Animal (39 page)

Frankie’s legs felt like noodles while she walked through the motel parking lot, and it wasn’t because of the thigh-high boots she was wearing either. From the moment they’d set out, the whole situation felt wrong.

Cutty’s inside man and her date for the night was a slightly older man named Davis. In his heyday, he had been a big-time hustler from out of the Bronx, but now, he was just another aging street legend who tried to get in where he fit in. Before Cutty went to prison, he had fronted Davis some work, and when he got locked up, Davis figured that his debt had been wiped clean. Imagine his surprise when Cutty showed up years later and demanded his money. Davis tried to play Cutty to the left about the old debt, but Cutty was a man who was serious
about his money, and to show Davis how serious he was, Cutty had paid a visit to his wife. He made it clear to Davis and his family that if he didn’t get his money he would take the debt in blood. Davis had no way of getting Cutty’s money, so Cutty offered to turn him onto the high-stakes poker game where Cutty could get what he was owed, and then some. Davis knew what he was doing was risky, but he had no choice.

When they got to the motel room where the card game was being held they were greeted by a young man who was guarding the door. Within the first five seconds of opening his mouth, the young man managed to run afoul of Frankie.

“Entertainment in the next room; only players here,” he told her.

“
Excuse
you?” Frankie cocked her head.

“Ain’t you one of the ‘dancers’?” he held his fingers up in air quotations.

“Nigga, you got me fucked up. I ain’t no whore!” Frankie snapped. She looked at Davis and Cutty. “I thought you said these were some classy gentlemen but apparently not when they can’t tell the difference between a whore and a boss bitch.”

“I didn’t mean no disrespect. I just thought you were one of the working girls.” The young man looked from Frankie’s tight dress to her thigh-high boots.

Davis stepped up and snaked his hand around Frankie’s waist, pulling her closer. “It’s a simple mistake, baby. No harm no foul,” he kissed her on the cheek. “Step aside, youngster,” Davis brushed the kid away. “I smell money, and I need some of it.” He led Frankie and Cutty into the motel room.

Their coats were taken, and they were shown to the table, where Davis was greeted by some of his old street chums. He
got plenty of compliments for the fine young girl on his arm, which he soaked up, while palming Frankie’s ass to show just how much of the man he was.

Frankie rested her head on Davis’s shoulder and spoke in a hushed tone. “Don’t feel yourself too much; this is only an act. If you grab my ass one more time, I’m gonna say fuck this lick and kill you. Are we clear on that?”

“Crystal clear, baby.” Davis wisely backed off.

“Watch that temper, Frankie Angels,” Cutty whispered. “You’re supposed to be in character, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.” Frankie whipped the hair of her wig and walked off.

Davis was shown to a seat at the table with the other card players, while Cutty helped himself to the bar and Frankie sat on a loveseat in the corner where several other ladies sat passing around a blunt and gossiping. They tried to make small talk with Frankie, but she only half-listened. She was too busy watching the room. Cutty had told her that the card party would be full of old heads who had no real power, but it didn’t look that way to her. She knew the look of a killer when she saw one, and she was surrounded by them. Cutty had walked her into a nest of vipers, and it was too late for her to turn back.

When someone knocked on the door Frankie almost leaped out of her skin. She watched from the loveseat as the young man who had insulted her went to answer it. He placed his eye to the peephole and ordered the person on the other side to identify himself. The person outside the door shouted something, followed by a loud boom. The young man screamed in pain and staggered backward, drawing the attention of everyone
in the room as blood spurted from his face. He dropped to the ground writhing in agony, holding his bloody face. Frankie looked up at the door and almost vomited when she saw his eyeball hanging from the end of a spike where the peephole used to be. Before anyone could process what was going on, the whole door crashed in and two men wearing red bandanas over their faces stormed the room.

FORTY-ONE

A
NIMAL WAS THE FIRST ONE THROUGH THE
door, Glock in one hand and sledgehammer in the other. Alonzo followed closely behind, his .357 and .45 sweeping back and forth, daring someone to move. They’d decided to leave Ashanti out on the tier to cover their backs. Of course, he complained about it, but Animal wouldn’t budge on his decision. He didn’t want Ashanti’s trigger-happy ass to ruin his moment of truth.

Animal addressed the room. “I think we all know what this is, so let’s make it as painless as possible.”

An older gentleman who had been sitting near the door leaped to his feet. “You know who the fuck you’re trying to rip off?” he snarled at Animal menacingly.

Animal swung the sledgehammer one-handed, caving in the side of the man’s face, and killing him instantly. “Anymore dumb-ass questions?” Animal asked the frightened onlookers. “Get that,” Animal nodded to Alonzo.

Alonzo moved over to the table and began scooping the
money off it and stuffing it into the duffel bag Animal had used to carry his tools. He could feel the cold stares on the men they were robbing, but he ignored them and focused on collecting every last dollar. He looked over at the ladies on the couch, who were all trembling except one. The girl who they had seen in the parking lot. The way she was staring at Alonzo made him uneasy. At first he thought she was looking at his face trying to figure out who was behind the mask, but her eyes were fixed on his guns. The light of recognition went off in both their heads at the same time. He knew Frankie well enough to know that if she was at the party, it wasn’t a social call. It seemed that they had the same agendas, but Alonzo had beat her to the punch. He gave her a knowing wink and continued collecting money.

“Gentlemen,” Animal continued, “I don’t know you, and this ain’t nothing personal. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Once I get what I came for I’ll be on my way.”

“You got our money, what more you want?” a man wearing a crinkled green suit asked.

“Shai Clark,” Animal informed him.

The man in the green suit laughed. “Son, seems like you wasted a trip. We don’t know no Shai Clark, do we, fellas?” He looked around the table.

Animal sighed and shot the man in the green suit in the head. Blood splattered all over the table and the man sitting next to him. “Look, if y’all wanna keep playing with my intelligence, I got enough bullets to put this whole room to sleep. I know this is the Clark card party, so somebody bring me a Clark before I really get upset.” He pulled the other Glock
from his pants and tapped the Pretty Bitches together threateningly.

No one spoke.

“That’s the way y’all wanna do it, huh?” Animal began slowly pacing around the table. “I tried to be nice.” He stopped short of an older Italian man who had been sitting at the card table. “Now it’s time to be nasty.” He pressed both guns against the back of the man’s head.

A younger Italian man with thick black hair, wearing a tracksuit, jumped up from the table. “Hey, now you’re crossing the line. If you blacks wanna kill each other in the streets, that’s one thing, but leave us out of it. We’re with Gee-Gee.”

“You’re gonna be with God if you don’t give me who I came for,” Animal assured him.

The young Italian man swallowed hard. He had been against coming to the card game, but their boss Gee-Gee had insisted they attend as a sign of respect to Shai. The young man didn’t care that Gee-Gee looked at Shai as an associate. To him and the rest of their organization, he was a nigger street punk, and he wasn’t willing to sacrifice one of their own to protect him.

“Look,” the young Italian man began, “this is Shai’s card game, but he ain’t here.”

“Well, then, who the fuck is running this circus?” Animal asked.

Suddenly, the sound of shattering glass came from the bathroom. Without having to be told, Alonzo darted to the back to investigate. He returned a few seconds later with a worried expression on his face. “Somebody bolted out the bathroom window. I’m gonna dip outside and see if I can catch whoever it was.”

“Don’t bother.” Ashanti walked into the room with the Mac11 jammed into the back of the man who tried to escape. “Look who I caught trying to make a break for it.”

Animal smiled from ear to ear behind his bandana at the sight of who Ashanti had captured. “Nice of you to join us, Swann.”

Tionna was just coming back from the vending machines with an arm full of snacks for Gucci and her. She was glad to see her friend getting her appetite back because it meant that she was one step closer to getting back to where she needed to be. What Gucci had gone through would’ve broken most people, but the fact that she was pulling through it was a testament to her strength. The physical wounds would take a while to heal, and the mental ones even longer, but no matter how long it took, Tionna would be by her side.

She and Gucci had been crime partners since grade school, always having each other’s backs against any and all odds. When they got older, their problems got bigger, but that only made their bond stronger. When Tionna was assed out with nothing but the clothes on her back, Gucci and her mom had been right there for her, even going as far as letting Tionna and her two sons move in with Ms. Ronnie when Don B. had her apartment burned down. Tionna and Gucci were more than friends; they were sisters.

Tionna entered Gucci’s hospital room, smiling from ear to ear because the vending machine had her favorite toasted almond ice cream snacks, but the smile faded when she saw two men standing over Gucci’s bed. At first she thought that they were the detectives that had come back to ask more questions
about the shooting, but that thought faded when she saw one of them injecting something into Gucci’s IV.

“What are y’all doing? You’re not supposed to be here!” Tionna yelled, trying to draw the attention of the hospital staff.

“Grab that bitch!” one of the men ordered.

Tionna turned and tried to run but was grabbed roughly by her hair and dragged into the room. The man tried to close the door, but Tionna stuck her foot in the doorjamb to stop him. He slammed the door repeatedly on Tionna’s foot to try to get her to remove it, but she wouldn’t. She knew if that door closed they were finished, so he was going to have to break her foot to get her to move it. But instead of bothering to break her foot, he slugged her in the gut and knocked the wind out of her. Then he dragged her across the room and tossed her at the feet of the guy Tionna had seen injecting the foreign substance into Gucci’s IV. He was a slightly older, brown-skinned man wearing a gray suit and black tie with a white shirt.

“Now, why do you wanna go and stir up trouble unnecessarily?” Angelo asked with a shake of his head.

“What are you doing to her?” Gucci mumbled groggily from her bed. Whatever Angelo had put in the IV was starting to kick in, but she wasn’t too far gone yet to know that something wasn’t right.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it, doll. Once that cocktail kicks in, this will be the least of your concerns.” Angelo patted Gucci’s leg.

“Whatever you’re thinking about doing to her, you better un-think it or else,” Tionna threatened.

“Or else what? Big bad Animal gonna come for me?” Angelo
asked. “I sure hope so, because if he don’t, that means I wasted a trip, and you bitches are dead.”

“What do you want?” Gucci asked. She was starting to see double.

“We want your boyfriend, and you’re gonna give him to us.” Angelo handed Gucci a cell phone.

Gucci laughed weakly. “Fuck you.”

Angelo grabbed her by the neck and shook her. “Bitch, I ain’t playing games with you. Now either you get on the phone and call that nigga, or I’m gonna put a crease in your brain.” He placed his gun to the top of her head.

Gucci was frightened, but she wouldn’t give the men the satisfaction of showing it. If they’d come for Animal, then nine times out of ten she and Tionna would be killed anyway. The two things she regretted most was that she was going to lose Animal again and the fact that her love had condemned her best friend to death with her.

Gucci pursed her dry lips together like she was trying to say something, and when Angelo leaned in to hear what it was, she spat in his face. “When you kill me, it’s gonna start the shot-clock on the rest of your worthless-ass life because Animal is gonna kill you!”

Angelo wiped the saliva from the side of his face with Gucci’s bedsheet. “If you like it, I love it.” He cocked the hammer back on the gun.

“Wait!” Tionna cried out. “She can’t bring you Animal, but I can.”

“You?” Angelo asked curiously.

“Tionna, don’t,” Gucci pleaded with tears in her eyes.

“Gucci, they’re gonna kill us if we don’t,” Tionna said, her
eyes also filled with tears. “He gave me a number to reach him at, but he’ll only pick up if I call from this phone.” She handed Angelo the phone.