6

“That God damn credit, dead it. You think a crackhead payin’ you back, shit forget it!”

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

1989

“Listen, kill all that noise. I ain’t tryna hear that shit. Pay me my money!” the dealer told the crackhead.

“I’ma have your money on Friday. I get paid on Friday. I told you that,” the crackhead responded.

“How the fuck you gonna ask me for more credit and you already owe me?”

“I swear I got you on Friday. Don’t I always come to you straight?”

“Yeah, you do, but you two hundred dollars deep, and I can’t give you no more credit. Pay me whatchu’ owe!” the dealer shouted.

This was the conversation Lil Nut heard as he walked to the store. Lil Nut had that Brooklyn swagger in full effect. He was on his way to the store to get something to eat. He glided past the two arguing men with a touch of gangsta in his walk.

It had been a year since Fatman got locked up, and two years since he’d killed Fuquan. To this day no on knew who killed Fuquan and Red. Now his crew was down to two. He missed his friends, but his business had taken him to a new level in the crack game. He and Butter had recruited runners to work for them after their near jail experience.

It was a cold winter that year, but it didn’t stop the fiends and the crackheads from plowing through the snow chasing that next hit. Lil Nut was rocking a brand new Triple F.A.T. Goose coat and a pair of Forty-Below boots. He had the legs of his jeans crunched down on top of the boots. No Brooklyn cat would ever be caught dead with the legs of his jeans stuffed inside his boots. Lil Nut looked like new money.

“What’s up, Nut?” one of the boys standing around the store asked him.

“What up?” Lil Nut said as he stepped into the store.

As soon as he completed his purchase and stepped out of the store, shots were fired. He looked in the direction of the gunfire and saw the dealer who had been arguing with the crackhead earlier pumping bullets into the man’s face. The man slid down the wall after the first shot, but the dealer wasn’t satisfied. He began to pump bullet after bullet into the man’s face. The man’s head hit the brick wall every time a bullet entered him. The shells from the 9 mm gun discharged and fell to the ground. When the clip was empty the dealer took off, quickly running away from the scene.

While others on the street came to investigate the killing, Lil Nut shook his head and walked off in the opposite direction. He wouldn’t have used that type of a gun, because it left shells for the police to gather as evidence.

The hulk was out, so that meant it was cold as hell and Lil Nut hunched his shoulders as the wind whipped around his body. When he reached one of the buildings of Ocean Hills projects, he climbed the stairs two at a time. He walked into the hallway on the second floor and rang the bell at the second door. He waited patiently, using his thumbnail to clean the dirt from underneath his other nails.

Finally Butter came to the door and opened it.

“My nigga, what’s up?” He smiled at Lil Nut.

“What’s up?” Lil Nut walked into the apartment and saw Butter’s girlfriend, Tamia, sitting on the sofa watching TV.

“Hey, Nut,” she said, glancing up at him.

“What’s up, Tamia?” Lil Nut asked as he walked through the living room and into the back guest bedroom.

In this room was a pull-out sofa, a table and two chairs, a television, and a stereo system. This was the room where Butter entertained his company and conducted business. Lil Nut sat in one of the chairs and waited for Butter to join him.

Finally Butter entered after several minutes. In his hands he held two shoeboxes. He placed them on the table in front of Lil Nut. Lil Nut opened the boxes and saw stacks of cash wrapped in rubber bands. Each stack contained ten thousand dollars. Lil Nut removed the stacks, counting each one. In total there were twenty stacks, ten in each shoebox, equaling two hundred grand.

“Not bad for two weeks’ work, huh?” Butter asked. He smiled as he retrieved a beer from the small refrigerator that sat in the corner of the room.

“It’s all good,” Lil Nut answered. It was indeed a great two weeks. It would normally take them a month to make two hundred gees. But since Lil Nut’s connect came up on a new and more potent product, business was really taking off. “So how we looking on the product?”

“I checked with them little niggas last night, and as of last night, we out,” Butter told him.

“Yeah, well I meet with the connect today, and as soon as I do, I’ll come through with some more of the new shit,” Lil Nut said.

He grabbed ten of the stacks and stood. He placed five stacks into a plastic bag and rolled it up, placing it in the inside pocket of his coat. He did the same with the other five stacks. While he did that Butter lit up a joint and began to smoke. Lil Nut looked up at him when he smelled the marijuana. He shook his head and continued what he was doing.

“I’m out, man,” he said to Butter once he was finished.

“A’ight, B, I’ll get up witchu when you get back,” Butter said as he blew smoke from his mouth.

“Yo, man, you need to leave that shit alone.”

“Ain’t nothing wrong with smoking a little cheeba,” Butter said.

“I’m telling you it’s fucking up your focus,” Lil Nut said, exiting the room before Butter could respond.

Nut walked through the living room where Tamia still sat in the same spot she was in when he arrived. She was watching the new video show called Yo! MTV Raps. A video by MC Hammer was playing on the television. Lil Nut stopped, looked at the video, and shook his head, laughing at the pants the rapper wore.

“Later, Tamia,” he said before stepping out of the apartment.

On the train ride to Harlem, Lil Nut’s beeper began to vibrate. He removed it from his waistband. Checking the number, he saw it was the connect letting him know that they were still on to meet at one pm. He and the connect had code numbers that they used to communicate.

Lil Nut put the beeper away and sighed. He was relieved to know that everything was still on, especially since he was holding a hundred gees on his person. In the past the connect had called and canceled or changed the time at the last minute, and Lil Nut would have to turn around and go back home. He thought about getting a car every time that happened, but quickly pushed the thought out of his mind when he saw black dudes constantly being pulled over by the police.

An hour or so later, Lil Nut walked up into the connect’s spot. He was greeted by the bodyguards and frisked. He was then escorted to a back room of the apartment where the connect sat on a sofa with two Dominican beauties.

“Lil Nut, my friend.” The heavily accented Dominican man greeted him with a huge smile.

“Luis, what’s up?” Lil Nut smiled back, shaking the man’s hand.

Luis didn’t get up from the sofa because of his obesity.

“Vamoose, chicas,” he said, shooing away the two women, but not before he hit each of them on the butt after they rose from the sofa. The two women giggled and left the room. The bodyguard closed the door and allowed Luis and Lil Nut to have their privacy.

“How are you, my friend?” Luis asked again.

“I’m good,” Lil Nut answered.

“Business good, no?”

“Business is real good,” Lil Nut agreed.

“Good, good. You a good man.”

“You too, Luis.”

“So what do you come for today?”

Lil Nut pulled out the plastic bags from his pocket. He took out the stacks of money and threw them onto the coffee table that sat in front of them. Luis reached into the cigar box that sat on the table. He grabbed a cigar and wet it, placing it in his mouth. Lil Nut continued to pull stack after stack out of the plastic bags. Luis lit the cigar, sending huge amounts of smoke streaming into the air. Lil Nut threw the last stack onto the table, balled up the bags, put them back in his coat pocket, and sat back on the couch.

“Yeah, I see, business is good.” Luis nodded his head, impressed. “OK, we do big business.”

“No doubt,” Lil Nut said.

“Hector!” Luis called out.

The bodyguard Hector entered the room again. “Come, Hector,” Luis beckoned.

Hector walked his huge, fat body over to the table and stood in front of it.

“Take dis money and get my friend his stuff.”

Hector did as he was told without saying a word.

“So, my friend, you still no have no car yet?”

“No, I don’t need a car,” Lil Nut told him. Lil Nut was getting tired of Luis’s nagging. He had heard that he needed a car a thousand times. Everyone told him he should get a whip. But he never wanted to bring unwanted attention to himself, and a car would definitely do that. Besides, he never obtained a driver’s license.

“Ah, but yes you do, my friend. You no can ride the train with this kinda money and product. It’s too risky. I can no take risks.” Luis looked at him seriously.

Lil Nut got the picture. He understood exactly where Luis was coming from. If he got busted, Luis didn’t want to take the chance of Lil Nut snitching on him. But Lil Nut was not a snitch.

“Yeah, I feel you, Luis. I will look into one soon,” Lil Nut told him.

“Good. For now, how you get home? Not train, no?”

“Naw, I usually take a cab home when I come to cop.”

“Tsst, tsst.” Luis made the noise with his mouth, letting Lil Nut know he wasn’t pleased with that idea. “I give you ride home this time, my friend. But remember before you come next time, drive your own car.”

Lil Nut nodded his head in agreement.

“I notice when you come, you come alone. You have security, yes?” Luis asked as he tapped the ash from the cigar into the ashtray that sat on the arm of the sofa.

Lil Nut shook his head.

Luis tried to turn his huge body to face Lil Nut, but failed. So he turned his head instead. “A man can live alone, a man can eat alone. But a man in this business can no be alone. He needs someone he can trust to have his back. You need to have muscle to help protect you,” Luis said while the cigar hung from the corner of his mouth.

“I can take care of myself, Luis, and in this business you can’t trust everyone.”

“True, son, but me no say trust everyone. Me say someone. There has to be someone you can trust. If you take care of your peoples, they will take care of you.”

“I am my own muscle,” Lil Nut told him with confidence.

“No, no, young man. Who will watch your back? I no see eyes in the back of your head.” Luis looked behind Lil Nut’s head. “No, you are businessman, take care of business. It’s OK to be able to protect yourself when the time comes. But it is important to have people around you to take care of you.” He blew a cloud of smoke from his mouth. “You see Hector?”

Lil Nut nodded as Hector walked in on cue, carrying a large brown shopping bag with handles.

Luis removed the cigar from his mouth before he spoke. “Hector will never let anything happen to me. He will fight to the end to protect me. Hector loyal to me,” Luis said, looking up at Hector.

“Always,” Hector bellowed before leaving the room.

“See?” Luis pointed toward the door after Hector. “You need loyal men on your team. Do you have loyal men on your team?”

Lil Nut figured this was one of those trick questions that Luis so often liked to throw at him.

“Of course, Luis. I was tryna respect you and not bring nobody else with me. I thought you wanted it that way.”

“Sure I do, but if you have people you can trust and is loyal to you, then you can bring them with you to watch your back.”

Lil Nut thought about it, and the only person he would bring would be Butter. But since Butter had started smoking weed, he felt that Butter had lost some of his focus, and he didn’t want to take any chances.

Luis’s driver dropped Lil Nut off in front of Butter’s apartment building. Butter was sitting on his car out front talking with one of their runners when Lil Nut got out of the car with the brown shopping bag full of cocaine. Lil Nut stepped away from the car and watched it pull off.

“Who was that?” Butter asked when Lil Nut approached them.

“That was the connect’s driver,” he said.

“What’s up, Nut?” the runner asked.

“What’s up? You a’ight?” Lil Nut asked.

“I’m good, man. It’s all good,” the boy responded.

“Cool,” Lil Nut said while walking past Butter.

Butter jumped to his feet. “A’ight, man, I’ll get up with you,” he said to the runner. He shook the boy’s hand and ran to catch up with Lil Nut. “Yo, when you gonna let me meet the connect?” Butter asked Lil Nut. “We partners and I should be able to meet with him too.”

Lil Nut walked up the stairs and Butter followed Lil Nut into the apartment where Tamia was still sitting on the sofa watching videos.

“I don’t know, man. He really don’t like too many people knowing about him. He don’t trust a lot of motherfuckers.” Lil Nut told Butter that to stop him from asking anything further about the connect.

“So hook me up. Let him know I’m ya right-hand man.”

“I don’t know. I’ll think about it.” Lil Nut sat down at the kitchen table and prepared to cook up the cocaine for crack distribution.

Butter stood there in the kitchen watching Lil Nut.

“Yo, man, sit yo ass down and help me do this shit,” Lil Nut said, noticing Butter standing there doing nothing.

Butter was feeling some kind of way. He felt he was an equal partner and should be able to meet with the connect as well. But Lil Nut was ignoring his request. He reluctantly sat down and began to help Lil Nut.

***

Three days later Lil Nut got a page on his beeper and he grabbed it from the counter. He looked at it and saw that it was a 911 call from Butter. He picked up his phone and called him.

“Yo, I’m on my way to come get you,” Butter said. “This cat owes me a gee and he was supposed to come see me last week. He been ducking me, but I got word where he at.” Butter sounded amped.

“A’ight, I’ll be outside,” Nut said. “How long before you get here?”

“Ten minutes.”

“A’ight.” Lil Nut hung up the phone. He scratched the hairs on his chin that were growing in. That damn credit, he thought. They had more money owed to them in credit than he liked.

Exactly ten minutes later Butter pulled up in his BMW 325i. Lil Nut jumped into the passenger’s seat of the luxury car. The first thing that hit him was a cloud of weed smoke. He immediately rolled down his window to get some relief. When he did this, protests came from the backseat as well as from Butter.

“Yo, Nut, roll that window back up. You letting all the smoke out,” Butter said.

“Yeah, Nut, we need the smoke to stay in the car,” a voice said from the backseat.

Lil Nut turned around to see two of his young runners in the backseat sucking on a joint.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Lil Nut screamed at Butter. “And you wonder why I won’t let you be more involved on the business side. It’s because of dumb shit like this.” Lil Nut was pissed.

“What, man? Come on, lighten up,” Butter said, looking over at him. Butter was leaning over to the right in a gangsta lean with his driving arm resting on top of the steering wheel.

Lil Nut didn’t even realize at first that the two young boys were sitting in the backseat because of the amount of smoke in the car. “It’s shit like this that can get us locked up. What the fuck, man!” Lil Nut yelled. “Roll these fucking windows down and put that shit out before I put a bullet in all y’all motherfuckers!”

The teens in the back put out the joints with a quickness. They had never experienced Lil Nut’s short temper before. They’d only heard about it from the streets before joining the team. Butter rolled down the window and turned up the music on the radio. Soul II Soul’s “Back to Life” blared from the woofer speakers.

Butter pulled the car over when he saw another vehicle pull out of a parking spot. He parallel parked the car, killing the engine. He reached into the middle console and pulled out a .45, placing the gun in the inside pocket of his raccoon jacket. Lil Nut checked the contents of his guns and cocked them.

“Stay here,” he said to the young boys.

They both looked at each other in shock, and then they both looked at Butter for assistance. Butter had told them they could rock with them when they found the cat that owed the money. But Lil Nut obviously had other plans that didn’t include them.

Butter shrugged his shoulders. “We’ll be back,” he told them as he got out of the car right after Lil Nut. Lil Nut stood on the sidewalk and waited for Butter.

“Who is the nigga?” he asked with a serious face, still disgusted with his behavior.

“That nigga Freddie.”

“Where he at?”

“He s’posed to be in the first-floor apartment,” Butter said.

Lil Nut walked back over to the car and opened the back door. The teens in the car looked at him with fear in their eyes. “If y’all little niggas do anything stupid, I’ma take this gat”—he showed them the gun he held in his hand—“put it in ya mouth, and pull the trigger. Y’all feel me?” He mean mugged the two of them.

They both nodded their heads in agreement, because they were too afraid to speak.

“Let’s roll,” he said to Butter and began to climb the stairs.

Once inside he held the two guns down to his side and slightly in back of himself, trying to conceal them. They passed a dope addict sitting in the hallway on the floor shooting up. He had his pants down around his ankles and sat on the floor in his dirty underwear while he looked for a vein in his thigh. He wasn’t concerned with Lil Nut and Butter, because he was too busy concentrating on the blast he was about to receive from the heroin.

“Knock on the door,” he told Butter.

Butter knocked. They heard noise behind the door. Lil Nut and Butter stood on either side of the door so no one could see them out of the peephole.

“Who is it?” a female yelled.

“It’s Pete. Is Freddie here?” Lil Nut asked in a deep voice.

“Oh, hey, Pete,” the female said. “Freddie, Pete’s here!” she yelled out to Freddie before opening the door.

Lil Nut looked at Butter and shrugged. He never thought it would actually work. But fortunately for them, Freddie had a brother named Pete.

Once the door opened and the woman realized Lil Nut and Butter weren’t Pete, she was about to protest until Lil Nut put his .357 in her face. Whatever words were going to fly out of her mouth quickly got stuck in her throat. Her eyes got larger and she stood stone still.

“Get her,” Lil Nut told Butter. Butter grabbed the woman, wrapped his arm around her neck, and placed the gun to her temple, walking her back into the apartment.

Lil Nut looked down the hall to make sure no one was watching. He stepped into the apartment and closed the door behind him, locking it.

“Theresa!” Freddie called out from the back room.

Lil Nut’s demonic eyes burned a hole right through Theresa. From the look he was giving her, she knew not to say a word.

“Who else is here?” Lil Nut whispered to her. She shook her head from side to side, because she really couldn’t talk.

As Lil Nut crept along the living room toward the back room he heard footsteps approaching. Butter quickly moved the woman over to the side so she wouldn’t be seen by whoever was coming their way. Lil Nut stood back on the side of the doorway, waiting as well.

“Theresa! Did you say Pete was here?” Freddie yelled as he walked through the doorway.

All Freddie felt was a sharp pain hit him across the bridge of his nose, blinding him. He saw nothing but a bright light before his focus came back. Blood poured from his nose. Another blow to the forehead sent him sailing back through the doorway. He hit the floor with a loud thud.

Lil Nut stood over him. Freddie had passed out. Lil Nut kicked him hard on the side of his head. The female yelped as she witnessed this act of torture.

“I dare you to make another sound,” Butter warned her as he tightened his grip around her neck.

Freddie came to and looked up at Lil Nut. “Where’s my fucking money?” Lil Nut growled at him.

“Yo, man, I ain’t got it right now! But I swear I’ma get it to you tomorrow!” Freddie panicked.

“Bullshit! You been ducking me for weeks!” Butter cut in.

“No, I told you that I would have it to you by the end of this week!” Freddie tried to save face.

Lil Nut placed his foot on Freddie’s neck to hold his head steady. “How much you got on you now?” Lil Nut asked through gritted teeth.

“I ain’t got nothing, I swear!”

Lil Nut pumped two bullets into Freddie’s face with no remorse. He then turned to Butter. “Do the bitch and let’s be out,” he said, walking past them.

Butter was in a state of shock. This was the first time he ever heard Lil Nut say anything negative about a woman. In fact, Nut had never used the word bitch in his presence.

By now the woman was in tears and began to whimper loudly. Butter held her head down on the couch, placed a pillow over her head, and fired three bullets into her through the pillow.

They all drove in silence once Nut and Butter returned to the car. No one uttered a word. Butter dropped off the two runners first.

“All I know is this shit’s gotta stop. No more credit for no one,” Lil Nut said.

“Nut, we got some loyal customers who do pay their debts,” Butter said, trying to reason with him.

“Fuck that! Now we just lost a gee from that punk-ass nigga that we ain’t never gonna get!”

“Yo, man, we stack bread every week. A thou ain’t shit for us,” Butter said.

“Nigga, bread is bread, no matter how you slice it. I ain’t in the business to be giving that shit away!” Lil Nut was furious. “Yo, let me explain something to you. I’m in the drug game to stack paper and then get out. All these motherfuckers owing us bread it’s gotz to stop. I’m not gonna be hustling backwards. Not for you or anyone! My pops taught me better than that. Milton probably spinning in his grave over this foolishness that’s going on. I gotta be rockin’ niggas’ to sleep over kibbles and bits. I didn’t get in the game for this, Butter. I’m not going to be doing this shit for all my life. From here on out, it don’t matter who you are, male or female, if you cross me over my paper, I’m sending you to the other side. No questions asked.”

“Is that why you had me do the girl?”

“Charge that shit to the game.”

“What about all these years you saying that your parents taught you not to disrespect women? I always admired you for that.”

“Butter, that’s old school. It’s 1989. Like I said, male or female, it don’t matter to me no more. I’m tired of being nice to motherfuckers. My name gonna start ringing bells and niggas gonna start respecting me one way or another.”

Butter’s beeper sounded off. He checked the number and it was Tamia calling 911.

“Shit, that’s Tamia calling me 911. She probably don’t want shit,” he said.

Lil Nut didn’t see the logic. “Why would she page you 911 if she don’t want nothing?”

“Because she always doing that thinking I’m out with another chick,” he said with a frown on his face because the beeper was going off again.

Lil Nut didn’t reply. He just wanted to get back to Butter’s apartment, pick up the product, distribute it to the runners, and go home. He was still pissed.

They pulled up and parked in front of the projects up the hill. Before Lil Nut and Butter could get out of the car, Tamia came running out to the car, hysterical.

“Why the fuck you ain’t answer my pages?” she screamed.

Tamia was only five feet two and Butter was five eleven. Tamia jumped up and down, swinging at him. Lil Nut simply leaned up against the car and watched. What he was waiting for was Butter to put his hand on Tamia.

“Chill out! What the fuck is wrong with you?” Butter blocked the blows Tamia threw at him.

“These motherfuckers came up in the apartment and robbed you blind! They took everything!” she screamed.

“What?” both Lil Nut and Butter yelled at the same time. They took off running toward the building. Once inside the apartment, they saw that it was ransacked. Lil Nut went straight for the closet in the back room where he stashed all the crack they had cooked and bottled. It was gone, every last bit of it, as well as the money in the shoeboxes.

“Fuck!” Lil Nut yelled.

Butter was searching the apartment as well. He had his own personal stash, and it was gone too. He sat down on the floor with his knees bent. He rested his elbows on his knees and put his head in his hands.

“Y’all motherfuckers left me here, and these bitch-ass niggas came up in here and robbed us!” Tamia continued to shout. Because of her light complexion her face became flushed red.

Butter simply ignored her. He was used to her bitching. However, Lil Nut was furious, and all Tamia’s shouting did was throw more lighter fluid on the fire. Out of nowhere Lil Nut snatched up Tamia and slammed her against the wall.

“Who was it?” he asked in a low whisper. Tamia looked into his expressive eyes that she always thought were pretty, and quickly looked away. His eyes no longer held beauty. Lil Nut palmed her face and made her look him in the eyes.

“Who did it?” he asked again.

“I don’t know, Nut! Get off of me! Butter, you better come get your boy!” she yelled.

But Butter was still sitting on the floor with his head in his hands.

“How these motherfuckers manage to walk up in here and take all my shit, and you not see who they are?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t see what they looked like. I told you I didn’t know who they were.” Tears began to fall, because she realized Lil Nut was really crazy.

“Maybe you do know who they are. Maybe you set us up,” he said, breathing his hot breath in her face.

“That’s bullshit! Why would I do that?” She tried to break free of Lil Nut’s strong grip, but to no avail.

“I don’t know, but I will find out, and if I find out you had anything to do with it, you a dead bitch!” He shoved her to the floor next to Butter.

Tamia bumped into Butter when she fell to the floor. Butter looked up at his friend. He’d done it again. He’d disrespected a woman. But what Butter didn’t realize was that the beast within Nut was starting to rise.

Lil Nut stormed out of the apartment and down the stairs. As he practically jumped down the two flights of steps, he pulled out his two guns. He kicked open the front door of the apartment building and stepped out into the courtyard. Lil Nut put his gun to the head of anybody who looked suspicious. He was losing control.

As Lil Nut terrorized the complex, Butter managed to stand to his feet.

“Butter, how could you let your boy disrespect me like that?” Tamia asked through her tear-filled eyes.

Butter simply walked into the bedroom and closed the door.

***

Lil Nut closed the door to Butter’s Beamer. Butter had let him borrow the car to go see the connect. It had been two days since the robbery, and he and Butter were no closer to finding out who stuck them for their money and product. Tamia was still insisting that she had nothing to do with the robbery, but Lil Nut didn’t believe her, and he made Butter keep an eye on her.

After all that had happened, the business still had to be run, and bills needed to be paid. But Butter had no money left. Lil Nut was a little smarter than that, though. He had a little nest egg stashed away in a wall safe at his apartment, but it wasn’t enough to start the business back up from scratch.

Lil Nut took a deep breath and walked up the front steps of the three-family building. Before he could ring the bell, Hector opened the door for him. Lil Nut stepped inside, knowing the routine. He raised his hands and Hector proceeded to search him. Lil Nut was then escorted into the back room where Luis normally was. Sure enough Luis was sitting in his usual spot on the sofa.

“My friend! How are you?” Luis greeted Lil Nut with a smile.

“What’s up?” Lil Nut asked without a hint of humor showing in his eyes.

“Why so serious?” Luis asked.

Lil Nut didn’t respond. Instead he sat next to Luis. Luis waved Hector and another bodyguard out of the room.

“What brings you here today, my friend? Don’t tell me you finished already?”

“No,” Lil Nut said, not making eye contact with Luis. What Lil Nut was doing was contemplating, thinking things over, which he had done for two days. He was coming to Luis to ask for credit. He wanted to get some cocaine on consignment, and pay him back when they sold all the product. He had never asked Luis, or anyone for that matter, for credit before in his life.

“Luis, listen, we got robbed. Everything that we had, the loot included, is all gone. I wanted to ask you for a favor,” Lil Nut said, finally looking Luis in the eyes.

Luis simply stared at Lil Nut, waiting for him to continue before he spoke. Luis knew there was more, so he waited quietly.

“I was wondering if you could spot me a couple of bricks and I will pay you back,” Lil Nut said.

Luis simply smiled and reached for a cigar. He took his time, wet the cigar, and then lit it. Lil Nut waited patiently for Luis to speak.

“Hmm . . . credit. You want me give you two kilos of my coca?”

“No, not give. Front me the two keys,” Lil Nut corrected him.

“Ahh, front, sí. So you want to get credit and when will you pay me back?” Luis looked at him.

“I don’t know exactly when, but I know it will take me a little over thirty days to get you all your bread,” Lil Nut assured him.

Luis burst into a roaring hearty laugh. Lil Nut just looked at him. He didn’t see the humor in what he just said.

“Listen, my friend, if I give you credit on two kilos, you will pay me in two weeks.” He held up two fat fingers.

Lil Nut’s eyes became wide. “Two weeks? I can’t guarantee that I’ma sell two bricks in two weeks,” he said.

“Oh, but you need me. It’s only business, my friend. It’s up to you.” Luis shrugged his shoulders and reared back on the sofa. He laid his head back and blew smoke from the cigar into the air. His huge stomach sat up like Mount Everest.

Lil Nut sat there thinking about the proposition.

“A’ight, Luis, two weeks.”

“No problem, my friend. Hector!” he called out.

Hector opened the door almost immediately. “Get our friend dos,” Luis said.

When Hector came back with the brown paper bag, Lil Nut stood. Hector handed him the bag.

“Listen, my friend, two weeks and two weeks only. I will come looking for you, and will find you. Do you understand?” Luis was serious.

“Yeah, no doubt,” Lil Nut answered as he walked toward the door that Hector held open for him.

Lil Nut and Butter packaged the product at Lil Nut’s apartment. After Lil Nut put the last Ziploc bag filled with crack vials into the duffel bag for storage, Lil Nut walked into the living room where Butter was watching TV. Lil Nut sat on the couch.

“Yo, let me ask you something,” Lil Nut said.

Butter looked over at him, giving him his undivided attention.

“How much money is out there on credit?”

Butter looked back at the TV for several second as he calculated the numbers in his head. “’Bout twenty-five,” he answered as he looked back at Lil Nut.

“Twenty-five what?” Lil Nut sat up. “I know you ain’t telling me we got niggas out there owing us twenty-five thousand? Please tell me I ain’t hear that!”

“I’m saying, yeah, give or take a few hundred.”

“Get the fuck outta here!” Lil Nut jumped to his feet. “You killing me, Butter! That’s bullshit! You fucking with that weed and that shit got you fucked up. You fucked up the work by giving niggas credit. I thought you had shit under control. That’s why I let you do you.” Lil Nut paced. It took all he had in him not to snap Butter’s neck in two. Over the years he had desperately tried to control his temper, but under the circumstances, he knew he wouldn’t be able to hold on for much longer.

“The shit is ridiculous, Butter!” Lil Nut yelled.

“Yo, man, come on. I’m good to our customers. That’s why they keep coming back. I give them breaks because they’re loyal. We blew up like this because I treat them with respect,” Butter said, defending his actions.

“You must be smoking crack. They crackheads, Butter! Ain’t no loyalty in a crackhead, nigga! You out here respecting a drug addict, and they raping me for my paper! They ain’t committed to nobody but that glass dick!”

“We gon’ get the money back, man,” Butter said sadly. The way Lil Nut was degrading him was starting to make him feel like less of a man.

“Nigga, you shot out! That shit’s a rap! We will never get that loot back. But you gonna wear this one.” Lil Nut pointed to him. Butter looked at him with confused eyes. “Yeah, you,” Lil Nut confirmed when he saw the question in Butter’s eyes. “You gonna get out there with the rest of them little niggas and grind to get this paper up. We got two weeks to pay back the connect, and frankly I ain’t gonna let you fuck up the work. My life is on the line, and I ain’t fucking with them Dominicans like that,” Lil Nut stated with authority.

“So you got the shit on credit?” Butter wanted to know.

“Yeah, I did.” Lil Nut walked over to the window and looked out. “And ain’t you or nobody else gonna stand in the way of me paying it back.”

There were several minutes of awkward silence.

“I wanna know who the motherfuckers that owe,” Lil Nut said as he turned back to Butter. “Do you even know who owes?”

“Yeah, but some of my customers are straight cats. They ain’t no real crackheads.”

“They smoking crack, they crackheads. Let’s roll out, ’cause somebody gonna pay me my cash, or they gonna pay with they life.” Lil Nut walked out of the living room.

Butter knew that Lil Nut was serious. He also knew that one of his customers was law enforcement. He had made a deal with the officer. If Butter gave him crack when he wanted it, the officer would make sure that no heat was brought down on the operation.

What am I gonna do? Butter wondered. What he definitely wasn’t gonna do was tell Lil Nut about that particular customer. But what he knew he had to do was get on point with the figures, because Lil Nut was about his business, and he wouldn’t be caught slipping.

***

Two men sat at a card table in a bedroom. One was speed balling, shooting up a mixture of cocaine and heroin. As he concentrated on carefully pushing the drug into his vein, the other man held a butane torch to the end of a crack pipe. The smoke from the melted crack swirled around in the bowl like a tornado.

Suddenly the bedroom door busted open and hit the wall behind it with a bang, startling both males. They jumped to their feet. Lil Nut stood in front of them holding two semi-automatic weapons.

“What the fuck are you doing?” the man with the needle still stuck in his arm asked.

“Coming to collect on a debt,” Lil Nut said nonchalantly.

Neither of the two men said a word. They both looked at each other. They knew they owed money, and Lil Nut was not the only one they owed to.

“Well I ain’t got it. It’s on you, homeboy. You just gotta do what you gotta do,” the vein shooter said with cockiness.

Lil Nut shot the man in the groin. The man grabbed his crotch and began to yell in pain. Lil Nut shot him again, but in the neck this time, silencing him. The crack smoker released his bladder as he stood there, watching his friend die. He breathed heavily, but never said a word. His eyes were fixed on the gun that Lil Nut held.

Lil Nut simply riddled the crackhead with bullets before turning and leaving with Butter on his heels.

For three days Butter and Nut rode around strong-arming the people who owed them for their money. Several were roughed up, and in total three were left dead.

“Nut, man, we gotta ditch the car. By now I know somebody knows we been busting off and put a call in to 5-0,” Butter said.

Lil Nut sat stone faced, looking straight ahead.

“Nut? You hear me?”

“Ditch the car then, and we get another one,” he said matter-of-factly.

Butter sighed, because he was the one who would have to steal the car. He would much rather get one of the young boys to do it. But he knew Lil Nut wasn’t gonna go for that.

“Something ain’t adding up,” Lil Nut said.

“What?”

“The cats that we went to see for the loot, well the bread ain’t adding up right. We already collected forty-one hundred, and with the jokers that are dead and the one other cat we got to see, that debt equals nine hundred, so that would mean that one cat owes twenty grand. Please don’t tell me one cat owes twenty grand by himself,” Lil Nut said, finally looking back over at Butter. “I know you ain’t that stupid to let one motherfucker owe us twenty gees!”

Butter began to get uneasy. He adjusted himself in the seat and kept looking straight ahead. He frowned and pretended to be counting. But Butter knew he had to come up with something fast.

Before he could respond, his beeper began to vibrate. He snatched it up and looked at the number. “It’s Tamia. She paging me 911. Maybe she knows something. I better call her back,” Butter said quickly. As quickly as he possible he pulled the car over to a payphone.

He fed the phone box with coins and dialed the number from the beeper.

The caller answered on the first ring. “What do you think you’re doing?” the caller asked.

“It’s not me. I told you this shit was gonna come back and bite me in the ass,” Butter said, watching Lil Nut watch him.

“Well you need to take care of that problem, and fast,” the caller said.

“Officer Ryan, I can’t do this anymore. You gonna have to give me something. He ain’t slow. He already knows something don’t smell right. This nigga gonna kill me if he find out.” Butter tried not to show on his face that the conversation was of some concern since Lil Nut was watching him like a hawk.

The officer told Butter where to meet him, and that he would take care of Lil Nut. Butter didn’t want to do that to his friend, but with the warpath Lil Nut was on, Butter knew it was just a matter of time before he became a victim of Lil Nut’s killing spree.

“What she say?” Lil Nut asked when Butter got back into the car.

“Man, she called me because she thinks she pregnant.”

“Congratulations,” Lil Nut said with no enthusiasm.

They ditched the second car Butter had stolen after they succeeded in collecting the money that the last customer owed them. Now it was time for Butter to fess up and tell Lil Nut who owed twenty thousand dollars, but he didn’t know how. All he knew was that he had to say something. He contemplated leading Lil Nut to the police officer so that he could kill Lil Nut, but they had been friends for a long time, and he just couldn’t do it. So he figured if he told Lil Nut about the officer, they could get rid of the cop together.

As they walked Butter looked over at Lil Nut. He could see that stress was all over Nut’s face. Butter could tell that his friend was under a lot of pressure, and he knew it was from the debt he now owed the connect. Nut’s stress was all his fault, and he knew he had to fix this situation on his own, so he decided to meet the cop by himself and kill him.

“Nut, man, I’ma meet you back at your crib. I’m gonna run by the spot and check on Tamia right quick,” he lied.

“We need to get this paper, and we need to collect from the young boys too,” Lil Nut told him.

“I know, man, I gotchu. Word up. Just give me a minute to check on her so she can stop bitching, and I’ll get up with you,” Butter assured him.

Lil Nut looked into Butter’s eyes to see if he was sincere. “A’ight, man, hurry up.” Lil Nut headed toward Stone Avenue while Butter went in the opposite direction.

Nightfall was near and it was dusk by the time Butter reached the alley where the cop told him to bring Lil Nut. He made his way down the alley. Butter walked past the back door of a restaurant and traveled deeper into the alley. He was beginning to think the cop wasn’t gonna show when he heard a noise. He whipped around to see the black cop dressed in all black.

“Yo, man, why you playin’?” Butter asked, startled.

“Where’s your boy at?” Officer Ryan asked.

“He . . . he . . . comin’ through,” Butter stuttered.

The officer twisted his lips in disbelief. “What kinda fool you take me for, boy?”

“Word up, he coming.”

The officer removed his service revolver and pointed it at Butter. “I don’t like dishonest motherfuckers,” the officer said.

Butter looked at him like he was crazy. In his mind the officer was nothing but pure evil.

“Man, why can’t you just give me some of the loot and we can keep the deal going as is? I mean, he don’t know.” Butter tried to reason. “I mean, I’m sayin’, do you even have some of it that I can take back to him?”

“Oh, I have it. In fact, haven’t you wondered why I haven’t contacted you to get more?”

Butter thought for a minute. He realized now that the cop hadn’t called him to get more drugs for a while, and he used to get crack from Butter every day.

“Yeah, I do now. What, you went to rehab and quit?” Butter laughed nervously.

“Funny, but no. I robbed you while your girl was home alone.”

“Oh shit! You got us for all our shit. That’s fucked up!” Butter was getting pissed.

“Oh, word? So it was you who took my shit?” Lil Nut asked from behind the cop.

The cop turned around and fired a shot that missed. Butter dove to the ground. Lil Nut shot the cop in the hand that held his gun. The officer dropped the gun and grabbed his injured hand. Lil Nut shot him in both legs, one bullet causing him to drop to his knees.

Butter was shitting bricks. He wasn’t sure how much of the conversation Lil Nut had heard, because he never saw him enter the alley.

Lil Nut walked up on the cop as he lay on the ground, breathing heavily. “Your credit is dead,” a demonic Lil Nut said before he unloaded the remainder of the bullets into the officer.

He and Butter ran to the end of the alley and peeked out before making a mad dash up the street.

On the walk home Butter discovered that Lil Nut didn’t hear the entire conversation. What he heard was the cop tell Butter he broke into the apartment. Butter was relieved and swore that he would take this secret to his grave.

“So how did you know where I was?” Butter asked after they were back at Lil Nut’s apartment.

“Because I know how much you love Tamia, and if she really told you she was carrying your seed, you would have been amped. But what really clued me in was when you said you was gonna stop by your crib. I watched you walk away, and you weren’t headed in the right direction. At first I wasn’t gonna follow you, but then I said fuck it. Then I lost you and was walking around for a minute until I heard the voices echoing out of the alley. That’s when I snuck up in there and heard the convo.”

Butter told Lil Nut that the cop was bribing him for money, and he had to pay the cop once a week, so that was why his debt was so high. Lil Nut seemed to accept that answer, and Butter was relieved that he had escaped with his life.

***

Two weeks later Lil Nut had managed to get the money up to pay back Luis.

“Mmm . . . you surprise me, Little Nut,” Luis said.

“Why?”

“Because me really not think you could do it. I had to test you, my friend. Now we do real business, and anytime you need credit, there will be no time limit for you.” Luis smiled at Lil Nut and patted him on the back.

“Naw, not me. That credit shit is dead in my book.”