by K'wan
Prince squatted down over Benny. “You know, you talk a lot of shit for a nigga that’s on the ass-end of a pistol.” Prince tapped his .40 cal against Benny’s forehead for emphasis. “Now, take a wild guess why we’re here?”
Benny looked from Prince to his team and back again. “Look man, I ain’t got the key to the armory. Diego keeps it with him.”
Prince snickered. “Baby boy, this ain’t got nothing to do with guns.”
“Then what do you want?” Benny asked, clearly terrified.
“To make a statement.” Benny never saw the switchblade, but he felt it as Prince dragged it across his throat. Benny blinked as if he was trying to figure out what was going on. He let out a weak cough, squirting blood from the neat slash across his neck. Everyone watched in horror as Benny collapsed on his side and bled out.
“We out,” Prince said, heading for the front door.
“What about the bitch?” Stone asked.
Prince looked at the unconscious woman. “Leave her. When she wakes up she can tell Diego that we came by.”
After Benny’s hit, Prince had given his soldiers specific instructions to stay out of sight because of the heat that would surely be on all of them, but Jay couldn’t. He had seen dead bodies before but never up close. Prince had sliced Benny’s throat and left him to die like it was an everyday thing. Jay didn’t know whether he was excited or repulsed by the act. He had tried to catch up on some much-needed sleep, but every time he closed his eyes he was haunted by visions of Benny’s splayed throat.
Not being able to sleep, Jay decided to go cop some piff in the hopes that it would calm his nerves and help him to sleep. Prince had warned him that not only did they have to watch out for police but Diego’s hit men. Not wanting to be the one who got caught slipping, Jay snatched up the .25 Prince had bought him on his way out the door. He had made it in and out of the weed spot without incident, but no sooner than he reached the corner did he see the flashing lights. Police seemed to be coming from everywhere at once, all rushing in Jay’s direction. They tossed him roughly to the ground while he protested and screamed that he hadn’t done anything, but they didn’t buy into it. This wasn’t some random bust; they had come for him specifically. When one of the cops pulled the pistol from Jay’s pocket and smiled at him, Jay knew he was fucked in a major way.
From the moment he arrived at his office that morning, assistant district attorney Michael Stern knew it was going to be a hellish day. Over the course of the last week or so, Douglass projects had erupted into a civil war. From what he had gathered from his sources, Prince and Diego had fallen out and were now standing on opposite sides of the fence. The first stone was cast when a young boy named Gene was gunned down during a botched robbery.
Word had it that Diego flipped out when he found out about Benny’s death. For two straight days Diego had sent his soldiers through the projects opening fire on any and everyone who was affiliated with Prince. They said he had even kicked in the door of an old girlfriend of Prince’s and pistol-whipped her. Of course she wasn’t talking. There were several other reports of violence and still more pouring in.
The governor was on the mayor’s ass, the mayor was on the district attorney’s ass, and Stern felt the wrath tripled. He needed to get the situation under control in a major way and the next two phone calls he received gave him a good starting point.
The first call was made by a confidential informant, via his lawyer, confirming that Prince was behind several of the murders that had taken place. The kid was so deep up the ass with his own problems that he agreed to testify if it guaranteed him a pass. Two of Stern’s most trusted men had gone to extract the CI and currently had him safely under wraps. Stern told the CI’s lawyer that he could write his own ticket if the information he gave held up in court.
The second call was the icing on the cake though. Apparently a member of Diego/Prince’s crew had gotten himself in over his head and was ready to play ball. Stern had done such a good job in rattling the young man that all thoughts of fighting the case had fled his mind. Little Danny had really thought he could get the long ride if he blew trial, which was bullshit. Stern knew Danny’s new lawyer, and he was good at getting people off of charges that were supposed to stick. Danny might’ve had to do time, but it wouldn’t have been as much as Stern had led him to believe. It was a good thing for the city that in this case, fear had won out over logic.
Between the two informants and all the paraphernalia they had found at the scene of the robbery, it would be enough to get warrants to search Prince and Diego’s homes and maybe bring them in for questioning. Feeling pleased with himself, Stern decided to take the rest of the day off and get in some golfing while he waited for the warrants to be signed-off on.
CHAPTER 19
A week after Vince was killed, the projects were still on fire. The jump-out boys were taking no prisoners. Members of both Prince’s and Diego’s crews were being snatched left and right. They had even ran up in Daddy-O’s house that morning, and he was now in custody at the Twenty-forth Precinct. Prince had Marisol call and make an inquiry about his status, but they refused to say what the charges were.
To make matters worse, word on the street was that the police were looking for him. Keisha had called him the night before and told him how homicide detectives were all over the projects showing pictures of him. They had even gone to his house, but of course he was already in the wind. What was fucking him up was how did they even know to look in his direction? Somebody was talking. He thought carefully on everyone who had a working knowledge of what they had going on and started using the process of elimination to narrow down his list of suspects.
Daddy-O and Prince were closer than real brothers so his loyalty was never even a question. Sticks and Stone were still young and liable to do some dumb shit, but snitching wasn’t in their character. Next to Daddy-O they were the two most solid members of the organization. Danny wasn’t a tough guy and seemed to be the most rattled about the situation, but Prince doubted if he was working for the other side. The charges the police had against him were bullshit and Prince had paid top-dollar to help the man fight the case. Besides that, Prince and Daddy-O had practically raised the young man. Even before he became a part of the team, Prince and Daddy-O had looked out for him, making sure he always had money for school and wasn’t hurting for gear. This left Killa-E.
Daddy-O had brought it to Prince’s attention that something wasn’t right with E. Prince had defended E, telling Daddy-O that E was straight, but was he? E was seeing more money moving the heroin through the Binghamton cats than a lot of his soldiers in New York, so it didn’t make sense for him to be the rat, but he did have open cases. No matter how cool E seemed, you could never tell what someone would do when their back was against the wall.
Just before the bullshit jumped off, E had pulled one of his disappearing acts. He had told Prince beforehand that he had to dip to Florida to check on a deal he was working out with a realtor on some property in Miami. It was no secret that he had long been trying to establish a legitimate business down that way. It just seemed funny that he had to rush off just before the police had started snatching his soldiers. It was after that that Diego’s earlier warning had played back in his mind, and he wondered how trustworthy the kid really was?
After debating with himself about it, Prince called Cano. He had explained the situation to Cano about the raid and him suspecting that there was a leak in his crew. He’d expected some kind of seasoned wisdom from the older head but instead received a very stern warning. Cano told Prince that he had been making too much money for too many years to let a gang of black hooligans ruin it for him. Since Prince had brought his crew into the fold, it would be up to him to silence any voices that were speaking out against him. And on the issue of Diego, Cano simply said, “Every man bleeds, so every man can die. You need to decide who you fear more, him or me.” That made it crystal clear to Prince that he had come too far to turn back. His
enemies had to die or he would. He had done all he could to make the split amicable, but Diego wasn’t budging. Picking up his cell phone, Prince decided that it was time to take the gloves off.
“See, this is why I fucking hate you. You’re so bull-headed that you don’t see the writing on the walls. It ain’t the team, it’s the coach,” Sticks told Stone while stuffing a bottle of Bacardi light with a torn rag.
“And what the fuck do you know, you unathletic son of a bitch?” Stone shot back. “Isaiah Thomas is a proven champion and knows what it takes to win. It’s your team that sucks.”
“My dude, we’ve got like three all-stars and a two-time champion coming off the bench, but there’s no direction. Trust me, once we get rid of Thomas, we’ll start winning games.”
“Whatever, son,” Stone said, snatching up the two liquor bottles he had stuffed. “Let’s do this and get it over with.”
The two brothers hopped out of the unmarked four-door and gingerly strolled across the manicured lawn of the house. They stood in front of the two-story house and admired its vinyl sidings. To the passerby they seemed to be no more than two young men taking in the scenery until the first wisps of smoke rose. Stone heaved one of the bottles he was carrying and it crashed against the stucco roof, coating it in flames. One after the other the twins tossed the homemade cocktails, until the flames devouring the house could be seen for blocks.
Sticks moved as close to the house as he dared and lit his cigarette on the flames. “Now, that’s a fire,” he said, mimicking Eddie Murphy.
“You think Diego’s gonna be pissed?” Stone asked, admiring their handiwork.
Sticks slowly blew the smoke into the air. “Like I give a shit. Let’s go home. The Pistons are playing the Suns.”
“Another hopeless-ass cause.” Stone patted his brother on the back as they headed back to the car.
“You think you’re a real tough ass, don’t you?” the red faced officer snarled at Daddy-O. “Well, being tough ain’t gonna save you from spending the rest of your natural life in jail.”
“Whatever, man,” Daddy-O said as if he found the officer’s very presence offensive, which he did. The day before Daddy-O had been at his crib getting the blow job of his life from the young girl with the lollipop he had met weeks prior on the bench. His pleasure ride was interrupted when his front door had come crashing in. Thinking it was a hit, Daddy-O grabbed his hammer and prepared to do battle. To his surprise it was the police.
He knew they were looking for drugs, which he didn’t keep in his house, so they had nothing. They had him dead to rights on the gun possession, which he was sure he could get around. But surprisingly enough they didn’t want him for either of the above. They were looking for a murderer. For the last four hours, they had been grilling him about the murders in the projects, but Daddy-O faked ignorance. They claimed that they had a witness who could place him and Prince at the scene of Benny’s murder, which he knew was bullshit since he wasn’t there. Whoever they had been speaking to obviously knew how inseparable he and Prince were, but they were wrong about that particular night.
He wasn’t worried about them pinning Benny’s murder on him because he could honestly say that he had nothing to do with it, but what bothered him was how they even suspected him or Prince for it in the first place. They were careful in their deeds, only letting their most trusted in on their plans. Someone had leaked. The first name to pop into Daddy-O’s mind was E. The young man was as rotten as an overripe banana and as yellow as a fresh one in his book, but he was kept in the dark about what happened with Benny. Stone wasn’t even a suspect because he had proven time and again that he would ride or die for the crew. Danny was a coward, but he had distanced himself when the gunplay came about. This left Jay.
The young boy was animated about extracting revenge for what Diego had done to his partner and was itching to air something out. Daddy-O had warned Prince against taking the young man along, but as usual Prince didn’t listen. He reasoned that if Jay was gonna be a part of the team, he had to see what he was made of. Apparently he wasn’t made of much or Daddy-O wouldn’t be sitting in the interrogation room of the Twenty-forth Precinct.
“Take it easy on him, partner,” the black detective said. “Mistreating the young man isn’t gonna get us to the bottom of this any sooner. Sorry about that, kid,” he said to Daddy-O, sincerely.
Since they brought him in he had been overly nice to Daddy-O. He had seen the good cop/bad cop routine enough times to know not to fall for it. When it came down to it, he was still the law, therefore the enemy.
“Okay, Dean.” The black detective called Daddy-O by his first name to establish a sense of familiarity. “You and I know this is a bullshit charge you’re in here on, so try to help us to help you. Somebody carved Benny up pretty bad, which we know isn’t your style. Prince maybe, but not you. You’d rather beat someone up you had a problem with rather than kill them. Am I right so far?” Daddy-O just stared at the detective. “Anyway, I know that you had nothing to do with Benny’s murder, but I figured you might be able to tell us who did. So what’s up, you gonna tell us something?”
Daddy-O thought long and hard on it for a minute. In his most sincere voice he told the detective, “Yeah, man. I wanna tell you something. Go fuck your mother!”
Rage flashed in the black detective’s eyes as he leapt across the table and grabbed Daddy-O by the front of his T-shirt. He tried to yank Daddy-O from the seat, but Daddy-O was too heavy. When he leaned over to get a better grip, Daddy-O threw all of his weight in the opposite direction, sending him spilling out of the chair and onto the floor bringing the black detective down with him. Daddy-O could’ve punished the detective if he wanted to, but instead he held him on the ground and laughed. His laughter was short-lived when the red-faced detective punched him in the back of the head, causing the room to spin. It took some effort, but the two detectives were able to hoist Daddy-O off the ground and sit him roughly back in the chair.
“You think that shit was cute, don’t you?” the red-faced detective sneered. “Well, we can add assaulting a police officer to your list of charges.” He was trying to intimidate Daddy-O, but the big man wasn’t easily intimidated.
Daddy-O gave him a defiant stare. “Nigga, miss me with that bullshit. You think you dealing with somebody that’s naïve to the law? If you had anything on me you’d have charged me with more than just gun possession. Now, take me back to my cell and give me the phone call you niggaz have been denying me since I got here. My lawyer is gonna have the both of you cocksuckers directing traffic outside the Holland Tunnel.”
They had thought they could scare Daddy-O into talking like they had done the other ones, but he was made of sterner stuff. Daddy-O had been on the streets all of his life and respected the codes that governed them. Daddy-O was correct about them only having a gun charge, but what he didn’t know was that members of their crew had already started dropping names to save their own assess. He was smiling now, but when they racked up enough to get him on conspiracy, he wouldn’t be smiling anymore.
Diego stood motionless, seething. At least two dozen people were standing around speculating on what they thought had transpired. The once-dry grass was now wet and muddy due to the excessive amounts of water the fire department used to douse the blaze. When he had first purchased the home, he couldn’t have been more proud of himself. Coming from the slums of the Bronx all he had ever lived in were mice-infested tenements. He had vowed that if he ever blew up, he would cop a house for himself and his children. When the mantle of cocaine king came to him, he did just that.
It was a two-story house with a stucco roof and vinyl sides that he had had built to his specifications. He remembered how hard his son’s mother had cried when he handed her the keys. Now, the only thing that was left of the two-year-old house was a smoldering frame.
“How could this have happened?” Carmen sobbed, kneeling in the muddy grass. She and Diego had been dating since high school, and whe
n she gave birth to his son he wife’d her. Though she still had no ring to speak of, everyone knew she was his main lady.
“Carmen, get up,” he took her by the arm and helped her to her feet. “The house can be replaced, mommy. The important thing is that neither you nor little Diego were inside when it went up.”
“It’s gone, Diego. Our beautiful house is gone,” she said as if she didn’t hear a word he said. “What are we going to do?”
“We rebuild. The house was insured, so we can use the money to either rebuild this house or find another.”
“Afraid that might not be so simple,” a voice called from behind them. A man dressed in a NYFD jacket carrying a clipboard came toward them.
“Excuse me?” Diego spun on the man.
“Mr. Suarez, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but most policies don’t cover arson.”
“What do you mean arson? This was the result of faulty wiring or something, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, if the wires were made of glass,” the inspector held up the remains of a scorched liquor bottle.
“You mean someone set our house on fire?” Carmen asked. “Why, how?”
“I wish I could say, ma’am. Do you or your husband have any enemies? Someone that might want to hurt you or get back at you for something? You know, I once met a guy who had a pissed off ex come back and torch his place, real nut job that chick was.”
Diego glared at the man. “What’re you, a funny man?” Diego grabbed him roughly by the collar of his jacket. “My house was just burned to the fucking ground and you’re asking me, in front of my wife, if I had a mistress? What you should be doing is trying to find who did this to my place before I do!”
“Mr. Suarez, I’m just the fire inspector. The police will have to handle any other aspects of it.”
“Then get me a fucking cop!” Diego shoved him roughly to the ground. The rattled fire inspector scurried away without bothering to try and wipe the mud off his khakis.