Joe Pitt 3 - Half the Blood of Brooklyn (5 page)

Christ, why didn't I bring a gun?

--Sela, long time no see, you were a champ that time I needed a hand, but I could give a
fuck what you want my minutes for. They're mine. Top of that, I'm up here on business. Got
a transit from Predo. You want to fuck with me, that's who you'll have to deal with.

Her tongue wets her lips.

--Look at you. Look at you. Joe Pitt, hiding behind Dexter Predo's skirt. How's a thing
like that happen? How's a man like you get that low? Lose himself that deep? Got to be a
story there.

I flip my Zippo open and closed a few times.

--Last time I checked, I'm not the one disavowed the Society. I'm not the one came up here
and pledged Coalition.

--I didn't come up here for politics.

I kick the can from between our feet and go around her.

--Like I give a shit.

She doesn't move.

--I came up for the girl.

I keep walking, kicking the can.

She stays where she is.

--She wants to see you, Joe.

I kick the can, follow it down the path.

--I don't want to see her.

--She knows, Joe. She knows it all.

I freeze, my leg cocked.

--How's she know?

Sela pulls the ends of the belt on her coat, drawing it tighter over her waist.

--I told her.

I kick the can and watch it sail into the darkness away from the path.

--Why the fuck did you do a thing like that?

She walks past me toward a limo that has pulled to the curb where the path is cut by the
65th Street Transverse.

--Because she asked.

I watch her back.

--You could have lied.

She stops at the limo, turns to me.

--You don't lie to people you love, Joe. It doesn't work.

She opens the door.

--Now get in the fucking car so I don't have to drag you in.

I get in the car.

--You shouldn't be mad at Sela.

--Who says I'm mad at Sela?

--No one.

--Right. Know why? Because I'm not mad at Sela, that's why.

The girl flicks her fingertips at the jagged line of bangs on her forehead, keeping them
mussed just so.

--You are
soooo
mad at Sela. Know how I know you're mad at Sela?

--No. I don't.

--I
know
you're mad at Sela because you didn't check out her ass when she went out of the room.
And
everyone
checks out Sela's ass.

--Except me, I guess.

--No,
you too.
Because your eyes kind of
flicked over
to check out her ass, and then you remembered how
mad
you are at her so you didn't look. Like that was showing
her
or something. Which is
really
funny because all you did was cheat yourself out of a good look at an
amazing
ass. I should know. I look at it all the time.

She cranes her neck around and looks down her back at her own bottom.

--I do
all
the same exercises as her. I mean, not the same weights, she's
way
stronger than me.
Obviously.
But I do all the calf raises and presses and leg curls and
everything
that's supposed to make your ass pop, and mine just stays where it is. Flatflatflat. I
want an ass like Sela's.
Everyone
wants an ass like Sela's. One way or another.

She looks at me, the bangs back in her eyes.

--But yeah, you
maybe
don't want her ass. I hear you have a
girlfriend
or something. I mean, I don't really
believe
you wouldn't want Sela's ass, but
maybe
you don't.

--She's got a dick.

She frowns.

--Huh?

--Last I heard, Sela was pre-op. She's got a dick.

She shakes her head. --
So?
What's that got to do with her
ass
?

I put a cigarette in my mouth.

--Christ if I know.

She watches while I light up and take a drag and blow smoke. She watches while I do that,
while I stand there and itch all over from the need to get the hell out and do something
for Evie and try not to look like I've got a care. She watches until there's a long ash
hanging from the end of the cigarette and I'm looking for a tray.

She smiles and points at a low table next to an Eames chair and ottoman.

--Over there.

I walk over, my hand cupped below the ash, and knock it into the silver tray on the table
and stand there and smoke some more.

She points.

--Can I have one of those?

I dig the pack from my pocket and shake a smoke out and toss it to her. She catches it and
places it in her mouth and walks down the room until she's right in front of me.

--Light?

I snap the Zippo in front of her.

She places the tips of her fingers on the back of my hand, guiding the flame closer to
her, the unbuttoned cuff of her long-sleeve blouse sliding up her forearm and revealing
the lone silver bracelet torn from a pair of handcuffs locked around her right wrist.

Her eyes flick from the bracelet and the few links of dangling chain to my eyes and she
catches me looking at the cuff, remembering how it got there.

She gives a little smile, like she's just scored a point, and she draws on the filterless
Lucky, and immediately starts hacking.

She doubles, choking and heaving, holding the smoke out at arm's length.

I pluck it from her fingers and put it in my face as I cross to the bar and pour a glass
of ice water from a crystal pitcher and bring it back to her.

I hold it out and she shakes her head, tears steaming down her cheeks, huge phlegmmy hacks
shuddering her little body. I push the glass against her lips and tilt it up and she's
forced to open her mouth and swallow, half of it running down her chin. The coughs subside
into little hiccups and she knocks my hand aside. I take the glass to the bar and set it
there and watch while she wipes her running mascara with the tails of her top.

I drop the cigarette in my hand into the water at the bottom of the glass and pluck the
one she started on from between my lips and tally her score.

--You almost had it down, you know.

She looks up at me, the makeup smeared from her face, the teenager beneath it revealed.

--Had what down?

--Your mom's act.

She stops wiping her face, walks around me behind the bar, drops a couple ice cubes in a
glass, pours some kind of triple-distilled boutique vodka from Romania or someplace over
it, and tosses the drink down her throat and pours another.

I smoke the cigarette I took from her mouth.

--See, that's not bad. You got the drinking down pretty good. Except your mom probably
wouldn't have bothered with the ice. But you're what, seventeen? So you got time to
develop. Another twenty years and you'll be a perfect Upper East Side white trash burnout
with a real grown-up booze jones, a trophy husband, a stable of gigolos, and a perfect
ass.

She sips her second drink, her breath raising mist from the ice.

--And when I'm just like my mom, will you kill me just like you killed her?

I take a drag. Taste her lipstick. Remember her mother's kiss.

I drop the butt in the bar sink.

--One other difference, she would have offered me a drink.

She finishes her own and puts the glass on the bar.

--Well, like you said.

She starts for the door at the far end of the room, unbuttoning her blouse as she goes.

--I'm not her. Get your own drink. I'm gonna go change.

--I won't be here when you get back.

She stops at the door and drops her blouse on the floor.

--Now who's pretending, Joseph? I mean, of course you'll be here. You just can't wait to
hear why I had Sela bring you up here. And to see how I've grown up.

And so Amanda Horde goes out of the room smiling, wearing thousand-dollar jeans, a scrap
of black lace, and the handcuff I once took from my own wrist and put on hers.

Damn me. Damn me if she isn't right.

Yeah, I killed her mom.

Sort of.

Mostly she was dead before I broke her neck. Mostly she was infected with a bacteria that
was turning her into something. Something you can call a zombie. For lack of a better word
that describes something that goes around eating people's brains. Mostly she wanted to
die. Afraid as she was that if she was around much longer she'd eat her own kid.

Far as I'm concerned, parents eating their kids sounds like more of the same. Doesn't mean
I want to watch it happen or anything. Killing the woman just seemed like the right thing
to do at the time. The right thing, or the best option.

But she did ask me to do it.

And she did kiss me.

It was a complicated night.

Think about a night like that often enough, you'll ask a lot of questions. Most of them
about yourself. The kind of person you are. What you'll do and why and when you'll do it.
What you believe in. What you really believe in.

In the movies, a vampire can't see himself in a mirror. Just because I can, that don't
mean I got to like looking. What's inside is inside for a reason. Because you're not
supposed to see it.

The girl, she's a girl. A kid. She doesn't know any better. And I know fuckall about what
she really wants because she's a teenage girl and who the hell knows what goes through her
mind. Figure she wants everything. She wants to see everything the world has to offer. And
being a rich kid, she wants to
own
it all.

Ah, youth.

I make myself a drink. She comes back after I've made a couple more.

--Sela can't get drunk.

I watch her come to the bar; she's kept the jeans, pulled on a tight pink tuxedo shirt
with ruffles down the front, reapplied the makeup, and resprayed her
retro-80s-rocker-grrl-shag cut.

I top off my bourbon and cross to the windows and look down at Park Avenue.

--Then she's not trying.

Amanda laughs. --
Seriously,
she can't.

--We can all get drunk. We just have to work real hard at it. Get enough booze in the
system before the Vyrus can clean it out.

--Yeah,
sure,
she told me that, but I mean in a
normal
way she can't get drunk. Because she's an
alcoholic.
So she doesn't drink. That's what I
really
meant, she can't
drink.
Alcohol, I mean. Not the
other
stuff. She drinks
that.

I drink whiskey, pretend to watch the street while I look at her reflection in the glass,
next to mine.

She crosses to the Eames and drops into it.

--But she
has
to drink
that.

I keep my back to her.

She opens a box on the table next to the chair and takes out a clove cigarette.

--Which, it doesn't
gross
me out or anything, but I do think it kinda
sucks.
No pun or anything. I mean,
really,
when you think about it, people eat cows and chickens and pigs and whatever they
want,
so what's the
dif
? Especially with someone like Sela who's
totally
got her shit together. I mean, with what I pay her as my trainer and my bodyguard, she
can just
buy
what she needs. She never has to think about
hurting
anyone. It would just be
so
much easier if she could go to a
store
or something.

She lights her clove with a silver table lighter shaped like a thorn-circled sacred heart.

--Can you imagine, like, blood
boutiques
? People would get all
sniffy
about where they bought their blood and stuff. And
someone
would be making money. And, like,
anyone
could sell their blood and make some
money
and it wouldn't matter if they were
sick
or anything because you guys can't
get
sick.

She blows a cloud of smoke without coughing.

--But it will probably
never
happen that way.

She sticks her tongue out, an onyx stud dots its tip.

--Because most people are
such
fucking prudes. They don't
get
anything. They think that if something's
different,
that means it's like it's abnormal. Like there's any such thing as
normal.

She leans back in the chair.

--Like when people see me and
Sela
out. If they see us having
dinner
together, a teenage
white chick
and a big
black
woman, they can't
help
but think it's all fucked up. And if they notice her
Adam's apple
? If they're
clued in
enough to know she was born with a
penis,
you can
see
the freak-out all over their faces. And the way they
love
it. The way they just
love
staring and whispering and thinking how much
better
than her they are. People just
suck
that way.

I don't argue with her about it.

She pulls her bare feet up on the chair.

--So it will probably
never
be like that. Like with all of you getting to live like everybody else.

She hugs her legs to her chest.

--Not unless someone finds a cure.

I turn around.

She rests her cheek against the tops of her knees.

--Did you know I just won a
lawsuit
? It was kind of a big deal. In the
Journal
and
everything.

--Must have missed it on my way to the funny pages.

--Uh-huh. Well, I
won
and I got the terms of my trust
altered.

She winks at me.

--You're right, you know. I mean, I'm kind of
surprised
you remembered, but you're right, I
am
seventeen. But in a couple months, I'm gonna be
eighteen.
Know what that means?

She bites her lower lip.

--It means that since I won my
suit,
I start to come into my
inheritance.
It means all the lawyers and all the board members and all the presidents and the CEOs
and
everybody
has to get out of my
ass.
It means that all the
business
and
finance
classes I've been taking at prep, all the
biochem
courses I've audited online, all the
tutors
I've run circles around because they can't keep up with how
smart
I am, it means that's
all
gonna pay off.

She smiles ear to ear.

--Because when I'm
eighteen,
I'm gonna exercise my voting shares and
take over
Horde Bio Tech Incorporated. And I'm gonna put it to work finding a
cure
for the Vyrus. Because, you know what?