King's Justice: The Knights of Breton Court, Volume 2 (33 page)

  "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 any 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?"

  "Li'l Jimmy wearin' a hat?" Lee included an insulting level of what he thought sounded like street affectation.

  "Don't bother. We know you don't." Cantrell gambled at this point. The anguish on Mulysa's face told him everything he needed to know. He flashed a glance at Lee.

  "Left semen all in her." Lee gambled with the bluff. Cantrell didn't cut him even the slightest of glances, backing his play.

  "We're going to get a sample from you. Make no mistake about it."

  "Court order's already on the way."

  "Is it gonna match what we find in her?"

  They both stood now, staring down at a hapless Mulysa. The silence grew cold as they waited.

  "She's a junkie and a whore. It's her word against mine."

  "Right, right. A junkie and a whore against the word of a fine, upstanding citizen like yourself. Tell us about what happened. Get you on record first and make it easier on yourself."

 
 

 

 
Naptown Red was quite specific in his task for Garlan. He needed to disappear Lady G, King's woman, but not harm her. Leave her in a place where she could be easily found. Not one of those megalomaniac types, those control freaks who believed in only telling folks as much as they needed to know, Red had a different philosophy. The way he believed, the better you understood why you did things, the less you questioned them. Or him. He was on their side, after all. The object was to distract King, knock him off his game. Let him know that he or his people could be got at any time. Naptown Red wanted that knowledge playing in King's mind. Like a game of chess, it was about misdirection and getting in people's heads.

  Garlan pulled into Breton Court in his Impala, a mint-green whip more boat than car. He sank into its driver's seat in a lean so fierce his eyes were barely visible above the dashboard. Early Sunday morning was the most peaceful time in any neighborhood. All the fiends, gangstas, hood rats, playas, and freaks had done called it a night. All the church-going folk popped their heads out, like rabbits on a savannah plain, unburrowing themselves to venture out. He waited for the large woman to leave the crib, a blackfaced little boy in tow. Everyone knew where King stayed. Like it was his throne in a court, guarded by the power of his name. Just like folks knew Lady G stayed across the way. She deserved what she got, playing hooky from church and all.

  Garlan twisted his ring. When he peered into the rearview mirror, nothing reflected back from the seat where he should have been. His sense of self was completely annihilated and no one noticed. Complete eradication, gone with no one caring about his absence. He was capable of doing anything and going anywhere. Some days he went places and just listened. His duties slipped, though he wondered if anyone knew. Of course he went to the high school gym to hang out in the girls' locker. Grabbing some tit and pinching some ass. Whacked off more than a few times. Loath as he was to admit it, pussy became boring. Surrounded by it, but no one knew he was there. He didn't exist to them. He didn't matter. They'd never hold him. Laugh at his jokes. Spend time with him. Do his hair. Make him a sandwich. Suck his dick. Nothing. He didn't matter to any of them. He didn't exist. He was a ghost intruding on their lives. Not even an intrusion, just a ghost. One time he twisted his ring to appear among them. They scattered in squeals, a hail of "get out" and "what the fuck?" Running out, he didn't care. He just wanted to matter. To be seen.

  Other days he listened to his men. How they talked about him. Their ambitions. The ruminations on the minutiae of their lives. Pussy. Cars. Pussy. Sports teams. Pussy. Music. Pussy. Money. Pussy. Speakers. Pussy. That was all of life to them. And he'd appear, make sure they were on point, but his mind was no longer on his work. He had disappointed. A blank spot where a person should be. A lifetime of learned shames reducing him to what he already believed himself to be. Nothing. And nothing could do anything.

  Creeping out the car, he made his way to the back patio. The rear wall was no obstacle. It wasn't too many years ago he used to run along the patio walls just like these, chasing his friends and playing tag. Running and jumping from them for the sheer exhilaration of being alive. Part of the thrill was watching those drawn to their upstairs windows by the nearby racket and seeing knucklehead children dash past at nearly eye level. Right now, anyone peeking out their window would only see their patio. Nothing special or out of the ordinary. Nobody important.

  All of the condos had the same set-up, either a back window which led into a kitchen or a sliding back patio door. This place had the sliding door. Thing was, few of them latched properly. A few years of use and kids slamming them too hard either knocked them off their tracks or knocked the latch too far in to catch properly. Most owners of such doors had a security bar which acted as a lock. Those security bars cost money, about a week's worth of groceries, and the needs of an empty belly were always more pressing than the possibility of a bogeyman breaking in. Most made do with a stretch of fitted broom handle popped into place. No cost, same function. Thing was, there was a little-known workaround to the broom-handle lock: a swift, strong kick could usually displace it.

  As was the case here.

  Garlan slipped in. Though no more than a couch, a love seat, and a couple of chairs around a coffee table, all centered around a television, the room had a warmth to it. The furniture was well worn but not ratty. Care was taken in their arrangement, in the placement of knick-knacks and photos. The room had been cleaned, things put away, except for some scattered toys in the corner, but even those added a sense of life to the space. The room exuded family.

  A telltale squeak gave him away as he stepped on the first step of the stairs. Frozen, he waited to see if anyone stirred from bed. He pressed himself to the wall and spider-slinked up the stairs.

  Feigning sickness, Lady G had stayed home. Solitude, a chance to think and sort things out in peace was what she required. Propped up by pillows, she colored, as Rhianna had convinced her would help clear her mind. Not quite ready to get out of bed, Lady G drew a picture of a church in her book. She scorched its doorway with streaks of brown and black, traced a crack down its windows, and canted the cross hanging above its archway until the building resembled the abandoned church where they first convened their little circle. When it was just them, the core, before things got so big and drifted from what she thought they would do and be. To her, it would always be their special place. The place where the magic happened. When they believed nothing could get in their way.

  The crayon ceased its scribbling in mid-scratch. Some primitive part of her brain alerted her with a prey's warning. Nothing she could point to, not unlike sensing the footfalls of a cat padding across carpet. Merely the nearness of another. Considering the racket made when she came home filled with the Holy Ghost, Big Momma and Had were still at church.

  "Who's there?" Lady G asked the air. Suddenly too conscious of how her braless breasts hung through the thin material of her T-shirt, she drew up the bed sheets. The familiar click of a gun being cocked paralyzed her. Cold metal pressed against her temple.

  The idea of being known, of being revealed while so carefully hidden intrigued Garlan. "How'd you know I was here?"

  "I just knew is all. Just have to pay attention to what's going on around you." Lady G closed her eyes and took a deliberate breath. She wondered what her death would feel like. A sharp pain as the bullet exploded from its chamber and slammed into her skull. If she'd hear the splintering of bone and the shattering of her skull. If she'd feel the bullet tunnel through the soft, great pulp of her brain. What the sensations of life being extinguished would be. If she'd see a bright light or fade into the darkness of eternal sleep. She prayed the end would be quick.