It was the same on our block. We didn’t own the buildings — nobody around there did. Even the men who came to collect the rents, they lived somewhere else. The City owned the streets, just like it owned the subway. But the City wasn’t around all the time, and we were.
3.
It was that rule, about paying the tolls, that got me sent away. The vacant lot was between two territories, ours and the Renegades’. We both used it, for different stuff, but neither of us claimed it. If a coolie — a kid who wasn’t with a club, or what they would call an off-brand today — went through the lot, any club that was there could take the tolls from him.
We had little clashes with the Renegades about the lot, but it was mostly just selling wolf tickets, loudmouthing around. Both clubs knew: that vacant lot, it didn’t move, but it was just like the subway. The only time you had a piece of it was when you were right there to hold it.
The leader of the Renegades was a skinny little guy called Junta. All of the Renegades had those PR names, but PRs, they don’t always look like each other. Some of them were so black, if they didn’t speak that Spanish, you would think they were colored. And some of them were as white as us, with everything in-between. The only way you could tell for sure was from listening to them talk — even the ones that talked English, they didn’t talk white.
I didn’t know how Junta got to be leader. He wasn’t a great fistfighter, he didn’t have any kind of rep with a knife, and no one ever saw him with a pistol. I didn’t see where he was any great brains, either.
The reason I knew about Junta is that I had to meet with him a few times, one-on-one. I was president of the Royal Vikings, and sometimes we would have a sit-down to settle a dispute. If the presidents couldn’t settle things, then the warlords would get together, to set the rules for a clash. But it never came to that between the Renegades and us.
Junta and me, we made a treaty, to have our clubs share the vacant lot. The way Junta explained it, the lot was kind of like the gateway to our two territories. If we fought each other over it, we’d always be having that same fight, over and over. We needed to protect the gateway from outsiders; that was most important. Better to share a little piece than not to have any at all, he said, and he was right. So our treaty was, whoever was on the set, for right then, it was their piece.
4.
It started when one of the Mystic Dragons got himself a girlfriend in our territory. He would walk right through our block, flying his colors, and nobody was crazy enough to make him pay tolls. The Mystic Dragons, they were a major club. People said they could put a thousand men into a meet, and a couple of hundred of them would have guns. Real guns, not zips.
The way guys in gangs talk, a lot of that was probably just blowing smoke, but there was enough truth in it to keep us all chilled. Our club, the Royal Vikings, we could put, maybe, twenty guys out for a meet... and some of them would only make it because they would be scared not to. If a club like ours ever vamped on a Mystic Dragon, we’d be finished.
What kicked it off was the day Bunchie came charging down the steps to the basement we used for a clubhouse.
“Mystic Dragons!” he yelled.
“What?!” Tony Boy said.
“Mystic Dragons! All over the block. They got a car at both ends. And one parked right across from here!”
Everybody was getting all excited, talking at once. “Cool it,” I told them. “If this was a raid, they would have been down here already.”
“The president is right,” Little Augie backed me up. But I could see he was nervous.
I looked around the basement. Just five men, plus me. I thought about sending Sammy out to see what the Mystic Dragons wanted — it wouldn’t look good for the president to go himself. But if they saw the guy we sent was our warlord, they could get the wrong idea.
I could send Little Augie, but he’s not a good talker. And bringing the Mystic Dragons down to that ratty basement would be showing them too much.
I had to think. Everyone went quiet, waiting on me. All we had in the clubhouse was Sammy’s zip, and some bats and chains. I knew at least a couple of the boys always had knives, but Bunchie had said there were three carloads of Mystic Dragons.
“I’ll handle it,” I told the others. “I’ll go see what they want. No reason to let them see what we’re holding down here.”
“You want we should go with?” Little Augie asked me.
“Yeah,” I said. “But stay back. Right against the building, understand? Don’t crowd nobody.”
I was proud of my boys. They looked sharp and hard, in their white silk jackets with Royal Vikings across the back. Our jackets are all custom-made, by this very classy place down in Little Italy. They cost a lot, but they say a lot about us, too, so they’re worth it. Two of the boys stepped out first, then moved off to the side to let me through, while the others filled in behind.
The Mystic Dragons’ car was a big black Buick. A four-door. Facing the wrong direction on our one-way street, so the driver was against the curb. As I walked over, the back door opened, and three men got out. They didn’t say anything. The driver looked at me out of his window.
“You Hawk?” he asked.
“Right,” I said. That’s the name I go by. It was written in purple script on the left side of my jacket. On my right sleeve, there were four little hearts; meaning, I’m the president. Sammy, our warlord, had three on his. We didn’t spell out the offices, the way some clubs do.
“The man wants to talk to you,” the driver said.
“Here I am,” I told him, cool.
“Boss,” he said, as he climbed out of the car, holding the door open.
I couldn’t tell if he meant, “Boss!” it was good I was willing to talk, or that I would be talking to his boss, but I got in. It was classy, the way they set it up. I didn’t have an excuse to refuse, because I would be the one behind the wheel, so they couldn’t take off with me as a prisoner. Besides, all their men were already standing on the sidewalk. Except for the ones in the cars at the end of the block.
The guy in the passenger seat was colored. I expected that, him being a Mystic Dragon and all. But I was surprised at how old he was.
“I’m Baron James,” he said. “You know my name?”
“I heard it,” I said. Which was the truth. Everybody in the city who ran with a club had heard of Baron James. He killed two men in a clash a long time ago, when he was real little. Baron James was famous. His name was in the Daily News, with headlines and everything. The paper said it was wrong that they couldn’t send him to the state pen, just because he was only fourteen at the time. People wrote letters to the paper, saying, for what Baron James did, they should give him the electric chair, no matter how old he was.
“You’re leader of... what’s the name of your club?”
“The Royal Vikings,” I told him, like I didn’t know he was saying that just to say we were nothing.
“Yeah. Well, then you’re the man I have to talk to. About what happened to Chango.”
“Who’s Chango?”
“All you need to know about Chango is two things, man. One, Chango is a Mystic Dragon. And two, some of your boys jumped him two nights ago, in the vacant lot over by Twenty-ninth.”
“Not my boys.”