Devils in Exile by Chuck Hogan Page B

goes out, drinks himself some nectar, has himself a time, right? People say, ‘Oh, well. He don’t know no better, he’s a butterfly.’ But when some fucking big-ass bumblebee buzzes over, sticks his stinger in—look out. Larceny. Shut that mo-mo up in the bee house, give him twenty years, throw away the key. Cage his black-and-yellow ass.”
    Lash nodded. “Ain’t no justice for a bumblebee.”
    Tricky watched the critter try to fly, then opened his fingers and let him go. “I guess you hearing me now?”
    “I heard you before, Trick.” Lash sat back. “I just didn’t know. Wasn’t seeing it.”
    “Won’t never see nothing till it bleeds out onto the street.” Tricky stayed forward, talking over his hands like a man in church. “They been hitting it hard. I don’t mean ambushing street-corner buys. These ain’t stickups. I mean high-line, pro licks. Takedowns. Inside baseball.”
    Tricky let that last part hang out there with the sound of the trickling water.
    Lash said, “I’m listening.”
    “Nobody knows who, or what. No one I hear from anyway. I sure don’t. But they’re tight. Laying dudes out, rodeo-wrappin’ them, pulling phones and straps.”
    “Who they hitting?”
    “It’s all vague. Nobody wants to bark about getting punked.What I do know is, peeps are gearing up. Strapping it on. All that peacetime, turf-respecting shit—that shit is done .”
    Lash had no real problem with upper-echelon dealers being taken down, per se, but instability concerned him. Innocents and the day players might suddenly find themselves in the cross fire.
    “These guys,” said Lash, “these sugar bandits. Are we talking shooters?”
    “Naw. Pros. Heavy-hitting pros.”
    “Heavy?”
    Tricky nodded big, up and down. When he stopped, a little sulfur-yellow butterfly landed on his back. “This dude in the drink. You knew him?”
    “Knew of him,” said Lash. “You?”
    Tricky shrugged.
    “A Venezuelan named Vasco.”
    Tricky shook his head. The butterfly stayed put. “He don’t shop my side of the street.”
    “Chopped off his hands and his tongue.”
    “Dude’s tongue?” Tricky clucked his own. “His dick?”
    “You know, I didn’t think to check.”
    “Everything I hear says these guys are pros. That shit there sounds collateral. The people he got ripped off with, needing to vent some, save face. You got a line on them?”
    “I have a few ideas.”
    “Then, shizz, you don’t even need me.”
    Lash smiled. Tricky had grown up in Mattapan, the wild, fully Americanized son of Cape Verdean immigrants, street-running at twelve, enforcing at fifteen, doing drive-bys at seventeen. Lash had never even laid eyes on him before the night he saved his life. Lash was speaking at a “Mattapan Strong!” community meeting, competing with sirens out in the street, when he heard the distinctive crack-crack of a gun outside. Everybody in the audience hit the floor as Lash ran out, following the police lights to a lanky kid in long Girbaud shorts lying half off a curb, blood gurgling out of his neck like water out of a playground bubbler. One uniformed andtwo plainclothes cops stood around the kid dumbfounded, so Lash badged them and moved in, gripping the kid’s neck tight, closing the circuit, feeling the pumping action against his fingers like someone knocking to get out. Tricky made it through that night, and the next. Lash dropped in on him at the hospital, later showed up at his arraignment, and went on to visit him inside Cedar Junction. Something formed between them as naturally as the scooped pink scar on the side of Tricky’s neck. At one point, Lash even thought he had him hooked, he believed he could pop him free of the street life after his release. But the battle mark on his neck and his time served inside only raised his status, and soon Tricky fell back in with Broadhouse and his crew.
    Still, Lash managed to exert some influence over him, prevailing upon Tricky to keep dealers away from