My Dead Body

by Charlie Huston

  I sling the blade under my arm.

  —Sure thing. And thanks for the tip. I’m thinking the same move would work on someone’s neck.

  He considers me, giving a look like he’s trying to figure if an abstract painting has been hung upside down.

  —Was that a threat of some kind?

  I drop the saw in my pocket.

  —Hell no. Just, I like to see the utility in things.

  We’re walking to the stairwell at the corner of the garage.

  —We are alike in that, if nothing else.

  He stops.

  —Do you have a watch?

  —No.

  He looks at the phone again.

  —No matter. Synchronization is unnecessary. We will begin our operation sometime after midnight. That gives you as little as three hours, but perhaps more.

  I’m trying to roll another smoke.

  —So this is a precision op then.

  He lifts a hand.

  —It is quite precise.

  He drops the hand to his side.

  —I simply have no interest giving you the precise details.

  I nod.

  —Wise.

  —Yes.

  He brushes his hair from his forehead again.

  —Indeed, we might simply be using you to open the door. You may find us at your heels. Perhaps we have no intention of executing a raid at all. The Coalition owns this garage. This could all be a drill. My only interest may be in sending you to your death inside the Cure house. There might be several tiny listening devices tucked into your clothing. Placed while you were blacked out. I could, at the end of this sentence, break into maniacal laughter and have you dragged back to the floor so that I may complete whittling you to a trunk. But, for the sake of argument, you may as well assume that you have as little as three hours to lead the pregnant girl out. Or secure her within the building.

  The new smoke is a little better than the last couple, giving me hope for the future. I light it.

  —As long as we have a clear framework for how we’re handling this, I’m cool.

  He opens the door to the stairs.

  —On your way then.

  I tilt my head to him.

  —The way we always work something out, Predo, you’d never guess how much we’re looking forward to killing each other.

  I step past him and he puts his hand in the middle of my back.

  —Then let us put an end to any misconceptions.

  He pushes and I go down a half flight, those two ribs that didn’t mend right snapping for the second time in a couple hours.

  He waves two enforcers into the stairwell.

  —I think someone should be chasing you. Combined with your general state of disarray and mutilation, it will make whatever tale of woe you tell that much more convincing.

  I’m still on my ass, holding my ribs.

  He brushes his hand at me.

  —Best to scamper, Pitt. For the sake of absolute verisimilitude, I’ve instructed them to kill you if they do in fact catch you.

  I get up.

  The enforcers start moving their lips, silently.

  Predo points down.

  —Do hurry, they will only count to fifteen before they begin their pursuit.

  Footsteps on the stairs above me.

  I save whatever I have left to say and get moving.

  The sidewalks outside the parking garage have that same abandoned feel as the ones around Morningside Park. The vibe is clearly in the air. People who don’t live here take a look and figure they can walk a little farther and cross east or west a block away. The people who have to get to their front doors do little more than that. Walk quickly from the corner to the stoop, key in hand. Dog owners pull their mutts down the street, dragging them at the ends of their leashes if they pause to piss at the base of a dying tree.

  But there are a few people about, heads down, minding their own, marching home or quickly to the corner where the air doesn’t feel as threatening, and those few people, they slow the enforcers to a trot when they follow me onto the street. Another time they might just barrel after me, but with the action ready to go down, they’re trying to play it cool.

  Not me.

  I don’t know if they’ll really kill me if they get their hands on me, but I don’t want to find out. So I run as fast as my bad knee, my gimped toe and my broken ribs will let me, right up the steps to the front door of the Cure house where I start by pressing the buzzer and, with the enforcers closing ground, graduate to pounding the door with my fist. The complete one. Because I figure it will be louder.

  —Fuck off!

  Said through a suddenly opened peep door just big enough for me to see the mouth behind it.

  The enforcers are three stoops up the street.

  I lean close to the peep.

  —You guys got trouble coming.

  The peep snaps shut.

  I kick the door.

  The enforcers are two stoops away.

  The peep opens and the barrel of a shotgun pokes out.

  —Fuck! Off!

  The amputation blade drops from its sheath into my hand and I slip it into the barrel of the gun.

  —Pull the trigger, fuckface.

  Enforcers are one stoop away.

  The guy inside tries to pull the shotgun back and I grab the barrel with what’s left of my left hand. Not the best grip, two fingers and a palm, but I put my back into it.

  —Let me the fuck in or there’s gonna be blood on your doorstep and cops in your ass.

  The enforcers are at the bottom of the stoop, hands in jackets.

  The door opens, my grip on the shotgun swinging me inside. I whip the blade out and turn toward the door and my view of the enforcers is cut off as it slams shut and someone gets a good shot on the back of my neck with the butt of their shotgun and I hit the deck and the barrel is in my face again, but I’ve lost my grip on my blade and I don’t feel like sticking one of my fingers in the thing because I’m running a little low.

  —Don’t fucking move!

  I don’t.

  —Who the fuck are you?

  It’s funny what being chased will do to you. Get you all out of sorts and scrambled. Make you focus just on what’s in front of you, just what you see in the tunnel vision of the moment. Like the barrel of a shotgun in your face can plain blot out the sun. Your own heartbeat can drown out thunder. The smell of pepper juice coating your clothes can swamp the odor of a well-known pomade.

  But I’m evening out now, with just the shotgun to worry about and no enforcers drooling over the prospect of shooting me in the back.

  I’m seeing and I’m hearing and I’m smelling.

  The guy with the gauge jams it closer to my face in the dark hallway.

  —Who the fuck are you?

  I go ahead and put a finger in the barrel.

  —What ho, Phil, you don’t recognize a friend?

  A flinch travels down the length of the barrel.

  —Aw, aw, shit. Aw shit. Joe. Aw shit.

  I touch the lump at the base of my skull. It swells and starts to recede.

  —That smarted, Phil.

  —Aw shit.

  I take my hand from the lump.

  —But you could make it all OK between us with just one thing.

  He nods.

  —What’s that, Joe?

  —Got a cigarette?

  He deflates.

  —Aw shit.

  He offers the shotgun to me.

  —I quit months ago.

  I take the shotgun and stand.

  —You’re shitting me.

  He raises his hands.

  —Would I hold out? Given the dynamic that, you know, we follow, I mean, would I hold out on a fucking cigarette?

  I take the Bugler from my pocket.

  —Can you roll one of these?

  He takes it from my hand.

  —Asking can I roll? Jesus, Joe, who are you asking can I roll? Can I roll? Like asking if I can
cut a line of coke.

  He starts to roll.

  I listen to some howls rising from below the floor.

  He hands me a hand-rolled smoke that looks like it was run off an assembly line.

  —Nice work, Phil.

  He grazes his blond pompadour with the tips of his fingers.

  —A man has certain skills, he’s got to maximize them.

  I nod and light up.

  —So, Phil.

  He nods.

  —Yeah?

  I heft the shotgun and wave it at the hallway and front door.

  —What the fuck?

  He shakes his head.

  —I tell ya, man, I barely fucking know myself.

  • • •

  The howling, it turns out, is the least of it.

  Time to time, something bangs against the basement ceiling and vibrates the floorboards. Every time it happens, Phil jumps. And there’s the smell. Dead being the basic theme. Vyrus, being the key variation. Feces and rot play into it. Makes me happy I emptied my stomach when the pepper juice hit me. Matter of fact, it makes me pretty damn happy about getting hit with the stuff in the first place. Good chance I’m the best smelling thing in here.

  —She said you’d come.

  —She says a lot of crazy things.

  —Sure, I mean, hell yeah and all, but still, she said it. And, you know, man, here you are.

  —She can’t see the future, Phil.

  He stops at the steel door at the end of the hall and pulls on the chain that’s clipped to his belt, drawing a heavy ring of keys from his pocket.

  —I know that. Mean, I’m not a total asshole.

  He smiles.

  —Mean, sure, I’m a total asshole, but I mean, I know she’s no psychic, she’s just right about a lot of things.

  —It’s because she’s smart.

  He unlocks three dead bolts.

  —More because she’s so fucking weird.

  The hall we’re leaving has just the two doors, the front stoop and this one. The hall we’re entering has four or five lining it, and all are broken down. From the inside, it looks like.

  Phil closes the door behind us and does the locks.

  I think about submarines. How they dog all the hatches behind themselves so if there’s a leak it will only flood one compartment.

  He points at the broken doors.

  —No one lives down here anymore. Not since the shit storm.

  —Evocative.

  —If that means effed in the a-bone, Joe, you just hit the nail, man.

  Something especially big hits the floor from below and seems to trigger a riot. Howling, screaming, rapid hammering.

  Phil skips a couple times, moving ahead of me on his toes.

  And I realize that the epicenter of the howling and pounding seems to move with him.

  He starts jumping up and down, screaming at the floor.

  —Fuck you! Fuck you! Fucking leave me alone, you fucking freaks of whatever the fuck! You can’t fucking have it! It’s fucking mine! I was born with it and I’m gonna fucking keep it! It’s mine! All mine!

  The racket from below rises with his screams, crests, and then subsides to moaning and tapping.

  Philip Sax, a man who is not at his best without a skinful of speed and a mouthful of booze, slumps against the wall.

  —Fuck.

  I knock my heel against the floor.

  —Friends of yours?

  He moves from the wall and starts unlocking the door.

  —No.

  He opens the door on a stairwell.

  —It’s just that they can smell blood through the floor and it makes ‘em crazy.

  The stairwell is fun.

  The doors to the second and third floors have been torn off their hinges, and through them I can see large barracks-style rooms. Lots of cots and bunk beds. Signs of hasty construction. Bare plaster, wires dangling from unfinished fixtures. Pipes sticking raw from the walls. More signs of hasty destruction. Broken furniture, scattered personal effects, ragged holes in the drywall. There’s also a fair number of bullet holes, dry blood, fingernail claw marks on the wood and in the plaster, some recent cuts in one area of the floor where an axe has been wielded repeatedly. Not in an effort to chop through, but as if someone has been hewing something, the blade cleaving and biting the floor.

  I point.

  —Someone chopping firewood?

  Phil turns his head away.

  —Yeah, um, pretty sure that’s where Sela was euthanizing.

  —Speaking of big words.

  —Yeah, well, you know, I could say she was hacking the heads off spastic Vampyres, but that kind of lingo doesn’t go over here, man.

  —A spade is still a spade.

  He mounts the stairs to the next landing.

  —That lingo don’t fly neither.

  There’s some more howling, coming from up ahead now.

  Phil pauses with his foot between steps.

  —I usually run these next couple flights, man. You mind?

  I raise a hand.

  —Settle down and join me on the scenic route. Man doesn’t get to see this kind of thing every day.

  He hunches his shoulders.

  —Not unless he’s me.

  We climb.

  The next couple floors are still inhabited. In deference to this fact massive slide-bolts have been mounted on the door. Some kind of electromagnet freezing them in place. A cluster of wires running from floor to floor, door to door up and down the stairwell.

  I knock on one door and get what sounds like a half-dozen giant rats scrabbling at the other side.

  —What about the windows?

  Phil is at the edge of the landing, itching to move on.

  —Sela drilled into the brick at the sides. Bolted two-inch planks over them. Before it got like this. Said it was heightened security because of, you know, Coalition and all. But she just knew what was coming is what I think. Jesus, Joe. That chick is one tough motherfucker. What’s a chick do to get that kind of tough? I mean, shit.

  I come away from the door and follow him.

  —Got me. But she scares me shitless.

  —A-fucking-men.

  I can see we’re approaching the top. Midpoint of the flight, with the howls from the last floor diminishing, I tug the back of Phil’s black and white bowling shirt, says Rick over the pocket, and he stops.

  —Joe?

  I hand him the tobacco pouch again.

  —Hit me.

  He starts to roll.

  I point the barrel of the shotgun up and down the stairwell.

  —So you still haven’t told me what the fuck.

  He hands me another perfect smoke.

  —Well, fuck, Joe, I thought it was pretty abundantly clear by now. Coalition cut off the blood, and shit got all fucked up.

  I light up, take a drag, shake my head and tap the barrel against his chest.

  —No, I mean, what the fuck?

  He nods.

  —Oh, right, yeah, well. You know, man, I guess I just kind of wore out my welcome everywhere else.

  I blow a cloud over his head.

  —Say it ain’t so.

  He nods.

  —Yeah, right? Because what have I ever done but try and help everybody out?

  —If by help out you mean sell out, then I get what you’re saying.

  —Now is that?

  He finds some umbrage somewhere and runs with it.

  —I’m saying, Joe, is that? Here we are, you and me, some of the last of the old school, here we are, getting reacquainted, I’m rolling your cigarettes for Jesus sake! Here we are and, come on, here we are like almost having a nice conversation for the first time in forever, and you have to take on like that. Like I’ve never been on your side. Like I. Joe.

  He shakes his head slow.

  —It’s a discouragement is what it is, Joe. That’s what it is.

  I raise a hand, the one that’s not all there.

  —Don’t
wear it out, Phil. You been on my side like you been on everyone else’s.

  He lifts both arms over his head.

  —Exactly! I’ve done for everyone! Who doesn’t have me to thank for something or other I done to help out? And now when things get tricky out there, when a man was thinking maybe he’d get his chance to really shine, helping out, you know, for whoever needed it, everyone gets all uptight and decides they don’t want me around. Mean to say, Joe, they tried to bump me.

  —Who was at the front of that line?

  —Terry is who. Calls me up, asks me to come see him. Terry Bird, all polite. As opposed to just telling me to do whatever the fuck or else. I don’t hear or else at the end of a service request, I know the jig is up. I was going out the fire escape, someone was kicking in the door. Tried to use my phone drop to Mr. Predo, got a suspiciously warm welcome to Coalition turf. Nuh-uh. Come in out of the cold. I seen that fucking movie at Film Forum once. Came to last resorts, this was the place. All my old regulars got no love left, I got to find new love. Sad. What kind of appreciation is that? Trying to cap a useful asset like myself. None. It’s none appreciation. It’s, I don’t know what it is.

  —It’s expedient.

  He drops his arms.

  —See, and there you go insulting me and doing it using words that I only sort of know what they mean.

  —Means it was the smart play.

  He stares at me, shakes his head.

  —Well, thank you very much, Joe Pitt.

  I lift my shoulders.

  —Don’t take it hard, Phil. You played the center against the middle and the ends against the top and bottom so well, when the chips were finally down they all decided you were too dangerous to live.

  He smiles.

  —Yeah, yeah, you know, put like that, almost kind of flattering. Too dangerous to live. Make a cool tattoo.

  I lean the barrel of the shotgun on my shoulder.

  —So it’s not all bad.

  Howls drift up from below.

  I take a drag.

  —And you roll a mean smoke besides.

  He smiles wide, shows blank spots where he used to have silver caps to replace the teeth I knocked out of his jaw. Pawned, I suppose.

  —Thanks, Joe, that means something. Coming from you and all.

  He looks down a little.

  —Say, Joe?

  —Phil.

  He looks up a little.

  —What happened to your fingers?

  I furrow my brow, look at my left hand, shake my head.

  —Damn. Where the hell did I put those?