Invincible: A Novel (7 page)

Lil Red spoke up. “I have one request in the way I want the business handled.”

Frank gave Lil Red his attention. “What’s the request?”

“I want him stabbed in the head; can you do that?”

Frank said “Yeah” quickly and wished to himself he could stab this prick Lil Red in the head, then he asked Dollar, “How you know T.M.B. members won’t jump in for sure?”

“Because after tonight there will be no more Northside, no more T.M.B., no more Crowns, just the 300 Crew. And whoever don’t want to be down with that dies!”

Frank had heard of Lil Red and Dollar on the streets. The Northside was supposed to be live—all those crews were. He struggled to understand how any of them could fold their hands so easily. Maybe the 300 had offered a lot of money to put all of these crews together and had some kind of plan to take over the whole city. Frank got some of the answers to his questions from Dollar.

“This gang shit is for the birds,” Dollar said. “Now is the time to organize and I have plans. Especially since me and my brother’s time is up in two years. I’m a well-connected man, and so are some of the Crowns. Same for some of T.M.B. Why not get together and take over everything? Why not be one big family?” He mused over his own question before going on. “I’ll tell you why: It’s because of a bunch of egos. Fuck that, I need millions and whoever can’t understand that is in the way and needs to be taken out.” Dollar put his hand on Frank’s shoulder.
“That’s why I’m giving you the job, and when you’re done I’ll make sure you get everything you asked for and then some, but if you happen to fuck up that’s on you. You mention me or anyone else’s name—”

“You’re dead.” Lil Red hopped into the conversation, “Karate or not. So make sure you do that shit right!”

Frank remained humble. From the skills he’d developed through all his years of training, he knew he could have killed these two clowns in less than a minute for speaking disrespectful to him, but he calmly said, “Cool, the job will get done and done correct. I won’t need anything else from you guys except the payment that I asked for.” Frank thought he would hate to be in Jake’s position with so many people wanting him dead, especially when it was dudes like gang members and lawyers. “Since you want him stabbed in the head,” Frank was talking directly to Lil Red, “you should make sure you get me two knives and six pair of kitchen gloves.”

“Cool, ninja man, I like your style,” Lil Red said with a smile.

After the conversation with the two brothers, Frank pushed the cart back to his assigned house in the jail and called his man Clips to his bunk.

Frank and Clips had recently become friends. Clips pulled Frank’s coat as to who was who as far as the gang members. He also assured Frank that he was with no gang and thought that most of the dudes in them was pussy; they were fronting due to their affiliation. “As a matter of fact,” Clips told Frank, “I would love to hurt one of them faggots if I had an opportunity.” From that day on Frank and Clips remained cool and hung with each other tough. Frank could tell Clips was a loose cannon and had a lot of anger in him, but he admired his point of view.

“When it comes to being locked up,” Clips told Frank one day, “sometimes I wake up happy that I’m locked up because if I was free someone would probably be getting killed right now.” Then he laughed to himself and stared into space for about ten seconds before asking, “You know what I mean, bro?”

Clips never told Frank what he was in for, but he didn’t have to; Frank knew it was murder. He knew by the look in his eyes what Clips was capable of. As a teacher of martial arts he could tell when someone was on the edge. But Clips was real cool about everything, cool enough that Frank wanted to make sure he sent the brother a package as often as he could after Phil got him out of there. He snapped back, got focused, and asked Clips, “You ready to get paid and live it up for a minute?”

“I ain’t got shit better to do,” Clips said. “Let’s get it on, baby.”

Frank told him what he wanted to do and about the conversation he had with Red and Dollar. Of course he left out the real reason he was doing the hit. He hated using Clips without being fully straight with him but that was the way it had to be.

This type of action was right up Clips’s alley. This is what he dreamed about when he laid down in his bunk at night. He asked Frank, “Can we keep this shit going after this?”

“Maybe,” Frank said, “but here’s how we’re going to do it.” He laid the plan down. “Ain’t nobody tellin’ nothing. Everything should run real smooth.”

Clips was crazy with excitement.

Frank asked him once more, “Now, you sure you want to do this? You don’t have to. When I collect I’m going to still hit you
off anyway. You been holding me down since I got here and I appreciate that.”

“Fuck you talkin’ about?” Clips asked. “You know I’m wit’ you one hundred percent. Besides, I’m going to be locked up for the rest of my life; I ain’t never going home. If you ride out, I ride out, nigga. It is what it is.”

With that being said, the plan was in full effect.

MITCH AND MONSTER

“J.B. is more official than niggaz’ whole team. Niggaz said he was in a coma and all that but I’m telling you that nigga was fronting, he did that shit to beat that case. Dude’s a live-ass nigga and I bet a gee-stack that friends and family members connected to the motherfuckers who touched him start dropping like flies,” said Mitch to Monster.

Mitch was forty-four years old and drove a classic ’96 Cadillac Eldorado that looked like it just came from the dealer or the candy-paint shop. He ran numbers and owned the neighborhood gambling spot, and could always be found in the spot even though he only lived a few blocks away. His man, Monster, was twenty years younger than Mitch and housed all the dice games at the spot. He kept track of all the bets—and on the
niggaz making them. Monster was like Mitch’s little brother and was also his muscle, and as far as niggaz in the hood were concerned, he was the closest thing to Bruce Lee.

“Hell no,” Monster shot back. “I know a nigga who was in there when that shit jumped off. He said J.B. went out like a trooper but them niggaz put that work in on him. The nigga that put me up on the bizness even saluted the nigga for being alive. Said that nine out of ten niggaz would have died on the spot. And besides that my Old Gee, that little hood-rat bitch Tanya that you bangin’, is J.B.’s ole girlfriend’s cuzzin. And Tanya told me that Kim is fucked up over that shit because she left that nigga for dead when he was in the joint. She said Kim went to see the nigga in the hospital and came home broken down, crying. Talking ’bout the nigga only weighs a hundred pounds, he got a beard like a castaway or Jesus or some shit like that. So your man ain’t frontin’, that nigga is finished.”

“That’s what’s wrong with y’all young niggaz nowadays,” Mitch said. “You don’t know the difference between a class act and a class clown.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“What I mean, my man, is that everything you told me I already knew. First of all, when you spoke on that hood-rat Tanya that I’m hitting, you should have said ‘that
we
hitting.’ But you want to try to cuff the bitch or act like you ain’t digging her out, too, when she ain’t shit but a jump-off. Then you come in here with that weak-ass pillow talk she gave you like she only talk for you. Keep believing everything a ho say! And as far as the nigga who said he was there: Fuck that nosy, spreading-the-word-ass nigga. I bet he never put no work in not one day in his measly life.”

Monster knew better than to piss Mitch off because even though he was Mitch’s muscle, he was also Mitch’s student. He learned everything he knew from Mitch: fighting, hustling, gaming, women all the way down to dressing and talking educated when he was around certain kinds of people. Not to mention the last three niggaz who tried Mitch had all ended up in a pine box. Funny thing about it was that Mitch was conveniently out of town when all of the victims found their demise. Even though they never spoke on the situation, Monster knew Mitch was responsible for their deaths.

Monster, using his head, apologized to Mitch about the bitch. “Come on, Mitch. Let’s go get some liquor and weed, that hood-rat Tanya, and one of her dingy-ass friends and have a good time.”

Mitch wasn’t the type to get too hype over most shit and he felt a little funny about flipping on Monster, so like the gee he was, he returned the apology to his man. But he thought,
I hope one day I ain’t got to take this outta town trip on my nigga
. And at the very same time Monster was thinking:
I might have to take this nigga down one day. He may be my teacher, but he ain’t as strong as I am
.

Mitch and Monster were sitting in the spot masking their thoughts with alcohol and weed while they waited on Tanya and her friend to show up when somebody banged on the door.

The knocking was replaced with a yell. “Yo, Monster, you in there?”

Everybody in the hood knew that the spot didn’t open until it was dark and they also knew better than to be screaming on Mitch’s block.
Whoever was at the door was stupid and about to get their ass kicked
, Monster thought as he walked toward the door.

Mitch got a bad vibe. “Don’t open it!” he said, but Monster already had his hand on the doorknob when the first shot rang through the door.

The shot missed Monster’s face by a few inches, but he lost his footing and fell backward. Monster’s .40 cal. was off his waist and sparking off before his backside ever made impact with the floor. He spit three slugs from the huge handgun back in the direction of the door. No more shots came from the outside, so Monster figured whoever it was must have run when they heard the shots, or someone was dead on the other side of the door.

Mitch and Monster checked outside and saw nothing. No bodies. No blood. No nothing. They had no idea who had tried to take them out, or at least Monster didn’t. As for Mitch, that was a different ball game altogether. He could and would find out later when he watched the footage from the hidden cameras he had strategically stashed in and around the building. And when he did, he would surely be taking a vacation, and whoever had been on the other side of the door would surely be taking a long dirt nap.

Monster knew that with all the money flowing around the spot, and all the jealous motherfuckers in the hood, it could have been anyone. He had a funny feeling that they would be back, and he was right—but he didn’t know how right he was. Monster and Mitch were still outside when two men came tearing around the corner in a blue hoopty. Monster thought,
These clowns must be crazy
, and they were.

The two dust-heads was from around the way. They’d lost their re-up money at the dice table with Monster two days ago and wanted it back. Monster saw the hoopty spin around the
corner first, and before he could yell to Mitch to watch out, he heard:

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Mitch was letting off a big, government-issued Colt .45 bulldog. Two of the slugs from the weapon caught the driver, causing the car he was driving to hit another before flipping over three times. Mitch took off running toward the wrecked car while it was still tumbling, letting off three more shots, killing both men. It had been a long time since Mitch had actually murdered someone himself, and it made him excited to the point where his dick was hard. His adrenaline was high and he wanted to kill someone else. He would have pumped more shots into the already dead bodies but he only had seven hollow points in the clip. After Monster caught up, he said, “Come on, Mitch, we gotta get out of here.” Mitch took heed to his friend’s warning. They ran in the spot to lock it up and then ran out the back door and into Monster’s hoopty.

They headed downtown to get some drinks and throw the Colt .45 into the river. People from around their way tended to mind their business and they definitely knew better than to take the stand on a motherfucker, so Mitch wasn’t really worried about any witnesses. Besides, the whole neighborhood was getting fed up with the dust-head stick-up kids anyway. A lot was running through Mitch’s mind, but the thought that kept returning was:
Damn it felt good to kill again
. It made him reminisce over the days when he used to run the streets with a young teenage sidekick who was a certified murderer, a hell of a hustler, and the best nephew an uncle could ask for. His name was Jake Billings.

CHEATING DEATH