'Is that what we are now?'
'Depends, do you still have that thing for heads?' Merle asked.
'I see you haven't tired of your word games.'
'Chop, chop, fizz, fizz. Oh what a relief it is.'
'He's returned, hasn't he?' Green said, still not turning to meet Merle.
'He's been here a while.'
'It's really him?'
'Slowly finding himself. Here, there be dragons, or so I hear.' Merle ran his finger along the edges of the jutting sconces as if performing a white glove inspection. 'How's the old lady?'
'In seclusion. Well guarded. What do you want?'
'A name. What's in a name? Bercilak. Bredbeddle. Bernlak. I guess it depends on who you ask.'
'I won't ask again.' Green remained rooted to his spot, unflinching, yet his gaze followed Merle.
'Really? Third time's a charm.'
His gray-flecked red sideburns straggled out from beneath the aluminum foil helmet he'd crafted. The voices of the dead or else gone were getting harder to sift through. His body aged one way, his spirit the other, he thought, though he couldn't remember which aged which way. 'Damn it, Mab. Can't you be quiet for a moment?'
'I see Dred is not the only one haunted by echoes of his mother.'
'You can be reached,' Merle said.
'And you can be killed.'
'A year and a day. A year and a day. The challenge comes full circle.'
'Bah.'
'A year and a day. Nothing is evergreen. Do what you always do.'
In a thought, the flesh of Green's hand stretched and tore, raking the shape of a shorn branch, with one side beveled to form a close approximation of a blade. He swung the slicing hand in an arc directed at Merle's neck, but the mage had already vanished into the night, abandoning the elemental. Which was just as well. He'd grown restless and still had an errand to run.
• • •
Inside the Phoenix Apartments, the woman had a name. A mother of three whose baby daddy walked out when the pressures of taking care of a family proved too hard to shoulder. She worked two jobs to make ends meet, refusing to go on welfare. Not so much due to pride as much as never again wanting to be dependent on anyone — a lesson she wanted to pass on to her children.
She let her sister live with them in the Phoenix Apartments, paid half the rent, and bought most of the groceries. In trade, her sister watched the kids after school and read to them before they went to bed. Though honest and hard-working, she wasn't a saint. On weekends she and her sister weaved each other's hair and they got their party on; she deserved to let off steam and have a life. Her body held up fairly well after three kids. Sure, her breasts sagged more than she would have liked and she had a pudginess to her belly that spilled over her too- tight, low-cut jeans; but she had thick thighs and knew how to carry herself in a way to accentuate her assets. The woman had a life.
None of which mattered to Green.
The woman, while out at a party, stumbled across Dollar putting Prez on in the life, overseeing his initiation. He had drawn the joker from the deck of cards and was meant to take out a random mark. His shot went wide of his intended target and had the misfortune to strike Conant Walker through the Walker family's window. The woman had been staggering down the sidewalk when she witnessed the shooting. When Dollar and Prez broke out, she was sure she hadn't been spotted. As the days passed, what she had seen ground on her conscience. She was careful, only telling her sister about the possibility of her going to the police. She was positive she had only told her. Fairly positive anyway.
None of which mattered to Green.
'Snitching is a lifestyle choice.' Green circled the woman who was tied to one of her kitchen chairs. Her home was modest and clean. Poor didn't have to mean dirty, she had always instructed her children. The floors were swept regularly, the countertops wiped down and the house picked up. She was in the middle of mopping the kitchen when Green kicked in her front door, leading Dollar and Prez, as he, too, had a mess to clean up. Dollar and Prez brandished guns, directing the kids to sit against the wall. Green forced her to sit in the chair as they used zip strips to bind her hands behind her. Her sister was out for the evening. 'Usually a choice to shorten one's lifestyle.'
'I'm not going to tell anyone, I swear.'
'That we're all for damn sure. What we have here is an opportunity for an object lesson.'
His chinchilla coat hung from his broad shoulders like the mane of a lion, Green reached into the folds of his burnt orange suit jacket. The woman flinched, the correct impulse, though he withdrew only a tiny box. The children were a chorus of stifled cries and hitching breaths.
'Open it.' Green placed it in her trembling hands. Complying, she found three brand-new razor blades. 'Chew them.'
The woman's eyes flared open in disbelief. Green stood, fixing his impassive gaze on her. The box shook in her hands.
'I can't.'
'No, you won't. A distinct, though subtle, difference. You simply lack the proper motivation. Prez, shoot one of the children.'
'No!' the woman screamed.
Prez glanced over at him with questioning eyes. The night he shot Conant Walker, his shot hadn't gone wide on accident. While many thought him a stone-cold killer, one stare into Green's terrible eyes… he knew that Green knew different. Prez was in, but he still had to prove himself to Green. The children huddled closer together. The youngest girl burst into fresh tears.
'I didn't stutter, nigga. Shoot one of them,' Green reiterated.
'No, wait. Please don't hurt my babies.'
'Do what you have to do.'
The woman closed her eyes and opened her mouth. Green, dark priest of the streets, placed the blades like a communion wafer on the flat of her tongue. She closed her mouth gingerly around them. Hot tears trailed down her face. Her eyes pleaded with Green for this gesture to suffice, that she'd learned her lesson and her place. She swallowed involuntarily, the blades shifted in her mouth, and she let loose a muffled whimper.
'I said chew. Don't make me tell you again.'
She lowered then clamped her jaw. With each action the blade sliced through her tongue, sharp knives through the tenderest of veal. She coughed up a mouthful of blood to the raised wails of her children. A blade slashed through her cheek.
'That's enough.'
The words echoed from down a long tunnel the way the woman heard them. Still, carefully as she could muster, she let the blades fall from her mouth.
'Good girl.' Green knelt down, his coat draped about him like James Brown preparing to be walked off stage. He met her eye-to-eye but spoke loud enough for the children to hear. 'You even think about talking to po-po and there is a price to be paid. Gentlemen, can you wrap up this little lesson?'
Prez watched as Dollar stepped to the woman and fired once into her face. Blood mixed with brain matter splattered her clean kitchen walls and her blood pooled on her freshly mopped floors. Dollar took out his penis and peed on her, nodding to Prez to join him. Prez started to turn to Green, but opted to avoid the gaze that bled into an eternity of nights. Instead, he pissed on the woman.
With that, Green led the men out of the apartment. Before closing the door Green whispered to the children: 'Tell everyone what you saw here. Everyone except the police.'
CHAPTER FIVE
