The brand new Porsche 911 Turbo’s engine roared as the gas pedal was repeatedly mashed. Each time it revved, the audience began to surround it and laugh even harder as if their stomachs were about to bust.
Vrooooom. Vroooooom. Vroooooooooom. The vehicle stayed parked in neutral gear.
“Again!” Freeze heard an aggressive voice yell as he finally maneuvered his way to the front of the sidewalk to see what was going on. He was too small. No one even seemed to notice him. Everyone was too focused on what was going on in front of them, prepared to share more laughter.
Vroooom, vroooooooom, vroooooooooom.
The woman in the driver’s seat followed the order with tears streaming down her face each time she stepped on the gas. Both of her hands remained on the steering wheel as she looked straight ahead.
“Again!” Freeze heard repeated.
Vrooooom. Vroooooooooooooom.
This time the woman cried harder as she looked forward. Her sweaty palms gripped the steering wheel as she followed the absurd instructions while staring through the windshield.
As Freeze neared, through a tiny crack of people he could see that the female driver was really beautiful. She was looking his way. Through the small space, the two of them locked eyes. Although she appeared to be older than him, he could see that she was still young. Her long, beautiful hair was wildly undone and flaring out in tangled, sweaty strands. Her eyes were blackening from sleepless nights. Freeze watched as she wiped the tears from her eyes and snot from her nose. She pulled the wet strands of hair back behind her ears while keeping her eyes on the rearview mirror, watching the crowd in the back of the car. A tiny smile surfaced as she stomped down on the gas pedal on her own.
Vroooooooom, vrooooooom.
The engine screamed to be put in gear but sat idle as she steadily continued while never easing up off of it.
Freeze finally had a clear view of what was taking place. He bullied his way toward the front of where the commotion was taking place. There, he saw Frenchie standing outside of the car with his pistol in his hand laughing along with everyone else who was looking in the direction of the back of the car. The crowd surrounded him.
“See here, this is what happens when you cross me. You pay. I make sure of that. It doesn’t matter when I catch ya! Like this nigga here, who thought he could just rob one of my workers and get away with it. Obviously he ain’t that smart. I know he put her up to it,” Frenchie announced, referring to the young girl in the driver’s seat. “Give it some more gas, bitch. He want you to supply his smoke habit. Let ’im have it,” Frenchie commanded.
Everyone watched as an ass-naked Ronny was being stretched out with his chest flat on the ground. Four of Frenchie’s workers each had their dead weight on either a leg or an arm of Ronny’s. A fifth one, Tommy Gunz, held his head.
“Bite down on the fuckin’ tail pipe! Hit the fuckin’ pipe now, nigga!” Frenchie chuckled. His facial expression and tone could have been mistaken for humor, but he was as serious as a heart attack.
The exhaust pipe was halfway down Ronny’s dry, burning throat. His lips were damn near melted on to the hot, thick metal. He would’ve rather it be the barrel of the cold chrome .38 Special that Frenchie was holding. But it wasn’t. This was torture at the most extreme extent. Every time he was ready to black out, the person holding his head in place would smack him back awake. The carbon dioxide filled his lungs until the thick black smoke spilled out of his nostrils. He couldn’t even cough. Being an expert crack smoker taught him how to trick the smoke to flow through his body and exit. It was the only reason he was alive for so long. What was happening was deadly. And it seemed like it would never end.
The engine kept roaring and, each time it did, the pain became unbearable. Ronny tried to hold on for as long as he could. He had been stripped ass naked in front of dozens of people, and it all came down to this. He promised himself that if he made it out of this predicament, he would change his life forever. As he ended the teary-eyed secret prayer, the engine finally seized.
Freeze couldn’t believe what he was witnessing. He watched wide-eyed as Frenchie and his goons tortured Ronny with the help of his young prostitute.
Shamika took her foot off the gas pedal. She studied herself in the left side mirror this time and began to cry again. She couldn’t take it any longer. Her life was once so perfect. She was a prom queen, the most beautiful girl in the school, voted most likely to succeed. It was all about her and her high school sweetheart, Melvin, who was killed in a motorcycle accident after graduation day. She never got the chance to tell him that she was pregnant with their child. It was too late. She slipped into a deep depression and never made it through college. She spent most of her pregnant days suffering from mental torment. After having the child on her own, she met “him,” Ronny Blunson. He promised to change her life. He fulfilled it in the worst way.
In order to ease her pain, Ronny began to unselfishly share his drugs. It started with just cocaine. But, as his addictions mutated, so did hers. She would do anything for him. Once he realized that, he took full advantage. Every hustler wanted Shamika. Her habits had been kept confidential. They were dying for a piece of her. Ronny convinced her to do it for the first time. He told her that if she truly loved him, she would do it. After she went through with it once, he wouldn’t take no for an answer ever again. He forced her to charge them. And then he felt that wasn’t enough.
He began to beat her up whenever she wouldn’t steal their drug packs. Sometimes the hustlers would catch her in the midst of her futile attempt and severely hurt her. Either way, she was between a hard place and a harder place. Ronny had promised that if she stole drugs from Tommy Gunz, who had the best product, it would be the last time. So she went on the mission. She sucked Tommy Gunz’s dick so good that he never felt her hands enter his pockets, relieving him of his money and drugs, leaving him the burden of explaining to Frenchie why he didn’t have his money, which was life-threatening for Tommy.
As Tommy held Ronny’s mouth to the tail pipe, Shamika’s mind started racing a hundred miles a second. Thoughts of Ronny and all that he made her do caused her to go cold again. The new tears dried up as she stared herself in her own eyes. Her foot went back down on the pedal. Her foot stayed on the pedal this time. She could hear the laughs over the steady roar of the engine. She looked in the rearview mirror and could see the five standing men ducking low. She looked to her right and could see Frenchie clutching his pistol out in the open. And then she locked eyes again with the confused young boy gripping his book bag, staring through the window at her. He was the only one who wasn’t laughing. He didn’t find anything funny at all. His face was pure, stone solid. She lowered her head and shot Freeze a glance that he would never forget. Her eyes seemed to be crying out for help to Freeze. She then pulled the seat belt strap across her chest, fastened it, and then: scurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr smackkkkkk!
Shamika had slammed down on the clutch while releasing the emergency hand brake and she stomped down on the gas, pulling away from Ronny’s bloody mouth at top speed causing his aching jaw to drop hard to the pavement.
The spectators gasped. The laughter stopped. Eyes bulged out of their heads as they had watched the tires spin out of control before the Porsche pulled into the middle of the street. Freeze watched, as Shamika had lost control of the wheel and flown into the opposite lane of oncoming traffic. She tried to cut the wheel back over, but it was too late. She was hit from the side. The Porsche flipped one full time and landed back onto all four tires. It came dangerously close to sideswiping a woman who had been watching the incident from a safe distance. The roof was crushed. Smoke rose from the hood. The other car had ended up on the opposite sidewalk in a complete wreck. Spectators began to scatter out of fear of being questioned by the police once they arrived.
Shamika was unconscious. Her body leaned forward, with her head leaking blood on the steering wheel as it rested there, blowing the horn nonstop.
The massive crowd disper
sed. Some people scattered into the streets. Others stood frozen at the joke that turned into a deadly accident. Screams and cries could be heard by fleeing pedestrians as bullets whizzed through the air. Ducking heads could literally hear bullets hitting and ricocheting off of walls and light poles as they came dangerously close to those seeking cover.
Freeze’s eyes followed Frenchie as he ran into the middle of the street, seeming to be the most concerned. Tucking his gun in the front of his waistline, he approached the driver’s side of the Porsche.
“Oh, shit!” Shamika yelled as she studied the smashed windshield.
“You a’ight?” Frenchie asked.
Shamika didn’t hear him at first. The sound of the steady horn drowned everything else out, but she finally woke up and tried to shake it off. The horn stopped as she lifted her head. For the first two full minutes, she didn’t remember what had happened during the past hour. She finally got the strength to shift her head and lean back against the headrest while trying to catch her breath. She was still dizzy. Her vision was blurry. Everything was spinning. Finally, a voice began to register.
“You a’ight? Can you hear me? Lemme know something! Can you move?”
She heard the string of questions and slowly turned her head to her left, still not comprehending or processing information well. She just turned toward the voice. There seemed to be at least six different people asking the same questions. She tried to focus in, still unable to respond. And then it seemed to be four, and then two, and then, as the spinning slowed even more, there was just one.
“Can you hear me? You okay?” Frenchie asked again through the shattered driver’s side window. It took everything that Shamika had left to pull herself together enough to answer.
“Uhhhh, yes. I guess so,” she struggled to gasp, surprised by her concern. She was almost ready to smile at the thought of her sentiment.
Frenchie grew cold and snapped, “Wrong answer, you nothin’-ass li’l bitch! That’s a ninety thousand dollar car you just wrecked!” he yelled while drawing the .38 back out from his waist.
Frenchie cocked the hammer back and put it directly to Shamika’s chest. In front of dozens of witnesses, he didn’t hesitate. He relentlessly pulled the trigger in rapid succession. The first three shots slammed into Shamika’s chest plate, giving her no time to react. Before she could even raise her hands to cover her injured chest, two more shots tore into her face. The point-blank range shattered her jaw bone and distorted her face instantly. Blood and brain matter sprayed the shattered windshield.
Blong! Blong! Blong! Each shot seemed to ring louder than the previous through Freeze as he witnessed the murder of Shamika. Even the rotation of the center barrel could be heard through the brief gasps of silence. Freeze, along with the rest of the crowd, flinched at each click. Most of them began to run for their lives. Only the ones who were with Frenchie stayed behind. The five workers kept Ronny’s naked body pinned down on the ground. His face was bloody. His chest was embedded in the concrete. He was still coughing up the lung-soaking poison as he witnessed Shamika get murdered. He watched as Frenchie calmly walked back toward him, and he feared he was next.
Frenchie nonchalantly tucked the pistol back into his jeans. He wasn’t concerned or scared of the repercussions at all. There weren’t any cops to worry about back in those days. They were all on the payroll. The then-crooked Sin City was owned by gangsters. Ironically, it was the blatant public executions such as that one that kept the fear instilled in the community. Back then, nobody saw nothing. That’s just the way it was. The streets policed themselves.
The murderous crash scene stayed exactly how it was as if help would never come. No police, no ambulance, no coroner, not even a tow truck to remove the car from the center of the street.
Frenchie looked down and focused on Ronny. “You see all of this trouble you caused out here today? That car was brand fuckin’ new!”
Freeze drew his attention to Ronny, who began to panic. “Please, man. I swear, I . . .” He couldn’t even finish pleading because he began to cough up blood.
“Look at him. He’s fuckin’ finished. Fuckin’ pathetic,” Frenchie snarled with disgust. He then looked up at Tommy Gunz, reached behind his back, and passed Tommy his gun. “Truthfully, this is your mess. You’re lucky. Finish him off!”
Right then and there, Tommy knew he didn’t have a choice. Frenchie was right. So he aimed down at the back of Ronny’s shifting head as the other four men held him down. Ronny kept squirming, trying to beg, trying to pray, trying to live. None of the three was upheld.
Blong!
Freeze jumped as the sound of the weapon echoed in the air. When he looked, Ronny lay stretched out flat on the hot pavement.
“Now clean this mess up!” Frenchie ordered as the five men began to scramble.
He turned around and realized something he hadn’t before. Freeze had never budged from his front-row view. Frenchie walked over to him, stood in front of him, and knelt down for them to meet face to face. “Everybody else ran. You stayed. You ain’t scared, li’l nigga?”
Freeze shook his head no, gazing right past Frenchie and staring at the crushed Porsche.
“Oh, yeah?” Frenchie revealed a smile. “Just like your pops, stone cold.”
Freeze shifted his eyes while clutching the straps on his shoulders as Frenchie spoke.
Frenchie rubbed his chin. “What you doin’ out here? It’s a hard world out here, shawty. Only the strong survive. You strong?” he asked.
Freeze shook his head up and down, still staring at the Porsche.
Frenchie smiled. “I like that. How old are you now?”
“Eleven,” Freeze answered.
“Eleven,” Frenchie repeated. “Well, this ain’t no place for a kid. It’s time for you to go home and forget about what you just saw here today.” Frenchie rested his right hand on Freeze’s shoulder. “If you ever need anything, you let me know, you hear me?”
Freeze nodded rapidly.
“Cool.” Frenchie went into his pocket and came out with a crisp twenty dollar bill. “Go get you some pizza or something. And stay in school.”
Freeze returned to the present. He let out a light snort as a half smile appeared on his face. He turned and looked over at Esco. “Yo, you know a good lawyer?” he asked Esco as they pulled into the same pizza place Freeze had gone to when Frenchie had given him the twenty dollars that day.
Chapter 8
Early the next morning, Agent Reddick entered the federal headquarters with a sluggish demeanor. He removed his dark sunglasses, tucked them under his FBI flight jacket and into his shirt pocket, and made his way to the elevator. As he passed the front desk, the guard sitting behind it hung up the phone. He called out to Agent Reddick.
“Hey, Reddick, Mobley wants ya ASAP.”
Shaking his head from side to side, thinking, this can’t be good, Reddick reduced his speed as he walked through the lobby and approached the elevator. During the short ride up, he did anything that seemed to mentally slow things down such as studying every part of the elevator, personally noting how it felt more like a time warp than a ride. The mechanical transition from floor to floor was so smooth, it felt like the great steal box never moved. The doors closed, and you were on one level of the building. They reopened, and you were on a whole other floor, one you didn’t want to be on.
Agent Reddick reluctantly stepped out onto the carpet and made his way down to Chief Officer Mobley’s office. The door was closed but, just as he was about to knock, it swung open.
“Get in here!” Mobley yelled, storming back behind his desk, flopping back down hard in his chair. His breathing revealed every bit of deep, burning frustration.
As Agent Reddick walked toward the desk, he avoided eye contact by looking out the huge wall-length window behind Mobley as the light spilled in. He sat in the thin leather seat and rested his right ankle on his knee trying to appear under control. Mobley wasn’t buying it.
Mobley a
ggressively pointed his index finger at Agent Reddick the entire time he chewed him out. “I took McCarthy off the case ’cause I thought you was the man for the job. The one who would clean up his mess. But you let your rogue agent ego make matters worse for me, this case, this department, and this entire government. We’re the fuckin’ laughin’ stock of law enforcement. Overnight rookie beat cops read the papers while they sit in doughnut shops, laughin’ at us! Can you believe such a thing?” He let out a fake laugh as he slammed an open palm down on his desk. “They’re laughing at us! Wow! Un-fuckin’-believable. Under your watch, every single lead we had went down the drain. We got shit, Reddick! Shit! Nothin’! Zip! Zilch! Zero! Nada! And any other synonym you can come up with.”
He let out another sarcastic laugh while shaking his head. “Un-fuckin’-believable,” he gasped as he reached down under his desk, pulled open the middle drawer, and retrieved the day’s newspaper. He slammed it down on the desktop, facing Agent Reddick. The front page screamed at him. “This is what we got right here.”
Agent Reddick’s eyes were forced to gravitate to the bold headline: WITNESS UN-PROTECTION, DEATH AT FAMILY’S MEMORIAL SERVICE. It was in bold print. A shot of Office Douglass’s body being hauled away from the front row followed the headline. A perfect shot of the two caskets were in the same frame.
Agent Reddick interlaced his fingers and locked his hands in his lap with nothing to say. It was a catch-22. His silence only irritated Mobley. But his voice would’ve done the exact same thing. So silence was the easier route. At least his words wouldn’t be mocked and used against him.
Mobley continued, “In less than a week, Officer Blake, Agent Couiter, Benson, Lorretta, Cameron, and Officer Douglass were all deceased, murdered. And what do you have to show for it? Oh, that’s right. Starrshma Fields. She’s in custody, isn’t she? On what kinda charges? She isn’t facin’ over one freakin’ year. But she’s in custody. Well, not anymore. We don’t even have her. All of our leads are gone. What’re we holdin’ her on? Huh? Hopin’ she’ll confess to being the smartest criminal mastermind to ever exist? A fuckin’ lesbian broad? And the federal government can’t handle the likes of her? It’s a fuckin’ insult! And, guess what, that ain’t even the best part. No. I saved that for last. There’s the real bombshell here. We gotta let the bitch go. Walk right outta the fuckin’ federal detention center! Humph! You haven’t head the latest on her, huh? Well, I’ll let you hear it for ya’self. Hang tight.”
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