Chapter 13
Detective Tracy Ramsey sat back in her chair and kicked her long legs up on the desk. At six feet one, she was easily the tallest woman on the police force. With a cup of coffee in her hand, she thought back to the grisly murder scene at Lucky’s house. The motive didn’t appear to be robbery. There wasn’t anything missing. It had crossed her mind that it had been a murder/suicide, but her gut feeling told her that this was something else altogether. Even more disturbing was the fact that the woman’s daughter was found bleeding to death in a nearby park. Ramsey wanted to talk to the girl, but she was in a coma.
It also saddened Ramsey that the girl was pregnant and had lost her baby during the attack. Although she was a superb detective, she didn’t need her training to tell her what had happened in this instance. Too many times she’d seen women get assaulted because sorry-ass men didn’t want to be fathers. It sickened her to think that a man could do this to a woman. Before she became a cop, she too was an abused wife. Just because she couldn’t get pregnant, her husband took it out on her and pounded her mercilessly. When he packed up his shit and left, it was the best thing that could’ve happened to her. Last she heard, he’d jumped on the woman he’d left her for, and the woman’s brothers beat him damn near to death. Her only regret was that she wasn’t there to see it.
Ramsey tapped her French-manicured hands on top of her desk. Her eyes gravitated toward the door as her partner, John Reynolds, walked up to her desk. Shrugging her shoulders, she sat up and looked at him. “She woke yet?”
“Nope. She’s still in a coma, partner.”
Just as fast as the smile had appeared on Tracy’s face, it vanished. She knew that it hadn’t been that long since the girl was admitted to the hospital, but she was hoping for some good news. She decided to go back down to the evidence locker and look over what was taken off of the girl. Maybe she’d missed something important, something that would give her the ammunition to sink the bastard who had done this.
* * *
Yolonda could hear the nurse’s voice in the background, but she couldn’t move. All she could do was lie there and cry on the inside of her soul. She knew that Temp was going to be upset when she told him that she didn’t want to get an abortion, but she didn’t know he was going to try to kill her. When Temp first hit her, she thought it was a terrible dream she was having. The pain soon destroyed that notion.
She would never get to change the child’s diaper or listen to its cry. Even if she got pregnant ten more times, nothing could replace the void that Temp had caused in her life. Yolonda may have been in a coma, but her mind was still aware. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t communicate with anyone. It has often been said that coma victims are aware of everything that goes on around them, but they can’t act on it. Their limbs are frozen. Their voices become trapped in their throats. Deep inside her own mind, she swore with every fiber in her being that if she ever made it back to the land of the living, she would make Temp pay with his life.
* * *
Nearly twenty-four hours after committing a triple murder, Bishop and Chris sat on the couch, each one gripping a joystick intensely. The $100 winner-take-all wager sat on the coffee table in front of them. It only intensified their respective competitive natures. Niko was walking around the room, smiling like he’d won the lottery. His cell phone was pressed up against his ear while Regina whispered sweet nothings into it.
“Look at this love-sick-ass nigga,” Temp said to Antwan as the two of them passed a blunt back and forth.
“Man, why you always dissin’ our li’l partners, man? You act like they ain’t down.”
Temp looked around the room and grinned slightly. When his eyes stopped at Bishop, he frowned somewhat. “I ain’t worried about all of ’em. Just that cotton-soft-ass nigga over there,” he said, gesturing toward Bishop.
“Temp, you know good and damn well that Bishop ain’t soft.”
“Then he oughta stop actin’ like it.”
Antwan looked at his friend and sighed. “Temp, yo’ ass has been off the hook lately. I mean damn, nigga, you gotta shoot everybody who crosses our path? You gonna get us locked up before we get halfway rich.”
“Speakin’ of which,” Temp said, as he chose to ignore Antwan’s statement, “what is this big-ass plan you got goin’ on?”
Antwan grabbed the blunt from Temp, stuck it between his lips, and took a long, deep pull. After blowing smoke into the air, he stared at Temp for a few seconds. “First things first, nigga. What the fuck been up with you?”
“The fuck you talkin’ ’bout, nigga?”
“Temp, you know what I’m talkin’ ’bout, man. Yo’ ass was jumpy as fuck in ya backyard, and you been nervous ever since. What the hell you done did, playa?”
Temp looked at Antwan like he was Matlock. He thought about lying and telling Antwan that everything was okay, but he knew his friend would see right through it. “Man, I think I fucked up wit’ Yolonda, man.”
“Who?”
“Yolonda, man. The broad I told you I fucked around with a coupla months ago.”
Antwan looked up in the sky, trying to figure out who his buddy was talking about. Then it hit him. “Oh,” he said, popping his fingers. “You talking about that thick bitch with the fat ass!”
“Yeah, that’s her.” Seeing the look on Temp’s face told Antwan that whatever he was about to say was going to be bad.
“Man, what did you do, man?”
After Temp ran the story of his assault of Yolonda down to him, Antwan was shocked. He didn’t know whether to respect Temp’s gangster move or despise him for his unspeakable act. Temp paying for the women he screwed around with to get an abortion was one thing. But doing what he did to ensure his seed wasn’t born was downright despicable.
“Temp, you know you my nigga straight from the placenta. But that shit was just foul, man.”
“I know, man. I just fuckin’ panicked. That’s why I been so jumpy and shit. I been halfway expectin’ the cops to come for a nigga any second.”
“Did you even go back to see about the bitch, man?”
“Hell nah! You think I was gonna go back there and risk havin’ them boys haul my ass away? Fuck that shit!”
“Yeah, that woulda been a dumb-ass move,” Antwan laughed.
“Man, I don’t know what happened to that bitch. I know it’s wrong, but I’m just glad that I might not have to pay no fuckin’ child support!”
Antwan looked at Temp like he was retarded. “Nigga, you ain’t got no muthafuckin’ job no damn way!”
“Man, whatever. I don’t remember yo’ ass fillin’ out a damn W-2 last year either! Now, what about this plan you was talkin’ about?”
Antwan sat back and rubbed his chin. He debated back and forth in his mind which one of his comrades he was going to let in on the plan before he divulged it to the rest of the crew. At first, he was leaning toward Bishop. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized that Temp may have had the better temperament to serve as his right-hand man in the dope game.
“A’ight, dawg. Let me break this shit down to you.”
Antwan leaned in real close to his friend and told him of his master plan to get rich. Temp smiled as Antwan broke the plan down to him. Dollar signs danced around in his head as he thought about becoming rich at a young age. Temp had no idea that Antwan knew anything about the dope game. He was going to take some of the money that they had made robbing and stealing and buy him a few pounds of weed to turn over, but Antwan’s plan seemed much more profitable. Temp nodded slowly as Antwan continued to explain to him how they were going to generate paper. After he finished, he told the other members of his crew that he had to make a run and to let themselves out.
“How the fuck we s’pose ta get home?” Chris asked.
“Here,” Temp said, tossing Bishop his keys. “Drop these niggas off. I’ll pick my car up later.”
* * *
Antwan and Temp sat in the parking lot of IHOP staring at Rhonda and her man, Bo, through the window. They had been sitting there for a little over twenty minutes.
“Yo, how you know you can trust this muthafucka, man?” Temp asked.
“I don’t trust that nigga. But I trust my bitch.” Antwan looked over at Temp. “Nigga, you ain’t getting cold feet, is you?”
“Hell nah! You know betta than that shit! I just ain’t tryin’ to get hauled off to the fuckin’ pen fuckin’ with some clown we don’t even know!”
“Be cool, homeboy. I got the shit under control.”
The two of them got out of the car and walked into the restaurant. Rhonda nodded at Antwan to let Bo know that was the person they were waiting for. Bo was a cocky, arrogant son of a bitch whom Rhonda only dealt with to keep her pockets fat. He was constantly in and out of town on dope-man business. He was 27 years old with processed hair slicked back and a thin moustache connected to a goatee. His dark skin tone shined like wet coal, and his gravelly voice sounded like the Undertaker from the WWE. His was a rather thin dude but was extremely tall, standing nearly six feet five inches high.
As Antwan and Temp sat down, Rhonda scooted closer to Bo to give him the impression that she was getting closer to him out of admiration and love. Nothing could be further from the truth. The only reason that Rhonda was even putting Antwan on was she thought that it would eventually cause him to leave Tangie and be with her.
Bo smiled cockily as he wrapped his arm around Rhonda. “Your cousin here tells me that you want to do some business with me.”
It took everything in Temp not to laugh in the man’s face.
“Yeah, I do,” Antwan said dryly. “She tells me that you’re the man to come see if you want to get your feet wet and make a few dollars.”
“She told you right, playa. Let me ask you something, though. Do you have anywhere to push this product? It makes no sense to have the stuff and not be able to get it off.”
“I’ve done a little research,” Antwan said. “I know of a few spots that’s dry right now.”
“Well, with the amount of product you’re talking about getting, my friend, you’re gonna need to be in a spot that really pops. But maybe I can help you out with that . . . for a small percentage of your intake.”
“Is that right?”
Bo smiled. He liked Antwan’s style. “I like you, my friend. You remind me of myself back in the day. Ambitious.” Bo leaned in and stared whispering to them. “I just happen to know of a block that’s in dire need of some guidance. There is a lot of money to be made on that block, and since the boys who were on it seemed to have disappeared, I need a few soldiers there to ensure the flow of cash.”
Antwan didn’t ask Bo what he meant when he said that the boys had disappeared. He already knew. Antwan’s ear was always to the street, and he’d heard through the hood vine that some cats from Eighty-seventh and Wade Park had tried to beat a certain dope dealer out of some bread. The dealer promptly sent a few of his soldiers to put work in, and those cats were never heard from again. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what the deal was as Bo was already known as a major player around that area.
“And since you my girl’s peeps, I’m gonna do something that I normally never, ever do. I’m gonna front you and ya man here a couple of keys to get started with.”
Antwan sat back and pondered Bo’s offer. He didn’t want to bite off more than he could chew. Two keys seemed like a hell of a lot of dope to be fronting people he didn’t even know. Antwan couldn’t help but wonder what his angle was. After thinking about Bo’s proposition a few seconds longer, Antwan told him that he was willing to accept his offer.
Rhonda smiled on the inside, thinking that she was one step closer to having Antwan for herself. She would make it a point to teach Antwan how to cook and cut dope.