7. Tremaine “Trigger” Marks
Tremaine “Trigger” Marks
Trigger Pull
Recommended Song: What’s Beef by The Notorious B.I.G.
The clubhouse still smells like Sal: cold smoke, old leather, lost Sundays.
His photo hung crooked over the filing cabinet, smile frozen in a way that never matched the man.
Folks kept candles lit under it. I kept blowing them out.
Fire invited attention. Attention brought cops. Cops brought math I didn’t like to do.
I took his chair because somebody had to.
Boots on scarred wood, weight settled. The desk’s had a wobble he never fixed.
Figures. Sal could juggle four shipments and three fistfights, but a loose leg beat him regularly.
I pressed my palm down on the corner and the wobble shuts up.
Sometimes that’s all it took. Weight in the right place.
Mouse slipped in without knocking. Kid got good at being small.
“You eat?” I asked, eyes on the window, rain crawling down the glass in lines like tally marks.
He swallowed. “Nah.”
“Eat,” I told him, flat. “We think better when we ain’t stupid.”
He nodded. Hovered. Wanted to hand me whatever news he scratched on his nerves. I made him wait. Three beats. The room learned my rhythm or it left.
“Speak.”
“Permit pushed through,” he blurted. “Saint took it to City, came back stamped. Mayor’s boy?—”
“Say his name in here, I’ll make you scrub your tongue.” I let the word hang a second, soft as a wire. “He’s White Lie when you’re stupid, Whit when you’re correct, and nothing when you’re near a wire. Today you ain’t correct.”
Mouse flinched. “Copy.”
I slide the manila folder closer with two fingers.
Photos inside. People never looked up. They always think the picture-taker is taller than he is.
These were taken from car windows and rain hoods and a pair of drunk sunglasses with a lens cut out the side.
Money spent well. I lay them out like cards.
Nova on the sidewalk, church coat in a storm that don’t end.
Kid on her hip. Saint’s shadow at the curb where the street tries not to know him.
Cruz’s neon breathing red like a bad heart.
Then Ro—helmet under his arm, that gold rope chain catching a light that didn’t belong to him.
He got bulk since he left. Looked like a wall until you saw the crack in the middle.
He stood like a man who forgot which way was forward.
Mouse craned his neck. I slapped the back of his head, easy. “Eyes up. Learn to clock a room without counting the floor tiles.”
He stared at the wall like that’s where the answers lived. I let him.
Tino rumbled in from the side door with a folder of receipts and a grin he earned in county twice. “Rain’s got the boys in mood,” he said. “Bars are fat, wallets thin, mouths wide.”
“Good,” I answered. “Mouths keep me warm.”
He laughed. Stopped when I didn’t. Dropped the receipts on the corner I pressed down earlier. The desk stayed still. Even wood learned if you made it.
“Ro’s circling,” Tino said. “You want me to put a leash on him?”
I shook my head. “Leashes are for animals. We give him mirrors. He’ll walk himself into one.”
Mouse cleared his throat like he got a ticket to speak. “He pulled up to Cruz’s with some girl.” He shrunk when my eyes slid over. “Not Nova.”
“I know,” I stated, and drop another photo—her face half-laugh, half-dare, Oakland written in the way she stood. Tarnesha. The kind of girl men use to pretend they ain’t lonely. “She ain’t the knife. She the napkin.”
“Napkins catch blood,” Tino muttered.
“Then make sure it’s someone else’s,” I voiced.
I let the silence sit. Men talk too much when they don’t know what to do. My trick’s simple. Make a room quiet, and the lies float. I can skim with a spoon.
Mouse couldn’t help himself. “That White— Darius—he’s riding brazen. Ducati like a billboard, cops wave at him like he throwin’ a parade. You sure we want him near Friday?”
“Want?” I rolled the word like I was checking its teeth. “Need. He brings a camera you can’t buy, and a budget you can’t spend. He wants a show. We give him a script.”
“What about Saint?” Tino asked. “He ain’t the one who claps. He the one who counts.”
“Good,” I countered. “Counters close the drawer when they done. I like a man who shuts things.”
I pushed the photos back into the folder.
My thumb paused on Nova’s face. Strong. Not pretty like some magazine girl—real pretty, the kind you don’t brag about if you want to keep your teeth.
I respected a woman who could carry a room without begging it for permission.
I respected her enough to break her last.
“Get your coat,” I instructed them. “We got rounds.”
The rain fattened the city, made it shine so even trash looked like jewelry.
My Hayabusa waited where the light leaks under the sycamore.
I don’t name machines. Men who name machines name bullets too, and then they cry when the wrong one hits the ground.
I swung a leg over and listened to the breath before the engine caught.
Everything got a breath before it’s loud.
We rolled—me, Tino on his Road King, Mouse in the Civic that runs like a rumor.
Down Central, left under the faded billboard with the teeth whitener ad, past the car wash that never shuts off the soap.
Lyon Crest’s got polish now, but polish is a liar.
Wipe it once and the dirt tells you its government name.
I idled across from Cruz’s and kill the noise. Neon Cruz sign hummed, window fogged, silhouettes arguing with forks. A boy in a Raider jacket rides a BMX too small for him, looks both ways like a prayer, not a habit. He disappears into the wet.
“Five minutes,” I told Tino. “Then the bowling alley. If I ain’t out in twenty, run your mouth so loud a cop writes it down.”
He nodded because he knew I wasn’t joking.
I didn’t go in. I walked the side, where the establishment was breathing through the brick.
The alley dripped fat. A back door with a chain across it—a Cruz chain, not a hardware store chain.
It was a difference. I shifted the chain with two fingers to let the door know I knew it.
I slid a white envelope under the lip. No name outside.
Names invite imagination. Inside, a copy of a citation with the date already picked by someone who wears a badge like a necktie.
Also inside, a tea bag, mint, hospital brand.
Lani liked tea when she’s mad. I knew because she drunk it faster.
I didn’t want her scared. I wanted her efficient.
Back to the streets, helmet on, engine up, we coast. Bowling alley next—new carpet, old pins, a manager who learned to tell time by favors.
Whit’s SUV purred out back where the rats were fat. Saint stood in the slot where cameras looked tirelessly. He wore an umbrella like a conscience. Whit’s in a bomber too clean for rain, white gloves like he doesn’t touch door handles.
“You look like a snowstorm,” I stated him, chin up. “Lose the gloves when you talk to men.”
He grinned. “I talk to budgets.”
Saint’s eyes barely moved. “You late.”
“I’m right,” I countered. “Late is for the folks who think minutes matter more than leverage.”
Saint heard me anyway. He always does. That’s why I prefer him to Whit. Whit made noise. Saint remembered it.
We ventured inside, not together. The look mattered. The manager met us with a rag in his hand and a lie on his mouth. I shook his hand, so he doesn’t have to use either.
We made our way to the blind lane. Lights off. The machine at the end clicking like it was bored. I wasn’t sitting. They did. I circled the ball returning with my knuckles like a pastor at a baptism.
Whit yawned. He’s young enough to pretend boredom is power. “Friday,” he mentioned. “Backyard jam. You sure you can get your boys to clap on beat?”
“My boys clap when I look at ‘em,” I let out. “Your boys clap when a camera does. You bringing the camera?”
He flashed a smile that was purchased, not earned. “Always.”
Saint slid a piece of paper across the plastic table. Permits. Words that told me the space was allowed when we all agree to pretend. I scanned them and pointed where the typo mattered. “Line eight. Swap ‘noise mitigation’ for ‘community relations.’”
Whit blinked. “Why?”
“Noise mitigation means you turn something down,” I answered. “Community relations means you shut somebody up. We ain’t turning down nothing. We’re shutting up one person.”
“Ro,” he grinned, like it tasted good.
I wasn’t giving him that. “Whoever stands where a camera likes faces.”
Saint watched my lips. He felt the change without telling me I was right. Another reason I prefer him.
“And the debt,” Whit announced, lazily. “Sal’s ledger.”
Ledger . People like that word because it feels old. What it meant was simple: somebody got more than they should and now somebody else wants to feel tall.
I drummed a slow pattern on the lane with my gloves. “We settle the ledger when the noise stops. Until then, it’s a story we tell the bad men to keep them out of worse rooms.”
Whit looked offended because he confused desire with entitlement. He leaned back. “We need money moving. I don’t like waiting.”
“You’ll love the alternative less,” I spoke, firmly. “Police attention is expensive. Ask your dad.”
Saint’s eyes cut to me. Not a warning. A measurement. He tapped the paper. “Friday handles Ro. What handles the wife?”
“It ain’t about handling her,” I informed. “It’s about keeping her where her strength becomes a tactic, not a threat. You move a strong woman wrong, and she becomes a map for other people. You move her right and she becomes a storm you can schedule.”
Whit snorted. “Poetry hour?”