Love & Gunplay: A Novelette Read online

  The story of her murder was broadcast on every major news station. There was an outcry for justice for the senseless slaying of the little black girl that could be heard in ghettos across America. The police suspected that it had been Terror who had been responsible for the shooting, but they had no way to prove it. Everyone was too frightened of Teror to speak out against him, so the police couldn’t touch him.

  Most people in the neighborhood took the girl's murder hard, but Ashanti took it personal. She was cool little chick who he would often send to the store for him to put a few dollars in her pockets. He loved to hear her tell stories of how she was going to become a doctor one day and get her family out of the hood. Terror had killed her dreams and it sickened Ashanti to see him strutting around like he was untouchable while in the next building a mother mourned the loss of her child.

  "If looks could kill, I think ol' boy would've fallen over dead by now." King James startled Ashanti as he hadn’t heard him approach. He was dressed in a black hoodie and black Yankee fitted cap. His signature rope chain with the crescent moon medallion hung around his neck.

  "Huh?" Ashanti turned to King James.

  King James nodded out the window at Terror. "I see you shooting prisons at that cat. I don’t blame you. Scrams is a slimy nigga."

  "The slimiest." Ashanti said. "They were trying to send my nigga Animal to the gas chamber for killing a few pieces of shit, but Terror murks a kid and gets to walk around free. It ain't right, King."

  "Yeah, shit is foul, but what can you do? Terror needs to be punished but the police can't touch him unless somebody steps forward." King James said.

  "Somebody needs to do something."

  "So, what? You gonna snitch on the nigga so justice can be served?" King James asked.

  "Fuck no. Snitching ain't nowhere in my character. You know that, King." Ashanti told him. "I just think something needs to be done, man."

  "I agree. Terror has brought a lot of heat on this hood with his bullshit. It was already hard to get a dollar, but these knockers and these sweeps are gonna drive us all to the poor house. Shit, I ain't gotta tell you that because the soldiers are getting the worse of it. If we can clock we can't pay y'all. I was even talking to Lakim this morning about how we might have to let a few niggaz go off the payroll until all this gets worked out." King James told him.

  "That's fuck up. I know a lot of dudes who are gonna go hungry if they can't get a dollar with the team." Ashanti said.

  "Yeah, it’s a hard pill to swallow, but what can we do? The only way to get the heat off of us is to get rid of Terror, but if the police can't touch him what other choice do we have?" King paused as if he was deep in thought. "You know, there's quite a few cats who would find themselves mighty grateful if somebody were to knock Terror out the box."

  "What? You talking about killing him?" Ashanti asked.

  King James raised his hands in surrender. "Hey, you didn’t hear me say nothing about killing anybody. All I said is that folks would be grateful if he wasn’t here anymore, feel me?" he gave Ashanti a look.

  Ashanti nodded. "Yeah, I feel you."

  King James patted Ashanti on the back. "Good. I'm gonna dip to the Bronx for a few hours to handle some business. Give me a shout if anything interesting goes down on the block while I'm not around." King James left Ashanti alone with his thoughts.

  Ashanti continued sitting in the window, staring down at Terror. King James' words played in his head and he knew what time it was without the big homie having to say so. He was being tested. Ashanti had never been any good at test in school, but this one he would pass with flying colors.

  Ashanti pulled himself away from the window and started across the living room. The homies were all sitting around passing blunts and talking shit. Standing in the doorway of the kitchen holding a coffee pot full of murky water was a girl named Fatima who worked for King James. She was about the same age as Ashanti, but stacked like a woman in her twenties. Ashanti's hart always beat a little faster whenever he saw her. Ashanti had been infatuated with Fatima from the first time he laid eyes on her, but never got up the courage to tell her. Fatima must've felt him staring because she looked up at him and smiled. Ashanti returned the smile before putting his head down nervously and continuing towards the door.

  The homies flooded the living room, bagging up, counting money or bullshitting. At their usual positions, in front of the television playing video games were Meek and Dee. They were two young boys on the fast track. Meek was a good dude, but he didn’t have the killer edge that it took to become a ghetto star. Dee, on the other hand showed promise. He was about his money when he wasn’t killing his brain cells with weed and video games.

  Sitting on the couch with his face buried in a Newspaper and a green highlighter tucked behind his ear, was Alonzo aka Zo-Pound. Zo was like a big brother to Ashanti and the closest thing to a friend he had left. When Zo noticed Ashanti storming out of the apartment he looked up from his reading.

  "Where you headed, my nigga?" Alonzo asked.

  "Gotta see a man about a morality test." Ashanti told him and left the apartment.

  All Alonzo could do was shake his head at Ashanti's statement. If he knew him as well as he thought he did, morality test was probably code for mischief. Causing mischief was what Ashanti did best. His wild ways and abrasive attitude soured a lot of people on Ashanti, but the hood niggaz loved him, especially Alonzo. He was like the little brother he never had.

  Alonzo was about to go back to his newspaper when it was abruptly snatched from his hands. He looked up, ready to flip, but his anger died when he saw that it was Fatima. She was one of King James' top chefs, highly skilled in the art of turning cocaine into crack. At seventeen years old she could cook drugs better than cats that had been doing it for years.

  Fatima was a young light skinned chick with a pretty smile and ass for days. The young beauty was highly coveted in the hood, but only the bold or stupid tried to get with her. Fatima was a master at manipulating men to further her own gains. When she was done she would toss them to the side like toys she had gotten bored with. Being played by a child didn’t go over well with her victims, but none of them dared try to get out of pocket. Not only was she the daughter of a notorious killer, but she was like a play sister to King James. Since he'd come home from prison he and Fatima had been spending a lot of time together. Some speculated that their relationship was more intimate than they let on, but nobody would say it out loud.

  "Fatima, why do you play so much? Give it back." Alonzo reached for the newspaper but she snatched it out of his reach.

  "I'm just trying to see what you're reading that's so interesting." Fatima looked at the newspaper and frowned at the sections Alonzo had highlighted. "The classified ads?"

  "Yes." Alonzo snatched the newspaper back from her and smoothed it out on the table.

  Fatima sat on the table so that she was facing him. "Zo, you’re a strange dude."

  "Why is that?" he asked.

  "Because with all this money we making in the trap I can't understand why you'd be looking for a job." Fatima said.

  "Because the trap don’t last forever, ma. You gotta have something to fall back on." Alonzo told her.

  "That's why you stack your bread, so when you retire you're caked up." Fatima said as if it was that simple.

  Alonzo pushed the newspaper to the side and gave Fatima his undivided attention. "How many retired drug dealers do you know?"

  Fatima thought on it for a few seconds. "None."

  "Exactly, you don’t retire from this shit, it retires you. I ain't one of those dudes who is gonna be out here hustling until somebody puts a bullet in his head or his ass in a cage. I'm trying to land a gig so I can start putting my life together and live like a square."

  Fatima laughed. "Zo, I've got more of a chance at being a man than you have at living like a square." She placed her hand over his heart. "It ain't in you. We're young superstars and that world ain't big enough for pe
ople like us."

  "Then it better make room." Alonzo got up from the couch, tucking his newspaper under his arm. He made tracks from the apartment without saying anything to anyone because he wasn’t sure if he'd be able to hide the fact that Fatima had hit a nerve. Alonzo knew that getting off the streets and getting a job was the right thing to do, but the right thing wasn’t putting food in his stomach. He'd promised himself that hustling with his brother and King James would only be a temporary arrangement but the deeper he got the more of the old him crept back to the surface. He could hear the streets moaning in his ears and was getting seduced by her. He wondered when the moment came when he had to choose between the life of a square versus that of an outlaw, would he be able to make the right decision?

  Alonzo decided to take a walk to the store to clear his head. As he stood at the end of the hallway pressing for the elevator he could hear raised voices coming from a few floors below. He was about to ignore it and continue with his business until he heard the familiar pop of a gunshot. His brain immediately shifted to war mode and before he knew it he was hitting the staircase to investigate.

  Terror sat on the bench in front of building 550, watching the block watch him. When Terror was around the hood was always tense because you never knew what he was going to do and who he was going to do it to. It kept everyone edgy around him and he preferred it like that.

  Playing the hood openly like that with all the heat on him wasn’t the smartest thing to do but Terror had never been known for his brains. The increased police presence in the hood forced everyone else to either close shop completely or scale back which left the lane open for Terror. The fiends flocked to him like blind mice because he was the only one holding the cheese.

  Terror was just serving a fiend the last of his package when he saw King James come out of the lobby with his pet pit bull, Lakim, trailing a few paces behind him. Of all the dudes who claimed to be getting money uptown, King James was one of the few Terror respected. Terror was the new kid on the block when King James had gone away, but even back then King was a young beast. King was a gladiator, same as Terror, and he felt a kinship with his warrior spirit. He'd reached out to King James a few times about doing business, but King always spun him with a promise to follow up that he never kept.

  "Fuck that nigga too." Terror said to no one in particular, diddy-bopping towards the building to go re-up.

  Instead of taking the elevator, Terror hit the stairs like he always did. He hated elevators because they were too easy to get trapped off in. He had caught more than his fair share of people in them so he knew this first hand. At the same time he was going up the stairs someone was coming down. He immediately recognized little Ashanti. They weren't friends to speak of, but Terror knew him from when he used to run around with Brasco robbing cats uptown. The last he'd heard, Ashanti had taken up with King James and his crew so that unofficially put him on Terror's shit list. He didn’t like the way Ashanti was looking at him so he decided to fuck with him.

  "Sup, lil nigga?" Terror asked in a threatening voice. Ashanti didn’t say a word. He just continued staring at Terror. "Fuck is your problem?"

  Ashanti pulled his little .38 and pointed it at Terror. Ashanti's mouth was so dry that he couldn’t answer if he wanted to. He was no stranger to putting in work, but that was in the heat of battle. This was cold blooded murder.

  Terror gave a throaty laugh. "I get it. Ya boss wants me out the box but he was too much of a pussy to step to me himself, so he sends the help? Shorty, I'm gonna take that hammer and fuck you in the ass with it before I shove it in King James' mouth." Terror reached for the gun and his shoulder exploded with pain. He staggered back with a startled expression on his face as if he had been slapped unexpectedly. He touched his hand to his shoulder and when his fingertips came away slick with blood, his shock turned to anger. "I was just gonna kick your ass, but now I'm gonna kill you."

  Terror lunged for Ashanti. Ashanti tried to get off another shot, but Terror moved faster than he had expected. The larger man wrapped Ashanti in a tight bear hug and applied pressure. Ashanti heard his back crack loudly right before his hands went numb. It felt like Terror was trying to snap his spine and there was no doubt that he would succeed unless Ashanti did something. He head butted Terror so hard that he almost knocked himself out, but Terror held fast. Ashanti could feel himself getting dizzy from lack of oxygen but all he could do was hang there like a rag doll while Terror crushed him. Just when he felt the lights going out, Terror suddenly released him.

  Ashanti lay on the steps gasping for air, while thanking God that he wasn’t dead. When he looked up at Terror, his face was twisted into a mask of pain. He was reaching over his shoulder for something that he couldn’t quite get hold of, cursing. There was a wet sound like meat being cleaved and Terror dropped to his knees. Standing just behind him, holding a bloody knife was Ashanti's savior, Alonzo.

  "Ashanti what the fuck is going on?" Alonzo asked with a shocked expression on his face. The last thing he expected to see when he came down the stairs was Ashanti getting his ass handed to him.

  The split second it took Alonzo to question Ashanti was all that Terror needed to regroup. "I'm gonna kill all you fucking roaches." Terror roared as he sprung to his feet. Alonzo was caught totally off guard when Terror grabbed him around his legs and lifted him into the air. Alonzo hit him twice more in the side with the knife, but Terror was un-phased. The next thing he knew they were both airborne and flying down the stairs. When they hit the wall on the landing below Alonzo took the worse of the impact and the knife flew out of his hand and put him at Terror's mercy.

  Alonzo delivered a quick combination to Terror's face that would've have laid most men out, but Terror ate the punches like they were snacks. Terror pinned Alonzo to the wall by his throat and punched him in his exposed face. Alonzo had been in plenty of fistfights against opponents who were bigger than him, but they all failed in comparison to Terror. Even with a bullet in his shoulder he was still as strong as an ox. Every time he hit Alonzo it felt like he had been bitch slapped by the Incredible Hulk. Alonzo raised his hands to protect his face leaving his midsection open and Terror went to work. Every blow that landed shifted his intestines.

  Ashanti finally managed to compose himself enough to rejoin the fight. He scooped up the .38 and let off two shots, both of which hit Terror high in his broad back. The .38 might as well have been a pellet gun because it seemed to only annoy Terror. He abandoned his pummeling of Alonzo and turned his attention back to Ashanti. Ashanti pointed the gun at Terror's face and pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. The gun was empty. At first he couldn’t understand it, but then he remembered that he had been clowning around on the roof with Meek and Dee, letting shots off in the air earlier that day and he'd forgotten to make sure the gun was fully loaded when he went after Terror. It was a rookie mistake that was about to cost him.

  Not sure what else to do Ashanti rushed Terror and slammed the empty .38 against the side of his head over and over until he drew blood. The loss of blood had Terror woozy so when he swung on Ashanti, it was awkward and easy to dodge. Balancing himself between the wall and the banister, Ashanti bunched his knees to his chest and shot his legs out, kicking Terror in the chest. Terror stumbled down the stairs right into Alonzo, who had retrieved his knife.

  Terror swung high, but Alonzo went low. He hit Terror in the gut once with the knife then struck him twice more on his inner thigh, aiming for his femoral artery. Terror swung his massive fists like a club trying to take Alonzo's head off, but Alonzo was quicker. He pushed the blade through Terror's forearm before brining it around and stabbing him in the soft flesh between his collarbone and neck. Terror went down to one knee, bleeding like a stuck pig but was still trying to fight his way to his feet. If nothing else, Terror had the will of a titan.

  Alonzo's legs felt like noodles when he moved to step behind Terror, placing the blade against his neck. He had to respect the man because if nothing else h
e had the heart of a titan, but respect or not Terror had to go. "Fucking die already," he slit Terror's throat.

  Terror's body twitched and flapped around for almost a full three minutes before he was finally still. Ashanti sat on the steps, elbows on his knees gasping for air. He looked over at Alonzo, who sat on the floor in the corner of the landing, with his head propped against a wall. Alonzo was still, but his eyes burned holes in Ashanti.

  "If I could stand up, I'd kick your ass for getting me caught up in this." Alonzo told him. He was winded and his body ached so bad that he felt like it would be at least a week before he could move.

  "And if I had any bullets left in my gun, I'd shoot you the minute you tried." Ashanti replied.

  After a few more minutes the two battle worn comrades staggered to their feet and made slow, painful, steps from the scene of the crime. Alonzo's ribs hurt so bad that he had to stop twice before they had even made it off the block. He was pretty sure that he needed medical attention, but there was no way he was going to the hospital after what they had done. A simple walk to the store had turned into a homicide. "What the fuck am I doing with my life?"

  "Who you talking to, Zo?" Ashanti asked.

  Alonzo looked down at his bloody clothes. "I don’t even know anymore."

  CHAPTER 3

  During the ride to their destination, Unique was quiet, but Animal could feel her watching him from the backseat. Minister gave Animal the play by play on the city of Miami, occasionally throwing in a splash of his life. He was originally from Philadelphia, but had relocated to Miami when he'd gotten out of the service. He and his brother had been partners in a private security firm that was funded by his brother's drug money. Minister wanted to go all the way legit, but his brother was too turned out by the life to give it up. He wanted to be a rock star, while Minister just wanted to make money. Minister brought in some of his old military comrades and formed an efficient security team and the demand soon grew as did the company. Being that Minister seemed to have a handle on the company, it left his brother time to run the streets. It wasn’t long before his brother's name had started ringing and Minister had received the phone call he had been dreading. His brother was killed in a strip club by a dude from Carol City over a hundred dollars and a girl.