Midnight Taxi Tango

by Daniel José Older

  “And the parents?” I throw a sideways glance at Reza.

  “They funded his whole operation. Left money in a bank account that he could withdraw from with an alias. They never saw him after he became the High Priest, but I think they got updates through Caitlin.”

  “The sister,” Reza says.

  “I don’t have much on her. I mean, she has to know, right? She’s gotta be the connection Jeremy maintains to his old life. Kia and Reza are right about the link with Shelly.”

  “The tunnel entrance in the Ferns’ basement,” I say.

  Reza nods. “The sister’s involved. Gotta be.”

  “I just haven’t figured out how,” Giovanni says. His eyes are still off somewhere in the saga of his last seven years. Kia sniffles a few times and wipes her nose.

  “The computer,” I say, “was Caitlin’s. She’s probably in charge of something, cleaning up her twin brother’s messes, I’d guess. She’s the one . . .” Targeting my family. The family I barely know. “She’s gotta die.”

  “Easy, C,” Kia says. “We’re getting to that.”

  I tense. Stifle the yell rising in me. I’m not used to this teamwork thing. Usually it’s just me and Riley and whatever group of soulcatchers we got backing us up, and they do what we say.

  “We wanna find out whatall’s going on,” Reza says, “before we go offing any more random white ladies and bringing the full force of the NYPD and daily tabloids on our heads.”

  She’s right. They’re both right. And I’m usually the one cautioning against the quick kill. In fact, I was last night, right up until I saw that picture.

  “You’re probably wondering what Sasha and your kids have to do with all this,” Reza says.

  I’d been trying not to ask. Considering I already had one meltdown while tracking her, I’m sure I already look like a maniac to them. And I knew they’d get there eventually.

  “We’re pretty sure the Survivors made a move on the Blattodeons at some point,” Reza says. “Gio’s crossed paths with them a few times over the years, and he says the roaches have gotten at least two of them.”

  I close my eyes, but all I see are winged monsters closing in on Sasha and the babies. “It makes sense,” I say. “The Survivors are off the grid. They fit the profile of folks who won’t be looked for.”

  Giovanni looks at Kia. “A lot of folks do, when you start thinking about it.”

  Reza and Kia are staring at me. I raise my eyebrows at them. “You guys have a play in mind?”

  “As a matter fact,” Kia starts. The Council transmission blares through my brain without warning, first a shock of white noise, then: “Council of the Dead to Agent Delacruz.” I straighten and hold up my hand to stop Kia. “Your presence is required immediately at Council Headquarters for a special-asset protection detail.”

  Special what? I don’t even—

  “Please report posthaste and without delay.”

  I shake my head. “Repetitive-ass dickholes.”

  “What’s wrong?” Giovanni asks.

  “Oh,” Kia says. “Remember I told you C’s into some dead-people telepathy-type shit? That’s the face he makes when it happens. He probably has to go.”

  “I do,” I say. “But tell me the plan first.”

  “Not a plan,” Reza says. “But we’re gonna reach out to the Survivors.”

  “Great,” I say. “When do we do it? You have a lead? I can . . .”

  “Carlos,” Kia says. Then she shakes her head.

  I look back and forth between Kia’s and Reza’s unsmiling faces. “You want to do it . . . without me?”

  “Initially,” Reza says. “To feel them out.”

  “My . . . family . . .” I say, and a heaviness squirms to life in my chest.

  “The thing is,” Kia says, “we have no idea how Sasha’s gonna react to you or how you’re—”

  “My fucking kids!” My hands slam down on the counter before I realize they’re closed into fists. Everything is fire.

  Kia stares at me. “. . . gonna react,” she finishes.

  My words hang in the air. The fire abates. I want to swallow up the last ten seconds of life. I want a do-over. That heaviness swells, rustles; it is gigantic.

  “I’m gonna go call Rigo,” Giovanni announces. He lets himself out.

  “What just happened,” Reza says, “is why you won’t be going with us when we make contact with the Survivors.” She doesn’t say it cruelly; it’s just a fact. When I meet her eyes, they’re gentle.

  “She . . .” But the words catch in my throat, and then instead of making a sentence, I let out a low moan. The heaviness dislodges, rises. I put my head down in my arms and burst into tears.

  • • •

  “More?” Kia says, rubbing my back.

  My body heaves a few more times. Turns out crying is like vomiting—you do everything you can to hold it off, and then it happens and you feel eighty pounds lighter and more clear-headed and wonder why you didn’t just do it in the first place. I lift my head from my arms and wipe tears and snot off my face. Reza pours a fresh cup of coffee and hands it to me over the counter. Kia passes me some more tissues.

  “I just . . . I mean . . .” I stutter. “I can’t . . . and then . . .”

  Reza nods. “Of course, man. It’s your kids. And their mama.” She pours herself a coffee and looks at Kia with eyebrows raised.

  Kia shakes her head, rubs my back a few more times. “The way I see it, you’re like thirty or whatever yeah, but in a way you’re like a tall five-year-old. Emotionally speaking. I mean, you lost all your memories, right? So you don’t have, like, the emotional ABCs that a normal fully alive adult does. You haven’t been through the ringer in the same way, right?”

  I sniffle. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.” Not sure whether to be offended or relieved. Either way, she has a point.

  Reza shrugs. “Most grown-ass men I know ain’t got shit for emotional vocabulary either. Far as I’m concerned, C’s ahead of the game. But I feel you, Kia. It’s a good point.”

  Kia pats my back. “You good, man?”

  I nod. Blow my nose. Shake my head. “I . . .” It comes out clogged by another sob. I clear my throat and try again. I got this. “I will do whatever . . .” Now a hoarse whisper, much better. “. . . the fuck I have to do to make sure they’re okay.”

  Reza nods. “We know, man. And right now what you have to do is get your life together.”

  “So that when shit starts getting even realer,” Kia says, “we can count on you to be the regular ol’ fuck-shit-up Carlos we know and sometimes love.”

  I laugh through sniffles. Blow my nose again. “How the fuck did y’all get so close that you’re finishing each other’s sentences? How long was I out for?”

  “Gio and I were here for a few hours, trying different shit to wake you up. Then Reza came and gave it a shot. Then we figured we’d let you work it out some more, and we started talking and comparing notes ’n’ shit, and I mean . . . time kinda slipped away some, I guess.”

  “You forgot about me?”

  “I mean, we didn’t forget,” Reza says. “We just had other things we were dealing with besides you.”

  “And anyway, you were good,” Kia insists. “We wanted to make sure you got your search in, you know, fully.”

  I raise an eyebrow at her.

  Reza puts down the coffee. “Well, I don’t know ’bout y’all, but I’ve had a helluva night and now I want a big-ass breakfast.”

  Kia hops off her stool. “I’m in. C?”

  “I gotta go see what my fucking bosses want.”

  “Aw, man!” Kia says.

  “I know. Isn’t it a school day, young lady?”

  Kia just stares at me, and I relent. “Anyway, it’s probably better you guys get breakfast without me. You can . .
. talk about how you’re gonna . . . find the Survivors.” There it is again, that trembling heaviness rising inside me. I know it now though. I can see it coming. I fight it back, stand.

  “You good?” Reza asks.

  I nod.

  “We’ll check in later,” Kia says, dapping my shoulder. “Be easy, bruh.”

  We head outside into the gray light of a brand-new morning. Giovanni sits on my stoop, whispering sweet nothings into his cell phone in accented Portuguese. He laughs a good-bye and pockets the phone when he sees us, then hugs me surprisingly hard and pounds my back. Reza offers to drop me off at the Council even though it’s on the other side of town, but I shake my head, thank her, and head off into the morning.

  I need, as they say, a moment.

  • • •

  I swing down Marcy Ave., past the projects, Hasidic supermarkets, and hipster cupcakeries. All the graffiti-decorated metal gates are down still. The day is only beginning to break across Brooklyn.

  I am alone.

  And I move once again with ease, like there had been rusty chains cluttering up my joints and suddenly they’re gone. I damn near float past Von King Park, where wilted flowers and rained-in liquor bottles still mark the near-dozen kill spots of the ghostling’s slow-motion massacre.

  I have a family.

  We are separated, yes, and they are in danger, but that’s right now. And I’m not some random schmo with no recourse. I have skills, a mind that untangles these kinds of messes on the daily, a blade . . . And Sasha is not to be fucked with. I’ve seen her use a sword—two in fact—and she outshines me on her worst day. And I have a team: Kia’s brilliant ass, Reza, the human angel of death, and Riley and Squad 9. The full force of the Council could probably be wrangled into my corner if need be. Riley and I would figure it out.

  I pick up my pace, cut east and south, pass Fulton Street with its twenty-four-hour fruit stands and then Atlantic, just beginning to bustle with the morning commute.

  By the time I reach Prospect Park I have become an unstoppable force. The city urges me forward; those early-morning winds rustle the trees and the occasional plastic bag and me. A chorus of morning birds erupts nearby as I move through the park, invincible, unbreakable, a well-dressed warrior.

  Balance: it’s mine.

  If some obstacle were to rear up in my path, my hand would release this blade from its cane sheath without thought or hesitation, a single smooth movement, one with my stride; a slice through air and foul flesh and I’d sail past my fallen foe without breaking the rhythm of this speedy saunter.

  The morning air swishes through me, brightens me with its freshness. Life. The world teems with it, each dew-covered blade of grass, the morning birds’ song. I had a full one once. I was complete. I may have had a family, been in love. And then it was torn from me and I became this . . . semi-wraith. Kia’s words about being an overgrown five-year-old echo through me as I cross the fields of Prospect Park and wind through a path in the woods. What if I’d lived, fully lived? Who robbed me of a full life?

  I can’t get caught up in that mental circle jerk now though. I don’t have time. It’s just . . . life, my life, it matters more and more every time I think about Sasha and the babies. It looms—a great, impenetrable shadow over my morning, my life. My half-life. I stop in a still-dark coven of drooping trees. When all this is over, when Sasha and the babies are safe and these Blattodeon roach fuckers dealt with, I will find out who the fuck I was and who the fuck killed me. And I’ll kill their ass.

  Or asses.

  The sun cuts through the trees, turns the gray morning suddenly resplendent. Kia, Reza, Riley, Sasha . . . Giovanni now, and Sylvia Bell. Squad 9. My team, however disparate and weird. That’s the present. My babies are the present. Sasha. I keep walking, heading south through the park and then across Park Slope as the rising sun throws my lopsided shadow across the block ahead.

  The Council’s misty embrace surrounds me as soon as I walk through the rusted door. The murmur of souls rises through the chilly air, a never-ending susurration, and I climb the metal stairwell up to the second floor, stroll down the dilapidated corridor, and enter the conference room, where Bartholomew Arsten sits at a long rotting wooden table beside Chairman Botus. Botus is massive, takes up half the table, and the first thing I think is that it’s rare he’d make a showing for something as menial as a job assignment.

  “Ah, Carlos.” Botus smiles with all his ghostly teeth. “Wonderful of you to show up.”

  Something is off.

  Botus stands, and I realize someone had been sitting behind him all this time.

  Someone alive.

  And then I realize who she is.

  “You’re on a special protective detail until further notice,” Botus says. “Carlos, this is Caitlin Fern. She’s very special to the Council. And she needs our help.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Kia

  Reza takes us to some greasy-spoon diner out in Bushwick that hasn’t been cleaned in eight centuries and doesn’t give a fuck. The eggs are bangin’, though, and the bacon’s just right. Reza and Gio both get something called the Lumberjack Smack, which turns out to be two of damn near everything on the menu.

  “People always ask me,” Reza says as she forks some more bacon in her, “how the fuck I eat so much and stay tiny.” She rolls her eyes.

  “I hate that question,” Gio says. He puts a fried egg on his whole-wheat toast and takes a huge bite. The yolk rains thick yellow drops over his plate. “People really want to act like everyone’s body works the same.” He shakes his head.

  “Exactly,” Reza says.

  “Well, if these aren’t two people I never thought I’d see in the same place at the same time,” an excited voice calls in a thick Creole accent from across the diner. Dr. Tijou makes her way past the other booths. She’s short, with one gray streak breaking her otherwise jet-black hair. “Gimme the Lumberjack Smack, Cathy,” she says to the old lady waiting tables. “Kia, right?” She grins down at me. I nod. Her smile goes all the way across her face. “My friend Dr. Voudou’s little helper. How is he?”

  “Baba Eddie’s alright,” I say.

  “And Carlos?”

  I tilt my head and shrug. “He’ll be alright. This is my cousin, Giovanni. Gio, this is Dr. Tijou, the best surgeon in the world.”

  “Stop,” Dr. Tijou says, extending her hand to Gio. He kisses it, charming bastard that he is, and then Reza says, “Sit.” They exchange kisses on the cheek, and then we get down to business.

  “Well, the Survivors are willing to talk,” Dr. Tijou says. “But they want to meet in the middle of Highland Park.”

  Reza raises an eyebrow. “I don’t like it.”

  “Like, the middle-middle,” Dr. Tijou says. “Not some field. They’re talking about way in that woodsy area.”

  “I really don’t like it.”

  Dr. Tijou shrugs. “The Survivors are some of the most skittish folks I know. The only reason they trust me is because I helped Sasha deliver the twins. And everyone trusts me.”

  “Why don’t you like it, Reza?” I ask.

  “It’s an ambush waiting to happen. We go in as is, yeah? But they pick the spot. They probably know it well, so for all we know the woods’ll be crawling with ’em. I mean, I’ve done some business out there, but it’s been a minute. We’re surrounded before we begin with no way out, no good sense of where the fuck we are, probably no cell reception. It’s a death trap.”

  “I am sure,” Dr. Tijou says, “that’s part of their logic. Not because they want to kill you but because they run a tight ship. They don’t trust you yet.”

  “I’d do the same thing,” Gio says.

  “Me too,” Reza says. “That’s what worries me.”

  • • •

  In the back of Reza’s Crown Vic, I put my head on Gio’s shoulder and close
my eyes. And it all comes back with his smell: that Gio smell—it’s just a hint of funk beneath whatever light cologne he’s wearing. The funk paints a picture: Gio, age fifteen, smile so wide his whole face is creased with it. He’s sitting in my living room, playing with Aunt DiDi’s Chihuahua. His T-shirt’s way too big for him and his hair is tucked beneath a baseball cap.

  That Gio is gone.

  I let him go.

  I mourned. I held on for so long and then I finally let him go and mourned. And I’d been mourning all along; mourning had become my friend, even if I tried to hold it at a distance. Because even if he wasn’t dead—and he wasn’t, he wasn’t, I told myself night after night until I didn’t anymore—he was still gone. So very gone. And the loss was a hole in me, and so I mourned, and eventually I released even the possibility of him showing up. And then he did show up, and I cried until I couldn’t breathe, from sorrow and from joy.

  And now his shoulder holds up my head. It’s real: flesh and blood, not some spook; it rises and falls with his breath. And he’s humming along with some salsa song Reza has on and looking out the window like it’s just another day, but it’s not.

  Gio is alive.

  And part of me wants to kill him for ever making believe he was dead.

  “What’s wrong?” Gio asks, and for a second I think he’s been reading my mind. It would be just like Gio to be a goddamn telepath on top of everything else. But no, my breathing’s gotten fast and labored and I hadn’t even noticed. I shake my head at him, tears worrying the edges of my eyes, because I don’t have the words to explain how happy and furious I am that he’s back.

  • • •

  Reza finds a spot on a suburban street near the park. She steps out of the Crown Vic and makes a call, mumbling with a fierce whisper into her earpiece. Then she pops the trunk and pulls out a duffel bag, which she slings around her shoulder.

  Gio looks at me, opens his mouth and closes it again when I shake my head. “I’m coming,” I say. “That’s the end of it.”

  “I’m not,” Dr. Tijou says happily. “But give a shout if someone gets shot or something. I got my stuff with me. Not that I can do much, eh? But hey—better than nothing.” She clicks on the radio and reclines her seat.