PROLOGUE

The #1 prostitution strip in Delaware is route 13. Up until three years ago two motels, the Delawarr & the Red Rose Inn were leading the state in soliciting, but have since been demolished to be turned into Wawa’s, scattering the working women and men throughout the city.

New Castle Avenue is the second-largest hoe strip in the suburbs, which earned itself the street names ‘Trick City or the Triangle.’ Not only are the Days Inn, Super Lodge, and Motel 6 homes to the night life, located conveniently yards away from each other, but the Gulf Station is located in between the three motels, with a little alley of bushes running behind it called ‘Pick-Up Strip.’ It’s where the low-level dealers catch the whores before they can cop from the rooms.

On any given day you can buy anything from heroin, down the north end of the avenue from the South Bridge projects, to exstacy, marijuana, or crack cocaine from the in between neighborhoods along the avenue called Rose Gate, Oakmont, Dunleith, or Arbor Place. But by far the motels are the most lucrative spots on the avenue, because the freaks truly do come out at night. And what only women possess, all men need.

“Psss!” Kasi called out from the bushes to his runner as soon as he saw a potential customer.

“Yo! We got that drop over here!” Tranz called out.

A suspicious looking white man came staggering out of the Super Lodge entrance, tilting a brown paper bag to his lips. Kasi’s touter dashed over to see if the man wanted to spend.

Tranz could hear the two men negotiating as they approached, so he darted over to his Chevy Malibu, parked in the nearby McDonald’s parking lot. Looking around the lot for anything out of order before he went into the stash spot, Tranz asked himself, where did all the bitches go?

“What you working with?” Kasi asked the dusty looking man, after he removed the bottle from his lips.

“A eight ball,” he responded groggily.

“A eight ball? Why’d you just ask me for a forty then?” the Touter asked.

Kasi gave the touter his “shut up” look without saying anything.

“Man, I better be getting more than one from this cracker, because I made this deal happen.” the fiend demanded.

“What’s taking Tranz so long?” the fiend asked.

“I don’t know?” Kasi said, and then looked back over his shoulder to see for himself.

Pop, pop, pop! Gunshots rang out within seconds, destroying the overhead street lamps in the parking lot.

Deafened by the loud blasts, Kasi turned back around to see what had happened. That’s when he saw that the shooter had him at gunpoint.

“That was your warning shot,” the perpetrator announced as he shook off the paper bag that concealed his weapon. “Now lay down on the ground, or you’ll never move again.”

Kasi looked over in Tranz’s direction for help, but three masked gunmen were manhandling him.

“Help! helppp!” Tranz screamed after each skull-shattering blow to the head. Realizing that no help was coming to aid them, the touter began to plea for his life. “Please, don’t shoot me.”

“Where’s your stash at? This can’t be everything?” One of the masked men asked Tranz after grabbing a zip lock bag, containing $1,100 in cash 131 dimes from the armrest.

Just as the man was about to smack Tranz with the butt of the gun again, a familiar sound came echoing from a nearby bush. “Clack-clack!” Was the sound of a shell being loaded into a shotgun.

“Wait. Did you hear that?” One of the men asked.

At that moment two of the three men called out to the man holding Kasi at gun-point and then turned towards the bushes.

“On three, run,” Kasi whispered to the whimpering fiend beside him.

“I’ll check it out boss,” one of them called out as they made their way over to the other men.

The lead man gave the-go ahead nod. Once the man got close enough to see through the shadows sparks lit up the bushes, sending pellets everywhere. In all the confusion Kasi and his friends got up and started to run in opposite directions. And just as quickly as the gun battle started, it ended, but with blood shed.