The Killing Kind

12

Irving Franklin downed the remainder of his fourth Red Bull and chucked the can into the street. His face felt flushed. His back teeth floated. Caffeine hummed in his veins. When he peeled away from his post at the playground gate, the muscle nearest him called out.

“The fuck you think you’re going, Iffy?”

Franklin eyed him up and down. Two hundred pounds of dumb and mean. He wouldn’t last long once Franklin was in charge-which would be sooner than he or any of the other Prophets thought. “Ease up, Ty-I gotta take a leak. Ain’t nobody coming anyway.”

Ty looked up and down the empty street. Shrugged his meaty shoulders beneath his black sweatshirt. “Be quick about it.”

Franklin tapped a Newport from his pack and struck a light. Hot smoke and cool menthol filled his lungs, and his racing heart slowed some. This time of night, every business in this stretch of Eastside was closed, and the park’s restrooms were in Tiny Rascal territory. Ain’t no way he’d risk a bullet to piss indoors when an alley would do just fine. So Franklin exhaled a plume of smoke and set out across East Anaheim, headed toward the narrow service road between the furniture store and the shuttered corner market.

As he did, Hendricks-who’d been slouched beneath a covered entryway with decent sight lines on the park- rose to his feet and followed. Hendricks felt the eyes of the Prophets’ enforcers on him as he staggered across the street, so he angled slightly away from Franklin, and fought the urge to glance in the kid’s direction. As soon as he could manage, Hendricks ducked down the nearest cross street and out of their line of sight.

Though Hendricks’s footfalls had echoed loudly as he’d crossed East Anaheim, feigning drunkenness, his boots were now silent against the stained concrete. He’d been trained to remain undetected in far more challenging environs than these. He sprinted down the sidewalk, buildings blurring to his right as he looked for a way through.

Beyond the second building he passed was a low iron fence-its gate padlocked-barring entrance to a small parking lot. He vaulted the fence in one smooth motion and cut diagonally across the lot toward Franklin.

Maybe I’ll save this kid yet, he thought.

Engelmann watched with interest as Franklin crossed the street-and interest blossomed into excitement as he saw the homeless man on the far side of the block stir as well.

The latter had been still so long, Engelmann had forgotten he was there; he felt more like set dressing than person. Rough-sleeping homeless were as much a signifier of Southern California as palm trees and garish murals. One’s eyes slid right off them, which made them an inspired disguise for someone trying to blend in.

Unfortunately, the lot in which Engelmann sat faced the park from across the street, which meant both Franklin and the homeless man disappeared from view as soon as they ventured south of Anaheim. He started the car-grateful for the first time since he’d rented it that America’s idea of luxury was not performance but serenity; its engine was so quiet, none of the young men in the park noticed. Engelmann slid out of the lot toward the park and took the first left he came to. Then he rolled down the darkened road at five miles per hour, scanning the night for any sign of Franklin-or of his quarry.

Franklin ducked into an alley off the service road. Found a spot halfway out of sight behind a Dumpster. Unzipped. Let loose.

As he did, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned, startled, midstream.

The glowing ember of his cigarette ruined his night vision, so at first, all he saw was darkness unfolding-resolving into a figure. The cigarette fell from Franklin’s lips and hissed when it hit the puddle at his feet. He reached for the gun he’d recently taken to sticking in his waistband, but it wasn’t there. It was in his sock drawer at Nana’s house because the Prophets didn’t like their money guy to carry.

“Hey, Iffy.”

“Aisha?” Relief washed over Franklin, followed closely by embarrassment. “Why the fuck did you sneak up on me like that? Shit-I thought I was three seconds from getting ganked in an alley with my dick out.” He tucked himself back into his baggy shorts and brushed idly at the front of them.

“I’m sorry, Iffy. I just…wanted to say hey, is all.”

Franklin looked her up and down. Stick skinny in ratty clothes. Eyes sunken in deep hollows. Her skin a jaundiced yellow-gray beneath the streetlights. Her forearms pocked with scars from wrist to elbow. “Bullshit, you did. You’re looking to score.”

Aisha looked at her shoes. “I just need a little to get by until payday.”

“You mean until your pimp gives you your take.”

“C’mon, Iffy. You and me go back. I could make it worth your while,” she said, approaching him and reaching for his open fly.

Franklin shoved her. She went down hard. Whimpered as she hit the ground. “Get the fuck off me, bitch. I ain’t the same little nickel-bag nigger who used to float you shit back in the day. I’m big weight now, hear? I’m better than you. Don’t come around no more with your whiny bullshit-the shape you’re in, I wouldn’t let you suck a stolen dick.”

He cocked his leg back to kick the girl. She squealed and covered her face with her arms, but didn’t move to stop him. From somewhere nearby, Franklin heard a cough. When he raised his head to look, a homeless man stood at the alley’s mouth, silhouetted by the streetlights.

Franklin, momentarily chastened by the audience, lowered his foot.

When the blow she was expecting didn’t come, Aisha peeked between her forearms, eyes widening when they lighted on her unlikely savior.

The homeless man said, “Go.”

Aisha scrabbled wordlessly to her feet, tears streaming down her cheeks, and ran. Franklin looked from the homeless man to her, wondering if he should maybe give chase and teach that bitch a lesson.

The homeless man took a step toward Franklin. “I wouldn’t.”

Franklin stayed put. Though he’d never admit it, even to himself, something in the man’s tone frightened him.

They stood that way-an uneasy détente-until the sounds of Aisha’s hurried footfalls were swallowed by the night. Then Franklin puffed out his chest in an attempt to repair his wounded pride. “The fuck are you still looking at?” he asked, trying to force some edge into his voice.

“Nothing,” the man replied. “Nothing at all.”

And then he disappeared into the shadows.

Engelmann was rolling slowly westward on 11th when a young black woman burst from the alley to his left and bounced, crying, off the fender of his car. He slammed the brakes and peered back the way she came. He spotted Franklin fifty yards up the alley, zipping his fly in the shadows of a nearby Dumpster, alone. When Franklin finished, he looked around, and then hiked back toward the park.

Engelmann circled the block, but the homeless man was nowhere to be found. He did another circuit for good measure, and then slid the Chrysler back into his chosen parking lot. Apparently, this poor young woman was the reason Franklin had abandoned his post, and the timing of the homeless man’s awakening was no more than an unfortunate coincidence.

For two more days, he trailed the boy. For two more days, no one approached him. On the third day, two large men of Italian extraction dragged Franklin from his grandmother’s home while she begged for them to stop and shot him in the street-two taps, head and heart, like the professionals they were.

Irving Franklin was a dead end.