Half-Resurrection Blues (20 page)

F
ind Sasha.

This is, after all, what I do. When I returned, when I woke from the groggy, infinite sleep, my body already knew how to cast this fibrous, tingling net around me and then cull it back and digest the wealth of information it brought. I knew how to interpret each flash and glimmer, the droll tides of sorrow and flash-pan bursts of joy. Lying there in Mama Esther’s guest room, I perfected the push and pull. Found the outer reach, contracted just so and then released again, inching this web of mine farther and farther until the entire neighborhood around me gave up its pulsing secrets, and I had to stop from sheer information fatigue.

And now, standing in the center of an open field in Prospect Park at dusk, I throw farther out into the reaches of Brooklyn than I ever have before. This is my second night of searching, second night of standing perfectly still in the middle of this park, projecting and retracting, coming up empty. Clouds cover the moon; a breeze passes, whispering of autumn’s approach. The amphitheater of trees around me shivers.

Ignore the park spirits—no anomalies ping out from
the darkened slopes to either side. The surrounding neighborhoods tingle with life—Brooklyn braces itself for something. Hearts race, preparations in full swing. Even the cops know it’s coming; they shift their weight and mutter to one another.

But
what?

I draw back in. Breathe. Breathe again and then release, wider this time, beyond the park, beyond the projects and massive ornate apartment complexes, past Empire Boulevard and Eastern Parkway, deep into Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights, Flatbush.

Sasha.

Thousands of pings, heartaches, fears, great sweeping torrents of love and doubt, explosions of rage and the glib, monotonous landslide of depression. Honking horns and flashing lights, a thrusting motion, sudden death, slow impossibly slow decay, the birth of a new movement, a ritual repeated again and again, the gathering tide of generations shifting repeating changing vanishing a pinprick a temper tantrum a gas leak a nail clipping a regret a scrap of lined paper scribbled on in long frantic letters a puff of steam a journey a bike helmet playing cards
Sasha
an engine a pair of scissors a— It was just a wisp. Circle in, circle in—train tracks domino tables chairs the night sky regret a swallow a crack in the sidewalk a tunnel an old hand, shivering, turns over another card a trash can a wheel a pigeon two pigeons an iron bridge over the tracks a chair—

“Again?”

What?

“Yes?”

I open my eyes. The glimmer of a soulcatcher helmet clouds the night sky. The threads release, a last flickering
glimpse of Sasha vanishes amid the avalanche of information, and then there’s nothing.

“Sir?”

I blink. I’m lying on my back.

“Sir, you don’t look well, sir.”

No . . . shit. Information overload. Never cast the net that far before.

“A hand, sir?” The soulcatcher reaches a shimmering glove toward me.

I shake my head.

“We came for orders.”

Orders. We. A few shadows stir in the corner of my eye. Right. Hunched on my elbows now, I take in the squad of soulcatchers. Those battered, horseshoe-crab helmets and long hooded cloaks. Ornate face guards like some elegant skullsmile.

“We brought you coffee, sir.”

Bless them. I gather myself, roll onto my front, then heave up to a crouch, and finally stand. “Black?”

“And no sugar, just like you like it.” The soulcatcher nods to where a blue-and-white to-go cup sits in the grass. Protocol junkies. There’s no one around, no one to see the cup float and then pass to me by an invisible hand. They probably whispered in some poor drunk’s ears till he stumbled into a bodega for it and then distracted him and whisked it away, vanishing it with some Council magic as they made their way through the streets into the park. And then they put it on the ground for me. So the empty park and midnight sky wouldn’t see them pass it.

Protocol junkies.

I pick it up, pop the plastic lid opening, and take a sip. It’s thin bodega trash water, but I let out a satisfied
ahh
sound anyway. “You’ve done well, fellas.”

“Thank you, sir. Do you have orders for us?”

“Orders?”

“Regarding the apprehension of Sasha Brass.”

“Queens,” I say.

“Sir?”

“Got word she might be in Queens.”

The shrouds flutter uncomfortably. “The borough? Anything more . . . specific?”

“Is Queens too large an area for you to cover with your ’catchers?”

“No, sir.”

I look up at the cloudy sky and sip my coffee. “Then happy hunting. I’m following up with some leads over here.”

For a few seconds, the soulcatchers just waver in the night wind. I turn to look at them, very slowly and with death in my eyes. They turn and slip silently across the field.

I know I’m an asshole for that. They’ll be searching the backstreets of Corona and Rego Park until next Tuesday, but I need them out of the way, and if I just send them home, it’ll raise too many eyebrows.

Once again in silence, I close my eyes and strain, poring over the jumble of meta- and microdata. A wrinkled hand overturned a card onto a velvet cloth. It’s a cloth I’ve seen before, a hand I know.

I open my eyes and then run.

O
ld Ginny is not a fortune-teller I put much stock in. Nice lady, but as far the future goes, she’s useless. Still, when she looks me dead in the eyes tonight and scowls, “You, sir, are fucked,” I have to lend it a little credence. I’ve never seen her predict with such certainty; usually she’s all waving hands and
hmm
ing it up to seem more authentic.

“Well, thanks for the vote of confidence, Ginny.”

She looks up at me from her little cubbyhole storefront. “I’m just saying.”

“Maybe keep it to yourself next time. I didn’t ask for a damn reading.”

“Sometimes I give freebies.”

“How charitable. You seen a—?” How to describe Sasha and not sound like a twelve-year-old asshole discovering poetry for the first time?

Ginny raises her eyebrows at me.

“A beautiful . . .” I wave my hands around.

“I seen her,” Old Ginny says. “Stopped by a few hours ago.” She flips over another card: Death. “Oh boy.”

“You turn over that card every time I come around, Ginny. I’m not impressed.”

“Well, maybe that should tell you something.”

“The woman. What’d she want?”

“Weed.”

“Excuse me?”

“She asked me if I knew where to get some weed.”

“Did you . . . did you tell her?”

“Sent her to TiVo.”

“The fuck kinda street name is TiVo?”

The old fortune-teller shrugs. “He likes to have his shows recorded while he’s out selling, I guess.”

“Whatever. Where does he sit?”

“Ocean Ave.,” Ginny says. “A few blocks down from the park.”

I close my eyes.
She’ll let you know how to find her when she’s ready to be found.
Mama Esther’s words whisper through me. “Thank you, Ginny.”

“Be careful out there, Carlos.”

*   *   *

Brooklyn’s beautiful tonight. I stroll down a quiet residential block, enjoying the warm air on my face. I can almost ignore the nagging sensation that Sarco looms in every tall shadow. A wrinkled old man sits on his stoop, enjoying a cigarette like he’s done every night before bed for the past forty-something years. He’s dying and he knows it, better than his doctors even, but he could give a shit. It’s been a long and glorious life, full of hard work and good love and he’s pretty much ready to go. So he sits there grinning out at the night and tips his battered baseball cap as I pass.

“Evening,” I say. A few cars go by. The trees swirl and gossip quietly above me. No ghosts, no Sarco. No one at all, in fact, once I pass Old Dying Guy. Then I turn a
corner onto Ocean Ave.; the block is alive with mommies and children, teenagers flirting, street vendors selling knickknacks. Smoke billows from those big barbecue vats, and you can smell jerk chicken getting brown for blocks and blocks and blocks. The whole neighborhood is celebrating another day of life.

I’m pretty sure Sasha had no interest in buying weed, but just in case I’m wrong, I walk up to the dude with a baseball cap and puffy jacket on the far end of the block.

“TiVo?”

“Who the fuck wants to know?”

“I do.”

He sizes me up, squinting through whatever calculation makes me coplike or not. “Come,” he finally says. We walk between two apartment buildings, past a trash dump, and into a small back office where a little white guy sits typing on a laptop.

“This dude came looking for you, T. Want me to pop him?”

I’m working out my own calculations—how fast I can unsheathe my cane-blade and slice both these motherfuckers—when TiVo waves a hand without looking up from the screen. “Nah, it’s cool, Melo. Thanks. Hang on one”—he types one last thing and then looks up at me—“sec. There. Hey, what can I do for you? You want some weed? Meth? Red? Purple Haze? P-funk? I got it, homeslice.”

“No,” I say. “I’m straight. Did a pretty girl come through today, looking for weed?”

Melo wiggles his eyebrows. “Did she! Ay . . .” I shut him up with a glance, look back at TiVo.

“She did.” He smirks. “Sold her a dime bag.”

“She say anything?”

I’m wondering when it’ll kick into TiVo that I could be
a cop, a rival gang member, anything . . . but he just shrugs. “Nah, just bought the dime and peaced.”

“See where she went?”

“Nah. You sure you don’t want some weed, man?” His eyes drift back to the computer screen.

I shake my head and see myself out.

I
stand perfectly still across the street from Sasha’s building. It’s another of these giant, antique-looking beasts that fill up Flatbush with their vast lobbies and rickety old elevators. I’d given up staking the place out when it was clear she’d vacated the place. Now she’s let me know she’s back and I have no idea what to do. There’s a little Mexican kid sitting outside wearing a Spider-Man outfit and talking to himself. I’m trying not to see myself in him.

This is supposed to be fun. I was born to hunt, dammit. But instead, for the first time, I am that creepy guy that people so often mistake me for. I’m a stalker. And my stalker’s mind is cluttered with endless irritating debates about what will happen next—a hundred hypotheticals, none of which do me any good whatsoever. I could walk right up there. We could have it out, settle our differences, have amazing sex, and then fuck up Sarco’s plans. In whatever order makes the most sense, of course. But then I could walk up there and find Sarco waiting instead of her. Or Sarco waiting
with
her, infinite ughh, and then that’d be that.

Across the street, mini-Spider-Man is having a whole debate with himself in Spanish.

What if,
he’s probably saying,
Sasha really is behind the whole thing?

Bullshit,
he replies, shaking his head.
She’s had every reason in the world to stab you without being a supernatural criminal mastermind
.

But she reeled you right in too, didn’t she? Worked it just right. You think it was all just happenstance how sweet everything worked out?

I followed the footprints she left for me to see. She’s not stupid, and she knew I’d be looking for her. She led me to her door. Mama Esther said she’d reach out; she reached out
.

Mm-hmm. Bet it feels good to think that
.

You shut up.

Okay.

The kid fishes some old crackers out of his little school satchel and chews on them, looking thoughtfully at nothing at all. I go for a Malagueña, realize I’m out, curse, and then limp from my stalker spot toward the bodega on the corner.

And that’s when I realize I’m being followed.

It’s like a jolt of pure life in my veins. The little hairs on the back of my neck stand up; the whole world around me springs into sharp focus. I’d been waiting for this feeling, that sweet thrill of the hunt, but when the target’s all cluttered by emotions, well . . . the thrill keeps its distance.

This, though, is something else entirely. Someone has their eyes glued to my back. They’re plotting from the shadows, improvising around any obstacles or uncertainties, planning ahead, setting up traps. Doing what I do. For a terrible second I both hope and fear that it’s Sasha,
but immediately, I know it’s not. This is an altogether different feeling. The wind whispers in my ear, the subtle atmospheric changes, the faces passing by, the shushing trees—they all sound the subtle warnings of the universe. Something is coming. It’s close. It’s been with me for a while, too. I’ve just had my head too far up my ass to notice. Damn.

The old Yemeni guy behind the counter grins as he sells me another pack of cigars. “A beautiful night, yes?”

I’m forming a plan. I’ll get this hidden follower somewhere where it thinks it can attack in safety, away from Sasha, and flush it out. “Yes, beautiful night.” And then I’ll find out what the hell’s going on.

Clarity. My heart comes to life with the sudden awareness that I just decided what to do. All it took was a threat and a plan to make everything make sense. Maybe it doesn’t totally make sense, but that’s not even my concern right now. I’m sliding along the momentum of the night. I’m willing to take some hits if it means getting my swagger back. I will lead this unknown threat away, and then I’ll take it out. Yes.

“Good night,” the old guy says.

I nod at him, smiling for the first time in days, and then walk out the door. Then something huge gets up in front of me, eclipsing the streetlights, the passing cars, the whole world. Giant hands shove me backward into the bodega, and I hear the door slam and then lock.

It takes a half second before I recognize the face glowering down at me, now gray and lifeless.
“Moishe?”

H
is head and beard are shaved, his face is twisted with maddened intent, and he’s not wearing his Hasidic blacks, only a tattered T-shirt and gray pants. But it’s Moishe, without a doubt. And yet, at the same time, it’s definitely not. Something’s off. There’s a nasty scar reaching across his forehead where Sarco shanked him. A million thoughts burn through me now, but I can’t deal with them, because the dead giant is advancing with his long arms outstretched.

I scatter out of the way, upsetting a pyramid of canned soup, and dash to the back of the store.

“Stop this!” the old Yemeni yells. “Get out of here!”

The giant silences him with a well-flung can of soup. It ricochets across the counter, sends up an explosion of penny candies and chewing gum, and whizzes past the old man’s head, thudding against the bulletproof glass behind him. The man shuts up and slides down behind the counter. I duck around to another aisle just as the giant turns back to me.

In three long strides he’s crossed the store and is rounding the corner when I catch him across the face with a broom handle. The giant stumbles back a step and I
follow up with some gut shots. He doubles over but manages to charge, pinning me against a wall of kitty litter and dog food.

“Moishe!” I yell. “Come out of it!” I should just save my breath. Whatever spell he’s under or thing he’s become, it’s not letting up anytime soon. Anyway, he’s got those huge hands around my neck now, and my windpipe is giving way beneath his grip. I summon all my strength and shove us both forward, delivering a few swats with my cane as he struggles to keep balance. He growls at me, lunges, and I realize I’m fighting for my life. I turn and run, upsetting everything off the shelves as I go. It slows him a little, but those damn legs are so long it’s not much good.

Moishe died. I saw it happen. Sarco put my blade through his head. But here he is. And he’s not a ghost. He’s definitely come back, something like me, but those eyes, those eyes are empty. He’s emoting. Rage courses through him as he charges toward me, but there’s no life to him. He’s an empty puppet.

The giant’s full weight thunders against me, and we crash to the floor. I thrash my arms and legs, making myself as difficult as possible to keep ahold of. He’s flustered, reaching out stupidly to keep me still but missing. I manage to turn over onto my back and immediately take a solid fist across the mouth. Feels like a cinder block just found me from a few stories up, and for a second I think I might pass out. I hold on, though, if nothing else because my life depends on it, and thrust my hips up, knocking him just off balance enough for me to squirm away.

Hello, my son
. Sarco’s hideous whisper echoes back to me. He’s a resurrectionist. He did it to Moishe. He did it to me. He did it to Sasha. I know it’s true as soon as it occurs to me. Sarco murdered me and brought me back.
Partially. No wonder he has stored-up memories of me before I died. He was there. He was there when I died.

I make a dash for the door, but I know it’s pointless. It’s locked, and there’s no way I’ll be able to get it open before he gets to me. Endgame has come much faster than I expected. I’m reaching for my blade when the shot rings out. It’s ear-shattering, and the sheer shock of it throws me to the ground. I hear a monstrous clattering from behind me, whirl myself around, blade out, and see Moishe crash backward against the salsa and applesauce shelf, shattering half the bottles as he slides down to the ground. A continent of blood opens across his shirt.

The old Yemeni’s face is tight and furious. He lowers the gun, one of those no-fucking-joke
Dirty Harry
hand cannons, looks me dead in the eye, and says: “Get out of my store. Now.”

I start to say something, but what’s the point? The police will be here any second, asking all kinds of unseemly questions. I’m halfway down the block, my brand-new cuts and bruises burning in the fresh night air, when a huge figure bursts out of the store amid shattering glass. I flatten myself against a wall. Another gunshot shatters the night. Moishe stumbles into the street, dodges a passing car, and then lurches toward the sidewalk. I can’t tell what those wide, darting eyes take in, but I’m guessing he’s spotted me. I throw myself into a crowd of folks moving quickly along the avenue.

Everything hurts. The night closes in on me. Too many people around. Witnesses, gossipers, hungry ghosts. I need to get somewhere safe, assess my damage, and start over. There’s a new element in the equation.

I make it to a wide swarming intersection at a southern corner of Prospect Park. Tons of people fill the street;
their laughter dances into the sky amid the thrum of bass-boosted speakers blasting a relentless Caribbean beat. Did Sasha set me up? Is the whole thing a trap? I glance back and see the tattered dead giant standing in the middle of Ocean Avenue; cars peel to either side of him, honking and cursing. And then I notice all the cars have flags hanging off them.

J’ouvert
. Carnival. That’s what all these folks are doing out here. The West Indian Day Parade is about to erupt in a three-day festival through Crown Heights. That’s what the city’s been bracing itself for.
He will try again
, Mama Esther said.
He’ll wait till the city thrashes amid the collective energy of a hundred revelers, and then he’ll unleash his vapid designs again, Carlos. You’ll see.
The Council wasn’t kidding when they said an attack was imminent. The corpse that once was Moishe hasn’t moved. Maybe I wore him out. More likely, he has some other business to attend to. Either way, I have to regroup. I turn and break out toward the parkway, ignoring the burning of the giant’s eyes against my back.