by K'wan
“Where the fuck is we going?” Shai asked, trying to change the subject.
“Pull up on One-nineteen and Eighth,” Swan directed. “They got this little spot over there and I wanna see what it's looking like.”
Shai followed Swan's directions and found himself in front of an after-hours joint. Everyone that was at the place was from a ten- block radius. From the gate, Shai could tell that it was a neighborhood spot. Shai was never really one to do local spots, but he didn’t have anything better to do at the time.
All eyes were on Shai as he joined his friend on the curb. Everyone from 119th Street knew who Swan was, but they didn’t know Shai. He took the curious glances with a grain of salt and continued to the front of the lounge. As Shai stood outside kicking it with Swan, he heard a familiar voice.
“Shai,” said the voice. “Is that you?”
For a minute Shai was afraid to turn around. He knew the voice, but until then he thought that he would never hear it again. Shai took a deep breath and turned around slowly. On that beautiful summer night on 119th Street, Shai was confronted by his estranged mother.
“Hey, baby,” June said, flashing a yellow-toothed grin. “What you doing down this way?”
“ ‘Sup, June?” he asked coldly.
“You know your mama. I’m just trying to hang in there. How you been?”
“Chilling.”
“And school?”
“It's a’ight,” Shai said, looking away.
“My boy,” she exclaimed. “The college scholar. Peggy,” June called to her partner, “come here, girl.”
Peggy came staggering across the street to the front of the club. Peggy and June looked like a cracked-out Oreo cookie. While June was dark-skinned and still somewhat thick, Peggy was a skinny white girl. She raked her chipped fingernails down her track-ridden neck and winked at Shai. It got so bad that people were beginning to look. If Shai wasn’t embarrassed before, he was now.
“Girl,” June continued. “This is my baby boy, Shai. You know, the basketball player?”
“Oh yeah,” Peggy slurred. “I know your son, June. I’ve bought shit off of him. Say, Tommy, you holding any of that bomb shit? I’ll give you some head for it.”
“Fuck outta here,” Shai barked. “You got the wrong cat, white girl.”
“Bitch!” June fired. “How you gonna say some shit like that to my kid? Shai don’t sell no drugs and he damn sure don’t want no cracker's lips on his dick.”
“Geez,” whined Peggy. “Sorry, June. It ain’t my fault though. The kid looks just like his brother.”
“I’m outta here,” Shai said, brushing past the two ladies.
“Hold on, baby,” June said, coming up behind him. “What, you don’t wanna see your mama?”
“What do you want from me?” Shai asked, not bothering to face her.
“Want?” she asked. “I don’t want nothing from you, Shai. Except to maybe see how you’re doing. No harm in that, is it?”
“Look,” he said, trying to remain calm. “I’m just out here trying to enjoy my summer. If you’ve never given me anything, can I please have that?”
“Okay, Shai,” she said in a hurt voice. “I just wanted to see how you were. How's Hope?”
“Like you give a fuck,” he said with a smirk.
“Shai,” she snapped. “I might’ve slipped a lil’, but I’m still your mother.”
“‘ Slipped,’“ he sneered. “I think that's a bit of an understatement.”
“Don’t get cute,” she said, raising her voice. “You ain’t too big for an ass whipping.”
“Please, June.”
“And what's wrong with you calling me mama every now and again?”
“You’d have to be one in order to qualify for the title. June, you ain’t never been around for me or Hope. Anything your heart desired was yours, but I guess the larceny in your heart outweighed the love. You took everything Daddy gave you and made it wicked.”“Wicked?” June snaked her neck. “Let me tell you something, Shai Clark. Your father isn’t an angel. He might keep y’all living in a big house, but look what he does to pay for it. So don’t come at me with that spoiled bullshit he done crammed into you.”
Shai's eyes flashed the hurt that his face would not divulge. “Same shit, different day,” he mumbled, as he walked off.
“Yo, Shai,” Swan called after him. “Hold up, kid.” Swan jogged over to where his friend was standing. “You a’ight?”
“Yeah,” Shai huffed. “I’m good.”
“So you wanna come in or what?”
“Nah, Swan. I ain’t really in the mood for that right now.”
“So what’re you gonna do, Shai?”
“Probably coast, kid. Gotta clear my head and shit, ya know?”
“You want me to roll with you?”
“Nah, I’m good. But thanks, Swan. I’ll call you later and see what you’re up to.”
“So be it,” Swan said, hugging his friend. “You hold your head on these streets. You hear me, Shai?”
“Fo’ sho’.” Shai broke Swan's embrace and headed for the GS. June was trying to get his attention, but he acted as if he didn’t notice her. Shai revved the engine and eased the car from the curb. June was waving at him, but Shai couldn’t see it. He blinded himself to any and all things associated with her. If you wasn’t family, then you wasn’t shit. That was Shai's motto. The woman who had ushered him into the world was dead to him.
Fat Mike sat inside of the tiny coffee shop going over the recent turn of events. Things in the streets were slowly but surely souring and he didn’t like it. Tommy Clark was becoming more of a liability than an asset. He had made millions from the Clarks and their heroin ring. Poppa was a classy old dude, but his son was getting beside himself.
Mike knew he hadn’t always played fair with the blacks, but the way he figured it, he was doing them a favor. They had the protection of the Cissarro family and a constant supply of heroin through him, but lately it didn’t seem like enough. The blacks were finally discovering their worth. If they pulled out of their heroin agreement, Mike's pockets were gonna take an awful hit. If his income slowed, Mr. G would want answers. If those answers revealed his drug dealing, Mike would be up shit's creek. He had to get the problem resolved, immediately.
“Nicky!” Mike called out.
“Yeah, boss?” Nicky answered from the next table.
“Bring the car around.”
CHAPTER 12
POPPA SAT IN HIS backyard smoking a Cuban cigar and looking at the stars. This was one of his favorite places to be when he wanted to think and that's just what he was doing: thinking. The winds of change were blowing and Poppa could feel it. His drug operations were growing, but so were the risks that came along with them. This was part of the reason why Poppa wanted to go legit.
In this new age of the hustle, what few rules that still existed were being drastically changed. No longer could disputes be settled through diplomacy. In the new millennium, lead was the law of the land. There was no longer a place for a wizened gentleman such as Poppa or those who came before him. The game was definitely going sour.
Poppa had much bigger plans for his future, as well as the futures of his children. He did what he did to come up so they wouldn’t have to. Tommy was a different case though. From day one Poppa saw it in Tommy's eyes. The call of the streets sang loudest in his eldest son's ears. No matter how Poppa tried to steer himin another direction, Tommy kept his fascination with the streets.
Tommy had been getting into shit since he was a kid. There was a time when he had gotten kicked out of Catholic school for running a circle of dice games around the campus. Poppa always disciplined him for this kind of conduct, but he felt somewhat hypocritical in doing so. How could he tell Tommy not to hustle when that's how he was getting fed? When Tommy got too old to control, Poppa did the next best thing. He took him under his wing and showed him how to hustle the right way. Better to do it correctly than to do it ass backward and
suffer.
Since becoming Poppa's protege, Tommy had done his job efficiently. That is, up until recently. It seemed that Tommy's quick temper was hindering his growth. He had great leadership abilities and a good head for numbers, but Tommy didn’t understand discretion. He would rather shoot you than sit down and talk about it. Poppa tried to teach him discretion, but it was pointless. The beast was just a part of who Tommy was.
“Poppa,” Tommy said, coming into the backyard. “You busy?”
“Nah,” Poppa said, sitting up. “Just thinking. Come on out, son.”
“I met with the Wongs today,” Tommy said, taking the opposite seat.
“How did that go?” Poppa asked.
“Seems that we have a new heroin supplier,” Tommy said with a grin.
“And price?”
“It rounds out to about fifteen hundred or so cheaper per kilo than what Fat Mike was hitting us for—and dig the kicker, Poppa. On the first go around, they’re giving us some birds for free as a show of good faith. Next go around, I figure we spend a few hundred thousand . . . maybe a cool mil’ or so and make back a few million.”
“A few hundred thousand,” Poppa pondered. “That's a lot of bread, Tommy. Who's to say that I wanted to spend that much?”
“Poppa, you can’t beat a deal like that. I even managed to get them to throw a taste of their overseas operations in.”
“That's always a plus, depending on what it's gonna cost us in return.”
“Poppa,” Tommy said, standing. “We need this deal. I don’t know if you’ve noticed it or not, but we’re losing business trying to push the junk off that we’re getting from the Cissarros. Poppa, we need to fuck with these Chinese folks.”
“Gimme some time to think about it, Tommy.”
“Poppa, the first shipment will be here in less than two days. I told Billy that we were moving forward with the deal.”
“Oh, so you just took it upon yourself to speak for me? Pm the boss of this family, Tommy.”
“Poppa, I didn’t mean any disrespect, but what choice did I have? You said to fix things with Fat Mike or find another supplier. So I found somebody else.”
“You got a lot of balls, boy.”
“Poppa, you said that I’m going to be running the family, so let me do my job. Me and Billy can deal on that end. As far as whatever power moves you make with his peoples, that's up to you.”
“Tommy,” Poppa said, chuckling. “You’re too much, you know that? I used to wipe your little black ass and now you’re telling me what's what? Okay, Tommy, we’ll do a lil’ business with these Wongs. But before I speak to anyone, we gotta see if they can be trusted. Pick up whatever product they’re setting out for you and see what you can do with it. If it's proper, then we play. But if these mutha fuckas try to put shit on us . . .”
“You ain’t even gotta tell me, Poppa,” Tommy said, patting his waist. “Let the games begin.”
After speaking with Poppa Tommy had a lot on his mind. He needed to get some fresh air and clear his mind. Tommy and Here cruised through Harlem, making their rounds. Tommy could’ve let someone else do it or trusted Here to do it alone, but he needed to be in the streets. Being in the hood always helped him to think. It was his domain.
Poppa was handing the operation over to Tommy, but he still saw fit to tell him how to run it. He had a great deal of respect for Poppa and the things he had accomplished, but he didn’t understand the way things worked anymore. Poppa had ruled the streets for several decades, but for the last few years he had been locked in an office playing corporate games, while Tommy lorded over the savages. It was a very new ball game.
Flashing lights in the rearview broke up Tommy's thinking session. You would’ve thought that with all the money they paid the police, they could avoid these routine traffic stops. Tommy wasn’t worried about it though. He knew Here had his pistols stashed, so they wouldn’t have a problem. He had left his own gun in his car, but it suddenly dawned on him that he had let Shai hold the car. The color slowly drained out of his face. If Shai got stopped or something else happened because of his forgetfulness, Poppa was going to skin him. Literally.
“Hello?” yawned Honey into the cell phone.
“What's good?” Shai asked.
“Shai, is that you?”
“Yeah.”
“Boy, it's two in the morning.”
“Sorry, did I wake you?”
“Nah, I’m not even in the house. Where are you, Shai?”
“Just riding. No particular destination. Where’re you at?”
“Down here with my girls at this wack-ass club.”
“Word, how about I come scoop you?”
“What?” she said defensively. “You trying to put in a booty call or something?”
“Nah,” he protested. “I just wanna see you. Maybe we can go get something to eat and talk? No funny business.”
“A’ight. Well, I’m at NY's on Forty-eighth. You know where that is?”
“Yeah, I know the place. I’ll call you when I get close.”
“See you then, Shai.” Honey hung up her cell and cracked a smile. She had originally thought that her night was going to be a bust, but Shai's late-night call changed things a bit.
The encounter with June had left Shai a bit rattled. It had been quite some time since he had seen his estranged mother. He usually avoided June when he saw her coming, but this time she had gotten the drop on him.
Shai couldn’t understand why she still had that effect on him. He was old enough to put the madness behind him, but for some reason his heart wouldn’t let him forgive June for abandoning him. He slapped his fist against the dashboard in frustration and the radio face flipped down. Inside the console was the shiny Glock.
Shai shook his head as he fingered the pistol. His brother was someone who liked to be prepared for just about anything. Shai stuck the pistol in his waist and felt the pressure of the butt against his abdomen. The pistol sent such a rush through Shai that he foolishly chose to hold on to it.
When Shai pulled up to NY's, the club was just letting out. There were people moving up and down the block trying to catch a ride or get their last-minute slide on. Shai sat low in the Lexus, laughing as people were trying to peek through the dark tints. Everyone was trying to figure out who was in the car. Shai knew to play his position and come out at just the right time.
Shai spotted Honey making her exit from the club. She and her friend were surrounded by a flock of vultures and hangers-on. Honey's golden locks were twisted in the front and she had Shirley Temple curls fanned out through the back. When she walked, her white riding pants looked like they were about to bust at the seams.
After a brief check in the mirror to make sure he was tight, Shai slunk from the car. His brown eyes swept over the crowd, taking in everyone's expressions. People were looking at Shai as if he were a movie star. Shai didn’t have on a lot of jewelry or flash, but he carried himself like he was important.
Shai walked up to his soon-to-be-lady and gave her his Billy D smile. “Honey,” he said, taking her hand. “Seems like a lifetime since last I saw you.” Without warning he leaned in and kissed her on the lips. “Shall we go?”
Honey, as well as everyone else who had seen it, stood there in total shock. She didn’t know whether to slap the shit out of Shai or return the gesture. She could tell right off that a night with him would be quite interesting.
“Ah,” she stuttered. “Yeah, we can leave.”
Shai directed Honey to the car and held the passenger's door open for her as she slid onto the leather seat. After making sure that she was secure he walked around to the driver's side and got in. All eyes were still on them as they pealed off into the night.
“I’m gonna ask yo’ stupid ass one more time,” Brown said, holding the kid by his face. “Where the fuck is Amine and Legs?”
“I don’t know,” the kid cried.
“Stop lying,” Alvarez said, still picking under his fingernails wit
h the cross they had snatched off the kid's neck. “You know something and you’re gonna tell us, dipshit. If not, I’m gonna let my partner beat you bloody.”
The kid suddenly felt very weak. If these were the same cats that beat up Harry, then he was in trouble. Besides that, if they happened to kill him, who better to cover up a murder than a cop?
The kid tried to remain tight-lipped, but when Brown knocked one of his teeth out with the butt of his pistol, the kid rethought his options. “Okay,” the kid pleaded. “I’m not sure, but I think Amine went up to the Crystal Lounge.”
“Was that so hard?” Alvarez said, patting the kid's bloody face. “All you had to do was tell us what we wanted to know and you could’ve spared yo'self an ass whipping. Oh well, my partner needed the workout anyway.”
Brown dropped the kid on the floor and kicked him in his ribs one more time for good measure. “Clown-ass nigga,” spat Brown.
“This shit is getting ridiculous. We’ve been searching for these punks all day and still nothing.”
“Tone, you’re one of those people that always sees the glass as half empty, when you should be looking at it as half full.”
“How do you figure that and we still haven’t found either of these fucks?”
“For one thing, we know now that we’re only chasing one perp. The one thing that all these stories have in common is the fact that no one seems to have seen Legs in a minute. It's a good bet that he's dirty and got low. That puts him on the back burner for the moment.”
“Okay, so what about this Amine character?” Brown asked.
“He’ll be easy enough to track down.”
“How's that when we haven’t been able to find him all day?”
“Because the dumb shit is still here. Legs is the smarter of the two. He felt the heat coming and got out of Dodge. The stupid mutha fucka Amine is leaving a paper trail for us to follow. Amine was definitely in on the hit. Now it's just a matter of picking him up and getting a confession out of the bastard.”