“You need to do that . . . find out who’s killing off my crew and turning my peoples against me. I’m losing money, time, and soldiers. I want to return the favor to these muthafuckas tenfold.”
Jimmy nodded and crossed his arms. “Consider it done.”
32
Layla drank in silence and misery. She’d cried so long and so hard, she felt like she had no more tears in her eyes. The bedroom was dark, the house was empty, and things felt unnatural. With Lucky still in the hospital fighting for her life, three of her children dead, and someone declaring war on her family, her life had quickly gone from fortunate to disastrous. She couldn’t look for support and comfort from her husband, since their marriage was rocky and their relationship seemed to be deteriorating. Scott had disappeared mostly, supposedly on the hunt for the animals that murdered and assaulted their kids, and grieving by himself somewhere.
Layla finished her bottle of E&J. The dark liquor reminded her of her younger days and made her feel violent and sadistic. She didn’t want to be alone, but she accepted it. And she didn’t want to look and feel helpless. She was from Brooklyn. Her life had never been easy, and she would not sit around and cry every day. She’d done enough of that. She had grieved for her children long enough.
Layla felt she needed to get back on her gangster shit. She’d tried to go legit. She wanted to build her own business, start a new life, and play nice with the white people, but the unforgiving streets had caught up to her. So she decided to be unforgiving herself. Everybody was a suspect in her eyes, and everybody had a role in killing her children.
When Maxine had called collect to give her condolences, Layla wasn’t in the mood to receive sympathy from anyone. Happy-go-lucky Layla was no longer feeling so generous toward Maxine and her problems. Layla no longer wanted to send the cash to protect her friend. She had her own problems to deal with. There were some loose ends she needed to tie up.
Scott would handle things his way, and she’d handle things her way.
She met with her two sons, Meyer and Bugsy. In the reunion, she gave them an address. “I want everyone at this location taken care of ASAP. Leave no one alive. I want to send a message.”
Meyer nodded, amped to execute more people. He was itching to implement bloodshed and get payback for Lucky, Bonnie, Clyde, and Gotti by any means necessary. Whoever needed to go would go. He didn’t ask questions. He and Luna were on a successful hunt in Delaware and Baltimore, where five of Deuce’s men were killed and never heard from again.
Meyer held a Washington, DC address in his hand, where Layla had been sending the money for Maxine’s protection. Layla wanted her reach to stretch far inside the Louisiana jail to protect her longtime friend. Now the shit was about to hit the fan and fly everywhere.
***
Meyer, Luna, and two other gunmen sat outside the Frederick Douglass Garden Apartments in Southeast DC on a chilly night in October. The cold weather was approaching, but frozen hearts were already present. Meyer and Luna felt right at home in the violent, crime-ridden area. They plotted inside the Dodge Durango and smoked cigarettes and observed. They watched everything around them—the residents and their movements. There was no telling who was who. Anyone could be a threat, so they weren’t taking any chances. All four men came heavily armed—Luna with a double-barrel sawed-off shotgun and a pistol in his waistband. Meyer came prepared with two Smith & Wesson SW99s, and Nifco and X-Ray were armed with Glock 19s.
They exited the Durango and walked toward the three-story building where Shiniquia’s mother lived. They split up, Luna and Meyer going one way and Nifco and X-Ray a different way. They did their best to look inconspicuous. The late hour made it easier, since there were no kids playing, no old folks loitering outside, and not many witnesses in the area. The local thugs were a block away gambling, and the local dealers were busy with customers.
The men were in black, and upon entering the lobby, they masked up. They had little information to go on, only knowing the building and apartment number of Shiniquia’s mother. She had two kids, a boy and a girl. The son was nicknamed Wacka. Meyer had never heard of him, but word on the streets was he was a head case and a terrifying bad-ass.
Meyer and Luna waited near the stairwell with their guns out. This had to be quick and accurate. They’d rush into the apartment, kill everyone inside, and get out of the building alive. Knowing they were in foreign territory, their heads repeatedly swiveled, keeping an eye out for threats.
A short moment later, Nifco and X-Ray met up with them holding the superintendent at gunpoint. Nifco and X-Ray had kicked open his basement door and snatched him out of bed wearing just his underwear. The middle-aged man was sniveling, ready to piss himself, and he was willing to do whatever they asked of him.
They led the super to the target’s apartment on the third floor. He had the keys, so they used him to access the apartment without detection. All four men stood poised by the door, and Meyer had his gun to the superintendent’s head as he opened the apartment door.
They heard music playing from the apartment as the door opened slowly, and all four men crept into the apartment like ninjas in the night.
Meyer took the lead with a gun in each hand. He moved toward the kitchen, where he heard the most activity and the music. Luna followed, poised with the shotgun.
Without hesitating, Meyer emerged out the blue, arms outstretched with guns, shocking a man and older female counting money at the table. They were wide-eyed with terror.
Meyer opened fire first. Bak! Bak! He struck the male at the table, and he went down quickly.
The female tried to flee into the adjacent hallway, but Luna quickly cut her down in the back with the shotgun. Chk-chk! Boom! The blast tore through the woman’s back, ripped through her abdomen, and sent her flying across the kitchen, her body mangled from the massive blast.
“Muthafuckas!” the men heard from one bedroom, and suddenly there was gunfire. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!
The shots splintered the door near Meyer, missing his head by inches. He was lucky to be alive. He quickly pivoted and returned fire.
A shootout ensued, and two unknown men that emerged from the bedroom weren’t backing down.
Bak! Bak! Bak!
Pop! Pop!
X-Ray went down with a bullet to his head.
Luna cut loose with the shotgun and sprayed the hallway, creating large craters inside the walls, but they were pinned down near the kitchen. Whoever it was, they were well armed and giving them one hell of a fight. Meyer and Luna weren’t expecting retaliation.
“Fuck you, niggas! Fuck you, muthafuckas!” Wacka shouted madly. His .50-cal. became a beast in his hand. His moms had been shot down like a dog in the kitchen. And so was his cousin. Now it was he and Dagmar under siege. But then that quickly changed when Dagmar caught two in the chest and went down.
Wacka took coverage in the bedroom, bullets zipping by him. He wasn’t going out like that. He did not understand the masked intruders, but he was ready to kill every last one.
“Y’all muthafuckas killed my moms! Y’all killed my moms!” Wacka chanted. He flung himself from his crouching area by the doorframe and fired madly at the encroaching threats. Bak! Bak! Bak! Bak! Bak!
But then he felt a sharp sting on his side. He had been hit. He caught another bullet to his stomach and stumbled. Shit! He was out of options, and there wasn’t anywhere to go.
But then he saw his opportunity. Wounded and under heavy gunfire, Wacka took off running and smashed through the bedroom window, doing a Superman from the third floor.
Meyer and the others went to the window. They couldn’t believe it. Shot twice, the nigga jumped from the third floor, and he was still mobile and shooting back at them.
Wacka had landed roughly on the ground, and he was hurt badly. Seeing Meyer peeking his head from out the window, Wacka lifted the gun and shot at him. Bak! Bak!
He missed, but it gave him a window to escape. He stumbled away and disappeared around the corner.
“Shit! Meyer shouted.
“We need to go!” Luna shouted.
The shootout left four dead, including X-Ray. They fled from the crime scene, descending the stairwell and erupting from the building in haste. Police sirens blared in the distance. Though they’d missed one, three out of four wasn’t bad. And Wacka could run, but he couldn’t hide.
Meyer was only following orders from his mother. Why she wanted these people dead, he didn’t ask. He was already filled with rage and hatred, so killing anyone let him blow off some steam.
33
What? No! No!” Shiniquia cried out in shock as she clutched the phone receiver tighter. When she couldn’t get in contact with her mother, she called her uncle, Kenny. She couldn’t believe the news that her family had been executed. Her mother and her cousin were dead.
“Wacka was there, Shiniquia. He got hit up too.”
“Is he all right?”
“I don’t know. He took two slugs and said he couldn’t go to the hospital afraid he’d get locked up. He sounded fucked up, in pain, and his breathing was shallow.”
Shiniquia was distraught. She couldn’t lose her brother too. She screamed, “Where is he, Kenny!”
“I think that nigga dead.”
“Did he say who did this?”
“Nah, he didn’t. He just said niggas came through poppin’ off shots.”
The home invasion and homicides at the Frederick Douglass Garden Apartments had made the evening news and the front page of several DC newspapers. The paper listed the government names of two individuals: Donovan Magner, who Shiniquia knew as Dagmar, and Xavier Bernard, whom she didn’t know. She didn’t know if Xavier was friend or foe.
Shiniquia was overwhelmed with grief but did her best to keep it together. She thought it had to be Layla. She hurried to see Max to give her the horrifying news. They met in the dayroom, where Max was seated, watching TV and having a private talk with one of her minions.
Shiniquia rushed over. “We need to talk!”
Max looked up at her friend and saw the sense of urgency and pain on her face. She got up and walked away with Shiniquia to talk privately.
“My family’s dead,” Shiniquia said. Once again, tears flooded her eyes.
Max was taken aback by the news. “What?”
“They’re all dead, Max. My mother, cousin, and I think Wacka too!”
“Dead? How?”
“It was a home invasion. Their murders made the local papers. You think Layla and Scott had anything to do wit’ this? Did they find out about my brother?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
If Layla had found out about them, then why were she and Shiniquia still alive? No, there had to be another reason Shiniquia’s family was killed. She was certain that Layla knew nothing about the conspiracy Maxine had enacted. They’d been extra careful, and if Wacka was the proficient killer that Shiniquia proclaimed he was, then there was no way he would have fucked up.
“The news said someone named Xavier was involved. He was murdered on the scene, and I don’t know if he was wit’ my brother or against him. Xavier could be the enemy. When you speak with Layla see if she knows him.”
“Look, I know you in your bag of feelings right now, but if I mention that nigga’s name then I’m sending a message loud and clear to Layla that I set up those hits. And if she has any doubts on whether I’m involved then my meddling into what happened to your peoples would get me killed.”
“I can’t let this go, Max.”
“You need to chill.”
“What if this bitch is plotting on us too?
“Your brother got enemies, don’t he?” Max said.
“Yeah, but—”
“Shiniquia, my condolences to your family, but I don’t believe this was Layla. Only two people in this prison know the arrangement we have, you and me, and out there, Wacka. I’ve kept my mouth shut, and I know you’re not talking. And your brother is a loose cannon, from my understanding. So I believe they came for him for other reasons.”
Shiniquia felt Max could be right, but her family was still dead. She sobbed. She wanted to go home. She wanted to see her mother. She wanted to attend the funeral. In two years she was going up for parole on her lengthy sentence, and she was eager to reconnect with her family.
“That was my moms. Why they do her like that?” she cried out.
Max did her best to console her friend. But what was a bigger tragedy to her was that her hit man Wacka could be dead. Max found her plan dead in the water, stranded out at sea with no lifeboat and no sail. She needed a plan B, and she needed it fast. She had come too far to have everything come to a screeching halt.
***
“Maxine, on the line in fifteen. You got a visitor,” the correction officer shouted.
Max was taken aback by the news. It was a week after they’d received the tragic news about Shiniquia’s family, and she was trying to figure shit out. Louisiana was too far away from New York for anyone to make the trip. Max could only think of one person with the means and the time to come visit her in Louisiana. It had to be Layla. But she had never come to visit, so why now?
It sent a panic through Max. Something was up. Layla was in Louisiana for a reason, and it probably wasn’t good.
Max had to quickly change her appearance. She needed to soften her hard image. Layla couldn’t see her this way. She had to see the Maxine she’d known from twenty years earlier.
With Shiniquia’s and another inmate’s help, they hurriedly took out Maxine’s cornrows and combed out her hair into a bushy Afro and then into a thick ponytail. She needed to look soft and feminine.
Time was running out.
Max stood up, looked at Shiniquia, and said, “Hit me.”
“What?” Shiniquia was shocked. “What you mean hit you?”
“I want you to punch me in the eye really hard.”
“Max, are you crazy?”
“Shiniquia, just do it!”
Shiniquia tightened her fist and thrust it forward at Max’s right eye. It hurt, but it didn’t do much damage.
“Do it again,” Max said.
Shiniquia looked reluctant, but she knew Max had a reason for the attack. The second punch hurt more than the first, but it did the trick. Max had a slight black eye. It was believable.
The second inmate was confused, but she kept her comment and questions to herself.
Max applied some lipstick to her lips and puckered them in the mirror. She looked almost like her old self, and with the black eye, she looked more sheep than the wolf she’d become after doing twenty years inside.
Max entered the full visiting room and looked around for Layla. She soon spotted her long-lost frenemy seated across the room. She was alone and looking like a hustler’s wife, her long sensuous hair falling down past her shoulders. Though they talked via phone and wrote letters, it’d been nearly twenty years since they’d physically seen each other.
She and Layla finally locked eyes, creating an awkward moment between them. Max approached, and Layla stood up from the table. For a moment, there was silence—not a hug and not an apology—and stares of awkwardness as each lady took in the other’s physical appearance. Layla looked the same, just prettier and wealthier, while Maxine was dressed in her prison officials and needed a drastic makeover.
They took a seat opposite of each other. Max glanced at the room and saw the female inmates with their children and their loved ones. It was her first visit, and things felt odd. She saw the smiles on the girls’ faces. Having a piece of home coming to see them regularly was therapeutic.
Layla zeroed in on Maxine’s swollen eye. This girl will never stand up for herself, Layla thought, feeling sorry for her friend.
“I
t’s been a long time, Layla.”
“It has.”
“My condolences on your loss,” Max said, sounding sincere. “When I heard, it messed me up.”
“Well, my children’s murders won’t go unpunished.”
Max wanted to know what she meant by the statement, but she couldn’t fish for information. She had to play it cool and appear timid.
“What brings you to Louisiana, Layla?” Max asked.
Before Layla could answer her, a rough, butch looking inmate looked at Max and said, “Max, I know I’m late, but I got that for you tomorrow. We cool, right?”
Max only looked at her. She didn’t respond.
The exchange baffled Layla, but she shook it off.
“I know it’s been a long time, Maxine. You’ve been on my mind lately,” Layla said. “What happened to your eye?”
“A fight.”
“Did you win?” Layla joked.
“I’m not a fighter, Layla. You know that.”
“Twenty years inside, Maxine, an’ you still letting people punk you. When will you get tired of it an’ do something about it?”
Max sighed. “I’m just tired.”
“Well, I came to tell you personally—” Layla started.
“Tell me what personally?”
“The problem that you’re having inside here, it’s being handled as we speak, from out there to in here. I’m sorry I didn’t take care of it sooner for you.”
It didn’t take long for Max to understand what she meant. Shiniquia! Layla had her family murdered, and Shiniquia was probably next.
Max said nothing and kept her facial expression neutral, but inside she was panicking. She had the urge to bolt from the visiting area and warn Shiniquia, but she couldn’t move. She could show no signs of guilt or remorse and had to remain deadpan while looking at Layla.
“You can say thank you,” Layla said smugly.
Max wanted to rip her fuckin’ throat out.
***
Shiniquia walked from the dayroom to the cafeteria in a single file with several other inmates, one guard leading them. She felt the attack from behind out the blue—many arms yanking her into a nearby room and closing the door. The other inmates kept things moving, knowing to mind their business.
Mafioso [Part 1] Page 19
