In Love with My Enemy

by A'zayler

  “Okay, I . . . um . . . thank you guys for coming. The Pen means a lot. But your support means a lot more. Um . . . that first toast was for me. Let’s do one more for another IR, Leigh Jackson. Everybody here who knew her knew she was . . . pretty amazing.”

  Mallory blinked back tears. “She was the inspiration behind the series and why I have this award.” She held up a second shot glass. “To Leigh!”

  For the next half hour Mallory accepted congrats and well wishes from her colleagues, accompanied by a medium-rare steak dinner and more vodka. The crowd thinned. Mallory grew quieter.

  Sam squeezed her shoulder. “You okay?”

  Seconds passed as she pondered the question. A slow nod followed. “As of a few seconds ago, I feel a lot better.”

  “Why?” Ava asked.

  “I just made a decision.” Mallory looked from Ava to Sam. “I know I said I’d let it go. But I can’t. Whoever killed Leigh is not going to get away with it. I’m going to find out who did it, and make sure they pay for her murder.”

  Sam’s expression morphed into one of true concern. “Oh, no, Mal. Not that again.”

  “You think a cold-blooded murderer should walk around free?”

  “You know what she means.” Ava’s response was unbowed by Mallory’s clear displeasure. “Or have you forgotten those first couple months after she died, when you were so bent on proving Leigh’s suicide was murder that you almost worked yourself into a grave?”

  “But I didn’t die, did I? Instead, I got the Pen.” Mallory’s voice calmed as she slumped against her chair. “I’d much rather get Leigh’s killer.”

  “I know you loved Leigh,” Ava said, her voice now as soft as the look in her eyes. “And while Sam and I didn’t know her as well as you did, we both liked her a lot and respected the hell out of her work as a journalist. You did everything you could right after it happened. Let the police continue to handle it from here on out.”

  “That’s just it. They think it’s already handled. The death was ruled a suicide. Case closed.”

  There wasn’t a comeback for that harsh truth. Mallory held up a finger for another shot. Ava’s brow arched in amazement.

  “How many of those can you hold, Mal? You’re taller than me, but I’ve got you by at least thirty pounds.”

  Mallory looked up to see Charlie wave and head to the door. Ignoring Ava, she called out to him. “Charlie!”

  He waited by the hostess stand, the area now cold and crowded from the rush of dinner guests and a constantly opening door.

  “What is it, kiddo?”

  “Can’t believe you knew about this and didn’t tell me.”

  “Had you known, you wouldn’t have shown up.”

  “That’s probably true. I appreciate what you said up there. Thanks.”

  “Think nothing of it.” He looked at his watch. “I gotta run. See you next week.”

  “One more thing. The new assignment you mentioned earlier. What’s it about?”

  Charlie hesitated.

  Mallory’s eyes narrowed. “Charlie . . .”

  “Change of pace. You’re going to love it.”

  “What’s the topic?”

  “Basketball.”

  “You want me to cover sports?” Incredulity raised Mallory’s voice an octave.

  “Told you that you’d love it,” Charlie threw over his shoulder as he caught the door a customer just opened and hurried out.

  “Charlie!”

  Mallory frowned as she watched her boss’s hurried steps, his head bowed against the wind and swirling snow. His answer to her question only raised several more. Why would Charlie want an investigative reporter on a sports story? Why wasn’t the sports editor handling it? Freelance writers clamored for free tickets to sports events. Why couldn’t he give the assignment to one of them? She wanted to continue doing stories that mattered, like those on missing women and unsolved murders that had won her the Pen. And Charlie wanted her to write about grown men playing games? Her mood darkening and shivering at the blast of cold wind accompanying the next customer through the front door, Mallory walked back to the table, hugged her friends goodbye, and began the short walk home. She lived less than ten minutes from the restaurant, and, although the temperature had dropped and snow was falling, she barely noticed. Mallory’s thoughts were on her dead best friend, the botched closed case, and how to regenerate interest in catching a killer. Because whether officially or not, for work or not, Mallory would never stop trying to find out who killed Leigh Jackson. Never. Ever. No fucking way.

  1

  The black Tahoe crept onto the rooftop of the parking garage overlooking downtown Fayetteville and stopped. The driver lumbered his hefty frame out of the truck and stood to his full six-foot-seven-inch height. He flipped the collar up on his heavy mink coat, readjusted the sawed-off shotgun tucked beneath his arm, and scanned his surroundings for danger. Satisfied that the area was clear, he tapped on the passenger window of the truck. The tinted window eased down halfway, and a cloud of smoke was released into the air.

  “It’s clear,” the giant reported.

  “Good. Now go post up over there so you can see the street, make sure no funny biz popping off,” the man in the truck instructed.

  The giant hesitated a moment. “You sure about this? I mean, I don’t trust these dudes like that,” he said.

  The man smiled. “You worry too much, Samson. Nobody would dare violate this thing of ours again. Look around you, it’s just us and them. This is crew business, and this shit has gone on long enough. Tonight, it ends, one way or another.”

  The window glided up, and the giant assumed his position near the edge of the parking garage.

  Behind the dark glass of the Tahoe, two men sat in the back seat sharing a blunt while a brooding hip-hop track thumped through the speakers. The men casually passed the blunt and enjoyed the music as if they were at a party, and not on the precipice of a drug war for control of the city’s lucrative narcotics trade. Although partners, each of the men was a boss in his own right. Their leadership styles were different—one was fire, the other was ice—but it was the balance that made their team so strong.

  In the back seat of the Tahoe sat Qwess and Reece, leaders of the notorious Crescent Crew.

  “Yo, that beat is bananas, son!” Reece remarked to Qwess. “You did that?”

  Qwess nodded. “You knowww it,” he sang.

  “Word. You already wrote to it?”

  “I’m writing to it right now,” he replied. He pointed to his temple. “Right here.”

  “I hear ya, Jay-Z,” Reece joked. “So, anyway, how you want to handle this when these niggas get here?”

  Qwess nodded. “Let me talk some sense into them, let them know they violated.”

  “Son, they know they violated.”

  “Still, let me handle it, because you know how you can be.”

  Reece scowled. “How I can be? Fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “You know how you can be,” Qwess insisted.

  “What? Efficient?”

  “If you want to call it that.”

  Headlights bent around the corner and a dark gray H2 Hummer came into view. The Hummer drove to the edge of the garage and stopped inches in front of Samson. He spun around to face the truck. The giant, clad in a full-length mink, resembled King Kong in the glow of the xenon headlamps.

  Inside the truck, Qwess craned his head over the seat to confirm their guests. “That’s them,” he noted as he passed Reece the blunt. He climbed from the back of the truck and tossed his partner a smirk. “Stay here, I got it.”

  Qwess joined Samson while men poured out of the Hummer. When the men stood before Qwess, someone very important was absent.

  Qwess raised his palm. “Whoa, whoa, someone’s missing from this little shindig,” he observed, scanning the faces. “Where is Black Vic?”

  One of the minions stepped forward. He wore a bald head and a scowl. “Black Vic couldn’t be here tonight. H
e sends his regards.” The man thumbed his chest with authority. “He sent me in his place.”

  Qwess frowned. “He sent you in his place? Are you kidding me? We asked for a meeting with the boss of your crew, and he sends you?”

  The man nodded. “Yep.”

  Qwess shook his head. “Yo, get Black Vic on the phone and tell him to get his ass down here now.”

  The minion chuckled. “I see you got things confused, dawg. You run shit over there, not over here. Now are we talking or what?”

  Samson took a step forward. The other three men took two steps back. Qwess gently placed a hand on Samson’s arm. The giant stood down.

  “I need to talk to the man in charge,” Qwess insisted. “Because we only going to have this conversation one time.”

  “Word?”

  “Word!”

  Suddenly, the back door to the Tahoe was flung open, and all eyes shifted in that direction. Reece stepped out into the night and flung his dreads wildly. Time seemed to slow down as he diddy-bopped over to them, his Cuban link and heavy medallion swinging around his neck. He pulled back the lapels on his jacket and placed his hands on his waist, revealing his Gucci belt and his two .45s.

  “Yo, where Victor at?” Reece asked.

  Qwess scoffed. “He ain’t here. He sent these niggas.”

  Reece looked at each man, slowly nodding his head. “So Victor doesn’t respect us enough to show his face and address his violation? He took two kis from my little man, beat him down. My li’l homie from Skibo hit him with consignment, and he decided to keep shit. Now, we trying to resolve this shit ’cause war is bad for business—for everybody, and he wanna say, ‘fuck us’?”

  “Black Vic said that you said ‘fuck us’ when you wouldn’t show us no flex on the prices,” the minion countered.

  “Oh, yeah? That what he said?” Reece asked. He shook his head and mocked, “He said, she said, we said . . . See, that’s that bitch shit. That’s why Victor should’ve came himself. But he sent you to speak for him, right?”

  The bald-headed minion puffed out his bird chest. “That’s right.”

  “Okay.” Reece nodded his head and looked around the rooftop of the garage. “Well, tell Victor this!”

  SMACK!

  Without warning, Reece lit the minion’s jaws up with an open palm slap. Samson lunged forward and wrapped his huge mittens around the neck of one of the other minions, who wore a skully pulled low over his eyes. Qwess drew his pistol and aimed it at the other minion in a hoodie, while the soldier in the passenger seat of the Tahoe popped out of the roof holding an AK-47.

  “Y’all thought it was sweet?” Reece taunted. He smacked the bald-headed minion again, and he crumpled to the floor semiconscious. “I got a message for Victor’s ass, though.”

  Reece dragged the man over to the Hummer and pitched his body to the ground in front of the pulley attached to the front of the truck. He reached inside the Hummer to release the lever for the pulley, then returned to the front of the Hummer. While the spectators watched in horror, Reece pulled bundles of metal rope from the pulley and wrapped it around the man’s neck. Qwess came over to help, and when they were done, the two of them hoisted the man up onto the railing.

  “Wait, man! Please don’t do this!” the minion pleaded. He was fully conscious now, and scrapping for his life. Qwess cracked him in the jaw and knocked the fight right out of him.

  Reece fixed him with a cold gaze. “We not doing this to you, homie. Your man, Victor, is,” he explained. “His ass should’ve showed up. Now, of course, this means war.”

  Reece and Qwess flipped the man over the railing. His body sailed through the air, and the pulley whirred to life, guiding his descent. His banshee-like wail echoed through the quiet night as he desperately tugged at the rope around his neck. Then suddenly, the pulley ran out of rope and caught, snapping his neck like a chicken. Both Qwess and Reece spared a look over the edge and saw his lifeless body dangling against the side of the building.

  Reece turned to face the others. Slowly, he slid his thumb across his naked throat, and the AK-47 sparked three times. All head shots.

  This was crew business.