by Mark Anthony
Horse’s bitterness had cut me off yet again. “’Cause what? I don’t care if she was calling on some love shit or not! Tell that bitch I’ll fly down there and murder her ass!”
I paused and didn’t say anything.
Horse was also quiet.
“See, all of that shit you were just telling me about leaving the music business so that you could just chill with your son, that’s bullshit Horse, and you know it! You got too much of an ego to leave this business,” I boldly said.
Horse didn’t respond.
“Just hear me out though. The reason that I said she was calling on a love trip is because she told me to tell you to watch your back so that the same people who gave up G-Baby to her father wouldn’t do the same to you,” I relayed.
“What the fuck that bitch talking about?” Horse asked.
“Well she was saying something like it was some dudes who roll with you that gave G-Baby up. She told me to tell you not to trust the cats around you ’cause for the right price they would give you up too,” I added.
“She think I’m stupid! Ain’t nobody from my crew rolled over on G-Baby! Fuck outta here! She just tryin’ to cause a split between me and my niggas!” Horse emphatically stated.
“Well I don’t know,” I said.
There was a brief pause in the conversation.
“What are you doing later?” I asked, breaking the silence as I did not want to get into a back-and-forth debate with Horse. “There were some more things she was telling me. It’s on a totally different thing though,” I said. In my mind I was thinking about her pregnancy, which she had told me to keep to myself.
“We just gonna go to Chelsea Piers to bowl. And after that I’m going home and tomorrow I’m just chillin’ with my son,” Horse informed.
“Oh, I love bowling! What time are y’all getting there?” I asked.
“Around ten or ten thirty,” Horse responded.
“Okay, I’ll call Trina and see if she wants to come with me. And when I see you later I’ll tell you what else Angela was saying,” I stated as I prepared to hang up the phone.
I managed to kill some time for the rest of the day before getting dressed and picking up Trina to head to the bowling alley. As it turned out, that night of bowling would forever change the course of the investigation and in some respects, forever change the course of my career.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Me and Trina have to be on the same team!” I demanded. I hadn’t bowled in a long time, but bowling was one of my most favorite things to do.
“Jessica, what name you bowling under?” Trina asked as she set up our lane’s computer with all of our names.
“White Chocolate!” I shouted as Lloyd Banks’s song “On Fire” blasted in the background.
“We on fire up in here, it’s burning hot … we on fire!” Supreme recited along with the song.
Trina had entered my nickname into the computer, then she entered hers, Video Diva.
“Video Diva?” Horse asked with a smirk on his face.
“Yeah, that’s what’s up,” Trina stated as she looked for a bowling ball that comfortably fit her fingers. Trina had a body to die for and it seemed as if all of the guys in the bowling alley had their eyes on her. It was a Friday night so the bowling alley was pretty packed.
There were a total of ten of us. We were split into two teams of five. Trina and I were the only girls but it didn’t really matter because we knew that we could hold our own against the men.
Supreme and I were on opposing teams and we both were talking competitively against one another. We set it up so that he and I would be bowling last in the rotation of bowlers and would bowl right after each other. And since there were ten of us, we knew that we had some time to kill before our individual turns came up.
“Yo, anybody want any food or something from the bar?” Supreme asked. “Me and Jessica ’bout to walk over and get some food.”
As everybody put in their respective orders, I remember thinking to myself how I was not gonna even let myself have a drink. And I knew that ’Preme was gonna offer me something, either weed, E, or something. I had to stand my ground. The bowling alley had a lot of FBI agents floating around so I had to be totally alert and on point. There was no way that I wanted to get caught out there slipping.
As we walked toward the grill, Supreme began brushing up real close to me.
“Your body’s looking real good! You been hitting the StairMaster or something?” Supreme asked as he grabbed my butt.
“’Preme!” I said as I quickly pulled his hand away from my butt. “Look at all these people in here. You making me look like a whore or something.”
Supreme smiled and looked at me. I couldn’t tell if he was high or what the deal was. As the summer anthem, “Lean Back,” came on, everyone in the bowling alley started cheering like they were at a concert or something.
“I think I’m just gonna get some chicken fingers,” I stated, trying to take Supreme’s focus off my backside.
“Oh word?” he said. He was looking at me like he wanted to take me and do me right there in the middle of the bowling alley.
“’Preme, would you stop looking at me like that?” I said as I slapped him on his rock-hard chest. “You’re scaring me! Are you drunk?” I asked as I laughed.
Supreme didn’t respond to my question. He just told me to order what I wanted and that he had to run to the bathroom real quick.
It couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds from the time Supreme walked off until I heard screams coming from every direction. The screams were followed by rapid gunfire.
I quickly took cover behind the metal garbage can that was near the bar. In no time, there was absolute chaos in the bowling alley. There was no more gunfire but people were running every which way for their lives.
Since I no longer heard gunshots, my instincts told me to stand up and survey what was going on. Still, all I could see was chaos. I decided to run back to the lane in which we were in and I saw a huge crowd of people surrounding something or someone. My heart dropped as I wondered if Trina had gotten shot.
“Call an ambulance!” somebody kept frantically screaming.
“Horse got shot!” I heard someone else yelling. I still couldn’t see what was going on.
Then the cops came from every angle.
“NYPD! NYPD! We need everybody to back up! Please, people, we need some room here!” the police officers shouted. The majority of onlookers didn’t heed to the officers’ commands so the cops began forcefully pushing and shoving people out of the way.
Finally the space where I had been sitting only five minutes prior was now in my view. And what I saw was Horse laying on the floor writhing in pain as blood poured out of him. I know I was doing my job but I couldn’t help but feel for horse. My hand instantly covered my mouth after my jaw had dropped in both shock and disbelief.
I couldn’t believe that only Horse had been shot, but I was probably feeling the shock. I knew had I not walked off to get something to eat with Supreme, that I too might have taken a bullet.
I ran and grabbed Trina, who was hysterical. We embraced and she hugged on me so tight that I thought I was going to pass out.
“Jessie, oh my God! Oh my God! I can’t believe they just came and shot him like that. I was right there talking with him, Jessie!” Trina screamed as she trembled with fear. “Jessica, look at this!” Trina instructed through her fear.
She showed me a bowling ball that was shattered.
“Jessica, I had that in my hand when they started shooting,” she informed me. She told me she had dropped the bowling ball upon impact from the bullet.
Just then Supreme came running over. He could not believe what had happened. He disobeyed the orders from the police officers and ran right to Horse’s side.
“Horse, get up! Sit up, man! You gonna be a’ight” Supreme stated as he attempted to help Horse sit up.
The cops commanded Supreme to let go of Hors
e and they told him that if he didn’t step away immediately that he would be arrested.
“’Preme, I can’t feel my legs! Ah shit! Ahh!” Horse screamed in pain. His entire midsection was soaked in blood.
“Yo, make sure my son is a’ight! Don’t tell him what happened to me but make sure he’s a’ight. We was supposed to chill together tomorrow,” Horse said. The paramedics had finally arrived and quickly began working on his wounds.
Trina and I continued to embrace one another as the cops began roping off the inside of Chelsea Piers with yellow crime-scene tape. Horse was in pain and he looked very scared. He had that look that I had seen all too often on a man’s face when he is staring death in the face.
“Ahh!” Horse screamed. I wasn’t sure, but to me it looked as if I saw a tear run down the right side of Horse’s face as he yelled out in pain. He asked the paramedic why he couldn’t feel his legs.
“Just relax. Try to relax,” the paramedic said. “We have to get you to the hospital! That’s our main concern right now.”
The paramedics worked on Horse for about ten minutes before lifting him onto a stretcher and quickly whisking him away to St. Vincent’s Medical Center.
As Trina and I still held onto each other, I could feel her body trembling with fear. I have to be honest and say that at that point I could have cared less about the investigation. I mean, I knew that whether Horse lived or died we would certainly have to wrap up the investigation ASAP. But the human part of me couldn’t help but think about Horse’s son. I wondered if Horse had really been serious about wanting to just leave the industry and go off to some faraway place with his son and watch him grow up.
I don’t know if he was for real about that. But I do know that he was facing his biggest enemy and possibly his last enemy, he was staring that enemy right in the face. That enemy went by the name of death. Only God held that victory over death, and we all prayed like hell that God would be with Horse on that night.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Clapped!”
That was the headline on the front page of the New York Daily News on the day that followed Horse being shot. The subtitle to that headline read: “Gun Clap Records CEO Gets Clapped in Chelsea Piers Bowling Alley.”
“Horse Maimed”
That was the headline on the front page of the New York Post.
“Hip-Hop Hotshot Is Shot”
Read the front page of New York Newsday.
“Horse Is Hobbled”
Read the front page of The New York Times.
* * *
The news about Horse being shot had made the front page of just about every newspaper in the country. Fortunately for Horse he was still breathing, but the night at Chelsea Piers bowling alley had left him crippled.
At the numerous press conferences that were held with the medical staff at St. Vincent’s Hospital, the doctors explained how one of the bullets that had entered Horse’s body had pierced his spinal cord and that there was little that the doctors would be able to do to bring the feeling back to Horse’s legs. Barring a miracle from the man upstairs, Horse would be confined to a wheelchair for the remainder of his natural life.
* * *
In the days following the assassination attempt on Horse, Angela had arrived in New York and she began living with me as we had arranged. I don’t know what it was but there was just something so surreal about her actually being in my presence on a twenty-four-hour-a-day basis. I say it was surreal because although it was me who had suggested Angela come and live with me, I did not genuinely trust Angela, and I was starting to second-guess my decision to let her live with me.
Thoughts kept creeping into the back of my mind that would tell me that Angela knew that I was a federal agent and she was just setting me up to have me taken out. The first night that she arrived at my place, I was actually tossing and turning all night long in my sleep. I remember thinking back to how I had been given up by another agent when this investigation had first begun and how that had almost cost me my life.
What if another agent gave me up to the Calvinos? I constantly began thinking to myself as I lay in my queen-size water bed, while Angela slept on a futon that I had in the guest room down the hall.
I was becoming more and more paranoid and I knew that if I had to start second-guessing myself and looking over my shoulder that it was definitely time to come out of my undercover role and put an end to the White Chocolate investigation.
From the minute that Angela had stepped off the plane, she began asking me about the fifty grand that I had promised her. While I knew that I would be able to get the money from my superiors, I didn’t just want to waste government money if I didn’t have to.
I gave Angela $2000 and kept promising her that I would have the entire $50,000 for her within a few days. My thinking was that if she and her family had made me out to be a fed, then they would more than likely keep me alive until I produced the $50,000. So I had to just keep dangling the idea that the $50,000 was soon coming in order to stay alive and to buy time so that the FBI / NYPD joint task force could properly make the arrests and close out the investigation with a bang.
The morning after tossing and turning in my bed all night long, I woke up to the smell of food coming from the kitchen. Surprisingly, Angela had woke up early and took it upon herself to make breakfast for the two of us.
“Angie, I didn’t know you could cook,” I said as I made my way to the kitchen in my white terry-cloth robe.
“Of course I can cook. I’m Italian, ain’t I?” Angela replied with a smile. She looked like she had been up for a while. She looked showered and she had gotten dressed and it was only a little past 8 A.M.
“Well I’m black, and I can’t even boil a pot of water,” I said as the two of us began laughing.
“You look like you’ve been up and about for a few hours. What are you doing up so goddamn early?” I asked.
As Angela put sausages and eggs on my plate and poured us both some orange juice, she replied, “To be honest, Jessica, I can’t sleep. I just don’t feel good about a lot of things. I’m thinking about this baby that I’m carrying. I’m thinking about Horse being paralyzed. I’m thinking about my father disowning me. And Jessica, I know it’s not going to stop.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“This whole war shit! My father is going to keep on and keep on until he kills Horse and everyone on that side. I grew up with this, Jessica. And it was always like one of those things where you knew what was going on, in terms of the killings and the illegal money and all of that, but no one ever spoke about it,” she explained. And I was happier than a pig in shit because I had my tape recorder in the pocket of my robe and it was recording every word that Angela said.
I took a fork full of eggs and put it into my mouth and acted as if I was surprised by what Angela had said. “No way! Angela, do you think that your father is the one that had Horse shot last night?”
“Jessica, I don’t think so. I know so. And that is what is eating me up because in a lot of respects my father is like some spoiled-brat-fucking-bully! It’s like enough already! He and my brothers are all the same way. But I can bet you that even though Horse can’t walk, they will still keep coming after him. And God forbid if my father finds out that I’m pregnant and that Horse is the father. Myyy God!” Angela said in exasperation.
I didn’t respond. I just kept on eating my food.
“So can you get the money for me today?” Angela asked.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you, it’ll be a few more days before I can pull all of that money out of the account because—”
Angela cut me off. “Why? I mean it is your money, right? The bank can’t tell you what to do with your own money.”
“No, it’s definitely my money but it’s tied up in some projects that I got going on and I’m just waiting for some checks to clear. But I got another two thousand for you. I’ll give you that today and that should hold you for a few days and by that time
the money should be clear,” I explained.
Angela didn’t say anything.
I finished my food and told Angela that I had to go take a shower and asked her if she wanted to come with me to the office later that morning. She agreed and told me that she was gonna clear the table and do the dishes and wait for me to get ready.
“Angela, you are really shocking me! I didn’t know that you were this domesticated,” I joked.
“Fuck you, Jessica,” Angela jokingly said.
I quickly made my way to my room, picked out something to wear. I disrobed and went to the bathroom to shower. As I lathered up my body I knew that I would have to come up with an excuse for Angela so that I would be able to get away from her for a few hours. Andrew, the rest of the bigwigs at the FBI, and I needed to coordinate the simultaneous arrests of Angela, Horse, Supreme, Paulie Calvino Sr. and Jr. and a whole host of their associates.
I couldn’t think of a good enough excuse so I didn’t press myself. I knew that I would find an out somewhere along the path of the day.
After getting out of the shower and drying off, I brushed my teeth, lotioned my body, and wrapped a towel around myself. As I opened the bathroom door I was somewhat surprised by Angela’s presence. She was standing in the hallway and appeared to have been coming out of my bedroom.
“Oh man! Angela, you scared the living shit out of me!” I said, jumping from being startled by her presence.
She didn’t respond to me. She just looked at me in a piercing way as if her eyes were looking right through me.
I didn’t know exactly what to make of her look, but I wanted to break the uncomfortable tension that seemed to have popped up from out of nowhere.
“Angela, I don’t know how you’ll feel about this, but I was just thinking when I was in the shower how I should go see Horse while he’s in the hospital. I just—”
Angela cut me off. All of her warm domestic skills that she had been displaying, seemed as if they had vanished in the wind and the old Angela had returned.
“Yeah, I bet you wanna go see Horse so that you can bring your little fucking tape recorder and tape him the same way you were fucking taping me!” Angela barked.
