Eviction Notice (3 page)

CHAPTER 3

Old San Juan, Puerto Rico

Old San Juan
was the oldest settlement in Puerto Rico located in its colonial section. During the day tourists moved throughout the streets of San Juan, taking in the sites and history of the place, but when the sun set, creatures of a more sinister nature roamed its streets, and anything was likely to pop off if you weren’t careful.

“Why don’t you slow down before you kill us?” Javier snapped at Victor as the beat-up, green military-style jeep bounced over the broken streets.

“Kick back, bro. I know these streets like the back of my hand. Besides, in a little while Poppito’s boys are gonna be all over this place and I don’t wanna be caught out here alone if we bump into Los Negros Muertes looking for their money.”

“You mean our money,” Javier corrected him, patting the duffel bag resting between his legs. “Besides, we’re the police, remember?” Javier held up the badge hanging around his neck.

Javier and Victor had been on the force for three years, but for the last few months they had been on special assignment working for Captain Herman Cruz, a dirty cop and one of Poppito’s top competitors for control over Old San Juan and its drug trade. Cruz and Poppito had been friends as children but as adults they had become rivals. For the last six months the two had been locked in a bloody battle, with Cruz gaining ground over his enemy.

“Fuck Poppito and fuck Negros Muertes.” Javier dismissed Victor’s fears.

Legend had it that Los Negros Muertes,
The Black Death,
were a mysterious sect of killers that were whispered about throughout the Caribbean and parts of South America. Some said they were rogue black ops or some other government agency, while the more spiritual aligned them with the devil, with the human soul as the price for their services. No one had ever lived to verify any of the accounts.

“Victor, watch out!” Javier shouted as he spotted something lying in the middle of the road.

Victor yanked the wheel to avoid whatever it was in their path and sent the jeep into a tailspin that ended with the back end crashing into an abandoned car and his head slamming violently into the driver’s side window. “What the fuck?” Victor dabbed at the gash that had opened up in his forehead.

“There’s something in the road.” Javier shook off his dizziness and tried to focus on the object. The small lump seemed to be moving and he could hear soft whimpering. “Shit, it looks like a dog or something.”

“You almost made me kill us over a dog? Fuck that dog, I’m outta here.” Victor put the jeep in gear.

Javier had a good mind to let Victor pull off, but since he was a kid he’d always had a soft spot for animals. “It’s still alive; we can’t just leave it there to get run over. I’m gonna at least move it out of the road.” Javier got out of the jeep with his machine gun slung over his shoulder.

“Javier, fuck that dog. Let’s get out of here, man,” Victor called after him, but Javier ignored him and kept walking toward the wounded dog. “This guy…” Victor mumbled under his breath and got out to join his partner.

The dog curled up in the middle of the street was a brindled pit bull with a jet-black muzzle. It looked to be healthy, so they doubted it was a stray, but it had clearly been in some fights. There were old wounds covering the dog’s front and hindquarter, and an especially nasty-looking scar that went across its back. When the pit bull spotted the two men approaching, it growled.

“We ain’t gonna hurt you.” Javier eased forward with his hand extended. Victor chose to keep his distance and watch from the sidelines. “Just be easy.” He got in closer. The dog placed its chin on the ground and allowed Javier to stroke its head. “That’s a good girl,” he cooed. His cooing quickly turned into screams when the pit bull locked its powerful jaws around his arm.

“Oh shit.” Victor reached for the pistol at his waist, but the press of cold steel against his cheek froze him.

“You weren’t thinking about shooting my dog, were you?” a voice breathed in his ear. A hand snaked around Victor’s waist and removed the gun. “That’s better.”

The dog was shaking Javier’s wrist violently, but he was able to bring his machine gun around and crack it across the bridge of her nose and free himself from her grip. He staggered backward and went to bring his machine gun around when out of nowhere his body was covered in infrared lights. “Your next move is your last move,” a voice called from the shadows. It seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Slowly, several men and a woman dressed in all black and holding guns began to step from the shadows.

“Los Negros Muertes.” Javier crossed himself. Tossing his gun away, he dropped to his knees and raised his hands in the air.

Victor was shoved roughly to the ground where Javier was already kneeling and instructed to do the same. For the first time he had gotten a good look at the man who had gotten the drop on him. He was tall and built, with a shaved head and brilliant smile. Victor studied him quizzically because he had never seen a man so dark with eyes so green.

“It’s okay, everybody be cool. Just take the money and we’re straight.” Javier grimaced in pain from the dog bite on his wrist, which wouldn’t stop bleeding.

“Nice of you to offer something we already
know
we can have.” Javier recognized this as the voice he’d heard in the shadows. He was a few inches shorter than the green-eyed man, but stockier. His thick black hair was braided into two ponytails that hung down his back. “We gonna take yo money, fo sho, but we came here for yo life.” He raised his gun and shot Javier in the face. When he turned around to pop Victor, the green-eyed man stopped him.

“Chill, leave this one for baby bro. It’s about time the li’l nigga busts his cherry.”

The cat rocking the braids hesitated. “Chill, K, you already know how son get down. Let me finish this spic off so we can be out.”

“It’s cool,” a soft voice called from the shadows of a doorway. “I can speak for myself.” The darkness peeled back and out stepped a youthful-looking man dressed in black fatigue pants and a black thermal shirt. His long, thick hair was pulled back and stuffed under a black hair net. Hanging from his back pocket was a red bandanna, which fluttered in the warm breeze. When he cracked his perfectly bowed lips to take a pull of the cigarette he was smoking, the streetlights kissed his diamond and gold teeth.

“I hear you talking, li’l brother.” The green-eyed man tried handing him his gun, but the young boy declined, opting for the two-foot knife that he pulled from the leg of his pants.

“Don’t hear me, my nigga, watch me,” the youngster said and knelt in front of Victor, who was trembling. The youngster moved close, causing Victor to flinch. “Close your eyes, and be still.” He placed his hand on Victor’s trembling shoulder reassuringly. “I’ll make sure you go quickly.” In a sharp movement he pushed the knife through Victor’s rib cage and pierced his heart. As promised, Victor never felt a thing.

The green-eyed man clapped his hands and smiled proudly. “Well done, superstar!” he said sarcastically.

“Keep your praises, homie, because I don’t want ’em or need ’em. This li’l thing we got going on here is a temporary arrangement and as soon as the opportunity presents itself I’m outta here, so don’t twisted like we the best of friends. I ain’t my brother.” The youngster spat and walked off.

The dude with the two braids placed his hand on the green-eyed man’s shoulder. “Don’t stress, my nigga.”

The green-eyed man raised his eyebrow. “Stress? I’m not stressed, just a little confused. Seeing how I interrupted his trip to the gas chamber, at the very least you’d think he’d show some gratitude.”

“I’ll talk to him, K.”

“You might want to. You’re one of my oldest comrades, so you should know better than anyone else how much loyalty means to me,” the green-eyed man said and began walking down the alley. “Get at ya li’l brother, Justice. The war is on and it’s only two sides, ours or theirs. Anything that ain’t a Dawg is in the way,” he reminded him before disappearing.

*   *   *

Detective Brown sat
behind the wheel of his brown Buick, sipping a cup of coffee. The cigarette in the ashtray had almost burned itself all the way to the butt, but he hardly noticed as his attention was on the papers spread across his lap. There was a series of reports about suspected drug-related executions from every city along the New Jersey Turnpike, but he targeted the especially brutal ones. His brain swirled, trying to find the connection, if any, between the killings.

“Boo!” someone screamed from the passenger-side window, scaring Detective Brown and causing him to spill his coffee on the reports. Leaning in the window, laughing, was his partner, Detective Alvarez.

“You’re a fucking dick, you know that?” Detective Brown snapped, looking over his ruined reports.

“My fault, I didn’t know you were working on a case.” Alvarez slid into the car and began helping Brown salvage what he could from the pile. He looked at one of the reports and saw that it was from an old case they had worked together. It had to do with a teacher who had molested the daughter of a man connected to the underworld. When they found the teacher, his eyes had been removed from his head and delivered to his parents wrapped in a kiddie-porn magazine. It was one of the murders they had been trying to pin on Animal back when they had been building a case against him and his crew. “Dude, this case has been cold for years.”

“I know,” Detective Brown said, dabbing the papers with a wad of napkins.

Alvarez sighed. “Brown, when are you gonna stop chasing ghosts?”

“When somebody rips that diamond grille out of his mouth and drops it on my desk!” Brown barked.

“Calm the fuck down, I ain’t your enemy, bro,” Alvarez shot back.

“I’m sorry, J, but I’m still fucked up about all this. We had him, and somebody helps the bastard escape!”

The newspapers called him the Rock Star Serial Killer, but Brown called him trash, and the day he watched a judge convict Animal of his crimes had been one of the happiest of his life, next to the birth of his children. Knowing that Animal was going to die with a needle in his arm made all the shit Brown had to endure over the years worth it, but then the unthinkable happened. As it turned out, there was someone who had a bigger hard-on for Animal than the detectives. The abduction ended with Detective Brown spending three weeks in the hospital and Animal vanishing from the face of the planet. He was on the most-wanted list with several law enforcement agencies, but it had been two years and he was still missing.

“Brown, they got the drop on us and there was nothing we could do about it. Look at it like this: Animal had a lot of enemies and for all we know that could’ve been somebody he pissed off that came for his ass. Let’s just be thankful that we’re still alive to argue about it. Let it go.”

“You’re right, J, I am too wound up about it, but the way it played out between us and them has just never sat right with me. I’d love to know that little shit bird was maggot food by now, but my gut doesn’t say so.” He picked up a newspaper clipping that had been among the reports and placed it on the car’s heater to dry. It was an article about the execution of two police officers in Puerto Rico.

CHAPTER 4

After what seemed
like a wave of never-ending rain, the sun had finally decided to show its face. It was only eight
A.M.
and the weather was already a balmy eighty degrees in New York City. The dry voice broadcasting over the radio on 1010 WINS warned that there would be a heat advisory for that day and people should stay in doors for safety reasons. This might’ve applied to the squares but it meant nothing to those forced to get it how they lived.

Happy’s two-hundred-plus-pound frame sat wedged behind the wheel of his Dodge Magnum; he was sipping McDonald’s Sweet Tea from a large Styrofoam cup and eating a jumbo bag of pork skins. Even with the air conditioner on full blast he still found himself sweating. The doctor had diagnosed him with high blood pressure due to his recent weight gain and advised him to start taking better care of himself, but it was a task. Happy had a thing for fried foods, fresh pussy, and money. It was the latter that had him out and about so early in the morning.

For the fifth time in as many minutes Happy looked down at his diamond-encrusted watch, then to the window of the check-cashing spot he was parked across the street from. “What the fuck is taking this bitch so long?” he asked no one in particular.

“I hope she ain’t do no stupid shit, you know the bitch is slow,” said Levi, who had been sitting in the passenger seat. He’d been so quiet the whole time that Happy had almost forgotten he was in the car. Levi was good at making people forget he was in the room. He took a deep pull from his Newport, killing it and tossing the butt out the window. “It’d be just our luck if she doesn’t pop and we miss out on this cheese.”

“Man, why you always gotta think negatively?” Happy snapped at Levi. Levi was a true pessimist and rarely had anything good to say.

“Why you getting mad at me?” Levi asked, adjusting his custom Prada glasses. They were black with chrome frames and that bulged out a little because of the one-carat diamonds on the ends. It was rumored that the odd-looking glasses were fitted with small spy-cams that Levi would use to secretly tape women, but he would neither confirm nor deny this rumor. “Just kick back, son. It ain’t been that long.”

“Dumb bitch.” Happy huffed and took another swing of his tea.

“Speaking of dumb bitches”—Levi lit another cigarette—“did I tell you what happened the other night with that one bitch from the strip club?”

“Which one?” Happy raised an interested eyebrow.

“You know the one, the big-butt dark-skinned chick I was drinking with the other night.”

“Oh, you mean your new wife?” Happy joked.

“Fuck outta here,” Levi said defensively.

“Man, you was up on her so close that at one point I thought you were gonna start tonguing her down.”

“C’mon, son, you know better than that. And don’t start acting like you ain’t cuff master. It’s been a few times when I wanted to go in on something you had and you wouldn’t give me the green light,” Levi accused.

“Man, them must’ve been my personals because you know ain’t a whore in the world that I wouldn’t share with my brother.” Happy smiled.

“Whatever, nigga.” Levi exhaled the cigarette smoke. “Like I was saying, after the spot closed, me and shorty slid back to the telly and shit. We negotiated everything in the club so it wasn’t no misunderstanding. A’ight, so I roll an L and me and shorty have a few drinks, before she stripped down and got real nasty. Shorty is popping herself, giving that porno head and the whole nine.”

“Word? Did she spit on ya dick, too?” Happy asked excitedly.

“The spit and everything else. So just when I’m hard as a rock and ready to fuck, this bitch looks at the time and stops.”

“Oh hell nah!”

“Word to everything, my nigga. Put the breaks on my whole wave. Now I’m confused because I know she said a buck-fifty at the club and I paid her before we left, so off the back I know some funny shit was going on. You know what this bitch had the nerve to tell me?” Levi gave a dramatic pause. “That she meant it was a buck-fifty per hour.”

“Oh hell nah.” Happy laughed, slapping his meaty palm against the dashboard. Tears were forming in the corners of his eyes and he was wheezing so badly that he had to take two hits off his asthma pump. “Man, that’s some bogus shit. So you just let the bitch beat you outta your scratch?”

Levi looked at Happy as if he should know better. “Never that. I told the bitch to hang loose while I ran downstairs to use the ATM. Not only did I leave that bitch stranded in the Bronx, but I stole her pocketbook on my way out.”

Happy shook his head. “Youz a stone cold dude.”

“Nah, the illest part about it is that I taped the bitch giving me head. As soon as I got back to the crib I uploaded her shit to my Web site. I got over fifty thousand hits off that dick-sucking whore.” Levi grinned wickedly. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before a bitch can put one over on Levi Brown!”

“Church.” Happy gave Levi dap. The smile on Happy’s face melted away when he spotted the blue-and-white patrol car in his rearview mirror. They rode by slowly, looking into the car, and kept going. Happy breathed a sigh of relief until the patrol car got to the light and made a U-turn, pulling to a stop right in front of the check-cashing spot and going inside. By the time they came out with the girl Happy had sent in, he was ten blocks away.

*   *   *

“Damn,” Happy cursed
as his truck crept through traffic.

“You think they made us?” Levi asked nervously.

“I doubt it; we could’ve been any two niggaz on that block. I’m just worried about shorty running her mouth.”

“How long have you known her?” Levi asked.

“’Bout fifteen years or so. She’s my baby mama’s oldest daughter.”

Levi looked at him in shock. “Hap, you sent your stepdaughter in there to pull a lick?”

“She ain’t no kin to me by blood. Besides, I don’t recall putting no gun to her head; she came to me wanting to get down. Before me she was selling pussy to them broke-ass niggaz uptown, so if you look at it I was doing her a favor,” Happy reasoned.

Levi shook his head sadly and went back to looking for police on their tail. A chick that was crossing in front of the truck caught his attention. She had a mean shape and moved like a stallion, turning the heads of damn near everyone she passed. Her swag was on a thousand, and from all the designer bags she was carrying, Levi knew she was holding. “Hap, pull up on this bitch so I can holla.”