Trust No Man 3

by Cash

  I drove off and Criminal started talking. He told me that he had heard from a reliable source that two Decatur niggas were running their mouths about throwing Molotov cocktails inside a house they thought I was in because my whip was parked in the driveway. “Oh yeah? Who is the niggas?” I insisted on some names.

  “Nigga named Crucial from Candler Road. The other nigga is named Juwan, but you don’t have to worry about him, I already got at him for you.”

  “I owe you two for that one. Those niggas burned my grandmother and sister to death in that fire.”

  “I remember,” he murmured in a sympathetic tone. “That’s why I wet that nigga’s whole chest. Check out today’s AJC if you don’t believe me.”

  I didn’t respond. My thoughts were on Laquanda and Big Ma suffering in that fire. “I owe you,” I said as I dropped Criminal back off at his car.

  I drove straight to the store up the street and bought that morning’s edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I went to the metro section, where I found proof that Juwan Davis had gotten his cap pushed back sometime last night.

  I hit Criminal up.

  “’Sup fam’?” he answered.

  “I forgot to ask you where that nigga Crucial hang out at?”

  “On McAfee. He’s a tall red nigga with dreads, drives a black old school Camaro or a two- door Caddy with the brains blew out.”

  “Thanks, bruh,” I said before I hung up.

  I shoved my phone down in my pocket and thought about murking Crucial in a manner just as heartless as he had murdered my Big Ma and Laquanda. Tears welled up in my eyes as I imagined how they had suffered in that fire.

  Crucial was gonna suffer too.

  CHAPTER 29

  The murder of Crucial’s man must’ve alerted him that he was next. For more than a month I stalked the nigga’s hood and every spot he was known to frequent, but he could not be found. Mad niggas knew who he was, and that he pumped work for Zeke, but they did not know where he had gotten ghost to. The spot where he usually pumped was being overseen by someone in his place. It mattered none to me, I was closing that bitch down.

  I caught one of Zeke’s workers making a drop to the house and did him real dirty. A night later, I hit a spot of Zeke’s on Hollywood Road. That same weekend I followed two other workers to the Chinese restaurant on Jonesboro Road and left them nodded in their truck. I was on a roll.

  I found out that one of the top niggas in Zeke’s clique was Nafi a young head banger about my age, whom I had went to school with. I knew Nafi's people real well. I got the word to Nafi through his cousin that I needed to holla at him ASAP.

  Two days later we sat across from each other at a table at the Waffle House on Moreland Avenue. I was facing the window, though Criminal had the parking lot covered.

  Wearing a burgundy and black kufi, Nafi nodded his head in greeting, “Asalaam Alaikum.”

  “Alaikum As-Salaam.” I paid respect to his faith.

  “My dude, Trouble. How have you been? Besides being a hot boy?”

  “I’m gucci. What about you, ock ?”

  “Just been tryna get mine and get out,” he said.

  “I feel you. So let me give it to you straight: Me and your connect got a big problem with each other.”

  “Yeah, I heard. But what that got to do with me?”

  “The same thing it had to do with Big Ma and my sister Laquanda!”

  He looked at me strangely, confused by my statement.

  “I’m missing the connection, T. Maybe I’m slow spell it out to me so I’ll understand. ‘Cause right now I’m lost.”

  “Zeke sent the niggas who burned down my grandmother’s house and killed Big Ma and my lil sis.”

  Nafi's eyes got wide. “You sure about that?” he asked.

  I told him about the voice mail that Zeke left on my phone after the fire. He let out a long whistle.

  “I wouldn’t wanna be Zeke,” he said, correctly reading that kill or be killed look in my eyes.

  “Nawl, you sho’ wouldn’t. And you don’t wanna be on his team, either. ‘Cause my gun don’t discriminate. If I gotta murk a hundred pawns to get to the king, that’s how it’s going down. That nigga touched people that I loved. I’ll never rest until they play that organ for his bitch ass.”

  “Homie, I don’t have beef with you. True, Zeke put me on my feet when I came home from a bid, but we’re not tight like that. I’ma just fall back and get back on my square. Allah will see me through.”

  We chopped it up for thirty minutes more, and then said our goodbyes. “Stay out of this, Nafi,” I warned him.

  “I will,” he swore.

  “You heard all of that?” I spoke into the cordless mic that was taped to my chest under my T-shirt.

  “I heard it all, bruh,” Criminal said from the parking lot.

  “So, what you think?”

  “Trust no man!”

  A few seconds later, I heard the familiar clatter of Criminal’s four-fifth.

  A throng of people rushed out of the Waffle House and gawked down at Nafi's body, allowing me to slip away unnoticed.

  The next day I received an unexpected call from the very muthafucka who had sworn that he would not fold. I laughed at him when he offered peace.

  “Youngin, I wanna have a sit down with you and see if we can’t end the bloodshed,” offered Zeke.

  “Nawl, bitch nigga, I don’t want no muthafuckin’ peace. I want blood! If you want this to end, shoot yourself in the muthafuckin’ head and let me read about it in the newspaper.”

  I hung up and immediately had Ava to have my number changed. Big Ma and Laquanda hadn’t lost their lives at the hands of Zeke just for me to settle the beef with a handshake. That had me fucked up. Rusty ass nigga should’ve bowed down to my pedigree from the start. Now it was too late.

  I went on about my business as usual until Criminal hit me up. Later that same night, we squashed four Mexicans at an apartment complex on Tara Boulevard. Criminal offered me five bands for rolling with him, but I turned the dough down. “One hand washes the other,” I reminded him.

  Problems that I could solve with a bullet was like water off a duck’s ass. It was the other shit that twisted my face. Inez called me sounding down and out about Bianca. Weeks had passed and Bianca still hadn’t returned home. A friend of Bianca’s had told Inez that Bianca had hooked up with an older dude who had her stripping in the club, tricking off, and popping X. She wasn’t my blood sister, but the love I had for Inez extended to her. Plus, I had killed her father, so I felt some pity for the girl. I found out where Bianca danced and went to handle that lil bit.

  When I showed up at Pin Ups, the strip club where Bianca was working under a false ID, she had no holla for me. I looked in her eyes and saw that she was zoning. “Shawdy, on the real, if it was up to me you could shake your ass on stage forever. If you like it, I love it. But this ain’t the right way to go about it, and it’s tearing Inez apart. Now you can walk up out of here with me on your own, or I’ll drag your ass up out of here you got two minutes to decide.” I checked my wrist. Bianca called my bluff. Clad only in a thong, she stood planted in the same spot. So I showed her that I didn’t issue idle threats. She kicked and screamed as I threw her over my shoulder and headed for the door. Of course, security intervened, telling me to leave her alone.

  I sat her down and pulled one of the toy cops to the side. “Bruh, that’s my people and she ain’t even seventeen years old too young to be up in this bitch shaking and selling ass. I’m not no snitch, so you ain’t gotta worry about me sending the po-po up in this spot. But peep game, fam’. I’m about to tell you some real shit. If you let her back up in here, I’ma murk y’all niggas one at a time until I erase all of y’all. They call me Trouble. Ask around,” I said. When dude stepped aside, I walked out of the club and looked around for Bianca. She had disappeared.

  CHAPTER 30

  I guess I should’ve expected niggas to come at me on some bitch shit. They were scar
ed to get at me themselves, so they did what a coward does. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw detective vehicles close on my bumper. Behind the DTs car was APD. I sensed that I was about to get pulled over, and I knew if there was a warrant for my arrest it would be for more than jaywalking. I hit Ava on the jack and spoke calmly. “Po-po behind me. I don’t know for what but it can’t be good news. If this is it, shawdy, stay up.”

  “Where are you at?” she asked. “I’ll meet you.”

  “Fall back. I got this.” I clicked her off before she could protest.

  The squad car’s flashing lights came on behind me. I ignored them and continued on at a moderate speed, trying to reach a good spot to bounce on ‘em or throw down at ‘em.

  My thoughts jumped to Ava. I could see my cell phone on the seat between my legs lighting up with missed calls. I knew shawdy was going crazy with worry. I believed that if this was the end of the road for me, she would do the right thing with my things that were in her possession. I slammed on brakes at the intersection of Georgia Avenue and Pryor Road, threw the car in park, and was out in a flash, banger backing me up. With a limp, I dashed through screeching traffic and hit a side street doing a hunnid on foot. My Forces were smoking. A nigga kind of felt punked running with a banger, but common sense overruled my ego and foolish pride in this instance. I cut through backyards, jumped fences, and stepped in dog shit, but I got away with the help of an old black woman who hid me in the trunk of her car and drove me to a motel out on Fulton Industrial. I blessed her with five bands and thanked her with a kiss on the cheek. “I sort of feel like Harriet Tubman,” she quipped with a snaggled tooth smile. I laughed, although I didn’t know who Harriet Tubman was. “Take care of yourself, son. Don’t let the crackers and the Uncle Tom’s catch you. Because once they lock you up they don’t like to let you go. My baby Dexter has been locked up for twenty-seven years. Now you know that’s a shame. I don’t care what a man did wrong, twenty-seven years is long enough.” I went into my pocket and gave her another two hundred dollars.

  “Send that to your son for me.” Tears trickled down her wrinkled brown face.

  For an extra fifty dollars I was allowed to register a room without presenting my ID. I hit Ava up and told her my whereabouts. Shawdy said she’d be there in twenty minutes. Next, I called Inez and told her the business. “Let’s hope it’s not too serious,” she said.

  “They had a DT with ‘em, so that’s about a body or an armed robbery. Some bitch nigga probably took out a warrant on me, tryna get me off the streets,” I guessed. I was still on the phone with Inez when I heard a soft knock on the motel room’s door. I hung up and let Ava in. She closed the door and rushed into my arms.

  “I’m happy to see you too, shawdy,” I teased.

  “It’s not funny, Trouble. I was scared I might not see you again because I knew you wouldn’t go down without a fight. I kept calling and calling and calling you, so I could come wherever they pulled you over and give those bastards the surprise of their lives. But you would not answer the phone.”

  Whap! She hauled off and smacked me across the face.

  “Boy, you had me going crazy!” She broke down crying. I kissed her sweet lips and wiped away her tears with my thumbs. “Make love to me,” she whispered.

  “A’ight. Let me take a quick shower, I’m sweaty.”

  “So! I want you inside of me now.”

  “Sweaty balls and all?”

  “Yep. Funky ass nuts and everything,” Ava said as she pulled off my shorts. I tried to make love to shawdy, but that’s not what she wanted at the time—she wanted to fuck. She was naked in a flash, and on all fours before I could protest, giving me a hella pussy shot. She flipped over onto her back once she’d seen me unbuckling my jeans. I went in, ready to give shawdy what she was craving. She pulled me onto her and began kissing my earlobes and whispering to me seductively.

  “Pin my legs back and make it hurt so good,” she pleaded. “I want to feel it in my stomach.”

  I pinned her legs back and stepped to my business. “I’ma kill you with this dick,” I said, stroking deep and hard.

  “Umm! Kill it, baby.” I went deeper. “Do you love your pussy? Does it grip your dick tight enough?” she rasped with pleasure.

  “Mmm hmm,” I grunted.

  “Don’t ever leave me, Trouble. Promise me you won’t leave me,” she cried as I banged her back out.

  “What if I die, shawdy?”

  “I want to die by your side.”

  “That’s this good dick got you talking like that.”

  “No it’s not. I wouldn’t want to live without you. Promise me you’ll never go away.”

  “Stop talking crazy, shawdy. Didn’t I tell you from the getty up not to get sprung? Just wrap your legs around my back and enjoy what we have now. Tomorrow ain’t promised.”

  When it was time for me to bust, I pulled out and shot babies all over her stomach. No more accidents.

  The following Tuesday, Inez found out that Bianca, with the help of Fat Stan’s mother, had sworn out a warrant accusing me of aggravated assault. Okay. But why the DTs? I hired prominent attorney, Barbara Moon to find out. “They want to question you about the murder of Stan Montgomery and other murders, including that of an ex-police officer that was killed some months back. These are very serious accusations and I advise you turn yourself in so that we can begin to address them,” she said after looking into things on my behalf.

  “Am I charged with murder in any of the cases?” I probed.

  “No. No murder charges have been filed against you, as we speak.”

  “Which means that things could change once I'm in custody?” I read between the lines.

  “Yes, they could. But I don't expect that they will. I expect that you'll be officially charged and booked on the assault charge. They'll want to question you about the other stuff, but of course, as your attorney I will not allow them to.”

  “A’ight. Last question. If I turn myself in will I get a bond?” I asked, because if the answer was no, I was hanging up the phone.

  “I'm sure that the judge will set a bond, but it will be excessive due to the fact that you fled from the police. However, I'll argue that your subsequent surrender mitigates that,” she replied in legal jargon.

  “What's excessive?”

  “Maybe $150,000.” That was peanuts because I would only have to put up ten percent.

  “I'll come to your office tomorrow, and we can go from there. But if I don't get a bond I'm gonna be real pissed off,” I said.

  “You’ll get a bond,” she assured me.

  I stayed up all night smoking loud and directing Ava on what to do with my cache of guns, just in case the po-po raided the crib.

  When morning came, I surrendered to the muthafucking law.

  CHAPTER 31

  I was out on bond in three days. I could not believe the lies Bianca had told in the warrant. It was easy to conclude she was also behind the po-po’s wanting to question me about Fat Stan’s murder. But she could not be guilty of pointing them in my direction for the other murders I was questioned about. That could have only been done by Criminal or Zeke.

  I discounted Criminal because he participated in the murders. Also, every single murder they questioned me about was related to Zeke’s people. The nigga popped all that gorilla shit about him regulating the game before I was in diapers, and then when my gun got too hot for that ass, he dropped a dime on me. “I want that ass almost as bad as I want Lonnie’s,” I said to Criminal.

  Feeling the eyes of the law might be on me real strong, Ava and I changed addresses under the cover of nightfall. We now resided in North Druid Hills.

  As fate would have it, we were out at the mall shopping for a diamond bracelet for shawdy. When we walked towards the jeweler’s stand, a woman in front of us said to the dude she was with, “Please, Crucial! Baby, I really want those boots.” The name meant nothing to Ava, but it meant a lot to me.

  Shawdy, I think
that’s one of the niggas that bombed Big Ma’s house,” I whispered.

  “How do you know?” she whispered back.

  “Hold up.” I hit Criminal ASAP. He answered on the third ring.

  “What’s poppin’?”

  “Fam’, describe that nigga Crucial to me again.”

  “Tall nigga. Sort of look like Dre 3000 from Outkast, but he’s a red nigga.”

  “A’ight, thanks, bruh.” I hung up and dropped back to a distance that wouldn’t alert the couple in front of us that they were being followed. Soon, I got a real good look at the dude’s face. “Sorry Ms. Jackson, I am for real . . .” I sang to myself.

  From that point on, I followed Crucial to a house way out off Jimmy Carter Boulevard. I never once let him out of my sight.

  I didn’t smash Crucial that night because I didn’t want Ava with me when I did it.

  I adhered to something I read in the book written by my pop. One of the strategies my pop employed when hunting down an enemy was learning their routine. He did not follow a target for days; he just found out the place they frequented the most, and then he laid on them to show up there. That’s what I decided to do with Crucial. I counted on him to come back and fuck with shawdy sooner than later, and he did not let me down. Two weeks later, I went bitch nigga hunting with my Glock .50 in my waist.

  I stepped out of the shadows of the walkway like the Boogie Man. “Run nigga, and I’ll blow a hole in your coward ass back!” I snarled in Crucial’s ear while digging my banger in his spine.

  “I ain't gon’ run, man. Please don't shoot me,” he pleaded like a bitch.

  “You’re an arsonist, huh? You killed a grandmother and a young girl. You think that makes you a killa?”

  “Man, Juwan did that. I just drove the car. I didn’t even wanna do that, but I owed Zeke some money and—”

  “Explain yourself to God!” I cut him off with a single shot. He dropped like dead weight, but he was still alive. I wanted him to suffer like Big Ma and Laquanda had.

  Without hesitation, I doused him with gasoline until his clothes were soaked. I struck a match and dropped it on the nigga. Three blocks away I could still hear his cries.