^{CHAPTER 2}

 

 

 

^{Shutting Shit Down}

 

 

 

 

 

^{The sun was coming up and the warehouse in Queens where the Zip ’em up Crew had gathered was buzzing off the chart. It was the first time the gunslingers had ever failed to complete a mission and their raw anger was about to tear the roof straight off the joint.}

^{The entire set was hyped as tempers flared and fingers pointed every which way. The normally tight and cohesive crew was all over the board as they shot out accusations, threw low blows, and sprayed blame for blowing the hit and sending the mission totally off fuckin track.}

^{“Yo, we gotta figure out what the fuck went wrong back there!” Slick barked, tasting the failure all down in his gut.}

^{“You went wrong, muthafucka!” Wild Man raged. “I knew we shouldn’ta took that job from the gate, slime! Not even for triple the money! You sent us in there with our hands tied behind our backs! You shoulda known this type a shit was liable to go down!”}

^{“Get the fuck outta here with that ol’ bullshit!” Slick barked. “We voted, you lil bitch! You knew the risks straight outta the gate and you was the main one hollering for triple pay, remember? So now that the job got fucked up you wanna belly up on that shit, huh?”}

^{All eyes were on Wild Man but none were colder and filled with more scorn and contempt than Noodles’s.}

^{You steady blaming Slick, but that was some low-level, amateur-ass, rookie-style shit you planned for us, son, Noodles wrote on his tablet as he sat on an overturned crate. That whole shit was doomed from the beginning. You lucky none of us ain’t get stretched out tonight.}

^{Noodles finished writing then tossed the tablet to Wild Man to read.}

^{As soon as he finished reading Wild Man flew up outta his seat and lunged. He barreled his whole body into Noodles and knocked him backwards off the crate. Noodles’s trach tube went flying outta his throat and the metal appliance clinked loudly as it hit the floor. In a flash Wild Man had his hands around Noodles’s neck so fast that none of them had time to register what was going down.}

^{“Nah, pussy!” Wild Man roared. There was murder in his eyes as he squeezed his hands together and tried to choke the shit outta Noodles. “It was ya weak-ass surveillance that almost got us fuckin whacked! It was your fault, you bitch-ass punk!”}

^{As Noodles fought to retrieve his trach tube and catch his breath, Whitey and Jewelz rushed to pull Wild Man off of him. With his finger pressed over the hole in his throat, Noodles made his move. Slick lunged at his gun hand, catching it just in time to keep Noodles from snatching his .44 off his waist and squeezing it off.}

^{“Back the fuck up, stupid ass!” Whitey yelled, gripping Wild Man by his massive arms. He rushed over to help Noodles slide his tube back in his throat and then he helped Slick clench the dreadlocked killer up tight so he couldn’t get his furious bone-breaking hands on Wild Man.}

^{“Your shit is way out there, Wild Man!” the white boy of the bunch spit. “You need to check yourself, homey, because you damn sure wasn’t on your A-game tonight, mothafucka!”}

^{“Fuck wrong wit’chu?” Slick whirled on Wild Man and sneered as the reality of what had just gone down began to sink in. “That shit was foul, nigga! It was low and it was foul.”}

^{“All y’all little boys need to calm the fuck down,” Jewelz chimed in sounding weak and weary. “This ain’t no big dick pissing contest. Everybody knew the risks involved with this job from the jump, and we also knew there was a chance this shit wouldn’t go our way. Now ain’t the time for y’all to be fighting and trying to kill each other. Instead of blaming Slick or Wild Man or anybody else, we need to put our heads together and figure out what we’re gonna do to fix this shit.”}

^{Cloaked in a cloud of fury, Noodles was mutely rocking back and forth and struggling to control himself. The look of pure rage on his face was indescribable as he lost the battle and reached down in his Timbs for his back-up piece.}

^{“Chill the fuck out, man.” Slick moved quickly to put himself in the line of fire. He placed his palm over the .32 gripped in Noodles’s hand and tried to calm his boy down. “Fall back bruh, damn. Be cool.”}

^{Noodle’s eyes were straight on kill-mode as he gestured wildly at his throat with rage and disbelief that Wild Man would dare put his fuckin hands on him in that manner. In that area.}

^{“I know, I know,” Slick said, eyeing Wild Man with a look of burning disgust. “He was wrong for that shit, my nigga. But he’s still your brother and you can’t shoot him man.”}

^{“So how the fuck did this happen?” Slick asked quietly when the men had finally gotten themselves under control. He spoke so softly it made the entire room go silent and all attention was focused on him. He sat down on a crate then leaned forward and tapped the muzzle of Noodles’s .32 on the table. He knew how fucked up his crew felt. Eating defeat was a foreign taste for them and without the proper leadership they would turn on each other like a pack of snarling wolves.}

^{“We’ve executed plenty of hits off sketchy intelligence before,” Slick continued. “The difficulty level of this job wasn’t something so great that we couldn’t handle it. Our crew has wiped niggas off the map and disappeared before their bodies hit the ground. We’re the best at what we do, and we’re the best squad in this whole fuckin game!”}

^{Slick continued to tap the gun on the table with his eyes seeming to stare somewhere way beyond the warehouse.}

^{“But for some reason we slipped up tonight. We slipped up and dropped the damn ball. I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Our shit just feels off. Way off. I been thinking…maybe there wasn’t nothing wrong about the hit, y’all. Maybe there’s something wrong about us.”}

^{Those words hung in the air thicker than gun smoke. Everybody kept the poker face in place but it was clear that they all understood. This thing was bigger than just a simple fuckup. It was an internal cancer, and if they kept it up sooner or later somebody was gonna get deaded.}

^{Slick stood up and tossed Noodles his gat. “Yo, fam. I think we need to take a break,” he said, turning his back on his team as he walked toward the warehouse exit.}

^{“Yeah, fuck the bullshit,” he said without looking back. “We need a break.”}