by K'wan
“No worries on that front. Anybody I bring into your home will respect it as if it were mine,” Diamonds promised.
“I’m gonna hold you to that. Now, on to the matter at hand. What the fuck are we doing here, Diamonds?”
“It’s like I told you on the phone: I come attempting to do business but seem to keep getting stonewalled. I’m starting to feel slighted, and we both know how I react to slights.”
TJ knew far too well how Diamonds reacted to slights. “Diamonds, this is New York, not the South. You can’t just roll into a made man’s establishment and demand a meeting, especially when they don’t know you. There’re protocols that have to be observed with these kinds of things.”
“Like when you had to get the blessings of that spic Eddie before I laid Pana to rest?” Diamonds smirked. “Man, I swear New York gotta be the only place I’ve ever been where you gotta file paperwork to kill a nigga,” he said, and chuckled.
“Make jokes all you want, but I’m serious. Muscling Pana out of his territory is something that can be easily overlooked by anybody who matters. He was a savage who had crossed so many different people that it wasn’t a matter of if someone was going to cap him, but when. So long as there’s someone out there to keep moving them packages, nobody is gonna give a shit which crew it is. Pops Brown is a different situation entirely. He doesn’t have major muscle on the streets to speak of, but he is very well liked and highly respected. If he vanishes, somebody is gonna definitely notice.”
“Jesus, you act like I’m some kind of monster. I know Pops Brown is a respected man, and I’d never come at him sideways unprovoked. This is a legit visit. You know I been trying to break real ground and get my nightclub thing up and popping.”
“You still chasing Purple City?” TJ asked. Other than killing and money, Purple City was all Diamonds ever talked about. It was his brainchild, a franchise of over-the-top strip clubs that catered to exclusive clientele.
“Can’t blame a man for having a dream, TJ. Some niggas look to have the best strip club in the city, but I wanna have the best strip club in every city. It’ll be like McDonald’s, only we got Happy Hos on the menu instead of Happy Meals. Pops Brown been doing his thing a long time on the nightclub circuit, and I just wanna see if we can make something happen together. This spot would be a fine location for Purple City New York.”
“I know Pops, and he ain’t the kind of man who is gonna be open to converting his bar into no whorehouse,” TJ told him.
“You never know what a man might be persuaded to do when placed under the right amount of pressure. All I need you to do is get me in so I can make my pitch.”
“Diamonds, I really don’t wanna get in the middle of this shit … at least not like this. Tell you what: I’ll make some calls tomorrow and see about getting you a meeting,” TJ offered, hoping it would deter Diamonds.
Diamonds looked at TJ like parents would look at their child who had just tried to lie to them. “Who’s to say that by morning the secret of us killing Pana won’t be exposed and this opportunity missed?” He’d stressed us to let TJ know that if the shit hit the fan, he’d burn with the rest of them. “Now, I could always have Buda and Goldie drag him out of his office like some savages, or you could smooth things over for us and we can speak like gentlemen. I’m cool with either route.”
TJ looked to Goldie and Buda, who looked like they were spoiling for a good fight anyhow. He didn’t want to do what Diamonds was asking of him, but he knew what would happen if he didn’t. His cousin was someone who did not take rejection well. “A’ight, man,” he relented. “Diamonds, I need you to be on your best behavior. Pops Brown is old-school and may not react well to your eccentricities.”
Diamonds flashed a broad smile. “I promise, all we gonna do is talk.”
* * *
Moving down the hall that led to the back offices made TJ feel like he was walking the green mile. Diamonds trailed him, followed by Goldie and Vita. He had only agreed to take Diamonds in the back if he left Buda outside. He didn’t trust him to mind his manners if the meeting didn’t go as expected. Of course Buda wasn’t feeling being left out and he threw a fit, so Hank stayed behind to keep an eye on him until they returned.
At the end of the hall he spotted a thickly built man, hunched over and whispering into the ear of a girl. This was Rob, Pop Brown’s eldest son and the manager of the bar. When he spotted TJ and company coming in his direction, he shooed the girl away and stood at attention.
“What’s good, Rob,” TJ slapped his palm in greeting. He and TJ had never been friends, but they knew each other from the street and their days of playing basketball in the New York City summer leagues.
“Ain’t nothing. Been a minute since I seen you around here,” Rob said.
“Chasing this paper don’t leave me with a lot of free time to be sociable,” TJ replied. He noticed that Rob kept looking over his shoulder at Diamonds and the others. “This is my cousin Diamonds.”
“Yeah, we’ve met,” Diamonds said, remembering Rob as the man who kept telling them Pops wasn’t in.
“Is your dad in? I need to talk to him about something.”
“Yeah, he’s here, but he ain’t seeing nobody right now, especially without an appointment, and I don’t remember seeing your name on the calendar,” Rob said defiantly.
TJ had heard that since Rob had started working for his father, he fancied himself a tough guy. “C’mon, Rob. Stop acting like you don’t know me, man.”
Rob looked TJ up and down. “Nigga, stop acting like because we played ball together we best friends. I know you out here trying to make a name for yourself and shit, but that don’t hold no weight with me, TJ. To me, you still the skinny kid from back in the day who couldn’t fight. Now, if you wanna sit with my father, make a fucking appointment like everyone else.”
Rob’s belittlement of TJ took him back to a place in his childhood where he was a scared kid who was afraid to take a punch. His fists trembled with rage, and he wanted to show Rob just how far he had come over the years and what he was now about, but if he popped, so would Diamonds, and the situation would become lethal. They too much on the ball, so TJ would have to suck it up and deal with Rob another day. “You got it, tough guy,” TJ said, slowly backing down the hall. He smirked at Rob, letting him know that it wasn’t over. He expected Diamonds and the others to follow, but they didn’t. Diamonds continued to stand there.
“What, you hard of hearing or something?” Rob moved closer to Diamonds. As if by magic, a blackjack had appeared in his hand.
Diamonds weighed the question before answering. “Nah, I hear just fine, boss. I just ain’t too good of a listener.”
“Then maybe I need to knock that Tootsie Roll out ya ear.” Rob slapped the blackjack against his palm threateningly. Diamonds was taller, but Rob outweighed him by quite a bit.
When Diamonds smiled, the light caught his teeth, casting golden shadows against his lips. “I welcome you to try it, if you got a mind to, but I’d hate to have to put you down on your father’s property. Souple, why don’t you just go in the back and tell Daddy there’s a man out here with a nice business proposition for him? Then you can get out of the way and let the adults talk.”
Rob’s eyes flashed anger. “I can see I need to teach you a lesson about respect.” He moved on Diamonds. Rob was quick, but not quick enough. By the time he’d completed his swing of the blackjack, Diamonds had ducked under it and replied with a vicious uppercut. The sound of Rob’s jaw breaking echoed off the hallway walls like a tree branch being snapped in half. He was fast asleep long before he hit the ground.
“Night, night, bigmouth,” Diamonds said to the prone man.
“What the fuck, Diamonds? Was that really necessary?” TJ snapped. For a minute he thought Rob was dead until he heard him snoring.
“Quit crying, nigga! You need to be glad I didn’t kill him for the way he disrespected my blood,” Diamonds said in disgust.
“I was going
to address it at a more appropriate time,” TJ insisted.
“Disrespect should be addressed immediately so the offender doesn’t think to try it again. I love you, cousin, but the next time you let a nigga talk to you like that in front of me, I’m gonna put my hands on you,” Diamonds promised before pushing open the door and inviting himself into the office.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
After dropping Big Stone off at his crib and making a few last-minute runs, Knowledge was finally able to call it a night. It felt like all that day the weight of the world had been resting on his shoulders, and he was happy to be able to put the burden down … if even only for a little while.
Pana’s murder had been on his mind ever since Big Stone had broken the news to him. The fact that he hadn’t heard about it first bothered him, but not more than Big Stone’s reaction. In his years of service to the Stone family, he had seen death one thousand times over, mostly foes, but there was a fair share of friends, too. Never once had Big Stone so much as batted an eye. That changed when Pana got dropped. Big Stone was a man who had nerves of steel, and during that ride from the airport, Knowledge had seen those nerves waver, and it worried him. If not for Big Stone, than for his own piece of mind, Knowledge was going to making finding out who did it a priority.
Something else that had been troubling him was the situation earlier with Pearl. He thought for sure he had finally caught her ass dead to rights and Big Stone would finally see what everyone else was seeing, but once again she had managed to beat him. Knowledge wasn’t someone who took defeat well, especially with someone who he had schooled to the game.
Big Stone was very adamant that street shit should be kept away from his children at all costs, and in the beginning Knowledge respected it, but Pearl made it hard for him to turn a blind eye to her shenanigans. Unbeknownst to her father, she was out and about in a quest to grow up way faster than she needed to, and she was going about it the wrong way. No matter how many times Knowledge chased her off random blocks or threatened her, Pearl always found her way back into harm’s way. So Knowledge found himself faced with two choices: stand idle and hope nothing happened to her, or pull her coat and make sure of it. He went with the latter. Knowledge never went as far as putting Pearl in harm’s way, but he didn’t censor his lessons like her father did. He didn’t teach her enough about the streets to turn her into a criminal, but enough to ensure she knew how to survive in the jungle. At the time he thought he was doing a noble thing, but looking back in hindsight, he had helped to create a monster. Lately Pearl had been flying less and less under the radar, and it was time to clip the wings of Daddy’s little angel, even if it meant exposing her to her father.
After leaving Big Stone, Knowledge switched back to his own car and headed home. He pulled the Acura into the twenty-four-hour garage, which was two blocks away from where he lived. They had an underground parking garage in his building, but he didn’t mind walking the few blocks as an added precaution. Everybody in the hood knew his car, and all it would take was the wrong person to recognize it and it would leave a trail of bread crumbs right to where he rested his head. That wasn’t a chance he was willing to take.
On his walk to his building, he stopped at the corner deli to grab a box of cigars and a six-pack. He wasn’t really a beer drinker, but after the day he’d had, a cold one seemed like the order of business. There was hardly anyone out at that hour, not that there was really ever anybody hugging the streets in that neighborhood. The quiet was one of the things that always reminded him that he wasn’t in Harlem anymore. In the distance, his building loomed, a twenty-something-story high-rise on the Upper West Side. It was a far cry from the rat-infested tenement he had grown up in, but it was still close enough to where he could get to the action when he needed to. Some criticized him for shelling out the money for the two-bedroom apartment. They invested in money, cars, and clothes; he invested in peace of mind.
As he was going into the building, a girl named Laura was coming out. She was a short, thick Dominican girl who lived in the apartment next to his. Her parents had left it to her when they’d bought a house upstate. She played the bourgie role, but Knowledge had heard stories about the things she could do with a dick in her mouth.
“Hey, Mr. Man,” Laura greeted him.
“Sup?” Knowledge replied.
“How come I always catch you creeping in and out of the building in the middle of the night?” she asked playfully.
“Same reason I always catch you creeping in and out in the middle of the night,” Knowledge shot back.
Her eyes landed on the cigars in his hand. “When are you gonna invite me by for a smoke session? I know you be smoking that fire, because I be smelling it through the walls.”
Knowledge cracked a half smile. “Nah, I don’t think that be in either of our best interests.”
“Why? I don’t bite.”
“Who says I’m worried about you biting me? I’m gonna catch you on the rebound, Laura.” Knowledge wisely excused himself and went into the lobby.
“One of these days, Mr. Man,” she called after him. “One of these days.”
Knowledge waited until he was out of her line of vision before letting a sneaky smile form on his lips. Laura had been trying to throw the pussy on him since he’d moved into the building. It was tempting, but Knowledge was no fool. For as bad as Laura was, he knew shitting where he lived would complicate things. He had enough as it was going on in the streets and didn’t want any drama in his building.
When he entered the apartment, the first thing he noticed was that it was dark. He usually left the light on over his stove, but the kitchen was pitch-black. The switch in his brain flipped, and the next thing he knew, he was creeping down his hallway, his gun drawn. His heart thudded in his chest as he neared his bedroom. There was a slither of light coming from the partially open door. This was his home … his sanctuary, and the fact that someone had violated it infuriated him. He only hoped that they were still in the apartment so that his pistol could properly articulate his displeasure.
He sat his six-pack down so that he could wrap both hands around the handle of his gun. He needed his aim to be steady and true. With his foot braced against the door, he took a deep breath to settle the butterflies in his stomach. No matter how many times he busted out his gun, it always felt like the first time. With murder in his heart, he pushed the door open and stepped into the room, prepared to dispatch the intruder, but his finger stopped short of depressing the trigger when he looked to his bed and found it occupied.
A dime piece of a rich caramel complexion lay nestled under the fluffy brown comforter. A scarf was tied around her head, preserving whatever style she was wearing her thick black hair in that week. She was so engrossed in the novel that she was reading that she didn’t even notice him standing there. Knowledge decided to take the opportunity to have a little fun.
“You know what it is, run everything!” he barked. He intended it as a joke, but the joke quickly went sour when the woman dropped the book and produced a small .25. “Asia! Asia! Asia!” he spat her name in repetition while waving his hands in surrender, hoping she recognized him before accidentally ending him.
The panicked look she’d been wearing when she drew down on him was replaced by one of relief, then anger. “What the fuck, Knowledge?” She lowered her gun. “You know better than to be sneaking up on me like that. I could’ve capped you by accident.”
“I didn’t know walking into my own pad could be considered sneaking up on someone, especially when I wasn’t expecting them,” Knowledge said.
Asia cocked her head as if she hadn’t heard him correctly. “Well, excuse me for intruding. When you gave me a key to your apartment, I assumed that meant we were past the point of me having to call before I came over. My bad—let me get out of your way.” She slid from beneath the comforter, wearing only his Patrick Ewing jersey.
Knowledge’s eyes drank in her curvaceous figure and tender flesh. A tattoo of
a dragon started just above her knee and disappeared somewhere up under the jersey. He knew where the tattoo ended and, with that in mind, moved to stop her. “Hold on, baby.” He took her by the wrist. “You know I didn’t mean it like that.”
“All I know is what you put in front of me.” Asia jerked loose. She plucked her blue slacks from their resting place at the foot of the bed, but Knowledge snatched them away.
“Stop acting like that, Asia.” He held the pants just out of her arm’s reach. “You know damn well I don’t have a problem with you being here, and no, you don’t have to call. I just meant that … fuck what I meant. I’m genuinely happy to see you, ma.”
Asia folded her arms, pretending to be angrier than she was. “Umm-hmm.” She looked him over. “You’re probably really just happy I didn’t bust you rolling up in here with one of them hood rats you love to keep company with.”
Knowledge moved behind Asia and draped his arms over her. “You know better than that, baby. Only the queen is fit to grace the palace. I take the hood rats downtown to the Liberty Inn.” He planted a kiss on her cheek playfully.
Asia hit him with a sharp elbow to the ribs, knocking him off-balance and then following up with a judo flip onto the bed. While he was still disorientated, she straddled his chest and gave him a little slap across the face. “What did I tell you about playing with me, George?” she said, calling him by his government name.
Knowledge threw his weight to dislodge her and used the momentum to roll on top of her. The tables had now been turned. “And I told you about all this black super-ninja shit. Now stop bugging—you know I only got eyes for you.” He leaned in to kiss her, and when he did, she nicked his lip with her teeth. “Ouch! What the fuck, Asia?” He jumped back.
“That old-ass pimp game you keeping picking up from Big Stone only works on women under twenty-three. Had you answered your phone, I could’ve told you that I wanted to crash here tonight. I’ve been calling you for the last three hours, but you ain’t picking up. This raises the question: What or who you been doing that’s kept you too busy to pick up for me?”