by Cash
As fate would have it, a week later I ran into Rich Kid at a car wash on Moreland Avenue, up the street from the game room. He was in a sparkling new Chevy SS truck with big chrome rims and small TV screens built into the rear bumper. Not only was niggaz fawning over the truck, they were sweatin’ the hell out of the chick with Rich Kid.
Straight up, shawdy had a face like a young Vivica Fox, a small waist and an ass like Buffy the Body. How she got all that booty inside those Baby Phat jeans she was wearing was a mystery to me.
Rich Kid saw me pull up in my truck. He left his eye candy leaning against his whip and came over to where I’d parked.
“What’s up, fam’?” he asked, giving me dap.
“I’m good.”
We both leaned on the hood of my trunk.
I gotta tell big homey how it’s ‘bout to go down. Fuck Murder Mike and ’em, tryna force my hand and shit.
I was still peeved that Rich Kid hadn’t come clean about him and Toi.
Maybe he does have some love and respect for my sister but didn’t want to get caught up in no shit with her nigga, I considered, for the sake of giving him the benefit of the doubt.
“You aight, ain’t you? Rich Kid asked. I guess he could tell that something was on my mind.
I was about to tell him that he was livin’ on borrowed time unless we hooked up and rode on Murder Mike and his clique first, ‘cause they would definitely be gunnin’ for him real soon, but for some reason, I just said, “I’m aight, playboy. Other than my shit being wired up. But I’ma straighten that in a lil’ bit. Anyway, those TV screens in the bumper of your SS is some real fly shit.”
“Yeah, niggaz ain’t ready fa dat,” he smiled.
“Shawdy you’re with is fly, too. Look at all them niggaz sweatin’ her over there.”
“Yeah, that ho thick wit’ it, ain’t she?”
“Thick to death! But then that’s how you roll. Straight up, she’s the finest I’ve seen you with yet. You might wanna wife that one.”
“Wife her?” Rich Kid asked, looking at me like I had said something about his mama. “Man, I wouldn’t wife that bitch if she came with a ten-million dollar inheritance. Anyway, the ho already married. I’m just dickin’ her on the side.”
“Well, her nigga must be pussy, ’cause you ridin’ lil’ mama around like its all good. What if her man was to ride up on y’all?”
“Shid, that’ll be shawdy’s problem. He could snatch her outta my truck and kick the ho’s ass all up and down Moreland for all I care. Just as long as the nigga don’t get fly out the mouth with me.”
“You wouldn’t even check the nigga?” I forced a laugh.
“Check him for what? Any ho who fucks behind her man’s back deserves a beat down. I ain’t got love for a ho who’ll creep.”
So that’s how you felt about my sister, huh? I thought.
“I feel you, playa,” I replied halfheartedly.
Later that day I called Toi.
As soon as she answered the phone I said, “I just want you to know while you was creepin’ around with that nigga Rich Kid, causing Glen to fuck you up, and causing me to wet him up, Rich Kid ain’t give a fuck about you.”
“I figured that out when he didn’t even offer to step to Glen,” Toi acknowledged. “That’s why I told him to fuck off when he called me, asking to hook up again.”
“Oh, he tried to holla again after you got out of the hospital?”
“Yep.”
Grimey ass nigga! I thought. Nigga tryna treat my peeps like a straight ho!
“Anyway, why you bring all that back up after all this time?” Toi asked.
“No reason. I’ma holla later.”
I hung up the pay phone, hopped in my whip, pushed in a Scarface CD, and drove around the city with some heavy shit on my mind. I had one helluva decision to make.
For the next few days my son came to stay at Inez’s crib with us. I was spending time with him and Inez in case my decision meant I wouldn’t see them for a while. My mood was kind of sullen, and Inez commented on it more than once.
My mood improved the day before I took Lil’ T back to Shan, and I got the wire taken out of my jaw. I was trying to make up for lost time I hadn’t spent with him over the past months. Christmas had long gone; I’d bought him presents but I hadn’t spent the holidays with him. During that time, I was busy hunting Little Gotti and his bitch. Had I found them, they would’ve been dead for some shit they hadn’t even done.
Life’s a bitch.
After I took Lil’ T home, I bought some pizza and went back to Inez’s. It had been months since I’d been able to eat solid food, so I pigged out so much my jaw hurt. But they didn’t hurt too bad to stop me from doing another thing I hadn’t done in a while.
I told Inez to go take a bath then wait for me naked on the bed. When I entered the bedroom with a can of whipped cream, she knew it was on.
CHAPTER 5
My watch read 8:15 p.m. Rich Kid had agreed to meet me outside the game room at nine. I’d talked to him earlier in the day, explaining that I needed to see him ASAP. He pressed me on why it was so urgent, even though we both knew it was always unwise to discuss business over the phone.
I’d said as much as I dared say on a phone, telling him that shit had been a little rough for me since I got out the hospital, and I needed him to loan me some loot so Inez and I could go out of town until I dealt with my enemies.
“Do I know the nigga you got beef with?” he asked.
“Maybe,” I said. “But I’ma handle it. I just want Inez out of town, somewhere safe, while I do.”
“It’s that serious, huh?” Rich Kid asked.
I said, “It is with me! You saw how fucked up I was!”
He asked if I was okay. We hadn’t seen each other since the day at the car wash.
“I’m good,” I assured him. “Just ready to handle my biz and get back to flossin’ on mafuckaz.”
He asked how much loot I wanted to borrow. I told him, and he replied, “No problem. I’ll meet you outside the game room at eight tonight?”
“Can we make it nine?” Which would be better for me.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Nine is cool.”
We hung up.
Spring had just kicked in, so it was still a little cool at night. I wore jeans, a pullover Braves sweatshirt, a Braves fitted cap, and black Timbs.
I dropped Inez off at her Ma Duke’s crib to spend time with her daughter then stopped at a BP gas station to put gas in the Nissan. By the time I reached the game room it was 8:45, so I just sat in the car and waited. I was changing CDs when Rich Kid drove up in his Chevy SS. I flashed my headlights at him and he stopped about two car lengths ahead of me. I got out so he’d see me, not sure if he’d recognize my Nissan since I rarely drove it. He did recognize me, though, and he pulled into a parking space several cars down from where I was parked. I’d noticed a female in the passenger seat of his whip. It looked like the same shawdy from the car wash.
By the time I walked up to where he was parked, Rich Kid was already outside of the car leaning against the side of it. I stopped about three feet in front of him, raised my arm and squeezed the trigger of the .9mm in my hand.
Splacka! Splacka! Splacka! Splacka! Splacka!
The nine spat automatic gun-fire. All to his chest! I watched him slide down the side of the Benz, smoke coming from the front of his shirt. The bitch jumped out the whip, running and screaming. I hopped over Rich Kid and ran her down.
Splacka! Splacka! Two straight to the dome.
I pulled the fitted cap down low over my brow. A few people were in the parking lot, staring in horror, then scrambling to get out of my way. I held my head down so they couldn’t see my face, dashed to the Nissan and drove off quickly, without squealing the tires.
I felt safe when I made it to the Interstate and blended in with night traffic. Ten miles down the expressway, a car pulled alongside me honking its horn, the driver waving his free arm frantically. I r
olled down my window, gripping Nina.
“Hey buddy!” the white man shouted out his window as he tried to steer straight. “You’re missing your tags!”
“Thanks!” I yelled back, and then eased up off my .9mm.
Of course I was missing my license plate; I had removed it when I stopped to get gas.
I drove on to Inez’s and put the tag back on the Nissan before going inside. A few days later I traded it in and bought a newer model. I was just taking the necessary precautions.
The streets were hot with rumor and gossip, especially down in Englewood where several of Rich Kid’s crew had gotten splacked the same night, same time that he had. The hood had no way of knowing about the successful hits in Florida and Kentucky, but Murder and the four Dreads were back in Atlanta acting awfully satisfied with themselves. I was watching the news daily to see if the police were any closer to identifying the “gunman” outside the game room. Witnesses had correctly described the Nissan and were fairly accurate on my height and weight, but they’d incorrectly described the “gunman” as having short cut hair, and couldn’t give any details on the “gunman’s” complexion.
The Nissan was no longer in my possession; besides, witnesses hadn’t been able to report any tag number. Still I was keeping a low profile.
The bitch I’d splacked had died on the scene, the news reported. But Thaddeus Brown, A.K.A. Rich Kid, was still “clinging to life,” despite five slugs to the chest and abdomen.
Damn! I should’ve shot him in the head! I admonished myself; though I was sure he wouldn’t pull through and survive. I was just hoping he didn’t wake up long enough to identify his assailant.
Murder and the Dreads weren’t upset about it.
“If he lives, you’ll just have to find a way to finish the job,” they said.
I was all for that, ‘cause I didn’t want Rich Kid walking around with my name on a hit list, no way. He’d lost a couple of soldiers in the Englewood battle also; if he did survive he’d find that his Cuban supplier was missing, and his Kentucky crew had suffered their own tragedies.
I moved out of the Decatur apartment into a townhouse south of the city, and told Inez to start looking for a new spot too. Murder Mike broke me off some cash flow, but said we had other people to “eliminate” before we could put the operation into top gear.
While the Dreads went to different cities across the country to continue setting up their respective “zones,” Murder Mike and I stayed posted in Atlanta. We were together more than we were apart over the next few months, plotting our mission. Murder showed me the “hit list” with the names of all those we were to eliminate.
The list read:
Hannibal (X) plus his LT.
Rich Kid (?)
Little Gotti
LA Steve
BCF
José
I guess the X next to Hannibal’s name signified he’d already been eliminated. The ? next to Rich Kid’s name would become an X if he didn’t survive.
My main man didn’t have to tell me anything but where to find Little Gotti and when he wanted the nigga hit. Blondie would be personal.
LA Steve was a nigga I didn’t know, but Murder had the 411 on him. He said, “Dude doesn’t fuck with cocaine, his steelo is weed. Most of the ’dro and skunk weed in the city comes from him. If we get rid of LA Steve, we can lockdown the weed game, too. More mafuckaz smoking weed than crack nowadays.”
“Bet,” I agreed.
BCF, which stood for Black Crime Family, was a drug clique out of Detroit that had recently came to ATL and setup shop. Besides pumping drugs, they were strong in the music industry. I didn’t really know much about the BCF, but I’d seen their billboards around the city, promoting their record label, Street Life Productions. Their rep was bubbling in the streets.
As for José, the last name on Murder’s hit list, he was a big time Mexican nigga with a team of trigger happy eses. “They’re deep out there in Gwinnett County,” Murder Mike informed me.
I have to say, I was mad impressed with the wealth of information my man Murder had on all these players in the game. Though I suspected the Dread Crazy Nine had supplied most of it. Still, until recently I would’ve never thought Murder Mike possessed anything more than street-level skills in the dope game. The same hustle skills the average nigga from the hood possessed—no plans beyond locking down his block. Now I had to look at my main man with much more respect; he was after more than hood fame and lil’ boy money. I was still a little peeved about him siccing the Dreads on me like he did, even if I did understand the “business” sense of it. Murder had since told me that he’d told them before they’d grabbed me, if they killed me, they’d have to kill him too.
“Main man,” he’d said, sounding real, “I was pissed when I found out your jaw was broke! It wasn’t supposed to go like that! But that fool, Rastaman, don’t know his own power.”
I’d interrupted him. “They were beating me with lead pipes, I don’t know how it wouldn’t go like it did.”
He swore that he hadn’t been told anything, beforehand, about lead pipes and shit.
“I put that on everything I love, dawg. Shit,” he said, “it wasn’t even my call that you get roughed up. I told Crazy that I took your word for it that you weren’t on Rich Kid’s team.”
“That’s on all you love?” I asked staring him in the eyes.
He didn’t blink. “Fo’ sho’! Look, I felt I could step to you and get you to roll with us, without all the drama. We do go way back.”
So I accepted Murder Mike’s explanation and apology because it made sense to me. Why would he want me banged up? He probably would have talked me into joining up with him and the Dreads without resorting to putting me in the hospital. He said that he also figured that was Crazy Nine’s way of intimidating me, so if I did join the team, I’d never get the dumb idea to rob them.
“That was your steelo, homeboy,” Murder said.
I accepted it all in stride, not letting it affect what I felt for Murder Mike. But it’s hard to like a mafucka who put you in the hospital with a broken jaw and cracked ribs. So while I would get money with Murder Mike and the Dreads, my loyalty was to him only.
To be honest, though, I didn’t feel good about splackin’ Rich Kid. I wasn’t sure if I’d done it because the Dreads had me boxed in, or if I’d done it because Cheryl had run off with my loot and it was a chance for me to get down with Murder Mike and get my bank back tight. Or if I’d really done it because Rich Kid hadn’t shown any respect or loyalty to me or Toi. What really got Rich Kid wet the fuck up was that shit he popped at the car wash. It felt like he was referring to Toi, too.
Either, or, what was done, was done. I couldn’t take back the five slugs I’d pumped in Rich Kid. Wasn’t no erasing that. I had chosen sides and there was no turning back. For all of my young years, I’d wanted no real part of the drug game, other than robbing dope boys. Now I was part of a drug crew that was both deadly and ambitious! Once we had control of the city’s drug flow, my role would be mostly that of an enforcer and an overseer. I wouldn’t be able to replace the million dollars Cheryl stole overnight, but I wouldn’t have to scout out licks no more, either.
It took a few weeks for me to reconcile with my change of professions, but it wasn’t too difficult to do because until we eliminated those on the hit list, most of my work would involve using my heater.
That was a role I was very used to.
CHAPTER 6
The first person I “hit” with Murder Mike was the nigga known in the streets as LA Steve, the major weed supplier in the city.
We’d tracked his movements for nearly two weeks, not always following him, but always aware of where he’d be during certain times of the night. Everyone has a routine. Some people are more structured than others, but none are impossible to chart. Routine is what we’re used to doing, what we grow comfortable with. Niggaz get uncomfortable when something upsets their routine. So when I’m casing-out my victims
, I begin with a simple theory that’s usually reliable: If a nigga goes to a certain place once, he’ll eventually go back there again. If he goes there twice or more, well, that’s basis to figure out his routine. I don’t need to know where he’ll be every minute of the day, not even every day of the week. All I really need to know is when he’ll be at the place where I plan to hit him. Even I had a certain routine. If a nigga knew where Inez lived, and wanted to hit me, all he had to do is wait for me to show up at her crib and I was a dead man!
LA Steve was no different, only we didn’t know who his woman was or where she lived. His undoing was his love of shrimp; funny how such a simple thing as a man’s favorite food could set him up to be murdered. But in LA Steve’s case it did.
For two consecutive Thursday nights he’d gone to the All-You-Can-Eat Shrimp special offered at The Seafood House on Fulton Industrial Highway. Both times he’d arrived between 7 and 10 p.m. Once he’d been alone, the other time he’d taken along a woman. Which didn’t matter to Murder Mike, me, or our heaters. Neither of us discriminated against women. I didn’t get no special kick out of killing hos, but neither did I love killing niggaz. I was indifferent to both, it was business.
On the third Thursday we waited ‘till 11 p.m. for LA Steve to show up at The Seafood House. At midnight the restaurant closed without him showing his face! Either he was tired of shrimp on Thursdays, or something else had kept him away.
A few days later Murder Mike learned that a big load of hydro weed had just touched down in the city. It was safe to assume LA Steve had gone out of town to pick it up. That would explain why he hadn’t made his Thursday “appointment” at The Seafood House last week.
I bet Murder Mike a thousand dollars LA Steve would not miss the All-You-Can-Eat Shrimp special next Thursday night.
Thursday Night 9:05 pm
We watched from the doughnut shop’s parking lot across the street as a green Range Rover pulled into an empty parking space toward the rear of The Seafood House. Murder Mike handed me a roll of rubber band-wrapped bills and I put the wad in the pocket of the jumpsuit with the thousand dollars I was carrying in case I had lost the bet.