“Yeah, that’s what I thought. According to Terrence, Papa Danwe doesn’t have a problem with the outfit. He’d just like to see new leadership.”
“He say why? I never knew there was bad blood there.”
“He didn’t say. Most likely, the Haitian knows he has no shot at this with Rashan in place, might as well try to get me to do his dirty work for him.”
“That makes sense. What’d you say?”
“Quid pro quo. Terrence takes out Papa Danwe, and I take out Rashan. Then we make nice.”
Chavez laughed. “Good play, D. And?”
“And, probably we both know we’re yanking each other’s chains. Still, I don’t think Terrence wants this war. He says he’ll try to cool things out, play for time.”
“That’d be good.”
“Best case scenario, maybe he takes his eye off the ball, starts thinking more about his boss than he is about us.”
“Maybe,” Chavez said. He didn’t sound convinced.
“He also hinted that there’s another player involved, backing Papa Danwe.”
“Another outfit? Mobley’s crew? The Rastas don’t have enough juice to mean much, D.”
“Terrence didn’t give anything up, but I don’t think it’s the posses, Chavez.” Francis Mobley ran a small Jamaican outfit, one that was known to be aligned with Papa Danwe. “I’m pretty sure Terrence doesn’t know who his boss is allied with, and that tells me it isn’t Mobley.”
“Or any of the other outfits that bend over for the Haitian,” Chavez added. “If it was, Terrence would know.”
“If I can believe half of what he said, he doesn’t really know much. He didn’t seem too happy about it. I guess I believe him. He’s got more of it than I do, but not a lot more.”
“Fuck him then, boss. What’s your next move?”
“I’m working another angle. I got a witness who puts Terrence at a club in Hollywood where Jamal was hanging out. Only thing, Terrence says he’s never been there. Plus, there’s a vampire I can connect with it. Terrence seemed to think the vampire might be working for the unknown player.”
Chavez didn’t say anything. Maybe he was waiting for me to say something that made a little sense. I couldn’t think of a good way to tell him I was going on a date with Adan Rashan.
“I’m just playing a hunch, Chavez. I can’t see what it is yet, but I think there’s something there.”
I could almost hear Chavez shrug. “Not much for you to do here anyway, boss. We’re pulling it together.”
“Just make sure no one gets trigger happy. I don’t know what Terrence is going to do, but I want to give him a chance to walk this back.”
“I’ll make sure everyone knows the rules of engagement.”
“Let me know if anything changes. And keep an eye on the Jamaicans, just in case. This shit in Crenshaw is bad enough. I don’t want to get sucker punched by someone sneaking up from behind.”
Miss American Pie is one of the only places in town where you can get a five-hundred-dollar Bordeaux with your pizza. There are fifty-one different pies on the menu, and each one is named after one of the States, plus the District of Columbia.
“What do you think about Maryland?” Adan asked, studying the menu. “It has crabmeat.”
“So does Alaska,” I said. “I guess it’s a different kind.”
“Hey, Washington has cinnamon apples.”
“Sounds like dessert. How about New York? It’s got pepperoni.”
Adan laughed. “You can get pepperoni at Pizza Hut.”
“Yeah, it’s a classic.”
Eventually we settled on Louisiana, with Cajun blackened chicken. I insisted on the house white, and Adan’s wallet breathed a sigh of relief.
“What shall we drink to?” Adan asked, after the waiter filled our glasses.
“To your father,” I said. “He introduced me to gainful employment, and he introduced me to you.”
Adan smiled. “To my father.” We touched glasses and drank.
“So tell me all about how my father gave you a job,” Adan said.
“I grew up in East L.A. My mother still lives in the house where I was born. She’s Mexican and my father was Irish—that’s how I got the funky name.”
“Dominica Riley. I think it’s an excellent name.”
“Yeah, well, the kids in the EasLos barrios didn’t think so. Anyway, you know how the story goes. I grew up hard and fast on the street.” I made a face, feigning nausea, and winked at him.
“Yes, but you were different. You could do magic.”
“Yeah, there’s that.” I laughed. “It saved me a lot of ass-kickings.”
“When did you know?”
“I’ve always known. I can’t even remember a first time, because I was doing stuff, little things, long before I even realized it.”
“But how did you learn the spells?”
I shook my head. “Mostly I didn’t know any spells. This was spontaneous stuff—that’s why it was always little things. I was walking home from school and it was hot, so I made myself a little cooler. I didn’t do my homework, so I told the teacher the dog ate it and she gave me an A. That kind of thing.”
“And other things?”
“Yeah. Some older kids ran a dice game in a vacant lot near my house. I could almost always get my number when I wished for it hard enough. I’d just visualize it, you know, and it would happen.”
Adan laughed. “You must have been the richest kid in elementary school.”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t always funny. The winning led to fights, and I started using magic to win those, too. I’d throw a punch and put a little juice behind it. Or I’d make the gun slip out of a kid’s hand.”
“And eventually my dad noticed you?”
“Yeah, that was later, when I was fourteen. I’d picked up some craft by then.”
“How? You didn’t have anyone to teach you.”
“Some on the street. There were a couple guys in the neighborhood with a little juice—small-time stuff, but it was a start. I watched how my mom did it, too. That gave me enough of the basics that I could teach myself.”
“Your mother is a sorcerer?”
“Fortune-teller, psychic, bruja, whatever. Tarot cards, palm readings, séances, stuff like that. She doesn’t have a lot of juice, but she worked it in with the usual hustle and managed to keep food on the table. So I just watched what she did, and I figured out pretty quick that the cards and crystals were just props. They’re just different kinds of containers to pour the juice into. I started doing the same thing with my spells.”
“Famous quotations?” he asked, smiling. “I recognized one from the club, when you threw Manfred into the street.”
I laughed. “Yeah. I think Mom owned three books—the Yellow Pages, the Bible and Collected Quotations.”
“Why not the Bible?”
“It was a lot easier to look up good spells in Collected Quotations. And Mom would have kicked my ass for blasphemy if I’d used the Bible.”
“So you were already casting spells when my father found you.”
“Yeah, I was pretty far into the life, too. You name it, I was probably doing it—shoplifting, some burglary, rigged games like the dice.”
“You were a total delinquent.”
“Yeah, I was a thug. Really, I just wanted to learn more magic. And that’s where it was happening, out on the street. I wasn’t going to learn anything in a classroom.”
“Did you drop out?”
“No, your dad made me finish. He said he wouldn’t hire a dropout. It was bullshit, of course. Most of the guys in the outfit couldn’t pass the GED if you gave them the answers.”
Adan laughed. “He knew you were different.”
“I think he just wanted to teach me how to finish something. It was a good lesson.”
The waiter arrived, setting our pizza in the middle of the table on a family-size can of tomatoes. We stopped talking long enough to put away a slice.
“And then?” Adan asked. He reached across the table and pulled a little strand of mozzarella off my chin.
“And then, I’d probably still be out on the street if it weren’t for your father. He brought me in, gave me a life.”
“He trained you himself.”
“Yeah. I already knew a lot of spells—I can memorize quotations all day long. But they were crude, clumsy, and I had a lot of ignorant ideas about how it all works. He didn’t make me relearn everything. He just worked with what I already had and helped me put it all together.”
“And then you went to work for him.”
“And then I went to work for him.” I spread my hands. “And here we are.”
Adan laughed. I leaned across the table and opened my mouth, and he gave me a bite of his pizza. He sat back in his chair and smiled as he watched me chew. It was probably cute enough to make the other diners lose their appetites.
“And what about you?” I asked. “Who is Adan Rashan?”
He waved away the question. “You know, spoiled, lazy, rich kid who makes absolutely no contribution to society.”
“I mean besides that.”
Adan threw his napkin at me. “Well, I have a bachelor’s degree,” he said, with mock pompousness.
“What did you study?”
“I can’t say. You’ll laugh.”
“No, I won’t. Promise.”
“Criminal justice.”
I laughed. “Studying to be your father’s consigliere?”
Adan frowned and I remembered the conversation we’d had at the beach about him and the outfit. Very smooth, Domino.
“No,” he said, “I wanted to be a cop. Can you believe that? I just thought if I was stuck in the middle, maybe that was the right place for me.”
I nodded. “Yeah, actually, it makes a lot of sense. And we could always use another good cop on the payroll.”
“You wish,” he said, laughing. “I wouldn’t have been on the payroll. I just wanted to help protect the people who deserve it, you know?”
“Sure,” I said. “There are still some left.”
“Anyway, it didn’t matter. I tried everything—LAPD, sheriff, even CHP. No one would even consider me because of who I am.”
“That’s stupid. You’d probably be the only honest cop on the force.”
Adan shrugged and smiled. “So, I could get a job that has nothing to do with my interests, or I could have fun and spend my father’s money.”
“Yeah, fuck the job.”
“Exactly. Can I tell you a secret?”
“You have to now,” I said.
“Okay. Sometimes I think I should be desperate to do something meaningful with my life, like teach in an inner-city school or something. But I’m not. I feel like, if they don’t want me, then I’m not going to worry about them, either. Does that make me shallow?”
“Probably,” I said, and shrugged. “But what do I know? I’m a gangster. At least you’re not leeching off the underbelly of society.”
“Well, my father is your boss. I guess I am. Anyway, I don’t think you’re a leech, Domino.”
“Okay, then I don’t think you’re shallow.” I smiled, and then watched him for a moment, considering. “You mind if an older woman gives you a piece of advice?
He grinned and shook his head. “You have to now.”
“Okay. I obviously wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing if I felt the need to contribute to society. I learned pretty quick, you find something you love and you do it—not for them, but for yourself.”
“And you love what you do?”
Giving advice is dangerous, especially for a gangster. “I love the magic. I always have. The rest of it—I didn’t make the rules.”
Adan nodded. “Anyway, you’re right. I guess I’m still just looking for something I can love like that.” His eyes locked with mine and stayed there until I chickened out and looked down at my plate.
We drank some more wine and picked at the remains of our pizza. We shared stories about life in the outfit, and laughed and played a little footsie under the table.
Adan was telling me about a road trip he’d taken to Cabo with some of his school friends when I saw Jamal. He was wearing a Lakers jersey, baggy jeans and Air Jordans, but he was still skinless. And transparent. He was slouching in a chair a few tables away from us.
When I locked eyes with him, the ghost flipped his head in a quick nod and flashed me a lazy peace sign. He did something with his mouth that might have been a grin, but Jesus, the guy had no lips and didn’t need to be drawing attention to it.
Adan was still immersed in animated description of his vacation, and if he was seeing Jamal, he wasn’t letting on. The other patrons of the restaurant were talking quietly and enjoying their pizzas, so it was pretty clear Jamal was appearing only to me. I scowled at him and jerked my head surreptitiously in the direction of the restroom. Jamal bobbed his skull, pushed himself out of the chair and faded from sight as he started toward the back of the restaurant.
“Adan, excuse me for a minute. I’m going to powder my nose.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be here.”
I pushed through the door of the restroom and saw Jamal trying to press the button on the wall-mounted hand dryer. His hand was passing right through the metal. He didn’t really have any facial expressions to read, but he seemed frustrated. I made sure the bathroom was otherwise unoccupied, and then locked the door.
“Uh…hi, Jamal,” I said.
“Hey, D, ’bout fucking time you saw me.”
“Huh?”
“Girl, I been following you all day.”
“Oh. I didn’t see you until just now.”
Jamal stopped poking his hand into the hand dryer and turned to me. “Yeah, Domino, I get that. Guess it takes some practice manifesting and shit.”
“I tried to bring you back across. Last night. Didn’t work very well. Sorry.”
Jamal shook his skinless head. “It worked, D. It just took a while to get my shit together.”
“That’s good, Jamal. I’m glad I could help you. But now you have to help me so I can put this right.”
“What you think I’m doing, D?” A knife appeared in Jamal’s hand, a long, curved blade like hunters use to skin their kills. “I’m gonna go Freddy Kruger on that punk-ass bitch and take his motherfucking skin.”
“What bitch is that, Jamal? Who killed you?”
“What you mean, what bitch is that, bitch?” He held up his transparent hands. “No offense, D. Anyway, you brought him here.”
I heard what he said, but I couldn’t make any sense of the words. I just stood there and stared at him. I think maybe my mouth opened and closed a couple times, but I couldn’t think of what to say.
Jamal cocked his skull and looked back at me, that hideous grin slowly stretching his face again. “Ah, shit, girl, you really didn’t know. You didn’t know it was him.” He shook his head and laughed. “You just hot for the cat, D.”
“Jamal, are you telling me that Adan Rashan killed you?” It occurred to me that getting himself murdered might have driven Jamal insane. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. People lose it over a lot less.
“Yeah, D, that’s what I’m sayin’. Motherfucker took my fucking skin. Now I’m gonna take his.” He flashed the knife in front of me.
“Jamal, you can’t even dry your hands.”
Jamal nodded, looking at the hand dryer. “Like I said, it’s gonna take some practice.”
“Okay, let’s assume what you’re saying is possible, which it isn’t. You know I’m on the case, right? You got to leave this to me, Jamal.”
“Yeah, I know you on it, Domino. But you didn’t even know it was him. No offense, D, I know you got juice and I respect you, but I need some motherfucking justice.”
“Okay, Jamal, just tell me what happened. You know, maybe we can work together on this thing.”
“What you want to know? I met him at the club. The fucking name of that
place—I shoulda known he was into some freaky shit. Anyway, I knew who he was and, you know, he’s the boss’s son, so we started hangin’ out and whatnot.”
“And then he skinned you?”
“Nah, girl, not right away. He said he liked my work, said I was an artist. We talked about my tags a lot, you know. That night, I told him what I was doing to improve my game, with the S-M and whatnot, and he thought it was cool. He wanted to check it out, said he might be able to help me hook up with some girls from the club.”
I nodded. This was really detailed for a paranoid delusion.
“Okay, so we go to my place and when we get inside that motherfucking vampire is there and he sucker punches me and lays me out. Yo, D, I thought those motherfuckers couldn’t go in your crib ’less you said so?”
“Myth,” I said, shrugging.
“Damn, yeah, okay, so I come to when the vampire is nailing my black ass to the fucking cross. Motherfucker didn’t even use a hammer, just slammed the motherfuckers in there.” Jamal made a stabbing motion with his knife hand.
I winced sympathetically.
“So I started screaming and shit, you know, but there wasn’t no sound, and I was trying to get my flow on but I couldn’t reach the juice. I never was a violent brother, but I thought if I could get my flow I might be able to get away.”
“What was Adan doing when the vampire was nailing you?”
“Making a circle and getting ready, chanting and shit over that motherfucking spook box he had.”
“He was doing magic, Jamal? He isn’t a sorcerer.”
Jamal shrugged. “Yeah, well, tell that to my motherfucking skin, D. He was spinning spells all right.”
I shook my head. “Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe it was the box.”
“No, girl, it was him. I wasn’t in your league, D, but I wasn’t no rookie, neither. I know what I saw. He was using the box, but he was flowin’ juice all right.” Jamal’s skinless brow furrowed in concentration. “I’ll give you this, though, it wasn’t normal, like we do it. He was sucking in a lot of juice, but it was different. He wasn’t taking it from the street, you know, or tapping a line or a tag or anything like that. He was getting it from somewhere else, D, and it was cold, girl, that motherfucking juice was cold.”
Mob Rules Page 10
