Read Joe Pitt 5 - My Dead Body for Free Online Page A

jacket and comes out with an envelope.
    --Money. Their names.
    I take the envelope and look at the scrap of paper inside.
    Ben Forest.
    Delilah Cooper.
    --Your real last name Cooper?
    He adjusts the knot in his tie.
    --My name is Freeze. As everyone knows.
    I look at Mr. Chubby Freeze.
    --Any idea where they’d run to with the heat on?
    --Having failed to find safety in the Society, it would be natural for the children to seek it within a racially familiar community. The Hood.
    I slap the envelope into my palm.
    --There a reason Percy isn’t dealing with it himself?
    --He is occupied with Hood politics. And since telling me how I might track you down, he has stopped answering calls.
    --So the kids might already be on Hood turf?
    He shrugs.
    I shake my head.
    --Not where I’m most welcome.
    --From what I gather, Joe, you no longer have any turf at all. In any case, if that’s where they are, you’ll not have far to go.
    I stick the envelope in the pocket with the cosh full of sand.
    --Walking under Harlem is one thing. Walking on top of Harlem is another. Grave Digga may still have issues with me.
    Chubby makes for the door.
    --Who does not, Joe? Who does not.
    Can’t argue that, so I follow him out.
    Find the kids and maybe she’ll see me.
    First thing I’ve had worth dying for in a long time.
    I don’t have any goodbyes to say. Nothing to keep me from following Chubby and Dallas up the tracks toward the north entrance to Freedom Tunnel. The locals give me the same wide berth they always have. I took care of some trouble once or twice down here, but they won’t be sad to see me go. Couple days after I’m out, they’ll figure Q-line’s shack is vacant again and someone will move in and start renovating. Bring in a new color dirt or something.
    Neither Chubby or his boy are doing too well with the rail ties and rocks in the darkness. Chubs isn’t built for it, and Dallas is still a little sloppy on his feet after the concrete to the head. Still, I’m not in a hurry. I dawdle behind, letting the flashlights they brought show the way. Now we’re on the tracks, I can see it’s night up top. The vent shafts are blue-black, moonlight washed out by what the city is shining up there itself. Come late morning, bright columns will cut the dust. You can see the edges of them, sharp and clear. See the line exactly where you’d cross into that light and start to fester.
    One of the flashlight beams picks out some letters on the wall: OBSOLETE MACHINE. Further, the American Way mural. A Dick Tracy figure pushing an armed man out of frame, shouting, Drop the gun, mole! The cover from Dark Side of the Moon, captioned: You shout and no one seems to hear. A Unibomber portrait. Always one of my favorites.
    I smoke and kick some rocks. I’d say I was thinking about Evie, but that would be redundant. She’s my white noise. Always there, crackling static in my brain. Inescapable. Mostly you tune it out. The second you focus on it, it drowns out everything else. This occasion, it drowns out the one guy down here I should maybe say goodbye to. Swallows up the thought of him right until Chubby pauses to loosen his tie.
    --Is it getting hotter down here, Joe?
    I feel it then. Should have felt it before the fat man, but I feel it.
    Heat and carbon dioxide reveal life, and the thing panting in the darkness beyond the reach of the flashlight beams is screaming in this silent language that it is fucking well alive.
    Or about to die.
    Close at the edge of both.
    I freeze.
    --Chubs, you and your boy go on ahead.
    He turns to look at me, the beam of his light rippling over rocks.
    --Speed, Joe, is of the essence.
    I’m looking at the darkness, wondering if it will explode.
    --Pace you two are making, I should be able to catch you up.
    --I’d not like to lose track of you after just finding you.
    I take a step into the heat and the darkness.
    --Chubby, go fuck off up the tunnel. Now.
    No one ever accused Chubby Freeze of being a stupid