Anarchy and Blood by Johnny B. Truant

Author:Johnny B. Truant
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sterling & Stone

19

BLOOD DELIRIUM

With no solution and no way to fill Raphael’s demand, I did the only logical thing: I kept it to myself, hoping it’d go away. Jess and Jim and a few of the others knew I’d gone to the Driskill to meet a representative of Fleur-de-Lis — our new landlords — but not my backstory with its owner, not the fact that he’d ordered me to give him something I didn’t have and couldn’t get. Only Jess knew Michaud’s name, and I didn’t plan to tell her more. She knew I was withholding and tried to get the story out of me. I told her the meeting had been nothing. I told her Raphael had just wanted me to know he was still the boss of me, and to put all of us in our places. “So this has nothing to do with that kid Daniel getting turned?” she asked me. “Nothing to do with that sense you’ve felt of being surrounded? Nothing to do with our little mix-up with the police or fire department?” And I told her: No. Nothing to do with that stuff at all. Coincidences sometimes happened; don’t blame me.

I don’t think she bought it. She was smart and nosy and I was never good at keeping feelings inside. I did try to solve the problem, but only in the privacy of my closet away from Jess’s snooping eyes. It hardly mattered; there wasn’t a solution to be had. I hadn’t seen François in sixty years. I hadn’t set him down and methodically unspooled all that was inside his head, recording it on phonograph cylinder (or, later, cassette) for future reference. I hadn’t found a new human, trained him or her as a tasse — something I didn’t have a clue how to do — and transferred the archive into a new host as François was dying. I didn’t have his brain on ice. So what exactly would telling the others have done? It was moot. In a week, we’d have music to face. In the meantime, it felt like waiting for the inevitable. Why ruin the week chasing something that couldn’t change?

But then, after four days of silence and doing nothing and Jess bothering me that come on, he must have said SOMETHING, an incident occurred that changed the game.

Friday night, Anarchy Jim and I hit the Whiskey Dick during what they called pre-roll, before the club filled and bands took the stage. We had a beer. Just two dudes, acting like blue collar Joes. Or Jims, as it were.

“So what does it mean,” Jim said, “that fucking Fleur-de-Whatever bought the block?”

He was drunk. I wasn’t sure it was a real question.

“Maurice!”

“Yeah, Jim.”

“You’re French.”

“Okay.”

“Why are your people ruining the city?”

“To be fair, just one guy is ruining the city.”

Jim threw up.

“I don’t like it,” he said when he was done.

Thinking of the vomit, I said, “I don’t like it, either.”

We walked out. We’d be back for the show, but they hadn’t even begun sound check.

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