“You right about that,” Gunner said. “But enough talking, let’s get the fuck outta here.”
Chapter 2
The first thing the crew did after leaving court was go out for lunch to celebrate the victory. They all met up at Jay’s favorite spot, The Parthenon in Greektown. Jay loved the elegance and architecture of the building. The gold and white theme inside was accented by marvelous gold chandeliers and floor to ceiling wall windows out front. Intimate tables for two lined the walls, and the middle aisle boasted several twelve-foot Cherry wood tables like the one Jay and his party of ten occupied.
Along with Kelly and Neicey Girl, a couple of Gunner’s personal goons had already joined them at the celebration. Gunner’s people were extended members of the family from the Van Dyke neighborhood they had all grown up in. Gunner had goons from all over Charmers, Mack, even Brightmore. Most of them were cats he knew from prison and had recruited them after realizing they had potential. Whomever Gunner brought in was immediately blessed, because no one doubted his ability to judge character.
Jay was finally able to relax, and he couldn’t stop laughing as Bake told another one of his outlandish stripper tales.
“Man, I’m telling you. This bitch had me gone! I’m sitting at home like a fiend talking about, ‘baby you ain’t gotta go to work today, I got you.’ Every night, I’m like, ‘baby I got you.’ I ain’t even paid my mortgage for the month. I done paid this bitch mortgage and car note.”
The whole table was crying with laughter as Bake told the truth with a straight face. It was always like this when the crew got together. Bake, with his love for strippers and natural comedic personality, always had a story to tell. He was a short chubby dude who got his name, Shake-n-Bake, because he was a natural chemist when it came to cooking up powdered cocaine and turning it into crack. Bake knew all the tricks of stretching coke, and he always brought back at least forty-two ounces off each kilo. At the most, he could bring back sixty, but there was only a slim chance of the dope being any good. Bake had been the designated cook for the crew, and he was paid one thousand dollars for every kilo he whipped up.
E was Bake’s half-brother, but by the looks of them, you’d never know it. E was high yellow with naturally wavy hair, and was considered the ladies’ man of the crew. He was average in height and had been labeled a pretty boy in high school. He didn’t mind back then, but now days you couldn’t call him a pretty boy unless you wanted to engage in a fist fight afterwards.
To his right was J-Rock, the exact opposite of E. There was nothing pretty about J-Rock. He had bad acne ,and the nappiest head of hair you’ve ever seen. Even with a little money, J-Rock still carried himself with an air of low self-esteem. J-Rock, the youngest of the crew, really looked up to Jay, and aspired to be just like him.
And then there was Lines. The only man in the crew that got high off his own supply. Lines had been sniffing coke since age seventeen, and he was now twenty-five. Lines was a heartless bastard who sold drugs to his mother and threatened her if she didn’t pay the money she owed on time. The years of drug use made Lines appear much older than he was. He had cocoa butter skin, and although he was by no means a fat man, you could tell he had never taken any measures to get in shape by the way he was built. He was teased about his man breasts all the time, but Lines was a good earner, and Jay never questioned his loyalty to the crew, not even for a second.
The crew had finished off their meals, and everyone was reclining and sucking their teeth. Jay started to speak in a low tone, almost a whisper, that let everyone know he was about to talk business. He didn’t mind Kelly and Neicey Girl hearing what he had to say. They knew everything about the crew’s operation already.
“Aye, dig this here, I know we ain’t been working too much because of trial and all that, but y’all know we done missed out on a lot of money. It’s time to get back to business. Go hard or go home. Ain’t no pussy footing around, we gotta get them phones ringing off the hook again, ya dig? I’m going to hook up with my man in the morning to get us right, and then we can meet up at the record store. But tonight…” His voice went up dramatically as he stood to his feet. “Is time to party like a muthafucka, nigga! Tear the club up, nigga! Van Dyke Down, nigga!” he yelled like a teenager with no home training.
“Ayee Van Dyke Down, nigga!” Lines rose to his feet to join in the foolery as they all slapped fives and got hype.
Lines pulled out a bankroll and made it rain on the table for no apparent reason other than dropping bills on top of half-eaten plates.
“Everything on me tonight, nigga,” Jay continued. “Bake, call up some of them stripper hoes. Kelly, I’m sorry, but you can’t come on this ride, baby,” he teased.
“Fuck you, Jay, don’t start no shit.”
They began to calm down just as the manager was approaching. He saw everyone taking their seats, so he just strolled on by, not wanting any confrontation. The managers loved Jay; he had been a frequent customer for the past five years, ever since he started touching real paper.
Jay had been in the game since the early nineties. He’d had his ups and downs, but now he was finally on top of his game, where he knew he would be. He’d lost some soldiers to the graveyard and the penal system, but the closest people to him were still right by his side. He’d always remember the setback that almost took him completely out of the game, and that was why Dontae had to die. There was no way he could ever let it ride, so when he heard that Dontae had resurfaced, he knew it was only a matter of time.
Gunner was the one who spotted him in his Lexus chilling at the gas station like it was all good that night. Jay pulled over and got out of his Benz at a nearby alley, letting Gunner get behind the wheel. As Dontae dipped in and out of the gas station, he surveyed his surroundings, but Jay was already laying in the cut itching to squeeze like an ass man at a nudie bar.
As Dontae climbed behind the wheel of the Lexus, Jay snuck up from behind, concealing his .40 cal until he was at point blank range.
Then he opened fire.
Chapter 3
Bones decided that the first thing he needed to do was take a trip back to Detroit, and get his business in order. He had a million things to do, but he knew what came first on the list. Although he intended to murder, maim, and destroy, he also didn’t plan to ever go back to prison, so everything had to be calculated and executed to perfection. First order of business was the drugs that had been in Dontae’s ex-girlfriend’s basement for a year now collecting dust. He needed clothes, a cellphone, and he needed to find his homeboy, Skip. Skip was his right hand, and he had been doing his best to keep tabs on the Van Dyke Down crew. He found out from his sister, Trina, that Jay and Gunner had beat the case, which was music to his ears. Prison was getting off easy as far as he was concerned. He had a better idea.
At the moment, he was stuck in a parole office in Columbus, Ohio, listening to a fat bald white man with thick glasses yapping at the mouth as if he was some sort of tough guy.
“And let me be totally honest. I don’t like you, Mr. Simmons. I don’t like your kind. I don’t like the fact that drug dealing scum like you can go to jail for killing somebody and do half of the time because of some fucking day for day law that should have been thrown out years ago. I’d give my right arm to change that law right now. I swear I’d do it.”
“Then you must be left handed,” Bones said, smirking at the PO.
He grimaced until the wrinkles in his forehead grew bigger. “You’re not fucking funny. And I’m willing to bet you’ll be back in prison before the year is out. I want you to get a job immediately, Mr. Simmons, and I wanna see some check stubs by the end of next month. If I don’t see check stubs, I wanna see some school enrollment verification or some form of fucking evidence that you’re not out here becoming a menace to society all over again.”
This guy was real piece of work. If Bones hadn’t just come home, he would have already slapped the wire frame glasses clean off his face.
“Are you finished?” Bones said with impatience in his tone.
His PO scowled as if he had been insulted. “You’re not fucking tough!” he yelled as he went on another rampage that lasted almost two whole unbearable minutes. “Now get the fuck out of my office!”
After his meeting with Satan, Bones knew he’d never complete a parole with the devil himself as his parole agent. It was downright laughable to think he’d assist him in transferring his parole to Detroit. He knew what he had to do.
__________
Mercedes Jay stood in the VIP area he had reserved for the Van Dyke Down Crew, looking down on at the dance floor that was filled to capacity. He and Gunner wore matching chains with the initials VD in huge letters flooded with flawless diamonds. Besides his Rolex, the chain was the only expensive piece of jewelry Jay had. He wasn’t big on jewelry, but he was big on doing it big. Gunner wore a Jesus piece under his VD chain that he had spent another thirty-five thousand dollars getting iced out. Including his presidential Rolex and pinky ring, he was walking around with over a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry on. They looked like celebrities surrounded by beautiful women and champagne as they celebrated their biggest victory yet.
Jay sat down next to an exotic looking woman Gunner had invited. She wore a pink strapless hip hugging dress that had her breasts spilling out and her thighs waving hello. Jay decided J-Rock didn’t look like he was enjoying himself, so he sent two girls over to him with the task of raising his comfort level. Lines was whispering in another girl’s ear, and Jay was sure by the grin on his face that he was trying to convince her to sniff some coke with him. Lines was always trying to corrupt somebody.
“You a dirty muthafucka, Lines!” Jay yelled and laughed.
“What I do?” Lines replied, looking innocent.
Jay just shook his head and went on with his conversation. He wasn’t a drinker at all, but tonight was too special not to indulge with the fellas, so he cracked a bottle of Cristal for him and the dime piece wearing the hip hugging dress. After three glasses of champagne and a shot of 1738, Jay was toasted. He was standing on the leather sectional that surrounded them in a half circle with his hands in the air rocking to the beat of the music. Young Jeezy’s “Trap or Die” was the latest song that had the clubs rocking like a boat in a tropical storm.
“Last time I checked, I was the man on these streets,” Jay rapped as the song started.
Some of the girls in their entourage were strippers, and as the beat kicked in, they couldn’t resist the urge to bust it wide open and drop it to the floor. Bake and Gunner pulled out stacks of money as if they had come prepared for this moment. As they tossed money in the air once again, all eyes were on the Van Dyke Down crew.
__________
Michelle sat in her luxury loft in downtown Detroit staring out the window at her view of the neighboring country of Canada as she snacked on a fruit salad. She had enjoyed her day off at home all alone. The People Mover, a train that operated at sky level, came into view, and she could see the faces of some of her local celebrity coworkers on the billboard advertisement for Channel 4 news. Michelle had been working for the local news station for almost four years now, and was beginning to wonder how long it was going to take for her to be promoted from street reporter to her dream job as lead anchor of the nightly news.
She used to enjoy street reporting and turning monotonous stories into attention grabbers. She used to love the thrill of the chase, trying to be first on the scene when a big story broke. Although she was getting much better stories to cover than when she first started, street level reporting had become downright boring and depressing. So much violence in the city, the rape and murders seemed to be never ending. If she was lead anchor, she’d still have to do all those depressing stories, but she would have a chance to pitch some of her ideas on how to show off the positive side of Detroit. She had so many ideas she felt could help bring the city together, but she needed a platform.
The house was still as Michelle turned from her picture window and took a seat on the sofa in her living area. She glanced up at some of her trophies and medals that were displayed on the mahogany mantle, and she began to feel nostalgic as she thought back to her days at Arizona State University, and her friends back in her hometown of Roanoke, North Carolina. Michelle had moved to Michigan after her best friend from college promised her a job at a local news station.
With a small sigh, she set the bowl of fruit on the coffee table then stood up and strolled over to the mantle. A smile danced across her face as she reached out to grab the glass case that held her biggest accomplishment to date; a silver medal she’d won with the US gymnastics team in the 2000 Olympics. It wasn’t gold, but it damn sure beat nothing, and she was extremely proud of it. Just being able to make her parents proud of her was worth all the hard work that went into making it all the way the Olympics.
“Accomplishments,” she mumbled. “That’s what it’s all about.”
As a sophomore, Michelle was an All Pac-12 first team academic honoree, and led the list of all academic selections for Arizona State. She had been a fixture on the floor and vault lineup since her freshman year, and after the Olympics, she went on to graduate with a degree in broadcast journalism. Accomplishing goals is was she did, but that feeling hadn’t been present in years, and she wanted it back. Sure, she could make the argument that she had already accomplished a lot in her twenty-eight years, but it wasn’t like her to be stagnant. She needed to see some type of forward progress in her life.
Michelle placed the glass case back on the mantle and headed off to the shower, leaving a trail of pajamas, panties, and her bra all the way to the bathroom. She studied herself in the mirror that covered the entire frame on the back of the bathroom door, taking in the scenery. Her butterscotch skin glowed against her jet-black spiral curls. Michelle still had the amazing body of a gymnast, with muscle definition and womanly curves to make a man drool. It was hard to believe that she was still single, but she told herself repeatedly that she wasn’t lonely, and most of the time she believed it. Still, nights like this, she couldn’t help but think about all the what ifs.
Chapter 4
Jay woke up with the hangover he was expecting. He lay in the bed trying to muster up the energy to move, knowing he had business that needed to be handled. The first attempt to move happened an hour ago, but the migraine headache told him not to do it, so he went back to sleep. By now, he was sure his connect had called him, and more than likely, so had Bake. He was about to make a promise to never drink again, but he decided not to keep lying to himself. As he slid out of bed, he began to feel better as his banging headache subsided. He turned on his cell phone and it rang seconds later. He answered it quickly.
“Hello?”
“What up doe?” Bake said.
“Shit, I’m running late. Woke up with a hangover.”
“Man, you should’ve stayed at the hotel. Them hoes got freaky deaky. You know I was like a kid in a candy store, going from room to room. I ran through a box of condoms, nigga, like it wasn’t shit.”
Jay listened as Bake went on about his escapades from the night before, waiting for a break to cut in and talk business. Jay wasn’t into strippers, especially if they wanted to exchange sexual favors for money. He respected the hustle, but tricking was beneath him. He had the old school values of his father, who was a gangster and a pimp from the seventies era.
“Bake,” Jay interrupted. “I’ma call you after I hook up with Dog, so we can meet up at Neicey Girl’s house.
“Aiight, I’m waiting on you. I’ll be here smoking a blunt, watching Maury or some shit.”
“Okay, my guy,” Jay said chuckling.
After showering and changing into a Sean Jean velour sweat suit, Jay tossed duffle bags in the back of his Yukon Denali and backed out the garage of his St Clair Shores home that sat right off the Detroit River, and headed to meet up with his connect, who was growing impatient.
He thought about h
is new southwest connect that Lines was about to introduce him to. He couldn’t wait for the day he could dump his old connect for the new one. Just because Dawson was the Mayor’s son, he thought he was the boss of all bosses, but all that shit was about to change.
__________
Bones had snuck into the city the night before, and was on his way to meet up with his main man, Skip, who he hadn’t seen in seven years, except for pictures that he got in the mail. He made a right on Mansfield and Puritan, feeling good to be back in his old hood. As he got closer to the address Skip had given him, he could see a man being beaten unmercifully on a front porch. The man dropped to his knees then fell on his bottom, held up only by the threshold of the front door.
Bones scratched his head as he peered at the man’s attacker. He bore a strong resemblance to Skip. Glancing at the address on the house confirmed that he had reached his destination. He pulled his 98’ Cadillac STS over, shaking his head. As he cut the car off and got out, the beating continued as Skip stopped only for a second to see who was in front of his spot.
“Where my money at, bitch? Huh? Where the fuck my money?” Skip raised his left foot and began kicking the man in the stomach until he doubled over, and then Skip continued kicking him in the rib area. “You think I’m playing about my money? Huh?”
Another man stood by, watching the assault as Bones approached the front porch. Skip was brown skinned with big lips. He was average height and less than two hundred pounds, but he packed a punch.
“Damn, you ain’t even gonna welcome ya manz back?” Bones asked, unconcerned about the event that was taking place.
“Yeah nigga, hold up,” Skip said, breathing heavily. “Where my money at?”
Skip’s victim was bleeding all over the front porch, and he seemed to have no answers for Skip, so he continued to be pulverized until Skip could no longer go on.
The War Report Page 2