Salsa Nocturna: A Bone Street Rumba Collection

by Daniel José Older

  “Janey used some Panamanian magic to bring it to life,” Sasha says. “But she’s not exactly an expert, just some shit she picked up from her grandma so…”

  Janey rolls her eyes. “The point—” SLAM!! “—is that I didn’t know it was gonna work in the first place, otherwise I wouldn’ta goddamn done it.”

  “Well, now you know,” Sasha says.

  “Isn’t this your department?” I ask. Sasha’s not just in touch with the dead, she’s half-dead herself: a long complicated story she hasn’t bothered filling me in on and I haven’t bothered asking about. I don’t see ghosts. I don’t fuck with ghosts. I don’t even dabble. I’m good.

  “Feel like it kinda fits in the inbetween,” Sasha says. “Being that it’s a physical thing and all.”

  “Bah.” I set down my duffle bag of goodies and cast a sideways glance at Josh, who’s back to scribbling away on those papers. “He can be trusted?”

  Sasha shrugs. “Don’t think so, but what choice do we have? He’s here.”

  “Indeed I am,” Josh says, miffed.

  She looks at me. “What’s the move?”

  This time, a sharp crack sounds when whatever-it-is smashes into the door. I shake my head, crouch and unzip the duffle bag. “We kill it.”

  “What?” Josh and Janey say together. An unlikely alliance, and you can tell they’re both taken aback too.

  “We can’t,” Josh says. “I mean we literally don’t even know if we can, right? And besides, we created it, or Janey did, and the kids, and yeah it might be dangerous but…but…”

  I pass Sasha an AK and sling one over my shoulder, suppress my smile as Josh’s eyes grow wide. “You called me to handle a problem, this is how I do that.” The clip makes a satisfying click as it slides into place and just like that the last threads of that rum-tinged fog fall away and everything glistens. I glance back at Charlotte—she stands by the door, a slight smile on her lips as her eyes take me in. “Guess you were right about that moment rapidly approaching. You wanna leave?”

  She just shakes her pretty head.

  As Sasha goes through the motions I taught her to get comfortable with the weapon, Josh places himself between us and the door. “There has to be another way! I-I don’t consent to the taking of a life, even a strange new life that may want to kill us.”

  “Consent isn’t yours to give,” I say. A few flash grenades go in my pockets along with another clip.

  “If you go all Scarface up in here with those big guns,” Janey says, “cops’ll be here in about ten seconds and then what?”

  I stand beside Sasha facing the door. “Three minutes and fifteen seconds.”

  “What?” Josh demands.

  “Average response time to a shots fired call in Williamsburg. I know, trust me.”

  “I do,” Janey says, eyebrows raised.

  “So unless you have a better idea—”

  “We talk to it,” Josh blurts out.

  Now even Janey steps away from him. “You’re mad.”

  “We haven’t tried—not really. And what if it’s just trying to be heard, to be understood? It’s a newborn basically, but it’s huge and it’s trapped. I’d be slamming at the door too.”

  “This is a bad idea,” Sasha says quietly.

  “But shooting up the place is brilliant? And then running when the cops get here? Do you have any idea how—”

  “It’s the only way,” I say, but Josh is undeterred.

  He shakes his head, turns toward the door. “I’ll do it,” he growls. “Since no one else will. I’ve always felt like…I was born for something. Something more than wrangling boards of trustees and raising a few kids out of poverty. More than bodega runs and bad loft parties. I don’t know what this thing is or what we can do but…maybe…maybe.” He opens the door and slides in before anyone can stop him.

  There’s a pause, then a muffled word, “Hello,” I think, and then another terrible crash, Josh’s muted scream, then a wet thwacking sound. The door flies open and a huge gray form bursts out. Janey ducks out of the way and I let off a barrage of shots but the thing is fast as hell—a few pock marks erupt on its gigantic form without slowing it at all. Sasha and I dive to either side as it barrels through. Everything seems to slow; the monster moves at lightspeed but we are all wading through invisible mud. I fly through the air; my only thought is Charlotte.

  A smashing noise, plaster crumbling, then an even louder crash and shattered glass.

  Charlotte Charlotte Charlotte Charlotte.

  I land hard, scramble to position the gun, see what happened.

  Dr. Charlotte Ann-Marie Robateau Tennessee.

  She stands perfectly still against the wall, a gaping hole beside her where the door we came in through used to be. Glass shards everywhere. She is alive, in one piece, eyes wide, chest heaving, hands fisted at her sides. I let out a sigh that turns into a tiny hiccup, maybe a sob. And then I know it without a question or doubt: this woman is my future. At least she will be if I can keep her alive tonight.

  “Check the room,” I say, rising. The world returns to normal speed; my heart returns to normal speed. Inside me, the snapshot of Charlotte, still alive, terrified but perfectly alive, recedes to the background as the urgency of now takes back over. The cops will be coming. The monster’s loose. Josh is…

  “Just…pieces…” Janey reports. Then she turns, bends over and hurls whatever was in her stomach onto the floor. It lands with a wet slap. Sasha’s by her side in seconds. “We gotta move out,” I say. My eyes meet Charlotte’s, ask if she’s okay. She gulps back whatever shriek or wail was about to come out, saves it for later, nods. “Five-oh could come knocking any minute. We lock this place down and leave.” I start packing up my duffle-bag. “They probably won’t have a specific location for the shots fired and hopefully they’ll mark it unfounded and keep moving. Either way, we won’t be here. We can come back later and clean up…Josh.”

  “Wait,” Charlotte says. Behind me, Janey and Sasha get themselves together. “I’ll stay. This needs to be handled now.”

  I clench my jaw, hating that between the two options, her being at risk of getting arrested at a grisly murder scene is the more palatable one. For a flickering moment, all the choices I’ve made to arrive at this moment flash past. I shake the threads of doubt away. Nod. Take out my work phone. “A huge Guyanese guy named Rohan will show up with a clean-up team to help you. And make sure you’re safe.”

  “Sounds like a dream come true.” She manages a smile. “Go catch that monster.”

  * * *

  It’s late and a Tuesday, so the streets of Williamsburg are mostly empty. I screech around a corner onto Broadway, missing the huge metal leg of the train overpass by centimeters, then blast towards Bushwick. “Take this,” I pull up a police scanner app on one of my phones and hand it to Sasha. “Put 11206 in when it asks for a zip code and then listen for them to freak out or any calls that sound like it could be our guy.” She nods, perfectly calm, almost eerily calm.

  Janey, on the other hand… “Fuck fuck fuck,” she chants in a sputtering, rhythmic sequence from the back seat. “Fuck shit fuck.”

  Sasha puts an earbud in with one hand, reaches the other over the seat to rest on Janey’s knee. “We gonna sort this out,” she says.

  “We already didn’t,” Janey says. “Josh is dead.”

  Going on gut instinct alone, I hook a left onto a sidestreet, accelerate hard down two quiet residential blocks and then swing back around towards Broadway. “Tell me exactly what happened. Anything that might give us a hint about where it went.”

  “It’s like I said,” Janey says with a sniffle. “It was kind of a joke: we built this huge thing, and the kids were all into it and we were kidding around about bringing it to life and so I just…” She trembles, pulls it together. “I just did some of the prayers and things my grandma taught me and added some ingredients.”

  “What ingredients?” Sasha asks.

  Janey scrunches up her
face. “Cemetery dirt, for one.”

  A police car flies past, lights flashing. I glance at Sasha. “They’re saying it’s a pedestrian struck,” she says. I swing the car around.

  “Some pigeon feathers. Some honey. Rum. A few other things…some hair.”

  “Your own hair?” Sasha asks.

  “Ugh! I feel so stupid,” Janey moans. “I didn’t think…I never thought…How could I…”

  Up ahead, the blue police lights have stopped at an intersection along with a few other squad cars. “You couldn’t,” I say. “You had no way of knowing.” More pulsing lights converge; from the far end of Broadway, an ambulance approaches, its siren a muted wail in the night.

  * * *

  Moose Ed lounges beside the police tape looking somehow both mystified and unimpressed. “Pedestrian struck? Ha. I guess you could say that.” He spits. Nods at a passing sergeant.

  I scowl at a crumpled Suburban in the middle of the intersection; its airbags hang like melting wax over the dashboard and steering wheel. Beside it, a big guy in a Yankees cap tries to wave off paramedics, insisting that he’s fine, he’s fine and then unleashing a thick stream of Dominican curses into a cellphone. “That’s the driver.” I say. “Where’s the pedestrian?”

  Moose Ed chuckles. “That’s the thing: It was a hit and run but the one that got hit is also the one that ran.”

  “Which way?”

  “Can’t make this shit up, I swear.”

  With some wrath now: “Moose, which way did the pedestrian run?”

  He eyes me. “Up Union and then disappeared down a sidestreet, the driver said. But he also said the dude was eight feet tall and gray and butt naked so you know…we gonna breathalyze him. We told the medics but they said it wasn’t their job to chase huge naked gray dudes around Brooklyn and hey, I can’t argue with them on that point, you know?”

  “Thanks, Moose.” I’m already halfway back to the car.

  * * *

  “The worst part,” Janey says as we swerve around the idling ambulance and up Union, “is that I…for the first time since I met him, I know what Josh was talking about…with the thing, I mean.”

  Sasha and I stay quiet, but I’m sure we’re both restraining ourselves from blurting out some form of Get the fuck out of here. Still, Janey doesn’t strike me as the sentimental type. “I know that sounds ridiculous,” she amends, once our silence has registered. “I don’t…I can’t explain it. And I know it’s even weirder since the thing did that…to Josh but…it’s like when those wild animal attacks happen, you know some fool wanders into a bear cave and gets ate and then they put down the bear and it’s like, the bear was just bearing, you know? Homeboy needn’ta shown up in the bear’s house. Not that Josh…never mind. You know what I mean?”

  “Except you made the bear out of clay,” Sasha says.

  “And we’re in Brooklyn,” I add. “Not the Sierra National Park.”

  Janey nods, watching the dark streets whizz by. “I know…it’s the I-made-it-thing, you guys.” With those two simple words Janey has somehow invited me into a secret girls’ club I’ve never been in before. You guys is the official direct address of the sleepover party. And here we are zooming around backstreets looking for a giant monster. Against my will, I am charmed.

  “Nesto Jr. doesn’t want kids,” Sasha explains to me. Janey reaches over from the backseat and punches her shoulder. “What? You don’t think that has anything to do with this?”

  “That’s not the…ugh!” She feigns indignation but a giggle slips through. “Whatever.”

  “If you’re waxing mommytastic about a giant lump of clay,” I point out, “you may need to put Nesto Jr. on ice.”

  “You mean kill him?” Janey gasps.

  Sasha and I bust out laughing at the same time. I don’t laugh much, but this night has already been unusual in so many ways. “Damn, Janey!” Sasha guffaws. “She meant curb him.” She shoots me a look. “Right?”

  I shrug. “Whatever works.”

  They both cackle and for a minute, the entire mess of this tragic night evaporates amidst our sudden fellowship. Then something huge and gray hurdles across the street and I slam on the breaks, sending a cascade of cold coffee across the windshield.

  “Jesus Christ!” Janey yells and then I screech the wrong way down a one way after it, my mind reaching back to the guns in the trunk, ticking off a quick inventory of what might take this thing down.

  “There,” Sasha says, ever calm and steady. The gray blur streaks up the block then launches into the air, lands on a car, nearly crushing it, and without missing a beat, vaults up to a fire escape and disappears into the darkness above. I double park, throw the hazards on and then I’m out the car, popping the trunk, grabbing my dufflebag. Sasha’s beside me, then Janey, and we’re sprinting down the block then squinting up past the orange glare of the streetlights. I use a grappling hook to pull down the fire escape and we clang-clang our way to the top without a word, the weight of what’s about to happen heavying up the air between us.

  It stands at the far end of the rooftop, the magnificent Manhattan skyline spreading out to either side like fiery wings against the night sky. We just pant for a few seconds, and then I put down the duffle bag, unzip it. The shotgun feels like an old friend in my grip, comfort. The thing turns when I chuk-chuk the barrel into place; it takes a step toward us. Beside me, Sasha stirs and then I hear the shiiingg of her blade coming out. The towering shadow breaks into a run. I lift the barrel, steady it, find the fast-approaching giant.

  “Stop!” Janey yells, running out into the darkness.

  I hear Sasha mutter, “fuck,” as I try to find a shot over Janey’s head. The monster’s not moving though, the thing froze in its tracks…exactly when Janey told it to.

  “Janey…” I say. She holds up a hand, gazing up at the clay giant she created.

  “Kneel,” she says. There’s a pause, a terrible silence. Then the monster lowers itself to one knee before her. Janey shoots a wide-eyed gape back at us, then puts one hand on its head. “No more killing,” she says. “Okay?”

  “Not for now anyway,” Sasha mutters. I just shake my head.

  The monster nods. Around us, the city sparkles.

  * * *

  “It’s been a busy month,” I say, glancing at Sasha. “All my regular spots are off limits right now.” Charlotte and the guys did a helluva job cleaning up the place. Every surface shines, the reek of bleach the only remaining hint of what a horror show this place was a few hours ago. That and the trash bag full of what used to be Josh in the middle of the floor.

  “It’s alright,” Janey says. “I got a place.”

  Sasha glares at her. “Really, bitch?”

  She shrugs. “A girl can’t have some secrets? Shit. Seriously though, it’s better this way. Disposal sounds so cold. I know we weren’t close in life—hell, I cursed him out more times than I care to remember—but the least I can do is honor him in death. He was hard to get along with, but he meant well, deep down inside.” She takes a swig of Jack and pours some out. “To Josh.” We all nod solemnly.

  “Where’s the…it?” I say after a few moments of silence.

  Janey gestures toward the stairwell. “Basement. Emptied out a big ol’ crate we had laying around. He’s…sleeping.”

  Oh he’s a he now. I refrain from commenting.

  “Ahem.” Charlotte stands in the doorway, looking exhausted and still utterly gorgeous.

  “Dr. Charlotte Ann-Marie Robateau Tennessee,” I say, crossing the room.

  “Right, your,”—Sasha makes little quotation marks with her fingers—“associate.”

  “I’ll be that,” Charlotte says with a wily grin. “And so much more.”

  I take her in my arms; she fits just right. “Even after all this?”

  “Mmm.” She kisses me. “Apparently so.”

  I nod my goodbyes to Sasha and Janey, smile at Dr. Charlotte Ann-Marie Robateau and then arm in arm, we walk out into the nig
ht.

  Skin Like Porcelain Death

  When Victor has something uncomfortable to say, he usually ends up eating and smoking a lot. Since his health-conscious girlfriend Jenny's bustling around in the bedroom, all he can do is stuff his wide face with those papery, tasteless organic chips that she fills the cabinets with. He flinches slightly after each bite, like the snacks have been charged with tiny electrical currents.

  "Spit it out, man."

  "You're dead, right, Carlos?"

  I roll my eyes. We've half-stepped this conversation so many times and I'm tired of tiptoeing.

  "I'm partly dead."

  "Right, whatever, you're deadish."

  The difference means nothing to him and I have to remind myself it's only 'cause he doesn't know any fully dead people. I deal with their chilly, translucent asses all the time. I nod at him to get on with it.

  "And your job – you investigate, uh..."

  You know what I hate? When someone stops mid-sentence and stuffs a bunch of food in his face. Then you're just stuck there listening to all that crunching and smacking, waiting for the conversation to start back up. "Victor," I say, "I'm hung-over. Breakfast was delicious but maybe I should come back when you've rehearsed a little better whatever it is you need to talk about."

  Victor swallows a little too quickly, sputters, and gets back in it. "My little cousin Jimmy...had a weird...experience."

  "Tell him it's very normal and one day he'll be able to do it with a real live woman, but not to hurt himself in the meantime."

  "No, Carlos, this is serious. He says he saw something. He's all freaked out, wouldn't even tell me what it was. He went over some girl's house and something real off musta happened. Came back pale as shit and stuttering."

  "Also normal. Surely there's some pills he can take."

  "Carlos!"

  "Alright, Victor. He didn't say anything else?"

  "He mentioned something about dolls. That's all I could get. I know it's a cliché, but he looked like he saw a ghost."

  "That's why you asked me over here for breakfast?"

  "Look, Carlos – I never ask you for nothing, and it's not like you don't owe us a favor or two."