by Cash
I told Inez to go take a bath and then wait for me naked on the bed. When I entered the bedroom with a can of whipped cream, she knew it was on.
CHAPTER 5
My watch read 8:15 p.m. Rich Kid had agreed to meet me outside the game room at nine. I’d talked to him earlier in the day, explaining that I needed to see him ASAP. He pressed me on why it was so urgent, even though we both knew it was always unwise to discuss business over the phone.
I’d said as much as I dared say on a phone, telling him that shit had been a little rough for me since I got out the hospital, and I needed him to loan me some loot so Inez and I could go out of town until I dealt with my enemies.
“Do I know the nigga you got beef with?” he asked.
“Maybe,” I said. “But I’ma handle it. I just want Inez out of town, somewhere safe, while I do.”
“It’s that serious, huh?” Rich Kid asked.
I said, “It is with me! You saw how fucked up I was!”
He asked if I was okay. We hadn’t seen each other since the day at the car wash.
“I’m good,” I assured him. “Just ready to handle my biz and get back to flossin’ on mafuckaz.”
He asked how much loot I wanted to borrow.
I told him, and he replied, “No problem. I’ll meet you outside the game room at eight tonight?”
“Can we make it nine?” Which would be better for me.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Nine is cool.”
We hung up.
Spring had just kicked in, so it was still a little cool at night. I wore jeans, a pullover Braves sweatshirt, a Braves fitted cap and black Timbs.
I dropped Inez off at her Ma Duke’s crib to spend time with her daughter and then stopped at a BP gas station to put gas in the Nissan.
By the time I reached the game room, it was 8:45, so I just sat in the car and waited. I was changing CDs when Rich Kid drove up in his Chevy SS. I flashed my headlights at him and he stopped about two car lengths ahead of me. I got out so he’d see me, not sure if he’d recognize my Nissan since I rarely drove it. He did recognize me, though, and he pulled into a parking space several cars down from where I was parked. I’d noticed a female in the passenger seat of his whip. It looked like the same shawdy from the car wash.
By the time I walked up to where he was parked, Rich Kid was already outside of the car leaning against the side of it. I stopped about three feet in front of him, raised my arm and squeezed the trigger of the .9mm in my hand.
Splacka! Splacka! Splacka! Splacka! Splacka!
The nine spat automatic gun-fire. All to his chest! I watched him slide down the side of the Benz, smoke coming from the front of his shirt. The bitch jumped out the whip, running and screaming. I hopped over Rich Kid and ran her down.
Splacka! Splacka! Two straight to the dome.
I pulled the fitted cap down low over my brow. A few people were in the parking lot, staring in horror, then scrambling to get out of my way. I held my head down so they couldn’t see my face, dashed to the Nissan and drove off quickly, without squealing the tires.
I felt safe when I made it to the Interstate and blended in with night traffic.
Ten miles down the expressway, a car pulled alongside me honking its horn, the driver waving his free arm frantically. I rolled down my window, gripping Nina.
“Hey, buddy!” the white man shouted out of his window as he tried to steer straight. “You’re missing your tags!”
“Thanks!” I yelled back and then eased up off my .9mm.
Of course I was missing my license plate. I had removed it when I stopped to get gas.
I drove on to Inez’ and put the tag back on the Nissan before going inside.
A few days later, I traded it in and bought a newer model. I was just taking the necessary precautions.
The streets were hot with rumor and gossip, especially down in Englewood where several of Rich Kid’s crew had gotten splacked the same night, same time that he had. The hood had no way of knowing about the successful hits in Florida and Kentucky, but Murder and the four Dreads were back in Atlanta acting awfully satisfied with themselves.
I was watching the news daily to see if the police were any closer to identifying the gunman outside the game room. Witnesses had correctly described the Nissan and were fairly accurate on my height and weight, but they’d incorrectly described the gunman as having short cut hair and couldn’t give any details on the gunman’s complexion.
The Nissan was no longer in my possession. Besides, witnesses hadn’t been able to report any tag number. Still I was keeping a low profile.
The bitch I’d splacked had died on the scene, the news reported. But Thaddeus Brown, A.K.A. Rich Kid, was still clinging to life, despite five slugs to the chest and abdomen.
Damn! I should’ve shot him in the head! I admonished myself, though I was sure he wouldn’t pull through and survive. I was just hoping he didn’t wake up long enough to identify his assailant.
Murder and the Dreads weren’t upset about it.
“If he lives, you’ll just have to find a way to finish the job,” they said.
I was all for that ‘cause I didn’t want Rich Kid walking around with my name on a hit list, no way. He’d lost a couple of soldiers in the Englewood battle also. If he did survive, he’d find that his Cuban supplier was missing and his Kentucky crew had suffered their own tragedies.
I moved out of the Decatur apartment into a townhouse south of the city and told Inez to start looking for a new spot, too. Murder Mike broke me off some cash flow but said we had other people to eliminate before we could put the operation into top gear.
While the Dreads went to different cities across the country to continue setting up their respective zones, Murder Mike and I stayed posted in Atlanta. We were together more than we were apart over the next few months, plotting our mission.
Murder showed me the hit list with the names of all those we were to eliminate.
The list read:
Hannibal (X) plus his LT.
Rich Kid (?)
Little Gotti
LA Steve
BCF
José
I guess the X next to Hannibal’s name signified he’d already been eliminated. The ? next to Rich Kid’s name would become an X once he expired.
My main man didn’t have to tell me anything but where to find Little Gotti and when he wanted the nigga hit. Blondie would be personal.
LA Steve was a nigga I didn’t know, but Murder had the 411 on him.
He said, “Dude doesn’t fuck with cocaine, his steelo is weed. Most of the ‘dro and skunk weed in the city comes from him. If we get rid of LA Steve, we can lockdown the weed game, too. More mafuckaz smoking weed than crack nowadays.”
“Bet,” I agreed.
BCF, which stood for Black Crime Family, was a drug clique out of Detroit that had recently came to ATL and setup shop. Besides pumping drugs, they were strong in the music industry. I didn’t really know much about BCF, but I’d seen their billboards around the city, promoting their record label, Street Life Productions. Their rep was bubbling in the streets.
As for José, the last name on Murder’s hit list, he was a big time Mexican nigga with a team of trigger happy ese’s.
“They’re deep out there in Gwinnet County,” Murder Mike informed me.
I have to say, I was mad impressed with the wealth of information my man, Murder, had on all these players in the game. Though I suspected the Dread, Crazy Nine, had supplied most of it.
Still, until recently I would’ve never thought Murder Mike possessed anything more than street-level skills in the dope game. The same hustle skills the average nigga from the hood possessed—no plans beyond locking down his block. Now I had to look at my main man with much more respect. He was after more than hood fame and lil’ boy money.
I was still a little peeved about him siccing the Dreads on me like he did, even if I did understand the business sense of it. Murder had since told me that
he’d told them before they’d grabbed me, if they killed me, they’d have to kill him, too.
“Main man,” he’d said, sounding real, “I was pissed when I found out your jaw was broken! It wasn’t supposed to go like that! But that fool, Rastaman, don’t know his own power.”
I had interrupted him. “They were beating me with lead pipes, I don’t know how it wouldn’t go like it did.”
He swore that he hadn’t been told anything, beforehand, about lead pipes and shit.
“I put that on everything I love, dawg. Shit,” he said, “it wasn’t even my call that you get roughed up. I told Crazy that I took your word for it that you weren’t on Rich Kid’s team.”
“That’s on all you love?” I asked, staring him in the eyes.
He didn’t blink. “For sho’! Look, I felt I could step to you and get you to roll with us, without all the drama. We do go way back.”
So I accepted Murder Mike’s explanation and apology because it made sense to me. Why would he want me banged up? He probably would have talked me into joining up with him and the Dreads without resorting to putting me in the hospital. He said that he also figured that was Crazy Nine’s way of intimidating me, so if I did join the team, I’d never get the dumb idea to rob them.
“That was your steelo, homeboy,” Murder said.
I accepted it all in stride, not letting it affect what I felt for Murder Mike. But it’s hard to like a mafucka who put you in the hospital with a broken jaw and cracked ribs. So while I would get money with Murder Mike and the Dreads, my loyalty was to him only.
To be honest, though, I didn’t feel good about splackin’ Rich Kid. I wasn’t sure if I’d done it because the Dreads had me boxed in, or if I’d done it because Cheryl had run off with my loot and it was a chance for me to get down with Murder Mike and ‘em and get my bank back tight. Or if I’d really done it because Rich Kid hadn’t shown any respect or loyalty to me or Toi. What really got Rich Kid wet the fuck up was that shit he popped at the car wash. It felt like he was referring to Toi, too.
Either or, what was done was done. I couldn’t take back the five slugs I’d pumped in Rich Kid. Wasn’t no erasing that. I had chosen sides and there was no turning back.
For all of my young years, I’d wanted no real part of the drug game, other than robbing dope boys. Now I was part of a drug crew that was both deadly and ambitious!
Once we had control of the city’s drug flow, my role would be mostly that of an enforcer and an overseer. I wouldn’t be able to replace the million dollars Cheryl stole overnight, but I wouldn’t have to scout out licks no more, either.
It took a few weeks for me to reconcile with my change of professions, but it wasn’t too difficult to do because until we eliminated those on the hit list, most of my work would involve using my heater.
That was a role I was very used to.
CHAPTER 6
The first person I hit with Murder Mike was the nigga known in the streets as LA Steve, the major weed supplier in the city.
We had tracked his movements for nearly two weeks, not always following him, but always aware of where he’d be during certain times of the night.
Everyone had a routine. Some people were more structured than others, but none are impossible to chart. Routine was what we were used to doing, what we grow comfortable with. Niggaz got uncomfortable when something upsetted their routine. So when I was casing-out my victims, I began with a simple theory that’s usually reliable: If a nigga goes to a certain place once, he’ll eventually go back there again. If he goes there twice or more, well, that’s basis to figure out his routine.
I didn’t need to know where he’d be every minute of the day, not even every day of the week. All I really needed to know was when he’d be at the place where I planned to hit him.
Even I had a certain routine. If a nigga knew where Inez lived, and wanted to hit me, all he had to do was wait for me to show up at her crib and I was a dead man!
LA Steve was no different, only we didn’t know who his woman was or where she lived. His undoing was his love of shrimp. Funny how such a simple thing as a man’s favorite food could set him up to be murdered. But in LA Steve’s case it did.
For two consecutive Thursday nights, he’d gone to the All-You-Can-Eat Shrimp special offered at The Seafood House on Fulton Industrial Highway.
Both times, he’d arrived between 7 and 10 p.m. Once, he’d been alone. The other time, he’d taken along a woman. Which didn’t matter to Murder Mike, me or our heaters. Neither of us discriminated against women. I didn’t get no special kick out of killing hos, but neither did I love killing niggaz. I was indifferent to both, it was just business.
On the third Thursday, we waited ‘til 11 p.m. for LA Steve to show up at The Seafood House. At midnight the restaurant closed without him showing his face. Either he was tired of shrimp on Thursdays or something else had kept him away.
A few days later, Murder Mike learned that a big load of hydro weed had just touched down in the city. It was safe to assume LA Steve had gone out of town to pick it up. That would explain why he hadn’t made his Thursday appointment at The Seafood House last week.
I betted Murder Mike a thousand dollars LA Steve would not miss the All-You-Can-Eat Shrimp special next Thursday night.
Thursday Night 9:05 p.m.
We watched from the doughnut shop’s parking lot, across the street, as a green Range Rover pulled into an empty parking space toward the rear of The Seafood House. Murder Mike handed me a roll of rubber band-wrapped bills and I put the wad in the pocket of the jumpsuit with the thousand dollars I was carrying in case I had lost the bet.
“I hope the punk enjoys his last meal. It cost me a thousand dollars!” said Murder Mike, not really angry. He’d lost the bet, but he’d win the bigger prize.
LA Steve was alone when he walked inside of the restaurant to feast on the All-You-Can-Eat Shrimp special. We figured it would take him his usual forty-five minutes to enjoy his meal, so we rode off on a Ninja 1100, not wanting to be noticed waiting around.
Murder Mike and I were both wearing black leather racing suits. His was a little looser-fitting than mine, to allow room for the double-barrel sawed-off that was concealed down the front left side of it.
We rode around aimlessly for the next thirty minutes, just passing away idle time until I felt our target would have eaten his last shrimp. Then I headed back toward The Seafood House, stopping momentarily, a few blocks away, so that Murder Mike could turn around and straddle the bike seat backwards, his back to mine. We strapped a wide car seat-like belt around the both of us, effectively locking us together, back to back. If one of us fell off the bike, the other would fall with him. But the wide belt around us was necessary to give Murder more stability and balance in case both of his hands were still pre-occupied when we drove off after the hit.
LA Steve had a cell phone to his ear as he exited the restaurant, strolling casually toward his vehicle. I waited for him to get out of the view of the restaurant’s side windows before I rode across the street. He turned around toward the loud sound of the Ninja, perhaps upset that the roar of the bike’s engine was drowning out his phone conversation.
I slowed the bike as we drew even to our target and brought it to an almost complete stop three yards past him, so that Murder Mike was now facing LA Steve.
I heard the loud report of the double barrel sawed-off.
Boom! Boom!
The kickback from the weapon jarred Murder’s back against mine. I hesitated just a few seconds before pulling off, to allow my accomplice time to put the sawed-off down the front of his racing suit, freeing his hands to hold onto the back of the bike’s seat for added balance.
The Ninja zoomed down Fulton Industrial Highway like a blur. We merged onto I-285 and drove back to the stash house in Lithonia. There I guided the bike into the driveway and behind the house, where Murder Mike unlocked the belt that held us together.
We sat at the kitchen table, helmets at
our elbows, congratulating each other on the professional job we’d just done. My adrenalin was sky high, while Murder Mike appeared his normal self.
I half-expected him to pull dope or money from the cabinet and go about business as usual. Instead he got up from the table into the back of the house. After a short while, he returned in jeans and a sweat shirt.
“I gotta run to the pay phone,” he said. “I’ll grab us something to eat while I’m out.”
As soon as I heard his Navigator back out of the yard and drive off, I went back to the bathroom to take a leak and to make sure I was alone in the house. Just to satisfy my own curiosity, I made a quick inspection of every room in the house, careful to put things back in the order they were. I looked everywhere: closets, under beds, under sinks, cabinets, everywhere. No dope or money anywhere. Not that I would’ve taken it had I found any, I was just curious to know if my main man already trusted me enough to leave me alone at the house with the amounts of coke and money that had been there the last time. It didn’t disappoint me not to find a stash there, I understood the rules of the streets, trust had to be earned.
The thing that was hardest for me to understand was why clap a nigga who was sitting on major figures without robbin’ him also? The shit just didn’t make sense to me. We were taking him off the shelf. Why not grab his loot in the process? Of course, it wasn’t always easy to find a nigga’s stash. The wiser dope boys didn’t keep their stash where they laid their heads. Common sense said it was kept somewhere close by, easy to get to in a hurry.
Murder thought like the dope boy he was, not like a robber. His sole interest was in eliminating the competition, then he’d clock his own riches. I had to respect it since he was the one calling the shots. It was their operation, their ball to bounce. Still, I felt it was stupid not to rob mafuckaz before we crossed ‘em off the hit list.
One name we couldn’t cross of the hit list yet was Rich Kid’s. Yep, the nigga survived five shots, fired from close range. Though he hadn’t died, he was in no shape to mount revenge. Word was he had been flown by helicopter to a hospital in Maryland to undergo more surgery and then extensive therapy.