Joe Pitt 3 - Half the Blood of Brooklyn (6 page)

She takes a drag.

--I'm not just my mom's daughter. I'm also my daddy's little girl.

She blows smoke out her nostrils.

--And he was a genius.

I polish off my drink.

--He was a fucking loon.

She flutters her fingertips.

--Well,
yeah.

I head for the bar.

--And you're following right in his footsteps with that crap.

She puts her feet on the floor.

--Where are you off to?

I put my glass on the bar and look at her.

--Figure I know now what you wanted to talk about. Figure I know you've grown up spoiled as
your mother and whacked as your father. Figure my curiosity is sated and I'm leaving now.

--No, that's not it.

I snag the bottle I've been drinking from off the bar and turn my back to her. I'm on my
way out.

--Mind if I take this for the road?

--Oh,
Joseph,
you're just afraid.

I hear her stand behind me.

--Is it the
girlfriend
thing?

I stop.

I turn.

She drags off her clove.

--Cuz I get that.
Sela
says that
Lydia
says that you have a
girlfriend
and
Lydia
thinks that she has
AIDS
and that you
take care
of her. Which
Sela
says
Lydia
can hardly
believe
and she thinks you
must
be using her as a Lucy or
something,
but I
totally
believe it because I
know
what you can be like. I know you like to have
something
to take care of. But what I
don't
get is, Do you really not
fuck
her? Because that's what
Sela
says
Lydia
thinks because of the way you talk about the Vyrus like it's something you can catch from
a
toilet seat
or something.

I think about the night I saved her life. I think about that, and it keeps me from doing
something to shut her up, something to shut her up forever.

She stubs her clove in the silver ashtray.

--Because
you can't,
you know. You can't get the Vyrus from a toilet seat. Or from
fucking.
If you could, Sela would have given it to me by now. Not that that's
scientific
or anything. But it's true. You can only get it from the
blood.
I've learned
that much
so far. But you're probably just
scared
of fucking her because you're scared of, you know,
intimacy
and all that. Because you
know
you're gonna die horribly and you don't want to take her with you or
whatever
stupid
clichŽ.
But here's the cool part.

She walks toward me.

--If you
did
give it to her, if you bled into her and made her like you, that would
cure
the AIDS. And
then.

She stops and reaches for the bottle in my hand.

--If I really can cure the
Vyrus
like I think I
can.

She takes the bottle from me.

--You could give her the
cure.
And she wouldn't be sick at
all
anymore. And neither would you. And you could do
anything.
You could be as
normal
as anyone, whatever that means.

She taps the stud in her tongue against the mouth of the bottle and drinks.

--If normal's what you
want.

This child, standing in front of me, talking about things I might want, talking like she
knows something about anything, talking about my little life like she understands what any
of her words mean or could mean to me.

This child, I do my utter best not to kill.

But that doesn't stay my hand.

I slap the bottle from her and it shatters against the wall and I bring my palm across her
face and send her to the floor.

She looks up at me, blood trickling from her nostril and the corner of her mouth.

--Who's my mama now?

I'm on my way out when Sela comes through the door. Her jacket's off, she's wearing a
leather vest over her implants, the muscles in her shoulders and arms cut by iron.

I plant myself and get ready to put my boot in her balls and she blows past me straight
for the girl.

--Baby.

--I'm OK.

--Stay there, I'll get some ice.

--I'm OK.

She props herself up on her elbows.

--He didn't do anything I haven't had done to me before.

Sela comes from the bar with a towel full of ice and cradles the girl's head.

I start for the door.

Amanda bares her teeth, blood smeared across them.

--Don't leave so soon. We haven't even talked about what happened that night.

I'm on my way.

She's still talking.

--I always thought they were nightmares. Till Sela told me what she knew.

Halfway to the door.

--But she doesn't know much. Only you know all of it. Do you know what I dream about? I bet
you do.

At the door.

--Do you dream about it? Is the cold shadow in your dreams too?

I stop.

I turn.

I wish again for a gun, to shut her up.

--Don't talk about it. It knows you. Never talk about it.

She touches the bracelet on her wrist.

--I dream about you too, Joe. Should I be afraid of you?

But I'm not listening anymore. I'm gone.

What's inside is inside for a reason.

What's hidden is hidden for a reason.

What's buried is buried for a reason.

The cab gets me back down to 10th Street. The keys get me back in my apartment. The code
turns on my alarms. The trap door takes me down to the basement room where I live in
secret. The combination opens the safe and puts a gun in my hand.

But none of it will protect me.

It's been in here before.

Doors and locks don't matter. Hiding places are where it lives. A gun won't stop it. But I
stand there in the middle of the room with a gun in my hand anyway, scenting for it.
Searching for dead spots in the air, places where odor has been drawn from the atmosphere
by its passing. Dreading that talking about it might have brought it back. Keeping myself
from diving beneath the covers to hide from it.

The Wraith.

And to hide from the other things little Amanda Horde had to say.

To be normal.

Like I was ever normal. Like I was ever any different from how I am now. A cure won't make
me better. It'll just make me more like a regular son of a bitch. Like the Vyrus makes you
into something else. It doesn't. If you get it, if you survive, it's because you were
already the kind of person who will drink blood.

And how do you know if you're that kind of person? You don't, not till your mouth covers a
fresh wound and you find yourself jamming your tongue in it and sucking.

Is that the kind of person Evie is? If there was a cure, I maybe wouldn't have to find
out.

If a cure is possible.

Now that I got a gun in my hand, I'm gonna go talk to someone about it.

--Jeez, Joe, am I glad ya came by. Been calling you since I got here.

--How long's he been this way?

--I don't know. I came around, he was like this.

--Uh-huh. You just dropping by?

Phil rubs his nose.

--Sure, I guess. Just paying a visit.

--'Cause you guys are tight that way. You pop in every now and then.

--Well. Well. Didn't say we were
tight.
Sure we're friendly, but
tight
might be a little of a, you know, an overstatement.

--You carrying, Phil?

He runs hands over all his pockets.

--I look like I'm carrying? Don't I wish.

--Not for you, for him.

He reams out his ear with a fingertip.

--Aw, well, not, not just this moment. But, sure, from time to time Mr. Bird passes me
something to bring up here. Not that I know how he comes by the stuff.

--
Mr. Bird.

I size him up. A pasty jumble of limbs in latex-tight sharkskin slacks with three inches
of white socks showing at the ankles above two-tone patent leather, a jacket matching the
slacks stretched over narrow shoulders and an embroidered cowboy shirt with silver caps on
the points of the collar, a bolo tie featuring a cockroach frozen in amber snug around his
throat.

He fidgets with the bleach-blond pompadour that crests his head and adds eight inches to
his height.

--So, long as you're here to, you know, make sure he's OK and all, I should get going.

He jitters toward the door.

I clear my throat.

--Phil, you got any idea how many times tonight I've wished I had a gun and didn't?

He flashes eyes at the door and back to me.

--Uh, no, no, got me.

--A lot. Know what else?

--Um, no.

--If you piss me off and make me start wishing I had a gun in my hand so I can shoot you in
the knee just because it will make me feel better, my wish will come true.

He chews a fingernail.

--So, um, you're saying you're packing, right?

I nod.

--That's what I'm saying.

--And I'm supposed to stay here, right?

--Yeah, that's it.

He swallows a piece of cuticle.

--Well, just threaten a man, why can't you? You make it all complicated like that and I
sometimes don't know what I gotta do to keep from getting slapped around.

I walk toward the Count where he's pressed naked into the corner of the loft, his lips
moving, a jumble of syllables pouring out between them.

--My bad, I figured it'd just be an instinct for you by now.

Phil follows behind.

--Hey, I appreciate the benefit of the doubt and all, Joe, but really, man, unless I'm high
you really shouldn't count on me thinking too straight.

I stop outside the circle of symbols the Count has scrawled in his own blood and feces.

I point with the toe of my boot.

--Any idea what this shit is?

Phil gives a little sniff.

--Just regular old shit, yeah?

--The pictures, Phil, not what they're drawn in.

--Right, uh, no, no clue. Just crazy stuff, right?

Crazy stuff. Sounds about right.

I squat and put myself on eye level with the Count. His eyes keep spinning, dancing around
the patterns on the floor and walls and ceiling, resting for a beat of every orbit on the
blade of the knife pressed to his wrist.

--Count.

His eyes flick over me, pass back, continue on their way.

--Count.

No reaction at all this time.

I look at the maul of flesh where his right foot used to be. The knob of half-healed meat,
nubbins of bone poking out of it where the Vyrus tried to sprout new toes. But it was too
much damage, shattered bone and muscle and skin ripped away, the kind of wound even the
Vyrus can't make entirely right.

I wonder if putting a bullet in his other foot will get him to pay attention to me like it
did when I shot that one off.

Instead, I poke in a pile of trash on the floor and find a rat-gnawed chopstick.

I hold it in the air before my face.

--Count.

Nothing.

I whip it down and drag it through the circle of nonsense on the floor.

--No! Nononononono!

He draws the blade of the knife across his wrist, blood runs free as he scuttles forward
on all fours and starts painting fresh the lines I've broken.

--No, no, no, no, Joe! Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, no!

He freezes, studies the repairs, holds his wrist over the floor to drip the last drops as
the Vyrus draws the wound closed.

I tap the chopstick on the floor.

--You're not looking too good, Count.

He points his gaze at me. His mouth falls open and he tilts his head back and laughs.

--No, not looking too good. Hunh, hunh, hunh! Not too good, Joe.

His teeth snap closed and his head drops down and he points the knife at me.

--Hey, hey, Joe, Joe, Joe Pitt. Know what?

--What?

He cups a hand at his mouth, sharing a secret.

--You gotta rep.

--No kidding?

--Know, know, know what it is, is?

--Nope.

He glances at Phil, leans closer, keeping his body within the lines of his circle.

--You gotta rep, says you kill people.

--Huh, go figure.

He slaps the flat of the blade to his cheek, presses the steel against his filthy skin.

--Wanna do me a favor, Joe Pitt?

I shrug.

--Won't know till you ask me.

He puts the point of the blade in his left nostril, the handle angled toward me.

--Kill me, would ya? Please, Joe. Pretty please?

I do think about it. About slapping my open palm against the knife and driving it through
his sinus and up into his brain. But it wouldn't kill him, not right away. The angle is
wrong. It'd hurt like a fucker and turn him into a retard, but it wouldn't cut the
medulla.

Of course, looking at him, it's hard to say he'd be worse off.

--Count, I need some information.

His eyebrows jump.

--Sure, great, a swap! Kill me and I'll tell ya anything you want to know, huh?

I rub my chin.

--How 'bout a compromise?

His eyes narrow, looking for a trick.

--Like what?

--How 'bout you tell me what I need to know and then I kill you, sound good?

His eyes close. They open. He takes the knife out of his nose.

--OK, OK, OK, but no funny stuff. None of your trickery, Mr. Joseph Pitt. If that is your
real name.

It's not my real name. But the Count isn't his. So who cares anyway.

--Sure, no trickery.

I keep my eyes on his and point the chopstick over my shoulder.

--Get lost, Phil.

--Lost? Like, for real or?

--Go sit in the can and cover your ears and hum real loud so you can't hear what we're
talking about.

--Uh.

--It's not code, it's literal. Go do it.

I wait until I hear the bathroom door close and the sound of Sweet Caroline hummed nasal
and out of tune.

The Count's eyes keep trying to peel away from mine. I clap my hands in front of his face
and they pull back to me.

--Yeah, kill me, kill me, kill me.

--Soon enough, Count. Questions first.