King Maker: The Knights of Breton Court, Volume 1 (18 page)

  Dollar gave a rueful nod.

  With a rancorous snarl, his boys pushed Miss Jane to the side and sprang on the fool who still held the forged product in his hands. He raised a lone hand, a drowning man beneath a tidal wave of fists. Tavon turned his head from the worst of it, settling for listening to the sounds of weakening frantic pleas and the thwacks of flesh pummeling flesh. Loose Tooth scrambled for a better view. Not a peep from Miss Jane. She was a hard one. When Tavon turned to look again, Dollar had his back to the display. He'd settled into an odd posture, as if resenting his own soldiers. They were the new breed, who enjoyed violence for violence's sake. They didn't care because they had no future, no connection to anyone beyond themselves.

  "Don't let me catch you again," Dollar said, pulling on a pair of gloves as Miss Jane scuttled down the alley. She didn't even help her played paramour to his feet, but he nipped at her heels anyway. Dollar muttered, "Dusty-ass heifer."

  By all rights, Miss Jane earned a beat down. It wasn't like Dollar's crew was above hurting women, but not in Dollar's presence. Tavon wondered if the rumors were true about Miss Jane and her boy being untouchable.

  Dollar and Tavon were the only family each other had, really. Most of the kids on their block regarded Tavon as soft; he always had problems hitting other people. Dollar, on the other hand, loved it. He thought of Tavon as a dog, faithful, following him around only for the beggin' bits he had, or rather, the vials at his disposal. Even if Tavon turned on him, as all bitches eventually did, all Tavon was capable of was the occasional buzz of an irritating gnat.

  Dollar dropped out of school to pursue his ambitions, which involved a lot of sitting on a front stoop, running the streets and getting his head up in chronic. Tavon joined him. It was like they ran out of imagination and couldn't see a life for themselves outside of the streets, like they didn't have any ideas about what to do.

  "You can come out now, Tae," Dollar said casually. His boys reached into their waistbands, but Dollar waved them off.

  "How'd you know we was here?" Tavon asked, Loose Tooth standing silently behind him.

  "My alley. You see anything interesting?"

  "Naw." Especially not anything he'd report back to the police.

  "Good. How about I set you all up tonight. Testers for the new line. Come morning you all spread the word that Black Zombie's the shit."

  "For old times' sake?"

  "Yeah, for old times' sake."

 

• • •

 

Michaela hated being referred to as one of the Durham Brothers. But life was all about marketing and the Durham Brothers was a solid brand. Not that she was ladylike, but she hated being discounted as a male because she rolled harder than most thugs she ran across. Michaela was the elder by thirteen seconds, though it might as well have been a decade the way she lorded it over her brother, Marshall. Neither she nor her brother were attractive in any way, she accepted that, with their pug noses beneath eyes too small for their large heads. Jagged scars, like lightning bolts, crossed each side of their faces. Because of their constant flop sweat, their long hair stuck to their foreheads. They could each stand to lose fifty pounds. A half-dozen deodorizers dangled from the rearview mirror of their Ford Focus. Each of them had drowned themselves in cologne. Incense choked the air of their room, yet a musky, earthy odor clung to them despite their best efforts.

  Rarely separated, the Durham Brothers stood equally tall, their muscles filled out their gray Armani suits which they wore awkwardly, not quite comfortable in their latest image choice. Every encounter – other drivers at a stop light, any jostling in a crowded room, little old ladies at church – was taken as a challenge from all around them which usually resulted in a beatdown. Their father was not from around there, so they were told. Their mother was on the slow train to Crackville, which was why they killed her. And ate her.

  To be honest, Michaela was surprised when she got the call from Dred. It wasn't as if they had parted on the best terms. To hear Dred tell it, Michaela and Marshall were brood vipers prone to attacking whoever was about whenever they felt underused or underappreciated. The cost of doing business with them, he said. Michaela saw it differently. Dred played his family close, from Baylon to a few other members, keeping them in a tight circle around him. Everyone else he treated like second-class citizens. So no matter how much she or her brother tried to do to demonstrate their loyalty, they were always on the outside looking in. Of course, that was enough to make any man, or woman, snap after a while.

  Granted, maybe Marshall didn't need to burn Dred's stash house down or try to spread the man's business on the streets, but Marshall could be less than reasonable once he built up a head full of steam. His was a scorched-earth policy for even the slightest perceived infraction, which often left him ass out because once you've scorched enough earth, you found that you had no place to plant new seed. Sooner or later, they'd have to come crawling back to Dred, all contrite and apologetic, trying to make good, and the cycle would begin again.

  They pulled into the school parking lot. A couple of Green's troops played dice at the side of the building.

  "What do you think?" Michaela asked. "Should we say 'hi'?"

  "They don't look like much."

  "No, I suppose they wouldn't. I hear Green's over them."

  "Green, huh?" Marshall sneered.

  "They look more impressive now?"

  "Not really. I've always wondered about Green."

  "They say he eternal."

  "They who?" Marshall remained unimpressed. His sluggish thoughts flowed toward the mundane of when they were going to eat or where they were going to crash that night.

  "I guess they who survive those who didn't outlive him."

  "I'd like to test that sometime." He punched his left fist into his right hand, imagining a set of brass knuckles crunching into a jaw.

  "I'm sure you'll get your chance before too long."

 

Omarosa stood in front of the full-length mirror admiring the figure before her, not entirely satisfied with her make-up. Her eyes the color of frost on grass, matted by her cream-complected oval face and crowned by her freshly done braids; she hadn't quite attained her "you can't get with this face" and as such continued her tireless primping. A mix of both woman and fey, she now employed the glamour known as science to accomplish her will.

  The time and attention spent by someone who accomplished her business by not being seen was an irony that eluded her. Vanity was an inherited trait of her people as was her gift with any weapon. And she had some serious creep to her. Her twin brother was an assassin of the first order, while she preferred life closer to the streets. Life was all about illusion. She read the streets better than anyone, hoarding intelligence like an information magpie. True pros kept little piles of clothes in the gangway or along the side of the building in case they were going to be out a couple of days or needed to appear in court. The girls were just as invisible as junkies; except with them, instead of a person, people saw a searching dimebag. No one ever saw Omarosa actually take a john, but because she worked the stroll, they assumed her to be a pro. She did little to dissuade them, going so far as to dress in fishnet hose under a blue jean miniskirt. Her cashmere jacket kept her plenty warm.

  A warm, breezy fall night, churning the humidity stirred by the low-lying gray clouds threatening a chance of rain. It was as if someone blew hot breath about. Omarosa leaned against the brick façade of the old Bank One building. Though the chain had been bought out by Chase, this particular branch across the street from the Phoenix Apartments building was simply closed rather than renovated. From her vantage point, the comings and goings of the Phoenix opened itself up to her. She absently twirled a set of handcuffs around her index finger then caught them, spinning them with a flourish before "holstering" them. Her inner gunslinger satisfied, she clicked the jaws of one side through, letting the clink of each tooth settle before continuing.

 

• • •

 

Hypnotized by her poise, Lee McCarrell watched her. His stomach rumbled as he set up to watch this latest player. Just south of her position, in the rear of the old Bank One parking lot, an open driveway entrance had been blocked off by cement barricades to prevent parked loitering. Folks stole the other one so they could still come and go as they pleased. Situated behind a row of trees, the northbound traffic along Sherman Drive couldn't see him.

  On the TIPS line, a woman who refused to give her name claimed to have seen two young black men exchanging a gun. The younger of the two walked toward the back of a man, took aim with the gun turned on its side, and fired. The man, once he realized he wasn't hit, took off running. The shot went through the window of the Walker family. The crime scene unit's investigation had come to a similar conclusion and a hunt was underway for the anonymous woman as well as the man who apparently never saw a thing, but thanked God for a wannabe gangsta's poor aim.

  Not officially on duty, he had no business at the Phoenix Apartments – a white boy no less – unless he were out to score. He tired of Octavia pointing out his lack of street intelligence. According to her, he had to learn to talk to people, to read the streets. "A detective is only as good as his informants," and he hadn't cultivated many. Yet he kept watching her, even found himself lighting up a cigarette to help while away the time. A potential john approached her. To his surprise, a sudden wave of protectiveness for her enveloped him. He forgot all about food.

 

Omarosa sensed the man long before he made himself visible. His nervous gait betrayed him, his palms sweating so much he had to shove them in his pockets. From his approach, she calculated that she could cripple him six different ways.

  "How much?" he asked.

  Omarosa laughed both at his effrontery as well as his nerve. Were she a common whore, she would still demand someone who'd bathed at least once this week and who didn't share his clothes with lice.

  "How much for what?"

  "A debate about politics. What do you think? Say a half and half."

  Obviously her game must be off. Once stationed here, even the regular girls stayed away from her. Dealers, fiends, everyone left her alone. Either he was too high, too bold, or too stupid to live, but she was in a charitable mood.

  Her elbow jutted into his neck with enough force to render him unconscious before his body hit the ground. She followed through the balletic turn of her movement with a raised knee to his groin which lobbed him into the air. A roundhouse high snap kick sent him flying into the shadows of the parking lot.

  The lights of a squad car flared to life. Lee McCarrell pulled his car into the lot, his surveillance distracted by the street beef. Cigarette smoke issued from his window as it rolled down. Letting him see she was unarmed, she approached with a cautious confidence, and rested her forearms on the lip of the window.

  "So what are you, this week's offender, victim, or witness?" Lee asked.

  "No problem here, detective. Merely a girl defending her honor against the lecherous advance of someone mistaking her for a whore."

  "Guess that makes you the victim."

  "I'm no one's victim. My, such an awfully cynical attitude."

  "These are cynical times."

  "I know. No room for magic in anyone's soul." Omarosa shifted allowing a better view of her cleavage.

  "Magic?" Lee's eyes obliged her gesture.

  "Everyday magic. Like, say, a chance encounter between a man and a woman who hit it off immediately. That spark, that fortune, that synchronicity of crossed paths."

  "The magic," Lee repeated, his voice faraway. Entranced by her beauty. There was something different about this girl. Something enchanting. Intoxicating. The longer she lingered the more she seemed to fill up his mind. Already the hump who had his ass handed to him faded into the mists of distant memory. Lee's standard credo, how anything could happen at any moment on the streets, fell by the wayside, his guard dropping despite himself.

  "Exactly. I'm sure this isn't the worst thing you've ever seen."

  "Not the worst things I'd seen by half."

  Words tumbled out of his heart to this stranger as if they were long-time lovers. "This one time I was called to a scene where a new mother hadn't slept in three days. You could see it in her face, all drawn and gray, even the rings around her eyes had rings. She received no support from friends or family. I don't even know for sure if she had either. Too many people find themselves alone and when a baby comes along, they don't know what to do with this intrusion into their personal space. So she chopped up her baby and left the pile of limbs in the center of her bed. She just stood there, blood all over her as if someone else had come in and did it. She turned to me and said that she still wanted another baby. A chance to prove that she could be a good mother."

  "I guess we all want second chances." Omarosa met his gaze. Her intensity made his insides squirm.

  "So what are you doing out here if you aren't working the stroll?"

  "I'm merely an observer of life's little games. A people-watcher. And the Phoenix gives me plenty to watch."

  "Is that so? I always thought that we ought to go in, bust some heads, and send those assholes a message." Lee backed up, suddenly aware of her blackness, despite her hypnotic green eyes. "That's not racist: if someone's an asshole, I'm gonna treat them like an asshole, because assholishness knows no color. It's not my fault most everyone out here's an asshole."

  "Most." Omarosa smiled, a delicious curve to her lips. She had watched the detective and his partner staking out Dred's crew for a while now, but she hadn't guessed the gang mess had wormed its way so under his skin that he'd taken to working it on his own time. Or maybe… maybe his partner had gotten into his head. Omarosa was never one to pass up an opportunity. "Now the way I see it, you're a real man. I'm tired of all these wannabe hoodlums trying to play hard. Want to talk that 'whose dick is this?' mess out one side of their mouth and talk about how women ain't nothing but tricks and gold diggers out the other. Like there's any gold to be found in them trifling fools other than in they mouth.