I nod.

– Wise.

– Yes.

He brushes his hair from his forehead again.

– Indeed, we might simply be using you to open the door. You may find us at your heels. Perhaps we have no intention of executing a raid at all. The Coalition owns this garage. This could all be a drill. My only interest may be in sending you to your death inside the Cure house. There might be several tiny listening devices tucked into your clothing. Placed while you were blacked out. I could, at the end of this sentence, break into maniacal laughter and have you dragged back to the floor so that I may complete whittling you to a trunk. But, for the sake of argument, you may as well assume that you have as little as three hours to lead the pregnant girl out. Or secure her within the building.

The new smoke is a little better than the last couple, giving me hope for the future. I light it.

– As long as we have a clear framework for how we’re handling this, I’m cool.

He opens the door to the stairs.

– On your way then.

I tilt my head to him.

– The way we always work something out, Predo, you’d never guess how much we’re looking forward to killing each other.

I step past him and he puts his hand in the middle of my back.

– Then let us put an end to any misconceptions.

He pushes and I go down a half flight, those two ribs that didn’t mend right snapping for the second time in a couple hours.

He waves two enforcers into the stairwell.

– I think someone should be chasing you. Combined with your general state of disarray and mutilation, it will make whatever tale of woe you tell that much more convincing.

I’m still on my ass, holding my ribs.

He brushes his hand at me.

– Best to scamper, Pitt. For the sake of absolute verisimilitude, I’ve instructed them to kill you if they do in fact catch you.

I get up.

The enforcers start moving their lips, silently.

Predo points down.

– Do hurry, they will only count to fifteen before they begin their pursuit.

Footsteps on the stairs above me.

I save whatever I have left to say and get moving.

The sidewalks outside the parking garage have that same abandoned feel as the ones around Morningside Park. The vibe is clearly in the air. People who don’t live here take a look and figure they can walk a little farther and cross east or west a block away. The people who have to get to their front doors do little more than that. Walk quickly from the corner to the stoop, key in hand. Dog owners pull their mutts down the street, dragging them at the ends of their leashes if they pause to piss at the base of a dying tree.

But there are a few people about, heads down, minding their own, marching home or quickly to the corner where the air doesn’t feel as threatening, and those few people, they slow the enforcers to a trot when they follow me onto the street. Another time they might just barrel after me, but with the action ready to go down, they’re trying to play it cool.

Not me.

I don’t know if they’ll really kill me if they get their hands on me, but I don’t want to find out. So I run as fast as my bad knee, my gimped toe and my broken ribs will let me, right up the steps to the front door of the Cure house where I start by pressing the buzzer and, with the enforcers closing ground, graduate to pounding the door with my fist. The complete one. Because I figure it will be louder.

– Fuck off!

Said through a suddenly opened peep door just big enough for me to see the mouth behind it.

The enforcers are three stoops up the street.

I lean close to the peep.

– You guys got trouble coming.

The peep snaps shut.

I kick the door.

The enforcers are two stoops away.

The peep opens and the barrel of a shotgun pokes out.

– Fuck! Off!

The amputation blade drops from its sheath into my hand and I slip it into the barrel of the gun.

– Pull the trigger, fuckface.

Enforcers are one stoop away.

The guy inside tries to pull the shotgun back and I grab the barrel with what’s left of my left hand. Not the best grip, two fingers and a palm, but I put my back into it.

– Let me the fuck in or there’s gonna be blood on your doorstep and cops in your ass.

The enforcers are at the bottom of the stoop, hands in jackets.

The door opens, my grip on the shotgun swinging me inside. I whip the blade out and turn toward the door and my view of the enforcers is cut off as it slams shut and someone gets a good shot on the back of my neck with the butt of their shotgun and I hit the deck and the barrel is in my face again, but I’ve lost my grip on my blade and I don’t feel like sticking one of my fingers in the thing because I’m running a little low.

– Don’t fucking move!

I don’t.

– Who the fuck are you?

It’s funny what being chased will do to you. Get you all out of sorts and scrambled. Make you focus just on what’s in front of you, just what you see in the tunnel vision of the moment. Like the barrel of a shotgun in your face can plain blot out the sun. Your own heartbeat can drown out thunder. The smell of pepper juice coating your clothes can swamp the odor of a well-known pomade.

But I’m evening out now, with just the shotgun to worry about and no enforcers drooling over the prospect of shooting me in the back.

I’m seeing and I’m hearing and I’m smelling.

The guy with the gauge jams it closer to my face in the dark hallway.

– Who the fuck are you?

I go ahead and put a finger in the barrel.

– What ho, Phil, you don’t recognize a friend?

A flinch travels down the length of the barrel.

– Aw, aw, shit. Aw shit. Joe. Aw shit.

I touch the lump at the base of my skull. It swells and starts to recede.

– That smarted, Phil.

– Aw shit.

I take my hand from the lump.

– But you could make it all OK between us with just one thing.

He nods.

– What’s that, Joe?

– Got a cigarette?

He deflates.

– Aw shit.

He offers the shotgun to me.

– I quit months ago.

I take the shotgun and stand.

– You’re shitting me.

He raises his hands.

– Would I hold out? Given the dynamic that, you know, we follow, I mean, would I hold out on a fucking cigarette?

I take the Bugler from my pocket.

– Can you roll one of these?

He takes it from my hand.

– Asking can I roll? Jesus, Joe, who are you asking can I roll? Can I roll? Like asking if I can cut a line of coke.

He starts to roll.

I listen to some howls rising from below the floor.

He hands me a hand-rolled smoke that looks like it was run off an assembly line.

– Nice work, Phil.

He grazes his blond pompadour with the tips of his fingers.

– A man has certain skills, he’s got to maximize them.

I nod and light up.

– So, Phil.

He nods.

– Yeah?

I heft the shotgun and wave it at the hallway and front door.

– What the fuck?

He shakes his head.

– I tell ya, man, I barely fucking know myself.

• • •

The howling, it turns out, is the least of it.

Time to time, something bangs against the basement ceiling and vibrates the floorboards. Every time it happens, Phil jumps. And there’s the smell. Dead being the basic theme. Vyrus, being the key variation. Feces and rot play into it. Makes me happy I emptied my stomach when the pepper juice hit me. Matter of fact, it makes me pretty damn happy about getting hit with the stuff in the first place. Good chance I’m the best smelling thing in here.

– She said you’d come.

– She says a lot of crazy things.

– Sure, I mean, hell yeah and all, but still, she said it. And, you know, man, here you are.

– She can’t see the future, Phil.

He stops at the steel door at the end of the hall and pulls on the chain that’s clipped to his belt, drawing a heavy ring of keys from his pocket.