by W. S. Greer
“No.”
“Then shut the fuck up, and let me try to figure this out, because you’re not helping right now. You’re just slowing us down.” I turn my attention to Lilliana who’s standing there with her hand over her mouth, still in shock. “Baby, we need to go.”
Lilliana looks completely overwhelmed. When she looks at me, I can see the disappointment in her eyes as she shakes her head back and forth.
“What are we supposed to do?” she asks under her hand.
“We have to go home and grab some stuff as fast as we can, and then we have to go. We have to leave.”
“And go where?”
“I’m not sure yet. I just know we have to go.”
“What about my family?”
“We’ll let them know what’s up once we’re safe.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Lilliana bellows. “What if your dad goes after my family?”
I can’t even respond. I never thought about that possibility, but I know that’s something that a gangster like my father would do.
“He won’t,” I reply apprehensively.
“How do you know?”
“I don’t. All we can do is hope for the best for now, and then make plans later, once we’re safe.”
“We’ll never be safe, Kelvin. You’ve made it so that we can never be safe.”
“What was I supposed to do, Lilliana?”
“You were supposed to kill him!”
Just then, I feel my phone vibrating in my pocket, and then the ringtone kicks in. I let it ring for a while as I stare at Lilliana. I could hear the pain in her voice as she screamed those words at me. I hadn’t realized just how much she wanted my father dead. It suddenly dawned on me that it wasn’t just me that he pushed over the edge, it was Lilliana, too. When he shot her, he pushed her too far, and now neither of us will ever be the same again. He drove an elementary school teacher to wanting him dead. That’s pretty damn drastic. As she stares at me and I hear my phone still ringing, I know that I’ve made a mistake by letting him live.
Lilliana looks at me like she hates me. She stands there with her hands at her sides, but she looks so intense. She has fire in her eyes, yet she seems scared also. I begin to move my lips to apologize to her, but before I can say a word, she turns on her heel and begins to walk away.
I think to go after her, but Aunt Lauren steps in front of me. “Just answer your phone, Kelvin,” she says sedately. I watch Lilliana begin to walk upstairs, and I’m assuming that she’s gathering her things so that we can leave. At least, that’s what I hope she’s doing.
I decide to concede, and finally reach into my pocket and pull out my phone. I’d let it ring for so long, I have no idea who’d stay on the line that long. When I look at the display, I realize that he did hang up once, but he called right back. The name on the display takes my breath away and I suddenly feel the need to sit down. It’s Uncle Clarence. I hesitantly answer.
“Have you lost your fucking mind?” he says the second I pick up. “You should’ve shot him, Junior. You should’ve shot him.”
“I know I should’ve,” I reply, my heart rate seemingly at an all-time high. “I just couldn’t do it. Is it safe to assume that he told you to come and kill me, Uncle Clarence?”
“No, it’s not, actually,” he says, catching me off guard. “He’s coming to do it himself, and he’s coming now. I need you to tell me where you are.”
“Are you out of your mind? You think I’m dumb enough to do that? You’ll just tell him.”
“Listen to me, Junior. I’ve done a lot of things in this life that I’m not proud of. I’ve ruined my life. I know that for a fact now. But, you have a chance to live the life I should’ve lived. You’re only twenty-three years old, and you never should’ve gotten mixed up in this gangster shit. You deserve a chance at life, and I’m offering you that chance, right now. I’m offering to help you.”
“Help me how?” I ask, as Lilliana descends from the stairs and stands next to the front door, waiting for me, but still carrying that defeated look on her face.
“You need to leave Chicago,” Uncle Clarence answers.
“Well, I think that’s obvious.”
“The problem is, your father is gonna have his crooked cop connections on the lookout for you all night, so there’s no way you’re gonna be able to make it to the airport without one of them seeing you and giving him your location.”
“Okay, well then what the hell am I supposed to do?”
“You need to meet me. Now.”
“You’re fucking crazy,” I exclaim. “Why should I trust you?”
“Maybe you shouldn’t. But, I’m the one who’s offering to help you, and you need all the help you can get right now. I told your father not to do this, but he wouldn’t listen to me and left without me. I think this is wrong. No man should kill his own kid, but your dad is a different breed. He’s not like everybody else.”
“I know that, and neither are you. I was there when you killed Derrick, remember?”
I hear Uncle Clarence swallow hard.
“I know. Consider this my way of making up for that. I know that was wrong, and I’m sorry. You never should’ve been involved with that, and I’m sorry you had to see it. I’m gonna make up for that, though.”
“Oh yeah, how’s so?”
“By helping you and Lily leave the city.”
I look over at Lily, who’s made her way back into the living room and is listening to me talk, next to Aunt Lauren. I see how frightened she is, and I know that I need to protect her. I need to do whatever I can to keep her safe, even if it puts me in harm’s way.
“What do you want me to do?” I decide to ask. All I can do is hope that I’m making the right decision. Right now, it seems I have no other options.
“Alright, the first thing is, do not go back to the Red Chip under any circumstances. Senior will have that place under wraps for sure. So, you’re gonna have to travel with whatever you have with you now.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, I know it’s fucked up, but it’s the only way to be sure. Now, we need to get you out of here, so I need you to tell me where you are.”
“You don’t need to know where I am in order to help me leave.”
“You’re right, you’re right. Fine, I just need you to meet me then.”
“Meet you where?”
“At the only place that you can leave safely—the airstrip.”
“This is a bad idea. I don’t think we should be trusting Clarence.”
“I know. I get it, I really do, but right now he’s our only hope.”
“How is he our only hope?” I cry out, refusing to accept our predicament. “I don’t understand why we can’t do this on our own.”
Kelvin has that same dejected look on his face that he had when we left the house. I know that he knows that this is a crazy idea, but he seems to think that this is the only way that we can make it out of Chicago safely. I just don’t see it that way, so I need him to explain it to me.
“Look, I know it’s hard to understand, but we can’t go to the airport, and we can’t go back to the Red Chip. My dad will have both of those places covered with his people. So, the only way for us to leave right now is for us to leave from this airstrip.”
“Is this the same airstrip that you went to before? The one where they brought in all that heroin?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, that’s just great. As if I didn’t have enough shit to be worried about.”
Kelvin drives down the dark road with his high beams on. I’ve never been anywhere near this part of the city, so I don’t really recognize anything around us. It’s basically just the highway to our left, and nothing but trees surrounded by darkness on our right. There are no lights guiding our way, so I know that if there’s a person already there, they’ll see our lights coming from a mile away.
Out in the distance, I see a few white lights shining. Kelvin makes a couple of turns, and then head
s directly for the lights. As we approach our destination, I see that we’re driving up to a line of warehouses, and standing right in front of them is Clarence, leaning his large body up against his Lexus.
There’s something different about Clarence, though. He doesn’t have that same cocky, daunting demeanor that he usually has. As we pull up next to him, I see that he’s not even standing up straight. He usually has his chest out, proudly showcasing his overwhelming mass of muscles. Now, however, he’s almost slouched over, and he seems shrouded in sadness. Something’s wrong with him. Kelvin and I get out of the car and approach him cautiously.
“Glad you made it,” Clarence says, reaching out to shake Kelvin’s hand. Kelvin doesn’t hesitate to respond.
“Yeah, thanks. So, how do we do this? We need to see about getting a pilot or something, right? And, where are you thinking we should go?” Kelvin asks. He’s defensive, and I can see that he’s not completely sure about trusting his uncle. Neither am I.
“Alright, so I’ve already coordinated with a pilot—an old friend of mine who flies me around the country whenever I need to get away,” Clarence responds, his voice low and humble—something I’ve never heard in him before. “This guy’s very professional, and he’ll take you wherever you want to go. Where you go will be up to you, but only tell him when you’re all on the plane. I don’t want to know, so that if Senior asks me, I don’t have to lie to him.”
“Okay, great,” I say from behind Kelvin. “So, where is he?”
“He’s on his way now. Should be here any minute. We can just go inside and wait for him.”
Kelvin looks over at me, and I just shrug my shoulders. I’m not sure what to make of all of this, so I just have to go along with it. I’m trusting that Kelvin can trust Clarence. It’s a big risk, I know, but we have to take it. So, as Clarence begins walking towards the entrance to one of the warehouses, Kelvin and I follow him in, leery.
The warehouses are dark and dusty inside. I can barely see a thing, as we weave our way through a maze of offices that still have some furniture in them. I see a few chairs are either missing cushions or are torn to shreds. There are some tables and desks in the rooms, and even some suitcases shoved underneath some desks and into some corners. Everything else in the rooms looks pretty old and unused, but the suitcases look almost brand new.
Clarence continues to lead us through the maze until we reach an office space that looks like it’s been dusted recently. There’s a small conference style table with a few rolling chairs surrounding it. On the desk, there’s a few of the Carter Casino’s gambling chip cases stacked up. From the look of it, this is where they pack up the chip cases and ship them to the Red Chip and Royal Flush casinos.
“We’ll just wait in here for my guy to show up,” Clarence says as he takes a seat. “Go ahead and have a seat. He’ll be here any minute, then you two will be on your way.”
“What the guy’s name,” I ask as Kelvin sits down. I can’t shake this growing suspicion deep inside of my gut.
Clarence hesitates for a second and it catches my attention. We look at each other like we’re playing poker, wondering which of us is going to break first. Which one of is bluffing?
“His name is…” Clarence begins to say, but he’s interrupted by the sound of a car door being slammed closed. Clarence flashes a tiny smile that I can’t read, and then says, “Sounds like he’s hear already. Perfect.”
We all can hear the sound of the entrance door being opened and then closed. We hear the footsteps getting closer and closer at this person goes through the same maze of offices that we went through. For some reason my heart is pounding. I have a feeling in my stomach that we’ve made a mistake by coming here. It was wrong to trust Clarence. We should’ve known better.
All of a sudden, just as the footsteps seem to reach the office we’re waiting in, I see Clarence moving out of the corner of my eye. I see him stand up like he’s preparing to do something. His demeanor has changed and he’s starting to resemble the old Clarence. The mean, evil, violent Clarence that we all fear.
“Son of a bitch,” I hear Kelvin say. His voice is obviously shaking when he says it, which send chills down my spine. I don’t even want to look over at the door to see who’s here, because a big part of me already knows.
“Nice to see you again, Junior,” I hear the man say, and my heart feels like it has just shattered into a million pieces and collapsed at my feet. I turn around and see Senior standing in the doorway, holding a nine millimeter in each hand. He has a wide, satisfied smile on his face as he looks at Kelvin and then glances at me. “Oh, and I’m so glad you could join us, Lily. This just wouldn’t be the same without you.”
Kelvin looks over at his uncle, and I immediately see the rage spewing from his eyes. If looks could kill, Clarence would’ve fallen over immediately.
“I fucking trusted you,” Kelvin says, between clenched teeth as he balls his fists and takes a step towards Clarence.
Suddenly, Senior throws one of the guns over to Clarence, who catches it and aims it at me without hesitation.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Junior,” Clarence says smugly. “I’d hate for this portion of tonight’s events to end so early, but if you push me to it, I’ll end her shit right here.”
Kelvin stops walking and I see the muscles in his neck relax. As soon as he relents, I watch as Senior walks over to Kelvin and hits him in the head with his gun. Kelvin falls to the floor in agony, screaming from the pain. As he holds his head, I see blood already making its way to the floor.
“No!” I scream. “You motherfucker!”
Before I could even finish screaming my expletive, Senior walks over to me and slaps me in the face with the palm of his hand. I feel the pain shoot through my cheek and rattle around my teeth. When I open my eyes, I see tiny stars dancing around the room as Senior stands in front of me, scowling.
“You shut the fuck up!” he snaps. “You know, you’re the cause of all this drama. You’re the reason that he can’t do what he needs to do to be a part of this family. You came in here strutting around with your goddamn booty shorts and sexy little skirts, and you clouded the boy’s judgment. You’re always in his ear, telling him all kinds of bullshit, and you made him look at The Family like we were the bad guys. Fab never looked at us that way. Fab knew that we were his family. We were his support system, and he knew that. He loved and appreciated us, because he didn’t have a little bitch like you in his ear, telling him otherwise. Junior thinks this is all my fault, but the truth is that all of this shit is your fucking fault.”
Suddenly, Senior reaches back and slaps me again. This time, he hits me so hard that my body goes limp and Clarence has to hold me to keep me from falling down to the floor. My entire head throbs with pain and my knees feel like Jell-O. Then, out of nowhere, I hear Kelvin scream as he forces himself to his feet. There’s blood streaming down his face, but he obviously doesn’t care as he begins to walk towards his father. Then, I hear Clarence chamber a round into his gun and press the barrel to my temple.
“Go ahead, Junior,” Senior says confidently. “Keep walking and let’s see how long it takes for Clarence to pull that trigger. You think you’ll get to me before he can put a bullet in her pretty little head? Let’s see. Come on. Keep walking, you fucking coward.”
Kelvin stops and exhales. I see tears I his eyes, and I know that he’s having an internal struggle right now. He’s having to restrain himself because if he doesn’t, he knows that Clarence will kill me. He won’t do anything if he thinks it’ll get me killed, even if it gets him killed. It’s a thing about him that I love and hate the most.
Kelvin and I make eye contact and I feel so sorry for everything. I don’t know how it ever got so bad for us. We’ve been through so much over the past month or so, and now it all seems to have come to a head right here in this moment, and there’s nothing that either of us can do about it. Tears stream down my face as I realize that the chances of us making it ou
t of this situation are slim to none. I know that we’re both going to die tonight. I always wondered what it must feel like to know that you’re about to die. Now I know, and it’s the most terrifying thing in the world.
“Damn!” Senior exclaims loudly at Kelvin. “You had your shot, kid. You had your chance to kill me, and you didn’t take it. That’s gotta be the dumbest thing anyone has ever done in the history of American gangster shit. You were right there, gun in hand, locked and loaded, and you couldn’t pull the fucking trigger. How lame is that? Now, look at you. Standing there with tears in your eyes, looking at your girl, hoping she’ll provide you with all the answers. You’re so fucking weak and pathetic it makes me sick. I brought you in on everything. I gave you the opportunity to be a part of all of this—the drugs, the money, the power, all of it. You had your chance to be somebody important, and you fucking threw it all way for a girl. A girl who you’ll get to watch die tonight. How does that feel? Huh? Tell me how it feels to know that your girl is gonna die soon, right here in front of you.” When Kelvin doesn’t answer, it sends Senior into a furious frenzy. “You disrespectful little motherfucker. You don’t want to talk? Fine. You can just watch then!”
Senior turns around, and I can see the hit coming. He reaches back as far as he can and hits me in the head with the barrel of his gun. This time, the pain of the blow is too much for my body to take, and not even Clarence can keep me upright. I fall down on the floor and hit my head on the tile surface. Then, everything fades away into darkness.
“Here she comes. She’s waking up now.”
My head is pounding. Throbbing.
I try to open my eyes, but it’s a struggle. I can’t see anything because everything is blurry, but I can hear. I hear two distinct voices and I immediately recognize them. One of them is Senior, and the other is Clarence. I have a hard time focusing on what exactly is going on, but I know that it isn’t anything good.
