“Don’t you bloody fucking dare pass out on us. Don’t you dare . . .”

  But even as she says this the ladies take a step back, sensing a strange departure in me. I spin with the LED, blinking in tandem with the signal, hand to my internal companion riding the back of my neck. Tunnels and tracks in four directions and me, feeling that aura, the onset of a Semi-Freeze. Please, Jesus, not now. Not here.

  “What’s the fuck’s that?” inhales Haifa. “Oh my God, what the fuck is that?” Calling me back.

  Though the present is receding, though my surroundings grow more and more unfamiliar and alien, I listen, hard. First I only hear my blood. Then the filthy water coming off the ceiling, moving across the walls. Go to speak, choke on my gab. Cause that’s when I hear the dogs too.

  * * *

  If you are from the ghetto, your relationship with the canine is generally pretty straightforward, like your relationship with a weapon of any kind, i.e., if you’re on the business end of one, you take it serious. You back the fuck off. Or you kill it straight away.

  Likewise, if you’re the one holding the chain, you’re feeling pretty good about yourself. Big scary motherfuckers step out the way and do so quietly. A dog is a walking, shitting security system, a self-defense mechanism, bred to be lethal. And if it ain’t pulling its weight, why would you waste your good cheese on the motherfucker?

  This impression was further reinforced by the NYPD’s dog squad, which employed their animals in much the same way. Anybody who’s spent an evening in, say, the basement of the Brooklyn Detention Center on Atlantic Avenue can attest to this. And certainly we put what we learned at home to work for us overseas . . . I would indicate the so-called human rights violations that occurred at spots like Abu Ghraib and countless other locales. Standard procedure.

  Funny how quick a frothing German shepherd will change your attitude, especially if you’re bare-assed, chained to fence with a truncheon all up in your rectal cavity.

  But hey, yo, not that I condone such techniques, having been on both ends of that nightstick. As it were.

  Never been ashamed about where I’m from. So I am simply providing you with my ghetto perspective. Fuck y’all.

  Point being: I don’t like an unfamiliar dog, and what’s more, I’ll stab or shoot Fido till Fido is good and dead, and sort out the wheretofores afterward. All of which is to say, the sound of a large number of dogs is extremely unwelcome in the best of times. The only dogs left on the island are still around because they’ve been trained to carry out a specific task: guarding construction equipment, keeping workers in check, etc.

  Apparently, Saudi Arabian royalty share this vibe with me, cause Princess Haifa is all saucer-eyed terror. Her sister doesn’t seem thrilled either, but really, who the fuck can tell under that sheet?

  Standing ankle deep in viscous liquid, the world tar-black save that seizure-inducing police light, shit is already looking unmanageably grim, so I don’t really have a better solution to a kerfuffle such as this.

  The plan would have to be: sprint the opposite direction from whence the dogs approach. Problem being, down in these tunnels I’m directionally challenged and by the sound of it the animals could be coming from at least three points on the compass.

  Which only leaves us with north as an option, in the much more recently constructed East Side Access LIRR tunnel that shoots uptown and ultimately hangs a right, under the river and into Queens.

  Jam a quick brain scan of that routing . . . issue being the East Side Access is so new, came so soon prior to the Valentine, never did get a chance to physically study the final product . . . Course I know the blueprints, and if I’m not wrong there’s a couple intersections with a much older track and tunnel that I can do some work with.

  It’s educated-improv hour again at the House of Decimal.

  Haifa and I staring at each other, both our yaps open.

  I rally: “Okay. Gotta make moves, ladies.”

  We scamper north now, into one of the wider tunnels that will eventually lead us underneath Grand Central station, me ushering the ladies along, very aware of the ruckus as we kick up water. The dogs seem to be approaching from the east and are getting louder.

  Then, fuck if the one in the white caftan comes to a full stop, drops and prostrates herself, starts hiccupping a standard prayer to the good Allah.

  “Khalid,” says Haifa. “Khalid, for the love of . . . Khalid, get up.”

  I peel Khalid (kind of a masculine name for that part of the world, but what do I know?) off the muddy track, her white peignoir now a shit-brown in front. She doesn’t resist but certainly doesn’t cooperate.

  Clear my throat, tease out a soothing rasp: “Your Highness, you’re going to have to work with me here.”

  Khalid fully loses it, starts battering me with ineffectual fists, beseeching God to strike me down. Haifa, to her credit, is trying to pry her off.

  But yo. That’s fucking enough for this brother. I’ve had it with this bowing-and-scraping jive. I get shorty in an easy headlock.

  The dogs drawing nearer. Time to come raw with these gals.

  When Khalid has stopped kicking at me, I speak. “Now, if we’re gonna survive this here, I’m gonna have to drop the formalities. Ya heard?”

  The girls are silent. Haifa looking up at me like a schoolgirl getting a scolding. Yo, I cannot tell a lie: it’s kinda hot—but I gotta put the nix on such thoughts and stick to the program, me saying fast, “This is the realness. Any number of people on this island could have reason to get ahold of you ladies. You wanna get through this thing? Do exactly like I say, exactly when I say it. Otherwise y’all might as well just lie down and die.”

  Khalid is silent but at least has stopped with the fucking prayer, nobody needs that.

  Speed it up, Decimal. I move toward Haifa, who steps backward, stumbling a bit.

  “Right, and again—who exactly are you, Mister Mystery?” she says, tough-stuff.

  “I’m your black knight in shining armor, come to return you ladies to Narnia.” Grabbing her arm.

  Haifa allows herself to be guided forth, no longer trying to keep her jeans from getting wet, not looking at me . . . she says quietly, “You’re insane. Speaking to us like this. You’ve no concept.” Those dogs closer still. “What are you, you’re CIA . . . Are you CIA?”

  Laugh like this is a shitty movie, right? “Ha, yo, probably. I’d be last to know, and hey, would I tell you if I was? Be smart. I freelance. And for better or worse, brown sugar, I’m all you got this morning, CIA or NBA or what have you. That’s if you wanna see another sunrise off the coast of France. Otherwise y’all are nothing but real exclusive dog food. Ya heard?”

  Haifa’s mouth agape. “You can’t bloody speak that way to me. Do you understand who—”

  “Thought you left all that hierarchical shit behind, hon. Now run.”

  Touché, and apparently I’m getting through, cause they pick up the pace, me trying to match them now, closest I can possibly get to jogging with this fucked-up knee I got. Evil water goes slosh slosh, and I expect the dogs on us anytime now. Thinking about implants. Tracking devices . . .

  Nothing I can do about the thing in my neck. This I’ve known for years and will not drive myself yet more crazy wondering what the fuck it’s all about.

  The dogs. In the tunnel with us now for sure.

  Khalid continues weeping quietly. Haifa puts her head down and starts to get ahead of me, clearly a runner, going full out in her bare feet and ankle bracelets—

  Ankle bracelets.

  Khalid moving on her own now, every third step catching the long hem of her ridiculous getup and causing her to have to readjust. I let her go and draw both guns. Slow to a walk, the tunnel feeling tighter . . .

  “Lose your jewelry, ladies. Take it off and drop it. The both of you.”

  Haifa slows, throws a look. “You mad? The dogs—”

  “And you, Khalid, it’s time you lost the toga, it’s just fucking up our flow.”

  “Not to display their beauty except to their husbands . . .” Khalid is quoting the Koran at me in a panicky pitch.

  “The dogs,” repeats Haifa simply.

  “I got this, ditch the rocks and whatnot, dig?”

  It’s nothing but a hunch, and I may never know, but if I were some state counterintelligence schmo thinking I’m clever, that’s what I’d do, short of a subcutaneous implant which I couldn’t do shit about as it is.

  No, these gals? I’d put some tracking tech in a shorty’s jewelry.

  Come to a full stop, jerking left, left, and all the way around with my mug toward the way we came. Visibility is a sporadic ten feet, the revolving red light. Raise the guns and wait till I see ’em.

  Dog yelps, shrieks and snarls mad amplified like we’re descending into yet a lower plane of hell, sound gone totally liquid now, everything could be anywhere. But I was raised ready, they beat it into me. I paid attention. And I breeeathe.

  Haifa saying some shit about “heirlooms” but has apparently decided, wisely, that I’m the only game in town, so having shucked her own accessories, she’s struggling with her less willing sister, cursing and attempting to disrobe her.

  Hey now, I am most certainly not into fucking with anybody’s style consciousness, I say drop it how you wanna drop it. And certainly I would be loathe to impinge on a bitch’s freedom to worship as she sees fit, but this is an extreme situation.

  Tensed for the dogs. Come here, buddies. Come to Dada.

  More sweat makes its way out from under the brim of my hat. Feel feverish, achy. Vision splotchy. Itching to grab a pill but I don’t wanna break my concentration.

  When the NYPD golf cart rolls out of the blackness, I set to firing on it double-handed, thinking it’s a bit of an oddity, but hell, nothing surprises me anymore . . . then I’m looking for the pack of frothing dogs to come galloping in, and my next thought is that of course this cart is where the sounds are emanating from, Caribbean Day Parade–style sound system mounted shakily on the roof.

  I’ve squandered some perfectly fine ammunition on an unmanned go-cart. But fuck it, I shoot the thing up anyhow cause it feels good.

  When things go quiet they go unnaturally quiet. Like the incurably sick air finally gave it up and died. Swapping out magazines and limping toward the wreck, I dig it’s an ad hoc kind of deal, duct tape, a car battery, car stereo . . . sign of the times. Crafty enough, but what the fuck?

  What do we have? I note an innocuous-looking camera, think about that stuff for a second.

  “Kill your light, princesses.” I can’t see them, they start to protest, me turning left left left, saying, “I’m for real, pussycats, snuff the light. We’re being watched and that’s a bet.”

  They do it.

  And it’s a good thing too, because the first of what I assume to be a number of bullets goes whistling past my right ear, white-hot wasps. I mean it’s that freaking close, y’all, which puts yours truly in a humble, circumspect kind of mindframe. There’s a split second that I see a couple lights go out about a hundred feet back down the tunnel, and dig a quick exchange.

  Figuring, fuck it, I take a couple wild shots in that direction, boom boom, then hit the deck. Punks clownish enough to return fire, as they do, so they gotta know I see those muzzles flare cause I squeeze off another, tighter this time, and reckon I nick somebody cause I register a yelp.

  Any further shooting I do, of course, will be spotted as well. So I roll a couple feet through the wet dirt as they shoot up the spot I was just occupying, cause they can’t resist either, it’s fun to shoot guns, and then we all sit back and let that be that for the moment.

  The girls eek and yak, I tell ’em shut their pampered yaps and lie down like the rest of us peasantry. We hush, and I listen good and hard. Sand under my collar. Feel live bodies nearby, maybe as many as four or five, but not more.

  Feature this: a stalemate. Figure they were limited to their own lighting and can’t turn it on without making themselves an easy target. Since we’re all up the same creek, seems like we got a moment or two to take stock.

  Sometimes I see myself in hell. Overactive imagination—pipe dreaming or an exclusive sneak peek, I’m not the one to know. Like this: a shitty theme restaurant with a sort of colonial Belgian Congo vibe to it, me bound at the ankles and feet, in a loincloth, rotating via a motorized system on a spit over open flame, fat popping and spitting. Healing over fast to start the cycle again.

  What’s blacker than total blackness? Having been in a similar setting before, I know there’s all kinds of shit to see when encased in this species of dark, and it’s whatever your brain reckons you ought to take a long look at. In my case it’s a small parade of unsettled, anxious spirits. One or two of whom I murdered myself, either directly or indirectly . . .

  Here’s Hakim Stanley, a young black American Marine with his jaw missing courtesy of your narrator. This beautiful young brother. Stanley’s the one who will always come back, because what I did to this boy was an affront to the universe. That’s one the Devil will charge me full price for, and there’s no two ways about it.

  Rose Hee, Korean mob queenpin, rises before me in the blood-soaked jumpsuit she died in. Nothing accusing in her gaze, and God knows I loved the crazy girl . . . but motherfucker, I know that one is my fault too.

  Then we have DA Daniel Rosenblatt, the sneaky Jew, sad-sacky in his poop-colored bathrobe, skullcap (and by this I’m not talking about a yarmulke . . . I mean I popped his top—the top of his skull) removed courtesy of my trigger finger, he jumps in midsentence, his nasal staccato, “The things they did to you . . . poking around in your brain . . . shoulda read your file, Decimal. You shoulda read it, you coulda known the truth.”

  Shoulda woulda coulda. Shoulda stuck with the engineering and steered clear of the gangs, gone to Howard or Spellman or even Harvard, done some real shit like my late great brother Dos Mac. Coulda been a butterfly. Coulda been born white, with a silver spoon to ward off the vampire hustlers and military recruiters. Who gives a fuck now?

  Then, hazy as ever, there’s always the apartment in the dream. Within which, under a single sheet, might perhaps lie a female form, and a child. And me, perhaps holding a gun, my heart an unreadable hole. Perhaps raise and point . . . annnnnd the rest is lost to me.

  Oh, I know I’m a monster. The question is, am I just garden variety, like everybody else—like I did what I done to keep kicking? Or, despite my Code, despite my System, do I carry a yawning black abscess where my soul should be, burning with fever, flush with infection?

  Fever. Things wobble, hazy.

  How evil am I? That’s the million-dollar question. And that’s my forever.

  _________________

  A hand on my leg, jerk, and I’m back in this miserable world. Musta Freddo’d.

  The princess known as Haifa has found me by the light of her flare, saying: “Fucking hell, we’ve been looking for you for . . . Sir. Sir. They’ve gone, ages ago. We don’t know which direction to go.”

  Startled, I won’t lie. It seems a scant few minutes have passed. I yank the girl to the ground by the lapel of her designer military jacket, she shrieks in protest, me hissing: “Woman, are you crazy, they’re gonna—”

  She’s shaking her head, cuts me off. Khalid hovers and twitches in the background, in sort of a one-piece jumper, face still obscured by fabric; the girl, it seems, had a headpiece on under her full-body burqa. Me thinking, Damn, this is one modest chick. Allah be well pleased here.

  “It’s been a bloody half hour. A half hour!” spits Haifa. “We’ve been frantic. And keep your bloody fucking filthy hands off me, you maniac!”

  We both struggle up. I work at the sand in my ear canal, but it’s too deep.

  Then Haifa hauls off and whacks me in the yapper.

  Iron and salt, the girl really clocks me. Blood and sand. Princess spouting: “What is wrong with you? You just disappeared. In this . . . bloody tube-sewer wherever the bloody fuck. You’ve not the least idea of what we’ve been through over the last several days, week, whatever it is, you’ve no idea at all.”

  She’s near tears, lower lip quivering. I’m straight stunned and at a major loss.

  “And this one. And this one here is bloody fucking useless as well, right?” She jerks her chin at her sister. “And you’re scarcely fucking better, Mr. CIA. The presumption was,” the red light spinning slowly reveals a flash of her lips and healthy teeth, “you were our escort to bloody safety, but at this point—”

  Haifa stops cause I put two gloved fingers to her mouth. Light swings around, she looks like a child again. Eyes watering, full of anger and fear, her scar seems raised and engorged.

  Then she and I are in darkness again. My chest fills with disproportionate anger. I get up on her fucking ear, wanna communicate who runs this thing.

  “Mochachino,” I say, “don’t want to be smacking me again. Cause I’ll bite your pretty hand off, princess or no. Dig?” Snap my filthy chompers, just once, and I swear I feel those grains.

  Revolution of the light source and I peep tear tracks down the girls cheekbones. She’s definitely scared, piss-her-three-hundred-euro-Swedish-jeans scared.

  Shift my hand to her cheek, give her what I hope to be a paternal pat, from which she recoils. Grin, gotta camouflage my confusion. Need to get oriented but I’m dizzy as all hell, trapped in some arty fun house that’s no fun at all. The light illuminating the side of the tunnel, Khalid vibrating behind her.

  “You were meant to protect us. Please. You said so.” Haifa’s dark eyes, clearer now.

  Duck my head. Honeybunch is dead right. Think, Decimal. What a world-class fuck-up. To buoy myself and reset a little, I bust out the PurellTM, rip off my nasty gloves, lather up. In this kinda damp, even the alcohol gel doesn’t dry. Pull on a fresh pair of gloves anyway, sticky and squeaky.

  Me thinking, Evade everything and put these ladies somewhere comfortable till we savvy what’s doing. I’m solid gold, I got this. I can still pull it out, even operating at half-capacity.