Thirsty (5 page)
Authors: Mike Sanders
My two youngans, Lil’ Joe and Dave, were shooting a game of pool for a hundred dollars a ball. Dave was nineteen and Lil Joe was twenty. Lil Joe was the youngest and the biggest of my soldiers in the room. Standing six-four and weighing in at two-seventy, he looked like a college linebacker. Dave was the smallest of my men. He was five feet six inches of pure gangsta. Together they ran several crack houses for me on the west side of Charlotte and served weight to other dealers in that same area. Because of their size difference, I often referred to them as David and Goliath.
After rolling up and refilling their drinks, Face and Supreme unpaused the Madden football game on the Playstation 3. The table stakes were five hundred dollars a quarter and from the looks of things Face was losing. Face was medium height, medium built, and light brown skinned with a grotesque scar that ran from his right temple to just below his chin. The scar was the reason he had been given the nickname Scarface.
Supreme was a rail thin brother with long, thick dreads that hung down to the middle of his back. His complexion was dark brown and he had cold, beady eyes. His lips were just as dark as his complexion due to chronic cigar and weed smoking. Preme claimed to be a FivePercenter, a religion a lot of niggas claim to pick up during one of their many trips to the penal hotel. He called himself a God Body, a naturalborn god whom had the power to give and take life. If someone were to ask me I’d say the nigga was an angel of death. Preme and Face were my two hit men whom once used to murder just for the sport of it. They enjoyed it so much they were actually doing it for free...until I had come along. Then they were getting paid more than generously for doing what they loved.
Lastly, there was Ali. Ali was my lieutenant and trustworthy sidekick who had always been down for whatever. Ali and I had grown up in the same housing projects, Boulevard Homes on West Boulevard, on the west side of the Queen City. We had both gone through the same struggle of trying to make it out. I made it out of the hood first and as soon as my pockets got right it was without question that my man got right too. We had known one another long before all of the money had come into our lives, explaining the reason why he was second in command.
Standing an even six feet tall and weighing in at a solid 190 pounds, Ali and I were almost identical in size, only I’m an inch taller. Whereas, I’m a deep dark brown, Ali was a shade or two lighter. Like me, Ali also sported a low cut with sea-sickening waves. Because of his name, many thought my nigga was Muslim. However, he’d received the moniker at an early age because of his acute ability to box so well. He was a dangerous man with his hands. Ali could scrap with the best of them. Now that he was older, he let his pistol handle most confrontations.
I truly trusted the five men in my presence with my life. I paid them all well and treated them as equals rather than as employees. For that reason, they all respected me to the fullest. It was a known fact that if you kept a person dependent upon you they would remain loyal, and it was plain to see that I was these men’s bread and butter. For me, loyalty was worth more than any amount of money imaginable. Money was no object and fear was nonexistent. Each of us had money to burn and wouldn’t hesitate to do whatever or
whomever
to keep it that way.
I sat off in one corner of the large game room clutching a halfempty bottle of Armand de Brignac (Ace of Spades) champagne from which I’d been swigging. I was high as shit from the blunts that were being passed back and forth throughout the room. Jumping up from the money-green leather sofa, I spilled champagne on my Mek jeans. So I headed to the bar to get a paper towel to wipe myself off with. I noticed Ali on the phone and I could tell he was talking to a broad. I sat on the stool next to him and motioned for him to end the call so we could get down to business. I needed to holla at him about something that had been bothering me for the past couple of days. Checking my Audermars Piguet, I noticed that it was almost midnight.
“Damn,” I mumbled to myself thinking about all the pussy I was missing at Nine Three Five tonight. Thursdays was Ladies Night. But then I said fuck it because them hoes would be there the following week and the week after that and so on. We needed to handle this business.
After making plans to hook up with the girl he had been talking to, Ali ended his call. He turned on the stool to face me.
“What’s good Los?” He had a half-smoken blunt dangling between his lips.
I slowly swiveled around on my stool and looked out at the four men enjoying themselves. Without looking at Ali, I asked, “You know a nigga named Cross?”
Ali relit the blunt, then asked, “You talkin’ ’bout that nigga who be robbin’?”
I swigged the remnants of the champagne bottle I was holding.
“Yeah,
that
nigga.”
I reached for the blunt Ali had just lit and took a long, slow toke inhaling the ’dro. I added, “I just got word that him an’ two other niggas was the ones who did that
kick-door
last week. They had a bitch wit’ ’em too.”
I was referring to the robbery that had taken place a week earlier at one of my stash spots. No one had been hurt, but the robbers had managed to get away with eighty-three grand of my dough. I’d heard that they were in and out so fast it was like they were on a professional bank heist. Initially, no one had known who had been responsible for the robbery. However, the entire universe knows it never takes long for the streets to start whispering. This nigga told a bitch, who’d told some more niggas, who happened to tell another bitch, who ended up telling me. Same shit, different toilet. It always happens like that.
“Say word!” Ali was looking at me with perplexity as if he couldn’t grasp the finality of my last statement.
I didn’t respond, as I was lost in thought about how bad I wanted those niggas to suffer. I passed the blunt back to Ali, arose from the stool, and walked behind the bar to retrieve another bottle of champagne. After popping the cork, I leaned on the bar towards Ali.
“In all of my twenty-four years on this earth, I’on’ think I ever wanted somethin’ as bad as I wanna see them hoe-ass niggas shed blood.” I had venom in my voice.
“So how we gonna handle that? You gonna let Mark take care of it?” Ali asked, then blew a cloud of smoke towards the ceiling.
“Mark? You serious? That was
my
dough them niggas took.”
I looked out at Supreme and Face and knew exactly how I was going to handle the situation. But I had to be smart with this hit because I had been picked up on several occasions and taken to Homicide for questioning. No witnesses, no evidence, no charges. I was too sharp for their asses. I always stayed two steps ahead of the game. I knew one slip up could cost me my freedom and everything I had hustled hard for. Therefore, I knew I had to handle this situation with Cross with extreme caution. Since so many people knew my spot had been robbed I knew I’d get the blame if the niggas who had done it suddenly wound up bodied. I just had to sit back and wait for a minute before moving on them.
I looked out at my boys and spoke up loud enough to be heard over all of the shit talking and berating throughout the room. “Yo! Yo! I need y’all to check this out for a minute!”
I reached for the remote to turn the surround sound down, which was pumping Lil’ Wayne’s new joint. I waited until I was sure I had their undivided attention before continuing.
Lil’ Joe and Dave both turned to face me while holding the customized pool sticks in their hands. They leaned back against the expensive pool table side by side looking like a black Arnold Swartzeneggar and Danny Devito in that old school movie
Twins.
Lil’ Joe was towering over Dave by almost a foot.
Supreme and Face paused the video game again and craned their necks so they could see what all the fuss was about. Face was apparently agitated because I’d just interrupted his game and he was losing fifteen hundred dollars.
“Nigga, you can’t wait ‘til we finish this last quarter? It’s almost over.” Face had a thick blunt between his burnt lips as he spoke.
“It ain’t gonna take long. I just wanna put y’all niggas up on the reason why we all here tonight.” I was standing behind the bar speaking as if I was standing at a podium. “Y’all know a nigga been tryin’ to figga out who them niggas was that tried me like that last week, right?” I saw everyone nod in agreement. “Well, I found out who one of them snakes is.”
Preme was the first to speak up as he sat the controller pad down.
“Yo, god, you know all you gotta do is give a nigga some names an’ we’ll toe tag them bitches.” He had a one-track mind—
murder.
I knew Preme was ready to put in work but this situation wasn’t as simple as just murkin’ a few niggas and calling it a day. This one had to be handled with delicacy.
I told Preme, “I wish it was that easy, my nigga.” I took a deep breath, “but it ain’t. Y’all know how them investigators keep harassing muthafuckas about unsolved murders an’ shit?”
I didn’t wait for a response.
“Well, my name keeps comin’ up.” I knitted my brow as I remembered something I’d heard a while back. I added to my previous statements, “Oh, and that bitch-made ass nigga Junior told Face that some niggas in the county jail was talkin’ ’bout I had somethin’ to do wit’ slumpin’ them two niggas in North Charlotte a couple of months ago.”
The group looked at Face as he nodded in agreement to what I’d just said. I sat the bottle of champagne on the bar and looked out at Supreme.
“Now, Preme, tell me,” I tilted my head to one side, “how the fuck a nigga know I had somethin’ to do wit’ that shit?” My voice had unconsciously risen.
Supreme’s brows furrowed in confusion as his mind replayed the incident in which I was speaking about. He had went on that mission alone and had slumped those two dudes in a parked car in a dark parking lot on Pegram Street, execution-style. He hadn’t left any witnesses and no evidence. All the police had found when they had arrived at the scene had been two dead bodies and thirteen .9mm shell casings with no prints on them. As usual, Preme hadn’t uttered a word about the hit so he truly had no idea how someone could have come to that conclusion.
“Come on, Los, you know damn well I didn’t let that shit leak.” Preme made that statement with all seriousness.
“See, that’s what I mean, lucky assumptions like that’ll get a nigga a
forever
sentence!”
Felony murder charges were getting niggas fried in the courtroom. I knew some niggas who had gotten so much time that their future PO hadn’t even been born at the time they were being sentenced.
After a moment of silence, “That nigga Cross was the one who robbed Mark last week. Him, two more niggas, and a bitch. I don’t know who the other two niggas and the girl is just yet, but best believe I’ma find out. And for real, it really don’t even matter ‘cause when we do this nigga, we doin’ every muthafucka in his presence at that time. I’on’ give a fuck who it is!”
I paused to take a swig. All of my boys had begun talking amongst themselves but I quieted them when I begun to speak again. This time my tone was a little calmer.
“I’on’ give a fuck if his mamma, his grandma, or whoever is around when we go get this nigga. I hate it for ‘em. Consider ‘em guilty by association. We gonna teach muthafuckas that when you around snakes, you get bit!” My words lingered in the air as my niggas waited for further instructions, but there weren’t any.
I had learned years ago that if a person wasn’t part of the solution then they were more than likely part of the problem. I knew the only way to solve a problem is to eliminate it so that it has no room for manifestation. This nigga Cross had definitely become a
problem
.
We were all ready to deal with this nigga, but I knew better than to jump the gun. I made sure each of my boys understood that nobody was to make a move until I gave the word. I knew each of my boys wanted to get at this nigga for different reasons. Ali wanted him dead because he had tried me, and trying me was just like trying him. It was like taking food off of his own table when my money had gotten taken. If I took a loss, then so did he.
Lil’ Joe and Dave wanted to get at the nigga because they knew if Cross had tried
my
stash spot, then he definitely wouldn’t hesitate to try theirs sooner or later.
Face and Preme wanted to nod him just because they hadn’t murked a nigga in a few weeks, and they were starting to get bored and restless.
I’d always believed that an enemy left alive is like a half-dead serpent that you nurse back to life. Consequently, his bite will become more venomous with time! I felt like these niggas were testing my gangsta when they’d robbed my spot. So I was determined to make an example out of their asses.
Everyone stood in agreement that Cross was a walking corpse that refused to lie down in the casket.
