Half-Resurrection Blues_ A Bone Street Rumba Novel - Daniel Jose Older Page 0,18
But I knew it’d come up one way or the other.
“That it’s a Carlos?” Dro says unhelpfully. Riley nods.
“I don’t think . . . I mean . . .” Words are not my friend right at this moment. I want to express that that’s probably not the case, even though it very well might be the case. Instead I just shut the fuck up and order another shot of rum.
“It’s a possibility we need to explore,” Riley says. “Especially considering you just bagged a halfie on New Year’s.” I can’t stand that he’s being so professional and quiet right now; it’s really bugging me. “Might be related.” He’s not even bothering with his shot.
“Fuck,” Dro says. He’s bothering plenty with his shot, and I’m a little worried some of the less completely demolished drunks will start to notice.
“Either way,” I point out, “there’s no need to get all shook.”
“Yeah,” Dro says as if I were talking about someone else. “True.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Thing is, I dress pretty slick. Comes naturally to me, actually. I like the way the crease in my pants feels, the certain swagger that goes with knowing everything fits just right, the perfect puzzle. All that. No matter what kinda supernatural fuckshit is going on, I take my time getting dressed in the morning. Not to the point of obsessing over it all, mind you, certainly not in any kind of teenybopper way at all. But I relish sliding each button into place, feeling the whole package that is me come together.
Tonight I take special pleasure in it. I’m a little extra slick from the three rum shots taken straight to the head. A sultry rumba blazes from my little stereo. My shoes are shiny; my hat fits just right. Each element complements the other, and when I hit the street, the weirdly warm end-of-winter wind seems to carry my dapper ass along down the block. When you come dressed correct, the whole world moves with you on whatever divine mission you set out on, even if that mission is making time with some fine forbidden piece of ass that you should really know better than to mess with.
The Red Edge is a classy spot. True to its name, the inside is all varying shades of dark crimson; it’s mostly candlelit and full of long, flowing curtains and surly bar maidens. Fortunately, David’s not here—probably will never come back again, now that I think about it. I strut in feeling good, great actually, and there’s Sasha, perched like a sad and gorgeous little bird at a table in the corner. I order a rum and Coke and a red wine and sit at her table, ignoring the little rumbling of uncertainty in my stomach.
She looks down at the wine and then up at me. She’s more beautiful than she was in the picture. The smile has been replaced with a pout, and a miasma of sorrow is on her like a fancy perfume. It stays there for about two seconds after we make eye contact, and then there’s nothing, and I remember: she’s like me. She immediately knows what I am. And she knows I can see her, see all the spinning satellites of her fears and pleasures dance through the air. And what’s more, she can see me and mine.
For half a beat, I trace the tangled web that stretched between us before we even met—the one that begins and ends with me murdering her brother. Then I come to my senses and suck it all back inside me and it’s gone.
I search her eyes, hopefully not with the frenzy I feel, to see what she has seen, but she gives me nothing. Or perhaps that glow that I want to drink into me and succumb to has blurred my senses. Either way, the next thing that happens is we both smile. It’s a true smile, an admission of the explosive awkwardness that just passed between us, and it makes me happy in a way I’m not even sure what to do with. The bar spins around us: bad nights and mediocre nights and epic life-changing nights—they all play out like tiny television shows, sending their scattered bursts of light into the atmosphere.
I could give a fuck.
This woman, this woman, is looking back at me and truly seeing me. Even if it is in a way that requires both of us to put up all of our guards and retreat into our innermost sanctums—what a feeling: to be