"How's business?" Lee smirked. He gave the first boy a long, inventorying look. A good kid, long and lean with bright, intelligent eyes. Even lying on a couch, with the chaos of cops bursting in, he didn't panic and exuded a commanding presence. Skin like smoked meat, he had child-like dimples though he tried to suppress a charismatic smile. In other words, a waste.
"Good, I guess." The boy sat up slowly.
People became cops for only a handful of reasons. To carry a gun and tell people what to do (the deputized bully), money ("a job's a job"), freak (too drawn to the badge), or a white knight complex (the hero's calling). Sometimes it took a bully to get things done. There was still plenty of room for Cantrell to play hero.
"You hear what happened over at Phoenix?" Cantrell asked the second boy.
"Some folks got got," the second boy said. Young, white, red-headed, the boy had a heroin thinness to him. And he had the disposition of someone who would sell out his dying mother for his next fix to avoid prison. One of his eyes didn't track properly. That area of his face webbed with healed-over scars. The eye was probably glass, Cantrell realized.
"What's up?" Cantrell's flat voice rumbled without humor. He ran his hands up the boy's socks and then legs. "You know we own this piece now. You operate at our pleasure."
"What we got here?" Lee stood over the boy's desk. A scree of papers cascaded across it.
"Homework," the first boy offered.
"Oh, so you in school now." Upon closer inspection, Lee spied the childish scrawl on papers and the remedial reading text. Lee had the common decency to not comment on this. There was belittling and then there was cruelty which aimed at stripping away all attempts at manhood and dignity. The latter only led to more problems.
"Come on now," the second boy said. "You fucking up my time, Cantrell."
"Oh, so now you know my name? All right. Let's chat about that."
Cantrell led him out of the room with a firm hand to the small of his back. Always out to save someone. Half recruiting informants, half trying to save these boys from themselves.
"So you fine upstanding boys were merely pursuing your academic interests."
"Just do what you came to do. Might as well earn yours for that trick smoking your joint." The boy knew he crossed the line as all the play left Lee's eyes and he blistered under his stare. Word on the street suspected Omarosa of having the peckerwood on drug patrol in her pocket. Perhaps throwing it in his face wasn't his best play.
Lee flicked open a pocket knife and let the blade catch the light and the boy's full attention. Eyes still locked on him, Lee stabbed toward the boy's head. The boy closed his eyes and flinched, muscles locked until he heard the knife bury into the wall next to him. When the boy chanced opening his eyes, Lee maintained his cold gaze, not bothering with the charade of a search. He let him know he knew exactly where to look and didn't bother to offer the courtesy pretense of surprise at what he found: bricks of saranwrapped cash. More money than he'd see in his check in a year.
"Whose money is this? This yours?" Lee asked. The boy turned away as his response. Lee turned to the next boy, but the question of "Yours?" was met with shrugged shoulders.
"Guess it's my lucky day then."
Leaning over him like a boyfriend doing the obligatory chat before an end-of-date make-out session, Cantrell chatted in amiable low tones to the skinny, one-eyed crackhead. A snitch he'd refer to as Fathead. As Lee exited the house, Cantrell couldn't help but notice the shrink-wrapped bundles beneath each arm. With a nod, he dismissed the boy, who slunk away without a backwards glance.
"What's that?" Cantrell asked.
"Street tax."
"We're going to have a problem."
"'We' don't have shit." Lee tossed the packages in the back seat. He stood in the shielding confines of the open car door, the roof of the car a gulf between him and his partner.
"'We' better voucher whatever 'we' expect to sign off on."
"Chill out, brother." Lee pronounced "brother" with every bit of the "er" on the end and with every bit of tinny cracker in him. "They simply volunteering to be your benefactor. They had a sudden stirring of conscience and decided to do something positive in the community. Perhaps donate to a mentoring program. They want to be, how did they put it? Ghetto sponsors. Don't that sound good?"
"Uh-huh." Cantrell remained unconvinced. The temptation of rationalization rattled around in his head, a nagging voice which grew louder with each minute he spent with Lee. The bust would have been no good anyway. They had no warrant and no probable cause. They were simply trolling for information, based on intel provided by Lee's mysterious snitch. The way Lee went about his business made him nervous. It was why Cantrell worked so hard to develop his own network of information. The fresh-out-of-theacademy rules which had been hammered into him had long since been tossed out the window, but Cantrell certainly was not out to take anyone off.
"Good. Cause the kids will be grateful. Real grateful. And that's who we do it for. The children."
Colvin was a pretty-ass nigga. He had skin the complexion of heavily creamed coffee and almond eyes, with full eyelashes which had an almost feminine quality beneath threaded eyebrows and set above his high aquiline nose. His good hair didn't have to be straightened, his teeth were scrubbed to a brilliant pearl, his nails buffered to a neat acrylic sheen, his skin lightly oiled with a lavender scent he favored. The idea of self-hate amused him. Many perceived him as being closer to white with that diluted blood being the standard of beauty, the features that defined his African roots as obliterated as the Sphinx's nose. But he had no time for intra-racial contempt; their hate was too small just like their love was too small. He was fey. He was the standard of his own beauty. A drop of fey blood made him one hundred percent fey. He was The Principle Beauty. Favored by his mother, he viewed his sibling – all women and for that matter, all that he surveyed – as an extension of himself. If the woman who writhed underneath him had a name, he hadn't bothered to learn it nor did he care to. She was a series of orifices who bucked in all the right ways, a piece of meat who offered herself as a paean to himself. A flesh-and-blood sacrifice on the altar of his dick. Sex with him was an offering of worship. He admitted to himself what few did: that people formed relationships that were altars to themselves. People sought out those who they had a lot in common with, who were like them, or who simply liked them; an external validation of their need and worth of being loved. The vanity of humanity. There were truths he dared not face. Like how sex was a balm. That it took another to give him meaning, make him feel like a man.
Born with intelligence, luck, and the confidence of transcendent beauty, he didn't consider himself one of the light-skinned princesses who thrived on the attentions of others and then pretended that it annoyed them. Relationships were the comfort of another being only a hip turn away, a staunch of the open wound of loneliness they hoped to bandage. Colvin would never know the void of unfilled spaces within his heart because he trusted in the love of one who both knew and loved him intimately: himself. Turning to the camera hidden in the vase which sat on his mantle, he'd enjoy watching the playback of this session later. And pleasure himself to it.
"Colvin!" A deep, dry voice called from the other room. "Colvin, man, we got a problem. A serious problem."
"I'm busy, Mulysa. Can't it wait?" Colvin cried out in mid-stroke.
"Nah, nukka, it's that deep."
Colvin's was a long-lived people, and he'd spent so much time in the world of man, he'd learned their posture of adulthood, drank on their rage, and took on a man's role of conquest and bravado. He withdrew from the woman whose name he'd never know and wiped himself on her tossed-aside panties. She drew the sheets up about her in an "I'll be waiting for you" pose, but he'd already forgotten her as he dressed. Colvin put his gun into his pants. He never went anywhere without being strapped.
His wave cap tied in back, Mulysa's brown eyes contained amber flecks. A scar underlined his right eye, acquired in prison.
He had a broad, flat nose, the nose his mother hated because it was his father's nose. His complexion was what his grandmother would have described as sooty and his breath was the dragon. He wore defeat in the thick of his neck and roll of his shoulders. His faded blue jeans hung from his thighs such that he had to spread his legs whenever he stood still. He stank of sweat and what his boys called "African funk" behind his back.
"What's up?" Colvin asked.
"Tell him, nukka." Mulysa was a genial rogue, a selfdestructive fuck-up, but he had wit, charm, and most importantly, he produced. A lot was forgiven when you did the work.
Broyn, on the other hand, was like an accountant. Quiet, dependable, and not for the life. Still, he had his uses. Some situations called for a square motherfucker who wouldn't draw attention to himself. Harried and haggard, Broyn began to speak with the wariness of a child recounting how a vase got broken in front of a temper-prone parent. How smooth the run went, along with the first exchange. And how on his way to the second meet, he was jacked. No money, no product. At each salient point in the story, he paused ever so slightly to measure the temperature of Mulysa, of Colvin, and of his place in the room. The messenger rarely fared well in such situations.
"What did she look like?" Colvin asked.
"Like one of them high fashion models with tight braids. Light-skinned. And her eyes. Beautiful, but there was something scary behind them." Broyn stopped before he added, "like yours."
Colvin let out a scream of pure rage. "Omarosa!"
"Baby, what's the matter?" The woman, sheet half-drawn up around her naked body, stood in the doorway.
"You better close my door like you got some fuckin' sense."
"When–"
Colvin whirred, drawing his gun in the same movement, and let three bullets fly. Two dead center of her heart and one in her head. The body of the woman whose name he'd never know crumpled to the ground. A stain clouded Broyn's pants.
"Who?" Mulysa asked, unfazed, knowing this would be a mess he'd have to clean up later.
"Omarosa. Only she would dare such a brazen…"
"Who she?"
"A fucking two-bit street thief. And my sister." Colvin turned to Broyn. "The question remains, what do I do with you?"
Broyn's eyes couldn't move from the body of the dead woman. "Colvin, it wasn't my fault," he said more to the corpse than his employer.
"Shh." Colvin pressed a finger to his lips. "Mulysa, could you bring one of your bitches out to play?"
Mulysa squatted low, face to face with Broyn, the full assault of his hot fetid breath on him. A walking amalgamation of self-loathing out to revenge himself on a world he blamed for his place in life and his own inadequacies, Mulysa's hands danced with the precision of a master loomer. He produced a long Japanese tanto knife and placed the flat of the blade beneath Broyn's chin to raise his chin to meet his eyes. "My bitch."
"What's her name?" Colvin said with the deliberation of a set-up man's cadence.
"You don't name a bitch." Mulysa licked the flat of the dagger, cleaning the salt of Broyn's nervous sweat from the blade.
"She looks like she could carve through a body."
"Like a hot roll from O'Charley's."
"Those are some good rolls. Think you could collect a head for me?'
Mulysa pressed the tip of the blade to Broyn's neck. The brief contact produced a teardrop of blood. "My bitches work for me. Here good?"
Broyn's breathing hitched. His face flushed with heat. He hated the weakness of having tears squeezed from his eyes.
"Not his," Colvin said after a moment of deliberation. "Hers. I still have use for Mr DeForest."
Mulysa flashed an expression of mild disappointment, a "maybe next time" grin, and turned his back on Broyn.
Broyn focused on Colvin as he desperately tried to ignore the wet sounds of rent flesh. The sticking of blade against bone. The terrible hacking rasp. Mulysa carried her by her hair with not so much as an afterthought. With blood trailing along the floor, tendrils of flesh dangled from her neck stump.
"We're missing something." Colvin pulled a cable from behind his television setup. "This'll have to do. Desperate times and all."
He fastened the head of the woman to Broyn. Her eyes had rolled upwards in their sockets, upturned to his.
"There we go. You head on home now," Colvin finished.
"Head." Mulysa chuckled and then wiped his nose with his sleeve, his blade still covered in gore.
"But…" Broyn protested.
"Before I change my mind about whose neck Mulysa's bitch should play with next."
Broyn scrambled out the room without further protest.
Colvin exhaled, the display of bravado somehow left him winded. Mulysa slumped in a chair next to him, already debating if it would be easier to just set the place on fire or clean up the mess they made.
"Damn her," Colvin said almost to himself.
"That was a lot of product."
"Don't you think I knew that? Things were tight on the streets as it were. This could create quite the drought."
"Judging from what the man said, Treize got theirs."
"Shit." Colvin thought about his dwindling customer base. There was no such thing as customer loyalty, so the fiends would go to whoever had the fresh product. Didn't matter if the dealing hands were black or Latino. And once word got out… Shit, shit, shit. "Omarosa has no use for product. Her only interest is money. Get word out that we're interested in relieving her of her ill-gotten gain."
"So she gets to earn off us twice?" Mulysa asked.
"No. I'll deal with my sister. Put some caps on her ass."
"Yeah, nukka." Mulysa carelessly licked his bitch again. "That's what I'm talking about."
CHAPTER FIVE
Dark and as stiflingly close as the inside of a coffin, Lady G's choking coughs woke her. Her eyes fluttered open, adjusting to the dark. Something thickened the air, unseen in the night-time shadows. The darkness seemed to move. Her heartbeat throbbed in her throat. Her still-waking mind slowly processed the smell. Smoke. Something was on fire.
Scrambling out of bed, her foot caught in the tangles of her blankets and spilled her onto the floor. She ran to her window and ripped open the blinds as if she'd never looked out her window before. Her grandmother's two-story home was old, kindling with a mortgage payment. She could shimmy out; the slanted roof's steep pitch was survivable. But what about her baby brother? Or her mother? One hand covered her mouth and nose, the other searched along the hardwood floor. The smoke burned her lungs. She tried to hold her breath, but when her air ran out, she only gulped down more of the acrid air. The sting of smoke brought tears to her eyes, further blurring her vision. She crawled toward the door. It was marginally easier to breathe down there. She opened the door cautiously. Events happened so fast, the surreal movement of time when the mind couldn't cope with all of the contradictory images.
Thick columns of smoke undulated with a knowing intent. They turned toward her, a predator catching a new scent. The flash fire roared through the house, hungry and desperate. Orange and yellow tongues licked at the curtains. Pictures charred in their frames, the faces, and background turning brown then black. Golden flames crawled along the thick carpet. She banged on the walls. So hot. She sucked in smoke, to the protest of her scalded lungs.
The house creaked as if assaulted by a gust of wind. The wall cracked and buckled, a filigree of ashy veins. Crickety things at the best of times, the stairs lurched in unsteady and tentative steps. Her head throbbed as if ready to explode, racing with wild speculation. Her grandma (Grandma!) sometimes burned a candle on a chair; maybe it had tipped over. Keeping her back to the wall, fearing the flames devouring the banister and her tumbling into the heart of the inferno, she sobbed, scared and anxious.
The door to Michah's room canted ajar. His crib used to be her cousin's and another cousin had already called dibs on it once Michah no longer needed it. Heedless of the fire, she swatted at the flames with her ha
nds. Tendrils flared and bit into her with each swipe. His form tiny and still, his skin hot and bubbling. Lady G scooped up the bundle of flesh, the smell of burnt skin, both his and hers, seared her nostrils. She cooed at him in hushed reassurances that everything would be OK.
"Is he dead?" a hoarse voice whispered from the shadowed corner. "I just need to make sure he was dead."
Her mother's dark skin steeped in a cloak of night. Wizened fingers tugged at the edge of her shirt, threatening to pull herself into it. Vacant eyes, unfixed and filled with psychotic detachment, silently pled for understanding. From above, the ceiling cracked with the peal of thunder, then something hot fell onto her face.
King's Justice: The Knights of Breton Court, Volume 2 Page 7
