Baby Brother (3 page)

Borne laughed again, backing away and into the crowd. “I’m feeling you, chief. You got that good Puerto Rican yummy on lock and don’t want nobody else to get none. I swear to God she look like this bitch I had on a leash this morning, though. Look just like her around the muzzle, yo!”

Pushing Sari aside, Baby Brother lunged into the crowd.

“No!” Sari screamed, clutching his shirt and pulling him back. She wrapped her arms around him from behind and lowered her weight, digging her feet in. Baby Brother stared at the spot where Borne had just mocked him. The crowd had swallowed Borne’s laughing face, but had not erased the sound of his voice from Baby Brother’s ears.

“That motherfucker need to chill….” he growled, his chest heaving. “If I see his ass out here again, it’s going down.”

Sari continued to hold him from behind, and when he turned around and put his arms around her in return, she looked up into his face and spoke. “You didn’t come this far in life by charging after every sucker who pops shit, Z. You know how it goes down out here. We’re targets, baby. My brother’s got crazy enemies in this game, both your brothers got crazy enemies in this game. There’s always gonna be somebody trying to press them by fuckin’ with us. Just let it go, Zabu. We came out to have a good time, right?”

He nodded, then grinned.

“Good,” Sari said, smiling in return. “So fuck Borne. He wasn’t in them sheets while you did your thing this morning, now was he?”

“Nah.” Baby Brother laughed and slapped Sari on the ass. “And he ain’t gonna be in them with us tonight neither.”

With the drama over, they moved onward through the crowd toward Franklin Avenue, enjoying the sights, sounds, and smells while Crown Heights got its party on. Baby Brother was in the lead as they wormed inch by inch through the thick, boisterous revelers. He was pulling Sari along with her hand grasped firmly in his when he felt a jerk and his hand was empty.

“Sari!” He turned around and saw her craning her neck, looking through the crowd. She was holding her shirt up to her neck, and the strings of her halter were dangling by her arms.

“Motherfuckers!” she spat. “Somebody untied my strings!”

“Did you see who did it?”

She shook her head no.

Baby Brother scanned the crowd wildly. There were so many people doing so many different things that it was impossible to pinpoint the culprit, but after having those words with Borne he was about ready to wild out and start swinging on any damn body.

“C’mere,” he said, turning her around and taking her pink halter strings in his hands. She lifted her hair and he tied a double knot behind her neck, making sure it couldn’t be pulled free with just a tug.

“Walk in front of me,” he said, guiding her through the crowd ahead of him. They made it down past Nostrand Avenue without any further problems, and by the time they got to Franklin Avenue they were in a good mood again and enjoying the atmosphere.

They partied on Eastern Parkway until late night, then drove over to a club in Bed-Stuy. Sari had switched up from the Coronas she’d bought from a bodega near the parade, and was now drinking Patrón. Baby Brother wasn’t about to take a chance on fucking up Farad’s whip. He let his woman get her head buzzed while he drank Pepsi and stayed straight.

“I’ma get my dance on right now!” Sari said, rocking her hips like a brown-skinned Shakira. Niggahs in the club was clocking her, but they did that shit from a distance because Baby Brother was all up on it, making his status known. “’Cause I ain’t coming to the club no more until you get back home for Christmas.”

He laughed as she killed her pink shorts, making his pants brick up. “The way you like to shake that ass girl? Nah, baby. Don’t stay home waitin’ around on me. You like to dance, mami. Don’t matter if I’m gone. Come on out and dance.”

Sari stopped dancing and stood still in the middle of the crowd. Her eyes flashed.

“Now why you say some shit like that, Z?” she screamed on him, waving her hand in his face. “What’s really going on, huh? What the fuck you tryna tell me? You sending me out to the club because that’s where you gonna be yourself?”

“Man…” Baby Brother looked around, exasperated. Sari was tipsy and off the fuckin’ hook. Yeah, she could get jealous and hotheaded when she got buzzed, but he couldn’t believe his girl was playin’ herself like this. People dancing next to them were starting to stare, and a couple of niggahs in the crowd gave him the clown look.

“Baby why you trippin’ like this? You knew this day was coming! We planned for this shit! Studied together! Swore we would both make it up outta here! Next year you gonna be leaving for college too. Come out West when you graduate, baby. We can be together, girl. We
gonna
be together, Sari, damn!”

Sari was acting extra insecure and Baby Brother couldn’t understand that shit. He was a stand-up niggah. He loved her, and had already proven that shit with his actions. Besides, as fine as Sari was, there wasn’t no need for her to worry about him pushing up in no other freak’s gushy. He was pussy-bitten to the max. Doped up on Sari. Strung out on everything about her. They’d been tight for three years, and he saw forever in their future. But he saw the glazed look in Sari’s teary eyes. She wasn’t really a drinker, and chugging back that Patrón on top of all them Coronas musta had her head going hard.

“Chill,” he comforted her, hugging her close to his chest and letting her cling to him. “You hungry, baby? Let’s go get something to eat.”

Baby Brother drove toward a little chicken joint off Utica Avenue, but there was a crowd outside when they got there.

“Just take me home,” Sari said before he could park the car.

“What’s up? Oh, it’s too crowded? Nah, all them niggahs ain’t in line, baby. They just standing around tryna pick up some birds. It ain’t gonna take that long.” He opened his door and swung his long legs out, then stood up and leaned back in. “C’mon. Get out. I’m hungry.”

Sari crossed her arms and sat right there. “I said I wanna go home, Z. I don’t want no damn chicken. I just wanna go home.”

Baby Brother couldn’t call it. Sari could be real evil when she was drinking, but right now she was fuckin’ with his head.

“Look. You need to come down off that crazy shit. I ain’t going home hungry, so if you wanna sit up in here and wait, cool.”

He slammed the car door and strode angrily toward the crowd, trying to determine which of these niggahs was on line, and who was just fuckin’ loitering. He was moving through the bodies when he heard the noise.

“What the fuck?” he said, whirling around.

Sari was sitting in the driver’s seat, leaning on the horn. Blinged-out birds in the crowd stuck their fingers in their ears, then started cuttin’ up, talking shit.

“Get the fuck off that horn, bitch! Quit making all that fuckin’ noise!”

Baby Brother strode back over to the whip and snatched the door open. “Yo what the fuck is you doing, Sari?”

She kept on beeping.

“Sari! Sari! SARI!”

She came up off the horn and looked at him. “I told you to take me home, Z. Now take me the fuck home.”

Baby Brother waited until she slid over, then got back in the ride, ignoring the niggahs who was standing outside laughing at him. Maybe it was a good thing he was about to put some space between himself and Sari, he thought for a hot second. But then he squashed that shit. He knew Sari. The only reason his girl was wildin’ was because she loved him and hated to see him leave.

He drove down the mostly empty streets with his mind heavy. Every now and then he glanced over at Sari, but her face was set and she refused to even look at him. Fuck! It was already early Sunday morning, and in a little more than twenty-four hours he would be on a plane flying out West. He didn’t wanna leave Sari behind with shit hanging between them. What he really wanted to do was go back to her spot and dig up in her belly again. Maybe get him a little top, go down and rummage in her bottom. He’d even climb out the window and jump from the fire escape, if that’s the way she wanted it.

Fuck it.

He looked ahead. They drove into East New York from Blake Avenue and turned down Pennsylvania until they hit New Lots. He turned right on Van Siclen, then pulled off the street and parked in an empty space behind a white truck.

“Look, Sari. You ain’t really mad at me, girl. I know what’s really going on, baby. You just feelin’ some hurt behind me leaving, right?”

Sari surprised him, whirling in her seat to face him.

“Oh, you think it’s about you ’cause you going to college, right, Z? What the fuck am I, some strung-out little charity case? My life ain’t gone stop just because you bounce outta Brooklyn, Zabu. Don’t fuckin’ hype yourself like that. Just take me home.”

Baby Brother scratched his damn head. Here he was trying to be sensitive to her feelings and she flips the whole cake on him.

“I don’t know why you trippin’, Sari, but you need to trust me—”

“Kiss my ass!” Sari shrieked, tears in her eyes. “Take me home, Z. No, wait. Fuck you!” She flung the car door open and stomped out, leaving her Coach purse on the seat. “I don’t need your ass. I know my way.”

She started walking up the street, heading toward Schenk Avenue. Baby Brother drove alongside her, pouring his heart out.

“Get in the car, Sari. Come on, girl. I’ll take you home.”

She igged him.

“Sari, come on. For real. Quit this shit. I’m feeling you deep. You my heart.” Sari crossed the street and Baby Brother did a ride-through at the stop sign. He leaned across the seat and kept on begging from the window.

“I’ma miss you real bad too, ya know. This shit ain’t easy for me. You been everything to me, Sari. Girl I thought you knew that.”

She was melting. He could tell by the way she walked. He kept the conversation going. Telling her how planted she was in his heart. How much he felt for her. Telling her the truth.

There was no more stride on her now. She was walking kinda slow, dragging her feet a little bit.

“Come on, mami. Get back in the car. I’ll take you home, if that’s where you wanna go. I’ll do whatever you want, Sari. You mean just that much to me, girl.”

Baby Brother held his breath as she stopped, then turned to face him.

“This is not the end for us, is it, Z? I mean, you told me before that it was you and me forever.”

“And I meant it too. This ain’t the end, Sari. It’s only the beginning. That’s hard body truth, girl. Believe.”

He sighed as she stepped toward the car. With his foot holding the brake, Baby Brother reached over and opened the door for her, and just as she reached out to grab it, a shot rang out in the still morning air, destroying the calm that had just come down over Sari and shattering Baby Brother’s heart.

“Sari!” She collapsed straight to the ground in a heafl He jumped from the whip, ignoring it as it continued to roll forward until it collided into the back of a parked truck.

Baby Brother rushed to her side. She’d landed facedown, and he cried out when he turned her over and saw the blood slowly staining her shirt. Something clinged just a few yards away. Metal on metal. And then footsteps. Running.

He looked up and glimpsed a figure running up the block. Rage gripped him. He jumped to his feet, leaving Sari where she lay. Less than fifty yards away he saw it. Barely breaking stride, Baby Brother reached down and scooped up the pistol the shooter had tried to toss into a storm drain. He ran hard. Catching ufl He was a young black man in the ghetto who had never fired a weapon in his life. Now he fired three times. Quick. Bak! Bak! Bak!

He missed three times.

The shooter turned the corner and Baby Brother lost him.

Five seconds later he rounded the corner himself, heart pounding. Searching.
He’s hiding in a fuckin’ doorway!
Baby Brother’s street senses screamed. He headed deeper into the darkness, his eyes sweeping doorways as he passed. But halfway down the block, tires squealed and suddenly the street lit up behind him.

“Drop your weapon! Drop your weapon and put your hands in the air!”

Baby Brother stood frozen. Numb.

“Sari,” he whispered as an image of her bloody body flashed across his mind. His baby was down. Bleeding. He had to go help her.

He turned around and immediately squinted and tried to shield his eyes with his hand. There were three squad cars. Headlights on high. Blinding him.

“I said drop the fuckin’ weapon!”

Baby Brother knew they had the burners out. Trained on him and ready to body him at the slightest provocation. Suddenly the big picture clicked into focus. He was fucked. Not only was the shooter about to get away, there was a bloody body laying next to his car, just a block away. Baby Brother shuddered, then steeled himself for the worst. Sari was down, and his heart couldn’t conceive of it. Everything he’d ever worked for had just crumbled to pieces in the blink of an eye. Shit was crazy. It couldn’t be happening. The woman he loved had just gotten popped. But what was worse was the fact that Baby Brother was standing there covered in her blood. And holding the murder weapon.

I
t was almost time for a shift change and even though Malik Davis was pulling a double, he felt ready to bring it down for the night. He walked a pretty decent beat and was cool with most of the criminals who lived in his sector. He’d been raised on these urban streets and he knew them well. Most of the knuckleheads he busted had either grown up with him or gone to school with him. It coulda got kinda tight busting brothahs he used to run with, but he tried hard to maintain a good relationship with everybody, and even when he had to cuff a niggah it was done with such affable respect that it was all good.

He was looking forward to taking off for the next few days. Baby Brother was going off to college on Monday, and him and his brothers Antwan and Raheem were gonna fly out West with him and make sure everything was straight.

Malik was proud of his youngest brother. Already he was achieving more than the rest of them had put together. Yeah, he had a decent grind as a NYPD cop, and most of the other Davis boys was holding it down pretty righteous, not counting the twins, but Baby Brother was special and he bragged about that kid to anybody who would listen.

He was pushing through the precinct doors as his man Wiley was coming out. “Yo. Whattup, Wile. You working a double tonight?”

Wiley reached out and put his hand on Malik’s shoulder, urging him to turn around and walk back out the door. “I need to holla at you real quick before you go in there, bruh. I got some bad news.”

Malik stared at Wiley, apprehension rising in his gut at the look on his man’s face.

“What’s poppin’?”

“It’s your brother, man.”

Malik sighed. Farad? Nah, probably Finesse. Two-strike felon, and busted again.

“Yo, he smoked a girl,” Wiley went on, shaking his head. “Gunned her down in the street. They caught him holding the burner, man, with blood all over him.”

Damn,
was all Malik could think as his heart sank. Their moms was probably turning over in her grave. But something just didn’t feel right about this. Finesse was brutal, but he had never been violent toward women. He couldn’t think of one reason his brother would have to pop no female. It just didn’t add ufl He shook his head. It was hard being a street cop and having two major drug dealers for brothers. They was extra tight, and he would lay down and die for either one of them, but sometimes living with the bullshit in their lives was real hard.

“They got him down at Central Booking,” Wiley said. “I just figured you’d wanna know.”

Twenty minutes later Malik had rolled up at Central Booking and was skimming a roster looking for his brother’s name. He had a few boys who were on shift, but none of them remembered seeing one of his brothers being brought in. Malik got with a cop he knew from Van Dyke projects who gave him their prisoner log. He was dragging his finger down the paper and checking the long, detailed list for recent arrests when his eyes slid over a familiar name. What he saw made his hands shake and his mouth go dry. Prisoner number 837R2006 was not Finesse. It wasn’t Farad either. It was Davis, Zabu Xade.

Finesse studied the young girl who was bobbing her head in his lafl She claimed he was her first, but he couldn’t tell it. She gave top like a professional. He watched his joint sliding past her lips and disappearing into her mouth and wondered how the fuck she took it all without choking.

He pushed the flat of his palm against her forehead, raising her ufl This bitch was a liar. Wasn’t no cherry in her throat. She had this neck game on lock. Her technique was too tight to be light.

He had to chastise her. Storyteller. Scratch a liar and find a hoe. He slid both hands through her hair, his fingertips colliding with glued-in tracks. Winding up two fistfuls, he gripped her weave and stood, pulling her up with him.

“Get outta them clothes, girl.”

The young girl giggled, then turned her back on him and shot him a smoky look over her shoulder. She was wearing a canary-colored belly-shirt and a matching skirt in a slinky, flowing material. She slid the shirt upward, the toned muscles in her stomach clenching and unfurling. Her firm young breasts practically jumped free when she pulled the shirt over her head, and Finesse sucked his bottom lip, loving her moves. She inched the bright yellow skirt down over her hips, tantalizing him with enticing gyrations. She was naked underneath and Finesse swore there was a trail of steam seeping from the triangle between her legs.

He’d seen enough. He turned her around and bent her over. “Let me in baby,” he barked, pushing himself into her as deeply as he could. Yeah, she was a liar ’cause he’d slid right in. They went at it stroke for stroke. Her hands were on her breasts as she squeezed and flicked her own nipples. Finesse panted and pounded. He felt his nut rising. It turned him on to see her so turned on. He was about to lose it. His eyes was fluttering, his toes was curling, and he was just about ready to erupt when his cell phone rang.

“Shit!” He pumped real hard, almost there.

The cell jangled again, but this time shit sank in. This wasn’t no regular call. His phone was spittin’ a special tone. One reserved for the most crucial, dire emergencies. A tone that demanded his immediate attention. A matter of life or death.

He slapped the girl on the ass, snatching his pipe out of her and putting a freeze on both of their nuts. He grabbed the phone off a table and flipped it open.

“Who?” he demanded, and the response on the other end of the line not only wilted his erection, it damn near stopped his heart.

“What?!?” With the phone still pressed to his ear, he pushed his soft dick back down inside his boxers. He shook his head, trying to clear it. He couldn’t even wrap his mind around the shit Malik was telling him on the line, and a steely mask came down over his face as rage settled in his nuts. They’d gotten the wrong one. The
wrong
one. Somebody was about to get fuckin’ blasted and Finesse was ready to spark shit off.

“Initiate the chain, muthafuckah,” he told his brother. “I’m rolling out.”

Farad blacked the fuck out.

He was in Riverdale Houses playing Spades with some homeys when the Chirp came through. The score pad said Us and Them, and of course Farad was on the winning team. Game was five hundred, and they had 430 on the board and had taken a blind seven. His partner had just cut a book and saved them from getting set, and now he had come back in diamonds and was waiting for Farad’s next play.

But the Nextel was pressed to Farad’s ear and he couldn’t see shit and he couldn’t hear shit neither. The only thing that got through to him was the voice on the other end of the line.

“You sure, man?” he finally managed to say. “Malik you gotta be wrong, niggah. C’mon. Tell me you got your information wrong.”

“I just seen him, man,” Malik said, sounding close to tears. “They got him in a fuckin’ holding cell, man. A pissy little holdin’ cell with all kinda foul motherfuckers up in there with him.”

Farad cursed. “Don’t even worry about them niggahs, Leek. Baby Brother can hold shit down with his hands, man. That’s truth, niggah. He’ll be all right for a good minute, but what we gotta worry about now is getting him the fuck outta there.”

He heard Malik take a deep breath. “Aiight. Let me see what I can do. He’s gone be having an initial hearing in a little bit. I’ll get down there early and talk to the judge. See if I can work something out for bail or whatever. But I don’t know man…they charging him with murder, yo—”

“Just try,” Farad interrupted forcefully, knowing how slim the odds were that a judge would agree to something like that. But for real tho, with Sari dead and her psycho brother motherfucker Tony on the loose, it mighta been better to just leave Baby Brother where he was for a minute. Fuck no! “Yeah, Leek. Just get your ass in there and try.”

Ain’t this some shit!
Kadir thought, laughing out loud. This big-ass fuckin’ white boy was pissin’ down his leg. Scared like that. The little one was scared too, but at least he wasn’t pissin’. He was standing against the warehouse wall with a resigned look on his face like, “Shoot me if you wanna, niggah, but I’ma go out holding my nuts.”

“Y’all eating lead tonight, motherfuckers,” Kadir taunted. Motherfuckers just didn’t learn. Gambling was a fuckin’ disease, and nobody knew that better than him. Some people inherited heart disease, and others inherited cancer. Kadir was his father’s son. He had inherited the betting disease, and just like Cameron, he had a sixth sense about the odds and was a top shark in the game of chance.

But no matter how much his hunches paid off, there was always some low-level motherfuckers who got in over their heads. Idiots like these two here, who took one look at him and pegged him as a pretty niggah who could be dicked around like an herb.

They weren’t the first two to make that mistake, and they probably wouldn’t be the last. There was something about the thrill of the bet that made niggahs get stupid. White boys too. Overstating a bet and floundering at the table was no crime. It could happen to anybody. But trying to stiff a cat like him outta his cash was an unforgivable atrocity. Kadir had popped more than one lame niggah who thought he could beat him outta what was rightfully his. These two white boys would be no fuckin’ exception.

He was enjoying himself though. Like a cat, he played with his prey a little bit before he snuffed them. Big Boy was cryin’ and pissin’ and Kadir wanted to see what else he would do. He’d test the limits of his manhood. There was no way to predict what a man would do when he knew he was facing certain death. Some dudes got brave, like the short cat with the blond hair. They accepted death with courage and faced that shit square on. Others, like Big Boy, pissed up their clothes and begged. Kadir cocked his gun. He liked it when they begged.

Right on cue, Big Boy started blabbing.

“W-w-wait! Kadir! I got you, man. I’m telling you, I got you!”

Kadir laughed. “Oh you got me, huh? How you figure that, motherfucker? You holding my money in one of your pissy pants pockets or something? ’Cause that’s the only way you got me, muhfuckah!”

“I can get it!” His face was red and tears rolled down his cheeks. “I swear on my mother, I can get it!”

Kadir listened.

“My uncle brings in trucks at a warehouse. Sometimes shit falls off the back of them and lands in my garage. He’s expecting a shipment from the big guys in North Jersey. Guns. All clean. Squeaky fuckin’ clean. I can hook you up, dude, give you a whole crate. Make that two fuckin’ crates! For real, I—”

Kadir laughed. Who the fuck did he look like? Was he supposed to go out there and fence off some stolen Mafia guns to get back his own money?

“Man, you must be stu—”

His cell phone vibrated. With his gat still trained on the two cowering white boys, Kadir reached for his phone without glancing down.

“What it do?”

He listened for a moment, his mind going numb. Farad’s voice was low and deadly on the other line, and the information he relayed was enough to make Kadir start popping off his pistol right then and there.

“What about them Santos dudes?” he asked, his eyes never leaving the cats who were staring into the business end of his gun.

“Yeah. You know that. Some big shit too. Aiight. I’m there, baby. Y’all hold it tight till I get there.”

He stuck the phone in his pocket and stepped toward the two young men. Big Boy turned his body sideways and ducked his head, like he could see the bullet coming.

“Y’all muthafuckahs just got saved by the phone.” He swung the gun toward Big Boy. “When’s that shipment coming in?”

“Tomorrow night. Late. Maybe eleven, but no later than midnight.”

Kadir nodded. “I tell you what. I like you. Both of y’all. So I tell you what I’m gonna do.” He trained the piece on the short guy, the one who was scared but not a coward. “You been betting high for a long time, so I’ma come to your house first,” Kadir told him. “And I’ma pop your woman, right in front of your kids. Then I’ma take your babies down. One by one. While you watch. Next, I’ll find your moms. She’s gonna get it bad too, but I respect old people, so I’ma do her kinda quick. But not until I explain this whole thing to her so she knows just how bad you fucked up this time.”

Kadir was satisfied by the look on the dude’s face. He mighta been brave, but he wasn’t a fool. “Then I’m coming for you, Big Boy. But by that time I’ll probably be pissed off. Don’t count on me to treat your people proper, homey. I get stupid sometimes too, you know. Especially behind my money.”

Ten minutes later Kadir was alone in the warehouse, his prey having scurried away with the promised assurances to deliver a package to a designated location in Brooklyn the next night.

Kadir waited until they were gone, then jumped behind the wheel of his Lexus coupe and headed north. His mind wasn’t on them low-level cats and it wasn’t on no money either. The only thing he could see in front of him was about 70 miles of bad road. Road he was about to burn rubber on so he could get back to his moms’s crib and join his brothers as they tried to figure out how to get Baby Brother outta jail.