Chapter Twenty-four

With determination to live like young kingpins, Nolan White and Bone Capone were making things shake in a major way in the small Sandusky town. With cocky attitudes and bigger-than-life personalities to back it up, the revenue was pouring in. Doing what they do, they had caused several drug houses in the vicinity to shut down entirely because they couldn’t keep up. There was no competition. The product Jayce was supplying them with was way more potent than anything around the way that the guys living in Toledo were pushing. It soon became a seemingly well thought out domino effect in the general area. Although the nine-five hardworking neighbors were elated to see some of the dangerous drug houses close their doors, the dealers weren’t as happy.

After seeing several of their comrades fall to the wayside, Carlos and Conrad, who were cousins, and One-Eyed Tre decided they were not going to be forced into an early drug dealer retirement as well. Especially after the high-energy exchange of violent threats made against each other a few weeks back, and Conrad getting his jaw rocked. Vicious-minded intentions, they knew they had to make a serious power move to stay relevant. There was no way they were going to allow no young cats from Detroit to run them back home to Toledo. That part of the game was out of the question.

Daily, the desperate trio schemed and plotted their survival in the game. After a few evenings of watching their prey like a hawk, Conrad, who was a known bend-over-bottom sissy behind bars, came up with what he believed to be the perfect plan. One of the girls Nolan was spending time with lived down the block from one of the migrated Toledo guys’ few remaining spots. Their first plan was to cut off into the chick to see if she’d be willing to set her boyfriend up. But in reality, Conrad knew she wouldn’t be down for that course of action. That uppity female not only wasn’t cut like that, but also she always gave Conrad the side eye. He’d tried to kick it with her repeatedly, and constantly, she shot him down, expressing that she knew he was on the down-low. And to further make his chances zero to none, it was also rumored that Conrad was HIV-positive. He constantly disputed those facts, just as he did when Nolan cut off into him back at the liquor store confrontation. But the truth always came out in the wash whenever a real true gangsta was anywhere around and could see through Conrad’s fake demeanor.

The next option that little cousin Carlos threw into the ring was to ambush Nolan and just let the bullets fly as they may. His reasoning was to have an old-fashioned shoot-out. “We should just run up on they asses and start busting. I mean, after all, we just can’t let them punk us out again.”

“Again? What you mean again?” Conrad raised his eyebrow at his cousin’s recount of what had jumped off with their first face-to-face with the Detroit boys.

Carlos could tell he’d struck a nerve saying what he’d said. One-Eyed Tre could now feel the sudden tension in the room as well. Not wanting to beef out with his old peoples, Carlos tried to clean up his statement. “Naw, cuz, I was just saying let’s go hard at them bitch-made niggas, guns blazing. They won’t even see the shit coming. Then, bam! We all Gucci. Back to business as usual. We making money, and they ass dead as a motherfucker.”

As much as he would like for it to be that easy, Conrad knew that wasn’t a realistic possibility. He was quick to point out that even if they did that and came out victorious, the spots Nolan and his partner-in-crime Bone Capone held down would still be pumping hard at some point in time. It was common knowledge that Jayce was the real man behind their gangland Detroit invasion movement. And without a blink of an eye, he would just import some more Motown thugs to come grind. Naw, the real boss move was they had to not only take Nolan White and Bone Capone out of the game, but they also had to make those blocks and cribs hot. Carlos had always been slow since he was a small boy. So most of the ideas he continued to come up with only got worse as he kept speaking.

Conrad and Carlos at least tried to come up with a plan that wouldn’t leave them looking like straight pussies in the aftermath. However, One-Eyed Tre had an entirely different mind-set. He had no reservations with being a rat and labeled a snitch. They could opt to call the Erie County Illegal Narcotics Hotline or the state police and let them do the dirty work. The cousins looked at their homeboy with disgust, knowing that’s how One-Eyed Tre had lost his left eye in the first place and was wearing a patch . . . snitching. The only reason the coward was still around in the crew was he was good at cooking up. While the cousins decided to have some bit of honor, One-Eyed Tre was prepared to make a call at any moment in time.

“Yo, let’s just hold tight.” Conrad ordered his cousin and the one-eyed snitch to stand down for the time being. “He’ll be coming back over that stuck-up bitch’s crib one night soon, and when he do, I got something in store for that nigga. He gonna go back to Detroit in a body bag for fucking up our bread. And his boy gonna be on that same one-way ride across state lines.”