“Ay, yo! You need to holla at your man ’cause he about to make me see him!”
Angel drove to Roll’s mortgage company in Paramus.
“Didn’t I tell you that muthafucka was gonna be a problem?” Roll growled as soon as Angel stepped through his office door.
“You heard what the nigga said? A hundred thousand for Irving Turner! Fuck! I wouldn’t take a million from his bitch-ass.”
Angel sat on the edge of his desk and lit a Newport. “What happened?”
“Fuck you mean, what happened? The nigga feelin’ himself! He think ’cause he can muscle them petty niggas off them pissant blocks, he ready to fuck wit’ the thoroughbreds!” Roll huffed hard.
“He
“Was. Was. He was a thoroughbred,” Roll retorted. “He on some Mother Teresa shit now!”
Angel shrugged. “So I’ll talk to him.”
“You already tried that. Now, I’ma holla at his bitch-ass!”
Angel leaned forward toward Roll. “That was about family. This is about business. Let me talk to Roc. One last time, okay?” Angel proposed, but her eyes said it was an order.
Roll eyed her. He knew that her business with Roc was personal. But she had proven to be one hell of an addition to his team. Angel was invaluable to him now. Despite all his gun talk, he knew Roc’s caliber and he knew niggas like that didn’t just change overnight.
“One last time,” he emphasized, holding up a chubby finger. “One time. After that, I handle it.”
“Hello, Angel.”
“What’s up, Roc? Long time, right?” she asked as she stepped out of the Viper.
“Yeah, long time,” Rahman replied, cold and hard. “You said you wanted to talk? So let’s talk,” Rahman said, looking at Angel seriously.
She had asked him to meet her at Port Newark, the same port they had robbed so many years before. She walked up to him and threw her arms around his neck, hugging him playfully, then let go.
“All this gangsta shit between us, nigga… you need a hug.” Angel snickered.
He tried to hold his composure but being in her presence always strangely comforted him. He cracked a smile.
“Where’s Roll? What, he too scared to meet me so he sent you instead?”
“Naw. Nobody sent me. I wanted to see you. What Roll wanted was to send bullets through your kufi for trying to play him,” Angel explained.
“Ain’t no play about it. There’s a hundred grand in the trunk of the car.” He gestured to the old Buick he was driving. “Tell Roll he can take it or try and send them shots.”
Angel aimed her finger like a gun. “Bang bang.”
“Angel… I’m serious.”
“And you think I ain’t? You want shots, there you go. That’s what you want anyway, ain’t it?” she asked, but he remained silent. She continued. “You want Roll to give you a reason to do what you’ve been wanting to do!” Angel accused. “You want a war.”
“What I want is that poison out of the community. What I want is a safe environment to raise kids in. What I want is-”
“Power,” Angel concluded quietly. “You want power, Roc. You wanna be in control.”
“Allah is in control,” Rahman countered.
Angel shook her head. “Yeah, you got a cause. But who don’t? You just like me, just like Dutch. You wanna control the streets,” she surmised, turning to look out at the boats on the dock. “You think I don’t want the same things? What muthafucka in his right mind wants to risk his life every day, runnin’ from a case, a stickup, or a hit? What muthafucka don’t want the good life for their kids, huh? But for most of us, this is how we get it! You gotta go through hell to get to heaven. Have you forgot that or are you so fuckin’ righteous now that you’re above all that?” Angel spat.
Rahman took a step toward her, arms open.
“But you don’t have to get it that way! All that talk about somebody gotta sell it is garbage! What if you don’t sell it and don’t allow it to be sold. What do you think happens to all that money? It’s still in the community. It can still be made! Look at the Italians, the Irish, the Asians. You don’t see that bullshit in their communities, do you? Yeah, they started out as criminals to establish themselves, but now most of their money is legit. Niggas been on the corner for fifty years and what we got to show for it? Platinum chains? Slaves’ chains!” he cried with passion. “It ain’t too late, yo. Ride wit’ me. Yeah, we are just alike. We understand power. Let’s use it to build, not destroy.”
Angel silently acknowledged his point, but she had a personal vendetta that her heart wouldn’t let her abandon. “Do you still trust me, Roc? Regardless of where we stand, do you still trust Dada?” she asked him, using the nickname Dutch had given her.
Rahman remembered it, too. Dutch called her that because he said she was as vicious as
“Yeah, Dada. I trust you. I trust your heart.”
“Then trust me when I say my thing with Roll is almost over. He’s finished. All I gotta do is put the icing on the cake. When it’s done, then we’ll talk, okay? For now, let this bully thing go, and we’ll respect your territory to the fullest. I got the coke up on Springfield. I’ll clear the block and relocate. It’s yours. Just let this go and don’t expand on Roll. This way we all happy. You get a drug-free zone, and we get our paper. Do it for Dada.”
Rahman looked at Angel and hesitated before he spoke. In his heart they would always be family but he couldn’t subject his plan to his emotions. He replied, “A hundred grand. Take it or leave it.”
Angel closed her eyes, then slowly opened them.
“If you do this, Roc, I can’t help you.”
“Help me?” Rahman chuckled. “I don’t need help. Roll does.”
“You can’t win, Roc. You… can’t… win,” Angel emphasized because she knew his weakness.
“But I can die tryin’.”
The conversation was over. There was nothing left to say. Angel hugged him again and this time he hugged her back. They broke their embrace and went their separate ways.
“Two for five! Two for five!”
“I got that fire over here, yo!”
“Gimme one for fifteen!”
“No shorts!”
The block was booming despite the hour. It was 2:00 a.m. Hustlers and scramblers, crackheads and dope fiends filled the sidewalk in front of Brick Towers. Expensive whips were double-parked and shorties in tight skirts and bootie shorts leaned through windows and on car hoods. Everyone was so caught up in the rhythm of the night that they paid no attention to the U-Haul truck pulled up in the middle of the street.
Until it was too late.
Rahman, Salahudeen, and seven other masked Muslims came out of the bed of the truck and opened fire with automatic extended clips.
“They shootin’!”
Everybody finally looked. Girls screamed and ducked while hustlers ran for cover, pulling weapons from bushes and stash boxes.
Bullets tore through flesh, glass, and brick, sending blood, shattered fragments, and sparks flying.
The Muslims stood mercilessly in the middle of the street, blazing the block, taking no prisoners, while on the roof, three Muslim snipers picked off hustler after hustler, painting the streets with blood. Police sirens filled the air. Rahman shouted, “Let’s go!”
The Muslims continued to fire, backpedaling into the U-Haul, and closed the bed.
Seconds later, police cars from everywhere converged on the scene and surrounded the U-Haul.
“They in the truck. They in the fuckin’ truck!” a wounded nigga snitched in agony. “Call an ambulance! I’m hit!”
