Authors: Donald Goines
"Oh, shit, man, I knew it was too sweet to work. Shit, five hundred dollars, man! Aw shit, sonofabitch! It was too good." Emilio stopped, thought for a moment, then asked, "Hey, man, why don't we stick the mothafuckers up? I got my knife. Shit, man, if I'd only known, I could have stolen my brother's gun! Goddamn!" He was mumbling to himself.
"Listen, amigo," Dan said quietly. "Let's try it this way first. You step out on the porch with me. Then I'm going to bring one of the guys up here, just one, and you hand me-naw, better yet, you show us the dummy envelope we made up. Then you step back inside, sayin' you ain't goin' do no business with nobody but one of us. You know how to come down, man. Scream about the other dude sittin' in the car, cap on 'em that it's too many people involved. Next time if he comes alone, you'll do business with him. Now, if he don't go for that," Dan added, "you tell us the hell with it, you don't need the money that bad, you dig? Turn your back like you don't want to waste no more time."
"I dig," Emilio said. "We goin' bluff this shit out, huh? To the bitter."
"Yeah," Dan said and opened the door. "Hey, Emilio, I see that Preacher has got his Cadillac sittin' down at the curb, so let's walk down to the car like it's yours, you dig, and you fake like you're going to get in it. That should fake the motherfuckers out of their socks. With a new Caddie sittin' at the curb, it should relieve their minds about gettin' burned for their little bread. After all, they'll figure the car is worth more money than what they're putting up, so as long as they see the car, their minds will be at ease."
The two men walked down to the four-door Fleetwood. "I would open the door and sit down," Emilio said, "but I think the Preacher has an alarm on the fuckin' thing."
"Yeah, man, you're right. It is one on it, so don't even shake the mother too hard. If the alarm goes off and we can't cut it off, it will blow our whole thing. Just fake like you're about to get in, then come back around and stand on the sidewalk. I ain't goin' be but a minute, so keep your fingers crossed."
"Okay, partner," Emilio said as Dan walked back toward the parked car where Tony and William waited. He walked around to the driver's side and motioned for William to roll down the window.
"Hey, Will," he began, "that's the Mex back there standin' beside his ride. He's thinkin' about ridin' off. He said fuck the deal. He didn't know there was going to be another stud in on it. He thought it was going to be just me and you, you dig?"
William glanced at his partner. "Fuck that shit," Tony began, "I don't want to see my money go out of my sight!"
Dan straightened up and shrugged his shoulders. "Okay then, Will, I'll tell the guy it's off. I doubt if we'll ever be able to get him to bring this much dope across town again. You know what I mean? It was almost too much for him to handle anyway, but he managed to get it up, now we go to Nut City on him 'cause we won't go along with his order that he don't want to meet a bunch of people at once. One person at a time is enough for him, and I don't blame him." Dan acted as if he was about to turn and leave. "I don't need no ride back; I'm going to ride with my man back there. That new hog of his is mellow, and besides, he might just break one of his packages open on the ride."
"Wait a minute," Will said, this time not bothering to look at his partner. "Maybe we can still work something out. You said he will meet me, didn't you?"
"Sure," Dan said quickly.
"Okay, okay then, let's go," William said and opened his car door.
Tony glared at his back. He didn't want to force himself on them because he might blow the buy. He felt the pistol in his shoulder holster. At least they wouldn't be out of sight. He reached up and adjusted the mirror on his sun visor so that he could see the three men without turning his head.
As the two men approached Emilio, Emilio removed himself from the fender of the car and met them on the sidewalk.
"Hey, Rico," Dan said, speaking to Emilio. "This is Will. I been coppin' for him for the past month. The guy is cool. We done shot up together five or six times. Ain't no funnies about him; he's a real dopefiend."
Emilio nodded his head as a greeting. "Hey, man, ain't nothin' went the way it was supposed to have gone, Dan. What the fuck is that other stud doing in the car, huh? Wasn't nothing said about bringin' another guy around, man. I don't like strange shit like that, you know what I mean? I'd rather freeze on the sale."
"Hey, amigo," Dan began, "now don't you nut out on me. I'm tryin' to make everybody happy." He glanced seriously at Will.
"Who's got the bread?" Emilio said sharply, taking Will by surprise.
"Why, oh, I have," Will answered shortly.
Emilio grunted, then removed the package from his inside pocket. He held it in his hand until Will pulled his wallet out. Both men were silent while Will extracted the bills from the wallet. Before he could count them out, Emilio turned on his heel and walked toward the front door of the apartment building. He stopped and turned around. "Hey, man, I don't want to take nothing out of your hand. I don't know if your friend is takin' pictures of us or what. I just know he can't seem to stay still in the car seat from twisting around trying to see what we're doing!"
"Hey, man," William said, helping his partner, "he's just worried about his end, that's all. You know, you can't put bread in everybody's hands, man, without gettin' burned."
"Shit!" Emilio cursed, "I'm used to selling kilos, not bullshit like this!" Emilio hesitated, then added, "You walk over to the side of the house and put the money down in the grass, then I'm going to lay your package down here beside the stairway. That way, ain't nobody did nothing, you dig?"
Will didn't like it, but he had to go along with it. If Tony moved fast enough, once Rico picked up the money, they could still make the arrest. Will walked over and placed the money on the grass. He watched Rico place the white envelope beside the stairway, then walk toward him.
As Rico approached, William hesitated, then decided not to make the arrest until after he had picked up the package and had it in his hands. As he passed Rico, he made a small beckon for Tony to get out of the car. He motioned again as soon as he reached the package, but for some reason Tony must not have seen him. He beckoned a third time as he straightened up with the envelope in his hand. When he glanced around toward Rico and Dan, he saw that both of them were gone. As he stared around stupidly, he heard the sounds of someone climbing a fence. He ran to the side of the house and was just in time to see Dan going over. He snatched his pistol out and started to fire, but caught himself before pulling the trigger.
"Goddamn it," Tony cursed as he came running up, "what the hell happened?"
William shook his head. "I made the buy, then beckoned for you three times to come on and help me arrest them, but you must have missed the signal."
"Missed hell!" Tony mumbled, "you sure in the hell must have bent out of your way to signal me, 'cause I didn't see a fuckin' thing!"
"Well, at least we got the package," William said.
"Let's hope so," Tony growled. He took the white envelope out of William's hands and tore it open. He stuck his finger down inside it and tasted the white stuff on the end of his fingernail. He cursed and spit. "Goddamn it," he yelled as he gritted his jaws, "the bastards sold you a thousand dollars worth of baking soda!"
William jerked the envelope out of Tony's hand and quickly tasted the stuff. He spit it out. He looked down at his partner while he struggled with his thoughts. Here he had been taken like a young punk who had never purchased drugs before. It hurt his pride as well as everything else. He couldn't look Tony in the eye.
"Goddamn it, it's going to be hell to pay for this, William," Tony stated. "I'm going to write in my state ment that I didn't want to go along with it and told you so. Yet you went against my wishes and still made the buy, even though there was the chance of us gettin' shit put on us!"
"It happens," William managed to say.
"Yeah, well, you explain it to the boss," Tony answered, his eyes cold and bleak.
The two men started back toward the car, each one deep in his own thoughts. Tony worried about how this would look on his record, while William worried about whether or not the top brass would believe he was really beat out of the money. There were a lot of people in the office who objected to his even being on the payroll. It went against their sense of rights that an addict was paid a salary every week and supplied with all the heroin he could ever use.
So why, he reasoned, should they think he would need the money when they gave him everything he wanted? There was no reason for him to beat them out of the money. Shit, they should be able to see that clearly enough.
"Oh hell, Tony, instead of us standing here like two fools, let's ride. Maybe we will be lucky enough to ride down on them," William said as he led the way back to the car. Any kind of action was better than none at all, he believed.
Tony followed with his head down. Things had really gone badly for them. Now they were going to ride the rest of the night like two silly-ass fools, praying that the men who took them off would be as dumb as they had been. As he climbed into the car, Tony would have bet everything he had in the world against their chances of running into the slim black man who had set them up.
After jumping the fence, Dan and his crime partner, Emilio, ran down the alley until they came to a vacant house. They ran through the empty backyard and came out on the next street. Emilio led the way as he crossed over and walked down the sidewalk toward another vacant yard. Again, the men cut through the yard, coming out two blocks away from where they had begun.
As Dan brought up the rear, he searched through his pockets until he found an empty one. Then he quickly separated the money, not really knowing how much he took off the roll he had snatched up before Emilio could get his hands on it.
When they reached an alley, Emilio stopped. "Hey, Dan, I think it's time we split up the money, okay? It looked like more than any five hundred dollars to me, my man. You wouldn't be puffin' shit on me, would you?"
Instead of answering, Dan removed the bankroll minus the few hundred he had managed to remove to another pocket. "Hey, amigo, that's what's wrong with you guys. You don't trust nobody!"
"Yeah, man," Emilio replied. "I know just what you mean about us guys, but let's split the bread anyway, Honest John!" The sarcasm in Emilio's voice went unnoticed by Dan.
Dan pulled out the money and quickly counted it, while Emilio stared over his shoulder. "Hey, Dan, it's like I said! It's more than any fuckin' five hundred bucks there."
Dan nodded his head. "Yeah, Emilio, I counted seven hundred big ones, so let's make it three hundred and fifty dollars apiece. How's that for a few minutes work?"
"Shit, man, it's sweet," Emilio replied, not really caring now if Dan had stolen a few dollars or not. Five hundred would have been a good sting for them, seven hundred was a dream. It was the best sting Emilio had made all year. Already he was planning on how he would spend his money. He reflected on his brother Pedro's warning for him not to mess with Dan. If he had followed his younger brother's advice, he wouldn't have made the three hundred and fifty dollars.
Dan held the money out to the Mexican. For a second he thought about taking the whole thing for himself but shoved the idea out of his mind. It would cause too much trouble because he would have to almost kill the Mexican before he would be able to get away with the money. Emilio wouldn't stand still for just a punk slap. No, he would have to go all the way, and all he had on him was a knife and he knew sure as hell the Mexican had a knife also.
"Okay, Emilio," Dan stated, giving the man his share of the money. "This should hold you for a few days, shouldn't it?" He was just making conversation as he tried to think of what would be his best move. Now that he had a nice bankroll, he wanted to make the money work for him. For the thousandth time, he wished that he could go straight to Fat George and cop. If he could, he would be able to cop enough dope to start dealing the shit himself.
"I'll be seeing you around," Emilio said as he began to slip away. He thought about ripping the tall Negro off but decided against it. It would be too hard to do without a gun. The black would fight like hell to keep his share of the money, so Emilio finally gave up the idea. If he had thought about it before, he could have set something up-having a couple of his brothers waiting in an alley, then leading the Negro down that alley. But he hadn't been sure that the black could pull the burn off. From the beginning, he had doubted the Negro's word. He hadn't really believed that Dan had a live trick who would spend the kind of money Dan said he would. But it had come true.
Dan watched the Mexican walk away slowly, then he made his move. He didn't want Emilio to see which way he went because he knew if the Mexican had any help, he would try to rob Dan for the other three fifty. That was the way it was when you did business with dogs. You had to be prepared to defend yourself at any time because some kind of burn was sure to come your way.
Dan made his way through a yard that had a small white dog in it. The dog set up enough noise to wake up the neighborhood, but Dan was gone before the people inside the house could come out to see what the loud commotion was all about.
When he was sure he was far enough away so that he wouldn't have to worry about Emilio or any of his friends trying to hijack him, Dan stopped and lit a cigarette. He sat on the edge of a garbage can in an alley and smoked the cigarette down to a butt. At once, he snapped his fingers, then got up and made his way cautiously from the alley. Before crossing any welllighted streets, he made sure no cars were coming down the street.
It took Dan twenty minutes, but he finally made his way over to Curtis' house. After ringing the doorbell for about five minutes, he shook his head in disgust and started back down the stairway. Where the hell could that bitch be? he wondered, as he came back out on the street. He knew that he was going to have to cop some stuff from somewhere, but he had wanted to cop from Curtis. Curt had the best dope in town for a dealer pushing small quantities. Curtis didn't use, and for that one reason the dope was generally good.