The Block

by Treasure Hernandez

  “Damn!” Tone placed his .45 back down on the coffee table. “I forgot I gave you a key.”

  Serena shook her head. “How you forget you gave me a key?” She leaned down and kissed Tone on his lips.

  “My bad.” Tone looked at the duffel bag on the floor and motioned his head toward it. “What’s that?”

  “Oh, I had to go pick up something nice for my man.” Serena smiled.

  Tone huffed. “Didn’t I tell you I don’t want you buying me nothing?”

  “Oh, shut up and open it.”

  Tone lifted up the duffel bag and sat it on the coffee table. When he opened it, his eyes lit up. Inside was ten pure-white kilos. “Where did you get this from?”

  “Why you all in my business?” Serena said playfully as she slid in Tone’s arms. “Did I do good, baby?”

  “You did excellent, baby,” Tone said excitedly. “Now I gotta go out and get this money.”

  “Let ya baby ease your mind first,” Serena said as she slid down to her knees.

  “Awww shit!” Tone moaned as he felt Serena’s full lips on his dick.

  Serena made sure she made her mouth extra wet just like he liked it.

  Once Tone felt himself about to come, he quickly began fucking Serena’s mouth like it was a pussy, until he exploded in her mouth.

  Serena walked over to the garbage and spat before she spoke. “Now go handle your business,” she said with a smile on her face.

  “I love you, baby,” Tone said as he threw the duffel bag over his shoulder. “I won’t be back too late.”

  Serena watched Tone walk out the house. “Just be careful.”

  “It’s about damn time,” Detective Abraham said, looking at his son. “So is this shit going to work?”

  Tone told him, “Basically, they don’t fuck with black people, so we gon’ have to go through her.”

  “So what’s wrong with that?”

  “It’s Mya,” Tone said in a low tone. “She’s pregnant.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “She don’t want nothing to do with me no more.” Tone paused. “That part doesn’t bother me. I just didn’t want to end on bad terms like that, you know? Especially when everything was going so good.”

  “That’s life,” Detective Abraham said in a harsh tone. “When you suppose to be going to do this time?” he said, quickly changing the subject. The part he didn’t tell his son at the beginning was, once Serena got the connect, he wasn’t going to able to stop dealing with her ’cause, if he did, she would no longer let her connect supply them.

  “In three months. And I ain’t in no rush,” Tone said, mad that he had to give up his freedom for such a long time.

  “That three and a half years gonna fly by,” Detective Abraham said as if it was no big deal.

  On that note, Tone gave his father a hug and made his exit.

  Chapter 11

  Young Mike stood inside the stash house bagging up the new product, along with a few other workers. Of course, he didn’t have to help bag up, but the faster the work was bagged up, the faster everyone could get out of there.

  “Y’all niggas, hurry up, so we can get up outta here,” Young Mike said as he went to the bathroom. He had been having to take a shit all day, and now was the perfect time for him to handle his business.

  The rest of the workers continued to bag up, until they heard something or somebody tapping at the back door.

  “Go answer the muthafuckin’ door!” Harlem said.

  One of the other workers shot back, “Nigga, you answer the door,” never looking up from the product on the table.

  “Fuck it! Whoever it is just won’t be getting in.” Harlem shrugged his shoulders as he stood up to stretch.

  A little while later, there was a loud gunshot, followed by the doorknob and lock from the back door hitting the ground.

  Gruff kicked open the back door and swept his Uzi through the air, popping any and everything in his path.

  Harlem quickly bent the corner heading down the hallway. A few of the other workers tried to return fire, but it was no use. They were completely caught off guard.

  While Gruff reloaded his weapon, Maxine covered him as she eased her way inside the apartment, her MAC-11 gripped tight. In less than ten seconds Gruff had reloaded his weapon.

  Young Mike’s whole body shook when he heard the loud roar of a machine gun being fired inside the house. “Oh shit!” He said loudly, hopping up off the toilet. He pulled his pants up without wiping and grabbed his 9 mm from off the sink. He cracked the door and saw Harlem with his back up against the wall holding two handguns.

  Harlem mouthed the words, “I’m banging out.”

  Young Mike nodded his head as he continued to peek out the bathroom door. Once he saw a figure, he snatched open the bathroom door, stuck his arm out, and let off four shots—POW! POW! POW! POW!—and quickly closed it back.

  Seconds later, about fifteen shots came ripping through the door, followed by little pieces of wood flying all over the place.

  Harlem stayed with his back up against the wall until he heard the gunfire stop. Once he felt the time was right, he swiftly sprang from behind the wall firing. Two of his shots hit Maxine in the chest, causing her to stumble backwards until she hit the floor.

  Before Harlem could take cover behind the wall, Gruff shot him in the shoulder, causing him to drop both of his guns.

  “Awww shit!” Harlem screamed out like a bitch as he jogged into the back room.

  Young Mike stood in the bathroom not knowing what was going on. He’d heard mad shots being fired, a woman’s scream then a man’s scream, followed by more gunshots.

  “Fuck it!” Young Mike silently counted to three, and snatched opened the bathroom door but didn’t see nobody. He slowly stepped out the bathroom, looked to his left and saw Harlem clutching his shoulder in the bedroom. He ignored Harlem and continued to inch his way down the hallway. He reached the end of the hallway and quickly turned the corner with a two-handed grip on his 9 mm. “Fuck!” He saw all the workers laid out and blood all over the place. He ran to the back room where Harlem was. “Come on, we gotta go,” Young Mike said in a fast-paced voice.

  “I clapped that bitch up,” Harlem said, a smile on his face.

  Young Mike didn’t reply. He just threw Harlem’s arm around his neck and helped him out the crib.

  “Come on, you all right?” Gruff whispered in Maxine’s ear as he tossed her in the back seat of their ride and peeled off at a high speed. “How you feeling?” he asked, his eyes on the road.

  Maxine clutched the vest that was strapped to her chest. “My fuckin’ ribs are broke!”

  “You gon’ be all right,” Gruff assured her. Just then he saw a Honda Accord tailing him. “What the fuck?” he said out loud.

  “You can’t be scared to die out here in these streets,” Maine said, coaching a new soldier they had just recruited. “You strapped right now?”

  The young soldier was happy to finally be on a winning team. “Yeah.”

  “Never leave home without that shit, you hear?” Maine stopped at the red light and looked over at the kid. “What’s your name anyway?”

  “Everybody calls me Smith.”

  “Fuck kind of name is Smith?”

  Smith revealed the handle of his gun. “They call me that because I always got my Smith and Wesson on me.”

  Maine smiled. “I like that.”

  As Maine pulled up on the stash house block, he saw a car driving recklessly across the lawn, attempting to make a getaway. Instantly he recognized the driver. “Yo, hold on!” Maine yelled. He quickly made a sharp right turn, following the man he had been waiting to come in contact with for weeks.

  “Hold on, we got some company.” Gruff pulled one of his 9 mm’s with his free hand, while he kept his other hand on the wheel. He watched closely through his rearview mirror as the all-black Honda sped up on his side. Then he quickly flung his arm out the window and let off three shots.
>
  POW! POW! POW!

  Maine and Smith ducked down as three shots exploded through the front windshield. Smith then rolled down his window and returned fire, and Gruff quickly ducked down as he swerved three lanes over and sped up.

  “They still behind us?” Maxine asked, pain in her voice.

  “Yeah.”

  Gruff took the next exit. When he reached the intersection, he slowly made an illegal right turn, clogging up the intersection, causing several other cars to blow their horns.

  “Fuck!” Maine cursed when he reached the clogged-up intersection and saw Gruff making a clean getaway.

  Just then, through his rearview mirror, he saw flashing lights coming in their direction at a fast speed. “Awww shit! Five-O!” He slid out of the driver’s seat and took off on foot.

  Smith hopped out the car and took off on foot in the opposite direction, hoping the cops would chase Maine, but today wasn’t his lucky day ’cause, when he turned around, he saw two white officers chasing him with a K-9.

  It didn’t take long for the K-9 to grab a hold of Smith’s arm and drag him down to the ground, where the officers then handcuffed him.

  Young Mike exited the front door of the house struggling to hold up Harlem. Before they could even reach the curb, he saw mad police cars pull up to the scene. Young Mike looked at Harlem and quickly pushed him off and ran back inside the house, where he hopped over all the dead bodies and ran out the back door.

  The police quickly tackled Harlem, bending his injured arm behind his back as they cuffed him and tossed him in the back seat of a squad car. The rest of the officers then quickly entered the house, to witness a scene full of drugs and dead bodies.

  Chapter 12

  Detective Abraham stepped inside the house and shook his head in disgust as he looked around at the shell cases and blood all over the place.

  A uniformed officer called him over, “Detective, over here.”

  “What do we got?”

  “Looks like a robbery gone bad,” the officer said. “But we did capture two of the suspects.”

  “For real?” Detective Abraham asked, wide-eyed.

  “Yeah, two hotheads,” the officer said. “One even had a bullet in his shoulder.”

  “Well, I’ma get down to the station and try to crack those two suspects.” Detective Abraham turned and headed toward the door.

  As soon as Detective Abraham got back in his car, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Maine’s number.

  “Yeah,” Maine answered.

  “What the fuck is going on? And why the fuck didn’t anybody tell me that shit got fucked up at the spot?” Detective Abraham yelled.

  “Listen, man, shit happened mad quick. I barely even got away.”

  “I don’t give a fuck!” Detective Abraham yelled. “Shit gets fucked up, you check in.”

  “You right, my bad.”

  “So who fucked up our shit?”

  “That nigga Gruff,” Maine said. “I spoke to Young Mike, and he told me that Harlem shot the bitch that be with that nigga.”

  “A’ight, I’ll figure this shit out, but next time, as soon as shit hits the fan, I better be notified,” Detective Abraham said, ending the call.

  Detective Abraham reached the station and walked straight up to the desk officer. “Where’s the two idiots that got brought in for the drug deal gone wrong?”

  “Cell four,” the officer answered.

  Detective Abraham walked down toward Cell four. “I need someone down here to open up this cell for me,” he yelled out, and a female officer came and opened it up.

  “Thanks.” Detective Abraham waited for the woman to walk back down the hall before he entered the cell. “You two muthafuckas better keep y’all mouths shut,” he said in a strong whisper. “I’ma do what I can to get y’all the least time as possible. Y’all just keep quiet and shut the fuck up!” Pissed, he walked out the cell and closed it shut behind him. This was the third spot already that Gruff had hit, all because Maine wanted to start some shit.

  “So I got up outta there as fast as possible,” Young Mike told Tone as the two sat at the kitchen table having a drink.

  “Damn! So this Gruff nigga came through again?” Tone asked. “Fuck, this nigga ain’t got shit else better to do?”

  “I don’t know, but I know Harlem popped up the bitch who always be with him.”

  Tone poured himself another shot. “This nigga is starting to be a pain in the ass.”

  “Who the fuck is this nigga?” Young Mike asked.

  “Some bum-ass stickup kid with nothing to live for,” Tone answered quickly. “I been trying to be cool since I caught this case, but—fuck all that—I might have to get back on my shit.”

  “You gon’ have to chill. It’s about to be mad hot out here. Too many bodies been dropping lately.”

  “You right.”

  “I’m about to get up outta here.” Young Mike stood up to leave. “Just wanted to touch base with you first.”

  “Good looking,” Tone said as he gave Young Mike a pound and a hug. “I appreciate that. Listen, I want you to lay low for a couple of days, a’ight.”

  “I got you,” Young Mike said as he turned and made his exit.

  Just then Serena entered the kitchen. “Is everything okay?”

  “Nah. This nigga Gruff keep on sticking his nose in our business.”

  “What did he do now?” Serena asked, a concerned look on her face.

  “He just got one of our major stash cribs shut down,” Tone said, clearly frustrated. “I’m ready to go out and put an end to all this.”

  “No,” Serena said quickly. “You have to stay out of trouble. We can’t afford for you to get no more time.”

  Tone grabbed Serena by her waist. “You gon’ hold me down for the whole bid?”

  “No doubt.”

  “Why? I mean, you’ve only known me for seven months.”

  “Because you are the first man I’ve met that has done everything you said you was going to do. And whenever I’m with you, I always feel loved and safe. Besides, I’m a down-ass chick to the fullest, and I look forward to our future together.”

  Tone didn’t even reply. Instead, he just grabbed Serena and tongued her down as the two headed toward the bedroom.

  Detective Abraham slammed Derrick’s face against the hood of the car.

  “Yo, man, what the fuck is you doing?”

  “Shut the fuck up!” Detective Abraham growled, slapping the handcuffs on him.

  “I didn’t even do shit!”

  “You two weeks late on your taxes,” Detective Abraham reminded him. Since his spots had been being robbed lately, he wasn’t taking no shit out on the streets. “Either you give me something now, or you go to jail.”

  “Okay, okay. I got seven grand at the crib. It’s yours. Cops ain’t supposed to be doing shit like—”

  “I ain’t no muthafuckin’ cop.” Detective Abraham caught Derrick off guard with a punch to the stomach, causing him to drop to one knee, doubled over in pain.

  “I’m a businessman. One of my men will be by later on to collect that,” he said, uncuffing Derrick.

  Detective Abraham smirked as he walked back over to his car. Now that one of his main stash houses was shut down, he decided to raise the taxes on the streets. Any hustler that didn’t want to get locked up had to pay up. He arrested anybody who didn’t pay up then had Maine put their own workers on the block.

  The stripper noticed her man’s glass was empty. “You need another drink, daddy?”

  “Yeah, I’ll take another one.” Ice-T slapped the stripper’s ass as she walked away.

  Ice-T was a born hustler, who ran a smooth drug operation and didn’t take no shit. Though laid-back, he was deadly. Before he had paid killers on his team, he used to love to put in work. Everybody called him Ice-T because he favored the old-school rapper.

  The stripper returned with his drink, and he gladly accepted it. Ice-T watched the sexy woman melt down to
her knees in between his legs and begin to suck his dick.

  Just as he was getting into it, he saw a cop come up to the front of his house on his surveillance camera. “Hold on, ma,” he said, looking hard at the monitors.

  “What’s wrong?” the stripper asked, wiping her mouth.

  “I ain’t expecting no company.” He stood up and pulled his pants back up, walked over to his closet, and grabbed his MAC-11.

  Once Ice-T saw who was coming to his home, he placed his MAC-11 on the coffee table. “Go in the room for a second, baby,” he told the stripper as he got up to answer the door.

  “How can I help you?”

  Detective Abraham smirked. “May I come inside?”

  Ice-T sighed loudly as he stepped to the side so the detective could enter.

  “You don’t look too happy to see me,” Detective Abraham said, helping himself to a seat.

  “What do you want?” Ice-T said, not hiding the attitude in his voice. “I’m not scheduled to see you for another two weeks.”

  “Taxes done went up. They coming down on me, so I gotta come down on you.”

  “How much?”

  “Thirty-five percent.”

  “Get the fuck outta here!” Ice-T yelled. “That’s way too much.”

  “Listen, you already know the rules—You gotta pay to play.”

  Ice-T didn’t like the way the detective just decided to up his prices like that up out the blue. “I’m saying though, this ain’t what we agreed on.”

  “Be smart,” Detective Abraham said as he stood up. “Just give up the money. You already know you gonna make it back.”

  “I’ma pay up this time,” Ice-T said. “But next time we gon’ have a problem, especially if it’s not even time for me to pay yet.”

  Ice-T went in the back and returned ten minutes later carrying a book bag. “Here take this and get the fuck out!” he said, tossing the book bag at the detective.

  “Nice doing business with you.” Detective Abraham smiled as he turned and made his exit.