by Erica Hilton
Could it have been him? God?
She ran back into her bedroom and slammed the door behind her. She crawled back into her bed with a flood of tears coming from her eyes.
Bacardi heard the door slam and worried about Chanel. She entered the girls’ bedroom to find her daughter cowering and crying in her bed. Bacardi carefully joined Chanel on her bed and gently wrapped her arms around her daughter to comfort her. Something had upset her. The poor girl was shaking like a leaf in the wind. She assumed it was another bad dream.
Chapter Thirty-One
A crowd of men in a concrete Brooklyn basement hollered and cursed at rolling dice. There were large amounts of cash on the ground, and the atmosphere was rowdy as the thugs gambled, smoked weed, and drank.
Among the group of men gambling in the basement was Fingers. He gulped a 40oz, took a few puffs from the blunt, and clutched a handful of money.
“Yo, run that back, nigga,” Fingers hollered.
“What you want on that, nigga?” a thug shouted.
“I got a C-note on that muthafucka.”
“Bet, nigga.”
Fingers took another swig from his beer. He felt comfortable in the thuggish and sketchy environment, especially with his .45 tucked snugly in his waistband. He didn’t go anywhere without it.
The men continued to gamble, the dice rolled against the gray concrete floor, and the numbers did not come up favorably for Fingers. He lost a hundred, but he was willing to run it back. “Five hundred, nigga,” he said.
“Nigga, you like losing money, don’t you?” said Tony, the shooter of the dice.
“Just fuckin’ roll ’em dice, nigga,” Fingers said with a bit of irritation.
Tony chuckled. The crowd of men continued to be loud and sometimes vulgar. A lot more money was thrown into the pot, and it nearly totaled a stack. These were some heavy hitters and they won big or lost big.
The dice rolled again, and once again, Fingers lost. He shouted and cursed. “Fuck me!”
Tony laughed and taunted Fingers with, “You ready to ante up again, nigga?”
Fingers pulled out another wad of bills from his pocket. It was a sizable knot of cash totaling fifteen hundred. Fingers looked like he had money to burn.
He wanted to quickly win back the six hundred he’d already lost, so he tossed a few hundred dollars into the growing pot of cash. Things were becoming a lot tenser. He hated to lose. He wanted to win and he wanted to get his mind off his troubles.
Fingers was still offended that God hadn’t allowed him a turn with Chanel. It wasn’t as much about fucking Chanel, but more so the way God blocked him and looked at him like he was a piece of shit for wanting a turn. The thought of raping her never would have occurred to Fingers, and yet, it had entered God’s mind, and he went through with it. So, God thought that only he was good enough to fuck the black beauty?
Fingers couldn’t understand why it bothered him so much. God had made him feel like a thirsty pervert that night, and it was eating at him.
He downed more of his beer and continued to gamble, and continued to lose. Eventually, he ended up losing more than two grand. Now he was broke and angry.
“Nah, fuck this. Y’all niggas is cheating!” he shouted.
“Yo, you lost, so bounce, nigga. This shit right here is a fuckin’ rich man’s game, muthafucka,” someone exclaimed.
Fingers didn’t like the comment and he removed his pistol from his waistband to start some shit and get his money back. But surprisingly, no one was intimidated by the gun in his hand. They stared at Fingers like he was crazy, and then they pulled out their guns and aimed at Fingers.
“What, nigga, you think you the only nigga wit’ a fuckin’ gun down here?” said someone. “You either leave broke and alive or in a fuckin’ body bag, nigga. Ya choice, fool.”
Fingers relented, knowing he was outnumbered and outgunned.
Outside the building, he fussed and cursed to himself. He was a bit drunk and agitated. While he staggered to his car, he got it into his head to call Charlie. Her phone rang several times before she finally answered.
“I got sumthin’ to tell you, Charlie,” he uttered.
“Fingers, what the fuck is wrong wit’ you?”
“This is important, and I wanna tell you in person. Meet me in the morning,” he added.
“I’m not interested, Fingers. You sound fuckin’ drunk.”
“I ain’t fuckin’ drunk and this got sumthin’ to do wit’ our last lick.”
Charlie abruptly ended their call.
Fingers was left standing there dumbfounded. “Why . . . why she hang up on me?” he stammered.
He attempted to try and call her again, but her phone was going directly to voicemail. He angrily tossed his phone and marched toward his truck and unlocked his doors. He was fully aggravated and felt disrespected by Charlie too. Fingers wanted to release his anger, and he thought about heading uptown to Harlem to fuck some chick.
He walked and stumbled a bit, and the moment he placed his hand on the door handle, a dark assailant emerged from the shadows—like he came out of nowhere. The man outstretched his arm with a Glock 41 in his hand and he fired coldheartedly into the back of Fingers’ head.
Bac! Bac! Bac!
Fingers’ body dropped to the pavement, his crimson blood thick and coating the street. The assailant fired two more hot slugs into Fingers’ chest, officially making it overkill. But Fingers was dead before his body hit the pavement.
Pyro glared down at the body and squeezed off another shot. “That’s for Mateo, faggot!”
He pivoted and hurried back to his vehicle. He peeled away from the scene unobserved. One down and one to go.
***
Fingers was dead. It hit God like a ton of bricks. The grim news of his friend being gunned down on the street with three shots to his head and two in his chest was unnerving. God knew the killing was personal. It had to be with five shots. His friend had been caught slipping.
God needed to be alone. He left out the apartment and went into the stairwell to smoke a cigarette and think. He still couldn’t believe that his friend was gone.
He took a long pull from the Newport and thought, Who did this shit? He felt that they didn’t have enemies, or did they? When they did the home invasions, they always wore masks and gloves, and they always picked their victims carefully. They didn’t want anything to come back on them. But something had come back on one of them.
Word around the way was that Fingers had lost a lot of money at a gambling spot and ruffled some feathers. God was worried. With his right-hand man gone, what was next? And would they try and come for him too?
“What the fuck! Damn it, Fingers. Damn!” God griped. He had lost his best friend, and he was a wreck.
But no one took the news harder than Charlie. She had spoken to Fingers the night he was killed. She’d hung up on him. Now she wished she hadn’t. Charlie had burst into tears and screamed throughout the apartment after hearing the news. The three of them were thick as thieves, because that’s what they were—thieves. Now one of them had been gunned down.
How?
Charlie’s family took the news in stride. No one really cared about Fingers’ death. Bacardi, Butch, and Claire all pretended as if they barely knew him, and they refused to go to his funeral.
Chapter Thirty-Two
July 4th
What was supposed to be a festive holiday turned out to be the day Frederick Avery, AKA Fingers was laid to rest. The 23-year-old thug was dressed in a fitted ball cap and a black and white Nike sweat suit chosen by his single mother, Tonya. The morticians did a good job reconstructing his features, and the young thug looked more like he was sleeping than dead.
The funeral was pathetic. Fingers wasn’t a well-liked guy, and only a handful of people showed up to pay their respects. But Tonya wa
s absolutely devastated over his death. Her son was her bread and butter. Tonya wailed over his casket. He was her only son, and she couldn’t believe he was dead.
His funeral was hard to pay for. When Fingers was murdered, Tonya had to beg and scrape every dime together. She went around asking for help from whomever she could, including God and a few friends. God only offered to give Tonya $500, claiming that he was broke.
With Fingers gone, she had to look out for herself, and money didn’t grow on trees. But Tonya was particularly disgusted with God. She knew about all the things they’d done together. Her son told her about everything, including the rape of Chanel and every murder they’d committed. For Fingers, it was like confession and his mother was his priest. The violent and turbulent life he lived was sometimes a lot for him to hold in, and when he talked to his mother, it was like therapy. They were really close.
Tonya felt God had disrespected her son. Only $500 toward his best friend’s funeral? She was also convinced that Fingers was murdered because of their last job. Tonya felt that it was no coincidence that no one was left alive in their other robberies. Why rape the girl and leave her alive? Tonya wondered. Now her son was conveniently murdered, and she didn’t believe that it was over a dice game. Nah, it wasn’t going to end like this. She wanted justice for her son.
Dressed in all black and in tears, Tonya looked around the funeral home. What hurt her was the attendance. It was a mostly empty room. God and Charlie stopped by to pay their respects and to give their condolences, but something about them rubbed her the wrong way. They were dressed like they were about to go to a barbecue, and God seemed hurt about his friend’s death, but he didn’t seem too upset to Tonya. He was supposed to be crushed and devastated, like she was—and he was supposed to stay longer to give her some comfort.
She wanted them to stay, and she wanted God to pay for her son’s funeral. He didn’t. Five hundred fuckin’ dollars wasn’t shit.
As the couple left, Tonya glared at them until they were out of her sight. She used to treat God like he was one of her own, but now she saw his true colors. He only cared about himself and that bitch.
Tonya seethed in her seat. Something had to be done.
***
As God and Charlie left the funeral home, they were unexpectedly met by two detectives who flashed their badges. They were there to pick up God.
“You need to come with us,” said the detective.
“Y’all niggas serious? This is my friend’s fuckin’ funeral!” God chided.
“Do you really want to make a scene then?” said his partner.
God mean-mugged the detectives and Charlie asked, “What did he do?”
They ignored her. She wasn’t their concern. They focused on taking God into their custody. Charlie could only watch as they escorted her man away and shoved him into the back of an unmarked police car. He would be going to trial soon on the gun charge he’d picked up almost a year back. But the cops wanted to harass him. They hadn’t forgotten about the death of their fellow officer on that fateful New Year’s Day. His murder was still unsolved and it left a bad taste in the NYPD’s mouth. God and Fingers were their primary suspects, but there wasn’t enough evidence to charge them.
Charlie fumed as she watched them haul God away. The thought crossed her mind again that it was like a curse—an omen of worse to come since they robbed her sister and shot Mateo. God was back in jail, Fingers was dead, and Mateo was still alive.
The only thing she could do was continue to keep her mouth shut and, yet again, see what the charges were against God and try to get him out of jail.
Fortunately for God, there were no new charges against him. He was only brought to the precinct for questioning. They kept him in a room for nearly twenty-four hours and interrogated him. But God was a rock, and since they had nothing on him, he was free to go.
The moment God walked out of the precinct, his cell phone rang. He answered, and it was Tonya.
“Yo listen, God, I’m gonna need you to drop off some more money so I can get ahead of my bills, you feel me?”
God was taken aback by the blatant request. “What—?” He stopped short of calling her a bitch. And in a stern voice, he replied, “Yo Tonya, I ain’t your man or your son. If you need money, then I suggest you get a fuckin’ job. I don’t owe you shit. My nigga just got murdered and I gotta deal wit’ that.”
“How you gotta deal wit’ my son getting murdered? How the fuck you sound, God? How the fuck you come up wit’ that shit? He was my son and you couldn’t stick around for his funeral.”
“Tonya, I said I can’t fuckin’ help you.”
“So, it’s like that?”
“Yeah! It’s like that!” God wasn’t about to be forced to pay anyone anything.
“Okay, so maybe Chanel can help me out, then. You think Charlie’s sister can help wit’ that, huh? Or maybe the police?”
God’s stomach dropped. She was threatening him with information she could have gotten only from her son. The nigga done snitched to his moms when what they did was only supposed to remain between the three of them.
His bitter tone suddenly changed. “Nah, I feel you. You right, Tonya. A’ight, lemme see what I can do.”
“I bet you will, muthafucka. Shit done changed real quickly, I see. Don’t fuckin’ disappoint me, God, cuz I treated you like a son too,” she said.
She ended the call, and God was left furious. He hated to be blackmailed.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chanel would spend ten-hour days at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx with her comatose fiancé. Each morning she prayed for Mateo in the hospital chapel, and her nights were spent in her mother’s bedroom, with Bacardi by her side in her bed. She was afraid of God. She hated him being inside their apartment. She hated that she had to see him almost every day. Seeing those scratches across his back, she suspected he was the monster that raped her. But she wasn’t sure. She did everything in her power to try to avoid him, but with it being a small apartment, it was nearly impossible. So, during the day, the hospital became her safe haven.
Chanel would take the train from Brooklyn to the Bronx, and back to Brooklyn late at night. Surprisingly, Bacardi and Butch would meet her at the station and walk her home safely. There had been a silver-lining behind the tragic incident; she had become closer to her parents and they were finally there for her.
One evening at the hospital, she ran into Pyro outside Mateo’s room. He could see that Chanel was still distraught over the incident. It had been a month, but to Chanel, it would always feel like it was yesterday.
When Pyro went to go hug her, she cringed and shied away from him. He understood. She had gone through a very traumatic experience. But to give her some kind of comfort, he leaned closer to her and said, “One down, and now one to go.”
They locked eyes, and Chanel instantly knew that he was talking about Fingers.
“So, it was them?” she said softly. “How do you know?”
“Mateo knew he needed to get you outta that spot once your sisters came through. And he was right. I did some digging around after what went down wit’ y’all, and those fools are known for violent home invasions. They kill people, Chanel. They did it, and your sister is on my list too. She set you up,” he said.
Chanel didn’t want to believe it. Not Charlie. “No, you can’t. I won’t let you.”
Her response was surprising to him. Why would she protect that bitch? He kicked himself for telling her about Charlie. He should have just done it without telling her anything—but the sad look on Chanel’s face got to him and he’d hoped the news would give her strength.
“Okay, I promise I won’t touch her. I just thought—never mind what I thought. You okay, though? Do you need money or anything? I should have looked out sooner, but I’ve been busy.”
She looked away and replied, “I’m okay.”
“Nah, you ain’t, Chanel. Not when you’re in the same place as that bitch and her nigga. Do me a favor. When you leave here, I want you to go straight to the Manhattan Hotel in the city. I’ll have a room already paid for and it will be in your name. Stay there for a month,” he said.
Chanel didn’t know what to think. It was a lot to process.
Pyro reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of hundred-dollar bills. “Here, take this—for food, cab rides, and any incidentals.”
Chanel feebly accepted the cash. Pyro then took her phone and programmed his number into it.
“Keep in touch. You need anything, Chanel, just hit me up,” he said.
Chanel nodded and walked back into the room to be with Mateo. Pyro truly felt sorry for the innocent girl. Had it been his baby mama, Mateo would have definitely looked out for her—killed those fools and not thought twice about it. They were brothers from a different mother. They loved each other and always looked out for each other. But what God and Fingers did to the couple a few days before their wedding date, it was deplorable and unforgivable, and Pyro could see the remnants of the tragedy in Chanel’s body language. She would probably never be the same again.
That night, Chanel checked into the Manhattan Hotel on the west side. Like Pyro had promised, the arrangements had already been made, and the only thing she had to do was go to the hotel clerk and get her keycard to the room.
The luxury hotel room was a one-bedroom suite with a king size bed, a pull out sofa, a large flat screen, plush carpet, and a beautiful view of the city that stretched across the Hudson River and toward New Jersey. The suite was nearly bigger than her entire apartment.
Chanel was grateful. Finally, she could sleep peacefully without God being in the next room.
She called Bacardi and told her where she was so she wouldn’t worry.