The Reluctant King: Book 1: The Book of Shadow

by K'wan

  “Be easy, Cuz,” Ghost urged.

  Monster had never cared for Christian and made no attempts to hide it. Ghost couldn’t tell if this was due to the fact that Christian and Ghost were so close or because Christian carried himself more flamboyantly than any of his other associates.

  Christian was dressed in slim-fitting black slacks that stopped just above his bare ankles. Gold shoes studded with colorful stones adorned his feet and he wore a metallic gold jacket over a black turtleneck. He tapped his foot impatiently under a large black umbrella even though there were no signs of rain. To some, his wardrobe might’ve been considered a little out there, but Ghost knew that Christian had actually toned it down for today. He had seen the man wear some very questionable outfits, so he knew how different his style could be. Ghost once attended a party Christian hosted, where he dressed in full cape and crotchless pants. Compared to some of the other men Ghost kept on retainer, Christian didn’t look like much in the way of a threat, but he had a particular skill set that had proven invaluable. People often underestimated the kid based on his sexual fluidity, though Christian hadn’t been dubbed the Prince of the Night for no reason.

  “So long as he doesn’t try and sprinkle me with any of that fairy dust, we’re Gucci,” Monster told Ghost.

  “Top of the morning, boss man,” Christian greeted Ghost. “Sorry to make you come all the way to Brooklyn when I know your plate is full today, but your friend is being incredibly unreasonable.”

  “Let’s just get this shit wrapped up so I can be on my way,” Ghost said as he stepped through the doors.

  Christian moved to the side to let Monster pass next, but the big man deferred, giving Christian a mock bow. “After you.”

  Christian rolled his eyes and followed Ghost inside.

  In the lobby, seated at a plastic table, was the pain-in-the-ass landlord, Hamid Rusa. He was flanked by his brothers and business partners, Pitel and Felix. Hamid was a portly Pakistani man with a pencil-thin mustache and dark hair that had begun to thin on top. Several gold chains hung around his neck, tickling the curly black chest hairs that peeked through the top of his unbuttoned blue shirt. When he saw Ghost, he stood and flashed a smile that revealed the teeth of a man who smoked too many cigarettes and drank too much coffee.

  “If it isn’t the prince of Five Points,” Hamid said in his thick accent. “I am honored that you were able to join us this fine morning.”

  “Cut the bullshit, Hamid, and tell me what the fuck the problem is.”

  “The problem is you weren’t honest with me about your intentions for this place when I agreed to lease it to you,” Hamid said.

  “What are you talking about? I told you that I was looking to turn it into a nightclub.”

  “What kind of nightclub are you planning to open that requires these?” Hamid motioned to Felix, who stepped forward with a long cardboard box. When Hamid popped it open, Ghost saw several chains attached to leather straps. “We came in here the other day and found these hanging from the ceiling. It took us nearly an hour to take them all down.”

  “Which you had no right to do,” Christian cut in. “You’ve got no say so as to what goes on in my spot!”

  “Don’t you mean my spot that you are hoping to lease?” Hamid countered. “I have plenty of say over what happens in this building and I don’t think I like what you’re trying to turn it into.”

  “What I’m trying to turn it into is a cash cow, but you’re trying to put shit on my game!” Christian shot back.

  Ghost watched in amusement as the two men went back and forth. Christian very rarely lost his composure, but Ghost could see that Hamid was doing a good job of pushing his buttons. Part of him wanted to let it continue, to see what would happen when Hamid finally pushed too far. It would certainly be entertaining, yet it would also further damage a relationship that he needed to work.

  “All right,” Ghost finally interjected, “Hamid, when we sat down you agreed to let us lease this place with no questions asked, so long as we agreed to kick you six months’ rent in advance. What goes on inside of this place shouldn’t be your concern, so long as you get your money—money that Christian tried to pay you and you refused, for reasons that I’m still trying to understand. So why don’t you stop with the fucking games and tell me what the real problem is?”

  Hamid excused himself and fell into a huddle with his brothers. They engaged in a quiet debate in a language that Ghost couldn’t understand. After a minute or so, they broke apart and Hamid turned his attention back to Ghost.

  “Ghost, you’ve always been straight up. You’re solid, so I can fuck with you.”

  “But?”

  Hamid cast an uneasy glance back at his brothers, who motioned for him to continue. “This business with your friend isn’t going to work. I don’t care for the crowd that he’s going to attract.”

  “And what kind of crowd is that?” Christian asked. “Other than scores of beautiful people willing to pay for what they want.”

  Hamid was hesitant. He looked to Ghost as if waiting for his approval to say what was on his mind. Ghost nodded. “Faggots,” Hamid said. “No disrespect, because I don’t care if you suck dick or not. It’s just that attracting that type of crowd to this neighborhood would be bad for business. My neighbors won’t appreciate having an establishment that caters to carnal things.”

  Ghost shook his head at this small-minded view. “Hamid, let’s try and be reasonable about this.”

  “I am being reasonable, Ghost. That’s why I wanted to meet—so I could tell you personally, instead of just killing the whole deal outright. If you had been looking to open anything else in this space, I wouldn’t have a problem with it, but for the type of club your friend is trying to open, I can’t do it.”

  “This is some bullshit,” Christian blurted out. “I’ve already paid for the permits and advanced the carpenters half their money for the renovations. What am I supposed to do now?”

  “Maybe you can take what’s owed to you in trade?” Pitel said, cupping his hand to his mouth and flicking his tongue along his cheek to simulate a blow job.

  “Or maybe I’ll take it in blood,” Christian said. The sweetness in his voice had turned icy and harsh.

  Sensing the threat, Felix, who was the more menacing of the brothers, stepped forward. “You’ve got a sharp tongue. Maybe I should curve it for you?” He reached out to touch Christian’s face, but immediately found his wrist clasped in the smaller man’s hand.

  Christian’s eyes flickered sinisterly as he applied pressure. “Honey, you’re about to find out that my tongue isn’t the only thing that’s sharp,” he said in a near whisper. Then he jammed the point of his umbrella through Felix’s foot, pinning it to the floor.

  Pitel moved to help his brother, but Christian had something for him too. He withdrew the umbrella from Felix’s foot and wielded it like a club, smashing the handle across Pitel’s nose. Seeing his brothers get the business, Hamid lurched toward Christian, who was pouncing from brother to brother, whacking them about the head and back with the umbrella, issuing several nonlethal cuts with its tip. Had he wanted to, he could’ve killed all three brothers with the umbrella, but this fight wasn’t about killing—it was about teaching a lesson, and Christian took the boys to school.

  “Christ, G!” Monster shouted. “Shouldn’t we do something?”

  “Like what?” Ghost moved his foot to avoid the blood flecking the floor. “I think he’s got it under control.”

  By the time Christian finished, Hamid had not only signed the lease but also agreed to knock off two months of rent. (That had been Ghost’s idea, for all the trouble Hamid had put them through.) Only when the paperwork was signed and the chains were rehung from the ceiling did Christian allow the brothers to seek medical attention.

  “I gotta admit,” Monster said once he and Ghost were back in the car, “I’ve got a whole new respect for that little twinkling muthafucka. I didn’t think he had it in him.”


  “They never do,” Ghost said proudly. “Let’s get out of here. We’ve got one more stop to make.”

  “You got another mess to clean up?”

  “Nah, this time we’re going to make one.”

  PART II

  I’VE BEEN TO MANY PLACES, BUT I’M BROOKLYN’S OWN

  CHAPTER 8

  Fresh half listened to the radio as he walked into his bedroom. “Good morning, New York City!” announced the disc jockey. “It’s eight a.m. and already a crisp fifty-eight degrees, with highs expected to reach somewhere in the seventies. It’s going to be a beautiful day in the Rotten Apple, so get out and make the best of it!”

  Fresh had been up for about two hours. He had never been the type to sleep for more than a few hours at a time, crashing just long enough to ensure that he was functional throughout the day. He was too afraid that he would miss something while he was sleeping, especially the opportunity to make a dollar. As a kid, his dad often repeated a mantra: A resting man is either rich enough to afford to rest or a poor man who lacks the motivation to change his circumstances. If you’re sleeping, you’re not earning. It was not just the most important jewel his old man had ever dropped on him but the only one. Fresh’s sperm donor had walked out on his family when he was still very young, leaving his mother to raise him and his older brother on her own.

  Fresh was dressed in a towel, flip-flops, and a do-rag, his skin still drying from the shower. He paused in front of the smudged mirror stationed atop his old wooden dresser. He was a handsome kid—rich brown skin, chestnut eyes, and thick pink lips that he kept moisturized. With the patience of a doctor removing the bandages from a burn victim, he unwrapped his do-rag. A lot of cats in the hood had waves, but none had them like Fresh. He kept his hair tapered on the sides and in the back, but let the top grow a little thicker, and it ran over his head in waves that could’ve sunk the Titanic a second time. He ran his index finger and thumb over the thin goatee that he had been trying to grow since freshman year. Soon, he thought to himself, praying that the beard gods would one day bless him.

  Moving to his bed, where his outfit for the day was laid out, Fresh pulled on a pair of dark-blue jeans and a white polo shirt, which he had spent a good ten minutes ironing the night before. The collar was starched and pressed to a point so fine that Fresh could have cut himself if he wasn’t careful. He’d earned the moniker Fresh because he was the kind of cat who could take some low-end merch and mix it with some high-end drip and convince the world he was worth a million dollars, even if he held less than one hundred dollars in pocket. Life was a stage and he fancied himself the star of the show.

  He grabbed his wallet plus the $163 he’d left on his night-stand and shoved them into his pockets. On his way out, he snatched the gold chain he kept hanging on the frame of his mirror. It was a decent-sized link chain, with a pendant on the end that held an old picture of him with his mom, older brother, and little sister. It was from Easter, when their mother forced them to deck out in their Sunday best. It was the last year his mother made them dress up. It was the year when things had changed.

  Fresh found his little sister, Crissy, sitting at the table hunched over a bowl of cereal and scrolling her cell phone. She was a beautiful young girl with thick black hair and skin the color of unprocessed chocolate. She normally wore her hair in braids, but that morning she had pulled it into two Afro puffs. “What up, big head?” Fresh tugged at one of her puffs.

  “Quit it, ugly.” Crissy sucked her teeth and checked to make sure he hadn’t messed up her hair.

  “Where’s Mommy?” Fresh asked as he was rummaging through the refrigerator. He wasn’t hungry, it was just something he did out of habit whenever he was in the kitchen. The shelves were looking light and somebody would have to procure some food soon.

  “I’m not sure if she’s come in yet,” Crissy said. “She told me she was going to pick up some extra hours at the hospital. Didn’t you read the group text she sent us?”

  Fresh’s silence said that he hadn’t. Crissy shook her head.

  “What time did you get in last night?” she asked. Crissy was thirteen, but carried herself like she was much older. Her mother insisted that she had been here, on earth, before this lifetime.

  “None of your business,” he mumbled. He didn’t feel like being pressed by his baby sister.

  “It’s going to be my business when Mommy insists that I give her a report on what went on in this house while she was gone.”

  “Why don’t you just tell her that I was here all night?”

  “Because she’d know it was a lie,” Crissy said with a twinge of sass. “You’ve never been able to sit in one place for too long. Besides, when she called me last night and asked where you were, I said you had stepped out. I didn’t expect you to come creeping in during the wee hours.”

  “I’m a grown-ass man out here,” Fresh capped. “I don’t have to account for my comings and goings to nobody, not for you or Mommy.”

  “Is that right?”

  Their mother, Irene, appeared in the doorway as if out of thin air. She was wearing black slacks and a blue shirt with an IHOP logo on the breast. Irene looked like an older version of Crissy, except she was thicker and wore her hair in a natural cut.

  “Oh, hey Ma. I thought you were still at work,” Fresh said, planting a kiss on her cheek.

  “I was. I came in about five this morning,” Irene said. “Had just enough time to catch a few hours of sleep and shower. Now I have to go to my other job.”

  “Gosh, Ma, you’re going to work yourself to death. Why don’t you slow down and rest?” Fresh hated seeing his mother slave at multiple jobs.

  “Chile, these bills don’t care if I’m tired or not. They still have to be paid.”

  “You know I could help out. Take some time off from school and—”

  “Absolutely not. It’s not your job to tend this house. Your responsibilities are to keep yourself and your sister out of trouble, then finish school. I know that half the time your ass doesn’t show up or leaves early, but your grades are still good enough for you to graduate. All you’ve got to do is hold on for a few more months.”

  “I can quit and get a GED. That would save me some time.”

  “I said no, Frederick,” Irene responded, calling him by his given name to let him know that she was serious. “In this house, we walk that stage. I graduated from high school. Even your brother Kevin managed to get his diploma, may he rest in peace.”

  Kevin was Fresh’s older brother. Crissy had a different dad than the two of them. Before her dad came along and got Irene pregnant, it had just been Irene and her two sons. Fresh was the hustler of the family, but Kevin had been a gangster. He used to run with Ghost King and rumor had it that Kevin had even dropped a few bodies. He was a feared man on the streets, which was eventually what got him killed. A girl he’d been seeing on the side had gotten into a physical altercation with the father of one of her kids. She threatened that she was going to get Kevin to come see him. It was an empty threat because Kevin wasn’t the type to get into altercations over pussy, especially when it didn’t belong to him in the first place. But his girl’s ex didn’t know this. The coward walked up behind Kevin one night and shot him in the back. He lost his life and never even knew why.

  “I gotta get ready to get out of here,” Irene said, casting a glance at her watch. “I should be off in time to come home and make dinner, but in the event that I’m not, there’s twenty dollars on the coffee table. That should be enough to get you guys some McDonald’s.” She kissed Crissy then Fresh. “I need you to walk your sister to the bus stop this morning, Frederick.”

  “Ma, I’m not a baby,” Crissy pouted. “I can walk to the bus stop with my friends like I normally do.” She had planned on meeting up with her crew so she could get the gossip about yesterday’s fight at school.

  “Not today, honey. I hear a girl about your age got snatched in the projects the other day. My heart can’t take losing
another child, so just humor me for today. Okay?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Don’t worry, Mommy,” Fresh said. “Even if somebody was to snatch Crissy, they’d probably give her back the same day.”

  “That’s not funny,” Irene said. “Now, walk me to the elevator. I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”

  As soon as Irene’s back was turned, Crissy stuck her tongue out at Fresh; he responded by waving his fist.

  With his head hung like a kid being called to the principal’s office, Fresh followed his mother into the hallway. “What’s up, Ma?”

  Irene gave a cautious look around before dipping her hand into her purse and pulling out a wad of neatly folded money. “What is this?” she asked him.

  Fresh shrugged. “Looks like money.”

  “Boy, don’t get cute. I know what it is. I wanna know where it came from. It mysteriously appeared in my sock drawer.”

  “Looks like the Lord done blessed you,” Fresh said, flashing a toothy grin.

  “Frederick, how many times am I gonna have to get on you about throwing stones at the penitentiary?”

  “I ain’t out throwing stones at nothing. I just got a little hustle that I do from time to time for some extra cash. Nothing that can get me in any trouble, though.”

  “Boy, anything you’re out there doing for money that doesn’t come with a W-2 can get you in trouble. I’m not stupid. I know what’s going on out there with those guys you hang around with. You’re not a baby anymore. I can’t be running behind you trying to chase you off the block. You’re a young man and have to make your own decisions. I just hope you make the right ones. Do you understand?”

  Fresh nodded.

  The elevator pinged and the door slid open.

  “Okay, let me get out of here and get to work.” Irene stepped into the elevator. “Remember what I told you, Frederick.”

  “I will.” As the door started to close, Fresh stuck his hand out to stop it. “So, since you don’t agree with how I make my money, does that mean you’re going to give it back?”