the love of one who both knew and loved him intimately: himself. Turning to the camera hidden in the vase which sat on his mantle, he'd enjoy watching the playback of this session later. And pleasure himself to it.
'Colvin!' A deep, dry voice called from the other room. 'Colvin, man, we got a problem. A serious problem.'
'I'm busy, Mulysa. Can't it wait?' Colvin cried out in mid-stroke.
'Nah, nukka, it's that deep.'
Colvin's was a long-lived people, and he'd spent so much time in the world of man, he'd learned their posture of adulthood, drank on their rage, and took on a man's role of conquest and bravado. He withdrew from the woman whose name he'd never know and wiped himself on her tossed-aside panties. She drew the sheets up about her in an 'I'll be waiting for you' pose, but he'd already forgotten her as he dressed. Colvin put his gun into his pants. He never went anywhere without being strapped.
His wave cap tied in back, Mulysa's brown eyes contained amber flecks. A scar underlined his right eye, acquired in prison. He had a broad, flat nose, the nose his mother hated because it was his father's nose. His complexion was what his grandmother would have described as sooty and his breath was the dragon. He wore defeat in the thick of his neck and roll of his shoulders. His faded blue jeans hung from his thighs such that he had to spread his legs whenever he stood still. He stank of sweat and what his boys called 'African funk' behind his back.
'What's up?' Colvin asked.
'Tell him, nukka.' Mulysa was a genial rogue, a selfdestructive fuck-up, but he had wit, charm, and most importantly, he produced. A lot was forgiven when you did the work.
Broyn, on the other hand, was like an accountant. Quiet, dependable, and not for the life. Still, he had his uses. Some situations called for a square motherfucker who wouldn't draw attention to himself. Harried and haggard, Broyn began to speak with the wariness of a child recounting how a vase got broken in front of a temper- prone parent. How smooth the run went, along with the first exchange. And how on his way to the second meet, he was jacked. No money, no product. At each salient point in the story, he paused ever so slightly to measure the temperature of Mulysa, of Colvin, and of his place in the room. The messenger rarely fared well in such situations.
'What did she look like?' Colvin asked.
'Like one of them high fashion models with tight braids. Light-skinned. And her eyes. Beautiful, but there was something scary behind them.' Broyn stopped before he added, 'like yours.'
Colvin let out a scream of pure rage. 'Omarosa!'
'Baby, what's the matter?' The woman, sheet half-drawn up around her naked body, stood in the doorway.
'You better close my door like you got some fuckin' sense.'
'When-'
Colvin whirred, drawing his gun in the same movement, and let three bullets fly. Two dead center of her heart and one in her head. The body of the woman whose name he'd never know crumpled to the ground. A stain clouded Broyn's pants.
'Who?' Mulysa asked, unfazed, knowing this would be a mess he'd have to clean up later.
'Omarosa. Only she would dare such a brazen…'
'Who she?'
'A fucking two-bit street thief. And my sister.' Colvin turned to Broyn. 'The question remains, what do I do with you?'
Broyn's eyes couldn't move from the body of the dead woman. 'Colvin, it wasn't my fault,' he said more to the corpse than his employer.
'Shh.' Colvin pressed a finger to his lips. 'Mulysa, could you bring one of your bitches out to play?'
Mulysa squatted low, face to face with Broyn, the full assault of his hot fetid breath on him. A walking amalgamation of self-loathing out to revenge himself on a world he blamed for his place in life and his own inadequacies, Mulysa's hands danced with the precision of a master loomer. He produced a long Japanese tanto knife and placed the flat of the blade beneath Broyn's chin to raise his chin to meet his eyes. 'My bitch.'
'What's her name?' Colvin said with the deliberation of a set-up man's cadence.
'You don't name a bitch.' Mulysa licked the flat of the dagger, cleaning the salt of Broyn's nervous sweat from the blade.
'She looks like she could carve through a body.'
'Like a hot roll from O'Charley's.'
'Those are some good rolls. Think you could collect a head for me?'
Mulysa pressed the tip of the blade to Broyn's neck. The brief contact produced a teardrop of blood. 'My bitches work for me. Here good?'
Broyn's breathing hitched. His face flushed with heat. He hated the weakness of having tears squeezed from his eyes.
'Not his,' Colvin said after a moment of deliberation. 'Hers. I still have use for Mr DeForest.'
Mulysa flashed an expression of mild disappointment, a 'maybe next time' grin, and turned his back on Broyn.
Broyn focused on Colvin as he desperately tried to ignore the wet sounds of rent flesh. The sticking of blade against bone. The terrible hacking rasp. Mulysa carried her by her hair with not so much as an afterthought. With blood trailing along the floor, tendrils of flesh dangled from her neck stump.
'We're missing something.' Colvin pulled a cable from behind his television setup. 'This'll have to do. Desperate times and all.'
He fastened the head of the woman to Broyn. Her eyes had rolled upwards in their sockets, upturned to his.
'There we go. You head on home now,' Colvin finished.
'Head.' Mulysa chuckled and then wiped his nose with his sleeve, his blade still covered in gore.
'But…' Broyn protested.
'Before I change my mind about whose neck Mulysa's bitch should play with next.'
Broyn scrambled out the room without further protest.
Colvin exhaled, the display of bravado somehow left him winded. Mulysa slumped in a chair next to him, already debating if it would be easier to just set the place on fire or clean up the mess they made.
'Damn her,' Colvin said almost to himself.
'That was a lot of product.'
'Don't you think I knew that? Things were tight on the streets as it were. This could create quite the drought.'
'Judging from what the man said, Treize got theirs.'
'Shit.' Colvin thought about his dwindling customer base. There was no such thing as customer loyalty, so the fiends would go to whoever had the fresh product. Didn't matter if the dealing hands were black or Latino. And once word got out… Shit, shit, shit. 'Omarosa has no use for product. Her only interest is money. Get word out that we're interested in relieving her of her ill-gotten gain.'
'So she gets to earn off us twice?' Mulysa asked.
'No. I'll deal with my sister. Put some caps on her ass.'
'Yeah, nukka.' Mulysa carelessly licked his bitch again. 'That's what I'm talking about.'
CHAPTER FIVE
Dark and as stiflingly close as the inside of a coffin, Lady G's choking coughs woke her. Her eyes fluttered open, adjusting to the dark. Something thickened the air, unseen in the night-time shadows. The darkness seemed to move. Her heartbeat throbbed in her throat. Her still-waking mind slowly processed the smell. Smoke. Something was on fire.
Scrambling out of bed, her foot caught in the tangles of her blankets and spilled her onto the floor. She ran to
