by Ice-T
Casey surveyed the room and checked with each guy to make sure they were cool. This was by far the biggest job he’d ever pulled, the biggest payday, and with the most at stake. The meeting broke up, and everyone went their separate ways, knowing what had to be done. Casey pulled Champa aside and told him to be at his crib at 4:45 A.M. sharp.
* * *
When Casey got home, he was hoping that Carla would be there, but the place was empty. She was done. It was probably for the best; any kind of distraction right now was not a good thing. Casey kept waiting for Shin to call, but heard nothing until just after midnight, when his burner buzzed.
“What up?”
“No luck. We went there and he wasn’t in his spot.”
“Well, what the fuck happened?”
“We got here, and Al did everything according to plan. There was no doorman, so I went up, too, and peeped shit through the stairwell while he did his thing. He tried for twenty minutes, but came up empty. Either Fordham’s out, or he doesn’t have a phone on in that crib. We’ve been waiting outside for the last three hours. Shall we just lay up and see if he shows or leave in the A.M.?”
“Nah, go home. I need you and Al at the warehouse tomorrow at five A.M. Make sure he brings a piece with him and that he knows there might be drama.”
Casey hung up the phone and looked out his window. Outside, it was still sprinkling. He set the alarm on his phone for 4 A.M. and tried to get some kind of sleep.
* * *
Casey woke up a minute before his alarm would have gone off. Grabbing his phone, he canceled the alert. He hated the annoying sound—it reminded him of the alarms in the joint. Anxious to get shit started, he jumped out of bed. He was always a little hyped on game day.
He took a shower, got dressed, and went to his closet to check his arsenal. The back of his closet had a secret panel that unlocked with a magnet. Inside was a sawed-off, chrome-plated Remington 12-gauge pump shotgun, an AK-47, and various pistols. He grabbed his Glock 17 and the SIG Sauer P290 Two-Tone Sub-Compact 9 millimeter with integral laser sight, checking both pistols to make sure they were fully loaded. He glanced down to the street below to see if the detective’s car was there, but it was all clear. Champa was on time for once, so Casey went out to meet him.
Champa’s silver Aston Martin looked like a sleek beast on the wet streets, and he made it roar when they took off. It was still dark outside, with a light rain coming down and minimal traffic. For most of the ride, they both listened to the radio without speaking. Crush had received a text from Sean E Sean that he and the other guys had the fake cop cars and were in motion. Shin also confirmed that Al P. would be there, as well as the other cats. Casey hadn’t heard from Petrosian the day before, which struck him as odd, but he knew where the meet-up was, so he wasn’t gonna trip ’bout it.
A couple blocks from the warehouse, Champa hit a nasty pothole that had been hidden by water. They checked the damage after they pulled in; the rim was bent a little, but it didn’t look like the tire was leaking. Still, it was enough to put Champa in a sour mood. He loved that car and always kept it in pristine condition.
Casey saw Petrosian’s S600 Mercedes-Benz and a gunmetal gray Hummer H2 behind him and waved them into the warehouse. The rest of the guys were already there, and Sean and the others would be arriving momentarily. Casey took Mick aside for a private conversation before Petrosian stepped out of his ride.
“Your guys in place?”
“Yeah, four on the roof here, two on the roof across the street, and the other two are in the alley.”
“Those guys know who our people are?”
“Yeah, it’s my regular crew, they ain’t gonna mistake any identities.”
Petrosian got out of his ride along with his two guys, and Casey made the introductions. All of Casey’s guys were cool. They didn’t put on attitude or a hard face; instead they all stayed mellow. The plan was to make Petrosian believe everything was good before they rocked him to sleep. Sean pulled up in the stolen Altimas with the other guys and then there was another round of introductions. Casey checked the time—it was 5:45 A.M., they would need to move out in five minutes.
The plan was for Shin, Al, and Champa to be in one car, and ghost the two trucks as soon as they left the port, while Petrosian and Casey followed them, updating the rest of the guys on their ETA. The meeting place was thirty miles down the freeway, just before the Pennsylvania Avenue exit. There they’d make the trucks pull over, gaffle up the guys and take the transports to the warehouse, then unload them. The Pennsylvania Avenue exit was just two miles from the warehouse, meaning they wouldn’t be out in the open with the cars for more than ten minutes max. Casey ran over the plan again to make sure everyone was clear on what was about to go down. No one had any questions.
* * *
They got to Port Authority just before 7 A.M., pulled into a dusty lot where Port Street met Corbin Road, and waited. Based on Champa’s intel, they knew there’d be two six-car enclosed trailers pulled by semis. Now it was a waiting game.
Casey sat in silence, his strong fingers tapping the steering wheel. He felt the weight of his P290 in his jacket pocket as he looked for cops or anything suspicious.
“What time you think these transports will pull out?” Petrosian asked as he looked out his window.
“If the intel is right, thirty minutes or so. It takes ’em that long to load the cars into the transports.”
“So, you think we’ll be at the warehouse and unloaded by when?”
Casey was immediately suspicious of these types of questions, even though Petrosian had the right to ask. “With traffic and everything else, it will take about forty-five minutes to get to the warehouse; once there, we should have everything safely unloaded and the trucks ditched by eleven thirty or noon at the latest. Why, you got an appointment somewhere?” Casey fired back, trying to gauge the man behind his Armani sunglasses.
“Yeah, actually, my son’s got a game at two P.M. today, and I never miss seeing him play. Growing up in Armenia, we never played basketball, or even knew it existed.” He chuckled, then turned to look at Casey. “My kid can’t get enough of it. He doesn’t know it yet, but I got two floor seats to the Knicks game on Saturday.”
Eyes narrowed, Casey looked at Petrosian, wishing he would shut the fuck up about his kid. Was this a plan to get into his head and put him off balance so he might hesitate in taking him out? Was this muthafucka for real?
“Matter of fact, this will be his first professional game he’s ever seen. It’s going to blow his mind—”
“You know what, I’m glad you got the rest of your day and week planned out, but right now, I wanna focus on this job, so let’s cut the small talk, ’kay?” Casey said.
Petrosian shot him an expressionless look before bending his head down and remaining quiet. Taking his own boy to basketball games and attending events at school were things Casey had never gotten the chance to do. He was always too busy making scratch and keeping one step ahead of the law, and by the time it would have really mattered, he was behind bars. If Petrosian really valued his relationship with his boy, he should have thought twice about his line of work. Casey hadn’t, and had paid the price. Back in the day, he was too damn cocksure and thought he could balance it all, but that had proved to be a disastrously wrong course of action.
The transports finally appeared, like two huge dinosaurs lumbering out of the port gates. They reached the corner, took a wide turn, and started their trip to the freeway. In the front seat of each cab were two men. Casey had expected only one driver per truck. Okay, not good, but that can be handled. The one bit of good news was there didn’t look to be a security escort at all, but as he watched the trucks, something else hit him like a ton of bricks and made him start to sweat. Shit! His mind went into overdrive, and he started working the problem. He could feel Petrosian looking at him, but if the Armenian suspected anything, he didn’t say it. After ten minutes of dissecting the problem, he pulled out his
phone and dialed Champa.
“Champa.”
“Yeah, Case?”
“Are all the phones handled?”
“All except one, and Shin and Al are seconds from gettin’ it.”
“Okay, tell me when it’s good.”
Casey waited, hearing Shin and Al talking back and forth to see if either one had a lock. In the background, he heard Al say, “Got it, we good, yo.” He then heard Shin call Jacob for confirmation.
“Crush, they’re all locked in. We won’t shut ’em down until we hear from you.”
“Okay. Look, we got an issue.”
“We do?”
“Those trucks don’t have enough clearance to turn onto Alabama, they’re too damn big.”
“Shit … you’re right. Fuck!”
“This is what we gonna do. Matter of fact, put me on speaker so Shin and Al can hear this, too.”
“Okay, you’re on.”
“So, those trucks are way too big to be able to make the turn onto Alabama—that street’s only two lanes. Here’s the new plan: We’re gonna flash the badges as planned and pull ’em both over. Champa, Shin, Alek, and me’ll approach the trucks and do our thing. Champa and Shin will stay in the cab with the drivers and we’ll move the other passengers into our cars and lay ’em down in the backseat foot wells. We’ll all exit at Pennsylvania Avenue, then take the first left on Seaview and park in the middle of the block. Then we will have to unload the cars and drive them to the warehouse.”
“Uhhhhh, okay, what about the transports and the truck drivers?” Champa asked.
“We’re gonna leave them and these cars there. We got twelve guys total, so we got enough drivers for the cars, but we’re not gonna be able to dump the transports.”
“Okay, that’ll work. Hell, I actually like it better than the other plan,” Champa said.
“I’ll call Sean and the Garcias. Champa, you call Mick and Big Rich and let ’em know what’s up.”
Casey hung up the phone and took a deep breath. He knew Petrosian would have something to say about this last-minute shit.
“So much for careful planning, eh?” Petrosian said smugly.
“Shit happens, dude—it’s how you handle it that matters.”
“Aren’t you concerned about unloading the cars in the open? That’s a lot of potential witnesses, Casey.”
“Maybe, the south side of that street is a grass field, the other side is a five-story apartment building with views obstructed by the trees along that street. If you have a better idea, you best speak on it right now, Alek.”
Petrosian said nothing and looked out his window. Casey picked up his phone and told Sean and the Garcias what was up while Petrosian called his men and clued them in. Petrosian spoke in Armenian, but Casey could tell by his tone he was talking shit. The change in plan put a big wrinkle into taking out the Armenians outside the warehouse. Casey wasn’t at liberty to talk to his men and regroup, but he knew they’d realize this. Whatever happened at the warehouse would have to be on the fly.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, they were at the checkpoint. Shin and Al P. disabled the drivers’ phones, then pulled up next to the semis, where Shin flashed his fake detective’s badge and had the trucks pull over. The drivers seemed unconcerned, until they saw the 9-millimeter pistols inches from their faces and realized they were getting jacked. Traffic whizzed by the whole scene, clueless that a hijacking was going down. All the guys wore sunglasses and baseball caps, not the best disguise, but sufficient. The two passengers were put in the backseats of the Altimas and told to lie down or get shot. Shin and Champa jumped in next to the drivers and immediately plugged the GPS Tracker Defense units into the cigarette lighters. The whole thing took less than five minutes. So far, so good.
The trucks followed Casey as he drove another mile to the Pennsylvania exit; from there it was only a block to Seaview Avenue, where they made a left. Toward the middle of the block, they spotted the rest of the crew waiting. Now it was just a race against the clock.
As soon as the trucks were parked, their hydraulic lift gate system started to open. Sean, Mick, and Rich ran into the back of the first transport, opened the doors of the individual cars, and turned them over, and plugged in the GPS blockers. The enclosed trailers echoed and rumbled from the engines of the high-performance vehicles. As the cars eased out, Casey couldn’t help but be mesmerized; this was car porn at its best.
The same thing was happening in the second transport. A few cars slowed as they passed because it wasn’t every day that you saw whips like these in the wild. Every time Casey flashed his fake badge, and the cars would reluctantly move on. Shin made sure everyone had popped in their GPS Tracker Defense units, and then the first six cars were off. That left Petrosian, Champa, Shin, Al P., and the Garcia brothers to handle the rest.
The trucks had three upper hydraulic racks that held the cars. Those were operated using a key at the mouth of the back of the transports. After they unloaded the first three cars from transport one, they drove two of the fake cop cars inside the transport with the truck drivers in the back while transport two was being unloaded. The Garcia brothers duct-taped the drivers’ mouths and put black bags over their heads. They also took all of their licenses and let them know that they would pay them all a visit if any shit went down. The drivers got the message loud and clear. Big E and Hen gave them all a hard sock in the head to bring home their point. Nothing like a little physical violence to make sure niggas is paying attention! The Garcias and Shin closed the back of the first transport while the last of the other three cars were being unloaded, then bailed out.
Casey let it be known during all this that he was driving the Bugatti back. He got a text from Mick that they’d made it back with no sweat. That just left Champa, Petrosian, and Casey to wrap things up. Casey was tempted to handle Petrosian right then and there, but he needed the third car driven back. He didn’t know how or when shit was gonna go down, but he knew it was imminent.
They loaded Sean’s other two cars in the back and closed up the transport. Petrosian and Champa jumped in their cars and sped off while Casey jumped into the black and orange Bugatti super car. He inserted the key by the side of his door and felt the diffuser flap close, the rear spoiler retract, and the car sink closer to the road like a crouching tiger. The Bugatti had that new car smell and reeked of power and performance. He put it into gear and hit the gas. The 16-cylinder, 1,001 horsepowered vehicle rocketed down the street, sounding more like a jet than a car. Eight seconds and a quarter of a mile later, he was doing 140 miles per hour, but had to immediately slow it down to make a right. From there, Louisiana Avenue was a straight mile, which he ripped down in seconds. This shit is fucking addicting! Even on the wet streets, the car handled perfectly. Casey figured it took him about three minutes to get to the warehouse. When he arrived, all the guys were waiting, staring at the cars. After he pulled in, the doors quickly closed behind him. Back to business.
Casey checked his phone; it was ten after eleven. “When I drove down this street and I didn’t see anyone, was that the same for everyone?”
All the guys nodded. Casey wouldn’t really know if there was gonna be drama for a minute. Anything was possible; as soon as Petrosian bounced to his kid’s “basketball game,” the place could be crawling with cops. He wasn’t gonna relax till he handed the cars over to the Chinaman’s contact and had the loot.
Casey walked over to Al and told him to activate the drivers’ phones and have Jacob monitor them. He wanted to know when they got picked up and what they’d be saying to the cops. Next on his agenda would be to take out Petrosian. As he walked to the Armenian, all Casey’s guys had that knowing look that shit was about to go down.
Petrosian came over to him with a smile and a satisfied look on his face, his cell phone out. The man was completely clueless that he was about to eat lead. “Nice work, Casey, you handled this very well. By the way, a friend of mine would like to congratulate you.” P
etrosian handed the phone to Casey.
What the fuck? Casey’s face screwed up as he took the cell. The voice on the other end was unmistakable and totally unexpected.
“Hello, fuck face, thanks for doing my dirty work!”
Casey clenched his teeth as he heard Fordham’s arrogant voice on the other end. He yanked his piece and told Petrosian and his boys to get on their knees. Which the Armenian did with a smile.
“I got my 9 pointed at your partner’s face, muthafucka. Any last words you want me to relay, pig?”
“Well, now, isn’t that a coincidence—’cause I got my .357 pointed at a pretty little nigger bitch. Can you guess who I’m talking about, Crush?”
20
The moment Casey drew down on Petrosian, his whole crew pulled their gats as well. Casey’s worst nightmare was coming true. The detectives must have told Fordham about meeting Carla at the diner and got the rundown on her. When he couldn’t arrest Casey, this must have been his Plan B. In the background, he could hear Carla crying and screaming his name.
Fuck! Casey couldn’t let his cool crack under this pressure or he’d be that bastard’s puppet—he had to play hard all the way to the end. They both had something the other wanted, and Casey knew it was gonna be a winner-take-all day.
“Ain’t you got enough trouble to be adding to it by pissin’ me off, Fordham?”
“Wow, that’s pretty tough talk, Casey! Are you saying you don’t want to play ball? Maybe I should have a little fun with your lady, then call you back later, see if you changed your mind.”
“Fuck you! Let’s get to negotiatin’—that’s what this really is all about.”
“That’s what I like to hear! Now, this is the only deal on the table, there ain’t no other, so listen up: Alek and his two guys are gonna unload the cargo from those cars. Once they’re done, you can keep the fuckin’ cars. When he and the dope are safely back to me, I’ll let your bitch go.”
“Now, you listen carefully, muthafucka, you’re dead and you don’t even know it! You’ll get your dope when my girl is safe. Just tell me where we’re doing the exchange or go fuck yourself!”