Love & Gunplay: A Novelette Read online

  Animal turned his attention to Blue. "No disrespect, but I didn’t ask for your help, Sonja did. Furthermore, y'all know what it is with me, so never disrespect my pedigree by suggesting that I'm anything less than a gangster."

  Diamonds laughed and clapped his hands thunderously. "I like this tadpole. He got some stones on him, don’t he, Blue?"

  "Either stones in his sack or rocks in his head." Blue said.

  "Look, are y'all gonna help me or keep fucking with me? If you ain't gonna help, I can make my own way." Animal said in frustration and stood up.

  Diamonds' face became very serious. "Ain't no need to be disrespectful, friend. Let's not forget that you're still a guest in my house. Have a seat." He told Animal, but Animal remained standing. "Please." He added. Animal sat back down. "I think maybe we got off on the wrong foot here. Let's have a drink and everybody cool out."

  Diamonds scanned the room until he spotted the waitress. She was near the stage taking the order of a kid wearing a red Dickey suit and heavy jewels. When she noticed Diamonds trying to get her attention she made to go to him, but the kid in the Dickey suit grabbed her by the arm. She pointed in Diamonds' direction and was trying to explain that she had to go, but guy didn’t seem to care. He said something to his crew and nodded in Diamonds' direction which made them all laugh.

  Diamonds was furious that his authority was being challenged in his domain. "Minister, go fetch that bitch." Minister nodded and walked across the room. He leaned in and started whispering something to the kid in the Dickey suit. "You see the shit I gotta put up with." Diamonds was speaking to Animal. "I'm up here trying to make a dollar and these Florida niggaz are more interested in making comedy movies. No offense." He said to Reign.

  "None taken." She said in an easy tone.

  A few seconds later, Minister came back with the waitress, who looked visibly shaken. "Sorry about that, Diamonds."

  "We all good, baby girl. What was that all about?" Diamonds asked.

  "Dude wants to run a tab, but he doesn’t have a credit card. I tried to tell him that he had to pay for the drinks as he ordered them because he doesn’t have a card and that's when he started getting all grabby, talking about how long his money is and how everybody in South Florida knows Flames."

  Diamonds' looked over in Flames' direction. Flames stood up and spread his arms as if he was asking Diamonds what he was gonna do. "Go on and run him the tab, sweetie."

  The waitress looked like she wanted to protest, but didn’t. Animal watched her as she went back to the table where Flames was sitting to fill his order. While she was walking away, Flames slapped her on her ass and laughed with his friends. Animal didn’t know him, but he couldn’t stand him.

  "Friend of yours?" Animal asked.

  "Flames ain't a friend of nobody, but himself." Reign answered in disgust.

  Diamonds kept his eyes on Flames, but spoke to Animal. "Flames was sort of the big man on campus when we came to Miami. He had all the shooters and all the best dope, until we showed up with what we had. That New Orleans dope was literally killing fiends and kept em coming back. We kept it to our lil slice of the city so as not to step on any toes, but eventually our competitions customers started coming to us. It didn’t sit too well with Flames, with us lil country niggaz digging all into his pockets. Word is that he plans to make a move on us, but ain't tried nothing yet."

  Animal was confused. "So you know he's gonna make a move, yet you're sitting around and waiting for it instead of moving on him first?"

  Diamonds laughed. "Outright killing Flames wouldn’t go over too well with some of the locals. He has some very powerful friends that he makes a lot of money with and despite him being an asshole, keeping Flames breathing is in their best interest."

  "Unless there was someone to take on his workload once he was gone." Reign added.

  Diamonds shot her a look then turned back to Animal. "True, it'd make his death a bit easier to accept if it didn’t stop the money flow, but it ain't as easy as Reign is making it out to be. Flames ain't no pushover. He got a lot of guns and a lot of goons. Even if someone was lucky enough to get close enough to waste him, it'd still be a death sentence. At least for anyone local."

  Animal didn’t like the way Diamonds made the last statement. Animal raised his hand. "Let me stop you before you go any further. I don’t know what Sonja told you, but my murder for hire days is over."

  "Animal, don’t bullshit me. You may not kill for money anymore, but you're still a killer. I smelled the blood on you the moment you stepped through the doors of Purple City. You give me this thing I want, and I'll give you what you want."

  Animal's face twisted into a sneer. "Ain't this about a bitch? Sonja said I could trust you to help me, no strings attached, but you just like the rest. Nobody does something for nothing. Well fuck you and tell Red Sonja I said the same." Animal stood to leave.

  "Gucci." When Diamonds spoke the name is froze Animal in his tracks. "I figured that would get your attention."

  "What are you playing at, Diamonds?" Animal asked furiously.

  "I ain't playing at nothing. I'm trying to strike a bargain. Please," he motioned for Animal to sit back down. He did. "Sonja's word is good and regardless of whether you kill Flames or not, I'm still gonna make sure you get what you need to handle your business. I'm just trying to sweeten the pot for all parties involved."

  "I'm listening." Animal said.

  Diamonds leaned in to whisper to him. "The tongue of my enemy will speak the name of the man who shot your girlfriend."

  Animal was suspicious. "For all I know you could be bullshitting me. Just because you know Gucci got shot doesn’t mean you know who did it. Everybody knows she got shot. It was on the news."

  Diamonds grinned. "Yeah, but what the news didn’t say was why she got shot. Your girlfriend got caught in the crossfire of some bullshit that didn’t have nothing to do with her. What do they call it? A victim of circumstance."

  Animal wanted to slap the smug grin of Diamonds' face but he didn’t. A part of him wanted to get up and walk out to find his own way, but what if Diamonds did have the information he claimed to have?

  Animal waved Diamonds off. "More shit you could've heard through the grapevine. You gotta come up with something better than that."

  "I thought you might say as much." Diamonds reached under the table and produced something wrapped in plastic, which he slid across the table to Animal. Animal eyed the plastic suspiciously. "It ain't gonna bite, but it may sting you a bit emotionally."

  With trembling hands, Animal unwrapped the plastic. Inside there was some kid of green fabric. Slowly he pulled it out and held it in front of him. It was made of a soft material that was caked with dark brown liquid. Animal had seen enough blood to know it on sight. When Animal held it up to fully examine it, he felt all the air rush from his body. It was a green dress. The same green dress he'd brought for Gucci right before his arrest. He remembered it because she kept hinting around to how much she'd liked it when they were in the store. Animal acted like he wasn’t paying attention, but he doubled back and bought it for her the next day. She was supposed to wear it on their next date night, but he was taken away from her before he could see it on her.

  Animal buried his face in the dress and inhaled deep. It had been years, but he would know her scent anywhere. "Gucci." He sobbed into the dress.

  "She was wearing it the night they put a hole in her." Diamonds said. He hadn’t meant to be so insensitive with his statement; it just came out that way.

  With a roar Animal sprang to his feet and flipped the table over. He snatched Diamonds to his feet by the front of his shirt and rained spittle in his face when he roared. "Who did it? Tell me who shot my lady and they're dead. Their mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. I will put them all in the ground. Tell me, Diamonds!" Animal demanded.

  Everyone at the table was instantly in motion, drawing weapons, but not Diamonds. He smiled at the enraged young man as if they were hav
ing a light conversation. "There is no doubt in my mind that the body count in New York is gonna jump when you touch the town, mon ami, but first thing's first. Let's start with you taking your hands off me before my people get the wrong idea about your intentions."

  For the first time Animal noticed that he was surrounded and everybody had a gun pointed at him. Even Unique stood nervously to the side with her blade in hand. Animal wanted to tear into them all, but he couldn’t blame them. They were doing what they were supposed to be doing, which was protecting their king. With a sigh, he released Diamonds.

  "I'm sorry." Animal lowered his head.

  Diamonds placed a hand on Animal's shoulder. "Ain't no apologies necessary. Grief make a man's brains all scrambled and its obvious that you're grieving something awful. Animal, let me tell you something I learned a long time ago about this business we're in. We who pay the game do so with a clear understanding of what we're getting into, but civilians are innocent. You will have your vengeance on the one who did this, but the name you seek comes at a price. You willing to pay it?"

  Animal simply nodded because he didn’t trust his words in such an emotional state.

  "Good. Now when you do it, I need it to be clean. I can't have anything that will lead back to me, do you understand?" Diamonds asked.

  Animal’s voice was hard and cold when he replied. “When I kill a man you can always expect it to be clean, but for the name of the dude who tried to waste my old lady, I’ll see to it that your enemy’s mama is gonna have to lay him to rest in a sippy-cup, because it ain’t gonna be enough left of him for a coffin.”

  And with that, the bargain was struck.

  CHAPTER 7

  Hollywood was a man who could best be described as a man with champagne dreams with forty-ounce ambition. He was born and raised on the rough streets of Harlem, but while his friends were finding ways out through drugs, sports or music, Hollywood found his way out through the art of manipulation. Hollywood wasn’t the toughest cat on the block, but he could talk you into thinking that he was. That was his gift, the ability to make people believe what wasn’t. This was how he got his start and what would eventually be his undoing.

  For as long as Hollywood could remember, he wanted to be a rapper. Day and night he would write rhymes that he would perform in front of the bathroom mirror or for his friends in the hood. His lyrics sucked but the yes-men he kept around him convinced Hollywood that he had the golden touch. As he got older and the window of opportunity began to close for the young rapper, Hollywood switched hats and decided he wanted to be a producer/record executive. He assembled some fierce young crew of rappers and producers and got them all to believe in his version of the American dream. Hollywood capitalized off the talent around him and was able to make a few power moves, most of which he reaped the benefit from. Word was out that there was a kid name Hollywood from out of Harlem who had some dope beats for lease or sale, which is what brought him to the attention of the Big Dawg C.E.O. Don B.

  Hollywood agreed to sell Don B. some beats for some projects that he had going on, but what he didn’t tell Don B. was that he was not the true composer of the beats. This would come out later. Hollywood had made some nice money off Big Dawg entertainment until one of his disgruntle young producers exposed him. When Don B. had gotten wise to the ruse he had Hollywood beaten and embarrassed in front of the whole Big Dawg staff. Hollywood hope that would be the end of it, but he was still in debt to Don B. and the Don wanted his money. With no way to pay him back Hollywood became an indentured servant at Big Dawg. Don B. kept him literally chained up in the studio, working around the clock.

  Spending so much time in the high tech studio Hollywood eventually became good at actually producing songs. He was still property of Big Dawg Entertainment, but Don B. was letting him keep some of the money he kept from making beats, taxing him heavily and applying the money to what Hollywood owed. It was an unfair relationship and at times embarrassing, but Hollywood didn’t care. The only thing that mattered to him was that he was finally on, no matter how it happened.

  Don B. had Hollywood working slave hours on various projects which gave him free run of the studio and time to plot a way to manipulate the situation to work to his advantage. At first he was just going to sneak off like a thief in the night, taking all of his work and then some with him, but when he'd gotten word of Don B's pending deal he had a better idea.

  Hollywood wished that the could've seen the look on Don B's face when he found out that his little deal had been stalled because of the lawsuit filed against Big Dawg Entertainment. He might not have gotten a chance to see Don B's facial expression, but the fact that he was pissed was made apparent when three of Big Dawg's henchmen caught him coming out of the club one night and beat the dog shit out of him. They'd blackened both of Hollywood's eyes and fractured his ankle so he would be on a cane for the next few weeks. Hollywood was going to chuck it up and accept his beating like a man, until his baby's mother put the idea in his head to press charges and extort Don B. to drop them. He didn’t like the idea, but he did it anyway and it only succeeded in making him more of an outcast. Now, not only was a sucker for the way he let Big Dawg treat him all those years, but he was now branded a snitch too.

  Hollywood was a marked man who had been living in hiding in his apartment for the last two weeks. Most of the time if he needed something from outside he would send his baby's mother, but if he had to go himself, he never left the house without his friend Melvin who he had hired as a bodyguard. Of course Hollywood didn’t have the money to pay him, but he sold Melvin on the idea that he would be taken care of when the lawsuit money came in. Hollywood planned to vanish without a trace and stiff Melvin once he got paid, but little did he know, Melvin had idea of his own. He glued himself to Hollywood's side so that when the money finally did start coming in, he could rob him blind. They made the perfect pair because they were two snakes in a pod.

  Hollywood sat hunched over his computer, rolling his finger back and forth over the mouse pad. He had been tweaking the beat he was working on for the past four hours, but something about it still sounded off. He reached over and grabbed his pack of cigarettes off the table. When he went to pluck one out, he noticed that the pack was empty.

  Hollywood crumbled the pack of cigarettes and tossed them into the trash can. "Fuck. Yo, let me get a cigarette." He told Melvin.

  Melvin patted his pockets and shrugged. "I ain't got no more. I was smoking yours."

  "I guess that explains why I ain't got none." Hollywood said with an attitude. "Let's go to the corner store and get some more." Using the help of his cane, he got up from the chair and limped out the door with Melvin on his heels.

  Melvin walked a head, while Hollywood trailed a few paces behind. He carefully checked both stairwells before waving Hollywood forward to the elevator.

  "So how long you think it's gonna be before that bread comes in?" Melvin asked.

  Hollywood sucked his teeth. "My dude, how many times are you gonna ask me about that money?"

  "I ain't trying to be all on your back about it, Hollywood. It's just that I know these lawsuits can take a long time and bills are piling up at my crib." Melvin told him.

  "Mel, I keep telling you that we gonna get paid in a few weeks. Don B. doesn't want this to go to court because I got him by the balls. He's gonna settle, my lawyer told me as much." Hollywood lied. What the lawyer had actually told him was that Don B. was fighting the suit tooth and nail and there was no way to know for sure when a settlement would be reached.

  "A'ight, man. I'm just itching to get a few dollars in my pocket." Melvin pressed for the elevator.

  "I know. I got you my nigga." Hollywood told him.

  When the elevator door slid open, everything seemed to move in slow motion. Hollywood's brain registered that there was someone standing in the elevator, holding something in his hand, but it didn’t send the signal to his mouth fast enough to warn Melvin. Ashanti struck Melvin in the chest with the c
attle prod, sending ten thousand volts into his heart. Melvin staggered, eyes wide with shock, trying to figure out what was going on. Ashanti hit him again, this time in his head, dropping Melvin to the ground. The big man lay on the dirty hallways floor, twitching, with drool running out of the side of his mouth.

  Hollywood hobbled off back down the hall towards his apartment as fast as he could, but with his fractured ankle there was no way for him to out run Ashanti. Ashanti tapped the cattle prod against Hollywood's ass, drawing a high pitched squeal. He stumbled forward, but managed to keep his footing with the help of his cane. Realizing that he couldn’t outrun his attacker, Hollywood decided to try and fight. He turned around and swung his cane at Ashanti's head, but Ashanti blocked it with the cattle prod and followed with a right hook to Hollywood's jaw. Hollywood fell to the ground, landing on his stomach and tried to crawl away.

  Ashanti poked Hollywood in the ass once more with the cattle prod, causing him to flail around on the ground like a fish. "Man, why don’t you stay your ass still before I end up barbecuing your briefs with this shit."

  Hollywood threw his hands up defensively. "A'ight, a'ight. Just chill with that thing. What you want from me?"

  Ashanti pulled the release forms from his pocket and held them out for Hollywood to see. "Not much. Just need your signature on these and I'll be on my way."

  Hollywood immediately recognized the paperwork. "Nah, man. I told Don B. I ain't letting him jerk me no more."

  "I don’t think you have much of a choice. Sign the papers before you make me do something I regret." Ashanti said.

  "I ain't signing nothing. What are you gonna do, kill me? If I'm dead the papers will never get singed and Don B. will still be fucked." Hollywood said, thinking he had figured a way to worm his way out of it.

  Ashanti shook his head. "Have it your way. By the time it's all said and done two things are gonna happen, you're gonna assign these papers and you're gonna learn that there are some things worse than death." Ashanti grabbed Hollywood by his shirt and dragged him towards his apartment.