Bury Me a G 4

by Tranay Adams

  ***

  A black on black Mercedes Benz pulled up across the street from the Western Inn motel in The City of Lawndale. Its passenger side door opened and Cordell stepped out, one Air Force One at a time. His five foot ten stature filled out a black Nike track suit, which he wore zipped up to his chin. He wore a trench coat over his track suit. He also had a Nike bucket hat pulled down low over his brows.

  Once Cordell was out of the car and in full view, he took a good look around to make sure that he wasn’t being watched. When he was convinced that there wasn’t anyone watching him, he ducked back inside of the vehicle and pulled out a silver .357. After he checked the chamber of the weapon to make sure that it was fully loaded, he snapped it back closed. He then took in his surroundings before lifting the bottom of his jacket’s suit and stashing his revolver inside of his waistline.

  “Keep the car runnin’, I’ll be back in a second,” Cordell told Sharayne. He went to slam the door shut but stopped once she called for his attention. “’Sup?”

  “Gimme a kiss, babe,” Sharayne told him, blowing a pink bubble with the gum she was chewing.

  “Hmmm, have you been a good bitch?” He angled his head and grinned.

  “Oh yes, I’ve been a very, very, very good bitch.” She smiled proudly.

  “Well, alright. I guess you earned it,” he leaned back inside of the Benz and tongued her down, while rubbing the side of her neck. Pulling away, he kissed her twice more on the lips and pulled out of the Mercedes. Having slammed the door shut behind him, he looked both ways before jogging across the street. Staring through the large window of the motel, Sharayne watched Cordell approach the clerk and place something on the desk top that she believed was money. The clerk, who was laid back in his chair with his feet propped up watching TV, sat up quickly. He snatched a pair of keys from off the hook of a wall filled with hanging motel keys. He tossed the keys up in the air towards Cordell and he snatched them out of the air. He then gave the clerk a nod and made his way out of the establishment. The last thing that Sharayne saw before turning on the stereo to listen to music was, the clerk holding up the one hundred dollar bill Cordell had given him to examine it for authenticity. Seeing that the bill was indeed real, he folded it up and slid it inside of his pocket. Afterwards, he nestled his hands in his lap and continued watching the television.

  ***

  Cordell looked for the room door that matched the number on the key that the desk clerk had given him. He didn’t find it until he was on the second tier at the center door. He unlocked the door and found the man he was looking for. Home was at the center of two naked, busty white women. They both had their head lying against his bare chest and were fast asleep. Cordell shut the door behind him quietly and turned on the lamp’s light that was sitting on the nightstand beside the bed. As soon as the light came on the man he’d came to pay a visit upon face winced, and he smacked his lips as if he tasted something flavorful.

  Cordell looked to the nightstand to find a cellular phone, the room key that’s identical to the one in his possession, and a handgun. Cordell picked up the weapon and checked its magazine. Seeing that it was fully loaded, he smacked it back into the bottom of the gun. He then pointed it at homeboy lying in the bed between the two women. He held the gun on him as if he was thinking about shooting him in the face, but he was really thinking about how easy it would have been to kill him off. Shaking his head and thinking about how his enforcer was slipping, he then picked up the man’s cell phone. Seeing that he had 16 missed calls, all he was sure belonged to him seeing as how that’s how many times he’d contacted him. Cordell shook his head again and sat the device back down where he’d picked it up from.

  Placing his fist to his mouth, Cordell cleared his throat and hid the gun he’d picked up off the nightstand behind his back. He then shut his eyelids briefly and took a deep breath. Disguising his voice to sound like someone else, he spat loud and clear, “Where the mothafucking money at, nigga?”

  “Huh?” The groggily and disoriented man’s eyelids popped open and he went to grab his handgun from off the nightstand. His heart dropped when he didn’t find his banga there. Whoever had snuck into his motel room had him dead to rights, and he just knew that he was a dead man.

  “Looking for this, mothafucka?” Cordell spat with his disguised voice and pointed the man’s own gun at him, pulling the trigger. The banga clicked empty and the man nearly leaped out of his skin, his heart thudding madly. He had been expecting the gun to send him to eternal damnation. Cordell lowered the gun and flipped on the light switch, exposing his true identity.

  “I coulda knocked your noodles loose from your head and them two Lily white bitches, too. You slipping, youngsta, you slipping bad.”

  By this time, the white girls slowly came awake, blinking their eyelids and wiping them. When they looked up and saw Cordell with the gun in his hand they were instantly shook. Terror was inside of their eyes and their hearts were beating fast.

  “What’s going on here, Savino?” One of the white girls asked.

  “Beat it, bitches!” Cordell spoke with authority. Instantly, the girls hopped out of bed and slipped on their dresses. Grabbing their high heel pumps, they headed for the door which Cordell held open for them. Once they’d crossed the threshold over onto the tier, he shut the door quietly and pulled out his own gun. He sat at the foot of the bed watching as Savino pulled on his boxer briefs and his Dickies. His gold crucifix moved from left to right as he looped it around his neck. “I can’t believe this shit, you out here knee deep into some pussy while one of my crack houses were getting hit. On top of that, I’m calling and calling your fucking phone and you’re not answering the mothafucka.”

  “My bad, boss dawg, a nigga stay on the money; I hadn’t been up in no pussy in a minute. I was just tryna get straight. You feel me?” He slipped his wife beater over his head and began tucking it inside of his jeans.

  Cordell took a deep breath and ran his hand down his face. He then looked over at Savino. “You know what? I’ll admit, you have been on yo’ shit, and I haven’t given you any down time in a while. A man has needs; I know that, so I’ma let this shit slide. But from now on, you keep that cellular glued to you and off of silent. You got that?”

  Savino slipped his sweatshirt on over his head and straightened it out. Afterwards, he pulled his gold necklace from out of his collar and laid it down on his chest, so that his platinum Jesus piece would be visible. “Yeah,” he nodded his understanding. “I got that.”

  “Good. Now get out there and find the mothafuckaz that hit my shit,” Cordell extended Savino’s gun to him. He took it and tucked it at the small of his back. He then threw on his leather jacket and pulled on his Raiders beanie. Next, he opened the door for Cordell to exit and followed out right behind him.

  The streets would run with blood if he didn’t get his hands on the mothafuckaz that hit his boss’s crack house.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN Melvin pulled up across the street from Threat’s house and killed the engine of his vehicle. Tiaz hopped out of the car and jogged across the street, looking both ways as he went along. He made his way up the driveway and by passed the front door of his homeboy’s house. It was eleven o’clock at night. He didn’t want to knock on the front door and wake up Threat’s grandmother, so he opted to go to the backyard and knock on his bedroom’s window instead. Making it to the backyard, Tiaz was surprised to find Threat standing up on the back porch smoking a bleezy. The light was out, and all he could make out was the shape of his homeboy and the ember end of the blunt he was smoking. It was from the repugnant odor of the weed that Tiaz knew that his brother from another had some fire on his hands. Threat took the blunt from out of his mouth with his left hand and abruptly whipped around, drawing his .45 from out of his waistline. He pointed the gun at Tiaz and stopped him dead in his tracks. Having frozen where he was, Tiaz slowly lifted his hands up into the air, palms showing. “Who that?” Threat asked in a hushed and menacing tone. “
It’s me, homeboy...Tiaz.” “Oh,” the hostility drained from Threat’s voice and he returned his banga from where he’d drawn it. “What chu doing creeping around here this late?” He slapped hands with Tiaz and embraced him with a gangsta hug. “I just wanted to bring you a couple of thangs, comrade,” he told him. “Oh, yeah? What’s that?” Tiaz lifted up his hoodie and revealed stacks of money lining his waist. He pulled out every stack and stacked them on top of one another on the windowpane. “That’s you, right there, loved one,” Tiaz pointed to the stacks of money. “For real? That’s love, homie.” Threat slapped hands with his homeboy and embraced him. “That’s not all...” Tiaz took off J-Murda’s chain and looped it around Threat’s neck. Threat in turn picked up the gold and diamond logo from off his chest, looking at it. His brows furrowed because he didn’t know who J-Murda was. “I know what chu thinking. J-Murda’s one of the fools that helped pack us out in that alley that night.” “You took ‘em out, Crim?” “Yep. Don’t nobody fuck with us, my nigga. ‘Cause if they do they getting it off top. I don’t give a fuck who they are. Bloods, crips, eses, Asians, mafias, cartels...whoever come at us, I’ma put blood in they mouth, straight like that.” “That’s love.”

  “Fa sho’.” “Man, you out here doing licks that’s netting you paypa like that,” he looked to the money stacked on the windowpane. “And you ain’t put cha man on?” “Man, pop, ain’t tryna...” “Pop’s?” Threat tilted his head down and looked at him like he couldn’t be serious, “You hitting licks with cho old man?” “Yeah,” Tiaz answered. He didn’t mean to tell him that he and his father where doing dirt together. It just slipped. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his main man with the knowledge; it was just that he wanted to keep his hand close to his chest. “He only agreed to let me get down if I kept it between us. That’s why I can’t put chu down with us. Otherwise, you know you’d be right there with me. You know how we do.” He outstretched his hand. “Straight up,” Threat slapped hands with his crime partner and embraced him. “Lemme get outta here, man, pop’s parked out front waiting on a nigga.” “Alright, be safe, my nigga.” “All the time.” Threat looked on at his homeboy until he’d disappeared from out of the backyard. He then looked down at the chain around his neck. At that moment, he knew that he’d be down for Tiaz forever. He’d ride or die for that young nigga. He’d starved with him and he’d eaten with him. They were as thick as thieves. And although Tiaz was only fifteen years old, he was the realest nigga he knew and he loved him to death.

  ***

  Crackhead Jerome sat chained to an iron chair with his head bowed. He was wearing a white T-shirt that was stained pink around the collar from his bleeding and tattered jeans. His bare, dirty feet were planted firmly on the floor, and splashes of his blood were over the floor as well as on his foot. He was sitting on a spot light provided by the illuminating yellowish bulb that dangled from the ceiling. A couple of flies swarmed around the dull bulb as it flickered on and off, threatening to turn out completely. The basement that he was inside of was void of any furniture. It was clean from wall to wall and from ceiling to floor. The only thing that could be heard inside of the dimly lit space was the dripping of a leaking pipe in the ceiling that created several growing puddles of water on the floor. A shadow approached Jerome and put him in shade. His head bobbed about as he looked up at the man that had been beating him for the past two and a half hours. Both of his eyes were nearly swollen shut and his lips were twice their size. His nose was broken and bleeding. His nose was also crooked on his face from being punched so many times. The crackhead’s face and neck were slicked wet from perspiration and blood. Despite his appearance, the man that had abducted him didn’t show him any mercy. He wanted the whereabouts of the men that had robbed his boss’s crack house, and he wasn’t going to stop punishing him until he forfeited information that could led to their capture. Jerome stared up at the nigga that had kidnapped him. He watched as he took a bottle of Hennessy to the head and turned the bottle up. His throat rolled up and down his neck as he guzzled the alcohol beverage. He was in a blood speckled wife beater and Dickie’s. His hands were fitted in a pair of black leather gloves and a .9mm automatic handgun was stashed at the front of his pants. “This that Hen Doggy Dog, boy! Whooo!” Savino said like a drunken fraternity brother as he looked at the bottle of Hennessy in his hand. He then turned his eyes on Jerome. “You want some, my nigga? Here, you can have the bottle homie.” He slammed the Hennessy bottle against the side of Jerome’s head and it exploded. Upon impact, dark liquor and broken glass went flying everywhere. The brute force of the blow left Jerome bleeding from the side of his head. He threw his head back, squeezing his eyelids shut and gritting his teeth in agony. He tried to fight back the pain, but it was overwhelming to him.

  “Ahhh, fuck, man, fuck!” Jerome complained in excruciation. “I keep telling you, I don’t know nothing, man. Why can’t chu believe me, huh? Why can’t chu trust what I tell you is the truth?” He hissed like a snake as he encountered a throbbing migraine. Savino kneeled down to Jerome and looked him square in his eyes. He wore a dead serious expression as he went onto speak, “Youz a mothafucking crackhead, yo’ word don’t mean jack shit. I know you know something, you got to. You be all up through this hood selling shit, stealing shit, and mingling with niggaz. You cling to the shadows and watch the happenings in the streets from afar. So I know you either saw something or heard something about the mothafuckaz that hit my boss man’s spot. Come on now, think on it. There’s gotta be something.” “Okay, alright,” Jerome swallowed the lump of fear that was in his throat. He squeezed his eyelids shut and clenched his jaws as he thought on it. “Think, think, think, think,” he told himself, still squeezing his eyelids shut. When he couldn’t think of any information to tell Savino, he peeled his eyelids back open to speak. “I’m sorry, man, but I don’t know nothing.”

  Disappointment came across Savino’s face and he stood back up, pulling his .9mm automatic from off his waistline. He pointed it at either of Jerome’s kneecaps and pulled the trigger. Blood splat out of the gunshot wounds that had been put in Jerome’s knees and smoke rose from out of them. A mad dogging Savino stood tall and glared down at Jerome’s miserable ass. His chest rose and fell as he breathed huskily, holding his smoking gun in his gloved hand.

  “Aaaahhhhh! My knees, my fucking knees!” Jerome complained of all of the pain he was experiencing having been shot through the knees. “You bastard! You miserable fucking bastard.” “Now, I’m gonna ask you one more time before I gone ‘head and put an end to this shit. Who are these fools that jacked Cordell’s spot? Take yo’ time and think carefully now, ‘cause yo’ life depends on it.”

  Jerome gritted his teeth harder and harder. His eyebrows arched and his nose scrunched up. He was trying his best to combat the fire in his kneecaps, but the agony was too great for him. “Alright, I got...I got something,” Jerome told him. Savino smiled and said, “That a boy, I knew you wouldn’t let me down. Now spit it out.” “Okay. There’s this nigga that I sold a couple of bulletproof vests to a minute ago. He had already bought one, but he caught up with me to buy another one,” he winced and gritted his teeth because his knees were killing him. “Yeah, so, what’s the big deal ‘bout the nigga buying a bulletproof vest? Get to the meat of the story.”

  “When I sold him the last vest he had this young nigga with him. He couldn’t be any older than fifteen or sixteen years old. He was big as hell, too, you could tell that lil’ mothafucka lifted weights. He was built like a goddamn superhero,” Jerome winced some more and threw his head back, squirming in his seat from all of his aching and suffering. “Anyway, while I was there, I overheard the boy say that the hood better watch out for them, ‘cause they were going to take shit over as jack boys. Lil’ homie said anybody could get robbed, and he didn’t give a fuck about who it was.” “I have to admit, you have garnered my interest.” Savino admitted as he massaged his chin. “I’m willing to bet dollas to donuts that those are the two
that hit my man’s spot. You get any names?” “Yeah, gemme a minute, though,” Jerome bowed his head and thought on it for a minute. He then looked back up at Savino. “Okay, alright, I remember. I think their names are...Melvin and Tiaz. Yeah, that’s it, Melvin and Tiaz.” As soon as he said Tiaz, Savino’s eyelids stretched wide open in shock. He then scowled and clenched his jaws, asking, “You gotta be shitting me?” “Naw, man, this is the honest to God truth. You gotta believe me, man! You gotta believe me!” He whimpered and tears dripped from his eyes. He was petrified of dying and he seriously hoped that Savino was going to spare his life. “Oh, I believe you,” Savino told him. “Hold this for me,” he sat his 9 Double M on Jerome’s lap and reached into his back pocket to pull out a small black book and an ink pen. He opened the book and placed the pen to the first blank line. He went on to jot down all of the information that he’d been relayed. “Now, you gotta address for me?”

  “Yeah, I got one. I went over there to drop off the vest presonally...” Jerome went on to tell Savino the address where he could find Tiaz and his father. Once Savino had finished writing everything down, he placed the small book and the ink pen into his back pocket.

  “Thanks, man, you were a big help,” Savino picked the .9mm automatic handgun up from Jerome’s lap and stood up straight. He then pointed the deadly end of his weapon at the crackhead’s forehead.

  Jerome’s eyes bulged and he gasped. He went to say something, but by then, his blood and brain fragments went flying out the back of his nappy head. ***

  A man walked down the sidewalk leading a dog along on a leash and looking for a place for it to shit. He was just about to cross paths with the old abandoned house that was boarded up.