by Erica Hilton
It was a circus in their community. The news media, the FBI and city police had overrun their community. The media were exploiting their misfortune. The residents didn’t have access to any information on the who and why. They were kept in the dark. There were a few who were allowed back into their homes, but there were plenty of other residents who were left in limbo. The unfair treatment in their community was spiraling out of control, and many voiced their upset and anger via social media and the news. Where was the Red Cross? Where was FEMA?
“If this had happened in a white neighborhood, it wouldn’t be like this. White people always get help in a heartbeat. But the black community, we gotta wait and be patient, and hear the same lies day after day, ‘Help is on the way.’ Bullshit!” an angry black citizen voiced into the news camera.
“Damn right I’m mad,” another resident spoke out. “We get attacked and we don’t know why. But cops are out here trying to lock us up because we don’t know what to do or where to go, and my friends are dead . . . and we want answers, and we want our homes and our lives back. But we’re getting treated like criminals. I lived here all my life and never seen anything like this.”
“Fuck them terrorist muthafuckas! Yo, fuckin’ towelheads come see me, fo’ real. I’m right here in Harlem all day wit’ my fuckin’ Glock and my nine, and I’m ready for these niggas. I hate them muthafuckas!” a young thug told the journalists. Of course, most of his segment was censored.
The tears and anguish were overwhelming. There were a lot of lost and broken souls between Old Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue. It was panic, trepidation, anger, and vengeance all rolled up into one cigar, and the smoke was spreading.
Stopping short of the swarming media and police cars that flooded the block was a black Charger. All four doors to the car opened and out stepped several FBI agents and Officer Spielberg. He had been temporarily assigned to work with the feds to assist with their investigation.
Officer Spielberg looked around at dystopia, and once again he was saddened by what he saw. The damage to the area was extensive, not just physically, but mentally. He knew that most of these people would never be the same again.
They were there to talk to anyone that knew Jessica. She had completely gone off the grid, and it was critical that they find her. Where was she? How could a young ghetto girl elude law enforcement for this long? The feds strongly felt that she’d had help, maybe from foreign terrorists. Their biggest fear was that she’d fled the country somehow.
They needed any kind of information they could piece together on her. Who was she? Was she a loner—an introverted person? Or was she an extrovert? Had her behavior changed suddenly?
Spielberg and the agents canvassed the area with questions, but no one was talking. There was so much disdain for anyone wearing a badge, and they particularly despised the FBI. But the agents and Spielberg were relentless. They showed Jessica’s picture to everyone in the area. They knew who she was; it was obvious by their demeanor—and then came some unfortunate news. There was one woman willing to talk to them. She was a grandmother in her fifties, and she was now homeless because of the explosion.
“Yes, I know who she is. Jessica Hernandez,” she said.
“Where can we find her or her family?” Spielberg asked.
“Her family’s dead. They were all killed in the bombing,” the woman told them.
The woman had nothing else to say. The men continued with their investigation, and although people were hostile toward law enforcement, there were some folks that wanted to help. They simply wanted justice. The agents soon learned about Eshon and Brandy.
“Who were they to Jessica?”
“They were all good friends. They used to hang out together,” a man said to them.
Now they were getting somewhere. If they couldn’t find Jessica, then they would search for Eshon or Brandy. Knowing all three had been good friends once, the feds strongly felt that these two girls were their only and strongest lead to finding Jessica. And when they found Jessica, she would lead them to the culprits behind both bombings.
It didn’t take long to find an address for Eshon. Fortunately for the agents, her apartment was inside one of the buildings that were cleared for residents to return to. But their luck was short-lived. They knocked on her door and quickly found out via a neighbor lady that Eshon had moved away. Her mother had recently moved to Brooklyn with a boyfriend to be closer to where she worked. She wasn’t sure about Eshon’s dad. It was all she knew. The neighbor had no idea where Eshon had moved to—they didn’t converse regularly, but the apartment had been vacant for a while. Still, they went inside to look around and didn’t find much. The furnishing was sparse, and there were no pictures of Eshon anywhere. It was a skeleton of a place with not much to go on.
Lead two was Brandy. They had her address and made their way there to question her.
***
Brandy sat slouched on the couch and took a much-needed pull from the burning blunt. With chaos surrounding her, she needed a break from it, and smoking weed was her remedy. Next, she needed some good dick. Being back in the old neighborhood felt familiar to her, though it was chaotic with police, violence, prying journalists, and federal agents.
She was supposed to be dead. Kid advised her not to return, but it was hard not to. She missed it. She wanted to run away, but to where? Home was home, and her apartment was the same as she’d left it. She planned on keeping a low profile anyway, not showing her face much, chilling and smoking, and she had protection with her—a .45 ACP. It was loaded and readied for anything.
Brandy missed the old times with her friends. Now they were gone, and it all happened so quickly, it felt like her head was spinning. But she couldn’t dwell on the nightmares that were happening. It was time to put her life back in order—and how was she going to do that? She had no idea yet. But it started with not running away anymore.
She didn’t like New Rochelle or New Jersey, and Devon and Papa John started to make her feel really uncomfortable. She strongly felt that being around them would increase her chances of dying. They were both marked men—but what had she done to piss anyone off? Jessica was finally dead, so who else out there would want to harm her? Maserati Meek was a man she didn’t know and had never met, and she doubted that she was on his radar.
Jessica had put herself in a bad situation and she lost her life because of it. Brandy did her dirt too, but that was when Kip was alive. She considered herself a small-time criminal with a customary life. After what she’d told Eshon that night in the car about not going back to Harlem because of the ugliness spreading, she had gone back on her word and returned. She had decided to chance things and gone back anyway.
It felt impossible for her to stay away.
Brandy took a few more pulls from the blunt, lounging in her panties and bra. The pistol was lying on the coffee table. It was twilight outside, and she could hear the madness from her open living room window—not too far from her it was ground zero with death and destruction. Her building was steady and secured though, and living on the second floor had it advantages.
She closed her eyes. But then she heard several hard knocks at the door. She jumped up and reached for the pistol on the table. There were only a handful of people who knew she was back home. Could it be danger? Brandy’s heart started to race. Was it a friend or foe? She cautiously approached the apartment door and looked through the peephole. What she saw completely baffled her. It was the FBI at her damn door.
“Shit!” she uttered.
They continued knocking. They weren’t going away. She knew someone told them that she was there. She scurried around the room, extinguishing the blunt and hiding the pistol underneath the couch cushions. She threw on a robe and quickly sprayed some air-freshener to smother the weed stench.
She was totally nervous and stunned. Why were the feds at her door? She would soon find out.
&
nbsp; She opened the door and the agents identified themselves with their unmistakable insignias. They asked to come inside. How could she tell them no? She nodded yes, and they all marched into her apartment one-by-one like machines. The look on their faces was stern. They showed some politeness, but Brandy was so nervous that it felt like her heart was about to launch from her chest and explode. She tried to remain cool, but she immediately she regretted coming back to her old place. It was a stupid mistake.
Brandy was an odd one to the agents with her blonde weave, blue contacts, and dark chocolate skin. She had ghetto written all over her. The feds, including Officer Spielberg, remained standing in the living room. Her apartment was instantly under observation; nothing much so far.
“Do you mind if we look around?” an agent asked.
“What are y’all lookin’ for?” she asked them.
“We like things to be safe for our comfort.”
She shrugged, though she was screaming on the inside. “I have nothing to hide.”
Two agents broke away from the room and went looking around the apartment. Officer Spielberg remained with the primary agent. He felt she knew something.
“Do you know an Eshon Williams and Jessica Hernandez?”
Brandy shook off the jitters that swam inside of her and knew it was game time. She didn’t want to go to jail. She felt she did nothing wrong. But somehow, she was involved with the craziness happening in her projects by association with the wrong person. The feds tracked her down. The feds were a league she didn’t want to get herself involved with.
The two agents who searched the apartment rejoined them in the living room, seeing that the place was clear: no Jessica and no threats.
“Yes, I know ’em. Me and Eshon were cool wit’ Jessica until that fight.”
“What fight?”
“That fuckin’ bitch played herself. She’s from Cali and she was cool. We looked out for her, and then that bitch started to change when she met some nigga in the club.”
“What man did she meet?”
“I don’t know his name. I don’t even know what he looks like,” she said.
“So you never met this individual?”
“Nah, Jessica kept him a secret from me and Eshon.”
“Why did she keep him a secret?”
“I don’t know. It was her business. We ain’t sweat it,” she said. “But we know he had money. She started coming around us with really nice and expensive things—clothing, jewelry, and shoes. He took her to Vegas once. And she was gone all the time, spending time wit’ him, forgetting about her friends. He changed her.”
“How did he change her?”
“She was just becoming different—you know, actin’ more like a bitch. Like she was better than us. I think that fool got into her head; brainwashed her somehow.”
The questions came right after another—like a continuous fastball in a major league game. Brandy was up to bat and she couldn’t afford to strike out.
It was imperative to the feds that they found out who this mystery man was. They continued to pressure her. They wanted a name, but Brandy didn’t give it to them. There was, of course, a name she did know—Maserati Meek—but she refused to tell it to the feds.
The FBI was relentless. Brandy was their first solid lead, and they were willing to drain her dry for anything leading to the whereabouts of Jessica and others that were involved with terrorists.
“When was the last time you spoke to or had contact with Jessica?” another agent asked her.
She sighed. “Honestly, it was at club Sane.”
“So you were there the night of the bombing?”
She nodded.
Officer Spielberg felt this was it. She was about to come forward with some relevant information. She had to know something critical. She was there. She had been in contact with the suspect.
“Jessica picked the club and set up everything.”
“The bombing?”
“No, we didn’t know anything about the bombing. I swear. She set up a party for us. Actually it was supposed to be a memorial for a friend that was recently killed. And it was like a peace treaty between us because we were beefin’ for a moment, so I guess she wanted to make things right wit’ us, y’all feel me?”
They were listening.
Brandy continued with, “The party was expensive, so I knew her new man helped pay for it. We all were supposed to wear red and white, you know, to honor my nigga that died. The whole thing was strange to us.”
“What time did you and your friends leave the party?” Officer Spielberg finally threw in a question.
“We left at different times. Eshon and I left first. We didn’t see anything strange that night. We all were having fun.”
“And this mystery man dating Jessica—he never showed up that night?”
“Nah, he didn’t. He always kept himself away from us for some reason.”
Brandy felt the urge to get high again. Her earlier high was wearing off because of the intense interrogation. Some potent Kush was needed right now. Dealing with the FBI was nerve-wracking. She felt at any moment, they were going to arrest her and drag her out the apartment and have her detained. She couldn’t stop them. She was just some young ghetto bitch trying to survive in the world she was born into. She’d made some dangerous and poor choices in her life. Now it felt like those choices were finally catching up to her.
There were more questions. The agents observed her body language. They locked eyes with her several times and looked for any clues that she was lying to them. But so far they felt she had been truthful.
“When was the last time you spoke or were in contact with Eshon?” they asked.
“That night. We were all in shock about what had happened. I mean, we were just fuckin’ there. It could have been us in that bombing too. We went to her cousin’s crib in Brooklyn.”
“Where in Brooklyn?”
“Bed-Stuy.”
Everything she said was jotted down. Brandy was ready for them to disappear so she could smoke again and then breathe. Her body felt stifled by their presence alone.
Officer Spielberg had some questions for her. “Do you have any pictures of Eshon?”
“I don’t.”
Spielberg prodded more. “Really? No selfies on your phone? Nothing on social media?”
Brandy thought quick. “Naw, I don’t really fuck with Facebook. Too much drama, ya feel me?”
“Well, can you describe her to us?”
“She’s about five-three, short dark hair with black eyes, petite, and pretty. She’s in her mid-twenties.” It was an inaccurate description of her friend.
Spielberg took notes. He was disappointed. He wanted to find Jessica and her boyfriend. They handed Brandy their business cards and instructed her to get in contact with them if any new information came about. She lied, saying she would. The agents and Spielberg made their exit.
Brandy sighed with relief. But deep inside, she knew it was far from over.
24
Maserati Meek felt like he was on fire in the hot seat. The bullet in his shoulder hurt like hell. Another bullet grazed his head. The pain was searing. He bled profusely all over the backseat of the Escalade. The driver saved his life, though. His reaction time was on point when Meek dove headfirst into the backseat and screamed, “Go! Go!”
The driver slammed his foot against the accelerator and screeched tires, speeding away from the shootout. The front end of the Escalade smashed into a parked car, but they continued moving. Maserati Meek hollered from the pain and collapsed on his back against the leather. His breathing was frail. It felt like his arm was about to fall off. The right side of his body had gone numb, the hole in his flesh from the 50 cal was gaping, and there was blood on his head. Although the pain was agonizing, he was still alive. He had escaped death by the skin o
f his teeth.
“No hospitals!” Meek had told his driver.
He knew their policy was to contact the authorities when treating gunshot wounds. The last thing he needed was cops in his face.
“Oh, these sneaky muthafuckas,” he said. “They come at me and miss, eh? I’m gonna kill their families.”
He didn’t get a good look the culprits that attempted to take his life. They’d killed two of his men, and his money—two million dollars—was left on the sidewalk for the vultures to pick apart. He had an idea who was behind the attack. Panamanian Pete. He was the only one with the money and reliable sources to track him down. Somehow, Pete had caught him slipping, but no more.
“Take me to Westchester. I already got a doctor on standby,” he told the driver.
***
Twenty-four hours later, Meek sat in the swanky doctor’s home with thick bandages on his shoulder and head. The trusted doctor had stopped the major bleeding by applying a tourniquet to the wound and then cauterizing the injury by applying hot metal to it in two- to three-second bursts. It was extremely painful, but it was needed.
Meek had to stay calm, which he was. Allah wouldn’t allow him to die. The doctor had removed the bullet from his body, cleaned his wounds, sewn him up, and applied a few gauze pads to the damage. Now he needed to rest. The doctor had a spare room in his home where Meek could recuperate—all for a generous price of course.
The only company Meek wanted around him was his Muslim brothers. He wanted to plan more attacks. He wanted to find Panamanian Pete and show him the true wrath of Allah. Two million dollars of his money was gone because of Pete, and it made Maserati Meek sick.
***
The call came in to 26 Federal Plaza from the East Brunswick Police Department before noon. A detective asked to speak to an agent. It was urgent. Within five minutes of calling, Agent Seitz answered the call from New Jersey.
