Fast Money and Cold Hearts

by Ghost

  He jumped up, and reached under his shirt.

  “Oh yeah fuck nigga?” Dis what you want?” Before he could up his heat, he looked over and saw that I had both guns out already. The hammers cocked and ready to blow. This kept him from pulling his shit out.

  “Yeah nigga. Act like you want it. I’ll put three holes in yo head so fast by he time you blink you’d be dead already.”

  Alicia struggled to stand up.

  “Y’all stop this shit. Just stop it before these people call the police. This is dumb. Mikey you and I need to talk. Phoenix we can get an understanding at another time.”

  Smoke came through the door with ten of my cartel savages. They all had on black shirts but the handles to their pistols could be easily seen through their shirts. Smoke walked right over to the table, and tucked his shirt behind his forty four handles.

  “Fuck we got going on in here boss? I’m murdering some shit or what?” He mugged Mikey with hate in his eyes.

  Mikey’s boys squeezed through the door of the shop. They rushed behind him with their hands under their shirts as well. They mugged Smokes and then me.

  I pulled Alicia behind me.

  “Mikey what you trying to go with nigga? We can light this bitch up like a Christmas tree.”

  “Please y’all, don’t do this. They about to call the police. Look over there.” She nodded with her head toward the cashier.

  It appeared that the Mexican female manager was on the phone talking hysterically. I could only imagine that she was talking to the police. She wagged her right arm as she spoke in the phone.

  “Nigga I ain’t bout this shit right now. Most of my Potnas got warrants. We gon definitely finish this shit at another time. Believe that.” He backed away from the table.

  “Alicia, bitch you’re dead to me. I don’t give a fuck what happen to you from here on out. Let’s go fellas.” They made their way out of the shop. Mikey took one glance over his shoulder before disappearing.

  Smoke and our Orange Mound killas surrounded the table. “Say Phoenix, let’s get the fuck out of here just in case shawty is talking to the law on that phone. Shid all of us got warrants too.” He said looking past my shoulder.

  I agreed, and we did just that. When we stepped outside Alicia ignored me. She got in her truck and sped away from the curb. I felt real shitty. Like I should of handled things different with her. But, I knew I wasn’t ready to give her what she wanted. I was ready to be a man and take care of her and our child, but I wasn’t ready to settle down, or to be tied down by one female. I was addicted to pussy, and the streets. The whole in house thing was the furthest from my mind.

  Chapter 15

  The next day, I found myself inside of an abandoned warehouse off of Troy Drive. Me and Smoke were meeting up with some Mexican Crew niggas that had just got in a shipment of fully automatic Tech Nines, Military edition. The plug’s name was Pablo, and he and Smoke had gone to the same high school. Pablo and Smoke used to steal and sell foreign cars to the chop shops around town. So they had an ongoing relationship when it came to business.

  It was four in the afternoon, when Pablo pulled up in a platinum Dodge Durango, sitting on thirty two inch Fans. He and another man jumped out of the truck, reached into the back and pulled out four big duffle bags. They carried two apiece into the warehouse and dropped them in front of Smoke, and myself.

  Smoke gave Pablo a hug. “What it do Cowboy?” He patted him on the back.

  Pablo, a short, slim Mexican with a mouth full of gold and diamonds, hugged him back.

  “Same ol same. Moving toys like KB’s you know what it is.” He knelt down, unzipped one of the duffels. pulled out a Tech Nine, and handed it to Smoke.

  “That shit nice and prime right there. Them politicians doing all that they can to keep the people out of America that’s coming through Mexico, when me and my boys getting that good good right from the islands through Florida. They can’t build a wall long enough to keep us from making millions ya feel me, Cowboy?”

  “No doubt.” Smoke handed me the Tech. “That’s why I fuck wit you. I told my mans right here that you’d get us right, and lo and behold you have. How many you got in them bags?”

  “Twenty in all. Twenty bodies, and twenty hunnit round clips. Fully automatics, with the cooling systems attached. You got something for me?”

  I took off my book bag and tossed it to him. “That’s fifteen gees as we discussed. Seven fifty a piece. Pardon the book bag, you know what that Trap money look like though, all dem ones and shit.”

  He opened the bag and pulled out a bundle of it. “This shit all spend in the end. Its good Cowboy.” He gave me a half of hug. “Smoke, I take it I’ma be dealing wit him from hear on out.”

  Smoke shook his head. “N’all, you gon be fucking wit me, but this my boss. I’m sure by now that you’ve heard of the homie Phoenix. Orange Mound’s head, and Don of the Duffle Bag Cartel?”

  Pablo looked me up and down. “Mane, you Phoenix?

  His reaction made me feel some type of way. I got on edge. My hand wavered by my waist. I was seconds away from reaching and deading this nigga. “Yeah, that’s me. What’s good?”

  Pablo laughed. “Nigga yo name ringing all over Memphis. Every time a mafucka go to snatch up a nice amount of straps from me they always talking about they gotta be prepared for Phoenix and his savages in case y’all come Trap door kicking. Y’all got mafuckas on tremble.” He cracked up. “Gotta stand clear of them Black Haven boys tho.” He pulled at the hairs on his chin.

  “How so?” Smoke asked.

  “Yeah what you mean by that?” I added.

  “Mane, I ain’t know you was fucking wit Phoenix real tough, Cowboy. I just sold Dragon and his fellas a round of these bitches. If ever y’all should go to war just know that you niggas gotta go hard.”

  Off the back I didn’t trust this Pablo stud. If it didn’t take no probing to relay the information to us of what he’d just sold to Dragon and his crew, I knew that he would offer information about us to anybody he was cool with as well. That meant that he had loose lips. In the game the worst way to be demolished was if niggas had information on what you were holding.

  “I would sell y’all them Mach Nineties I got in the back of the truck right now. I’m supposed to be holding them for Dragon and his Black Haven crew, but they ain’t got they paper right yet. Money talks.”

  “How many is it?” Smoke asked, and lowering his eyes into slits.

  “Its fifty of them. I want eight hunnit a piece. That’s forty thousand dollars. This gone be the last shipment for a while. They trying to tighten up the border while Trump hollering this build the wall shit.” He spit on the floor. “Be glad when they get his ass out of that White House.

  “They out there right now?” I asked trying to visualize how things would look of I came off of that bread. I would have to move some shit around, but I could shake it.”

  “Yep. All fifty. Them bitches still in the boxes.” He added. “Why you want ‘em?”

  I nodded. “Hell yeah. What you gone pop ‘em for?”

  “Forty gees. Just like I said.”

  “N’all you said you was gon pop them bitches to them Black Haven niggas for forty gees. I wanna know what you gon give them to me for now that you know that I’m rocking with Smoke.”

  He busted up laughing. “Man, this is bidness. Me and Smoke cool, but ain’t no nigga gon come between me and my bidness. Its money over everythang. Dats just the way it is. You feel me.”

  Smoke stepped forward and upped his piece.

  Boom. Boom. Boom.

  His bullets slammed into Pablo’s face, and knocked massive chunks out of it before he flopped to the floor.

  I turned to Pablo’s mans, and let both Glocks ride back to back. Boom. Boom. Boom.

  He was stood up. Hole after hole entered into his body. He fell face first with his gun in his hand.

  Smoke grabbed their handguns and put them on his waist. Then he snatched up two of
the duffels.

  “Let’s ride boss. I’ma jump in they truck and meet you at the creek off of Porter Avenue. I’ma follow you. Love fool.”

  ***

  By the next morning us Orange Mound niggas were rolling around strapped to the gills, and ready to beef with anybody that wanted it. I knew that the famous saying in the game was that you couldn’t make money and beef wit niggas at the same time, so apart of me wanted to stay clear of any unnecessary drama. But, when it came to Mikey, I knew that the drama between him and I wasn’t unnecessary. It was bad blood because of Alicia. And now that I had in a sense punked him out in front of her, I knew that shit was about to get real ugly. Almost every time I rolled around in my Escalade I had two hittas in the back seats and a car following close behind ready to wet anything moving.

  Smoke rolled in the passenger’s seat this morning sipping on a pink Sprite. He had a Tech on his lap with a red bandana around the handle, and dark shades on his face. We’d just come from dropping off two bricks to one of the traps in the Mound. I’d noticed that there were five long lines coming from my traps in the projects. Money was flowing like clock work.

  “Say Phoenix, why don’t we go over there and just crush that nigga Mikey? Why are waiting around for him to do something to us first?” He asked turning up the bottle of Sprite.

  I continued to roll through the city, sitting under tints. I had a Forty Five on my lap, and a gleam in my eyes. “You wanna know something?”

  “What’s that bruh?”

  “As much as I hate that nigga Mikey, I still got a lil love for him. Me and that dat fool done been through some shit together. I know I was bogus for fucking Alicia behind his back. Had I not, we’d still be thick as thieves.”

  Smoke frowned. “Say Mane, fuck that nigga. He took your daughter. Popped you up and shit, and you sitting here reminiscing about the good times. Fuck his side bitch ass. Its all about the Cartel now. We’re your Mikey. Scratch that, I’m your Mikey, and the Cartel is our family. Mikey always been out for his self. From what I hear he’s starving his Brooklyn Fam too. Them niggas trying to find a way to become apart of our shit.”

  “Well that ain’t happening.” I bent the corner, and circled around the Mound. “This here is the home land. We die by this shit. I heard everythang that you said about Mikey, Playboy and you’re right. When you’re right you’re right. I say its time we sweat that nigga, and then take off Dragon’s head. It’ll be beneficial for us to take over Black Haven. Our money will double all around the board. Everything that we are seeing now will be increased.”

  Smoke nodded his head. “I like the sound of that. They got crazy feens over there in Black Haven too. I’m talking the kind that live and die for this product. If we can yank that turf, man we’ll be filthy rich.”

  “That’s what we gone do. First we gone take a good look at Mikey. Get him out of the picture. Dragon is next. All of them fool’s clocks are about to run out.”

  “Phoenix if you want, I can send a few of the homies through his spot right now. They’ll go in wit guns blazing, laying shit down. I’ll put out a decree that Mikey is to be bodied on sight. All you gotta do is give me the order.”

  I thought about that long and hard. Now every fiber of my being was ready for Mikey to be wiped off the face of the earth. I was tired of looking over my shoulder and expecting him to be there busting his gun. And I was sick of being worried about what his next move would be. He’d already got off on me more than enough. The easiest thing for me to do would have been too allow Smoke’s hittas to handle my light work, but I worried about them making a mistake. I knew that Mikey was dangerous. If I exposed my hand that I was coming for him and I went about it the wrong way, he would release his goons as well. If they rode under him they had to be dirtier than a bums feet.

  “N’all, I’m gone personally take that nigga’s life. I owe that to my daughter, and to myself for the slugs he put inside of me. But I’ll tell you what we will do. We’ll--.”

  CRASH!

  Two S.U.V.s crashed into my truck from opposite ends, boxing us in. The impact was so great that my head jerked around angrily on my neck. Then the shooting started.

  Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

  The windows to my truck shattered. I felt a hot liquid on the back of my neck and head. I grabbed my gun and busted out of the window blindly. To my right Smoke was hollering in pain.

  “Pull off Phoenix. Pull off! Aww shit! He ordered.

  Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

  The truck rattled back and forth as I stepped on the gas and pulled away. The metal crunched, and my bumper fell off the front of my truck. More shots were fired. I raised my head to see where I was going, stepped on the gas, and slammed into a car that was coming down the side street. It spun out of control, and hit a pole.

  Two of our Orange Mound vans came storming down the street. When they got in front of the trucks that had been shooting at me and Smoke they brought the vans to a halt, and slid the side doors open, before letting our fully automatic Mach’s ride.

  Thitta-dat. Thitta-dat. Thitta-dat. Thitta-dat. Thitta-dat. Thitta-dat.

  The assaulting trucks sped away from the scene with our crew on their ass.

  I witnessed all of this from my rear view mirror. Its also when I noticed that both of the niggas that was in our back seats were goners. Their heads were blown partway off of their bodies. Both were slumped in their seats. It looked crazy.

  “Shoot out to my sister’s crib, Mane. We need to regroup.” He turned around in his seat. “ Aw shit she finna be pissed Phoenix. That nigga right there is her baby daddy. He just moved here from Cali.”

  I jumped on the highway and headed north. I was familiar with Smoke’s sister Fawna. She’d stayed in Orange Mound for most of her life. Fawna was always the good girl type. Stayed to herself, and in church. I didn’t even know it was possible for her to have gotten involved with a street nigga. She was always so prim and proper.

  “That was that Dragon nigga Phoenix. I know them trucks from anywhere. They had them David stars all in the paint. I told you we been beating around the bush waiting too long. Now we gotta move before mafuckas start taking the Mound for a joke.” He looked into the back seat again. “Damn, they killed both of my niggas.”

  ***

  Fawna took it better then I thought. She opened the back door to my truck, with her two year old daughter on her hip, and looked inside of it. When she saw her baby father in the back slumped over with his brains hanging out of his face, she took a deep breath, and shook her head.

  “How did this happen?” Fawna was five feet two inches tall, about one thirty, with natural shoulder length hair, and caramel skin.

  Smoke stepped beside her. “Some niggas blind sided me and Phoenix. They see us getting money and shit and they’re jealous. Don’t worry we finna clap back. You know we ain’t about to accept this shit lying down.”

  She sighed and closed the door. “He should of stayed in California. I told him to not get involved wit you.” She looked over to me. “Hey Phoenix.”

  “What’s up Fawna. Say, I’m sorry about what happened to ya mans. I got you and his shorty though for as long as I’m out here grinding you got my word on that.”

  She bounced her daughter up and down on her hip. “What y’all gone do wit his body?”

  “That’s up to you sis. I was just gone get rid of it because it’ll bring so much heat, but if you wanna give him a proper funeral and all of that then that’s cool, too.”

  She shook her head. “N’all, I ain’t got no money for all of that, besides he was a dead beat anyway. It took me two months to get his ass back here from California. The whole time his daughter was suffering with reoccurring ear infections. She needed him and he wasn’t there. He ain’t been there for a full month in the two years that she’s been alive. So n’all, he don’t deserve no funeral. What y’all do with him is what y’all do wit him.” She made her way into the house.

  That night me and Smoke
were forced to burn both of the homies in a big metal garbage can, beat their bones to dust, and dump the residue in the creek. It was what we called normalcy in the gutters of Memphis.

  Chapter 16

  The following Friday night; me, Smoke, and about twenty of the homies from Orange Mound loaded up into five Chevy Astro vans, and strolled over to Black Haven. It was eleven o’clock at night, and I’d gotten word from one of the lil homies that Dragon and his potnas were having a massive celebration for four of their homies that had just come him from prison after serving bids. They’d been barbecuing, and having a project party all day and night. Smoke wanted to hit their set earlier but I was against it because I was worried about possibly hitting a bunch of innocent kids. I wasn’t with that shit at all. I figured that after hours would be the best time to hit their asses up. That way we could get as many of them as possible, and it would lessen the casualties.

  I sat on the floor in the middle portion of the van. I had one of the fully automatic tech nines, and a hunnit round clip slapped in that ass. There were two other hittas on the side of me. One waiting to open the door. One in the passenger’s seat, and two that would throw open the back door to maximize their shooting. I was ready to go. My heart was pounding like a carpenter with a hammer in his hand.

  As soon as we turned the corner into the winding road that led up to the Black Haven projects, I could hear the loud music, and people laughing, seeming to have a good old time. There was the heavy scent of barbecue, and Loud smoke in the air.

  Our van creeped around the bend. It seemed like everybody was outside. I saw so many children that I immediately felt uncomfortable, but we were in too deep. I pulled the mask down over my face, and cocked my Tech.

  “Awright Duffle Bag, its almost time to handle this bidness. Y’all make sure y’all try and avoid them kids,Mane. I ain’t necessarily worried about the bitches, but watch them kids, Potnas. You niggas got that?”