After she had helped Deeqa settle onto the couch, a quilt wrapped around her and the TV remote in her hand, Idil came into the kitchen, made tea, and sat with her husband and Dawit. This was her first time meeting him, so much to thank him for, so little time to do it. They explained what had happened, and what they thought it meant. After a few minutes, she broke eye contact, her gaze dropping lower and lower until she was staring into her tea. She didn't move after that until they were finished, and then for a while after, all three in silence, listening to the TV from the living room. Cartoons.
Idil said, "You can't prove...I don't think..."
Dawit said, "Teenage girls lie. Teenage girls can pretend witches cursed them, can get someone burned alive. But...this? Does she dare lie about her own father this way?"
Mustafa held his palm against his forehead, gripping, releasing, gripping, releasing. "I don't want to take her at her word. But that's exactly why I believe her."
"Baby."
It got his attention, Idil calling him that in front of Dawit.
She kept on, "What if we...we just keep her? We call Chi, tell him we found her, and that we're going to keep her here? He can't demand we send her home, can he? There's not much he can do."
"That's right," Dawit said. "If he demands her back, he can't make you pay for it. He won't pursue it legally if he's afraid of someone taking a closer look. So yes, please, let her stay. You are both blessed. But that is not why I worry."
Mustafa nodded. "Her sister. Her cousins."
"He will have to make up for it somehow."
"He wouldn't send them back here."
Idil shuddered. "Europe, Thailand, oh God."
Mustafa had gripped his mug too tight, wasn't paying attention, and it cracked into pieces in his hand. He let go. A small puncture. He flexed his fingers. "I have to go with Dawit. I have to look Chi in the eyes."
Idil stood and leaned across the table. "No. This is done. You forget, you'll never get out of the country. If you book a flight to Kenya, they'll arrest you at the airport."
"Ridiculous. There are always ways. Look at Adem."
"Don't even bring up his name! I'm still angry at you and him for that. Do you think I don't know the truth? Stupid, stupid husband."
Mustafa brushed the broken pieces into a small pile in front of him. She was right. He felt helpless. He had taken over a gang, barely had an exit strategy, and couldn't finish the job. His son was in mortal danger and he had to pretend it wasn't so. And Chi was more interested in money than blood. Yes, he was stupid indeed. "I'm sorry."
Dawit reached for Mustafa's forearm, gave it a squeeze. "Cousin, listen. It's okay. I told you the truth. I will do it for both of us. For all of us."
Mustafa nodded, but he didn't feel like this was a victory. The damaged girl in the living room? She had a long road of recovery ahead. He was certain the flesh dealers would come looking for him, the girl, and Idil. Not a victory at all. Only a moment to catch their breath. Hell was on the way.
He pushed his mug back. Idil came around behind him, embraced him around his shoulders, cheek to cheek. His throat grew thick, inflamed, the closest he would come to crying. Idil knew. She squeezed tighter.
He cleared his throat and turned to Dawit. "Still a long day ahead."
His cousin got up from the table, mumbled something, and headed to the bathroom.
*
Two hours until sunset. Minnesota summer days were long, almost as if the season was an endurance test, same as winter. Whichever one you were square in the middle of, you wished for the other. So the sky was still blue and the sun high at seven that evening when Mustafa and Dawit rolled up to Prince Heem's house again. They needed sleep, and they hoped for at least half the night to pass before word got around that they were back in town after screwing up their own whore operation down South. Really. The new leader of the Killaz totally wrecking his own empire, beating up on his own soldiers. What the hell?
Idil had been right. Dawit had been right. He couldn't leave the country, not anymore. If he could keep from getting caught by the police or the other fucking gangstas, he had money and a bit of influence. He could keep his family safe enough. That's how he would sell it to Ali. The Killaz would be The GOAT's to do with as he pleased as long as they steered clear of whores. As long as he promised to keep Bahdoon clean of it all. Pretend this never happened.
They pulled the car into the garage beside the Escalade and got out. They would need to ditch the car soon, since it was one they had boosted in Missouri, but not while this drained. They both shut their doors and leaned heavily on the roof of the car, resting on their forearms. They caught the mirror image thing between them and laughed a little. All they could muster.
Dawit said, "I'm not as old as you, but I feel like my life has been played on fast-forward."
"That's something. Me, it's like I had to rewind and do some shit over again."
"You get it right this time?"
Shrug. "Fuck if I know."
They entered the side door that opened into a small space adjacent to the kitchen where coats and boots could melt in the winter, drip in the summer. Looking at this room made Mustafa think of what the entire house must have looked like before Heem moved in. More of a country cottage feel, perhaps. Who would that family have been? What kinds of moments did they share? Holidays, weekends, deaths of pets and loved ones, new coats of paint, old TVs breaking down, kids tripping on the front steps. Everything Heem had done to it since, all the new appliances and furniture and wood floors, tile, carpet, those weren't the types of things you did when you loved a house. Those were the things you did when you loved showing off. He thought of the apartment he had just left. Tea rings on the kitchen counter, never quite all the way gone. Adem's coat always falling off the hook. Idil's socks showing up in the worst places—wherever she happened to pull them off, that's where they would stay for weeks. His DVD cases scattered around, all the kung-fu movies he'd bought with his Target discount.
With no coats to hang, they both took off their shoes and placed them in the line besides those of some other soldiers. Something Heem had been a stickler about, the boys not scuffing up his wood floors. Mustafa saw no reason to ease up on that. He didn't see Teeth or Ali's shoes. He hadn't heard from them since they split in West Memphis. They'd been on such a nonstop run that he had forgotten to check on them, and they hadn't called him. He grinned, thinking they would probably call as soon as he'd drifted off to sleep. He had to remember to turn off the ringer on his phone.
He took the three steps up and into the kitchen. Lights were out, which was weird. Supposed to be timers on all this, especially through to the living room. Pitch black. But he was walking faster than he was thinking. Dawit a few steps behind. Then the extra set of footsteps, Dawit saying, "No—" and the struggle. Mustafa turned in time to see a big nigga with his arm wrapped around Dawit's throat, Dawit arching his back and shaking hard, trying to get free.
Two shots.
Had to be nines. Mustafa watched as the exit wounds turned Dawit's shoulder and chest to red meat. The gunman dropped Dawit, dead weight, and aimed the pistol in Mustafa's face. With his other hand, gave him a shove towards the living room.
"Move, pussy."
Mustafa stumbled ahead. He looked down at his shirt, Dawit's blood smeared across it, still not thinking fast enough. Another shove from the gunman and Mustafa fought not to fall. He ran into a table by a leather armchair, bruised his shins, doubled over.
The lights came on. Mustafa realized why it had been so dark. Someone had hung heavy dark tarps across the blinds on the windows. That someone was probably the soldiers standing next to Prince Heem and Kong, both sitting in chairs across the room, near Heem's never-played piano, the walls lined with bookshelves full of never-read books. Standing behind them was Ali, same stone expression as usual.
The nigga behind Mustafa grabbed his neck and forced him into the leather armchair. "Sit your ass down," like some sort of movie lin
e. On the left, in a kitchen chair, bound, gagged, shirtless, and plenty fucked-up, was Teeth.
Plenty fucked-up because kneeling next to him holding a blood-caked cheese grater was Poe.
The flesh on Teeth's face and arms was barely there. What was left hung in strings. His chest, they'd done something else. Then Mustafa saw the orange extension cord snaking around to an outlet. On the other end, an electric sander.
Kong, his usual low-key self in jeans, white sneakers, and a Polo, bowed his head. "Bahdoon."
Mustafa played cool. He slumped back into the chair, propped his leg on his knee, and said, "I expect my guests to take their shoes off and keep the place clean. Right, Prince?"
The Prince was in no mood for jokes, pimped out in a Steve Harvey suit, brown with pinstripes, his lips pursed, the veins in his forehead pulsing. "Fuck you. Fuck all y'all. This is mine. I'm taking this shit back. Only reason you ain't hurting yet is because I want you good and scared first."
Mustafa was more scared than he showed. He yawned—fucking yawned—and it was real. Maybe they would hurry up and get on with it so he could pass out.
Heem said, "So you smart, got that bitch free? I don't care. They told me her pussy wasn't for shit anyway. You got one girl. I got forty more. I got forty more bitches each making six, seven hundred a night. Every night. You feeling me?"
"Could you at least buy them dinner first?"
Mustafa tried to sneak glances at Teeth, see if he could get a read. Teeth was staring right at him, too. Shaking all over, real bad, but awake and with it. Staring. If there was a message there, Mustafa couldn't interpret it.
Kong spoke up. That's when Mustafa noticed that he didn't have any of his Tigers along. All by himself in the Killaz' den. "See, I told you that this wasn't going to be good for any of us. You fighting the Prince, him fighting you, the Black Ice Boyz taking your side, so the Kings taking the other side, and now they tell me you went and got the Southerners riled up, too."
"I keep busy."
"Retirement not suiting you?"
"I can't sit back and let the youngsters fuck it all up."
Heem laughed, shook his head. "Man, we had it down. We had it right here." He stabbed a finger into the open palm of his other hand. "Right here. Wasn't no trouble to nobody."
Mustafa didn't say anything. Smirked, though. See if that got to the Prince. Sure did. The little man stood up, puffed out, and was all, "You disrespecting me? You steal my house, my Killaz, and you going to just sit there?"
"I don't think he's going to let me stand up." Pointed at the gunman looming above him.
Heem crossed the room, whaled back and slapped the living shit out of Mustafa's face. Slapped him like a bitch. It stung. It made Mustafa close his eyes for a moment while the light behind his eyelids calmed the fuck down. Opened them again.
"Think you're funny?" The Prince's voice close to his ear. "Old man?"
"Ibrahim, come on, sit down." Kong waved the Prince back. "Let's keep this civil."
"Civil, my ass."
"That's what I'm here for, like I told you. I'm a mediator. We're going to figure this out right here and now."
He rolled his shoulders and straightened his tie. Lots of bullshit grandstanding. But hey, it had got him somewhere before, right? He's the one the Killaz chose to follow. Mustafa couldn't begrudge the kid that.
Kong leaned forward in his chair, fingers intertwined. "What I told you, Bahdoon, was that we couldn't afford a gang war. Not because it made us look bad, but because it made people look at us at all. See, you go tell someone, like, Chicago, New York, L.A., go tell them you a banger in the Twin Cities. Shit, they'll look at you like you're a farm boy. This is flyover country. We can do what we do because the competition is light and hardly anyone knows we're even here. So you tell me, what's a gang war spread across the middle of the whole fucking country going to do? It's going to get us attention. Unwanted attention. Which is something my friend Ibrahim here was good at avoiding. See?"
Mustafa yawned again. He didn't mean to, but it happened. So before Kong could keep lecturing on, Mustafa said, "Okay. He can have them back now."
"What was that?"
"I'm done with the Killaz. He can have them back. I don't want them anymore."
Prince Heem and Kong looked at each other. It gave Mustafa a chance to give Teeth a once-over. Man was in bad shape. But his eyes, going from straight at Mustafa to the floor over where they'd just come from. Like, something over there? Mustafa tried to turn his head without getting the gunman on him. Teeth's neck muscles flexed and the man gave a sharp little shake—Unh unh. What, something Mustafa needed to grab? Something he had missed?
The Prince was getting some of his groove back, cupping his hand over his mouth, pointing at Mustafa. "Boy, that's full on crazy there. They ain't yours to give back anymore, bitch. You didn't get it yet? I already took them back. And you, we have to do something about you. About all y'all. Not going to be pretty, neither."
"Like the man said, Prince, we're trying to resolve this without making more of a mess. I just handed you what you wanted. We out. All my people, we give up. You let me take Teeth out of here, get him patched up, I can promise you no retaliation from the Black Ice Boyz. You win. You vanquished me. You are the one true leader of the Killaz—"
"Shut that shit up."
"—forever, and forever, amen."
"I said shut it!" Heem rose from his chair, but Kong grabbed his arm before he could get too far along, eased him back down."
Kong said, "Now hold up. You've both got good points. Ibrahim deserves something more than all of this going back to normal like nothing happened. And you, Bahdoon, are right to think that bloodshed should be, um...minimized, let's say. But Heem needs blood. He's right. Someone's got to pay."
"And I want that girl back."
Mustafa shrugged. "Dealbreaker."
"You'll be begging to give her back by the time we done with you."
"Never gonna happen."
"After I'm done with you, I'll go get her myself. And if your bitch tries to stop me, she'll get a good dose, too. Got plenty of Killaz seen that piece of ass. Idil be hot. She'll be working it. Working it hard."
Mustafa looked at Kong. "No deal. He can't have the girl, and he needs to stay the fuck away from my family. We cool on that?"
The Prince was restless, tapping and fidgeting and laughing a little like everything Mustafa said was a joke.
Kong shook his head. "That's out of my reach. I can't make a promise like that. All I'm doing is helping you two come to an understanding."
It felt real. Mustafa's ass was tight. His throat was clenching. Sweat. He had fucked up and was going to die and never talk to Idil or his kids again. His dead body would be mutilated, desecrated, by that freak Poe. Not how anyone should have to go out of this world. Especially sad if he had pulled Deeqa out of the game for nothing.
Kong said, "GOAT, you know what to do."
Ali stepped from behind the chairs, a shitty nine, the grip wrapped in electrical tape, in his hand. This was going to be a one-shot gun, then thrown into the Mississippi River, and who would ever know? Mustafa was pissed at himself for misreading the kid so bad. Had he always been in Heem's pocket? Did he just go with the winners? Had he spilled everything he had learned from Mustafa about the who, the why and the what?
Mustafa couldn't fault him, though. He had to do what he was told. One day, if he played it smart, he would lead the Killaz, because they would recognize he had what it took while the Prince was just a lucky fool. That made Mustafa a little bit proud. Enough to grin through the fear, his guts roiling, and softly say, "No big thing. I understand."
Ali lifted the nine towards Mustafa, then turned a one-eighty and shot Prince Heem in the face. Once was enough. A short, loud crack and that was that. And no one else in the room besides Mustafa and Teeth looked the least bit surprised.
Kong stood from his chair, looked down at Heem, now with his right eye gone, then at Mustafa. "Li
ke I said, he kept things nice and clean before, but what a dick. The Killaz are yours. You fuck it up and I'll come back for you."
He started for the front door, pulled his phone from his pocket, texted someone. "Oh, and that guy's yours now, too. Use him wisely." Kong raised his chin towards Poe.
Mustafa finally felt enough strength in his legs to push out of the chair and stand up, but he was all pins and needles down there. "Now what? You're just leaving?"
"Yes. These guys can help you clean up. Pretty sure it's in your best interests now to get rid of Mr. Teeth while you have the chance. Don't let me down, Bahdoon." He opened the front door, stepped out, and closed it behind him.
Ali, Poe, and the gunman looked at him. Teeth, too. But Mustafa didn't have the play. He was frozen. Shit, what just happened? How'd the Hmong end up owning the Killaz? For a moment, Mustafa thought being dead would've been better than this.
He said, "Ah, okay." But that was about all he could muster. A glance at Ali. Still no reveal from him. And Poe, the guy was standing like a soldier at attention. He should've expected to be the first man shot, but was instead full of confidence. What had Kong told him?
It was the big gunman in the kitchen doorway who finally broke the spell. "Shit, you heard the man. Let's get this over with."
He raised his gun towards Teeth, but Mustafa reached out, clutched his hand over the top of it. "Whoa, now, whoa. I didn't say kill him."
"Wasn't talking about you."
"Teeth is my call. That's what he said. Mine."
A laugh. "Whatever. Think you might need your hearing checked." He shook Mustafa's hand off the top and got his aim back.
"Wait!"
"Fuck that."
The gunman let out a deep, surprised cry and tumbled forward, the gun going off into the ceiling. Mustafa crouched and watched the man go down, then saw Dawit on his elbows, kitchen steak knife in hand, sliced through the gunman's Achilles. He pulled himself over the body and grabbed the gun real fast, tore it from his grip, and pushed the barrel against his head. Didn't hesitate. Dead gunman.
Once A Warrior (Mustafa And Adem) Page 17