Mirror Image

by Ice-T

  Mick downed the rest of his drink and got up. Casey could tell by his face that he was good. “I’m done feeling sorry ’bout this shit. I warned her about this cat from the onset. He had his shot and he blew it. I just wanted to come over here and let you know shit was handled and that I appreciate you savin’ this nigga’s ass from the joint.”

  “Well, that’s how us OGs get down, right?”

  “Indeed.”

  Mick gave Casey a dap and walked out the door to the elevator. Before the door closed, Casey held it open. “Let’s keep shit on the DL for a couple days, there’s gonna be a lotta eyes on you. I’ll have Shin swing by in a day or two to check up.”

  “Yeah, I agree. Thanks again, brotha.”

  “Ain’t no thang.” The doors shut and Casey walked back to his apartment and shut the door. He knew Mick was good, and ultimately would be fine. He was also glad he hadn’t been the one to take JJ out; he already had enough blood on his hands for a lifetime, and didn’t need any more.

  He wondered how Carla would feel about that, and was immensely glad he wouldn’t have to find out.

  13

  In the sleepy haze of the early morning, Casey woke up to the faint sound of traffic outside and Carla lying next to him. He vaguely remembered her coming in the previous night, and was glad she had. He moved close to her and enjoyed the feel of her soft body as she spooned close to him. They lay like that for a while, tangled together and half-awake.

  As the sun broke through the curtains, Carla rolled her naked body over and lay on her back, eyes closed, with the long, wild curls of her hair framing her face. She could have easily passed for a woman in her late twenties. Likewise, there were few people that would believe that she had a twenty-year-old daughter. Casey remembered her telling him the story of being pregnant at sixteen.

  That fateful morning started out great: When she got to school, she had been immediately called to the principal’s office. Rather than his usual emotionless face, he was curiously all smiles that day. She walked into his cramped office that always reeked of stale cigarettes, but even more so today, and saw her math teacher, guidance counselor, and some guy with a camera all staring at her. They were all cheesed up. The principal told her that she had won the statewide math challenge. At first she didn’t understand, but then remembered taking a test a few months earlier. Carla had always dreamed of being an engineer, and this award was one step closer to realizing it. Her chances of getting a scholarship had now increased dramatically. She knew her mother would be ecstatic. Everyone in the room clapped and smiled and told her she had done them proud. Her prize was a certificate and her picture in the paper alongside a tiny announcement.

  After school, she went to a friend’s house to celebrate, but got violently sick on the way. She told her friend that she had been super sensitive to smells like coffee, her books, and even her shampoo that morning. She’d felt like she was gonna gag all day long. She also said her boobs were super sore. Her friend stared at her just as confused as she was, then told her to hold on and ran out of the room. She returned with something in her hand, a pregnancy test, and explained how to use it.

  Carla’s heart started pounding as she slowly walked to the bathroom and took the test. Inside, she knew she was pregnant—she could just feel it—but she took the test anyway. She saw the results and felt like she was drowning. She walked slowly across the room as if she was moving underwater, sat on her friend’s bed, and burst into tears. Having an abortion was possible, but out of the question. She was scared of doctors, and her mother would never allow it anyway. She tried to think what would be better, to tell her mom about the award first or second, but she knew it really didn’t matter—she would be crushed either way. She knew her hopes of becoming an engineer were now remote; what good school would ever give a scholarship to a kid with a kid?

  As expected, her mother was livid and made her life hell for the next few months, but all was forgiven when the baby was born. Her daughter arrived healthy and cute, as most kids do. Carla graduated high school with honors, then went to school for hotel management while her mother tended to her infant. Her timing was perfect, as the amount of hotels dramatically increased in New York in the 1990s. She quickly established herself as a smart and reliable employee at one of the city’s most prestigious hotels. Her hard work over the many years of service and loyalty paid off when a couple years ago, she was made general manager. It wasn’t the engineering gig she’d wanted, but it paid the bills and was a lucrative career. As for her daughter, she was in her first year of college at Brown studying, of all things, engineering.

  * * *

  Carla’s eyes fluttered open and looked at Crush. It was a little after 7 A.M. Casey was usually up at six—twenty years of prison habits were hard to change—but today he’d given himself a break and slept in.

  “What’s up, baby?” Carla asked as she stretched her sexy body out for Casey to admire, her arms slowly reaching above her head like a cat.

  “Just lookin’ at you, baby. I didn’t hear you come in last night.”

  Carla looked at him slyly. “You gonna report me for breakin’ and enterin’?”

  “Nah, I’ma handle this all by myself.” Casey grinned, and Carla grinned back at him. They fooled around for a bit, then took a shower together. Afterwards, they went down the street to Tommy’s Diner and ate a quick breakfast so Carla wouldn’t be late for work. She went off to the hotel, and Casey stayed behind, milking his last cup of coffee.

  On his phone was a text message from a number he didn’t know. He’d missed receiving it while lathering up his lady in the shower.

  You got a minute to talk today, if so St. James Park at 2 P.M. is good for me. A.P.

  Casey assumed “A.P.” meant Alek Petrosian, but it could have been Al P. using a burner. He typed back.

  Who is this?

  A moment later, Casey’s phone rang with a call from the number. “Whassup?”

  “It’s me, can you meet then?”

  Casey recognized Alek’s voice. “Yeah, I’ll be there. This your new number?”

  “Not really, I’ll tell you about that when I see you.”

  “A’ight, later.” Casey thought the Armenian sounded a bit weird, but he wasn’t alarmed or anything. Hell, a lotta playas, himself included, were very cautious about what they said on cell phones. He polished off his lukewarm coffee, tossed some bills on the table, and jetted to the Urban Victory office.

  On the way, he reached out to Champa to meet him there. He thought about bringing Shin or Champa to the Petrosian meeting, but figured it was better to go solo. He liked that Petrosian rolled with goons and he didn’t, and knew Petrosian was perceptive enough to see this distinction between them.

  On the street, Casey gave the impression of someone who feared no man and no situation, his confidence was evident, but he wasn’t arrogant. To those who couldn’t see the subtle distinctions, the two men would seem identical, but they weren’t: Casey was a man who had lost everything at one time, and Petrosian was a man who hadn’t made that misstep, at least not yet. It was true that the Armenian was a bad muthafucka, no doubt, but his respect was demanded, whereas Casey’s was commanded. Casey ruled through his words, not through force. That wasn’t to say that he didn’t stomp a nigga’s ass when it was deserved; he just knew that in the end, it was more effective to reign through his intellect. All smart men knew that true power came through profound words and innovative ideas.

  As a young man, he’d learned this lesson well from a “gentleman of leisure” named the General, aka the Sweet Man. The General had a stable of seven hos, some of whom worked in Casey’s hood. He drove a champagne-colored Caddy with a custom Louis Vuitton interior, and was always in motion. Casey was fresh out of juvie when he and Big Rich were kicking it and approached the General one afternoon about the secret of getting women.

  Gen sized them both up, smiling like a Cheshire cat. Tall, thin, and black as night, with his nails always manicured and h
is vines always tight, he was also a man who loved having an audience.

  “Look here, young niggas, you wanna know the secret to gettin’ a bitch? It’s the same secret to having power over anyone, you dig? It’s a skull game.” Gen spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “It’s keeping a bitch’s mind confused—you gotta hypnotize these broads. It’s puttin’ your sexual desire in refrigeration. You may wanna freak these bitches real bad, but you need to be able to walk away from that sweet pussy in an instant. You see, just like everyone else, a bitch respects strength, and delights in gettin’ over on a nigga. If she knows that she can dangle her snatch and you come runnin’, then you’re through, my friend. It’s the same in business: Nobody gives money to someone desperate or who wants it too bad. Money makes money, and desperate money never wins. You got to be able to pimp yo’self and yo ideas before you pimp anyone else. You got to cop ’n’ blow all day long, keep your pimp hand strong, be sweet one moment and sour the next, keep everyone guessin’. Keep them hos befuddled, bewitched, entranced, and beguiled, and they will hump for a nigga night and day till they can’t feel their own pussy!”

  Casey remembered him and Rich being mesmerized by the General’s game, and for what it was worth, the General recognized future playas.

  At the end of his speech, General looked at them and said, “How much scratch you niggas got in your pockets?”

  Casey and Rich dug into their pockets and came up with forty-five bucks. Snorting in disgust, the General held out his bejeweled hand for their bread. He counted it with a quick flick of his fingers, then ripped the money up into small pieces, threw it in the air, and let it rain down on him. “Remember, young niggas, the game’s to be sold not told—now let’s see what you really got.”

  Casey smiled as he pulled into the Urban Victory garage and headed upstairs. He’d had many teachers in his life that had dropped jewels on him, but none had been as colorful as the General. He dialed up Rich as he was ridin’ up the elevator.

  Rich picked up and Casey said, “Whassup, pimpin’?”

  Rich chuckled. “Aw shit, nigga, just tryin’ to keep these hos in check and my Gators shiny, whas doin’?”

  “I was thinkin’ about that time back in the day when the General dropped that jewel on us about the game.”

  Rich laughed. “Yeah, he was somethin’ else. I remember him tellin’ us in his deep-ass voice, ‘You know you niggas is cut for this,’ and then askin’ me how my sister was doing and was she eighteen yet?”

  Casey cracked up at that. “Oh shit, that nigga was crazy! You remember when we saw him beatin’ on one of his broads in front of the hair salon? His fist and curlers were flyin’ all over the goddamn place! I’d never seen anything like it.”

  Rich was laughing even harder now. “Ahh man, now thas some hood shit right there.”

  Casey caught his breath and said, “Whatever happened to him anyway, where’s he at?”

  Rich sighed. “I guess you wouldn’a heard, but a few years after you went down, he started hittin’ that pipe. He lost all his broads, then had a heart attack and died.”

  “Damn, no shit?”

  “No shit, brotha, the game is cold.”

  “Damn, well, rest in peace, General.”

  “Fo sho, fo sho. Anyway, what else is good? I heard from Shin you got something jumping next week and wanna do a powwow.”

  Casey got out of the elevator but stayed out of the office to finish his conversation. “Yeah, I got an update and some other things to discuss. I’m thinking Tuesday same spot around seven in the P.M., but Shin or Champ’ll confirm that with ya.”

  “Okay, movin’,” Big Rich said, and they both hung up.

  Casey walked into the office with the General and his sad end still on his mind and noticed there was more than a bit of activity goin’ on. Joe Pica and a few of his regular staff were around a desk, obviously planning something. Casey caught his eye and waved him over.

  “What’s up, Crush?” said Joe.

  “You know, keepin’ my hustle strong. What’s all the action here about?”

  “Oh, we’re getting prepared for a lecture at PS 127 for a bunch of fourth- and fifth-graders.”

  “Oh, okay … that’s where you talk to kids about the reality of crime, drugs, and doing time, right?”

  “Yeah, we’re going over there at eleven for about an hour and a half. You wanna roll with us?”

  Casey cocked his head sideways at Joe and shot him a confused look. “Come again?”

  “Come on, Case, it’s not that long, and if you got the time, it could be a good look for us.”

  His initial thought was, Hell no, but he checked himself and thought it over for a second. He had to see Lomax Monday, and doing this shit was technically part of his job description. If anyone from the parole office did come sniffin’ around, it would be good to have this on record. Casey checked his watch: it was a little after nine. He had to check with Jacob to see what intel he’d collected on the detectives, and then he had the 2 P.M. with Petrosian, so he had the time.

  “Yeah, okay, just text me when you’re ready and I’ll meet you down in the garage.”

  “Cool, I think you’ll be surprised,” Joe said with a smile.

  Casey grunted, then turned and walked to his office. Champa entered the lobby as the guys finished their conversation and followed him. “I need to rap with you about this car job.”

  “Okay, cool, what day does it go down?”

  “Next Friday, 6 A.M,” Champa said through an ear-to-ear smile.

  “All right, I gotta handle some shit this A.M. and in the afternoon, so let’s talk later. Have a seat. I’m callin’ Jacob for an update.”

  Casey sat at his desk and dialed. He hated talking on the phone about sensitive shit, but didn’t have the time to go down there. Jacob picked up the phone on the first ring.

  “What’s up, man? I’m callin’ for an update, but before we speak on that, I gotta tech question for you.… If we did a video chat, is there any chance anyone could hack into it?”

  “You mean is it secure?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Yeah, it’s secure. I could go into a long explanation why, but the short answer is yes.” Jacob ran down to Casey how to set up his laptop so they could video chat, and a few minutes later, he was staring at Casey from the monitor.

  Casey cracked a small smile, clearly impressed. For someone who’d been in the joint for twenty years, running messages with scraps of paper and ghetto code, this shit seemed space age.

  “I’m glad we’re doing this via video conference and not on the phone. From now on, when you’re at your computer, if you want, you can just hit me up this way. I’m always here,” Jacob said. “To be honest, given all the stuff we’re doing with phones, my paranoia level’s at a new high, so this is definitely my preferred method of communication.”

  Casey watched Jacob’s crystal-clear picture on his monitor. Goddamn, this is some real Star Trek shit. “Okay, so first thing, is there anything immediate I need to know? You know, like a bust goin’ down or some shit like that? If not, run down what you’ve found out about Petrosian.”

  “As far as the detectives go, it’s all business as usual. There was a little talk about the failed sting with Mick Benzo, and about his brother-in-law OD’ing.

  “What’d they say about his brother-in-law?”

  “They were pissed he couldn’t hold it together until after the bust and hoped Fordham wouldn’t be too angry about it.”

  “Hmmm, okay, what else?”

  “Al P. and Shin tagged everyone except for Fordham, and they’ve got a plan to get him today. The whole system’s buzzing along just fine, and I’m tweaking it to make sure it’s getting better every day. It’s quite a piece of work,” Jacob said, the pride in his voice evident.

  “Damn straight it is. You done good, son,” Casey said. “How many more targets do you think the system could track before it became overwhelmed?”

  “Well, once we have
Fordham, we’ll be at twenty-three.… I’d say with our current technology, we could easily manage another, I don’t know, maybe … seventy-five.”

  Casey was surprised, but Jacob’s expression on the monitor told him the young man was serious. Champa went behind Casey and pulled up a chair to look at the screen as well.

  “You sure? That’s a hella lot of info to filter—isn’t that too much to manage reliably?” Casey asked.

  “Not really, the way I have built this, we could expand it even more if needed. I’ve created a hierarchy based off an algorithm I wrote that prioritizes the targets that meet our criteria most often and then sends me alerts based on the keywords we’re looking for.”

  Champa frowned. “Say what?”

  Before Jacob could respond, Casey said, “Okay, I translate that to mean you don’t have to physically monitor these guys as much as you normally would, because you tweaked the computer to do it for you based on how the computer profiles them.”

  Clearly lost by all this tech talk, Champa returned to the couch and sat down.

  Jacob nodded. “Exaaaactly. The really cool thing is that the more information I get, the more sophisticated and accurate the computer’s scans become because it grows the computer’s information database that it draws on to make decisions exponentially.”

  Casey leaned back in his Herman Miller chair and contemplated this. This hacking shit is fuckin’ incredible—I could easily get addicted. He glanced at Champa, who was texting on his phone, and snapped his fingers for him to pay attention. He looked at the computer screen and said, “Jacob, I want you to let Champa know when that cop we tagged gets calls to respond to anything major. On those calls, there’s bound to be a ton of cops.”

  Champa nodded. “Okay, I’m guessin’ you’ll want Al P. to go to the scene and tag as many as possible.”

  “Yup, detectives, too. The more ears we have, the better off we’ll be. I wanna cover as much of the Bronx and Harlem as possible. I wanna know everything that goes down.”