An old man in a windbreaker stared. Some ruddy-cheeked tourist got out her phone and started dialing a number, presumably the cops. None of it mattered to Deuce. He went about his business. He was always going about his business.
I didn’t ask questions. I knew we’d be tracking down the cousin, but I had no idea the extraction would look anything like this. I imagined a pretty healthy ass-whooping, and I was all right with that.
The look in Deuce’s eyes, though. That actually did scare me. Because of that, I kept my mouth shut.
Reg didn’t. He talked the whole ride out to…wherever we were headed. He tried to convince Deuce he was being set up. He tried to convince Deuce that betraying the family was actually helping it.
Somehow.
Deuce wasn’t buying it, though. I knew this because he didn’t respond to any of it.
Deuce struck him. Not hard. The first one from the big guy usually wasn’t. He wanted you to be able to talk to him. He gave you the full force of his fist, and and you might as well be unconscious. Sometimes that happened, too, though that was not his intention.
“Darron,” he said, and another fist snapped his face to one side.
He spat. Teeth and blood dribbled onto the ground.
“I gave you a chance,” he said, “and you sold us out.”
“Man, I didn’t want any of this,” Reginald said. “You think I wanted our entire family slayed? That’s some bullshit, man.”
Deuce hit him again. His face was little more than meat, at this point.
“They were going to kill you all. Every one of you. Do you realize how hard it was to convince them not to execute you when they found out it was you laying down the law?”
Deuce paused. Reg reddened the ground with more of his blood.
“They wanted to line you all up and put one in the backs of your heads. I told them I could serve you two up and save everybody else. Tell me you wouldn’t take that deal, and I’ll suck your dick, man. I swear ‘fore God I wasn’t trying to get everybody killed.”
“And I bet that saved you, too, didn’t it?”
“That’s irrelevant, man. Unc, man, he wasn’t supposed to be there. He was supposed to go with everybody to the graveyard. It was supposed to be y’all, man. It was supposed to be y’all.”
Deuce raised the pistol, pressed the barrel against the soft flesh of his cousin’s temple.
I smelled piss, looked down. A dark stain spread across the crotch of his jeans.
“Deuce,” I said. “Do what you want, but I don’t think we should do this.”
“He played us,” Deuce said. “Played us so he could get out scot free. You don’t think he deserves reprisal for that?”
“I think we all have each other, and that’s it,” I said. “If you kill him, we don’t have anybody.”
“I know when somebody’s wearing a jersey of a different color. We let him go, and we’re throwing into double coverage.”
“If we kill him, we’re no better than the Reapers,” I said.
“Yes, we are,” Deuce responded. “We’ve done what we did because we had to. We did it out of necessity.”
I said, “This is the exact opposite of what you said. You want to keep the good times rolling, lower that gun and let Reg walk out of here. He dies on his own, that’s fine. He’ll probably wander into a knot of rattlesnakes, but then that’s on him. We’re looking for vengeance, but he’s family. We’re not killers. We’re righteous servants of revenge, but, man, this won’t take you anywhere but to Hell. I promise you.”
He was contending with the shit swimming around inside him. I saw it in his eyes. The force was trying to convince him to down his cousin. If he pulled the trigger, I would have to kill him myself.
“Deuce,” I implored, “let it go. Think of the end goal. Think of your brother. Think of whatever it takes.”
He doubled over, making a low-grade grunting sound. He shook his head.
Reg backed away. I shot him a look, and he stopped. I held him in place with my gaze while I bargained with his cousin.
“Deuce,” I continued, “let it go. Close your eyes and imagine yourself as the one making these decisions. Don’t give it the power to move you. You have to move it.”
He was shaking his head. Over and over. Over and over. Over and over. An action figure with a broken switch.
I never broke contact with Reg, whose entire face seemed to quiver under the weight of his realization. He understood then that he was in actual, real danger.
What he should have done was shut his fucking mouth. He should have stood completely and utterly still and allowed me to talk to Deuce.
But that wouldn’t have been Reginald.
What he did instead was step up to the plate and swing for the fences.
He opened his fucking mouth, and he said, “That’s what they want, Deuce.”
There was a pause.
“Who?” Deuce replied from his kneeling position.
“Reg.” I tried to intervene, but Reg wasn’t having any of that. He’d been acknowledged. He had been given his opening, and he wouldn’t waste an opportunity to speak his mind.
“You know. White folks. The man, Deuce. All that shit.”
Deuce stood back up, aimed directly at Reg.
“The fuck, Reg?”
“Whoawhoawhoa—”
I wondered vaguely if I could stop a bullet once it was ejected from the chamber. I had done it once, and it had saved me from human demon, Limba Fitz.
A quick one-two punch of sounds followed. Deuce firing his weapon, and the bullet ricocheting off something loud and metallic.
Reg dropped. Reg landed hard. I reached for the gun barrel, burned my hand.
I didn’t know if I still had any juice left from my time as a spirit whisperer, but I hoped so. Deuce’s hand was turned slightly, but he was also clenching his teeth, so perhaps the combination of our powers spared Reg’s life.
Reg rolled sideways and looked up at both of us. Eyes big as the spinners on his rims.
“Y’all two are fucking nuts,” he managed.
Reg scrambled to his feet. He backed away. He kept his distance.
Probably a good thing, I figured.
And Deuce was aiming at him again, that look in his eyes. That look that told me he was no longer Deuce but the thing which had taken him over, like some alien parasite.
“Deuce,” I said, taking a step closer, “he survived. You missed. Give the poor bastard a mulligan.”
I was no man for seeing the future, but Reg’s brains splashing against the backdrop flashed across the news scrawl of my mind.
Deuce ignored me. He rested the gun between Reg’s eyes.
Reg, meanwhile, soaked through with sweat. His whole body beaded up with the stuff , the smell of it wafting off him so strong, I could smell smoke and liquor dripping off him.
“Deuce,” I said, trying one more time. “He’s not the enemy. He’s an idiot, but he’s not the enemy. He did what he thought was best, but he was wrong. Let him lick his wounds elsewhere.”
Deuce, struggling with the force dividing him, lowered the pistol. His hand was shaking with the force of fighting off his unnatural inclinations. He practically glowed.
Deuce said, “You’re going to pull every string you have. You are going to make good on any debts that are outstanding, and you are getting us into that party. If we have to crash it and make a big ole mess, I’m-a be sure to find you afterward. You get at what I’m saying?”
“Deuce, man, you know I can’t do that without putting my own neck on the line. I get you into that party, and some shit goes down, it’ll be my head on the chopping block. I swear to you, man, I want to help, but that only extends so far.”
He leaned back, crossing his massive arms. “No matter what your response is,” Deuce said, “the deal holds true on our end. Right, Rol?”
“As rain, old friend,” I said.
“Come on, y’all,” he replied. “You know this is suicide.”<
br />
“Guess so,” Deuce said, shrugging.
Reg flailed around the room. He was unhappy. He was distraught. Mostly, though, he was desperate to dissuade us.
He said, “I can’t. I just — it can’t happen this way.”
“Reg,” Deuce said.
“I mean, you’re on the right track.”
“Reginald,” Deuce said.
All the while, the kid was pacing around, pressing the palms against his temples.
“Get out,” Deuce said. “Go to the Reapers. Go to their slavemasters.”
“Deuce, man, it ain’t like that.”
Deuce was firm. He said, “Ask them all for help, if you need to, but I’m done with you. I don’t want to see you again. Come back, and I’ll kill you myself. That’s a lifelong contract, too. Bet on it.”
With that, he turned his back on Reg. He pulled the piece from his waistband, flicked off the safety, and racked a round into the chamber.
Reginald scrambled out of the house, but not before taking one last look. Eyes wide with the knowledge he was out of friends, out of people to run to, and out of options. I gave a nod, like, Good luck with everything, and then he was gone.
Deuce waited until the door shut before turning around.
“Boy’s got no sense of loyalty.”
“He’s afraid for his life.”
“He’s not the only one. He’s chicken shit.”
“No different from most people.”
“You’re not helping, old friend. I figured you’d have my back.”
“I do, but he’s no worse than anybody else’d be in this situation.”
“You’re too soft on people, Rol,” he said. “Everybody but yourself. Here.”
He handed me the gun and said, “I saw you eyeing it. Thinking I might try to take you out?”
His hand practically jolted with electricity. A human combustion engine, sweating through his clothes. “It’s okay,” I said.
“I wish I knew how to cure myself of this. It’s like my own personal demon. What can you tell me, Rol?”
I was reminded of the old man and his creepy daughters in the swamp, and demurred from telling him. Instead, I passed along a beer, popping the cap, and grabbed one for myself.
2
The kid from the basketball game I had interrupted way back called me again. He sounded fatigued and worried, but I tried not to read any more into that than I had to.
“You told me to contact you if I had any information I thought I should pass along.”
I mulled it over, wondered if I were somehow walking into a trap.
“This ain’t no bullshit, man,” he said. “I got no reason to flip on you. I get caught, it’s my ass on the buzzsaw.”
Unless you can trade my name for immunity, I thought.
“I heard tales. A party, happening out near the Fort George River.”
I had no clue.
“What are you doing this for?”
“You told me to call you.”
“Why, really?”
He sighed. “I’ve got my reasons.”
“Everybody’s got those,” I said.
“Everybody ain’t had their sister be ganked in a drug raid gone wrong, either.”
He was quiet for an understandable period of time.
“Was it Hector Dominguez?”
“Might as well have been. It was one of his henchmen. Some nigga with spiders for a heart. He tried to flip my sister, turn her out, but she refused. Somebody cut her up and dumped her in the river.”
“What do you know?”
“They’re all interchangeable. Dominguez hires them to do his dirty work. He’s been brought in on conspiracy charges, but he’s always got an alibi. He’s always on some trip when he should have been giving the word to somebody to put down some poor woman like a pound puppy.”
“And this party?”
“I’ve got it on good authority Dominguez will be there. If it ain’t his house, it’s somebody close to him. He’s going to be surrounded by Gs with nothing to lose, so if you’re going to bring him down, be prepared to step into a line of gunfire.”
“You don’t have anything encouraging to give me, do you?”
“I’m pretty sure Hector Dominguez isn’t the devil,” this kid said. “He just works for him.”
I ran the idea by Deuce.
“Heard of this party?” I asked.
“It’s sort of like a Player’s Ball,” Deuce said. “People associated with prostitution and human trafficking are going to be there, including Hector Dominguez. If we can find a way into this thing, then maybe we can corner them and get this thing over with for good.”
“That’s what I heard. You think it can be done?”
“I’m trying to cure myself of betting on the future. It’s what got me here in the first place.”
I considered everything we had at the moment. Taj was working for a high-level drug trafficker, at least that was the department which employed Deuce’s little brother. Eventually, Taj made the leap from muling drugs around town, getting them to street dealers and whatnot, to dealing ing people. Maybe he was himself a low-level urban coyote, transporting girls to different forms of sexual slavery, from forced pornography to prostitution.
All we knew regarding that aspect of the story was Taj got caught in the slipstream over some decision and got put down for it. There was certainly a girl Taj had the hots for, but who she was remained somewhat mysterious.
The evidence to tie Taj to Hector Dominguez was circumstantial, but I felt like it was pretty strong, nonetheless. He was the big dog purple people dealer around town, and he had some tenuous connections to the drug trade. Also, everyone associated with Taj became sweaty anytime this Hector’s name got mentioned.
I felt it was a strong possibility that if we could get a gun to Dominguez’s temple, he would let us know exactly what happened to Taj. If he confirmed our hypothesis, he’d get two in the brainpan and we’d disappear into the night.
If he denied it, well…we’d be back to square one.
“How do we proceed?”
“Get in the party. Get in front of Dominguez. Don’t get killed.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. We don’t have time to make a ‘for real’ plan. It’s happening too soon.”
“What do we do once we get in front of him?”
“Be persuasive.”
I bought a new throwaway cell, called special agent Hunter. “What can you tell me about a man named Hector Dominguez?”
“FBI’s got a long sheet on him. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re not in a long-term investigation on him. He started out small potatoes, pimping runaways at truck stops and bit casinos. Made his name down in Louisiana and Mississippi, but the heat on him got too hot when he had two johns locked in a trunk and the car pushed off a dock in Lake Pontchartrain some years back. What door are you knocking on, McKane?”
“He’s still running girls,” I said. “He’s making some disappear, and he recently made the mistake of having a friend of mine’s brother killed.”
“He’s a human wasp nest, McKane. If you go and poke at him with a stick, you’re bound to get stung all over.”
“I’m going to tell you straight: you could be in the clear, if only you turned yourself in. You might get a slap on the wrists for obstruction, but the narrative in the case is that a man named Limba Fitza was responsible for the shooting at the AA meeting.”
“How so certain?”
“Well, believe it or not, you’re a hard man to get in contact with. But either way, pieces of a body turned up on the shores of Savannah not too long after a man fitting Fitz’s description was seen fleeing the scene of another, related shooting off River Street. You wouldn’t happen to know anything, would you?”
“Not a clue,” I said.
“Of course not. Well, what was found of the body was tested and found to be consistent with Fitz’s DNA. No cause of death determined. Seems like he migh
t have been dead when his body was dumped, but the sharks and crabs probably got to whatever was important.”
“So, you’re left with a dead end.”
“I think people want answers. If you didn’t have anything to do with the death of Fitz, you don’t need to worry.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right.”
“Just come in and get on the record. If you trust me at all, know I’d go to bat for you. You didn’t have anything to do with the deaths of those people in the AA meeting, did you?”
“Other than being a target of the man who perpetrated it? No.”
“I can work with that. But McKane?”
“Yeah?”
“You don’t sound good.”
“I don’t feel good.”
“If you’re going down a path you can’t turn around on, just know that there’s an outlet for you. You have my number. You notice that I haven’t told you about tracing your calls.
“Thank you for the offer,” I said, “but I’ve got some business to take care of before doing anything official.”
“I think you’re making a big mistake.”
“Probably,” I responded. “But I’m going to make it. Then, I’ll consider coming in. Maybe I can clear my name. Maybe I’ll get roped into a kangaroo court. I’m not in the position to go rolling over and giving my belly to the cops.”
“It won’t help for me to say this’ll be your only opportunity, will it?”
“Fraid not. Ask me again after it’s too late for me to plea out of whatever they’ve got cooking.”
“Goodbye, McKane. Hope it’s not the last time I hear you free and clear.”
“Hope not.”
I sat and contemplated that for a bit, watching the lit end of my cigarette glow bright orange in the dark. Men cross Rubicons all the time. They step out with their friends that one last time after work, not knowing a suitcase is being packed at home. They allow a look between themselves and the coworker from down the hallway to linger a few seconds longer than is all right, not understanding what comes next might actually bring. I had the benefit of knowing I was taking a step too far. It wasn’t that I didn’t care; I just felt glued in place.
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