The Corner II (35 page)

Boom, boom, boom, boom!
Noonie fired off four shot that hit the tree next to DC who was shaking like Don Knotts. When he noticed he wasn’t hit he slowly opened his eyes and saw Noonie walking toward him with the smoking gun pointed at him. Noonie lowered the weapon and reached into his pocket and took out a bankroll.

“Here, take this.”  He handed DC a knot of five thousand dollars. “Get your ass out of town. Move with your peeps down in Memphis and don’t ever come back—ever.”  Noonie wiped the single tear from his cheek. “I mean it. Get to the bus station and get the fuck out of town and don’t come back and don’t even call anyone. Remember, you’re dead. If Slim finds out that you’re still living, he’ll kill me. That is after I find you and take your life slowly! Now get out of here.”

DC took off running and didn’t know where he was going but knew he was heading away from his friend. He was cold, tired and his head hurt but he kept running toward the sound of vehicles. Soon he was able to see streetlights. When he broke out of the woods he contemplated his next move. He was about to start running toward the gas station that was down the road. But then he saw nothing but black and began to stumble. He then passed out right there in the cold snow on the side of the road from the loss of blood.

Love And Happiness

A
man was sitting in the recliner in a Santa Claus suit drinking some top shelf vodka and sipping on a corona. He’d even taken the time out to put a slice of lemon in the neck of the Mexican beer. He’d seen it done that way on a movie he’d watched a few years ago while sitting in one of Jackson State Prison’s dayroom’s. He thumbed the remote trying to figure out how to use the damn thing. He’d never had satellite television nor had he known anyone who had it.
I got a lot of shit I gotta figure out. Technology is a muthafucka.
He set the remote down and walked away from the television that hung on the wall. It was as thin as the deck of UNO cards he used to play with while in prison. There were no wires hanging from the flat panel and the picture looked as if the people were in the room with him. He adjusted the Santa outfit and pulled the white itchy beard down so he could eat some more of the turkey that had been cooked earlier in the day and the shit tasted real good to him. He scooped up some of the dressing and ate a mouthful before washing it down with the imported beer.
Niggas is living it up! Oh, I definitely have to get my serve on!
He thought while gazing at the pimped out entertainment room. He admired the plush white carpet that he’d tracked snow and mud all over and the expensive pool table he dropped cranberry sauce on.

 “Oh well,” he shrugged his shoulders and muttered.

He thumbed through the CDs and almost burst a nut when he saw Al Green’s greatest hits. He slipped the disc into the player and pressed play. He forwarded to Love and Happiness and immediately paused the song. He turned the TV off, sat in the recliner and waited as he ate a piece of pumpkin pie.

Winchester had done well for himself in the game and now at the age of thirty-nine, he was paid. He and his soon to be wife was pulling into the driveway of his three hundred thousand dollar suburban home. He had to pause for a moment while the four-car garage door rose. He then pulled the ninety thousand dollar Benz inside. He went to deactivate the alarm system but nothing happened.

“Did you forget to activate the alarm?” he asked his woman who was white as the fallen snow.

“No, baby,” she answered.

Before they could do or say anything else Santa rose from behind the Navigator that they had parked the Benz next to. He pointed his gun at the couple and smiled even though they couldn’t see it through the bushy white beard that was too big.

Winchester stared at the cannon and told Santa, “I got money. You can have what you want, just don’t hurt us.”

Winchester still looked the same besides a little bit of grey and a bigger belly.

Baby G was going to enjoy this shit. He had waited years to meet with the man that took Smiley’s and Tavarious’ life and years from his and Anthony’s. He walked toward the couple and he could tell the woman was scared. Baby G had heard that Winchester had gotten out of the game. Had retired early a rich man and had gotten what
he
considered to be a trophy. Once Baby G was close, he put the gun to the woman’s head and told Winchester to take his pistol out slowly. He did, and then Baby G put the gun to his head and did a quick search for more weapons. Winchester thought about trying to fight but figured he’d have a better chance with offering money seeing as how Baby G was tough back when he was eighteen, and now eleven years later he was a strong and vicious product of Jackson State Prison. He knew while he’d been eating good, smoking, drinking and fucking, Baby G had been lifting, running and burning up with revenge.

“What’s with the Santa Claus suit? I know it’s you Baby G.”

G finished frisking Winchester then looked at him and his woman. He nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders saying, “It’s Christmas, nigga!”  He pointed the pistol from the woman to Winchester with every word. “Ho, ho, ho, and muthafucking ho!”  With the last ho he knocked the woman out by hitting her in the head with the pistol. He then pointed it at Winchester, who’d twitched a bit with the thought of playing Captain save-a-ho, and told him to walk. He led the man to the entertainment room and Winchester was pissed at the mess Baby G had made, but it was nothing he could do about it. G made Winchester strip naked and as the fat man did, he begged. G snapped a picture with the phone then dialed the number on the cell and put it on speaker.

“What’s up, Winchester? This is Ant.” Anthony said as he looked at the picture text of the scared naked man.

“Ant, man, I’ll give y’all all the money I got—”

“I have money. I want your life. Want you to suffer like Smiley did. I still have dreams of my dog dying in my arms and over what? Some kilos? I would have given you the shit for Smiley’s life. Then you want to get part of me and G’s life taken away. Nah, nigga, you gots to pay. G, do your thang.”

G pressed the remote and Al Green began singing the song Love and Happiness.

Anthony laughed, “Aw, you in trouble now. Winchester, that’s what you call theme music.

The phone hung up and Baby G shot Winchester in both kneecaps so he couldn’t fight back. He then took out a hunting knife and cut his dick off and let Winchester lay and bleed while he gathered the sack full of gifts he’d taken from under the tree  He grabbed the keys that were hanging on the wall, and put the sack in the Navigator. He then let off two shots that kept the woman from being a witness. He then went back to the room where Winchester was about to pass out from loss of blood. G stuck Winchester’s own dick in his mouth then shot him several times. After putting the latex gloves he was wearing on the pool table and setting them on fire he got into the Navi and drove off.

Twenty minutes later G arrived to where he left the Salvation Army man tied up. He untied the man and told him he was sorry for stealing his suit. He told him to leave the blindfold on until he was gone and all that was before him he could have. Baby G didn’t know what gifts were wrapped, but he knew they were expensive knowing the type of money Winchester had. He also left the Salvation Army man twenty thousand of the over one hundred he’d found in Winchester’s home. He got into his car leaving the Navigator. He called Anthony.

“Yo, it’s done.”

“My nigga. Now get on that bus and get your ass here. A war has started, and I need a nigga like you to have my back.”

The Salvation Army man was cold and tired. He’d been tied up for seven hours in an empty house. The heat was still on but being tied to a chair blindfolded wasn’t nice. He couldn’t wait to get to a phone to call the police. He waited and counting to five hundred like the man who’d tied him up said. When he took the blindfold off there were gifts and a bankroll like he’d never seen on the ground in front of him. It had a note attached to it and it read, ‘Merry Christmas from Brotha Claus.’

Chapters from the suspense/thriller

VANESSA, VANESSA

The sun was just beginning
to rise on another summer morning. The chirping of birds and the rustling of other small creatures in the dense wooded area that surrounded the backyard of the huge contemporary home meant the start of a new day. Vanessa rose from the bed, and it felt as if Thomas was still on top of her. She had gone through a night of bad sex and couldn’t wait to wash the remnants of the middle-age, overweight man off her smooth brown skin. All traces of him had to be gone. She couldn’t leave his home with his scent, let alone his bodily fluids on her or hers on him. She placed her hand at the crook of her neck and began to massage it.
No need for tension right now, there’s still work to be done,
she thought. Vanessa reached over to the cherry wood nightstand and grabbed the pack of cigarettes that Thomas had set there when they entered his bedroom in the midnight hour. She knocked the soft pack against the back of her hand causing a couple of the cancer sticks to slide out a bit. A crease formed at the corner of her mouth. She liked that. It was just how the women in the movies did it, and she had plans to be a star just like them—only on a discreet, yet realistic scale.

As she lit the cigarette, the balding man who was worth a couple of million stirred slightly. She sat frozen as he mumbled words she didn’t understand. He clutched a handful of the thousand-count thread sheet, pulled at it, then let go as he smiled and fell deeper into his slumber. She blew out the smoke she had inhaled and watched as the poisonous cloud permeated the air. She held the cigarette in front of her face and then gazed at it.
Everybody has to die someday
she thought as she watched the tobacco burn slowly.

She ran her hand over her perfect mid-size breasts. She thought about how the man lying next to her told her how beautiful her brown nipples were, and how she wanted to tell him his pink ones did nothing for her. Hell, the way she was riding him and as wet as her love was, he wouldn’t have believed her. But that was the way she was—able to make a man feel as if he had the best sex in the world.

She ran her hand down her flat stomach and thought about how she had to hit the gym today since she’d missed yesterday. A minimum of four miles was her goal whenever she stepped into Bally’s fitness center.

She took another drag as she stared out the French doors that led to a deck. The setting of the backyard was wooded, and she thought about how he wanted to fuck in the rain on his deck earlier this morning under the stars. She’d declined.

She eased off the bed making sure not to wake the sleeping giant, but this mattress wasn’t like the cheap one she’d slept on for years upstate. This was an expensive one that you could set a glass of water on one side, and it wouldn’t fall over when your partner moved. She blew rings of smoke as she stood. Her feet sank into the comfort of the thick Persian rug and then felt the coolness of the hardwood floor as she walked her naked self over to the doors and scanned the yard. A new day was just beginning. The sun hadn’t quite made its way above the trees. Standing with one arm across her toned waist and the elbow of the other resting on it, again she puffed the cigarette that was fixed between her fingers. She looked around the expensively decorated bedroom and thought about how much money rich people blew. She noticed the large vase that was in the corner and figured it to cost as much as the average hard working person’s rent. She flicked strands of her auburn tinted hair to the side. Hair she’d colored yesterday. Hair she’d have to dye back to its original black hue in a couple of hours. Or maybe she’d dye it to a deep blond like some of the sisters are doing nowadays. Nah, she’d do that faddish hairdo with the next man on her list.

Her cigarette was almost to the butt. She looked down at her wraparound dress she’d neatly placed on the chair hours ago, and then gazed at her purse. A crease formed in the corner of her lips as she thought about the item she’d taken out of the nightstand drawer, an item she knew the sleeping giant kept there. Then there was a knocking sound. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.

She listened and followed the sound with her eyes, noticing the redheaded woodpecker knocking its beak at a fast pace against a large oak tree. She watched as she put out what was left of the cigarette on the glass of the French door.
Boy, would his overweight snobbish ass be pissed,
she thought. She reached into her purse as the woodpecker continued to do his thing.

Pop, pop, pop, pop,
POP, POP, POP
. The woodpecker paused as if he thought he’d heard a sound. The bird that was famously named ‘Woody’ dismissed what he’d heard and continued to go to work on the tree. Vanessa smiled as the smoke rose from the barrel of the gun. She held the weapon down to her side as she relished the perfect shots—one to the head and two to the groin.
Perfect. This is getting off to a good start
.