by Carl Weber
Now it all made sense to me, the way he had been acting while he waited for the part to be delivered. Now I understood why he had been so inordinately angry every time there was another delay in getting the part. Every day of delay meant another day of captivity for his family members. I also understood why he didn’t want that car out of his sight. Shit, if I was carrying a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of weed, I’d want to keep an eye on it at all times too. Of course, that left me with the question of how he had gotten wrapped up in that business in the first place. John had not struck me as that type of guy, but now was not the time to be asking him about the how and why of his choice of work, because he was still holding a gun, and he still looked determined to follow through on the same path he’d started down.
“Look, don’t do this. We can help you,” I said, growing insistent, but he ignored me.
“Is the car ready?”
“Yes, but you don’t have to leave. Let us help you. Lou has contacts. He knows a whole bunch of people up in New York, the kind of people who would be interested in what’s in that car.” I was pleading with him. John had become a friend, and despite this moment, I didn’t want anything to happen to him or his family.
“LC, you don’t want this kind of trouble. You can barely handle Big Sam. Now, how do I lower my car so I can get out of here?” he asked. As much as I wanted to change his mind, I knew that I couldn’t.
Once I told him how, John picked up the rest of his bricks and placed them back in the compartment under the car before lowering it.
“You sure they’re not going to fall out onto the highway?” I was still trying in my own subtle way to change his mind. “You need to think this through.”
“I no longer have time to think, LC.” He opened the garage door then slipped into the car, pulling it out into the parking lot. He got out of the car and then walked back in to the garage. He placed a piece of duct tape over my mouth.
“You’re a good man, LC Duncan. It saddens me that we will not be seeing each other again. You have proven to be a good friend. I wish you luck, and I hope you make the right choice and go after that woman Chippy.”
Juan
49
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” I screamed repeatedly, banging my fist against the steering wheel of the car in frustration as I headed east toward Brunswick and I-95. If I was lucky I’d be in South Carolina before Lou and Larry opened the shop and found LC. There weren’t many men who put fear in my heart, but Larry was one of them, and I wanted to be as far away from him as possible when he found out about my betrayal. To make matters worse, I was sorry I had to leave in the manner I had, because I’d actually begun to like Waycross, Georgia, and honestly considered LC a friend.
Speaking of friends, there was one person I had to see before I left town, so I pulled into the Waycross Diner and parked. I’d been going there at least once a day, not for their food or their stale coffee, but because of the beautiful waitress, Lola, who worked in the morning. Like LC, she had made quite an impression on me. Seeing her would be my final memento and memory of this little place, so it might as well be a good one.
“Hey! I see you’re finally mobile.” Lola smiled as I walked in the door.
“Yeah, it’s time to go,” I said, trying to appear normal and not to think about my friend tied up back at the garage.
“So what are you having for your last meal?” Then she stopped and gave me a playful warning. “Don’t say sweet tea.” She couldn’t help but laugh, because I’d had it every day, even for breakfast.
“Yes, but I’ll also have fried eggs, home fries, and bacon. To go,” I told her as I took a seat at the counter to wait. Lola brought me an iced tea and shoved a slice of pecan pie toward me. “I say you only live once, so try something new before you leave. It’s on me, as a going away present.”
When she walked away, I heard something that sounded so familiar yet completely out of place. It had been almost three weeks since I’d heard anybody speaking in my native tongue, and even though the inflection was different, not as regional as the Spanish we spoke in Texas, it was still Spanish.
“Sí.” I heard a voice behind me clear as day.
“I want all four of them dead. Do you understand me? Dead.” Another one of the men sitting in the booth behind me also spoke in Spanish. That’s when I stole a quick glance in their direction. The “all four of them dead” comment had my attention. The one talking was a well-dressed man about thirty, seated against the window. With him were four younger men, who all appeared to be armed, waiting for him to continue. Everything about his manner made it clear that he was the one in charge—and probably the most dangerous.
“Don’t worry. These niggers will all be dead within twenty-four hours,” I heard another one of the younger men say definitively in Spanish. The fact that they assumed no one in the diner spoke Spanish had made them careless enough to be discussing murder publicly.
“Just because they are black, do not think this will be easy. These men took out Santos and José, two very capable men,” the boss warned them, getting up from his seat. “The one they call Larry is a trained military man. He has knowledge the others do not have and will not be so easy to kill.”
Shit! I thought with alarm. This was definitely about the Duncans. These dudes were sitting in the diner calmly discussing the murder of all four Duncan brothers. My first instinct was to jump up and do something to prevent it, but then I remembered I had my own problems to worry about. My family needed me.
Not my business, not my business, I kept telling myself.
“Here you go.” Lola smiled down at me as she placed my food in a paper bag in front of me. “I put my number on the receipt just in case you wanted to call me.”
“I will definitely call you,” I said distractedly. My attention was focused on the five Spanish-speaking men who were now exiting the restaurant.
“You do that,” she said to my back as I picked up my food and hurried to the door.
Outside, I could see the boss getting into the back of a limousine with two of the four men. The other two got into a Ford that looked like it could pass for an unmarked police car.
My mind was racing. I realized there was a ticking clock and they were about to go after my friends. Worst of all, thanks to me, LC was a sitting duck.
I got into my car and slammed my hand against the steering wheel. “Dammit, Juan, this is not your problem,” I told myself as I started the car. “Your problem is in Texas and figuring out how to get rid of this marijuana.” I pulled the car out onto the road, thinking about LC lying in the garage, all tied up, and what he was about to be up against. “Sorry, my friend, but this is not my problem.” I put my foot on the accelerator and sped off into the night.
Larry
50
It had taken everything I had not to go over to the whorehouse and blow Sam’s pretty little head right off. Believe me when I said I hated that he was still breathing. It wasn’t really a secret that I didn’t trust him no way, but LC had said to be patient, and I swear to God I was trying, though it certainly went against my nature.
When I woke up early and LC still hadn’t shown up, NeeNee prodded me to go down to the gas station and check up on him. I swear she treated him like he was her child, even if she wasn’t old enough to be his mother. NeeNee, Lou, Shirley, and I had taken turns sitting vigil with Levi, who wasn’t entirely out of the woods yet, but had woken up. LC, however, had been a no-show at Ms. Emma’s yesterday, which seemed strange considering I’d personally told him Levi had woken up, and was asking for him.
“You know we wouldn’t have to do this shit if Ms. Emma’s ass wasn’t too cheap to get a phone,” I complained to NeeNee.
“Larry, stop. That woman can barely afford groceries.” NeeNee pointed to LC’s new ride as we pulled into the station. “I told you he was probably working and fell asleep on the sofa or something. That boy might as well live here.”
I reached for my car door handle and she
took hold of my hand. “Hey, before we go in, I have something I need to tell you.”
I’d figured something was wrong, because she’d been acting kind of funny the past few days. Sure, she was upset over Levi, but she also seemed preoccupied with something else. “What’s up?” I asked.
She opened her mouth to speak, then hesitated, frowning uncertainly.
“Just spit it out already,” I said.
“I’m pregnant.”
It took a moment to register, but when it did, I couldn’t hide my shock. “Shit, I thought you were on the pill.”
“I am,” she said, offering no further explanation.
There were a million thoughts running through my head, but I didn’t say anything because her ass was damn near in tears and I didn’t want to make it worse. Talk about being blindsided.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you didn’t want any kids.”
“How far along are you?” I finally asked.
“Ms. Emma told me three months.” NeeNee’s bottom lip was trembling.
“We’ll talk about this when we get inside,” I said as I got out of the car, confused and in need of a few minutes to myself.
The front door was locked, so I motioned to NeeNee to stay put and went around to the side entrance to open up for her.
As soon as I entered, something didn’t feel right, and it wasn’t the fact that my girlfriend had just told me she was pregnant. The lights in the back were on, but there was no sign of my brother—or John, for that matter.
“LC! John!” I shouted out. I walked through the store and into the garage, and that’s when I heard a dragging noise coming from the corner. Whipping out my gun, I cocked it, about to shoot. That’s when I saw my brother tied to a chair, trying to scream through the tape that covered his mouth.
“What the fuck?” I made a quick check of the room then ran to my brother’s side, removing the tape from his mouth and untying the rope that held him down to the chair. “Who did this, LC?”
He answered in one single word: “John.”
“John? Why the fuck would John—?” At first LC’s answer confused me, and then it hit me. “Did he rob us?”
NeeNee rushed into the garage, and when she saw me untying LC, she flipped out. “What the hell happened?” She started fawning all over him.
“I think that motherfucker John robbed us,” I spit out irately.
“No, he didn’t.” LC stood up, attempting to explain. “I found this stuff in the wheel bed under John’s car.” Because of his excitement, the words came out in a blur. “Hell, I’m not even sure his real name is John.”
“Slow the fuck down,” I told him. “You’re starting to sound like Levi. I can barely understand anything that you’re saying.” I needed to hear exactly what had happened so I could decide just how badly I was going to punish that motherfucker John once I found him.
LC took a deep breath to calm himself down before continuing. “John had something in his car that he didn’t want us to know about. It looked like some kind of drugs.”
“He could have us all locked up with that shit! I’ma kill him!” I bellowed, ready to jump in my car and go after this motherfucker.
LC put out a hand to stop me. “No, Larry,” he said. “He’s caught up in something that he can’t get out of.”
I didn’t see how my brother could be defending the guy who just tied him up and duct taped his mouth, but it seemed like NeeNee felt the same way. She chimed in with, “He just seemed like such a nice guy. I really wouldn’t think John would do anything like this.”
“He is a good guy,” LC insisted, but I wasn’t trying to hear that. You hurt my family then you deserved to be dead, and I was the one who would do it. Just because I couldn’t take Sam out yet was no reason I couldn’t destroy John.
“He’s just caught in a bad situation,” LC continued.
“I don’t give a shit what y’all say. If I ever see him again, he’s a dead man. I’m sick of motherfuckers like Sam and John thinking we’re soft. Time to make a few motherfuckers pay.”
NeeNee gave me a look meant to calm me down, but it was too late for that. With Levi laid up at Ms. Emma’s at the hands of Sam and now this happening to LC, I was ready to hurt somebody.
“Someone’s pulling up,” NeeNee said as we heard a car outside. It was too damn early for us to be open.
“Probably Lou,” I said because I couldn’t imagine who else it would be.
“Nah, that don’t make sense, ’cause he’s got those two hoes with him. I can’t imagine he got out of bed willingly,” NeeNee commented, making the most sense. I clutched my gun to my side as we walked into the store area and peered outside.
“That’s John!” LC looked mystified.
“Son of a bitch.” I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
We all took off outside, both LC and I with guns drawn, ready for him as soon as he stepped out of the car—which he did, with his hands raised high in the air.
“Don’t you fucking move,” I said, handing my gun to NeeNee and instructing her, “Blow his fucking head off if he as much as flinches.” I approached him quickly, frisking him before retrieving my weapon from my girl. To my surprise and confusion, he didn’t have a weapon on him.
“Why the fuck did you even come back?” LC grilled him. “I thought after what happened you’d be miles from here.”
John stared at LC with an expression that had me even more confused. He didn’t look angry or hateful or anything else you’d expect from a man who’d pointed a gun at you and tied you up not too long ago. In fact, he was looking at LC with what appeared to be concern.
“That was the plan,” he answered simply, “but you’re my friend, and I could not stand by and let you be killed.”
I didn’t know what this motherfucker was up to, but I, for one, was not about to fall for his scheme. “Let’s not talk about killing,” I growled, “because I’m about two seconds from putting a bullet in your ass!” I pulled back the trigger on my gun, but he didn’t seem remotely concerned about it.
“Look, you may not believe me, but I didn’t want to see y’all dead.”
LC looked as confused as I felt. None of us knew what the hell he was talking about. Maybe this was his way of trying to buy time and save his own ass. In truth, none of it made sense.
“What the fuck are you talking about? You better stop talking nonsense before I put an end to you real quick.” I raised my gun to his temple.
“Larry, let’s hear him out,” LC pleaded calmly. “But John—or Juan, or whatever the fuck your name is—I’d start making sense of this real quick.”
“They were coming to kill you,” John said.
“Who?” I challenged, expecting—almost hoping—to catch him in a lie so I could blow his head off.
“They’re back there,” he said, jerking his head slightly in the direction of the back door of the station wagon.
“Show me,” I told him, pressing the gun against his temple to push him in that direction.
Through the glass in the back door, I saw two burly, olive-skinned guys on the floor, tied up with the electrical cord from a lamp.
“What the fuck is this?” I yelled, taking the pressure off my trigger finger ever so slightly.
“These men are professional killers sent to hunt you down. But today the hunters became the hunted.” He had a proud smirk on his face.
“How did you know they were coming after us?” LC asked, walking over to the car.
John explained how he had overheard them talking in the diner. The more I heard, the more I started to believe this guy’s story. I lowered the gun and turned to look at my brother.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “These aren’t Big Sam’s men.”
“These men are professionals,” John suggested. “Cuban, possibly Mexican. Look at their tattoos.”
“How the fuck did they get in the mix?” LC looked over at me for answers, but I didn’t have any.
“I don�
�t know, but we better find out fast. There’s no telling who they’ll send next and when,” I said with finality.
Lou
51
I raced into the kitchen to answer the ringing telephone, naked as the day I was born and pissed that I had to leave the girls alone in bed. Normally I would have just let the damn thing ring, but these motherfuckers kept ringing my phone. I finally got up after the fifth call because Levi was still not out of the woods over at Ms. Emma’s and I couldn’t take any chances. Not to mention the fact that Sam was still a serious threat to my family.
“What?” I shouted into the receiver, ready to take somebody’s head off for their bad timing. Couldn’t they get the fucking hint?
“Lou, Jesus! Thank God. Brother, we thought you were dead.” It was LC, and he sounded totally relieved.
“Man, ain’t no one getting past these dogs without me knowing it. I’ll talk to you later. I got company.”
“Get rid of them. We got a problem.” LC’s tone let me know that my little party had come to an end. When he explained what John had just done for us and that he had two guys still being held hostage in the station wagon, I went ballistic.
“Bring those motherfuckers over here right now.” I slammed down the phone and went back into the bedroom, where double the pussy was waiting for double the pleasure.
“Finally!” one of the girls complained as her greedy little hands reached out for my package.
“Sorry, ladies, but I just got a very important call and we have to bring this little social visit to an end.” I motioned for them to get to stepping as I slipped into my drawers.
They pouted, still not moving, as if their need to be fucked was the biggest problem in my life right now. “Hey, I’m not fucking playing. Get dressed and get gone, I got a fucking emergency!” I shouted at them, picking up their dresses and tossing them onto the bed.
“You said you was going to take us out for breakfast,” one of them whined.
I reached in my pocket and peeled off a couple of bills, tossing them on the bed. “You got money to buy breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Now get the fuck out. I’ll call you when I’m done.”