"Yeah." Tavon muttered through his clenched jaw.
"You remember the ones with the coyote?"
"Yeah, Road Runner."
"Nah. The other ones, the ones with the sheep dog. You see, every day was the same. The sheep dog and Mr Wile E. Coyote would ride to work together, break for lunch together, but when they were on the clock – you know, once that work whistle blew – it was all business. Coyote would try and steal sheep. The sheep dog would drop an anvil on his head to handle his business."
"Tavon," Octavia, picking up on Lee's thread, pointed to him, "this here's my anvil."
"A name or maybe I should let you ride up front with me," Lee said.
"Huh?" Tavon said.
"You know, all cozy like. Take a tour of the corners."
"No need to go to any trouble." Tavon raised his hands.
"Let your boys see you riding in style with po-po. Maybe drop you off on one of your favorite corners. How does that sound?"
"Juneteenth Walker. Folks call him Junie," Tavon said with a quickness.
"Junie? He like folks calling him that?" Octavia asked.
"What's that matter?"
"I'm just saying. His momma, all proud of her beautiful baby boy names him after a black holiday, the celebration of our emancipation, but he turns around and the streets call him Junie. Junie… like he's some kind of bug."
"That's the point," Tavon said. "You don't get to choose your name. Those with power over you name you."
"That's a fucked-up way of looking at things," Lee offered.
"It's a fucked-up life."
"We'll check this out. If you on the level, there'll be something in it for you down the road."
"This here's America." Tavon's eyes grew wide with the lucidity spurred by capitalism. "We believe in credit, but with all of this economic uncertainty – downturns and shit – we also a cash down payment sort of people."
Octavia fished out a twenty dollar bill. She held it up when he snatched for it. "Your info better be straight or else my anvil will have an excuse to drop all over you."
"We're cool." Tavon grabbed the bill and ducked out of their little enclave before he could be seen.
"What you think?" Octavia asked.
"Be nice to find out where this motherfucker lays his head. Hold on, I got something so that this night's not a total waste."
Lee pulled some firecrackers out from under the backseat of their car. Octavia rolled her eyes and slipped into the driver's side. Lee tossed the lit firecrackers into some nearby bushes. Watching folks jump into each other's pockets wasn't her idea of entertainment as the touts and lookouts scurried for their covey holes, a few soldiers, hands on weapons, popped their heads out to see what was what. Lee grinned with the glee of a kid kicking over an anthill.
No one knew where Green lived. When folks needed him, they caught up with him on his cell.
His coat hung from a nail lodged in a bullet hole in the wall. A series of cracks in the plaster filigreed his wall. The water-damaged ceiling and floorboards trapped mildew within their spaces, so thick at times, breathing was a chore. Or would be to any but Green. The rest of his place was unfurnished for all intents and purposes. Surrounding a card table were mismatched chairs, from a broken La-Z-Boy to a lawn chair, not that he entertained often. Plywood covered the window creating the darkness of a cave which obscured the stained walls. A bare bulb dangled from the ceiling. Radiators filled the abandoned house though they, too, were long-stilled. From the bathroom came the stench of excrement and urine from a paper-clogged toilet, though the clawfoot bathtub next to it remained bone-dry. No electricity, no gas, no water. Burn marks trailed along the window sills from previous squatters. There was no bed or mattress to be found in the bedroom. For all practical purposes, the room was a walk in the closet, wall-to-wall with suits, coats, shoes, and brims.
Green stood.
"How's business?" Merle asked.
"Steady mobbin'. People always want to get their head up." Green's voice was dry as kindling. "What do you want, mage?"
"Can't two old friends share a moment?"
"Is that what we are now?"
"Depends, do you still have that thing for heads?" Merle asked.
"I see you haven't tired of your word games."
"Chop, chop, fizz, fizz. Oh what a relief it is."
"He's returned, hasn't he?" Green said, still not turning to meet Merle.
"He's been here a while."
"It's really him?"
"Slowly finding himself. Here, there be dragons, or so I hear." Merle ran his finger along the edges of the jutting sconces as if performing a white glove inspection. "How's the old lady?"
"In seclusion. Well guarded. What do you want?"
"A name. What's in a name? Bercilak. Bredbeddle. Bernlak. I guess it depends on who you ask."
"I won't ask again." Green remained rooted to his spot, unflinching, yet his gaze followed Merle.
"Really? Third time's a charm."
His gray-flecked red sideburns straggled out from beneath the aluminum foil helmet he'd crafted. The voices of the dead or else gone were getting harder to sift through. His body aged one way, his spirit the other, he thought, though he couldn't remember which aged which way. "Damn it, Mab. Can't you be quiet for a moment?"
"I see Dred is not the only one haunted by echoes of his mother."
"You can be reached," Merle said.
"And you can be killed."
"A year and a day. A year and a day. The challenge comes full circle."
"Bah."
"A year and a day. Nothing is evergreen. Do what you always do."
In a thought, the flesh of Green's hand stretched and tore, raking the shape of a shorn branch, with one side beveled to form a close approximation of a blade. He swung the slicing hand in an arc directed at Merle's neck, but the mage had already vanished into the night, abandoning the elemental. Which was just as well. He'd grown restless and still had an errand to run.
• • •
Inside the Phoenix Apartments, the woman had a name. A mother of three whose baby daddy walked out when the pressures of taking care of a family proved too hard to shoulder. She worked two jobs to make ends meet, refusing to go on welfare. Not so much due to pride as much as never again wanting to be dependent on anyone – a lesson she wanted to pass on to her children.
She let her sister live with them in the Phoenix Apartments, paid half the rent, and bought most of the groceries. In trade, her sister watched the kids after school and read to them before they went to bed. Though honest and hard-working, she wasn't a saint. On weekends she and her sister weaved each other's hair and they got their party on; she deserved to let off steam and have a life. Her body held up fairly well after three kids. Sure, her breasts sagged more than she would have liked and she had a pudginess to her belly that spilled over her too-tight, low-cut jeans; but she had thick thighs and knew how to carry herself in a way to accentuate her assets. The woman had a life.
None of which mattered to Green.
The woman, while out at a party, stumbled across Dollar putting Prez on in the life, overseeing his initiation. He had drawn the joker from the deck of cards and was meant to take out a random mark. His shot went wide of his intended target and had the misfortune to strike Conant Walker through the Walker family's window. The woman had been staggering down the sidewalk when she witnessed the shooting. When Dollar and Prez broke out, she was sure she hadn't been spotted. As the days passed, what she had seen ground on her conscience. She was careful, only telling her sister about the possibility of her going to the police. She was positive she had only told her. Fairly positive anyway.
None of which mattered to Green.
"Snitching is a lifestyle choice." Green circled the woman who was tied to one of her kitchen chairs. Her home was modest and clean. Poor didn't have to mean dirty, she had always instructed her children. The floors were swept regularly, the countertops wiped down and the house picked up. She was in the middle of mopping the kitchen when Green kicked in her front door, leading Dollar and Prez, as he, too, had a mess to clean up. Dollar and Prez brandished guns, directing the kids to sit against the wall. Green forced her to sit in the chair as they used zip strips to bind her hands behind her. Her sister was out for the evening. "Usually a choice to shorten one's lifestyle."