Kill the Dead (Sandman Slim 2)

“People have been disappearing for weeks, but just one or two at a time. Last night was the first breakout of Drifters into the streets. If the Sub Rosa isn’t being chatty about it, it’s probably because someone in the Sub Rosa is behind it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Cabal is my guess. He’s got the background, the family chip on his shoulder, and his public drunken crazy act has most of the other families scared. And they should be. Just because Cabal pretends like he might be crazy doesn’t mean he’s not.”

Tracy gets a bottle of blue Mexican soda from the refrigerator, twists off the cap, and tosses it into the sink.

“If no one is talking about escaped zeds, how do you know about it?”

“Because I let them out. They bit a friend of mine and they escaped while I was getting her away.”

“You let them out? So this is all your fault.”

“They got out when I was trying to save a friend. Someone who came halfway around the world to stop exactly what’s happening and save all your asses. You want to start working on whose fault it is those Drifters got out last night, how about finding out who put them there in the first place?”

“I suppose,” says Tracy. “Where were they?”

“At the Springheels’ place.”

Tracy and Fiona exchange a look, but neither says anything.

I hold up the cooler.

“This is getting heavy. Think we could meet Johnny?”

Tracy sets the soda on the counter and gestures for us to follow her to a closed door at the far end of the apartment.

“Don’t come in until I tell you to and don’t say anything until I tell him who you are. Savants are kind of obsessive-compulsives. Don’t take it personally if he ignores you for a while.”

“Got it.”

She opens the door and says, “Johnny?” like she’s talking to a nervous six-year-old. “There are some friends here to see you. Can I let them in?”

I don’t hear anything, but Tracy waves us in.

“Johnny, this is Allegra and Stark. They brought you some presents.”

She nods at us to put the cooler and jelly beans on the floor near Johnny.

Johnny Thunders is hunched over a metal folding table wearing a magnifying visor on his smooth white head. He’s studying something microscopic in his left hand while his right hovers above it with a delicate paintbrush. He’s wearing black sweatpants and nothing else. He looks like an albino mantis about to strike. Johnny is beyond skinny. He’s Auschwitz thin. You can count each of his ribs. Practically strike a match on them. But he doesn’t look sick or weak, more like he’s a separate breed of minimalist humans designed to take up as little physical space in the world as possible.

“Can you say hello, Johnny?”

“Just a minute,” he mumbles.

His right hand moves almost imperceptibly. I’m not sure Allegra or Tracy saw it. I barely caught it and I can see down to the quarks in his fingernails.

Johnny holds his microscopic object at arm’s length, studies it for a second, blows on it, and sets it down in a small upturned box lid. There are dozens of other flea-size objects in the lid. Apparently satisfied, Johnny turns and looks at us. He smiles and for a minute looks sort of human.

“Hi. I’m Johnny.”

He stands and puts out his hand. It’s reflexive. Something he’s learned or remembers from another life. Allegra shakes and I follow. He holds on to my hand and looks at me, cocks his head like a dog listening for a strange sound.>I GET UP a few minutes before nine and walk through a shadow to come out in a corner of the Grand Central Market. I haven’t seen the place since that day with Eleanor. It looks a lot nicer when it’s not on fire.

I buy a Styrofoam cooler and dry ice at the liquor store where Eleanor torched herself. I have to stop at three different butcher stalls to make sure I have enough pig guts to bribe Johnny. At a Filipino market near the Hill Street entrance, I pick up pork blood to fill out the feast.