Joe Pitt 1 - Already Dead (3 page)

I hop off the bench, wrap my arm around the squatter's shoulders and steer him toward a
dark corner of the park. His head bobs around and he looks at me and gnashes his teeth a
few times like he'd sure like to sink them into my noggin, but this guy is too far gone,
just enough brain left to keep him on his feet for a couple days more. Once we get away
from the dog run and basketball courts, I push him down on a bench and take a look at the
back of his head. Whoever opened him up wasn't dainty about it. No tools on this job
except maybe a rock. There's even a couple teeth lodged in the hole.

Zombies eat brains. It's their raison d'etre. It's the thing that keeps them going.
Rather, it's what keeps the bacteria that keeps them going, going.

They feed one of two ways. In the most popular scenario they eat the whole brain and
whatever else looks yummy and they leave a corpse. That's not so bad. Zombies don't last
long. They're too busy decomposing, their flesh being consumed by the bacteria. A
straight-up feeder's gonna eat a couple people and fall apart soon, say a couple weeks at
the outside. With a feeder, the worst case is they get distracted halfway through their
meal and leave a guy with just enough brain to be able to walk around and cause some
problems. Figure that's this guy here. He's leftovers. But sometimes you get a carrier, a
zombie who bites their victim without feeding. Why? How the fuck should I know? To sow
chaos and fear? To create confusion among zombie hunters everywhere? For fucking company?
Figure mostly it's just to make more zombies. Who cares anyway? They're zombies for
Christ's sake and when they pop up you got to rub em out quick. The alternative is to let
them go around making messes and drawing attention. And the one thing we don't want is
attention. And by
us,
I don't mean the undead or the damned. I mean the Vampyre, folks like me who are infected
with the Vyrus. But that's a different can of worms.

So I had a shambler, not quite eaten. Might be a carrier out there, might just be a feeder
that let his prey get loose. Regardless, this guy's gonna bum around for a few days until
he decomposes or someone else notices the not so subtle gaping wound in his head. So I had
a choice. The wound was fresh, very fresh. With a little work I could trace this freak's
scent back to where it intersected with the feeder's and then track that bastard down and
squelch the whole deal right away. Or I could take the time to get rid of laughing boy
before he got himself noticed. I opted for the latter. That was the prudent thing to do.
Take care of the problem in front of you, then move on. So I did the prudent thing.

First, I wrap the squatter's head in a dirty bandanna I find in his pocket. Then I get him
up off the bench, put my arm around him and start walking him east, swaying and lurching
like we're just a couple of Tuesday night drunks out for a stroll. We walk all the way out
to the East River Park. I plop him onto one of the benches facing the river and go get a
bunch of rocks from the kiddy park just behind us.

It's the end of the exercise hours and people are jogging, biking and rollerblading past
his face. He makes little lunges from the bench, but his motor skills are too eroded for
him to catch any of that fit prey.

Kinda pathetic watching this chump gibber and drool while he jerks, and grabs at the sleek
spandex shapes whizzing past. I'm tempted to trip one of the yuppies so I can watch his
face while laughing boy crawls up on his back and starts biting through his scalp. But
that's just the reactionary in me. Fucking yuppies are ruining my whole neighborhood.

I get my rocks, take them back over to the bench and start filling up the squatter's
pockets. He paws at my head and tries to take a bite. I push his hands away and shove him
back against the bench, kind of like trying to get a restless child dressed for school.
Soon enough I have his pockets stuffed with stones. I get him up and over to the
handrailing between the river and the path. We stand there like we're enjoying the view of
Queens and the Domino Sugar sign. I wait for a break in the jogging path traffic. Then I
wrap my arm around his waist, lean forward and flip him up and over the railing with a
little hip toss. He splashes into the water. Maybe he makes a noise before the stones drag
him under, but I couldn't say for sure.

Did he feel anything? Did he panic as the water filled his lungs? Probably. It's not like
I'm out here doing mercy killings. This was a sponge job. Wipe up the spill and get rid of
it. So I waited to see that he didn't bob up then I trotted over the pedestrian bridge
across the FDR and caught a cab. Back in Tompkins I tracked the squatter's scent to a
public garden on 12th where it got mixed up with the flowers and plants and children and
families and I lost it.

Anyway, that's how I got into this current mess, being prudent.

After I get back from uptown and take my bath, I stretch out on the bed to catch up on the
sleep I lost this morning, but my sunburn and memories of the scolding I took off Predo
keep me awake. That prick is just like any one of my foster parents, or the youth
authority counselors, or the cop of your choice. He likes putting people in their place,
gets a charge out of it. And me? Every time one of his kind of prick tells me to shut up
or sit down or get up against the wall it just makes my stomach bunch up and boil over and
I start saying things that get me into trouble.

Thinking about Predo reminds me that he knew about the carrier, knew soon enough to get a
crew down here to rig the scene. And that makes me think about Philip. I slipped up and
told Philip about the carrier this morning when I was still half asleep. And that gets me
pretty fucking pissed at Philip. And why was Philip calling me first thing in the morning?
It was like he already knew the mess was mine. Like maybe he had been following me around
and maybe caught at least part of last night's action.

Philip is a turd. He's a toady weasel, likes to hang around and try to get close to the
Clans or some of the Rogues. Makes him feel like he's connected, inside the velvet rope.
Thirty years ago he would've been sucking up to the Studio 54 crowd. Of course he has no
official status, no affiliations. He'd like to be infected, has a hard-on for the Vyrus,
but the big Clans don't go in for that kind of thing, and he's too chickenshit to approach
any of the small ones. Those small outfits are a little too unpredictable. Some Renfield
like Philip shows up looking to be infected, they

say sure, and the chump ends up tapped out and floating in the river.

But the Coalition has given him an unofficial sanction. He's just servile enough for them.
They hand him some shitty errands that even I wouldn't take and they slip him some cash.
He's not a
total
Renfield, mind you, not a full-blown bug eater. But that's just because a bug would look a
little too much like food to this pill-popping, emaciated speed freak.

Anyway, it's Philip's connection to the Coalition that's gonna keep me from wringing his
head off when I get my hands on him.

And it's not like the Coalition is all I have to worry about. I haven't even heard from
the Society yet. When Terry Bird and that crew find out I was involved in this, there's
gonna be hell to pay. And they will find out. Anything busts below 14th and Bird knows.

After the sun goes down I cover my burns in aloe and put on a clean pair of jeans and a
loose black shirt. While I'm getting ready I flick on the TV to look at the news, and
there he is, the kid from last night, the one didn't get his brain eaten.

Cops are leading him up the courthouse steps downtown. He's surrounded by a press mob. The
announcer is telling me his name is Ali Singh and that he's a twenty-one-year-old
marketing major at NYU. Ali is being charged with a couple of last night's grisly murders.
The authorities suspect the others were committed by his victims. They're looking at the
whole mess as some kind of ritual-cannibal-murder-suicide pact. A murder weapon with Ali's
prints was found in his room along with Satanic materials and
trophies
from one of the victims.

Ali looks drugged; slack-faced and dead-eyed. Cameras are crammed in his face and flashes
explode at point-blank range.

It'll only take a week or two for him to be convinced that he did it. Another couple weeks
of evaluation and the case gets pleaded to insanity and Ali spends the rest of his life in
a facility for the criminally insane. Could have been worse. Could have been me.

I turn off the news and walk over to Niagara at the corner of 7th and A. It's about nine
and the place is dead, the hipsters won't start crowding in till eleven.

The bartender is a guy named Billy. He's floated around the East Village working the bars
for the last nine, ten years. Far as he knows, I'm a kind of local tough guy does work for
people who need it; some arm bending and maybe some PI type stuff. While back I bounced
for a couple months at a place called the Road-house, Billy was working there at the time
and we got to know each other a bit.

He comes cruising down the bar. Good-looking guy, thirtyish, wearing pleated gabardine
pants, two-tone loafers, and a silk Hawaiian print shirt. Got his hair slicked back and
tattoos of dice and eight balls and bathing beauties on his forearms. And as greasy a
greaser as Billy is, he is far from the greasiest that'll be cramming into this greaseball
haven come midnight.

--Yo, Joe, whaddaya know?

He stops; his face freezes.

--Jesus fuck! Whad happen ta yer fuckin' face?

--Tanning bed, those things are dangerous.

He blinks, slowly, a grin starting to tug the corner of his mouth.

--Yeah?

--Yeah, industry doesn't want you to know, but there are almost as many tanning-bed-related
deaths a year as highway deaths.

--No shit?

--I barely got out, man.

He takes another look at the severe scorch on my face and nods his head.

--Bull.

--Sunlamp?

He squints his eyes. I hold up my right hand in pledge. He shakes his head.

--Hey, man, ya done wanna tell me, ya done gotta, but hey, done fuck wit' me.

I've been working on Billy's accent since I met him, and still don't know where the hell
he's from. He claims to be Queens born and bred, but he sounds more like a French Canadian
educated in Boston.

I shrug my shoulders in surrender.

--Kitchen accident. No shit, I fell asleep with my head in the microwave.

He laughs and wipes at the bar with the rag he keeps tucked in

his belt.

--Yeah, baked ya fuckin' brains too, bub. Whad ya drinkin?

Blood.

--'Bout a bourbon? Whatever's on the rail is fine.

--Heaven Hill comin' up.

He grabs a rocks glass and fills it with whiskey while I look the place over. The Niagara
is skinny around the bar then opens up into a big back room, but that area is kept roped
off until the crowd builds up later and the cocktail waitress comes on. No sign of Philip.
Billy plops the drink down in front of me.

--There ya go, Mr. Marlowe, one cheap bourbon onna house.

--Thanks. Seen Philip around?

--Naw, not yet. He'll be in later.

--You see him first, don't tell him I'm looking.

Billy nods his head.

--Sure thing. He owe ya money, something?

--Something.

--Well look, guy owes
me
money, two hundred fiddy and change. Get my coin outta him while yer shakin' 'im down, an
I'll wipe yer tab.

--I ain't got a tab here, I pay for my drinks.

--That's right. Get my cash an I'll see ya ain't got no tab the next month or so.
Everythin' onna house. Even the top shelf, you start ta feelin' fancy.

--I'll see what I can do.

Billy puts out his hand to shake, then slides back down the bar to work on a little number
sporting the inevitable Betty Page cut and fishnets. I check her out. Nice package, round
ass peeking over the edge of the stool, low-cut vintage dress with pale white cleavage
pushed up out of a red lace bra. Billy makes out well with that kind of action. Hell,
Billy makes out well with most kinds of action. Just one of those guys. Me, I haven't had
a woman in over twenty-five years. Fooled around some, sure, but the whole deal I haven't
had in about a quarter of a century. Long story. I look at the number's ass again then
look away. I don't need to do that. I want to torture myself I can call Evie later.

I sip my cheap booze and smoke Luckys and watch the crowd build. Around ten they open the
back room and I move there. All the time I'm thinking I should be out looking for the
carrier. Instead I'm here in greaser heaven watching all the wannabes compare their latest
Sailor Jerry knockoff tattoos while they try to hook up with chicks in vintage dresses and
sling-back pumps. I'm here because the only damn lead I maybe have on the carrier is
Philip. The toad knows something and I'm gonna get it out of him.

Just before eleven the cocktail waitress drifts over and tries to hand me a fresh drink. I
look at the glass she's holding and shake my head.

--I didn't order anything.

--Yeah, I know.

She puts the glass in my hands.

--It's from Billy.

She nods at the little napkin under the glass.

--I think he likes you.

I look at the napkin. It has a note written on it:
He's here.
I look up. The cocktail waitress is still standing there.

--What?

--You know, you should put something on your face for that burn.

--Great, thanks for the tip.

She snorts.

--Yeah, thank you for the tip, too.
Not.

She starts to walk away and I put a hand on her shoulder. She shrugs it off.

--Easy, bruiser.

--Yeah easy. Wait a sec.

I dig in my pocket and come up with a few twenties and put one on her tray.

--That's for the delivery service. You know a tall skinny guy named Philip, hangs out here?