Jury of Peers

by Troy L Brodsky

  “If I may?” Seth said, gesturing to his inside breast pocket.

  “By all means,” Suki said. There wasn’t the slightest hesitation, he seemed very much the birthday boy watching a magician produce an endless stream of ribbons.

  Seth reached into his pocket and produced a sketch of the graffiti that was forever burned into his mind. The big man put his palm on the image and drug it over. He lifted the sketch as if peering at a poker hand and then replaced it on the table. His eyes fell on Seth. Large dark eyes. “Who are you?” Suki asked.

  “My name’s Seth Meek,” he extended his hand, which disappeared into Suki’s for a moment and then slid free.

  “I gotcha, alright. Yeah, fifteen minutes of fame and all that?”

  Seth nodded.

  Suki watched him for a nearly a minute, his eyes going out of focus and putting all of the bits and pieces he’d been collecting over the last couple days into some order. “Whatcha want here?”

  “The two that ended my life,” Seth said. He gestured to the sketch.

  Suki smiled. "The balls on you man, Jesus Christ.”

  Seth didn’t move. Didn’t blink. This was the moment that would decide a great deal.

  “So let’s get this all out. Your peeps get fucked up bad, and you come here lookin’ for me. Which means that you’re thinkin’ that a coupla my boys did the fuckin’. And you got the balls to come here? For what? Gonna try to waste me?” He leaned back in his chair. "How’s come you be thinkin’ that these is my boys?” He flipped the sketch out over the table like he was folding his hand.

  “They left a calling card,” Seth said. Possibilities boiled in his mind.

  “Yeah? What?”

  "They spray painted this in my house, on my wife… my daughter."

  “What the fuck?” Suki said. Then it dawned on him, “Motherfuckers.” He slapped the desk so hard that his two stone sentries jumped. “I knew it was somethin’.”

  Seth leaned forward, acid boiled at the back of his throat. This guy really didn't know.

  Suki shook his head, still clearing the fury. It was an honest, unrehearsed reaction and Seth saw within it an opportunity. He had followed a Trojan horse, assuming that anyone who would kill like that would want other killers to know just how bad they really were. It had dawned on him that it could be simply to force the police into working the wrong bunch, but he really hadn't expected that level of competence. The graffiti was a ruse. Just like a line of code that he might have put in place to make a hacker believe that he was on the right track, a track that lead in the opposite direction–the spray paint had led him to Suki.

  “Nah, they ain’t mine. This is ‘bout money,” the calm Asian façade was giving way to the street reality that Suki had used to get to this point in life. “They’s fuckin’ wid you, but you don’t matter. They bust on your family, tag it like my Crew did it all, and all the sudden I got mad heat on my boys. Feel me?”

  Seth nodded. It only followed that if all of Suki’s guys were getting harassed, they wouldn’t be able to sell their product. And if not, someone else would get that cut. He felt a desperation well up inside of him and fought it back. There was another possibility… another way.

  Suki stood. He stroked one of the ferns, calming himself, and then tore off part of one frond and sat back down. He proceeded to shred it into tiny bits on his desk, scattering them over the images without looking down.

  “You got some balls comin’ up in here thinkin’ I’d sell some boys out,” he finally said. “What was you gonna’ offer me? Gonna try to buy ‘em off me? Shit.” Suki was letting the frustration boil off and it left only anger. Seth could see it clouding his eyes like the curling smoke from the incense.

  “Something better,” Seth said.

  It stopped Suki short. He studied Seth. “What could you have that I’d want?”

  “They'll disappear, and the heat will come off. Two days, and you're clear of all this,” Seth said. He said it without an ounce of outward emotion, but inside he was watching his last spin of the wheel and wondering if it would fall red or black.

  Suki’s eyes lit up, and then he laughed again. “Mistoffelees.”

  “Exactly.”

  “How you gonna conjure that?”

  “Do you know who it was?” Seth tapped the sketch that lay beneath the shredded fern.

  “Might,” Suki said. He adjusted his topknot and went on, “Widmore. Their crew does shit like this. They got a hitter, a white boy like you. He’s a bad dude, been ‘round for a while, but just lucky is all. Dumb and mean, just a dog that bites hard." Suki paused, then asked, "You saw who did it didn't ya?"

  Meek nodded once.

  "White boy and somebody else? Younger probably, right?"

  "Yeah. A white kid, probably about seventeen. His eyes kind of each went their own way, outward a little. And a black kid, pretty young… maybe twelve, thirteen. Scared looking. Tried to shoot me."

  "Gettin’ courted in. That’s what ya send the dogs out for man, to show the pups how to cut teeth.”

  “Can you find them?”

  “Oh fuck yeah. The dude with the fucked up eyes, the crazy eyes... his name's Bolo. Be On the Look Out. Cop shit. He's been frontin' around between crews for a long time. He's a bad motherfucker, surprised you're still around Mr. Seth Meek. But I understand now. If it was him, he did some bad shit. I can see why you might want some payback. Dunno about the lil' dude, but it doesn't matter. I'll find out and I'll fade 'em.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Say what?”

  “Let me,” Seth said.

  Suki smiled, but it was grim. “Payback feels good man, but this is a hard dude and you ain’t, no offense, you ain’t….”

  “Ask Jonquez if I’m for real.”

  A pause, “Aight, say I turn you loose, whatcha gonna do?” Suki asked.

  “Just what I said, they’ll disappear.”

  “You talk like a white boy.”

  “I am.”

  He snorted then turned to the door at the far end of the room, “Quez!”

  The kid’s face appeared just as soon as the cat woman opened the door. He slid inside and trotted over as Suki beckoned him.

  Suki’s voice dropped low, like a parent extracting the truth from his child. "This dude a cop?” He cast a glance at Seth.

  Jonquez shook his head no. Vigorously. “No way.”

  This pleased the big man, and again he brought out his big laugh. "What makes you so sure?”

  The boy proceeded to explain their encounter with the Widmore Crew. The tale brought the joy back to Suki’s eyes. “So you just want me to finger these motherfuckers, that’s it? Show you their hood and cut you loose?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And in exchange for this… service you’re gonna conjure up some way to get the heat off my boys.…” Suki could see the benefits, and they were nearly without risk. That kind of business was the kind he couldn’t pass up. If this white boy rolled up and capped two Widmore bangers that’d be good enough. Assuming he could do it, and probably, Suki thought, it wouldn’t be as easy as he hoped. This boy was all romantic; he wanted them to know it was him, he wanted to be up in their face. Revenge was dangerous shit and he’d probably fuck it up. He’d just get killed for all of his balls.

  Still, that could work in Suki’s favor, too. Somebody would eventually go looking for the guy, they'd find him, and then it’d be all over the news again that the rich kid had been out killing the people that’d fucked up his life. Pressure off. And Widmore would take a hellava hit.

  And if he did manage it, if he killed ‘em and just dipped without holding up his end? Well Suki wouldn’t hesitate to drop a dime on this guy, and let the cops know exactly who was down in the hood doin’ all the shootin’.

  “You just gonna roll up and unload a gauge on these motherfuckers?” Suki asked.

  Seth shook his head, "Not exactly, but you can’t lose here can you?”

  Suki returned the g
esture. "Nope. But life gets damn dangerous when it ain't all 'bout business."

  Seth ignored him. “Alright then, I just need to know where they are and in a month it's over.”

  Jonquez was looking at Seth as if he were some mythical beast from the abyss. Suki noticed and chuckled. "You gotta piece?”

  Seth pinched his lower lip between his fingers, a habit from a former life that brought enough pain to make him wince now. "Don’t need one.”

  “You gonna use harsh language boy?”

  “I’ll deal with it.”

  “Be straight man, you’s a little crazy ain’tcha?” Suki asked.

  Seth glanced at Jonquez, studied the awe in his face and said, "Probably.”

  Chapter Twenty–Seven

  Itch

  Saul was in a tight spot.

  Bolo was useless. A day ago, having the guy keep his mouth shut would have been exactly what Saul would have wanted, but now Bolo was gutted. Forced to follow Saul about like a puppy dog had sucked the cool right out of him, and now that he wasn’t even strapped, he was about as good to Saul as an extra shadow. Plus, he wasn’t a dealer. He didn’t know how to work a car full of hopped up white guys from the suburbs looking to score something a little harder than weed after winning the big game. Bolo scared people.

  Saul told him to sit back out of the wind, but not too far. He too, stood out of the way, visible only to his regulars if they knew where to look. Still, he wasn’t about to let the weather drive him in; business was up already from what he’d been hearing.

  He filed away the lesson learned–it was all business. He dreamed as he leaned against the doorframe of a day when he’d run things. Things he’d do differently. Like so many kids, Saul didn’t think of an alternate life, just the one at hand. It was all about this moment and how the next might be different.

  He’d hated his first jump–in, but probably, he wouldn't have changed it much. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to think that getting the living shit beat out of you would be a low point in the day, but at the same time, it was… reassuring. They’d tried hard not just to hurt him, but humiliate him by using six girls. He was slight, his health had always been a problem, but he’d survived because of his mother. The girls had surrounded him and he’d been afraid. A couple dozen of the guys he’d grown up with, guys from the Crew, stood around laughing, grinding the insult home as they sensed his terror.

  The first one he’d been too slow to fend off, unsure of her intentions. She didn’t scream and flail at him as she approached, rather she smiled and said something soothing that his thrumming heart had erased. Then she’d smashed his balls into his pelvis. After that it was a blur of shouting, laughing, and the most intense pain he could remember. It had only lasted about half a minute he found out later, but time had stood on its ear as they’d kicked at his body; each jab and stomp folded in upon the last, weaving together a blanket of pain that threatened to suffocate him before he could regain his ability to think.

  But when it was over, his Crew was there. They picked him up, got him some hot food, a fifth of something, and a place to sleep it off. His Crew. Before the initiation, he’d belonged to them because he was a part of the hood, just like anyone else. Now he belonged with them. It was a feeling of security that fell short of love, it was just business after all, but it was real. More than that, it was an advantage, and it felt like the first one that he’d ever had in life. It was something that outsiders would never understand.

  He would have been a fool to pass it up.

  So now he stood his corner in the sleet just as he’d been told, took care of his other corners so that he’d be noticed, and dreamed the same dream that thousands of other kids were dreaming at the very same time: how to get to the top. Life was just business.

  Chapter Twenty–Eight

  Imbue

  “Sweet baby Jesus don’t move Finny,” Tonic said. "Lemme get the camera.”

  Finn looked up at his partner and then back down at the kid he was straddling. He made a note that there was but one layer of expensive pants between the two of them, and quickly stood. “Roll over Andy,” he said.

  This brought a peal of laughter from Tonic. Finn slipped a flex–cuff around the kid’s wrists and cinched it down tight. He lifted him to his feet and they made their way back to the car. Ray was doing the math and getting a very uneasy feeling about their seating assignments when Tonic said, “You ride up front with me Ray.”

  “Don’t get any ass matter on my seat Andy,” Finn said. "And watch your head.”

  No answer, the kid slid into the car and immediately looked at the floor. Trembling.

  “Let’s get out where there’s some traffic Spence,” Finn said when he got no reply. The car was already running and they lurched forward. Finn pulled off his helmet but the straps left angry red lines on his cheeks. "Tell me you weren’t going down in that hole with no pants.”

  The kid kept his head down. Clumped, uneven dreadlocks hung around his face. His long pale legs bore crisscrossed pink streaks, the upper thighs dotted with bruises. Likewise his arms were freckled with punctures and a half dozen blurry tattoos. Tonic cracked his window open, but there were no jokes about the smell. The creeping death from the old church clung to the kid; a parasite to its incubator.

  Two blocks after the car turned onto Widmore, an eye peeked up. It was red, and a little swollen from the collision with Ray. The pupils were wide but still. Almost serene. The kid cautiously looked outside, and then sat up as much as his cuffed hands would allow.

  “You gonna be alright back there Andy?” Tonic asked from the front.

  “Yeah,” he croaked. Then, “I’m good.” He cleared his throat, but without much improvement.

  “When’d you last use?” Tonic went on.

  “Yesterday.”

  “Sure?”

  “Yep.”

  “What was it?”

  “Just turbo,” the kid said. His lips looked like tree bark, cracked so deeply that in some spots they bled. The face was dirty, a ring around his lips was scrubbed clean.

  “Where’s it at?” Tonic said.

  “In my pants dude,” he said staring at Ray's reflection. "The rocks at least, I stepped on the tweeds and pawned it off.”

  “I have no idea what you just said Andy,” Finn said as he tossed a blanket over the kid’s lap.

  “You’ve been outta the game too long man.”

  “You’ve been in too long,” Finn answered. "Hungry?”

  Andy nodded and then looked back at Ray, “Who’s this guy?”

  “Our intern,” Tonic said.

  Andy stared at Ray and explored the back of his mouth with his tongue. “Wanna buy some head Ray?” the kid asked.

  “Be nice,” Finn said before Ray could close his mouth. "And I’ll take the cuffs off you.”

  Andy smirked when the intern realized why his lips were clean.

  Ray felt ill, grappled with the nausea, and turned away.

  They drove for a few minutes without words and then pulled across the road into a Burger King. Tonic ordered three meals in separate bags and then handed them all back to Finn.

  “You good to eat?” Finn asked.

  A nod. Distant eyes.

  Tonic angled back out unto the nearly empty roads, keeping clear of the areas with which Andy was familiar. The farther they got from Widmore, the more relaxed he became. The cuffs came off. “Cheap bastards that we are, we got you greasy burgers, hope you don’t mind,” Finn said as he started handing food across to the kid.

  “Better than come.”

  “He makes a good point,” Tonic said.

  Andy didn’t attack the food as Ray had expected. Instead, he unwrapped a sandwich, spread the wrapper out on the blanket, and created a very neat dining area just like a businessman on a first class flight. He nibbled at a French fry, wiped his mouth, and then had another.

  “Coffee,” Finn handed it over. "This is just shitty American Gym Sock blend, but we’ll hit a S
tarbucks if you have anything useful.” Andy accepted it and almost smiled. He took a long whiff and then just sat there with the cup under his nose.

  “Okay, aromatherapy is over. What’s new?”

  “It’s been like two years dude,” Andy said, he hadn’t moved or opened his eyes.

  Finn took a fry of his own, "Well I think you know that we’re not down here to talk about your taxes.”

  “SMG killed some folks out in Arlington Heights,” Tonic offered.

  “How do you know it was them?” Andy asked. In the grand scheme of the streets, he was a floater, an untouchable, and thus he was mostly ignored when he was in the light. It made him as useful as an invisible man.

  “Tags,” Tonic replied.

  This earned him a smirk, "Tags don’t mean shit and you know it, not on the outs.”

  “How’s Widmore’s business over the last few days?” Finn asked.

  “I partied with four guys I haven’t seen in a long time, so they’re making some fresh scratch. Didn’t you figure?”

  Finn nodded, "Yeah, but we’d sure like to get a line on the guys that did it.”

  “Dunno. Sorry dude, seriously. I heard what they did. But I dunno who they are, or where. I kinda wondered if you guys wouldn’t come sniffin’ around though. I’m actually glad to see you. Wheels within wheels huh?”

  “For sure,” Tonic said. “What’s your best guess?”

  “Widmore. Doncha think? They got a pretty swift guy on top. Vesper’s his name, but they’re also kinda backed into a corner right now with SMG movin’ on their main drag. Cut off Widmore street, and all their lifeblood goes to SMG. No more kids comin’ in from the burbs to score, all the sudden they’d just be sellin’ to locals and that’s not such a good deal. They’d die back in their corner so they figured out a way to fuck SMG over, put a bunch of heat on ‘em, and in the mean time, take back a few blocks of the main vein.” He managed to get through one burger, and Finn handed him a second.

  “Sounds like you’ve thought it through.”

  “I got the time.”

  “Anything else?” Finn asked.