“Hell yeah. I been wanting to rob this nigga for three years,” I said, taking the ski masks and guns out of the bag. Denny and I didn’t discriminate in who or what we robbed, although up until a few months ago, our primary business had been robbing drug dealers and dope boys around the city. “Why wouldn’t I wanna deal with it?”
“Your mom. How is she?” Denny asked.
“She’s real sick, man. In ICU right now. I might have to give her my kidney.”
“Damn, I’m sorry to hear that.” Denny shook his head.
“The thing is, even if they say she can have it, she ain’t got the insurance to cover it, so I gotta come up with the money,” I said, pumping a shell into the shotgun chamber. “Which makes robbing this motherfucker even sweeter.”
Denny parked his truck in a lot down near the entrance to City Island, and a few minutes later, Li’l Al pulled up in a stolen minivan. The two of us jumped in, and Li’l Al began driving toward the building that Vaughn lived in.
The street was quiet, probably due to the fact that it was in a residential area. Li’l Al circled the block, dropping Denny off on the other street behind Vaughn’s house. The plan was for me go through the front door, while Denny would sneak behind the house and go through the back. Vaughn didn’t think anyone knew where he lived because he did most of his drug business down on Boston Road on the other side of the Bronx. Screwing Kandace came with more benefits than just good pussy. She knew everything there was to know about Vaughn, and now so did I.
Denny got out, and Li’l Al circled the block again, parking on the corner. I slipped the ski mask over my face, keeping low until we got the text from Denny, letting us know he was ready. At that moment, Li’l Al slammed his foot on the gas, speeding down the street and coming to a stop in front of Vaughn’s place. I hopped out of the van with a shotgun in one hand and a .44 in the other and ran up the steps to Vaughn’s front door. You would think my first instinct would be to kick in the door, but in my experience, these drug dealers were so cocky they never locked their doors. I twisted the knob, and voilà! The door opened.
“What the fuck?” A guy was sitting on the sofa, playing a video game when I rushed in. He dropped the game controller and reached for a Glock that was on the table in front of him, but before he could touch it, I had my .44 pointed at his face. He tossed his hands in the air, and I grabbed the gun, tucking it in my waistband.
“Oh, shit!” I heard from someone in the back, which confirmed that Denny had entered as well.
“Where the fuck is Vaughn?” I barked at the dude on the sofa, who now looked like he was trying to think of his next move.
“Fuck you,” he said.
“Man, that nigga don’t pay you enough to be a fucking hero,” I warned, stepping close enough to hold the barrel of the shotgun at his knee. “Now, talk or get capped. I don’t got no time for a whole bunch of back and forth.”
“He’s upstairs,” the dude finally said as Denny entered with another one of Vaughn’s guys.
“Get over there on the sofa,” Denny commanded.
I began to ease my way to the staircase.
“Yo, cuz, be careful,” Denny said.
I nodded my head as I ascended the staircase slowly. For the first time since we’d entered the house, I was nervous. I arrived at the only room with a closed door and pulled the trigger of the shotgun. The wood cracked as the blast splintered it damn near in half. I’d read somewhere that shots fired, whether they hit someone or not, disoriented people, and instinctively they went to the ground. I wanted whoever was on the other side of that door to be disoriented as hell.
“Ahhhhhhhh!” A woman shrieked as I stepped inside the room and pulled the trigger again. She grabbed hold of the blanket and held it tight against her.
“The fuck?” a naked Vaughn yelled from the floor, where he was scrambling to get up.
I stepped closer and held my gun to his face.
“Wake up, motherfucker!” I yelled. “Where’s the fucking stash?”
“Ain’t no fucking stash, nigga. I got some cash on the dresser. Take it and get the fuck out!” Vaughn said with a look of disgust.
“Fuck that chump change. Where’s the stash?” I asked again.
“Fuck you. I told you ain’t no stash!”
I suddenly noticed his black and swollen eye and remembered what Denny said about the other night, when Vaughn said he supposedly beat my ass in the club. I hit him in the face with the barrel of one of the guns. “You stay lying, huh? I hope you realize it’s about to cost you your life and hers.”
“No!” The girl screamed and flailed her arms around, no longer concerned with covering herself with the blanket. “I’ll tell you where it is. Please don’t kill me.”
“Shut the fuck up, bitch,” Vaughn growled at her, and I hit him in the face again, harder this time.
“You know where it is?” I asked the girl.
“Yeah, it’s in the room across the hall in the back of the closet,” she said.
I took off the duffle bag that was hanging across my chest and handed it to the girl. “Go and put everything in it into this bag. Every fucking thing. You understand?”
Her hands were shaking as she took the bag from me.
I pointed the other gun at her. “And if you try anything funny, after I kill his ass, I’ll kill you, too.”
The expression on her face said it all. She understood that I wasn’t playing. “I swear, I won’t do anything funny.”
“You got two minutes to get across
