What Came Before He Shot Her

seemed to be. “Wha’s he doin, den?”

            Joel asked the Rasta.

            “Fuckin Arissa,” Cal said bluntly. “Jus’ about dat time of day, innit.”

            He pretended to look at a nonexistent watch on his wrist as he spoke, and then he added slyly, “I can’t ’xactly hear her howls of pleasure, though, so this’s all speculation. Could be his parts ain’t workin like they ought. But hey, what I tell you, a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.”

            Joel smiled at this. So did Calvin. Then he began to laugh, seeing in his own words a humour that only cannabis could create. He put his head on his knees to control his chuckling, and this gave Joel a better view of his head. What Joel saw was a bizarre pattern that had been shaved onto Cal’s skull: a crude striking snake’s head seen in profi le. By the look of the design, it was apparent that whoever had wielded the cutting shears had been an amateur at it. Joel had a fairly good idea who that person had been.

            He asked his question without thinking. “Why d’you hang wiv him, mon?”

            Cal lifted his head, neither chuckling nor smiling. He took another long hit of the spliff before he answered, although the act of toking up was in itself a form of reply. He said, “He need me. Who else goin to guard dis door, make sure he can do Arissa in peace wivout some blood blasting in and taking him out while he’s got his trousers down. Man’s got enemies, innit.”

            And so he did, although not one of them was an enemy without reason. They existed among the women the Blade had used and deserted and among the men who were more than eager to take over his patch. For the Blade ran a sweet operation: He had weed, bone, and powder for cash but also for goods or, better yet, as barter. Plenty of young men on the streets had been willing to risk themselves taking on this jewellery shop at the Blade’s command or that post office or the other corner grocery or some darkened house where the owners would be out on a Friday night . . . and all to get supplied with whatever it was that they used to get high. With this as his main line of business, there were any number of thugs who wanted in on the Blade’s action, no matter the risks that went with it. Even Joel had to admit that there was something enticing about inspiring fear in some, jealousy in others, loathing in most, and—if the truth be told—lust in girls eighteen and younger.

            Which explained—at least in part—what had happened to his own sister, who was the last female on earth whom Joel would have expected to get involved with someone like the Blade. But involved she clearly had been, a piece of information he’d gleaned the night of Toby’s birthday. He said to Calvin, “Guess you got to protect him, innit. Di’n’t do dat good when he came to see us, though.”

            Cal finished the spliff and pinched the end of it, carefully depositing the quarter inch of what remained into an old tobacco tin that he took from his pocket. He said, “I tol’ him I should go wiv him, but the man wa’n’t havin none of dat. He wanted Arissa seein the Blade being the Blade, y’unnerstan. Collectin what was his and makin your sister wish on her stars she wa’n’t alive.”

            “He doesn’t know Ness if he thought he’d make her wish dat,” Joel remarked.

            “Das right,” Cal said. “But it wa’n’t never ’bout him knowing her. The Blade too busy to know any slag. Least too busy for anyt’ing other dan a plunge-oh-ramma-damma wiv her, y’unnerstan.”

            Joel laughed at the term. Calvin grinned in response. The door to the block of flats opened.

            The Blade stood there. Calvin got quickly to his feet, a remarkable manoeuvre considering his condition. Joel didn’t move, although he wanted to take a quick step back in response to the look of hostility that played across the Blade’s sharp features. The man flicked a contemptuous glance at Joel, dismissed him like a bug, and went on to direct his attention to Cal.

            “What you doing?” he demanded.

            “I been—”

            “Shut up. You call dis watching? You call it guarding? And wha’ is dis shit?” With the tip of his cowboy boot, the Blade toed the pad on which Cal had been drawing. He looked at the picture. He looked back at Cal. “Mummy, Daddy, and the kids, Calvin? Das wha’ you got here?” His lips worked around a smile remarkable for the degree of menace it managed to convey. “Missing dem, mon? Wondering where dey are? Pondering why dey all jus’ disappear one day? Maybe it’s cos you a loser, Cal. Ever t’ink of dat?”

            Joel looked from the Blade to Calvin. Even at his young age, he was able to see that the Blade was itching to do damage somewhere, and he intuitively knew he needed to be out of this place. But he also knew that he couldn’t afford to look afraid.

            “I had an eye out, bred.” Calvin sounded patient. “Ain’t been no one in dis street past hour, I c’n tell you dat.”

            “Dat th’ case?” The Blade flicked a glance at Joel. “You call dis no one? Well, I guess it’s right, innit. Half-caste bastard wiv his half-caste sister. They pretty much no one, all right.” He gave his attention to Joel. “What d’you want, den? You got business round here? You bringing a message from dat slag you call sister?”

            Joel thought of the knife, the blood, and the stitches in Ness’s scalp. He also thought of who his sister once had been and who she was now. He felt an unaccountable sense of grief. It was this that made him say,

            “My sister ain’t no slag, mon,” and he heard Cal’s breath hiss in, like a warning from a snake.

            “Dat what you t’ink?” the Blade asked him, and he looked like a man setting up to make the most of an unexpected opportunity. “Want me to tell you the way she likes it, den? Going up the chute. Dat’s how she wants it. Fact is, dat’s the only  way she wants it, and she wants it all the time, every day in fac’. Got to give the slag real discipline, don’t I, to get her to take it any other way.”

            “Maybe dat’s the case,” Joel said agreeably, although he wasn’t at all sure he could speak past the tightness coming into his chest. “But maybe she knew dat was best for you. You know what I mean: th’ only way you could ackshully do it.”

            Cal said, “Hey, bred,” in a clear tone of warning, but Joel had ventured into this river too far. He had to reach the other side. Anything less and he’d be marked as a coward, which was the last conclusion he wished someone like the Blade to reach about him. He said, “She nice, like dat, Ness is. See you limp no matter how you try, Ness goin do summick to help you out. Anyways, taking it dat way—through the back like you say—she don’t have to look at your ugly mug. So it works out good for both of you.”

            The Blade said nothing in reply. Calvin’s breath went out in a whoosh. No one knew the Blade as Calvin Hancock did, so he was the one who knew exactly what the other man was capable of, pushed to the wall. He said, “You get on ’bout seein your mate on Six Ave, bred,” and he sounded quite different from the pleasantly high pothead who had been speaking to Joel prior to the Blade’s appearance on the scene.

            “Don’t t’ink you want to get into it here.”

            The Blade said, “Oh, dat’s beautiful, innit. Guarding me from dis? Dat what you’re doing? You one useless piece ’f shit, y’unnerstan?” He spat on the path and said to Joel, “Get out ’f my sight. Not worth th’ effort to sort. Not you and not your ugly cow sister.”

            Joel wanted to say more, despite the foolhardy nature of that desire. In the manner of a young cock ready to challenge his better, he wanted to take on the Blade. But he knew there was no way he could match the man, and even if he could have, he would have had to go through Cal Hancock to get to him. On the other hand, Joel knew he could not skulk off upon the Blade’s order to do so. So he waited a good thirty terrifying seconds of staring the Blade down, despite the furious rushing of blood in his ears and the equally furious churning in his gut. He waited until the Blade said, “Wha’? You deaf  or summick?” and then he worked up enough juice in the desert that was his mouth so that he, too, could spit on the path. Once he’d done that, he turned on his heel and forced himself to walk—not run—back to the pavement and from there down the street.

            He didn’t look back. He didn’t hurry either. He made himself saunter as if he were someone without a care. It wasn’t easy for him to do, on rubbery legs and with a chest so constricted he could barely get enough air to remain conscious. But he did it, and he gained the end of the street before he vomited into a pool of standing water in the gutter.

            Chapter

      12 The day of Ness Campbell’s appearance before the magistrate did not begin auspiciously, nor did it develop or end that way. Traffic thwarted her timely arrival at court, which proved to be only the beginning of her undoing. This undoing was advanced by her attitude towards the entire proceedings, which was not a good one and