I look at her.

—Sela, if I decide to commit suicide, III do it with a gun like normal people. I won't do it by telling people about little chats I'm having to plot a raid on the Coalitions fucking reservoir.

Amanda shakes her head.

—It's not a raid. Were not even talking about that kind of thing. I'm talking about just some surveillance. Intelligence. That's all.

She taps her own forehead.

—I mean, think about it. They have to get it from somewhere. They cant just make it. They have to have a supplier. Maybe they have a bunch of them. I know that's, like, the most reasonable possibility. They've been around forever. So they've, like, built up these weird relationships. Totally backdoor stuff that no one can get in on at this point. They must get it from dozens of places. Hospitals. EMT workers. Blood banks. They bring it into a central warehouse or something. All we know is that when it comes in, it comes in from Queens.

She leans.

—What we need to know is, who some of those suppliers are. If we know, like, who to talk to, we can totally outbid the Coalition. Or we can force a deal. Tell the Coalition that they can either sell to us or they can face some competition in the market. See what they do when I throw some real cash into the supply

and demand equation and their suppliers start driving their trucks to our door. That's all.

That's all.

Just go to Queens. Just leave the Island right after I got back. Just go poke around the Coalitions biggest secret. The biggest secret.

Just leave again.

Just leave.

Gravity pulls. Pulls at the center of me. Pulls at a part that I didn't know was there till I took it off the Island.

If I pull too hard in the opposite direction, will it snap?

Jesus. Who am I?

I move the girls hand from my knee, I look at her. —Its going to cost.

She does the eyeroll, letting me know again that I shouldn’t bother talking about things that she doesn't give a shit about.

I nod, stand up. —OK. Maybe we should start by asking some people some questions.

I look at Sela.

—And then making them dead.

Amanda slips off the edge of the desk. —See, baby, I told you he was the man for the job.

Sela turns away.

When the math is done, it's not two people I get dead, its three people I get dead. Amanda suggesting, not unreasonably, that maybe I could deal with the slob in the basement who caused all the problems for them the other night.

One more. Sure. Why not? Who's counting at this point?

Terry's mole, he cops to it. I don't have to touch him or even threaten to tear up his back issues of Amazing Spider-Man to get him to cop to it. I just let him watch while I deal with the others. Then I tell him I'll do him different, more easy, if he tells me if he's the one been making calls to Terry.

He says he is.

Could he be lying?

Sure. Why not? I watched someone do what I do to Predo's mole, and / got given a chance to say something might let me avoid the same discomfort, I might lie myself.

But I don't think he was lying.

And if he was?

If he was, then I guess it makes what I did to him that much worse. And if there's someone watching the things I do, watching and judging, that's one that will go against me. Assuming there's any more room in the AGAINST column.

Doesn't matter, I couldn't let him live no matter what. Not after he watched. Not after he heard the questions I asked Predo's pawn.

Far as that guy goes, mostly it's too bad he didn't know anything. Makes life that much harder for me. Certainly made death that much harder for him.

But I'm not worried about it. Because no one is watching me. No one is judging me. No one is weighing my actions and making book on where my soul is gonna finish when the race is over.

I'm the only one watching these things I do. I'm the only one counting. I know the number.

And I've known for a long time what I've got coming someday.

I'm not trying to get out of anything.

I kill the guys. And I don't make it easy for them on the way out. Because I got no doubts they deserve it.

Only maybe not as much as I do.

Tough luck how that works out sometimes.

—Hey. —Who? —It's Joe Pitt.

I hear salsa music doppler in and out of the background. —What? —Joe Pitt. —Yeah? —Yeah. —And?

I clear my throat.

—Remember how you said you d rather I owe you one for when you need someone to have your back? —Yeah. —How d you like to make it two?

I hear catcalls in Puerto Rican-accented Spanish, and her own retort: something about someone's dick and a knife and their throat. But my Spanish

isn't good enough to get the subtler nuances.

The catcalls fall silent. —You still there?

I nod, even though she cant see it. —I'm here.

The  phone  carries  the  sound  of a  train  crashing  and  screeching  on overhead tracks. —You ask a lot, Pitt. —Yeah.

—I got ex-boyfriends, kind of guys never have a fucking job, you know? —Sure.

—Kind of guys, they let a girl pick up every check, pay for their new Nikes, give them walking-around cash they're gonna use to take their shorty out later. Know what I mean? —Sure. —But you. You I never even broke off a piece, and you got them all beat.

I shift the phone to my other hand so I can get at my smokes easier. —Yeah, I like to go that extra mile.

—Yes, you do.

—Yeah. So, not to waste anyone's time, I don't have anything to add to the

pot. You want to help out or not?

Esperanza grunts.

—Girl likes maybe just a little sweet talk sometimes. —How bout that. —Yeah. OK. What is it?

I get a cigarette in my mouth.

—What it is, is it's funny you brought up ex-boyfriends. —How's that funny? —Funny like maybe I'd want to meet one of them.

Silence. I look at the screen of the phone Amanda gave me to make my call, making sure the connection hasn't been broken. It hasn't.

I put it back to my ear. —Hear me?

—I heard you, Pitt. I'm just trying to figure out how to say ha-ha without it sounding too sarcastic.

Getting me out is also on the tricky side.

Seeing as the Cure house is smack in the middle of Coalition turf, getting anyone out is a trick.

Figure that under normal circumstances the Coalition would weed out anyone tried to put roots in their turf. But there's nothing normal about Amanda Horde. Nothing normal about her or her big brain or her money or the Horde family name. She was right about the way Predo used to kiss her and her parents' asses.

Before he plotted to have them all assassinated.

Plot didn't work out.

Someone got in the way.

Chalk that up as yet another reason on the long list that Predo has for looking forward to the day he gets to watch me boil in the sun.

But back before that little misunderstanding took place, the Coalition was neck-deep in dealings with the Horde family. And Horde Bio Tech, Inc. Far as I know, they still have holdings in the company. But the little girl holds all the important strings.

Still, it's too late in the day for them to make a sudden move on her. She's

too well connected for something like that. Too bright a star on the map of the sky. Not the Page Six fixture her mom was, but definitely someone the Manhattan gossip mill has an ear and an eye for.

Poor little orphaned rich girls who run their family's biotechnology holdings and are always accompanied by their sexy but suspiciously muscular black female bodyguards tend to be a hot item from time to time.

Figure the Coalition couldn't do much when she decided to open housekeeping on their doorstep. But figure they keep as many eyes on that house as they possibly can.

Predo knew when I went in the first time.

And he found out that I left.

So I have to use an alternate route this time.

—Don't be particular, Pitt.

—I   don't  think   I'm   being   particular.   I   think   I'm   being   perfectly  fucking

reasonable.

—There's no time for this shit. Just bag it and get in.

—Oh, that's funny.

—I wasn't trying to be funny. Shut up and climb in.

—Fuck.

But I shut up and climb in.

Because Sela was right when she spelled out how it'd work. This is the best bet on short notice. But knowing something is the best bet, that's doesn't make it a sure thing.

I lie down on the greasy, shit-stained, olive-drab sleeping bag on the floor. Sela kneels at the foot and pulls the zipper up. —Bunch up a little, Pitt. —Fuck.

I pull my knees up, hunch my shoulder and duck my head.

Amanda steps closer. —Hang on.

Sela stops with the zipper at my chin.

Amanda puts a hand on Sela's shoulder and bends to look down at me. —Hurry back, Joe. We need you.

I wriggle deeper into the sleeping bag. —Yeah, and it's so nice to be needed like this.

Sela yanks the zipper, catches some of my hair, and gives it anther yank, tearing the hair out and sealing me inside the reeking mummy bag.

Then she grabs the top of the bag and drags me down the steps behind the building and out to the alley. —Hey. Hey, you could carry me, couldn't you?

Her heel clips the back of my neck. —Shut up.

I hear a gate squeal open, sounds of the street, an idling diesel.

Then she hoists me high, and shoves, and I feel air beneath me, for a second, then a bunch of hard stuff.

The tone of the diesel changes, gears grind, there's a jerk and the load in the back of the truck shifts and some more hard stuff tumbles on top of me.

And we roll, the driver of the Waste Management truck hauling the construction Dumpster that had been parked in front of the Cure house, doing his best to hit every fucking pothole and divot from the Upper East Side, across the Queensboro, and down along Dutch Kill and Review Avenue to Maspeth.

By which time I have found the zipper tabs are stuck on the outside and cut my way out with my straight razor, so I'm ready to vault out when we wrap

around the back side of New Calvary Cemetery.

Twenty-four hours?

Not even that. Not one full day on the Island. And somehow, somehow I find myself someplace worse than the Bronx.

You don't have to work hard to land in this kind of shit. You just have to let go of whatever you re hanging on to. The shit is right down there under our feet, waiting for anyone who cant keep their grip.

The next bit, the next bit is the tricky part.

Keeping your mouth closed when you go under.

Maspeth.

One of those names comes from an Indian word that got all fucked up. Someone told me once it means something like At the bottom of the bad water place.

Swamp.

Swamp and landfill.

And the choicest landfill groomed, sodded, planted with nice trees, and filled with dead people.