Carl Weber's Kingpins

by C. N. Phillips

  Klax stood up to quickly shake Big Tony’s hand and pull him into an embrace. Then he retook his seat while Big Tony sat in a chair across from him. Goons positioned themselves in a half circle behind Big Tony’s seat and stood ready in case anything happened.

  “We usually only have to meet face-to-face once a month, Tony,” Klax said. “There’s something wrong with this picture.”

  “Trust me, Klax. I have had motherfuckas scouring the streets looking for the sons of bitches that stole from you.”

  “Can you run by me exactly what happened again?”

  “I think somebody followed me when I went to go check on the storage, because the day it happened, I had just left from there.”

  “Is that right?” Klax said, leaning back in his seat.

  “Yeah, man,” Big Tony said sincerely. “I’m going to get your shit back on everything. And when I catch whoever it is, they’re gonna pay.”

  “I hope so,” Klax said, looking Big Tony in the eye. “And just so we’re on the same page, exactly how are you going to make them pay for stealing from me?”

  “I’m going to chain his ankle to the back of my truck and go for a little ride,” Big Tony said without missing a beat.

  “I like that,” Klax said with an approving nod. “Get on it.”

  He stood up from his seat like he was about to leave, but stopped abruptly like he forgot something.

  “You good, G?” Big Tony asked.

  “Yeah, I just almost completely forgot what I came here for. Ransom, will you go to my trunk and bring me what’s inside,” Klax asked, and without hesitation, Ransom went outside to Klax’s car. “I have a package for you. I like you, Tony; you’re ambitious. You want more work, don’t you?”

  “More work?” Big Tony inquired, and a happy smile spread across his face. “Boss, I just got promoted, and we’re pushing more keys a week than we should already.”

  “Can’t handle it?”

  “Hell yeah, I can handle it. I just am gonna need some more territory. You know I’ve been asking you about Harlem for a long time now.”

  “And the answer will be the same every time. The shit I have going in Harlem is untouchable right now, but it doesn’t surprise me that you bring up Harlem right now.”

  “And why is that?” Big Tony said evenly.

  At that time, Big Tony’s goon had returned with what Klax had sent him outside to get. He wore a shocked look on his face because what they all assumed was a real package wasn’t at all. Half walking and half being dragged by the goon was a man who was sporting two swollen eyes and a bloodied face. His mouth was covered with duct tape, and his wrists were tied together. The second the man saw Klax. He bucked and tried to run away, but couldn’t. Klax glanced casually at him and then turned back to Big Tony, who was wearing an expression of shock on his face.

  “Drop him right here,” Klax said, pointing at a spot near his feet.

  The goon did as he was told and went back to his post. The man on the ground cowered and kept his eyes on the floor he was staining with his blood. Klax fought the urge to kick him in the side of his face, but only because he needed him conscious.

  “W-what’s going on here?” Big Tony finally said after the surprise wore off. “You can’t just be pulling niggas out of your trunk in front of my house!”

  “Why can’t I?” Klax asked. “I think you’ve forgotten who I am, haven’t you?”

  “Nah, Klax,” Big Tony said with his eyes shifting from Klax to the man on the ground in front of him.

  “I think you have. You know, when you first told me about the robbery, I thought to myself, ‘This shit had to have been plotted.’ But who could be targeting me?”

  “Maybe it was those boys from upstate,” Big Tony offered. “Raul and them. You know they feel as if you stole their clientele.”

  “I thought that too at first, but Raul makes too much money with my product; that, and the fact that he wouldn’t stand a fighting chance. He would never step to me. So, the more I thought about it, I concluded that because there were two hits, there is definitely someone gunning for me. But this Bronx hit was too specific. Nobody knew about that storage . . . except you.”

  “Boss, are you saying I would rob you?”

  “I’m saying that the storage wasn’t the target. You were. The things taken from me were just the icing on the cake.”

  “You can’t really think I would lie to you, Klax. Me and your old man go way back in the day!”

  “I didn’t have to. Our friend here told me everything that I needed to know,” Klax said gesturing to the man on the ground. “You may not recognize him with all those knots on his head.”

  Big Tony stared hard at the man on the ground, and Klax watched him suddenly recognize the man.

  “Yeah, I thought he would be familiar to you,” Klax said. “My people caught him bragging around the city about the big lick he’d just hit. They brought him to me, and you wouldn’t believe the song this little birdie sang. Now, tell me if this is fact or fiction, a’ight? So, this nigga here tells me that he followed you to the storage to offer you a deal, not to rob me. He said that he told you if you helped his boss take me down, then you could run the Bronx and Harlem. He said that you gave them my money and drugs to show ‘good faith.’”

  Big Tony didn’t say anything; instead, he just glared at Klax when he continued speaking. “I’ll take your silence as I’m right. A’ight. But just tell me this, you really gave this nigga my shit to show good faith?”

  “Fuck you,” Big Tony finally said, realizing his game was blown. “I don’t know what Kam was thinking of leaving his empire to you anyway. You ain’t shit but a little boy in this game, Klax. Give it up. It’s time for someone new to run the game.”

  “And I take it that someone is you?” Klax asked, genuinely amused.

  “Yeah, nigga!” Big Tony’s deep voice said loudly. “I don’t know why you’re sitting over there thinking shit is funny. I’ve been in the game since you were still counting with your fingers. I think it’s about time I run the streets. You come in here tryna make me shake in my Louboutins with some nigga you beat up like I’m supposed to be scared or something. All you niggas have shown me is that you’re weak and stupid. Now you tell me something, Klax. Did you really think you could come in here alone and just walk out?” Big Tony’s lips spread into a menacing smile, and he gave a hearty laugh as he motioned to his goons. “Kill this nigga.”

  He leaned back and waited to hear the gunshots that Klax knew never were going to come. When Big Tony realized that Klax wasn’t lying in a pool of his own blood, he turned his head and was met with another surprise. He had five guns pointed at him, and that caused him to jump up from his seat, angry.

  “What the fuck is this?” he shouted at them. “Where is your loyalty? You work for me!”

  “And you work for me. Which means they work for me too,” Klax reminded Big Tony. “They would never raise their guns to me. Now, that’s loyalty. Something that you don’t have. And because of that, you’ve been discharged from your position.”

  “Nigga, you can’t discharge me! I built the Bronx! Can’t nobody run this shit like me—”

  Pfft!

  Big Tony was cut short when his head suddenly snapped viciously back. The bullet from Klax’s gun caught him in the middle of the forehead. The man on the floor jumped hard when Big Tony’s brains sprayed on his furniture, and his body fell to the ground. He was dead.

  “I trust that one of you will get this cleaned up,” Klax said to the goons, who nodded quickly. “Good.”

  Klax ignored Big Tony’s dead body and knelt in front of the terrified man. He snatched the duct tape from his mouth and dropped it on the floor. The man had had so much heart when he was first snatched up. It took awhile to break him down, but soon, he found out that underneath Klax’s charming exterior, there was a monster living inside. He told Klax everything he needed to know except one thing.

  “Who sent you?” Klax dem
anded.

  “I already told you,” the man breathed. “I can’t tell you.”

  “That’s not an answer. You have three seconds to tell me who sent you, or else you end up like our friend here.”

  “I told you as much as I can,” the man said and stared Klax in the eyes. He held the look of a man who had already accepted death. “I’d rather go back in a box than go back with breath in my lungs. There ain’t shit you can do to me that will compare to what he’ll do to me. So just kill me. I ain’t telling you shit el—”

  Pfft!

  The bullet from Klax’s gun was lodged in his skull before he finished speaking. His chin dropped to his chest, and his eyes closed. Klax sighed and shook his head in front of the dead man. Whoever he worked for put a fear in his heart that not even Klax could scare away. Not only that, but whoever it was had gone to great lengths to get to him. He’d found the weakest link in Klax’s camp, and that couldn’t have been easy. That let Klax know that he was being watched.

  “Nobody comes in or out of here until this shit is cleaned up,” Klax told Ransom. “Also, until I appoint someone new, you’re in charge of shit over here. You cool with that?”

  “Yeah, I’m cool with it,” Ransom said, looking down at Big Tony’s body. “As long as I don’t end up like him.”

  “If you make better decisions than him, you won’t,” Klax told him and made his way to the door.

  When Klax got back into his car, the hairs on his neck stood up again. That time, not in anticipation of cracking down on someone who crossed him, but because he didn’t know who was calling plays in his city. He also couldn’t help but wonder what his father would say about all that had just happened. He would have been livid at the robbery, but he would have been angrier at the attempt on Harlem. Kameron Turner wouldn’t stand for the disrespect on his own turf, so Klax knew exactly what he would say.

  “I know, I know,” he said to himself as he pulled out of the long driveway. “I need to tighten up.”

  Chapter 2

  “It all comes down to the last person you think of at

  night. That’s where your heart is.”

  —Anonymous

  Kleigh

  “Kleigh, when are you going to settle down and find someone to love you?”

  Kleigh Turner rolled her eyes from where she lay on her queen-sized, silver sleigh bed. She was on her stomach, painting her nails a dazzling hot pink while her best friend, Bahli Samuels, sat at a vanity a few feet away from the bed. Bahli’s face was an inch away from the mirror as she went over her eyebrows for what seemed like the tenth time.

  “It’s going to take a special kind of man to love me,” Kleigh said, admiring the paint job she’d done by holding her hand up in the air.

  “Well, maybe if you gave someone a chance, you would know if they were that special man! You don’t even let anybody close to you.”

  Bahli, finally satisfied with her makeup, came and sat on the edge of Kleigh’s bed. She was a beautiful girl with a mocha-brown complexion and thick, black hair that she kept tucked away under bundles of weave. She had a round face, big lips, and wide set, pretty, light brown eyes. Bahli was nowhere near petite. She was a shapely young woman with a nice-sized rear end to match her plump chest. Her teeth shined due to the braces on them, but they just accented her vibrant smile. Her acrylic nails tapped the vanity in an annoyed fashion as she gave Kleigh a look waiting for her answer. If anybody knew Kleigh Turner, it was her. They’d been best friends since the first grade and looked at each other as sisters.

  Kleigh returned Bahli’s eye roll and sat up as well. At age 25, she had filled out quite nicely. Her C-cup breasts seemed so much bigger since her stomach was so flat. Her hips were naturally wide, and her big butt was round with a cuff. She was the epitome of what it meant to be “slim thick,” and she had a pretty face to go along with all of her other attributes. On her oval-shaped head, she wore her hair natural in long, kinky curls. Her cheekbones were defined and raised high whenever she was happy or excited about something.

  “All these niggas wanna do is fuck, and you know that. I don’t even want to waste my time on any of them.”

  “Girl, you don’t know that!”

  “What’s the point of letting somebody get close to me if they run off once they find out who my brother is?”

  “True,” Bahli said with a frown. “I forgot about that part.”

  Kleigh sighed at her best friend and just shook her head. She was starting to believe that there was no such thing as a happily ever after for her if Klax was in the picture. She loved her big brother, but he was the wall that wouldn’t come down in her life. Ever since their father passed away, Klax made it his duty to be her provider and protector. She felt blessed—and smothered—at the same time. She loved how her brother loved her, but it was a hindrance at the same time. Sometimes, she felt that she had to try just to be normal. Every move she made was watched; every decision she made was scrutinized. She couldn’t imagine bringing a man into that equation because no matter who he was, he would never measure up in Klax’s eyes.

  “Yeah, of course, you would forget. You’re not the one with him as a brother,” Kleigh told her with a sigh.

  She got up from the bed and walked to the large window in her bedroom. Moving one of the white drapes to the side, she peered down to the street below. As always, one of Klax’s goons was posted up outside of her condo, and she groaned loudly.

  “This is the shit I be talkin’ about!”

  “Who is it this time? Butta or Drop?”

  “From the looks of the new Benz, it has to be Drop,” Kleigh answered.

  “I need to fuck with him. He stays in a new car.”

  “That’s why they call him Drop. He’s been like that since he and Klax were younger,” Kleigh let out a big breath. “I don’t understand why Klax still treats me like a damn kid! Every time I turn around, I see one of his ugly-ass minions. It’s starting to get on my nerves.”

  “Starting to? I think that’s an understatement.”

  “I’m 25, and he’s still clocking my every move.”

  “I get you, baby; trust me, I do. But on the real? You’re the little sister of the head honcho of Harlem, and that makes you a princess. Don’t go acting naive now. You know exactly why he keeps you on lock.”

  “I know who my big brother is, but I can handle myself. I’m not some defenseless little girl,” Kleigh said and stepped away from the window. “I need some fresh air. Let’s get out.”

  “Buuuut . . . It’s Thursday,” Bahli raised her perfectly arched eyebrow and looked skeptically at her friend.

  “So? How long has it been since we went dancing?”

  “Almost a month.” Bahli pretended to think with a finger to her lips. “Because the last time we went out, some wild niggas shot the club up!”

  “Stop being so dramatic. Find something in my closet. It’s only about to be ten o’clock, and you know what that means. The night is still young!”

  “The only way I’m going out with you is if you let me wear that black Dior dress with the back cut completely out.” Bahli crossed her arms to let Kleigh know she was serious.

  “How about not? I haven’t even popped the tag on that yet!”

  “I know,” Bahli grinned mischievously. “And after I do, that means you won’t want it back. That’s my condition if you want my fine ass to step out with you tonight.”

  “You ain’t right.”

  “How badly do you want me to go with you?”

  “What kind of friend are you?”

  “The kind that comes with a price.”

  “Whatever, heffa. Grab the damn dress. It’s—”

  “Hanging on the back of the closet door.” Bahli jumped up and almost skipped to the closet. She snatched it down from the hanger and held it up to herself, staring at her reflection in the full-length mirror at the back of the closet. “I’ve been eyeing this dress since you got it in the mail!”

  Kleigh watc
hed Bahli admiring the fabric of the dress in her huge closet, wondering why the only designer that ever graced Bahli’s body was never owned by her. Kleigh knew her friend made good money at her job. She was the assistant to one of the highest-paid lawyers in New York. It was obvious that Bahli had expensive taste, but she would settle for shopping out of regular, inexpensive department stores.

  “You know you were with me when I ordered that dress, right? Why didn’t you get your own?”

  Kleigh entered the closet too and began to sift through what seemed like a ton of clothing in search of something to wear. Most of the items still had tags on them because she forgot they were there. She had really wanted to step out in the Dior dress, but she also didn’t want to move around the city alone that night. So, she was willing to make the trade.

  “Because that dress was almost $4,000, and not all of us have a wealthy big brother who covers all of our expenses. I still have to pay rent for my own spot on top of a car note, and all of the shit that comes with those things.”

  “Even if I didn’t have a big brother that looks out the way Klax does, I would still have everything that I want. It costs to be the boss, LeeLee. Don’t sit up here and act like I don’t make my own money from my own business.”

  “A business that Klax gave you the startup money for.”

  “Startup money that I paid back in under a year,” Kleigh whipped around and placed her hand on her hip. “You sound a little salty over there. You act like I didn’t offer you a position to work for me. You turned it down because you didn’t want to work for me.”

  “Because your ass is bossy!” Bahli said and grinned. “You know damn well we would bump heads every day if I were your employee!”

  “You have a point there,” Kleigh said and returned her smile. “I didn’t mean what I said about ordering the dress to come out like that. You’re my girl, and you know I got you through whatever. You want me to have Klax send some of his goons up to Mr. Bailor’s firm and threaten him into giving you a raise?”

  “Kleigh!” Bahli almost choked from laughing so hard. “You would scare that poor white man to death! No, I don’t want you to do that. I make good money; it’s just that everything in New York is so expensive!”