"There isn't any war, Domino, isn't going to be any war. No one wants that."

"I got two dead soldiers and a lifetime supply of road rash says otherwise."

"We know about your boys that got themselves hit. Everyone does. What makes you think Papa Danwe had anything to do with it?"

I looked at my watch and stood up. "You sit there and pull your own cock, Terrence. I'm not going to do it for you. I got better things to do, and you're not really my type."

Terrence held up his hands, maybe in surrender, maybe to show me he wasn't pulling anything. "Sit down, Domino. We all just following orders. You know that."

"That's all you got? Maybe I'm talking to the wrong guy."

"It is what it is. All I know is Papa Danwe don't want a war. The Haitian told me this shit that's going on, it's to stop a war."

"How does any of this stop a war?"

"I don't know that." Terrence looked up from his glass and held my gaze. "Your boss tell you everything he's up to, Domino?"

"So you don't know what any of this is about?"

Terrence shrugged. "If Papa Danwe knew I was sitting down with you at all, I'd be in that mummy box with your boys."

"How does Papa Danwe think this is going to go? All the hard-guy bullshit aside, Terrence, if it comes to war we both know who's going to be left standing."

"Rashan's gotta go, Domino."

I laughed. "Papa Danwe can dream it, but that doesn't make it real. He doesn't have the juice to take down Rashan."

"The way Papa Danwe sees it, it's him or Rashan. I don't know why. I don't know if there is any why. I do know Papa Danwe ain't stupid. This thing goes a whole lot deeper than you or I can see."

"It's not that deep, Terrence. I can see the bottom pretty well. There's a lot of dead bodies down there, and I'm pretty sure one of them is yours." I said it like it made me feel bad, even though it didn't.

"The thing is," Terrence continued, "it's not your outfit that's gotta go. It's the Turk. Papa Danwe don't tell me shit, but he made that clear as day."

I could see where that went, so I didn't say anything.

Terrence locked eyes with me again. "If your outfit had new leadership, there wouldn't be no war. Not now, not ever. Papa Danwe would back the right guy, the right person. He'd back you, Domino."

My first impulse was indignant outrage, but I managed to swallow it. My second impulse was pride, but I put that away, too. My best bet was to play along.

"Let's say someone in my outfit was willing to stage a coup, Terrence. That brings us back to square one. The Haitian can't take down Rashan. Neither can anyone in my outfit. No one has the juice."

"With the right help, you could do it. You can get close. We can give you the opportunity."

"The opportunity?"

Terrence looked like he might be about to say more, but then he just shook his head. "That's all I can say, Domino. Truth be told, I don't know much more than that."

"It isn't much, Terrence. The thing is, it's not just Rashan. If someone did manage to take out the boss, what then? What about the rest of the outfit? You think they're just going to come along?"

"Yeah, Domino, I do. Everybody gets a bump up the ladder. Everybody gets a promotion. Anything else-what's done is done."

As much as I hated to admit it, Terrence was probably right. There was loyalty in the outfit, of a sort, but it only went so far. If you had the juice to make room for yourself at the top, the rank and file would fall in line. Everybody loves a winner.

I shook my head. "Jesus, Terrence. I'm not sure what to do with this. What would you do if you were in my shoes?" I gave him plenty of rope and even wrapped it around his neck for him.

"I'd take my shot, Domino. Didn't no one ever promise you'd ever get one. If you do, you take it."

I nodded. "I'm glad you said that, Terrence. You say Rashan's got to go. I say the Haitian's gotta go, too."

Terrence's eyes got a little wider than they usually were, but the rest of his face remained impassive. He stared at me a long time. If we didn't both have wards up, I'd have thought he was trying to get in my head. Finally he nodded.

"That might work. Like I said, no one wants a war. Maybe if you're a boss you think you can stay alive just by being the last nigger to die. I never signed up to take Papa Danwe's bullet."

Mob rules-Terrence and I were both working from the same playbook. We couldn't trust each other, not really, but at least we had a common ground to work from. "So what happens next?"

"I'll try to keep my boys on our side of the line. You do the same. We buy time. Events have been put in motion, Domino. We can't change what we can't change. But we can make sure South Central doesn't blow up, at least for a while."

By that, I took Terrence to mean more of my guys were going to get squeezed. That might have pissed me off, but I believed him when he said he didn't know why Papa Danwe was doing it. It was pretty clear he hadn't been briefed on the whole plan. If I had to guess, I'd have said he didn't know much more than I did. If he didn't know what was going on, there probably wasn't much he could do about it. But if I got him to stall for me, slow things down where he could, it had been a pretty successful meeting.

"That's a start, but we also need to share information. We either trust each other in this or we don't. As a good-faith gesture, I can tell you that the Russians and the Koreans have lined up with us. If your boys decide to step across the line, they're going to find themselves surrounded." It was a pretty harmless piece of information to give up. Terrence probably already knew about it. And really, it was more a threat than a good-faith gesture.

Terrence wasn't impressed. "Papa Danwe told me it would go that way. He didn't seem too worried about it."

I shrugged. "I'm just bringing you up to speed, Terrence. Maybe you can do the same for me?"

Terrence looked at me a while, but his expression didn't change. "What else you want to know?"

"Well, how about Jamal? I know he was hanging out at the Cannibal Club. I know you do, too-though I got to say, I'm not sure how you can tolerate the fucking place. What was your interest in the kid?"

"Ain't never been to the Cannibal Club. Didn't know your dead tagger. Don't know what Papa Danwe wanted with him."

"I know you were at the club, Terrence. I've got a reliable witness puts you there."

"Not so reliable, I guess, 'cause I never been there, like I told you."

I searched his face and body language for signs of deceit, but Terrence might as well have been carved from stone. When a good liar decides to lie to you, there's not a whole lot you can do about it-not without using some juice on him. Still, I knew he was lying and he knew I knew he was lying, so maybe I could figure out from that why he was lying to me anyway. Maybe not. I decided to skip it.

"Okay, you were never at the club, but the vampire was. I know he's in this-I can put him at one of the scenes. Why does Papa Danwe need a fucking vampire?"

One of Terrence's eyes twitched a little. Then he shrugged, lifting his wide shoulders and letting them fall. "The vampire is in it, but he don't work for Papa Danwe."

"What does that mean? The vampire is an independent? What's his interest in this?"

Terrence shrugged again. "Never met the cat, myself."

"Or maybe you're saying the vampire is working for someone else? Is there another player?"

"Maybe. I think I said Papa Danwe ain't stupid."

"Who is it, Terrence?" I knew he wouldn't tell me even if he knew, and I got the feeling he didn't.

"It's a dangerous world we living in, Domino. Everyone's got to have friends. You got the Russians and the Koreans. I guess Papa Danwe got someone behind him, too."

It wasn't any kind of answer. Even with another outfit behind him, the Haitian wouldn't have the juice to take down Rashan. And even if he did, he wouldn't be likely to survive the war and enjoy the fruits of victory. But it certainly made things more complicated-assuming Terrence wasn't making all this up as he went along.