by K'wan
“You live in the Gardens, right?” Asia asked. It was what they called Persia’s neighborhood because of the impressive lawns of the houses on that street.
“Yeah,” Persia confirmed.
“I live a few blocks away on Randall,” Asia told her. She dug in her purse and produced a pen and piece of paper, which she quickly scribbled something on. “Take my number.” She handed her the piece of paper. “I don’t know you very well, but you seem like a stand-up chick. Maybe we can hang out sometime.”
“Cool.” Persia nodded.
“See you around, Chandler.” Asia winked and started back across the street toward the hamburger joint. A few seconds later the mob of girls rejoined her.
Persia stood there for a while, trying to figure out what to make of what had just happened. She’d initially thought that Asia was just another wannabe tough chick like the other few black girls in the school, but from what she could tell she was the genuine article. Everybody painted a picture of Asia as being this prim and proper young model, but Persia was seasoned enough to see what hid beneath the surface of what Asia showed everyone else. Much like Persia, Asia definitely had some gangster in her blood.
With these thoughts in mind, Persia started back down the street to continue her walk home. Just as she was about to cross the street, a red BMW ran the red light and almost hit her. As the car passed she got a glimpse of the driver and her heart skipped a beat. It couldn’t be . . . could it?
CHAPTER 13
“Damn, Chucky, you almost hit that girl!” Maggie said from the passenger seat.
“But I didn’t, so mind your damn business and let me worry about the way I’m driving, unless you wanna take the wheel,” Chucky snapped. Seeing Persia after all that time had put him in his feelings.
Chucky thought that by popping up in Persia’s neighborhood he could force her to talk to him and potentially put her back under his spell, but the fight derailed that plan. He started to get out with his gun and chase the girls away from Persia, but instead decided to watch and see how it would play out. Chucky sat a half block away in his car, watching as Persia destroyed the girls who had rolled up on her. The way she handled herself made him proud. She was no longer the fragile young girl from the suburbs he had first met. Persia now had a hard edge to her, no doubt from all that Chucky had put her through.
At one time Persia had been Chucky’s girl, or so he led her to believe. Persia tried to play the role of a street chick, but in reality she was young, naïve, and easily influenced, which was perfect for what Chucky had planned. To her credit, Persia was one of the finest young chicks Chucky had ever had the pleasure of having on his arm; he was more interested in her genes than her looks. When Chucky was a kid he watched his older brother Tim get gunned down right in front of him. They had come seeking revenge for the murder of their oldest brother, Sonny, but instead Chucky ended up losing another sibling. The common thread in both murders was a man named Face, Persia’s father. Since Chucky couldn’t get to Face, he would take his revenge against his daughter, Persia.
Roping Persia in was easy. All Chucky had to do was snatch the blinders off that her mother and stepfather had strapped her with, and show her what she was missing in the world. Chucky introduced her to his life of fast cars and money and Persia was instantly turned out. She was seventeen years old, riding in foreign vehicles, hanging out among all the hood stars, and being treated like royalty, and dating an important man. Nobody could tell her anything that would make her think that Chucky was anything less than a God. Chucky had so viciously twisted her mind that Persia left her big house in Long Island City to live from pillar to post with Chucky, because she thought she was in love and her parents’ rules were standing in the way of that. Chucky would show her that love came with a very heavy price tag.
It didn’t take long for Chucky to start dragging Persia down his rabbit hole. Persia had already been experimenting with weed and popping the occasional pills here and there, but it was Chucky who introduced her to the harder drugs. It started with him lacing their blunts with cocaine. Initially Persia protested. She feared she’d become one of the Walking Dead–looking addicts she passed in the streets, but Chucky explained to her that those were the effects of smoking crack and that cocaine was the drug of choice for the rich. Persia was naïve, but she still knew better than to dabble in cocaine. She didn’t really want to do it, but the fear of disappointing Chucky if she didn’t do it overrode her common sense. Once she hit the laced blunt, and Chucky saw her jaw lock up, followed by the euphoric look that crossed her face, he knew he had her feet firmly planted on the road to damnation.
Chucky had successfully alienated Persia from everyone who cared about her and made her dependent on him. He whittled away at her confidence and self-respect until there was nothing there but a fresh slab of clay for him to mold as he pleased. Persia had stopped going to school and had taken to running the streets with Chucky. He kept her so busy running, only feeding her drugs to keep her going, that before Persia knew it she had a habit, and not the faintest idea of how to deal with it. Chucky had wanted to drag her to rock bottom before viciously shattering the loving image she’d had of him, before revealing to Persia what his real intentions were. He wanted her to know that he had fucked her life up on purpose and why he did it. His revenge against the man who had been responsible for the deaths of both his brothers would be to slowly destroy the thing he loved most: his daughter.
Unfortunately for Chucky the plan didn’t go off as he expected, thanks to Karen. The night Ramses sent his men to the house where Chucky and Persia had been holed up was to be the night they left New York. Chucky was going to drive Persia somewhere down South and bring their little game to an end in most horrible fashion. He’d left Persia in the house with his aunt and her boyfriend while he went to handle a quick piece of business before they made the mad dash, but when he came back he found Ramses’s death squad descending upon the house. Long before the story would air on the news later that night, Chucky already knew that everyone in the house would be dead, including Persia. There was nothing he could do without putting himself at risk, so he left her to die. To his surprise, Persia had survived the attack and was on the mend. Chucky had been trying to worm his way into Persia’s life and bring his sick plan full circle since he slithered back into New York, but she wasn’t making it easy.
“So, what now? I know you didn’t bring us all the way out here just to watch them little bitches scrap,” Rissa said in an irritated tone from the back seat. It had been a few hours since the last time she’d gotten high and she was getting irritable. Rissa might not have realized it yet, but Chucky and Maggie saw that she was developing a habit.
Chucky looked at Rissa through the rearview mirror. “You worse than your sister with all the damn complaining y’all do. It’s obvious you two share the same genes.”
“That ain’t all we share,” Rissa mumbled.
Maggie turned around in her seat and looked at her little sister. “What did you say?”
“Nothing, I’m just ready to get on the road already if we’re still going, that’s all.” Rissa tried to clean it up.
“Don’t worry, baby sis. I just gotta make a quick stop in Manhattan to see somebody and we can get on our way,” Chucky assured her.
“You sure you wanna play it that close, considering everything?” Maggie asked him. Chucky had confided with her about his troubles in New York. Though he had never told Maggie the entire story, he told her enough to where she knew that going anywhere near Harlem could be risky.
“It’s all good, baby. We’ll be in and out before anybody even catches wind that I’m in town. I just gotta see my friend right quick and we gonna go handle that other thing,” Chucky told her.
“I thought you were all out of friends,” Rissa said sarcastically.
Chucky laughed. “Let me tell you something, shorty. No matter what I do in the world they’ll always be niggas who got love for me, because I’ve given
them reason to. I make it so my presence adds value to their lives, so that no matter what their eyes tell them, their hearts will dispute the information.”
Rissa shook her head. “I would sure love to meet the pour soul who, other than us, is dumb enough to put their faith in your sneaky-ass.”
Charlie sat in the back of City Diner on Ninetieth and Broadway, tapping his finger on the table nervously. In front of him sat an untouched burger and fries that had sat long enough to get soggy. Every time the front door opened, his eyes shot up expectantly, only to be disappointed to find that it wasn’t the person he was waiting for.
While he waited, he replayed his conversation with Li’l Monk in his head and wondered what he should take from it. Had it been the old days, Li’l Monk wouldn’t have given a second thought to fulfilling Charlie’s request to get put on, but these weren’t the old days; they were the new.
Since kids, he and Li’l Monk had come up like brothers and always had each other’s backs, no matter what the circumstances. When money came into play, everything changed. Though Charlie would never admit it, it was his fault that there was a rift between him and the young man who had once been his best friend. It had always been him and Li’l Monk out in the streets, pulling capers and doing what they had to do to survive. Charlie would always come up with the schemes and Li’l Monk was the muscle. They made the perfect team, so when Li’l Monk was called up to the big leagues and Omega became his partner instead of Charlie, it bothered him. He always felt like Li’l Monk had chosen the new guy over him and it planted the seeds of resentment in his heart. Charlie had a love and hate relationship with Li’l Monk. That was still his friend, but he couldn’t accept Li’l Monk doing better than him, so it always pushed Charlie to feel like he had to go the extra mile to catch up with him, even if it meant breaking bread with snakes.
Charlie felt wrong for being there, and in his heart he knew that he was, but he felt obligated. Where he was from, when people looked out for you during hard times you did the same if the opportunity presented itself, even if you didn’t agree with what was being asked of you. This was where Charlie found himself: trapped in a battle between his good sense and his loyalties.
Finally, the man Charlie had been waiting for showed up. Chuck looked different from the last time Charlie had seen him. He was thinner than Charlie remembered and he had huge bags under his eyes. It was like he had aged several years in only a few months. The clothes he wore were high end, but looked like they had been slept in, which was unlike Chucky. When he had been running the block, Chucky would never be caught dead looking anything other than dapper. The man standing before Charlie bore the signs of hard living.
Chucky looked around the diner suspiciously, as if he was expecting someone to jump out and ambush him. Charlie couldn’t say that he blamed him. Chucky had done a lot of people dirty the last time he was in New York and according to the streets there was still an open bounty on his head. Charlie knew that for Chucky to risk coming back to New York he was either crazy or desperate, and before it was all said and done Charlie would find a way to use it to his advantage. Chucky wasn’t the only one who had come to the meeting with an agenda.
“My main man,” Chucky greeted Charlie with dap and a hug.
“What up, Chucky.” Charlie embraced him. Chucky’s clothes reeked of cigarettes and something else Charlie couldn’t quite place.
“I’d like to introduce you to some friends of mine.” Chucky waved the girls over. “This is Maggie and her sister Rissa,” he introduced them respectively. “Now, let’s get down to business.” He motioned for Maggie to slide into the booth on his side. When Rissa tried to squeeze in too, he stopped her. “Baby girl, why don’t you sit over there next to Charlie so he ain’t all alone?”
Rissa’s face said she didn’t like it, but she knew better than to argue with Chucky in public, especially in front of one of his Harlem friends. Rissa and Maggie talked shit to him behind closed doors, but they knew better than do it out in the open. The last time Rissa tried him, Chucky slapped her so hard that her ear rang for the rest of the day. Mumbling under her breath, she slid in next to Charlie.
“So, how you been, Charlie?” Chucky asked as if he really cared.
“I can’t complain, I’m living,” Charlie said modestly.
Chucky gave him the once-over. “Looks like you’re doing a little more than living. You look good, Charlie,” he lied. Charlie still looked like the exact same larcenous little bastard Chucky remembered, but he needed to stroke his ego.
“I’m trying to get like you.” Charlie glanced over at Maggie, who was sitting next to Chucky with a zoned-out look in her eyes. The older woman was clearly on something, but Charlie didn’t care. All he saw were tits and ass.
“Yeah, Maggie here is a real rider. She does anything daddy needs her to do.” Chucky draped her arm around her. “Ain’t that right, baby?”
“Sure thing, Chucky,” Maggie said dryly. She was only half paying attention. Her nerves were playing havoc on her. They’d had to split the rest of the drugs three ways on the ride over and it wasn’t quite enough to put her in her zone.
“We can talk about pleasure in a while, Charlie. For now let’s stick to business. Did you cut into him yet?” Chucky asked.
“I been working on it, but it’s slow motion. Li’l Monk has been on some real paranoid shit lately and is real careful about who he lets into his circle, even me,” Charlie said.
“Man, you and that dude go back to the sandbox and you mean to say he ain’t letting you eat with him? What kind of friend is that?” Chucky asked.
“It ain’t like that with me and Li’l Monk. Things are just tense within the organization because of everything that’s going on.”
This caught Chucky by surprise. “What do you mean by that?”
Charlie looked around to make sure nobody was eavesdropping before explaining. “Well, the way I hear it Pharaoh’s authority is being challenged by some new nigga by the name of Clark or something.”
Chucky raised his eyebrow at the mention of the name. He was familiar with the Clarks and knew they were a formidable family. He also knew that the father had been murdered a few years prior and his son, Shai was now running his family. Chucky didn’t know much about the youngest Clark, Shai, except everyone who had been sent at him so far was never heard from again. Rumor had it that he had been making the rounds, wiping out all the independent crews who wouldn’t fall in line under the Clark flag. Though Shai was barely out of his teens, he had inherited an army and commanded them like a born general. Shai Clark was smooth as silk and as deadly as a razor blade. If he and Pharaoh were at each other, it was something Chucky might’ve been able to use to his advantage.
“So, Pharaoh and the Clarks are at war, huh?” Chucky asked.
“Not officially, but I’m hearing the tensions are getting high and it’ll only be a matter of time before something pops off. They say dudes are choosing sides and it isn’t looking too good for Pharaoh,” Charlie told him.
“See, and that’s all the more reason I need you to speed things up with Li’l Monk, Charlie. When the shit hits the fan, and it will hit the fan, I want us there to get the big pieces and not the scraps.” Chucky told him.
Long ago Chucky had sold Charlie on the idea of the two of them taking over Pharaoh’s territory and becoming the next bosses of Harlem. At the time it was a loosely slapped together idea to get Charlie to do what he wanted, but in light of recent developments it might’ve been something that could’ve actually worked. If Chucky successfully got Pharaoh and Ramses out of the way, there would be nobody to stop him from coming back to New York permanently and recapturing his former glory.
Chucky had respect in the streets before he went rogue, and there was a chance that if he got the power players out of the way he could rally enough support to establish his own organization. If he played his cards right he might even be able to do it with the blessings of the Clarks. But before he made a move
on Ramses he needed to get Li’l Monk out of the way. Omega would be given the option to get down or lie down, and Chucky was fifty/fifty as to which way Omega would go if the price was right, but the fiercely loyal Li’l Monk would present a problem.
“I don’t see why we gotta do it all sneak, Chucky. Li’l Monk and me been tight since the cradle and I’m sure if I just talked to him—”
“If you just talk to him he’ll run back and tell it, ruining our plans,” Chucky cut him off. “Look, kid, I know Li’l Monk is your friend, but that boy is like a pit bull, loyal to whoever is holding his leash at the time and right now that ain’t us. Ramses has got him all fucked up in the head, so even though you’re trying to look out for him, he isn’t gonna see it that way. We can’t wake him up to what’s going on until we’ve made our move then you can explain everything to him and see if he’ll get on board. You have my word that no harm will come to him unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
In all truthfulness, Chucky had no intentions on allowing Li’l Monk or anyone else to eat from his plate, especially Li’l Monk. Not only had he helped usurp Chucky and cost him his position, but his father had also been responsible for the death of his eldest brother, Sonny. He was firmly etched onto his shit list right along with Persia and they would both pay for the sins of their fathers.
“If you say so, Chucky,” Charlie said with uncertainty in his voice.
“Trust me, kid. It’s better this way. Now what about that other thing I had you look into for me?”
“Oh yeah.” Charlie reached in his pocket and produced a piece of paper, which he slid across the table to Chucky. “I got the address off of a letter that she sent my moms.”
Chucky studied the piece of paper and couldn’t help but to laugh when he saw that it was an address in Scranton, PA. The person he was looking for had been hiding damn near next door to him the whole time he was in Philadelphia. If he jumped on the road immediately, he could get to Scranton, handle his business, and get back all in a few hours.