CHAPTER ONE

 
 
 

It was a long and lawless time after Luther's death and before King first calmed the streets. Many feared it was only a matter of time before the eye passed and the storm raged again. For a time, things had settled down. King and his crew locked things down. Folks began to call this time King's justice, the young prince having come into his own. All felt it. And it was as if the neighborhood was tied to him. The community had been wounded. Rage and suspicion marked the injury. Everyone knew the treachery, cut to the quick by betrayal, a bloated pustule on their soul waiting to be lanced.

  Lyonessa Maurila Ramona Perez clutched a blonde doll clad in a pink dress to her chest. Her grandmomma had attempted to buy her any of a number of darker-skinned dolls but Lyonessa would have none of it. She fussed with the doll's hair, never quite satisfied with the lilt of its curls, and dreamed of doing something with her own long, boring black hair one day. She held her doll up for her momma to kiss, which she did after gently chiding her daughter that she was getting too old for such games.

  The Los Compadres Food Mart smelled of earth, a vegetable musk thick with the cloying scent of spices. Trailing her through the aisles of the store, Lyonessa loved going grocery shopping with her grandmomma. She didn't even mind the dull, fluorescent light which cast everything in its pallid glare. She tugged at her ill-fitting soccer shorts, hating the way they hung on her and gave her the figure of a boy. A smile curled on her lips at the memory of the note from a boy in her class. She lifted up the back of her doll's dress to check on the folded piece of paper tucked in there.

 

Dear Lyonessa,

  Will you date me? You are very cute. I like how you wear your hair. I love you. Do you like to play with me. Do you love me?

  Reese

 

  Scrawled on a piece of paper that had red hearts along its border, she had the note memorized. Reese had given it to her at recess. Lyonessa suspected that he might've tried to kiss her if the teachers weren't hovering nearby. She blushed at their all-too-audible "aw"s and didn't give him an immediate reply. She smiled – a wistful, unsure thing – and folded the note. Reese left, grinning ear-to-ear.

  Such was the tumultuous love life of a seven year-old.

  Not that she could share any of this with Grandmomma. If she had, she'd have received an earful about being too young. And he was Anglo. Her brother, Lonzo, was just crazy enough to go up to the school and threaten Reese.

  "Can we go now?" she said in her native tongue.

  "One minute, baby."

  "We're going to be late." She brushed her hair behind her ear at the thought of Reese. Though she hated soccer practice, it kept her out of the house. Away from bodies pressed in so tightly together that she had to step over three to go to the bathroom at night. On the field, she could run free. It felt like flying.

 

Garlan played with his ring. Like a wedding band he never got used to, he was always aware of it. It fit snugly on his fingers most days, but sometimes it had enough give to it to allow him to slip it over his knuckle. And back again. Over his knuckle. And back again. With the ring came responsibilities, duties, and obligations. With the ring came times where he had to do things he wasn't quite down with.

  The teal-colored PT Cruiser with black-tinted windows circled the lot, a slow-cruising shark lured by the chum of innocents. The speakers of the truck boomed from half a block away. Its fortyinch rims, like the vehicle itself, paid for in cash, knowing the attention such a purchase would bring. Sometimes Garlan wanted to be seen.

  The Van Dyke he sported accentuated his sharp, angular face and the triangle shape of his face. Small twists crowned his head, marking the beginnings of a thick mop of braids on top. The color of cooked honey, his eyes contained a practiced hardness. He wasn't a dumb man. At the ripe old age of seventeen, he'd accumulated quite the resume. A bid in juvey for grand theft. Several assault charges. Possession with intent (plea-bargained down). He was good with his hands – the fresh scars over the knuckles of his right hand attested to that – but he got by on his wits. Knowing when the risk was too high. Knowing when to cut his losses. Knowing when to pay attention to his gut.

  His gut screamed now.

  A thick plume of endo smoke filled the cabin of his truck. Garlan wished that Dred had sent Mulysa on this little mission as this was certainly more up his crazy-ass alley. No, instead Dred sent him and he could only guess at why since Dred never played anything straight… especially how he went after his enemies.

  Garlan took another deep hit then passed the joint back to the knuckleheads in the back seat. Colvin was yet another in the line of would-be princes of the street put down like the mad dog that he was by King. What was left of his splintered crew was immediately scooped up by and consolidated under Dred. Noles was a slack-jawed plate of hot mess who only sprang to work when he knew someone in charge of his wallet was around. One of Colvin's white boys, with hair in a Caesar cut, a razor-thin goatee with and a random growth of a beard only over his Adam's apple. With his ill-fitting dress shirt only sometimes tucked into jeans, and a jacket he always wore when on the corner no matter how hot it got, he dressed like a redneck business executive.

  Melle had become one of Colvin's top earners, the little man due to be promoted. A young hothead in a wife beater and baggy blue jean shorts, with the scarecrow build of a krumper. He had shaved off his wild, unchecked Afro because FiveO could identify him from blocks away. Both jacked up, wild-eyed, and too eager to make a rep for themselves, they were the latest in a seeming endless procession of would-be soldiers. Like much of their crew, these two had run in a leaderless direction, in desperate need of an anchor. Squatting from building to building, as random movement made it hard for the police to track them, they lived strictly day-to-day. Sure, they could work a corner, run off a wayward, crew sling whatever product they could get their hands on, and generally take care of what business they knew about, but they, like many other rootless boys, waited for someone to step up and take the reins. Garlan considered starting a franchise called Rent-a-Thug. Maybe Hoodrats 'R Us.

  The PT Cruiser circled the parking lot again.

 

Lyonessa bounded after her grandmomma. A halfdozen people mingled at the entrance door as she pushed her way through. Grandmomma stopped to chat. Again. Lyonessa swatted the air before her nose, brushing the cigarette smoke from her face. The gangly man in the plaid shirt and white hat nodded and backed away before tamping it out against a brick column. Tipping his hat to her, he then crushed the remains under his boot heel. That made her grin.

  The bright-colored, slow-moving car caught her eye. It was the second time she'd seen it pass. She liked those kind of cars because they looked oldtimey.

  Lyonessa tugged at her grandmomma's dress.

  "Let's go, Grandmomma." There was a hint of whine to her voice. If they didn't leave soon, they'd be late for soccer practice. They still had to load and unload the groceries into the car and lug them into the house. Maybe if Lonzo had stopped by things would go faster. Or he could take her himself. But he rarely seemed around much these days.

  Her tongue ran to the gap in her teeth. The third tooth lost this month. No tales of tooth fairies were spun around her house, though she often heard her classmates ridicule each other about believing in fairies. Reese once was the victim of such barbs, but he smiled his two-missing-teeth smile and pulled out five dollars and said "I believe in this." He reminded her of Lonzo when he did that. She'd go to soccer practice, maybe see Reese, maybe smile at him. It would be a good day.

  "Come on, Grandmomma."

  "Madre Dios," her grandmomma said with feigned exasperation. She smiled at her granddaughter, understanding the secret language of girls and confident that she had raised a good girl with a good heart. Not a fast one like some of the other girls in the neighborhood, even at such an age.

  The PT Cruiser circled again.

  This time the man in the plaid shirt took notice and stood up straight against the brick column. Everyone seemed suddenly attentive and oddly tensed, as if an electric current passed through them all. Lyonessa clutched her doll to her chest.

  The tinted back window of the car rolled down. The next thing Lyonessa knew, a body slammed into her, knocking her to the ground. The report of thunder boomed, followed by loud pops, louder than any firecracker. The man in the plaid shirt reached into his belt and then his body jerked three times, invisible strings tugging at him like a toy on the fritz, before he collapsed. Lyonessa hated the way his hat tumbled from his head.

  "You do one of ours, we do one of yours!" a voice cried from the van. The words had an ugly tone to them made worse by the slightest trace of a southern drawl.

  Not sure what he meant, Lyonessa kept her head down. People scattered in a torrent of screams and more bangs, but two bodies had her pinned. She dropped her doll but tried to remain as still as Grandmomma. Her fright made it hard to breathe. Why wasn't Grandmomma moving? Why wasn't she coming after her and scooping her up and holding her close like she did whenever she was scared?

  A pair of rough hands grabbed her and pull her to her feet. Lyonessa lashed out in frenzied struggle, slapping at the grip the man had on her wrist. The men smelled of sweat and bad smoke, eyes half-shut as if bored. They shoved her into the van.

  "You tell Lonzo," the first one stood in the open rear passenger door shouted to no one in particular. He sort of reminded her of her pastor, the way he shouted and paused as if waiting for a response.

  They knew her brother, but they sounded so angry. Lonzo would calm them down and make everything all right. He had that way with people. The white one put his hand on her knee. At first she thought it was to get her to settle down. But the way he stroked his fingers up and down her leg made her more scared. The man in the front seat looked sad, disgusted, as if he had a plate of food he didn't like but was forced to eat.

  The old-timey car pulled off.

 

Lonzo Perez insisted his crew call him "Black," not "El Negro". Hazel eyes, glassy and expressionless, a snake's eyes, stared at nothing in particular. Though sporting a Boston Celtics jersey, he had no love for the team. The green and white, however, were his crew's colors and its sleevelessness showed off his arms. Along his thick bicep and forearm was a tattoo of his humerus and ulna. A disconcerting effect against his honey-complected skin. The tattoo of his skeleton ran over his ribs and legs also, like an X-ray in a black ink. What gave him pause was the thought of doing his face, just the right half. Regardless of his decision, he knew he couldn't do his hand as it remained sheathed within its glove.

  There was an art to being alone and he was the consummate artist. The name, the insisted English, separated him. It carved him out into an even more specialized niche, as if his people didn't already fear and respect him. In that order: fear then respect. Which was fine because he, too, feared them. He feared connection, found the burdens of relationship odd and heavy. Other than Lyonessa and his grandmomma – with his older brothers out of play, one dead, one in prison – he had no stability. No center. Nothing which weighed him down or left him vulnerable. Weak. Exposed. His life was a broken center and he was adrift, going whichever direction he pleased. The price of connection was often too steep.

  The front room was the largest room, a mismatched couch and love seat ringing the enclosed space around the television. Grandmomma wrapped her arms around a tattered couch cushion. A picture of a needlepoint flower was stitched onto its front half. She had picked it up at a garage sale for a nickel and hugged it as if it were a talisman that was her only hope to hold back the evil spirits. The television was on, but no one watched it, though it helped drown out the noise of his men. Whiling away the hours in endless chatter about sex, money, and power, not truly knowing what to do with any of them. Sitting in the center of the room, all activity orbited Black.

  Black hated this place. It reeked of poverty and shame. A dozen members of his family crammed into a tiny apartment. Barely enough room to sleep in peace. Broken old men, stoop-shouldered and thick-armed, killing themselves as day laborers, doing the scut work to fuel other's versions of the American dream. All scared and anxious. Black lived on the other side of town. Eagle Terrace, close as it was to Breton Court, and even though it was not controlled by a rival gang, often proved problematic. But there was no place he feared going into. Even his cholos gave him wide berth, standing around in their over-sized white T-shirts, gold chains, baggy shorts, and white knee socks, recognizing the electric tension of the room. His people scoured the block, the neighborhood, the city, searching for any trace of Lyonessa. Dred had gone too far. He'd been bucking for a war for a long time. He was about to reap one.

  Every crew in their set had two leaders. Black was primera palabra, the first word. The segunda palabra, the second word, the leader when Black wasn't around, was La Payasa. She possessed a lithe physique and walked with a lilt; her body in constant twitch, as if she was constantly ready to burst into a dance, moving to the rhythms of life that only she heard. Blonde hair with black roots exposed to three inches. Black and gold, her colors, set against her butterscotch complexion which some might have been called "high yella" back in the day. A crease, an old scar truth be told, etched the side of her face.

  La Payasa stood at the back of the room, hating the idea of being touched. She was loath to interrupt him. She knew it was bad this time. In her mind, gangs lived by a code and certain things were just off limits. Children especially. The rules of the game had changed, if indeed there were rules. She too was afraid. Not for herself, mind you. She'd programmed herself to not be afraid. It came with always having to prove that she was down for whatever. Half black, half Hispanic, she always had to prove herself. But her soul already knew the night would not end well. And her heart steeled itself for the inevitable blood that needed to answer blood.

  Someone rapped at the door. Black nodded and one of his boys opened it. Two police detectives identified themselves. Their eyes told the story long before their lips did. They had found Lyonessa's body. Grandmomma's mouth opened, wordless. A tear pooled in her rheumy eyes. The screams would come later. Without a word spoken, La Payasa knew she was to rally the soldiers because the streets would soon feel Black's rage. She knew Black's instinctive thought.

  "Someone burns for this."