Life (44 page)

“
What about your girl Evette?” I asked, catching her off

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guard.

“
W-W-What about Evette?” she stuttered. And now as I

looked at Tomica with her fake-ass smile and mascara running, I

realized that she just took all the humiliation and for what? I

thought about what Trina said before she left. Evette went to

Baltimore and was missing. I know that Tomica would never turn

on her girl unless, something bad happened. But what? The dope

was telling

me this bitch setting you up!

So I did my part, I smiled

and acted like I was going along with her ploy. I knew that the first

chance I got, I was going to have to kill her.

The phone rang, Tomica flinched, startled.

“
Yeah.”

“
We got trouble.” It was Major on the other line.

“
What?” I asked with concern. The whole time, Tomica

watched me suspiciously.

“
Blazack is at the front gate wanting to get in.”

I hobbled over to the console with all the television security

screens and sure as shit, there was Blazack at the front gate parked

in his Hummer. The ominous fog of the night seemed to cast him

in a mysterious gloom.

“
L? L? L! You still there man?” Major asked from the other

end of the phone. I could hear the fear in his voice.

“
Yeah, yeah, I’m here. Let him in the inside the house and get

the fuck out the way!” I said and hung up the phone. I had Tomica

help me get dressed. Even though the dope helped a lot, I was still

only about 35 percent of myself in terms of strength.

“
What’s going on?” Tomica asked.

“
Bitch you gon’ help me make it down the stairs.” I reached

out and grabbed her by the hair, leading her toward the steps. The

packet of Boy was on the vanity next to the bed. I poured a moun-

tain in my hand, snorted it and rode the rapturous wings of a

black stallion named “H.”

Naked and crying Tomica helped me down the stairs. I was

sure this was not what she was expecting, not part of her devious

plan.

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At the bottom of the stairs Major stood looking at us in awe

with his mouth forming an O. My face was covered with powder,

a gun dangled from my right arm and the other arm slung over

Tomica’s shoulder. Major had a shotgun at his side, it looked as

old as the mansion.

The doorbell chimed. I shoved Tomica away and braced

myself against the brass stair rail.

“
Open the door!” I barked at Major waving the gun.

“
L, man, you ain’t in no condition to be –”

“
Open the fucking door!” I yelled again only to lose my bal-

ance but regained it.

Major opened the door. Blazack stood there formidable as

usual. He looked weary and haggard, he took one look at me hold-

ing the gun and his eyes bucked wide open like he was seeing a

ghost.

“
Welcome to Chateau Gangsta’s Paradise, nig-gaaa!” I

drawled, high as a muthafucka, dead serious on killing his ass.

He walked in taking in the scene shaking his head, not believ-

ing what he was seeing. He made a face at Tomica, turned and

gritted on Major standing in the hall with the shotgun aimed at

him. Finally he turned back to me and looked sorrowfully.

“
Wha da fuck you call yourself doing nigga?”

I cocked the gun and aimed at him. He continued to look at

me defiantly right in my eyes.

“
Dirty is dead man. Lil Man is dead, Gucci is lying up in the

hospital with two broken legs and internal bleeding.”

“
Bitch ass nigga, you had something to do wit it! Where you

been the last few days, huh?” I hollered. I felt my hand anxious to

pull the trigger.

“
Been in jail!” Blazack said angrily. “That cracka Spitler had

me locked up. Wouldn’t even let me make a phone call. If you

don’t believe me, call our bail bondsman Fletcher, I swear to God

he be my witness.” Blazack was talking fast. He knew at that

moment and time I was dead set on doing him.

“
Let me call the bail bondsman,” Major cut in, possibly sav-

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ing Blazack’s life. I nodded my head for Major to make the call.

Sure as shit, Major came into the hall and said that Blazack

was just bonded out of jail.

I sat down on the stairs, cupped my head in my hands as I

thought about the cop Spitler, and how he threatened me. Damn,

I should have figured it was him and his crooked-ass cop friends

doing the killings.

Blazack walked up to me. “Man, you gotta let me Ax Blazack

that cracka.” That was Blazack’s code word for murder. “He’s all

yours,” were my final words before I passed out on the stairs.

8:18 the next morning as planned, Blazack made arrange-

ments to meet Spitler for his weekly payoff. There was no reason

for the cop to be concerned. He nor his men would be suspects in

the spree of murders. They were the police. They were above the

law, or so they thought. Wrong!

As usual, they met at the Holiday Inn on Tennessee Street off

Lake Bradford.

As soon as the cop entered the room he knew he had walked

into a trap. Blazack put a gun up to his head, relieved him of his

weapon, and handcuffed him to a chair. Spitler, the racist cop, had

too much pride to beg, so he tried to bribe Blazack with money.

It didn’t work.

Blazack began to brutally pistol-whip Spitler to a bloody pulp

even knocking one of his eyeballs out the socket. The cop fainted.

Blazack threw cold water in his face to wake him back up.

With a gun pointed to his head Blazack forced him to call the

police station and tell all his buddies in the narcotic division that

were down with the murders to meet him outside the police station

at midnight. After the phone call, Blazack, in a manic frenzy, began

to hack away with the ax on the cop’s body.

Wack!

“
This is for my

nigga Dirty.”

Wack!

“
Dats for killin’ babies.” After ward, with

Spitler barely alive, Blazack shoved a stick of dynamite up his ass.

*****

Midnight, the cops arrived as scheduled. They saw Spitler sit-

ting in his car. They all approached in jovial spirits, which was

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always the case whenever they were going to share some dirty

money. As the first cop reached the car and looked inside, he saw

the bloody stump of half a body. Desperately, Spitler frantically

wiggled his head no but the cop opened the door. The wired

dynamite of one hundred pounds of explosives detonated.

Ka-

boom!!

*****

I lay in bed sipping on Hennessy, snorting my medication

with my dick in Tomica’s mouth. I was numb all the way down to

my toes. Tomica came up for air. She had dark cycles under her

eyes.

“
What time is it baby?” she asked. A secretion of cum dangled

from her lower lip.

“
8:25 in the morning. Why the fuck you keep askin’ me that?”

I asked, annoyed. She smiled up at me from in between my legs

and reached over and dug her long fingernail into the powder and

placed it under my nose. Right then I saw it, felt it, knew it. I saw

her treachery disguised in her eyes and she tried to mask it with a

smile. I blew the dope off her fingers and sighed as I lay back on

the pillow with my eyes closed. There isn’t a hustler alive that can

honestly say that he did not hear the voice in the recess of his

mind, pleading, begging with him to get out the game.

Ain’t no

longevity in the dope game,

Trina’s voice.

You’ll end up dead or in

prison,

Hope’s voice. It’s always the woman that warns us, and

almost always we never listen, but we hear.

Tomica must have thought I had passed out. Now that I felt

her trying to ease out of the bed, I played sleep, but I had one eye

open. I watched her tiptoe over to the window and began to wave

the curtains like she was giving a signal. My heart damn near burst

out my chest, when I realized what she was doing, setting me up!

I got out of the bed and stood behind her. Feeling a presence, she

turned around startled. On the security screen I saw all the white

vans marked FBI and ATF. It must have been over a hundred vehi-

cles, the entire estate was surrounded. Major burst into the room.

“
The police breaking down the front gate, L, we gotta go!”

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Tomica just stood there in the window nude with her arms crossed

over her breasts. I picked up the gun as Major grabbed my arm.

“
The bitch set me up!” I said as Major walked up and placed

his arms around me. We headed down the stairs.

In my study behind the bookshelf was a tunnel that lead to the

sewer system. As we reached the bottom of the stairs I could hear

the police pounding on the door with a battering ram, overhead I

heard helicopters along with the frantic banter of shouting, “FBI.”

We made it into the study just as the front door came crash-

ing in. I stashed the gun in a Bible as Major turned the candle-

holder that opened the secret compartment to the door behind the

bookshelf. I was barefoot as we escaped into the darkness of the

tunnel. I had it all planned, leave the countr y. I had millions of

dollars in escrow in Brazil. All I had to do was step foot on the soil.

Up ahead I saw a bright light. It beamed on us like the morn-

ing sun, and then I heard the sound of guns being cocked.

“
Freeze! FBI!”

*****

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Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

“
Against all Odds”

–
Hope –

Nine months after federal agents raided Life Thugstin’s mansion

in a long, drawn out operation titled Operation Thug-Sting, fed-

eral agents seized more than ten million dollars in assets, cars, jew-

elry, not including the four million dollars that was discovered

hidden in the mansion inside secret compartments in various parts

of the floors.

*****

The sound of my heels could be heard scrapping across the

meticulously buffed marbled floor of the Federal Correctional

building. For me, the sound only seemed to heighten the urgency

of my arrival, Hope Evans, the Bureau’s Assistant Prosecutor for

the United States Southern District of Florida. And still with my

title of elitism and all its accolades, I knew that I could never be

comfortable with my job. The job of imprisoning Black people