Mafioso [Part 1]

by Nisa Santiago

  “He ain’t your type,” Layla said. “Why you love that nigga?”

  “I just do,” Maxine uttered quietly.

  The fourth message he sent differed from the others. “Look, Maxine, forget what I said before. I was just angry wit’ you because I feel you let that bitch Sandy get in your head. She’s a lying bitch, talkin’ ’bout she’s pregnant by me. I don’t fuck wit’ her. But I fuck wit’ you, an’ I got so much love for you, Maxine. I’m not tryin’ to lose you, you feel me, ma? Yo, just call me back so we can talk.”

  Maxine could hear music in the noisy background. He was in the club. She looked at Layla.

  Layla said, “No, don’t fuckin’ call him back.”

  Maxine listened to her friend. It was all she did—listen to others.

  3

  It was nearing two in the morning, and the summer heat had somewhat faded. The girls still sat inside the parked Beamer and waited, stalking Sandy’s building. Layla continued to get high. She shared her blunt with Maxine, who reluctantly took a few pulls. The area became sparse with activity and was quiet to some extent. A few dope boys loitered at the other end of the block, playing music, drinking, and shooting dice, their voices echoing in the stillness.

  “Yo, where this bitch at?” Layla growled.

  “Layla, we should just leave,” Maxine suggested.

  Layla sucked her teeth. “What? Leave just like that after we been parked out here waitin’ for this bitch for hours? I’ma beat her fuckin’ ass some more just for havin’ me wait this long to beat her fuckin’ ass!”

  There was no rationalization with Layla; she already had her mind made up to start a fight and get revenge for Maxine. Layla carefully watched every car that passed by and every person entering the projects.

  Soon, a Ford Taurus came their way and slowed down nearby. It stopped a few feet behind them. The girls could see a few silhouettes inside the car. They observed a pregnant Sandy, all smiles and laughter, climb out from the back seat. The Taurus drove off, leaving Sandy alone as she walked toward her building.

  “C’mon,” Layla said.

  They both hopped out of the car and approached Sandy from behind.

  Layla scowled at the girl. “Yo, bitch, we need to talk.”

  Sandy spun around, and saw Maxine with Layla. The first thing out of Sandy’s mouth was, “Layla, you and I don’t got no beef.”

  “Who done lied to you?” Layla countered with a smirk on her face.

  Layla and Sandy were both hood bitches, grimy and ’bout it, ’bout it. They had their reputations, but Layla had a stronger reputation in Brooklyn. She’d shot niggas and stabbed hoes. Sandy knew she was no match for Layla and wanted no parts of her.

  Sandy looked at Maxine. Although she had Layla backing her up, Maxine was still a weak, quiet creature. She was too pretty, too decorated with fly things and nice clothing. She wasn’t raised for battle on the streets. It puzzled Sandy that Layla befriended such a wack, weak bitch.

  “You said you wanted to beat Maxine’s ass, so do it, bitch. You about that life, right?” Layla said, instigating things between the two.

  Maxine stood next to her friend, looking shocked. She had no intentions of fighting anyone. She only wanted to go home and forget about everything. Why did Layla drag her back into the trouble?

  Sandy knew it was a setup. There was no way Layla would stand there and let the ass-whipping go down. The moment she swung on Maxine, Layla would jump into it.

  “This isn’t about you, Layla. It isn’t your beef. It’s between me, Scottie, and Maxine,” said Sandy, trying to neutralize the situation. “And I’m not tryin’ to fight. I’m pregnant.”

  “You ain’t give a fuck ’bout bein’ pregnant when you tried to come at my home girl today,” Layla countered.

  Sandy wasn’t a punk bitch, but she had her baby to protect. She never thought Maxine would run and get Layla to fight her battles. Now the tables had turned, and Sandy was the one being bullied, ridiculed, and avoiding confrontation. Sandy felt she should have kept her mouth shut, not confront Maxine the way she did today. But envy had consumed her. Now she wanted to make it to her apartment and lay low, avoid confrontations, and have her baby.

  Sandy said, “Look, I’m not tryin’ to fight you, Layla. We don’t need no beef between us, especially over some nigga. It was a simple misunderstanding between your girl and me, that’s all.”

  “Bitch, you done started somethin’, so we gonna fuckin’ finish it,” Layla spat at her, ready for battle.

  Sandy recognized the look in Layla’s eyes. It was a familiar gaze of someone dead-set on a fight. Sandy instinctively used one arm to cover her protruding belly, while using the other to reach inside her purse. There was no other way out of the sudden confrontation with a grimy bitch like Layla.

  Layla noticed Sandy reaching into her purse. She was about to pounce on her, but to her dismay, Sandy pulled out a pistol and aimed it at them. The .380 was small, but it was deadly in such close proximity.

  Maxine was wide-eyed with terror, but Layla stood her ground, angry that Sandy had the audacity to pull out a gun on her.

  “You serious, bitch?” Layla uttered, contempt in her tone.

  Sandy backed her down with the pistol, shouting, “I told you, don’t fuck wit’ me. I swear, I’ll shoot both y’all bitches, fo’ real. You think I’m playin’?”

  Sandy slowly backpedaled away from the girls, approaching the building entrance with the gun still trained on Layla and Maxine.

  Maxine stood frozen in fear, almost peeing on herself. She’d never had someone point a gun at her. Layla, however, was fuming. She didn’t react, though, but stood still and remained cool, knowing Sandy meant every word out her mouth and would shoot them to protect her baby.

  “Step the fuck back!” Sandy shouted at them.

  Maxine did what she was told, but Layla was hesitant. Then, she finally stepped back as Sandy neared the lobby entrance. With the safe distance between them, Sandy darted inside her building.

  “C’mon,” Layla shouted.

  Maxine didn’t want to budge. She had to get her bearings together, but Layla dragged her along anyway. She wasn’t going alone.

  They ran to the back of the building, zipped into the stairwell in the rear, and raced up the concrete stairs, trying to beat Sandy to her floor and inside her apartment.

  Maxine felt it was a dream. No way was she running toward a girl with the gun. Her body was moving, but her mind was telling her to go back. She knew it was a mistake to pursue Sandy, but she followed behind Layla, knowing no good would come from it. They made it to the fifth floor only a few seconds before the elevator chimed.

  As Sandy stepped out onto her floor, she met the butt of Layla’s gun violently smashing into her face. Sandy collapsed to the floor, dazed from the blow. She desperately tried to defend herself and her baby by swinging wildly at Layla, but she missed.

  Layla was all over her, viciously, shouting, “Bitch, you pull a fuckin’ gun on me?”

  She lodged a hard kick to Sandy’s side, followed by another blow to her head from the butt of her gun.

  Sandy was down, bleeding heavily and defeated, but Layla wasn’t done with her yet.

  “Hold this!” Layla said to Maxine, putting the gun in Maxine’s hand.

  Maxine didn’t want it, but Layla, possessed with rage, wanted to teach Sandy a hard lesson about disrespecting her.

  Reluctantly, Maxine, scared to death, took the gun.

  Layla had felt like a punk when Sandy pulled the gun out on her. She wouldn’t tolerate it. She didn’t want word to get out that some bitch had pulled a gun out on her and she did nothing about it. Layla reached for Sandy’s own gun and thrust the butt of the .380 into her face repeatedly, spewing more blood.

  “You pull a gun out on me, bitch?” Layla shouted, smashing the pistol into Sandy�
�s nose and breaking it.

  “Layla, you’re gonna kill her!” Maxine screamed.

  Layla, her mind warped with anger and fury, didn’t care about Sandy or her baby. She assaulted her with the gun and her fist.

  Maxine was overcome with worry. Despite her dislike for Sandy, she tried to pull Layla off Sandy. Layla temporary turned on her and struck her with the pistol. The gun crashed into her ribs sharply, and Maxine doubled over from the blow, feeling pain shoot through her body like lightning striking her. Maxine clutched her side and fell to her knees. She was sure something was broken inside of her.

  It was absolute madness inside the hallway.

  Layla continued her assault on Sandy, the floor turning crimson from the attack. She banged Sandy’s head against the concrete floor until her eyes closed and she became silent.

  Layla finally stopped pistol-whipping and bashing Sandy’s head against the ground and released her from her grip. Layla was breathing hard, trying to catch her breath. Pregnant Sandy was brutally beaten, and blood was everywhere on the floor.

  Maxine went to aid the girl, hoping Layla hadn’t gone too far.

  The scuffle and the screaming alerted neighbors. Sandy’s grandmother, Carol, opened her apartment door and gazed down the narrow hallway to see her granddaughter lying lifeless on the floor and the girls standing over her. She saw the blood and screamed, “They jumped Sandy! Wake up! They jumped Sandy!” Carol hurried to wake the two sisters.

  A shocked Maxine was on her knees cradling the unresponsive Sandy. She had blood on her hands too. She looked up at Layla, who showed no remorse.

  Still breathing like she’d run the NYC marathon, Layla looked down at Maxine and uttered the words, “You gotta stay and tell the police it was self-defense. She attacked you. You saw the gun, Maxine. She pulled a gun on you—and you defended yourself.”

  Maxine heard her talk but didn’t understand what she was saying. “What?”

  “You got my back, right? She came at you, Maxine. You gotta tell the police what happened.”

  “No! I can’t.” Maxine was trembling and scared to death.

  “You can. You need to,” Layla said, almost like it was an order. “If we both run, then we both get caught. I got too many priors, Maxine. They gonna lock me up forever. You good. You in college, and they ain’t gonna crucify you like they gonna do me. I did this for you, Maxine. I had your back. Now you need to have mine.”

  Maxine nodded. She could hardly think logically. It was all happening too fast. Layla handed her Sandy’s gun and took her own back.

  Before Layla fled into the stairway, she snatched Sandy’s purse—the thief in her couldn’t leave it behind. “I love you, girl,” were the last words she said to Maxine before fleeing the scene.

  Maxine was left with the severely beaten Sandy, who still hadn’t moved.

  If Maxine thought the night had gone wrong earlier, it was about to get a whole lot worse. Sandy’s young sisters came charging out the apartment in T-shirts and panties to aid their sister like race horses being released from the starting gate.

  Seeing Sandy lying in a pool of blood enraged them. They attacked, beating up the petrified Maxine until the police came and took control. They arrested Maxine and the sisters, and the paramedics went to work on trying to keep Sandy alive.

  Meanwhile, Layla had dashed across Fountain Avenue, as she frantically tried to escape the cops swarming onto the scene. Two cops immediately gave chase through the projects, but she got away.

  4

  July 2014

  Scott sat at the helm of a large, ornate table in a room that boasted some of the finest furniture ever made and rare artwork painted by eighteenth-century artists. Eight others sat at the table with him: Whistler—his right-hand man; his three lieutenants—Meyer, Bugsy, and Lucky; and four soldiers. Scott wore an expensive, dark-blue, three-piece, two-button suit. He occasionally took a few puffs from a Cuban cigar he held between his fingers and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke around him. A diamond Audemars peeked from underneath Scott’s cuffs, and his diamond-encrusted pinky ring shined. He looked into the faces of all eight people, each one dangerous and deserving of a seat at the table. Once a month, he called a meeting to overlook operations. This was grown-man business, and they all were respected in the streets and by the boss man.

  His organization was divided into several factions—cocaine, which was run by Meyer; heroin, run by Bugsy; and methamphetamine, which Lucky ran. Scott ran his multi-million dollar organization old school, like his heroes—Al Capone, Meyer Lansky, Lucky Luciano, and Bugsy Siegel. These four men were iconic in his eyes. They’d come from nothing and taken what they wanted in life with force and wit. They’d all become feared, notorious gangsters in their time, and their names forever lived on, like legends.

  Meyer and Bugsy were his nineteen-year-old twin sons. Lucky Luciana West was his daughter. She was eighteen and the only female besides her mom to sit at the table among the men. Nobody dared fuck with Lucky, who was witty and cunning and busted her gun just like the men if she needed to. Coming up behind them, Scott had another set of twins, Bonnie and Clyde, who both were fifteen years old, and last, there was nine-year-old Gotti. There was another son, Capone, who was stillborn. No one was allowed to mention his name.

  Scott and his wife thought it would be cute to name their children after legendary mobsters. They had never given a thought to how it would appear to society. Every last one of his children was involved in the family’s drug dealing business and illegal activity.

  Scott’s kids were smart and had learned the family business quickly. All three lieutenants reported directly to Whistler, who reported to Scott. Even though they were Scott’s kids, there was no break in the rules, so they all followed the chain of command. Scott wanted to keep his kids disciplined. It was the only way for them to learn. Business would never get handled correctly if they ran to Mommy or Daddy every time there was a problem. Scott refused to coddle his kids. If his coke lieutenant felt that the heroin lieutenant was stepping on his toes, then they brought their gripe to Whistler, who would then bring it to Scott’s attention, and there would be a sit-down. The three siblings were very competitive, each wanting their activity to net the most money for the family business, and to impress their father. Despite the competitiveness, the siblings still loved each other deeply.

  The soldiers who sat at the table were the muscle for the family. Their only job was to kill their enemies and protect the family, product, and the money. If money and drugs had to be transported, the soldiers came in tow, armed with a license to kill. They were there to make sure all went well, and that all was protected. One particular soldier, Luna, was a crazy, callous cowboy with a hair-trigger finger. Thin and dark skinned, he was young, black, and handsome, and he just didn’t give a fuck. His eyes were dark like space and told a story of anger and bitterness. Scott was like a father to him, and Luna would die for the family.

  The sit-down today was about expansion. Lucky had brought the matter to Whistler’s attention, so she could broach the subject with her dad. She had stumbled upon a very lucrative area in Delaware. The addicts were addicted to everything, but their main vices were heroin and meth.

  “There’s money down there, Dad—lots of it,” Lucky said. “We can all eat off this one area.”

  Scott was listening. He knew all about expansion, having gone from a fledgling Brooklyn drug dealer to a major drug kingpin in twenty years. He did it all—murder, racketeering, extortion, and bribery. In fact, he’d swum in crime and bathed in blood to come up from the gritty streets of Brooklyn to living like a music mogul. Expansion was never a bad idea, but it could be costly in terms of money and lives.

  Scott was smart, and he was careful. He’d paid his dues, having done five years in Attica for conspiracy to sell cocaine. While incarcerated, Scott struck up a friendship with Gino, a Mexican goon with ties to the Sina
loa Cartel. When Scott was released from prison, he tracked down Gino, who introduced him to a connection with the cartel. There was something about Scott that Gino liked and trusted. With Gino speaking highly of Scott, the lieutenant from the cartel gave Scott a chance. From there, he assembled his personnel and cut and packaged cocaine and heroin.

  A year out of Attica, and Scott was moving thirty kilos of both products in a month, impressing the cartel. To not step on the other main dealers’ toes in NYC, Scott created a council, an eight-man organization modeled after La Cosa Nostra’s Italian mob families to deal more efficiently with other black and Latino gangsters. The council settled disputes and handled distribution problems.

  By 2010, Scott’s operation had spread throughout all of New York state and into the Mid-West, Connecticut, and West Virginia. His organization was handling multimillion-dollar loads of heroin, cocaine, and meth in over fifteen states. Scott set up multiple front companies to protect some of his assets. He had numerous car dealerships, a scrap yard, several laundromats and dry cleaners, night clubs, and a strip club. He owned real estate, pawn shops, and was also becoming a developer.

  Scott had insulated himself from the streets and the daily drug operation via his children and Whistler. He sat back and enjoyed the fruits of his hard and deadly labor. He felt Elliot-Ness untouchable, but one could never be too careful. Besides keeping a low profile while his net worth was in the hundreds of millions, he was always watching, learning, and keeping tabs on his foes and friends.

  “You feel expansion is necessary?” Whistler asked.

  “Why not? Delaware is a state that everyone keeps sleeping on, and I’m telling you, we get our grips in certain areas and we can pull in roughly a half a million weekly,” Lucky said, “if not more. Shit, niggas hustlin’ down there right now are makin’—what—a hundred grand a week off their inferior product right now. And their shit is weak, Dad.”