by Noire
“Dig, I want two things,” Flex’s right-hand man Dre had told Freeze as he stroked Gramma’s face with his warm metal tool. Standing beside him, that crazy bitch they called Lil Lee was forcing spoonfuls of cold, lumpy oatmeal into the old lady’s mouth. “I want the formula for that shit y’all been cookin’ at the G-Spot, and about five hunnerd of them lil snake vials y’all be dishin’ that shit off in.”
There wasn’t a moment’s hesitation in Freeze when he agreed to their demands. His grandmother had raised him and Naj up from babies. Their own moms had taken them to McDonald’s for fries one day, then left them waiting for their order as she skipped town with a Panamanian drug lord and never came back.
Gramma was all they had in the world, and relief washed over Freeze as his cell phone vibrated and he read a text message from his brother.
Naj was downstairs, and he was ready for his delivery.
Raising the window up as high as it would go, Freeze looked down into the back alley below, and then pushed the boxes of vials outta the window and used the nylon cord to lower them down into the waiting arms of his baby brother.
CHAPTER 6
It had just stopped raining and the streets were still wet when Lil Lee stepped out of her little black hatchback on Lenox Avenue and tipped her round ass around the corner. Dressed in a thigh-baring lilac skirt, black tights, and a black off-the-shoulder tank, her hips swayed and her breasts bounced as she strutted down the block dodging rain puddles in her six-inch heels. She was rocking her accessories to the max too. She had an expensive silk stole draped over her shoulders, and twin 9mm Glocks were strapped to the outside of both of her upper thighs.
Earlier in the day she had attended an emergency meeting that Flex had called with her, Dre, and Chickie, and now she was hyped as fuck and ready to get some shit popping. Lil Lee was a loyal soldier, so when Flex told her what kind of caper he wanted to pull to run Salida McKay outta bizzness, she had been one hunnerd percent down with his program.
But a few minutes later, when she turned around and told that niggah Flex that she wanted to pull a slick move on Trey and Chiney Jackson, he had bucked on her and told her to stand the fuck down.
“Why I gotta fall back?” Lil Lee had barked with icy anger flying from her eyes. “That mothafuckin’ Trey snatched my fuckin’ daughter, Flex! He touched my blood. That niggah gots to pay for that!”
She had been stunned at the look that crossed her boss’s face when he waved her off and told her to forget about that what Trey had done.
“Fuck all that bullshit,” Flex had said with an unconcerned shrug. “You too focused on that niggah. Your numbers been sliding ever since that shit happened, and that’s what the fuck you need to be worrying about. Besides, it’s your fault you let somebody get that close up on your daughter. You need to keep a better eye on that little girl. Word.”
And even now, Flex’s reproachful words were burning in her ears as Lil Lee’s sharp eyes scanned her drug sector and she judged the level of heat on the streets. The rain had driven a lot of people indoors, but there was still a lot of die-hard meth addicts and pipe heads who didn’t mind getting wet just as long as they could get high.
Lil Lee’s face hardened as a dude-looking chick in baggy jeans and an oversized Polo shirt came around the corner and approached one of her best soldiers looking to conduct some business. The chick was light-skinned and had one of them telltale buzz cuts that a lot of stud females wore. Lil Lee’s mind whirred as she observed the deal go down. She watched closely as the girl copped her shit, and then dapped Maleek out like a man and bopped her ass back around the corner.
On the outside Lil Lee appeared to be handling her business like the cool professional that she was, but fumes were rising off her as she stared a hole in the girl’s back. When the dyke had disappeared, Lil Lee got with her trap boys one by one and discreetly went about picking up their excess cash and replenishing the street supply.
“Wassup?” Maleek greeted her as they walked up the steps of the drug spot and made their switch. Lil Lee frowned as she collected a thick knot of money from her very best corner boys. She was about to lose Maleek from her team, and she hated that Flex had chosen to promote him from a slanga to becoming a full member of the Divine Nine, because Maleek was one cutthroat niggah who truly belonged out on the streets.
“Nah, wassup with you? You getting ready to do big things, huh?” Lil Lee said as she grinned at the tall, lanky young boy.
“Yep,” Maleek said coolly. “Today is my last day hustling the block.”
Lil Lee was gonna miss her best street soldier when he took over Cee Low’s old drug sector, and she knew he would be damn good at controlling his crew.
“Yo,” check this out,” she told him smoothly as her brain kicked into deep-scheme mode. The details of her meeting with Flex churned in her mind and she felt a wave of defiance rise up in her. What better way for her to get some payback and profit-up her pockets at the same time?
“That was Chiney Jackson you was transacting with a minute ago, wasn’t it? She be hitting you up on the regular? I thought her brother put a stop to all her buys?”
Maleek shrugged and shook his head without a lick of concern over Chiney, Trey, or nobody else. “Yo, I don’t get involved in no family drama, man. If she buying then I’m selling. Word.”
Lil Lee nodded and a spark of excitement flashed in her eyes as she saw an opportunity to give Flex her ass to kiss and to do unto Trey Jackson exactly as that mothafucka had done unto her.
“Damn right. Stacking cream is how you stay in bizz in this game. Check it out, my manz Fitted is gonna take over your spot when you leave tonight. And when he comes on, I want Chiney to cop all her packages from him and only him, you got that? I’ma tell Fitted, but I wish I woulda caught you before Chiney left so you coulda told her that.”
Maleek shrugged again. “It ain’t no thang. I’ll be conducting bizz with her again before the night is over. Chiney’s eating for two, nah’m sayin? Her bitch is a real feen. That jawn’ll be back as soon as her last hit runs out. I’ll tell her.”
With her eyes still on the corner, Lil Lee was thinking hard. This block used to be one of her top money-making territories, but business had been bad ever since J-Ugly had taken that ride off the rooftop of their main drug spot. Just remembering that shit made her frown up her pretty face and narrow her eyes into deadly slits. She didn’t appreciate what her drop in sales revenue had done to her ranking in the Divine Nine, and she damn sure didn’t appreciate what that niggah Trey Jackson had done when he snatched her little girl off a school bus and took her hostage neither.
But what she didn’t appreciate the most was what her fuckin’ boss had told her to do about it. Stand down. She smirked as she struck a sexy pose in her six-inch heels. Stand down, hell. Leandra Lee didn’t stand down for no niggah! Matter fact, she was about to raise the fuck up. And raise up hard.
“Cool,” Lil Lee told Maleek as she walked away with a grin. “Tell Chiney. Make sure you do that.” Trickery was about to be a real mothafucka! Lil Lee didn’t give a shit what Flex had said. She was making plans to go after Trey’s blood the same way that mothafucka had went after hers!
CHAPTER 7
It was dull and rainy the morning Slick Sallie finally arrived in New York City, and he was damn glad that the city of Los Angeles was finally a thing of his past. He had driven across the entire country and had been on the road for so many days that he’d lost count. At some point, while driving through the state of Colorado, he had put in a call to one of his old Asian friends from Brooklyn. Lin was the son of an intelligence engineer, and they’d run a couple of Internet schemes together in the past. His great-grand father had bought up patches of real estate in Chinatown in the early 1900’s, and Lin had joined the family business as a slumlord building manager.
Sallie was looking for someplace to stay that was out of sight and deep in the cut, and Lin knew just the place. One of his old immigrant relatives from C
hina had just died in her sleep, and her one-room walk-up apartment above a Chinese butcher store was vacant. The place wasn’t air-conditioned, but it had decent heat in the winter and best of all, it was already fully furnished. Lin was careful to inform Sallie that he had a waiting list of Chinese families fresh off the boat who were willing to pay top dollar to cram ten people inside the one-room flat, but because of their friendship and the big money that Sallie had promised to pay him, Lin was willing to hold the apartment for him.
The two friends had agreed to meet at a restaurant near the walk-up, and when Sallie arrived Lin was already there. They ate a small meal and then Lin suggested they head over to Sallie’s new apartment.
The stench of bloody pork and gamey chicken coming from the butcher shop downstairs and the meat storage unit upstairs was almost suffocating, but Sallie sucked it up without complaint as he followed Lin up the chipped, rickety stairs. Once inside the apartment he took a long look around. There was a pullout sofa in the front room that doubled for a bed, a tiny kitchen, and a bathroom that was roughly the size of a closet. It was way too small to hold a bathtub, and the rusted-out sink was in the same stall as the jerry-rigged shower.
There was one other thing that Sallie noticed. There was a fake statue of Buddha pushed up against the wall. Sallie crossed the room and touched the statue. It was about six feet high and had been carved from antique Cambodian wood. He knocked three times on its fat, round belly. It was hollow, and nice and broad across the navel.
“I’ll take it,” Sallie said, holding his hand out for the keys.
Lin frowned as he toked on his blunt. “Take what? The Buddha?”
“No, asshole,” Sallie said, snatching the stick of weed from his boy as he eyed the statue critically. He puffed and passed, then stared. If he positioned his stolen bricks of cash just right he could probably stuff most of the cash right up inside this guy’s protruding beer belly. “I’ll take this funky little shit hole. I wanna rent it for the next three months.”
$$$$$
“I’m telling y’all idiots that boy Maleek is the one who pulled the trigger on Truth!” Salida swore up and down as she argued with Ace and Pluto. She knew damn well that after turning down Flex’s business proposition and sending him a note that said, Fuck you! she needed to come up with a plan to take that young niggah all the way down.
She raised her voice and glared at Ace, trying to punk him. “You heard me! Maleek was the shooter and Flex put him up to it! Don’t tell me y’all niggahs is too scared to go over there and pay that fool back!”
“Nah,” Ace said, shaking his head as he challenged his boss-woman and displayed a rare moment of opposition to her will. “I’on’t think it’s like that, Salida. Me and Pluto got us a bizzness agreement going on with Flex. An arrangement. I’m telling you we gotta know for sure before we start talking outta our necks like that.”
Salida broke. She needed to get these fools on her side and quick. Flex was just a younger, greedier version of Granite McKay, and she fully expected him to retaliate against her in some kind of vicious way. She didn’t mind going to war with Flex’s twisted ass, but she knew she couldn’t go up against him all by herself.
She sneered at Ace in disgust. “And I’m telling your dumb ass that it was him! Besides, we got a witness! Bilal saw his ass!” she insisted.
Gripping Bilal’s arm, she turned away from Ace and pushed the dreadlocked young’un up in Pluto’s face instead. “Tell Pluto what happened, Bilal! Tell him! You saw Maleek shoot Truth with your own two eyes, didn’t you?”
Bilal stood there shaking as he swallowed the rock in his throat. The young’un was so shook he could only nod. Salida had tortured the shit outta three of her cut-room boys before one of them squealed on him and told her that Bilal was the one who had run her ass over in the back alley that dark night. Not only had Salida gotten a crew of her corner boys to roll up on Bilal’s younger brother and smash him until he was halfway dead, she had threatened to drop a dime to Ace and Pluto and tell them that Bilal was the shooter who had actually slumped Truth.
“Yeah, it was him,” Bilal confirmed when he finally managed to get his tongue unwrapped from around his nuts. Salida was a big-ass liar! Not only didn’t he shoot his boy Truth, he hadn’t seen Maleek pull no trigger on that niggah neither!
“Not only did I see him do it, but Maleek even told me he did it,” Bilal said, lying through his teeth. “That niggah told me he put the tool on Truth over a bitch. He said he popped him because Truth stole his girl. Nooni. I guess that Puerto Rican chick was suckin’ Maleek’s dick first and that niggah got mad when Truth boned in on that and snatched Nooni up. It was all about payback. Revenge.”
Bilal felt like shit inside as he mixed a little bit of truth with his lie. That piece of ass Monique had paid him with had been real good, but it wasn’t worth all this. She’d let him run his dick up in her chocolate dookey in exchange for bouncing Salida off his bumper, but nobody had told him he was gonna get his brother’s face stomped in and have to play like he was an eyewitness to a goddamn murder.
“For real, I saw him, dude,” Bilal told Pluto, and then he added something slick, just in case that crazy bitch Salida tried to renege on her promise and cross him up. “And word on the streets is that Maleek was the one behind the wheel of the whip that crashed into Mizz Salida too. Matter fact, Maleek bragged to all his boyz about pulling a hit-and-run the night she got hit.”
Frowning at his bold game, Salida cut her eyes at Bilal, and then glared at Ace and Pluto. “See? Told y’all! Bilal saw Maleek blast Truth right in the neck!”
Pluto stared at Bilal and then bellowed, “Niggah if you seent that shit go down then why the fuck you didn’t tell nobody?”
“’Cause he was scared!” Salida barked, stepping in front of the boy and using her body to shield him from Pluto’s deadly glare. “He didn’t tell nobody because he was too scared that Flex and the Divine Nine was gonna put a target on his forehead just like they put one on Truth! Besides, if Bilal had told y’all then who was gonna look out for him? Who was gonna protect him? Everybody already knows y’all asses are way too soft to go up against Flex anyway! The only one Bilal felt safe telling was me. And that’s why I’m telling you. And it ain’t because I give a fuck about you, Pluto, because you already know I don’t, but I loved me some Truth and I just figured you would wanna get some justice for your murdered nephew!”
The look on Pluto’s face was one of deadly rage. That grimy niggah Flex! Truth had been his manz. His fam. His nephew. His blood. Them niggahs had capped him in the head and blown out his goddamn eyeball, and that shit was unpardonable.
Pluto pondered on that little distribution deal Flex wanted to get down on where they would go in hard together for G’s old connect, and then split the supply channels right down the middle. Hell naw! That shit was off! Flex could kiss his ass! He wasn’t doin’ no bizz with his enemy! If Bilal was telling it right and the Divine Nine was behind Maleek’s cowardly slump of Truth, then that lil sawed-off, rat-faced runt muh’fucka Flex was gonna get handled. Matter fact, Pluto thought as his heart burned hot in his chest, Flex was gonna get tricked and fuckin’ handled. He was willing to put his last money on that shit.
Pluto knocked over his chair as he jumped up and stormed out of the room. If he hadn’t been so blinded by rage and deafened by the need for revenge, he woulda been able to peep the scandalous Salida as she grinned real wide and snickered in satisfaction.
CHAPTER 8
It was just after two o’clock in the afternoon when the front door of Second Chances barbershop swung open wide.
“Yo! Trey!”
A down-ass white dude named Skeet busted up wildly inside the shop like somebody was chasing after him with a pit bull. Skeet was the owner of an urban clothing store called Empire Attire and a dedicated member of the Talented Ten, and right now his blond hair was wild, his pale cheeks were flushed red, and a look of pure rage was clouding his face.
&nbs
p; Trey looked up quickly, surprised by the disturbance. He had an old-timer from the neighborhood in his chair shining his baldhead, and six of the other nine chairs had customers in them too.
“Yo, them fools hit my delivery truck, man!” Skeet barked. “And my safe too! I had Hill posted up at the back door waiting for a shipment to come in, and they got past his ass! Fizz had just emptied the safe and was about to go make a bank drop when they bum-rushed him too.”
Skeet was red and swole with fury. His urban clothing store brought in big loot in the hood, and he sold his trendy gear at cut-rate prices so he could keep it affordable to his customers. His father and his grandfather had both been businessmen in Harlem, and Skeet had grown up on these mean streets and had been married to his sistah-girl honey from high school for five years. Just like the other members of their coalition who owned grocery stores, fish markets, dry cleaners, rib shacks, deli shops, check cashing places, and even AT&T franchises, Skeet had joined the Talented Ten to help keep his small business, and the neighborhood, thriving.
“You mean Fizz just gave your cash up just like that? That cat didn’t even try to stand his ground?”
Skeet shrugged. “Them bandits was brandishing from the gate, my brother. Fizz said he had a Glock stuck halfway up his nose before he could even reach for his piece.”
Trey set his clippers down and glanced out the window. He peeped two members of his street security team roving outside. They were posted up and standing watch just like they was supposed to be.
He shook his head. “Yo, Skeet man, how your soldiers let that kinda thing happen? What’s bad for your business is bad for everybody’s business. Why didn’t nobody sound the alarm so we could rally up and take them cats down?”