Little Layer's Arc

Chapter 5 of 7

The lot was cleared by dawn. Rob's body was gone. Layer sat in his brother's apartment, cleaning the gun that killed his old partner. He should have felt the debt lift. He felt only weight. The forty soldiers were theirs now. But word of a killing does not stay quiet. The phone buzzed. Layer answered. A soldier spoke low and fast. One of Rob's old men had not thrown down his gun and walked. He had loved Rob like a brother. Now he was asking the streets one question. Who pulled the trigger. He wanted the shooter dead by nightfall. Layer set the phone down. Trouble followed every corpse in this life. He climbed the stairs to find Jason. Jason lay in bed. Breeze Leah lay beside him, her long dark hair spread on the pillow. She was small, propped on one elbow, a cigarette burning between two fingers. She was Jason's woman, and she watched Layer come through the door like she watched everything. Careful. Reading the room before anyone spoke. "You look like a man who slept wrong," she said. Smoke curled from her mouth. "One of Rob's soldiers wants my head," Layer said. "Says I killed his friend. He's hunting." Jason sat up. His tattoos moved across his chest. "Then he dies before he finds you." Breeze tapped ash into a glass by the bed. "Or," she said, "you send someone to talk first. You kill him, his people ask questions too. It never stops." She looked at Layer. "You already learned that this week." Layer had. Every body made two more. But this man would not talk. He wanted blood, and blood only. "He won't sit down," Layer said. "I know the type. I fed him for a year." Jason reached for his jeans. "Then it's simple." "No." Layer stopped him. "He's coming for me. My mess. I close it." He remembered Jason's words in the lot. Fix your own mistake, little brother. Breeze studied him. She stubbed the cigarette out slow. "He'll come alone," she said. "Pride like that doesn't share. He'll want the whole thing for himself." She was right. Layer felt it. He knew where Rob's man drank. He knew the door he used. He went down and waited in the dark near it, gun cold in his hand. The man came at dusk, alone, just as Breeze said. He carried a pistol loose at his side, eyes hunting the shadows. He never saw Layer step out behind him. "You looking for me," Layer said. The man spun. Layer fired first. The body dropped in the doorway. Quiet. No crew. No answer coming. Layer stood over him a long moment. Two men dead in two days, both his own. The debt for Rob was truly closed now. But the soldiers under him had watched their friends fall to their new boss. Layer walked back knowing they feared him now. Fear held a crew. It did not keep one.