“A blind man could see that. You came from heaven right?” Hollywood flattered her.
“Yeah, right.” She blushed.
“True story”âhe eased closerâ“I'd be thankful for the directions, but I'd be thrilled with a moment of your time.”
The girl looked Hollywood over once more. She found him very attractive, and from the looks of his gear, he was getting some type of money. The bus came and went, but the girl remained. After about ten minutes, Hollywood was letting her into his car with instructions to wait for him. Then he stepped back across the street to handle his money.
“Damn, you don't play,” China said, slapping Hollywood's palm. He was a brown-skinned cat with slanted eyes. Originally from San Francisco, China was the product of a black whore who had the misfortune of having the condom break while turning an Asian trick.
“You know how it is, man. I gotta stay one step ahead of the competition,” Hollywood replied. “Sup, B. T.?”
“Ain't nothing,” B. T. said. His beady little eyes kept going from Hollywood to the car. If you looked closely, you could still see the scar on his head from when Lou-Loc had pistol-whipped him. Though he never said it out loud, he wasn't sad to see him go.
“Say, I need to holla at you, T,” Hollywood said.
“So, talk.” He shrugged.
“Dig, you and one of my ladies came to an understanding over some paper, and she says she ain't seen it yet.”
“Oh, I told shorty I'd square up with her.” B. T. brushed him off.
“Yeah, I dig that. Thing is, you ain't made no moves to settle the debt.”
“Yo, you stunting me over a few dollars?” asked B. T., sounding a bit hostile.
“Listen, man,” Hollywood said, hooking his thumbs in his belt. He kept his hand close to his gun. “You know I don't do nothing but count money. Them few dollars you skipped with don't mean shit. This is about principle. Pay to play, cuz.”
“Damn, kid. All that shit you slinging in the hood and you shorting bitches,” China clowned.
“Fuck you,” B. T. snapped, “and for damn sure fuck that bitch!” He tried to give Hollywood his coldest stare, hoping it would rattle the pretty boy. It didn't.
“Yo, I think you need to watch your tone, cuz,” Hollywood replied, removing his shades. No matter how flashy Hollywood was, there was nothing sweet about him.
“Fuck y'all bitch-ass niggaz arguing about?” Pop Top came out of the store, breaking the tension.
“Ain't nothing,” Hollywood said, never taking his eyes off B. T., “just a little dispute between the homeys.”
“B. T. owes Wood some paper and he stunting on the debt,” China confessed.
“Why don't you mind ya muthafucking business?” B. T. turned on China.
“Them stitches in the side of your head ain't taught you nothing.” Top nodded toward the scar Lou-Loc had given him shortly
before his murder. “Either pay, cuz, or go head up for it, but ain't gonna be no extra shit. That goes for both you muthafuckas.”
B. T. sized Hollywood up and weighed his options. True, he owed the girl some money, but he wasn't really feeling how Wood was coming at him. He had been down with the set longer, so he figured his seniority should've been respected in that right, but Hollywood was about his paper. He reasoned that he could take Hollywood in a fight, but if he lost he would've been embarrassed as well as wrong. Reluctantly B. T. reached into his pocket and gave Hollywood what he owed him.
“Now, was that so hard?” Pop Top patted B. T. on his back. “Y'all niggaz always going at each other instead of dropping these dead rag chumps. You got the young boys showing you up.”
“I heard Hook and them dropped some brims the other night?” China asked.
“Square biz,” Top confirmed.
“That nigga Gutter got this shit like the Wild West. Soon we ain't gonna have nobody to bang on,” Hollywood joked.
“Some niggaz know how to hold a grudge.” Top shrugged.
“Shit, he fucking up our paper.” B. T. snorted. “Police running all up and through the block and shit, how we supposed to sling?”
“Same way you been doing it. With caution,” Top said. “Gutter gonna keep riding for his nigga until he gets it out of his system. I know it's hard on y'all, but that's how the homey wants it.”
“Man, fuck that,” B. T. spat. “That nigga been dead how long? I'm trying to get money, fuck that ol' mourning shit.”
“Watch ya mouth, cuz.” Top glared at him. “That nigga you wolfing 'bout is a ghetto legend. I know you still salty over that ass-whipping, but you had it coming. Learn when to shut the fuck up!”
B. T. was uptight, but he didn't say anything. Awhile back he and
Lou-Loc had a dispute over his relationship with Satin. The end result was him getting pistol-whipped and stripped of his rank on the set. He had tried to have the assassin murdered, but his people were sent back in bags. Before B. T. could make a second attempt, someone blew Lou-Loc's brains out.
“Well”âHollywood popped his collarâ“I'd love to stay and chat with you fellas, but I got some new pussy to sample. Nice doing business with you, B. T.” Hollywood winked at him and went to join the young lady waiting in his car.
“LOOK AT
this shit,” Ruby said, slapping a copy of the
New York Post
down on the table. Highlighted in the corner was an article about a gang-related shooting in Harlem. “Three more soldiers gone. These crabs is getting out of hand.”
“Relax,” Supreme said, tearing into a piece of chicken. “Their little run is gonna come to an end soon enough.” Supreme was a chunky cat who wore his hair in braids. The sleeves of his red shirt were rolled up slightly, advertising the iced-out watch on his right arm. He commanded a small army of soldiers from Hillside, Queens, that had been called in to lend aid against the rival set. Supreme and his soldiers had proven to be efficient killers, and were respected even by the Crips.
“I don't see it,” she continued. “We've been dancing in place for damn near three years and we're still getting our asses kicked. Then that stupid little fuck Cisco stirs up all this shit. âOnce Lou-Loc is gone, Harlem will be wide-open.' Bullshit. What we went through with him was like a light slap on the ass
compared to what Gutter is putting down. He took that shit
way
personal.”
“Yeah, I gotta give it to him. Gutter turned out to be a real headache,” Supreme confessed. “What I wanna know is, how the hell he got back up when Scales and them laid him out?”
“That's what a lot of people wanna know,” Ruby said, pushing a strand of red hair from her face. “No one expect him to live, let alone be running around shooting muthafuckas. Shit, even the big boys are scratching their heads about this one. I heard a rumor that their thinking about calling in some help. Some of us are gonna find ourselves without a set to run.”
“Fuck it.” Supreme wiped his hands on a napkin. “We put him down once, we can do it again. Ain't nobody gonna come in here trying to tell me how to conduct my shit. When I put a bullet in that muthafucka, they're gonna give me a promotion.”
Supreme had already begun putting a plan together to get at Gutter. He had successfully murdered several key players in the Crip army and he reasoned it would only be a matter of time before he snagged the prize. After dropping some money on the table, he and Ruby exited the restaurant.
Supreme smiled proudly as he held the door for Ruby. She was hard as hell, but she still had it. Ruby was the color of a Hershey's Kiss, with a body straight off sticky pages. The tight shorts she wore exposed just enough ass cheek to make a man do a double take. In addition to being set leaders, she and Supreme were also fuck buddies.
The sun was beginning to set, but Jamaica Avenue was still buzzing with activity. People were either going in and out of stores, or just on the strip stunting. Supreme smiled proudly as he followed Ruby to her car. No sooner than he walked around to the passenger side, a gray Honda skidded to a stop beside them.
“Say, Blood, you looking for me?” Gutter asked, aiming his
.40 caliber over the roof of the car. When Supreme turned around, Gutter shot him once in the face and twice in the chest.
Blood splattered on the car as well as a shocked Ruby. Seeing Supreme get splattered stunned her, but it didn't last long. She pulled her .380 from her handbag and returned fire. The back window shattered, but she didn't hit Gutter or the driver. Ruby walked around the car and looked over what was left of Supreme. As she watched his life drain into the gutter she vowed that there would be a reckoning.
Â
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NIGHT HAD
fallen and the fiends had come out to get their blast. In the depths of the jungle you cop whatever you needed to escape whatever troubles you had. They readily sold their souls for a temporary release. Even with the increased police patrols, business was still able to be handled. B. T. and China sat on the bench, passing a blunt back and forth watching it all.
“These niggaz is a trip,” China said, taking a toke of the blunt. “How can you know crack is gonna fuck your life up, and still smoke it? These people ain't got no scruples.”
“Man, fuck these niggaz,” B. T. said, spitting on the ground. “They can get as high as they want as long as I got a fat pocket.”
“You're a sick dude.” China laughed him off. “Say, what was that shit wit you and Top earlier?” Being fairly new to the set, China didn't know B. T.'s story.
“Fuck that nigga,” B. T. replied. “He riding a dead man's dick.”
“Everywhere I go I hear about this Lou-Loc cat,” China said, passing the blunt.
“Man, he wasn't nobody. If he was so muthafucking hard, them brims wouldn't have aired his ass out.”
A fiend walking up on them broke up their conversation. She
was a Hispanic girl with a pretty, round face. The effects of drug abuse had begun to make her lose weight, but she still had a very nice shape. Her eyes held a look of hunger that both men understood.
“What's up, fellas. Got some coke?” she asked, wiping her nose with her sleeve.
“Bitch, you better go see them lil' niggaz like everybody else,” B. T. snapped.
“Come on, B. T. Don't do me like that, you know we go way back.”
“Marisol, you better get the fuck away from me.”
“We can work something out,” she said, touching his knee.
“You must be out ya fucking mind.” He slapped her hand away. “You just as grimy as ya sister was. I slide with you, and I'll probably wake up with a pistol to my head. Get out my face!”
Marisol sucked her teeth and walked away. She knew she was playing herself by being out there like that, but what choice did she really have? Her boyfriend had lost his position at the firm for drug abuse, then he up and left her to move back with his family. She found herself out on her ass and broke. The fall from diva to dopehead was a short but hard one. She started out snorting with her boo in the high-class circles then ended up stalking a fix on the block like the rest of the fiends. The sick part of her addicted brain told her that the actions of her sister Martina had cast a black shadow over her family.
The downhill spiral began when Lou-Loc was murdered. Though she knew her sister was hurt over the loss of her meal ticket she never thought she would take it to the extremes she did. Martina couldn't accept the fact that Lou-Loc didn't want her so she concocted a plan to punish him. Though Marisol and Lou-Loc had never seen eye to eye she still didn't believe he should've been murdered, especially like that. After his death Martina was found
dead. The police still had no clues as to exactly what had happened, but Marisol knew. The devil she had served for so long had come back to swallow her. It was just too bad that she had set him on everyone else's heels in the process.
Marisol wiped the long tear from her cheek that the stroll down memory lane had left her and moved deeper into the trenches to see who else she might be able to offer her services to for a blast.
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“YO, YOU
twisted that faggot, son!” Danny squealed. “That boy head exploded like
boom
! Yo, I think a piece of his brain was stuck on the window.”
“Danny, anybody ever tell you that you talk too much?” Gutter asked, lighting the blunt that was hanging from his mouth.
“It's blue, cuz. I was just trying to give you your props. You pushed son's wig back. That shit was dope!”
“Let me tell you something.” Gutter turned on him. “Ain't nothing glorious about murder. Blood don't wash off, lil nigga. You ever shot somebody?”
“Nah, but I would,” Danny quickly shot back.
“But the point is, you
haven't.
You ain't never seen death up close and personal. Baby boy, you don't know what kind of demons haunt me everyday of my life. You're a good soldier, Danny, but don't be so quick to sell your soul for stripes.” Gutter leaned back in his seat and busied himself looking out the window.
Danny felt kind of foolish being chastised by his mentor. All he was trying to do was give it up to Gutter on his flawless execution of Supreme, but he ended up getting flipped on. Everyone doubted him because he was young, but Danny was eager to prove just how 'bout it he was. When his time came, he would surely step to the
plate. Danny dropped Gutter off in front of his building and drove off into the night.
When Gutter got into the duplex, he noticed that the light was still on in the study. He had hoped to come in and wash the gun smoke from his body, then ease into the bed with his lady. Unfortunately, Sharell was still up. He walked into the makeshift office and greeted his lady.
“Sup, boo,” he said, kissing her on the cheek.
“Hey, Ken”âshe patted him on the legâ“I left dinner in the oven for you.”
“I'm not hungry,” he said, turning to leave the room.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, everything is blue. How's Satin?”
“Still the same.” She shrugged. “The nurse said she's up and down, but no major changes. She's putting on some weight though. Probably all that medication they're giving her. My heart really goes out to her. Lord knows I'd probably lose it if something were to ever happen to you.”
“You ain't gotta worry about that. I ain't going nowhere,” he assured her.
“That's easy to say, Ken, but no one can foresee God's plan.”
“I don't know about God's plan, but I know about
my
plan. I'm gonna be here to be a father to my child and a husband to my lady.”
“Not if you keep running like you do, Ken.”
“Don't start this shit again, Sharell.” He massaged his temples.
“The truth is the light,” she said, turning her chair around to face him. “You can say what you want, but ain't no good gonna come from the way you're living. The devil is always busy, Kenyatta. More often than not he uses troubled souls like you to do his will. The Lord saysâ”
“Man, miss me with that âthe Lord says' shit,” Gutter snapped.
“The Lord ain't said a muthafucking thing when my partner got blasted. His ass was silent as the grave.”
“Kenyatta Soladine, don't you be in here blaspheming,” she warned. “It was a terrible thing that happened to Lou-Loc. I loved him like family and didn't nobody cry harder than I did at the funeral. That still doesn't change the fact that it was the Lord that brought you back to me. I prayed by your bedside everyday and he let you come out of your coma. You should be thankful for that.”
“Oh, I'm thankful, but not to the Lord. He ain't have shit to do with me getting up out that bed,” Gutter said, in a matter-of-fact tone.
“And what's that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” He sighed. “Look, it's been a long day. I'm going to bed,” Gutter turned and walked out of the room.
Sharell felt like crying, but she promised herself she wouldn't. She and Gutter had the same argument more times than she cared to recount. With each passing day, he seemed to become more and more obsessed with his mission. Sharell knew Gutter was a good man at heart, but she was hardly a fool. Every time she read about a gang-related shooting, she knew just who was behind it.
Gutter had the homeys putting in overtime on the streets of New York. No matter how much blood was spilled, his thirst never seemed to be sated. It had gotten to the point where her friends from church refused to be seen publicly with her. They feared that her man's reputation would land them in a cross fire. Regardless of his wrongs, she loved him and would stick by him no matter the outcome.
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HAWK LEANED
against his car, watching while Ruby punished a bottle of Jack Daniel's. Even before he had gotten her phone call, he knew about Supreme's murder. In the streets, news traveled fast.
No one really understood why Ruby was taking his death so hard, but Hawk understood. He was one of the few people that knew about their secret love affair.
“I want him dead!” Ruby said in between sobs. “Gutter has finally crossed the line!”
“Ruby, calm down,” Hawk said in an even tone. “We're all upset about what happened to Supreme, but drinking yourself into a stupor isn't going to bring him back. I need your head to be clear so you can command your troops. Get it together.”
“Fuck that,” she slurred. “This shit is war. Y'all can keep playing with these crab niggaz, but I'm taking it to 'em. He's going down.”
“What're you gonna do, march into Harlem and single-handedly take the whole set?” he questioned.
“If I have to. That nigga should've been put down a long time ago. Y'all kept playing with it and look what happened. We lost three set leaders and God knows how many soldiers. We gotta do something, Hawk.”
“Something has already been done, Ruby. This problem with Gutter is officially out of our hands. We'll be getting some outside help from the West.”