The Dopefiend

by JaQuavis Coleman

  “Sup, Millie,” he said as he entered the room.

  “Hey, Baby,” Millie answered. Baby was about six foot, brown-skinned, and had a slim build. He wore a long beard and small glasses that gave him an intellectual look rather than a killer. Baby grew up hearing stories about how the infamous street legend Tical had a female “right-hand man” who was one of the best hustlers Baltimore had ever seen. So when Millie came back to Baltimore, it was nothing for her to recruit a team and get respect. Baby had loyalty toward Millie because of his deceased older brother, who Millie used to run with, whose name was Gunplay.

  Baltimore’s underworld never knew Millie to be a junkie, only a certified hustler. Once Millie got to Baltimore she went cold turkey and never touched a drug since. She had been getting rich with her connect, Hassan.

  “Yo’, I got the drop on the nigga you wanted me to scope out,” Baby said as he sat on the couch. Millie’s heart began to speed up as she heard what Baby had said. She instantly knew that he was talking about Seven. Millie couldn’t get close to Seven and had been waiting for that particular day for three years.

  “Word?” she asked as she looked at him with hopeful eyes.

  “Yeah. That nigga is like a ghost though. Nobody really knows where the nigga be at. But, I got the drop on his man. Raheem, Rakim, something like that,” Baby said, trying to remember his name.

  “Rah,” Millie corrected him.

  “Yeah, that’s it,” Baby confirmed. “Word is, is that they expanded to Columbus, Ohio and they moving heavy weight. My people in Ohio said that the boy Rah is mad flashy and running the streets crazy right now. I got a plug on a stripper that he deals with. So that’s our first link to the kid Seven.”

  “Great news,” Millie said calmly as flashes of Hazel’s face appeared before her eyes, causing a big wave of sadness and guilt to overcome her. She had been trying to find Seven the past years and always came up empty. He had gone into seclusion after Apple’s death and no one knew how to find him. With the newfound information about Rah, she was one step closer to getting revenge.

  Seven sat back in a beach chair, smoking a blunt on his new yacht. He stared at the waves and slowly bobbed his head to Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt that played out of the small stereo that sat near his feet. He remembered when he was younger, Apple would play that disc over and over and it seemed as if it was the soundtrack to his life. Seven had grown a full, wild beard and was only a fraction of what he used to be. However, he had become a street millionaire after his expansion to Columbus, OH. Seven had surpassed the wealthy mark and had reached a status that most doughboys could only dream about. But the loneliness he felt in his heart far exceeded the happiness wealth could ever bring him. At that point he was just moving dope through the city because it was all he knew and he was addicted to flipping money. After Hazel’s death and Apple’s untimely demise, Seven had to find a way to cope. This was his uncanny therapy. Seven dumped the ashes into the water from the blunt and breathed in the clear air, thinking about how Hassan told him that he would never get a boat. Seven used his cane to stand and smiled, looking around and knowing that his yacht was two times better than his former connect’s.

  “You still out here?” Rah said as he walked up from the lower deck with two beautiful women in his arms. Seven turned around to see who was talking over the music and then quickly focused back on the water.

  “Yeah, just up here thinking, that’s all,” Seven said as he took a deep pull of the blunt and blew out smoke circles. Rah took turns tongue kissing the girls on his arms and then headed back down to the lower part of the boat to start round two of the ménage à trois they were partaking in. Little did Rah know, one of the strippers he was sexing was getting paid by Baby to suck all of the info she could about Seven out of him.

  Millie pulled into a Holiday Inn right outside of Columbus, OH in a small town called Sandusky. She was in a tinted Yukon truck with five of her most treacherous goons from B-more with her. She was on a mission to give Seven a surprise. Baby was already in the town. He had been there for a couple of weeks, setting up everything for Millie. Millie hopped out the van. Lovie was driving and ready for whatever also. Millie had been molding Lovie to be just as clever and witty as she was, minus the flaws. The goons hopped out, rocking full beards and two of them wearing religious coofies. They went to room 20 B, using the outside entrance, and waiting for them in the room was Baby and the same stripper that Rah had been with the previous night.

  “Sup, Millie,” Baby said as he stood from the coffee table that he was sitting at with the stripper.

  “Hey, Baby,” Millie said he walked over to her and pecked her on the cheek.

  “This is her?” Millie asked as she stared at the young red-bone girl who sat at the table looking nervous. Baby nodded his head and Millie immediately went over to her and sat across from her, sensing the girl’s discomfort. “Hey, honey,” Millie said, greeting the girl with a warm smile. Millie set her purse on the table and opened it, grabbing one of her cigarettes out of the pack and lighting it.

  “Hi,” the girl said, feeling more comfortable with Millie rather than Baby.

  “Look, I know you nervous but you don’t have anything to be nervous about, ok?” Millie said as she sat back and puffed the cigarette, blowing it out of the side of her mouth and away from the girl.

  “So, you know Rah?” Millie asked, making sure that very thing was everything. The young girl nodded her head as she glanced at the goons that were mugging her from the corner of the hotel room. The girl began grew antsy and almost reconsidered giving up the information to Millie, but then she thought about the $10,000 that was offered to her by Baby. “I’m getting paid first, right?” the girl said with fear evident in her voice.

  Millie immediately signaled for one of her goons to pay the girl and almost immediately the girl had a brown paper bag tossed in front of her on the table. The bag contained all one hundred dollar bills, equaling ten thousand dollars. The girl thumbed through the money and then smiled, feeling much better about what she was about to do. Millie smiled when she saw the look in the girl’s eye as she flipped through the money. It was the look of greed and Millie knew that she was one step closer to Seven.

  At the end of their conversation, Millie knew were Rah lived, were his main block was, and his tendencies. The girl knew nothing about Seven. The only things she could tell Millie were that Seven was Rah’s boss, he kept a low profile, that Seven loved to boat, and the loading dock that he used. Millie wasn’t satisfied with the information, but she was grateful and was going to work with what she had. Millie left the stripper in the room with bag full of cash and a bullet in the head to cover her own tracks. She didn’t want anything stopping her from getting to Seven. The possibility of the stripper confessing to Rah about what she had done was too risky for Millie, so she made the executive decision to have one of her goons hit her from point-blank range after she squeezed all of the info she could out of her. Some might call it coldblooded, but Millie called it playing the game the right way.

  Baby pulled the bandana that was tied around his neck up and over the lower portion of his face to conceal his identity. Lovie drove while the rest of the goons followed suit and pulled ski masks on their faces while gripping their automatic assault rifles. The tinted van had a sliding door and they all waited patiently until Lovie pulled up to the block so they could light it up. The car was quiet and calm, everyone focusing on the task at hand. Lovie pulled to the start of the block and Baby slowly slid the sliding door open that was on the side of the van. He looked at Lovie and nodded at her, giving her the signal, and she then put the pedal to the metal and the sound of screeching tires filled the air and caught all of the hustlers off guard. Baby flung the door open and bullets began to fly, hitting any and everybody on the block hustling. Millie had ordered this drive-by, not to kill people, but to send a message. Baby let his gun off, catching at least four hustlers in the legs and thighs as he aimed low. The other goons shot
in the air, giving everyone a scare. Just like that, ten seconds, they were peeling off the block and gone. Lovie maneuvered the van off the street and they headed back to the low-key hotel that the whole crew was staying at and also where Millie was waiting.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Dopefiends lined up as if they were young kids in a cafeteria line outside the abandoned building as the corner boys prepared to open up shop. The hustlers were posted on a stoop prepared for distribution. Rah had already paid off the cops that patrolled the area, so police never were a problem. It was a flawless operation going on. It was 6:30 A.M. and the first waves of users were trying to get their fix. This group usually consisted of the working class: teachers, city workers, functioning addicts, etc. All from different walks of life, but they all had one thing in common: they were trying to get that monkey off of their backs so they could function right throughout the day.

  Rah and one of his street lieutenants sat in a tinted Lexus just a block down from the abandoned building, as he did frequently, and observed the spot make money. However, this time he had an AK-47 in the backseat, ready for whatever should come his way. He had just hit his young boys with the product and within minutes the line was moving. Rah just wanted to make sure that there weren’t any of the out-of-towners on the block trying to invade their territory. After he learned about the people from Baltimore coming through and wetting the block up, he had been checking in on it more often, willing to defend his territory. Rah smiled and pulled off, on his way to meet Seven for their daily breakfast together.

  “If y’all don’t get in line, nobody is getting shit!” one of the young hustlers yelled as he got tired of random fiends cutting in line, trying to get closer to the prize. He saw a bunch of new faces and obviously they weren’t hip to the rules, so he had to show some muscle. “Get in line!” he yelled as if they were kids. He saw a male bum steady trying to cut in line and becoming disgruntled, disregarding what he had told them. The young hustler got frustrated and walked over to the man who had raggedy clothes on and a long, wild beard.

  “Didn’t you hear what the fuck I said?” the hustler said as grabbed the man’s arm violently, turning him around. As he made the man face him, he got a big surprise. The bum was not actually a bum, it was Baby. Baby held a chrome .45 in his hand and shoved it into the gut of the young hustler.

  “Surprise, mufucka,” Baby said as he unleashed a small smirk. One of the other hustlers on the stoop saw Baby pull out the gun and he slowly went into his hoodie to grab his pistol, but the cold steel of a nine millimeter had just been pressed against his temple.

  “Uh-uh. Hold up, don’t even think about it,” Lovie said as she smiled at him while pressing the steel to his head. She was at the front of the line posing as a fiend also. On cue, Millie’s other goons pulled out their strap. When they flashed their guns, everyone scattered, causing total chaos. Millie’s squad had been watching the hustlers operate for days, so they knew who was on Seven’s team.

  After the block had cleared there were only Seven’s workers left and all of them hand guns in their faces, totally taken off guard. Millie’s crew relieved them of all their own guns, while still having them at gunpoint.

  Baby was the first to speak. “Look, li’l niggas. We ain’t come to kill you,” he said as he tucked his own gun away, showing that he wasn’t trying to come on no beef. “My boss wants to give y’all a golden opportunity.”

  “What you mean?” the hustler said bravely as he had both of his hands up, still not sure if he could trust Baby. He did not fully understand what Baby was getting at.

  “Money, of course. I want to give you a choice. You have two options. You can get money with us . . . or not get money at all. If you don’t want to get down with our program, we will be at y’all every day until we feel like doing otherwise.” Baby unleashed a small grin and stepped back in a non-threatening position. He then continued.

  “It is obvious that Seven doesn’t give a fuck about his team because we just ran up on y’all without any problems. If y’all fucked with us, shit like this would never happen,” Baby said as he looked around at the young hustlers being held at gunpoint by his crew. He continued, “You niggas can be touched . . . but where is Seven? He’s untouchable, but what about his crew?” Baby asked rhetorically as he threw his hands up and looked around. There was a brief moment of silence. Obviously what Baby was saying was making a lot of sense to the hustlers. Baby snapped his fingers and instantly his crew put down their guns. Baby grabbed the kid he was standing by. From watching him for the past week, he knew that he was the leader of the block. Baby gave him a wad of cash and a card with a number on it.

  “If you trying to get down with the winning team, call,” he said just before he faded into the alley along with his crew. Baby left the young hustlers on the corner confused and thinking hard about what he had just proposed. The leader of the block looked at the stack of money in his hands and couldn’t believe it. It would have taken him a whole month worth of trapping to stack the amount he had in his hands.

  Although Millie wasn’t there, she had put the whole plan together and was waiting on Seven’s goons to jump ship and come to her side. She knew that by taking over Seven’s block, he would eventually come out of seclusion.

  Seven sat across from Rah at the table and slid a piece of bacon into his mouth as he stared at the local newspaper. Rah briefly stared at Seven and smirked. Rah still couldn’t get used to Seven eating meat. But that was one of the many changes Seven made after he had gotten shot years back. Rah focused on his plate and then felt his phone vibrate on his hip. He immediately answered it, snatching the phone off of his clip and putting it to his ear.

  “Yo’,” Rah answered. He paused for a minute and then his face frowned up, which caught Seven’s attention.

  “What the fuck happened?” Rah yelled into the phone and paused. “And they didn’t take anything?” Rah questioned. “Okay, just hold tight, I’m on my way.”

  “What was all of that about?” Seven asked as he sat back and took a deep breath.

  “I think them mufuckas from Baltimore is going to be a bigger problem than we thought. They just ambushed the block, but check this out: they didn’t take anything. Didn’t rob the li’l niggas or nothing. Li’l man said they were asking for you,” Rah said, his tone getting lower with each word.

  “Asking for me? How do they even know about me, son?” Seven asked, knowing that in the new city of Columbus he had kept a very low profile.

  “Don’t know,” Rah answered, shaking his head from side to side.

  Seven wiped his hand with a napkin and tossed it on the table. “Let’s go,” Seven said as he grabbed his cane that leaned against the table, and stood up. He also grabbed the shoulder harness and put in on. The harness contained two desert eagles, locked and loaded. He then slid his leather coat on and they both headed toward the exit. Seven stopped at his front door and began to unlock the six deadbolt locks he had on the door. Paranoia was a daily part of Seven’s personality and Rah wanted to ask him why was he so wary, being that Seven lived in a low-key suburban area and no one knew where he lived except him. However, Rah remained silent, knowing that he could never truly understand what Seven’s mind state was like after he had been almost gunned to death. After a sequence of “click-clacks,” all of the locks were unlocked and Seven opened the door, but not before he turned off his security system so he wouldn’t trigger it. Seven then glanced at the monitor that was positioned to view his parking garage and cars to check to see if the coast was clear. Once Seven stared at the screen for a few seconds and was satisfied, they exited on their way to the block to see what was going on.

  Rah and Seven pulled onto the block, riding in Seven’s bulletproof Benz. Rah was driving and he pulled up to the curb where their crew was waiting. All of them were waiting anxiously for their boss to arrive. Seven’s passenger-side window rolled down and all eyes were on him. Seven checked his rearview mirror to see if anyone wa
s behind him and then scoped the block. Once he felt safe he looked at the group of hustlers on the stoop. He looked at the leader of the block and also the same hustler who Baby had given the money and card to.

  “Get in,” Seven said in almost a whisper, but everyone was so quiet and hanging off his every word, that he was heard loud and clear.

  Moments later the hustler hopped in the backseat and Rah pulled off of the block. The youngster sat in the backseat feeling butterflies in his stomach. Just the presence of Seven made him nervous. Although he had worked for Seven, he never once met him in person. He always dealt with Rah and no one else.

  “What happened?” Rah said as he circled the neighborhood.

  “Those same niggas from B-more ran up on us again. They caught us slipping and put the bangers to our head,” he explained.

  “They hit the stash?” Rah asked.

  “Nah, it wasn’t even like that. They didn’t even come on no robbing shit. He just wanted to talk.”

  “Talk?” Seven interrupted as he put a blunt in between his lips.

  “Yeah. He was talking like he wanted to take over the spot and was saying how his boss could make it worth our while,” the young hustler explained, purposely leaving out that Baby had hit him with a stack of money.

  “Is that right?” Seven asked as he lit his blunt. “Niggas must think it’s a game. Do they know who the fuck I am?” Seven asked as he slowly nodded his head, knowing that he would have to show those B-more cats how he got down.