in. He found me dying on the floor of a toilet and
took me in and kept me alive. He taught me what I needed to know. Without him, I would
have died that first night. Without him, I would have died a hundred times. Without him,
I'd have been dead years ago and Evie would be in a hospital bed right now.

Like that's his fault or something.

I want it to be, but it's not.

Like it would change something about where we are now.

--I'm not fucking with you, Terry. He's in the warehouse. He's Enclave. They got him.

He flops on his back and stares at the ceiling.

--Shit. Shitshitshit.

--And Daniel is dead. So things are likely gonna get much more fucked up over there very
soon.

He levers himself up on his elbows. Looks at me. Shakes his head. Gets to his feet and
toes some of the wreckage from the table.

--OK, Joe. I guess that covers it.

He bends over and picks up the broken halves of his glasses.

--This, man, this is so perfect.

He drops them.

--Shit. Well. We're gonna put you in the sun in the morning.

He walks to the door.

--I'll see you, then.

Alone again. Which is actually nice. Because I am so fucking tired.

Naturally, I dream about Daniel.

Or a thing that used to be Daniel.

A black tendril of it worms from a split in the air and it shivers and peels its way from
one world into this.

The old man of the subways points and laughs.

--See, buddy, see? Like I said. Looks like nothing, that rip in the air. Nothing a'tall,
huh, buddy?

I study the rip. It's doesn't look like nothing. It looks like a rapidly healing scar in
the throat of a sick girl.

Evie folds her arms on her chest.

--Why'd you lie to me, Joe? Why'd you lie about everything?

She cries a little and wipes the tears and puts a hand on my face.

--You didn't have to lie like that.

Purple sores rise across my face and over my scalp and my hair falls out and the Wraith
shudders from the scar in Evie's throat and leaves her empty and it goes through me and
freezes my blood and its passing whispers to me.

Be seeing you, Joe.

--You saved my life, you asshole. You saved my life and got me away from those animals and.
I would have called it a wash. I would have said,
Yeah, the asshole shot me, but he also saved my life.
I would have said,
Let's just call it even.
Where's your humanity, Joe? Where is your damn humanity? You had to infect that poor
woman? She wasn't sick enough? You had to try and do that?

I open my eyes and look at Lydia sitting in the dark kitchen on one of the chairs from the
ruined table.

--You gave her no chance. No choice. Just made it for her. Just. Look how small it makes
us. Look how small our lives are. Look what we're fighting over. The things we do to one
another. You chose this for her? This little life, or an awful death. Awful.

I uncurl from the ball I've twisted into on the floor and my knee snaps loud twice and I
wince and put my hands behind my head.

--Lydia. Do me a favor, go whine somewhere else.

She doesn't go.

--I already saved your life once, Joe.

--Sure. Why else would I come back for you?

--Right. Was there ever any question. So, debt's all paid up? All square up? The way you
like it?

--Far as I'm concerned.

--Except maybe I owe you a bullet.

I shift, try to find a position where something on me doesn't hurt.

--You're gonna have to hurry if you want to get that in.

She stands over me.

--They would have used me. They would have raped me and made me have babies they could
bleed.

--Yeah, so what?

--Never occurred to you?

--Just evening accounts.

--And now they're even.

--Yeah. You're doing nothing wrong. So stop wringing your hands and let me get some sleep.

I roll back onto my side.

She stands there for a minute, then I hear her walking to the door. Stopping. Turning
back.

--I saved you once already. I don't owe you anything.

I tug my shit-stained jacket closer.

--Lydia.

--Yeah?

--You're an alright chick. Too bad about the whole dyke thing.

--Fuck off and die, Joe.

--Sure. In the morning, babe. In the morning.

When she's gone I think about getting up and going to the window over the sink. The nails
she pulled out when I was smoking are still on the sill. I think about pushing it open and
rattling the security gate accordioned across it.

Then I try to get up. And I can't. I try again. Terry did a new number on my knee when he
threw me. And the ribs. And everything else.

I look at the door.

I drag myself over to it and try the knob. It's unlocked. I ease it open.

Hurley is on a chair in the hall, reading the funny pages.

--Joe.

--Hurl.

--Ya wanta be gettin' back in der?

--Not really.

He pulls a .45 from inside his jacket and points it at my hand.

--Bang.

I close the door a little.

--Got a smoke, Hurl?

--I said,
Bang.

I close the door.

I look at the nails way up there on the sill. I get a grip on the counter and pull myself
up and snatch the nails and fall back to the floor. I wrap my fingers around the nails.
When they come for me I might get lucky. I might get to put someone's eye out before
Hurley shoots me in the legs and drags me in the sun.

I think about the usual.

I sit in the dark kitchen and think about killing things.

Evie.

Oh, baby. I'm sorry.

An hour later there's gunfire and screaming in the hall and then silence and then Hurley
backs through the door and drops his .45s on the floor and puts his hands in the air and
looks over his shoulder at me.

--Someone ta see ya, I tink.

And Sela walks in with a machine gun.

I look at the machine gun.

--Jesus, where the hell did you get that?

--You coming?

I get to my feet. And I fall back down.

Sela waves the gun.

--I'm gonna pick him up, Hurley. Don't move.

I point at him.

--Fuck, just shoot him.

She looks at me, and Hurley makes his move, and she jerks the trigger and rakes him with
bullets and sidesteps and he hits the floor bleeding from a dozen holes.

--Fook, ah fook. Not again.

Sela grabs my hand and hauls me up and I wrap an arm around her and she gets me in a hip
carry and we make for the door.

Hurley writhes.

--Gah, shite. Mither. Ah, mither, does it got ta hurt so?

I drag my feet.

--You should kill him.

Sela looks out the door into the hall, looks back at Hurley.

--He'll die soon enough.

--No he won't.

But we're in the hall, passing the ripped-open bodies of three dead Society partisans, and
Terry is stepping out of the room where we slaughtered the Docks Boss.

--Stop, Sela.

Sela doesn't stop.

--Get out of the way, Terry.

I try to pull free of her.

--Shoot him.

He holds up one hand, the other is hidden by the edge of the doorway.

--Let's just all, you know, cool it here before this goes too far.

Sela doesn't stop.

--Back off.

I point.

--His hand, what's he got in that hand? Shoot him!

He starts to bring the other hand out.

--It's all cool.

Sela shakes her head.

--Don't bring the hand out.

I wrap my fingers around her gun hand and squeeze and she mashes the trigger and bullets
rip the hall to splinters as we fight over the gun and Terry dives back into the room and
the door slams shut.

Sela pulls the gun away.

--Hell. Hell. Hell.

She drops me and ejects the empty clip and takes a full one from her pocket and snaps it
home and opens up on the door and Terry comes through the wall next to the door in a cloud
of plaster and lathe and Sela turns toward him, but it's too late as he brings up the fire
axe Hurley used on the Boss and I'm still on the floor so I shove one nail in his inner
thigh and rip open the artery and I put the other one in his foot and the axe swings wide
and hits the wall and Terry goes down with empty hands and Sela has me again and makes for
the door as Terry pulls his foot free of the floor and tries to stop the jet of blood from
his leg and she takes me out and down the steps and throws me in the waiting
white-on-white '78 Thunderbird, ignoring my screams.

--Killhimkillhimkillhimkillhim!

--Joseph, you look like you could use something to drink.

Amanda scoots across the huge rear bench seat.

--Of course, you also look like you could use a bath.

She opens the compartment built into the middle of the seat back and takes out a glass and
pours bourbon into it from a full bottle of Wild Turkey and puts it into my hand and wraps
my fingers around it.

I try to bring it to my lips and the glass slips from my fingers and spills over my lap.

Amanda picks it up.

--Light
weight.

She refills the glass and holds it to my mouth and I drink and the alcohol burns the cuts
in my lips and tastes good.

Sela opens the driver's door and climbs back into the car.

--No one coming after us.

--Good job, baby.

Amanda takes the empty glass from my lips.

--More?

But she's already put the glass aside.