Every Last Drop

by Charlie Huston

  I drink.

  —What he doesn’t say is that all he’s really interested in knowing is if you can do it. What he really wants to know is if you’re making any progress. He wants to know if a cure is possible. He wants to know if you can actually find it in this century.

  I get a smoke up and running.

  —Terry Bird, he let me go, said he’d let me back on Society turf if I came up here and poked around. Said he wanted me to arrange some back-channel communications. Said he wants to start a dialogue. See if there’s common ground.

  I take my bottle and my glass and my cigarette and go to a chair and take a seat.

  —What he really wants is the same damn thing that Predo wants. And he wants it for the same reason.

  I point my cigarette at her.

  —Because, bottom line, if there’s a cure, if the Vyrus is destroyed, it all goes away. The Coalition. The Society. All the alliances and backdoor deals and spycraft and manipulations go away. All the power, it goes away. They don’t want that. And if there’s a scrap of a chance you can come up with a cure.

  I drink whiskey.

  —They’ll both want to know the best way to kill you yesterday.

  I take the picture Predo gave me from my jacket and drop it on the desk.

  —Name on the back of that is the last mole Predo has in here. I don’t know for sure who Bird has on the inside, but he definitely has someone reporting to him on conditions in here. I was gonna take a guess.

  I point at the floor.

  —I’d pick that fat comicbook geek you got living in the hall. He come over from the Society?

  Sela blinks.

  I nod.

  —That’s what I thought. He’s got it written all over his lazy fucking ass. Yeah, he’s your man. So.

  I drink some more.

  —I guess that’s two more people I’m gonna get dead. What I want, little miss junior psycho. Is for you to tell me what you meant before when you said business arrangement. As in, I want to know how much of your money you’re going to give me if I help you feed the starving people in this building before they realize you’re more valuable to them as a meal than as a savior.

  Amanda folds her arms, sets her jaw.

  —I’m Joe Pitt, and I’m here to chew bubble gum and kick ass. And I’m all out of bubble gum.

  I wait.

  She unfolds her arms.

  —OK, Joe, well, I’m going to give you a whole lot of money. Enough to make you super wealthy. And really, you don’t even have to do that much for it.

  She points east.

  —All we need you to do is take a quick trip to Queens and find out where the Coalition gets their blood.

  They have it, everyone knows they have it, she says.

  I don’t argue with her.

  Why argue when someone’s right? They do have it. And everyone knows they have it.

  Biggest Clan on the Island, and then some. And the only one that has enough blood to supply all their members. Only one can keep them fed well enough that they don’t have to worry about someone going berserk and hitting the street to make a spectacle like the one Amanda and Sela are trying to keep under wraps. No secret that they got it. Hell, get down to it, it’s pretty much advertised.

  Best advertising you could ever have to attract Vampyres is a well-known reputation for keeping your members in the red.

  Why keep it a secret.

  But there is a secret. There is a big secret. There is the biggest secret.

  Where the hell does it all come from?

  Enough blood to keep hundreds, maybe over a thousand, members alive and kicking.

  You figure that some Vampyres are more equal than others, figure that guys like Predo are getting quite a bit more in their fridges than the average infected slob on the street, and then figure a minimum of a pint a week to keep the rank and file happy.

  I didn’t pass math. Shit, I didn’t pass anything. But I can figure that number in my head.

  Know what that number equals?

  Equals: Where the fuck do they get it all?

  A question most folks dwell on from time to time. But most definitely not a question folks like to ask out loud. Ask that kind of question out loud and someone might hear you asking it. And whether you’re Coalition, Society, Hood or Rogue, you don’t want to be heard asking that question.

  See, figure everyone comes up short from time to time. Everyone has their off quarters when they don’t make quota. Which means everyone goes to the bank for a little extra now and again. Society, the Hood, they get pinched hard, can’t keep their people healthy, they might be known to make a call, cut a deal.

  Only in emergencies, mind you, but shit happens.

  Don’t it?

  So who wants to rock that boat?

  Answer: no one.

  Coalition doesn’t want anyone to know where it comes from. You had the lockdown on what everyone wanted, what everyone needed, would you want to share where it came from?

  Don’t lie. You’re not that altruistic. No one is.

  Society and Hood need a little help now and again, they can’t afford to look nosy. Can’t afford to have their people look nosy.

  And Rogues? They can’t afford to do anything makes anyone notice their unallied asses are hanging out in the wind waiting for someone to take a shot at them just because it will take one more mouth off the market.

  It’s there. We all know it’s there. It’s the thing that just about the whole fucking Clan structure spins around.

  And we all pretend it doesn’t exist.

  Shhh.

  Only someone crazy would poke into this shit. Lucky me, I know someone really fucking crazy.

  I sit there.

  I sit there some more.

  I look at Sela.

  —Shouldn’t part of keeping her safe involve telling her when she’s talking about doing something that will kill everyone?

  I hold up my hand.

  —No, never mind, I totally fucking forgot that your whole fucked-up Clan is based on trying to do something that’s going to get everyone killed.

  —They have it, Joe.

  I look at Amanda.

  —You already said that.

  She turns in place, holding her drink over her head, rattling the ice cubes.

  —OK, OK, I know it’s this total secret hush-hush thing. I know we’re not supposed to talk about the hundred-pound pink poodle in the room.

  She stops turning and spreads her arms.

  —But the whole point is that we’re seriously trying to change things.

  She takes a sip.

  —And you don’t change things by doing what everyone has always done before.

  She comes over and perches on the edge of her desk.

  —So here’s the deal: We need more blood. Plain and simple. I can get a lot through the lab, from medical supply houses, but not as much as you’d think. They mostly deal in plasma and other blood components. And the Vyrus only feeds on whole blood. Did you know that? Tried it. Tried using plasma. Tried using platelet serum. Not what it wants. So we need more blood.

  She blows out her cheeks.

  —But the Coalition won’t deal with us. We could pay like way over market price, but they won’t even open a fucking dialogue. Which is super funny considering how they kissed my parents’ and my asses for so many years before I started Cure.

  She empties her glass.

  —So the thing is, we have to do something.

  Sela steps forward.

  —If you tell anyone about any of this, Pitt.

  I look at her.

  —Sela, if I decide to commit suicide, I’ll do it with a gun like normal people. I won’t do it by telling people about little chats I’m having to plot a raid on the Coalition’s fucking reservoir.

  Amanda shakes her head.

  —It’s not a raid. We’re not even talking about that kind of thing. I’m talking about just some surveillance. Intelligence. That’s all.

&n
bsp; She taps her own forehead.

  —I mean, think about it. They have to get it from somewhere. They can’t just make it. They have to have a supplier. Maybe they have a bunch of them. I know that’s, like, the most reasonable possibility. They’ve been around forever. So they’ve, like, built up these weird relationships. Totally backdoor stuff that no one can get in on at this point. They must get it from dozens of places. Hospitals. EMT workers. Blood banks. They bring it into a central warehouse or something. All we know is that when it comes in, it comes in from Queens.

  She leans.

  —What we need to know is, who some of those suppliers are. If we know, like, who to talk to, we can totally outbid the Coalition. Or we can force a deal. Tell the Coalition that they can either sell to us or they can face some competition in the market. See what they do when I throw some real cash into the supply and demand equation and their suppliers start driving their trucks to our door. That’s all.

  That’s all.

  Just go to Queens. Just leave the Island right after I got back. Just go poke around the Coalition’s biggest secret. The biggest secret.

  Just leave again.

  Just leave.

  Gravity pulls. Pulls at the center of me. Pulls at a part that I didn’t know was there till I took it off the Island.

  If I pull too hard in the opposite direction, will it snap?

  Jesus. Who am I?

  I move the girl’s hand from my knee, I look at her.

  —It’s going to cost.

  She does the eyeroll, letting me know again that I shouldn’t bother talking about things that she doesn’t give a shit about.

  I nod, stand up.

  —OK. Maybe we should start by asking some people some questions.

  I look at Sela.

  —And then making them dead.

  Amanda slips off the edge of the desk.

  —See, baby, I told you he was the man for the job.

  Sela turns away.

  When the math is done, it’s not two people I get dead, it’s three people I get dead. Amanda suggesting, not unreasonably, that maybe I could deal with the slob in the basement who caused all the problems for them the other night.

  One more. Sure. Why not? Who’s counting at this point?

  Terry’s mole, he cops to it. I don’t have to touch him or even threaten to tear up his back issues of Amazing Spider-Man to get him to cop to it. I just let him watch while I deal with the others. Then I tell him I’ll do him different, more easy, if he tells me if he’s the one been making calls to Terry.

  He says he is.

  Could he be lying?

  Sure. Why not? I watched someone do what I do to Predo’s mole, and I got given a chance to say something might let me avoid the same discomfort, I might lie myself.

  But I don’t think he was lying.

  And if he was?

  If he was, then I guess it makes what I did to him that much worse. And if there’s someone watching the things I do, watching and judging, that’s one that will go against me. Assuming there’s any more room in the AGAINST column.

  Doesn’t matter, I couldn’t let him live no matter what. Not after he watched. Not after he heard the questions I asked Predo’s pawn.

  Far as that guy goes, mostly it’s too bad he didn’t know anything. Makes life that much harder for me. Certainly made death that much harder for him.

  But I’m not worried about it. Because no one is watching me. No one is judging me. No one is weighing my actions and making book on where my soul is gonna finish when the race is over.

  I’m the only one watching these things I do. I’m the only one counting. I know the number.

  And I’ve known for a long time what I’ve got coming someday.

  I’m not trying to get out of anything.

  I kill the guys. And I don’t make it easy for them on the way out. Because I got no doubts they deserve it.

  Only maybe not as much as I do.

  Tough luck how that works out sometimes.

  —Hey.

  —Who?

  —It’s Joe Pitt.

  I hear salsa music doppler in and out of the background.

  —What?

  —Joe Pitt.

  —Yeah?

  —Yeah.

  —And?

  I clear my throat.

  —Remember how you said you’d rather I owe you one for when you need someone to have your back?

  —Yeah.

  —How’d you like to make it two?

  I hear catcalls in Puerto Rican–accented Spanish, and her own retort: something about someone’s dick and a knife and their throat. But my Spanish isn’t good enough to get the subtler nuances.

  The catcalls fall silent.

  —You still there?

  I nod, even though she can’t see it.

  —I’m here.

  The phone carries the sound of a train crashing and screeching on overhead tracks.

  —You ask a lot, Pitt.

  —Yeah.

  —I got ex-boyfriends, kind of guys never have a fucking job, you know?

  —Sure.

  —Kind of guys, they let a girl pick up every check, pay for their new Nikes, give them walking-around cash they’re gonna use to take their shorty out later. Know what I mean?

  —Sure.

  —But you. You I never even broke off a piece, and you got them all beat.

  I shift the phone to my other hand so I can get at my smokes easier.

  —Yeah, I like to go that extra mile.

  —Yes, you do.

  —Yeah. So, not to waste anyone’s time, I don’t have anything to add to the pot. You want to help out or not?

  Esperanza grunts.

  —Girl likes maybe just a little sweet talk sometimes.

  —How ’bout that.

  —Yeah. OK. What is it?

  I get a cigarette in my mouth.

  —What it is, is it’s funny you brought up ex-boyfriends.

  —How’s that funny?

  —Funny like maybe I’d want to meet one of them.

  Silence. I look at the screen of the phone Amanda gave me to make my call, making sure the connection hasn’t been broken. It hasn’t.

  I put it back to my ear.

  —Hear me?

  —I heard you, Pitt. I’m just trying to figure out how to say ha-ha without it sounding too sarcastic.

  Getting me out is also on the tricky side.

  Seeing as the Cure house is smack in the middle of Coalition turf, getting anyone out is a trick.

  Figure that under normal circumstances the Coalition would weed out anyone tried to put roots in their turf. But there’s nothing normal about Amanda Horde. Nothing normal about her or her big brain or her money or the Horde family name. She was right about the way Predo used to kiss her and her parents’ asses.

  Before he plotted to have them all assassinated.

  Plot didn’t work out.

  Someone got in the way.

  Chalk that up as yet another reason on the long list that Predo has for looking forward to the day he gets to watch me boil in the sun.

  But back before that little misunderstanding took place, the Coalition was neck-deep in dealings with the Horde family. And Horde Bio Tech, Inc. Far as I know, they still have holdings in the company. But the little girl holds all the important strings.

  Still, it’s too late in the day for them to make a sudden move on her. She’s too well connected for something like that. Too bright a star on the map of the sky. Not the Page Six fixture her mom was, but definitely someone the Manhattan gossip mill has an ear and an eye for.

  Poor little orphaned rich girls who run their family’s biotechnology holdings and are always accompanied by their sexy but suspiciously muscular black female bodyguards tend to be a hot item from time to time.

  Figure the Coalition couldn’t do much when she decided to open housekeeping on their doorstep. But figure they keep as many eyes on that house as they possibly can.


  Predo knew when I went in the first time.

  And he found out that I left.

  So I have to use an alternate route this time.

  —Don’t be particular, Pitt.

  —I don’t think I’m being particular. I think I’m being perfectly fucking reasonable.

  —There’s no time for this shit. Just bag it and get in.

  —Oh, that’s funny.

  —I wasn’t trying to be funny. Shut up and climb in.

  —Fuck.

  But I shut up and climb in.

  Because Sela was right when she spelled out how it’d work. This is the best bet on short notice. But knowing something is the best bet, that’s doesn’t make it a sure thing.

  I lie down on the greasy, shit-stained, olive-drab sleeping bag on the floor. Sela kneels at the foot and pulls the zipper up.

  —Bunch up a little, Pitt.

  —Fuck.

  I pull my knees up, hunch my shoulder and duck my head.

  Amanda steps closer.

  —Hang on.

  Sela stops with the zipper at my chin.

  Amanda puts a hand on Sela’s shoulder and bends to look down at me.

  —Hurry back, Joe. We need you.

  I wriggle deeper into the sleeping bag.

  —Yeah, and it’s so nice to be needed like this.

  Sela yanks the zipper, catches some of my hair, and gives it anther yank, tearing the hair out and sealing me inside the reeking mummy bag.

  Then she grabs the top of the bag and drags me down the steps behind the building and out to the alley.

  —Hey. Hey, you could carry me, couldn’t you?

  Her heel clips the back of my neck.

  —Shut up.

  I hear a gate squeal open, sounds of the street, an idling diesel.

  Then she hoists me high, and shoves, and I feel air beneath me, for a second, then a bunch of hard stuff.

  The tone of the diesel changes, gears grind, there’s a jerk and the load in the back of the truck shifts and some more hard stuff tumbles on top of me.

  And we roll, the driver of the Waste Management truck hauling the construction Dumpster that had been parked in front of the Cure house, doing his best to hit every fucking pothole and divot from the Upper East Side, across the Queensboro, and down along Dutch Kill and Review Avenue to Maspeth.