by M. Roberts
It was a boy, a young man at best, no older than twenty, but more likely eighteen or nineteen. He turned to Lucius as he approached, raising his chin in a masculine greeting, probably assuming Lucius to be a customer. This assumption quickly evaporated as Lucius seized the dealer by his top of his hoodie with two firmly gripped clumps of cloth and shoved forward, planting the dealer’s back against lamp post.
“Who set me up? Who set me up!?” Lucius shouted into the frightened, but scowling face of the young dealer. There wasn’t much thought behind the question, Lucius had already pinned the set up to Ezekiel, and if he was right, none of the men who worked for him would confess to a set up if they even knew.
“I don’t even know what the fuck you’re talking about!” The dealer’s eyes darted between Lucius’s several times, examining, and then the realization of who he was dawned on him. “Lucas.”
Hearing the name he shed in his arrival to Verón felt a vicious full circle. He’d created a new life, had tried to forge it in perfection, and here he was, in the presence of his old name, dangling before his eyes, taunting his mission as it to say You’ll never be more, have more, do more, Lucas. You know your true place. Heat flooded his muscled. They tightened in his jaw as he gritted his teeth staring into the condescending eyes of the dealer in his grasp. He thought then about tearing out the dealer’s tongue, but his rage was subdued by a sudden sharp pain to his crotch, when the knee of the dealer came swiftly upward. Lucius lost control and fell over coughing to the grass beside the pavement. The dealer adjusted his collar then reached into the back of his pants to pull out a revolver that he aimed between Lucius’s eyes as he rolled in the dirt.
“I’ve heard about you, from before I moved up to dealer, we all heard what a worthless shit you are, fucking with the Dicaro empire. You think you’re smart, Imada?” The dealer kicked Lucius in his side. The pain flared and distracted him from the pain that had now risen from his testicles to his gut. “You think you can pull off a ransom?”
Lucius struggled to spit out the words, “I didn’t take Rose.”
The dealer patronizingly leaned in, placed his hand to his ear, and said, “What’s that, pretty boy? I can’t hear your bullshit. Speak—” another swing of the leg to his side, “—Louder!”
Lucius gasped. He felt as though one of his ribs might be broken. Against the instinct to curl up and cup his bruises, Lucius forced his body to unfurl. He took advantage of the cocky dealer’s closeness to sweep his leg behind the dealer’s knees and bring his tormentor to the ground. The revolver flew from his hand, landing somewhere in the distant grass. Lucius pulled out his own pistol, slammed the butt against the dealer’s skull, dizzying him, and struggled back to his feet. He stood over the now disoriented dealer, arms extended, pistol between two sweaty palms with fingers wrapped tightly around. His thumb slid the hammer back and the sound shot through the dealer’s spine, who went instantly rigid and stared into the barrel.
Lucius’s voice was now calm, almost a whisper, though his jaw was still tight. “I didn’t kidnap Rose. Ezekiel set me up.”
Though the threat of the pistol was present at the forefront of the dealer’s mind, his irreverence would not relent. “Only a coward would tell that lie. We know what you did, Lucas. We know you used Titus to take Rose away and drop the letter off. You were seen. Turn yourself over to Ezekiel, give Rose back, and he might just take a few fingers and exile you.”
Lucius shook his head. “That’s the whole point of this. He pins it on me to justify my murder. You think I’m some fool?”
The dealer only stared back, as if to hold a mirror that showed Lucius for the fool he convinced himself he wasn’t. Lucius realized he was arguing as if the debate was legitimate. Catching himself believing that notion was a wake up call. He couldn’t move forward without full committal, shedding whatever concept of diplomacy he had while arguing with the dealer. Ezekiel was out to kill him. That was clear, now. Ezekiel had somehow made Rose disappear and told all his men it was his fault, that he was somehow working in conjunction with Titus. Titus. He made a mental note of the information, but a more pressing point demanded his attention. The Dicaro kingpin sent death for him. He could wait for it, or he could react.
He didn’t really feel the trigger pull back, the twitch of his finger, or even the rattle as the bullet left the pistol. Looking at the dealer coughing blood before falling back with empty eyes, he did feel total immersion into something that felt like arctic water. He felt whatever it was swarm in, even as his muscles emitted heat while he sprinted from the scene.
13.
Malcolm had returned home with a looming fear that Lucius would be there. He had stayed for as long as he could with Joan, lingering in her bedroom until the realization that he would at some point have to return to his shared apartment came to collect him. When he twisted the knob and entered to find the apartment empty, relief washed over him. Though it was short lived, as less than a half hour rolled past when Lucius came through the door, with heavy breaths and sweat soaking through his shirt, which he tore open with his one empty hand. The other held the pistol tightly. When he had managed to collect himself to a degree that he could again take in his surroundings, he saw that Malcolm was staring aghast from where he stood in front of the couch. Lucius paused.
“Lucius,” Malcolm said, shaking his head. “What have you done?”
He stepped forward, grabbing hold of the gun barrel to feel that it was still warm. He immediately retracted it.
“Malcolm,” said Lucius between pants, “they took Rose. They took her and they’re blaming me. Ezekiel, he aims to kill me.”
Malcolm twisted around, rubbing his face harshly with his palms, as if to wipe the situation away. He plummeted into the couch.
“Where the hell were you?”
Malcolm turned up to a now angry Lucius.
“What?”
“Where were you, Malcolm? You tell me I’m wanted by the Dicaros, then you don’t come home? I sat here, just sat, mind reeling.”
“I told you to leave the city.”
“Where were you, Malcolm?! How did you hear about it? Answer me.”
Malcolm sat in belittling silence, staring at the pistol still held in Lucius’s hand.
“Jesus, Lucius. What did you do?”
Lucius raised the pistol before his face, staring at it with awe, then his expression passed over into anguish. His hands covered his eyes, and when he returned them to his sides, there were tears. He collapsed into the chair beside the couch, head hung and pistol dangling with his arm to the side. He swore under his breath. Watching his friend’s reaction told Malcolm everything, and though he couldn’t say it out loud, he wanted to call his roommate a fool.
“Give up, Lucius.”
Lucius slowly raised his head, showing a scowl across his face. “What did you say?”
“Just give up.”
“I can’t believe you.”
“No? Why are you doing this in the first place?”
“Rose—”
“Bullshit. You use her as an excuse same as he does. Truth is you’re lost, Lucius. You don’t even know where you are, which is in the middle of a path leading down to self-destruction. You think this is the way to your dream?”
“I’m lost? Look at you. Filling your days with meaningless charades of drugs and lust, parties and highs, ignoring the city around you. There’s evil here, Malcolm. But you’re fine with that so long as it keeps itself at bay, so long as some peace remains for you to wrap the blindfold around your head as you get to prance between one party and the next.”
Malcolm laughed by the end of it. He wasn’t laughing at Lucius, though Lucius became more angry thinking he was. In truth, Malcolm was laughing only at his own expense, having predicted such events, having recognized his own ignorance, and to a certain extent, recognizing that what Lucius said was true. What Lucius said about him, anyway. What Lucius said about himself was the grand illusion, Malcolm thought, that pla
ced his friend in the middle of his own tragic play. He laughed to keep from crying as he thought, despite any words he could share with his roommate, there was nothing that would tear Lucius off his path to its inevitable end. Malcolm’s laughter wound itself down until his face slumped into a blank expression. Not staring at Lucius, but instead into the stained rug beneath the table, he said, “I want to hear you say it. I want to hear you say what you think you’re going to accomplish.” He raised his blank expression to Lucius, who stared back with complete conviction.
“I’m going to cleanse this city of Ezekiel Dicaro by putting two bullets in his skull, save Rose, and put this God-forsaken shit hole behind me.”
“And go where? Paradise? I’m confused, I thought this was it.”
A prolonged, decaying silence filled the space between them, until Malcolm broke it.
“You can’t stay here.”
Lucius stood, placed the gun back into his pants, and sighed. “You were my brother, Malcolm. I thought that meant something.”
Malcolm stared at the window, focusing on the frame, allowing the trees and their leaves lit by the overhanging streetlights to become blurred blotches in the background. “Remember, Lucius, you’re never the one writing the story you’re in.”
Lucius left the words at the door, ignoring them as he stormed away.
Malcolm remained on the couch, eyes blankly resting on the window frame until sleep took him into darkness, where he remained until an intentional cough from the chair woke him. He remained in a fog until a second sound, that of a gun getting cocked, brought him fully to consciousness and upright on the couch. The sunrise spilled light in through the window and caused him to squint. He could still make out his visitor. Lane sat in the chair, gun in hand, staring Malcolm down.
“This has gone far enough, Malcolm.”
With knuckles, Malcolm rubbed what sleep was left from his eyes.
“He killed one of ours last night. Bullet to the chest.”
Malcolm nodded. “I know.”
“Then you know what needs to happen.” Lane tossed the gun onto the table.
Malcolm stared at it, then up at Lane with his head shaking.
“The man is a mad dog now. Only one way to deal with those.”
“Why me?”
Lane sighed, then planted his elbows on his knees and leaned forward in a way that flexed his biceps in an intimidating display. “I know he was your friend. I’m not saying it has to be you, but it has to happen, and he’s going to come back to you. You and I both know that. Malcolm, this is important. If he comes back here and you don’t take care of it, and this becomes bigger than it needs to be.” Lane leaned back in the chair. “In war, you don’t want to be seen as a friend of the enemy.”
Malcolm hesitantly picked up the pistol from the table, feeling its weight and grimacing. Lane tossed him a metal, cylindrical object that he fumbled to catch, dropping it into his lap.
“Silencer. Screw it into the barrel.”
Malcolm followed his instruction, slowly turning the silencer into the end of the pistol. Lane stood. “Call us when it’s done and we’ll take care of the clean up.”
Malcolm’s hands shook with the pistol laid out in their palms.
“Malcolm.”
Malcolm’s attention snapped to the domineering presence of Lane.
“What?” he asked with disdain.
“I’m sorry.”
The apology left a sour taste in Malcolm’s mouth as he watched Lane leave out from his apartment. It was just him and the gun in his hands. Malcolm burst into tears. He sobbed and the tears spilled over his cheeks into the gun. He wept, his whole body shaking, until he emptied himself and felt nothing. Then he stood from the couch, rearranged the chair to sit facing the front door and placed himself in it, pistol in hand, aimed forward.
14.
Lucius roamed the streets before dawn, mulling over the betrayal of his closest friend, emotions flowing from hatred to despair and back, cycling until he was so exhausted, he meandered down an alley to slink behind a dumpster and pass out crying. He was so tired that when the sun rose to strike its light directly on his face, he remained deep in slumber. It was not until his cousin Nathaniel had discovered him that he was roused. Even then, Nathaniel gave him several rough slaps to the cheeks before he awoke.
“Nathaniel,” he spoke exasperated. “How did you find me?”
The sixteen year old drew a small smirk across his face as he answered, “This is where we found you after you broke up with Vivian.”
Lucius eyes his surroundings, not recognizing a single detail, not even recalling that he had slept against a dumpster at all before. He had a notion then of being tethered to strings that carried him unwittingly through his life, but then it evaporated with what memories were left of his dreams.
“Luckily I found you before the Dicaros did.”
Still pulling his head together, Lucius nodded in agreement, stammering back to his feet using the dumpster for leverage until Nathaniel provided his arm. The sun beat down on his face and he felt as though he was emerging from a drunken night, hungover and returning to sobriety. There was clarity to his vision he didn’t recall having as he stared into the young and eager face of his cousin.
“There was this car parked outside my mom’s place which I wondered about until I heard they were out for you. Heard you did something to one of theirs, and a lie about Rose. I snuck out so they couldn’t tail me and I came looking for you. Are you alright?”
Lucius stared back as though none of the words had landed. In a way, they hadn’t, as he disregarded them for other thoughts which he tried to capture and make sense of.
“I’m not sure, Nathaniel. I think I may have fucked up.”
“Last night?”
“Last night. Maybe a long time ago.”
Nathaniel didn’t linger on the fact that he was unaware what Lucius meant. “What are you going to do now?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t know if I have many choices now. I may have spent them all in the past without realizing it.” He was still reaching for the wandering thoughts that emerged in his head, dancing above him and teasing an answer to a question he wasn’t even certain how to word. “Come on, let’s go home.”
With his arm around his cousin, Lucius led the way back to his apartment, while Nathaniel’s eyes surveyed each new street and corner, wary of danger at any turn. When they came within sight of the apartment, Nathaniel stopped them to scan the streets.
“I don’t see anyone. That’s odd. You would think they would be posted here.”
Lucius paid it no thought, as he was chasing others, still playing coy before his eyes. When he came to the door and placed his key in the lock, they finally became apparent to him. They weren’t words as they collected into a single form before him. It was more like an epiphany, an image of a truth, a feeling. It was a lucidity that allowed him to view himself from afar, and to watch himself as he acted. It was a perspective that shared the insight of his freedom, that provided sight of the path that he had chosen and that there were others available to him. It was a vision that he cast aside when he saw Malcolm seated before the open door with a silencer pistol aimed directly into his chest.
“You worthless piece of shit.”
“I’m so sorry, Lucius.”
Malcolm raised a hand to wipe the tears and mucous from his face, a moment that Lucius took advantage of. He bent forward, gripping the bottom of the chair with both hands, and lifted upwards, flipping the chair back. The pistol went off, firing a shot into the ceiling with a high pitched whizzing sound before Malcolm’s back collided with the floor and the pistol went sliding across the wood out of reach. Lucius leapt over the chair and smashed the butt of his pistol into Malcolm’s face more times than he could count, over and over raising the metal to bring it back harder, splitting skin on Malcolm’s nose, lips, and forehead. Blood began to stream over his face. Lucuis then stood, kicked the table out of the center of the
room, and dragged a nearly unconscious Malcolm to lay in its place. He stood over him, Nathaniel joining him at his side. The vision from the door and key were then lost, replaced wholly by what seemed a greater clarity. Though, in truth, it blinded him from the fact that the words he exchanged with Nathaniel before killing Malcolm, the words that formed his statement of intention, the words that expressed his disregard for life, the words that spoke hate with the same passion that once had spoken love, that each of them that tumbled from his lips in the heated moment now had been crafted from the beginning.
15.
Evening had descended on Verón, filling the air in the Dicaro courtyard with orange that rippled in the water of the fountain which stole Joan’s attention as Lane tried to express the gravity of the situation to her on the deck.
“It’s a very volatile situation, Joan. Lucius is like a rabid animal now, there’s nothing to do but to put him down. Until we do, he’ll hurt any one of us he can get his hands on. I need you to stay here until we find him.”
“Why?” she asked, leaving her eyes on the water.
“Because it’s too dangerous to be out.”
“No,” she said, and sighed. She looked up at Lane, arms crossed in authoritative stance above her. “I mean why is Lucius trying to hurt us?”
Lane scoffed. “He’s an Imada. He’s a foolish dreamer who would stop at nothing in the pursuit of his delusion. Just look at what his brother did.”
“Lucius is not his Victor.”
“Joan—”
She stared into his eyes as she interrupted, “If you expect me to truly believe Lucius used Titus to kidnap Rose in an attempt to squeeze ransom out of Ezekiel,” she turned her head in disgust. “Lies and deceit,” she muttered.