"If you're not ready to be helped, you won't get better," Big Momma said.

Everyone wanted a happy ending to their story. To believe that no matter how far gone they are, their story wasn't over and there was still time to write a new story. "I think we have a stop to make."

Night shrouded a fog-filled world. King marched about a few tentative steps at a time. Uncertain. Almost lost. A hand reached out to grab him before he stumbled again. His brown leather jacket remained opened enough to reveal the gold chain along his black turtleneck. His brown eyes brimmed with compa.s.sion. Side burns, thick but tight, framed his wistful smile. He could almost see his reflection in his polished k.n.o.bs. Yet King couldn't quite focus on him, as if he wasn't entirely there.

"Dad." King knew though he hadn't seen his father since he was two and had no real memory of him. But he looked exactly as he had in the pictures his mom kept.

"Yeah," Luther said. "Look at you. All grown up. You've become quite a man."

"I don't understand. You're dead."

"Yeah."

"But you're here."

"And you're lost."

"I'm always here. I came to you. A father loves his children."

King shifted in discomfort, a closeness to a father he didn't understand. There were times when it was easier to believe the seemingly irrational. King wasn't sure about a lot of things.

"You're confused. You have a lot of questions and soon we will have all of eternity for me to answer them. For now, take in my healing waters. What's broken can be made whole. What's dirty can become clean. Drink deep and know that you are loved. You are quite special to me. For who you are. You don't have to do anything to prove yourself to me. Just be the man I intended you to be. As for me, I'm already pleased with you, just as you are."

With that, King awoke.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

The glow of the computer screen lit Garlan's face as he checked his Facebook page from the library computer. He debated whether or not to add his mother as a friend. Everything taught him that he was meant to live and die alone in the streets. The beatings he took from his mom's boyfriends. On the streets. A different kind of beating in school, by the teachers, as they either told him or a.s.sumed that he wouldn't amount to s.h.i.t. And he seemed determined to prove them right. The lingering memory of his mom was how bottles lined the shelf of what she called "Club Nouveau". In an alcoholic's reflex, she counted her drinks and memorized the levels of the bottles. She knew each bottle as intimately as her own hand, knew if they had been watered down or out of place. She treated those bottles with more care and attention than she did her own kids.

Whenever someone got up or walked down the aisles of the library, any movement at all, it drew his attention. He set his jaw and eye-f.u.c.ked them so that they gave him a wide, respectful berth. He wasn't one of those old heads, always nodding to each other like all black folks was related or some s.h.i.t. So Five-O stepping to him was recognized long before they locked onto him.

"Garlan?" Cantrell sipped from a fresh cup of coffee from Lazy Daze, a local coffee shop, as he was "done supporting The Chain" as he called it, though he'd still sooner spring for Starbucks than choke down the watery sputum which pa.s.sed as station house coffee.

"Who asking?"

"Come on, Garlan. Why you going to do us like that? I thought you were my dude. We've shared times. Surely you got some love for your peoples," Lee mocked, adopting the "brotherbrother" affect he so despised.

"My partner, Detective Lee McCarrell." Cantrell cut him a caustic glance. Garlan certainly wasn't a tax-paying citizen, but he hadn't given them any cause to go hard at him yet. The thing was, sometimes Lee's pit bull approach, irritating as it was, cut through the mess. "Can we step outside?"

Garlan pushed away from the table and met the gaze of anyone who glanced his way until they averted their eyes. No one would see him if he didn't want them to. He touched the ring on his left hand, a nervous habit, as if to make sure it was still there. Garlan wondered why they stopped on the steps of the library rather than usher him to a squad car, then he spied the cameras approaching.

"You ever get a new ride?" Cantrell asked.

"No, waiting on insurance."

"How you get here then?"

"Walk."

"Must be quite the letdown, going from such a fine ride to hitting the bricks."

"It's all right." Garlan only addressed Cantrell.

"Easy come, easy go. Must be nice to have it like that," Lee said.

"Something like that," Garlan said.

"Word on the street has it that you been running with Dred's crew now."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. 'Cept the ways we hear it, folks in Dred's crew have been having an unexpectedly short life span."

"What some folks would consider high insurance risks."

"So who put my name in they mouth?"

"Another witness," Lee said, getting half a hardon at the thought of Omarosa. Or maybe it was the thrill of interrogating someone, not in the box, but in the street. "Same one that told us we could probably catch up with you here."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Old habits and all." Lee loved getting up in people's s.h.i.t.

"What's that mean?" Garlan asked.

"Who is it they say he run with?" Lee asked.

"Noles and Melle. Long rap sheets on both of them. Not so much you," Cantrell said.

"Like you invisible or something." Lee smirked with an all-too-knowing grin. He received a momentary eye-flick of acknowledgment on that one.

"Either he's good or ain't been caught," Cantrell said. "Or innocent."

"s.h.i.t." Lee couldn't help himself. "Ain't an innocent thing in or on that body of yours."

"Anyway." Cantrell tossed him a hard eye then glanced at the cameras. "You hear what happened to Melle?"

"Yeah. I heard about that. That was some nasty s.h.i.t," Garlan said.

"You ain't too broken up about it."

"We weren't exactly close."

"No crew love for your boy?" Lee asked.

"He was too wild, man. Always into some s.h.i.t."

"I see," Cantrell noted. "What about Robert Ither, Bartholamew DiGora, and Preston Wilc.o.x? You might know them as Naptown Red, Fathead, and Prez."

"I know Red. Not sure about them other two."

"So you ain't heard."

"Talk on it."

"Brothers went down wet."

Cantrell considered himself a detective, not a leader, despite the work he did in the community. Captain Burke constantly reprimanded him for clinging to that old saw, calling him afraid to lean into his gifts. Afraid might have been too strong. Most times he preferred the puzzles of detective work. Being behind the scenes and away from the politics and bureaucracy... despite being a natural politician who played bureaucracies like a fiddle. People were complex, but for all of their complexity they were simple at their core. Or there were certain things a person could count on. Like the look of genuine surprise that registered briefly on Garlan's face at the news of Naptown Red's death. He could almost spot the wheels turning as he puzzled out who could've done it and why.

"The scene was a real mess. Prez got off the easiest. Simple bullet to the brain. One tap, real close. Naptown Red, he put up a fight. Got some shots off, then it looks like someone stabbed him in the heart. But Fathead? Someone did a job on him. Took their time, too. His head took such a beating his own momma wouldn't recognize him. They pumpkinheaded him. And I get that you don't need s.h.i.t to come back on you. I know they weren't your boys or nothing, but you got any thoughts on who might've done this?"

"Why you asking me?"

"I got this theory. It says that Dred has been stirring up things. Flexing a little, getting a feel for how much juice his name carried. That got him b.u.mping up against Black and his set. Stuff goes back and forth like this stuff do. Then things get taken to the next level. Lyonessa gets caught up. Don't know who gave the order or who carried it out. We do have a vehicle description that vaguely matches your ride. But that's neither here nor there because it's been torched beyond recognition. As you know, it doesn't matter what we think, it's about what we can prove. But... someone out there must have a suspicious mind, cause they went after Melle. Probably got Noles on a shortlist, too. What I can't quite figure out is if the same person went after Red and 'em, changing up their methods, or if that was someone else tying up loose ends. You got any thoughts on that?"

"Nah, man..." Garlan trailed off.

"Cause if you do, we'd be all ears. That's why we having this civil conversation. Out here, in front of all kinds of pa.s.sers by." Cantrell tipped his hat to a sister eyeing them from the sidewalk. "Not taking you in or busting up your routine. Just giving you something to think about."

"A friendly warning," he said.

"Cause someone's hunting your crew."

"I said I don't know nothing," Garlan yelled loud enough for any curious ears to hear.

"Well, if you do," Cantrell began to hand him a card, but Garlan turned down the block and stepped off in a huff.

"What you think?"

"Evil is rare, but stupid is everyday," Cantrell said.

"That so?"

"He's a ghetto nihilist. Life don't mean anything to him. Any of them. They got no reason to value it... Now they done gone and killed somebody. Part of them dead too."

"You ought to become a philosopher."

"I got nothing out here and I'm too old to start over."

"I ain't mad at you. It's a color thing, I got that," Lee said.

"You're my forty acres and a jacka.s.s," Cantrell said.

"I'm trying to relate to you... my brother. And all you got for me is names. It ain't your fault some politicians need to feel better about their beaner nannies and gardeners and decide to force a rainbow coalition on your behalf."

Life pressed in on Garlan from all sides. Everywhere he turned, there were crossroads, each folding in on itself like a Gordian knot. In charge of a few knuckleheads, overseeing a corner or two, he enjoyed a comfortable spot with Dred. A little money coming through, set him up nice. Some wheels too, though he had to ditch them with Five-O on the hunt for them. But a car could be replaced; freedom couldn't. And he had no interest in being locked up.

All the death haunted him, however. Each body a new weight on his conscience and it wasn't as if he had nothing but time to pa.s.s in a prison yard. He knew Rok from back in the day, but he got caught up in that Colvin mess and being between a player like Colvin and Dred and King was a bad place to find oneself in.

Then Noles and Melle and that business with the little girl. That kind of drama would have po-po in his Kool-Aid forever or until they found someone to put it on. Catch a young black buck like The Boars, get him in the back seat of a sheriff's car, and he get mysteriously shot with them claiming suicide or some s.h.i.t. Po-po notwithstanding, the hood was hot, jumping with p.i.s.sed-off Mexicans and brothers alike. s.h.i.t, it was barely safe to walk down the street of his own hood.

Which was how he found himself in Broad Ripple. On a Thursday night, the strip hopped as college kids crawled from bar to bar in a press of bodies and a good-time vibe. The lights of the Vogue flashed with a spotlight's glare. Live bands came through on a regular basis: Madonna's Abortion, The Chosen Few, Saving Abel, The Why Store. Nothing Garlan would every listen to. Every so often some old school hip-hop he could get with would come through: Rakim, De La Soul, Method Man, Redman, Cypress Hill. Tonight was some wannabe heavy metal band, so he kept stepping, pushing past the crowd of folks milling about out front. The young college-age kids without sense enough to recognize a shark in their midst or not wanting to appear racist by profiling him. Not wanting any drama, he cruised through them without even bothering to flex his game face.

An old man danced on the corner across the street. Drunk. Homeless. People walked by as if they couldn't see him. Garlan crossed the street and put three dollars in his cup. It would go to whatever cheap booze wafted off him at that moment, but Garlan wasn't going to deny the man a taste. Whatever got him through the night.

Melle was dead. Naptown Red. Fathead. Prez. The bodies kept stacking up all under his watch. He was supposed to look out for them. Hunters were on the prowl. Too many hunters and a thinning school of prey.

And Garlan had the distinct impression that he was prey.

Nature's dark opera played unabated. The frightful melody of the rain combined with the mournful wail of the wind to tear through the trees. Lightning scampered all around, chasing some unseen prey, the radiance of the full moon shining vividly through the oppressively low clouds. The thunder roared with its terrible echo. Garlan swore that it was less than a mile that he'd walked, yet it seemed interminable. Or maybe it was the silence that lengthened the trip. Turning north up College Avenue, he walked away from the main strip of Broad Ripple Avenue, away from the lights, until he got to the bridge that crossed the ca.n.a.l. Way he heard it, way back in the day, folks who lived in downtown Indianapolis used to build their summer homes in Broad Ripple. Large show-off houses with lots of rooms and windows. And there used to be an amus.e.m.e.nt park, like Coney Island, along the ca.n.a.l. Though the rides burnt down, the city kept the park. Lots of folks hung out at the bridge.

Garlan scrabbled over the edge of the limegreen girders of the bridge out of view of the patrolling officers, and landed in the dirt. Usually the bridge thrummed with activity. Bridge kids, the kind of folks Garlan would have no trouble blending in with. Most of them were rich white kids from the suburbs, Carmel, n.o.blesville, Fishers, singing that "My parents don't understand me" song while driving their daddy's BMW back and forth. Others were skateboarders. A few punks. Goths. B-boys. Some were hoppers, folks who followed the train lines cross-country. And on Thursday nights it should have been b.u.mping. But it was deserted. The lights of Broad Ripple filled the sky above him, but didn't seem to cut through the shadows under the bridge. It was just Garlan and his ghosts.

"It all catches up to you after a while," a voice said from the shadows.

"Who that is?"

"It's just me." Baylon shuffled toward him.

"What you need?" Garlan balled his hand, but kept it at his side. He didn't find Baylon's presence especially rea.s.suring.

"You."

"What you want with me? Dred need me to come in? He could've hit me up on my cell. He didn't need to send"

"His errand boy?"

"I wasn't going to say that," much as he believed it. "Much respect."

"You underestimate your value. You Dred's number-one dude. His new number one."

"I don't know about all that." Though the thought did please him.

"A dog always returns to his master, especially when his master needs him most. Between Black, Dred, King, and the police, it's been hard out here for Dred's lieutenants. You his last one. The rest are gone or preoccupied. Soon it will just be a cozy little gathering. But... what to do about you?"

Baylon lunged toward him just as Garlan turned his ring and disappeared. Garlan threw himself against the concrete embankment, evading the initial grasp. He turned to kick him. Garlan tried to brace himself as much as possible. With all the strength he awkwardly managed, he stomped.

Baylon barely flinched, but the impact pushed him toward the river's edge. He couldn't hear above the roar or the current. Landing on his back, mired in the mud of a puddle, he locked eyes on Garlan. His heart pounded in his head. His mind, however, focused with clarity at the task at hand, detached, like he was playing a video game. Baylon's piercing howl cut through the noise of the storm.

Garlan b.u.mped against a barbed-wire fence. He cursed the Private Property No Trespa.s.sing sign that swung wildly in the wind. He scanned for a weapon of some sort. A discarded piece of rebar was jammed between some concrete debris at the base of the bridge, but it meant rushing past Baylon to get it. The rain dumped down in sheets, creating a haze over the water against the lights overhead.

Baylon slowed as he realized he had cornered himself. Garlan edged along the fence, never turning from Baylon, his hands feeling for any break in the fence. His pupils dilated, thick blood vessels wrapping his eyes like jealous lovers. Leaves crunched and twigs snapped underfoot with each lumbering step, his feet sliding in the thickening mud.