Based on this, a person might think the guy had roughly the same shape as a city bus, but he was put together well. His skin was the color of strong coffee, his head was shaved, and all those wide features were pulled together in a round skull that was undeniably handsome, if a little imposing. His body was more or less the same shape as a city bus.
"Glad you could make it, Domino," he said, as if he had set up the meeting and I was running late. His voice sounded like a city bus would sound if it could talk.
"You, too, Terrence. Hope you didn't have to wait long." I offered my hand, and it was swallowed by his bus-size one. We sat down and ordered drinks. When the waitress had come and gone, we toasted our health and got down to business.
I was never a big fan of sit-downs in a situation like this. It always had a certain sting to it, like you want to talk while some guy is holding you down and doing something impolite. Most guys overcompensated for that by talking tough, so there were a lot of hard words flying back and forth without much being said. That got old fast, and with Adan waiting, I didn't have the time.
"Before we get started, I want to make something real clear. I'm not here to talk you out of anything, Terrence. If Papa Danwe wants a war, we'll give him one. But I don't see the profit in it."
"There isn't any war, Domino, isn't going to be any war. No one wants that."
"I got two dead soldiers and a lifetime supply of road rash says otherwise."
"We know about your boys that got themselves hit. Everyone does. What makes you think Papa Danwe had anything to do with it?"
I looked at my watch and stood up. "You sit there and pull your own cock, Terrence. I'm not going to do it for you. I got better things to do, and you're not really my type."
Terrence held up his hands, maybe in surrender, maybe to show me he wasn't pulling anything. "Sit down, Domino. We all just following orders. You know that."
"That's all you got? Maybe I'm talking to the wrong guy."
"It is what it is. All I know is Papa Danwe don't want a war. The Haitian told me this shit that's going on, it's to stop a war."
"How does any of this stop a war?"
"I don't know that." Terrence looked up from his glass and held my gaze. "Your boss tell you everything he's up to, Domino?"
"So you don't know what any of this is about?"
Terrence shrugged. "If Papa Danwe knew I was sitting down with you at all, I'd be in that mummy box with your boys."
"How does Papa Danwe think this is going to go? All the hard-guy bullshit aside, Terrence, if it comes to war we both know who's going to be left standing."
"Rashan's gotta go, Domino."
I laughed. "Papa Danwe can dream it, but that doesn't make it real. He doesn't have the juice to take down Rashan."
"The way Papa Danwe sees it, it's him or Rashan. I don't know why. I don't know if there is any why. I do know Papa Danwe ain't stupid. This thing goes a whole lot deeper than you or I can see."
"It's not that deep, Terrence. I can see the bottom pretty well. There's a lot of dead bodies down there, and I'm pretty sure one of them is yours." I said it like it made me feel bad, even though it didn't.
"The thing is," Terrence continued, "it's not your outfit that's gotta go. It's the Turk. Papa Danwe don't tell me shit, but he made that clear as day."
I could see where that went, so I didn't say anything.
Terrence locked eyes with me again. "If your outfit had new leadership, there wouldn't be no war. Not now, not ever. Papa Danwe would back the right guy, the right person. He'd back you, Domino."
My first impulse was indignant outrage, but I managed to swallow it. My second impulse was pride, but I put that away, too. My best bet was to play along.
"Let's say someone in my outfit was willing to stage a coup, Terrence. That brings us back to square one. The Haitian can't take down Rashan. Neither can anyone in my outfit. No one has the juice."
"With the right help, you could do it. You can get close. We can give you the opportunity."
"The opportunity?"
Terrence looked like he might be about to say more, but then he just shook his head. "That's all I can say, Domino. Truth be told, I don't know much more than that."
"It isn't much, Terrence. The thing is, it's not just Rashan. If someone did manage to take out the boss, what then? What about the rest of the outfit? You think they're just going to come along?"
"Yeah, Domino, I do. Everybody gets a bump up the ladder. Everybody gets a promotion. Anything else-what's done is done."
As much as I hated to admit it, Terrence was probably right. There was loyalty in the outfit, of a sort, but it only went so far. If you had the juice to make room for yourself at the top, the rank and file would fall in line. Everybody loves a winner.
I shook my head. "Jesus, Terrence. I'm not sure what to do with this. What would you do if you were in my shoes?" I gave him plenty of rope and even wrapped it around his neck for him.
"I'd take my shot, Domino. Didn't no one ever promise you'd ever get one. If you do, you take it."
I nodded. "I'm glad you said that, Terrence. You say Rashan's got to go. I say the Haitian's gotta go, too."
Terrence's eyes got a little wider than they usually were, but the rest of his face remained impassive. He stared at me a long time. If we didn't both have wards up, I'd have thought he was trying to get in my head. Finally he nodded.
"That might work. Like I said, no one wants a war. Maybe if you're a boss you think you can stay alive just by being the last nigger to die. I never signed up to take Papa Danwe's bullet."
Mob rules-Terrence and I were both working from the same playbook. We couldn't trust each other, not really, but at least we had a common ground to work from. "So what happens next?"
"I'll try to keep my boys on our side of the line. You do the same. We buy time. Events have been put in motion, Domino. We can't change what we can't change. But we can make sure South Central doesn't blow up, at least for a while."
By that, I took Terrence to mean more of my guys were going to get squeezed. That might have pissed me off, but I believed him when he said he didn't know why Papa Danwe was doing it. It was pretty clear he hadn't been briefed on the whole plan. If I had to guess, I'd have said he didn't know much more than I did. If he didn't know what was going on, there probably wasn't much he could do about it. But if I got him to stall for me, slow things down where he could, it had been a pretty successful meeting.
"That's a start, but we also need to share information. We either trust each other in this or we don't. As a good-faith gesture, I can tell you that the Russians and the Koreans have lined up with us. If your boys decide to step across the line, they're going to find themselves surrounded." It was a pretty harmless piece of information to give up. Terrence probably already knew about it. And really, it was more a threat than a good-faith gesture.
Terrence wasn't impressed. "Papa Danwe told me it would go that way. He didn't seem too worried about it."
I shrugged. "I'm just bringing you up to speed, Terrence. Maybe you can do the same for me?"
Terrence looked at me a while, but his expression didn't change. "What else you want to know?"
"Well, how about Jamal? I know he was hanging out at the Cannibal Club. I know you do, too-though I got to say, I'm not sure how you can tolerate the fucking place. What was your interest in the kid?"
"Ain't never been to the Cannibal Club. Didn't know your dead tagger. Don't know what Papa Danwe wanted with him."
"I know you were at the club, Terrence. I've got a reliable witness puts you there."
"Not so reliable, I guess, 'cause I never been there, like I told you."
I searched his face and body language for signs of deceit, but Terrence might as well have been carved from stone. When a good liar decides to lie to you, there's not a whole lot you can do about it-not without using some juice on him. Still, I knew he was lying and he knew I knew he was lying, so maybe I could figure out from that why h
e was lying to me anyway. Maybe not. I decided to skip it.
"Okay, you were never at the club, but the vampire was. I know he's in this-I can put him at one of the scenes. Why does Papa Danwe need a fucking vampire?"
One of Terrence's eyes twitched a little. Then he shrugged, lifting his wide shoulders and letting them fall. "The vampire is in it, but he don't work for Papa Danwe."
"What does that mean? The vampire is an independent? What's his interest in this?"
Terrence shrugged again. "Never met the cat, myself."
"Or maybe you're saying the vampire is working for someone else? Is there another player?"
"Maybe. I think I said Papa Danwe ain't stupid."
"Who is it, Terrence?" I knew he wouldn't tell me even if he knew, and I got the feeling he didn't.
"It's a dangerous world we living in, Domino. Everyone's got to have friends. You got the Russians and the Koreans. I guess Papa Danwe got someone behind him, too."
It wasn't any kind of answer. Even with another outfit behind him, the Haitian wouldn't have the juice to take down Rashan. And even if he did, he wouldn't be likely to survive the war and enjoy the fruits of victory. But it certainly made things more complicated-assuming Terrence wasn't making all this up as he went along.
"So if our bosses are out of the picture, like we said, what about Papa Danwe's friends? Will they come along?"
Terrence didn't say anything-he didn't even shrug-and I realized he had no idea who the other player was. I was sure of it, and it was actually very useful information. I knew the handful of small-time outfits that were friendly with Papa Danwe. If one of them was the third party, Terrence would know about it. Since he didn't, it wasn't. If none of the other outfits were backing the Haitian, maybe they'd line up with us. But if it wasn't one of the usual suspects…who did that leave?
"Okay, Terrence. We're not going to be able to control this situation unless we know what the situation is." Terrence nodded.
"So we try to back this thing up, as much as we can, and we try to figure out what the play is. I don't know about you, but I don't like being a pawn in someone else's game."
Terrence nodded and raised his glass. "I'd rather be the motherfucking king. Peace, Domino."
"Peace," I said, and touched his glass. I finished my drink in one long swallow and stood up.
"You in a hurry, girl?"
"Yeah," I said. "I got a date."
"I sat down with Terrence Cole." I was on the cell with Chavez as I drove to Brentwood to meet Adan.
"Did he say anything?"
"He suggested I could make this all go away if I just took down Rashan."
"Doesn't seem like a good career move, chola."
"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, a
nd 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, seances, 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."
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