by Brick
I told him about the phone call I’d just gotten.
Seymore thumbed his nose, then said, “This shit’s getting bigger than we thought. What in hell did Chandler get us into? All this nigga had to do was deliver some cars. How did we get involved in torture and bullets?”
I shook my head. “Your guess is as good as mine. But since we’re too far in to back out, we have to make sure we keep our eyes and ears above water. If shit gets too hot around here, you can call an audible and make sure you bring in whoever and whatever is needed.”
“I got you,” he assured me with a nod.
Once I got to my car, I called Code.
“You get my message?” I asked when she answered.
“Yup. Watching something right now, anyway. Pascal called me. Said Chandler has packed up and moved out—”
“No, he didn’t. He’s in the A.”
“How do you know that?”
“Just got a phone call. Whoever made those bullets got to him before we did.”
I heard Code moving around. Listened as she told Smiley to stay down.
“You know how to shoot?” she asked her.
“Yeah, I can handle a gun. Daddy was in the military. He taught me,” I heard Smiley tell her.
“Good. Then shoot to kill,” Code said.
The hairs stood up on the back of my neck. “What’s going on, Code?”
“We’re being followed.”
I could tell she was driving, speeding, trying to get away from wherever she was.
“Location,” I yelled into my earpiece.
“Highway Eighty-five. Passing the Krispy Kreme, heading toward Fayetteville. Oh shit—”
When her voice was cut off and I heard bullets shattering windows, along with a loud squeal, I knew it was serious. It had to be someone new to the A. Nobody in their right mind would bring a firefight to the heart of Clayton County, where the police rode around like they were in a parade. There were three areas in Clayton County where even the lowest of the underworld steered clear of the police: Lake City, Forest Park, and Riverdale. Since Highway 85 ran through the heart of the city of Riverdale and was the main highway there, I knew only someone new to the area would be so brazen.
I did an illegal U-turn in the middle of Mt. Zion Road. Pushed my GT500 to the limit as I whipped a right out onto Tara Boulevard. Horns blared; brakes screeched. Still, I kept going. If Clayton County was going to come after me, they’d have to catch me first.
I quickly called the shop.
Seconds later Seymore’s voice came through the line. “What it is, boss?”
“Code’s in trouble. Get the team to Eighty-five, headed toward Fayetteville. Shots fired, so we don’t have that much time.”
I didn’t give him time to respond. I dipped in and out of lanes. Ran the red lights at the crisscrossed four-way intersection where the Burger King sat. The black and yellow lettering of an abandoned Western Union and check-cashing place greeted me as people swerved to miss me. Luckily, the traffic at the next intersection wasn’t so bad. I hopped in the third lane, like I was about to jump on 75 North, then swerved left to cut into the traffic heading down Upper Riverdale Road. Sped down that four-lane street like the speed limit didn’t matter. Dipped into the far right lane to avoid rear-ending a school bus.
In my rearview, I saw three cars jump off Lamar Hutcheson Parkway. The blue Nissan GT-R was hot on my ass. The red Ford Taurus SHO and the silver Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 were right behind it. The lights flashed on the Nissan three times. They were my people. The Camaro slid into the left lane. I gripped my Glock as the Camaro’s front passenger-side window slowly came down. Relaxed a bit when Stitch’s slick smile shone at me.
“Reagan and Lelo behind us,” he shouted over the roar of the engines and the traffic.
I only nodded. I could tell when he shifted gears in his car. He flew past me. Both he and I ran the yellow light to turn onto 85. It was easy to follow the trail Code had left. Cars had been sidelined on the road, with bullet holes decorating them. The McDonald’s parking lot was full, with people staring down the street, cell phones to their ears. No doubt calling the cops. In my rearview, I could see that Reagan and Lelo were stuck at the light. All up and down 85, people had pulled over. I could see those who were victims of the melee as well.
I spotted Code’s car and saw that the passenger- and driver’s-side doors were open. Bullet holes had redecorated the exterior. The car had been abandoned in the middle of the highway. I slowed down to see if I could spot them anywhere.
If I hadn’t been paying attention, the Ford F-150 truck barreling up Adams Drive would have T-boned me. My eyes widened as my feet instinctively hit the gas. The truck missed me by inches and crashed into the cars on a used car lot. I didn’t have time to think about that, though. Suddenly bullets came down like hail, pelting my car. Stitch’s car was riddled. I kept driving toward him, so I could flank him. We raced our cars into the parking lot of what used to be a Chinese buffet eatery. I crawled over to the passenger side of my car, then opened the door and fell to the ground. Stitch opened his car door, slid out, and crawled up next to me.
“We need to get to the used car lot so we can have cover,” I told him.
He nodded, then pulled his gun out. He was sweating. Blood dripped down his shoulder. I could tell that it hurt him to breathe. In hindsight I could see how us running full speed across the small road to the car lot could have got us both killed as bullets rained down around us. We had no choice, though. Staying in that empty parking lot would have been a death sentence. Once we had got across the street to the car lot and had hid between two rows of used cars, which offered good cover, I breathed a little easier.
“Yo, Stitch, talk to me. You a’ight?” I yelled.
“Nothing that another set of stitches won’t fix,” I heard him groan.
He army crawled around a car as I pulled my guns out. In the process, he came out of his shirt, revealing the reason he had the nickname Stitch. His whole upper body was covered with scars, the result of being stitched up many times. He’d endured 95 percent of the stitches when he was seven years old. His mom’s boyfriend at the time had thought it would be fun to take a blade to him. Had said he wanted to see how long it would take a little nigger to bleed out from thin slices across his body. Black woman with a white man who hated anything black and male.
We didn’t have time to have a kumbaya moment, though. Gravel crunching under workman’s boots alerted us to danger. We took off in opposite directions. I went left. He went right. Bullets followed us through the maze of cars like we were magnetic fields. I took cover behind a Hummer. Positioned myself so I could take aim at those aiming to kill me. I saw one of the men hunting me. He was sloppy. Thought because he had the bigger gun, he was in control of the situation. Not so much. The man had on a bulletproof vest, but he hadn’t thought about the spot under his arm that was exposed.
With quickness, I stood, fired one shot when he raised his gun to fire at me. The bullet from my gun tore through his armpit. He yelped. Body jerked as he hit the ground hard. I rushed over to him and put a bullet in his head.
One bullet from the chamber and his brains scattered like the contents of a piñata. Shock waves went through my system at the grisly sight. I didn’t know what I had been expecting, but to see a bullet split a man’s head like that let me know the bullets we’d lucked upon were serious ammo. The demos on the bullets had been impressive, but to actually see one put a man down was something else altogether, especially when the bullet tore through his skull and split it from the inside out.
It was hot and humid. The smell of my sweat mixed with the oil and grease from the shop assaulted my senses. The Glock 9 was locked tight in my grip. I dipped and ducked around the back of the truck I had found myself next to. Saw Stitch kneel down, army crawl around a car, and take out the Achilles tendons of two of the gunmen stalking him. Their yells rent the air as they went down. Stitch quickly got to his feet. When he let bullets
off into their chests, the area exploded.
“God damn,” Stitch yelled. “You see that shit? The nigga who made these motherfuckers—”
“Get down, Stitch,” I yelled, cutting off whatever he was about to say.
He hit the ground hard as bullets rained down like hail. As I took cover, I did a mental count of the men I could see. Knew there were more that I couldn’t see based on the direction the gunfire was coming from. There were too many of them. As sirens blared in the distance, I knew we had to get the fuck outta there. I wasn’t sure if the Vikings had sent in the cavalry or if the man I’d spoken to on the phone when Chandler called had sent them after me.
“I see Lelo and Reagan,” Stitch yelled at me.
“They gotta get out of here. We’re outnumbered, even if Seymore and the rest of the team get here in time. We don’t have the firepower to take these niggas out.”
“I hear the burps and cherries song. What we gonna do, boss?”
Burps and cherries referred to the sounds the police cars made when in pursuit. Burps for the sounds. Cherries for the flashing red lights.
“These Vikings don’t know this area. We can let them handle the cops,” I said, then grabbed my cell.
I dialed Reagan. When she picked up, I told her, “Reagan, you and Lelo keep driving by. Make it seem as if you’re just onlookers. Call Seymore and tell him to get back to the shop.”
“What about you and Stitch?” she asked. “You know Lelo isn’t going to leave without him.”
“Don’t worry about us. I’ll handle it. You and Lelo get the fuck out of here and do it now. Tell Lelo not to question me or try no bullshit, either. We’ll meet back at the shop. Y’all go there and wait for us.”
“Okay. You find Code?”
I sighed. “Reagan, stop with the questions and fall back.”
I ended the call, then looked around us for a way out. We didn’t have that many options. They had us surrounded, and with the cops closing in on us, it looked like shit was about to go left.
“We can try to make a run for it back down Allen, but that leaves us open to the cops,” Stitch said.
It was hotter than camel pussy. Felt like Satan had opened up all hell and had belched into the heart of the city. My palms had started to sweat, and my ears were ringing because of the bullets serenading the air. Those niggas didn’t care what they hit as long as they hit us. Glass shattered and sprayed the area around us. Gray dust clouds from the gravel floated by like ghosts. I got down low to the ground and started counting feet. Twelve pairs of feet meant six shooters were to my right.
“How many shooters you see, Stitch?”
“’Bout three on my end.”
“You know what to do.”
Sometimes the art of war wasn’t about how many kills you could get. It was about survival. You didn’t always have to kill your enemy to survive. I reloaded my clip. Didn’t have any more of the super bullets, but my old rounds would work for the time being. Behind me, I heard a growl, then a strangled yell. Stitch’s low-pitched laugh told he had started cutting our enemies down by the ankles. That distracted the ones to my right. I watched as they all turned their attention in Stitch’s direction, trying to see where the shots were coming from.
That gave me time to get up and move in behind them. The one thing the hood had taught me better than anything else was how to kill or be killed. I let off two rounds—one to the spine of a shooter and one to the head of a second shooter. The biggest dude fell to the ground in a heap. I ducked behind a Dodge Charger before coming up to take another shooter down with a bullet between the eyes. I went in for another kill, only to get punched in the head from behind. I hit the ground with a hard thud. My chin danced with the gray bits of rock and gravel. I turned over on my back just in time to see a boot coming for my face. I grabbed the man by his ankle, twisted it left, and watched him fall to the ground beside me.
He threw a wild punch that caught me in the jaw. With as big as his hands were, you would think he could hit harder. I angled my body, brought an elbow down into his sternum. I didn’t give him time to recover. Although the hit to the back of the head had me dizzy, I was lucid enough to know what was going on. I quickly grabbed the hunting knife strapped to my ankle, jabbed the blade into his neck, then yanked it out. I watched in satisfaction as he futilely grabbed at his bleeding throat.
Another attacker came in from behind me, tried to grab me in a choke hold. I twisted my body, flipped him over my head, grabbed his right hand, and used his own gun to blow his brains out. Right as he went limp in my hold, a bullet grazed my ear. I quickly turned and fell on my back, with the body still in front of me as a shield. The man’s limp body jerked as his teammate riddled it with bullets. The assailant rushed to stand over me.
“Tell Mouse he fucked with the wrong ones,” I spat before I took his knees out with his partner’s gun.
Once he fell to the ground, I threw the body off me, then stood quickly.
“Ahh, God, man! You shot me in my knees,” the guy cried.
“No shit, Sherlock,” I taunted him. “Now do me a favor. Tell your boss that he’s gone and barked up the wrong fucking tree.”
“He’s going to fucking murder you—”
I took the butt of the gun and gave him a good blow to the head, which made him fall backward.
“As I was saying, tell Mouse to stay off my turf. If he wants back what was in that truck, then he’s going to have to give me my shit back. Understood? None of this would have happened if he hadn’t stolen from me first.”
“Mouse ain’t the one you n-need to be w-worried about,” the man stammered. Then he laughed. He licked the blood from his lips, then spit.
My breathing was labored. I didn’t like to be caught off guard. The whole situation had put me in another frame of mind. Reminded me of those days in juvie hall when the lights went out. Made me feel like I had to sleep with my back against the wall. Weapon always at the ready. Clearly, we’d stumbled into some shit we weren’t used to. We didn’t do the street fights with bullets and weapons masquerading as opponents. But since the fight had been brought to us, we wouldn’t back down.
“Who is it that I need to be worried about?” I asked him.
All he did was laugh. He cackled in a maniacal manner. Like he knew something I didn’t know, and like what he knew was of more value. I was going to let him live, but since he had decided to play with my mental, I ended his life with a kill shot to the heart.
“We can take cover behind the dealership, then see if we can cut down Allen, through the trees, to get the fuck up outta here,” I told Stitch.
He didn’t put up much of a fight, since he seemed to have been weakened by his injury. We both took off at full speed. Riverdale and Clayton County PD pulled in just as we raced away. We knew they would be searching the area. So we made a mad dash to NorStar Riverdale Townhomes. We had a place there and could lay low until the heat died down.
Once Stitch and I were safely inside the townhome, I had time to sit and think. We had two factions after us, and it was all because Chandler couldn’t keep his end of the bargain. If whoever had him didn’t kill him, then I surely would.
Anytime we had to do the murder-death-kill shit, it always reminded me of who we truly were at heart. It was innate in all of us. The thirst for blood. No matter how much we tried to deny it and fight it, the urban jungle always reminded us of where we were and where we had come from. So, as I had let my guns sing today, I kept hearing Mama Joyce in my head.
Those who live by the sword, Auto, die by the sword.
She always used to warn me about this. While I respected my mama a hell of a lot, those words had always gone in one ear and out the other. Besides, those who lived by the sword got shot by those who lived by the gun where I was from.
Chapter 9
Smiley
What type of fucking shit is this? ran through my mind while I ducked down, tried to shield myself with the ride I was in. Bullets rained d
own onto the car, shaking it. One had the nerve to make nice and graze my shoulder, which had the fear of God coursing through me. I glanced over to see Code popping off rounds. She was focused on our attackers and didn’t look like she wanted to have a sweet conversation about what the hell was going on.
My mind went into overdrive while I gangsta leaned and tried to unsnap my seat belt so I could unlock the car door.
“This is some bullshit, Code. All of you are on some trife shit that I ain’t sign up for. Stop shooting! We need to go. Because if we don’t, we’ll be dead, bitch. Let’s go,” I screamed. I found an open window to bail through and landed on the ground.
“And if I stop shooting, we’re going to be dead. Go get cover and let me handle this,” Code shouted back at me. She had gotten out of the car and had positioned her body behind her open car door just to get a better angle at the assholes gunning for us.
Every move she made seemed to be some guerrilla warfare crap. I didn’t understand any of this at all. Before I’d been able to figure out what was going on, Code had known we were being tailed. She’d zipped through the streets like we were in Grand Theft Auto. All of it had made me think about the position I’d placed myself in.
I needed to get my life together and not be about a life of crime, which surely meant my imminent death. I didn’t sign up for all of this. Code was on some Scarface shit, with her guns blazing, hair blowing in the wind, and taking down the assholes who were coming at us. All she needed was some grenades, and then everything would be like a Hype Williams music video or a Michael Bay film.
After we’d popped off shots and dodged those that came our way, it took some effort to pull her back and make her calm down with me. Homegirl seemed to be locked in a trance while she played murder-kill-kill, but I didn’t have time to play Wonder Woman with her. I was on some “lookin’-ass nigga” shit and was using the military skills my sperm donor had taught me. I liked living.
Stress had me biting my lower lip. I turned on my back, then pushed up to point the Glock that Code had given me at my enemies. The powerful force of each bullet had this vibration traveling down my body. Letting several rounds meet the flesh of those who were trying to kill me had me suddenly amped up. I focused on those around me and vibrated with each ejection from the Glock.