by Teri Woods
Dutch’s soft kiss on her quivering cheek cut her off.
“It’s what the world owes us, Ma. And I won’t take no for an answer. Not even from you.”
Her silence became her approval. She knew all about the Month of Murder. She also knew that her son was called Dutch, the black gangsta the mob feared. But she had never said a word. What would she have said? The truth was that a large part of her was proud of him, and she wasn’t mad at all.
Now he was gone. He left a wicked memory on the streets and a tragic memory in her mind that joined the memories of his father to this day. Not a single day went by without her recalling her only love’s luscious kisses and calloused caresses, and the feeling of his manhood deep inside her followed by the mellow croon of his baritone in her ears.
I love you, Delores.
I love you, Bernard.
If she ever needed his embrace, it was now. She had had other men in her life after Bernard, other friends, other lovers, but none had managed to touch her heart like Bernard had. She never married, refusing two proposals in her lifetime, because she believed in her heart that he’d come back to her one day. But he never returned. Now, the last thing she possessed of his was also gone. Just as she lost him to the Vietnam War so long ago, she had lost his son to a war that unfortunately raged right outside her front door.
Delores felt all alone. The only thought that consoled her was the one that was now in her imagination—Dutch going out like his father, guns blazing, fighting for freedom.
She didn’t know how right she was.
The ringing phone brought her back to reality. Delores slowly stood up and picked up the receiver.
“Hello?” her frail voice answered softly.
“Is this the Murphy residence?” a male voice questioned.
“It is.”
“May I speak with Delores Murphy?”
“Who’s calling?” she asked, although she already knew who it was. His tone and style were a dead giveaway.
“This is Detective Meritti. I’m sorry to inform you that your son, Bernard James, has been killed,” Meritti explained softly but matter-of-factly. “We need you to come and identify the body. I know this is difficult, and I’m sorry that I’m not there in person to deliver—”
“No,” Delores interrupted. “No, it’s quite all right. I’m already aware of Bernard’s…” She cleared her throat and added, “I was expecting your call.”
“If it’s all right with you, ma’am, I think it would be best if I sent a car for you.”
“No, I don’t need a car. I can get there. I’ll be there within the hour.”
Meritti sighed with relief. He didn’t want to appear pushy, but the sooner they completed their official charade, the sooner they could concentrate on finding Dutch.
“That would be great, ma’am. Do you know how to get to the County Coroner’s Office?”
“I can find it, Detective Meritti,” Delores replied, her tone sending the message that the call was over.
“Very good. We’ll be waiting for you.”
Delores hung up.
“Who’s fooling who in here?” Meritti asked.
“I wonder if she’ll buy it?” Smalls wondered aloud.
“Please, God. Don’t let it be true! Burned beyond recognition? Charred remains…”
The detectives took Delores to a clean room where a body lay covered by a white sheet on top of a table. Detective Meritti introduced himself and recounted to Delores all that had transpired.
“It looks like his accomplices, these, um, Angel’s Charlies, were the actual culprits. It seems they started the fire so that your son could escape. But he didn’t make it out. And it looks like the coroner has already identified a set of matching dental records,” he added as he flashed them at her before placing them back into the folder next to the body.
Then he lifted the sheet.
Detective Meritti proceeded to tell her that the pink-black distorted lump before her was her son.
This ain’t my son, Delores thought as her body began to tremble uncontrollably.
Meritti noticed that she was beginning to lose her equilibrium, and he gently grabbed her to support her in case she fainted.
“Mrs. Murphy? Are you all right? Can I get you anything? Please, sit down.”
Delores shook off his offer and brushed his hand off her shoulder. She stood very still, silently staring at the body. The nameless lump of flesh they claimed was her son wasn’t even the right height. Close, but a little too tall. His build, or what was left of it, was too bulky.
Anxious eyes looking for closure could be easily fooled.
Detective Smalls watched her intently, as if he had the eyes of a hawk. He was fully aware of the masquerade he and Meritti were perpetrating. More important, he was looking for a sign that Delores was staging a masquerade of her own. He felt that if she identified the body too quickly, too cleanly, perhaps she was already aware of her son’s whereabouts, already knew that he wasn’t dead. So Smalls watched her facial expressions from the moment the sheet was lifted and observed her eyes as they flicked over the body. He watched her very carefully to see if she had been prepared or had rehearsed her reaction. Crying too hard, screaming for the Lord, or shouting for mercy and faking too much drama would be dead giveaways. But to his surprise, Delores did nothing like that. The pain that glazed her eyes was too deep and too real to be an act. She had passed the test, but not for the reasons Smalls had assumed. Delores looked from face to face, and her motherly instincts kicked in.
She knew they were up to something. But what? This ain’t Bernard, but they must want it to be or they want to know where he is. I’m going to pretend right along with them. And that’s exactly what she did to protect her child.
The police were trying so hard to deceive her, but they themselves were being deceived. Delores stood in the middle of the cold, sterile room trying to figure out their motives while they were trying to figure out hers. The illusion of truth wore a mask of deception well.
“Mrs. Murphy, I know this is hard for you,” Meritti said slowly. “But can you ID this body for us as your son?”
Her weak gaze hid a strong resolve as she looked from Smalls to Meritti. Delores lowered her head and subtly nodded.
Meritti was relieved.
Smalls was perplexed.
And Delores’s soul was tormented. The pain in her eyes Smalls detected wasn’t caused by her belief that her son was dead. It was because he was still alive. Somehow, somewhere, Bernard James, Jr., was still alive. The nightmare wasn’t over, and she was more confused and flooded with emotion now than when they had first lifted the sheet. Once again, she had cosigned to a reign of terror she was sure would follow. The nightmare was nowhere near over. The truth was, it was just about to begin.
“Where do I sign for my son’s body?” she asked.
“Right here, Mrs. Murphy,” said Detective Meritti.
Delores took the pen and signed for the pretend Dutch to be released to the funeral director. I got to pay to bury this muthafucka that ain’t even Bernard. I’m going to kill that boy when I see him, she thought to herself. But her intentions were to cremate the remains so that the secret of Dutch could be scattered to the winds.
CHAPTER THREE
Whose world is this?”
“Mine!”
“Whose world am I?”
“Mine!”
“Then say my name, ma. Say my name.”
“Young World,” Lana purred as she posed in the bathroom doorway. She had the curves of two letter S’s facing each other. Chocolate from head to toe, she stood bowlegged, wet and naked, tantalizing Young World as he lay back on the spacious bed in their Cancún hotel suite.
“Do my dance, yo,” Young World told her.
Lana began to slowly and sensually gyrate her hips to the rhythm of her own lust, palming her full breasts and pulling at her tender brown nipples.
“Like this, World?” She smiled, loving the feeling of her
man’s eyes all over her.
“No doubt. Slow motion, ma. Move it slow motion for me,” he replied with gangsta charisma. He licked his lips and grabbed his crotch.
Lana complied as she crawled on the bed like a black panther in the jungle stalking her prey. Young World parlayed like the young don Dutch made him, wearing only two things: a pair of burgundy silk boxers and Dutch’s dragon chain gleaming off the reddish-brown skin of his bare chest.
He watched Lana take his erect member into her warm mouth and wrap her juicy lips around his shaft, relaxing her throat, and curling his toes. Her head bobbed as if his dick was licorice and she was addicted to sweets.
Young World had definitely come up lovely. It had been nine months since the courthouse massacre and things had gone just as Dutch predicted they would.
The streets is gonna be wide open like pussy after this. Niggas you thought you could count on either gonna flip and try and go for dolo or nut up under pressure.
The streets lit up like the Fourth of July as street niggas and greedy crews scrambled for the crumbs off Dutch’s table. Young World had one of the sickest teams in the game, but even he took losses. His right-hand man, Jazz, didn’t have the killer instincts it took to ball on World’s level, so seventeen shots later found him on a basketball court in the park. Jazz and Young World had come up together so his death hit Young World hard, but there was no time to mourn because the streets wouldn’t let him.
The rest is up to you.
Dutch’s final words to him replayed in his head and made Young World put his gangsta down in a way that would make Dutch smile in his grave and make the streets bow down. While he relaxed with the love of his life in Cancún, Mexico, the streets of Newark were on fire.
“Young World, muthafucka!” the masked gunman yelled from the chrome black Ducati. His fully automatic Israeli Uzi spat round after round into both the driver of a droptop Lexus coupe and the girl sitting in the passenger seat. They slumped like Kennedy, and the Ducati gunner sped off, leaving the bodies nodded at the light.
Lana’s deep-throat game had Young World feeling like he was about to bust all over her tonsils, but he wasn’t ready to nut. He wanted to feel that bomb shot of hers that had him so in love. He lifted her chin and pulled her up until she straddled his hips and slid down on him, riding him like the stallion he was.
The young hustler wasn’t a stranger to the county jail, but with the paper he was making in the McCarter Highway Projects, bail was like candy money. His mama posted his bail. He knew it would be just a few hours more before his paperwork was processed and he was released. He stretched out on his bunk without a care in the world, knowing his name would soon be called. He didn’t know his number would come up before his name did.
Youngen closed his eyes to catch a quick nap. He never saw Duke slip into his cell like the Phantom of the Opera, gripping a homemade shank tight in his palm. Duke quickly snatched the pillow from behind the man’s head and put it over his face. The short struggle ended quickly when Duke plunged the shank into his victim’s heart, giving it a deadly twist to seal the deal.
“Tell ’em Young World sent you,” Duke whispered menacingly.
“Ooh, World, don’t stop, daddy. Ooh, I love you, World, I…” Lana groaned as she rode World like she was raised riding broncos. Her ass slapped against his thighs.
“Say my name, ma!”
“World, Young World, nigga!”
The black-clad Charlie bellowed before she let off a rain of black talons into a crowd of Irvington Bloods on the corner of Groove Street. They never knew what hit them. Their bodies jerked and twisted like a crew of break-dancers before they dropped to the ground, dead and smoking.
Just like that, Jazz’s murder was avenged and the Charlie disappeared into the shadows.
Lana gripped the dragon chain like the reins of a horse bridle and rode her stallion wildly. Young World grabbed her ass, spread her swollen lips, and plowed into her, matching her, thrust for forceful thrust. Lana screamed out in a mixture of pleasure and pain while Young World long-dicked her into a sensual explosion that drenched her thighs and the satin sheets beneath them. She collapsed on top of her man, covering his face with gentle kisses.
“I love you, World.”
“I love you, too.”
Young World lay back and relaxed. While he was getting his dick sucked and fucked on all night, he felt secure knowing that back in Jersey he had a team of hungry wolves working to ensure that he had an empire to go home to.
Their murder game was not to be fucked with, but World made the mistake of thinking murder was enough to hold an empire together.
THREE YEARS LATER
CHAPTER FOUR
One-eyed Roc stood in his prison cell at his sink, brushing his full beard in the mirror. It glistened with the Muslim hair oil he used on it almost as brightly as his freshly shaven head. Roc stepped back and admired himself. His gentle expression reflected a magnetic edge. They say prison preserves your youth, and at thirty-three, Roc still looked like he was in his mid-twenties. The only difference was his slightly protruding belly and the extra bulk prison food had put on him.
He was six foot three and a solid 235 pounds. His celly nicknamed him Suge Knight because of his resemblance to the music mogul, along with his deep booming voice that commanded attention whenever he spoke. Roc was, however, far from a Suge Knight. Islam and his sincere adherence to its beliefs had mellowed him, perhaps not all the way, but enough for him to be recognized by the prison administrators and his fellow convicts, who were well aware of his past street reputation. In fact, no one called him Roc anymore. They called him by his Islamic name, Rahman, which meant merciful in Arabic.
Rahman felt in his heart that he was no longer the murdering gangsta that he was when he had first arrived to prison. He now possessed a sincere passion for Islam and for the plight of the inner city that he had spent so much of his life terrorizing and dehumanizing.
When Rahman had gone to prison, he had saved a hefty stash, a little over five million dollars. But in the three years he had been locked up, he had given away over a million dollars to needy families, single-parent homes, battered women, and orphaned children.
His wife, Ayesha, who was faithfully sticking by her husband, managed the money, doling out cash as Rahman instructed. Things had been rough for Rahman and Ayesha with Rahman away and Ayesha raising their three children alone.
Despite the distance and the apparent hopelessness of his life sentence, she would often tell him, “You’re with me even when you’re away. Allah will bring you home to me.”
And it seemed that Allah would do just that.
“As-Salaamu Alaikum, Ock.”
Rahman turned around to find Akbar standing in the doorway of his cell.
“Alaikum As-Salaam,” Rahman replied, returning the greeting. “I ain’t even hear you standing there.”
“Then you slippin’,” Akbar chuckled. “You hear a ninja walkin’,” he joked.
Akbar was Rahman’s mentor. They had similar backgrounds. Akbar was older than Rahman and also from Newark. Both had been heavily into the game, but now both were dedicated to Islam.
Akbar walked into Rahman’s cell and held out a magazine.
“What’s that?” Rahman asked, looking at the rolled-up magazine.
Akbar showed him the cover. It was a copy of the new Don Diva magazine with a picture of Dutch, Craze, Angel, Zoom, and Rahman himself on the cover. It was a photograph Rahman recognized, but he turned away from its nostalgia.
“Come on, Ock. You know I don’t keep up wit’ that anymore,” he told his friend and grabbed his prayer rug and kufi.
“Naw, nephew, I think you’ll want to see this one,” Akbar said as if it was absolutely necessary Rahman read the article.
“Page fifty-six, Rah. I’ll get it from you after Jum’ah,” Akbar said as he walked out of the cell.
Rahman sat down on his bunk and flipped to page fifty-six. The article was entitle
d “Angel Alvarez.” And he read:
What’s really good, yo? You know Don Diva always comes with the exclusive exclusive! “You heard it here and nowhere else”-type shit, ya heard? Our topic today? That mysterious street legend, Dutch. It’s been three years since his alleged (and we do mean alleged) death. Now we have a one-on-one interview with Angel Alverez, the only female to run with the notorious Dutch. The following came from a taped phone convo from West Virginia, where Angel is currently housed.
DD: What’s up, mami? What’s your life like?
Angel: You know how it goes wit’ a bid. You put it on your back and troop it like a boss bitch. Ju don’t know?
DD: Aiight, if only these snitch muthafuckas understood the principles of this shit. But yo, I hear congratulations are in order! You won your appeal.
Angel (laughs): I can’t believe that shit either. Fuck man, my lawyer ain’t even expect it! You know how the Feds get down. They some dirty muthafuckers. No matter how fucked up the case is, they make that shit stick. Even if you innocent, you goin’ to jail fo’ fuckin’ with them, man.
DD: Well, I guess it’s true. You can’t hold a good bitch down!
Angel: What, ju don’t know?
DD: So, how does this affect Rahman’s case, or should we not discuss that? (Rahman Muhammad was Angel’s codefendant, now also serving multiple life sentences.)
Angel: Naw, yo. Me and my nigga ain’t got nothin’ to hide. We held it down like family supposed to and now just like cream—we ’bout to rise to the top. Me and you, Roc. We all we got!
Rahman lowered the magazine and couldn’t help but smile. Angel was still Angel. They wrote each other from time to time, which was why Rahman already knew about her case. After finding out about her appeal, he had jumped on his. He was just waiting on a decision. He turned his attention back to the article.
DD: So when do you touch down officially?