His eyes flick to my face and away. -Here you are.
He touches the glass, leaving a fingerprint on his reflection, where a good Catholic would receive a smear of ash before Easter. -Tell me what you told Bird. -I told him the truth.
His mouth opens as if to laugh, and closes without making a sound.
I shrug.
— Yeah, funny. But its what I did. I told him Horde wants a sit-down. -What else? — That's it.
He studies the reflected set of his own blue eyes.
— He wasn't curious as to how you effected your escape from the Bronx?
— He didn't ask. And why should he? Far as he knows, I'm with Horde now.
She's got the cash to get anyone out of anywhere.
A slight nod allows this point. -And so.
He blinks slowly. -What is it he wants?
He looks away from his own reflection. -Hurley had his hands on your throat.
He indicates the fading marks on my neck.
— I can see that much is true. But what was it that compelled Bird to release you? I know him well enough to know he would not seriously consider formally acknowledging the girls organization. So what offer did you make to secure your freedom? Why are you not dead, Pitt? You did not, by any chance, sell me out?
He tilts his head. -Did you?
I stub out my smoke.
— He wants money.
I light a new one. -Your enemy is in the red, Predo.
He makes a sound, could be amusement. -And you are to get it from Horde.
— Yeah, funny how everybody's needs always seem to dovetail. -Funny.
He watches me smoke. -Very well. Things shall proceed. Only.
I let him watch me smoke, not trying to hide the sweat or the slight tremble in my hand, knowing I have ample reasons to fear. Not knowing which reasons he may be able to read, but incapable of hiding any of them. -I am curious.
He leans forward. -What are you after, Pitt?
We both watch smoke tremble from the end of my cigarette.
He squints.
— Something. A return to the Island, certainly.
He leans back into his seat. -But why so desperate?
Returns his gaze to the brightly lit night outside the dark glass. -I should like to know that. But, of course.
He smiles at his face in the glass. -Of course I will know.
He closes his eyes. -Before this is over.
Dropped into the masses in Times Square, where my appearance is least likely to be noticed, I feel gravity's pull, again from downtown.
Turning north, I strain away from it.
Too many forces in play now. Too many tiny uncharted objects flying on random trajectories. An obscure path is best. Travel by the course others have plotted.
Look for the chance to veer back to your own.
My return is hardly unexpected. -Back so soon?
I go to the liquor cabinet and get a glass and the bottle I'd started emptying during our last chat. -Looks like I'm a little more persona non grata than I thought I was.
Amanda joins me at the bar. -That come as some kind of surprise?
I raise my chin, display the almost faded bruises on my neck. -Didn't expect the fatted calf to be slaughtered. But I also wasn't figuring on having to face down Hurley my first hour back on the turf.
Sela juts her jaw. -How's he look?
I pour myself a drink.
— Hurley? You know, looks like a guy you should have shot in the head when you had the chance.
I raise my glass in her direction. -Seeing how happy he was to see me, I'd say you're best staying off his
beat.
She puts her hands on her hips. -Hurley never scared me. -Then, lady, you re a better man than me.
I take a drink.
Amanda scoops some ice into a glass of her own and pours vodka over it.
Sela frowns. -You shouldn't be drinking. You're worn to the bone.
Amanda clinks her glass against mine. -Joe's come home. I have to drink to that.
She drinks to that.
I drink, but not to anything at all.
She crosses to Sela and gives her hand a squeeze. -Just chill a little bit, baby.
Sela keeps a grip on the girls hand. -I'm trying to look out for you.
Amada touches her cheek.
— And you're doing a great job. But right now I need a drink. And I need you to be my girlfriend for a few minutes and not my fucking nanny.
Sela takes a step back, removing her face from the girls touch. -It doesn't switch on and off. I do not work like that. I don't go from one to the other. Being your lover, that's not separate from being your bodyguard. And I can only keep you safe and healthy if you listen to me.
Amanda sighs. -OK, I'm listening.
She pulls on an attentive face. -What am I doing wrong now?
Sela bares her teeth, covers them.
— Aside from running your body down with stress and lack of sleep and too much booze and not enough exercise, aside from putting everything were working for at risk, putting all these people here who believe in you at risk by not taking care of yourself, aside from all that, you are inviting a major security risk into your confidence.
She points at me. -He. Cannot. Be. Trusted.
She points at Amanda. -And that is more true now than ever.
She looks at me, shakes her head.
— He just skipped down to see Terry Bird? Just went down there, had a little run-in with Hurley, and skipped back up here? How's that compute? Ill tell you how. It does not. First he's spying for Predo. Drops that gem on us and then, fa-fa, and he's gone.
I raise my hand. -I never said ta-ta.
She shakes her head.
— Uh-uh, hold that shit in, Pitt. Don't get cute with my ass. You say I should do the smart thing and kill one of our own, kill that poor, starving, desperate son of a bitch in the basement? OK. Tell you what sounds like a smart move to me.
Her long muscled arm extends and she points her fist at me. -Killing you sounds like a smart move to me.
Amanda looks into her glass. -Don't say that, Sela.
Sela slowly uncurls her index finger from her fist, taking a bead on my face.
— He is dangerous. I said it before, He gets people dead. He's working both fucking sides. We don't know what they really want. We don't know what he really wants. And there's no way to be sure anything he tells us is the truth.
I clear my throat and pick up the bottle. -Predo, he says he wants to know what your research plan is.
I start pouring bourbon, decide I got no reason to stop, so I pour till my glass is full.
— Wants to know, are you going to go public with the Vyrus, ask for help finding a cure? Or are you going to do like you said to me, keep it in-house? Says he wants numbers of members, security, layouts. Stuff he'd need if he decides he needs to send a crew in here. That's what he says.
I drink.
— What he doesn't say is that all he's really interested in knowing is if you can do It. What he really wants to know is if you're making any progress. He wants to know if a cure is possible. He wants to know if you can actually find it in this century.
I get a smoke up and running.
— Terry Bird, he let me go, said he'd let me back on Society turf if I came up here and poked around. Said he wanted me to arrange some back-channel
communications. Said he wants to start a dialogue. See if there's common ground.
I take my bottle and my glass and my cigarette and go to a chair and take a seat.
— What he really wants is the same damn thing that Predo wants. And he wants it for the same reason.
I point my cigarette at her.
— Because, bottom line, if there's a cure, if the Vyrus is destroyed, it all goes away. The Coalition. The Society. All the alliances and backdoor deals and spycraft and manipulations go away. All the power, it goes away. They don't want that. And if there's a scrap of a chance you can come up with a
cure.
I drink whiskey. -They'll both want to know the best way to kill you yesterday.
I take the picture Predo gave me from my jacket and drop it on the desk. -Name on the back of that is the last mole Predo has in here. I don't know for sure who Bird has on the inside, but he definitely has someone reporting to him on conditions in here. I was gonna take a guess.
I point at the floor. -I'd pick that fat comic book geek you got living in the hall. He come over from
the Society?
Sela blinks.
I nod.
— That's what I thought. He's got it written all over his lazy fucking ass. Yeah, he's your man. So.
I drink some more.
— I guess that's two more people I'm gonna get dead. What / want, little miss junior psycho. Is for you to tell me what you meant before when you said business arrangement. As in, I want to know how much of your money you're going to give me if I help you feed the starving people in this building before they realize you re more valuable to them as a meal than as a savior.
Amanda folds her arms, sets her jaw.
— I'm Joe Pitt, and I'm here to chew bubble gum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubble gum.
I wait.
She unfolds her arms.
— OK, Joe, well, I'm going to give you a whole lot of money. Enough to make you super wealthy. And really, you don't even have to do that much for it.
She points east.
— All we need you to do is take a quick trip to Queens and find out where the Coalition gets their blood.
They have it, everyone knows they have it, she says.
I don't argue with her.
Why argue when someone s right? They do have it. And everyone knows they have it.
Biggest Clan on the Island, and then some. And the only one that has enough blood to supply all their members. Only one can keep them fed well enough that they don't have to worry about someone going berserk and hitting the street to make a spectacle like the one Amanda and Sela are trying to keep under wraps. No secret that they got it. Hell, get down to it, its pretty much advertised.
Best advertising you could ever have to attract Vampyres is a well-known reputation for keeping your members in the red.
Why keep it a secret.
But there is a secret. There is a big secret. There is the biggest secret.
Where the hell does it all come from?
Enough blood to keep hundreds, maybe over a thousand, members alive and kicking.
You figure that some Vampyres are more equal than others, figure that guys like Predo are getting quite a bit more in their fridges than the average infected slob on the street, and then figure a minimum of a pint a week to keep the rank and file happy.
I didn't pass math. Shit, I didn't pass anything. But I can figure that number in my head.
Know what that number equals?
Equals: Where the fuck do they get it a!!?
A question most folks dwell on from time to time. But most definitely not a question folks like to ask out loud. Ask that kind of question out loud and someone might hear you asking it. And whether you're Coalition, Society, Hood or Rogue, you don't want to be heard asking that question.
See, figure everyone comes up short from time to time. Everyone has their off quarters when they don't make quota. Which means everyone goes to the bank for a little extra now and again. Society, the Hood, they get pinched hard, can't keep their people healthy, they might be known to make a call, cut a deal.
Only in emergencies, mind you, but shit happens.
Don't it?
So who wants to rock that boat?
Answer: no one.
Coalition doesn't want anyone to know where it comes from. You had the lockdown on what everyone wanted, what everyone needed, would you want to share where it came from?
Don't lie. You're not that altruistic. No one is.
Society and Hood need a little help now and again, they can't afford to look nosy. Can't afford to have their people look nosy.
And Rogues? They cant afford to do anything makes anyone notice their unallied asses are hanging out in the wind waiting for someone to take a shot at them just because it will take one more mouth off the market.
It's there. We all know it's there. It's the thing that just about the whole fucking Clan structure spins around.
And we all pretend it doesn't exist.
Shhh.
Only someone crazy would poke into this shit. Lucky me, I know someone really fucking crazy.
I sit there.
I sit there some more.
I look at Sela.
— Shouldn't part of keeping her safe involve telling her when she's talking about doing something that will kill everyone?
I hold up my hand.
— No, never mind, I totally fucking forgot that your whole fucked-up Clan is based on trying to do something that's going to get everyone killed. -They have it, Joe.
I look at Amanda. -You already said that.
She turns in place, holding her drink over her head, rattling the ice cubes. -OK, OK, I know it's this total secret hush-hush thing. I know we're not supposed to talk about the hundred-pound pink poodle in the room.
She stops turning and spreads her arms. -But the whole point is that were seriously trying to change things.
She takes a sip.
— And you don't change things by doing what everyone has always done before.
She comes over and perches on the edge of her desk.
— So here's the deal: We need more blood. Plain and simple. I can get a lot through the lab, from medical supply houses, but not as much as you d think. They mostly deal in plasma and other blood components. And the Vyrus only feeds on whole blood. Did you know that? Tried it. Tried using plasma. Tried using platelet serum. Not what it wants. So we need more blood.
She blows out her cheeks.
— But the Coalition wont deal with us. We could pay like way over market price, but they won't even open a fucking dialogue. Which is super funny considering how they kissed my parents' and my asses for so many years before I started Cure.
She empties her glass. -So the thing is, we have to do something.
Sela steps forward. -If you tell anyone about any of this, Pitt.
I look at her.
— Sela, if I decide to commit suicide, III do it with a gun like normal people. I won't do it by telling people about little chats I'm having to plot a raid on the Coalitions fucking reservoir.
Amanda shakes her head.
— It's not a raid. Were not even talking about that kind of thing. I'm talking about just some surveillance. Intelligence. That's all.
She taps her own forehead.
— I mean, think about it. They have to get it from somewhere. They cant just make it. They have to have a supplier. Maybe they have a bunch of them. I know that's, like, the most reasonable possibility. They've been around forever. So they've, like, built up these weird relationships. Totally backdoor stuff that no one can get in on at this point. They must get it from dozens of places. Hospitals. EMT workers. Blood banks. They bring it into a central warehouse or something. All we know is that when it comes in, it comes in from Queens.
She leans.
— What we need to know is, who some of those suppliers are. If we know, like, who to talk to, we can totally outbid the Coalition. Or we can force a deal. Tell the Coalition that they can either sell to us or they can face some competition in the market. See what they do when I throw some real cash into the supply
and demand equation and their suppliers start driving their trucks to our door. That's all.
That's all.
Just go to Queens. Just leave the Island right after I got back. Just go poke around the Coalitions biggest secret. The biggest secret.
Just leave again.
Just leave.
Gravity pulls. Pulls at the center of me. Pulls at a part that I didn't know was there till I took it off the Island.
I
f I pull too hard in the opposite direction, will it snap?
Jesus. Who am I?
I move the girls hand from my knee, I look at her. -Its going to cost.
She does the eyeroll, letting me know again that I shouldn’t bother talking about things that she doesn't give a shit about.
I nod, stand up. -OK. Maybe we should start by asking some people some questions.
I look at Sela.
— And then making them dead.
Amanda slips off the edge of the desk. -See, baby, I told you he was the man for the job.
Sela turns away.
When the math is done, it's not two people I get dead, its three people I get dead. Amanda suggesting, not unreasonably, that maybe I could deal with the slob in the basement who caused all the problems for them the other night.
One more. Sure. Why not? Who's counting at this point?
Terry's mole, he cops to it. I don't have to touch him or even threaten to tear up his back issues of Amazing Spider-Man to get him to cop to it. I just let him watch while I deal with the others. Then I tell him I'll do him different, more easy, if he tells me if he's the one been making calls to Terry.
He says he is.
Could he be lying?
Sure. Why not? I watched someone do what I do to Predo's mole, and / got given a chance to say something might let me avoid the same discomfort, I might lie myself.
But I don't think he was lying.
And if he was?
If he was, then I guess it makes what I did to him that much worse. And if there's someone watching the things I do, watching and judging, that's one that will go against me. Assuming there's any more room in the AGAINST column.
Doesn't matter, I couldn't let him live no matter what. Not after he watched. Not after he heard the questions I asked Predo's pawn.
Far as that guy goes, mostly it's too bad he didn't know anything. Makes life that much harder for me. Certainly made death that much harder for him.
But I'm not worried about it. Because no one is watching me. No one is judging me. No one is weighing my actions and making book on where my soul is gonna finish when the race is over.
I'm the only one watching these things I do. I'm the only one counting. I know the number.
And I've known for a long time what I've got coming someday.
I'm not trying to get out of anything.
I kill the guys. And I don't make it easy for them on the way out. Because I got no doubts they deserve it.
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