Yappin’ about EVERY LAST DROP with Blood of the Muse right HERE.

 “To the extent that Joe is sympathetic, I think it’s purely a byproduct of the fact that nearly everyone else in the books are such obvious dicks.”

Reader B.H. spotted and shared a guest appearance of THE SHOTGUN RULE in Garth Ennis‘ CROSSED.

Here’s the panel drawn by Jacen Burrows.

(I’m posting this without having asked permission.  So if Garth, Jacen or the folks at Avatar want it removed, just shoot me a line.)

LOS ANGELES - October 2, 2008 - Like most people, very much of my brain has been recently consumed by the odd things happening to the global economy.  The parts of my brain not consumed by the general oddness have been consumed by the especially disheartening spectacle of my country’s supposed leaders playing with one another’s genitals when they might want to stand up and actually lead.

The last ten or so day have been an object lesson in just how rare a quality true leadership really is.  As rare as true talent.  Just as it is exotic to find a painter, dancer, center fielder, soprano, brick layer, chemical engineer or mid wife who excel in their art, craft or labor, it is just as rare to find a politician who excels in terms of leadership.

Yes, this opens a debate as to whether the actual calling of a political is or should be to lead, but that’s for another day.

I’ve rarely seem a hot potato tossed about with such abandon.  Rarely seen such a rush to judgment accompanied by so much hyperbole and panic.  Rarely seen the exercise of political will so poorly  employed.

To wit, no matter whether you believe the bailout (cunningly relabeled a “rescue plan” of late) is a good idea or not, it seems quite obvious that before the people in the highest offices in the country going running about waving their arms over their heads screaming that the end is nigh if we don’t fucking take action right away, they should have a damn good sense that the action thy propose will indeed be taken.  Better than fifty percent.  Far better.

There is a thing called a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It’s not that I am a suddenly disillusioned starry-eyed optimist.   Our political system is corrupt.  Not just dysfunctional, but corrupt.  Far as I’m concerned, that’s a given.

But you’d like to think that in the midst of a massive shit storm someone up there might step to the plate.

We’re told the markets are suffering from a lack of confidence.  Well, a great deal of that lack of confidence is currently being generated not by weak balance sheets and laughable quarterlies, but by the clown car rolling around Capital Hill.

It has caused me to reflect on the last public figure I saw display startlingly true leadership in a crisis.  Rudy Giuliani.

For the record, Rudy is a scumbag.  I thought he was a scumbag from the moment he took office as mayor of New York, and he never did a thing to change my mind, until 9/11.

It was a bizarre contradiction for me, watching Rudy take control, give comfort, lead in the truest sense.  It was, no lie, fucking inspiring.  That is a man who had his finest fucking hour when he was most needed.

Yes he quickly reverted to scumbag, yes, in the following years many of the claims he made about what he did in those hours and weeks were exposed as lies, and, yes, his presidential bid made a mockery of what should have stood as his legacy.

But, at the time, when it was needed, he stepped to the front, took control, told many truths about what was happening, didn’t fuck things up any worse  than they had to be, gave comfort, and lead the city.

Bravo, Scumbag, bravo.

Why I’m bringing him up is, well, because I kind of expected it to happen again.  This last week, as things got more and more absurd, I kept expecting someone to step into the light, take point, and say, Hey, enough fucking bullshit, we’re in a fucking mess and this is what we have to do and this is why and I’m gonna walk everyone through it.  

So, yes, a little starry-eyed maybe.  But was that too much to half-expect?  To hope for?  That there might have been one person in the midst of this fiasco who could…

Fuck it.

The point is, what really surprised me is that I had any brain left to be eaten by anything.   I had thought my daughter had eaten it all.  Babies, they’re totally like zombies, have you noticed?  Ravenous, babbling, lurching around, eating your brains.

Anyfuckingway, between my dear zombie daughter and the money going boom I forgot, literally forgot, that I had a book published on Tuesday.

Funny or sad, not sure.

Hey, readers, gather round, EVERY LAST DROP is on the shelves at a retail outlet near you.  A tale of impending vampire apocalypse to entertain you.  My love on every page.

Seriously there, my love on every page.  Books ain’t cheap, belts will be worn tighter this winter, and I want to thank everyone plunking down their dollars for my words.

Be well,

-c

I’m reposting chapter 7 of The Book of All Future Names because some readers have reported problems opening the page.  

  

    Let me tell you somethin about Necrotic Culver, that girl, she had a bee sting for a heart.  Hot, swollen, a fierce pain ya don’t dare touch for fear it will hurt worse than before.  But it weren’t so much that she felt it herself, more than those that tried to touch her heart pulled back with red welts all over theys ownselves. 

            She didn’t plot it out to be that way, but that’s the way it was all the sames.  That old voodoo man what raised her, if ya can call what he did raising a child, he saw that in her the first time he looked at them mismatched color eyes.  Saw a pain-full heart.  Saw a sewer of hurt and longing.  Saw an instrument for lost hopes and lowered expectations.  Saw just about everythin he could want to see in a girl of his own blood. 

            Standin there at the threshold (that’s like where a door is, but more if the door is open, just that spot you step over to go from one place to the next is a the threshold of the place), holdin that baby in his arms the first time, thinkin he ought ta just hand it right back to the biddy on his stoop, he saw the destruction in that girl and had hisself a thought.

            No, he didn’t little Necrotic back ta the biddy, he just kicked the door closed on her face and took the babe inside. 

            Now I already told you how he had that Hugo Cauldron fetch up the Book of All Future Names for him.  How he flipped the pages and found the name Necrotic Culver waitin for the baby.  An’ also I may have mentioned about another baby that comed to live in that dark, iron building, boy baby nursed up in a fish bowl, Shadding Lyttle. 

            Case you missed it, Shad was there that day too.  Standin right there in the room, got his sweepin broom in his hand, which is what he had in his hand anytime he didn’t have his mopping mop or his sponging sponge or his wiping wipe or his scrubbing scrub or any of the other tools of the cleaning trade he was plying there (plying means he was doing it.  Like to ply your trade is to work at your work, if ya  follow) at the command of the old voodoo man. 

            That boy Shad, you’d have thought that comin to term in a fish bowl, bein fed on voodoo man scraps, livin in a dark iron building full of dark goings in and such, you’d have thought such a boy would grow stunted and low, a scuttler (scuttle is something you do when you kinda creepy crawl to the side like.  See a crap walkin sideways, that’s a scuttle.  So a scuttler’s someone who scuttles.  Or so says I), a boy to hang at the walls in the dark places, of which there were lots in that building, out of sight and out of mind.  But it weren’t so.  Shadding Lyttle, he were tall and straight and comely (means good looking, hot, in the parlance of the kids.  An you got to know what parlance means you can go fetch your ownself a dictionary.  I got no time for every last little multisyllabic word out of my mouth.  And what I said before goes twice for multisyllabic.), more than that, he was bright and kind and strong, and, well, just a good damn boy is what he was. 

            Old voodoo man, he hated Shadding Lyttle.  Hated him like he hated grit between the layers of a grilled leek (it’s a kind of an onion), hated him like he hated when it was late at night and he couldn’t sleep an he just wanted it to be morning and every time he looked at the clock he swore an hour at least was gonna have passed, but it was never more than five minutes, hated that boy like you could only have expected him to hate the boy if the boy had done somethin personal like to him that no one knew about except him, and that includes the boy not knowin neither.  Which is what the case was as a matter of fact. 

            Just by bein born that boy had done something terrible to the old voodoo man, somethin the old voodoo man was like never to forgive or forget.

            No, I ain’t gonna say what it was.  You open a book to read it, do you skip first to all the secret good parts first?  Find out every little twist and turn in advance then go back and read the in-between parts?  I didn’t think so.

            Ya read a book in order, ya can listen to a story in order.

            So, there’s young Shadding Lyttle in the iron home of the old voodoo man, an there’s Necrotic Culver, a baby girl with a poison heart.

            An what’s the old voodoo man do?

            He turns to Shad, smile on his face, ugly smile on his face, as if any other kind of smile crossed his face ever (actually, truth to tell, there was a time he had a beautiful smile.  Before it got broke.  But that’s for later, too), turned to that boy with that baby girl in his arms and said, “You, young master Lyttle, come take the darling child.”

            An Shad did as he was told.  Did it happy and relieved.  Happy caused once he had that baby in his arms he knew he could maybe keep her safe.  Relieved because he thought the first place that baby might have gone was straight into Hugo Cauldron’s bubbling maw (it’s a mouth, but picture a big nasty one opened wide to swallow you whole).

            Holdin that baby girl himself, Shad, just not much more than a baby, he looked into those eyes, red and black, no doubt trouble spellin eyes, an he flat fell in.  Fell in deep, droppin, tumblin, lost, an not carin a damn.  When he come up out of those eyes, he’d of thought a month had passed at least, or a year, or ten, no tellin how long, didn’t leastways expect to find no time at all had passed.  Standin there dumbstruck (which means speechless), standin there wonderin at the new thing he was feelin.  Deep in his chest, an ache, a swellin ache, more like a burn really, a fierce hot pain like nothin he’d ever felt before.  A pain he’d go on feelin the rest of his born days.  A pain that would only be more painful when it was took away from him for a while in some later years.  Pain that hurt worse when it was gone than when it was there.

            Old voodoo man looked at Shad’s face, an he knew in an instant what the boy was feelin.  Yes he did.  How’d he know?  Cuz he’d felt it hisself.  Years before.  Now he only felt the pain of it bein gone.

            Old voodoo man laughed.  He let Shad hang on to that girl, let him take care of her, feed her, tuck her in nights, let that pain grow and fester and blister and swell.  Let that pain get big as all Shad’s insides. 

            All so it would hurt more when he took Necrotic away from him.

            What did Necrotic Culver feel in all this?  What was that little baby child thinkin?

            Mostly she was thinkin what baby childs think.  She was thinkin goo-goo and gah-gah.  But also, looking up at Shadding Lyttle, she was thinkin somethin else, she was thinkin, goo-goo, gah-gah, why’s my heart hurt so bad?

            Round bout right then’s when Riddle Afield showed hisself up. 

            Riddle Afield, about who this here chapter is named.

            But about who I ain’t gonna tell now.

            Cuz it’s gettin dark.

            An every fool knows you don’t talk on Ridde Afield when the dark’s come.

            Even a fool like me.

 

-c

 

PREVIOUSLY IN THE BOOK OF ALL FUTURE NAMES

Jim Crumley is dead.

Sad day.

I hadn’t read a word of his work until briefly after I met him at a Bouchercon in Chicago.  We were on a panel together.  I was aware he was one of the grand old men of contemporary noir, but knew little else.  Later that weekend, we had a brief conversation about not too much.  He was charming and funny.  Back home, I picked up a copy of THE LAST GOOD KISS and had one of those moments of revelation in which I realized that I was one of Crumley’s distant progeny.  Through secondary sources I had been greatly influenced by what he had done many years before.

His death is a loss.

But the books are still there.

READ THEM.

-c

Know that whole “A picture is worth a thousand words” deal?

Sometimes that is just plain dead on.

I see no reason to comment further on the artwork for the Blackstone Audio versions of ALREADY DEAD and NO DOMINION.  They speak quite loudly themselves.

Thanks to the Ellen and Bruce Olson, my books are getting a better vacation this year than I am. 

Reviews for EVERY LAST DROP have begun.

Warning, there are some SPOILERS in both reviews.  Scroll past if such things bother you.

“In his fourth outing, rakish New York vampire Joe Pitt leaves the series’ “casebooks” nomenclature in the

dust. This toothsome tale is no variation on the P.I. genre; instead, Huston imaginatively, logically

explores the limits of the world he’s created for Pitt to haunt. If a virus that forced its hosts to seek blood

for sustenance gave rise to competing secret clans that kept members fed in exchange for allegiance,

wouldn’t a rising population of infected require development of a secure supply chain lest the drained

bodies of victims started piling up on the Manhattan streets? Wouldn’t a threat to that supply destabilize

the entire clan structure? And how would the established clans react to an upstart group promising to find a

cure—thus stripping the old guard of its power? The answers to these questions might pierce even Pitt’s

leather-tough heart as he takes readers on another darkly entertaining ride. Meanwhile, his nights of acting

as unofficial clan go-between might be drawing to a close as the saber-rattling and brinksmanship escalates

toward an all-out vampire war. We can hardly wait.”

-Booklist

 

and

 

 “In this fascinatingly flawed fourth episode in the bloody horror-noir chronicles of New York vampire PI Joe Pitt (after 2007’s Half the Blood Of Brooklyn), relations between the city’s vampire clans are unraveling. The Cure is researching antidotes to the ravenous vampire-creating Vyrus, while the better-nourished Coalition seeks the Cure’s downfall and the Society plays both sides. Dodging death threats and brokering shaky deals, Pitt shuttles among all three until he learns the Coalition’s secret, a revelation so volatile that it may lead to all-out war. Huston supplies terse dialogue and convincing gore in expertly pitched prose, but the beautifully cinematic nastiness doesn’t quite mask a key difficulty: Pitt’s enemies set their hate aside too easily at his appearance, and their rational behavior is at odds with the emotional intensity (and sheer implausibility) of the climax. Newcomers may find the relationships difficult to parse, but those familiar with the series should be enthralled.”

-Publisher’s Weekly

 

 

By the way, while I think it’s obvious why I’m pleased with the  Booklist review, but I should also note that the criticism leveled in the PW review is warranted.  The book is flawed.  I mean, all books are flawed, but this one in flawed in ways that I should have had a better handle on.  I think the nature of the main flaw is different from what PW zeroed in on, but they definitely have a good case.  Anyway, after the book is out for a few months, I’ll write a bit more about what I think went wrong and why.  In the meantime, I also think the book works just fine.  Flaws aside, the goods arrive on time.

 

 

-c

My rather limited appearance schedule for to flog the selling of EVERY LAST DROP, the fourth of the Joe Pitt casebooks, is as follows:

Thursday, October 2nd

7:00pm at Borders Northridge

Reading, signing, etc.

9301 Tampa Ave.
Northridge, CA 91324
Phone: 818.886.5443Saturday, October 4th

Noon at Mysteries to Die For

Reading and signing.

2940 Thousand Oaks Blvd.

Thousand Oaks, CA 91362

Phone: 805/374-0084

 

and also on October 4th

3:00pm at The Mystery Bookstore

Talk and Signing.

1036 Broxton Avenue, Unit C

Westwood, CA  90024

No release party this time around.  I’ll be making up for that come the new year when MYSTIC ARTS drops.

Did I say something about not having the energy to flog the September 30th release of EVERY LAST DROP?

I guess I should bite my tongue.

Over at Fantasy Book Critic you’ll find me babbling about ELD, and other things, HERE

And you’ll also find the FBC gang giving away sets of the first four Joe Pitt casebooks, including EVERY LAST DROP, right HERE.

Consider yourself flogged.

-c

Here’s the second take on a trade paperback cover for THE SHOTGUN RULE.

While the general consensus is that this is a huge upgrade over the FIRST TAKE, it is still missing the mark.  In an of itself, it’s a nice cover.  Truth be said, I prefer this to the hardback cover.  The problem is that Ballantine is trying to adjust the marketing for my books.  A concerted effort is being made to reach readers beyond the hardboiled/pulp/noir audience.  Not just mystery and crime readers, but readers who appreciate an offbeat story whatever the genre.  The leading edge of that effort is packaging.  The cover for THE MYSTIC ARTS OF ERASING ALL SIGNS OF DEATH is the first cover that is meant to tilt toward those readers.  As the TPB of SHOTGUN will come out a month before the MYSTIC ARTS hardback, we want the two covers to be speaking the same lingo.

With all of that in mind, the problem I see in this very handsome cover is that it seems to look back toward the old marketing as embodied in the covers for the HENRY THOMPSON TRILOGY books, rather than looking forward to the new effort as embodied in the MYSTIC ARTS cover HERE.

 And so the process continues.

Hugo Cauldron is old.

 

How old?

 

Damn old.

 

Think on it.  How old a cauldron got to be before it get a name, any name, let alone a name like Hugo?

 

Yeah, that old.

 

But Hugo even older than that.  Take for instance how Hugo knows, whenever the old voodoo man tells him to fetch some of this or some of that, how Hugo knows where to get it.  How comes a cauldron on those kind of details?

 

Here’s a hint.

 

This world of ours, it didn’t just go pop one day and there it was all finished.  It didn’t do that anymore than your favorite dinner of lamb korma (a Indian style of curry with cream and raisins and other good stuff that you can look up in a cook book if you want to) just pops up on a plate with a big pile of basmati rice and nan bread and mango chutney.  No, this world of our, it first had to be cooked up.

 

All the bits and pieces of this world, steamed, sautéed, browned, broiled, par boiled, emulsified, seared, smoked, deep fried, roasted, or blanched, they all had to be prepared, cooked, and tossed in a big damn pot so they could stew up together.

 

A pot.  Like what they call a cauldron.

 

See where I’m goin?

 

In case you don’t see all that well, let me paint a picture a bit brighter.  Hugo Cauldron, could be he knows where every damn thing is because he cooked every damn thing at one time or another.  Got the taste of everythin in his big iron mouth does Hugo.

 

You don’t got to believe me if you don’t want to, but there it is.  An whether you believe it or not, there’s still the plain fact that when the old voodoo man says, Hugo, go fetch me the last livin breath of the thief to Christ’s left up on Calvry Hill, Hugo goes and fetches it.

 

So you tell me how he does it an I’ll shut up an you can tell the story.

 

Sayin that Hugo Cauldron is old.

 

Not sayin that the old voodoo man is as old as Hugo.  Cuz I know you’re thinkin that someone had to chop an dice and mince all them ingredients before puttin them in the cauldron, an they did, but it wasn’t the old voodoo man, that’s damn sure.

 

Yeah, he old.  He damn old, but he’s not that damn old.

 

Let me tell you somethin about that old voodoo man.  That fella, he’s mean.  Like you didn’t suss that out already.  But that’s not all.  He’s mean and he’s nasty.  More.  He’s mean and he’s nasty and he plays the violin. 

 

Didn’t see that comin.

 

Plays the violin as sweet as it ever been played.

 

Know who’s a sucker for sweet violin playin?  Yeah, that’s right.  Hugo Cauldron.  So if you were wonderin where all this was windin to, now you got the hint. 

 

Hugo Cauldron, he’s old.  And he knows things.  Things ain’t no one else ever known.  Well, one other know them, but only that one, and then Hugo.  Knowin things, that makes a person, or a cauldron, powerful.  You got a knowledge of things, you got a way to shape them, control them, possess them.  That kind of power, Hugo has it in spades.  But he ain’t the type to use it.  Not on his own. 

 

Hugo, he’s the kind of cauldron, he mostly wants to simmer over a fire with his belly full of a nice thick onion soup.  Leave all that power business up to some other people got the hunger for it.  But Hugo, he suck a wonder, he found his way into some stories, some legends, some rumors and tales.  And all those whispers, they found their way, year after year, into the ears of the old voodoo man.  Well, just into his left ear really, his right ear, it don’t hear so well.  Accident he had when he was a boy.  Well, not so much an accident as a case where his granny cut that ear off to use in a conjurin potion.  But that’s a long story.

 

But that good left ear, it heard plenty. 

 

An what it heard was that this knowin and powerful cauldron, it liked the violin.  So what does the voodoo man do? (an I call him the voodoo man her instead of the old voodoo man because he’d been around some by then but he wasn’t quite old by the standard of how old he got to be later) That voodoo man got himself taught how to play the violin as sweet as could be.

 

It was hard.

 

Sweetness was not somethin that came easy to the voodoo man.  Bein mean and nasty he could pull off at the drop of a hat.  First time he put bow to strings he could eke mean and nasty from that violin, but sweet sounds took him time.  Years.  A pile of years.  And then another pile.  Like fightin all of nature tryin to get that violin to sound sweet.  Wore out a hundred and seventy three violin teachers learnin to play sweet. 

 

By wore out what I mean is he killed most of em in some mean and nasty way or another when they couldn’t teach him proper what he wanted. 

 

Then he met someone special. 

 

But he don’t talk about her. 

 

No, I ain’t gonna tell you her name or what happened to her.  It comes later.  Nuff to say she taught him how to play sweet.  How?  Well, I’ll tell you this much.  Only way to learn what it is to be sweet is to have someone be sweet to you.  Then you maybe get some of that sweetness on you.  Then maybe you can rub it off elsewhere.  An if maybe the person who rubbed all theys sweetness on you up and dies of a sudden and leaves you alone, well maybe your sweetness gets seasoned with sadness.

 

An there ain’t nothin sweeter than that.

 

After that, whatever it was that happened to the old voodoo man (he was old by then) whatever it was that happened to him that I ain’t sayin, he could play that violin sweet like to make your teeth fall out.

 

In them years, an it took years, find him in every house wares and pot shop in the world, goin up an down the aisles, plain that violin as sweet as dyin in the arms of the one you love.

 

Playin and walkin and playin and listenin and playin some more.

 

Till he heard it, comin down a cluttered shelf of bric-a-brac in a rummage sale raisin money for a volunteer fire department in some small place with barely a name in some hills lost aways from the city.  Pausin between notes, lettin the last sweet one vibrate out of the air before the next could be bowed, he heard a sigh.  Delighted and content, the sigh of someone who enjoys a good cry now an again.  Someone who accepts the sour with the sweet.  Someone who knows a thing or three about seasonin.

 

How much? is all the old voodoo man asked the churchy ladies runnin the sale.

For that old thing? is what they answered.

 

And in the end the old voodoo man had him for six yankee dollars.

 

Hugo Cauldron, bargain basement, with all his knowin and all his power.

 

An Hugo got seasoned by the old voodoo man.  Around all that mean and nasty, Hugo got some of it hisself.  So that when Necrotic Culver was dropped on theys doorstep, all he could think to hisself was how yummy that baby might be in his tummy. 

 

But sweepin up the corners, already there for a few years, big enough now to keep things clean and tend to duckin out the way when the old voodoo man got mean and took a swipe at him, sweepin up in there was Shadding Lyttle.  One eye on that girl baby, one eye on the old voodoo man and Hugo.

 

Shad, he’d been figuring he needed to get out for some time from that place, had a plan just about finished, but when he saw tiny Necrotic Culver, he hung up his plan and put it to the side. 

 

Have to wait a few years it would, until that girl was old enough that he could take her out too. No was that boy leavin her behind with the old voodoo man and Hugo.

 

Then things got a little complicated.

 

-c

 

PREVIOUSLY IN THE BOOK OF ALL FUTURE NAMES

EVERY LAST DROP, the fourth and penultimate Joe Pitt Casebook publishes on September 30th.  By all rational measure I should be busy warming up the flogging machine. 

But I’m not.

It’s not that I lack enthusiasm for the book and the series, I just lack the minimum required flogging energy.

Bad, bad writer.

But I did do an interview recently with Fantasy Book Critic’s Robert Thompson.

And it’s right HERE.

And the EVERY LAST DROP sample pages are HERE

Theoretical WPAs from the world of fringe science.

Isomer, Hafnium, and induced gamma emission, all from Wikipedia

Hafnium bomb, from GlobalSecurity

Gamma-ray laser, from hafniumisomer.org

Gamma-ray weapons critique from the Union of Concerned Scientists

An Excerpt from the upcoming fourth Joe Pitt Casebook: EVERY LAST DROP 

 

RIPE FOR THE TAKING.

That’s all I can think as I watch them.

The crowd pouring out of the Stadium, tens of thousands

cramming out onto River and the Concourse, flooding the street

under the 4-train tracks as the trains screech in and out overhead,

more people packing the cars sardine tight, tripping up the

steps, cascading down into the tunnels, mashing into Stan the

Man’s, northbound traffic making for the Cross Bronx Expressway

and the Triborough stalled out from all the people wandering

the street. Drunk and half drunk, ecstatic from a win or enraged

from a loss, a blue-and-white pinstriped mass of thousands.

All of them full up.

Each of them enough to keep some sad son of a bitch on his

feet for weeks. For months if he has some self-control and knows

how to go about his business. Most of them strangers to the

South Bronx, never seen more of it than this one subway station

or the parking lot and the Stadium itself. Each one full to their

pumping heart with quarts of blood.

Any wonder every fucking game brings trouble?

Sure, no big secret. That’s why the cops are out there. Cops

keep the traffic moving in fits and starts. Cops keep the Bleacher

Creatures from chewing the ears off any Sox fans stupid enough

to stay through the ninth inning on a night their team came to

town and won. Cops keep an eye out for pickpockets and for

drunks falling under the buses and for snatch-and-grab artists.

If I gave a shit about any of that stuff I’d give them a hearty pat

on the back and maybe buy a boy in blue a beer sometime.

But I don’t care.

What I do care about are poachers. What I care about are

starvelings. I care about the greedy and the weak, the foundering

and the lost and the plain stone stupid. I care about them so

much that I try to show my face around here after every night

game. Just to make it plain and clear.

Clear that they should get off this turf before I come up behind

them in an alley one night and put two in the back of their fucking

skull before they even know I’m there.

The halt and the lame. They got no place. Not as long as I’m

stuck up here.

Up here.

Stand up top long after a game, well before sunrise. Stand on

the 4 platform and look south and you can see it. You can see the

City right there. One stop over the river.

Fucking China to me.

Coming down to the street, iron bars walling stairs and turnstiles

and platforms, arching overhead, meeting the steel undercarriage

of the tracks, like walking circles in a cage.

My cage.

No one shits in my cage.

So after a game I make the scene. Truth to tell, figure I’d make

it even if I didn’t have practical concerns. Figure I’d be out there

on River just to take advantage of pretty much the only time I can

stick my face out of doors in the neighborhood and not pique

someone’s curiosity.

A white face in the South Bronx after dark, it draws a little attention.

During the day, around the courthouses on One Sixtyone,

you see plenty of them. Cops and lawyers and the occasional

plaintiff. But they all go home come night. Closest any of them

live to One Sixty-one and the Concourse might be Riverdale.

More likely Jersey or Queens.

Still, during the day I could blend in real easy eating a Cuban

from Havanna Sandwich Queen on one of the benches next to a

statue of Moses bringing the Ten Commandments down the hill.

Look at my build, my face, my black boots and black Dickies on

a summer day, with my leather jacket draped over the warm stone

bench, and someone might naturally think undercover. Think I’m

some cop up here to testify.

But that would require I was out during the day.

Which isn’t on my agenda. Ever.

Not until I develop a serious taste for dying from instantaneous

eruptions of bloody pustules on my eyes.

So if I desire to take the air, my promenades must come betimes

at night. And, man, there just ain’t no other fucking white

people in these parts after the sun goes down. And drawing eyes

is not something I have much desire to do.

Who that guy?

Seen him around?

Gotta be Five-0.

Naw, see him for months. Never make a move on no one.

He ain’t livin’ up here.

Don’t know, could be he is.

What block? What building?

Next thing you know, go down a block on a hot night: Old

guys got their card table and their wives’ favorite kitchen chairs

out on the sidewalk to play dominoes; young guys standing

around someone’s leased Escalade, bass beats rippling their

baggy shorts, shooting texts to the shorties looking down from a

fire escape across the street; windows open, rice and beans and

stewed chicken smells coming out, mothers and grandmothers

and pregnant girls inside laughing and sipping sangria made

from jug red and 7Up; someone catches sight of me and the

party just shuts down. Hear nothing but my boots on the pavement,

see nothing but sideways eyes scoping me out all the way

to the end of the street until I turn the corner and they all look

at one another.

Who the fuckin’ white guy?

Figure a question like that can drive some people crazy. Figure

some people got to know. Figure sooner or later someone gets in

my face. Figure that doesn’t end well.

Figure that isn’t the real fucking problem anyway.

The real fucking problem is when that question circulates too

far, rumors start, people tell stories, stories spread.

The river, I can’t cross it, but any of these people can. And they

can take questions and rumors and stories with them. And once

that kind of shit is over there on the Island, no telling where it

ends up. Ends up in the wrong place, maybe someone hears it.

Someone hears it, maybe someone decides to look into it. Someone

looks into it, maybe someone sees me. Someone finds me.

And once I’m found by someone from the Island, figure my game

is played out. Figure me dead.

Well, that’s on the agenda, but I’m trying to see if I can’t attend

to that matter at a later date. More pressing business at the moment.

Places to go. People to see.

And kill.

Goals. Ambitions. They keep a man going.

Any case, all the restrictions my new neighborhood puts on

me, figure I’d stroll over after the games just to mix with the

crowd. Just to be out. Anonymous. Free is a word you could use if

you like. If you like a good laugh, that is.

And while I’m there stretching my legs, I take a look around,

take a sniff of the air, see if I maybe smell something I don’t like.

I smell something I don’t like, I can make a point of finding who

it is. Maybe find an intimate moment when the crowd eddies

around us, lean close and make myself clear.

I had such an opportunity tonight.

Waiting on the last couple outs of the ninth inning inside

Billy’s, nursing a plastic cup of tap beer, mentally adding the last

of the singles and change in my pocket to see if I could make it

come out to enough for a real drink before I wrapped up. I

smelled something waft in from the street. I knocked the bottom

of my cup against the bar and watched the foam rise, watched it

boil down, drank the last of it lukewarm and headed out to the

street where the crowd from a not very close loss was already

pouring surly out of the Stadium.

Want to smell rank? Smell a few thousand baseball fans on a

hell-humid night after a bad loss. Sweat-soaked jerseys, urinesoaked

sneakers, dribbled pump-cheese, a cloud of exhaled

peanut breath and hot dog farts.

Unpleasant.

And still, I can smell it.

Scent like slightly diluted acid, cutting my nasal passages.

Hard sharp poison. Venom.

Vyrus.

I start cutting the crowd, working my way back and forth

across the street on sharp diagonals, looking for the scent. And

finding it. Finding it over and over.

The dildo somewhere up ahead of me must be following a similar

path, but cutting for signs of different prey. Looking for a

mark. Someone who will cull themselves drunk from the herd

and wander down the wrong long street, into an absence of light

where any old bad shit can take place.

I can be patient. Wait till he starts moving in a straight line.

That will be the sign, when he stops blundering back and forth

leaving trail after trail, that’ll be the sign he’s found what he

wants. The idiot, out here making a spectacle of himself, hunting

in the open like a bag-snatcher.

Or.

Oh, shit.

Yeah, who’s the idiot now?

Right. Me.

It’s not a single trail zigzagging the crowd.

It’s trails.

A pack. A fucking pack in the crowd. A fucking pack of youngbloods

working the crowd after a game. Cocky in numbers, ignorant

of fear, dumber than dirt.

Christ, does that ring a bell.

Like my own bell tolling away before I learned a thing or two.

I can’t tell how many. Their lines are all stirred together in the

dead air by the shuffling herd. But the scent is strong. So make it

three. Maybe make it four. No more than that. Four together is

pushing any kind of balance. Four can’t last together for long.

Tear each other apart.

No more than four. More likely three. Two?

That’s wishful thinking.

But Christ, let it be no more than three.

More than three and I just won’t have enough bullets. Three

bullets being all I have at the moment. Three bullets, a likewise

amount of dollars, and maybe that many days I can get through

healthy before I need to get my hands on some more blood of my

own.

Well, not blood of my own. More like blood of someone who

can maybe spare a couple pints. Those people, they tend to be a

rare commodity. Most people need all they got. And some of us,

some of us need all we can get our damn hands on.

Every last drop.

—Now! Now! Clear the fuck off now!

—Fuck you!

—Yeah, fuck you!

—Not your fuckin’ street!

—Gonna meet the street in a second. Gonna be assumin’ the position

gangsta style, face in the gutter in a second.

—Man, fuck you!

I swing round and watch some cops dealing with four kids

whipping through the crowd on bright little pocket bikes, knees

jutting high from the two-foot-tall cycles, engines rising and

falling as they give little pulses of gas to keep themselves in motion.

The cop on point adjusts his gun belt.

—Say that word to me again! Say it again! Taser your ass right off

that bike. Know what happens I hit you with a Taser? Make you

shit your pants, kid. Lie there crying mami, mami and your pants

full of shit just like when you were a baby.

One of the kids guns his bike, the tails of his do-rag flapping

behind him.

—Man, Taser you mama.

—What? Say what?

The kids cut back and forth between cars and pedestrians,

never losing balance, staying just far enough from the cops that if

the officers get serious the kids know they can get away.

—Say you mama need a Taser for her stinky pussy.

The cops are half smiling as they walk slowly, herding the kids

away from the heart of the Stadium outflow. Enjoying the distraction.

But clearly not above busting a little skull if they can get

their hands on the fuckers.

The point cop fingers the handle of his baton and tilts his chin

at his partner.

—Kid’s clearly never met your mama, Olivera, otherwise he’d

know how sweet her pussy smells.

Olivera hoists a middle finger at him.

—Not as sweet as your mama says my dick is.

Do-rag rises on his pegs.

—Cops be all in each other mama’s pussies. I wait till you at it

and fuck you daughters.

The point cop’s fingers curl on his baton.

—That ain’t fuckin’ funny, you little shit.

Olivera adjusts his hat.

—I ain’t even got a daughter and I don’t think it’s funny.

Do-rag shrugs, weaves around a clot of baseball fans watching

the scene play.

—No problems, man. I fuck you wifey instead.

And the two cops run at the kids and the two other cops that

had been working their way over from the north end of the street

where the new Stadium is going up run at the kids and the kids

hit the gas, the tiny 49cc engines whining and the crowd scatters

and the cops scream and when the dust settles the backs of the

kids flick out of sight around the corner, one of them waving the

cap he snatched from the head of one of the cops.

The crowd rustles back into its former rhythm and shape,

everyone avoiding eye contact with the cursing cops. The cops

stand in a circle and ask one another if they’ve ever seen those

kids before, what block they maybe live on, what building they

maybe live in, discussing how much ass they’re gonna kick when

they catch up to them.

I wander across the street, crossing the path the kids took as

they rode off, knowing the cops will be lucky if they never see

that particular group of little shits ever again.

Poison in the air.

Poison left hanging by that pack.

Kids no older than thirteen. Could they be older? Sure they

could. If they were heavy feeders they could be old men on the

inside. But they’re not. Old men wouldn’t make a spectacle like

that. Old men wouldn’t bait cops. No, they’re new.

New to the life.

Jesus, thirteen, they’re new to everything there is. And destined

to never get old to it. Not the signs they’re flashing. Big

signs, neon and bright: KILL ME NOW!

I cross to Gerrard, the crowd thinner, the traffic for the CBE

and the Triborough heavy, past the long low bunker of the parking

garage.

Thinking.

Yeah, I’m thinking about the kids. But I got other things on my

mind as well. Like I’m thinking about who made them that way.

Who bled into them. And how many must have died ugly on the

way to infecting those four.

And I’m thinking how life isn’t an easy thing. Nasty, brutish

and short, so they say. And how you got to take your pleasures

where and when you find them. Because they may not come

again.

And I’m thinking just how much pleasure I’m gonna take from

scalping the guy who infected those kids. How much fun it’s

going to be to peel his skull and shove the rag of skin and hair

down his throat to muffle the screams while I figure ways to

make him live as long as possible as I yank his ribs out.

Any wonder I’m so distracted I don’t register the stink of them

as I pass the gated mouth of an alley until I’m twenty feet past it?

I pull up and walk back. The alley is right next to Cassisi and

Cassisi Accident Cases. Se habla español. Like any of the ambulance

chasers in these parts don’t habla español.

I look between the red-painted bars of the gate, down the narrow

space between buildings where old stone walls topped by

curls of razor wire separate good neighbors. There’s a concrete

staircase climbing to the backs of buildings that face on Walton.

A splash of red much brighter than the paint on the gate at the

foot of those stairs.

I push the gate open, the chain that’s meant to keep it closed

dangles, links snapped clean. At the end of the alley, a sound. Reminds

me of a cat I saw once, had its hindquarters run over by a

bus. Cat’s forelegs kept reaching out, claws rasping the asphalt,

trying to get purchase, pull itself away from the pain. People

stood on the sidewalk, stared at the mutilated cat. I stepped on

its neck and it stopped moving. Way people reacted, you’d have

thought I did the wrong thing.

She’s where they left her, on the pavement, blood bubbling

from her lips, red fake fingernails raking the ground. Her eyes roll

as my shadow falls across her. Looks at me, wheezes, says something.

—Ee iunt aigh ee.

It takes a second, but I get it.

She’s right. They didn’t rape her. A hard thing for her to fathom

about a gang of rabid kids who just bit her tongue out.

Her eyes roll again, up into her head this time, and she’s out.

I look around. Lights in the back windows of the tenements. A

collection of overfull garbage cans with a chain running through

their handles. The kind of alley where people steal fucking

garbage cans. Up the stairs it’s darker, a little alcove huddled at

the bottom of one of the buildings, a door leading into a basement.

I pick her up and put her over my shoulder and go up the stairs

and down into the alcove. The door is steel, the lock is cheap. It

pops the second time I put my shoulder into it. I take her inside

and dump her in a corner.

She’s stopped bleeding. She’s stopped bleeding for the same

reason I’m not drinking her blood right now. The kids infected

her. Could have been on purpose. Could have been an accident.

Biting off someone’s tongue, figure there’s a good chance you

might get your own lips bit. However it went down, she got some

of the kids’ blood in her.

And she liked it.

Or something in her liked it.

Or however it works.

If it hadn’t worked, if she wasn’t the kind can take the Vyrus,

she’d be dead in a puddle of white spew already. As it is, the

wound in her mouth and the various scratches and scrapes she

got in the tussle are closed up. Vyrus going to work. So I settle in.

I could kill her.

I should kill her.

I don’t and she’ll either end up drawing attention to her new

condition and making things harder for everyone else. Or she’ll

take to it and be another mouth that needs to feed. More competition

for everyone. Not that I care about everyone. Still, fact that

she’s likely got no future that doesn’t involve making my life

harder in one way or another is enough that I should kill her now.

But I don’t.

Someone had a chance to make that call on me way back and

he passed on the option. I don’t talk to that guy anymore. Not

since I stuck a nail in his femoral artery, but he did right by me

once.

Least I can do is try the same.

Give her the score.

Let her decide.

So I smoke. And wait. Wait for the Vyrus to finish working her

over. Then we can have a talk.

Christ I hope she doesn’t scream too much when I try to explain

it to her.

—Here’s how the rest of your life works. You’re fucked. Your family,

you don’t get to see them ever again. Same with your friends.

Your job is over. Wherever you live, you don’t live there anymore.

You see someone on the street that you used to know, you go the

other way. You see those people, you get tempted to talk to them.

Try to explain. What you try to explain is that you’re sick. You try

to explain it’s not what they think. It’s a virus. A thing living inside

you. It makes you sicker than they can imagine. And there’s only

one way to treat it. To treat the symptoms. That’s to feed it. And

there’s only one thing to feed it. That’s blood. People blood. Know

what happens when you tell them that? They get the same look

on their face that you got on yours right now. Know the difference?

They’re not infected. They didn’t just get jumped and

beaten and have their tongue bitten out by a pack of wilders who

proceeded to suck on their mouth like it was a water fountain.

And because that didn’t happen to them, they can’t feel what

you’re feeling. That burn inside, the heat and tingle around your

wounds. They can’t look at the cuts on their bare arms and see

they’re already closed up, turning pink to white. They can’t feel

the scab grow over their stub of a tongue, feel it flaking away, feel

how smooth and perfect it is now. Feel that it almost seems to be

growing back. Unlike you, they hear a story like that, they got no

reason to think you’re anything but out of your fucking head, and

get you locked up. And that’s the happy ending. The unhappy

ending is if they should believe you. If someone should somehow

find out you’re telling the truth. Because they sure as shit won’t

think you’re sick, they’ll think you’re a goddamn monster. And

won’t it be fun to see that look on their faces. So, no more life. It’s

over. Other things are over too. You’ll never see the sun again. Not

unless you’re about to die a horrible death. The virus in you goes

crazy if it’s hit with shortwave UVs from the sun. Your whole body

becomes cancerous. Fast. Good news, none of the other crap is a

problem. Crosses, holy water, garlic. That shit, it’s shit. You’re infected,

not damned. Or maybe you are. I don’t know. A stake

through the heart will kill you, just like any asshole. But when it’s

fed, the Vyrus will crank up your system. Stronger, faster. Heightened

senses. And tough. But keeping it fed is the thing. A pint a

week. Blood. Human. More if possible. Think about drinking

blood. Not a happy thought. Now think about getting it. The kids

that attacked you, they’re not the norm. Well, up here they may

be a little more normal, but still pretty fucking baroque. The City,

Manhattan, it’s organized. Clans got it carved up. Coalition,

Hood, Society, others. Each one’s got an agenda. A Clan takes

you in, they’ll help you get settled. Adjusted. Not a joiner, you

can go Rogue, stay the fuck off Clan turf. That means staying off

the Island. Means getting blood on your own. Means hurting

people, mostly. Means sometimes someone gets killed. But better

if they don’t. Better if you develop a system. Find a junkie on

the nod you can tap him for a pint. Vyrus doesn’t care about the

junk. Doesn’t care about any kind of illness or poison. Keep it

healthy, it keeps you healthy. And maybe I’m wrong about your

people. Maybe you’re special close to someone. Could be your

boyfriend. Could be your sister. Someone that’s got a taste for

being used. You know the type. Maybe they got it in them to let

you cut into a vein every few weeks. That makes things a lot easier.

Still need to make some moves, but you have someone like

that, a Lucy like that, and things get easier. Not that easy is a

word gets thrown around much in this life. What else? People

know about us. Not a lot, but a few. Well, some know about us,

others just hope we’re real. Some, they want in on the game, want

to make the scene. Fucking Renfields. Others, they got an axe to

grind. Some of them got real axes. Van Helsings. A real one is bad

news. Someone who can go around in the day, poke into things,

has a credit rating to buy guns and bullets and stuff, and who also

knows the real score on us, that’s a serious danger. And? What?

And there’s some infecteds think the Vyrus isn’t a virus. Like

maybe it’s something, I don’t know, something supernatural. Enclave.

They’re crazy. And there’s a bacteria. Kinda like the Vyrus,

’cept it turns people into brain eaters. Zombies. But that’s pretty

rare. So. I don’t know what else. I don’t usually talk this much.

I blow some smoke at the ceiling.

—I feel like I’m forgetting something. Vyrus. Clans. Zombies.

Stay out of the sun. Don’t get shot. Abandon your life. Drink

blood to survive.

I shake my head.

—No. Guess that pretty much covers it.

I flick my cigarette butt away.

—So, question is, can you take it? I lay it out like that, do you

think you’re the kind who can take it?

She wipes at the drying tear tracks in the grit on her cheeks.

She sticks a finger in her mouth and touches her healing tongue,

takes her fingers out of her mouth and looks at me.

Says nothing.

I nod, point up at the barred window at ground level, the night

sky above.

—Look up there.

She looks.

I pull out my gun and use my last three bullets.

 

EVERY LAST DROP

Joe Pitt Casebook Four

Out September 30, 2008

Castigleone didn’t like to be called fat. 

 

Problem being there wasn’t many way around callin him fat.  Face the truth, wasn’t many ways around Castigleone.  Boy was big.  Hefty.  Rotund (which is another way of sayin fat without sayin fat).  Castigleone coming down the sidewalk, you bet he cleared a ton of space for hisself.  Don’t got to ask people to make way, they just do.  Got no choice.  Only other option bein that you stand your ground and Castigleone tromps over you and you end up an extra large wad of sticky somethin or other on the sidewalk that gonna adhere (mean stick to somethin) to the bottom of some fella or gal’s shoe.

 

Castigleone didn’t like to be called fat.

 

But I am here to tell you somethin, that boy was fat and there ain’t no two ways or nevermind about it. 

 

Fat.

 

An under that fat, he strong.

 

All that jello shakin all over the boy, that just hidin what he got underneath.  You could render that fat away (render means, in this context, like to melt somethin) (by the by, context means within the terms of which we are discussin at the moment.  Cuz render can mean other things in a different context and I don’t want to confuse no one.), so if you could render that fat away, what you’d get left over would look like a bull standin up on its hind legs like a well-trained dog. 

 

But all them muscles, they got Castigleone in trouble.

 

Time was, when he was a mite (mite is like a tiny insect kind of a thing), he didn’t have no fat on him at all.  An the thing to remember is, when I say he was a mite, I don’t mean his bigness, I mean his age.  He was plenty young, barely up to tyin his own shoe laces age, but he was already the kind of a boy who cast a shadow down the ground before him.  Case a shadow like you get when it’s early mornin or late afternoon and you turn your back to the sun and see how it stretches out ahead of you.  Imagine what it’ll be like when you all grown up, to be that tall.

 

Well Castigleone, he didn’t have to wait.  He was already as tall as that shadow, an the one he was castin was taller than any adult you know. 

 

A boy that size, wearin overalls, got a runny nose, draggin a stuffed penguin around with him everywhere he’s goin, well you just know he’s gonna draw hisself some bad trouble.

 

Some kinds of people, they ain’t happing in theys ownself. 

 

True.

 

Hard to see it, but that is truth.  People like that, they always lookin for reasons outside theys ownselves for why they ain’t happy on theys own.  Figure it got to be someone’s fault. 

 

Take offense at the drop of a hat a person like that.  Go around lookin for what it is makin them not happy.  Look around this world, spoilin for a fight with whoever it is they think responsible.

 

Castigleone, him an that penguin of his, they just catnip to people like that. (Catnip, it’s a flowering plant that a scientist would call Nepeta.  Part of a family it is, family called Lamiaceae.  Take some of that Nepeta and let a cat get at it an that cat gonna go wild and roll around an drool maybe and meow and want some more.  Then it gonna get bored and wander away till some time passes. Then it gonna go crazy all over again.)  So these people I’m talking about, that’s about how they behaved when they got sight of Castigleone.

 

Little boy, who ain’t little at all, so big people think he at least a teenager, build like a bull, with a stuffed penguin and a gapin grin on his face, mouth still full of baby teeth.

 

An here they comes, the bullies.  Fellas so unhappy in theys ownselves, they got to push someone else around to feel happy.  See Catigleone, his bigness, those muscles, it like an affront to theys unhappiness (affront is like an insult.)

 

So they start in, makin fun. 

 

“Wipe that snot offa your lip, boy.”

“Where you get them clothes, boy, the poor box?”

“What that you draggin, boy, that a teddy bear?  You too old for teddy bears.”

 

Castigleone, he don’t understand half of it.  But he get the tone.   Sound of those voices, he know theys givin him the business.  An bein a little boy, it plain upsets him.  Gets the tears to flowin.  Blubberin is what the child gets up to.  Cryin on the sidewalk.

 

Well, you talking catnip, that is some catnip for these fellas.  A big guy cryin, that’s about as much fun as theys can imagine.

 

Start circlin Castigleone.

 

“Crybaby.”

“What you cryin over, boy, you wet your pants?”

“Where’s your mama, boy, she gonna wipe your nose for you?”

“Hey, boy, gimme that!”

 

Oops, that a mistake that fella made, grabbin that penguin out from Castiglenoe’s hand.

 

Boy stops cryin.  Boy opens his mouth wide.  Boy pulls his arm back as far as he can.  And he swings it forward at the fella what took his penguin from him.

 

Heard people talk about someone goin all raggedy doll?  Means they fall jumbly on the ground without they got no nothin to hold them up.  Raggedy doll, it got no bones inside what to give it stiffness.  This fella what grabbed Castigleone’s stuffed penguin, he don’t go raggedy doll all at once.  What he do is fly through the air a ways, sail across the sidewalk, looks like he’s struggin against somethin as he fly, his arms an legs all kicky and swingy, like he don’t know yet how the ground got knocked out from under his feet.  Then he hit a wall.  A brick wall.  It had been a wood wall, a fence say, things might have turned out better for that fella.  He maybe would have just broke this an that.  Or probably not.  He might have broke a few less part, but he probably end up just the same way.  Way is was, the wall was brick.  He hit that wall, that’s when he went rageddy doll.

 

Sound was like a wet crunch.  Which is kinda like one of them paradoxes I explained to you before.  Wet crunch.  Things splattin an breakin at the same time.

 

He hit that wall high up, an then he flop all boneless onto the ground.

 

Them other fellas, ones was makin theysselves feel better bout things by pickin on Castigleone, they get lost in a hurry.

 

Castigleone, he don’t know what’s goin on.  He run over, grab up his penguin and hugs it to him.  Wipin snot an tears off on that poor sad ol penguin.  He don’t know what to make of that fella all raggedy doll an all.  He just stand there kickin at him an waitin for him to move.  Till some people come around and see the mess and starts to screamin.  Then he get scared an run on home.

 

Yep, there was some trouble.

 

Castigleone, he was bein raised up by his mom.  His dad was some fella she never knew to well.  Castigleone, when he was born, be was small and weak as a kitten.  She worried he might die of bein so small and fed him up. Fed him up an up an up.  Then she tried to stop feedin him up, but it didn’t seem to make no matter.  Whatever and however much she fed him, he got bigger.  Like sunlight and breathin an water was all it took to make that boy grow. Like he was a weed or somethin.

 

But now she was scared.  No of Castigleone, she loved that boy.  But she was scared what was gonna happed to him. 

 

So she did what she had to, an she sent him away.  Sent him away to her cousin in the city.  To live there, hidden in the city.  The only place where a boy that big might hide.  City is a place where ain’t no one gonna star at you, no matter who or what you may be.  People mind theys own business in the city.

 

So that’s where she sent her son.

 

Castigleone, he starts to think he done somethin wrong, somethin made his mom not love him no more.  Somethin bout the way he hurt that fella so bad.  He starts to hate how strong he is.  Hate them muscles.  He don’t want to look at em.  He don’t want people talkin about em.  He wants to hide em. 

 

So that’s what he does.

 

Boy starts eatin again.  Eats an eats.  Boy can grow on sun an air an water, an he’s eatin hotdogs an avocadoes (creamy green fruit that people think it a veggie because it’s green, but it’s got a pit which makes it a fruit) an cheese crackers an chick pot pie an asparagus (green veggie that makes you pee smell funny) an ossobuco an corn flakes an menudo (a spicy soup made from stomach from a pig or a cow or a goat or a sheep) an endive (like a kind of lettuce) an cheddar cheese an key lime pie an baba ghanoush (fancy mashed eggplant), an, his favorite, viccysoise (cold fish soup).

 

That when he get fat.  Though ain’t no one says it to him.

 

But that muscle, it don’t go away.  In fact, under all that fat, it gets stronger.  Haulin all that around?  Man, them muscles just gettin stronger an stronger.  That boy lost all that fat at once, he’d take one step on them strong legs that was used to carryin all that weight, and he’d just about lift off the ground, kick hisself into space, he would.

 

Truth.

 

So here’s Castigleone, which is what his name is in the Book of All Future Names, comin down the street, makin way, no one callin him fat, an he comes behind him his mom’s cousin, lettin Castigleone clear him a path. 

 

Cousin’s name is Bobo Link.

 

Uh-huh.  Startin to see it now, ain’t ya?  Things they come together a little if you wait.  Cuz trailin after Bobo is his two new apprentices, Munez Lautner and Petty Affair. 

 

We already know cuz I told you that Munez and Petty gonna someday be in the mob of Shadding Lyttle.  We already know cuz I told you that Storie Latier was already come to be the first of Shad’s mob.  An now let me tell you that the last of Shad’s mob was gonna be Castigleone. 

 

But what about Necrotic Culver an all that? 

 

An how does four plus Shad make up a mob when a mob is supposed to be a whole mess of people?

 

Let me tell you now, I just got them all in one place an introduced to you, so hang back an give some room an let me take a breath an we get down into what happened an got on caused all the trouble round here.

 

Truth.

 

-c

 

LOS ANGELES, August 8, 2008

 

Previously in The Book of All Future Names

Munez Lautner knew not a damn thing about Shadding Lyttle, and he liked it that way.

You can ask how a fella that knows nothin about another fella can like it that he don’t know nothin about that fella.  An I’ll tell ya the answer, an all you got to do is sit an wait for the story to catch up to your curiosity is all. 

So, Munez didn’t know a damn thing about Shad, and liked it that way.  An truth be told, Shad didn’t know a damn thing about Munez, but whether he cared a damn about that state of things I couldn’t tell you.  See, theys situations was different in regard to what they knew of one another.

Mind that of  I just dropped in there. 

Told you Munez didn’t know a thing about Shad, didn’t say he didn’t know of  Shad.  Different points entirely.  Way I tell a story they is anyway.

Take a step back, backer than that, little more backer, kay, now you’re at the time when Munez was a whippet child.  Slink of a gutter snip, zigzaggin crowds around the Square, rubbin his belly an looking out from under curly bangs from outta big brown eyes.  Boy had two singular talents, boy could make them eyes leaky as a hydrant at will. 

Tell you, many’s the traveler made the mistake of glancing down and making eye contact with that child, watched as the valve was opened and the waters flowed down those dirty thin cheeks, felt theys hearts touched, frozen there by pity, reached to they’s back pocket for handbag for a little something for to give the mite that he could buy a hotdog from the cart over there, an found that while they’s better natures were being touched upon, theys wallets had likewise been touched up and gone.  Time they looked back for Munez Lautner, he was gone too, down some stray alley was with his big sister, watchin as she counted out the cash, threw the plastic down a sewer drain, stuffed the bills into the strap of a bra she didn’t even need none, and spilled the silver into his cupped palms.

Yeah she got a name too.  What, you think the Book call her Munez’s Sister?  No.  Her name in the Book of All Future Names is called Petty Affair.  An why they has different last names ain’t because theys mommy married different daddies or somesuch, it because the Book don’t care what your brother or sister or mommy or daddy or grands or great grands be called, the Book has your  name, for just you, got no relation to whosoever’s womb you happen to squirt out of or how you got in there or whether theys people what got together to put you in there was married or any other nonsense the Book don’t give a damn about.

So there.

Munez Lautner and Petty Affair.  Brother and sis.  Tight as tight.  How tight they be, you ask, if she be pocketing all the foldin money an givin him only the jinglin? 

Tell you: for ones, she the dipper.  He the shill, keep the attention of the suckers while she stick her hand in theys money keepin places, but she the one taken the rap if a blue suit show up at the wrong occasion of time.  For seconds, she not hoggin that cash.  That cash, sure she take some for herself, but somthin nice, a scarf like she like to wear over her head, wrap up those waist long dreads and keep them manageable while she work, she got dozens of those, master at tyin knots and makin ropes an other usful stuff from them scarves, but mostly what she do with that cash is pay rents on theys place to live, buy groceries for theys to eat, an books from the three-for-a-dollar bin for Munez to read on cuz he way ahead of himself with that readin an go through books like nobody you seen.

That was the other singular talent of Munez (singular, by the by, means theys only one of them.  Don’t give me no mess about how can the boy have TWO singular talents. I mean by singular is that no one else have them, they all his alone.  So there.), readin.

Boy could read a storm. 

Mean that literally (literally mean I mean it exactly how I say it an it ain’t no figure of speech meant to illustrate a point.  If you follow).

Mean that boy was so proficient (proficient mean someone really, really good at something) in the art of readin that he could read a storm.  Look up through the rain, up at the clouds, cracklin lightnin, rollin thunder, whippin wind, look it all over an read it in a flash.  Tell you if it a cleansin kind of a rain, a ill wind, tell you where the thunder from, if it Chinese or from Zaire, know if the clouds the silver linin type, or the other, read everythin in a storm. 

That not all.

Munez Lautner, he could read the street.  Read the buildings.  Read your face.  Read dirt.  Read pigeons on the wing.  Read the grease on a diner countertop.  Read clothes line.  Read shoe soles and bald spots and coffee cups and chocolate cake.  Boy could read anyolthin.

Over the years, as he growin, he read the city, an it tell him of Shadding Lyttle, but it don’t tell him anythin about Shad.

Just tell him such a boy exist, that an no more.  Well, it tell him one more things of Shadding Lyttle.  It tell him that he gonna kill him someday.

Sorry, what I mean is, he (Shadding Lyttle) gonna kill him (Munez Lautner) someday.  Tell you, that a hell of a thing to read about yourself and some other fella you ain’t never met nohow.  Remember back when I talked about foreshadows?  It like that, when you read about somethin that’s to come to pass but ain’t yet, but it better to call it a portent, like a sign of what’s to come.

Having read that much of Shadding Lyttle,