“All right. You win.” Suave raised both hands in the air while taking a few slow, calculated steps to the right where a low, rusty zinc fence was wrapped around an abandoned house that was gutted by fire a few months before.
“I said, don’t move,” the man from the car shouted again as he wobbled over to stand in front of Suave, his finger on the trigger of the gun. With his head tilted back, he stared up at the tall, lanky boy and spat, “Are you deaf, boy?”
Suave looked down at the little man without fear. For some reason, an image of a pit bull popped into his mind. But he dare not say a word. This pit bull had a gun trained on him.
Soon, the other two men joined them, huffing and puffing from running after the boy.
“I told you to drop the bag.” The light-skinned Michael Manley look-alike slapped Suave hard across his face.
Suave’s face was on fire. Tears welled up in eyes, but he blinked rapidly, refusing to cry.
“This is for not listening when a big man talks to you.” The other man who was running after Suave delivered an upper cut to the boy’s stomach in true Muhammad Ali style.
Suave doubled over in the middle of the street, screaming in pain. He was retching and coughing, his mouth filled with bile, and the tears now seeped down his face.
“Now I take the bag the hard way,” said the same man. He gave Suave a sharp kick in his bottom, sending the boy flying into the zinc fence, before landing hard facedown.
Suave sprawled out on the road, motionless. His head was bent at an unusual angle, and blood poured from his mouth.
“You killed him?” Michael Manley look-alike asked in disbelief.
“He... He’s not dead.” The man’s voice was laced with fear.
“Look at him. He’s—”
“Shut up!” Mr. Pit Bull, the leader of the group, barked. “We had him cornered, so that wasn’t necessary. Do you know what’s going to happen if his boss finds out we killed him?” He glared at the two men.
“It’s his fault.”
“You hit him first.”
As the men argued over who was responsible for Suave’s demise, his backpack forgotten for the moment, Suave took a tiny peek from under an almost closed eye. Agonizing pain pierced his body from head to toe, but he played possum, barely breathing.
They’re going to kill me once they realize I’m not dead, Suave thought. I have to get away or at least die trying.
“Go get the bag, and let’s go,” the leader instructed one of the men. “We need to get out of here now.”
That’s all Suave needed to hear to make a move. He dug deep down inside and found the strength to leap to his feet. Biting his lips against the excruciating pain, he threw himself over the short fence into the tall, wild grasses and bushes.
“What the...?”
“He wasn’t dead?”
For a few seconds, the three men stared with open mouths at the place where Suave disappeared.
“He’s getting away!” The boss opened fire in the yard as he moved closer to the broken-down fence. His two accomplices joined in, spraying the area with bullets.
Suave lay on his belly, eyes closed, with bullets flying all around him. His heart hammering in his chest, he waited for a bullet to penetrate his body.
“Cease fire,” the leader shouted, and the other two men complied. “Do you see anything?” He leaned forward, squinting as he peered into the dark.
“It’s too dark in there,” one man replied. “Let’s go and look. I’m sure we hit him.” He hopped over the fence.
“Follow him,” the boss commanded the other man. “Hurry. With all those shots we fired, I’m sure someone must have called the cops by now.”
Suave, who wasn’t too far away, overhead the conversation. He began crawling away as fast as he could through the grass, ignoring the pain. Luckily for him, it was dark, and he was wearing all black. This would work to his advantage.
“He couldn’t have gone far.” The man used his leg to move the grass as they searched for Suave. “He should be hurt.”
“I see him!” the other man exclaimed, pointing. “See? That’s the backpack.”
“Now we got you, little bugger.”
The men hastened their steps, their prey within sight.
Suave heard them and forced himself to his feet. He wanted to run, but his aching body wouldn’t cooperate, and his right leg felt as if it had died. So, he staggered along, knowing he would be caught soon. “This is it for me, huh?” Suave whispered under his breath, looking up into the sky. “Why am I not surprised, God? You’re never there for me.”
Eeeeee, weeeooee, wooo! The police sirens reverberated in the night air, getting louder and louder with each passing second.
“Police! Let’s go!” The leader took off toward the car, leaving his two men to follow.
The men didn’t need to be told twice. They turned around, plowing through the tall grass and bushes, and raced back to the road. The car’s engine was running when they jumped into the backseat, their boss flooring the gas pedal as they made a quick getaway.
Suave went the opposite direction, dragging himself through the back of people’s houses until he saw the busy main road up ahead. Only then did he lower himself onto a rock under a big mango tree. He took off his backpack and unzipped it. Reaching inside, he pulled out a handful of high-grade Jamaican marijuana. He brought it to his bloody nose and sucked in the aroma, his eyes closed as if in ecstasy. “Safe and sound,” he muttered, a big grin on his bruised face.
Part One
Chapter One
Kingston, Jamaica, West Indies, 2003
“Psssst. Hey, baby girl. Hold up.” Raymond “Suave” Brown hopped out of his brand-spanking-new, cherry-red Cadillac Escalade that was parked alongside the curb on Hope Road. With his long dreads hanging down his back, he swaggered over to the blushing young woman, a big smile on his face.
Like a laser
