Half-Resurrection Blues_ A Bone Street Rumba Novel - Daniel Jose Older Page 0,20

says it, everything gets quiet again. The bar, Park Slope with its boutiquey avenues, the trembling night and all that fresh winter air—the whole world around us takes a breath. Also, I’m pleased she didn’t lie. “And yours?”

“Carlos Delacruz.” I wonder if the universe performed similar acrobatics for her. Probably not, but women seem to roll in a whole different slipstream of flirtation from men, so I don’t give it too much thought.

Her eyes narrow like she’s telling me a secret. “From the cross.”

“Ah, you speak Spanish?”

She smiles and makes a guilty little mezza-mezza wave with one hand. “Un poquito. ¿Y tú?” The accent’s not a native speaker’s, but it’s not bad either.

“Sí. Do you know where you’re from?”

She looks downcast, shaking those curlicues back and forth. “Not a clue. You?”

“The folks who found me . . .” I slow down, realizing I have to tread carefully here not to give away too much. “. . . decided I was Puerto Rican. And it feels right. But, honestly, no.”

Now we both sit for a few seconds in the sadness of our own torn histories. I imagine each of our sorrows hanging over our heads, and then I see them merge into one and disperse away like a puff of smoke. I’m just thinking that it actually worked, and a swell of pleasure seems to descend, when Sasha looks up with almost tears in her eyes. “I have to go,” she says, and then she’s gone and the converged cloud of despair settles over me like a bad dream.

* * *

Once again, Herodotus is not cutting it. All those damn weird stories just can’t force out the single burning question: why (the fuck) would (fucking) Trevor send his own murderer to protect his (gorgeous fucking) sister? I find that I’m actually angry at the guy for the utter illogic of his decision. And he, he’s safely off in the deeper-than-death netherworld, probably some blissed-out cloud of ether mingling with the cosmos, and I am here, burdened with this irrational, inexplicable quandary.

That asshole.

I switch to poetry. Perhaps one of the Nuyorican masters will do the trick. My eyes glance over the dancing stanzas of delicate and ruthless indictments, tragedies, revolutions, love affairs . . . but my mind returns to Sasha. And then, less pleasingly, to her damn brother. I’ve found my job is so much easier, moves so smoothly, when I don’t get into questions of right and wrong. The Council wants someone to be ended, I end them. It’s usually pretty clear why—basically if an afterlifer is minding theirs and staying out of trouble, they won’t be dealt with. If they start acting the fool, begging for attention, well, they know the Council will come calling in the form of some long-legged, blade-carrying motherfucker like myself. And really, bringing a bunch of college kids into the Underworld? Who does that? It’s an ignorant-ass move that’s bound to attract attention one way or the other.

There’s a little voice, somewhere in the back of my mind. It’s tiny, really. But it’s gnawingly aware of how ridiculous all of this is. Who’s the Council to decide what’s the proper amount of shenanigans a ghost can participate in? Why should they get to regulate that delicate line between the living and the dead?

This is why my job is easier if I don’t think too hard. These questions lead nowhere productive, obviously, because now I’m thinking about the inevitable moment when some minister up in the Council realizes Sasha’s an errant soul, an unacceptable ambiguity that must be brought in and destroyed. And then to the inevitable moment when Sasha realizes that I am a deceitful bastard who has no right whatsoever to woo or even speak to her. Does she even know her brother’s crossed over into fully dead status? Her whole countenance spoke of mourning, but that could be at his disappearance, not necessarily his death.

Too. Many. Questions.

I toss the poetry book and pick up a mystery novel, read three lines, and realize that’s not gonna cut it either. Finally, as dawn whispers in through my windows, I give up and just settle into a confused, star-crossed stupor until sleep comes, and then I dream of killing Trevor, again and again and again . . .

CHAPTER TWELVE

Talk to me, Dro.” We’re strolling down Franklin again. Well, I’m strolling. Riley and Dro are floating in long, fluid strides that approximate a strut. Riley seems to be back to his old genial self today, which