Chapter 10

Earl’s Plan: Getting Even, 2001

After Eve betrayed Earl for the last time, he vowed that she would pay for neglecting him. Not to mention, every lowlife knew that he was shunned by his archrival, Chaka. Desperate times called for desperate moves, so Earl managed to quietly leave New York to set about his plan for revenge. He headed south to align himself with some get-money soldiers who were making a name for themselves.

Ian, Earl’s cousin, was having a little trouble staying focused, and Earl needed a new start. Helping his cousin seemed like a win-win situation. He would help set up shop and show him the best way to turn profit on even the worst product, and in return he’d make a little money and establish his own crew.

As the business grew, an unspoken debt was rising. With newfound dollars in Ian’s family, egos and confidences soared. Ian began to buy into his own hype, setting his own plans into motion. The timid curiosity he felt about Earl had snowballed. The time had come to ask questions.

He asked Earl one day, “Why you really down here in the Dirty when you could be home in the Rotten Apple making money?”

Earl’s answers were always barely truthful. “I was having a hard time finding real soldiers willing to put in work.”

Ian understood that answer. He had taken his share of losses, until he got the right crew together.

Earl witnessed Ian’s crew develop from meager street urchins to real money-chasers. He fantasized that if he just had a few good men, he could really show Ian how New York cats put themselves on display.

Ian imagined that if he offered to help Earl set up better at home, he could eventually snatch the business from beneath his feet and make Earl into an earner for him instead of a boss. Grime and grit were staring each other in the face, but they had no clue they were both just dirt.

Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. Ian finally broached the subject of helping Earl get on his feet. The topic came on the heels of Ian seeing his first million dollars, free and clear.

“Cousin, listen. We have everything on sound footing. It’s time you went back home and paved the way for us to expand.”

His words were clever enough. Earl became an actor in a matter of minutes. Faking surprise at the generous offer, he shook his head slightly. “I didn’t come down here for you to help me in New York. I came to get my head right before I went back and re-established for myself.”

Ian, in his own arrogance, couldn’t see the trees for looking. Earl was playing him, but greed was in Ian’s way.

Ian smiled pleasantly. “There are plenty hungry cats down here looking to get a hand up in the world. You need soldiers that don’t give a damn about the reputations of cats running the streets in your hood, strangers somewhat to the area, and I got that here. You could pick any six men and clear town and country on their eagerness to make money.”

Earl covered his face with both hands to hide his smirk. He’d caught his mouse. When he uncovered his face, he looked pained and spoke through labored breathing. “If we do this, we have to come to some sort of agreement.”

Ian grinned as if he had just hit the lottery. “OK, whatever you deem fair is payment enough.”

Earl was willing to reward his cousin a king’s ransom for his efforts, knowing he intended to break the terms as soon as he was strong enough. Ian accepted without fuss, thinking it would be easy enough to snatch the entire pie from Earl when he was earning the right numbers. Ian was counting on his soldiers staying loyal to him. Meanwhile, Earl was counting on Ian’s greed to cause a straight-up mutiny. The terms were negotiated, and the deal was sealed as they puffed on fat, neatly rolled ganja. No shaking hands and toasts, just puff, puff, pass.

As quietly as Earl had left town, he returned to New York with a new swagger and his killing squad. Earl was delusional when it came to his real potential. He had learned, while sitting about in the South, that patience was important. Even more important was the element of surprise.

Patiently he watched the self-proclaimed Dirty Dozen operate. Quietly he learned the habits of the main crewmembers. Earl had deemed Buck the weak link and decided that, even if he killed Buck, they could still operate without the muscle. Every man was willing to hold his own when it came to his money.

Quinton was smart enough to handle the business, but he lacked the finesse to keep men loyal without the use of humiliation and fear. Earl believed if Quinton was at the helm of the empire, he would ruin it by his own tyranny.

That meant Chaka had to be dealt with properly, since he was the real threat. But there couldn’t be any proof that Earl was the true murderer. Earl was experienced enough to know that as long as no one could prove his involvement in Chaka’s death, he would have a fighting chance at taking over the Dozen’s entire operation. Money could quiet any suspicion, and killing a nigga was the answer to blackmail.

Earl had been circling the wagons for months. He thought about everything from the actual murder to the reaction of the crewmembers’ women. His first order of business was to learn the habits of the targets. Eve, he imagined, would be his sweetest victory. The chance to see her broken after Chaka was dead and buried would be the best revenge he could have for her betrayal.

When Earl learned that Chaka housed another family only a short distance from Eve’s watchful eye, he was stunned. His undying dedication to Eve was tarnished, but Chaka’s blatant betrayal of her made him somewhat sympathetic. He would use that information for a better day.

Although Chaka’s children’s mother was pretty, she was definitely not as beautiful as the sultry, sexy Eve. One quality intrigued Earl. She seemed to operate as though Eve didn’t exist, going grocery shopping dressed as a parent of two children bound for success, and meeting her man at the door with a hug and kiss before sending him out into the world. She wasn’t caught up in the gutter-fabulous lifestyle Chaka could so readily offer. Even her home was just ordinary and understated in comparison to the gigantic brownstone Chaka shared with Eve.

True to a hustler’s creed, Chaka had kept her away from the game. She lived just far enough away to be invisible, but close enough to touch. If all else failed, Earl would make Chaka pay with the loss of this comfortable place he had hidden behind Eve’s back. Further investigation revealed that seeing his children every day was Chaka’s only habitual act. The nigga even shredded his bad boy persona when he came home.

Earl became bored with Chaka and his daily regimen, but he needed an opportunity to shake up the Dozen’s foundation. Trailing Buck seemed like a good idea, but Earl could never catch him slipping. He had no bad habits worth mentioning.

Quinton was proving to be the easiest of the trio. He was a day walker, and at night he went home, to the club, or to visit one or two of the women he had stashed around the city. Earl surmised, if he moved too quickly, Chaka and Buck would band together and flood money into the hands of nosy neighbors to find Quinton’s killer, but it was the only move that made sense, and he was the easiest target.

This was proving to be a project that Earl might not be ready to handle alone. His crew was keeping a low profile, but they were also itching to meet some of the natives. Getting a woman was difficult if you didn’t have any bread, so Earl knew he had to fix things quickly.

It became clear almost immediately which member of his six-man crew was a ladies’ man. Pop seemed to know his worth too. Maybe it was his cat-like eyes, black skin, and pretty, spinning waves. The country rooster made the city chickens cluck loudly every time they passed by his yard. Unbeknownst to Earl, Pop was sexing one of Buck’s lady friends regularly.

Sasha began seeing Pop after she realized Buck would never commit to her. She had told Buck about the incident at Earl’s Christmas party, hoping it would help him make a choice and be with her as more than one of his many flings. However, it didn’t pan out the way she expected, and her hopes dwindled into nothing.

After months of hanging on, she began hanging out in the streets and becoming less available to Buck when he got around to calling. She’d met a country boy, and although she knew he was not the one, he was doing her justice in bedroom.

In her search for true love, Sasha was betraying trusts. The fact that she may have spoken out to the wrong man never occurred to her as she began telling all of Buck’s dirty little secrets to Pop.

Pop was listening and doing his own mathematics. He was certain that a time would come when this information would land a golden rainbow at his feet. Pop’s plan worked well—share a little information, pay her a little attention, cater to her freaky nature, and wait for her to tell everything else.

Everyone seemed to be plotting on someone else’s weaknesses, but not everyone could win this deadly game.