Christopher Buehlman - The Lesser Dead

I got underground just before sunup.

I got some sleep.

I dreamed I had wings.

Imade sure not to pass anybody on my way out; I felt like a quitter. Making a stealthy escape was even tougher because I was carrying a suitcase; I could make myself small, but the size of the luggage was not negotiable. A plastic bag would have been smarter than the case, I guess, but it was a hell of a nice suitcase, and if I was going to pare my possessions down to so very few, they should at least be things worth having.

Turns out in order to get out with the suitcase I had to bust an extra brick or two out of the bricked-over basement window in Chelsea, which I did by holding on to a pipe in the ceiling and donkey-kicking with my heels. It was just after sunset; there was still a little red in the sky. The first order of business was to feed, so I charmed a guy with a suit and tie and good, high hair down to the basement I had just crawled out of. He also had a suitcase. Two guys with suitcases, like we were going to have a little business meeting down there with the spiders and that moldy basement smell. After I bit him, and his blood was bitter with nicotine—he must have smoked two and a half packs a day—I told him to open his suitcase and he did. Hair care products, like hair spray and gel and shampoo and shit. A whole box of business cards, one of which I plucked out. It just read John M. Murray , gave his 212 phone number.

“What do you, go door to door?” I asked.

“I’m a rep,” he said, drooling all over his very wide, white shirt collar. “I call on people who own beauty shops and salons.”

His neck was still trying to bleed, so I licked it again to close it up. He did smell good, and he could have been a TV anchorman with that head of feathered hair on him. It kind of crunched a little when you touched it, but it looked good.

“What do you use?” I asked him, touching his hair.

“Apollonis,” he said, pointing at a bottle of hair spray with a picture of a Greek god on it. I took it out, looked at my own suitcase, but decided I didn’t want to risk opening it for fear I might not get it closed again. I stuck the hair spray in my coat pocket.

“There good money in selling this shit?”

“Not bad,” he said.

“Show me your money.”

He took out his wallet and peeled it open for inspection. I removed the two twenties, the ten, and the five he had in there.

“You got your car around here?”

He shook his head no. I gave him back the ten, told him to close his suitcase, climb out the window, and take a cab west to the Empire Diner. I said he should get himself a chili sundae, I heard they were good, and forget about what happened here. Out he went; I had to give him a boost to reach the window. He was heavier than he looked, kind of a muscular guy, must have played football in college or maybe he was one of these gym guys. Anyway, off he went to the diner, or so I thought. I’d been to the Empire and seen that chili sundae, it was clever. Sour cream at the top like ice cream, little tomato for a cherry. Stuff like that made me almost wish I could eat without, shall we say, consequences.

I sprayed a SHHT of that Apollonis on myself just for the smell and went out.

I could still see my guy; he tried to hail a cab but it was too close to rush hour still and every cab had a head or two heads in the back, already on their way somewhere. The charm mostly wore off him, I saw it happen, and he looked puzzled for a minute, then kept walking, still going west toward the Hudson. Looked right at me, didn’t register who I was; I smiled a little, that always amuses me.

Now I was looking for somebody with a car, somebody alone.

I stood at an intersection with long red lights, checking out traffic, looking for a nice car with nobody in the passenger seat and the lock tab up. Somebody who looked not too bright, easy to manipulate. I saw my guy again, he passed me, and goddamn if he didn’t turn the corner and come up to a big brick-red sedan parked three cars down and fish out his keys. He got in, threw his suitcase in the passenger seat, and started it. I almost yelled HEY but instead I went over and tapped on the glass. When he caught my eyes, I poured it on again.

“May I sit down?” I yelled over the honking and traffic.

I saw him mouth sure but I had to point at the passenger door lock, which was still down. He leaned over far—it was a big-ass car, like an LTD—and opened up. I tossed his case full of hair shit in the back and got in with my bag.

“Hey, I thought you said you didn’t have a car near here?”

“Girlfriend’s,” he said. “Her name’s—”

“I don’t care, I’m sure she’s a whore. Start the car.”

He did.

“Drive us to Pennsylvania,” I said.

“Penn Station?”

“No, fucking Pennsylvania with cows and the Amish, let’s go,” but I charmed him too much. His mouth just hung open, saliva pouring out of him like he was Niagara Falls; he couldn’t even figure out the gears. You got to charm a guy just enough if you want him to be able to do complicated stuff.

I had last tried to drive while Eisenhower was president, but time goes fast for us and it didn’t seem so long at the moment. Anyway, I didn’t need Slobbery McGoodhair gumming up the works all the way out to Injun Hole, Pennsylvania, or wherever.

“Get out,” I said.

He got out, reflexively reached for his suitcase, shut the door.

I forgot to say, “Watch out for traffic.”

It’s the little things.

Just as I was sliding over, the poor guy was hit, luckily just by a bicycle, but it hit him pretty hard, throwing him, the bicyclist, and the bike down in the street. The guy driving in that lane had great reflexes, screeched to a stop before he hit either one of them, but the Apollonis guy’s suitcase flew up and got whomped by a fast-moving van two lanes over, shampoo bottles and conditioner and other glop flying all over the place. I panicked, jammed down on the gas, I guess it was a V8 cause it really had some horses under the hood. I slammed into the VW Bug parked in front of me, knocked it forward; there were sparks, I’m not sure what from. I cut out left now and mashed the gas again, managed not to hit the guys in the street, taking advantage of the lane they were now blocking, saying shit shit shit all the while. I tried to keep the nose of the thing in just the one lane, but it was too long—who makes cars with mile-long hoods anyway? The fucking thing was like an aircraft carrier—and I got clipped by a taxi, which knocked me back into the Bug, and I bounced off that and into the taxi again, saw some chubby lady’s face yelling in the back, she looked like Bella Abzug, could have been for all I know. A bottle of shampoo, which must have sailed up two stories, came down and exploded in pinkish-red glory all over my windshield; this was going to be the best-smelling accident ever. Smash, crunch, smash, everybody honking, everybody yelling. I grabbed my suitcase and tried to get out the passenger door, but it was junked shut for good. A very angry taxi driver with a cut over his eye and half a pair of glasses was shouting in Greek or something into the driver’s-side window. I heard a cop blowing his whistle. Here he came on a horse, too. All the cars were crunched up together now, there was a huge pile-up, the final spasm of which was a delivery truck clipping a tree, the goddamned tree falling down in a grand, slow-motion shower of leaves and almost taking a traffic light with it.

“What the fucks is wrong with you?” Greek half-glasses taxi guy was yelling, having switched to English now. The bicyclist was behind me, his arm probably broken, trying to stop the Apollonis guy where he was limping around in shock picking up unopened bottles of conditioner and business cards and the cigarettes that got knocked out of his shirt pocket. The traffic light up ahead wagged crazily, like a signalman on cocaine trying to stop a train. The cop on the horse loomed up over the cars, motioning with his free hand for everyone to stay calm, his horse skidding for a second in oil or hair gel or God knows what. A woman screamed, “Michelangelo!” and a Chihuahua with a green and red sweater on went running down the sidewalk. I swear this all happened in five seconds.