“My nigga, Hawk,” Major greeted him, his face smiling but his tone flat. “I know you ain’t bring ya goons with you to see lil old me? We Blood, homey, I ain’t no threat to you.”
“Nah, it ain’t like that. We got some other business to handle when we leave here, but I ain’t want them in here while we talked,” Hawk lied, hoping Major Blood didn’t see through it. “Welcome to New York, Blood.” Hawk pounded his fist. “Sorry I wasn’t there to meet you at the airport, but I’m sure you’ve been making out okay.”
“I’ve been keeping myself occupied.” Major patted the chocolate girl’s thigh. “Ladies, go in the back for a sec. I gotta talk to my dawg.” The girls went into the sleeping area, closing the door behind them and turning up the television. “Now, down to business; I hear you niggaz got a crab infestation you can’t handle?”
“That’s not totally accurate,” Hawk said, pulling up a wooden chair. “We’ve just been having some difficulties with a pocket of Crips in Harlem.”
“I don’t call getting most of your team greased,
“With all due respect, Major, you ain’t from out here, so you really don’t know what’s up.”
“Well”-Major sat upright-“
Hawk got up out of the chair and positioned himself so that his back was to the wall. “What do you want me to say? Niggaz die every day, all over the world. Sometimes we get one up on them, some times they get one up on us. That’s how this shit has always gone. Gang-banging ain’t gonna change, fam,” Hawk defended.
Major Blood stared at Hawk long enough to make him uncomfortable before responding. “See, that’s the kind of half-ass thinking that’s got your monkey-asses in a sling now. Hawk”-Major took the seat Hawk had just vacated-“you of all people know this shit y’all putting down ain’t what we come from. I mean, we all criminal muthafuckas at the end of the day, but there was a time where the people who lived in our neighborhoods were off-limits. We didn’t prey on our own, we protected them and smashed on the rest. We made long paper and made sure that niggaz knew they couldn’t come through our hoods tripping. Fuck is New York promoting? Purse snatching and cutting civilians for stripes? Them fruits don’t come off no tree that I know of. Show me one muthafucka other than you and maybe Tito that’s banging accordingly.”
Hawk was usually the one giving the homeys lectures on Blood etiquette, so Major flipping the script had him tight, but he held his composure as best he could. “Man, we’re working with what we got in New York City, Blood. This ain’t California so the same rules don’t apply. It ain’t a problem with Crips; it’s a problem with Harlem. Gutter is on some bullshit.”
“And that’s just why I’m here,” Major Blood rocked the wooden chair back on two legs. “My orders are real simple, homey: Harlem Crip is getting shut down. I need any information you got on them fools. Sets… numbers… the works. I’ll take care of the rest, you think you can handle that?”
“I’ll have somebody get it to you,” Hawk assured him.
“I need anything you got on Diablo’s murderer too.”
“His sister killed him, Blood,” Tito spoke up for the first time.
“I don’t give a fuck who killed him. He was one of ours. Fuck is it when our generals can get they shit pushed and nobody do nothing? On everything, I always fill my contracts. As far as I’m concerned she’s a Judas and wasn’t fit to share the same womb as a down-ass damu like Diablo. That bitch is going to sleep, Blood.”
Tito cringed at the ice in Major Blood’s voice. He could understand bringing it to Gutter and his lot, but why bother with Satin? She had lost her sanity as a result of the shooting and surely couldn’t be a threat to anyone but herself. Tito would stand with his people when it came time to ride on Gutter, but he would have no part in Satin’s execution.
SHARELL THUMBED through her outfits trying to pick something comfortable to wear for her trip to see Satin. She could still fit into some of her stuff, but the babyweight limited her choices.
She was still a bit upset at Gutter for planning to fly out without her, but she understood where he was coming from. A respected member of the Hoover Crips had been shot and the shit was definitely going to hit the fan. Gutter had no way to tell exactly what the situation was and he didn’t want Sharell to get caught up if things went sour. Still, she didn’t know how she felt about Gutter running off into God only knew what.
Gutter had always lived his life like two people. This was one of the only similarities that he shared with Lou- Loc, other than both being down for the set. One side was the light, where he was Kenyatta, the loving husband and father. The other side was the darkness, where he murdered and ordered men murdered. He chose to keep her in the light.
Sharell might’ve been a churchgirl, but she wasn’t a twit. She knew that Gutter had bathed in a river of sin, yet she stood by him. She was his woman, and it was only right. For the most part, she knew there was good in him, but he showed it less and less as the need for revenge grew. Still, she prayed for his salvation.
Sharell quietly reflected on how things would be with Gutter being all the way in California, while she was stuck in New York. She knew he had a life before her and wondered if he would pick up where he left off? Maybe there was some old flame awaiting his return with open arms. Would she be the one to console him?
She was thinking nonsense. Even suggesting that Gutter was going off to some secret rendezvous as his uncle lay mortally wounded was selfish on her part. If she spent his time away conjuring scenarios she would surely drive herself crazy. What she needed to do was get herself on the road to go see about Satin.
Her soul was wounded in ways beyond what no woman should endure. To be sentenced to a lifetime of sorrow seemed a fate worse than death. Sharell wondered what Satin now saw in her mind’s eye. Was she aware? Or in some far-off place that existed only in her mind?
When she finally finished dressing and stepped outside her building, the sun blared mercilessly down on her. Throwing on her Chanel shades, she continued on to her car. Mohammad was at his usual post, sitting in his Maxima thumbing through one of the several newspapers that he devoured each morning. He was a youthful-looking man with copper skin and a beard that hung slightly longer than Gutter’s but was far more kept. He smiled politely at her then went back to reading.
Since the conflict, Gutter insisted that she be under constant guard. One of the homeys had occupied the job in the beginning, but that turned out to be a disaster. Mohammad was one of Anwar’s. He was always with her when Gutter wasn’t around and sometimes when he was. Other than the fact that he greeted her in the mornings, she never knew he was there. He didn’t talk to her and he never revealed his exact location. He only made direct contact with her when necessary. Mohammad was the equivalent of having your own personal ghost.
Sharell walked to her car, which was parked a few spaces up, and got behind the wheel. She checked herself over in the mirror and pulled into traffic. Mohammad followed shortly behind her.
SATIN SAT at the foot of a waterfall, looking at her reflection on the surface of the water. Her hair hung down to her shoulders, but had begun to frizz from the light drizzle that was sprinkling her. Her face was as beautiful as it has always been. There were no dark circles around her eyes and her cheeks still held a youthful glow. Running her hand through the water, she waited as she always had.
A figure approached from the direction in which the sun was setting, she couldn’t see his face due to the glare, not that she needed to. She’d know him anywhere. He approached, with his hair neatly braided and his khakis heavily creased. His brown face smiled at her lovingly as he occupied the patch of grass next to her.
“Lou-Loc,” she whispered, to which he gave her his infamous smile. His face was still as smooth as it had been before the shooting.
“Hey, baby,” he said, his voice being little more than the hum of a mosquito’s wings, but she was able to hear him perfectly. His breath smelled of the sweetest flowers, with a hint of tilled earth. When she laid her hand against his cheek it felt warm, not the cold flesh of a dead man. Every rational part of Satin’s mind told her that he was dead and that the man sitting beside her couldn’t be her forever lover, but when she pressed her body against his it seemed very real.
“God, I miss you,” she sobbed.
