“I heard he filled the guard’s water bottle with horse shit,” she said. “The guard later said Calvin had tried to kill him with a broken piece of glass.”
I nodded, leaning against the back wall of the tiny kitchen. The ragged wallpaper made soft rubbing sounds.
“So his cellmate was Christian Chase,” I said.
She nodded.
“He pay you for keeping quiet?”
“Trey Brill did,” she said. “I came to them quick and asked for a cut. They let me in. They took me to dinner and later out to clubs with them.”
“And whose idea was it to work ALIAS?”
She shook her head.
“Come on,” I said. “You’ve come this far.”
“They fucked me,” she said. “Both of them.”
“I’m sorry.”
“They played with me for ten months,” she said. “I came to them whenever they wanted me. They put me on video and would make me sit there while I watched it with their friends. But they didn’t know who I was inside. It was my goddamn idea to run the kid. Marion and I got the idea when he came into the club that night. Kid was fifteen with millions. He had time to make it back. Besides, that was money built on my brother’s soul. Without Calvin, you wouldn’t have no ALIAS.”
“Come with me,” I said. “I need you to tell this to a friend of mine.”
“I’m not talking to the police.”
“Shit,” I said, grabbing her hand. “Come on.”
She twisted her head back and forth like a child. “No.”
“Did you know this guy, Dio? The one who used your brother’s lyrics?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Of course.”
Her eyes narrowed. I was losing her.
“They killed him and Malcolm.”
“They didn’t kill him,” she said.
I looked at her. The door kept slamming shut and she walked over and latched it, the wind still blowing through the screen.
She grabbed my hand. “Come lie down with me.”
“I think you’re sick, Dahlia,” I said. “You need to find comfort in yourself.”
“Just lie down,” she said.
“What did Trey and Christian pay you?”
“Seven thousand to keep quiet,” she said. “Trey said he knew a man who could make me disappear. He said the man liked to be paid in soiled money left on top of folks’ graves.”
“What about ALIAS’s money?”
She stared at me and shook her head. “Trey got it,” she said. “He said he could double my money if he put it all in stocks. I tried to get it back the other night when I seen him out. I ain’t ever seein’ that money. Yeah, he knew about ALIAS.”
“Talk to my friend,” I said. “He’s a good man. We need to know who killed Malcolm and Dio.”
“Listen to me,” she said. “Dio ain’t dead. What you think happen to a boy in prison over six years? You think he might change a bit? Maybe get his teeth knocked out. Get branded. Maybe if he grow a beard and sport some jewelry and earrings, that even his own folks don’t know who he is.”
I couldn’t breathe.
I was afraid she would stop.
“That Christian Chase don’t have a soul,” she said. “I told him I loved him once. He told me I was just loving my own brother ’cause that’s who he’d become.”
63
Trey was sometimes amazed by his own intelligence. He’d have a few glasses of good red wine or a few Amstel Lights and sit back and smile at how it all had played out. He grew the business from one player in the NFL to ten pro players, four rappers, an entire label, and eighteen high-level Uptown clients, including a city councilman and the heir to a hot-pepper-sauce franchise. He stared out from his window in the CBD down at a billboard on Canal for Cartier watches and another for a new line from Victoria’s Secret, the woman’s stomach as flat as a plate, her hips expansive. The night was purple, fluorescent lights flickering on the wide boulevard.
He opened his humidor on his desk and clipped off the end of a cigar. He thought ole Chase might want to hit Cobalt tonight. Molly was out of town and he’d line up a couple of dates from a score he’d made at Lucy’s last week.
He checked his properly mussed hair in the mirror and lost the tie.
“Hey, dog,” Trey said as Christian crossed the room in a black sleeveless T and tight khakis with sandals. He’d cut his hair so close that he was starting to look like that rat from Angola Trey had picked up at the bus station two years ago.
“He knows,” Christian said. “He fucking got to Dahlia. I told you, you stupid fuck, we should have axed her ass two months ago.”
“She was your punch,” Trey said. “He doesn’t know shit.”
“That was my dad on the phone,” Christian said. “Told me not to come home ever again. Said two detectives just showed up at his office asking about my relationship with Calvin Jacobs. What the fuck, man? What the fuck did you do?”
“Calm down,” Trey said, pouring himself a few fingers of Knob Creek. “It’ll work out.”
“What!” Christian screamed. “Are you goddamn crazy?”
“All right, let’s think. How do you even know this had something to do with Dahlia?”
“Who else could lead them to us?” he said. “It’s all your fault. It’s all your fucking fault. We had goddamn everything we wanted and you had to go in with that cunt to take ALIAS.”
“She wanted a cut of something.”
“Then give her some of your money.”
“I wanted her to get dirty, too,” Trey said. “You know how that works.”
“Like we all get dirty?” Christian asked. “Like how you had Redbone make that con man from the strip club disappear after you took ALIAS. Sometimes it doesn’t play out like that.”
“What?” Trey said, mussing his hair in the mirror again. “You getting all street on me again. Don’t confuse yourself. You know where you come from. Don’t start actin’ like some stupid nigger.”
Christian balled his hands at his side and ran for Trey. He stood so close that their noses touched. The foulness in Christian’s breath and the fear that poured from his own skin made Trey’s heart race.
He tried to calm himself. “Just chill out.”
“Some of us don’t have our daddy to hold our hands.”
“Hey, man,” Trey said. “Fuck off.”
He turned his back to Christian. He didn’t mean anything by it, but as soon as he pivoted, he knew he’d made a mistake.
“I’m not going back to Angola,” Christian said. “Not for you.”
Christian’s hands darted from his chest and took Trey by the throat. He threw his friend onto his back on the glass desk. Trey felt a heavy split down the middle, cracking like an ice pond from their weight.
Trey’s head rhythmically beat onto the glass.
Trey heard more cracking and tried to yell and scream for help. But he could only think it, his mind unable to control anything. He couldn’t move or speak, only feel the saliva pool on his lips and feel the blood and wetness pour from his mouth and eyes.
“This ain’t your game, dog,” Christian said.
64
My cell phone rang as I headed back from NOPD, where I’d left Dahlia still talking with Jay. I answered, driving with one hand, passing Medina’s on Canal and crossing under I-10. I’d planned to meet JoJo down at Acme for a plate of jambalaya and some oysters. This was their last night in New Orleans. He and Bronco had finished up packing the apartment.
“He’s with me,” the voice said. Cell-phone static crackled over the line.
“Good for you,” I said. “Who is this?”
“Let’s play,” he said. “I have ALIAS, you fucking dumb-ass. I have my goddamn gun screwed in his ear right now. You fucking do one more thing and I’ll drop his ass in the sewer. You fucking hear me?”
“Slow down, Christian.”
“Fuck you,” he said. “Meet me down in the Ninth Ward on Piety. There is a house at-”
“I meet you where I say,” I said. “Fuck no. I’m not meeting you.”
The connection died.
I didn’t breathe for about a minute.
The cell rang again.
A better connection. He didn’t say anything.
“I’ll meet you at your folks’ house,” I said. “In Metairie.”