Crazy Summer (36 page)

He thought to himself and then suddenly removed a small bible from his back pocket. He paused directly in the middle of the street in front of a few boarded up houses that were huddled close together.

He heard a deep voice yell, “A partna, you can’t stop there. So, keep it moving.”

Bookie didn’t respond. Instead, he held up his bible and took three more steps while looking toward the house.

“You got a cigarette?” he asked and then began moving quickly toward the house.

Before he made it to the front yard, two male teenagers drew Glocks on him three inches from his face. His eyes crossed.

“All I want is a cigarette.”

“All we got is Glocks and rocks. Which one do you prefer?” an older guy asked from the front porch. He stared directly at Bookie and twisted his face as if he knew him from somewhere.

Bookie stood patiently. He remembered the face, and the guns that were aimed at his head couldn’t break his concentration. His eyes grew dark and anxious, and his anger slowly built up. He wouldn’t allow them to see it, though.

“I got ten dollars,” he whispered, then nibbled on his bottom lip.

The two guys escorted Bookie to the front porch and then through a thin sheet of plywood that was covering the door. Their weapons had been put away. Bookie’s eyes searched the front room quickly. A worn loveseat sat near the corner, and a wooden coffee table was in front of it with a scale on top and a box of Ziploc sandwich bags. An X-box was connected to a small color television. Madden was on pause. The guy from the front porch came in. He stood five-eleven and moved swiftly for his size. He placed a glass pipe and about two grams of crack onto the table. He looked Bookie in his eyes and pointed to the table.

“Smoke it,” he told him with a scratchy voice.

Bookie’s eyes darted around the room, and his heartbeat began to accelerate. Then a small razor-sharp knife appeared in his hand, no more than four to five inches long. His grip tightened around the handle. He braced himself under his powerful built legs, and with an overjoyed swing, he slashed the older guy from the front porch directly across his stomach, leaving his wifebeater and gut opened and exposed like a can of Campbell’s Tomato Soup.

The guy clutched his stomach and stared down at his abdomen. Fear had grown in his eyes.

What seemed like forever was only a few seconds. Bookie spun around, his mind cloudless, and he knew he should have heard a gunshot by now. But the younger guy was too focused on his injured comrade. Bookie grabbed him with an unbelievable force before he could think about using his Glock. He pierced the younger guy’s skin underneath his neck. He didn’t have any intentions on killing anybody. This was only part of their plan.

Barefoot, Summer stood outside on the front porch. For the first time in her life the night quietness could be heard. The sky was blanched, no color at all. She was slowly altering herself, playing a mental game within herself. She needed the world to think she’d lost her mind.

No pressure.

No stress.

No pain.

No gain.

She repeated these words in her head every thirty minutes. Summer wrapped her arms around herself, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. She then went inside and laid out on the oriental throw rug. Her body was fatigued, and at this moment, she was invincible. When she awakened the following morning, she was ready to go through the same routine again.

Three weeks had passed, and Summer had lost nearly twenty pounds. Her face had sunken, causing her cheekbones to sit high. Her hair had begun to frizzle and dry out. She went into the bathroom and stood before the mirror. Her mother and kids would be disappointed and disgusted at the sight of her. This was something she knew and wanted. She grabbed a pair of scissors and started cutting her hair off while smiling to herself.
Snip…snip…snip.

No pressure.

No stress.

No pain.

No gain.

*****

A white undercover van filled with a mixture of local narcs and federal agents rode through Underwood Projects. Their windows were tinted, but from the inside, they could see clearly. They monitored the drug activity with high-tech cameras and other surveillance equipment. On the inside wall of the van were several photos of Summer and Bookie.

Some of them had been taken in the last eight months. None of them were recent. One detective in his mid-forties was powerfully built up top with huge forearms. His hair had whitened from graying and was combed evenly toward the back. No input was brought to the table unless he invited it. He flipped through a
USA Today
newspaper while the remaining staff monitored the streets. The van finally came to a slow creep. Agent North glanced up from his paper and looked toward the front of the van. The officer in the passenger seat turned around, and his eyes met Agent North’s.

“The guy that owns the green Chevy Impala right there…” He pointed.

Agent North looked at it through the tinted window. As he nodded, the officer continued.

“This is his sophomore year in the game.”  He turned and faced the Chevy himself. Kids were playing hide-n-go-seek around the bumper. “We’re working on a great case against him, and I know he will probably be able to give us some valuable information about Summer.

Agent North looked on, a few thoughts circulating inside his head. One, he wanted Summer off the streets. Two, he wanted Summer off the streets, and three, he wanted Summer off the streets.

Ten minutes later, they were questioning the guy who owned the green Chevy Impala. His name was Jimmy Blue, but everybody called him JB. He was clean cut and in his mid-twenties with a set of evenly white teeth. JB’s eyes were nearly closed from a blunt he’d smoked about thirty minutes earlier.

Agent North stared around the poverty-stricken neighborhood for a moment before his eyes came back to JB. He removed a photo of Summer from a manila envelope and handed it to him.

“What can you tell me about her?”

JB scanned the picture. “I can’t place her.” His tone of voice was eager. He remained calm.

“Take a good look.” A tad bit of aggression rose in Agent North’s voice. He had a powerful intimidation game and was assuming he could use it right now.

JB slowly cut his eyes up at the federal agent. He didn’t want to get too slick out of his mouth. He knew his own position.

Finally, he took a deep breath and said, “I don’t know her, sir.”

Nothing else was said, but they were getting close.

*****

Summer came out of hiding. She knew it was time for her to show her face, and the face she was showing was rough looking and skinny. She stepped out of a ‘93 Grand Am after parking in front of the Sunset Villa Apartments’ main office. Summer went into the office and carried on a good conversation with the manager. She needed a two-bedroom apartment. She removed a driver’s license with the name Yolanda James, and the manager slid Summer some papers to fill out.

She did it. Then paid up the rent in cash for the next year.

Summer got her apartment in the P section. The complex was rundown. Hustlers patrolled the area; junkies were there just as well. Kids were crawling and combing the neighborhood on big wheels and bicycles. A black Navigator was parked across from her apartment with an overwhelming sound system. Trick Daddy roared from the speakers. She scoped the entire scene before she even got inside.

Once inside, she took in her new place. This isn’t how she wanted to live, but on the other hand, she didn’t want to go to the federal penitentiary again so this is how she had to live. The living room was naked. The place smelled clean; however, she knew she couldn’t fix it up like she would have liked to. She looked up at the dingy ceilings as she stepped into the kitchen, which was nearly combined with the living room.

Several things were going through Summer’s head. She tried hard not to think about her mother and kids, but those people would never be forgotten. Her love was unconditional for her family, but in order for her to keep them safe, she had to separate herself from them.

Summer went to the blinds and slightly parted them. She saw a young guy serving something hand to hand. Crack, reefer, or X pills––one of the three. Then, suddenly, she thought about Bookie.

His nerves twitched slightly in his left hand, a funny feeling that made his index and middle fingers. It wasn’t the gun that made him nervous. Bookie stared dumbfounded at his reflection in the mirror. A smaller version of a police Teflon vest covered his chest. He ran his fingers through his nappy hair. From Bookie’s appearance you wouldn’t think he’d be worth a couple of million dollars and had a safe spot that was so secure. Nobody would ever find it.

On the dresser inside the hotel room were two special ordered handguns concealed inside of a leather duffel bag. He removed the smaller one, which was a .380 with a homemade silencer that he had ordered from a silent partner in Savannah, Georgia. Today he was in Atlanta and ready to pay a visit to Terry Pate’s family since he wasn’t able to catch Terry himself. He knew he was working for the feds because he’d already gotten the word from his source. Bookie wasn’t dumb by a long shot, and his plan was to try to eliminate any and everybody that he figured would harm him and Summer. It took him fifteen minutes to get dressed in a gray double-breasted three-piece suit that he’d purchased last year. His shoes were expensive, too. He gathered everything and headed for the door.

Downstairs in the lobby, several people moved swiftly. He blended in with the heavy crowd from the convention that was taking place. Outside in the parking lot, a hot breeze blew across his face. He took in the beautiful sunny day as he strolled across the parking lot. Then he ducked off in a parked rental. He programmed his destination in the On-star navigation system and checked all the rearview mirrors before starting the engine.

By the time seven o’clock hit, it was completely dark. “A long night,” he mumbled to himself while cruising through a well-designed subdivision in Stone Mountain. He knew the area extremely well because a week after he’d met Terry Pate and found out where his family lived, Summer had copped the first available house on the same street. It was three houses down, but on the opposite side.

He pulled the rented Camry in the driveway and stopped in front of the two-car garage. He killed the engine, grabbed his briefcase, and stepped out. He looked around the neighborhood again. It was quiet, and through a huge bay window in a house across the street, he saw a family eating dinner. Finally, he turned and went inside the house.

From across the street, three federal agents were on a stakeout. They’d also leased a house in the neighborhood. Several photos had been snapped of Bookie from Augusta to Atlanta. They watched his every move because they knew his plan. They knew he was a killer and a drug dealer. Now they wanted to catch him red-handed. An agent stood at the front window in jeans and a t-shirt. The neighborhood knew the black man as James Williams, another average Joe who had his own lawn care service. The other two agents were females, appearing to be a wife and sister-in-law. Agent James Williams held a pair of night vision binoculars up to his eyes, and when he looked across the street, he wasn’t too pleased with what he saw.