Alan, the Champion — Chapter 5 — The Top of the Hill
The same day he got out, they took Alan to the top of the Hill. His career begins.
Before he was King, he was cannon fodder, a convict, a killer. At thirteen, he ran grown men.
They took me to the top of the Hill the same day I got out.
It was a three-hour climb. First by car, as far as a car goes. Then by motorcycle, as far as a bike goes. Then on foot, up a concrete staircase that changes shape with every new slab somebody builds on top.
Up there is another world. On one side of the rooftop, all of Marélia — the lower part, the asphalt, the buildings, the cars stuck in six o'clock traffic. On the other side, a steel door with two guys who already knew my name before I said it.
That's where the council sits. Four or five people the street never sees and never will. They don't walk around armed. They don't have to. Each one of them has a whole neighborhood that walks around armed for them.
The oldest one shook my hand.
— The three-year plan was good. — He spoke slow, measuring. — The reformatory turned into a labor farm because of one kid. That doesn't happen by accident.
I was ten years old and a sixty-year-old man was treating me as an equal. I kept that feeling. It's useful — it reminds you respect has nothing to do with age, it has to do with results.
Then I opened the notebook.
The plan was simple. Every plan worth a damn is simple; the complicated ones are made by people trying to look smart in a room.
The Banca always thought of turf like a wall. Either it's mine or it's the neighbor's. I showed them turf is stitching. Every neighborhood has an edge where control is weak — a street nobody wants, an alley that opens on both sides, a spot that doesn't make enough for anybody to fight over it.