"Odd jobs."

"Anyway, that little girl, Lyonessa Perez." Cantrell produced her school picture from his folder, blown up to an 8x11 and laid out three autopsy pictures all in a row like he was dealing a game of black jack. Garlan took one picture into his hands. As if catching himself, he tossed it back at Cantrell.

"He was lying. You can tell from the way he kept staring at her picture. Then watch him when I pull out the autopsy pics. The pain on his face."

"Someone did this to her," said Cantrell.

"It's a cold world."

"What kind of man do you think it takes to do something like that?"

"Don't know."

"A monster?"

"Yeah."

"You know any monsters, Mr Pellam?"

"No."

"You know Lonzo Perez? Lyonessa's older brother. Some people know him as Black."

"Don't know a Black."

"What about Dred?"

"Who?"

"Dred. Runs product through your hood.

Your boss."

"Don't know the name."

"So you don't know about any beefs between them?"

"I don't know nothing about nothing."

"I'm just saying, I need people to come forward and identify some folks. If you had anything to do with it, any knowledge at all, it's best to get in front of it right now. It'll play better for you later."

"I swear, officer. Right hand to the Jesus I pray to, I didn't have nothing to do with no murder. I just needed to tell you that to your face so that you'd leave my people alone."

This fool couldn't pick Jesus, whatever Jesus he prays to, out of a line-up.

"I appreciate you coming in, Mr Pellam."

"I'm free to go?"

"Yeah. You don't know nothing about nothing. So I'll have to go back to the peoples of that little girl and let them know that no one is willing to step up and help put down the monsters that did this." Cantrell put the autopsy picture back in front of Garlan of their baby. He then handed him a card with his cell phone number on the back.

"I'm out."

"He came in because I was pressing hard for him, sure. Maybe also to see what evidence we had. But, I don't know. He don't read like a bad kid. He still has a heart. You can see how bothered he was by what happened to Lyonessa. He's haunted for sure. He definitely knows something about nothing. Since I don't have much else to go on, I may just dig into the known a.s.sociates of Mr Garlan Pellam."

The Phoenix Apartments used to be known as The Meadows. An east side neighborhood once booming. A forty-acre development with fifty-six buildings, shops, and offices, and the Meadows Shopping Center. But by the 1980s, no one wanted any part of the Meadows, not when there were newer suburbs being developed north and west of the city for folks to run to. Leaving the corners free for Melle and The Boars.

Sitting on the front stoop, Melle sometimes called Melle Mel, sometimes called "that crazy motherf.u.c.ker that runs with Noles" took a razor to his head. Most days he might run down to Hot Stylez barber shop, but today he was on the clock putting in work and had one of the young'uns to look out for. Melle used to sport a wild Afro, sometimes pulled back, most times not. Eight inches of mess, a neon sign easily spotted and picked out by the police, no matter how thick a crowd he ran with. He finally said "f.u.c.k it" and cut the s.h.i.t off. The razor sc.r.a.ped his head. He didn't trust too many n.i.g.g.as with a razor to his skin, so he did it himself.

The Boars sometimes called Bo Little, though only by his momma these days, sometimes called "that n.i.g.g.a who likes to hit people", though mostly by his football team mates at Northwest High School perched like a gargoyle on the stoop steps. He, too, kept a bald head, though with a full beard shaved low. He spat idly while petting his dog. Its tail wagged wildly and its muscular hindquarters flexed as she licked his hand.

"What you feeding that b.i.t.c.h?" Melle asked.

"Steak, Gravy Train, and Hennessy. My dog's straight-up gangsta."

At the sound of Melle's voice, the dog hopped up on him, half-humping on his leg.

"Get that b.i.t.c.h off of me. Your dog's gay."

"It's not about s.e.x. It's about dominance."

"Whatever. All I know is that if I want you as my b.i.t.c.h, you'd best roll the f.u.c.k over."

Leaning against the dented, paint-chipped entrance doors, the brick alcove sheltered them from the wind and rain. Empty grocery bags blew by in the wind like fall leaves.

"How's the count?" Melle asked with an expression of grudging interest.

"Down for the third straight week."

"Don't try to play me."

"I'm serious. With the stuff between Dred and Black jumping off, them casual customers been staying away. Afraid to catch a bullet. Or worse. Listen to some of them old heads, they talk about no one's got any respect for the game. About how children used to be off limits, but now you got fools out here wildin' like..."

"The shelf life of the stuff we got? Like we done stepped on it a dozen times. Weak as s.h.i.t. When's the re-up coming through?"

"Due in next week ain't it?" The Boar's tone registered genuine confusion.

"Yeah."

"Seen Omarosa?"

"Nah. You jump like a motherf.u.c.ker. What you been into got you so nervous?"

"Mind your own. We got enough on our plates."

"Way I hears," Black began, gun trained on the two of them, "some folks pile up their plate like a fat man at a buffet. Eyes bigger than their stomachs."

To listen to the counselors at school, Black was pretty easy to nail down. Directionless, fatherless, loveless. In search of a place to belong. Filling the holes that home couldn't fill, yet which still left a gnawing emptiness inside. Nothing he couldn't learn on the street, except how to have a dad. But he didn't want to give up the control. Before them, he was a misfit, out of place, one of society's embarra.s.sments. No ident.i.ty, no culture, no history, no sense of who he was. Except profoundly lost. He hated himself and took it out on other people. That was how the counselors saw him, but they were wrong. He was Black. He was fury. He simply... was. Revenge was mandatory. All slights met with angry, swift, retaliation, but an attack to his family? That was a matter of death.

"You," Black aimed at The Boars. "Vamonos."

"I ain't afraid to get shot. That's the game. I just don't want you to go after all of my people is all."

"This here ain't about business, hese, otherwise I'd have Swiss-cheesed all of you motherf.u.c.kers. This s.h.i.t here, this is personal. Between me and him. Tell them. More will burn before I'm done. You let Dred know. More will burn. Vamonos."

The Boars trotted off backwards, not wanting to turn his back to them before putting more distance between he and them. Then he turned and booked out at full speed.

"You need to think on this hard, Black. We this close to war already," Melle said, his hopes fading with each quick step of The Boars.

"You already at war." Black tucked his gun into his waistband. The Boars would bring back others soon, but he had a message to send. "I know who you are, Melle." Black spat after he said the name. "I knew who you and Noles are." He spat again. "You think word don't travel back to me? Descriptions." Black tugged his gloves off. "Took two of you to rip apart a little girl. Y ahora?"

Emboldened by the gun being tucked away, Melle adopted what he thought was a fighting stance. The two circled each other warily in the alcove. Though lanky, Melle towered over Black. Melle swung wide, hoping to use his height advantage or wrap him up until The Boars came back. Black ducked under the blow, waded in, and rabbit-punched him twice in the face: the first exploded his nose in a spray of blood, the second cuffed him in the ear as his head lolled back. Blood splatter landed on Black's tattoo, then seeped into his skin. The blows themselves didn't rock Melle he'd been hit harder by his baby momma, but a sickness rose in him. His insides didn't feel right. Nauseous and dizzy, he cried like a scared little boy before the wrath of a thunderstorm, only wanting to be tucked in and comforted.

"Mira este, pendejo. Y ahora, hah, y ahora?"

The sick feeling crept into Melle's belly, as if he were witness to something sacred. Or blasphemously profane. His heart thumped in desperate staccato. Teeth clenched in anger, Black pressed his tattooed hand to the man's face. Melle screamed, but all Black heard was the last cries of Lyonessa, equally helpless on same concrete mattress. Melle's bruised face swelled. Fissures erupted along his skin, as if his blood boiled and his veins burst open. Dark pustules sprang up, eroding his face. His eyes clouded, lifeless long before his body stopped writhing in agony. "More will burn." The war was on.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

Goodness was a fragile thing; rule, its own burden. Drenched in sweat, King threw off the covers as he woke. "Ripped from his sleep" better described his racing heart and the uneasy feeling that he escaped another nightmare. He napped more than slept most nights. Checking his clock, he'd managed to sleep for nearly three consecutive hours. Sick from anger and love, the waking world took a few moments to get used to. Sometimes he wished he could just turn his mind off, stop the jumbled images and memories of the good times shared, the promises made, and the dream of them. And the nagging voice that twisted all of those things into something unrecognizable. There were a few days when King didn't hear that voice at all, but on those days he was completely alone.

Allowing the blanket to drop into his lap, he sat up. Darkness filled the room despite the mid-day hour. Thick blankets covered the venetian blinds so that no light crept in, either from the front windows nor the rear window in the kitchen. He didn't know what to feel. He wished he could hate them, then he could get on with things. A thin reed of hate and resentment would protect him from the casual vulnerabilities of his heart.

Picking up and sniffing a pair of jeans, he decided they were good for another wear. A black T-shirt with the portrait of Sojourner Truth on the front and his pair of black Chuck Taylors completed his outfit. He then stuffed the rest of his clothes into his duffel bag. A backpack, a duffel bag, and three boxes. All of his worldly belongings fit into them. The three boxes were in his car already. He hadn't made up his mind what he wanted to do, but he wanted to be ready for when he did. It became increasingly difficult for him to remain at Breton Court. He couldn't take the weight of the stares, the pity in them, the sense of shame they drew like needles raked across the skin. Tongues wagged, but he told himself that as long as he knew the truth, he didn't care. Where was his strong right hand? Where was his heart? Where was anyone who gave him the chance to believe in himself? A knock came from his front door and he knew he had to postpone his anger.

The wisps of an attempted goatee sprouted along the sides of Prez's mouth. A slight hunch to his gait, though his swagger slowly returned, a slight b.u.mp of their shoulders served as their greeting. They quickly backed away from the gesture. King couldn't bring himself to hug Prez. The boy reminded him of yet more failures in his life. Failure to protect him, failure to keep him out of a gang, failure to keep him off drugs.

Big Momma was a neighborhood fixture, a force in her own right. In a matching sky-blue sweat suit and with a fan in her left hand, she trundled past him with a slight grunt. King let the door close on Prez, who waited patiently. Big Momma fell into the couch without saying a word. She fanned herself and let the minutes tick away.

King fell against the opposing wall, waiting for the inquisition to begin. His hands interlocked across his knees. Both of them shadowy figures in the gloom, which was the way King preferred it. Better than having to meet people's eyes or, worse, have them see him at his weakest. He broke first. "You awful quiet."

"Just thinking. Isn't it better to know her for who and what she truly was and be cured of loving her?"

"It's like that, is it?"

"Come on now. When you were that age, you're telling me if you got in trouble and had the chance to blame someone else and get off scotfree, you didn't do it?"

"I was never that age. Or that dumb."

"That's your problem. You expect everyone to be like you. You hold them up to your standard and castigate them when they don't live up to it."

"I do the same to myself."

"Like that's any better? You one of them stiffnecked types. Sometimes G.o.d has to break you to use you. Sometimes He sends the storm. But you know what? Storms pa.s.s."

King had long lost track of how long he'd been gone. Not so much gone as withdrawn. Part of him wanted to stay in his cave and stew in his pain. He was broken and there was no rush to him becoming fixed, no matter how many folks wanted him to pick up and keep going. On the one hand, he wanted everyone to just leave him alone. On the other, he didn't want to be alone. If they could spare him the plat.i.tudes and speeches and let him be, he could probably see himself clear.

"He took the people I loved most away from me. He took my mission, my purpose from him. What was the point of bringing me up only to turn me out like this? That doesn't sound like a G.o.d I want to follow."

"Come on now. Don't be like that. My parents had their problems. Abandoned me. But the adults in the neighborhood decided to raise me and hid me from CPS whenever a social worker came around, because they would just have sent me to foster care. I know about rough times."

"You don't understand. I had people. I used to be able to look in their eyes. They looked up to me. With respect, though they'd never admit to it. I was their big brother. They took it all away from me. They did."

"It still sounds to me like you were looking for the wrong things. Like all of this was about you. Maybe you need to be stripped of all that to see who it is you are really working for and how you go about doing the work."

"I liked you better when you didn't say anything."

"Life is long. We don't have to be defined by our pasts. Or our mistakes. Who you were then doesn't have to be who you are now. You had your mission. It made you feel right. Have you stopped to consider that she's hurting, too?"

The thought of that softened him a little. He turned the idea around in his mind for a moment, inspecting it before digesting it. Being around one so young was selfish on his part. He didn't allow her to be her age. Being young and dumb was the point of youth. He above all others knew the toll on her, acting up to his expectations. How he saw her. But he did the same: he wanted to be the man, the hero she saw in him. Listen to him. Old-man thoughts. He always had an urge to protect others, to ride in on a white horse.

"She wanted you to think... she could hang," Big Momma pressed. "You be impressed with her. Not be disappointed in her."

"I don't think I'll be able to trust her again, and I hate that. She was my best friend."

"Come on now. Can't nothing heal without pain. Let it go. Let her go. Let them go. So that you can move on and do what you need to do. Cause there's still a lot of work that needs to be done. Ain't no point in letting all of your gifts get all moldy here in the dark."

"All right, Big Momma. What's the first step?"

"Do what you do best. Someone's got to lead. Someone's got to be brave enough to put themselves out there to make the first move. Bring people together."

"It's time for a family meeting."

Not very many things scared Lott. In his few years on earth, he'd seen men die, by the hands of both men and monsters, though the men were usually monsters in masquerade. His FedEx uniform, in only a short time, had become a second skin. How he saw himself and how others saw him. He was lucky to get a spot at the printing company. The hours weren't as good and the drab brown uniform made him self-conscious of walking around like s.h.i.t on a stick. His beard grew longish, not quite unkempt, but definitely scraggily as it came in. The swelling in his face had retreated, leaving only the occasional bruise along his ribs from the beating. Word traveled quickly along the neighborhood wire, but he didn't know what to think about the meet-up.

With family, truth was a while in coming. There were watershed moments in a man's life, a crossroads of regrets and humiliations. Lott wondered how he could make it up with folks. For so long he had stuck close to King, forgetting why he needed to get clean. These days, with his spirit dry and cracked, with him on the verge of relapse, he was barely conscious of asking himself "what the f.u.c.k are you doing?" Living on automatic pilot with the disease of amnesia, the bad times didn't seem that bad and the worst times reminded him of where he came from. That to forget how bad he got, just for a second, and he'd be right back there. So he concentrated on just trying to breathe and to sort things out.

Everyone had an a.s.sumed role to play. When he was little, his mother often came home, having gotten her drink on, usually in the company of some man she called her boyfriend who basically threw a couple of bills her way to keep the lights on. When ends came up short, the shouting could be heard up and down the block. Lott always feared for his mother. From a young age, if things got too loud, he stepped between the man and his mother. "Leave her alone," he'd shout. Or he'd simply ram his head into the man's t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es. On more than one occasion, he took the beating intended for his mother. With him and his mom, he was quick with a joke whenever her own pain threatened to lash out at the nearest available target, usually him. Anything to laugh away the pain. Then came the mission, salvation in something larger than himself to believe in. To be straight. Then came King. The man wasn't his salvation, but he gave him purpose.

"Every man wants to be part of something larger than himself."

He recalled the words as clearly today as he did then, as if he were... called. He and King were boys almost from the jump, but King had a way about him, kept himself guarded around him, not letting Lott all the way in. The great King was afraid of being hurt. Again.

And Lady G. From the first moment he saw her, he thought that if he could have her, then it would mean he was worth something. That if she chose him then he could feel good about himself. It was all so selfish and messed up.

And he knew he had to carry it.

Yeah, he'd be at the meeting and take what was coming to him.

A few times Lady G thought of crying. She didn't know how she'd react the first time she saw Lott. Part of her thought she might just slap him. It was as if he represented her poor choices, all the hurt she that twisted her up inside, all of the damage they she had done to their little circle of friends. It was easier to put it on him, his manipulation of her feelings she was in a vulnerable place, confused, scared, out of her depth, and he took advantage of that than think about her role in things. They would never be the same after all of this. Nothing would be the same. Not their friendship, not their circle of friends, what remained of it. Not the common vision they once shared. They were lost.

Two blocks north, on High School Road, a couple of large backhoes razed two houses. They'd fallen into disrepair and no one wanted to buy them. The fact that one had been set on fire with the word "snitch" spray-painted on the side surely didn't factor into it. They could have met in the Youth Solidarity building, which technically fell under the ownership of Pastor Winburn's church. But King wanted to meet where they had started.