Eraserheads

by Brick

  It wasn’t often that I let her loose on the world, because she had a hidden anger issue that would cause us lots of heat if she fucked around and did the wrong thing. But this had to be handled.

  “Let this heat die down first, and then we catch him when he isn’t looking,” I said. Code looked at me as I spoke to her. “I want you to make sure that even his great-great-great-grandchildren feel the aftereffects of what you do to him. You understand? You make that motherfucker regret the day he ever crossed us.”

  I looked at my partner in crime, watched as Code paced the area in front of me. Sometimes I forgot the fact that the ruthless person in front of me was a woman. As feminine as she was, she was as deadly as a black widow. For as long as we’d been friends, she’d been like the sister I never had, but I’d seen her in action when she was angry. Shit wasn’t a pretty sight.

  She snatched off her bloodied T-shirt, pulling it over her head. I noticed she was walking like she was sore. He breasts bounced and jiggled in her bra. She cursed in Spanish, putting her Afro-Cuban ancestry on display.

  “Yo, Auto,” Lelo called out to me just then.

  I ignored him as I listened to Code. “I need a few days to get to him,” she told me. “Need time to set up my kit.”

  I nodded. “Whatever you need. Take whomever you need. Before you’re done with him, though, make him tell you all he knows about those motherfucking Vikings.”

  A deep crease formed between her brows, a sign she was lost in thought. “Doesn’t make sense to me, though.”

  I asked, “What?”

  “Why they were trying so hard to get this truck away from us. They knew there wasn’t shit here but shells.”

  I waved a dismissive hand. “Probably trying to distract us long enough to get the real shit out of range.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. They were really trying to kill us.”

  Stitch called out to me this time. “Hey, Auto!”

  Once he and Lelo saw I was ignoring them, Stitch tried getting Code’s attention. “Code, you and Auto need to—”

  Annoyance finally got the best of me. “Motherfucker, don’t you see us handling business!” I snapped as I turned to scowl at them.

  In Stitch’s hand was a crate. His voice was calm and had a tinge of frustration when he said, “Just saying, boss man, that y’all might wanna take a look at this.”

  Before I could ask him what he was talking about, he had brought the crate to the edge of the truck, had hopped down, and had set the crate on the floor. Lelo trailed behind him. Both Code and I walked closer as Stitch knelt down and opened the crate. Lelo knelt down beside him once the crate was open.

  “Look at this shit,” Stitch said as he pulled out a small, clear rectangular box with bullets inside it.

  “These ain’t no regular bullets, bro,” Lelo chimed in as he looked from the bullets up at me. “Look at ’em.”

  Stitch passed a box of bullets to me, then handed one to Code. I examined the box. Turned it upside down and saw the initials BK engraved on the bottom of the bullets. I tried to figure out a way to open the box, then noticed there was a small hole where some key was probably supposed to go.

  “Can’t open this shit,” I said.

  Lelo stood, rushed to the back of the truck, got on his knees, and felt around under one of the dummy cars. He found what he was looking for, then rushed back over.

  “Here,” he said, passing me a small dimple key. “Found this in the crate but thought it was just some random shit. Looks like it fits the box, though.”

  “Oh, this is some high-tech shit,” Code said, speculating. “A dimple key like this means whoever made these bullets is some other level government-type shit. Dimple keys have cone-shaped dimples that match up with two sets of pins in the lock.”

  “Speak English, Code,” Stitch remarked.

  “What she means is, whoever made these bullets knew what they were doing. Being that the boxes are locked down tighter than Fort Knox means they didn’t want them to fall into the wrong hands,” I said.

  I fumbled around with the lock and key on my box of bullets. Made sure I lined up the key just right, then slid it into the lock. Like magic, the box popped open. Code reached inside my box, pulled out a bullet, and studied it. Golden on the bottom, copper toned in the middle, and the color of a brand-new penny at the top, the bullet was designed like one I’d never seen before. It looked like the top had been drilled into and then the opening had been filed into eight picket fence–like prongs.

  “Found some guns back there too,” Stitch said.

  I found it odd that Code hadn’t said anything about these bullets yet.

  I asked her, “What do you think?”

  “Let me get one of those guns,” she told me.

  Stitch rushed to the back of the truck, grabbed a case of guns from where the engine of one of the dummy cars should have been, hauled the case over to us, and opened it. Then he handed a black Glock 9 to Code. She needed a target, so I ordered Lelo to set up a few of the cinder blocks that were lying around. Took Code all of a few seconds to load a clip into the gun. She stood with a perfect shooting stance: weight shifted forward, her feet shoulder width apart, one foot slightly forward of the other, and the gun pointing at the target. She’d more than likely developed this stance from all the training her grandfather had demanded she undergo when she was growing up.

  When she let the hammer loose, the sound of the gun firing echoed loudly. Bullets tore through the cinder block so violently that it crumbled into pieces, sending ash clouds into the air. She turned quickly, aimed the gun at a tire on the big rig, and fired. The rubber tore apart like it had been shredded, causing the truck to shift like it had hydraulics.

  “Holy shit,” Lelo and Stitch said at the same time.

  I rushed in to inspect the bullet casings. Code smiled like she knew something we didn’t.

  “Load this up,” she ordered.

  “What you smiling at? And what the fuck you mean, load this up?” I asked her. “We don’t deal in weapons.”

  “Trust me when I tell you, we just hit the jackpot.”

  “I ain’t trusting shit until you tell me what the hell you’re talking about,” I replied.

  Code rolled her eyes hard. She knew I didn’t play that shit. I never went in blindly on anything, and this wouldn’t be any different. I needed to know the risk factors for everything, and since we didn’t deal in weapons, illegal drugs, or anything that caused genocide in the hood, she needed to run this shit down for me, and she needed to do it in a way that didn’t make me want to blow her head off afterward. I wasn’t about putting my family in jeopardy, and they all knew that.

  “I have to meet with my grandfather, the old man,” she informed me.

  I took a seat on the back of the truck and watched her intently. “About?”

  “I have a feeling he’ll be pissed about a shipment he may be missing.”

  I quirked both brows, curiosity riding me. “These bullets belong to the old man?”

  “If my suspicions are correct, yes, yes, they do.”

  She was smiling. My lips had turned down into a frown. I didn’t like dealing with that old dickhead she called her grandfather. I’d never met the man, but I knew psychological abuse when I saw it. Had dealt with it all my life from the system. He had a hold so tight on Code mentally that she often questioned her own sanity.

  “And you’re going to do what with that knowledge? Try to sell the bullets back to him? He’ll kill you, and you know he will.”

  With as close as we were, there was no secret between us that the old man she called her grandfather was nobody you wanted to cross. Even though she was his favorite granddaughter—according to her, though I begged to differ—he wouldn’t hesitate to punish her for going against the grain, against his word. I’d seen how he punished her before. She had the scars on her back to show for it.

  “I’m not that stupid, Auto. But I figure if I can find out who created
these suckers, it will be to our advantage, as they will be in dire need to get them back. Nobody in their right mind wants to cross the old bastard. And since I know for a fact he’s already paid a hefty price for something coming out of Vegas, from the gun show, whoever lost his shipment is going to be looking to get it back by any means necessary.”

  “And yeah, that means they’ll be willing to kill for it too. So no.” I glanced over my shoulder. “Lelo and Stitch, pack up the Cessna and tell Reagan to gas up. We’re getting out of here.” I stood, then made my way across the room to make some phone calls back to the A.

  “Auto, please, you have to let me do this. We need this money,” Code pleaded.

  “We don’t need it bad enough for you to try to go head to head with that old man.” I spat on the concrete, like the whole idea left a bad taste in my mouth.

  “Auto, all I have to do is find the person or persons who lost this merchandise. The rest is easy going.”

  I shook my head. I was seriously thinking about dumping this shit off in a landfill somewhere and calling it a day. But Code wouldn’t let up. I listened to her stress the fact that we needed to go with her plan because we were in the hole.

  Lelo and Stitch were quiet, but I could tell they were listening. I knew if word got back to the rest of the crew about how much this latest fiasco had set us back, there would be questions. Questions I didn’t want to answer. I didn’t know exactly how we were going to recoup what we had lost.

  Against my better judgment, I agreed to what Code was scheming.

  “You get one shot,” I told her. “One. If it even looks like you’re about to bring heat to this team, you back the fuck out. We don’t need the Feds breathing down our necks. We don’t need heat from any hoodlum at our door. Got it?”

  Code nodded and kept telling me her plan as we got ready to fly back out. I had people to pay and mouths to feed. If we didn’t recoup our losses, I’d be breaking my word to all those I’d told that they’d never go hungry or become homeless again. Needless to say, I saw Code’s vision, a vision that would come back to haunt me when it was all said and done.

  * * *

  It had been seventy-two hours since we’d landed back in ATL. I sat in the office at the auto shop. We were still no closer to getting our merchandise back or recouping our losses. I’d cleaned up. Talked to our team and assured them we had everything under control. I wasn’t too sure of that, but my job was to be sure they stayed on task and let me worry about the heavy-duty stuff.

  Code was in her signature tan pencil skirt, white blouse, and matching blazer, which she’d paired with six-inch tan, red-bottom shoes. A vast difference from the greasy jumpsuit she’d had on before. Her hair was no longer in six cornrows but had gone wild, with small spiral curls framing her oval-shaped baby face.

  My black button-down, dark denim jeans, and black loafers showed the team that I was back to business. Yeah, I was young, but I had put in enough work to make me feel and seem older than my age. Truth be told, I was still young enough to be in college, but I had lived a life that had made me too street wise for corporate America.

  I was deep in thought when there was a buzz in the shop. I looked through the two-way mirror. Twenty people in the shop. Loads more in the street, handling business for us. I was still nervous as fuck about what Code was trying to pull off, but I was in a bind. Wanted to call in the cavalry but hadn’t heard from my boy Trigga in weeks. I knew what the deal was with that, so I wouldn’t call him unless I had no other choice.

  “What are we going to do about those damn Vikings?” Code asked me from her seat on the other side of my desk. “After I handle Chandler, we still have to get after them.”

  “You let me worry about that. I’m still thinking. One thing at a time,” I told her. “Now, what about this new potential you were telling me about?”

  She knew my transitioning to the topic of the new potential was my way of telling her to drop the subject. She and I had been friends long enough for her to know when something was a done deal. She got up and walked to the file cabinet to pull out a file.

  “Got a hit today in the system. Street name Smiley. Got caught up when one of her friends was trying to pull a credit card switch at Morton’s The Steakhouse, where they worked. The friend got spooked by the time she was facing and sold Smiley out,” she informed me.

  She slid the file across the desk to me and sat back down in the chair she had occupied. Watched quietly as I opened it and looked down at the face of a girl who clearly had no soul behind her eyes. Her hair was shaved off on one side of her head, and long black locks with purple tips adorned the other side. Piercings and hoop earrings lined both of her earlobes.

  I looked through the papers in the file, then back up at Code. “What’s her specialty?”

  “She’s got a record. Credit card skimming. ATM fraud. Card switching. But her claim to fame? She hijacked a police car at fourteen and took it on a joyride. On her sixteenth birthday, she stole ten cars in less than twenty-four hours. Max time she kept each one was two hours. She was an hour outside New York when she was caught.”

  “So she stole a string of cars to go on a road trip? What the hell was in New York?”

  “Juvie file says she was going to kill her father for beating her mother damn near to death.”

  “She told the cops that?”

  Code nodded. “Says it right there in the police report.”

  “Well, did she kill him?”

  She shook her head. “Nope, but he did die about a year later of a drug overdose.”

  “She has family?”

  “Just her and her mother. Mother’s dead now, though. Died a few weeks ago.”

  “So why is she stealing? Out of greed or necessity?”

  “According to Officer Bryant . . . from what he told me of her history, it looks like she’s doing it out of necessity. Her mother was sick—cancer, I think—and she was paying her mom’s doctor bills and for her meds, treatments, and such.”

  Officer Bryant was Code’s cousin on the Atlanta Police Department. She had him in her pocket. Which worked in our favor.

  I sat forward, clicking a pen in my hand, as she watched me. “You want me to bring her on, then?”

  She shrugged. “Want to feel her out. See what she’s about. She’s facing twenty years. If I feel the vibe is cool, I can offer her a way out by joining us. We could use her. She’s multifaceted. And you know we need someone who’s good with credit cards, since Kitty died in that shoot-out in East Lake Meadows.”

  “A’ight. I’ll call Officer Bryant and take the lead on this. Have him bring her out of the cell so I can speak to her. I need to feel her out myself. If I decide she’s cool, I’ll introduce her to the team. If not, she’ll never see me again.”

  “What angle are you working?” Code asked as she stood and grabbed her clutch.

  “Lawyer. Going to see whether she’ll bite if I dangle the bait.”

  “What are we offering?”

  “She works for us, we’ll find a way to make her charges disappear, and the chick who sold her out will be on the hook for it all.”

  Code nodded, then walked around the desk. I could tell she was still in pain by the way she had to slow down her walk. She hugged me, then kissed my cheek. In her heels she was almost as tall as me.

  “Can I meet you back here in the morning? I have to get to the old man while he’s eating dinner, or he’ll be a dick otherwise,” she said as headed toward the door.

  “Sure,” I answered. A sinking feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. Made me uncomfortable. I looked at the young woman who’d been the only true family I’d known as she walked with the regal disposition of a goddess and the stride of a boss. Even through her pain, she held her head high. “Hey, Code,” I yelled behind her.

  She turned on her heels. “Yeah, bro?”

  “Be careful, even with the old man.”

  She smiled. “Don’t worry, Auto. I got this.”

  I sat t
here, wishing I was as confident as she was.

  * * *

  An hour later I sat in a drab room with a light in the middle of the ceiling, a table, two chairs, and four walls. My hair was in a ponytail. Black-framed glasses adorned my eyes, and a black tailored Brooks Brothers suit was my attire. I was still sore in places I didn’t know I had. Goddamned Vikings had hit like anvils were attached to their hands.

  I waited, quite impatiently, as they brought the young woman in. She looked worse for wear. Like she hadn’t slept or had a decent meal in weeks. There was a bruise underneath her eye. All those piercings I’d seen on the photo in her file were gone. Her eyes were red, and she had a frown on her face that told me she wasn’t in a good mood. Even through all of that, her beauty couldn’t be denied.

  “Hey, I don’t know this man,” she yelled at the officer as he walked to the door.

  The officer ignored her. Turned his head and walked out like she didn’t even exist.

  Her hands were cuffed in front of her as she studied me.

  “Have a seat, Nia,” I told her.

  She shook her head. “Nah. I’m cool standing up. Who are you?”

  “That all depends on you.”

  She gave an exasperated sigh. “Look, I’m not for bullshit and games, man. What the hell do you want with me? Because I don’t have a lawyer, and I for damn sure don’t know no Asians like that. So if you in here just to fuck with me or you a public defender, you can kiss the blackest part of my ass.”

  I licked my lips and leaned to the side in my chair, not impressed by her show of defensiveness.

  “You just blew out all that hot air,” I said. “You’re talking a lot but not saying anything. It’s cool if you don’t trust people. I get it. I understand it, but I’m not out to get you. I’m here to help. You’re facing twenty years because you trusted the wrong person. Now, if you’re willing to help me, I can help you. You’ll be out of here in a few hours. Curb that anger. Take a seat. Listen to what I have to say. If you don’t like it, I’ll walk out of here, and you’ll never see me again.”