by Foye, K'wan
Every few yards Animal would see the flick of a flashlight, letting him know which way to go. By the time he had navigated the twists and turns of the scrap yard, he was so disoriented that he doubted he could find his way back out without some assistance. After a while, the rows of cars opened up into a clearing that was brightly lit by the headlights of the ring of cars that formed a horseshoe around it. Sitting tied to a chair in the middle of the ring of light, like a shining angel of mercy, was the woman he had come to rescue . . . Gucci.
Animal threw the car in park so quick that it jerked forward. Ignoring the fact that he was surrounded by armed men who all wanted him dead, he rushed to Gucci’s side. “Baby, are you okay? They didn’t hurt you, did they?”
Gucci looked up and strained her eyes to focus. “Tayshawn, is that you? You shouldn’t have came. They’re gonna kill you.”
“Don’t worry about none of that shit, ma. I’m gonna make sure you get outta here, I promise.”
“Never have a saw a more touching scene.” Shai stepped forward from the shadows. Instead of his usual business suit, he was dressed in jeans and Timberlands with a dark colored hoodie. “The tortured lover flies headfirst into danger to rescue his lady.” He clapped his hands. “Bravo!”
Animal looked up at Shai with rage in his eyes. “You piece of shit,” he whipped one of his Pretty Bitches out and aimed it at Shai. “I should blow your brains out for touching what’s mine.”
“You’re welcomed to try if you like,” Shai said coolly. Suddenly, a dozen infrared lights winked to life all around them. There were more beams than Animal could count, and they were all trained on Gucci’s head like a crown of cherries. “But I wouldn’t if I were you.”
Animal kept the gun aimed at Shai. He wanted to shoot him so bad that his finger trembled on the trigger. One shot and his nemesis would finally be dead, but so would Gucci. Reluctantly, Animal lowered his weapon.
“Good boy.” Shai smiled. “Disarm this fool before he gets any big ideas,” he said over his shoulder.
Swann stepped from the darkness. His face was a mass of bruises and cuts from the beating Animal had put on him, but the smirk on his face remained intact. He took both guns from Animal, then checked him for any more concealed weapons. When he was sure that Animal wasn’t hiding anything else he leaned in and whispered, “When Shai gives me the order to clip you, I ain’t gonna be as merciful as I was with Tech. I’m gonna kill you slow . . . real slow.” Swann punched Animal in the stomach, doubling him over and dropped him when he brought both of the Pretty Bitches down on the back of his head.
Animal saw the most beautiful stars before the ground slamming into his face dissipated his vision. The metallic taste of blood mixed with dirt filled his mouth. He braced his fist against the ground and pushed himself up, but the moment he tried to stand he was overcome with a wave of dizziness, so the best he could manage was a kneeling position. He heard the crush of gravel under a boot and looked up expecting to see Swann, but it was Shai.
“The mighty Animal down on bended knee.” Shai looked at him pitifully. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to see this.”
The knot on Animal’s head throbbed, but it was nothing compared to his wounded pride. Fighting against the pain, he got to his feet. “Don’t get too used to it, because you’ll never see it again.”
“Doesn’t matter because I got it stored in here.” Shai tapped his temple. “I can replay this movie anytime I want. You know,” Shai began pacing in a tight circle around Animal, “we’ve never seen eye to eye, but I’ve always respected you. You’re loyal and fearless. Had things played out differently, we might’ve been able to keep doing business together, but you got cocky.”
Animal laughed. “I didn’t get cocky, Shai, I got tired. Tired of people like you who sit in your big houses getting fat while your soldiers die in the street. Tired of muthafuckas who have earned nothing, claiming everything. I’m tired of arrogant li’l pussies like you spoon-feeding real niggaz shit and expecting us to smile and ask for a second helping. They call you the king of Harlem, but what kind of king puts innocent people in harm’s way?” He nodded at Gucci.
“One who is willing to do whatever it takes to hold on to his crown,” Shai told him. “Watching my father and brother fall taught me one simple truth: he who is willing to go the furthest shall rule the longest. Pardon my arrogance, but I’d kill this bitch and ten more that looked just like her to get a pesky nigga like you outta my hair.”
“Spoken like a true Clark,” Animal told him. “A’ight, Shai, you got your prize. I’m at your mercy, so honor your word and let Gucci go.”
Shai raised an eyebrow. “Did you ever hear me agree to that?”
“Don’t play me, Shai. Your peoples promised that if I came quietly, you’d let Gucci go.”
“The word of my people ain’t the word of the king. I think I’d sleep better if I washed this problem as a whole from the face of the earth. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you two lovebirds are buried together.”
Animal laughed mockingly. “I kinda had the feeling you would pull a bitch move, so I came prepared. Before I die, I will see you laid low.” Animal thrust his fist into the air. He waited for a few seconds and nothing happened, so he did it again. Still nothing. Animal whipped his head back and forth frantically, scanning the darkness.
“Lose something?” Shai asked with a sinister grin. He signaled someone behind him to step forward.
Angelo and another man stepped forward, dragging a woman between them. Blood stained the front of her shirt, and it looked like her legs could barely support her. When she got closer, Animal could see the woman was none other than his insurance policy, Kastro. She had been his last hope of him and Gucci making it out alive.
“No,” Animal said weakly.
“Yes,” Shai said enthusiastically. “We found this li’l bitch hiding in here and armed with a rifle that could’ve done some real nasty damage had she ever had the chance to use it.”
“I tried, big homie,” Kastro mumbled through her bloodied lips.
“And you failed,” Shai told her.
“Shai, keep this between me and you. Let these women go,” Animal pleaded.
“Everyone must be held accountable for their actions. Ain’t that what you was running around screaming when you was killing my people?” Shai reminded him. “If you play pussy, you’re bound to get fucked.”
“Then allow me to provide the condoms,” Kastro said, surprising her captors by playing possum. She jerked away from Angelo and spun, revealing the last ace she had been hiding in her deck, a Gemstar razor. The blade opened Angelo’s face from temple to jaw, spraying blood on both of them. Kastro drew her hand back for another strike, but Angelo caught her by the wrist in midswing.
“Bitch, you’re gonna pay for what you did to my face!” He placed a gun to her chest.
“No!” Animal screamed, but his voice was drowned out by the roar of the gun when Angelo pulled the trigger.
The impact of the bullet knocked Kastro across the scrap yard and slammed her into a pile of junked cars. Even with the gaping hole in her chest, she was still on her feet and still holding her razor. She staggered forward, swinging the razor blindly, trying to get to Angelo. He fired another shot, then another, dropping Kastro to her knees. Angelo came to stand over her with the gun to her forehead.
“Any last words?” Angelo asked her.
“Yeah . . . fuck you.” Kastro spit bloody phlegm into his face. It was her last great act before Angelo put her lights out with a single shot to the head.
“Muthafucka!” Animal tried to rush Shai but was pounced on by his henchmen. It took four of them to keep the struggling man from their boss. They eventually wrestled Animal down and tied his hands behind his back. “You’re dead, Shai. You are so fucking dead!”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah . . . you sound like a broken record,” Shai dismissed him. “I want you to carve him up real nice before you let him die,” Shai ordere
d someone who was hidden in the shadows.
“Just like a bitch, too scared to do his own dirty work.”
“Nah, murder has never been my thing, so why would I even play at it when I have an expert on my team.” Shai waved the man forward he had been talking to. Animal’s eyes almost popped out of his head when the priest he had been talking to at the church emerged. He had shed his army jacket and jeans and was now dressed in full priest’s robes. “Let me introduce you to my executioner, Priest.”
“You?” Animal asked in disbelief.
Priest shrugged. “I told you I wasn’t always a man of the cloth.” He drew a gun from the folds of his robe.
Animal felt dizzy. All he ever wanted to do was the right thing, but fate forced his hand to do wrong at every turn. As a result of his decisions, the kiss of death had touched everyone he loved. He felt defeated, like he had nothing left. In a last act of desperation, he rushed Priest to try to get through him to Shai.
Being that his hands were bound, his charge was awkward. He dropped his shoulder and tried to hit Priest with everything he had. The older and more seasoned killer easily sidestepped the charge and grabbed Animal by his hair as he passed. Priest whipped Animal across the yard like a rag doll, sending him skidding across the ground. Animal tried to get to his feet, but Priest put him back down with a kick to the gut. He tried to get up again and was rewarded with another kick. This one knocked the wind out of him and stilled his rage.
“Don’t make it harder on yourself, kid,” Priest whispered to him. He dragged Animal by the hair back to where Gucci was sitting and tossed him at her feet. Then he produced a knife and approached Gucci.
“Please don’t,” Gucci begged as she watched the upraised knife. When it came down, she closed her eyes expecting to meet her end, but instead, the knife only grazed her flesh when it cut through the ropes that had been binding her to the chair. Gucci spilled forward and landed on the ground beside Animal. He then cut Animal’s bindings. The two lovers hugged each other tightly, knowing that it would be the last hug they ever shared in this life.
“Priest, we don’t have time for your games. Just kill them and be done with it!” Shai ordered. He underestimated Animal’s resilience once and it had cost him soldiers and money. He didn’t intend to make the same mistake twice.
Priest glared at Shai. “I am the wolf of the Clark family, not the lap dog, and you’d do well to remember that, little one. I take no pleasure in murdering the helpless. You’ll have Animal’s life, but it will be an honorable death. A real soldier deserves as much.”
Shai was angry, but he tried not to show it. He knew arguing with Priest was pointless because he lived by his own rules. “Fine, just be done with it. Come by the house and collect your money when you’re finished.” Shai gathered his troops, and the entourage left the scrap yard.
When Shai and his men had left the yard, Priest turned his attention back to the couple. They were kneeling, wrapped in each other’s arms. Even wrapped in Animal’s comforting embrace, Gucci couldn’t stop trembling.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Animal cooed in her ear.
“I’m scared,” she sobbed.
“No need to be, Gucci. We’ll be together again, in this life or the next,” Animal promised. Gucci closed her eyes, preparing for the end, but Animal glared menacingly at Priest. He would look death in the face when it came for him. “So I guess this is God showing me how much he loves me again, huh?” Animal asked sarcastically.
“No, this is man showing you the error of your ways.” Priest raised his gun. “I wish you’d listened to me. Now it’s too late. Make your peace with God, children, for you shall soon sit with him.”
Shai and Swann lounged in the back of a Lincoln Town Car, making their way from the parking garage. Swann was smoking a blunt and smiling like the cat who had swallowed the canary. To him, it was time to celebrate a long-awaited victory, but Shai’s face wore a troubled expression.
“What’s good with you?” Swann asked his friend.
“Nothing, man. I’m just thinking about everything that’s happened,” Shai told him.
“If that’s the case, then why aren’t you smiling? Shai, you’ve just gotten rid of a hell of a thorn in your side, so I’m trying to figure out why you’re looking all sad instead of jumping for joy?”
“Swann, you know I’ve never taken pleasure in having people killed.”
“But you do it so well.” Swann meant it as a joke, but Shai didn’t laugh. “Come on, fam, you did what you had to do. It was either you or him. Animal had to die.”
“I know, but the girl . . .” Shai trailed off. “I just wonder if I could’ve handled this situation differently.” In his heart he wanted to let Gucci go, but killing her would send a message to any and all watching that Shai was willing to do whatever it took to hold onto his throne.
Two gunshots rang out from somewhere in the scrap yard.
Swann shrugged. “Sounds like it’s too late to worry about that now.”
FORTY-SEVEN
FRANKIE LAY IN THE HOSPITAL BED AT King’s County, nodding in and out of a drug-induced stupor. She kept telling the nurses that she didn’t want to be sedated, but they told her it was for the pain. She’d just had a serious operation, and it would take some time for the wound to heal.
Bess had cut her open and left her for dead, and she would’ve died if it hadn’t been for Dena. While Frankie lay there knocking on heaven’s door, she could remember hearing Dena’s voice the whole time, assuring her that everything would be okay. It was Dena’s voice that Frankie had held on to until the paramedics had gotten there. She’d treated Dena like a nuisance, but she turned out to be a godsend. When she got out of the hospital, the fence between her and Dena would be the first one she mended along the road of her new life.
Frankie heard someone enter her room, and when she tried to turn her head to see who it was, she immediately regretted it, as pain shot through her neck when she almost dislodged the stitches the doctors had used to close her wound. “Who is that?” Frankie called out, deciding against trying to continue turning her head.
“Hello,” a soft voice answered. A young, light-skinned girl of about seventeen stepped into Frankie’s line of vision. She was holding a bouquet of flowers. “I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“Nah, when you’re in as much pain as I’m in, sleep don’t come easy. Who are you again?” Frankie asked, as she had never seen the girl before.
“Oh, I’m sorry. My name is Fatima—”
“Cutty’s daughter,” Frankie finished her sentence. As she really took a good look at the girl, she saw the resemblance. Fatima had her mother’s complexion but her father’s face.
“Yeah, Cutty is my dad,” Fatima said, not knowing whether she should be proud or ashamed. “He sent these for you.” She held up the flowers for Frankie to see.
Frankie smirked. “That’s Cutty for you. Always sending other people to do his dirty work. I guess you can set them wherever you find a space for them.”
Fatima set the flowers in the chair at the foot of Frankie’s bed. “Listen, I don’t really know what kind of relationship you have with my father, but I know what kind of man he is, so I can respect your bitterness, but don’t disrespect my father in front of me. For as foul of a nigga as he might be, the fact that he sent you flowers says you mean something to him. I’ll get out of your hair now.” Fatima turned to leave.
“Wait,” Frankie stopped her. “I didn’t mean to come across like a bitch. I’m sorry. It’s nice to finally meet you, Fatima.”
“Likewise,” Fatima nodded.
“So, how come ol’ Cutty sent you up hear instead of coming himself? You know he loves a grand entrance,” Frankie smirked.
“That he does,” Fatima laughed. “He’s actually downstairs. He sent me up because he didn’t think you wanted to see him, but he wanted to let you know that he was concerned.”
“Tell your dad that I said thank you for the flowers
, but plants won’t buy him a ticket out of the doghouse. It’s a good start, but I’m gonna need some time,” Frankie said honestly.
Fatima placed her hand over Frankie’s reassuringly. “Take all the time you need. It was nice meeting you and get better soon.” Fatima waved as she exited the hospital room.
Frankie lay there looking at her flowers and contemplating her next move. This was the second time in less than a year that she had almost lost her life, and frankly, she was tired of playing the odds. It was time for her to get out of New York City and go back to the only place that had ever felt like home. She just hoped that Mama Jae would accept her back, considering the circumstances surrounding how they parted.
Just as Cutty had said, he made an attempt to put in extra time with Fatima. When he’d called her expectedly that morning and asked about spending the day together, she was skeptical. In the seventeen years she had known her father, keeping promises had never been high on his list of strong points. Still, she agreed just to have one more tally mark against him when he showed up . . . or not. To her surprise, he was where he said he would be, when he said he would be there.
Fatima was initially apprehensive, but ended up enjoying the outing with her dad. He’d kicked off the morning by taking her to the shooting range, followed by lunch at a nice restaurant and a movie. Fatima had been resistant at the beginning of the date, but as she hung out with him, she realized her father was a cool-ass dude and more in tune with what she was going through than she’d given him credit for. One date couldn’t repair their relationship, but it was a start.