Citycide

by Gary Hardwick

  So Rashindah would let the men get horny off the show and then she’d close in for the kill.

  She sidelined as a hooker and always kept her business tight. Rashindah screwed the eager men and would even go down on them if they were particularly nice.

  She hooked up once with an NBA player from Philly and thought briefly that he might change her life. This dream was dashed when he suggested that she have sex with him and one of his teammates.

  She knew then that no man would be her salvation and closed her mind to it and along with it, her heart. Men were just to be used for as long as you could play them. All they cared about was their need to get off. This defeated every notion of decency and morality they possessed. Whether it was some father of three getting head behind his wife’s back or some businessman who wanted to bang you on his lunch break, they were all weak-minded freaks that could be had for a little fleshy fun.

  Now she had a list of regulars, dealers, businessmen and even some local celebrities. But none of them meant anything to her. It was all business.

  Rashindah dreamed of getting out, going to New York or somewhere glamorous like that, starting over a new life as a model with a nice, darkly handsome man who could keep it up and who would love her despite her sins.

  This dream was reinforced every time Rashindah looked in the mirror. She was a beautiful girl. The only thing her father had ever given her was his genes, but they helped transform her into a gorgeous specimen.

  Rashindah was five nine and had very long legs. She was medium brown, just dark enough for her skin to contrast her light brown eyes, another inheritance from her father who was of mixed race. Her body was toned and shapely from her devotion to athletics in school. She wore her hair straight and long and had recently purchased a high-end weave that was almost undetectable.

  Her mother had been a lovely woman, too, but she squandered it on a parade of worthless men. In fact, her mother’s whole life had been one big struggle, a fight between the strong gravity of fate and hope’s slim promise. In the end, some half-assed addict with a big gun and a tiny brain stole Donna Watson’s life and the world just kept turning.

  Her life would be different, Rashindah thought. Her Grandmother Bessie had been a cook and maid all of her life. Donna and Joyce hadn’t been much more, working for the county in low-grade jobs.

  To Rashindah it was evolution: Bessie was an old southern name linked to the bondage of their past. Donna, her mother’s name, was a feeble attempt by black folks to give their kids whiteness. But her name, Rashindah, was Arabic for “Rightly guided.” She was free from the past in all ways and like her name she was headed to a better life.

  After her friend got here, she would take the next step in her escape from Detroit. It seemed like a dream sometimes, that she could be in a city where she wasn’t living against the current of life. But she could see it, feel it in her heart.

  Suddenly, Rashindah saw a man walking her way. She placed her hand on the .22 she had under her seat. She felt the firmness of the weapon and her nerves eased. She had never fired it at a man but she’d had to pull it out once when a lowlife had become violent with her. The sight of it had ended the confrontation.

  She had no doubts that she would shoot if she ever had to. After all the shit she’d been through, she’d kill a man without hesitation.

  As the approaching man came closer, Rashindah recognized his face and she loosened her grip on the gun.

  “’Bout time,” she said and opened the passenger door.

  “’Sup, pretty?” said the man bending over to look inside the car.

  “Always late,” said Rashindah. “Get yo’ ass in the car.”

  The man got into the car and plopped down hard in the passenger’s seat.

  “Had to ride the pimp. Car’s broke,” said the man whose name was Quinten. The “pimp” he referred to was the city bus. “Everybody ain’t rolling in a C-Class, bitch. You coulda picked a nigga up.”

  “I know why you late,” said Rashindah smiling slyly. “Busy playing with your new boyfriend.”

  Quinten was notorious for his sexual appetite. Sad thing was, he was damned fine, like all gay men, she thought. When she had first met him, her initial thought had been he could get it for free.

  “Yeah, he is something,” said Quinten. “Don’t know why they get married.”

  “Because that’s how it is in this backwards ass town. You can’t do nothing without everybody judging you.”

  “I know that’s right,” he said. “Oh, it got you a present.” He handed Rashindah a medium sized baggie filled with weed.

  “Thanks,” said Rashindah. “How much?”

  “Didn’t I just say it was a present, bitch?” said Quinten, laughing a little. “Helped a friend cook and move a bunch of it and he hooked me up. Try it. It’s good shit.”

  “Normally, I’d give you some but I know you ain’t into vagina,” Rashindah dragged the word out. To her knowledge, Quinten had never been with a woman.

  “Don’t tempt me. These damned men are driving me crazy. So what the hell is so important you had to call me away from my life?”

  Rashindah’s smile faded slowly. Her face turned serious and her eyes settled into hardness. This was it, she thought; the moment her life would change. She looked at her friend with all the desire and courage in her heart.

  “I need you to do something with me...”

  

  The car rolled past the little blue Mercedes without notice. It slowed as it went by, then sped up. For those educated on the street, this was a sign that something was not right, that you were being measured, watched. But neither of the people in the car noticed.

  The car turned onto a nearby street then parked close to the corner, dousing its lights. The driver quickly got out then moved away, making sure to lock the doors.

  You couldn’t be too careful in this part of town.

  

  Quinten was speechless. He had heard some crazy shit from Rashindah before but never anything like this. His hand was trembling and he had started to breathe faster. He’d averted his eyes from his friend after she finished the story.

  “Well, can you do it?” Rashindah asked him.

  “Hell no!” said Quinten. “You are in some deep shit, girl. I may be a lot of things but I ain’t no criminal.”

  “It ain’t criminal,” said Rashindah. “It’s no worse than the weed you sell.”

  “People get high on weed. Weed don’t hurt nobody and weed won’t find my ass in jail or the cemetery.”

  “What you worried about? When we get paid, I’m out of this city and you can come with me.”

  Quinten calmed himself a little. He thought of how good it would be to get out of Detroit. Maybe go to D.C. or Atlanta. There were big gay populations there. He could be himself, be free, but then he remembered what Rashindah had asked him to do and reality came crashing back to him.

  “No,” said Quinten. “I’m sorry but it ain’t worth it.”

  “You are such a fuckin’ fag,” said Rashindah and there was no playfulness to it. Her face was hard and beautiful and her eyes had narrowed to slits. Quinten knew this side of Rashindah and he had never liked it.

  “You always talking ‘bout how you want to get out,” she continued. “Well, here’s your chance! But you just another scared ass, running around, living this sick ass life and sucking some married man’s dick.”

  “Better than sucking everybody’s dick for a nickel, bitch,” his voice became shrill. “You ain’t one to talk about nobody’s life.”

  “Get the fuck out my car,” said Rashindah. “You ain’t down with me, you can step. I’ll call you from New York or Paris or some shit.”

  “Right,” said Quinten as he reached for the door. “Paris wouldn’t have your sorry—”

  Quinten stopped talking as he saw the man settle outside Rashindah’s window. For as long as they lived in Detroit, they should have seen him coming but they were occupi
ed in their argument.

  He was dressed in dark clothes. Quinten only saw his torso as he slid between the window and the street. A second later, the gun appeared. The biggest gun he had ever seen.

  Quinten took in air to yell to Rashindah to move, to drive, to do something. For a moment, he thought the man would tap the window and ask them to give up the car but then he pointed the gun and stepped back, bracing himself.

  Rashindah saw the panic in Quinten’s eyes and began to turn her head toward the window.

  The shot was like thunder. The window shattered as Rashindah’s pretty face jerked and her head tilted unnaturally as the left side of it exploded. The headrest disintegrated into a swirl of flying leather and white stuffing.

  Quinten was splattered with her, like someone had swung a wet paintbrush across his face. He felt white heat in his body and he grew rigid. His brain told his hand to open the door but nothing happened. And then he felt it, the warmth from between his legs as his bladder emptied itself.

  The man who had just killed his friend lowered his head into the open maw of the shattered window. Quinten turned instinctively. He saw the big gun, which was moving away from the still jerking body of his friend. Deep inside a hooded jacket, he saw only the dark outline of a face.

  The killer reached a hand inside the window as Quinten found the door handle and pulled it. He toppled out onto the cold ground.

  Time stood still for an endless second and then he saw the killer moving quickly away.

  Quinten’s lungs finally rebelled and he let out a yell that rocked the night.

  2

  BROKEN WINDOWS

  Danny Cavanaugh was bleeding. He watched the blood roll into a big drop and fall from his hand onto a dirty rag. He put the wounded finger in his mouth and kept working.

  He’d cut himself reaching through a broken window in the back of his home. He was pretty handy thanks to his father, Robert, who claimed to know how to fix everything in the world. Robert had taught him as much as he could between working as a cop and keeping the whiskey makers in business.

  “You done yet?” asked a woman’s voice from another room. It was Vinny, his live-in girlfriend.

  “Working on it,” said Danny. “Cut myself.”

  Vinny entered the room. She was a tall woman who had slimmed down since leaving the police force. Danny didn’t mind this weight loss. Vinny still had plenty of curves. She had just put braids into her hair, which framed her brown face nicely. He had made sure to say that he liked them even though he didn’t really care how she wore her hair. But he knew women.

  “Cut?” she said with a touch of alarm. “Let me see.”

  “It’s fine,” said Danny.

  “Gimme it,” said Vinny in a very motherly way. Danny stopped working on the window and raised his hand, showing the cut on his finger.

  “And I suppose you just sucked it and now it’s better. More germs in your mouth than on the glass that cut you.” Vinny walked out of the room.

  Vinny had been his partner when they were both in uniform. They became friends and then lovers in an almost imperceptible turn of fate. Danny could see now that one of the relationships was doomed right from the beginning.

  The police partnership ended when Vinny was shot in a robbery and Danny beat the man who shot her within an inch of his life.

  Vinny returned with a small first aid kit and in a minute had his finger cleaned and dressed. Danny smiled through the process, understanding that these moments when you needed your girl were the kind that bonded you.

  Vinny had a big family and most of them liked Danny but some didn’t, especially Vinny’s older sister, Renitta. It was a combination of being white and being a cop with a spotty past, well mostly it was being white, he mused.

  This attitude only got worse when Vinny enrolled in, then graduated from, Wayne State Law School. Some of her clan felt that she was now too good for her white boy, too grand for the violent cop who once had the nickname Danny Two Gun.

  “You come out of a shots fired chase without a scratch but almost cut your finger off fixing a window,” said Vinny, now sounding just like his deceased mother, Lucy.

  “Been thinking about the across the street neighbors,” said Danny. “Mind was wondering I guess.”

  “Nothing we can do about that,” said Vinny with concern. “God knows that boy of Bevia’s was headed to the penitentiary anyway.”

  “I just feel funny about it. I mean, you got two cops right across the street.”

  “One cop,” Vinny corrected. “And a lawyer,” she added with a smile.

  “All proud of being a court hound, huh?” said Danny and he kissed her. “Once a cop, always a cop.”

  “I’m retired,” she said.

  “You still carry your gun,” said Danny. “That means you’re still a cop.”

  “Shit, everybody carries a gun in Detroit these days,” said Vinny.”

  Vinny was now a junior associate at one of Detroit’s more prestigious law firms, Johnson, Franks & Kincaid, which everyone called JFK. Danny didn’t care much for the hours. They worked her like a dog, but as long as she was happy, he was, too.

  Danny was a detective in the Special Crimes Unit. It was called The Sewer by the cops and the name fit. All the worst cases in the city, all the shit, went there and in Detroit, that was saying something.

  “There,” said Vinny finishing his finger. “Bullets mean nothing in your life, but beware of the windows.”

  Vinny was referring to Danny’s recent bust of a big drug buy. It was a new millennium mix of black, white, Latin and Middle Eastern scumbags. Most of the men involved had surrendered, hoping their high-priced lawyers could get them out of it, but one man had pulled a weapon and tried to shoot his way out.

  Danny and his partner, Erik Brown, had gone after him and brought him in, but not without a little more gunplay.

  Danny had pulled both guns, the S&W .45 and the .9mm Glock, even though he had been warned many times about the dangers of carrying two weapons. But Danny had a gift. He could perceive multiple targets in different directions at once. He often walked the gun practice range with both weapons, astonishing his peers.

  Danny had fired the Glock and missed the scruffy man’s head by inches. The .45 hit the man’s upper chest, which caused him to drop his gun and surrender.

  “Fixing a window is more dangerous,” said Danny with a sly smile. He took a moment, knowing that what was on his mind now was potentially explosive. In a way, he feared this more than any criminal or window. “A lot of people are moving out of this neighborhood,“ he said.

  “I’m not moving, Danny,” said Vinny in that hard-tinged tone that meant not to push forward. “I thought we were over this.”

  Danny started the conversation about moving after a new KFC, Wendy’s and Taco Bell were built in the area. He tried to tell her how this spelled trouble for a neighborhood. Too many fast food joints meant powerful men had targeted the neighborhood for destruction, knowing that the poor, fatherless households would never have time to make regular meals. Wayward youth and criminals were known to live off the stuff.

  When the car thefts started and the dealers staked out the side streets, the neighborhood had gotten together and asked for more police patrols. They got them because there were a few cops and city workers in the area. Still, the creeping sickness was slowly encroaching around them and then Bevia bashes her son’s head in right across the street from his house.

  Vinny thought running was stupid because someone had to stand up to the lowlives. Danny thought only of her safety. If it were just him; he wouldn’t care where he lived.

  In the end, he’d dropped it. Vinny was in love with the city. She was too tied to this place to run away.

  “Just keeping our options open,” said Danny. “I’m playing the Devil’s Advocate anyway. I don’t want to leave Detroit, I just worry about you.”

  “I know,” she said, “but like you said, once a cop. Anyone messes with me and I�
�ll give it to them good.” Vinny’s faced showed a little sorrow for snapping at him. She smiled. “Sorry for being so mean,” she added.

  A sure sign of a good relationship was arguments that ended quickly, Danny thought. It was unnatural to never argue, but it was death when the fights persisted and lingered for days.

  Danny finished fixing the window and cleaned up the mess. He hopped into the shower to get ready to meet his friend downtown.

  He was in for just a moment, when he saw Vinny enter the room and disrobe. She loved to have sex in the shower. Danny didn’t, but she was so turned on by it, that he never resisted.

  Vinny slipped into the steamy shower and went to him eagerly.

  “I just realized how dirty I am,” said Vinny.

  “You ever get tired of that joke?” asked Danny.

  “Do you?” She kissed him lightly.

  They embraced under the hot water, his wounded finger long forgotten.

  

  Danny was all smiles sharing a lunch with his best friend in a little restaurant in Greektown an hour later. Danny was on his way to work the afternoon shift. He hadn’t seen his buddy in a while and was looking forward to it.

  Marshall Jackson was a former U.S. Attorney and now a private practitioner in the city. After a high-profile case concerning the death of a Supreme Court Justice, Marshall had become a legal superstar. He now defended white-collar criminals and was considered one of the best in the state.

  Danny hated that Marshall worked defending criminals, but this was his friend since childhood and so he never brought it up—much.

  Marshall was a very successful looking man these days. In his elegantly tailored suits, he looked like money and power. He was imposing and always made sure to drive and dominate the conversation. But with his friend Danny, he was still the chubby kid who used to run with him from the bullies.