Chapter 13

 

Rico

Rico sat in the passenger seat of the white B.M.W, counting a large stack of money, while his right-hand man Benny sat behind the wheel, cruising aimlessly through the streets of Harlem. As Rico sat counting his money, he heard his cell phone ring. He glanced down at the caller ID and saw Jack’s name flashing across the screen. Rico quickly hit the ignore button and went back to counting his money. He knew that Jack was calling him about the twenty bricks that he had given him on consignment, but Rico didn’t answer because he never intended on paying Jack for the work in the first place.

“I don’t know why you ain’t let me kill that clown!” Kaine said from the backseat. Kaine, Rico, and Benny all grew up together and they had all been getting money for years. People around their old neighborhood called the trio, “Three the Hard Way” because every time you saw those three at the same time, trouble was sure to follow.

“That clown not even worth a bullet,” Rico waved him off. “Biggest bozo I ever seen.”

“Yeah getting that work from him was like taking candy from a baby,” Benny agreed. The trio weren’t drug dealers; their main hustle was robbery. They all lived for the thrill of taking from the fortunate. Rico had gathered a team of hustlers to work for the trio. Each time they robbed a drug dealer, they would usually get money and product back. The product would then be distributed to all the hustlers that Rico had lined up ready to move the work. Business had been so good that now the trio was making more money off the drugs they took from the drug dealers than the cash and jewelry.

“Can’t believe that clown is associated with the Mason’s,” Kaine said from the backseat.

“He ain’t no real Mason,” Rico shot back. “I did time with Jimmy Mason before and he wasn’t no sucker. The rest of the Mason family is pretty solid. That Jack Mason cat is probably a fraud trying to use the name for protection,” he shrugged.

“From what I been hearing, the Mason family been going through some tough times right now,” Kaine told Rico. “They weak right now. Half of their muscle is locked up and the other half got killed by a bunch of wild-ass Columbians.”

“So what you trying to say?” Rico asked with a raised brow. He didn’t have a problem with the Mason family, but if they were in his way or interfering with his money, than they had to go – no questions asked.

“What I’m trying to say, is the streets are all ours now,” Kaine said with a smile. “We sat back and waited long enough. It’s our turn now.”

“Fuck, it lets do it,” Rico said. “Starting tomorrow, we’ll open up shop on all the vacant blocks and start letting motherfuckers know we out here.”

“We definitely going to have put fire to a few of these clowns out here to let them know we ain’t fucking around out here,” Kaine said with a grin on his face. Kaine was as violent as they came and lived to put in work. The sad part about it all was that he cared more about street credibility than he cared about the money. To Kaine, it was all about having your name buzzing.

“What we need to do now is find the block that makes the most money and take that shit over!” Rico said. “Matter of fact, make a left right here.” He said then three blocks later, he told Benny to make another left. 

Benny pulled over in the middle of the block and double-parked. “What we looking at?”

“I heard this block here be doing crazy numbers,” Rico said. “We’ll stake out this block for a week learn who’s who and anything else we need to know then it’s take over time. 

Kaine looked out the dark tinted window at the Dominican men who pretended not to be doing anything, when in all reality they were slanging drugs out of the building and the corner bodega as if it was free lunch. “Yeah this should be fun.”