"You're confused. You have a lot of questions and soon we will have all of eternity for me to answer them. For now, take in my healing waters. What's broken can be made whole. What's dirty can become clean. Drink deep and know that you are loved. You are quite special to me. For who you are. You don't have to do anything to prove yourself to me. Just be the man I intended you to be. As for me, I'm already pleased with you, just as you are."
With that, King awoke.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The glow of the computer screen lit Garlan's face as he checked his Facebook page from the library computer. He debated whether or not to add his mother as a friend. Everything taught him that he was meant to live and die alone in the streets. The beatings he took from his mom's boyfriends. On the streets. A different kind of beating in school, by the teachers, as they either told him or assumed that he wouldn't amount to shit. And he seemed determined to prove them right. The lingering memory of his mom was how bottles lined the shelf of what she called "Club Nouveau". In an alcoholic's reflex, she counted her drinks and memorized the levels of the bottles. She knew each bottle as intimately as her own hand, knew if they had been watered down or out of place. She treated those bottles with more care and attention than she did her own kids.
Whenever someone got up or walked down the aisles of the library, any movement at all, it drew his attention. He set his jaw and eye-fucked them so that they gave him a wide, respectful berth. He wasn't one of those old heads, always nodding to each other like all black folks was related or some shit. So Five-O stepping to him was recognized long before they locked onto him.
"Garlan?" Cantrell sipped from a fresh cup of coffee from Lazy Daze, a local coffee shop, as he was "done supporting The Chain" as he called it, though he'd still sooner spring for Starbucks than choke down the watery sputum which passed as station house coffee.
"Who asking?"
"Come on, Garlan. Why you going to do us like that? I thought you were my dude. We've shared times. Surely you got some love for your peoples," Lee mocked, adopting the "brother-brother" affect he so despised.
"My partner, Detective Lee McCarrell." Cantrell cut him a caustic glance. Garlan certainly wasn't a tax-paying citizen, but he hadn't given them any cause to go hard at him yet. The thing was, sometimes Lee's pit bull approach, irritating as it was, cut through the mess. "Can we step outside?"
Garlan pushed away from the table and met the gaze of anyone who glanced his way until they averted their eyes. No one would see him if he didn't want them to. He touched the ring on his left hand, a nervous habit, as if to make sure it was still there. Garlan wondered why they stopped on the steps of the library rather than usher him to a squad car, then he spied the cameras approaching.
"You ever get a new ride?" Cantrell asked.
"No, waiting on insurance."
"How you get here then?"
"Walk."
"Must be quite the letdown, going from such a fine ride to hitting the bricks."
"It's all right." Garlan only addressed Cantrell.
"Easy come, easy go. Must be nice to have it like that," Lee said.
"Something like that," Garlan said.
"Word on the street has it that you been running with Dred's crew now."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. 'Cept the ways we hear it, folks in Dred's crew have been having an unexpectedly short life span."
"What some folks would consider high insurance risks."
"So who put my name in they mouth?"
"Another witness," Lee said, getting half a hardon at the thought of Omarosa. Or maybe it was the thrill of interrogating someone, not in the box, but in the street. "Same one that told us we could probably catch up with you here."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Old habits and all." Lee loved getting up in people's shit.
"What's that mean?" Garlan asked.
"Who is it they say he run with?" Lee asked.
"Noles and Melle. Long rap sheets on both of them. Not so much you," Cantrell said.
"Like you invisible or something." Lee smirked with an all-too-knowing grin. He received a momentary eye-flick of acknowledgment on that one.
"Either he's good or ain't been caught," Cantrell said. "Or innocent."
"Shit." Lee couldn't help himself. "Ain't an innocent thing in or on that body of yours."
"Anyway." Cantrell tossed him a hard eye then glanced at the cameras. "You hear what happened to Melle?"
"Yeah. I heard about that. That was some nasty shit," Garlan said.
"You ain't too broken up about it."
"We weren't exactly close."
"No crew love for your boy?" Lee asked.
"He was too wild, man. Always into some shit."
"I see," Cantrell noted. "What about Robert Ither, Bartholamew DiGora, and Preston Wilcox? You might know them as Naptown Red, Fathead, and Prez."
"I know Red. Not sure about them other two."
"So you ain't heard."
"Talk on it."
"Brothers went down wet."
Cantrell considered himself a detective, not a leader, despite the work he did in the community. Captain Burke constantly reprimanded him for clinging to that old saw, calling him afraid to lean into his gifts. Afraid might have been too strong. Most times he preferred the puzzles of detective work. Being behind the scenes and away from the politics and bureaucracy… despite being a natural politician who played bureaucracies like a fiddle. People were complex, but for all of their complexity they were simple at their core. Or there were certain things a person could count on. Like the look of genuine surprise that registered briefly on Garlan's face at the news of Naptown Red's death. He could almost spot the wheels turning as he puzzled out who could've done it and why.
"The scene was a real mess. Prez got off the easiest. Simple bullet to the brain. One tap, real close. Naptown Red, he put up a fight. Got some shots off, then it looks like someone stabbed him in the heart. But Fathead? Someone did a job on him. Took their time, too. His head took such a beating his own momma wouldn't recognize him. They pumpkinheaded him. And I get that you don't need shit to come back on you. I know they weren't your boys or nothing, but you got any thoughts on who might've done this?"
"Why you asking me?"
"I got this theory. It says that Dred has been stirring up things. Flexing a little, getting a feel for how much juice his name carried. That got him bumping up against Black and his set. Stuff goes back and forth like this stuff do. Then things get taken to the next level. Lyonessa gets caught up. Don't know who gave the order or who carried it out. We do have a vehicle description that vaguely matches your ride. But that's neither here nor there because it's been torched beyond recognition. As you know, it doesn't matter what we think, it's about what we can prove. But… someone out there must have a suspicious mind, cause they went after Melle. Probably got Noles on a shortlist, too. What I can't quite figure out is if the same person went after Red and 'em, changing up their methods, or if that was someone else tying up loose ends. You got any thoughts on that?"
"Nah, man…" Garlan trailed off.
"Cause if you do, we'd be all ears. That's why we having this civil conversation. Out here, in front of all kinds of passers by." Cantrell tipped his hat to a sister eyeing them from the sidewalk. "Not taking you in or busting up your routine. Just giving you something to think about."
"A friendly warning," he said.
"Cause someone's hunting your crew."
"I said I don't know nothing," Garlan yelled loud enough for any curious ears to hear.
"Well, if you do," Cantrell began to hand him a card, but Garlan turned down the block and stepped off in a huff.
"What you think?"
"Evil is rare, but stupid is everyday," Cantrell said.