Invincible: A Novel (23 page)

“Five the point,” Monster said after one of the Calvin brothers rolled and the number registered. Monster stepped up and head-cracked Lil Red. Regg went out, too.

Red bumped Regg when he was going to grab the dice and Regg ignored it because Red was reeking of Henny, but he felt where it was going.

“Sixty thou in it,” the Calvin brother said. “What they down?”

“I’m down twenty,” Red, Regg, and Monster said. The Calvin brother aced and had to pay everybody.

“A hundred thou in it. What they down?” the brother said, as if that sixty he just lost wasn’t shit.

“I’m down forty,” Monster said quickly.

“I’m down forty,” Regg followed.

“I got the ends,” Red said last.

The Calvin brother aced again. After he paid everybody, the brothers switched rollers and the other brother said, “A hundred thou in it. What they down?”

“Same bet,” Regg said.

Monster said, “I’m down forty.”

Red said, “I got the ends.”

The other brother rolled and aced, also. He paid everybody then they said they were out. They knew when to call it quits. When both of them came out the gate weak they knew not to go too far. That’s what made them smart.

Monster took over the bank and said, “What you down, Regg?” They was about to play head up because Monster wasn’t going to gamble against Red. That was his family.

Regg said, “I’m good, Monster. I’m out,” and threw him five stacks since he was the house and it was his spot.

“Nah, you good, Regg! I was in the game. I don’t charge house rules when I’m in it,” Monster said and threw the money back. Red intercepted it leaving Regg’s hand in the air.

The whole place got silent. It was about to pop off.

“Now why would you do that?” Regg asked Red.

“’Cause I can, you bitch! What the fuck you going to do about it?”

“Yo, chill, Red! Give that man his money. Regg is cool peoples,” Monster butted in, knowing Red was drunk and upset about his brother.

“Fuck that, Monster! We got beef from the inside and we gonna settle it.”

“You know what, Red? You got it. I don’t want no beef with you. We out now and I ain’t trying to go back. So let’s leave it at that,” Regg said.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, pussy,” Lil Red said so the whole place heard. “You don’t want no beef. Get the fuck outta here then. I’m keeping this li’l paper,” Red said waving around Regg’s knot of money.

Monster, wanting to defuse the situation, walked up to Regg, put his arm around his shoulder, and handed him more money than Regg gave him in the first place. He said, “My bad, Regg! This nigga trippin’. He just lost his brother. You know how that shit is.”

While Monster was walking Regg out so he could leave without something jumping off, Lil Red yelled out, “Fuck all that! Tell that nigga suck my dick ’cause he’s a bitch!”

Regg stopped in his tracks right before the doorway. “If I’m a bitch, put your gun and your mouth away and come outside. You the bitch! Nigga you ain’t shit without your homeboys or a gun! And if you are, come out and prove it so I can beat your ass silly, you loudmouth coward!”

Lil Red was heated and stormed outside. He told himself he was going to stab Regg after he fucked him up.

“Let’s go around the back so cops or nobody else don’t break it up,” Regg told Red.

“Let’s go, nigga,” Red accepted. “Nobody jumpin’ nobody! This is a one on one,” Red yelled out.

“Word up, nobody jumpin’ nobody,” Monster followed. Lil Red was his cousin and him and Regg were cool (they always used to gamble against each other); he was gonna keep it right. They got to the back and it was on. Everybody gave them space. It had been a long time since niggaz in the hood actually shot a fair one.

Lil Red and Regg both threw their hands up.

Lil Red said, “What up,” and rushed into Regg bobbin’ and weaving. He was a little faster than Regg had thought. Red hit once in the head and once in the body.

The crowd groaned, “Oooooooouuuuu!” It didn’t rock Regg but it was enough to put him on point that Red had some skills. Regg had planned to use his height and reach to his advantage. Red tried to come in the same again on Regg. This time Regg sidestepped Red and caught him with two hard jabs to his left ear, which caused Red to stumble.

“Oooooouuuuu,” again from the crowd. Regg stepped closer to Red and caught him with another jab and an uppercut before he could recover from the stumble.

“Ooooouu!”

The blows hurt Red and he tried to scoop Regg to slam him but got another uppercut for his efforts. This one had him laid out on the ground.

“That’s enough! That’s enough, Regg,” Monster said. “It’s over. Y’all did it.”

While Monster was holding Regg and telling him it was over, Lil Red fished in his pocket for his knife.

“Yo, he got a knife,” somebody yelled. Regg and Monster turned to look at Lil Red who was coming full steam ahead toward them like a screaming bull; like Wolverine from the
X-Men
. Monster moved out of the way. He didn’t like Regg enough to get in the way of a blade for him.

Red swung the blade upward. Regg tried to block it with his arms, but lost his footing and fell to the ground. Lil Red hopped on top of him and started poking Regg in his arms and his side while screaming “Motherfucker” with each thrust. Regg managed to catch Lil Red with a knee to the nuts. That stopped him. Red dropped the knife and Regg picked it up and shoved it into his neck. The whole crowd was shocked as fuck. It all happened so fast. It looked like Lil Red was killing Regg, then all of a sudden he was laying there dead with a knife in his neck.

Regg got off the ground bloodied up and ready to jet. He knew Lil Red’s boys were gonna flip and try to kill him. Nobody gave chase. They were trying to tend to Lil Red.

The scene was too hot for the Calvin brothers. They hopped in the Benz they came in and got out of there to get a bite to eat and discuss their future plans.

“Listen, bro, I don’t trust Albert anymore! He’s not our real father anyway and he always treated our mother like shit,” the younger brother said.

“Yeah, but he has always been good to us! He took us in knowing he wasn’t our natural father. I don’t feel that comfortable with the idea of rubbing him out, baby bro,” the older
brother said. “And besides that, that guy Phil is a scumbag! As soon as Frank left his office talking about he didn’t want to work with Phil anymore, that scumbag called us to kill him. That makes him even worse than Pops is! This whole 300 Crew shit is over anyway. Too many motherfuckers dead and the feds are scurrying around like roaches. When we go to see Pops I’m gonna try to convince him to retire and pass the torch to us. What’s your thoughts?”

“Well, big brother, if he agrees, it’s all good with me. But if he doesn’t and he thinks we’re gonna be his flunkies forever, he has another thing coming!”

The brothers drove in silence to Albert’s house, never picking up on the fact that they were being followed by Frank. They got to the Murphy estate, which was about an hour and a half outside the city, and went straight inside. Their mother had just cooked dinner and was taking a nap. Albert was reading the paper.

The brothers were twenty-five and twenty-three and had been with Albert since they were seven and five. After his son Donald’s mother passed, he met and married the brothers’ mother and took the boys in as if they were his own. He raised them to be tough as nails and money earners just like he did his boy Donald. He always called them “my boys” because their dumb-ass father named both of them Calvin Kalvins.

“My boys, what goes on with you fellas?” Albert asked. “You haven’t been home in days.”

The older brother answered him. “Just bullshitting around. All the business is handled. All the books are good. Phil gave us a call a few days ago to let us know that guy Frank was leaving
him. Too tired for this kind of business. I guess he wasn’t a good recruit like you two thought he would be. We went to get him but he wasn’t home. We’ll go back in a few days.”

The younger brother chimed in, “There’s nothing we can do about Jake Billings. He killed CO Frazier his first day in so it is officially over for the 300!”

“And what are we doing about CO Frazier’s loved ones?” Albert asked.

“He had no loved ones,” the younger brother answered.

“I think you’re wrong, my boy! Phil told me he was dating a nurse and I would like you to take care of that. No telling what he told her.”

“Okay, no problem! I’ll get the details and take care of it,” the younger brother answered. “I’m going to chat with Mom. I’ll talk to you later, Pops.”

Albert looked at the older Calvin as the younger one walked away. “He thinks I don’t see the resentment in his eyes,” he said. “He is still like a baby! He wants to be the boss of everything without learning anything, but you have the brain to run the whole show. I know he is your baby brother and my boy but his attitude is beginning to irk me! He reminds me of Donald in so many ways. I believe if he didn’t stay around you all the time he would be dead. But anyway, let’s talk business, my boy. I’m going to hand everything over to you, not you and your brother, but you. You’re going to be the one to have to explain to him why.”

“Listen, Pops, he all right! He just gets emotional sometimes. I got him, don’t worry about a thing,” the older Calvin tried to explain.

All of a sudden, all the lights in the house went out, then came right back on, then went out again. Albert’s instincts told him something was wrong. It was pitch black in the house.

“I’m going to turn the power back on,” the younger Calvin yelled out and headed to the basement. He grabbed a flashlight out the kitchen drawer and ran down the steps. He flashed his light around to locate the box to hit the switches and found it. He thought he heard something and shined his light around behind him. “That you, bro?” He got no reply. He swept the light left and right and noticed the window in the basement was cracked open. That was strange because he had never seen that window open in the house as long as they had lived there. He reached for his gun but remembered he took it off and put it in the hallway closet like he and his brother always did. He knew someone was there with him. He could feel it. He kept spinning around, flashing the light around the room. He couldn’t see anything, but he knew something was wrong. He began to head to the stairs and heard something behind him. He turned. The light landed on a face. It was Frank.

“Oh shit,” the younger Calvin said, and those would be his last words.

Frank swung the short sword like a golf club in an upward motion and took all of the younger Calvin’s facial features off with one swing—part of his chin, his lips, his nose, even most of his forehead. Frank could have actually made a Calvin mask, if he wanted to, with what was on the floor.

Frank then proceeded up the steps, but stopped before the top.

“Someone should be coming any second now,” Frank said to himself.

“This motherfucker take long for everything,” the older Calvin said, grabbing a flashlight out the kitchen drawer and heading toward the steps. Something made him stop. He went to the hallway closet to get his gun. Then he headed back to the basement steps. He ran down the stairs and flashed his light. “Yo, bro, where you at? Yo, bro, stop playing!” He tripped and landed in something wet. When he shined his light at the floor he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. It was his little brother he’d tripped over and it was his blood that was wet on his hands.

The older brother sprang to his feet, flashed the light around, and headed back to the steps. He got to the top, but it was too late. Frank had locked him in the basement and wedged a chair up against the door.

Albert Murphy had his .38 out waiting. He heard three gunshots and got nervous. It was the older Calvin trying to shoot the lock off the door. He couldn’t bust it open because of the chair Frank wedged against it. Albert Murphy tried to run but tripped over Frank who was standing right behind him.

“Where you going, Albert?” Frank asked.

“What do you want with me? I have done nothing to you. Leave me alone! Who are you?”

Frank laughed and Albert shot off every round in his .38 very recklessly, not hitting a thing.

“You don’t even know who I am. You don’t know if you did something to me or not,” Frank said.

“Who are you then?” Albert asked.

“It’s me, Frank! The guy that worked for Phil and quit. The guy that your two sons came after.”

“What does this have to do with me? I didn’t send my sons after you. It was Phil.”

“Oh, I figured that,” Frank answered.

“So why me? Why not get Phil?”

“Because you’re a scumbag, too, and you have been fucking up the city and the youth for years! So I figured I would do a good deed and get rid of you. Don’t worry about Phil. He’s gonna get his, too! By the way, I killed one of your boys so you will have some company where you’re going,” Frank told him.

“Can I ask you a question?” Albert asked.

“What?” Frank was curious.

“How can you see in the dark?”

“Black belt shit.” Then Frank shoved the sword deep into Albert’s belly, pulling all of his guts out with it. Then he cut straight across his throat.

Frank ran outside when he was done. He thought he was scot-free as he drove away in his Mustang. He never considered the fact that the feds were posted up watching Albert Murphy.

Frank had just went and killed two men that were under surveillance. Everything that Frank did, he would have to go to jail for. He drove a few miles and stopped to get gas and take a leak. Before he could exit the gas station bathroom they came in and got him.

“Freeze! Get down on the ground! One wrong move and I’ll blow your fucking brains out!”

Frank wanted to shoot it out with the police, but he decided against it. He wasn’t with killing the people who upheld the law. That would make him no better than the slime balls he just killed. He got down on the floor, got cuffed, and was on his way to jail.

The Murphy household wasn’t the only place the feds had
their eye on. They’d witnessed the entire altercation at Monster’s place and followed Regg to the emergency room, where he’d just finished getting stitched up. He had been stabbed seventeen times. Something in his head was telling him not to go to the hospital, but he was bleeding too bad and had too many holes, so he had no choice. As soon as the doctors were finished with him he heard, “Don’t move. Put your hands in the air!”