Joe Pitt 2 - No Dominion (12 page)

--Private party.

--We on the guest list.

Shades unbends a finger and points it at me.

--He ain't.

--He with Digga.

Shades leans his head back, relaxing a little more.

--Already got a main attraction. Don't need an opening act.

Timberlands steps up.

--Say he from Digga.

Shades unrelaxes.

--Digga don't have no free white boy passes.

--This the Hood. This Digga's turf.

--So they say.

The scent is up on them, rank Vyrus pheromones spraying the air. Blood will be spilled. I
start looking for a window I can dive through.

--What all this?

Digga and his rhinos come up the hall behind us.

--What all this hostility I see? Where the love?

He stops, looks at the standoff in front of the door, a big smile across his face.

--What the problem, we ain't got the juice to get beyond this velvet rope? Doorman don't
like our kicks? We ain't up to the clientele inside?

Shades points at me again.

--He's white.

Digga looks at me.

--Damn! How'd I miss that? Well, shit, you right 'bout that. Still doan see the problem.

--He's white.

--Uh-huh. Well, as to that, know what Luther X used to say? He say,
We all the same color inside.
By that, he mean we all red. Now, I can prove it on you.

He loses the smile.

--Or you can open the damn door.

--Papa won't like it.

--Somebody elect Papa president of the Hood? Somebody give him my job, forgot to tell me
'bout it? Open up.

Shades takes a step to the side.

--I di'nt say move, muthafucka, I said,
open up.

Shades opens the door.

Digga sweeps his arm in front of me.

--After you.

I walk through followed by Digga, Timberlands, and the rhinos. The door swings shut behind
us and we start down a stairwell.

Digga talks to the rhinos.

--You know that fool?

--Uh-huh.

--Get his name on a list.

--Uh-huh.

Below us comes a rumble of many voices and the howl of crazed dogs. The air smells like
sweat, chlorine, blood, and the Vyrus.

There are a lot of them. I've never seen so many in one place. There are at least two
hundred packed into the old basement baths. Two hundred of them. Two hundred of us. When I
lead the way out of the stairwell every face turns toward me. The room goes silent except
for the barking of the dogs that echoes off the tiled walls and ceiling. I have an instant
vision of what it will be like to be torn literally to ribbons. Then Digga steps up behind
me and puts a hand on my shoulder.

--Hey, all. He with me.

He keeps his hand on my shoulder, leading me through the crowd, closer to whatever is at
its center. Way is made for him. With his free hand he bumps fists and exchanges
backslaps, passing a word with the men and women of the crowd. They are mostly young,
mostly hip-hop, all wear the Ecko rhino somewhere on their person, and none are white.

He puts his mouth next to my ear as we press through them.

--Shit, muthafucka, I knew I coulda made a entrance like this, I woulda got me a white boy
sooner.

We're approaching the pool. It's drained of water. An eight-foot-high chain-link fence has
been strung around it. The barking comes from inside. He brings me right up to the fence.
The cement walls of the pool are stained dark maroon with dry blood; a thin sheet of the
freshly spilled variety coats the bottom. A man is dragging a dog's carcass to the shallow
end and passing it up to waiting hands. Three others have cornered a foaming-mad pit bull
in the deep end. It darts at them and they dodge out of the way.

Digga shakes his head.

--Shit.

He calls to the men.

--Put a fuckin' cap in that beast.

One of them waves, pulls a Glock from his baggy pants, and puts a cap in the beast. The
bullet slams it into the wall of the pool. Then it gets up and starts barking again.

Digga looks at the ceiling.

--Jezus H. In the head, muthafucka! In the fuckin head!

The guy puts one in the dog's head. It stays down this time.

The crowd is shifting around us, piling up close, hooking their fingers in the fence.

On one side of the pool a man sits up on the old lifeguard tower. He wears a black suit,
wraparound shades, a red fez, and puffs on a cigarette in a long ivory holder. A group of
men dressed like the guy from the door stand around the base of the chair. Digga waves to
him.

--Papa! What up?

Papa gestures with his holder.

Digga holds his arm up and points at the top of my head.

--You all see my white boy?

Papa ignores him.

--He sweet, right? You want one?

They ignore him.

--No? Well, shit then, let's get to the main e-vent.

The crowd around us rumbles.

Digga whispers in my ear again.

--Tension thick in here, huh, Pitt? Feel that hostility? An' we all black folk. 'Magine
what it like when we got the Washington Heights and Spanish Harlem crowds in here. Put the
spics in here with the niggahs and it almost always be endin' in bloodshed. An' we all on
the same side. Me, I sure as shit glad I ain't white up in this. Can you 'magine what they
do to you, you not with me? Oh shit, we 'bout to find out. Look.

He points to the far end of the pool where two more dogs are ready to be brought in. A man
is pushed from the steps. His feet slide from beneath him on the blood-slick surface. A
couple rhinos jump down after him, get him by the arms and pull him up. The enforcer from
the train.

--Hey, Pitt, it your friend.

The handlers bring the dogs together. Another man walks up carrying a cooler. He opens it
and takes out a blood bag and three syringes.

--An' that, that must be the shit you come up here lookin' for.

The dogs are led on long wooden poles hooked to their collars. The handlers take a tiny
bit of the Vyrus-infected blood into their syringes and kneel by their dogs while their
assistants hold the poles. I watch a rhino as he fills the last syringe with several cc's
of the blood. He walks over to the enforcer, who struggles between his guards, eyes fixed
on the needle.

Digga gives me a bump with his shoulder.

--That bitch down there, the brindle pit, that my bitch. The rot, he belong to Papa.
Tonight was supposed to be some head-to-head action, but seein' as you lead that son of a
bitch up here, we thought we improvise. Purse gonna go to the dog gets the killing stroke.
Braggin' rights. How you like the look a my bitch?

--Good looking dog.

--Damn right she a good lookin' dog. Want to get something down on this? Make some change
while you up here?

--No thanks.

--
No thanks?
You don't believe in my bitch? Don't think she got what it takes? You dissin' my bitch,
muthafucka?

--Don't like to gamble.

--Come up here an you don't like to gamble? Coulda fooled me. Well, too late now,
muthafucka, you in the casino now. Boys tell me they found close to a grand on yo ass.

He raises his hands in the air.

--Yo! Yo!

The crowd noise lowers.

--Yo! Check it! White boy say he got the fever! Got a G he want to put on my bitch! Who up
for that action?

Papa raises his cigarette holder.

Digga points at him.

--There you go, Pitt, you down for a G with Papa.

He raises his arms again.

--A'ight, muthafuckas, let's get this bread and circus shit on!

The crowd howls and shakes the chain-link, the dogs howl through their muzzles. Somewhere,
a DJ fires up his turntables and bass thunders, turning the tiled cavern into a giant
subwoofer.

Digga dips his head at the men in the pool. Simultaneously the handlers jab their dogs in
the neck. Instantly the dogs start to tremor, voiding their bowels. The handlers whip the
dogs' muzzles off. The rot snaps and his handler loses a finger. The dogs gnash and foam,
clawing at the floor of the pool, trying to chew their way up the poles to the handlers'
assistants struggling to control them.

Near the stairs, a rhino stabs his needle into the enforcer's neck. A lump appears under
his skin as the infected blood is forced in too quickly. His head starts to thrash up and
down and vomit spews from his mouth. The rhinos release him and run for the stairs. The
handlers' assistants maneuver the dogs until they frame the spastic enforcer. They catch
one another's eyes and unhook, jumping for the hands waiting to pull them up out of the
pool. The gate at the shallow end slams shut. And the business in the pool begins.

He might have had a chance. If they hadn't shot him up, the enforcer might have had a
chance. The action I saw from The Spaz at Doc's was just a warm-up. That was a new fish
who shot a taste too much. This is a Coalition enforcer, fed and trained, and shot full of
the nastiest dope on the planet. He flails his limbs with such force, he breaks his own
bones on the air. The maddened dogs, bred to the arena, retain just enough of their
conditioning to stay focused on the man between them.

They jump like ticks, the Vyrus doing some unspeakable thing to their insides, warping
their chemistry and powering their muscles. The enforcer dervishes on the slippery floor
of the pool. Digga's bitch flies at him and one of his arms catches it in midair and sends
it into the fence. The crowd jumps back, their screams lost in the hammering bass. One of
the fence poles is bent by the impact. The dog drops back into the pool and goes for the
man again, one of its forelegs broken.

Papa's rot stalks the enforcer. It's frustrated by the speed of its movements, driven by
the unfamiliar strength in its legs to bite its hindquarters. Both dogs circle the
enforcer in blinding leaps and bursts. He wails and blood pours from his nose. They
attack.

Digga's bitch gets her jaws into his calf and clings there as he kicks furiously. The dog
waves and snaps like a flag in a high wind. The rot comes in from behind, flying through
the air and landing on the enforcer's back, sinking his teeth into the meat where his
shoulder joins his neck. The rest is just time. Too much time. The bitch is kicked free.
The enforcer goes down on his back, the rot under him, but still latched on. The bitch
comes back and gets the forearm that was shattered when it struck her from the air. Its
bones shattered, the arm comes off in the bitch's mouth. She drops it and goes for his
throat. Her teeth go in, but he grabs her by the neck with his remaining arm and twists
her head around. She lies on his chest, flopping.

The rot gnaws and chews. Eventually it's over. When it is, the rot is clearly ruined. One
side of its chest is crumpled where the enforcer caved in its ribs and its lower jaw hangs
loose, broken by its own murderous assault on the enforcer's neck.

The music changes, heavy hip-hop beats replaced by R&B, and Digga's people drift away from
the pool, pairing off to dance.

Papa waves two of his men into the pool. His dog wobbles and whines, but whenever they
come close it hauls itself up and snorts blood. One of them pulls an old Mauser from his
jacket and tries to take a bead on the dog, but it skitters about, too quick for him to
get the shot.

Digga is staring at the corpse of his own dog.

--Damn. Damn, that was a fine bitch. Damn.

He looks and sees what's going on with the rot.

--Mothafuckas. Hey! Hey!

Papa's men look up.

--Hey! That ain't how you put down the champeen.

He leaps, grabs the top of the fence, vaults up and balances there. He strips off his tie,
his jacket, his shirt, dropping them all to Timberlands. His torso is knotted muscle.

--Get back from that dog, mothafuckas.

He jumps down into the pool, easily keeping his feet on the blood-slick, and approaches
the wounded dog. The men in wraparounds look up at Papa and he signals them back. The
dancing couples have returned to line the fence.

Digga walks at the dog, talking to it softly. The dog's hackles stick straight up. Digga
keeps coming. The dog goes for him, jumping at his face. Digga catches the dog in the air.
They go down, Digga on his back, the dog clutched between his hands. The dog's lower jaw
flaps as he tries to bark. Digga flips over, gets the dog under him, opens his mouth wide
and digs his teeth into the back of the dog's neck. It goes limp, recognizing a superior
hound, and he twists its head, breaking its neck.

Digga's people go crazy. Papa climbs down from his perch. Digga stands, coated in dog
blood.

--Papa! Don't you worry. I send the white boy's money to you first thing.

Papa turns away, strolls to the exit, followed by his men.

I'm led around the pool to the steps at the shallow end. Digga has stripped to his Calvin
Kleins and is accepting several towels, mopping the blood from his skin and from around
his mouth.

--See that? See that, Pitt?

I nod.

--That some shit, right?

I look at the dog corpses being hauled from the pool.

--I've killed a wounded dog before. It's nothing to be proud of.

The music keeps playing. People keep dancing. The guys in the pool keep cleaning. But the
folks around us get very quiet.

Digga slips on a clean pair of trousers.

--That so? You killed a dog? Killed a muthafuckin' monster dog on dope like that sad beast
down there? Like that champeen hound I just put down?

I don't say anything.

Timberlands holds out Digga's shirt and he slides his arms into it.

--Well, let me tell ya. These soirŽes here like this one? This ain't everyday shit. More a
special occasion
kind of thing. 'Specially some shit like that enforcer. Man on our turf, clearly in
violation of the treaty? Man like that, we can use how we please. Don't always have that
on the menu. But I tell you what, maybe we have another party tomorrow. Yeah, another
get-together. Maybe have some barbeque this time. Yeah, that's the shit. After all,
muthafucka, tonight we had him to sport with.