The driver felt along the wall for a light switch. Finding it, he flicked it up, but the lights failed to come on. “Fuck this, let’s roll,” the driver said. They walked out of the laundry room and headed for the front door. “Ol’ boy is dead,” he said, pointing at the guy on the floor, “and the house smells like gas. This shit is wild and I ain’t tryin’a run into nothing else.”
“Where you think the girl and them kids at?” the partner asked.
“I don’t know, and I really don’t care right about now.” The driver looked down at Don. He then knelt down at his head. “If what you said about the girl killing her family is true, she probably killed him.”
The partner went to kneel down next to the driver, when the house blew up. The blast sent their bodies flying into doors and walls, before burning to a crisp.
The explosion rocked the neighborhood like the Northridge earthquake. The houses on opposite sides of the house also caught fire, leaving residents running for their lives.
The entire neighborhood was now outside. People from blocks away walked to the scene. A police car filled with two officers was the first to arrive to the scene. One of the officers evacuated the residents on the street, while the other officer blocked off the street with yellow tape. Only fire trucks, paramedics, and other law enforcement personnel were allowed past the tape.
People could be seen standing on top of cars, trash cans, or whatever else they could find to get a glimpse of the action.
Excited, Truth and Real jumped up and down in their seats. “Damn, that was some crazy shit!” Truth laughed.
With her eyes still glued on the street ahead of her, Candy pulled off. “Look, I’ma drop y’all off at home but first I need to get the last of my money y’all holdin’. Since y’all done graduated into some real killas, I ain’t passin’ y’all no more coke. Plus y’all got y’all own coke to sell.” Candy was referring to the coke from the heist.
“A’ight, that’s cool.” Truth replied. “I got yo’ paper at the crib.”
It was a quiet two-hour drive to Truth’s house. Real and Truth had fallen asleep. It was now time for Candy to enjoy some real company.
Candy slipped The Isley Brothers CD into the CD player. She let down the driver’s side window. She sang along with The Isley Brothers as they asked their lady to spend the night.
Candy turned on to Q Street where Truth lived. She noticed a coroner’s van pulling away from his apartment. Three police officers stood on the stairs that led up to the entrance of the apartment. They each held a notepad in their hand.
“Yo, Truth, wake up.” Candy parked behind a police car and looked in the back seat at Truth. “A coroner’s van just pulled off from yo’ apartment,” she informed him.
Truth was half asleep. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. Yawning, he jerked his head at the site of the police officers standing on the porch of his building.
Truth jumped out of the car and ran past them, into the apartment. It seemed like it took forever for him to make it up the stairs to his apartment unit. He worried that something bad had happened to his mother. And once he saw the yellow tape cordoning off his apartment door, his fears were confirmed—his mother was dead.
The yellow tape was an untold story of death. It let you know that somebody had died, but how they died? Only the people who put it there knew.
Truth’s vision had become a mere blur. It doubled the three words, DO NOT CROSS, on the yellow tape. He peeled back tape from the door. He then removed his key from his pocket and unlocked the door.
The house had been trashed. Both the sofa and loveseat were turned upside down with the bottoms ripped apart. Books and magazines lay strewn on the floor next to the coffee table. The contents of his mother’s purse made a trail leading from the living room to the kitchen floor. His grandmother’s antique lamp was broken into what looked like a million pieces. And lying next to the broken lamp was a pool of blood. It was his mother’s blood, and the scent of her Essence perfume lingered above it. Truth immediately recognized the smell; after all, he did give it to her as a Christmas gift the year before.
Truth couldn’t understand who would want to hurt his mother. It was obvious that whoever it was was looking for something. His eyes suddenly grew wide as if a bell had sounded in his head. It was him that they were looking for, and Candy’s money that they were after.
Truth ran to his room. He bypassed the dresser drawers and clothes on the floor. The mattress was pulled off of its box-spring onto the floor. It served as a canopy as he made his way to the closet.
All $27,000 of Candy’s money was gone. Every shoebox that once contained stacks of one hundred dollar bills was empty.
“I don’t believe this shit.” Truth walked into the closet and kicked the empty boxes. Images of the house that he had helped Candy to blow up appeared in his head. But in the image, he was one of the people killed in the explosion.
Truth fell to his knees and wept. “Damn, man,” he said, using the bottom of his shirt to wipe his face. “They killed my moms. Took Candy’s money. How I’m gonna explain this to Candy?”
“Don’t sweat that shit.” Candy and Real appeared behind him. “That paper can be replaced, but yo’ moms can’t,” Candy said, sympathizing with his loss. She reached down and rubbed his head. “Since it was my money that she got killed over, I’ma make sure yo’ moms is buried proper. In the meantime, I’ma help you look for your own spot. This place is hot. Whoever killed yo’ moms might come back again looking for more paper.”
Truth looked up at Candy and smiled. He then stood up and gave her a hug. “That’s real, Candy, thanks.”
“Not a problem. Let’s get outta here.” Candy turned and headed for the door.
“Hold up, let me grab a few things.” Truth looked around the room for an empty gym bag, but couldn’t find one. “I know I gotta Nike bag somewhere around here,” he said. He lifted the mattress back onto its box-spring and looked under the bed. He then walked into the closet. “Fuck it,” he said, picking a pillow up from the bedroom floor, and shaking it out of its pillowcase.
“Don’t sweat the clothes, just grab yo’ important shit.” Candy picked a gold chain up off the dresser and tossed it on the bed. “Me and Real gonna go wait in the car. Make it quick.”
Candy and Real walked out of the bedroom and out of the house.
Truth walked over to the nightstand and picked up a picture of him and his mother. It was his tenth birthday and he was all smiles. “Dang, Mama, I’ma miss you. I’m too young not to have a mama.” He gently placed the picture at the bottom of the pillowcase. He scooped all of his jewelry from the dresser into the pillowcase. He then walked over to the bed and picked up the chain that Candy had thrown on the bed. “It’s all my fault and that’s something I’ma have to live with for the rest of my life” He dropped the chain into the pillowcase and glanced around the room.
There were other pictures on the wall of him and his mother, but none of them meant more to him than the picture in the pillowcase. Hmmm, I guess that’s it. He lowered his head and walked out of the room, into the living room.
The house was cold and quiet. Death had made its presence known. The circle of blood on the carpet looked like an entrance to hell. And since it was his fault that his mother was dead, he was afraid to go near it. A dried circle of blood the size of a CD was right next to his mother’s purse. Small spots of blood were on her wallet. It was as if the devil had left a ladder to hell, patiently waiting for him to take his first step.
Truth felt the need to have his mother’s wallet. He wanted her purse. But in order to get them he would have to take her blood with him.
Truth walked to the front door. He looked back at his mother’s purse and wallet. He then dropped his head and walked out of the door and locked it behind him.
Chapter 5
It was going on five o’clock and visiting hours at the jail were almost over. Candy rushed through the double doors after getting past the security chec
kpoint. She walked to the receptionist window and said, “I’m here to see Raynail Jennings.”
The guard flipped through a log book on her desk. She stopped at the letter J. She then skimmed through the list of last names until she got to Jennings. “One moment please,” she said.
Candy looked around the room, sizing up each of the guards who stood watch in three corners of the room. Since she was the only visitor in the room, her and Raynail’s conversation could easily be heard. She sat in the only corner that was not occupied by a guard. She then looked from the clock on the wall next to the entrance door to her watch, hoping that Raynail would be out soon. It was now four forty-five and she only had fifteen minutes to talk to him.
Raynail walked into the visiting room, pissed. “Man, Candy, that lawyer you got me is foul.” He sat across from Candy. “Dude runnin’ wit’ Feo?”
“What! Who told you that?”
“One of these cats up in here,” Raynail replied. “Dude told me about Feo and Ken hanging out and taking trips and shit together.”
Candy shook her head and looked down at the table. “But, how does he know?”
“Dude know, a’ight? Fuck! I got a few of these dudes on payroll up in here. They got people on the outside finding shit out for me, and I pay ’em wit’ the money you put on my book. When I first met that lawyer, I knew it was something foul about him. So, I had one of these cats up in here contact a uncle of his who happens to be a lawyer, and he peeped him up on game about Ken and Feo. Oh, and the uncle is my lawyer now. He gonna call you tomorrow. His name is Robert Taylor.”
“Baby, you moving too fast.” Candy took one of Raynail’s hands into her hands. “How do we know they telling the truth?”
“I’ma tell you how.” Raynail leaned in close to Candy and whispered, “You told me about Ken, but you never told me how much you paid him ... right?”
Candy nodded in agreement.
“Well, that $226,000 that you gave him in cash at his office went straight to a brand-new 2012 BMW for him and a 2011 Lexus for Feo, not to mention the trips they took.”
Raynail’s informant was telling the truth. Candy had never told anyone, not even Raynail, how much she had paid Ken to represent him. “Damn.” Candy was at a loss for words. “Okay, Raynail.” She had a lot to think about and wasn’t happy with the fact that she would now have to add Ken to the list of names that Raynail had given her. “The new lawyer is fine. I’ll be looking out for his call. Is there anything else before I go?”
“Yeah,” he replied. “I also found out that Feo and them be hanging out at the Dub Shack on Saturday nights. My informant up in here told me that Feo and them rolled up on one of our workers moms and took our stash,” he said, raising his right eyebrow. “Yeah, ol’ boy told me that Feo was at the Dub Shack braggin’ ’bout my paper.”
“Our paper,” Candy corrected him. “And, yes, somebody did take our shit. And, on top of that, they killed Truth’s mom.”
Raynail bit his bottom lip and shook his head. “I heard about that too. It was that nigga, Dino. Damn, baby, this shit is really gettin’ outta hand. Look, I been thinkin’ ’bout us cleaning up the money when I get out.”
Candy stared at her husband like he was crazy. “Cleaning up?” She hunched. “But why?”
“’Cause, baby, peep game.” Raynail took a deep breath. “We been doing this shit for a long time, so we got more than enough paper to laugh to the bank wit’.”
Candy’s facial expression let him know that she didn’t agree with him.
“I’m facing the death penalty, all because my supposed homies turned against me. The respect is damn near gone,” Raynail said.
“Naw, Raynail, you got shit twisted.” Candy gave him a cold look. “The respect still there. Five dudes did us dirty—correction, six, including Ken—and one of them is nothing more than a lost soul searching for its shell.” She thought back to the guy whose house she and her runners had blown up. “We gonna be straight, don’t trip.”
A lost soul searching for its shell? Raynail thought while laughing. “Girl, you are crazy. That’s why I married you. Make sure you handle Ken while you handling the rest of them cats.”
“Time’s up,” one of the guards yelled. Raynail looked at the guard. He then stood up.
“Oh, I’m gonna pay Ken a visit tomorrow night,” Candy said as she stood up to leave.
“Let’s go,” the guard said to Raynail in a more demanding tone.
Raynail turned away from Candy. A lost soul searching for its shell. He continued to laugh. “My baby is real.” Raynail walked off with the guard.
“Call me if you find out anything else,” Candy yelled out to him. Raynail never looked back at her, but instead threw up a peace sign and nodded his head.
After her visit with Raynail, Candy decided to check out the Dub Shack. It was one-thirty in the morning and Candy and her runners sat in her Lexus truck with the headlights off. She had parked facing the entrance of the Dub Shack. She had positioned her truck so that they could see everybody that exited the Shack when it closed at two o’clock.
The Dub Shack was a club that catered to all of Cali’s major suppliers. Not only were they suppliers, but they were billion-dollar stakeholders with major investments in real estate. It wasn’t people’s ID that got them into the Shack. They were identified by their finances. The owner was familiar with the paper of everybody who frequented the club. And if a dude wasn’t pushing six figures or more, he wasn’t getting in.
Expensive wine for expensive taste was all that was served at the Shack. Château d’Yquem, the most expensive white wine ever sold, was going for $56,000 a bottle. Montrachet from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti was going for $23,000 a bottle.
Even though Candy and Raynail refused to be a part of the Shack’s “social elites,” they were respectfully known by the owner and his workers.
Candy and Raynail didn’t believe in dudes knowing how much money they were pulling in. To them, “a nigga braggin’ ’bout his weight in the streets was just setting himself up for somebody to run up on ’em and take his cheese,” as Raynail once said.
Candy pulled her cell phone from its holder on her waist and dialed the number to the Shack.
“Lue here, how may I help you?” he asked after picking up on the third ring. Lue was the owner of the Shack.
“This Candy, Lue, what’s up?”
“Awwww, Candy, how are you?” Lue raised his glass to a couple of women who were dancing next to him.
“You spot Feo and his boys, Q-tip, Dino, or Lil John up in there?” she asked.
Lue shifted his attention to Q-tip and Dino. They were standing by the bar, laughing and joking with two women they had just met.
Lue overheard them earlier talking about the money that they had stolen from Candy and Raynail. He knew right away why Candy was inquiring about them.
“Q-tip and Dino are here but I haven’t seen Feo or Lil John.” Lue rubbed his chin. “Candy, please don’t bring no shit to the Shack. This here is what pays my bills.”
“Lue, I’d never disrespect another man’s hustle, as long as he ain’t disrespecting mines.”
“I don’t even want the cops coming my way.” Lue watched Q-tip and Dino as they headed out the door. “They’re walking out of the door now,” he told Candy.
Candy sat up and started the truck. “What color are they wearing?” She noticed two men walking out of the Shack, but, because of the distance, couldn’t make out their faces.
“One is wearing blue jeans and a blazer and the other one—”
“Is wearing all black,” Candy chimed in. “Thanks, Lue.”
“Hold up, Candy, you still there?”
“Yeah, I’m here.” She kept her eyes on Q-tip and Dino. They were standing next to a silver 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee.
“I’m only guessing that you’re out there lying in the cut, but then again, if I know you and I do,” he said, laughing, “I know there’s gonna be lots of blood. Make sur
e none of that blood is yours.”
“Come on, Lue, ain’t nothing gonna happen to me,” Candy assured him.
Lue’s words had softened her heart. For the job that she was about to do, she had no room for emotions. She was born with a cold heart and bred to be a killer.
“I gotta go. I’ll call you tomorrow to let you know I’m okay.” Candy ended the call. She then called Murphy.
As usual, Murphy picked up on the first ring. “What’s up, Candy?”
“I need you to find Lil John and kill him on sight,” Candy instructed.
“I’m on it,” Murphy said, ending the call.
Candy closed her cell and slipped it into its case on her hip.
Q-tip and Dino had gotten into the Jeep. Candy rolled up behind them. She followed them out of the parking lot, into the streets.
“Yo, take me by that twenty-four-hour Taco Bell before you drop me off at my crib.” Dino closed his eyes and rested his head back against the seat.
“That’s cool, but I’ma crash on yo’ couch.” Q-tip’s eyes were opening and closing. “That wine got me fucked up.”
“You can crash but you gotta be out by eight. My girl get off work at eight and I ain’t tryin’a hear her mouth,” Dino told him.
Q-tip turned into the parking lot of Taco Bell. He pulled into the drive-thru and placed his order. “Give me the number three wit’ no sour cream on the two tacos, and instead of beef on the Mexican pizza, I want chicken.”
“Anything else?” the cashier asked through the speaker.
Q-tip looked over at Dino.
Dino leaned past Q-tip to look at the menu. “Shit, give me the same thing he got, but I want sour cream on my tacos.”
“What kind of drinks?” the cashier asked.
“Pepsi.” Q-tip pulled off before the cashier could say anything else, and rolled up to the window.
Dino didn’t like Pepsi and Q-tip had been around him long enough to know it. “But, I wanted a Coke,” he spat.
“If they sell Pepsi, they ain’t got no Coke.” Q-tip smiled at the cashier as she slid open the drive-thru window. He handed her a twenty dollar bill.
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