Grand Opening

by Carl Weber

  I moved my chair closer so that I could look him straight in the eye when I spoke. “That’s why I’m here. We did not kill those men.”

  “I don’t believe you,” he said simply. “And you need to know that your life is now worthless. I will make sure that there is nowhere you can go and nowhere you can hide from the retribution for what you have done to men I promised to protect. All of you are as good as dead.”

  Alejandro was calm as he delivered those words, which concerned me. In our line of work, it wasn’t the loud ones you worried about; it was the ones who acted like threatening a man’s life was a normal, everyday occurrence. LC, who had been busily focused on Chippy, also did a double take when he heard the threat.

  I couldn’t show any fear, so I replied with a threat of my own. “You do understand that you’re sitting here in your boxers, there’s a gun to your head, and I could shoot you at any moment, don’t you? You’re our prisoner. We’re the ones in charge.”

  Alejandro sat back in his chair and laughed heartily. “What you don’t realize is that my men are armed and trained. The minute you stepped foot on the grounds, you were being watched and followed.” He pointed at my chest. “You see that red dot?”

  I looked down and saw a red dot moving around my chest.

  “That is a sight combining a reflecting curved mirror and a light-emitting diode, designed by Swedish optics company Aimpoint AB. It is attached to a high-powered rifle. The man holding it is very skilled. You could have been dead five minutes ago if I had wanted you to be.” He smiled wide. “If you look at your brothers, you’ll see similar red dots. So yes, I’m in my boxers and I have a gun to my head, but I’m the one in charge.”

  “Oh, shit. He ain’t lying, Lou. I heard about sights like this in ’Nam,” Larry exclaimed. He tried to move, and the red dot followed him.

  I took a long, hard breath to regain my composure. “Well played, but you do understand that if we die, we’re going to take you with us?”

  “That is quite possible,” he answered, “but where I come from, you kill a man and there are two ready to take his place. My satisfaction will be that all four of you are dead, and the deaths of my men will be avenged.”

  I realized that Alejandro and I could go back and forth all day, debating which one of us was in charge, but it would go nowhere until somebody felt the need to pull a trigger. It was time to take this conversation in another direction. “Look. I have heard that you are a reasonable man,” I said, making sure that my voice held steady and even.

  “I am reasonable in reasonable circumstances!” he roared, ready to bite my head off. This was the first time he allowed me to see him lose his cool. He was clearly someone used to having all the power.

  “We were only doing our job,” I said. “And as I said before, we didn’t kill those men. They were alive when we delivered them to the man who hired us.”

  He tilted his head to the side, and although he didn’t respond, I knew he was at least considering the possibility that there was someone else involved. I kept pushing forward to strengthen my argument.

  “Look, man, think about it. We ain’t never crossed paths with you before today. We’re small-time money lenders who run a gas station,” I said, purposely downplaying our rising status in the criminal circuit. “What reason would we have to go after your men and risk pissing off someone as powerful as you?”

  Again, he stayed quiet for a while, apparently considering what I’d said. Then he asked, “And who is this person that you say hired you to kill my men?”

  “Someone I know very well, and so do you, considering the company you keep.” I glanced at Chippy. “Sam Bradford.” His name dropped out of my mouth like a heavy weight crashing into the middle of the room.

  Alejandro glared angrily at me. “That doesn’t make sense. Sam was prepared to give those men thirty-five th—” He stopped himself, as if coming to the realization that it was indeed possible for someone to want to get rid of two men coming to take a shitload of money from him.

  Alejandro turned to Chippy. “And what do you think of these men and what they have to say about your employer?” I was amazed that he was turning to a whore for advice of any kind, but in this case, I was relieved to know that she was on our side.

  “I know these men, and I believe them,” she said. “That Sam’s a snake that would cross his own fucking mother if the price was right.”

  Alejandro must have put a lot of stock in her opinion, because he seemed to be accepting the fact that it was true, and he looked disappointed. “I see.” He stared off into the corner, asking his next question to no one in particular. “Why would Sam do this?” He obviously didn’t understand the person he’d gotten into business with.

  I wanted to help him understand. It might be the only way for us to get out of this situation alive. “The way I see it, the whole reason he set this up was ’cause he wanted you to do his dirty work. He wants us dead so that he can control everything in Waycross. See, we have the numbers operation that he thinks should be his. We’ve gotten a little too big for our britches, and he’s a man with a vendetta. Unfortunately, your men became pawns in his scheme.”

  “I see. You are starting to make some sense.” Alejandro rubbed his face as he considered what he’d just been told. “Sam Bradford.”

  LC spoke to Alejandro, further detailing the scenario. “It would explain why Sam was able to lead you to the exact location of the bodies. That’s a whole lot of luck for someone who didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  Alejandro and LC locked eyes, and I could see Chippy’s body tighten up. The tension in the room was sky high. None of us knew what would happen next. Did Alejandro finally believe that we hadn’t killed his men?

  I breathed a sigh of relief when he announced, “You men still owe me a debt for delivering my men to Sam. The families—I will have to comfort them and compensate them.”

  “I understand,” I agreed, knowing that this job came with its own unique code of ethics that we had to abide by.

  “But . . . I will wipe that debt away as long as you bring me the head of Sam Bradford. He will not get away with killing my men—or with treating me like a fool.”

  My face lit into a smile. “That will be a pleasure. Hell, we were going to kill him anyway.”

  “In addition, you will also be responsible for his end of my drug business. Two kilos a month.”

  “But we’re not drug dealers,” LC chimed in. I glanced at him and shook my head, ordering him to remain quiet. We were so close to walking out of there with no bloodshed, and I couldn’t let my brother’s mouth derail the progress we’d made.

  “You are now, and that is nonnegotiable,” Alejandro said.

  “Fine by me,” I said, reaching out to shake his hand.

  We were two powerful men, suddenly aligned with a common enemy and a new business alliance.

  Big Shirley

  54

  “You gotta be shitting me!” I complained when Ms. Emma threw down her cards, displaying sixteen. She’d won the last seven games of tonk and taken about fifteen dollars from me. I tossed my cards down on the table, mad as hell because I had seventeen. How the hell was this country bumpkin beating me at my own damn game? Where I came from, nobody ever won at cards so long as they were playing against me. Hell, I was half the reason Sam banned the girls from playing in his private game. He couldn’t stand losing to one of his whores.

  Emma reached out and palmed the three dollars in the pot at the center of the table with a big-ass grin on her face. For a second I was almost happy for her, knowing she had a gang of mouths to feed, but that didn’t last long.

  “Where you going? I know you ain’t quitting with all the money you lost.” NeeNee needled me. She knew I hated losing.

  “Hell no! I’m going to get another deck of cards, ’cause this shit is incredible. Something’s gotta be wrong with these cards. That’s the only way Emma been winning all night.”

  “Nah, she just tha
t good. Matter of fact, I think I’ll get out while the getting’s good,” NeeNee announced, picking up the few dollars she had left.

  “Shit, I’ll just have to win back all of my money and yours then, Nee,” I proclaimed, walking into the back bedroom. I shut the door behind me when I saw Levi lying on the bed, smiling. I walked over and gave him a kiss. He was alive; I was thankful for that, but Sam and his goons had broken all his ribs on the right side and fractured his arm in two places, along with his jaw. He was having a real hard time breathing.

  “Hey, baby. You okay? You want something to eat?”

  He shook his head then looked down at his private parts.

  “Boy, you are one horny-ass man. I’m starting to wish I never gave you your first blow job.” I laughed, sliding my hands under the covers. Of course I was joking. I’d do anything for that man-mountain of mine. I had started to slide my way down to his privates when I heard a loud crash in the other room.

  “What the fuck?” I was about to run out front when I heard a very familiar voice that made me freeze right where I stood. “Well, well, well, what do we have here?” I swear hearing Sam through that door almost made me pee myself.

  “Levi, hide. It’s Sam,” I whispered, pointing to the closet. He shook his head. “Please, baby,” I whispered, about two seconds from tears. “Please, if he finds you, he’ll kill you; and I can’t live without you, so please just go in the closet.”

  Levi reluctantly did what I asked, moving slowly and wincing with each painful step as I listened and prayed that I’d get him in that closet before they decided to search the room. I’d just gotten him in the closet and jumped on the bed when the door burst open and one of the twins came in, gun first. He looked around quickly but, to my relief, didn’t go searching in the closet or under the bed. He pulled me off the bed and jerked me out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

  “Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Sam said with a sinister grin when he saw me.

  “What do you want, Sam?”

  He ignored my question. “You know, Shirley, it took a lot of my resources to find you. Anybody that knows me knows how much I hate using my money for bullshit. Course, I fully expect to be compensated in one way or another for my troubles.”

  “Don’t you touch my kids,” Ms. Emma shouted, not giving a damn about Big Sam or his vendetta against the Duncans. He shot her an annoyed look like he’d just become aware of her presence and didn’t like it one bit.

  “I don’t care about you or your snot-nosed kids,” he assured her then motioned to the twin standing closest to him. “Take her in the back room and shut her up.” No sooner had he spoken than the twin hustled her out of the room to where her kids were still sleeping soundly, strangely unaffected by the drama unfolding only feet away from them.

  “Don’t you hurt her,” I said, motioning to NeeNee, who was sitting on the couch with a hand over her stomach.

  He ignored me. Clearly he had other things on his mind. “Where are they?” he said.

  “Where are who?”

  “You know what the fuck I’m talking about! Where are the Duncans?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, scowling at him. Even if I did know, there was no way I would tell Sam and give him the chance to perform a sneak attack on them like the coward he was.

  Whack! Sam slapped me across the face, sending me shrinking away, because I suddenly felt overwhelmed by the memory of years of being punished by Sam. NeeNee roared to my defense, pounding on Sam’s chest.

  “Don’t you hit her again!” she screeched. The other twin cocked his gun and aimed it at her, ready to shoot. I grabbed NeeNee away, because I knew firsthand the kind of masochist Sam could be. The other twin, hearing NeeNee, flew into the room, his gun already raised to protect his boss.

  Big Sam’s eyes narrowed as he barked his orders at them. “Put them in the car.”

  “Nooo!” I screamed as one of the twins picked me up and carried me out like a five-pound sack of potatoes. The other did the same to NeeNee, who was not going easily.

  “Put me down! Put me the fuck down!” she hollered, kicking and clawing at him to no avail.

  When they got us outside, they put us down and tied our hands together before shoving us both into the trunk. My heart thumped against my chest, as everything in me figured this was the end of the road for us. My only regret was that I hadn’t been able to spend the rest of my life loving Levi the way that he deserved. I’d spent so much of my life focused on the wrong kind of man, only recently understanding the kind of love Levi had in him.

  The car started moving, and we rode for a while before it stopped. When the trunk opened, there was Big Sam, smiling down at us. They hauled us out of the trunk, and when I looked up, I saw that we were in the back of Big Sam’s.

  “Say one word and I will shoot you both myself,” Sam promised, and I had no doubt that he meant it. NeeNee and I shared a look and silently decided we had to ride this out and not test him. Maybe there would still be some way for us to escape.

  NeeNee glowered at Sam as she spat out her words. “You do understand that Larry’s gonna kill you, and if he doesn’t, Lou and LC will.”

  He laughed as if she had just told him a good joke. “Larry ain’t gonna do shit. He’s gonna drop to his knees and cry like a little baby when he finds out that I have you. And frankly, I’m not that worried about Lou, ’cause he’s always been my bitch. All I have to do is throw a few of those whores up there at him, and he’ll be easy to lure into my trap.”

  “Oh, you think that’s it?” Obviously he didn’t know that to underestimate LC was a problem.

  “I wouldn’t even worry about that young buck LC,” he said as if he were reading my mind—although he clearly didn’t believe in LC’s strength like I did. “The college boy ain’t got the balls to go up against Sam Bradford.”

  He barked orders at the twins. “Do it!” One of them opened the cellar door, and they led us down the stairs as his voice boomed with confidence. “Besides, I got something that will bring that little punk to his knees.”

  All my years living in this place, I’d never once been in the basement, where the biggest surprise since we’d entered the house awaited us. Standing there alone, looking scared to death, was Donna.

  Lou

  55

  Even though it was just after noon, I was mentally and physically exhausted from being up all night as we approached Ms. Emma’s house. Thanks to Larry, we’d broken all kinds of speed laws, but luckily we weren’t pulled over once. As much as I wanted to stop and get breakfast, Larry kept complaining that he didn’t like to be away from Levi this long, especially since Ms. Emma had refused to get a phone installed, even after I offered to pay for it.

  My personal opinion was that Larry’s impatience had something to do with NeeNee. The two of them had been acting mighty strange the last day or two. NeeNee had been moody as hell, and Larry had been short-tempered with everyone.

  “Looks awfully quiet,” Larry commented as we pulled up in the yard. There wasn’t one of Ms. Emma’s wild children in sight, which did seem strange to me.

  “Yeah, those kids are always around.” LC, who sat next to me in the passenger seat, chimed in. He and Chippy had been avoiding each other during the entire trip, probably because of the fact that he’d found her half-naked in the room with a man who put a hit out on us, so LC rode up front, and she sat in back with Larry and Juan. I really didn’t want to take her, but Alejandro insisted that she be the one to call him when either Sam was dead or we were.

  Just as we started to get out of the car, the front door flew open and Ms. Emma came running toward us like a bat out of hell.

  “They done got ’em!” she hollered, breathing heavy and darting around like a chicken with its head cut off.

  “Slow down. What are you talking about?” I asked her, trying to get clarity. The more emotional people got, the calmer I became.

  “They took ’em! They took ’em both! They took Nee
Nee and Shirley.”

  The color drained out of Larry’s face as he grabbed her by the shoulders. “Who took them?”

  “Big Sam. He and his men came and took ’em. I couldn’t do nothing to stop ’em,” she said as tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “Damn it!” Chippy cried out, a look of horror covering her face, probably because she knew Sam better than any of us. “This is not good.”

  “We gotta go get them. If he laid one hand on NeeNee, I will kill him.” Larry’s voice was shaking with rage as he started to climb back in the car.

  “Wait.” I stopped him. “What about Levi?” I asked Ms. Emma right before he shuffled out the door, still not one hundred percent yet, and took a seat on the porch. I felt grateful that at least he was still there.

  Ms. Emma pointed to him. “Shirley hid him in the back room closet. She knew Sam might have finished the job just to prove his point. If it wasn’t for her, they would have killed Levi.”

  “That was good thinking on her part. So just everybody, let’s figure this out. We’re not going to go off half-cocked and get ourselves and the women killed. Emma, tell me from the beginning everything that happened.”

  Ms. Emma took a deep breath then started to explain. “Last night, Sam and his men, those twins who work for him, busted in here and took NeeNee and Shirley. They said you would come looking for them.”

  “And they just left you here?” Larry questioned, looking at her with suspicion.

  She shook her head. “They didn’t have no use for me. They told me to go in the other room with my kids, and when I heard the door slam shut, I came out and they were gone. I didn’t know how to get in touch with you,” she admitted. “Lou, y’all got to get those girls back. That Sam is a motherfucker, and I don’t trust that they’re safe.”

  I saw how hard her words hit Larry, who usually only showed one emotion—anger—but right now all I saw was the fear of a broken man.

  “I know, Ms. Emma, but that’s how he’s planning on trapping us,” I said.

  “Get in the car!” Larry shouted. His eyes were filled up with tears, and I could tell from his expression he was close to losing it. “Everyone get in the fucking car!”