Desperate Souls (28 page)

“Okay, fellas,” Joe said, “there’s no time for sentimentality. Let’s clear the fuck out of here.”

“Ready, chief.”

The voice had come from a cell phone, set on speaker, clipped to the sun visor above K-Man’s head. The driver reached up and clicked the phone off. The lead SUV pulled into the street, followed by the main vehicle and then a team bringing up the rear. They stayed in tight formation, obeying the speed limit, and took Seventh Avenue to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, then merged onto the Triborough Bridge toward Queens. Manhattan vanished behind them. Joe would miss the old girl.

“Play some Miles,” Joe said as the sun rose into the sky and cast golden light on the water below.

Chess located Miles Davis on the SUV’s MP3 player, and jazz-funk came over the speakers, bringing a smile to Joe’s lips. They took the Grand Central Parkway east toward LaGuardia Airport and then the Van Wyck Expressway toward Kennedy Airport.

“Take your time,” Joe said to K-Man. “We don’t want no
po
lice pulling us over.” Gentle laughter filled the vehicle. “That would get pretty messy.”

The caravan got off the Belt Parkway east onto the Nassau Expressway.

Chess looked over his shoulder. “Hey, Joe, what’s the difference between a corner boy and a ho?”

“The ho washes her crack and sells it again, son.”

They all laughed, having heard and repeated the joke many times.

WMD turned to his boss. “There were eight cooties on a ho’s ass. Four of them were smoking reefer. What were the other four doing?”

“Sniffing crack,” Joe said, provoking another round of cackling.

The Nassau Expressway became Rockaway Boulevard.

Almost home,
Joe thought. Then they boarded the Rockaway Expressway.
Just forty minutes to leave a lifetime behind.
Far Rockaway was one of the four neighborhoods occupying the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens. It had been a Jewish neighborhood before becoming largely African American. Driving along Central Avenue, Joe gazed at foreclosed homes covered in graffiti. He had lived here as a boy and had enjoyed the beach. Now scarecrows stalked the sidewalks, but he saw no zombies.
They haven’t come this far out yet.

K-Man drove parallel to the beach, and Joe looked at the boats on the North Atlantic. He regretted that he had never learned to swim.

Plenty of time for that now,
he thought.

They passed a housing project on the beach, and he studied an empty playground.

Is that where Shana plays?

After a few more minutes, the caravan pulled alongside the curb of a weather-beaten Dutch Colonial home that had been a converted two-family house when Joe bought it. He turned it back into a single-family house for Toni and Shana, his common-law wife and daughter.

They both lived under Toni’s maiden name, Robbins, but he paid their bills and sent Toni money every week. He visited them at least once a month but preferred the excitement of the city. He kept them out here for their own protection, so Shana could live as normal a life as possible.

All eight occupants of the three vehicles got out. Joe’s most trusted men. Chess and K-Man fetched Joe’s bags.

Toni appeared in the doorway as the men approached the peeling porch. She wore a white dress and a brave smile. At thirty, she looked more fit than women five years her junior.

Cupping her face in his hands, Joe said, “You look good, girl.”

She smiled despite the tears in her eyes. “It’s good to see you.”

“Aw, you’ll be sick of looking at my fat ass soon enough.”

She laughed. “I don’t think so. Come inside.”

They walked inside arm in arm, followed by Joe’s army. Toni had packed two suitcases, which stood waiting at the bottom of the staircase.

“That’s all you packed?” Joe said.

“That’s all I need. I’m looking forward to leaving all this behind. I only want you.”

Joe believed her. “Go on upstairs and wake my daughter. I’ll be up to see her in a minute.”

She walked up the stairs, and Joe faced his men. “Hand me that bag, Chess.”

Chess passed a leather bag to Joe.

He set it on the glass coffee table and popped its tabs. “I want to thank all of you for sticking with me these last few months. I know it’s been rough. I know some of you wanted to run and didn’t. I know others of you want to stay and fight still. But it’s time for me to step down and for us to go our separate ways. Chess has my blessing to keep the organization going if that’s what he wants. And if he’s smart enough not to want that, then the offer is open to each one of you. Work it out among yourselves. What happens to this city’s trade in the future isn’t my concern. I’m done with it.

“But I’ve got something for y’all, a parting gift. Call it severance pay.” Reaching into the bag, he removed several bulging manila envelopes with names scrawled on them. “A working Joe could live on what’s in these envelopes for four years. I know you ain’t working stiffs, but if you pace yourselves, you could make it for two.”

The men laughed, and Joe handed out the envelopes.

“I’ll be leaving out of here tonight,” Joe said. “Chess and K-Man and WMD are going to see me off. The rest of you are free to leave now. We’re not employer and employees anymore. We’re not even business associates. We’re just old friends with common memories.”

One of the men, a runner named Jackson, gave a loud snort. “Fuck that, Joe. We all stayin’. What’s a few more hours of servitude?”

The other men nodded in agreement.

“I appreciate that,” Joe said. “Make yourselves comfortable. I told Toni to stock the fridge with Heineken and malt liquor, and that woman has never let me down. Chess, you’ll find menus in the kitchen. Let’s order up some pizzas as soon as a joint opens.”

“You got it, boss man.”

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going upstairs to say hello to my little girl. Y’all stay alert down here.”

Joe opened the door to Shana’s room and saw his six-year-old daughter on the bed, rubbing sleep from her eyes, Toni beside her.

“Daddy!”

His heart filled with warmth, and he knew he really was ready to leave the business behind. “Hey there, pumpkin. Come give your daddy a hug.”

Shana jumped up and ran across the mattress. Joe opened his arms, and she flew into them. He squeezed her tight.

“I missed you so much,” Shana said.

“I missed you, too, baby girl.” Over her shoulder, he saw Toni shedding tears of joy.

“But you know what? I’m never going to leave you or Mommy again.”

“Mommy says we’re going to fly on an airplane!”

“Two of them,” Joe said. Everything was going to be all right.
Better
than all right.

Then he heard glass breaking downstairs and machine guns with silencers firing.

Chess came back from the kitchen armed to the teeth with Heinekens, which he distributed to his men.
His
men. He had worked too hard for too long to just walk away from the empire he had helped Joe build. He had always expected to inherit the kingdom, and now was his chance, regardless of Malachai’s designs.

Fuck that traitor and his supernatural bullshit.

“What’s the plan, Chess?” Jackson said.

Chess held up a bottle opener and started prying off the metal caps on the bottles held by his men. “First we see Joe off safely. He’s earned that much. Then we take back our streets. To do that, we need an army. So we gotta start recruiting little shorties. I know that ain’t Joe’s way, but this ain’t Joe’s business anymore. Once he leaves town, we don’t worry about what he likes or doesn’t like.”

Chess raised his bottle in a toast, and the six men touched their bottles to his.

Then the windows on either side of the front door exploded, and gray-faced assassins opened fire. Chess watched in startled horror as his men—some of the most ruthless killers he had ever known—danced the jitterbug as gunfire riddled their bodies. None of them even got off a shot, including him.

Toni screamed, and Joe shoved Shana into her arms.

“Wait here,” he said, drawing his .32 from his waistband. Downstairs, the gunfire had stopped.

“No!
No!”
Toni was hysterical, which caused Shana to scream.

Now they know where we are for sure.
He loved her with all his heart, but she lacked street instincts.
Stupid bitch can’t help herself, I guess.

Joe strode to the door and opened it. He saw six of Malachai’s soldiers storming upstairs.
Six bullets, six of them. Not very good odds. I can’t exactly go Tony Montana on their asses.
Popping his head back inside, he closed the door and pushed in the doorknob’s feeble lock. Then he turned to Toni with a hopeless look on his face.

“No,” she said, tears streaming down her cheeks as Joe crossed the room. “It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair. We were so close …”

Joe raised the .32 and shot her in the head at point-blank range, the gunshot reverberating against the walls. Toni collapsed to the floor, and Shana rolled screaming from her arms. The things in the hall pounded on the door, and Shana ran to her closet and pressed herself against the wall.

Joe advanced on her. “It’s okay. This won’t hurt. You’re going to see Mommy real soon …”

She looked at him with petrified eyes. Before he could fire, the door crashed open and the zombies stood there, clutching AK-47s.

No! I have to spare my little girl
—

The zombies fired their weapons, which had been reset to semiautomatic. Single rounds from each gun blazed across Joe’s torso, ripping his flesh. He felt their impact but no pain. Shock, he knew. He would feel it soon enough. In the meantime, his gun fell from his hand, and he crumpled to the floor in a bloody heap.

The soldiers filed into the room and circled him, guns aimed at him.

An army,
he thought. Staring up at them, he knew the whispers were true: Daryl’s thugs were dead. Robots made of flesh. Zombies. He saw nothing in their eyes as they looked into his. Turning his head left, he saw Shana frozen with terror in the closet. Turning right, he saw his .32. He had meant to shoot Shana first to spare her a terrible death, then blow his own brains out. But he could not reach the gun because he could not move his arms. A horrible sucking sound clawed its way free of his chest.

Punctured lung,
he decided.

“Stand back,” said a familiar voice. The zombies standing at his feet parted like the Red Sea, and Marcus Jones, Daryl’s chief lieutenant, strode into the room. Ascertaining that Joe had been immobilized, he called out, “It’s all clear.”

A second living being entered the room. Tall and muscular, with a conceited gleam in his eyes. His nephew, Daryl.

“Good job, Marcus,” Daryl said as he leaned over Joe. “Hey, Uncle. Whazzup?”

Joe coughed up blood that tasted like bile. “Go to hell.”

Daryl raised his eyebrows. “You first.”

“You … little … shit …”

Daryl’s face scrunched up into an angry mask, and he kicked Joe in his groin.

Grimacing, Joe squeezed his eyes shut.

“I’m not little anymore, and I’m not shit. But you look very small now, and you
are
shit. You’re through and I beat you. There’s no retirement for Papa Joe, no hiding in obscurity. I won’t let that happen.”