Джеймс Паттерсон: Hawk

Duels happened pretty often, but not all in the same territory. They were exciting as hell—if you didn’t care that one of your friends might be about to die.

“Do you have to?” I asked.

He nodded, looking unhappy. Suddenly he looked into my eyes and took my hand. “Hawk, I wish—”

“Duel!” someone shouted, and instantly the crowd picked up the chant, making it impossible for either Pietro or the Chung prince to back down now. I saw one of Giacomo’s henchmen edging out of the crowd, standing in the street with his arms folded. Likewise, one of the Chung henchmen stood on the opposite side of the street, the gold symbol of the Chung clan embroidered on his blue silk jogging suit.

Pietro dropped my hand and walked to the middle of the street.

There were rules about duels, even if there weren’t many rules about anything else. 1) Whoever called the duel shot second. 2) They had to use single-fire handguns. 3) They had to bring a second, someone who would carry their body home if they died. 4) It had to be a public place, with plenty of witnesses.

So here they were. I was one of the plenty of witnesses. My stomach twisted and my mouth was suddenly dry. I was about to watch Pietro get a bullet in the head.

We hadn’t been close in years, but he’d been my best friend for a while. We’d played “hide from the plague people” together. We’d played “behind enemy lines” and “lava floor.” We’d practiced stealing from street markets together. Together we had collected trash and sorted it and sold it to the trash peddlers. And here I was about to watch him catch a bullet just because that’s how things were done in the City of the Dead when you were a prince of the Paters, a One.

I wanted to tell him it didn’t have to be this way, but there were too many people and the chant had begun to die down, the crowd aware that they were going to get what they wanted. If I stood in the way of that, I’d risk being hurt myself. I stepped to the side, giving Pietro a nod for good luck.

“Begin!” shouted Pietro’s second.

Pietro and the Chung prince stood back-to-back. Pietro was trembling slightly, so slightly that probably no one saw it but me. His face was set, his mouth pressed into a firm line.

“Count off!” the Chung second yelled.

“One!” “Two!” “Three!” The boys counted their paces as they walked away from each other, taking big steps.

The streetlamps came on, casting a sickening orange glow over all of us. Pietro looked even worse in the light, his skin a harsh color as he paced off with the shouts. I was starting to get mad. This was so freaking stupid! This was just gangs flexing their muscles! Was Giacomo really willing to sacrifice his son over a couple blocks of territory? There was no way a Chung would deliberately miss a Pater! I pictured myself storming up to Pietro’s big house and yelling at Giacomo.

Then I pictured one of their soldiers throwing my body over the wall into the city dump, Ridley soaring over my body for days as she waited for me to get up. I swallowed hard, my fists clenched.

The two princes pivoted and faced each other.

“I’m glad they pick each other off every so often,” a woman next to me said. In general I agreed with her—the fewer gangsters, the better. But this was Pietro, and whatever he was destined to become in his family, there’d been a time when he was a fun, good-natured kid.

The Chung prince raised his gun, pointing it directly at Pietro. Pietro wasn’t that far away; it was a shot I could make easily. Laser aimers weren’t allowed, of course. Maybe the Chung prince had bad eyesight? No—he would have had it fixed by now. They had that kind of money, and as much as the princes were used to settle their fathers’ scores, they’d want to make sure they had every possible edge.

Pietro stood without flinching, even as the Chung prince fired. Then he jerked to one side, his hand clapped against his head. I almost screamed his name but covered my mouth.

He was still standing. Dark red blood ran through his fingers and splattered on the street. Slowly he straightened, shook the blood off his hand, and wiped it on his maroon Pater uniform.

Please don’t kill him, I thought, as if my thoughts could influence Pietro. Please don’t kill the Chung dude. Don’t become the killer your dad wants you to be. Just injure him a little, like he did you, and you’ll both save face. Please.

Pietro raised his gun. I held my breath. The Chung prince’s chest heaved as he tried to control his breathing. His arm hung limply at his side, the gun shaking in his grip as he waited for a bullet. Running would be a disgrace, and so he stood, waiting to die.

Please, I thought.

Pietro fired. The Chung prince whipped backward as the bullet struck his arm. The crowd was so still that we could all heard the clink of the bullet as it hit the wall behind him. Someone cheered, and then we all cheered. Pietro had shot the Chung prince in the arm; the bullet had gone cleanly through. It would be an easy recovery.

Beaming, I yelled Pietro’s name. I saw the Pater henchman spit on the ground in disgust. I guessed Giacomo wouldn’t be too happy, but I was proud of Pietro for making his own decision. The Chung henchman was walking toward his prince. The Pater henchman left Pietro’s side and also walked toward the Chung prince. Before anyone could react, he grabbed the Chung prince with big, meaty hands, and snapped his head around. We all heard the loud crack of bones breaking, saw the light leave his dark eyes, saw him crumple to the ground, dead. He was still smiling from relief at living through the duel. Several of the Chung footmen started toward the Pater goon, but the Chung henchman stopped them.

“It is over!” he said, but he was obviously furious at the Pater killer.

I stopped in my tracks, my own smile disappearing. The crowd cheered even louder. A duel was one thing; a flat-out murder another. This was enough excitement for days.

Pietro looked at me, saw my expression. “I didn’t do that! I didn’t want that to happen!” he yelled.

I turned and walked away, disgusted with all of the Six. He might not have wanted the prince dead, but he had still been a part of this. Everyone in the Six families was as bad as the rest, including Pietro. He was a full-blooded Pater now.

CHAPTER 6

Okay, the show was over. Time to get home. As I walked past a vegetable stand, the woman threw a bunch of rejects into the gutter. Me and a bunch of Opes fell on them, and I snagged some sprouting carrots and a plastic bag of not quite rotten apples. I put them in my backpack. The sooner I was away from this street—this corner—the better. Obviously my parents hadn’t come. They were either dead or had long forgotten me. This was the last day I would waste like this.

Hearing footsteps behind me, I glanced over my shoulder and groaned quietly to myself. I was being followed.

I sped up a bit—enough excitement already—but a sneaky look back showed me that it was two men, strangers. Great.

I knew this city. I’d been exploring it since I was five years old. I knew every abandoned building in the City of the Dead, every sewer, every tunnel, every escape route. And the closest one was four blocks away. I sped up more, now able to hear the men’s eager mutterings. I could stay and fight, of course, but I just wanted to get home. Plus, I’d been collecting food all day and now had about twenty pounds of nutrition in my backpack. I was just tired of this shit. Girls out on their own faced a different kind of danger than boys, and trying to explain I was just getting food for my kids wouldn’t earn me any mercy.

I crossed the next street fast, dodging through the pedicabs, occasional cars, trucks, and bicycles and getting honked at, yelled at, sworn at, and flipped off. I gained twenty yards. I needed to turn at the end of this block, but they were trotting now.