Blow

by K'wan

  “Oh, you’ll be with her soon enough, poppy,” the gunman taunted. The way he kept calling Prince poppy reminded him of Diego, which only made him hate the man more. Hell, the cats with the guns were probably Diego’s people. He swore if he got out of the situation alive, he was going to murder all the of the Hispanics just off GP.

  The walk out of Marisol’s building was embarrassing as hell. People were looking and pointing, but the gunman didn’t seem to notice as he strolled casually to a Navigator that was idling near the curb. The man who had been standing by the door got in the front passenger’s seat while the gunman motioned for him to get in the back. When he climbed in the truck, he was surprised to see Marisol, fully dressed and unharmed.

  “Oh, baby,” she threw her arms around him. “Are you okay?” Prince just glared at her hatefully. “Baby, I swear on everything I love I didn’t have anything to do with this. Cano,” she turned to the gunman who had climbed in the back on the other side of her. “You could’ve at least let him put some clothes on!” Hearing Marisol call him by name meant that she knew him, which made it a no-brainer who Prince planned to kill first.

  Prince was tired of playing. It was obvious that he was going to die, and if this was the case he would do it on his feet. “Man, fuck this double-crossing bitch and fuck you!” he said, looking Cano square in the eyes.

  With an enraged snarl, Cano leapt across Marisol, who tried to restrain him but just ended up getting pinned under his weight, and dug the barrel of his gun deep into Prince’s cheek. “You piece of shit, you steal my dope and then disrespect me? The only reason I’m not gonna push ya shit back is because I want my fucking money and this is a new truck. You know how hard it is to get blood off suede?” He motioned toward the ceiling.

  “Man, I tried to tell you I didn’t take no dope!” Prince declared.

  “Cano…”

  “No, Marisol!” he snapped. “You will not whine your way out of this one. You wanna run with the big dogs then you gotta respect the rules. Now, if either of you say one more word I’m gonna shoot this piece of shit,” he threatened, cocking the gun and pointing it at Prince’s head.

  My God in heaven, what has my dick gotten me into? Prince thought to himself.

  Just as Prince had instructed him, Daddy-O did business as though nothing was wrong. He had seen Diego that day in front of the store with Oscar and Manny. Diego had struck up a conversation with him, trying to see where Daddy-O’s head was at, but Prince’s partner in crime was unreadable. He admitted to Diego that he had heard about what happened between Prince and Manny, but his stand on it was that he was about a dollar and the situation with Manny would blow over. Diego told Daddy-O what time he would send someone around to drop off more product and pick up the money, and Daddy-O was on his way.

  Daddy-O had tried to call Prince to put him up on the conversation, but he didn’t answer his cell. Prince was a nigga that never turned his cell off, but that was before Marisol. Daddy-O thought about that phat ass and pretty-ass face and reasoned he wouldn’t want to be disturbed while he was up in that pussy either.

  A knock on the door startled Daddy-O out of his daze. Stone, who had been lounging on the couch, was instantly on his feet and at the door. He turned from the peephole and mouthed to Daddy-O that it was E. Daddy-O dropped everything into one bag and slid it under the table before nodding to Stone to let E in.

  “What’s good?” E gave Stone a pound and stepped through the living room to where Daddy-O was. “Yo, where that nigga Prince?”

  “He ain’t here, son,” Daddy-O said. “What’s up?”

  “You know Danny got knocked?”

  That got Daddy-O’s undivided attention. “Hell nah, when?”

  “A few hours ago,” E told him. “They said them boys jumped out and caught that nigga with a whole pharmacy. Yo, I ain’t know Diego sold dope now.”

  “He don’t,” Daddy-O said and left it at that. “Shit.” He slammed his fists on the table. “I gotta send somebody to see what’s up with son.”

  “Man, with all the shit I heard he had on him, that boy is gonna have to sit up for a minute,” E said. “Why the fuck would he be out with dope and crack on him?”

  “Cause he’s stupid,” Daddy-O said seriously. He flipped his phone open to call Prince again and still got his voicemail.

  Cano’s partner, who Prince had found out during the ride was named Juan, got out of the car first. He gave a brief look around to make sure no one was watching and opened the door for Prince. Prince sat there for a minute trying to think of a plan, but Juan snatched him roughly from the car. The cuffs bit into his skin, and he almost fell to the ground.

  “I thought you people had good balance?” Juan joked, pushing Prince roughly toward the house.

  The house was older than the rest on the renovated block, but not too old. The yellow paint was faded and chipping, but the house itself looked sturdy. Juan led Prince around to the side of the house while Cano led Marisol up the front steps. For a moment their eyes locked, and he almost felt pity for her, but he couldn’t be weak. It was because of whatever she was tied up in that had him possibly walking to death’s door.

  Juan led Prince down a pair of rickety stairs into what appeared to be some sort of storm cellar. It reeked of urine and something else that Prince was all too familiar with, blood. The center of the basement was illuminated by a dull overhead light, casting the rest of the basement in shadow. Something gooey stuck to his bare foot, but he didn’t look down to see what it was. When they descended into the foul-smelling basement, Prince heard a faint whimpering to his left. He squinted against the darkness and saw the form of a man. Much like him the man was naked, but he couldn’t tell if he was handcuffed in the dim light. At Juan’s prodding, Prince moved further into the musty basement.

  “Have a seat.” Juan slid a splintered chair over to Prince with his foot. “My boss will be with you in a second.” With that, Juan went up the stairs on the opposite side of the room and into the main house.

  “Fuck!” Prince yelled. His situation was getting uglier and uglier by the minute. He looked around frantically in the hopes of finding something to use for a weapon, but it was useless. He saw nothing in the empty basement that he would be able to use to his advantage.

  “Yo,” Prince whispered. The dude groaned, but didn’t respond. “Yo, B, we gotta get outta here.” There was still no response. Prince knelt down to see what was going on with the stranger and found that he wasn’t even fit to walk, let alone make an escape. Someone had been beating the hell out of the dude for at least a few days, focusing mostly on his genitals. If that’s what they thought they had in store for Prince, they might as well have shot him and got it over with.

  As if on cue, Cano and Juan came down the stairs with some very nasty looking devices. Juan held a bucket of water that splashed over the lip of the bucket as he walked. Cano held two long wires with what looked like earmuffs on the ends. He stooped down in the corner and plugged the wires in, causing a faint humming to come from the cushioned ends. This was definitely about to get real ugly.

  “I see you’ve met Felix,” a deep, yet feminine voice from behind them. Prince looked past his abductors to see who the new voice was coming from. He could make out Marisol’s form standing at the bottom up the stairs, but he was quite shocked to see who it was speaking to him.

  She had to be in her mid-sixties to early-seventies. A floral duster hung about her like a tent as she moved closer to where Prince was standing. Her face was smooth yet warm as she smiled at Prince from behind tinted bifocals. A brass cane hung on one meaty arm, but it looked like it was more for show than actual use. On her thick hands she wore gardening gloves, that if Prince didn’t know any better he would’ve sworn were splotched with blood. Prince looked from his surroundings to the grandmotherly old lady and felt like he was living in an episode of the Twilight Zone.

  “They call me Mommy, and I hear you’re called Prince?” She tried to be cordial, but
Prince just stared. “You know, my sons rough you up a bit, but you don’t have to be rude, negrito. If anything, I should be the one upset about my missing heroin.”

  “Ms., I’m gonna tell you like I told your sons; I don’t know anything about any stolen heroin.”

  “So you tell me,” she said, squinting at him through her tinted bifocals. “My daughter has been speaking much to me about you,” she nodded toward Marisol, who was looking at the ground. “She tell me some things that maybe they true and maybe they not, no?”

  “Ms…”

  “Mommy,” she corrected him.

  “Mommy, I don’t know what your daughter has told you, but I didn’t steal any heroin. She gave it to me.”

  Mommy shrugged. “We find that out shortly.”

  When Juan and Cano started in Prince’s direction, he automatically tensed. He expected them to try for him, but to his surprise they laughed and walked right passed him. The man who had been identified as Felix was grabbed and dragged roughly to the center of the basement. He pleaded and screamed, but the men ignored him as they looped the links to his handcuffs over a hook that Prince hadn’t noticed hanging from the ceiling.

  “Prince,” Mommy drew his attention back to her. “The man you see is Marisol’s ex-boyfriend, Felix. Much like yourself, he had a hand in the disappearance of Cano’s heroin, but unlike you he’s guilty of a far worse crime, plotting harm to my children.”

  “Please, Mommy,” Felix whimpered. “I love Marisol.”

  “Oh, so you show your love by treating her like a whore?” Mommy’s hand lashed out and slapped Felix across his face, sending blood flying across the room. Prince hadn’t even seen her pull the straight razor that had just opened Felix’s face.

  “Now,” she flashed her eyes on Prince. “My daughter has admitted to stealing the heroin, but Cano’s money is still missing. What I want to know is what really happened? Now, if the story you tell me doesn’t match what my daughter has said…” she nodded toward Cano.

  Cano smiled and slipped on a pair of rubber dish gloves. He picked up the cushioned wires and touched them together, producing a spark. Prince turned his head away, but Mommy’s heavy voice called out to him.

  “Don’t you dare turn away, Mr. Heroin King of the Douglass Project.” She grabbed Prince’s jaw roughly in her hand. Her face was streaked with Felix’s blood, making her look like a character in a Wes Craven movie. Mommy had a surprisingly strong grip for a woman, and had it not been for Juan keeping his gun trained on Prince he would’ve pulled away. “You watch what we do to men who betray mi familia.”

  Cano touched both of the cushions to Felix’s chest, and the lights in the basement flickered. Felix jerked as hard as he could, but the handcuffs held. Felix howled like a wounded coyote as Cano pumped only God knew how much electricity through him. Only when the smell of burning flesh filled the basement did Cano stop.

  Mommy turned her stormy eyes to Prince and hissed, “Now, how did you get your hands on my drugs?”

  Prince looked from the gruesome scene around him and swallowed the lump in his throat. In the hood he was one of the hardest niggaz out, but in the face of Mommy and her crew, he decided to let honesty prevail where balls would do him no good. He went on to tell Mommy and Cano the tale of how he and Marisol had become involved, and she offered him the heroin to sell in the projects to break away from Diego. He also told them how Marisol had led him to believe that she and Cano were partners, therefore making him think the deal was legit. He wasn’t sure if they bought into it or not, but the truth was all he had to bargain with.

  “A very interesting story,” Mommy said. “Cano?” she looked to her son.

  Cano walked up to Prince. He was no longer holding the torturing devices, but Prince was still on guard. Cano looked into Prince’s eye, and Prince held his stare. Even though he knew that Cano could and probably would end his life, he wouldn’t cower.

  “It sounds like something Marisol would cook up,” Cano said. “You know, she’s been putting her nose where it doesn’t belong since we were kids.”

  “Cano, I just wanted to show you that I could help,” Marisol said.

  “Marisol, blowing over a hundred grand of our money is not helping. You give a thief and a novice almost a whole kilo of heroin and not collecting anything from it is not helping.”

  “What about the five grand?” Prince spoke up. There was no way he could prove that that was the money he had brought back to Marisol for the drugs, but he figured it couldn’t hurt to mention it.

  “What?” Cano and Mommy asked at the same time.

  “The five grand that you found at Marisol’s was the money I was bringing her back off the ounce she fronted me,” Prince explained.

  Cano stepped closer to Prince and looked him in the eyes. “Negrito, you mean to say that you moved an ounce of heroin on a crack block in that little bit of time?”

  Prince shrugged. “What can I say? I’ve been hustling since I was ten.”

  “Juan,” Mommy spoke up. “Get him something to wear.” Mommy turned back to Prince. “Now, Mr. Heroin King, tell me this story of how you did what Felix could not.”

  While Prince dressed in the sweat suit Juan had brought him, he told the story of how he had cut the heroin and broke it down into packs like they did the coke. He informed them of the heroin drought on the Westside and how the dope had moved easily. He was sure to leave out the part about how he needed Scatter and Ebony to cut it, feeling that he still needed some kind of leverage with Mommy. By the end of his tale, Mommy looked puzzled and Cano was just shaking his head.

  “That is quite a story,” Mommy said.

  “It’s the truth,” Prince responded.

  “I believe you. Cano,” Mommy said something to Cano in Spanish. He protested, but she wasn’t trying to hear it. Reluctantly Cano went off to the upper levels of the house to do whatever Mommy had told him. “Prince.” She turned back to him. “I’m afraid we’ve been poor hosts to you. It was nothing personal, but I had to get to the bottom of what happened to my heroin.”

  “I’m good, I just wanna go home and forget this shit ever happened,” Prince insisted. As he was speaking to Mommy, Cano came back into the basement holding a folded newspaper. He glanced at Prince then placed the newspaper into his mother’s outstretched hand.

  “A gift,” Mommy said, holding the newspaper out to Prince.

  “What’s in it?” Prince asked suspiciously, but still didn’t reach for the roll.

  “Double what Marisol gave you. Bring back the same fifty-five and everything else is yours. It’s just my way of saying that I’m sorry for what my daughter did. When you’re finished with that, come back to Cano and he’ll start you on your first half-bird of H. Do you think you can handle it?”

  The logical side of Prince’s mind told him to tell her hell no and hightail it home, but the greedy-ass hustler that lurked within his heart said to jump on it. Things went sour with Marisol, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t supposed to make the most out of it.

  “Yeah, I can handle it.” Prince took the roll.

  “Muy bien.” She hugged him, oblivious to the blood she was getting on his worn grey T-shirt. “Prince, I sorry we had to meet like this, but I hope making you a rich young man will make up for it.

  Prince looked from the rolled up newspaper in his hand to Mommy and said, “Enough money will make even the most lethal wounds seem superficial.” Prince was heading for the door, but Mommy’s voice stopped him.

  “Don’t hate my daughter, negrito. She is not from the streets, so she doesn’t see the insult in what she did to you.”

  Prince looked at Marisol’s saddened face. She still had a lot to answer for, but that would come later. For now he was just trying to get back to the block.

  CHAPTER 15

  D addy-O immediately knew something wasn’t right when he saw Prince. Physically he seemed fine, but he was dressed like an escaped mental patient. Prince whispered something to someone insid
e the truck and started making his way up the path. Diego was posted up by the center, watching Prince curiously. Prince either didn’t see him or didn’t acknowledge him, never breaking his stride.

  “Yo, where the fuck you been?” Daddy-O asked.

  “Come with me to change right quick,” Prince said, continuing toward his building.

  Along the walk, Daddy-O brought Prince up to speed on what he’d missed during the two days he was MIA. Hearing that little Danny got popped stung. He knew Danny wasn’t built for the game, but he let him rock to keep him from becoming someone else’s meat. It had almost served the little nigga right for going against what he was taught and walking around that dirty. Greed had been the downfall of many a man, and Danny was further proof of that. But wrong or not, Prince had to get him out of jail.

  Prince took a quick shower and threw on some sweats and a white T-shirt with his white-on-white Airs. From a lockbox that he kept under his bed, Prince produced a .40 cal. It wasn’t as big as the nine he was used to working with, but it was easier to conceal under the sweats and had just as much stopping power.

  “So, you plan on telling me why you came back to the hood looking like a nigga fresh off the boat?” Daddy-O asked.

  “My nigga, I’ve had one hell of a day. Twist something up while I run it down to you,” Prince said. While Daddy-O sat on the edge of his bed rolling a blunt, Prince told him about his kidnapping.

  “Man, we need to rock that bitch and let her brother hold something too.” Daddy-O lit the weed.

  “Nah, we worked it out,” Prince assured him.

  “Fuck you mean y’all worked it out? Son, them niggaz had you tied in a basement ass naked. What the fuck could they possibly have offered you to make it right?”

  “I can show you better than I can tell you, kid.” Prince sat the newspaper on the bed and slowly unfolded it. In the center sat the two ounces, neatly wrapped in plastic wrap.