In the last month, he’d read The Covenant with Black America by Tavis Smiley, True to the Game by Teri Woods, and The Essays of Warren Buffet.
Dre’s body tensed in anticipation of the long, tedious day ahead of him. He filled a six-quart pot with water, set it on the stove and turned the burner up high. Once the water came to a boil, he retrieved a kilo of cocaine from a duffel bag stashed in a hidden compartment underneath the sink. He carefully measured two ounces of the powder and dumped it into a glass beaker. To that, he added boiling water and baking soda. Using a butter knife, he rapidly stirred the concoction until the liquid began to crystallize, ultimately crumbling and separating into rocks.
For most people in his profession, this was the end of the process. But Dre always took the time to re-rock his product. He placed the beaker inside the microwave and let it cook for one minute, which transformed the rocks into a liquid the consistency of vegetable oil. Next, he held the base of the beaker underneath a stream of cold water, swirling it around, allowing a few drops of water to get inside.
Dre watched with pride as the concoction hardened into a flat, solid cookie. He removed the cookie from the bottom of the beaker, set it aside and started the process all over again.
At eleven, Dre took a break to make himself a turkey sandwich and watch The Young and the Restless, which he TiVo’d every day. Dre identified with Victor, the Newman family patriarch. Victor didn’t take shit from nobody.
Like Victor, Dre prided himself on always taking care of business. He didn’t indulge in drugs—not even weed—rarely drank anything other than wine or beer and didn’t see a need to floss. His ride was a beat-up Volkswagen Jetta and he didn’t have or need an entourage. He owned a .38 revolver, but had never fired it.
Dre had done prison time, but only once. His two-year sentence for possession with intent to sell was reduced to eight months of actual time, thanks to prison overcrowding. For Dre, prison time was simply a cost of doing business. Losing a kilo and thirty grand in cash had pissed him off way more than being on lockdown.
After finishing his sandwich, Dre returned to work. His next break wasn’t until four, when he stopped to watch Dr. Phil, one of the few cats on TV with something to say. Dre had a whole list of Dr. Phil-isms. His favorite: You can either wallow in your history or you can walk out of it. Dre was just months away from walking out of his.
Once the entire kilo had been converted into cookies, Dre cut them into pieces with a razorblade and put them into plastic bags after weighing them on a digital scale. A rock weighing 0.1 grams would sell for five dollars, 0.3 grams for ten dollars. He’d collect twenty bucks for a rock weighing 0.6 grams, while an eight ball—3.5 grams—went for a hundred and twenty-five dollars. A kilo cost him twenty-three grand and he made a profit of just over five thousand dollars on each one.
Dre pulled out his cell and called his son’s mother. When Little Dre answered, his jaw tightened. “Why aren’t you at school?”
“Uh . . .” Dre could always tell when his son was about to tell a lie. “Mama didn’t feel good today.”
“Put your mama on the phone.”
“Uh . . . she’s next door at Ray-Ray’s house,” his son said timidly.
“Go get her,” Dre demanded.
The minute Shawntay picked up, Dre exploded. “You too goddamn lazy to drive him two fuckin’ miles to school?”
“Don’t be cussin’ at me,” Shawntay grumbled. “You know my blood pressure’s been up. I wasn’t feeling good when I woke up this morning.”
“I don’t see why? You don’t do shit all day,” Dre shouted. “And you can’t be feeling too bad if you hangin’ out next door. The next time you can’t take him to school, you call me. Put Little Dre back on the phone.”
“I’ll be over there in a couple of hours,” Dre said, when his son came back on the line. “You and me gonna have school today.”
“Aw, Dad.”
“Just get your books out and be ready.”
Dre hung up and massaged his temples. Only six more months and he’d be out of the game for good. Then Little Dre was coming to live with him. By then, he’d have one million dollars. From the start, that had been his only goal. To stash away one million dollars.
As soon as he went legit, he was going to find himself a classy lady and have a couple more kids. A white picket fence, too.
He thought about Angela again. Even though the sistah was nosey as hell, there was something about her that he really dug. Dre wondered what she was really all about. Maybe he would invest the time to find out.
CHAPTER 13
Erickson enjoyed spending time in his garden. He was busy pruning his rose bushes when the sound of his stepdaughter’s shrill voice shattered what had been a pleasant afternoon.
“Aunt Sophia?” Ashley called out as she stepped onto the patio.
Erickson instinctively braced for the confrontation that was sure to follow. He turned to see Ashley scowling at him from across the yard. Corky, their Yorkshire Terrier, was tucked underneath her right arm.
“Sophia left to check on her place,” Erickson said. “She should be back in an hour or so.”
“Wow, the great leader of Jankowski, Parkins, Gregorio & Hall actually found time to come home before sundown on a weekday. Why aren’t you sitting with Mommy?”
Erickson survived their volatile relationship by never taking Ashley’s bait. He removed several dead petals from his English roses. “Your mother’s sleeping,” he said without turning to face her.
“She’s dying. I’d think you’d want to spend all the time you could with her.”
“I don’t want to do this right now. Frankly, I’m tired of it.”
“Oh, yes, it is all about you.” She set Corky free to run about the yard.
Erickson reached behind him for the beer bottle he’d set inches away on the grass. He tried to put himself in Ashley’s shoes. She was twenty-four years old, not particularly bright, not particularly attractive. She’d never had a relationship with her father and her mother was on her deathbed. She had no siblings, no cousins, no grandparents and no close friends. After Claire’s death, she’d have no one except her Aunt Sophia. She had a right to be an angry young woman. He would let her be.
“I guess I shouldn’t ask how Mommy’s doing. You probably wouldn’t know.”
When Corky barked and ran off toward the kitchen door, Erickson flushed with relief. Sophia was back to referee. Ashley usually behaved more civilly toward him in the presence of her aunt. He continued to ignore her and she finally went back inside.
Erickson took longer than necessary to finish his gardening, dreading going into his own house. Just as he was done, Sophia called out to him. “We need your help getting Claire to the bathroom.”
Tossing his gardening gloves to the ground, he reluctantly headed for the bedroom he no longer slept in. The place smelled and looked like a hospital room.
Claire was sitting on the edge of the bed when he entered.
“I told you, I can make it,” Claire insisted.
Lately, Claire was showing more independence. Erickson hoped that didn’t mean she was getting better. He took a step toward her, but she waved him away. She easily walked the short distance to their master bathroom. Erickson followed close behind, just in case she lost her footing.
He stepped aside as Sophia assisted her behind closed doors. When he turned around, he found himself face-to-face with Ashley. Her scornful eyes burned into his. She seemed to get off on staring him down. Erickson was relieved when the bathroom door finally reopened.
After helping Claire back to bed, Erickson asked Ashley and Sophia to join him in the den.
“We need to talk about Claire’s care,” he said, once they were seated before him. “I think we need to consider putting her in a hospice.”
“No way!” Ashley bellowed. “I won’t let you stash my mother away to die with a bunch of strangers!”
“Well, we can’t continue to take care of her he
re,” Erickson said. “It’s—”
“We? You don’t do a damn thing,” Ashley fired back. “We take care of her. Is it getting to be too much trouble for you to escort her to the bathroom on the rare occasion you’re even here? I bet you can’t wait for her to die.”
“Stop it right now!” Sophia scolded them both. “Claire’s going to hear you.” She turned to Erickson. “Have you discussed this with Claire?”
“I wanted to talk to the two of you first.” Erickson had figured there was only a slim chance that they would agree, but had decided to give it a shot anyway.
“I agree with Ashley,” Sophia said. “I can’t see putting Claire in a hospice. We’ll manage.”
“It’s going to get worse,” Erickson said.
“And we’ll handle it,” Sophia replied. “If we have to, we can hire a nurse to help out. I owe it to my sister.”
Erickson heard Sophia’s unspoken words. And you owe it to her, too.
He did not like having someone else make decisions for his wife and run things in his home. He just wanted it to all be over.
Very soon, it would be.
CHAPTER 14
At three in the afternoon, Dre dumped his duffel bag in the trunk of his Volkswagen Jetta and climbed into the driver’s seat. The car had 107,000 miles on it and had never once let him down.
As he backed out of the parking stall, headed for the city of Hawthorne, Dre smiled in anticipation of the ten grand he was about to collect.
Twenty-five minutes later, he pulled up in front of a well-kept house in a working-class neighborhood near 120th and Crenshaw. As he prepared to exit the car, his heart raced. You never knew when things could go awry, so he always braced for the unexpected. His eyes cruised the street ahead, then checked his rear.
Most of Dre’s clients were small-time dope dealers who didn’t want to hassle with the manufacturing part of the crack business, even though it would mean a bigger profit. Most dope dealers, Dre quickly learned, were not business oriented.
The marketing classes he’d taken at Long Beach State taught Dre the principles of supply and demand: make the best product, never run low and treat people fairly. That would keep them coming back for more. Dre also never stretched his product by adding cornstarch, B12 or any other crap. Everybody knew his product was pure.
Dre purchased his coke exclusively from the Mexicans. His black brothers were way too scandalous. They would sell you three kilos, then have one of their boys jack you on the way home. But the Mexicans were all about business. They operated by a code, probably because they had somebody above them calling the shots.
He pulled the duffel bag from a floorboard underneath the backseat and trotted up the driveway. Dre stared with disapproval as he walked past Lonnie’s Benz sitting on twenty-twos. Flossin’ in a ride with flashy rims like that was like begging the cops to hassle you.
“S’up, Biznessman?” Lonnie said, as he opened the door.
Dre’s nickname on the street was actually a source of pride. He returned the greeting and stepped inside. Dre wasn’t big on chitchat, preferring to get in and out without wasting time. The terms of their deal had already been worked out earlier in the day via phone. Eight pizzas and nine hot links. Their private code for eight balls and ounces.
He pulled a large paper bag from his duffel bag and handed it to Lonnie. In exchange, Lonnie passed him four neatly stacked wads of cash wrapped in rubber bands. Dre could hear kids laughing in a back room.
Dre quickly counted the cash, then looked up at Lonnie. “Dude, I think you miscounted.”
Lonnie’s chest swelled with indignation. “It’s all there, man. I counted it three times.”
“Well, you counted wrong.” Dre extended his hand. “You gave me a hundred dollars too much.”
Lonnie froze for a second before reaching for the bill. “Man, you’re alright.”
Dre stuffed the money in the inside pocket of his jacket and headed back to his car, smiling all the way. Lonnie would be telling that story for weeks. Dre’s rep on the street would go up tenfold. Dre was a good businessman and good businessmen treated people right.
Not until he crossed Manchester did Dre finally relax. Since he wasn’t driving an expensive car, there was only a slim chance that a cop would stop him. He was always careful to drive the speed limit and never even rolled through a stop sign. If he got stopped, it would be very hard to explain why he was carrying ten grand in cash.
Dre had been having a tough time keeping his mind off Angela. He couldn’t remember the last time a female affected him that way. They had gotten into the habit of hanging around to talk after their cycling class. The more time he spent with her, the more he dug her.
Though she claimed to be a few months away from getting married, something definitely wasn’t right in paradise. But Dre wasn’t one to ask a lot of questions. If homeboy wasn’t handling his business, that was on him.
Dre pulled into a parking stall in back of an apartment building off Florence. Little Dre waved from the balcony of the second floor and dashed down the stairs.
“Hey, Dad!” His son jumped into his arms before he was barely out of the car.
“Hey, dude. Ready to go?”
“Yep. Gotta go get my stuff.”
Shawntay stepped out of her apartment, leaned over the railing and smiled seductively. “Hey, Dre.”
He winced as soon as he saw her.
Shawntay’s hair was freshly done and she was wearing enough makeup to scrape off and paint the side of a barn. Her shiny satin top was all cleavage and nipples. Dre had made the mistake of screwing her several weeks ago, simply to blow off some steam. He’d left as soon as he busted a nut.
Since then, he could tell that Shawntay assumed the encounter meant they might start kickin’ it again. But that wasn’t going to happen. Dre was convinced that Shawntay was bipolar and hoped she hadn’t passed that shit on to his son.
Dre stepped inside the apartment. Crap was everywhere. Crap was always everywhere. He didn’t understand how anybody could function in a place like this.
“You ever think about cleanin’ up this dump?”
Shawntay planted both hands on her broad hips. “You wanna hire me a maid?”
“Why you need a maid? You don’t work.”
The nice Shawntay who had greeted him seconds ago had disappeared, replaced by her psycho twin. “Don’t come up in here startin’ nothin’, Dre.”
Why do I even waste my time tryin’ to talk to this crazy bitch?
“Little Dre, hurry up,” he called into the back room.
Shawntay leaned against the wall and folded her arms, hoisting her breasts six inches higher. “Want me to hang out with y’all this weekend?” she asked with a purr. The nice Shawntay was back.
“Naw.”
Shawntay puckered her lips and sulked. “Well, don’t be bring-in’ him back late.”
“After I pick him up from school tomorrow, we’re goin’ out to eat. I’ll have him back by six. If we’re runnin’ late, I’ll call you.”
“Ain’t no need to call,” Shawntay snarled. “Just don’t be late.”
Dre started to respond, but knew that would only escalate the drama. He turned and pushed open the screen door. “Tell Little Dre I’m waitin’ for him in the car.”
CHAPTER 15
Angela entered the small conference room and mentally took roll. Two members of the task force were missing. “Are Salina and Zack coming?” she asked, taking a seat at the table.
“Salina’s on her way,” Jon replied. “Said she has something big to report. As for Zack, let’s just enjoy the fact that he’s missing in action.”
“Well, let’s get started,” Angela said. “I’d like everyone to report out on their individual assignments. You go first, Tyler. What did you find out about Live Now?”
Tyler opened a yellow folder. “Live Now is one of twenty DBAs operated by The Tustin Group. In the early ‘90s, The Tustin Group made a ton of money selling the po
licies of AIDS patients. When the new AIDS drugs came onto the scene and increased the life expectancy of people with HIV, they switched their focus to cancer victims and, more recently, the elderly. The founder and CEO of the Company, Tom Bellamy, used to be a commercial real estate broker. He started out in his twenties and was filthy rich by his thirties. He told one interviewer that he entered the viatical business because he got bored selling office buildings. The company posted a gross profit of fifty million dollars last year.”
Jon whistled.
“You were also going to research some additional legal theories we should consider,” Angela said. “Did you find anything helpful?”
Tyler glanced at his notes. “In addition to internet, mail and wire fraud, we should also consider—”
Zack noisily entered the room and took a seat at the far end of the table, although the rest of the team was gathered at the opposite end. “Sorry I’m late.”
Angela refused to react to what she assumed was an attention-grabbing move. “Go ahead, Tyler.”
When Tyler finished his presentation, Zack started pelting him with questions. “Did you read U.S. v. Janson?” he asked in a manner meant to intimidate.
Tyler looked embarrassed. “Uh . . . no.”
“Why not? It’s—”
“Hold up, Zack,” Angela said, cutting him off. “I’m not concerned about nailing down specific legal authority right now.” She turned to Tyler. “Good job.”
Zack rolled his eyes just as Salina hurried into the conference room. “You absolutely won’t believe this.”
“Don’t tell me,” Zack said facetiously, “there’s been another viatical murder.”
“Nope,” Salina said. “There’ve been two murders.”
Angela gasped. “You’re kidding.
“I wish.” Salina took the open seat next to Angela. “And both of the victims just happen to be clients of Live Now who sold their policies a few weeks before they died.”
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