Half-Resurrection Blues_ A Bone Street Rumba Novel - Daniel Jose Older Page 0,68
feeling, like when you’ve just taken the best nap ever. Yes. “How long have I been here?”
“Damn near two weeks, man.”
“What?”
“You had a lot going on, apparently. Meanwhile, the ghost world keeps turning. We gotta talk.”
“No shit we gotta talk. Are you okay? Cuz last time I saw you, the tables were turned.”
“Yes, I recall,” Riley says ruefully. “I’m good. Still a little shaken, I admit, but the COD dickheads actually have some pretty serious stuff they working with up there, and combined with the wonders Mama Esther worked on me in the immediate afterthefact, I gonna be fine.”
“I’m so glad to hear that. Mama Esther?”
Riley makes a noncommittal shrug. “She’s hanging in there. Sarco put some nasty spell on her that had her all narc’d out for a while, but she’s conscious again. The COD guys actually sucked up their old rivalry and sent some cats over to work on her. She’s recovering.”
My mind lurches in frantic circles. Probably because Riley’s here—it’s impossible not to slide into strategy mode around that guy. “Sarco . . .”
“Yeah, well . . .”
“They haven’t found him?”
Riley shakes his head. I hadn’t really expected them to, but the information still sends an unpleasant ball of dread rising up my throat.
“I thought they’d . . .” I don’t have the words because I’m too busy imagining Sarco’s shadow reaching out at me through the gates of Hell.
“Nope, and the Council’s none too happy ’bout everything.”
“The fuck else is new?”
“Pretty much. But they’re keeping you as lead on the case, if that makes you feel any better.”
I’m both relieved and embarrassed. Riley’s got seniority on me; he trained me. He’s something of a legend when it comes to tracking down spirits and putting them in their place. There’s no way I should be running a case he’s . . . Oh. “They took you off the case?”
“I’m on light duty.” Accentuated with two little bunny ears from his ghost fingers.
“Which means?”
“Technically, I’m a paper pusher for a few weeks, till I get clearance. But I could give a fuck what it means, Carlos, and you know that. It’s a bureau decision, which means it’s meaningless, which means I’ll be helping you out on this one, even if it’s somewhat on the hushity-ho-hush. But you’re in charge, my brother. This is your baby now. I just gonna be your pain-in-the-ass henchman for a change.”
“Fair enough.” Then I look away as my mind goes into overdrive again. Sarco, the ngks, Sasha, Mama Esther’s . . . Lines stretch across a makeshift city map I have stashed in my subconscious. The park, the park, the park . . . “He’s trying to tear a chasm into the Underworld. Release the dead.”
“So I hear.”
“And there’s more. Not sure what, but . . . there was a lot he wasn’t telling me.”
“I would imagine.”
I shake my head. And then an odd memory resurfaces. “Riley?”
“Oui?”
“Who named me Carlos?”
He chuckles. “I did. I found you. I figured I should get dibs on naming you.”
“Why Carlos?”
“Oh. Cuz you looked Puerto Rican.”
I roll my eyes. “And?”
“And I knew this ghost Lalo that has a son named Carlos. He runs a bodega over by the Junklot in Bed-Stuy. I had to send Lalo back down under but he asked me to keep an eye on his boy, so I check in now and then. And he was Puerto Rican. I think. Maybe Dominican.”
“How charming. What about the Delacruz?”
“Oh, Baba Eddie came up with that actually.”
“From the cross.”
“Yeah, but you gotta ask him. I don’t think he was talkin’ ’bout Jesus.”
We sit there quietly for a few moments. Then I say, “I know I’ve never asked you this before . . .”
Riley rolls his eyes. “Hold on. Lemme put some coffee on.”
“You didn’t even let me—”
“Why bother? You wanna know about the night I found you.”
Stupid-ass mind-reading-ass friends.
* * *
Riley sets two steaming cups of coffee on the counter. “I was on a stakeout, keeping an eye on some dumbass ghost that wanted revenge for some shit that hadn’t even happened to him. I don’t remember. Some political imbroglio, I think. It was pouring rain. I was with Dro. Shit . . .”
We both just sit there dully for a second, letting the ghost of Dro’s ghost pass over us and depart. I bristle, trying to direct my thoughts away from his family. “Go on.”
“I remember!” Riley says it a little more excitedly than necessary; he’s trying to get away from that emptiness too. “We were