Mulysa lifted him from his feet. Cantrell punched him in his kidneys. Mulysa twisted and put his shoulder into the landing, taking the air out of Lee. By the time they were on him, Mulysa had Lee on the ground, punching him in the face. In the ensuing scuffle, Octavia caught a stray elbow in her eye. Even with Cantrell on one arm and Octavia on the other, Mulysa threw his body at Lee. He pushed off several detectives until the three of them pinned him down. Octavia was on the radio, calling for patrolmen. She put her knee into Mulysa's back as Cantrell fitted the cuffs onto his wrists. Lee staggered to his feet, only managed a half-hearted stomp on the thug before Cantrell pulled him up.
The door was ajar when they arrived at Rhianna's place. Many times Percy had begged her to move. He offered for her to stay with him where he could protect her. But Rhianna had her situation set up. Between being an emancipated teen, with Section 8 housing, and food stamps, she got by with a little hooking on the side. Percy had already checked in with his brothers and made sure they'd eaten and done their homework before walking Rhianna home. As much as he wanted to be with King, his first duty was to his family. So when the door wasn't completely shut, he put up his beefy arm barring Rhianna from passing. He pushed the door open and flicked on the light.
The place had been tossed. Quickly and not thorough, the thieves snatched anything of easy reach and quick resale value. He walked slowly through the house though he knew they were long gone. It was a terrible thing when your own home no longer felt safe. Stopping at each doorway, he prayed for God's protection on the house — for the reality of His presence to be made real for him. For a moment, guilt flashed in him. It wasn't but a few months ago he himself had broken into this apartment in search of anything of value in the name of his crack-fiend mother. He had taken a ring, but returned it later.
'It's gone,' Rhianna said.
'What?'
'There was a cup, it had been in my family for years. I kept all sorts of valuables in it.'
A ring. Percy knew, because that was where he returned it.
'This lady I used to stay with. Queen. She took me in and was sweet to me. She wanted me to have it. Told me I was its guardian.'
'I'll make it right,' Percy said. 'I'll call the police. And I'll find the cup.' And the ring.
'Oh.' Rhianna held her belly.
'What is it?'
'I think my water just broke.'
Rhianna retreated to her room. The pains grew worse now as she rubbed the swell of her belly. Her Tshirt wouldn't stay pulled down. Her blue jeans now two sizes too small, her belly bulged over her white belt. She waddled to the window. Kids played on the dilapidated equipment, too young to know that the swings shouldn't be so ragged or the monkey bars so rusted. The graffiti was a part of their world. All they knew was the color of childhood, and innocence was preserved even here for a time. Rhianna fell onto the edge of the bed. She set the radio to Hot 96.3 for some hip hop and turned it up. She didn't get that boy, but if she was going to cry, she didn't want Percy to hear her.
He honored her request to leave her alone. Your honor's more important than my comfort, Percy thought. But he called for an ambulance.
The fear came in waves. Not fear of the birth pains, those she'd handled before. The fear was the renewed fear of bringing another child into the world. The fear didn't come the first time. All she focused on then was her baby. It never seemed real and even now she felt like she played at parenthood. Visiting her baby when the mood hit her. This time around, she was really scared. Scared because things seemed more real this time. Part of her had really attached herself to the child, had committed to doing it right this time. Maybe it was the shame of having a baby to love her and then abandoning it when things got inconvenient. Maybe when confronted with the depth of her selfishness, she wanted to do things differently. Maybe she was just growing up.
She would have to find a way to provide for her child. Food. Clothes. Make a real home for it. Courage sprouted up like a tenacious weed, and she dared to dream. Maybe Outreach Inc. could help her get some food stamps and maybe get her first child back. Perhaps she could get her own place, a real place away from the robbing, drugging and killing. Some place safe. Some place where they could be a real family.
Another wave of contractions caused her to close her eyes. A low moan escaped her lips. She prayed that God would water her courage, allow it to take root and grow. Give her the strength to cling to the hope of a better life.
'Percy, get in here!'
Percy trundled through the door. 'The ambulance is on the way.'
'Just hold my hand.'
With walls the color of coughed-up phlegm, the interrogation room — affectionately known as The Box by the detectives — was smaller a room than one might imagine. Manacled to the table because of his carrying on during his arrest, Mulysa rested his head on the metal table. Cantrell flipped open the case file one more time. The bodies at the Phoenix Apartments had been dropped by shots though the medical examiner was at a loss to give him a caliber or make of gun. For all he knew, someone threw rocks at them really hard. Knifings were almost always personal and rarely involved business, though some crews employed knifemen. Yet Mulysa's demeanor betrayed no feelings, nothing could reach his heart. In the young homicide detective's experience, it signaled that Mulysa was guilty as fuck. Now it was a matter of figuring out of what.
'He been Mirandized?' Octavia double-checked as she stared at Rondell Cheldric through the observation window that opened into the interrogation room. Mulysa nuzzled his head along his arm, sleeping the sleep of the just.
'Yeah, declined representation,' Cantrell said, nose still buried in the file.
'As many times as he been through the system? He should know better.'
'He knows. And he knows we know,' Lee nearly spat with contempt. 'He thinks that really proves that he hasn't done anything.'
'How do you want to go at him?' Cantrell turned to his partner.
Lee smiled.
The impassive-faced detectives entered the room and Cantrell took a seat across from him. Between him and the door, not needing to voice aloud the reality that the only way Mulysa was to see the other side of the door was through him. Mulysa was no virgin to the system. The man rubbed sleep from his eyes, not acknowledging Cantrell's presence.
Typically, Cantrell's approach in the box was to be ebullient and respectful, eventually garnering their confidence. Cantrell grew up in the neighborhood, always went with the 'I can relate' approach despite the fact he was now po-po, the enemy, as relatable as a two-headed alien. But he ran the same streets, he shoplifted from the same shops, ate fried catfish from the same joints, and haunted the same clubs, like PickA-Disease as they called Picadilly's back in the day. None of the social niceties would be met with courtesy or appreciated, so a small-talk approach was wasted on Mulysa.
'What does it say about a people when none of the social pleasantries are observed?' Cantrell asked.
'What?' Mulysa grunted.
'Nothing. A rhetorical question.'
'What?'
Cantrell leaned toward this would-be hardass, this brute, this self-proclaimed menace to society, who didn't retreat from the invasion of space. Quite the opposite, as he was comfortable in the close quarters, even matching the detective's advance. Mulysa's rank breath, decayed bits of pork trapped between teeth, sprayed his face.
'It is hot in here,' Mulysa complained. 'Why's the white boy got to be behind me?'
White boy. Lee's face grew hot at the epithet since it was more insult than accurate description. It wasn't like being called 'nigger', which would have been automatic go time were the roles reversed. But the sting of derision was there, enough for his jaw to tighten. Lee took more than the occasional hard elbow on the basketball courts over at Northwest High School coming up. He understood the testing behind the comment and the court jostling. He was expected to take it and considering the white to non-white ratio of the streets and the school, he did. But he didn't like it.
'He make you uncomfortable?' Cantrell asked.
'Just don't like people behind me is all,' Mulysa said.
'Remind you of when you got sent up?'
