by Brick
Days later, after dealing with my crew clowning me and talking about all the ass, titty, and hard dick that had been on display during the wrestling match going on, I received a call that changed the nature of the agreement that my crew and the Eraserheads had made. Joy Lake, an actual lake in Lake City, was where I was told to meet up. I gathered my people, and we headed out. I decided to drive my ride this go-round, and Shango sat to my left, with my new guest and ninja master, Code, in the backseat.
Her cousin Freddie and Oya, Alize, and Shredder were in the second ride and were following us. Foliage, trees, and the typical scenery that was found in Atlanta passed us by as we headed to Lake City. Joy Lake was a known place where the locals fished and threw the occasional birthday party. It was nothing to brag about, but it was a good place for the business that was about to go down. There was a narrow road that led to a tiny shack at the entrance where you could buy or rent fishing rods and purchase bait, such as worms and chicken livers. That shack was also where you paid a fee to get in and use the place. It was open from seven in the morning until eight at night. We all arrived there after hours.
Chilling in my old Chevy Caprice, I waited for the person who had arranged this meeting to show up. Just as thoughts about this meeting hit my dome, I watched a black Lexus pull out from a shaded spot in the parking lot, a spot covered by trees. The loud slam of a car door closing had me giving Shango a nod as we all got out of the ride to meet our host.
Auto stepped my way. Behind him was his crew, and my former guest Smiley was at his side. The leader of the group had a serious look in his eyes, his jaw was square and tight, and his gloved hands dug into his pockets, then pulled out some ducats. He turned and approached a wily old man who was coming his way. I watched as Auto peeled off a few bills and gave them to the white man who ran the place. The old guy stood there and counted the money, nodded, then turned the lights off in the shack. I waited until he had locked up and disappeared through the trees before I walked around my ride, then opened the trunk to the old-school Chevy Caprice. A menacing smile spread across my face when I saw what my crew had been able to catch and place inside my trunk. The Scandy known as Mouse.
A low chuckle came from me. See, the people I was slowly aligning myself with, for now, had hipped me up to the lifestyle that Mouse lived. Mouse loved black women. I figured that a man like him, who had a love for all things with a fat booty, a twerking pussy, and beautiful black skin, would stay posted in a place like Magic City. It had been decided that while we all were on temporary downtime, we would scope out Mouse. Funny thing was that Mouse had made things happen faster than planned, which was no sweat off my back.
Now here he was, bound and gagged in the back of the trunk, on his side. Since I was really in no mood to mess around, I stepped back, then stared down from under my wide-brimmed black cowboy hat at the woman I was doing my best not to go deep into our beef with. I waved a hand for her to step forward, and I crossed my arms over my chest, then got down to business.
“Get him out of the trunk,” Code ordered her crew members Lelo and Stitch.
Once they had taken the big Viking out of the trunk and had dropped him on the ground, I watched her kick him and stomp on him until she got tired. She combed her fingers through her curling hair, then quickly braided it as she glared down at the rat lying at her feet. A smirk played on her lips. Her heels had left holes in his chest, arms, and legs, but she didn’t seem to care.
Hell, I didn’t care, either, so it was all good in the hood, which was why I stepped forward, assessing the bastard.
“Are you going to leave him alive so we can ask him some questions, or are you seeing snakes again?” I asked sarcastically.
A large grin spread across my face when I saw her eye twitch. The twitching stopped as soon as she spit at my feet. Auto shook his head in my peripheral, because I could hear Freddie going over in detail what had happened at my apartment. No doubt, I was very heated for how she had attacked me. But on another level, I recognized that she was no more pissed than I was about being thrown into a den of snakes. I still chuckled at it, though. It was what she got.
Still, she knew I was right. There was no need for her to kill the man before getting the info we needed. Which was why I backed off. I used this time to calmly take several strides toward Mouse, who was writhing in pain.
“You keep that crazy Cuban black bitch away from me,” he told me. “Why do you have me here, man? I work for you!”
I tsk-tsked him in amusement and gave a disheartened sigh. “Nah. See, something isn’t right with the cheese in Denmark, my man. A little pirate told us that it was you who came to him with the idea of selling me out. Now, what I want to know . . . is, Who paid you?”
Mouse looked shocked. “I do not know this of which you speak! I swear to it. Why would I betray you? What have you ever done to me to make you think I’d do such a treacherous act?”
I shrugged nonchalantly, then crossed my arms over my chest. “I don’t know. That’s what I want you to tell me.”
Playing the game, I snapped my fingers. Oya came forward and pulled out a tube from the case she had been carrying. After taking the transparent tube, I popped it open with my thumb and slightly shook the contents within. Making a show of it, I held it out for Auto and his team to see. “This here is what I like to call truth serum.”
Auto walked over, took the tube in his hand to examine it, and then handed it back to me. “Why do you call it that?”
I didn’t answer at first. Well, not verbally. I tilted the tube over Mouse’s right hand, and we all observed how the liquid pooled on the top of his hand. Bubbles began to form, then eat through flesh, burning a hole, eating away at his skin like fire burning through paper. A vapor rose, and the funk caused me to crinkle my nose. It smelled like burning bacon and charcoal. Mouse’s shrill yelps disturbed the wildlife around us. For our benefit, like a domino effect, any lights that had been on in the houses surrounding the lake began to flicker out. All we had to see by, anyhow, were the headlights from the cars, which shone directly on the little man before me.
“Ah God. Fuck, Boots! Please, man!” Mouse begged.
His pleas fell on deaf ears as my boy Shango placed his foot on Mouse’s left arm. We watched his palm open, and I grinned while I treated his left hand to the same fate. More screams ensued, and Mouse began to struggle. Once I was done with his hands, I looked toward Oya. She came my way, and with her own wicked power, she dropped down into a graceful squat, balanced on her heels, then took one gloved hand and patted Mouse’s bulge. She laughed as I gave my nod of approval for her to strip the man of his pants.
“Oh, hell naw,” Smiley said from behind me. The girl had a screwed-up face while she shook her head. “This nigga is dick slanging. On some real shit, do niggas not wear drawas? Where y’all from?” she quipped.
The two men I knew as Lelo and Stitch chuckled. Auto grunted. My own shit started to shrivel from the knowledge of what I was about to do next. Every brother in the place stopped laughing when I leaned my hand over and started to pour the acid dangerously close to the man’s dick. By the time the acid had burned his thighs, Mouse had passed out from the pain. Shortly after, the scent of alcohol-laced piss and shit saturated the air.
I ordered Alize to go into the case for me and grab a syringe with a long needle from it. Always happy to get her hands dirty, she gave me an enthused nod and then did as I’d asked.
Looking at my girl, I slid back on my haunches and scowled. “Wake this bitch up.”
Happily complying, Alize hauled back and left a red handprint on Mouse’s face. In her left hand was the hypodermic needle. When she didn’t get the response that she was looking for from Mouse, she shrugged her shoulders and forcefully stabbed the needle into Mouse’s chest. It literally took less than a minute for this fool to jerk up with a loud gasp and look at us with wild eyes full of awareness.
“Now that we are done with that shit, all I want to know is where my prop
erty is and who paid you to pull that trickery shit on me. This is my last time asking nicely,” I told the man who’d pissed and defecated on himself minutes ago.
“Okay, okay,” Mouse said breathlessly, trying to hold his hands up in self-defense. “There was a dude who came to me a few months back. Said he wanted me to take some cars that Chandler was having shipped through Vegas and Cali. Said for me and my men to intercept the cars and make sure they got to the Canadian border. There we were to leave the cars, and his people would take it from there.”
“That’s when you started taking my shit?” Auto inquired while dropping down into a squat in front of Mouse.
Mouse flinched, then licked his dry, peeling lips. “You know cars have to be shipped as open cargos. Can’t be shipped in closed trailers.”
A flash of annoyance hit Auto’s eyes, and he reached behind him, pulled out his Glock, and pointed it toward Mouse, taking the safety off. “No shit. Keep talking, dickhead.”
Fear was spilling from Mouse while he stumbled on. “Once we would get the cars to a certain point near the border, these dudes would come through, strip the cars, and take all the drugs and money out.”
His words had me thinking. I stood up, then backed up to look down at Auto. At that moment, as he looked up at me, I think he also was feeling and thinking like I was.
“Drugs and money? Fuck you talking about, homeboy?” Stitch spat out, with constrained anger.
Lelo then shook his head while adding, “Yeah, we don’t ship no drugs and money, nigga. You fooling.”
Mouse took a deep gulp. “Look, man, that’s what was in the cars. All my crew did was pick them up from Chandler.”
“And my cars? They’re gone?” Auto asked.
“You can kiss the cars and the money spent for them good-bye,” Mouse responded, with a hint of arrogance in his panicky voice.
Irritated, I rubbed my neck. The math was not adding up, and it was pissing me all the way off. “How did my bullets come up in this situation?”
Mouse nervously looked my way; then his gaze shifted to that of pleading with his eyes. “Boots, look, man, I know you’re going to kill me, so at least make sure my family knows where the money is I left them—”
His words ticked something off in my brain. Before he could finish, I slammed my boot down and crushed his already injured left hand. I dug the heel of those black cowboy shitkickers so deep into the already seeping wound, it seemed as if his hand was going to split in two.
“Listen to me, Mouse. I don’t give a fuck about nothing you fucked or sired at this point. You fucking with my livelihood and my money. Speak up, nigga, or forever hold your peace,” I snarled.
“When Shredder came to me about a shipment he needed to be handled for you, I spoke to the man who’d made a deal with Chandler. Told him I didn’t know what you were having shipped, but that it was a big deal, because you would be at the gun show in Vegas. He was interested. Paid me up front,” Mouse started to explain.
“How much?” I asked.
“What?” he asked, his eyes fluttering from the pain that was going through him.
“How much he pay you to sell me out, nigga?” I repeated in a heated tone.
“A quarter mil,” he finally told me.
If we’d had a DJ in this shit, if it were music or a record, it would all suddenly scratch to a halt. Did this motherfucker say, “A quarter mil”? Looking around me in amazement, I scratched the side of my jaw. No, this motherfucker did not just say, “A quarter mil”! Where they do that at? I thought. I smiled. That smile quickly turned into a snarl, and then my boot slammed back down on that bitch. The sensation of bone crunching under my foot made me grin in pleasure. I stomped Mouse’s hand, then kicked him in his face so hard that teeth and spit flew across the fallen leaves and grass.
“Nigga, I paid you double that to ship that shit for me, and you sold me out for less?” I spat as I kicked Mouse’s ass all over the ground.
At that moment, I did not give a fuck about how I was being seen. All the smirks and laid-back banter and demeanor were all gone. This motherfucker had just fucked with my livelihood and my plans. A quarter mil? Oh hell no.
Mouse was on his knees, hands limp, coughing up blood, by the time I got tired of kicking his ass.
Taking a moment to get my breath, I adjusted my hat and looked down while thumbing my nose. “Motherfucker got blood on my good pair of boots. Ain’t that some shit?”
I then rubbed the soles of my boots on this traitor-ass bitch’s battered body and watched as he attempted to look up at me.
Glassy-eyed Mouse began to stammer. “I . . . I . . . I . . . had to split what you gave me between my crew, man. That quarter mil was all mine. Had debts and shit to pay so my family wouldn’t—” he said, but I quickly cut that shit off at the pass.
“Fuck your debts! That wasn’t my problem, motherfucker,” I yelled, then pulled my heat from the small of my back and pointed it at this cunt.
Code’s voice cut through my heated rage.
“Whoa. Hold on,” she said, rushing in and holding a hand up. “The man . . . Who’s the man, Mouse?”
Curiosity danced in the corners of my mind. It was a gut feeling I always listened to, so I took a moment to calm down and listen. We all had to wait until Mouse had finished coughing before he turned to look Code in her eyes.
His voice was low and even when he said to her, “Now, we both know why I can’t give you that. So just kill me. I got a family, and he’ll kill them all with no question.”
Interesting, flashed in my mind. I knew when I glanced at Code that it was also the confirmation that she needed. A tension seemed to form around her while she fisted her hands by her sides. I could definitely guess that she was feeling some type of way. A nervousness appeared for a hot second over her face before she backed away from Mouse and trekked back toward her crew’s car. I saw her cousin Freddie stop his stalking of Oya only to follow closely behind Code.
Getting back to my business and forgetting the rest, I handed my hat to Shango. Then I glanced at Auto, and he stepped back, knowing what was about to go down. Two rounds of bullets sliced through the bastard’s dome. The asphalt under him became an abstract art painting of blood and brain matter. I looked back down at my boots, then wiped them off again on Mouse’s legs.
Shango reached for my warm Glock, then handed me my hat, which I placed on my head and adjusted. While my right-hand man made sure everything was back in place, I noticed Smiley jogging toward Code and Freddie. From the body language going on and the movements of her mouth, I could tell that she was asking something. I also noticed that Freddie was purposely keeping his gaze away from Smiley.
It was another secret, another story going on between Code and Freddie, and it had my interest. However, this was something that would probably be discussed later, and I really had another situation to deal with. No, we all had another problem to deal with, and something in my mind said it had to do with the woman who was now pulling off in her crew member Lelo’s truck. I glanced at Auto, while he looked in the direction in which Code had sped off. Dude’s jaw was clenched tight again, and I knew that he had hella questions on his mind too. As the saying went, “What’s in the dark always comes to light,” and now my ass needed new fucking shitkickers. God damn!
Chapter 16
Auto
I thumbed my nose as I sat in the office of the auto shop. Regular business was going according to normal. The shop was buzzing. Seymore was giving out orders. Lelo and Stitch were arguing, as usual, but were working in tandem to put the transmission back into a 2002 golden PT Cruiser. Reagan was prancing around in a cut-up jumper, her ass distracting Lelo, Stitch, Seymore, Dunkin, and Jackknife, as she worked under the hood of a Ford F-150. Yes, all was well in the auto world.
The same couldn’t be said for the illegal side of things, though. Owing to the money we’d lost due to our shit being stolen, we couldn’t move ahead in copping the new machines we needed to stay ahead
of the law when it came to our illicit activities. Just like we had to stay ahead of the law when it came to credit theft, skimming, card clones, and so on, the law tried to stay one step ahead of us too. And we’d lost way too much money to put stock into new machines.
We’d been so focused on recouping our losses from the last shipment being taken that we hadn’t had time to see the money we were losing on our other venture. I was feeling it now, though. In just a couple of days, we’d lost clients and hundreds of thousands of dollars. We could still do stuff like make fake IDs, passports, Social Security cards, and so forth, but pretty soon we would run out of the material needed for doing things like making new credit cards. We never used the same machine for too long, because in no time the Feds would get wind of the activities of the digital criminal underworld and all the gadgets. So we always liked to be ten steps ahead of them.
“Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?”
I looked up from the computer screen, which showed the numbers in the bank account for the auto shop and the other accounts. Smiley was standing in the doorway, a backpack on her back and another hanging from her right hand. Her spiraled locks were pulled to the side, exposing the shaved half of the head. Eyes sparkled, even though the look on her face was stoic. She had on baggy clothes that reminded me of girl groups of old. Back when a girl could be a tomboy without being labeled a dyke. She wore an oversize sweatshirt repping Howard U, the bottom cut off, showing her belly. Baggy jeans sat low on her hips, showing off Hanes undershorts. Trinkets decorated her locks, giving her a hippie-like appeal.
I’d left her at my crib, with instructions for her to stay put. It was clear that she wasn’t one for taking orders. I nodded. She walked in. Dropped both backpacks on the floor, then took a seat, moving stealthily. Whatever scent she was wearing wafted under my nostrils and teased me. Anytime a woman wore something that smelled like fruit, it tickled my senses.
