by K'wan
Jonas let his hand drop to where he had his gun tucked as he neared the man. He had seen him somewhere before but wasn’t sure if he was a friend or a foe. Either way, he wasn’t about to risk someone getting the drop on him.
“What’s good, Wrath?” the man in the army fatigues greeted him.
“You know me?” Jonas now had the gun out and hanging at his side. Now that he was close up on the man, he could see that one of his eyes was missing. In its place was a black sphere that looked like it had a gold pentagram etched into it. The glass eye seemed to bore into Jonas’s soul and sent a chill down his spine. He knew without question that this was a dangerous man.
“In a way, but we’ve never been introduced formally. They call me One-Eye Willie.” He extended his hand, but Jonas didn’t shake it. This made Willie smirk, showing off the gold cap over one of his teeth. “I’d heard you were a cautious one. That’s a good thing. Lou sent me.”
“What can I do for you?” Jonas asked suspiciously.
“Ain’t about what you can do for me, but what I can do for you.” Willie turned to reach for something in the car.
“Not so fast.” Jonas leveled his gun at him.
“Be easy. I’m just getting the information you’re supposed to be getting familiar with,” Willie told him. He very carefully retrieved the folder from the passenger seat of the car and handed it to Jonas. “Everything you need to know about the guy we’re gonna hit is in there.”
“We?” Jonas raised an eyebrow.
“Lou thinks it’s best if you had someone experienced with this type of thing go along with you,” Willie explained.
“I told Ceaver I’d get somebody to handle it,” Jonas told him.
“I hear you, but it don’t change the fact that it will be just the two of us on this. One thing you’ll learn about Lou Ceaver is, he’s not someone you want to disappoint when he asks you to do something,” Willie said seriously.
“A’ight. When does he want this to go down?” Jonas asked.
“Now,” Willie said quite unexpectedly. “Been an unexpected change, so we have to push the timeline up.”
“Damn. Lou doesn’t waste time when he wants you gone.”
“Never, and you should always keep that in mind,” Willie warned. “I got clean guns for us, masks, and gloves in the trunk. Let’s make a move.” He walked around to the driver’s side.
Jonas didn’t want to get into the car with the stranger. The setup felt wrong and rushed. Every inch of him said that it was a bad idea, but he didn’t feel like he had a choice. Reluctantly, he slid into the passenger’s seat. He didn’t bother with his seat belt because he wanted to be able to get to his gun if Willie had ill intentions.
Willie fired up the car, then rested his hand on the wheel. As an afterthought, he dug into his pocket and pulled out a five-dollar bill, which he gave to Jonas.
“What’s this?” Jonas asked, looking curiously at the bill.
“Me doing you a good turn.” Willie winked his good eye before pulling out into traffic.
It took a few seconds before it dawned on Jonas why One-Eye Willie looked so familiar. He had seen him before—three times, actually. Once, years ago when Mula had slapped the cup from his hand outside the motel. Again, when he was scheming on Eight-Ball, and more recently, outside the church that day. Every time Jonas’s life was about to take an unexpected turn, Willie had been there.
Willie gave Jonas a knowing nod when he saw the light of recognition finally turn on in Jonas’s head.
Jonas knew without question that his meeting the detective hadn’t been one of chance but design. How long had he been on the detective’s radar? More importantly. . . Why?
As they were leaving his block, Jonas spotted Jewels. She was coming out of the neighborhood liquor store. When the car he was in passed Jewels, their eyes met momentarily.
Was she crying?
Chapter Thirty-two
Jonas rode quietly in the passenger seat while Willie expertly navigated the evening traffic. To have one eye, Jonas had to admit that he was an excellent driver. He discretely studied the black marble in Willie’s head. The gold pentagram on it made the eye appear sinister.
“Go on, ask,” Willie spoke up unexpectedly.
“Ask what?” Jonas faked ignorance.
“The eye. Everyone always wants to know the story about the eye and how I lost it. So go ahead and get it out of your system.”
“Fine, how did you lose your eye?” Jonas had been curious.
“There are a few stories, but I’ll tell you my favorite. Rumor had it that when I was a kid, I used to see ghosts. They would haunt me day and night, so much so that it was even getting hard to think. So, I went and grabbed my mama’s favorite chicken fork and plucked it out.”
Jonas looked at him in disbelief. “You shitting me?”
“Maybe . . . Maybe not,” Willie smirked.
“You still see ghosts?” Jonas asked sarcastically.
“Sure, I see plenty of dead folks these days. Mostly on the wrong side of my gun,” he said seriously.
Jonas never asked about the eye again.
For the rest of the ride, he busied himself with the folder. There was quite a bit of information about Flair. It contained his name, address, where he hustled, and a list of known associates. There was even a note in the file about where his grandmother attended church. Detective Ceaver had really done his homework. This made him wonder if the detective may have had a file on him tucked away somewhere. He’d be a fool to believe he didn’t. Men like Ceaver operated with control, and information on someone was control over them. It was that moment that Jonas decided to launch an investigation of his own and would put Stacey on the job. Who was Detective Louis Ceaver?
“Where are we going?” Jonas noticed they had just driven past Grant Projects. According to the file, that’s where Flair hustled. Jonas naturally assumed they would hit him there.
“We don’t want the eggs; we want the chicken. Best place to find one of those is in its coop,” Willie told him.
They rolled further south and hit Central Park West. When they rode past the park on 100th Street, Jonas was taken back to the afternoon that he had almost drowned. Back then, he had no idea that it would be the turning point in his life. The day everything would change. When they hit Eighty-eighth, One-Eye Willie turned into the block. It was a tree-lined street in a nice neighborhood. Willie parked the car near a hydrant in front of a brownstone.
“He lives here?” Jonas asked, looking at the brownstone. He assumed Flair lived in the same neighborhood that he sold drugs in, same as everybody else. Nope. He had stepped up his game. Jonas couldn’t help but feel a tinge of jealousy seeing the differences in how he and Flair lived.
Willie got out of the car and opened up the trunk. There was an assortment of firearms inside: automatic pistols, revolvers, etc. There was even a beat-up shotgun that looked like it had seen better days, which he handed to Jonas.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do with this? It doesn’t even look like it’ll fire without blowing a man’s hand off,” Jonas complained.
“I’ve killed men in three different cities with that old pump. It’s never failed me, and you treat it right, it may do you some justice. Now, stop fucking around, and let’s go kill this nigga.” Willie slammed the trunk and marched toward the building. Jonas followed him down the steps that led to the lower level of the brownstone. He watched curiously while Willie picked the lock on what looked like a big fuse box. Once he got it open, he pulled out a penlight and shone it around inside until he found it. “C’mere, kid,” he called to Jonas.
Jonas peered over his shoulder at a series of fuses that were different colors.
“When I tell you to, hit this one.” Willie tapped a red switch marked power. It appeared Willie was going to knock out the power and use the element of surprise. Jonas only saw one problem with that.
“How are you gonna see in the dark?”
Willie tap
ped his glass eye and went to take up a crouching position outside the door, two big guns gripped in his gloved hands. When Willie gave the signal, Jonas threw the switch. There was a loud pop; then, the entire building went dark. Inside, confused voices could be heard. A few seconds later, an armed man came out the side door Willie was hiding behind. He never even saw it coming. Willie hit him twice in the back of the head.
“I’m going in. Count to ten before you follow me in and shoot everybody who ain’t me! If you find yourself getting cold feet, just remember that it’s you or them,” Willie ordered and disappeared inside the house.
As Jonas was counting, he could hear screams, follow by the double bangs of Willie’s two guns. When he reached ten, he went inside. He was startled to hear a whirling sound, followed by a faint red light bathing him. The brownstone must’ve had a generator in the event of a power outage. The first thing he noticed was a body on the floor just inside the entrance. A few feet away, another lay facedown. There was a scream from the next room, followed by a gunshot and the sound of something heavy hitting the floor. Willie was a one-man wrecking crew. It was a wonder if even needed Jonas along on the job.
He heard footsteps above him. Cautiously, Jonas crept up the stairs to the next floor. His shotgun rested across his arm, swiveling back and forth, ready to bark at a moment’s notice. He was nervous, admittedly so. He’d been in shootouts and killed people before, but never on a tactical hit. “Them or me,” he whispered to himself. There was movement to his left. Jonas didn’t think twice. He whirled and fired. On the floor, near the archway of the kitchen, lay a boy who didn’t look to be much older than Jonas. Lying next to him was the .45 he’d meant to use to end Jonas’s life. “Them or me.”
Jonas found no resistance as he moved up another level to the top floor. There were two bedrooms on either side, one at the top of the stairs and another one down the hall. Jonas peered into both bedrooms, the one on the right first, and then the left. One was a child’s room, decorated in shades of pink with stuffed animals lining the bed. Jonas wondered what the child who occupied the room would say when she came home and found the mess that they had made of her home.
He whirled when he heard a noise at the end of the hall. It was coming from the bedroom. Jonas considered waiting for Willie to catch up but reasoned whoever it was might escape out of one of the windows by then. This was his mission, and he had to take control of it. He had to boss the fuck up.
Jonas made his way to the last bedroom, careful to keep his back to the wall so he couldn’t be ambushed from behind. He placed his ear to the door and heard movement inside. Someone was definitely hiding in there. He placed his hand on the doorknob, just about to rush the room when he heard something behind him. He spun in time to see someone bounding up the stairs. Instinctively, Jonas went down to one knee so that he could fire the shotgun from the hip. No sooner than he went down, a bullet pierced the bedroom door where his head had been seconds before. Someone inside was shooting at him.
Jonas dropped onto his back and fired the shotgun through his legs. The man who had been coming up the stairs took a spray to the face. If he wasn’t dead, he probably wished that he were. Still on his back, Jonas kicked the door open. The shooter was still standing, fired high, and missed him. Jonas jerked the trigger once more and tore the man’s stomach out with the shotgun.
Pulling himself to his feet, Jonas carefully made his way into the bedroom. The guy he had shot was on the floor, clutching his gut, rolling around and moaning in pain. Jonas kicked the gun out of his reach, then planted his foot on his chest. He looked down at his frightened face and recognized it from the picture. “You must be Flair,” he sneered down at him.
“Don’t kill me . . . I ain’t got nothing in the house,” Flair pleaded with him.
“See, you already starting off on the wrong foot . . . No pun intended.” Jonas stomped him in the face. “I been waiting for this for so long that I don’t know whether to shoot you or just bash your fucking skull in like I did your homeboy.”
“What are you talking about?” Flair was confused.
“I’m talking about our sins coming back to haunt us,” Jonas laughed maniacally. He wished Ace could be there to see what was about to happen.
“I ain’t never seen you a day in my life. You got the wrong man,” Flair insisted.
“Oh, I’ve got the right man,” Jonas told him. “Your sins have come back to haunt you, homie.”
Flair studied Jonas for a moment and then nodded his head as if he had just figured something out. “He sent you, didn’t he? You Ceaver’s new boy, huh?”
“I ain’t nobody’s boy,” Jonas checked him.
Flair tried to laugh, but pain shot through his stomach, and instead, a cough came out. “That’s the same thing I used to say until I realized that I couldn’t wipe my ass without him telling me what kind of toilet paper to use. How much is he paying you?”
“This isn’t about money.”
“It’s always about the money, shorty. That’s how he gets us, by promising things we could never get on our own. Take a poor kid who ain’t never had nothing and give him something, and he’ll do whatever you want, including kill.” Flair looked at the shotgun barrel.
“You think you know my story?” Jonas asked angrily. He felt like Flair was trying to get into his head.
“Your story . . . my story . . . They’ll all play out the same. There will come a time when you think you’ve made it. Everything Ceaver has promised will finally be yours. You will weigh what you’ve sacrificed versus what you’ve gained and figure it was all worth it—and then it’ll turn to shit. It’s at that moment when you’ll finally realize the nature of the monster you’re dealing with,” Flair warned.
“We done?”
“I don’t suppose me offering you the hundred grand I’ve got in the stash will get you to let me walk out of here?” Flair offered. Jonas gave him a look that said: “not happening.” “Guess not,” he chuckled. “Well, when you gotta go, you gotta go.” He lunged for the shotgun. Flair never even felt it when Jonas blew his head off.
“For Doug,” Jonas whispered. It was an emotional moment; one that he had been dreaming about for years. He only wished that Ace and Mula could’ve been there to share it with him.
“That Flair always was a smooth talker.” Willie’s voice startled him. He had been standing in the doorway of the bedroom watching the whole exchange. “For a minute, I thought you were going to take the money.”
“Some things are worth more than money,” Jonas told him. He wiped a lone tear from his face with his finger.
Jonas and Willie spent the next forty minutes searching the house for whatever they could find to loot. It was mostly drugs, a kilo stashed here, a few ounces in the freezer. All told, they had unearthed maybe two and a half kilos. That wasn’t all they found. Flair had been lying about having a hundred thousand stashed. It was closer to two hundred thousand. The idiot hadn’t even had the good sense to keep his cash in a safe. The money was stuffed into shoe boxes that lined the closet in the pink room. Even after giving Lou his cut, and the rest split between the two killers, Jonas would still clear about sixty grand for himself. That was more than enough to seriously entertain Prince’s offer.
Jonas and Willie were making a last sweep of the room Flair’s body was in. Willie was going through the drawers looking for jewelry, while Jonas checked under the bed. It was just then that Jonas realized they had never checked the small closet in that room. Having found the money in one closet, he was anxious to see what they would find in this one. He wasn’t sure what to expect but definitely didn’t expect what he discovered.
There was a woman huddled on the floor of the closet. She was dressed only in a pair of satin pajamas, as if she had been in bed when the men stormed their brownstone. “Out!” He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her from the closet. She stumbled and spilled on the floor. When she turned, Jonas was able to get a good look at her face, and he had to do a doub
le take. It was the woman from his dream—either that or a dead ringer.
“Please, don’t kill me!” she pleaded.
“I’m not going to kill you,” Jonas assured her. Flair and the men guarding him knew the rules of engagement. They were soldiers, and therefore, fair game. This was different. When he reached down to help her to her feet is when he saw the flash of something tucked into her pajama pants. By the time he realized that it was a gun, she had already drawn and fired.
Jonas managed to stumble out of the line of fire, but not before a bullet creased his cheek. Searing pain shot through his face. He pulled the trigger on the shotgun—and to his dismay, it clicked empty. As he stared down the barrel of the woman’s gun, the woman he had tried to help, he couldn’t help but think of Jo-Jo and the promise he had broken. “I’m sorry,” he whispered and closed his eyes.
There was a thunderous bang. Jonas braced himself for the impact of the bullet . . . but after a few beats, he realized that he hadn’t been hit. He opened his eyes in time to see the woman stumble to one side. Blood was gushing from her shoulder. There was a second bang. This time, the side of her head exploded. The woman crashed to the floor, dead eyes staring up at the ceiling. A few seconds later, One-Eye Willie stepped into view. Both of his guns were breathing smoke. He had saved Jonas from a terrible fate.
“Thanks,” Jonas said weakly. His heart was beating so hard and so fast that it sent blood rushing to his head, and he was feeling dizzy.
Willie reached down and grabbed Jonas by the front of his shirt. He lifted him as if he weighed nothing and pinned him against the wall. Willie sneered at Jonas, pushing the hot barrel of one of his guns into the soft flesh of Jonas’s neck. “You stupid, fucking kid; you almost got yourself killed!”