Last Man Standing

23

Toona popped back into the driver’s seat and closed and locked the door. He stretched out a long arm and handed the envelope back to Francis, who was sitting in the rear section of seats in the jet-black Lincoln Navigator. Macy sat in the middle section, a pair of sunglasses on, though the vehicle’s glass was tinted. He wore an ear radio and a holstered gun. Peebles was not with them.

Francis looked at the envelope but didn’t take it. “Where’d you get this, Toona? Don’t be handing me shit you ain’t know where it comes from. I taught you better’n that.”

“It’s clean. They already checked it out, boss. Don’t know where it come from, but it ain’t no letter bomb or nuthin’.”

Francis snatched the letter away and told Toona to drive on. As soon as his hand touched the object in the envelope, Francis knew what the letter was. He opened it and took out the ring. It was small and gold and wouldn’t have even fit over his pinky, but it had fit Kevin’s middle finger just fine when Francis had bought it for him. On the inside of the ring was engraved the names Kevin and Francis. Actually, it read, FRANCIS AND KEVIN. FOR LIFE.

Francis felt his hands begin to shake and he quickly glanced up and saw Toona staring at him the rearview mirror. “Drive the damn car, Toona, or you’re gonna find your sorry ass in a Dumpster with my whole pistol mag in your damn head.”

The Navigator pulled away from the curb and sped up.

Francis looked down at the envelope and carefully slipped the letter out. It was all block print, something you might see in some mystery show. Whoever had Kevin was asking—no, telling Francis to do something if he wanted to see the boy alive again. What they were telling him to do was odd. Francis would have expected a demand for money or for him to give up all or part of his territory and he would have done it, gotten Kevin back and then tracked down his abductors and killed all of them, probably with his bare hands. But there was no such demands, and thus Francis was confused and suddenly more afraid for Kevin than he already had been, because he had no clue as to what these people were up to. He had seen first-hand the motivations that made people do everything from taking someone’s money to taking someone’s life. He thought he’d seen it all. And from the contents of the letter these people were obviously aware of something that Francis was too, something special about the location of the building where all the Feds had gotten shot up.

“Where’d this letter come from, Toona?”

Toona’s gaze in the rearview mirror caught his. “Twan said it was at the downtown place. Somebody slipped it under the door.”

The downtown place was a condo that was one of the few places that Francis used more than a couple times. It was held in the name of a corporation whose sole purpose was to allow Francis the drug lord to actually own something legally without the police knocking his door down. He had fixed it up nicely, with original artwork of some ghetto brothers he admired and who were trying to do almost the impossible and live life straight. That’s right, Francis Westbrook was a patron of the arts of sorts. And the condo was also filled with custom-made furniture that was big enough and sturdy enough to allow him to lounge on it without breaking it. The address of the condo had been one of his most jealously guarded secrets and it was the one place where he could actually relax. Now someone had discovered the location, had violated the place, and Francis knew he could never go back there.

He folded up the letter and put it away in his pocket, but he held the tiny ring in his big hand and looked at it. Then he slipped the photo out of his shirt pocket and looked at it. It had been taken on Kevin’s ninth birthday. Francis had the boy on his shoulders. They had gone to a Redskins game and had on matching jerseys. Francis was so big that most people at the stadium thought he was a Redskin. That’s right, big and black, must be good for nothing except playing ball for outrageous bucks. He remembered, though, that Kevin had thought that very cool. Better than your old man being a drug dealer, he supposed.

And what did his son really think of him, the man he believed was his big brother yet who was really his daddy? What did he think when he got caught in a cross-fire intended to kill Francis? Francis remembered holding Kevin with one arm, shielding him from more harm, while his other hand held a gun and he was firing at the sons of bitches who had turned a birthday party into a kill zone. Couldn’t even take him to the damn hospital, had to give him to Jerome. And Kevin screaming that he wanted his brother and Francis not being able to do anything about that, because the cops were all over D.C. General after the shootout. They were just waiting for men with bullets in them to show up, and on would go the cuffs. The cops had been looking for a long time for some excuse to put his butt away. And Francis would’ve left on a nice lengthy visit to some super-max prison for the benign act of dropping his wounded son off so doctors could save his life.

He felt tears welling up in his eyes and he tried hard to push them away. He could only recall crying twice in his life. When Kevin was born, and when Kevin had been shot and almost killed. His plan had always been to make enough money to last him two lifetimes, his and Kevin’s. Because when Francis retired from the “bizness” and left for his little island somewhere, his son was coming with him, away from the drugs and the guns and the premature deaths happening all around them. Maybe he would even summon the courage to tell Kevin the truth: that he was his father. He wasn’t really sure why he had created this lie about being his big brother. Was he afraid of fatherhood? Or were lies just an essential part of Francis Westbrook’s life?

His cell phone rang, just like the letter said it would. They must be watching him. He slowly held it up to his ear.

“Kevin?”

Toona turned his head around when he heard the name. Macy sat impassively.

“You all right, little man? They treating you okay?” Francis said into the phone. He nodded at the answer he heard. They spoke for about a minute and then the line went dead. Francis put down the phone.

“Mace?” he said.

Macy instantly turned and looked at him.

“Mace, we got to get to this Web London dude. Things have changed.”

“You talking killing or information exchange? You want him to come to us, or us go to him? Be better if he found us, if you’re talking info. You want him dead, though, I’ll go to him and it’s done.”

Macy was always logical like that. He read your mind, thought for himself, reviewed the possibilities and took the pressure off his boss from having to do all the analysis, making all the tough decisions. Francis knew that Toona would never be like that, and even Peebles was limited in that capacity. Damn ironic that a little white boy with a vicious streak would become his number one kind of guy, his soul mate of sorts as much as black and white could be.

“Info, for now. So he comes to us. How long you reckon?”

“He’s been seen nosing around in that Bucar of his probably looking for clues. I’d say it wouldn’t take all that long. He comes our way, we got a nice carrot to dangle in front of him.”

“Let’s do it. Oh, and Mace, nice call on that other thing.” Francis glanced at Toona.

“Just doing my job,” replied Macy.

Kevin looked up at the man as he put the phone away.

“You did real good, Kevin.”

“I want to see my brother.”

“One step at a time. You just talked to him. See, we’re not bad people. Hell, we’re into family stuff, see.” He laughed in a way that made Kevin think he wasn’t into family at all. He rubbed his finger where his ring had been.

“Why you let me talk to him?”

“Well, it’s important that he knows you’re okay.”

“So he do what you tell him to do.”

“Damn, you really are one smart kid. You want a job?” He laughed again, turned and left, locking the door behind him.

“What I want,” Kevin called after him, “is out of here.”