Shyt List 5: Smokin' Crazies The Finale' (The Cartel Publications Presents)

by Reign (T. Styles)

  “I’m going to kill you for saying that shit!” He yelled walking up to the phone. “You hear me mothafucka? I’m gonna snatch your life wit’ my bare fuckin’ hands.”

  Rufus laughed again. “You can’t kill what you don’t know about, son. But I can.” He continued. “I had a feeling you would go there, to the convention, so you’re not as smart as you think.”

  “And you didn’t tell us?” Dana asked, who had sucked his dick virtually everyday for the past six months. “I thought you would protect me.”

  “Don’t worry, Dana. In your death you’ll be appreciated even more.”

  She gasped.

  “There…in front of you, you have people who work for me, Yvonna. People who to you, may seem ordinary, yet they have given their lives for me. I have that kind of power.” The sounds of a few of the secretaries weeping made it hard to hear his voice. “For all you know, one of your friends may be under my employ right now. I mean, can you really say you trust them?” The four of them looked at one another because he succeeded at filling them with suspicion. “Here’s my bottom line.” He continued. “It will take more than just the eight people you have before you, to stop my flow. You could never stop me, nobody can.”

  “But…Rufus,” Dana sobbed. “These people are going to kill us.”

  “At least you’ll die with honor! And for the cause. For my cause.”

  “So you don’t even care about us?” Patricia asked, focusing on the phone. “After everything we’ve done for you? Everything we’ve given up.”

  “Of course I care about you. And I’ll tell the other members how you selflessly sacrificed your lives for AFCOG. You’ll be remembered as heroes.”

  “Wow, you don’t even have loyalty to your ministers.” Bricks smirked. “I guess you truly are a bottom of the barrel type nigga.”

  He seemed irritated by his comment. “This is a billion dollar business. A BILLION!” He screamed. “There is no way on earth I can allow you or your friends to come in the way of that.” His voice was filled with tension. “Now the Eight before you are soldiers. They were my soldiers. And as far as I’m concerned, they died in an act of valor.”

  “You going to see me soon, Rufus.” Yvonna said slyly. “So I’m glad you know what I look like.”

  “Correct. I know you, but you wouldn’t know who I was if I tapped you on the shoulder. I am the almighty, Yvonna Harris. I’m in the business of pussy, kids and dreams. I fulfill all fantasies. And with power like that, I can’t lose.”

  “You going to burn in hell. And I’m going to see to it that you get there.”

  “Find me first.” He taunted.

  When the call ended Yvonna stepped back and watched Bricks, Ming and Swoopes shoot all but one of the ministers. They were preparing to shoot Dana next until she said, “You have to free the kids.”

  “We already know that.”

  She looked down at her hands and then up at Yvonna again. “I’m talking about the kids who are about to be sold. They are in a tractor-trailer in Bladensburg, Maryland. Near the old railroad tracks. There was an auction that was supposed to go down later today. We had to facilitate it.”

  “What the fuck? How many kids are we talking about?” Bricks asked, thinking about how cold it was outside.

  “One hundred.” She rubbed her runny nose on her jacket. “Ranging from the ages of five to fourteen. We cleared out most of the breeding camps to see it go down.”

  Yvonna felt her blood boil over. “How much were they worth?”

  “A half a million.”

  “Shoot this bitch, I’m tired of looking at her.” Yvonna advised.

  BILAL, Jr.

  Bilal, Jr. was praying the car never came to a complete stop. He didn’t want to do what he was hired to, partially because he wasn’t built to be a gangsta. Still, if he turned back now, he would only make matters worse. Then there was this thing with his aunt. He’d beaten her so badly, she was unconscious and in the hospital fighting for her life. If she came to, he was worried that she’d be able to tell them what he’d done. And now, he was about to commit murder.

  “You cocked and loaded right?” Laser asked Bilal, Jr., as they sat in a black stolen Caprice. “I don’t wanna hear no shit when we get out this car.”

  Bilal, Jr. decided not to speak and instead he nodded his head. He felt anything he said, even if it was for the job, would show his fear and anxiety. He knew this was a test and to make Uzi proud, so he would have to rise to the occasion.

  Laser gave him a once over and said, “You better be ready, nigga. Let’s do this shit.”

  Parked on a tree-lined street, in a quiet neighborhood, Laser found an inconspicuous parking space away from their target. When they were ready, the brothers eased out of the car and approached the unsuspecting man. He seemed to be focused on the handful of ass cheeks he held, that belonged to a short dark skin girl with an expensive weave, instead of his well-being. The poor fool’s life was on the line and he didn’t even know it. Gearing up, Bilal, Jr. let out two quick breaths and inched slowly toward him, while Laser hung back, appearing to be accessing the surroundings.

  Bilal, Jr. wasn’t even sure how he got up on his prey so quickly. But the next thing he knew he was saying, “Main man, I know you ain’t out here with your arm ‘round my bitch.” Although the words may have sounded hard coming from a gangsta, released from his mouth, it resembled a five-year-old frightened little boy.

  Melvin turned around to address, whoever must have mistaken him for a punk, but the minute he did, his face was met with a barrage of bullets. He died so quickly; he seriously didn’t know what hit him. Bilal, Jr. murdered Bricks’ only living sibling and he didn’t know the man.

  Things moved so swiftly that he’d forgotten all about the woman he was with. Her scream reminded him that he’d just done the ultimate. He ran away, to separate himself from the crime. He was ready to leave when instead Laser said, “You gotta finish it, Bilal. You can’t leave her alive. She saw your face.”

  Bilal, Jr. looked at Laser with wide eyes. “But…why? We got who we came for. Let’s just go.” He tried to move toward the car until Laser yanked his forearm.

  “We not leaving until you finish.”

  He was confused. He didn’t want to kill the one person let alone two. “Why can’t you do it?” He boldly asked. He wasn’t sure where his question came from but he wanted an answer all the same.

  Laser stepped to him, frowned and asked, “You questioning me?”

  “No.”

  “Then go back and finish what the fuck you started.” He pointed. “Now, before she gets away.”

  Bilal, Jr. walked up to the woman, who surprisingly hung over Melvin’s dead body, as if he would come back to life. When she saw the killer creep back, she suddenly wondered why she hadn’t attempted to get away. When she realized it was high time to start moving, she took off like the speed of lightning. But he was younger and quicker, so he knocked her to the ground with a fist to the back of the head. She dropped, rolled over and looked up at him.

  “Don’t do this!” She sobbed with her hands covering her face. “You don’t have to kill me. I won’t say anything. Please!””

  “I’m sorry,” he cried, wiping his tears, “But I do have to kill you.” He fired his gun, took the ring off her finger and dashed to the car.

  When they made it home, Bilal, Jr. rushed to the bathroom and dropped to his knees. He lifted the toilet cover, followed by the seat to release his stomach contents. Sprinkles of dried yellow piss dressed the outside of the bowl, but that didn’t stop him from placing both hands firmly on the rim. Now as comfortable as he was going to get, he threw up everything he ate in the past few hours. He couldn’t understand how his life got to this level of fucked up, but he wished he could change things. Bilal, Jr. was not a murderer and he definitely didn’t want to kill people he had no beef with. He was confused, naive and troubled, all of which spelled danger.

  Now that he was assessing the sit
uation, he wasn’t sure why the man had to die. He was told that someone name Bricks and Melvin crossed Yao in Vegas, but that was the extent. He didn’t have a relationship with Yao to ask more questions and his brothers didn’t volunteer the answers. None of it mattered now anyway, because he committed the ultimate crime, a double homicide.

  “You aight, lil nigga?” Uzi asked knocking on the door. When he didn’t answer he invited himself inside. Seeing his little brother on the floor, he dropped his head back and leaned against the doorway. “Don’t tell me you don’t have the stomach for this.”

  “I have the stomach.” Bilal, Jr. wiped the vomit off his mouth with the back of his hand. “It’s done ain’t it?”

  “I hear you but you gotta do better than this, man.” He looked down at him. “Later for all this emotional shit. People aren’t put on earth to live forever. You live and then you die, in that order.”

  Bilal, Jr. rose from the toilet and looked at himself in the mirror. He seemed frazzled and he didn’t want his favorite brother to see him like that. Flushing the toilet, he said, “True.”

  Uzi placed a firm hand on his shoulder. “How ‘bout you tell me what happened tonight?”

  “I already told you,” he grabbed his toothbrush. “It’s done.”

  “I know that, but why didn’t you pull the trigger?” Bilal, Jr. dropped his toothbrush into the sink and looked at his face to see if he was serious. “That was the plan, and I’m hearing you failed. Tonight was about you getting your stripes but you didn’t earn ‘em. Why?”

  Bilal, Jr. didn’t want to commit the heinous act in the first place, but since he did, he damn sure deserved his credit. “I’m confused. I…I did kill ‘em. I killed both of ‘em.”

  Uzi frowned and backed into the door. “Laser told me he put in the work. And that you ran and couldn’t see things through. Did you run or not?”

  “I did run but…”

  “But what?”

  Bilal, Jr. swallowed. “Laser lying, man!” Visions of how the dead bodies looked against the concrete reminded him that he was a murderer. He would have nightmares for the rest of his life, he was sure of it. “I killed both of them. With the gun you gave me. Not him.”

  “So why would Laser lie?”

  “I don’t know why.” Bilal, Jr. said, shaking his head. “I guess it’s like I been telling you all along. He doesn’t like me. He may even want me out of this house and not around you. You heard him talking the other night to Gabe, telling him that it was my fault some niggas beat Easter when they tried to rob her, because I wasn’t around.” Although he was at fault for the crime, he used it to display his point that Laser couldn’t be trusted. “From the moment I first met ya’ll he wasn’t feeling me. I mean, I know he my brother, but you have to remind him of that because I don’t think he likes it. It’s not me.”

  “I’ma have to cut you short right there.” Uzi roared and pointed a stiff finger into his chest. “My twin may have shit with him, but he wouldn’t lie to me. We’ve never lied to each other a day in our lives. Just because you live here don’t mean he’d start now.”

  Something Uzi said resonated with him. The word Twin. Suddenly it all made sense. He couldn’t compete because although he was also his brother, Laser was his twin. That meant they lived in the same womb, came out of the same pussy and spent every day of their lives together. When it was all said and done, he was a newcomer. Blood relative or not.

  Defeated, Bilal, Jr. said, “I don’t know why he would lie either.” He dropped his head. “But he did.”

  He pretty much gave up on trying to get through to him. Until he remembered the ring in his pocket that he’d taken from the girl. He was about to show him when Uzi opened the bathroom door and said, “Laser, come here for a second. I want to ask you something.”

  Laser walked out of the bedroom on his cell phone. A smile dressed his face until he saw the look on Bilal, Jr.’s. “Let me call you back, Tiffany.” He placed his cell in his pocket. “What’s up?”

  “Who took care of the job tonight?”

  Laser laughed lightly. “What you talking ‘bout?” He looked at Bilal, Jr. and back at him. “I told you I put the work in.” To his face he lied like it wasn’t nothing. He was good at it too. Bilal, Jr. saw at that moment that although Uzi was thorough, he didn’t have the ability to know when Laser deceived him. He was blinded. What he also discovered was that Laser was a punk who was incapable of going the extra mile, unlike him. “I know he not in here lying on me.”

  “You sure, man? ‘Cause you know I wanted B to do that.”

  “I said I did it. Why…this little nigga said something different?” As if he really carried out the order, he stared Bilal, Jr. directly in the eyes. For a moment it appeared as if they were having a face off, until Bilal, Jr.’s head hung and broke the stare. He surrendered not because he was scared of him anymore, but because he was embarrassed to even be related to him.

  Uzi allowed ten seconds of uncomfortable silence before finally speaking. “Naw he didn’t say anything different. I was just checking.” Laser nodded at his twin and smirked at Bilal, Jr. He left them to it, and got back on his call. “If you put the work in, why didn’t you say it to his face? It was the perfect time.”

  “I gotta get some air.” Bilal, Jr. moved for the door. “I’m so sick of this fuckin’ shit.” Not wanting to be in the house, he went outside. He walked five blocks up the street until he ran into a face he wasn’t sure he wanted to see again.

  YVONNA

  Bricks spotted a white tractor-trailer that seemed to be out of place, behind a warehouse in Bladensburg, Maryland. He brought the car to a slow crawl and parked thirty feet away from it. They needed to be careful before approaching. From the passenger seat, Yvonna looked around to be sure no one was eyeing the trailer, but it didn’t appear to be manned.

  “I hope nobody’s in there.” She looked at Bricks. “That would be one of the cruelest things they’ve ever done.”

  “You already know hope is lost whenever AFCOG’s involved.” Swoopes responded, looking out the window. “You heard the nigga on the phone, he don’t care ‘bout shit but money.”

  “This is a nightmare.” Ming said, holding Swoopes’ hand. “Ming knew people could be cold, but never like this.”

  When the coast was clear, the foursome stepped out of the car and strolled carefully up to the trailer. In case it was a set up, they needed to be careful. It appeared locked and they wondered how they would get in. The first thing Yvonna noticed when she was within a few feet were icicles hanging along the sides. Depending upon how long they’d been in there, they might not even be alive, as the weather was unkind that day.

  “Move out the way, Squeeze.” Bricks came from behind, holding some type of metal bar that he found. “Maybe this’ll work.” With the bar wedged under the lock, he pushed and pulled trying to get it to open. Nothing he seemed to do, worked. Ever so often they’d look behind them, to be sure no one was coming and luckily they maintained their privacy.

  After five minutes of uncomfortable attempts, to everyone’s surprise, Swoopes jumped on the edge of the trailer and assisted him. It was the first time Yvonna had seen them helping each other. With one last push and then pull, the lever dislocated and they pulled the door open.

  Since Yvonna was outside, her eyes had to adjust at first to the darkness in the trailer. But when she looked closer, she saw a crowd of children wearing multi colored coats. The smell inside was atrocious, as they had nowhere to release their bowels. When she first focused on them, they had different faces. But after some seconds, they all looked like her as a little girl. And then they changed to Delilah. Sanity was slipping more each day.

  “Oh my, God! They’re all, Delilah!” She ran into the trailer and startled the children when she started to grab them. “What is she doing in here? And why are there so many of her?”

  Bricks ran up to her, after she squashed the head of a boy who bared no more resemblance to Delilah than Who
opi Goldberg did to Halle Berry.

  “Squeeze, this isn’t Delilah.” When he finally pried her fingers off the kid’s face, she hit him.

  “Get off of me! This is my baby!” She gripped his coat again and tears found their way to her face as she squeezed him harder. “This is my child and you don’t know what the fuck you talking about!” She pointed at him. “Stay away from us! You hear me? Stay the fuck away!”

  Bricks backed up and fell into the line up with Ming and Swoopes. They looked at her with pity, forcing her to review the child’s face again. She released him after discovering that he wasn’t her daughter. Startled, she backed into the wall, placed her hand over her mouth and sobbed.

  “What is wrong with me?” She looked at the child who rejoined his trailer family and then back at her crew. “What’s going on?”

  Swoopes was the first to step up. “It ain’t nothing.” He smiled lightly. “For a moment you thought he was your kid. You tired, Yvonna, that’s all.” he looked at Bricks and Ming for support. “We all are.”

  “It could’ve happened to anyone of us,” Bricks lied, knowing full well that only someone certifiably insane, could mistake a boy for a girl. “It’s been a long day.”

  “It’ll all be over soon.” Ming kicked in. “Don’t worry.”

  Yvonna looked at everyone with eyes so wild, they looked loose. “You’re right.” A half of moon size smile spread across her face. It crept everyone out, especially the kids. “I’m just tired.” She wiped the tears and snot off of her face on the arm of her coat. “I just need some rest. Everybody gets exhausted sometimes. That’s me right now.”

  “Yeah, that’s it.” Bricks responded, ashamed that in her current state, she turned him off. “Besides, you didn’t hurt the little guy. He’s fine.”

  Remembering the business at hand, Ming examined what AFCOG deemed as shipment. “Look at all the kids. What are we going to do with them?”