Midnight Taxi Tango

by Daniel José Older

  “But?”

  “But if I did think so, I wouldn’t have told you my side.”

  “To be honest,” I say, “I don’t usually tell people about this shit either. I don’t really talk to that many people, come to think of it, unless they already know or I have to for . . . work.”

  “But?”

  “I’m not totally sure, to be honest. You have a trustworthy face?”

  Reza almost spits out her coffee. “These words have never been said.”

  I shrug and light a Malagueña. This has to be the last diner in New York that you can smoke in. The air is thick and murky with our combined pollution. The only other customer is a dusty old guy reading a paper in the far corner.

  “So,” I say, “there’s a house, a tunnel, a rec room with toys, a fucked-up long-armed guy, a cockroach-for-skin guy . . .”

  “Pink cockroaches,” Reza says.

  “Right. And then there’s Shelly, Angie, and at least a few others, yeah?”

  “At least.” When I say Angie, Reza flinches ever so slightly. It’s the first involuntary thing I’ve seen her do all afternoon.

  “And on my end, there’s this child ghost that led us back there, and that’s it really; that’s all I got. I’ll say this though: someone who knew what they were doing fucked with that kid. Takes a high-level necromancy to make a single-minded killer like that.”

  Reza frowns and stubs out her cigarette. “Well, that’s an angle you’re gonna have to handle, clearly. Meanwhile, this roach situation has gotta get ended. This what I’m thinking: someone has to own that house, right? We got a guy that—”

  “Wait—we who?”

  The waitress, a surly octogenarian wearing all the makeup ever, approaches to refill our coffees. “You alright, lovebirds?” she snarls. “Need anything else?”

  Reza smiles. “We’re good, Cathy, thanks.” She turns back to me. “We: my people. We got a guy that can look that shit up. I’ll see what he can find tonight when I go in.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “You’re not my type.”

  I narrow my eyes. “You were just waiting for that moment, weren’t you?”

  “Eh.” She shrugs. “What you wanna know?”

  “Why’d you tell me all that—everything you just told me? You seem like the type that information has to be pried out of.”

  Reza studies me for so long I get uncomfortable. She must’ve been wondering the same thing. Finally, she takes a sip of her coffee and says, “When you do what I do for as long as I’ve been doing it, you learn to figure people out quickly and break down everything you need to know about them to two things.”

  “What things?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Huh?” I furrow my brow, and she smiles.

  “Two essential things. They’re different things for everyone. But you don’t have time to sit there analyzing eighty million little quirks and who loves their father. You have however many seconds to decide if they can kill you and if they will kill you, and then you either kill them first or you don’t. And if you don’t, you either die or you—”

  “Have a four-hour cup of coffee at the diner.”

  “Basically.”

  “And?”

  “You’re a genuine person, Carlos.”

  I try not to be flattered, but I am, I am. “I’m actually a pretty good liar though, just FYI.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “My line of work has me—”

  “You lie to people who want to be lied to. That doesn’t count. You just collude with their denial. That’s not lying. It’s an ongoing charade we all participate in. Try lying to a liar.”

  “How can I get better?”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Reza says. I do, and she lets out a congested chuckle. “No, man. I mean let them do the talking. The less you say, the better. Find the part of the lie that’s true and tell everything else to fuck off. But really, just shut up. They’ll usually tell you what you want to know.”

  “That’s what you do?”

  “Nah. I know how to lie. That’s for you. Believe me, Carlos—you’re better off wielding that sword you keep in the cane than trying to get over.”

  “How’d you—”

  “The second thing is, you’re a killer.”

  I shut my mouth. A single word floods my mind, spoken in the harsh whisper of the man who created me: murderer. I had demanded to know who I was and it was all he said. Sarco was an ancient sorcerer and everything he got he had coming to him, but I could never let go of that single scrap of knowledge about who I’d been before I died. And then I’m holding Sasha’s brother, Trevor, as he dies from the blade I just hurled into him. Trevor was the first person I ever found who was like me. The ghosts I dispatch to Hell, well, they’re already dead. It’s different. Trevor looks up at me, begs me to find his sister, and I’m so lost in the smile that glows from her photograph, I barely register the life that’s slipping away in my hands, and then I do and he’s gone.

  “Carlos.”

  “Hm?”

  “You went somewhere.”

  “I’m here.” I find my coffee, sip it, and concentrate on the lukewarm bitterness. Reza and I lock eyes. “If you could tell I’m a killer, why did you—”

  “Because I can also see you’re good at what you do.”

  “Well . . .”

  “And I need help.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Kia

  Peace to the bitches who ain’t have no faith in me

  All up in ya faces now ya can’t keep pace with me

  I’ve played through all of Red-Handed Royalty at least six times. Got other albums on here, but none of them fit my mood. No Gio. No Gio and no Ma Sinclair and no Uncle Terence and no Great-Aunt Gene. None of ’em come through. Six rounds of Red-Handed Royalty—it ain’t a short album either; King Impervious got a lot to say—and none of my dead made a showing. I’m at the family plot, my ass in the dirt, my back against the granite stone with Ma Sinclair’s name carved in elegant all caps on it.

  I give not one, two, three, or four fucks

  Come watch me scatter ’cross the world like a horcrux

  Every once in a while I close my eyes. I’ve drifted in and out of naps. I keep thinking, when I open them, there he’ll be with a stupid grin on his face, and he’ll say, “Boo,” or some other cheesy bullshit, and then we’ll sit here and he’ll tell me what all has been going on all these years and he’ll tell me I’m safe, that he’ll protect me and I’ll never have to be afraid again.

  Voldemort, bitches, this ain’t Hungry Hippos; this a Blood Sport, bitches.

  Pathetic, I know. But I’d believe him. Hell, after what’s happened in the past day, I’m likely to believe any ol’ shit someone tells me.

  I close my eyes. Open them again to the empty sky, the tombstones and trees. Beyond the trees, cars flash past along the glimpse of highway. I didn’t know Ma Sinclair or Uncle Terence that well—they’re just moments to me, a hand on my head, a squeeze, the smell of coffee percolating and mothballs. But I’d still be happy to see ’em. And they could explain some of this to me, and they could have my back too—that’s what ancestors do, right?

  Please step to me; by all means bring ya thunda

  So I can watch the wack tide of ya rhymes drag ya unda

  A flicker of movement pulls my eye off to the right. Nothing’s there. I sit up, squint across the graves. Nothing.

  I’d seen some shades already: tall, flowing shadows that drifted along like puffs of smoke. One of ’em had long shadow legs and strolled long strides. But they all kept their distance, didn’t even turn and acknowledge me.

  I’m thinking I mighta imagined that flash of movement when a shape slinks out from behind a crypt and lopes toward me.

  Fuck with
me now, but don’t fuck with my style

  Oblivious-ass bitches will get wrecked and compiled

  I sit up straight, my heart blasting away in my ears over King Impervious’s steady flow. Can’t make out a face or anything. It’s just tall and glowy with long arms.

  Carlos told me to run if something comes at me. But Carlos doesn’t know about Gio, doesn’t know I’ve asked for help in my own silent prayers.

  I probably shouldn’t even be here. The dagger is nestled in my shoulder bag. I don’t move though.

  I wait.

  The shadow crosses the walking path and looms over our family plot. Carlos would kill me for not running. And he’d probably be right to.

  Still.

  “Hello?” I say. Only an asshole would say some dumb shit like that when a ghost walks up to them in a graveyard, but that’s all I got right now. It slinks closer. Its long arms reach out and plant in the ground, and then it drags its sludgy torso along. I hear it panting as it slithers a shimmering hand on my grandma’s stone and brings its face right up to mine.

  Two wide, hollow eyes gaze from the shimmering shadow.

  Time and again you cape up and defend / all these fuckboys and dickbags that come for my friends

  I’m shivering.

  One day you gonna learn that a bitch will get burnt / when she tries to deny that the tables been turnt

  The shadow makes little sniffing noises, probes the air around me. Something jiggles against my thigh, and I almost jump up and just run. The shadow looks down—it’s startled too, I guess—and I finally recognize my own ringtone bleating out under Impervious’s voice. I pull off my headphones, carefully reach down and dig my phone out my pocket, and raise it to my face. The shadow tracks my hand from my ear to my leg and back to my ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Kia, you okay?” It’s Carlos.

  “Yep.”

  That pause’ll be Carlos deciding if it’s a lie worth investigating. The shadow, much too close, just stares at me with those hollow eyes.

  “Where are you, Kia?”

  “Nowhere. Doesn’t matter. What’s up? You find another pay phone? I’m proud of you, man. Good shit.”

  “I borrowed a friend’s phone. Look, I—”

  “Wait—you have friends?” A single bead of sweat slides down my forehead. The shadow watches it, panting.

  “Kia.”

  “Alright, go ’head. What you need?”

  “Can you meet me on Franklin Ave.? I gotta do some research, and there’s someone I want you to meet.”

  I let a moment pass.

  “I dunno, C. I’m kinda busy today.”

  “Kia . . .”

  “Alright! Jeez. Be outside the train stop on Eastern Parkway in forty.”

  Carlos grunts and hangs up.

  I look into the ghost’s empty face. “You ain’t my family, huh?”

  It lets out a single, heartbreaking bleat. I stand. Nod at it. Touch Ma Sinclair’s headstone one time and then walk out the cemetery.

  • • •

  “Nobody lives here?”

  “Not exactly.” Carlos closes the old wooden door and leads me into an empty room. The jangly din of Franklin Avenue becomes a muted whirr. Here, it’s all silence and stillness; dust motes slow-mo cyclone through the sunlight.

  “Creepy,” I say.

  “This is where I came back to life,” Carlos says. The last time I saw him this serious-looking was when his girlfriend pinned him to the couch with his own sword.

  “You die here too?”

  He shakes his head. “Grand Army Plaza.”

  I cock my head at him.

  “Long story.” He shrugs. “And I don’t know it. Yet. C’mon.”

  He leads me upstairs, then up some more stairs and into a huge room with tall ceilings and wide windows. Stacks of books cluster together in precarious mountain ranges. They’re all ancient-looking—those leather-bound ornate-type situations that wizards open in dumb kids’ movies. “What is this place?”

  “Mama Esther’s library, child,” a voice says from above us. “Carlos, you brought a friend.” A face appears in the air, huge and smiling so wide it makes her eyes squint. “What’s your name?”

  “Kia,” I say. “Kia Summers.”

  “This is Mama Esther,” Carlos says. The old ghost takes up most of the upper part of the room; her rotund body disappears in a haze around the stacks of books. “She’s saved my life more times than I can count.”

  Mama Esther scowls. “Psh. You were there when I needed you most, Carlos. That’s what matters.”

  “Kia works at Baba Eddie’s place. She got the Vision last night when someone’s demon ghostling got its hands on her throat.”

  “Oh no, dear.” She swoops down through the stacks, and suddenly I’m immersed in a warm, languid cloud. It smells like rose petals and mildew and it somehow feels like home. I close my eyes and submerge into a lava-lamp ocean, buffeted by a gentle amber tide. Somehow, I’m sure I’m floating inside myself, utterly at peace.

  And then Mama Esther lets out a sigh and I blink back to this strange Franklin Ave. apartment.

  Mama Esther smiles down at me. “Feel better?”

  “I do, but I don’t even know how.” It’s released some pocket of anguish I’d been walking around with. “What’d you do?”

  “Don’t worry about that. Carlos, who’s training ghostlings to do their dirty work?”

  “Funny you should ask. We have no idea. But you ever hear of a ghost named Garrick Tartus?”

  Mama Esther squints at the ceiling for a few seconds. “Not that I can think of, no. That who did this?”

  “I don’t know,” Carlos says. “I don’t think so. There was a spirit stationed outside the house where the ghostling led us back to. All he’d say was ‘Garrick Tartus.’”

  “Odd name,” Mama Esther muses. She’s eyeing one of the stacks of books, running a thick translucent finger along the spines.

  “That’s what I’m saying,” Carlos says.

  Adults are so cute sometimes. I already have 1,600,983 references to Garrick Tartus pulled up on my phone, but I let them hem and haw a little before I pipe up. “Do you mean the Garrick Tartus of 173 Devonshire Road that blogs about peregrine falcons or the Garrick Tartus of Tartus Realty & Construction Co. in Morningside Heights?”

  Carlos shoots me a wild glare. “What the—”

  “Or the Garrick Tartus that was a minor character in the late nineties sci-fi show Blastagion?”

  “I think that’d be option number two,” Mama Esther says. Carlos is still making how-the-fuck faces at me. I pull up the Tartus Realty site and turn my phone to face him.

  “That the dude?”

  “Shit,” Carlos says.

  I smile. “Things will go much easier for you when you realize that I know everything.”

  Mama Esther gets a kick out of that. Her whole hefty ghost body rears back, and for a second I think she’s catching a seizure. Then she releases a belly laugh that I’m sure regular ol’ non-the-Vision-having mothafuckas gotta hear too and then she finally calms down and sighs deeply.

  “You done?” Carlos asks.

  “Almost,” Mama Esther pants. “She’s right though. The child is of above-average intelligence.”

  I nudge Carlos. “Told ya. Says here the business has been closed since their founder’s untimely death last year.”

  Carlos growls. I’m not sure if it’s at me or at the information.

  “The fuck kinda name is Tartus anyway?” I ask. No one seems to know. I scan farther down the site. “Says the dude showed up on the scene a few decades ago like some kind of architect child prodigy. Started his own firm at eighteen, ignoring offers from all the major companies.”

  “Yeah, you may need to talk with Dr. Tennessee �
�bout this one,” Mama Esther says.

  Carlos cocks an eyebrow. “Dr. Tennessee?”

  “Research librarian at Harlem Public. She doesn’t have the Vision, but she understands shit. And her collection and research skills are unparalleled. I usually send folks to her when the topic’s more modern like this or some real-world shit. Plus if the guy had offices up that way, she’ll be able to dig up the records.”

  “You never told me about her before,” Carlos says.

  “You never asked.”

  While they banter, I scroll through a few more articles, including an obituary from some neighborhood Queens paper. “Says he drowned in one of his own tunnels,” I announce.

  Carlos perks up. “He made tunnels? That’s our guy. Mama Esther, thanks for everything!”

  “Of course, love.” She grins down at me. “Come by anytime, Kia. And keep Carlos outta trouble for me.”

  I thank her. Carlos is already running down the stairs.

  • • •

  Carlos doesn’t say much during the train ride to Harlem. He’s thinking through something, plotting out three moves ahead and then scratching the whole thing and starting over. He told me once he could see what’s going on with people, like little satellites of information dance around their heads. I squint, trying to will some dancing vision into existence, but all I see is the smiling model behind him.

  Whatever he’s working on, it’s got him shook. That song he’s always humming slips from his lips, a sad soundtrack to his every move these days.

  I put my headphones back on and turn up King Impervious.

  • • •

  “You gonna tell me what’s going on?” It comes out louder than I meant it to, my demand echoing up and down the basement research section of the Harlem Public Library.

  “Not just yet,” Carlos says. He’s leaning up against the information desk like it’s a bar, scowling at the tidy shelves. “Still thinking it through.”

  “If you told me, I could help you think it through.”

  Carlos looks thoughtfully at me.

  “Can I help you?” a gravelly voice asks. A short, dark-skinned woman stands behind the counter, eyeing us. Her gray hair is close-cropped, her silk dress shirt open a few buttons. She looks like she gets her way.