King's Justice kobc-2

by Maurice Broaddus

  "I don't know, detective," Lee casually ambled toward Cantrell as if to whisper conspiratorially with him. Though for Mulysa's benefit. "Fine upstanding citizen like Mr Cheldric here, surely only associates with like-minded innocents."

  "Some fine young thing."

  "Maybe you were feelin' your Wheaties tonight." Lee turned, fully entering Mulysa's orbit, filling his field of vision.

  "On top of the world." Cantrell matched his stance, fully hammering at Mulysa now.

  "So much so that you think that you can talk to just anybody."

  "And why not? Handsome man like yourself."

  "And who is she? Just some dumb girl."

  "Bitch." Cantrell spat the word curtly, like a gunshot. Mulysa couldn't answer, only turn from Cantrell to Lee, not quite keeping up with their rapidfire performance.

  "Probably looked at you like you were beneath her." Lee emphasized the words as if empathizing with his experiences.

  "So you think to yourself…"

  "No, he probably says it," Lee interrupted on cue. "'You think you better than me?'"

  "Who is she?" Cantrell asked.

  "Bitch," Lee said.

  "She had it coming. Deserved what she got." By this point, they had leaned in so close, they nearly pressed their faces on either side of his. Cantrell continued. "This snooty…"

  "Pretty…"

  "Smart…"

  "White…"

  "Bitch," Cantrell ended. The word bounced against the tiles of the wall.

  "I didn't… hurt her," Mulysa said without conviction.

  "This is how folks get a bad reputation. You piss them off, they introduce you to their bottom bitch," Lee said.

  "You like knives, Rondell?" Cantrell asked.

  "Yeah."

  "Big knives. Small knives."

  "Yeah."

  "Special knives."

  "He's a connoisseur," Lee opined.

  "Just like knives is all," Mulysa said.

  "We know. We got 'em. All. You really like knives," Cantrell said. "We check all of your knives, we gonna find any blood? DNA don't wash off easy."

  "Speaking of which…" Lee nodded to the reports.

  "Yeah, I almost forgot." Cantrell thumbed through the reports. Mulysa had been up to something. Prob ably completely unrelated to the murders over at the Phoenix Apartments. But whatever nagged at him, whatever he was on the verge of talking about, could be leveraged for cooperation later. He perused the coroner's report from the active case as if it had something to do with Mulysa. "You believe in safe sex?"

  "Li'l Jimmy wearin' a hat?" Lee included an insulting level of what he thought sounded like street affectation.

  "Don't bother. We know you don't." Cantrell gambled at this point. The anguish on Mulysa's face told him everything he needed to know. He flashed a glance at Lee.

  "Left semen all in her." Lee gambled with the bluff. Cantrell didn't cut him even the slightest of glances, backing his play.

  "We're going to get a sample from you. Make no mistake about it."

  "Court order's already on the way."

  "Is it gonna match what we find in her?"

  They both stood now, staring down at a hapless Mulysa. The silence grew cold as they waited.

  "She's a junkie and a whore. It's her word against mine."

  "Right, right. A junkie and a whore against the word of a fine, upstanding citizen like yourself. Tell us about what happened. Get you on record first and make it easier on yourself."

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Naptown Red was quite specific in his task for Garlan. He needed to disappear Lady G, King's woman, but not harm her. Leave her in a place where she could be easily found. Not one of those megalomaniac types, those control freaks who believed in only telling folks as much as they needed to know, Red had a different philosophy. The way he believed, the better you understood why you did things, the less you questioned them. Or him. He was on their side, after all. The object was to distract King, knock him off his game. Let him know that he or his people could be got at any time. Naptown Red wanted that knowledge playing in King's mind. Like a game of chess, it was about misdirection and getting in people's heads.

  Garlan pulled into Breton Court in his Impala, a mint-green whip more boat than car. He sank into its driver's seat in a lean so fierce his eyes were barely visible above the dashboard. Early Sunday morning was the most peaceful time in any neighborhood. All the fiends, gangstas, hood rats, playas, and freaks had done called it a night. All the church-going folk popped their heads out, like rabbits on a savannah plain, unburrowing themselves to venture out. He waited for the large woman to leave the crib, a blackfaced little boy in tow. Everyone knew where King stayed. Like it was his throne in a court, guarded by the power of his name. Just like folks knew Lady G stayed across the way. She deserved what she got, playing hooky from church and all.

  Garlan twisted his ring. When he peered into the rearview mirror, nothing reflected back from the seat where he should have been. His sense of self was completely annihilated and no one noticed. Complete eradication, gone with no one caring about his absence. He was capable of doing anything and going anywhere. Some days he went places and just listened. His duties slipped, though he wondered if anyone knew. Of course he went to the high school gym to hang out in the girls' locker. Grabbing some tit and pinching some ass. Whacked off more than a few times. Loath as he was to admit it, pussy became boring. Surrounded by it, but no one knew he was there. He didn't exist to them. He didn't matter. They'd never hold him. Laugh at his jokes. Spend time with him. Do his hair. Make him a sandwich. Suck his dick. Nothing. He didn't matter to any of them. He didn't exist. He was a ghost intruding on their lives. Not even an intrusion, just a ghost. One time he twisted his ring to appear among them. They scattered in squeals, a hail of "get out" and "what the fuck?" Running out, he didn't care. He just wanted to matter. To be seen.

  Other days he listened to his men. How they talked about him. Their ambitions. The ruminations on the minutiae of their lives. Pussy. Cars. Pussy. Sports teams. Pussy. Music. Pussy. Money. Pussy. Speakers. Pussy. That was all of life to them. And he'd appear, make sure they were on point, but his mind was no longer on his work. He had disappointed. A blank spot where a person should be. A lifetime of learned shames reducing him to what he already believed himself to be. Nothing. And nothing could do anything.

  Creeping out the car, he made his way to the back patio. The rear wall was no obstacle. It wasn't too many years ago he used to run along the patio walls just like these, chasing his friends and playing tag. Running and jumping from them for the sheer exhilaration of being alive. Part of the thrill was watching those drawn to their upstairs windows by the nearby racket and seeing knucklehead children dash past at nearly eye level. Right now, anyone peeking out their window would only see their patio. Nothing special or out of the ordinary. Nobody important.

  All of the condos had the same set-up, either a back window which led into a kitchen or a sliding back patio door. This place had the sliding door. Thing was, few of them latched properly. A few years of use and kids slamming them too hard either knocked them off their tracks or knocked the latch too far in to catch properly. Most owners of such doors had a security bar which acted as a lock. Those security bars cost money, about a week's worth of groceries, and the needs of an empty belly were always more pressing than the possibility of a bogeyman breaking in. Most made do with a stretch of fitted broom handle popped into place. No cost, same function. Thing was, there was a little-known workaround to the broom-handle lock: a swift, strong kick could usually displace it.

  As was the case here.

  Garlan slipped in. Though no more than a couch, a love seat, and a couple of chairs around a coffee table, all centered around a television, the room had a warmth to it. The furniture was well worn but not ratty. Care was taken in their arrangement, in the placement of knick-knacks and photos. The room had been cleaned, things put away, except for some scattered toys in the corn
er, but even those added a sense of life to the space. The room exuded family.

  A telltale squeak gave him away as he stepped on the first step of the stairs. Frozen, he waited to see if anyone stirred from bed. He pressed himself to the wall and spider-slinked up the stairs.

  Feigning sickness, Lady G had stayed home. Solitude, a chance to think and sort things out in peace was what she required. Propped up by pillows, she colored, as Rhianna had convinced her would help clear her mind. Not quite ready to get out of bed, Lady G drew a picture of a church in her book. She scorched its doorway with streaks of brown and black, traced a crack down its windows, and canted the cross hanging above its archway until the building resembled the abandoned church where they first convened their little circle. When it was just them, the core, before things got so big and drifted from what she thought they would do and be. To her, it would always be their special place. The place where the magic happened. When they believed nothing could get in their way.

  The crayon ceased its scribbling in mid-scratch. Some primitive part of her brain alerted her with a prey's warning. Nothing she could point to, not unlike sensing the footfalls of a cat padding across carpet. Merely the nearness of another. Considering the racket made when she came home filled with the Holy Ghost, Big Momma and Had were still at church.

  "Who's there?" Lady G asked the air. Suddenly too conscious of how her braless breasts hung through the thin material of her T-shirt, she drew up the bed sheets. The familiar click of a gun being cocked paralyzed her. Cold metal pressed against her temple.

  The idea of being known, of being revealed while so carefully hidden intrigued Garlan. "How'd you know I was here?"

  "I just knew is all. Just have to pay attention to what's going on around you." Lady G closed her eyes and took a deliberate breath. She wondered what her death would feel like. A sharp pain as the bullet exploded from its chamber and slammed into her skull. If she'd hear the splintering of bone and the shattering of her skull. If she'd feel the bullet tunnel through the soft, great pulp of her brain. What the sensations of life being extinguished would be. If she'd see a bright light or fade into the darkness of eternal sleep. She prayed the end would be quick.

  "You scared right now?" Garlan withdrew the pistol from her skin.

  "Make you feel good knowing I was?" The bravado of her words couldn't hide the shake in her voice. It wasn't the first time a gun had been pointed at her, but it wasn't an experience she longed to repeat.

  "Heh. Come on, we need to go somewhere."

  "I ain't going nowhere with you."

  Garlan jabbed the gun at her head again. "See, you thought that was a request."

  "Can I get dressed?"

  "Go head."

  Lady G backed across the other side of the bed. Piles of jeans stacked at her feet. "You looking?"

  "You want me to lie to you?"

  Lady G turned her back to the direction of the voice. She pulled the top pair of jeans up quickly, doing a bit of a bounce to get her full behind into them. She thought about how best to maneuver into a bra. A hand brushed the side of her breast. Not caring about his gun, not being able to see it anyway, Lady G lashed out, shoving at the area the intrusion came from.

  "Hands off the temple."

  Garlan slapped her with an open hand which she could neither see nor defend herself against and sent her sprawling into the standalone lamp. The bulb flashed with a lightning burst and went out.

  "Girl, have you lost your Goddamned mind?"

  "You gonna kill me, do it now. But you ain't get to just touch me any which way."

  "Come on. Let's go."

  Lady G grabbed a sweater and a jacket. "Where we going?"

  Where were they going? Garlan hadn't thought that far ahead. Lady G's colored page caught his eye. "I know a place."

  The sky charged with a dull luminescence. Threatening clouds like glaring corner boys. Assuring them that he knew how to find Colvin, Merle led the group to the bus stop in front of the church. An Indy Metro idled at the stop. Though it was five o'clock in the morning, the bus was still driverless. What few passengers that waited at the stop behaved as if they didn't notice it. Or them. The six of them boarded the bus. None of the bus stop throng gave them a first glance, much less a second.

  "There are people all around us," King whispered. "What's up?"

  "Relax and act natural," Merle said.

  "I don't get it," Rok said, "there ain't nobody fixin' to drive this mug."

  "They won't have to. No one living travels these lines," Dred said.

  "Do what?"

  "These rides ain't for the living," Dred repeated. "Didn't you notice the people? They seemed more concerned about their own affairs than anything we were up to."

  "So?"

  "These are the dead lines. The ghost lines of the Metro Buses. Those in the know can simply board them and travel along the unlit paths. You sure you know what you doing, old man?"

  "I got this," Merle said.

  "The toll's yours to pay, then."

  "Where are we going?" King asked Merle.

  "When the bus stops, we've arrived."

  The city landscape passed in gray and brown blurs. Through the bus windows, the city took on an alien aspect. The buildings canted at odd angles, the geometry of the city bent by shadows. Though they passed though areas of the city they knew intimately, the landscape was as unfamiliar as the moon's surface. For nearly an hour they rumbled along 38th Street, occasionally stopping to take on and drop off passengers while the night held its grip.

  The door of the bus sighed shut. Still with no driver, the bus slowly shifted into gear. Rellik never considered himself a pessimistic individual. Life was darkness, so his history had taught him. All pain, loss, and death. And he had walked so long in its darkness, the light had to appeal to him, if he could believe in it at all.

  King hated quiet moments, to be trapped with his thoughts. Unasked, they drifted to Lady G and his feelings for her; to Prez and how he failed him and looked for redemption for them both; to his vision for his mission and how things seemed to drift. Instead, he focused on the task ahead: how best to deploy the men, guessing what Colvin might do, how to turn the situation to his advantage. His life had been reduced to the next problem, the next mission, the next tussle. With dawning realization, he smiled, a rueful grin. He wasn't living, he was distracted. Adventure, busyness, was his drug of choice. Better the problems of his neighborhood than to wrestle with the issues in his own life. How long had it been since he'd seen his little girl, Nakia? Just thinking her name, he couldn't help but think that he was his father's son. Running the streets rather than being there for his child. His friendships with Lott and Wayne. He loved them, but they hadn't hung out, just hung out, in ages. He wondered if they saw his leadership as him treating them as equals or as servants to be ordered about. And he felt strange going off into a battle without them.

  And then there was Lady G.

  Theirs was a complicated mess of a relationship. But when didn't he have a complicated mess of a relationship? If he'd ever had a normal one, he couldn't recall it. Things had to be sorted out. And her him. But was it enough? Was it healthy? Was it the best for each of them? This was why he hated quiet moments.

  "Something on your mind?" Dred asked him. "You look… distracted."

  "Just thinking about Colvin."

  "And what you're prepared to do in case he don't see the light of your wise ways?"

  The bus turned up High School Road, passing what they knew to be Breton Court, though none dared glance at what they called home through the tainted glass of death. High School Road stopped at 56th Street, the bus swung left then slowed to a halt in front of the entrance of Eagle Creek Park. With a nod, Merle led them from the bus. Its gears groaned and the bus sighed as it pulled away, scurrying away before the light of the rising sun.

  An early morning mist settled along the woods, creeping along the forest floor with a cold dampness that seeped into the bones, ach
ed joints, and sapped strength. The woods took on a life of their own. Tree limbs like gnarled hands raised in praise against the night sky. Light pollution drained the velvety pallor from the blanket of night, leaving it a tepid gray-blue curtain. The moon baked to a warm orange glow. Again King wished Wayne was by his side as he was at his best at this time. Although he relished the adventure of the situation, King's face remained solemn as duty and his shoulders weighted by obligation. They marched in an insolent stroll.

  The sounds of crickets and tree frogs and other things moved in the night. Countless creatures populated the woods. Deer. Badgers. Foxes. Owls. Coyote. Snakes. All manner of predators and prey. The Eagle Creek Reservoir had suffered a series of algae blooms during the summer. They'd gotten so bad, it had affected the drinking water. The chemicals that the Department of Environmental Management dumped in to treat the problem did nothing to kill the taste. To Rellik, it tasted of seaweed. And reminded him of hair greenish with algae. Rellik hadn't visited Eagle Creek Park in well over 20 years, but even then he'd had to relearn the paths each trip. The trees had a way of shifting. "What's the plan?" Dred asked. He measured each man with his steady gaze. Merle shifted with an antsy energy as if searching for a missing friend. Rellik had his brother's beefy mien, ready to rumble into whatever. Rok was the least prepared, a squire among wolves. Dred challenged and dared with each word. He followed only so long as King's interests matched his own. Baylon worried him. He certainly didn't want to depend on him. All of them looked to him as if that were the natural order. "We go in. We take him down."

  "That ain't much of a plan." Dred always pushed him, always questioned and cut him no slack.

  "I want to try to talk to him first. Give him a chance to back down."

  "Out to save him?" Dred asked.

  "Give him an opportunity," King said. "Merle and Dred hang back a bit in case some weirdness goes down. Rellik, you and Rok with me. Baylon, keep out of sight in case we have any surprises."

  "Sounds better."

  "Didn't know you wanted the details."