Free Joe Pitt 5 - My Dead Body by Charlie Huston

the next to catch up, but we’re already dropping bodies. Digga and I are splitting wide of each other, laying down fire, running low on bullets. The enforcers fire at the middle of our group, cutting down two rhinos and two of the guys with bags on their heads. I’m dropping my gun now, closing on an enforcer with a shotgun, no time to go under my jacket for the blade, free hand comes out of my pocket with the cosh and I swing it uppercut and it splits as it hits his jaw, teeth spraying with sand. Digga’s got himself a new gun. The revolvers haven’t hit the ground before he’s scooped a machine pistol from the dead hands of a dropping enforcer. I go for the ground myself as bullets fill the air. Facedown, I miss the guy coming at my back, turn only when he grunts as Jenks drops from the tree, lands on the guy’s back and uses one of those short samurai swords to stab the guy in the mouth, down his throat. And then Digga’s cleaning up. Putting bullets in the heads of the ones that are just grievously wounded. Making sure they don’t get back up.
    I’m busy myself, putting my blade to work on Lament. I have his scalp halfway down his throat before Digga kicks me and points out the bastard is already dead. I keep at it anyway. It’s something I promised myself I’d do when I got the chance. And you don’t get second shots at these things.
    • • •
    Percy’s not dead, but he’s gonna be.
    --Fuck, Percy.
    --Where’s Lament?
    Digga looks at me.
    --Pitt went all Geronimo on his coif.
    --He dead then.
    Digga widens his eyes and nods.
    --Oh, muthafucka dead ah’ite.
    Percy tries to nod himself, but too much of the muscle on his neck has been flayed away with his skin.
    --Almost die a happy man, hearin’ that.
    He looks at me. He’s still got his arm, but only the ring finger hasn’t been mashed by pliers. He points it at me.
    --Pitt. ‘Member what I say when we last spent some time together, ‘bout cigarettes?
    I’m standing a ways away, outside the van we found him in at the top of the park. Black windowless van, we didn’t exactly need a treasure map. We haven’t moved him from the back. Digga started to rip off the razor wire that was wrapped around him, but Percy told him to stop. He’d healed a little, skin had grown back around the wire in a couple patches. And it wasn’t like it was going to change things. It hurt less to just be still, I guess.
    Now the younger man is huddled in the back of the van with his dying vizier.
    I step a little closer so I can hear him better.
    --Yeah, I remember.
    His lips part, broken teeth inside, broken smile.
    --Look at me.
    I’m looking.
    --Look at me, set up ta leave it all behind. An dyin’ just as much ta have a damn smoke.
    I start rolling one.
    His eyes close. Open. He looks at Digga.
    --Lament layin’ ta hang yo ass. Literal like. Sonofabitch had it in mind ta off yo rhinos, take you in charge. Lynch you. Highest tree. Top of the rock.
    Digga frowns.
    --Don’t care. Don’t matter.
    --Lissen yo ass.
    Digga listens.
    --I came up for to do some talkin’. Not like I stepped outta line. He just made up his mind his own self. Take me down. Cuz what I figured.
    He looks at me.
    --You got that ratty ass thing spun yet?
    I lick it closed, lean in, put it between his lips and strike a match.
    He inhales.
    --Give half my immortal soul for a damn Pall Mall. He exhales.
    --But this’ll do. Take it from me so’s I can talk some.
    Digga takes the cigarette from his mouth.
    --What’d you figure, Perce?
    His chest starts working like a bellows. We can see the bones of his rib cage, gaps in the cartilage and muscle between them, expanding, contracting. Air whistles around his broken teeth.
    --Damn. Damn. Damn. Ah hell. What I figured. They done up here. I went in, he had his boys and girls runnin’ they’s asses in and out all about. Tryin’ to make it look like they’s in they’s dozens. But they not. Got one arm, not one eye.
    He looks at me.
    --Speakin’