Rock stared at the boy until his little round head disappeared into a bedroom. He was stunned speechless.
“Who the fuck is that Betty?” a man’s voice boomed from somewhere inside of the apartment.
Rock clenched his fist. He was ready to kill, automatically assuming the man was responsible for Betty’s black eye.
“Yeah, I got a new man now,” Betty spat, her hands now resting on her ample hips. “So you better be leaving before he comes to the door,” she cautioned, starting to shut the door in Rock’s face.
Betty had definitely changed, but for the worse. When Rock left to go to war, she was a beautiful young girl. They had been courting for almost a year. Right before he left, he had consummated the relationship by taking her virginity. Betty was the only woman he had ever loved.
Rock stuck his foot between the door and the frame so she couldn’t close it. She looked at him with sad eyes.
“The boy,” Rock managed to say.
“You figure it out!”
Her words cut across Rock’s heart like steel.
“Betty! Get ya ass from that door!” the man inside screamed.
“I gotta go, Rock. I don’t love you no more.”
Rock moved his foot and let her slam the door in his face. He stood there for a good five minutes trying to deal with the new situation. He could hear Betty screaming inside and the little boy howling, probably in reaction to his mother’s distress. Although Rock wanted to plow down the door and reclaim what he had lost, he remained solid and silent as a rock. He stomped away from the door and never looked back. He had written off love for good.
But, for some reason, Rock couldn’t leave the neighborhood. Instead, he watched the little boy grow up from a distance. He had even convinced a local drug dealer to help the kid out. He knew deep down inside that the boy was his son. A son conceived out of love but raised to live in a world full of hate.
Chapter 13
Junior drove himself to Long Island College Hospital for treatment for the gunshot wound in his shoulder. Tuck left him at the hospital after convincing him that he had to get out of there before the police arrived because of his “parole” terms.
In New York, whether you were a gunshot victim or the perpetrator, the police showed up with a mouthful of questions. Tuck couldn’t risk the local police questioning him and blowing his cover. He was under and alone. He hadn’t heard from Brubaker since the incident with his wife back in Maryland. Tuck didn’t know where his case or career status with the DEA stood, but after he got locked out of the system, he knew something wasn’t right. Tuck was too preoccupied after Junior’s call to gather his shit from his apartment, but now he needed it.
After much consideration, he took a huge risk and hailed a cab to take him to his undercover apartment. All of his amassed evidence against Junior and Broady was inside, along with his computer and equipment. He needed to get inside, get his shit, and try to get help from some of his DEA counterparts—without involving Brubaker.
When the cab arrived at his apartment building, he rushed up the steps and immediately noticed that the door to his apartment was open. Tuck slid his gun from his waistband and inched up to the door to listen for noise. There was no sound, so he peeked through the small crack between the door and the frame to see if anyone was still inside.
Satisfied that the coast was clear, Tuck kicked the door open. When it swung open wide, he put his back up against the wall, his gun held in front of him, his eyes darting around the ransacked apartment. The couch was overturned, and all of the tables looked like they had been axed down the middle. The kitchen cabinets hung open, with their contents spilling out, and the drawers were open as well, the contents dumped out onto the floor as if someone was looking for something in particular.
Tuck ducked his head and quickly peered into the bedroom. It was empty too. He rushed into the bedroom, hoping the intruder didn’t get into his safe. He moved the clothes in the closet, to check for the safe, scrambling around amid the piles of clothing that had been pulled off the hangers.
“Bastards! Shit!” Tuck cursed in a harsh whisper. The safe was gone, along with his computer and original undercover cell phone.
Tuck didn’t trust calling anybody on the cell phone that Brubaker had given him. He had to get out of there before anyone came back. He rushed out of the apartment, thanking his lucky stars that he’d kept the keys to the Lexus with him when Junior offered to drive to Club Skyye. But first he had to return to Junior’s house to retrieve the car.
Tuck stumbled out onto the street, paranoid. He rushed up the street and around the corner, looking desperately for a pay phone. He raced another block up until he spotted one. “Finally!” he huffed, exasperated.
He rushed into the pay phone booth, praying that the phone worked. His shoulders slumped in relief when he heard a dial tone. He pecked the buttons and said a silent prayer that the DEA agent he was trying to reach picked up.
“Operations. Carlisle speaking.”
The voice filtering through the dirty pay phone receiver sounded like music to Tuck’s ears. Dana Carlisle was the closest thing Avon had to a real friend inside the DEA. She was in his unit and had been on the scene when the accidental shooting took place years ago. Carlisle had always had Avon’s back, even when it seemed like the entire agency had turned on him. After the incident, Avon’s only friends on the inside were Carlisle and Brubaker. Now he was down to one.
“Carlisle, it’s Tucker,” he breathed into the receiver.
“Tucker!” she shouted, happy to hear from him after he’d been under so long. She was well aware of all the nasty rumors circulating about him at work.
“Shhhhh,” Tuck whispered. “You can’t let anybody know you’re speaking to me. They’re after me.”
“Okay,” she whispered back. “What’s going on with you? They have your picture up everywhere in here.”
“I’ll explain that later. I need you to look something up in the system for me. They have my computer.” Tuck was wary of every person that passed the phone booth. He could swear everybody was watching him. “Go into the case system. I need everything about Eric Hardaway. They called him Easy,” Tuck said, his words coming out fast and jumbled.
“Okay,” Carlisle said.
Tuck could hear her typing the information into her computer. “Don’t let anybody see your screen,” he cautioned.
“I got you. Okay, here goes. Eric Hardaway. Known drug kingpin in Brooklyn. Target of Operation Easy In. Born in Brooklyn, New York. Father was—”
“Just tell me how many children he had,” Tuck said, wanting her to get to the point quickly. “I know about the one son . . . the murder and stuff.”
“Okay, let’s see. Hardaway children—Eric Junior, Errol, Candice, and Brianna. Wife is Corine. Affiliations—”
“Shit!” Tuck had finally figured it out. “Fuck! How could I be so stupid!” he cursed under his breath. He held the phone to his ear as his mind raced. Candy is Candice Hardaway. She was the one killing off Junior’s crew because she believed they killed her father. But what is her connection to Joseph Barton?
“Go to the operations screen. Tell me more about Operation Easy In,” Tuck instructed, his voice frantic.
“Okay, okay,” Carlisle said, typing rapidly.
Tuck shifted his weight from one foot to the other and wiped beads of sweat from his head.
“It says here, Eric Hardaway had become a distributor for Rolando DeSosa. But wait. Wasn’t DeSosa already working for the government as part of his immunity deal? Wasn’t he one of the big kingpins back then that made a deal with the Reagan administration?” Carlisle asked, spewing facts like an encyclopedia.
“Keep reading. Anything about a Joseph Barton?” Tuck whispered, his voice barely audible.
“Says here, Hardaway was a distributor for DeSosa. Things going as planned. Barton enters the picture. Hardaway wants out. He reneges on his deal. He was talking to people. There are no notes after that.�
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“Who are the media suspects in the Hardaway murders?” Tuck asked, already knowing the answer to his question.
“Even I know that without looking at the file,” Carlisle responded. “The suspects included a dealer named Junior Carson, his brother Broady Carson, a Corey ‘Razor’ Jackson, and Hardaway’s own son, Eric Junior. All of the living suspects went free. You know the rest.”
Tuck realized now that his case with Junior and Broady could’ve never been solved. He didn’t know that Junior, Broady, and Razor were all viewed as possible suspects in Easy’s murder. Junior was the replacement for Easy, but his connect was Easy’s connect as well. The fuckin’ government! Tuck screamed inside his head. He had been set up. They had all been set up. But why?
“You all right? What’s going on, Tucker? They saying—”
Suddenly the phone line went dead.
“Hello? Carlisle?” Tuck breathed into the receiver. She was gone. Tuck knew they’d probably traced his call to the phone booth.
He took the phone Brubaker had given him with the tracer device in it, dialed Brubaker’s cell number, and placed the phone on top of the booth.
Tuck knew that at any minute a sniper would be homing in on him or a swarm of DEA undercover recovery agents would be storming the scene. He raced away from the phone booth and hailed a cab. He needed to find Candice before she murdered an innocent man. He also needed to tell her that Junior didn’t kill her father. Racing against time, he just prayed that he’d make it there before she did.
* * *
Candice followed Tuck’s cab, being careful to stay a few cars back. She knew he’d lead her straight to Junior. Her mind was racing with a thousand thoughts. She wanted to call Uncle Rock so badly, but there was no time. She needed to get to Junior before whoever was killing his crew did.
As Tuck’s cab rounded the corner onto Junior’s block, Candice fell back. She had to strategize. Getting caught inside the house would be deadly. She wanted to find a place to lay out her sniper gear.
Tuck jumped out of the cab and raced toward a Lexus. A black truck pulled up alongside the car. Candice watched as Tuck stopped to speak to the driver. He nodded his head, looked around, and got inside the truck.
“Fuck!” she cursed under her breath. “It must be Junior picking him up.”
The truck sped up the block so fast, she had to frantically shift gears to catch up.
Candice was exhausted. She’d hardly slept in days. Uncle Rock would’ve told her to go home and rest because her skills would be diminished in her state.
But she refused to give in to exhaustion. After finding Broady, she was determined to be the one to put hot lead into Junior. At this point, she was willing to do it out in the open, witnesses and all. Hell-bent on revenge, she didn’t care about being a trained cleaner.
Candice followed the black truck onto the Belt Parkway. Traffic was backed up. That was good. It would buy her some time to get her mind right.
As she inched along just a few cars away from her mark, she noticed the old beater out of her rearview mirror. A flash of heat came over her. Uncle Rock, please stay out of this.
There was nothing she could do now. She was sandwiched between cars, and the second lane was packed just as tightly.
“You better not try to stop me from doing this shit, Uncle Rock,” Candice cursed out loud. She should have figured he would be following her.
She gnawed on her bottom lip now. Uncle Rock had been taking out her marks before she could get to them. He had always told her that although he was teaching her how to be a cleaner, he never expected her to use those skills unless she was in a life-or-death situation.
“How could I be so fuckin’ dumb!” she scolded herself. Candice should have known from the years of living with Uncle Rock that there was no way she could have stolen shit out of his safe without him finding out about it. She felt like a stupid kid. Uncle Rock was always clipping her wings, trying to protect her from everything. From men to danger, he didn’t trust her to take care of herself.
Candice noticed the black truck dip in and out of traffic, navigating its way forward in the heavy traffic. She waited for an opportunity and did the same, hoping they didn’t notice.
She noticed in her rearview that Uncle Rock didn’t dip with them. In fact, his car eased off the highway at the next exit. She crinkled her eyes in confusion. She knew her uncle too damn well. Uncle Rock already knows where they are going!
Candice’s hands shook with a mixture of anxiety, anger, and fear. She didn’t know if she was more worried about Uncle Rock killing Junior first or about her ability to carry out her plans.
The black truck took the next exit ramp, and Candice followed, a few cars behind, in hot pursuit.
* * *
Tuck kept dipping his head back to look into the rear window of the truck. He had a feeling they were being followed.
Junior had told Tuck that his mother didn’t take the news of Broady’s death well, and that he wanted to have one last meeting with his connect before getting the fuck out of New York.
Tuck held on to a small glimmer of hope that this meeting with the connect would somehow reinvigorate his case. That idea quickly vanished when he realized that the connect was probably DeSosa, a man who worked for the fucking government.
Junior, driving with his one good arm, drove the truck down a series of side streets. “This is where it all started, son,” he pointed out. “Those right there is the projects I grew up in.”
Tuck took in the dismal surroundings.
“That abandoned store right there is where I met Easy, where all this shit began. Good ol’ East New York.”
Tuck looked at the street sign as they drove toward what looked like a dead end—Fountain Avenue. The night he and Junior had come to meet the connect, Tuck wasn’t able to make out any of the landmarks.
Junior slowed the truck to a halt in an open lot with trash heaps just about everywhere and an old, abandoned warehouse in front.
Tuck remembered the building as the same one he had been taken to that night. “You sure he gon’ show up this time?”
“Yeah. He knows all about the war on the streets. He gon’ show up.”
“So what’s your plan, man?” Tuck made small talk, trying to keep his nerves at bay.
“I’m gon’ make this one last quick lick, and I’m out of the game. I’m too old for this shit now, nigga. The power, the glory, the bitches, the money—you grow tired of it at some point.” Junior grew solemn. “I done lost my brother to this shit. There ain’t much else I’m willing to give up, feel me?”
Tuck had also given up a lot. Albeit for a different type of power and glory, in the end, the drug game claimed lives on both sides.
A car pulled up in front of the warehouse.
“A’ight, son,” Junior told Tuck. “It’s showtime. Once I introduce you, the game is all yours. I’m warning you, these Spanish cats don’t play. Keep your mind right, and everything I built can be yours.”
Tuck shook his head, clenching his ass cheeks together to keep himself from shitting his pants. The shit would hit the fan at any minute. He looked around the deserted lot.
“C’mon,” Junior said, pulling open the door.
Tuck followed suit.
They walked side by side, both of them nervous for different reasons. As they approached the darkly tinted Cadillac, Tuck took a deep breath.
Junior tapped on the window, and they both stepped back.
Then Tuck heard it. The voice.
“Don’t move, you fuckin’ murderer!” Candice screeched, gripping her Glock 22. She placed the gun up against Junior’s temple, her hands trembling.
“What the fuck!” Junior screamed.
Tuck whirled around and pulled his gun on her.
Candice was shaking all over.
“Drop your weapon!” Tuck ordered.
“Stay out of this! You don’t have shit to do with this beef!” she yelled at him, her voice quivering.
“Look, baby girl, we can talk about this,” Junior pleaded. “I didn’t have nothing to do with Shana getting murked.”
“And this ain’t got nothing to do with Shana, either,” Tuck interjected.
Candice’s eyes stretched slightly.
“She thinks you’re the one who killed her father. Eric Hardaway.”
Junior was stuck on stupid at Tuck’s revelation.
“Mind your fuckin’ business!” Candice growled, the tears forming in her eyes. She tried to will them away. Getting emotional was a sure way to blunder the mission.
“Yo, shorty, you got the wrong man,” Junior said calmly.
Candice shoved her gun harder into his head.
“He didn’t kill your father, Candy,” Tuck assured her.
“Yes, he did!” Candice screamed. “Broady was there! So was Razor!”
Junior looked at the tinted car windows and wondered why the fuck his connect’s henchmen didn’t get out and blast this little girl.
“I’m tellin’ you, ma . . . it wasn’t me!” Junior said in a placating tone.
“You motherfucker, don’t you fuckin’ stand in my face and lie! My father had just argued with you! You were jealous and wanted to take over his business. You set him up, and you and your little crew came in and killed him and my whole family!” Candice screeched. She racked the slide on her Glock just to make Junior flinch.
“Candy! Let me tell you the real story! You can’t shoot him. He is innocent,” Tuck exclaimed, his gun still trained on her.
“If you don’t drop your fuckin’ gun, his brains go flying now!” Candice growled. She didn’t know why the fuck she just didn’t blow Junior’s brains out and then shoot Tuck. Now she realized why Uncle Rock told her that feelings fucked up everything.
Tuck placed his gun down and raised his hands above his head. “Candy, I put my shit down. Listen to me. I told you before I wouldn’t hurt you. I’m not going to lie to you. I’m about to tell you everything. The whole truth.”
“Just shut the fuck up!” Candice screamed. She was crying now.
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