Only maybe not as much as I do.
Tough luck how that works out sometimes.
— Hey. -Who? — It's Joe Pitt.
I hear salsa music doppler in and out of the background. -What? — Joe Pitt. -Yeah? — Yeah. -And?
I clear my throat.
— Remember how you said you d rather I owe you one for when you need someone to have your back? — Yeah. -How d you like to make it two?
I hear catcalls in Puerto Rican-accented Spanish, and her own retort: something about someone's dick and a knife and their throat. But my Spanish
isn't good enough to get the subtler nuances.
The catcalls fall silent. -You still there?
I nod, even though she cant see it. -I'm here.
The phone carries the sound of a train crashing and screeching on overhead tracks. -You ask a lot, Pitt. -Yeah.
— I got ex-boyfriends, kind of guys never have a fucking job, you know? — Sure.
— Kind of guys, they let a girl pick up every check, pay for their new Nikes, give them walking-around cash they're gonna use to take their shorty out later. Know what I mean? — Sure. -But you. You I never even broke off a piece, and you got them all beat.
I shift the phone to my other hand so I can get at my smokes easier. -Yeah, I like to go that extra mile.
— Yes, you do.
— Yeah. So, not to waste anyone's time, I don't have anything to add to the
pot. You want to help out or not?
Esperanza grunts.
— Girl likes maybe just a little sweet talk sometimes. -How bout that. -Yeah. OK. What is it?
I get a cigarette in my mouth.
— What it is, is it's funny you brought up ex-boyfriends. -How's that funny? — Funny like maybe I'd want to meet one of them.
Silence. I look at the screen of the phone Amanda gave me to make my call, making sure the connection hasn't been broken. It hasn't.
I put it back to my ear. -Hear me?
— I heard you, Pitt. I'm just trying to figure out how to say ha-ha without it sounding too sarcastic.
Getting me out is also on the tricky side.
Seeing as the Cure house is smack in the middle of Coalition turf, getting anyone out is a trick.
Figure that under normal circumstances the Coalition would weed out anyone tried to put roots in their turf. But there's nothing normal about Amanda Horde. Nothing normal about her or her big brain or her money or the Horde family name. She was right about the way Predo used to kiss her and her parents' asses.
Before he plotted to have them all assassinated.
Plot didn't work out.
Someone got in the way.
Chalk that up as yet another reason on the long list that Predo has for looking forward to the day he gets to watch me boil in the sun.
But back before that little misunderstanding took place, the Coalition was neck-deep in dealings with the Horde family. And Horde Bio Tech, Inc. Far as I know, they still have holdings in the company. But the little girl holds all the important strings.
Still, it's too late in the day for them to make a sudden move on her. She's
too well connected for something like that. Too bright a star on the map of the sky. Not the Page Six fixture her mom was, but definitely someone the Manhattan gossip mill has an ear and an eye for.
Poor little orphaned rich girls who run their family's biotechnology holdings and are always accompanied by their sexy but suspiciously muscular black female bodyguards tend to be a hot item from time to time.
Figure the Coalition couldn't do much when she decided to open housekeeping on their doorstep. But figure they keep as many eyes on that house as they possibly can.
Predo knew when I went in the first time.
And he found out that I left.
So I have to use an alternate route this time.
— Don't be particular, Pitt.
— I don't think I'm being particular. I think I'm being perfectly fucking
reasonable.
— There's no time for this shit. Just bag it and get in.
— Oh, that's funny.
— I wasn't trying to be funny. Shut up and climb in.
— Fuck.
But I shut up and climb in.
Because Sela was right when she spelled out how it'd work. This is the best bet on short notice. But knowing something is the best bet, that's doesn't make it a sure thing.
I lie down on the greasy, shit-stained, olive-drab sleeping bag on the floor. Sela kneels at the foot and pulls the zipper up. -Bunch up a little, Pitt. -Fuck.
I pull my knees up, hunch my shoulder and duck my head.
Amanda steps closer. -Hang on.
Sela stops with the zipper at my chin.
Amanda puts a hand on Sela's shoulder and bends to look down at me. -Hurry back, Joe. We need you.
I wriggle deeper into the sleeping bag. -Yeah, and it's so nice to be needed like this.
Sela yanks the zipper, catches some of my hair, and gives it anther yank, tearing the hair out and sealing me inside the reeking mummy bag.
Then she grabs the top of the bag and drags me down the steps behind the building and out to the alley. -Hey. Hey, you could carry me, couldn't you?
Her heel clips the back of my neck. -Shut up.
I hear a gate squeal open, sounds of the street, an idling diesel.
Then she hoists me high, and shoves, and I feel air beneath me, for a second, then a bunch of hard stuff.
The tone of the diesel changes, gears grind, there's a jerk and the load in the back of the truck shifts and some more hard stuff tumbles on top of me.
And we roll, the driver of the Waste Management truck hauling the construction Dumpster that had been parked in front of the Cure house, doing his best to hit every fucking pothole and divot from the Upper East Side, across the Queensboro, and down along Dutch Kill and Review Avenue to Maspeth.
By which time I have found the zipper tabs are stuck on the outside and cut my way out with my straight razor, so I'm ready to vault out when we wrap
around the back side of New Calvary Cemetery.
Twenty-four hours?
Not even that. Not one full day on the Island. And somehow, somehow I find myself someplace worse than the Bronx.
You don't have to work hard to land in this kind of shit. You just have to let go of whatever you re hanging on to. The shit is right down there under our feet, waiting for anyone who cant keep their grip.
The next bit, the next bit is the tricky part.
Keeping your mouth closed when you go under.
Maspeth.
One of those names comes from an Indian word that got all fucked up. Someone told me once it means something like At the bottom of the bad water place.
Swamp.
Swamp and landfill.
And the choicest landfill groomed, sodded, planted with nice trees, and filled with dead people.
I lived in Maspeth, I'd look at those massive cemeteries lining the L.I.E.,
Calvary, New Calvary, Mount Zion, Mount Olivet where they buried the unclaimed dead from the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, I'd look at them, and I'd look at the dust and the muck where the row houses and the tenements took root, and I'd start digging up dead people and dropping them in Newtown Creek.
But I don't live in Maspeth.
Finally, something going right.
Standing at Fifty-fifth Ave. and Fiftieth, where my meet is supposed to take place, I get to celebrate that little fact for about a second before a dozen gibbering cannibal warriors with filed teeth and machetes come boiling over the fence from the truck-filled lot behind one of the warehouses that choke the dry land on either side of the Creek.
Know what's funny?
Nothing.
No. Really what's funny is what I forgot.
See, what with all the hubbub and urgency, all the need for me to speed on my way because shit is coming unhinged at the Cure house and this needs to be done last fucking year, what w
ith all that, I forget to ask for a gun.
How funny is that?
Not funny at all.
Not if you're the clown who just took a job to cross the water again. Not if you're that sad fucker who just made a call to make a date with some savages.
Still, I almost laugh when I remember I forgot.
Almost.
Instead of laughing, I run. I make it across the street before the bare slapping feet catch me, and fingers capped with chrome claws drag me down.
— She's a special lady. -I'm not arguing. -That's wise.
I don't tell him that wisdom isn't a virtue I've often been credited with.
As for him, he keeps his own counsel, clinking the honed tips of the claws on his right index finger and thumb against one another, in time to a drum no one else hears.
— If I were a better man. If I had been a better man, she might be here.
I let my eye take in the stifling abandoned shipping container we're all crowded inside of. Only Menace has a chair. The rest stand or sit on the piles of old books and newspapers that fill the whole container. -Think what she's missing.
His claws stop clinking. -I do not care for sarcasm.
I think for a moment, come up with nothing better, shrug. -I could try not talking at all. -That sounded like more sarcasm.
I scratch my head. -Like I said, I could try not talking at all.
He holds his hand high over his head, light from the candles illuminating the container reflected in points on the bias-cut sections of sharpened silver pipe fitted at the end of each of his fingers.
— I could flay you and wear your skin as a cloak, and caper in the streets in the moonlight.
He lowers his hand.
— But some might consider that crass treatment of a guest.
I nod. -Well, some people got no sense of humor, do they?
He brings his hand to his chest, dimples the tight, brown skin over his sternum with the point of a claw. -I am one of those people.
I take a good long look at Skag Baron Menace. The claws, the filed teeth, the bare feet with soles calloused to leather, the bracelets of finger bones, the broad blade of the machete leaned against the leg of the camp stool he's sitting on.
I get a cigarette from my pocket. -Kid.
I light up. -Why would I think you have a sense of humor?
He nods. -Yes.
He looks at his crew, all kitted out pretty much like himself. -Yes.
He looks at me. -I see your point.
He rises, picks up his machete. -We'll take a walk.
He gestures and the candles are snuffed, dropping us into a black pit. Only light coming from the tip of my smoke.
Breathing. Shuffle of bare feet. Claw scratching steel. Steel grating on steel as the lock-bar is unlatched and the door swung open by the sentry outside.
In the starlight that filters in, Menace sweeps his machete in an arc, waving me ahead of him.
I get off the floor and walk toward the door, waiting for the bite of the machete blade in my back, the rake of claws on my neck.
But they don't come.
Yet.
Put your money on something happening down by the water. That's where I'd do it. So much easier to get rid of a body when there's some water at hand.
Wedged into an angle created by the Kosciuszko Bridge, Fifty-sixth Road, and
the Newtown and Maspeth Creeks is a fish-shaped bit of land. The tail occupied by yet another warehouse. The body of the fish an open plain of concrete and asphalt, broken by empty foundations, corpses of abandoned refrigerators with the doors still on, swamp grasses pushing through the pavement, and a glittering sheen of broken glass that seems to pebble the whole surface in nearly even perfection.
Menace walks on the glass, leading us toward the water. -I cannot say for certain, but I think this was once the home of Cord Meyers Animal Carbon Plant.
I kick at some of the glass, rearranging the huge, senseless mosaic. -What the hell was that?
He shakes his head.
— I am not certain. But I believe this is where it was. Whatever it was. I simply like the name. It sounds ominous. Like much of the industry that found a home here after the American Revolution.
He points with his machete at a truck yard over Fifty-sixth. -Cating Rope Works.
Indicates a warehouse up the water. -Fisk Metal Casket Company.
Another industrial mass. -Alden Sampson Oil Factory.
Another. -And Peter Cooper's Glue Factory.
He lowers the machete. -No need to wonder where the sinister quality in that name comes from.
A damp, stinking breeze blows off the water. -Yeah, sure. Boiling horses. Dreadful.
He stands at least a head shorter than me, looks up, shakes his free hand, rattling bones.
— Esperanza said you had trouble with Lament. -I did.
— She said you cut a deal with him to get away. -I cut a deal.
The machete flickers through the air, cutting the tops from a thick tuft of grass shoved up through a crack in the concrete. -Not something to recommend a person, having cut a deal with Lament.
I look at the distant lights of Manhattan, wonder if Maspeth is where III finally die. -Yeah, he seems to have a great fondness for you too.
He balances the machete. -He mentioned me?
— Yeah. Seemed a favorite topic. I was to judge, I'd say he goes to bed mumbling your name, and then dreams about nailing your head above his door.
He smiles, moves the tip of his tongue from pointed tooth to pointed tooth, realizes what he's doing and closes his mouth. -Yes. I am certain he does.
He looks north toward the Bronx.
— And considering the roll he played in educating me, I do not imagine it is any coincidence that I have similar visions regarding his own head.
I spit in the oily water we walk along. -He has one of those heads people think about cutting off. -Yes. He does.
He rests the flat of the machete blade on his shoulder. -When he took me off the street, I thought it was the greatest piece of luck. I
was finally going to be part of a crew. Make some money. Other kids, they would join crews. Soon after they would be showing up at school in fresh K-Swiss, And1. Hilfiger jeans. Burberry caps. Soon, the ones who lasted would have cars. Leased Escalades and Mercedes. Tricked-out Nissans.
He frowns.
— I wanted to be in a crew. Everyone I knew wanted to be in a crew. That was how you got things. Kicks. Clothes. Wheels. Respect.
His frown deepens. -All the things a boy desires. That is a skill of Lament's.
He catches his lower lip between the points of two teeth. -To know what young people desire.
His teeth draw a bead of blood from his own flesh.
— After I was infected by one of the older boys, I felt less as if I had been lied to, and more as if I were being invited deeper inside something special. Of course.
He wipes the drop of blood away with the back of his wrist. -By then Lament had taken my name, christened me Menace. A process of physical starvation had begun, soon followed by a more intense deprivation when he withheld blood. And physical abuse. And emotional abuse. The
easiest thing, the thing most of us did, was to surrender. After all.
He drops the blade of the machete from his shoulder and angles it to catch a bit of the sliver-moon.
— Once you have been told that you are worthless, and treated as if you are worthless, put in a place where you are all set against one another in a contest for one person's approval, approval that is never consistent in how it is rewarded, it is the easiest thing in the world to succumb to that conditioning and believe yourself to be worthless.
He brings the blade up, touches it to his own forehead, like a warrior knighting himself. -But I am not worthless.
He lowers the blade.
— He had me cleaning. Digging out the piles of papers and magazines he had accumulated.
He shakes his head.
—
I have no idea why the word caught my eye. I do not believe in destiny. For whatever reason, I saw it, and I needed to read about it. And so I did. I do not even remember the magazine. National Geographic? Time? It does not matter.
He inhales, exhales a word.
— Mungiki.
He nods.
— Kikuyu farmers. They banded together in defense squads against Nairobi government forces during a land dispute. The government was dominated by the Kalenjin tribe. Enemies of the Kikuyu. The Mungiki prevailed. And thrived. They moved into the cities, the slums. Provided protection, brought down crime rates. They did this through violence.
He nods again.
— Beheadings. Amputations. Vicious beatings. Torture. And they became a source of terror. Blood drinkers. Madmen. Savages so brutal, neither the police nor the military would go into their slums.
I look at the long flat span of empty cement around us, the other Mungiki scattered about. I look at the water. Water's the way out. Whether I have to jump in it, or that's where they dump my body, it looks like that's where I'm going.
He stops nodding. -They inspired me.
He shakes his head. -Not that I knew anything about the Kikuyu. Not that I did, or do, have any
care about the Kalenjin. I was simply inspired that these put-upon people, outnumbered, the lowest, rose. Made of themselves something to be reckoned with. Regardless of their methods. They made me realize that I could fight back. I could leave. So I did.
He shrugs.
— Physical security is not a concern of Laments. He relies on his personality to keep his captives with him. Until he is ready to send them on their way. Escaping was relatively easy. But freedom. That was most difficult. I had already seen the uses of fear in my own conditioning.
He tinks a claw against a bone that dangles from his wrist. -So. I set out to make myself fearful.
He indicated the black leather vest worn open over his bare chest, the combat fatigues cut off at the knees. The outfit his crew sports as well. -I designed a uniform for myself and the friends I convinced to join me. And we did things. Engaged in acts modeled on the Mungiki. Are they still afraid of us in the Bronx?
I flick ash. -They are.
He points north.
— And we are not even there.
He lowers his arm.
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