The Fix 2 Read online

  At one time, the streets had great expectations for Chucky. He was a young hustler on the fast track, and a respected lieutenant in one of the most notorious drug crews in the city. He had money, a fly car, and more women than he knew what to do with. In addition to the material things, he had status. Chucky was the right hand to Pharaoh’s most trusted captain, Ramses. He was young, sharp, and on his way to being the next big thing in the game, until his ambitions and his demons proved to be his undoing. Ramses had been slow walking Chucky up the food chain, constantly dangling the carrot but never letting him taste it and Chucky got impatient. Though it was Pharaoh and Ramses who were the bosses of their organization, it was Chucky and his soldiers who solidified their positions. The old regime was on their way out, but not moving fast enough for Chucky so he set a plan in motion to speed things along.

  Being the manipulative bastard he was, Chucky began gradually spreading the seeds of corruption throughout the soldiers who held the streets, swaying those who were loyal to his cause and making plans to get rid of those who weren’t. To stage his coup, he enlisted his partner, Benny, who was another one of Ramses’s trusted lieutenants and Chucky’s best friend. Collectively, they ran the neighborhood for Ramses with Chucky being the enforcer and Benny was the money man. With their positions it was easy for Chucky to orchestrate a series of bogus robberies, hitting their drug spots. They would chip away a little at a time until they had enough to make the big play. For as long as they kept their capers random and focused on the smaller drug spots, they would be able to fly under the radar and neither Ramses or Pharaoh would wake up to it until it was too late. Things were going smooth, but two things happened: Benny got sloppy and Chucky got knocked.

  One of the dudes Chucky had been selling coke to on the side turned out to be an undercover detective they called Lone Wolf. He had bought enough cocaine from Chucky over the course of a few weeks to hang a lifetime sentence on him, but instead of arresting Chucky, Wolf started extorting him. In exchange for Wolf letting him continue to do business, Chucky had to feed Wolf information. Chucky never told on anyone in his crew, but he did feed Wolf a few low-level cats around town. It wasn’t until Wolf tried to get Chucky to set Pharaoh up that Chucky put his foot down. He was a lot of things, but he was no fool. If he pointed the finger at Pharaoh there would be no rock he could hide under where Pharoah’s people couldn’t find him. Chucky might as well have blown his own brains out instead of waiting around for someone else to do it. There was no way Chucky was going to give up Pharaoh, but he had to do something to get Wolf off his back and out of his life, so he played on his larcenous side. Wolf was a cop, but he was also a gambler and Chucky had heard through the grapevine that he had some serious debts. Chucky offered Wolf $100,000 to get out of his life. Just as he’d hoped, Wolf agreed to take a pay off but he wanted a quarter of million dollars. That was the price for Chucky to purchase his life back. Wolf also made it very clear that if he didn’t come up with the money that he was going to drop a bug in Pharaoh’s ear about what Chucky had been doing in his spare time.

  It was a lose-lose situation for Chucky. There was no way he could come up with the amount of money Wolf was demanding and he sure as hell wasn’t going to give Pharaoh up, so he was fucked either way he played it. He thought about going to Ramses and laying out everything that had happened with the dirty cop, hoping his relationship with Ramses would at least get him the benefit of the doubt, but decided against it. He might be able to sway Ramses, but there was no way it would go over well with Pharoah. Even though Chucky had never given up any information on their organization, Pharaoh would have him killed just in case. He wasn’t the type of man to take chances. Chucky figured his best bet was to just take whatever money they had made from looting Pharaoh’s spots and blow town. He could take what he had and make a fresh start somewhere else, but Benny would make this easier said than done.

  For as careful as Chucky had been in laying the plan, Benny was equally careless in ruining it. Benny got lazy and deviated from Chucky’s original plan to keep their robberies random, and he hit same spot twice. Doubling back sent up a red flag and put Ramses on alert, but it was Ramses’s new recruits Omega and Li’l Monk who picked up on the trail of breadcrumbs that left a trail leading straight back to Benny.

  From the time Chucky had first met the dirty little street rat who called himself Li’l Monk, he knew he was going to be trouble. He had already hated him for the role his father, Monk, was said to have played in the death of his oldest brother Sonny, but that hate increased tenfold the day Ramses decided to offer him a job opportunity. The day it happened they came across Li’l Monk beating the blood out of one of Chucky’s young workers over some offense. Chucky wanted to kill for personal reasons, but he tried to convince Ramses that Li’l Monk should die for putting his hands on one of their workers. Instead of Ramses feeding into what Chucky was saying, he ended up taking a liking to Li’l Monk. So much so that he offered him a job. Li’l Monk was paired with a young up-and-comer who had been a part of Chucky’s crew and they were hired as muscle to hold the block down. The two kids were sharp and about their business, and fiercely loyal to Ramses. When Benny sent his people to rob the spot for the second time, Li’l Monk and Omega sent them back in bags. Omega had recognized one of the dead men from seeing him with Benny, and told this to Ramses. That was all it took to unravel Chucky’s whole little scheme.

  Chucky hadn’t even realized that Pharaoh and Ramses were hip to their bullshit until the morning he walked into a recording studio and found Benny tied to a chair and being tortured. The moment Chucky laid eyes on Benny he knew that he was dead. Benny was a mess of bruises, blood, and fresh cuts. From the looks of things they had been putting him through it for hours and there was no telling what information they had pried out of Benny. There was no doubt in Chucky’s mind that he would never leave that apartment. Shockingly, Benny had held it down and never confessed to Chucky’s involvement, but Ramses was still suspicious. He knew Chucky and Benny were close, and the whole scheme had Chucky’s stink on it, but he needed proof of Chucky’s guilt or innocence in the plot, so he put Chucky to the ultimate test of loyalty.

  The feeling of utter nausea that hit Chucky when Ramses ordered him to kill his best friend was one that would stick with Chucky until the end of his days on earth. It was feeling like you had to vomit, shit, and pee all at once. Chucky was left with a hard decision: murder Benny and walk away or die with him. He looked into Benny’s tearful eyes and thought about days when they had to eat at each other’s houses when their families didn’t have enough food. Benny was his partner, his brother, but he was also careless and had put both of their lives at risk. Chucky pointed the gun, which was trembling in his hand, at Benny, and for a split second he considered it, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. Chucky was a snake, but he wasn’t a coward, so he turned the gun on Ramses’s men and pulled the trigger.

  To the surprise of everyone in the room besides Ramses and Huck, it clicked empty. The gun wasn’t even loaded. It had all been a setup by Ramses. If Chucky had been willing to kill his best friend it would’ve proved that he was trying to bury a secret and hide his involvement, but the fact that he was willing to ride out for his friend showed Ramses that his heart was still in the right place. It was indeed Ramses’s ultimate test of loyalty, and Chucky had almost failed. Chucky was allowed to keep his life, but he still received a beat down from Ramses’s friend Boo for pulling a gun on them. He got off light considering what fate awaited Benny.

  The last time Chucky had seen Benny it was in that apartment, still tied to the chair and professing how happy he was that his partner hadn’t turned on him. If he only knew how close Chucky had been to going the other way with it. Ramses promised to release Benny and exile him instead of killing him, but Chucky knew that was a lie. Chucky wanted to stay behind and advocate further for Benny’s life, but there was nothing he could do, short of putting himself back in harm’s way and dying with him. He
couldn’t do anything to save Benny’s life, but Chucky promised on his friend’s soul that it wouldn’t be in vain. Everyone who had a hand in his friend’s death, and Chucky’s humiliation that day, would be held accountable, including Ramses and his minions.

  From there things went downhill for Chucky. He was falling out of favor with Ramses, Wolf was still on his back and everything he had stashed from the robberies was returned to the rightful owners. The pressure of everything going on, coupled with Benny’s death, pushed Chucky further into his already festering madness and he began relying more heavily on drugs to cope. Ramses never really trusted Chucky after that and began feeding him with a long-handled spoon. Responsibilities that were once delegated to Chucky and Benny were now falling to Li’l Monk and Omega. While the two youngsters were on the come up, Chucky was on his way down the ladder. The pressure was coming from all sides and Chucky knew his days were numbered. It would only be a matter of time before Ramses discovered his involvement in the robberies or Wolf gave him up to Pharaoh. Either way he was fucked with a capital F and needed to bust a move, so he did what any rat on a sinking ship would do: he jumped off.

  Chucky had outgrown New York and it was time to head for greener pastures, but not before tying up some loose ends, one of which being Ramses’s friend Boo. Chucky had vowed to repay Boo for putting his hands on him and the part he played in Benny’s murder and embarrassing him in the apartment that day and he made good on that promise when he caught Boo slipping one early morning and blew his brains out. Boo’s death would surely hurt Ramses, as Chucky had intended it to, and for the final “fuck you” he robbed one last drug spot, taking enough money and product to hold him over until he figured out his next move. By the time Ramses, Pharaoh, or Wolf realized Chucky had crossed he would’ve been long gone, but thanks to that bitch Karen things had gotten complicated.

  Chucky knew that betraying Ramses would’ve gotten him killed, but murdering Boo ensured that he would die very, very slowly, which was why he had been extra cautious when he did the deed or so he thought. His shady dealings had shortened his list of friends so he enlisted a hood rat named Karen to aid him.

  Chucky had been fucking Karen since she was a young girl and had taught her damn near everything she knew about the hustle. In a sick way it was almost like he had raised her. Karen was a rider, and had helped Chucky clean up more than a few messes. She had gotten rid of a dozen murder weapons for Chucky so it seemed only natural that he went to her with the gun he had used to kill Boo. Chucky had never worried about Karen betraying him. For as long as Chucky kept feeding her dick and dropping the occasional monetary gift on her, she treated him like he walked on water. This all changed when Karen found out Chucky was now seeing her friend Persia.

  Persia and Karen had been friends and rivals since they were kids, so when she found out about her and Chucky it crushed her. Had Chucky been a smart man, he’d have done whatever it took to smooth things over with Karen, but he let his ego get in the way. When Karen confronted him and Persia, Chucky played her to the left like a common chickenhead. He was trying to impress Persia, but all he succeeded in doing was infuriating Karen. In the ultimate act of revenge, Karen turned the murder weapon that had killed Boo over to Ramses and officially marked Chucky for death.

  Chucky had barely made it out of the city with his life when Ramses’s death squad came to his aunt’s house looking for him. The hit men slaughtered everyone in the house, and they would’ve gotten Chucky too had he not been out tying up some loose ends in the city. His one regret was leaving Persia for dead in the house. He had such big plans for her, but when it came down to a choice between her life and his, she got the short end of the stick. To that day he wasn’t sure how she made it out of the house alive, but he would make it a point to ask the next time their paths crossed, which would be sooner rather than later. He had been trying to reach Persia since his arrival back in the city, but it was proving easier said than done, which frustrated him to no end.

  It was hard to say who ranked highest on his shit list, but Karen was definitely up there near the top. She had seriously jammed him up with her triple cross and he would’ve killed her had she not disappeared. She was trifling, but she was no dummy. She got out of dodge after pointing the finger at Chucky, hoping that Ramses would kill him before he found her. Fortunately for him, her hopes had been dashed and Chucky escaped execution. Though the smart thing for him to do would’ve been to put as much distance between himself and the Big Apple, Chucky couldn’t just yet. There were more scores to settle and these were of a more personal nature. So instead of leaving New York for good, Chucky bounced from place to place around the tri-state area, plotting and waiting for the right moment to slip back in town and tie up all his loose ends. Now, months later, his time was almost at hand.

  “Earth to Chucky.” Maggie snapped her fingers in front of his face, bringing him out of his daze.

  Chucky blinked as if he was just awaking from a dream. He hadn’t even realized that the whole time he had been hunkered over the table staring at his own reflection for the last few minutes. “What?” he snapped.

  “See, you wanna be all nasty and shit and all I was trying to look out for your thirsty-ass. Rissa is back and she scored. She’s in the kitchen,” Maggie told him.

  “About time.” Chucky got up and brushed passed Maggie on his way to the kitchen.

  “Ungrateful-ass nigga. I shouldn’t have told you a damn thing and hogged it all up like you did the last of our stash,” Maggie called after him.

  Chucky heard her voice, but he was deaf to everything Maggie was saying. The only thing he was concerned about was getting to the kitchen to get first dibs.

  When Chucky rounded the corner into the kitchen, he was greeted by a round butt in a pair of tight jeans poking out of the refrigerator. He could hear the clinking of glasses as she rummaged around for whatever she was looking for. Chucky spared a glance over his shoulder to make sure Maggie wasn’t behind him before creeping up behind Rissa. He grabbed her by her hips and pumped himself against her ass twice, startling her and causing Rissa to bump her head on the freezer door when she jumped up.

  “Damn, why you play so much?” Rissa punched Chucky in the chest with her thin fists. She checked the back of her head to make sure she didn’t have a knot. Rissa was a cute girl, with brown skin and a pretty smile. She was on the thick side, but she carried it well, mostly in her hips, ass, and breasts.

  “You know I like it when I give it to you from the back.” Chucky moved in and invaded her space. He hadn’t brushed his teeth yet, so he knew his mouth smelled like cigarettes and warm beer, but he didn’t care. Neither did Rissa. Though she tried to act like she wasn’t, she was fully in Chucky’s thrall just like her sister.

  “Chucky, stop playing before Maggie comes in here and tries to kill both of us.” Rissa pushed him away.

  Rissa was Maggie’s younger sister and Chucky’s secret lover. Chucky had actually met Rissa first when he left New York and found himself in Pennsylvania. He had a light piece of business to handle down there. Rissa was a rough girl who hailed from the north side of Philly who Chucky had come across when he was trying to establish a cocaine connect in the city. Rissa was hustling dimes and twenties in Germantown before Chucky came into her life. She was young and street just how he liked them so Chucky immediately tried to charm her, but Rissa was into girls and wouldn’t be swayed so easily.

  It took awhile before Chucky was really able to work his way into her circle of trust. Whenever Chucky came through to buy coke he always made sure to spend at least a couple of hundred dollars with Rissa. It got to the point where Rissa began to look forward to Chucky coming through because those were some of her best days. Eventually Rissa felt comfortable enough with Chucky that she had him with her one day when the dude she was selling drugs for came through to drop off a package. That turned out to be a mistake for Rissa and it would alter the course of her life and career as a drug dealer.

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bsp; Rissa’s supplier was a corny-ass dude from somewhere in Virginia who tried to reinvent himself as something he wasn’t when he relocated to Philadelphia. Chucky was able to see right through is façade and immediately started making plans to get him. And Maggie was the dude’s girl. Chucky took one look at her and knew they were both cut from the same cloth; they were both addicts. Maggie was from the fast track, much too fast for the Virginian, and was just living in the moment. Chucky started fucking Maggie behind the Virginian’s back. Within two weeks of getting Maggie on his team, he had convinced her to help him rob the Virginian and was heading to New York, dragging Rissa along for the ride.

  Once in New York Chucky changed the rules of the game. Instead of the palace in the sky he’d promised, he had Maggie back on the track selling ass and Rissa in the streets getting it however she could. When he finally got tired of fucking just Maggie, he resumed his pursuit of Rissa’s goodies. She was still resistant, but not as much as she had been before being snatched from the only home she’d ever known, and relocating to a foreign city. She was homesick and vulnerable and Chucky used it to his advantage. He had to damn near rape Rissa to get the pussy the first time, but after laying his pipe game down Rissa was with the program. Chucky made sure to keep it a secret since Maggie was currently the breadwinner. He was a marked man in the city and had to be careful where he showed his face, so his movements were limited. Everybody in the house had one hustle or another, but they depended heavily on the money Maggie made from selling pussy to keep them afloat. Maggie finding out that Chucky was fucking her and her baby sister too wouldn’t go over well. Maggie had her suspicions about them, but could never prove it and until she could, they could keep sponging off her whore money.

  “What you got for me?” Chucky asked, finally ready to get down to business.