by Susan Harris
“Yeah, I know, and it makes me nervous! The man’s losing it, Guy. Seriously.”
Guy shrugged. “Think about it. Two of our people get pinched, then his brother gets shot days after going clean, and now there’s talk of people leaving. He wants to make sure the people we get are cool.”
Jordan couldn’t control his rising volume as he responded, “But does it have to be like this? I’ve only been around long enough to see three initiations—”
With a tone implying silence, Guy sharply interrupted, “Let me remind you that the reason you’re here at all is because the guy who’s ‘losing it’ let you in out of the kindness of his heart, something he doesn’t have much of, as a favor to me.”
“I know, and I’m grateful, but it’s cruel.”
“It’s only been eight months since Lucian died. Juan’s still breaking in. It won’t be long before he calms down.”
Jordan shivered. He didn’t like hearing about the unfortunate Lucian. “Did he ever find the guys that did that?”
Guy shrugged. “I guess. He killed some rival gang members and there’s never been any beef about it. So I assume we’re even. But you gotta give Juan a break.”
Frowning, Jordan looked back over to where the girl stood. “Yeah, but I’ve seen the looks on their faces as they go down there, and they look like deer in headlights. And this girl.” He nodded his head in her direction. “She can’t be more than sixteen. That’s too young for this kind of thing.”
“Oh, and I guess that means you’re an old hand?”
“Dammit, Guy, you know what I meant!”
Guy laughed. “I’m just fuckin’ with ya. But seriously, I agree that Juan’s wound a little tight, but I don’t think we should worry about it. The initiation isn’t exactly clean, but it ain’t more than serious potential can handle.”
“It’s cruel and unusual, dude! Could you handle it?”
Guy blinked, then thought for a few moments. He never answered the question. Instead, he chose to move on to an even more thought-provoking topic. “Oh, he asked me to mix up some of the dust.”
Jordan perked up, forgetting the question. This was something that had his curiosity from the beginning. He knew it was more potent than cocaine, heroin, and even cocaine mixed with heroin, but he had no idea what it really was. “Really? So tell, what is it?”
Guy laughed. “You’re never gonna try it. You hear all about the experiences of pharmaceuticals, but you never sample. And if I tell you, you’d never want to.”
“Exactly! I’m a thief, and I’ll hold a piece, but I don’t snort. Still, I gotta know. What is it?”
Guy grinned. “It would let you down. If I tell you, you gotta promise not to let it out. Juan would kill me, and so would Lucian if he were here.”
“I won’t, just tell me!”
“Okay.” Then he whispered, “It’s coke, H, and the extra kick comes from bleach.”
Jordan jerked back. “Bleach?”
“I told you, man, keep it to yourself!”
Jordan continued to look disgusted. “I don’t believe it.” He lowered his voice and added, “I’m surprised it hasn’t killed hundreds.”
“It’s hardly enough to make a difference, but you’re not supposed to use a lot. Otherwise, it can be lethal. There’ve only been one or two ODs.”
Jordan’s face tensed, border-lining on a grimace. “You’re right. I’m let down.”
“Don’t tell a soul, okay?”
Jordan uttered a small laugh. “Sure, why not. It’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard anyway.”
Guy opened his mouth, but before he could answer, he turned and yelled with a fake grin, “Hey, Juan!”
Jordan looked in the direction of the door and saw Juan San Luca, who always arrived last so all eyes would be on him. He had a young face, though he was pushing thirty. On his pointed jaw he wore a neatly-trimmed beard directly proportional to the buzz cut he kept on top. As he shut the door behind him, making sure no one outside saw him come in, he slowly backed into the dilapidated library. Juan then took off his thick green military jacket and walked over to where Jordan and Guy stood. He wore a thin black muscle tee-shirt, and around his right bicep was a thick wrapping of bandages.
Guy’s face showed concern as he pointed to the bandages and asked, “What happened?”
With a smirk, Juan unwrapped the gauze. Beneath the bandages was a fresh tattoo, swollen and red. It was a dragon roughly the size of a banana, colored in red, black, and green.
Not noticing the confusion on Guy’s face, Jordan said, “That’s cool. But is it okay? It looks like it might be infect—”
Cutting his friend off, Guy asked, “What’d you do that for?”
Still smirking, Juan answered in his low husky voice, “I thought I’d make it a traditional mark for the leader of Los Dragones. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“That was your brother’s. You shouldn’t have tried to steal away his spot like that. You could have just been content to do things your way and not take what was his.”
Juan’s face contorted. He didn’t like being chided. “Don’t tell me what to do. What makes you think you know what my brother would want?”
“I didn’t say I did! I said you could’ve done this without taking away the one thing that was his alone.”
Juan violently pushed his way through the two of them (not that they were in his way, but he felt a point had to be made), grunting, “Enough of that crap.” He then walked over to where Natalie stood near the stairwell.
He put a hand on the girl’s shoulder and said, “Okay, it’s time. Come.” As the twenty-odd people gathered before him, Juan continued, “You all know the drill. Natalie considers herself a good thief. She says she can handle herself in a fight, that she’s not afraid to draw blood. That’s all well and good, but we need more than just skills. We need balls, and speed. And unless you have both, you’re out. So,” he added, turning back to the girl, “do you?”
He was directly in her face, but she was trying her hardest not to show that she was intimidated. “Yeah. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
Juan chuckled. “If you say so. I just hope you knew what you were getting into before you rode your bike over here.”
“Hey,” a voice from the crowd said, “She can handle herself.” He stepped up, a tall muscular Puerto Rican. “She’s my girlfriend.”
Juan smiled. “No harm meant, Donny. But I don’t go easy with outsiders, understand? I may trust you, but I can’t trust her yet. She has to take the test.”
Natalie swallowed another dry gulp. “Well, I’m ready. What is it I have to do?”
Juan continued smiling as he stepped aside and gestured to the stairwell. “It’s easy. How do we see if you have balls and speed? Just make it down the stairs in thirty seconds.”
She raised her eyebrows. “That’s it?”
A fat boy in flannel said, “Don’t make light of it. If you do that, you’re bound to go down. Those stairs crack and splinter. There’s nails sticking up out of them, discarded books on them, all sorts of shit.”
Donny wrapped his arms around her. “Just take your time and focus.”
She smiled and gave him a kiss. “Okay. Turn the lights on and I’ll get started.”
Juan burst out into cruel laughter. “Who said anything about lights?”
Every jaw in the room went slack. From the back of the crowd, Guy said, “Whoa, Juan, everyone else that’s gone down there has had lights. Nobody could do it in the dark!”
Sighing, but still wearing a smile, Juan said, “Okay, I was just fucking with her.”
He reached through the empty doorway and flipped a switch, bringing light to the stairwell. It was even worse than they had described. Half the board on one step was missing. A bottle of ink was broken on another. A spider web hung down, bound to get in the way. She counted twenty steps in all. And as she was warned, there were bloodstains on the stairs.
Pointing at the stains, she said, “
What’s the story on those?” When she turned back around, Juan was polishing up a Beretta 96F. On Donny’s face was a look of regret and fading hope. He gestured with his arms, Sorry. Her eyes growing even more widely, she asked, “What’s with the gun? Donny?”
Juan smiled gently. “Like I said, you have to make it to the bottom in thirty seconds. If you can, you’re in. If not...” His eyes floated down to his right hand, gripping the gun.
Natalie was now shaking with fear. Sensing this, Donny wrapped his arms around her and whispered, “It’s not too late to say no, baby. Give me the word and we can go home.”
“That’s bullshit,” Juan said abruptly. “She’s seen this place. If she gets pinched or into another crew, we’re fucked. Either she gets in, or she dies.”
Unable to believe what he was hearing, Donny screamed, “That’s crazy! She’s my girlfriend, man! She’s seen this place before, she ain’t gonna do anything.”
Not changing his tone or expression, Juan said, “Outsiders can’t track us, Donny, not even girlfriends.”
Guy walked up to Juan. “Hey, this is going too far.”
Before anyone else could speak, Natalie said, “It’s alright. I’m gonna do it.”
***
Jordan never heard Guy say that Juan went too far. By this time he was too entranced by what he had found wedged in a crack in the floor. Unsurprisingly, it was a book. The spine was slanted from wear, and the color of the cover was manila, leading Jordan to believe it had once been white. An ordinary thing to find in an old library, but there was something about this particular book... something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. The artwork on the book’s cover showed a dead man lying in a chalk-line, a gun in his hand; a street thug in baggy jeans, black tee-shirt, and bandana on his head. Jordan thought it was probably an old murder mystery, set against the backdrop of a Los Angeles gang war. But if it was so old, how could it be up-to-date on gang violence? And what was it about this book that bugged him?
Then it hit him; there was no title printed on the cover of this particular paperback, nor was there an author’s name. He hastily turned the book over to read the back cover. There was absolutely nothing there. His mouth went dry as he flipped through the pages.
As Jordan was looking at the back of some old book, all eyes were on Natalie.
“Get the clock ready, Guy,” Juan said.
“How come I gotta do it?”
“Because I said so,” Juan spat. “I trust you, remember?”
Guy frowned and pointed to the Juan’s bandaged arm. “Well, I’m not so sure I trust you anymore.”
Juan shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I’m the man my brother left in charge, not you.”
Without another word, Guy snatched the stopwatch out of the gang leader’s hand. “Get ready, girl. On my word.”
***
Jordan felt an intense pressure on his bladder. He found it difficult to breathe. The reason for his sudden lapse in health was what he had seen while flipping through the book’s pages. He looked around. Nobody seemed to be paying him any mind. Juan and Guy were arguing. Donny and Natalie were exchanging worried glances. The others all looked on in anticipation. It was the same as every initiation he had seen. Only at the others, this book hadn’t been present.
Still feeling like an insect under glass, he continued looking around the room, certain he wasn’t alone. Out of the corner of his eye, he spied the mountains of boxes lining the back wall. He dashed over to them, not drawing any attention away from Natalie’s initiation. Tearing open the first cardboard box he could get his hands on, he yanked out a book at random. On its cover: a dead street thug in a chalk-line with a gun in his hand. No title, no author.
“No,” he gasped. He threw the book over his shoulder, the sound of it hitting the floor still not drawing any attention away from Natalie as she started her descent.
Creeeeak.
Donny whispered, “Just keep your eyes on your feet and go quick and gentle, baby.”
She took a deep breath and gently eased her left foot on the second step, holding tightly onto the handrails. She figured this would cut her time in half. Two down, eighteen to go; or rather, one down, nine to go. It made it easier to think like that. And still twenty-four seconds! Piece of cake!
Jordan grabbed another book from the box. It was the same. “No!” He tossed it aside, grabbing another. The same. “Dammit!” He threw it aside as well and grabbed another. But wait. Not the same. Not exactly, anyway. On the others, the dead thug’s eyes were shut. Well, the eye was shut, as the other had had a bullet-hole in it. Now the eye was open. But was that the only thing? Hmm... It seemed so. But something still bugged him. He threw it down and grabbed another. This time the difference was undeniable. The dead gangster not only had his eye open, but he now wore a tattoo on his right bicep: a red, black, and green dragon. Jordan felt a dry knot in his throat. What else had changed?
He flipped through the pages of this new copy, just to see if perhaps the inside was different, or if his mind was playing tricks on him. As he had feared, it was the same. His eyes reluctantly ran over the passage that had set him in alarm:
Jordan jerked back. “Bleach!?”
“Shhh! I told you, man, keep it to yourself!”
Jordan continued to look disgusted. “I just can’t believe that.
I’m surprised it hasn’t killed hundreds.”
He felt his stomach turning again. He wasn’t sure he wanted to, but he flipped back, toward the beginning. What he read shocked him more than anything else.
Lucian leaned against the wall and said very matter-of-factly, “I told Guy yesterday. As of now, I’m officially straight. I’m tired of all the death. Two kids arrested, and it’s my fault. People dead from ingesting bleach, that’s my fault, too. So, it’s done. No more Los Dragones. And that’s why I sent for you. Tell them it’s over.”
Juan’s eyes narrowed with anger. “You’re ending our lives because you feel guilty? Fuck that. If you wanna go clean, fine, go clean. But the gang’s mine and we keep sellin’ the Dragon powder!”
“No you’re not, little brother. If I have to take the police to the library myself, the Dragon shit is done.”
Juan shrugged. “Fine, big brother, if that’s how it’s got to be.”
Lucian reluctantly nodded, then turned to walk away. From behind him, Juan pulled out his Beretta. “That’s how it’s gotta be.” Lucian quickly spun around, just in time to take three rounds in his face.
Jordan threw the book down and marched to the crowd. “You fucking killed him!”
Guy took his eyes away from the stopwatch. The twenty-odd other Dragons took their eyes off Natalie. Natalie herself stopped walking and looked over her shoulder, hoping to God that this wasn’t some ruse designed to keep her from making it to the bottom within the thirty allotted seconds.
Juan pushed himself through the slack-jawed crowd. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” He turned back around and quickly shouted, “Don’t stop! Guy, back on the clock!”
Guy looked at Natalie and yelled, “Ten seconds!”
Now shaking like a bird on an electric fence, Jordan held out the book that depicted the murder of Lucian San Luca. “You killed your own brother just so you could keep making money off your bleach!”
Guy dropped the stopwatch, wincing at the fact that Jordan had just broken the trust.
Juan’s fists were balled so tightly that the knuckles popped on their own. “I don’t know who you think you are, but—” He froze. His mouth widened, as did his eyes. Jordan didn’t know why, but he could tell from Juan’s face that the leader was experiencing the greatest pain of his life.
Not wanting to see a fight between two friends, Guy bent down and picked up the stopwatch. Four seconds.
All of a sudden, Jordan heard a dripping sound. When he looked down, he saw torrents of blood leaking from Juan’s arm.
Three seconds. Natalie was almost to the bottom.
Juan screamed as he re
ached for the blood-soaked gauze on his right bicep. When he yanked it free, there was only blood and muscle tissue.
Two seconds.
Jordan thought back to what Guy had said earlier about Juan stealing what belonged to his brother. Then he looked at the cover of the book in his hand. Now the chalk-line was empty.
