I put it on the table.

--Yeah, Digga got us back on that war-foot. Galvanized the people. Got they's heads right again. But that talk comin' back now. That appeasement talk. Digga can throw as many dogs as he wants in that pool. Bite as many as he want. Keep puttin' on a show. Sooner or later, boy gonna have to show the people the devil's face. Prove to them they got enemies outside they borders. That enforcer comin' up here was a help, but he need more than that. Need to show that poison comin' in for real. An' it comin' from Predo. He show that, no one gonna take his crown nohow. He show that, Papa gonna have to mind his P's and his Q's.

I start another smoke.

--How you know all that about Luther?

He sighs.

--I cut the man's hair din't I? Now switch off that lamp.

I switch it off and we sit in the darkness. Just some light coming from the luminous dial of an old clock on top of the TV and from the tip of my cigarette.

--You stay up an' smoke you want to. Gonna get me some sleep.

He settles deeper into the easy chair.

--Percy?

--Huh?

--What's your end in this?

He turns his head to face me.

--Shit, boy, I'm Enclave. Just doin' a solid for Daniel.

I study his black skin by the glow of my cigarette.

--You don't look it.

--Well, theys Enclave and theys Enclave. Man can be a Baptist without he got to be no holy roller.

He closes his eyes and turns his face away.

--The can is down the hall you got to take a piss.

--Pitt.

--Hmmn?

--Wake it and shake it. It time.

--Hn?

I feel like I just closed my eyes. I open them.

Percy is sitting on the edge of the couch. I boost myself up.

--What?

--It time. Here.

He hands me an unopened pack of Pall Malls and a book of matches.

--Now doan forget what we talk about.

--OK.

--Things ain't always what they look like they is.

--I know.

--When the man give you a proposition, you take it. Right?

--What?

--Take the proposition.

--What?

He glances at the door.

I hear them.

I'm off the couch and down the hall. Behind me the door is kicked in. I'm past a bedroom, past the bathroom. Ahead, there's one more door. I open it and a vacuum cleaner falls out. Footsteps are behind me. I turn around.

Timberlands is coming down the hall followed by the two rhinos from last night. I reach for the switchblade in my pocket.

Percy yells from the parlor.

--Careful, he got a knife.

Timberlands pauses as I pull the switchblade and pop it open. He puts his hand in the pocket of my own fucking jacket and pulls out my own fucking .32 and points it at me.

--Gonna put a hole in yo ass, you doan drop it.

I drop the knife.

He steps to the side to make room for the rhinos. I try to fight them, but they make me stop. They drag me back down the hall and through the parlor.

Percy is talking.

--Take you long enough. How long a man supposed ta entertain the white boy?

Digga is standing in the open doorway.

--Just as long as it take, Percy.

--They not happy with you, Pitt.

I'm sitting in the backseat squeezed between the two rhinos. Timberlands drives. Digga sits in the front passenger seat.

--Why's that?

--Could be cuz they had ta go down like that. Had ta take a rap on the back of the skull from the one-armed man. Not the kind of thing a man likes gettin' 'round. Course, it ain't gettin' 'round.

--No?

--Shit no. What gettin' 'round is how you fooled they asses into openin' the door and then took 'em both. That the story gettin' 'round. An that the real reason they not happy with you.

--Too bad.

--Too bad for you, they get a chance to dance on you.

I look from one rhino to the other.

--I like dancing.

Digga turns himself around and looks at my face. He points at it.

--Not done yet. Mark him up a little more.

The rhinos toss a couple quick elbows at my face. My lips split open. A knot starts to grow over my right eye. My nose breaks for about the twentieth time in my life. It's OK. Pain is relative. You never stop feeling it, but have enough of it inflicted on you and you get kind of accustomed to it. It'll all heal. If they don't kill me.

--Enough.

They stop.

--See what I mean, Pitt. They just not happy with you.

My right eye is swelling, closing up. I squint at Digga.

--What about you, you happy with me?

--Me? Well, I say this, you playin' yo role.

I spit blood onto his upholstery.

--Still happy with me?

Digga snaps his fingers at Timberlands.

--Pull over.

--Know what that is?

--A park.

The Hummer is pulled over on Morningside Avenue at 123rd.

--Look like a park, don't it?

--Yeah.

--But it ain't. That a outpost. That a Coalition outpost.

The park is overgrown and abused. Dirty snow from our last big storm is dotted with unclaimed dog crap.

Digga points.

--Look.

I look. He's pointing at the paths that climb up the park, climb up a cliff face like the one that backs Jackie Robinson. But it's different here. At The Jack, the cliff is native stone, raw and worn from when it was first cut. Here, the heights of the park are defined by a massive barrier. Huge blocks of dark stone are masoned into a wall topped by an iron fence. Two paths cut back and forth across the park, climbing to two great staircases, one at either end of the park.

--See what they got up there?

Morningside Drive runs atop the wall, lined with luxury apartment buildings and a tower of Columbia student housing.

--That was part of the treaty Luther made when we got independence. Had to leave them this turf. They settlement. They Gaza Strip. They presence up here so no one forget this was all theirs once. All those sweet blocks around Columbia, that still Coalition turf. That where it comin' from.

--What's that?

--That shit. That poison they pumpin' into our blood. That shit you say croppin' up downtown, too. You think that a coincidence? Some dangerous-ass new drug, only drug can get a Vampyre hooked, just happenin' to drop on Society an' Hood turf? That sound likely to you, Pitt? Or it sound like a conspiracy?