Angel's Revenge (2 page)

“What’s the world coming to, eh?” Meritti asked in his Brooklyn Italian accent. “First 9/11, now this?” He scanned the crime
scene in disbelief. “This is the beginning of anarchism.”

Smalls agreed. “So?” he inquired, studying Meritti’s blue eyes.

Meritti sat down and lit a Winston. “I can see the headlines now. ‘
Gangster kills judge and jury and escapes
,’” he bitterly remarked with a flourish, tapping the ashes from his cigarette.

“Do you know what kind of message that would send?” Meritti continued his rant. “Every fuckin’ nut with a gun and half a heart
will think he can do the same thing!”

Smalls nodded. “No courtroom in America will be safe. The next thing you know, people will be shooting DAs and judges in the
street!”

“And rioting in county jails to bust out the kingpins,” Meritti added in a tone of disgust.

Smalls knew where Meritti was going with the conversation. “I take it chief feels the same way?” Smalls asked, already knowing
he did.

Meritti nodded, watching his partner of six years, knowing what the chief was asking of him, and he knew Smalls didn’t like
to lie. To Meritti, Smalls had always been an annoyingly honest detective.

“If I go out there and tell those people that James is dead… if we cover up his escape and it gets out…”

“It won’t get out,” Meritti said cutting him off.

“But if it does?”

“It won’t.”

Smalls saw the logic in the decision.

Even though Dutch had committed a heinous act, if the world thought he was dead, potential copycats would think twice because
Dutch didn’t survive. But to Smalls, a lie was still a lie.

However, if the truth was told, Dutch would become a legend—the gangster’s hero, the outlaw that blasted his way to freedom.
No, Smalls’s heart decided, the truth couldn’t be told—yet. Not until James was firmly in his grasp. For the sake of justice
everywhere, the truth had to be concealed.

Smalls rose slowly, feeling the full weight of his fifty-four years in his arthritic knees.

“Okay, let’s go meet the press,” he said, smiling at Meritti weakly.

Meritti took one last look at the room and wondered aloud, “But HOW did he do it? There are metal detectors on every floor,
even right outside this door, and he smuggled in a fuckin’ arsenal? How?”

Smalls looked at Meritti with steel in his eyes. “I don’t know. But I promise you, I will find out.”

With that, they left the courtroom.

D
elores Murphy clicked the power button to her television and heard the reporter confirm her son’s demise.

“Thank you,” she whispered, grateful that it was finally over.

Delores had silently witnessed the rise of her only child from a petty car thief to a vicious drug lord. Now, she was too
numb to cry. Pain and a sense of relief mingled in her soul, and for the first time, Delores questioned herself.

Where did I go wrong?

She had tried to raise Bernard like any other single black mother in the grip of poverty. She tried to instill in him the
basic moral principles of love, honesty, and a belief in God. She had also tried to teach him the value of his freedom, of
his black manhood, and of his own self-worth in a society that wanted to brainwash the black man into believing that he was
worthless.

Materially, Delores never spoiled Dutch, but she always tried to give him the best, just like any mother would. But Delores
still felt that she had gone wrong somewhere. She felt that the hate and rage she carried against the system in her youth
had somehow seeped into her son.

She wondered if hate so deep could be genetically inherited.

She also wondered if every lesson she had taught Dutch had been filtered through her own bitterness and resentment. And maybe
her very own breast milk had contaminated his soul.

“Nigga, go on out there and take back what them people took from you!”

Delores remembered preaching those words when Dutch came home from prison. He had gone away a man-child and returned a man.
Had her words somehow unlocked the fury trapped inside him and unleashed her son’s demons onto the streets?

As Dutch emptied the book bag on Delores’s worn kitchen table, stacks upon stacks of rubber-banded rolls of money landed with
soft thuds.

“Ma, we movin’,” Dutch announced proudly, wearing his father’s smile like it was his own.

Delores’s eyes widened. She was weary from working two jobs, and her son, not even a year out of prison, had brought home
more money than she’d seen in her entire life.

“Bernard, where did you…”

Dutch’s soft kiss on her quivering cheek cut her off.

“It’s what the world owes us, Ma. And I won’t take no for an answer. Not even from you.”

Her silence became her approval. She knew all about the Month of Murder. She also knew that her son was called Dutch, the
black gangsta the mob feared. But she had never said a word. What would she have said? The truth was that a large part of
her was proud of him, and she wasn’t mad at all.

Now he was gone. He left a wicked memory on the streets and a tragic memory in her mind that joined the memories of his father
to this day. Not a single day went by without her recalling her only love’s luscious kisses and calloused caresses, and the
feeling of his manhood deep inside her followed by the mellow croon of his baritone in her ears.

I love you, Delores.

I love you, Bernard.

If she ever needed his embrace, it was now. She had had other men in her life after Bernard, other friends, other lovers,
but none had managed to touch her heart like Bernard had. She never married, refusing two proposals in her lifetime, because
she believed in her heart that he’d come back to her one day. But he never returned. Now, the last thing she possessed of
his was also gone. Just as she lost him to the Vietnam War so long ago, she had lost his son to a war that unfortunately raged
right outside her front door.

Delores felt all alone. The only thought that consoled her was the one that was now in her imagination—Dutch going out like
his father, guns blazing, fighting for freedom.

She didn’t know how right she was.

The ringing phone brought her back to reality. Delores slowly stood up and picked up the receiver.

“Hello?” her frail voice answered softly.

“Is this the Murphy residence?” a male voice questioned.

“It is.”

“May I speak with Delores Murphy?”

“Who’s calling?” she asked, although she already knew who it was. His tone and style were a dead giveaway.

“This is Detective Meritti. I’m sorry to inform you that your son, Bernard James, has been killed,” Meritti explained softly
but matter-of-factly. “We need you to come and identify the body. I know this is difficult, and I’m sorry that I’m not there
in person to deliver—”

“No,” Delores interrupted. “No, it’s quite all right. I’m already aware of Bernard’s…” She cleared her throat and added, “I
was expecting your call.”

“If it’s all right with you, ma’am, I think it would be best if I sent a car for you.”

“No, I don’t need a car. I can get there. I’ll be there within the hour.”

Meritti sighed with relief. He didn’t want to appear pushy, but the sooner they completed their official charade, the sooner
they could concentrate on finding Dutch.

“That would be great, ma’am. Do you know how to get to the County Coroner’s Office?”

“I can find it, Detective Meritti,” Delores replied, her tone sending the message that the call was over.

“Very good. We’ll be waiting for you.”

Delores hung up.

“Who’s fooling who in here?” Meritti asked.

“I wonder if she’ll buy it?” Smalls wondered aloud.

“Please, God. Don’t let it be true! Burned beyond recognition? Charred remains…”

The detectives took Delores to a clean room where a body lay covered by a white sheet on top of a table. Detective Meritti
introduced himself and recounted to Delores all that had transpired.

“It looks like his accomplices, these, um, Angel’s Charlies, were the actual culprits. It seems they started the fire so that
your son could escape. But he didn’t make it out. And it looks like the coroner has already identified a set of matching dental
records,” he added as he flashed them at her before placing them back into the folder next to the body.

Then he lifted the sheet.

Detective Meritti proceeded to tell her that the pink-black distorted lump before her was her son.

This ain’t my son
, Delores thought as her body began to tremble uncontrollably.

Meritti noticed that she was beginning to lose her equilibrium, and he gently grabbed her to support her in case she fainted.

“Mrs. Murphy? Are you all right? Can I get you anything? Please, sit down.”

Delores shook off his offer and brushed his hand off her shoulder. She stood very still, silently staring at the body. The
nameless lump of flesh they claimed was her son wasn’t even the right height. Close, but a little too tall. His build, or
what was left of it, was too bulky.

Anxious eyes looking for closure could be easily fooled.

Detective Smalls watched her intently, as if he had the eyes of a hawk. He was fully aware of the masquerade he and Meritti
were perpetrating. More important, he was looking for a sign that Delores was staging a masquerade of her own. He felt that
if she identified the body too quickly, too cleanly, perhaps she was already aware of her son’s whereabouts, already knew
that he wasn’t dead. So Smalls watched her facial expressions from the moment the sheet was lifted and observed her eyes as
they flicked over the body. He watched her very carefully to see if she had been prepared or had rehearsed her reaction. Crying
too hard, screaming for the Lord, or shouting for mercy and faking too much drama would be dead giveaways. But to his surprise,
Delores did nothing like that. The pain that glazed her eyes was too deep and too real to be an act. She had passed the test,
but not for the reasons Smalls had assumed. Delores looked from face to face, and her motherly instincts kicked in.

She knew they were up to something. But what?
This ain’t Bernard, but they must want it to be or they want to know where he is. I’m going to pretend right along with them.
And that’s exactly what she did to protect her child.

The police were trying so hard to deceive her, but they themselves were being deceived. Delores stood in the middle of the
cold, sterile room trying to figure out their motives while they were trying to figure out hers. The illusion of truth wore
a mask of deception well.

“Mrs. Murphy, I know this is hard for you,” Meritti said slowly. “But can you ID this body for us as your son?”

Her weak gaze hid a strong resolve as she looked from Smalls to Meritti. Delores lowered her head and subtly nodded.

Meritti was relieved.

Smalls was perplexed.

And Delores’s soul was tormented. The pain in her eyes Smalls detected wasn’t caused by her belief that her son was dead.
It was because he was still alive. Somehow, somewhere, Bernard James, Jr., was still alive. The nightmare wasn’t over, and
she was more confused and flooded with emotion now than when they had first lifted the sheet. Once again, she had cosigned
to a reign of terror she was sure would follow. The nightmare was nowhere near over. The truth was, it was just about to begin.

“Where do I sign for my son’s body?” she asked.

“Right here, Mrs. Murphy,” said Detective Meritti.

Delores took the pen and signed for the pretend Dutch to be released to the funeral director.
I got to pay to bury this muthafucka that ain’t even Bernard. I’m going to kill that boy when I see him
, she thought to herself. But her intentions were to cremate the remains so that the secret of Dutch could be scattered to
the winds.

W
hose world is this?”

“Mine!”

“Whose world am I?”

“Mine!”

“Then say my name, ma. Say my name.”

“Young World,” Lana purred as she posed in the bathroom doorway. She had the curves of two letter S’s facing each other. Chocolate
from head to toe, she stood bowlegged, wet and naked, tantalizing Young World as he lay back on the spacious bed in their
Cancún hotel suite.

“Do my dance, yo,” Young World told her.

Lana began to slowly and sensually gyrate her hips to the rhythm of her own lust, palming her full breasts and pulling at
her tender brown nipples.

“Like this, World?” She smiled, loving the feeling of her man’s eyes all over her.

“No doubt. Slow motion, ma. Move it slow motion for me,” he replied with gangsta charisma. He licked his lips and grabbed
his crotch.

Lana complied as she crawled on the bed like a black panther in the jungle stalking her prey. Young World parlayed like the
young don Dutch made him, wearing only two things: a pair of burgundy silk boxers and Dutch’s dragon chain gleaming off the
reddish-brown skin of his bare chest.

He watched Lana take his erect member into her warm mouth and wrap her juicy lips around his shaft, relaxing her throat, and
curling his toes. Her head bobbed as if his dick was licorice and she was addicted to sweets.

Young World had definitely come up lovely. It had been nine months since the courthouse massacre and things had gone just
as Dutch predicted they would.

The streets is gonna be wide open like pussy after this. Niggas you thought you could count on either gonna flip and try and
go for dolo or nut up under pressure.

The streets lit up like the Fourth of July as street niggas and greedy crews scrambled for the crumbs off Dutch’s table. Young
World had one of the sickest teams in the game, but even he took losses. His right-hand man, Jazz, didn’t have the killer
instincts it took to ball on World’s level, so seventeen shots later found him on a basketball court in the park. Jazz and
Young World had come up together so his death hit Young World hard, but there was no time to mourn because the streets wouldn’t
let him.