“Look at him,” Kinkee said, nodding at Trone. “Nigga ain’t got the money for a muthafuckin’ hot dog over there like he’s gonna buy a car.”
Dodson was still in pain from the beating. His ribs were taped up, painkillers were part of his diet now, and he was smoking a lot of weed. He thought about calling Isaiah and thanking him for saving his life but all he’d do was give him shit. Fuck Isaiah.
“Booze is coming home soon,” Kinkee said. “Junior’s still in there, need another surgery but he ain’t gonna die. His mama said she taking him to Stockton, get him off the street. Shit. They got streets up there too.”
Trone had his hands cupped over his eyes and was trying to see into a Benz 500SL. A white salesman in a blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up was talking to him and smiling with just his mouth.
“Salesman don’t know what to do,” Kinkee said. “Trone might be a rapper, buy the car for cash.”
“Or he might be what he looks like,” Dodson said, “a thug with no money.”
“What I want to know,” Sedrick said, “is how the Locos knew about the reup? Like what day, what time.”
“That ain’t no damn mystery,” Dodson said. “The Locos was tracking Junior the whole time, sneaky muthafuckas. If you can sneak over that wall and get past the border patrol with all them cameras and night vision you can sneak up on anything.”
Kinkee was looking at the car lot. “Oh shit,” he said.
The salesman was hauling ass for the office. Trone was running toward the group, hurdling the chain that bordered the car lot. “They comin’,” Trone said.
Dodson saw a group of Locos sneaking between the rows of cars, red kerchiefs over their faces. They stood up and started shooting. “Kill ’em, kill those fuckers,” a Loco said. Dodson sprinted for the empty lot, Sedrick and Omari right behind him. Trone raced to the dumpster and dove in headfirst, rounds punching holes in the green metal. Hassan couldn’t get his legs out from under the table, took two in the chest, and died with his mouth full of onion rings.
A Loco shouted: “I got him, I got him.”
Dodson, Sedrick, and Omari crouched behind the demolition rubble and returned fire, bullets exploding off the concrete, whanging off the rebar, and ripping into the old lumber. Kinkee was on the side of the restaurant sticking his gun around the corner and blasting away. It was shock and awe, a full-on gunfight:.9s,.38s,.45s, and.357s going off in salvos, both sides emptying clips through a haze of smoke.
A Loco was hit. “They got me,” he said, “they fucking got me.”
A round smashed into Omari’s temple, his brains spraying out the other side.
“Oh shit,” Sedrick said, “Omari’s fucked up.”
“Enough of this shit,” Kinkee said. He stepped out from behind the building and did his Denzel impression, walking toward the Locos holding two guns sideways and firing them at the same time. He looked cool until he caught one in the thigh and had to hop back to safety.
Another Loco went down. “They got Frankie,” a Loco said. “Somebody help him.”
Dodson was behind a chunk of foundation firing a Saturday-night special he’d bought after ditching the revolver. He was missing on purpose. If a Loco got killed the spent rounds couldn’t be matched to his gun unless the police dug them out of the Porsche Panamera he was aiming at.
The Locos were advancing, ducking and dodging and shooting as they came over the chain. Kinkee had run out of ammo and hobbled away. Dodson and Sedrick got up and ran.
“They’re running!” a Loco shouted. “Get those fucking cowards.”
Dodson raced around the restaurant and took off down the street, relieved he wasn’t hit. Gunshots popped behind him, the windshield of a car in front of him shattered. The Locos were chasing him. Dodson sprinted for the end of the block. Get around the corner and he could wait, shoot them if they followed. But the pain and weed were slowing him down. His lungs were scorched, a stitch stabbing him in the kidney. The Locos were getting closer, their gunshots getting louder. Dodson was about to stop and go down fighting when he saw an OPEN sign hanging in the window of a taquería. He burst through the door, streaked through the dining room and out the back, gunshots and breaking glass behind him.
Only the lamp was on, the 25-watt bulb like a single candle, darkness all around. Isaiah was sitting on the floor with his back against the bed. The news was on.
“Two rival gangs shot it out behind the Hot Dog Heaven in Hurston today,” the anchorman said. “Police say it’s the latest skirmish in what they’re describing as an all-out war. As many as fifteen gang members exchanged dozens of rounds. Four of the combatants were killed. One suspect was found dead in a dumpster. He hadn’t fired a shot, and another victim was only fourteen years old. Three others were wounded and transported to local hospitals. But the story doesn’t end there, I’m afraid. Police say a gang member who was involved in the shootout was escaping from rival gang members and ran through the Los Amigos Taquería. The first gang member got away but the owners of the restaurant, Selena and Héctor Ruiz, were killed in the crossfire and pronounced dead at the scene. Equally, if not more tragic, their ten-year-old son was struck once in the head. The boy was taken to Hurston Community Hospital and is listed in critical condition. The boy’s surgeon, Dr. Amelia Lopez, told reporters the boy suffered severe brain trauma and underwent surgery. His chances of surviving are unknown, but if he does make it, he’ll be facing the awful news that his parents are dead.”
Isaiah got up, walked in a circle, and stood with his forehead against a wall. How could this happen? Those people were killed? Killed? The boy has brain trauma? This is insane. The war did this. The war Dodson started. Dodson. Fucking Dodson.
He couldn’t stay in the room anymore and walked aimlessly. This mess is all his fault, the idiot. How fucking stupid do you have to be to try something like that? Now where am I? What am I going to do? Fucking Dodson. I never should have let him in the apartment.
The apartment. Thinking about it filled him with longing and pain. “I want my life back,” he said. “I want Marcus back.” It was saying his name that did it. Isaiah’s conscience came busting through the wall of his denial like the battering ram, Marcus storming through the gap. Isaiah knew exactly what his brother would say and how he’d say it. His voice raw like he’d been screaming, one hand judo-chopping the other like he was trying to cut it in half.
What have you done? What have you done? This is your fault. Yours. Don’t shake your head. You made the war happen. You tipped the first domino the minute you decided to be a criminal and one after the other the whole chain fell and now here we are. Those innocent people dead and their son without a mother or a father. Yes, I know you were grieving but you couldn’t deal with it any better than this? The only choice you could make was to be a thief? What happened to your sense of decency? What happened to your morals? Wasting my time on you all those years and for what? So you could use your gift to be a leech, a parasite, a scum-of-the-earth lowlife criminal?
Isaiah walked faster, almost running, but he couldn’t get away from Marcus’s voice, his presence so real it was breathing down his neck and stepping on his heels, making him stumble.
Where’re you going, Isaiah? Think you can walk away from this? You can walk all the way to Timbuktu but those folks will still be dead and that boy will still be an orphan. What are you going to do about him, Isaiah? Haven’t given that a thought, have you? Well, you better start thinking about it and figure out how to make this right or I will be in your face and in your dreams every day and every night for the rest of your miserable life.