Every Last Drop (15 page)

He looks at me.

—No offense, Joe, and not like there's anything in it for me, but if I want to stick around these parts I got to do what's smart.

He raises a finger. —But I did not, in fact, make that call. Cuz why would I? For what? And when?

He shows the raised finger to Terry.

—And this Newton character? Never heard of him. He's around, I'd never know it.

Terry looks at the mass of shadow behind Phil. It comes away from the wall and taps him on the chest and Phil goes down hard into the corner of the

room.

The mass looms over him. —Siddown an' shutit, Philip.

Phil cowers. —Yeah, sure thing, Hurley. Its shut.

He covers his mouth with his hands.

Hurley turns to Terry, rolls his neck. —Dat good enow, Terry?

Terry sets my weapons on Phils narrow dresser.

—Yeah, that's fine, that's fine. Just we all need to relax a little. Get a little less chatter in here, clear the air of static and confusion.

He adjusts the set of his Lennon glasses on the bridge of his nose. —Like, for instance, Joe, while yeah, Phil is a nasty cockroach of a Renfield and would sell his, I don't know, his soul, mother, anything like that, for a few bucks or a handful of black beauties, he didn't have anything to do with this.

He combs his soul patch with the nail of his index finger. —Truth is, you weren't the victim of any kind of, I don't know, betrayal or setup, you were really, when you get into it, the victim of your own nature.

He places a hand on the inner thigh of his often-mended hemp jeans. —What I'm getting at here is that you, over the many years of our association and, if I'm opening up, which I am, over the many years of our friendship, you were given a lot of slack. Yards and yards. Part of that was in tribute to the bond between us.

He points at the window where the gap of daylight has grown brighter. —You know they closed  it?  CBGB,  they closed  it.  Outbreak of sudden hostilities between the guy who owned the place and his landlords. A homeless charity, of all things. Couldn't be negotiated. They, there's some some irony in this, the homeless charity people, they gave him the boot.

He looks lost for a moment.

—The Bowery without CBGB. What's that? Like, and it's not an overstatement at all, you know, like the end of an era.

He looks at me.

—Big landmark in our relationship, yeah? The Ramones. That gig. Man that was a great gig. One of their best. I was having an amazing night. Right till I went in the can and found you all opened up and bleeding on the floor. Tell you, till very recently, I don't know, I always hoped Id find the guy who did that and, don't get me wrong, but thank him.

He spreads the fingers of both hands across his chest and bows his head. —I know how that sounds. Believe me.

He raises his head.

—But the point isn't to thank the guy for causing you pain, for infecting you, for sending you into this life and all the, you know, complications that come with it.

He lowers his hands from the front of his East Village Organic Foods Co-op shirt.

—The point would have been to thank him for dropping you in my way. For facilitating whatever, I don't know, whatever energy it was that knew I needed someone like you at that time. I mean, man, over the years, we got some things done. Not always seamless, III be first to cop to that, but we got some things done. So.

He points at the window again.

—For a long time I always had this vague kind of feeling that guy deserved some thanks from me.

He touches that spot on his thigh again.

—You know, until you got Hurley there shot to pieces and did your best to kill me.

I light the smoke I've been paying attention to while he's been talking. —Terry, lets face it, when all that went down, I wasn't at my best.

I wave my hand, leaving a rising trail of smoke. —I'd been at my best, you d be dead right now.

A sharp light comes to the corner of his eye. —Well, that's a point that could be debated. Isn't it?

I nod.

—Sure. Feel like you maybe want to have Hurley step into the hall and we can debate it now?

He runs a hand over his head and down the length of his ponytail. —No, Joe, that's not going to be the way this happens.

He comes and sits next to me on Phils sagging bed.

—What I was getting at before, about how, I don't know, Phil there didn't have anything to do with us being here, about how that was your own fault, that wasn't a minor point. See, the fact that you were, for all intents and purposes, sitting on death row when you made your break, that's not exactly an extenuating circumstance. More like that's further grounds speaking against you.

I find a blue and white cardboard coffee cup on the floor and knock some ash into it. Not that I'm too worried about making a mess, just that I'd like to avoid burning the place down. Till I'm certain that's my best option, anyway. —Yeah, I follow, Terry. Thing is, you were planning to put me in the sun. So I'm hard-pressed to see what you can do at this point that's any worse.

He takes his glasses off.

—Worse, yeah, worse. Well, that's part of the whole picture thing here. Like how the reason we know you re here, that's because you're here. Which, I know sounds deliberately circular, but It's really not.

He taps my knee with one of the arms of his glasses.

—The way you left us, that big bang you went out with, that required a great deal of effort on my part to, well, not so much to cover up, but to keep in perspective. That story had circulated too widely, it would have destabilized things. Not a situation we can afford in already unstable times. Yeah. So. When we took it to the street, the picture that was painted was very much of our making. But based on your own work.

He folds and unfolds the arms of the glasses.

—So, your failed attempt to infect your girlfriend, that was retouched a bit. That became a, I don't know, a situation where you fed on her to save your

own skin. The thing is.

He puts the glasses on.

—You have down here, or, you know, had, kind of a folk status. You may have been the security arm of the Society, but people felt like they could depend on you for a fair shake. Plus everyone likes a badass. Everyone likes telling stories about a badass. And everyone likes the idea that their badass is badder than everyone else's badass. And people, turns out, had this idea that you were their local badass.

He shrugs. —We needed to change that, whatever, that perception.

He scratches his shoulder.

—So we let it be known you'd iced and drank up your own girl. That wed put you in custody. And that before your trial, you backstabbed a couple partisans and slipped out on your belly like a snake and ran north to the Coalition.

He shakes his head.

—Turns out, people hate nothing like they hate a fallen folk hero. So when someone caught sight of you down here on the Bowery, they didn't think twice before making the call. And granted.

He holds a hand flat, wiggles it side to side.

—That's a chancy call to receive. People are so, I don't know, eager to lay you to rest, they see a big guy with dark hair and a leather car coat and they're placing the call. We've followed up on more than our share of bad numbers.

He steadies the hand.

—But someone seeing a guy fitting your description coming here, to Philip Sax's flophouse? That needed immediate executive attention.

He gestures at the window. —As it was, we just made it over before things got dicey with the dawn.

He sits, looking at the garbage between his feet, lips pursed.

I flick some more ash, look down myself. I can't see the half of the room on my left. The other half of the room is pretty much filled with Hurley, leaving a scrap of space on the floor for Phil to occupy. Hurley d barely need to move to grab me if I started something. Grab me and hoist me up so my head either flattens against the ceiling or pokes through it into the room above. Or he could just pull one of the two .45s he's always got on him and blow a few chunks out of my brain. My other option, jumping out the window, seems similarly unwise.

The whole burn the place to the ground with everyone in it idea is picking up

serious traction. I scan the floor for any tinder that looks especially flammable.

Terry unpurses his lips and looks up from the garbage.

—Anyway, the tone of things being what they are, your unpopularity with the masses being what it is, this isn't so much a matter of trying to find the most miserable way to send you to your death. I wanted to do that I could just call a general assembly of the Society and toss you in the middle of the room and watch the madness of crowds take over. No, Joe.

He stands. —This is simply a case of expediency.

I watch as he moves to the farthest corner possible in the tiny room. —Phil, you may want to cover your eyes.

Phil covers up.

Terry looks at me. —He can be smart when he needs to be.

He gives a slight, sad wave. —Hurley.

Hurley grunts.

Terry nods.

—Kill Joe.

The bratwurst hands come out of the gunny-sack pockets of Hurley's overcoat and go around my throat. I am levitated from the floor, trying not to thrash, knowing the torque might snap my neck.

I wheeze through the pinhole Hurleys grasp has reduced my larynx to. —Huuuneee.

Terry squints at me.

Phil peeks from between his fingers. —Jeez, oh jeez, oh shit.

He covers his eyes back up.

I force the last bit of air in my lungs up past the crushing fingers. —Uuhhhnneee.

Phil peeks again.

—Man, that's so fucked up. Is he calling you honey? Is that normal for this kind of shit?

Terry raises a finger.

Hurley relaxes his thumbs just enough to let some more air slip down and out of my throat.

—Muhhnneey. Muhhney, Thhheery. Muhhneee.

Terry nods, Hurley squeezes, Phil re-covers his eyes.

My legs thrash, I can't stop them, my body twists, I have my hands on Hurleys fingers, trying to pry them loose, but I may as well be trying to bend the barrel of one of his guns. I try aiming a kick at him, and graze his thigh and he holds me at arm's length, putting me out of range.

Terry watches me dying, tucks his toe under a mashed pizza box, flips it, watches roaches scurry for cover.

He looks up. —Take Phil out, will you, Hurley. You can let him go.

Hurleys hands open and I drop. —Sure ting, Terry, whatever ya say.

He collars Phil and hauls him up. —C'mon, ya wretched piece oh shite, it's some fresh air yer wantin'.

Phil writhes.

—Aw, man, it's my fucking room, man. How come I'm the one that's gotta take a stroll? I mean, so OK, obviously you guys can't take a walk right now, but how come I gotta? Not like I'm any friend of the daytime either.

Hurley shakes him once. —Yer takin a walk cuz the alternative is ya take a dive offa da roof.

Phil pumps his legs.

—Hey, a nice refreshing stroll, a perambulation, yeah? Sounds good. Do me good.

They go out.

Terry comes and stands over me. —Tell me exactly why I should care about the money you mentioned.

I inhale, smoke rasping over the raw inside of my throat and down into my still-parched lungs. I exhale, cough long and hard, and draw a trembling one and a two in the air with my cigarette. —Twelve pints.

I look at Terry.

Terry watches the numbers drift. —Yes?

I exhale again, blowing the numbers to scraps. —Twelve pints. Contents of a human body. As close to exact as possible.

What you were offering for my head.

I rub the bright red finger marks on my neck.

—Out of character for you, Terry, offering a blood reward. Out of character for the Society. Especially a number like that. Suggests someone s gonna die for you to pay off on that bounty. Kind of contrary to your whole thing about coexisting with the uninfected community. Places a certain kind of value on me. Also sends a different kind of message to the troops than you like to. Me.

I put a finger in my own chest.

—I figured you d offer money. Don't want the members thinking about blood as a commodity, after all. Then I remembered.

I snap my fingers. —Moneys a little tight for you these days, isn't it?

Terry nods, combs his soul patch again. —Yes, losing the Counts income has been a blow to our liquidity.