Trust in No Man

by Cash

“Damn!’” he said out loud as he instantly went into action.

  Youngblood quietly eased out of the car with his nine in hand and crept up on the unsuspecting dope boy. One false move was going to get the whole back of William’s head blown off.

  Inside that house, Lonnie heard a car pull into the driveway and hurried back downstairs to join forces with Shotgun Pete. They waited inside the darkened living room ready to surprise their prey. But, just as William put his key into the front door lock, he heard a rustle behind him and instinctively turned around.

  Startled by the black-cladded figure that was moving in his direction fast, William dashed to his right, leaped over the porch banister and ran like hell.

  “Fuck!” Youngblood cussed. He hadn’t even squeezed off a shot. “Yo, dawgs! Open up, it’s me!” he furiously banged on the front door.

  Recognizing Youngblood’s harried voice, Lonnie snatched opened the front door, dumbfounded. “Where’d he go?” he whispered.

  Youngblood pointed toward the backyard.

  Lonnie looked toward the two duct-taped and gagged women and instructed Youngblood to keep an eye on them.

  While Shotgun Pete and Lonnie raced behind the house to search for William, Youngblood robbed the two women of their jewelry. He had just stuffed the jewels inside of his pockets when Lonnie ducked in and said, “Let’s get out of here, shawdy!”

  When they got back to Lonnie’s girl Delina’s apartment in the projects, Shotgun Pete was furious. He cussed and yelled at Youngblood so fiercely that they almost came to blows. Lonnie stepped between them but minutes later, they were at it again. Fortunately, Delina and her sons were away.

  “Stupid ass, nigga! You fucked up the lick!” Shotgun Pete stormed.

  “Fuck you, ugly ass mafucka!” Youngblood retorted. “I already said it was my bad. What you want, blood?”

  “Back up, ‘fo I dump on you!”

  “We can do this, nigga!” they stood facing each other, cowboy style.

  “Chill!” barked Lonnie. “Both of y’all niggaz gimme y’all burners before y’all kill each other.”

  “I ain’t giving you shit, my nigga!” spat Shotgun Pete.

  Lonnie turned to Youngblood to see if he could calm him down first. “Dawg, gimme your banger.”

  Youngblood shook his head back and forth. “I’m scraight, folks. Fuck that.” He scoffed.

  “Let’s make this shit pop, then!” Shotgun Pete raised his sawed-off, chest high.

  Youngblood’s arm rose up, too, but Lonnie placed his body dead smack in front of him, shielding them both from each other.

  “What both of y’all fools gon’ do is chill!” he barked. “This shit is unnecessary!” He let out a sigh but stood between them until they both let their guns fall to their sides.

  Once Lonnie calmed them both down, he explained to his young protégé how he had blown the lick, adding, “You should’ve just let William come on inside, we were waiting on him. I told you how to react in that situation before I took you on the first lick with us,” he reminded Youngblood.

  “I feel you, my nigga. It was my fuck up. It won’t happen again.” Youngblood apologized but he kept his face tight when he looked from Lonnie to Shotgun Pete.

  For the moment, the rift between them was let go but Youngblood felt it was destined to come up again.

  Days later, Shotgun Pete was still heated. Youngblood had blown a lick that had taken months to scout out. Had Youngblood not frightened him and made him run off, once William came inside the house, Lonnie and Shotgun Pete would’ve snatched him up and made him take them to his stash.

  “Well, it’s over now, dawg,” Lonnie sighed, smoking a blunt. “William gon’ be on alert from now on.”

  “He probably done moved out that spot already,” guessed Shotgun Pete, laying out a few lines of coke on a mirror. “Man, that nigga Youngblood pussy! He ain’t even bust his gun.”

  “Naw, man,” Lonnie defended his protégé. “Shawdy just fucked up, that’s all.”

  “I’m telling you, that nigga ain’t ‘bout it,” he tried to convince Lonnie as the two sat on Delina’s steps.

  If Shotgun Pete really believed that their young partna was pussy or afraid to bust his gun, Youngblood squashed those concerns a few months later.

  Since the night of his fuck up, Youngblood had driven the getaway car on two other small licks without incident. He even proved that he didn’t bar gunplay.

  Lonnie and Shotgun Pete had beef with Black Boy, a big brolic drug dealer from Thomasville Heights, the projects up the street from Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, not far from Englewood.

  While Black Boy was away, a couple of years ago, doing a short bid, Lonnie and Shotgun Pete had jacked his girlfriend for five stacks and one of them thangs. Now, Black Boy was back on the bricks and telling people that he was gonna straighten the violation. But he was frontin’, talking tough for the benefit of his street rep because if he was gonna kill something, he wouldn’t have been telling people.

  Still Lonnie and Shotgun Pete were planning to see about Black Boy real soon.

  But they never got the chance.

  Youngblood was sitting in his Beamer outside the Purple Onion strip club on Moreland Avenue when he spotted Black Boy coming out of the club and walking to his Yukon Denali. It was nearly 4 a.m. right as the place was about to close.

  Damn! My dawgs would love to catch this pussy nigga slippin’ like this, Youngblood thought as he watched Black Boy half-walk, half-stagger to his whip. Fuck it, I’ma do this nigga myself.

  Black Boy wasn’t stone drunk but he was a bit intoxicated. He had been throwing back Henny and Cokes and drinking Dom all night in VIP.

  When he got inside of his ride, he rolled down the windows so the breeze would keep him alert as he drove home. But in reality, that would seal his fate.

  Youngblood caught up to the truck at a traffic light two miles from the club. Black Boy glanced over at the car that was now side by side with his. When he pulled off, so did the other vehicle.

  Suddenly, he was sprayed with a burst of gunfire from Youngblood’s semi-automatic. Before Black Boy could react, he was wet up and the Yukon crashed into a utility pole.

  Youngblood smashed out, hopping on I-20 West, heading back to the hood.

  Two days later, Youngblood admitted to his two robbing partnas that he had killed Black Boy for them, just on the strength. “Y’all enemies are my enemies,” he said from the heart.

  “You wild, nigga,” Lonnie said, with much respect for Youngblood’s gangsta.

  Shotgun Pete suspected that their young comrade was false claiming, though. Youngblood peeped the doubt in Shotgun Pete’s face but didn’t comment.

  Fuck him, if he didn’t believe it. Youngblood wasn’t tryna prove anything no way. He had done for his dawgs what he’d expect them to do for him. Shotgun Pete was just a hater in his mind.

  Lonnie was impressed with the loyalty displayed by his li’l nigga just as much as he was impressed by the sheer audacity of the fatal assault. It took true street love to straighten a beef that wasn’t his to handle, as Youngblood had done.

  Violence and drive-by’s and other hood mayhem were a common occurrence in ATL, like most major cities. There were no eye-witnesses to the late-night/early morning murder of Black Boy and there was no due diligence on behalf of the police to investigate. It was just chalked up as just another black-crack murder.

  The trio jack boys resumed their usual routine of laying low and indoors in the day and creeping up on vics at night.

  For them money came fast and in lump sums, and that was how they spent it. Therefore, it was usually only a matter of weeks after a successful lick before they needed to strike again.

  Now that Youngblood had bodied Black Boy and proved he would bust his gun, Lonnie promised to let him run up in a vic’s house with him. That way Youngblood could get broke off equally when they split up the loot.

  Youngblood could hardly wait to run up in a dope boy’s spot a
nd lay him down. He was anxious to get major dough.

  Lonnie advised him to just chill, the next lick was on deck.

  “I’m feenin’ for it!” Youngblood admitted.

  That ski mask shit was addictive as fuck.

  CHAPTER 5

  The eighty-five degree fall day felt like summer, and the trio’s anxiety to hit another lick was sweltering. So later that night their appetites were fed and the victims were left duct-taped.

  The lick had been a real sweet one, so they celebrated at the strip club, Magic City.

  The next morning Youngblood woke up at the Comfort Inn with two strippers, Sunshine and China Doll, ready to serve him up one last time before they bounced.

  “I’m wit dat,” he said, lying between two of the freakiest broads in the Dirty South.

  He ended up staying with them ‘til three the next morning and Shan was hot as a tea kettle when Youngblood got home.

  Shan wanted to argue and fight, but Youngblood had a hangover so he mushed her in the face and hopped in the bed and crashed out.

  He’d only been asleep for ten minutes when he was startled awake with a face full of ice water. “Bitch, I’ma kick your ass fo’ dat!”

  Seeing the scowl on his face, Shan lost her nerve and broke out for the door. Youngblood caught up with her in the living room and slapped her weave crooked.

  Poochie jumped up off the couch, and hit Youngblood with a broom.

  Shan’s little brothers came from their bedroom to watch, as if they were seeing some Jerry Springer drama. Just a year old, Lil’ T was too little to know what was going on, but he watched on, as well.

  When Youngblood caught a glimpse of his son, he decided not to let him see him hitting Shan. “Fall back, shawdy. Lil T is watching us,” he said in a calm tone.

  Shan’s eyes drifted to their son, who was now crying. She stopped fighting Youngblood and went over to Lil T and lifted him in her arms. “Don’t cry. Mama and Daddy was just playing,” she lied and then kissed his tears away.

  Youngblood walked over and put his arms around them both. “It’s all right, little man,” he cooed.

  Within seconds, Lil T had stopped crying and everything was back to normal. Even Poochie was chilling.

  Later that evening, Youngblood gave Shan some dick to make up. When they came out of the bedroom, Poochie said, “Y’all all right now, ain’t you?”

  “We scraight,” Youngblood smiled. “You still ain’t have to hit me with that broom, though,” he frowned at her.

  “Ah, boy, you ain’t hurt. Gimme a hug,” Poochie replied.

  After they hugged and made up, she hit him up for some dough.

  “I shouldn’t give you shit,” Youngblood replied in a playful tone, breaking Poochie off a hundred-fifty dollars.

  “You love me, though,” she smiled.

  Youngblood smiled back at her as his thoughts turned sexual.

  I ain’t shit, he thought as his eyes followed her ass out of the room.

  Grinning devilishly, he returned to the bedroom and did to Shan what he really wanted to do to her mama again.

  Shan was happy with all of the affection Youngblood showered on her over the next few days. That weekend, she pestered Youngblood into taking her to Piedmont Park, where many people went to floss and be seen.

  Something instinctual kept telling Youngblood not to go there but under her heavy plea, he did.

  Dope boys had started linking him to his two notorious partners and he didn’t want to run into any unexpected drama. But he fell weak to Shan’s complaining. Plus, he was tryna make up for staying out two nights straight.

  Shan wore see-through coochie cutters with a green thong, a sheer halter with a strapless bra that matched her panties. Around her neck was the thick chain and diamond encrusted pendant that Youngblood had given her a while back. On her wrist was a matching tennis bracelet. She loved rings and wore one on each finger and on two toes.

  Youngblood rocked baggy jeans, a loose fitting jersey to conceal the heat tucked in his waist and beige Timbs.

  They were sitting on the hood of his freshly waxed Beamer parked across from the park in a mini shopping center’s lot, just checking out the crowd in the park. The boom in the trunk of the BMW knocked the other whip’s sounds out the box.

  Shan stood up between Youngblood’s knees, letting bitches know that he was already claimed. She was sticking her phat ass out, making chicks jealous and niggas lust.

  Youngblood knew many of the ballers who cruised by flossing, too. They honked their horns, acknowledging a young playa. Even cars filled with fly honies honked at him, sweating the Beamer as they drove by at a crawl.

  The hood was dog-eat-dog and cats maimed cats. While dudes jacked for cars, loot and jewels, girls jacked each other for their man.

  Shan was saying something, but Youngblood missed it. A super thick shawdy with more junk in her trunk than Shan had just walked by licking a lollipop.

  “I seen you sweating dat ho’s ass!” accused Shan.

  “Ain’t nobody paying dat ho no attention,” Youngblood tried to lie. “She is on swole back there, though,” he half joked, igniting Shan’s jealousy.

  Digging her nails deep into his arm, Shan hissed, “Don’t act stupid, nigga!”

  “Ouch! Crazy ass girl!”

  “How would you like it if I was sweatin’ that fine nigga over there?” Shan remarked, tryna fuck with his heart.

  “You can’t stress a pimp,” popped Youngblood. “Anyway, you probably be doing more than sweatin’ niggaz when you’re with ya lil’ ho ass girlfriends. I know how your peeps, Cita and Fiona, do it. Birds of a feather, shawdy.”

  “Nigga, don’t nobody be creepin’ on yo jealous ass.”

  “You the one who’s jealous,” Youngblood pointed out. “I don’t trip that shit. Just don’t get caught or I’ma split dat wig.”

  “You got a wig, too.”

  “Shawdy, you ain’t hard,” he laughed, kissing her on the nose.

  Shan looked up at him from under thick eyelashes. “I ain’t scared of you, boy.”

  Youngblood then diverted his eyes at Rich Kid and a crew of twelve young hustlers on his payroll pull up in four cars: a Chevy Blazer, a Jeep Cherokee, a Chevy low-rider truck with mad boom and Rich Kid’s Benz 500 SL, all tricked out, parking haphazardly around Youngbloods’ BMW.

  The twelve deep crew got out of their rides and profiled along with Youngblood and everyone else.

  A short while later, William and his lady, who was pushing a baby in a carriage walked by. Youngblood hadn’t recognized William, the drug dealer he and his crew tried to rob or his lady.

  As the fly honey pushed the baby carriage her ass jiggled like Jell-O. Dudes sweated her but didn’t disrespect ‘cause William had baller status in the game.

  William’s lady sweated the fuck out of Shan as they passed by. Shan peeped it but felt confused. Why is the bitch eyeing me?

  She wondered if she knew the ho from somewhere but her face wasn’t familiar.

  “What up, money?” William asked Rich Kid.

  “It’s yo world, playa,” Rich Kid hollered back.

  After speaking to Rich Kid, William and his lady strolled by Shan and Youngblood again. Their eyes seemed locked on Shan. This time, Youngblood noticed it. When the couple was out of sight, Shan whispered to him, “Why dat ho and her nigga sweatin’ me?”

  “I don’t know, but I peeped it, too,” acknowledged Youngblood still not recognizing William.

  Youngblood and Shan left the park soon after the couple disappeared into the crowd.

  Traffic was bumper to bumper for a mile or so. They were on the Boulevard, just past Georgia Baptist when the po-po got behind them and turned on thier flashing lights.

  “Fuck I do?” cussed Youngblood, thinking about pushing the pedal to the floor because he had a burner and an ounce of weed right between the seats, but traffic was too thick.

  “Put that shit in your purse,” he told Shan, handing her his weed
and .9mm.

  As soon as Youngblood pulled over, he was boxed in by three police cruisers, two of which seemed to appear out of nowhere. Guns were pointed in Youngblood’s and Shan’s faces and angry white cops ordered them out of the car.

  Youngblood was thrown to the ground, roughly frisked, cuffed and slammed into the back seat of one of the police cruisers after po-po found a blunt in his pocket.

  “What da fuck y’all doin’ to him?” Shan cussed and fought the police, defending her nigga.

  The cops cuffed her, too.

  When they searched the car they found the ounce of weed and the gun inside Shan’s purse. Youngblood and Shan were then arrested and the Beamer was impounded.

  Youngblood and Shan were taken to jail in separate police cruisers and booked on a myriad of felony charges, including armed robbery and kidnapping.

  William and his lady had recognized her stolen jewelry around Shan’s neck and on her wrist when they passed by her and Youngblood at the park. The couple had found a police man and dropped dime on them.

  Inside an interrogation room at Atlanta’s Pre-trial Center, Shan was questioned by a detective. When she wouldn’t give up the answers the detective wanted, in walked a female officer, pretending to be friendlier and more understanding than her partner.

  She handed Shan a cold soda and a bag of chips, ingratiating herself to the teenager before sitting down next to her and placing a comforting hand on her arm.

  It was all just a game, though. The two detectives played good cop, bad cop to perfection.

  “Leave her alone, Detective Mitchell!” the female detective yelled at her partner. “Would you like for him to step out of the room, honey?” she asked Shan.

  Shan wiped away tears and nodded yes.

  “Please leave, Bill,” Detective Sharon Johnson instructed her partner.

  As soon as Mitchell stepped out of the interrogation room, Detective Johnson coerced Shan into admitting that Youngblood had given her the bling on her wrist and around her neck. Shan maintained that she knew nothing about Youngblood robbing anyone, even after the good detective flipped the script on her and threatened to charge her with armed robbery if she didn’t turn canary on Youngblood and whomever his accomplices had been.