The Desert Lion's True Colours (15 page)

‘He heard.’ Perry piped in.

Leon burst out laughing,
-
he was not faking it. He actually thought Perry was the funniest guy he had ever met. Despite all the money, the power and the family affiliation, Perry was nothing and the funniest part was he did not even know it. Leon’s mind went back to when he was in Black’s office at the ‘SPOT’. He did not realise it at the time but when Black first mentioned Pyro, he could have sworn he saw Perry nervously move around in his seat
-
almost as if he was caught off guard. It was at that moment Leon realised Perry had no idea what was going on.

“
I
bet
Black
put
you
up
to
calling
Pyro
too
”. He thought.

So as to validate his hypothesis Leon said ‘Your right.’

‘Huh!’ Perry replied

‘Your right. The way I see it
-
The ole’ mans no longer around and let’s be honest. Uncle Black’s not getting any younger. So if weee… (Leon was pointing to himself and Jay) do well with this thing you got for us. Then Black might consider me being the next in line.’

Before Leon could utter another word Perry slammed his fist down on the table, knocking the ashtray onto the floor.

‘You will NEVER BE NEXT IN LINE!’ He shouted.

He said the words with so much force and anger, little specks of spit flew out of his mouth. He made a motion with his hand as if he was going to pick up a glass off of the table but realising there were no drinks
-
and BO had not yet returned, stumped his feet like a child and shouted ‘Where the fuck are my drinks!?’

Seeing Perry’s little tantrum caused Jay to just shake his head while Leon on the other hand just sat calmly in his chair smiling to himself. Seeing the grin on Leon’s face Perry said ‘Who the Fuck do you think you are? Oh, don’t tell me, Ole’ Kilo Brown’s son.’ Perry started to laugh and then after a short pause said, ‘Let me tell you something Leon. You ain’t shit. You hear me? You ain’t shit! Your Dad wasn’t shit EITHER! He tried to run with 2 Billion of Uncle B’s money.’

Even though Perry was the one talking he was the last one to expect those words to come out of his mouth. Realising his slip up, Perry paused for a moment and then started to laugh again.

Jay was still standing next to Leon just waiting to be given the signal to take Perry out. It never came so all he said was ‘Is that supposed to be funny?’

‘Yeah, cuz guess whose body was found all fucked up in a black plastic bag?’

Jay didn’t reply to that. Perry turned his attention back to Leon and said, ‘Uncle B knows what’s up.’

‘He does?’ Leon prodded

‘Yeah he does! He was tipped off you had a meeting with Pyro.’

‘Oh!’ Leon interjected, ‘I thought it was you who saw me?’

Perry’s smile disappeared as fast as you could say the word ‘booty’. He realised his mistake but his ego
-
along with the drugs in his system
-
gave way to his true colours. Without a seconds thought, he said ‘Two days after your dad split, Uncle gets a call that your father’s body was found stuffed in a storm drain off Alligator-Alley. The body was partially burnt but…’

Leon interrupted Perry mid-sentence ‘What you saying. You were there?’

‘No. Well yeah.’

‘Which the fuck is it…’ Jay cut in. ‘. . . Either you were or you weren’t?’

Turning his attention to Leon Perry said. ‘I was not there when he actually died but I saw the body.’

Before he could say anything else, Jay blurted out ‘He’s Lying!’

‘Lying? What do I gotta lie about?’ Perry retorted. ‘Uncle B sent me down to the Morgue to make sure. His face was messed up bad. But it was him and besides, the dental records proved it was him.’

Jay cut him off. ‘Your full of shit, you know that?’ he said dryly.

Perry looked at Leon with a confused face and said ‘Yo what’s his problem? He acting like it’s his daddy.’

Leon didn’t respond. Both he and Jay knew that wasn’t the case. Leon figured Perry was either lying through his teeth, or Black was keeping him in the dark.
-
And truth be told, Leon was leaning more towards the idea Black had kept the truth away from his nephew. Leon looked into Perry’s glazed eyes and reasoned he could not blame Black for keeping secrets. Perry was a liability. Jay was about to say something when all three of their attentions were taken up by Bo finally returning to the VIP with two large ice-buckets, followed by two half naked waitresses carrying bottles of Spade champagne and glasses. The four men patiently watched the waitresses place the bottles of Spade into the ice-buckets and the glasses onto the low table. Despite the smiles on their faces the waitresses could feel the tension surrounding them so they popped open the bottles and carried out the rest of their service as quickly as possible. TooTsies may have been at the high end of strip clubs but that did not mean it was adverse to fights and fall outs.

Once they were gone, Perry said, ‘Before I get my drink on, take the details of the drop.’

Perry made a movement with his hand to which Bo took a piece of paper from out of his back pocket and handed it to Leon. Leon unfolded the paper, read a few words, looked up at Perry with a fake surprised expression and said ‘is this where we’re supposed to meet Black’s connect?’

Perry nodded.

For verification Leon asked ‘In New-York?’

‘Yep.’ Perry replied smiling. ‘The money you was given was just 1 of 5 bags. Bo will make sure you get the rest before y’all bounce. Specific details of the guy you’re supposed to meet will be given to you when you get to New-York.’

‘How are we getting there?’ Jay asked.

Without acknowledging Jay was the one who asked the question, Perry turned to Leon and said

‘That’s not my business.’ He paused for a moment then said, ‘Just know you gotta be there by 10 O’ clock tomorrow.’

‘In the morning?’ Jay exclaimed in a questioning tone.

‘Lucky for you,
-
No. The meeting is set for 10:00pm. Once you get to New-York just find a spot to lay low.’

‘Is that it?’ Leon enquired.

‘That’s it.’ Perry replied.

Before Leon could say anything else, Perry went on, ‘Oh! I forgot to ask. Was it you who put in work down in O.T today?’

Leon refused to answer.

Perry smirked. ‘It was you, wasn’t it… ?’ he said over a chuckle. ‘What happen? They turn you down, so you decided to light one of their niggers up?’ Perry let out a cynical laugh. ‘Did you think if you did that everything would be cool with Uncle B? You must be real stupid, or just out of your mind! In the three years Uncle’s had you around, haven’t you learnt anything. Uncle B got eyes and ears everywhere. The Police, FBI, CIA, Shiiiit! He even got peoples in the White-house. How the fuck do you think we do what we do? Uncle B is always one step ahead. So if someone said you were dealing with the enemy. You were dealing with the enemy. God knows why he didn’t kill you.’ Perry paused, picked up a glass of champagne, reclined back in his chair and said ‘I don’t know why, but for some reason he NEEDS YOU to make this drop. But hey, who cares. As long as it gets there and everything goes well, we will be
literally
sitting on-top of the world.’

Perry burst out laughing, which caused Leon to look over at Jay. While Perry was in the pitch black about a lot of things Leon thought that last statement carried a lot of weight. However, he calmly picked up two glasses of champagne that had already been poured. Gave one to Jay, raised his glass and said ‘Here’s to sitting on top of the world!’

‘Foreal!’ Perry exclaimed smiling.

After two very large gulps, Perry looked over at Bo and said, ‘Go get these niggers the stuff so they can get on their way.’ Then turning his attention to Leon, said ‘Here, take this.’

Handing Leon a phone, Perry said ‘Uncle says you need to keep this with you at all times. He will be calling you on it. I suggest you call him as soon as you get there.’ Perry paused, took a tiny vile of cocaine from out of his jacket pocket, dusted the length of his index finger with its white contents and snorted it all in one go. Then rubbing his nose with the back of his hands he looked up at Jay and said ‘Now git! No fun for you guys tonight.’

Jay moved forward which was mirrored by Bo coming from the opposite direction however before he could take another step Leon placed his glass back down on the table and said ‘Aight man, we out.’

Jay’s forward momentum became less aggressive and ended with him pouring the untouched champagne into the Ice-bucket which was less than 3 feet away from Perry’s head.

Bo was watching Jay’s every move anticipating any offensive gesture however nothing happened. Leon looked down at Perry in the leather chair and saw how scared he was.

‘Pussy!’
Leon thought. Then turning towards Bo said ‘So what’s good Bo? Are we following you or what?’

Bo glanced over to Perry for some sort of verification to which Perry gave a sly smile and nodded. Seeing it was ok Bo turned his back on Leon and Jay motioning them to follow him down the stairs.

Without another word to Perry they followed Bo out of the VIP and out the back of the club. Once outside Bo ordered them to follow him to the furthest part of TooTsies car-park, where a black Infiniti Q45 was stationed in a private bay away from all the other cars.

Before scanning the area for any unwanted onlookers Bo hit a button on the Key-fob in his hand and immediately the trunk opened. By the time it was fully ajar Leon and Jay were standing next to Bo looking at 4 Gucci bags identical to the one Black had given him the night before.

Bo looked over at Jay curiously. ‘So what y’all waiting for… ?’ he said.

Before Jay could reply, Bo went on, ‘I hope you didn’t think I was going to take them out for you?’

With that he took two steps back allowing Jay room to access the trunk. Knowing it wouldn’t be the best thing to walk around the front of the strip club with the bags in their hands Leon said ‘Yo Jay, go get the ride and bring it round back.’

Within a few seconds Jay was out of sight, leaving Leon standing behind Perry’s Infiniti with four Gucci bags at his feet.

After a few minutes of silence Bo reached into his pocket and took out a pack of menthol ‘Newport’ cigarettes. He did not offer Leon one. Just lit one up for him-self and took a long hard pull. Leon watched Bo hold the cigarette smoke in his chest for a while and then exhale the poison slowly
-
mouth wide open. As he raised the cigarette to his lips for the second time Leon realised two things. One: the cigarette Bo was puffing on was laced with something. He had no doubts. Not only could he smell it but Bo’s eyes were rolling around in his head and a sudden build-up of sweat had appeared across his cheeks and brow. The second major thing he thought was ‘WHERE THE FUCK IS JAY?!’

Leon was starting to get the feeling things were not going to go well. Before his thoughts could have a chance to snowball, Bo turned his attention to Leon and said, ‘so your Kilo Jnr huh?’

‘What?’ Leon replied.

‘You is Ole Kilo Brown’s son?’

Leon thought Bo must know this already but he nodded his head anyway.

‘So you know what happened to your Ole man?’

Leon nodded again. Bo chuckled, took the last pull of his drug filled cigarette and then made a show of putting it out under his foot. He was about to say something but before he could raise his head Leon had stepped over the Gucci bag that was in front of him and within the time it takes to count to 3, Leon had hit Bo square on the temple. Through training Leon instinctively knew how and where to throw the punch. It was a powerful blow but surprisingly Bo did not fall, just staggered sideways a few steps
-
holding his head.

Hurting Bo mumbled, ‘What the fuck you do…’ And just like before he was cut off in mid-sentence by another blow to the same area of the head. As Bo started to fall, Leon timed a perfect upper-cut to the underside of his jaw. Leon could feel bones dislocate on his hands impact. Despite his size advantage Bo was three counts away from ten before he even hit the floor. Kneeling over Bo’s half-conscious body Leon smiled then said, ‘The harder they come, the harder they fall dawg.’

Leon knew the line was corny but this was the first time a real opportunity presented itself for him to use the famous words.

Bo leaned his head to the side and spat out some blood and two teeth. Leon smiled, pleased with his handy work.

‘Now, what was that you were saying about my father?’ He said sharply.

Leon had his hand mockingly cupped around his ear like a funnel but heard nothing. Bo was too disorientated to answer and Leon knew it. To be honest he was surprised Bo was still awake. Leon slapped Bo in the face so as to try and get some sort of attention but he was fading fast and within seconds he was gone.
-
Still alive but out cold.

Leon quickly scanned the area but no one came into view. He could not just stand there with Bo on the floor with the money around his feet so he picked up the car-keys to the Infiniti that had fallen from Bo’s hand and started to put the bags back into the trunk. As the first bag went in Leon heard the distinctive sound of two gun shots coming from inside the strip club.

‘Shit!’ he said out loud.

Throwing the three remaining bags into the trunk Leon locked up the vehicle and quickly dragged Bo’s body in between two green industrial garbage bins lined up along the far wall. Then without a second look, headed towards the back door he, Jay and Bo had exited earlier. Leon was no more than 15ft away when the door burst open with Carter running out with a gun in one hand and a fist full of money in the other. Carter saw Leon straight away but before Leon could react or say anything, Carter took a left and sprinted away in the other direction from where Leon was standing.

Leon was about to call out when another guy came storming out of the door, followed by two more men all wearing black pants and white linen shirts.