Dutch looked at Craze, then at the bodyguard. The guard returned Dutch’s nonchalant gaze with a hard stare. Dutch stepped
closer and shot the guard in the head, point-blank range. The baby began to cry at the sound of gunfire filling the air. The
bodyguard slumped to the carpet.
“Yeah, I’ll be i-ight,” Dutch said, turning to Craze, then back to the baby. “Shhh, hush now, it’s okay. Uncle Dutch got you,”
he said as he bounced the baby gently and watched Simone, Ray, and Craze leave the room.
“You got a fly lil’ cat here, Duke. What’s his name?”
“Please, man, just take the money. Just take it and go,” Kazami pleaded, trying to sound as authoritative as his precarious
situation would allow him. Dutch ignored him and again started talking to the baby, who had calmed down in Dutch’s embrace.
“Look at you, you a big boy? You a big boy like your daddy, ain’t you? You know who your daddy is? Kazami, the African who
was untouchable. Yo’ daddy is a big man, even the mob couldn’t catch him,” Dutch told the baby as he turned the child around
to see his father. “Now look at ’im.”
The little baby boy reached out his arms to Kazami and blurted happily, “Daddy!”
Dutch laughed as he saw the pain and agony in Kazami’s eyes and wondered how such a weak man could be feared for so long.
Kazami had commitments that made him weak and Dutch had none, which made him stronger.
“What do you think I should do? ’Cause you know you gonna die, right? Of course you do. But I tell you what I’m gonna do for
you, like one last favor. I’ma let you kill yo’ ho. You like that? I know you know she got you set up. I seen the way you
flipped on her, and since I respect the game, I’ma let you handle you,” Dutch said as Kazami eyed him curiously. “So when
my man comes back, I’m gonna hand you a gun, deal?”
Kazami didn’t know what to think.
“Yo-you… you gonna give me a gun?”
“Why not? You kill her, then I kill you. Of course I could do it. I’ll blast the bitch then blast the kid, then blast you,
but you don’t want that, do you, Zami? It’s truly a once-in-a-lifetime offer,” Dutch said, smiling at him.
Kazami dropped his head in defeat and slowly shook it, no.
“Okay then, so we got a deal or what?”
“Yeah… yeah, we got a deal.”
“I-ight now, I’ma hold you to your word and if I think you tryin’ some funny shit, I’ll make it so you’ll have to bury this
kid in a cup,” Dutch threatened, meaning every word.
The tears began to creep down Kazami’s cheeks. He knew the man in front of him was colder, hungrier, and sharper than he was.
He knew this young wolf wouldn’t hesitate to do what he said. Kazami knew it was over. He knew this man would take his life,
and his only revenge would be knowing that Simone would pay with her life, for her deception.
Simone and Sugar Ray entered the room with Craze, who was carrying a bulging garbage bag. Kazami’s eyes blazed with rage when
he saw Simone, and she returned his stare with a defiant smirk etched on her face.
“Check this, Craze. While y’all was gone, me and Zami over here made a deal. Didn’t we, Zami? Nothin’ major, just a lil’ surprise
for Simone here. So check this, Ray. How ’bout you give Zami yo’ joint,” said Dutch.
“Give him what? Nigga, is you crazy? Give him… Craze, what the fuck is wrong wit’ this nigga?” Sugar Ray exclaimed.
“Ray, Ray, calm down, man. Didn’t you say you couldn’t trust the bitch? If this ho set you up, wouldn’t you want some get
back, too? Least we can do is give the nigga that much. Respect the game, baby,” Dutch told him.
Simone’s head started turning from side to side as she listened to Dutch, her eyes widening with fear at his every word. Trembling,
she turned to Ray. “Ray, baby, what is he talkin’ ’bout? You can trust me, I swear you can!” Simone was terrified.
She tried to hug Ray. Ray just looked down at her hanging on his neck, then at Kazami, then finally at Dutch. It was at that
moment that he started to fear Dutch himself. Dutch was a madman and Ray wanted no part of him anymore.
He handed the gun to Kazami. Simone watched as the piece of metal exchanged palms. As Kazami took the gun, Simone tried to
run out of the room. Craze stopped her, grabbed her by the hair, and threw her back in front of Kazami.
“No, Ojee, please! Let me explain, please, I love you!”
The audacity of her plea, the madness of the moment, and the hurt of betrayal filled Kazami beyond capacity. He raised the
gun, pulled the trigger, and hit Simone in the chest. The baby screamed at the sound and sight of his dying mother, but Kazami
fired again into her head. She lay lifeless in a pool of her own blood, nerves still twitching.
“Now before you give the gun back, I want you to meet my man, Sugar Ray. See, Sugar Ray, he the type of man no woman can resist,
they love this nigga. Don’t they, Sugar Ray?”
It was at that moment Sugar Ray knew he had made the worst mistake of his life. He had never thought Dutch would kill him,
but faced with the reality, he saw it all too clearly. He was the link between the hits, and he cursed himself for not seeing
it before.
“Dutch! Come on, man! What you doin’? Craze,” he said turning to Craze with a plea for mercy in his eyes. He knew Craze was
the only one who could stop Dutch, but Craze shrugged his shoulders as if there was nothing he could do for him. Ray turned
back to Dutch while Craze kept his gun on Kazami.
“Don’t do this, Dutch, man, please. Is it the money? It’s all there—take it man, it’s yours. Just don’t do me like this.”
“Come on, Ray. You remember fifty-fifty? Partnas? I can’t take your dough. Man, you earned that. Tell Kazami how you sang
his girl to sleep and set all this up. Even got on Kazami’s ring. Go ’head, show him,” spoke Dutch calmly as he instigated.
Ray stared at him coldly.
“Show him,” repeated Dutch as Kazami looked at Ray’s hand and saw his ring. “Yeah, Zami, it’s yours. The bitch who shared
yo’ bed, who bore your son, was behind your back, suckin’ Ray’s dick, takin’ it, lovin’ it, and comin’ home drippin’ his nut.
Goddamn, nigga, you got the gun—fuck you gonna do?” Dutch urged as Kazami raised the gun. Ray turned to Dutch and smoothly
drawled his last words.
“I’ll see you in hell, nigga.”
The blast caught him high in the chest and he crumpled to the carpet. Before Dutch could move, Kazami turned the gun on himself.
All in one motion, he raised the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. He fell beside Simone; his bloody head rested on
her thigh.
“Damn!” Dutch said as he looked down on Kazami’s lifeless body. “Fuck he do that for?”
“What you expect, the nigga to wait on you? Shouldn’t have gave the nigga no gun no way.”
“Now how we suppose to find the real paper he got stashed?”
“Serve yo’ dumb ass right,” Craze said as he held up the bag. “Ain’t nothing but a couple hundred thousand in here.”
Dutch cocked his head to one side, aggravated. His glance fell on two large swords above the fireplace, crossed in the shape
of an X. He smiled, then handed the baby to Craze. Craze watched as he pulled the swords down and examined the blades.
“What you gonna do with that?”
Craze found out soon enough. Dutch rolled Simone’s body away and took aim at Kazami’s neck. After the second hack, Craze was
forced to look away. It took several blows for Dutch to hack through the muscle and bone of Kazami’s neck until his head finally
detached. Dutch picked the head up and placed it in a bag with the money. He then turned back to Kazami’s body and pulled
the bloody dragon rope from Kazami’s neck stump and slung it around his own neck.
“Now, we set this shit on fire,” he told Craze.
“What about him?” Craze asked in a concerned tone, referring to the baby.
But Dutch didn’t answer.
“Come on, son, it’s a baby,” Craze said as Dutch just looked at the baby, sighing
“All right, all right, just help me set this muhfucker on fire so we can get out of here.”
They pulled out ten minutes later in the van, leaving the house ablaze. Flames leaped into the twilight sky. They left the
baby on a neighbor’s porch screaming for his parents as his home burned.
Craze watched the moon from the New Jersey parkway on their way back to Newark. It was the first time the moon seemed to follow
him, as if it, too, had witnessed the night’s atrocities. He glanced down at the garbage bag between his feet. It was more
money than he had ever seen in his life, but it seemed he had sold his soul to get it.
He looked over at Dutch, who was driving quietly, focused only on the road. Craze wondered what was going through his mind.
He loved Dutch like a brother and he wondered about him, but only sometimes.
Craze reached to turn on the radio. A cassette was playing Kool G Rap’s “Road to the Riches.” Craze turned the volume up as
he and Dutch nodded to what would be their theme song.
Twenty minutes later, Dutch pulled up to Roberto’s Pizzeria. Dutch went inside while Craze stayed in the car. A half hour
passed before Dutch and Roberto walked out and got into Roberto’s dark blue Riviera. Craze followed them as he glanced at
the bag on the passenger-side floor. They drove into the Italian section of Newark and headed toward Fat Tony’s restaurant,
Sophia’s. It was a large restaurant, complete with its own parking lot and outdoor patio area.
He followed Roberto around back to the service entrance and stopped. Dutch got out and came over to the passenger side of
the car.
“Come on, leave your gun,” he said as he grabbed the bag off the floor. Craze tossed his gun under the seat, then closed his
car door. He followed Dutch and Roberto in through the service entrance.
Inside, the kitchen was busy with the rapid movements of waiters and chefs and the zesty aroma of Italian food. Roberto spoke
in Italian to an elderly woman and stole a piece of sausage she was cutting. She hit his hand with the flat part of the knife
and cursed him in Italian.
Roberto led them up a flight of stairs that led to a long, darkened hallway and ended at a set of double doors. He knocked
and in moments the door was opened by a middle-aged Sicilian man with a long scar down the left side of his face.
Roberto spoke to him in Italian and the man let them in. They followed the man into a plush mahogany and leather interior
office where two more Italians sat on the couch. Fat Tony sat behind his desk, puffing a cigar.
Dutch looked at the two guys on the couch, who sneered at him with hard and steady eyes. One of the men, whom he didn’t know
at the time, was a man he’d come to know well…
Frank Sorbonno.
Dutch and Craze kept a respectful distance from Tony’s desk while Roberto went up to Tony and shook his hand.
“Dutch, is that you, kid?” asked Tony.
“Yeah, Mr. Cerone, it’s me, and this is my man, Chris,” Dutch answered.
“Well, come the fuck over here, let me look at cha. It’s been a long time, huh?” Tony jovially remarked.
Dutch walked up to Tony, carrying the garbage bag, and shook his hand.
“You lookin’ good, I see. Prison brought the man outta ya, huh? That’s good, ’cause sometimes it’ll bring out the bitch, if
there’s any there. But you, look at the shoulders, huh?” joked Tony, his heavy chuckle shaking his gut. “How you been?”
“Can’t complain,” responded Dutch.
Tony nodded as he surveyed Dutch, then glanced down at the bag he was holding. “What’s that?”
Dutch looked at Tony silently until Tony got the message.
“Frank, this here’s Dutch, an old friend of mine. Gimme a sec, will ya?” asked Fat Tony of his two guests on the couch.
Frank reluctantly nodded and slowly got up. He and the other man walked by Craze, eyeing him condescendingly, then exited.
The doorman looked at Tony, who nodded in his direction, and he too walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.
“So what’s up wit’ the stone face, kid? Where’s that smile my grandma would die for?”
“You had a problem and I solved it, now I got a problem,” Dutch explained.
Tony sat back and puffed his cigar before tapping his ashes. “I’m an old man, Dutch, and I don’t do so good wit’ riddles,
so ahhh, what’s the problem?”
Dutch looked back at Craze, then at Tony. He set the garbage bag on the edge of the desk and began to peel down the bag until
Kazami’s decapitated head came into full view. The sight of Kazami’s head made Tony jump out of his seat and drop his cigar.
“Jesus! Are you fuckin’ crazy? You bring a fuckin’ head in my fuckin’ restaurant? Roberto, what the fuck is wrong with this
kid?” asked Tony as he sat back down and picked up his cigar. “Put that shit away,” he added as he relit the cigar. “I take
it this is part of your problem, huh?”
Dutch nodded, as he covered the head back up, but left the bag on the table.
“So who is it anyway?”
“Kazami.”
Tony’s jaw dropped as one word came out. “Who?”
“Your problem—I said I solved it,” Dutch responded.
Tony thought how Frank had tried to kill the Nigerian twice, missing both times, and Tony wondered to himself how the hell
the young kid in front of him had managed to pull it off.
“So, ahh, I’m sure you didn’t just find it rollin’ down the street?” Tony signified, trying to lure Dutch into a play by play.
“Naw, let’s just say it fell in my lap.” Dutch smiled.
“Fell in his lap,” Tony repeated, laughing hard. “You hear this fuckin’ guy, Roberto? Where’d you get this kid, Roberto?”
“Sweeping floors,” Roberto said as he shrugged his shoulders.
Craze finally relaxed at the sound of the men’s laughter. He had never been in the company of Fat Tony or men of his ilk,
so he didn’t know what to expect. But he knew laughter was a good sign, although he still didn’t fully understand what Dutch
was here for.
“So, Dutch, you bring me a fuckin’ head in a bag, set it on my desk, and tell me you got a problem. Now, I suppose this is
the part where you ask me to solve it?” Tony concluded.
Dutch didn’t answer. He again dug in the bag and began to take out stack after stack of money and began placing it in neat
rows in front of Tony’s greedy eyes. He continued to produce stacks until he felt Tony’s greed was appeased for what he was
about to present.