King's Justice: The Knights of Breton Court, Volume 2 (17 page)

  
"Exactly. It's a whole other deal getting in on the business
side of things. You sure about it?"

  
Prez took another hit from the pipe. "Yeah, money. Let's
do this shit."

  
With Night out of the picture, the crew dissolved into
chaotic disarray, patches of crews working independently and
sometimes at odds with one another. Prez was only the mildly
ambitious sort. While he branched out with his ill-fated ESG
– Eggs, Sausage, and Grits – venture with Trevant, he didn't
feel comfortable striking out on his own. Security rested in
working under someone like Night and Green.
Or Red.

  
Red wandered back in from the bedroom, closing his cell
phone as he flopped back down. Prez offered him the pipe
again, but Red waved him off.

  
"Folks'll be by in a few." He took a tone of sudden
seriousness. "I give you my connect, it's my ass on the line. I
have to vouch for you."

  
"I'm straight. No need to talk to me like I'm some fish."

  
"School's in session now, boy. If we gonna do this, you
need to be able to handle your business. Never let the other
guy get up on you. Never trust anyone. Never do your own
product. Never do anything out of charity. Out here, in life,
it's all about business."

  
"Are there any always?" Prez leaned forward to appear
intent, but didn't know where to put his arms. He almost tot
tered over.

  
"Always be strapped." Red snapped open a baggy and
filled it about half an inch deep. "Typical customer, here's
what you give them."

  
"The baggy looks kinda pale."

  
"The more on the hook they are, the smaller the baggies
you give them."

  
"That's cold, man."

  
"That's business. It's all about that dollar, son."

 

  The dream memories churned in fits and spurts. First steps, twelfth steps, whatever step it was that put Prez on the path to this couch, trembling like an errant leaf in a fall breeze. Maybe the step came earlier, with his hollowed-out self. The hunger was pure, elemental, and he knew how to sate it. This he could control; fix the outside and the insides would take care of themselves. Stumbling through back alleys, searching for ground scores hoping that food, maybe a burger, might be found discarded but still edible. He missed the days when McDonald's had their Beanie Babies and whole meals went to waste in bags as patrons bought Happy Meals just for the toy prize.

  His head seemed too big for his gaunt frame, giving the illusion that his thin neck was unable to support its weight. His cheekbones stood out above washedout and cracked lips. Splotches dotted his skin. How much time had passed? Hours? Days? Weak and still shivering in bed, sleep eluded him. He clawed at his skin as if wanting to scrape it off. Nothing eased the suffering. It seemed cruel, a punishment too harsh for his crime. He was guilty of only wanting to feel better, of wanting to feel complete. Happy. Wanting the hurt to stop. Ashamed and terrified, King was the only person he could trust.

  "Let me out of here," Prez said to the shadowed form he glimpsed through tear-blurred, half-open eyes.

  "I can't do it, Prez. And you don't want me to."

  King daubed the perspiration sheen from the boy's forehead, a little too sternly, definitely lacking a mother's tender touch.

  Breathing through his open mouth, Prez's thrashes grew weaker. The smell of him filled the room, his sweat soaked through his shirt and sheets, a mildewed stink. Prez told himself over and over that he was going to leave all this behind him, all the thugging and gangsta posing. Even before that last deal went so wrong.

  
"What's up?" Prez turned from the television, a rerun of
some cop show on TNT. Naptown Red hunched over a table,
stacks of bills in front of him and a few scattered tester pack
ets. More than a couple he had sampled himself.

  
"We short. Nearly a G." The patches of his face seemed to
swirl, a Rorschach in varying shades of brown. He ran his
hand through his dry, straightened hair.

  
"What you mean?"

  
"You stupid, motherfucker? Fathead done shorted us. Try
ing to punk us out." Fathead Wallace was one of their new
distributors. Red was uncertain about putting him on, but
Prez vouched for him, saying they went back years, both hav
ing squat in the same places off and on.

  
"Let's go talk to him. I bet we can straighten things out."

  
"Talk? What did I tell you? 'Never let the other guy get up
on you.' Anyone who tries, we got to fuck up or else we the
ones who look weak."

  
"But there might be a simple mistake."

  
"You got a few hundred in your pockets you forgot to give
me?" Red slipped his Taurus into his dip.

  
"No."

  
"You got a few more ounces have gone unsold?"

  
"No." Yes. Actually, they got smoked up behind that old
burned-out church. Violating Red's other rule, "never do
your own product." But, as much as Fathead was his boy
and all, he wasn't about to admit to stealing from Red. Might
as well cut off his own hands.

  
"You up for fucking someone up or are you one of them
all-talk niggas?"

  
Prez never wanted to be thought of as weak. Not that he
wanted to be one of those hollow-eyed brothers, like Green or
Junie, folks so ate up by the streets they had nothing left inside.
He didn't need to be hard like that or have his name ring out
like that. He was no gangsta by any means, but he was no
punk neither. Played out as weak, he might as well not show
his face around as everyone would be seeking to get over on
him. So all the way over to Fathead's place, Prez talked about
how he was going to fuck up Fathead. Punched his own hand
in a pantomime of a beat-down. Made the noises of someone
taking a punch then pleading for them to stop. Talking all
kinds of shit about "naw nigga, you shouldn't have played us.
You earned this. You better let everyone know not to cross us."

  
Naptown Red listened patiently. He'd sparked up before
they left, getting his head right before going off on a mission.
Tooled up, his mind was definitely intent on getting either his
money, his product, or someone's ass.

  
"This the right place?" They stood in front of a white shot
gun house, which stood out on the block from the other more
Arts and Crafts era-inspired houses.

  
"Yeah."

  
Red tamped out a cigarette, lit it, and took a long pull.
Leaving the cigarette dangling from his lip, he stepped back
and kicked the door in.

  
Two brothers reclined on a couch, jumping to attention at
Red and Prez's entrance. A skinny white kid missing one eye,
struggled to find his sea legs. He knocked over an opened
pizza box with only a quarter of a pie left. A half-dozen
empty soldiers of Blatz toppled along the table, which Prez
remembered Fathead once calling "the Muskatel of beer."

  
"Which one of you motherfuckers is Fathead?" Red asked,
as if more than one of them was missing an eye. No one
spoke up. Red glanced back at Prez, then traced his eye line
to the skinny boy. Prez sheepishly turned away. Fathead
curled up his slip at the sting of betrayal. "You got the rest
of my money, bitch?"

  
"What money? We straight," Fathead said. Fine scars
framed his fake eye. He'd seen a movie where some dude kept
having different glass eyes, like one was a yellow smiley face.
Fathead wanted to draw a skull and crossbones on his. That
would be some tripped out shit.

  
"Naw, motherfucker, we far from straight. We about a
grand from straight."

  
"You better take that up with your boy," Fathead said, hands
raised and in plain sight. "Came over here, I told him the pack
age looked a little light. His eyes all fucked up, I knew he'd been
hitting it. I ain't tryin' to rip nobody off. I'm just out to earn.
And I can't earn if I burn my connect straight out the gate."

  
Red calculated the P/F, profits to fiending, ratio. Fathead
might have been up on pizza and cheap beer, maybe a blunt
or two, but that was it. Prez itched his forearm, eyes swim
ming in his head. In a whirl, Red grabbed the neck of one of
the bottles and smashed it against Prez's skull.

  
"Ho shit!" Fathead skittered up the back of his couch, not
taking his eyes from the scene.

  
Prez clutched his head and called out to the Lord, appar
ently now on a first-name basis with him. Naptown Red
snapped his knife to life, poised to carve out his missing
money from Prez's narrow behind when the sound of a high
grinding metal whine pierced the room.

  
A seam of light split the air. Red and Fathead pushed past
him, tumbling out the door. The poor fool, Prez, turned back
and received a claw across his face for his troubles. Blood. So
much blood. A small creature pulled its lips back to reveal
teeth like a shark's. It removed its cap to daub the stain of
blood left by Prez. That was the last image he remembered –
the row of sharpened teeth – before King found him.

 

  Prez knew all about the twelve-step programs. He tried them as a condition of getting food from churches. He hated the fact that churches always made him listen to their spiel before doing anything for him. They couldn't just give him a free meal, couldn't just take one look at him and see that he was in need. He always got stuck on that third step of the program. They always talked about a higher power, but prayer struck him as rather desperate. Crying out to an invisible friend who obviously didn't give two shits about him because if He were any kind of friend, He'd have never let him get as low as He did.

  The image of Fathead's "what the fuck?" grimace as if betrayed flashed in his head.

  "I don't know what to say. Even if I believe in Him," Prez said.

  "Then tell Him that. And what you want," King said.

  "God, I don't believe in you, but I need help. I can't keep going like this. I need help." Broken, wondering when he'd feel whole again, faith was the only thread left to carry him through. And hopefully not unravel the tapestry of his life. He didn't think he'd have the strength to fight through the difficult moments without the faith that things would get better.

  King nodded for him to continue.

  "Dad, please." And he didn't know if he were talking to God or his own father. "Please help me. Why won't you talk to me?"

 
 

 

 
The eastside of Indianapolis, a model of urban decay under the city's knowing eye, was left like a corpse, while people spoke of what a shame it was. With nothing for them to do, no jobs, where poor folks lived. Only a couple of places existed for kids to hang out. A Boys' Club down on 30th Street, but soon as a kid acted a fool, they kicked him out. No sit down, no nothing. Bam! If they had their way at school, soon as a kid bucked, they kicked him out. No sit down, no nothing. Gone! Kicked out of school. Kicked out of the Boys' Club. So with Momma at work and no daddy around, they were left to sit around and play video games all day, talk on the phone, get on the computer, or run out in the streets. Where Colvin could prey on them.

  Colvin radiated a bloodless calm as he stepped with the carriage of authority. Deep, hollow eyes in constant assessment, creating a mental checklist of who was doing what or rather who wasn't. Melle had become one of his top earners, the little man due to be promoted. A young hothead in a wife beater and baggy blue jean shorts, with the scarecrow build of a krumper. He had shaved off his wild, unchecked Afro because Five-O could identify him from blocks away. Noles was a slack-jawed plate of hot mess who only sprang to work when he knew someone in charge of his wallet was around. One of Colvin's white boys, with hair in a Caesar cut, a razor-thin goatee and a random growth of a beard only over his Adam's apple. He dressed like a redneck business executive. Otherwise, he did as little as possible while talking a big game about his exploits, usually taking credit for other people's work.