her mouth. Her hands were shaking. She prayed that if it was a dream, she would never wake up.
“Yes,” she whispered to herself. Then in a louder voice, as if he could hear her, she shouted, “Yes! Yes! I will marry you, Bernard. I love you!”
Dutch had managed to romance her like no man had ever done before, from the shadows, without ever speaking a word. Nina knew she was in love with fire, a very dangerous, all-consuming fire, but the burn was the sweetest thing she had ever known.
“I leave and come back… to this?”
Angel and Rahman both looked into a face they knew well but hadn’t seen in a long time.
“Cr-C-Craze?” Angel spoke in a hushed whisper as she lowered her gun hand.
It was Craze, second in command in Dutch’s empire. It had been over three years since they had seen him, but he was still the same Craze. Same soft brown skin, same chipped tooth, same smirk, same dress code. The custom-made creme-colored linen suit draped his frame, showing he had gained some weight but had chiseled it into an athletic physique.
Angel’s intention to kill Roc was immediately forgotten. “Where’s Dutch?”
Craze chuckled. “Same ol’ Angel… What? Craze don’t get no love? Damn! What about me? Why you ain’t been worried about ol’ Craze?”
Craze smiled and Angel knew it was all real. She ran into his arms. “Crazy!”
Angel’s high-pitched squeal snapped Rahman out of his zone. When she hugged Craze and wrapped her arms around his back, Rahman quickly snatched the gun out of her hand.
Craze, with his back to Rahman, never turned around and never let go of Angel’s waist.
“What now, Roc? You gonna shoot me, too?”
Craze turned to face his former lieutenant with his arms around Angel’s neck.
“Behold the black messiah,” Craze remarked sarcastically. “You wanna clean up the hood? Then forget everything that’s happened between you and Angel and take a trip with me.”
Rahman held the gun on his side, not pointed, but poised.
“A lot’s changed since we last saw each other, Craze.”
Craze took his arm from around Angel’s neck and approached Rahman. Rahman was a head taller, so Craze had to look up to see him eye to eye.
“Look, Roc. You want Newark? Okay. It’s yours. All yours. Every spot under Angel’s control is yours. Now… what you gonna do wit’ it? What you gonna do when the crooked cops, crooked DAs and judges, the mob, and the cartels all come at you at once? Huh? Because you’ll be eatin’ off their plates if you stop the drugs in Jersey.”
“I’ll worry about that when it happens,” Rahman said, stunned that Craze seemed to know every little thing that had been going on. He handed the gun over to him.
“It’s gonna happen so you better worry now.”
Then he turned to Angel.
“And you…” He kissed her on the forehead and smiled at the chain around her neck. “You so busy tryin’ to take back what we left for dead… We been there, done that, ma, then moved on, left the scraps for the dogs.”
He gently lifted the dragon chain from her neck and held it up to watch it dangle in front of his eyes.
“You shoulda buried this wit’ World,” he said before he let it drop to the floor with a heavy thud. Angel moved to pick it up but Craze stopped her.
“Leave it. Just like we leavin’ this petty street paper to the pawns who think they playas.” Craze turned once more to Rahman.
“You want the streets? Take ’em. See how long you can keep ’em. ’Cause to the Feds, you the worst kind of gangsta. But you come wit’ us and we’ll show you how to really change the game. No more hood gangstas, no more street gangstas, but international gangstas. Then you can make your own decision from there,” Craze proposed.
Rahman looked at the gun in his hand and realized he had made a major miscalculation. He was so caught up in the battle he had forgotten about the war. Craze was right about the judges and cops and district attorneys. They all had a piece of the drug pie, either directly or indirectly. Cops were either paid under the table or promoted to detective or captain after a big bust. DAs got convictions and became senators or presidents. One black man in prison could launch and elevate the careers of four white men.
The streets weren’t his enemy. They were his army. His only regret was all the blood that had been shed for this one valuable lesson.
“The trip,” Rahman began, “where we goin’?”
Craze smiled, threw his arm back around Angel, and said, “We’re goin’ to see an old friend.”
The three of them walked out, leaving the tangled dragon chain in a pile on the floor, glittering in the morning sun.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The VA hospital in Newark smelled of sanitized pain. Amputees and invalids lined the linoleum halls.
Nurse Shirley had been working there for fifteen years and it pained her to see how her government treated the men who risked their lives. The government tossed them into half-rate medical facilities with inadequate health care coverage and left them to rot. Yet every year they held mock memorials for so-called Veterans Day. It reminded her that everyone was expendable.
The only reason she remained at the job was to try to bring her own sense of comfort to the people under her care. She had seen many die, but she had also helped many survive, physically as well as mentally. Her current priority was an old Vietnam vet. He needed dialysis three times a week for his deteriorating liver, an organ destroyed by many years of cheap liquor and poor diet.
He was a homeless man who usually ranted and raved about the war he had yet to win, a war he said he would die fighting. Nurse Shirley knew death was upon him and went to see him daily, hoping to ease his sufferings.
She entered his room with a pitcher of cold water to find him lying in his bed with his eyes closed. She didn’t try to wake him. Shirley studied his wrinkled face and furrowed brow. Even when he was asleep, he was deep in thought. His lips were usually pursed or turned down in a frown, but when he smiled, she tingled inside. Despite his unkempt appearance, his smile told her that he had been a fine man in his day. Until, like so many others, he was destroyed by the war.
Shirley put the pitcher down on his bedside table. She jumped a little when she felt his cold, clammy touch on her wrist.
“Did you make the call?” he rasped.
“I thought you were asleep,” she said, catching her breath.
“You know what they say? Every closed eye ain’t asleep,” he told her before breaking into a coughing fit.
She helped prop him up in the bed and poured him a cup of water.
“Thank you,” he said gratefully.
“My pleasure.” She smiled.
“Now… did you make that call, Ms. Shirley?” he inquired again after taking a deep drink from the cup.
“No,” she admitted with regret. “This place has been a madhouse. Two of my nurses called in sick and I…”
He held up a big yet feeble hand. “No need to explain, Ms. Shirley. You’ve been so good to this old man, I hate to press you, but… I know I ain’t got much time and the time I had, I wasted. But you see… I got some makin’ right to do with my Lord, and the people I keeps in my heart.”
She gazed into his brown eyes and smiled warmly.
“I promise. After my rounds, I’ll make the call.”
“Thank you, Ms. Shirley,” he replied and flashed a smile that would tickle any woman’s fancy.
“You are a mess, Mr. Man,” she said rubbing his thin, fragile thigh before leaving the room.
As she had promised, she sat down at her desk with the phone book after her rounds were completed. She flipped to the white pages in search of M, until she found Murphy, then fingered the rows of names until she
