by Chuck Wendig
Mookie grunts: a wordless answer of, not sure.
Around a mouthful of bread, Werth says, “Strange. The Boss doesn’t usually deal with… that type.”
“Times are changing.”
“Hope they don’t change out from under us.”
Mookie shrugs. “I gotta go.”
4
Cerulean. The bright blue mineral vein shot through the prehistoric schist of the Great Below. Equal parts pigment and drug. It goes by many names: Peacock Powder, Truth Talc, the Straight Dope, Blue Jay (or just, “Jay”), Bluebird or Blue Butterfly (or simply “BB”), Blue Mascara, Cobalt, Azure. But many just call it – and the effects it engenders – the Blue Blazes. Users smudge some of the blue powder on the temples to bring on effects that include: preternatural strength, preternatural toughness, as well as a wiping away of the illusions that keep mortal men from seeing the truth of the denizens of the Underworld. In first-time users the Blue Blazes create an adrenalin rush and an eerie, powerful focus – a high that peaks with the initial use and is never again matched. Blazeheads are said in this way to “chase the blue” or “hunt the peacock”. Many never know that the visions they sometimes see are true – they believe them to be by-products of the drug, hallucinations that accompany the feelings of invulnerability and clarity. As a drug it’s quite rare and fetches a high price among those who know of its existence. The Organization controls Cerulean. Or, at least, they think they do.
– from the Journals of John Atticus Oakes, Cartographer of the Great Below
A passing subway train shakes the walls. Fluorescent lights swing.
As they do, the shadows of the room move – shadows of crooked card tables, of antique scales, of the little towers of tins that tilt and teeter as the train passes.
Once the noise has calmed down, the half-man, Octavio, says, “C’mon, man. Death’s Head isn’t real, Mookie. You know that.”
Mookie’s not Blazing right now: if he were, he’d see a man with hair like braided vines, with skin like tree bark and fingernails like rose-thorns. Octavio’s a half-and-half, like Werth: but, while Blind, all Mookie sees is a broad-shouldered black man with long, puffy dreads going halfway down his back. Behind him, a couple other workers – ex-Mole People – pull out a few softball-sized hunks of Cerulean, the blue of the pigment an unearthly hue, here in the bright lights of the secret room not far from the Brooklyn Bridge Station.
Mookie shrugs. “I know. But I was told to ask.”
The ex-Moles use the bottom of plastic buckets to crush the Cerulean. They pulverize it to a powder. They measure it out into neat little piles. The piles go onto scales and then into little unmatched tins. Each equaling one ounce of Blue. Rumor has it it’s starting to catch on with rich kids and celebrities: folks who’ve finally caught wind that there’s some secret hush-hush drug out there, some trip-balls hallucinogen that makes you “see things” and “feel like you could take over the world.”
If Blue really catches on after all these years, it may be time to upgrade from little operations like this one. Mookie has a hard time envisioning rows and rows of trailers in some abandoned Jersey lot like they’re cooking meth or unbundling bales of weed. Besides, it’s not like Blue is in endless supply down here: you can always grow more marijuana or make more meth. Cerulean is like gold: you find the vein, you tap it, then it’s gone. It doesn’t come back. And one day they’re gonna get tapped out.
Speaking of that, Octavio says:
“Heard you found a new vein, bruh.”
Mookie nods. Reflexively he reaches for the leather satchel he carries over his shoulder and pulls it tight. He trusts Octavio, but the other Moles – they pulverize the Blue just hoping to get a taste. Addicts, all of them. “Under the Garment District, yeah. The Hell’s Kitchen crew knows their shit pretty well. They’re the ones that found it.”
You use Blue to find Blue – when you Blaze, you can sense more Blue through the walls. Like a heartbeat dully thudding behind the rock. A vein in every sense.
“No more problems with the gobs?” Mookie asks.
Octavio shakes his head; his dreads stay still as his head moves. “Nah, bruh. Thanks for saving our bacon.”
Mookie looks down at his scabbed over knuckles. “It’s fine.”
“They’re gettin’ worse, though. The gobbos. All riled up and shit.”
“I know.” Before Octavio can continue down this topic, Mookie asks again: “You sure you haven’t heard nothing about the Purple? No Death’s Head anywhere?”
“Nah. But I know I guy who knows a guy who got a hold of some of the Red.”
“Bullshit.” Always a friend of a friend story.
“For real! Said that shit’s like bath salts had a baby with steroids or something, man. Makes you go crazy. He went nuts. Tore up his mother’s house. Ate her dog.”
“Ate her dog.”
“Scout’s fuckin’ honor, yo.”
“You were a Scout?”
“Do I look like a damn Boy Scout to you?”
“I dunno, Octavio. Go back to work. You hear anything about Death’s Head–”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll call you.”
It’s all a myth. The Five Occulted Pigments. Sacred blah blah blah. Way Mookie sees it isn’t much different than talking about Jesus or Buddha or any of that other stuff: yeah, maybe there’s a grain of truth in that bag of rice, but for the most part, it’s all stuff people make up to feel better about all the other stuff they don’t understand. The stories folks tell about the Great Below – ancient gods in at the heart of the Labyrinth, mystical mineral pigments nobody’s ever seen but everybody’s got a story about, monsters that folks have only ever seen once – they’re all just that. Stories.
And Mookie doesn’t have time for stories. But Casimir Zoladski, he’s got his brain wrapped around one such story the way a car wraps around a telephone pole – it’s inextricable. He’s gonna be the Boss one day. So Mookie’s doing the deed. He won’t find anything, but hopefully Casimir will one day say, “Good job”, and maybe give him another couple crews, or maybe make him a proper lieutenant instead of a soldier, or best of all, just let him retire with one last suitcase full of money.
Mookie asks everybody he can ask. He knows a couple rock-flesh Trogbodies that hang out at a boxing gym in Brooklyn: Morg has a clumpy basalt body and he’s strong, but slow. His mate, Gannog, is taller, a little leaner, a body of all iron-blue limestone. Gannog’s quick on his feet, Morg is slow. Better at wrestling than boxing. Mookie shows up and the two of them are training – all the humans of the gym know them as Morgan and Gary, don’t know that they’re monsters, don’t know that they go down into the dark when night falls and sleep together by merging with the rock.
When he asks about Death’s Head, Morg says it’s all a lie. Gannog’s on the other end of the spectrum: he’s a believer. He says he sometimes hears the whispers of the Hungry Ones echoing up through the tunnels of the Tangle like someone talking through a cardboard paper towel tube. Says that the old gods make Caput Mortuum – sometimes they call it the Violet Void. Says that some folks claim it’s not even a proper Pigment in the rock. Then the two of them go on to talk about the other colors, too: Red’s real bad news, they heard tell of a quartzite Trogbody who got hold of some Golden Gate, but it didn’t do anything when he ate it, whatever, all crap, none of it useful.
After that, as afternoon settles in, Mookie grabs a couple tacos from a taco truck and heads to see a couple kooks from the Skein, one of the lesser and more harmless cults of zealots who venerate the Great Below. The Skein contains a bunch of rich-folk academic-types who think that the power of the Underworld is to show humans the way to enlightenment – something about men and women “walking the Labyrinth in their own hearts” and “confronting Satan in his own house”, which is all well and good except Mookie’s never met Satan or Lucifer or anybody in the Deep Downstairs who would claim the title.
They invite him into their loft space in Chelsea and he asks
them about Death’s Head and of course they sit him down and give him some tea that tastes like they filtered water from a potted plant through a jockstrap stuffed with old gym-socks, a tea that has “live and active cultures… oh, and love.” Then they want to give him all the academic foo-faw, all the wisdom of the ages that Caput Mortuum is Latin for “worthless remains” and that in the world of painting and also in alchemy the pigment is iron oxide on hematite, though did Mookie also know that Caput Mortuum sometimes refers to a brown pigment which was made from ground-up mummies and–
None of this matters, so Mookie gives them their gym-sock tea back and moves on.
By the time night falls, he’s talked to a couple amateur spelunkers, a few Blue addicts, a Snakeface named Sirko (they always have S-names, those slithery sneaky pricks), and a homeless squid-faced half-and-half who calls himself “The Bishop of New York City.” He hits the few mystical bazaars and visits a few bars. Asks a lot of questions.
Everybody says the same thing. Death’s Head is a myth.
Eventually, evening settles on the city. Night closes like an iron door.
Mookie has a few more options. None of them he much likes.
He could go see Smiley. Chinatown Snakeface, sells information. Under Organization protection because, well, he pays for it. And he’s good to have around. But that doesn’t mean he’s trustworthy. No Naga is. Some Snakefaces are assassins in that they’ll kill your body, but Smiley, he’s a character assassin – he’d sell your social security number and your mother’s anal virginity for a half-a-secret.
So, for now: no Smiley.
Which means it’s time to go under. Into the Great Below. The Deep Downstairs.
It’s time to descend.
Mookie runs crews of Mole Men. Or, to be politically correct, Mole People, since a good half of them are women.
Now, in the city of New York, you have Mole People, and then you have Mookie’s Mole People. The city has a whole contingent of homeless lunatics who live under the city – a lot of them live in a ramshackle shantytown under the Freedom Tunnel. They put up little plywood houses and burn barrels and live with the rats and the dogs. Some of them know about the Underworld – what goes on deeper beneath their rag-swaddled feet – but a lot of them don’t. Mookie’s Mole People know. It’s their job to know.
The work of the Mole Men is straightforward: they live down in the dark, away from the light. They track gobbo movements. They keep their ears to the walls. And most importantly, they find and dig veins of Blue. In payment: they get a little money and a free supply of the Peacock Powder. (Which in turn helps them find more Blue.)
They’re all addicts.
Some are insane.
Mookie doesn’t like dealing with them, but it’s his job. A soldier doesn’t usually run a crew, but Werth sure as hell doesn’t want this part of the life. He doesn’t come down here. And it’s not like he and Werth are a part of the usual hierarchy, anyway.
So, Werth delegates. To Mookie.
Once Below, Mookie canvasses the Moles. Many as he can find. He finds the Hell’s Kitchen crew first: they’re a good bunch. Solid. Stable. Dependable. Four-Top leads that crew: big black shambling dude, was once one a waiter at several of the hottest, trendiest restaurants in the city. Then he got hit by a cab. Knocked his brain funny. Funny enough where he can’t wait tables but not so funny he can’t run a gang of Moles.
Sometimes, Mookie brings him charcuterie – a little salami, a little lardo.
He finds Four-Top and his crew working on the Hell’s Kitchen vein, chipping hunks of Cerulean out of black stone under the swimmy light of a couple camping lanterns. He sees Mookie, he comes up, gives a fist-bump–
“Hey, hey, whatchoo got, Mookie the Meat Man?”
Mookie knows what he wants. Mookie shrugs, shakes his head. “I don’t got any meat for you, Four-Top. Next time. I promise.”
Four-Top makes a pained face, holds his fists to his rag-swaddled chest and drops to his knees. “You’re killing me, Mook! You’re killing me.”
Mookie tells him that he knows. Then tells him what he’s looking for.
“Death’s Head’s just a dream,” Four-Top says. “People get lost down here lookin’ for that shit. It don’t exist.”
Behind him, the Moles continue working at the vein, pulling chunks out of the wall and dropping it into a rusty Red Ryder wagon, ka-gung. A couple of them stare at Mookie from under ratty bangs or dark scarves. He knows two of them: Benny Scafidi’s got a winky eye and a poochy belly like he’s eight months pregnant. Next to him is the Mole who calls herself “Jenny Greenteeth”. Curiously, her teeth aren’t green but rather, the color and consistency of melted nubs of black licorice. They want to see if he’s going to treat them with a little taste of the Blazes. Mookie just gives them a get back to work look and they quick pretend like they never saw him in the first place.
“Tell you what I did see,” Four-Top says, eye twitching. He leans in, so the others don’t hear: “I saw this thing, yo. It came with a pack of goblins, right? Looked like the cloak off the Grim Reaper, just a black blank space, like a… I dunno what. Shiny eyes and long fingers. Floated there. I hid and then, boom, they was gone.”
“Hrm,” Mookie says. Normally he wouldn’t trust a story like that. But while Four-Top might be twitchy, he’s trustworthy. And, surprisingly, not hooked on the Blue. Some guys control it. Some don’t, or can’t. Four-Top handles it. Mookie does, too – though even now he feels the need for Blue crawling through him like ants through a tunnel. He’s just lucky enough he doesn’t have to give into it. Some folks, they get a taste for it and need more and more and more. Some’ll even kill for a tin.
Which is why it’s important to have loyal crews like this one. Once in a while, the Moles try to steal what’s in the walls. That’s where guys like Four-Top come in. They tell Mookie and Mookie steps in. Might break some fingers. Pop off some kneecaps, use them as candy dishes. They get paid in Blue if they play nice. They get paid in pain if they take more than they’re owed.
“Never seen one,” Mookie says. “But I’ll keep my eyes out.”
“I could feel it, yo. Thing was like a… hole in space with a pair of eyes. Like it wanted to suck me up, vacuum-style. I hid behind some busted-ass boulders. Thing that got me was, the gobbos followed behind like it was leading them somewhere.”
“Gobbos don’t like to be led.”
“Damn straight.”
It’s strange. Still, could’ve been a trick of the eyes. Easy to lose your way down here, think you’re seeing something you’re not. Especially the deeper you go. You leave the Shallows and wander around the Tangle for a few days, every shadow jumps out at you, every glint of light on wet stone is a pair of eyes, every underground river has shapes swimming beneath the milky waters. Once Mookie was down here and he swore he saw his wife – er, ex-wife – Jess. That’s how this place is: it makes you see crazy shit.
Mookie tells Four-Top to keep an ear to the ground for anything. Another “reaper-cloak” sighting, any hints of Death’s Head, whatever.
Then, tired, Mookie ascends back up out of the Underworld. He’s got boltholes and doorways everywhere, some everybody knows about, others only for him. This one takes him up through a shattered piece of old sewer where the bricks are the color of old blood. It dumps him out into the basement of an Irish bar – McGlinchey’s – on the Lower East Side.
It’s night. The city’s lighting up with night time traffic. Streaks of brake lights. Bleary headlights. Honking. A whiff of perfume. Club kids shuttling past.
Mookie’s tired. And hungry again.
Tomorrow, it continues. For tonight, home.
Mookie sits at the bar. Sipping a Yuengling, eating some blood sausage. The TV’s on: some bullshit sports game. Mookie doesn’t give a shit about any kind of sports and usually he’d change the channel, watch an old WWII movie on AMC or maybe pop on the Food Network and see what they’re cooking up. But now he’s zoning out.
&nb
sp; The day bugs him like a hangnail. He can’t quit tugging on it. The Boss with his cancer. The man, Candlefly and what was surely a Snakeface associate. Casimir’s request. Four-Top spotting that black shadowy thing.
And over all of it, his daughter. Nora. Looking down like he’s trapped in the belly of a big iron cauldron and she’s the witch stirring the soup. Standing here just last night. She’d known the Boss was sick. Said something big was coming. Then she poisoned him.
For months he thought she’d quieted down. Gone dark. Maybe even gone home. Not that he’d bothered to check. Now she’s back. Messing with him again. Messing with his life, his work. With the Organization.
On the bar top, his phone. He knows he should pick it up. Call his ex-wife, Jess. Tell her about Nora. They could talk. He could check in. Maybe she doesn’t hate him anymore. Or maybe the hate has quieted, like a campfire gone to gray ash.
He pulls out an old picture from behind the bar. Pops out the thumbtack that kept it hanging there. The photo’s faded. Fraying on the edges. A Polaroid. Little blurry. Twenty years ago, wasn’t it? Coney Island. Bleary carnival lights in the background. Mookie smiling. (When was the last time he smiled?) Looking thinner, too. His arms had shape – biceps under white T-sleeves like a mountain range under a blanket of snow. Now they’re just big hams. He’s still strong but… well.
And Jess – goddamn, so beautiful. She always reminded him of autumn. Lips painted like the leaves fallen off a red maple. Hair the color of apple cider. Freckles like the flecks of cinnamon floating in the mug. He grunts. Reaches over, tacks the picture back.
Looks at the phone.
Call her.
5
The Sandhogs. Local 147. The unsung architects of New York City’s past, present, and future. The men of that union are the ones that go hundreds of feet below the city and they dig. They dug all the water tunnels. They dug all the subway tunnels. They sank the caissons for the Brooklyn Bridge. For a long time they owned the underground. That is, of course, until they opened a hole to hell in 1976. That happened at the start of the biggest Sandhog project yet: Water Tunnel #3, a tunnel 800 feet below the surface of Manhattan that would run 60 miles upstate to pull water from a new reservoir. They’d never gone deeper. They had no idea what waited for them there, but they would soon find out what horrors lurked beneath the schist.
