CHAPTER ELEVEN

 
 

Fall Creek ran through the east side of Indianapolis, non-discriminatory to the neighborhoods it flowed through. As it passed the Phoenix Apartments, a grove of trees lined its banks forming a natural green space that had become popular as a walkway. During early morning hours, many a citizen walked its path for exercise, each armed with a stick or bat in case of emergency. On some evenings, such as this night, cars crowded the rear of the Phoenix Apartments parking lot, sealing it off into its own little world. As people made their way down to the woods, they knew they were entering Switzerland, a "no beefs allowed" zone. Dred's crew, Night's boys, ESG, Treize, Black Gangster Disciples, any of a number of independents, all noise had to be squashed for the evening.

  Stands of bootleg CDs (including homemade mixes), DVDs, T-shirts and hoodies (with portraits and quotes of Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, and Bob Marley), and shoes lined the parking lot. Vendors sold beer from coolers. All the faces wore similar masks: jaws set, faces hardened, no gazes lingering too long. Fight night brought a tenuous peace and it couldn't afford any sparks that came with the fronting of machismo.

  It wasn't but the early to mid-'90s when everyone thought it a needed accessory to have a Rott or a Pit. As with any fad, they soon fell into disfavor except among those interested in protection or fighting. Tonight, a temporary ring had been set up, an area of folding chairs nearby, though most people stood, crowding in with money clutched in raised hands.

  Dog handlers, bookies, and referees crowded the ringside area. One of the undercard bouts was about to start. Their handlers released them and the two dogs ran to center, two gladiators clashing at full speed. As they were trained, ever wanting to please their masters, they lashed out in demoniac frenzy. Neither made nary a sound, their vocal cords severed, making them deadly weapons when they were at home, not alerting unsuspecting prowlers. Or police. Even though it meant senseless blood and death, the dogs showed more heart than most soldiers on the street.

  So Omarosa thought.

  Nearly invisible among the trees, she skulked about with a natural ease. Having already secured Lee's eventual presence, she bided her time and buffed her nails. Her eyes, with their perfect night vision, focused in the low light. Soon a couple of runners, no more than eleven years old, tore ass down the hill.

  "Time out. Time out, yo." They announced the police's arrival.

  About time, she thought, as she prepared to go to work. The grumbles of the dispersing men filled the night. The old hands, nonplussed by the arrival of the police, took the time to finish their drinks, grind out cigarettes under their heel, and collect their bets in nonchalant strides. Those with more to worry about, say a bench warrant out in their name, beat feet in a hail of mutters and curses, showing out to the police for their boys' benefit.

  Between the crowd clearing out and the police making their way down, the press of bodies led to confusion, just as she planned. She smelled the gentle scent of the red rose clipped to her lapel which served as her calling card. She always left one at the scene of one of her robberies. Theft was so common, better to do so with a touch of panache. It was in such short supply these days. To her, this part of the game was like playing football: the offense was going to throw a certain look, the defense took its own posture, but the key to any given play was to follow the football. In this case, it meant trailing Dollar as he banked his money. He gave an uptick of his chin as he prepared to jet, a shoulder roll and a dip in stride as he received his package and threw it into the back of his ride. Omarosa, like all of her kind, had a talent for learning the players and their histories: in Dollar's case, he had a tendency to do his counts at his mom's house before making his final drop to Night.

  Boys and their moms.

 

Dred's mother, Morgana, squatted alone and determined, in the filth beneath a bridge. She cradled the full swell of her belly, and resolved herself to the fact that it was time. The scurry of rats in the hollows above her head didn't distract her. The concrete embankment was cold against her back, her legs spread and water long broken. Drops plinked in the distance, falling from the bridge. It had rained earlier that day and the creek had swollen in its bed. The susurrus of the creek as it wound its course served to focus and calm her, but her pain proved too excruciating. He saw to that. She pushed and breathed with little more than a few grunts, not giving him the satisfaction of a sob. Theirs was a love – if one could call their bond "love" – forged in war with one another. Lessons taught from his first moments.

  Dred fought then and even now, only the battles changed.

  Contrary to popular belief, the streets had rules, traditions by which folks comported themselves. Even the young bucks coming up stuck to the rules of the game, those who abandoned them for the sake of making a name for themselves quickly found out there were stern reprisals to be faced. One such rule was parlay. Under the rules of parlay, two rivals/parties otherwise beefing with one another could come together – usually in neutral territory, sometimes brokered by a third party – in order to work out their disagreement. At its core, this was a business. Every now and then, circumstances dictated exceptions to the accepted conventions.

  Escorted by Green, Night made a rare foray away from the safety of the top floor – entirely his, a ghetto penthouse – of the main building of the Phoenix Apartments. The more power he accumulated, it seemed, the more its reward was isolation. Instead, he chose to meet Dred at his place of power. Night was diving-suit black, a straight-up thug-nigga. With a low-cut fade, big chest and huge arms, he walked with that survival stride learned from several bits in prison. At one time, he was the chief enforcer for the crew. Not smart enough to set up his own operation, but vicious enough to stage a palace coup at the right time. Backed by Green. It was said that there would be no Night without Green.

  Though many knew about Dred's situation, few dared speak of it openly. One, out of respect; two, out of – if not fear of reprisal then – recognition of the fact that nothing had changed. Dred still ruled his crew and would continue until he showed weakness. The wheelchair didn't mean he had lost any heart and many bodies had been dropped to demonstrate that case. As an allowance, however, Green accompanied Night.

  Stale air filled the outer chamber from blunts, cigarette smoke, sex, and overturned beer bottles. Baylon sat behind a desk poring over figures and accounts while Junie attended to the mess. Both men hard-eyed Green and Night as they approached. Junie's veins pumped water at the sight of Green. Baylon's chin up-ticked in the direction of the door leading toward Dred's sanctum. Green took up a position outside the door as Night entered alone.

  "Pleasure before business?" Night asked as Dred took the opportunity to spark up himself, his marijuana heightened by his own mystical concoctions.

  "The Rastafari consider it a sacrament." He wasn't as skilled in the Dark Arts as his mother, but he knew enough to be dangerous.

  "And you're what? Ecumenical?"

  "All in the game, son. All in the game." After all the nonsense that had gone down lately, few believed the street mantra much. Night's tone was hoarse and weary. He took out a bottle of lotion and rubbed some onto his keloid-scarred arms.

  "Damn, boy. You look positively peaked." Dred pronounced "peaked" with two syllables.

  "Been running wild lately, you know how it goes. Nothing I can't handle." Not that Night, that either of them, would admit to anything that sounded remotely of weakness. Weakness invited attack. "You're one to talk. You lookin' a might bit rough yourself."

  "We got us a situation."

  "What?"

  "King."

  "Not trying to tell you your business, but you telegraph your moves long before you ready to make your play."

  "The mage is back."

  "He never left."

  "Well, they've found each other."

  "I don't see how this is a 'we' problem. If King is such a big deal, just smoke the motherfucker."

  "It's not that simple. There are rules to this thing. A larger picture to consider."

  "Of course there is. You motherfuckers play too many games. He a mark. Just like any other mark. And marks can get got."

  "He's coming into his own now."

  "What the fuck does that mean?"

  "You think Jesus always knew he was Jesus? You think he burst out the womb thinkin' 'Damn, I'm the Son of God. Let me get a little bigger so I can drop some miracles on your ass.' He had to grow into it. I mean, maybe he grew up reading about who the Messiah was. Studying, learning, a nag in his spirit about how it was starting to sound familiar. Then one day it clicks. 'Oh snap. They talking about me. They been waiting on me.'

  "I bet he had to sit on that shit for a minute. Sure, he had all the hype. Folks been waiting for him to show up from the jump. Been persecuted, living hard, got all sorts of Romans walking up and down they space. They were looking out for him to show up. Thing is, it also came with a price: the burden of knowing.

  "Don't get me wrong, he step up and accept his title, his mantle, his responsibility and BAM… his days are numbered. In the end, he's gonna get got. Everything in its own time."

  "See what I mean? Too many games."

  "Look here, I'm about business and business can't get done if we're steady beefing. It'd be one thing if there was serious drama, but I want to head things off before it gets to that point." Dred was in the game for the power. When all was said and done, this was a business with margins more thin that people realized. After payroll, houses, cars, and the accoutrements expected for a man in his position – granted, it was the accoutrements which tempted people into the life – not much was left over. However, he provided a sense of family for his men until jail or death caught up to them. Dred didn't know about jail and he had no plans to know about jail.

  "Agreed. Agreed," Night said.

  "I'm just saying, there's plenty of money to go around…"

  "Plenty of that product. You seem to have a steady enough pipeline."

  "I get mine direct. No middle-man, no mark-up. You get your supply out of New York, right?"

  "Something like that."

  Dred's heavy-lidded eyes cast a knowing gaze on Night. They would continue to dance around each other with verbal feints, testing for weakness, and teasing out information. Dred knew that Night was supplied from New York after he split from the Egbo Society to go on his own. Dred's drug connect was locked into him. Dred's name rang out for several reasons. His hands no longer touched drugs, instead he operated a community center by Avalon Park and made sure the park's basketball court always had fresh nets. When he had two able legs, he got to know the neighborhood kids from Haughville to Woodruff Place. For those youths, Dred was a role model of respect. And he gave back to the community, donating to church fundraisers, passing out turkeys at Thanksgiving, buying Christmas gifts for neighborhood kids, and sponsoring ball teams. No charges stuck to him, the police was the enemy; he was the folk hero wronged who kept his head up and stayed true to the game. Kids dreamt of one day being him.

  Night hadn't learned the finer points to establishing himself as a folk hero; and if he couldn't be loved, he'd be feared. Dispatching Green for any of a number of perceived infractions or slights to his accorded respect, his name was whispered more as the boogeyman of Breton.

  "Say I let you in on part of my package," Dred said. "You let my people ease into some of the Breton Court territory. Off my package and with what you pull in from Li'l Nam, you'll be doubling your profits."

  "What's in it for you?"

  "Spread in territory. Another revenue stream from distribution through you. And peace. No business gets done if bodies keep dropping and the police come in to grind things to a halt."

  "True dat."

  This was a temporary measure at best. Once he got a feel for the new set-up, at his first opportunity, Night would slit his throat and leave his body for all to see as he took over the entire operation. Dred understood that. He also understood that soldiers were trained for combat. So every now and then, there had to be a war.

 

Fountain Square Mortuary was no stranger to burying the far-too-young. Just the other day, the old man who managed the mortuary had to watch a family grieving over an eight year-old. Those were the hardest on him. Funerals for teenagers, though often just as tragic, caused his blood pressure to rise for other reasons. Jowly with a graying mustache, his body with the contours of a cruller donut, he mopped his beaded brow with a handkerchief. Wisps of his good hair, combed over to cover his thinning pate, clung to his forehead.

  The funeral of Alaina Walker was well attended with the requisite friends, family, police, media, and publicity seekers. The mayor gave a brief address decrying the rising tide of violence in what was proving to be the most bloody year in the city's history. The concerned clergy took turns denouncing gangs, hip hop, and Republicans. The newspapers ran columns on the story, but the incident would be forgotten in the next day or so once some famous-for-no-reason would-be actress did something equally vacuous in public.

  Everyone would return to their steady state of benign neglect, the numbing consistency of the violence silencing them. With eyes both friendly and frightened, the old man did his best to greet each mourner neutrally, but the ways of this generation eluded him. The mourners came in, most not much older than the girl. Sagging pants. Underwear showing. Untied shoes. Basketball jerseys. Tattoos on any exposed flesh. Piercings in their ears, noses, lips, tongues, and chins (and those were the ones he could see). Gentlemen not removing their hats. Ladies revealing their bras and wearing pants with words written across their bottoms. The art of decorum lost on the lot of them.

  Towards the rear, studying each face, the police weren't too hard to spot. The girl must've been caught up in something fierce, though no one could tell from today. Dressed in her Sunday best, she was the spitting image of a lady of occasion. The woman she could have been juxtaposed against the trappings of the woman she was, judging from the flower arrangements made into gang symbols and guns.

 

King arrived at the funeral escorting Lady G, not that he felt obligated or anything. She wished to attend the funeral and he thought it prudent to accompany her. He recognized few of the people, but all of the faces – set hard with no tears, impassive and inscrutable – were masks of barely checked rage. He stepped closer and put his arm around her. Lady G didn't object to his proximity. It was a non-threatening intimacy.

  Regret was a powerful emotion. It gave weight, if not words, to ideas and feelings unable to be expressed in life. Things like mourning the waste of her life. The futility of their constant fighting. The lost opportunity to have been friends. No, these things were sealed behind another layer of armor as she stared, hard-faced. She knew her presence might upset a few folks, but Alaina was… she didn't know what Alaina was, only that they had been connected somehow. She knew that she owed Alaina some measure of respect in death that she never had the chance to give in life.

 

The graveside service was at Bethel Cemetery. The casket lowered into the ground, another seed planted though what fruit would come of it King didn't venture to guess. He eyed the crowd warily. Car doors slammed shut as most of the mourners departed. An air of unchecked resentment lingered. Word had it that no one knew who fired the shot. Just the same, blood was in the air and demanded more to be appeased. He knew where the trouble would come from as a few boys tarried, pointing to King and Lady G, and laughed.

  "He do one of us, he's got to fall," one of them called out, daring King.

  King had his fill of violence for one week. For one lifetime, really. One of them caught his disaffected sigh.

  "What 'chu lookin' at nigga?"

  "I'm tired is all. Not everything is about how you carry it."

  "Might be time for you to tip on out," the young one said.

  "We will when we're ready. We've come to pay our respect. When we through, we're gone." King had to stand tall or else those chump-ass busters would think he was shook.

  The boy, tall and good-sized – barely out his teens, if that mattered at all – stepped forward, inches from King's face, nearly bowling him down with his butt funk. He had some flex in him, but having no fear was easy when you had little to live for. No dreams of tomorrow. For next year.

  Lady G let go of his slowly balling fists.

  King met his eyes without fear. He could feel the flare of his heated blood. The boy said something to him, but King didn't answer, just hard-eyed him with a hint of disdain. By the code, the boy couldn't back down. The eyes of his boys were on him.

  The boy put his weight on his back foot, preparing to throw a punch. When it came, King sidestepped and countered, planting his fist solidly in the boy's kidney, turning him, then shoving him into the wall of a memorial. The anxious squawks of the crowd had suddenly been reduced to mumbles. From the corner of his eye, King spied a light-skinned girl with fine braids, observing the proceedings from behind a nearby tree, then, like a will o' wisp, she was gone.

 

To Night's mind, wizards were white men with long beards, robes, and pointy hats. For that matter, African witch doctors conjured images of men in large masks dancing around pyres of fire. Neither picture came close to what he practiced. He slumped within his great wicker chair, exhausted from manipulating the dragon's breath. At his beckoning, it poured from the vents of the Phoenix Apartments penthouse and pooled at his feet, a faithful dog awaiting his master's command. So he thought.

  "What we gonna do about Miss Jane?" Green stood in the corner of the room, a discreet distance from the enveloping tendrils of mist, and watched as they entered Night's nostrils and open mouth. The distortion added to the ghoulishness of his face.

  Night's eye's fluttered, his upturned pupils returning to normal and focusing on Green. "What do you mean?"

  "Her time's about up. She's bound to become a… liability before too long."

  "You mean give me up? She don't know nothing."

  "She knows more than you think. Plus, she thinks she has a trump card to play."

  "Percy?"

  "Yeah."

  "Leave her be," Night said. "He's still my blood and she's still the boy's mother."

  "Not much of one. No disrespect."

  "No, you right. But the bug or the blast will catch up with her before much longer." Night struggled to upright himself, but his arm muscles gave out. Sweat scattered like buckshot across his face and chest.

  "Are you OK?"

  "Just off my game is all." Night wouldn't have suffered any interruptions or taken any visitors during the ritual – definitely would not have risked appearing weak – except in front of Green. Night's T-shirt draped over him, his gaunt face betraying his emaciated body. His dark flesh withered. If Green had seen this before, his thoughts were his own.

  "You're using it too much."

  Night threw a bloodshot glare at Green. The undersides of his eyelids itched with the scrape of ants crawling alongside his eyes into his skull. The rasp of his breathing choked into a cough. He rolled his tongue across his dry, cracked lips. The ashy pallor to his skin obscured by the waning mist, Night's head was already caught up in the heady throes of the dragon's breath.

  "I'm so close to having them all. And beating Dred at his own game."

 

Marshall rested on his side, stroking the bare back of the hooker sprawled across his dirty mattress. Her flesh cooled to room temperature, her head buried face down into what passed for his bed, staring into eternity. She died during the throes of his climax; that was when it usually happened, though it rarely stopped him from going a second round. Michaela sat in a chair across from them. As much as Michaela hated being referred to as the Durham Brothers, she hated the appellation "The Trolls" even more. All elementals were known to be capricious, treacherous, and, well, hostile. It took them a long time to find a place that suited their needs. An abandoned home which had been gutted, all but the load-bearing walls removed so that new owners could refashion the layout any way they wished. Without power and with the windows boarded, the house was little more than a huge cavern.

  "Was it good for you?" he remarked to the corpse, but turned to Michaela to see if she'd give him a polite chuckle. It wasn't the fact that he had to pay for company that upset Marshall, it was that pros charged him at least double. A shadow crossed his face whenever things did not go his way. If Michaela wasn't around, he was often cheated, the victim of a Murphy game or worse, so she always watched over him.

  "It's time," Michaela checked her watch. She had similar but different problems. With a measure of wit and charm, she had little difficulty getting a man, when away from the baleful uncomfortable stare of her brother. Unfortunately, she couldn't stop herself from consuming them. When it came to men, she lived with a constant fear that if he got to know her or if he knew her name, he'd either abandon or destroy her. Better to kill them before they hurt her. Dining on them spoke more to her frugal mentality.

  "We shouldn't go to work on an empty stomach."

  "You're supposed to load up on carbs, I hear."

  "Well, waste not, want not."

  She stared at the corpse. Her mouth watered as she imagined chewing the fleshy muscle of the woman's upper arm, tearing sinew from bone in large sloppy bites. "I suppose we have time for a quick nibble."

 

• • •

 

The metallic squawk of the phone, the din of voices, the pallid haze of fluorescent lighting all faded into background static as Octavia studied the spread of folders before her. Glasses low on her nose, she picked up folder after folder, eyes dancing along each line until the information became as familiar as her own heartbeat. License plate numbers from surveillance of Breton Court Phoenix Apartments activities led to girlfriends, and in a couple of cases, mothers of the players. But nothing on Dred, Night, or Green. They had pictures of Green and a rare shot of Night, but that was it. Social Security, date of birth, assets, credit history, criminal records, lawsuits (not that any beefs were handled in any court other than the streets) – it was difficult to track anyone who had checked out of the system.

  The local reverends were up in arms and calling for an open and honest investigation. Apparently the lead investigator being black wasn't enough because blue was blue and police hid behind a wall of silence. The take-home message was that she was window dressing, little more than a House Negro faithfully attending to her master's business. Her unspoken message to them would be that there came a point when talk was cheap, when you had done all you could do to draw attention to a problem and had to come up or join in with a solution. Protests and prayer meetings didn't cut it anymore. Maybe they – the people, the community – needed to do more to stem the tide of violence where they could; bear their share of the burden. Put some "action" into social action, not just stopping at press conferences pontificating and prevaricating until the cameras were finished rolling. But that would be her selling them as short as they were selling her.

  Lee was down the hall with the prize catches from his little raid on the dog-fighting ring. Even Octavia gave him silent props on that bust and that was before it yielded a couple of rival low-level players. Mr Parker Griffin, they all but knew that they wouldn't get anywhere with: well acquainted with the system, being far from a virgin with it, he had already graduated from the juvey system. He'd keep his mouth shut and stand tall, but Lee had to go through the motions. Now, Mr Preston Wilcox, street name "Prez", was another story. He was new to the life. Word was he made it no secret that he hated the rules of the game. People whispered that he had no heart when, in fact, what he had was sense enough to realize that it was the needless violence, especially the collateral damage of bystanders, that drew the police down on them. Even so, any perceived weakness, even voiced attitude, could get him dead, except that he was new enough for folks to consider him still learning the rules.

  "Do you believe in God?" Octavia knew that she herself hadn't seen the inside of a church since her momma quit making her go. As a detective, it was her job to sidle alongside a perp, get into their head, and become their best friend. In short, her job was to be an actress or at least a professional bullshitter, because who would befriend this worthless lot? Truth be told, when it came to God, she'd thought about Him and church a lot lately, a beacon in the darkness. Maybe the reverends were getting to her after all.

  "I guess."

  "No, son, that's not good enough. Either you believe in a Creator that is looking over you, the same God your momma and grandmomma believed in and raised you to believe in, or you don't."

  "Yeah." Slouched in his chair not meeting her eyes, Prez studied his hands as they rested on the table. The wan light gave them a sense of… otherliness. All of the God talk made him uncomfortable. It reminded him of more innocent times, when he was capable of believing in things like burning bushes, parted seas, and resurrections. He no longer believed in miracles.

  "So you know wrong from right?"

  "I guess."

  "All right. Now we getting somewhere. You know why I became a cop?"

  "No."

  "I'm a truth seeker. I believe that there is truth out there, sometimes buried under layers of lies and bodies and secrets and things most folks don't want their momma to know they were doing. But it's out there, right, son?"

  "Yeah." Prez squirmed every time she used the word "son". And the word became her knife.

  "I believe in God, too. I want to do His work, be a blessing to those around me, especially the neighborhood my mother and father raised me in. But I can't help a neighborhood that won't help itself. We try to uphold the truth, uphold the law though it is sometimes, well, most times too painful. But we do it anyway. Not because of you or your knucklehead friends. You all are in the game. You know the rules, we know the rules and we just play tag with one another. But…"

  Octavia pulled out a folder and withdrew pictures of Alaina. Shots of her in the park, her bulletridden body on the ground, dead eye accusing any who bore witness. "Most folks ain't in the game. Some get caught up in stuff despite staying as far away as they could. She was a promising athlete and a good student," Octavia risked embellishing Alaina's story a little. "Odds were she wouldn't have gone much further than college playing ball, but she could've been a doctor or a businesswoman. She could've gotten out. And this one." She pulled out a picture of Conant. "This one was just playing in his mother's kitchen. Can you believe that? His whole life in front of him. Laughter, love, friends, family all gone because folks playing the game too close."

  Prez's gaze fixed on the picture. He held it gently. So this was what he looked like.

  "Something you want to tell me, son?" Detective Burke relied on her instincts. The light of recognition, the apologetic droop of his shoulder, eyes full of sorrow and regret but not tears. Rarely tears.

  "No."

  "No? You going to look this boy in the eye and tell me 'no'. Ah, you a street soldier standing tall. No snitching from you, ain't that right?"

  "Yeah."

  "See? You can say 'yeah' when you need to. And this boy needs you to. Look, I know we have you up in our house – you're free to get up any time you want," she quickly reminded him without breaking stride in her spiel. "But I'm not saying that you had anything to do with it. I just need your help. I need to tell his people something. Every day I get to work and you know what I dread hearing? My phone ringing. Why? Because I know it's his momma calling. Every. Day. Wanting to know if we've made any progress. Wanting to know if we've found her baby's killer. Every day I have to hear her heart break all over again when I have to tell her that no one cares about her baby. No one wants to step up. No one wants to do the right thing. No one wants to stand tall for Conant. Everyone wants to be blind, deaf, and dumb and call themselves being true to the game. Are you blind, deaf, and dumb?"

  "No."

  "Someone's got to answer for his blood. Don't you agree?"

  "Yeah."

  She slapped the table. Prez jumped. "Just tell me whatever you know, son. Whatever you know."

  "I don't know."

  "Don't you care, son?"

  "I… I don't know what it means to care." Prez stumbled for a response and latched onto the first thought that came to mind. He didn't think he'd grasp anything so truthfully self-revelatory. The words hung in the air and Prez cast his face downward again. The room suddenly felt too hot.

  "I don't believe that, son. I don't believe you're that far gone. I don't believe you're a monster, son."

  A monster. There were too many monsters, real monsters, running the streets. The kind of monsters not found in bedtime stories or fairy tales. At least not the ones he read. He studied Conant's picture again and held it in those hands (whose hands?) which did things he certainly couldn't be held accountable for. "All right. Maybe I heard something."

  "I'm listening. Conant's momma wants to know, son."

  "Someone who was there. I'm not saying he did it."

  "You got a name for me?"

  I bet that woman had a name. "Dollar."

 

The rarely observed fact about 38th Street was that it told the tale of the city. Beginning on the west side, along the picturesque Eagle Creek reservoir, it wound past the Breton Court apartments then Lafayette Square, and traced an area in the throes of white flight. The street crossed White River and then ran in front of the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the Butler University campus, a once mildly decayed stretch that prettied up a bit as it led to the State Fairgrounds. Passing Fall Creek, now well into the east side of the city, the curb appeal of the street was forgotten once more. Though it continued long past the Phoenix Apartments, that was where Omarosa's journey ended. Not so much at the Phoenix, but at a house not too far south of there.

  Rumor had it that this was Dred's mother's home. Rumor had it that Dred's mother had a bit of a falling-out of some sort with her son and hadn't been seen since. Rumor had it that the home was now a convenient bank, under the protection of Dred. His word was like the Roman emperor's seal of old: no one dared break it out of penalty of a death that would be sure, swift, and certain for any who dared trespass on Dred's hallowed ground.

  Omarosa's skill as a thief was unquestioned, demonstrated in part by the fact that she didn't even possess a criminal record. Were this a simple breakin, it would merely be a matter of some second-storey work and a few picked locks. But they weren't in the suburbs now and the front door – on top of being the original door which meant real wood of substantial thickness – was probably reinforced. Plywood covered the windows. Weighing her options, she decided on a different plan. She rang the doorbell.

  "Look here, shorty." Junie held the door open. "You got the wrong place. You need to step."

  "That's cool. Baylon sent me to help someone here relax, but I'll sure as shit save my back the strain." She stepped back to let him fully appreciate the view. Her hair ran in a series of fine braids. Hoop earrings hung down to her shoulders. An azure cloud framed her eyes, complementing the electric-blue gloss on her lips. A rhinestone dotted each blue nail. A zippered blue jean jacket matched a skirt which stopped along the curve of her ass. Handcuffs looped in front, an ill-fitting belt buckle. Her fishnet-gartered legs ran down to boots with a six-inch metallic heel, the edge honed to a fine bevel.

  "Whoa, whoa, whoa. B sent you? He just full of surprises tonight." Junie studied her fine physique for a few moments; the budding bulge in his pants would've held the door open for her on its own.

  "It's just you? I was expecting a bit of a party."

  "You mean Parker? He down at juvey. Got locked up on some bullshit. Should be back tomorrow. But we ain't gonna let his absence spoil our good time."

  Junie replaced the wood plank and metal rod to secure the door. Omarosa thought they depended too much on Dred's aura to guarantee their safety. That was fine when dealing with folks more afraid of Dred than death. Not so fine when dealing with one of the Fey. These fools ran a sloppy operation and left everything out in the open: product on the tables, baggies half-filled, money still in the counter, and only Junie on watch. Junie, a well-known fuckup. With her deliberate stride and revealing the taut muscles of her thigh, her body language deceptively promised sex. She counted how many bones to break in each arm once he touched her. The creak of protesting floorboards gave her pause.

  "Well, well, well, look who we have heah." Michaela wiped her hands on a towel as she came in from one of the back rooms. Wearing a white bohemian-style skirt with red ruffles, the outfit only accentuated the heft of her figure. However, Michaela was much more comfortable dressed this way, than in a suit. More in tune with her personality as she saw it. "I smell fey."

  "Me too." Marshall descended the stairs soon after her, his awkward bulk causing him to clutch the railing and concentrate on negotiating each step rather than tax himself with banter.

  "I smell unwashed ass and wet horse, so it must be the troll brothers coming out to play."

  Michaela bristled. "She the one that's been taking off folks' money."

  "Matches the description. No sawed-off tonight, though," Junie circled behind her as he appraised. "Don't know where she'd hide it in that outfit."

  Omarosa cursed at herself for being too cocky, even for her. As traps went, however, she wasn't overly impressed. Though it demonstrated probably as much sophistication as Junie could handle. The trolls weren't exactly an instrument of subtlety, say like a finely balanced blade. They were more like a war hammer and if they smashed enough, they got the job done. The job was a bust and it was time to cut her losses and make a hasty retreat. They weren't in position yet which left her plenty of opportunity. Time to expose their weak link. She turned to Junie.

  "I didn't think I'd need more than a strong pimp hand for your punk ass."

  Junie stepped toward her but was met with a side snap-kick to his gut which doubled him over. Omarosa planted her elbow in the back of his neck, then tossed him at Marshall. With Michaela almost on her, she pulled out the .22 she kept tucked in the back of her skirt. Omarosa was never truly unarmed. Michaela grabbed her gun hand, but Omarosa peeled off two shots, one firing wild, the other catching Michaela in her shoulder. Michaela barely grunted, instead she squeezed the hand until the gun dropped and then punched Omarosa in her belly. Michaela's speed belied her bulk. She smashed a meaty fist into Omarosa's cheekbones, then hit her in the nose the same way. Her head whipped to the side. Her blood dotted the wall. Sent sprawling to the floor, the petals of the rose she'd planned on leaving tumbling from her jacket pocket scattered. Omarosa staggered a few steps to her right, positioning herself hoping her next gambit might work better than her original plan. Marshall lumbered toward her, his deliberate pace full of menace. He eyed her long, fine fingers with the delight of using them for toothpicks later.

  Omarosa spun into action, a blur of boneless gymnastics as she tumbled overhead and arced the blade that formed her heel toward Michaela's throat in a movement so improbably fluid, she almost couldn't react. Raising her arms to protect her neck, she received a thick gash along her forearms rather than having her carotid artery severed. They seemed to move in special-effects slow-motion as Omarosa grabbed the electronic money counter and smashed it into Marshall.

  He spun on his heels waiting for Omarosa's next attack. She landed soundlessly, then Omarosa jumped at him, clawing at his face with the nails on those long, fine fingers. He grabbed her hands and pulled her into his headbutt. Stunned, she began to drop to the floor. He reached for her shoulders, but instead caught her ear rings. He yanked them free, holding one in each hand as if he'd just pulled two grenade pins. Her head ringing and blood spurting down her neck, Omarosa punched her knee upward into his balls. A savage look filled his eyes, his face collapsed into a portrait of pain-fueled rage. She tottered to her left in order to position herself. Marshall staggered back a step, then fully enraged, seized with both hands and threw her, despite the cry of "NO!" from Michaela.

  Glass shattered, the sound muted by the plywood on the other side of it. Omarosa's body flew limply through, taking most of the bay window with her. The crystalline teeth scraped her flesh, several shards still protruding from her, though nothing major had been pierced. The impact of the frame and plywood took the wind out of her, but she toppled herself over the porch wall and scampered down the sidewalk. People stared as she ran, moving out the way of the beaten and bleeding prostitute that fled the house of Dred.

  "Sorry, sis, I wasn't thinking. Should we go after her?"

  Michaela put the flat of her hand against his chest. "No. Look at the fear in the people's eyes. See how they turn their heads away not wanting to see too much. No, I'd say the right message has been sent."