With the decision made, Zach contacted Allen the following morning using the number he had left.
They talked it through on the phone and agreed to meet at Allen’s base the next day to work through the specifics of what came next.
That evening, John Leighton had his usual conversation with Charlize Theron on the balcony.
She had been invited to appear in a film, a small role, but she had accepted and was leaving for Chicago the following day.
John Leighton smiled when he heard that.
He remembered, from everything he carried from his previous life, that 1995 was the year she made her first real appearance on the big screen and began the path that would eventually make her one of the most recognised names in Hollywood.
The trajectory was right on schedule.
He offered his congratulations and told her they would have to see the film together when it came out, so he could properly witness her debut.
She laughed, and the evening ended the way their evenings had been ending, warmly and later than either of them intended.
The friendship between them had developed quickly and naturally.
Charlize had, somewhere along the way, stopped thinking of John Leighton as a teenager and started talking to him the way she might talk to someone her own age or older.
She asked his opinion on things.
He gave it.
Somewhere in the dynamic he had quietly become the older sibling figure, which was not entirely inaccurate given the accumulated weight of the life he actually carried inside him.
Before sleeping, he allowed himself a moment of honest reflection on the situation and concluded that the road ahead was long.
…
The next morning John Leighton was up unusually early, finishing his cultivation session by nine, and sat down for breakfast with Zach.
They were going to Allen’s place this morning.
The Black Python Gang’s base of operations in the southern districts.
After eating, Zach came out of his room in a suit and tie, carrying a briefcase, moving with the focused energy of a man who had decided to take something seriously.
John Leighton looked at him and thought, this is what a real lawyer looks like when he shows up to work.
They got into Zach’s old pickup truck and headed south.
…
The urban area of Los Angeles was sprawling but its actual city population sat somewhere between two and three million, which felt modest for a place with its reputation.
The greater metropolitan area was a different matter entirely, over ten million people spread across a vast network of districts and municipalities, second only to New York in scale.
The geography of the city had its own logic.
The western and northern parts were where the money lived.
Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Malibu, the places the world associated with Los Angeles at its most glamorous.
The eastern and southern districts told a different story.
That was where the slums were, where people like Allen Francis had built their informal kingdoms, and where Zach had quietly spent years doing free legal work for people who could not afford to pay him.
After about twenty minutes of driving and enough turns that John Leighton had lost track of their route entirely, they pulled up near an outdoor sports field somewhere in the eastern districts.
Inside the field, children and teenagers were playing basketball and football, the ordinary sounds of an ordinary afternoon.
Along the edges stood clusters of young men, most of them tattooed, wearing large gold chains, hair shaved or in dreadlocks, eyes moving around with the casual alertness of people who had learned to watch their surroundings. The source of this chapter is NovelPing.
Mostly Mexican-American and African-American, with occasional Asian-American faces in the mix.
The general impression was of a place that operated by its own rules and was not particularly interested in outside opinions about that.
As John Leighton and Zach stepped out of the truck, Allen came striding out of a two-story building nearby with the enthusiasm of a man who had been waiting for this moment.
The structure behind him covered a substantial footprint, each floor roughly five to six meters high, the exterior worn in the way of a building that had been through things.
The people loitering outside shifted slightly as Allen moved toward them, confirming he had been told of their arrival well in advance.
…
“Zach, my friend.
Thank you for coming.” Allen spread his arms.
Zach walked into the embrace with reasonable grace.
John Leighton stepped smoothly to one side and let Zach handle it.
“And our young John.”
“Allen.
Is this your base?” John Leighton said, nodding toward the building.
“Boy, you are genuinely not what anyone expects from a teenager.”
Allen shook his head, still smiling, and led them both toward the entrance.
…
Inside, the contrast with the exterior was immediate.
The building was in considerably better condition than it looked from outside.
The ground floor was a gym.
Real equipment, serious quantity, and serious users.
The men working out had the kind of build that came from years of deliberate physical development.
Broad chests, defined muscle, the unhurried focus of people for whom physical capability was a professional requirement.
Here and there among them were women with figures that stopped the eye, moving through the space with comfortable authority.
John Leighton, who had been technically celibate for the entirety of his fifteen years in this life, processed the scene and moved on with some effort.
Allen led them upstairs to the second floor, which had the feel of an actual working space.
Still unconventional in atmosphere, but organised.
People sat at desks.
Documents were visible.
It was not what the ground floor had suggested.
…
“Duke.
Charlie. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
Come in.” Allen called to two men across the floor.
One was clearly of Asian descent, middle-aged, composed in his bearing.
The other was white, which made him conspicuous in this particular building in this particular part of the city.
Both of them crossed the floor and the group of five went into a conference room.
“Duke George, Charlie Sun.
These are my partners.
Zach, lawyer.
And his associate.” Allen handled the introductions.
When he got to John Leighton he paused briefly and settled on associate, which was a reasonable enough description under the circumstances.
The meeting that followed was conducted largely between Allen, Duke, Charlie, and Zach.
John Leighton sat to the side and listened.
The core problem was straightforward.
Allen and most of the senior Black Python Gang members had criminal records.
That made the process of establishing legitimate businesses significantly more complicated.
Duke and Charlie were the exceptions, both clean backgrounds, both with relevant education.
Duke had studied management, Charlie finance.
They were the faces any official business structure would need to put forward.
The proposals on the table covered three main areas.
First, an entertainment company built around existing venues, primarily the nightclub side of what the gang already operated, but restructured as a legitimate business.
Second, a fitness club, though the challenge of attracting regular paying customers to a gym located in and staffed by a gang’s network was one that did not resolve itself simply by changing the paperwork.
Third, and most interesting to John Leighton, a security company.
The complication there was significant.
Building a credible security operation in America was considerably easier with military backgrounds in the founding team, and Allen’s group was not going to be presenting that kind of profile to anyone.
These were real problems, and Zach was the right person to work through them.
John Leighton had no particular contribution to make to the legal and structural mechanics of company formation.
He told Allen he was going to look around, asked for someone to show him the building, and stepped out of the conference room.
…
A few minutes later, following Allen’s instruction relayed through the door, a tall young man with a buzz cut and brown skin appeared in the corridor.
Broad through the shoulders, unhurried in his manner.
He said Boss Allen had sent him to give the tour.
John Leighton nodded and fell into step beside him.