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AFTER RIPPING APART the parking lot the other night, Ghost knew the beef was back on. Reese had played him by sending him the bottle of champagne, and then tried to rock him outside the club. For that, he had to pay.
The streets were buzzing with gossip about the war. Police had said was a drug war on the news. Ghost and his team were dipping and dabbing in the streets. It wasn’t that they were scared. Instead, they were cautious because the men they were at war with were just as ruthless as them. They showed heart by busting their guns, so now they all knew it was on sight, and the first ones caught slipping could pay with their lives.
Ghost had an advantage, though; he had more money than Reese and his squad put together. This gave him the edge on them. He could easily supply his weed spot from a distance while they probably had to come around to chase a dollar.
Reem and Schemes could do the same. They laid in the cut, but continued to flood the block with work. Frog and Snook, on the other hand, were more open for an attack because of their close dealings with the block. Laying low wasn’t an option for them. They felt like the rest of them were being pussies and copping out with the excuse of playing things safe. What Frog and Snook failed to understand was that, in war, strategy was critical.
From the way things were unfolding, it appeared Reese and his boys were playing things a little safe as well. None of them had been spotted for the last few days. It was more likely they would show face first because they had to come to the hood to eat. Dozens of people were on standby and were told to notify Ghost and them if any of them were spotted. For now, the guns were loaded, and they could do nothing but wait, so they did.
Schemes had to purchase some new wheels because the Marauder had gotten tore out the frame at the club shootout. Bullet holes had penetrated the car all over. Schemes thought about how, if the car wasn’t there for a shield, he would have gotten downed.
“How much for the Range Rover over there?” Schemes asked the salesman at the B&D Motors on Broad Street.
“Forty-nine thousand dollars,” the salesman responded wryly, like the price tag was too much for Schemes to handle.
“I’ll take that and the black Buick Century over there.”
“Sir, we’ll have to do an extensive credit check for approval for both cars. We’ll need proof of income and all. Are you prepared to do that today?” the salesman asked with a hint of doubt in his tone.
Schemes was dressed in a navy blue Dickies set and black Timberland hiking boots. Normally, he wouldn’t wear either, but the war was on, so he strayed away from the pretty boy fashion. The dirt parking lot had his boots covered with dust, so he looked like a crumb from the bottom of the earth. Because of Schemes’s appearance, the salesman had made the wrong idea about his status and was being quite rude.
Schemes knew about the crooked, under-the-table dealings the auto dealer was used to doing, so he came fully prepared to complete such a transaction. The contents in the bag were more than enough to persuade the dealer to modify the paperwork into saying a large lump sum wasn’t put down to avoid attention from the feds.
“Let’s go inside and talk,” Schemes told him.
Inside, Schemes unzipped the bag and put a few stacks of money on the man’s desk. For a second, his eyes were glued to the money.
“Put that away,” he said with a quick, dismissive wave of his hand. He looked around sneakily at the other employees and customers to make sure no one had peeped that. Then, he looked back at Schemes and said, “Let’s get down to business.”
He rubbed his hands together as a smile spread across his face. All he could think about was his commission.
Schemes negotiated the purchase of both vehicles for forty thousand in straight cash. He broke the happy salesman off with a nice tip for his dirty work. They agreed that he could come back to get the Range, but, for now, Schemes hopped in the bombed-out squatter he’d brought solely for going to war in.
“Somebody got to die!” Biggie Smalls played from the speaker as soon as he popped the disc in and pulled off.
Later that night, Reem, Schemes, and Ghost were all home, chilling, when Reem got a call from some chick named Toya from down the way. She told Reem that C-Note was out and about like nothing was going down. Even worse, he was only a block away from where they got money at. C-Note was in TJ’s Lounge with some woman nobody supposedly knew, according to Toya.
Reem, Ghost, and Schemes quickly met up to put together a plan to put C-Note down. Frog and Snook weren’t answering their phones. That was kind of strange, but it wasn’t the time for worrying about why they kept getting their answering machines. It was time to put some work in.
Dressed in dark clothing, they all rolled together in Schemes’s blacked-out Buick Century. With dark tinted windows and no hubcaps, the car looked like a death-mobile. The music was cut off, leaving utter silence in the car.
Clanking sounds echoed as they strapped up with heavy artillery. The same TEC .22 was loaded with bullets to the tip. Reem sat in the back with a Mossberg 500 shotgun loaded with eight large rounds. Schemes kept it simple with a Glock .17 handgun, but he was well-prepared with an extended thirty-three shot ladder.
They were heated, the way they were laying low, playing things safe. This nigga C-Note had the audacity to be in the bar, flaunting with some chick on his arm. He was just as wild as Frog and Snook were, so he didn’t give a fuck about laying low.
They pulled their hoodies over their heads as they were bending the corner at Boyer and Locust. They were about to turn up Boyer Street toward Woodlawn when Reem’s phone started ringing. The screen displayed Toya’s name.
“This is Toya again,” he told them.
“Man, we’re here now. Call her back after this,” Schemes said, turning the corner.
They were startled when they saw what awaited around the corner. Their hearts dropped to their asses.
Red and blue lights glimmered off TJ’s Lounge and the brownstones. A crowd of nosy observers hovered behind yellow and black caution tape and shouting police. Black and yellow cones were scattered throughout the scene, marking shell casings. Two white sheets were pulled over two lumps of dead weight. The lifeless bodies sent a chill up Ghost’s spine.
The three of them looked at one another with confusion, and Ghost knew they were feeling and thinking the same thing he was. Frog and Snook weren’t answering their phones.
Was it them two under the white sheets?
C-Note was in the bar, feeling himself. The .40 Caliber tucked under his shirt emboldened him even more. He was accompanied by a bad Rican chick, so he was being flashy tonight. He brought bottles for several people he knew in the bar just to show off.
C-Note had gotten his nickname because his craftiness at duplicating money. Counterfeit money was his hustle. He was known for circulating his fake money, but, in the hood, he never burnt nobody with the suspect bills. He’d pop them off elsewhere, and show off in the hood with money. He was a flashy guy. Tattoos covered his arms, back, and neck, emphasizing his crazy demeanor.
C-Note knew the beef was on, but he felt like no one was going to run him out of his hood. Shit, the way things were looking, Ghost and them were too scared to show their faces. With any movement they did, the .40 Cal would blow. That was his word.
“What’s up, baby? You ready to skate?” he asked the ‘Rican mami.
“Whatever you want to do, papi,” she slurred.
C-Note gave his goodbyes to everyone as he worked his way to the exit. His dime piece followed closely behind, switching her ass and turning her head. He had never paid Toya, who was in the back of the bar on the phone, any attention.
The liquor hit them as soon as they came to their feet, evidenced by the broken swagger in their walks. The late night breeze smacked C-Note right in the face as soon as he got outside.
He hit the alarm on his keychain, unlocking the doors to his pearl white Escalade. Two figures appeared in his peripheral vision. He looked to see Frog and Snook, crossing the street, heading toward the bar. He flinched like he was about to grab the burner off his waist and let it rip on them, but he had to think twice because mami was with him. He couldn’t body two people while she was right there.
Frog caught the sudden move out the side of his eye and turned to see C-Note crossing the street. His heart dropped from the surprise sighting one of the men who had tried to kill him days earlier.
Frog pulled his gun out, and Snook followed once he saw C-Note. C-Note tried to shove the chick out the way and pull his forty out, but the hesitation was all it took for him to lose his life.
Gunshots rang out, and bullets traveled at the speed of light. C-Note’s frame was riddled with shots instantly. His body jerked and crashed to the ground. Mami’s screams were louder than the gunshots. Her eyes widened like she’d just taken a hit of a glass dick.
She stared into the gunmen’s eyes, looking for some compassion, but the bearded men raised their guns to her after downing the lifeless drunk.
“Please don’t kill me!” she begged, shaking her head back and forth. “I have kids!” she pleaded.
But her cries went on deaf ears. It was too late. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. They had to let her have it because she’d seen their faces.
They looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. Mami’s body started hemorrhaging from the slugs pumped in her stomach and chest cavity. She coughed up blood and gagged as it spouted out her mouth.
After Frog and Snook stepped over their bodies and put a few more in her sputtering face and C-Note’s dead body, they fled through a dark debris-infested alley.
C-Note went out like a gangster, with a pocketful of money, a pretty woman by his side, and his burner in his hand.
But hesitation had cost him his life. He never even got a shot off.