Feral King

by Ginger Booth

  “Tired, huh?” she called. “The bodies… How bothered are you?” She suspected she ought to be more disturbed. She killed people today. But she certainly didn’t miss them.

  “Victory, babe,” Frosty replied coolly, his head resting on his arms. “Get your head on straight. My turn yet?”

  Ava draped herself in a towel, exited with her hairbrush, and bowed him into the bathroom.

  He stripped, kicking his clothes to the wall. “I want a delousing station.”

  He’d issued this demand plenty of times. It wasn’t any more feasible today. Ava let it pass without comment. “Have you met with Elon yet? Pomelo looked scary.”

  “Pomelo is a veteran gang-banger. Our new role model.” Frosty dunked his face and hair, and lathered both. “Hey, baby? Next time, how about some soap that doesn’t make me smell like a girl. Grapefruit, maybe. Not flowers.”

  Clearly he was in a mood. She wandered into the bedroom to pull on cuddly pajamas. When he emerged from the bathroom, attractively clean and nude, she was trying to decide what to serve for supper. She’d claimed a fair bit from salvage today, much of it from the bodies. Caudillo culture seemed to favor stashing their food reserves in their coats. Practical, she supposed.

  He gaped at her pajamas. “We’re not eating here.” He continued to the bedroom to find clean clothes.

  “What?”

  “What what?” he returned. “Victory party with the guys. Kat’s throwing hers at the Zumba joint. Aren’t you throwing one for the kids?”

  “The kids don’t like grownups at their parties.” He snorted at her, so she amended herself. “Bigger kids.”

  He came out looking fabulous, at least to her eyes. Except he still scowled at her pajamas. “Panic, leadership. Show some. Get off your ass.”

  That tore it. “Frosty, in the dojo, you spew praise like a fucking fountain. Would it kill you to give me some?”

  “Sure, baby. You smell good,” he sneered. With that, he snatched his pocket junk and split down the corridor to collect Maz.

  Rat bastard! No ‘how was your day, baby?’ No inquiry about how her battles went. She tried to talk about their feelings, but no. She tried to make a nice relaxing evening to end a day that started at 2 a.m. And how the hell he was going out at this point, to party, she had no clue. She was running on fumes. In fury, she pounced on her prize protein bar for supper, smashed to a wad in some dead guy’s pocket. She slammed it a little more. She’d intended to split it with him. Asshole.

  On the other hand, her team, Butch and Chancy and Pixie, deserved congratulations. She shouldn’t linger, but it wouldn’t go amiss to pop her head into a few cribs to tell her kids they made her proud today. Throw a little praise at her kid lieutenants in front of their peers.

  Vexing thoughts vanished as her teeth sank into the once-melted chocolate and cold-hardened caramel. She returned to this world only when the last lick of the foil wrapper was gone.

  Frosty was right. She sucked as a leader if she begrudged her people a little recognition tonight. And she never seemed to think of that.

  It isn’t selfish to notice I’m dead on my feet.

  No, but she should do it anyway, and the chocolate and carbs revived her flagging energy. Dammit. She returned to the bedroom and traded pajamas for party clothes. Strange the way she dressed sexier for the kids and girls than for her boyfriend. Perhaps that strategy could use some revision.

  Butch’s voice accompanied a banging on the door. “Panic, you in there? Kat says you’re late.”

  Ava opened her door and smiled. “Do I look good enough?”

  Butch eyed her appreciatively. “Good enough to eat!”

  Ava snickered. “Didn’t mean it that way. Hey, fantastic work today, Butch. Mind if we check in on some cribs?”

  “I already did,” Butch supplied. “I told them you sent me to thank them. Sent Pixie and Chancy around too. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all! Well done, Butch.”

  Ava accompanied her downstairs to select a lousy coat and wade through slush to the girls’ victory celebration. Frosty’s party was already in full swing in the dojo, rowdy and spilling into the street, with frequent laughter and cheering. When she arrived at her own venue, Kat hugged her. Then she draped Ava’s hips double with a clinking belt of belly-dancer fake coins. All the top girls wore them. Ava sighed, pasted on a smile, and started making the rounds. She shook her hip bangles and traded thigh-bumps through the Boobzilla corps, making a point to praise each one on her jewelry or party outfit, or the interesting thing she did to her hair tonight.

  Fake it til you make it, Frosty would tell her. And he was right. Working a crowd got easier with practice. Once Kat got line dances going, with a few precious batteries powering the tunes, Ava began to have fun.

  March 5, E-day plus 87

  The following evening, Kat and Frosty informed Ava they were putting Butch in charge of the kids for a while. She seemed good at it. And Ava needed to spend more time with the older girls.

  “Especially teaching,” Kat urged. “We need you teaching the best fighters, not the worst.”

  “Don’t I get a say in this?” Ava demanded.

  “This is your say,” Frosty countered. “Spill it.”

  He chose to spend the night at Maz’s place after that bitter discussion. It wasn’t so cold anymore, having the bed to herself. The night after that, he was back home for dinner, and a chilly civility reigned.

  31

  March 8, E-day plus 90

  Frosty was enjoying a tea party with Pebbles and her girlfriends when Elon arrived for a meet at last, trailed by three lieutenants. They came early.

  He set his empty tiny teacup on a saucer with his plastic cookies, and unfolded himself from the preschool chair. Those seats were so short his knees jutted above the table. But Frosty nimbly clambered sideways onto his knees, then up, and clapped his hands. “Time to go, girls! Thank you so much for the delicious tea!”

  “But where –” Pebbles began to whine. Dora the bossy 6-year-old grabbed her arm and dragged her out.

  “Impressive,” Elon noted with sarcasm. “You have a playroom.” He gazed pointedly at the play kitchen and storefront sets in the corner.

  Frosty presided from the dojo most of the time these days. The toys in the corner let him watch the little ones and free up their minders for a couple hours. But he didn’t imagine his Libre counterparts would appreciate his arrangement. Pomelo he already knew, and he’d heard descriptions of Bloodline beside him. Jake coordinated with them for the after-battle mop-up operations, not Frosty. The tidy lieutenant in the purple NYU hoodie he guessed as Puño.

  Maz and Jake belatedly drifted in to face off against them. Maz plucked Frosty’s nunchucks off of Bob – the man-shaped standing bag – and draped them on his own neck like a scarf.

  Frosty turned back to Elon, and gave a karate bow, complete with punching his own hand.

  “He does that,” Pomelo remarked, now loping along the punching bags. He slammed a fist into Bob. Bloodline, more linebacker than panther, elected to join him. Puño appeared fashionably lean, but the other three hadn’t gone hungry.

  “He does things,” Elon agreed sourly. “Ammo. We agreed to split it. Pomelo, he tells me you found the Hopper’s ammo, then your guy Jake took it all.”

  “Let’s rewind,” Frosty suggested. “First, an honor to meet you at last. And Puño?” He repeated the karate salute. Puño reciprocated. Elon shot his sidekick a withering look.

  The other gang king matched Smiley’s description well. Only a few years older, and a few inches taller, he had a similar wiry build to Frosty’s own. Tightly waved black hair and rugged features oozed contempt and rage through a well-dressed and urbane manner.

  He didn’t reply.

  Frosty pressed on. “Pomelo is right, of course. I found the ammo dump. But then Pomelo and I headed straight to battle against the Caudillos at 7th Avenue. Jake and Bloodline negotiated which blocks Libre would strip on 6
th. I was at 7th, so they didn’t check with me. Oops. My bad, but no offense intended. Jake, you’ll divide the remaining ammo and send it along.”

  “Sure.”

  “Not good enough, gringo,” Elon returned. “We saved your asses. This wasn’t our fight. We talked about Caudillos beforehand. What we said was, No. Your problem.”

  Frosty glanced to Pomelo, currently draped over Bob’s shoulders and fondling his gel pecs. “Alright, two thirds of the ammo – from the Hoppers. And one third of what we got from the Caudillos. Except I’m not sure we kept it separate.”

  “Elon, I agreed to Caudillos,” Pomelo belatedly admitted. “We were having fun.”

  Elon shot him a quelling glance. “Two thirds of the ammo, period. On your honor.”

  Frosty sized him up slowly, then nodded. “Do it, Jake. Later. We’ll send it to you. Or Puño, I guess.”

  “You’ll fucking do it now, Jake,” Elon spit at him. “And Bloodline and Puño will go with you. Keep you honest.”

  “I have an issue with that,” Frosty shared. “Because I don’t know where your armory is. Some things we share with close friends. Some things not. You know?”

  “You think we’re close friends now?”

  Frosty surprised himself by smiling. “Don’t you? Would you care for something to eat? God knows what. Hopper kebab, maybe.”

  “No, I had Hopper pastele for lunch, thanks.” Pasteles were a Puerto Rican analogue of the Mexican tamale. “And you look like a stiff breeze would blow you over. Man, you’re an idiot for eating so little. As kingpin, you need to look strong. Or you make your whole gang look weak. And you got to be real careful, eating starving people. They’re too lean. Need fat.”

  “What do you put in the pasteles for fat?” The very thought of a juicy tamale had Frosty salivating. Screw the ammo. He’d kill for some cooking oil.

  Humor lit Elon’s hard eyes. “Lard. It’s getting rancid. We could spare a few pounds, maybe. My old lady makes good pasteles. Fatten you up a little.”

  Frosty stared, caught in a food reverie, until Maz punched him as a reset. “We would love some lard. Lots of lard,” he said earnestly.

  Elon snorted a laugh. “Yeah, maybe we’ll be friends. Puño. Your thing. Wait – don’t you use chairs, man?”

  Frosty pointed delicately to the children’s tea set, then the office. “Shall we sit in the office? I don’t think we’ll all fit.” Maz drifted toward Bloodline to demonstrate the wall-pull bungee cords.

  “Leave them out here. Hey, assholes, don’t break anything. We’re here to make nice, right?”

  Bloodline flipped him a middle finger. Pomelo simply headed for the door to leave. “You don’t need us against these pricks. Little middle-class white dudes. No offense, Frostling. You fight OK.”

  Bloodline decided to follow him, with a nod of grudging respect toward Jake.

  Released from goon watch, Maz invited Puño over to play with the bags. “I hear you’re one dan. Show us what you got.”

  “Did you see Hamilton on Broadway?” Frosty inquired, ushering Elon into the office. “Maz’s grandfather took us. Awesome show. Almost made me like hip hop. PG-rated hip hop.”

  Elon laughed. “I caught it with Puño. The dweeb used to visit Puerto Rican club at City College, trying to meet chicks. We made friends. I headed to Madison Square looking for him. I lived down on 14th. I was trying to ditch Pomelo and Bloodline at the time. But they’re useful.”

  “Pomelo blew my mind at 7th,” Frosty concurred, yielding the comfy desk chair to his guest. “Would you like hot water? I don’t have anything to put in it. And the rain turned brown again. So, Iowa topsoil flavor.” By now the office featured a packable single-burner Coleman that cooked with gasoline, Coleman fuel, rubbing alcohol – no fussy bits. The 2-burner suitcase-shaped model served a girls’ building up the street.

  “Such a sales pitch! I’ll pass, thanks.”

  “Oh, I should have asked Pomelo. There were people living in the subway station. I wondered if he ever asked them why. Ghouls, he called them.”

  Elon nodded thoughtfully. “I asked. Pomelo is better for scaring people away. The streets are too dangerous. Gangs rule them. So some people with a long way to go travel in the tunnels. Safer. But it’s warmer down there, too. They lose their way, and stay. So we called them ghouls.”

  The two leaders tried to be brusque and tough, they really did. And one might think two such militantly ethnic gang leaders would clash. Yet as they continued chatting, Frosty found he enjoyed Elon’s company. He would have worked for a relationship if he must. Standing back to back against the other predator was too good a deal to lose. But the older guy’s sophistication and acid wit delighted him, like a preview of himself with a few years of college behind him.

  No harm saying it. “I never expected we’d hit it off so easy.”

  “And why would that surprise you, gringo?” Elon searched his eyes. “Three months ago, you and me, we landed on our feet while everyone around us floundered. What were you, child of an alcoholic? Emancipated minor? Prison time? Something happened. You turned feral long before Ebola.”

  That, Frosty decided. The ability to detach, buy out instead of in, look at people dispassionately, see what made them tick, then manipulate them with a will of steel. That’s what they had in common, beneath the intellectual interests and sense of humor. “Rather not say. Frosty the Snowman is very young, though. Only 90 days.”

  “Suit yourself. Can’t blame you. Whatever made you this hard, this young, must’ve sucked.” Elon didn’t volunteer what formed him.

  He took his leave, and Frosty rejoined Jake and Maz in the dojo.

  “You made a friend,” Maz observed. “Us, too. Jake and I plan on karate classes once a week with Puño. His turf. Want to join us?” He scratched his nose. “Pomelo and Bloodline aren’t invited.”

  “I’d love it! Do me good to get off the block. See how the other side lives.” As he said it, Frosty realized how true it was. He leveraged the knowledge base of his kids well, but Elon and Raul were the men he needed to learn from.

  Jake broke this train of thought. “Hey, Frosty? I’m sorry my plan sucked so bad. For Hip Hop and the Caudillos. Forty good members died, and a few more won’t make it. I needed to say that. Pomelo and Bloodline – without them, we’d be done. Not that I like them either, Maz.”

  Frosty thumped him on the shoulder. “You done good, Jake. Apology not accepted. We won. We learn. We go on.”

  A runner delivered a dozen pasteles before supper, plus 10 pounds of life-giving lard. Frosty insisted Jake and Hotwire join the usual foursome for the best meal they’d shared yet in his tiny apartment.

  It was a good day. Frosty even dared to think he might have a handle on his enemies. He was wrong.

  32

  March 18, E-day plus 100

  Ava looked over the kid in the hospital. Supervising the nurses was one of her new roles these past two weeks. Kat hadn’t thrown her in as co-Boobzilla of wannabe-scary girl fighters. Rather Ava split her load as Kat’s right hand. Ava supervised Butch, Brawnda, Angel, Johnny, and the other never-ending maintenance tasks.

  She’d brought her favorite medical book along, a balance between comprehensive and comprehensible. Not that she sat down and read it cover to cover. She sometimes leafed through until something caught her eye. With nurses for parents, and advanced work at Brooklyn Tech, her baseline knowledge exceeded the average teenager by a wide margin.

  The 9-year-old boy had sores all over. Ava studied a few with a magnifying glass. “I don’t think this is a rash. Not measles or anything. He’s just crawling with lice.”

  “We all are,” Angel said, scratching her head in sympathy. “He has a fever, 103. He says his headache is killing him. And his muscles ache as bad as when he had Ebola. He coughs a little.”

  Ava pulled the boy’s blanket up to cover him again, where he shuddered against a sudden bout of chills. “And you say there are a lot of cases?”

 
“I’m turning them away now.”

  “Sort of like flu, but not. Any other symptoms?”

  “Sometimes they lose their balance.”

  That didn’t bode well. But at least it was a more unique symptom. Fever accompanied nearly every contagion. The chills and a headache came from the fever. Ava opened her book, but the room was far too dim to read its miserly font. “Got a light?”

  “Oh, I forgot! That’s the other thing. Light really bothers their eyes.”

  Ava froze. She’d heard of that before, or maybe read it. “Angel, you remember the epidemic instruction booklets they handed out just Before? With the oral rehydration salts.” She bet the symptoms were listed on that.

  Angel scurried off to find a copy, while Ava took her book to a bright window in an apartment-turned-ward suffering from other maladies. Though she glanced around. A few of the patients strewn on floor pallets had blankets pulled over their heads. One clutched his head and keened.

  This wasn’t one kid. This was widespread. And come to think of it, she was feeling achy today herself. Stop. That’s hypochondria. Thinking about symptoms makes you feel them. It’s simple empathy.

  She opened her index to hunt for light sensitivity, and didn’t find it. What else could that symptom be listed under? Loss of balance. Mama always complained that schools didn’t teach kids how to use an index anymore. Too easy to use a search engine instead, until they lost access to the Internet. Mama was right. Ava tried fever, but that was too broad, meriting three columns of index entries.

  “Oh, it’s bright in here,” Angel complained, a hand up to shade her eyes. She handed Ava the epidemic education booklet. Then she escaped the bright lights, sending someone else in to draw the blinds. Yet it was a cloudy day, and this room stood on the shady side of 23rd.

  Ava reflected that this strange booklet was most emphatically never approved by the American Medical Association. Not a single entry suggested step one was to pay a doctor hundreds of dollars, nor that you were helpless to treat this disease without professional help and shouldn’t even try. Instead it described the contagious diseases, how they transmitted, how to identify and distinguish them, and how to treat them. Doctor-based diagnostic and treatment options were mentioned in passing. Since it only covered dangerous epidemic diseases, the number of entries was manageable.