Crackhead (26 page)

HOURS AFTER THE
shootout, the streets told Dink about the death of his girl. Immediately, he was ghost. People thought that he was taking it hard, staying in hiding until the funeral, if there was going to be a funeral. Once Dink hung up the phone with Crystal, he'd made two calls. The first was to Smurf, telling him to meet him at his business apartment on Gun Hill Road. He instructed him to bring all of his necessary belongings with him. Unsure of what his boss was asking him, Smurf dumped some clothes, cassette tapes, and sneakers into two duffle bags and hopped in a cab.

“Hey man, I got here as fast as I could.” Smurf was out of breath and confused. Dink locked the door behind him and was silent. “Dink?” Smurf followed him into the living room, where all of Dink's money was on the dining room table. On the floor was a huge Louis Vuitton traveling trunk. “Where we going?” Dink motioned for him to put his bag down.

“We're not going anywhere.” Smurf was beyond confused. Dink smiled. “
I'm
going.” Smurf let out a deep breath; his heart hurt. “I'm leaving this place. I've done all that I could do for you, Marco, Dame, shit . . . even Crystal. I got to do for me now.” Smurf was frozen. In his mind, he was battling whether to cry for the first time since those tears streamed down his fifteen-year-old face that fateful spring day he crossed paths with Dink or wild out and go off on Dink—the only man that ever loved him like a son. “Don't be mad, Smurf. I'm gonna always take care of you.”

“How? You fuckin' leaving . . . leaving me here. What am I supposed to do?” Smurf pulled out his gun and pointed it to the ceiling. “This is all I know.”

“Naw, my lil' man, you know way more. That's why I'm leaving this all to you. You're the man now.”

“What?” Smurf placed the gun on the table. “Leaving what to me?”

“The South Bronx, baby. It's yours. I laid the foundation. You got rid of the suckas.”

Smurf cracked a smile. All these years he had been content with his role. He'd never wanted more than what Dink gave him. Now, he was being given an empire.

“Here.” Dink threw Smurf a set of keys.

“What's this?”

“A kingpin has to have a castle. I'm giving you this apartment. Don't worry, I own the building. You'll never have to move.”
Smurf looked like he had just seen a ghost. “You didn't know a nigga knew how to invest. There's more to life than crime, drugs, and bullshit,” Dink joked.

“Damn, Dink. This is a lot for a nigga to process right now.” Smurf took a seat at the table. “You leave me this too?” he said, pointing at the mound of $500,000.

“Hell, no!” Dink laughed. “Naw, I left you some money in the safe. Don't worry, before I leave here I'll give you the codes to everything.” Dink walked past Smurf and started getting things together.

“Dink?”

“Huh?”

“Where are you going?” Smurf's voice sounded like a child's; the cold-blooded killer was nowhere to be found.

Dink turned around, hearing the sadness in Smurf words. “I'm going to get my shit together.”

“SO, MS. DANIELS,
could you please state the name of your friend that you were with today?” The detective was sitting in a chair, taking notes, while an armed uniform officer stood by the door. Monique was handcuffed to the hospital bed. She had been out of surgery to remove the bullet from her leg for over two hours and was dazed but coherent.

“Crystal Moore.”

“And where did Ms. Moore get the gun from?”

Monique bit her lip; a single tear rolled down her face. “Tonette Thomas. She lives with her boyfriend, a big-time drug dealer named Dame on Morris Ave.”

THE SECOND CALL
Dink made after learning about Crystal's death was to Laci. She was ecstatic when he told her the good news—
instead of just taking her to the rehab in North Carolina, he was going to be moving down there with her. Later that night he arrived at her door with a trunk full of clothes, a duffle bag full of money, and his prized Benz.

Margaret, Laci, and Dink worked out the finishing touches of their plan. The following day all of them were going to drive down to North Carolina. Since Laci was a minor, her mother was going to have to admit her. Dink was going to look for a two-bedroom apartment—the extra room would be for Margaret when she came to visit. His other task was to enroll in a GED program.

Considering all that Dink was doing for her and Laci, Margaret agreed to do something for him. There was no way Dink could carry around that much money without setting off an alarm. So, Margaret deposited it into Laci's trust fund. When her eighteenth birthday rolled around on August 11, she'd have access to it in addition to the cool million her father had left her.

Dink would never speak again of what happened on that day. He knew that Laci was way too fragile to hear about Crystal.

And from then on, the only person that existed for Laci from her time chillin' in the South Bronx was Dink.

Fall 1989

M
ARK MY WORDS,
without knowledge you're all bound for the welfare line or the penitentiary,” said Mr. Giencanna, the instructor for the Introduction to Philosophy class. Nobody was trying to hear him, and he proceeded with the daily roll call.

“Mr. Jason Abbott?” Mr. Giencanna called out, fixing his glasses on his hawklike nose.

“Here,” a young man in the rear spoke up.

“Casey Bernard?”

“Right here,” said another male's voice.

“Miss Natalie Farmer?”

This time there was no reply.

“Natalie Farmer?” he repeated.

A young man wearing a blue and gray varsity jacket nudged Natalie, who was sitting at her desk, dozing off.

“What?” she said sleepily, and with an attitude.

He nodded toward their instructor. “Roll call. That's what.”

“I'm here, Mr. Giencanna, sir,” Natalie said, wiping around her mouth.

“Stay with us, please, Miss Farmer,” said Mr. Giencanna. Although he phrased it like a request, Natalie knew by his stern tone and the piercing look in his eyes that it was, without a doubt, an order.

Mr. Giencanna cleared his throat and continued. “Miss Julacia Johnson?”

Once again there was no reply. The classroom was silent as everyone looked around to see if there was another nodding student somewhere. Everyone appeared to be wide awake.

“Perhaps we have another sleeping beauty amongst us,” Mr. Giencanna said sarcastically. “Is there a Miss Julacia Johnson present?”

Still there was no reply.

“Julacia Johnson?” he repeated, very much irritated this time. The silence remained.

The welfare line or the penitentiary
, he thought. No sooner than his eye looked to call the next name, the classroom door came flying open.

“Present,” Laci huffed, as she rushed into the classroom with books in hand. The class fell silent to the remarkable presence before them. There Laci stood, just as beautiful as ever. Her shiny Shirley Temple curls, full of body, fell slightly across the left side of her forehead, tickling her eyebrow. Her moody brown eyes sparked with a hunger for knowledge.

“Sorry I'm late,” Laci said out of breath as she looked down at her Movado watch, the same one her father had given her for her sixteenth birthday. “But I'm here. I made it!”

“And who are you, sir?” Mr. Giencanna looked past her.

“Ah . . . I'm Din—I mean, Daryl . . . Daryl Highsmith. I'm not on the list, sir; I just got accepted last week.”

To my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Vickie Stringer for editorial guidance and support.

Triple Crown Publications.

Kwan Foye, Robert Little, Chloé A. Hillard for allowing my story a chance to be told. There is no way this book could be possible without your support and effort to start my career.

To all the bookstores and distributors and of course, readers.

Thank you!

Lisa Lennox

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