3

“Never trust no-bo-dy. Your moms’ll set that ass up, properly gassed up. Hoodie to mask up, shit, for that fast buck she be layin’ in the bushes to light that ass up.”

—“Ten Crack Commandments,” Notorious B.I.G.

1986

What did I tell you?” Milton asked.

Lil Nut couldn’t believe his ears when he stepped outside of his aunt’s house and his father was standing there, on the side of his aunt’s fence, drinking a forty-ounce of Colt 45 malt liquor and holding a Bible. Lil Nut hated to admit it, but he was glad to see his father, although he wished it were under different circumstances. While in the hospital he’d asked his mother about his pops, but she still hadn’t seen him since the night he was kicked out. His mother reasoned that her husband didn’t want her to see him in his intoxicated state.

“And what was that again?” Lil Nut asked. He couldn’t melt at the sight of his father. He was a man and had to hold his head up.

“I told you that you’d find out who set ya ass up, didn’t I?”

Suddenly Lil Nut was furious. Had his father just told him from the jump who’d set him up, he wouldn’t have gone to the party with Lamiek and Lite, and he wouldn’t have taken a hot slug to the chest.

“What kind of father are you? If you knew who it was, it was your duty to tell me so that I could get at those niggas before they got at me.”

Milton shook his head. “It don’t go like that. If I tell you what you need to hear instead of teaching you what you need to learn, then you won’t survive one day out here in these streets.”

“Did you forget that a bullet opened up my whole chest? I almost didn’t survive!”

“That was part of the game that you signed up for, and the part that you can’t predict. That was part of the game that you’re supposed to feel. Animal instincts should have told you that you weren’t in the right environment. Don’t you know that once you get into the crack game you can no longer think like an average man? Not when there are wolves out there gunning to either take your spot, your life, your cash, or your woman. You gotta think like a beast!”

“I’m trying,” Lil Nut whined. He sounded defeated. He sat down on the stoop and hung his head low. He felt like such a failure after being robbed twice, shot, and then whisked away to his aunt’s house, hiding from his peers, far away from his neighborhood.

“We need to have a talk. We should have had this talk a while back, but there’s no time like the present. You see, everything you need to know is right here.” Milton shook the worn Bible that he had in his hand. “There are Ten Commandments for this crack game, and if you follow each one, then you will be one of the very few who are able to get in the crack game and get out without being murdered or incarcerated.”

“Pops, that’s the Bible.”

“I know what this is. Don’t you know that this here holds a wealth of knowledge? The Old Testament is what I live by.” Milton opened his Bible and began reading Proverbs, Malachi, Daniel, and Psalms.

After Lil Nut listened to his father in great length he was able to see his mistakes, and also deduce that he would have made even more mistakes had his father not taken the time to come to Queens to school him. He asked his father to come inside, but he refused.

“Where are you going to go this late at night?” Lil Nut asked.

“I got something I need to handle. Should have taken care of this a long time ago. . . .”

Again he just walked off, not asking for any money or food. There was a great emptiness inside the pit of Lil Nut’s stomach as he watched his father glide down the block. He wanted to run after him and tell him that he was sorry for pulling out a gun—his father’s own gun—on him. He wished he could rewind back to the time when he still lived in a two-parent home. He wondered briefly if he should have told his father about how his mother would take him back if he walked through the door sober. Then he realized that his father probably already knew that.

***

The hysterical voice on the other line could have only been one woman. His mother. Lil Nut listened to the barely discernible voice tell him that his father was found murdered in the back of their building from two bullet wounds to the back of his head.

“He was what?”

“They killed my man . . . they killed him!” Julie screamed into the phone.

“Did you just say someone killed my father and left him like trash in the back of our building?”

“He was a good man, once . . .”

“Ma, don’t cry. I’m gonna find out who did this. I’m coming back to handle it,” Lil Nut said reassuringly. This was the second time he promised a parent he would take care of a situation, and he wasn’t gonna let this promise slide.

“No! You stay right where you are!”

“I’m coming home,” he stated with conviction.

“What did I say?” Julie demanded. “This was all over you, I’m told. Blue Bug had two of his spots robbed this past week, and everyone said that it was you. I heard that Blue Bug is scared to death that you’re planning to kill him, so he wants you dead first. They said that he killed your father to bring you out of hiding.”

“Who told you that?”

“You know Leslie from the fifth floor gets all the gossip. She’s the one who knocked on my door and told me about your father.”

Julie began to sob heavily into the phone. She couldn’t believe that someone had snatched away the love of her life. Julie always believed he would eventually come home to her. She prayed each night for God to watch over him while he was on these streets and to bring him back home to her. Now someone had taken away her future.

“They said that he’d just put his name on the waiting list for the rehab center up on Nostrand Avenue,” Julie told her son. “He didn’t deserve to die like that.”

Lil Nut wondered how much of a role his father played in getting himself murdered. When he walked off yesterday he said he had something that needed to get done. There were so many unanswered questions, which Lil Nut knew wouldn’t get answered while he was hiding out in Queens. The pain and angst he felt was so palpable that he could have literally killed someone with his bare hands. If they wanted a war, he was prepared to give them one. If they thought he was sweet and wouldn’t seek revenge, they were wrong.

***

Lil Nut made a promise to himself that before his father was given a proper burial, Lamiek, Lite, and Blue Bug would meet his father at the crossroads. He knew he needed to strategize or else he’d be the one meeting his father. What he had on his side was anonymity. As far as the neighborhood knew, he was a ghost. They no longer knew his movements, but he knew theirs. He knew that Blue Bug would be walking with heat and bodyguards whenever he came to see his wisdom. He would be the hardest to catch. Lamiek and Lite wouldn’t be that much of a challenge. They were both creatures of habits.

Lil Nut hated to involve Samantha in his plans to assassinate his former friends and boss, but he didn’t have any choice. They had gone too far in murdering his father, thus pushing his hand. Even if Lil Nut wanted to chill, he couldn’t.

“Listen, I need you to keep your ear to the ground and find out the movements of Lamiek. But you gotta be slick. From what you tell me, GG ain’t a stupid broad—”

“She ain’t smarter than me,” Samantha said defensively.

“Nah, I’m not saying that. I know she ain’t book smarter than—”

“She ain’t street smarter than me either!”

Lil Nut exhaled. He had to proceed with caution. He didn’t want to offend Samantha, but he didn’t have time to stroke her ego. His father was just taken away from him for good. There ain’t no coming back from the dead.

“Will you just listen and hear me out? Y’all can compare SAT scores later. This is important. My fucking pops is lying stiff-cold in the morgue over these two cowards.”

“I’m sorry . . . you’re right. This isn’t about me, and I want to help you as much as I can.”

“OK, bet. Check it. Call GG and see if you can get her to tell you where Lamiek is, or if he’s coming over her house tonight. That way I can creep over there and splatter his fucking brains.”

“That won’t work. As you just stated, GG isn’t a dummy, and she’ll be hip to my game. If Lamiek told her that he was the reason your father was murdered, and that y’all beef just got heated up, she’ll be protective about giving up any info. She’s grimy as hell and knows the game from her brother.”

“Damn! Then how can I catch him?”

“Well instead of him being the target, why don’t you make yourself the target? Why don’t you be the bait? I’ll help you.”

“You’ll help me get killed? How that sound?”

Samantha giggled. “Do I even need to say that your remark was stupid? Why would I help you get killed? I love you.”

The L word made Lil Nut squeamish. Before they had sex he thought he loved her. Now he realized that he no longer felt that way. And that he never felt that way. It was all superficial. Getting shot and her being there for him had clouded his judgment. She was the only female contact he’d had while hiding out and being on the run from niggas who wanted him dead. Now that he was adjusting back into society, he didn’t feel that they had gotten to that part of their relationship yet, and he didn’t know how to respond, so he said nothing.

Samantha continued. “What I mean is, I will call GG and tell her that you asked me if could you come over to my house tomorrow while my parents are out of town, and that I was afraid to tell you no. I’ll tell her that you said you were coming for some sex, but I don’t trust you, and that I think you’re really coming to quiz me about getting shot. I’ll tell her that if you think I had something to do with setting you up, you’ll kill me, and that I’m scared. We both know that she’s going to relay that information to Lamiek. Now all you gotta do is be outside and lay low while they’re outside trying to lie low on you. When you get the opportunity, then do what you need to do.”

Lil Nut had to admit that it was a perfect plan. And gangster. He didn’t realize that his book smart girlfriend was actually street smart too.

“I’m really feeling this plan,” he said. “OK, ma, put it into motion, and call me back. Remember, be slick about it, and if you think she’s on to you in the slightest, let me know.”

“I know how to handle GG.”

“Cool. Talk to you later. Bye.”

In a rushed, nervous voice, Samantha replied, “OK, love you, bye!” And hung up.

Lil Nut couldn’t help but laugh to himself. He figured that he’d better start loving Samantha back, especially since she was a good girl and all.

***

As she promised, Samantha set up everything. She told GG that Lil Nut was to arrive at nine o’clock, so Lil Nut figured that Lamiek and Lite would get there early to wait on him. He wasn’t sure if they planned to murder him going into Samantha’s, or catch him coming out. He guessed it would all depend on opportunity.

Lil Nut borrowed his aunt’s hooptie and made his way uptown to Samantha’s residence. He didn’t have a clue how Lamiek and Lite would creep up, how many would be in the goon squad, or how much ammunition they would have. All he knew was that he couldn’t make any mistakes, nor could they peep that he was there. Before he left he called Samantha.

“I’m sure at some point GG will call me to make sure you’re here,” Samantha said. “Now if you’re supposed to come at nine o’clock, and they don’t see you come in the building, they’ll probably only wait a little while. If Lamiek asks GG to call me, then I’ll say that you’re up here and that you came earlier. Do you think that’s a good idea? Or should I just say you didn’t come yet?”

“Hell, yeah, that’s a good idea. You’re a pro at this. Remind me never to get on your bad side. If Lamiek gets GG to call you, say like you said, that I’m already there and that I came over early to surprise you. That way they’ll only be looking at your front door, and they won’t be so on point.”

Lil Nut pulled up shortly after five o’ clock because he didn’t know how early Lamiek would show up. He’d dressed in all black and in layers to prevent the cold from getting to him because he couldn’t keep the car running out of fear he’d easily be spotted. He parked on the opposite side of the street, figuring Lamiek would want to be on the same side, not too far from the front door.

As the hours passed, Lil Nut was frozen. He kept running his fingers in and out of his pockets to keep them warm. He desperately wanted to cut on the car to get some heat. As each hour passed, he grew more discouraged that his plan had failed. He felt like a loser. He’d let his mother down last year, and this year he’d let down his father.

Nine o’clock came and went. As eleven o’clock steadily approached, Lil Nut decided to see if he could catch them around their way. Maybe he would get lucky and catch them slipping. First he thought about driving over to GG’s, and if Lamiek wasn’t there, he’d shoot over to his old neighborhood.

As he wondered whether he should call Samantha to see if GG had called, an old Oldsmobile came creeping down the block. Lil Nut ducked down into the driver’s seat and peered through his side view mirrors. The car glided at a slow pace, finally stopping in front of Samantha’s apartment building. It was brick cold outside and deserted. Lil Nut shook his head once he saw Lamiek in the driver’s seat, Lite as the passenger, and a third person in the back. He prayed to God it was Blue Bug and he’d be able to kill three birds with three stones.

He went over and over in his head how he would do it. He wondered if everyone in the car was strapped. He’d have to be quick as lightning to be able to pull off shooting three armed men without getting hit himself. And on the thought of getting shot again, Lil Nut realized that he didn’t have room for error.

Finally, Lamiek parked and cut off his car. As they sat there, Lil Nut sat. Lil Nut didn’t know why he was hesitating, but the moment just didn’t seem right to him. He kept peering out of his back window, looking back at the carload of men. They were talking, laughing, and even singing. They were too lax. Lil Nut rationalized that they felt he was already inside the apartment. They must have planned to ambush him coming out of the building in the wee hours of the morning.

By four o’clock in the morning, Lil Nut had been there almost twelve hours. He was frozen stiff, and if it wasn’t for sheer determination, he would have pulled off and gone home. He flexed his fingers in and out for a few minutes until they warmed up, took one more peek through the back window at the peanut butter and tan colored Oldsmobile, and discreetly slid out of his driver’s seat. He crawled down the darkened Harlem street on his hands and knees until he was almost to the corner. Lil Nut tossed his hood over his head and walked across the street. He took another peek and realized that they hadn’t spotted him.

In a crouching position, he crept toward the car with his gun aimed and cocked. He could see Lamiek’s head resting on the window, asleep, and Lite staring straight ahead. Lil Nut steadied his gun and decided to take aim at Lite first.

Boom! Boom! Lite clutched his chest with both hands and began to scream. Lamiek’s eyes popped opened, but Lil Nut was already hitting up the back passenger. Boom! Boom! Lamiek opened up the driver’s side door and bolted. Lil Nut was on his heels quickly. Boom! Boom! Boom! Lamiek fell face-first onto the cold pavement. Lil Nut stood over him and emptied his gun into his head.

“This is for my pops, you faggot!”

A few lights began clicking on inside people’s apartments. Lil Nut ran toward his aunt’s car, tripping over his sneaker laces and scraping his knee on the pavement. Quickly he hopped back up and tore out of there like he’d just committed a triple homicide. It took him a few minutes to steady his hands from shaking, and for his heart rate to slow down to a normal pace. During the whole ride back to Queens, he continued to look over his shoulder for the police. He hoped and prayed to God that no one had seen him. Then he convinced himself that if he did get caught and had to go to prison, at least those bastards were dead.

As soon as he got inside his aunt’s house he called Samantha. He made sure his voice wasn’t shaking. He didn’t want her to know that he was terrified.

“The police are all over this place!” Samantha’s voice had elevated to a high pitch.

“Well what did you think would happen?”

His response must have plucked her nerves, because she replied, “I guess I didn’t really think about that!”

“Why are you yelling at me? You helped me do this!”

“I didn’t kill anyone!”

“What are you saying? You’re gonna snitch me out, because if you do, you’re just as much going down with me. If you didn’t help me set them up, they’d still be alive!”

When Samantha began to sob heavily on the phone, Lil Nut realized he’d made a mistake involving her. She was already folding under pressure, and the heat hadn’t even knocked on her door.

“Did you hear from GG?” he asked.

“No,” she whimpered. “I’m sure she doesn’t know yet.”

“Are you by the window? Tell me what’s going on outside.”

“What’s going on? It’s a fucking crime scene!”

Lil Nut had finally had it. That was the last time he was going to allow her to disrespect him.

“Samantha, don’t diss me by talking to me like that. One thing I don’t do is disrespect women. My moms taught me better. Ya parents should have taught you not to disrespect a man.”

“Well I’m sorry you feel that I’m dissing you, but I’m upset!”

Samantha refused to fold, and Lil Nut began to realize that he really didn’t know her that well.

“Well I’ma let you go and be upset.”

Lil Nut disconnected the line, which only infuriated Samantha more. She called back and the loud ringing threatened to wake up his aunt. He picked up the receiver, hung it back up, and then took it off the hook.

***

After shooting the backseat passenger, who was not Blue Bug, Lil Nut realized he still had one adversary left. Once he bumped him off, he’d be able to go back to his block in Brooklyn and stop hiding out like a little bitch. Each night he thought about how to get at Blue Bug. He drove around on the low in his unmarked car looking for him, but to no avail. In two days he’d be laying his father to rest, and if he didn’t get Blue Bug by then, he wouldn’t be able to attend his father’s funeral. Not only that, if Blue Bug didn’t get Lil Nut soon, then Lil Nut figured his mother’s life could be in danger. He told her to stay inside and not to come out until he handled the situation. Word on the street was that Blue Bug planned on kidnapping his mother in order to lure Lil Nut out of hiding.

In a nanosecond the answer came to him as if his father were still lurking around. When Milton told him about the ten crack commandments, he said that anyone was susceptible to setting up a motherfucker, even your moms. Lil Nut had proved that right when he got Samantha to go against the grain and help him set up Lamiek and Lite. Now he needed another ally.

Lil Nut remembered that his mother had told him that Blue Bug and Lady Bug had broken up, and he’d stopped coming around. Lady Bug’s mother had apparently driven a wedge between the couple, because she felt her daughter deserved more than what Blue Bug was giving her. It wasn’t a secret in the hood that Blue Bug was a cheap motherfucker. And what Lil Nut had that could work in his favor was a safety deposit box full of money, money that he’d earn back once he was able to go back on his block. His neighborhood was a goldmine with all the crack fiends lurking around. Any smart hustler could make money hand over fist.

Lil Nut made the call, and to his amazement, Lady Bug’s mother, Princess, was ready to sit down and make a deal. Lil Nut crept over to Brooklyn in the early hours of the morning. Princess came downstairs to his mother’s house because she didn’t want her daughter to have any part in their deal.

“Look, Blue Bug gotta get got, and I need your help,” Lil Nut said.

Princess was in full gear. She had her head fully wrapped with a silk scarf covering her nose and mouth, and a long wrap covered her from head to toe. The only things showing were her eyes.

“Well my help is going to cost you,” she said. “Setting up a man who was almost my son don’t come cheap.”

“I know that, and I’m already prepared for all that. Name your price.”

Princess hated to be a greedy woman, and she always fancied herself smart. She sized up Lil Nut and saw the determination in his eyes. That determination made her feel safer. She knew that if he fucked up and Blue Bug put two and two together, then not only would her life be over, but her daughter’s life as well. She’d already heard that Lamiek and Lite were executed in Harlem and the whole neighborhood speculated that they had gotten caught up in a drug deal gone wrong. But Princess knew better. She knew that Lamiek didn’t sell no drugs, and after Milton had gotten murdered, she knew it was only a matter of time before those two would end up dead.

“The information that I got will cost you twenty-five thousand.”

Lil Nut couldn’t believe his ears. He’d gotten Samantha to help him for free. He figured that Princess was accustomed to being spoiled since her daughter dated drug dealers for years, but jeez, twenty-five gees just to know the whereabouts of where a nigga rested his head? Plus, he still had to put in the work. It was absurd.

“You must gonna do the hit too, talking all that dough.”

“I see this is a waste of my time,” Princess said and began to stand.

“Hold on a moment,” Lil Nut said. “Let’s be reasonable here. Ma, how much do I got in the stash?” Lil Nut asked his mother, who was listening.

“You only carrying about seventeen thousand, and you can’t give her all of it. We got expenses too. Especially now that your father ain’t here.”

“Well that seventeen thousand ain’t gonna do neither one of you any good if Blue Bug murders Lil Nut, now is it?” Princess asked.

Lil Nut exhaled. “All I got is seventeen. Do we got a deal or not?”

Princess smiled like a Cheshire cat until her round eyes became slanted. “Seventeen will do me just fine. You bring me the money and I’ll give you the address.”

“You get half up front, and the balance upon completion.”

“It don’t work like that—”

“It will work like that. For all I know I can give you all my dough and you send me on a wild goose chase. And when I get back, you and Lady Bug done packed up never to be seen again.”

That thought had actually crossed her mind. As Princess was making this deal she was thinking of a way to outsmart Lil Nut. Not because she cared anything for Blue Bug. He was a vermin to her, but he was in the Five Percent Nation, and that should count for something. Now she realized that the young man standing before her wasn’t as stupid or as gullible as she thought he’d be.

“My word is my bond!” Princess said.

As Lil Nut thought about what he said to Princess about cheating him, he realized that if she was capable of stiffing him for his seventeen thousand, then she’d be capable of stiffing him for eighty-five hundred. He was sure that that was more money than she’d ever seen at one time in her whole life. He decided to up the ante.

“You know what, I don’t trust you,” he said. “In fact, the only person I trust is my moms. After my two friends tried to get me murdered, everyone is suspect. Now if you want the money, then you gotta come with me to get it.”

“That’s fine by me. Where you got it? In the bank or a stash house?”

“Nah, you misunderstanding me. You gotta come with me to get at Blue Bug in order for you to get it. My whole life savings is at risk, and I don’t know, you could be setting me up to get murdered, or to just take my blood, sweat, and tears.”

“Are you crazy?!”

“Not at all. The choice is yours. I’ll wait a few minutes for you to make up your mind. But once I walk out that front door, the deal is off the table and I promise you that I will catch Blue Bug before he catches me. Either way he’s getting put to sleep. Your only dilemma is whether you will cash in on his life insurance policy.”

Princess thought about what the young man had proposed, and again, his logic stunned her. She realized that he might actually last on these mean streets longer than the average knucklehead. She reasoned his father had taught him well before his demise. Princess wasn’t a stranger to violence or street life. She’d lived in the hood all her life, and now she wanted to move south with her family. With seventeen thousand she could pay down on a large home. At the moment she was collecting $162 a month from welfare, and she wasn’t a spring chicken. She was steadily approaching her golden years, and she refused to live and die in Brownsville, Brooklyn.

“You sure do push a hard bargain. OK, meet me back here this time tomorrow.”

“Nah, I don’t have tomorrow. This nigga gets got tonight. He will not breathe another day on this earth. Living is a luxury, and I’ma revoke his pass.”

“I hear that,” Princess said, hardly fazed that Blue Bug was about to be murdered. “I gotta make a run upstairs. Meet me in the back alley in twenty minutes. And you better have my money when all of this is said and done. A deal is a deal.”

When Princess left, Lil Nut walked over and hugged his mother. “You know you’re something else, right?” he asked.

“Shit. You think I was going to allow you to give her all our money?”

Laughing, he replied, “I thought you were going to say twenty thousand. When you said seventeen, I was like, look at Ma, low-balling Princess.”

“I knew her greedy ass would take it and wouldn’t lose any sleep about taking our last dime. Just make sure you’re careful, and if you smell a setup get out of there quick. And if you can’t get out of the situation, make sure you take one of them with you. You hear me!”

“I hear you!”

***

Later that day Lil Nut and Princess rode down Atlantic Avenue toward Cross Bay Boulevard. Blue Bug was living in a predominately Italian neighborhood in Howard Beach. Lil Nut couldn’t understand how Blue Bug managed to pull that off, but evidently he had. With his burner resting on his lap, just in case he had to put a bullet in Princess’s ass, he was prepared for the worst. The whole ride Princess couldn’t keep her mouth shut. Lil Nut wondered if she was talking so much because she was nervous, or if this was who she really was. If it was the latter, then he could understand why Blue Bug got the fuck out of there.

“Do you know that last year all I asked that motherfucker to buy me for Christmas was a fox fur coat, and do you know that he walked up in my house on Christmas morning empty-handed? Yes, he did. He had the nerve to walk into my house empty-handed. So I said to him, ‘Blue Bug! I know you got my coat downstairs in your fancy ride. Now stop playing. Go back downstairs and get my coat. Don’t play no games with an old woman.’ And you know what?” Princess asked, not allowing Lil Nut to answer, “He didn’t have shit for me at all. Nothing. And he came in and gave Lady Bug a little funky nameplate. And not one with diamonds, but the cheap, raggedy one with the diamond chips. Can you believe that? My daughter was with his ass for two years, and that’s all he bought her for Christmas. That cheap bastard deserves everything he’s about to get. Do you think I feel sorry for his ass? Hell no, I don’t feel sorry for his cheap ass!”

Lil Nut couldn’t understand Princess’s sense of entitlement. She was speaking as if Blue Bug owed her something, when the fact of the matter is that he didn’t. He made the money and took the risk. Bottom line.

For the next twenty minutes, Lil Nut tuned out Princess. He needed to be focused when he rolled up on Blue Bug. There wasn’t any way he could slip up, because if he did, Blue Bug had enough money to hire an army to come after him, and even enough money to put a bounty over his head.

“Turn left at that McDonald’s on the corner of Cross Bay and then slow down. His house is on the right hand side of the block,” Princess said.

Lil Nut could see that Princess had begun to duck down. And her nervousness made him nervous.

“What? You see him?” he asked.

“No, I don’t, and I don’t want to. Park over here behind this black Jeep.”

Lil Nut did as he was told and cut off his ignition. He was ready to get it over with. He didn’t like the white man’s neighborhood, and figured that he and Princess stood out like sore thumbs.

“We can’t stay parked here,” Lil Nut reasoned.

“His house is only a couple feet away. You see the house with the black shutters? That’s him.”

“I understand that, but if someone walks by and sees us here for a while, they might get suspicious and call the police. Or they might try to attack us on some riot shit. You see what happened with Michael Griffith being attacked here in Howard Beach and chased down until he was hit and killed by a car. That ain’t gonna be me.”

“Shit. That ain’t gonna be me either. What you want me to do? Go and knock on his door and tell him to come outside so you can murder him?”

Lil Nut wasn’t in the mood for such sarcasm. But it did spark an idea. He peeled off and began to ride around the neighborhood.

“Whatchu doing?”

“I’m wasting time. It’s not dark enough. It should be dark in an hour, and then I got a plan.”

“What’s the plan?”

“Don’t worry about it. You hungry?” he asked.

“Look at my fat ass. What kind of question is that?”

Lil Nut drove to the borderline of Brooklyn and Queens, and he and Princess went into the Lindenwood Diner to get something to eat. Princess ordered a fish dinner and Lil Nut ordered steak and French fries. After they finished eating, he headed back to his destination.

He parked around the corner from Blue Bug’s house and told Princess to get in the driver’s seat, keep the car running, and be on high alert. She took her orders like a pro, because she knew that within a couple of hours she was going to be rich.

Lil Nut hugged the shadows as he inched down the block toward Blue Bug’s house. He knew that Blue Bug’s car alarm was always being triggered because of all the custom work he had done to his ride. Blue Bug was too cheap to allow Mercedes Benz to do the work, so he hired a local mechanic, and he got what he paid for.

All it took were a few nudges on the car to trigger the alarm. Lil Nut hunched down and waited for his opportunity. When he heard a front door open and a chirp of the alarm, aggravation sunk in. He assumed that Blue Bug had opened up the front door and simply shut off the alarm.

Lil Nut shook the car, and once again the alarm went off. For the second time the front door opened, Lil Nut heard the chirp, and the door closed and locked. As frustrated as Lil Nut was, he knew that he would break down Blue Bug eventually. When he set off the alarm for the third time, he actually heard the front door open and slam. He knew Blue Bug was coming out, but to Lil Nut’s amazement, it was a young, sexy female. And she wasn’t an earth. She was dressed regularly in a pair of tight Guess jeans and Reebok sneakers. She wasn’t more than eighteen years old.

Lil Nut pounced on her, put the gun to her head, and whispered, “Don’t say a word or you’re dead. Do you understand me?”

The frightened girl’s eyes spoke volumes.

“Is he in there?”

She nodded.

“Is he alone?”

Again, she nodded.

Lil Nut made the girl walk in front of him and lead him into the house. She kept walking through the house until Lil Nut saw Blue Bug sprawled out in his king-sized bed, naked, sipping on a Guinness Stout beer. You could tell that they had just finished fucking. The smell of sex was still lingering in the air. Lil Nut was disgusted that he had the audacity to send the beautiful female outside in the frigid cold to check on his car.

Everything happened fast. Blue Bug looked up to address his female companion and saw Lil Nut instead. In one swift movement Blue Bug tried to go for his gun, but he didn’t have a chance. Lil Nut emptied four bullets into his head, neck, and chest. The young girl began begging for her life.

Lil Nut shoved her to the ground and retreated out of the house. Once outside he hugged the shadows again, walking briskly back to the getaway car. He kept thinking of all the things he wanted to say to Blue Bug before he put him to sleep, but it all happened too quickly. The one thing he was glad about was that Blue Bug knew exactly who sent him to meet his maker and why.

“Let’s go!” Lil Nut said when he got in the car.

“You did it?” Princess asked.

“Just get the fuck out of here.”

Princess began to laugh hysterically. “You one bad motherfucker! When you gonna stop letting people call you Lil Nut? Your crazy, bold ass should just start going by Nut.”

***

That night Lil Nut paid Princess her money and slept peacefully back at home in his mother’s house, in his own bed. The next morning his aunt called and told him that Samantha had been burning up the phone lines calling every second of the day looking for him. Lil Nut no longer wanted to be bothered with her. He knew that if he kept her around, she would hold the three murders over his head for life, and as far as he was concerned, he wanted to leave the past in the past.

***

As the preacher said the eulogy for his father, Lil Nut was consumed with grief. Ironically, his two former friends were being laid to rest on the same day as his father. The whole neighborhood was grieving, each in their own way. Lil Nut had bought his father an expensive navy blue suit with a baby blue tie for his burial. He tried to convince himself that his father was in a better place, a place where he could get high all day and not be judged. He still couldn’t swallow how dirty Blue Bug did his father, but he did what he had to do. At his wake, he asked that he have a few minutes alone with his father and he really poured out his heart.

“Pops, I really miss you, man. What am I gonna do without your words of wisdom? Do I really have what it takes?” Lil Nut’s tears streamed down his cheeks and landed on the sleeve of his father’s suit jacket. “I did that, man. I rocked all those niggas to sleep for hurting you and Ma. I’m just sorry that it took me so long, but I feel like I’ve grown up overnight. I’m a man now. If not in age, then mentally. I promise I’ma make you proud of me and hold down the fort.”

When they lowered his father into his grave and began to throw dirt on top of his casket, his mother lost it. She began screaming and hollering, and Lil Nut had to physically restrain her. If he’d let her go she would have jumped on top of the casket to be with her husband. He realized that his father was the only man his mother had known, and it was going to be hard letting him go.

When they got back from the funeral and the limousine dropped them off in front of their building, he bumped into Lamiek’s sister, Katina. He went to give her his condolences and she just glared at him. Lil Nut shrugged it off. He didn’t give a fuck whether she knew the truth. Her brother had lived by the gun, and he died by the gun. Lamiek was a grimy dude who always had one foot in the grave anyway. Lil Nut just reasoned that he had to give him a little push. Shit, that was what friends were for.

***

In the next few weeks as the weather broke, the city formed a task force to combat all the violence that the crack wars were bringing. The mayor of New York got on television to boast about TNT, a covert operation that was supposed to regulate all the drug activity in the urban neighborhoods. Within one week, they had the hood under siege. The TNT squad jumped out of undercover vans, sprayed unsuspecting drug dealers with mace, and threw them into the paddy wagons, hauling the busload of individuals to jail.

Lil Nut realized that he had to change up his operation, and quickly. He’d managed to stay above the law, and he wanted to keep it that way.

One day a few weeks after Lil Nut had returned home, he overheard his mother on the phone with his aunt.

“You mean to tell me that that girl is still calling over there for my son? Now what on earth did that boy do to her? He must have bust her cherry . . .” Julie said.

Lil Nut chuckled at his mother and his aunt with their little gossip conversations. He knew that his life was the only excitement that they both had at the moment. Briefly he thought about Samantha and what they had shared. He wondered if he ever felt anything real for her. He sure hadn’t thought about her in the past four weeks since she blew up on him over the phone. But he did have a lot on his mind. He thought about calling her just to catch up. Maybe she could come over and give him some sex.

He waited until his mother got off the phone and then called Samantha. Her father answered the phone.

“May I speak with Samantha, please?”

“Who may I say is calling?”

Lil Nut hesitated for a moment. “This is Nelson.”

“Sure, hold on a moment.”

Lil Nut could hear her father calling her to the phone. Finally she picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hey, what’s up, ma?”

“Lil Nut?”

“Who you think it is?”

She sucked her teeth. “Where have you been?”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Too busy to call me?”

“I’m calling you now.”

“You know what I’m talking about. I’ve been calling you for weeks, and I know your aunt gave you all my messages. After all I’ve done for you, this is the thanks I get?”

There she goes again, Lil Nut thought. He was right to think they wouldn’t work out.

“I thought I did thank you, but if I didn’t, thanks. Look, I gotta go—”

“Wait—”

“Nah, I’m busy. I promise I’ll call you back,” Lil Nut lied.

Samantha began to panic. She knew she’d fucked up and had to think of something.

“Don’t hang up before I tell you what I know.”

“Know about what?”

She lowered her voice. “GG’s been calling me like crazy trying to get me to go over to her house.”

“So?”

“So, I can’t go over there after you did what you did.”

“Why the fuck not? Ain’t y’all friends?”

“I helped you murder her boyfriend.”

“She doesn’t know that unless you told her.”

“I didn’t tell her shit, but of course she knows. She ain’t stupid.”

“Weren’t you the one who told me she was!”

“I never said she was stupid. I just said that I wasn’t stupid.”

“Are you telling me that you haven’t gone to visit her since her man got murked?”

“Nope.”

“Well if she didn’t know for sure that you were involved, she knows now. How fucking stupid of you, Ms. Smarty Pants. You were supposed to play it cool. What else is she going to think?”

“Well if you would have called me back you could have told me what to do. I never took the class, How to Behave After You Set Up a Person To Get Murdered 101.”

Lil Nut couldn’t take her stupidity a moment longer. Inside he was angered and boiling over. Had she been a dude, he would have smashed all of her teeth out. But she was a girl and he didn’t hit women. He spoke with her a little while longer and then she finally let him get off the phone. He vowed never to call her again, and prayed that she kept her mouth shut. She was definitely a loose canon.

***

It wasn’t the headline that caught his attention in the Daily News, but the picture that stopped him dead in his tracks. Each morning Lil Nut had a routine of walking to the corner store and buying the Daily News and a small hot chocolate. As he flipped through the pages he saw a picture of Samantha, and it wasn’t a good article. Apparently her murder was under investigation. Her body was found in the vestibule of her Harlem apartment building with two bullets to the back of the head, and one bullet in her face. After she was shot, the person or persons turned her over and shot her in the face. The police suspected that it was personal. She still had on her jewelry and her purse was still there. The perpetrator had wanted to leave a message.

Lil Nut closed the paper and knew the message. It was from GG and her brother, Chris. GG wasn’t going to let go that Samantha had her man murdered. Lil Nut felt bad. He should have protected her, but he didn’t. He thought about going after GG and her brother for revenge, but he was tired of revenge killing. He needed to concentrate on making money. And the more bodies that piled up, the tougher the city would be on crime. Soon no one would be allowed to eat if the murder rate didn’t decline.

As he walked slowly back to his apartment, he decided that he wouldn’t go see her laid to rest, but he did plan on sending a bleeding heart to the funeral home in hopes of paying his respects. Admittedly, this had definitely been a difficult two years. Now he could finally look forward to his future in the crack game.