The Take

by L. Brown

  “I love that bitch,” Reem mumbled to himself as he watched her look good in even the Walmart uniform. “I definitely gotta upgrade her,” he said, continuing the one-way conversation with himself.

  Toya wasn’t even driving at the moment. Her car was broken down. The piece-of-shit had been parked in front of her house for a minute. Reem decided he had to upgrade not only her, but his bullshit Crown Vic, as well.

  Caught in a daydream, he was snapped back to reality by his ringing phone.

  “Yo!” he answered.

  “Where you at?” Frog asked frantically.

  “Not far. What’s good?” Reem asked nervously, picking up on the tone of his man.

  “It’s Snook, man,” he said, sniffling.

  “What the fuck happened to Snook?” Frog continued to sniffle, and Reem repeated himself. “What the fuck happened to Snook?”

  Mar, Mil, and Reese emerged from hiding after the murder of their boy. The art of war was to be deceptive, but they said, “Fuck deception right now.” Their boy was dead, so somebody had to pay. They were going straight at Ghost and his crew.

  They rode in a navy blue Pontiac Grand Prix with tinted windows. The music was down low but loud enough to hear. Meek Mill’s Tupac Back eased through the speakers—just right for the mood to catch a body.

  Huh, Tupac back, I’m two Glocks strapped.

  Rolling down in Philly this the new Iraq.

  Meek spit words that couldn’t be more to the point. Bodies fell everywhere in the violent city. Each year, murders bypassed the number of days in it. Tonight, death was in the air, and, if left up to them, the total would most certainly rise.

  Darkness invaded the sky as they cut through the traffic silently. They hoped to catch them out on Boyer and Locust Street. It didn’t matter who was out there. They were getting hit tonight.

  The headlights lit up the block as the Grand Prix slowly crept down it. The block was dead—nobody appeared to be out. They didn’t notice Frog and Snook sitting in the parked Buick LaSabre, serving their youngins some work. Frog and Snook didn’t see them either as they drove by.

  While they were at the stop sign, they saw someone coming down the steps of the weed house. It came to Reese like an epiphany when he saw the customer coming out the spot.

  “Yo! We’re running up in the drug house,” he said firmly.

  “Let’s go,” Mar responded.They parked the car down the block and walked to the weed house like regular customers. Stiz, playing the doorman, opened it as if everything was normal. The nozzle of the Mac startled him as it was stuck in his grill.

  “Don’t fucking move!” Reese told him, pushing him through the doorway. Reese took the burner off Stiz’s waist, and Mar and Mil barged through the door, making demands for the men and woman tricking to get down.

  “Where’s the shit?” Reese shouted.

  “Under the couch,” one of the chicks screamed after none of the dudes answered.

  I'm Reese and his crew weren’t stick-up boys, so their robbery game was sloppy. They didn’t even have a bag to put the shit in. They didn’t even have masks, gloves, or anything else to hide their identities. They were slipping so much that they didn’t even check the house to see if anyone else was there.

  They used wires from the remote controls and plugs from the video game to tie everyone up. They dumped out a couple of sneaker bags and stuffed the bread and work in them.

  “Tell Ghost I did this to him,” Reese said arrogantly to one of the gagged men on the floor. Dude mumbled something smart in return.

  “What, pussy?” Reese snapped and smacked him ferociously with the four-pound.

  “Chill, nigga. We’re outta here,” Mil said, grabbing Reese off dude.

  Just as they were about to leave, they heard a sound in the kitchen that sounded like plates clanking together. They started to ignore it and roll, but all hell broke loose when a dude barged from the kitchen, chopping on them. Reese and Mil got hit and dropped instantly.

  Mar hit the gunman up before he could hit him, too. Blood painted the walls like a gruesome horror movie, leaving splatters everywhere. Mar, then, struggled to pull Mil off the floor, but it was a done deal for him.

  Reese jumped up, staggering, and helped Mar with Mil, but he saw it was too late—fate had called his name. His eyes stared blankly at the ceiling.

  “Let’s go, man. It’s over. He’s gone,” Reese said emotionally. Mar didn’t want to accept that his homie was gone—another one.

  “He’s gone! We have to get outta here!” Reese said more aggressively.

  Mar reluctantly gave in. There was no time for weeping right now. Mar started to kill all the hostages, but thought against it. The war was far from over. In fact, it was just the beginning. As soon as they got outside the house, more shots rang out.

  Snook and Frog were parked under a tree, escaping the dim lights. They were serving two of their customers some bundles when they heard the shots going off close by. The shots were muffled, but they were sure it was somebody letting off.Panicking, they grabbed their weapons.

  “Are y’all strapped?” Frog asked Ronnie and Kyle, two of their young hustlers, who were in the backseat.

  “Naw, we ain’t bring no burners out the crib,” Kyle said.

  Frog shook his head. “All right. Get the fuck outta here,” he told them. “It sounds like that came from the weed spot,” he told Snook.

  They all jumped out the car. Ronnie and Kyle ran off ‘round the corner while Frog and Snook crept toward the weed spot. As they got closer, they saw two figures running down the steps with bags and guns in their hands.

  From the rip, they knew they must have just robbed the spot. Without hesitation, they started shooting at them. The robbers were caught off guard, but were lucky enough not to get hit. They dipped behind the parked cars and started shooting back at them across the street.

  Frog swore to himself that one of the dudes looked like Reese. It has to be him, he thought, but he couldn’t make out his face because he had to keep taking cover as the bullets whizzed by.

  The two robbers were obviously trying to retreat because they kept inching further down the block as they periodically let off a few shots. Snook made a brave move as he jumped out from behind the parked car and walked in the street, trying to hit them while they were getting in their car.

  “Ha!” Snook hollered, going mad trying to down something. Frog was out of bullets, so he couldn’t do anything but lie back in the cut and pray. Snook hit one of the dudes as he was getting in the car. Though the dude stumbled in the door well, the bullets seemed to be bouncing off his chest like he had a vest on. Snook ran out of bullets and was stuck with nowhere to go once the other dude started chopping back.

  “Snook!” Frog screamed with a raspy tone. Everything moved in slow motion as he watched his man get riddled with bullets. The air seemed to stop flowing as he watched it taken out his man’s body. He was sure it was Reese who’d just killed Snook. He’d gotten a good look at his face as life slowed down.

  Snook’s body jerked and twisted like he was doing the Harlem Shake and crumbled to the ground.

  Sirens could be heard but seemed like they were on the other side of the earth. Frog couldn’t believe his eyes. Tires screeched, and Frog knew the shootout was over.

  But this was war.

  CHAPTER 9

  THE MURDERS OF SNOOK, Mil, and the dude in the weed-house had the block on fire. Ghost and his boys wanted to avoid getting burnt by all costs. Police swarmed Boyer and Locust, investigating for weeks. This approach by the police shut down the progress of the block. Fiends disappeared, and the haze spot was sealed off by yellow and black tape, virtually shutting the moneymaker down.

  Snook’s funeral was dark. They still couldn’t believe he was gone. Kia sensed things weren’t right with Ghost. He had seemed so distant from her and Kha for the last few weeks. It was like he was there physically, but, mentally, he was someplace else. She wondered where. Initially, she th
ought it was because of Snook getting killed, but now she was starting to think it was more than just that.

  Today was another one of those angry mornings. Ghost seemed to have awaken on the wrong side of the bed. The previous night had been no different. He had gone to sleep on the wrong side, too. Their sex life had taken a hit.

  Kia draped her robe around her body and came swaying out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. Ghost was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the TV. It was more like he was staring straight through the screen and not recollecting anything on it. Kia took her robe off and revealed her sexy body; Ghost, seemingly, wasn’t the least bit interested; he didn’t even glance at her. His lack of attention was killing Kia, and she was sick of it.

  “What’s your problem?” she asked with a hint of frustration in her tone.

  “Nothing. Why? What’s up?” he answered without taking his eyes off the TV.

  “What’s up? What’s up? You’re what’s up, nigga!” The explosion was built-up personal and sexual frustration.

  Kia believed he was cheating on her, but little did she know that she was misreading the entire situation. Confusion boggled her head.

  She poked Ghost in the temple with her index finger, emphasizing her words. Ghost grabbed her by her hand and flung her to the bed. Using his body as leverage, he fell on top of her to avoid being pummeled by her rage of swinging. Kia punched, kicked, and scratched at her distant lover. Anything to make him feel the pain she was feeling.

  “What the fuck is your problem?” he asked, while she was still pinned to the bed.

  Kia started crying and screaming at the top of her lungs, “Who is she? Who is she?”

  Kia could have sworn Ghost was fucking someone else. Watching too much Maury was getting to her or something because Ghost wasn’t even cheating on her. But the things that were taking place in the streets were drilled in his head, disrupting his personal life.

  “Who is who? What are you talking about?” Ghost asked, confused by her absurdity.

  He still held her tight because, even though she had stopped trying to attack him, he wasn’t sure if her rampage was over.

  “The bitch you’re fucking!” she retorted, staring holes into him.

  “What? Is that what this is about? Are you serious?” he said, easing his hold but matching her leering.

  “Don’t play dumb with me!” Kia snapped again. “You’re fucking someone else ‘cause you’re not fucking me!”

  Finally, he let her go and sat on the edge of the bed, burying his head in his hands. Using his fingers, he massaged his temples and let out a long sigh, trying to get rid of the overwhelming tension.

  “Listen, babe, I know I’ve been acting funny lately.” He faced her. “But one thing you never have to worry about is me fucking with some other bitch.”

  Kha appeared in the doorway. The noise had disturbed him, and, like a superhero, he’d rushed in to rescue his mom.

  “Why are you crying, Mommy?” he asked with his fists balled up by his sides.

  “I’m fine, baby. Finish getting ready for school,” she squeezed out between sniffles.

  Kha shot Ghost a devious look through squinted eyes. Reluctantly, he vanished down the hallway.

  “Listen, babe,” Ghost said as he took Kia’s hands. “I’m just going through a lot right now, but believe me—nothing is more important to me than you and Kha,” he said, wiping away the tears traveling down her cheeks.

  Ghost felt like a piece-of-shit because his life in the streets was tearing his home life apart. Kia added to the battering. Her stubbornness wouldn’t even allow him to give an explanation. She wasn’t trying to hear anything.

  “Then, act like it!” she retorted and stormed out the room.

  Reese and Mar were feeling the loss of their homie, Mil. Although they killed two men from the other side, they still felt like they hadn’t done enough. First, seeing C-Note and then Mil in a casket was an unbearable feeling. Even worse was seeing Mil, lying in a pool of blood and with his lifeless eyes still open, haunted them. It reminded them of death and how close the reaper was.

  The way things had happened was like something they’d seen in movies, forcing them to live it. It was nothing like the big screen, though, because bullets flew and people died.

  Reese thought about how his life was spared by the Kevlar bulletproof vest he was strapped in that night. Between the weed house and outside, he had gotten hit a couple of times. Luckily, he escaped the episode with only a chest full of black and blue bruises. He’d already experienced the pain of hot slugs piercing his body when Ghost hit him. His wounds reminded him of that burning sensation and thoughts of it made him furious every time he thought about it.

  “Yo! Word is Reem’s fucking the bitch Toya from up the way now,” Mar told Reese.

  “Yeah?” Reese was surprised by and interested in the news. “Wasn’t that bitch there the night C-Note got hit?” he asked skeptically.

  “Yeah, as a matter of fact, she was,” Mar said, squinting his eyes and tilting his head. “I remember they said she was one of the ones the law grabbed for questioning.”

  “Then, all of a sudden the nigga start fucking her, huh?” It was more of a statement than a question by Reese.

  “Something don’t sound right about that shit.”

  Mar rubbed his chin and contemplated. “You think she had something to do with that shit?”

  “I don’t know. When was the last time you seen that bitch?” “I haven’t seen her in a minute, but word is she still works at

  Walmart at Cedar Brook Plaza.”

  They locked eyes and sat in silence for several long seconds. They were thinking the same thing.

  Reese put it in words anyway. “Let’s grab that bitch since we can’t find them bitch-ass niggas.”

  Mar just nodded his head.

  Reem and Toya had gotten a bit more serious over the last few weeks. After the bodies dropped in domino effect, Reem had to keep a low profile, so he stayed away from the hood to duck the law and to be sure not to get caught slipping. Reese and his crew were obviously going hard and moving on them with no rap, so he was trying to watch his body.

  Toya was happy that Reem was laying low because he was spending a lot of time with her. On the outside looking in, she knew Reem was getting a couple of dollars, but, once she was with him, she got to see firsthand that he was heavy.

  “I’m getting you a car tomorrow,” Reem told her.

  “Oh, yeah? What kind, baby?”

  “I don’t know. Something nice, though. Anything, so I don’t have to keep dropping you off and picking your ass up all the time.”

  She laughed at that. “Whatever, nigga.”

  “You need to quit that nothing-ass gig anyway.” “Not now, baby. We’ll talk about this later.”

  Reem had been trying to convince her to quit the job at Walmart. He wasn’t feeling her still working there because he felt like he could take care of her, or she could get something better. She’d been there for four long years and had been a manager for a year and a half, so she wasn’t ready to quit just like that. It was only a shaggy department store gig, but she was cool with her co-workers, and her shift was at night, so it was sweet. Reem wasn’t trying to hear none of that shit; he wanted her to quit.

  “All right. I love you, baby,” she said, climbing out the car.

  “Love you, too, baby,” he told her after a long kiss.

  He was dropping her off at the back door of the department store where the third shift entered to go to work since the store was closed. After Toya went inside, Reem got out the car to take a leak.

  While draining himself behind the dumpster, he was startled by a sudden crashing sound and a shadow moving in a dimly lit area. He froze in place, forcing himself to bring his urine to a stop. He leaned back to see a Walmart employee swinging trash bags over his head into the dumpster. He watched the man go back inside and carelessly shut the door without watching his surroundings. Reem wou
ldn’t have thought nothing, but the employee didn’t even know he was behind the dumpster. His robber instincts kicked right in, and he knew the take would be sweet.

  As he drove home, he recalled that the Walmart up northeast had been taken down a few years ago. Robbers donning Walmart uniforms had robbed it late at night. According to the news and word on the streets, they got away with around $350,000.

  Come to find out, it was an inside job, and the manager who lined the robbery up broke, and they all got booked after he told. Reem thought about how sweet it would be to take the department store down. He already had an inside person—Toya.

  First, he had to find out a few things from her: how many people were there at night and where the money was located. He knew he and his team could wait patiently outside in the trenches of the darkness until one of the employees brought the trash out. They could slide right up on him and gain entry in seconds. With the holidays rolling around, the store had to be loaded, and they could clean house.

  Reem smiled to himself as it all came together in his head. It was perfect, and he couldn’t wait to call his boys. He dialed Ghost’s number, but, after getting no answer, he called Schemes. Donnie Schemes wasn’t the only one who could put shit together.

  CHAPTER 10

  GHOST, REEM, AND SCHEMES agreed to take down the Walmart store, but the job wasn’t as simple as it seemed. They needed to do some homework on the store first, so they wouldn’t go in blind. Taking money was in their blood, so, naturally, they were with the take, but they wanted things put together thoroughly before they moved.

  Toya was the easiest way to find out the things they needed to know. Reem felt like they could be straight up and ask Toya about the store and tell her about the plan, but the others weren’t with it. Over Reem’s objections, Ghost and Schemes made him agree to pick her head indirectly.