Jason had to admit that it was starting to feel like a bad idea.
Tactically speaking, the strongest position was the offensive. So long as your enemy was defending, they couldn't be working toward their own goals. It kept them off balance, kept them reacting to you instead of acting themselves.
That's what they, whoever they were, had been doing to him for days. But in the rainbow haze of last night's gin, Jason had thought he'd seen a chance to turn that around. With Washington watching over Billy, Jason could go on the offensive, starting with the only lead he had: Playboy. If Jason could figure out how he was involved, it might lead to the guys who killed Michael.
What he was going to do then was a little murkier. Confront them, look for regret in their eyes? Call Cruz, have her arrest them?
Pull the Beretta and waste them?
If he'd had the gun when the bangers came after Billy, no question. That was combat. He'd been at war before, walked point through alien cities. He'd called the locals Hajji and Ali Baba, same as everybody else, even as he'd tried to do good, same as everybody else. He'd sighted down the length of his M4, remembered his training – exhale, hold, squeeze – felt it kick and watched men fall.
But to hunt a man, touch a pistol to his temple, and blow his world apart? That wasn't soldiering. That was murder.
One step at a time. Right now he had to find a way to get to Playboy. Last night, when Jason had suggested he might just stake out the house until he found a chance to hijack Playboy, Ronald had only smiled. This morning, Jason understood why.
This wasn't Lincoln Park, where he could have slept on the sidewalk. It wasn't Clark and Division, a one-block melting pot where he wasn't out of place. It wasn't even the Crenwood he knew, underprivileged and ruined, but largely filled with families struggling to make a go.
It was a war zone.
They weren't all gangbangers, of course, he reassured himself. Not every kid on every corner, every shirtless man glaring at him. The hard stares, daring him to meet their eyes, daring him to look away, it wasn't about him. It was about crushing poverty and four hundred of years of repression. About patrol cars circling like the tanks of an occupying army. About a neighborhood without jobs or opportunity, where college was as accessible as the moon. He'd listened to too many of Washington's lectures, spent too long in a largely black high school not to get that.
But it still felt like mostly they'd like to watch him die.
Jason stopped at a red light alongside a cell phone store, one of the few thriving businesses. A car pulled up next to him, bass throbbing, an angry voice rattling his windows. He didn't look over, but tried not to tense up, just stared at the stoplight.
Ronald had talked for a long time. His knowledge was exhaustive: The leaders of the gang, how it was structured, how they made their money, who they were feuding with, where they were based. That this particular set was run by a guy named Dion Wallace, nicknamed C-Note.
Ronald might not bang anymore, but he clearly remained in touch with the world. Which made Jason wonder why he was helping. After an hour, he asked.
The big man had paused, then nodded up at the window of the room where Billy slept. "I'm helping you help him." He hadn't said anything else, but Jason could see the man was thinking about his own brother, murdered young.
The light changed. It was decision time. Turn right and face his enemies on their turf, or turn left and go have a drink, think of a new plan.
A car honked. He turned right.
At first glance, the street looked like any other. Broken pavement, heat ripples off the brick. A lot of activity for a weekday afternoon, folks lounging on steps and posing on the corner, drinking from paper bags.
Then he pretended he was back in the desert, and looked again, and everything changed. The two shirtless dudes at the end of the block were bullshitting casually enough, but their eyes were active, and each faced a different direction. They had Nextel phones, the ones you could use as walkie-talkies. Lookouts. A couple of little kids hung nearby, lounging against a fence and posturing. Probably runners.
The house sat in the middle of the block, a rundown brick bungalow with a large open porch. A shiver ran down his calves. Five, no, six men on the porch. Four in their late teens, but hardened and staring. The other two were older. They stood with the posture of casual readiness he'd seen in Special Forces boys, men who'd been in Somalia and Afghanistan and Iraq One, who had enough experience with mayhem to think of bullets and blood sprays as simple facts of life, part of the way the world worked.
Screwing with men like that got you killed, that simple.
His stomach felt greasy, and his fingers tingled. Viewed as a soldier, it was a goddamn nightmare. Enemy territory. Guards and watchers. Complicit citizens. Numerous combatants, many armed. Few of them, if Washington was right, expecting to see old age. Street soldiers in a rag-tag army.
He kept the car rolling, trying not to acknowledge the looks. Wanting to slow down, to take mental pictures, but not daring. Mouth dry, palms wet.
March in and try to hijack one of them?
Suicide.
Jason gave the Caddy a little more gas, locked his eyes forward, did his best to look like a civilian who'd gotten lost. His fingers tapped the wheel, the pulse loud in his throat. Finished the block, turned right, rolled another couple, turned again, found himself back on Halsted, back in the real world. Same neighborhood he'd been circling for an hour, but after the gang block, it seemed tame.
"Jesus," he said to himself, wiping his palms on his jeans. The sun burned through the windshield, sparkles of heat spots on the dusty dashboard. The sinking in his gut was replaced by an acid burn. Those men had been involved in the murder of his brother, had tried to kill his nephew. Now they strutted in the sun of a weekday afternoon, and there wasn't a thing he could do about it.
He realized his teeth were clenched, his jaw sore. A hundred yards ahead lay a corner market, the glass front covered with metal screening. He parked the Caddy in front of the door. Two kids who should've been in school hit him with murder eyes, but he glared back, chest forward. Held the gaze as he stalked past, daring them to move.
The market was dirty linoleum and fridges of beer. A sign on the inch-thick Plexiglas protecting the counter read: LOOSIES, 50 CENT, with a drawing of a cigarette. The back cooler had Coke and Pepsi but also orange and grape pop, brands he didn't recognize. No Gatorade, so he settled for a Mountain Dew.
Back in the sunlight, the kids stood where he'd left them, one on the payphone, the other beside, a wooden match clinging to one moist lip. The sun felt good on Jason's back and neck, so he leaned against the side of the car and stared down the road, watching cars come and go.
Sweet as the soda was, it couldn't wash out the bitter. With Michael gone, he was protector and maybe – Jesus – father to Billy. That last was too scary to contemplate. Better to focus on the first part, on dealing with the people hunting them. The Worm laughed from his belly. Some protector he was turning out to be so far.
A police car pulled into the weed-cracked parking lot. Jason glanced over, then at the two kids on the phone. Their shoulders were up, necks rigid with the stiffness that came of trying to act calm. The one on the phone hung up, and they started to strut away.
"Hey." The cop spoke through the open window, his voice commanding, a practiced tone. "Scooby, right?"
The boys froze, then slowly turned. Hesitated, then strolled over to the squad car like they were doing a favor. "Yeah."
"How's it going?"
"S'aight." Scooby slid the matchstick from one side of his mouth to the other. His friend kept glancing around, like he was hoping they weren't being seen.
"You know we found Li'l Cisco out back of St. Francis's?" The cop cocked his head. "Somebody shot him in the face."
"Ashes to ashes."
"Yeah." The cop smiled. "You hear anything about who was gunning for him?"
"Nah, man."
"Come on. He was your boy, right? Help me out." The cop glanced around, gestured Scooby closer. The kid looked back at his friend, then put his hands on the car, and leaned in. The other cop, a square-jawed woman with the placid expression of someone who did this every day, sized Jason up through the windshield.
She reminded him of Cruz, the way she'd interrogated him yesterday. Just as he'd been about to lose it, she'd eased up. Told him she would work all the angles, talk to the gangs, try to pick up Playboy. It'd surprised him, the idea of this five-five Latina questioning gangbangers on the street. She had some fire.
And then, as he watched Scooby listen to the cop, saw the way his buddy rocked from foot to foot like he needed to piss, an idea hit Jason square and center, made him almost drop his drink.
It was more than a long shot. It was pretty well preposterous.
Jesus, what a ballsy play that would be.
And realized he was smiling.
January 11, 1988
She knows her body will never be long and willowy, knows she will never have shampoo commercial hair. But it doesn't matter, because now, a month past her fifteenth birthday, Elena Cruz is a woman of the world; she is dating a high school senior, and tonight her mother is out of town.
She does not write "Elena Vaughn" on scented paper, or draw crabbed hearts with EC + EV scrawled in the center, but her dedication is complete. She has tracked Eric Vaughn's slouch through gray hallways, thrilling in his surliness, in his unkempt clothes and his crude tattoo.
That he demands they keep their love a secret she chooses to find romantic. It's not that he's cold; he is just wounded, in a way only she can heal. True, he is in a rush that makes her nervous, always trying to put his hands where she isn't ready to have them. But that's proof how badly he needs her.
This is love, and love triumphs. Every story says so.
And she reminds herself of that when she opens her front door to find not only Eric, but his friend Steve. Reminds herself again when she realizes they are drunk. She even tries to believe it is love that makes dark fire flash in Eric's eyes.
But it isn't love that tears her sweater. And it isn't love that laughs as Steve yanks at her belt.
And as she watches beautiful Eric Vaughn unbuckle his pants while his best friend holds her from behind, she sees that he knows he has already crossed a line and is determined to make the most of it, more drunk on the moment than the stolen booze. That she is no longer even a person, but merely something he wants.
And so she stomps on Steve's foot and twists free. Grabs the cordless phone and dials the police from the bathroom. And waits, shivering, in her panties – the pretty pair she had worn special, that she wanted him to remove for the first time, when she planned to give what he only wanted to take.