"Get out!" Lott yelled to her.

The girl tore out without hesitation. The third man leapt at Lott, grappling him about the middle. Lott kicked backwards, slamming them both into the wall, taking the wind out of the a.s.sailant. Then the ground fell away from under him. All he could think of was all the friends he'd hurt, the trust he'd betrayed. The life he'd f.u.c.ked up. Panting, the tallest one noted the fight leaving Lott and began to punch him. Lott took the blows to the ribs and the stomach, but not in the face though, as he wrapped up and collapsed into a ball. Sirens snapped the men out of their rage fugue, the tallest administering another kick before cutting out.

"The hero got his a.s.s wa-za-za-zah-whooppedzz!" the tall one shouted on the way out. Then, in case he was a snitch, too, he warned, "Keep your mouth shut."

Lott stayed on the floor, with the pain as comforting as any blanket.

CHAPTER FOUR.

Near the intersection of Suss.e.x Avenue and Faygate, two streets over from Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard, the houses on the block were piled on one another. With barely a few feet between them and their small, fenced-in yards, each was close enough that everyone could hear everyone else's business. However, most people neither saw nor heard anything, especially at the two-story home on the corner. Bound to his wheelchair after his wounds suffered at King's hands, Dred remembered being confined to the house. Many nights he retreated to his chamber, bereft of any furniture, more cavern than room. Its steep shadows gave the illusion of it being deeper than it was. Bay windows faced the moon, yet the light never seemed to penetrate much beyond being a dim glow about the window. He found a certain comfort to his cave. Despite owning several stash houses, money houses, pea shake houses none in his name, of course he needed a place to lay his head. A place to call his own.

The muscle memory, or lack thereof, of the wheelchair faded as he now walked down the stairs, into the hall in front of the living room. The clack-clack-clack of paws on hardwood floors echoed behind him as Baylon's dog trotted past the open doorway. Baylon manned the doorway, allowing entry to Naptown Red.

"What you no good?" Naptown Red's uneven skin tone gave him the appearance of a high yella Rorschach test. His bulbous eyes, yellowed and bloodshot, were framed by black moles. His auburn hair had once been straightened, but now came back in natural, though no comb had touched it in a while. Whiskey seared his breath and seeped from his pores. The man tugged at his privates before reaching out for a hand clasp.

"Ballin'. Shot callin'." Dred took his hand and b.u.mped shoulders with him, unaffected by the gesture. He nodded toward the next room where the others had gathered. Of course Red had been the last to arrive. He thought it proved that he was the man, that everyone waited on him. But as far as Dred was concerned, every now and then you got a fool. Naptown Red was so far behind and always sleeping on the game a mistake his mom should've corrected before he was born.

Dred tired of a life of inconvenience and neglect. Every off-center smile was a threat; every unturned eye a challenge; every undeferred step disrespect, so easily insulted because "respect" was what defined them. Look at them, his foot soldiers. Naptown Red, scheming-a.s.s n.i.g.g.a, not fooling anyone; Baylon, a tragic, perpetual f.u.c.kup; Garlan, so insecure in his role as muscle, certainly no Mulysa, but he'd have to do; and Nine, who insinuated herself into the group with promises of handling a particularly meddlesome problem for him. Something about being in her presence made you want to trust her. Love her. Shaped by rage, formed by scorn, molded by uninterest, Mulysa was a magnificent hatred. Now he sat at court waiting on a judge to let him know if he could sleep in his own bed tonight.

Eyes half-closed in on-setting ennui, Baylon stood on the fringes as the others gathered. His body reeked with the stench of death. From its sockets, pale yellow, bulbous, unnatural eyes eyes which had seen so much, like staring into the sun were dulled to lifelessness. His clothes seemed to cling tightly to his body like seaweed to a sunken ship. Baylon took a few uncertain steps. The grave called, but he continued to resist it. The air, stale and musty, swirled about to embrace his lithe form. Melancholia and weariness enveloped him, though his horrid body hid a certain n.o.bility. The silence was tangible around him, as if taking one last peek at his gravesite, longing for his disturbed peace. He knew that folks considered him soft. He used to be, but now he'd been through a lot. Lost a lot. Being in the life changed you. You didn't get to just throw on a suit and enter the square world. You were boxed in and down for life. Little more than a dog gone savage from pain.

"You remember me? I was part of Rellik's crew." Garlan sidled up to him with a practiced hardness. He lightly fingered his ring.

"Want something to drink? I think I got some scotch." His voice little more than a croak. Baylon's mouth opened and closed. His breath reeked of a swamp bed.

"This s.h.i.t's getting deep."

"What you mean?"

"You can't feel it? Like a noose closing in on us."

"Bout time."

Garlan glanced at him, made a mental note correcting whatever a.s.sumption he had made about the man, and started to move toward his spot on the couch.

"It's like a convention of unf.u.c.kables in here." Nine pushed past them. She took the unoccupied chair off to the side of the group, a regal pose to her bearing.

Naptown Red had the gift of a.s.sessing threats. He could take the temperature of a room with a glance and know who the true players were and who were the busters. Dred called the shots cause he was the man with a plan and the resources. Not because anyone especially feared him. There was an insecurity to him that Red knew he could exploit to roll him if need be. Garlan was straight-up soft. How he became an enforcer was further testimony to Dred's weakness. Dred didn't want anyone he deemed too great a threat at the table. Mulysa was buck. Even the new boys, Melle and Noles, he insulated himself from through Garlan. Baylon was spent meat, a used-up husk of a soldier. He was fierce in his day though. Which left the sister. Nine. She was a potential problem.

"Let me holler at you for a minute, baby."

"How you gonna try and push up on me? Your chest looks like Treebeard mated with a sad manatee." Nine's skin was the color of scorched oak, her face both pa.s.sionate and cruel, her eyes vaguely Asian. She spread her finely manicured fingers as a stop sign. Her nails glinted like talons decorated for a kill.

"How'd you earn a place at the table? I've never heard of you."

"Oh the breadth and depth of what you've never heard of. You never needed to hear of me. I play the game at a whole different level. The fact that you've heard of me now means that you are now at a new level. Me, I've always been here. Right under your nose."

"I don't trust you. I get the feeling I'm supposed to. Some weak-a.s.s glamour?"

"What do you want?" Nine arched an eyebrow, the only giveaway that he said something which surprised her.

"Just want to know who I'm dealing with."

"You don't. I deal with Dred, not his lapdogs."

"Where's Mulysa?" Naptown Red called out, already angling to take his seat. Naptown Red was faux-rage, wearing anger like a fashion accessory, more motivated by power and opportunity. Keeping his head above water exhausted him, yet hope sprang eternal with the latest scheme, the constant grind to line his pockets with Benjamins. His chest puffed in a slow waddle as if the meeting revolved around him.

"Got a court date," Dred said.

"You post on Mulysa?" Garlan asked.

"Had to. For one, we got to show loyalty to the crew. For two, we don't need to make no enemy out of one of our own." Dred was bored. The power was his, yet he was still somewhat dissatisfied. He always needed a mountain to climb, had to have a next objective, a next level. When in doubt, he built a mountain. Alexander may have wept when he realized he'd conquered the world, Dred only realized that his world was too small. Of the remains, any who showed any game was put on. Naptown Red. Mulysa. Garlan. Nine. Baylon was still around, but Garlan was the new number one. Having Baylon around was a grim reminder of the past and what it took to step up.

"We could use him." A coy smile crossed Nine's mouth. "Specially if we gearing up for war."

"What makes you say we gearing up for war?"

"Whispers."

Dred turned to Garlan. Garlan oversaw a lot of the pee wees and wannabes. All those ten to eighteen year-old knuckleheads had to be put to the test to see if they had heart. It was more Mulysa's side of the street, but Garlan had to learn to walk it sooner or later. He might as well step up if he were testing others to see if they were ready. "How them boys work out?"

"We gonna promote little dude. Not sold on the white boy yet. They both down for whatever, though. Straight-up hoodiculous." Garlan grew anxious and down, his head all turned around as he thought about stuff he wasn't ready to think about or deal with.

"He from our set. And where we from, we take care of our own."

Dred shifted in his seat, taking in the room. He had moved to his aunt's house when he was nine. His aunt already had three kids of her own: a boy, a girl, and a toddler. The house was crammed, but she and her husband the father of the toddler took him in. Dred slept on the bottom of a bunk bed set with his cousin, foot to head. His female cousin got the top bunk to herself.

Every so often, he'd get a phone call from Morgana.

"Mom, when are you coming home? I miss you." His mother paused. He winced regret, knowing he'd been caught in a lie.

"You're a liar. But you go through the motions well. You're probably already fooling your aunt." Her voice sounded like pinp.r.i.c.ks jammed into the meaty part of an infant's thigh, delighting in the pain she inflicted. It wasn't a memory as much as a recalled sensation. Remembrances of pain past.

"I want to come home, Mom."

Dred found himself looking around the room as if his mother's voice made him uncertain of his own reality. She always had that effect on him. "Who's there with you?"

"My cousins."

"Yeah. How old is she now? Eleven? Twelve?"

"Twelve."

"Yeah. She probably is already wearing a bra. You sneak peeks at your cousin while she's getting ready for bed? You think about her at night while lying next to her brother? You probably don't know what to do with yourself. d.i.c.k getting all hard, her brother jammed up next to you. All these feelings. .h.i.tting you at once."

"Mom..."

"You're weak. Pathetic. You let things happen to you. You are life's perpetual plaything. Always the victim."

"But..."

"Let me speak to your auntie. The sound of your voice is making me ill. To think that something so weak came out of me."

He showed no weakness now. The Latinos would know the height of his strength and cruelty. And no one would think twice about flexing his way. To dare think on it, he'd take out their momma, sister, or daughter. He'd left no such weakness in his life. From there he would move forward, thinking large, none of the p.u.s.s.y-a.s.s dreams of these shortsighted fools. He took on the Mexicans head-on in a bid to expand his network to go national. The play was simple. Most of the crews were weak, decimated by being put on charges. Most of the rest, they hollered at. The ones that gave him any beef, he put Mulysa on. Or Melle and Noles. Those two were bloodthirsty. He'd send his young'uns into the military. Maybe provide scholarships to send them to school. That would bolster his public image as a community leader f.u.c.k King, study your opponent, learn his moves, do them better plus he'd own lawyers, doctors, maybe even a few police along the way. Yeah, f.u.c.k King. Dred knew him better than he knew himself; what he was going to do before he did it. All Dred had to do was wait for that moment. Or let the situation provide.

"How's our spot at the Phoenix?" Dred asked.

"Sending four birds of dope down there," Garlan said.

"Black is a more pressing matter. That refried bean eatin' motherf.u.c.ker needs to get got."

"That's what I been saying," Naptown Red interjected. He hated to go too long without hearing his own voice.

"We barely up and running and you want to take on the Mexicans?" Garlan knew better than to press a challenge. He walked a fine line between checking Dred's thinking and obedience. But he wasn't doing his job if he didn't press Dred some. Respectfully.

"Folks need to know we here for real. We hold off, we can't maintain."

"So instead of stepping back, you stepping up," Nine said.

"Now you feel me. Next go round, I want product so strong it drops fiends two counties over. Look at the pieces on the table. Most of the city was divvied up between me and Night."

"Then King came along and f.u.c.ked things up." Naptown Red swirled his empty gla.s.s in Nine's direction, expecting her to get him another drink. She glared at him as if he'd lost his d.a.m.ned mind then flipped him off. With both hands for good measure.

"King provided an opportunity. See, I stepped back, let everyone think I was out the game, every wannabe shot-caller stepped into the light. Colvin, Rellik, all them fools got taken out... after they built up networks, supply lines, and connects. Did my work for me."

"Only leaves one player. The Mexicans. And they s.h.i.t is locked down," Garlan said.

"Don't even know how all this s.h.i.t started. But they take down one of ours, we take down ten of theirs. Let's see how they like that math."

Dred knew. He'd played this game before with a girl named Mich.e.l.le Lalard. He manipulated the situation to cause Baylon to have to kill her, driving a permanent wedge between him and King. And by being there for Baylon in his moment of darkness and loneliness, welcoming him with the embrace of a friend, he earned Baylon's loyalty. People never forget who was there for them when things were bleakest. Those were the people they knew they could count on when things got hot. And Dred was going to keep turning up the heat.

"Profits are up. Our control is just about absolute." Dred peered at Baylon and Garlan with something approximating pride. "We have to work hard and stay vigilant. Done made ourselves our share of enemies."

"Do dirt, get dirty," Garlan said. Garlan's mouth tightened as he studied the cracks in the floor tiles. It meant something to be treated with respect, to be treated like a man. Dred and his crew relieved him of that isolation, but only he knew the intimacies of his pain, how it bricked him up inside. How the desperation of loneliness and feeling unimportant added this level of crazy intensity to the people you reach out to when you're alone. The game was spinning out of control. The drama they were talking about was already too costly and there was no end in sight. He needed to slow it down or get out.

"Everyone at this table has got respect. Earned it."

"No disrespect," Naptown Red began, "but what have you done?" The air seemed to have been sucked out the room. The players all but physically moved away from Red, carefully distancing themselves in case he didn't check himself. "I mean, this is your show, no doubt. No doubt. But how long we gonna put up with King?"

"King," Dred began in a slow, halting tone beset with threat, "is out of play."

"Why not finish him?"

"He's suffering."

"I'm just saying, you don't want to appear soft. To the Mexicans."

Dred had climbed the mountaintop and controlled everything. But no one knew. King had been defeated, had become despondent, and was out of the game. The cops barely knew who he was. He was so far behind the scenes, his name didn't ring out the way he wanted. Or that others would respect. He had the power of position, by way of t.i.tle, but too many thought it was handed to him. That his crown was unearned. "That how you all feel?"

"Just saying, if King had been a thorn in my side," Naptown Red's bravado becoming bolder, "even if he's hurting now, I'd go ahead and put that dog down. But it's your show."

"Bloodless ascents," Nine said with a hint of a smirk, "blood carried out in your name but not by your hands."

"You think too small. There's a whole world beyond the hood. Got to think big. Like businessmen. Expand the trade in ways we haven't thought about. Time to finish our hostile takeover." Dred read the room. Confident in his overall strategy, he accepted that he'd have to put in a more personal touch in order to hold the center. "Red, you and Baylon handle the Black problem. I'll take care of King."

"We all have our part to play," Nine said.

CHAPTER FIVE.

Wayne ripped the first pair of rubber gloves he tried to put on. Making a mental note to have a conversation with their volunteer coordinator, who also ordered supplies, that not everyone had "medium" sized hands, he slipped another pair on. The gloves were so tight-fitting they restricted his movement, but better ill-fitting gloves than no gloves at all. Now he was ready for the task at hand.

Isabel "Iz" Cornwall had been admitted to the hospital. Complications from drug withdrawal on her hopelessly over-taxed immune system. The doctors administered high doses of antibiotics while observing her for a few more days. Tristan Drust, her girlfriend, dropped off her things to the Outreach Inc. house, then disappeared mysteriously yet again. Wayne recognized the restlessness on Tristan's face, the caged beast waiting to go on the hunt. Revenge seethed in her eyes. That kind of anger had a way of consuming a person, but she wasn't in a place to talk. Instead, she dropped off trash bags full of Iz's stuff.

"The glamour leave yet?" Wayne pa.s.sed a trash bag to Esther Baron.

"What glamour?" Esther pulled on her gloves with ease, but stared at the bags with mild distrust. She hated the way she looked and was always at war with her body, from one diet to the next, counting calories and miles walked in a day. She considered herself too short (which she could do nothing about) and too dumpy (which she was determined to change). Esther was one of those people easily overlooked in a room. Not the center of attention, not quick to speak, and without the presence or immediate kind of beauty people gravitated to, she simply went about her business. Her actions spoke for her as she dove into life at Outreach Inc with both feet. She had been volunteering with Outreach Inc for over a year now because she wanted to be a part of the hope the organization represented.

"You know, the idea of helping homeless teens. Most folks figure it's just handing out food, water, and socks, and calling it a day."

"No, I'm in it for the long haul." Esther hid behind the belief that she would always be seen as the outsider. The rich white girl who lived in Fishers who occasionally slummed with the poor folks to make herself feel better. White liberal guilt as a fashion accessory. Whatever. People could think what they wanted, she couldn't control that. She focused on doing what she knew she ought to be doing. "Now quit."

"Quit what?"

"I feel like you're always testing me. Pushing me away to see if I'll leave."

He had been. Sort of. He didn't want anyone around the kids who couldn't commit to being in their lives for months. They needed to see that folks would be there and be consistent and not simply abandon them when things got tough. They'd seen enough of that. "Well, if you say so, dig in."

Esther opened up her bag, took a whiff, and shut it again. It smelled of moldy cellars and damp closets. "What are we doing?"

"These are the worldly belongings of Miss Isabel Cornwall."

"Iz?"

"The one and the same."

"They're soaked."