Near her lowest point, she developed an abscess in her arm; the infection ran down to the bone. A mixture of white, yellow, and bloody pus seeped from the wound constantly, a cloud of stench dogged her every step. Eventually she ended up in the hospital. After they were done treating her, it left a gaping hole in her arm. They shot antibiotics into her ass and packed the wound using a long Q-Tip to stuff bandages into it. Much like the ones Mulysa had.
He dropped in the cotton then drew it up into a syringe. Pulled out and pushed, spraying the wall. Iz didn't budge at his approach. Her veins jumped up like an obedient dog called home. She watched the needle puncture her skin. There was something nearly erotic about having someone shoot you up. Blood coagulation at the head of the needles. The blood and drug mixture slammed home. Waves of pulsing warmth suffused with surreal calm. An utter vacantness to her eyes. No joy, no excitement, only need. She couldn't focus. The pattern of the floor boards dizzied her. She never hated herself as much as she did right then.
And part of her didn't care.
Didn't care about a thing.
Life was going to work out.
That certainly was the best part of the high.
Mulysa reached to unfasten her jeans. "There's more where that came from."
Water from the previous night's rain filled the dip in Big Momma's courtyard between the rows of condos. Garbage clogged the drain and filled the parking lot up to the ankles. Back from the service at Good Hope — Had in tow — high on the words of Pastor Winburn, she was all about joining in God's mission to be a blessing to the world. The drain distracted her. She hiked up her dress, wading through the water in her bare feet. Cleaning away the trash, unblocking the drain, she hummed Mahalia Jackson's version of "Precious Lord, Take My Hand" and waved at Neville Sims as he rode his maintenance wagon. Had splashed about in the water while she worked.
She watched the waters recede for a few moments then turned towards her condo. Had's hand in one of her hands, her still dry shoes in the other. Her door was ajar. One of her meaty arms slammed into Had's chest harder than she intended. There had been a series of break-ins throughout the neighborhood. Mr Stern talked about more security, but still hadn't hired anyone or put up any cameras.
Her living room remained unransacked but the house had the air of violation about it. She checked out the lower level of the condo, but nothing seemed out of place. The weight of her foot on the first step as she craned up the stairwell caused the planks to squeak. She took each step slowly, gesturing for Had to stay where he was, her back to the wall as she tried to peer around corners and over ledges. Her room was fine. Last was Lady G's. Her room only slightly more disheveled than usual. But her bed was a mess. Crayons and paper scattered atop pulled-up sheets. The light stand knocked over. Her piles of clothes tumbled over. She never had any boys up in there, but it looked like she'd been dragged out. Big Momma pulled out her cell phone, punching in numbers while still surveying the scene. Straight to voicemail. She dialed a second set.
"She's gone," Big Momma yelled into the phone.
"Who?"
"Lady G."
"What do you mean?"
"I didn't know who else to call," Big Momma said, not allowing her fears to overwhelm her voice. "I didn't want to… I couldn't get a hold of King."
"It's OK. It's OK. I'm on it."
Lott disconnected the call.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Tristan and Iz had avoided corners where action jumped off. Quietly, Tristan always feared for Iz. It wasn't too long ago she was out on the streets on her own and the urge to hustle not long buried. Tristan remembered the days at correction after Iz had become a kleptomaniac. Tristan learned to make food last. Once outside again, Iz seemed happy to not have a toilet in her bedroom and to be away from her warden's manner of discipline and control, and upright rigidity. The one thing she longed more than anything else after being released was a bath. The simple pleasures of soaking in a tub. The desire, the hunger, the insatiable need fed temporarily by drugs bubbled beneath the surface. The last couple of days, Iz had been different. Secretive. Closed off. Evasive even about the little things. Even if she didn't give them voice, Tristan knew the signs. It reminded her of the last time she had to confront Iz's need. Tristan stopped at the corner store to get smokes, gone for only an hour, only to come home to Iz.
No lament was sung alone. For every fiend there was a brother or sister, mother or father, friend or colleague who sang along with them. From money stolen from purses to stuff missing around the house to lies upon denials upon disappointments heaped up as a raucous chorus.
Tristan knew the bottom was about to fall out. She ran the gauntlet of fiends milling about the place. How they avoided her eyes. How they shuffled off without a word, cockroaches scattering in her presence only to regroup once she was gone. They knew.
When Tristan pulled back the loosely placed piece of plywood and stepped into the alcove, it was as if the spirit of their place had been violated. Part of her knew Iz had been using again. The fiend was not the only one to sound the notes of denial in the junkie's lament. A little weed she could excuse. Maybe a one-time slipup, because they were only human and that heroin was the devil.
She noticed the smell first. Her blades found their way into her hands without a thought. Tristan booted open the door. Half-dressed, Iz passed the pipe to her john. The room lit to the shade of burnt honey, Tristan made sure the light glinted from her blades that he could clearly see the feral warning in her eyes. The john dropped his pipe and ran past her without so much as a backwards glance at Iz. Her arms embraced her raised knees as Iz cowered in the corner of the room. A long T-shirt barely covered her, leaving her bare buttocks visible from underneath it. Her skin a frieze of sweat trails and dirt. Sucking on a Coke can used for a pipe. Feeling more empty than high.
"Why?" Tristan's voice cracked with a hollow ache.
"Don't know. Guess I'll never be whole."
Tristan huddled on the floor with Iz and kissed her hands. "It will be all right," she promised. "I'll make sure it will be all right."
Colvin had nothing to prove.
Unarmed, unescorted, and without a security entourage, he wasn't one of the neighborhood boys out in the streets getting into fights in order to find out things about himself or test himself or others to see what they were made of. He wasn't out to learn what he could carry with him for the rest of his life. And he wasn't out to gain the respect of the street, wanting neither its fear nor love. Colvin was of the fey and such things were beneath him.
Colvin wanted power.
He stood in front of the Phoenix Apartments. Lookouts between each of the buildings and hidden in stairwells had already alerted one another to his presence. He waited until he knew all eyes were on him. They would whisper that he lost his Goddamned mind. That this high yella, half a cracka, Mr Spocklooking fool was going to come up into Rellik's home base all on his own. He half-expected someone to take a shot at him from the shadows simply to put him out of his misery.
Maybe he was crazy. His plan was simple: he was going to walk into Rellik's chief stash house and abscond with any product and cash. It would hurt if not cripple Rellik, the shame alone might cause the dons to remove him, increase Colvin's own bottom line, and send all the message he needed to King. If in his pursuit of power, he earned respect, fear, and love — with his name whispered among the people — he could live with that.
Colvin closed his fists and opened them. The street lamps buzzed as if on the verge of shorting out. At their best, the lights didn't fully illuminate the court and parking lot but rather created ominous pockets of shadows. Colvin marched toward the main entrance. The red glow of a cigarette tip flared and then sailed through the air. Its owner went out to meet Colvin, grinding out the cigarette in a burst of sparks as he walked over it.
The Boars didn't tower over Colvin, but he clearly had a few inches on him and nearly a hundred pounds.
"You lost?" The Boars knew all e
yes and ears were on him. The thing about being his size was that he rarely felt the obligatory need to constantly flex. His physical presence alone squashed most drama.
"I heard you had a surplus of money and product and needed help moving it."
"You heard that, did you?"
"Probably conjecture on my part. Either way, it seemed like a situation I could ill afford to pass up."
"You need to rise up outta here."
"I appreciate the courtesy of the warnings. So much so, I'll give you a moment for you and your crew to vacate. Or, if it's easier," Colvin shouted up to those listening from the windows, "you could just drop the money and product out the window."
"Get this fool out of my sight."
Bodies approached from the stairwell, some reaching into their waistbands, others toting bats.
Colvin began a low chant in a tongue unfamiliar to The Boars. As far as The Boars was concerned, it was some Satanic shit he wanted no part of, so he stepped to Colvin. Without breaking the rhythm of his incantations, Colvin ducked under The Boars' wide punch and kneed him by his kidneys. He jabbed his elbow into the back of The Boars' neck, sending him lights out before he hit the ground. Before the approaching boys could draw their weapons, he arced his arms down, green light trailing the downward strokes.
Though Colvin wasn't an accomplished summoner like Mulysa, he did know how to open and close doors. Other than his glamour, it was his specialty. The blue trails split the air, giving the men pause. The unzippered fabric of space parted, revealing a deeper darkness than the midnight shadows they were in. Twin red dots flicked on a couple dozen floating in the air. The men trained their weapons on the penumbra apertures and opened fire.
A hiss echoed from the opening and a small figure leapt out onto the nearest gunman. Its spiked boots landed square on his face, the momentum of its jump toppled them both, while it remained perched on top of him. Their fall drove his metal spikes deepest into his face. The bone of his jaw snapped with a loud crack. His eye socket fractured. The spikes pulled his eye free, attached to one of the nails, the connecting muscle drawn out like a forkful of spaghetti. The boys' screams erupted. Still looming over the body like a predatory gargoyle, the creature turned its attention to the next gunman.
Suddenly the entire court lit up with gunfire and screams.
More creatures poured from the openings. Short hairy bodies, stalking keloids of fibrous muscle with grizzled beards. With the wizened faces of old men contemplating a meal of oatmeal. The gleam of their red eyes. A taloned hand raked though the meat of an arm, stripping ribbons of flesh. Filed teeth coming together like a living bear trap snapped on a man's neck. Blood throbbed from the wound in time to the pulse. The creature paused over him. Removing its pink cap, it daubed the spurting wound until it turned a foul crimson.
A half-dozen more tumbled out of the hole, taking positions behind bushes. They whirred their slings, releasing a volley of shots. Men tumbled from the shadows. Rellik's men kept firing.
Colvin stood among the ensuing chaos. The screams, the rent flesh, and gunfire combined into a symphony of violence. A shot grazed him. It would take him hours to notice. The battle, however, was over in minutes.
"Don't make me come up there," Colvin cried up to the windows.
A bag tumbled from the window.
"And the product?"
Another bag followed.
Colvin carried one in each hand and walked down the sidewalk without a backwards glance. The Red Caps jumped back into their home between spaces before the wound in the air sealed itself.
Esther Baron loved volunteering for night drop at Outreach Inc. She always had the feeling that she wasn't doing enough. Standing behind the dining room table, she'd join hands like everyone else to pray for the food and evening. She doled out the food to the kids, not to keep them from being hogs — because there was plenty of food to go around — but to let the kids be served. It was a subtle message, to let them know they were home, could relax, and allow someone to do for them. Accompanying salad and broccoli — she encouraged them to eat their vegetables and oddly enough, despite them being teens, they usually requested seconds on the veggie of the day — was a spaghetti casserole repast.
Rok squirted some hand sanitizer on his hands then passed her an empty plate. This was when she appreciated Wayne the most. He warned her that folks typically came in with the idea of making a huge impact and turning kids' lives around… on one meeting. It didn't work that way. The only "doing" was the ability to open oneself up and love another. For one evening, she arrived with the spirit to serve, to be a blank tableau for the kids without judgment, to show them grace. Provide a space of stability that could help them take the next step toward their goals.
"How you doing, Rok?" she asked.
"Doing good, Miss Esther. You looking good with your fine-ass self."
"Rok," Esther chided, but in a mild tone, enough to let him know she wasn't playing. "You think that's an appropriate way to talk to a woman? I know I'd appreciate a compliment without the disrespect."
"You look good tonight, Miss Esther," he said without his usual bluster, awkward and sheepish. The way he glanced about to make sure no one noticed was almost cute. Wayne didn't hold the kids to some preconceived model of how they should be or act. He did believe in boundaries and letting them know what was appropriate between men and women.
Already at the table in the common room, Wayne chatted amiably with the kids as they came in. He asked about their day, teased them about their fashion choices, listened to them, and helped them through some of the decisions they made. The way he explained it, the time was about connecting. With them, finding out about one another and letting the impact of being in their lives speak to them. Success, even progress, had to be measured differently. But there was a look that would light up their eyes. Sometimes faint, sometimes bright, moments when they realized someone cared about them; cared without expectation or demand. He wanted everything for the kids, imagined them, saw potential in them in ways they couldn't for themselves. The job required a kind of fearlessness. A willingness to go deep with people, people who would likely disappoint. People who would likely make bad decisions. People who often couldn't get out of their own way. Not only was Wayne passionate for them, his passion was contagious.
"How're things going out there, Rok?" Wayne asked.
"Steady."
"No recession worries?" Wayne joked with him, conscious of not sounding approving of him, but not wanting to be yet another lecturing voice in his life to be tuned out.
"What?"
Wayne also didn't want to make Rok feel stupid or condescended to. He got enough of that at home. And school, when he bothered to attend. "You thinking about what we talked about before?"
"That GED thing? Man, you trippin' with that noise."
"I'm trippin', huh. Pass me a roll."
"They got more rolls up there," Rok said.
"Yeah, but then I'd have to get up. And you got three on your plate."
"You stupid." Rok handed him a roll.
"Why I gotta be all that?" Wayne bit into the roll. Not especially hungry, he simply liked to eat with the kids. Eat what they ate, not wanting any sense of "we're just here to feed the poor darkies." And he kept the conversation light, harassed them like family would at the dinner table, but still pushed in on their lives. "You got a head on you. You good with numbers. A little training, you could set up your own business."
"You think?"
There it was. That light. Rok entertained a new possibility for himself. That was all Wayne could ask for. But he'd stay on him, fanning that tiny spark until it grew into something. Wayne clung to the little hopes of progress.
The doorbell rang. The door was kept locked during drop, no one coming in without a staff member letting them in. Tonight was a closed drop which meant regular clients only. Frantic fists pounded on the door frame. Wayne bolted to the door, preferring to open it because he never knew what might jump off o
n the other side, and he wanted to be the first line of defense for the volunteers. Especially Esther.
Tristan held Iz up.
"Help us," Tristan said.
"What happened?" Wayne asked. Esther ran over to help catch Iz and ushered her to the couch. Esther soaked a wash cloth and gave it to Tristan, who daubed her forehead. She balanced on the edge of the couch, giving Iz as much room as possible.
Wayne preached boundaries but didn't always practice them. Unless he was on call, he discouraged clients from calling him off hours (except for emergencies) and rarely answered his cellphone (preferring to check his voicemail). He maintained regular office hours and when drop night was done, he led the charge to hustle everyone out. But he didn't follow his own guidelines with strict rigidity. In the language of the best trained seminarians, "Shit happened."
Iz sprawled out on the couch, under the tender ministrations of Tristan. Wayne thought about calling 911 and still debated it, but Iz seemed to be just coming down from a high. Iz and Tristan took turns crying. Somehow the act seemed more tender, more anguished, coming from Tristan, the way anything tender broke from those who were used to being strong.
Rok lingered around after drop, under the guise of wanting to talk with Wayne later. He recognized Tristan from the summit meeting. Thought she was fine then, but seeing her with Iz, he knew she was not playing the same game he was.
"What it look like? She got fucked up."
"What do you want us to do?" Wayne asked.
Tristan wanted to say "make it better" or "fix her" but the words sounded too needy. Too unachievable. "Look after her. She's been clean for over a year."
"And she got back on tonight?"
"Someone did this to her," Tristan said.
"We all make choices we have to live with," Wayne began, sympathetic but with honesty.
"I wasn't speaking metaphorically, nigga. Someone sabotaged her recovery."
"A… friend of yours?" Esther asked.
"Mulysa doesn't know what a friend is."
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