by T. Styles
“Please don’t,” the old man yelled upon seeing the barrel trained on his loyal companion. “That’s my dog and he’s been in my family for years.”
Tommy tucked his weapon back in his jeans. “Well, you almost lost that mothafucka too.”
Martin walked inside of the funeral home and Tommy followed behind him. Tommy had lost so many people in his life that St. Francis Funeral Parlor was starting to feel like his second home. Although it was the first time Tommy went to the East Baltimore location, he had been to their other funeral homes in Washington DC.
Martin walked toward a small room and opened the door. “Your mother is in here,” he pointed. “She’s beautiful too. We did a good job on her and I hope you’re pleased.”
Tommy was already choked up. Again, he wished his brother could be there. He took three breaths and said, “Leave me alone with her. I need at least a few minutes.”
Mr. Martin nodded and walked out, closing the door behind him. Tommy took a deep breath and strode toward the closed pearl casket with the silver trimming. He might have been a criminal but he loved his mother and didn’t spare any expense.
When he was ready, he opened the casket, preparing to see his mother. Instead he was staring down the barrel of Lourdes’s revolver.
Tommy was about to take his chances and attempt to overpower the dangerous but beautiful female, but there was something in her eyes that told him she was defected so he had to be careful.
“You not crazy, nigga,” Lourdes grinned. “I already got one in the chamber waiting for you.” With her gun still trained in Tommy’s direction, Lourdes relieved Tommy of the weapon in his waist. “Unless you want to be with your mother sooner than later. It’s your choice.”
Tommy wanted to yank her and put her in her place but he could tell she meant business. She wasn’t like the other women he’d slapped around in his lifetime. Lourdes moved as if she didn’t have anything to lose.
“Where the fuck is my mother?” he asked while breathing heavily.
“She’s in another casket. In the other room.”
“So Martin was in on this shit?”
“It’s amazing what somebody will do for a few bucks, or to save their own life.” She paused. “Now turn the fuck around. We going out the back door.”
“And if I don’t?” he asked taking one step closer.
Lourdes tugged the trigger and a bullet went flying by his ear and into the wall behind him. He froze. “The next one will not miss.”
Annoyed, Tommy turned around and left out of the room, as she demanded. He was hopeful that his driver Mathew was prepared to use the gun under his seat like he taught him.
CHAPTER TWENTY
PREACHER
I watched from the truck as Lourdes marched Tommy Outlaw out of the funeral home at gunpoint, shoving him while he complained. I could tell he wanted to buck and he moved too slowly for my liking. But he was moving and Lourdes was handling her business, or so I thought.
“Get your ass moving, nigga,” she spat directing him to get inside the Cadillac SUV that we still drove as if it was ours.
As she walked toward the car with her gun trained on him, she tripped on a rock. Outlaw spun around with his palms raised; he wanted to try her. My instincts were telling me to get out the vehicle then, and I should have, but I was determined to let her do her thing. She got things under control when she regained her balance and placed the barrel on the tip of his nose.
“Ma, chill! You ain’t even told me what this is about,” Tommy said as his eyes scanned all around in desperation. He tried to play calm but a sheen of perspiration gleamed on his forehead in the morning cold.
“I’m not going to tell you again,” she said. “Keep walking, nigga.” Lourdes’ voice was as cold as steel.
The plan was simple: abduct Tommy Outlaw since Steve had my daughter and baby mama held for a ransom.
Outlaw would be my bargaining chip, like a bridge to connect me to his brother. Or maybe even better, he could tell me where they were holding Shamika and Tanya. I didn’t want Outlaw to see my face because at the end of the day my lawyer was still working intensely to get me cleared of any pending charges after what happened at the RCP home.
I had spoken with him that day and the police had reviewed the tapes from the house shooting. I had indeed acted in self-defense. The only problem was Lourdes was wanted for questioning about the RCP shooting. Weinstein couldn’t do anything about that because she wasn’t his client. So I needed to think of a plan to protect her and me and I was working on something.
“Damn, shawty, you still ain’t told me what’s going on?” He continued to complain. His voice was high pitched and he looked terrified.
As I watched through the dark tinted window with a ski mask on, I could tell he was really stalling for time, all real hustlers that have even an ounce of street game know it’s better to get shot trying to escape than it is to get abducted. Once you’re abducted, it’s a wrap. You’re at the mercy of your abductor and B-More abductors show no mercy. It was the unwritten rule of my city. Except that day I had no intention of killing Tommy.
“Nigga I’m not going to tell you no more to keep walking.” Lourdes’ face was flushed red with pain. Her ankle must hurt like hell. She glanced down and Tommy leaned in and reached for the gun.
Too late.
Blocka! Blocka!
Lourdes shot him. The sound echoed, and the unexpected gun blast made me flinch as I came up with my own banger looking out the window.
Tommy clutched his chest as blood sprayed through his fingers. His eyes opened wide with fear as he looked down at his wound. “Bitch! Fuck! Shit! You fucking shot me,” Tommy yelled with a grimace.
Blocka! Blocka!
She shot him again with her pink lips twisted up into a menacing sneer.
Tommy staggered backward toward the vehicle and I swung open the door.
“What the fuck is you doing’?” I shouted at Lourdes.
Tommy dove in the vehicle to escape her wrath. Lourdes had shot him four times. She had most definitely got her point across to Tommy. She meant business but I was furious!
Lourdes ignored my anger. She took off her shoe and peered over my shoulder at Tommy, as he lay helpless on his back. Already a puddle of blood had started to form, ruining the beige leather seats and carpeting.
I grabbed Lourdes by her shoulders and shook her.
“What did you do? Get in the car in the car and drive!”
We needed to get out of there. Just as I started to hop in the back seat next to Tommy, I saw a little old lady jotting down our license plate number on a piece of paper. It would be to no avail. We just needed to ditch the vehicle a lot sooner than planned.
In the driver’s seat, Lourdes sped down Anderson Avenue. I yelled from the backseat as Tommy moaned in pain, “Slow the fuck down! You going too fast! And why the fuck did you shoot him so many times?”
Lourdes looked at me in the rearview mirror like she was irritated. “You saw what he did, Preacher. He tried me and I reacted. What you want me to do?”
“You shot him too many times, Lourdes! He’s no good to me dead!”
“Man, y’all gonna let me die? Take me to a hospital,” Tommy wailed as Lourdes hit a bump. Tommy almost fell off the seat.
Lourdes was still hauling ass like she had lost her fucking mind. “Bitch, slow this mothafucking car down,” I yelled from the back seat as I snatched the ski mask off.
She suddenly stopped the car in the middle of the highway. “After the week I just had, I dare you to call me bitch again,” she yelled pointing at me.
I was about to respond but she started back driving and Tommy said, “Jamal Shield? Is that you?” Tommy croaked as he looked up at me.
“Now he saw my face. This shit is all your fault.”
Out of pure malice, Lourdes gritted her teeth and skidded sideways into oncoming traffic. An eighteen-wheeler was headed straight for us. I heard someone scream. It was me as my face
smashed into the headrest. Lourdes swerved out the way and into the side of a Shell Gas Station parking lot. In the distance, a police siren blared. People standing in front of the gas station looked at us.
Lourdes parked and looked back at me, “I’m not the one who took off the mask. You did!”
“Shoot that bitch in the head. She gonna kill both of us,” Tommy grimaced with his blood stained mouth as he craned his neck to look up at me. He had slammed into the back seat too. His body was on the floor with his legs on the seat, and he held his chest.
I hopped out the vehicle with all eyes on me and pretended like it was a mere traffic accident.
I pulled open the car door. “Scoot over; I’m driving. Keep an eye on dude.”
I didn’t have a clue what was going on with Lourdes, but I made my mind up that I was getting rid of her crazy ass.
She scooted across to the passenger side and I pulled back into traffic. “I don’t know why you’re sitting over there looking all crazy. You didn’t even say thank you, Preacher. Had it not been for me, he wouldn’t be in the car.”
I didn’t respond as a police cruiser sped toward us with its lights flashing and siren blaring.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LOURDES
I sat in the passenger seat playing with the sticky red substance between my index finger and thumb. It took me a moment to realize what it was—blood from the gunshot victim behind me.
I looked to my left at the man I had given my heart to ever since I came to this God forsaken town. Visually he was perfect. But I realized that although I loved him, I hated him more. How could I not? He exposed me to more pain than I ever wanted in this lifetime. The violence. The death. The carnage. None of these events were a part of my world before. Yes, I was a whore but my conscience was clear. Now things were different. I wasn’t a gangster and I never would be.
Through it all, the thing I hated him most for was the fact that he killed my daughter. I knew it was an accident but it didn’t give me any relief. How could he confuse a child with a woman, simply because she was tall?
“I don’t know what’s on your mind but you’d better get it off,” Preacher said to me. “Because I’m sick of your fucking attitude.”
“Even if I told you what was going on with me you wouldn’t understand.” I looked out at the road ahead of us. “You wouldn’t care either.”
For a second I zoned out and looked at my environment. The multiple row homes with boarded up windows we passed made me feel sad for the city. Was this really Baltimore? A city that resembled the site of some modern day holocaust? The moment I considered the despair, Preacher drove by a string of luxury homes on the next block. The next block! How could the poor and the rich co-exist? I guess they would have to figure it out.
“Why are you a murderer?” I asked Preacher.
“Fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Just what I said. How can you kill people like you’re plucking leaves off of a tree? Don’t you feel any remorse?” I sighed. “On second thought, I’m sure you don’t. People like you are incapable of emotions and pain.”
“What the fuck are you talking about now? You don’t know shit about me! You don’t know what I dream about when I lay my head down at night so don’t speak on it.”
“If you did feel any kind of emotion then you wouldn’t murder over and over again. I think you love this shit.”
He laughed. “I know you’re not coming at me like this when you just shot old boy in the back seat.”
“First of all, he ain’t dead. But I’ve watched you drop two bodies a day on average since we’ve been together.”
“Do you realize what the fuck is going on?” he yelled at me. “Are you that fucking clueless? My daughter’s been kidnapped and I will do whatever I have to, to get her back, including murder.”
Warm tears welled under my eyes. When the drops fell on my cheeks they were mixed with Tommy’s blood. I must have been covered in it.
“Why you crying?” he asked in a frustrated tone.
At that moment I thought about my daughter. I thought about how I failed her. Here I was a drug addict who couldn’t get clean for my daughter’s love if she begged me to. But a few weeks around a man I didn’t know and I hadn’t touched the stuff. Maybe the adrenaline that pumped through my body on a daily basis since I’d been around him was why I didn’t crave the high. No matter what the reason, I failed her and now she was gone.
“I had a daughter too, you know,” I reminded him as if he hadn’t just killed her. “But you took her from me!”
The anger washed away from his face and was replaced with sadness. “Baby, I can’t tell you enough how sorry I am.” His stare alternated between the road and me. “I know you can’t hear me right now. I know you can’t believe me either and I won’t ask you to. But I haven’t forgotten about what I did to that little girl. I’m talking about every second, I’m thinking about the look on your child’s face. I guess that’s why I’m trying to do right by you.”
“If that were true, how could you be so cold to her mother? How could you be so hateful toward me right now? Since we’ve been in this car you have called me bitch at least three times.”
He didn’t answer me right away. Instead he continued up the street. The speed limit said forty miles per hour but when I glanced at the odometer he was driving twenty-five. Didn’t he remember that we were driving in a car filled with blood? With a wounded man in the backseat?
“I didn’t think you cared as much about her,” Preacher said to me. “And you shot Tommy and I reacted. I didn’t want him dead because he has to take me to my kid. I’m sorry.”
“What do you mean you thought I didn’t care about my daughter?” I asked with raised brows.
“Let me take that back. I know you care about her. I really do. But I took for granted that since she wasn’t with you, she wasn’t on your mind. I know that was wrong.”
I placed my hand over my heart. My body was vibrating like a speaker on blast. “Is that what you think of me? Is that the kind of person I’ve painted to you? That I don’t care? Don’t you see everything that I’ve gone through? I wouldn’t have met you if I wasn’t trying to get my daughter some help the only way I knew possible, testifying.”
We didn’t speak anymore. He pulled up in front of a row house and parked. I gazed up at the redbrick building. The houses on the left and right of the brick home were boarded up and unkempt. But the home in the middle Preacher pointed to was picture perfect. Flowers dressed the little lawn in the front of the property and the windows were draped with thick, red velvet curtains that I could see from the outside. It looked as if someone plucked the home out of a suburban area and placed it in the middle of the run down hood.
“Get up, nigga,” Preacher said to our victim in the backseat ignoring my statement but I was okay with it. I didn’t feel like talking anymore. “Is this the house where my daughter is?”
Tommy raised his head a little, moaned and said, “Yeah, that’s it.” He lay back down.
“Then let’s go,” Preacher said. Before leaving, he finally peered at me. “I don’t know what’s going on between us but I do know this. Something about us is right, Lourdes. I’m sorry for what I did to your daughter and I’m even sorrier for not considering your feelings. Just give me some time to think things through. That’s all I’m asking. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said softly.
“I love you, Lourdes,” he said sincerely. “I don’t know why, but I do.”
I didn’t respond.
He reached over and hugged me. When we separated, he ruffled my hair and smiled. He got out of the car and walked over to the back to pull Tommy out. Tommy was bent over as they both walked up the steps leading to the house.
Preacher knocked on the door real hard and when someone opened it, he pulled out his gun and pushed Tommy inside. Tommy dropped to the floor and Preacher’s gun remained aimed on the person who opened the door. He pushed his way inside and t
he door closed.
“I love you too but I can’t be with you anymore.” I opened the car door and pulled myself out. I closed the door behind me and began the journey to nowhere…without Preacher.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
PREACHER
I exited the car with my mind on murder as Tommy walked in front of me with a pathetic limp. His entire body was saturated with blood. The smell of death reeked from his pores, like a dude who didn’t have long on this earth. I personally intended to place him under the dirt since he had seen my face.
I walked with my .9mm in his back as he continued to beg and plead for his life. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. Baltimore felt like death waiting. I looked at Tommy and he had a painful grimace on his face. As he breathed, I could tell one of his lungs had been punctured when Lourdes shot him because he made this awful wheezing sound as blood spilled from both his mouth and nose. There was a trail of it behind us like he had been dipped in red paint.
Just as I knocked on the door, I happened to glance at the window of the dilapidated house next door and saw the silhouette of a woman standing there. There was also a huge, vicious-looking German Shepherd dog barking at her side. At the time, I didn’t know she was calling the police.
Suddenly the front door opened. There stood Tanya, my baby mama. The bitch’s eyes got big as Cadillac hubcaps at seeing me with her boyfriend’s brother all haggard and leaking blood. Her jaw dropped wide open. Her mouth moved but no words came out, like she was in shock. I could tell she thought about slamming the door in my face but then her eyes made their way down to the gat in my hand. I shoved Tommy inside and he bumped into her.
“Where is Steve at?” I asked in a hushed tone as I looked around the sparsely decorated home. The aroma of food filled the air, like she had been cooking bacon when I interrupted her.
