“C-STYLE” HOPPED out of the cab in front of China’s building and slammed the door with an attitude. While all the men were making plans for the war, she was reduced to playing the roll of errand girl. When she had joined the set, it was in search of adventure and stripes, but so far all she was used for was braiding hair and slinging weed. It wasn’t the most exciting roll, but it was better than getting passed around like some of the other home girls.
There was a group of young men posted up on the stoop, passing a blunt and trying to look hard. To an outsider they’d have been intimidating, but C-style was unmoved by the tough guy antics. They were as much a part of the scenery as the wilted tree planted on the curb.
“Sup, C-style?” one of the young men asked as she approached.
“Shit, everything is blue,” she replied.
“Damn, girl, you getting thick than a muthafucka,” another young man reached out to pinch her thigh, but she slapped his hand away viciously.
“Nigga, you must be trying to lose that,” she snapped.
“Aw, its like that, ma?”
“I ain’t ya mama, nigga, and respect my space.”
“Stall her out, cuz, you know Young Rob got that pussy on smash,” the first young man taunted.
“And
Lucy Maynard snatched the door open with a scowl on her face and a Newport dangling from her mouth. She was a slightly plump woman with dark skin and full black hair, which she wore in a stylish cut. Her mouth was pursed to spew something hateful, but she relaxed when she recognized C-style.
“Oh, hey, Cory, I thought you was somebody else.” She stepped aside to let C-style into the apartment.
“You got drama, Ms. Lucy?” C-style asked. She and Ms. Lucy had always gotten along famously. She often hinted that she and China should hook up, but C-style never entertained it. China was cute, but she wasn’t trying to get passed around Harlem Crip like some of the other home girls.
“Yeah, but as usual it ain’t my bullshit, it’s China’s. The police came around here looking for China again earlier and I thought you might’ve been them making a return trip. I swear, if it ain’t one thing it’s a fucking nothing. You know why they looking for his ass this time, Cory?”
“No, ma’am,” C-style lied.
Lucy gave her a disbelieving look. “I’ll just bet. You know, y’all seem to forget that I ain’t much older than you so I ain’t completely ignorant to what’s happening in the streets, it’s the same as when I was coming up. In the eighties we thought we knew more than the people coming out of the seventies, same as y’all do today, but what we ended up learning is that it’s the same bullshit. You understand where I’m coming from,
“Yes, Ms. Lucy.” C-style nodded, a bit embarrassed at Ms. Lucy’s use of her gang name.
“Good. Come on.” She turned toward the hallway. “I just got back so I don’t know if China is here, but if he is he better not be up to no good in my damn house!” She said the last part loud enough for China to hear through his bedroom door. Ms. Lucy knocked twice before pushing China’s bedroom door open. The first thing she noticed was the rank smell and promised herself that she would make China clean his nasty room. But when she looked over at the bed her mind snapped. The bellow that came from Ms. Lucy was like nothing C-style had ever heard. Chanting, “Not my baby,” over and over again she rushed to her departed son.
China was lying on his bed with his arms tucked peacefully behind his head and his ankles crossed. His face was calm and his eyes glassy, staring up at the ceiling. Had it not been for the fly perched undisturbed on his foam-crusted lips you could’ve mistaken him for sleeping. C-style had seen dead bodies in her lifetime but never someone close to her, never a friend.
There was an empty pill bottle lying near his leg, and a folded piece of paper on his chest, labeled MOMMY. While Ms. Lucy grieved for her son, C-style picked up the slip of paper and read it. In the note China had gone on to explain to his mother how he had done some terrible things in life and was sorry for not being a good son. Apparently the weight of what he and Pop Top had done became too much to bear and he took the coward’s way out. C-style slipped the note into her pocket and went to console Ms. Lucy. There wasn’t much she could say to ease her pain, but the least she could do was hold her for a time. She kept her eyes on the top of Ms. Lucy’s head to keep from looking at China. She would make her report to Pop Top later, but the only thing that mattered at that moment was being there for Ms. Lucy.
chapter 20
BEDSTU, BROOKLYN
NORMALLY, IT was against Gutter’s policies to seek outside help with problems involving the set, but Gutter wasn’t in charge at the moment, Pop Top was. A young man, riding a motorcycle composed of parts from different bikes, cruised up Marcus Garvey Boulevard. He was smiling behind the face mask, but you couldn’t see it because of the skeleton’s face airbrushed onto the visor. Hanging from the handlebars of the bike were two blue bandannas, the calling card of the Crip army, but he wasn’t a banger, he was an outlaw, the last outlaw, let the streets and the obituaries tell it.
Johnny Outlaw was a man barely out of his teens, but had already earned a reputation as being brutal and cold. He was among the elite in his field, which was killing. Pop Top had paid him a handsome fee, but he knew if anyone could get his point across, the Outlaw could.
The young killer coasted to a stop at the corner of Jefferson and Marcus Garvey. There was a cluster of young men in the block between Jefferson and Throop shooting dice. There were about five of them in all, and none had the slightest clue as to what was about to go down. The Outlaw checked his Ingram M-10 9mm to make sure that the silencer was secure and one was in the chamber. It was a different weapon than he was accustomed to using, but Pop Top had promised him a few extra stacks per slob he dropped, and he intended on breaking the bank with the M-10. Satisfied that he was battle-ready, he revved the bike, emitting an eerie wailing sound from the custom exhaust pipes fitted onto it. Startled by the high-pitched sound the young men looked up from their game and the block burst into bright flashes.
“MAN, I got fifty he four or better!” A kid wearing a beat-up Yankee hat called from the sidelines.
“Ain’t nothing, I don’t mind taking ya money and ya man’s,” the man shaking the dice said. He was a portly young cat, just out of his teens and dying to make a rep for himself.
Surrounding them were other thieves and hustlers from the block. Some had money tied up in the game and some were just watching. Almost three thousand dollars lay on the ground, tucked under feet or piled near the center. No one worried about anyone being stupid enough to try and rob the dice game. At that end of Jefferson Avenue, they didn’t play that old bullshit. There were dozens of Blood sets in New York City, but the boys from Jefferson boasted one of the most notorious. Between their little group they had accumulated more than a dozen bodies, and too many robberies to count. Their click was strong and they had the block on smash.
“What the fuck was that?” the kid with the Yankee hat said, scanning the block for the source of the strange noise. It sounded like a cat being dragged over a barbed-wire fence. When the kid shaking the dice popped his head up, the side of his face was caved in by a bullet.
JOHNNY OUTLAW dipped into the block, going against the flow of traffic, spitting with the M-10. It looked like someone was pelting the men with rotten tomatoes as they lost body parts and vital organs. One cat tried to run and had his leg torn clean off by one of the high-powered slugs. Satisfied that he had done enough damage, Johnny prepared to make his escape when something slammed into him, knocking him off the bike and sending the M-10 skidding.
Now, for as vicious as Johnny Outlaw was rumored to be, he couldn’t have weighed more than 160 pounds on a good day, and the man who had dismounted him was almost double that. Johnny rained rights and lefts on the man
