Envy (6 page)

Flex remembered the day he’d gotten a call from Pluto saying G was inviting him and his boys to come by the Spot and get some of Juicy’s pussy for free. He’d almost blown his top when he went downstairs in that basement and saw his jewel beaten down and chained up like a mangy dog. As much as he had envied and imitated G, at that moment Flex’s hatred for Harlem’s number one kingpin had become eternal.

That niggah didn’t deserve a thoroughbred like Juicy. It had burned Flex’s heart to see her in that brutalized condition, but it had also spiked his rage to heights unknown. If Jimmy hadn’t popped G then Flex knew he damn sure would have.

He had been even more devastated when he found out that Juicy had run off somewhere with G’s son, but by then he was in the hospital trying to recuperate from his gut shot so he could exact his get-back on the niggahs who had popped him.

From there, it had been all uphill as Flex and his crew waged a bloody comeback that had left bodies scattered left and right, and earned him a major portion of the drug territory that had once belonged exclusively to Granite McKay.

And for the last six months Flex had been living the gangsta life. He’d been cracking heads, raking in doe, and enjoying his hard-earned street clout and chief capo status. Juicy had been the furthest thing from his mind until he started hearing shit about the fuckin’ bounty that Ace and his crew had put on her head, and then Rita rolled on him saying Juicy’s life was in danger and she needed someplace to hide.

There hadn’t been a moment’s hesitation in him when he said, hell yeah, bring her here. He knew Juicy had been run-through in the G-Spot like a regular hoe and locked up on the Rock like a regular criminal, but he didn’t give a fuck about none of that. Juicy was the type of chick who could brush the grime right off her shoulders and keep on shining. As fine as she was, and the way she carried herself, you’d never know a speck of dirt had ever touched her.

Whatever Juicy had done in the past was in the past. Flex was willing to leave it there, and all he wanted in return was a rider who he could trust no matter what, and who was completely down with every aspect of his program.

Because Flex was on a mission and his cause was deeply rooted in his past. Growing up as a skinny dude with buckteeth, it had been hard for him to get his props and his share of the attention. It pissed him off that he wasn’t tall with light skin and curly hair like his boy Jimmy, and he didn’t have the muscles or the fearsome physical presence of a niggah like G, neither.

But what he was, was fearless. All heart. And he was smart too. He had studied the best and the brightest hustlers out there, and he was quick to learn all the lessons the street had to offer.

And there had been no better teacher than Granite McKay. Nah, Flex didn’t just idolize G, he straight up
envied
that niggah. He wanted him some of everything that G had had. He wanted that respect, he wanted that control, and he damn sure wanted that money.

So he had studied G like there was gold just under the surface of his smooth dark skin. He’d memorized the purposeful way that niggah walked, the deadly confidence that rode on his words when he talked, the killer look he wore in his eyes, and the arrogant way he worked his bitches, like they had a prime commodity stuck between their legs. Flex had watched G rule over Harlem like he had been crowned a Black Caesar, and judging by the way people had bowed down at that niggah’s feet, maybe he really was.

CHAPTER 9

Big Frankie was stretched out on his back getting his dick sucked just right. He had a long shlong of meat, and it was almost too much for the whore to handle. He sighed and thrust his hips at her as his stomach sloshed and jiggled from her bobbing action.

“That’s it,” he whispered as her wet mouth swept up and down his engorged shaft. There were all kinds of family problems that needed to be dealt with today, but right now nothing was more important to Frankie than getting his fat cock creamed.

The whore dug her nails into his thighs and gargled on the tip of his dick. Delicious sensations radiated all the way down to his balls, and Frankie was pumping his way to heaven when he got the call.

“Frank.” It was his brother.

“What is it, Paulie?” he panted. He had left his younger brother back at the condo watching a ball game, and he was annoyed to see a call coming from his home phone at a time like this.

He tangled his fingers in the whore’s flaming red hair as he tried to force her back into her perfect sucking rhythm.  “I’m a little busy right now! W-w-what…
oh God yes keep it going…
what the fuck do you want?”

“It’s Don Vito,” Paulie said quietly. “He wants to meet with you.”

Frank froze.

“The Don wants to see me?”

“Yeah,” Paulie said. “That’s what he said.”

“Well, when’d he say that?” Frank barked. His erection disappeared as he tried to figure out why the top crime boss in Los Angeles was requesting a face-to-face meeting with him. “Did somebody call you? Did Don Vito call?”

“No,” his brother said. He stared across the room at the three well-dressed mobsters who had walked into his brother’s house without bothering to knock or ring the bell. They sat watching the ball game with their feet up on Frankie’s living room table, guns in clear view. “He came by to tell you himself.”

Frank had paid the whore, then rushed out of the hotel and driven back to the condo at break-neck speed. Paulie had said very little over the telephone, but the anxiety in his brother’s voice and the fact that the West Coast capo had paid him a personal visit let Frank know that something very serious had gone bad.

The tree-lined street was quiet as Frankie pulled up to his house. An unfamiliar late-model sedan was parked in his designated spot, so he pulled in sideways, blocking Renata’s Porsche.

The mobsters were on his porch before he could get out of his car. There were three of them, with Don Vito leading the way. Frankie stepped out the car and waited as they walked calmly down his front steps. He climbed obediently into the backseat of their sedan as one of the mobsters held open the door.

He looked back only once as they drove away from his house. His brother Paulie had come out on the porch and their eyes met briefly. And then Frank looked away, wondering if he’d ever see his family again.

$$$$$

Flex had built himself an empire from the basement of the funeral home, and it was from G’s living example that he plotted his path to success. Before making any decision he always asked himself, WWGD?
What would G do?
And he got so good at pretending to be the dead kingpin that he amassed more and more of Harlem’s drug territory, and made big plans for the day that he would have it all. 

But taking down drug clicks meant stacking plenty of bodies, so Flex had chosen a funeral home as his base of operations. Not only was it a great place to stash a corpse, it also allowed him to double-stack a rival’s body in the fake bottom of a coffin, and bury it undetected during an actual funeral service.

Yeah, not everybody could grind like a champion knowing they were surrounded by the dead, but Flex’s basement crib helped keep him on his game, because he knew the funeral home was exactly where he would end up if he fucked around and got sloppy again.

So six months earlier he had assembled himself a crew of young worthies he called his “Divine Nine.” Flex had hand-selected each of them based on their deadly street rep, and then he put ’em on trial to certify their loyalty and their courage.

Every member of the Divine Nine was required to put a fresh body on a gun and sit through a round of Russian roulette.

Flex called it his gut test.

Every hoodlum he knew was willing to live by the gun, and his gut test was designed to make sure his team had the courage to die by it too. So, Flex would sit them down with a six-shooter Magnum pressed to their domes, then make them pull the trigger until he gave them permission to stop.

So far, he’d only lost two soldiers to the game of enforced suicide, and as a result Flex commanded a vicious crew of youngstas who were hardbody and street certified. They controlled the trap in his sector of Harlem and competed viciously with fell-off niggahs like Ace, Pluto, Domni, and Bop for dominance over the town’s drug trade.

It was common knowledge that G McKay had cornered the largest drug market in all of Manhattan. What had made G so successful, aside from his business savvy and street rep, was the fact that he’d been in bed with the absolute biggest supplier of cocaine since anyone could remember.

But Flex didn’t have the connections that G had, so he was forced to do the opposite. He’d not only found multiple sources of mid-level suppliers to keep his corners stocked, he’d also got in good with distributors of club drugs, a sweet source of side bank that most dealers overlooked.

Flex knew long-term success could only be achieved through diversification. And while crack would always be king in Harlem, the town was changing and so were the bags of some of its younger residents. Many of them had seen the devastation that crack addictions had caused in their own families. Some had even been crack babies themselves, and because of that they were looking for a new drug.

A cooler drug. A club drug. And Flex made sure he had exactly what they needed. From Xanies, to ecstasy, to roofies, and mesc, Flex was a walking pharmaceutical rep. He had his soldiers hanging around concerts and rave parties peddling pills to white kids, Black kids, Asians, Puerto Ricans…whoever. It was an excellent source of secondary income, and Flex saw the demand growing larger and larger each day.

But of course, where there was money there were also problems. Lately, Flex had been feeling some kinda way about a couple of his mid-level connects. They were some Columbian niggahs, and the last couple of times his boys rolled in to re-up them cats all of a sudden didn’t speaka-no-English.

Flex knew they were testing his gangsta, which just made him even more determined to cut all those middlemen out and find one good broker. Word traveling through the street grapevine was that Ace and Pluto were sniffing around trying to find themselves a good broker too. They were looking to score the name of G’s old connect, which was information that Flex, no matter how deep he dug, had never been able to come up with himself.

But he wasn’t about to stop trying. He didn’t give a fuck if he had to turn over every rock in the city of New York. He was gonna find that connect, and even better, he was gonna take control of the G-Spot and put Ace and Pluto down for a nice long nap.

Because see, Flex didn’t just want
what
G had had. He wanted
everything
that G had had. And right now, that included total control of the drug game, total control of Harlem, and with Juicy’s fine ass getting dressed right next-door in his bedroom, Flex wanted total control of G’s woman too.

CHAPTER 10

The mobsters took Frankie to a deserted warehouse. It was a good thirty minutes south of L.A., and in an area that was unfamiliar to him. The warehouse was surprisingly cozy inside, and as they sat down at a table one of the younger soldiers poured drinks for everyone.

Frank tossed his liquor back quickly, and pushed his glass forward to be refilled. If he was going to be executed then he wanted to go out at least halfway buzzed.

Don Vito emptied his glass and lit a cigar, and then he spoke. “You know, Frankie, that was some pretty big trouble you were in back there in New York.”

Frank nodded, but remained silent.

“They had a meeting, the New York council did. Some wanted to put you out of business, ya know, but Tommy spoke up for you. He said you were a stand-up guy. A real asset to The Organization. He called me up personally too, ya know. He asked me if I could do him a big favor and make room for you out here in Los Angeles.” Don Vito toked from his cigar. “And because I always liked you, and because Tommy is my good friend, I agreed.”