'You remember me? I was part of Rellik's crew.' Garlan sidled up to him with a practiced hardness. He lightly fingered his ring.
'Want something to drink? I think I got some scotch.' His voice little more than a croak. Baylon's mouth opened and closed. His breath reeked of a swamp bed.
'This shit's getting deep.'
'What you mean?'
'You can't feel it? Like a noose closing in on us.'
'Bout time.'
Garlan glanced at him, made a mental note correcting whatever assumption he had made about the man, and started to move toward his spot on the couch.
'It's like a convention of unfuckables in here.' Nine pushed past them. She took the unoccupied chair off to the side of the group, a regal pose to her bearing.
Naptown Red had the gift of assessing threats. He could take the temperature of a room with a glance and know who the true players were and who were the busters. Dred called the shots cause he was the man with a plan and the resources. Not because anyone especially feared him. There was an insecurity to him that Red knew he could exploit to roll him if need be. Garlan was straight-up soft. How he became an enforcer was further testimony to Dred's weakness. Dred didn't want anyone he deemed too great a threat at the table. Mulysa was buck. Even the new boys, Melle and Noles, he insulated himself from through Garlan. Baylon was spent meat, a used-up husk of a soldier. He was fierce in his day though. Which left the sister. Nine. She was a potential problem.
'Let me holler at you for a minute, baby.'
'How you gonna try and push up on me? Your chest looks like Treebeard mated with a sad manatee.' Nine's skin was the color of scorched oak, her face both passionate and cruel, her eyes vaguely Asian. She spread her finely manicured fingers as a stop sign. Her nails glinted like talons decorated for a kill.
'How'd you earn a place at the table? I've never heard of you.'
'Oh the breadth and depth of what you've never heard of. You never needed to hear of me. I play the game at a whole different level. The fact that you've heard of me now means that you are now at a new level. Me, I've always been here. Right under your nose.'
'I don't trust you. I get the feeling I'm supposed to. Some weak-ass glamour?'
'What do you want?' Nine arched an eyebrow, the only giveaway that he said something which surprised her.
'Just want to know who I'm dealing with.'
' You don't. I deal with Dred, not his lapdogs.'
'Where's Mulysa?' Naptown Red called out, already angling to take his seat. Naptown Red was faux-rage, wearing anger like a fashion accessory, more motivated by power and opportunity. Keeping his head above water exhausted him, yet hope sprang eternal with the latest scheme, the constant grind to line his pockets with Benjamins. His chest puffed in a slow waddle as if the meeting revolved around him.
'Got a court date,' Dred said.
'You post on Mulysa?' Garlan asked.
'Had to. For one, we got to show loyalty to the crew. For two, we don't need to make no enemy out of one of our own.' Dred was bored. The power was his, yet he was still somewhat dissatisfied. He always needed a mountain to climb, had to have a next objective, a next level. When in doubt, he built a mountain. Alexander may have wept when he realized he'd conquered the world, Dred only realized that his world was too small. Of the remains, any who showed any game was put on. Naptown Red. Mulysa. Garlan. Nine. Baylon was still around, but Garlan was the new number one. Having Baylon around was a grim reminder of the past and what it took to step up.
'We could use him.' A coy smile crossed Nine's mouth. 'Specially if we gearing up for war.'
'What makes you say we gearing up for war?'
'Whispers.'
Dred turned to Garlan. Garlan oversaw a lot of the pee wees and wannabes. All those ten to eighteen year- old knuckleheads had to be put to the test to see if they had heart. It was more Mulysa's side of the street, but Garlan had to learn to walk it sooner or later. He might as well step up if he were testing others to see if they were ready. 'How them boys work out?'
'We gonna promote little dude. Not sold on the white boy yet. They both down for whatever, though. Straight-up hoodiculous.' Garlan grew anxious and down, his head all turned around as he thought about stuff he wasn't ready to think about or deal with.
'He from our set. And where we from, we take care of our own.'
Dred shifted in his seat, taking in the room. He had moved to his aunt's house when he was nine. His aunt already had three kids of her own: a boy, a girl, and a toddler. The house was crammed, but she and her husband — the father of the toddler — took him in. Dred slept on the bottom of a bunk bed set with his cousin, foot to head. His female cousin got the top bunk to herself.
Every so often, he'd get a phone call from Morgana.
'Mom, when are you coming home? I miss you.' His mother paused. He winced regret, knowing he'd been caught in a lie.
'You're a liar. But you go through the motions well. You're probably already fooling your aunt.' Her voice sounded like pinpricks jammed into the meaty part of an infant's thigh, delighting in the pain she inflicted. It wasn't a memory as much as a recalled sensation. Remembrances of pain past.
'I want to come home, Mom.'
Dred found himself looking around the room as if his mother's voice made him uncertain of his own reality. She always had that effect on him. 'Who's there with you?'
'My cousins.'
'Yeah. How old is she now? Eleven? Twelve?'
'Twelve.'
'Yeah. She probably is already wearing a bra. You sneak peeks at your cousin while she's getting ready for bed? You think about her at night while lying next to her brother? You probably don't know what to do with yourself. Dick getting all hard, her brother jammed up next to you. All these feelings hitting you at once.'
'Mom…'
'You're weak. Pathetic. You let things happen to you. You are life's perpetual plaything. Always the victim.'
'But…'
'Let me speak to your auntie. The sound of your voice is making me ill. To think that something so weak came out of me.'
He showed no weakness now. The Latinos would know the height of his strength and cruelty. And no one would think twice about flexing his way. To dare think on it, he'd take out their momma, sister, or daughter. He'd left no such weakness in his life. From there he would move forward, thinking large, none of the pussy-ass dreams of these shortsighted fools. He took on the Mexicans head-on in a bid to expand his network to go national. The play was simple. Most of the crews were weak, decimated by being put on charges. Most of the rest, they hollered at. The ones that gave him any beef, he put Mulysa on. Or Melle and Noles. Those two were bloodthirsty. He'd send his young'uns into the military. Maybe provide scholarships to send them to school. That would bolster his public image as a community leader — fuck King, study your opponent, learn his moves, do them better — plus he'd own lawyers, doctors, maybe even a few police along the way. Yeah, fuck King. Dred knew him better than he knew himself; what he was going to do before he did it. All Dred had to do was wait for that moment. Or let the situation provide.
'How's our spot at the Phoenix?' Dred asked.
'Sending four birds of dope down there,' Garlan said.
'Black is a more pressing matter. That refried bean eatin' motherfucker needs to get got.'
'That's what I been saying,' Naptown Red interjected. He hated to go too long without hearing his own voice.
'We barely up and running and you want to take on the Mexicans?' Garlan knew better than to press a
