“Mommy, can I get Dora the Explorer lip gloss?” Tori asked.
“You have enough lip gloss and nail polish. I refuse to buy any more,” Chevonne answered.
Amir stuck his tongue out at Tori. Tori rolled her eyes at him.
Scowling, Lincoln looked at Chevonne accusingly. “Tori’s only five years old; isn’t that a tad early for her to be wearing makeup?”
“It’s only lip gloss, Daddy—not makeup. All my friends wear it,” Tori piped in.
“She’s right, Lincoln. They market the stuff for kids now.” Chevonne lifted one shoulder in a quick shrug. “It’s harmless. I think it’s sort of cute.”
“Why does our daughter have to do what all the other little fresh-butt girls are doing? How long has Tori been wearing lip gloss?”
“Since September, when she started first grade.” Chevonne’s eyes were darting about nervously.
“Why wasn’t I involved in that decision?” Now Lincoln was getting irritated. Tori had many years of childhood before she started the turbulent teens. There was plenty of time for her to start worrying about enhancing her looks. For the time being, all she needed to focus on was staying an innocent little girl.
“You’re making a big deal out of nothing,” Chevonne said in a sharp voice that urged Lincoln not to disrupt their family time.
The phone rang. Chevonne crossed the marble floor and answered it. “It’s your brother.” She mouthed the words to Lincoln.
I can’t believe that fool is calling my house, trying to hustle me! “Tell Earl we’re having dinner; I’ll call him back,” Lincoln said in a voice that was loud enough for Earl to hear. Earl knew damn well that he didn’t earn more than the fifty that Lincoln had sent him. Earl had a set of balls on him!
Chevonne relayed the message to Earl and quietly listened to whatever smack Earl was talking. Lincoln was growing more agitated by the second.
“He says it’s an emergency.” Chevonne held out her hand in a helpless gesture.
Lincoln stared at Chevonne pointedly, trying to convey with his eyes that he did not want to talk to his nuisance of a brother.
But Chevonne walked over to the table, bringing Lincoln the phone. “Earl, he says that he lost his cell phone; there’s no way for you to get in touch with him.”
Groaning, Lincoln took the phone. The call warranted privacy, and so Lincoln left the kitchen and stood outside on the deck. Hot with aggravation, he welcomed the chilly autumn air. “What’s up, man?” he barked into the phone.
“We got problems.” Earl’s tone was grim, and Lincoln got the distinct impression that this call was not about money.
“What kind of problems?” Lincoln swallowed, dreading whatever Earl was about to tell him.
“You could have at least warned a nigga that the dude you wanted me to handle was stark-raving crazy.”
“Huh?” Lincoln felt the hairs rising on the back of his neck.
“Huh, my ass. That mechanic muthafucka is tryna come for me.”
“He doesn’t know you.”
“Man, I dropped my phone, and that nigga got it! He’s been going through my contact list, texting all the bitches that I fuck with, pretending that he’s me! One of them broads gave up the tapes. Now that nut bull knows my name and where I rest my head at. This shit ain’t cool.”
Earl was right. This was bad. Real bad. Lincoln’s mind went blank and his body went numb.
“Say something, man,” Earl bellowed.
Lincoln massaged the top of his head, trying to encourage his brain to come up with some helpful information. “What exactly happened last night?” he asked, stalling because he didn’t know what else to say.
“I ain’t got time to give you a blow-by-blow description of events. I stepped to dude and he shocked the hell out of me when he pulled out a hammer. I’m lucky to be alive. The nigga tried to kill me and now he wants to finish the job. He called my mans, Crowbar, you know, the bull that was driving the squatter last night?”
“Uh-huh.” Lincoln didn’t actually know Crowbar, but he wanted Earl to go on.
“That nut bull told Crowbar that he was going to torch his hooptie. Then he told Crowbar to watch his back, cuz he was gonna stuff some dynamite up his asshole.”
Lincoln uttered a sound of shock.
“Crowbar ain’t know if the bull was serious or not, but taking a precaution, he parked his whip a couple streets over from where he lives. And guess what?”
Scared to ask, Lincoln muttered indecipherably.
“That nut bull turned around and called Crowbar again—using my muthafuckin’ cell phone! He told my mans that his car was in flames and that his ass was next on his list.”
Lincoln grunted in distress. What kind of maniac had his wife been fuckin’ around with?
“Crowbar said dude got a real raspy voice, and be talking a lot of raspy shit. He said dude sounded like one of them terrorists, yelling out a long list of heinous crimes he was about to commit. The bull had Crowbar so convinced that he was gonna light his ass up like a firecracker; Crowbar was shaking like a leaf. My mans had got his hands on some pain pills for that bullet graze on his arm. After listening to those terroristic threats, my mans popped damn near a whole bottle of pills. He washed ’em down with syrup—you know, to relax his nerves and whatnot.”
“Is Crowbar okay?”
“Hell, yeah. He’s better off than I am,” Earl said with a snort. “Having them drugs in his system is Crowbar’s ticket out of Philly. He just got out of rehab last month, but now he’s on his way back to the rehab facility. He’s gon’ check hisself back in and use it as a hide-out spot.”
“Umph,” Lincoln uttered. He was thinking that Crowbar had come up with a good plan.
“So my mans, Crowbar, is safe out in the boonies, but the nut bull is still coming for me!”
“Where’s your crew—those killer dudes you used to roll with?”
“All them niggas is either dead or locked up,” Earl said with disgust. “Ain’t nobody out on these streets, tryna go toe to toe with a maniac that’s into bombing cars and sticking explosives up a muthafucka’s asshole. Man, I should have stayed my ass in Atlantic City. I’m not tryna be nobody’s sitting duck.”
“Okay, let’s not panic. Listen to me, Earl—”
“Fuck you! I can panic if I want to. I’m not listening to shit else you have to say. You need to make peace with that lunatic bomber. Call his boss at the BMW place. Tell ’em they got a loose cannon working on people’s cars. Call the police. Get Chevonne to make some kind of a statement about the shoddy work the bull did on her car.”
“I can’t involve my wife in this,” Lincoln blurted. He was appalled at the idea of letting Chevonne know that he’d concocted a miserable plan of revenge that had backfired horribly.
“Well, you gotta do something, Lincoln. You the muthafucka that he got beef with. All he wanted from Crowbar was the four-one-one on who he was working for. Crowbar didn’t know what to tell him, because Crowbar don’t know anything about you.”
“Okay, good. Give me a second. I’m thinking…” As petrified as Earl sounded, Lincoln was sure that his brother would give up his name in a heartbeat.
“Fuck that! My life is on the line; I ain’t got time to be sitting around while you’re thinking. Pay me the rest of that paper that you owe me, so I can be out.”
“Where are you thinking about going?”
“None of your fuckin’ business; I’m not telling you nothing. It’s your fault that I’m all tangled up in this bullshit.”
“All right, man. Look, meet me outside my job tomorrow around ten. I’ll have the money for you,” Lincoln conceded. He felt horrible for putting his brother in such a dangerous predicament.
“Can’t you get the money tonight?”
“There’s a four-hundred-dollar limit on the ATM. I’ll get all the money when the bank opens in the morning.”
“Can’t we can drive around to some supermarkets…buy some shit and get cash ba
ck?” Earl sounded desperate.
“I can’t get a couple G’s from a grocery store,” Lincoln remarked sensibly.
“Aye, man. I’ll holla at you in the morning,” Earl spoke in a flat tone of voice. Lincoln was accustomed to his brother being overly aggressive, but all his fight had gone. It pained Lincoln to acknowledge that he had a hand in crushing Earl’s spirit.
Later on that night, Chevonne came to bed wearing a sheer, red negligee.
“That’s pretty, baby. Real sexy,” Lincoln mumbled halfheartedly. He put his arm around her, kissed her neck, but he didn’t go any further. He doubted if his dick would even get hard with the kind of problems that were heavy on his mind. And his wife was at the root of his problems.
Chevonne was a poor judge of character, getting involved with that lunatic mechanic. Then again, how could she not have known that her dick on the side was dangerous and demented? Maybe she had a dark side that Lincoln didn’t know about.
He looked at Chevonne from the corner of his eye, wondering if he really knew her.
CHAPTER 31
Lincoln brought his car to a stop when he spotted Earl. Earl had on a denim jacket. Considering himself going incognito, he wore dark shades and the beak of his cap that was usually twisted to the side, was pulled down low, concealing his face. Earl stood close to the brick exterior walls of Clemmons and Associates. Shoulders hunched, his hands stuffed in his pants pockets, Earl resembled a stereotypical junkie, looking for a fix.
“Get in, Earl.” Lincoln motioned with his hand.
Looking over his shoulder, Earl slid into the passenger seat. “You got that paper?”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to hand you a wad of cash in front of my job. Cameras are everywhere nowadays.”
Earl grunted and nodded, and looked over his shoulder again, obviously making sure they weren’t being tailed by the Navigator.
“Calm down, Earl. Why you so jumpy?”
Earl gave him a look of disbelief. “Why you think?”
“That fool is messing with your head, man.” With all his bravado, Earl was surprisingly terrified.
“Well, his strategy is working. Last night, Crowbar’s girl, Sharonda, came to the crib, pounding on the door—banging like she had a warrant for my arrest. I ain’t know what the fuck was up, but my ass was ready to leap from the bathroom window. Dumb-ass Michelle ran to the door, talking ’bout, ‘Who is it?’ I was so mad…if I didn’t have to look around for my sneakers, I woulda popped Michelle upside her head. But anyway, when I heard Sharonda call her name, I closed the window.”
Lincoln slowed the car on Bainbridge Street. A car pulled away from a meter, opening up a spot. Lincoln swung into the space. “So what did Crowbar’s girl want?”
“That ain’t important. Give me that paper, so I can bounce.”
“Bounce where? Do you know where you’re going? Do you have a plan?”
The long sigh that escaped Earl’s lips seemed to take all the life out of him; Earl looked deflated. “Nah, but having some money in my pocket will make me feel a whole lot better. The first thing I’ma do is get myself a new phone.”
“What actually happened the other night? I thought you were going to sneak up on the mechanic.”
“I did! Dude was in front of his crib, and he stood in front of his front door chugging down milk, straight out the container. Me and Crowbar had him—or at least we thought so. That muthafucka is like a ninja or something—seem like he got eyes behind his head, cuz before we knew it, he whipped around and bam! He hit Crowbar right in the face with the milk jug, and whipped out his burner in one second flat.
“Me and Crowbar took off running, but that nut bull was running after us, taking turns firing at both of us.
“Wow! That’s crazy,” Lincoln said while wondering what was up with Raheem and his penchant for drinking milk.
Earl glared at Lincoln. “You should have told me that I needed to bring some heat.”
“I had no idea.”
Earl sucked his tooth. “Fuckin’ with you, I could have got myself killed.”
Lincoln opened his glove box and took out two bank envelopes, stuffed with cash. Chevonne would have a fit when she discovered the withdrawal, but fuck it. And fuck her for getting him into this shit!
A million unpleasant thoughts tunneled through his brain in the few seconds that he held the bank envelope. “Here you go, man.” He gave Earl the money. “Don’t go on one of your gambling sprees.”
“Now you tryna tell me how to spend the money that I earned. That’s a lot of nerve, man,” Earl snapped. He took off his shades and peeked inside the envelopes, and then thumbed the currency. Despite being troubled, a quick smile came to his lips
“So where are you thinking about running? And how long are you gonna be gone?”
“I got in touch with one of my jawns from back in the day. She lives out in Leiperville.”
“Where’s that?” Lincoln asked.
“Exactly! Ain’t nobody ever heard of Leiperville, so that’s where I’m gonna be laying low. You dig?” Earl grinned with pride at his clever scheme. “Now how long I’m out in the sticks depends on when you handle that nut bull.
“You shoulda been the one dealing with that crazy killa in the first place. Why ain’t you go to the Better Business Bureau or some shit like that instead of dragging my ass into your personal problems?” Earl was looking real surly with his lips poked out.
Earl was absolutely right, and his words hit home. Lincoln should have personally dealt with Chevonne’s lover immediately after she gave up his information. Ashamed that he’d taken the coward’s route, Lincoln dropped his gaze. He wasn’t scared of Raheem, but he was terrified of doing jail time. He was horrified by the idea of losing his job, his family, and his status. Going back to his roots—being just another broke dude in the hood had been a recurring theme in his nightmares. Maybe he needed some therapy, after all.
“So what are you going to tell Michelle?”
“Man, fuck Michelle. My life is on the line; I’m not worrying about her. I’m going to the crib to pack my shit while she’s at work.”
“That’s cold.”
“The world is cold. Say, man, can you give me a ride back to my crib, and then drop me off at the bus terminal?”
Lincoln frowned. “No, Earl, I’m already late for work.”
Earl screwed up his lips and expressed his disgust with a long, whistling sigh. He slapped the shades back on his face, tugged on the beak of his cap. He looked around suspiciously before opening the car door. “I’ll holla at you when I get a phone.”
Lincoln pulled a business card out of his wallet and wrote his cell number on the back. “Don’t call my job; make sure you use my cell when you contact me.”
Earl grunted a response and then took off down Bainbridge Street.
CHAPTER 32
All afternoon Lincoln had been trying to figure out a way to get Raheem off of Earl and Crowbar’s trail. As far as he knew, Raheem hadn’t placed him on his hit list. Few people would believe that he and Earl were even related, let alone brothers.
He left work early, telling nosey Rachel that he had a dental appointment.
He drove straight to Bala Cynwyd to wait for Raheem. If Raheem’s routine was anything like before, Lincoln was going to be tailing him for hours. But it didn’t matter; his adrenaline was pumping. Raheem had to be stopped.
The baseball bat that his son, Amir, had allowed to collect dust, was going to be put to good use. The bat was secured between the spare tire and a tool box, inside of Lincoln’s trunk.
With four cars between him and the Navigator, he followed Raheem with his jaw clenched and vengeance in his heart. This time, Raheem didn’t turn onto Monument Avenue. He stayed on City Avenue, gliding along. City Avenue is an odd street. One side of traffic is considered to be Philadelphia, while the other side is Lower Merion territory. A black man didn’t drive on the Lower Merion side unless his shit was in order…license, registration,
and insurance all had to be up to date. Those Lower Merion cops had nothing but time on their hands, and the only time they were spotted doing police work, was when they pulled a black man over for a traffic violation or any minor infraction of the law.
Abiding by traffic rules, Raheem turned on his blinkers and turned into the Bala Cynwyd shopping plaza. Keeping a safe distance, Lincoln followed. Parked next to a minivan, he watched while Raheem sauntered away from his truck. He appeared to be headed in the direction of the fitness center. Lincoln groaned. Damn, I gotta sit out here while this dude pumps iron. Lincoln sneered at the man’s distinctive arrogant walk, and made a mental note to work on Raheem’s knee caps after he slammed a home run on his head.
Lincoln brightened up a little when he realized that Raheem wasn’t going to the fitness center. He was heading in the direction of Acme Market. More milk, muthafucka?
Lincoln cut his engine, and reclined his seat a little to get some leg room. That’s when he was struck with a brilliant idea. Lincoln turned the key in the ignition. He cruised up to the Navigator and wrote down the plate number.
He left the plaza and cruised over to a gas station that was on the other side of the street—the Philly side. Using a pay phone, he made an anonymous call that would alert the Lower Merion police.
Where he was from in the hood, if you happened to see a dude that you had beef with—he could be filling his tank with gas or inside a mini market, buying a blunt—one way to get even was to call the po-po and tell them that a robbery was being committed. Nine times out of ten, that fool would have an unregistered gun on him, and even though he wasn’t trying to rob anything, he’d get popped for the gun violation. Hood niggas always seemed to have open cases, and the gun charge would result in parole violation. Problem solved; nigga gets locked up for three to five years.
Getting Raheem off the streets was safer than risking getting shot up or hauled off to jail. He called 9-1-1 and claimed the Acme Market in Bala Cynwyd had just been robbed. He rattled off Raheem’s license plate number and then hung up.
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