– Yeah, well, we’ll never know one way or another, what with how they were contained and all.

He recounts the money on the check.

– You can be flippant about it if you like, Joe. -Flippant?

– But I can’t. I have to take these situations seriously. That forest we were talking about before? That metaphor can be extended pretty far. The forest, the ecosystem, it needs to be kept in balance. Too many new species enter the ecosystem at once, they throw it out of balance. Species that have been there for eons, they can find themselves at risk.

He takes fifty cents off the check and puts it back in his pocket.

I look at the clock again. There’s an orderly at the hospital, if I pass him a pint of gin he’ll get me on Evie’s ward. I try to remember when his shift ends.

– Yeah, ecosystem, unbalanced, got it. All the more reason I need to stay here and deal with the Van Helsing.

I start to get up.

Terry puts a hand on my wrist.

– Joe, sorry, I’m being unclear. Let me focus this a little for you.

He pushes his glasses up his nose.

– Fuck the Van Helsing.

He looks at my chair. I sit in it.

He nods.

– Predo doesn’t give a damn about the Van Helsing. People out there don’t know about the Van Helsing. You haven’t been looking for the Van Helsing. What you have been doing, what you did do, was you went up to Predo and let him, you know, work you. However it played, you tipped him and he knows how we handled the Docks, and he’s pissed. He knows they would have thrown in with the Coalition and he’s pissed we, well, intervened or whatever. Now he’s getting kind of childish and trying to do the same thing with us, and the situation needs to be dealt with.

I watch the waiter come and take a look at the check and the money. I watch the sour look on his face get more sour as he eyes the money. I watch him clear every last plate and glass and piece of silver from our table, leaving the check.

He makes to take the teacup from Terry’s hand and Terry looks up at him.

– I’m not finished. When I’m finished you can have the cup and the table. Until then, stay the fuck away from us. And if you want a better tip, refill the water glasses every now and then.

The waiter takes a step back, touches the ring in his right eyebrow, turns and walks away.

Terry turns his eyes to me.

– Sorry about that, I’m a little, man, a little stressed, I guess.

I wait while he works out the stress.

– See, and that stress, a lot of it has to do with all this Brooklyn stuff. And I’d really like to bring some stability to the situation so I can, you know, decompress. I don’t want to spend my time taking out my issues on innocent bystanders like that kid. So for the sake of everyone around me, before I, I don’t know, start taking people’s heads off or whatever, I need to have this thing dealt with right away.

I remember what it was like, back in the day, when Terry would take someone’s head off. I look at him, old man hippie, and know it’s still in there. The head-taker. One of the best.

I lean in.

– Bullshit.

His forehead creases.

– Um. Excuse me?

– Bullshit, Terry. You didn’t want me to tip our hand to Predo, you wouldn’t have let me go up there. I’ve been played by you two before, I know what it feels like. Whatever you really want, it has fuckall to do with me running to Brooklyn. The Van Helsing? I know that doesn’t mean shit. I already got that figured. I don’t know who’s play it was, yours or Predo’s, but I know we’ve seen the last of him. You want me to do a little dance? Fine. Tell me the tune. Show me the steps. Draw them out on the floor so I know exactly where to put my feet. Because I am goddamned if I’m gonna let you two jerk me all over town again getting my head bounced off hard stuff.

I lean back in my chair and light a smoke.

Terry scratches his cheek.

– Wow. Wow. That was, that was very honestly put. That was a real, I don’t want to say breakthrough, because I’ve always felt like we get each other, but that was such an honest and feeling piece of communication. I’m, I don’t know, touched. Thanks, Joe. Thanks for that.

I go to tip some ash in the tray, find the waiter took it with everything else.

– Whatever, man. As long as we’re clear.

Terry waves a hand.

– Oh yeah, we’re clear, man.

He strokes his chin.

– Thing is, thing is, you have no idea what you’re talking about.

He raises a finger.

– Playing you? Would it were so, my friend, but no, that’s not the case. I let you go up to talk to Predo because I figured you’d been around enough by now to be ready for his game playing. But you’re not ready to deal with Predo on those terms. Enough said. No shame in that. Lesson learned by us both. No, I just really, really need to take care of business.

He leans in.

– It occur to you, Joe, all these Brooklyn Clans coming to us and to the Coalition, it occur to you to ask why? I mean, what’s up, right? And I’ll skip waiting for an answer you don’t have, because rhetoriality is the last thing we need right now. What’s up is that they’re scared, man. Scared bad. Someone over there, someone’s pushing, grabbing turf, squeezing out the little Clans. Years now, guys like the Docks, they wanted nothing to do with, you know, us Manhattanites. Wasn’t just a matter of no one from the Island wanting to cross the river, they had no interest in coming this way. Now they got no choice. They need allies and they got no choice. And if they’re getting squeezed over the river, if sociopolitical forces are sending these refugees our way, we need to make arrangements now. Or we’ll be sitting in the middle of a humanitarian disaster. By which I mean at least a few hundred new infecteds on the Island, all of them looking for blood. That is the kind of impact our little ecosystem cannot absorb. They have to work with the Clans here. There has to be some organization. Everyone knows it, but there’s still gonna be some jockeying. We’re all gonna get a little bigger. And it’s important no one gets too big. In terms of the ecosphere, that’d totally screw shit up. This Clan we’re in touch with, the Freaks?

– Freaks. That’s promising.

– Let’s not start making judgments based on something as flimsy as semantics. Regardless of how they’ve chosen to represent themselves to the world in language, they apparently carry a membership of several dozen. That’s more than enough to cause waves or swing a slight advantage in numbers. They cannot be, you know, disregarded.

He points the finger at me.

– So now, I need the head of Society security to do his job and go out to Brooklyn and clean up a little mess that is, when you get right down to it, pretty much his own damn fault, and make sure the Freaks understand that we offer them their best opportunity for seamless integration into Manhattan.

He drops the finger.

– As for what you’re up to, well, your private life, Joe, this girl you, I don’t know, take care of, that’s all well and good. From what I hear she brings out a real nurturing side in you. And I guess I’ve heard things aren’t going well with her. I’m sorry about that. God knows the Society is more than sympathetic to anyone with any kind of illness, but, you know, some hit closer to home than others. That, however, is neither, you know, here nor there. There’s a security problem that needs to be tended to. The Society needs you to tend to it. If you can’t tend to it, you need to let me know and we’ll, for lack of a better solution, dissolve this relationship and you can go back to your old status. And all that.

He leans back.

I think about all that.

On my own dime again. No more Terry breathing down my neck. No more sit-downs with Predo. No more taking care of everyone else’s business before my own.