Carl Weber's Kingpins

by C. N. Phillips

  Knock! Knock!

  “Come in,” Kyan called out when he heard the knuckles against the wooden door.

  “I brought her, boss,” NuNu said and walked in with the young woman in tow.

  Kyan’s eyes didn’t directly fall on her, but through his peripheral, he saw her sit down in the seat on the opposite side of the desk. Kyan’s hand smoothed down the crisp green Versace button-up he wore as he glowered at NuNu who was having a hard time staring back.

  “You good?” Kyan asked.

  “Yeah, I’m straight,” NuNu answered.

  “You sure about that, because I’ve been hearing a pretty good story about you going around? You know what they’re saying about you?”

  “Nah, and I don’t really care, either.”

  “Well, I care, because when niggas find you passed out in a whorehouse with your dick out, how do you think that makes you look? Weak. And how do you think that makes me look? Weaker than that,” Kyan spoke in a frigid tone. “If it weren’t for the fact that I’ll need your impeccable aim tonight, I would shoot you where you stand.”

  “That dirty bitch drugged me,” NuNu said. “Everybody done got played by some pussy before.”

  “You sound dumber than you look, little nigga!” Kyan barked. “If a bitch can get the one up on you, what message are you sending my enemies? Don’t become a liability. I don’t do liabilities. Go make sure everything is in place for tonight. We have a big move to make.”

  “You got it, boss,” NuNu said sounding genuinely happy to have an out from Kyan’s dangerous presence.

  When he was gone, Kyan finally turned his attention to the young woman sitting across from him. She was pretty, although her eyes had a worn look about them. The clothes she had on were disheveled and dirty since she’d been wearing them for a few days. Her hair was messy, and a bath would have done her much good.

  “Tell me something good, Cali,” he said, and she jumped slightly when he said her name.

  “I-I don’t know what you mean, daddy,” she spoke softly calling him what she used to call her pimp.

  “You know exactly what I mean. I thought you were working on getting back into my good graces. You were supposed to befriend your new roommate.”

  “Oh, yeah. That.”

  “And what have you learned?”

  Cali had been in his clutches for a little under a month when her pimp didn’t want to pay what he owed. Eventually, he ended up paying with his life, and Kyan was going to do the same to Cali, but she had proven herself to be useful to him. That was, until she proved otherwise. While on a setup job with Joey Donald, a man who was 20K in the hole with Kyan, she decided to play with her nose. She got so high that she let it slip that people were coming to kill him, and he ran. It took a week for Kyan to finally catch up with him, and because of that slipup, she had to be punished. Her only option of redemption was to dive into the mind of her cell mate, Kleigh Turner.

  “S-she’s a tough cookie to crack, baby. She only talks about how she’s sure her brother is gonna save her.”

  “Did she tell you anything else about her brother?”

  “No. Nothing at all. Just that she knows he’s gonna save her.”

  “Hmm, interesting,” Kyan said, tapping his fingers on his desk.

  It grew quiet in the room, and the only thing that could be heard were his fingers hitting the wood. He stared at her without blinking, searching her face for a lie. The only thing he found was fear.

  “I’m telling you the truth, daddy,” Cali said. “I wouldn’t lie to you. I-I-I’m the one who told you the truth when I screwed up the last time.”

  “You’re right,” Kyan said, slowly reaching into his desk.

  “I’ll be a good girl,” her voice came out as a plea. “I promise I won’t mess up again.”

  “I know you won’t . . . because you won’t get the chance.”

  From his desk, he grabbed the .32 that he kept there and pointed it at her. Before she got a chance to move out of the way, he pulled the trigger. The gunshot was loud, and the bullet went through her throat and came out the back of her neck—a clean shot. Her eyes widened, and her breath turned into a gurgling sound. She wrapped her hands around her throat and tried to apply pressure to the wound, but it was futile. Kyan watched the life leave her within seconds, and she fell jerking to the ground until finally, she was still.

  “I just got this damn carpet,” Kyan complained.

  It didn’t matter, however, because, after that night, he would be switching locations permanently. He checked the diamond-studded watch on his wrist and saw that the time read almost four in the afternoon, and right on time, he felt his phone buzzing in his pocket. Sure enough, when he removed it and read the text message on the screen, it was an address from an unsaved number. It was showtime. He left the office, leaving Cali’s body there to bleed out and headed over to the large parking garage where his people were waiting for him.

  “You ready?” Kyan asked the large group of men as he approached the black Yukon trucks.

  “Yes sir,” they replied in unison.

  “Then let’s load up, boys! It’s time to head out. This time tomorrow, we’ll be on top of the world!” Kyan said, and they did as they were told.

  Most of them were street soldiers, but a few of them were ex-military. If Klax had something up his sleeve, he still didn’t have a chance against his manpower.

  “The girl is in the van,” NuNu said, walking up on Kyan and pointing to a white van behind the three trucks.

  “Good, you ride with me,” Kyan said, getting inside the back of a truck. “We both know I can’t trust you around pretty girls.”

  * * *

  The meeting place was in the Bronx, so Kyan reached the destination a little after six. It was an old loading warehouse so that they could pull their trucks into it with no problem. As promised, standing alone and unarmed next to an old freight was Klax. Kyan’s goons, armed with automatic weapons, got out first to scope out the area. They fanned out while some went to check the back and the others went inside.

  “Clear out back!”

  “Clear inside!”

  Once they heard that, NuNu got out and walked around to open Kyan’s door for him. He stepped out and dusted the sleeves of his shirt before walking toward Klax. He had a smile on his face, while Klax looked somber. Beside and all around Kyan, all of his men had their weapons pointed at Klax just in case he tried something.

  “Where’s the buyer?” Kyan said, looking around. “I thought this was a meeting.”

  “Shit, you could have fooled me. Looks like you came in here prepared for war. How many people you got with you? I count twenty.”

  “Don’t play with me, nigga. Where is he?” Kyan said, looking around. “You better not be gaming.”

  “He’ll be here,” Klax assured him. “But first, where is my sister? Before anything pops off, I need to see that Kleigh is still alive.”

  Kyan had half a mind to tell Klax to go to hell, but he told himself they would both be dead soon anyway. He nodded at NuNu, who went to the van and opened the back. From it, he pulled out a very alert Kleigh. Her wrists were bound, and her mouth was gagged, but she was still alive.

  Kyan watched with satisfaction as the look of relief on Klax’s face turned into one of malice. He chuckled and watched Klax’s fists clench and release.

  “You’ve seen what you needed to,” Kyan said. “Now, it’s time for you to hold up your end of the bargain.”

  “A’ight, I got you. You know how I just said he’d be here?”

  “You mean he ain’t coming?” Kyan said and put his hand up, preparing to give his goons the signal to blow Klax off his feet.

  “Nah,” Klax shook his head, and it seemed as if his tall frame suddenly got even taller. “He’s already here.”

  Kyan looked around and waited to see somebody else enter the warehouse. When he didn’t, he turned back to Klax, and that time, a broad smile came over his face. It took him a second,
but Kyan finally understood what Klax meant.

  “No. It can’t be. The buyer is—”

  “Me,” Klax said with a short laugh.

  “Nah,” Kyan shook his head in disbelief. “You’re lying. It can’t be you. If you’re the buyer, why run Harlem?”

  “Harlem plays its part in the flow of New York,” Klax told him. “I get the product, store it there, and distribute accordingly. I run marathons, not sprints, and there is always a bigger picture in my head. You hold the highest position on the board when everybody thinks you’re playing the same game as them. I prefer to be an equally respected player on the surface, but in the background, I’m the one pulling the strings. Like right now.”

  “Right now?” Kyan scoffed. “Now that I know who you are, I have all the pieces on the board. You just gave yourself away to me. All for her?” He waved a disgusted hand at Kleigh. “You should have cut off your nose to spite your face because now, you’ve lost everything. Kill him!”

  Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!

  The shots were quick and precise. The five men closest to Kyan dropped to the ground with loud thuds as bullets lodged in their brains. On his right arm, Kyan noticed a red dot traveling in an upward motion to his chest and up to his face.

  “It’s on your forehead now,” Klax confirmed when Kyan could no longer see it. “My people hung back until now. Now, you’re all surrounded. One small move and you all die. Another mistake you made was assuming the fear of losing somebody I loved would make me sloppy. Nah. That made me sharp. It made me realize I was dealing with an amateur. You thought I would really come here alone? Why? Because I was desperate? I was desperate, and that’s why you should have feared me. Tell ’em to drop their weapons before I redecorate this warehouse with your blood.”

  “Put them down,” Kyan said, feeling the heat of the beam on his forehead.

  “But, boss,” Kyan heard NuNu say from behind him.

  “Put your fucking weapons down!” Kyan shouted, and that time, they listened.

  “Now, send my sister to me,” Klax said.

  Without turning around, Kyan motioned for NuNu to do as Klax said. Kleigh, who hadn’t been given food or water since she’d been taken, stumbled past him, and he got a strong whiff of urine. When she got to Klax, he embraced her tightly as if he didn’t smell a thing and kissed her forehead.

  “You know I had you, right?” he said, ungagging her and freeing her wrists. “Who did this to your face?”

  When she pointed back to NuNu, he pulled a pistol from the waist of his jeans. NuNu moved, knowing what was about to happen, but Klax was too fast for him. Since he moved, the bullet didn’t explode his face like Klax wanted to, but it took off a large portion of his head. NuNu fell to the ground dead on impact, and Klax let the hand holding the gun fall to his side.

  “Now, back to you,” Klax said, looking back at Kyan. “You’re lucky I’m in good spirits now that I have my sister back. I’m not gon’ kill you.”

  “That ain’t gon’ be good for you, youngblood,” Kyan snarled. “If I walk through them doors, best believe you won’t make it to next week.”

  Dak dak dak dak dak dak!

  Behind Kyan, the rest of the men he brought with him fell one by one as the automatic rounds tore into their bodies. When the gunshots stopped, Kyan stood like a lone soldier, and his eyes went from his people’s dead bodies back to the mysterious smile on Klax’s face.

  “Oh, my bad, G. I guess I gave you the wrong impression,” Klax said with a laugh. “I said, I wasn’t gon’ kill you. I didn’t say you weren’t gon’ die.”

  That’s when Kyan heard a voice that made his blood run cold.

  “What’s up, Unc?”

  He barely had the chance to face the person he’d helped raise into a man when he heard two shots and felt heat explode in his chest. The last thing Kyan remembered was falling to the ground and seeing Tron’s face staring emotionlessly down at him. He’d never felt pain like the one he felt right then as his blood seeped out of his body and onto the cold concrete underneath him. And then . . . nothing.

  Chapter 21

  “The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is

  going to stop me?”

  —Ayn Rand

  Klax

  Tron stood over Kyan with an AK-47 in one hand and a smoking pistol in the other. Klax thought he was going to empty the rest of his clip of the pistol in Kyan’s body, but he didn’t. He just watched him bleed out from the chest. Kyan’s God complex had led him to a potential battlefield without a vest, and that was a fool’s mistake. Tron’s eyes stayed on Kyan’s until all life left them, and then he emptied his clip into his face.

  “Bitch,” Tron said, breathing heavily. “That’s for Sunny. My dad ain’t deserve to go like that.”

  Klax, who was holding on to Kleigh for dear life, felt her try to pull away from him. He didn’t want to let her go, but he knew somebody else needed her right then. She limped over to where Tron was, and he dropped the guns in his hands on the ground to catch her before she lost her balance. He embraced her as hard as he could without hurting her and buried his face in her neck.

  “I’m sorry, shorty,” he said to her. “This is all my fault.”

  “No. Don’t say that. You came for me,” she whispered weakly. “You both came for me. I love y’all so much.”

  Kyan was wrong about one thing. Tron might have lost his blood relatives, but he still had a family.

  Klax’s chest heaved up and down, and it wasn’t until then that he realized how much relief he felt. He knew that the future held many more obstacles, but for right then, the worst was over. The way Tron held on to Kleigh let him know that he would probably be around for a while. After a few moments, Klax cleared his throat.

  “Take her out of here,” Klax told Tron. “I’m about to make a call to the cleaners and wait to make sure the job gets done right. There are more bodies than usual. I’ll meet you back at her spot, bet?”

  “Yeah,” Tron said and lifted Kleigh with ease, placing an arm around her back and the other under her knees. He took a few steps toward the warehouse opening but stopped and turned back to Klax. “Aye, G?”

  “What’s good?”

  “Thanks,” was the only word that Tron could come up with to say.

  “Ditto.”

  When Tron was finally gone, Klax heard the sound of someone climbing down from the warehouse’s high ceiling. Klax wasn’t alarmed because he knew who it was and offered a hand when the person landed on the high freight.

  “You the only nigga that could ever ask me to get in the ceiling for anything!” Dame said, shaking his head at all the dead bodies around them. “That nigga really thought you had him surrounded.”

  “Shit, with the best shooter on my side, I see why it seemed like it!” Klax said and slapped hands with “You Dropped Five Niggas in Five Seconds Flat.”

  “You know, I just been working on my aim a li’l bit,” Dame shrugged modestly. “But for real, anything for you and li’l sis. Y’all my people. I put that laser on his head and had him spooked, though, didn’t I?”

  The two men shared a laugh before Klax grew serious again.

  “It ain’t gon’ stop with him, though,” he shook his head. “Somebody gon’ always want the crown.”

  “True. But that’s something that comes with the job. Reason why you got niggas like me around you.”

  “True,” Klax said with a sigh. “I’m growing tired of being two people. Now that y’all know my secret, I think it’s time for me to pick a side.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Instead of answering, Klax shrugged his shoulders. “Do me a favor.”

  “What’s good?”

  “Call the best cleaning team we have and stay here until the job is done.”

  “You ain’t said shit but a word.”

  “Tryn’ to stay focus, kinda like Moses. Like somebody chose us . . . ”

  Nipsey’s voice blessed Klax’s e
ars, and he drove, nodding his head as if he hadn’t just left a bloody crime scene. The entire ride to Kleigh’s condo, Klax made peace with what had happened. He was thankful for the past because it helped him grow to be even better for the future. And when he was good mentally, everyone around him was too.

  When he finally reached his destination, he stood outside the door for a few moments, listening to the voices on the other side. He found himself smiling when he heard Kleigh’s laughter. He was worried that the experience might have traumatized her, but then again, he might have just underestimated the power of love. He’d spent so much time making sure no one could get close to her that he never thought about the weight it would take off his shoulders if she had someone solid in her corner. At first, he wasn’t sure if it was Tron, but the way he gingerly had carried her out of the warehouse made him question that.

  Knock! Knock!

  His knuckles rasped against the door before he was yet ready to announce his presence, but he needed to speak to Tron. Kleigh swung the door open, and when she saw her brother, she hugged him tightly. She pulled away to look up in his face to examine him, and he did the same to her. She’d come home and cleaned up nice. His eyes went straight to her nose because with all the blood that had been there, he couldn’t tell if it was broken the last time he saw her. When he was sure it wasn’t, he kissed her forehead. She was still scraped and bruised, but that was just physical and would heal.

  “What took you so long to get here?” she asked and eyed him worriedly. “Dame called Tron and said that everything is everything. He said you weren’t answering your phone, though. You good?”

  “I’m as good as I can be for right now,” he said and shook his head when she stepped out of the way for him to come inside. “Nah, I’ma let y’all do your thing for right now. I wanted to holler at Tron for a second, though.”