Kill the King (4 page)

“Nice to see
you too, Khaled. Even with my eyes closed, I could still tell you
were here. I can smell your shit cologne from a mile away.”

The brute let
out a hearty laugh, then tossed the bag on to the bed before taking
a swig from his cup.

“I’ve got some
fresh clothes for you. Put them on and then meet me outside. I’ll
help you catch up on Family affairs over some breakfast. Don’t take
too long, okay? I’m hungry.”

Tyler smirked
as he lit a cigarette.

“You’re always
hungry, Khaled. Marko might as well pay you in hummus instead of
cash. . .at least that way you’d be doing something smart with your
money, instead of wasting it on all that gold shit you wear over
your neck and fingers, looking like a fucking sheik.”

The walking
pillar of concrete choked on his coffee, gasping for air as he
tried to stifle his laughter. He wasn’t expecting a verbal assault
from Tyler so soon in the morning.

“Ah, well, I
guess I deserved that. I see you still have a sharp tongue. I’ve
missed that, you know.”

Khaled left the
bedroom and made his way back to his car outside. From the
apartment window, Tyler stuck his head out and whistled at Khaled
before he stepped into his car.

“You’re paying
for breakfast
and coffee
. You got it, sheik?”

Khaled flashed
him a sarcastic grin and a huge, gold-ringed middle finger.

****

Tyler and
Khaled were finishing up their breakfast and a second helping of
coffee. With Tyler’s long absence and unexpected return, there was
much to catch up on and not nearly enough time to do so. Khaled
talked while he shoveled large morsels of eggs and greasy meats in
his mouth.

“So. . .now
that you know who’s alive and who’s dead and who’s in jail and
who’s out, I guess now’s a good time to talk about the new
shit.”

Khaled took a
quick glance behind him before deciding to continue. Their booth
was in a windowless corner near the kitchen and away from the ears
of most of the diner’s patrons, but it was a habit of his to check
anyways. One could never be too sure of who was watching or
listening. Satisfied, he stirred a dab of milk into his coffee, the
spoon noisily clinking around the cup.

“Money’s
alright, but I don’t know how much longer we can hold up before
things get ugly. The Fourteens have been working hard on stretching
out their turf. They’ve been going to war with every other gang
they can reach and they keep winning. Los Conchos were the first to
go, then the Golden Brothers, and then the Perps just last
year.”

Tyler frowned
in disapproval. The Hispanic and Asian gangs in that part of town
were in Boreta’s pocket, and the Perps—a deeply-feared black gang
with roots going as far back as the 1960’s—were bigger than all of
them combined.

Khaled nodded
his head in agreement. “Yeah, that’s right. . .even the Perps. They
were really mean niggers, too. They put up a good fight for a while
but they got crushed just like the others. The Fourteens train hard
and they’re organized. Ever since they closed the auto plant and
the construction companies have been hiring little brown curry kids
for shit pay, every broken-down honky kid from a shit home is
signing up to fuck up every coloured folk in town.”

Khaled wiped
his mouth and leaned back in his seat, his appetite satiated for
the time being.

“They’re angry
as fuck, and now they’re too big to ignore. It won’t be long before
they turn their attention to us. . .and that’s when the streets
will get a whole new coat of red. The question is,
who
will
be providing all of that red?”

Tyler motioned
the waitress to refill his cup. This was a lot of bleak news to
swallow. He knew the Fourteens and their leader long enough to
believe Khaled. The Family should have taken the offensive and
stamped them out when they had the chance. Not having done so will
now cost them dearly. The gang had evolved into a full-fledged
mob.

“So then how is
Marko keeping the money flowing while keeping the poor little
whiteys away? Have they taken over the drug market too?”

Khaled scoffed
at being asked such a glib question. He expected Tyler to know
better than that.

“Fuck no. The
drug money is not flowing in this city anymore, not with the
goddamn skinheads fucking things up for us. A lot of the smaller
gangs are too scared to deal in their own neighbourhoods, so a big
slice of our easy income has disappeared. Most of our dope now gets
shipped to other cities. Glory and praise to God, we still control
the fucking docks. That’s where we still get most of our money,
moving shit in and out of there. The operating costs keep going up
with that as well. We’re getting fucked either way.”

The large man
then leaned closer to Tyler, his square jaw leaning on his granite
knuckles for support. The overlong talk of business had begun to
tire him out. “The unions are asking for more money, but other than
that we’re not under any threat from them. We keep them well-paid,
and so long as they still have jobs and enough money to feed their
families, they won’t join the Fourteens. We don’t want to just hand
them a whole new army of big strong union boys with an axe to grind
against us. We don’t have enough money to buy them all off. We’re
skating on very fucking thin ice, my friend.”

Last night’s
run-in with the Fourteens was more than enough proof that great
danger was lurking just around the corner. The city’s criminal
underworld had been usurped, and even the Family wasn’t safe
anymore. Impunity was no longer a guarantee. Anyone could be in the
crosshairs.

And yet,
something else seemed to be bothering Khaled. Tyler’s long history
of interrogating people had made him adept at reading faces. He
knew that Khaled had something on his mind; he looked like he had
an annoying itch that he couldn’t scratch. Tyler took a moment to
stare at Khaled, studiously watching and waiting to provoke a
reaction. At first Khaled looked back at him quizzically, probably
hoping that a false expression of confusion would be enough to
throw him off. This would not be enough to dissuade him, and
finally Khaled grew so ill at ease that he couldn’t bear it any
longer.

“There’s
another reason why I wanted to bring you here, before you got a
chance to speak with Marko. There’s something else I wanted to talk
about with you.”

Tyler took a
sip of coffee, his unblinking eyes remaining fixed on Khaled’s to
amplify his discomfort. Legitimate confessions only came out of
distress. He learned this long ago when Boreta first took him under
his wing. You must make your victim feel as helpless as a child
would be without his parents there to protect him. Easy or hard,
pain or shame, physical or mental, the method itself does not
matter as much as the objective: you must make them feel small and
vulnerable. You must make them become a child again.
Only the
child tells what goes on in the house.

“Go on, Khaled.
I’m listening.”

“I’m upset with
you right now, to be honest. From the moment I woke you up, to the
car ride to this place, to all the affairs we’ve been discussing
all morning. . .you still haven’t asked me anything about
Gloria.”

Tyler knew
exactly where this was going. “Gloria’s strong. She can take care
of herself, just as she’s always done since long before I met her.
The world has rarely been kind to her, but she always finds a way
to survive. She’s a survivor, Khaled. She’ll outlive the both of
us, I guarantee you.”

Khaled bit his
lower lip, obviously agitated by Tyler’s nonchalance. “I know that.
It’s just that. . . if I were you and I just got out of prison, the
first thing on my mind would be Gloria. I would have been worried
about her safety after being away for so long.”

“Yeah, well. .
.she’s not your problem now, is she? She’s
my
woman—not
yours
. You’re not the one she shares a bed with when she’s
off the clock.”

Khaled fidgeted
in his seat. “I’m sorry. Let’s just drop it. I didn’t mean it like
that. I just worry about her sometimes. She’s very special and I
don’t want to see her get hurt.”

“I appreciate
you caring about Gloria so much. It almost seems as if maybe. .
.”

Tyler gave
Khaled a knowing glance, firm and authoritative. Khaled was much
brighter than most would expect out of a man of his build, but he
wasn’t in the same league as Tyler’s and there was no way he could
talk his way out of it.

Only the child
tells what goes on in the house.

Khaled sulked.
He was cornered. He averted his eyes before continuing. “I’ve been
seeing Gloria while you were gone. It wasn’t planned or anything. I
just. . .”

“You just
decided to shove your cock down her throat while I was locked up in
a cage? Is that what you were gonna say, Khaled?”

Tyler’s tone
was measured enough to be threatening but not outright hostile. He
wasn’t interested in humiliating neither himself nor Gloria in this
conversation. . .only Khaled.

“You saw an
opportunity to fuck my woman while I whittled away my days in
solitary, and you took it. It didn’t matter to you that she’s mine.
Mine
. Marko likes to say that
a thief can’t stop
thieving, just like a whore can’t stop whoring.
Did the both of
you decide to take that to heart?”

This was a
gratuitous swipe at Khaled, but Tyler felt it was necessary to not
look too complacent and forgiving. Khaled had to be shown that this
was still a serious infraction. Countless men have wound up dead
for such betrayals. Tyler then rolled his eyes and nudged Khaled
into continuing with his confession.

“You are my
only real friend, and you mean everything to Gloria. I promised
myself that I’d look after her while you were gone. I just wanted
her to be safe. I didn’t plan for any of this. It’s just that the
both of us got so lonely and we found some comfort together. After
a while, we—”

Tyler lifted
his hand up to cut him off. The admission of guilt was sufficient
and no further details regarding this affair would be of any use to
him.

“I’ve heard
enough. I had already suspected this as soon as you woke me up.
Gloria wouldn’t have given you the keys to her place without a good
reason.”

Khaled cringed
at the thought of it. He had been too indiscrete.

“Look, you did
the right thing, looking after Gloria while I was gone. She looks
healthy and her place is pretty clean, and though she’s still
working the nights for the extra money it doesn’t look like she’s
working every night either. Make no mistake that I’m raw about all
this but I don’t hate you either. If I were the jealous type, I
never would have gotten involved with a working girl.”

Khaled looked
painfully confused. Were they in opposite places in this situation,
he would have taken a bat to Tyler’s skull halfway through his
confession.

“Do you love
her, Tyler?”

“Do
you
love her, Khaled?”

He sulked again
with a shamed expression in his eyes. Tyler had done well in
breaking him. Even the ones closest to you have to be broken
sometimes if you are to keep control over them. It was often the
ones closest to you who would betray you when you least suspected
it. Letting your guard down could cost you your life. The
underworld was piled high with bodies showing surprised faces.
Tyler himself intended on adding Boreta to that very pile.

“Yeah.”

Only the child
tells what goes on in the house.

“And does
Gloria share the same feelings for you?”

Khaled averted
his eyes and bit his lip, hesitating to speak any further on this
matter. “I don’t know. Maybe. She still loves you. I don’t know if
she has any room in her heart for me. So. . .”

Khaled paused
in hesitation again. It was a deeply tense and awkward conversation
for both men.

“Where. .
.where does that leave us? You, me, Gloria. . .”

Tyler shrugged
and finished his coffee before stepping out of the booth. “That’s a
problem we’ll have to solve some other day. We’ve got bigger shit
to deal with right now.”

He put on his
jacket, tossed a cigarette in his mouth and patted his giant friend
on his shoulder. It was as solid as a cinderblock.

“I’m going out
for a smoke. Pay the bill and meet me outside. We don’t want to
keep Marko waiting any longer.”

****

Tyler and
Khaled arrived at the Family-run bar while it was still
mid-morning. It was a legitimate establishment with genuine
clientele, and though it wasn’t a place where yuppies flocked for
expensive cocktails after work, it was far from being a dive as
well. The dozen pool tables scattered at the front end helped give
the place a veneer of normalcy to anyone peering through the
windows on any given night. They also helped divert attention from
the dangerous-looking men who lounged in the booths tucked away in
the far back, just beside the kitchen.

In one of these
booths lurked the man Tyler had promised to kill.

Tyler and
Khaled stood still and attentive once they entered the bar. They
had to be summoned when he was ready to receive them. No
exceptions.

They were
quickly noticed by two associates shooting pool a few tables away
from the front door. The lanky blond one scurried out to the booths
way out in the back, while the portly black one lurched over to
keep watch over Tyler and Khaled.

The big black
man stood in front of both of them like a massive boulder, almost
surpassing Khaled in sheer mass alone. He did not move nor divert
his glare at the two men in front of him. He was an immovable
object acting as sentry until instructed to do otherwise. Though
both Tyler and Khaled were high-ranking in the Family, the rule
stayed the same: you only saw Boreta when permitted.