Anything for Profit 2: Nothing to Lose

by Floyd, Justin Amen

  $$$

  When Gloria and Meka arrived at the hospital later on that afternoon, Patterson wasn’t there to greet them with his sarcastic comments and hostile looks. Instead, there was a uniformed deputy that looked like he was fresh out of the Police Academy on guard outside of Mike’s room. Either the detective was off duty or all the complaints Gloria had filed about his continued harassment had been answered. His ass was probably just off, knowing Greenville County and their unwillingness to discipline their officers. Whatever the reason, they were happy they didn’t have to put up with his bullshit today.

  Mike was fully awake as they entered the room. He turned his head and cracked a slight smile as he saw them. This was the first time they had seen him without him being doped up on all the pain medications. Meka and Gloria’s faces both lit up with excitement as they looked at him. Huge smiles appeared on their faces as they looked at him sitting up in his bed, eyes alert. “Hey baby,” beamed Glo as she leaned in and gave her adopted son a slight hug, not wanting to disturb his wounds, and a kiss on the cheek. Meka came over next and kissed him on the forehead.

  “Aww, you done went and got all mushy on a nigga,” Mike whispered to Meka in his weakened voice, jokingly. He smiled, briefly revealing the diamond encrusted grill he’d dropped forty stacks on after they had robbed Twan.

  “Nigga, ain’t shit mushy ‘bout me,” laughed Meka. “I’m just happy to see yo’ black ass is still alive,” she quipped. “I just hope they ain’t turned you into no fiend wit’ all that dope they was shootin’ yo ass up wit’,” said Meka teasingly.

  Mike laughed. It hurt when he did so, but he couldn’t help but to chuckle at Meka’s comments. Her mouth was still slick as fuck, he thought to himself amused. “Where’s Ant?”

  “Maaan, you know that crazy ass nigga wanted to come up here and see you Mike, but they saying he got warrants and shit. And wit’ all these police up here he ain’t wanna take the chance of getting locked up…”

  “I can dig it,” said Mike. He would’ve done the same thing if the situation was reversed, so he understood.

  Meka continued to make small talk and joke with her brother until Glo interrupted and handed Mike her cell phone. Caught up in the conversation with Meka, he hadn’t even noticed Gloria pull her phone out and make a call. When he put his ear to the phone, he heard a familiar voice. “What the fuck is going on my nigga!?” exclaimed Ant D excitedly. A big ass smile spread across Mike’s face as he heard his partner in crime (literally), on the other line.

  “Ain’t shit homey. Just tryna get better. I got like seven holes in me, but I’m still here.”

  “That’s what the fuck I’m talkin’ ‘bout nigga! My mama told me how the doctors had said you had flat lined like two times or some shit like that but…” Ant continued to ramble on excitedly but Mike wasn’t hearing him.

  The smile died on his face as he momentarily zoned out, lost in his own thoughts, unable to get past what he’d just heard Ant say. He had died? Twice? This was the first time he’d heard anything about that shit and it immediately made him think about Nikki and his unborn son. Where were they? Were they ok? They had survived right? “…so as soon as you get home, it’s on nigga! You hear me? Mike? Mike!?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Goddamn, nigga you alright? You heard what I said?” Ant sniffed. “Soon as you get home we gon’ handle them niggas!” He sniffed again.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I heard you my nigga. That’s what it is.” He handed the phone back to Gloria. She talked to Ant for a few more seconds before she ended the call. When she got off the phone, she noticed that Mike’s mood had changed. He stared up at the ceiling and asked, “Where’s Nikki?” Seconds passed. When he didn’t get a response from either Glo or Meka, he looked at them and their faces gave him his answer, but he needed to hear it. “Where’s Nikki?” he asked again, this time more assertively.

  “Nikki and the baby didn’t make it Mike,” Glo said finally. She turned her head and looked out of the window, unable to bear the look of sadness and hurt on Mike’s face.

  “Yeah, they had the funeral a few days after y’all got shot up,” Meka chimed in solemnly, no longer in a joking mood. “We went to the funeral for you though,” she said, deliberately leaving out the fact that they had gotten into it with Nikki’s family. She didn’t want to get into all of that right now. She figured Mike would hear about it soon enough anyway.

  Mike closed his eyes. Unfortunately his closed eyelids couldn’t hold back the tears that silently slid down his cheeks. The pain he felt in his heart was unbearable. It was his fault Nikki and their unborn child was dead. All the dirt he’d done over the years had finally caught up with him, and just when he was trying to leave that life behind. Isn’t that how it always happened though? How naïve of him to believe that he could just start a new life and move on like they did in the movies. This wasn’t a fucking movie. This was real life. And in real life you had to pay for your actions. Mike was paying now, but the price was a lot steeper than he had ever imagined.

  Suddenly, Detective Patterson burst into the room with two uniformed deputies by his side. There were nurses behind them pushing an old, cheap wheelchair. “Ok, ladies this little visiting session is over,” said Patterson in his smoke tinged voice. “Inmate Smith is being transferred to the Greenville County Detention Center. You can find out the visiting schedule and visit the inmate there.” He motioned for the nurses to place Mike into the wheelchair.

  Gloria was incensed. “I wanna know who gave you the authority to move him in this condition!”

  Meka went off. “What the fuck do you mean he’s being transferred!? He’s sittin’ up in here fulla bullet holes! How the fuck is you just gonna move him like that!?” she exclaimed.

  “Well, I don’t really have to answer your questions but as a courtesy I’ll oblige,” Patterson said with a smirk on his face. “The doctors here say the inmate is making sufficient progress. In fact, they feel he’s well enough to be transferred. And don’t worry, we have an infirmary at the jail that’ll take real good care of Mr. Smith,” he said smiling.

  Without warning, Meka started swinging wildly at Detective Patterson. “You muthafucker! You racist ass muthafucking pig!” Catching everyone off guard, Meka was able to get in more than a few blows before the two uniformed officers attempted to wrestle her to the ground and restrain her. Unable to stand by and watch anybody put their hands on her daughter, Gloria jumped in and began swinging on the officers as well. It was complete chaos inside of that hospital room. Back up was called, and within seconds the room was flooded with hospital security along with more uniformed deputies. They quickly placed Meka and Glo into restraints and dragged them from the room, kicking, screaming, and hurling obscenities. It was Christmas Eve.

  CHAPTER 13

  The Special Housing Unit (better known as the SHU) in the Greenville County Detention Center was an extremely bleak solitary confinement. It was designed to break the will of even the most hardened criminal. Its sparse living conditions often did just that. The cells were comprised of three brick walls and a metal door that was controlled electronically from the main booth. A steel bed was bolted down to the floor, and a stainless steel toilet and sink that were connected to each other were against the far wall. Above the sink, screwed into the wall was a flat piece of steel that was supposed to be a mirror, but reflected nothing. The cells were small enough for an average sized man to stand in the center of the floor, extend his arms straight out and touch both sides of the walls. A prisoner could place their back to the rear of the cell and be able to take five steps forward. That was the length of the cell.

  The S.H.U., unlike its predecessor, The Red Pod, was completely underground so there were no windows whatsoever and the lights never shut off. There was a small metal opening in the door that unlocked and opened outward three times a day to slide in a tray of the slop they called food. There was a larger metal flap on the outside of the door that covered a one inch thick shee
t of Plexiglas embedded into the door. The flap was opened every fifteen minutes when the guards did their security checks to ensure that the inmate hadn’t committed suicide. Fifteen minutes was a long time though. Weak minded inmates took full advantage of that time to escape from these harsh living conditions… by slitting their wrists with razors they had somehow procured when they had been let out to shower.

  One night, during a routine security, check a young white boy had been found dead. He was only eighteen years old and serving a ninety day sentence for drunk driving. His family got a lawyer and filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Greenville County. The story was all over the news. The very next day, psychologists were suddenly assigned to the unit.

  Others who cracked under the pressure went crazy, drank their own urine and smeared feces all over themselves and the walls of their cells. And since the ventilation system of each cell was connected, all of the other inmates on the wing were forced to eat, breathe and sleep in that overpowering stench until the C.O.s could get the shit cleaned up. Day to day living, if one could consider this living, in the S.H.U. was extremely depressing, as well as mentally exhausting.

  Travis Blackwell, a.k.a. Black had been existing in these squalid conditions ever since the door to the stash house he’d been in with three other men had been knocked off the hinges a couple of weeks ago. Greenville County’s anti-crime task force had rushed through the door in full body armor, with their guns drawn. Officers barked out commands to “get the fuck on the ground” and threatened to “blow their fucking heads off” if they moved. Nobody moved. Greenville County officers were notoriously trigger happy. Only a few days before the raid, two Deputies had been put on paid leave, pending an investigation into an incident that had left a black man dead at ‘The Gardens’, a drug infested motel off of Mauldin Rd. They claim the man had suddenly turned around with a weapon in his hand. Thirty-two shots later, the only “weapon” that had been found was a glass crack pipe in the dead man’s bloody hand.

  This incident had still been fresh in the minds of Black and the other three men as the officers rushed the house. They had remained as still as statues as the officers went from room to room, using excessive force to throw them to the ground and put them in restraints. One officer had snarled into Black’s ear that he’d been hoping one of them would’ve moved so he’d have a chance to “get some target practice.” They were literally dragged out of the house into the biting cold, unceremoniously thrown into the back of squad cars and hauled off to the detention center.

  It was the two counts of first degree murder that had Black and his co-defendants sitting in the S.H.U. though. Their faces had been all over the news for days after their arrest. Whenever anyone was charged with a high profile crime, they were automatically thrown into solitary confinement and placed on protective custody until the administration deemed it safe for that inmate to be placed in GP. This could take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months.

  Black had just been placed back into his cell after meeting with his Public Defender. His lawyer made it very clear that because of his previous criminal record and the publicity surrounding the case, that the state would definitely be seeking the death penalty. A young pregnant woman had been murdered in broad daylight in a crowded area of Downtown Greenville. Another person had almost been killed and countless others had been placed in imminent danger. On top of all of this, his co-defendants (who had been placed on different wings) were already turning state and singing like a fucking R&B group. Shit was crazy!

  Black sat on the edge of his bed in the dark red shirt and pants that the S.H.U. inmates were required to wear. He stared at the wall, contemplating the events that had led to him being in the fucked up situation he found himself in. Zulu had given him the order to take care of Mike and the twins. He’d readily accepted. He needed to show Zulu he could handle that shit. Plus Black had been eager to get back at them muthafuckas anyway. Not only had they set up Twan and killed him, but they’d also murdered his homeboys and fellow M.B.M. members Ty and Rico. Not to mention he’d barely escaped with his own life after Mike and Ant had shot up the dice game he was at on Halloween! Shit, niggas had tried to put him in a hole. It was only right that he returned the favor wasn’t it?

  With nothing but revenge on his mind, Black had gotten some young wild niggas together from City Heights who he knew wouldn’t think twice about taking a life. None of them were members of M.B.M. but they were all starving to get put on. Black told them what he wanted them to do. They had rolled up on Mike’s custom, tinted out Escalade and immediately began to open fire before speeding off to a predetermined location to switch up cars. Then they’d gone to the stash house where Black had been instructed to go after the job was done. Shit had gone like clockwork. So how the fuck had the cops gotten to them that quick?

  Black got up and began pacing back and forth in his cell (as much as it would allow him to). His thoughts were racing and he felt like the walls were beginning to close in on him. It was supposed to have been a simple fucking hit! Kill that pussy nigga Mike and set an example to let everybody else in the streets know if you crossed M.B.M., then the price you paid was your life. How the fuck was I supposed to know that Mike would have a pregnant bitch in the truck with him? How the fuck was I supposed to know that!? Black thought as he continued to pace. It was fucked up that the girl was dead and shit but he couldn’t do anything about that now. Besides, he rationalized; he hadn’t actually pulled the trigger himself. He’d only been the driver. Black was more concerned about himself right now. They were trying to put him on death row; give him the fucking death sentence!

  Somebody down the hall screamed out at the top of their lungs for no fucking reason, momentarily breaking Black’s train of thought. Or maybe they did have a reason, but whatever it was, it wasn’t important to Black right about now. “Shut the fuck up!” Black yelled through his cell door, down the hall. The S.H.U. was starting to get to him. He had to get the fuck out of there, and soon. Black stopped in the middle of his cell as a thought came to him. So far he had been the only one to not cooperate with the police’s investigation. But what was the point of him sticking to the code of the streets when everybody else’s mouth was catching diarrhea? Maybe it was time for him to reconsider his position.

  Suddenly, an envelope was slid under his door with his government name and I.D. number on it. He recognized the handwriting but there wasn’t a return address. Of course it had already been opened and searched thoroughly for contraband. Black picked it up off the floor and opened it. He pulled out a picture with his mother, grandmother, two little sisters and baby brother on it. On the back of the picture, written in his mother’s familiar script was this: “I love you son. I’ll be up to visit soon. Your silence keeps us safe. Love, Mom.”

  Black re-read that last line over and over again. “Your silence keeps us safe.” He got the message loud and clear. If he talked, his family was dead. Somebody from M.B.M. had gotten to his mama and was sending a warning for him to keep his mouth shut. Black had heard stories about Zulu’s ruthlessness. After being in the man’s presence and looking into those cold dead eyes for himself, he tended to believe those stories. He had no doubt in his mind that Zulu was cold-blooded enough to have his whole family slaughtered without giving it a second thought.“Your silence keeps us safe.” Five words, and just like that any thoughts he had of snitching very quickly disappeared from his mind.

  Black stared at the picture in his hand. He let it fall to the floor as he pulled out a razor he had concealed in his waistband and violently slashed his wrist vertically, hitting his bronchial artery. Blood erupted from the wound and sprayed the white walls and ceiling. Black could feel himself getting light headed as blood left his body at an alarming rate. Weak, he fell to the floor. His eyes fell upon the now bloodstained picture of his family as he began to fade out. Your silence keeps us safe was the last thing he thought before he died.

  CHAPTER 14

  “There you
go. There you go. Suck that dick. Mmmm! Suck that shit just like that” Ant D half moaned out to the light skinned girl who was on her knees, butt naked, with her juicy lips wrapped around his manhood. Slowly, she bobbed her head back and forth and sucked him off. Within seconds, his dick had grown rock hard inside of the girl’s pretty, wet, warm mouth. Ant stood in the middle of his mama’s living room with his jeans and boxer briefs around his ankles, as the naked girl hummed and moaned on his dick.

  Her name was Jessica and she was a senior at Southside High School. An eighteen year old honor student and cheerleader who had been wanting to get with Ant ever since he had pulled up to the drive through at the McDonalds she worked at on White Horse Rd. His flip flop candy painted Corvette sitting on them thangs had immediately caught her attention. Like a lot of young girls who had been sheltered and kept in the house, Jessica was infatuated with street niggas. Ant was obviously in the streets and getting money—unlike the broke ass squares her age who were always trying to talk to her. Plus he was cute. So she’d given him her number. Ant had saved it in his phone but had never called. That had been months ago.