Back at the apartment, Tone and his cousin Mann continued to discuss Shorty’s murder. His cousin made it clear that he had no personal interest in revenge, his mind was on the money and he wasn’t out here for anything else. It made no difference to him whether Sykes got away with it or not. As far as he was concerned, let someone in her family handle it, or let the police take care of it.
Tone didn’t share those same sentiments. He wasn’t going to let the beef end with Shorty’s death, or wait for someone else to step up. He took it upon himself to be that someone else. So, this was far from over. Sykes had to deal with him now. And Tone would be shooting to kill.
“Yo, what happened today could have happened at any time to any one of us. That shit ain’t on you. Don’t beat yaself up over that kid,” Mann advised. “Everything happens for a reason.”
Tone leaned against the kitchen countertop with his eyes cast downward at the floor, his stressed facial features showed little interest in what his cousin was saying. Mann couldn’t tell if he heard him or not. Suddenly, he looked up, needing a distraction from his thoughts.
“I know,” he stated flatly. “I just feel bad. Shorty is dead because of me. It’s as simple as that. She was just guilty by association.”
Tone fell silent for a moment. He stared blankly at Mann, but there was nothing in his eyes, no fear, no pain, no sadness.
“Yo, word to mother, I’ma kill that bitch ass nigger!” he blurted out.
Mann interrupted, “Bosses don’t kill people. They get people killed. Yo, you too valuable to even be thinkin’ like that.”
“Fuck that!” Tone shouted. “This shit is personal. He gotta know where this is comin’ from and why.”
“Tone, you ready to risk everything you built? We gettin’ crazy money! Think about it. You said the nigga a dope fiend. If that’s so, why even bother with him? He already killin’ himself. Just let Karma handle it for you.”
“Yeah, he is killin’ himself. But a bullet will help him speed up the process,” he snapped. “At some point in time, you gotta stand fa sumthin’ or niggas will walk all over you. Can’t just let this shit go.”
Tone feared if he didn’t handle this that his conscience would eat at him. He felt like Shorty would never forgive him. He talked the talk, now he had to walk the walk.
At that point, there was no talking Tone out of it. Mann knew it. His cousin loved him, and he knew that Tone knew that he loved him too. Mann had no choice in the matter. He had to ride with his cousin because if the shoe were on the other foot, Tone would be riding for him. No questions asked.
It was dark after Shorty’s death. The streets just didn’t feel the same to Tone any more. Every day he grew tenser. He was still making money, which was cool, but it just didn’t feel right without Shorty. She had never been easy to work with, but her sudden absence affected Tone greatly. It was weird just to be out on Ashland Avenue and not see her serving a customer, collecting money or running around all crazy. It was her advice that he sought on anything from drug sales to woman problems, that he would miss the most.
The cold reality was Shorty was dead and Tone felt a debt of responsibility because of it. Mentally, he was having a hard time that she wasn’t here.
Tone looked up and down the block, his eyes taking everything in. Like every day since it happened, he hoped and prayed Sykes would show his face. But he didn’t. Tone was frustrated by his inability to locate Sykes, however, he knew he couldn’t hide from him forever. Eventually he’d make a mistake, and Tone vowed it would be his last. All he had to do was wait patiently for the opportunity to present itself, then strike. Being a heroin addict, Sykes straddled that fine line between addiction and desperation. Tone knew something would give, he just didn’t know when.
Out of sight didn’t mean out of mind, thoughts of Sykes dominated Tone’s attention. He hustled all day, then he and Mann rode around Baltimore City at nighttime to well known open air drug markets, in search of him.
“Here is somethin’ you can’t understand,” rap group Cypress Hill sang through the car stereo. “How I could just kill a man.”
“Yo, I’m gettin’ tired of listenin’ to this shit,” Mann complained as he drove.
Tone ignored him. He sat stiffly in the passenger seat as his eyes scoured each drug block and each street the car passed. They went from East Baltimore, to West Baltimore, Park Heights to Cherry Hill, on a search and destroy mission. He had his eyes peeled for Sykes or anyone who fit his physical description. He had a heightened sense of awareness about everything around him and everything in his vicinity. Tone didn’t overlook a thing. He was anxious to get some payback for Shorty’s sake, and for his as well. He knew the streets were watching, wondering how he would respond or if he would at all. Tone had the answer to that question tucked safely under his seat, in the form of a fully automatic tech-nine machine gun.
That night, or any other night that Tone went looking for Sykes, he didn’t find him. So Tone decided to be more strategic in his approach to tracking Sykes down. He removed himself from the block in the hopes that his absence would lure Sykes into feeling comfortable enough to come back around. He struggled with the thought that his absence might be sending the wrong message, that people might think that Sykes ran him off the block, or that he was scared. But that wasn’t the
