Mat Johnson - Hunting in Harlem

"It's for the best, coming from you," Lester kept talking. "I'm sure Snowden would appreciate that if it had to be done, it was done by a friend."

Bobby started running as soon as he was out of sight of the lodge's windows. The first pay phone he found he seized, Piper's number still imprinted from all those calls so long ago. When she refused to pick up, Bobby settled for a frantic message and immediately after disconnecting checked his own machine.

That Bobby had seventeen messages was a complete shock to him. The first fifteen were the repetitive the sound of a phone hanging up again. Number sixteen was her blessed voice accusing him of creating "a damn Trojan horse for my heart" and declaring defiantly that she was on her way over to break in. Number seventeen was Piper's voice too. The words were almost identical to the ones Bobby had just left on her machine. Slightly different phrases, but the same basic warning of danger. The same person to avoid. The same promise of relentless search, the same rushed parting, "I love you, be careful."

Snowden was pretty damn sure it was Piper even before he opened his door. He'd met other people in his life relentless and stubborn enough to ring someone's bell for twelve straight minutes, but none of them lived in New York.

"Where is Bobby? Did you help him with his books? I need to talk to him. If he's at work, I need you to find him and get him." Snowden's apartment was so dirty that he decided it would seem insincere to offer an excuse for this. Instead, Snowden offered Piper a drink, which she declined with such annoyance that he got offended.

"Oh so you laying up with him now? That's fine, I'm cool with that. You're a good person, showing pity on that cat. Don't go breaking his heart when you get bored, though, all right?" Snowden requested. The light was still hurting his eyes and he was tempted to invite her back into the closet.

"Snowden, this is some serious shit. I need to talk to him. I need to talk to you too, you're both in it. I'm not joking, I'm talking real danger."

"Oh fuck," Snowden managed. He had begun to recognize mortal fear, and this wasn't an act. Snowden seated himself in shock, left her standing. "Jesus Christ, you're about to tell me you're HIV positive, aren't you?"

"No! Could you at least pretend not to be an idiot for one second?" Piper asked. Snowden shrugged a maybe, went looking through his pockets for cigarettes. "Look, there's something going on at Horizon. I was in Lester's office and I found folders — "

"What the hell were you doing snooping around Lester's office?" Snowden asked her. "Damn, woman! I told you about that shit, I told you not to enter that world! What's wrong with you?"

"I. . found," Piper continued louder, rolled her eyes, and punched out the words to knock his own back once more, "I found folders on the people who died, Snowden. The accident victims. All of them, right there in Lester's drawers, every name I could remember."

"So? Maybe the man's got a crime fetish. Yo, people are into that death stuff. Perfectly normal, don't worry about it. Or they were applications. Most of those people lived in Horizon-owned housing," Snowden offered, involving himself in the ritual of tobacco lighting so he didn't have to look at her as he said it.

"These weren't applications, Snowden. I'm not a moron. I know the difference between prison records and credit reports. You're not listening to me. Some of these folders even had notes on the subject's lifestyle habits — it was like whoever wrote it was stalking them. I'm going to check, but I'm almost certain some of the dates on the fax receipts for the documents predate their deaths."

Snowden kept shrugging, putting more emphasis into his shoulders. He tried, and failed, to laugh. "Piper, Piper, Piper," he started, half relieved when she interrupted him, as he had no idea what to say next.

"Snowden, look up at me. Do me this favor: listen. Don't tell me I'm being hysterical. Don't just come up with uninformed explanations, OK? Snowden, some of these people listed, I didn't recognize. Some of these people aren't dead yet. I know it sounds nuts and, if it is, I would be the happiest one if you can give me a rational explanation for this, but I think your boss Lester is somehow connected to all this. It makes sense, right? I mean, who else would have the keys to all these apartments in the first place?"

"I don't know, how about a locksmith?" Snowden attempted.

"All right, so I'll say it, I'll put it out there and if it sounds ridiculous, that's fine, I can deal with that." Piper paused before continuing, taking a deep breath as if she needed a lot of air to push the statement out. "Based on the evidence I just read, I'm eighty-five percent positive Lester Baines is some kind of mass-murdering, vigilante maniac."

Piper waited for the laughter, for Snowden's patented derision. Piper waited to be exposed as the pathetic snoop with an overactive imagination she knew herself to be. There would be a rational explanation coming, and it would undoubtedly make her look like a fool, but Piper was prepared to face that. What Piper was not prepared for was Snowden smiling calmly back at her, shrugging yet one more time and saying, "Ah, come on, I don't think you're being fair. Think about it, is what Lester's doing really all that bad?"

"Excuse me?" Piper asked, and she really did want to be excused, because even though he was sitting down, the look on Snowden's face made her start stepping back. Her imagination, in a backlash against its earlier forced restraint, really took off as Snowden got up and started following after her.

"Piper, be honest with yourself. You read their folders. These people were scum, they were parasites. I know it sounds harsh, but just be real for a second. Armed robbers, burglars, drug dealers, pedophiles, they were all people who specifically lived by creating misery for the rest of us. In lots of countries people are executed for living like that. Come on, if you read the files, then you really saw them. Imagine what this neighborhood would be like if all those animals were still around?"

Snowden could tell that Piper wasn't even trying to imagine. She was too busy walking away toward the door. He jumped forward after her, regretted that the action just made her turn and start running. "Piper, it's me, relax, just stay, we have to talk about this," Snowden said, but Piper just started screaming, "No!" back at him, yanking her arm away violently every time he tried to hold it.

When Piper got to the door, Snowden couldn't bring himself to slam it. He couldn't bring himself to do anything more, either. As Piper flew out into the hall, Snowden remembered her naked, on top of him, what her hair looked like as she leaned forward to kiss his mouth, what it tasted like when she did. It was a shame that it would all end like this, Snowden was thinking as he watched her literally run away from him.

Snowden wasn't expecting Horus to pop out from the shadows of the hall any more than Piper was. But there Horus appeared in all his destructive brilliance, ready and eager to change everything.

As Piper got to the stairs, Horus came from behind her, in motion. He must have been hiding in one of the other doorways the whole time, Snowden figured that out later, when there was time. His shoulder forward, his head down, Horus slammed into Piper Goines's unprepared spine, her body folding backward like a fortune cookie from the force. Standing in his doorway, Snowden watched Piper hit the metal railing from the momentum, saw how in that instant she tried to lean her torso away from the void. Horus took his two thick hands to her two soft ankles and lifted her up and over like he was dumping a wheelbarrow. Piper cleared the railing as smoothly as if she wanted to. Snowden never even got to see her face again, just a blur of limbs and clothing as she grabbed at the air. Then she was gone. That quickly. Horus leaned over the ledge to watch her land.