by K'wan
He knew without Huck having to say that he was speaking about the situation with Petey. Tut had already told him that Ramses had gone for the ruse and they were in the clear. Still, he wasn’t sure how to take the fact that Ramses had called Tut’s number to handle it instead of him. “A’ight, I’ll make sure I get with Tut. Any word on Chucky?”
“We’re on top of that too. Within the next few days most scores should be settled.”
“Solid.” Omega nodded and ended the call. A broad smile crossed his face. Figuring out a way to distance himself from Petey’s murder had been giving him nothing but grief, but in a while he wouldn’t have to worry about it. A part of him felt bad for what was about to happen to old Chicken George. The old man had always been okay by Omega, and he never charged him for his chicken dinners. Still, technically George was a traitor and would be dealt with accordingly. Somebody had to take the fall and it was better George than Omega.
Omega was in the process of dismissing Stacy and Tiffany so he could go find King Tut and get the lowdown, when he spotted Sophie coming down the block with her friend Tasha. Sophie had a worried expression on her face.
“Sup, Sophie? Everything cool?” Omega greeted her.
“I don’t know, but I’m trying to find out. Have you seen Li’l Monk?” she asked.
“No, I spoke to him last night and he told me he was going over to your place,” Omega told her.
“He was supposed to, but he never made it. I’ve been calling him all night and all day, but I keep getting the voicemail.”
Omega frowned. “That ain’t like him at all. Maybe he got locked up.”
“You know I called all the precincts and hospitals I could think of before I dragged my ass all the way out here. I’m starting to get worried. Have you heard anything in the streets?”
Omega thought back to the newspaper article he’d read about the dead Italians and wondered if there was any connection. “Nah, I haven’t heard anything. I’m gonna have a few of the homies put their ears to the streets to be on the safe side, but I’m sure wherever he is, my nigga is good. Li’l Monk is a soldier.”
“Yeah, he’s a soldier, but he’s also my man and I’m worried sick,” Sophie shot back.
“So, you’re Li’l Monk’s girl?” Tiffany looked Sophie up and down.
Sophie returned the stink looks. “I’m sorry, do I know you from somewhere?”
“Nah, y’all don’t know each other. Shorty ain’t from around here,” Omega cut in. “As a matter of fact, the both of these young ladies were just leaving.”
“What? But we just got here!” Stacy protested.
“And now you’re just leaving.” Omega gave her a cold look.
Stacy knew better than to argue. “Okay.” She wisely got off the stoop. “Can you at least give us cab fare?”
Omega pulled some bills from his pocket and shoved them into Stacy’s outstretched hand. “Here.” He didn’t even bother to count them; he just wanted to be rid of the girls.
“You gonna come by later?” Stacy asked.
“I’ll call you,” Omega dismissed her.
Stacy frowned at the dismissal, but didn’t say anything for fear of scaring off her new meal ticket. “Okay. Let’s go, Tiff.”
“Yo, when you see ya peeps tell him to holla at me,” Tiffany said to Omega. Before leaving she gave Sophie one last dirty look before smiling and walking away.
“What the fuck was that all about, Omega?” Sophie asked once the girls had gone.
“Pay them chickenhead bitches no mind. Dig, you go back to the crib in case he calls or comes by. I’m gonna hit the streets and see if I can get a line on Li’l Monk.”
“Thank you.” Sophie hugged him. “I don’t know what I would do with myself if something happened to Li’l Monk.”
“Don’t you worry none. Ain’t nobody stupid enough to try Li’l Monk, but if by chance some fool does get it in his mind,” Omega said, tapping his waist where he kept his gun, “there’s gonna be a storm of fire and brimstone, and that’s my word!”
CHAPTER 27
Li’l Monk awoke with a gasp, like a drowning man who had just broken the surface of the ocean and was taking his first sips of life-giving air. A heavy fog was wrapped around his brain and it took a few seconds to orient himself. He was lying on a cot in a windowless room that smelled of musty, stale water. Li’l Monk propped himself up on his elbows and looked around. It took a minute for his eyes to adjust to the darkness giving him even minimal visibility.
The room wasn’t very big, slightly larger than a walk-in closet. There was a writing desk propped up against the wall, and an adjoining door leading to another room. Inside Li’l Monk could hear the sound of running water. He wasn’t alone. It was just then that Li’l Monk remembered the car chase and the Italians who meant to kill him.
Going into survival mode, Li’l Monk rolled off the cot and to his feet. He must’ve gotten up too fast because the room started spinning. He pitched forward onto one knee, using his hand to keep him from falling. As soon as his palm touched the ground, fire shot up through his hand and sent a numbing pain through his whole arm. The pain was so intense that Li’l Monk cried out.
Behind him a door swung open and the room was flooded with light, temporarily blinding him. Li’l Monk could feel someone behind him and he tried to get up, but was still very weak. A pair of strong hands grabbed him under his armpits and helped him back to the cot, where he collapsed on his back. Li’l Monk looked up and found the man who had introduced himself as Kunta standing over him.
“Easy, little brother. You’ve been through the wringer. Don’t overexert yourself too soon,” Kunta said in a soothing tone.
“What the fuck happened?” Li’l Monk rasped.
“Somebody decided that it was your time to die and I convinced them otherwise,” Kunta said.
“The Italians,” Li’l Monk said, remembering the face he’d seen under the mask.
“All white faces look the same to me so I cannot speak to their country of origin, but I can tell you where they now rest. I dispatched the men who sought to harm you, but more will come.”
“I know, which is why I gotta get outta here and back in the streets.” Li’l Monk sat up. “If niggas think they can make a play on my life and I ain’t gonna get back they’ve got another think coming.” He tried to stand and the dizziness returned.
“You’re barely well enough to walk, let alone mount a counterstrike,” Kunta told him. “Besides, going off on a killing spree in broad daylight is like throwing stones at the penitentiary.”
“Daylight? How long have I been unconscious?”
Kunta looked at the cheap wristwatch he wore. “Almost eleven hours.”
This surprised Li’l Monk. He felt like he had only been out for a few minutes. “Damn.”
“Those men did quite a number on you. Had I not shown up when I did you might not have awoken at all.”
“I guess it’s a good thing you came along when you did. How did you find me anyhow?” Li’l Monk asked.
“I’ve been following you,” Kunta admitted.
Li’l Monk frowned. “For what?” he asked.
“Let’s just say I had a feeling you would be needing my help, and I was right. You’ve run afoul of some very nasty people. Luckily the men they sent for you were amateurs, little more than thugs with pistols, but I fear the next men they send at you won’t be.”
“Let them come and they’ll get sent back in bags like the last ones,” Li’l Monk capped.
“I admire your bravery, little brother. You are a man who does not back down from a fight, and that’s admirable, but you have to know how to pick your battles. I’ve seen you in action, and I’ll admit you’re good, but not good enough to take on an entire mafia family on your own. You’ll need help and a plan.”
Li’l Monk wanted to argue his point, but he knew Kunta was right. With the blessings of Ramses the Parizzis had marked him for death, and the fact that several members of
their crime family had been shipped back to them in bags probably didn’t help make things any better. They would continue to hunt him until he was either dead or could find a way to clear his name. Neither could be accomplished in his current state. He needed to regroup and come up with a plan.
“Not to sound ungrateful of anything, but why do you even give a shit? I mean you hardly know me yet you’ve put your ass on the line to help me. Why?” Li’l Monk wanted to know.
Kunta weighed the question. “Because I owe it. Not to you personally, but to someone who cares very much about the well-being of you and your father.”
“Face,” Li’l Monk said remembering what Kunta had told him during their first meeting. “What exactly is your connection to my uncle?”
“I’m afraid that’s a complicated story,” Kunta said.
“Well, it’s like you said; I can’t make a move until nightfall so I’ve got time to listen.”
“Very well,” Kunta began. “I came to this country as a young boy of twelve. My parents had come to America several years prior to try to build a life for us better than the one we had in the Congo and sent for us when they were established. I was thrilled with the prospect of coming to America, which was supposed to be the land of dreams; but all I found were nightmares. My family and I had escaped the oppression of the soldiers who routinely raided our village only to find ourselves equally oppressed by the street gangs and drug dealers who preyed on the American ghettos. My father was an electrician in Africa, but in the United States he made his money as a street vendor. It was a less-than-modest living and we were barely able to keep up with our portion of the rent for the two-bedroom apartment we shared with my aunt and several of my cousins. I had a very rough time during my first years in America. I was skinny, poor, and didn’t speak much English, which made me an easy target for bullies. It seemed like I was in a fight every other day. I won a couple, but lost most of them. Still, I never backed down. Eventually word got around that the new African kid on the block had heart. It was my unwillingness to back down that landed me in prison.”
“What happened?” Li’l Monk wanted to know.
“As I said earlier, my father made his money as a street vendor. Sometimes he would let me work with him at his stand so I could learn the value of earning my way in the world. He mostly sold CDs and books, but from time to time he would come upon stuff that people had thrown away and fix them up for resale. Americans are so wasteful that they throw things away at signs of the slightest glitch and my father turned other people’s trash into his treasures.
“He’d restored and sold a laptop to one of the neighborhood dealers. The laptop worked fine when he left with it, but two days later he brought it back, broken, and claimed my father had tried to cheat him. My father was a great many things, but he was no cheat. The dealer demanded his money back for the broken laptop, and when my father refused the dealer his friends started beating him. My father warned me to stay out of the fight, but I couldn’t just stand by and watch. I grabbed the baseball bat my father kept behind his stand and started swinging. I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. I just wanted to get the men off my father, but I accidentally hit one of them in the head with the bat and put him in a coma,” he said sadly.
“You did what you had to do.”
“And this is what we tried to explain to the police to no avail. They didn’t see it as a young boy trying to defend his father; they saw it as one black man trying to kill another, which I’ve come to find is the norm in this country. I was arrested for attempted murder and sent to the city jail until my next court date. Being that I was sixteen at the time they were trying me as an adult. My family couldn’t afford to hire a lawyer so my life was placed in the hands of a public defender. They were offering me ten years on the attempted murder, but the public defender told me he could get them to reduce the attempted murder to a lesser charge if I signed a piece of paper outlining what I had done. I knew little to nothing about my legal rights so of course I jumped at the chance and signed the paper. What he failed to explain to me was that the lesser charge, assault with a deadly weapon, still carried prison time. Instead of going home to my family, as I thought I would be, I was put on a bus and sent upstate to begin serving the three-year sentence I was given. I thought the time I spent in the city jail was bad, but it was nothing compared to what I was forced to endure in the state prison. I was a baby being thrown into a cage with grown men and was forced to do some things that I am not proud of in order to survive.”
“Did your family ride the bid out with you?” Li’l Monk asked.
“In the beginning, yes. My mother and father visited me whenever they could and sent me clothes and commissary when they had the money to spare, which wasn’t often. A little over a year into my bid I found out that my father had been shot and killed on his way home from work one night. The police said it was a robbery gone wrong, but I had other suspicions. My mom held it down for as long as she could, but after a while it got to be too much and she moved back to Africa with the rest of the family. I was left alone in a strange country.”
“What’d you do?”
“What any other teenage boy who felt abandoned would’ve done; I raged. Until then my parents and wanting to get home to them were the only things that kept me sane while I was in prison. With my father dead and my mother gone I had nothing left to care about, so I became just what the prison system was designed to make us: a savage. I stopped being the prey and became a predator. I was fighting, stealing, and had even snuffed out a life or two. The way I was carrying myself it would’ve only been a matter of time before someone killed me or I ended up getting more time added to my sentence. I didn’t care though. I was just ready for it to be over one way or another. I was too far gone to care about life or anything else anymore and that’s when I met Face.
“Because of my age and the fact that I hadn’t finished high school while I was on the streets the prison made me take a GED course. Face was the teacher’s assistant. The chick who taught the course didn’t give too much of a shit how many of us passed or not, she was just there to collect a check, but Face was different. He seemed to take a genuine interest in the young men in the class and he was one of the few people who wanted us to succeed.”
Li’l Monk chuckled. “That’s Face all right, always wanting to save muthafuckas who don’t wanna be saved.”
“Indeed, Face is a good man. At first I thought he was just some kiss-ass inmate who was just trying to get some time knocked off for good behavior, but after asking around about him I found out Face was the genuine article. He had been a boss in the streets and was well respected in the prison. One night there was an incident where a dude tried to press me for my sneakers and I cut his face. I found out later that he was a gang leader and his homies had marked me for death. I was ready to go out fighting, but Face stepped in and squashed the beef for me. I didn’t ask him to, yet he had done it anyway, which meant that I was now indebted to him. I expected him to try to make me his bitch or some kind of flunky, but that wasn’t what Face had in mind for me. In return for saving my life he wanted me to get my GED.”
Li’l Monk looked surprised.
“I was baffled by this too, but I did as he asked. I spent every free moment I had with Face. He studied with me, we worked out together, and he even taught me how to box a little. Face became like my surrogate father and I learned a great deal from him. In the end, not only did I pass the GED test with one of the highest scores in the prison, but I also learned what it meant to truly be a man. Because the changes I had made within myself and the fact that I passed the GED test, the parole board looked favorably upon me and I made parole my first time up. I literally owe my life and my freedom to Face.”
“Man, that’s some heavy shit!” Li’l Monk said, digesting the story Kunta had just told him. “So, how does my father play into this? You said Face sent you to find him.”
“Yes, I have a message that I am to deliver to him from Face.”
“Why couldn’t he deliver whatever the message is over the phone or write a letter?” Li’l Monk wondered.
“I’m afraid prison has made him a somewhat paranoid man. He was worried about the message being intercepted. He was very specific about me delivering it to him in person.”
“So, what’s the message?” Li’l Monk asked.
“I’m afraid it’s for your father’s ears only. Face was very specific about that. Even I do not understand the meaning of the message, but he said that your father would,” Kunta told him.
“Then I guess we need to find dear old dad. Maybe whatever Face has to tell him can help me out with all this shit I’m in.”
“It’s a possibility, but we won’t know until your father makes heads or tails of the information. Before we begin tracking him down, I suggest we try to find a solution to the more immediate dilemma, which is the price on your head. Tell me, what could you have possibly done to put you in the crosshairs of the mob?” Kunta asked.
“I was dumb enough to try to help a friend in need,” Li’l Monk said and went on to tell him the short version of how he had tried to help Charlie and how he had double-crossed him by taking Chucky back to the house and the murder of Mr. D.
Kunta shook his head sadly. “Sounds like you need to make better choices in friends, little brother. Your kindnesses have placed you at a disadvantage, wedged between two very powerful enemies but with the resources to see you dead.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Li’l Monk said sarcastically. “I know how Pharaoh’s organization is run so that may give me an edge, maybe even a fighting chance. It’s the Parizzis I’m worried about. The Italians have got a reach that goes far beyond the streets. Getting them off my back ain’t gonna be so easy.”
“Then we must clear your name. Maybe we can force your friend Charlie to tell what he knows.”
“That’d be kind of hard to do now considering what’s left of his head is now decorating the upholstery of my car. I was on my way to make him come clean when the guineas rode down on me.”
