by K'wan
Rafik and LA were in one of the rooms, doing only God knew what, while Vita crouched down on the living room floor, scooping up scattered money into a garbage bag. Just beyond her, Domo caught a flicker of motion across the behind the shade of the living room window. He thought his mind was playing tricks on him until he saw a pair of hands just below the bottom of the drawn shade, lifting the window up. Vita was so focused on the money that she didn’t see the two men slip in behind her. Without thinking about it, Domo abandoned his post at the top of the stairs and rushed down the hallway.
Vita looked up with a start when she heard the heavy footfalls coming down the hall. When she saw Domo rushing toward her, she thought the hired guns from New Jersey were attempting to cross her, so she raised her gun, ready to fire. Just before she squeezed the trigger, Domo let off a barrage of shots that sailed over her head. She heard a scream, followed by the sounds of breaking glass. She turned around in time to see one of her would-be killers falling backward out the window. She rolled to her right just as Domo cut loose again and made the second killer, sending him flying into the big-screen television. She watched in shock as a cool and collected Domo continued to advance, pumping round after round into the already downed man. Long after the gun had clicked empty, he continued to squeeze the trigger, as if there might have been another bullet hidden somewhere in the chamber.
“I think he’s dead,” Vita said, bringing Domo back from wherever his brain had retreated to.
Domo blinked as if he were waking from a dream. When he glanced down at the body at his feet, a look of sadness crossed his face. He had shot at a few people before, but to his knowledge, he’d never hit anyone. He had started his night out as a thief and would end it as a murderer.
“It was either him or me, kid. You did the right thing,” Vita said, trying to ease some of his guilt.
The commotion in the living room brought LA and Rafik running, guns drawn and looking for someone to shoot. When they saw the bodies in the living room, they were disappointed to have missed out on the action.
“Damn, what happened out here?” LA asked.
“I almost got my fucking head blown off, no thanks to y’all,” Vita spat. “What the fuck were you two doing so long anyway?”
“I was in the back room, collecting this.” LA proudly hoisted the trash bag he was carrying. “Came up on at least ten keys under the bed.”
“And what about you?” She looked to Rafik.
“I was in the bathroom, making sure we didn’t miss none of their stashes. I didn’t find shit, though,” Rafik told her.
Vita let her gaze linger on Rafik for a while longer, as if she were trying to read his face. “Fuck it—let’s get this shit and get gone before the police come.” She slung her trash bag over her shoulder and started for the door.
LA looked from the bodies on the floor to Domo and patted him on the back. “Looks like you finally busted your cherry!” he said proudly.
By the time Domo and the others had come out of the building, Vita was already behind the wheel and putting the minivan in gear. LA and Rafik got into the back while Domo jumped into the passenger seat. He barely had time to close the door before Vita peeled out.
The ride back to New Jersey was a tense one, at least for Domo. LA and Rafik sat in the back, arguing about who had dropped the most bodies that afternoon, but Domo hadn’t uttered so much as a word since they had left the apartment. He was reflecting on what he had done and what it would mean for him going forward. He’d heard guys tell stories about what it was like to catch a body, but nothing compared to actually being behind a the gun when you snuffed a life. Domo had taken two.
“Your first?” Vita asked, snapping him out of his daze.
“Huh?” Domo didn’t understand the question.
“I asked if it was your first time dropping somebody?”
Domo nodded.
“First time is always the hardest. It’ll get easier.” Vita cracked a half smile. It was the simplest of gestures, but it somehow managed to sooth Domo’s nerves. He didn’t know Vita very well, but something in her eyes told him that he could trust her.
* * *
They exited the Turnpike in the industrial section of Newark. It was an isolated area lined with old warehouses and factories that hadn’t been used in some time. Vita turned the minivan off the main road and onto a gravel path that lead to the abandoned building where they’d stashed a switch car and fresh clothes. She pulled behind the building and killed the engine. The all filed out of the car and stretched their legs, while Vita busied herself rummaging through one of the trash bags.
“That was some good work back there.” Vita came from around the rear of the minivan, carrying stacks of money. “A little rough around the edges, but you boys have got potential.” She tossed each man a stack of bound bills.
Domo did a quick thumb through the money. “This is, like, five grand!” he said excitedly. He had never seen that much money at one time in his life.
“It’s actually seven thousand. I put a little something extra on top for them niggas you dropped.” She gave him a wink.
“We got our hands dirty too, but I don’t see nothing extra on top of ours,” Rafik complained.
Vita ignored him. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you guys to keep your mouths shut about this?”
“Nah, we know the game. Hear no evil, speak no evil. You ain’t gotta worry about us Vita,” LA assured her.
“Good, I’m gonna drop you guys off, but I’ll call you in a few days for some more work. That is, if you’re up to it?” She was speaking to all of them, but she was looking at Domo.
“Hell yeah, we’re up to it!” LA answered for them.
“Good.” Vita nodded in approval. “Now, there’s just one more piece of business we need to wrap up.” Without warning, Vita whipped out her 9mm and shot Rafik in the face.
“What the fuck?” LA jumped back to avoid the blood splatter. Domo just stood there, too stunned to speak or move.
“Shut up,” Vita commanded, turning the 9mm on LA, her pistol sweeping back and forth between LA and Domo. She knelt and patted Rafik’s corpse down. “Bingo,” she said when she felt the bulge under his shirt. When she stood up, she was holding the parcel of cocaine Rafik had found in the bathroom and lied about. “This nigga was a fucking thief.” She held the coke up for both of them to see. “Two things we don’t tolerate in our organization are snitching and stealing from our own. A man who would take food out of his own family’s mouth ain’t worth shit. “Now, we can get into some gangster shit over what I did to your homeboy or we can charge this shit to the game and I bring you two in to make some real paper. Either way, I don’t give a fuck, so pick your poison.”
Domo and LA exchanged nervous glances. It really wasn’t a hard decision to make, considering the choices placed in front of them. Get rich or die.
“Fuck it. We wasn’t that cool anyway,” LA said, trying to hide the fear in his voice.
Vita studied them both for a moment that felt like a lifetime before finally putting her gun away. “Glad we’re on the same page. Welcome to the flock.”
And just like that, Domo and LA were recruited into Diamonds’s pirate crew.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Pana watched as the man with the diamond teeth stalked back in his direction, smoking gun in hand. With his crew gone and trapped, most men would’ve given up hope, but Pana wasn’t most men. He was a survivor. Pana caught the taller of the masked men more focused on his partner than his quarry, and busted out a desperation move. He slammed the butt of his gun into his chin, stumbling him and creating a hole in the circle they’d formed around Pana. The opening was all the Mexican needed, and he took off like a bat out of hell. Pana had made it nearly to the corner before he heard the familiar retort of a gun being fired. He knew what would come next, but he still wasn’t ready for the searing pain that exploded in the back of his thigh when the slug hit it. He was able to stumble a few more feet befo
re pitching face first to the concrete. He wasn’t even on the ground long enough to process the extent of the damage before a pair of powerful hands grabbed the back of his suit jacket and yanked him up.
“On your feet, bitch nigga!” The stranger from Bonita’s pulled him off the ground. He and the taller masked man grabbed Pana by the arms and forced him against a wall.
Pana struggled against the men, but it was futile. Between being shot and the loss of blood, he was so dizzy that he had a hard time focusing. He watched helplessly as the masked man with the diamond teeth stalked toward him. He stopped just short of Pana, removing his ski mask and shaking his long dreadlocks loose. He was looking at Pana as if he were waiting for him to recognize him, but to Pana’s recollection, he’d never seen him before.
“You know, I never expected to come out here and cause all this mess.” He holstered his gun. “I’d hoped the bomb could’ve ended things quickly. Maybe not clean, but quick.” His tone was almost apologetic.
“You know who the fuck I am? I’m Pana Suarez, muthafuckas! You and everybody you love are gonna die for this!” Pana threatened.
The taller masked man who was holding Pana hauled off and slapped him so hard that blood shot from his lips. “Watch your fucking mouth!”
“Ain’t no need to be a brute about it,” said the man with the diamond teeth. “No need to kick him when he’s already down. Now, we know who you are, but do you know who I am?”
Pana shrugged as if he didn’t know or care.
“The name is Diamonds—maybe you’ve heard of me?”
It took a few seconds, but the name finally clicked in Pana’s head and he remembered where he’d heard it. During one of his excursions to Miami, he had heard stories about a newcomer who was making major noise by single-handedly raising the murder rate in Florida. The street cats called him Diamonds, but the old-timers had another name for him: el hombre de fuga, “the vanishing man.” In hushed tones they told stories about men who ran afoul of him, vanishing from their homes in the night, as if by magic, never to be heard from again. The color drained from Pana’s face.
“Noticing your sudden change in complexion, I’ll take that as a yes,” Diamonds said with a smirk.
“Look, if it’s money or drugs you want, I’ve got plenty of both. Just name your price, cut me loose, and we’ll forget any of this ever happened.”
Diamonds patted him on the cheek playfully. “I thank you for your generosity, but we’ve got plenty of money, boss. As far as the drugs, several of my associates have already cleaned out your main stash house. I hear they made quite the mess, and for that, you have my sincere apologies. Robbery was never our intention, but it’d be a shame to have all them good drugs go to waste, seeing how you no longer have a need for them. What I want from you is worth more than anything you can give me, at least not willingly.”
“If you’ve already taken my money and my drugs, what the fuck do you want?” Pana asked nervously.
Diamonds reached into the back of his pants and produced a sleek black knife. Its handle was made from what looked like a human bone. “Your soul,” he told him before burying the blade into Pana’s heart.
* * *
“You see the way my brother did that boy? Now that’s how you murder a nigga!” Goldie said excitedly from the backseat. He, Diamonds, Hank, and Buda were in a dark-colored SUV, fleeing the crime scene.
“From the way he was shaking, I thought he’d die from a heart attack before anybody had a chance to shoot him,” Buda added. He was sitting next to Goldie, working on his second bottle of whiskey for the day.
“If all these niggas in New York are as easy to knock off as that Pana character, we’re gonna be running this whole city before long,” Goldie said.
“Don’t go getting ahead of yourself,” Hank said over his shoulder. He was behind the wheel of the SUV. “Pana was as tough as nails, and had we not had the element of surprise on our side, that whole situation could’ve played out differently. No matter how big or how small, never underestimate an enemy. Remember that, and you’re likely to live to be as old as I am.”
“Listen to this old Art of War–ass nigga,” Goldie said, mocking him.
“Hank is right,” Diamonds spoke up. Until then he’d been riding silently in the passenger seat, staring out the window. “We got lucky with Pana, but that doesn’t mean everybody else is going to fold that easy. We’ve got to be smart and careful.”
“Speaking of careful, what was that shit back there about?” Hank asked.
Diamonds turned to him. “What you mean?”
“You know what I mean, Diamonds. I’m talking about you walking into those bullets like you’re the damn Terminator or something.”
“The bomb blast had that boy’s brains so scrambled that he probably couldn’t have hit me if I’d been standing right in front of him,” Diamonds said as if it were nothing.
“But what if he had?” Hank challenged.
Diamonds waved him off. “Stop talking to me about possibilities and let’s look at the facts. We went in there to get rid of Pana and we did. That was our goal. I don’t know why you in here stressing me like an old hen over shit that’s not important.”
“Yeah, stop stressing, Hank,” Goldie added from the backseat.
“Goldie, shut the fuck when you hear grown folks talking,” Hank snapped. “Fuck, with you and your slipping ass, Pana almost got away. How many times do I have to tell you not to take your eye off the damn ball?”
Goldie was silent because he knew he had messed up by letting Pana steal off on him and run. Had Pana gotten away, they wouldn’t have had a second chance to pull off the job.
“Diamonds,” Hank continued, “you ain’t never been the most cautious guy, but it seems like ever since we buried John-Boy, you’re becoming more and more reckless with your life. You act like you wanna die.”
Diamonds laughed at the statement. “OG, one thing you ain’t never gotta question is my love of this world and the things in it. I got plenty more living to do before I die, and so long as I keep home close to my heart, it won’t be a concern of mine anytime soon.” He ran his finger along the cord around his neck. It held the soil-filled pouch.
Hank cut his eyes at him. He knew the pouch and the story behind it. “You can bet your life on the word of that crazy swamp woman if you want, but I’d rather you just got the fuck out the way when niggas are shooting at you.”
“Man, I sure do miss that old bird,” Goldie said, thinking of Auntie. He and his brother had spent many a night sleeping in her hut when they had nowhere else to go. “Say, Diamonds, I was thinking now that we’ve got a little paper squirreled away, maybe we could send for her. How do you think Auntie would like New York?”
“Ain’t no way we could ever get that lady to leave New Orleans. She’s as much a part of the land as it is of her,” Diamonds told him, cutting dangerously close to the truth. Before he’d left New Orleans, he’d buried her body deep in the swamp.
“I guess you’re right,” Goldie said, slightly disappointed. “Maybe once we handle our business up here, we can take a trip back home and visit her?”
“We’ll see,” Diamonds said, and went back to staring out the window. He hated misleading his little brother, but he didn’t have the heart to tell him that he had snuffed out the life of a woman who had treated them better than any of their biological family had. Goldie loved Auntie, and he’d never understand that her death was necessary for their survival. “Anybody hear from Vita?” Diamonds said, changing the subject.
“Yeah, she checked in a few minutes ago. Everything is cool,” Hank told him.
“That’s my girl.” Diamonds smiled proudly. “So I guess things worked out with them kids from Jersey who TJ plugged her with, huh?”
“Depends on who you ask,” Hank answered. “She had to lay one of them to rest, but the other two stood tall.”
Diamonds shrugged. “There will be casualties in every war. On the upside, we only lost one o
ut of three recruits.”
“Diamonds, I don’t know how to feel about you bringing all these new niggas into our thing,” Buda spoke up. “TJ is your cousin, so I can dig it, but do we really need to be fucking with more outsiders?”
“I can appreciate your concern, Buda, but I think an infusion of fresh blood is a necessary evil at this point. Our troops are already spread thin between what we got going on in Texas and Florida. New York is a big city, and it’s going to take more than just the six of us to hold on to what we’re taking.”
Buda frowned. “I feel you, but I’m just feeling a little funny about all the new faces.”
“Rest easy, Buda. I trust Vita’s judgment, but we ain’t gonna give them the keys to the front door just yet. Every newcomer, including TJ, will have to earn their way into our inner circle,” Diamonds promised, which seemed to put Buda at ease for the moment. “I had a thought. We should go out tonight,” he suggested, catching everyone in the SUV by surprise.
“Am I hearing this correct? Mr. All Business is actually down to have some fun for once?” Goldie didn’t try to hide his shock. They had been in New York for more than a month, and Diamonds had never once shown any interest in going out with them.
“I’m thinking I probably ain’t been the easiest muthafucka to deal with as of late. I got a lot on my mind, and maybe I need a good night of drinking to even me out,” Diamonds told him.
“I don’t really care what his reasons are, so long as I get to jump in some New York pussy tonight!” Buda downed the remainder of his bottle in one swig. At the mention of having a good time, his sour mood picked up. “Maybe me and you can even double down on something like we used to, Diamonds. It’ll be just like old times, right?”
“Sho ya right, Buda. Just like old times.” Diamonds smiled, but inside he was frowning. Buda had been drinking heavily since John-Boy had been killed. Lately he was always drunk or on his way to being drunk, and it was starting to concern him. It would have to be addressed eventually, but this wasn’t the night for it. “Hank, get TJ on the line and tell him to pass the word to his people that the deed is done. Goldie, I want you to raise Vita and tell her to go home and get pretty. I think it’s high time that us country niggas see what this New York nightlife really be bout.”