Authors: Blake Karrington
“Yeah youngblood, it looks good, but one thing I know about these people is that it’s never over until they say not guilty. Ya dig?”
“Yeah, well just send a nigga some flicks when you get home.” Booda chuckled wringing the water out of his t-shirt.
A few minutes went by and then the unit correctional officer walked up to the cell door and tapped on it with her flashlight. “Cowboy, you got a visit,” she said sliding the visiting pass to him under his door.
Cowboy knew that it had to be Brianna coming to see him. She had been riding so hard for him ever since she found out that he was her dad, and Cowboy was loving every minute of it. The more they talked, the closer they became. It was almost as if he didn’t miss 27 years of her life. Yeah, his baby girl was definitely his child. She was sweet like her mother, but if pushed, she would take your ass out without a second thought. He hated missing so much of her life, but he would do what he could to make up for lost time.
“Boy, you stay getting visits,” Dennison, one of the guards who knew Cowboy said when he walked up to the visiting room door.
Cowboy nodded to Dennison who opened the door to the booth. Cowboy sat down in the small metal chair in front of the thick fiberglass window. He watched the other inmates speaking to their families and lawyers. The door opened on the other side and Herman smiled at him. He took a seat and picked up the receiver. Cowboy got up and knocked on the door for the CO. He wasn’t about to entertain this weak ass fool.
Herman tapped on the window. “What, you can’t give the man that raised your bastard child a few minutes?” he yelled. “Yeah, you ain’t no man. Look at you, running away again.”
Cowboy sighed. This dude was making his fuckin skin crawl and his blood boil. He turned and walked back to the glass and reluctantly picked up the receiver.
“I am not gonna take up too much of your time, big man. I was just hoping that we can talk, man to man.” Herman said, smirking at Cowboy.
“Man to man?” Cowboy asked, gritting his teeth. “You consider yourself to be a man? Aren’t you the same dumb fool that agreed to have your own daughter kidnapped, and almost got her murdered?” Cowboy said, clenching the receiver.
“Oh, and you daddy of the fucking century, huh? You have sex with a married woman, get her pregnant, and then leave your bastard for another to take care of? I raised your child like she was my own. Took care of her and her hoeing ass mama, busting my ass working 12 to 16 hours a damn day six days a fucking week to provide for them. I know what being a father is about, nigga!” Herman shot back.
“Yeah, Brianna told me about how much you
provided
for her. Making her feel like an outsider, emotionally beating her and Lorraine down. Yeah, you like the fucking system, giving her a roof over her head, and food. Thanks for doing that, but don’t say you raised her as one of your own. We both know that ain’t true. If it were, you wouldn’t have sold her out so easily to have her killed.” Cowboy said.
“I don’t and never have given a fuck about that little bitch. You right… I hate yo ass and I hate her. As far as I am concerned, the moment she took her first breath should have also been her last. I had to take care of her ass because my wife went through with the pregnancy, and I had a reputation. That is the only reason I didn’t smother her ass at night.”
Cowboy wanted to jump through the glass and beat Herman to death with his bare hands. “You know that I’m gonna kill you when I get out of here,” Cowboy said, clutching the receiver tighter.
“Oh, and about that. I don’t think that you will be getting out of here no time soon. I know my little girl testified on your behalf the other day,” he said, referring to Charrise taking the stand. “You might beat the triple homicide, but you can’t escape killing Tank in my house. Ya dumb ass daughter was stupid enough to bury the body in my backyard, but guess where I moved it to? I buried him in your backyard, and guess who is holding onto the murder weapon? Yep, your daughter. I’ma kill both of you at the same time,” Herman taunted with a devious grin on his face.
Cowboy’s vision became blurry and he felt his head begin to swim. He threw the phone receiver at the glass, picked up the chair and began hitting the glass with it. Two guards rushed into the room and grabbed him. Cowboy slung them off him, and smashed the chair against the glass one more time, sending it shattering towards Herman. He jumped through the opening, and lunged at Herman. Cowboy’s right hook knocked Herman to the floor. He slammed Herman’s head against the concrete flooring.
Something burned his back, and his body froze. He heard the zapping sound of the taser. A guard ran to Herman, who was stretched out on the floor, as four other guards placed restraints on Cowboy. The other visitors watched as Cowboy was taken out of the area by the guards, and the guards helped Herman to his feet.
“He tried to kill me!” Herman whined as he sat in the chair holding his jaw and the back of his head.
Cowboy was immediately escorted out of the visiting area, and the only thing he could think about was getting back to the unit to call Brianna.
__________
To say that Jonathan and his crew had done their homework on these women, was an understatement. They pulled into the small office complex that they had followed the women to on many occasions. They still had both of the women they had snatched from the parking lot in the trunk. Inside the car was silent as all three men thought about their fallen soldier. Kasy, being the veteran of the group, let them know that he understood their pain and knew it was a tough pill to swallow. But right now wasn’t the time for mourning. The completion of the mission at hand was top priority. If anything went wrong now, Kevin’s death would have been in vain.
“You right, big brah. Yo, help me get dese bitches out the back,” Jonathan said as he exited the car, putting a mask over his face.
Kasy and A.J. followed suit and placed their masks over their faces as well. Both got out of the car with Jonathan and walked to the back of the vehicle. Jonathan looked around the parking lot before pulling the chrome .380 from his back pocket. The coast was clear, so Jonathan nodded for Kasy to open the trunk, and when he did both of the women looked up at the men with anger in their faces. The ladies were pulled out and thrown to the ground.
The female driver of the Aston Martin looked around the familiar surroundings in disbelief. She looked up at the masked men and wondered who they were.
“Y’all must don’t know who y’all fuckin wit.” the female said, brushing the dirt off of her pants.
“Bitch, shut up!” Jonathan shot back, grabbing her by the hair and pulling her to her feet. “Now, get ya mafuckin ass ova there before I put a bullet in ya head,” he threatened, pushing her in the back.
At gunpoint, the three men led the two girls a short distance inside the building until they came to a warehouse door with a sign on it that read, “Elite Delivery Company.” Jonathan reached into the pocket of one of the women and grabbed some keys. He had watched them do it so many times that he picked the right key on the first try. He pushed the door open and then pushed the girls inside. At this point, the female driver knew what it was.
Jonathan had sat on her day and night and watched how she came to this location at least twice a week with a large duffle bag. Every time the female left the building, the bag always seemed to look a little lighter than it was when she first went in with it. That is how Jonathan knew this had to be the stash spot. It was a good stash spot too, because even when he attempted to search the building later, he couldn’t find anything. He and Gator had even tried together, with no success.
“Now, I know it’s in here,” Jonathan began. “You got two choices. You can either give me what you got hidden here or you can make this your final resting place.”
She looked up at them. “It’s nothing in here,” the female lied, hoping that the masked men would believe her.
A.J. pulled the black .45 automatic out of his waist and placed it on the back of her head. The female could feel it pressed up against the rear of her skull, and for a second she thought she was dead. She looked over at the other girl, trying not to be the first one to break. If she was going to die, she didn’t want it to be like this. Money was something that could be replaced.
“How do I know that after I give you what you want, you won’t kill us once you got it?” the female asked, trying to get a feel for whether or she was going to die or make it out alive.
“If I was gonna kill you, I wouldn’t have a mask on right now.” Jonathan responded.
She slowly walked over to the plaque hanging on the wall, lifted the twenty-pound plate and set it on the ground. Jonathan smiled under the mask at the sight of the large safe underneath. The female began to turn the dial on the safe, but Jonathan quickly snapped out of his zone and stopped her.
“Back up from the safe,” he told the female, pointing the gun at her. He didn’t have any idea what was inside, and he wasn’t going to take the chance of her opening the safe and reaching in to grab a gun. Gator had schooled him that most people kept a pistol where they stashed their money. It was sort of a hustler’s code, and it was a good thing that Jonathan thought about it, because after the female gave him the combination to the safe and he cracked it open, the very first thing that sat at the front of the door was a gun.
He looked at the female and shook his head. The safe was pretty big. It was about four feet in length and about three feet high. There was so much money packed inside the safe that Jonathan had trouble pulling it out. It took every bit of ten minutes for him to clear the safe completely, placing all the money on top of a large warehouse table. He sent Kasy back out to the car for more bags to put the rest of the money in and he was back within minutes.
“Well, look shawty, I got some good news and some bad news,” Jonathan said as he watched Kasy take the last of the money out of the building.
The female just shook her head, knowing that she should not have trusted him. “I gave you my word that I wasn’t going to kill you, and I’ma stand by that. But unfortunately, your friend gotta die,” Jonathan said. He pointed his gun at the other female and pulling the trigger.
The close range shot to the center of her forehead almost lifted her off her feet. Her body rocked back and then fell face first into the dusty floor.
“I think a life for a life is fair. Y’all killed my boy, so…” Jonathan said, shrugging.
The female sat there and stared at her friend’s lifeless body on the ground. She began to weep for her fallen friend, but secretly was glad that she had escaped the same fate. The woman was so wrapped up in thanking God for sparing her life that she didn’t even notice the men leave.
__________
Herman slammed the shovel into the dirt and dug as fast as he could, periodically looking over his shoulders to see if any of his neighbors were watching him. He knew that he didn’t have too much time to get the body dug up and out of his backyard before Brianna was clear down his throat. He wished that he hadn’t lied to Cowboy about already digging up Tank’s corpse, but anger along with the satisfaction of seeing the look on Cowboy’s face when he told him seemed worth it.
“What in the hell is that man doing?” Lorraine mumbled to herself, looking into the backyard from the kitchen.
She had no idea that Brianna had a body buried in their backyard, and for a scary moment, Lorraine thought that Herman was digging the hole for her. Ever since he came home yesterday, they hadn’t said a single word to each other, but he seemed to be in a better mood. Herman stopped digging, turned and looked around the yard. He couldn’t seem to figure out where the body was buried. He only dug in that particular spot because that was where the fountains weere placed, but from the looks of the empty four foot hole that he dug, the body wasn’t there.
“Come on,” Herman said to himself, scratching his head, “Where the hell is it?”
He looked around the yard again and saw another patch of grass that looked shady, about 20 yards out. He walked over and began digging. The sun was heavily beaming down on his head, causing him to sweat profusely, but even still, he continued to dig. The more he dug, the more a foul stench began to seep through the ground.
“God damn!” he yelled after his shovel jammed into, what he believed to be the chest of the rotting corpse.
He looked around again to see if anybody was watching him. The smell from the body stunk, so badly that Herman had to put some more dirt over it until he was ready to move it. Lorraine was almost tempted to go outside and see what he was up to, but decided against it to avoid starting an argument. One thing she did do was keep a sharp eye out on him. She had an old .38 special, readily available for her to protect herself in the event that one of those holes he had dug was indeed for her.
__________
A.J. and Jonathan pulled up to Kevin’s house. The news of his death was on every local evening newscast. Both boys knew they had to show their faces soon and make sure that Kevin’s family was straight. It was a crowd of people standing in front of the small duplex. Mainly because it was no way all of them could fit in the tiny house. Only family was allowed inside at the moment. The only close friends that Kevin had truly ever acknowledged were Jonathan and A.J. They had been rolling with each other since the 2nd grade, day for day. A.J. and Jonathan were considered to be more family than most of the people that were there.
“Damn man, I can’t go in there. I know Ms. Matty is in there,” A.J. said, stopping at the front steps.
Ms. Matty was Kevin’s Mom. She like both of their mothers had watched all of the boys grow up together. A.J. knew that she was going to want some answers that he wasn’t strong enough to tell her. She was like a second mom to both him and Jonathan, and the one thing that he was never capable of doing was lying to her. He would rather not say anything, then to try to lie and get caught by her.
“I got you, brah, but we got to show our faces. Let me handle it… you just wait out here.” Jonathan said, getting out the car and starting to walk up the stairs and into the house.