King's Justice: The Knights of Breton Court, Volume 2 (26 page)

  Rellik met Wayne's eyes. Dred's did not meet King's.

  "Five-O ain't ever off the clock. When you know a cop to not be a cop?" Colvin asked.

  "He's here because I can work with him."

  "You saying you trust him?" Rellik pointed a halfchewed leg bone at King.

  "I didn't say all that." King stopped short of vouching for him. That was a weight he didn't need. "He's still police. And they crawl all up in your Kool Aid whenever there's a body. How does business go then?"

  "So what are you proposing? A co-op? You want to get your hands dirty now?" Dred asked.

  "No. I'm here strictly to represent the community. Me, Pastor Winburn, Cantrell, we the community."

  It all came down to power. Rellik had power. Dred had power. Colvin had power. They gripped people's hearts and imagination. And they held the boogeyman fright, the monster in the closet or under the bed. Their stranglehold over the neighborhood propelled him.

  "And what? We the parasites you trying to get rid of?" Dred continued.

  
Yes.
King wiped his mouth with his napkin. "You aren't going anywhere. So we need to find a way to coexist."

  "Or what? You come at us with your golden gat?" Colvin asked. "Yeah, I've heard about you, too."

  "No. We mediate. Me, Pastor Winburn, and Cantrell. An impartial board to hear disputes."

  "So all power runs through you?" Dred asked.

  "You all have the power. Life and death in your hands. Every day you grind brings life and death into the community. I want us to dream bigger. To take better care of our community. And I think this is the first step."

 

Mulysa stretched his short, stocky body out of the uncomfortable Victorian-era chair. There were plenty of snacks and pop to be had, but nothing approaching the smells emanating from the other room. The pastor and that gay-ass detective talked their talk about community and trying to "connect" with them. That might work on some of the young uns. The Boars and Rok actually listened with something close to attention. Tristan stood off to the side, acting like she wasn't paying attention, but she took it all in. That was her way. He noticed that played-out fool Naptown Red sidled towards him as if he was slick.

  "You Mulysa. Colvin's boy," Red said. There was an ugliness to his face, his dry skin accentuating the splotches along his face. His brittle-straight hair was in desperate need of a wash.

  "Yeah, nukka," Mulysa said. "But I ain't no one's boy."

  "I didn't say you his bitch… though he do treat you like one."

  "You need to get out of my face or parlay or no parlay…"

  Red put his hands up in an "OK, OK" gesture of backing off. "I'm just saying, I know talent when I see it. And know how to appreciate it."

  Mulysa didn't say anything, but didn't turn and leave either.

  "You know what you are to Colvin, don't you? Him and his half-white self. The blood of our oppression's thick in his veins. You know what you are to him?"

  "I'm his nukka."

  "You need to say I right. Nigger." Red's blood shot gaze held Mulysa's thickly vesseled eyes. His words carried an intensity, a truth, like the japes of a court jester. A weight Mulysa couldn't ignore.

  "Nigga."

  "Nig. Ger. Say it like it means something. Like it has the sting of history behind it."

  "Nigger."

  "Louder."

  "Nigger!"

  Tristan turned to him, her hand at the ready, a reflex itchy to wield her blades though she had left them in the car. Pastor Winburn and Cantrell raised up to see if there was any trouble. Red waved them off.

  "Yeah, motherfucker. You just another nigger up in this piece. Ain't no American dream for you. Ain't no two point five kids, a car, a house, or a dog called Muffy. You a nigger."

  "A nigger." Mulysa knew. He always knew.

  "A nigger who can't find no straight work. Who can't pay his bills. Who didn't finish school. No-account, no-hope-having nigger. Don't you forget that shit. When you ready to be appreciated, you come look me up."

 

"So what do you want from us?" Rellik pushed his plate from him, unable to eat another bite. They all had their part to play and Rellik couldn't help but think that his part was about up. This was King's game now.

  "I just want you to think on it. Get up with me later."

  "The way I see it, this here arrangement don't benefit me no how." Colvin said without defiance or bravado, but with a matter-of-fact plainness. "You said it yourself: ICU the strongest. We got our own connect. We got our own muscle. We don't need y'all. No disrespect. I don't want to step on your business, but we just going to go ahead and do our own thing."

  Colvin pushed away from the table. King also rose, out of respect, not threat. Merle opened the door for him.

  "Mulysa, come on. We out," Colvin barked.

  "Sit, Mulysa, sit. Good dog," Naptown Red stagewhispered.

  Tristan and Mulysa attended him, trailed by Broyn. Mulysa caught Red's eye one last time. Tristan slipped one of Pastor Winburn's cards into her pocket.

  "Anyone else?" King hid his disappointment.

  "I'm not committing to nothing, but Colvin raises a point. What's in it for us?" Rellik asked.

  "Peace."

  "So what, we carve up the city like we Churchill, Truman, and Stalin?" Dred asked. The implication was dirtier than King wanted to imagine. He was giving assent to their trade. Conceding the war for the sake of security. Dred's eyes seemed to dare him to cross a line.

  "You already have your territories, Dred. You work that out in the spirit of cooperation. We will mediate disputes and hold the line."

  "And if one of us goes rogue?" Rellik stared at Colvin's vacated seat.

  "If they cross the line, we go after them," King said.

  "So the crown rests on you after all," Dred said.

  "All I want is peace."

  "King's peace."

  Merle summoned the fey folk to clear the dishes and bring the desserts. The room fell to silence, creating an intimacy no one wanted, and worse, most feared. Nothing broke the stilled conversation except for the sound of Wayne eating.

  "So what is this? Warning or wake?" Merle whispered.

  "Both," King said. "If we play things right, we may manage to get enough time to clean up this mess."

 
 

 

 
The triple homicide hadn't grown cold, but Lee and Cantrell were out of active leads and had worked other cases in the meantime. They'd put down a body dump at Eagle Creek, originally ruled a suicide until a contact of Lee's steered them toward a boyfriend who was screwing around with his gun and accidentally shot his girlfriend. They put down a case of a Hispanic male shot at the Eagle Terrace apartments. Turned out he was beefing with another dude over the attentions of a prostitute. A tip from Lee's confidential informant put them on the hunt for one Rondell Cheldric, aka Mulysa. Cute, Cantrell thought, "Asylum" spelled backwards. They were obviously dealing with a clever knucklehead.

  Cantrell and Lee weren't friends. They weren't even partners, not in any real sense. They simply shared a vehicle. Lee was like the person Cantrell got stuck with on a long flight, the chatty kind who asked too many questions, didn't especially care about his answers, mostly loving the sound of their own voice. Ironically, it was Lee who preferred to ride alone, whereas Cantrell reveled in the idea of a partner. He longed for the company and conversation… just not with Lee.

  "I just get tired of it is all." Lee continued the thread of conversation from his usual quilt of gripes. He'd roll his list of slights around in his head until they built up enough steam to sputter out his mouth like a leaky bowel. It was never too difficult to follow him.

  "What? Black folks not showing your peckerwood ass enough love?" Cantrell studied the passing scenery. He avoided looking at Lee whenever possible. Lee's kind of ugly from the inside out, hurt him like staring into the sun.

  "Ain't no love coming from–"

  "Watch yourself now."

  "… the hood. It's respect I want."

  "What every man wants." Cantrell knew he'd regret asking the question which threatened to pass his lips, but the sheer weight of the misery Lee carried with him today had him slumped over, his thin face twisted into an expression passing for pensive. "What's the matter?"

  "Just thinking about my girl."

  "Please don't tell me about the two of you having sex. I don't even want the tangential possibility of the hint of the image of you naked."

  "I think we're breaking up." The gentle green from the dashboard lights and the monitor of their computer cast a melancholy pallor on Lee's face.

  Cantrell remained silent in commiseration. Though he had little interest in hearing a peckerwood go all emo on him, he turned his head back to the street to give Lee the space to continue.

  "Yeah. Think she's bored with me. She been distracted lately."

  "What she do?" A tentative halt hitched Cantrell's voice. He still feared the conversational thought was going to go straight into their sex life.

  "Don't know."

  "How could you not know?" Cantrell turned to him. His instinct stirred within him, suddenly making him very aware of his partner. "It's our job to know."

  "You know women. One great mystery after another. And if you're lucky, you get a memo letting you in. So, it's not come up yet."

  "How could…?" Again, the willfulness of Lee's ignorance troubled him. Still, the answer to that question probably involved them and positions Lee would take too much delight in detailing. "Sounds like your relationships may have other significant problems if you don't even know what she does."

  "I know. But I been afraid to know."

  "Why?"

  "I think she might be a pross. Or worse."

  Cantrell's mouth started to form a question, but it collapsed on his lips. Every scenario he imagined suddenly involved Lee handing him a flaming bag of shit for him to clean up. "Dating" a suspected prostitute was bad enough. The "or worse" part had him especially concerned. Either way, Cantrell was at ground zero, too much at risk of being collateral damage. When the shit exploded, if he didn't know more about what was going on, there'd be no way to determine the blast radius. The idea of a partner became less and less appealing. "What do you mean by 'or worse'?"

  "She tells me things."

  Intuition was a police detective's Holy Spirit. It guided and formed them. Helped them make leaps of faith. And warned them as long as their conscience was not too seared to hear its gentle whisper. And right now, its soft voice spoke to him with a disconcerting clarity. "Please don't tell me she's your CI."

  "Not registered," Lee said.

  "Oh fuck." Cantrell pictured a bag being lit and left on his porch.

  "I run all her info through another CI and put his name on the warrants."

  "Why. The Fuck. Are you telling me this?" Cantrell wanted to smack the shit out of Lee. This cracka-ass fuckup held his career in his peckerwood palms and he better not be enjoying the jackpot he was putting him in.

  "I just got a feeling is all."

  "About what? No point in holding back on me now."

  "I don't know. I just think she's more of a player in all of this shit than she let on."

  "This bust a set-up?" Intuition. It spoke to all police. A gift, even to the worst of them.

  And while Cantrell believed himself to be in tune to the whispers of intuition, he far from trusted the voices whispering in his erstwhile partner's head. Lee struck him as the type who spent hours practicing looking hard in the mirror.

  "I don't think so. But I've had the feeling for a long time that she was pulling my strings for her own agenda. And the sex…"

  "…was the price of my services." Lee let the words hang in the air to settle in, smug about his services rendered. Oblivious to the overriding fact that he may have been played.

  "But the intel has been good."

  "Spot on. Perfect."

  "Too perfect?" Cantrell's eyebrows arched in suspicion.

  Lee studied his hands and mumbled. "Yeah. Maybe."

  "So 'or worse'… she some sort of player? Dealer?"

  "Don't know."

  "Thief?"

  "Don't know."

  "Hitter."

  "Don't know."

  "What do you know?"

  "She's a wild ride. Enough to make a man turn a blind eye to whatever else she's doing."

  Lee's face caught the strobe of the cruiser lights as they stepped out of the car. With great restraint, he managed to not make a wisecrack. It was time to put his game face on. He affected a pose of authority without a worry in the world.

 

Naptown Red put it on the vine that he wanted to get up with Garlan, Rellik's number two. The man proved more difficult to connect with than anticipated. He had a way of just showing up, his crews suddenly much more productive as they never knew when he'd show up or how long he'd been among them. Listening. Invisible. He was a ghost.

Not that Red was much better.

  He roamed the streets, each night finding a new spot to lay his head. By his metric, his life was his own. He lived as he wanted, where he wanted, answerable to no one and no schedule except his own. He was the god of his own world.

  And he needed to go to the library.

  The Indianapolis Public Library reminded him of a southside hilljack who decided to build onto his house. The original structure was a simple brick mason box matching many of the buildings and memorials built downtown at the time. A couple dozen steps led up to its entrance. In the last couple years, a metallic and glass state-of-the-art structure was added, five shiny stories of computers, cafés, and escalators. The bank of computers smelled of body funk and light smoke. The air circulation always turned up to high as many homeless folks killed afternoons there. Some days there was a four-hour wait to get on a computer. Most days Red went up there to check his e-mail and cruise the internet. The security guards eyed him as he passed by. As they did Garlan.