Half-Resurrection Blues_ A Bone Street Rumba Novel - Daniel Jose Older Page 0,78

me and I try to put it away.

“Spit it out, man.”

“I just . . . you don’t think . . . the Council’s somehow . . . you know?”

Riley sighs. “I know, and no.” I’m almost disappointed. In some twisted way. This whole mess’d be much easier to swallow if I could just blame it on a vast Council conspiracy and call it a day. “I’ve had that thought many times, Carlos, believe me. The sheer amount of complete fuckery that goes on over there is astounding, but it’s just that: fuckery. There’s no logic or rhythm to it. There’s no underlying genius or cover-up. They just overdo everything and get bogged down in all that supernatural bureaucracy, and somehow it manages to fuck up the rest of our lives again and again.”

“Damn, that does pretty much sum it up.”

“Let me ask you a question.”

I nod for him to go ahead.

“Y’all fucked or you made love?”

My face says, I have no idea what you’re talking about, so that I don’t have to.

“Did you pound that pussy, or did you softly caress it until the morning’s first motherfuckin’ light?”

“Um . . . a little of both, I guess.”

Riley puts his face in his hands and sighs. “Oh, Christ Jesus, Carlos. That’s bad.”

“Why? What’s that mean?” Riley and his damn relationship theories. I really think he spends this much time thinking about it because he hasn’t been in one since he’s been dead. I’m not even really sure if he . . . can. The few cryptic shards of his life he claims to remember always magically happen to be when he was getting it on. It’s gone well past the realm of credibility at this point, but I don’t really mind.

“I’m just saying, when you . . .” He pauses, tries to arrange his thoughts. “I’m trying to establish the degree of entangled that you’ve gotten yourself. Because when it comes to women that are involved with investigations, it’s one thing to have a one-off, like you were on the brink of with that white chick, Christina.”

“Amanda.”

“But it’s a whole other situation when you’re talking about, you know . . . the heavy-duty shit. And you killed her brother? Damn. Tangled-ass web you weave, son.”

“Indeed.”

“So you gonna go after her?”

I nod.

“What you gonna do when you catch her?”

I dismount the barstool and drop some ones on the counter. “To be honest, I don’t have a fucking clue.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Find Sasha.

This is, after all, what I do. When I returned, when I woke from the groggy, infinite sleep, my body already knew how to cast this fibrous, tingling net around me and then cull it back and digest the wealth of information it brought. I knew how to interpret each flash and glimmer, the droll tides of sorrow and flash-pan bursts of joy. Lying there in Mama Esther’s guest room, I perfected the push and pull. Found the outer reach, contracted just so and then released again, inching this web of mine farther and farther until the entire neighborhood around me gave up its pulsing secrets, and I had to stop from sheer information fatigue.

And now, standing in the center of an open field in Prospect Park at dusk, I throw farther out into the reaches of Brooklyn than I ever have before. This is my second night of searching, second night of standing perfectly still in the middle of this park, projecting and retracting, coming up empty. Clouds cover the moon; a breeze passes, whispering of autumn’s approach. The amphitheater of trees around me shivers.

Ignore the park spirits—no anomalies ping out from the darkened slopes to either side. The surrounding neighborhoods tingle with life—Brooklyn braces itself for something. Hearts race, preparations in full swing. Even the cops know it’s coming; they shift their weight and mutter to one another.

But what?

I draw back in. Breathe. Breathe again and then release, wider this time, beyond the park, beyond the projects and massive ornate apartment complexes, past Empire Boulevard and Eastern Parkway, deep into Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights, Flatbush.

Sasha.

Thousands of pings, heartaches, fears, great sweeping torrents of love and doubt, explosions of rage and the glib, monotonous landslide of depression. Honking horns and flashing lights, a thrusting motion, sudden death, slow impossibly slow decay, the birth of a new movement, a ritual repeated again and again, the gathering tide of generations shifting repeating changing vanishing a pinprick a temper tantrum a gas leak a nail clipping a regret a scrap of lined paper scribbled on in