You ever let anyone borrow your car, Mr Pellam?'
'Sometimes.'
'Ever rent it out?'
'Sometimes.'
'That happen here?'
'It was stole. So I don't know who had it.'
'So you don't know who had it.'
'Nope.'
'Why didn't you report it immediately?'
'Didn't notice it was gone.'
'Notice?' Cantrell noticed the careful parsing of Garlan's words. Too careful, too well thought out.
'I was at my girl's place. She picked me up, we made a long weekend of it. When I came back, my shits was gone.'
'I'll need her contact information. She going to back up your story?'
'She'll back it up to China, you know what I'm saying?'
'What you do for a living?'
'Odd jobs.'
'Anyway, that little girl, Lyonessa Perez.' Cantrell produced her school picture from his folder, blown up to an 8x11 and laid out three autopsy pictures all in a row like he was dealing a game of black jack. Garlan took one picture into his hands. As if catching himself, he tossed it back at Cantrell.
'He was lying. You can tell from the way he kept staring at her picture. Then watch him when I pull out the autopsy pics. The pain on his face.'
'Someone did this to her,' said Cantrell.
'It's a cold world.'
'What kind of man do you think it takes to do something like that?'
'Don't know.'
'A monster?'
'Yeah.'
'You know any monsters, Mr Pellam?'
'No.'
'You know Lonzo Perez? Lyonessa's older brother. Some people know him as Black.'
'Don't know a Black.'
'What about Dred?'
'Who?'
'Dred. Runs product through your hood.
Your boss.'
'Don't know the name.'
'So you don't know about any beefs between them?'
'I don't know nothing about nothing.'
'I'm just saying, I need people to come forward and identify some folks. If you had anything to do with it, any knowledge at all, it's best to get in front of it right now. It'll play better for you later.'
'I swear, officer. Right hand to the Jesus I pray to, I didn't have nothing to do with no murder. I just needed to tell you that to your face so that you'd leave my people alone.'
This fool couldn't pick Jesus, whatever Jesus he prays to, out of a line-up.
'I appreciate you coming in, Mr Pellam.'
'I'm free to go?'
'Yeah. You don't know nothing about nothing. So I'll have to go back to the peoples of that little girl and let them know that no one is willing to step up and help put down the monsters that did this.' Cantrell put the autopsy picture back in front of Garlan of their baby. He then handed him a card with his cell phone number on the back.
'I'm out.'
'He came in because I was pressing hard for him, sure. Maybe also to see what evidence we had. But, I don't know. He don't read like a bad kid. He still has a heart. You can see how bothered he was by what happened to Lyonessa. He's haunted for sure. He definitely knows something about nothing. Since I don't have much else to go on, I may just dig into the known associates of Mr Garlan Pellam.'
The Phoenix Apartments used to be known as The Meadows. An east side neighborhood once booming. A forty-acre development with fifty-six buildings, shops, and offices, and the Meadows Shopping Center. But by the 1980s, no one wanted any part of the Meadows, not when there were newer suburbs being developed north and west of the city for folks to run to. Leaving the corners free for Melle and The Boars.
Sitting on the front stoop, Melle — sometimes called Melle Mel, sometimes called 'that crazy motherfucker that runs with Noles' — took a razor to his head. Most days he might run down to Hot Stylez barber shop, but today he was on the clock putting in work and had one of the young'uns to look out for. Melle used to sport a wild Afro, sometimes pulled back, most times not. Eight inches of mess, a neon sign easily spotted and picked out by the police, no matter how thick a crowd he ran with. He finally said 'fuck it' and cut the shit off. The razor scraped his head. He didn't trust too many niggas with a razor to his skin, so he did it himself.
The Boars — sometimes called Bo Little, though only by his momma these days, sometimes called 'that nigga who likes to hit people', though mostly by his football team mates at Northwest High School — perched like a gargoyle on the stoop steps. He, too, kept a bald head, though with a full beard shaved low. He spat idly while petting his dog. Its tail wagged wildly and its muscular hindquarters flexed as she licked his hand.
'What you feeding that bitch?' Melle asked.
'Steak, Gravy Train, and Hennessy. My dog's straight-up gangsta.'
At the sound of Melle's voice, the dog hopped up on him, half-humping on his leg.
'Get that bitch off of me. Your dog's gay.'
'It's not about sex. It's about dominance.'
'Whatever. All I know is that if I want you as my bitch, you'd best roll the fuck over.'
Leaning against the dented, paint-chipped entrance doors, the brick alcove sheltered them from the wind and rain. Empty grocery bags blew by in the wind like fall leaves.
'How's the count?' Melle asked with an expression of grudging interest.
'Down for the third straight week.'
'Don't try to play me.'
'I'm serious. With the stuff between Dred and Black jumping off, them casual customers been staying away. Afraid to catch a bullet. Or worse. Listen to some of them old heads, they talk about no one's got any respect for the game. About how children used to be off limits, but now you got fools out here wildin' like…'
'The shelf life of the stuff we got? Like we done stepped on it a dozen times. Weak as shit. When's the re-up coming through?'
'Due in next week ain't it?' The Boar's tone registered genuine confusion.
'Yeah.'
'Seen Omarosa?'
'Nah. You jump like a motherfucker. What you been into got you so nervous?'
'Mind your own. We got enough on our plates.'
'Way I hears,' Black began, gun trained on the two of them, 'some folks pile up their plate like a fat man at a buffet. Eyes bigger than their stomachs.'
To listen to the counselors at school, Black was pretty easy to nail down. Directionless, fatherless, loveless. In search of a place to belong. Filling the holes that home couldn't fill, yet which still left a gnawing emptiness inside. Nothing he couldn't learn on the street, except how to have a dad. But he didn't want to give up the control. Before them, he was a misfit, out of place, one of society's embarrassments. No identity, no culture, no history, no sense of who he was. Except profoundly lost. He hated himself and took it out on other people. That was how the counselors saw him, but they were wrong. He was Black. He was fury. He simply… was. Revenge was mandatory. All slights met with angry, swift, retaliation, but an attack to his family? That was a matter of death.
