lot, and spread a lot of the same 'power to the people' bullshit. However, Luther still stepped lightly — nuff respect due and all that. Luther's rueful eyes followed the back of a man crossing the street. 'Who was that?'
'One of Green's people. You been making a lot of noise with them. Here you go, brother.' Antwan handed him a flyer. 'Check us out when you get tired of having the man's boot on your neck. Can you dig it?'
'Right on. How's your boy?'
Antwan X raised his gloved hand. 'Live righteous.'
Luther returned the clenched fist and disappeared behind the black-tinted windows of the Crown Room. The darkened back room of the Crown Room was Luther's home away from home. A lone light hovered over the pool table and created an optical illusion. Until their faces or hands leaned into its protective glow, they were shadows in the darkness, voices from the spirit world for all any other knew. It was the way he preferred to conduct business. CashMoney chalked his cue stick, cocky but already high. Merle, already full of drink, shifted his eyes from the scene to the barkeep. Luther knew his days running the streets were coming to a soon end if this were the class of consigliere left to him.
'Damn.' Luther's ball pulled up short.
A mild smirk on his face, CashMoney always took Luther's money on the table but never talked crazy about it out of respect. A cigarette dangled from his lip, the last inch of which was ash waiting to drop off. How CashMoney managed to smoke so much of his cigarette yet keep his ashes from falling remained a mystery. Everyone had their own gift. CashMoney leaned in for his shot. 'Couple o' cats in here looking for you.'
'You know them?'
'Nah.'
'What'd they look like?'
'They had heat on them.'
'Green's boys. Green like Spring. Green like dollars. Dollar bills. Cash money.' Merle folded his arms and laid his head down next to his drink. He drooled into his craggily auburn beard. A black raincoat draped about him like a cloak and his huge bald spot reflected like a chrome cap.
'So what you think?' Luther asked CashMoney.
'Maybe sit him down for a parlay.'
'Parlez. It's French,' Merle interjected.
'Why you even let him in here?' CashMoney hated the crazy-ass white boy, yet Luther listened to him more than any other member of his crew. 'He smells like piss.'
'That's cause I had to pee. And my gentlemen's gentleman is shy. My drawers are like his… home court advantage.'
Luther stumbled across Merle during one of his Thanksgiving turkey giveaways. Every so often, Luther gave back to the neighborhood he called home. It bought him a measure of goodwill — positive PR never hurt — but it was also his responsibility. Part of the code he lived by. Hundreds of hands reached up to the back of the truck — anxious, desperate, and greedy — then a ragamuffin of a white dude hops in to help hand out the frozen birds.
'They won't fly, you know. Even if you drop them from a helicopter.'
'Get the fuck out of here, old man. We got this.'
'Green's penumbra falls even on the Pendragon. And a squirrel's always got to get his nut.'
CashMoney was ready to lay a beat down on him then and there, but Luther stayed his hand. In some way he couldn't explain, he was drawn to the homeless man. Like they were meant to be together, Merle always having advised him. Luther suspected the man knew more than he let on, the mystical gleam in the man's eye dancing with delight in its secrets.
Plus, Merle made him laugh.
'So what you think, Merle?'
'When you put the toast in the toaster who pops up? Jeeeeeeeeesus.' CashMoney slammed his cue stick into the table, his patience nearing its end. Merle didn't acknowledge his outburst. 'I think you can have a truce if you play things right. Too much noise on the streets brings the man down on all of us.' Merle turned to CashMoney. 'Makes it hard for Sir Rupert to find his nuts.'
'Why you listen to this Hee Haw-lookin' motherfucka? He better not be still talking about his-'
'Sir Rupert's his squirrel,' Luther insisted.
'That's not any better.'
'Go on.'
'That's all.' Merle leaned out of the ruinous light. 'You want the streets calm, call for the parlez. That's the best play.'
Luther, too, stepped out of the light. The image of the vaguely Asian-looking black lady crept into his mind, unbidden, like a spell of enchantment. Passion stirred in his loins at the idea of her, pushing aside stray thoughts of Anyay and King. 'His girl's awful fine.'
'Who? Morgana?' CashMoney asked.
'Morgana.' Luther repeated the name in little more than a whisper, savored the sound of it, caught up in the spell of her.
'Best to not think too hard on her,' Merle said.
'She's always had a thing for you,' CashMoney said.
'For real?'
'It's what I heard.'
'What about Anyay?' Merle sat up, lucid eyes fraught with concern.
'What about her? I'm not saying I'm trying to lay the broad, just rap with her for a minute. See where her head's at. Get in Green's head a bit. Where she stay?'
Merle sighed with resignation. 'You have the Pendragon spirit, true, true. Betrayed by yourself or those closest to you, such is your curse. Father, son. Son, father. The path is unclear.'
'There he go with that crazy talk again,' CashMoney said.
'I'll tell you this plain enough: if you get with her, there will be no truce.'
'You tell me where she stay and won't be no need for a truce. I'll book,' Luther said.
'She stay on Sussex Avenue, over by the Meadows Apartments.' Merle cocked his ear as if listening to a voice on an unfelt breeze. 'Hmm, that might not have been in my best interest.'
'I dunno. Maybe I will sit down for a parlay.'
'Not the right man,' Merle muttered. 'Not the right man, indeed. He falls before his own nature. Perchance the son.' Merle staggered into the light then back into the shadows before departing the room entirely. 'Coming, Sir Rupert.'
The lure of the city was that there was always something new to conquer. One last score, then he was out, Luther swore. His weakness was that he had a way of making things fall apart, of never being strong enough to hold things together. The spade King Midas, but whose touch turned everything to shit.
CashMoney, his spirits raised with the departure of the drunken would-be soothsayer, exchanged skin with Luther then chalked up his cue stick. 'My man. Always finding yourself in situations, usually involving some tail. You got your hands full there, boy.'
'What's up on the score?' Luther had been planning the bank heist for a while. True, it was a neighborhood bank, but money was money.
'They pick up the money once a week.'
'Cash money?'
'Like my name.'
'Guards?'
'Four. Two in front, two in back. Three revolvers, one 12-gauge.' CashMoney studied him. 'Think you can take them?'
'I still got my Caliburns.' Their weight grew heavy in his shoulder holsters.
'Welcome to the revolution,' CashMoney said.
'Save the militant bullshit. After the parlay and the score, I'm out.'
Luther had little more than stepped into Morgana's pad before their lips met. Women weren't hard to get. His rep was whispered on the lips of those in the know and he flashed just enough for folks to know he had money. Events careened at him. Half the time he was the sole conductor of his life. The other half he felt caught up in
