CHAPTER 43
It was the wee hours of the morning when Monk finally made it back to Harlem from Huck’s place. He had stopped off in the Bronx to see a fence he knew to try to get rid of some of the stuff he had ripped off. He got a few dollars for the items, but felt like he could’ve gotten more if he had time to negotiate. The only reason he settled for what the fence offered was because he didn’t want to lug the heavy garbage bag full of stolen merchandise all the way back to Harlem on public transportation.
When Monk got back to his apartment to stash his loot the first thing he noticed was that his bedroom door was open, and he always closed it before he left. He drew his gun and made his way into the bedroom. He noticed that the clothes he’d had on the floor of his closet were now pulled out and tossed onto the bedroom floor. Upon further inspection he saw that his hiding place had been tampered with and several of his weapons were missing. There was only one person besides him who knew where he kept his stash: Li’l Monk. He breathed a sigh of relief knowing that his son was still alive, but the fact that he had raided his stash for guns meant that he was in trouble. Monk had to find him before Ramses did.
When Monk rolled around to the strip where the young boys hustled he noticed that there wasn’t a soul in sight. None of the young dope boys who frequented the block were out that night, which meant they all knew that death was coming. It didn’t matter. No matter what rock Ramses or his minions sought to hide under, Monk would find them and dispatch them.
Monk was cutting across a back alley when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He stopped and spared a glance over his shoulder, but saw nothing except for a cat chasing a rat across the alley. Shrugging it off, he kept walking. As he neared the mouth of the alley he heard soft footfalls behind him. Monk stopped, and spun holding his shotgun.
“You got two choices: show yourself or meet your Maker,” Monk said to the darkness.
A few seconds later a shadowy figure appeared, wearing a tattered hood over his head. He began walking slowly toward Monk, but when the old timer pumped his shotgun, the shadow froze.
“That’s far enough, partner. Let me see your hands,” Monk ordered. The shadowy figure raised his hands to show Monk that he wasn’t armed. “Okay, now step out here where I can see you and do it slowly. I’d hate to have to blow your fucking head off by accident.”
“As would I,” the shadowy figure said in a thick accent. He took measured steps toward Monk, keeping his hands in plain sight. “Trust me, I mean you no harm.”
“Most niggas who start a sentence with ‘trust me’ usually aren’t to be trusted, so I think I’ll be the judge of that. Now I don’t know you and obviously you don’t know me or you wouldn’t have been dumb enough to follow me into this alley. Or maybe you do know me and just think you’re better than the last few hitters who’ve tried their hands with old Monk.”
“I am no hitter,” Kunta said, and removed his hood so that Monk could see his face, “simply a messenger. My name is Kunta. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”
“Yeah, my boy told me you paid a call on him recently. You responsible for his disappearing act?” Monk leveled the shotgun at Kunta’s face.
“Yes, but only from his enemies, not from this world. Your son is alive and well, but for how long only God can say. I fear he’s gotten himself into a most dire situation,” Kunta said sadly.
“So I’ve heard,” Monk said in a sour tone. “Where’s Li’l Monk now?”
“Hunting those who are hunting him,” Kunta said. “This Pharaoh wants him dead and it is my hope that I can help to prevent that from happening.”
“Then what the fuck are you doing here talking to me, instead of putting in work with my boy?” Monk asked.
“For reasons that I cannot explain, Li’l Monk has chosen to walk the last mile of this journey alone. By morning the men who wish to harm Li’l Monk will be dead or he will,” Kunta said honestly.
Monk grabbed Kunta by the neck and slammed him against the wall. “You trying to be funny, li’l nigga?”
“No, I’m being honest,” Kunta said in an even tone. “I understand your anger, truly I do, but in the little time I’ve come to know your son he doesn’t strike me as someone who can be deterred when his mind is made up about something.”
Monk gave him one last shake for good measure before letting him go. Monk wanted to tear Kunta’s head off, but he couldn’t deny the truth in his words. If Monk wanted someone to be angry at all he had to do was look in the mirror. Monk had no illusions about what kind of father he had been to Li’l Monk when he was growing up: a shitty one. He had taught him to fight, survive on the streets, and even kill, but during the times when his son really needed a father, Monk was never there. The guilt of knowing his son may possibly die because of his shortcomings was tearing him to pieces.
It took Monk a few minutes to compose himself enough to formulate words without yelling or breaking down and crying. “You said earlier that you were a messenger.” His voice was heavy with emotion.
“Yes. I bring word to you from our mutual friend, Face,” Kunta said evenly.
At the mention of his old crime partner’s name, Monk gave Kunta his undivided attention. “What’d he send you to tell me, how disappointed he is in me for fucking up everything we built?”
“Nothing quite so intimate, but it’s extremely cryptic. So much in fact that I have no idea what it means,” Kunta admitted.
“Well don’t keep an asshole in suspense. Spit it out,” Monk demanded.
“He said to tell you when you finally feel your back touching the bottom of the barrel look to Exodus 2.” Kunta relayed the message as it had been given to him.
At that moment, all the alcohol and cocaine Monk had consumed over the last few hours disappeared and for the first time in years he found himself completely sober.
Chucky awoke disoriented, and with a throbbing pain in his forehead from where it had hit the hotel wall. He looked around and realized that he was in a warehouse, but where he didn’t know. When he tried to reach up to see if he had a knot on his head he realized that he couldn’t move his arms. He looked down and saw that he was handcuffed to a chair. “What the fuck?”
“For a minute I was beginning to think that Frank had been a little too rough with you and that you might sleep through all the fun.” Christian appeared in front of him.
Chucky looked at him with defiant eyes. “What, is this supposed to be the part where I beg you for my life? I don’t know what you thought, but I’m a muthafucking gangster. So if you’re gonna kill me then do it and let’s get this shit over with.”
“And where would be the fun in that?” Christian patted him on the cheek. “There is someone here who would very much like to have a word with you. Meeka, could you show our guest in, please?”
“Got you.” Meeka went off to do as Christian had asked.
When Chucky saw who Meeka had escorted back into the room all the blood drained from his face. “Ramses!” he gasped.
“Been a long time, Chucky.” Ramses stalked toward the chair. “A real long time.”
“Ramses, this is all a big misunderstanding. I planned on paying your money back once I got on my feet,” Chucky pleaded.
Ramses punched Chucky in the face as hard as he could. “Bitch-ass nigga, you still think this is about money? This is about honor, which is something you lack!” He hit Chucky again.
“Ramses, before you do whatever it is you’ve got planned for Chucky, I’d like to discuss the matter of payment,” Christian interrupted.
“Right, right.” Ramses backed up. “Pay this nigga,” he told one of his goons.
The goon stepped forward and tossed the duffle bag he was carrying at Christian’s feet. Christian knelt down and looked inside. “Is it all here?”
“Every dime,” Ramses assured him. “You can count it if you want.”
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary. You seem like a trustworthy enough type. He’s all yours.” Christian handed the bag off to Meeka.
“I want to thank you, Christian. I’ve been trying to lay hands on this nigga for damn near a year.” Ramses was talking to Christian, but looking at Chucky, cracking his knuckles. “I think before I kill you I’m going to have a little fun. You junkie piece of shit, you don’t know how many nights I lay awake dreaming of this moment.”
“Too bad the moment is going to be short-lived,” Christian told him.
Frank appeared as if by magic behind Ramses’s goons and grabbed them both by the necks. With a flick of his wrists he snapped their spines as easily as pencils and let them fall lifelessly to the ground. Ramses made to reach for his gun, but Christian had the drop on him, placing one of his rhinestone pistols to Ramses’s head.
“You set me up?” Ramses asked in disbelief.
“Not entirely. I’m a firm believer in honoring my contracts, including the one that has been placed on you. A mutual friend of ours sends their warmest regards,” Christian told him before shooting Ramses in the head.
“What the fuck, Christian? I thought we were supposed to kill Chucky for Ramses, not the other way around.” Meeka looked at Ramses’s corpse. She didn’t understand what was going on.
“Calm yourself, my little rose. Ramses has always been the target, but we needed a way to draw him out so we could dispatch him. Chucky was simply bait. I knew he was the one person Ramses hated enough to step out of his comfort zone,” Christian explained. “Cut him loose,” he ordered.
As Boogie removed Chucky’s handcuffs, Chucky sat there looking at Ramses’s body at his feet. He had come close to dying on many occasions, but never that close. He stood, rubbing his wrists. “Man, for a minute I thought I was a goner.”
“Oh, make no mistake, you’re still going to die, just not on behalf of Ramses,” Christian told him. “Hold that muthafucka,” he ordered.
Boogie and Frank grabbed Chucky by the arms and held him so that he couldn’t move. “Wait, but you said you were using me as bait to draw Ramses out.”
“I did and you have, but ending your life has nothing to do with money. This is about you being a lowlife muthafucka who preys on young girls.” Christian drew one of his rhinestone guns. Just then he had a thought. “Hey, Meeka, I know I said I’d never ask you to take a life again unless it was absolutely necessary, but I figured you might want this honor.” He extended the gun to her.
“For what he did to my friend Persia, absolutely!” Meeka took the gun from Christian.
“Wait a second. Meeka, you know me! How many times did I come through the block and lay paper on you girls or get you high when y’all were fucked up?” Chucky tried to jog her memory.
“Yeah, I remember what you did for us, but I also remember what you did to us. This is for Persia and Karen,” Meeka spat before pulling the trigger and ending Chucky’s reign of terror.
“Good job, little rose.” Christian took his gun from Meeka and kissed her on the forehead.
“Christian, can I ask you something?” Meeka asked.
“Sure, baby. What’s up?”
“You said that Chucky was only the bait and Ramses was the real target. So that leaves the question: who put the money up for the hit?”
Christian didn’t answer; he just smiled.
Monk squinted against the rays of the early morning sun, wishing he’d thought to invest in a pair of sunglasses. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been awake that early, let alone out in the world. He was tired and cranky, but it was a big day for him so he didn’t complain. He was leaning on the hood of the minivan he had driven that day. It was hardly his style, and had it been stolen he’d have selected something with a bit more flash, but it was a rental.
He checked his watch for the hundredth time, wondering if he’d gotten the time wrong. He’d been waiting outside for nearly forty minutes and there was still no sign of his passenger. The sound of the front gate buzzing drew Monk’s attention. Several men came out and walked into the parking lot to greet their peoples, but none of them was who Monk had come for. When the gate starting closing again Monk figured that he had gotten his information crossed and was about to leave, but just then the gate stopped and one more person came out. It had been years since he had seen him, and he had put on a little weight and grown a beard but Monk could still recognize his closest friend.
“My nigga!” Monk smiled and threw his arms open.
“What’s up with you, baby boy?” Face hugged him. “Thanks for coming to pick me up.”
“It was the least I could do. I’m glad to see you’re out . . . finally.”
“Yeah, I’m out and I don’t ever plan on going back. That prison shit is for the birds,” Face said, tossing the parcel he’d come out with into a trash can. The only thing he held on to were his pictures and the letters Michelle and Persia had been writing him over the years. “I’m glad you were able to decipher the message I sent by my young boy, Kunta.”
“Exodus 2: it was the page in the Bible you sent me where you wrote all your lawyer’s information down,” Monk said. “When I called him this morning I thought he was bullshitting me about you getting out, but here you are in the flesh. One thing I can’t figure out is why you sent such a cryptic message instead of just calling me or writing a letter?”
“Because neither of those routes is one hundred percent secure,” Face told him. “When you see what I’ve got lined up for us you’ll understand why I kept everything so cloak and dagger.”
Monk shrugged. “If you say so. Now that you’re out, what you wanna do? I got some bitches we can pay a call on if you wanna get some pussy, but knowing your ass you probably want to stop by and see your family. It’s been a long time.”
“Indeed it has, but I don’t wanna do either just yet. Take me through Harlem right quick. I wanna survey the kingdom I left behind,” Face said, getting into the passenger seat.
“Whatever you say, Face, or should I refer to you as Pharaoh now?” Monk teased and walked around to the driver’s side.