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  Four men reached down and picked the rapist up. Flor beamed all around in pride as her friends carried her violator back inside her home.

  The rapist howled like a dying dog until someone hammered a fist into his mouth.

  “Shut up, maricon,” the puncher said as Hector and the four handlers went through the front door into the light of the still spinning disco ball.

  Flor walked into the house after her man, the flat of the razor still tapping against her leg, and shut the door.

  The rest of the crowd was dispersing fast, people getting in their cars and peeling out like they were late for an appointment anywhere but here.

  “Think anyone will dime them?” Fat Bob asked.

  “Maybe not.” Speedy considered. “Still, accessory would be a chickenshit beef for me to go down for, so soon after raising – let’s vamoose.

  Chapter 9

  Fat Bob took the Nimitz north to the 17th Street exit then followed Castro past the Gateway, that ramshackle clot of hot sheet residential hotels and shooting galleries serving as Downtown’s northern frontier. He turned left onto San Pablo Avenue.

  After they’d driven under the Grove Shafter freeway, they began passing multiple corners clumped with hookers waiting on station between johns. The newbie working girls gave them the glad eye, hooting and beckoning at them. But the veteran hookers dismissed them as broke dicks with a single withering glance, devoting their attention to potential customers driving wheels that suggested they’d at least have the price of a date in their pockets.

  The San Pablo Corridor had changed some since Speedy was inside. Now – interspersed between the omnipresent hookers, the occasional burned-out store front, and the sleepy old motels harkening back to the slower days before the freeways – Speedy saw enclaves of gentrification: security buildings and condos; high end construction projects; and quietly expensive cars parked at the curb with alarm ready lights blinking on their dashes as if in puzzled consternation. Progress was moving in on the night life of San Pablo like a money grubbing white-bread carcinoma inserting its tendrils into Oakland’s predatory heart.

  “What the fuck happened?” Speedy asked, jerking his chin at the trendy looking loft complex they were currently passing.

  “Maybe someone figured they could move O-Town upscale.” Fat Bob grinned at Speedy, good natured malice shining from his eyes. “Your Oakland is dead and gone, brother.”

  “She’ll always be my Oak Town,” Speedy retorted, perhaps a little stolidly. “I’ll always rep the O.” Still, it was time to show Oakland he was back, and he knew his working evening was only beginning.

  They turned down a side street with most of its streetlights shot out. In the near distance, the sewing-machine tirade of an Uzi was retorted to by the business-like T-Rex cough of a shotgun blast. Apparently Chatter’s neighborhood hadn’t heard about any efforts to re-invent the Town.

  They drove past Chatter’s apartment building and Bob parked the car, killed the engine. Speedy made no immediate move to get out; he scanned the street a little, getting the feel of it.

  “What’s the play?” Fat Bob asked.

  “I’m just here to talk, so be cool. But be ready to dance – Chatter knows I killed Shannon inside.”

  “I was born ready.” Bob looked at him quizzically. “So you kill his brother, and here we are just walking up to his front door. We gonna talk about it over tea and crumpets or something?”

  “I’m trying the diplomatic approach here,” Speedy said. “I still remember when he was a kid, tagging after us and shit.”

  Bob sneered, at no one Speedy could see.

  As Speedy exited the car, the kitten scooted past him across the cracked sidewalk to a patch of withered grass. Speedy scrambled after her with hands outstretched, but hesitated as he saw her lower her hindquarters to the ‘lawn’ and commence going to the bathroom with an expression of intense concentration on her miniature cat face.

  From a doorway down the block came the harsh tinkle of a breaking bottle followed by several angry voices. Speedy glanced over, drawing his sawed-off and holding it down by his leg as Bob pulled his old Louisville slugger from the backseat floor. But Speedy let the kitten finish her business before scooping her up and putting her back in the car, shutting the door before she managed to escape again.

  Fat Bob flanked Speedy to his right as they headed for the apartment building’s entrance. The front door hung partly ajar, the latching mechanism smashed beyond repair. They continued through the lobby and up three flights of garbage-strewn stairs. Stepping out into the third floor hallway, they walked down the corridor and stopped in front of a gouged and scarred door that had originally been painted green.

  Fast, vicious punk music pumped through the closed door: ‘Revenge,’ by Black Flag. Fat Bob began dancing along a little to the rhythm of the song, doing a Popeye-on-crack two-step as he keened the lyrics along with Henry.

  Speedy glanced at him and Bob stopped his performance immediately with a butt-hurt expression on his round face.

  Speedy rapped several times on the door – someone inside turned the music off. The door whipped open hard, and several skinheads filled the doorway like pit bulls clamoring the entrance to a dog run.

  An Oi-Boy wearing a flat woolen tam hat said over his shoulder with a feral grin, “It’s Speedy. And he’s got Fat Bob with him.”

  Speedy advanced on the skinz and they swung out of the two men’s way to make a passage through their midst, not minding the duo entering their lair at all – getting out again was the part these folk might contest. Speedy stopped just inside the entrance with Fat Bob watching his back.

  The large Oi-Boy in the tam hat closed the door behind them and leaned against it with his arms folded. He was wearing a bomber jacket with Guinness and American Front patches on it; he had ruddy ham hock sideburns bracketing the shaved, oiled sides of his head under the tam.

  The apartment itself was a den of skinheads and bootwomen, at least a dozen lounging about with beers and cigarettes in their hands. Butts and empty bottles and cans littered the floor; decks and longboards stood lined against the wall.

  The walls were festooned with flyers for punk shows, numberless out-of-date banners for past hardcore gigs around the Bay, for local bands like Fang and Urban Assault, Bad Posture or Flipper. There were holes punched in the walls, which were covered with graffiti, mainly three-legged swastikas, racist comments, spray painted obscenities and declarations such as ‘Bay Area Skinz Rule!’

  A bootwoman with a lit cigarette dangling from her mouth was cooking food bank spaghetti at the kitchenette in the far back corner; an overflowing garbage can stood next to her.

  A couple of skinz lay passed out on a stained mattress in the corner, almost buried in empty beer cans and bottles. From the look and the smell, one or more of their friends had urinated on them.

  On another mattress a naked couple was fucking. The male was on top, and Speedy watched his pale buttocks rising and falling as he hunched himself into the female below. Speedy realized the female was staring at him past her ‘lover’s’ shoulder, and a quick smile quirked his lips before disappearing without a trace.

  Two shorthaired bootwomen sat at the only table whispering to each other and staring at him and Bob. The bootwomen’s eyes glittered, and their laughter sounded like broken glass.

  Every gaze in the room, minus the passed out lightweights and the couple on the mattress copping their respective nuts, was aimed at the two newcomers. The silent dog pack of skinheads inspected them without shyness. Even the bootwoman cook stopped stirring and turned her burner down as she commenced staring at them while tapping the ash off the end of her smoke.

  Chatter was seated on a ripped, broken-down easy chair in the center of the room. A battered axe handle leaned against his leg as he held court among his werewolves. He was naked to the waist except for a pair of red suspenders. He had a tattoo inked on his shaven skull depicting a corpse-worm burrowing in and out of his scalp. H
e didn’t look at Fat Bob or make any comment about the earlier goings-on at the On Broadway – Chatter only had eyes for Speedy.

  A hole was chewed in the side of Chatter’s broken-down throne. On the floor in front of the burrowed hole a rat squatted in front of two saucers, one filled with cigarette butts, the other with beer. As Speedy watched, the rat wolfed a butt, washed it down with several laps of beer and then disappeared into his chair burrow, taking refuge from the strangers.

  “You wanted to see me,” Speedy said, sawed-off pointing at the floor. He’d always felt it was rude to point a piece at a man in his own house unless you were getting ready to use it.

  Speedy had to give Chatter credit for showing composure under the circumstances. “You killed my brother,” Chatter said.

  One of Chatter’s skinz loomed from the pack toward what he figured would be Speedy’s blind side.

  “I wouldn’t,” Fat Bob grated from where he stood at Speedy’s back.

  A row of axe handles, and Louisville sluggers identical to the one in Bob’s hand, leaned against the wall next to the door: a ready arsenal for when the crackheads living in this building raised any objection to the behavior of the only white people living in it. Bob stepped over to stand in front of the skins’ bat arsenal, tapping his Louisville once against the floor and smiling, hoping someone would try to get past him and pick one up.

  “It was self defense, Chatter,” Speedy said.

  “Bullshit,” Chatter exploded, but he winced as Speedy jerked the shotgun barrel a little.

  “Bullshit, Speedy,” Chatter said, quieter this time.

  “I’ve known you a long time Chatter,” Speedy explained, trying for patience here, trying for a peaceful solution against all odds. We came up together. I’ll say it one more time. It was self-defense.”

  “You believe me?” Speedy asked, searching Chatter’s face, trying almost desperately to end this beef without having to kill another of his few surviving homeboys.

  Chatter was a few years younger, and had always looked up to Speedy when they were kids. It was like some kind of hero worship, the way Chatter had always been willing to gofer or run errands for him. Speedy tried to use that now, to let Chatter see that old friendship shining from his gaze, to force Chatter to not see him as an enemy.

  Let it lie, Speedy willed silently, staring into Chatter’s eyes. Let it lie, he begged without words, knowing he could never ask it with his mouth.

  Out loud he repeated the question: “You believe me?”

  Chatter had looked right back at him this whole time, hard, as if trying to sift truth from lies by what he saw on Speedy’s face. He nodded as if against his own will.

  Speedy nodded in acknowledgment and backed away, making to leave.

  “So what happened then?” Chatter demanded. “Why’d he come after you? You got to tell me.”

  Speedy paused, not having foreseen this part, like an idiot not expecting that Chatter would want to know the ‘why’ of it.

  “You don’t want to know,” Speedy said. And truth be told he didn’t want to reveal it either.

  “Tell me.” Chatter’s voice had gone low and guttural, he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

  Speedy stopped, sighing internally as he realized that refusing to reply would be a deal breaker here.

  There was no easy way to say it so Speedy jumped right in and got it over with: “Shannon went punk inside, Chatter. That’s okay with me, you know I don’t care – but I don’t swing that way even in lockup. He hit on me and he didn’t like it when I shot him down. Then he came after me and I had to do him:”

  Speedy remembered soaping up in the dense mist of the hot penitentiary shower, all the straight convicts careful not to look at each other. Something had warned him, a flicker in the eyes of the convict showering next to him, ESP, whatever, but Speedy turned to catch Shannon creeping up on him with a home-made shank, trying for a classic kidney shot.

  Speedy had wrestled with Shannon in slow motion eternity, snatching the blade away from him, and then Shannon panicked and tried to run away as Speedy grabbed Shannon’s bare shoulder and dragged him back, sticking the shank into the side of Shannon’s throat and ripping it out through the neck-meat, the ragged edges of what used to be Shannon’s jugular shooting a geyser of blood out in a fan-shaped spray and onto the shower room’s tiled floor, slower than if it had been arterial but still more than enough of a flood to do the job.

  Speedy had tossed the shank down to spin on the linoleum floor next to Shannon (knowing the tape-wrapped handle wouldn’t hold prints) and took a step away. Shannon had slipped on the soapy floor and plopped onto his ass in what would have been a comic pratfall under other circumstances. Shannon sat there facing away from Speedy and pressing his hand against the side of his throat as if he stood a chance of staunching the blood welling out like a tidal surge from between his fingers.

  Everyone (Speedy included) dropped to the floor as the SSU – the Special Services Unit goon squad – poured into the shower room in full riot gear, whistles and sirens going full-bore as they sprayed fire extinguishers of tear gas over the naked convicts clutching the backs of their necks facedown on the linoleum, all the convicts knowing the lockdown drill for a prison homicide.

  Speedy had felt a guard’s boot slam onto his neck and stay there, crushing the side of his face into the unyielding shower floor as Shannon toppled onto his side and rolled towards Speedy like Shannon wanted to take one last dying look at him.

  But Speedy had refused to so much as point his gaze at Shannon’s face – so he could never say afterward whether Shannon’s eyes had been closed, or open but unaware, or staring at Speedy in mingled horror and accusation.

  Instead Speedy had focused all his attention on Shannon’s blood pouring like a river across the shower floor and down the drain. All Speedy had seen was physical evidence not touching him, not incriminating him – he was grateful that Shannon was bleeding to death away from him, leaving him in the clear.

  The screw had ground his foot on Speedy’s neck cursing, knowing Speedy had done the crime but knowing no one would snitch and that it would never stand up in court. Speedy knew that he was going to be lugged off hog-tied in full four-piece restraints over this, it was a major beef. He was going to endure tune-up beatings at the hands of the C.O.s, and then some serious hole time – the screws hated homicides they couldn’t charge anybody with, it made them look bad in the paperwork.

  But Speedy didn’t really care about that in the heat of the moment, nor did he pay attention to the screw’s frustration. Instead, he watched the blood flow ebb and then ultimately stop, saw Shannon finish dying at his hand, felt another homeboy go away forever . . .

  “Bullshit,” Chatter said once again, pulling Speedy back from memory lane.

  But Chatter’s voice was weak; he was only going through the motions and his eyes wouldn’t meet Speedy’s at all. He sure didn’t look like some big tough gang leader anymore, instead seeming to flash back to that little kid who’d once idolized Speedy.

  “It’s truth,” Speedy said.

  Part of him (a part he didn’t like very much) wanted to ask: ‘Are you happy, Chatter? Are you glad you know?’ But Speedy restrained the urge.

  Chatter stared at the floor. He wasn’t even trying to argue anymore; he knew this settled it and it was time to either let it lie or throw down.

  One of Chatter’s skinz turned his back on Chatter, facing away like he was ashamed for him. But another stood next to Chatter, his hand resting on his friend and leader’s shoulder.

  Speedy got the impression the mood of this particular skin party had gone straight into the toilet. “As far as I’m concerned we’re cool Chatter. I’m hoping you feel the same but I’ll understand if you don’t.”

  Speedy turned and stared at the big Oi-Boy leaning against the only door out of this place. Up close now, Speedy noticed Oi-Boy also had a big ‘AF’ tattooed on his neck to match the patch on his bomber jacket.
r />   “You only got two shots in that thing,” the big Oi-Boy observed.

  “True,” Speedy agreed. “One barrel into you, the other into whoever’s stupid enough to be closest when I turn around. This kind of spread, double-ought at point blank range? It’ll be awful messy.”

  “What’ll you do after that?” the Oi-Boy asked, seeming to actually be curious.

  “What do you care?” Speedy asked. “You won’t be around to see it.”

  After a moment the Oi-Boy moved away from the door. Fat Bob stood rear guard until Speedy was out in the hallway, and then hurried after to fall in place next to him.

  As they walked down the hall Bob kept glancing over his shoulder, making sure Chatter and his boys didn’t spill out after them scooping up all those baseball bats and axe handles as they came. But none of them did – the narrow hallway might as well have been designed to channel the buckshot of the sawed-off into a crowded mass of pursuers.

  Fat Bob shook his head with a mocking sneer on his pug face. “I never would’ve expected Chatter of all people to come up lame like that. What a wuss.”

  “Shit, Bob, it was his brother. I blew that one.” Speedy scowled at the floor.

  “The fucker had to know,” Speedy muttered to himself. “He wouldn’t let it lie.”

  Bob shot a sidelong glance at him. “You think he’s gonna give you any more trouble?”

  “I gave him his chance,” Speedy said, dodging the question.

  Chapter 10

  Little Willy hurried away from Ghost’s crib through the surrounding neighborhood, which was mainly restoration hardware firms and salvage yards. He headed toward his own squat, the rocks burning a hole in his pocket the whole time. He’d get home and do up a little – hey, it was a plan of sorts, wasn’t it?

  Along the way Willy passed Yusuf Bey’s ‘Your Black Muslim Bakery’ on 58th and San Pablo, with its red banner above the store front: ‘Taste of . . . The Hereafter.’ Inside, the two tired looking sisters behind the counter both had those Islamic scarves covering their hair. They eyed Willy’s pale self warily as he walked by their door.