Joe Pitt 2 - No Dominion (18 page)

I put the gun down.

He slams the passenger door. Opens the rear and climbs in.

He looks at the briefcase.

--This the shit?

--That's it.

--Tell me.

So I tell him.

--That some crazy shit.

--Uh-huh.

--Old crazy lady on the hill goin' off Predo's talkin' points. That is some
crazy
shit.

--Uh-huh.

--
Uh-huh.
Pitt, anyone ever tell you you got this gift for some fuckin' understatement?

--Uh-huh.

--
Sheeit.

We sit there. Digga still in the back, me in the front. He's gone casual today: beige
boots, baggie camos, silver Ecko parka. Once he pulls on his ski mask, gloves and
sunglasses, he can go for a little walk.

He points at Shades.

--How long he gonna be on the nod?

--Don't know for sure. Been down for about fifteen. Maybe fifteen more. Maybe less. What
the lady says, the more you hit from one batch, the less you get from it.

He grunts.

--A'ight. You see my ride?

He points at a silver Lexus parked a few slots away.

--We gonna get this punk-ass mutha sequestered. Take him up to Percy's shack and let the
barber put the razor to him. Percy starts quizzin' muthafucka's ass, ain't no stone gonna
be unturned. Once we have all the details, we'll go to work on Papa. Sort out his ass
good.

He puts his hand on the door.

--Follow the Lex. Stay close. We gonna be at Percy's lickity-split.

--Uh-uh.

--What?

--Uh-uh.

He leans forward.

--That don't sound right. Before, you was all,
uh-huh,
like in the affirmative. That there, that sounded like,
uh-uh,
like in the negative. That what I heard?

--Uh-huh.

A sharp line draws itself between his eyebrows.

--You best start findin' some extra fuckin' syllables to 'splain yo-self, muthafucka.

--No.

He makes a move.

I bring up the machine pistol.

--Digga, we're not in your barbershop. We're not in The Jake. We're not at Percy's. You
don't have a gun in your hand. And I do. Sit back and relax.

He sits back, but he doesn't relax.

--You wanted proof. You got it. In abundance. You want to take jerkoff here and cut him to
ribbons, be my guest. You're planning a big unveiling, gonna show up Papa Doc in public,
put him in his place? My blessings. Me, I'm going home. All I need from you is you call
off the dogs and get me my passage.

He looks out the window, shakes his head.

--
Call off the dogs. Get me my passage.
You take a look outside? You see the time of day?
Call off the dogs?
Muthafucka, they ain't my dogs. Peeps out there spottin' for you, sittin' behind shaded
glass with an eye on the street, they all Papa's.
A passage?
Where to? Gonna go home now? Want me to arrange a passage for yo ass 'cross
Coalition turf?
That what you want? Shit. That takes time. 'Specially seein' how Predo all on the warpath
for yo ass. What you think been happenin' all night an' all that time you been up on that
hill. Phone been ringin' off the damn hook. Check this shit out.

He pulls out his phone, flips it open and scrolls to the incoming calls screen.

--Look at this shit.

I look.

PREDO

PREDO

PREDO

--The fat is in the fire. The man knows you crossed his yard. Says you went runnin' through
his flower bed, trampled some prize shit. Says one of his gardeners went MIA, last seen
heading in this direction. Has an APB out. Here. There. Everywhere. An' now you tell me
you just laid a smackdown on that crazy witch up on the hill? You know who that grandma
is? That is one of the truly last of the old-old skool. She an original piece of work.
Word from the X, she the one used ta wipe Predo's ass when he was little. Now, things X
told me, things you just shared, sounds like they had something of a fallin' out, but that
doan mean he gonna be pleased 'bout you makin' a mess up there. You want to go
home?
Muthafucka, there
ain't
no home for you. Not now. Terry Bird gonna want nothin' to do with yo ass down there. Not
till this shit gets sorted fully out.

He leans back, runs a finger over his moustache.

--You come with
me.
Kick it up at Percy's place. Nobody gonna mess in Percy's shit. Not Papa. All the shit in
the world can rain from the sky, not a drop gonna land on Percy's roof. That's truth. Kick
up there for a few days. I need it, maybe you bear a little witness to some of the shit
been going on. Predo gonna kick and scream, but when I drop the knowledge on him, he's
gonna have to back down. Gonna give up some shit. An' I tell him so, he gonna lay off yo
ass. Once that happen, yo boy Bird gonna welcome you back with open arms. Hail the
conquering hero an' all that shit. All you gotta do? Sit tight. Give this shit some air to
breathe. It all gonna sort out just fine. Cool?

He puts out his hand.

I don't take it.

--Yeah. Trouble is. I got a date tonight.

He raises his eyebrows.

--
Got a date.

I shrug.

He keeps his hand out.

--Know, Pitt, that shit ain't funny. Man's here in front of you offerin' his hand, offerin'
a way out of some shit you in, offerin' to pull you up out of it, an' you makin' jokes.
Best thing you can do here, stop bein' a fuckin' comedian an' take what's bein' put yo
way. Kiss this shit off twice, it doan come back around.

I look at his hand. I think about the sun and all the hours of daylight between right now
and sunset. I think about those couple pints I drank before I came up here and the one
left at home and the punishment I've been taking. I run my tongue around the inside of my
mouth, feel the last traces of the cuts Vandewater's boys put in there when they tried to
make me eat that poker chip. I look at the man who sent me up that hill, the hand he's
holding out to me. I think about pulling the trigger on the machine pistol in my hand and
watching the bullets disintegrate his face.

He sees my eyes.

Not a stupid man, he sees I don't like him. He takes his hand back.

--Have it yo own damn way, Pitt.

I put the gun down.

--That's kind of the point.

I pull Shades' ski mask over my face. I slip on his gloves and his shades.

--That the A stop across the street?

Digga watches me.

--Yeah. Got the train fare?

--Got that grand you bet for me on your weak-ass dog?

He fishes his hand in his pocket and comes out with a roll.

--Here's the G.

I take the money.

He thinks about something, licks his thumb and peels off another thin sheaf of bills.

--Here's another G. For yo trouble.

I take it.

He puts his roll away.

--Kind of throwin' good money after bad on my part. Seein' as how you ain't gonna live ta
see nightfall. But you did yo part. Guess you deserve to least hold it for awhile, 'til
whoever takes you down pulls it off yo corpse. That train takin' yo ass nowhere, Pitt.
Only place they can watch with the sun up is the hole. 'Tween here an 14th, gonna be
nothin' but hell to pay.

I open the door.

--Got no choice. My girl, she hates to be stood up.

I get out of the car and walk into the daylight.

It's the direct UVs that get you. Uncovered skin gets hit by the direct rays of the sun,
you cook like that boy got cooked in Vandewater's apartment. Keep covered, stay in the
shade, get lucky, and you can get by. You'll burn alright; you'll burn, and the more you
burn the more you'll push the limits of the Vyrus. But stay covered and you can get by. I
am far too well protected by my covering for the sun to do any permanent damage here. I
would have to walk in the direct rays, unshaded, for blocks before the UVs could do
serious damage through all these layers.

And yet.

One step out of the garage, walking in the sun-protected lee of the mall, I feel it. Its
pressure and heat. Like a Russian bath, a Russian bath that causes cancer. I feel the heat
straight through the mask and gloves and every other stitch of clothing on my body. Sweat
erupts across my scalp and rolls down my sides. My mouth goes dry and I feel a hot flash
that ripples out from my gut, rolling through my organs and my blood. The Vyrus writhes
inside me, confused, threatened, ready to kill me, kill itself, rather than endure the
sun.

Crossing the street, trotting between the cars so I don't have to stand on the corner and
wait for the light to change, I remember something. I remember being a sixteen-year-old
runaway, how I spent that summer, every day in Tompkins Square. I remember sprawling drunk
and shirtless on the brown grass and waking, my skin so deeply burned it radiated heat.
The girl I was with that night, holding her hand an inch from my stomach, warming her
fingers. I poured ice-cold beer over my chest. For days the skin flaked and peeled. I
picked at it, teasing off leafs of it and burning holes in them with the tip of my
cigarette to gross out my friends with the smell. When the burned skin was dead and gone,
I was browner than the grass in the park. That winter I was infected.

I look at the subway entrance just ahead. All things being equal, I'm going to die down
there, somewhere between here and home. I stop at the top of the stairs.

I look up at the blue sky.

And pay for it with boiling tears and blurred vision.

Half blind, I stumble down the stairs into the hole in the ground, cursing myself.

The platform is crowded. My vision is still clouded, but I run my eyes around, looking for
any of Papa's
ton tons macoute.
Nothing.

I pull up the ski mask. Doesn't matter who sees my face. The ones I'm most concerned about
will smell me anyway.

I stand on the platform, shifting from foot to foot and rubbing the tears from my eyes,
blinking away the blur. The platform grows more crowded. I put my back against one of the
green girders that lines the platform. I breathe deep, smell the rats on the track along
with all the other stinks of the station. I watch the faces, not caring if I catch
anyone's eye. Never certain if I have because of my fogged vision.

I squint at a map of the system. It's a jumble of wavy lines: blue, orange, yellow, red,
and green. Meaningless. That's OK, I know the tunnels, I know the lines. I can picture the
A in my head. The express down to 59th, to 42nd, to 34th, to 14th. I sniff again. Still
smells clean, clean of what I'm looking for anyway. If the
ton tons macoute
want me, they'll have to do it here, make their move in this station. Then again, they
could try it on the line, move close to me on the packed train andÉand what? What are they
going to do on a packed train? Nothing. Nothing that won't cause a scene. No, it has to be
here.

Or.

Or Papa could have a deal with Predo. Percy said Papa might be dealing with him, might be
on Predo's tip.
Figure it could be that bad. Figure
ton tons
could ride with me right onto Coalition turf. They could hang back, wait till we're below
110th and show me their colors; do it just to drive me, herd me off the train, right into
Predo's enforcers.

The air moves in the station; a stale breeze blowing in from the tunnel, pushed ahead by
the train. This is a bad play. I should be aboveground. Duck into a bar and call a car
service. Get a limo with tinted windows. Yeah, sit in a bar on Hood turf and wait for a
car. Bad call. A cab? Traffic, clear windows.
Excuse me, cabbie, but would you mind driving exclusively in the shade? I'll make it
worth your while.
No. A bus? Jesus fuck, what am I thinking, a bus? This is the way to go. It's this way or
it's Digga's way, on
his
tip. And enough guys got a handle on me, I don't need anyone else thinking he can give me
a ring whenever things go shitty on him.

The train squeals into the station. People cram themselves up close to the doors, staring
at the folks on the inside, also packed at the doors. All of them sizing each other up,
challenging one another for space. The doors slide open, the speakers crackle, there's a
brief free-for-all as the people on the train and the people on the platform trade places.
I wait for the last possible second, looking for some danger more obvious than what I know
is already out there, and push my way aboard.

The doors snap shut and the train jerks and rolls. I scent the air in the car and find it
safe. My eyes are clearing quickly now, my vision all but normal. I look around and catch
sight of a service advisory, a sign telling me at once why the platform had been so
crowded. Telling me the C and B trains are out of service and that all express trains are
running local. Local, as in hitting every stop between here and home. Slow and steady all
the way.

A long slow train through the gauntlet. And me, no cigarettes at all even if they would
let you smoke down here.

Stopping, starting, pausing in the middle of the tunnel for a red signal, rolling. The
train takes its own goddamn sweet time. 116th, a college kid with a sketchbook in his lap,
drawing the passengers seated across from him, just their feet. 110th, last stop in the
Hood, people cramming on and off. No
ton tons macoute.
96th, back on Coalition ground, a guy walking the center aisle, a display of Duracells in
his hand, incanting,
Battery one dolla, battery one dolla, battery one dolla.
No enforcers. 81st, a DJ and his crew, still coming down from last night's gig, shoving
each other back and forth, showing off for a cute girl in their midst. 72nd, the speaker
squawking, endlessly repeating its message that this train is running local. 59th, a
homeless guy that reminds me of the Renfield that fingered me on the way up, but it's not
him. 42nd, man with a baby carrier on his chest, the baby's eyes returning again and again
to my face. 34th, a woman overloaded with Macy's bags. My eyesight clear by 23rd, I see a
subway card above the seats; a stanza of Dylan Thomas: