Jury of Peers by Troy L Brodsky Read Free Book Online Page A

Saul once sucked one out of his brother’s ear with a soda straw.
    And that brother was dead.  His other one was gone, maybe in California, but he didn’t know.  His little sister was too young to understand that she wasn’t born to the right momma.  They were all too far back in line to expect any sort of help.  The only help you could depend on here was the kind you made for yourself .  It was only a cliché if you were rich.
                  He followed Bolo up a narrow set of steps, hands thrust deep into his pockets, and Saul wondered if he were about to die.  He realized there on the stairs in the grey wind that he didn’t really care.  Bolo knocked on the steel door, and it opened a few moments later.
    “You fucked up boy,” Vesper said from the couch as they entered the room with a swirl of cold wind.
    Saul looked up from his shoes, knowing that this was coming but still unsure what it would mean.  The day had left him numb, and the brain that he could usually count on to sort and tally everything into some sort of order, had failed him miserably.  It felt saturated, taken well beyond the boundaries he’d set out for himself that morning. 
    Bolo nodded, “I told you he wasn’t nothin’.”
    “No, you motherfucker,” Vesper said.  It was an easygoing, soft voice, always delivered just above a whisper.  Saul had known Vesper for a couple of years, known of him since he could remember.  He hadn’t always been the alpha dog, but he’d always acted like he was despite the quiet, intercessory voice that had led to his name.
    “What?” Bolo asked, perplexed.
    Vesper pointed the remote at the television.
     
    *              *              *
     
    Saul had really only talked to Vesper twice before.  Once to deliver news that his brother had been killed, and once not too long ago to drop off a day’s worth of profit. 
    The first meeting had been frightening, the second even more so.
    Vesper had been on the telephone the first time and just waved Saul over to his desk.  The news hadn’t come out easily, but Saul said what he’d been told to say.
    “Your brother got shot today,” he’d said.
    Vesper hung up in mid–conversation, just flipped his cell shut, pop .  “Is he dead?”
    “Yeah.  He’s dead.”  Again Saul searched for the correct empathy card.  No one said sorry too much around here.  It was like saying that you were sorry because it was cloudy.  And he didn’t really know if he should be sorry.  Vesper and his brother didn’t get on like friends, they were brothers.
    He nodded, let his head fall back on the chair, and said to the ceiling, "Sure he’s dead?”
    “Yeah,” Saul said. “I saw him.”  And that was it.  Saul left. 
    After Saul had naively delivered the news, being sacrificed by those who knew better, Vesper had actually given him more and more to do.  At fourteen he wasn’t the youngest in the crew by far, but he was still a shorty.  He didn’t have a driver’s license, and probably wouldn’t go out of his way to get one because he had the Metro.  Anything he carried had to be disposable:  rocks of crack folded in candy wrappers so he could just ditch them if the cops rolled up, clothes he could swap out, and a story that was vague but plausible–no details.  Everyone knew that he had product, and everyone knew he was selling, but it was hard to prove it if you did things right.  He knew how to do it.  It wasn't hard.
    The second time they'd met, Saul had been stopped twice on the way up the stairs, checked and rechecked by Vesper’s guys, and finally been led inside.  Unlike the little room attached to the hallway, this was a big room dedicated to its owner.  Lofted and plush, not shag carpet and disco ball plush, but plush in a way that a kid who had slept on the street could feel without even looking.  It smelled clean.  There were a couple of girls, both high, both happy to be pressed together