Tank came rushing in carrying a half-empty garbage bag that I knew carried the rocks.
“Yo, what’s goin’ on?”
“You missed one,” I said, trying to deflect the blame onto him.
Tank’s eyes darted from me to the kid in the red and black Air Jordans who was slowly rising to his knees, shaking himself out from under the bodies of his two homies who had died right on top of him. He was wearing a goosedown bomber jacket that had taken several hits leaking feathers out of the bullet holes.
“I ain’t miss shit! The mutherfucker’s wearing Kevlar. I guess he wasn’t totally stupid.”
Tank dropped the garbage bag and leveled the AK at the kid’s head.
“Don’t worry about this shit. This nigga ain’t goin’ nowhere. Just grab the money over there by the guns.”
I turned my full attention to the lone survivor of our assault.
“Now, muthafucka, you tryin to play possum with me? What was you just goin’ to lay in the cut until we turned our backs then try to blast us? You ain’t got to answer that shit. That’s what I would have tried to do myself.”
Tank called from the kitchen.
“All this money in here ain’t nuthin’ but ones and fives and bags of change and shit.” Tank called out, throwing down a big handful of bills like it was cheap confetti.
“That’s the money they must have got dealin’ off the street, but they had fools workin’ for them which meant they was handlin’ weight. There should be some larger bills in there too.”
“I’m tellin’ you bro, there ain’t shit in here but a couple thousand in small bills.”
“Bullshit!”
I slid the Berretta into the kid’s mouth.
“Where the fuck is the real money? Don’t make me have to ask you twice because I know I don’t stutter.”
“It’s in the freezer man.”
“Check that shit, Tank. If he’s lyin’ I’m gonna’ blast this fool a second asshole.”
“I ain’t lyin’. I swear.”
“Yeah? Well we’re about to see.”
“Ay, the money’s here, bro. Let’s take this shit and get ghost.”
“Naw. Me and this muthafucka got shit to discuss. He owes me some pain. Now, bitch, do you want to live?”
“Y-yeah, yeah, man. I don’t wanna die.” He began to sob.
“Fuck you cryin’ for? I’m about to give you a chance to live. You should be celebratin’. I could have just capped your ass. Now let me tell you about these two movies I saw once.”
A crowd had gathered outside the door. I needed to do something that would shock all of them into silence. Make them too petrified to ever think about talking to the cops. There was another reason for what I was about to do though. I wanted to send a message to the other crews as well. I wanted to make sure that no little punk ass upstarts ever got it in their heads to try dealing on our turf again.
It had become common for the police to find gang murder victims who had been horribly tortured with razorblades, cigarettes, who had teeth and fingernails missing where they had been crudely yanked out with pliers, mutilated genitals, broom sticks and glass bottles rammed into their rectums, anything to send the proper warning to the next man. “Don’t fuck with us!” I personally knew guys who had disposed of enemies by letting pitbulls tear them to pieces. I wasn’t into all of that. Honestly, I wouldn’t have had the stomach for it despite my roguish reputation. Still, I had to stay current in my methods, which meant a certain amount of creative flair had to be employed now and then.
I knew someone had called the cops, but it would be a while before they arrived. No cop was in a hurry to come to the projects and they weren’t about to come until they could assemble damn near every unit they had; not for a drug bust with shots fired. This gave me some time to deliver my message.
“See, in this one flick, there was these Japanese gangstas. One of these dudes disgraces himself and dishonors his crew so he cuts off his finger and gives it to his boss as a sign of respect. Because he did that, even though he fucked up, they didn’t smoke his ass. They forgave him because they knew what kind of guts it took to cut off his own finger. It showed loyalty and balls. But then see, there was this other movie. It was about these Haitian drug dealers. Well, they castrated this mutherfucker for dissin’ them. Cut his whole shit right off and tossed it to the dogs. You see what I’m tryin’ to tell you here, man? You got two choices, bro. You can either be Japanese or Haitian.”
I pulled out one of those cheap buck knives they sell everywhere and handed it to this petrified kid. He was just staring at it trying to pretend that he didn’t know what I was getting at. But he knew. I could see it in his eyes. I saw his eyes light up as a thought came into his head. This fool would have gotten cleaned out in poker because his face betrayed everything. I knew what he was thinking before he’d fully apprehended the thought himself. I realized then that I hadn’t reloaded but I didn’t think the kid had the heart to do what he was contemplating anyway. I cocked the hammer back on the Berretta just to bluff him, besides, I had seen Tank pop a new clip in the AK and he was once again standing right beside me. He had all the money stuffed in a trash bag along with the rocks and the powder and was looking impatient.
“That knife ain’t gonna do you much good in a gunfight, bro,” I said, putting the Berretta up against his temple and watching that light of hope snuff out like a candle the instant he felt the metal touch his skin.
“C’mon, Snap! Let’s just body this coward and break tha fuck out.”
“Fuck dat! If he wants to live he’ll give me a finger or else word to God I’m gonna shoot this nigga’s dick off!”
Then it happened. A loud scream tore from the kid’s throat and he brought the knife down on his thumb, cutting clean through the bone. Tears were streaming down his face as he held the finger out to me.
“Please, don’t kill me. Don’t kill me. Please. Please!”
He was sweating like a runaway slave and tears mixed with snot and saliva drooled from his mouth in long ropes. His eyes were bulging and fidgeting in their eye-sockets. I couldn’t have imagined a more pathetic site. He had lost his mind just like that. Scared stupid.
“Yo, man, shoot this nigga. He done bugged da fuck out!”
I shook my head, trying to get the image out of my mind before it could take root and form another unwanted memory. It was too much. This shit was getting to me. I was losing the plot. It wouldn’t be too long before I was a gibbering buffoon just like this fool. This shit had to stop. I had to get out.
“You shoot him. I’m out of bullets.”
I snatched the bag from his hand and stumbled over the bodies and out of the apartment, my Timberlands sloshing through the puddles of blood. I walked into a hallway crowded with spectators. I was mindless of their stares. It was a given that they would all lose their memories by the time the police rolled up. Scratch ran shit in the projects and I was his most feared enforcer and you didn’t drop dime on either one of us if you placed any value at all on your life.
The AK erupted seconds after I had left the room. Tank was right behind me as I took the stairs two at a time. The whole thing had taken less than fifteen minutes, about ten minutes longer than it should have, but I knew that we still had at least another five minutes before the cops arrived. Niggas killing niggas didn’t make for an emergency in North Philly. The cops down there didn’t like the idea of getting in gunfights inside the buildings. Everyone in the projects hated cops, almost all of them were armed, and police were their common enemies. Every door they passed on the way up to the crime scene held the potential for a hero’s funeral. All the police who patrolled these slums did was steal from the younger dealers and shake down the crack whores for pussy and head. Whenever anything serious went down they would wait until they were sure the gunmen had fled the scene before they went busting in. It was better to catch the perpetrators hours later when they were hiding under their grandmother’s bed than to step into some violent drama.
When Tank and I got back to G-town I was determined that I had done my last job for Scratch. I had said that before. But this time was different. We had never done anything this crazy before, walking into the middle of a drug den with no obvious means for a quick escape and blasting away like cowboys. We had done plenty of drive- bys and even close up and personal shit. But nothing this dangerous before. If I could have gotten a job sweeping floors and cleaning toilets right then I would have taken it without hesitation, but I knew that a day or two listening
