After Death(70)

“You goin’ to Disneyworld,” Orlando says, “you gotta see me.”

Antoine breathes into the phone for a few seconds and then says, “Okay, I know you.”

Orlando gives him the number of a burner phone and hangs up. He retrieves the disposable from the console box. It rings little more than a minute after he turns it on, which is just long enough for Antoine to have found his own burner.

“What’s up?”

“Aleem he been plannin’ to whack you.”

“What shit is this?”

“True shit. Day after tomorrow.”

“You Aleem’s man.”

“Not no more. Aleem he’s dead.”

Antoine says nothing.

“So you don’t get whacked now.”

After a silence, Antoine says, “You spinnin’ me.”

“No spin, man.”

“So how it happen, accordin’ to you?”

“Aleem tries to snatch his boy from Nina. Means to smooth him into the set, get him up on it.”

“That kid’s a fuckin’ choirboy, can’t be trusted in no gang.”

“Agreed,” says Orlando. “So Nina and the kid run for it. But her car been tagged. Aleem gets himself a posse, chase her down.”

“What posse?”

“Him and Kuba, three other SUVs, six more us homeys.”

“All for that choirboy. Aleem he lost focus.”

“Agreed,” says Orlando. “He let personal shit take him away from business.”

“I been sayin’ for some time.”

“So we chase the bitch to San Diego County. She hides out in this huge old dead orchard.”

“Dead what?”

“Apple orchard. Like a thousand acres, I don’t know, nothin’ but dead trees and broke-down old buildings.”

“This gettin’ weird, man.”

“Gets weirder. Turns out she done set a trap. We go in there, we take fire six ways, gangbangers everywhere.”

“Bloods? Crips? Who we goin’ to war with?”

“They was prob’ly mustachios. MS-13. Eighteenth Street Gang. Who knows? It rainin’, dark, no one wearin’ their colors or do-rags. Heard one shoutin’ Spanish, that’s all. Won’t be no war iffen we don’t know who.”

“We don’t want no war.”

“Kills profits,” Orlando agrees.

“Who’s down ’sides Aleem?”

“Kuba, Hakeem, Carlisle, Jason, Speedo. My main man, Masud.”

“Jesus. All Aleem’s aces but you.”

“I ain’t his ace kool no more. I popped the shitface coward.”

Antoine is having trouble keeping up with the narrative. “You popped who?”

“We go in, Aleem is bringin’ up the rear.”

“That ain’t right.”

“Damn right it ain’t, him supposed to be the wolfman. Shootin’ starts, our homeys goin’ down like ducks, he turns and runs. I pull him down, we got to shoot back, but Aleem he punches my face, breaks loose, gonna run again.”

“This what I always knowed about him,” Antoine declares.

“I lose it, man. My homeys bein’ torn up and him runnin’ to save his skinny ass. So I go after him.”

“What else a good man gonna do?” Antoine says.

“Nothin’ else,” Orlando says. “So I take him down, I’m standin’ over the fucker, him dead—and I realize all the shootin’ stopped. No fool left to be killed but me.”

“So fast.”

“Blitzkrieg, man. So I hump outta there.”

“Where you now?”

“Comin’ home.”

“Where Nina?”

“Wherever she figures no one can find her. You know what?”

“What?”

“I don’t give a shit where she gone. This Aleem’s mess, not hers. Don’t you think?”

“She nothin’ to me,” Antoine agrees. “No time to find her, jack her up, when our own roof comin’ in on us. But right now it ain’t my decision.”

“Will be, we throw in together for the sake of Masud, Speedo, and the others. Got to close ranks now, focus. Most homeys known for a while how it ought to be you, not Aleem.”

“That why you call me ’stead of someone else?”

“Exactly why.”

“How long till you be here?”

“Your place—three hours. Maybe less.”

“We got the night to get down how it happened.”

Orlando adds, “And how it gonna be.”

“Break it to the homeys before tomorrow’s news.”

“Way I see it,” Orlando says, “everything is everything.”

“Everything is everything,” Antoine agrees.

“We all gonna be a better team than how we were.”

“That be truer than true. One more thing.”

“I’m here.”

“Sorry about Masud, bro. Must be hard, your main man.”

“Comes with the life,” Orlando says. “We know what price we might gotta pay to be free like we are.”