The House that Hustle Built, Part 3

by Nisa Santiago

  Kwan started on the second man right away, savagely beating him with the baseball bat like he had M. He bashed the man’s brains out of his head, caved the side of his face in, and broke limbs and bones.

  To Kwan and his men, witnessing a vicious beating was like another day at the office, but the savagery of the attack almost made the hardest men turn their head and puke. When it was done, two bloody bodies were laid across the warehouse floor.

  “Get rid of them.” Kwan said.

  “Cut ’em up?” a man asked.

  “No, dump these bitches in the street somewhere in Brooklyn. Let muthafuckas know out there that I ain’t scared to kill even my own.”

  The man nodded.

  Kwan turned and walked away with his bloodstained hands and blood-splattered clothes. He got back into the Tahoe like nothing happened and even grinned at his actions, stating to himself, “Now that was fuckin’ fun!”

  ***

  The sight of Brooklyn at night from a project rooftop was a thing of beauty. Standing above everything, Kwan had a little bit of solitude as he stood on the hard gravel smoking a cigarette. He was armed with two guns stuffed into his waistband.

  He looked at his neighborhood with a vacant gaze. Since Sophie’s murder, he had been on a violent crusade against everyone. It was like he was a demonic Rambo, tearing everything apart. His crazy violence against rival drug crews and the police had escalated into something even his own men couldn’t understand. They were with him, but scared of him at the same time.

  Kwan heard the police sirens blaring from a distance. The city was always alive with something—trouble, murder, and the wolves. All at once, it felt poetic to Kwan. Because of him, the city was on fire with pandemonium and the murder toll was rising. The NYPD was cracking heads and taking no prisoners. No one was getting any money in Brooklyn because of the war and the killings. Kwan had created a domino effect of destruction.

  The metal door to the rooftop opened, and the moment he heard it, Kwan spun around and pointed his pistol at Leaky, who took a step back with his arms spread out, looking shocked that his friend had a firearm aimed at him.

  “Yo, Yo, Kwan, it’s me, my nigga. Damn! You need to chill. I just came up to see if you were cool.”

  Kwan lowered the gun and stuffed it back into his waistband.

  Leaky was a crazy, foul-mouthed, murderous goon just like Kwan, but he too was wondering where Kwan was going with the war. Lately business had been slow. Cops had been raiding numerous drug locations and making hordes of arrests. It was getting so bad in the streets that roughnecks were scared to jaywalk for fear of being locked up.

  “Yo, niggas ready for tomorrow night?” Kwan asked.

  “Yeah, they ready.”

  Kwan nodded. He took one last drag from the cigarette and flicked it off the roof. He continued to gaze at an illuminated Brooklyn.

  Leaky told him, “Yo, Kwan, no disrespect, but you sure about this shit? You know I’m a nigga that’s been riding wit’ you since day one, but what you talkin’ ’bout, it’s some really crazy shit.”

  “You scared, nigga?”

  “I’m just sayin’—”

  “You just sayin’ what, Leaky? You either wit’ me or against me. Which one? Huh, muthafucka?”

  Leaky tightened his face and held back his response. He shook his head. There was no reasoning with Kwan. He officially had completely lost his mind.

  Kwan had several warrants for his arrest, and his way of dealing with the law was to shoot back. He wanted to start shooting cops and make a violent statement that he wasn’t to be fucked with.

  “I’m wit’ you, my nigga,” Leaky replied halfheartedly.

  “Good. We do this shit tomorrow night. Cops fuck wit’ us, then we fuck wit’ them,” he growled.

  The plan was to kill a cop wherever they stood, either on patrol in their marked cars or on beat, and create panic throughout the NYPD. Brownsville was his battleground, the Van Dyke, Brownsville, and Howard Houses.

  Next, he planned to take an army to Hassan’s studio and try to blow his shit up. Snitches on the street were telling him things that he wanted to know.

  Leaky turned and left Kwan on the rooftop grinning madly about his sinister plan.

  Thirty-Six

  Charleston was the oldest city in South Carolina, but it was attractive with a lot of history. Cash stepped out onto the balcony of the hotel he was in and stared at the deep, blue ocean that stretched for miles in every direction. It had been a long drive from New York, but the view was worth it. It was a gorgeous day, and he was taking in the clean air.

  He felt liberated. He felt like he could stand out on the balcony forever and stare hypnotically at God and man’s creation combined, from the rich blue ocean to the colonial-looking real estate that surrounded him.

  He lingered on the balcony for a moment and then turned and went back into the room. Momma Jones was almost comatose on the sofa, and Ray-Ray was peacefully asleep in his bed.

  He walked over to his father and stirred him awake. “C’mon, Pop, wake up. It’s a beautiful day outside, and we got a lot to do.”

  Ray-Ray groaned and grumbled himself awake. He turned and frowned at Cash. “What’s so beautiful about it?”

  “Pop, c’mon, don’t be like that. You can look at this city.”

  “I don’t wanna look at it.”

  Cash sighed. Ray-Ray was already missing home. But they didn’t have a choice; New York was just too dangerous for them to stay.

  Cash believed he’d made the right choice and picked the right city. It was far different from Brooklyn; everything about it was stunning. It had a unique culture with distinctive people. He knew he could get used to the mild winters.

  Cash was ready to explore the city. He had a lot of money on him, and no one in Charleston knew who he was.

  “Pop, c’mon. Let’s go get some breakfast,” he suggested.

  Ray-Ray grumbled again.

  Finally, he got out of bed and forced himself into the bathroom. He slammed the door behind him. “This city fuckin’ sucks!”

  “C’mon, Pop, just give it a chance. I know you gonna like it here. It’s gonna be just you and me, like Thelma and Louise.”

  “Fuck them dusty, dyke bitches!”

  “Damn, Pops! C’mon, don’t be like this. What happened to that cheery attitude you had back in Brooklyn?”

  He shouted through the door, “That’s because I was back in Brooklyn!”

  Cash sighed again. “You gonna like it here, Pops, because I like it here. Shit, you ain’t gotta look over your shoulders, and you don’t have to be anyone’s jester because I’m gonna take care of us. I promise, Pops.”

  Cash smiled when he heard the shower come on. He stepped away from the bathroom door and turned on the television. News was on. They were talking about a cop’s family being killed in Bensonhurst and the spike of murders and violent crimes in Brownsville. He knew it was Kwan’s doing. The sadistic fuck had lost his mind.

  Cash was grateful that he’d left the city in time. He no longer wanted any part of that life. Though he wasn’t a saved or spiritual man, he simply wanted something different for himself and his pops. He thought about the people he’d lost over the years, friends mostly, and he knew that he was the lucky one. He had survived when others he had grown up with were either in jail or dead.

  Briefly, he thought about Pearla and Sophie—one was dead, and the other, he knew he probably would never see again.

  He stepped back out on the balcony and looked over the city again. Yeah, this was the life—nice weather, new faces, and an estimated nine hundred miles from New York. He could see himself becoming a Southerner.

  Cash and Ray-Ray went out to get some good ol’ home-cooked breakfast at a soul food spot called Mama Moe’s on State Street, right near the historic Charleston City Market. Afte
r breakfast, they went to explore the City Market and took in other historical sites in the city.

  Ray-Ray was looking fresh in new clothing and had a haircut and a shave. He looked like a brand-new man. And his grumpy demeanor had cooled down.

  “Yeah, Pops, this gonna be us from now on, new people in a different city doing different things.”

  Cash was ready to go straight. He wanted to invest his money in a nightclub, or perhaps real estate or a restaurant. A lot of folks didn’t know it, but back in the day, Ray-Ray was one helluva cook. Whatever it was that he was going to get into, Cash planned on taking his time and doing it right. He didn’t want to get into any more drama. He just wanted to live normal for once, maybe buy a house and meet a nice girl, settle down, and have a family.

  Father and son continued to talk and laugh as they explored Charleston. As they came out of the City Market on North Market Street, something immediately caught Cash’s attention. A powder-blue 2015 Audi R8 came to a stop at a red light just a few feet from where he and Ray-Ray were standing. Seated behind the wheel was a long-black-haired beauty with the prettiest hazel eyes Cash had ever seen, and skin so smooth, it looked slippery.

  The two of them locked eyes fleetingly. She smiled his way and then averted her attention from him. The woman and the car were both gorgeous. Cash was stuck on stupid for a moment. It took him back to a time when he’d had some of the wildest times with women and cars. His heart started to beat rapidly.

  Damn! It would be fun to have them both, he thought.

  Thirty-Seven

  At the corner of Bergen Street and East New York Avenue, a marked police car sat in the middle of the night. The area was desolate, and the project buildings across the street were quiet. For a moment, it seemed like crime had taken the night off for the two officers who sat in the car talking about their relationships and sipping on cups of coffee. One was married, and the other was dating.

  The police radio was crackling but only with minor incidents in the area—a 10-90 there and a 10-11 a few blocks away. Other squad cars answered the calls. Officer Holland, a black male with twenty years on the job, and Officer Horne, a white male with ten, were enjoying the quiet night in the Ville.

  “So I take this chick out to Red Lobster the other night,” Officer Horne said.

  “Red Lobster. Wow! I see you went big with this one, huh?”

  “Ha-ha, you got jokes. But, anyway, I’m at Red Lobster with this beautiful blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman, and she’s stacked, Holland.” Officer Horne raised his hands to his chest, shaking them up and down slightly. “We’re having a nice conversation, eating dinner and this bitch just up and rips one right there.”

  “What? Rips one?”

  “She farted right there!”

  Officer Holland laughed. “You serious?”

  “Yes! I mean, I didn’t even see it coming. I don’t think she even saw it coming.”

  Officer Holland continued to laugh as he sat behind the steering wheel with his cup of coffee. Horne had plenty of crazy dating stories. “So what you do?”

  “I just sat there and closed my mouth. I didn’t want the smell to get in. But, damn! It stank. I think I lost my appetite.”

  “Yeah, I would too.”

  “So I get over it, right. I put that shit behind me, and we get to talking again. I’m enjoying my lobster, and ten minutes later, she lets another one loose, this one louder than the last one. I couldn’t believe it. I’m like, What the fuck! Seriously? Shit, even the waiter heard that one. And just like that, my Barbie beauty turned into this stank Jabba the Hutt.”

  “Yeah, but I bet you still fucked her, right?”

  “What?”

  “C’mon, Horne, how long we’ve been partners now? And when was the last time you turned down some pussy?”

  Horne laughed. “Okay, I fucked her. You happy?”

  “No, but I bet you were.”

  “That bitch had some kind of flatulence problem. I’m serious. She needs to get that shit checked out.” He laughed. “But not everyone is happily married like you, partner. Honestly, I don’t see how you do it, being with the same woman for ten years.”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Fifteen years! So let me ask you something.”

  “What?”

  “In the fifteen years you’ve been married, have you not once slipped up and planted your ‘mister happy’ in someone else?”

  “If you’re trying to ask if I ever cheated on my wife, the answer is no.”

  “Seriously? Not once? Nothing!”

  “I love my wife. She’s beautiful,” Holland said proudly.

  “But I mean, not even a hand job, or did a bitch just kiss the tip of your shit?”

  “You wouldn’t understand the beauty of fidelity. Besides, with everything going on today with STDs, why would I leave something that is safe and I enjoy? I love my family, and I love my home.”

  “That’s why they invented condoms, my friend. Latex—you can never go wrong with one of those.”

  Officer Holland chuckled. “You’re completely hopeless, Horne.”

  “Hey, I’m just enjoying life.”

  “Well, don’t burn your dick off by enjoying it too much.”

  “And that’s why God invented penicillin.”

  “Yeah, you’re definitely hopeless, Horne.”

  “Man, you know these females, they love themselves a man in uniform. Especially a cop’s uniform.”

  “Did you take this job to protect and serve, or just to get laid?”

  “Both, my friend. I’m having the best of both worlds.” Officer Horne laughed.

  As the two cops talked and laughed inside the police squad on the Brooklyn corner, a grave threat was creeping their way. His name was Demetrius. He was sixteen years old and strongly influenced by Kwan and the older heads he hung around.

  In the dark, he nervously walked toward the cops’ car with a loaded .45 in his hand. Kwan was paying him handsomely to kill cops in the Ville, filling the boy’s head with “Black lives matter only if we start taking cop’s lives,” and other garbage to amp him up.

  Demetrius edged closer to the car from the rear. He stayed hidden in the shadows dressed in all black, the large hoodie he wore pulled over his head. His palms were sweaty, and his heart continued to beat like it was about to rip from out of his chest. But he was still determined to go through with the execution.

  He took a deep breath and glanced around his surroundings. It was now or never. He walked briskly toward the car and was able to see the cops’ silhouette from the back windshield. He outstretched his arm with the .45 at the end of it and squeezed the trigger, and the gun exploded.

  Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!

  The bullets tore into the cop car, shattering the back windshield and the side windows, and ripping into both cops in the front seat.

  Demetrius moved closer to the car and continued pumping bullets into the cops’ heads, knowing they were probably wearing Kevlar. When the firing stopped, both men were slumped in their seats.

  Demetrius took off running in the opposite direction like a damn track star. Several blocks away from the shooting, he was smart enough to know to dump the gun into a sewage drain.

  ***

  About a mile away, a similar incident was about to take place. A beat cop was patrolling the hallways and stairway in public housing in the early morning. He was alone. He took the stairway down to the lobby, and as he was about to walk outside into the fall weather, two young masked gunmen ambushed him from behind. They pumped several shots into his back and skull, killing him instantly. They took off running and vanished in the air.

  In one night, three cops were dead. Kwan felt supreme. If the NYPD fucked with him, then he was going to fuck them right back—no Vaseline.

  Within the hour, a sea of blue came rushing t
o the aid of their fallen brethren, flooding Brownsville with cop cars, marked and unmarked, blaring police lights, and hordes of detectives at both shootings, from veterans to rookies. The shooting was so reckless and senseless, police captains in their white shirts and gold bars were heavy at both crime scenes, and the police commissioner and mayor were already addressing the media about the incidents.

  Kwan stood on the rooftop of the Howard Houses project and watched his handiwork from up above. He enjoyed seeing the NYPD in disarray. He took even greater pleasure watching them drag the two bloody bodies of the fallen officers out of the squad car.

  The look on every cop’s face, to him, was fuckin’ priceless.

  “Fuckin’ pigs!” He smirked and continued to watch the show.

  Thirty-Eight

  It was Armageddon everywhere, and Hassan’s main priority was to protect Pearla from any harm. The shooting death of three officers in the Brooklyn area was plastered across every news channel in the area. He knew it was Kwan’s doing. Hassan pegged him to be loco and an idiot. The man was so reckless, his lunatic actions started to trickle down on business, and no one was getting any money. Hassan’s own loss of income was starting to reach in the hundreds of thousands. It was already bad, with the two drugs factions killing each other, but with three cops killed in a one-hour time frame, not to mention the cop and his family being killed in Bensonhurst, shit was about to get a whole lot worse.

  Hassan had close to ten of his goons watching, protecting, and escorting Pearla at any given time. When she left home, they would surround her like she was the Catholic pope. Where she went, they went too. This heavy security for her was to go on until Hassan could find Kwan and kill him.

  Kwan had become America’s most wanted. Everyone was scared of him. But not Hassan or Bimmy. They were even more determined to go after him with everything they had.

  Pearla sat at the foot of her bed lotioning her legs and watching the evening news on the fifty-inch flat-screen TV mounted on her bedroom wall. The killing of three cops was taking over the airwaves. She watched as the mayor and police commissioner stood next to each other behind the podium at an urgent press conference at One Police Plaza, both men voicing their frustration at the spike in murders, and the brazen murders of three cops in one night.