Numbers

by Dana Dane

  • • •

  Numbers set up a safe house outside of the hood in a ranch house on the outskirts of Norfolk. The property sat on five acres of land. It was perfect for a stash house because it was away from prying eyes and ears. The closest neighbor was a quarter of a mile or more in any direction. All the drugs were brought there first to be packaged for distribution. The money was then brought back there and placed in the safe. Unbeknownst to the rest of the crew, Numbers would move most the loot off the premises immediately. If the stash house got hit, he rationalized, they’d get drugs or the cash, but not both.

  By packaging the heroin in emptied-out vitamin capsules, Numbers created his own brand. Matt, Mel, John-John, and Numbers sat at a big wooden dining table inside the safe house filling the empty capsules with death. Neither the Norfolk dealers nor the police were ready for the way Numbers was putting his thing down. They had Park Place on lockdown.

  For the first year or so, business moved like clockwork. The crew Numbers put together, with the help of his cousins, was bringing in a significant tally of cash, and managed to stay under the radar while doing it. M and M made a few more contacts outside of Park Place and were now supplying the hood known as Norview as well. But the brothers weren’t content with the money that was pouring in like an open fire hydrant on a sweltering summer day in Brooklyn. They wanted more. They wanted to control all of Norfolk and possibly Suffolk, too.

  Numbers followed a lot of what he learned from Coney, minus the greed. He made sure to share the profits with his soldiers generously. M and M didn’t agree with him about this; they reminded Numbers of Jarvis when the money started rolling in. The more paper the brothers made, the more they wanted.

  Their incessant greed and bullying style generated enemies in more than a few neighborhoods. When local dealers had beef with Matt and Mel it was quickly squashed, and the brothers’ reputation for destruction grew equally as fast. Most of the drug peddlers became clients by either fear or default—fear that they would be crushed by the psychopathic brothers; default because there was no one else to get grade-A product from at the cheap price they were moving it at. One of the only hustlers who didn’t concede to their threats and demands was a cat from up top who went by the name Cashmere. Cash, as he was called, wasn’t the type to let another person call shots on his moves.

  Numbers was against the take-over-the-world attitude and warned them time and time again to slow their roll.

  The temperature had fallen dramatically by November. Numbers felt the stiff evening chill as he went to put out the garbage for the Monday-morning pickup. When he came back into the house, Rosa was on the phone. Whoever was on the other end of the line had ticked her off.

  “It’s for you,” Rosa snapped, holding out the receiver to Numbers.

  He took the phone. “Yeah? … Yo! Why you calling my crib? … How you get this number? … You know not to call my crib. It’s Sunday. That’s why my cell is off,” Numbers barked into the receiver. Everyone in the crew knew Numbers took Sundays off. It was his designated day to spend quality time with his family—no business, no exceptions. But that was about to change.

  “Go see him for what? … What the fuck? Those niggers are hardheaded as shit. Aiight. Where they at? … Next time I could give less than a damn; don’t be calling the crib, duke.” He hung up abruptly.

  Rosa stood nearby, staring in Numbers’s mouth so hard she could see his larynx working. “What the hell was that all about, Dupree?” she asked with a tinge of jealousy.

  “Nothing but business,” Numbers replied, avoiding her eyes.

  “What business does some chick have calling my house on Sunday? Don’t they know the rules? So what’s really good, Dupree? Why is she calling our house?”

  “Nothing. I mean, it’s something going on, but not with her. That was Wynter.”

  “I know who it was, but what is she doing calling here, and why does she have our home number?”

  “She told me I needed to go see her brother John-John; something ’bout my cousins bugging out again. They at the ranch house.” Rosa knew all about the ranch house. She’d used her real estate license to buy the property. Along with the Colonial house they lived in, the ranch house was set up under a dummy corporation.

  “So you going out, too?” Already knowing the answer to her question, Rosa got even more peeved.

  “Come on, Rosa, stop acting like that.”

  “Keep thinking I’m stupid, Dupree,” Rosa warned. Her arms were crossed and she was standing in the foyer with a don’t-play-yourself look on her face. Her Latino fire made her complexion look almost cherry red. Rosa knew Numbers wasn’t a saint, and Numbers knew she knew.

  “Baby, I’ll be right back. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” He moved in and pecked her on the lips. Her lips were pursed tight; there would be no reciprocation of his affection.

  He doused his lights as he pulled up into the driveway of the ranch house. Walking in through the kitchen, he could hear Matt or Mel talking loudly from the front room.

  “Mane, that nigger almost shit his draws.”

  Laughter.

  “You had that city nigger butt-naked. Ain’t no way he could shit his draws.”

  More laughter.

  John-John sat at the head of the dining room table, across from the brothers; he was unamused by their antics. Tidbit, a muscled five-foot-five grimy-ass southern nigger from Richmond, sat at the other end of the table, closest to the brothers, laughing right along with them. The brothers had recruited him straight out of prison, where he’d been doing a short bid.

  “Mane, you see how that fool ran when I popped that hot lead up in his azz cheek?” Tidbit’s voice was deep and low. “That mark looked like a cartoon character trying to hop his azz down that block.” Tidbit got up to mimic the way their latest victim was running. The brothers were grabbing their stomachs laughing. John-John shook his head in disagreement and took a gulp from a bottle of Southern Comfort, hoping it could give him just that.

  “Yo, what the deal?” Numbers entered the room amidst the hysterical exchange.

  “Ain’t nothin’, cuz,” Matt said, trying to contain his laughter.

  “We had to send one of your city boys scurrying back up north,” Mel added arrogantly.

  “Yo, what they talking ’bout?” Numbers turned his attention to John-John.

  “Mane,” John-John said, looking to Numbers, “they done went over to Huntersville and abducted that Harlem boy, Cash or Cashmere, whatever they call ’im. Lumped ’im up, stripped ’im down to his balls and his socks, and then shot ’im in the ass.”

  “Did they dead ’im?”

  “Nah, cuz,” Matt and Mel replied. “He ain’t that lucky.” The brothers, along with Tidbit, burst out into uncontrollable laughter again. Numbers didn’t smile.

  “Why the fuck y’all go over there fucking with duke? Didn’t I ask y’all to leave well enough alone? Y’all some hardheaded, ass-dumb niggers. Now, what if him or his boys come back at us? We supposed to be out here trying to make money. We don’t have time for any unnecessary-ass bullshit. What if they go running off at the trap? These bitch-ass niggers out here are already snitching a mile a minute for nothing, and you two mu’fuckaz go and give ’em a reason. That’s the type of shit that can put us at risk of losing everything.” Numbers was spitting venom. He was tired of his cousins constantly doing dumb shit.

  M and M may have been wild dogs to everyone else, but they knew that shit didn’t fly with Numbers. They’d seen him put it on some big country nigger who got out of line at one of the local bars, and they knew he was nobody’s slouch.

  Tidbit sat quiet, like a puppy.

  “Yo, cuz, cuz, chill out.” Mel had stopped laughing after hearing the urgency in his cousin’s voice.

  Matt tried to downplay the situation. “That mark don’t want it with us. It’s cool, Numbers, man. I know them niggers over in Huntersville. They ain’t rolling with dude. They don’t give a damn about no Har
lem.”

  “Plus, we told ’em we’d hit ’em off with higher-grade shit for a better price,” Mel chimed in.

  “Y’all gotta be smarter than that, or all our asses gonna be under the jail.” Numbers sounded more at ease now. “That’s it. Y’all hear me? Y’all got the nigger Cash out the way, so no more of that cowboy shit. If y’all pull another bullshit stunt like this, y’all gonna have to find your own connect. Think I’m bullshitting if you want to.”

  Matt and Mel sobered up real quick. “You got it, cuz,” they answered.

  “You better hope there’s no repercussions from this shit!”

  And there were none. The niggers in Huntersville didn’t want trouble with the two loony brothers and their vicious pint-sized goon, Tidbit. Over the following twelve months Numbers’s clientele grew 200 percent. By the end of the year his crew boasted trade in Park Place, Norview, Huntersville, and the Hole, among other places.

  That Time

  “Are my two favorite men hungry?” Rosa asked as she walked into the living room. R.C. was sitting on the floor in front of the forty-six-inch projection TV playing Mario Brothers on Nintendo. Numbers was on the sofa behind him coaching him.

  “Yeah, baby, what you got in mind?”

  “I was thinking spaghetti or—”

  “Spaghetti,” R.C. interrupted.

  “Spaghetti it is,” Numbers agreed. “Watch out, R.C. Watch out, you about to lose your man. Jump! Jump!” Numbers called to his son.

  “Ooh, Daddy, you saw that?” R.C. was pressing buttons frantically, never taking his eyes off the screen.

  “Yeah, I saw it, little man. That was cool.” Numbers’s cell phone rang. He recognized the number immediately—Sanchez. “¿Que pasa, mi amigo?” Numbers greeted him.

  “My brother Numbers, I have some news for you I’m sure you be interested in,” Sanchez said. “I just got word that your boy Coney was shot.”

  “What the fuck? Is he dead?”

  “That’s all the info I have. I’ll give you a call back if I find out anything more. Okay.” Never one to have long phone conversations, Sanchez hung up.

  Numbers hadn’t been in contact with Coney since coming down to Norfolk over four years ago. He’d heard many stories of Coney’s antics, but that was it. On one of his visits back to New York, Numbers heard that the feds had got a whiff of Coney. One of Coney’s soldiers, feeling less than appreciated, was snitching to the man. They had been trying to shut him down for years, but Coney always seemed to escape their clutches. If they had someone to finger Coney, he would be in jeopardy of losing everything. At the time, Numbers brushed the stories off his shoulders. He thought Coney was too smart to get caught up like that, but it did get him to thinking about his own situation. Numbers initially said he would only sell drugs for six months, and here it was almost ten years going on forever!

  Hearing the news of niggers attempting to dead Coney, Numbers decided to try to get a read on what was going on. He promptly made a call up top to get in touch with Jarvis.

  “Yo, Jar, what happened with Coney? I hear they tried to end his ass?”

  “Yeah, shit is kinda crazy. Ya boy Coney took three, but he survived.” Jarvis said, sounding like he enjoyed telling of Coney’s near-death experience. “You know how he be flossing, right? So, the nigger shooting dice over in Little Harlem screaming at niggers, ’cuz he breaking them. He talking down to niggers like he do. I could tell dudes in the cipher were tired of his shit. Anyway, Coney running off at the trap as usual, when some little cats wearing hoodies and masks rolled up. One had a twenty-two rifle, and his boy had some other joint. They just started letting it off on his ass. Whoever the fools were, they were scared rabbit-ass niggers. If it was me, man, I woulda walked right up on his bitch ass and flat-blasted him. Them chumps was shooting and backing up. They hit ’im and all, but now that nigger think he more invincible than ever. Fucking amateurs,” Jarvis finished, sounding peeved that they hadn’t killed Coney.

  “That’s bananas,” Numbers said, but he really wanted to ask Jarvis how he could be so cold.

  “Nah, Numbers, that ain’t all.” Jarvis paused, seeming to take pleasure in making Numbers wait.

  “What, Jar?”

  After getting the reaction he wanted, Jarvis continued, “To add insult to injury, while Coney was in the hospital recovering, the alphabet boys swooped down on his shystie ass and arrested him for drug trafficking, money laundering, and attempted murder. His shit is fucked all around.” Jarvis giggled.

  Coney’s empire was falling apart. Numbers remembered what Coney had told him when he first started hustling for him: There is no longevity in this game. You got to make your score and move on. Coney had warned that if the jealous fools on the streets or in your own camp didn’t get you, the government would. A fool would rat out his momma to save his own neck, he lamented. Numbers thought to himself, I guess a little bit of both got to Coney. He should have taken his own advice. Numbers wondered how he would avoid the same thing happening to him.

  Rosa fixed her plate and sat at the dinner table with her men. She looked at Numbers and knew something was troubling him. After being his friend and girlfriend for nineteen years, she knew his moods like the back of her well-manicured hands. “¿Que pasa, Papi?” she asked.

  R.C. looked at his father.

  Numbers twirled his angel-hair pasta around for a moment. “It’s time to move from this,” he said deliberately. “I’ve had enough. It’s too much.”

  R.C. didn’t know what his father was speaking about and went back to eating his dinner. But Rosa was pleased to hear him come to this conclusion. “Baby, you know I got your back whatever you decide, and just so that you know, I think it’s time, too. So what are you gonna do about your cousins? You know they’re not trying to hear nothing about you quitting.”

  Rosa ain’t never lied, Numbers thought. They would protest vehemently if Numbers attempted to stop their money train. “Yeah, I know.”

  “So what do we do?” Rosa asked.

  “I’ll think of something,” Numbers said, now digging into his turkey spaghetti. He ate quietly for the rest of his meal, contemplating his out.

  After dinner R.C. headed back to the living room while Numbers, still quiet, helped Rosa load up the dishwasher.

  “I know what I’m gonna do,” Numbers broke his silence. “I’m going to triple my re-up for one last run—getting thirty kilos instead of ten. I can’t trust Matt and Mel to meet with Sanchez.” He didn’t want them to do something stupid and burn a bridge. He knew anything was possible fucking with them knuckleheads. They could blank out and try to rob Sanchez, and that would bring heat Numbers couldn’t stand. “Once we get back here, we should be able to move the first ten to fifteen bricks in a week, give or take. Once I get the money from the first ten or so, I’ll hit them with the next fifteen keys and we can be out. I’m gonna need for you to go to Charlotte like we discussed, Rosa.”

  Rosa was beaming as he discussed their plans. She’d wanted Numbers to stop dealing years ago but knew it wasn’t feasible at the time. Now was different. She’d obtained her bachelor’s degree in business and a real estate license. They could sell the sprawling four-bedroom, three-bath with two-car garage colonial-style home sitting on three acres for a good profit.

  “Baby, I need to do something different. I just don’t know what. I will be thirty in a year. And little man’s getting older. He not gonna be able to take me to school for career day. What he gonna say when they ask him what his daddy do?”

  “You’ll figure it out, Dupree. We’ll figure it out together, honey.” She wrapped her arms around his waist. Her eyes met his and radiated pure love.

  The last few years had been very prosperous for him and the crew. Numbers owned a couple of properties in Virginia Beach and had more cars than he could drive. He’d purchased his mother a brownstone on the good side of Fort Greene. He’d paid for his sisters’ college tuition. His lady had a bachelor’s degree and was a successful
real estate agent. He had to admit, his life was good.

  If everything went as he diagrammed, the dope would fetch over $5 million on the streets. Numbers could walk away with a little over $1.5 mil plus what he already had stashed. His cousins and the crew would be straight as well. In order for his plan to work, everyone would have to play his position. Even though he wanted to tell his cousins he was done, he thought it best that he didn’t. Crispy Carl had told Numbers to never let his left hand know what his right hand was doing. Numbers took that one step further; he didn’t let his index finger know what his thumb was up to. That way, no one could put him in a cross. In two weeks, Numbers would be out of the game for good.

  When Numbers touched down in Brooklyn, his first stop was to go visit his mother. He pulled up to a store a couple of blocks from her house on DeKalb and Clermont to buy her a ginger ale. As he was leaving the store he was halted by a familiar voice calling his name.

  He couldn’t believe his eyes when he tried to match the face to the voice. “Broz?” His once overweight friend was now slimmer than him. The rumors of him being strung out on drugs must be true. Numbers hadn’t seen Broz in some time, and the years hadn’t been kind to his childhood running partner.

  “Yo, Numbers, my man, I see you doing big things … livin’ lovely, huh?” Broz muttered. He was noticeably high, looking from Numbers to his brand-new ’03 BMW 745.

  “What up with you, Broz? How you lose all that weight?” Numbers already knew the answer but wanted to hear what Broz had to say for himself.

  “Ah, man, Numbers, I was crazy sick, lost mad weight, but I’m back now,” he lied. “You know your partner Coney is back on the streets? The feds had ’im and let ’im loose. Word on the streets is he gave someone up to get out.” Broz paused to see how Numbers would react.

  Numbers was surprised to hear that Coney was back on the streets, but he appeared unfazed. “Is that right?”