The Final Play

by Shelly Ellis

  Ricky

  “Hey, handsome! Why you sittin’ over here all by yourself?”

  Ricky looked up from his drink and found a scantily clad woman with big brown eyes and big tits smiling down at him.

  She was one of the many girls working the room at Dolla Dolla’s party tonight. The drug kingpin was in a celebratory mood. This was the fourth party in the past two weeks.

  Why shouldn’t he be celebrating? Ricky thought morosely.

  Dolla Dolla was winning. He was back in business and he had vanquished all his foes. And it looked like no one was going to stop him.

  The deadline Ricky had given Detectives Ramsey and Dominguez was drawing to a close; it officially ended today. They still hadn’t done the raid. Dolla Dolla still hadn’t been arrested for the latest murders.

  Who am I kidding? Ricky thought. With the expensive lawyers Dolla Dolla had hired, even if he was arrested again, he’d probably beat that rap, too.

  “Mind if I sit down?” the woman asked, lowering herself onto Ricky’s lap.

  “Actually, I kinda do,” he said, stopping her mid-motion. He shook the ice in his glass and gave her a withering glance.

  She rose back to her stilettoed feet and cocked a dark eyebrow at him. “Looks like someone’s in a bad mood.”

  “The worse mood ever, honey.”

  She trailed her long nails along his beard line. She was smiling again. “I could help with that, handsome.”

  “I doubt it,” Ricky said, hoisting himself up from his chair. He handed her the glass. “Can you take care of this for me?”

  Her pleasant façade evaporated. She glared at him. “Do I look like a damn waitress?” she yelled.

  He didn’t answer her. Instead, he decided to look for Dolla Dolla, wondering if he was in his bedroom again. Though Ricky wasn’t sure what he would do when he found him.

  The part of him that continued to wear the mask planned to stroll in there, give Dolla Dolla a dap, and tell him he was leaving the party. He’d rave about what a good time he’d had but, regretfully, he had to head home for the night. But the other part of him that was tired of wearing the mask, who just wanted to rip it off, planned to do exactly what he’d threatened the detectives that he’d do. He wanted to spit in Dolla Dolla’s face and tell him about every betrayal he’d committed against him in the past year. He wanted to tell him to go ahead and kill him, but he hoped one day Dolla Dolla got what he deserved and rotted in hell.

  By the time Ricky strolled down the hall and found Dolla Dolla not in his bedroom but in a study filled with bookshelves but no books, where Dolla Dolla sat at a grand oak table, smoking a cigar and playing cards—Ricky still hadn’t made up his mind what he was going to do. When he entered the room, Dolla Dolla looked up.

  “Hey, Pretty Ricky!” he boomed, taking the cigar out of his mouth. “We almost done this round. You wanna play, nigga? I’m tired of beaten they asses!” He then let out a rumbling laugh.

  “I told you that I don’t play spades,” José lamented in his thick accent, slapping down his cards. “It is a stupid American game!”

  “It’s only stupid ’cuz your ass is losin’,” Dolla Dolla argued before turning to Ricky again. He gestured to the table. “Come on. Take his spot, Ricky. Show ’em how it’s done.”

  Ricky opened his mouth, then closed it. He was torn as to what to say next.

  Dolla Dolla stared at him quizzically. “You okay, Ricky?”

  Before Ricky could answer, he heard a thud and shouts farther down the hall.

  “The hell,” Ricky murmured, turning in the direction of the sound, wondering if a fight had broken out in the living room.

  That’s when all the lights went out in the apartment. That’s when all the screaming started.

  “Get down! Get down on the ground!” someone yelled in the dark.

  Ricky knew instantly that it was a cop who’d said it. Only a cop gave orders like that.

  He dropped to his knees and closed his eyes when the flash bangs went off, creating a strobe-light effect that was as disorienting as it was meant to be. He coughed as the hallway filled with smoke.

  Smoke bombs, his addled mind registered.

  So Detectives Ramsey and Dominguez had convinced their lieutenant to finally conduct the raids. Too bad they hadn’t told him in advance; he would have appreciated a heads-up. But this raid seemed worse than the one they’d conducted at Club Majesty almost a year ago. He’d remembered the chaos and the screams as the people ran for the exits, but he didn’t remember hearing gunshots. He hadn’t run the risk of getting killed back then like he was tonight.

  Ricky heard more popping sounds, but this time, it wasn’t the flash bangs. A bullet whizzed over his head. Then another. Ricky crouched against the wall and opened his eyes, squinting though the dark and the smoke, praying to God he didn’t get shot.

  He caught figures in the dim light coming through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the study. They looked like men in SWAT gear. He saw the burst of light as they fired their weapons. He also saw a burst of light coming from the opposite direction. Dolla Dolla’s men were firing back.

  “Shit,” Ricky said under his breath, crouching even lower. He was almost on his stomach.

  “Dolla! Dolla!” one of the men shouted, “Come on! This way!”

  Ricky raised his head slightly and watched as Dolla Dolla charged out of the room with two hulking figures on each side, bracing him and protecting him as they ran to the back bedroom. He stared at them curiously. Why the hell were they going back there? It was a dead end.

  He started to follow them, to crawl on his hands and knees in that direction, but was roughly shoved aside by the men running out of the study.

  “Get out of my way!” someone yelled before rushing past him and heading in the opposite direction—straight into the gunfire. Ricky heard more bullets and more screams. He heard a crunch and a thud. He cringed at the sounds that made him feel like he was watching a horror movie with the volume turned up to an ear-splitting level.

  He continued to crawl toward the back bedroom and felt his hand graze over something cool and metallic. He traced his hand over it again and realized it was a handgun. One of Dolla Dolla’s bodyguards must have dropped it in their haste. He considered leaving it there on the hardwood floor where he’d found it, but something told him to pick it up. He might need it later, though he wasn’t sure why.

  He soon reached the master bedroom and again, the open windows and bright lights from the city landscape helped him to see a little in the dark. He could see Dolla Dolla and two of his bodyguards running toward the bedroom’s walk-in closet, which confused the hell out of him.

  Were they planning to hide out in here until all of this was over? It didn’t seem like a very smart plan since the cops would likely comb the entire condo from top to bottom. They’d find Dolla Dolla and his men eventually.

  Ricky went from all fours to a slight stoop as he rounded the four-poster bed. He watched through the open closet door as the men shoved and threw aside wool and fur coats, suits and shirts, revealing yet another door leading to God knows where.

  “Faster! Faster!” Dolla Dolla ordered. “Move that shit! They comin’.”

  So Dolla Dolla had constructed a means of escape in his condo. Of course, he had. But if he got away, this would never end. Dolla Dolla would rebuild or continue his operations somewhere else. He’d hurt more people, kill more people. Ricky couldn’t let that happen.

  “Stop!” Ricky yelled, holding up the handgun, pointing it in their direction. “Stop and hold your hands up!”

  Dolla Dolla and his two guards did as he ordered. They stopped and turned but stared at him, bewildered, when they realized who had given the order. One of them even stepped out of the closet.

  “Ricky, what the fuck are you doin’, man?” the bodyguard hissed.

  “Stop! All of you. Get down on the ground,” he said, still pointing the gun at them.

  “This nigga’s gone crazy.
” One of them laughed, then reached for the door handle.

  Ricky raised the gun and fired into the air, making them all jump, making them halt. “I said come out of there and get down on the ground,” he repeated. “Do it now!”

  Dolla Dolla emerged from the closet, narrowing his dark eyes at him. “You telling me you a undercover cop?”

  Ricky shook his head. “No, I’m no cop, bruh.”

  “Oh, so you a snitch then.” Dolla Dolla sneered. “That’s worse than one of them bitch-ass pigs! You was the nigga workin’ for the cops all along. Weren’t you?”

  “Get down on the ground, Dolla,” Ricky repeated slowly, not answering his question, not feeling any need to. “I’m not gonna say that shit again.”

  His heart was beating so fast he swore it was going to pound its way out of his chest. He had to hold the handgun with both hands to steady it because he was shaking so hard, now kicked up with fear and adrenaline. But he wasn’t afraid of getting killed; he was terrified at the prospect that if he did this wrong, Dolla Dolla would get away.

  In the dim light, Dolla Dolla’s face turned into something Ricky didn’t even recognize as human anymore. It had been morphed by pure rage.

  “Kill that nigga!” he growled, pointing at Ricky.

  But Ricky fired before either of the guards could reach their weapons. One managed to get it out of his waistband only to take a bullet to the head before he could even fire it. The other got his shirt up, only to realize a gun was no longer at his waist. Ricky was holding it and he fired a bullet into the bodyguard’s chest, dead center.

  As they both crumpled to the ground, Dolla Dolla and Ricky stared at one another, surrounded by the sound-track of gunfire, shouts, and screams that seemed to be getting closer and closer as the SWAT team made their way down the hall.

  “You gonna do me like this after all I did for you?” Dolla Dolla asked, having the nerve to sound hurt.

  “After all you took from me,” Ricky said through clenched teeth. “And you were only gonna keep takin’!”

  “You ungrateful li’l bitch!” Dolla Dolla shouted before charging at him.

  Ricky fired once, twice, three times before Dolla Dolla finally came to a stop only inches in front of him, holding his chest and gurgling on the blood pooling in his gaping mouth. Ricky had to take a few steps back to keep Dolla Dolla’s limp body from landing on top of him like a fallen sequoia. As the man Ricky had known and had been shackled to since he was damn near fourteen years old thumped to the floor, Ricky dropped his weapon, feeling a wave of fatigue wash over him. Another flash bang went off, making Ricky close his eyes. Smoke filled the master bedroom and he coughed as he dropped to his knees. More gunshots rang out.

  “Get down! Get down! Drop your weapon,” a voice shouted as the cops charged into the bedroom.

  “I don’t have one!” he shouted back as he was roughly shoved to the rug.

  “You got it. You got it!” he told the cop, to let him know he wasn’t going to struggle.

  He had no reason to. The fight was over. Dolla Dolla was dead.

  Chapter 36

  Derrick

  Three months later ...

  “Right corner pocket,” Ricky called out. “If I make this shot, the game is over for you, nigga!”

  Derrick blew air out of his inflated cheeks and leaned on his pool cue. “Just take the damn shot and stop talkin’ shit!”

  Ricky laughed and did as he ordered. Of course, the nine ball sailed into the corner pocket like he’d said, winning him the game. He did a brief victory dance.

  “So you beat a dude who still can’t hold a pool cue the right way because he was shot twice,” Derrick said dryly, holding back a smile. “You really gonna Milly rock to that?”

  Ricky rolled his eyes. “Bruh, you were shot three damn months ago! How long you gonna whine about it?”

  “I didn’t know mentioning I got shot twice was whining!”

  “Bitch-ass nigga,” Ricky murmured with a grin before taking a sip from his beer.

  The truth was that Derrick’s wounds had mostly healed. Morgan had made sure of that. She had treated him like an invalid for almost two weeks and then watched over him like a hawk when he finally returned to the Institute, making sure he didn’t push himself too hard. She could do that because she was working there again, too, resuming her position as carpentry instructor. He found comfort in her being in the same building during the day and in bed beside him at night. She had also helped him find a new line of funding for the Institute—other former clients of hers at the artist cooperative where she used to work, wealthy patrons looking to invest in a good cause. Thankfully, this time he didn’t blow it by losing his temper and making a scene. The Donovans were gifting the Institute a cool million dollars, and Derrick was hoping to use the money to make some badly needed renovations, buy equipment, and hire additional staff.

  “Come on,” Derrick said, laying down his pool cue. “I’m hungry. Let’s finally get somethin’ to eat.”

  Ricky nodded. “Sounds like a good idea. I won, so I guess you’re treatin’. Right?”

  Derrick chuckled as they strolled out of the sports bar’s pool hall into the adjoining restaurant. “Yeah, I’ll buy you some nachos. I guess I owe you.”

  Derrick meant that in more ways than one. He owed Ricky for finally taking care of Dolla Dolla, too. He hadn’t asked for the details. Ricky said Dolla Dolla and a few of his bodyguards had been killed during the raid at his Kalorama condo back in September. They hadn’t been able to dodge all those bullets flying everywhere, with the flash bangs and the smoke bombs going off.

  “So how the hell did you make it out of there alive if all of them got taken out?” Derrick had asked.

  “Don’t know,” Ricky had said. “Guess I just kept my head down.”

  But Derrick had seen something in Ricky’s eyes that let him know that wasn’t true, or at least, it wasn’t the full truth. There was more to the story of why Ricky had survived and Dolla Dolla hadn’t, but Derrick didn’t question him about it anymore. Dolla Dolla was gone. His cohorts were in jail or on their way there soon once the trials started. That’s all that mattered. The only issue that remained unanswered was whether Ricky would also be serving time in prison in the near future. He had told Derrick not to worry about him; he had worked out a deal with the prosecutor. But Ricky still hadn’t revealed what that deal was, claiming it was confidential. Would Ricky be serving only a couple of years in prison? Ten? Twenty? The question was eating away at Derrick, but he tried not to let on that it was. For now, he would enjoy his time with his boy.

  They took one of the free booths near the back of the restaurant and were quickly greeted by a pretty waitress in a referee uniform that included a whistle dangling from a lanyard around her neck. She asked for their orders.

  “I’ll have the jalapeño burger, medium well,” Derrick said, glancing at the menu.

  “I’ll have the foot-long chili dog with fries. Oh, and can you get us the nacho starter?” Ricky asked.

  The waitress nodded. “Absolutely! Will this order be on one check or two, gentlemen?” she asked, looking between them both.

  “Oh, you can put it all on one,” Ricky said smugly with a nod, then pointed to Derrick. He leaned back against the booth’s leather cushion. “He’s paying.”

  “Gotcha!” she chirped. She then tucked her pad into her apron and walked away.

  Derrick glanced at his cell phone and saw a message from Morgan.

  Just got back from the gym. Gonna take a shower, slather myself in baby oil, and turn the lights down low. Will be waiting for you when you get home.

  Derrick grinned and started typing.

  Lookin forward to it. I’ll be home in a little more than an hour.

  “I saw that smile,” Ricky said, taking another drink from his beer bottle as Derrick set his cell back on the table. “Your lady texted you?”

  “Yeah, I told her I’d be leaving here in an hour.”

 
; “I’m glad y’all were able to work that shit out.” He nodded thoughtfully. “I like you with her. She brings out your good side. You definitely don’t bitch as much as you used to.”

  Derrick laughed. “Well, the right woman will do that.”

  “That she will,” Ricky said, raising his beer bottle in salute. “Cheers to Morgan.”

  Derrick raised his water glass and clinked it against Ricky’s beer. He took a sip of water then sobered. He tilted his head. “You miss yours?”

  “Miss my what?” Ricky asked, lowering his bottle.

  “Your woman, bruh. Simone.”

  At the mention of her name, Ricky’s face changed. Again, Derrick saw something in his eyes—a pain and longing that almost made him wince.

  “Every damn day,” Ricky whispered, dropping his gaze to his bottle. “I miss Miles, too. He’ll be seven months old next week. Kinda hard to believe that.”

  “The cops can’t tell you where they are now? Even though Dolla is gone?”

  Ricky shook his head. “I knew when I made the deal that I might not see them again. But it was the price I’d pay to keep them safe.” He shrugged. “It is what it is.”

  Derrick couldn’t imagine it, never being able to see Morgan or their child ever again, knowing they were out there somewhere in the world living their lives without him. It would eat him alive. He didn’t know how Ricky could stand it.

  A few minutes later, the waitress brought their nachos, then their meals. Both men dug in. Ricky took a bite of his hot dog, wiping chili from his lips, but he paused mid-motion. His eyes widened. “Oh, shit,” he sputtered with a mouth full of food.

  “What?” Derrick asked, licking ketchup from his fingers.

  “If you want to keep enjoying your burger, don’t turn around, okay?”

  Derrick raised his brows. “Huh? What are you talking about?” he asked, doing exactly what Ricky told him not to do. He glanced over his shoulder.

  “Damn, nigga, you can’t follow instructions?”

  Derrick’s eyes landed on a table of women who were all laughing and enjoying their dinner. One of them rose from her chair and did a little shimmy that made the others laugh even harder. Derrick lowered his fingers from his mouth when he realized who it was.