by Nikki Turner
Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof!
The barking originated from two silver back pit bulls. Together the dogs weighed more than 200 pounds, and had heads the size of watermelons.
Spoe gripped the handle of the sub-machine gun hanging from the strap around his neck. Busting a cap in the dog to keep from becoming a Scooby snack wouldn’t be a problem. Fortunately for all parties involved the pits were chained and caged in a 12x12 pin.
“Nah, man, let them live.” Tariq suggested. “Let’s focus on this bread.”
“Tonight is their lucky night,” Spoe said, as he looked at the trained attack dogs.
Focused back on the house, Tariq said, “We keep to the script.” According to Tiffany, she was upstairs when she’d seen the suitcase. So, she had no idea where Dino kept it. “We toss the house for no more than twenty minutes and then we out with or without.”
Spoe didn’t like scavenger hunts. His preferred method was to snatch somebody up. It never mattered if it was the actual victim, victim’s ole girl or ole lady. He’d torture them until he got what they needed.
Tariq could see his friend’s apprehensiveness, but he said, “Spoe yours is normally riskier than this.”
“Yeah,” it’s always produced results for us. Big results.”
The problem: these dreads originated in Miami and had no family in Virginia and to top things off, their entire crew was treacherous to the core. These were the kind of gangstas that would rather die a violent death than bow down to cowards to torture.
“A’ight man. It’s your play?” Spoe said as they crept through the darkness wearing all black. “We’ll do it your way.” He had no reason not to trust Tariq’s judgment, after all the two had been in business together in some sort of way for over fifteen years.
The house was wired with an alarm system from one of the companie that put their signs in in the yard as a warning for casual trespassers and kids. For anyone with even average knowledge on how the system worked, the alarm was as usual as the caged guard dog.
Tariq was far from average when it came to disengaging alarm systems, he was a pro. A good alarm took him three minutes to disarm. In sixty seconds give or take they had bypassed the crap system and was standing inside the kitchen. The fridge, stove, and dishwasher were all high-end stainless steel appliances. The islands black marble top matched the onyx-colored floor. The kitchen opened up into an extravagant styled living room, a seventy-inch TV mounted over an enormous granite style fireplace. Gold tables, white Italian leather sofas, and Arabian silk high back chairs. Everything was spotless, and not to mention the place looked like a museum.
“Are these cats really drug dealers or does Martha Stewart live here?” Spoe half joked with a raised eyebrow.
“Shit is unbelievable right?” Tariq impressed by the one and only lick that he had ever brought to the table.
“It is but we don’t have no time for a tour, we need to get to this money.”
“Let’s start upstairs,” Tariq said, for the first time taking the lead. “Come on.”
Spoe followed as Tariq lead the way. They turned left, by passing the grandiose living room, through an archway and up an oversized spiral staircase, which was also marble and wider than two driving lanes of I-95.
At the top, was a loft with more rooms going in either direction, “Man I know this is yo’ show, but in all this house and the time we on, there’s no time for roaming. I think its best for us to split up. You take the rooms to left and I will hit the right, then look for the master bedroom.”
Tariq agreed with the plan, adding, “Good idea. We start at the furthest point and work our way back to the loft. Either of us find the loot we holla and we out.”
Spoe, taking the responsibility for tossing all the rooms east of the loft; Tariq all the rooms west of the loft.
“Sounds Gucci to me.”
Then they parted like two determined prizefighters, after bumping gloves in the middle of the ring to their respective corners, except they were retreating to their separate corners of the house, not a ring. And before a purse would be divided, they would have to find it first!
Tariq opened the door of what seemed to be a mini theatre, he didn’t think it was a likely place to hide the bread, but one would never know if they didn’t look. The walls were textured and red. Thick leather, reclining chairs with cup holders the same ox blood red as the walls faced the 120 foot white screen. It was improbable that a suitcase would be able to fit inside or under the recliners, but he lifted the seat cushions and felt under each one anyway. The only money he found was $3.17 worth of loose change. He ripped the screen off the wall, checking behind it. Nothing there.
Something caught his attention on the wall near the front to the left of the screen. It was a barely noticeable vertical seam. A door; a door with no discernable latch.
The only purpose for having a hidden door would be to conceal something. The question was, what was being concealed? One thing for sure, two things for certain, he’d find out soon enough.
Tariq tried pushing it at the door; first in the center, then on each corner, hoping it was one of those pressured-spring latches.
Negative.
The seam was too narrow to slip anything between it, so prying it open wasn’t an option.
He was wasting time. Get the fuckin’ door open Tariq. Come on man this is yo’ shit. This the shit you do, his self-conscious was talking to him.
Touching the wall, to the right of the seam, he ran his fingers from top to bottom. Nothing. He went out a little wider with his hands, repeating the process.
Bingo!
Camoplauged in the textured material, sound proofing material was a small button. He pressed the button and the door slid open, on a recessed, mechanical track. Inside the space, were racks of electronic material. A sub woofer, DVD player, tuner, hard drive, amp, etc....
No money.
Who the fuck goes to this length of secrecy to conceal a stereo? Tariq thought. The answer was no one.
The longer Tariq looked at the audio and video equipment the more he sensed something was definitely offbeat.
What was it? He was wrecking his brain trying to figure it out, but knew he didn’t have but so much time to jerk off in there.
The minute he was about to give up, and then it hit him. He hit himself with the heel of his hand for not pinning it off top. It was the dubwoofer. Toshiba made all of the equipment inside of the closet, except for the subwoofer. It was also at least a couple of years older than, the other stuff.
After closer scrutiny, Tariq was on to the charade. The subwoofer was one of those “in your face,” stash boxes. Like the fake rock people hid in the spare door key in and left in the front yard. Inside the shame sub woofer were eight neatly wrapped bricks of coke.
It wasn’t the million dollars that they were looking for, but it was a heck of a bonus to a great start. Tariq stacked the bricks inside of the duffle bag before moving on to the next room, one room down, and four to go.
Meanwhile, Spoe was ready to toss the third room on his end. The first two, besides a couple pieces of jewelry-were a bust. Before he was about to go to work, he took a deep breath to clear his head.
When Spoe was thirteen and was running wild, an OG name Butter took him under his wing and blessed him with some food for thought.
“Productivity,” Butter said, “comes to the brotha that most persistent and patient. Remember that young blood.” Spoe swallowed the gem whole and kept down. He’d been shining every since.
Spoe took a deep breath to clear his head, before he got back to work. Though the master bedroom was bigger than, the entire apartment of some projects he’d been in, he didn’t get discouraged. If the money was truly there he’d find it. He flipped the mattress on a king-sized bed, and found a 22-shot Glock. He put the pistol in his waist, got on his knees and looked underneath the box spring.
Nothing at all, but a few specks of dust was all that he found.
He pulled the bag from behind the wal
l and checked behind the headboard. Nothing. He didn’t stop there, he continued to look, underneath and behind the oak dresser, chest, and the two night tables, still came up with still nothing. One by one he removed a collection of paintings from the wall, looking for hidden safes. The room had a fireplace almost as big as the one they had passed downstairs. He searched inside the fireplace and around the hearth, for loose bricks, concealing stash spots. He continued from the floor to ceiling, book shelves, bathroom, and a sitting area framed by a bay window and an antique armoire, where he found nothing besides a collection of high-end watches bammered in a wooden box inside of the armoire.
As he made his way toward a closet, he hoped Tariq was having better luck. And quickly let the random thought go. If Tariq had found the money they wouldn’t still be inside the house searching. They’d be in the truck celebrating, but that wasn’t the case at all.
Spoe opened the door to the walk-in closet, which was the size of a two-car garage. Just like the rest of the crib, the design and organization could have been over saw by Martha Stewart herself. Clothes were coordinated by colors and seasons. To Spoe, except for the guns, it seemed like something more suitable for a cat like Nick Cannon than a drug-dealing cat like Dino.
Dudes were seriously strapped hanging from a customized pegboard, were two AKs, a M-14, a Heckler & Coch UMP, and an array of semi-automatic pistols. Spoe took noticed that a few spots on the wall were currently unoccupied, letting him know that Dino and crew were strapped.
Then he noticed something else. On the floor, beneath the guns, was a suitcase. Brown. And embossed in its leather was a lion’s head.
Bingo!
God was good! They’d finally found what they’d come for and more than they’d expected.
Motivated by the ease of the score, Tariq wanted to keep searching. “This spot is a fucking gold mine.” He said to Spoe, adjusting the strap on the duffle bag, weighted down with coke, over his shoulder. “No telling what else we might find.”
“Yeah. Like a hot ball and a cold casket,” Spoe nodded toward the suitcase in his hand. “I’m Gucci with this.”
On their way down the steps, Tariq asked his friend since third grade, “So, when did you start letting the possibility of death hold sway over how you live life?”
Good question, Spoe thought. He was contemplating an answer when the gunshots rang out.
“Bbbrrat! Bbbrrat!” The barrage of 9 mm hollow points from the MP-5 hit home. Boring through the flesh of its targets. Blood poured through their fingers as it clutched at the fatal holes.
From the elevated position on the stairs, Spoe had a better fight line. He’d spotted the dreads creeping before they spotted him and squeezed off the first shot, dropping two of Dino’s men.
Dino watched his two soldiers chest open up right in front of him. The severity of the wounds, they’d bleed out in a matter of minutes. It was nothing he could do for them, but see to it that their killer would die, and hard. The remainder of Dino’s crew sparked back, sending the sound of gunfire echoing through the house.
“Boom, boom, boom, boom . . .” Spoe shoved Tariq down. “Back upstairs.” The odds weren’t in their favor going down. “We’ve got to find another way out.”
Bullets slammed into the steps, all around them, kicking up chunks of marble as Spoe and Tariq army crawled on their stomachs back to the top of the stairs. Attempting to slow down the pursuit, even if only for a second. Tariq fired blindly over his shoulder.
“Bbbrrat! Bbbratt!” A lucky shot winged one of the dreads in the arm. Tariq caught one in the shoulder and two slugs would’ve split Spoe’s dome if he hadn’t moved his head just in time.
When they made it to the loft, Spoe saw that Tariq was bleeding. “You okay?” He asked, and then fired off a few more shots. “Bbbrrat! Bbbratt!”
“Boom, boom, boom, boom!”
Spoe ducked his head. Tariq fired back. “Bbbrat! Bbbratt!”
“Yeah”–Bbratt-Bbratt—“it’s only a scratch.”
Suddenly the shooting stopped. Dino announced, “No way you make it out alive, Sty.” His accent was so strong that his words were hard to make out. But their meaning was crystal clear.
Spoe retorted by bucking back, squeezing the trigger. “Bbbratt!”
“You need to worry about your own mortality.”
“Bbrratt! Bbratt!”
“Besides I’ve decided not to let the possibility of death, get in the way of living,” Spoe said confidently.
“Then have it your way, Sty.”
“Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom. . . .”
A downpour of hot lead stung the loft like a swarm of killer bees. They took cover behind the leather sofa, which ate the brunt of the damage. But the longer they stayed still. The more their chances of getting away lessened. Tariq looked to Spoe. “What’s the plan?”
“Boom! Boom! Boom!”
“Bbbratt!”
“Down the hall,” Spoe said. “It’s a bedroom facing the way we came in. We hit the window and run for it.”
Tariq did the quick math, “That’s a thirty foot drop minimum.” The house had vaulted ceilings.
“Got a better idea.”
“Boom! Boom!”
“Bbbratt! Bbbratt!
“Any plan beats no plan when facing a life or death situation.”
“Lead the way.”
They eased from behind the sofa, racing down the hall toward the bedroom Spoe, had peeped earlier. Dino and his crew didn’t see them dip. Tariq and Spoe hoped to get a sixty second head start before Dino and assassins realized that no one was shooting back. Spoe kicked the window out and sound of the breaking glass drowned out by the echo of gunshots. Using the suitcase, he knocked away shards of glass that were sticking out from the frame. Then he threw the suitcase out of the window. Fifteen seconds after abandoning the sofa in the loft the suitcase landed calmly, with a thump in the backyard. But lucky for it, it didn’t have bones to break, but it was a whole other story for a person.
The impact alone from a bad landing, could jam their thighbones pass their pelvic and into their stomach. No walking away from that. Spoe took a quick glance at the door. Then turned to Tariq and said, “See you at the bottom.”
Spoe hit the ground hard, but the tuck-and-roll, maneuver he used, absorbed most of the impact. Besides the tweak in his ankle, he was Gucci. The duffle bed tumbled from the window next, with Tariq right behind it. He nailed the tuck-and-roll landing, like he’d been on a mission with Field Team 6 and was on his feet.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! The shots came from the window Spoe and Tariq had just jumped from. Bullets kicked up dirt near where they lie.
“Oh, shit!” They didn’t expect it to come so soon, but they took off running.
“They in d’back yard headin’ for d’woods.” It was Dino, he ordered his crew to get down there. “And let Brutus and Cleopatra out of their cages.”
After hearing their master’s voice. The two silver back pit bulls bit the chain on the cage, trying to eat the lock off, to get in on the action.
Slugs followed Tariq and Spoe into the woods the van they had driven was on the other side, half a mile away.
Spoe’s ankle was worst off then he thought. He was having trouble walking, let alone running. And the suitcase, which weighted more than thirty pounds with the money, was wearing him down.
“Let’s split up.” It was a decision that would later haunt Spoe. “Take the suitcase, I can move faster without it.”
Tariq didn’t like the idea of splitting up, but with gun toting Jamaicans and two bloodthirsty pit bulls in hot pursuit, there was no time to debate it.
Reluctantly, he said, “I’ll meet you at the car.”
Spoe’s ankle was throbbing, and he didn’t want to slow his partner down. If I’m not there five minutes after you, I’ll see you at the crib.”
They split up for the second time tonight the first time was when they searched for the money. Spoe hoped that, that bitch Lady Luck was
in a good mood and would continue to ride with him. He’d got his answer soon enough.
Spoe’s calf felt like it was on fire. Blood poured from down his leg. He tried to keep it moving, but his leg called it quits. He’d been shot.
“What I told ya, Sty?” It was Dino, with dogs barking in background.
“Dead-mon walkin’, Sty.”
Spoe aimed his gun into the direction of the voice and pulled the trigger, but the MP-5 didn’t bark; its clip was empty.
Fuck!
Dino’s turn . . . he pointed the gun at Spoe’s head.
Dead-mon walkin’.
Spoe’s last thought was of Bunny. Her birthday was next Friday and he was going to surprise her with a trip to St. Thomas. Even the thoughts of the love of his life, wouldn’t allow him to go out like a sucker. He would never beg for his life from a motherfucker. Instead he looked that nigga in his eyes and waited. Dino pulled the trigger, making good on his promise . . .
Dead-mon walkin’.
The bullet penetrated the skull of Spoe’s right ear and sliced through his brain as if it was kosher deli meat.
“No, mo’ walkin’,” Dino said, after spitting on Spoe’s body. “Just dead-mon.”
He made sure that his crew dumped the body so that if it was ever found, it could never be traced back to him.
Lights out! Everything went black.
-17-
“This is just bullshit!” she screamed pounding the steering wheel of the car taking all of her frustration and anger at this piece of shit she was now forced to drive. How could she pray to a God that had taken everything she had been given away including the only man she had truly ever loved. Everything had been taken away; her father, her sense of safety, her car, credit cards, medical insurance, and now her health. What the fuck? Was this some cosmic joke played out for God knows what reason? Life just wasn’t making sense to Simone anymore. And just as luck would have it, at a time when she just want to be alone to collect her thoughts, her phone won’t stop ringing. Her phone was blowing the hell up, but after that last phone call from the doctor she wasn’t in any rush to answer an unfamiliar telephone number again. She couldn’t bear to get any more bad news today. But then it dawned on her that maybe it was one of her sisters calling because something had happened to Me-Ma.