by Rio
“Just drove past the alley,” I said. “They pullin’ a body out that white Lincoln. Police everywhere.”
“Shit,” said Joe-Joe, “you already knew dat was gon’ happen. Them weak ass Breeds ain’t got shit on us. Lucky it wasn’t me that caught up wit’ em. On God, Joe, I would’ve—”
Joe-Joe went silent as I squinted at Kisha, Tyrone, and Shay; the three of them were following Joe-Joe into the living room, and they all seemed tense and unusually quiet.
“What’s wrong?” I asked no one in particular.
“Ain’t nothin’ wrong,” Shay said.
But I still felt an odd tension in the air as I joined Rose and Scrilla Man on the new sofa. I shook it off and pulled Kisha down onto my lap, then started telling Tyrone how we had just stomped Ton’s lights out. Kisha got up and headed toward the bathroom before I could finish explaining the situation.
“Where the hell you goin’?” I shouted.
“To brush my teeth,” Kisha replied. “I threw up a few minutes ago. You don’t want me kissin’ you wit’ throw up all on my tongue, do you?”
‘Drunk-ass light-weight,’ I thought, turning back to Tyrone.
“I’m takin’ you car shoppin’ tomorrow,” I said, lighting a cigarette. “Find you a nice ol’ school ‘Lac or Chevy. I got some dope and some Kush for you, too. A whole brick and a pound.”
“Damn, for real?” Tyrone rubbed his hands together.
“Lil nigga, I owe you more than that,” I said, picking up Kisha’s ringing phone from the coffee table.
Somebody named Lacresha was calling.
I answered the call.
“Hello?”
Silence.
“Hello?” I repeated.
“Is, um…is Kisha there?” A girl asked.
“Yeah. Hold on a minute.”
Kisha returned a moment later and I handed her the phone. I massaged her soft thighs and hoped she would not catch the lingering scent of Jessica’s perfume as she lifted the phone to her ear.
“Hey, Bitch. Where you at? Bitch, I done got wasted waitin’ on yo’ ass to show up…”
I moved from beneath Kisha and stood up, mostly because I didn’t want to argue with her if her nose got nosey like it sometimes did, but also because I wanted to give Tyrone the paper bag I had ready for him in the bedroom.
To Kisha, I muttered, “You startin’ to drink too muhfuckin much… and stop thinkin’ you got so many friends.”
She sucked her teeth and twisted her face at me. I continued up the hallway ahead of Tyrone, adjusting the bulging pistol on my hip and checking my phone. My mother and sister were blowing me up with texts and calls, and so were a dozen other family members. I wasn’t about to reply to any of them; at least not now, when my father’s body was lying in a freshly dug grave. Not while four of my mob brothers were stretched out in hospital beds with bodies full of bullet holes.
I put the phone back on my hip as we entered the bedroom.
The strong smell of sex struck me immediately.
I looked up at Tyrone and grinned as I squatted and grabbed the large paper bag from under the bed.
“You fucked Shay, didn’t you?” I asked.
He grinned with me. “And you fucked Jessica, didn’t you? We even.” He accepted the bag, opened it, and peered inside. His grin blossomed into a full-blown smile. “Shit, that’s thirty-six zips? A whole brick? And a pound of Kush?” He was in shock.
“You don’t owe me a dime, either. Just come back and shop wit’ me. I should be on again within the next few days.”
“We’ll get rich together, then. I’m wit’ it.”
“Well, that’s what it is,” I said, demonstrating the TVL handshake with him. “Get money to the death of us.”
“On King James,” he replied.
The next thing I knew, Shay was screaming at the top of her lungs.
~Chapter 27~
“MIKEY! MIKEY, THEY’RE TAKING KISHA!”
I rushed out to the living room just as everyone was running out the door. I ran down the front stairs behind Shay, with Tyrone right in back of me.
“I saw it from the window,” Shay said frantically. “Some nigga put a gun to her head and made her get in the trunk of a yellow Bentley.”
The six of us made it to the porch in time to see the Bentley veering around the corner on 16th Street.
“Shit, come on y’all!” I yelled, sprinting towards Kisha’s SUV.
But it was to no avail.
By the time I made it to 16th, the Bentley was gone.
We drove around for nearly an hour, through all the side and main streets, past hundreds of black civilians and dozens of white policemen, gangbangers and drug-dealers.
Still, no sign of the Bentley.
“We need to go back to the house,” Joe-Joe said from behind me. “Kisha left her phone on the table. I think she was waitin’ on somebody.”
“Yup,” Tyrone said, nodding his head in agreement. He was sitting in the passenger’s seat with the paper bag on his lap. “She was waitin’ on some stripper bitch. I can’t remember the bitch’s name.”
Seeing the paper bag brought me back to reality: we were riding around with a kilo of coke and a pound of Kush, and there were two kilos in Scrilla Man’s SUV.
As we were stopping at a traffic light on 16th, I pulled up alongside the Escalade and rolled my window down. Rose rolled down his window, too.
“Y’all go on back to Indiana wit’ that shit.” I sighed and lit a cigarette, glancing at a cop car in my rearview mirror.
“Hell muhfuckin naw,” Scrilla Man said. “We gon’ handle all this shit first, lil bruh.”
Back to back, we returned to Kisha’s house.
~Chapter 28~
A warm stream of urine snaked its way around Kisha’s right thigh, wetting the side of her dress. She was sobbing uncontrollably in the dark confines of the trunk, asking herself a thousand questions.
‘How long have I been in here? Where are they taking me? Shit, did anybody even see what happened?’
“God, please don’t let them kill me,” she cried. “Lord Jesus, please save me. I know I’ve done a lot of sinning, but don’t let me die today. I’ll change. I swear I’ll change right now.”
She yelped as the car hit a bump. Something hard and sharp hit her forehead. Ignoring the painful stinging sensation, she reached up and curled her fingers around the object.
A crowbar?
Yes, it definitely was a crowbar.
She grabbed it and was just about to try prying the trunk open when she remembered seeing a pair of assault rifles before the gunman had slammed the trunk shut.
**********
“We need to hurry up and get dat bitch out the trunk. She back there wit’ dem choppas,” Treys said.
“Boy, don’t start gettin’ on my damn nerves. We’re almost there. Shut the hell up and let me drive,” Cresha snapped.
Lacresha was aggravated for a number of reasons. For one, she was almost flat broke; and for two, she was now being hounded by a homicide detective that had already visited the strip club where she danced twice. Evidently, the family of the man James killed during last week’s botched robbery attempt had pointed Cresha out of a photo lineup, identifying her as James’ accomplice; which meant that she was now on the run for murder.
‘I ain’t goin’ to no damn jail,’ she thought to herself as she turned into the alley behind her Aunt Crystal’s Laramie Avenue home.
She reversed into Crystal’s garage and parked. She got out and closed the garage door, then walked around to the trunk with Treys on her left and Two-One on the right side of her. Grinding her teeth, she pressed a button on the Bentley’s remote key, and the trunk popped open.
Cresha gasped as Kisha raised the AR-15 and squeezed the trigger.
~Chapter 29~
Click. Click. Click. Click.
Kisha’s mouth dropped open in shock.
The assault rifle was empty.
The gunman th
at had forced her into the trunk swung a pistol at her face, knocking her out cold.
When she came to, she was being duct-taped to a chair in what looked like somebody’s basement. Her left eye was completely swollen shut. Blood was skating down the side of her face.
Standing in front of her was Lacresha Radcliff.
Cresha uncrossed her arms and put her hands on her hips.
“Bitch you gon’ do me like this?” Kisha asked, in shock.
“Don’t take it personal. My brother is dead because of your punk ass boyfriend. Now all I want is the money he took from Mone.” Cresha dug in her purse and pulled out a flip phone. “What’s his number?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t fuckin’ play wit’ me, Kisha. I’ll slit your throat as quick as I sliced up Deshell at the club that night. Try me if you want to.”
Kisha shuddered as she envisioned a knife cutting through her neck. She kept her eye on Cresha.
“I’m not lying, Cre. I don’t remember his number. It’s programmed into my—”
One of the dread-headed gunmen slapped Kisha across the face before she could finish her sentence.
“Let her talk, you dumbass!” Cresha snapped.
Kisha tasted blood. “I left my phone at home. His number is in my phone,” she said.
“Well,” Cresha said, flipping open the cheap camera phone, “what’s your number then?”
~Chapter 30~
Kisha’s smartphone was ringing when we walked through the door. I snatched it up and answered it.
“Who is this?”
“If I’m not mistaken, I’m the girl you pushed into Mone’s bedroom before you and your friend blew his brains out. Remember that?”
I cast a brief glance at the phone screen and saw the name Lacresha, then clicked into the text messages and found a picture of Kisha posing in front of a stripper pole at Arnie’s with a group of chicks. One of the girl’s in the picture with her was the girl from Mone’s stash house.
“Where is my girlfriend?”
“She’s right here. Bitch got a black eye and a busted lip, but other than that she’s fine. Give me the money you took from Mone and I’ll let her go.”
“Deal. I got it ready for you now. All I got left is, like, fifty racks, and you can have all of it. Just let her go.”
“You’re lying to me, Michael Love. I saw what was in that duffle bag. Lie to me again and see if I don’t shoot this bitch in the head.”
“Wait till I catch you!” is what I wanted to say as I walked to the bedroom to get the money, but I kept my mouth shut. I had to get Kisha back first.
“Weren’t there four duffle bags?” Cresha asked. “I’m going to round that off to two hundred thousand, and I don’t want a dollar less.”
“Let me talk to Kisha,” I said, dragging a duffle bag from under the bed.
Seconds later, Kisha’s sobbing voice filled my ear and traveled straight down to my heart. I sat on the bed and let a long, heart-felt sigh escape me. Scrilla Man and Tyrone joined me on the bed.
“I’m… I’m okay,” Kisha said. “Please, just give them the money. Give it to them so I can come home. Please, Mikey, I don’t wanna die.”
“I will, baby. Stay calm. I’ma take care of this.”
“Of course you will,” Lacresha cut in. “We’ll meet on the front steps of John Hay Public School at midnight; 1025 North Laramie Avenue. Oh, and bring the boy that killed my brother with you.”
She hung up and I turned to Tyrone.
“I heard her,” he said.
We sat in silence for a moment until Joe-Joe and Shay shouted for us to turn to the ABC 7 News. I cut on the TV and flipped to the channel.
Breaking News:
“Chicago Police are advising the public to be on the lookout for this African-American woman, Lacresha Radcliff. She’s allegedly responsible for the murder of 40-year-old Michael Love Sr., who was killed last week inside his home in the 1300 block of South Troy Street. Police say the second man that was killed there is Suspect Radcliff’s brother…”
I gazed at the photo of Lacresha Radcliff with my teeth clenched tightly together. Until now, I had never in my life wanted to harm a woman; especially not a black woman. I love black women.
But Lacresha?
“That bitch gotta go,” I murmured coldly.
~Chapter 31~
I gave Tyrone the keys to the Expedition and sent him and Joe-Joe out to drop a quarter pound of Kush off to my nigga Chubb. The remaining four of us sat at the kitchen table passing around blunts of Kush and shooting ideas back and forth while they helped me count out the $200,000.
“I ain’t know you had this much money,” Scrilla Man said.
“Fuck this money,” I replied through a cloud of smoke. “This money got Pops killed, got my nigga shot, and now it just got my girl kidnapped. I was better off without this shit.”
Rose shook his head from left to right. “You can’t let that bitch get away wit’ all this bread, fam. We can park down the street somewhere, catch her leavin’ and bang her whip up wit’ them choppas.”
“I just gotta get Kisha first. It’s whatever after that.” I pushed a $20,000 stack of hundreds to the side and kept counting.
The doorbell rang ten minutes later. I picked up my Glock 33 and Rose followed me to the front and down the stairs. I put my eye to the peephole, then hid the pistol under my shirt and opened the door.
It was Lil Cholly, the TVL who owned the custom detailing shop where I had taken my father’s old Chevy. Lil Cholly was a big timer in the hood, and everybody knew it. He’d been moving kilos for years.
“Sorry to hear about Big Mike. My niggas at the shop fixed you up nice, though. Real nice,” Lil Cholly said, stepping aside so I could see the car.
Parked behind Lil Cholly’s pearl-white Panamera, my father’s four-door Caprice was so stunning that I momentarily forgot all about my kidnapped girlfriend.
It was painted a dark, candy orange, and the thirty-inch rims that had it sitting so high above the ground, were the exact same color. A picture that me and Pops had taken at a family reunion before he went to prison was painted on the trunk. The passenger’s side doors were open, exposing the orange leather interior.
I grabbed the keys from Lil Cholly and headed down the stairs with him, skimming my eyes around the street, watching my surroundings. Several cars were driving by slowly; their passengers were eyeing the Caprice and shouting compliments.
“Yeah, this muhfucka cold, bruh,” I said, walking around the car to admire it further. “On King James, this muhfucka serious.”
Lil Cholly showed me how to open and close the stash-box. He also showed me the 15-inch speakers in the trunk, and the twelve TVs that had been installed inside the box Chevy. I was truly amazed. Now I had the flyest whip in the hood.
“Ay, lil fam,” Rose shouted from the porch. He was watching a brown Buick that was racing down Millard toward me.
I moved out of the way just as it came to a screeching halt beside my brother’s Escalade, which was parked behind the Caprice. Manny pushed open the driver’s door and hopped out holding a wooden baseball bat. His face was swollen and bloodied from the beating he’d taken at the funeral.
“You niggas wanna fight now?!” He shouted, approaching me with the bat cocked back.
I did not hesitate.
I drew the Glock and quickly shot him four times in the chest. Then I stood over his grounded body and emptied the clip in his face.
“Police-ass nigga,” I said, glowering down at his exploded head.
Without a word, Lil Cholly snatched the gun out of my hand, got in his Porsche, and sped off.
I turned and ran to the porch, glancing at the dozen or so shocked eyewitnesses that were running away from the murder scene. I wasn’t worried about them snitching; from the infants to the elderly, everyone knew better than to go against the mob.
~Chapter 32~
Sitting beside his wife, Aesha Jenner, in the ba
ck seat of his matte black S600 Benz, King Royce was focused on the Dodge pick-up that had just pulled into the driveway of a modest two-story home, a block ahead of him. There were fifty kilos of cocaine stashed in the back of the pick-up. He had two of his Latin King soldiers delivering the drugs to Sosa, a young Black Disciple who had recently gained fame as a ruthless Chicago rap artist.
They were in Bellwood, Illinois, a suburban area not far from the Windy City where King Royce had long ago risen from the slums to become the multi-millionaire birdman that he was now. His wife was also wealthy, though she had earned her millions as the lead shoe designer at Prada, while his had come from getting kilos of cocaine and heroin from Mexico’s reigning Costilla Cartel and selling them to gang leaders all across Chicago.
He donned a dull gray Tom Ford business suit; his wife, a form-fitting red Prada dress and matching five-inch heels. She was handling some business on her iPad and he was biting down on an unlit Cuban cigar, his stern eyes hidden behind the dark lenses of his expensive sunglasses.
“You need to hurry up and get our car back from that girl before the police get to her,” Aesha said, her attention never shifting from the iPad. “I don’t know why you’re taking care of her in the first place. You’re always trying to save those hoodrats. Leave them in the ghetto where they belong.”
“I can’t just leave her out there like that. She knows too much.”
“And that doesn’t bother you? What do you think she’s going to tell the prosecutor to get her sentence reduced?”
“She won’t say anything. We’ve already hired Britney Bostic, one of the cartel’s lawyers. Cresha will more than likely beat the case. Even if she doesn’t, she’ll only serve a year or two.”
Aesha shook her head. “No more strip clubs for you.”
King Royce ignored his wife’s last comment. He knew that he couldn’t tell her the truth about why he was looking after Lacresha. He couldn’t tell anyone, not even Lacresha herself.
He leaned forward in his seat as several young black men with dreads exited Sosa’s home carrying duffle bags. He was paying the Costilla Cartel $10,000 per kilo, and charging Sosa $17,000 per kilo; which amounted to $350,000 in profit for this drug transaction.
