"Who are you?" he asked.
"Who are you?" she retorted, unstartled and with out making eye contact.
"Michelle."
Davis. Michelle Davis. Baylon expected a prosti tute, maybe a burnout crack whore, someone who had run game one time too often or stolen money and had to pay the final piper. Not some fresh faced girl no older than his niece. She reached into her rich, furred coat and fondled the hilt of her knife.
"We match." Baylon pulled up his shirt and re vealed his knife.
"Where'd you get that?"
"My father gave it to me."
"I never knew my father," Michelle said.
"Not all of us are so lucky," Baylon said. "A pretty girl you. It isn't right for you to have such… teeth."
"I ain't got no choice out here. A girl's got to be able to take care of herself. I'll carry it until I find someone good enough to take it from me."
"Someone good enough to make you feel safe?"
"Something like that. You know King?"
Baylon bristled at the name. "We go back a ways."
"What's he like?"
"He a'ight."
"Seriously."
"He's good people. Means well. Big heart," Baylon admitted. "But, damn, he has this way about him. Where you always feeling judged. Like no matter what you're doing, he expects more. Better."
"That sounds like a good thing. Someone who believes in you and pushes you."
"Unless you're being pushed off the edge."
"No one doubts your heart. No one other than you."
Her ambercolored eyes pierced him as if reading his soul. No attitude. No stiffness. No fear. She bared her teeth to let him know she could handle herself but let the conversation play out. Baylon found himself intrigued by her. On the flip side, one quality Baylon didn't lack was the fact that he was headstrong. And he had just decided that Michelle was either "unable to be found" or otherwise not going to be killed. At least until he learned what her offense might be. Once he got an idea in his head, he ran it into the ground without looking or thinking. As if he couldn't change course even if it meant his destruction.
"Damn, man, what's taking you so long?" Half out of breath, Griff poked his head into the room and spoke with a hurried whisper. "Oh, I see. This a private party?"
"Naw man, nothing like that. Let's roll," Baylon said.
"Naw, naw. We got a minute." Griff's eyes were without hope but swam with complete malignancy, shark's eyes. He walked around with so much pain, trying to figure out a way to make it all go away. His shirt loose to hide the gun in his waistband, he closed the door behind him.
"Come on man, let's go."
"Not till your big brother has a taste."
"It ain't like that. You can't…" Baylon put his hands on him to get him out the door. Griff laid a feral glare on him, promising that Baylon, Baylon's kids, and Baylon's kids' kids should line up and apologize for the effrontery. Baylon released him and raised his hands in a "my bad" gesture.
"You always did have trouble sharing."
The strange look on Griff's face, hungry and predatory, made Baylon anxious. Griff touched one of Michelle's tendrils of hair, a gentle caress flush with intent. Her braless breasts pert and at attention, he could trace the curve of her back through her thread bare outfit. Stifling a lascivious grin, he stepped to her, the heat of him wafting off in waves. He grazed her cheek with his finger, an intimate gesture, one too reminiscent, to Baylon's mind, of an owner with his dog. Griff all but let her take in his scent, but she slapped his hand away.
"Oh, it's like that is it?" Griff asked.
"It's like that," she said, too defiant. Unafraid of him.
Baylon winced. Griff had changed over the last few months. Became harder, an impressive feat as he was already one of the hardest men Baylon knew. However, not just harder, but colder. And he didn't brook women telling him "no".
Griff smiled seductively. An icy laugh. He grabbed her arm and jerked her to him. She raked her finger nails across his face and drew her knife. The thing about knives, to Baylon's mind, was they showed more heart than a gun. Any fool could squeeze a trigger and blast. There was a distance to the killing. The death. To use a knife required one to be up close and personal. Angry and intent. They couched together, crashing to the ground. Wrestling over the knife. "NO!" Baylon shouted and jumped in, hoping to leverage the blade. He tried to take it from her or keep it from him. If anyone was to have it, it should be Baylon. She clung to it, desperate that he might hurt her with it. Griff released his hold. The blade pierced her with a soft gasp, driven into her body. Her hand dug into his arm, a lover in the throes of passion, and then released. Warm in his arms. So peaceful. He wished he could hold her forever. Her lifeless gaze not too different from Griff's everyday expression. Her blood smeared his clothes. Stained his hands. Baylon's senses left him. The sorrow hit him like a blow to the chest, his heart heavy with shame and grief.
"Come on, man," Griff announced, a kid whose dinner had been spoiled. "We gotta get out of here."
Baylon took the knife, the proud owner of a matching set.
Laying naked next to Omarosa, Lee became suddenly self-conscious of how much his bed smelled like ball sweat and cheap aftershave. The sheets were rough and stiff, not fit for a woman like her. Omarosa slept barely making a sound, little more than an observed presence in his bed. That was the only way he could think to describe her. As if he took his eyes from her, she'd disappear, a wisp in the night. So he stayed up watching the gentle rise and fall of her chest. Taking in her scent. Listening for the sound of her slightest stirring.
"I'm awake, you know. I'm not going to disappear on you."
"I'm trained police. I specialize in finding folks intent on disappearing."
"That what you were doing at the Phoenix?" Omarosa asked.
"Nah, I was looking at you."
"Ah, the fates conspiring for us to meet." She curled up, the sheet wrapped around her. A portrait of seduction, her every movement was choreographed to elicit an effect from him.
"Something like that." Lee sat up. He never imagined himself bedding a black girl. His mind focusing on the black part of her description, he rolled the idea around in his head. Not that he bought into the stereotypes of black people's sexual prowess. He contented himself with knowing what to do with what he had. "What do you do?"
"Do you care or is that some residual Protestant guilt rearing its head?"
"Catholic. Very residual."
"Do you even remember my name? No, never mind, don't strain yourself." Her voice little more than a low purr, she made him feel both inadequate and important at the same time. "What do you know about dogs?"
"They bark, shit, eat, and sleep," Lee said.
"They fight, too."
"Not legally."
"How often do you stake out for legal operations?"
"What are you getting at?"
"I just hear tell of a dog-fighting ring."
"Not my beat."
"So you'd think. You gang task force."
"How'd you-"
"I know things," Omarosa said. "Now, who do you think runs the dog fights?"
"I'm listening."
"Lots of rules go into these things so that shit don't accidentally jump off."
"Even police."
"Po-po go where they go. Can't be helped. Cost of doing business."
"So you know where one of these fights is going to be held?"
"Maybe. But I'll take some convincing to give it up."
Suddenly uncomfortable, he didn't know if he was capable of anything approaching tender.