by Darrell King
I could go on and on about the nigga’s house. I
mean it was like that! Of course it was paid for. Tate told me it cost him over $888,000. I smiled, ‘cause I know for damn sure he didn’t buy it off his petty ass policeman’s salary, captain or not. Dude had five cars: a Rolls Royce, a Mazarati, a 1957 Chevy Bel Air and a Coupe de Ville. His wife, a Columbian born sex kitten herself, owned three. A Cadillac, in fact two Cadillacs, and a most lovely Mercedes Benz. Anna Marie Tate didn’t work. She didn’t have to. None of, or should I say very few, wives, mistresses, or girlfriends of the rich and infamous have to work for a living to help support their families. The female companions of Bel Air’s playboys, highrollers, crime kingpins, loan sharks and hitmen for hire did little more than satisfy their sugardaddies sexually and look gorgeous at ritzy social gatherings.
Tate had four children – three girls and one brat ass little boy. Melissa, age seventeen, Karen age twelve, Seneca age ten and Jeremy age three. Melissa and her two little sisters were all very attractive. They all had large, dark, almond-shaped eyes and they were tan colored, and lovely smiles with pretty white teeth. Hair draped down their backs in beautiful chocolatebrown ringlets. Melissa was one fine ass hoochie. I was totally captivated by her well-stacked physique. Her sultry curvature put most females twice her age to shame and caused the knees of any man to become weak. She definitely got it honest. Her mother was built like a brick shit house – I mean goddamn! Anna Marie could give a dead man a hard-on. I was determined to get into Melissa’s drawers.
Every weekend I got special privileges to step outside the slammer. That’s when Tate would send us on drug runs all throughout Bel Air, Beverly Hills and Hollywood. No more ghetto dealing and ducking cops or dodging drive-by hits. Again, as with Todd Pulaski back in the day, I was pushing dope to rich niggas and even richer whiteys. Afterwards, me and a couple of the notorious “Attitude Adjusters” would all meet at Tate’s mansion and count the money which always ranged in the thousands. Tate would divvy up out cuts and after a few drinks and a few lines of coke he’d dismiss us so that he could talk business with members of Sergio “Big Daddy” Mendez’s crime syndicate from Seattle. These were the real live gangsters. The Big Dogs – I’m talking muthafuckas who owned entire stretches of South American countryside, which yielded millions of dollars worth of cocaine producing plants.
And even their national figureheads and important government officials in total check. The muthafuckin’ ultimate wiseguys!! – who dominated everything and everyone. I mean who the hell could or would dare oppose people with that much money and power? Answer: no fuckin’ body! Now that was my strongest desire, to eventually form and run my own syndicate. Hell, I figured with my intelligence, personality and bigtime connections that by age eighteen I’d be a Top Dog in the glamorous yet deadly world of drug trafficking.
No one enters this trade for a brief payoff. Money automatically changes your mind about getting out and going solely back to your old treadmill, nine to five job. I’ve heard guys say, “I’m just gonna hustle for a minute, get paid, then get the fuck out.” But it’s just not that simple, young brother. After you start making more loot in one afternoon than you brought home all month on your legit job, you become obsessed. You enjoy driving the most expensive vehicles money can buy. You relish purchasing the finest clothing, jewelry, homes, and other materials wants that only the most influential citizens can afford.
You begin dining in the most costliest restaurants and satisfying your palate with culinary delights in which John Q. Public can but only dream about. Your presence is such that wherever you travel people know and respect you. You’re like a deity to those who realize that they lack the balls and/or the resources to ever get what you’ve got. No one fucks with you, ‘cause they know damn well that you and your homies can and will peel back the caps of any fool hardy enough to oppose you. And when you work for the city’s police chief, who in turn runs shit for the most widely-known and feared mafia kingpin on the Pacific coast, who in their right mind is gonna cross you?
You begin to think that you’re untouchable. You become the epitome of outright arrogance and conceit. You talk shit constantly, daring somebody to respond back. You piss off and buy off people in high positions such as doctors, lawyers, cops, politicians, and lesser drug runners. You are guaranteed a wide variety of gorgeous and elegant females of all age categories and nationalities. You never again struggle with those who worry month after month after wearisome month about paying the rent or mortgage, car notes, or any other bill of any kind. You’ve graduated. You’ve now risen above the average everyday citizen. You’re the one that society both loathes and at the same time envies. You are the player, the pimp, the pusher, the gangster. In short “The Man.”
They write books and produce movies about you. Your vicious world keeps entire cities nationwide locked in a grip of terror. Because of your profession, drug-rehab centers are overrun. Morticians get wealthier by the month. But it’s the dark side of what you do that’ll turn a softie’s blood to Kool-Aid. Even though you may be all that and down with pretty powerful folks, don’t mean a thang when you live in a world that doesn’t have any regard for human life. During any given second, minute, hour, day, month or year, you yourself could get your brains blown out by rivals, or depending on the price on your head, even so-called partners.
You could end up on some cold table in the autopsy room of a city morgue with a tag on your toe. You will many times have to ice niggas’ trying to usurp your turf, compete with you or just plain look suspicious. Can’t be too careful in the drug game. The more money you rake in, the higher the stakes are concerning life, yours as well as others. You trust no one totally, except yourself. And don’t ever get so fucked up off drugs, or strung out over a bitch, or trusting of a homeboy that you put your guards down. It could and most likely will nine times outta ten cost you your life. And you hang out and do business with guys that will off an entire family over a drug deal gone bad or overdue cash owed them, and won’t think twice about it.
You, your mother, your father, your sister, your brother, your wife, your kids, it doesn’t matter. No one is immune to street justice; I mean absolutely no one. If you could handle and balance the heavy scales of the underworld then you could survive and perhaps maybe even make it out alive to talk about it one day to some fool who doesn’t know the deal. Not just anyone can be called a gangster or a player. There are titles that one must earn through sharp survival instincts, nerves of steel, unequaled knowledge of the streets and an icecold personality. With these qualities, anyone would be able to go straight to the top, which like a stated earlier, I was determined to do.
During the summer of ’80, I was spending more and more time on the streets bringing in profit for Captain Tate than I did behind bars. I even had the privilege of being introduced to members of SCORPIO, the organization of criminals funded and owned by the “Big Daddy” and directed by Captain Lawrence Tate: LAPD. They were mostly Colombians with a few American-born countrymen accompanying them down from the Pacific Northwest. They usually numbered between ten or twelve individuals – well-dressed in all black Italian-tailored suits and black silk ties with a red scorpion stitched in the middle. They looked like secret service personnel. They all wore dark sunglasses and came to Bel Air by limousine or either helicopter.
I remembered once these cats came by luxury liner, more than a hundred or more, and Tate and a few dozen undercover cops drove down to San Diego or either Oceanside to meet them. Most of the SCORPIO crew spoke very little English, so of course Mendez usually sent an interpreter or two. Most of the Colombians looked alike to me but eventually I learned to distinguish the difference among them.
The interpreter was a gorgeous raven-haired vixen named Valencia Milano. She was the most beautiful woman that I ever laid eyes on in my entire life. She was the only member of the SCORPIO that was not a Columbian. She was born a Brazilian from Rio de Janeiro. She stood at least six feet tall, and was
built solidly and athletically from head to toe. Her body was a feminine masterpiece. I’m sure it stayed that was because Valencia worked out with weights twice a day and swam more than thirty laps every morning at sunrise. Her exercise regimen would put a Marine Corp drill sergeant to rest. She was as dark as a coffee bean, and as lovely as a tropical night sky. She and I hit it off instantly.
And since she had attended and graduated from
St. John’s University, she too had once lived in the Big Apple. So, there was much we were familiar with and could talk about. She was only twenty-six years old, but she owned a villa, two hundred and fifty acres of land in Peru, plus a chinchilla farm and a herd of llamas. She told me that she had gotten her degree in criminal psychology… ironic, huh? We’d talk for hours whenever we’d get a chance to. I’d never met any one as beautiful or that was equally intelligent as was Valencia Milano. A skilled sharpshooter, she would amaze Tate by outscoring even his most skilled S.W.A.T. marksman on the firing range. And so proficient was she in the area of knife throwing that she could carry out a big time mob hit simply with the use of a common switchblade.
I remember once when we went into the ghetto areas of Oakland to pick up a shipment of smuggled military weapons from China. We drove over to an abandoned warehouse where a few dudes loaded and unloaded crates from off the back of a large truck. I stayed in the car as Valencia took the briefcase full of cash from the back of the Jaguar and slipped a small blade into the strap of her high-heeled boots. She made her way toward the loading dock where she was greeted noisily by a racket of wolf whistles, catcalls, and lust-filled eyes which followed her every sexy step up the loading dock stairs.
Undressing her all the way, as she stepped onto the loading deck, she proceeded past a group of wideeyed laborers which shuffled aside to make way for Valencia’s majestic stroll. At the very end of the docking area stood a short, squat white man with a beer belly and a dirty gray mustache and beard. Valencia approached the white man and opened the briefcase up, displaying rows and rows of hundred dollar bills; each wad of bills stacked on top of the other in neat piles.
The fat dude stared inside the briefcase, while steadily shifting a stubby cigar from side to side in his mouth. He produced a small calculator from his back pocket. Before he could begin calculating on it Valencia flashed him an evil look and assured him that the amount previously discussed was now present before him. The fat man lifted his derby, scratched his balding dome and with a shrug of his shoulders began to reach for the briefcase. Delicate but strong hands gripped the bearded man’s fleshy wrist before a single fat finger could touch the leather of the briefcase.
“Hell no,” Valencia snarled, “don’t even think about touching the cash unless you exchange the hardware first.”
“Alright! Already! Just fuckin’ let go a my fuckin’ wrist, ya black bitch!” hollered the overweight redneck, trying desperately to loosen Valencia’s painful grip upon his wrist. Why did he say that? Valencia’s countenance transformed into one of overwhelming rage at the racist and misogynistic remark of the suffering bigot whom she held at her mercy. She at once applied even more pressure on the white man’s wrist, causing the corpulent punk to drop to his knees in agony. Valencia closed the briefcase and gently sat it down beside her. Then quickly she plucked the switchblade from her boot and squeezed open the wicked looking point near the dock foreman’s throat.
“I’m not your bitch, you hear me, you fat, disgusting, smelly, lowdown piece of white trash. Your mother’s the only bitch that you know of. You dig?!” snapped Valencia, bending near the poor fool’s ear, all the while releasing his wrist and slamming him hard into the concrete by his hair, pressing the blade closer to his adam’s apple. The fat old man’s eyes widened with terror. The cigar dropped from the corner of his quivering mouth as he pathetically apologized for his unkind and equally unwise words. The entire group of workmen mostly minorities themselves, blacks and Mexicans, had since assembled around the area at the start of the incident and stood in silent admiration at the brazenness and outright fearlessness of the amply endowed Brazilian bombshell.
Obviously pleased at the discomfort of the shellshocked foreman, Valencia slowly released her grasp of what little hair he had and stepped gingerly across his outstretched flabby form.
“I’m ready to do business now sir if you are. But make it snappy. I’m a very busy woman and I sure as hell don’t have time to waste on the likes of you. Bring me the weapons my organization requested of you this instant, and I and my young amigo shall be on our way.”
The foreman got up slowly off the concrete floor, picked up his derby, slapped it across his thigh several times, placed it upon his head and waddled toward the office far in the back of the dock. He emerged less than five minutes later with an oblong crate supported by a handcart which he wheeled out before Valencia and took it off in front of her. He kneeled and opened the long lid of the crate. There inside were packed several dozen semi-automatic handguns, along with quite a few military assault rifles. A smaller box within contained clips and ammunition.
Valencia smiled with satisfaction and nodded toward me to come and assist her with the crate. I quickly exited the Jaguar and bolted across the work yard and unto the dock. I and a burly Mexican dude hoisted the crate into the handcart and made our way back toward the parked car. As Valencia turned to leave, she joked and laughed with the dock workers, who followed her like a bunch of love sick teenagers.
That’s when the foreman became pissed and yelled at everyone to get the fuck back to work. As the workers slowly turned to walk back on the loading dock mumbling angrily to themselves, Valencia blurted out in the direction of the fat foreman, “Oh shut the fuck up! You fat slob. This isn’t slavery, and you aren’t a slave driver. Listen up fellas. Take the rest of the day off with pay! It’s on me,” Valencia shouted, producing a roll of Ben Franklin’s so huge that she could barely hold it in one hand. All the laborers cheered and rushed over toward the gate where the beautiful ebony goddess stood. The foreman’s face flushed red and he reached inside his pants producing a small Saturday Night Special and leveling it in Valencia’s direction.
Shots rang out, and Valencia spryly and acrobatically back flipped onto some crates piled up nearby. Two workmen fell, clutching their gunshot wounds and screaming out in pain. Almost immediately did Valencia withdrew, opened and slung her blade in the direction of the foreman who unfortunately for him, caught the airborne weapon slicing into his windpipe. His eyes rolled up into their sockets and blood gurgled within his throat before gushing from his nostrils as well, before his fingers relaxed their grip on the handgun which dropped harmlessly to the floor. The foreman’s heavyset frame came crashing to the work yard from on top of the loading dock with a sickening plop. The workers stood in astonishment as Valencia nonchalantly passed out several hundred-dollar bills, and called the Oakland Emergency Unit for the two wounded workers.
“We’ll see you gentlemen later. Enjoy the weekend and, oh yes, please do inform your employers that SCORPIO cannot nor will not do business with the likes of such a nonprofessional again. Do you all clearly understand me?” Valencia asked, pointing at the body of the foreman now jerking rapidly in the throes of death. The workers could do little but look on at the corpse that was once their foreman, whose blood began to puddle beneath his head and creep out under the dock like some crimson serpent, causing an ickylooking pool on the concrete.
We returned home the next day and Tate met us in Inglewood, where we returned to his home in Bel Air. There were several reasons for the group’s chosen name of SCORPIO: the first being that Sergio “Big Daddy” Mendez was born November 9, 1930; he was a Scorpio. Secondly, Big Daddy was an avid follower of astrology and never made any major business moves, whether it involved drugs, banking, the stock market, or even traveling, before first contacting his numerous astrologers. He had astrologers advising him on his health, his state of financial and business affairs, his marriage and extra marital affairs,
and future trends. He had a fuckin’ astrologer to tell him when to even wipe his ass, I guess. The powerful mob boss took that astrology shit dead serious though.
He had every member of his organization dress down in black. Even the cars, helicopters, private jets, vans, motorcycles, boats, almost anything you can name was the color black, the color of the zodiac sign Scorpio. Members wore only the best and costliest threads. Having the astrological symbol or glyph of Scorpio on anything owned by Big Daddy Mendez’s clothes, vehicles, tech. On one side there would be the glyph of Scorpio which resembled an M with an arrow pointing skyward. And on the other would be the symbol of Pluto, the planet which ruled Scorpio. Big Daddy not only idolized the zodiac sign Scorpio and the planet Pluto because they were strong in his own horoscope, but also because according to the area of astrology, Scorpio is the sign of sex, death, and re-birth or regeneration.
Dark forces and/or the occult was associated with Scorpio as well as jealousy and revenge. Pluto being the ancient Roman god of the underworld, ruled the underworld, mob violence, tyrannical leaders, the urge for power and domination, coupled with sexual conquest. Now what other zodiac sign and planet if you were a mafia crime boss and down with astrology would you want representing your very persona?
Bid Daddy even went as far as to promote only those individuals born under water signs (Scorpio, Pisces, Cancer) as his chief hirelings and advisors, with of course sun signs, like Scorpio, his own sun sign, getting the premier positions over anyone else. Examples being, Captain Lawrence Tate – November 6, 1953; Valencia Milano – November 12, 1967; and myself, a Halloween baby and a Scorpio. All those Columbians dibbled and dabbled in the occult. They believed in the power of numbers or numerology, contacted psychics and palm readers, reincarnations etc. My mother taught me to believe in and trust in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and later my stepfather taught me of the power and greatness of Allah. So the only power I trusted in was that of the creator of the heavens and the earth. Although I didn’t at all doubt the credibility of any of the esoteric sciences.