Hustle & Heartache

by D. Gamblez

  “I got you, fam,” I answered.

  “I’m serious, my nigga,” he reiterated. “Nobody else.”

  “It’s official,” I assured him. “Only me.”

  “A’ight, little nigga. Let’s get this paper. I just got one question, though.”

  “What up?” I was on alert.

  “You gonna eat Audi’s booty, ain’t you?” he laughed.

  “What up with you and Elijah with this booty-eating shit, dawg? Hell naw, I ain’t eating nobody’s booty.”

  “Yeah, you gonna eat her booty. Probably already did.”

  “Peace, my nigga,” I said, placing the car phone back in its cradle, then I turned on some music and enjoyed the remainder of the champagne.

  That’s another thing, I thought to myself as I the limousine turned onto Clay Street. It’s time for me to get my own crib.

  Naomi

  The next day, when I got to work, I found a large yellow manila envelope sitting underneath one of the wipers of my covert car. It was unaddressed. At first I thought someone was playing a prank on me. Do not think me naïve; it has happened plenty times before. Guys in my unit liked to play pranks on each other, and I have been on the receiving end of them on more than one occasion. Thinking it was another prank, I just let it sit there for about an hour until I reasoned that it might actually be something of importance. After going back out to the lot on my lunch break to retrieve it, I realized that I was way off the mark.

  Not only were the contents inside the envelope of dire importance, it was a possible key in the Death Dealers case.

  The unaddressed envelope that had been left for me contained a small tape, not unlike the ones used in camcorders...and similar to the one I saw Foster place in his jacket pocket. The tape was labeled DEATH DEALERS−PART 3. When I asked my team if they had seen who had left the envelope on my covert car, no one could remember anyone going near the area where I usually parked, which meant whoever left it there had done so late the night before. And I took that as a hint that whoever had done it wanted to remain anonymous.

  After inspecting the tape further, I noticed that it had been damaged, so I called in my best tech guy and held it out to him.

  “This remains between us for now. Got it?” I instructed him with the same tone of seriousness I used with my daughter when I wanted her to know that I was not playing. “Seems to be busted, so I didn’t try to play it out of fear it may damage the contents of what’s on it. Listen, Ty, I wanna know what’s on this tape as soon as possible.”

  “Sure thing, boss,” he said. My audio and video technician, Tyler White was a scrawny, 23-year-old pimply-faced kid who read comic books and ate Cap n’ Crunch cereal every morning that he brought to work with him inside his Transformers backpack, which I now realize that I have never seen anywhere else but slung over his shoulders. Even now he had it on.

  I let my hand linger on the tape a little longer than necessary to emphasize my seriousness. When Tyler noticed my resistance, he turned back to me with raised brow. “Don’t bullshit around, Ty,” I said. “This is priority one.”

  “I got it, boss,” he assured me, nodding for emphasis as he spoke to ensure me he understood.

  I closed the door to my office and sat back down behind my mahogany-wood desk. I leaned back in my black leather chair and stared up at the ceiling fan, its brown-colored wooden blades slicing through dust particles and causing them to dance in the early morning sunlight coming through the window to the right of me.

  I closed my eyes and focused on the Death Dealers case, letting my investigative mind reexamine every detail associated with the case so far. Something was nagging at me about last night, about this latest Death Dealers hit, but I could not put my finger on it.

  “Who the hell are these guys?” I sighed to myself, caressing my forehead to stave off the stress headache I felt coming on. “These guys can’t be thugs or bangers; they’re just way too damn careful. They don’t leave prints, DNA, or anything linking them to these crimes other than what they want us to find. Nobody’s that careful but serial killers, rapists, or cops. And since there’s not many rapes or serial killings going on in G.I., I’d say dirty cops are looking to be the most prominent answer.”

  At that last statement I sat up abruptly, my eyes wide. Everything now made so much sense. Oh, my God! Holy fucking shit!

  I now knew why–okay, suspected why we could not figure out who the Death Dealers were. They were cops! Freaking cops! I mean, they had to be, right? Think about it; why were these guys who were known only as the Death Dealers targeting former drug dealers, regardless of their status or gang affiliation? Why did the Death Dealers only take money, but never any drugs whenever they hit? And why was I the only one targeted out of everyone else working this case?

  “Because I was getting to close to figuring it out, that’s why,” I said to myself. “But what was the reason for them murdering that little girl? Dirty cop or not, you don’t kill kids unless you feel you have no choice or you have some sick-ass issues you’re dealing with. Like being a child predator or something of that nature. Yeah, maybe it’s not cops. Shit! Now I’m back to where I started, which was nowhere to begin with. Damn, Naomi, why do you always have to second guess yourself?”

  The headache now pounding at my skull like a jackhammer, I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. When I opened my eyes again a half hour later, I still had not figured out what was bothering me about the latest crime scene and I still had a headache pounding into my skull. I believed—no, I knew—it had something to do with what Foster had said to me last night. I knew this because every time I thought of the crime scene, I thought of him. I just had to figure out why that was. Hopefully, it would come to me sooner rather than later as my life may literally depend on it.

  When Tyler, my tech guy, returned to my office, his expression was one of neutrality. “Here ya go, Sarge,” he said as he laid his laptop down on my desk.”You may have to turn the volume all the way up to hear it when you listen to it.”

  “And the video?” I asked hopefully.

  “Oh, yeah, sorry, boss. There wasn’t any video. Never was. It’s a cassette tape for an audio recorder. You know, like the ones used in the recorders you guys use when taking statements. But the audio’s all good, though. The voices are a little muffled, and these guys seem to be using some kind of voice modulators, I think, so I recommend you use the noise-cancelling headphones.”

  “Thanks, Ty. Close the door behind you,” I instructed him after he had finished setting everything up for me.

  I grabbed my noise-cancelling headphones from one of the six drawers on my desk, positioned them atop my head and plugged them in. I turned up the volume to max, but my hand hovered above the Enter key that would play the recording because I got a strange feeling that someone was watching me. I glanced up at my office door to see my secretary waving to me through the rectangular window.

  “What’s up, Maxine?” I yelled.

  She pointed to a pot of coffee she held in her hand−her usual way of asking whether or not I wanted a cup. I waved her off−my usual way of declining her offer when I was too busy. She shrugged and walked away. Then I took a deep breath and played the tape.

  * * *

  “Oh shit, these niggas got guns, fam!”

  “Please, man. We ain’t even on that shit no more, dawg. I swear to God, man. On my mama, yo.”

  “Didn’t I tell yo’ punk-ass I didn’t want you in my city no more? I gave you ma’fuckas a way out, but you niggas wanna stay and defy me, right? So here’s the fuck what comes next, ma’fuckas!”

  “Come on, dawg. I got my little sister here, man.”

  “Little sister? Is this motherfucker seriously sitting here playing the family card right now? You don’t be thinking about family when you slanging that shit to my people, do you? Huh, dawg? What about them? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Man, fuck you and your family, nigga!”

  * * *

  The sound of three
loud gunshots going of unexpectedly in my ear made me jump. I stopped the tape because my heart was racing to fast to continue listening. They murdered him in cold blood, I thought to myself as I waited for my heart pace to slow back down. A minute later I pressed play again.

  * * *

  “Three motherfuckers up, three motherfuckers down. That’s how it’s done, son!”

  “Oh, shit, I think I’ve been hit. Damn, this shit hurts like a motherfucker! That fucking asshole got off a shot somehow!”

  “No, don’t take off your mask, you fucking idiot! Great, now we gotta pop the kid ‘cause she seen your ugly-ass mug.”

  “What? Hell no, man. No fucking way. No, I didn’t sign up for that kind of shit!”

  “Something confusing to you about all this? Huh? Kid saw his face, so either he goes or the kid goes.”

  “Fuck it! He fucked up, so his ass has to go, because I’m not killing no little fucking kid.”

  “”“”“””“”“”“”“”

  “He’s banged up pretty bad here, man. I mean, he’s not really bleeding all that much yet. Still, I think he may be bleeding on the inside or some shit, though. Can’t really tell with all this bullshit he got on. Think we should take him to the hospital?”

  “Ah, fuck it. Take him back to the van and get him to the Doctor. If the Doctor can’t fix him up, then you take him to the hospital. And come up with some story of how this fucking idiot got shot in case you have to explain what happened to him when and if you gotta take him to the hospital. Somebody tried to take his wallet or jack his ride or some shit like that. Now, because this idiot decided to get shot, we have to find a replacement for him. Or we go at it four-strong from here on out. What do you guys think? Anybody got a problem with just four?”

  “No problem here, bro.”

  “Shit, that’s cool with me.”

  “Less people means less confusion, I say.”

  “Yeah, plus our pockets will be that much fatter. And I definitely ain’t got a problem with that.”

  “Good. You two get this idiot outta here before he bleeds all over the fucking floor. The rest of you, get over here. Go load up the van, then go upstairs and remove the tag. Got it?”

  “You got it.”

  “I’ll take care of the girl. As usual, I gotta do all the dirty work.”

  * * *

  I sat there for a long while replaying the tape over and over again until I had every sound and voice on it memorized, even though they all sounded exactly the same from voice distortion devices. Each time I listened to it, my heart pace quickened a little. Every time the Death Dealers hit a house, they would leave a message−a tag−laying claim to the crime so that the police would have no doubt as to whom the culprits were. Only once out of the four times that they had struck had they neglected to leave a tag at the scene. That had been the third time that they had struck, and it had always bothered me...until now.

  I looked up and noticed my six-man team of homicide detectives standing in the doorway of my office.

  First I would like to introduce you to the 27-year-old Victoria Secret model-looking Detective Vida Martí, a 5’7”,short-haired Cuban woman, who was of medium build with beautiful medium-brown skin, and who had the punching power of a wrecking ball from her short stint as a martial arts fighter.

  She had a unique and distinct tattoo of a black mamba that started at her left calf, wrapped itself around her thigh, then slithered its way up to her side, wrapped around her abs, then slithered the rest of the way up the right-side of her back, then, finally, resting over the top of her left shoulder, it’s head hovering two inches from her breast with its fangs bared. Vida was also a lesbian, but no one in the department ever complained about her hitting on them. Either she didn’t out of respect, or she did but no one dared say anything about it out of fear she would kick their ass.

  I know she hit on me a time or two, so I suspect the latter.

  Next, we had32-year-old Detective Jordan Jackson—whom everyone simply referred to as “JJ”—a 6’1”,barrel-chested,dark-skinned guy with a nose for bullshit and a perfect fade that looked as though he spent hours every morning tapering it before heading out.

  He had married his college girlfriend at the age of 23, divorced her at the age of 24 after he had realized his days of partying and sex with random women were over, then he had remarried her a year later after he had realized his days of partying were over because he had been miserable without her since the divorce.

  They now had two kids together—a boy and a girl—who he’d do anything for. And I’d be the first to admit, I was a little jealous of their happy marriage, me being left to raise a kid on my own and all.

  Then there was Detective Miracle Hoskins, a 5’7” 29-year-old woman from Massachusetts whose parents moved to Chicago when she was 10 years old, then to Indiana a couple years later. Her Boston accent came out whenever she said more than a few words.

  She had long honey-blond hair that flowed down her back in waves. She had the best toned and most well-defined ass I had ever been privileged to lay eyes on. Whenever we’d go out in public, whether it was pertaining to a case or us just hanging out, guys would take one look at her and start fawning all over her. But since she was already involved with someone, she wouldn’t even look their way. No matter how handsome they were or how wealthy they appeared to be, she never even gave them a second glance.

  Guess people from Boston are loyal to their mates.

  Best friend to JJ, and a real go-getter, I would like you to meet RaShonda Lewis, a 26-year-old officer who, before I asked her to join my unit, was one hell of a patrolman. Not one to take crap from anyone−which was what I liked most about her−whether they were thug, gangbanger, or even superior officer, she was considered a force to be reckoned with.

  The product of a Caucasian mother and Haitian father, she was the perfect combination of brawn and beauty. With long auburn dreaded-hair, a voluptuous frame with cinnamon-hued skin and blue-green eyes, she attracted a lot of attention, but her unwillingness to smile quickly deterred most men and women. Usually attracted to but intimidated by her “dime piece” looks, accompanied by her robust nature for preventing or solving crimes, whomever she was partnered with would eventually put in a transfer or request a different partner, claiming that she was way too aggressive for the job.

  With years of knowledge under my belt in dealing with the mean streets of Gary, Indiana, I relished the opportunity to work with someone who was as vigorous as I was and who knew that the only way to gain control of this city, take it back even, was by ruling it with a firm hand. And Shonda was that kind of officer and more, and that is why I personally chose her for my unit.

  The most impressive member of our team was the clean-shaven, baldheaded, lean and muscular, 5’11”28-year-old Officer Royce Hawkins. A former military brat, and later an Olympic gold medalist, which he earned due to an outstanding zero-loss record in college as a wrestler, then finally following in his father’s footsteps by signing up for the police academy and graduating at the top of his class.

  After a short stint in an underground fighting league, the very same league as Vida, them hitting it off instantly upon meeting each other due to their Latin heritages, Royce decided to relocate to Indiana to help in the fight to save the city. Well, after Vida begged him about a hundred times, he did. But you could never get her to admit to that.

  Finally, we had Detective Oliver Willis, a 6”4’, 250 pound ex Notre Dame college football player who had given up his dream of going pro in order to pursue a career in law enforcement at the behest of his father. Oliver was the eldest of us at the age of 44. He had been in law enforcement since the age of eighteen, and was a lieutenant at the Chicago Police Department about five years prior to coming to the Homicide Unit here. But he hadn’t come willingly. On the order of the Mayor of Chicago, Oliver had been demoted and transferred to serve under a different jurisdiction. The reason for his transfer is one he had only discussed with t
he very people in this unit. The people he trusted most.

  “You good, Sarge?”Vida asked. “You look like one of those beautiful Hollywood actresses who’ve just seen a ghost in her mansion. Well, actually, you look like shit, but I’m just trying to be nice about it.”

  “You know, Vida, lying to someone about their appearance just to be nice really doesn’t work if you’re just gonna tell them the truth in the end anyhow. But thanks for the compliment, regardless. And as far as if I’m good or not, I’m fine,” I lied. “I’m just a little tired from last night, that’s all.”

  “You sure, Sarge”?”Royce asked in his deep, womanizing voice. “You do look like you’ve been running through the swamp all night.”

  “You too, Royce? Really, guys, I’m good. I just need a little rest. So give me about thirty minutes and I’ll be good as new. Then, since there’s not much to do today as crime’s down for the first time in years–not that I’m complaining, believe me–we can go over what we’ve gathered so far in the Death Dealers case.”

  They lingered for a few more seconds to make sure nothing was amiss with me. But after a couple of jokes from JJ followed by laughter, they went back to their desks and awaited further instructions.

  Twenty minutes later, after I had listened to the tape about a hundred more times, I emerged from my office and addressed my team. I could tell that they were eager to get to work because their usual playful banter was replaced with seriousness. The murder of a little girl in a neighborhood you are supposed to be protecting will do that to any cop.