No Dominion

THE GLASS IS BREAKING.

That’s not the surprising thing; the surprising thing is that it didn’t shatter when he threw me against it. Shouldn’t come as a shock. This place, they went through a few front windows the first year they were open and decided it was more cost-effective to lay out the extra cash for the safety glass. Save them from having to replace it every time there’s a brawl in here. Which is pretty regular I’d imagine. Any case, I’m not bitching. Wasn’t for the guy who had the bright idea, I’d be on the sidewalk right now, my good leather jacket cut to ribbons and my face sliced up in all kinds of new and interesting ways. But now it’s breaking, it is most definitely breaking. I’m sure about that because my face is jammed up against it. The big question for me is whether this is the kind of safety glass that bursts into thousands of tiny pebbles when it breaks or the kind that turns into shards. Pebbles would be fine. Shards, not so much. The window creaks. Tiny fissures appear in front of my eyes.

OK, time to stop worrying about the glass, time to start worrying about getting this guy off of me. I can’t expect any help from the bartenders or the crowd, not after they watched him pound on the bouncer with that pool cue. And I don’t see any helpful officers of the law rolling up outside at this point. Not that I have any intention of being here when the cops show up. So, I guess it’s just me and him. That’s OK, I can go this one alone. Not like it’s new to me or anything. I just wish he really was on PCP; if it was just PCP he’d be pretty easy to deal with. But this? This is gonna take grace and style, maybe even a little tact.

He shoves my face harder into the big front window. People out on the sidewalk flinch as they see my features squashed yet flatter against the glass. The glass creaks again. The fissures grow another millimeter. He’s still screaming, babbling insanity at the top of his lungs, howling so loud I can barely hear Boxcar Willie on the jukebox:

Ain’t that the fuckin’ truth.

He’s enraged that my face won’t just explode through the damn glass the way he wants it to. He rears back, and before he can slam my face forward, I’ve slipped to my right, spun, twisted my arm free of his grasp, winced as a clump of hair is torn from the back of my scalp, planted my right foot in the hollow behind his right knee, hammered my elbow into the back of his neck and sent him face first through the window in my place. The sidewalk audience scatters as he hits the pavement. I step through the dagger-edged hole he left behind. Shards it is.

He was spazzing the second he came out of the bathroom.

Before that, I hadn’t even noticed him. Why should I? Not like I’m working; not like there’s any reason I should be doing anything but paying attention to the booze in my glass, the cigarette in my mouth, the pool game in front of me and the girl by my side. Especially the girl. Girl like this, most everyone in the place is paying attention to her. Want to be invisible? Hang out with a girl like Evie. All that red hair, the body that not only won’t quit but works weekends and holidays, too. That smile. She’s the kind of girl guys like to look at, but most aren’t sure how to go about approaching her. Too bad for them. They miss out on the best part, they miss out on how cool she is, how funny, how sharp, how down-to-earth. Anyway, a girl like Evie on your arm and you turn into a shadow, just the lucky fuck taking up space next to the best view in the place.

So a night like this, when it’s so cold out Evie is wearing her leather pants and that tight old thermal top with the Jack Daniel’s label silk-screened across the front, a night like this where she’s glued to my hip and every guy in the place wishes he was me, is it any surprise I didn’t smell him the moment he came through the door?

Most nights I would have picked up his scent right off. Couldn’t miss it. After all, he smells just like me, only different. But what with the Early Times I’m pouring down my throat and the Luckys I’m sucking on and Evie rubbing up against me, I just can’t be bothered. Still, he couldn’t have been in here all that long. Sooner or later I would have smelled him no matter how distracted I was. It wouldn’t have meant trouble necessarily; we would have eyeballed each other a bit, sniffed each other’s asses like a couple of big dogs, but there wouldn’t have been any trouble, not in here, not where everyone can see us. That shit just doesn’t happen. As it was, I was lining up a neat little combo that was gonna let me run out the rest of the table and he came out of the john and started spazzing out.

This wasn’t your run-of-the-mill junkie-who-just-shot-up-in-the-can stumbling around. He came out of there like the Tasmanian Devil: spinning, arms flailing, kicking anything that came in range, sending tables and people flying; a full on spaz. A space quickly opened up around him while he whirled and gibbered and foamed at the mouth. The bouncer, a nice enough guy goes by Gears, came over and tried a little sweet talk.

– OK, man, settle down, settle down. Take it easy. Got yourself a dose of some bad shit, but we’re gonna take care of you. Got some 911 on the way, gonna get you to an emergency room and get that shit out your system. Just take it easy.

Moved in slowly, arms spread wide, talking soft. Might as well been trying to soothe a rabid dog. The guy stopped spinning long enough to jump at Gears and swing his arm like a club. Guy was freaky fast. Gears got lucky when he fell on his ass out of the way. Guy’s arm hit the backside of a bench made out of two-by-fours and a couple of them cracked. Then he went back to spinning. By this time folks are starting to clear out, and I’m starting to pay attention. Gears gets back on his feet, muttering something about fucking PCP, grabs himself one of the cracked and twisted house cues from the rack and goes after the guy. But I’ve taken a good whiff by this point and I know the guy ain’t on PCP. Gears would be lucky if that’s all it was. I mean, I don’t know what he’s on, but I know he doesn’t need it; he’s dangerous as hell to start with.

Gears waits ’til the guy has spun his back to him, and brings the cue down on top of his head. It makes a nice noise, but before Gears can get too proud of himself or maybe think about bringing the cue back up for another swing, the guy has turned around, snatched the cue away, kicked Gears’s legs out from under him and gotten busy finding out how hard it is to break a pool cue by pounding it on someone’s face. That’s when I figured I should do something. Not that Gears is so big a friend. I barely know him except to call him by name when I come in the place, but The Spaz is out of control, causing the kind of scene that’s bad for business. If I don’t deal with him, the cops will. That will get very ugly very fast. Nothing causes a scene like when cops start putting bullets in a guy and the guy refuses to go down. Sure, Gears and the law and the press may just chalk it up to a PCP freakout, but there are other people who will hear about it. And some of those people will want to check it out. And I don’t want those people around. Not down here. Not in my neighborhood. So I jump on the guy’s back. Figure I’ll get him to the floor, put a sleeper hold on him and drag him out of here. Make up some story for the crowd about how I know him and I’ll take care of it. Get him out before the cops come; get him someplace private and get rid of him before he can make another scene like this one. That’s the thing to do. Except he shrugs me right off his back, picks me up off the floor and throws me at the window. And when I bounce off the glass instead of going through it the way he wanted me to, he grabs me by the hair and tries to shove my face through the glass. Lucky for me, strong and fast as he is right now, he’s a lousy fighter.

Once he’s on the sidewalk I handle it pretty much like I wanted to inside. Knees in the middle of his back, pin him to the scummy pavement, arm around his windpipe and cut off the O₂ until he goes asleep. He does a fair amount of thrashing around, and I have to hold on good and tight to keep from getting bucked clear, but once I’m locked on to him I’m not going anywhere. When he’s nice and sleepy I toss him over my shoulder and point at one of the bartenders who’s come out to watch how the story ends.

– Get me a cab, will ya?

– Ambulance is on its way.

– Let ’em deal with Gears. This guy, I know him. I’m gonna take him back to his halfway house. See if I can keep him out of the shit.

– What about the cops? What about the window?

– Hey, come on. I got the guy out of the place. Give me a fucking break.

– Yeah, sure.

She flags a cab.

The cabbie’s none too happy about me piling in with blood-drippy guy, but he sees I’m in no mood for debate and just gives me a dirty rag to put over The Spaz’s face. Before we pull away, Evie runs up and passes my pack of smokes and my Zippo through the window.

– Want me to come?

– Nah, I got it covered.

– Meet you back at your place?

– Yeah. Maybe a half hour at the most. You gonna be OK?

– Don’t start.

– Right. Sorry ’bout this.

– ’S OK. Nobody can say you don’t know how to show a girl a good time, Joe.

The Spaz tries to come to in the cab. I pinch his esophagus and he goes back under before he can cause me any more trouble. I have the cabbie take me down to the Baruch housing project just below Houston. It’s a couple blocks outside what I’d usually call safe turf, but no one really has a claim on it, so it seems like a good place for an impromptu dump. I manhandle The Spaz up the steps to the pedestrian bridge that spans the FDR to the East River Park. It’s nearly two in the morning on a Tuesday. Cars whiz by below, but the lights on the park playing fields were shut off hours ago. My eyes penetrate that darkness just fine. Too cold for any homeless people to be camping out. I do see what looks like a couple junkies sitting on a bench at the far end of the park, but they’re facing the river. I pause at the top of the concrete stairs that lead down to the park.

The Spaz is still alive, alive and reeking of blood. I think about that blood; how I’d like to tap a couple pints of it and stick them in my fridge at home to replenish my rapidly shrinking supply. But his blood won’t do me any good, won’t do anything but make me hellishly sick and kill me. I know that because of what I smelled back at Doc Holiday’s; the smell of the Vyrus, the same smell I carry with me. Nonetheless, I’m just hard up enough to give him another good sniff. Hell, maybe I was wrong, maybe it was some other Vampyre’s scent I picked up in there, maybe this guy really is just whacked on PCP. I inhale. No, no such luck. He’s another sad fuck like me. But there is something about him, something about his scent that’s a little off. Must be whatever he was taking in the bathroom. No surprise I guess. Whatever he’s on would have to be some mean shit not to be neutralized by the Vyrus the moment it entered his bloodstream. Sure would like to know what it was. Be nice to try something like that sometime, something for a distraction. Christ, I drank over a fifth of bourbon tonight and it barely gave me a buzz. The Spaz stirs in my arms. Time to deal with the problem at hand.

I snap The Spaz’s neck and shove him hard down the steps and watch him tumble to the bottom. The broken neck won’t kill him outright, not like it would a normal person. A normal person, you break their neck, the medulla oblongata stops communicating with the body and all those autonomic functions like your lungs inflating and your heart pumping just stop. But the Vyrus reprograms your body, hyperoxygenates your blood and does a bunch of other stuff I can’t really follow. The Spaz won’t be getting up or anything, but there’s enough O₂ in his brain to keep him lucid for the next several minutes. Probably a good thing for him that he’s high.

I pop a smoke in my mouth, light it and head back across the bridge. I have to walk all the way to Avenue B before I can find a cab, but I still make it back to my place just a few minutes later than I wanted.

We don’t get to sleep in.

Evie’s a bartender. She’s used to crawling into bed around dawn. Even on a night off she has a hard time falling asleep before the sun hits the horizon. Me, I got my own reasons for being a night owl. But we’re up early the next day. Early for us, anyway, say just after noon. Evie’s got an appointment.

I reach for a smoke as she crawls out from under the covers.

– What’s the deal today?

– Viral load results.

– Right.

I sit on the edge of the bed, smoking and watching Evie through the open bathroom door. She rinses her mouth and spits toothpaste into the sink, then walks back into the bedroom.

– You been feeling any different?

– Nope. Nausea, vomiting. The usual.

– Yeah.

She squats next to her big black leather bag on the floor. Her back is to me. She’s wearing panties and one of my old wifebeaters. I look at her ass while she digs in the bag.

– How much did you drink last night?

She keeps looking through the bag.

– A lot less than you.

– It’s different.

– I know.

She finds a pill bottle in the bag and fishes out a capsule. Then she goes back in the bag until she finds another bottle and takes two capsules from that one. She tosses all three pills in her mouth and holds her hand out to me. I pick up the water glass from the bedside table, hand it to her, and she washes the pills down.

– Aren’t you supposed to take the Kaletra with food?

She’s squeezing herself back into last night’s leather pants.

– I’m not hungry.

– Not hungry how?

She peels off the wifebeater. I stare at her pale, freckled tits until she covers them with the Jack Daniel’s shirt.

– Just not hungry.

– Not hungry like you’re not hungry, or not hungry like a side effect?

She stands in front of the mirror on the back of the closet door and starts raking a brush through her hair.

– Not hungry like I don’t want to fucking eat anything, OK?

– Sure. OK.

I get up, go into the bathroom and close the door. I look at myself in the mirror. It’s a bad view. I splash some water on my face. I flush the toilet needlessly. I open the door, go back to the bed and get another smoke from the pack on the table. Evie has her hair pulled into a ponytail. She shrugs her way into her big, black biker jacket; all zippers and snaps. I light my smoke.

– You gonna be warm enough in that?

She holds up a hand.

– Enough.

– Just asking.

– And I’m just saying, enough. I know you’re concerned. I know you care. That’s great, I really appreciate it. I know it’s not the normal thing for you. But you have to get out of my ass.

She steps closer to me, bends over and gives me a kiss. Then she picks up her bag and starts up the stairs that lead to the ground floor rooms.

– It’s just I want you to take care of yourself, baby.

That does it. She stops on the steps, drops her head, exhales loudly and turns to face me.

– I am taking care of myself, Joe. I’m taking care of myself the way I want to. That means if I want to have a couple drinks and risk raising my blood sugar, I’m gonna do it. That means if I’m not hungry when I’m taking my meds, I’m not gonna force myself to eat. OK? That OK with you? Because if it’s not, you know what you can do. No strings attached, Joe. That’s your motto, right? You weren’t there when I got the disease, and I don’t expect you to be there when it kills me. In the middle, you want to be more involved in my life, you want to have a say? All you gotta do is involve me in yours, that’s all it takes. Until then, stop with the fucking nagging. I get enough of that shit from my mom. I don’t need it from my goddamn boyfriend.

And she pounds up the stairs, slamming the front door good and loud on her way out.

I flop back on the bed and take a big drag off my cigarette. I blow the smoke at the ceiling and smile. I can’t help it, I just love it when she calls me her boyfriend. And she only does that when she’s mad.

I know, pretty fucked up, provoking your HIV-positive girl until she’s pissed enough to forget that you’re not really supposed to be a couple and calls you her boyfriend. But then again, our whole relationship is pretty fucked up. Start with the fact we don’t have sex. She beats herself up about that pretty good. Carries around this big ball of guilt about me being stuck on her even though we don’t fuck. I get it. It’s not like it’s rocket science or anything. She’s terrified of giving me her disease. Condoms, dental dams, there’s no amount of protection that’ll make her feel safe enough to get more intimate than necking, dry-humping and hand-jobbing each other on occasion. It’s too bad that I can’t tell her that there is no way on God’s green earth that she could ever get me sick. Nobody could. There isn’t a bug on this rock that could put a dent in me. It’s too late for that, I’m already as sick as a man can get. Pretty much. Once the Vyrus set up shop in my bloodstream, it made me uninhabitable for anything else. Any regular viruses or bacteria or germs come calling, they’re gonna get their asses kicked but good.

So I don’t mind the not-having-sex thing. That’s not true. I mind the not-having-sex thing a hell of a lot. Just watching her get dressed this morning was enough to drive me half crazy. But I can deal. I can deal because I have to. Not because of what she’s sick on, but because of what I’m sick on. I don’t know if the Vyrus can be sexually transmitted, but I’m not taking any chances. I’m not taking any chances of infecting Evie with an organism that will colonize her blood and strip mine it for whatever components keep it happy. A bug that is always hungry for more. A bug that, when your blood is tapped out, will send you hunting. And you’ll hunt, man, you will hunt. Because the alternative, the pain that will rack you and twist your body and eventually boil your insides? It’ll make anything Evie may have to go through in the next couple years look like child’s play. That’s just a fact.

Nevermind that if she was infected with the Vyrus it would cure her of the HIV. Nevermind that she could go on living pretty much just as long as she wanted to, as long as she kept the Vyrus fed. Nevermind that we could be together that whole time and fuck to our hearts’ content. It doesn’t matter. It’s still not the kind of thing you tell the woman you love. It’s not the kind of choice you ask someone you love to make. If you’re a man, you make it for them.

And now I guess we’ve settled what I am. Or at least what I’m not.

So yeah, the relationship is all fucked up. No reason why it shouldn’t be, it matches the rest of my life that way. Besides, yours any better?

Not that Evie knows any of this. Not that Evie knows shit about me. Three years running and I’m still keeping secrets. It’s what you’d call a sore point between us, her not knowing enough. Can’t blame her for being curious, girl’s got reasons to be. Like why I rent two apartments: the one-bedroom upstairs and this studio below it. Why I nailed the studio door to the door frame and installed a panel in the lower half that I can kick out in an emergency. Why the little spiral stair that leads from the upstairs living room to the studio is concealed by a secret trapdoor. And why, with all that space up there, I do most of my living down here in the basement where the only window has been drywalled over. She’s willing to accept it when I tell her it’s because of my work, cuz of some of the enemies I’ve made. But she’d sure like to know more about that work. She knows I’m kind of a local tough guy, a guy who collects some debts, does some unlicensed PI work, that kind of thing. But it doesn’t seem to warrant the security in this place, the secret room, the multiple locks, the alarm. What can a guy do? He can’t tell her about the Van Helsings running around with a hard-on for people like me, those self-righteous busybodies looking to sprinkle me with holy water and drive a stake through my heart. Not that the holy water would do anything, but the stake sure as shit would. Hell, a stake through the heart will kill anyone. They don’t really need it; a few bullets will do just as well. But a guy can’t explain something like that. In the end she doesn’t buy it, the whole I got enemies, baby thing. She maybe figures it’s drugs.

Drugs would make sense. It would explain the security. It would explain my total and complete paranoia. It would explain why I don’t have a regular job of any kind. And it would explain the little dorm fridge in my closet with the padlock on it. By now she’s pretty certain that if she looked in there she’d find a whole selection of exotic pharmaceuticals that aren’t carried by your garden variety, street corner dime-bagger. She would find my stash in there, but it’s not anything anyone can get high off of, unless they’re like me. Just three pints of healthy human blood mixed with the necessary anticlotting agents so it’ll keep. Three pints. About seven pints less than the minimum I like to have on hand. Thinking about it makes me feel itchy.

Yeah, drugs would be fine as far as Evie is concerned. The blood? Figure it’s a safe bet that would freak her out.

Funny, one of the things that should be toughest to explain is one of the easiest. How I never go out in the daytime? Solar urticaria. A sun allergy. I go out in the sun and rashes will break out all over my body and my skin won’t be able to regulate my internal temperature and I’ll black out and all kinds of bad shit. She buys it. And why not? She’s looked it up online. Besides, it’s not far from the truth. I do have an allergy to the sun. But if I go out and start sucking up UVAs, I won’t just get all itchy and pass out. Me? The Vyrus will go haywire; tumors will erupt and riot throughout my body and over the surface of my skin. Bone cancer, stomach cancer, gum cancer, brain cancer, prostate cancer, skin cancer. Think of a cancer, I’ll get it. Fucking eye cancer. And all of those cancers will have a race to see which can kill me first. Might take fifteen minutes all told. Less if it’s a really sunny day. By the time everything runs its course, there’ll be nothing left but a big blob of cancer cells. Biopsy that thing and it’ll look like a giant, man-size tumor with maybe a couple teeth stuck in it.

I’ve never seen it happen. But the stories are more than enough to keep me from rolling the dice on a day at the beach. That’s why I have to spend the rest of the day indoors.

I kill the time.

I shower and shave. I go through my DVDs and watch Vanishing Point. I go upstairs and find some old takeout from the Cuban place around the corner. I listen to some music and try to read a book. All I’m really doing the whole time is thinking about those last three pints and how I need to get some more.

It’s been four days since my last pint. That’s part of the reason The Spaz almost had his way with me last night. When things are good I like to hit a pint every two days. Keeps me sharp.

Four days? No wonder I’ve been crabby. I’ll need to drink one today if I don’t want to start jumping down everyone’s throat. Figuratively speaking. Maybe I can get away with just a half.

I also spend a fair amount of time wondering how things went with Evie at the doctor’s office. But she doesn’t call to tell me. Which isn’t a real surprise after the way she left. And that means I’ll need to go by her work if I want to get the news. Which means I better just drink a whole pint so I’m not on edge when I see her. I don’t need to be picking any more fights with the only person in the world who gives a shit about me.

Around four-thirty I open the closet. I flip the dial on the fridge padlock back and forth and snap it open. I used to have a key-lock. Then I lost the key. It was the middle of the day and I couldn’t run out to the hardware store for a bolt-cutter. I just about chewed through the fucking thing before I got my shit together enough to find a hammer under the sink and use it to claw the hasp free. It can be like that when you’re hungry. Simple shit just plain escapes you. Now I got the combination lock. God save me if I ever forget the combo. I open the fridge.

Times like these, opening the fridge is like the third or fourth time a gambler checks his betting slip to see if maybe he really had his money down on the winning horse instead of that nag that finished way out of the money. I know what’s in there, but maybe, just maybe, I did something right without knowing about it. Like maybe I laid up a dozen extra pints that are just somehow hidden in the back. Something like that. So I open the fridge. No dice. Wrong horse.

I take out one of the three pints. I take out the scalpel I keep in the fridge. I poke a little hole in the bottom of the pouch and place my lips around it. I squeeze the pouch and a thin stream of cold blood squirts into my mouth. When it’s warm it’s better. When it’s hot, say 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s best. But well chilled is just fine. I try to sip, but who am I fooling? I tilt my head back, hold the pouch upright and poke another hole at the top. It drains in a single rush, flooding my throat. Then I carefully cut the bag open and lick the inside clean. It makes me feel good. It makes me feel alive.

It is keeping me alive after all. Giving the Vyrus something else to gnaw on, something fresh. Keeping it from ranging further and further into the blood-making parts of me. Keeping it from digging into the little blood factories inside my bones and scraping them clean. Keeping the Vyrus healthy and happy so that it doesn’t rampage through my brain, randomly hitting switches as it looks for more of whatever it is it wants. It’s keeping me alive. But only if you call this life.

When I’m done I tuck the pouch into one of the red biohazard bags I keep in the fridge. There’s only a couple empties in there, so I leave it be for now.

The nice thing about winter? The sun goes down early. I love that. Add in all the overcast days and those three months are my favorite. I pull on a sweater, lace up my boots, grab my jacket and scoop keys and change from the top of my desk. I also flip through a thin fold of bills: just over a hundred bucks. I got another grand stashed in the toe of a shoe, but that’s for emergencies. And it won’t cover half the rent on this place, which I’m two months overdue on. Blood ain’t the only thing running short around here.

Depending on who I’m doing a job for, I might get paid in either one: blood or money. But I haven’t had a job for awhile now. I can hustle for the blood, dig up a pint here or a pint there on my own. But, in a way, money is riskier. I knock out some guy, drag him in an alley and tap his veins, I know I’m gonna come away with a pint or two. But as to what’s in his wallet? The kind of guys who look like they might be sporting a good roll are the ones you least want to hit. Those are the ones that might make noise after the fact. Don’t want a guy like that finding holes poked in his arms after he’s been rolled, asking his doctor what the hell that’s about. And there’s just no point in robbing a man if you’re not gonna tap him as well. Just no percentage in the risk if there’s no blood. I mean, money is money, but blood is blood.

And don’t even think about a real robbery. Walk into some liquor store and point a gun at someone? Try to do a little housebreaking? Anything like that leaves behind a profile and physical evidence. Start getting a file at the precinct, an MO in some computer database. Show up on the cop radar and you can just cash in. No blocked up windows in the holding cells. No blood in the chow line. Just a matter of maybe a week before you starve or get hit with some rays.

What I need is a real gig. A deal that will pay off big in both categories. I need something besides all the nickel-and-dime crap I’ve been hitting for the last year or so. The year since I pissed off the Coalition and they stopped dropping their loose ends on me. I never realized just how much I relied on the scraps from their table ’til they were gone. But I sure as shit miss them now.

For the thousandth time I think about giving them a call. Ringing up Dexter Predo and telling him I made a mistake. Telling him I can make it right; I’m ready to toe their line. I think about it. But the phone stays right where it is.

Fuck those assholes.

I walk out of my place and down the block to Avenue A. I hit the deli around the corner for a pack of Luckys and a beer. I cross the avenue, find a bench in Tompkins Square and drink and smoke and think about my problem. My problem is jobs.

My work comes to me by word of mouth. Problem is, word hasn’t been getting around much lately. No straight citizens showing up with a deadbeat dad to track down, none of the smaller Clans calling to have a Rogue swept off their turf. Just me picking up bouncer shifts at Niagara and some arm-twisting for a couple shylocks. Shit work. Fucking Coalition. When I finally bit back at those guys, I maybe bit a little too hard; bit clean through the hand that fed me.

The Coalition is the only game when it comes to booking a heavy gig, but they always got to rub your face in the fact when you come calling. Kind of makes you resent them for being the only Clan that has the juice and the resources to drop a couple grand and a dozen pints on a guy on anything like a regular basis. And Predo? He just plain hates me. That’s what happens when you land in the middle of the Coalition spymaster’s plans and end up screwing them up all to hell. He hates you. He wants your head. He has papers on his desk he thinks it will maybe look good holding down.

I suck down the last of my beer, toss the empty in a trash can and start walking. The Coalition is the only outfit that could hook me up regularly, but there are other Clans, and you never know when they might have some dirty work lying around. And I may have been avoiding this play for a good long while now, but the two pints left in the fridge are a pretty compelling argument to bite the bullet. So I head east, toward Avenue C and Society headquarters, biting that motherfucker all the way.

– Hey, Hurley.

– Joe.

– Read any good books lately?

– Fuck yas.

– Yeah, I like that one, too.

It looks like your average Alphabet City tenement, but it’s not; it’s a fortress. I don’t know exactly what kind of security or how many partisans they got holed up here, but Hurley is all they need. He stays in front of me, slouched against the door frame, threatening to bring the whole building down if he leans a little harder.

– Sumtin’ on yer mind, Joe?

– Terry around?

– Yeah.

We stand there, me on the threshold, him blocking my way. I want in, but I don’t think I could ever want anything badly enough to try and force the issue with Hurley. Guy’s been around at least since Prohibition. I can’t begin to calculate how tough a Vampyre thug has to be to last as long as he has. As for him, he’s in no hurry to move himself. He could stand there all night waiting for me to get down to business and never move an inch. It’s not that he’s possessed of Zenlike patience, it’s just that he’s too stupid to ever get bored.

– Think I might talk to him?

– Gotta appointment?

– An appointment?

– Yeah.

– Since when does Terry make appointments?

Someone steps out of the shadows behind Hurley.

– Since I took over security.

I look him up and down.

– Evening, Tom. See you finally got that promotion you been bucking for.

– It wasn’t a promotion, asshole. The Society isn’t a fucking corporation, it’s a collective. I was elected to the post by my peers.

– Yeah, sure. Anything you say. I’m sure Terry backing you had nothing to do with it.

He starts to come outside, but stops himself.

– OK. OK. You know, you can say whatever you want, Pitt. Doesn’t matter to me. Know why?

– No. Tell me, please.

– ’Cuz you’re just a slob on the outside who’s trying to get inside, and all I have to do to get rid of you is this.

And he slams the door in my face.

Well, shit, I’m a bigger pain in the ass than that.

I cover all the buttons on the intercom panel, push them down and hold them there. It takes about a minute for him to open back up.

– Knock that shit off, Pitt!

I take my hands off the buttons.

– Hey, Tom. Terry around?

– You don’t have a fucking appointment. No appointment, no Terry.

He slams the door. I hit the buttons. He opens the door.

– Hey, Tom. Terry around?

– Hurley, get rid of this guy.

Hurley comes out onto the porch.

– Time fer ya ta go, Joe.

– Hey, Hurl, that rhymes.

He points at the steps.

– Ya want ta walk down ’em, or ya want ta fall down ’em?

I stand on my tiptoes and look over his shoulder at Tom.

– So if a guy wanted to make an appointment, how would he go about it?

Tom smiles.

– A guy like you? An old friend of Terry’s?

– Yeah, a guy like me.

– Well, I’d say all a guy like you has to do is pencil something in for a week past fucking never.

– That’s a long time.

– Hurley.

Hurley turns around and looks past Tom.

– Yeah, Terry?

– What’s the hassle about?

– Joe here wanted ta come in.

– Well, why’s the man standing out there?

– Didn’t have no appointment.

– That’s cool. Let him in.

Tom spins, dreadlocks flying.

– What the fuck? He’s got no appointment.

– No problem, Tom. I’m not really busy right now. Just taking it easy.

– That doesn’t matter. I’m supposed to be clearing people in advance.

– Sure, but we got to stay flexible, too.

– But security.

– Sure, sure, we want to be safe. But that’s Joe. We all know Joe.

I hold my hand up.

– Hey, Terry, I don’t want to cause trouble. I can make an appointment. No problem.

– No, man, no. Come on in.

– You sure?

I take a step toward the door. Hurley moves to the side, but Tom steps in front of me.

– Security is supposed to be my job. And this asshole hasn’t been cleared by security.

Terry takes off his Lennon glasses and wipes them on his Monterey Pop Festival T-shirt.

– Yeah, man, you’re security and all, but we got to remember this is a community organization. You know, it’s all well and good for us to be safe, but we have to be able to respond to the needs of the community. Otherwise, man, what’s the point? And Joe here, he’s a member of the community. So let’s, you know, let’s just bend a point here and let the man in.

– Fucking. I was duly elected and I’m taking this shit seriously. I’m drawing a line. No appointment, no meeting. Especially for a security threat like this guy.

Terry puts his glasses back on.

– A line. Uh-huh. A line. OK. OK. I get it. You and Joe have history. Some, you know, some difficult history. Some unresolved conflicts. That’s cool. So I tell you what, why don’t you and Hurley go do a perimeter check?

– What?

– You know, go, like, check the perimeter. Make sure it’s secure or whatever.

– My post is-

– Tom, really, go check the damn perimeter and stop acting like a storm trooper.

Tom opens and closes his mouth a couple times, looks at me, looks back at Terry, looks at me again.

– This goes on the list, Pitt. Right near the top.

And he storms down the steps, making sure to hit me with his shoulder on the way.

– What list is that, Tom?

– Fuck you, cocksucker. Come on, Hurley.

– The list of times you’ve made an ass of yourself?

– FUCK YOU!

He walks away down the sidewalk, Hurley a few steps behind him.

I turn to Terry.

– It really safe letting him walk around with Hurley?

– He’s an OK guy, Joe. Good at his job. Pretty mellow most of the time. It’s only when he’s around you that he loses his cool.

– Well, that’s the only time I see him.

– Think there’s a connection there?

– Got me.

He smiles.

– Uh-huh. So. Something you wanted to see me about?

– Yeah.

– Well, come on in, my friend. I’m just brewing up some chai.

– Lucky me.

– The thing is, Joe, the thing is, I really thought I’d be seeing more of you. After the last, you know, realignment, I thought we had gotten back some of that trust, some of those good vibes we used to share.

– Thought it’d be just like old times?

He takes a big whiff of the branches and dirt brewing on the stove.

– Well, old times. You can never get those back. But I thought we’d reached an accord, an understanding. Something to build on. But you haven’t really been around. Why do you suppose that is?

– Got me, Terry. Maybe because I don’t like you?

He laughs as he pours the mess in the pan through a strainer and into a cup.

– Well, yeah, I guess that’d explain it. Sure I can’t interest you in some of this? It’ll mellow you right out, put you in a good frame for conversation.

– I don’t like to be mellow.

– And that, Joe, that is too bad. Too bad.

He picks up his cup, walks across the dingy kitchen and takes the chair next to mine.

– Well then, what is it, my man, what’s on your mind?

– A job. I need a job.

You could say Terry saved my life.

You could also say that over two decades back he found me on the bathroom floor at CBGB, bleeding my life away through a hole that had been chewed in my neck. The guy who put the hole in me must have had a real taste for that shit, a real yen for the old-school style. That kind of thing ain’t easy, a person’s got to be desperate-hungry, or just be the sort who enjoys it. This guy, he’d taken his time with me, buttered me up, picked me out of the crowd as an easy mark. He was right. Nineteen seventy-eight: me, seventeen and living on the street, a hard-ass punk looking for cash, looking to score. He offered me a twenty to suck me off. No brainer at the time. Terry found me right after. Scooped me off the floor and took me to a Society safe house. Not like this deal they got now, but one of the holes they used to skulk around in before they had fully secured their turf. I ran with him for a few years, learned the ropes, saw how some things got done.

Salad days, those.

– Not to make light, Joe, but we’re not really an employment agency.

– No shit, Terry. I don’t need a career, I need a gig. I need to beef up my stash and make some money.

He shrugs.

– I don’t really see where we can help. Now, don’t get me wrong; you’re hard up, we can, you know, front you a little something to get you by. But our resources are limited. You know that.

– Sure.

– What we do have, we need to use it to help support the cause. World’s not gonna change on its own.

– Sure.

– The Society is always looking for opportunities to reach outside, to aid anyone afflicted with the Vyrus, but the pledged membership, the people doing the actual dirty work of trying to integrate the infected population into the noninfected, they have to come first.

– Right.

He takes a big sip of his gunk, ponders a moment, then lays it out.

– Now if things were different, if you were still a member, there’d be a few more options. There’d be, you know, emergency funds and such that could be tapped. But for a Rogue, even one like you, one we like to think of as an ally? Well, the politics of charity are more complicated than they should be.

– That an offer?

His mouth drops open a little.

– An offer?

– You asking me to come back?

He waves his cup.

– Joe. If you wanted to come back in, all you’d have to do is ask, man.

He sips again, watching me through the steam rising off his cup.

– Well I’m not asking.

– Too bad, man. Too bad.

– Besides, you got yourself a security chief. What would you need me around for?

He sets the cup on the table.

– Your ego need stroking, Joe? Self-esteem been suffering? Need an old friend to tell you how much you meant to the cause?

I stand up.

– You’re not my friend.

I start for the door.

He talks to my back.

– Actually, I am. More of a friend than you know. And I can prove it.

I stop.

– How’s that?

– Have a seat.

I stay on my feet.

– Joe, have a seat, man. And tell me about that deal at Doc Holiday’s last night.

I stay by the door.

– Guy was spazzing on something and I took care of him before he could cause more of a scene. Why do you care?

He picks up his cup.

– Because he was one of ours.

– Why should I care?

He takes a sip, swallows, smiles.

– Because maybe there’s a job in it. For the right man.

I take a seat.

Something happens on Society turf, Terry knows about it. Fourteenth to Houston, Fifth Avenue to the East River, if it happens on those blocks, Terry will hear. Especially if it involves anything having to do with the Vyrus. That kind of stuff is very close to the Society’s whole charter: their ultimate goal of integrating the infected with the general population. That’s Terry’s personal daydream: uniting all the Clans, bringing together a population of Vyrally infected individuals that is large enough to have a political identity. He thinks that if he can bring us aboveground, we’ll be able to get the resources of the world behind finding a cure for the Vyrus. It’s a nice thought, I even believed in it for awhile myself, then I woke up. We go public, the world community is gonna take note all right. They’re gonna take note and start opening concentration camps.

But the man dreams on. And he keeps a tight watch on anything that surfaces down here, anything that might upset his long-term plans. Plans that I sometimes think have nothing at all to do with all that Society party-line BS.

– So everyone saw you ride off with the guy?

– Yeah.

– And the cops were on their way?

– Yeah, but it won’t make a difference. The bartenders know they owe me one for getting The Spaz out of there. Anyone else who maybe knows my name knows better than to mention it to the cops.

– What about the citizens?

– What do they know? Big guy dealt with The Spaz. Took him away in a cab. What the cops gonna do with that?

He stares into his cup, looking at the sludge that’s settled at the bottom.

– Yeah, yeah, I can see that. Still, I wish you hadn’t dealt with him so harshly.

– Harshly? Guy was a troublemaker. Figured you’d be happy to have him off your turf.

– In principle, yes. But he was a pledged Society member. That makes it, you know, just a little more complicated. I mean, sure, we’re completely opposed to any overt acts of violence against the noninfected population. Any behavior that will increase anti-Vyral bias when we go public is an issue. But he was pledged, and we have a protocol for dealing with these things. Ideally, we would have, you know, liked to have seen him subdued and brought to us. We could have maybe gotten him down, mellowed him out, found out what was up. Then, you know, depending on the circumstances, there might have been a tribunal kind of a thing, to determine if he had acted irresponsibly. After that, sure, there might have been a punishment phase. But, you know, vigilantism…that’s never been a tactic we’ve endorsed.

– Funny, I seem to remember you endorsing plenty of my vigilantism when I worked for you.

He looks at me over the tops of his lenses.

– Be fair, Joe. Technically, that wasn’t vigilantism. You were enforcing Society doctrine back then. That’s just worlds different from this case.

– I don’t remember too many tribunals, Terry. I just remember you taking me aside and whispering names in my ear.

– Well. Well, that’s true.

He gets up, walks to the sink and dumps his dregs down the drain.

– But that was a different era. Due process wasn’t a luxury we could really afford back then. And we do things differently now.

– Uh-huh. Not whispering in Tom’s ear, Terry? That what you telling me? Murder by decree out of style?

He rinses his cup, puts it on the dish rack, leans his hip against the sink and looks at me.

– Look, Joe, let’s not dig into some irresolvable past issues. There’s no benefit to anyone in going that route. Did we have a different way of doing things back then? Sure we did. But that has no bearing on things today. Living in the past. That’s not healthy, that’s not how you get things done. And the Society is all about getting things done. Anyone can talk, but it takes action to change the world.

I think about the building around us, the tenement that he has managed to legally purchase through whatever series of blinds and cutouts. I think about the other properties the Society has locked up down here. I think about the partisans he has bunked out in the barracks upstairs, the soldiers he can mobilize. And I think about the way it used to be, back in the seventies when I came on the scene, just ten years after the Society was born, after Terry’s little Downtown revolution had forced the Coalition to concede this territory.

It was different back then: Coalition spooks everywhere; scrapping with the smaller Clans to keep the turf intact; trying to build our own major Clan out of the fringe elements: the socialists, the women’s libbers, the anarchists, whoever else would listen. Terry had the numbers when I got infected, but he had a hell of a time keeping them all pointed in the same direction. I did more than my share in getting them all unified, had more than my share of names whispered in my ear. I know what kind of action it takes to change the world, all right.

– Sure thing, Terry. I got no interest in talking old times. So why don’t you cut to the chase? Tell me what you want.

He pushes away from the sink and comes back to the table.

– That’s it, man, that’s it, right on. Let’s get grounded in the now.

He sits down.

– So here’s the deal. Let’s just say that no one really knows much about this particular situation right now and we can kind of talk about it in pretty simple terms. OK? Talk about it more as a social concern than as a Society security issue.

– Fine by me.

– Great, that’s great. So that guy last night, and spaz isn’t really the term I’d like to use, but, in any case, he was, you know, pretty much a kid. In all senses, I mean. Young in years and also just very recently infected.

– So he was a new fish.

– That’s right. And you know how they are, the new ones, they need lots of supervision. I mean, sure, some people, you, for instance, some people take to it right away. Others, they need some help adapting. This one, he was still in the adapting phase. Not even supposed to be out on his own yet.

– OK.

– But he slipped out a couple days back.

– How many days?

– Three.

– He stayed low for three days?

– Yeah, yeah, I know. Doesn’t seem like a new fish should be able to keep such a low profile, does it?

– OK. So, what, you want me to find out where he went to ground? Make sure that crack is sealed up? Doesn’t sound like a gig that’s gonna pay out the way I need.

– Well, thing is, yeah, I’d like to know where the fish was, but that’s not really the gig.

– What is?

– That scene you described at Doc’s? The way he “spazzed” out? He wasn’t the first.

– Say what?

He runs a hand over the top of his head, smoothing loose strands of his long hair.

– We had another case just like it earlier this week. A new fish went kind of haywire. This one had gone through his, you know, adjustment period, but he was only out in the population about a month. Then he just went…well, I guess spastic is the word.

– What’d you do with him?

– Hurley was there.

– Oh.

– So that was that.

– It’d have to be.

He pulls his hair free of the rubber band that holds it in a ponytail.

– Yeah. But that’s not the whole deal.

He collects his hair, pulls it back.

– What I’m hearing, there’s been others.

He redoes the rubber band and fiddles with the new ponytail until it sits the way he wants it to.

– So when I say that I don’t think we have to deal with this as a security problem, but as a social issue? I mean social with a lowercase s. ’Cause I think what we may have here is, I don’t know for sure, but it looks like kind of a drug problem in the community.

Junkies. They get infected, they go one of two ways. First way, they couldn’t be happier to be off the junk. Second way, they can’t believe how hard it is to get high.

Sure, the blood is a rush, it’s a rush like no other. But it’s not the kind of thing you can do recreationally. There’s too much demand and not nearly enough supply. With a few thousand of us trying to make it on the island, and all of us needing at least a pint a week to get by, there’s just no way to get your hands on enough blood to keep a steady natural high going. You might get your hands on enough to gorge for a week or two, but the havoc you’re going to wreak doing it is gonna beat a path to your door. And someone’s gonna follow that path. Could be the local Clan looking to get rid of a troublemaker, could be a Rogue looking to get what you’ve stocked up, or it could be a Van Helsing. Any way you slice it, that kind of deal won’t last. So a junkie who wants to keep getting high? It’s gonna be a problem.

You pump enough junk, crack, crank, x, morphine, special K, LSD, or whatever else into your veins and you’ll get high. But soon the Vyrus is gonna clean it right out. Your everyday junkie has enough trouble keeping himself in dime bags. Now what if that same junkie needs a week’s worth of skag just to put him on the nod for a half hour?

Bleach, Sterno, gasoline, formaldehyde, glue, cleaning products of all types; all those standard alternative highs get a run for their money. I’ve seen a junkie with the Vyrus so desperate for a good old-fashioned high, he shot Prestone into his eye. Didn’t give him a buzz, but it sure as shit distracted him for awhile. These types tend to weed themselves out of the population.

But if it was out there, if there was a readily available substance out there that could cut its way through the Vyrus and get you dependably high? Everybody would be trying it at some point.

Lot of time on your hands in this life. Hard to punch in on a nine to five. Hard to make a regular living that lets you go take in a movie or grab a bite out. Hard to fill the hours when the sun is up. Something that could make the time pass a little more quickly, I’d give it a shot. And Terry, he’s no prude. Check out the aging hippie look he’s sporting and you got to figure he tried it all back in the day. But he has other concerns.

Terry’s trying to change the world. That takes time. And it takes subtlety; so he says. Not only is a bunch of guys spazzing out in public bad for the cause, it’s also more than a bit perplexing. These are new fish, for Christ sake. How the hell are they tapping into this shit? There’s some new way of banging DMT, or some new cocktail of industrial solvents out there, word should have gotten to Terry before the fish stumbled across it.

– So you want to know what it is and who cooked it up.

– That’s it. Just, you know, the skinny on where these kids are getting it.

– And that’s it, just the info?

– Well, yeah, what else would there be?

I fiddle with my Zippo, snap it open and closed.

– I just don’t want you thinking that I’m gonna be dealing with anyone who might be making this stuff.

He strokes his chin.

– I’m not sure I follow. What’s your point?

– The point being, I don’t kill for you anymore, Terry.

He scratches the back of his neck.

– Wow. That hadn’t really occurred to me. Like I said, Joe, I see this as a social issue. That’s why I feel comfortable asking you, as an associate in the community, to look into it. Because I know we share many of the same concerns.

He stops scratching.

– If it turns into a security issue, well, we’ll deal with it in-house at that point.

– Fine by me.

I stand up.

– Guess I’ll get to it.

He stands.

– All right. All right, Joe. That’s good to hear. It’ll be good having you doing some work with us again.

– Yeah, sure.

He walks me to the door.

– And, you know, like I say: a social issue. Just between us for the moment. Till we know what we’re dealing with.

– Any way you want it. You’re paying.

– Great. Great.

He leads me down the hall to the tenement’s entrance and opens the door.

– So, hear from you in a couple days?

– Sure.

– All right.

He slaps me on the shoulder.

– Good to see you, Joe.

– Yeah, you too, Terry.

I go down the steps and cross the street. On the opposite sidewalk I look back and Terry is still standing there in the open doorway. He gives me a big smile and a wave.

– Keep the faith, Joe.

I lift my hand slightly and he pops back inside and closes the door.

At the end of the block I turn the corner and see Tom and Hurley coming in the opposite direction. We walk toward each other, Tom pretending like he doesn’t see me. Hurley takes up three-quarters of the sidewalk, and I know Tom ain’t gonna budge off the rest of it. I step into the gutter to let them by.

A little smirk creases Tom’s face.

– That’s right, asshole, better make some room.

I let them go past.

– How’s that perimeter, Tom?

They keep walking.

– Everything secure?

Walking.

– You pick up Terry’s dry cleaning while you were out?

He keeps walking, but throws me the bird over his shoulder.

Tom’s got it in for me about as bad as Predo does. Those guys ever came across me dying in the streets, they’d kill each other fighting over who got to sit closer to watch me go. Whatever, doesn’t change the fact that he’s a world class punk. And about as easy to get a rise out of as a thirteen-year-old’s prick. But I keep doing it anyway. Man’s gotta have hobbies.

Terry can social me this and security me that, but what it boils down to is he doesn’t want anyone to know I’m looking into this. Not even his own people. Especially not his own people. Fair enough. Terry wants this done quiet, he knows what that costs. He knows me digging around on Society turf without an explicit license from the council could get hairy. And he’ll pay for that. Slippery as he may be, Terry always comes across when the bill is due.

So me, I’m feeling pretty good about things. A gig that should take care of my rent and empty fridge at the same time? What’s not to feel good about? I even got a couple leads. I can go poke around Doc’s, see if anyone noticed if The Spaz had company that night, do a little sniffing around in that vicinity. Might turn something up. But I’ll save that for later. Right now I got another idea. Someone in this town’s figured out a new way to get high. And if getting high is involved, I know the man to talk to.

– Hey, Phil.

– Aw shit. Aw fuck.

He tries to duck off into the crowd. I hook the collar of his shirt and tug him back.

– I said, hey Phil.

He turns around, adjusting his collar, flipping it back up James Dean style.

– Oh, hey, Joe. Didn’t see ya there.

– Yeah, well, it’s dark in here, so I see how that might happen.

– Yeah, dark in here. Couldn’t see ya cuz of all the dark.

He smiles at me, lifts his drink to his mouth and tilts the glass just enough to wet his lips. He’ll drink like that all night. Has to, he’ll only buy the one drink. When no one’s looking he’ll snatch up any glasses left unattended and suck them dry before the owners can turn from the jukebox. But that one drink he paid for, he’ll nurse that all night. It’s like a badge of honor he can show a bartender or doorman if they question his right to be here. Hey, man, I paid for my drink and I got a right ta finish it. Only way he’ll toss that thing down is if someone offers to buy him another.

– Buy ya a drink, Phil.

He brings the glass up, vacuums the contents and nods.

– Yeah, that’d be great. I was about to offer, but sure, thanks.

A waitress bustles past and I lift my chin. She gives me a harried half smile, too busy right now to work the charm for a tip.

– What? What?

– Double bourbon, rocks. And…

I look at Phil. He glances at the bar, cataloging the bottles on the top shelf.

– Oban neat.

She starts to leave. Phil grabs her arm.

– And a water back.

She nods and starts to leave again, but he still has her arm.

– And no ice in the water.

– You don’t let go my arm I’m gonna piss in the glass.

He lets go of her arm.

– Jeez, what a bitch. What crawled up her cooz?

– You, Phil.

He giggles.

– Yeah, yeah. Sure like to, Joe. She’s a piece.

He brings up his glass again, tilts it, lowers it, and looks into it sadly, having forgotten already that he emptied it. He reaches between a couple sitting at the table next to us and sets the glass down. He looks at me.

– Sure could use a drink.

He’s trying to sad-puppy-eye me. Problem is his eyes are betraying him. The pupils are screwed up to the size of pinheads, the whites marbled red, his irises, usually muddy green to start with, are a sickly diarrhea shade, and I’d swear there’s sweat breaking out across the damn things.

– Jesus, Phil, what the fuck you on?

He bounces up and down on his toes, his enormous blond pompadour swaying.

– A bender.

– Of what?

– Uh, the usual, man.

His eyes scan the ceiling, searching for the contents of his bloodstream.

– Bennies, couple bumps of crank, little freebase.

The cocktail waitress appears with our drinks. She hands me my whiskey.

– Double bourbon, rocks.

And offers Phil his.

– Oban neat, water back, no ice.

Phil looks at the glasses.

– I didn’t order those, I ain’t paying for those.

I hand the waitress some cash.

– I got it, Phil.

He smiles and takes the glasses.

– Thanks, Joe. I was about to offer, but thanks.

The waitress takes off. Phil guzzles the water.

– Jeez, needed that.

He squeezes between the couple again to set the empty on their table.

– Well, see ya ’round.

He turns to go and I snag him again.

– What’s the hurry, I just got here?

– Sure, sure ya did, Joe, but I got a thing I got to get to.

– What’s that?

– A, you know, a thing.

– No problem, Phil. We’ll have a little talk, then you can go to your thing.

– Sure, sure. Um, hey, but I gotta hit the can first. Take a leak.

– Fine by me.

He just about sighs with relief. I put my hand on his shoulder.

– In fact, why don’t I go with you? We can talk in private. Long time since we had a private chat.

His free hand goes to his face, covering the crooked nose and the scarred cheek I gave him last time we had a private chat in a bathroom.

– Hey, no, that’s OK, I can hold it.

The couple at the table are collecting their coats.

– Here, we can sit here, let’s talk here, Joe.

– Sure.

We sit at the little table. I stare at him and he stares down into his expensive Scotch, turning the glass around and around with his fingertips.

– How many days you been on the bender?

He jumps.

– Uh, what? Oh, uh…

He starts counting on his fingers. Finds them inadequate to the task.

– Couple weeks maybe.

– Not too healthy.

He carefully weaves the fingers of his right hand into his pomp and scratches his scalp.

– Well, healthy, you know? I mean, healthy? Not really my MO.

I smile.

– Nah, guess not.

He draws his fingers clear of his hairdo and wipes greasy pomade on his tight black jeans.

– So?

– Yeah, Phil?

– So, ya got something to ask, Joe? Cuz if you’re just looking to break my chops or bounce me off the walls I, not that I’m looking forward to it or anything, but if that’s the plan, I kinda wish ya’d just get it over with cuz I really want ta get on with my evening and see if I can’t maybe score a little something to keep me going a little longer.

– Going for the record or something?

– No, no, just, you know me, just that I got my hands on this bag of bennies and I, you know, don’t have such great self-control so I kind of just did ’em ’til they were gone and by then I’d been up however long and I thought I’d keep the party going, but, jeez, I been up so long now, when I come down the crash is gonna be murder and I really don’t want to deal with it if I can, like, put it off.

– Sound reasoning.

– Yeah, that’s what I thought.

– Speaking of drugs, Phil, you hear of anything new?

– Anything new?

– Like a new product going around?

His ears literally prick up.

– New? Something new going ’round? Ya on to something new? What’s the deal? It like an up? There a new up out there, Joe?

– Settle down. This’ll be something for people like me only.

He screws up his eyes, trying to focus.

– People like you? Like what, like nonusers? Shit, man, I’m not into the light stuff. You know me.

I lean across the table.

– Focus for a second here, Phil. I’m asking if you’ve heard about a new drug out there.

I point my finger at my own chest.

– Something for people like me.

I point the finger at his chest.

– As opposed to people like you.

He concentrates, looking from my finger to me to his own chest, then back at me.

– Oh! Oh, shit! Oh, yeah! Oh, I get it.

He points his finger at me.

– Some shit for people like you.

He points at himself.

– But not for people like me.

He grins.

– I get it.

He wets his lips with Scotch and his eyes wander off.

I slap the table.

– And?

His eyes come back around.

– And? Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, I heard about that shit. The new deal, the shit the new kids are into. ’Course I heard about that shit, who ain’t? Shit, Joe, where ya been, under a fucking rock?

– Wish I could get my hands on it, whatever it is. Try some of that shit.

– It’d kill ya.

– Me? Naw. Never.

– It’s cutting through the Vyrus, Phil. It’d kill ya.

– Well, OK, sure, maybe, ya put it that way, maybe. But if anyone could hack it, it’d be me.

– ’Spose it would.

We’re walking down A, leaving Niagara behind us. Phil wants to score and the place is dry.

I could just beat it out of him, give him a good one every time his mind starts to wander, but with the amount of speed he’s pumped into his system the past two weeks it could take a lot of slapping around. Not that I’m opposed to slapping Phil. Not that I’m opposed to beating the hell out of him for that matter. A worm like Philip, he was pretty much born to be slapped. Christ, he was any more of a Renfield he’d be stuffing his face with flies and cockroaches. God only knows how Phil ever found out about the Vyrus, probably by being somewhere he shouldn’t have been, but he’s been existing on the edge of the community for some years now. Really, it’s kind of a miracle none of us have killed him yet. Guy’s right hand’s been keeping secrets from his left for so long he doesn’t even know which is which at this point. But he won’t fuck around with me anymore, not after the last time. He used up his last Fuck-With-Joe-Pitt Coupon about a year ago. I made his face look different when he cashed it in. He tries to play me again and I’ll take it clean off. So we walk down to the Cherry Tavern.

The guy working the door takes one look at Phil and me and shakes his head.

– Uh-uh. We’re full up.

A couple teenage girls come giggling up. He glances at their fake IDs and waves them in.

He’s in his early twenties, his arms and chest pumped too big for his legs. He’s all high on working the door at this East Village meat market, enjoys being the man who decides which guys get in for a crack at all the underage pussy he lets in, and which do not. Me and Phil, we’re a little long in the tooth for this place. Me, I’m very long in the tooth for it, but I don’t look it, wearing my age as well as I do and all. Far as he’s concerned we’re a couple trolls who are gonna fuck up the ambience. I could do some things, I could grab his balls and give ’em a yank, I could bounce his skull off the door, I could just put a hand on his shoulder and squeeze until he gets the point. Instead I pull out a twenty.

He plucks it from my fingers.

– Happy hunting.

The Cherry has turned the corner about four or five times going from shit-hole to hot spot and back again as a new crop of NYU kids comes in each year. Right now it looks to be on the downward curve. It’s doing a brisk trade in binge-drinking hipsters, but they’re not fucking in the bathrooms. I drag Phil to the bar and order three of the specials: shot of house tequila with a Tecate back. We work our way through the hormones to the back of the bar where we find some open space and take a seat at the tabletop Ms. Pac-Man machine.

I put two of the specials in front of Phil.

– Drink up.

– Thanks, Joe. I was gonna buy, my round and all, but thanks.

He takes a sniff at one of the glasses. He pulls a face.

– Jeez, Joe, not the best stuff.

– Yeah, well you know the Cherry, not big on the fifteen-dollar Scotches.

– Yeah. Place is a dump.

He downs one of the shots and follows it with beer. I do the same.

– So talk to me, Phil.

His eyes are dancing over the tightly packed crowd, searching for anyone who might be holding. I snap my fingers in front of his face.

– The new shit. I’ve been under a rock, so tell me about it.

His eyes never leave the kids in their low-slung jeans, Pumas and hoodies, trying to spot the telltale hand clasps of drugs being passed off. But he talks.

– Yeah, the new shit, it’s like all the rage. Not, you know, thick on the ground or anything, but, like, the thing with the cutting edge crowd, the new kids are bringing it in.

– New fish found it?

– Yeah, that’s the vibe I’m getting. Like this isn’t the kind of thing the old farts, no offense, Joe, but not the kind of thing the old farts are into. That a monkey fist?

He’s pointing at a bulge about the size of an eight ball of coke in the tight pocket of a girl’s cords.

– Not my specialty.

– It is, it’s a monkey fist. That chick’s holding. Watch my beer, I got to go talk to that chick.

I grab his wrist before he can get up.

– Not yet.

– C’mon, man, I got to get in on this.

– Sit. Drink. Talk.

He watches her edge into the bathroom followed by a couple of her friends.

– Aw, man, gonna be nothing left.

I push the last shot of tequila in front of him.

– Drink.

He downs the shot.

– Anyway, not the kind of thing for the senior circuit is what I’m hearing. Taboo shit, scandalous and exotic. Frankly, shit piques my interest in the worst way.

– You see anyone do it?

– Naw, naw. All happening behind closed doors like Reefer Madness or something. Stories you hear, about these intimate rave kinda scenes with everyone hitting the new shit and freaking out and fucking wolves and bats and shit. You know, that kind of thing.

Right. Bat-fucking. That kind of thing.

– Where you get these stories? There aren’t enough new fish around for a scene like that.

The girl in the cords comes out of the bathroom, monkey fist significantly depleted. Phil rolls his eyes.

– Aw, man, aw shit. I knew it. Fuck.

– Where you getting these stories, Phil?

– I don’t know, around, you know, just, in the air. Shit like that, it’s just in the air.

– In the air and I haven’t heard about it? Terry Bird hasn’t heard about it?

He chugs beer, some of it overflows his mouth and runs down his chin. He wipes it with the back of his hand.

– In the air for people like me, man, people looking to score. You, Joe, you got a one track mind; you’re like this worker bee always trying to, like, you know, get what you need, always working a job. May as well be nine to five. And Bird, he’s like the establishment down here. May still be fighting the good fight with the Coalition, but far as the kids are concerned, he’s pretty much The Man himself. New fish aren’t looking to fight the power, they’re looking to maybe have a good time, enjoy life while it’s, you know, youngish. Think they’re gonna come above ground to chat it up with a guy like you?

He’s looking at me now, talking to me without watching the room. I stare at him. He snatches up his other beer, takes a drink, tilting his head back to break eye contact.

– Anyway, that’s, like, about it, I guess. All I got anyway.

– Uh-huh.

– Yeah, that’s it.

He drinks some more beer.

– That was quite a speech.

A little more.

– Where you get a speech like that, Phil? All them ideas?

He finishes the beer, shrugs.

– I dunno.

He points.

– Hey, hey, that look like-?

I cover his hand with mine.

– I said, Where’d you get a speech like that?

He tries to tug his hand free of mine, but I keep it pinned to the table.

– Speech? Jeez, Joe, that’s no speech, that just the speed rapping, just the old oral diarrhea. Just, like, whatever garbage rolling around my head getting cleared out by the speed. You know that.

I press down on his hand.

– Who you been talking to, Phil?

He clenches his teeth.

– Talkin’ to?

– Phil, I’m gonna crush your hand. You’ll never cut another line again. Who you been listening to?

He’s grabbed onto my wrist with his free hand, trying to pry himself loose.

– Um, yeah, well, yeah, I could have been list’ning to someone, to this guy.

– What guy?

– Guy goes by, The Count.

I lift my hand. He snatches his back and massages it.

– Jeezus, Joe, didn’t have to do that. Could have broke the damn thing. Ain’t ya had enough fun whalin’ on me over the years? Ain’t enough enough?

– Where do I find this guy?

– Got me. I mean, really, got me. The guy ain’t like no friend of mine or nothin’, he’s just a guy who’s around who I crossed paths with a couple times.

– Set something up for me.

– Aw c’mon. That could take all night. I got things of my own to deal with, I got a high to maintain here and you already got me off my schedule. As it is I don’t know how I’m gonna score, gonna have to rely on the kindness of strangers or something to get by, and now you want me to invest my few remaining energies in taking care of your business? That ain’t right, Joe, you know that ain’t right.

I stand up and dig the last of my cash out of my pocket. After the drinks here and Niagara and the twenty for the doorman, there’s about forty left. I drop it in front of him.

– Score.

He scoops the money up.

– Sure thing, don’t gotta tell me twice.

– Score, and then get me my meet. I want it set up tonight.

– I don’t know, man, could be tough on short notice. Like I said, not like he’s a pal of mine or anything.

He’s looking sadly at the bills in his hand, rubbing them back and forth against one another.

– Forget it, Phil, that’s all there is. Get me the meet. I’ll talk to you later tonight.

He gives up, tucking the cash into his jeans.

– Sure thing, Joe. You got it. Just tell me where to meet you and I’ll be there.

– I’ll find you.

– Uh, sure, sure OK. Um, where ya gonna find me?

– You’ll be at Blackie’s, right?

– Sure.

– I’ll find you there.

I make my way out of the place, leaving behind the low fog-bank of cigarette smoke, the fake wood paneling and the aroma of puke that drifts from the can every time someone opens the door. Leaving behind Philip, hip deep in his element.

The Count.

There’s one born every minute. Or every couple years anyway. Seems there’s always someone coming down the pike calling themselves The Count, or Vlad or Vampirella or some shit. Some asshole geeked on the whole vampire scene and wanting to play the role to the hilt. Whatever, I’ll meet this guy and talk to him. Won’t be the first time I’ve grilled a dude in a red satin-lined cape. Sad to say, it won’t be the last.

It’s close to one. Blackie’s won’t open ’til the regular bars close at four. I wander past Doc’s. A sheet of plywood has replaced the window I sent The Spaz through last night. I think about going in to talk to the bartenders, see if they saw anything I didn’t, but it’s pretty packed. I’ll save it for later. I walk to the corner of 10th and A. Take a left and I can stop by my place and grab some more cash, dig into that emergency fund. I stand on the corner for a minute. But I’m just putting shit off. I know where I need to go now, and my money’s no good there anyway. I walk one more block down A, take a right on 9th, and cross over to Avenue C.

When I come through the front door of Hodown, Evie glances up at me from behind the bar and gives me a look. She’s weeded back there. I slip past the pedal steel, fiddle and harmonica trio jamming on the tiny stage, collecting empties from the tables. I take the bottles behind the bar, dump them in a plastic garbage can with a couple hundred others just like them, and start washing glasses. Evie nods at me as she shakes a martini. Fifteen minutes later the glassware situation is looking better, so I go back around to the fun side of the bar and take a seat.

Evie’s still serving the crowd. It’s not a bad bunch. This late at night in the middle of the week it’s mostly waiters and waitresses getting off their shifts at the ten thousand cafés and bistros that opened down here in the last decade. Or it’s regulars coming in to work on their liver disease and listen to the music. She pops open a Lone Star, slides it down the bar to me. A half hour later things settle down and she comes over.

She wipes her hands on the bar rag tucked into her studded belt, picks up my smokes from the bar and sticks one in her mouth.

– Got a light?

She hardly ever smokes.

– What happened today?

She picks up my Zippo and lights the Lucky herself.

– No big deal.

– Good. What’d the doctor say?

She looks at the band.

– You hear these guys before? Corpus Christi?

– Yeah. I heard them before. What’s the doc say?

She takes a drag, coughs on the smoke.

– Said. Cough! Said. Cough! S’cuse me.

She takes a sip of my beer and stops coughing.

– Doctor said my viral load was up. Said the HIV is showing again.

I try to touch her hand, but she moves it. She stares at the band, holding the smoldering cigarette unsmoked.

– OK. Then what’s next?

A guy at the other end of the bar tries to catch her eye. She doesn’t see him.

– Well, it’s the second test showing a load, so that means we have to test to see if I’ve developed a resistance to the Kaletra.

– And if you have?

– We try other drugs.

– So when do you get the resistance test?

The guy at the bar is waving his hand.

– I get the resistance test after I take the recommendation from my doctor to my insurance company and they say I can have it, and if it comes back inconclusive I have to get them to approve a different test, and if that’s inconclusive we start shooting in the dark, trying different meds, but since Combivir and Kaletra are the Health and Human Services-recommended treatments, I’ll have to get every new drug we try approved first, and that will take Jesus knows how long, and they all have a different set of side effects so, instead of just puking all the time, I might start putting on something charmingly known as back fat or losing my hair or, you know, experiencing sudden heart failure.

She hands me the cigarette.

– Here, take this. I gotta go help this asshole.

She crosses over to the guy who’s been waiting for his drink. I stare at the cigarette she was smoking. She comes back, plucks it from my fingers, puts it to her lips, then pulls it away and hands it back to me.

– Sorry. Didn’t mean to blow up on you.

I take a drag from the smoke.

– What can I do?

She tucks some loose hair behind her ear.

– Honestly. There is something.

– What?

– Do you know your blood type?

– Um.

I take another drag.

– No. I guess not.

– Well, if you could find out that would be cool.

– What’s up?

– The doctor. He’s says I should start, this is so gruesome, he says I should start laying in a supply. For later. If I need transfusions. I can’t save my own obviously, so I need to find donors. I’ll get credits or something in the blood bank. So if you could find out. And then, if you’re a match.

She laughs.

– If you’re a match maybe you could give me some of your blood. Man, that’s about the most fucked up thing I’ve ever had to ask.

She looks at me.

– You OK, Joe?

– Yeah. I’m fine.

The infected population is pretty stable. And it’s that way for a couple reasons. One of the reasons is that it’s hard to infect anyone. It’s not just a matter of a couple bites on the neck. Somehow your infected bodily fluids need to mingle with someone else’s bodily fluids. The amount of mingling is up for debate. But seeing as how the Vyrus can’t survive outside the human body, it’s kind of tricky to get it from one person to another. It’s also not clear if it exists in any fluids other than blood. Not that I’ve done a lot of research into this stuff. My education stopped when I was about twelve. Biochemistry’s not my strong suit. I’m just getting by on the introductory lectures I got from Terry way back when. But I’m not special in my ignorance. Nobody has done any real research into this stuff. Way I understand it, researching a virus under the best of circumstances is a pretty tough proposition. But when the facilities at your disposal aren’t much more than a high school chemistry set, you’re doomed to operating in the dark.

Not that people don’t try.

The Coalition took a crack at it. They got their fingers into a very big pie called Horde Bio Tech, Inc. Took a shot at taking over the whole deal. Wanted to use their labs to start cracking the Vyrus. Didn’t work out for them. That was at least partly my fault. OK, mostly my fault. That’s why me and the Coalition don’t get along so well anymore. That’s why Predo has shifted me from his barely tolerated list to his torture-maim-and-kill-on-sight list. Anyway, they got as close as anyone’s gotten to having a chance to really dig into this thing. The Coalition Secretariat has built up some big piles of money over the decades, centuries, whatever. Money like that creates cracks. And they have become very adept over the years at working their fingers into those cracks and widening them. Once again, that’s the way Terry tells it. And I got no better way of knowing. But that kind of brings up the second reason why Vampyres aren’t cropping up like mushrooms: The Coalition doesn’t want them to.

The Coalition operates on a charter that is the exact opposite of the Society’s: They want to keep the Vyrus under wraps. They’ve been around for a long time, long enough to have a historical perspective of sorts, and they’ve already decided that no one is ever going to accept us as anything vaguely resembling normal. It’s pretty much the only thing I agree with them about. So while their grip on Manhattan may have slipped since the sixties, they still draw some lines, and one of the biggest is about keeping the numbers down. Not that they need to convince anyone. We all get it. This is a pretty delicate ecosystem here. It’s an island for fuck sake; the food supply, as it were, can only support so many predators. But in this case, the problem isn’t that the prey might be hunted to extinction. The problem is that when you get right down to it, we’re not predators, we’re parasites. And we are vastly outnumbered by the true masters of the territory. So it’s in all our interests to keep the numbers as they are.

And that’s why I know Philip is an asswipe.

I think about what an asswipe Philip is while I walk to my place. I think about Philip and all this other crap because the alternative is to think about Evie. The fact that she’s not getting better. The fact that she may be getting much worse. And, yeah, the fact that she’s hoping I’ll be able to donate some of my blood to help her if she gets really bad down the road.

Philip. Think about Philip.

At my place, I duck downstairs and grab the emergency cash. I didn’t need it at Hodown, but at Blackie’s everyone needs cash. I stand there for a second and look at the bed, still messed from last night. Evie didn’t want to come over tonight. Not after I told her I had to go take care of some business and didn’t know when I’d be home. Not the kind of thing a girl wants to hear from her guy the same day she finds out her terminal illness has taken a turn for the worse. Not the kind of thing I wanted to tell her. But I need to knock out this job for Terry, need to get the monkey off my back. I don’t take care of that, I’m not gonna be any help to her anyhow. And I want to, I want to help.

I go in the closet. It’s not blood I need this time. It’s a gun. I unlock the gun safe and take out the.32 snub. I check that it’s loaded and tuck it into the back of my pants. I don’t have any reason to think I’ll need it, but it’s late, and I’m irritable, and I might want to pistol-whip Philip with it. Him or this Count clown.

I lock up and go to Blackie’s.

I push the button next to the anonymous door on 13th. I stand there, knowing someone inside is peeping at me to see if I look OK. The door opens. It’s Dominick.

– Hey, Dom.

– Hey, bud.

He glances up and down the street, checking to see that no cops are nearby, then holds the door wide for me.

– C’mon in.

Blackie’s is a pit. It was probably once the super’s apartment for this building, now it’s as scummy an after-hours joint as you’re likely to find. It’s 4 a.m. and the place has just opened. Lucky me, I’m one of the first in. There’s only the one tiny room, but Blackie managed to crowd it with the bar, a few tables, a couple couches, a pool table and an old-school jukebox that plays real 45s. It takes me two seconds to look over the four or five losers in the place and see that none of them are Philip. I go to the bar and order a beer and a bourbon on the rocks. The beer is a can of Bud that comes out of an Igloo cooler at the end of the bar. The bourbon comes out of a bottle that says Maker’s Mark, but it ain’t. I give the bartender a twenty and she gives me back six and asks me if I need anything else. The anything else being a dime bag of coke that costs twenty-five bucks and wouldn’t get me high even if I didn’t have the Vyrus. I pass. With nothing else to do, I do the usual: sit out of the way, drink and smoke.

An hour passes. The place fills up, but it never gets loud. There are only two rules in Blackie’s: no loud voices and no cursing. The loud voices I get, there are occupied apartments right above us. The cursing is Blackie’s thing. Guess it makes him feel better about running a shitty after-hours coke den. A couple people try to sit at my table and coke-rap my ear off. I stare them down and they leave. Blackie himself shows up at some point: a potbellied black guy in his late fifties sporting ostrich skin boots, a black cowboy hat, and ropes of gold chain draped around his neck. He takes his stool at the end of the bar.

Blackie came to fame back in the day when he opened the first topless club in the East Village. He ran whores and did a brisk business in hijacked booze out the back. He also owned a piece of five or six other bars scattered around the neighborhood. That was then. He lost the club years ago and it was made into a rock venue. His whores left him. The other joints he sold off piecemeal. Now this place is all that’s left of his empire. And it probably makes more money than everything else put together ever did. He knows me from when I used to bounce at Roadhouse. He’d come in and pass me a heavy roll of C-notes and a tiny.25 automatic with pearl handles. I’d hang onto that shit for him ’til he left, the cash in case someone tried to rob him, the gun because he didn’t want to shoot no one if they tried to rob him. I’d pass it back to him at the end of the night and he’d peel off one of the hundreds and hand it to me.

I eye him as he chats with the bartender, looking him over to see if he still carries that bankroll. There’s a baseball-sized lump inside his black Levi’s jacket. Take that off him and my money problems are all solved. He catches me looking, shows me a couple gold teeth, touches his index finger to the brim of his hat and tells the bartender to buy me a round. I nod my head and forget about robbing him.

I drink the free drinks and inhale more Luckys. The place chokes with smoke, a James Brown tune whispers from the juke, everybody does key-bumps of shitty coke or just cuts lines right on the peeling Formica tops of the tables. A light by the door flashes from time to time and Dominick takes a look out the peephole and either lets in the person on the stoop, or doesn’t. I take a look at my watch. Fucking Philip. Boy is cruising for a bruising.

I get up, collect my cigarettes, lighter and jacket. I give Blackie another nod and head for the door. Dominick comes over to let me out. Just as he’s about to check the peephole and make sure a cop car isn’t sitting outside, the light flashes. He peeks and shakes his head.

– Hang on a sec, let me get rid of this guy.

He opens the door and Philip tries to dart in.

– Hey, Dominick, hey.

Dominick puts a hand in the middle of his chest.

– Uh-uh.

– Uh-uh? What uh-uh?

– Uh-uh you ain’t comin’ in.

– Why? Why the fuck not?

– Cuz ya can’t follow the rules. You talk too loud and you curse and you ain’t coming in.

– What the fuck are you talking about I don’t follow the fucking rules!?!

Dominick starts to close the door.

I tap him on the shoulder.

– It’s OK, he’s with me.

Philip sees me for the first time.

– Hey, oh, hey, Joe. You still here? Thought you might have left by now. Getting close to sunup, you know.

He winks at me.

– Sunup. You know.

Dominick looks at me.

– You sure you wanna vouch for him?

– Yeah, let him in.

He holds the door and Philip comes in.

– Yeah, Joe’s my pal, he’ll fuckin’ vouch for me.

– Watch your mouth, Phil.

– Sure, yeah.

Dominick still has the door open.

– So you goin’ out?

Philip shows me sad eyes.

– You leavin’ now, Joe? Too bad. Wanted to buy you a drink or somethin’. Take care and all.

I nod at Dominick.

– No thanks, Dom, I’ll stick around a little.

He sighs and closes the door. Guy opens and closes the door from 4 a.m. to 10 a.m. and tells people to keep it down and not to curse. Think he’d like his job a little more.

I catch Phil at the bar.

– So, Phil.

– Oh, Joe, hey. Decided to stay? Sure that’s a good idea? Like I say, getting light soon. Know how you hate to be going home when the sun’s up and all.

– Yeah, thanks for the concern. I’ll stick around a little longer.

The bartender comes over. I order another round for myself. Phil stands there and waits, but I don’t order one for him and he finally gives in and asks for a cup of water. Two bucks, the cheapest thing you can get here. The bartender takes a plastic cup over to the Igloo and pulls the little drain plug at the bottom of the ice chest, filling the cup with melted icewater. Philip looks at it.

– That sanitary?

The bartender plucks the dollar bill and four quarters from Phil’s palm and tosses them in the cashbox.

– Like you care.

Phil picks a flake of something black out of the water.

– Jeez, what the fuck’s his problem?

Blackie looks at him and clears his throat.

I lead Phil to the table I was occupying.

– Watch your mouth.

– Yeah, yeah, I know. Language, language.

We sit.

He stares into his cup, making sure there are no other contaminants floating around.

– Two bucks for some water, you’d think they’d at least give you a bottle or something.

– Phil.

He looks up.

– Yeah?

– Where’s my guy?

He finds another particle in the water and chases it around with his finger.

– Your guy?

– The one you were supposed to hook me up with.

He shows me a speck stuck to the tip of his index finger.

– What’s that look like to you?

I grab his finger.

– Phil, where’s The Count?

He pulls his finger free and points it over my shoulder.

– He’s right there, man. The Count’s right there.

I look at the guys playing pool.

– The one taking his shot.

I look at the one taking his shot: twenty to twenty-five, skinny, mop of blond hair, little fringe of blond goatee, and a faded brown Count Chocula T-shirt.

Philip wipes the speck from his finger onto the thigh of his jeans.

– I mean, jeez, how’d you miss the guy? Told you he’s called The Count.

Philip makes the introductions.

– Hey, hey, Count. This is my man Joe. Joe, this is The Count.

The Count flips his fingers at me, not offering to shake.

– Hey, Joe. ’S up?

– Wanted to have a word.

He looks over his shoulder at the guy racking the balls on the pool table.

– I got another game.

– I can wait.

He smiles, points at my watch.

– But not too long, right?

– No, not too long.

He twirls his pool cue.

– Yeah, got the same condition. Let me knock this guy off and we’ll go someplace.

I watch him play. He’s sharp on the table. Smooth. Keeps up a patter with a couple girls sitting on one of the couches. Between shots he takes a clove cigarette from one of their mouths without asking. He drags on it and passes it back, steps to the table and casually sinks the eight. The loser comes over to shake and The Count passes him his cue.

– Take the table, man. I got to go.

He looks over at me, flashes a finger, asking for another second, and chats up the girls as he puts on his fake fur-lined cord jacket, plaid scarf and furry Russian hat. Before he comes over to me he’s flipped open his phone and entered both girls’ numbers into it.

– Thanks for waiting, man.

I get up. Phil gets up.

– So cool, where to, guys?

I put a hand on Philip’s shoulder and press him back into his chair.

– Stay, Phil.

He starts to rise again.

– But.

I point a finger.

– Stay.

He stays. We go.

– Hey, girlie. No, I’m up. Yeah, right, as if. I don’t know, just heading for my crib. Right now? Girlie, you know I want to, but I got a thing I got to do. That ain’t right. That ain’t right. Girlie, you know I don’t rock like that. No doubt. There was any way, I’d be there. Yeah? Yeah? You are such a bad girlie. You know you are. Yeah. Sure. That’s it. Later.

The Count snaps his cell phone closed.

– Sorry about that. She’s not my regular thing, but she likes to think she is. I could shine her on, but the girl is just so damn dirty, I don’t want to lose the hookup. Know what I mean?

– Sure, I know.

– Right you do. This is the place.

It’s an old brick building, right next to the El Iglesia de Dios Church on 6th between B and C. The place is turreted. Oxidized copper plating details the roofs and gables.

– You live here?

– Yeah, I know, all castlelike and such. Didn’t plan it that way.

I eye the renovated lobby through the glass door.

– I was thinking about the money.

He takes out a set of keys.

– Oh, that. Well, I got like a trust fund I draw on. Money’s no thing.

I look at my watch: almost five forty-five. Mid-January: sunrise just after seven. I look at the sky. There’s a heavy overcast. Even if I’m out right at seven, there shouldn’t be enough UVs hitting the street to do me any real harm. The Count catches my eye.

– Don’t sweat the sun. You get stuck here, you can hang. I got some chicks staying with me. All like to party.

– No thanks. We’ll talk. I’ll go home.

– Cool by me.

He opens the door.

We take the elevator. The Count looks down from the numbers as they light up.

– Thanks for getting rid of Philip, man. That guy, he starts tagging after you and there’s just no way to lose him.

– You hang out with him much?

– No chance. He just always shows up. Something’s going on and he hears about it. One of those guys. Nothing wrong with him. He’s just, he’s such a…

– Renfield.

– Yeah, he is. Didn’t want to say. Thought he might be your friend or something.

– He’s not my friend.

The elevator stops, the doors open and he leads me down the landing on the fourth floor. A door at the end of the hall opens while he’s still fiddling the key into the lock. A twenty-something girl in a pink leather miniskirt and black camisole top, her blond hair done up in pigtails, jumps into his arms.

– Hey, baby.

She wraps her legs around his waist and plants her mouth on his. They make out for a couple seconds, then The Count pulls his face away.

– Brought a friend.

She looks at me.

– Hey, friend.

I nod.

She jumps down.

– Well, don’t stand around, come join the party.

She spins and skips back inside.

The Count goes to lead the way and his phone rings. He looks at the number.

– Got to take this. You go in.

He opens the phone and starts talking. I go in, the door shuts behind me.

The apartment is a loft. An assortment of partitions have been used to separate sleeping areas. One defined by two Chinese screens collaged with pictures clipped from fashion magazines, one by roll-down bamboo blinds, and the last by an assortment of cast-off doors clearly rescued from the street. The communal space is about one-third disaster-area kitchen and two-thirds disaster-area couches, beanbags, TV and stereo.

The girl with the pigtails drops into one of the beanbags and a handful of Styrofoam pellets squirts out of a splitting seam in its side.

– Careful!

Another girl, this one a brunette, in nothing but beige Ugg boots, panties and a scarlet poncho, comes out from behind the wall of doors.

– You’ll pop it.

Pigtails stretches her foot toward the TV and starts changing channels with her big toe.

– It’s already popped.

Poncho kneels next to the beanbag and presses on a piece of silver duct tape that’s peeled away from the seam.

– It’s not popped all the way. You keep bouncing on it and it’s gonna pop all the way.

– So what?

– So I’m not gonna clean up all the fucking foam BBs.

– So what?

– So they stick to everything and they’re a pain in the ass.

– So what?

– So stop jumping on it.

– OK. Where’s the remote?

Poncho stands.

– Don’t know.

She looks around for the remote and sees me.

– Hello.

I stand there.

– Hi.

She takes a long look.

– Do I know you?

– No.

– Uh-huh.

She nudges Pigtails with her foot.

– Darlin’, who’s he?

Pigtails glances at me, but keeps flipping channels with her toe.

– Don’t know.

– Uh-huh. And where’d he come from?

Pigtails finds something she likes and tries to adjust the volume with the heel of her foot.

– Came with The Count.

Poncho looks at her.

– The Count’s here?

– Yeah.

– Where?

– Here.

I point at the door.

– He’s in the hall. On the phone.

The door opens and he comes in. Poncho smiles at him. He smiles back. She walks slowly past me and plasters her body against his.

– You’re cold.

– It’s cold out.

– You got something for me?

He kisses her.

– Nice. You got something else?

He holds up the phone.

– Just got the call. It’s on its way.

She melts against him. Pigtails springs up and starts jumping on the beanbag and squealing.

– It’s on its way! It’s on its way!

A redhead in Sleeping Beauty PJs lifts the bottom of one of the bamboo blinds and ducks out.

– We scored?

Pigtails jumps higher.

– The Count is here and it’s on its way!

Poncho points at me.

– And who’s your friend?

The Count wraps an arm around her and leads her toward a couch.

– Baby, don’t you know? That’s Joe Pitt.

The beanbag explodes and a cloud of Styrofoam BBs covers the room. Pigtails falls on her ass.

I brush BBs from my shoulder and try to figure what the hell this is all about. These four living here. Under the same roof. It doesn’t make sense. Why? Because the whole place reeks from the Vyrus. They’ve all got it, every one of them. Four new fish under one roof.

– You know how it is. It’s a small world out there. You hear about people.

– How come I never heard about you?

The Count sits on a tired gold velvet couch, Poncho leaning against him, rolling Drum cigarettes in her lap.

– Why would you? Me, I’m just a new fish. You, you got a rep.

A rep I’ve got.

– Say I wanted to know about you. What would be the story?

Poncho places a cigarette between The Count’s lips, strikes a wooden kitchen match on one of the buttons of his fly and lights the smoke.

He takes a drag, pecks her on the cheek, and exhales.

– The story would be pretty boring, man.

– I’m easily amused.

He laughs.

– OK. OK, man. Well. Until recently I was a student at Columbia. That was like a mom and dad thing, made them happy that I went Ivy League. But my life is down here. Got this place, got my bars, got my ladies, all of it down here. So by day, I’m Mr. Pre-Med to keep my moms and dads happy, keep the trust fund flowing and the lifestyle living and all. By night, I’m doing my thing. I mean, my thing before things changed.

I pull out my Luckys and find the pack empty. The Count pokes Poncho.

– Offer the man a smoke, babe.

She licks the seal on another Drum, walks over to me and puts it in my mouth. I catch her wrist as she’s reaching toward my crotch and take the Ohio Blue Tip from her fingers.

– Thanks, I can light it myself.

She shrugs and settles back in next to The Count. I light up.

– So when did things change?

– A year ago, little less than that.

– How’d it go down?

He took off his coat earlier, but he’s still wearing the big Russian hat. He takes it off now, sets it on Poncho’s head and taps it. It falls down to her nose.

– I’m not too clear on the details.

– How’s that?

He frees the grinning Poncho from the enormous hat.

– Cuz I was mad drunk.

– So tell me what parts you are clear on.

He tosses the hat to the end of the couch.

– Is this what you wanted to ask me about, man? My origin story?

– I just like to know who I’m talking to.

– Not like I know that much about you.

– Said I have a rep.

– A rep, sure.

– What is it?

– Depends who you talk to. Out on the street, in the bars, they say steer clear. But they also say if a person’s in real trouble, you’re someone who can take care of things. Course…

He chuckles.

– Course, that’s not what Tom Nolan says.

I blow smoke.

– What’s he got to do with it?

– Tom? He’s my sponsor.

Pigtails and PJs have been doing something in the kitchen. Now they come over with a tarnished silver tray loaded with a battered coffee service and several mismatched china cups and napkins. They set it on the floor and start filling cups.

I take a last drag off my Drum and drop the butt in an empty wine bottle. It hisses in the lees at the bottom.

– So you’re one of Tom’s?

– You were asking origins, man. Well, Tom’s the one who sponsored me to the Society. He didn’t infect me, but he found me after I got sucked. I’d been at the Mercury Lounge. Got mad drunk on Hennessy and Cokes, went outside and stumbled around and got latched by a sucker. Tom found me. Took me to a safe house, got me nursed up, gave me the 411 on what was going down. Saved my life.

– Hell of a guy.

He stirs sugar into his coffee.

– Well, let’s not exaggerate, man. I mean, he got me pledged and all, and I’m indebted, you know. But he’s, man, he’s…uptight.

– He’s an asshole.

He shakes his head.

– Not for me to say. I haven’t been around long enough to be passing judgment on guys who’ve been doing all the heavy lifting for years.

Pigtails walks over to me on her knees, carrying a cup and the coffeepot.

– Coffee?

– Sure.

I take the cup and she pours.

– Milk and sugar?

– No thanks.

She stays there in front of me, on her knees, holding the pot.

– You really Joe Pitt?

– Yeah.

– Funny.

– What’s that?

– I thought you’d look younger.

– Sorry about that.

She blows at a strand of hair that’s come loose from one of her pigtails and settled on her forehead.

– No, that’s OK. I still think you’re hot.

I sip my coffee.

Poncho leans forward and snags the back of Pigtails’ miniskirt with her index finger.

– Settle down, girl. The man doesn’t want to play with you.

Pigtails scoots backward on her knees, smiling at me.

– But he can. He can play with me anytime he wants.

She sets the coffeepot on the tray and starts whispering in PJs’ ear. The two of them burst out giggling, scramble into the bathroom and close the door.

The Count waves his hand at the door.

– Sorry about them.

– No problem. So, Tom found you.

– Found me, schooled me, sponsored me, pledged me to the Society.

– But you’re not one of his boys?

He finishes his coffee and takes another cigarette offered by Poncho.

– Look, bro, what is it you want to know? Tom my buddy? I already told you not. You mean, am I one of his partisans? Also not. Exercising authority is not my thing. If there’s a referendum at-large in the Society, do I vote how Tom thinks I should? Yep. Guy brought me in, he’s entitled. He needs some cash, wants me to donate to the Clan coffers, do I go the extra mile? Sure. I can afford it. Do I have him up to my place, let him sit in my favorite chair, have my ladies make him some coffee, put those ladies at his disposal? No. Never done that. But here you are. So what’s that tell you?

– Tells me you want something.

He points his cigarette at me.

– That, now that, bro, you ask what your rep is? That is your rep right there. Your rep is, don’t take nothing from nobody no how. Surprised you took the coffee and the smoke.

– Didn’t want to be rude.

He laughs, slaps his knee.

– Yeah, that’s it, that’s the shit. That Slick Willie lone-wolf style. That’s the rep. See, see, me, me? I couldn’t do that. I’m not saying I’m a mama’s boy or anything, but I am, you know, used to having some comforts. In terms of lifestyle, I’d just as soon be like you, Roguing it. But the truth is, I’m not cut out for it.

Poncho strokes his cheek.

– Poor, soft baby.

He nods.

– Pretty much. As it is, I got my Society membership to keep me safe down here. And I got my trust fund to keep me comfortable. ’Course, don’t know how long I can make that last. Told my moms and dads I needed to take a year off. Hard to go pre-med when you can’t take classes during the day. Pretty soon they’re gonna want to know my plans. What am I gonna tell them? Uh, I don’t know, hang out, drink blood, party. So, no, bro, I don’t want anything from you. I just heard about you, thought maybe you were cool. Philip introduced you, I played it easy and all, but, hey, I was kinda starstruck. Truth. So, my crib, my smoke, my girls. Whatever. You don’t want to hang, just want to ask your questions and take off, that’s cool. It’s all good.

I set my half full coffee cup on the floor at my feet.

– What about drugs?

– Love ’em. But they don’t really work anymore.

– Uh-huh. What about this new thing?

He fiddles with his cigarette, licking the tip of his finger and rubbing the saliva on the side of the smoke where the cherry has started to burn unevenly.

– This new thing?

– A new high. Something the new fish are into.

The intercom buzzes. The bathroom door bangs open as Pigtails runs out and presses the button to buzz whoever it is into the building.

The Count stands up.

– You cool if I take a sec?

– Sure. Visitor?

He grins.

– Delivery.

Pigtails is jumping up and down again.

– Delivery! Delivery! Delivery!

The Count steps into the hall and closes the door behind him.

I stand up, look at Poncho.

– Can I get another of those?

– Sure.

She holds out the cigarette. I take it and she offers me a match. I shake my head and light it with my Zippo.

– So what about you, how long you been on the scene?

– Less than a year.

I snap my Zippo open and closed against my thigh.

– Society?

– Oh yeah.

She holds out her hands to the other girls and they run over and jump on the couch with her.

– We’re all Society here. Not a Rogue in the house. ’Cept you.

– Yeah. Except me. Who brought you in? You don’t mind me asking?

– We don’t mind.

– So who was it?

She puts her arms around the girls’ shoulders.

– Tom.

– Uh-huh.

I point at Pigtails and PJs, who have put their heads together behind Poncho’s and are once again whispering.

– And them? Tom?

– Oh yeah. Tom. We’re all Tom’s in here. ’Cept you.

– Yeah. Except me. Guess I must just be the lucky one.

The door opens and The Count comes back in. Pigtails bounces off the couch and runs to him.

– Score! Score! Score!

Figure a score for me, too. Figure I get to see firsthand what the shit is and then I can go fill Terry in and that will make this about the easiest job I ever had.

The Count returns to the couch, Pigtails riding on his back. He shrugs her off and she plops onto the cushions. He’s carrying a large, padded manila envelope. He opens it with a little flourish and produces a pint IV bag of blood.

Shit. No score. Just a late snack.

He sits. Poncho takes an IV needle and hose from beneath one of the napkins on the coffee tray and hands them to him. He carefully inserts the needle into the valve. A drop wells up and leaks out at the opening. And I smell it. Even in this loft, stinking of the three of them, I smell it.

– Don’t drink that.

The Count looks up.

– What?

– Don’t drink it. It’ll kill you. It’s infected. Can’t you smell it?

He tilts his head to the side.

– Drink it? We’re not going to drink it.

Poncho pulls a napkin from the tray, revealing four paper-wrapped syringes beneath.

The Count picks one of them up.

– Don’t worry, there’s enough to go around. If you’re still curious about the new shit, I mean.

The Vyrus will kill you. It will eat you alive from the inside out. There is nothing you can do; sooner or later, it will get you. But no matter how desperate you may be, you will never latch onto another infected. I’ve had infected blood in my mouth; it was acid. And while the Vyrus can’t survive outside the human body, blood taken from a Vampyre will make you sick as hell, and then kill you. The Vyrus may be dead in there, but some remnant of it will remain, some husk that will twist your insides and make you wish you were dying.

But this is different, altogether something else.

– The Vyrus can’t survive outside a living body.

The Count stays focused on what he’s doing, inserting the needle of one of the sterile syringes into the IV valve on the hose.

– If you say so.

– The Vyrus dies outside a human host.

Poncho and Pigtails are sitting on either side of PJs, who is reclining on the remaining beanbag. She has her sleeve rolled up and Poncho is swabbing her arm as Pigtails holds a piece of rubber surgical tubing at the ready.

The Count draws the corrupted blood from the hose into the syringe.

– So?

– The Vyrus is alive in that.

He pulls the syringe free, holds it upright and gently taps an air bubble to the top.

– That’s kind of the point.

He presses slightly on the plunger and blood squirts out of the needle and dribbles down its length. He takes a cotton ball from the coffee tray and wipes the dribble away.

The dribble emits a thick stink of Vyrus. PJs moans in response, her eyes fixed on the needle as The Count kneels between her spread legs.

– OK, baby?

She nods, breath short.

He puts the tip of his index finger to the tip of her upturned nose.

– Here we go.

Pigtails ties off PJs’ arm with the tubing and slaps a vein to the surface. It’s a nice dark vein, thick and purple under her pale skin. He braces the vein with his thumb and slides the needle in.

A bead of PJs’ own blood rises to the surface of her skin. She squeals softly from the back of her throat. The Count presses the plunger, forcing the poison into her vein. Poncho holds PJs’ head between her hands. The syringe empty, the Count draws it free, places a cotton ball over the hole in PJs’ arm, and releases the tubing. Instantly, PJs jerks. Pigtails leans over her and grabs hold of both her arms. The Count places the used syringe back on the coffee tray and wraps his fingers around her legs just below the knees. PJs shivers, her mouth goes wide, the sound in her throat grows louder. She starts to tremor and the three of them hold her limbs and head firmly as she shakes. The sound rises in pitch, peaks, stops, her eyes roll back in her head and her muscles go limp. The Count and Pigtails release her and Poncho strokes her cheek and kisses her brow.

Pigtails claps.

– Now me!

– How does it work?

– Really, really well.

– Not what I meant.

– I know.

The girls have all had theirs, Pigtails shaking only the slightest bit and Poncho not at all. The three of them are sprawled on the thick, white synthetic fur rug next to the couch. An occasional moan comes from their lips, a muscle twitching here or there, as they stare blindly at the ceiling.

The Count goes from one to the other, checking their pulses. Satisfied, he looks at me.

– What do you know about blood?

– It tastes good.

He starts stripping the paper from the last syringe.

– What do you know about the Vyrus?

– It tastes bad.

He rolls up his sleeve.

– Yeah, that’s what I hear. OK, so I’m pre-med, yeah? But that doesn’t really mean shit. All it means is that pops is a doctor and he and moms want me to be a doctor and I scored well on my SATs and went to the right prep school and got into Columbia and declared myself a biology major and I’m taking the classes I’m supposed to. But that doesn’t mean I’m very good at it or anything.

– I’ll take your word for it.

– You should, bro, you should. So, I got what you said. I heard the same thing, the Vyrus can’t survive outside a body.

He picks up the IV bag, still more than half full.

– But here it is.

He holds the bag close to his nose, an expression on his face like a man smelling a piece of really stinky cheese.

– And it’s alive in there.

– How?

– Don’t know. But it doesn’t last.

He fits the needle to the valve.

– We get the stuff and we need to hit it right away. When the Vyrus in there dies, it’s over. So you do the math, process of elimination and all, and you know where the high lives. It lives in the Vyrus.

He draws the blood into the syringe.

– But you got to get it right. Too much, you will freak fucking out. Wait too long, ’til the Vyrus peters out: sick as shit or worse. Could be someone out there has developed a preservative, a medium that keeps the Vyrus together for a limited amount of time. How they got the idea to stick it in their arm is beyond me, but I’m sure glad they did.

– Where do you get it?

– A guy.

– What guy?

PJs is slowly coming out of it, stretching, rubbing her face, touching her skin. The Count goes to the kitchen and comes back with a bottle of water. He holds her head up as she takes a tiny sip. It’s been no more than a half hour since she went down.

– What guy?

He presses his fingers to PJs lips and she kisses them. He chucks her under the chin and goes back to the couch.

– Look, bro, we got a good thing going here. This.

He holds up the syringe.

– This is so good. You have no idea. And our hookup is solid. But he’s a hookup. That means all I have is a pager number. He either calls me back or he doesn’t. And when he does call me back, if he’s holding, he just sends a delivery guy. Some guy who doesn’t even know what he’s carrying. The delivery guy, he’s a civilian, not infected, not even a Renfield. He just thinks he’s carrying dope. Different guy every time.

– How did you get the hookup?

He swabs his arm with an alcohol-drenched cotton ball.

– All this sterilization, not really necessary. Not like we can get infected, right? Just makes it better, part of the ritual.

– The hookup.

He picks up the tubing.

– From another fish. Look, can we talk about this later?

– Who was the fish gave you the hookup?

He slaps a vein.

– I heard you were at Doc’s last night.

– So?

– I hear a kid freaked out. A fish.

– Yeah.

– You see that?

– Yeah.

– He probably hit too much. Or waited too long and the Vyrus was dead.

– What of it?

– Well, that was the kid who got me the hookup.

He holds the tip of the needle at the vein.

– I don’t want to be a bad host or anything, but I’m gonna hit this shit now. You don’t have to go. Stick around. The girls come out of it, they’ll set you up. You can see what it’s all about.

I look at my watch. If I stay any longer I’ll be here all day. He’s pressing the tip of the needle to his vein. I reach over and grab his wrist.

– Any idea where the hookup is? Where it comes from?

He looks at my hand on his wrist, up at my eyes.

– Hey, man. I been a good host, right? You mind moving that?

I take my hand away.

He nods, smiles again.

– Thanks. All I hear, the only rumor I ever hear, is that it comes from Uptown.

I’m standing up, slipping on my jacket. I freeze.

– Uptown. The Coalition?

He shakes his head.

– No, no. Up. Town. Above One-ten. All the way up. The Hood, bro. And that’s what I know. Now, you can stay, go, whatever, but I’m gonna zone out here.

He puts the needle in, pushes the plunger, and unties the tubing. Before he can pull the needle free, he’s out.

PJs squirms over to him and removes the syringe from his arm. She leans her head against his thigh, looks at me and holds up the syringe.

– Do me again.

I walk out the door.

How you die, one of the easiest ways, one of the very easiest ways, you go off your reservation. Go outside the territory you know and you may as well be cutting your way through the Amazon. Sun comes up, you got no safe house. Run into the local Clan, and you will, they’ll chop you down, a Rogue on their turf. Go to ground, find some hole to hide in, get caught without blood and try to poach something, you won’t just be chopped, you’ll be put out in the sun. Do not go off the reservation. You’re a Rogue lucky enough to have an arrangement with a Clan, do not leave that turf.

Above One-ten. That’s way off the reservation. That’s Hood turf. Haven’t been up there since I was a kid. Since I was a kid from the Bronx. Since I was something you might consider human.

– Hey, Lydia.

– Pitt?

– Yeah.

Silence on the other end. Then.

– Where’d you get this number?

– You gave it to me.

– That was awhile back.

– Guess I’m lucky it still works.

– Yeah, you are.

I sit at my desk, spinning my Zippo around and around on my heavily doodled blotter.

– You still there, Pitt?

– Yeah.

I spin some more.

– You called me, Pitt.

– Yeah, I did.

Spinning.

– Just wanted to say hi, or something on your mind?

I stop spinning.

– You still have people in the straight world?

She grunts.

– Straight’s not really my thing.

– Not like sex-straight. Uninfected. I hear you still have a public face.

– Yeah. Heard that, did you?

I tap a Lucky on my thumbnail.

– You used to do gay rights and stuff.

– I used to fight against ignorance. I still do.

– Sure, sure. I know you got that covered in the Society, but out there, in the world, you still do that?

– Yeah. I still got a face. Me, some of the other members of the Lesbian, Gay and Other Gendered Alliance still have faces. We still work out there.

– AIDS?

– What?

– You work with AIDS people?

– AIDS people?

– People who are sick. HIV positive.

– I do some needle exchange. Talk to sex workers sometimes.

I balance the Lucky on top of the Zippo.

– Got a destination with this, Pitt?

I pick up the cigarette and light it.

– Say I had a friend who was sick.

– You got a friend?

– Use your imagination.

– OK.

– This friend is HIV-positive, medication isn’t working, could be trouble with her insurance company, that kind of stuff.

– OK.

– There other options? This person needed to get meds and whatever, there other options?

– Well, there are exchanges, mostly run online. People with meds they don’t use anymore, or they have understanding doctors who write them scrips for whatever, they swap meds. Try things the HMOs would never allow. But it’s all pretty catch as catch can, you know.

A flake of tobacco gets stuck to my tongue; I spit it on the floor.

– So you want a number? Some web addresses for your friend?

– Sure.

I find a pen. She rattles off numbers and letters. I draw a series of boxes on the blotter, one inside another.

– Anything else my friend could try?

– Depends.

– On what?

– Your friend got money?

– Why?

– There’s a black market for meds. You have the money, you can get anything. Experimental stuff that’s not even approved yet. Anything.

– No, no money.

– Hunh. You know…

– Yeah?

– You could ask the girl. For money.

The girl.

– No.

– She’d give it to you. The girl would give you anything you needed. You know she would.

– Not the girl.

– Sela says she asks about you all the time.

I look at the butt end of my smoke, watch as the cherry consumes the little LUCKY printed on the paper.

– Sela talks to her?

– All the time, she’s like her personal trainer now. The girl got her to move up there, wanted her close.

– That’s Coalition turf.

– I know. Sela renounced the Society.

– She renounced?

– Had to. She would have Rogued-it up there, but you know the Coalition: No dogs allowed. Pledged the Coalition.

– Jesus.

– She loves the girl. Only way she could stay close to her. Figured better to join the Coalition so she could keep an eye on her.

– Terry must have shit.

She laughs.

– Not half as much as Tom.

– Fuck him.

– You fuck him, Pitt. He’s not my type. Fucking fascist.

– Still not getting along?

– It’s not just me anymore. I hear you were around to see Terry.

– Yeah.

– I hear you didn’t have an appointment.

– Yeah.

– Picture how that kind of stuff goes over with the members. Terry’s always been open-door. You need to talk to him, he’s there. Part of his appeal. Part of why so many of us trust him. Now Tom wants all contact to go through his security desk. Not popular at all.

– So how’s he keep the job?

– He’s got his supporters. Younger members mostly, guys mostly, machos that like the idea of a strong and independent Society.

– Younger members. I hear there’s been a lot of that going around lately.

I hang on the line while she doesn’t say anything. I hear a clicking sound, like maybe she’s flicking her thumbnail against her front teeth. The sound stops.

– We got a little off the subject, Pitt.

– Just saying, seems there’s a lot of new fish in the pond.

– Hadn’t noticed. Anyway. You have a friend who’s sick and needs help, I’m happy to give you some advice; that’s something I do anyway. Society politics, that’s for members only.

– Just passing the time.

– I know what you’re doing. I may have helped you out once, done something that wasn’t strictly by the book, but don’t think I’m not a believer. I’m Society, Pitt, through and through. Got it?

– Sure.

– Good. So. You want me to talk to Sela, have her talk to the girl?

– No.

– It’s your business, but if you’ve got a friend who’s HIV-positive, money always helps. The girl would love to do something for you. This isn’t the time to get stuck on your pride, Joe.

– Thanks for the advice, Lydia.

– I’m just saying. If you want to help your friend, then help.

– Like I say, thanks, for the numbers and such. I owe you one.

– Right. Whatever you say, Pitt.

Lydia ’s alright. She may have fallen for the Society line, she may be a pain in the ass PC crusader dyke, but she’s alright. She helped me with that Coalition mess last year. She helped me with the girl. The girl and her fucking sick-ass father and…

I need to stop thinking about this stuff. I think about this stuff, that means thinking about the thing that took out the girl’s father. The thing that shouldn’t exist. The thing that was in the same room with the girl, that got a look at her. Don’t think about it. The girl’s OK. She’s got Sela as her angel. Sela, the baddest pre-op Vampyre on the Island. Anyone tries to mess with the girl, Sela’s gonna improvise a sex change on their ass. The girl’s OK.

And I got other problems now.

I manage a couple hours’ sleep. I don’t dream about the girl, so that’s good. But I do dream about Evie. Normally dreaming about Evie is as good as it gets, but these aren’t those kind of dreams. These are the other kind. When I wake up I have hours to go to sundown. And still no idea how I’m gonna get my ass above One-ten.

Figure I call Terry, tell him the trail leads Uptown, he’ll have some way of getting me across Coalition territory. I go to the Hood with Terry’s blessing, things won’t be so bad. The Society and the Hood have a relationship. Both Clans were born out of the same revolution, both were snapped off from the Coalition. So yeah, figure that’s how to go about this. Except for the way Lydia got all touchy at the end there. She’s Society, sure. But she’s not rank and file. That queer alliance she put together within the Society has some pull, and she often pulls it her own direction, has her own ideas about how things should be done. She clammed up tight when I started talking new fish. Figure that means something’s up. As if I hadn’t already got that. But now I figure it’s something to do with Terry and Tom. Something to do with the way Tom is trying to put a wall around Terry. And this thing with the new high? Figure that’s Terry’s angle, figure it has something to do with his play, whatever it turns out to be. Fine. But if that’s the case, if this is an angle, if it’s Terry’s angle, it’s worth something. And not just whatever he’s planning to slip me. So figure I don’t want to go to Terry for help getting Uptown. I got time before I need to fill him in on my findings. Let him wait. I work this alone? I could end up with the angle, make it pay out, get me some serious money maybe. Money I can use not just for fucking rent, but for Evie.

Got to be that way.

Cause there’s no way in hell I’m going anywhere near the girl.

– Hey, babe.

– Hey.

– How you feeling?

– Fine.

– Good.

I’m upstairs in the big apartment, wandering from living room to kitchen to bedroom to bathroom. Picking up odds and ends of garbage: take-out bags piled on the counter, cards for locksmiths and dog-walkers slipped under the door, an empty Kleenex box on the back of the toilet, stuffing it all into a huge, green plastic garbage sack.

Over the phone I can hear a TV in the background, something with a laugh track; just that and her breathing.

– What’re you doing?

– Watching the tube. What about you?

– Cleaning.

– Excuse me?

– Not with a mop or anything. Just picking up trash upstairs.

– Cleaning the fake apartment.

The channels flip in the background: a commercial, a music video, an infomercial; faster and faster, and then the TV is silent.

– You left me hanging, Joe.

– I know.

– Had a pretty bad fucking day.

– I know.

– And your response was to bail.

– I know.

– One thing about you.

– What’s that?

– When I really need you, you always come through. Makes it so I can take the other shit, you know?

I take a white grocery bag that hangs off the back of the bathroom door, serving as a wastebasket, and stuff it into the sack. It’s full of lipstick-smeared tissues and old tampon wrappers.

– Yeah, I know.

– If that’s not gonna be the case anymore, if it’s getting too stiff now, I need to know. You can’t take it the rest of the way, I need to know now. It’s OK. But I can’t be counting on you if you’re not going to be there.

I flip the lid down on the toilet and sit.

– I hear you, baby.

– Do you? Are you sure? I thought you did, but disappearing on me like you did last night, that made me wonder if you get it.

I feel my breast pocket for my smokes. I left them downstairs.

– I get it.

– Then you need to tell me, Joe. I need you to tell me what it’s gonna be. I’m sick, and, this, this is it, this is the way it’s going to be. It’s not going to get any better than this. It might not get really bad, but this is as easy as it will ever be. If you want to stick around, I need you to do some things. I need you to find out what your blood type is so I know if you can help me with that. I need you to back me up when I have a day like yesterday. I need you to. Oh shit, Joe. Just. I need you, you know? To be there.

She’s crying. She talks through the tears. It’s all very matter of fact. By now she has plenty of experience talking while she’s crying.

I listen to her blow her nose.

– I got to go somewhere for a couple days. Take care of. Something. I don’t know if I’ll be able to call. When I get back.

I feel for my smokes again. Still not in my pocket.

– When I get back, I’ll be there.

– Yeah?

– Yeah, baby. Don’t worry, I’m practically there already.

– OK.

– OK.

– And. Joe. A couple days, that’s Saturday night.

– Uh-huh.

– I’m taking the night off. I’m doing a reading. Reading some of my stuff at Housing Works. A benefit kind of thing.

– Uh-huh.

– You go with me?

– You know I will, babe.

– It’s important.

– I’ll be there.

– OK. Thanks, Joe.

We stay on the phone awhile longer. Until she’s not crying anymore.

Just before sundown I’m looking at the fridge. Two pints. This low, I shouldn’t even be thinking about drinking one of those after I had one yesterday. But I could get stuck Uptown. Could take them with me, just in case. Then again, drink one now, it’ll give me a little extra edge for the trip, give me an extra day maybe if I get stuck. That’s the ticket: drink one, leave one in the fridge. Last thing I want is to come home late and not have any food in the house. I pop the fridge, guzzle a pint and stuff the empty in the biohazard bag.

OK, good to go. Now, where to?

I need a name. I need a name and a ride. I can’t roll up there and just start walking the streets sniffing the air for the Vyrus. What am I gonna do, grab some slob from the Hood and start pummeling him until he gives me something I can use? Besides, just being white up there is gonna make me stand out. I need a name, someone to start with.

Christian might know someone up there. He doesn’t go much above Houston, but back before he got infected he used to ride the whole city. He could also give me a lift up there. But crossing Coalition turf on the sissy seat of his Harley with a dozen top-hatted, howling-mad Dusters on hogback isn’t the subtle play I’m looking for. When a renegade Clan of Vampyre bikers crosses onto your turf, you’re bound to notice. Scratch Christian.

Chubby Freeze might have a name. He’s also about the only brother I’m tight with. That could mean something when you’re talking about dealing in the Hood. But it’ll be someone on the fringe. Chubby’s porn business keeps him in touch with the kind of people who are in touch with my life. But he’s not of the world. Any names he gives me will be a couple steps removed from what I need. And he won’t be able to help me with transport. Chubby’s not in the know enough to see the dangers involved with getting from 14th to 110th.

There’s really only one name. I’m running circles around it, but there’s really only one guy who might be able to help me here. One guy who doesn’t have any skin in the game, who won’t be looking for a payday for giving me some information, who won’t be looking for ways to stick it in my back if he sees an angle. But he’ll sure as hell find a way to make me pay. And whatever he wants, I’ll have to come across with it.

So I stuff the final remains of my emergency fund in my pocket, tuck my switchblade into my boot and the.32 into my waistband, lock up tight, and head west to see Daniel.

– Simon.

– Daniel here?

– Naturally. Where else would he be?

– Can I talk to him?

– Certainly. I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you, Simon.

– Don’t call me that.

– You would prefer?

– Joe.

The bony Enclave runs his eyes over me.

– Joe. It doesn’t suit you.

– Just use it.

– Of course, Joe.

He gives me one of those oh-so-meaningful smiles these fucks are always giving and leads me inside. The door rolls closed behind us and we cross the warehouse’s concrete floor. My eyes adjust to the near pitch black and the Enclave emerge from the darkness. Two rows of about fifty emaciated sickly pale men and women in white sit on the floor facing one another. In front of each is a vessel of some sort; anything from a thimble to a cracked coffee cup to a pewter wine goblet. Two Enclave, one for each row, work their way down the lines pouring blood into the vessels. One of the servers carries a Pyrex measuring cup, the other an iced tea pitcher with a much-chipped smiling sun enameled on its side. The Enclave accept a tiny amount of the blood, some no more than a teaspoon, some as much as a quarter pint. Several hold up their hand, refusing any at all. Whatever they take, it’s all they’ll have for a week, maybe longer. Feeding time at the asylum.

These crazy fuckers, sitting here in the dark, fasting, meditating, and practicing their crazy martial arts. And Daniel, lord of the crazy fuckers, thinks I’m one of them. He says that’s my true nature. But this ain’t me. Depriving myself, throttling the Vyrus to the edge of starvation, that’s not my idea of fun. Even if I have been there. Even if I have stood at the very limit and felt what the Vyrus does to you, the jolt it sends through your system as it spurs you to feed before it dies. Even if I’ve felt it and know why they cultivate it, it’s not for me. You have to be a crazy fucker to try to live like that all the time. And that’s what they’re doing: trying to live like that all the time, searching for the perfect balance, letting the Vyrus consume them in the slowest increments possible, teasing death out in the hopes that one of them will defeat it, one of them will be annihilated but left whole at the same time. One of them converted by the Vyrus they believe to be a spiritual force, converted and made able to teach the others, able to lead them onto the streets, where they can convert everyone else. Or kill them, whichever seems best.

It’s weird shit. Far weirder than I’m willing to believe myself. Or it was anyway. Before Daniel showed me some weirder shit. Before he told me about that thing. The Wraith. Now I’m not sure what to believe. But it’s still not for me. No matter how many times Daniel says it is.

– Simon. Look at you. So healthy and well fed. You’re just about glowing.

– Daniel. You’re looking fit yourself.

He laughs, unbending his skeletal frame from the floor of his little cubicle in the loft above the warehouse floor. He takes my hand. I feel the heat that pulses from his fingers and palm. I run hot, anyone with the Vyrus runs a little hot; Daniel scorches.

He holds my hand and looks me over.

– Yes. Just about glowing.

– Thanks.

He releases my hand.

– It wasn’t meant as a compliment. I was trying to express displeasure.

– Sorry, missed it.

– Oh well, passive aggression was never my strength. With my own children. Did you know I had kids?

– Nope.

– I did. Long time ago.

His eyes drift.

– Two girls. Twins. And a wife. I wanted boys. A cliché. She gave me the girls. And several miscarriages. She died of one in the end. Girls. I could never get them to do as I said. A poor father.

His eyes come back to me, refocus, and he shakes his head.

– Odd. I don’t think of them much. That other life, I hardly think of it at all. The sleep before waking. Before I discovered my true nature.

He shrugs.

– Senility at last. Sit.

He points at the floor and I take a seat. He takes a place across from me and rests his back against the wall.

– What’s on your mind, Simon? I assume you’re not here to reconsider joining us.

– Nope.

– Something else then. Information I suppose.

– Yep.

He waits. I wait. He waits longer and I give in.

– I need a name.

He rolls his eyes.

– A name. You already have two. The one you were born with and the one you gave yourself.

– Someone else’s name.

– Whose?

– I don’t know. I need an Uptown name. I have to go above One-ten and I need a contact, someone to help me with the territory.

He scratches the ribs that protrude from beneath his skin, his fingers all but disappearing into the gaps between them.

– Above One-ten. The Hood. Luther X’s turf.

– X is dead.

– Is he?

I watch his eyes, trying to see if he’s playing me. They’re unreadable; black stones sunk deep in dark wells.

– He got taken out over two years ago. Coalition assassins. They say. His warlord runs it now: DJ Grave Digga.

– They say. Well, I would say the Vyrus was simply done with him, consumed him and passed him into the other world. The real world.

– Tell that to the guy stuck the daggers in X’s eyes.

– The instrument is immaterial. The Vyrus has him now.

– Yeah. Right. Daniel, I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. You know the X is gone. You know everything. What I need to know is if you have a name, and if you’ll share it with me.

He stretches his legs out, crosses them at the ankles and tucks his hands behind his head.

– Long trip to the Hood.

– Yep. That’s why I should be getting started.

– What do you need up there?

I could lie. But he’d know.

– I’m looking into something for Terry Bird. His new fish are into something.

He raises his eyebrows.

– Terry’s new fish are into something he doesn’t know about. How unlike him. What is it?

– They have a new high.

– A new high?

I lick my lips.

– They’re shooting the Vyrus. Someone found a way to, I don’t know, preserve it outside a body, and the new fish are shooting it.

– Oh.

He closes his eyes.

– That again.

I blink.

– Excuse me?

He opens his eyes.

– Nevermind, Simon.

– Did you say, again?

He takes his hands from behind his head, draws his knees up and rests his forearms on them.

– There is nothing new under the sun, Simon. It’s all as it has always been. There is only one change, and the world is still waiting for it. The world is an egg, waiting to be born, waiting for Enclave to usher it across. Until then, it’s all the same old shit.

I lean forward.

– Sure, sure, you’ll transmute yourself into ectoplasm and lead your crusade and we’ll all be turned into pixie dust and join the cosmos. But you said, again.

– Did I? Funny. Well, as I also said before, senility at last.

– Daniel.

– Simon. Enough. I’m tired. You said you wanted a name.

– I do.

– The Enclave who brought you up, did you recognize him?

– Man, you all look the same to me. All just a bunch of cadavers waiting to happen. You’re the only one I can tell apart. And that’s just because you look more dead than the rest.

He laughs, lips peeling up over gray gums, mouth open wide, barking laughter.

– More dead. You know better, Simon. I’m more alive than you, more alive than anyone else with the Vyrus. Certainly more alive than the sleepwalkers out there on the streets with no idea of the universe’s true nature.

I shift, unfolding my legs.

– A name?

He nods.

– A name. Yes. The Enclave who brought you up, he used to be with the Hood. He’ll give you a name.

– Good enough.

I push myself up off the floor.

– Simon.

– Yeah?

– I will want something in return.

So much for a clean getaway.

– What’s that?

– We talked the last time you were here.

– Uh-huh.

– I told you something.

– You told me you thought you were failing.

He looks at the floor, running his fingers over a nail head that sticks up from the floorboards.

– That’s true, I am. But I told you something else.

Fuck.

– I don’t remember.

– Don’t be like that, girls.

– What?

He looks up.

– Did I?

He taps his forehead.

– What did I say?

– Nothing.

He watches me out of those holes in his face.

– Senility. Strange. Well.

He stands.

– You should go.

– What about?

– Hm?

– You said you’d want something for the name.

– Yes. Yes. Come see me, Simon. Come see me more often.

– Daniel, I’ll try, but. I’m pretty busy most of the time.

He puts his hand on my shoulder. The heat radiates through my jacket.

– Come see me, Simon. It’s what I want.

Like I said, it’ll cost more than blood or money.

– OK. I’ll come.

– Good. Good. Now go downstairs and get your name.

I start for the stairs.

– Names. Simon, that reminds me.

– Uh-huh?

– You had a perfectly good one: Simon. It suits you. It says something about you. Why did you change it?

– Lots of infecteds change their names.

– I know. But why did you?

– I don’t know. Terry said a new name was a good idea.

– And why the name you chose?

– Shit. I was seventeen. I was just turned into a Vampyre. Joe Pitt. I thought it sounded cool.

He laughs again.

– You’re right. It does. It does. Well. Careful in the Hood. And come see me when you get back. Joe.

– Yeah.

The Enclave who showed me in is waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, sitting on the last step.

– Daniel said you know the Hood turf, said you’d have a name of someone I could talk to up there.

– He means Percy.

– OK. Where do I find him?

He leads me to a work area under the loft. Some benches with tools for doing basic repairs on the warehouse, a sink, a stove with a huge boiling pot on top. He finds a pencil and paper and writes down an address on 150th, near Jackie Robinson Park. I look at the scrap of paper.

– What do I tell him?

– Nothing. I’ll let him know you’re coming.

– How you gonna do that?

He gestures to the warehouse.

– We don’t have much, but I do know how to use a pay phone.

I slip the paper into my pocket.

– Any tips on how I can get up there?

He stands on tiptoe to look into the pot, then reaches for a giant wooden spoon and gives the contents a stir.

– You could do what the Duke suggested.

– The Duke?

– Ellington.

– Yeah, what was his idea?

He smiles.

– Take the A train.

– Been saving that one up for a rainy day?

He shrugs.

I look at his skin, trying to find some evidence that he was ever anything but pasty white, ever a guy that could have been with the Hood. Can’t find it.

I point at the pot.

– By the way, what’s cooking?

– Bones.

– No kidding? Thought you guys already ate.

– One of us failed last week. We’ll crack his bones and eat the marrow tonight. You could stay.

– I’ll pass.

I leave him there, stirring his pot. At the warehouse door, I pause. I turn around and look back up at the loft. Daniel is at the top of the stairs, watching me.

I remember what else he told me, what he told me last time, after he told me that he’s failing. He told me someone would have to replace him.

Well, fuck that, that’s none of my fucking business whatsoever.

I haul the door open and walk out into the night, leaving the smell of steaming bones behind.

The A train. As if I couldn’t have figured that for myself. As if I haven’t been trying like hell to avoid it.

I come out of the Enclave warehouse onto Little West 12th and think about the A train. All this territory around here is no-man’s-land. This is the turf no one wants because it’s too close to the Enclave. I can grab the A at 14th, but that will put me right on the Coalition’s southern border. They’ll have spotters. Better I go to 4th Street and catch it there. Stay in no-man’s-land, where no one is watching. Once I’m on the A, I’ll have more than enough opportunities to get caught out.

The Coalition doesn’t like anyone riding the rails under their turf. The major stops, Grand Central, Penn Station, Times Square, Columbus Circle, you come walking out of one of those stations and you’re nailed. They got spotters living in apartments, watching over the exits. Slobs that never go out. They just sit there at the window all night, snapping pictures through telephoto lenses, changing videotapes in their cameras and flipping through face-books to see if they recognize anyone. Rent is paid by the Coalition, along with an allowance to cover takeout from the local diner. Once a week an enforcer comes in, picks up the video and the film and the logbook, and drops off a fresh pint. The smaller stops, they got guys there, too. May only be every other stop, but you don’t know which ones. Just like you don’t know which train one of their enforcers will be cruising, looking for interlopers. If I get on at West 4th and ride express to 145th, I don’t have to worry about those spotters aboveground. But from 14th to 110th, anywhere in there I could end up with an enforcer on the train. How do I know all this? Because the Coalition wants everybody to know. It’s their way of saying, Stay off the grass. Trespassers will be prosecuted. And if they let you know about the spotters and the patrols, that means they’re only the tip of the iceberg.

The A train. Thanks for the help.

I take a cab to West 4th to save time. I think about telling the cabbie to turn the thing around and take me uptown, but that’s a worse play than the subway. On the train I’ll only have to worry about the patrols, and there can only be so many. In a cab, going through rush hour traffic, there are too many chances of getting spotted from the sidewalk or another car. Too random. So the Duke Ellington Express it is.

I get out of my cab at 4th and Sixth. It’s dark and cold, but the lights inside The Cage are on and a half dozen guys in sweats are playing three on three. I stop and light a smoke and watch. I’m in a hurry, but this is a long fucking train ride and I can’t smoke down in the hole. There’s a small cluster of people standing next to the tall chain-link fence watching the showboating street-ballers inside. They whip no-look passes at each other or lob alley-oops. No one plays D. I finish my smoke and light another. 4th to 145th? Even on the express that’s a two-smoke ride.

It’s no-man’s-land. I can take the time for the smoke. No one comes onto this turf. No one risks walking across it, let alone hunting or doing business on it. No one risks doing anything that might offend the Enclave. Piss the freaks off and they come for you. End up eating your fucking marrow.

Eating your marrow?

Doesn’t it have something to do with blood? Shouldn’t they get sick if they eat another Vampyre’s marrow? I mean, even if you boil those bones, the Vyrus has been in there. Shit. That’s weird. And what did Daniel say? That again. What the fuck was that about?

Color me pensive. Color me lost in thought and avoiding getting on the train, lighting a third cigarette without even thinking about it, because that’s my story. That’s my excuse for why I don’t smell Tom until the fucker jams the barrel of his gun in my back.

– What is it, Pitt? Old dog syndrome? New tricks just don’t sink in? Can’t get it through your head to stop fucking around on my watch?

He shoves the gun a little deeper into my backbone, hurrying me east on 4th toward Washington Square Park and the Society border.

– Hadn’t heard no-man’s was part of your beat now.

– Fuck off. You know what I’m talking about. Shaking down pledged members on Society turf, going into their homes and grilling them on Society business.

– Where you get that?

– Think you’re the only one who can pump Philip Sax for information? Get out the rubber hoses and that pussy opens up and spills everything. Didn’t even have to lay in to him. We did anyway, just to teach him a lesson, but we didn’t have to.

He’s alone. Tom’s not the brightest bulb, but he knew better than to follow me over here with a troop. Enclave would have had his ass for that. But he’ll have partisans waiting across the border. We set foot on the far curb of Washington Square East and I’ll be bracketed by his boys right away.

– Not even Terry’s gonna be able to help you on this one, Pitt. Poking on our turf without our say-so. Poking into official Society business. And then crossing over to report to those assholes? Fucking-A, I knew you stooged for the Coalition, but Enclave? That’s just sick. Fronting for those mujahideen motherfuckers.

– Got your head on a swivel, Tom? Keeping your eyes peeled? One of those motherfuckers hears you talking about them like that, they’ll find you in your safe house and flay you alive with their teeth.

– Fuck off. Fuck off and walk.

I glance back at him.

– Seriously, you ever see them in action? Scary shit. Like Bruce Lee on speed. Only like if you had to cut off his head or something to kill him. Saw two of them spar once. One got his arm torn off, kept coming. Other arm came off, kept coming. Got his leg wrapped around the other guy’s neck, brought him down and scissored him. Squeezed the guy til his eyes about popped out. Whole time he’s spraying this white gunk from his stumps. That was sparring. Scaaaaary shit.

– Shut the fuck up.

I glance back again as we cross Washington Square West. His eyes are zipping side to side.

The light is against us at Fifth. I step off the curb as a battered and graffitied delivery van whips around the corner. Tom grabs my left arm and pulls me back into him, the gun getting pinned sideways between us. He knows right away he’s made a mistake. Poor him.

He tries to keep his grip on my arm while he gets the gun barrel jammed back where it belongs. And he is a strong fucker. But Mr. Two Pints In Two Days is stronger just now. And faster. I go left, twist my arm free and clip him with my elbow as I dodge into the street and around to the far side of a NYC Parks Department pickup sitting at the curb. He takes a couple steps around it to the right. I go right. He goes left. I go left. He shows me the gun, flashing it low and out of sight from the people on the sidewalk, reminding me who’s in charge.

– Get the fuck over here, Pitt.

– Why?

– Get the fuck over here or I’ll shoot you.

– Park’s full of undercover cops looking to bust the dealers in there. Pull the trigger and they’ll be on your ass in a flash. Throw you in a cell. That’s if you’re lucky, if the Enclave aren’t watching. Waiting to see if you’re gonna cause a scene.

– Shut the fuck up.

– Shit, Tom, don’t you ever bother to put together a plan? I mean a good one.

– Shut the fuck up.

– Know what Terry calls you behind your back?

– Shut!

– Halfcock.

– The!

– I assumed it was cuz you’re always going off that way.

– Fuck!

– But maybe he knows something I don’t.

– Up!

– If you get what I mean.

He gets it.

He comes storming around the hood of the truck, shoving the pistol into one of the huge pockets of his army surplus jacket, those dirty blond dreads flying behind him.

– Gonna kick your fucking ass. Gonna beat your fucking face like I beat it before.

He did beat my face pretty bad that time. I got a gap between two molars that used to be filled by a third molar before he knocked it out. That pissed me off. So when he comes toward me with his fist raised, I let him tag me once on the neck and grab his sleeve and pull him close so he thinks I want to grapple, and then I use my free hand to whip out the.32 that’s still tucked in the back of my waistband because he was too fucking stupid to give me a little pat-down when he got the drop on me, and while he’s trying to wrap his hand around my throat I press the barrel against the top of his thigh and pull the trigger.

The shot is muffled by our bodies, but the folks who were just slowing down to look at our little scuffle decide it’s best to keep moving along. Tom falls to the ground, hands pressed over the hole in his leg, and I turn around and start walking quickly back toward Sixth. I mix in with the folks a little farther down the sidewalk and listen for the telltale sound of running feet that would mean there actually were a couple cops in the park wasting time on the dime-bag dealers.

I don’t bother looking back to see what Tom is doing. He’ll be on his feet by now, but he won’t try coming after me with that hole in his leg. He’ll be moving as quickly as possible back toward the Society border, making for the partisans he has posted there, hoping like hell there are no cops around. Once he crosses onto his own turf there’ll be a safe house right around the corner, the place he was planning to take me.

I reach The Cage and walk past it and down the steps into the West 4th Street station, crossing my fingers that Tom didn’t get nabbed. I might get away with shooting him, but if he gets busted, if it ends up being that kind of scene, I may as well take this train to the end of the line and get out and start walking ’til I walk right off the edge of the island.

It’s just after six. The train is packed tight, the commuters squashed against each other in the aisles bitterly eyeballing the commuters squashed together on the seats. I press through the clot of bodies that always forms around the doors and find a little elbow room at the end of the car, the last car on the train. We pull out and everyone lurches.

We cover the distance to 14th in a couple minutes. A bunch of people spill out of the train to make a connection, but even more cram themselves on. The intercom buzzes static as the conductor shouts at the passengers, telling them not to block the doors. The doors close and we’re off. Across the Coalition border.

I stand a little taller than most of the bodies squeezed in here. I use the height to scan the faces. I don’t smell anything I shouldn’t, just the rank air and the sweat slowly starting to trickle beneath everyone’s parkas. There could be a Coalition Renfield on board, but I don’t see anything. Fair enough. The real danger starts at 34th, the first stop in Coalition turf.

The train zips through the local stop at 23rd. Somewhere in the middle of the car a man too short for me to see through the bodies is yelling at the top of his lungs, telling the passengers about how he was burned out of his apartment and how he needs ten dollars and forty-seven cents to have enough to stay in a transient hotel tonight. I think about Terry.

Figure Tom’s move one of two ways. Either he told Terry I’d been poking around and Terry rubber-stamped his play on me, or he invoked his security authority and made the move himself. Terry might have cleared it, just to keep from admitting that I was doing some clandestine shit for him. Just to keep a cover on whatever his angle is. Figure it’s more likely Tom did it on his own. After my lengthy chat with Terry, Tom’s smart enough to know something’s up. He sure as shit knows Phil is my number one snitch. He probably didn’t bother to follow me at first, just went after Phil. Once he beat everything out of him, he would have checked in with The Count.

We jerk to a stop at the 34th Street platform. I get some breathing room as the Bridge and Tunnel commuters pile off and make for Penn Station, but I lose it right away as the Midtown workers heading for Queens and the Bronx come on.

Figure Tom wouldn’t have to threaten The Count. Hell, The Count is one of his. Tom just has to ask him what I wanted, what I was looking into. Figure that was too close to the bone. Close to something anyway. Close to all these new fish popping up and the whole shooting the Vyrus thing. After that, all he needed to do was stake out my pad and tail me over to the Enclave. Fucker’s definitely got a bee in his bonnet over this shit.

42nd Street, Times Square. The train exhales a rancid mass of drones and sucks in a fresh mass of the same. The doors close. 59th Street and relative safety dead ahead. The A runs express from 59th all the way to 125th, inside Hood turf. After 59th, any enforcers riding the express will be taking a big chance.

Yeah, Tom’s definitely got some skin in this game. Then again, it could all be Terry. He might have sent Tom after me himself. Maybe I got too close too fast when I talked to The Count. Maybe Terry’s finally gotten tired of having me on Society turf and the whole thing is the start of his play to get rid of me.

Something tickles my nose.

Blood.

Someone in the car is bleeding. Bleeding fresh. Not menstrual blood, not an old cut opening up, but fresh blood. Someone just opened a small wound.

I don’t look up. It’s the oldest trick in the book, so I don’t look up. Could be a nosebleed. Could be a little kid’s tooth just fell out. Could be some lady got jarred by the train swaying from side to side and ran the sharp tip of her nail file up under her nail. Still, I don’t look up. ’Cause it just as easily could be someone just pricked their hand with a tiny lance and is watching everybody on the train, watching to see who jerks their face toward the source of the blood. The oldest trick in the book.

I keep my head down and scent the air. Someone has stepped in dog crap. A businessman had to puke after his four martini lunch and tried to cover the smell with a fistful of Altoids. Someone just bought a CD player and I smell the new plastic as they tear open the bubble-pack it’s wrapped in. Shampoo. Ink from the fat tip of a felt-tip pen as a kid tags a window of the car. Someone had sex just before she caught the train and semen dribbles down the inside of her thigh. Foot powder. Tiger Balm. A Hershey’s bar. French fries. A puff of deodorant released as someone unzips their jacket. Hair spray, hair gel, hair mousse, hair cream, hair wax. Over a dozen types of perfumes, twice as many lotions and creams. Once I focus on all of it, once I let that lizard part of my brain that deals with smells start sifting them all out and identifying them, it makes me want to vomit. I bite it back and take another whiff.

The stagnant menudo someone had for breakfast carried up from their stomach with a belch. The urine staining the adult diaper of a senior citizen. The mold caking the old paperbacks crammed into the sack carried by the homeless guy. The years of sweat soaked into the rim of a kid’s favorite baseball cap escaping as he pulls the bill farther to the side. The smell of spent fireworks clinging to my gun, the stale cigarette smoke that always surrounds me, last night’s bourbon still in my throat, the socks I didn’t bother to change today.

It’s awful. All of it. But nowhere in it do I smell the Vyrus. Nowhere but in my own blood. I try to stop, try to breathe easy and focus my mind on something else. I bring my head up and let my eyes bob and drift around, lazily taking in the faces around me. There is no trace of the Vyrus in here other than my own, but that doesn’t mean I’m safe. The bleeder could be a savvy Renfield, one trained by Coalition enforcers to look for a sniffer. Or it could be worse. It could be a Van Helsing. If it is a Van Helsing, if it’s a staker who knows enough to prick his finger and wait to see who takes an interest, he’ll be dangerous as hell. A Van Helsing that knows the game? Shit. He won’t care about borders and treaties and turf. A Van Helsing will ride this car with me all the way up to the Hood. I get off the train with a Van Helsing on my ass, bring that to Hood turf? There’s no punishment that covers that, nothing but getting tumored by the sun.

The train slows, pulling to a stop at 59th Street, Columbus Circle.

The Upper West Side types hurry off the train to rush home and meet their spouses, who are also coming home from work, so they can both kiss their trophy babies before their Jamaican nannies put the little ones to bed so they can go out to dinner and not talk to one another. They are replaced by the far upper Manhattan Caribbeans who have finished cleaning houses and walking dogs and working their shifts at Balducci’s and are heading home to fuck up their own children and not talk to their spouses. I watch them. I don’t bother with subtlety now, I watch everyone who stays on the train, looking for the thing that is not like the others.

The doors try to close and get caught on one of the overstuffed bags of the homeless guy. The conductor is on the intercom again, screaming through the static.

– DO NOT BLOCK THE DOORS AT THE BACK OF THE TRAIN!

The doors slide open for a moment, but rather than stepping through them the homeless guy adjusts his grip on the bag and gets caught again as the doors slide shut.

– STOP BLOCKING THE DOORS BACK THERE!

They open again and a couple people on the platform take advantage of the opportunity to squeeze in around the homeless guy, who gets stuck again.

– GET OUT OF THE WAY OF THE DOORS BACK THERE! YOU’RE HOLDING EVERYBODY UP! THE TRAIN WILL NOT MOVE UNTIL YOU STOP BLOCKING THE DOORS!

A young guy gets off his seat and tries to help the homeless guy with his bags. The homeless guy jerks away from him, cursing, and the doors close on him again.

– STOP BLOCKING THE DOORS! STOP BLOCKING THE DOORS! STOP BLOCKING THE DOORS!

The kid throws up his hands and goes to sit back down, but someone has already grabbed his seat. The doors open and the homeless guy hefts his bags and lets a businessman on the train. Then he steps clear of the doors as they finally close all the way. Just before they close, just before they seal us in here nice and tight, I finally notice the fresh red stain on the side of one of his bags: the spot of blood from his pricked fingertip. And as the train begins to move, I smell something new in the car, something that smells like me, and I catch the eye of the businessman the homeless guy stepped so easily aside for at that last moment. He’s staring at me, not bothering to hide it. And why shouldn’t we stare at each other? We’re stuck together in here all the way up.

Fucking Coalition. Got a Renfield riding the line doing the homeless thing. I try to remember if he got on at 14th or if he was already on the train at 4th. That would be like the Coalition, to have the sap riding the whole line, dangling out there to get picked off. I wonder if he did the finger-prick trick because he spotted me. Does Predo have that big a hard-on for me? Does he have my photo circulating through his Renfields? Maybe not, maybe it’s just standard for them: Let a little blood before Columbus Circle and see if anyone bites. If they do, you block the door long enough for an enforcer patrolling the platform to get on the train. Well, whether he had me from the get-go or not, he must have picked me up when I started sniffing around. Good Renfield, that one. Ever see him again, I’ll find out what his blood tastes like. But this guy here giving me the eyeball? He’s another matter entirely.

Enforcer. Coalition Gestapo. He’ll be well fed. He’ll be armed. He’ll have some moves. He stands in the middle of the car, glancing at me every now and then to see that I don’t do anything rash. Don’t know what that would be. My back is resting against the rear of the train. I suppose I could smash the glass on the emergency exit and dive out of the speeding train onto the tracks and hope I don’t break my neck or tumble into the third rail. But I’ll save that as a final option.

The train is still full, the line dead ends at 207th. I can either get off in the middle of Hood turf with the enforcer on my ass, or ride the line all the way to the end and transfer to a downtown train. Of course, that will mean crossing back over Coalition turf. I don’t know if this guy’s got any backup on board, but if I’m still on this thing with him and we go back down to 59th, he’s bound to pick up some help. At some point before 14th, they’ll make a move to drag me off. That or see how far I want to ride. Into no-man’s? Lower Manhattan? I don’t even want to think about Lower Manhattan and all the tiny, crazy Clans down there. Across the river and into the bush? Who the fuck knows what goes on once you cross the water. Nice choices.

I give him a good once-over. Looks late twenties. Not that that means anything. Got on one of those nice suits Predo has them all wear. Hair slicked back. Not as big as me, but there’s a build under the suit.

The train’s been racing the line, cutting through the local stations and leaving them behind. The driver’s got the pedal down, making up for the time he lost when the Renfield blocked the doors. I see a sign for 110th flicker past. That’s it, we’re gone, above the line and in the Hood.

The enforcer is staring into my eyes now, trying to put the voodoo on me; give me the willies with his undead badassness. I give it back to him. Fat fucking enforcer. Overfed. Pampered. Coalition paying all his bills, doing all his hunting for him. Sitting tight until Dexter Predo says jump. How high, Mr. Predo, how high? I know this fucker. I know what he’s got. Fuck this guy. He wants to play eye-kung fu, wants to try and put the fear in me? We can play. We can play.

The train stops at 125th. He keeps his stare on, shooting me all his fantasies about how big the world of hurt’s gonna be when he lays his hands on me. I nod my head at him and walk off the train, into the station in the heart of the Hood. Right underneath the intersection of Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass Boulevards. He hesitates, then jumps off between the doors before they can close. That’s right, motherfucker, made you blink.

– OK, guy.

I take the stairs up from the platform one at a time.

– All right, you showed your stones. Now let’s go back to the platform and wait for a downtown train.

I come to the top of the stairs and take a look around. They’re doing a ton of construction in the station and the whole Uptown half is sealed off behind sheets of plywood painted bright MTA blue. If I want to exit that way, I’ll have to go back to the platform and take the stairs at the far end.

– I’m not gonna fuck around with you here, guy. You come back down or I’ll haul you down.

The enforcer is still at my shoulder, still talking.

– No shit, guy, you don’t want to fuck with me. Just turn around and let’s get on a train.

Right next to the bank of MetroCard entrances, they got one of those old-fashioned turnstiles. One of the big steel exits that spin like threshers, the tines of the turnstile passing through the bars of the gate.

– Seriously, guy, you don’t want to leave this station. You got yourself in enough trouble crossing our turf.

Some kids are fucking around at the MetroCard entrance, a boy outside and his girl inside, making out until she hears her train and has to run to catch it. People bunch up at the other two entrances. I head for the old turnstile.

The enforcer keeps yapping.

– Down here they might not do anything. But you go up those stairs and it will be different. The niggers spot you up there and they will take you apart.

An old lady tries to spin through the turnstile and snags the handle of her shopping bag on one of the bars. I tug it free and she smiles at me. I smile back.

– I’m telling you now, fucker, do not leave this station. Do not leave this station or you will be in a world of shit.

I give him my smile.

– Who you trying to convince, me or you?

I step through the spinning bars. He stays inside.

– Guy, you are fucking up in a big way.

I stand with the gate between us.

– Just come on out and drag me back. Or is there a treaty or something? You step outside that gate, you gonna be abusing the peace between the Coalition and the Hood? That it?

– This is it, you walk over to that entrance and get your ass back in here and get on a fucking train with me now.

I shrug.

– No money left on my MetroCard. Sorry.

He starts to push through the turnstile.

– You stupid fuck.

As he comes through I put out my hand.

– Look, take it easy, man, no need for a scene. I’ll go quietly.

– Too late for that, you piece of shit Rogue.

He makes to slap my hand away. I grab his sleeve, yank him forward, grab the bars of the turnstile with my free hand, push him into the set-bars of the gate, and swing the turnstile around, smashing the square steel bars into his back. A few of his ribs make a nice cracking sound. I slam the turnstile against him two more times, trying to force his face through the gate bars. No dice. Then I run for the exit, out the tunnel, and up the stairs.

That was stupid. That was fucking stupid. Making war on a Coalition enforcer on Hood turf was fucking stupid.

But fuck him.

He got what he asked for. Trying to mad-dog me. Trying to make me show yellow and climb back on that train. I look back at the station entrance to see if he’s bouncing up the stairs after me. Not yet. Must have given him a good shot to the head. But he’ll be up and running. Unless the stationmaster calls the cops from his booth. Could be with an MTA cop right now. That’d be sweet. Let him deal with cops and EMTs and shit. But figure it’s best not to count on it. Figure it’s best to move.

I’m walking fast. I look up at a street sign and see I’m pointed the wrong way, heading down. I need to turn around, get moving up toward 150th and this Percy guy. I turn the corner onto 123rd. I’ll circle the block before I head up so I don’t have to go back by that subway entrance.

I turn the corner and two guys wearing huge black parkas with Ecko rhinos embroidered on the breast grab me and shove me against a wall. A black Humvee bounces over the curb, stops next to us and the rear door flies open. The two guys throw me inside and someone shoves the soles of both his Timberlands into my neck, pats me down, pulls my.32 out of my pants and sticks the barrel in my eye.

– That was some stupid shit back there. Some seriously stupid shit.

– What Predo thinkin’? Muthafucka out his brain? Insane in the membrane?

– Who?

– Doan who me, muthafucka. Predo. Dexta mothafuckin’ Predo.

– Never heard of him.

– Never heard of him. That what he said, Never heard of him, that what muthafucka said?

The one armed barber nods.

– Sounded like it, Digga.

DJ Grave Digga nods and looks back in the mirror.

– Never heard of him. Mutha. Fucka.

He shifts his eyes and looks at my face reflected just behind his, pinned between the two Ecko rhinos.

– Beat on that muthafucka a little.

They beat on me a little and then they stand me back up.

– I ax you again, what Predo thinkin’ sendin’ you an’ one them fuckin’ enforcers up here?

I wipe the blood out of my eyes with the back of my hand.

– What was that name again?

– Shit. Sheeit.

He snaps his fingers and points at the chair next to his.

– Sit his ass down.

The rhinos pull me over and push me into the barber chair.

Digga looks at the barber.

– You done yet?

The barber taps Digga’s upper lip and Digga slides his tongue under it, pushing it out. The barber scratches his straight razor over the raised spot, sculpting the edge of Digga’s pencil moustache a little sharper. Then he sets the razor aside, squirts some oil from a dispenser into his palm and slaps it onto Digga’s face before he whips the smock off his chest, snapping it once to shake loose the hair clinging to its folds.

Digga gets out of the chair and leans close to the mirror, inspecting his face. The barber stands behind him with a hand mirror, angling it so Digga can see the back of his head.

– Nice.

He looks at my reflection again.

– You want a cut? Muthafucka knows his bizniz. Best damn barber in the Hood.

– No, thanks.

– No, you have a cut. Lookin’ a little bedraggled, a little raggedy.

He gestures to the barber.

– Clean the man up. Shave and a cut. On me.

The barber comes behind me, rolls down my collar, tucks a piece of tissue inside, snaps the smock and lays it over me.

– Hows you like it?

I run a hand through my hair.

– Just off the ears maybe. Natural in back.

He cuts the air once or twice with his scissors.

– White hair ain’t my thing.

I shrug.

– It grows back.

He starts clipping.

Digga leans his ass on the counter in front of me.

– It grows back. Hear that? Muthafucka says his hair grows back. Ain’t the only shit grown back, huh? Folks like you and us all in here.

He points around the barbershop, taking in the rhinos, the one-armed barber, and the guy in the Timberlands sitting in a chair by the door reading a copy of The Source. Timberlands there is wearing my hide, the nice black leather jacket that Evie gave me.

Digga takes them all in.

– We all grow shit back.

– If you say so.

He laughs.

– If I say so. Muthafucka. Give it to you, you cool. You busted out in the wrong place at the wrong time, you got yo ass dragged up in my shop, got us Hoodies all about yo ass, an you still cool. Give you that. Give you that.

– Thanks.

– Don’t be thankin’ me. Shit. Want to do somethin’ might help with this situation, you start tellin’me what the fuck Predo thinkin’. Start talking ’bout that ’fore you get somethin’ cut off don’t grow back.

– Sorry. I missed that name again. What was it?

He crosses his arms and drops his head.

– Mutha. Fucka.

He looks up.

– Cool-ass mutha. What yo name, cool-ass?

I look at the barber.

– Leave as much length as you can on top.

I look at Digga.

– Pitt.

– Oh! Snap!

He claps his hands.

– Pitt. Joe muthafuckin’ Pitt. You Terry Bird’s bitch. You his pet Rogue bitch, ain’t you? This shit gettin’ curiouser an’ curiouser. What Bird send you up here for? His hippie ass know better than to send no Rogue agent up here without no transit agreement.

– He didn’t send me.

– Uh-huh. You jus wand’rin’ up here all by yo lonesome. Sight-seein’ like.

– Heard the fried chicken and waffles can’t be beat.

The barber stops cutting.

Digga puckers his lips.

– What that you just say?

– Heard about the fried chicken and waffles.

– That’s thin ice, bitch. That fried chicken talk is some thin ass ice for a muthafucka to be treadin’ on.

– Sorry.

– That right you sorry.

– Not like I said I was here for the watermelon season.

His eyes open wide.

– Uh-uh. You did not. You did not.

He points at the barber.

– You done with that shit?

The barber looks at my head.

– Doan look no worse none than when I started.

Digga flaps his hand at him.

– Leave it, leave it. Lather muthafucka up and give him a scrape.

The barber sets his scissors aside, stirs a brush around in an old coffee cup and starts lathering my cheeks and neck.

Digga turns his back to me and faces the mirror again. He flicks his pinkie over the tips of his moustache.

– Watermelon season. That some classic shit. That some good, old-skool, stereotypin’, racist humor that is. You a racist, Pitt?

The barber puts his index finger on the point of my chin and tilts my head back.

– Not really. I just don’t like assholes.

– Muthafucka!

He grabs the razor from the barber, pushes him aside and tucks the blade up under my jaw.

– Asshole this, muthafucka. You tell me what you doin’ up here. Now, muthafucka. Want to know what you doin’ comin’ up here trailin’ a fuckin’ enforcer behind you. You on Predo’s tip or whorin’ for Bird, I doan care, you just talk, muthafucka, talk. And doan move yo mouth too much or you slit yo own damn throat ’fore I can.

– Not here for Predo.

– Oh, you know that name now, do ya?

– Not here for Bird.

– Who for?

– I’m here on my own, on my own business.

He adds an ounce of pressure to the blade and the skin splits and I feel the blood start to run.

– On your own bizniz. A Rogue out traipsin’ ’cross Coalition turf, takin’ a spin up ta the Hood on his own bizniz. Bullshit.

– It’s my own thing.

– You got someone gonna vouch that shit? You got someone gonna throw down for you on that? You got a brotha gonna back you?

I don’t say anything. Got nothing to say.

– That your answer, son? Got no names for me?

The blade slices deeper, the edge raking the cartilage sheath around my esophagus.

I throw the only name I have.

– Chubby Freeze.

He eases slightly on the razor.

– Chubby Freeze. That downtown niggah. He vouch you?

– He might.

– Hunh.

He lets go of my head and snaps at Timberlands.

– Chubby Freeze. You got that niggah’s digits?

– Ya-huh.

– Blow ’im up. Get that niggah on the phone.

Digga turns to the mirror and adjusts his collar and tie.

– Lucky I di’nt get no blood on this tie.

Timberlands waves his arm.

– Got ’im.

– What he say?

The guy talks quietly into the phone, nods a couple times and then flips it closed.

Digga snaps his fingers.

– Well, niggah?

– Chubby say he cool.

– He vouch?

– Chubby Freeze say he vouch for the man. Say the man righteous to a fault. Say they do bizniz and it always come out right.

– Hunh. Well. Well, well.

He looks me over.

– A vouch from Chubby Freeze. Ah’ite, that somethin’. So, Mr. Pitt, what you doin’ up here all by yo’self? What’s this bizniz?

– No big deal.

– Uh-huh?

– Just looking for the son of a bitch who’s sending bags of Vyrus downtown for the new fish to shoot.

– Huh. No shit.

He holds out his hand and one of the rhinos passes him his Armani jacket. He pulls it on and does the buttons.

– Lookin’ for the son of a bitch.

He picks up the razor.

– That is some in-ter-es-tin’ shit.

He hands the razor to the barber.

– Finish the man up.

He starts for the door, talking to Timberlands as he goes.

– When he done with his shave, toss him in the Hummer and haul his ass up to the Jack. We gonna show muthafucka some shit.

He walks out the door with the two rhinos on his heels. The barber looks at my throat.

– Look there, that all closed up already. Nothin’ no how but a scratch that.

He freshens the lather on my face and gives me a shave.

The Jackie Robinson Recreation Center looks like a Civil War fortress: red brick with round turrets at the corners and huge steel doors. The Jack.

Timberlands parks the Hummer on an empty basketball court just inside a chain-link gate. Behind the Jack, a cliff of whatever rock Manhattan is made out of rises several stories above us, Edgecomb Avenue running along its top. It’s cold outside the Hummer.

I look at Timberlands.

– How ’bout you give me my jacket back.

He runs his hand down the sleeve, feeling the leather.

– This jacket?

– Uh-huh.

– This my jacket. Why’m I gonna give you my jacket?

– Brotherly love?

He gives me a good push, letting my face open the door for us. He tilts his head at the guy sitting at the check-in desk and muscles me down a corridor of white-painted cinderblock.

At the end of the hall a guy in a cheap black suit and wraparound black shades leans against a door. We stop in front of him. He keeps staring at whatever he’s staring at, not bothering to turn his head in our direction.

Timberlands snaps his fingers.

– Open up.

Slowly, Shades rotates his face to us.

– Private party.

– We on the guest list.

Shades unbends a finger and points it at me.

– He ain’t.

– He with Digga.

Shades leans his head back, relaxing a little more.

– Already got a main attraction. Don’t need an opening act.

Timberlands steps up.

– Say he from Digga.

Shades unrelaxes.

– Digga don’t have no free white boy passes.

– This the Hood. This Digga’s turf.

– So they say.

The scent is up on them, rank Vyrus pheromones spraying the air. Blood will be spilled. I start looking for a window I can dive through.

– What all this?

Digga and his rhinos come up the hall behind us.

– What all this hostility I see? Where the love?

He stops, looks at the standoff in front of the door, a big smile across his face.

– What the problem, we ain’t got the juice to get beyond this velvet rope? Doorman don’t like our kicks? We ain’t up to the clientele inside?

Shades points at me again.

– He’s white.

Digga looks at me.

– Damn! How’d I miss that? Well, shit, you right ’bout that. Still doan see the problem.

– He’s white.

– Uh-huh. Well, as to that, know what Luther X used to say? He say, We all the same color inside. By that, he mean we all red. Now, I can prove it on you.

He loses the smile.

– Or you can open the damn door.

– Papa won’t like it.

– Somebody elect Papa president of the Hood? Somebody give him my job, forgot to tell me ’bout it? Open up.

Shades takes a step to the side.

– I di’nt say move, muthafucka, I said, open up.

Shades opens the door.

Digga sweeps his arm in front of me.

– After you.

I walk through followed by Digga, Timberlands, and the rhinos. The door swings shut behind us and we start down a stairwell.

Digga talks to the rhinos.

– You know that fool?

– Uh-huh.

– Get his name on a list.

– Uh-huh.

Below us comes a rumble of many voices and the howl of crazed dogs. The air smells like sweat, chlorine, blood, and the Vyrus.

There are a lot of them. I’ve never seen so many in one place. There are at least two hundred packed into the old basement baths. Two hundred of them. Two hundred of us. When I lead the way out of the stairwell every face turns toward me. The room goes silent except for the barking of the dogs that echoes off the tiled walls and ceiling. I have an instant vision of what it will be like to be torn literally to ribbons. Then Digga steps up behind me and puts a hand on my shoulder.

– Hey, all. He with me.

He keeps his hand on my shoulder, leading me through the crowd, closer to whatever is at its center. Way is made for him. With his free hand he bumps fists and exchanges backslaps, passing a word with the men and women of the crowd. They are mostly young, mostly hip-hop, all wear the Ecko rhino somewhere on their person, and none are white.

He puts his mouth next to my ear as we press through them.

– Shit, muthafucka, I knew I coulda made a entrance like this, I woulda got me a white boy sooner.

We’re approaching the pool. It’s drained of water. An eight-foot-high chain-link fence has been strung around it. The barking comes from inside. He brings me right up to the fence. The cement walls of the pool are stained dark maroon with dry blood; a thin sheet of the freshly spilled variety coats the bottom. A man is dragging a dog’s carcass to the shallow end and passing it up to waiting hands. Three others have cornered a foaming-mad pit bull in the deep end. It darts at them and they dodge out of the way.

Digga shakes his head.

– Shit.

He calls to the men.

– Put a fuckin’ cap in that beast.

One of them waves, pulls a Glock from his baggy pants, and puts a cap in the beast. The bullet slams it into the wall of the pool. Then it gets up and starts barking again.

Digga looks at the ceiling.

– Jezus H. In the head, muthafucka! In the fuckin head!

The guy puts one in the dog’s head. It stays down this time.

The crowd is shifting around us, piling up close, hooking their fingers in the fence.

On one side of the pool a man sits up on the old lifeguard tower. He wears a black suit, wraparound shades, a red fez, and puffs on a cigarette in a long ivory holder. A group of men dressed like the guy from the door stand around the base of the chair. Digga waves to him.

– Papa! What up?

Papa gestures with his holder.

Digga holds his arm up and points at the top of my head.

– You all see my white boy?

Papa ignores him.

– He sweet, right? You want one?

They ignore him.

– No? Well, shit then, let’s get to the main e-vent.

The crowd around us rumbles.

Digga whispers in my ear again.

– Tension thick in here, huh, Pitt? Feel that hostility? An’ we all black folk. ’Magine what it like when we got the Washington Heights and Spanish Harlem crowds in here. Put the spics in here with the niggahs and it almost always be endin’ in bloodshed. An’ we all on the same side. Me, I sure as shit glad I ain’t white up in this. Can you ’magine what they do to you, you not with me? Oh shit, we ’bout to find out. Look.

He points to the far end of the pool where two more dogs are ready to be brought in. A man is pushed from the steps. His feet slide from beneath him on the blood-slick surface. A couple rhinos jump down after him, get him by the arms and pull him up. The enforcer from the train.

– Hey, Pitt, it your friend.

The handlers bring the dogs together. Another man walks up carrying a cooler. He opens it and takes out a blood bag and three syringes.

– An’ that, that must be the shit you come up here lookin’ for.

The dogs are led on long wooden poles hooked to their collars. The handlers take a tiny bit of the Vyrus-infected blood into their syringes and kneel by their dogs while their assistants hold the poles. I watch a rhino as he fills the last syringe with several cc’s of the blood. He walks over to the enforcer, who struggles between his guards, eyes fixed on the needle.

Digga gives me a bump with his shoulder.

– That bitch down there, the brindle pit, that my bitch. The rot, he belong to Papa. Tonight was supposed to be some head-to-head action, but seein’ as you lead that son of a bitch up here, we thought we improvise. Purse gonna go to the dog gets the killing stroke. Braggin’ rights. How you like the look a my bitch?

– Good looking dog.

– Damn right she a good lookin’ dog. Want to get something down on this? Make some change while you up here?

– No thanks.

– No thanks? You don’t believe in my bitch? Don’t think she got what it takes? You dissin’ my bitch, muthafucka?

– Don’t like to gamble.

– Come up here an you don’t like to gamble? Coulda fooled me. Well, too late now, muthafucka, you in the casino now. Boys tell me they found close to a grand on yo ass.

He raises his hands in the air.

– Yo! Yo!

The crowd noise lowers.

– Yo! Check it! White boy say he got the fever! Got a G he want to put on my bitch! Who up for that action?

Papa raises his cigarette holder.

Digga points at him.

– There you go, Pitt, you down for a G with Papa.

He raises his arms again.

– A’ight, muthafuckas, let’s get this bread and circus shit on!

The crowd howls and shakes the chain-link, the dogs howl through their muzzles. Somewhere, a DJ fires up his turntables and bass thunders, turning the tiled cavern into a giant subwoofer.

Digga dips his head at the men in the pool. Simultaneously the handlers jab their dogs in the neck. Instantly the dogs start to tremor, voiding their bowels. The handlers whip the dogs’ muzzles off. The rot snaps and his handler loses a finger. The dogs gnash and foam, clawing at the floor of the pool, trying to chew their way up the poles to the handlers’ assistants struggling to control them.

Near the stairs, a rhino stabs his needle into the enforcer’s neck. A lump appears under his skin as the infected blood is forced in too quickly. His head starts to thrash up and down and vomit spews from his mouth. The rhinos release him and run for the stairs. The handlers’ assistants maneuver the dogs until they frame the spastic enforcer. They catch one another’s eyes and unhook, jumping for the hands waiting to pull them up out of the pool. The gate at the shallow end slams shut. And the business in the pool begins.

He might have had a chance. If they hadn’t shot him up, the enforcer might have had a chance. The action I saw from The Spaz at Doc’s was just a warm-up. That was a new fish who shot a taste too much. This is a Coalition enforcer, fed and trained, and shot full of the nastiest dope on the planet. He flails his limbs with such force, he breaks his own bones on the air. The maddened dogs, bred to the arena, retain just enough of their conditioning to stay focused on the man between them.

They jump like ticks, the Vyrus doing some unspeakable thing to their insides, warping their chemistry and powering their muscles. The enforcer dervishes on the slippery floor of the pool. Digga’s bitch flies at him and one of his arms catches it in midair and sends it into the fence. The crowd jumps back, their screams lost in the hammering bass. One of the fence poles is bent by the impact. The dog drops back into the pool and goes for the man again, one of its forelegs broken.

Papa’s rot stalks the enforcer. It’s frustrated by the speed of its movements, driven by the unfamiliar strength in its legs to bite its hindquarters. Both dogs circle the enforcer in blinding leaps and bursts. He wails and blood pours from his nose. They attack.

Digga’s bitch gets her jaws into his calf and clings there as he kicks furiously. The dog waves and snaps like a flag in a high wind. The rot comes in from behind, flying through the air and landing on the enforcer’s back, sinking his teeth into the meat where his shoulder joins his neck. The rest is just time. Too much time. The bitch is kicked free. The enforcer goes down on his back, the rot under him, but still latched on. The bitch comes back and gets the forearm that was shattered when it struck her from the air. Its bones shattered, the arm comes off in the bitch’s mouth. She drops it and goes for his throat. Her teeth go in, but he grabs her by the neck with his remaining arm and twists her head around. She lies on his chest, flopping.

The rot gnaws and chews. Eventually it’s over. When it is, the rot is clearly ruined. One side of its chest is crumpled where the enforcer caved in its ribs and its lower jaw hangs loose, broken by its own murderous assault on the enforcer’s neck.

The music changes, heavy hip-hop beats replaced by R amp;B, and Digga’s people drift away from the pool, pairing off to dance.

Papa waves two of his men into the pool. His dog wobbles and whines, but whenever they come close it hauls itself up and snorts blood. One of them pulls an old Mauser from his jacket and tries to take a bead on the dog, but it skitters about, too quick for him to get the shot.