Joe Pitt 5 - My Dead Body by Charlie Huston Read Free Book Online Page B

Riverside Park gets highlighted by the city glow. G. W. Bridge upriver, all lit up.
    Picturesque as hell.
    A horn blasts down the tunnel, hits my back like a shock wave, and I step from the tracks to let the train through. I could argue with it, but you have to pick your battles.
    Headlights flash in the trees above from the shoulder of River-side Drive. I scramble up the slope and find a black 1978 Riviera parked there. Dallas behind the wheel, Chubby occupying the bulk of the couch-size, black velour bench seat.
    His window rolls down.
    --All well, Joe?
    I lean against the car.
    --Just saying my farewells.
    --To whom?
    --No one you know.
    He spreads his hands.
    --I know most people.
    --Not this guy.
    --Why so certain?
    --You’re alive.
    --Like that, is he?
    I watch the traffic below.
    --Talking about him, Chubby, is liable to attract his attention. And then you can get to know exactly what he’s like.
    He nods.
    --Another topic, then.
    I push off the side of the car.
    --Idea where I might find Percy?
    He shakes his head.
    --As I said, Percy is absent. Start with Digga.
    --Sure, I enjoy climbing in the bear’s mouth. Makes it so he can just chew. Where do I find him?
    He purses his lips.
    --Commanding the siege.
    I look down at the entrance to the tunnel.
    --The siege.
    --You’d like details.
    I look up from the tunnel, up and through the trees, east.
    --No. I don’t think I need them.
    --You know the place, then?
    The empty socket where my left eye used to be itches. I’d like to scratch it, but I’d need an ice pick to dig deep enough to make it stop.
    --Yeah, I was there once.
    --Ah. On your previous uptown visit.
    That itch gets a little worse.
    Chubby strokes his goatee.
    --Well, there should be no need for you to get too close. I understand the Coalition resistance has been rather intense. Digga will be nearby the park.
    He goes in the glove box and comes out with a cell phone and offers it to me.
    --My number is programmed.
    I take the phone.
    --Don’t wait up.
    I look for an opening in the traffic on the drive.
    Chubby sticks his head out the window.
    --Look out for her, Joe. Look out for my little girl.
    I see my opening between the cars and start across.
    I don’t say anything to Chubby as I go. Promises don’t keep, and he already knows how this is most likely to finish. He wouldn’t have dug me up otherwise.
    Middle of the park I hit Grant’s Tomb. Coming out of the trees beyond, I’m just north of Columbia. I look down Broadway toward the campus, but I don’t go any closer.
    Siege.
    Technically, it’s all Hood turf above One Ten. Water to water it belongs to Digga and his people. But the Coalition, they only give up hard what they got. And what they got up here is the top of the rock: poaching rights on the campus, a few blocks of old money addresses, and a school for training their elite enforcers.
    Way I know it’s sideways here is because no one has killed me before I got this close.
    But I don’t need to test things any further.
    I roll downhill on One Twenty-three, going east, and roll right into more of those riled-up memories. The past likes to haunt you, and I’ve come this way before.
    Old city full of my ghosts.
    Morningside Park on my right, rising steep to the high ground, empty. Street the same. Wind rattling bare branches. The butt of the pistol cold in the small of my back.
    There should be people here.
    Early in the evening, there should be students in the park, climbing the steep path winding to the top. Should be a couple drunks on the benches at the bottom, adding up the day’s change, mentally converting it into 40s. But there’s no one.
    All parks in Manhattan used to be like this when the sun went down. Straight empty but for two types of people: mean people and the stupid people they loved. But by the time I went under, every inch of the Island had been gentrified. Tots played in the parks at midnight.
    Seems the tone is different here.
    Seems this park has redeveloped