True Consequences

by Robert Barnes

  Shortly after, Rodney and I headed back to the condo so we could discuss more important matters. I needed to slowly get Rodney next to Trey in order for part of my plan to work. After all fifteen kilos were sold, Rodney and I would be headin’ to New Jersey to meet Trey, instead of me taking Tammy. I knew that Tammy wouldn’t mind if I excluded her from the trip because she didn’t want her brothers to know that she was pregnant. I’d make up something about telling her family about the pregnancy at a later time.

  When we got back to the condo, I made sure that Rodney had everything he needed for the moment. There was a grocery store right across the street from him, so it would be easy for him to get food. I left him a grand of the money Black Jay had just given us, so he could buy anything extra he needed for the condo. It was around 2 pm when I returned to Derby Run and Tammy was up watching TV, so I decided then would be a good time to go get the BMW from the Hampton impound. Tammy threw on some clothes and we headed to the impound located off Queen Street.

  Just as I suspected, there wasn’t a scratch on the BMW. The keys were even in the ignition when they found the car. The officer at the impound told us how lucky we were to get the car back in one piece. Tammy insisted on driving the BMW back to Derby Run, so I let her. Once we got back to Derby Run, I went through the trunk of the BMW to make sure that nothing had been disturbed.

  It was the end of the week, so the quarters at the laundry mat also had to be collected. I told Tammy to relax while I went down to the laundry mat because she would have to follow me to the U-haul place when I got back, so I could return the U-haul by 5:30 pm. She wanted to take the U-haul back right then and come with me to the laundry mat for some reason. So, we dropped the U-haul off on J. Clyde Morris Boulevard and then headed to the laundry mat in the BMW.

  As we rode, I noticed that the passenger seat was pushed back a lot, but I figured the police could have moved it. I reached down under the passenger seat and I felt a slip of paper. Instead of drawin’ attention to myself, I just balled it up in my hand and acted like I was hittin’ the button to move the seat up. I looked at the gas gauge and it was just below full, which was truly strange to me. I asked Tammy to stop by 7-11, under the guise that I was going to get us two chocolate chip ice cream cookies.

  We stopped at the 7-11 by ‘The Hook’, which was a neighborhood where the road curved around like a hook. I went in by myself and immediately pulled the slip of paper out of my pocket. It was a receipt from a gas station in Fredericksburg, Virginia, so that explained why the gas tank was nearly full. There wasn’t a name on it, but there was a credit card number. I wrote the number down and threw the receipt away. I bought the ice cream and we went to the laundry mat, which was right down the road.

  All the machines were filled with quarters, so business was looking good for the laundry mat. On our way home, I got a call from Rodney; he told me that he had already seen Black Jay again for another kilo. Black Jay had already paid the $12,500 he owed, plus the $25,000 for the new kilo; he said that his customers were cravin’ our cocaine, so it was easy to get other dealers to wanna buy. I told Rodney to give Black Jay an extra kilo every time he paid for one so he could move them faster. When I got off the phone, Tammy asked me how things were going in Richmond and I told her great.

  That’s when I decided to tell her about my plans to go see Trey without her. I wasn’t gonna tell her about Rodney coming with me though, because I didn’t want her telling her brother in advance. I told Tammy that I’d be going to see Trey as soon as I had some of his money, and it would probably be next week since I wasn’t waiting until I had it all. My plan was to get as many kilos as I could from him without paying him a lot of the money I owed. I had wondered why Tammy had never mentioned callin’ her brothers after we got robbed, but I knew now.

  10

  The weekend went by and things were really starting to pick up in Richmond. Rodney called and wanted me to come pick up the money he had collected over the weekend. I told him I’d come on Tuesday because Tammy and I had a doctor’s appointment to go to that day. Today was the big day for the ultrasound and possibly finding out the sex of the baby, dependin’ on how clear the ultrasound pictures were.

  Tammy and I arrived at the doctor’s office on Thimble Shoals Road at about 10 am. They called Tammy back first by herself. After about thirty minutes, a nurse came out to the waiting area and called me back to the room Tammy was in. They had a gel-like substance all over Tammy’s stomach and the doctor was holding this thing that he was pressing down and moving all around over the gel. A machine in the corner was making noises that sounded like little heartbeats. Tammy was crying, which scared me, since she hadn’t been showing much emotion lately.

  The doctor asked me if I’d like a glass of water or a seat, and I said no to both. I was getting worried now, because the mood in the room was very serious. When I asked was something wrong, the doctor said no; but Tammy didn’t respond. Tammy wasn’t even looking at me; she was looking towards the wall, but the tears were pouring down her face. Finally, the doctor told me to look at a monitor that was hooked to a computer. I couldn’t really make out what I was looking at because it was all in black and shades of gray or white. I saw something blinking on both ends but that was all I saw. Then the doctor said congratulations, and told me that Tammy was pregnant with twins.

  The next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital bed with an IV stuck in my arm. My mother was sitting on the bed beside me with her bible and Tammy was reclined in the chair by the window in my hospital room. It was Monday evening, so I had been unconscious for a few hours. Apparently, once I heard the news, I fainted and hit my head on the floor in the doctor’s office. They rushed me to Riverside Hospital and notified my parents. When I woke up, my mother kept telling me that God is good. Tammy had already told my mother the news about her being pregnant with twins.

  My mother wanted Tammy and I to move in with them, since Tammy would have to go on bed rest within the next two months. The doctor had also told Tammy that they’d be able to determine the sex of the twins by next month. Furthermore, instead of identical twins, Tammy was pregnant with fraternal twins that were in separate sacs. I wasn’t sure what all this meant at the time, and I wasn’t eager to find out. All I could think about was the fact that Tammy was deceiving me, yet she was carrying my kids. I couldn’t go on living this lie without asking questions that needed to be answered.

  I wasn’t gonna risk something happening to my twins, so I made the decision to wait until after they were born. Tammy’s due date was right around Valentine’s Day, so I’d have to stay busy until then. I told my mother that I’d consider moving back in with them once I got some things in order. Shortly after, a nurse came in and said that they’d be releasing me in two hours. My mother kissed me and headed back to Bethel Manor. Tammy came over and sat on the bed with me; I could tell that a lot was going on inside that head of hers.

  She asked me what I was thinking. I told her that I couldn’t believe that she had two babies growing inside of her. She leaned forward and kissed me gently on the lips, but I could see the worry all over her face. I wasn’t sure if she was worried about her brothers finding out, or worried that she was carrying twins in her stomach. A few hours later, we headed home to Derby Run. Tammy went straight to sleep once we got home, but I was wide awake.

  I called Rodney and asked how did things go over the weekend? He told me that things were good and were going better than he expected. He said Black Jay was calling every couple of hours for coke. I told him that I’d be up to Richmond first thing in the morning. We had a lot to discuss when I saw him. Before we got off the phone, he told me that a female had come to the house one day and asked for Tyrone. He told her that Tyrone didn’t live there and she left without anymore words. The reason he mentioned it to me was because he saw her another day, sitting in a Oldsmobile, just watching the condo. I told him that we’d discuss it tomorrow.

  The next morning, I got up and made breakfast
for me and Tammy. We ate and I told her that I’d be heading to Richmond for a few hours. She said that she wanted to come along, but I told her I didn’t think that was a good idea. I was more worried about the twins than I was for Tammy. I went to the Sonata, grabbed the Ruger from under the driver’s seat and took it back in to Tammy. I told her that she’d be safe with it and the alarm system. She didn’t argue at all with my decision.

  I left the house and headed to Richmond with a lot on my mind. When I got to the condo in Henrico, Rodney was coming down the stairs with both .40 calibers in his waistband. After he made sure the door was locked, I followed him upstairs. He had money laid out all over the mattress. It totaled up to $137,500 and he had rubber bands around every thousand. The first thing I asked him was, who did he rob. He assured me that all the money was from meeting Black Jay. He had sold five kilos to Black Jay over the weekend, plus Black Jay still owed for two kilos. We started discussing our next move. He wanted to say fuck Tammy’s brothers and keep all the money.

  I reminded him that Trey had access to hundreds of kilos of cocaine and heroin; my plan was to get my hands on some of both. We would have to start setting up a trip to see Trey soon, because we only had seven kilos left. Friday would be the best time to make a long trip, so that’s the day we decided; I’d have to call Trey before then and set something up. I was gonna give him the $125,000 of the $250,000 I owed him, but I would need extra kilos since I had been robbed for half a million.

  While I was loading the cash into one of the suitcases with the false bottoms, Black Jay called Rodney and said he was ready to meet again. We grabbed two kilos and headed up Azalea towards Pine Camp Park that had the basketball courts, right on the corner by Chamberlin Avenue. I was driving the Sonata, so I pulled up beside Black Jay’s corvette. Rodney hopped out with the two kilos in a double plastic bag and got in the car with Black Jay. There were three other cars parked in the parking lot facing the basketball courts.

  On the very end of the lot, a dark gray Oldsmobile pulled into a parking space. Someone got out of the passenger’s side, but he crouched down so you couldn’t see him moving around the car. I automatically reached for the Desert Eagle under my seat and eased out of the Sonata. Rodney saw my movements and started looking to see what I had seen. I knew he had the two .40 cal’s on him, and I knew that Black Jay always had the Sig or something big in his reach. Before I got to the front of the Sonata, the first shots rang out.

  Rodney spotted someone easing around the back of one of the parked cars and he immediately started shooting through Black Jay’s windows that were all up. I started letting off towards the same direction that Rodney was shooting. There were a few people on the basketball courts, but they were now on the ground hiding behind trees. No one returned fire once we stopped shooting. Rodney got out of Black Jay’s car and let him take off, since his passenger side window was shot out and he had two kilos of cocaine on him. Rodney didn’t get a chance to grab the money from Black Jay while all the madness was going on.

  As he pulled off, the dark gray Oldsmobile took off across the grass, past the basketball courts, over the curb and out of sight. It was the same Oldsmobile that Rodney had seen sitting outside of the condo. I knew that this wasn’t a coincidence. We jumped in the Sonata and took off back to the condo.

  Once we reached the condo, I dropped Rodney off, loaded the money up from the condo and headed back to Hampton. I didn’t wanna stay around Richmond much longer with the Sonata just in case someone notified the police about the shooting. I told Rodney to get in touch with Black Jay ASAP so they could meet somewhere and exchange the money we’d left. Also, I was gonna call Black Jay to have him find out some info about that gray Oldsmobile. I never got a good look at the person that got out of the car on the passenger side, but I’m willing to bet that the driver was a female. Whoever it was must not have expected us to start shooting first.

  After I was on the highway for about ten minutes, I got a call on my cell from my brother Andre. I hadn’t talked to him since the day after the robbery when I stayed at my parent’s house. He told me that Isaac had called a few minutes earlier and wanted Andre to warn me that something crazy was going on that I needed to know about. Isaac didn’t tell Andre what it was about, but he said I definitely needed to know. I couldn’t think of anything that Isaac and I would possibly have to talk about and definitely not anything that he’d have to warn me about. I told Andre that I’d stop by to visit Isaac once I got back to Hampton.

  Before we got off the phone, Andre congratulated me on the twin pregnancy, asked how I was doing after falling out, and told me to be careful. Too many things were starting to happen at the wrong time in my life, so I decided to take the money to my parent’s house instead of keeping it at Derby Run. Andre was the only one home when I arrived, so I took the suitcase with the money in it and stashed it in my old closet.

  We kicked it for a few minutes and talked about the things that had been going on in the Manor over the past couple of months. Andre had decided to enroll at Christopher Newport College for the fall semester. He was interested in hotel management and Christopher Newport offered a good program. Before I left my parent’s house, Andre reminded me to go see Isaac. I wanted to tell Andre about all the shit that was going on with my life, but I didn’t want him to worry. I went to Derby Run so I could switch cars before visiting Isaac, but the BMW wasn’t home when I got there. I went inside to see if Tammy had left a note or anything, but there wasn’t one. Since she didn’t have a cell, I couldn’t reach her at all. I left a note telling her to call me once she got home. Four Seasons was only about a mile or two up the road, so I decided to use the Sonata and headed to Isaac’s place.

  I didn’t see Isaac’s Acura parked out front when I arrived, but I did see the black 740 BMW that I now knew was Frank and Terry’s. I still had the Desert Eagle in the car, so I loaded it back up and tucked it by my waist. Isaac opened the door before I got to it. His expression was very serious, so before I entered the apartment, I asked him were we alone. He assured me that we were, so I went in and stood against the wall by the kitchen.

  I was starting to become a very paranoid person. I could tell that Isaac was trying to get his thoughts together, so I broke the silence. I asked him why the BMW was out front, and he told me that Frank and Terry had just bought new matching black Mercedes; so they’d given him the 740 BMW, and he’d parked the Acura at his parent’s house. He asked me to have a seat, but I chose to remain standing because I really didn’t plan to be there long.

  I noticed the nice new Rolex that Isaac had on his left wrist, but I didn’t mention anything about it. He started off by asking me how much I knew about Tammy. That caught me off guard, but I let him know that I knew quite a bit about her. He started talking about how long he and I had known one another and how different things had become since high school. Finally, he told me that he’d not only overheard Frank and Terry talking about Tammy, but he’d seen Terry with Tammy in my BMW today.

  When he said that, I had to catch myself from falling down, because my knees got weak. I told him to continue. He said he was coming out of Hampton Club from visiting a friend when he noticed my car idling outside of one of the town houses. Terry got out of the car and Tammy pulled off. Isaac was in the Acura at the time and Tammy passed him coming down Magruder towards Derby Run. Now I was so angry, I thought I was starting to lose my mind. All this time I’d spent with this bitch, and I didn’t know a thing about her. Suddenly I felt sick to my stomach, because I realized for the first time that I didn’t even know if I was the only one fucking Tammy. The twins growing in her stomach may be someone else’s babies.

  Isaac went on to tell me that Frank and Terry hadn’t involved him in who they got heroin from or anything like that, but he knew they had recently gotten new product because they had more consumers. Everyone’s customer base grew after they started dealing with a new supplier. I asked him what he had overheard Frank and Terry saying about Tammy. He sai
d that they had mentioned something a few days back about some twins coming. I couldn’t believe what I had just heard, so I asked again to make sure. He said he couldn’t remember the exact day but he knew that they mentioned Tammy’s name and something about some twins. They couldn’t have known about the babies, because we’d just found out yesterday; so they had to be talking about her brother’s Maurice and Tony. I didn’t need to hear anymore, because I now knew that the situation was way worse than I could have possibly imagined.

  I told Isaac to continue to do what he does, but to keep his ears open for any new info. Before I left his apartment, I told Isaac to start stacking his money because shit was about to hit the fan. I got in the Sonata and a few tears started to roll down my cheeks. I wasn’t even 20 years old yet and it felt like a part of me had been taken away already. Everything that I’d lived, over the past two years, had been fake. Now my heart was turning so cold that I wondered would I ever feel anything for anyone again.

  I snapped out of my trance and dialed Rodney’s number on my cell. He had just gotten back from meeting Black Jay to pick up the fifty grand that we’d left after the shooting. I told him that things had just gone from bad to worse. I could feel the hatred in Rodney’s voice when he spoke about getting at Frank and Terry, and if my instincts were right, then Tammy’s brother’s were dealing with Frank and Terry; so every one of them, including Tammy, would pay. I told Rodney to call me when the last kilo was sold, and then we would plan our strategy after that. I had to find out a little more info before I started to put my plan together.

  After that call, I left Isaac’s place and went back to Derby Run; Tammy was still not home. I pulled out the slip of paper that I’d written the credit card number on, and I called the credit card company; it was an automated system, so I punched in the card numbers that I’d written on the paper. It told me the credit limit on the card and then thanked me for using the automated system. The last words after the thank you were Mr. Trey Armstrong.