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

by Reign (T. Styles)

  “Oh my goodness!” Her eyes scanned the room and all the toys it had to offer. “It’s beautiful down here.” Like a puppy eager to play, whose master held him back, she trampled anxiously in place. “I never seen anything like it.” When she first got there, she was worried about what he was going to do to her, because her spirit told her the man was off. All of that had changed because if this was how it was going to be, she would gladly spend a little time in his world. Ready to romp around the room she looked up at him and asked, “May I?”

  He smirked having seduced yet another gullible and unprepared soul. “Yes you may.”

  On his command Tyisha took off quicker than an Olympic track star. First she hit up the candy machine and chewed two vanilla flavored balls in one breath. Then she tackled the baby dolls before boring of them quickly. On to the next thing, she hopped and flipped on the royal blue trampoline before moseying over to the pinball machine. He allowed her five minutes of uninhibited play, while keeping his lust at bay.

  Approaching her from behind, he placed a firm hand on each side of her shoulders. An electric shock ripped through her, reminding her that something was deadly wrong. But she was a child, whose mother didn’t arm her with the necessities, to spot a predator. With his leaky eyes, he looked down at her and noticed her body was already swaying. She should be, after all, he’d laced the candy she devoured with just enough Rohypnol, better known as the date rape drug, to make her high.

  “You look like you’re pretty good at this game.” He praised. “Such a smart young lady.”

  She systematically pulled the left and right knobs as she continued to earn a high score. “I have a smaller version of this at home. But this one is bigger, it’s like Disney World in here.”

  “No, sweetheart.” He pruriently massaged the back of her neck. “It’s better.”

  He sauntered away and sat on the huge yellow sofa. She was grateful for his absence but knew it wouldn’t last. Although the game was the most important thing in the world, in a moment, all that would change. He had knowledge that the candy machine, which dispensed no more than two balls at a time, was just enough to get her high, while avoiding sleep. Besides, he liked his little girls awake and conscious.

  “Tyisha, come sit next to me.” He demanded.

  “But I’m playing the game.” She looked back at him and loathed the dirty look on his face. “I’m about to win.”

  “Tyisha, come to me now.” With one last pull on the lever, reluctantly she trudged toward the sofa. He patted the space next to him, and she fell into the seat. “What’s wrong? You don’t want to sit next to your master? And keep him company? And please him? To put a smile on his face?”

  She looked away and focused on the black life sized doll in the room. She wondered what things he’d done to her. “I do want to please you.” She lied. “I think…”

  He lifted her chin. “That’s good. Because it’s very important to make me happy with you. If you don’t, I can make your life difficult and I don’t necessarily want to do that. All I want to do is have fun.” He raised his arms. “Look at this place. It’s all for you.”

  She heard him but suddenly her mind floated and she couldn’t get her thoughts in order. She saw strange colors. Some took on the shape of butterflies and flowers. While others resembled the devil, complete with horns, fangs and deep unsettling eyes. Frightened, she blinked twice and realized it was actually Rufus. What was happening to her? Her neck felt like rubber and she had trouble holding up her head.

  She focused on the doll again. “Master, I feel sick.” When she looked back at him, her head rolled downward and to the side. It was then that she noticed he was naked from the waist down. “What are you doing? You don’t have any clothes on.”

  “Tyisha, get undressed, sweetie, and come over here to sit on my lap.” In the past his face wore a warm expression, cunning yet inviting. Now his mouth hung open allowing his pink slick tongue to relax out the corner of his lips. Adoring the fear in her eyes, he groped himself until he was rock hard. As if it were not enough, he pulled her tiny hand and placed it around his clammy penis. She felt nauseous.

  At this point Tyisha had seen and felt enough. She was mentally unavailable, yet she summoned the strength and courage necessary to run. Immediately he flew behind her. In this instance her height was a plus because she was able to shake him from right to left, throwing him momentarily off her trail. Angry that the kid was getting the best of him, he vowed to throw his weight on top of her body, to pen her down. When he activated his plan, he failed miserably. Instead, all he was able to do was push her to the floor. He grabbed her ankle but she kicked him in the face and dipped up the steps, leading out of the basement in a hurry. Before long, she faded into the rooms within his house.

  When she made it to a small burgundy room with yellow flowered wallpaper, she closed and locked the door behind her. Once inside, she spotted a phone on the other side of a twin bed. Like a rabbit she leaped on top of it and gripped the handset. Her mind was starting to slow down even more and she was finding it impossible to remember her mother’s number. It didn’t help that from the outside of the room, she heard Rufus screaming her name at the top of his lungs in the house. For a moment she appreciated how big the compound was, because it gave her some time to shake him off her scent. After five more attempts to reach her mother, she was finally successful.”

  In a harsh whisper she said, “Mommy…he’s…he’s…”

  “Tyisha, is that you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well what’s wrong, baby? You sound out of it.”

  She looked at the closed door and breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t knocked it down, so she still had time because he didn’t know where she was. “Mommy, I want to come home. Please come get me.”

  “Why, what happened?” Before she could answer she continued. “Because you know this is a wonderful opportunity that the master has offered you. Don’t mess this up, Tyisha.”

  Her memory had become more discolored and she was having trouble placing her words in order. If she could think clearly, she’d explain to her mother how for no reason, he undressed himself from the waist down. She would go on to explain that since she arrived at his house, her mind didn’t feel the same. But as she felt her mother’s energy, something told her nothing she said would have mattered.

  “Mommy, please. Come get me! I want to go home.”

  Instead of support, her mother offered rage. Tyisha was so inappreciative and it made her sick. Rufus warned her about how she was acting lately. The program was for trouble kids and he explained that she would get worse, before she got better, and apparently he was right.

  Besides, Marge needed the money more than her self-respect and pride. “Look, Tyisha, that man is trying to work with you so you’ll be something better than what you are right now. Now either you respect him as our master and pastor, or I’ll never talk to you again? Do I make myself clear?”

  She swallowed the bitter pill of rejection, from the woman who was supposed to care for her. “Yes, mommy. You do.”

  Outside The Compound

  Bricks, Swoopes and Ming sat in the car outside of Rufus’s compound with a trunk full of C4 explosives. They left Yvonna in the hotel with her imaginary friends and she seemed to be okay with it. Bricks decided that it was best to attack Rufus first, since they believed he had a good idea of their M.O, which meant killing his captains first. His idea would catch him off guard. Plus with the heat the cops were bringing down, nobody wanted to get locked up when he was still out there. If that happened, it would be all for nothing.

  “Look,” Bricks pointed at a silver Benz pulling up to the gate at his compound. “That car might be what we need to get in.

  “Ming hopes so! We been sitting out this bitch for four hours.”

  When the driver in a silver Benz punched a code into the keypad in front the gate, they inched closer. The moment the gate opened, they trailed behind her. They were halfway up the dri
veway leading to the house when the Benz abruptly stopped.

  “What this bitch up to?” Bricks asked suspiciously. “It’s not Rufus so he can’t know what we’re up to.”

  “Ming doesn’t have a good feeling about this.”

  The car idled in the driveway for a few more seconds before Ramona; the car’s captain, fired a nine-millimeter handgun out the window. The first bullet crashed into the rearview mirror on the driver’s side but the others threatened to end their lives. They knew the white boy Chris said that it would take and electric current to detonate the bomb in their trunk, but no one was trying to prove him wrong.

  So Swoopes and Ming fired back at her, crashing her back window followed by her trunk. Ramona continued to unleash as one bullet flew over Ming’s head and into the keypad at the gate. She was clearly trying to kill her first. Thinking on his feet, Bricks speedily drove backwards out the driveway, before the entire car fishtailed to the side. On a mission Ramona continued to buck although she hit nothing but Rufus’s mailbox. Luckily for them she was an awful shot.

  Halfway down the road, Bricks slammed his fist into the steering wheel as his team looked out the back window, hoping she wasn’t following.

  “FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!” Bricks screamed. “We let that bitch get away! And she fucked up the plan for Rufus!”

  “That shit was too close for comfort. We couldn’t get rid of her now. Plus we gotta get to them kids in her camp.” Swoopes confessed. “I ain’t gonna lie though,” he looked behind him once more, “I did think that was it.” He looked at Ming. “Man I thought she almost hit you.” He touched her face. “You gotta be careful about sticking your head out of windows and shit.”

  “Don’t act like you give a fuck about me.” She joked, lightning the mood.

  “More than you know.” He stated.

  “When it’s finally her turn, it’ll be my pleasure to kill that bitch.” Bricks admitted.

  “No, Bricks, she almost killed me,” Ming added. “Now this shit is personal.”

  Back At The Compound

  Rufus came running out the front door when he heard all the commotion outside. It put him on edge when a hysterical Ramona fell into his arms. “What happened?” he asked as he held her up and looked over her shoulders. At first he thought she was involved in a car accident but now it looked like much more.

  “They were on their way here, probably to kill you,” she adlibbed, “so I fired back at them and they got away.” She raised the gun in her hand. “This is getting to be so much, Rufus. She has to be stopped.” She was saying shit he already knew. “She’s killing everybody!”

  Although they weren’t successful, Rufus was furious. It was evident that the bitch and her crew weren’t going away and they were smarter than he thought. He wondered if taunting them at the convention was a good idea after all.

  “That’s not all, Rufus. I had a meeting with Anna last night, but she didn’t answer the door. So I came back this morning knowing she would be there. But when I walked into her house using my key, I found her mutilated body in her breeding camp, and all of the kids were gone.” She ranted, gripping his arms. “I just know I’m next and then Abel. If we don’t stick together, as you can see today, they’re coming after you too.”

  Without a response, he dipped into the house but she followed. “No, you gotta go home, Ramona.” He stopped her and she seemed confused. She just saved his life and this was how he repaid her? “I have a lot of things to do today. I don’t have time for this right now. I’ll call you.”

  “But what if they follow me?” She asked, wedging her body into the door. “I’m scared.”

  “You did a good job of defending yourself this time,” he shrugged, “just do it again.” He pushed her out by her face and slammed the door. Before finding Tyisha, he decided to call the hit man he hired to kill Yvonna. Surprisingly, he answered right away. “What the fuck is going on?” Rufus growled, as if he were a street nigga. “I gave you a job that apparently you can’t handle. What are you, incompetent?”

  “If you love yourself, never talk to me like that again.”

  As if he just had breakthrough therapy, he remembered he wasn’t the go hard dude he portrayed himself to be. “I’m sorry, man. But this bitch is ruining my life.” From where he stood he thought he heard Tyisha but he was wrong. “I need resolution like yesterday.”

  “And you’ll have it. Just let me do my job. You on the other hand need to do your best to stay alive.” Rufus hung up and didn’t feel any better. When to his astonishment, Tyisha returned and stood in the living room.

  In a weak voice she said, “Hi.” She tried to keep her eyes open and maintain her stance in the upright position, but she was swaying like a withered bush. The candy she swallowed earlier was calling her name. “Looking for me?”

  He grinned. “Yes, and you’ve been awfully bad, Tyisha.”

  “I know.” She walked toward him and took his paw. “But I’m ready now.”

  YAO

  Yao and Charles Bank, sat in one of Yao’s restaurants alone discussing business. In the world of killers, the best knew each other and so was the case with them. This is why when Charles reached out to Yao, in the name of learning his interest in Yvonna Harris, they decided to meet in the backwards part of Washington DC. It didn’t take Charles long to investigate Yvonna’s past and locate those she’d fucked over. She did a good job of leaving a trail in her wake, which lead him to the Chinese king pen.

  “It’s been a long time,” Yao confessed, as they shared a table in the corner of the bistro. He sipped from the red merlot in his glass. “Even though it’s been a while since we’ve been in contact, your legend stands strong.” He placed his glass down. “That’s why I was pleased when you reached out, I can always use a good man in my corner.”

  “My number hasn’t changed in over 30 years.” Charles, and immigrant from Jamaica, had been in America illegally for most of his life. His skin was the color of onyx and his eyes were dark and empty. He didn’t have anything in his name, including a residence or car. Staying off the radar had become art for him. He moved within the underbelly of the criminal world, and only took jobs with the referrals of his most trusted friends. “And that’s not why I’m here, although you are always free to use it.”

  “Yes,” Yao grinned, “I’m quite aware that our past is not why you chose to reach out to me.” He peered in his direction. “But it appears that we have the same person in common.”

  “You’re correct. I have a relationship with Yvonna that has never received closure. She escaped me some time back, and I think about her most days since we last met.” Since he didn’t drink alcohol, he sipped from his coffee to mask his frustration. “What have you done to locate her so far? Because if we are going to ban together to get this woman off the streets, I need to know everything you do.”

  “I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t done enough.” He forked the rice in his bowl and mulled over his failure. “If I had, I wouldn’t feel the need to sit with you now.” He wiped his mouth with the white napkin in his lap. “Together, hopefully that will change, because quite honestly, I have better shit to do with my day than to be meeting in secrecy about this bitch.”

  One moment he was pleasant and the next he was harsh. This was Yao’s personality on a regular basis and people never knew how to take him. “You seem to have a problem with me right now.” Charles responded. “I’m not the enemy you know.”

  “Never said you were.” Yao pointed in his direction. “But asking to speak with me in private, without my men, makes me question your motives.”

  “There’s no reason to distrust me. With me what you see is what you get. Plus, no one hired me to kill you, I told you who I want.”

  Yao didn’t like his response. “That’s great, because I’m going to ask you to do something you aren’t prepared for.” He poured more wine out of the bottle on the table and into his glass. Red dots splashed on the white tablecloth. “I need you to bring her t
o me, alive.”

  Charles creased his brow. He didn’t know what Yao was about to say but he certainly hadn’t expected this. “And why is that? Because as you know, I have orders to kill her. And there isn’t a job I don’t finish.” He knew that wasn’t totally true but after he got his hands on her again, it would be. She was the only person he let get away.

  “Well you’re going to have to leave this one alone. I need her to answer some questions the government has about the murder of Urban Greggs. Although she hasn’t been formally charged, they suspect she’s involved in the crime. And until she is found, they’re taking their annoyance out on me because I was last seen with her. My fear is that if they dig further into my lifestyle, they’ll discover some things I’d like to keep private. Not to mention I’m not able to operate my business the way I usually do, because I’m always surrounded by cops.”

  “I sympathize with your plight, but what you’re asking me I simply can’t do. I really hope you understand.”

  Angry, Yao jabbed a knife into the table and yelled, “You don’t have a choice unless…”

  The knife Charles wielded in Yao’s direction, entered his throat, severed his vocal chord and took his life. Yao’s arrogance caused him a horrible death. Yao said he knew the man before him and he was correct in that his legend preceded him, yet he went against his gut instinct by speaking to him so stridently.

  Before their meeting, Charles didn’t have anything against the man. Now that he was dead, Yao didn’t have much against him either. But it was clear that they could not come together for the greater good, which was to rid the world of Yvonna Harris.

  Charles was honest when he said he thought of Yvonna most days. The last time he saw her face, he was strangling the life from her body. He was hired to kill her when in a closed meeting, in a hotel room; he was given ten grand and a direct order. The discussion that night included Jona Maxwell, who was Yvonna’s former psychiatrist. Lily Alvarez-Martin, Guy Samuels and Peter Jensen who were all sworn police officers and Terrell Shines, Yvonna’s former fiancé.