This was the whole scene, but Reggie Evans could only see it in fragmented, distorted little pieces. The color black still held dominion over his field of vision, existing in small shadow-like pools, censoring the things he didn’t want to see.

Chief among them, the corpse of a man named Earl.

“$180.00,” Devon Lane said, flipping through the roll of 20s again.

“What?” Reggie asked, still catatonic, unsure of how his lips had even moved.

“That was in the register,” Devon muttered. “Couldn’t find the safe.”

“$180.00,” Reggie replied as his muscles thawed out. He moved his right arm slowly to his hair. Something pressed against his finger. Something sticky, warm. Something that had been alive moments earlier.

It was a piece of Earl’s ear. It was a wake up call.

Reggie stepped forward. His shock at Devon’s demeanor began to fade.

“$180.00,” he said again.

“Yeah, you deaf? We scored $180.00,” Devon replied, chuckling as he folded the stack up. “Guess Earl wasn’t lying.”

The old man’s words made sense now. They were broken up, like a disembodied rant, like a poem Reggie couldn’t quite understand, but parts of the syntax screamed louder than the police sirens descending upon them.

Reggie moved. His fist found Devon’s adam’s apple, stifling his unsettling chuckle, choking out his glee.

“You killed somebody for $180.00!” Reggie screamed, his arm moving like a piston, raining blow after blow on Devon’s head.

“We could have made twice that if we hit the Marlboro homes and peddled some shitty ass weed!” he shouted, as he bit down, drawing blood from his own tongue and Devon’s nose.

“Murderer! I should kill you,” Reggie continued the beating, his hands finding their way to Devon’s throat. But his friend finally recovered from the surprise of the attack and rolled Reggie on to his back, getting his own forearm across Reggie’s chest.

“That old man get inside your head or something?” Devon shouted. “I didn’t see you try and fucking stop me, but now that there’s heat you go soft on me. You can lecture me all you want, but facts is facts. There’s gonna be a lot of red and blue here in a few minutes, if you know what I’m saying. So save the panic attack for later, and help me clean this mess up.”

Reggie shoved Devon off and they both rose to their feet, fists hungry for more combat.

“Clean this up? Like we even know what that means. Do I look like a professional to you?” Reggie asked. “Fuck, do you look like a professional to you?”

The sirens grew louder. Their shriek bounced off the alleys and spaces between buildings, through the doors of the White Castle. As if they already knew what happened.

“You killed someone,” Reggie whispered.

“We killed someone,” Devon shot back. “And the police aren’t going to care whose holding the gun when they see two black guys and one dead white guy.”

Reggie trained his eyes on Earl. The shot hadn’t been clean. There were pieces of hair, and skin and brain in all corners of the room. Devon had turned him into a human jigsaw puzzle.

And all the while, the siren song drew closer. Somehow, the police were the least of Reggie’s worries.

“We need to go, or we’re going to end up on the floor next to Earl,” Devon said, tugging on Reggie’s arm.

“That’s where we should be,” Reggie muttered.

His wish was nearly granted. The barrel of Devon’s revolver kissed the side of his ear.

“Run,” Devon hissed, speaking with an older voice, one that couldn’t have belonged to him.

“You going to shoot me too?” Reggie said, eyes closed, fledgling tears forming in his eyes.

Devon exhaled.

“If I have to.”

Reggie shook his head, resigned to the life he’d trapped himself in. Urban hell, the hip-hop stereotype he’d run blindly towards. Devon took off and Reggie followed suit. He heard the theme song from C.O.P.S. in his head as his feet moved like they were programmed to, following the beat and pace of his best friend’s footsteps.

He was a statistic; fleeing the scene with someone else’s guns and money, just like everyone said he would. Even his father.

The alley they were running down split. Devon stopped short and looked around frantically.

“Which way?”

“Left,” Reggie said quietly.

Devon took off. Reggie went right. Ten seconds later, the gun was trained on Reggie’s back again.

“Where the fuck you going?” Devon asked.

“Somewhere else,” Reggie said back.

“17 years and now one thing goes wrong and you’re done with me?” Devon screamed, drowning out the approaching cavalry. “You didn’t know shit about these streets without me. 17 years you motherfucker.”

Reggie kept walking.

“Don’t make yourself a witness man. Don’t make me fucking shoot you,” Devon yelped, more desperate now than threatening.

“Do what you have to Devon,” Reggie said, finding the chain link fence at the end of the alley, climbing it with ease born by experience he wished he didn’t have.

Tires squealed. The cops arrived. Devon Lane and Reggie Evans took one final glance at each other, and then they both did the one thing they had proved best at after 17 years of failure on Prospect Park’s streets.

They ran.

SHADESTALKER #2:
Don’t Panic
Homes and Churches (Part 2 of 3)
By James J. Queally

Eugene Evans rolled over to find his bed cold, the space usually warmed by his wife’s supple body vacant.

“Typical,” he grumbled, clearing sleep from his throat. Two slaps to his rough face were enough to get him out of bed and moving. Clumsily, he navigated the staircase, following the hint of cigarette smoke to the garage. He knew where she was, and where she was going.

“You know I’m used to catching Reggie sneaking out around one in the morning,” Eugene said, still squinting through the overhead lights to see his wife. “But this is new.”

Aryanna Evans pivoted towards her husband with her dainty Virginia Slim in hand. She was wearing an expensive leather coat over a not-so expensive, non-descript waitress’ outfit.

“It’s closer to two a.m. Gene,” she replied, stubbing out the smoke against the toe of her black and white striped running shoes.

“Oh, well that changes everything,” he said, still struggling to join the waking world. “What are you doing Aryanna? I mean tonight, of all nights.”

“You know, I don’t yell at you when you go to work at all hours of the night,” she flashed him a smile. Eugene was disappointed that after 15 years of marriage, his wife still thought she could laugh her way out of an argument with a criminal prosecutor.

“That’s because I work in an office, with security guards,” he replied. “If I was working for the people you worked for, in the neighborhoods you work in, you would also have cause for concern.”

“Nothing’s gone wrong yet Gene,” she said.

“Yet,” he snapped back.

Aryanna stepped into her husband’s sleep-deprived stare, pressing a cold hand against his face. He shuddered from the touch. The nights were getting colder by the day, marking New York’s long, icy march into winter.

“I know this bothers you, but this is what I do. I chose to accept all the crap that comes with your job when I said ‘I do.’ I let you do what you have to, to have a purpose. Why can’t you be fair and let me do the same?”

Her hand grew colder, but it wasn’t the late October winds anymore. It was numbness, like an anesthetic. They would be having that conversation again.

“Because you don’t have to,” he said, fully aware the next sentence would drive his wife out of the garage and into the arms of fearful men hiding in damp, dark spaces.

“Because we don’t need it.”

Aryanna stepped back, warming him as the distance grew.

“Here we go again Eugene. Tell me how you’re the great provider. I’m waiting.”

“You think this is about ego,” Eugene howled. The frustration in his throat shocked him to life faster than any amount of caffeine could. He was awake now, wishing he was asleep, dreaming of a better home life.

“This is about you, and Reggie, and the fact that you gamble with your lives every night,” he continued. “You run out there and you interact with people that could hurt you, that can and may break you just because they have nothing better to do. And you do this in the face of every opportunity you’ve both wasted, and every opportunity I have been able to piece back together for you. You both act like I want you to just sit home and bathe in all the furniture and the money. That’s crap.”

As he’d expected, she was already heading down the driveway.

“Why? Can you just tell me why you need to do this to me? What’s so terrifying about living the dream?” he was breaking, pleading. He was arguing from emotion, breaking every rule he founded his career upon.

“Because it’s your dream,” she shot back, continuing her long walk towards Williamsburg.

Eugene raced after her, in nothing but a thin robe and his hard calloused feet. The cold stunned him for a moment.

“Stop saying that, both of you. Just come in here. What is so hard about staying in bed next to your husband for more than two nights a week?”

Lights flickered to life in some of the adjacent upscale Prospect homes. The neighbors weren’t intrigued, they were aggravated. They had heard this before.

Moments passed. Aryanna faded from view, her footfalls escaping even the furthest street light.

“What the hell is out there?” Eugene screamed. “What the fuck is so alluring?”

The District Attorney-to be turned around, glaring at his hollow granite face three-story. The one that had more columns that it needed, but he liked it. He wanted to show off when he got married. Now he just wanted to understand why “the home you could raise any happy family in” was normally a lonesome eyesore.

“What am I missing?” he whispered.

With that, he retreated to his bedroom, wondering how the street life he battled from 9 to 5 was constantly defeating him outside the office.

* * *

“So how did you get into this field?” an eager Fusamasa asked his semi-attractive 30 something target.

Sure, this was supposed to be business, but the deal seemed to be locked. Miss Weiss was punching numbers and factoring… something. His eyes weren’t following the flow of data and digits across the computer monitor, they were molding the curves of her snow white fingernails to memory. She was attentive to her features. She was Ren’s type of woman by day, opportunistic and business-minded. But the smoky mascara and pedicure told Fusamasa she was a different gal when the sun went down.

“Do you mean the field of biochemistry?” she responded, her nails still clacking away at the keys. “Or my private practice of synthesizing dangerous chemical weapons for shady criminal organizations like the…”

She shot a tense but playful look at Ren, who was facing out the window, unconcerned by their conversation.

“Yakuza,” she whispered.

They giggled, like students passing notes behind a school teacher.

“Yeah, the second thing,” he said, smirking.

“Why does anyone do anything Mr. Yukonawa?” she said, snatching something out of a nearby printer. “Money.”

“This place doesn’t pay well,” he asked.

“Not well enough, not anymore,” she muttered, suddenly more interested in the figures on the computer paper than Fusamasa’s playful questioning. “Some NYU hotshot came in here with a whirlwind of research grants. Papers say he found an enzyme that can cure something that might put this place on the fast track to curing cancer.”

Fusamasa feigned interest, but his mind went blank after the word “enzyme.”

“He’s light years from finding what they want, but if you say the word cancer, the science world will throw money at you, at least until they find another meal ticket.”

Something caught her eye at the bottom of the read out. Fusamasa tried to earn a peak but she creased it over twice, denying him the information.

“There’s no money in cures Mr. Yukonawa,” she said calmly. “It’s the world’s suffering that signs my paychecks.”

“Lady that’s one of the most fucked up things I’ve ever heard,” Fusamasa exclaimed, stirring Ren from his trance like state near the window.

“Really? I don’t know if you noticed sir, but you’re a mobster. How many zeroes do blood and bullets add to your paychecks,” she replied.

“We having a problem?” Ren hissed.

“Perhaps we can continue this argument another time, when my associate buzz kill-san is not around,” he whispered.

“Perhaps over dinner,” she whispered back, letting her breath tingle his ear lobe.

Fusamasa immediately produced a business card, with a name and a disposable cell phone number. Something changed in her expression, as if she’d started the conversation for the explicit purpose of reaching that moment. The young Yakuza assumed she’d been taken back by his excellent listening skills.

“Ahem,” Ren growled, finally breaking up their flirtation. “Miss Weiss, we have other things to attend to tonight. Can we please come to an agreement on payment and distribution?”

“Certainly,” she replied. “I have ten samples of the aerosol version ready as a sign of good faith. You can take those with you when you leave tonight. How much will you need beyond that?” she asked.

“100 units, weekly,” Ren replied.

“100? Do you understand how potent this is sir? Do you really want a large amount of a highly volatile substance lying around?” she said, for the first time showing an emotion besides confidence.

“One should always come strapped for war,” Ren said.

“One should,” a foreign voice interjected.

Fusamasa, Ren and Catherine Weiss all spun to their left to see a pair of men in business suits and sunglasses. They walked with the same purpose and sense of entitlement that the two Japanese men did, but their skin was olive and their voices carried a decidedly heavier swagger.

“You gentlemen are too late, a deal is already in place,” Ren said, his hand instinctively moving towards his waist. Fusamasa quickly followed suit.

“Don’t waste your breath with stupid statements jap,” the man his own fingers crawling, centimeter by centimeter towards his own holster.

Within seconds, four guns were drawn.

“After all,” he spat. “You might not have much left.”

* * *

The flip phone’s neck was broken. The top and bottom halves of the aged black Nokia were clinging together by virtue of a thin piece of copper. Reggie wasn’t sure what the wire did or why it was there, but as he rifled through his phonebook searching for a number he should have committed to memory, he begged the wire to allow him one last call.

Dialing … Christina Hill.

He knew what Devon would say if he saw Reggie, shivering in a back alley, teary eyed, sweaty and staring into the flashing LCD screen.

What you gonna do now? Call her and cry about your feelings, about how bad that shit was? You gonna tell her everything? I always told you if shit went wrong the only way it’s gonna be all right again is if you don’t tell nobody nothing. Golden rule man.

It rang for a third time.

You always hung around me saying you wanted to be street. Now this? Should’ve just stayed in that six-figure house with Daddy where you belong.

The phone chirped again. Ring number six. At least he knew her phone was on.

“Hi,” she said.

“I’m sorry it’s so late but…”

“You’ve reached Christina. My phone’s probably off right now so leave a message. Kay, bye.”

A monotone female voice began passing instructions to leave a voice mail. Reggie thought about spilling all the sordid details into her mail box right then and there, but a pair of headlights paralyzed his tongue. He slapped the phone shut and peered out from the fortress of garbage and metal he was hiding behind.

The halogens belonged to a Chevy, but not an Impala. Not the typical NYPD cruiser’s make and model. Which meant he was safe for the moment.

Safety is a fleeting state of mind though.

The phone rang. Christina Hill must have been curious why her lover was calling at three in the morning.

You tell her, she tells someone, and we’re both done for.

Devon Lane’s voice had served as gospel for most of Reggie’s adolescent life, but at that moment, in the waning desperation of an early morning hideout amongst fast food wrappers and mildew, Reggie Evans’ decided to subscribe to a new kind of truth.

He answered the call.

“You never came,” Christina whispered, referring to what should have been their private birthday celebration.

“I got tied up,” Reggie whispered, cursing himself.

You could have spent three hours cuddled up next to her pretty little ass, instead, you had to go knock over White Castle and become an accessory to murder.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Huh?” Reggie responded.

“Usually when you don’t show up you just hit me with some lame excuse the next day Reggie. You never call. What’s wrong?” she asked again.

Devon’s voice melted into the wind and passing of cars. Just background noise.

“You’re right,” he said.

“Well then tell me Reggie,” she replied.

“Devon and I were out, and, well you know how we are and…”

He stopped, hoping she’d respond. Say something or express confusion. Just anything to delay his confession.

“Well we went out to eat…”

To rob a place.

“And Devon started yelling at somebody, said the wrong thing…”

He pulled a gun and said “Give me what I’m here for, and the only stain that gets on your pretty little blue and white uniform is the piss running down your leg.”

“Devon started wailing on him…”

Pistol whipped him.

“And then…”

Little shit is about to get his brains splattered all over the counter.

“The guy got hurt.”

Killed.

“Hurt? How bad, is he pressing charges?”

“No babe…No, I don’t think so.”

“Oh thank God. Your Dad would have killed you. But this was all Devon right babe?”

Reggie said nothing.

“Right babe?”

I watched it happen.

“Reggie, please say something.”

Another set of headlights came by, setting off every nerve cluster in his body, speeding up his breathing, sending him into a full-fledged, skin tightening, tongue quivering, paralyzing panic.

It was the feeling that must have gripped Earl when Reggie watched his best friend steal his life.

“This is my fault.”

* * *

Devon Lane was also hiding out in layers of filth. But his preferred kind of filth  wore ill-motivated tattoos, black guinea-tees and camouflage shorts. They smelled of liquor, sweat and grit. They spoke in profanity-laced sentence fragments that “normal people” wouldn’t bother to translate.

But normal people didn’t spend their nights or mornings at O’Neills. They knew better. South of Caroll Avenue, where most of Prospect’s hoods held their ground, O’Neills was one the few bars where the regular drinker was persona non grata. While working men went to places like Fontana’s or Piano’s after work, sipping at scotch to peel back the day’s drudgery, Brooklyn’s overworked criminals traded big fish stories over beers and billiards at O’Neil’s old Prospect pub.

Devon’s tale of woe had been met by laughter and pitchers, the second of which he was at least thankful for.

“Transfer money?” a self-proclaimed Blood chuckled as Devon poured himself another pint of Miller. “You ever heard of online checking?”

“Shut the fuck up J,” Devon replied.

“Any one else ever heard of anything that stupid? Stupid as transfer money? No, because for all the talking and talking about shooting up places in this bar, nobody is stupid enough to take a tip on transfer money,” the “gang member” continued.

“Leave it J,” Devon grumbled. “Was a hell of a night.”

“What, they forget your fucking chicken rings?” one of J’s friends chimed in. Another member of their “set” of Bloods.

“Nah, I forgot to let the guy live,” Devon shot back, hoping to end their taunting.

The beer stopped flowing for a minute. J and his friend exchanged nervous glances. But their concern faded in seconds, their lips ripping open like fissures, releasing a relentless, piecing laughter.

“You capped somebody? You?” J’s friend continued. “Man, you ain’t even old enough to buy scratch offs. Now you’re out shootin’ a gat at people? Please man. Your shits too weak for that. Always has been.”

Without hesitation Devon pulled out his “gat,” angry at the stupidity of the slang.

“You wanna see how weak my shit is?” Devon spat, aiming his revolver at the self-appointed gang banger’s head, its barrel still hot from splitting Earl’s ear canal in two.

Someone turned up the volume in the room. All of the conversations in the hazy, smoke-filled watering hole crashed into each other and spiked the decibel level, as everyone rushed into a circle around Devon and J’s buddy.

“You got a fucking head problem?” the homeboy asked, the swagger suddenly absent from his voice.

“So that’s how it is? I put a gun to your head and you still gotta talk shit? How about I prove to you that I got the stones to shoot some guy in White Castle, an old lady playing bingo, or anybody I wanna fucking shoot? How bout I start with you?”

J, in one swift panicked move, reached out towards Devon, whose gun suddenly found a new target to wrap its crosshairs around.

“Holy shit kid, alright calm down,” J said, sweating more than the humid atmosphere should have made him.

“Why the fuck do I have to calm down?” Devon screamed.

“Cause your waving a gun around in a room full of thieves, rapists and killers…” J responded.

“I am a fucking killer!” Devon screamed, salty, miniscule tears welling up in his eyes.

“All right, all right. Ain’t nobody here care whether or not you shot somebody…” J started, turning to his friend. “Right?”

“Right,” three or four people responded, just for safety’s sake.

Devon lowered the gun.

“I killed somebody,” he whispered.

J put a hand on his shoulder.

“Not something you want to be shouting in public man.”

Devon lowered his gun. The crowd dispersed, some happy to return to their drinks and card games, others disappointed to be left without their nightly pound of flesh.

“What the fuck man?”

J checked to make sure his “Bloods” had found something to occupy them, before he walked Devon over to a booth in the corner.

“You really fucking iced someone?” he whispered.

“Yeah,” Devon replied.

“For what?” J spat.

“About 200 bucks,” he said.

“Holy shit. Something is wrong in your head.”

Devon stood up, reaching for the gun again, but J grabbed his wrist and slammed him back first into a bar stool.

“Every day!” Devon screamed. “Every day all I here in this place is about every body’s big move. This was my big move.”

“You killed a cashier over 200 bucks. That was your big move?”

Devon stared blankly.

“Every day…” he started.

“Every day, you here a bunch of drunk kids who think the Marlboro Projects is the most dangerous place on earth talk about making it big. You know this place is choking on bullshit. You’ve chilled here long enough. The fuck? You think shooting up some burger and fries stand is gonna make you a big name player around here? All it’s gonna make you is some rookie cop’s collar, because he’s gonna know where to find your dumb ass.”

Devon remained motionless, expressionless, made docile by the cold gun metal across his palms.

“What do I do now?” he asked.

J checked the room again.

“Ain’t no therapist. But I got some medicines, kind you like.”

J tucked a bottle and a baggie into Devon’s left hand.

“Oxycontin and your favorite white blend. I shouldn’t have to tell you, don’t mix and match. Take one, sleep, take the other, sleep. Hopefully your morals melt out in a nosebleed sometime between here and Sunday.”

“That’s it?” Devon asked. “That’s how you guys handle this shit?”

J scanned the room for a third time, growing tired of the exercise.

“Fucking nobody in here handles this shit because nobody does this shit. You wanted to be the big bad motherfucker in this neighborhood?  Now you are. Dumb as shit, but now you got cred.”

J pointed to a cracked wooden door leading to a private bathroom.

“Now go deal with it.”

Devon disappeared into the dark corridor, kicking the wooden door shut behind him, the swollen frame groaning as the latch caught. He placed the gun on the left side of the sink and the coke on the right, wondering how one had led him to the other. Devon had dabbled in the white stuff before, but he’d never needed it to get through a night.

A fluorescent bulb flickered to life overhead. Devon drew his red handled switch blade, and began forming a line over the cracked porcelain counter top. J and Reggie had both been right on some counts. He was using the gun too liberally. He was going to get caught. Coke was an upper, but it would at least put his mind on something beside violence. It usually mellowed his drinking binges.

Or it at least knocked you out cold.

A chorus of shouts and curses slid underneath the door, quickly followed by the mass shuffling of feet across O’Neil’s ancient dust covered floor. Devon fell face first into the line, snorting as much as he could from the staggered stretch of the drug. The room’s stale air had feeling now, stinging his face and eyes. An electric pulse fired through his nerves. Something like an adrenaline rush. He grabbed the gun, hands unsteady. This wasn’t anything he’d put up his nose before. Laced, maybe? No way to know. He reached for the pills J had given him. Oxy…something. He gobbled down two of the tablets, hoping to find the calm the coke was supposed to supply. Gun drawn he burst out of the door.

Police. Two or three. They didn’t have guns. He did. He had an advantage. They were talking, but the words splintered and cracked over the walls of liquor and laced cocaine between the cops and his ears.

“…Tip about underage drinking in this place,” one blue shape said. “…some of you look under 18. Close…place down…for now. We’re gonna be writing some summons.”

The beat cop on the right seemed to notice his haggard, stoned and suspicious appearance. He became frantic.

“Check him out,” he shouted.

They both saw the gun exposed.

“Drop it buddy,” the first one shouted.

Devon raised his weapon.

They raised there’s.

A flash of shadow shot across the room, a friendly build. The last face he’d seen with a set of sober eyes.

It was J. One of the few innocent guys in the bar. Relatively innocent anyway. And he was punching one of New York’s Finest square in the jaw. Ruining his life. Saving Devon’s.

A fist sent J crashing into Devon’s useless body.

“Run. They bring you in and they will put two and two together,” J yelled as the other bar patrons, getting the idea, stalled the advancing cops.

Devon didn’t move. Or comprehend. He just focused on breathing.
In. Out. In. Out.

“I just fucked myself to save your ass. You wanna be my cellmate?” J shrieked.

Cell. Prison. Bad.

Everything became associative, and Devon granted the premise. He took off, too fast for the cops who were still cutting a swath through the wall of drunkards and drug users. A wall crashed behind Devon. Someone had called for backup, and backup would clear a path.

He sprinted, and sprinted some more, racing until his legs turned to rubber and his heart was pumping thin, used up blood. Blocks, upon blocks, on sheer adrenaline. Everything was grainy. Like an old western. The colors had disappeared somewhere between the bar and the alleyway. He heard sirens far away. More cops after him or raiding O’Neil’s. Neither thing was good.

There was a door. He opened it, and closed it behind him.

The words “Laboratory Service Entrance” sounded funny, but they didn’t concern him.

* * *

The English language had chosen the wrong time to betray Ren.

At the moment, words were his best chance of leaving Atlas Labs with all of his parts and pieces in tact. The modified silver Glock in his left hand was a bargaining chip. A lethal one, but still, it was glorified leverage. This wasn’t barbarism, just business.

“So did they low ball you Miss Weiss?” Ren asked, eliciting a chuckle from the Italians. “Is that why they’ve resorted to an ambush? A Mexican standoff? Typical Sopranos level bullshit.”

“This isn’t an HBO special Ren,” one of the gunmen replied. “You of all people should know what’s going on here. Asaiho Ren, the famed street encyclopedia. I’ve heard about you. The Yakuza keep you around because you’re so plugged in. You had to know Miss Weiss had no intention of selling you her little wonder drug.”

Ren recognized the attitude of his foe. Leo Cuozzo. The Casa Nostra’s street and sidewalk intel. He liked to think he kept his finger as close to the city’s pulse as Ren did. It was a nice thought.

“Is that why she was preparing units for us on a weekly basis?” Ren shot back.

“And how do you know the sprays she was prepping were anything more than nasal spray?” Cuozzo replied.

“Doubtful,” Ren said.

“But there is doubt, isn’t there?” Cuozzo hissed, with a wry smirk.

Ren kept the gun steady. It was secondary. Cuozzo was playing the same game that had kept Ren alive for years in Brooklyn’s tumultuous underworld. It was still about words. Whoever talked their opponent off balance first would get a clear shot. Ren didn’t mind being shot, but he refused to be outsmarted.

“This from the man who marched in here all guns and flash? You’ve got nothing but bullets Cuozzo. You’re outclassed, accept it,” Ren said.

“Yeah, Dr. Weiss would never sell to a pair of trigger-happy goombahs like you,” Fusamasa interjected.

His beretta was leveled. Ren knew his associate was playing by a different set of rules. His kept the gun clutched tight in a two-handed grip. This was a movie scene to him. Movies had different rules, they introduced a structure neither Ren or Cuozzo adhered to.

“Trigger-happy?” Cuozzo’s partner shouted, now aiming at Fusamasa’s chest.

And the rules changed.

Fusamasa advanced into the man’s line of sight, his 12-shot now set on his opponent’s skull.

“Are we really looking to start a war here?” Ren yelled.

Cuozzo remained silent. He hadn’t expected the gun play to start this early. It was the opening Ren needed. He didn’t like resorting to violence, but he’d at least been trained for it.

“Both of you need to shut up and stand down,” he continued. “If we start shooting each other, we’re all going to have answer to people who will want to know why. And then it won’t matter who walks out of here. Because the men with the swords, and cigar cutters and soldering irons aren’t going to care. We’ll all be very disfigured or dead, and for what. Because he called you a goombah?”

Cuozzo grunted in approval. He was willing to let Ren do the talking. He had given up control of the situation. Ren reminded himself to smile later. His Italian counterpart wasn’t stupid, he was simply to young to know he could be beaten without a salvo being fired.

“Now Miss Weiss, I believe it would be in everyone’s best interest if you chose a buyer,” Ren said.

The young doctor climbed out from behind the desk. She was changing the rules again, walking towards the Italians.

“I think you all need to appreciate there are security roams through this lab every hour. And if someone with a badge and gun walks in on this, it will be very bad for all of us. I’ll lose my job, and you will all lose any hope of burning the city down with what I’m selling.”

Ren flicked his wrist, focusing his aim on Miss Weiss.

“Stop moving,” he said.

“I’m just talking,” she said, smirking, gliding closer to his enemies.

“You’re getting too close to…” Ren started.

The younger mobster, the one with too much arrogance and ambition to keep it together, took the opportunity Ren knew would be presented. He got a hold of Weiss’ arm and turned their standoff into a hostage situation.

Fusamasa forged ahead, knuckles clenched and teeth barred. Ren and Cuozzo shared a disappointed glance before they both leapt into action, playing the parts they hated to be cast in. Cuozzo took aim. He would have killed Fusamasa with ease. Except Ren had aimed faster. Arms extended, he drove his shoulder into Fusamasa’s midsection, driving both he and his young charge to the ground. Inertia blessed the pair and they rolled to a stop behind a lab station reinforced with tempered steel. The volley of bullets crumpled like paper air planes against it.

“I had her,” Fusamasa complained.

“All you had was an obituary in tomorrow’s Sentinel,” Ren replied.

“You see, she’s with us,” the younger Italian yelled.

“You’re pointing a gun at her head,” Fusamasa yelled back.

Another hail of lead came their way. Another useless burst of noise.

They were going to get killed or arrested, or they were going to escape just long enough so one of their bosses could beat and torture them and then send them out on a fool’s errand that would end with them getting killed or arrested.

Ren knew that if he didn’t grab this scenario by the throat and choke it back into his control, he was going to meet his end courtesy of something far worse than a bullet.

“You’re a real brain trust Cuozzo,” Ren yelled. “Let the kid keep shooting. Why don’t you just call 911 and get us all locked up. Even better, why don’t you just call Grimaldi and Kozu so we can both get erased by our superiors.”

“Erased? Grimaldi and all the old guard are going to make me a capo after I bring them your head and Miss Weiss’ product,” Cuozzo yelled back.

“Capo? You’re a slightly above average soldier at best. Capos need to think. You wops may be stupid, but you wouldn’t have lasted this long if your people were that stupid,” Ren continued.

“Chink. I’m the one who has you pinned down. Right where I want you. I would be a little more polite if I was you,” Cuozzo said.

“Pinned? Ha. Everybody within four blocks heard those shots. You want to kill us, you’ve got to get closer, and then I shoot you. Or you run away, without Miss Weiss and her recipes, and your bosses shoot you. Or you stand here and wait for the police or security, which ever comes first, and they shoot you.”

Cuozzo went silent again. Ren loved when that happened.

“I can wait here all night. However it happens, it’s going to end with you dead.”

Glass broke. Bullets flew. Ren’s words came true.

The veteran criminal peered over his shield to find Cuozzo’s partner lying in a pool of his own blood, the good doctor Weiss screaming as she plucked brain matter from her once fine hair.

“Thought that would take longer,” Ren said.

* * *

Devon Lane quivered watching the splashes of red as they moved like shore side waves across the floor. His second murder of the night. This one was more confusing. But it was necessary. Right. They were all mob. One had the other trapped. Trapped people need to be saved, and then they’re thankful and maybe they help you. Make you. Made guys. Right?

The cocaine still had him by the neck.

The Japanese one who had been talking a lot walked over to the Italian one who had been talking a lot. Devon must have shot him too. He was bleeding, but he wasn’t dying. Devon checked his revolver.

The Italian one was clutching his arm. There was a woman screaming. The other Japanese one held her. Like a lover. Weird.

“You had back up! You planned this! You dishonorable,”

The Japanese one kicked the loud one in the face. Hard. Hard enough that Devon wondered how his jaw would have felt.

“I don’t know who that is, and I don’t care. I told you, it was going to end with you dead.”

The Italian reached for his gun. The Japanese guy stepped on his hand. Bones crunched. The Jap smiled, as if he had been waiting to.

“You know all that talk about starting a war Cuozzo,” the Jap said. “You know how I made you think someone dying in this room would be a bad thing?”

The Italian, Cuozzo, was it? He nodded.

“It would have been. If it was me,” the Jap said. “I’m the only person that matters at all in what’s coming. And I’m only telling you this because in about five seconds I’m going to remove this short sword from my hilt and decapitate you.”

Something familiar showed in the Italian’s face. Fear. Devon knew it well.

“Are you ready to die?”

The Italian shook his head “no.” Then he shook it yes. But the yes was weird because his head fell away from his neck.

“That was a rhetorical question.”

He looked at the other Jap and the woman.

“Collect her, and her things.”

Then finally, the Jap acknowledged Devon.

“I have no idea who you are, but you’re incredibly smart or incredibly stupid.”

Devon stood still. His tongue wasn’t ready to move yet.

“Either way, you’re coming for a ride.”

Devon followed, stumbling but obedient. Like a sedated pitbull. He would follow the Jap anywhere, because he decided anywhere was safer than the places he had been that day.

* * *

A Sunday school teacher once told Reggie Evans to keep his faith because “everyone believes in God at sometime or another because they need to.”

As the 17-year-old fugitive ascended the steps to St. Agnes Church, he hoped those words were more than a tossed off phrase to keep a mischievous student in line.

God. It was such an unfamiliar concept. After a ten year absence from services, he’d forgotten all the basic teachings. A simple hand motion, the sign of the cross, was all that remained. Reggie made it, slowly, deliberately, as he rapped his knuckles against the ornate wooden doors of the old church.

No answer.

Typical.

Reggie tapped again, his knuckles forming a fist. As if force had gotten him anywhere in the past couple of days.

The old house of worship remained as quiet and still as the Brooklyn skyline.

“Why did I even come here?” Reggie muttered, turning to leave.

“Hello,” a strained voice called after him.

“Someone there?” Reggie asked, stopping but still looking away from St. Agnes.

“There always is, it’s just late, so we keep the door locked. This isn’t a great neighborhood,” the voice said.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Reggie shot back. The boy turned to see the great doors open, hanging in the wind like a massive yawn, but the owner of the voice was nowhere to be found.

“Come in. You look you need someone to talk to,” the voice called. It was warm, inviting, like a priest’s should be.

Reggie obeyed.

The inside of St. Agnes was old and messy, like most of Reggie’s city. Like most of his ideas. The pews were wracked with dust and age, splintered at the legs in odd, warped angles. The lights flooded the room, but they were dim, amber. As if they were being shone through something else. The whole scene looked intentionally bleak.

“Not how I remember church,” Reggie muttered.

“I’m afraid some of our regular congregation are experiencing a crisis of faith. The ones that still come don’t care what they see, just what they feel. What they take away,” the voice returned. It was closer this time, but still obscured by the poor lighting. Too many shadows to decipher the room’s layout.

“Why can’t I see you?” Reggie said.

“Because I’m not supposed to see you either,” the voice called back. “Those are the rules.”

“Rules?” Reggie asked.

“You’re here to make a confession aren’t you,” the voice said. “Why else would you be here at this time of night…errr….morning?”

A light glowed to life over a pair of thin bronzed doors off to the side of the altar. The confessional, structured for two seats assigned to sinner and savior.

After this, I’m taking another ten years off.

He approached the confessional, thinking more and more about Sunday school as he did. He didn’t believe in God as much as he feared Him. Mortal sins needed to be forgiven, or else you went to hell. And Hell was the one place he feared more than prison.

Reggie sat down. For the disarray the rest of the church was in, the confessional was surprisingly debonair. Plush seats, gold laden crosses and molding. It was as if the entire archdiocese had dumped its funding into one room.

“So?” the voice asked, now even closer, emanating from the other side of the wall.

“Yes?” Reggie responded.

“You know how to start these things,” the priest said.

Reggie growled, annoyed.

“Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It’s been ten years since my last confession.”

“That’s a long time son. A lot on your mind tonight?” the priest responded.

“Not a lot. Just one thing, but it needs some explaining,” Reggie said.

“We’re open 24 hours,” the priest responded.

There was something strange about the way he said it. Reggie dismissed it.

“For years, I don’t know how long exactly, I’ve been stealing things. Small things. You know, for the thrill,” Reggie started.

“The thrill?” the priest asked. “Of making other people suffer.”

“No,” Reggie growled. “Of accomplishing something.”

The priest remained silent.

“Sounds stupid right? Well, that’s the way I justified it. Doing what I was doing. It’s not like I was good at it, just worse at everything else,” Reggie said.

“You’re kind of bleak for 17,” the priest said. “But I find it hard to believe that’s the real reason you started stealing, or why you continued for that matter.”

“Well that’s the reason I came up with. Why am I hiding it from you anyway? I don’t know why I started. Or why I continued. I just did. And it was fine. I mean it was illegal. Nobody was getting hurt, and we were making change without having to work in a mall or something stupid like that.”

“Like a normal person,” the priest said.

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” Reggie shouted.

“Normal?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Reggie muttered.

“Do you think what you do is normal?” his confessor asked.

“You looked around this neighborhood padre?” Reggie asked.

The priest stayed quiet, allowing his shallow breaths to fill the silent space.

“Then perhaps there is something wrong with normal,” he said.

“Either way, like I said nobody was getting hurt. But something changed tonight. There was a gun. We took on something we shouldn’t have, and everything got crazy and…”

Reggie clasped his own hand over his mouth.

“You can’t say any of this to like a cop can you?”

“No,” the priest replied calmly.

Reggie exhaled deeply, folding his thumbs over one another. He started to shake, realizing this would be the first time he actually admitted it out loud. To himself. To the world. Once you let a thought out of your mind, it was everyone else’s property. That was how information worked in Prospect. It was dangerous knowledge if it escaped his lips, but it was going to burrow its way out from inside one way or another.

“Someone died. I killed someone.”

Nothing moved. The earth didn’t shake. And for a second Reggie thought everything might be okay.

Except the priest had stopped talking.

“Father?” Reggie asked.

Still no sounds.

“Father, I’m sorry. I really am. Please, I came here for guidance.”

Quiet.

“I’m going to hell,” Reggie whispered.

“I’m sorry Reggie,” the old man finally said.

“What?” Reggie asked.

“I expected you would have been able to stop Devon,” the priest said. Wood creaked. The door opened. He was exiting the confessional. Reggie followed, an unsettling sense of familiarity setting in.

Reggie burst through the door and saw the wise, aged face of the man from the White Castle. The man who had tried to warn him about Devon. Who had tried to save him from the moral torment he had been pained with for the past several hours.

His name was John McKinley. He was going to change his life.

Reggie wasn’t sure he wanted that at the moment.

“No!” he shrieked, pushing past the old man, darting for a staircase. He ran up into what looked like an orchestra pit. Tripping over a snag in the carpet, he crashed into what appeared to be a long silent pipe organ. The vintage instrument groaned in pain.

Reggie found his way to a copper rail that looked out over the absent congregation. Something white flew up from the pews. McKinley appeared before him, engulfed in ethereal white.

“You aren’t completely innocent, but you aren’t completely guilty,” McKinley said. “There is a way out of this. Please, we have to talk. There is a lot you need to know.”

Panic engulfed Reggie. He found a dust covered blue missional and hurled it at the floating priest.

“Fuck you!” the child screamed. “You let it happen. You, you made it happen! You just watched me fuck my life up. Just like my dad. Just like Devon.”

“It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. I need to explain everything to you,” McKinley said, trying to remain gentle in the face of the enraged Reggie.

“Explain? You can fucking fly! You’re going to tell me you couldn’t have stopped two kids with guns.”

McKinley bowed his head.

“I…wasn’t…couldn’t…”

“All of you. District Attorney. Superhero. You’ve got all this power, but when it comes to me, you’re all useless.”

Reggie fell to the ground, nearly fainting. His left arm grabbed something metallic. He crouched. He cried. He had to. There was nothing left to do.

“I’m so fucked,”

McKinley landed, shutting off the lights surrounding him. He placed a hand on the broken boy’s shoulder.

“Calm down. Just listen to my voice and we can fix this.”

The priest’s voice didn’t fix anything. It made things worse. Something was moving inside of Reggie. It tore through his shoulders, down his arms and into his wrists. The pressure was agonizing. It felt like liquid. Moving, squirming, burning. Thousands of little blades cutting through the lower layers of his skin.

And he screamed. A long, hellish, furious scream. His skin exploded. Shadows flew everywhere. Razors and shapes. Some things with eyes and some with mouths. Some that looked like him.

“I’M TIRED OF LISTENING!” Reggie howled. “WHY THE HELL DOES EVERYONE WANT ME TO LISTEN TO THEM!”

The darkness pouring from his body was hurting the priest. McKinley was bleeding, and his face looked far less peaceful.

“Reggie! You have to stop! Control it! Please, there is so much about what’s happened that you don’t understand!”

“STOP? AND WHAT LISTEN TO YOU?”

His voice was changing. It sounded like rock salt. It sounded like something scraping against asphalt.

“WHAT CAN YOU POSSIBLY DO FOR ME?”

McKinley closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were opaque.

“I said I was sorry.”

There was an eruption from McKinley’s body, large enough to counter the black coming from his own. The shadows caught fire. Screaming like he was. Suffering like he was.

The blast knocked him over the copper rail, the one that had supported him just before he broke.

Reggie Evans fell towards the earth. As he accepted the fact that his life was now measured in seconds, not decades, he felt something new. Surprising. For the first time in his life, he actually was sorry.

* * *

Asaiho Ren looked across the room at his unknown savior. Well, savior was a strong word. He would have eventually found a way past Cuozzo and his goon, but the young black boy sleeping off a crack binge on his couch had certainly made things much easier. Still, he was a variable. But variables could be used, manipulated, harnessed for the little good they posessed.

And Devon Lane, as the boy had called himself, had one good deed left in him.

The cell phone chirped to life, dialing a name upon voice command that Ren disliked uttering.

“Kozu-sama,” Ren said, feigning what respect he could. “I believe I’ve found a way to fix our little problem at the District Attorney’s office.”Polar Opposites dvdrip

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As he tumbled and tossed downward, somersaulting toward the latest in a 17-year string of plane crashes, he noticed something different. This time there was a bottom. Not a metaphorical one, not the famed “end of the line” he’d been warned about by parents and schoolteachers for years, but a beige, dust-covered tile floor.

There were 20 seconds between his frame and a certainly fatal impact. 20 seconds to consider how the priorities in his life had shuffled. Yesterday, his mind had been wrapped around finances, how he would pull together enough scratch to get Christina a birthday present. Today, the primary topic of discussion was the hereafter. Forgiveness. The myriad things he’d been told not to do in Sunday school and the very real possibility that tossing that list in a trash can at age 9 had earned him a balmy final resting place.

Flailing allowed him one final rotation, a chance to look up and see something radiant, white and pure. It sure as hell wasn’t heaven. That beam was coming from someone’s hands, someone old who had been saying things Reggie should have listened to. As usual, Reggie had chosen to listen too little, too late.

5, maybe 7 seconds to go. The light was fading and the assassin had moved on, opting not to watch what was sure to be a sickening impact. He wasn’t going to spin again. Gravity had better things to do. He would end his days ass backwards, just as he’d started them.

Impact.

The floor was as solid as it looked. The tile fractured. So did Reggie’s ribs. The silver dust took flight upon collision, rising like a cloud of spores. Reggie gasped and swallowed the choking residue, coughing and sputtering like an old muffler. His back went numb. He started to gag. Blood rimmed his lips, because you have to bleed when you die. It’s less climactic otherwise.

He wasn’t sure if he was rolling around in pain or if the pounding of gavels in his head was just making him dizzy. Gravity had abandoned him, severing their unspoken bond. The floor, the ceiling and everything in between had joined. His equilibrium was a nightmare.

Someone pulled the plug and his eyes stopped working. Things went from red to gray to sepia-toned, but not black. His sight just went away, as if it had never been there. He hadn’t seen this coming and now he certainly wouldn’t see how it ended.

Most people don’t expect to die when they get up in the morning, but that’s because they’re in no rush to get there. Reggie was different. He didn’t walk or run to his final destination. He drove, in a gas-guzzling four-door truck, built for comfort and speed. He was bobbing his head to a mix of Public Enemy and Rage against the Machine, spouting off choruses that never really meant anything to him. Nothing really did. If something seemed aimless, he was all for it. He kicked down doors, but never left them open for anyone to follow. His life had been a high-octane pursuit. Nobody had led the way, and even worse, nobody had cared enough to chase.

The injuries were taking their toll, but they were taking their damn time doing it. It figured. He’d broken the speed limit for 17 years. He could idle for the last 17 minutes. Why hurry? He hadn’t expected to die that day.

But he sure as hell hadn’t expected to kill anyone either.

SHADESTALKER #1:
Small Time
Homes and Churches (Part 1 of 3)
By James J. Queally

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“This is the kind of shit that ends up on ‘World’s Stupidest Criminals,’” Reggie said, fidgeting with the armrest of the beat up black Suburban he and his best friend were riding in.

“Would you calm down?” Devon Lane replied, fumbling to light a cigarette and steer the vehicle at the same time. “Always with the negative attitude, can’t you ever just roll with a plan?”

“This isn’t a plan. We should go back to knocking over bodegas and dime stores,” Reggie replied. “At least we could control how fucked we were when that eventually went wrong.”

Devon finally managed to spark the end of his Newport. He took a drag and blew a plume of smoke in his partner’s direction. Reggie slapped wildly at the cloud, turning towards the window looking for escape from the noxious fumes.

“You know I hate that,” Reggie said.

“You stop whining. I’ll stop smoking,” Devon shot back.

Reggie Evans and Devon Lane had been best friends since age 6, when one saved the other from a schoolyard bully. To this day, they still argue about who was playing hero that September afternoon. For 11 years, Devon had gotten Reggie out of and into a sizeable amount of trouble. This night would be no different. Somewhere between baseball cards, puberty and their first taste of beer, Devon Lane decided he wanted to rule Brooklyn’s underworld. Reggie willingly hitched a ride on his compatriot’s pipe dream, for lack of an excuse not to. But even this scheme was too mind-boggling for Reggie.

“Even if we pull this off, they’re only gonna be worthwhile for like, 20 minutes,” Reggie said.

Devon ran the four-door over a speed bump and watched his cigarette roll beneath the gas pedal.

“Hell,” he cursed. “You gonna shut up or you want me to light another one.”

Reggie remained quiet, opting not to deal with his friend’s irritating habit.

“I thought so. Just relax, and do what you said you could when the time comes,” Devon said.

It wasn’t hard to become a hoodlum in Brooklyn. The borough was going to hell on a skateboard. Italian, Japanese, American, Australian. The statistics didn’t discriminate. The criminals came from all backgrounds, with different stories of failure in Chicago, London, Boston, Tokyo… even Manhattan. You could only fuck up so many times. The big fish in Brooklyn’s gang scene had splashed their way down from small pond to small pond, eventually landing in a place they could pass as vice lords. The city had fallen; become a pothole sized puddle, the space creased over on an old Rand McNally’s map of New York.

These were the notions that kept Reggie and Devon going. Brooklyn had a structure, but it might as well have been built from rubber and quicksand. The criminal hierarchy was an endless game of king of the hill, and in the two young felons’ minds, it would only take one misplaced bullet to catapult them up the ladder. But Reggie wasn’t ready for that kind of heat yet. He doubted he ever would be.

“That’s it up there. Valero. $4.06 for unleaded. And we’re supposed to be the crooks?” Devon said, lighting up a second smoke, ignoring his earlier accord.

Reggie nodded, oblivious to the new layer of carcinogens, lost in his almost nightly pontification.

There was nothing wrong with this life, this life where he stole and ran and injured without consequence or care. This life where he did all those things before he was old enough to play the lotto, the life he lived separately from the comfortable home with two parents with two incomes and one desire to see their son stay out of the gutter for more than 48 hours.

Reggie Evans had more than most Prospect Park residents could ask for, but that was his contention. He didn’t ask for it, and he had already folded the hand life dealt him. He wanted to claim his own ground, a modest invisible territory where he wouldn’t be a role model or an outcast. But Brooklyn didn’t have a blue-collar. There were cops and robbers. Politicos and vagabonds. Angels and devils. Reggie didn’t like being called a thief, but he knew he was more comfortable fighting from underneath. He couldn’t sleep at night if he had a badge or a grandstand.

But even after all that thinking, with the cards laid on the table and the lights on bright, this was just too much. Devon turned into the Valero calmly, rolling to a stop next to a line of air pumps, monitoring the lone attendant struggling to take care of his three impatient customers.

If this was Devon’s idea of a fast track to gangland success, then they were driving the short bus.

“Okay, I’m going to say this one more time before we’re running out of here at 90 miles-per-hour,”  Reggie whispered, leaning out the window. “This is fucking stupid!”

“You need a Xanax?” Devon replied. “This is an easy scam. Snatch, grab and split. You use those MVP legs of yours, wheel around the pumps like your stealing home, and I’ll have us out of here with our ill-gotten gains before you can blink.”

“I was a utility player sophomore year,” Reggie scoffed.

“That’s more than enough to swipe three credit cards. I’m not asking you to be Flo-Jo here. I just want you to get the job done.” Devon spat back.

Reggie leaned back against the headrest, surrendering to Devon’s blind enthusiasm. Despite his forceful tone, Reggie knew his best friend was just anxious, excited at the prospect of finally putting one in the win column.

Hours earlier, Devon told Reggie “This is the kind of thing they notice, the creative grabs. This is the mind set they want.” He spoke with an unwavering energy, an expert’s confidence that he’d borrowed from an anonymous mentor. Devon had been tipped off to their latest scheme by the same somebody with a ludicrous street name who had first taught him how to hot wire a Camaro when they were freshmen.

“He does odd jobs for Casa Nostra, the mafia to you,” Devon disclosed months earlier. “He’s on the scene. He’s got a feeling; knows the pulse. If he tells me they’ll notice, then they’ll notice.”

Reggie knew better. This character was Devon, merely aged seven or eight years. Nobody who was really “in” with the big players would craft a plan this careless.

“Late nights, the gas stations below Carroll Avenue are really understaffed. You know the mid-range chains and the local depots,” Devon reminded him on the ride over, his teeth clicking together as he spoke. “And these days, nobody wants to pay for gas in cash. They want to stop off at a full serve, swipe through, and go grab a coffee while some Johnny Immigrant fills their tank. And there they are, working men’s credit cards just sitting there in the slot. No cameras and 1 employee. I keep the car running. You make the grabs and no one is any wiser. We have ourselves an internet shopping spree and the damn thing is done before they’re even finished arguing with the attendant.”

The only people who were going to notice something like this were beat cops and the guys on the crime desk at the Post or one of the local rags. But Christina needed a birthday gift, and Devon had hooked Reggie with the words “quick money,” before trying to sell his piss-poor plot.

Devon tapped on the glass and nudged towards the fuel islands.
2 out of their 3 marks were convenience store bound, and the attendant was behind the only occupied car. Reggie hopped across to the driver’s side, but nerves slowed his descent out the door. All the ideals and circumstances that Devon was praying for were in place, but Reggie’s legs couldn’t get out of first gear.

“You gonna make her a birthday present? Glue some macaroni to the card?” Devon crooned through the window.

Reggie exhaled, spitting caution into the biting night time air, and made his move. The attendant was chatting with the occupant of a blue Buick LeSabre, bargaining for a tip and annoying the driver.
Reggie dipped around the gas island and snagged the first card, a debit from a bank he hadn’t heard of.

“Yeah, there used to be a time when we got the same cuts as barbers, painters, mechanics,” the attendant’s prattling was serving Reggie all to well.

He ducked under a fuel line and made it to the second slot unnoticed. A silver American Express card stuck out from the space this time, which meant more money and less hassles. Reggie, surprised at the ease of his first two snags, angled his body around the edge of the pump to pick up on the conversation between customer and attendant.

The employee had retreated, angling the nozzle to round out the man’s twenty dollars. He had lost his tip, but more importantly, he wasn’t going to get out of Reggie’s way.

A jingle snapped him to attention. The metallic ringing came courtesy of a bell tied to the convenience store door. His first two victims were making their way back across the lot. If they made eye contact, credit cards would be canceled, money would be lost, and Devon would bitch and smoke for their entire 40-minute ride home.

Use those MVP legs.

“Fucking Devon,” Reggie griped, revealing himself to the attendant. The poor guy seemed more startled than angry, fumbling the nozzle, spraying gas on himself and the LeSabre’s trunk.

Reggie caught his land legs, ripping the third credit card from its place and charging the attendant. The employee put his hands up, prepared to block a head shot. Clearly, he’d been robbed before, but Reggie already had his targets in hand. He was only thinking escape now. The former shortstop executed a hook slide, splitting the distance between the LeSabre’s back tires and the attendant’s feet. There was no home plate for Reggie to tag, so he simply took the man at the shins, driving him chin first into a yellow stanchion pole.

“The fuck are you doing?” someone shouted.

Reggie turned to see a large, bald man with an oval shaped head and ham-sandwich sized hands exiting the LeSabre. That was enough motivation to shake all of the nerves out of his legs.

Reggie took off, sprinting on his toes towards Devon’s car. It didn’t move.

Peel asshole, give me the passenger door. Something to jump into before Bas Rutten over here gets his hands on me.

Reggie was fast, but the big man simply had more of a stride. He was linebacker sized; tall, broad-shouldered and agile. He leapt over the crumpled employee and put himself a breath behind Reggie faster than any middle-aged man driving a shitty LeSabre should have.

Devon still hadn’t moved.

Reggie cut left, but the linebacker angled his path. The big man was poised to cut Reggie off at the bumper. With the look on his thick red Irish face, Reggie would have preferred an arrest.

Before he could imagine anymore pain, Devon’s Subaru roared to life, flashed its headlights, and made a move its turning radius simply shouldn’t have allowed. Reggie caught sight of the lights and rolled left, tucking a hand inside his jacket to make sure he didn’t lose the cards on the dive. The lights stunned the big boy for a minute, leaving him flat on his back and off the pace. Reggie jumped in the passenger’s seat and strapped himself in.

“Step on it!” he shouted.

“Not yet,” Devon replied coolly.

“Excuse me?” Reggie asked.

Heaving and grunting, the big man got to the passenger door, lowering his shoulder on the charge.

“Give me back my damn card!” he howled.

Devon’s left arm flew out like a rattle snake. Reggie didn’t seem to notice the revolver hanging from the appendage.

“What’s it worth to you?” Devon said.

Bullets are sobering little things. In five seconds, Reggie’s heart all but stopped; a dramatic halt from the slapping, sporadic beats it had experienced during the chase. At the same time, the linebacker transformed from raging bull to cornered animal.

“Now the way I see it we have three options here. I shoot and hit, and your brains turn into human gazpacho. I shoot and miss, and this place becomes a five-alarm fire storm. I don’t shoot, and you walk back over to your LeSabre happy to still be packing a pulse.”

The man didn’t move.

“Good choice,” Devon hissed, finally slamming the gas, leaving the man with a lesson in mortality and a cloud of black smoke and ash in his face.

Neither of them spoke for roughly six minutes.

“We did it,” Devon finally said, his voice wavering for the first time all day.

“You have a gun. You pulled a gun,” Reggie said back.

Devon rolled to a stop at a red light. He pulled out a cigarette, fingered the paper tip and lit it.

“I pulled a gun,” he replied, nodding with an uncertain gaze. The kind that revealed self-surprise, self-horror or a disturbing self-confidence.

The smoke swirled. Neither of them spoke for roughly six seconds.

Devon took another heavy drag, wiping beads of cool sweat from his brow.

Reggie shook his head, his eyes darting between Devon and the ground.

They drove a few more blocks, edging closer to their neighborhood.

“Gimme a damn cigarette,” Reggie finally said.

* * *

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Ren had two enemies in his life: Nepotism and science.

The former was walking beside him, jaw unhinged, polluting his air with trite phrases and foolish, otherwise boring, claims. The latter, the thing which presented a much larger problem for the 35-year-old, was in a room just down the hall.

Asaiho Ren was a wordsmith, a fixer, a negotiator. He was a gangland social worker. A long romance with the English language kept him at odds with microscopes, beakers and 5′6” braggarts. Science scared him. Loquaciousness simply annoyed him. Most assumed he only had one name. He hadn’t been called Asaiho in over seven years. It sounded too formal to him, and in his line of work, first names were an unnecessary speed bump between his peers’ appearance and demands. Ren chose words with a tedious precision. To him, sentences were like a wine tasting. Nouns and verbs swirled around his gums, teasing and tickling his palate. Ren swallowed the bulk of the syllables he deemed unimportant, and spat out the few letters and vowels he needed to get his point across.

“So you’re coming back to the bar after this right?” his dull partner asked.

Fusamasa Yukonawa was a drug dealer, best known for school yard handoffs to fifteen year olds who needed to buy from someone connected just to say they bought from someone connected. He was a gangland parasite. Ren envisioned strangling Fusamasa to death more often than he pictured his young wife naked. Like Ren, he also had two enemies: Women and Alcohol.

Ren just hoped their contact was male. The bourbon scent biting at his nostrils meant Fusamasa was a little off, but the drink wouldn’t prove too hard to overcome as long as his partner didn’t try to romance their clientele.

Collar open, glamour necklace attached, hair gel glinting on his forehead, Fusamasa looked more Italian than Japanese.

Not like your heritage is anything more than a meal ticket, shit head. Not like you have anyone to answer to anyway. Fucking legacy garbage. Half-breed shit rides a blood tie to an uncle in the old country while I’m clawing, scratching and shooting my way here.

A fuck up at this juncture would leave Fusamasa with nothing more than a pay cut, a slap on the wrist. Despite all his previous accomplishments, it would leave Ren with actual cuts, possibly short one wrist. Even though he hovered outside of the “family,” there were people with more than enough pull to drag him screaming out of orbit and right back into the chain-of-command. He would hear it from Yamagichi, and then from Horoko. Then someone would come to his apartment, with a cigar cutter or a melon knife, and they would drop one name before turning one of his appendages into a wind chime.

Kozu. The voice of God as far as he was concerned. The one link between the soldiers and the true general, a man with a name he knew not to utter and a title he preferred not to say. Ren loved words, but some left him bitter in the mouth, with tastes like sandpaper and paint thinner.

“Think this will get us in good with the Oyabun?” Fusamasa asked, finally turning his attention to business.

Something coarse and chemical rose up on Ren’s tongue.

“Do not complicate what can remain simple,” Ren finally responded. “This is a business deal. That’s it. I talk. They respond. We agree on a price and an amount, and we leave. We might as well be fucking grocery shopping.”

Fusamasa finally, and thankfully, fell silent.

As they entered the lab, Ren was surrounded by adversaries. Periodic Tables, scalpels, test tubes, other tools and items whose names he couldn’t remember or never learned. Fusamasa, infantile to the last, began tinkering with things. Ten feet away, furiously scribbling notes at a lamp lit desk stood a figure in a lab coat with long brunette hair. Thin. Bottle shaped. Fusamasa’s M.O. was anything skinny, plus a vagina and minus a birth defect. Before the female employee even turned around, Ren knew that this had to be his contact and Fusamasa was bound to fuck it up.

“You’ll be here then to pick me up? Excellent, I have to go. Meeting,” she said into a receiver.

“Are we interrupting something Miss…?” Ren started.

“Weiss. Dr. Catherine Weiss,” she replied. “I wish you wouldn’t have come here at this time. I shouldn’t even be here. If somebody sees me associating with men from the Y-”

“That word is taboo and you know that,” Ren replied. “Andyour reputation precedes you Dr. Weiss. This isn’t the first time you’ve cooked something up that could cause your company a PR nightmare.”

“But never anything this size, or this dangerous,” Weiss said.

“Well let’s see how dangerous,” Ren said calmly.

They headed over to a row of 20 gallon fish tanks set below a shelf lined with sterilizers and syringes. The smell of formaldehyde slapped Ren back to one of his many hospital visits in his younger days.

“I don’t believe we’ve met Catherine,” Fusamasa interrupted. “My name is Fusamasa Yukonawa and I would just like to say I’m greatly impressed with what I’ve heard about your work.”

“How sweet,” Weiss responded, failing to make eye contact with or otherwise acknowledge Fusamasa.

Ren drove his heel into Fusamasa’s shin, whispering the word “simple.”

The negotiator didn’t quite understand what he was looking at. The two fresh water tanks were separated by breed. A school of a thin, agile blue fish was swimming back and forth in the pool on the right, circling their territory with predator stares. To their left were five or six oval shaped silver fish, bobbing their heads to an unseen rhythm, nibbling at algae and convenience store brand fish food. Hunter and prey.

“I don’t see what this has to do with the product,” Ren said.

It didn’t help that he had no idea what the product was.
Despite the good standing he had with the local Yakuza, his lack of tattoos or blood oath marked him as an outsider. Fusamasa’s presence forced him to believe this was a drug thing, but why the fish?

“You will,” Weiss replied, reaching for a silver tin. She took out an orange powder substance and sprinkled it into the silver fish’s water, mixing it with their tasteless rainbow colored fish food. The bumbling sea creatures rose to the top of the tank, swallowing the new substance in small gulps.

“To your left are bunker fish. If you ever head down to the harbor you’ll see them sliced up into buckets next to minnows and other bait fish. They’re small, slow and hive minded. On the right are blue fish, a natural predator of the bunker. Typically, the blue fish will frenzy in the summers, either killing the bunker or driving them into shallow waters where they suffocate due to a lack of dissolvable oxygen. According to nature, the bunker is meant to die,” Weiss said.

Weiss laughed as she removed a glass sheet between the two tanks, inviting hunter and pretty to get better acquainted.

“You’re bosses pay me to defy nature,” she continued.

The blue fish raced forward, reacting to an invisible starter’s gun, moving in a way that required both practice and bloodlust. Four established a perimeter while two cornered the nearest bunker and started biting.

Blood hit the water.

“What am I supposed to be seeing here Miss Weiss?” Ren asked, intrigued but skeptical.

“It should be reacting already,” she muttered.

The first bunker’s carcass crashed into the red gravel at the bottom of the tank. The blue fish continued to circle, as if they needed time to pick their next victim.

A brash one, smaller than the rest of the attackers, cut through the water with its teeth barred and eyes wild. Another bunker was about to drop into the clay dust cellar of the tank. Except the blue fish missed; badly. The would-be entrée swam up to the top of the pool, leaving the hunter surrounded by its very miffed prey. The four remaining bunker swarmed their assailant, devouring it in a flash of crimson and bone and scale. What followed was simply disgusting. The bunker fish moved like a silver lined hurricane, meticulously obliterating their predators in a matter of minutes.

“And I’m never eating sushi again,” Fusamasa said, tugging at his gold chain nervously.

“If that did what I think it just did Miss Weiss, we may have a very lucrative deal in place. Explain please,”

“Before that graphic kill scene, I fed the bunker an oxygen reactant steroid. You’ve all seen the idiot athletes bloated on anabolics, and you’ve seen what happens to them when they get older. This has far less downside. This increases strength and agility without altering muscle mass or development.

“So it’s an adrenaline rush. Speed, angel dust; they’re both good for that,” Fusamasa said, shocking Ren with a somewhat relevant comment.

“Yes, except this isn’t just an adrenaline rush,” Weiss replied, smiling. “It fires endorphins throughout the body; it dulls pain reactors, and induces a state of bliss that removes natural mental blocks. The bunker never fought back because they knew they were prey. Their fight or flight reaction told them to flee. This drug turns that option off.”

“Effective, but its not marketable,” Ren replied. “You expect me to pass off something that looks like fish flakes as a street drug.”

“No. I expect you to pass off something that your clients can inhale as a street drug. It’s oxygen reactant. I have an aerosol version in the works,” Weiss said confidently.

“Brilliant,” Fusamasa interjected, admiring both Weiss’ features and her mind for the drug culture.

Weiss shot him another smile, this one a little more flirtatious than the first.

“I’ll give you a sample of the aerosol version after we discuss the particulars. As long as the price is right, you’ll have the catalyst for your next army of hopped up street soldiers,” she said.

Weiss closed the silver tin as the remnants of the blue fish began rising to the top of the tank. The bunker fish were pressing against the glass of the tank, sizing up Weiss, Fusamasa and Ren as potential opponents.

“Oh, and Mr. Ren, if you’re so worried about marketability, I have a cute little name for my wonder drug,” Weiss added.

“And what’s that?” Fusamasa asked, excitedly moving towards her.

“Fuel,” she smirked.

* * *

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Maybe he didn’t have service. Maybe she didn’t have service. He could have gone over his text messaging limit for the month, or paid his phone bill late.

Reggie doesn’t pay his own bills. He doesn’t have a job.

Christina Hill tossed her frayed black hair out of her face and walked to the window one last time. Her backyard was empty. The shed he usually climbed over to get to her window was dark and undisturbed. The wind screen had been cracked open for several hours, forcing Christina to retreat beneath her heavy gray comforter. There was no need for the cold anymore. He wasn’t coming.

Christina surrendered via technology, sending Reggie a final text reading “Happy Birthday.”

Granted, this would have been her third celebration on the day, but it was the only one that would have meant anything to her. Her father did what he could, but it’s hard to have energy when you’re at the halfway point of a 50-hour work week. Her boyfriend did what he could, but if he was enough to keep her satisfied, then she wouldn’t have been up at 1 in the morning, staring into her crab grass riddled backyard, wondering why Reggie Evans wasn’t climbing up a shed, rattling her window frame and getting her out of bed.

“You can’t change a man into what you want. You can only hope he changes for you.”

Her mother had taught her that. Or day time television. It’s hard to tell the difference at age 5, when your mother is dying of lymphoma and the only thing she can do with you is guide you through the soap operas and contrive happy endings when the plot gets too convoluted.

So to her, the little things mattered. The little things like late night rendezvous and cute, easily forgettable details that her father didn’t have time for and that her boyfriend didn’t understand. The little things that Reggie did so well.

Her biggest problem with their relationship was the lying, the impossible title he had given to it: “Semi-Attached Fuck Buddies.” His biggest problem was remembering it existed.

Christina rolled over, shutting out the sounds and lights filtering in from the backyard. She hadn’t closed the window after all. Maybe that would leave enough space for Reggie to show up in her dreams.

* * *

Eugene Evans was on his third cup of coffee, which was masking his third shot of Jack Daniels. He was supposed to be writing a speech, or an affidavit, possibly both. He forgot. He wasn’t drunk, not even close. Prosecution was an exhausting task in its own right, but when you sandwich it between weekends of politicking, it was enough to make a man hibernate. Judging by the stack of case files, forms and fliers on his desk, Eugene wouldn’t mind packing up his things and sleeping off the winter.

He closed the word file on his laptop. His fingers were running away from his brain, filling in the white space with gibberish and typo-laden copy. His hands found their way to the case files. The names all rang out the same ethnic soundtrack. DiScala, Minucci, Cusamano, Michinoku, Sano, Yamagishi. As the assistant district attorney presiding over homicide cases, it was Eugene’s job to know these names, and to know how to convict one of the Italian sounding names after they killed one of the Japanese sounding names. If the bullets changed directions, he was given the day off.

Eugene pushed the case files away and re-opened the word file, the mish-mash of arguments and self-promotion. It wasn’t quite a stump speech, but in the cesspool that was the Brooklyn DA’s office, it had been enough to toss his hat over the barbed wire bureaucracy and into the ring. It was also just enough to get him killed. His boss’ bosses wouldn’t be too happy to see a dissenter in the ranks, let alone a dissenter with enough gall to pull the District Attorney’s office out of the Hudson River, with enough pull to actually prosecute criminals of all races.

His house alarm beeped twice. Two doors were open. Eugene closed the laptop and tossed his flask of Jack under a jacket of court dockets he wouldn’t be touching for another two weeks. The sound of hurried and not-so hurried footsteps chased away his political troubles … and welcomed his family troubles.

Ariana through the garage. Reggie through a back window. Every couple of nights it was the same routine. His wife and son coming back from places he didn’t want them to go, but couldn’t stop them from going. Eugene laughed at the irony. He was paid to stand up in rooms full of made men and vicious murderers to send their kin to prison, but he was powerless against his freewheeling son and wife.

All of the motion on the first floor stopped as he descended the stairs. Ariana turned out of the foyer and found herself wrapped in Eugene’s arms.

“Hi, honey,” she stammered.

“Don’t give me that honey crap,” Eugene whispered back in a sing-song voice, holding her close as Reggie came into view with a disgusted look on his face. “I know where you were and I’ll deal with you later.”

His 17-year-old charge nodded to his father and mother, ducking past the couple, heading for his room.

“It’s two in the morning Reggie,” Eugene said calmly, releasing his wife, shooting her an irritated look.

“Yeah. It is,” he replied, half closing the bedroom door behind him.

“Care to tell me where you were?” Eugene asked.

“Just hanging out with some friends,” Reggie said.

“Was one of those friends Devon?” he continued.

“Yeah, it was. Is that a problem?” Reggie shot back, reappearing from his room wearing the same white tee-shirt and a new pair of basketball shorts.

“You already know the answer to that question Reggie,” Eugene was advancing on the door now. His wife followed close behind.

“Please not with this again Eugene,” Ariana pleaded from behind. He ignored her. She was next in line for interrogation anyway.

“What? I just want to know what Reggie was doing out at two in the morning with Devon,” Eugene continued.

Reggie ignored the line of questioning, moving to close his door. Eugene put his arm in the way.

“And why he smells like gasoline…”

Reggie opened the door.

“And why he looks so out of breath and flustered…”

Reggie stepped forward, directly into his father’s line of questioning, his line of fire.

“Looks like he was running from someone.”

“Stop it Eugene. I know where you’re going with this. Why don’t we try and hear his side of…”

Eugene raised his hand, silencing her. He was four steps ahead of both of them.

“Why are you coming home at 2 a.m., looking like you just lost a heated foot race, smelling like gasoline, after hanging out with your distinguished friend Devon Lane?” Eugene asked

“And by distinguished friend I mean the skell I specifically told you to stop wasting your nights with after you begged me to pull every string I could to get him off of a petty B&E charge,” the assistant district attorney continued.

Ariana and Reggie exchanged frustrated glances. They hadn’t seen the pattern but they had an idea. Eugene knew mentioning Devon would put them off-balance. This was no longer a family conversation, this was a cross-examination.

“Why do you need to do this Reggie? Why do you have to act like you were born into a stereotype? I work six days a week, I bring home more money in one year than most people who live in Prospect see in five. You have been blessed with every opportunity, but you don’t want to do anything with them,” Eugene said, his voice rising to a low roar.

His son seemed to be obsessed with winding up in a starring role on an NYPD scanner, portraying every bigot’s favorite suspect description: 17 to 25, black male, possibly armed.

“How many times am I going to have to look the other way?” Eugene howled, looking into his son’s street hardened eyes, realizing that this would be his legacy.

“As long as it benefits you Dad,” Reggie shot back, refusing to make eye contact.

“Excuse me,” Eugene said, falling off his train of thought.

“Oh come on, I might be a ’skell’ as far as you’re concerned but I’m not stupid. Nobody at the office wants to know that dear old Dad’s pride and joy is committing small time crimes throughout the borough,” Reggie spat. “You look the other way because you have to, not because you want to.”

Eugene turned back to his wife for support, but Ariana had retreated in silence.

“We’re on the wrong side of Brooklyn to be in a rich black family Dad,” Reggie continued. “Can’t you just accept that my dreams don’t end with a 9 to 5 work week?”

“I can accept that part. I’m worried that your dreams are going to end with a 3 to 5 stretch in Rikers’.” Eugene shot back.

The door shut. Eugene stood still as time moved without him. Things clattered, drawers closed, and eventually a window opened. The house alarm beeped again. Reggie had signaled his covert exit but he might as well have walked out the front door. Eugene held this conversation with his son on a monthly basis. Lectures were futile. He wanted to learn from the street, and so he would.

* * *

Hours later, Reggie was in Devon’s truck once more. The old, ash-laden, smokehouse smelling Subaru was inescapable. If he took half the time he’d spent in that car, and devoted it evenly between his parents, Christina and school, he would be headed in what most people called “the right direction.” Everyone would be happy. Maybe one day he’d have 2.5 kids and a fridge stocked with milk, orange juice and Eggo waffles, too.

Stereotypes. What do you know about stereotypes Dad?

The only stereotype Reggie was afraid of was the black man who wanted to be one of the Cosby clan. He was a child of his environment and his culture. A native of the parts and pieces of downtown Brooklyn that gumshoe crime writers wanted people to be afraid of. Well he wasn’t yet, but he could be. That was what Devon wanted to be.

The Subaru prowled Church Avenue, bobbing up and down the stretch of asphalt between Dahill Road and Ocean Parkway, turning right or left carelessly on side streets, failing to distort its obvious pattern. As they drove, Reggie stared at his best friend, with his black guinea-tee, his right shoulder slouched, driving one hand on the wheel with a cigarette hanging loosely from his pursed lips. He wondered about stereotypes again. He wondered why he had buried the image of Devon holding a gun to a man’s head far below the repeating sound of his father’s scathing voice. He wondered why every time one of Devon’s plans seemed success proof, he jumped on with less and less enthusiasm, but said “yes” faster and faster.

“Two of the credit cards were canceled,” Devon muttered, turning to retrace their path again. “One was maxed out.”

Reggie hadn’t even asked. If their late evening scam had worked they wouldn’t be stalking the outside of a Boro Park White Castle, counting down the seconds until Devon’s latest hail mary pass at infamy. Another scam signed off on by Devon’s alleged mob associate, but this ploy seemed to have some legitimacy.

“Ever wonder how many fast food joints there are in Brooklyn? A lot. You see how many people down Mc-Whatevers, and Whoppers and shit. That’s a lot of money getting thrown around. But they all have those less than x amount of dollars after dark signs. All that money has to go somewhere,” Devon had explained. “From what I’ve heard, each chain has three or four main places where they stow their cash at the end of the week. You know, for transfers or whatever.”

The rest seemed pretty simple. White Castle was open all night. There was one on Church Avenue, and it was safely removed from any police precincts. Barring any unforeseen chaos, this should have been an easy score. Except Reggie knew that Devon was an instant calamity. Just add water.

They parked in a side lot and rolled the car to a stop on an angle facing the nearest exit.

“You ready?” Devon said.

“Yeah,” Reggie replied. He was still trying to justify this. Money for a gift for Christina; escaping his father’s grasp. Reckless teenage rebellion. He liked the sound of the third one.

“You gonna freak if I pull a gun?” Devon asked.

“You’re gonna have to,” Reggie smirked, opening the door and exhaling with a false swagger, a counterfeit confidence. “After all, this is a stick up.”

The pair of would-be criminals strolled through the eatery’s silver sliding doors without any sense of purpose, like their visit was the result of drunken munchies. The few scattered customers didn’t seem to notice, poking and prying at the cardboard prisons holding their .79 cent grease stacks hostage.

Reggie scanned them as Devon took a spot behind him in line.
An old man stirring a pool of ketchup with two French fries. Three or four guys with backwards hats and fraternity letters on, likely rehashing their favorite Family Guy quotes. A drifter in a dusty leather jacket, likely hiding out from the Church avenue cold. He was occasionally chatting with the old man, who was tossing him fries like he was feeding a stray. Nobody that seemed like they would be a problem.

“Can I take the next order?” a short, pale white-skinned man asked with a slightly European accent. His face slouched slightly left, which Reggie found funny since the brim of his hat was facing the same way.

“Number 3,” Reggie replied.

Devon elbowed him in the ribs.

“What? We’re here. I’m going to eat something.”

Reggie collected his early morning meal and slid over to the soda machines, pushing the coke button, spilling the liquid all over his hands. He was splitting his field of view between Devon and the customers. The old man was still playing with his human dog. The college kids were attacking a crave case. They were loud, and they had gas. Drunk, high or maybe both. Nobody posed a threat.

“Next order,” the meek cashier asked.

“Mine might take a while,” Devon spat, revealing the butt of the black revolver within.

“Oh god,” the little man yelped.

“Give me what I’m here for, and the only stain that gets on your pretty little blue and white uniform is the piss running down your leg,” Devon said.

The cashier began dumping the contents of the register in a white paper bag, on top of fries and a sack of chicken rings.

“Here’s..-He— you’re order,” the employee stammered. Reggie decided that while he was shaking, the man looked like a leprechaun shitting out razorblades.

“My order?” Devon spat back. “I know which one this is asshole. I want the rest of it, the transfer money.”

“Transfer money?” the little man asked, regaining a little dignity, seemingly puzzled by Devon’s question.

“You know, the shit in the safe. C’mon dude, I’m on the level,” Devon said.

“Sir, we don’t have a safe,” the man whispered.

Reggie looked around the room. The homeless man seemed to be catching onto the conflict. He was scratching his messy, spiral curled hair, eyes darting between Reggie, Devon and the floor. Reggie acknowledged his street instincts. This poor guy was probably used to sensing danger, so he could stay away from it.

“Listen asshole,” Devon said, his voice rising, drawing more attention. “I was told, by a very reliable person, that there was a lot of fucking money here. I need that money. If I don’t get it, you’re going to see a lot more than the butt of this gun.”

“Devon…” Reggie said, still fiddling with the soda, keeping an eye on the vagabond. The drifter was rattling his long, predator fingernails against the table top, stirring the old man.

“I’m…I’m sorry sir. I just gave you… gave you all of it,” the tiny man repeated.

“But I know it’s here!” Devon howled, desperation hanging on every syllable. “This is where they keep the money before the end of the…”

“There’s no transfer,” the man whispered. “You’re wrong.”

Reggie started moving towards Devon.

“What did you say?”

Those were the two words in the English language that could make Devon Lane feral.

“You’re wrong,” the cashier said again.

Devon whipped the revolver out, smashing it down across the man’s jaw in one motion. He grabbed him by the throat and pulled him across the counter, pressing the mouth of the gun against his logo emblazoned hat. Of course, they now had an unwanted audience.

“Nobody fucking move!” Devon screamed, training the gun on everything he could, even Reggie. “I know that money is here! The transfer money, somebody get it or I’m going to shoot this fucker!”

“Woah. Calm down man. This shit is getting way too serious,” Reggie pleaded, walking closer to the loaded gun than he ever wanted to be.

“Serious! We need to be serious. I’m tired of pulling off these nickel and dime jobs that get us nowhere. I’m punching my ticket today. I want that money!” Devon screamed, his eyes bulging with intent and fire he didn’t possess.

He jabbed the clerk with the gun again.

“And…” he ripped the name tag off of the man’s chest. “Earl here, is going to get it for me!”

“Devon, why don’t you just calm down,” a new voice crooned, with a decisive cool and aged rasp.

The old man had left his seat, his homeless associate scurrying beneath one of the booths. He was slightly shorter than Reggie, with blue eyes and clumps of gray hair that looked like piles of dirty snow. The man walked slowly, not due to age or limp, but because it seemed to suit him.

“Old man, I don’t care who you are, but you better sit back down. I don’t want to shoot anyone I don’t have to. I just want the money,” Devon said.

“You don’t have to shoot anyone. Just put the gun down, let Earl go, and you and Reggie can leave before anyone gets hurt,” the man continued, speaking in an unflinching tone, like he’d handled these situations before.

“Funny. Nobody has to get hurt as long as I get – wait a minute? How the hell do you know our names?” Devon shot back, exchanging puzzled glances with Reggie.

Reggie had no idea how the old, white, Boro Park resident had any ties to the two Prospect Park street rats.

“Don’t concern yourself with who I am. Just concentrate with leaving without causing any permanent damage,” the man said. “I don’t want this to get ugly Devon. Don’t want to see your name wind up on the local prosecutor’s desk again.”

Devon tightened his grip on Earl. Some of the other employees had come out to watch the show, but had disappeared after noticing the gun. Reggie wasn’t moving an inch. He was as paralyzed as poor Earl with the revolver against his head.

“The fuck do you know all this about me? Reggie, take care of him,” Devon said, his voice growing frantic as he swung the gun around in frenetic, spastic motions.

Reggie didn’t move. The man took a step forward.

“Today!” he shouted. Reggie finally moved, grabbing the man under his shoulder, forcing him against a nearby window. He was gentler then he should have been. Maybe he was pitiful, maybe he was curious.

Devon shrugged the strange altercation off, and went back to shouting at Earl.

“Listen man,” Reggie whispered in his ear, twisting his arm behind his back and pressing him against the glass. “I don’t know or care who you are or what you know about this. I don’t want to see him kill anyone, and you aren’t helping.”

“That’s noble of you. It’s nice to see you keeping some moral fiber intact with all this looting. Your father should see this side of you,” the man said back.

Reggie tried to get Devon’s attention, but he was too busy slapping Earl, still desperately pleading for “transfer money” that likely never existed.

“Don’t let him kill that man Reggie. Once he gets that first blood it won’t stop. There’s a monster growing over your left shoulder. You don’t want that on your conscience do you?” the man’s voice was still steady, like a drum beat or a pendulum on a clock. He spoke with the utter grace of a prophet, devoutly believing every word he was saying.

“Just shut up,” Reggie said. Every time the old man opened his mouth, Reggie felt his stomach grow cold.

“You know he’s capable of it. He pulls that gun out like it’s a toy. You really thought he was going to kill that other person at the gas station, didn’t you?”

Reggie spun the man around, slamming his back hard against the glass. His head snapped back on impact. The gentle curiosity was gone, replaced by a very disturbed, survival-fueled fear.

“How do you know all of this?” Reggie shouted.

“Everything cool over there?” Devon asked.

“Not really,” Reggie replied, suddenly remembering they were supposed to be committing a robbery. “Earl give you the money yet?”

“Little shit says its not here. Little shit is about to get his brains splattered all over the counter,”

“It’s not here, I told y–” the smack of gun metal against flesh punctuated Earl’s sentence.

Devon pressed the gun flush against Earl’s ear canal.

“This is getting old Earl. Stop lying to me.”

“It’s not here Devon,” the old man yelled.

“Control the hero,” Devon said.

Reggie knew this man was a lot of things, but reckless hero was not one of them.

“Who are you?” Reggie asked, already afraid of the answer.

“My name is John McKinley,” he said. “I’m going to change your life.”

Reggie wound up on his back before he could even process McKinley’s bold claim.

“There’s so much more we need to talk about Reggie, but right now, I need to stop you two from making a big mistake,” he said, his eyes starting to glow white.

“I said you should have left before somebody got hurt,” McKinley said, his hands taking on the same fluorescent glow. “Now somebody is.”

Something started to squeeze Reggie’s head. It wasn’t anything physical and it wasn’t this McKinley guy. It was like someone had driven a studded vice into both sides of his head, and they were squeezing with enough force to split a refrigerator in half like a walnut. His nose bled. A black haze took hold of his vision, rimming everything in shadow. McKinley walked forward.

“Man, are you crazy? I don’t care if you’re hands can glow. I will shoot you and everyone in this place to get my money,” Devon shouted, arms and finger trembling as he struggled to grip the revolver he seemed so comfortable with hours prior.

“You talk too much,” McKinley said, firing a beam of light from his hands, striking Devon in the shoulder. Reggie’s best friend fell to the ground, his down jacket singed by the old man’s attack.

Devon fired three bullets as soon as he hit the ground. Each of them a sure kill. Except each of them were caught in a glowing web of radiant energy, spun by McKinley’s hands.

“Fuck,” Devon said, leaping to his feet, holding the gun inches from McKinley’s face.

“Alright David Blaine. Let’s see your light show magic get you out of this one.”

Devon fired again. Another sure kill. Another useless ball of lead on the White Castle floor.

“Be quiet,” McKinley responded, driving his palm into Devon’s jaw. The blow was clean, sending Devon back to the floor, this time for a longer duration.

Earl and Reggie both rose to the feet, blood on their lips and noses for drastically different reasons. McKinley walked up to Reggie and placed a hand on his shoulder, with a fraternal air about him, he spoke again, jarring Reggie from his dizzy, disjointed state.

“Your best friend can become your worst enemy faster than anything or anyone else in this world,” McKinley said.

With that he left, exiting through the front door like a rush of air, like he hadn’t been there at all.

“You’re just going to leave me here?” Earl shouted.

“Tough shit for you,” Devon said, rising to his feet, clutching his jaw with his free hand.

“One left in the chamber Earl. Money. Now,” Devon said with a defeated look in his eyes, as if he were resigned to what he was about to do.

“I told you we don’t have it,” Earl said, exhaustion seeping through every word.

“I thought you would say that,” Devon replied, with a vile, unsettling cool.

There was a gun shot.

Reggie and Earl fell to the ground, blood on their lips and noses for drastically different reasons.