Guard the Throne

by Nisa Santiago

  Curtis remained silent. He knew what was going to transpire once they finally caught up to Juliette. Maino was ready to tear her apart. He was a savage muthafucka who shot first and didn’t give a fuck about the repercussions later.

  The men got into Maino’s truck.

  Maino looked at Curtis. “Yeah. That bitch is guilty about something. Why she ain’t open the fuckin’ door to you? She got somethin’ to hide.”

  ****

  The next day was colder than before. The early-morning residents had gone off to work, and the streets were empty. Maino was relentless. He and Curtis sat parked outside Juliette’s building, waiting, knowing she had to leave her apartment sooner or later. They smoked cigarette after cigarette, as minutes turned to hours, and morning started to transition into the afternoon.

  “This bitch gotta come out soon,” Maino said.

  “Just be easy.”

  “Fuck being easy! I can’t wait to lay hands on this bitch.”

  “You forget she’s Alonzo’s baby mother?”

  “Nigga, Alonzo is fuckin’ dead, and if she had anything to do with it, then so is this fuckin’ bitch!”

  Curtis had no response. He leaned back in the passenger seat and took a pull from the cancer stick.

  A few building residents came and went. The men sat with little conversation between them. Parked across the street, they were watching the lobby entrance like two hawks.

  A short moment later, Juliette emerged from the lobby pushing a young toddler in a posh stroller. She was bundled up in a stylish winter coat and a long scarf, trying to look inconspicuous.

  “There that bitch go,” Maino spat, reaching for his gun under the seat. He was ready to rush at her.

  “Yo, chill, nigga. What you gonna do? Attack her in public and get us both locked up? Think, nigga. She’s gotta come back.”

  “Yeah, you right.”

  “We get at her on the inside. Less eyes and less attention on us.”

  Maino nodded.

  They watched Juliette push the stroller up the block and turn the corner. It seemed she was going to be gone for a moment in their eyes. They planned on being patient.

  Curtis and Maino departed the Yukon and calmly walked toward the front entrance. They walked into the building unseen by any resident and without any hassle. This time, they took the stairs up to the fifth floor. They inspected the area. The sprawling, ritzy structure was silent—no loud music coming from any apartments, no neighbors screaming at each other, and no foul odor lingering in the hallways like in the projects. It was the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where the two Queens thugs would stand out. So they were clad in long trench coats and polished wing-tip shoes, looking more like detectives than thugs.

  Juliette arrived back to her place an hour later. She moved hurriedly into her building. With the .380 concealed in her purse, she wasn’t taking any chances, especially with her infant son. But when she stepped off the elevator, Maino’s .45 was quickly placed to her head.

  Maino roughly grabbed her by the arm. “Don’t fuckin’ scream, bitch!” he whispered sternly in her ear.

  Juliette became frozen with fear.

  Curtis loomed into her view with his pistol aimed at her son in the stroller. “Let’s not make this difficult, Juliette. We just wanna talk to you,” he said calmly.

  Juliette glared at Curtis. “Get that gun outta my son’s face. You dare point a gun at Alonzo’s child?”

  “It’s the only sure way to get your attention.”

  Maino told her, “Shoulda opened the fuckin’ door yesterday, and we wouldn’t have to pop off like this.”

  Maino gripped her arm tightly and forced her into the apartment. Once inside, he struck her in the back of her head with the gun, a powerful blow that sent her cringing to the floor.

  “Maino, relax. We came here to talk,” Curtis exclaimed.

  Maino smirked. “Now we can talk.”

  Curtis shook his head. Sometimes it was hard to keep his pit bull on the leash.

  “Y’all niggas get the fuck out my house!” Juliette screamed, still hugging the floor.

  “We ain’t goin’ no fuckin’ where!” Maino replied.

  Juliette all of a sudden went scrambling for her purse on the floor. It was a desperate attempt to retrieve the .380 inside.

  Maino kicked the purse out of her reach, and it went sliding across the room. “What the fuck you reaching for? A gun, bitch?” Maino shouted.

  With the baby asleep in the stroller, Maino snatched Juliette by her hair and dragged her across the hardwood floors into one of the bedrooms. To shut her up, he hit her again, and then they placed duct tape over her mouth and tied her to a chair.

  Maino had the pleasure of stripping her naked. He lusted over her curvaceous body and wished he could fuck her. Her perky tits and smooth brown skin had him somewhat aroused.

  Curtis noticed the way his friend was staring at Juliette, and he had to remind him that they were only there for business.

  “We just want to talk,” Curtis said. “You gonna chill out when we remove the duct tape from your mouth?”

  Juliette refused to answer.

  “I need an answer, Juliette.”

  She looked up at Curtis and reluctantly nodded.

  Curtis smiled. “That’s my girl.”

  He gestured to Maino, and the duct tape was ripped away from her mouth.

  “What the fuck y’all niggas want?” she cried out.

  Maino went straight to the point. “Who killed Alonzo?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Bitch, you lying. You know somethin’, and we ain’t leaving here until we get the truth from you,” Maino exclaimed.

  “Fuck you, Maino! You was always an evil muthafucka!”

  “Oh, word? You feel that way? You cunt bitch. Then you gonna see how evil I can get today.”

  Out of the blue, a sharp blade appeared in Maino’s hand, and it went slashing across Juliette’s face and opened up her skin like a zipper. Her screaming pierced the room as blood trickled down her face.

  Curtis quickly stuffed a rag into her mouth to muffle her loud scream. He looked at Maino and said, “Nigga, what the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Muthafucka, I ain’t come here to play nice wit’ the bitch.”

  Curtis seemed to be dumbfounded by the unexpected attack. He stared at the pain in Juliette’s eyes. The tears streamed down her face as the blood coated her once pretty skin.

  Maino stood over Juliette with a scowl, the bloody blade still clutched in his hand. “Now, we gonna talk about this fuckin’ car you’ve been driving in the hood, a brand-new candy red BMW. How the fuck you get a car like that?” He snatched the rag out her mouth to allow her to talk.

  Juliette’s restraints were too tight around her wrists and ankles. She couldn’t free herself. And she was concerned about her baby still sleeping in the next room. “Please, my baby—”

  “Fuck that little nigga!” Maino shouted. “I swear, if you don’t start talkin’ and tell us what we need to know, I’ma cut his little ass up too.”

  “You touch him, and I’ll fuckin’ kill you. I swear to it!”

  “Bitch, you ain’t in the position to threaten anyone right now.” Maino neared the bloody blade to her exposed nipple. “I’ll start cuttin’ away, bitch. You wanna fuckin’ test me?”

  “It was a gift from him, you stupid muthafucka!”

  “A gift? Bitch, you lying. I know you and him were beefing. Why the fuck would he want to buy you a car? You ain’t suckin’ his dick that good. Huh, bitch?”

  “Fuck you!”

  Juliette’s smart-ass remark caused her to receive a powerful blow from Maino’s closed fist. It struck her right temple and shook her up for a moment. She became dizzy.
If she hadn’t been tied to the chair, she would have collapsed against the floor.

  “You wanna talk shit, bitch?” Maino yanked her by her hair violently, jerking her neck back like a whip being snapped. He looked like he was ready to break her neck. He pressed the blade against her neck and nicked the flesh of her throat until he saw blood.

  “Talk to me, Juliette. I can make this easy on you.”

  Curtis stepped up to Juliette, his eyes a little easier on her than Maino’s.

  “I’ma do this bitch and her son right now, if she don’t fuckin’ talk,” Maino barked.

  “Fuck you, Maino!” Juliette growled through clenched teeth. “The only people that could have gotten close to Alonzo and kill him like that were you and Curtis. I know he had a meeting with y’all on the day of his death.”

  “Bitch, you talkin’ crazy. That nigga was like a fuckin’ brother to us. And we ain’t had no meeting wit’ Alonzo. The shit got postponed,” Maino replied.

  “I warned Alonzo not to trust y’all.”

  “Bitch, who the fuck you think you is, accusing us of his murder? You done lost your damn mind! You know what”—Maino pulled out his pistol and shot Juliette in the head, and she slumped over in the chair, her blood pooling around the chair.

  “What the fuck is wrong wit’ you, Maino?” Curtis spat.

  “She was outta pocket, Curtis. Gonna talk that shit about us. You was gonna let that shit slide?”

  “You were a little extreme.”

  “Man, fuck that bitch! She lucky I don’t body her son too.”

  “Every neighbor around probably heard the shot.”

  “So fuck it! We out.”

  The two men walked into the living room where Alonzo’s son started to cry. The gunshot had awakened him. They gazed at the crying child for a moment and decided to leave him there alone with his mother dead in the bedroom. Curtis would call in the homicide once they were far away from the crime scene.

  8

  Curtis sat locked in his bedroom, counting the money in privacy. He had stacks of it piled on the bed. He moved it through the counting machine, and the bills spilled out, totaling into the hundreds of thousands. Ten-thousand-dollar stacks decorated his bedroom like furniture.

  Curtis took a seat in a chair, stared at the cash, and sighed. He tried to free his mind from the guilt he was feeling. He knew Juliette was innocent, and it ate away at him the way she was tortured and killed. But the game was always ugly. It was one of those cost-of-doing-business situations that he had to deal with.

  It had been two weeks since Alonzo’s murder, and the Harlem streets were running red with blood. With Emanuel in town, it felt like Iraq for hustlers and rival dealers. His reach was everywhere. Contract murders were being carried out like it was a franchise business, and people were scared.

  Queens wasn’t immune to the turmoil going on in Harlem. Three men implicated in the escalating beef uptown were shot dead on Linden and Guy R. Brewer three days earlier. Curtis’ number one priority was the safety of his family.

  The thirteen ki’s were an added bonus, and a problem too—a catch-22. Curtis had to dump the bricks of cocaine on a crew quickly. It was too much of a risk to keep it in his place, and an even bigger one to unload it on the streets with the wrong crew. There were too many snitches and too many big mouths talking in New York, so dealing with the wrong person could either mean a bullet in the head or police kicking down his door. His actions had to be swift and stealthy.

  Curtis thought about calling Shot, a major player locking down Hempstead, Long Island. He and Shot went back several years. Shot was a stand-up dude—an original gangsta. They both grew up in the same era, when the ’80s produced real millionaires from off the streets and real gangsters didn’t snitch on you at the drop of a dime. He was one of a few hustlers on the streets Curtis could sell the ki’s to without having word get back to Maino.

  Curtis picked up his cell phone and dialed Shot.

  “Yo, who this?” Shot answered in his gruff tone.

  “It’s C,” Curtis replied, not wanting to shout out his whole name through the phone.

  Shot instantly knew who it was and replied excitedly, “What’s good, my nigga? It’s been a minute.”

  “I know. Listen, I need to make this call short.”

  “A’ight. You got some business for me?”

  “Snowman like a muthafucka.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I need to hear. Shit’s been kinda crazy out here lately. But get at me, C. Let’s see if I can make this shit melt.”

  “A’ight, tomorrow afternoon. Where at?”

  “You already know where,” Shot said. “Shit ain’t changed from before.”

  “A’ight.”

  Curtis hung up feeling a little relieved. Shot was a businessman like himself, and he knew he had the clout and clientele to move thirteen ki’s of hard white in his hometown without a problem. Hempstead was far enough away to be off Emanuel and Maino’s radar.

  Maino knew of Shot, but he didn’t fuck with any Long Island niggas. Maino felt that Long Island was the country, and full of snitches. He had bad blood with the hustlers out in Long Island, especially with the Terrace Boys, a ruthless drug-dealing crew who attracted too much attention with murders. But it was like the pot calling the kettle black, when it came to Maino. He had traded gunfire with the Terrace Boys on a few occasions. Eventually, they stayed out of his neighborhood, and he stayed out of theirs.

  Curtis stashed the money away neatly in two separate bags and slid it underneath his bed. It had been a long morning, but he’d finished up some much-needed business and was ready to relax for a moment. His mind was spinning with so many things.

  Knocking at Curtis’ door suddenly caught his attention. He figured it had to be one of his kids looking to get his interest. “Who knocking?” he shouted.

  “Daddy, it’s me,” Citi replied. “Why you got the door locked?”

  “Hold on, princess.”

  Curtis moved quickly, hiding any cash in the room from plain sight. He placed the counting machine on the floor in the closet and snatched the .45 off the bed and hid it under his pillow. He did a fast check around his room, and everything looked normal. Even though his daughter knew about his business, he didn’t want to explain to her where all the extra money had come from.

  He donned a T-shirt and unlocked his bedroom door. Citi walked in, beaming at her father. She was always a prize in his eyes. It’d been three days since he’d seen his kids.

  “Hey, princess,” Curtis greeted her with a warm smile.

  “Daddy, why you hiding from us?” Citi joked.

  “It’s just business I’m taking care of, princess.”

  “I know, Daddy.”

  Citi, looking like an R&B princess in her sweat pants and T-shirt, hugged her father closely. She always felt protected under his wing. When she was around, she always brought a glow and daughterly love, and Curtis’ world suddenly became a different place. The stress and problems would temporary fade away, and he seemed to become a new man.

  Curtis smiled at his daughter. “What you came in here to bother me about? Your birthday gift?”

  “No, not just that, Daddy. I had to see if everything is okay with you. I’m not that spoiled.”

  Curtis laughed. “Uh-huh, tell me somethin’ different. You’re spoiled enough.”

  “’Cuz you love me this much.” Citi extended her arms.

  “You need to spread your arms out a little much more,” Curtis joked.

  “I wish I could. I would spread wings for you, Daddy, and then we can soar in the air together.”

  “I’m ready to fly, princess. Just point us in the right direction.” Curtis pulled Citi into his arms and smiled. He said to her, “You know what, princess?”

  “What, Dad
dy?”

  “I’m gonna get you that car for your birthday. An Accord, right?”

  Citi pulled back from her father with a huge smile. She howled. “Daddy, fo’ real? Are you serious? Ohmygod, Daddy! I love you so much!” She leaped into her father’s strong arms and embraced him.

  Curtis smiled from ear to ear. The joy and sparkle on his daughter’s face was why he did what he did on the streets—Blood and drug money made his family live in the lifestyle of the rich and hood-famous. Curtis was never cut out for a nine-to-five job, making minimum wage, and his kids weren’t made for welfare checks and hand-me-downs. But he also understood that you reap what you sow; that for every action there was an equal and opposite reaction.

  Citi couldn’t stop beaming. She was so joyful that she steadily jumped up and down in the bedroom. She couldn’t wait to hold her set of car keys in her hand and take her new car for a spin around the hood in style. She ran out of her father’s bedroom shouting, “I’m gettin’ my new car! I’m gettin’ a car for my birthday!”

  She danced and jumped around the apartment like she was in a Broadway show, while her two brothers, who were in the kitchen fixing a snack, looked at her dumbfounded.

  Curtis emerged from his bedroom with a wad of hundreds in his hand. He was ready to celebrate and splurge a good amount of money on his kids.

  “Yo, Pop, how you buying Citi a new car and forget about us? Shit, we need an upgrade too. That ain’t right,” Cane argued.

  “You don’t need a new damn car, Cane. You’re driving a Benz now.”

  “I’m a Byrne, Pop. We always travel in style and stay upgrading our shit,” Cane replied. “I had that Benz for seven months now, and it’s gettin’ old.”

  “I’m with Cane on this, Pop,” Chris chimed. “How you come out your room balling with a fistful of cash and then get stingy with it? I mean, can we get some love, too?”

  “Y’all some haters! It’s my birthday comin’ up, not yours. Why y’all tryin’ to ruin shit for me?”

  Cane shot back, “Ain’t nobody tryin’ to ruin shit for you, Citi, and ya damn birthday is a month and a half away.”

  “That’s right, and I’m just asking for one thing. It ain’t fuckin’ fair for y’all two to be the only ones driving and not me. I’m tryin’ to shine too.”