Cartier Cartel, Part 3

by Nisa Santiago

  “You okay?” Rico asked her when she returned from the bathroom.

  She nodded.

  Quinn and Cartier were seated with the two Xbox players, who seemed to have found something a lot more interesting than the video game.

  “Anything y’all need, I got that. But this is my hood, and anything that goes down, I’ll get to the bottom of it. And I’m gonna make it my personal business to find the niggas that carjacked you.” Rico went into his pockets and pulled out a wad of bills. He peeled off a few hundreds and passed it to Li’l Mama, who looked confused.

  “Take it. I’m the authority now,” he said. “I know you want to involve the police. But check it, y’all ain’t get jacked around here. I don’t need that attention around my business.”

  Li’l Mama hissed, “But my car —”

  “I’ma find ya car. Y’all just chill and get ya drink on. Y’all in good hands right now.”

  The ladies looked reluctant at first. The strong gleam in the men’s eyes told them that they were looking for much more than some conversation and a smile. Suddenly, they felt like prey among wolves.

  “We good?” Rico asked.

  Li’l Mama nodded, and Rico smiled.

  Soon, the girls partook in weed smoking and drinking. The fellows foolishly thought they were manipulating their guests.

  Before long, the girls separated the men. Li’l Mama went into the master bedroom with Rico. Quinn had two of her own to entertain, as did Cartier.

  Rico was ready to have his way with Li’l Mama in the dimmed room. She wanted him to strip naked, but he wasn’t too keen on shedding his clothing before he could see his prize in the buff also. Before he could fondle Li’l Mama, she subtly removed the pistol that she had concealed inside her purse and struck him over the head with the barrel.

  Rico stumbled back. “What the fuck!” When he got his composure, he was staring down the barrel of a .45.

  “I can easily make this shit into a one-eighty-seven,” Li’l Mama snarled.

  “Bitch, you crazy!”

  “Strip!” she ordered through clenched teeth.

  Rico glared at her, but Li’l Mama’s eyes told him she wasn’t a rookie at this. He slowly began to remove his clothing. “You have the audacity to rob me, bitch?”

  Li’l Mama didn’t respond. She went searching through his room and found a loaded SIG .9 hidden under the pillows.

  “You can never be too careful,” she said.

  She then forced Rico back into the living room, where her two accomplices had their men on their knees at gunpoint.

  Cartier removed duct tape from her pocketbook and bound their wrists and ankles and then placed it over the men’s mouths, except for Rico’s.

  “Y’all bitches are dead! You fuckin’ hear me?” Rico exclaimed. “Dead!”

  Cartier stepped up behind him and pushed the barrel of the .380 to the back of his head. “You have two options. Either give up the money and live, or don’t, and die.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “Wrong answer.” Cartier turned the gun downward and shot him in the back of the knee.

  Rico screamed out, wincing and squirming from the pain. The blood from the gunshot wound started to stain the carpet.

  Cartier told him, “Next time, a bullet’s gonna penetrate a much more vital area.”

  Rico doubled over, his wrists bound behind him, and landed on his side. He continued screaming.

  Cartier stood over him, the gun aimed at him. “We gonna ask you again.”

  The other men looked on, their eyes becoming wide with fear, mumbling incoherently underneath the duct tape. The ladies were in complete control. Quinn watched the door, and Li’l Mama was ready to become extremely violent.

  “Where is everything?” Cartier demanded.

  Rico stared up at Cartier with teary eyes.

  She was becoming impatient. Cartier nodded toward Li’l Mama, and she quickly and randomly chose one of the goons and flipped him over, torso facing up. Cartier didn’t hesitate to shoot one of Rico’s men in the dick, and the young goon bellowed from the excruciating pain. His private area was quickly covered with a crimson stain as he squirmed around with his wrists still tied behind him.

  “I ain’t fuckin’ playin, ya heard!” Cartier shouted.

  “In the kitchen and first bedroom,” Rico growled.

  “Now, was that so fuckin’ hard?”

  Li’l Mama went into the rooms to get the stash. She then rushed back out with a black bag filled with cash and another small bag filled with drugs. “Let’s go,” she said.

  Li’l Mama felt like nobody had to die tonight. They got what they came for and she hoped that Cartier would see it that way.

  As the ladies were about to leave, only Cartier lingered behind. She knew that Li’l Mama and Quinn were ready to disregard her orders: two shots to the back of the head. Clean.

  While she took a moment to clear her thoughts, Rico helped make up her mind when he shouted, “You fucked up robbin’ me, bitch! You have no idea what y’all done! You fuckin’ hear me? I will hunt you bitches down an’ not only touch you, but I swear, I’ll touch an’ destroy everything that y’all love.”

  Cartier’s face tightened with a disturbing scowl. She glared at Rico like a madwoman. She wasn’t going to take his threat lightly. She walked over to him and, without a second thought, put two bullets into the back of his head, dropping him face-down. In succession, Li’l Mama and Quinn followed suit, killing everyone inside, leaving behind no witnesses or any further threats to themselves.

  “Look, anything we touched, we get rid of or wipe down,” Cartier said.

  They tossed bottles and glasses that might have had their fingerprints on them into a black trash bag and wiped down the areas they thought they’d touched. When they were sure everything was cleaned, the ladies rushed out of the home and hurriedly moved up the block toward their parked vehicle, their adrenaline pumping fast.

  Quinn jumped behind the wheel of the truck and sped off, tires screeching. It was a successful score, but a bloody mess. Neither woman had any regrets about the bodies they’d left behind. It was their world, the lives they’d chosen, and their way of doing business.

  As Quinn sped toward the highway, Cartier sat in the backseat wondering, Did I fuck up somewhere in the past? She thought that maybe she’d gotten into a beef with someone and left them alive to avenge the infraction. She vowed she would never make a mistake like that again. She knew if she and her daughter survived this, then she would have to leave Miami, plant roots in a different state again, maybe California, because after this bloodbath, Miami was no longer safe for her and Christian.

  Chapter 8

  Detectives Lam and Sharp stood over the five bodies in the house, clad in their fine suits and wearing latex gloves. Sharp shook his head in disbelief. It was going to be another long night for them both. The dark blood on the floor had pooled around the dead men, and the place reeked of decomposing bodies. Cops flooded every square inch of the house, and nosy neighbors stood huddled next to each other outside the home, behind the yellow police tape, onlookers to another murderous crime scene in Miami-Dade.

  “This city is hell,” Detective Sharp said to his partner, staring intently at the five dead men before his feet.

  “Seems like our boy Rico finally met with a bigger and more dangerous wolf,” Detective Lam said lightheartedly. Honestly, he really didn’t give a fuck about five murdered dope dealers.

  Sharp released a heavy sigh. He crouched near Rico and stared at the body, as if Rico would get up and whisper to him the culprits behind his violent demise. “Who did this to you, huh?”

  Detective Lam started to inspect the other dead men. With their wrists tied behind their backs and lying face-down, it indicated a home invasion that was well planned.

  “What you think, partner?” Lam asked.

  “I say maybe two or three perpetrators. Maybe they knew their killers,” Sharp replied.

  Detective Lam
looked at his partner and smiled. “So you think maybe one of the workers got greedy and wanted to take it all?” he asked in disbelief.

  “It’s the only way I can see this happening. Trust had a hand in this. How many times do we lock up family members or best friends for murdering over money? And you see there isn’t any sign of forced entry.”

  Lam nodded.

  Detective Sharp started to roam through the house, his trained eyes taking in everything. He focused on the kitchen countertop then shifted his eyes toward the tiled floor, where he saw something that could contradict his theory — a woman’s diamond earring underneath the kitchen table. He picked it up with his latex gloves and observed that it had layers of dust on it before displaying it to his partner.

  “What you got?” Detective Lam uttered.

  “A woman’s earring. From the looks of it, it must have gotten lost long ago. But, you never know.”

  “Bag it as evidence then.” Detective Lam stated. “You never know, she could have been a witness.”

  “Or participant.”

  “That too.”

  The coroners had arrived with multiple body bags to fill, and CSI was heavily probing any additional physical evidence left behind.

  “I need some air,” Lam said.

  “I’ll join you.”

  The two detectives exited the house and stood on the porch. Authority figures came and went from the home. Lam lit up a cigarette and observed his surroundings. There were so many eyes watching them. The neighbors whispered, looked. But there was a strong wall of community silence that was difficult for the officers to break through. Fear and intimidation kept killers free, and as a result, the poorest communities became a haven for the drug dealers.

  Detective Sharp stared at all the onlookers watching them from behind the yellow crime-scene tape. He knew someone out there knew something, but the trick was getting a witness to talk. Rico was a well-known man in the hood, liked by most, but hated by many. He had his hands in a few murders himself, and this was definitely karma coming back at him.

  “So what you think?” Lam said. “Someone had to see something. Too many faces around for these killers to go unnoticed.”

  “They won’t talk. They fear them more than they fear us.”

  Just then, a tricked-out Impala with dark tints, candy paint, and chrome wheels came to a screeching stop on the block. The driver and passenger doors flew open, and two men rushed out with intense grimaces on their face. It was obvious they were kin or friends to the victims inside.

  “What the fuck, yo! What the fuck!” one of the men screamed. He stood about six-two and was wearing a Miami Heat, LeBron James jersey. His menacing dark features were twisted with rage. He sported a gleaming bald head, and tattoos ran up and down his muscular arms — he had killer/goon written all over him.

  His partner, the passenger, was just as tall with 360-degree waves on his low-cut Caesar and cold eyes. He was black as night, shirtless, and in dark, sagging jeans, his upper body swathed with tattoos, gang symbols scrawled across his neck. His biceps flexed as he tried to push his way past the police officers shielding the crime scene.

  “Yo, get the fuck off me! That’s my cousin’s crib, yo!” the man shouted. “What the fuck happened?”

  Half a dozen cops tried to stop the two men from rushing past them and into the home. A scuffle ensued, and the two men were quickly restrained.

  “Calm the fuck down!” one of the officers yelled.

  “Fuck y’all!”

  Both men were thrown against a parked car and quickly handcuffed. But they continued to curse and be disorderly.

  Detectives Lam and Sharp rushed over to help.

  “Listen, just relax and we can talk,” Sharp said to them.

  “Fuck that! Yo, who bodied my fuckin’ cousin?” the shirtless man screamed.

  “Who’s your cousin?” Sharp asked.

  “Rico!”

  “I’m sorry about what happened inside,” Sharp said softly. “My condolences to you and your family.”

  “I ain’t trying to hear that shit, man!” he asked, almost choking in anguish. “Who killed him, man?”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Bones.”

  The two men became calm after speaking with Sharp. He had a silver tongue.

  Bones, unable to hide his grief, broke down in front of the officers. Though Rico was his first cousin, they had been like brothers.

  “We would like to take you down to the station for questioning,” Sharp asked him. “Just to see if you have any information that could lead to an arrest and conviction.”

  Bones was insulted. “What did you just say?”

  Detective Sharp wasn’t easily intimated. “I said help us out!”

  Bones swatted both detectives away as he and his partner decided to bounce.

  Detective Lam called out, mockingly, “That’s how you gonna rep your cousin? You just gonna walk off? His body ain’t even cold yet in the morgue and you already forgotten him!”

  Detective Sharp chimed in, “Don’t you want justice? For Rico? Help us send his killer to jail.”

  Bones called over his shoulder, “I hold court in the streets, partner. Best believe that.”

  Chapter 9

  The ladies didn’t go to sleep after the robbery and homicide. The money stolen from Rico’s place was poured out onto the dining-room table at Quinn’s place and counted there. They only came off with two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and nine ki’s of cocaine. It wasn’t that much, but it was still something to put toward the ransom. Cartier was still short, and time was running out. The girls knew it wouldn’t take long for word to travel. Rico was well known, and liked, too, so the girls had to remain low-key. But with Christian’s life on the line, it was going to be difficult.

  Cartier sat slouched on the couch, her cell phone glued to her hand. She desperately wanted it to ring. She needed to know something. She needed to hear from her daughter and her kidnappers, but there was nothing.

  The tiredness and stress showed on the ladies’ faces. Quinn lit up a cigarette and stared at TV. She prepared a second pot of coffee, hoping that the additional caffeine would help with stamina. Quinn hated to admit it, but a bitch was tired. All this robbery and kidnapping was enough to drain the most thorough hood bitch. In reality, she wanted to toss Cartier and Li’l Mama the fuck out her crib, close the blinds, and sleep in for two days straight. But she was brought up on the word “loyalty,” and if she didn’t do all she could to help out a homie in need, then it would get back to Hector. And she knew better than to get on her brother’s bad side, especially knowing that he had a thing for Cartier.

  Li’l Mama sat near Cartier, each woman consumed with her own worrying thoughts. Short several hundred grand for the ransom, there was the likelihood that maybe they wouldn’t get the money, and Christian’s fate was already sealed.

  Out of the blue, a phone rang. Cartier jumped to look at hers, but it was silent. It was Quinn’s phone. She looked at the screen before answering it. Quinn removed herself from the living room and went into one of the bedrooms to talk to her brother, Hector.

  Li’l Mama stared after Quinn suspiciously, and when she was out of earshot, she said to Cartier, “I still don’t trust this bitch. Why the fuck is she goin’ to the extreme to help us out?”

  “Li’l Mama, chill. I’m not in the fuckin’ mood to hear you complain.”

  “Ain’t nobody complaining.” Li’l Mama frowned. “I just think we need to keep an eye on this husky bitch.”

  “What the fuck!” Cartier was about to implode. “I gotta keep an eye out for Quinn. Concentrate on raising enough dough to get my daughter back. Pray that my moms pulls through her surgery. And also, umm, let’s see, prepare to lay my two baby sisters to rest. You sound like a fucking moron, Li’l Mama! Quinn just helped me come up off a quarter of a million dollars. What the fuck?!”

  Li’l Mama was seething. She thought that Cartier would see what she saw�
��which was a sneaky bitch in Quinn. She was an original founding member of the Cartel, and thought she should have been shown more respect.

  Li’l Mama grabbed a brush from her purse and began brushing her long hair until she placed it into a ponytail. Truth be told, she was ready to blow this joint. She was tired of Cartier and her ungrateful, smart mouth. Shit, if she wasn’t needed then she could go back home.

  “It’s all good, Cartier. Every last drop.” She stood up and walked out on the deck to get some air.

  Cartier sighed, leaning her head back into the cushion and glancing at her phone again. She had her phone in one hand and her gun lying near her on the couch. She could hear Quinn in the other room talking. She felt like she couldn’t move. The worry was overwhelming her.

  Quinn walked into the living room looking cool as ice. “My brother’s coming over,” she said to Cartier.

  “Why?”

  “He heard what happened and wanna give his support.”

  Cartier didn’t respond. She already knew Hector had a strong crush on her, but she wasn’t interested in him at all, and now, especially during a catastrophic time in her life, she just wanted to disappear somewhere.

  “I didn’t tell him about Christian.”

  Cartier stayed remote. It was Quinn’s place, not hers. So she couldn’t dictate who could come over and who couldn’t.

  An hour later, a burgundy Escalade with 24-inch chrome rims came to a complete stop in front of Quinn’s place. The doors opened, and Hector, Tumble, and a young thug named Monster stepped out of the truck.

  Hector stood tall and looked like a powerful gangster in his wifebeater, flexing his muscles and ornate gang tattoos, his purple bandana hanging from his back pocket. A long platinum chain with a diamond cut pit-bull-head pendant hung from around his neck.

  He took a pull from the long cigar clutched between his fingers then said to Tumble and Monster, “Y’all niggas stay out here. I’ll be only a minute.”

  His two goons nodded and lingered by the truck with their bad-tempered frowns. The men seemed unapproachable and intimidating. Wearing a long Miami Dolphins jersey, Tumble leaned against the Escalade, his Glock 17 tucked into his waistband, his eyes dancing around the block, keeping an eye out for any trouble.