by Teri Woods
Angel sat on the edge of his desk and lit a Newport. “What happened?”
“Fuck you mean, what happened? The nigga feelin’ himself! He think ’cause he can muscle them petty niggas off them pissant blocks, he ready to fuck wit’ the thoroughbreds!” Roll huffed hard.
“He is a thoroughbred,” Angel reminded Roll.
“Was. Was. He was a thoroughbred,” Roll retorted. “He on some Mother Teresa shit now!”
Angel shrugged. “So I’ll talk to him.”
“You already tried that. Now, I’ma holla at his bitch-ass!”
Angel leaned forward toward Roll. “That was about family. This is about business. Let me talk to Roc. One last time, okay?” Angel proposed, but her eyes said it was an order.
Roll eyed her. He knew that her business with Roc was personal. But she had proven to be one hell of an addition to his team. Angel was invaluable to him now. Despite all his gun talk, he knew Roc’s caliber and he knew niggas like that didn’t just change overnight.
“One last time,” he emphasized, holding up a chubby finger. “One time. After that, I handle it.”
“Tan bien.”
“Hello, Angel.”
“What’s up, Roc? Long time, right?” she asked as she stepped out of the Viper.
“Yeah, long time,” Rahman replied, cold and hard. “You said you wanted to talk? So let’s talk,” Rahman said, looking at Angel seriously.
She had asked him to meet her at Port Newark, the same port they had robbed so many years before. She walked up to him and threw her arms around his neck, hugging him playfully, then let go.
“All this gangsta shit between us, nigga… you need a hug.” Angel snickered.
He tried to hold his composure but being in her presence always strangely comforted him. He cracked a smile.
“Where’s Roll? What, he too scared to meet me so he sent you instead?”
“Naw. Nobody sent me. I wanted to see you. What Roll wanted was to send bullets through your kufi for trying to play him,” Angel explained.
“Ain’t no play about it. There’s a hundred grand in the trunk of the car.” He gestured to the old Buick he was driving. “Tell Roll he can take it or try and send them shots.”
Angel aimed her finger like a gun. “Bang bang.”
“Angel… I’m serious.”
“And you think I ain’t? You want shots, there you go. That’s what you want anyway, ain’t it?” she asked, but he remained silent. She continued. “You want Roll to give you a reason to do what you’ve been wanting to do!” Angel accused. “You want a war.”
“What I want is that poison out of the community. What I want is a safe environment to raise kids in. What I want is—”
“Power,” Angel concluded quietly. “You want power, Roc. You wanna be in control.”
“Allah is in control,” Rahman countered.
Angel shook her head. “Yeah, you got a cause. But who don’t? You just like me, just like Dutch. You wanna control the streets,” she surmised, turning to look out at the boats on the dock. “You think I don’t want the same things? What muthafucka in his right mind wants to risk his life every day, runnin’ from a case, a stickup, or a hit? What muthafucka don’t want the good life for their kids, huh? But for most of us, this is how we get it! You gotta go through hell to get to heaven. Have you forgot that or are you so fuckin’ righteous now that you’re above all that?” Angel spat.
Rahman took a step toward her, arms open.
“But you don’t have to get it that way! All that talk about somebody gotta sell it is garbage! What if you don’t sell it and don’t allow it to be sold. What do you think happens to all that money? It’s still in the community. It can still be made! Look at the Italians, the Irish, the Asians. You don’t see that bullshit in their communities, do you? Yeah, they started out as criminals to establish themselves, but now most of their money is legit. Niggas been on the corner for fifty years and what we got to show for it? Platinum chains? Slaves’ chains!” he cried with passion. “It ain’t too late, yo. Ride wit’ me. Yeah, we are just alike. We understand power. Let’s use it to build, not destroy.”
Angel silently acknowledged his point, but she had a personal vendetta that her heart wouldn’t let her abandon. “Do you still trust me, Roc? Regardless of where we stand, do you still trust Dada?” she asked him, using the nickname Dutch had given her.
Rahman remembered it, too. Dutch called her that because he said she was as vicious as Jaws and nicknamed her after the theme music. Dada… dada… dada… Roc smiled at the memory.
“Yeah, Dada. I trust you. I trust your heart.”
“Then trust me when I say my thing with Roll is almost over. He’s finished. All I gotta do is put the icing on the cake. When it’s done, then we’ll talk, okay? For now, let this bully thing go, and we’ll respect your territory to the fullest. I got the coke up on Springfield. I’ll clear the block and relocate. It’s yours. Just let this go and don’t expand on Roll. This way we all happy. You get a drug-free zone, and we get our paper. Do it for Dada.”
Rahman looked at Angel and hesitated before he spoke. In his heart they would always be family but he couldn’t subject his plan to his emotions. He replied, “A hundred grand. Take it or leave it.”
Angel closed her eyes, then slowly opened them.
“If you do this, Roc, I can’t help you.”
“Help me?” Rahman chuckled. “I don’t need help. Roll does.”
“You can’t win, Roc. You… can’t… win,” Angel emphasized because she knew his weakness.
“But I can die tryin’.”
The conversation was over. There was nothing left to say. Angel hugged him again and this time he hugged her back. They broke their embrace and went their separate ways.
“Two for five! Two for five!”
“I got that fire over here, yo!”
“Gimme one for fifteen!”
“No shorts!”
The block was booming despite the hour. It was 2:00 a.m. Hustlers and scramblers, crackheads and dope fiends filled the sidewalk in front of Brick Towers. Expensive whips were double-parked and shorties in tight skirts and bootie shorts leaned through windows and on car hoods. Everyone was so caught up in the rhythm of the night that they paid no attention to the U-Haul truck pulled up in the middle of the street.
Until it was too late.
Rahman, Salahudeen, and seven other masked Muslims came out of the bed of the truck and opened fire with automatic extended clips.
“They shootin’!”
Everybody finally looked. Girls screamed and ducked while hustlers ran for cover, pulling weapons from bushes and stash boxes.
Bullets tore through flesh, glass, and brick, sending blood, shattered fragments, and sparks flying.
The Muslims stood mercilessly in the middle of the street, blazing the block, taking no prisoners, while on the roof, three Muslim snipers picked off hustler after hustler, painting the streets with blood. Police sirens filled the air. Rahman shouted, “Let’s go!”
The Muslims continued to fire, backpedaling into the U-Haul, and closed the bed.
Seconds later, police cars from everywhere converged on the scene and surrounded the U-Haul.
“They in the truck. They in the fuckin’ truck!” a wounded nigga snitched in agony. “Call an ambulance! I’m hit!”
The police turned their weapons on the U-Haul.
“Come out now! Throw out the guns and come out with your hands up!” an officer with an itchy trigger finger bellowed.
The U-Haul remained silent.
“Last chance! Get out of the fuckin’ truck!”
Silence.
The commanding officer gave the nod and the police pumped the U-Haul with so many shots that the truck rocked back and forth on its axles. The police continued to fire until the U-Haul looked like a hunk of Swiss cheese. They were certain no one inside it could have survived, but took no chances and slid up on the side of the U-Haul with guns aim
ed, locked, and loaded.
In one fluid motion, they threw open the bed’s door and screamed, “Don’t move!”
All they found inside was gunsmoke and street light bleeding through the bullet-riddled truck body.
“What the fuck?”
“No way!”
“Move! Move! Move!”
“They aren’t here!”
Completely baffled, the police didn’t see the board on the truck’s floor for a full five minutes. Under the board was a hole, and directly under the hole was the escape route.
An open manhole.
“Son of a bitch!” a policeman cursed and mobilized his units to block off the area for twelve blocks.
Rahman and his team emerged on Howard Street. They crept out of the manhole like shadows and split up in separate directions. They jumped into their vehicles and disappeared into the night.
When all was said and done, eight hustlers and two females were killed, six were injured, and one guy would be paralyzed for life.
Rahman had struck first.
Roll lay back on his double king-size bed watching Leslie’s fat ass bounce and grind as she rode his dick backward. He spread her ass cheeks and inserted a thumb in her ass-hole. She squealed with delight.
“Oooh, daddy! Fuck me, daddy,” she moaned, leaning back on her palms.
Roll noticed that since Leslie had been fucking with Angel, she had gotten extremely freaky. He loved it. She was like a nymphomaniac now, ready to fuck anywhere, any time. She even let him fuck her in the ass. It blew his mind.
But Leslie was just playing her position, that position being to keep Roll on his back while Angel handled the operation. Angel was slowly isolating him from his power.
The phone rang, and Roll answered.
“Yeah,” he grunted, watching his dick slide in and out of Leslie’s tight pussy.
“Yo, Roll! They shot up the bully! Police everywhere and bodies everywhere! Lil’ Nut, Doo-Doo, Teflon…”
Roll sat straight up in the bed, almost knocking Leslie to the floor.
“Who shot up the block?” he asked, but before the man could answer, the name popped into his head.
Rahman.
“I told that bitch!” Roll growled, cursing Angel. “Aiight. I’ll be in Newark in an hour.”
He hung up and called Nitti. Leslie tried to slide back on top of his magic stick but Roll pushed her aside.
“Not now.”
Nitti picked up.
“Where you at?”
“A.C.”
“Meet me in Newark as soon as you can and bring them peoples!”
Roll slammed down the phone. It was true that Rahman had struck first, but Roll planned on striking back hardest. What Roll didn’t know was that Rahman had already struck again.
“Ay, yo. Crackhead just pulled up wit’ a van full of custom Timbs!” the hustler shouted. “Sellin’ ’em twenty a pop!”
The Plainfield corner flooded with niggas tryin’ to cop the fresh kicks from the skinny smoker.
“I got all flavors. Gucci Timbs, Louie Timbs, powder blue, dark blue, burgundy, dark gray, light gray, black, and, of course, tan. If I ain’t got it, they don’t make it!” the smoker boasted as he nervously pulled on his cigarette.
“Yo, you said twenty? Gimme five pair,” a young hustler said, negotiating the boots for crack vials.
“Gimme ten!” another added, holding out two Benjamins.
The crackhead filled order after order until he sold at least one pair to each of the twenty-plus cats on the block.
“Check this young blood,” the crackhead said, stepping to the cat he knew as the block lieutenant. “I be gettin’ this shit like water. Rollies, leathers, all that shit. Gimme your number, and I’ll make sure you get first cut.”
The lieutenant jumped at the chance. “Now that’s what’s up!”
“Holla at cha, boy. I’ll take care of you,” the crackhead mumbled to himself on the way back to the van. He got in and pulled off.
Twenty minutes later, Salahudeen called the lieutenant from a nearby pay phone.
“Who this?” the lieutenant barked into his cell phone.
“I got a message for Roll,” Salahudeen replied calmly.
“Who?” the lieutenant fronted.
Salahudeen laughed. “Look around you.”
The lieutenant felt a setup and glanced around, alert to anything out of place. All he saw were his runners, workers, and other hustlers milling around, comparing the new Timbs most of them were wearing. He didn’t see anything unusual.
“Yeah, and?”
Then, right in front of his eyes, those same cats began to explode almost simultaneously. Their bodies burst like human piñatas at a child’s birthday party. Blood and body parts flew everywhere, and the screams of men with half their bodies blown away, holding leaking intestines, made his stomach weak. He fell to his knees and vomited. He had never seen anything like it in his life. He was truly terrified.
“Tell Roll As-Salaamu Alaikum,” Salahudeen said and hung up.
Roll, Nitti, Angel, and Goldilocks were in front of Brick Towers talking to a young cat who had seen the shootout.
“Then they got in the U-Haul and disappeared,” the young cat emphasized.
“What you mean, disappeared?” Roll was in no mood for exaggeration.
“Just what I said, yo. They had cut a hole in the floor and dipped through a fuckin’ manhole.”
He pointed to a manhole across the street, feeling the way Rahman and his team escaped and planning to use the same tactics if the opportunity ever presented itself.
Another young dude ran up carrying a portable DVD.
“Here, I got the DVD.”
Roll had cameras on all his blocks to monitor who came and went and any potential stickups before they went down.
The tape showed an elevated view of the block. Angel watched the U-Haul truck pull up.
“Who the fuck is supposed to be watchin’ the camera?” she asked.
The cat who brought the DVD looked nervous. “I… I… I don’t know.”
“You’re lyin’,” Angel accused him. “Was it you?”
“Naw. It was… JD.”
“Where he at?”
“Dead.”
Angel shook her head in disgust. She watched the nine men get out of the U-Haul and open fire. She focused on the figure she knew was Roc. He had definitely come out, like she said he would. Only he had come out against her.
Before she could comment, Roll’s cell rang.
“Roll! I got somebody need to holla at you,” the man spoke. It was his man who supplied Plainfield on his behalf.
“Yo Blue, I’m busy ri—”
“Naw, Roll. I’m tellin’ you, you need to hear this shit. Hold on.”
Roll sighed in aggravation. A youngen came on the line. “Roll?”
“What?” he barked.
The young black lieutenant, still in shock, replied, “Man… man… they blew up! They just… blew up!”
Roll shook his head, trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about. “Yo, son, you ain’t makin’ no sense. Fuck, is you high?”
The lieutenant shook his head no, like Roll could see him, then answered, “Some dude called and said he had a message for Roll.”
“Who called? What message?”
Salahudeen sat in a car across the street from the two Plainfield dealers. He lifted the small black box and pressed the green button.
What Roll heard on the other end was inexplicable. The short agonizing scream that echoed through the phone before it went dead was so intense, he knew whatever had happened was extremely painful and fatal. The blast killed both men instantly.
Roll’s head spun like a top as he lowered the phone from his ear. Angel saw the look on his face and asked, “What was that?”
Roll looked at her blankly. “Plainfield. Nigga said somebody blew up everybody out there, individually…” Roll remembered the scream and it rattled his spine.
>
“C4. Rahman laced them cats with C4. Probably sold ’em a watch, a phone, or some shoes loaded with C4. If it was shoes, he put the C4 inside the heel of the boot or under the sole.”
Angel smirked, because she knew the tactic. He had taught her how to use it. Rahman was using his old tactics against her.
C4 in boots and watches? Roll thought to himself, fully realizing that Rahman was still every bit as deadly as he had ever been. He turned to Nitti.
“C4 in boots?”
Nitti couldn’t believe it either. C4. Now that’s an ill assassination weapon, he thought to himself.
Angel took charge.
“Look, put somebody on the roofs in every major spot we got. Two men with scopes, one at each end of the block.”
She turned to the cat who brought the DVD. “You. Mount the camera to face the stop lights. Every car, you better know who’s drivin’ it and how many is in the car. If you leave this camera to shit, I’ma kill you my muthafuckin’ self. Si?”
The cat nodded.
Angel prepared the troops, knowing in her heart it was futile. Roc would surely already know what she’d do and wouldn’t fall into her trap.
Roll got on the phone and implemented Angel’s orders like she was the boss and he was the flunky. He relayed the message.
“Oh.” Angel grinned. “And tell ’em not to buy any more cheap shoes.”
“And don’t buy no clothes or watches or nothing from nobody until I say so!” Roll ordered.
Roll did the predictable thing and sent a team to run over Roc’s spots, but the Muslims were prepared. Their spots were small and easily defensible, so once they cleared the area of women and children, all Roll’s people found were rounds of shells raining down on them like deadly hail on the cars. Roll’s men were fortunate to escape with their lives. The only damage done was to Roll’s ego.
“And they call me a killer,” Dutch laughed as he and Roc exited the Perth Amboy Multiplex.
They had rolled down on a rival dealer and his girl inside the theater. They waited for the girl to go to the bathroom, then they slid into the row behind the dealer. Dutch put a gun to his head and whispered coldly, “Remember me, nigga?”
The dealer’s blood ran cold. “Dutch, man. It wasn’t me. I swear! It…”
Roc wrapped his big arms around his throat and squeezed like a python. The dude gagged and kicked violently while Dutch sang him to sleep.
