Lickin' License (21 page)

With
some luck, Chase might hit the street early like the mornings he had dropped by Rich's
penthouse before 9:00 a.m., focused on having the edge on their competition. But no matter what
time he left, Rich would be waiting. The stay was a small cost for the taste of revenge that was
teasing his tongue.

* * *

The sun was up and Rich's eyes had not closed since he parked across the street from
Chase's home. He had spent the night talking to Vanessa and Candy by speaker phone, before
they dozed off around after 3:00 a.m. He listened to music on Hot 97 from the car radio until the
morning. He had watched what seemed like all of Chase's neighbors head out of their homes.
They held book bags, briefcases and other things that marked them as law abiding citizens starting a new day of normal lives. It was a normalcy Rich yearned.
Chase might be the only
street dude on this block.

Just after 10:00 a.m. Rich saw Chase finally surface on the deserted block. Rich's
heartbeat raced as he pulled out his Desert Eagle.
Instinctively, he wanted to fill Chase's head with every
hollow point slug in his gun. But he had a plan to follow. He rocked back and forth, impatiently
watching Chase get inside the Benz and start it.

Rich’s cell rang and it was Candy. “She’s gone, Rich! She’s not here!”

“Calm down. What happened?”

“I just woke up and Vanessa is nowhere in sight. She didn’t leave a note or anything, like usual. She’s gone, Rich. I’m up in here by myself scared.”

“Look under the bed.” Rich said, watching Chase. He had barely pulled into the street, when he backed up the car and got out. “There’s a Timberland box under the bed with two ten millimeters in it,” Rich continued. He was trying to comprehend what was going on with Candy and Vanessa, while he focused on Chase.

“Rich, I’m—”

“I gotta move.” Rich cut Candy short and eased the car door open. He darted forward as Chase checked his tire.

As Rich closed in, Chase looked up, pulled his gun and fired in one swift motion, seconds before Rich squeezed off two rounds. Both men scrambled for cover, Chase behind his Benz and Rich behind a tree.

“Fuck!” Rich said frustrated and angry. He peeped around the tree and a bullet whizzed by his face. He braced himself, then sprinted to a nearby Range Rover as a trail of bullets followed him, shattering every window of the truck. “It’s now or never,” Rich mumbled his back pressed against the Range Rover. He crept around the back and began firing, stepping forward.

Chase ducked behind his Benz just as one of Rich’s bullets met his shoulder.

Rich watched Chase scramble on the ground for his gun, which he had dropped. As Chase grabbed the Beretta and raised it, Rich said, “Don’t even do it.”

“That’s you, Rich?” Chase responded to the familiar voice. He frowned in anger, then rose his gun.

Rich fired, hitting chase in the arm sending him back to the ground with his gun beside him.

“Ahh,” Chase blurted. “Fuck you, Rich!”

Rich kicked him in the face and snatched the .45-caliber Kimber Eclipse from the ground. He pulled out a pair of handcuffs and dropped them on Chase. “Put ‘em on.”

“Fuck outta here.” With what little strength the wounded thug had, Chase tossed the cuffs.

Rich picked them up, cuffed Chase and hauled him off towards his Corolla like a detective with a perp.

“This how it's goin' down?” Chase asked, trying to struggle free.

Rich slammed the bulky Desert Eagle into Chase's face. He pushed him forward and
aimed the gun at the back of his head and forced him
inside of the trunk. Just as he slammed the trunk shut, two of Chase's soldier stormed from his
home, guns blazing. “Oh shit.” Rich ducked behind the Corolla, as fully automatic fire tore
through its tinted windows.

“Ya ass is dead, motherfucker,” one of Chase's soldiers yelled.

Rich peeked around the back of the car and two bullets ripped through the taillights,
nearly piercing Rich's head. Chards of the plastic light covers hit his face.
Fuck!
Rich eased to
the front of the Corolla. He peaked up and fired six shots. Three hollow points hit the first
soldier in the chest. His body slammed back, flipping over a fire hydrant. His finger was locked on the trigger of a Mac-11. The submachine gun continued firing, as the lifeless man lie in a rapidly growing pool of his own blood.

The other solider stepped forward, squeezing the triggers of two 9-millimeters. “Motherfucker!” he screamed like an insane lunatic.

As Rich ducked down, two bullets hit his chest. He was lifted off his feet like a bag of garbage hurled from the truck of a sanitation worker. Rich's back slammed to the sidewalk first,
followed by his head. The sound of the bullets continued. Rich saw the second soldier's head
emerge from behind the car. With a clear shot, Rich managed to aim and squeeze, but his gun
jammed.

“Stupid motherfucker,” Chase's soldier smiled, slowly stepping toward Rich. “You gon' bite the bullet for real.” He stood directly over Rich, and reached down, trying to jam one of his 9-millimeters into Rich's mouth.

“Bong, bong, bong, bong!” Bullets flew, just as he stuck the gun in Rich's mouth.

Chase's soldier fell forward to the ground, beside Rich. Vanessa stood over the man with her smoking .380. She helped Rich to his feet, then turned and fired three more bullets into the
head of the lifeless soldier. “Come on, baby,” Vanessa said, as she pulled Rich toward the Corolla.
“Give me the keys.”

Rich was speechless as he handed her the keys. He got in the
passenger seat and she sped off. “Where the hell you came from?” he said, pulling off his hoody and the bulletproof vest underneath it.

“A thank you would do,” Vanessa said, as she tucked the .380 back in her clutch with one hand, while steering with the other.

Rich couldn’t believe he was seeing Vanessa calmly drive away after having just murdered a person in cold blood like a professional hitman.

“I drove down here after we got off the phone. There's no way I was gonna let anything happen to you,” Vanessa said.

I created a monster. But Chase definitely gotta get it.
Rich’s fingers anxiously tapped
against his lap. He was hungry. The type of hunger in his blood was the same as the hunger that
pushed wild animals to viciously hunt and devour their prey. Chase was destined for the pain and suffering he had caused Rich and the women he loved.

* * *

Vanessa pulled up behind the cabin and Rich hopped out of the Corolla. He stared at the
red marks on the swollen skin caused by the plates in the bulletproof vest where he was shot.
Vanessa gently ran her hand across Rich's wounds. “Don't worry, baby, I'm gonna take
care of that for you. A nice bubble bath will make it all better.” She planted a tender kiss on Rich's lips, then eased her tongue into his mouth. When their faces parted, she stared directly into his eyes. “I love you.”

Candy came running outside. “What's wrong? I can see it in your face,” she said, stepping closer to Rich. “What happened to you? What's wrong?”

“Nothing.” Rich grinned. “This one of the best days of my life.”

“It's hard to tell from looking at you.”

“Trust me when I tell you.”

Candy turned to Vanessa. “How you gonna leave me in the middle of the night and don't say shit?”

“I had to,” Vanessa responded.

“You gotta do better than that.”

“I had to hold down Rich.”

Rich leaned against the trunk of the Corolla as Vanessa told Candy what happened. It
amazed him to see how ruthless Vanessa had become. As he watched her, he thought of
everything he had known about her. From the innocent woman he met who trembled when she
nervously fired a single shot into Chase, to the woman he had trained until she became the warrior who saved his life by gunning down one of Chase's soldiers.

“Chase is gonna pay,” Vanessa said, popping open the trunk of the Corolla.

Rich stared into the trunk.
I finally got this motherfucker.
He could not describe the
feeling of revenge. It was a heartless thrill that came with knowing someone who had wronged him had to face him on his terms. “Revenge is like the sweetest joy next to getting pussy,” Rich sang one of Tupac's lines.

Vanessa pulled out her .380 and stepped back.

Rich stared at her and Candy. Vanessa clutched her gun like a pro, her two large afro
puffs and natural beauty evoked an awkward image of strength. Candy's long hair was
wrapped in a French bun. Her hips swung, bulging from the tight pair of Moschino jeans she
sported. Just five months earlier, Rich could not imagine being in a relationship with two beautiful
women. Even as he ran through woman after woman, the thought of a three-way relationship
never crossed his mind, just like love had never crossed his mind. Now he had it all and the man who had interfered with it was going to meet the wrath of Rich.

“What's up, baby? We gonna kill this bastard or what?” Vanessa asked.

Candy stepped forward, gazing at Chase until her eyes began tearing. She closed them
tight, balling her fists. It was obvious to Rich that every thought Candy had about being kidnapped and abused was overwhelming her.

Rich pulled Chase from the trunk and Candy slapped him.

“You bitch,” he responded.

Candy slapped him again and he smiled.

Rich noticed Vanessa crying also. The gold gun was shaking in her trembling hands. After Vanessa's recent performance, Rich was sure Vanessa's tears and trembling were rooted not in fear, but anger and other emotions that she could not control. She raised her gun to Chase's face.

“Not yet,” Rich said. He grabbed a knapsack out of the trunk and made Chase walk, while he and the women trailed behind him.

“It ain't gotta go down like this,” Chase said, trying to run. He fell after two painful steps.

“Shut the fuck up!” Vanessa yelled, as she held her arm around Candy's shoulders. She stomped Chase.

Rich picked Chase up. He pulled a rope from his knapsack and tied Chase to a tree.
Looking into his eyes, for the first time it really set in Rich's mind that he planned to kill the man
who had saved his life, the man who had stood side-by-side with Rich as they gunned down
people, the man who Rich had made hundreds of thousands of dollars with, the man he had
sexed women with and once vowed to go to the grave with. But as Rich turned to Vanessa and Candy, the more distant his past seemed, the more meaningless. What mattered was what Chase had done to Candy and the effects it had on the people she loved.

Just as Rich pulled out a scalpel, Chase's cell phone rang and Vanessa snatched it from his waist.

“Fuck you, Rich,” Chase barked

Rich cut through Chase's shirt and severed his flesh from his shoulder to his waist.
Chase screamed in pain. Rich continued, digging deeper, ripping through his arms. He tore Chase's shirt off completely. “That should hold you, since you like cutting people.”

“I ain't cut nobody, faggot!” Chase screamed.

“Rich.” Vanessa held up Chase's cell phone. “Look at this.”

There was a nude photo of
Chanel on the screen and a text message: BCNU 2MORO LUV

Rich stared at the picture and read the message. “This fucking broad ain't shit!”

“And she had the nerve to be at the hospital with us, acting all lovey dovey,” Vanessa said. “I knew she was poison.”

“Chanel,” Rich said.

“That's who cut her, stupid.” Chase blurted.

Rich, filled with rage, slashed Chase’s face like a slab of beef in a slaughterhouse, opening it to the white meat. “Stop fucking lying!”

Chase screamed in pain. He pointed at the cell phone. “Fuckin’ dummy. She cut a 'C' on
Candy for 'Chanel.' All them chicks in the shop was down. Y’all was too busy fuckin’ and suckin’ to see it.”

And I thought that “C” was for Candy.

“It ain't my fault,” Chase said, laughing.

Rich grabbed his face, slicing each eyelid off.”

“Rich,” Vanessa said, shaking her head as Rich faced her. “He's got all their numbers in this phone. Leah, Meisha, even Vera and Mimi.”

“Vera?” Candy said, looking at the phone.

“Vera said you tossed her crib and stole a bunch of shit. She wanted some getback,” Chase stated.

Candy paused, looking at Rich and Vanessa. “For him to know that, she had to tell him.”

“I ain't cut her,” Chase said. “I was just tryin' to get Rich away from y'all so Vera and her brother could kidnap Candy. That’s why I came to the shop that night,” Chase laughed.

“You think this a fuckin’ joke?” Rich asked.

Chase grinned. “You always thought you was so fuckin’ smart. Now look at your dumb ass, played by some beauty shop bitches,” Chase laughed.

Rich sighed and slashed one of Chase's lips off. “That's for lying, motherfucker. I saw your car. That old ass Taurus we used to use.”

Chase screamed in pain, then smiled. “The Taurus is Vera brothers’ car dummy.”

“Taurus?” Candy said, covering her mouth as Rich turned to her. “I forgot. Domingo said
Vera's brother got an old Taurus. I didn't think of that when they snatched me up. Everything happened so quick. I just knew it was a dark-colored Taurus.

“Remember in the shop, Domingo said he saw Chanel in Red Hook?” Vanessa chimed in.

Chase sighed. “Chanel was in Red Hook with Vera and her brothers plotting on Candy. This shit been in the making for so long, it’s ridiculous.”

“When I heard shoes in the basement, it must've been Chanel,” Candy said, slowly
shaking her head. “Chanel always wears heels. I just thought it was a guy wearing hard bottoms.
And the clicking of the razor—” Candy shivered as she recalled the traumatic event. “Chanel always carries a razor.”