The Boss. You didn’t say his name out loud. Not if you worked for him. Not if you didn’t want to end up in the river.
“I know all I need to know,” he says.
“Then you know he’s dying.”
That hits Mookie like an ice-ball to the face. He flinches. “What?”
“Cancer. The real bad kind. His expiration date is coming up fast.”
“How do you know this?”
Mischievous twinkle. “What can I say? I’m good.”
“You’re bad.”
“That too.” She shrugs. “But you’re not exactly a boy scout, Daddy.”
“I do what I have to do.”
She taps her temple then. A sign. A gesture from one Blazehead to another. That kills him. That little acknowledgement – a recognition of a shared sin – cuts all the way through the fat and meat and gristle.
“Damnit, Nora.”
“Hey, we are who we are, Daddy. We all have our roles to play. I just thought you’d like one last chance to get onboard. Boat’s leaving. Once it’s out of port, you’ll be shit out of luck, old man. Stuck on shore as the world burns.”
“I told you, Eleanor. Go home. I know your mother misses you.”
Nora bristles. Goes quiet for a few moments and her gaze is a pair of hot pins through his eyes. Again he feels dizzy – sick, too. Nora unmoors him but this is different. Something’s wrong.
“You don’t know anything about Mom,” Nora hisses. “You never did.” Those words, dripping with poison, like a sponge soaked in snake venom. “You don’t look so hot. How was the lardo?” At first he thinks she cares, but then he sees her lips tug into another smile.
“You…” He can barely find his words. Snake venom.
“Poisoned you?” She laughs. “Just a little.”
He tries to step forward. His leg doesn’t comply. It feels mushy. Like a rubber band dangling.
“Something big is coming, Mookie. I’m going to change the game.” Nora waggles her fingers. She mouths, “Buh-bye.”
Then Mookie drops like a hammer-struck bull.
2
The saying goes that there is more below the streets of New York City than there is above them. An exaggeration by those who say it, perhaps, but they don’t know just how accurate that statement truly is. Hell’s heart, as it turns out, has many chambers.
– From the Journals of John Atticus Oakes, Cartographer of the Great Below
Daddy… Daaaaaaddyyyy…
I need your help, Daddy.
I’m hooked on Blue. These awful things sold it to me.
Goblins. They hurt me. They hurt my boyfriend.
If only someone would kill them for me…
Daaaaddyyy…
He awakens in the morning. Still alive. The poison ran its course, scraped him out like a knife. Every movement feels slow. Like he’s walking underwater. Glances up. Sees the time. He’s running late. For the Boss’ meeting. Shit. Shit.
He grabs a stool and shatters it against the bar top, then staggers out the door.
Mookie takes the train out of Edison.
Train’s late. And it’s not the express. Time escapes. His body’s starting to rebound from whatever Snakeface venom his daughter must’ve used to poison his meat – and now everything feels toothy and raw. Like coming down off the Blue.
His feet tap. He keeps cracking his knuckles.
Finally, the train moves. North on Jersey Transit toward the city. Through trees and tracks, past Rahway, Elizabeth, into the bleak industrial waste that is Newark, and finally down through darkness toward the city proper.
When the train hits the tunnel, Mookie stiffens. His whole body, tensing up like he just stepped on the third rail. Out there in the shadows of the underground, anything could be hiding. Monsters of known quantity: a band of war-whooping gobbos, a handful of all-mad half-and-halfs, a cult of Blazeheads looking to score. Or creatures of unknown measure: they exist, too. Things that have no name. That have never been seen before and will never be seen again once they crawl back down into the deep. They could rush the train, break the windows, drag passengers out through the holes screaming into the black.
It won’t happen. Probably. Hasn’t yet. Most know better. And the trains move fast.
But Mookie knows what could happen. He’s seen worse.
So when the train plunges through the tunnel before Penn Station, when his cell signal goes dead and out there in the darkness he sees the sparking blue of powerlines snapping, he feels his teeth grit, his eyes water, his balls cinch up toward his belly. He thinks he sees something, or someone, standing out there on an abandoned platform, lit by the