Blood of a Boss II: The Streets Is Watching

by Askari

  Boom!

  “Oh shit goddamn!” Beaver Bushnut shouted as he turned to run. “This mutha’fucka’s shootin’!”

  “Nigga, you take another step, and I’ma air you the fuck out!” Sonny shouted.

  Beaver Bushnut stopped running and dropped his switchblade in the middle of the street. “You and me is better than this, Sonny Money! It’s only pimpin’! If the bitch chose, then she chose! I ain’t gon’ knock yo’ game, playa!”

  “Pussy, shut the fuck up!” Sonny continued shouting. “Matter of fact, bring ya dirty ass over here!”

  Beaver Bushnut dropped his head and nervously walked toward him. When he came within arms distance, Sonny smacked him on the side of his head with the FNH.

  Whop!

  The blow caught him by surprise and he crumbled to the ground. Warm blood trickled down the side of his face and before he could wipe it away, Sonny grabbed him by the back of his collar. He dragged his body to the edge of the cracked sidewalk, and placed the barrel of the gun to the back of his head.

  “Pussy, put ya mouth on the curb!”

  Beaver Bushnut looked at him like he was crazy. “Put my mouth on the curb?” he questioned. “What type of barbaric, prehistoric, caveman shit is you on?”

  Sonny fired another shot just centimeters away from his head.

  Boom!

  The bullet ricocheted off the curb, and then burned a hole into the fender of an abandoned station wagon. Obviously, that was enough to persuade Beaver Bushnut. Begrudgingly, he bit down on the cool concrete.

  “Nahfisah!” Sonny shouted at the visibly shaken woman. “Come over here and stomp this nigga in the back of his fuckin’ head!”

  “I—I—I can’t!” she cried while backpedalling toward his SUV. “I can’t do that to him! I just can’t!”

  He scowled at her. The rage inside of him was so intense that his nostrils began to flare. He raised his Timberland boot and with all of his might, he stomped the washed up pimp in the back of his head.

  Crunch!

  A puddle of blood formed beneath his head, and his broken teeth littered the sidewalk.

  Sonny turned his attention to Mar-Mar, and aimed the FNH at his face. “You and Pooky is cut the fuck off! Ain’t no more hustlin’! Ain’t no more nothin’!”

  He kicked Beaver Bushnut in the ass, and then walked toward his Escalade. He looked at Nahfisah through the windshield and butterflies filled his stomach. She was sitting in the passenger’s seat crying her eyes out, and he knew that he had to do something to help her.

  While climbing inside of the truck, he noticed that Heemy and Twany were standing across the street staring at him. Previously, they were chilling around the corner when they heard the thunderous sounds of the FNH. Intrigued by the sound, they ran around the block just in time to hear Sonny screaming at Mar-Mar. They heard enough to know that Sonny was kicking him and Pooky off of the block, but they didn’t understand why Beaver Bushnut was laid out with a puddle of blood around his head. Sonny looked at Heemy, and waved him over to the Escalade. “Yo, lemme holla at you.”

  Heemy looked at Twany, and then returned his gaze to Sonny. He knew who Sonny was, and he’d seen him around the neighborhood a million times. However, this was the first time that Sonny had ever acknowledged him. He took a deep breath, and slowly walked toward the truck. “What’s poppin’ Sonny?”

  Sonny didn’t respond. Instead, he reached inside of his pants pocket and pulled out a wad of money. He peeled off two thousand dollars, and showed Heemy the money. “Young bul, you ain’t no rat is you?”

  “Naw I ain’t no mutha’fuckin’ rat!” Heemy quickly confirmed.

  Sonny looked across the street at Twany. “What about ya homie over there? He a rat?”

  “Nizzaw. We don’t do no rattin’,” Heemy insisted. He lifted up the front of his hoody and showed off the .32 that was stuffed inside of his waistband. “We geed up.”

  Sonny looked at the little pistol and smirked. “Well here,” he held the money out the window. “You take half, and give ya man the other half.”

  Heemy looked at the money, and then took a step backwards. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, and said, “Naw, Sonny, we don’t want ya money.”

  “You don’t want the money?” Sonny asked in a confused voice. He sized him up from head to toe, taking notice of his scuffed up Timberlands and faded hoody.

  “Naw, we don’t want ya money,” Heemy reiterated his position. “All we want is ya respect.”

  “My respect?”

  “Yeah, you heard me,” Heemy nodded his head up and down. “Nothin’ more. Nothin’ less.”

  Sonny chuckled. “Damn, them some big ass words for such a lil’ nigga.”

  Heemy shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe I’m the biggest lil’ nigga you ever seen.”

  Sonny nodded his head. “More or less.” He reached inside of his glove compartment and pulled out a prepaid cell phone. “Here,” he handed Heemy the phone. “Take this, and wait for me to call you.”

  As Heemy stuffed the phone in his hoody pocket, Sonny rolled up his bulletproof window, and casually pulled away from the curb.

  Chapter Ten

  A Half An Hour Later...

  Sonny and Nahfisah were riding up Germantown Pike, heading for the Eaglesville Rehabilitation Center. He glanced out the corner of his right eye, and refused to see a run down crackwhore. Instead, he saw the beautiful little girl who at the age of seven became his best friend. He desperately wanted to tell her that they shared the same father, but he decided that now was not the time.

  “Yo what’s up witchu Nah? What are you out here doin’ to yourself?”

  “They took Imani from me, and I lost it,” she cried. “I couldn’t function without my baby, and I needed something to take away the pain.”

  “They took Imani from you? Who?”

  “DHS. They came and took her away from me,” she continued crying and curled up in a ball.

  He pulled over on the side of the road, and threw the transmission in park. “What the fuck they do that for?” The thought of his niece and goddaughter being stuck in the system was rubbing him the wrong way.

  “Man, I don’t even know why I’m talkin’ to you,” she sobbed. “I already know you gon’ kill me.”

  “Kill you?” Sonny said as he screwed up his face. “Why the fuck would I do somethin’ like that? I love you.”

  She coughed, and then used the back of her hand to wipe away the snot that was leaking from her nose. “No you don't. Tommy told on y’all, and y’all was try’na kill us!”

  Hearing Tommy’s name made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up straight. “Hold the fuck up. First of all, if I was gon’ kill you, I woulda did it when we was back at that dirty ass crack house. Secondly, whatchu know about Tommy tellin’ on us?”

  “I went to visit him when he got locked up, and he told me everything. I wanted to come talk to you, but Tommy told me that the cops had you on a wiretap talkin’ about killin’ me and Imani to get back at him for tellin’ on y’all. Then the next thing I knew, I got a call from his grandmom sayin’ that he was tortured and murdered in his cell.”

  He looked at her and couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. Aside from the fact that she was his sister, he’d always known her to be a stand up chick. Unfortunately, like countless other stand up chicks in the hood, her only crime was that she fell in love with a dude who turned out to be a rat. He reached over and gently massaged the back of her neck. “Look Nah, that nigga Tommy was a fuckin’ liar. I love you and Imani, and deep down you know that I would never do nothin’ to hurt y’all.” He cracked his knuckles and took a deep breath. “Listen, all I wanna know right now is how my goddaughter ended up in the system, and how you ended up on the streets.”

  Her mind traveled back to the day that she lost her daughter, and her hands began to tremble. “After Tommy was killed, me and Imani moved to Logan to live with my grandmom. One day, she asked me to pick up her medicine from the dr
ug store. When I came back from the store, Sheed popped up from outta nowhere and he—”

  “Sheed?” he cut her off mid-sentence. “What about Sheed?”

  “He crept up behind me, and put this big ass gun to the back of my head. He forced his way inside of the house, and made me give him the twenty-four keys that—”

  “Twenty-four keys?” he interrupted her once more. “Nah, what the fuck is you talking ‘bout?”

  “I’m talking ‘bout the coke that Tommy left me before he got locked up,” she quickly replied. “It was twenty-four keys. I had ‘em stashed at my grandmom’s house, and Sheed took ‘em!”

  Yo, hold the fuck up! Sonny thought to himself. This nigga ain’t never tell me about no twenty-four keys! Lemme find out this pussy been tuckin’ on me!

  After gathering his thoughts, he continued his interrogation. “I’m sayin’ though, what does any of this have to do wit’ DHS takin’ Imani?”

  “Because,” she whined. “Before he took the work he fucked up my grandmom, and tried to drown Imani in the toilet.”

  “That nigga did what?” Sonny snapped. “Yo, please tell me that you’re buggin’ right now, and that Sheed ain’t do no shit like that!”

  “He did Sontino! I swear to God! And after he left the house, my grandmom called the cops and told them everything. When they asked me who he was, I wouldn’t tell 'em his name. So to get me back for not tellin’ they called DHS, and they came and took my baby from me.”

  She leaned her head against the passenger’s side window and continued crying. Sonny was furious. How could Sheed do something like this? He knew that Nahfisah was his sister, but yet and still he chose to violate. Not just her, but her grandmother and Imani as well. To make matters worse, he never told Sonny about the 24 keys. Disloyalty was a crime that was intolerable, and if Sheed was guilty of committing such a crime this presented a major problem.

  He leaned over the center console and embraced Nahfisah with a brotherly hug. “Don’t cry Nah. Everything’s okay now. I gotchu.”

  “But how?” she sobbed. “How is everything okay when I don’t have my baby?”

  “Listen Nah, this place that I’m takin’ you to will help you wit’ your addiction. All you need to worry about is completing this program, and I’ma take care of the rest.”

  She stopped sobbing and gazed in his eyes. “You promise, Sontino?”

  He wiped away her tears, and then kissed her on the forehead. “I promise.”

  ***

  Back In North Philly

  For the last hour or so, Heemy and Twany were sitting on Heemy's stoop watching the steady flow of crackheads who came through the block looking for Pooky and Mar-Mar. When they discovered that the two hustlers were no longer welcome on the block, they turned their attention to Heemy and Twany. “Well damn nephew, is y’all doin’ something?”

  “Naw,” they replied.

  The young men were both seventeen, but appeared to be a little younger. Heemy was brown skinned with a baby face, tall and lanky. Twany on the other hand was short and chubby. He had a light complexion and a thin mustache. Both were clearly in their mid to late teens, but yet and still the crackheads assumed that they were out there slinging crack.

  Twany looked at Heemy and shook his in disbelief.

  “You should’ve took that money.”

  “Come on dawg, you gotta look at the big picture,” Heemy told him for the thousandth time. “That couple of dollars wasn’t shit. If we woulda took that money, we woulda been the furthest thing from Sonny's mind. By doin’ what I did, I made him see us in a different light.”

  “Yeah, and how you figure that?” Twany asked, holding out his arms for emphasis.

  “Because the average young buls woulda took that money, and we didn’t. That nigga know we ain’t got no mutha’fuckin money, and that’s why he was lookin’ at me like that when I turned him down,” Heemy continued, and then sparked up the Dutch Master that was clutched in his right hand. “In his world, that couple of dollars ain’t shit. Niggas like Sonny drop that type of bread on a pair of shoes. To him, that couple of dollars wasn’t nothin’ but crumbs. I don’t want us to have no mutha’fuckin’ crumbs,” Heemy declared. “I want us to have our own mutha’fuckin’ cake. Trust me Twany, a nigga like Sonny can make it happen for us. That’s why I kicked that respect shit to him. Dudes like him appreciate that kinda shit.”

  Twany looked at him skeptically. “Man, how you know?”

  Heemy thought about it for a second, but couldn’t come up with an answer. He shrugged his shoulders, and looked his best friend square in the eyes. “I just know.”

  ***

  In Germantown, on the corner of Chew and Locust, Pooky and Mar-Mar were sitting in Pooky’s Range Rover waiting for his cousin Rahman. Pooky called him after his altercation with Sonny, and just as he anticipated Rahman offered his assistance.

  As they sat in the smoke filled SUV, a black Mazda MPV pulled up behind them. Two men exited the minivan dressed in black Islamic garbs. The man who climbed out of the driver’s side was Rahman, and the man who climbed out of the passenger’s side was his Muslim brother Jihad.

  Rahman was 6’2” and 240 pounds. Aside from his dark complexion, he had a lazy right eye, a baldhead, and a thick bushy beard. Jihad was 6’4” and 265 pounds. He was light skinned with short wavy hair, and he also had a long curly beard. They each had a jailhouse physic with bulky tops and legs like baseball bats. They cautiously walked toward the Range Rover, and judging from the bulges under their garments, the conclusion that they were packing heavy artillery was inescapable.

  “As Salaamu Alaikum,” they greeted Pooky and Mar-Mar as they hopped in the backseat of the Range Rover.

  “Wa-Alaikum Salaam,” they replied in unison.

  “Dizzamn!” Rahman laughed. He was referring to Pooky’s two black eyes and swollen nose. “Main man caught you wit’ a good one, huh?”

  Pooky was livid. “Man, that bitch ass nigga snuffed me. It ain’t like we was rippin’. We had some words, and the next thing I know this bitch ass nigga socked the shit out me.”

  Rahman settled into the leather seat and ran his fingers through his large beard. “A’ight lil’ cuz, gimmie some info on this dude.”

  “You ever heard of the bul Sonny from the Bad Landz?” Pooky asked him.

  “I don’t know,” Rahman shrugged his shoulders. “If he wasn’t upstate wit’ us, then I probably wouldn’t know him. Especially if he wasn’t makin’ noise in the eighties and nineties.” He looked at his companion. “Haddy, you been home for a few years. You ever heard of this nigga?”

  “Yeah,” Jihad answered in a deep voice that was sounded like Barry White’s. “He’s a young bul Rock. I don’t know the nigga personally, but I knew his ol’ head Mook. Matter of fact, remember that retro eighties party at Club Infamous?”

  “Yeah I remember.”

  “A’ight,” Jihad nodded his head. “Well that was the bul’s party, and word in the streets is that he owns the club. This lil’ nigga’s killin’ the city, and the last time I seen him, he was pushin’ a red Ghost. I was at the Dr. J Classic in West Philly, and this nigga pulled up in a fuckin’ Ghost. He shut down the whole shit.”

  “Fuck all dat,” Rahman hissed. “My lil’ cuz got beef wit’ this nigga so we got beef wit’ him too. Fuck his bank account. The majority of niggas who get that type of money be straight up bitches. All they do is hide behind niggas like us. The real gangstas.” He turned toward Pooky, but his lazy eye was directed at Mar-Mar. “So what’s up lil’ cuz, you ready to ride?”

  “Huh?” Mar-Mar questioned. He assumed that Rahman was talking to him because his lazy eye was fixed on him. “Rock you talkin’ to me?”

  Rahman spun in his direction and scowled at him. “No, I’m not talkin’ to you,” he snapped, and then turned his face back to Pooky. “So what it is, lil’ cuz? You down to ride on this nigga or what?” He lifted the bottom of his garb, and showed off his stockless AK-47. The massiv
e assault rifle was equipped with a 50 round magazine, a night vision scope, and a shoulder strap. He looked at Jihad, and the large light skinned man pulled out an AR-15 that was equipped with the same exact features.

  A lump formed in the back of Mar-Mar’s throat, and goose bumps covered his skin. He quickly realized that he was out of his element, and he silently prayed that Pooky would decline the offer.

  Pooky noticed the look of concern on Mar-Mar’s face, and deep down he felt the same way but how could he turn back now. Contrary to Rahman’s assumptions, he knew that Sonny and the Block Boys didn’t play any games when it came to putting in work, but at the same time he refused to look like a coward. “Yeah, we can ride on this nigga. I just don’t know where he at right now.”

  “A’ight, well tell me where this nigga be layin’ his head,” Rahman demanded.

  “I don’t know,” Pooky admitted. “All I know about is Club Infamous and Donkees. I ain’t never been to his crib.”

  “Well goddamn, lil’ cuzzo. We gon’ need a lil’ more information than that.”

  Pooky shrugged his shoulders. “That’s all I know.”

  Rahman shook his head in disbelief. “You been gettin’ money wit’ this dude for a few months now, and you don’t know nothin’? At the very least, you should be able to tell us where the nigga be movin’ his work.”

  “Yeah, I know where he movin’ his work,” Pooky nodded his head, and then used his fingers to count off the drug corners that Sonny owned. “He got Fairhill and York, 24th and Somerset, 25th and Master, and Percy and Pike.”

  “A’ight, well dig this,” Rahman rubbed his hands together. “Haddy said the bul be ridin’ around in a red Ghost. Is that what he was drivin’ earlier today?”

  “Naw,” Mar-Mar interjected. “He was divin’ a black Escalade.”

  “A’ight, well now we workin’ wit’ somethin’.” Rahman nodded his head, and then climbed out the Range Rover. “Come on y’all. We gon’ take the MPV. This truck’s too flashy.”