Blood of a Boss: The Moreno Family

by Askari

  Vrrrrrm!

  Instead of accepting the call, he placed the phone in his jacket pocket, paid his tab, and left the bar. When he stepped outside there was a group of Muslim men selling everything from scented oils to DVDs. They tried selling him some of their items too, but he respectfully declined and hopped in his Benz. When he started the ignition, the sounds of Philadelphia Freeway’s, Even Though What We Do Is Wrong, blasted from his sound system...

  "We keep the nines tucked/ Chop dimes up/ Rap about it/ Wild out, fuck niggas up, laugh about it/ I'm not try'na visit the morgue/ But Freeway move out 'til I sit wit' the Lord.

  He reached in the ashtray and grabbed the stubbed out Backwood that he was smoking prior to going inside of the bar. He sparked it up, took a strong pull, and then drove away from the curb.

  After a couple of minutes of driving, he approached the corner of Germantown and Lehigh and stopped at a red light. He glanced around the deserted intersection and noticed that the only thing open was the Chinese store on Lehigh Avenue. Damn, these mu’fuckas is vicious, he thought to himself, referring to the neighborhood Chinese store. They’ll stay open all night just to get our money, and don’t ever do nothin’ to give back to the hood. We the only ones who support their business, and they won’t even hire a mu’fucka. You can spend ya money and do business wit’ ‘em yawhole life, but let you come up short one mu’fuckin’ penny, and they won’t even let you ride. Rotten mutha’fuckas!

  The traffic light turned green and he pulled off. As he drove through the intersection, and proceeded down Germantown Avenue, an unmarked cop car slid up behind him with the blue light on its dashboard signaling for him to pull over.

  “Damn, I ain’t even do shit,” he said to himself as he slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road.

  Detective Smith hopped out his vehicle with his Glock 19 aimed and ready to fire. “Driver, roll down your window and put your hands where I can see ‘em.”

  A light bulb flashed in Sheed’s head, and he remembered the brick of raw that was stashed under the passenger seat. “Dizzamn. I’m slippin’ like a mu’fucka.” He mashed down on the gas pedal, causing the Benz to jerk forward.

  “Fuck!” Detective Smith shouted. He ran back to his car, hopped inside, and then took off after the Benz.

  Sheed raced down Germantown Avenue, zoomed pass Huntingdon Street, and then veered right onto 10th Street. After shooting pass Cumberland, he slowed down and made a hard left turn on Boston Street.

  Detective Smith was about two blocks away, desperately trying to keep up with the Benz. When he reached the corner of 10th and Cumberland, he glanced to his left and saw Sheed creeping up Delhi Street.

  As soon as Sheed made it to the corner, he spotted the unmarked cruiser and cursed himself for not getting out the car and running when he had the chance to do so. He banged a hard right on Cumberland Street, and then gunned the Benz from zero to sixty in a matter of seconds. He looked in the rearview mirror and was ecstatic to see that his V8 engine had created a good distance between himself and the unmarked cruiser.

  “Now, all I gotta do is make it to 5th Street, bang a left, bang a right on Lehigh, push it to the limit, hop on the E-way, and I’m gone.” He said to himself. Unfortunately, he was driving too fast when he approached the corner of 5th and Cumberland, and when he tried to make his left turn, he fishtailed into the Spanish store on the opposite corner.

  Sccccrrrrrrrr! Crash!

  The airbag ballooned from its compartment, and the white powder burned his eyes. “Aaaagggghhhh! Fuck! He shouted as he frantically wiped the powder from his face. He opened the driver’s side door and staggered out the car.

  Boc!

  A devastating force slammed into his stomach, knocking him backwards. A burning sensation spread throughout his upper body and he was struggling to breathe. He reached for the Desert Eagle that was tucked in his shoulder holster, and again Detective Sullivan fired his weapon.

  Boc! Boc!

  He fell to the ground and rolled around in pain. Detective Smith stood over the top of him and aimed the barrel at his face. Just as he was about to squeeze the trigger, he heard, “Smitty, put it down!” He spun around and saw his partner, Detective Sullivan aiming a gun at his head. He smiled at him, and tried to talk some sense into him. “Sully, it’s not what it looks like. He tried to shoot me.”

  “That’s bullshit, and you know it!” Detective Sullivan shouted. “I’ve been tailing you all day. I saw the whole damn thing. Now, for the last time, drop the friggin’ gun!”

  Detective Smith looked at his young partner and continued smiling. He refused to believe that his partner would shoot him. Defiantly, he began walking toward him with his weapon by his side. “Come on Sully, you hate these sonsofbitches even more than I do. They run around this goddamned city like they own it, and make hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process. Now, guys like us, we’re the good guys and the city pays us a lousy $40,000 a fuckin’ year.”

  Detective Sullivan tightened his grasp around the pistol. “I swear to God, Smitty! You take another step and I’ll shoot!’

  Detective Smith ignored his warning, and continued walking toward him.

  Boc!

  “Aaaagggghhhh! You fucking shot me! You sonofabitch!” Detective Smith shouted as he fell to the ground holding his right thigh.

  With his gun still aimed at his partner, Detective Sullivan walked toward him. He kicked the Glock 19 out of his hand, and then knelt down and handcuffed him.

  “Sully, this is bullshit. I’m telling ya man., we can really make some good money. It’s not too late, Sully. We can fix this! All you gotta say that he took your gun and shot me and that I fired back in self defense.”

  Detective Sullivan shook his head from side to side. “Nope, I won’t do it. I could never dishonor my badge and my department. It’s dirty motherfuckers like you, who give cops like me a bad name, and I’m sick of it.” He reached for his walkie talkie, and then ran over to Sheed who was barely breathing. “Shots fired on the corner of 5th and Cumberland! Send me an E.M.T.! I repeat shots fired! I have a man down!”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The Following Morning...

  At the federal building on 6th and Arch, Detective Sullivan and DEA Agent Terry Long were sitting in a board room discussing the cases that they were building against Grip and Sonny. On the 100 inch projector screen that occupied the front wall there were two pyramid style diagrams that represented the structures of each of their organizations. The diagram on the left was titled: The Moreno Crime Family a.k.a. The Black Mafia and the diagram on the right was titled: The Block Boy Bishops. A mug shot of Grip was posted at the top of his organization and a mug shot of Sonny was posted at the top of his.

  “Alright,” Agent Long began, “there’s a lot of missing pieces to this puzzle, and we’ve been entrusted with the task of finding them.” He sifted through a pile of incident reports, and then looked up at Detective Sullivan. “Do you have any suggestions?”

  “Well, I was thinking that our best bet is to focus on the murders that we can tie into these organizations,” Detective Sullivan submitted, and then took a sip of coffee.

  “That’s a good idea,” Agent Long nodded his head. “We’ve gotta find a way to establish that these murders are related, and as of right now we don’t have any witnesses.”

  “Alright, well why don’t we focus on the evidence that we can use circumstantially?” Detective Sullivan said, and then took another sip of coffee.

  Agent Long opened the file that was in front of him, and then flipped through a small stack of papers. “Here it is.” He pulled an incident report from the folder. “As far as we know, these were the first murders in this case: Officer Jason Clifford and Martin Powell. They were gunned down on the corner of 3rd and Snyder, and the incident transpired on November 10, 2012. Martin Powell, also known as Biggs was a captain in The Moreno Crime Family, and it appears as though Officer Clifford just happened to be in the wrong pla
ced at the wrong time. Now, the good thing about this incident is that the image of a white Mercedes Benz SL 550 was caught on Officer Clifford’s dash cam, and we both know that Sontino Moreno and Rasheed McDaniels both drive a white Mercedes.”

  “The next murder was committed on December 9, 2012, and the victim was Saleena Brooks, who was the wife of Michael Brooks. Her body was discovered a few blocks away from the county jail, and apparently she was murdered after retrieving Brooks from the prison.”

  “The following morning, Tommy Wilson, the informant that you and Smith were using in the Brooks case, was found tortured and murdered in his jail cell. Obviously, that was Brooks’ doing, and ironically, his decapitated head was discovered in his Bentley a couple of hours later on the corner of Chew and Chelten.”

  “A few weeks later, on January 1, 2013, our sixth and seventh victims were discovered in a South Philadelphia row house. Their names were Jerome Peters, also known as Rome, and Jamal Jackson, also known as Smack. Both were affiliated with The Moreno Crime Family.”

  He picked up another piece of paper and examined it closely. “Yep, just like I thought, the next incident transpired on the same block where Peters and Jackson were murdered, and this one in particular was a massacre. Six men and two women were killed. Apparently, they were having a vigil for Peters and Jackson when a pickup truck,” he looked up at Detective Sullivan, “a Toyota Tundra, which is the same make and model that Nasir Nasty Lee was driving when he was murdered.” He tilted his head, giving him a knowing expression, and then he went back to the incident report. “According to this report, the six men and two women were gunned down in a drive-by shooting. I’m guessing that Nasir Lee was involved, and that The Block Boys were avenging the murders of Brooks and his wife. Now, there were plenty of witnesses to this shooting, but none of them could make a positive identification. They all claimed that the two shooters who were positioned in the back of the truck had their faces covered with red bandanas, and we both know that this is a characteristic of the Bloods Street Gang. There was also a red bandana found at both crime scenes, so clearly Sontino and his men were leaving a signature on their work.”

  “Now,” he picked up another incident report. “Back to Nasir Lee. Mr. Lee was sitting in his Toyota pickup truck when a known soldier of the Moreno’s, Antonio Baker, shot him in the head at point blank range with a .44 Bulldog. As you already know, Mr. Baker’s body was found on the corner of 12th and York, and the results that we received this morning from the forensic lab confirm that the gun he was carrying was in fact the murder weapon in the Lee case.” He looked up and noticed the depressed look on Detective Sullivan’s face. “What’s up, Sully? Are you okay?”

  “No, this shit is friggin’ ridiculous! At the rate these son-of-a-bitches are going, if we don’t hurry up and get ‘em off of the street, a lot more people are gonna die! You just ran down seventeen murders, and you didn’t even make it to the incident report from yesterday when we found those bodies on Fairhill Street. This shit’s gotta stop!”

  “Alright Sully, what do suggest we do to speed up the process?” Agent Long questioned, while folding his arms across his chest.

  “I think we should use Smitty to our advantage. He was obviously connected to the Moreno organization, and there’s a good chance he could shed some light on our investigation. I’m pretty sure I can get him to flip, especially with the charges that are hanging over his head.”

  “That sounds like a plan, and as far as Sontino Moreno and the Block Boys,” Agent Long smiled and rubbed his hands together. “Let’s just say that I’m already connected.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Following Morning...

  As Sonny looked around his family’s extravagant basement, his seven year old mind couldn’t decide on which video game he wanted to play. The day before, Easy surprised him with three arcade systems: Street Fighter, Mortal Combat, and NBA Jam. After a brief deliberation, he selected ‘Street Fighter’ and approached the six foot high gaming system. He pressed the start button and selected Bulrog, the fighter that resembled Mike Tyson, and began his quest to take out M. Bison. As he was beating the brains out of Chun Li, Easy descended the basement stairs and told him to go outside to play with his new dirt bike.

  “Awwwww, come on Pops.” He protested. “I’m playin’ Street Fighter.”

  “So what. I need to do somethin’ down here. Now, take ya lil’ ass outside somewhere.”

  Sonny sucked his teeth, and then reluctantly made his way up the stairs. This was becoming a frequent occurrence in their household. He would be in the basement playing, and Easy would come down there and make him leave. When he reached the top of the steps, his curiosity got the best of him and he crept back down the steps hoping to find out what was so important that he couldn’t stick around and finish playing his game. As he was halfway down the steps he heard a crackling noise, and an awful smell invaded his nostrils. He immediately recognized the aroma. It was the same substance that he smelled one day when he saw Easy at the stove with a cloudy liquid boiling in a Pyrex pot.

  He peeked his head over the bannister and saw Easy sitting at the bar, smoking on a glass pipe. His eyes were closed and he was sweating as if he’d just completed a marathon. Automatically, Sonny thought about the scene from New Jack City were G Money was doing the same thing.

  “Oh, snap, Pops is down here smoking crack!” He said to himself. He spun around, and ran back up the steps. When he entered the kitchen, Grip was seated at the granite island smoking a Cuban Cigar and reading a newspaper. He handed Sonny a trash bag and told him to take it outside to the dumpster. As he exited the back door with the bag clutched in his left hand, the bag began to move and whatever it was that was inside began calling his name, “Sonny. Hey, Sonny. What’s poppin’, Blood?”

  He opened the bag to see what it was and discovered Mook’s decapitated head. “Yo, what the fuck?” He shouted as he escaped his nightmare and hopped up from the bed.

  Sweat was rolling down his face and chest, and a weird feeling spread through his entire body. He frantically looked around the room. He was unfamiliar with his surroundings, but calmed down when he remembered that he’d spent the night over Daphney's house. Yesterday, after leaving the hospital In New Jersey, he called her and asked if they could get together and talk. She agreed, and after he apologized for the altercation at the restaurant, they spent night making passionate love.

  The aroma of turkey bacon, cheese grits, and cheese eggs filled the room causing his stomach to do back flips. He threw on his boxer shorts then went into the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face.

  Downstairs, Daphney could hear him moving around so she yelled up to the second floor, telling him to come downstairs and join her for breakfast.

  A few minutes later, he entered the dining room, kissed her on the forehead and took a seat at the table. “Good lookin’ on the breakfast Daph. I’m hungry as shit.”

  “Oh, that ain’t all.” She reached into her bathrobe pocket and pulled out a neatly rolled Dutch Master. “Here.”

  He grabbed the spliff from her hand, and then started laughing. “Damn, whatchu try’na spoil a nigga?”

  “Nope,” she smiled. “I just know how to please my man!”

  He ignored her last comment and grabbed the remote control to the 50 inch plasma that hung on the wall. After surfing through the channels, the image of a white Benz crashed up on the corner of 5th and Cumberland, caught his attention. “Naw, it can’t be,” he said to himself as news reporter, Roland Rushin, described a high speed chase that ended in an unjustified police shooting.

  “According to a spokesperson from the Philadelphia Police Department, Adam Smith, a twenty-five year veteran has been charged with attempted murder and at least one count of police corruption.” The middle aged black man spoke into his microphone.

  A picture of Sheed was displayed on the screen. “Oh, shit, boo! Ain’t that ya man?” Daphney asked as she sat a plate of food in front of
him.

  “Yeah.” He nodded his head. “But hold up for a minute so I can hear what’s goin’ on.” He got up from the table and walked over to the television.

  “It’s being alleged that the victim, Rasheed McDaniels, lost control of his vehicle and crashed into the wall of this grocery store behind me.” Roland Rushin continued. “Apparently, Mr. McDaniels was leading Detective Adam Smith on a high speed chase and according to the Internal Affairs Division, Detective Smith was the subject of a corruption scandal and was secretly being investigated by his own partner Detective Ronald Sullivan. Now, from what we’ve gathered here at Channel 10 News, Detective Sullivan witnessed his partner shoot Mr. McDaniels in cold blood. When he attempted to make an arrest, Detective Smith resisted and was ultimately shot in his thigh. He was treated at the Temple University Hospital and is currently in police custody. Mr. McDaniels was also taken to the Temple University Hospital, but unfortunately he’s in critical condition. Reporting to you live from North Philadelphia, this is Roland Rushin, Channel 10 News.”

  Sonny just stood in front of the television shaking his head in disbelief. This war was getting deeper than he’d anticipated. In one day, his inner circle was nearly depleted. Nasty was dead. Egypt was recovering from his gunshot wounds and now Sheed was laid up in the hospital fighting for his life. He realized that the only conclusion in this situation was to murder Grip once and for all.

  He looked at Daphney. “I need you to go to the hospital to check on my man.”

  “A’ight, I got you, daddy,” she replied with no questions asked. She kissed him on the side of his neck, and then went upstairs to get dressed.

  He picked up her house phone and called Breeze.

  Ring! Ring! Ring!

  “Yo, who’s this?” Breeze answered because he didn’t recognize the number of the incoming call.

  “It’s Sonny. Where are you at?”

  “I’m on my way to the city,” Breeze answered. “Did you see the news this morning?”