Immortal (5 page)

There was one part of the floor that wasn’t just cement plus sawdust, and that was where the band played. An area rug defined the space. Coughing madly, I managed to push the equipment out of the way—thoroughly destroying a snare drum in the process—and pulled up the rug.

At the edge of the wall was a trap door.

It was where they threw the bones after cleaning the fish, and where the runoff from the melted ice traveled. And since it had been years since anyone had used it—based on the rust buildup—there was a good chance the guys outside didn’t know it was there. Looie didn’t even know it was there.

I grabbed the metal ring and yanked. It opened with an unpleasant creak and there was the lake, and best of all, nobody was standing there with a tommy gun.

Stifling the impulse to just jump down and get away, I instead ran back to Irma and Looie, grabbed them both, and pulled them over to the trap door. Irma—by then resigned to the idea that her life was over—refused to recognize the significance of the trap door, so rather than wait for her to get herself together, I just pushed her out. Hopefully the cold water of Lake Michigan would snap her out of it in time to understand she was supposed to swim.

“Looie,”
I said.
“I need you to look out for her. I’ll be right out.”

He nodded and patted my hand, then dropped out of sight, hopefully not on top of Irma.

I crawled and crouched my way to the front of the room, looking for anyone who wasn’t dead yet so I could show them the way out. This was no easy task, as the smoke was getting heavier and there was a good chance the ceiling would be collapsing at any moment.

I managed to find about twenty people and point the way—including Looie’s nephew, who was miraculously still breathing when I unburied him—before things got dicey. I was dragging a somewhat portly and thoroughly inconsolable woman across the floor when a fire-engulfed support beam landed between me and the trap door. I had no doubt that in another second the rest of the ceiling was going to join it, but the woman wouldn’t budge. I tried to scream at her to get her fat ass up and start moving them legs, but I’d been breathing smoke for about five minutes. My lungs felt like they were on fire and there was a good possibility I’d permanently damaged my vocal cords. (My future existence as an immortal mime flashed before my eyes. I didn’t like the idea at all.)

Not knowing any other way to get the fat lady to pick herself up—and not entirely willing to leave her behind (although she was sure pushing her luck)—I leaned over and pulled her skirt up past her hips.

If you ever need to get someone’s undivided attention, the very best way to do it is to expose their undergarments. People are weird.

“Hey!” she screamed. It worked. She rolled to her feet. Still unable to speak, I grabbed her by the back of the neck and pushed her around the fiery beam and to the trap door. She barely fit through, but she did fit, thank goodness.

I took one last look back, but there was no way I’d make it for another trip, not without a good long dose of fresh air first. I dropped through the trap. Seconds later, the ceiling gave with a tremendous crash, and the building started to come down.

The water was wonderfully cool and only about four feet deep, so I didn’t even have to concern myself with drowning. Even more pleasant was the air. I promised myself not to ever take air for granted again.

“Rocky,” someone called out to my right. I followed the voice, emerging from underneath the lip of the old fish market to find myself eye level with a short dock.

“Over here, my friend,”
Looie said in Italian from atop the dock. He offered me a hand. Beside him, two of the men I’d just helped save were pulling the fat woman out of the water.

I accepted Looie’s hand gratefully and mutely, as I still could not speak. It would be days before I could utter anything. I never got a chance to ask Looie if he’d seen a woman with bright red hair emerge from the club. Because I sure never did.

At least I’m eating well. There is a well-stocked kitchen on the base somewhere and possibly a gourmet chef, because today’s dinner was the finest example of beef bourguignon I’ve had since before the French Revolution. Granted the plastic fork and the egregious lack of wine to accompany the meal ruined the effect, but I’m still impressed.

   
I would kill for a glass of wine, or a beer, or a shot of anything up to and including rubbing alcohol. I’d been dry for over five days before getting here and haven’t had a drink since, meaning I’m in the middle of possibly the longest stretch of sobriety I’ve lived through for a century. This just makes me grouchier, if that’s possible.

*
 
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*

Shortly after the fire at Looie’s, Irma found God, pretty much signaling the end of our relationship. Especially when she insisted God had saved her from the fire, which I took a bit personally, as I was there saving her and a bunch of other people at the time, and I never once saw God. Too bad. I could have used the help.

It turned out Looie’s mistake was in selling out to the wrong mafia family—although the question of whether there is such a thing as a “right” mafia family is debatable—and ending up an important piece in a turf war he knew nothing about. Not willing to risk making the same mistake again, he got out of the speakeasy business altogether. He ended up using his savings to open a small shoe store.

I decided to leave Chicago not long after that, fairly well convinced my red-haired foil was dead. It just didn’t seem possible for her to have gotten out of that fire intact, not if she was anything like me—although maybe she wasn’t.

I ran through the possibilities again. Vampire was one that was most likely, as they are hypothetically just as immortal as me. Except I’d seen her in the daytime on more than one occasion. And, every vampire I ever met had black eyes. Possibly she was a vampire that didn’t need to hide from sunlight and had blue eyes, but that’s a bit like saying something is a cat except it walks on hind legs and has no fur or whiskers.

I don’t know any other sentient humanoids that have a get-out-of-death clause. Well, other than me. And I don’t have porcelain skin and haunting eyes. So, she might be like me, but was she the same thing as me?

What was she?

Mind you, I’d run through all this before, thousands of times. I’ve taken suggestions, too. A succubus I used to hang out with insisted my red-haired mystery girl was death incarnate, meaning my endless search for her was actually a complex working-out of my immortality issues. (A note: succubi are notorious amateur psychologists and have been since well before Freud. In fact I have it on good authority that Freud stole his whole gig from a particularly talkative succubus he used to know. And if you don’t believe Freud knew a succubus, you haven’t read Freud.) I didn’t find the argument convincing. If I am to believe in some sort of anthropomorphic representation of mortality, I should first develop a belief in some higher power, or at least in life-after-death.

I’m a pretty sad example of what one should do with eternal life. I’ve never reached any higher level of consciousness, I don’t have access to any great truths, and I’ve never borne witness to the divine or transcendent. Some of this is just bad luck. Like working in the fishing industry in Galilee and never once running into Jesus. But in my defense, there were an awful lot of people back then claiming to be the son of God. I probably wouldn’t have been able to pick him out of the crowd. And since I don’t believe there is a God, I doubt we would have gotten along all that well anyway.

I probably wasn’t always quite so atheistic. I don’t recall much of my early hunter-gatherer days, but I’m sure that back then I believed in lots of gods. And that the stars were pinholes in an enclosed firmament. There might even have been a giant turtle involved. And I distinctly recall a crude religious ceremony involving a mammoth skin and lots of face paint. But after centuries on the mortal coil I’ve come to realize that religion is for people who expect to die someday and want to go to a better place when that happens. It doesn’t apply to me.

Anyway, I sat around for days and mused over these and other subjects, mainly pertaining to my mysterious red-haired bugaboo. Gary and Nate were decidedly nonplussed about it, especially since I almost never moved from the futon except to get more beer—which I was still paying for, by the way.

“Man, can you at least shower or something?” Gary asked one evening.

“Later,” I muttered.

“How ’bout now? I wanna watch the game.” It did me no good to ask which game. There was always a game, sometime, somewhere, that absolutely had to be watched. ESPN may eventually be the end of Western civilization as we know it. And I should know, having witnessed the end of Western civilization at least four times.

We stared at each other for a while, and then I reluctantly ceded the futon.

“You should get out or something,” he recommended as I got to my feet and stretched out the muscle kinks.

Nate, from the kitchen, agreed. “Clear the cobwebs, dude. Get some night air.”

Obviously they had decided among themselves that having an immortal as a house guest wasn’t nearly as fun as it sounded. I should have seen this coming when they kicked Jerry out. (Literally. Nate drop-kicked him). But Jerry had left about two dozen stains on the walls, copped a feel on three girls who will probably never speak to Nate or Gary again, and clogged the toilet twice. He had been asking for it. Me, I just bought more alcohol and stunk up the futon. Was that so bad?

“What’s it like outside?” I asked, taking the hint and running with it.

“It’s nice,” Nate said quickly.

“Very refreshing,” Gary added.

“Sleep on a bench refreshing or head for the bus station refreshing?”

“It’s . . . brisk,” Gary amended.

“Kinda chilly,” Nate agreed.

“I got an old coat if you need one,” Gary offered.

*
 
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*

It was indeed brisk, and the old coat Gary gave me smelled vaguely of vomit. To help cut the chill, I took with me a half-empty bottle of vodka that I might have also paid for. I started walking in the general direction of Chinatown, on the other side of which was South Station.

I had decided being poor in Boston in November really sucks. And the damnable thing is I couldn’t even remember how I’d ended up in Boston in the first place. Last time I’d spent any time there was in 1912, and there was nothing that compelled me to stick around then. Possibly I just hopped aboard a train at some point, not much caring where it went so long as it had a bar car, and rode it until it came to a stop. Wouldn’t be the first time I’d done that.

I was thinking it was time to consider accessing a larger quantity of funds. As I said, I do have some. I’m just not exactly sure how much. I kept walk-around money in my bag, which was in a locker in South Station, which I hoped was always open because that was also where I planned to sleep. The rest of my money was in a Swiss bank account, so I was going to have to make a few calls. I don’t think the Swiss issue ATM cards, but I never really checked.

Sobriety was also something to consider, although it should be noted I was considering it while gulping vodka. The idea that the red-haired woman was still alive was something worth sobering up for. Maybe it was time to start looking again. It would end in frustration as always, but it was still something to do.

About two blocks from my destination, I saw something curious—a hooker. At least I assumed she was a hooker, because if she wasn’t, her fashion sense was abhorrent. She was dressed in knee-high leather boots, a denim miniskirt (which she’d manually torn along the side to expose half of her left buttock,) and a faded black sleeveless half-shirt that read “Appetite for Destruction” on the front. Her hair was black and very large—length and height—and she’d gone overboard completely in the make-up department. Her skin was a pale white.

What made the view so curious was that it was about ten degrees with the wind chill, and she didn’t look cold at all.

“Lookin’ for fun, baby?” she asked as I approached. I sized her up once again, up close. No trembling in the wind at all, and she didn’t appear to be strung out on anything. Her nipples weren’t even erect. And it was just as cold next to her as it was everywhere else.

“Do I look like I have any money?” I took another swig of the vodka, now almost gone.

“Who said anything about money?” she asked coyly. “I’m just looking for a good time.”

I smiled. “Sure you are. What’s your name?”

“Brenda,” she grinned, her lips tight over her teeth.

“Brenda. You’re a vampire, aren’t you?”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s okay. I’m not on a crusade or anything.” I held up my open palms. “No wooden stakes. See?” (It should be noted that wooden stakes don’t work, so don’t try it. You’ll just piss off the vampire.)

“Go away,” she ordered, spinning on a spiked heel and pretending I wasn’t there.

“You must be a young one,” I pressed.

“You’re crazy,” she shouted over her shoulder. “I should call a cop.”