Robyn Amos - Hero At Large

Alise still looked a bit stunned, but Marlena immediately picked up on Rennie’s plea to change the subject. She signaled for the waitress.

“When is your girl Sarita performing, Ren? I’m in the mood to kick up my heels.” Marlena wriggled her shoulders to the music.

Rennie looked at her watch. “She should be taking the stage any minute now.” Sure enough, a few minutes later, the lights dimmed and Sarita was introduced.

The curtain parted, revealing a bandstand in front of a giant sand castle. Red and yellow spotlights swirled, and Sarita ran on stage wearing a short dress in a stunning electric blue. The lights went up, and she began to sing a swinging salsa number. The infectious tempo of the conga drums had Rennie and her friends dancing in their seats. It wasn’t long before Marlena stood, grabbed a guy lounging at the bar and began spinning around the dance floor.

Sarita sang four more songs before the lights dimmed on stage and she disappeared behind the curtain.

Marlena returned to the table, dabbing her forehead gently with a cocktail napkin. “That was fun. Why didn’t you guys come out?”

Alise laughed. “We didn’t feel like being up-staged. Where did you learn those fancy dance steps?”

“My ex-boyfriend taught me to salsa. He was a really boring date until you got him on the dance floor. Too bad he never learned to move his hips like that off the dance floor.” The three women shared another round of raucous laughter.

Rennie nudged Alise so she could slide out of the booth. “I’m going to try to catch up with Sarita backstage. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Gray entered the storage room behind Ocean’s Sand Castle Lounge, where Flex and Los were stacking crates. Despite the years they’d spent apart, Gray knew the guys working with him would take a bullet for him just as quickly now as they would have at sixteen when they’d been running the streets together.

There were five of them left, including Gray, and nothing bonded a group of men together more than knowing each one would die for the other. That’s what being in a gang meant. It was family—bound together by choice rather than genetic obligation. It meant never being alone or on your own.

That simple truth should have made things easier for Gray, but a lot of the time it only made what he had to do more difficult.

“Hey, G.” Los passed with a loaded hand truck, humming the theme song to “The Jeffersons.”

“Hey. I tried to break away in time to help you guys unload the truck, but I got tied up working the door.” Gray walked over to the closest shipment. “Kalashnikovs?”

“Yep, sixty crates,” Flex answered, stacking the last one.

Gray rubbed his hands together. “Let’s have a look.”

Los handed him a crowbar, and Gray brushed away the packing material to inspect the gun.

Flex leaned forward, issuing a low whistle. “Man, that is tight. When you gonna hook me up with one of those?”

Gray’s laugh had an icy edge. “We don’t deal on the front lines anymore. Don’t think street thug, think businessman. Trust me, if you find yourself in need of this kind of hardware on the regular, you’re doing something wrong.”

“Yeah.” Los smacked Flex in the back of the head.

Flex shrugged. “Hell, I just thought I might, you know, start a collection or something.”

Gray opened a few more crates and did a quick count to make sure all the guns were accounted for. The client for this particular shipment wasn’t one of the heavy hitters, but Gray had built a reputation for providing reliable service, and these small-time deals were starting to lead them to the big ones.

The biggest problem Gray had faced in the last few months was convincing his boys to look at the big picture. When he’d rolled into town, they were still committing petty crimes with quick payoffs they could blow through in less than a day. Most of them didn’t have the patience for the kind of jobs that would bring in real money.

Their world hadn’t changed much while he’d been gone. Success was still measured more by what you owned than by how you lived. In the neighborhood they had all grown up in, the trick had been to live hard and collect as many toys as possible because no one expected to live long.

Life had a different value on their side of town. A good pair of athletic shoes was worth more than a kid’s life. For teenagers, even light conversation was heavy. Instead of talking about which couples were hooking up or breaking up, they talked about who’d been shot lately. Instead of fantasizing about the kinds of jobs they would get or the houses they would buy, they picked out the music for their funerals and the types of caskets they wanted.

How, Gray wondered, was anyone supposed to have hope for the future? For them, a better life just didn’t exist.

This was it. The only way out of the ghetto was drugs and guns. So why not do it right? No more petty thieving. No more quick payoffs. Why not hold out for the big score? They knew how to get the money, but it took a lot of planning and patience.

The transition from street thug to businessman had been easiest for Los, who looked more like a fashion model than a common thug, anyway. He was willing to do anything that would bring in enough loot to keep him in designer clothes, trendy cars and materialistic women.

Franco, Los’s younger brother, who was tending bar in the VIP lounge, wasn’t much of a problem, either. He did whatever his older brother told him to do, but Woody and Flex were another matter.

Woody had gotten his leg shot off in a drive-by when he was eighteen. Even though his prosthesis wasn’t really made of wood, no one could resist the nickname. He hadn’t been too keen on the idea of checking ID and collecting cover charges at the door. He and Flex still didn’t understand why they had to do real work at the club in addition to their private endeavors. But their positions at Ocean were crucial to the operation.

As long as they got their work done and made regular contributions, Ocean’s manager, Paul Nocchio, didn’t care what other business the men conducted on the side. It hadn’t taken Gray long to make connections with local arms dealers and begin to funnel business through the club. With just a few deals, he’d been able to start swimming with the big fish.

Now he planned to catch himself a shark.

Sarita leaned over and gave Rennie a hug. “Thank you so much for coming, chica.”

Rennie squeezed her in return. “Thanks for the invitation. We’re having a great time. Are you doing another set tonight?”

Sarita nodded. “One more at ten-thirty. Then I’m going home to get some sleep. I was so keyed up about this performance that I didn’t sleep at all last night.”

“Then I’ll let you get ready,” Rennie said, backing toward the door. “I’ll see you at our group session tomorrow evening?”

“You bet.” Sarita walked her to the door. “Do you know how to get out? This place can be confusing, and all the doors backstage look the same. Make sure you leave through the second door. Otherwise, you’ll end up in the storage room.”

Rennie stepped into the hallway, feeling a rush of pride for Sarita. She’d come such a long way in just nine months. When Rennie met her, Sarita had been dancing in a run-down strip bar trying to pay for her sister’s hospital bills after the younger girl had her face slashed by an all-girl gang. It had taken Rennie months to get Sarita to trust her.

Now Sarita was going to nursing school, working part-time at the hospital, and she’d even met someone special. Her new boyfriend, who worked as a bouncer at Ocean, had helped Sarita get this singing gig. Rennie smiled. She was really beginning to feel like she’d made a difference in the young woman’s life.