by BlaQue
I slouched down in the seat wondering what to do next. I hadn’t anticipated the shit going on at the police station. I was fully prepared to sit there and wait out Detective Gatsby. Looks like I wouldn’t have to wait on him at all. He might have gone down in flames with the rest of the Feds that were hunting me if I was lucky.
“Where are we headed to now?” Crack asked with his eyes scanning the road and watching for anything abnormal. This whole ordeal had everyone around me paranoid and watching for everything.
“I guess you can take me home. There ain’t nowhere else for me to go.”
Crack shrugged his shoulders and drove me to where I had directed him. I watched the city I loved so much pass me by and wondered how someplace I represented to the fullest could turn its back on me. I never thought in a million years that I would be on the run in my city, for a crime I knew nothing about, and damn sure didn’t commit.
Thoughts of seeing NiQue and my daughter consumed me and I smiled. I hadn’t seen them in weeks and I really missed them. I was willing to risk my freedom just to see them. I didn’t know if the police had the house staked out or what, but I was going home to them. I still hadn’t talked to NiQue, so I didn’t know what the situation was like on the home front. For all I knew them boys in blue could have been waiting to snatch my ass up and cart me off to jail. But that was a chance I was willing to take to see my daughter. I missed NiQue but, my heart was with my daughter.
We drove until the dilapidated buildings and housing projects filled with my people were no more and gave way to the lush foliage and single-family homes. Laurel was nothing like the city and I almost hated it. The white people were always eye-balling me here like I was a criminal; because of my appearance they always thought the worst of me. None of them knew I had worked hard in my career for all that I had for my daughter and future wife, or that we belonged in these neighborhoods as much as they did.
We pulled up to my house and I hesitated before getting out of the car. Crack must have sensed my hesitation and spoke up.
“Dread, you can stay at the house with me and Queen until this shit blows over. I don’t know what I would do if your coming home causes you more static. Maybe we could lay low and figure something else out before you go in there. You don’t know who is watching your crib,” he said.
I shook my head.
“Naw man, I got this. I can’t keep running from it. At least if they are gonna get me, I will be able to see my daughter and wifey before they take me down,” I said.
I gave Crack a pound and exited the car. I walked up the drive and up the steps. When I got to the door I felt the tension mounting and the fear building. I hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary when I exited the car, but something in my gut was telling me to make a break for it to the car.
Before I could turn around and run back to the car, I felt the hot bullets ripping through my flesh. The last thing I remembered before my eyes closed was Pinky standing over me mouthing the words, “Got cha nigga!”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Backyard Band (BYB)
“Fakin’ Like”
Neko
I went to work and once inside the office I passed by Natalie’s desk which was vacant. I stood there staring at the empty seat. It was empty and I knew why. It was empty because she wasn’t coming in today or tomorrow, or the day after that. She wasn’t coming in ever again and it was killing me inside. Natalie wouldn’t be coming to work or going anywhere but six feet under; and I may have played a part in it.
As much as I disliked her smart ass mouth and her nasty attitude, she didn’t deserve to have that foul shit happen to her. There was so much chaos in my life; a normal nigga would have buckled under the pressure. With the type of family I had been born into, I should have been able to handle shit like this, but dead bodies of loved ones was something you don’t ever get used to!
I continued down the hall and into my office. When I opened the door, Shadow was waiting on me. I almost jumped out of my skin seeing him there. I forgot that nigga had a key.
“Damn my nigga, you look like shit Boss! What’s good?” Shadow said giving me a once over.
“Man, I don’t know if anything is good!”
The look on Shadow’s face went from curiosity to concern.
“Pinky got you stressed homie?” Shadow inquired.
“Yeah man, more than you could imagine,” I responded.
Shadow pulled out a bag of loud and started dumping the guts out of a blunt into the trashcan.
“Ain’t nothing like some fuck it in your system to make all of your problems disappear.” he said quoting Katt Williams.
He twisted up the blunt with the weed and sparked it and passed it to me. I inhaled, and thought about whether I should trust him and tell him what I knew about Natalie. Letting the smoke out, I decided that Shadow was a good nigga and would be able to help if I needed it.
“Man, last night I called Natalie to check her ass about the shit she’s been around here pulling. Before I could dig into that ass about her attitude something happened. I could hear a scuffle and then I didn’t hear anything else.” I said before stopping and looking at Shadow to make sure I had his full attention. He was sitting damn near on the edge of the chair waiting for me to finish telling him what had gone down.
“I knew something fucked up had happened. She never came back to the phone so I slipped out the door and hit a hundred to her house.” My voice trailed off. I closed my eyes and thought about the fucked up scene at Natalie’s. I knew that shit was going to haunt me for the rest of my life.
“I found shorty dead on her floor with her tongue cut out and pinned to her chest! She had multiple stab wounds all over her body.”
“What the fuck!” Shadow exclaimed. He had dropped the blunt on the floor and was coughing from the smoke.
“Yeah man, that shit got me all the way fucked up. That ain’t even the worst part of it either.”
Shadow raised an eyebrow and stared at me.
“Nigga it gets worse? How can it get worse than finding your shorty like that?” He asked sounding alarmed. He was fishing around trying to get the lit blunt off of the floor.
Niggas like Shadow didn’t let too much shit rattle them, but he was fucked up with hearing this shit.
“Yeah man, I found a note pinned to her chest with her tongue. It read: ‘Loose lips sink ships.’ The cryptic message made my insides churn.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Who the fuck cuts out someone’s tongue and pins that shit to their chest?” Shadow asked. He was staring at me like I really had the answers. I wish I had them because not knowing if I was sleeping with Natalie’s killer was beyond torture. I had sat up all night long trying to figure out the same shit.
I took another pull of the blunt letting the smoke invade my lungs and the thought of what I had to do invade my mind. Even though Natalie was my side piece, there was no reason she should have gone through some shit like this and I needed to get to the bottom of it. I was afraid I knew who was behind that shit and that fucked me up even more.
Shadow looked at me while the weed calmed my nerves. He was waiting on me to give him the answers to questions I didn’t know the answers to. I debated as to whether I should tell him who I thought was behind it. I knew once he got that information he would be ready to go to war with her and I wasn’t quite sure it was her. The way Natalie popped off at the mouth all the time; it could have been anyone who killed her. I passed the blunt back to him and decided I needed to tell him because if something happened to me, he knew whose head to hit!
“Aye yo Shadow, I think Pink had something to do with that shit man,” I said. I studied his face waiting for his reaction.
“Pinky? Why do you think shorty would even go there? I thought ya’ll’s shit was straight.”
“Man there is some shit you don’t know about her man. She is a fucking killer. Literally! My Pops and my sister had some ties to her when they were alive and in t
he streets. That’s how I really met her,” I confessed.
“Awww man, you got some problems my nigga. What are you gonna do if it was her?” he asked.
“I shrugged because I really ain’t know what I’d do if I found out Pink was behind Natalie’s death. After all I was the one creeping out on her.
Shadow snapped his fingers.
“Damn man, that reminds me! I almost forgot why I came to work early,” Shadow said.
“Wassup my nigga, I know it wasn’t to actually work because you never do that shit.” I said chuckling even though nothing going on in my life was funny.
“Man fuck you! You ain’t watched the news?” Shadow asked putting the blunt out and rolling another one.
I shook my head. I hadn’t watched shit but my fucking back!
“They found that rapper nigga your sister used to fuck with, Dread, shot in front of his house. Ole boy had some hot ones put in his ass. Whoever did that shit was aiming to kill and they almost succeeded. That nigga is in ICU at Georgetown in critical condition fighting for his life. Man, whoever was trying to get at that nigga was on a mission!”
I was in a state of disbelief to say the least. I didn’t say anything.
“You know the city is going crazy about that shit. He is like an idol to these niggas. That nigga going down ain’t a good look for you my man. People knew you had a hard on for that nigga for that shit with YaYa. You better be careful, you don’t want niggas putting that body on you. You might want to handle that!” Shadow warned.
Shadow made it more than clear that I had better watch my back. Someone was playing for keeps. I patted my pockets looking for my cell phone and remembered I had left it in the truck. I got up and jogged out to the truck and got it and powered it on.
There were thirteen voicemails and thirty text messages. I didn’t have to listen to the voicemails or read the text messages to know they were from Pinky and NiQue. Too much had gone on for it not to have been them. Just the thought of that nigga Dread being laid up in the hospital made me nervous. I got my hammer out of the glove box because for all I knew I may have been next on somebody’s hit list. My gun was gonna have to stay on my hip. Someone was playing dirty. I knew one thing; I wasn’t going out without a fight!
I headed back inside the building, but not before looking over my shoulder. I didn’t know what the fuck was going on and I wasn’t going to get caught slipping. I decided I would call NiQue and Pinky later. I punched in the numbers to the only person who may have known something about what was happening. I called Detective John Gatsby. I knew if Pops could see me now he would be rolling over in his grave. Pops was a policeman’s worst nightmare, and here I was trusting a mutha’ fuckin’ cop.
I tried his office and there was no answer. Then I tried his cell and again there was no answer. I made my way back in my office and sat in my high back leather chair behind my desk. Shadow hadn’t moved a muscle besides rolling another blunt packed with Pink Panther.
“You ready to blow some more trees or are you gonna wallow in your own pity around this mutha fucker?” he asked like the true pothead he was.
“Man fire that shit up, I’m trying to get high!” I said. What else was there to do?
I was trying to call Gatsby repeatedly and I finally gave up.
“Man why you look like that? The weed ain’t good enough or something?” Shadow asked attempting to lighten the mood.
There really was no way to make any of this seem any better than it was.
“No, it’s all good. I am trying to reach this Fed who was working on my family’s case and he ain’t answering. He might be able to give me some inside information on who tried to gun down that nigga Dread. He might be able to tell me if they had any leads on Natalie’s killer too.”
I took the blunt from Shadow’s hands and took a long pull and held it until I was sure there was no more smoke to when I exhaled.
“Neko are you sure that Fed is still alive? Didn’t he work in the 5th District? Oh, shit you said you have been out of touch with the real world! You ain’t heard huh? Some crazy mutha fucker blew up the 5th District Police Department. That shit has been all over the news. The news reported that there were no survivors. Maybe he got caught up in that shit. If he was there that day that shit happened, then sorry to tell you but homeboy probably didn’t make it!”
This shit was beginning to be a repeat of the year before. Chaos and drama was surrounding me like the force of Hurricane Katrina; it was fucking up everything in sight.
I was back at the square root of one! I grabbed up the remote and started flipping through the channels to see what I could about the police station being torched, and if there was anything on the news or BET about Dread being shot and whether they had any suspects.
Where the fuck had I really been? Shit was happening all around me and I hadn’t seen or heard about any of it.
In the midst of me flipping through the channels my phone started to ring. I picked it up and almost panicked like a bitch when I saw Pinky’s face flash across the screen. I rejected the call.
Shadow was heading out of my office and going to open the shop being that Natalie obviously wasn’t coming back. That was some shit I was going to have to handle too! I was going to have to hire someone to replace her. I decided right then and there I was definitely hiring a dude to fill her spot so temptation wouldn’t be an issue. I was putting a killer on my team because shit was getting real. I knew, from firsthand experience, that when a nigga slipped up, he is his own worst enemy.
A young nigga I knew from the street named Head was the first person that popped in my mind. Not only was he a smart lil nigga from the street, but he was heavy with his trigger finger. This nigga was thorough and he wouldn’t turn down the chance to bang his hammer if it was called for.
My phone rang bringing me out of my thoughts. I knew who it was before I could even get good a look at the number or the face that appeared on the screen. I normally would have been happy to receive a call from Pinky. Today, I wanted nothing to do with her ass. At least until I figured out if she was the one who was responsible for what happened to Natalie.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Backyard Band (BYB)
“Rowdy Rowdy”
Detective Gatsby
Well, I’ll be damned! That bitch lived up to her promise. She said she was going to take that nigga out and she did it! Well almost. That asshole Dread was laid up in a hospital fighting for his life. He was unconscious and on life support. The doctors said the probability of him making it was slim to none.
I could feel the smile pulling at the corners of my mouth. I would have been happier when that bastard was dead. Him being in a coma would have to do for now, at least until we finished his ass. I didn’t have shit to complain about! I tossed the newspaper I was reading on the floor and opened the blinds to my dark apartment. I had been hiding out, listening to the police scanner, and hoping no one knew my ass was involved with what had happened at the police department. With all the chaos going on at the station, no one knew if I was dead or alive. They were still pulling bodies from the building that had burned to the ground killing everyone inside and even taking the lives of some of the firefighters who tried to control the blaze.
It was time for me to pay Dread a visit in the hospital. I needed to be sure he didn’t come out of the hospital and if he did he was going to be in cuffs! I owed Head big time for making that shit happen at the precinct, and if I didn’t take care of that debt he would make sure everyone who would listen know I was the one who gave the order to turn the lights out at the 5th District.
Head torching the place is going to cost me a pretty penny. It was all worth it though as long as no one knew I had killed that young girl. I was willing to kill whoever I had too in order to keep my secret a secret.
Head was a crazy mutha fucker that I busted a while back. He was up on some murder charges and I helped him get off. He was being accused of killing some local thugs and I saw th
e fire in him. He was one of those people you wanted on your team for when you needed a job completed! I called on Head when I needed people taken out and didn’t want to get myself involved. He didn’t care who he had to kill. He was ruthless. He would kill the target, the kids, the wife, the dog, the neighbors, and anyone else who tried to get in his way and stop him. Like I said, he was worth every dime I had to spend to employ him and he was definitely someone I would not stand up as far as payment. If I didn’t pay him, and pay him on time, he would see to it that I ended up in a box.
I may have kept Head out of jail, but if I crossed him he was going to make sure I met my maker sooner than I wanted too; and I was not prepared for that. I would rather have him on my team than against me.
I also needed to pay Ms. York a visit. I wanted Dread dead and I didn’t want to get my hands dirty. I would rather help her finish his ass off then get my hands dirty killing him myself. I had just skated out of enough shit. There was no need to put my ass back on the line when I was in the free and clear. If Ms. York was harboring ill feelings towards him for what happened to her sister then she would have no problems with finishing this, once and for all.
I knew she was thirsty for the kill. It showed in her eyes the day she had met with me in my office. I had seen that look many times before. I had cuffed and arrested killers for more than half of my life. I could sense she was a killer. Call it my intuition, but I could sense she was hungry to see that man die and she wanted nothing more than to be the one to pull the trigger. I couldn’t confirm that she was the one who had put those hot ones in Dread, but I knew she had something to do with it! Just the thought of her pulling the trigger and rocking his ass to sleep got my dick hard. Something about pain was a turn on. Then to top it off, Pinky was a lot to get excited about. She was built like she was drawn.
I stopped getting dressed and took a seat in my recliner. The lustful thoughts of Pinky were too strong for me to ignore. I gripped my dick, stroking myself to pleasure while thinking about her thick frame on top of me performing acts of gratification I knew she would never do. Once I finished, I wiped my sticky hand on the underwear that were down around my ankles. I shook the wet boxers from around my feet and looked around the floor for a dry pair; seeing none, and I picked the ones wet with my semen up, and headed to the back to iron them dry.