Animal (35 page)

Since the night of Meek’s unfortunate murder the two of them had been inseparable. Though they had never spoken of it since the night it happened, they found an unspoken comfort in each other to get through it. Ashanti had had a crush on Fatima for the longest, and it seemed that she had been sweet on him too, but neither wanted to make the first move. For as tragic as Meek’s murder had been, it had been the thing that pushed Ashanti and Fatima together and sparked an unlikely romance.

“That movie was funny as hell. What made you pick that one, Ashanti?” Fatima asked, chomping on a piece of chicken, trying her best not to get grease on her clothes.

“Because Russell Brand is in it. He killed it in
Get Him To The Greek,
so I went back and checked out some of his other stuff. That English dude has got issues,” Ashanti laughed.

“Yeah, he is mad funny. I gotta see some more movies with him in it.”

“I got a bunch of his stuff on DVD if you wanna come by one day,” Ashanti offered.

Fatima gave him a suspicious look. “What? You trying to get me to your crib so you can take advantage of me?”

“Never,” he said defensively. “Fatima, I told you I ain’t on it like that. Me and you—”

“I was just joking,” she cut him off. “Loosen up, Ashanti. You’re always so serious.”

“Life is serious.”

“I know, but all the time?” she countered. “Ashanti, I know what it is with you, and I know your position out here, but you gotta treat yourself to a good time every so often. You can’t eat, sleep, and breathe the streets.”

“Why not?” he asked. It sounded like he was being sarcastic, but he was seriously asking.

Fatima wasn’t sure how to answer. “You just can’t.” She threw her hands up in frustration. “Look, we all got problems, Ashanti, but that doesn’t mean we have to carry them around with us everywhere we go. Besides, I’m young, and I like to have a good time, so if you’re gonna be my boo, then you gotta learn to loosen up.”

“So, I’m your boo now?” Ashanti raised an eyebrow.

Fatima smiled and looped her arm in his. “Yes, you’re my boo.” When she’d initially said it she was kidding, but the more she thought about it, the more appealing the idea
became. Ashanti was a thug, but he was a good dude. He was always on his best behavior around her, and he treated Fatima like a queen instead of a piece of ass. In him, she found the love and attention that she had been looking for in all the wrong places.

They continued walking up the block toward the project building when Ashanti spotted the brown Buick pull up the bus stop a few yards in front of him. He had seen the car enough times in his life to know who was riding in it. “Fuck,” Ashanti cursed.

“What’s the matter?” Fatima asked.

“These niggaz.” Ashanti nodded toward the detectives who were now walking in his direction.

Fatima saw the detectives and immediately thought of the gun she knew Ashanti had on him. Without him having to ask, she went into action. Fatima stepped in front of Ashanti, temporarily blocking the detective’s view of him. She kissed him long and deep on the lips, while removing the gun from his pants and slipping it into her purse. “Holla if you need me.” She wiped a smudge of lipstick from his upper lip with her thumb, then made hurried steps toward the building.

Watching her walk away, Ashanti couldn’t help but to beam. That one act let him know that he had a down-ass chick in his corner, and Fatima was a keeper.

“Where’s your li’l girlfriend off to in such a hurry?” Detective Alvarez asked when they had finally reached Ashanti.

“I wonder what we’ll find on her if we go stop her,” Detective Brown chimed in.

“Ain’t y’all got nothing better to do than harass innocent people?” Ashanti spat on the ground.

“I doubt anyone kissing your rancid mouth could be considered innocent, kid,” Detective Alvarez shot back.

“Y’all come to trade insults or try to pin a bogus charge on me? Either way, I ain’t got time,” Ashanti said with an attitude.

“Now why would you think we had a reason to come over here and charge you with anything? You done something you wanna tell us about?” Detective Brown questioned.

Ashanti twisted his lips. “You know me better than that, fam. Steel don’t break.” He patted his chest.

Detective Alvarez laughed. “Yeah, but it’ll sure as hell bend if you apply enough heat. I gotta admit, they don’t make them like you anymore, Ashanti.”

“And they never will again. Now, state your business so I can be on my way,” Ashanti told him.

“A’ight, gangsta,” Detective Brown said. “I could stand here and tell you about all the murders that have been committed recently, but somehow I don’t think it would surprise you.”

Ashanti’s face remained blank.

“Exactly,” Detective Brown continued. “Now, I’d bet my pension that your li’l ass is elbows deep in blood, but you’re still just a puppet on a string. We want the puppet master. Where is King James?”

“Who?” Ashanti faked ignorance.

“You know who! The idiot who declared open war on Shai Clark in our streets,” Detective Alvarez cut in.

“War? I thought the president brought all the troops home already,” Ashanti laughed.

“You think you’re real funny, don’t you?” Detective Brown addressed him. “Well, let me tell you something that you might not find so funny. Word on the streets is that King James is try
ing to take the throne and calling Shai to task. Right now, none of you are enough of a threat to warrant his attention, but that’s gonna change pretty soon. When it does, Shai is gonna send a death squad to take King James out and anyone with him is going along for the ride, including you.”

“Maybe even his pretty girlfriend too,” Detective Alvarez added.

“Man, I don’t know no Clarks, no Kings, and no Queens, Detectives,” Ashanti said with a straight face.

“So be it.” Detective Brown shook his head sadly. “You might feel like dying, but let’s hope your man King James is smarter than that.” He shoved a business card down the front of Ashanti’s shirt. “We expect to hear back sooner than later.” He walked off with his partner closely behind.

Ashanti waited until the detectives had gone before tossing their business card on the ground and spitting on it. “Fuck outta here.”

“What them niggaz wanted?” Alonzo appeared behind Ashanti as if by magic.

“Homie, you know better than to be creeping like that. You could’ve got blasted on.” Ashanti gave him dap.

“I doubt it. I saw you pass your hammer to Fatima. Back to my question, what did those pigs want?” Alonzo pressed him.

Ashanti exhaled. “Chasing tall tales about King. Man, shit crazy right now.”

“Asking about King? What the fuck for?” Alonzo asked surprised. For as long as he had been rolling with the team, King James had been like a ghost to the police, flying under their radar, so the fact that they were now asking about him was odd.

Ashanti hesitated. “I’ll fill you in later,” he told Alonzo
while cutting his eyes at Porsha, who was a new face but looked familiar.

Alonzo noticed his hesitation and made the introductions. “Porsha, this is Ashanti. Ashanti this is Porsha.”

Porsha extended her hand, but Ashanti pulled her in for a hug. “Handshakes are for strangers. For as much as I’ve heard about you, I feel like we’re family.”

“I hope they were good things that you heard,” Porsha smirked.

“All good.” Ashanti winked at her. “Fuck happened to your head?” he asked Alonzo, noticing the knot on the side of his head from where he had been hit with the bottle during the scuffle.

“Long fucking story, but it’ll keep.” Alonzo touched the knot on his head and winced.

“Looks like we got some story swapping to do. But dig, I see you busy so I’ma let you do what you do with shorty, but we gotta talk later,” Ashanti told Alonzo.

“Funny, because I was gonna say the same thing,” Alonzo replied, thinking of how he wanted to confront Ashanti about his strange behavior.

“A’ight, so we’ll meet back here at sundown,” Ashanti gave him dap and headed toward the building.

“Yo, Ashanti,” Alonzo called after him. “Who the fuck is Kastro?”

Ashanti smirked. “One more topic for tonight’s conversation.” He disappeared into the building.

“Everything okay?” Porsha asked once Ashanti was out of earshot.

“Yeah, everything is cool. Let’s go get something to eat, then
I’ll put you in a cab back to your hood.” Alonzo threw his arm around Porsha and led her down the block. On the outside, he was cool and collected, but on the inside, he was filled with uncertainty. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know why the two detectives came through the hood, but the question was, who sent them? Somebody was talking, and there was only a handful of people who knew enough to bury them all, so the list of suspects was a short one. Alonzo had told himself a long time ago that before he let the words of another man put him back in prison he would make sure that the man could no longer speak . . . and it didn’t matter who it was.

THIRTY-SEVEN

S
HAI HAD JUST FINISHED DOING THE LAST-MINUTE
walk-through and briefing his managers at Daddy’s Kitchen before they opened for the night. They were all professionally trained young men and women and were more than capable of running the place without Shai looking over their shoulders, but it gave him something to take his mind off of everything else that was going on in his life.

Things were always crazy on the streets, but it was starting to spill over into his household. Lately, he noticed that Honey seemed increasingly paranoid and began to question him about his comings and goings, which wasn’t something she had ever done in all the time they’d been together. Shai had been dismissing her fears as the baby growing inside of her playing with her emotions until she mentioned a name that he thought he would never hear again. Animal.

There had been no love lost between Shai Clark and Tech’s protégé, and when Shai had ordered Swann to murder Tech, it drew an imaginary line in the sand and it would only be a matter
of time before the upstart crossed it. Shai had contemplated having Animal killed, but somebody beat him to the punch. Word on the streets was that Animal had been abducted by someone off his laundry list of enemies en route to prison and put to death for his crimes against them.

Honey’s sudden interest in a dead man was surprising, to say the least. When he pressed her about it, she came clean about the CD Nickels had been listening to. Shai felt a little better hearing this. For as much as a lowlife as Animal had been, he left a legacy of music that played in ghettos across America, so the CDs were everywhere. He assured Honey that Nickels coming across the CD was a coincidence and that Animal was dead and gone, but when she asked what made him so sure, he didn’t have an honest answer for her. None of his sources had ever reported finding a body or any other traces of Animal after the jail break. It was like he had vanished off the face of the earth. As far as Shai was concerned, it was good riddance to the little nuisance, but the mention of Animal’s name stirred old memories that he had long sought to put to bed.

Then there was the business with Holiday. Against Shai’s advice, he’d gone through with his birthday bash, and to make matters worse, he took Baby Doc with him. As Shai had predicted, somebody showed out, and as a result, Baby Doc lost the hearing in one of his ears and Holiday had almost lost his life, which wouldn’t be worth much when Big Doc caught up with him. Holiday was too hot for Shai to visit in the hospital or speak to on the phone, so Shai had to wait for Swann to come back to get the story of what had actually happened.

When Shai heard the front door of Daddy’s House open, he looked up in anticipation expecting it to be Swann, but his face
darkened when two detectives walked in. Angelo stood to block their path, but Shai waved him off.

Detective Brown looked from Angelo to Shai. “Wow, I’m impressed. Did you teach him how to roll over and play dead yet?”

“Fuck you, pig!” Angelo spat.

“Sorry, but you ain’t pretty enough,” Detective Brown winked at him. “Young prince of Harlem, what it do, player?” He extended his hand to Shai to give him dap.

Shai looked at Detective Brown’s hand as if it had been dipped in shit. “What can I do for you, Officers?”

“That’s
detectives,
and we actually came bearing gifts,” Detective Alvarez told him.

“Sorry, my dad always told me never to take gifts from strangers,” Shai said.

“Looks like your daddy taught you everything except the right things. But who am I to judge?” Detective Brown shrugged. “Getting back to why we came, I hear one of your young boys got done filthy a few nights ago.”

Shai shrugged. “If you say so. I’ve been at home attending to my pregnant fiancée. She’s been on bed rest, so I play it close these days.”

“Yeah, you play it close, and it’s getting closer by the day,” Detective Alvarez lit a cigarette.

“This is a nonsmoking establishment,” Shai told him.

Detective Alvarez took one last pull before throwing the cigarette on the restaurant floor and crushing it under his sneaker. “Shai, everybody knows that boy who got shot at the club is connected to you, and the fact that somebody tried to whack him means whoever you’ve pissed off is working his way up the food chain. First your soldiers, now your lieutenants. Soon,
even your capos are gonna have to grow eyes in the backs of their heads.” He looked at Angelo. “We know you feel that noose tightening around your neck, Shai.”

Shai didn’t take the bait. “Anyhow, you said you had something for me?”

“Oh yeah, we did, didn’t we?” Detective Alvarez smirked. He was having a good time making Shai sweat. “I’ve got some good news and bad news for you. The good news is that the guy who tried to clip Holiday got away, so it gives your goons first crack at putting him in the dirt before we can put him in a cell. The bad news is that this wasn’t just some schmuck trying to get a payday. Congratulations, seems like you’ve got a
real
gangster on your ass now,” the detective announced proudly.

Shai tilted his head quizzically. “You know, if you guys have come down here to try to scare me, then you’re doing a piss-poor job.”