The Mike Black Saga Book One (9 page)

Everybody laughed with him.

Now Black was standing right in front of Banks, and Bobby was standing behind him. “I like the British laws on treason better than the American. So, I consider selling drugs to be a serious threat to the stability or continuity of this organization. All of a sudden, Bobby grabbed Banks and held his arms. Black hit him in the face, once, twice, three times, four times. “Gary Banks,” Black said and hit him again. “You’re being charged—” Black hit him again. “With treason!” and he hit Banks again.

Bobby let Banks go and he fell to the floor. “Pick him up and tie him to a chair,” Bobby commanded as Black walked away. Freeze and I followed Bobby’s order and put Banks in a chair.

“Wait a minute, Black. I swear to you, I quit dealin’, man,” Banks said in protest, as we tied him up.

Black simply said, “Freeze.” And Freeze went to work on Banks. Freeze had learned his craft directly from Black; and Freeze was brutal. Betray—Mike Black—shit, Freeze lost his mind
beatin
’ Banks.

Bobby stepped up to me and handed me an eyedropper. “What’s this?”

“Acid,” Bobby said quietly.

The
beatin
’ went on for a good five minutes while everyone in the room looked on. Some people started to leave, but Black stopped them. He wanted to be sure that everyone there saw what was happening. Banks was gonna die that night and Black wanted to be sure all of them knew why. Then Black said, “Freeze.” And with that Freeze stopped.

“I swear, man, I quit dealin’,” said a now bloody Banks.

“I knew you were gonna say that,” Black said. “And I figured that it wouldn’t be fair if I were judge, jury and executioner.” Bobby cleared his throat. “Okay, Bobby thought it wouldn’t be fair. So, you are being judged by your peers. Once you’re found guilty, Freeze and Nick will execute you.”

Bobby walked over and pulled up a chair next to Banks. “What you have here is an opportunity to admit what you did and accept the consequences.”

“What’s the difference; y’all gonna kill me anyway!” Banks shouted.

“No. If Black can’t prove that you’re sellin’ drugs, you can walk out of here with my humble apology,” Bobby explained.

“No,” Black said. “The difference is that I’m givin’ you a chance to man up and admit that you betrayed everybody in this room. Does that sound fair to you?” Black asked sarcastically.

Banks didn’t answer.

“Nick.”

I stepped up to Banks and tore
the shelve
off his shirt. I held the eyedropper over his arm. I squeezed the dropper once and one drop hit his arm.

Banks screamed in pain.

“Does that sound fair to you?” Black asked again.

“Yes, shit, yes!” Banks yelled.

“Nick.” I hit the other arm this time. Banks screamed again. There was no sound in the room. No one said a word, nobody moved. They all stood and watched as me and Freeze took turns
beatin
’ Banks and then
burnin
’ him with acid.

“Admit what you did, Banks, so we can all go home,” Bobby said.

“I didn’t do
nothing
, Bobby, I swear.”

“Freeze,” Black said, and Freeze happily resumed his brutal beating.

After what seemed to be a long time, Black stepped up to Banks, “Are you ready to man up, Banks?”

“I keep telling you, Black! I didn’t do shit!” Banks protested.

“Doc,” Black said.

“Yes, Black,” Doc said, with a very scared look on his face. Doc ran the gambling in the house and was probably thinking that he would suffer the same fate as Banks.

“I want you to go behind the bar and reach your hand behind the bottle setup next to the cash box. Let me know what you find.”

Doc walked very slowly to the bar and did what he was told. He reached behind the setup. “There’s another cash box back here.”

“Pull it out and open it,” Black demanded. “Tell us all what you find.”

Doc opened the box, “Drugs and money, Black.”

“That shit ain’t mine, Black,” Banks screamed. “I swear on my
mamas
grave, I don’t know nothing about that! You planted it there.”

“Doc, has anybody other than the bartender been behind the bar tonight or any night for that matter?”

“No,” Doc said.

“How do you know that?” Black asked, knowing the answer.

“It’s a house rule,” Cynt said. “Nobody goes behind the bar but the bartender. How stupid can you be, Banks? Bad enough you’re dealin’, but why you gotta do it in the house. It ain’t gonna do nothin’ but bring the cops down on all of us. Fuckin’ fool. You deserve to die.”

“Thank you, Cynt,” Black said. “I’m glad I didn’t have to be the one to say it.”

“Fuck you, Cynt!” Banks yelled.

“Fuck you, Banks. Stupid mutha fucka,” Cynt responded as she stepped up and slapped Banks in the face.

“Black, you gotta believe me.
I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout that shit.
It must be Earl’s dope.”

“Jamaica,” Black said.

We all looked around and there stood Jamaica with Earl. He too had been beaten badly. “You know I was selling that shit for you, Banks! You said we could make that paper and Black would never know it,
“ Earl
said.

“Any questions?” Black asked as he looked around the room.

Again, no one said a word.

“Tie him up next to his friend,” Black said to Jamaica. When he finished, Jamaica moved away and Bobby handed me and Freeze each a 9.

“Gary Banks, a jury of your peers has found you guilty of treason. The sentence is death.”

Bobby walked behind the chairs and placed a black hood over their heads and moved out of the way.

Black looked at me and Freeze, “Fire.”

We both emptied a clip in them.

When it over, I drove Black home. I asked him, “How’d you know Banks started dealin’ again?”

Black just looked at me like I was stupid or something. “I know everything that goes on in my organization. Remember that. Never get to far removed from anything you’re in charge of, Nick.”

Even though we still
sorta
worked for André, who was one of the biggest drug dealers around those days, Black absolutely forbid any of us to have any direct involvement with drugs. Black made his money
highjacking
trucks, robbing warehouses and payrolls. We all made crazy money, but me and Freeze wanted to, needed to, make some money on our own.

“So what we gonna do, Nick? We can’t roll, so how we gonna get paid?” Freeze asked.

We kicked around a bunch of stuff, but everything we thought of, either wasn’t worth the risk or wasn’t enough paper to make it worth the effort. It all came back around to the fact that fast, easy money was spelled D-R-U-G-S. Then it came to me. “Look, who’s making the money?”

“Dope boyz,” Freeze replied.

“Right, so why can’t we get that money?”

“
‘Cause
Black will kill us if we started rollin’, that’s why. And don’t you say that he’ll never find out. That mutha fucka is psychic about that shit. You ain’t
forget
what we did to Banks when Black found out he was dealin’?

“No, I ain’t
forgot
. But who said anything about us dealin’?”

“You did.”

“No, I didn’t. I said why
can’t we
get that money. There’s a difference. You interested?”

“I’m listening.”

“Dope boyz rollin’ around
everyday
with stupid cash on them. I’m talkin’ about rollin’ up on them, and robbin’
them
niggas while they laid back.”

“
You talkin’
about rollin’ up on a bunch of heavily armed mutha fuckas while they do business? That ain’t
no
plan, that’s suicide.”

“You ain’t scared are you, Freeze?”

“Hell no!”

“I didn’t think so. But I ain’t talkin’ about hittin’ them while they doin’ business, that would be suicide. I’m talkin’ about
catchin
’ them comin’ out their cars. They get out the car. Bam, we hit them quick and bam we out.”

 
“That could work. I mean we know who they are. I don’t like most of them niggas anyway. And as long as we don’t take their dope, Black won’t have shit to say.”

So it was set.

Me
and Freeze became stick up kids. We’d hit two or three a night some times. And the money was good, three, four, five grand a pop for a minutes work. Most times we never had to fire a shot. But after awhile, word got around and things started to dry up. The money was less and the security was more. But we were addicted to that cash. So the plan changed. We started robbin’ them while they were selling quantity. Things were going good; it was easier than we thought. Except this one time. We over heard a guy, used to call himself Forty-eight, who had a real high, squeaky kinda voice, talkin’ about he had some white guys on the hook and he was gonna retire on the money he was gonna make.

“You mean we gonna take.” Freeze said to me, making fun of the way Forty-eight talked.

We sat and watched as the players went into a motel room on Boston Road. Once the deal was in progress, we busted in.

“Nobody move! Nobody gets hurt!” Freeze shouted.

I looked at the guy carrying the briefcase with the money. Forty-eight and his boy raised their hands and backed away from the dope. But the two white guys with the money started
beefin
’. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll walk out that door quietly.” And then he made a play for his gun. Freeze wheeled around, “Shut up, white bread!” and caught him in the mouth with the pump. “You’re speaking out of turn.”

I covered with the semi while Freeze grabbed the case and we backed out of the room. It wasn’t long after we got out of the room before somebody started blastin’. I fired back while Freeze headed for the car. The firefight continued until we were in the car and away.

We both looked at each other and started laughin’. “That was gettin’ kinda hectic.” Freeze said as he drove away. “Must be
a lotta
money in that case for them to have backup outside.”

“I think this is the biggest score we ever had,” I said, as I opened the case. “Maybe we can retire.” Making fun of Forty-eight. We were both laughing so hard that neither of us noticed the black Ford that pulled up
along side
of us. Until they started blastin’. With the first shot, they busted out the back window on the passenger side. “Where the fuck did they come from!”

“I don’t know!” Freeze yelled as he floored it. He sped away down Boston Road with the Ford on our tail.

“Get us out of here, Freeze!”

“What you think I’m doin’,
writin
’ a love song?” Freeze turned sharply against traffic, but they stayed right with us. He turned on 222nd and then back onto Boston Road. “You see them?” Freeze demanded to know.

“No, I think you lost them.”

“Damn right, I did! I told you I’d lose them!” That was when the back window got shot out.