“I don’t like living anywhere.”
“Then why don’t you just…stop?”
I look up into the corners of the room, out of habit. Survival. “It’s complicated.”
“Yes, it usually is,” he says.
“You seem to like living here just fine,” I say.
“No, I really don’t. I know guys that would, which is why they sent me here. Knew I’d stay focused on the task at hand.” He looks around the room, out into the teeming street, still buzzing with neon and small groups of holiday carousers this late into the morning, hoping to push back the dawn. “I’d much rather be in my garden with my wife, drinking coffee and giving the world the finger through the vines growing up the high privacy walls.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“Yeah, well, that’s my job, isn’t it?”
“I guess.”
“You guessed right.” He gets to his feet, the puppet finding his legs. He slides his hands into his pockets. “Think about that favor, and come find me if you want to position me as a man beholden. Me being obliged to someone usually works out pretty well for them.” He tosses down some bills. “In case you’re thirsty.”
“I ain’t.”
“Everyone’s thirsty.”
He walks away from the table, out the front door, and out into the street, disappearing immediately into the formless movements of a nighttime crowd.
I look at the cash on the table, then think about the cave, what happened right before I left.
The drink is down my throat and the glass climbs into the air.
17. Punji Sticks
That was too much money.
I drank too goddamn much.
That was too much money.
Can’t feel my feet.
Street is sideways tonight.
Them dudes up ahead. They don’t look right.
Not them dudes. Those dudes. Keep your head, motherfucker.
Those dudes.
These dudes.
Now they’re behind. They look even worse now.
Must think I have money.
Ain’t that a bitch?
I can’t feel it, but I can hear it, like I’m remembering it.
If I pass out, I hope I die.
If I go into a coma, Black Shuck will have its way with me.
If I die, it’ll do worse. It’ll take me in with it.
If I pass out, it’ll have me.
If I die, before I wake.
I pray the Lord.
My eyes to take.
Gunshots.
No, not gunshots.
Sticks shooting through skin.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
Punctured meat.
Blood on me.
Can’t feel the bullets.
No, not bullets.
Sticks.
Punji sticks.
Can’t feel the fists.
They think I have money.
Ain’t that a bitch?
More gunshots.
No, not bullets.
Sticks.
Punji sticks.
More blood.
More and more and more blood.
The blood is a River.
Taking me back to the jungle.
I’m getting close.
To the cave of bones.
Where I can find rest.
Can’t feel a thing.
18. Night Vision
Broussard watched Chapel, like he often had since the first moment he’d met him. There was something about the set of the man’s jaw, and the calm, almost bemused gleam of those boyish eyes positioned just right amongst the wrinkles that was comforting to Broussard, and he assumed, the rest of the men, if they took time to notice it or not. Certain people were made to be leaders, or took to it naturally when command was foisted upon them by circumstance. Broussard’s grandmother was like that, serving as the anchor of the neighborhood, an organizer, a presence. “Mama Broussard,” they’d call her, even those kids who had their own mamas. Even mamas themselves. Chapel was one of these people. A soothing presence. A rock in the middle of a rushing stream, cutting through the scattering force and remaining steadfast and hard, always there to hold your arm as you stepped across the water.
Chapel’s eyes squinted into the night that leaked into their open door, combing through the impossibly black nothingness with such intensity that Broussard was convinced the man could pull whatever he was looking for, no matter how far away, how hidden, out of the nothingness and into the low light, allowing him to see it for what it was. To find what he was looking for against all odds of probability and physics. Broussard watched Chapel watch the outside. He wanted to see what this man saw, or at least witness the moment when he finally accomplished his goal. And Broussard knew that he would, as men like that didn’t do things for no reason, just for show. He was hunting, Chapel was, cutting the night with those keen gray eyes that sliced through the nonsense to find the bloody heart of the matter. The drone of the machinery inside the shell of metal above their heads wrapped them all in a familiar bubble that was difficult to push through, and none wanted to except for Chapel, who trained his eyes outside, hunting.
“Here,” Chapel said, barely audible inside the pocket of sound. But Broussard heard it, without seeing his lips move. “Here!” Chapel shouted, and pointed out into the black.
All eyes followed the gesture. Broussard leaned toward the open door, to get a better view. He saw nothing, only black.
“We’ve found the last front line, gentlemen,” Chapel yelled out above the drone. “The war ends right here!”
19. Angels with Dirty Faces
I wake up, and for the first time that I can remember, nothing is sitting on my chest but a stabbing pain, and it feels like freedom.
No hound. No witch. My bed isn’t on fire, or sinking into the swamp. No bag on my head, no barrel in my mouth. No River, below me or inside. All I can feel is pain, and all I can see is the girl’s face. The girl from outside the cave, who came calling for the Night Man.
“You live?”
I move my mouth, but no sound comes out. The girl gives me a drink of water from a cracked ceramic bowl. The bowl is light blue. The coolness of the water brings my voice back.
“Where is it?” I say. My lips are cut, swollen.
The girl seems confused at first, but then nods slightly. “She no.” She thinks about what she said, then tries again, motioning to the floor. “She no…let here.” The girl points at the old woman, who is seated in the corner. Her eyes are closed and she is mumbling something. Whatever she’s saying, I know that it kept Black Shuck away. For now.
I try to sit up, but I can’t. Everything hurts. Very little moves.
“No,” the girl says.
“What happened?” I ask.
She makes a fist and buries it into her other hand, then forms her finger into a pistol. “Bung, bung,” she says, jerking back her hand like the kick of a gun. She touches the bulging knot over my left eye, the gash on my cheek, then the bandage around my left shoulder and chest muscle. I realize that’s where the pain is coming from.
I peel back the bandage. A foul-smelling poultice has been packed into a long, hot gash. Just a flesh wound. The bullet grazed me, never went inside. Maybe the only bit of luck I’ve ever had.
Exhaling and clearing the white stars clouding my vision, I look around the tiny, rectangular room. Partially caved-in ceiling ringed with mold stains shaped like howling mouths. Brass chimes hang in the corners, tinkling to each other. Cracked plaster walls, covered over by prayer sheets written in large Chinese symbols. The framed picture of a young man in a North Vietnamese officer’s uniform, looking off to the right, eyes full of edge and determination. The cement floor is clean but stained with the eternal damp of every ground level in the Floating City. An opium pipe rests on a wooden block next to me, the bowl blackened from recent use. Must have been part of the medical treatment. They probably burnt through a pound to put me down, not counting on my level of dedicated tolerance.