Joe Pitt 2 - No Dominion (21 page)

Way at the end of 14th, past the power station there, away from the projects and the
playing field of the park, we find a square of asphalt littered with broken bottles, tiny,
empty glassine envelopes, and used condoms.

We climb into the windowless back of the Econoline. My hands have been getting too much
sun, wrapped around the wheel, exposed to the rays. The blisters that had been soothed by
the pint I drank are starting to bubble back up under my gloves. We take off our shades
and look at the writhing log of black Hefty bags.

Hurley grunts.

--T'aint no use puttin' it off. Got lots more ta do after dis.

He grabs the plastic and heaves, ripping it open, revealing Tom, bound and gagged in rolls
of duct tape and spools of wire.

--Futchkthers!

Somehow he's managed to bite through most of the tape over his mouth.

--Futchking futchkthers!

Hurley shakes his head.

--Jaysuz yer a sad fook, Tom. Look at ya. Ta tink I called ya a friend. Ya sad, sorry fook.
Well, ya got no one ta blame but yerself. Fer da sake a our histry, I'd put ya out before
tossin' ya, but Terry said ya need ta be awake. An I got ta say, I'm not feelin' dat
charitable just now after da way ya called me a retard an' all. Just cuz a fella's not da
brightest in da bunch, dat don't mean ya gottaÉWell, fook me anyway, ya don't wanna hear
dis shite.

He looks at me.

--Ya want da doors or da shove?

I look at Tom, he's chewing at that gag, clearly hoping to get in a last word before it's
over. I think about all the grief he's caused me. That time he had me in chains.

--I'll do the shove if it's all the same to you, Hurley.

--Taught ya might. Taught ya might.

He moves over by the doors.

We put our shades back on.

--Fuchkers!

He's almost through the tape.

--Futchking! Pitt! Pitt!

Hurley puts his hand on the door.

--Ready, Joe?

--You're an asshole, Pitt!

I take a seat on the floor, just above Tom's head.

--Just a sec, Hurl.

--But you're not a complete fucking idiot!

I plant my feet on his shoulders.

--Hurley's an idiot! But not you.

I look at Hurley.

--Think about it! Fucking me a spy?

I nod.

--You're a tool, Pitt!

He pushes the doors open.

--You're being used!

Sunlight claws at us.

--He's using you!

I shove, putting everything I have into it, my legs pistoning and sending him sliding
across the floor of the van and out into the day.

--You're Terry's fucking tool!

Hurley grabs the lengths of rope he's tied to the door handles and gives them a yank.

--You fucking asshole!

The door slams shut. The screams quickly cut off as tumors fill Tom's throat.

There's a hole drilled in the door, a circle of steel the size of a quarter hangs from a
single rivet above it. Hurley swings it aside and looks out.

--Jaysus.

He lets the cover swing back into place and looks at me.

--Ya want ta see dis?

I crawl over and take a look. One is more than enough.

I smoke while we wait.

I think while I smoke. I think about how I got here, how I got to be in this van with
Hurley, doing exactly the kind of job for Terry that I told myself I'd never do again. I
think about how this got started.

I think about The Spaz at Doc Holiday's, one of my regular hangouts. That kid spazzing on
Evie's night off, a night I could be expected to be there. I think about hotshots and how
easy it is to slip one to a junkie. About how the jobs had all dried up, how I couldn't
score a gig to save my life, how the only place to go looking for a job was Terry. And
that little confrontation between Tom and Terry the day Terry gave me the gig. The
hostility in the air. The smell of the young wolf circling the old. The threat to Terry
sprayed in the air. I think about the job Terry offered me, looking into the shit that was
going around. A job like that, sooner or later I'm going to be squeezing Phil for scraps.
And everyone knows Phil is my snitch. And Phil, I think about how he knew The Count,
already. How that slimy Renfield had been let inside the biggest secret on the street.
Like maybe someone wanted him to see it.

I think.

I think about how I ended up with Tom's name. Tom the zealot. Tom the patriot. Tom the
Coalition-hating fanatic. I try to square that up with Tom the spy. I think about setups
and betrayals and backstabbing and power plays, and being a tool.

I think, and the back of the van fills with smoke.

And then Hurley flips a coin to see who has to use the shovel. I lose.

The sun is bad. I've gotten far too much of it today. It's gonna age me. Getting sun, it
always sticks another year or two on your face. But that's not the bad part. The bad part
is what I shovel off the ground and dump in a pile on top of the shredded Hefty bags.

What I would have done to die without seeing that, it's a long list.

Hurley has another list.

Seven names. It could have been worse. It could have been longer. Or some of them could
have been friends. That's happened. Back in the day, working for Terry, I've had a piece
of paper in my hands with friends' names on it. But not this time. Could have something to
do with my not keeping friends anymore. Whatever. We still have to go to work.

None of them are expecting anything. Middle of the day. Sun in the sky. They're all fully
pledged members of the Clan and they're in tight with the head of security. What do folks
like these got to worry about? Except folks like me and Hurley. And really, nobody's
expecting folks like me and Hurley.

It's all pretty easy and clean. As these things go. Double park the van a few times, run
across the sidewalk, get into whatever squat or tenement these guys are jungled up in. The
ones who even have their eyes open, the ones who see us coming, they wish they hadn't. No
one wants to take the last trip seeing the two of us coming for them. But we don't make it
any worse than it has to be. Say that for Hurley, he's a professional. And me, I just
don't see any sense in making a mess that you're gonna have to clean up yourself.

When it's over, we make one last stop. We wheel over to Tom's favorite safe house, the old
Society headquarters on C, the basement he still used for meetings of his Anarchists.

And we leave him there. In the middle of the floor. For them to find. For them to see
should any of them meet down here to talk about options and retaliations. A look at that,
they'll be lining up to stop by Terry's one by one and pay their respects. One look at
that,
they'll be A-OK with anything Terry Bird has to say.

How nice for Terry, the way things turned out.

It's well after sundown by the time we've finished the last of it. Every name is checked
off the list, Hurley licking the tip of a pencil as he draws a line through each one, one
by one. They've all been gotten rid of, mortal, or not so mortal, remains tucked away.

Hurley's behind the wheel now. He bums one of my smokes and takes a huge drag.

--Keerist, but dat is lovely.

I nod, smoke my own.

--Got some place you want ta be, Joe?

--Just drop me back at headquarters. I should have a quick word with Terry.

--Sure, sure.

He drives me over.

--Say, Joe.

--Un-huh?

--A little like old times, eh? Me an you deliverin' da mail, like.

--Uh-huh.

--Fer da record.

--Yeah?

--It ain't true what some people say.

--What's that?

--Ya ain't gone soft. Shite, ya ain't no softer dan a fookin' stone.

--Thanks.

--Cheers.

And off he drives.

Me, I go up the steps and hit the buzzer.

Terry answers the door himself.

--Hey, Joe. Everything go alright?

He's not surprised at all when I punch him in the mouth. Just gets off the floor and wipes
the blood from his lips and walks down the hall away from me.

--Come on in, Joe. If we're going to talk personal, we should do it inside.

--Everybody needs something at some time or another. That's just the way it is. And, you
know, sometimes, you can't always get what you want, but you can get what you need. So we
may work at cross-purposes, some of the Clans. You know, especially when it comes to the
majors, the Society, the Hood, the Coalition. We all have different mission statements,
opposing philosophies. So there's conflict. But, you know, everybody knows it's no good
for anybody if the balance is agitated. What I'm trying to do down here, what we're trying
to achieve, that's very long term, man. It requires some finesse. I truly believe in
radicalism, we wouldn't have broken free of the Coalition without it, but it has its place
and time. A guy like Tom, an avowed Anarchist, he doesn't necessarily have the right
attitude for the times. That was my bad, I thought he did. I thought he was a natural for
security. I was wrong. Hey, power corrupts. The guy didn't take to it. He started seeing
some things he didn't like, started thinking he could do better. Next thing you know, he's
got all these new faces turning up under his wing. New fish. Too many of them. I mean, can
you imagine, Joe, the guy was infecting them on his own? When I realized what he was
doing, I was, man, I was blown away. Unthinkable. To hell with the threat it posed, you
know, to me. Predo or Digga or any of the Clans finds out about that, we would have all
been in the shit. That could have started an all out arms race. Clans infecting left and
right to keep the balance of power. Man, something had to be done. But it had to be done,
you knowÉwith finesse. So. I started putting out feelers. Just kind of looking to see if I
could catch the vibe. There are, I don't know, back channels for this kind of thing. Ways
for Clans to communicate without it being a big deal. Just rapping, kind of. Seeing how
things are, checking the weather. And the vibe I was getting? It was unhealthy, man.
Things were agitated all over. And, you know, like I say, sometimes, everybody needs
something.

He takes off his glasses, sets them aside.

--Safety. Stability. Security. That's what was needed. I, we, the Society, needed Tom
discredited. And, when you get down to it, killed. And we needed it to happen before he
could start making trouble with all his new fish. Digga, as Luther X's handpicked
successor and the voice of the Hood, needed Papa Doc off his ass so he could continue to
consolidate his position. Dexter Predo, acting for the Secretariat of the Coalition,
needed Mrs. Vandewater's secret campaign to destabilize and invade the Hood crushed. All
the major Clans needed to remove a threat to their integrity and the integrity of their
members. Not to mention the infected population at large. Any one of those threats could
have started open hostilities like we haven't seen since the sixties and seventies. Back
then, we had protests and riots and high crime rates to kind of disguise what was going
on. If it happened again? We would all be at risk. The climate out there in the world
today? The distrust and hostility between peoples? Imagine if they found out there were
people they might be able to claim weren't really people at all. People who feed on other
people. That ground needs to be seeded with great care, man. I mean, that's what I'm all
about. War between the Clans is unthinkable today. Revolutions like the one we had, never
gonna happen again. So once we had a chance to talk, once we got it out there in front, we
all put something in to make it happen. We needed a, I don't know, man, we needed a
catalyst.
All these people, Tom, Papa, Mrs. Vandewater, they all have followers. That's why they're
a threat in the first place. So it has to look like the weather, like something that just
happened. And, this time out, you were the weather, man.

He picks up his glasses, starts to give them a wipe.

--What really got the ball rolling was when Predo got hip to Vandewater's plans. Once he
was on to that? Once he knew about The Count being down here? Once that happened, there
were some pieces to start moving around. Like, Predo tells me about The Count, about him
being a plant down here, Vandewater's pet project.
Predo
sacrifices that pawn, and I flip him. I act like I just ESPed him out, and put him in a
corner. I give him a little clarity about where he is and how he can save himself.
I
use
him
to point
you
uptown. All that took, once he knew what to do himself, all that took was making sure
Philip Sax knew him a little. Something goes down, Joe, you always start shoving Phil
around. That kind of, I don't know, street corner imperialism, it never works to the
oppressor's advantage, you know.

I stare at him.

He shrugs.

--Anyways, once you were headed up, there were only so many ways for you to go. And we were
watching, covering the routes. And Digga was waiting. Except.

He pinches his lower lip.

--What went down with you and Daniel. I didn't call that one, you going to him. I thought,
you know, you'd come to me for the passage. What was that about? Daniel give you a name or
something?

I watch him, his line in the water, fishing.

He raises his hand, glasses dangling from his fingers.

--Cool. Cool. You got business with Daniel, that's not the kind of thing to go public with.
No problem.

He puts the glasses back on.

--It all worked out anyway. Predo had all the lines covered. And, hey, I don't, you know,
saying I don't like the man is an understatement, but Predo, he kicked in. Sacrificing
that enforcer, just to, you know, help set the scene and give Digga some leverage, that
was commitment to the good of the whole.

--If you say so.

--Well, just one man's, you know, opinion. So then Digga.
Digga
catches you up there. Plays some scenes, works a little on your head. Makes an
impression. Once that impression is made, he makes sure you know what you're after, points
you at
Vandewater.
And, well, the details are
complicated,
but you got worked into
her
plan.