Roy lit a cigarette to chill out a bit; he could feel the swarm. Then the late afternoon bells of St. Genesius's Chapel tolled and reminded him it was time to get this one thing over and done with. He remembered his childhood days of going to mass and feeling tragic about a good many things and thought it was funny now how he had ended updoing no good just a few blocks away from St. G's. In Roy's part of Grace Quarter, people sometimes referred to the chapel as the hut of redemption or simply, the hut. Roy never felt redeemed and his sense of guilt led to a deep sadness which drove him away from the hut. The dough of emotions could be kneaded, flattened and twisted. He twisted shame into anger, and the anger gave him a sense of invulnerability. He wondered if the same pew where he had carved his initials still remained, and what of the statue of Christ with the missing toes and fingers?

He cut down an alley, his scuffed black shoes crunching on gravel and shattered glass. Windows never lasted long in this side of Grace. Da Riva Boyz Gonna Float Yo Ass!...Zeno Reigns...Fruit Punch Sucka... Graffiti on the walls rumored legends and fueled feudal folklore. Often paranoid, the spirit of Grace Quarter was one of seclusion from the rest of Aliento---attached but missing like the folded corner of a page.

As he passed by crusted warehouses decaying where quaint but modest homes once stood before the fires of '68, Roy remembered his father's wispy voice, dry as summer cotton if all uh man's gotsa shack with a broke toylet, he still be proud of it Be inna man's bones to act proud when he ain't got no natural reason to 'cause he so deeply scared everman else got them somethin betta.

In this side of Grace few homes remained. Most folks now had only half-shacks with crap holes in the ground covered by plywood when not in use, but they were proud and they wouldn't hesitate to pop their switch blades if territorially testy people from the other quarters came to Grace.

Roy was held in high regard because he was one of the few lapcats. He knew how to purr his way into any neighborhood in any quarter. In the stretched-out dying bones of Aliento, he was the only living connective tissue.

He took a door leading to a garage. Inside he found Uncle Shoh, his mute massive Samoan sideman, Rupert and Samtweena. An Ivy league graduate and a CPA, she served as Uncle Shoh's private finance consultant.

"Yo, Roy Bubby, lapcattin' his way in just as easy as butta on grits."

"Sup, Uncle Shoh." Roy's callused palm engulfed Uncle Shoh's small, soft hand, gold rings on each finger. Roy looked to the other two. "Hey now, Rupert." Rupert stared with the daunting silence of a stubborn Easter Island stone. Roy then tipped his hat, "Miss Samtweena." She smiled.

"Ain't long now till the ship come in." Uncle Shoh stood a few inches shy of five feet, even on his heeled platform shoes. He wore an impeccable cobalt blue double-breasted suit. Uncle Shoh was Roy's half cousin, half Chinese and half Black, half the size of the other kids where he and Roy and grew up and more than half as likely to kill anyone he thought was mocking him.
His birth name was Hung-lo Shoh Jackson; the last person smart enough to know better but smartassed enough to call Uncle by his birth name wound up in St. G's cemetery. Roy had to see to it personally that not so much as an eyelash remained of the messy smartass's corpse and had to call upon the assistance of Balthazar Krebs, gravedigger with a past deeper than a grave, a man tortured by demons and better left alone.

"Now what you got fo me? Come on now and show Uncle Shoh."

Roy reached into his jacket and from the inside pocket produced a plastic bag taped and packed as tight as a sausage.

"That's my boy, Roy." Uncle Shoh smiled as he fondled the sausage. He then handed it to Samtweena. "You know where we like to put that, honey." Then his face darkened. He stepped right up against Roy, looking like a boy wanting to knock his father down. But Roy felt the swarm.

When people get angry, when they mistrust you, when they are right on the edge of losing control, their bodies swarm from the insides. Roy could not remember a time when he could not sense the swarm in someone. He rarely lost fist fights because he knew when a punch was in the oven and knew exactly when the timer would go off. If he did lose, he was most likely outnumbered. But when speed and timing determined the victor, Roy always came out on top.

A harsh swarm arose from within Uncle Shoh; another swarm emerged as Rupert moved behind Roy.

"There are problem, Uncle Shoh?"

"The devil's dust create a lust of longing and temptation. It become something of a fine woman opening her legs wide fo you; how could a natural man resist?"

"I ain't natural. I ain't copped none of your stink neither," Roy stepped into Uncle Shoh, forcing him to step aside. Roy faced Shoh and Rupert; they looked like a bear and a weasel both hungry and intent on the same kill. Samtweena calibrated the scale and then poured the lumpy sand-colored powder onto the scale tray. Uncle Shoh had the buzz going loud, rising to the penultimate note of rage and discord. Roy lit a cigarette.

"Well?"

Samtweena tinkered with the sliding weights until the scale tray ceased wavering. She looked at Uncle Shoh. "It's all here."

"Damn! I do believe Rupert was as ready as a bull in Pamplona."
Rupert stood back and assumed a stance less menacing.
"I swear this kind of tension makes me want to take a shit. Don't mean to sweat you, cuz. But you know business come befo family heaven hell and high-water. And the stink been messy business lately. Shit, if them Ruskies ever popped their prick missiles on us in the middle of a deal, I be telling them very bombs to wait a sec till I closed it down. You know what I'm talkin' bout, cuz?"

"Yeah, well you ought to know that's over for me. Been three years since I touched the stink. My word is double platinum anywhere in Aliento. With you it's the bottom of the charts. Pigeon squat's worth more. You ought to know better, Shoh."

The swarming again it's me

"Okay lapcat, okay. Business be business. Futherhencely, I like to keep Rupert in training. You never know when things gonna go off."

"I brought your score. That's done. But I ain't no man's punching bag. I garunty you, I'll lay Rupert flat, so you take care not to waste his talents on me."

Rupert bouldered towards Roy, who stood cool and exhaled a smoke screen, then tossed his cigarette to the floor. Uncle Shoh shuffled between them and held Rupert back.

"Easy bull, you can raise yo horns fo gouging soon nuff." He turned to Roy. "Show some respect. No need to get nasty."

"You should talk."

Rupert eased back, and Uncle Shoh glanced at his gold watch. "We coming up on my next matta a business. Got two chumps come from across the rivah who think they GI Joe guns worth some stink. We could use yo help, Roy. You can smooth talk them white boys whilst Rupert and Uncle Shoh takes care of the rest."

Down to double-crossing. In the days, used to be a man didn't get taken out who didn't deserve it.

"I can't help you. I brought your score, and I brought something more."

Uncle Shoh smiled and shook his head like he knew. "Don't tell me. Zeno sent you to take me down. You ain't no Rivah Boy. Them days overdone like a burnt chicken. That Daddy Zeno still think he the man, think he can run the show from the upstate pin. He a mighty man, but mighty far from here."

"It ain't like that. You really think I'm a cut-rate sucka. You ought to know betta, Shoh. I come to say I'm out."

"What you mean?"

"I'm out. I ain't working no more. I want to be my own cat. Dog need to be on a leash. Lapcat got to be petted. But a natural cat got to go as he please. This is the last score you get from me."

"You think you got another round a suckas? You been kicking it in Harvest quartah with them bean-boys and think you gonna run yo own business or something?"
The swarming nearly shook the walls down. Roy's ears were gorged with blood and thunder.

"I told you, it ain't like that. I ain't working, ain't no one working for me. That's it. The alpha and omega. I just waiting for the Lamb to break open the seals and give the signs. I got no message of my own. As for business, I'm out."

"Well...shoot." Uncle Shoh rolled his shoulders and grabbed his lapels , straightening out his suit coat already void of wrinkles and creases. "You ain't up to nothing funny?"

"Nothing funny."

"So you gonna be a chump now?"

"If that's what you want to call me."

"What people gonna think, Roy? This look funny."

"Most Aliento folks ain't up to much thinking. Won't make no difference."

"Well, shoot...This side of Grace still be mine! You remember to tell anyone that ask you, Uncle Shoh still run the show."

"You run what you like. Ain't my business no more. Never really was. I gotta split."

Roy made for the door.

"Wait now, ain't you forgetting something?" Roy looked at Uncle Shoh---the expectant swarm surrendered to a silent sad humming.

"Samtweena, get Roy his dough."

Samtweena opened a little safe box against the wall and grabbed a stack of green. She opened a leather book next to the scale, counted the money, wrote in the leather book and closed it. She walked over to Roy and handed him the money. Crisp bills used to feel so alive in his hand, he used to love having to lick his finger tips to separate the crisp bills, snapping like firecrackers as he counted them, he once loved the joy of folding them into his silver money clip, cool metallic magic in his pocket, a comforting weight against his upper thigh.

"You can count it to make sure it's all there."

"That's alright, Sam. I trust you."

Roy threw the stack into the inside pocket of his jacket. He tipped his hat to Samtweena and stepped for the door.

"Hey Roy, pick this butt up. You know I like things clean. Don't be puttin' yo smokes out on my flo."

Without looking back, Roy said, "Let Rupert get it. He could use the training."

By the time Roy had cut down the alley and hit the street in front on the warehouse, he saw a truck approaching. The truck slowed down, as though the driver were looking for an unfamiliar address. Roy saw a block-faced stern looking man in the passenger's side and at the wheel a boyish man with great broad shoulders. Roy drew near the slow moving vehicle.

"You gentlemen lost?"

"No."

"You making a delivery? What you got in the back there, furniture?"

"We've got nothing for you. Let's get moving Shifty."

"Now hold up. I think I know where you're headed. But it ain't where you think."

"What are you, the Sphinx? Riddle boy here is nuts."

Roy leaned in close to the passenger. "You going to see Uncle Shoh, ain't that right? You think you gonna do a little free trade, then leave Aliento with guns for killing Grace folks while you take the stink back across the river to seduce straight dope folks in your otherwise clean neighborhoods. That it?"

"What is this bullshit. Let's go Shifty. We don't have time for gab from the ghetto."

The driver kept the truck idling.

"Wait Dibbs, I want to hear what this guy has to say. If something funny--"

"Nothing's funny--" the passenger cut in. The swarm bore down.

"Damn right nothing funny," Roy whispered, "Nothing funny alright. If you got a wife and kids of some kind of life, you ought to go back to it now. Uncle Shoh got a surprise for you. See that Chapel cemetery back there before you turned up this street? That's where you gonna wish you was buried by the time Uncle Shoh finishes with you. But you won't get no natural man's burial If you go to the garage like you plan, both you gonna be fish food at the bottom of the river."

The passenger was silent for a moment.

"I don't know Dibbs," the driver started, "this guy might be right."

You fool you fool, can't you feel it I'm trying to tell you...it's swarming so loud...
"He's full of it. Let's go." The truck did not move. "I said, let's go!"

The driver swore under his breath and threw the truck into gear. Roy stepped back as the truck tore off like a shoebox on roller skates. He watched as the truck slowed down in front of Shoh's garage. Then the truck quickly pulled away, shooting down the road, turning onto a side street beyond view.

Roy was now walking, almost running, his feet feeling light. St. G's came into view. He thought he heard a new sound, something calm and blue that would not last long.