A Nasty Surprise
“I thought you said the nigguh was on his way,” the tall goon questioned, glancing at his watch.
He and the second goon, a fat, mini Biggie, were playing Madden on Cookie’s Xbox, sitting in the living room.
“That’s what he said,” she shot back.
“That was an hour ago,” he reminded her, impatience coloring his tone.
“You want me to call him again?” she asked, picking up her phone.
“Naw, that’ll set that nigguh off on us. Just chill yo, he’ll be here,” Lil’ Biggie surmised.
“I know y’all got somethin’ to toot,” Cookie said with playful anticipation in her voice.
“Naw yo, we don’t sniff that shit,” the tall dude replied, then glanced at her with disdain, adding, “or nothing else wit’ it either.”
Cookie sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes. “Whateva. This nigguh need to come on. I got to go.”
“Yeah, you do,” the tall goon joked to himself, imagining her head exploding like a melon.
*****
Downstairs in the alley behind Cookie’s building, Nazir looked around in the dark, squinting hard for just the right tool.
“There we go,” he remarked, spotting an open sardine can with the top peeled back instead of rolled.
He picked up the can, careful not to spill the remaining sardine juice on him. He worked the top back and forth trying to wiggle it loose. He grabbed it wrong and even though it came off, he cut his hand on the edge and spilled the sardine juice on his jeans and Jordans.
“Shit!” he said, looking at his Jordans. “Goddamn!” he hissed, sucking the blood from his palm. “Fuck around and get gangrene behind this shit!”
He tucked the sardine top in his back pocket. Then he jumped up the height of a basketball rim to grab the fire escape ladder with both hands. With one smooth, powerful motion, he pulled himself up, thankful for all those pull-ups he did on the block, waiting for sales to come through. He headed up the fire escape like he knew where he was going because indeed he did.
He knew Tariq had gotten the apartment precisely because the back bedroom window let out on to the fire escape. Combined with the fact that the apartment windows become easier to jimmy after the third floor, and it added up to a very nasty surprise for the two goons.
Nazir got to the window and slid the sardine top between the two sliding window frames, unlocking the window like the swipe of a credit card. Then he slid the window slow . . . and . . .
Squeak!
“Fuck!” he cursed under his breath, hoping that no one heard it.
But Cookie did. She just didn’t pay it any mind. She was too focused on getting the monkey off her back.
“Fuck this, I got shit to do. I’m ‘bout to call his ass,” she huffed, scrolling through her phone.
“Naw yo. Wait—” Lil’ Biggie started to say, then he sniffed the air. “Ay yo . . . you smell that?”
“What?” the tall goon asked, eyes glued to the screen.
“Smell like . . . fish . . . sardines,” he replied, wrinkling his nose.
“And pork and beans?” Nazir quipped, suddenly appearing from the hallway. Before either man could react, Nazir put a bullet between the tall goon’s eyes that had him looking like a red dot Indian. He slumped over on his partner.
Cookie screamed and jumped up.
Nazir shot her in the leg and she began hyperventilating from the agonizing pain, rolling bloody on the carpet.
Lil’ Biggie wanted to reach, but he saw it was futile since he was staring cockeyed at the barrel of Nazir’s gun, it was so close.
“You—you got it, Nas. You got it,” he stammered.
Nazir shook his head with a wicked smirk. “Word up, Tee, like that? You was gonna murder me, son?”
“Yo fam’, my word.”
Nas hawked spit in his face. The green gook ran down his cheek. “Don’t call me fam’, call me sir. You wanna treat me like a stranger, address me as one,” Nas seethed.
“Ye–ye–yes sir.”
“Pull out your phone. Call Bas. Tell him y’all fucked up and I got away.”
“Huh?”
“Huh what?”
Smack!
“Huh, sir, huh, sir!”
“Take out your phone, slow.”
Lil’ Biggie did as he was told.
“Dial the number.”
With shaking hands, he scrolled to Bas’s number, then hit send.
“Yo,” Bas answered with anticipation.
“It’s him,” Lil Biggie said to Nas.
“It?” Bas said.
“Tell him ‘we fucked up. He got away,’” Nas reminded Lil’ Biggie.
“We—we fucked up. He got away!”
“What!” Bas barked so loud, Nazir heard it.
He snatched the phone.
“Yeah, yo. I’m on my Scarface shit tonight,” Nazir quipped, keeping the gun directly on Lil’ Biggie’s nose.
Bas was silent for a minute, then replied, “You know this was just business, right nephew?”
Nazir chuckled coldly. “You let them Roach ass nigguhs get to you, huh? What, they sucked your dick? They let you suck theirs?”
Bas snorted. “I’ll see you soon, nephew.”
“Fo’ sho, unc.” Nazir hung up and tossed the phone aside, then looked at Lil’ Biggie.
“You wanna look like Biggie for real?”
“Huh?”
Boc! Boc!
Nazir pumped two in his face, the first blowing his eyeball from the socket, and the second, exploded his brains out the side of his head.
“Now, I meant after death,” Nazir sneered, then squatted down behind Cookie.
She could hardly catch her breath.
“Breathe, ma, breathe.”
“Please! Please!” she screamed hoarsely.
He snatched her up by her hair, pulling her up as she tried to balance on one leg.
“I always told Tariq not to trust you . . . too bad I was right.”
“I—” was all she got out.
He grabbed her up and tossed her face first through the window. Her body fell on a jagged piece of glass at the base of the window as the momentum flipped her out and over, eight flights, landing with a sickening crack of her neck.
“It’s always the one closest to you,” Nazir mumbled as he headed out the way he came.