“I’m going to forget that you did that.” He turned to Prince and pulled his hoodie back again to expose his entire face, locking eyes, showing no signs of fear. “Only because the crate wasn’t mine. But you just tried to renege on a deal. If you wasn’t gonna pay me, you should have just said so. Maybe if you would come at me like a man, we could’ve worked somethin’ out. But you didn’t give me the opportunity. You assumed that because I’m young, you could bully me or scare me away like you think you did my squad. Nah, I used to admire y’all. I was down here studying y’all and how y’all move up there. Y’all had music blasting from your cars; all we could afford was that boom box you just destroyed. Y’all got that barbershop up there, we got the Laundromat. Y’all stick together and don’t take shit from nobody; neither do we.”
As Young Clips stated that, the Alley Cats were slowly returning. But instead of being bunched up together, they were in strategically placed positions all throughout the entire block and the side streets. They each had a weapon of some sort. A few even had guns. They were slowly creeping and closing in, staying low behind cars and riding the walls of the brick buildings. C-Class and Prince couldn’t believe it. Young Clips had never broken eye contact with Prince. It was as if he knew his crew was coming back, and strong, but didn’t need them to show his heart.
He continued, “Now, I see things different and I’m lettin’ this slide. This one is on me.” Young Clips removed the two hundred-dollars bills from his pocket and set them down on the payphone. “The boom box wasn’t mines either. I took it from somebody. Right out of his hands, straight up, no weapon. And I had my gun on me when I did it.” Young Clips lifted the bottom of his sweatshirt up to reveal his pistol. “But he never saw it. We’ll just call this karma.”
And just like that, Young Clips turned his back on C-Class and Prince and walked away, never allowing them to say a word. He stuck two fingers into his mouth and blew out a sharply loud coded whistle into the air. All of the Alley Cats came out of their positions and flocked around him as they disappeared.
Prime couldn’t believe a word of the tickling story. He laughed so hard as C-Class and Prince told it play by play, word for word.
“Uh-uh. Young’un’s like twelve. He ain’t talkin’ like that. That’s grown man shit. And he was right. You should’ve known betta, Prince. Y’all could’ve made ya own block hot with that bullshit. Radios don’t shoot back. Y’all gotta get shit in order. Preteens can’t be runnin’ us outta business,” he seriously joked. They were sitting in Prime’s restaurant, eating at a private table in the back.
“Young’un got heart, PM. He’s smart. He got them otha li’l niggas brainwashed. And I swear he’s the youngest,” C-Class added.
Prime’s fork sounded off as it dropped down into the glass plate. He got serious as he spoke to both of his top men. “Listen. He ain’t got them brainwashed. He got them all on the same page and in order. Just like us. It’s the same situation. Them li’l niggas are so young and advanced they’re willing to die for their respect. And they’re smart. They moved in silence. Young Clips was the sacrificial lamb of distraction and diversion. Y’all assumed that his crew ran away out of fear, because not one of them threatened y’all while fleeing. Young Clips held y’all there, knowing they’d be back strong, just as I would’ve done. It was all mapped out. They forced y’all to come to them and to respect them by the time they left. They knew your move. Y’all were a step behind. It was a game of chess. They put y’all in check and spared the mate. Where’s young’un at? I’m gonna go find him.”
“And what?” C-Class asked.
“And give him a position. The biggest part of this picture is that most likely his pockets were empty, but he still returned the money. To me, that says more about him than anything.”
The next day, as always, after learning from his mistakes, Young Clips stepped his game up. Instead of a crate he was sitting on an old, rusted steel dining room table chair that had been thrown out. It would’ve been impossible to get kicked from under him. He and his crew all chipped in to buy a new radio this time, and a Young Money mix CD. Young Clips had on his usual black attire. His head was drowned by his hoodie while he focused on devouring his favorite meal: Chinese food. In a single moment, it seemed as if all the breath around him was lost in silence as his crew gasped, leaving only the radio playing. Young Clips looked up to see the cause and almost choked on a chicken bone he was sucking clean.
A powder blue Bentley GT had pulled up and parked right in front of the Laundromat’s chipped, unlevel sidewalk and parked next to a huge pile of stinking black garbage bags. The horn honked twice as the window rolled down.
“Get in,” Prime ordered.
Everyone looked down at Young Clips. He looked around with an odd look plastered on his face as if Prime was speaking to someone else.
“Yeah, you!” Prime confirmed.
“I’m eatin’!” Young Clips shouted while dipping his fingers into the white foam tray, dripping with sauce and grease.
“I can see that. That’s why you’re gonna use them napkins in that paper bag and wipe your hands clean before you get in my ride,” Prime declared.
Young Clips thought about contesting but he was curious, so he opened up the bottle of Fiji spring water and poured it onto his hands before drying them off with his napkins.
“Watch my food, y’all,” he ordered as he bopped to the car and reached for the door handle. It was locked as he tried to pull it open and grew angry. “What kinda games you playin’?” he aggressively questioned.
Prime stared him down with intense scrutiny. “Go clean yourself up and come back correct. Then you get in.”
Clips caught on. He walked back into the huddle of his crew and passed his .32 automatic off to his right-hand man. As he returned to the vehicle, he heard a double click and he entered. The window slowly rolled back up as they pulled off.
“Wassup?” Young Clips asked.
“I got a job for you and your team. But I’m only hiring you. You’re hiring them. That’s how business works. You’re the boss. You handle your own payroll. Make it work however you can; just get the job done,” Prime testified, keeping his eyes on the road.
“First of all, how do you know I—”
Prime cut Young Clips off. “Five hundred a week. Every Friday at nine p.m. I already got you your own apartment. It’s a furnished three-bedroom. Keep the noise down and stay low. Don’t shit where you sleep. Bring your top three men with you. One of y’all sleep on the couch a different night in rotation to watch the door. A king always protects his castle. Even himself. Now, your job is to spread your team out. I’m gonna give you a printout of all the streets I own. I want all four corners of them sealed off at all times. Now y’all will be sealing money in instead of chasing it out. But y’all won’t touch the product. It’s just steering and security. Any of y’all see anything out of order, report it directly to Prince, C-Class, or me. It starts tonight, clear?” he asked as he pulled put seven hundred-dollar bills and passed them to Young Clips.
Young Clips counted out five of them and handed Prime back the other two. “You said five hundred.”
Prime smiled to himself knowing he made the right decision. He waved the money back off. “Nah, that’s for Prince. Never start business off on a dirty slate. The dust from the chalk smears too easily. Pretty soon, you can’t tell what’s there and what’s been erased.”
By the time Young Clips had turned sixteen, he was “made.” The team of Alley Cats perfected their structure and solidified themselves as up-and-coming terrorists. Anything that got in their way was moved. Nothing came close to disrupting Prime’s operation. In fact, the money started coming in twice as much. Their friends were treated as clients. They were safely escorted up and down the blocks. That earned him respect and admiration among his crew and made drug users more comfortable spending their money on the particular block. Every day, Young Clips managed to impress Prime by doing something smart or admi
rable in the streets.
Young Clips finally got the opportunity he was waiting for. He had upgraded to twin .45s and was itching to use them. The money wasn’t enough. He was an adrenaline junky. He wanted the rush from the power. Prime became his idol; he had graduated to just being an overseer. He hung around C-Class and Prince down at the barbershop while his team either walked around, drove around in cars, or used bicycles, motorcycles, or dirt bikes. The Alley Cats grew over sixty deep. And all of them ate well. The scraps were enough to keep them content with just being outside regulating and flirting with girls.
C-Class and Prince were shooting dice outside of the barbershop while Prime was inside getting razor lined. He was facing the two huge outside windows. He never allowed the barber to obstruct his view. Not even for a second. A split second was a man’s worst enemy, Prime believed.
Outsiders were welcome to join the dice game. Young Clips was sitting in the driver’s seat of Prince’s 750Li listening to Biggie’s “Niggas Bleed” while he smoked a blunt. While rapping along to every syllable, he heard a commotion break out. He looked to his right and could see C-Class arguing, but couldn’t make out the words, so he looked into the barbershop’s window and made eye contact with Prime. They both shook their heads.
C-Class was arguing with an older man about whether he had to pay for shooting the same number that C-Class had rolled. C-Class was flipping. “My muthafukin’ bank, my muthafuckin’ rules. Pushers pay, trips pay double. Cracks and leaning dice are good, as long as you can stack ’em. Closest numba to the sky. You see it, you pay it! My point was a five. Yours was a five. Drop three hundred.”
“I ain’t droppin’ shit! Get it how the Feds got it, bitch!” the man yelled. He was fresh home after doing twelve years. He was what you called a real live hustler back in his day. He was old school. He had heard how the streets had changed. It was a new era, a more violent one. The killers were a lot younger and more relentless.
C-Class backed out the pistol and stuck the barrel into the man’s face. “Did the Feds have this?” he asked in a cocky manner.
The man laughed. “Nah. They had real guns. M16s with beams. You got a damn water pistol. Now get it out my face before I get mad.”
C-Class thumbed the hammer back instead. The crowd around him backed up and slowly inched away. Prince sat on the hood of his Infinity.
The man threw his hands up. “You got it.” He cautiously reached into his pocket and pulled out three crisp hundred dollar bills and dropped them the ground and stepped back. “Paid in full.” He turned his back on the pistol and strolled away to the corner, turning left. The dice game jumped back off without him.
Twenty minutes later, Young Clips was still in the same position listening to the same song. Dice were still being rolled. Prime was in the back of the barbershop playing pool with C-Class. Nighttime was just starting to fall. It got dark a little earlier than usual. Young Clips noticed an old gray Honda Accord with blacked-out windows parked across the street from him. The driver door flung open and an unidentified man emerged. Young Clips studied him as he and placed his hands in the front pockets of his windbreaker jacket. He had the hood over his head and kept his eyes low as he squeezed in between the front of the 750Li and the back of Prime’s Bentley parked in front of it. He headed straight into the barbershop and none of the dice players seemed to notice, but Young Clips was paying full attention. He pulled his own hoodie over his head and removed the two guns from his waist after getting out of the car. He left the door open and the engine running. He quietly crept up behind the man, who was halfway into the barbershop.
“Nice shot,” C-Class complimented as Prime banked the six ball off of two rails and into the corner pocket.
“I know. I meant it to be,” Prime arrogantly joked. “Two ball, side pocket,” he called out his next shot, and missed. His disappointment showed as he banged the rubber at the bottom of his shooting stick into the ground. “Your shot.”
C-Class smiled and hunched over the table. “Eleven ball off of the nine ball, down the tail, into the corner.” His back was to the door.
Prime was looking down at the table, but something caught his eye. “Look out!”
Screams and yells could be heard in the midst of the rapid gunfire. C-Class dropped the stick and then dropped down on one knee as he slowly spun around. There he was, Young Clips, aiming two guns in his direction. He then looked down and saw someone laid face flat in his own pool of blood. The man’s gun was still clutched in his hand.
Young Clips was in total shock. The pistols he held out were steaming. The fumes were intoxicating. He flashed back to the way he felt the day his radio was destroyed. He had just done the same thing with a human life, and it was easy.
Prince ran in as C-Class slowly rose to his feet, patting himself for undetected wounds. He had felt so many shots breeze by him and was thankful not to be hit. It was a good thing Prime ...
“Oh shit, Prime.” C-Class turned, but didn’t see him. There wasn’t a back exit; they were trapped off. C-Class ran around to the opposite side of the pool table and looked down. There he was, lying in his own blood.
“Prime, you all right?” C-Class asked while dropping to his knees beside him as Young Clips did the same. C-Class waved Young Clips off. “Yo! You go. Get the fuck outta here. I’ll meet you back at the spot.”
Young Clips reluctantly followed the order, going against his own rules to never leave a man down or behind. He hopped over spook’s lifeless corpse and ran out. He jumped in the 750Li and sped off.
“Ahhh! Hell nah, I ain’t a’ight. That li’l fucka shot me.” Prime gasped as he held his shoulder.
“But he’s the reason you’re still alive though, both of us.”
C-Class made his way over to the lifeless body lying on the floor. He leaned down and rolled the man over. He smiled and shook his head at the identity. He then made his way back over to Prime.
“Who the fuck was that?” Prime asked.
“The old head from the dice game earlier. Young’un was definitely on point.”
“Yeah, well that’s what he gets paid for,” Prime stated as C-Class helped him to his feet.
The next day, Young Clips was an instant legend to the entire Alley Cats. He was already an idol. His respect spread throughout the hood; nobody told. The barber claimed the old head was outside arguing and a masked man later came in and gunned him down. It was the closest version to the truth, and all they would ever get. The strip was shut down due to the heat and the operation was moved to a new location a few blocks down. Business flowed as if it had been there for years.
Prime showed up to Young Clips’s apartment with his arm in a sling. Young Clips opened the door. He didn’t know whether to apologize. He remained silent while Prime spoke.
“It’s all taken care of, soldier. You can come back out. By the way, C-Class owes you his life, and you owe me an arm. Consider y’all even.” He tossed Young Clips the keys to his Bentley GT and then turned back around to head to his awaiting ride. “Oh, yeah.” He stopped in his tracks and spun around. “It’s yours,” he added, before hopping in a newer and much bigger model Bentley.
* * *
Young Clips returned to the present as he reflected on the gift Prime had given him and why and how he had laid eyes on a Phantom for the first time that day. The sound of the horn of a speeding car zooming by broke his reminiscing session on how he had obtained the Bentley GT. He was parked up the street from the apartment complex Felicia was in. He wondered if it was another one of the Double Gs’ spots. A half hour later, Felicia reappeared with a large duffle bag hiked over her shoulder. Young Clips watched as her wide hips sashayed to the Range Rover he had been tailing for most of the day. He got his answer as he eyed Felicia removing a gun from the duffle before tossing it in the back of her SUV.
Chapter Twenty-two
Agent McCarthy hung his head low as he scratched his scalp in frustration. He had been working diligently around the clock to
get a break in the Double G investigation, but it seemed as if no matter how strong an effort he put forth, it was useless. With months of investigation and top secret intel on the organization, still they were no closer to taking down Queen Fem, Starrshma Fields, or the Double Gs than they were the first day he had announced the investigation. He grimaced at the thought. He prided himself on being a damn good investigator and he couldn’t believe a group of men haters were running circles around him and every other law enforcement that did and didn’t take them seriously.
“What type of freaking world do we live in?” he complained aloud. “This fuckery has to come to an end!” He pounded his fist on his metal desk. He was determined to remove what he now believed to be a thorn in his side by bringing down what he called a ruthless female gang. He came from a world where the bad guys didn’t get away, and all that was connected to and associated with the Double Gs was no exception to that rule. Women or not, Agent McCarthy’s mind was made up. He would dedicate all of his time and energy to this one case.
The sound of his office door hitting up against the back wall drew his attention to the unannounced body that had stormed its way inside. “Excuse me, sir!” an out-of-breath Agent Civic apologized for the intrusion.
“What is it?” Agent McCarthy wanted to know. “It better be good,” he added.
“We have a name!” Agent Civic informed him.
“What do we have on her?” he asked, filled with hope as he stood up from his desk chair.
“Until now, she seemed clean as a whistle. The only reason she was even in our database is because her job requires that all employees’ personal information be stored in our system,” Agent Civic informed him. “Nothing serious or worth mentioning, but her name was taken down by one of the locals some years ago in connection with one of the Double G incidents. Just a random name check of innocent bystanders. I know it’s a long shot, but I don’t believe in any coincidences.”
“That’s more than we had,” Agent McCarthy announced.
Watch Out for the Big Girls Page 13
