Heist 2 (10 page)

15

Shannon

 

I sat rocking back and forth in front of the TV in the prison day room. My head pounded and my ears rang. At first, I thought maybe I was dreaming again since nightmares had been plaguing me from the time I'd gotten locked up. I blinked a few times and knew that I was really awake and that I had heard the reporter correctly.

Tears rimmed my eyes as I listened to the reporter's every word. I didn't know if I was crying for Todd, for Little Todd, for myself, or for the cop that had been killed. It was a mixed bag of emotions that flooded my brain and my heart. I felt partially responsible for what had happened to Todd and the police officer.

 

The day I turned over the recordings of Dugan admitting to her affair with Todd, internal affairs arrested her on the spot. When they questioned her, she admitted that she had planned to quit the job that day, pick up Little Todd, and meet Todd at the small charter airport near Virginia Beach so that they could leave the country together. Dugan had snitched without any hesitation. She wasn't as ride-or-die as Todd thought, I guess.

The internal affairs officers who had Dugan in custody had gotten right in touch with LaBeckie and put him on to Todd's little plan.

LaBeckie and his crew had been heading to northern Virginia to a bogus location Todd had given them. They quickly turned around and headed to the airport where Todd was.

The way I got the story from Deputy Warden Skaggs was that as soon as those cops charged in, Todd had opened fire on them. They say LaBeckie was the hero who jumped in the line of fire to save his other officers. They said Todd was shot over sixty times and even after he was down the officers were still lighting his ass up. I guess when you live by it, you die by it.

As for me, I was given a decrease in my sentence for my work in bringing Dugan down, which also ultimately kept Todd from getting away. I didn't have any plans about what I would do when I got released, but at least I could say I was alive. None of it was worth it in the end. The ultimate heist, the last heist, and all of the revenge plots against each other had all failed for me, Todd, Jock, and LaBeckie. I guess in the end God has the final say on who gets the last word.

 

“You a'ight, sis?” Lady came over and touched my shoulder after she'd watched the news about Todd. She was such a good friend to me. I looked up at her and I could no longer hold it back. Tears poured from my eyes, my shoulders quaked, and I let out a roar of sobs. I didn't even care that I was in the day room where all of the other inmates could see me having a weak moment. I finally let my guard down and let it all out. There was nothing left to hide behind. Lady stayed with me every minute after that to make sure I didn't do anything to hurt myself. I was cool, I started to feel better after a few days. Deputy Warden Skaggs even let me plan Todd's small funeral and see him get buried in the poor man's graveyard. After all of the riches Todd and I had shared, who would've guessed his final resting place would be among the nameless, homeless, and destitute. Such is life, I guess. I couldn't hope for much more. What did I really have left? Nothing but a little boy that I loved more than life itself.

 

A week after they let me tend to Todd's funeral, I was in my bunk and Lady was in hers when our new CO walked into our cell.

“Aye, Marshall, mail,” the CO called out to me. I looked at Lady and Lady looked at me, both of our eyebrows up in arches on our faces. I grabbed the envelope and examined it. There was no return address, just my name and the prison addressed typed like it had been done on a computer.

“Shit, you sure you want to open that?” Lady asked, her eyebrows still arched.

“Can't be no worse than everything that has already happened. Fuck it,” I said, tearing at the back of the envelope.

I fell to my knees and sobbed. Lady jumped down from her bunk in a panic.

“What? What is it? What did it say?” she asked, frantically snatching the letter from my hand and reading it.

I couldn't even open my mouth to say a word. After all that I had done to him, Todd still looked out for me in the end. I felt like a piece of shit. All of this and in the end it was me who had come out on the winning side of it all.

Caked Up

DE'NESHA DIAMOND

Prologue

Harlem

H
uddled in a darkened table at our favorite bar, Sparks, my lifelong friend and partner-in-crime, Isaiah Kane, drops a bomb on me.

“You lost all of your money?” I repeat, in shock. “Again?”

“I know. I know, Harlem. Don't lecture me this time. Can you help me or not?”

“I don't know. How much do you need?”

He swallows. “About ten?”

“Ten thousand?” I sigh in relief. “Sure. I got you on that.” When my boy shakes his head, I tense again.

Isaiah leans forward and whispers. “Ten
million.
”

“Are you crazy? I can't come off that much money.”

“What are you talking about? You're loaded. I know that you got your shit stashed somewhere. You probably haven't used twenty percent from that big cyber heist we pulled two years back.”

“That's my retirement money. We're both supposed to be getting out of the game at thirty-five, remember?”

Isaiah rolls his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah. I remember. My retirement is going to be delayed for a little while longer.” He tilts up his glass of whiskey.

Feeling a sense of panic sink in, I ask, “Who do you owe that much money to?”

Isaiah ignores me for a few seconds to signal to the bartender for another round.

“Isaiah?”

He sighs and cuts me a look. “Kingston West.”

Shit.
I grab my glass and drain the whiskey in one gulp. The whole reason that I'm even in this heist business is because my uncle Jonathan Banks inspired me. He and his crew worked for decades for the Guzman Colombian cartel, leading a crime team called The Jackal.

There wasn't shit Uncle Jonathan, Rawlo, Mishawn, and Tremaine couldn't jack. They were never caught and never served a single damn day behind bars. If that ain't some boss shit, I don't know what is.

In the underground world, my name carried its fair amount of weight and respect—and I extended it to cover my boy Isaiah. At thirty-three, we've been in the street game since before we hit double digits—that's a long fucking time. Unlike my famous uncles, we're more jacks of
all
street trade than specialists in just one. We deal. We gun run. We jack. We do whatever it is that needs to be done to stack our paper for our thirty-five-year-and-done plan. As kids we knew that we didn't want or believe brothahs could be running the streets with a head full of gray hair—mainly because the shit ain't never been done. There's always someone younger, faster, stronger, or smarter to enter the game and the fastest way to the top is take out the old guards. And so it goes. A vicious cycle.

My mind shoots back to when Isaiah said that he was going to start working for the notorious crime boss. Isaiah was looking to make some extra money. He's always looking to make more money, especially since I was agreeing to less and less big heist jobs. There's no need. I'm thirty-three and I have nearly twenty-five million in cash saved and stashed out of reach of the federal government. My buddy here hasn't been as smart. Money burns through his hands as fast as he snatches it. I've always known about him having a gambling issue, but clearly it's more of a problem than I've ever realized.

“So can you loan me the money or not?” Isaiah asks.

“Loan implies that you can and are capable of paying me back,” I tell him.

Isaiah's head jerks back as if I'd punched him.

“Oh? It's like
that
now?”

I shrug, not wanting to come off that much cash. It would delay my getting out of the game at least another five to seven years.

Isaiah twists up his face. “Get the fuck outta here. I'm gonna pay you back.”

“Can't do it. Sorry, bruh.”

“Damn! At least I asked you. If I was some real foul nigga, I could've just snatched it from you. You ain't slick. I know where you keep that shit
buried
—with Grandpa.”

My stomach dropped. “What?”

“But look. We're
boys
,” he says like he didn't just casually hint that he could rob me at any time. “We're
always
going to be boys. If the situation was reversed, I would come through for you.”

“But the situation
isn't
reversed.” At his awkward laugh, I start my interrogation. “What the hell happened with Kingston?”

Isaiah sucks his teeth and shrugs. “This nigga is tripping because I lost one of his shipments. I told the man that I was jacked, but he ain't trying to hear that shit. He says if my ass is breathing, not locked down and don't have something like DEA report in the newspapers that my ass is lying. Can you believe that shit?”

I bob my head. “Of course I believe it. Ain't nobody going to just take your word on something like that. Plus, why are you running drugs? You're a thief.”

“Not drugs. Weapons.”

“You lost ten million worth of weapons? How is that even possible?”

“Okay. So I lost a
couple
of shipments.”

“Oh, my God.” I toss back my second whiskey as soon as the glass hits the table. “Bartender, another round.” I shift my attention back to Isaiah. “Why did you ever agree to work for him?” I ask. “You know Kingston West is bad news.”

Isaiah sighs. “I was in a fix. I owed this cat, Gold Dawg, down in Atlanta some serious cheddar.”

“Gold Dawg? A poker guy?”

“So? Big deal. I recently had a bad streak at the tables. It's no big deal. Shoot me.”

“I'm not going to shoot you. Kingston West is going to do that—if not worse.”

“What's that supposed to mean? You're seriously not going to loan me the money?”

I'm shaking my head before I can even get the words out. “Can't do that. That's almost
half
that I got saved up. I have a one-year-old daughter I got to support. My grandmother is getting older.”

“And you're trying to impress that new bougie chick that you're still seeing from that club,” Isaiah tosses in.

“She has nothing to do with this.”

“Uh, huh.”

“When do you have to pay Kingston?”

Isaiah hems and haws, but he finally says, “One week.”

He might as well have thrown a brick at my head.

“Look, if you don't just want to
loan
me the money, then maybe you can help me with this one job I have lined up for tomorrow. You can get your hands dirty with your old childhood buddy, can't you?”

“What kind of job?”

“I have another shipment to deliver down in Memphis. I don't like doing these runs by myself.”

“So I'm going to hold your hands every time you do a shipment?”

“Damn. You act like I've never done shit for you before.”

The more whiskey he tosses back, the hotter he gets.

“Another shipment?” I ask dubiously.

He waves me off. “Hey, it's easy money.”

“How much?”

“The job pays a million. It's not all I need, but it's a substantial down payment. You down?”

I hesitate, for good reason. “Am I even going to get paid for this job?”

Isaiah looks ready to explode.

“Never mind.” I toss up my hands in surrender. “Forget I asked.”

“C'mon. You're going to do me like that? At the end of the day, we're still homies, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” The second the bartender sets down my third drink, I snatch that bitch up and drain it as fast as the first two.

“So you'll do it?”

“Fine. I'll ride down with you.”

“Great!”

My cell phone buzzes.

We both glance down as I scoop my phone from out of my pocket and see Johnnie's name splashed across the screen. “Hold up,” I say, and step back to answer the call. “Hey, princess. What's up?”

“Me. You still rolling through like you promised?” Johnnie asks in her sexy voice that gets me so hard. “I got everything ready for you.”

“Oh? Is that right?” I glance down at my watch. “Give me about thirty minutes.”

“All right. Don't be a minute late or I'll have to put away this homemade pie I got baking for you.”

My grin spreads from ear to ear. Johnnie knows how much I love her homemade blackberry pie. “Twenty-nine minutes,” I promise her and then disconnect the call.

“Humph. Looks like the side piece is tightening the noose,” Isaiah grumbles.

I laugh at his obvious jealousy. “You know that you're going to have to see someone about that shit. That color of green never looks good on no damn body.”

“Whatever, nigga. You do you and play on the wrong side of the tracks all you want. Don't come running to me when the shit blows up in your face.”

A muscle twitches from the left side of my face but before I can calm down I bark back, “What the fuck is your problem?”

“Problem?” he says, like my question is out of line. “I ain't got a problem.”

I eyeball him hard as shit. “No? Could've fooled me. Ever since me and Johnnie hooked up, it's been one cheap shot after another. I don't remember ever having this much to say about any of the females you dip and dabble with. Clearly, you're feeling some kind of way about the woman I might marry one day.”

“Marry?” he echoes. “Since when the fuck your ass been thinking about marriage?”

I shrug, amazed that I confessed the shit myself. “Not that it's any of your business, but I've been bouncing the idea around in my head for a few minutes.”

Isaiah laughs, but when he sees my ass is dead serious, he sobers up. “Shit. You're for real.”

“What can I say? Bae got me all up in my feelings and I can't see me riding out into the sunset without her.”

“Bae, huh?” He snickers. “Does
Bae,
the New York state attorney's daughter, know what the fuck it is you
really
do yet?”

I swallow hard. “Not yet.”

“Have you introduced her to your one-year-old daughter that your last side piece dumped on your nana's doorsteps?”

“Damn, nigga. What the fuck?”

Isaiah tosses up his hands like his ass ain't tryna start shit. “I'm just saying—”

“You're just saying what, bruh?” Heat rushes up my neck.

“I'm saying, as your friend, that maybe you should pump your brakes a little on this one. You up here talking about maybe putting a ring on it and you haven't even introduced ol' girl to the
real
you yet.”

What the fuck am I supposed to say when I'm smacked with the truth?

Sensing that he's hit a nerve, Isaiah takes another swing at my fantasy of snatching a good girl from the one-percent crowd. “Nigga, you better wake the fuck up and get out while you still can.”

“I don't remember you talking all that bullshit when you were trying to throw game her way.” I stiffen when I see that same hardness flash across his face again.
Anger? Jealousy? What the fuck?
That kind of shit ain't never gone down between us. We're bruhs from the cradle to the grave. That has always been our motto.

Isaiah smiles and those emotions disappear once again. “Don't get me wrong. Johnnie Robinson is as fine as they come—and she got the nerve to have a damn good head on her shoulders.
But
for two gutter rats like ourselves? She definitely falls into the hit it and quit it column. Fuck. You shouldn't have even given her your real
first name
, Harlem. Let alone be sitting up here thinking about giving her your real
last name
in front of some damn preacher.”

“Whatever, man. I'm out.”

“A'ight.” We exchange daps.

“See you in the morning?” he double-checks.

“Bright and early.” I pound him on the back and then head out. “Text me the address.” The whole way toward the door, I can feel my boy's eyes follow me. But as I climb into my gray Range Rover, I tell myself that I'm fucking tripping. Isaiah ain't never done anything to me
personally
to look at him sideways. There have been plenty of times in our past when Isaiah came through for me. He has every right to wave warning flags when I'm talking about big life changes. I'm supposed to do the same shit for him if I see him going down a questionable path.

But is Johnnie a questionable path?
Not according to the hard-on I still got since her ass called. Baby girl is my fucking everything since we met at the hot new Brooklyn club, Throb
.
Every bad bitch in New York rolled through there that night. Brothahs flocked to Johnnie's ass like flies to the last starving kid in a Third World country. My boy Isaiah picked his lip off the floor first and stepped to her, but she shot his ass down before he got a complete sentence out of his mouth. I play the shit cool: bought her a drink without stepping to her, danced with a girl that had sat right next to her for like three or four songs, and then bought a few other girls drinks that were standing around her. The shit sparked her competitive side and she ended up speaking to me before I made a move to go back on the dance floor with someone else.

From there, she was doing the most to keep my attention. Those Coke-bottle curves and juicy, fat ass kept me in a trance all night. Despite her ass having a body for sin, a brother only had to take one look in her eyes to know the girl had a brain as fat as her ass. Most niggas don't like intelligent, independent women. Ain't nobody got time to listen to all that rah-rah about how they don't need a man for this or for that but then get all thirsty when they want a real dick instead of some battery-operated bullshit. Independent women are more than a headache, but baby girl worked me so good on that dance floor that I was ready to change up my whole damn program.