Already Dead

by Charlie Huston

  —I'll pass.

  Behind me, she sighs.

  —Well, you're not the first.

  I pour a quick shot, down it and pour another before I return to my chair.

  —It was, I shudder to say it, '88 or '89? I was a club kid and he was slumming at Limelight. He was at a VIP table, behind the velvet rope and all that. I caught him looking at me a couple times. I thought he was attractive and, more to the point, I could tell that he had money. So I followed him into the bathroom and blew him. He came back the next night. And I followed him into the bathroom again. That was the beginning of our courtship. We kept it remarkably well concealed for the next two years. And when I was eighteen, we met, had a whirlwind romance, and married before the end of the year. By then I'd seen enough to know why he had fallen for me so hard, but I thought we'd bridged the gap and his attraction was now for me as a person. How profoundly naive. I got pregnant when I was nineteen. And that was probably the last time he ever fucked me. Too old, he said.

  She's sitting up now, her clothes more or less straight. She finished off my bottle and now she's drinking vodka from a silver flask she had in her purse.

  —I'm not certain what he did to bridge the gap until Amanda was . . . of age. His willpower in that area has never been great. Although he has always been very discreet. I will give him that. In any case, I don't believe he's been too successful with Amanda. –

  —Why?

  She upends the flask, empties it, and drops it on the couch.

  —You're certain you don't have anything else to drink, Joseph?

  I nod. She shrugs.

  —For the best, I'm certain. As to your question, he's not had great success with Amanda because I took her aside when she was ten and told her that her father would soon be trying to fuck her. Not the facts-of-life talk I had dreamed of having with my daughter, but I thought it best that she should be warned.

  She gets up and walks an overly precise straight line to the window and peeks through a crack in the curtain. The back of her blouse is stretched tight over tense muscles as articulated as those in her arms.

  —Don't suppose it ever occurred to you to just take her and leave?

  —I'm sure it will not surprise you to discover that I have not been what anyone would call a faithful wife. Not that Dale cares. But I have not been nearly as discreet as he has been. And he has the evidence to prove it. That's how he knew Dobbs in the first place. The good detective has been documenting my infidelities for my husband for several years. The man has probably seen me naked more often than any of my lovers.

  —So?

  She turns from the window.

  —If I try to take Amanda from Dale he will divorce me. He will destroy me. I will be kept from my daughter. And that will leave her alone. With him. I will not have that.

  She inhales sharply and clenches her jaw.

  —I think I'll be needing your bathroom now.

  I stand behind her and hold her hair as she kneels on the scummy tiles and throws up into the streaked toilet bowl. She turns her head and looks up at me.

  —You don't have to do that, you know. I have plenty of experience.

  So I drop her hair and leave her to clean up her own mess. Everything should be so easy.

  —May I get some water?

  She's standing in the bathroom doorway, face damp and eyes rimmed red.

  —I'll get it.

  She waves me down and walks to the sink.

  —My drunken seduction scene and its fallout are over, Joseph. I'm quite capable of filling a glass.

  She fills the glass, shows it to me as proof. Then she sits back on the couch and opens her handbag. I watch as she takes out her compact and looks at herself in the mirror.

  —Horrors.

  She begins reapplying her makeup. I look at my watch, it's after two and I still have things I need to take care of.

  —What about Whitney Vale?

  Her eyes flick from the mirror to me and back.

  —She's one of the kids Amanda had been living with in that school last summer. One of the, squatters, is it? Amanda was attached to her, wanted her to come stay with us. Well, that was out of the question. We told her she wasn't even to see any of those people. Naturally she did what any teenager would do and threatened to run away again if she couldn't see Whitney.

  She throws up her free hand in surrender.

  —Needless to say, I know where that kind of rebellion ends. It ends giving blow jobs to older men in nightclub bathrooms. I told her that Whitney could visit, but that she was not to spend time with her outside of the town house. I knew she would, but I hoped to keep a pretence of parental supervision. Doubly so when I met Ms. Vale.

  —Why?

  She traces a perfect line of scarlet around the edges of her lips.

  —She's a tramp, Joseph, a tramp and a thief who was using my daughter's friendship to get money and anything else she could snatch on her visits to our home. I recognized her type the first time she came through the door. It was, after all, like looking into a mirror.

  Her hand freezes and she stares into her compact.

  —A seventeen-year-old mirror, but a mirror nonetheless.

  —Your husband?

  She pats powder onto her still flushed cheeks.

  —Oh, yes, he saw that quality in her as well. And believe me, she made certain that he knew she was of legal age, despite her appearance very much to the contrary.

  —She came on to him?

  —Mmm. Came on to him. No, it was more that she performed for him. Flounced, let her skirt fly up a little too high, touched him a bit too intimately. Acted, in general, as though she were the fifteen-year-old that she appeared to be.

  —How did he handle it?

  She takes a last look in the mirror, flicks a strand of hair from her forehead, and snaps the compact shut.

  —My husband is not a figurehead, Joseph. He is a gifted executive and businessman. He is also a medical doctor and epidemiologist. He did not simply found Horde Bio Tech, he is its chief researcher. He is devoted to his work and rarely at home. Then Whitney started paying us visits. For the last year it has become more and more common for him to work at home or to stop in for an unexpected lunch. I was not shocked by his interest in her, only that he allowed it to be seen by others. Then again, it really isn't all that surprising.

  —Why?

  —Surely you noticed.

  —What?

  —The resemblance? To my daughter. I think they even made a game of it when they met strangers, saying they were related.

  I remember Missy telling me she thought the Vale and Horde girls were sisters.

  —What did your daughter think about Whitney's little act with your husband?

  She takes her cell phone from her bag.

  —Amanda is a very sophisticated fourteen-year-old, but she is a fourteen-year-old. I'm not certain the threat of Dale's advances is entirely real to her. Or undesired, for that matter. It would not be unusual for her to be sexually curious about her father. In the abstract.

  She opens her phone and starts to dial.

  —I'm going to call my car.

  She makes the call and tells her driver she's ready to be picked up.

  —Amanda loved Whitney. I think she thought Whitney's flirting was a joke, a way of making fun of her father, which pleased Amanda no end. Whitney never behaved like that around anyone else. That was the inspiration for Amanda's schoolgirl crush, Whitney was so mature and street-smart. She thought Whitney was having a laugh at Dale's expense, and I suppose she was, but she was also hoping it might pay off.

  —Did it?

  She gets up and begins straightening her clothes, brushing away lint from my couch, smoothing wrinkles.

  ---I don't know for certain. But something happened.

  —What?

  —Perhaps two weeks ago Whitney stopped coming over, and Dale stopped spending so much time at home. And things were somewhat normal.

  I don't
bother asking if she thinks her husband had anything to do with Vale's death. I don't have to. After all, the killer's hand is holding the cigarette I'm smoking.

  Her cell rings once.

  —That's my car, Joseph.

  I get up.

  —Whitney stopped coming over around two weeks ago. So what happened between then and when your daughter took off?

  She walks to the door and waits for me there. I come down the hall, open the locks, and we walk to the street door.

  —I came home one day and she and Dale were fighting. They stopped when I came in. Amanda ran to her room and Dale retreated to his office.

  —What'd you do?

  —I went to Amanda's room and asked her if her father had touched her.

  —What'd she say?

  —She said, Moooom. The next morning she was gone.

  —And when you heard about Whitney you didn't call the cops? You didn't worry more about your daughter?

  —No, Joseph. Something of that nature occurs and we know who to call. We called Mr. Predo. And he called you. The best man for the job is what he said, I believe.

  She points at the door.

  —Please.

  I open the door and we stand there.

  —You still want me to find her?

  —Why wouldn't I?

  —From what you said she might be better off wherever she is.

  She glances at her limo, back at me, and puts a hand lightly on my shoulder.

  —Find her, Joseph.

  She leans close, her breasts press against my chest.

  —Find her and bring her home. If she's out there, he might find her first.

  She kisses the edge of my mouth.

  —And his interests are becoming . . . baroque.

  My voice husks in my throat.

  —What the hell does that?

  She opens her mouth, bites off what was about to come out, and shakes her head.

  —Find her.

  She wipes her thumb over the smudge of lipstick at the corner of my mouth, walks to the limo, and it takes her away.

  Baroque.

  I turn to go back inside and see Evie standing on the sidewalk just up the street. She stares at me for a second, turns and starts to walk away. But she stops. She turns back around. And she flips me off. Then she's gone.

  I can't go after her now. I can't be in a scene where there'll be yelling and screaming and tears. Not when I'm this hungry. Instead I stand there and wish the guy in the bathroom at CBGB had finished the fucking job.

  It's after four. I need to get my works together. I go down to the basement room and open the safe. I take out the thin leather wallet and unzip it. There's a new pair of rubber gloves inside, a tiny bottle of alcohol and some swabs. I fill the other slots and pockets of the kit with clean needles, some fresh surgical tubing and a couple unused IV bags. I close and lock the safe and slip the wallet inside my jacket. I have a few hours before sunrise to get some blood. I need to get it now so I can be at full strength tomorrow night when I go after Dale Horde.

  There are rules. They aren't written down, but you follow them anyway.

  1) Don't hunt where you live.

  2) Don't get greedy.

  3) No gruesome kills.

  4) Don't tap anyone who will notice it.

  5) No double taps.

  6) Don't hunt Clan turf without a permit.

  7) No witnesses.

  All these rules can be summed up in a single phrase: Don't shit where you eat. But that's easier said than done.

  The main thing is, it takes time. Gonna go for a kill? You need time. Time to find the mark. That means someone who won't be missed soon, or so much that it raises a stink. Time to take care of the mark. That means privacy to tap the mark out, drain 'em dry. The human body holds around five to five-and-a-half quarts; that's ten or eleven pints. Only rookies or thrill seekers, like the fuck who infected me, go for a kill and leave anything in the mark. And when you're done, you got a corpse that's been sucked dry to the bone. Something like that draws a little attention. So you need a place to get rid of it, somewhere it will never be found.

  Say you're like me, say you don't like the kill, say you think it's bad for business. Why is it bad for business? The Coalition is far and away the largest Clan, and Terry tells me there are just over two thousand members. All together, he figures there's four thousand of us on the island. Most slobs, the rank and file in the Coalition, bottom-feeding Rogues, small outfits like the Family down in Little Italy, most get by on a pint a week. Let's go with the low end, call it an average of four thousand pints a week.

  That's five hundred gallons. That's over three hundred and fifty corpses a week to keep us going. Even Brooklyn doesn't have a murder rate that high. So keeping the kills down is in everybody's best interest. Especially mine.

  So you go for the tap. But that takes time, too. Got to find a mark you can knock out. That means someone you can drug or get drunk or just bash on the head. Got to make sure you can get the mark somewhere private. That usually means someplace they're comfortable, which means they're maybe comfortable with you, which means maybe they know you, which definitely means extra risks. Or it means finding the right alley at the right hour, the kind of place where you know the right kind of mark will be coming around. And what about those needle tracks? What does a non-IV-drug-user think of the new holes in his arm when he wakes up? So you have to hide the tracks, find a good vein on the ass or in the armpit. That's why junkies are a favorite. They're easy to get alone, all it takes is a dime bag. They nod as soon as they shoot up. And they're not likely to remember who the guy was that got them high or notice another track. The problem is they get tapped so much you have to worry about double tapping, and it's never a good idea to push your luck by hitting the same mark more than once.

  Some guys got someone special. They got a Renfield or a Lucy that keeps them well fed and loves it. Those freaks just open their veins and let their owners fill up. They can only do it about four times a month, and that's pushing it, but it's still a good deal. Like having your own milk cow. There's other options. Guys get jobs at blood banks and hospitals, keep themselves stocked and sell a little on the side, as well. I have a hookup like that, but I'm already into him for a few grand and he won't be looking to front me anything more on credit until I pay off. Besides, he's like any other connection, never there when you need him in a hurry.

  The main thing is you have to remember the numbers. Manhattan has a population of over eight and a half million. And there are four thousand of us. The odds are kind of against you.

  Terry thinks the Coalition owns their own blood bank, thinks they have it outside the city, like an offshore account. He thinks they buy blood from banks around the country through blinds and cutouts, and then bring it into the city to feed their little legion. The rest of us have to walk on our toes and remember those numbers: eight and a half million vs. four thousand. We don't stand a chance.

  So don't shit where you eat.

  I'm shitting where I eat tonight.

  I don't have a choice. I got to hit something quick. I'd like to hit a junkie. That would be the safest deal. But for that I need to have some junk to bait the mark, and I'm not holding. I could try and score and then head for a shooting gallery I know on Ludlow, but I just don't have the time. So it looks like a tap. An unplanned tap. A big turd on my dinner table.

  I'm starting to get antsy. I feel little tingles and itches and I'm having trouble staying focused and the booze I drank is doing nothing to keep me mellow. It's the Vyrus coming on. Once it hits I won't be sleeping or thinking about anything else until it's fed. Soon I'll be talking to it, bargaining with it, making promises if it'll just give me a little peace. I have to deal with this now, have to get right and get some rest, have to be fresh tonight when the sun goes down.

  'Cause I think I have it figured now, not all of it, but pieces. The piece where Dr. Dale Horde is fucking Whitney Vale I got figured. The piece where Amanda
Horde finds out her dad is

  fucking her friend, freaks and splits, I got figured. And that's enough for me to go after Horde. 'Cause the other thing I got figured is that he's the one had Dobbs taken care of. Dobbs found something out, say he found out about Horde banging Vale and tried a little blackmail. That's about his speed. Horde gets rid of him and cleans out his files. And somewhere in those files is something that can tell him where his daughter is. Marilee was worried about the wrong thing; it's not about keeping Amanda away from him, it's about getting her back. Figure he's got her already, and that means she's on the clock. I don't know where the carrier gets into it, but that's one more thing the fucker's gonna tell me when I start in on him.

  So here I am, walking the streets at five in the morning, watching the pale line of blue at the tops of the buildings, looking like just another sad-case junkie trying to get lucky.

  I see my mark.

  It's not the kind of thing I like, but it'll have to do. A girl in her early twenties wearing last night's party clothes, clearly doing the walk of shame home from some guy's apartment. Her eyes are dull and she's running her fingers along the sides of the parked cars, trying to keep her drunken balance. We're on 1lth between B and C. Just up ahead, a brownstone is being gutted and made over for condos. Scaffolding canopies the sidewalk and a thin plywood fence screens the ripped-out facade of the first floor. I can catch her in that dark tunnel, kick through one of the boards, tap her in the building, and the construction guys will find her in an hour and call the cops. It's a crappy job, but hell, I'm probably doing the chick a favor getting her off the street before some nasty piece of shit grabs her and rapes her.

  I come up behind her and whack her on the back of the head. I give her a good straight shot, use the pad of muscle at the base of my open hand. Her head snaps forward and her brain bangs against the front of her skull and she goes limp. She's so gone I barely had to hit her. I catch her as she goes down, lay her out on the sidewalk, get a grip on one of the four by eight plywood sheets that make up the fence, and wrench it loose. I scoop up the girl, get her inside, scrape the plywood back into place and get to work.