“I don't know what you talkin' 'bout,” said Donna.
“Bitch, don't try to play me, I saw you.”
“Saw me what?” Donna said, smiling.
“I saw you fuckin' that dog-assed drug pusher in the warehouse.”
''I'm sorry, baby.” Donna began to take her top off.
“Bullshit!” yelled the Prince. He was shaking with lust and rage. “Was that the only time you fucked him? And don't lie to me. I know you.”
“Yes.”
“Lying fuckin' bitch!”
Donna closed the partition separating the driver's cab from the van s rear.
The Prince tore at his clothes and forced Donna on the carpet. Stacks of bills fell on them. He faked hitting her, slapping his hands together. She yelled and smiled under him.
Donna grabbed her husband and forced his head into her bosom. He loved it when she lied and teased him. The only thing he liked more was watching her have sex with other men.
Donna smiled as the Prince kissed her hard stomach. He would not ever want anyone to know his secret. It was contrary to everything that he represented. He was a badass, a pusher, dangerous. He had to keep up his image at all times. What would people think if they knew he was impotent?
Poor bastard, thought Donna. Liked to watch his wife get screwed by other men, then go down on her while she told him about it.
It was an ideal marriage. Most normal married couples spent their whole lives lying to each other and playing games. The men acted out the loving husband role while fucking every waitress and secretary they could find. Wives spent years getting half-assed sex and fighting their desires for satisfaction. But not Donna Ann Mayfield. Hers was a marriage based on personal honesty and selflessness.
The Prince's affliction was a tragedy, but they made the most of it. She began to whisper to him about Steven Mayo as he raged between her legs.
The van roared down the freeway into Jackson, Michigan. Detroit was a memory as they departed, leaving their troubles behind them.
PART 3: COLD MEDINA
1
The Other Side
Tony sat on a bench in Palmer Park and watched parents and their children on an old playground. It wasn't yet midday but it was already starting to heat up. The heatwave was still on, and soon it would be too hot and muggy to be outside.
Tony thought about his son Moe and how happy the boy was to see more of his father since Tony had left the force.
Nikki was understanding about his decision and very happy. She could see that he was better for the decision.
Maybe he had made the right choice after all, he thought. He was sure Orris Martin and idiots like him thought so. The official word was that Tony had taken an authorized paid leave. There were stories in the newspapers about his departure. He refused to read them.
Tony's existence on the other side of the badge was only two weeks old, but seemed longer. Without the hustle of police work, the days dragged. He was painfully aware of the passage of time. The part of him that missed the job nagged him daily.
And the job missed him. The city was on fire with a new drug called Medina. Violent crimes were up, the police were scrambling to handle the increase. New rookies were turned out of the academy early to help. Reserves were called in. And all the while, the Handyman was still at large.
Tony tried to forget these things and enjoy his day. It was no longer his official concern. He just wanted to rest and savor civilian-hood. But soon, other, more terrible thoughts came into his mind. He saw Irene Simon's haggard, tortured face, her tired body, having sex with men and then murdering them in cold blood.
I hope nobody stops you when you want to die.
Leaving the force did not stop these demons. Part of him felt that by quitting he was trying to cheat the debt he owed society for the death of Darryl Simon. Tony had snuffed out one of God's creations and that action had resulted in even more death. He was accountable for the lives of Darryl Simon and his sister's victims.
Murder was against everything that he believed in, everything he stood for. Tony had dedicated his life to stopping people who did such things, and now he was one of them.
I hope nobody stops you....
He had seen death and killed in the line of duty, but it had always been justified. But not with Simon.
His father's rage dwelled within him for many years and it finally poured out upon Darryl Simon with fatal consequences. People go through life knowing very little of what they are truly capable of, Tony thought. Under the proper circumstances, anyone could do what he did.
. . . when you want to die.
Tony walked back toward his car. The temperature had already gone up several degrees in the last few minutes. Others sensed the change too and started to leave.
Tony spotted a woman playing with her daughter, tossing a colored ball back and forth. A few feet away, a man smoking a cigarette by a dumpster watched the lady and her child.
Tony pegged the man as a drug addict. He was thin, nervous, and moved sluggishly. One of his hands was shoved inside the pocket of his dirty jacket.
The addict watched the woman and her daughter and moved a few steps closer, stopping by a tree.
Tony changed direction and circled around behind the addict.
The addict moved in closer to his prey. There was something different about this guy, Tony thought. Most crackheads were scared. They had to push themselves to action. Drugs stole their confidence, making them apprehensive about their chances of success. But not this guy. He seemed sure of himself as he did his slow drug-addict walk toward the woman. Tony moved closer to him, careful not to make any noise.
Tony realized then that he'd left his gun in his car. No matter, he thought. He was not going to let this guy attack an innocent woman and baby. He would stop him, somehow.
The addict was about ten feet from the woman and her daughter now. Then he suddenly burst into a run toward them. The woman looked up and saw the addict coming. She pulled the little girl to her chest, stood and backed off, but by then, the addict was upon her.
“All right, bitch--”
The addict was yanked away from the frightened woman and fell backwards on his ass. The addict looked up to see Tony's angry face, framed by the midday sun.
“You and me, asshole,” Tony said.
The addict looked at Tony, and for a moment it seemed as if he would take him up on the offer. Instead, he scrambled away.
Tony watched the addict leave, making sure he would not return. Then he turned to the woman, but she was gone. She had run away during the altercation. Smart woman, Tony thought.
Tony went to his car. He'd never seen an addict so bold and certain of himself. Then he remembered the new drug. Medina. He'd read that one of the effects was bolstered confidence. Jesus, he thought. The only thing worse than a crackhead was a brave one.
Tony got into his car and drove away from the park. He wanted to get into the neighborhoods. That always made him feel better. He was in his cruising car, an old Ford that looked like a piece of shit, but had a good engine and air conditioning. Tony used it to drive the inner-city neighborhoods. He couldn't afford to lake the good car where he was going. Many of the more clever rollers also used such old cars. They called them hoopties. The rollers drove the hooptie when making drug deliveries because if they were caught by the police, their cars were often confiscated and sold in forfeiture.
Tony drove to the east side, turned onto a residential street, and cruised. He checked his Beretta under the armrest.
He drove slowly. He suspected criminal activity all around him. Many houses were gutted, burned-out, or abandoned. Waist-high weeds and garbage were common. No wonder the young boys chose drugs, he thought. This would drive anyone to desperation.
Tony drove for about an hour before he found himself on Anglin Street. He parked across the street from his old childhood house, settling in behind a car with three flat tires.
Tony looked at the burned-out shell that ha
d once been his home. The grass was three feet high, the windows boarded up, and he could smell the stench of rotting garbage.
He closed his eyes and imagined the street as he had known it as a child: bright with color and loud with activity. It seemed his old street had always been filled with kids playing, laughing, and getting dirtier by the minute. The sky was blue and clouds passed in wonderful shapes. The wind whipped leisurely; bringing the smells of trees and cooking food. Easy life then, play was work and the day seemed endless, filled with fun, adventure, and friends. What awful fate could have ended all this ...
A shot rang out. Tony focused in the direction of the explosion. It came from an inhabited house about three doors away from his old house. Tony remembered that a family named Reed had lived there. He removed his Beretta.
Probably a crackhouse, he thought. But there was not the great activity that you usually saw in a dope house. It could be a supply station or a money drop-off point, he reasoned.
Tony watched the front of the house. The door was flung open and two men wrestled outside. One of the men was young, eighteen or so. The other was older, about forty. They fought as the older man tried to take a gun from the young man's hand. About six other people, all black, followed them as they fell off the porch and onto the ground.
The men writhed in the dirt as a startled woman screamed in horror. The young one pushed off his older attacker and stood in front of him with the gun.
Tony watched and fought the urge to identify himself. He was not technically an officer anymore. Before he could make up his mind, the young man fired a shot into his would-be assailant, wounding him in the leg. The woman fainted and another man carried her back into the house.
Tony watched several young boys drag the wounded man back into the house as two other men laughed and slapped each other five.
Tony froze in the car. His eyes widened and focused on one of the men. It was difficult in the clothes he wore, but Tony was sure of the face. It was Fred Hampton, the hotshot rookie. The other man, a black man, Tony did not know, hut Tony would bet that he was a cop, too. Hampton's regular partner, Pete Carter, was still on sick leave from taking the bullet that was meant for Tony.
The cops had to be dirty, he thought. They had just witnessed a shooting in what was probably a dope house and had done nothing. Hampton and the man went back inside.
Tony waited. He was angry and curious. Dirty cops were a plague on the force. And even though Tony knew they existed, he just had to know what this was all about. Deep down, he admitted that he was just trying to be a cop again. But he had every right to be a concerned citizen, he reasoned.
A half hour later, Hampton walked out of the house with his companion, laughing and carrying a small satchel.
Hampton and the other man got into a car and drove away. After they reached the corner, Tony followed them, careful not to look at the drug house as he passed.
Tony had forgotten about the shooting he'd witnessed. He was after much bigger prey now. The rookies were assholes, but he never expected one to be on the take. There had to be money in the satchel. He would follow them and see where that package went.
Tony thought about his first days as a new officer. Soon after you started, the dirty cops would approach you to see if you wanted to join up with them. Once you were in, that was it. There was no turning back.
As long as there had been cops, some took money from the bad guys. Everyone knew about it, hut no one did anything. Cops were loyal to each other, even if one cop was dirty. Most played it straight, even though the pay was shitty.
It used to be that the cops would only take from gamblers, the numbers men, and the pimps. Those were “good” crimes, easy vices that left no guilt behind. Now, they took money from these vile drug pushers, many of whom were like the Devil himself.
Tony spent the rest of the morning tailing Hampton, despite the fact that he had mixed feelings about trying to bust a man who had helped save his life. Hampton had hit Larry Drake off-balance and under pressure. Dropped him with one shot.
Then it occurred to Tony that Hampton did not have to shoot Drake. Drake was falling, trying to hold that heavy gun. Hampton dropped him before anyone else could even draw a weapon. There was no warning, Hampton had just shot. Maybe Drake was shot because Hampton was afraid of what he might say if interrogated.
Tony followed Hampton and his friend like a pro, hanging back in traffic, spinning off on side streets, and taking the chance to pick them up again on main thoroughfares.
Tony grew angrier as he saw them stop and dispense the money among the police force. It was like watching the rollers sell their wares. Slick handshakes while passing a wad of cash, smooth exchanges in cruisers.
It had to be a regular payoff run, and since this was Union territory, it was not a mystery who supplied the cash. What bothered him most was that it was almost impossible for rookies to put this kind of thing together by themselves. There had to be officers in it somewhere.
Tony followed the discouraging trail to the west side of town. The other man was indeed a cop. He seemed to know all the officers they paid off. The pair turned south onto Dexter Avenue. Tony caught a red light. But their car went only halfway up the block and stopped. Hampton and the other cop got out of the car and walked into a building.
Tony didn't have to keep following them. Once he saw the familiar red, black, and green sign and the huge hands breaking the shackles on their wrists, he knew. It was the Brotherhood's Mother Chapter.
2
Mexican Village
Detroit’s Mexican Village is located on the city's southwest side. It is a small district, created by the city's small Latino population. Restaurants line the streets, boasting colorful designs and beckoning diners to come in and spend their hard-earned cash.
John “Cut” Jefferson walked out of the EI Grande Restaurant filled with spicy food and beer. He had not been in public since he made the hit on the Union van. He was no fool. Even with the Medina surge, T-Bone would be looking for him.
Medina. He was sick of hearing the name. The Union was running the whole damned city with that shit. The popularity of the drug had surpassed crack in its intensity. He couldn't even begin to get his hands on whatever they used to make it. He thought about having it analyzed by a scientist or something but he didn't even know where to begin.
Cut had gotten a few rocks of the new drug and tried it. The shit was bad. The high was intense, unusual, and very short. It took a great effort of will to keep himself from smoking any more. But he was strong. He'd resisted drugs for years.
Cut became obsessed with learning Medina's secrets. After his experiment, he banned its use in his crew and started asking about the drug on the street. So far, he'd learned nothing.
Cut had closed one drug house and more would probably follow. He was becoming poorer by the minute. His profits were down and he was losing customers and rollers to the Union. After years of successful drug dealing, he was becoming just another punk with a high in his pocket for sale.
Cut had even thought about joining the Union, becoming one of the supervisors, but that was not an attractive proposition. He was used to being a king, and once you had a taste of that, nothing else would do. Besides, he reasoned, he had killed two of their people. He couldn't just walk up and ask for a job. He would be dead before the words got out of his mouth. No, he would ride out this feud and work harder to get into the Medina game. Sooner or later, he would find an opening. He just hoped that there was something left for him to be in control of when it was over.
Cut walked to the parking lot with his bodyguards on either side and stood a safe distance away as one of them started his car. He waited a moment while it ran to make sure that it wasn't wired with a bomb or some shit. Although a car bomb was not the usual style of drug dealers, he wasn't taking any chances. After several minutes, he got in and relaxed in the plush backseat, closing his eyes.
“Back to the crib,” he said lazily. “And don't be sp
eedin'. I don't need no shit from the cops.” He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and listened to the car's engine hum.
It was good to be out in the world, Cut thought. He was not the type who could stay isolated for long. Maybe he would take a little cruise around the neighborhood before he went back to his home. He had been staying at six different places since the hit on the Union. It would be nice to get back to a stable place of residence.
Cut heard a butane lighter ignite in the front seat, followed by the stinging aroma of Medina.
“Hey, I know I don't smell that-” Cut opened his eyes.
Laughter came from the front seat.
“What the fuck is so funny?” asked Cut.
“You, you dead-ass muthafucka,” laughed one of his bodyguards.
Cut saw a smoking pipe of Medina in one of the bodyguard's hands, and in the other he held a gun, pointed at Cut's face.
3
Termination
“I mean it!” T-Bone yelled into the phone. “I don't care what the fuck they say. Pull the shit, all of it! Kill them if you have to, but just do it!”
He slammed down the phone and threw a chair against a wall. He kicked another chair and cursed when he hurt his foot. K-g walked out of the room in the Southfield house as quietly as he could.
Things were falling apart. Medina had proven to be just what he first expected-a great product, profitable, and popular. But in the several weeks since introducing it, the bodies were piling up. People were dying or slowly going crazy and there was no profit in corpses. Even worse, his workers started to use it and became addicted. And now, they were deserting him, going crazy from the drug.
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