CHAPTER TWELVE

 
 

With Halloween came many kids not bothering to put on costumes, going from door to door making the words "Trick or Treat" truly sound like an implied threat. The jack-o-lanterns' faces slumped with rot, soon rat-chewed and discarded as the fall days bled into Thanksgiving and times of family reunions.

  An upturned maroon umbrella rested against a back patio. A storm door was propped open. A swarm of large male mosquitos congregated within a stand of pine trees riddled with brown needles down by the creek. Some of King's neighbors still kicked it out on their plastic lawn furniture and usually a good breeze kept the bugs off them during the warm night. Two of them stood off to the side to finish their smokes, even some of the neighborhood kids ran around, despite the late hour, but it was a Friday night and it wasn't like they had a bunch of appointments lined up for their Saturday morning.

  As he started toward them, he noticed Baylon beside the large bush that blocked the view from the side street. A skinny white girl with blonde hair – carrying a mixed baby wearing only a diaper – stood close to him pleading her case. Nodding toward Junie, he whistled to draw his attention, and pointed to her. She beamed with appreciation and headed toward them.

  "I expect to see you tomorrow," Baylon barked after her.

  "You're a real man of the people." Though he wore an open leather jacket over it, King filled out his black T-shirt allowing his muscles to coil and flex beneath it. The word "RESISTANCE" captioned a picture of the '68 Olympians with raised fists.

  "King."

  "Don't you ever give it a rest?" King asked.

  "Capitalism marches onward. A brotha's got to get his."

  They stared at each other in a tense silence. King hated this part of the show. The never backing down, never showing weakness, escalating sense of impending violence. It was such a waste. King wasn't sure how to react. Baylon and he had a history and it was clear that Baylon and Lady G had known each other. With Prez being gone, Lady G had been staying with Big Momma, but it wasn't as if she was his girl or anything. Then something else occurred to him. Both Baylon and Green were personally overseeing the corner, and their troops appeared thin. "No harm done. I'm just out here seeing what's what. Been hearing things."

  "I just didn't want there to be any… misunderstandings," Baylon said.

"Don't start none, won't be none."

  King walked toward the gathered throng as Baylon watched. Lady G slumped in her chair, a sweater slung around her. Any self-consciousness she might have felt under Baylon's gaze, she ignored with a cool aplomb. Big Momma sat between her spread legs, her hair half combed out, half with micro-braids. After a few minutes observing King and Lady G's awkward dance, Baylon moved back to his corner work. One of the neighborhood kids headed their way from the opposite direction of King. His T-shirt had the words "I LOVE ORAL SEX" emblazoned on the front.

  "Boy, where'd you get that shirt?" Big Momma asked, the way King's mother used to "ask" when she was really yelling at him.

  "It's my dad's. He said I could wear it."

  "Then you can wear it, but not around here. Go on back to your house and change shirts."

  "It's the only one that's clean."

  "Then turn it inside out or something, but you ain't wearing it around here."

  "OK." He took off his shirt, revealing his frail frame. He turned it inside out then joined the other kids who had stopped their game to watch the minishowdown.

  "Trifling-ass parents…" Big Momma muttered. "What kind of parents are gonna let their kid walk out of the house in a shirt like that?"

  Lady G mm-hmm-ed from behind her.

  "Girl, you just mad at the world." King sat down. "You up for some hair?"

  "Bout time. Your head's done got all raggedy," Big Momma said.

  It was true: for the last few weeks, King had been letting his hair grow out. His frazzled cornrows in need of tightening. It was time for a new look he had supposed. The fact that Lady G did hair in lieu of rent had nothing to do with it. Big Momma, however, had truly taken the girl in and now was every bit the gateway her real momma would have been. Lady G, though she never voiced it, loved it. Her fingertips, the sole part of her hands not covered by her black gloves, danced in Big Momma's hair.

  "Boy, what do you do to your hair?" Lady G asked.

  "Put water on it then push it back." She took her comb and pulled at a clutched stalk of hair. "Ow. Dag."

  "Beauty is pain," she said.

  "Who you trying to look good for?" Lady G asked coyly.

  "No one in particular," he lied poorly. "That's you women out here who like to act all diva-ish."

  "The grass is always greener and some women don't mind mowing someone else's lawn." Lady G parted another section of Big Momma's hair and then planted her comb in the remaining unbraided section while she worked.

  "That's what divas do, huh?"

  "All I'm saying is that I don't keep too many girl friends, especially around me and my man. One or two close ones I talk to–"

  "Like Rhianna," King slipped in.

  "A few I hang out with–"

  "Like that girl in the park from the other day."

  Lady G couldn't help but suppress a grin at the attention he paid to her life. She continued: "But none I tell everything to. They the ones that come back and stab you. You ain't in love or anything are you?"

  "I only ever fell in love once."

  "Oh, Lord," Big Momma said.

  "Your baby's momma?" Lady G asked.

  "I ain't talking about her. I forget that girl's name." King closed his eyes while Lady G picked at Big Momma's tangled braids.

  "Shameika," Big Momma answered for him. "He was really young, they had a really good relationship. But then she switched to another church, fell in with a new group of friends, and started hanging around with them. It wasn't that he was jealous of her new friends. He wasn't even mad that she had a life outside of him, but he wasn't the type of person to put up with being exiled. First he was in, and then he was completely out. So he turned around and told her it might be best if they chilled for a minute. The worst break-up he ever had."

  That was what he thought then.

  "That didn't sour you on women?" Lady G asked.

  Big Momma answered again. "It was the only time he fell in love. Other than that, all he had was 'girls' like his baby's momma: a girl for a jazz concert, a girl for a movie, a girl for prayer meeting. He didn't want them to get the wrong idea, so he always told them upfront."

  "A church boy at heart?" Lady G tugged at a knot causing Big Momma to grimace.

  "Nothing wrong with that."

  A clearing throat interrupted them. Big Momma, Lady G, and King all turned to find Merle standing there as if he'd been there the entire time.

  "What a pleasant scene," Merle said. "I hate to break up such an idyllic moment, but we have business to attend to."

 

Loose Tooth awaited Tavon on the steps of the porch. On post. Even at night, under the sodium glare, Tavon loved the house. For him, it was almost sacred ground.

  "What's up?"

  "Same old foolishness," Loose Tooth said with his gravelly voice and a sad, resigned smile. "Miss Jane an' 'em's inside."

  Only then did Tavon notice the racket coming from inside. He went around to the rear of the house, Loose Tooth faithfully following, to the basement entrance. He bent the plywood covering enough for them to slide through. If night had a texture, it felt like the black of the basement. Only after their eyes adjusted could they use the residual glow from the street lamps to discern the foreboding shapes around them. They made their way past the rusted-out furnace, an antique from forty years ago. A pile of old window frames, still useable, littered a storage room floor. He blithely slid past the ad-hoc floor joists that leveled the bending floorboards. The rotted stairs croaked in protest with each of their steps. Tavon put his shoulder into the nailed-shut door.

  Ship-wrecked lost souls lay about the living room floor. Too many times he came here to find out that Miss Jane had let a whole crew flop there, like a basement party that got smoked out. This time the sprawl of bodies used each other to stave off the cold. Miss Jane quickly explained that she charged each of them a few bucks – a take she was willing to split fifty-fifty with Tavon (which Tavon knew that he'd be lucky to see a tenth of the money) – to partake in the Black Zombie testing.

  "Who he?" Tavon asked, nodding toward the lone white guy.

  "He's my wigga."

  The scrawny burnout with a chest like a squirrel looked like a trailer park refugee. His bloodshot eyes danced like life was one big video game that he was desperately trying to follow. He rubbed his hand over his closely cropped hair. His shoes tied over bare feet and an unfinished tattoo of a dragon rearing to exhale flames glared from above his torn T-shirt. Tavon knew without asking where the money went that was supposed to finish the tattoo.

  "I'm just out here trying to school him," Miss Jane said of her latest dupe.

  "Yeah, he's my nigger," the burnout said.

  The din of the room screeched to an immediate and deafening silence. Fearfully he scanned the room.

  "What did I tell you?" Miss Jane asked sternly, stepping menacingly toward him.

  "Not too much 'r'?" the burnout answered weakly.

  "No 'r'. 'R' means business. 'R' means we obligated to kick your ass."

  "My n-nigga?"

  Miss Jane put her arm on Tavon to steady herself from laughing too hard. "We just shittin' you. Come on, fool."

  Tavon passed out the vials, and played big man and host. He enjoyed the moment of civility, a ghetto tea ceremony.

  "You want me to set you up?" Miss Jane asked politely.

  "Yeah, great," Tavon said, still attending to his guests. He sat down and Miss Jane snuggled next to him, offering the spike like some champagne toast. She searched out a good vein and with his nod, she pulled back a pinkish cloud then drove the load home. She quickly filled her own and injected it, her head down in a dope-fiend lean, waiting for the blast to hit.

  "You know any white Washingtons?" Tavon asked lazily.

  "You thinkin' on what that wannabe Muslim be sayin'?" Loose Tooth said with a jaundiced glare from inside his heroin fog. "That fool never met a conspiracy theory he didn't like."

  "I'm just sayin', you heard about Thomas Jefferson an' all his kids. George had to be screwin', too. You know all them mugs had slaves. An' Martha wasn't much to look at."

  "I guess that makes you practically royalty."

  "Well, we don't know our true names," Tavon said with a wan plaintiveness.

  "So you want we should call you Tavon X now?" Loose Tooth asked.

  "An' give up the smoke? Them Muslims don't play," the disembodied voice of the burnout chimed in from the shadows.

  "Shit, he couldn't even give up pork, much less chasing the heroin." The way Miss Jane pronounced it, the word came out "hair ron".

  Too much thinking blew his high. Tavon fell silent, but an overwhelming sadness swept over him with the realization that he broke his mother's heart. All of his other siblings went on to college or the military and resented him for the life that he chose for himself. But he missed her, even though he didn't make it to the funeral because he took a charge and did an overnight in city jail. "Life was full of mystery," his mother often proffered as an explanation for their pain. "You can waste your time figuring out the why, or you can let it grow you." She absorbed suffering, especially his, like a sponge and he missed her most during times like this.

  He'd been watered.

  Why he trusted Miss Jane to be in the spirit of the occasion and not pocket his vial for later, he didn't know. He cursed himself for his stupidity. Turning to confront her, his movement knocked her to the floor. Her eyes rolled into her head. Foam bubbled from the corner of her mouth. Her breaths came in rasps and fits.

  "Miss Jane, wake up!" Tavon yelled.

  A moan escaped her lips.

  "Miss Jane! There's something wrong with Miss Jane!" he repeated to no one in particular. He studied his friends. The burnout had stopped breathing. Loose Tooth still convulsed, his old body dying in wracked spasms. Tavon panicked, flitting from body to body, splashing water on some, trying to get Miss Jane on her feet. Call 911, he thought, letting Miss Jane crumple into a pile. From where? No phones around here. He backed toward the front door. The police wouldn't come anyway. Maybe if he could phone from the KFC.

  So he ran.

  And kept running.

 

Wayne slammed the door of the Outreach Inc.'s minivan and tugged on it to make sure it was locked. Street nights were a series of rituals for him. Caffeine was his drug of choice these days. Even as he sucked down a venti caramel macchiato, he thought about the dark places addicts knew. The same sad, scared hole too many folks fell into. Some pushed there by drugs. Some stumbled there due to lack of love. There was always a hole they needed to fill with whatever they could; a need that overwhelmed them such that they pushed their jobs, their school, their friends, their family aside in order to have another attempt to fill it. Wayne knew about the holes and he knew he couldn't save anyone, much less everyone; but he knew what he was called to do. Someone had to step into the gap between the lost and the rest of the world which forgot them. Someone had to push the envelope and risk themselves to go where they were, to love them back to themselves. Someone had to intervene.

  That night they went to a wooded area behind the Eastgate Mall. A place he knew well. He knew the temporary tent community that sprung up between police sweeps. He knew the dumpsters that could be scavenged from. A backpack of water, snacks, and socks in one hand and a Maglite in the other didn't seem like much, but with the right team of folks, it was a start. It always came back to who he worked with. Some volunteers were good to mark the location and drop off water. Others truly connected with folks there. Learned their names. Heard their stories. Heard their stories.. Treated them like they were human. Weren't afraid to meet them where they were, in the muck of their lives. A good team, the right team, could venture to the darkest places.

  Despite the lateness of the hour, the night always left him energized so he had an evening ending ritual to help him wind down: dinner at Mr Dan's, a twenty-four-hour burger joint with homestyle fries and greasy burgers like your momma would have made. Strains of Outkast's "Bombs over Baghdad" squawked from his cell phone. Wayne sighed, his stomach already grumbling, fearing it would be some street emergency which would delay him sitting down to eat.

  "Wayne?" King asked.

  "Who you expecting?"

  "You didn't sound like yourself."

  "Cause I'm ready to find something to meal on and you holding a brother up." Wayne shoved his free hand in his vest pocket and leaned against the minivan.

  "Mind if we hook up? I got some things I need to talk to you about."

  "Like what?"

  "Not over the phone."

  Wayne hated these "there's something of cosmic consequence, the fate of the universe hanging in the balance until we talk but I can't tell you about it for a few hours so now you have to spend that time wondering what it is and if you've screwed up somehow" calls. "Long as you don't mind meeting me at Mr Dan's."

  "Over on Keystone?"

  "Yeah."

  "Cool. We'll meet you there."

  "We?" Wayne asked to an already dead connection.

  Wayne pulled the door to the Neighborhood Fellowship Church which housed Outreach Inc., double-checking to make sure the lock caught. By the time he turned around, Tavon nearly bowled him over. Tavon didn't know what else to do besides run, unable to trust anyone at that point, especially considering that his social circle pretty much exhausted itself after fiends, dealers, and police. Wayne was familiar from around the way as one of the neighborhood do-gooders.

  "They dead. They dead, man," Tavon stammered.

  "Who you talking bout?"

  "The fiends that rode that Black Zombie blast."

  "Slow your roll, man. Talk to me from the beginning of the story." Tavon's dilated eyes and constant scratching told Wayne a story all right – he was a fiend in need. "Tell you what, I'm about to hook up with some people and get me something to eat. Why don't you come with me and tell us all about it."

  Tavon wasn't without compassion, but in the final analysis, fiends did what they did. The need overwhelmed him, pushed aside all other thoughts. A meal here. A ride there. These man-of-the-people types could hook a brother up. Maybe get something he could translate into cash – a bus pass, a gift certificate – and maybe catch the same blast that had knocked the other fiends on they ass. In the end, it was all about getting over, no matter who had to be crawled over.

  "You float me?" Tavon asked, suddenly more lucid. "I'm a little light."

  "Yeah, I got you."

 

Lott arrived at Mr Dan's first. One in the morning and he was eating here; his belly and backside would pay for it tomorrow. Actually probably later tonight. He rather enjoyed the simplicity of his life. Having just got off his mandated shift, the gentle skritch of the fabric of his uniform with each step reassured him. He had a little job, was saving a little money, had himself a little place. With no drama and more importantly nothing he couldn't walk away from at any point, he was content within his lifestyle. That was the secret to life, he'd discovered. Folks fell in love with a certain way of living, things they had to have and wouldn't be anything without. That meant they'd do anything to protect it, get all crazy about shit that made no sense. Not Lott. When shit started stacking up, he could cut out any time and set up somewhere else.

  Wayne came in next, a fiend trailing behind him. A head nod to Lott, Wayne marched to the counter to place his – and Tavon's – order, not playing when it came to his food. Lott could guard the booth if he wanted. Wayne was still waiting for his order when King arrived.

  Lady G and Rhianna pointed at pictures of burgers – though they'd be disappointed by the reality that would show up on their plates later – then joined Lott at the table. Lott seemed to sit up straighter at their arrival.

  "He with you?" King asked Wayne, but eyed Tavon.

  "Yeah, sorta."

  "Always bringing your work home with you."

  "You one to talk." Wayne glanced at homelessass Merle who trailed King. The irony was not lost on Wayne considering his line of work versus his feelings for Merle, but some folks were hard to like. "Extra grace" folks, his pastor called them. Merle always irritated him, as if Wayne was the object of a joke only Merle got.

  "I am ever the servant's servant," Merle offered.

  Wayne sucked his teeth in response.

  "I was hoping we could chat in private," King said.

  "You the one with an entourage." Wayne nodded toward Merle and the girls. "I didn't know you knew Lady G and Rhianna."

  "It's not like that." King glanced over at Lady G, mildly jealous that she sat next to Lott. "Things been going on and I'm trying to piece things together."

  "And I thought 'let us ask he-with-the-woundedneck'," Merle added.

  Wayne rubbed the keloid scar on the back of his neck. "Well, I couldn't leave him alone. I'm trying to get a story out of him, myself. Thought maybe time, fresh air, and a full belly might chill him out enough to be straight with me."

  Tavon stabbed several French fries into the gooey mess that was the Mr Dan's Open-Faced Chili Cheeseburger. Gulping down the fries and licking the remaining chili cheese sauce from his dirt-caked fingers, he chanced a peek at Merle and, feeling uncomfortable, he returned his attentions to his plate.

  "Curious." Merle stared with mild fascination. "Who are you, my guy?"

  "Tavon. Tavon Little." Tavon peered up with distrustful eyes, arm guarding his plate, then went back to mealing.

  "Never bring strays where you lay."

  "He kinda ain't got it all," Lady G said, more of Merle, not all too sure of Tavon, though fiends she had a better sense for.

  "Nah, he good," King said.

  "Can I get a new fries? These are greasy." Rhianna pushed the object of disdain away from her, sat back, and folded her arms.

  "What you expect from Mr Dan's?"

  "Girl, you better eat those fries and be grateful," Lady G said. "It's not like you paying for them."

  Rhianna buried her head in her plate like an ostrich.

  "What's this about, King?" Wayne asked.

  "The gathering of knights," Merle said, ignored by the group.

  "I'm not sure," King said. "It's like I have these flashes. Like things aren't what they're meant to be. And I have this feeling like I'm supposed to be doing something."

  "Why you?" Wayne pressed.

  "He is the dream of a waiting dragon," Merle said.

  "Does he ever shut the fuck up?"

  King waved off Merle's comments, or rather, Wayne's reaction to them. "Not me. Us. It's like I can almost see the whole story, but when I think on it too hard, it all slips away from me. Merle told me you've all seen something and I thought if we got together, maybe we could sort it out."

  "How does Merle know what we've seen?" Wayne glared at him with distrust.

  "Magic," Merle said.

  "Magic?"

  "Magic."

  "Bullshit. Chronic maybe," Wayne said.

  "In my day, magic was much more commonplace. There's no room for magic in your lives, only darkness. You've forgotten how to dream. To imagine possibilities. All you know is this." Merle knocked on the table. "Continue to make your mud pies and never think to dream of the ocean. Now, some still serve the Old Ways, but there are the Old Ways and ways older still. It is the eternal struggle. The struggle chooses its vessels and we fight where we are. I warn against the beast that sleeps."

  "Did that make a damn lick of sense?" Wayne asked.

  King steepled his fingers in front of his face and sifted through Merle's words. Like everything else of late, they made sense, an inelegant poem, again, as long as he didn't think about it too hard.

  "Sometimes, it seems, we fight the same fight over and over. The players essentially the same, as if light and dark battle to rule each age. The beast changes his form to suit the needs of the age, but the goal is the same: to usher in an age of darkness."

  "And the form of the beast?" King finally asked.

  "I don't–" Merle started.

  "Drugs," Tavon interrupted. "It all always comes down to money and drugs."

  "And the sons of Luther," Merle said.

  "Sons?" King asked.

  "Luther had a second son. Your half-brother. He goes by the name Dred."

  The revelation slapped King in the face. It was as if he'd jumped into the deep end of a pool only to be caught in a riptide. He pushed away from the table, suddenly unable to catch his breath. A dark shiver ran along him. His half-brother had lived in his shadow for so long. Everyone continued their chatter without notice.

  "Dred? He the one always beefin' with Night," Tavon said.

  "OK, someone's going to have to slow this down for me. I can't keep all of this straight," Lott said.

  "Shee-it. Any fool knows this." Tavon sat up straight, class suddenly in session. "Right now, the two biggest players in this here game are Night and Dred. Night stays over at the Phoenix. No one knows where Dred hangs his head, but rumor has it that he's been a west side nigga for life."

  "So Night runs the east side and Dred runs the west side?"

  "It's not that simple. You got to think of the city like a checker board. Dred has the red squares and Night has the black ones. Li'l Nam belongs to Night. Down by where you stay," Tavon turned to Wayne, "that's Dred's. But with all the real estate these two have, they steady beefin' over Breton Court."

  "You know why?" King asked, though gripped with a sudden claustrophobic sense about his reality.

  "No one knows. No one sees Night or Dred on the streets."

  "Egbo. No go. No more," Merle offered. "They are whispers in the nightmares."

  "They lieutenants do all the real work: Green for Night and Baylon for Dred," Tavon said.

  Baylon. The name stung with the familiar pangs of betrayal. King thought that after all this time, hearing the name wouldn't bother him. Yet with the fresh mention, it all came rushing back. All the time they'd spent together coming up. Running through Breton Court with the air of ownership, the young princes of Breton tearing up shit until…

  "What about B?" King asked Tavon.

  "Who?"

  "Baylon. How he fit into this?"

  "He's Dred's number two. To be honest, I can't figure out why Dred reached out to him in the first place. It's not as if he had a long resume of overseeing the soldiers, not the way Dred could, even from… his situation. His name rings out like that. Baylon, though, he ain't got no name. He ain't got it like that. Everybody knows he's Dred's errand boy, eyes and ears anyway. Baylon's feeling the heat. Junie and Parker were his people. The troll brothers were called in cause Dred was looking weak."

  "Sounds like the shit is building up," Wayne said.

  "Yeah, that's the vibe I got," King said. "Like things are about to go to the next level."

 

"What you think?" Baylon stepped aside so that Michaela and Marshall could view the array unimpeded, the finest merchandise laid out for display along the table. Sig Sauer. Glock. Desert Eagle. Boxes of corresponding bullets stacked like bricks in a pyramid of violence above each. Baylon had even gone so far as to drape the table with a red velvet cloth. Presentation was important. Michaela picked up the Desert Eagle, the light glinting from it.

  "They look pretty, but they a waste for us," she said.

  "Why?"

  "The type of move you talking about making… it ain't a gun type of play. Even if it was, we ain't exactly gun folk. We enjoy getting our hands dirty."

  "I'm serious about Green," Baylon said.

  "Dred cool with this? I mean, way I see it, we barely got this ship righted. Ain't no one in a position to go after Night's folk direct."

  "We ain't." Baylon's face grew hot at her "we barely got this ship righted" comment; the insinuation being that he had anything to do with the ship being off-course. "We are taking out one man."

  "Green's…"

  "Whatever. If you ain't up for it, say the word."

  "And Dred?"

  "I got this. If we can handle the job."

  "You don't know shit about what's what, do you? Got no idea who we are and what Green is?" Michaela squared up against him. She had a few inches on him, worse was her mien of sheer aggression. Close up, he could see each wart, each errant hair on her chin. The frenzied anger in her eyes. He'd back down if he could and noted his error in directly provoking her.

  "Here's what I know and what I need to know: Night and Dred have a truce that will last as long as it takes for one of them to slide a knife into the back of the other cleanly. As I, no, we owe a lot to Dred, we have a vested interest in making sure his is not the back ventilated. As Night owes everything to Green, should he be taken out, Night becomes little more than a shadow puppet. All you got to do is tell me if you can take out Green."

  "It'll be like old times," Michaela said.

 

The booth mates munched in relative silence. Tavon twitched, craving some candy or something else sweet to ameliorate his body's mild trembling. Lady G picked at her food, already full, calculating how to save the rest of her plate for later. King neither ate nor made eye contact with anyone.

  "King," Lott began as gingerly as he could, "didn't Green kill your father?"

  "That's one story," Merle said.

  "What does that mean?" King felt an invisible noose continue to tighten in his life. A wave of nausea swept through him, as if he floated outside of himself while strangers dissected, and then put back together, his life story. Coincidence couldn't explain the players in the game being close enough for them to reach out to him whenever they wanted, yet he be oblivious to their presence. Shadows in plain sight.

  "That's all I know, really. One story, the one the streets made legend, had Green slaying the elder Pendragon, but that never made any sense to me. Green had nothing to gain and he never operated without something to gain. Wasn't his way."

  "You sound like you were there," King said.

  "To you, the arrow of time points in one direction," Merle said.

  The rest of the table exchanged sideways glances with one another, not knowing what to make of Merle and Tavon. Bullshit artists of the first degree, probably, like griots of African tribes telling stories for their keep. Lott and King, however, paid extra attention.

  "Thing is, Green could and should be running Night's crew," Tavon continued, smacking his mouth loudly as he ate while talking. "He has the name, he has the muscle. He even had the real estate. But he lets Night run things."

  "Green prefers the shadows. That's irony," Merle said.

  "Green's eternal."

  "That's one story. Another goes that for every spring there must be a winter."

  "I'm about sick of your riddles," Wayne said.

  "We all have our roles to play. I'm only a guide. He's the hero." Merle pointed his dirty-nailed thumb toward King.

  "I'm no hero," King said.

  "That's why we're here. Heroes, love, and spiritual quests. The story's still the same."

  "Any of you know a light-skinned sister, braids, pointy ears?" King asked.

  "Thus enter the fey," Merle said.

  "You mean Omarosa? What you want with her?" Tavon picked at his remaining fries.

  "Seen her around. She fit into any of this?" King asked. The heat of Lady G's body made him all too self-conscious. She continued to eat her fries in silence, making no claim on him. Or any man.

  "She's strictly independent far as I know."

  "Never accept a gift from her kind," Merle said. "And don't raise the terror of their anger."

 

No one believed in fairies anymore. With no belief to sustain them, most faded away to the land of Nod, the wellspring of ideas, there to remain forgotten and unmourned. When most folks thought of fairies, the image of gay sprites and winsome pixies sprang to mind. There was the whispered caution to never accept a gift from one, but for the most part, people thought of them as prancing merry-makers. Because few survived to tell the tale of the fey once angered.

  On rare occasion, a rogue fairy roamed the land of mortals, engaged in a tryst of some sort, and continued their wanderings heedless of the consequences.

  Omarosa was such a consequence.

  The Marion County Juvenile Detention Center had grown accustomed to scandal over the years. From their issues with overcrowding to the allegations of sexual abuse (many of those charges were later dropped, but the stain remained). In the wake of the ensuing reforms, guards, inmates, and visitors wore arm bands which could even alert staff when rival gang members were in proximity to one another. Certain events caused minor cracks in the system, such as the general scoops of kids in the wake of the Breton Court shooting. With public pressure for an arrest, many kids were detained overnight as the mess sorted itself out. Parker's luck never was too good. He was merely "spectating" as he explained to the cracker-ass po-lice who questioned him. As the detective explained, "spectating" did not explain the vials he was caught with. Personal use became his mantra, a charge to be all but dismissed by over-worked judges and a crowded system, and recognized that this was little more than a charge used to remind him of his place in the greater criminal justice scheme of things. The hillbilly cop tried to half-sweat him about Dred and Night's operations ("who?") with any further questions ready to trigger his Miranda-given rights ("Law. Yer."). So he was put in a cell to give him time to think about things. A peaceful night's sleep not worrying about getting got on a corner. That was the game then.

  In the game now, Omarosa stood over the sleeping Parker, letting an arm of her set of handcuffs ratchet through the main body.

  Click. Click. Click.

  Parker didn't stir. Asleep, he was still very much a child, a man-boy, not quite the hardened killer he wished to be. Asleep, he was someone who could be loved, who'd let someone love him. Asleep, the possibility of dreams, of a better future remained.

  Omarosa knelt down and whispered in his ear.

  "Parker, your destiny calls you."

  He smiled upon hearing the feminine voice, the sound of rose petals against naked flesh; a tease of promise in the night and his dick hardened. A few moments later, his eyes fluttered – he required several moments to be convinced that he wasn't dreaming – not quite making out the form, enough to register that he wasn't alone. Before he could react, Omarosa grabbed him from his bed. She had him in a choke-hold, but adrenaline-fueled panic soon flooded him. He had nothing to flail against besides her as she drew him to the middle of the cell. Her height advantage on him meant little compared to the blood and strength of the fey in her veins. His eyes bulged, his face reddened with his last gasps and dawning realization that he had reached his life's endgame. His arm shot out, grasping at nothing in particular, his other fist slamming weakly into Omarosa's side. Consciousness fled him and his body fell limp into her arms.

  Tearing his bedsheets, she fastened a noose and propped him against the bed to let the body fall. The investigation – such as it would be since no one would look too closely for fear of the phrase "dereliction of duty" entering their job performance jackets; and with suicides being more common than anyone wanted to believe – would conclude suicide. Still, she wanted folks to know that she could reach them anywhere. She placed a black rose on the shelf above the sink. It would be a note in a file somewhere, but it would find its way into Parker's personal effects. And people would know. The fey were not to be trifled with.

  You let them go about their business unless you want their terror to rain down upon you.

 

"Wait," Wayne said, still putting pieces together. "ESG was independent."

  "Not that independent. There are a few dozen gangs here and everyone has their ties somewhere. ESG's loyalty was to Night," Tavon said. "I hear the trolls got into them."

  "We were there." Wayne shifted in his seat. Lady G and Rhianna studied the napkins in their laps. Wayne told the tale of the trolls' attack on Rhianna's friends.

  "And the police didn't do anything?" King asked Tavon.

  "Oh, it's hot out there, for sure. Po-po out in force. But what they gonna do? Can't investigate with no body. And the trolls eat their prey. So Prez's boy is just another missing nigga. They wouldn't be looking too hard no ways."

  "You know Junie? Him and some young dude he's been rollin' with," King said.

  "Junie and Parker?" Tavon asked. "Yeah, I know them."

  "I saw them trying to muscle Green."

  "Once a fuck-up… Junie and Parker were replaced by the trolls. I hear they been demoted. Out slinging where ESG used to."

 

Smoke layered the air around him as Junie got blunted up, tripping high on his weed as he took swigs from his forty ounce. When he was up like this, his simple thoughts and false courage turned dark and focused, a cold, sick churning in his head. In the corner of the hovel he called home, sweat trickled down the burnt marshmallow flesh of his grayish face. The life he envied when he saw the likes of Dred or Night roll through the neighborhood in their Escalades with their rims, their stereos, their bling, had come to this. His body ached and he stank of overripe fruit fermenting in a dark, moist place. His scraped knuckles were red and swollen from punching the plaster from his walls. Rumor had hit the wire that Parker was dead. That he'd done himself. Not that the word of junkies and prostitutes was to be trusted, however, Junie knew down deep in his soul that the story had the stink of truth about it.

  A bout of sudden nausea sent him scrambling to the bathroom. The sink looked like someone tried to wash their abortion down it. Junie reached into his waistband and fished out the grip of his auto. Stainless steel, it was the most expensive gun they had. He flipped the safety then tucked it in his waist, the tail of his shirt covering it. He'd been punked, and that didn't sit well with him. He needed to come back on Green. He had built the corner down off McCarty Street into a real spot, had carried his demotion by proving himself. He had earned his way back up to Breton Court. But he still needed to step up, let his name ring out for real by taking out Green.

  He had to correct a situation.

 

"Sounds to me like everything keeps coming back to Breton Court and the Phoenix," King said.

  "How you figure?" Lott asked.

  "Breton Court seems to be the flash point, but everything seems to come from the Phoenix."

  "Like it's at the heart of the web." Lott followed King's thought.

  "The dragon's lair," Merle said.

  "But what about the fiends?" Wayne asked Tavon.

  "They fell out. Sick or somethin'."

  "Who?"

  "My people them, down in Li'l Nam. We rode the Black Zombie blast. Knocked everyone right the fuck out."

  "Except you?"

  "I… got watered." Tavon studied his plate, not meeting anyone's eyes. Even fiends knew shame when they got played at their own game. Things didn't get much lower than that.

  "They out for real? You call for an ambo or something?"

  "Nah, I–"

  "So let me get this straight: you got all worked up cause some fiends got knocked on they asses? Shit, I thought you had a real problem."

  "I'm telling you, this was different."

  "Look, here's my card." Wayne slipped his card across the table. "Outreach has a 1-888 number. Where they stay at?"

  "Penn and 24th."

  "Tell you what then. You go back there in the morning and see what's what. You got a problem, call 911. Either way, call the number and check in with me. The person on call will get me the message. I'll come out. I don't hear from you, I'm still coming out, but I'll be pissed."

  "You smell that, Sir Rupert? He reeks of the dragon's breath."

  "What's with the dragon shit?"

  "The dragon… he's wide awake now."