The Grind Don't Stop (28 page)

Joyce took one last look at him and headed for the front of Violet's car.

Sparkle snatched his head back as she walked away not wanting to believe that she could possibly be that cold to leave his boy for the police to gather up. Duke grimaced again in pain and Sparkle leaned down toward him. “Man, you got to muster up some strength from somewhere because we can't leave you out here like this.”

“Come on, man, he's right, ain't no need for all of us to get a dope case to go along with explaining this shit here,” Joyce yelled at him as she sprinted for Duke's ride with the grocery bag folded in her arms. “Get the keys, nigga.”

Sparkle was still frowning at her, astonished when he felt Duke tugging at his arm. He looked down to see the keys dangling in his other hand.

“She's got the right idea, dog. You know damn well the five-o is gonna search the ride, especially with my ass getting all shot up out here on the interstate, so go man, get the hell out of here, now.”

“You heard the man, Sparkle. We got to roll, man!” Joyce shouted from the passenger window, her voice filled with desperate fear and anxiousness.

Sparkle didn't want to leave his boy, but from the look on his and her face he knew that he had to. He sighed, gripped his boy by the shoulder really hard and headed for the car. There was really nothing to say nor was there any time to be wasting. He pulled onto the highway eyeing Violet's car in the rearview mirror until it disappeared as he headed down toward the Flat Shoals exit ramp.

Sparkle took several turns down different streets and then headed back toward Candler Road. He turned into the road that led to Candler East Apartments and looked across the seat at Joyce, who was still clutching the grocery bag to her body. She was staring off into space with a blank look on her face. After they had parked in the lot that led to his sister Debra's apartment, they finally looked at each other and said, “Damn” in unison.

The persistent rapping on the frosty glass window of Beverly's office door on the sixth floor of the Atlanta Police Headquarters on Pryor Street, interrupted the discussion she was having with her longtime friend and secretary, Sarah.

They had been going over the list of police deployment for the upcoming Fulton/DeKalb County Festival. For the first time the extravaganza was being held in Inner City Park on Peachtree Street downtown. With the likes of T.I., Ludacris, Young Jeezy, Keyshia Cole, Soldier Boy and a variety of other up-and-coming rappers performing, a young rowdy crowd was certainly expected.

With the blinds drawn that she had recently installed to keep any and every one from staring at her every move, she nodded toward Sarah to open the door. Being in a pretty good mood, Sarah smiled and sprung up with a pep to her step as she went to open the door. That smile dissolved like an Alka-Seltzer when she ran smack dab into the smug expression of Lt. Woo. The solemn look on Woo's face caused both Sarah and Beverly to momentarily forget all about the festival.

Woo tooted her nose up and rolled her eyes, ignoring whatever Sarah was about to say and stepped to Beverly's desk. She waited for her boss, who had stood up when she entered, to sit back down before she took a seat in the cushioned high-back chair in front of her desk.
“Sorta hate to disturb you, chief, but I just got a report, from a reliable source that some real serious drug takeover activities are about to go off along the motel strip on I-20.”

Before Beverly could reply, the buzzer on her desk started shrieking wildly, instantly drawing all of their attention to the urgent message unfolding on her desk. Sarah made a move toward the machine but Beverly held up her hand to stop her and snatched the ticker tape that was spewing out of it.

Her expression turned into one of bleak concern as she read the message. But she quickly regained her composure, folded the message and patted it down on her desk. Wiping some nonexistant sweat from her brow, she eyed Sarah. “Remind me to have you look into this, okay.” She continued to tap on the message. Sarah nodded in reply.

Beverly turned her attention back to Woo. “Now what were you saying?” She had already been told by Woo the latest on the duo drug operation of the Black Cats and Red Dogs. So why was she in here practically repeating what she already had said? Maybe she was there to get her to reveal something, but she wasn't about to do anything like that, not with her anyhow. Especially since that was the area where her three amigos plied a lot of their trade. She was especially concerned now, because normally they did their thing under the radar, holding violence to a minimum.

Woo squared her shoulders as she prepared to respond. “I think we need to beef up the patrols along the interstate because the violence has escalated to drive-by shootings. And in an area where there is a constant flow of pedestrian occupation.”

Eyeing the message again she asked, “Where at in particular do you suggest we do this?” Woo toyed with the corner of her mouth. “I'd say, ah, between East Lake and Wesley Chapel.”

Beverly blinked as a red flag flashed in the back of her mind.
The recent rash of robberies and shootings, in which she had little doubt and less evidence, was initiated by Black Don, who she assumed was trying to gorilla his drug and gambling ventures into Decatur. No way were her boys going to lie down and let him have it, period. She definitely wanted to keep the area under a microscope. Lt. Woo, whose particular informant had been 100 percent reliable, sat in front of the chief's desk waiting for specific instructions on how to handle the situation. She was really suspicious because of the bad vibes she was getting from the chief concerning this particular case.
Something ain't connecting properly with this bitch. I wonder what it is. I'm gonna find out, that's for sure.
She managed to hold her gut instincts in check and waited.

Beverly excused Sarah from the office and stood up to walk to the window that overlooked the State Capitol Building. She looked down into the parking lot. She was forced to do a double-take when she saw the deputy chief hand a briefcase into the window of a dark-colored SUV.

Why
is he looking around all suspicious? Hell, why am I even thinking like that?
Damn, was her own self-made paranoia getting to her that much? She was rubbing the corner of her mouth with her baby finger when Woo cleared her throat behind her.

She turned around abruptly, feeling that she had to be extra careful addressing Woo, whom she felt was already suspicious enough. She blinked several times as she gathered her thoughts and walked back to the table. “I want you to get with the Black Cats' squad leader to post stakeouts at all the hot spots we discussed earlier. Keep a direct line open to me to keep me abreast of anything that goes down. Oh yeah, I'll be letting the DeKalb chief know about it. Aaah, you're excused.”

Woo nodded and got up to leave. When she placed her had on the doorknob, Beverly cleared her throat and pinned her with a
serious expression. “Oh, and Lt. Woo, tell Big Bertha that I saw her mother at the Lenox Square mall.”

She looked shocked for a brief moment but didn't say anything as she opened the door and left. The look of surprise on Woo's face was enough for the chief. It was also enough to keep her wondering how much Woo really knew. Those thoughts occupied her mind all the way down to the squad room, where her crew was waiting around playing chess and cards. She had given them a brief warning of precaution as they headed out of the building destined for Decatur. Woo also was contemplating which of her crew was the chief's informant. During the same time, Beverly was sitting in her office wondering how Woo had known about the I-20 incident before it had come over the ticker.

Aunt Rose checked the two young thugs in her rearview mirror, as she headed to her other hideaway at Dunlap Apartments in East Point. There was no way she was going to let these wild bastards know where she actually laid her head. Shit, Don didn't even know about the spot she had down the street in Dunlap Two. They had been silent ever since she had picked them up at the Waffle House on Wesley Chapel. She had been on her way to open the store when she received the call from Don.

She hadn't thought much of the traffic jam that resulted in the arrival of an ambulance and a convoy of police cars. But she had certainly taken notice when Chopper and Stack seemed to slouch into their seats when she zoomed by the scene heading in the opposite direction.

As she weaved in and out of the slow-moving traffic, she silently cursed her nephew for causing all the heat because some
slicksters were able to pull a gambling scam on him. As far as she was concerned, that's what he and the old man got for trusting that stupid ho with the combination to the safe.

Well, one thing was for sure, they wouldn't have to worry about her little snake-bit ass anymore. She smiled to herself as she wondered if the bitch would make for some good fertilizer for the reefer plants she was buried under out there in the woods in Henry County.

She took a deep breath of satisfaction as she recalled the euphoria she had felt during those hours of torturing her traitorous ass to get all that information before overdosing her on some pure cocaine. Helping Don dig that shallow grave was some real labor though, even if she spent most of the time supervising his big ass. Oh well, some things just had to be done.

She shook away those thoughts and cocked a weary eye at the younguns. “Y'all boys want to get something to eat out of this Hardee's here? I could whip y'all some eggs and bacon, but y'all niggas probably want to gobble up something right now.”

Chopper licked his lips greedily while he rubbed his stomach, which was growling something terrible. He looked across the seat at Stack, who was staring blankly out of the window. Man, he hated when Stack had that look on his face, like he was mad that he had to share the air with the rest of the world. It usually meant that something crazy was about to go down. But to heck with him, he was hungry for a mug.

He smiled at the back of Aunt Rose's head. “Damn, Miss Rose, I'd love to chow down on some of your Southern fried cooking, but a couple of them sausage and egg biscuits can't get in my stomach fast enough, know what I'm saying?”

Rose gave him her sweet old lady smile and backhanded the sweat off of her forehead. “Whew!! Do I know what you saying?
Hell yeah, I know what you saying. Hell, I'm glad you said that there because I ain't really in the mood to be hanging over no hot-ass stove right in now either.”

She flipped her eyes away from him in the mirror and pulled into the Hardee's parking lot on the corner of Dunlap and Main. It was hard to hold back the smile as she watched Chopper rush to beat her to the door. She had walked around the back of the car, then headed to the front entrance when she noticed that Stack hadn't gotten out of the car with them. She knew that the bastard was hungry because she'd heard his stomach growling along with the other one. Turning around in a huff, she went back and yanked the door open, leaned in the car and put her face directly in front of his. She definitely didn't have the time to be baby-sitting no grown-ass nigga, so she reverted to her sweet old lady persona. “Son, ya might as well bring yourself in because ain't nobody gonna be playing waitress for ya.”

He looked at her, like he was breaking out of a trance and said in a low voice, “Okay, y'all go ahead and order me whatever y'all getting. I'll be in there by the time y'all sit down.”

Rose stared at him as if he had lost his mind, deciding whether to cuss his ass out or show a little more patience. She chose the latter since they didn't really know her real role in Don's operation other than that of a sweet old lady. “Youngun, I can see you're bugging about something, so you can just sit out here. We'll make it take-out.” She forced a smile and went into the restaurant. While she was waiting in line she called Don.

He was on his way over to do some dealing with Al. “Yo Auntie, is this you?” he screamed over the traffic noise.

She leaned away from the phone.
Who else do this fool think would
be using my phone? I know damn well that he checked the caller ID before he even picked up. Then again maybe his careless ass didn't.
She
wanted to scream but there was no need to take it out on him because that boy Stack had gotten her irritate. She blinked away that little attitude and said softly, “Yeah, baby, it's me.”

“You pick up my boys yet?”

“Uh-huh, we're about to order some breakfast at the Hardee's down the street from the apartments on Dunlap.”

“That's good, that's good, you gonna leave them out there or what?” Don answered like he was covering the phone.

She covered the phone herself for a moment because she noticed Chopper trying to eavesdrop on her conversation. So she leaned forward to whisper in his ear for him to get three orders of whatever he was craving and moved away from the line of customers.
Little nosey-ass brat all up in a bitch's business.
When she felt that she was far enough away from the crowd, she resumed her conversation with Don. “Yeah, I'm gonna leave them there because I got to go open the store. Whatcha want me to tell them?”

“Tell them that I'll be over there in a hour or so,” Don mumbled.

“That's all?”

“Yeah, they'll be aight until I get over there.”

“Aight, I'll see ya later on tonight then. Bye, baby.” She hung up not waiting for him to reply. Catching the look on Chopper's face when the cashier put the orders on the counter, she could tell that the nigga was broke. She stepped up her pace to the front of the line and paid for the goods. She took them on to the crib. She waited until they had eaten half of their meals and gotten settled before she told them what Don had said. Neither of them showed too much of a reaction. Her intuition told her that they were holding something back. She was right.

Stack slid his bag to the side and stared at Chopper. Chopper eyed him up and down and hunched his shoulders as he spread his arms wide apart. “What? Why you gritting on me like that, man?”