“I will be some time,” she said. “I don’t know when I’ll be coming back, but thank you for asking.”

Feeling that he could do nothing more, the driver pulled into traffic and headed for Hunt’s Point.

He called himself G-Mack, and he was a playa. He dressed like a playa, because that was part of what being a playa was all about. He had the gold chains and the leather coat, beneath which he wore a tailored black vest over his bare upper body. His pants were cut wide at the thigh, narrowing down to cuffs so small he had trouble getting his feet through them. His cornrows were hidden beneath a wide-brimmed leather hat, and he kept a pair of cell phones on his belt. He carried no weapons, but there were guns close to hand. This was his patch, and these were his women.

He watched them now, their asses barely hidden beneath short black imitation-leather skirts, their titties busting out of their cheap bustier tops. He liked his women to dress alike, felt like it was kind of his brand, m’sayin? Anything worthwhile in this country had its own recognizable look, didn’t matter you was buying it in Butt-freeze, Montana, or Asswipe, Arkansas. G-Mack didn’t have as many girls as some, but then he was just beginning. He had big plans.

He watched Chantal, this tall black hooker with legs so thin he marveled at how they could support her body, teeter on her heels as she headed over to him.

“Whatchu got, baby?” he asked.

“Hunnerd.”

“Hunnerd? You fuckin with me?”

“It’s slow, baby. I ain’t had but some blow jobs, and a nigga try to stiff me in the lot, makin like he goan pay me soon as I’m done, wastin my time. It’s hard, baby.”

G-Mack reached out for her face and held it tightly in his fingers.

“What’m I goan find and I take you down that alleyway and check you out, huh? I ain’t goan find no hunnerd, am I? I goan find bills hidden in all them dark places, ain’t I? You think I’m goan be gentle with you, huh, when I go lookin inside? You want me to do that?”

She shook her head in his grip. He released her, and watched as she reached under her skirt. Seconds later, her hand emerged with a plastic Baggie. He could see the notes inside.

“I’m goan let you get away with it this once, y’hear?” he said as he took the Baggie from her, holding it carefully with his fingernails so as not to sully his hands with the smell of her. She gave him the hundred from her handbag too. He raised his hand as if to strike her, then let it drop slowly to his side and smiled his best, most reassuring smile.

“That’s just cause you new with me. But you fuck with me again, bitch, and I will fuck your shit up so bad you be bleeding for a week. Now get yo ass back out there.”

Chantal nodded and sniffed. She stroked his coat with her right hand, rubbing at the lapel.

“Sorry, baby. I just-”

“It’s done,” said G-Mack. “We clear.”

She nodded again, then turned away and headed back onto the street. G-Mack watched her go. She had maybe another five hours before things got quieter. He’d take her back to the crib then and show her what happened to bitches who fucked with the Mack, who tried to embarrass him by holding back on him. He wasn’t about to discipline her on the street, because that would make him look bad. No, he’d deal with her in private.

That was the thing with these hos. You let one get away with something, and the next thing they were all holding out on you and then you weren’t nothing better than a bitch yourself. They needed to be taught that lesson early on, else they weren’t worth having around. Funny thing was, you fucked them up, and they still stayed with you. You worked it right, and they felt needed, like they was part of a family they’d never had. Like a good father, you disciplined them because you loved them. You could screw around on the ones who were sweet on you, and they wouldn’t say boo, because at least they knew the other whores you were seeing. In that sense, a pimp beat a square any day. It was all okay as long as you kept it in the family. They were your women, and you could do with them what you pleased once you gave them a sense of belonging, of being wanted. You had to get psychological with these bitches, had to know how to play the game.

“Excuse me,” said a voice to his right.

He looked down to see a small black woman in an overcoat, her hand inside her bag. Her hair was gray, and she looked like she might break in two if the wind was strong enough.

“What you want, Grandma?” he said. “You a little old to be trickin.”

If the woman understood the insult, she didn’t let it show.

“I’m looking for somebody,” she said, taking a photograph from her wallet, and G-Mack felt his heart sink.

The door to Alice’s left opened, then closed again, but the lights in the corridor beyond had also been extinguished, and she was unable to see who had entered. A stench assailed her nostrils, and she found herself retching. She could hear no footsteps, yet she was aware of a figure circling her, appraising her.

“Please,” she said, and it took all of her strength just to speak. “Please. Whatever I done, I’m sorry for it. I won’t tell nobody what happened. I don’t even know where I am. Let me go, and I’ll be a good girl, I promise.”

The whispering grew louder now, and there was laughter intermingled with the voices. Then something touched her face, and her skin prickled, and her mind was bombarded with images. She felt as though her memories were being ransacked, the details of her life briefly held up to the light, then discarded by the presence beside her. She saw her mother, her aunt, her grandmother…

A houseful of women, set on a patch of land by the edge of a forest; a dead man lying in a casket, the women standing around him, none of them weeping. One of them reaches for the cotton sheet covering his head, and when it is removed he is revealed to be near faceless, his features destroyed by some terrible vengeance wrought upon him by another. In a corner stands a boy, tall for his age, dressed in a cheap hired suit, and she knows his name.

Louis.

“Louis,” she whispered, and her voice seemed to echo around the tiled room. The presence beside her withdrew, but she could still hear its breathing. Its breath smelt of earth.

Earth, and burning.

“Louis,” she repeated.

Closer than brother to me. Blood to me.

Help me.

Her hand was clasped in the hand of another, and she felt it being raised. It came to rest upon something ragged and ruined. She traced the lineaments of what once was a face: the eye sockets, now empty; the fragments of cartilage where once was a nose; a lipless gap for a mouth. The mouth opened, taking her fingers inside, then closed softly upon them, and she saw once again the figure in the casket, the man without a face, his head torn apart by the actions of-

“Louis.”

She was crying now, crying for them both. The mouth upon her fingers was no longer soft. Teeth were erupting from the gums, flat yet sharp, and they tore into her hand.

This is not real. This is not real.

But the pain was real, and the presence was real.

And she called his name in her head once again-Louis-as she began to die.

G-Mack kept his face turned from her, taking in his women, the cars, the streets, anything to divert his attention and force her to go elsewhere.

“Can’t help you,” he said. “Go call Five-O. They be dealin with missin persons.”

“She worked here,” said the woman. “The girl I’m looking for. She worked for you.”

“Like I said, can’t help you. You need to be movin on now, else you goan get into trouble. Nobody want to be answering yo questions. People here want to make money. This is a business. This like Mickey D’s. It’s all about the dollar.”