“Are you sure it was Vanessa?” Damian shouted loudly.
“I know exactly how she looks. It was Vanessa because when she left, I watched her get into Reggie’s black Suburban.”
“Oh shit! She ain’t lying. Vanessa was driving Reggie’s truck because that was around the time he was in the hospital.” I pointed out to Damian.
“Yep, you’re right.” Damian agreed.
“Was there anyone with her?” I yelled out loud, hoping she could answer me.
“Yeah,” Candie stated. As much as I liked Candie and was happy she was telling us this, especially if this was true, I really didn’t want to hear anything else. “She went out the side door that no one uses. I saw Dre at the door and he hit her on the ass as she walked out the door. She turned around and acted like she didn’t like it, but when she turned back around, she had a smile on her face.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? This bitch is playing my fucking brother behind some block hustling ass nigga! How dare that bitch!”
“Yo’ Candie, please tell us you’re playing a joke on us.” Damian said.
“No, I’m not joking at all. I almost died at the hands of those niggas. And now that I’m still alive, and know what I know about them, it’s time to give them what they got coming to them.”
“Oh my God! Reggie isn’t going to take this shit very well. He is going to go on a rampage.” I commented.
“Yeah, and Vanessa’s head is going to be the first on the chopping block. He ought to beat her ass, put her out and make her move in Candie’s old spot since she wants to hang out there.”
“Not after I spit in the bitch’s face first!” I spat.
Damian and I looked at each other. It would be another two minutes before he put the truck in drive.
New York’s Finest Kiki Swinson
Chapter 22 – What’s Done in the Dark
Reggie was already at our hideaway spot by the time we arrived. I rushed in the apartment to tell him what was going on. He must have heard us coming because he opened the door right before I reached it. Damian was lagging behind me. I guess he was going to let me break the bad news by myself. I was about to open my mouth when Reggie put his finger over his lips signaling me to be quiet. He was on the phone talking to someone. I tried to break into his conversation and he was giving his best chill out face. I was anxious and I suspected that phone call wasn’t as important as the information I had to tell him. I returned his looks with my own looks of anxiousness and importance, and he blew me off.
By that time, Damian had come through the door and I said fuck it and got me a bottle of water from the refrigerator in the kitchen and went into the TV room where everyone else was and took a seat next to Reggie. He still wore his bandages, but he was recovering well to say the least. I sat there quietly and waited for him to end his call.
Although Reggie looked good, I was surprised he was driving. I hadn’t seen him in two days, but he had told me only yesterday that he wouldn’t be driving for several more days. I guess he said the hell with it since he didn’t want anyone else to know about this place, but Damian and me.
When he finally got off the phone, I asked the question, “I thought you weren’t driving for a few more days?”
“I’m not,” he answered matter-of-factly. Both Damian and I looked at him as if he was taking too many drugs.
“How did you get here?” Damian asked, I was sure out of curiosity.
“I drove him here,” Stone surprised us. I didn’t know how old Stone was exactly, but I was sure he wasn’t quite sixty yet. But he still looked good, for an older guy. He stood about six feet four or six five, and was lean as a twenty-five year old athlete. He looked powerful and distinguished at the same time. His hair was chopped very close, the shadow look, not bald but the closest you could get to being bald, and his mustache attached to his well-groomed, neatly trimmed beard, which also connected to his thin sideburns. I had never thought of Stone in the sexual sense, but damn, he looked better than the old motherfuckers I slept with.
“So what’s going on?” I asked as I sat in one chair, while Stone signaled Reggie to sit at the computer near the entrance of the TV room. Damian took the other chair while Stone stood.
“You tell us,” Reggie chimed in.
I told Reggie and Stone about the conversation Damian and I had with Candie. I made sure I didn’t leave out anything. I looked at Damian as I tried to repeat Candie’s words as best as I could. And after I delivered my big news, I noticed that the expressions on the men faces were stoic. They could have been guards at Buckingham Palace with those damn faces. And the fact that I couldn’t make light of it, I sat there and waited for someone to say something.
“Damn, it’s beginning to make sense,” Reggie said.
“What is?” Damian asked.
“Scotty was shot in the head this morning when he was taking Vanessa over her mother’s house . . . and supposedly, she was kidnapped. Those young niggas from that crew took credit for the kidnapping. Supposedly it was payback for us killing Lil’ Man, the cat that was with him and the two cats at the mall. They are asking for one million dollars for her worthless ass. But now that I know she’s behind this shit, she needs to keep her dumbass right where she is. Because if I ever get a chance to see her, I know I’m gonna break her fucking neck with my bare hands.”
“That trifling bitch!” I spewed. I could feel the venom and hatred in my heart for that snake of a woman. She was a lowlife, ass worm. And I felt bad for insulting worms like that.
“Calm down,” Damian said to me.
“No, fuck that! I think we—”
“Shut up, Naomi,” Reggie interrupted me. “Damian is right, you need to calm down. Let me be the irrational nigga around here. Not you. It ain’t in your nature. Right now, we are here for a reason. All of this information was right on time and it was what we needed to know. Stone called us here and he needs to share his information as well.”
We all turned our attention to Stone. He was the cool one. The one who was just taking in everything—as only Stone could do.
“Before we watch the video I have for you guys, let me tell you that I managed to have a one-on-one conversation with your friend, Walt, and a one-on-four session with members of those gang members.”
Stone hesitated. I know it was his way of letting us digest what he was saying and about to say.
“Walt told me Vanessa had put a hit out on your parents,” Stone continued.
I immediately looked at Reggie and noticed that he wasn’t too happy about what Stone had just said. I could see the veins in his neck popping. Our mother and Foxx were our life. And the last thing we wanted to do was put our mother’s life in jeopardy. Foxx had been around the block a time or two so he knew how to take care of himself. But our mother was innocent. Instead of being in Philly, she should be chilling in her home back here in New York.
“Don’t worry, I took care of business,” Stone reassured us. “They are still in Philly, at the same house. And yes, they are safe. Evidently, the young assassins aren’t that smart. The leader of the group gave three of the young assassins the address: 4897 Clarendon Street.”
I smiled when Stone said the address. Foxx and Mom were at 4798 Clarendon Place. If you were unfamiliar with Philly, there is a Clarendon Place, Clarendon Lane and Clarendon Street. But they were all in different neighborhoods. I also noticed Stone and Reggie smiling as well.
“Well, you know that was the wrong address,” Stone said, still smiling. “Needless to say, as luck would have it, the address the three so-called assassins went to was the brownstone of one of Philadelphia’s finest—a cop. He noticed when the kids drove up and got out of their car, with their burners in hand and sky masks covering their faces.”
This shit was unbelievable. Who in the fuck did these young kids think they were the fucking Bloods or the Crips? Damn, they were asking to be killed.
“The cop came outside with his pistol in hand and ordered them to stop
and put their weapons down but they bucked on him. And within seconds a shootout came underway and those three cats were gunned down.”
“Unbelievable! Those little niggas had plenty of heart, huh?”
No one responded to my comment, which I really didn’t expect anyone to respond. But this was crazy.
“Now, before I go any further. I gotta let you know that your parents are safe and sound. And you guys don’t need to worry about them.” Stone continued.
“How we know that bitch, Vanessa, ain’t going to send another army of niggas out to look for them?” I asked frantically. “She’s such a fucking snake that she might even go out looking for them herself and then after she finds them, she makes her call for someone to come and put a slug in their head while she’s standing right there with them. I swear I don’t put shit past her anymore.”
“No need to worry about all of that. Trust me, this situation is under control,” Stone stated. “Let me start the video. But before I do, this is pretty gruesome stuff, Naomi. You sure you want to view this?”
Coming from anyone else, I would have been upset. But Stone wasn’t anyone else. He really was more of an uncle to Reggie and me than our own uncles. He cared about us. But I was knee deep in this business and now it was personal since my bitch of a sister-in-law had brought Foxx and Mom into this mess.
I didn’t say anything. And Stone took that as a nod of agreement on my part. He stepped in front of Reggie at the computer; hit the space key and the computer came to life from its sleep mode. Then Stone put in a thumb drive, hit several keys and the video fired up.
On the twenty-seven inch computer monitor that also served as a TV was three teenagers tied to a chair in a basement. As I looked at the monitor, I realized it wasn’t just any basement. It was the basement of Reggie’s computer store. Additionally, I noticed the kids’ faces were completely covered in blood from a thorough ass kicking by someone. That someone was probably Stone.
Stone turned up the computer speakers and the first thing we heard was, “I commend the three of you for taking a beat down like grown men, but now comes the fun stuff.”
It was Stone’s voice. As bad as I hated these three kids, I felt kind of bad for them. They were no match for Stone.
“Now one of you three are gonna tell me what I want to know. And whoever that person is, he may actually get a chance to see his twenty-first birthday one day.”
Then Stone threw a couple of pails of water in the three boys’ faces. All three were awake, but their eyes were closed or damn near closed. Two of the boys had their shirts removed. The third had a light color shirt, which was soaked in blood, and now, water. And they were truly boys. They had to be maybe sixteen or seventeen. No more than eighteen.
“You guys are without a leader, without a gang now,” Stone continued his fear tactics on the boys. “Your three homeboys that went to Philly are dead. And four more of your people got killed the other day. I actually liked the way the one died.” Stone began to chuckle. “You know, being thrown from a building while you’re tied up in a chair is a quick and easy way to die. All I would have to do is pick each one of you up, one at a time and toss you over the ledge. It would be nothing for me. So, tell me who wants to go first? Unless somebody feels like they’ll be more beneficial staying alive. And if that’s the case then you’re gonna have to start talking now”
I turned my head and noticed Stone wasn’t saying anything, just taking in the video like the rest of us. The scary part about the video was the pitch and tone of his voice. His size was already an intimidation factor, but just the way he spoke. He was calm and deliberate, like he was the executioner about to pull the switch on a person about to die on death row.
The kid in the middle seat raised his head. His right eye was almost completely open. We could see his eyeball and the redness of his eye. His left eye was damn near closed but not as bad as the other two boys. Something told me Stone planned it that way. But the boy had a look of doubt after Stone’s statement about their boss.
“Oh, you don’t believe me,” Stone said on the video. “Well, let me give you something from your boss.”
Then the most unbelievable thing happened. All three of the boys started screaming and yelping as Stone was putting something on them. As I looked closer, I really couldn’t believe my eyes. Stone tossed severed body parts on the three boys. The boys started losing it, because Stone actually shoved the dismembered hands and cut off ears into their mouths. The sight of the guys being forced fed body parts made me sick to my stomach. I ran as fast as I could to the bathroom and I threw up in the toilet. I heard Damian say stop the video. And I can only assume Reggie did, because the boys in the video stopped screaming. Or, at least, their screams were on pause.
“You okay,” Damian asked me as he turned on the water and grabbed a face towel off the towel rack.
“Yeah,” I managed to say. “That was fucked up. Making those boys eat a dead person’s ears. Come on, Damian, what kind of shit is that?”
“That’s the kind of shit we deal with, Naomi,” Damian replied as he put the cold face cloth on the nape of my neck. After holding it there for some seconds and us not saying anything, he removed the face towel from my neck and helped me off the floor. Then he told me to wash my face as he open the cabinet and opened the bottle of mouthwash.
After I rinsed my mouth out, I looked at him. I wanted to kiss him so badly as well as wrap my arms around him. But this wasn’t the time or place. I could tell he wanted the same. But Reggie didn’t know yet and this was not the time to inform him of Damian and I so Damian grabbed me by the hand and led me back to the bedroom.
When we got to the room, Stone said, “Naomi, if you want to listen to the rest of this, you can do that outside the door, you don’t have to watch the rest of the video.”
“No, I’m fine, Uncle Stone,” I lied. With that, Reggie hit the pause button and the video continued.
“You sick, old man,” the boy in the middle chair said. I assumed he was the leader of this band of the gang members there. Better yet, ex-assassins. “I don’t know all dem’ niggas you talking about but I do know that a nigga named Kay-B who was supposed to get paid to kidnap Reggie’s wife but make it look like a real kidnapping. And his wife is da’ one who hired us.”
“That’s all I wanted to know,” Stone said on the video.
“What you gonna do wit’ us, man? You gonna let me live, right? I told you everything I knew.”
Then the video went black.
I didn’t ask any questions. Nor did anyone else.
“By the way,” Stone said to Reggie, Damian and me, “the leader of the Assassins for Hire wasn’t Walt. He was their fall guy.”
“Well who’s body parts did they belong to?” I somehow managed to say without a problem.
Stone looked at me, stepped towards me and gave me a peck on the forehead. The same thing he would do after he let Reggie and me stay up late watching scary movies, and then he would tuck me in bed. And he always managed to do one thing—give me a kiss on the forehead. That meant I wasn’t getting an answer. I hated when I was left in the dark about shit.
New York’s Finest Kiki Swinson
Chapter 23 – D – Day
Today was the day of the first shipment for Miguel. I was tired but surprisingly I wasn’t nervous. In my mind, I didn’t have anything to be nervous about. I figured it was because I felt secure and safe when I was doing my job. All of the madness stayed back in New York.
This was a long day for me and the crew. Our flight was taking off at six thirty that morning. First, we were flying to Phoenix, followed by a two-hour layover. Then we were flying to Dallas, followed by another hour and a half layover. Then the flight crew was changing. Our regular crew would stay the night and take the first flight to New York the next day. We flight attendants always flew back to New York that same day, but not as part of the crew. We helped out if the new crew needed help, but we were tag-a-longs. The airline started doin
g this after 9/11, but went back to the regular schedule around 2007. Then the recession hit and the airline went back to this same old crazy schedule.
Ironically, I loved it. It helped me when it came to planning and scheduling shipments for Reggie and I. And I knew the long layovers in Phoenix and Dallas were to ensure all of the corporations’ packages that were packed on the plane.
When I was in Dallas, I got a chance to talk to Damian. He had me call an unknown number on one of the pay phones in the Dallas airport.
“Hey you, I miss you already,” Damian said.
Although it brought a smile to my face, I wanted to play it cool. “Really, what do you miss about me?” I replied.
“Check you out,” Damian responded. “I love it when you play hard to get. But remember you’re gonna pay for it when you get back here.” I heard him laughing when he said that.
I had to laugh too when I heard Damian laugh. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“Talk to Reggie yet?”
“Briefly. I swear I was about to tell him about us this morning. But then I chickened out. I was afraid of how he would react,” I replied. Quite frankly, neither one of us knew how he would feel about our new status. And I actually think Damian was just as afraid as I was, but he was too damn hood to say it out loud.
“I understand. So, if this will make you feel any better just take your time because with everything that’s going on, now is not the right time anyway,” Damian said. “Speaking of which, I need to let you know what’s going on.”
Those words immediately piqued my interest. “Well, what are you waiting on, tell me what’s up,” I demanded.
“Well, as you know we agreed not to let Dre and Ben know that we knew what was going on. But somehow they picked up on something because we got a call that they’re wilding out around there. Dre is starting beef with a few of the niggas in the other buildings.”
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