by K'wan
“Say word!”
“Word, Danny. Yo, I’m trying to take some of that and cop a few grams, but you know Diego don’t be fucking wit little niggaz. You think Prince will set me out with some coke?”
Danny looked around before leaning in to whisper to Bobby. “Yo, if I put you on to something, you can’t open ya mouth about it.”
“Danny, you know I ain’t no talking-ass nigga. Come on, you knew me since P.S. 163, what’s good?”
“A’ight, check it. How much bread you trying to spend?”
“A couple of hundred, maybe a G if the product is right.”
“Man, this shit is beyond right. What we holding got niggaz literally throwing up.”
“Throwing up? Dude, I ain’t never heard of coke so good that it’ll make a nigga earl.”
“That’s cause it ain’t coke.” For the next ten minutes Danny sat on the bench and explained their whole operation to Bobby while he listened. The way Bobby hung on Danny’s every word, you would’ve thought he was teaching him one of life’s great mysteries. Bobby would teach him a lesson, but there would be nothing mysterious about the move he pulled.
CHAPTER 12
P rince and Sticks went back to the spot and gave Daddy-O, Danny, and Stone the rundown. Daddy-O couldn’t believe that it had gone down like that, while Danny just looked nervous. Only two members of the crew had been involved in the conflict, but would the whole crew be held accountable?
Sticks and Stone immediately took stock of how many hammers they had to go around. They had a P89, a .357, a 9 mm, and a .40 cal. Four guns between them wouldn’t be enough if an all-out conflict happened to jump off, but they were enough to give a nigga second thoughts about fucking with them. Though no threat had been made, it was better to be safe than sorry.
Everyone agreed that until they knew what was up with Diego, they would carry on like business as usual. Daddy-O would be in charge for the time being, and Prince would focus on getting the dope popping.
Scatter was dead nice with his shit. He had cut the dope four times and the shit still made Ebony throw up when she tested it. Once the mixing was done Prince bundled them into packs like they did with the crack they sold for Diego. Some of the dope went into small vials that Danny had scrounged up from somewhere to make testers. Scatter and Ebony were to hit the streets with the testers and reach out to every dope fiend they knew to get the buzz going.
While Prince and his crew opened up shop, Killa E was coming out of the criminal court building located at 100 Centre Street. The judge had set his bail at fifty thousand dollars, and he was out on bond. The only problem now was he had to pay his grandmother back the five grand for the bond, and that would completely tap his stash out. He dug in his pocket for a cigarette to find that the only one he had left had gotten smashed in his personals. “What the fuck else could go wrong?” he mumbled, just before a bird flew overhead and shit on his shoulder.
The same night that E had gotten his ass kicked by Manny, he went out and got drunk while crying over his lack of respect in the hood. All E wanted to do was make a dollar, but hating-ass niggaz like Diego made it hard. On numerous occasions he had fantasized about running up on Diego and blowing his head off, but it wasn’t until that night, after downing two pints of one-fifty-one, that he was able to get up the courage.
He had gone home and gotten his trusty 9 mm and hit the streets in search of Manny. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do if he saw him, but by then he planned on the liquor having complete control. After about three hours of coasting and no sign of Manny, he decided to go check his baby’s mother. No sooner than he called her, he wished he hadn’t. She was kicking some fly shit about how her man was upstairs, and she wasn’t trying to give him any pussy. Him being drunk and emotional, he went anyway.
There’s a little voice that we call reason which lurks in the backs of our minds. This voice is supposed to be the balance between dumb shit and smart shit. When you listened to it you tended to be good, but when you didn’t it always ended poorly, which was the case with E. He ended up getting into a fight with the boyfriend and pulling the gun. He hadn’t intended on shooting him, but the gun went off. When the smoke cleared, E was locked up on a gun charge and the boyfriend was recovering from a gunshot wound to the stomach in Saint Luke’s Hospital.
E already had an open case from a possession charge he had caught with Knox. He had given the DA a low-level soldier from the Amsterdam side of the projects to get the charge knocked down and the promise of a drug program if he kept his nose clean. The kid was so low on the totem pole that no one would miss him, besides that he was already on the run, so E saw it as he was only speeding up the inevitable. Now, he got popped on an attempted murder charge and all the low-level dealers in the world wouldn’t make that go away. The streets were hard enough on him, but in jail he would find himself anyone’s meat.
CHAPTER 13
W hen Prince woke up, it was nearly ten o’clock. He cursed himself for not setting the alarm, knowing full well that he had things to do. After a quick shower and changing clothes, he was in a cab on his way to Queens.
Marisol was so happy to see him that she leapt in his arms as soon as she opened the front door. They kissed each other like it was a battle to see who could steal the other’s breath quicker. It was funny how they had just seen each other a few days prior, but they felt like lovers who had been reunited after several years. It was only due to a nosy neighbor clearing his throat that they even realized that they were still going at it in the hallway.
Marisol had no idea why she was falling so hard for this man. Like Felix, Prince was a dealer, but unlike Felix he had the ambition and the ability to go to the top. Speaking of Felix, she realized she hadn’t heard from him in a few days. She had already convinced herself that she could forget about the half kilo that she had given him and would just have to explain it to Cano when he came back, but it wasn’t like Felix not to call and be all up in her ass. She began to worry that something had happened to him, but she forgot all about Felix when Prince emptied the contents of the shopping bag onto the table.
Prince had not only moved the dope she gave him, but he brought back straight money. Marisol was so overjoyed at seeing all that money that she decided to show Prince just how much she appreciated it. Dimming the lights she began to perform a little striptease for him. She was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt but made it look sexy as hell when she stripped out of them. When Marisol was down to her panties and bra, she straddled Prince, facing him.
Prince let out soft moans as she grinded on his lap. Even through his jeans, he could feel the warmth of her. Sliding down very seductively, Marisol knelt between his legs. The first time they had sex she hadn’t given him head, so this would be a special treat. She stroked his dick through the jeans first before she pulled it out and dipped it in her mouth. She started off licking around the head then moved down the shaft. To Prince’s surprise, Marisol took him into the depths of her throat like an old school vet.
Prince wanted to shout to the heavens when he felt those soft lips go down his shaft and brush against his balls, but he was too cool for that. Marisol jacked him and sucked him until he felt like he was going to pop, and stopped. She turned around on all fours and cocked her ass in the air and slapped it. A wave rode through her soft flesh making him want to bite her. Slowly, she reached around and started fingering herself for him to see. Marisol dipped her finger in and out of her pussy until a froth began to form.
“You like that, baby?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at him.
“You know I do,” he said, stroking himself.
Marisol cocked over a little further and spread her pussy lips with her fingers. “Then come get this pussy and show me you like it.”
Prince didn’t need a second invitation. He stepped out of his pants so fast that he almost tripped and busted his face on the floor. His dick was so swollen that he thought he would pop off before he even got in the pussy. Like
the first time, Marisol was tight, but Prince shoved himself roughly inside her. She whimpered but didn’t tell him to stop. Prince proceeded to beat the pussy from the back then flipped her over on her side. He had her legs spread like a V and was working out on her insides.
Surprising him, Marisol shifted her weight and knocked him to the ground landing on top of him, but never letting his dick slip out. She clawed Prince and rained spittle on his chest as she rode him like a prized bronco at a county fair. They switched to several different positions before Prince roared and blew his wad. They lay on the ground in a lover’s embrace as sleep took both of them to dreamland, where money rained from the sky.
“What you need, son?” Danny asked the base head.
“What you got?” the base head asked, wiping his nose with the back of his hand.
“I got brown and I got white, what you need?”
“Word, you got that brown brown, or that bullshit they sell on 110th?”
Danny looked at him like he was stupid. “Yo, don’t ever disrespect my team like that, nigga. We got some shit that’ll dump you straight on your ass, my dude. Twenty cash and you good money.”
“Twenty dollars?” the base head was outraged at the price. “Y’all ain’t got them five spots?”
“Nigga, this ain’t the candy store. You know our prices. Ten for the white, twenty for the brown. Either you spending or you wasting my time.” Danny was feeling himself. Prince was MIA, Daddy-O had gone to get his hair done, and Sticks was banished from the hood, at least that’s what he heard. This made Danny the man in charge by default. Being in a position of power, if even for a little while, always made Danny feel like the mutha fucking man. Sometimes he would pretend he was Prince or even Diego while he was giving orders to the lesser soldiers.
“A’ight, man,” the base head snapped Danny out of his daydream. “Give me one and one, but this shit better be proper.” The base head took his drugs and slid back through the projects.
Danny had been killing ’em with the one-and-ones. Daddy-O had told him not to carry both packages around with him at the same time, but Danny’s greedy ass wanted to cut the little niggaz out of the hundred dollars that came off the dope packs. He needed all that scratch.
“What it is, young blood?” a man rolled up on Danny. He was an older cat with rich brown hair that had begun to gray around the edges. His face was slender, but it didn’t quite have that sunken look that most addicts acquired after they had been using for a long period of time. Between that and relatively clean clothes he had on, you could tell that he hadn’t been at it long.
“What’s good?” Danny gave the man the once-over. He looked familiar, but Danny couldn’t place him, which was unusual because Danny knew all the addicts in the projects, but they had been experiencing an influx of newcomers since they had started slinging dope.
“I’m trying to get right,” the man said with a smile. “Let me get five of them,” the man held a fifty-dollar bill out, which Danny just stared at.
“Five of what?” Danny asked, faking ignorance.
“Come on, D, stop acting like that. Give me five stones.”
“Dude, ain’t nothing popping out here,” Danny told him.
“Danny, how you gonna act like you don’t know me, kid. I came to see you with Scat the other day, remember?”
Danny searched his high-ass brain and thought that the head looked familiar, but he couldn’t quite remember if he had seen him or not. Danny reasoned that if he knew Scatter he had to be an addict, so he served him.
“Yo, you know we got that blow too,” Danny volunteered.
“Say word?” the man’s eyes lit up. “Shit, I ain’t had a shot of good dope in a minute,” the man fished a twenty out of his pocket. “Let me get one.” Danny fished a loose bag of dope from his pocket and handed it to the man. The man slit his eyes and handed it back. “Danny, I’m spending seventy-cash with you, you can’t do no better than this little-ass bag?”
“Nigga, this ain’t the fish market!” Danny barked.
“Don’t take it like that, D. All I’m saying is that I’m gonna have to share this with my lady so give me a nice one. She get her check today so you know we gonna come back and spend some paper with you.” The man enticed him.
Danny was about to tell him to piss off, but the promise of more money changed his mind. “Hold on, son,” Danny turned his back to the addict and dipped his hand down the front of his pants. Though the addict couldn’t see what he was doing, the white cat snapping pictures of him from across the street could.
“Good looking out,” the addict said, accepting the new, slightly larger bag of dope. He had only been sent to cop rocks, but the knowledge that Diego now had dope on the streets was an added bonus. “I’ll bring my wife through to see you later on tonight.”
“Do that,” Danny said, sitting on the bench. He thumbed through the bills in his pocket, never noticing a smear of red lipstick on a wayward fifty, and smiled to himself. All in all, he had run through ten bundles of crack and a half bundle of dope. By the time he stepped off later on, his PC was going to be looking lovely.
He placed a quick call to a jump-off by the name of Nina who lived on the Amsterdam side of the projects. She was a sexy little bitch that would get down if the money and the mood was right. She knew Danny and his crew were now the niggaz to see, so he was sure to have a good time with her. After confirming that she was with some late-night action, Danny decided to hit the liquor store for a taste.
Danny bopped through the courtyard like he was Diego himself, greeting the little niggaz on the block. His cool-ass stroll had carried him almost to the Avenue when an Impala came speeding through from the direction of Manhattan Avenue. Danny tried to burn it but his sagging pants tripped him up. The two plainclothed officers that were coming on foot from Columbus grabbed Danny’s little ass up and slammed him on the ground.
“What’s up, Danny?” an officer wearing a bent Yankee hat smirked as he cuffed Danny’s hands roughly behind his back.
“Get the fuck off me. I didn’t do nothing!”
“Then what’d you run for?” A second cop sporting a buzz cut sifted through Danny’s pockets. He only found loose bags of crack and heroin, but it was enough to take Danny off the streets for a few hours. When he dug into Danny’s pants and found the two baggies of crack and heroin, he quadrupled the number in his head. “Well what do we have here?” He tossed the baggie containing the heroin to his partner.
“Looks like you boys done came up.” Yankee cap showed Danny the baggie of heroin.
“That’s not mine!” Danny said nervously.
“Sure it ain’t.” Yankee cap laughed as he pulled Danny to his feet by his elbow. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you….” The officer read Danny his rights, but Danny couldn’t hear anything over the beating of his own heart. This wasn’t his first time being taken to the precinct, but from what they had caught him with it would be his first time going to jail. Danny had heard all the dark accounts of the things that went on within the various buildings of Rikers Island, and he feared that he was about to see how close to the truth they were.
Prince had a horrible nightmare that night. He dreamt that he was in the projects again about to go at it with Manny. He wasn’t quite sure how it happened, but somehow Manny got the drop on him and he ended up on his back. Manny wore a devilish grin as he pointed an impossibly long gun at Prince. Manny tapped the gun against Prince’s forehead and whispered, “Wake up, cocksucker.”
Prince awoke with a start. At first he was disoriented, but when his eyes were able to focus he remembered that he was at Marisol’s. But the person standing over him wasn’t his boo.
The man who hovered over Prince was about six feet with a thin goatee. His hair was faded on the side and gelled into curls on the top. He wore a pleasant smile, but there was nothing pleasant about the Desert Eagle that he was pointing at Prince.
Prince fe
lt all the color drain from his face, which was quite a task considering how dark he was. He had his hammer with him, but he had slid it under the couch when he and Marisol started going at it. Even if he was fortunate enough to take out the man standing over him, the other one posted by the door with a shotgun would’ve surely finished him. Of all the ways Prince imagined himself dying, ass naked in the crib of a bad bitch wasn’t one of them.
“So,” the man began in a heavy accent. “You’re the little mutha fucka that’s been stealing my heroin? Well, I’m gonna show you what the fuck we do to thieves.”
CHAPTER 14
“O n your feet.” The gunman kicked him roughly in the thigh.
“Yo, my dude, I don’t know nothing about no…” Before Prince could finish his sentence the gunman slapped him roughly across the face.
“Negrito, I didn’t tell you to talk; I told you to get the fuck up!”
“A’ight, chill.” Prince struggled to his feet. He touched his lip, and his fingers came away bloody. Prince tried to reach for his clothes, but when the man placed the Desert Eagle to his ribs he froze.
“Nah, poppy, you won’t be needing those,” the man grinned at him. From his pocket he produced a pair of handcuffs. “Put those on, poppy.” Seeing that Prince was hesitant, the gunman pointed the gun at his head. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” Prince did as he was told. “Good, now bring ya skinny ass on. Somebody wants to meet you.” He motioned toward the door with the gun.
It would be embarrassing as hell to walk the streets naked, but it was better than being found dead that way. He would do as he was told until he came up with an escape plan. All of a sudden it dawned on him that Marisol was nowhere to be found. Panic instantly set in. What if the gunmen had her tied up somewhere?
“Where’s Marisol?” he blurted out. He didn’t even know why he cared when it was probably her that set him up in the first place.