"I'll make it right," Percy said. "I'll call the police. And I'll find the cup." And the ring.
"Oh." Rhianna held her belly.
"What is it?"
"I think my water just broke."
Rhianna retreated to her room. The pains grew worse now as she rubbed the swell of her belly. Her Tshirt wouldn't stay pulled down. Her blue jeans now two sizes too small, her belly bulged over her white belt. She waddled to the window. Kids played on the dilapidated equipment, too young to know that the swings shouldn't be so ragged or the monkey bars so rusted. The graffiti was a part of their world. All they knew was the color of childhood, and innocence was preserved even here for a time. Rhianna fell onto the edge of the bed. She set the radio to Hot 96.3 for some hip hop and turned it up. She didn't get that boy, but if she was going to cry, she didn't want Percy to hear her.
He honored her request to leave her alone. Your honor's more important than my comfort, Percy thought. But he called for an ambulance.
The fear came in waves. Not fear of the birth pains, those she'd handled before. The fear was the renewed fear of bringing another child into the world. The fear didn't come the first time. All she focused on then was her baby. It never seemed real and even now she felt like she played at parenthood. Visiting her baby when the mood hit her. This time around, she was really scared. Scared because things seemed more real this time. Part of her had really attached herself to the child, had committed to doing it right this time. Maybe it was the shame of having a baby to love her and then abandoning it when things got inconvenient. Maybe when confronted with the depth of her selfishness, she wanted to do things differently. Maybe she was just growing up.
She would have to find a way to provide for her child. Food. Clothes. Make a real home for it. Courage sprouted up like a tenacious weed, and she dared to dream. Maybe Outreach Inc. could help her get some food stamps and maybe get her first child back. Perhaps she could get her own place, a real place away from the robbing, drugging and killing. Some place safe. Some place where they could be a real family.
Another wave of contractions caused her to close her eyes. A low moan escaped her lips. She prayed that God would water her courage, allow it to take root and grow. Give her the strength to cling to the hope of a better life.
"Percy, get in here!"
Percy trundled through the door. "The ambulance is on the way."
"Just hold my hand."
With walls the color of coughed-up phlegm, the interrogation room – affectionately known as The Box by the detectives – was smaller a room than one might imagine. Manacled to the table because of his carrying on during his arrest, Mulysa rested his head on the metal table. Cantrell flipped open the case file one more time. The bodies at the Phoenix Apartments had been dropped by shots though the medical examiner was at a loss to give him a caliber or make of gun. For all he knew, someone threw rocks at them really hard. Knifings were almost always personal and rarely involved business, though some crews employed knifemen. Yet Mulysa's demeanor betrayed no feelings, nothing could reach his heart. In the young homicide detective's experience, it signaled that Mulysa was guilty as fuck. Now it was a matter of figuring out of what.
"He been Mirandized?" Octavia double-checked as she stared at Rondell Cheldric through the observation window that opened into the interrogation room. Mulysa nuzzled his head along his arm, sleeping the sleep of the just.
"Yeah, declined representation," Cantrell said, nose still buried in the file.
"As many times as he been through the system? He should know better."
"He knows. And he knows we know," Lee nearly spat with contempt. "He thinks that really proves that he hasn't done anything."
"How do you want to go at him?" Cantrell turned to his partner.
Lee smiled.
The impassive-faced detectives entered the room and Cantrell took a seat across from him. Between him and the door, not needing to voice aloud the reality that the only way Mulysa was to see the other side of the door was through him. Mulysa was no virgin to the system. The man rubbed sleep from his eyes, not acknowledging Cantrell's presence.
Typically, Cantrell's approach in the box was to be ebullient and respectful, eventually garnering their confidence. Cantrell grew up in the neighborhood, always went with the "I can relate" approach despite the fact he was now po-po, the enemy, as relatable as a two-headed alien. But he ran the same streets, he shoplifted from the same shops, ate fried catfish from the same joints, and haunted the same clubs, like PickA-Disease as they called Picadilly's back in the day. None of the social niceties would be met with courtesy or appreciated, so a small-talk approach was wasted on Mulysa.
"What does it say about a people when none of the social pleasantries are observed?" Cantrell asked.
"What?" Mulysa grunted.
"Nothing. A rhetorical question."
"What?"
Cantrell leaned toward this would-be hardass, this brute, this self-proclaimed menace to society, who didn't retreat from the invasion of space. Quite the opposite, as he was comfortable in the close quarters, even matching the detective's advance. Mulysa's rank breath, decayed bits of pork trapped between teeth, sprayed his face.
"It is hot in here," Mulysa complained. "Why's the white boy got to be behind me?"
White boy. Lee's face grew hot at the epithet since it was more insult than accurate description. It wasn't like being called "nigger", which would have been automatic go time were the roles reversed. But the sting of derision was there, enough for his jaw to tighten. Lee took more than the occasional hard elbow on the basketball courts over at Northwest High School coming up. He understood the testing behind the comment and the court jostling. He was expected to take it and considering the white to non-white ratio of the streets and the school, he did. But he didn't like it.
"He make you uncomfortable?" Cantrell asked.
"Just don't like people behind me is all," Mulysa said.
"Remind you of when you got sent up?"
"Men behind you." Lee placed a hand on his shoulder. "Got plenty of them days ahead of you."
"Rondell Cheldric," Cantrell read while pacing back and forth before closing the file folder he cradled.
"You know my name?"
"Folks call you Mulysa. 'Asylum' spelled backwards."
"You got that, huh?"
"I'm a clever Uncle Tom."
"Yeah." He stopped short of an apology but flashed an "it's all in the game" slow nod. "We all out here: you, me, fiends. Like the circle of life. Doing our thing. But in the end, we all get got. Dirt piled on us like we was shit folks trying to hide. That's why it so important to leave a strong name behind."
"A fierce rep," Cantrell agreed.
"True dat."
"You in big trouble, Rondell." Cantrell had a way of using a person's own name as a club, repeating it in a way that forced the person to deal with him.
"Why? I didn't do nothin'."
"You hit a cop. That's something."
"He was touching my–"
"'Bitches.' Yeah, we'll get to that later," Cantrell said. "Assaulting an officer, in front of other officers."
"You going down for that, Rondell," Lee clubbed.
"You got to pay."
"That's how it works."
"You do. You pay."
This was the part of the dance that Cantrell loved, the stage on which they performed. When they fell into a rhythm, knew each other's plays, and today they were in the zone. Rondell didn't stand a chance as they took turns whittling the big man down to a more manageable, a malleable size.
"Do you know who we are, Rondell?" Cantrell eased away from the table, giving Mulysa room to breathe and settle down. Pull back on the throttle, let him take in the scenery and fully appreciate the jackpot he was in. They actually didn't have much of anything on him. It would have been a fairly friendly conversation – albeit with all the requisite chest thumping – had Mulysa not chosen to act all foolish. All they had was his name
and knew that he was mixed up in the situation somehow. Anything he and his bitches had been up to hadn't been reported to the police. Still, he didn't know what they knew. Maybe his bitches would give him up. Blood was hard to clean up.
"You murder police." Mulysa came out of his stupor from watching the pair of detectives sidle back and forth.
"You know what that means?"
"Someone's been murdered."
"Exacta-mundo." Cantrell pointed the folder at him with the beaming smile of a proud parent, then set it on the table. Mulysa turned to face him. A scar underlined his right eye and he was thick like a tree stump, though his blue jeans still hung from him like drapes. Cantrell resisted the urge to snatch the boy's wave cap from his head.
"What do you do for a living?"
"Freelance entrepreneur."
"You hear this shit?"
"Drug-dealing scum. You got that on a business card?"
"I'm into a little bit of this, little bit of that," Mulysa said, not acknowledging Lee. He understood the dance. The disorienting effect of their back and forth, meant to unnerve him. Rattle him to the point where he gave something up. But they had nothing on him. Hadn't even told him what he was being charged with. So he relaxed and allowed himself to get caught up in their little banter game.
"How long have you been a 'freelance entrepreneur'?" Cantrell asked.
"Goin' on three years."
"You like it?"
"It a-ight."
"You like women, Rondell?" Cantrell sat down on the corner of the table closest to Mulysa, drawing his attention.
"Yeah." His breath reeked on top of the wafts of his body odor, a mix of garbage, funk, and unwashed ass.
"I mean, it's all right if you don't."
"I do."
"He look gay to you?" Cantrell asked.
"He could be half a fag," Lee offered. "Maybe he just prison gay."
"I ain't no fag."
"That's a double negative," Cantrell said.
"Means you are," Lee echoed.
"I ain't."
"That's what they call a Freudian slip," Cantrell said. "Part of you may think that you are."
"I… it… I ain't." The questions and innuendo flew furiously at Mulysa. He wasn't having time to think through the questions, much less his answers. Hated the way they twisted things, damned cops. Not to mention his head ping-ponging back and forth. Cantrell sat entirely too close. Lee pressed in on him with his imposing stance, glaring at him with clenched fists burrowing into the table.
"It's all right if you are," Cantrell said.
"These days you can screw fish if it's your orientation,"
Lee said. "Don't take the blame. Blame God."
"He made you that way," Cantrell said.
"He didn't," Mulysa said.
"You got a moms?" Cantrell raised up from the table.
"Yeah," Mulysa said, the sudden veer in the conversation left a slight tremor to his voice. He didn't know where this was going either. A spirit of unease crept into his posture. Though he had a practiced relaxed slouch, his thick frame sprawled out in the chair; he was suddenly conscious of it. Uncomfortable. But didn't know how to shift or straighten up without appearing weak. Or guilty.
"You got a sister?"
"Two."
"They bitches?"
"What the hell?"
"No offense, man, but you seem to like the word," Cantrell said. "Just rolls off your tongue with ease."
"Bitches." Lee emphasized the word as if savoring a fine filet.
"They your bitches." Cantrell quoted Mulysa.
"No. I'd never disrespect my moms."
"Bitches." Cantrell shook his head disapprovingly. "You like to hit women, Rondell?"
"Naw."
"Not according to your sheet. Looks to me like you don't like women at all." Cantrell pointed dramatically to Mulysa's sheet. "What's that say?"
Lee studied the sheet carefully. "Battery. Dispute with your girlfriend. Ended with a bloody nose."
"Those charges were dropped," Mulysa protested.
"They about the only ones," Cantrell said.
"I keep getting pinched."
"You been a bad boy, Rondell." Cantrell shifted his weight to edge closer to him.
"Bad boy, indeed," Lee echoed from too close behind him.
"She got off easy though, didn't she?" Cantrell pulled up another file, this time not letting him see the pages. Anyone could be broken down given enough time and the right circumstances. The need to confess, to get one's story out before it was written for them was a powerful compulsion. They were far afield of their original intent, but the vibe of the room dictated their conversation. And it felt like they were onto some dirt of his. Something with a woman. They needed to tread lightly.
"She never became acquainted with your bitches."
"Or is that your other bitches?"
"I never cut her," Mulysa said.
"Looks to me like you got all sorts of issues with women," Cantrell said. "Stems from issues with his mother."
"That's what they say," Lee said.
"What you got me in here for?" Obviously agitated, Mulysa's stone-cool facade faded into a distant memory. He straightened in his chair, stiff-limbed and uncertain. Cantrell smiled. Now they could really go to work.
"Where were you on September 3rd?" Cantrell asked.
"Man, how am I supposed to remember," Mulysa said. A high pitch slipped into his tone. "Where were you?"
"The man raises a good point," Lee said. "September was a long time ago."
"Maybe if something happened that day," Cantrell looked up toward Lee.
"Something that might jog his memory."
"Let's try something easier. What happened earlier tonight? Noticed one of your bitches…"
"Your bottom bitch?" Lee mused.
"… had a little blood. What are the odds that it will be a match to someone in the system?"
"I don't know, detective," Lee casually ambled toward Cantrell as if to whisper conspiratorially with him. Though for Mulysa's benefit. "Fine upstanding citizen like Mr Cheldric here, surely only associates with like-minded innocents."
"Some fine young thing."
"Maybe you were feelin' your Wheaties tonight." Lee turned, fully entering Mulysa's orbit, filling his field of vision.
"On top of the world." Cantrell matched his stance, fully hammering at Mulysa now.
"So much so that you think that you can talk to just anybody."
"And why not? Handsome man like yourself."
"And who is she? Just some dumb girl."
"Bitch." Cantrell spat the word curtly, like a gunshot. Mulysa couldn't answer, only turn from Cantrell to Lee, not quite keeping up with their rapidfire performance.
"Probably looked at you like you were beneath her." Lee emphasized the words as if empathizing with his experiences.
"So you think to yourself…"
"No, he probably says it," Lee interrupted on cue. "'You think you better than me?'"
"Who is she?" Cantrell asked.
"Bitch," Lee said.
"She had it coming. Deserved what she got." By this point, they had leaned in so close, they nearly pressed their faces on either side of his. Cantrell continued. "This snooty…"
"Pretty…"
"Smart…"
"White…"
"Bitch," Cantrell ended. The word bounced against the tiles of the wall.
"I didn't… hurt her," Mulysa said without conviction.
"This is how folks get a bad reputation. You piss them off, they introduce you to their bottom bitch," Lee said.
"You like knives, Rondell?" Cantrell asked.
"Yeah."
"Big knives. Small knives."
"Yeah."
"Special knives."
"He's a connoisseur," Lee opined.
"Just like knives is all," Mulysa said.
"We know. We got 'em. All. You really like knives," Cantrell said. "We check all of your knives, we gonna find a
ny blood? DNA don't wash off easy."
"Speaking of which…" Lee nodded to the reports.
"Yeah, I almost forgot." Cantrell thumbed through the reports. Mulysa had been up to something. Prob ably completely unrelated to the murders over at the Phoenix Apartments. But whatever nagged at him, whatever he was on the verge of talking about, could be leveraged for cooperation later. He perused the coroner's report from the active case as if it had something to do with Mulysa. "You believe in safe sex?"
King's Justice: The Knights of Breton Court, Volume 2 Page 26