Joe Pitt 1 - Already Dead (13 page)

--There's only so much a girl will take, Joe. Even a girl you can't fuck.

She hangs up. And can you blame her?

So that's one more thing for me to deal with. I'd like it to be at the top of my list, but
it's not. Instead my list reads something like this:

1)Ê Find carrier.

2) Find Horde girl.

3) Find out who is spying on me.

4) Call Terry.

5) Deal with Predo.

6) Make up with girlfriend.

Oh, and at the top of that list you can add, GET SOME BLOOD. But the phone call is the
only one that looks doable right now, so I call Terry.

--Joe, I really wanted to talk to you, man.

--We're talking, Terry.

--Yeah, but the phone. Not the same as sitting down face-to-face, you know.

--I could see you later tonight.

--No, no good, I have to go uptown tonight.

--Uptown?

--Above a hundred and tenth.

--Hood?

--Grave Digga is talking war parties again and I want to see if I can mellow him out.

--Tomorrow night, then.

--I may have to crash up there a couple nights. I got transit on a boat, but the pilot
can't guarantee a return trip. And the way things are with the Coalition these days, I
don't think they'll be laying any passes on me to cross their turf.

He's right about that. At the best of times the Coalition wouldn't be looking to do Terry
any favors, but with all the dust being kicked up down here they'll be twice as hardcase
about it. And that's assuming they don't know he's going to talk to the Hood.

The Hood is an offshoot of the Coalition. Back in the sixties, about the same time Terry
was organizing the Society, Luther X organized all the blacks and Latinos in the
Coalition, split them off and took control of everything above One Tenth. A truce was
negotiated and the Coalition ceded the territory, but they didn't like it. All the same,
things were pretty peaceful between them until last year. Last year someone stuck a couple
knives through Luther's eyes and his warlord DJ Grave Digga took over the Hood. He went on
a purge and claimed he found Coalition agents in the Hood who had assassinated Luther.
Since then he's been sending raiding parties below the border and trying to get Terry and
the Society to hook up with him to wipe out the Coalition. Not my problem.

--Then I guess we'll just have to talk now. What do you want?

--Just wanted to talk with you, have a little communication about everything that's been
going down.

--I mean, what do you want for getting the Dusters to pick me up?

--Hey, Joe. That was an act of humanity. I know what it's like up there. Your girl calls me
and tells me you went to meet some

client
and you're not back? Then she tells me the meet was uptown? What am I gonna do, not care?
And from what I hear, you needed the help. Christian tells me you were zonked out on the
sidewalk with a bunch of homeless people, getting ready to work on your tan.

--Yeah, so what do you want?

--What I want, what I wanted, man, was to rap, make sure you're OK. You don't want to come
over, that's your business- We're all free to do as we please.

--I don't like open accounts, Terry. What do you want?

He chuckles.

--I know. Joe don't take nothing from nobody, good or bad. I was just trying to do the
right thing by a guy who used to be my friend. A guy, by the way, I still think of as a
friend.

--Funny, last time this
friend
saw you, he ended up getting a couple ribs cracked by your mick thug.

--That wasn't personal, Joe, that was politics. I needed to throw Tom a bone to keep him
from going radical on us. That was for the greater good. And I'd prefer it if you didn't
use terms like
mick.

--OK, Terry, you'll let me know when you want to collect. In the meantime I'll throw you
this. Tom was right, someone else was poking around at the school, looking into what
happened with those shamblers.

--Victims of Zomb--

--The fucking walking corpses, whatever you want to call them. Someone else was taking an
interest.

--Any idea who?

--All I know is that it's someone very private, someone doesn't like to leave anything
behind, not even a scent. Sound like anyone you know?

He's quiet for a sec. I let it dangle there.

--No, I don't think so, Joe, no one I know.

--You might want to keep your eyes peeled. Because whoever it is, they're creeping around
on your turf.

I hang up. Let him chew on that. Maybe he'll poke around and find something out. Be nice
to have someone doing
my
dirty work for a change.

There's still time till the sun goes down, time to kill before I can go looking for the
girl and the carrier.

The girl and the carrier.

Something snaps together in my head.

Oh fuck.

I smell my hand. It's not there anymore, I washed it off in the shower. I go to the heap
of dirty laundry in the corner. I throw the burnoose to the side, find the black jeans I
had to wear to the Cole last night because Lep's blood had ruined my suit. I hold them to
my face and sniff, cigarette smoke, the dirty pavement I slept on, my own sweat. Same
thing with the shirt I wore. But he touched me, I know he did, shook my hand and gave me
that fake hearty slap on the shoulder. Where's my jacket? I slide open the closet door and
take my jacket off the hanger. It's the nice one, the lightweight leather sport coat Evie
bought me. It's got a scuff on the sleeve from last night's nap on the sidewalk. I put my
nose against the right shoulder and inhale.

There it is, that smell. The one I smelled on my hand last night after Horde and I shook.
That odor from the school. That musky sex scent that was all over the cardboard mattress
and the zombie girl. It was on Horde's hands. It was all over him, but I couldn't smell it
because the reek of Leprosy's blood was still in my hair and nostrils.

They have names, the shamblers from the school have names. The boys' were Joey Boyles and
Zack Blake. The girl's name was Whitney Vale. That's the one I care about.

She was nineteen, born and raised in Nyack. Her mom says she split as soon as she turned
eighteen and she'd only seen her a couple times in the last year when she showed up to ask
for money. The dad's been a no-show since she was born. She was working part-time as a bag
checker at one of the used record stores on St. Marks. The manager says she hadn't shown
up for a week or two. I get all this off my computer when I check the sites for the
Times, News
and
Post.
I try Googling her name and get the articles I just read along with the AP coverage, and
some creep claiming he has nude pics of her that he's willing to sell.

I look at the clock, it's 9:11 P.M. It'll be dark enough for me to go out now. I get up
from the computer and pull on a T-shirt and the leather jacket. It's plenty hot out, but I
need something to cover the revolver I stuff in the waistband of my black jeans.

My head is still aching from the mickey Horde slipped me. I open the closet door and look
at the padlocked minifridge next to the gun safe. Last pint I had was Saturday. Usually I
would have had a drink on Monday, but Evie was with me, and then I had to run out to see
Horde and then someone stole my stash.

Maybe I missed something in the fridge.

I could open the fridge and look inside, but I know it's empty. It's just that the Vyrus
is talking to me, reminding me how I'm gonna start feeling in the next twenty-four when it
starts eating me.

I turn around and go up the stairs.

It's early and it's a Tuesday; St. Marks isn't in full freakshow mode, but it's summertime
so you still get an eyeful. Squatters sucking on forties bought with the change they
panhandled this afternoon, aged hippies who live in the same rent-controlled apartments
they had in the sixties, Jersey kids clogging the sidewalk booths to buy cheap sunglasses
and get shitty tattoos. More than anything else it's depressing. This street used to be
dangerous, now it's a mall.

Sounds is on St. Marks between Second and Third Avenues on the first floor of an old
brownstone. It's one big room filled with bins of CDs, and vinyl for the classicists. Just
inside the door a guy is standing in front of a bunch of cubbyholes where they keep
customer's bags. He's a white kid wearing unlaced Nikes, baggy jeans, a Kobe jersey, and a
Lakers cap turned sideways on his head. He's standing on a milk crate so he can keep an
eye on the dozen or so customers browsing the stock. I go up to him and stand there while
he checks out a chick in a camo micro-skirt who's digging through the trance bin.

--Excuse me.

His eyes flick to me and then back to the chick's legs.

--Yo?

--Manager around?

He shakes his head.

--Know when he might be around?

He shrugs.

--Anyone around I could talk to?

He shakes his head.

--Not hirin'.

--Uh-huh. You worked here long?

The chick walks up to the counter with a CD and the guy uses his position on the high
ground to try and get a look down her top while the college student at the register rings
her up.

--I asked if you worked here long.

The chick turns from the register and hands the guy a beat-up playing card. He turns to
the cubbyholes and finds a Tibetan-style handbag with a matching card clothespinned to it.
He hands her the bag, openly leering at the tops of her tits sticking out of her middy
tank top.

--Whadcha buy?

She takes her bag, sticks her CD in and heads for the door.

--Music, asshole.

He watches her as she goes out.

--Yeah, fuck you, too, bee-atch.

He looks at me.

--Whaddaya want?

--Like I was saying, you work here long?

--Fuck do you care?

--I don't, I just thought you might know Whitney Vale.

He grins.

--Oh shit, man.

He turns to the kid behind the counter.

--G, fool wants ta know about Whitney.

The college kid doesn't look up from the Skinny Puppy liner notes he's reading.

--Tell him to get in line.

The box guy looks down at me, still grinning.

--Hear that, fool? Get in line.

--Yeah, I heard. You ever get to take a break in this place?

--Yeah, whatsit to ya?

--Nothing, just wanted to make sure they aren't abusing their workers.

I turn to leave.

--Yeah, fuck off, freak. Go hang with the rest of the ghouls been coming around.

I walk out.

The nice thing about St. Marks, it's easy to loiter. You can just hang out and drift up
and down the same couple yards of pavement and nobody will pay you any mind. I cross the
street to the deli and buy a couple packs of Luckys in case this takes awhile. Then I
stand on the corner and smoke and wait.

He comes out a couple times to stand on the steps and have a

cigarette himself, but it's over two hours before he takes his break. He crosses the
street and heads toward my corner. I turn around and get fascinated by the beats the guy
there sells out of his little stall. The box guy walks past me. He slaps hands with the
doorman outside the Continental, then goes into the McDonald's next door. I walk past and
watch him through the window as he gets his order to go. He comes out and turns to head
back to the store and I come up behind him and take him by the arm.

--Hey, man!

--What?

I turn him around and start leading him toward 9th. I grin.

--Damn, G, it's great to see you! What you been up to?

--Wha the fuck?

He tries to pull his arm free. I squeeze it tight and put my mouth close to his ear.

--Fuck with me and I'll take you back to the store, stuff you in a cubbyhole and flush the
card so no one can claim your ass.

He comes with me. I steer him around the corner and halfway down the block before I let
him go. He's gone scared and babbly on me now.

--Hey, hey, man, I didn't mean anything back there, you don't gotta be a dick about it. I
mean, you're not a dick.

--I could give a fuck what you said.

--So whadaya want, G? I gotta get back to the store an' shit.

I stare at him. He starts nodding.

--Right, G, right, you wanna know about Whitney.

--When was the last time you saw her?

--Got me, G. Like, maybe two, three weeks back we worked together.

--She quit?

--Naw, G, ya don't quit that job, ya jus stop goin' in.

--She have any boyfriends, anyone hanging around her?

He smiles.

--G. That chick wasn't straight enough for no boyfriends. She a mad freak. Super freakin'.

--You ever see her with a guy, fifties, a guy with money?

--Hell no. Chick never had no money, always be bummin'.

--You seen the pictures in the paper, of the guys she was with?

--Shit yeah, who ain't?

--You ever see her hanging out with them?

--Got me. Anything else, G? My McNuggets be gettin' cold.

--Yeah, that's it.

I take a twenty out of my pocket.

--Here, dinner's on me.

--Sweet.

He grabs the bill. I think of something and hold onto it.

--You know anything about a guy selling nude pics of her on the Net?

--Shiiit, I don't know 'bout that, but like I say, chick a freak. Know she most definitely
picked up some change on the side doin' some freaky shit for a guy.

--What guy?

He tugs on the twenty. I let it go.

--Guy name Chubby Freeze. An'you can't find Chubby, you don' deserve to be comin' on all
detective-like.

I stand there thinking as he walks away. At the corner, a good twenty yards away, he turns
and points at me.

--That's right, bitch! An' done let me see your ass in the shop again or I'll buss a cap
init.

He throws me the bird and turns the corner to go tell his pal outside the Continental how
I tried to lean on him and how he hardcased me. I walk the other way, toward Chubby
Freeze's place. Because he's right, I don't deserve to be all detective-like if I don't
know where to find Chubby Freeze.

--Hey, Chubbs.

--Joe! What brings you?

Chubby Freeze isn't chubby. He may have been chubby once for a few minutes right after he
was born, but now he's corpulent. A very short, very fat black man who is literally almost
as wide as he is tall. He sits behind a grand but beaten mahogany desk, he and his fat
sprawled on a threadbare red velvet love seat in lieu of an office chair that he would
doubtlessly crush.

I point at the pretty boy perched on the arm of the love seat.

--Think he could take a walk?

Chubby smiles.

--Of course, Joe. Walking is one of the things Dallas does best. Isn't that right, Dallas?

The boy shrugs and shoots me a couple eye daggers.

--Show him, Dallas. Show the nice man how you walk.

Dallas sighs, pushes himself up and sashays past me to the door. The Chelsea gym-boy looks
and booth tan don't fool me. If Chubby keeps him in his office, he's not just in here to
move the desk out of the way when Chubby wants to get up; the boy is dangerous. I watch
him till he's out of the room. Chubby watches, too.

--Lovely, isn't he?

--If that's how you like em.

--Well, Joe, I like them every which way, but the pretty ones are a particular weakness.
The pretty ones and the grotesque.

He points at the cracked red leather wingback in front of his desk.

--Sit, Joe. Relax. It's ages since we had a chat.

I sit in the chair.

--What's on your mind, Joe?

--Whitney Vale.

He bows his head, closes his eyes and pats his chest with a well-manicured hand. Fat
ripples beneath his three-piece suit. He lifts his head, looks at me.

--Joe, that was a sad waste.

He takes a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket.

--Such a sweet girl.

--So you knew her?

He blows his nose on the kerchief and tucks it back in his pocket.

--Before we go any further with this, Joe, it goes without saying that I am delighted that
a man of your prowess is taking an interest in this child's death, and naturally I will do
anything to assist whatever investigation you may be involved with, but is it safe to say
that doing so will make us even on the last thing?

The last thing.

I look around Chubby's crappy little office. It's just a Sheetrock cubicle in an
industrial loft on Avenue D, but he's tried to dress it up with that desk and the love
seat and other touches, like a stained Persian rug and a faux Tiffany lamp. The rest of
the loft is taken up by Chubby's production studio. Two tiny soundstages, a dozen editing
bays where video is cut, converted to digital and compressed for the Internet, a small
room of servers, and some storage space for costumes and sets. Of course the costumes are
mostly slutty lingerie and leather harnesses, and the sets are mostly sheets of plywood
with dungeon walls painted on them, so they don't take up much space. Chubby does a nice
business in creating and distributing Internet porn. It's not classy, but it's a huge step
up from where he was when I met him fifteen years ago dealing dime bags in Tompkins. It's
that step up in respectability that convinced him to shed his homey gear and trade it in
for the hip-hop producer look.

He's deep in the life, Chubby is, way out there on the edge of how the citizens live and
he's been out there all his life. He's a

hood from a hood family and he makes no bones about it. Far as he's concerned, this is
just the way things are. Guys like Chubby, smart guys who last in the life, they see
things and they hear things and sooner or later they start to think things. The punch line
is that Chubby doesn't know everything that goes bump in the night, but he knows some of
them. Me for instance, he knows I go bump. Even if he doesn't know exactly how or why.
Which gets us to
the last thing.
The last thing was some trouble Chubby had some months back. He wanted someone heavy to
take care of it, heavy but subtle. He called me.

He's pretty careful about the talent he hires, handles all the interviews and casting
himself. But sometimes something slips through the cracks. What slipped through the cracks
this time was a guy who specialized in hard-core bondage scenarios. He was an expert with
ropes and racks and such. Good with a knife, too, cut so thin the marks were gone in a
couple weeks. He did a couple photo sessions for Chubbs and shot a video and that was it.
Few weeks later a couple of Chubby's girls went missing. Not that unusual in this
business, but these were two of his regular girls, girls who were part of the family here.
He gave me a call and asked if I'd take a look. I went through the employment records and
checked up on the short hires over the last month. I made some house calls.

The third house I called on was on Staten Island, the bondage expert. Chubby loaned me his
car and driver so I wouldn't have to rely on the ferry. We drove out and I knocked and the
door was answered by the bondage guy. I didn't even need to ask any questions, I could
smell the girls' fear-sweat, urine, and feces reeking all the way from the basement. He
thought he was smooth. He invited me in,
anything to help.
As soon as the door closed behind us I took care of him. Then I went down to the basement,
got the girls upstairs and into the car and told the driver to take them to Chubby. After
he pulled away I went back in the house and rigged the creep so it looked like he had
broken his own neck doing an autoerotic asphyxiation gig with one of his nooses. When
Chubby asked me what he owed, I told him it was on the house.

--I told you that was on the house, Chubbs.

--Nonetheless.

--Yeah, sure, if it makes you feel better, we have a clean slate on this.

He smiles.

--Excellent. I always felt bad that you wouldn't take payment on that, Joe. I wouldn't want
you thinking you owed me anything on this girl. And I know taking a freebie isn't in your
nature.

--Whatever you say, Chubbs. I just need to know what you can tell me about her.

--Of course.

He inhales deeply, casts his eyes to the ceiling and exhales,

--Under normal circumstances I would not have these details in mind, but after I heard the
news I thought it expedient to review Whitney's employment records, before I disposed of
them.

--Good thinking.

He waves a fat hand in the air.

--Simple professionalism. In any case. Whitney came to me just about a year ago. She was
striking and uninhibited and I didn't have any girls around doing the goth thing at the
time. Better yet, she looked quite a bit younger than her nineteen years. Always a bonus.