The Fix 2 (22 page)

Ramses had just dropped a bomb on him. Li'l Monk knew the Parizzi crime family by reputation. They were an especially ruthless lot and one of the strongest of the remaining mafia families in New York. Someone killing one of their inner circle meant that there was surely a shit storm on the horizon.

Li'l Monk knew he didn't kill Mr. D, but Ramses didn't seem so sure, which was what bothered him. When dealing with criminal politics it wasn't the same as dealing with the law where you would be granted a fair trial before sentencing was passed. In the underworld, being suspected of something was enough to get you killed and him being a suspect in the slaying of a made man did not sit well with him at all.

Li'l Monk replayed the events of the prior night over and over in his head to see if he had missed anything, but kept coming up with blanks. He had done everything Ramses had told him to do, with the one deviation being bringing Charlie with him. Charlie was the X factor. Could it be possible that Charlie could've doubled back and killed Mr. D after he and Li'l Monk had parted company? Anything was possible, but the theory didn't sit right with him. Charlie was a slime ball, but he wasn't a killer. He couldn't see Charlie taking on a heist like that, let alone committing murder; but what if he'd had an accomplice? Li'l Monk and Charlie knew all of the same people and there wasn't one of them who Li'l Monk could say was built like that to take on such a caper, but then again you never knew. His best course of action was to track Charlie down and question him. He would give his friend the benefit of the doubt, but if he suspected had crossed him, Charlie wouldn't have to worry about Ramses catching up with him because Li'l Monk planned to kill him personally.

 

 

After Li'l Monk had gone, Ramses gave a signal to one of his men who disappeared into the kitchen area and came back out escorting a woman. She was an attractive older woman who was slightly underdressed for the weather and wearing a cheap-looking wig. Ramses motioned for her to take the seat Li'l Monk had just vacated. She looked nervous and couldn't seem to sit still.

“Relax, sis. I gave you my word you would be safe here,” Ramses told her.

“I know, but I feel kind of funny about all this. You know we don't snitch in the hood,” she told him.

“Don't look at it as snitching, look at it as doing a public service for your Pharaoh,” Ramses tried to ease her mind. “The kid who just left, is that the man you saw leaving the apartment building?”

The woman thought about it. “It was dark and he was moving fast, but I think that was him.”

“I don't need you to think. I need you to be sure,” Ramses said sternly. “Was that him?”

“Yes, that was him.”

Ramses heart sank. He looked at Huck, who just shook his head sadly. They both knew what needed to be done, but neither of them was looking forward to it. Ramses slid an envelope full of cash over to the woman. “Thanks for your time. You can go now.”

The woman took the envelope and made hurried steps from the restaurant.

Ramses took a few minutes to collect his thoughts before wearily rising to his feet.

“Ramses,” Huck began, but Ramses waved him silent.

“Not now,” Ramses told his friend and walked out of the restaurant. He had so much on his mind that he had no idea where to begin as far as sorting it out. His heart was heavy. He had grown quite fond of Li'l Monk and saw great potential in him, but like so many of the others who had come before him, Li'l Monk was getting overly ambitious, just like Chucky and Benny had. Ramses felt like a failed father.

Outside the restaurant, a white Rolls-Royce sat idling. Ramses moved through the throngs of soldiers, and climbed into the back seat of the car where Pharaoh was waiting.

“I take it by the look on your face things didn't go well,” Pharaoh said, using his pocket knife to carve off slices of a fresh peach.

“Not well at all. The broad fingered Li'l Monk as the one she saw leaving the apartment,” Ramses told him.

“And do you believe her?”

Ramses hesitated before answering. “No, I believe Li'l Monk. I know that kid and he's loyal.”

“That was the same thing you said about Benny and look how that turned out,” Pharaoh reminded him. “This isn't good, Ramses.”

“I know,” Ramses said. “This isn't sitting right with me. Give me a little time and I'll get to the bottom of this.”

“Time is a luxury we don't have, old friend. Between the Clarks, the Puerto Ricans, and now this, we have wolves scratching at our walls on all fronts. We've worked too hard to build this organization to sit back and watch it be picked over by vultures.”

“I know,” Ramses said sadly. “But I'm telling you, Pharaoh, there's something we're overlooking. I don't think Li'l Monk would go out like that.”

“Maybe you're right and maybe you're wrong, but why even take the chance?” Pharaoh asked. “When you leave a sore untreated it's likely to fester and infect the rest of the body. I can't have that. Are you going to take care of this or should I?”

“No, I'll take care of it.”

Pharaoh nodded. “So it is said, so it shall be done.”

“It's done,” Maggie said once she was back in the car.

“Do you think he believed you?” Chucky asked from behind the wheel.

“This envelope says he does.” Maggie held up the reward money Ramses had given her.

It had been Chucky's idea to send Maggie into the restaurant and feed Ramses the false information. When he had gotten wind of who the old man was that he had killed, he knew he would have to cover his ass. The best way to do it was to feed Ramses someone else to blame for the murder. It was a risky plan, but thankfully it had worked.

“Let me help you with that.” Chucky plucked it greedily from her hand. Chucky eyeballed the contents and guesstimated it to be at least three grand. That coupled with what they had ripped off in the wee hours of that morning would hold them over while they went underground for a little while. “Good job everybody, especially you, Charlie,” he said over his shoulder.

Charlie was sitting in the back seat, next to Rissa, with a nauseated expression on his face. For the millionth time he wondered how he had let Chucky suck him into such a mess. As soon as Charlie laid eyes on the safe at Mr. D's house he immediately saw it as an opportunity in waiting. Mr. D was an old man who should've been an easy enough mark to take off, but he brought Chucky in for added insurance. It should've been a simple job, in and out, but nothing could ever be simple with Chucky.

The first sign of trouble was the fact that Chucky had showed up as high as a kite. His eyes were wild and the edges of his nose were red and irritated. Charlie wanted to put it off until another time, but Chucky wouldn't hear it. He wanted what Mr. D had and wouldn't be swayed. Charlie knocked on the door in the same rhythm he had heard Li'l Monk knock. Mr. D recognized Charlie as the young man who had been with Li'l Monk so he opened the door for him. Almost immediately Chucky was on him, hitting the old man in the head with his gun. They dragged Mr. D into the bedroom where he kept the safe.

Charlie waited in anticipation as Mr. D opened up the safe. He had expected it to be stacked with cash, as it had been when he and Li'l Monk had visited earlier, but there was only about twenty grand in it at that point. Chucky was livid. He had come expecting a king's ransom so to find only a few thousand dollars pushed him over the edge. He began slapping Mr. D around, demanding that he tell them where the rest of the money was. Mr. D kept trying to tell Chucky that the bulk of the money had been picked up not long after Charlie and Li'l Monk had left, but Chucky accused him of lying and was determined to beat the truth out of him.

Charlie tried to stop Chucky, but he was so high out of his mind that he was unreasonable. At one point he had even turned his gun on Charlie, threatening to shoot him if Charlie didn't help him find the stash of hidden money. They tore up every inch of Mr. D's apartment and found nothing, which infuriated Chucky. Things went from bad to worse when Chucky caught Mr. D reaching for something on his dresser drawer. Without even thinking about it, Chucky shot Mr. D in the back and killed him. Chucky had assumed that Mr. D had been reaching for a gun, but as it turned out he was trying to get to his heart medicine. Just like that, Chucky had turned a robbery into a homicide and Charlie was caught smack in the middle.

Just when Charlie thought that things couldn't get any worse, they did. Charlie had been all for the robbery, but Chucky's plan to blame it on Li'l Monk was an unexpected twist. For whatever Charlie's differences with Li'l Monk might've been, he didn't want to see harm come to him. He understood that Li'l Monk was standing in the way of progress, but that wasn't enough for him to want to see him hurt; too bad the same couldn't be said for Chucky. It had started to become abundantly clear that Chucky didn't want Li'l Monk out of the way; he wanted him dead. Charlie had fucked up royally by trusting Chucky and found himself on a speeding train straight to hell. He knew he didn't have the heart to go on, but he had come too far to turn back. The only choice left to him was to see it through to the end, no matter how it might play out.

Chucky turned to Rissa, who was sitting next to Charlie reading a newspaper, and was about to say something to her, but the words died in his throat when a picture on the lower half of the page caught his attention. He snatched the paper from Rissa and zeroed in on the picture and the accompanying article. He had to read it twice to make sure he was processing the information correctly.

“Rotten bitch.” Chucky crumbled the newspaper.

“What's wrong, baby?” Maggie asked, picking up on Chucky's sudden anger.

“Nothing I can't fix,” Chucky told her. He popped open the glove box and began tossing papers around, as he searched for something. After a few minutes, he finally found it. It was a small CD that was marked T
RUMP
C
ARD. “
Somebody tell me where the closest library is. I need to use a computer.”

Persia was awakened by the sound of her bedroom phone ringing. Without taking her head from under the pillow she'd fallen asleep hiding beneath, she reached blindly for the phone, knocking over a cupful of pens trying to find the phone. She snatched it off the cradle and put it to her ear. “Yeah,” she answered groggily.

“Are you still sleeping?” Asia's voice came over the line.

“Something like that. What's up?”

“I wanted to find out what happened to you. You vanished last night.”

“I'm sorry, Asia. I wasn't feeling well, which is why I left,” Persia lied. “I left you a message, didn't you get it?”

“Yeah, I got it. Hope you're feeling better.”

“I will be after I get some rest,” Persia told her.

“Well, rest is going to have to wait. Have you seen the newspaper today?” Asia asked.

This got Persia's attention and she sat up. “The newspaper? No, why?”

“Oh my God. I'm going to need you to get a copy of the
Daily News,
ASAP. As a matter of fact, do you have a computer?”

“Yeah, I have one.”

“Okay, go on the
Daily News
Web site and look in the society section. I'll hold.”

Persia slid from the bed and sat at her computer desk. It took a few minutes for the computer to boot up. She typed in the Web address for the
Daily News
and clicked on the link that took her to the society section. There were several articles, one of which covered the event she had attended. She wasn't sure what Asia wanted her to see at first, but when she eventually found it, she almost fell out of the chair. It was the picture she and Vaughn and Persia had posed for. The caption under the picture read: P
HILADELPHIA
E
AGLES
ROOKIE SENSATION
V
AUGHN
T
ATE AND MYSTERY WOMAN
.

“Oh my fucking God!” Persia blurted out.

“You sneaky little heifer. You know I'm going to need all the dirty details about this,” Asia said.

“Asia, I'll call you back.” Persia hung up the phone. Persia was too stunned to speak. She went on to read through the article that detailed the Teen Suicide Awareness fundraiser. There was a whole paragraph of the article dedicated to Vaughn Price, one of the Philadelphia area's most eligible bachelors, and the mysterious woman who he was reported to be seeing. Persia smiled from ear to ear as she read the article twice more.

The phone rang again. Persia picked it up without looking at the caller ID thinking it was Asia again. “Asia, I told you I'd call you back.”

“Hey, baby girl.” Chucky's voice, and not Asia's, came over the line.

Just like that Persia's mood darkened. “Oh my goodness. Dude, are you not getting the hint that I don't want to be bothered? Why the fuck do you keep calling me?”

“Just wanted to congratulate you on your good fortune. I saw the paper with you and that football nigga you fucking. I see you've raised your standards.”

“First of all, it's none of your business who I am or am not fucking, and second of all, if I slept with a homeless nigga on the streets it'd be an upgrade from you!”

“Is that any way to talk to the man you love?”

Persia looked at the phone as if she had misheard him. “Look, you psycho fuck, I don't know how many languages I have to say it in for you to finally get a clue and step the fuck off. You're a piece of shit, Chucky, and I ain't fucking with you.”

Chucky laughed. “I had a feeling you'd say that, so I decided to give you a little incentive to change your mind. Check your e-mail, Persia.”

Persia opened her e-mail inbox and saw that she had received an attachment from an unknown sender. Curiously she clicked it and her media player popped open. When the video came onto her screen, Persia felt like she wanted to die. In the video was she and Chucky having one of their marathon fuck sessions. She didn't even remember the night, let alone him videotaping it. She watched in horror, seeing her strung out and shaking cocaine on Chucky's dick and sucking it off.

“What is this?” Persia asked with a trembling voice.

“Your wakeup call, bitch,” Chucky spat. “Now I've tried to play nice with your junky-ass, but you done made me get nasty.”

“Why are you doing this to me, Chucky?” Persia asked, fighting back the tears.

“You did it to yourself when you tried to shit on me, Persia. Now you're gonna get your ass off that high horse and fall the fuck in line or I'm gonna make sure this tape goes to every newspaper from here to Philadelphia. I wonder how damaging this would be to your new boyfriend's career if they found out his bitch is reformed junkie whore?”

“What do you want from me, Chucky?”

“That should be obvious by now, revenge.”