This man, what he’s lost. Trying to find the lure that will tease me to the surface. Into the air. Where I might drown.
I clear my throat, dry as dust.
—I get it, Chubby. But it doesn’t change things. She’s found some trouble on my side of the street, gone lost with the infected, I can’t help that. It’s bad news for her, but it’s got nothing to do with me. Hell, I didn’t even know you had a daughter.
He dips a hand inside his jacket, draws out a photograph pinched between his index and middle fingers.
—Would you like to see her?
I raise a hand.
—It won’t change anything.
He offers the photo.
—I have a father’s vanity.
I don’t take the bait.
He gives it a little shake, dancing the line in front of my face.
So I look, to get it over with, to say no one last time, to make him leave, to be alone again.
He raises his shoulders.
—I won’t say I was shocked, a man in my line, as you say. I certainly know all there is to know about the birds and the bees. Not exactly disappointed either. As little time as I’ve spent with the girl, I can’t afford to disapprove of her choices, not if I want to have any kind of relationship with her. But still, a father has feelings about these things. At first I thought she’d come to me for the obvious reason. If that had been the case, I could have solved her problem in any number of ways. But she didn’t consider it a problem at all. The young today are so very different than we were, eh, Joe?
I’m still looking at the picture. Young, very young and pretty girl, Chubby’s beautiful gold eyes, otherwise she must take after her mother. Slender limbs and face, but round in the middle. Say about seven months round.
Chubby nods.
—It makes a difference, Joe?
I don’t say anything.
He nods again.
—Evie said it would make all the difference to you.
Chubby knows everyone.
He knows a one-armed barber named Percy. Percy’s got a bad case of being a Vampyre. Runs with the Hood. One of Grave Digga’s people. How most people know him. But he runs sideways too, like most people deep in this life, runs connected in ways that can’t be seen.
Percy is Enclave.
He doesn’t hole up with the rest of them in that warehouse they keep downtown. Starving themselves, letting themselves be warped by the hunger of the Vyrus, striving for some kind of transmutation no one but them understands. Even so, he’s Enclave going way back. Way I gather, some years back when the Hood was coming together under the original man, Luther X, Percy got inspired. Felt the color of his skin more than the content of his blood. Left Enclave turf, split uptown. But like a man who left the church to fight a war on foreign soil for reasons that have nothing to do with his god, he can’t get the stink of religion off himself. Once Enclave, always Enclave. And he knows some things about what goes on with them, what goes down in their warehouse.
I know a little about what goes on in that place, myself.
I know a little about some of the people in that place.
Evie.
Girl with my jacket. Which is only right. She gave it to me.
Chubby’s tied both his handkerchiefs together so he can put them around Dallas’s head. Dallas himself is too fuzzy to get his fingers to tie the knot themselves. But not so fuzzy that he doesn’t remember who threw the concrete at him and put a gash in his forehead that is most definitely going to fiddle with his prettiness. He’s sitting on the ground, trying to throw me nasty looks, but his eyes keep going crossways, ruining the effect.
Chubby stands behind him, having gotten to his feet with just a little help, arranging the makeshift bandage so that it doesn’t pinch the boy’s ears.
—Her mother was a contract player from several years ago. When we still worked in VHS. The dark ages. Before instant gratification became imperative. To think porno was once a communal event. Stag parties. Adult theaters. Do you remember Times Square, Joe? Forty-second Street? The Deuce?
I remember the Deuce. The block of Forty-second between Seventh and Eighth. Wall-to-wall peeps, skin shops, XXX marquees. I remember being thirteen, things so loose back then I didn’t even have to pretend I was sneaking in, just put my money on the counter. Setting up shop in the back row. Hand jobs, five bucks a pop. Business overhead was a jar of Vaseline and a pack of Handi Wipes. Got myself through a whole summer of squatting that way. Somewhere in there was a bust, passed back to Child Services, another foster home. Back out the door after a few weeks. Now the Deuce is franchised end to end. I haven’t been there in years, it’s off my turf, but I’ve seen the pictures.
I’m not nostalgic. It’s no better or worse than it was. Different whores, different johns. Some people get off on fucking, some get off on fast food. People can ruin themselves however they want, it’s not my business.
But it is Chubby’s.
He spreads his arms.
—Adult film was for the aficionados in those days. Men who made an effort to seek it out. Or it was a right of passage. Boys with their collars turned up, trying to find out what their teachers were talking about in sex ed class. Looking to glimpse some tittie. Ass. A beaver shot. And getting so much more than they had imagined.
He lowers his arms.
—Now, entirely amateur. Not only do they all know what a rim job is by the time they’re eleven, but they’re considered uptight if they’ve not webcammed themselves giving and receiving one and posted it to their Facebook page.
I’m sifting gravel through my fingers, thinking about buried things, against my will.
—You were talking about your girl, Chubby. And how you found me.
He pats Dallas’s shoulder and moves away from him.
—I was, I was. Just illustrating a point about her mother. That, while she postdated the era of celluloid, she was nonetheless of a more civilized generation. And she raised our daughter well. My little girl is not one to be involved in sordid matters. Her predicament is an affair of the heart.
A cracked jewel of green bottle glass lies in my palm. Same color green as a bottle of Cutty Sark. I think about a drink.
—You want to tell me your girl’s no slut, just say so. You’re getting wordy in your old age, Chubby.
He raises his eyebrows.
—Joe, the way your boot bends when you squat, I’d say you’ve lost a toe. Your knee sounds like broken crockery when you walk. You have one eye.
—Your point?
He lowers his eyebrows.
—You ain’t the motherfucker to be talkin’ as to how a man is or isn’t agin’ his best.
I smile.
—Ah, there’s the Chubby Freeze I know.
He snorts and adjusts the knot of his tie.
—Well, bid him farewell. That is the only appearance he will be making in this concern.
I drop the bit of glass.
—How you found me. That’s my concern.
—Yes.
He reaches inside his jacket and takes out a leather humidor.
—While not of loose morals, my girl is adventurous. Romantic. Overly so. Not weepy about it, but a touch light-headed in her desire for something…poetic. And a child of her generation, she is also wired. She met a boy online; having chatted with him at length, she was not the type to balk at meeting him in person. In a public place, of course. She is no fool. And while that may not be the prologue one would expect for even the most modern interpretation of Romeo and Juliet, she did fall in love with him. The courtship, I gather, was brief. As is typical these days.
He slips the top from the humidor, pulling it loose with a slight pop.
—The boy.
He takes the end of one of the cigars between his fingers and draws it free.
—Was not.
He studies the length of the cigar, inspecting it for tears.
—He was not.
Satisfied with the quality of the cigar, he offers the
business end to Dallas, who bares his perfect teeth and nips away a tapered quarter inch.
Chubby grunts, thumbs a bit of leaf from the end of the cigar.
—The boy was not…typical.
He offers me the humidor.
—I don’t suppose?
I shake my head and roll another cigarette.
—Not my thing.
He nods, caps the humidor and puts it back inside his jacket, his hand coming out with a silver lighter roughly the size and shape of a .12 gauge shell.
—You’re missing out on a fine smoke.
I light my own.
—You were telling me the boy was infected.
He ignites the lighter, holds the end of the intense blue flame just below the end of the cigar and gives a few puffs, rotating the cigar to bring it evenly to life.
—Yes. That was the point I was driving at.
—And she found out.
He releases the button on the side of the lighter with a snap, the flame dies, and he wraps it in a fist.
—Yes, she did.
—And she dug it.
He takes the cigar from between his lips and lets loose a cloud.
—Against all better judgment, yes she did.
I stand up, brushing dirt from my backside, not that it makes me look any cleaner.
—A girl would have to be pretty adaptable to take something like that at point-blank and roll with it. I mean, tell a girl you’re a Vampyre, out of the blue, that’s generally an invitation to be considered a nut job. Most girls, they exit laughing or screaming. Depending on the type.
He doesn’t say anything.
I do.
—Unless she had some idea that things like that are real. She have some idea that things like that are real, Chubby?
He’s studying the cigar again.
—It is possible, that in an effort to entertain and impress her, that I may have told her one story too many. With too great a level of credibility.
He looks up from the cigar.
—Fathers, whether they admit it or not, do so want to be thought cool by their children. And vampires have quite the pop culture caché. Forbidden fruit of every shape and hue. I was able to suggest, without telling her more than the basics, that there might be more to the myth than capes and fangs or dewy teenage boys.
I start poking in some corners of the shanty, looking for odds and ends I’ve tucked here and there.
—Out of curiosity, you happen to know what kind of site they met on?
He makes a gesture with the cigar, sketching a vague notion in smoke.
—Something to do with damned or insatiable thirst or eternal languor or something. Dot com.
I find one of the things I’m looking for. Two small steel rings attached to each other by twenty-eight inches of braided steel wire. This I got from a tunnel camper. Urban explorer type. What he expected to use a wire saw for down here I can’t say. Maybe it was part of his normal camping kit. Maybe he thought he’d use it to saw his own leg off if it got pinned under something. Anyway, he made out OK. Never knew what knocked him on the head. Most likely never missed the pint I took from his veins. He was too well equipped and carried too much ID for me to empty him. Probably had a whole crew who knew he was going spelunking in the tunnels. Missing a day too long, search parties would have started. But the saw looked useful, so I pocketed it. Figured he be happy he woke up without having fallen and broken his neck. Wouldn’t notice one item gone.
I haven’t had occasion to use it yet, but the strangest things come in handy in my line.
I put the wire saw in my pocket.
—Damnedinsatiablethirsteternallanguor. Dot com. So fair to say she was looking for something specific.
He looks at the floor.
—Fair to say, yes, fair to say.
—And the boy. One of those infecteds likes to cruise Goth and vampire sites looking for a Lucy? He out trolling for someone he could tap for easy pints?
Chubby looks up.
—No. No. I don’t think so at all. I think, forgive me the sentimentality, I think the boy was looking for someone to talk to. He struck me as, if anything, annoyingly earnest. I think, perish the thought, that he was lonely. With, perhaps, some tendency to overplay the roll of doomed and undead, he was certainly feeling genuinely isolated. Confused. Desperate, I would say, for something resembling normalcy. I am not at all unacquainted with the type. My business draws them like flies. Young men and women, out of their depths, looking for something they can cling to. It has long been one of the hallmarks of my professionalism that I aggressively vet my applicants and accept only those who I trust to be most willing, able, and adaptive to the rigors of a life in porno.
It’s not actually bullshit. Everyone knows Chubby is a cut above pornmeister. No junkies. No self-mutilators. No bipolars. No chicken. He runs a clean shop. Hi-tone freaks who like to fuck on camera, and coldhearted pros. And he takes care of his people. Full-time staff and freelancers. Chubby doesn’t leave anyone to swing in the cold if a bust comes down. Or any kind of stalker trouble. I ran security on his studio more than once. I won’t lie and say it was a happy place, but I never found anyone shooting up to get loose for an anal gang bang, or being slapped around because they didn’t want to do a face fuck.
All in all, Chubby’s a gentleman scumbag.
I find the other item I was looking for. A one-foot length of bicycle inner tube packed tight with sand, stitched shut at both ends with heavy thread. Lighter than you expect when you heft it, it’ll drop just about anyone when you lay it across the back of their skull. It goes in the pocket opposite the wire saw.
—Sure then, you know a lost soul when you see one. The boy was a helpless kitten looking for acceptance in a cold world. So why’d he take your daughter somewhere you can’t find?
He shakes his head.
—It’s not me they ran from, Joe. The boy.
He brings the cigar to his lips, realizes it’s gone out and lowers it.
—The boy was pledged to the Coalition.
I’m looking at the gun I took from Dallas, checking to see if it’s anything I can rely on. I look up from it.
—Shit.
Chubby nods.
—He crossed onto Society turf to meet my daughter. And stayed.
—Shit.
He takes a step my way.
—Things up there. Joe. In the past, if I wanted to know anything about what was happening, it took an effort. Subtlety. One had to mind one’s Ps and one’s Qs. Simple awareness of the Vyrus was a threat. Now. It’s … hectic. Word of bizarre goings-on reach my ears unbidden. There are rumors. Not among the straight citizens, not yet. But at the borders and fringes. Things are being said. In barrooms, massage parlors, shooting galleries, after-hours clubs, street corners, and, I’d dare say, in police precinct rack rooms when the bottle is being passed about. Things are being seen. Disbelieved most often, but they are seen. And reported on. Blogs. The tabloids even. Serial killings unlike anything since Jack the Ripper. That is the tone. There is a palpable tension on the street. Anyone who lives close to the edge of things feels as if something is coming. The straights itch. A second shoe is expected. An ill wind. Metaphors of every kind. In an atmosphere such as that, it takes very little for tempers to flare.
The gun is OK. It’s an automatic. It’s black. The barrel has a hole at the end big enough for something serious to come out of it. The clip is loaded. And I can’t find Made in China stamped on it anywhere. It’ll do what it’s supposed to.
I stick it in my belt at the small of my back and pull the jacket down over it.
—What happened, Chubby? Straight.
—What happened.
He snaps the cigar in two pieces and lets them drop from his fingers.
—Terry Bird accepted the boy into the Society. He cannot compete with the Coalition in terms of troops and arms, but he is an effective propagandist. Young man crosses battle lines for love, to the only place where such love will b
e accepted. Society turf. Infected and uninfected.
I grunt.
I can hear Terry pitching it in my head. It’s, you know, Joe, it’s exactly what we’ve been talking about. A story of acceptance. This is the kind of thing, this is a uniting kind of thing. Or some shit like that. Playing with his John Lennon specs and his ponytail, selling his version of the revolution. Years of old blood dripping from his hands the whole time. A show I’ve seen before.
Chubby places the toe of one of his formerly well-shined shoes on half the broken cigar and grinds it into the dirt.
—It raised Dexter Predo’s ire, having one of his own raised up as a Society poster child. And then things became rather more complicated.
He places his hands on either side of his belly.
—She started to show. Needless to say, the idea of this baby has generated passionate debate. Bird seems to think it could be the thin edge that would allow him to take the Vyrus public. Predo sees the opposite. Interrace breeding has always been a taboo that takes many blows to shatter. A certain air of imminent danger crept into the debate. It appeared they might become targets for kidnapping or assassination.
He drops his hands from his belly.
—And they disappeared.
—And you called Percy.
—Someone I care deeply about is missing in the midst of Vampyre warfare. There is only one person I want looking for her. And that person has dropped from sight. So, yes, I called Percy. He knows people. And he is an old friend. I was born and raised in Harlem. When I was a small boy, before they went underground, the Hood were our Black Panthers.
—And he told you about Evie.
—He suggested there was a young woman, Enclave, who might have a line on you.
I shake my head.
—You went to the warehouse?
He takes a step back.
—Oh no. I am trying to find my daughter. Being eviscerated would not advance the cause. Percy spoke to the lady. And she came to see me.
Does my heart skip a beat? I can’t say. I don’t count all of them. But it seems so.
—You saw her?
He nods.
I don’t want to ask. I don’t want to ask. I don’t want to ask.
But I do.
—How’d she look?
My Dead Body Page 3
