No Room for Mercy (23 page)

“I understand. Lucky ever say who did this?”

“I asked, but he can’t talk. It seems as if he wants to
say something, but I can’t put my finger on what it is he’s
trying to say. I can’t communicate with him.”

Naomi knew Lucky had information that would be valuable to the
family, only he couldn’t relay the message. She came up with a
plan of her own as she entered her friend’s room and eyed him
for the first time in a few months, and four days after the events
had unfolded in Saint Charles. It took everything within Naomi not to
gasp over what her eyes were witnessing. Lucky was in an
unrecognizable state with his shaven head and wires that were holding
his jaw together. His hands lay limp on his sides, his once muscular
legs appearing frail and immobilized. Heart monitors increased
somewhat and the respirator moved slightly faster the closer Naomi
got to her friend.

Naomi picked up a sponge and a plastic bowl and went into the
bathroom and filled it with warm water and grabbed a bar of Ivory
soap and a hand towel. She returned, pulled a chair up to Lucky’s
bedside, dipped the soap into the water and rubbed it gently into the
towel. After wringing the towel out, she lowered Lucky’s
pristine, white bed sheet, bringing his naked body into view. The
respirator increased as she did so, but Naomi only smiled and said,
“I’ve been knowing you since you were shooting dog water.
There’s no need to be shy now, Mister Cernigliaro.”

Rapidly blinking eyes had caught Naomi’s attention. “You
like what I said? I was only trying to lighten the mood. I’m
sorry it took four days for me to come, but I knew you’d hold
on for me. I had to calm the family and get things in order on the
ranch, but I’m here now, il mio amico.”

Lucky blinked his eyes again and Naomi caught on. “Okay,”
she said as she ran the soapy towel over Lucky’s chest and
stomach. “Now we can talk. Blink once for yes and twice for no.
Can you do that?”

Lucky blinked once and Naomi smiled. “Resilient man you are,”
she said as she dipped the towel back into the warm water. “Is
this bath bothering you?”

Lucky blinked twice that time. “I know you have a witty remark,
something along the lines that if only Doss could see his wife
scrubbing my naked ass on this day, it would’ve all been worth
it.”

Lucky blinked once and Naomi laughed aloud. “I’m sure he
wouldn’t mind, Lucky. Do you know the full story? Junior talked
to you about Mildred?”

Lucky blinked once and the respirator increased in speed once more.

“We’re all upset over this thing, Lucky, but you know
something. Now, DeeDee has tried, but you and I are talking, now. Do
you know who did this to you?”

Lucky blinked once and Naomi continued washing his body. She was
getting somewhere with her friend, but garnering information
pertaining to the hit wasn’t her sole purpose for visiting
Lucky. Naomi genuinely cared about her lifelong friend and was hoping
he’d pulled through; she was doing her best to give him the
strength to continue fighting for his life.

“I guess I made fifty dollars off doing your homework when we
were children,” Naomi chuckled. “Good money for the
times. But the main thing I’ll never forget is the day you
brought Doss over to Kevin and Serena’s home. The baseball game
we went to that day? Child, I can’t even tell you who was
playing nor did I care. I was so into Doss nothing else mattered.”

Tears streamed down Lucky’s face hearing Naomi talk about that
that day. The baseball game where he’d met Mildred was amongst
the last of the conversations he’d had with his wife before
calamity struck. God he loved that woman; of all people, Mildred
Cernigliaro did not deserve to die. What kind of people were his
family dealing with was a thought that was running through Lucky’s
mind constantly. In spite of his own troubled state, the man was more
worried about the survival of those he loved rather than his own
plight. He just couldn’t relay all the things he felt and
believed, however, given his incapacitation.

Naomi dabbed the sweat around Lucky’s temples and then wiped
his tear-stained cheeks. “I’m takin’ you way back
now aren’t I?”

Lucky blinked once.

“You want me to stop?”

Lucky blinked twice that time.

“Okay, il mio amico. Now, Finland? You were a real piece of
work during that time let me tell ya’,” Naomi said
through laughter. “I thought I’d never get you to see
things my way, and Finland is now one of the most important people in
the family. All because you chose to be his friend. You are a damn
good man, Lucky.”

Naomi washed Lucky’s private area without giving it a second
thought; there were no boundaries to her caring for her friend
because she understood Lucky’s state to the fullest. Reluctance
would only signify a boundary in her eyes and she wanted Lucky to
know that what she did was genuine. Tears ran down Lucky’s
cheeks once more as Naomi wiped his legs. Here was this black woman,
a woman not his wife, who he’d learned had died, who cared
enough to sit and talk to him and make things as normal as they could
be.

Naomi and DeeDee were the only ones who’d made Lucky
comfortable. He understood why his father hadn’t visited given
his mother’s plight, and that went without saying, but Junior,
Lucky’s own son, had disappointed him; but it was a fact he
could not relay, nor did he care to share, even if he could. He lay
wondering what would become of his son because suddenly, Lucky no
longer saw himself in his own offspring the way he saw Doss’s
demeanor inside of Dawk. The family would be in good hands if the
Holland-Dawkins family took the reins was his thinking as Naomi
wrapped up such a soothing bath, because something about Junior, if
Lucky had to tell it, didn’t sit right with him, only he
couldn’t convey the message.

After placing lotion onto Lucky’s body, and dabbing him with
cologne, Naomi pulled her chair up near her friend’s face,
leaned in and said, “We have an issue, Lucky. Can you tell us
who did this?”

Lucky blinked once.

“Do you have a name?”

Lucky blinked once again and Naomi grabbed her purse and pulled out a
legal pad. “I’m going to recite the ABCs. When I get to
the letter of the person responsible, blink once for me, okay?”

Lucky again blinked once and Naomi began to slowly recite the ABCs as
she stared him in the eyes. When she reached the letter C, Lucky
blinked once.

“C,” Naomi said as she wrote the letter down and started
over. The moment she said the letter A, Lucky was blinking again.

“A,” Naomi said and started once more.

Naomi could see in Lucky’s eyes that he was eager to tell her
what he knew. She believed he wanted to say the name of the person
behind the hit, in which he did, but Lucky had much more to say; only
he couldn’t communicate his thoughts given his adverse
condition. When Naomi reached the letter R, Lucky blinked again.

“R,” Naomi said as she wrote the letter down. “Carmine?
Carmicheal?” she then asked.

Lucky blinked twice.

“Okay, umm, was it a male?”

Lucky blinked twice.

“Hmm,” Naomi said. “A female did this. Was she
black?”

Lucky again blinked twice.

“White?”

Two more blinks.

“Italian? Russian? Hispanic? Colombian? Asian?” Naomi was
calling out various races and Lucky’s eyes were going berserk.
She slowed her pace and began backing up. When she said Colombian,
Lucky blinked once.

“Okay. A Colombian female. This wasn’t a bunch of
stick-up-kids, now was it? You don’t have to answer that.”
Naomi remarked.

Lucky stilled blinked twice and Naomi started over again. “I
have the letters C, A, and R. Let’s continue.” she said.
When Naomi got the letter M, Lucky blinked once. Not knowing where to
go with the last letter she’d obtained, Naomi started over from
the letter A, once more, and when she got to the letter E, Lucky
blinked again.

“C-A-R-M-E,” Naomi said aloud. Filling in the rest of the
letters, Naomi said the first name that had come to mind that matched
the flow of the letters. “Could it be the name Carmella?”
she asked.

The respirator went ballistic and Lucky’s head began jerking
violently at that moment. Nurses soon rushed in. “What
happened,” the nurse asked as she ran over to Lucky’s
bedside. “We need all non-essential personnel out of this room
stat! Set me up a sedative and alert Mister Cernigliaro’s
doctor!” she yelled as Naomi was escorted out of the room.

CHAPTER TWELVE

TAKING THE SHOW ON HE ROAD

The Royal Flush
had been the most happening place in downtown
Denver since its opening a few months back in April of 2002. By the
end of September of 2002 it had become the go-to place after the
Denver Broncos home games on Sundays. Many people knew about the new
club—including Carmella Lapiente`. She and Pepper had been in
town for just over a week with Desiree, having left the day after the
Saint Charles hit. Carmella spent her first day with Desiree shopping
around town while being given details on the up and coming
competition.

The name Asa Spade was ringing out in the streets of Denver according
to Desiree, but his face was unknown. The two soon began moving about
town and had scoped out a trap house over in Shorter Arms where Asa
Spade was known to appear, and had followed an Asian lady to a condo
which they’d assumed was a stash house. Carmella had learned
the names and faces of certain crew members in Asa’s crew, but
the man himself hadn’t been fingered as of yet.

Carmella and Desiree followed the Asian woman to a club called
The
Royal Flush
and it was there that they’d surmised that the
face of the man named Asa Spade could be revealed. The two weren’t
sure who ran the joint, however, so Carmella decided to send a lurker
inside so as to put a face to the name of Asa Spade.

Asa and his team had cornered the market in Colorado in under a
year’s time and were now worth several millions dollars. They’d
opened
The Royal Flush
and had acquired a mansion in Boulder,
about an hour’s drive northwest of Denver and a condo in
downtown Denver that was used to store money and guns that were run
through the trap house in Shorter Arms and a few other hot spots
around the city; but it was the condo and the Asian woman Carmella
had latched onto that’d led her and Desiree to
The Royal
Flush
.

Carmella had no trap houses in Denver. She sold her weight out of
hotels in the city to customers in and around town and also out of
state. She had connections to cocaine dealers in Boise, Idaho,
Cheyenne, Wyoming, and as far away as Reno, Nevada and Sturgis, South
Dakota. Motorcycle gangs, Indian tribes, conservative right wing
militias and left-leaning tree-huggers were her clientele. Carmella
didn’t discriminate when she was moving weight. Whoever had the
buy money and their background checked out got served. Carmella would
sell cocaine to the Pope and the Dali Llama himself, if he came
correct.

This one woman was responsible for a vast majority of the
psycho-stimulant drugs that had plagued the western states a couple
of years ago and she was aiming to gain control of that market once
more by eliminating the competition—her usual method of
operation. Carmella couldn’t get to the man named Asa Spade as
of yet, but eventually, he would have to step aside and let her do
her thing or else he’d get the same treatment the Italians
received. In the meantime, Carmella was planning on sending her
adversaries a warning—in her own special way.

*******

“Niggas on the block say them rollers been ridin’ through
hot the past hour,” Dougie told Percy as the two sat a table
inside their main dope house inside Shorter Arms with Ponita Felton
and Francesca Aranello, two of Asa Spade’s old prostitutes
who’d now gotten involved in the dope game with their former
pimp. The two females counted money and prepared it for Xiang Nyguen,
where it would be taken to the crew’s condo in downtown Denver
until it was ready to be picked up by JunJie’s son Phillip Tran
at Loveland Airport in Fort Collins, Colorado, about a hundred miles
north of Denver.

With most of the cocaine already in the hands of the crew’s
dealers, or on its way to its final destination in other cities and
states, Ponita and Francesca were ready to let their hair down
so-to-speak on this night. They’d been grinding right alongside
the cousins and were ready to kick back until the next shipment,
which was about a week away. Xiang wasn’t on hand to make the
pick up this night because the crew was closing down for the week.

“Them laws just had a shift change about a hour ago. You know
how they like to shake shit up before they go park somewhere.”
Percy said as he and the crew separated $175,000 dollars in mixed
bills. “Everybody been paid already this week so what we have
here all goes back over to the condo when we done counting.”

“Broncos won today, y’all. You know what that mean,”
Ponita remarked as she banded stacks of hundred dollar bills
together.

“It’s a big deal tonight is what it means,”
Francesca said as she rolled a blunt. “The Royal Flush gone be
packed tonight and I’m going man hunting once we drop this loot
off.”

“You know it,” Ponita chuckled. “Dougie being
stingy with the dick already, so—”

“You know you lying,” Dougie said, cutting Ponita short.
“Fran can do whatever she want—but your sexy ass is
staying home with daddy tonight.”

Dougie and Ponita had been messing around for about a year now, but
things really kicked off for the two during the Thanksgiving holiday
the year before. Ponita was a beautiful twenty-five year-old woman
with an Argentinian background. She spoke fluent Spanish and could be
a loyal woman despite her past.