by K'wan
“Mama, I don’t think the whole eye-for-an-eye thing is the best way to go about handling this.”
“That’s because it wasn’t your house his head was delivered to,” Ma informed him.
Keith was speechless. When Asher had told him that Big Money had been killed, he’d left out the part about him having been decapitated. “I had no idea,” Keith said softly.
“Cut that boy up like he wasn’t even a person . . . like he was cattle,” Ma said emotionally.
“Do the police have any leads?” Keith asked.
Ma laughed at the question. “What them pigs care when a black child is murdered in the streets? Nah, I doubt we’ll be getting any help from them.”
“I know some people with the NYPD. Maybe I can reach out and see if I can find anything out,” Keith offered.
“What care the law got for the lawless? Savage blood has been spilled, and there must be a reckoning,” Ma insisted.
“How? By shooting up a bunch of city blocks?” Keith asked sarcastically.
“Nope. Just the one them bitches who killed our family occupy,” said Big John as he entered the kitchen. He was dressed in baggy shorts and Timberlands, and he had a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. “Good to see you, little brother.” He hugged Keith.
“Good to see you too, John. I just wish it were under different circumstances.”
“You know don’t nothing get black folks together like funerals,” Big John half joked.
“You get what I asked you for?” Ma asked her eldest child.
“Sure did.” Big John laid the duffel bag on the table and unzipped it. Inside was a tommy gun. It was almost identical to the one Ma had used at the Fulton Fish Market robbery, but it had more bodies on it. The weapon had been in the Savage family since the twenties.
“About time I brought this old bitch out of retirement.” Ma stroked the machine gun lovingly.
“And what do you plan to do with that, Mama?” Keith asked, though it was a question he already knew the answer to.
“Hopefully, some damage.” She cackled.
“C’mon, Mama. At your age?”
“Keith is right,” Big John agreed, much to everyone’s surprise. “War is a young man’s game. I done sent word out to our kin as far as Buras-Triumph, and they’re all ready to join our cause.”
“John, this isn’t the Old West. You can’t just roll into New York with an army and wage war on a drug crew,” Keith pointed out.
“We don’t need an army. Just a dozen or so men who don’t mind dying,” Big John declared.
“Amen to that!” Ma chimed in.
“This is nuts. Max, surely, you don’t agree with what they’re planning to do?” Keith turned to his sister. She looked hesitant.
“Max would never go against family. She’s a Savage . . . a true Savage,” Ma observed.
“And I’m not?” Keith challenged.
“That remains to be seen, but I gather we’ll find out before all this is over,” Ma told him.
“Mama, did you know there’s birthday cake all over the side of the house?” Dickey Savage called as he barged into the kitchen. He sounded much like a child when he spoke. Dickey was a pump man with happy eyes and lips that looked like they were always ready to part into a smile. He wore a blue flannel shirt that was a size too small, jeans, and work boots, which had been lazily tied. Over his right eyebrow was a scar, marking the spot where a bullet and a piece of his skull had been removed.
“I know, baby. Your brother had a little accident with some of his fireworks,” Ma told him.
Dickey was about to go into his speech about the dangers of setting off fireworks without taking the proper precautions when he spotted Keith. His eyes lit up like a kid’s on Christmas before he lumbered across the room and grabbed his brother in a crushing bear hug. “Killer!” he squealed, spinning Keith around in his arms. “I missed you!”
“I missed you too, Dickey!” Keith said good-naturedly. Of all his siblings, his older brother Dickey was the one he was happiest to see.
Dickey was five years Keith’s senior, but you wouldn’t know it from the way he carried himself. He had the mental capacity of a twelve-year-old as a result of a vicious attack he’d been the victim of many years ago. It had been the same day their father was killed. Back then Dickey had been a notorious heist man. He had overheard his father planning to rob a jewelry store, and he’d wanted in. His father had initially refused, but Dickey had insisted, and Dickey Savage was a man who didn’t lose arguments. On this job, Dickey drove the getaway car, while his father and two of his chums took down the jewelry store. They were on their way out of the store when the police appeared out of nowhere. Apparently, the person responsible for disarming the silent alarm had botched the job, and the robbers found themselves surrounded by cops. For reasons that to this day no one understood, instead of their father surrendering, he opened fire on the police. Their father and the other two burglars were gunned down, and Dickey took a stray bullet to the head. For his part in the crime, Dickey would spend the next six years in a prison mental ward, and when he was finally released, he was a shell of the man he had been.
“Did you bring me something from Atlanta?” Dickey asked excitedly.
“You know I did.” Keith reached into the pocket of his suit jacket and produced a shiny key chain with a bedazzling peach hanging from one end of it.
“Wow. Thanks, Killer!” Dickey snatched the key chain and stared at it in amazement. It was little more than a trinket, but he cherished it as if it were found treasure.
“Glad to see my boys together again and bonding.” Ma beamed. “Now, if y’all will excuse me, I’m going upstairs to catch a quick nap. I’ve been up since early this morning, and I’m about pooped. Dickey, go out back and tell Bug I said to help you bring your brother’s bags in. I got a room made up for him upstairs.”
“Yes, Mama!” Dickey hurried off to do as he was told.
“I have a reservation at the Marriott,” Keith said.
“Cancel it,” Ma said. “Been years since I’ve had all my children under the same roof. The next time it happens will probably be for my funeral, so I want to enjoy this time with y’all while I can.” She was gone before he could protest.
CHAPTER 14
When Keith stepped into the bedroom his mom had made up for him, he had to do a double take. It was a new house, but the bedroom was a replica of the one he had slept in all his life on Benton. All his trophies and awards were on display on the walls and shelves. His mother had even put a twin bed that looked like his old one in the room. Out of curiosity, Keith got on the floor and checked the legs of the bed. When he saw that one was missing, and the corner of the bed was propped up by textbooks, he realized that it didn’t just look like his old bed. It was his old bed!
He continued wandering around the room, examining memorabilia from his childhood. He stopped at a framed picture resting on one of the shelves. It was a photograph of him and his high school baseball team, taken after they had won the championship. Keith couldn’t pitch in the final game, because he had suffered a broken arm a few days before. Remembering the event that had caused the injury made Keith’s blood boil as if it had just happened yesterday.
It had been the night of their junior prom. Keith and some of his gang had been hanging with their dates behind the school. They’d been smoking weed and sipping cheap whiskey from paper cups. Back then he’d been dating a girl named Darla, who lived next door. She came from a family that was almost as dysfunctional as his, which was probably why his mother liked Darla.
The kids had been so caught up in having fun that Darla stayed out past her curfew, which meant there would likely be trouble. Darla’s dad, Charlie, was a piece of shit. He drank too much and worked too little. When he got drunk, he loved to take out his frustrations over his shortcomings on his family, especially Darla. It wasn’t unusual to see Darla come to school with fresh bruises from fistfights she had gotten into with her dad. His excu
se for hitting her was that she had a slick mouth, which she did, but it was really that Darla reminded him so much of her mother. She’d left her abusive husband and her kids when Darla was a freshman in high school.
Keith and Darla stole across the yard under the cover of darkness and headed around to the back of her house. The family tended to leave the back door open because Charlie was always getting drunk and losing his keys. Considering the neighborhood that they lived in, it probably wasn’t the wisest thing to do, but it was better than having Charlie banging on the door and waking up Darla’s younger siblings at all times of the night. Keith saw Darla to the back door, and they thought they were home free, until the kitchen light came on as they stepped inside. They found Charlie waiting for Darla.
“Oh . . . hey, Daddy,” Darla greeted, trying to hide her nervousness.
“You know what time it is?” Charlie questioned. They could smell the vodka on him from across the room.
“I’m sorry. We were—”
“It was my fault,” Keith said, cutting her off. “My brother was supposed to pick us up from the prom, but he never showed, so we had to take the bus,” he lied.
“It figures,” Charlie snorted. “Every time something bad happens in this city, one of you Savages is usually responsible.” He shambled forward on shaky legs, glaring at Keith. “You think you slick, don’t you?”
“Sir?” Keith didn’t understand the question.
“I see the way you look at her . . . the way y’all are always whispering and giggling. She let you taste it yet?”
“Daddy!” Darla was embarrassed.
“Shut your mouth, tramp!” Charlie barked. “You just like ya mama, always gotta interject when men are talking. You’re lucky I don’t knock your damn teeth out for creeping in here at this hour.” He faked like he was going to hit her and made Darla flinch. When she did, he smiled sinisterly.
Keith spoke up. “That’s not necessary, Mr. Charlie.”
“Fuck you say to me, li’l nigga?” Charlie growled, turning on Keith.
“Keith, just go home. I’ll talk to you in school on Monday,” Darla said as she ushered him toward the door.
“You sure you’re good?” Keith hesitated.
“Listen to your little girlfriend and get your ass gone, before you get a taste of this grown man’s business, boy!” Charlie snarled, threatening Keith.
Keith took a step toward the older man, but Darla blocked his path. “That’ll only make this worse. Please, just go home and let me handle it.”
Reluctantly, Keith let Darla push him out the back door. For a few moments, he stood in the yard, wondering if he had done the right thing. He had just convinced himself to leave when he heard shouting coming from the house, followed by the sound of glass breaking. Everything in Keith told him not to get involved, but he couldn’t just walk away. He cared too much for Darla to leave her at the mercy of her drunken father. Against his better judgment, he went back inside the house. The kitchen was a mess. Broken dishes were scattered across the floor, and blood was splattered on the walls. Darla was curled up in a ball in a corner, while Charlie stood over her, punching her with his closed fist. There was no doubt in Keith’s mind that if he didn’t do something, Charlie would surely kill her.
Keith was good with his hands, but Charlie was older, more experienced, and outweighed him by about fifty pounds. When it was all said and done, both Keith and Darla ended up in the emergency room that night. Darla ended up with a black eye and a busted lip, but Keith caught the worst of it. Charlie had broken his arm in two places. When the doctors asked what had happened, the kids lied and said they had gotten jumped on the way home from the prom. Not long after they were released from the hospital, Charlie packed his family up and disappeared.
It was probably for the best. When Keith’s brother Mad Dog found out the real story of what had happened, he was looking to kill Charlie. A few days after he graduated from high school, Keith received a congratulatory card from Darla in the mail, but he tossed it in the trash. Words on a card could do nothing for the hurt he was experiencing. He understood why Darla had to leave, but at the very least, she could’ve said goodbye to him. It was the first time Keith’s heart had ever been broken, and it took him years to get over Darla.
“Damn! What you got in here? Bricks?” Fire Bug’s voice startled Keith, yanking him from his thoughts. Fire Bug and Anthony were standing in the doorway with Keith’s luggage.
“Thanks, boys. You can just drop them anywhere,” Keith told them. The two teens dropped the bags and prepared to head back out, but Keith stopped them. “Bug, I need to holla at you for a second . . . alone.” He looked at Anthony.
“I’ll be outside. Bug, don’t be too long. You know we got somewhere to be in a while,” Anthony said, then gave Fire Bug a look before disappearing.
“So, what you think of your room? Mama did a good job making it look like your old one, huh?” Bug flopped on the bed.
“Yeah, I never realized how closely she paid attention,” Keith said.
“Shit, you know that old bird don’t miss nothing.”
“So, what’s going on with you lately?”
Bug shrugged. “Not too much. Out here hustling, like everybody else.”
“How’s school?”
“I wouldn’t know. I ain’t been there in two years.” Fire Bug laughed. Keith didn’t.
“Are you kidding me? You’re only seventeen years old! Ma might be twisted in her ways, but she made sure all of us graduated. Why would she let you drop out?”
“Calm down, Killer. I didn’t just drop out. I got my GED last year,” Bug informed him.
“And what about college?”
“Nah. I’ve had my fill of school. I’m exploring other interests.”
“You mean like getting tied up in the family business?” Keith gave him a knowing look. Bug’s face said he was searching for a lie, but Keith saved him the trouble. “Maxine already told me.”
“Damn! Max and her big-ass mouth!” Bug cursed.
“Bug, you’re a smart kid with tons of potential. You can be anything you want in life. Why would you get caught up in this shit?”
“Same reason as you did back in the day!” Bug shot back.
No matter how much Keith wanted to, he couldn’t argue with Bug’s logic. Their parents had groomed them all to be criminals, and Keith hadn’t been an exception. Granted, he’d eventually managed to break the hold his mother had on him, the same one she had on all her children, but there had been a time when he was every bit as Savage as the rest of his siblings. Back then, he’d been Killer Keith in name and deed, and some of the acts he committed as a teen had haunted him into adulthood. Keith had been a child who was exposed to too much, too soon; and apparently, his little brother was walking the same path.
“Maxine says that a job you and Big Money pulled may have been why he was killed.” Keith paused for a moment. “Can you tell me what happened?” he asked.
“It was all fucked up,” Bug sighed. “We were hired to whack this fuck nigga who was stepping on the toes of some important people, and it went to wrong. I laid a bomb for the target, and a kid got killed by mistake.”
“Jesus, Bug!”
“It wasn’t my fault. The kid got in the way of the target.”
Keith remembered seeing a story on the news a while back about a car exploding in Harlem, killing a kid. It was a dark day in New York City. At the time the police had no solid leads, but they suspected it was a terrorist attack gone wrong. It had hurt Keith then to hear about the child’s death, but it hit him like a physical blow now to find out that his little brother was behind it.
“How could you have been so careless?” Keith asked, his voice heavy with emotion.
“One thing I ain’t is careless, Killer. I could set off a bomb in a room full of people, and the explosion would be so precise that it wouldn’t touch anybody except my mark. That piece of work was for King James. It was just dumb luck that it was the
kid who started the car instead of him,” Bug insisted.
“So, you think it was this King James who killed Big Money?” Keith asked.
“If I had to guess, I’d say so. But it could’ve also been the cat who hired us, trying to clean up the mess,” Bug suggested.
“Who hired y’all for the job?”
Bug was silent.
“Bug, I’m trying to stop a full-scale war from breaking out. Now ain’t the time to go silent. Who dropped the bag on King James?” Keith said, pressing him.
“A guy named Shai Clark,” Bug finally confessed.
This took Keith by surprise. He didn’t know Shai personally, but his reputation preceded him. To the general public, he was a charismatic young businessman who ran a multimillion-dollar construction empire. There were rumors about him having deep ties to the underworld, but Keith had never put much stock in them. Shai was a man who had it all, legitimately, so his getting involved in street business didn’t seem logical. Keith had first become aware of Shai Clark through his family’s lawyer, Martin Scott, whom everyone called Scotty. Scotty had been a guest speaker at NYU when Keith was attending the university. Keith looked up to the man, because like him, Martin Scott had come from nothing and had become a prominent lawyer. In essence, Martin Scott had laid out the blueprint that Keith followed.
“How do you know Shai Clark?” Keith asked, not really understanding the connection between the millionaire and his family.
“I don’t know him. Only met the man once, and that was when Mama brokered the job. A one-eyed priest put it together for us,” Bug told him.
The one-eyed priest was someone Keith was familiar with. Priest was a reputed assassin who had a history with their family that dated back to before Keith was born. Priest and Keith’s mother had a relationship that his father had never been comfortable with. It was as if they were spawn from the same pit in hell. Keith had met him a few times over the years, always when his father wasn’t around, but he had never really cared for the man. Something about the way Priest looked at Keith had always given him the creeps. At least Keith now had a starting point to try to unravel the mess his brother and cousin had made.
