Charlie Huston - Every Last Drop

He shrugs. -We needed to change that, whatever, that perception.

He scratches his shoulder.

— So we let it be known you'd iced and drank up your own girl. That wed put you in custody. And that before your trial, you backstabbed a couple partisans and slipped out on your belly like a snake and ran north to the Coalition.

He shakes his head.

— Turns out, people hate nothing like they hate a fallen folk hero. So when someone caught sight of you down here on the Bowery, they didn't think twice before making the call. And granted.

He holds a hand flat, wiggles it side to side.

— That's a chancy call to receive. People are so, I don't know, eager to lay you to rest, they see a big guy with dark hair and a leather car coat and they're placing the call. We've followed up on more than our share of bad numbers.

He steadies the hand.

— But someone seeing a guy fitting your description coming here, to Philip Sax's flophouse? That needed immediate executive attention.

He gestures at the window. -As it was, we just made it over before things got dicey with the dawn.

He sits, looking at the garbage between his feet, lips pursed.

I flick some more ash, look down myself. I can't see the half of the room on my left. The other half of the room is pretty much filled with Hurley, leaving a scrap of space on the floor for Phil to occupy. Hurley d barely need to move to grab me if I started something. Grab me and hoist me up so my head either flattens against the ceiling or pokes through it into the room above. Or he could just pull one of the two.45s he's always got on him and blow a few chunks out of my brain. My other option, jumping out the window, seems similarly unwise.

The whole burn the place to the ground with everyone in it idea is picking up

serious traction. I scan the floor for any tinder that looks especially flammable.

Terry unpurses his lips and looks up from the garbage.

— Anyway, the tone of things being what they are, your unpopularity with the masses being what it is, this isn't so much a matter of trying to find the most miserable way to send you to your death. I wanted to do that I could just call a general assembly of the Society and toss you in the middle of the room and watch the madness of crowds take over. No, Joe.

He stands. -This is simply a case of expediency.

I watch as he moves to the farthest corner possible in the tiny room. -Phil, you may want to cover your eyes.

Phil covers up.

Terry looks at me. -He can be smart when he needs to be.

He gives a slight, sad wave. -Hurley.

Hurley grunts.

Terry nods.

— Kill Joe.

The bratwurst hands come out of the gunny-sack pockets of Hurley's overcoat and go around my throat. I am levitated from the floor, trying not to thrash, knowing the torque might snap my neck.

I wheeze through the pinhole Hurleys grasp has reduced my larynx to. -Huuuneee.

Terry squints at me.

Phil peeks from between his fingers. -Jeez, oh jeez, oh shit.

He covers his eyes back up.

I force the last bit of air in my lungs up past the crushing fingers. -Uuhhhnneee.

Phil peeks again.

— Man, that's so fucked up. Is he calling you honey? Is that normal for this kind of shit?

Terry raises a finger.

Hurley relaxes his thumbs just enough to let some more air slip down and out of my throat.

— Muhhnneey. Muhhney, Thhheery. Muhhneee.

Terry nods, Hurley squeezes, Phil re-covers his eyes.

My legs thrash, I can't stop them, my body twists, I have my hands on Hurleys fingers, trying to pry them loose, but I may as well be trying to bend the barrel of one of his guns. I try aiming a kick at him, and graze his thigh and he holds me at arm's length, putting me out of range.

Terry watches me dying, tucks his toe under a mashed pizza box, flips it, watches roaches scurry for cover.

He looks up. -Take Phil out, will you, Hurley. You can let him go.

Hurleys hands open and I drop. -Sure ting, Terry, whatever ya say.

He collars Phil and hauls him up. -C'mon, ya wretched piece oh shite, it's some fresh air yer wantin'.

Phil writhes.

— Aw, man, it's my fucking room, man. How come I'm the one that's gotta take a stroll? I mean, so OK, obviously you guys can't take a walk right now, but how come I gotta? Not like I'm any friend of the daytime either.

Hurley shakes him once. -Yer takin a walk cuz the alternative is ya take a dive offa da roof.

Phil pumps his legs.

— Hey, a nice refreshing stroll, a perambulation, yeah? Sounds good. Do me good.

They go out.

Terry comes and stands over me. -Tell me exactly why I should care about the money you mentioned.

I inhale, smoke rasping over the raw inside of my throat and down into my still-parched lungs. I exhale, cough long and hard, and draw a trembling one and a two in the air with my cigarette. -Twelve pints.

I look at Terry.

Terry watches the numbers drift. -Yes?

I exhale again, blowing the numbers to scraps. -Twelve pints. Contents of a human body. As close to exact as possible.

What you were offering for my head.

I rub the bright red finger marks on my neck.

— Out of character for you, Terry, offering a blood reward. Out of character for the Society. Especially a number like that. Suggests someone s gonna die for you to pay off on that bounty. Kind of contrary to your whole thing about coexisting with the uninfected community. Places a certain kind of value on me. Also sends a different kind of message to the troops than you like to. Me.

I put a finger in my own chest.

— I figured you d offer money. Don't want the members thinking about blood as a commodity, after all. Then I remembered.

I snap my fingers. -Moneys a little tight for you these days, isn't it?

Terry nods, combs his soul patch again. -Yes, losing the Counts income has been a blow to our liquidity.

I turn my head side to side, listen to hear if anything grinds that shouldn't. -Sure, hard to keep fighting the good fight without some greenbacks in your pocket.

He stuffs his hands in his pockets, shrugs.

— So, OK, Joe, you have my attention. Hurley is at bay for the moment. Here's your big reprieve. Yes, we, sad as it is to say, we in the Society need money as much as anyone else. Would it was not so. Yes, the resources we had on hand before we lost the Count had allowed us to expand the kind of support we offer to our members, better housing, improved medical care. We were, if you can believe it, we were able to put one of our members who had been a grief counselor before she was infected, we were able to pay her a salary, keep her from having to take a night job, make her available full-time to counsel the newly infected and help them to make the adjustment. It was a real boon, putting the Counts family's petrodollars to good, healing work. So, OK, so we've gotten by on far less than we have now, but its a hard time to be cash strapped. So, yes, there's something to talk about here, but it's going to be a very brief dialogue if you don't have something substantial to offer in the next, I don't know, the next half a minute. And I'm sorry if that sounds unreasonable.

I nod, use some of my thirty seconds taking a drag, use a few more blowing out the smoke, and offer something substantial. -The Horde girl.

Terry takes his hands from his pockets, looks at them. -Yes, that's substantial.

— It's not so much that I don't trust you, it's more that I'm not sure that money, even a great deal of it, will be of more value to the Society in the long run than your death.

I shift on Phils mattress, moving myself from one collection of broken springs poking me in the ass to a different collection of broken springs poking me in the ass. -No argument out of me, Terry, it's a conundrum.