call to tell me. Which isn’t a real surprise after the way she left. And that means I’ll need to go by her work if I want to get the news. Which means I better just drink a whole pint so I’m not on edge when I see her. I don’t need to be picking any more fights with the only person in the world who gives a shit about me.
Around four-thirty I open the closet. I flip the dial on the fridge padlock back and forth and snap it open. I used to have a key-lock. Then I lost the key. It was the middle of the day and I couldn’t run out to the hardware store for a bolt-cutter. I just about chewed through the fucking thing before I got my shit together enough to find a hammer under the sink and use it to claw the hasp free. It can be like that when you’re hungry. Simple shit just plain escapes you. Now I got the combination lock. God save me if I ever forget the combo. I open the fridge.
Times like these, opening the fridge is like the third or fourth time a gambler checks his betting slip to see if maybe he really had his money down on the winning horse instead of that nag that finished way out of the money. I know what’s in there, but maybe, just maybe, I did something right without knowing about it. Like maybe I laid up a dozen extra pints that are just somehow hidden in the back. Something like that. So I open the fridge. No dice. Wrong horse.
I take out one of the three pints. I take out the scalpel I keep in the fridge. I poke a little hole in the bottom of the pouch and place my lips around it. I squeeze the pouch and a thin stream of cold blood squirts into my mouth. When it’s warm it’s better. When it’s hot, say 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s best. But well chilled is just fine. I try to sip, but who am I fooling? I tilt my head back, hold the pouch upright and poke another hole at the top. It drains in a single rush, flooding my throat. Then I carefully cut the bag open and lick the inside clean. It makes me feel good. It makes me feel alive.
It is keeping me alive after all. Giving the Vyrus something else to gnaw on, something fresh. Keeping it from ranging further and further into the blood-making parts of me. Keeping it from digging into the little blood factories inside my bones and scraping them clean. Keeping the Vyrus healthy and happy so that it doesn’t rampage through my brain, randomly hitting switches as it looks for more of whatever it is it wants. It’s keeping me alive. But only if you call this life.
When I’m done I tuck the pouch into one of the red biohazard bags I keep in the fridge. There’s only a couple empties in there, so I leave it be for now.
The nice thing about winter? The sun goes down early. I love that. Add in all the overcast days and those three months are my favorite. I pull on a sweater, lace up my boots, grab my jacket and scoop keys and change from the top of my desk. I also flip through a thin fold of bills: just over a hundred bucks. I got another grand stashed in the toe of a shoe, but that’s for emergencies. And it won’t cover half the rent on this place, which I’m two months overdue on. Blood ain’t the only thing running short around here.
Depending on who I’m doing a job for, I might get paid in either one: blood or money. But I haven’t had a job for awhile now. I can hustle for the blood, dig up a pint here or a pint there on my own. But, in a way, money is riskier. I knock out some guy, drag him in an alley and tap his veins, I know I’m gonna come away with a pint or two. But as to what’s in his wallet? The kind of guys who look like they might be sporting a good roll are the ones you least want to hit. Those are the ones that might make noise after the fact. Don’t want a guy like that finding holes poked in his arms after he’s been rolled, asking his doctor what the hell that’s about. And there’s just no point in robbing a man if you’re not gonna tap him as well. Just no percentage in the risk if there’s no blood. I mean, money is money, but blood is blood.
And don’t even think about a real robbery. Walk into some liquor store and point a gun at someone? Try to do a little housebreaking? Anything like that leaves behind a profile and physical evidence. Start getting a file at the precinct, an MO in some computer database. Show up on the cop radar and you can just cash in. No blocked up windows in the holding cells. No blood in the chow line. Just a matter of maybe a week before you starve or get hit with some rays.
What I need is a real gig. A deal that will pay off big in both categories. I need something besides all the nickel-and-dime crap I’ve been hitting for the last year or so. The year since I pissed off the Coalition and they stopped dropping their loose ends on me. I never realized just how much I relied on the scraps from their table ’til they were gone. But I sure as shit miss them now.
For the thousandth time I think about giving them a call. Ringing up Dexter Predo and telling him I made a mistake. Telling him I can make it right; I’m ready to toe their line. I think about it. But the phone stays right where it is.
Fuck those assholes.
I walk out of my place and down the block to Avenue A. I hit the deli around the corner for a pack of Luckys and a beer. I cross the avenue, find a bench in Tompkins Square and drink and smoke and think about my problem. My problem is jobs.
My work comes to me by word of mouth. Problem is, word hasn’t been getting around much lately. No straight citizens showing up with a deadbeat dad to track down, none of the smaller Clans calling to have a Rogue swept off their turf. Just me picking up bouncer shifts at Niagara and some arm-twisting for a couple shylocks. Shit work. Fucking Coalition. When I finally bit back at those guys, I maybe bit a little too hard; bit clean through the hand that fed me.
The Coalition is the only game when it comes to booking a heavy gig, but they always got to rub your face in the fact when you come calling. Kind of makes you resent them for being the only Clan that has the juice and the resources to drop a couple grand and a dozen pints on a guy on anything like a regular basis. And Predo? He just plain hates me. That’s what happens when you land in the middle of the Coalition spymaster’s plans and end up screwing them up all to hell. He hates you. He wants your head. He has papers on his desk he thinks it will maybe look good holding down.
I suck down the last of my beer, toss the empty in a trash can and start walking. The Coalition is the only outfit that could hook me up regularly, but there are other Clans, and you never know when they might have some dirty work lying around. And I may have been avoiding this play for a good long while now, but the two pints left in the fridge are a pretty compelling argument to bite the bullet. So I head east, toward Avenue C and Society headquarters, biting that motherfucker all the way.
– Hey, Hurley.
– Joe.
– Read any good books lately?
– Fuck yas.
– Yeah, I like that one, too.
It looks like your average Alphabet City tenement, but it’s not; it’s a fortress. I don’t know exactly what kind of security or how many partisans they got holed up here, but Hurley is all they need. He stays in front of me, slouched against the door frame, threatening to bring the whole building down if he leans a little harder.
– Sumtin’ on yer mind, Joe?
– Terry around?
– Yeah.
We stand there, me on the threshold, him blocking my way. I want in, but I don’t think I could ever want anything badly enough to try and force the issue with Hurley. Guy’s been around at least since Prohibition. I can’t begin to calculate how tough a Vampyre thug has to be to last as long as he has. As for him, he’s in no hurry to move himself. He could stand there all night waiting for me to get down to business and never move an inch. It’s not that he’s possessed of Zenlike patience, it’s just that he’s too stupid to ever get bored.
– Think I might talk to him?
– Gotta appointment?
– An appointment?
– Yeah.
– Since when does Terry make appointments?
Someone steps out of the shadows behind Hurley.
– Since I took over security.
I look him up and down.
