CHAPTER FOUR

 
Broyn DeForest drove with the care of a driver's education student under final review. The stretch of I-65 connecting Chicago and Indianapolis was the easiest part of the drive and was so familiar to him by now, he could make the run with his eyes closed. He set his nondescript white Toyota Corolla – sometimes a gray Honda Accord – on cruise control at exactly the speed limit and stayed in the right-hand lane for the entire trip. Once he was within a city, he grew more nervous. Being so conscious of using his turn signals and not weaving in and out of the constant stop and go of traffic went against his natural rhythm of impatient driving. No, today he was on the clock. Three kilos of raw product sat in the trunk. It might as well have been a beating heart under some floorboards the way it occupied his conscience.

  It used to be that Broyn made this run barely once a quarter and that was usually only for a kilo. Colvin's operation worked in the shadow of Night and Dred, between the cracks of their respective territories. He'd carved out such a nice niche for himself, many feared that he would draw the attention of either of them and be swallowed up whole. Then two things happened. One, Night's operation fell apart seemingly overnight as news of his demise spread quickly along the street. At the same time Dred took a step back. The streets bubbled with rumors from Dred turning federal witness to Night getting capped, to the bizarre involving voodoo or some shit. Or maybe not so bizarre, considering the second thing. Colvin recruited some new… muscle.

  Colvin had stepped up the game.

  These days Broyn made the run twice a month and was told to be prepared to switch to weekly soon. Now, it wasn't simply a matter of pick up and drop off, but deliveries to be made. The first exchange was simple enough. Simple, if one didn't mind a trip to Gary, Indiana. Broyn would sooner deal direct with some of the dons in Chicago rather than have to stop in Gary. The city still competed to be the murder capital of the country. From downtown, he made his way to the usual spot Colvin had him do business from toward the main gate of the steel mill. Over on Broadway, north of Fourth, there was an abandoned train station on the right between two railroad overpasses. The sign on its front pillar read "No Parking. Cabs Only." though few cars ventured its way. A desolate, lonely place, an echo of ache within the city, the once-magnificent showpiece had been reduced to a home for pigeons and vagrants. The building was a mausoleum of silence and decay. Secluded enough for a simple transaction.

  Broyn would leave a taped-down grocery bag filled with cash under his seat and the trunk of his car popped open. He'd step out and make small talk with his contact, Myron Smalls, who folks called "Stink." Broyn thought that – as fucked up as his own name was, with his mother trying to spell "Brian" some unique way – he couldn't go through life being called "Stink." They'd both watch for police. All Broyn had to do was get back in the car: the money would be gone and the product in the trunk. He didn't have to check. Then it was an uncomplicated drive back to Indianapolis. With Colvin positioning himself as a supplier now, Broyn made the reconnect, dropped off one kilo to another crew – though he hated dealing with the Treize – and then took the rest to a cutting house where it could be whacked and packaged and distributed. A smooth operation, all things considered.

  His hair in twists, a scraggily beard jutted off his chin, a trail of razor bumps dotted down his face. Turning onto Lafayette Road heading toward Georgetown Road, already known as the drug corridor of the west side of Indianapolis, he hated that Colvin insisted on this route. It was as if Colvin dared the police, too. Carrying real weight, it was Broyn's ass on the hook for the years and was in no mood to taunt Five-O.

  "What if they take me off?" Broyn had asked Colvin before he took off.

  "They won't take you off. You travel under the protection of my name." Colvin had a dangerous sing-song to his voice.

  "Yeah, but what if…"

  Colvin's unwavering glare silenced him. All Broyn knew was that he was no Mulysa, Colvin's new right hand. No one even thought about fucking with Mulysa. Maybe that was Colvin's play: daring a motherfucker to mess with his shit. Broyn hated the idea of being the potential object lesson of some bold fool out to make a name for himself, but Colvin was not to be denied.

  Rain-slick and deserted, especially this time of night, the bleed of wet asphalt wound past an apartment complex and gave way to an industrial park Georgetown Road got past 71st Street. The arms of the railroad crossing lowered, with Broyn not wanting to gun the engine to beat the train for fear of drawing unwanted attention.

  Nervous enough already, his imagination called up images of bangers rolling up alongside him or car jackers creeping up on him. Checking his side mirrors with suspicious eyes for any lurching shadows, he adjusted his rearview mirror. The red lights blinked alternately, winking eyes taunting him. Bushes overgrew the view of the tracks. The rain fell at an intermittent spatter, not enough to justify turning the wipers on, but enough to obscure his windshield. Having to turn the wiper blades on then off only served to increase his anxiousness. The car idled with a mild thrum. He wished he had that internal steeliness Mulysa projected, much less Colvin. They never seemed to care, equally at ease watching television, being questioned by police, or staring down gun barrels.

  Broyn threw the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and kicked the taped-down bag of money from his first delivery under the seat. Certain he saw a movement, he squinted as he peeked through the rain-blurred windshield, then flipped the wipers on again. The warning bells of an approaching train clanged.

  The car roof buckled under the sudden weight of something landing on it. Broyn scrambled for the gun he kept in the glove compartment – stupid, he knew, but he hated to go completely unprotected with so much product and cash, and the idea of Colvin's name as a shield was cold comfort to him. Peering out each side window, nothing appeared, but he'd be damned before he got out and checked the car. First looking left and then right, Broyn double-checked to make sure no one approached. His right arm slung behind the passenger seat, gun in hand, he prepared to put the car in reverse and book the hell out. A tap came from his driver's side window.

  The length of a sawed-off shot gun greeted him.

  A nest of fine braids draped from the finely sculptured face of an ebony beauty with skin like heavily creamed coffee. Her almond eyes missed nothing; she stood unperturbed by the rain. Broyn knew many black women who'd have thrown hell-to-pay fits being caught in the rain after having their hair done. She had a model's bearing, the nose, the cheeks, like European royalty. Except for her pointed ears. A pair of handcuffs dangled from her belt loops. She toted the shotgun with the casual swing of a matching purse. Omarosa.

  "You know what I want." Her voice had a sexy, if terrifying, thunder to it. More so in her whisper. "Slowly. We all professionals here."

  Besides the exuberance in her eye, the thrill of the game or her part in it, something else swam in her eyes. Something dark. Something terrifying. Something monstrous which lurked beneath her beauty. A slack-jawed looseness to his face, he dropped his gun with a flourish to show her he was cooperating, his hands in plain sight. Leaning forward, he reached for the taped-down bag, while his other hand lowered the window. He dropped the bag outside.

  "And the trunk."

  Come on, Broyn's contorted face seemed to say. He hunched his shoulders.

  "A girl's got to earn, too," she grunted with annoyance.

  He forced himself to turn from the shotgun, taking it on faith that she was professional enough to not twitch and send his brains spraying onto the passenger-side window. Still, over and over, his mind imagined the clap of thunder before his world turned black. Suppressing a shiver, he reached under his seat for the trunk release. Too scared to know what to do with them, unable to move, possibly in shock, he held his hands out, his mind so disconnected from the action, it was as if they floated on their own. Probably more trying to wrap his head around what to tell Colvin. His eyes were drawn to the pulsing red lights. Almost hypnotic. Then she was gone.

 

Subtle wasn't in Lee McCarrell's vocabulary. The door exploded open with his first kick. Shock and awe were his calling cards, not because they worked especially well, but more because he enjoyed the rabbit responses his entrance brought. Them "uh-oh" eyes. The dazed lucidity of junkies caught mid-cop. The fear and panic of a dealer. The copper tang of adrenaline on his tongue.

  "You raising up on me?" Lee roared to the halfdozen young bucks lounging around the room. He often sprinkled his words with a liberal dose of street affect, letting them know he understood them and spoke to them in a language they understood. Them. Not us. These were nameless pukes. Omarosa had fed him their names, little more than chum in the pool of sharks. The possibility of her growing bored of him distracted him. Not that it mattered. There was no warranty on relationships and this one had about run its course. He'd made a meal on the tips she'd given him over the months. And he never questioned how she knew so much, or so accurately, for fear of busting a cap in the ass of his fine golden goose. She assured him this would be a bust worth his while, even if these were low-level players.

  "How's business?" Lee smirked. He gave the first boy a long, inventorying look. A good kid, long and lean with bright, intelligent eyes. Even lying on a couch, with the chaos of cops bursting in, he didn't panic and exuded a commanding presence. Skin like smoked meat, he had child-like dimples though he tried to suppress a charismatic smile. In other words, a waste.

  "Good, I guess." The boy sat up slowly.

  People became cops for only a handful of reasons. To carry a gun and tell people what to do (the deputized bully), money ("a job's a job"), freak (too drawn to the badge), or a white knight complex (the hero's calling). Sometimes it took a bully to get things done. There was still plenty of room for Cantrell to play hero.

  "You hear what happened over at Phoenix?" Cantrell asked the second boy.

  "Some folks got got," the second boy said. Young, white, red-headed, the boy had a heroin thinness to him. And he had the disposition of someone who would sell out his dying mother for his next fix to avoid prison. One of his eyes didn't track properly. That area of his face webbed with healed-over scars. The eye was probably glass, Cantrell realized.

  "What's up?" Cantrell's flat voice rumbled without humor. He ran his hands up the boy's socks and then legs. "You know we own this piece now. You operate at our pleasure."

  "What we got here?" Lee stood over the boy's desk. A scree of papers cascaded across it.

  "Homework," the first boy offered.

  "Oh, so you in school now." Upon closer inspection, Lee spied the childish scrawl on papers and the remedial reading text. Lee had the common decency to not comment on this. There was belittling and then there was cruelty which aimed at stripping away all attempts at manhood and dignity. The latter only led to more problems.

  "Come on now," the second boy said. "You fucking up my time, Cantrell."

  "Oh, so now you know my name? All right. Let's chat about that."

  Cantrell led him out of the room with a firm hand to the small of his back. Always out to save someone. Half recruiting informants, half trying to save these boys from themselves.

  "So you fine upstanding boys were merely pursuing your academic interests."

  "Just do what you came to do. Might as well earn yours for that trick smoking your joint." The boy knew he crossed the line as all the play left Lee's eyes and he blistered under his stare. Word on the street suspected Omarosa of having the peckerwood on drug patrol in her pocket. Perhaps throwing it in his face wasn't his best play.

  Lee flicked open a pocket knife and let the blade catch the light and the boy's full attention. Eyes still locked on him, Lee stabbed toward the boy's head. The boy closed his eyes and flinched, muscles locked until he heard the knife bury into the wall next to him. When the boy chanced opening his eyes, Lee maintained his cold gaze, not bothering with the charade of a search. He let him know he knew exactly where to look and didn't bother to offer the courtesy pretense of surprise at what he found: bricks of saranwrapped cash. More money than he'd see in his check in a year.

  "Whose money is this? This yours?" Lee asked. The boy turned away as his response. Lee turned to the next boy, but the question of "Yours?" was met with shrugged shoulders.

  "Guess it's my lucky day then."

  Leaning over him like a boyfriend doing the obligatory chat before an end-of-date make-out session, Cantrell chatted in amiable low tones to the skinny, one-eyed crackhead. A snitch he'd refer to as Fathead. As Lee exited the house, Cantrell couldn't help but notice the shrink-wrapped bundles beneath each arm. With a nod, he dismissed the boy, who slunk away without a backwards glance.

  "What's that?" Cantrell asked.

  "Street tax."

  "We're going to have a problem."

  "'We' don't have shit." Lee tossed the packages in the back seat. He stood in the shielding confines of the open car door, the roof of the car a gulf between him and his partner.

  "'We' better voucher whatever 'we' expect to sign off on."

  "Chill out, brother." Lee pronounced "brother" with every bit of the "er" on the end and with every bit of tinny cracker in him. "They simply volunteering to be your benefactor. They had a sudden stirring of conscience and decided to do something positive in the community. Perhaps donate to a mentoring program. They want to be, how did they put it? Ghetto sponsors. Don't that sound good?"

  "Uh-huh." Cantrell remained unconvinced. The temptation of rationalization rattled around in his head, a nagging voice which grew louder with each minute he spent with Lee. The bust would have been no good anyway. They had no warrant and no probable cause. They were simply trolling for information, based on intel provided by Lee's mysterious snitch. The way Lee went about his business made him nervous. It was why Cantrell worked so hard to develop his own network of information. The fresh-out-of-theacademy rules which had been hammered into him had long since been tossed out the window, but Cantrell certainly was not out to take anyone off.

  "Good. Cause the kids will be grateful. Real grateful. And that's who we do it for. The children."

 

Colvin was a pretty-ass nigga. He had skin the complexion of heavily creamed coffee and almond eyes, with full eyelashes which had an almost feminine quality beneath threaded eyebrows and set above his high aquiline nose. His good hair didn't have to be straightened, his teeth were scrubbed to a brilliant pearl, his nails buffered to a neat acrylic sheen, his skin lightly oiled with a lavender scent he favored. The idea of self-hate amused him. Many perceived him as being closer to white with that diluted blood being the standard of beauty, the features that defined his African roots as obliterated as the Sphinx's nose. But he had no time for intra-racial contempt; their hate was too small just like their love was too small. He was fey. He was the standard of his own beauty. A drop of fey blood made him one hundred percent fey. He was The Principle Beauty. Favored by his mother, he viewed his sibling – all women and for that matter, all that he surveyed – as an extension of himself. If the woman who writhed underneath him had a name, he hadn't bothered to learn it nor did he care to. She was a series of orifices who bucked in all the right ways, a piece of meat who offered herself as a paean to himself. A flesh-and-blood sacrifice on the altar of his dick. Sex with him was an offering of worship. He admitted to himself what few did: that people formed relationships that were altars to themselves. People sought out those who they had a lot in common with, who were like them, or who simply liked them; an external validation of their need and worth of being loved. The vanity of humanity. There were truths he dared not face. Like how sex was a balm. That it took another to give him meaning, make him feel like a man.

  Born with intelligence, luck, and the confidence of transcendent beauty, he didn't consider himself one of the light-skinned princesses who thrived on the attentions of others and then pretended that it annoyed them. Relationships were the comfort of another being only a hip turn away, a staunch of the open wound of loneliness they hoped to bandage. Colvin would never know the void of unfilled spaces within his heart because he trusted in the love of one who both knew and loved him intimately: himself. Turning to the camera hidden in the vase which sat on his mantle, he'd enjoy watching the playback of this session later. And pleasure himself to it.

  "Colvin!" A deep, dry voice called from the other room. "Colvin, man, we got a problem. A serious problem."

  "I'm busy, Mulysa. Can't it wait?" Colvin cried out in mid-stroke.

  "Nah, nukka, it's that deep."

  Colvin's was a long-lived people, and he'd spent so much time in the world of man, he'd learned their posture of adulthood, drank on their rage, and took on a man's role of conquest and bravado. He withdrew from the woman whose name he'd never know and wiped himself on her tossed-aside panties. She drew the sheets up about her in an "I'll be waiting for you" pose, but he'd already forgotten her as he dressed. Colvin put his gun into his pants. He never went anywhere without being strapped.

  His wave cap tied in back, Mulysa's brown eyes contained amber flecks. A scar underlined his right eye, acquired in prison. He had a broad, flat nose, the nose his mother hated because it was his father's nose. His complexion was what his grandmother would have described as sooty and his breath was the dragon. He wore defeat in the thick of his neck and roll of his shoulders. His faded blue jeans hung from his thighs such that he had to spread his legs whenever he stood still. He stank of sweat and what his boys called "African funk" behind his back.

  "What's up?" Colvin asked.

  "Tell him, nukka." Mulysa was a genial rogue, a selfdestructive fuck-up, but he had wit, charm, and most importantly, he produced. A lot was forgiven when you did the work.

  Broyn, on the other hand, was like an accountant. Quiet, dependable, and not for the life. Still, he had his uses. Some situations called for a square motherfucker who wouldn't draw attention to himself. Harried and haggard, Broyn began to speak with the wariness of a child recounting how a vase got broken in front of a temper-prone parent. How smooth the run went, along with the first exchange. And how on his way to the second meet, he was jacked. No money, no product. At each salient point in the story, he paused ever so slightly to measure the temperature of Mulysa, of Colvin, and of his place in the room. The messenger rarely fared well in such situations.

  "What did she look like?" Colvin asked.

  "Like one of them high fashion models with tight braids. Light-skinned. And her eyes. Beautiful, but there was something scary behind them." Broyn stopped before he added, "like yours."

  Colvin let out a scream of pure rage. "Omarosa!"

  "Baby, what's the matter?" The woman, sheet half-drawn up around her naked body, stood in the doorway.

  "You better close my door like you got some fuckin' sense."

  "When–"

  Colvin whirred, drawing his gun in the same movement, and let three bullets fly. Two dead center of her heart and one in her head. The body of the woman whose name he'd never know crumpled to the ground. A stain clouded Broyn's pants.

  "Who?" Mulysa asked, unfazed, knowing this would be a mess he'd have to clean up later.

  "Omarosa. Only she would dare such a brazen…"

  "Who she?"

  "A fucking two-bit street thief. And my sister." Colvin turned to Broyn. "The question remains, what do I do with you?"

  Broyn's eyes couldn't move from the body of the dead woman. "Colvin, it wasn't my fault," he said more to the corpse than his employer.

  "Shh." Colvin pressed a finger to his lips. "Mulysa, could you bring one of your bitches out to play?"

  Mulysa squatted low, face to face with Broyn, the full assault of his hot fetid breath on him. A walking amalgamation of self-loathing out to revenge himself on a world he blamed for his place in life and his own inadequacies, Mulysa's hands danced with the precision of a master loomer. He produced a long Japanese tanto knife and placed the flat of the blade beneath Broyn's chin to raise his chin to meet his eyes. "My bitch."

  "What's her name?" Colvin said with the deliberation of a set-up man's cadence.

  "You don't name a bitch." Mulysa licked the flat of the dagger, cleaning the salt of Broyn's nervous sweat from the blade.

  "She looks like she could carve through a body."

  "Like a hot roll from O'Charley's."

  "Those are some good rolls. Think you could collect a head for me?'

  Mulysa pressed the tip of the blade to Broyn's neck. The brief contact produced a teardrop of blood. "My bitches work for me. Here good?"

  Broyn's breathing hitched. His face flushed with heat. He hated the weakness of having tears squeezed from his eyes.

  "Not his," Colvin said after a moment of deliberation. "Hers. I still have use for Mr DeForest."

  Mulysa flashed an expression of mild disappointment, a "maybe next time" grin, and turned his back on Broyn.

  Broyn focused on Colvin as he desperately tried to ignore the wet sounds of rent flesh. The sticking of blade against bone. The terrible hacking rasp. Mulysa carried her by her hair with not so much as an afterthought. With blood trailing along the floor, tendrils of flesh dangled from her neck stump.

  "We're missing something." Colvin pulled a cable from behind his television setup. "This'll have to do. Desperate times and all."

  He fastened the head of the woman to Broyn. Her eyes had rolled upwards in their sockets, upturned to his.

  "There we go. You head on home now," Colvin finished.

  "Head." Mulysa chuckled and then wiped his nose with his sleeve, his blade still covered in gore.

  "But…" Broyn protested.

  "Before I change my mind about whose neck Mulysa's bitch should play with next."

  Broyn scrambled out the room without further protest.

  Colvin exhaled, the display of bravado somehow left him winded. Mulysa slumped in a chair next to him, already debating if it would be easier to just set the place on fire or clean up the mess they made.

  "Damn her," Colvin said almost to himself.

  "That was a lot of product."

  "Don't you think I knew that? Things were tight on the streets as it were. This could create quite the drought."

  "Judging from what the man said, Treize got theirs."

  "Shit." Colvin thought about his dwindling customer base. There was no such thing as customer loyalty, so the fiends would go to whoever had the fresh product. Didn't matter if the dealing hands were black or Latino. And once word got out… Shit, shit, shit. "Omarosa has no use for product. Her only interest is money. Get word out that we're interested in relieving her of her ill-gotten gain."

  "So she gets to earn off us twice?" Mulysa asked.

  "No. I'll deal with my sister. Put some caps on her ass."

  "Yeah, nukka." Mulysa carelessly licked his bitch again. "That's what I'm talking about."