Chapter 81

I couldn’t believe my luck. This crooked-ass bitch got me back in prison. These past few hours had been a whirlwind for me. I had gone from living a peaceful life in a quiet neighborhood in VA and traveling across the states to visit friends in prison to sitting in gloomy police precinct interview room, not knowing if I’d ever see my wife and son again.

This had to be fate, I told myself, looking at the four walls of the oatmeal-painted interview room. Considering the fact that I had just gotten away clean for killing six people in the Midwest over the weekend, maybe this was a sign from God, telling me to slow down.

I was sick and tired of all this craziness upending my life. Things hadn’t been the same ever since I took N’s phone call a few weeks ago and killed the final witness scheduled to testify against him at his appeal hearing. I could feel guilty about the past, apprehensive about the future, but only in the present could I act, which is what Gamble’s crooked ass was forcing me to do.

Some years back I would have frozen in panic at the thought of killing a cop, let alone two of them. Now that Gamble seemed to be forcing my hand, that fear would become a tool of survival. I couldn’t hesitate anymore or even second guess myself. I had to kill Gamble and his partner to keep them from messing with me and my life. Gamble’s partner had to die just on the fact that he was associated with Gamble. I was quite sure Gamble gave him the 411 on me.

I mean, even if I killed for Gamble, he would never leave me alone to live happily ever after. Gamble was a bloodsucker – a creep who would use me up and then throw me to the wolves the first chance he got.

I just can’t see myself going out like that, I thought, hearing the soft click of the interview room door opening.

I looked up and saw Gamble and his partner standing in the interview room. Gamble walked over and took a seat in the gunmetal gray chair directly in front of me on the other side of the matching metal table that they handcuffed me to.

“Mr. Glover, I’d like for you to meet my partner, Detective Newsome,” Gamble said with a smirk as the pig nodded at me.

“Mr. Glover or Carmelo, which one do you prefer?”

Putting a bullet through your skull, you hot bitch, I thought with a smile before answering. “Mr. Glover is cool. It shows that you respect me.”

“Yeah, right!” He laughed. “I respect the fact that you’re a fucking flight risk, you murdering sack of shit,” he said and his face changed into a mask of anger. “I respect the fact that you leave me no choice but to detain your ass in a halfway house right up the street, where I can keep my eyes on your sneaky ass until you carry out the little job we agreed on.”

I ain’t agree to shit! You blackmailing me into doing this shit!

 

At the same time in the Trinidad Northeast section of the city, Zetta sat on her mother’s front porch with Domonique, Liz, D.C., Ugg, and D.C.’s little brother Pooh, enjoying the hot humid day. Zetta had been hanging around her mother’s house a lot lately after catching Poobie and April kissing in Markita’s house. She felt that it would be better just to leave Poobie alone altogether instead of playing mind games, like Markita had suggested.

Zetta decided to give Ugg the chance he always claimed he wanted far as being her man. They’d been getting close over the last two weeks, but Zetta didn’t let him hit the pootie tang yet. Even though she tried to brush it to the side, she still had feelings for Poobie and didn’t want Ugg to just be a rebound relationship.

“So what we going do tonight?” Ugg asked Zetta, who just shrugged her shoulder and gave him a sheepish smile that warmed his heart.

“Don’t even trip. I got somewhere we can go that you gon’ love,” he said, giving her a wink.

“Ugg, quit being nasty. Don’t nobody wanna go nowhere with your freak ass,” Liz blurted, making everybody laugh.

“Yeah, you’re probably talking about taking our girl to some cheap-ass hotel. She ain’t no freak like these other bitches round here,” Domonique added.

“You need to stop cock blocking,” D.C. said, making Domonique shut up instantly and give him an evil look.

“All y’all need to quit.” Zetta giggled as her cell phone began ringing. She answered it quickly after seeing Markita’s number. Ever since the day they met and had a talk about Carmelo, they became friends and never went more than two days without calling and checking up on each other.

“Hey girl, what’s up?” Zetta asked with a smile. After listening for a few seconds, Zetta’s face took on a serious look, causing everybody to look at her in a funny way. “Don’t cry, Kita. Look, I got my uncle right here with me. I’m pretty sure he knows somebody that can help him out. Hold on,” Zetta said and gave D.C. a quick rundown about what had happened to Carmelo.

“You talking about the nigga who be selling books?”

“Yeah, boy, now do you know a lawyer who can help him?”

“Yeah, yeah, I was just about to take the nigga Brian McDaniels some money at his office. I can tell him to look out for Slim. Where he locked up at?”          

“Hold on,” Zetta said and then asked Markita where Carmelo was being held in custody. “Okay…okay… Look, just call around and find out where he’s at and my uncle going to send somebody to get him out there. Okay, you do that. Don’t thank me, that’s what friends are for girl. I’ll talk to you in a minute. Bye-bye.”

After Zetta hung up, D.C. gave her a funny look. “That nigga better publish your book. You got me doing all this geekin’-ass shit for his ass.”

“His wife is going to publish my book,” Zetta said, sticking her tongue out at D.C., making everybody laugh.

“You put that part about Southwest in there”

“I don’t know what you talking about.”

“You hear that shit, Ugg? She don’t know what we talking about.”

“Shiid, why you think I’m tryna make you my wife? I need a go-hard chick.”

“Kiss my ass!” Zetta giggled, trying to downplay their little secret in front of Pooh, Liz, and Domonique. After Zetta’s giggling ceased, she stared off into space, zoning out like she had something on her mind.

I should have did that shit slick without them niggas knowing or seeing me, just like I did when I crushed that hot-ass nigga down Goodman League who told on my brother, she thought, remembering how close she had been to the last living snitch who told on her brother right before she shot him with her compact .380. After shooting him twice in the head, Zetta dove on the ground to make it look like she was trying to duck the bullets.

Nobody saw Zetta do the crime that day, but she wasn’t as smooth as when she killed Sean Bullock down in Southwest. As Sean Bullock went to exit the car, Zetta eased her .380 out of her purse and shot him three times in the back of the head, annihilating his physical life. As she pulled Sean Bullock out of her car, Zetta caught D.C. and Ugg looking at her in awe as she drove past them like she didn’t know them.

When Zetta’s brother first went to jail over a few guys snitching on him, Zetta decided to take matters into her own hands. After getting a few details from her brother about where all the men hustled at in the city and what type of cars they drove, Zetta began hunting them down like they were fugitives from the law.

The first rat she caught, was Arthur Rice. Zetta saw him leaving the club after a Go-Go with a plus-sized woman. Zetta followed the rat’s car for a few miles until she saw a perfect spot to get at him. When Zetta busted a U-turn on her motorcycle, she realized she had to make her move quickly before the target put the car in reverse and got out of Dodge. She managed to get up on the driver’s side of the car and shoot the driver several times before speeding off into the night, away from the sounds of the screaming female passenger.

On her second kill, Zetta had caught the rat dead to rights outside the H2O nightclub. When she saw the actual target up close and personal, she hesitated for a second after seeing Kenneth Adams, a guy from K Street Southwest and also one of her brother’s best friends, the same person who used to spoil her to death every time he came over to the house.

As the betrayal for what he’d done to her brother outweighed her rationale, Zetta let her gun bust. When she saw him go down and start crawling toward his car, Zetta ran down on him in a skimpy mini dress and matching high heels and put three more bullets in his head before taking off into the night, thinking she only had one more snitch to kill for her brother.

After she heard D.C. joking today, Zetta regretted killing Sean Bullock in front of him and Ugg. Even though she felt in her heart they wouldn’t ever say anything, Zetta hated the fact that they saw her in action as a killer.

“Fuck you think, Zetta?” D.C. asked, invading her thoughts after seeing the perplexed look on her face.

“Nothing,” she said, adjusting her big Jackie-O shades over her mane. She wanted to keep the small talk to a minimum. Her mind was elsewhere.