The Syndicate

by Brick

  I bit back a smile as Bruce and the women seemed taken aback by Javon’s blunt assertiveness. Yes, there had been a time when Javon probably would have bagged and tagged a few of the girls, but I was happy to see that those times were behind him still.

  “This is my fiancée, Shanelle,” Javon said, taking my hand and pulling me next to him. “When you see her, respect her like she is me. Don’t ever offer me pussy in her presence or when she isn’t around. Understand, Bruce?”

  Bruce’s eyes widened as he took me in. Standing at five foot seven, I had to look down at the man.

  “Ye . . . yeah. Yeah, man. Sure, my bad. My bad,” Bruce replied nervously then chuckled. He started shoving the girls away as he made his way to his office. “Go on. Go somewhere and do something,” he ordered them.

  We headed up the stairs to the third floor then down a long hallway until we made it to Bruce’s office. My nose crinkled immediately. For this to be an upscale club, Bruce’s housekeeping skills in his office were lacking. Food containers were all over the floor. Liquor bottles were all over his desk. I thought I actually saw women’s thongs lying about, which may have told why it smelled like musty pussy in his office. I cringed.

  “You’re fired,” I said to Bruce.

  “Wha . . . Wait. What?” he stuttered.

  “You’re fired. Any man who keeps an office looking like this isn’t worthy of having an office let alone a club. Not to mention you’ve been stealing from Mama for years. She bailed you out when your club was going under. You defaulted on your loans to her and, to top it off, I say again you were stealing from her,” I said as I slipped my hand in my purse. “We came up here to talk to try to see if you would tell us the truth, but I no longer give a shit. My sister Melissa will be taking over the club,” I said as a matter of fact.

  Bruce looked at Javon who stood at the door like a guard. I could tell that he wasn’t impressed with the place himself. Javon shrugged. “She’s talking to you. Not me,” was all he said.

  “This club brings in close to fifteen thousand dollars a night on Mondays and Tuesdays, the slow days. On Wednesdays and Thursdays it brings in close to twenty-five grand a night. On the weekends, including Sundays, this club should be grossing at least seventy-five grand a night and that’s without all the celebrities who roll through. Yet, you only turned in seventy grand a week to Mama.”

  “What? I never stole from that old woman! Never!” Bruce declared. “I . . . I may have kept a few dollars for the maintenance of the place. You can’t just come in here and snatch my club from underneath me like this.” Bruce was talking with his hands. His slight New York accent annoyed me. His eyes darted around the room like he was looking for a place to run and hide.

  “You’re lying,” I said. “I hate to be lied to. Furthermore, the club is no longer yours. You defaulted on your loans two years ago, I say yet again.”

  “Mama knew you were stealing from her, Bruce. She’d been documenting it for a while, but because she and your wife were best friends, she let you slide,” Javon added. “Lucky you, she died before she could kill you.”

  Bruce’s eyes widened.

  “Javon left the decision in my hands whether to fire you or kill you. I chose to fire you.”

  After Javon and I talked in the kitchen, I decided to take his lead and study the things myself that Mama had left behind. Real estate was my thing so I decided to look into all of the properties and businesses we owned. If we were going to be this force that she had envisioned, we had to come in strong. Not just for the sake of us, but because the rest of the Syndicate would see that Javon meant business. Although I was pretty sure after seeing him murder Cormac with a fork they knew he wasn’t anything to play with.

  “Mama loved your wife as a sister so as a way to respect their friendship, I won’t riddle your body with bullets, but once the night is over, you will be escorted from the premises,” I said.

  “And don’t do anything stupid like empty the safes or take anything that doesn’t belong to you. If you do, I’ll find you and I will kill you,” Javon added.

  I chuckled inwardly. It was crazy how effortlessly Javon stepped into his role. While he may have had some convictions about it, he couldn’t deny that being a leader in the underworld came naturally for him. It was as if he had been born to do it.

  Putting Melissa over the club had been my idea and I was glad Javon agreed. With the bulk of the money we had to turn legit, running the club would help Melissa to do it as well as keep a steady supply of club drugs moving throughout. Melissa was anxious to leave her piece of shit job anyway. She only stayed so Mama would see her put her accounting degree to use.

  Javon and I had exited the club and I was in the middle of trying to convince him to give me a quickie when his cell rang. “Oh for the love of God,” I squealed. “What’s a girl gotta do to get some dick around here?”

  Javon chuckled but answered his cell anyway as we hopped into his truck. We had to go meet Lucky at five in the morning. According to Mama’s notes he was a part of the Luciano bloodline. Supposedly he was the bastard son of a mobster in Lucky Luciano’s bloodline. Javon said a few words in Tagalog, which let me know he was speaking to Cory; then he hung up the phone. I noticed the cars that followed us anywhere we went as well as the men in black, as I called them.

  “Who are those people?” I asked Javon. Since he was already looking through the rearview mirror, I was sure he knew as well.

  “Mama called them Forty Thieves,” he answered. “According to her notes, in the event of her death, she said, they would show up.”

  “For what?” I asked.

  “Protection. I’m the new head nigga in charge of a national crime syndicate. In her notes she said it would be foolish of me to trust any member off the bat.”

  I nodded as I knew what he was saying to be true. As we pulled into traffic, I had things on my mind that I wanted to speak to him about, but I didn’t want to seem out of place. I decided to keep my thoughts to myself for the time being.

  “Inez got the internship at Emory,” Javon said after we got on the expressway.

  I frowned. “Emory? Thought she was setting her sights on Atlanta Medical or Grady since they’re level one trauma centers. When did she change her mind? Mama’s notes says Inez told her she was trying for Grady.”

  Javon creased his eyes a bit then shifted in his seat before glancing at me. “I don’t know. Maybe she couldn’t get the one at Grady?”

  “Hmm,” was all I said.

  My sisters and I hadn’t spent a lot of time together since Mama had died and that was my fault. I’d been so busy trying to keep Javon at ease that I’d neglected my sisterly duties. Yes, we’d spoken in passing when Javon was giving out orders or when Melissa and I discussed her running the club, but that was business. I needed to sit and speak with them on personal matters. I made a note of it as Javon got off the exit going toward Mama’s neighborhood.

  “I’m going to drop you off and then come back. I need to meet with Snap about a few things before we meet Lucky in a few,” Javon said as he parked the car in Mama’s front yard, looking at his watch.

  I noticed Inez’s car in the front yard. Melissa’s was still in the shop. I didn’t see Jojo’s car, which made me wonder where the fuck he was this time of night. I turned to look at Javon. “Is this what we’re going to become now?” I asked him.

  “Not sure what you mean, baby,” he said.

  I smiled a bit. “You’re going to turn into one of those drug lords who’s never around for family unless it’s business. Always dropping me off and then running off to handle the next task? Kissing other women?”

  Javon threw his head back and chuckled. “I’m probably going to become all those things,” he said as he looked at me, a smirk on his lips. “But I’ll never become a man who doesn’t know where home is. My dick and my heart belong to one woman,” he said as he hooked his pointer finger then lifted my chin so my eyes could meet his. “I’m yours and yours alo
ne. The Syndicate and all this other shit is my mistress, but my future wife will always come first. That’s what makes me different from the rest of them.”

  When he leaned over to kiss me, I smiled against his lips. I trusted him and I believed in him. I just hoped that with all the power that had been laid in his lap he would be able to keep his word.

  Chapter 8

  Uncle Snap

  “So, the Irish want to meet with you. Cormac was their man at the table. They’d like to be a part of the next meeting in hopes they can talk about replacing one of their people at the table,” I said to Javon.

  Quiet as kept, this old man was glad the young’un stepped up to the plate. This game, this lifestyle was all I knew. When me and Mama officially met, I was twenty. She was ten years older than me, but the woman had a walk on her that would make Jesus sin. I knew I shouldn’t have been sniffing after Kingston’s old lady, but the woman was beautiful. Once Kingston died in that fire, I moved in where his loss left a void. Took me another five years to get her to look at me as more than her henchman.

  I chuckled inwardly thinking of the times she and I shared. I was going to miss that woman. Couldn’t get her to give me a child nor her hand in marriage, but she gave me everything else I asked of her. I was working for her husband when we met. I was one of his hit men. Started running errands for him when I was fifteen. Not much mattered to me back then other than staying off the street and having money to eat. At fifteen I would have robbed my mother and grandmother if that meant I could keep food in my mouth.

  I wasn’t a good kid. I wouldn’t make no bones about it. A li’l nigga like me only had two things on my mind: money and who I had to hurt to get it. I grew up in the most fucked up of situations down in Mississippi. So when Mama—I called Claudette Mama from the time I met her—started taking in orphans after Kingston died, I was all for it. A lot of the youngsters reminded me of myself.

  But it wasn’t until Javon and Cory showed up that I knew Mama would be doing more than just fostering kids and then letting the state come in to take them when they felt the children’s time was up. Cory and Javon started the cycle of Mama legally adopting kids.

  “I’ll meet with them out of respect, but my decision has been made,” he said as he poured himself more Jamaican rum. “How the hell did Mama get this much power, Unc?”

  “I’ma tell you, be lucky you knew Mama the saint because Mama the crime lord was a ruthless individual. I’ve seen her fillet grown men. Seen her slice off dicks, kill women, kidnap children when she had to back in the day. She is one of the reasons the rule about leaving women and children out of the business was made.” I chuckled at the look on Javon’s face. “Ya mama was nothing to play with. When Kingston died, she knew she had a right to sit at that table. The same shit she doing for y’all, King did it for her. Left her pristine notes on what was what. Told her who to trust and who not to trust.”

  He sat there for a minute like he was letting it all sink in. Shit, over the years, it surprised and impressed me that Mama was able to lead a double life so effortlessly.

  “A black woman from the South commanded the respect of an entire syndicate of drug lords. This isn’t just some run-of-the-mill shit, Unc. I walked into a room and stuck a fork in the neck of one of the leading members because he said he was trying to get my attention. I know I’ve walked into some shit I’m not sure I’m ready for,” Javon confessed. “But to think Mama wielded so much power?” He shook his head like he still couldn’t believe it.

  “Yeah, but you in it now, nephew. You made your mark. Young, intelligent black man walked into a roomful of the top criminals in the underworld and shut shit down. Not to mention at the second meeting you showed respect to each and every man and woman at that table. You asked their thoughts. You asked their apprehensions about you taking over and then you laid down your plans for the future. Hell, I gotta admit, shit even I was impressed.”

  “I don’t know, Unc,” he said shaking his head. “I did all that shit because Mama wanted me to. I read her notes, took notes on my own, and then walked into that room like I knew what the fuck I was talking about.”

  I chuckled and took a sip of moonshine from the blue Mason jar in front of me. “That’s the thing, li’l nigga, you did know what you were talking about,” I told him.

  After killing Cormac, Javon scheduled another meeting at the table. These old heads couldn’t stay around too long, especially not in one place, so for them to agree to meet with Javon a second time shocked the shit outta me.

  “Most niggas gotta work damn near they whole lives to get what you got right now, nephew, to get where you at. You got Mama to thank for that. There’re levels to this shit and rules that say that if the head of the Syndicate is taken out, the right to their seat goes to their heir unless otherwise delegated. Mama gave you a running head start.”

  “Which makes me a fucking target, too.”

  I nodded. “Oh, yeah, don’t get me wrong, a few of the motherfuckers at that table probably coming up with ways to lay you down.”

  “And these are the men and women I’m supposed to trust?”

  I threw my head back and laughed, the powerful liquor making me feel better about the void in my heart. “You’d be a fool to, nephew,” I said.

  Javon chuckled with me then got quiet. I could tell where his mind was. “How long you been in love with Mama, Unc?” he asked me.

  That question sobered me a bit. “Practically since the first day I laid eyes on her. Shit, but she didn’t give a li’l cocky nigga like me no play until five years after her husband died.” I smiled at the memory. “Shit, best night of my life was when she was in my small-ass apartment waiting on me when I got home. Boy, y’all’s mama was a bad-ass woman back then. I mean she was still bad until the day she died, but back then? Whew. I came home and she was sitting in my recliner with nothing on and some sexy heels.”

  “Come on, Uncle Snap, I didn’t need to hear all that,” Javon said with a disgusted frown on his face.

  “Boy, looka here, I’m trying to tell you. I think I died and went to heaven a few times that night. Never had no woman work me over like that,” I said with a grin, just fucking with him at this point.

  Javon stood and shoved my shoulder. “Uncle, chill on all that shit right there, a’ight?” he said then chuckled.

  “A’ight, a’ight. You got that. But back to business; what about the Irish?”

  “Like I said, I’ll meet them, but I already picked a replacement. Also, I think a lot more people in the Syndicate about to be pissed off at the new plans I’m proposing.”

  I took a long swallow of the moonshine then set the glass back down on the table. “Wha’chu mean?” I asked him.

  “The Syndicate has had the same women and men for over fifty years in some seats. It’s time for change, Unc. If I’m going to run this joint, then I’m going to run it my way.”

  Something told me that what he was about to say I wasn’t gon’ agree with. “Say what’s on your mind, son.”

  “I’m removing six seats from the Syndicate. Once those six are gone, I’m replacing six of the old with six new.”

  I shook my head, already seeing that he was about to create enemies he wasn’t ready to deal with. The shit storm he was about to cause could mean blood would be raining on over Atlanta for years to come. “Whoa, Javon, wait a minute. You trying to commit suicide? These men and women been running the Syndicate and the trade for decades and you think you gon’ just come in and tell folk they can’t eat no more?” I asked him, still shaking my head.

  “This ain’t about telling them they can’t eat or making folk starve. This is about evolving with the times, Unc. We need fresh thoughts, new ideas. New product. Jojo can make any damn thing he puts his mind to. He went in that basement and in less than a few weeks presented me with new products. Now I know Naveen helped him with the mechanics of the electric cigarette, but Jojo’s chemist mind made the liquid shit that goes inside of it. The old he
ads still think the only way to make money in the drug trade is coke, crack, and heroin. I’m young. I know how to compound on what we already have. I know how to make it ten times better. The money that could be made on club drugs alone, we’re losing it to the rich white college kid drug dealers because the old heads won’t see the value in it.”

  “I mean the coke, the kind we bring in, is the best in the South. We got that on lock,” I reminded him.

  “That’s the thing, Unc, we have to expand. Broaden our horizons. Not to mention, Mama was saying the same thing in her notes. Before I even read that part, my mind was ticking away about what I could change to make it better.”

  “Yeah, but,” I started, then blew out air like steam was coming from my mouth, “you’re ruffling feathers here, Javon, and I don’t see how this shit gon’ work out for you.”

  “I got it, Uncle Snap. Trust me.”

  “Trust you?” I repeated then chuckled although I found nothing funny. “You’re the same man who just last week wanted nothing to do with this shit and now you want me to trust you?” I stood and moved closer to Javon so we could be face to face. “What you’re about to do will change everything and though Mama put you in this place of power, don’t think these old-world gangsters won’t take you out; and then they’ll take out your family. These same men and women had something to do with Mama being murdered.”

  Javon stood, shoulders squared, head held high. “I know, which is why I’m surprised you wouldn’t be more supportive of me getting rid of the people who may have put a hit out on her.”

  “I’m not saying that, son. What I’m saying is you need to ease into this thang. You can’t just walk into the Syndicate and push all those people out. There will be backlash.”