Annette started popping mad shit after BJ told her how Venus attacked him. BJ wasn’t impressed with what she was saying. She sounded corny like cob. She told BJ to come move in with her, and she would take care of him until he could go back to work. Nah, that is definitely outta the question, BJ thought. He told Annette he’d call her later and not to call his cell phone because he lost it. Fuck her... He wanted to speak to Venus. He wanted to make shit right, but he didn’t know where to start.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Petie drove through the streets like a drunk driver, trying to get home. Renee had called and told him that two guys came to the house, pistol whipped Darnell, beat her up and peed on her. Petie was furious. When he and Ladelle reached the front of his building, they saw ambulances parked out front. When they got inside, Renee was describing Kalif and Will to the officers. Her lip and eye were swollen, and the EMTs were trying to get her to go to the hospital. Darnell had a big knot on his head, and he was being taken to Harlem Hospital. Dante was at his aunt’s house, and Renee called over there and insisted that he stay put for the weekend.
Petie followed the ambulance to the hospital and Ladelle went to pick up some burners. Whether Ladelle liked it or not, he was back in the game.
When Petie and Ladelle met up again, they drove to Share’s brownstone on 142nd and Convent. Petie rang the bell and yelled out her name from the top of the steps, but there was no answer. Pirate could be heard barking from inside the apartment. ”I should kill this motherfucka, La,” Petie said, ready to put a bullet through the window of the door and shoot Share’s pit.
”We’ll come back later. The bitch ain’t home,” La said. They hopped in the Navigator and Petie headed back to Harlem Hospital.
Darnell was conscious. Petie looked down at his son and became enraged. His sons were all that mattered in his life. Niggas violated by going to his house and getting his family involved.
Darnell said he knew one of the cats. He told Petie he recognized him as the manager of the McDonald’s on 125th and Eighth. Darnell said he had stopped there after school a couple of times. Right away Petie knew who he was talking about—Share’s man. Darnell went on to describe Will’s appearance, and Petie remembered him clearly. When he began to describe Kalif, this time Ladelle knew who he was talking about. He told Petie how he and Biz had caught Kalif on Edgecomb Avenue. They talked about Kalif being Rasheed’s younger brother, and how he was on a rampage to avenge his death. Petie didn’t give a fuck about Rasheed, Kalif or any of those muthafuckas. He was ready to catch two bodies and add two more teardrops to the three already under his left eye.
Petie and Ladelle pulled up in front of Petie’s building and parked the Navigator. Petie ran inside and got two ski masks and strapped a burner to his waist. They went outside and caught a cab to the 125th Street McDonald’s.
Ladelle paid the cab and Petie went inside the restaurant. He waited in line and eyed all the male employees working there. No one fit the description that Darnell had given him. He was about to leave when Will came out from the back, carrying a cash register. He then opened the drawer of the register for one of the cashiers. Petie checked the name plate on his chest—it was Will.
It all made sense to him now. Petie remembered that night he answered Share’s phone and the caller had said his name was Will. Yeah, that was the same cat from the bank. He looked a little older now, but it was him.
Petie went back outside and told Ladelle that he had seen Will. He told him to stop a cab and wait across the street for him, and he walked back into the restaurant, wearing his ski mask and waving his gun.
When Petie got back to his apartment, he threw the ski mask and clothes that he had worn down the incinerator. He was glad that Renee was at her sister Rhonda’s house with Dante for the weekend. But he was angry that Will had gotten away. He couldn’t believe that he had missed that nigga. He figured the police were all over the restaurant by now, so there was no going back. He put on a fresh pair of jeans and kicks and headed back to the hospital to see Darnell.
Ladelle had bounced on Petie. Fuck that; he wasn’t about to get caught up in a Mickey D’s shootout. He could just see all the news channels reporting that shit. No, he didn’t want any part of that.
He called Petie on his cell phone. He lied and said he had to bounce because Lydia was having pains in her stomach.
”How the fuck you gonna bounce and leave me solo, dick?!” Petie shouted angrily.
”Yo, what the fuck you wanted me to do? I thought Lydia was having the baby?” Ladelle yelled back.
”Having the baby? Having the fucking baby! She’s six months, nigga! How the fuck could she be having the baby?! You left me solo—type of shit is that? Listen, I’m at the hospital and I’m going to see my son—one.” Petie clicked off the phone and registered at the front desk.
Ladelle felt bad, but fuck that; he had too much to lose. He was about to parole out of work release in six more weeks, and he had just made his board, so he didn’t care what the situation was; he wasn’t going to lose his date due to some dumb shit. Granted, what those niggas did to Renee and Darnell was foul. But if Petie hadn’t fucked with Share again, they wouldn’t have even known he was home. As far as Ladelle was concerned, this wasn’t his beef. Besides, he had a baby on the way and too much to lose. Let Petie shoot shit up by himself.
Chapter Twenty- Four
Kalif and LeRoy were outside St. Nicholas projects waiting to see a couple of chicks. Kalif told LeRoy that if either of them was ugly, he was going to chase her down the expressway in the Range Rover. They both laughed and continued to wait on the chicks.
Ty came out the building and said, ”What’s up?” to them and kept it moving. They all knew each other and there was no bad blood between any of them.
As Kalif told LeRoy about the episode hours earlier at Petie’s house, somebody yelled out the window to Ty, telling him he’d left his cell phone upstairs and that Petie had called. Kalif looked up at the window and then over at Ty, who was now walking back toward the building. Kalif almost couldn’t believe that this could be the same Petie cat. There was no way.
Ty got to the building and waited to be buzzed in, and Kalif walked in behind him and caught the door before it closed. He stood behind Ty, thinking about how he was going to take him.
”Yo, you know Petie from 133rd?” Kalif asked him.
”Yeah, that’s my man. He on his way here to pick up something now,” Ty answered, not knowing he was about to die.
”Thank you, partner,” Kalif said before yoking Ty up, dragging him over to the stairwell and shooting him twice in the head. He then emptied his pockets and walked out of the building. He told LeRoy he had to bounce and would see him later. LeRoy had no idea what was going on, and he went on waiting for the chicks without Kalif.
Petie pulled up minutes later and beeped his horn. He hollered up to Ty’s window, and someone hollered back that Ty came in the building but maybe stopped on the third floor at his girl’s house.
Petie pressed the buzzer and waited. LeRoy stood there listening, wondering what was going on. First Ty went inside the building and never made it upstairs, and then Kalif bounced...and what’s taking those chicken heads so long? he thought.
eRoy recognized Petie, but he just didn’t know where from. Who is it? he heard a female voice say through the intercom.
”Denise, it’s Petie. Yo, tell Ty to come down,” Petie replied. Denise said Ty wasn’t there, and he should buzz him upstairs at his own apartment. When LeRoy had heard Petie say his name, he tried hard to remember who he was.
Petie was starting to think that Ty had stepped off on him. Once again he yelled up to Ty’s window for somebody to let him inside the building. The buzz sounded and he pushed the door open and walked to the elevator. After waiting impatiently for a few moments, he decided to take the stairs.
Petie opened the stairwell door and saw a pool of blood. He looked behind the staircase and discovered Ty’s body. He t
hrew up and ran out of the building. He buzzed Denise again and told her to call an ambulance.
LeRoy was talking to the girls who had finally made it downstairs. They all watched as Petie ran to his ride and sped off like a roach running from Black Flag. One of the girls opened the front door of the project with her key, and the three of them went inside the building. Petie’s bloody footprints led them right to the staircase entrance.
”Oh shit!” LeRoy said when they pushed open the stairwell door. The girls began to scream, and they ran out of the building. Denise came outside and one of the girls took her to the staircase. She broke down, crying and screaming.
The lobby got crowded, but there was still no ambulance. LeRoy decided that it was time for him to bounce; if an ambulance ever did arrive, the police would be on the scene, too. Besides, he wasn’t trying to hang around and politic with muthafuckas. He jumped in his Range and was ghost.
LeRoy called Kalif, and before he could ask him if he had shot Ty, Kalif said, ”So did that nigga Petie show up at the projects? I left him a surprise in the building, ya heard?” Kalif began to laugh at what he had done, and he seemed proud of it. LeRoy told him how Ty’s girlfriend and the two chicks they’d been waiting on had started screaming, and he decided to leave shortly afterward.
LeRoy was becoming more and more leery of Kalif. He still hadn’t gotten over Rasheed’s death and everybody knew it. But to think he was going to be running around killing niggas on G.P. made LeRoy want to stay away from him. A nigga like Kalif would have everybody doing twenty-five to life.
”Nah, I can’t see all this drama, son. I’ma holla at you later,” LeRoy said. He clicked off his cell and headed home... Yeah, my nigga, I’ll see you later—like some time next year. You a little too loose for me right now, LeRoy thought. He suddenly remembered the name Petie. It all came back to him; they had a shootout with his mans uptown. Those cats killed Rasheed, and then one of them shot a cop. That’s who Petie is. No, he didn’t want the business. He did-n’t want any part of that shit.
Kalif sat in his livingroom smoking a blunt laced with dust and drinking Henney. He thought about his next move. Who would be his next victim?
Kalif was soon fucked up and he began to hear voices. Every time he heard the elevator stop on his floor, he thought someone was coming through the walls. He took the pistol from under the sofa and cocked it. He walked through the apartment, pointing the gun in various directions. The dust had him toasted.
All of a sudden he felt somebody walking on his heels. He turned around and waved his pistol, trying to hit whoever or whatever might be there. He went into the bathroom and pulled back the shower curtain. It looked to him as if someone had just gotten out of the shower.
Kalif heard his cell phone ringing in the living room. He tried to go and answer it, but his feet were sinking in the carpet. What the fuck is happening? Niggas put quicksand in my apartment!
The phone stopped ringing. Kalif was crawling on the living room floor when Fluffy, his cat, came and rubbed up against him. He grabbed the cat and tossed him out of the window like a paper towel. ”Oh, shit! What the fuck was that?!” somebody yelled from outside.
Kalif was tripping even more now from the dust. He opened his apartment door, looked down the hallway and saw figures coming at him. He slammed his apartment door and went back inside, but the figures had followed him. No, they weren’t figures; they were...what the fuck?! Kalif’s mind was racing. ”Oh, God, it looks like snakes!” he screamed. ”What the fuck is that?!! Kalif began shooting at the snakes in the apartment. He scrambled to his feet and ran back to the door. He ran out of the apartment in his boxers and a T-shirt. He was wearing one Timberland boot and was still holding the gun in his hand. He yelled all through the hallway, banging on people’s doors with the butt of the gun.
The entire hallway was filled with snakes, and they were coming toward him. ”AAAAAHH, somebody help me! Open the fucken door!” Kalif screamed like a lunatic. He’d never had a bad trip like the one he was having tonight.
Kalif made it downstairs and saw some of his neighbors huddled together on the main floor. What the fuck is wrong with him? they all thought when they saw him. He ran out of the building thinking the same thing about them, not understanding why they weren’t trying to get away from the snakes. ”Quicksand, watch your step!” he yelled out frantically in front of the building.
Derek and Freestyle were out there now, and when they saw Kalif running around in his boxers and a T-shirt with one boot on, they knew he was having a bad trip. Derek walked over to Kalif and tried talking to him in an easy tone. He was nervous because Kalif still had the gun in his hand. ”Yo, Kalif, put the gun down, man. Ain’t no snakes out here and ain’t no quicksand in the hood. And be easy with that heat in your hand, dog.”
One of the neighbors came up behind Kalif and grabbed him, and Derek and Freestyle took the pistol from him. The hood knew Kalif smoked dust and spazzed out from time to time, but this episode was the worst.
The man who had grabbed Kalif was like an uncle to all of them. He’d know what to do once they got Kalif up to his place.
Kalif was born and raised in Lincoln Projects, and everyone who lived there knew that he hadn’t played with a full deck since he was a kid. But now, since his brother had gotten killed, he really was out there. It was like his elevator went up but never came back down, or like his telephone was always out of order. He just wasn’t right.
Derek knew Kalif had to stay out of his own apartment. It seemed haunted by his mother’s death, and now Rasheed’s. And every time he smoked that dust, those demons came to life.
Chapter Twenty- Five
Share was talking to the detectives at her restaurant. Will had called and told her what had happened. He assured her that none of the employees were physically harmed, but they were all shook up after the ordeal.
The police began marking shell casings from the bullets that had been fired. The video camera located at the front of the store had been shot at and stopped recording. Fortunately, the other camera had captured footage of all the activities of the day. The detectives were viewing that tape on a VCR that was used to train new employees. There on the screen was Petie when he first entered the restaurant. He left and returned, wearing a ski mask and shooting his way through the building. The tape was put in slow motion so the detectives could get a good look at him. They also tried to identify Petie’s accomplice outside the store at the time of the shooting. Finally, they began to interview the customers and employees.
The detectives had everything they needed to make an arrest. Share filled them in on the letters that Petie had sent her prior to his release. She told them everything she knew, including his address and his friends’ names, and she prayed that they would catch him. After she told them about Petie’s history and the case that he was still on parole for, they were anxious to arrest him. Petie was bad news, and his rap sheet had violent acts that he’d committed listed all over it. One of the detectives asked Will if he knew why this ‘Petie guy’ would be trying to kill him. Will didn’t offer any information. He just told them ”No.”
Petie rode down St. Nicholas Avenue to 125th Street. He wanted to ride past McDonald’s and see what it looked like. There were police everywhere, and undercovers were all over the place. He saw Share’s car, and Will was standing outside talking to the detectives. ”Police-lovin’ muthafuckas,” he said aloud. He headed home, but as soon as he drove up Convent Avenue he saw a blue and white outside his building, along with some plain-clothes officers. Petie panicked. He pulled over and parked, turned off the ignition and watched them. They rang the intercom and somebody buzzed them in; he knew it wasn’t Renee because she was at her sister’s house.
The officers came back out after what seemed like forever. Now they appeared to be just hanging around. Petie started the Navigator, made a quick U-turn and headed to the Polo Grounds.
He grabbed his cell phone and called Ladelle. Lydia answered the phon
e and told him he wasn’t home. She said she did-n’t know where he was and that he was probably in the Bronx. Ladelle was sitting right there listening. He had told Lydia what to say. He didn’t want to be bothered; Petie wasn’t trying to change. Nigga wanted to keep doing the same thing over and over. Ladelle wasn’t feeling that shit anymore. He gave Lydia a signal to hang up the phone. Petie started telling her how the police were looking for him and that he was going to Queens for a couple of days. He told her to have Ladelle call him in Queensbridge. He knew the number out there.
Lydia hung up the phone and told Ladelle that they should have their number changed; she didn’t want Petie calling anymore. He was bad news.
Ladelle told her he was going to holla at Petie on some serious shit. He hadn’t told her about the McDonald’s episode. He knew she’d break, and he didn’t want her stressing and possibly complicate her pregnancy. Ladelle loved Petie in his own way, but he knew he was going to have to cut him off. It was just one of those things.
Petie decided that it was now time to finally get even with Share. He would fuck her before going to Queens...bitch wanna talk to the police and lay me down again, he thought before parking in front of her brownstone. He didn’t see her car anywhere and she did-n’t know what he was driving, so the element of surprise would be perfect.
Share left the restaurant and decided to shop on 142nd Street. She wanted to feed Pirate and take him for a walk when she got home. The detectives had said they’d notify her when Petie was in custody, and they asked Will to go to the precinct and give a statement. They believed he knew what had prompted the shooting. They thought it was over drug money and didn’t believe Will when he’d said he didn’t know what was going on.
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