Once A Warrior (Mustafa And Adem) (2 page)

Mustafa said to Prince Heem, "Anything you can do, give me a job. Help me out. I lost mine."

"Said I heard. Yeah, you know we got you. We can stake you a package. Pay us back in the long run."

Mustafa wanted to laugh. Tell the boy he wasn't a punk out of jail needing a gift. So he said, "Bahdoon don't sling."

That got Heem sniffing. Things smelled wrong now. "Alright, alright. I'm not disrespecting you here. Just not sure what else you want. Like, some sort of, like, payout?"

The brother across the table laughed. Didn't even try to hide it. Shaking his head and looking all over. Heem grinned a little like, sure, the old man's entitled. Cut him a check. Make him go away.

"Because I can see that. Tough times, I'll come right out and say it. You're the reason we're all here. We owe you. I respect that. How much you looking for? Couple grand a month?"

Mustafa shook his head. "That's nice and all, but it's not what I need."

Guy across from him was openly rolling around, laughing. "Gots to be fucking with us, man."

"You want to shut your clown up? He's getting on my nerves."

Brought on the stares. Brought on the guys with itchy trigger fingers. Reaching. Heem kept himself slack, not interested. "Let the man talk."

Mustafa noticed the one with the dreads stayed nice and cool the whole time. Even a bit amused. Good guy to have in a pinch. But this other one, shit, a hyena.

"Don't care who he is. Gonna kick his motherfucking ass, then—"

Heem lifted his hand like he was going to slap the guard. "Just shut up. The man said shut up. You're like a goddamned fool." Then to Mustafa. "Four grand a month. Final offer. I don't care if you built the house. You left it with the door wide open."

"What if I want back in?"

Heem sat forward, hands on the table. "I didn't say there was a vacancy. Put you on the waiting list, maybe. Give you that package I was talking about. Fuck, you think we forgot the rumors? You working with the police when your boy went missing? How do I know you ain't wearing a wire or some shit?"

Mustafa lit up. Showed his teeth. "You ask
me
about that? You serious?"

Heem shrugged. "I don't know you. You're, like, some myth or something. Like Paul Bunyan. But you don't look so big to me right now."

"I always thought the family would take me back. The prodigal son."

"The prod-ah what?"

"You know how it is. Come home after you're busted, momma cooks your favorite dinner and lets you sleep in your old room."

The Prince nodded. The Prince was digging the old man. Mustafa wanted him on the hook. Out in the rest of the condo, things were happening, falling into place. Things the Prince didn't even know about. Yet.

"Tell you what." Heem relaxed again, spread his wings and lolled his head against the top of the booth. "We can do this tomorrow. Tonight, there's a party. Don't want to ruin the party with business. But anything you want tonight, it's yours for free. Want to hook up one of these white girls?"

Mustafa gave him the hangdog look. "I look like I need a white girl?"

"Just saying."

"I heard about the ones from the motherland. Godly girls."

Heem looked over the top of his glasses, chin on his chest. "Shit, man. Why didn't you say so? You one of the real motherfuckers. You fought your way out of the shit in Africa, didn't you?"

"You've got me a girl? Never been touched by a man?"

"What if I do? Still expect
me
to pay
you
?"

Mustafa rested his elbows on the table. "I expect you to step off your throne. I expect you to give your crown back to the king. After all,
Prince
, you just a prince."

Heem's lip curled. He snapped his fingers and there were guns out. Oh yeah, they were out and inches from Mustafa's face and cocked and ready, Glocks and Sigs and the one at the door with a .44 like Dirty Harry, so shiny, Mustafa was sure it had never been fired, not even once.

That made him break character. It made him grin. It was exactly what he had hoped for.

And oh shit, the look on Heem's face when he realized...

*

A
few days before, Mustafa was making sweet, hard love to his wife in the middle of the afternoon and he didn't even care that Adem might return any minute and that the blinds were open and that anyone in the apartments across the way could have a free show. Idil was on her knees at the edge of the mattress, hands gripping the sheets hard, ass high and back arched, a growl rising in pitch, almost coming to climax, teasing Mustafa, stringing him along.

They'd had another fight earlier about him losing his job and not looking for another one yet. He had moped around the house, lashing out with his tongue, never his fists, but enough that his wife and son could feel the force of it. Adem up and left whenever the yelling got to him. Adem was part of the problem, having graduated from college but sounding more and more like a political activist than a young man ready to attend grad school to continue his study of Middle Eastern History.

But on this day, after his boy slammed the front door on his way out, with Mustafa and Idil at top volume, the anger radiating from their bodies, he pulled her in and kissed her. She slashed through his shirt with her nails, shredding it before lifting the remains over his head and throwing it across the room, knocking over the clock her sister had given them as a wedding gift.

Mustafa worshiped and despised his wife. They had been together since they were teenagers and refugees. She had never questioned his choice to start the gang. He needed her, but had been fighting to keep his distance, not let her know what was really going on with him. Not that afternoon, though. Behind her, his hips slapping her ass as loud as their yelling had been, Idil was not letting him off the hook easily. He held on and ached and longed for her to come so he could release the tension in his muscles. He was concentrating on the texture of her skin—smooth, satin—and the long straightened hair that hung over her head like a veil, when she called his name in a gasp and he felt her tense and that was that and my God I love this woman, I do I do I do,
the bitch.

Afterwards, together on the 600-thread-count Egyptian sheets bought with his Target discount—maroon like wine, her favorite color—the sweat rolled off, their legs tangled as she remained across the bed on her stomach and he propped on his pillows, he told her everything. About the promise he had made. And then told her, "I can lead the Killaz again. I want back in."

It didn't start another fight. Instead, she let a low, soulful laugh spill into the sheets. Turned her head to him. "Aren't you a bit old?"

"It's the only way."

She didn't say anymore for a while. Instead, she looked into his eyes, her just-fucked smile getting to him. She reached over and lightly scraped her fingernails on his thigh. Then, "It's a risk."

"The kids today, they take the ease of it all for granted. I can use that against them."

"What about the police?"

"Did you ever need to worry about that back then? Wasn't I always careful?"

She finally slid out of the tangle and pushed herself up to his chest to rest her head there. "This is too dangerous. We're not thinking hard enough. Some other way, Mustafa, my heart."

"Mine." He hugged her closer to him. "But there is no other way. I couldn't keep going eight hours a day and then spend more, every night, looking for her. It was killing me. It's why I had to cut loose from Target."

"I know."

"You know."

She lifted one sharp nail to his chin, pressed deep until it broke his skin. A bead of blood ran down her finger. "My blessing extends only so far. If you die over this, I will curse your soul, and it'll be
me
haunting
you
."

He took her bloody finger, slipped it into his mouth, closed his lips and sucked it clean. "I never doubted it."

*

P
rince Heem kept his eyes on Mustafa and told his guard in the T-shirt, "Let me out."

The guy started to scoot, but froze when Mustafa shook his head and laid his hand over the guard's arm. "No, you'll stay where you are."

"Why ain't you shot him yet?"

Near the door, the .44 looked heavier and heavier in the gatekeeper's grip. He finally had to two-hand it. Didn't even have the hammer cocked. He stood only a foot away from the TVs, one now showing a double-penetration scene, black-and-white-on-black, and the other replaying the death of Heem's virtual soldier in slow motion and silence. If the gatekeeper fired now, he would miss. Hard trigger pull, too much time to flinch, too much recoil.

Didn't matter, because the next thing that happened was a black man with a chest like a linebacker shoved an AR-15 against that man's throat. He dropped the .44 and went to his knees. Another couple of gentlemen came in behind him. Guy named Teeth from the Black Ice Boyz, and then one of Mustafa's Killaz from back in the day, Rafael, who had gotten out to join the Army, then fought in Afghanistan, stayed five tours, came back home after Mustafa had already stepped aside, and none of the new blood remembered who he was anyway.

The one with the assault rifle was just off the boat, Mustafa's cousin Dawit. Mustafa owed him big time but the man was still up to help out. That left EGX out in the apartment, making sure no one got wind of what was going down in the kitchen.

Look at them all, Mustafa thought. Black leather jackets and gloves, jeans and a T-shirt, Teeth in his North Face, middle of fucking August. Shit, like some sort of marauding Blaxploitation flick come to life. Scared these new kids shitless having real guns pointed at them by men who had killed real people and not got thrown in jail for it. Or in Rafael's case, even got his ass
paid
.

Except one. The nigga between Heem and Mustafa, all muscles and dreads and tank top. Hadn't said a word, barely moved. Now he brought up a Glock from under the table, swung it towards Teeth, and this was
not
what Mustafa needed. Hell no. Did not need the blood, the noise, the attention. And he didn't have much time. He whistled and held up a hand. Rafael reached for his back jeans pocket, pulled out a black plastic brick and tossed it over. End over end. Perfect timing. Mustafa snatched it out of the air, righted it, and shoved it into the gunman's shoulder. Stun gun. Fifty fucking thousand volts. He got stiff and Mustafa worried he still might jerk the trigger, but he dropped the gun on the table and Mustafa swiped it quick.

He let go. Nigga fell forward onto the table. Teeth was pissed, seething, "Shit, gonna point that shit at
me
? Fuck no, man, that ain't even right, man."

Mustafa finally had Prince Heem to himself. Said, "Now you and me are going to talk about what my Killaz have been up to lately, you dig?"

*

M
ustafa met EGX at the kitchen door and marched Heem through the party, leaving the others to hold down the kitchen. A classic on the speakers, "Humpty Dance", hitting the part where he goes,
Humpin', funkin', jumpin'
, and the kids laughing because "this shit they parents be listening to." They knew to move it when Prince Heem walked by, stone-faced with three stone-faced old dudes surrounding him. Some serious business, none of it theirs. Down the hall, past bedroom number one, the door opening to let out a couple while another slipped inside. Grunts and moans. Mustafa took a peek and saw all sorts of legs and feet and hips and tits writhing, African, Caucasian, Asian, Hispanic, a literal fucking UN in there. Mustafa wondered how many were underage, bareback, not telling their conquests about the herpes, gonorrhea, HIV. Not worth spoiling their fun.

Another bedroom, door closed, a line of amorous kids sweating pheromones. At the end of the hall, opposite the bathroom—a drunk girl taking a squat on the toilet while a guy had a chubby chick bent over the sink, and another guy was pissing into the shower—was a closed bedroom door. No line outside. Just another of Heem's Killaz, texting while guarding. A young one, had to be fifteen if even that.

He looked up, then back at the phone screen. "Someone in there."

Heem, over his shoulder to Mustafa. "You sure you want—"

"Let's see her."

Heem shrugged. "You heard the man."

Teen Guard gave him a squint. "Who he?"

Another shrug. "Nobody. Don't worry about it."

EGX shoulder-bumped Heem's back. "Go on, tell him."

The Prince's cheeks were so tight, Mustafa thought a blade might bounce right off if he tried to cut him. But he sniffed a couple times, then said, "He's Bahdoon. He's in charge now."

The guard kept texting, eyes down. "Uh huh."

Mustafa pushed past the others, grabbed the guard round the back of his neck, said, "Go enjoy the party. Find you a bitch or something."

Kid looked at Heem, then Mustafa, then shrugged and texted his ass down the hall.

Mustafa stepped out of the way, nodded at Heem. "You first."

The Prince's eyes, Jesus, like some
Wrath of Khan
shit. Epic. But he did it. He grabbed the handle and turned and pushed and they all tromped right in on this teenage Somali girl giving some fat piece of shit a blowjob. Fat fuck hadn't even taken off his hat. Leaning back on the bed, mattress all up in the air, pants at his ankles, while the naked girl knelt between his legs, bobbing up and down.

The Somali girl's eyes went wide and she went "No no no no" and tried to cover herself. Reached over for her
direh
, bright pink and green, and her
hijab
, bundled them against her nakedness and backed into a corner, slid to the floor.

The fat piece of shit, still on his elbows, was all, "What the fuck, Heem? Goddamn!" Swiped his hat off and covered his cock with it. "That ain't right."

Heem chinned him. "Go on, now, get out of here. You'll get a refund."

Took him a while to rock upright on the bed and then bend over a good two inches, all he could move, to lift his jeans. He didn't bother belting up, just held them with his fist and waddled out, cursing under his breath. Then all eyes turned to the girl. She'd managed to wrap the
hijab
around her head and had spread out the
direh
across the rest of her body, huddled small beneath it.