'Business, si, amigo. Lots of business.'
'So, what you got for me?' Pedro asked.
'Hey, hey, that depends on what you got for us,' Baby Fat answered cagily as the heads of the other two continued to swivel from one of Pedro's men to the other.
Pedro grinned. 'For you I got the best shit ever. Come, I show you.'
He started to turn but stopped, as the front-door guard stumbled into the room. Blood was running down the front of the guard's tie-dyed T-shirt. Someone had slit his throat. The guard collapsed on the floor. Behind him stood a muscular black man sporting a wild Afro and holding a very large gun. The preppies' eyes went wide, and Clyde dove for the AK.
'Nah, I don't think so,' the black man said, squeezing off two rounds. By the time Clyde's dead body hit the floor, the room was filled with armed and dangerous-looking men. The man who'd murdered Clyde lowered his weapon. Two of his associates moved cautiously down the hall toward the back room.
'You must be Pedro,' he said calmly. Pedro did not answer. 'Soon you're gonna be ex-Pedro.' He chuckled. As Pedro's brain raced, trying to figure out a way to stay alive, he heard several shots and a scream from the direction of the back room. The leader grinned.
'I think my boys found your stash,' he told Pedro. Then he looked at the white boys, paying attention to them for the first time. They looked terrified. Their hands were stretched high above their heads as if this were a western and the stagecoach robbers had just told them to grab some sky.
'What have we got here?' He looked over his shoulder at a man with an eye-catching scar that traced a ragged path from cheek to jaw. 'Abdul, what you call those nice young boys who sing all pretty at the high school?'
'Glee club.'
'Yeah, glee club.' He turned back to the boys. 'You all in a glee club?'
He shifted his attention back to Pedro. 'Did I fuck up, Pedro? Word I had was that you're selling dope where you ain't supposed to, stealin' my customers, but I apologize if I messed up here. Was you all getting ready to sing 'Old Black Joe'?'
Pedro didn't answer.
'Yeah, that's what I thought. You motherfuckers ain't a glee club.' He pointed his gun at Pedro. 'I think you're a dope dealer who's dealin' dope in my territory.' He shifted the gun muzzle so it pointed at the college boys. 'And you're customers giving this spic motherfucker my money. Which means, you all got to die.'
'Please, sir,' the kid with the horn-rimmed glasses stuttered. 'Can't you let us go? We won't tell anyone. I swear.'
The leader looked as if he was considering the proposal.
'You swear, huh?'
'Yes, sir. We didn't know this was your territory. We can buy our dope from you. We have plenty of money.'
The black man grinned and nodded. 'That sounds reasonable.' He turned his head. 'That sound reasonable to you, Abdul?'
'They do look like upstanding white boys,' Abdul answered.
'You are upstanding, ain't you?' the leader asked.
'Yes, sir,' said the kid with the glasses, nodding his head vigorously. 'We all have very good grades.'
'That right? Well then, Abdul, I think we can take their word that they won't tell the police that we blew away a house full of people and stole their money, don't you?'
'Definitely,' Abdul said, flashing an evil smile at the boys.
'You will promise, won't you? Scout's honor?'
His light tone disappeared as he slowly raised the muzzle of his gun so it was pointing at the gold emblem that was sown on the blazer directly over the quaking boy's heart.
'I have money,' the kid pleaded. 'Lots of money.'
As he reached behind him toward his wallet pocket, a wet stain spread across the front of the kid's chinos and a yellow puddle formed on the floor at his feet. The gang leader stared, then started to laugh. The eyes of the black invaders focused on the skinny kid's pee-stained crotch.
'You see that? He pissed himself.'
They were all laughing when the kid whipped out the pistol concealed beneath his blazer and started blasting. The gangsters froze, then tried to react as the Light Heavy and Baby Fat pumped shots into them. Glass shattered, and chunks of the wall flew in all directions. Pedro dove for the AK-47. A shot blew out plaster where he'd been standing. He grabbed the gun, rolled behind a couch, and came up shooting as two men rushed out of the back room. The automatic sprayed shots across their chests, and they crumpled to the floor.
'Stop,' the Light Heavy shouted, pressing the hot muzzle of his gun against Pedro's temple. 'Put it down, Pedro. Be cool. I just want to be sure I don't get shot in the confusion.'
Pedro weighed his chances. The gun screwed tighter into his skull, twisting the skin. He dropped his weapon.
'Okay,' the Light Heavy said as he stepped back. Pedro looked around. Everyone was dead except him, the three schoolboys, and the leader of the black gang, who was gut-shot and rolling back and forth on the floor.
'Man, that was something,' the kid with the horn-rimmed glasses said in an awed whisper.
