Tales from da Hood (20 page)

Except for one streetlight, which sat at the end of the block, Gray Street was almost completely dark. Malik started the car and had driven less than three feet before he felt the
thump, thump, thump
of a flat tire.

“Damn,” Malik said aloud as he backed the car back into his space while hitting the trunk release button in the glove compartment. Except for a lone car that was stopped at a traffic light two blocks down, Gray Street was deserted. Malik was jacking up his car, humming his church's signature hymn, “Mary, Don't You Weep,” when he heard light footsteps approaching.

Malik turned around and saw Antwan standing over him with his hands behind his back. Malik looked into the large, pretty, yet angry, eyes of the young kid who stared at him, unsmiling.

“Can I help you, brother?” Malik asked slowly, looking around and trying to make some sense of the situation.

“Yeah, cousin, you can help me,” Antwan retorted, never smiling, never budging, never taking his penetrating stare from Malik's face. “I need something from you,” Antwan continued, without changing the tone of his voice.

“Do I know you?” Malik asked nervously as a car door opened and quietly closed and another kid walked slowly in their direction. “Listen, brother, I don't have any money,” Malik began. “I'm just a security—”

“I don't want any money, Malik,” Antwan said, cutting him off, “and I'm not your fuckin’ brother. I'm your cousin,” Antwan snarled, pulling his pearl-handled .38 special from behind his back and aiming it at Malik's face.

“Hold it a minute, brother,” Malik cried, throwing up his hands to cover his face. “I don't have any money, man.”

“I told you, nigga, I ain't your brother. I'm your cousin. Look at me, Malik. Look good and think back.”

Malik's mind raced back over the years as he looked into the large angry eyes of the kid pointing a gun at his face. The eyes, the eyes, he thought to himself. I know those eyes. Then it all came crashing down on him, and it felt as if he was being snatched into the mouth of a storm. Yes, they were the eyes of his dead cousin's wife. They were Janet's eyes, the woman he had killed those many years ago!

“Oh my God. Oh my God, for the love of Jesus,” Malik pleaded, his voice trembling, his eyes wide with fear. The barrel of the gun now touched his forehead. He knew that this was little Antwan, his dead cousin's remaining child.

“Listen, Antwan. Listen to me for one minute, please, son,” Malik begged, the tremor in his voice making his words barely audible. “Tell me what I can do. I know I can't bring them back.” A
current seemed to move through his body and he trembled uncontrollably. “Please, Antwan. For the love of God, please have mercy.”

“No, nigga. No mercy,” Antwan spat while pulling back the hammer on the .38. “No mercy,” Antwan repeated, pulling the trigger. The first bullet shattered Malik's forehead and exited the base of his brain.

“No mercy,” Antwan repeated to Malik's lifeless body, which was now slumped down against the car. He fired five more shots into the mangled face.

WITH
ONE DOWN
and two to go, Antwan and Rah Rah were back on the grind a few days later. Tracking and finding Furquan didn't prove to be nearly as hard as tracking Malik. Furquan was still in the game. In fact, he had really blown up. A respected old head, Furquan now controlled building 178 of the Spruce Street projects. He had it locked down. His crew ran the spot wide-open twenty-four/seven and clocked between ten and fifteen thousand dollars a day. Furquan had purchased a $400,000 split-level home in South Orange, drove a big-body Benz, and wore a black diamond female-skin ranch-mink coat that he bragged he'd paid $10,000 for. Furquan also owned a detail shop on Peshine and Clinton Avenue. His bodyguard, a pitch-black nigga named Ali Mu, walked with a limp and had just beaten a double homicide the previous year.

“I'm telling you, Antwan, if we gonna knock Furquan's ass off, we gotta down Ali Mu first,” Rah Rah explained as the waiter in Copper's Deli brought over two corned beef sandwiches. “If we gotta wait for a minute 'fore we get Furquan's ass so we can get at Ali Mu first, then man, we just hafta wait. I ain't trying to get in no blazing shoot-out with Ali Mu's 'noid ass if he suspects we mighta had something to do with offin’ Furquan. Plus that nigga been death-
struck ever since them cats from Hawthorne Avenue ambushed him and left his ass for dead.”

“Yeah, I'm up on all that, Rah, but I been waiting on this nigga for what seems like forever,” Antwan replied, staring out the window with a pained and angry look on his face.

“I'm feeling you, Antwan, and I know I'd be feeling the same way if I was you but think about it: Knocking off Ali Mu first will give us the ups on Furquan, 'cause without him the nigga gon’ be buck naked. Antwan, I know he killed your family, but the nigga ain't no killer for real. He ain't gangsta like that. He don't put in no work like that. That's what he got Ali Mu for. ”

“All right, Rah,” Antwan said, turning from the window, placing his sandwich on the plate. “I been waiting this long. I guess I can wait long enough to do the shit right. But how we gon’ get up on Ali Mu?” he asked, turning from the window and facing Rah Rah. “If the nigga is as 'noid as you say, I don't know how we gon’ get within twenty feet of him.”

“Me and the nigga stuck up a couple times together back in the day. The nigga is 'noid as shit, but he ain't gonna be on no super 'noid shit around me. Plus the nigga likes to sniff dope. He loves that P dope.”

Antwan was quiet for a minute. He stared out the window, watching two kids play-fighting in front of the store. Finally he spoke. “You know, Furquan and Big Farook is s'pose to be beefing, and I hear Farook is got some paper on his head. Since we gon’ knock Furquan's ass, we might as well touch base with Farook and get the work. Shit, we'll be killing two birds with one stone,” Antwan stated, turning away from the window to face Rah Rah.

“That's why I scooped your young ass up when I first met you,” Rah Rah responded with a wide smile. “You got something going on in that big-ass fuckin’ head of yours.”

ALI
MU
WAS STANDING
in front of the movie theater when Rah Rah pulled up across the street in a car, waving at him and smiling.

“Yo, what's up?” Ali Mu shouted as Rah Rah waved him over to the car.

“Man, I got something I need to kick with you,” Rah Rah replied, hitting the door locks when Ali Mu came over.

“What's up?” Ali Mu asked, sliding in as he adjusted the nine at his waist. He leaned back in the seat to face Rah Rah.

“I got some work, Mu, if you down. It's like for between eight and ten grand and probably a half a brick. The shit is a piece of cake. But its gon’ take two people. Some West Indians over in North Newark projects is slinging outta building twelve. My cousin is the doorman for them. He searches everybody that comes in to cop to make sure they ain't strapped. He's gon’ let us in. The rest of the shit is cake. I got a little kid who's my cousin. He'll do anything I tell him to do. He gonna sit in the car and wait out front for us. All we got to do is give him a couple hundred dollars apiece. Plus, I told his little dumb ass we'd buy him some Michael Jordan pumps when we come off. So the little nigga is hyped,” Rah Rah said, looking at Ali Mu, who was hanging on to his every word. “So what's up, Mu? You trying to get with this lick or what?”

Without hesitation, Ali replied, “Yeah, I'm down. The shit sounds proper. When you wanna handle it?”

“We can ride out there tonight and take a peek at the area. Then we can handle the shit tomorrow night after it gets dark.”

“All right, my nigga. That's money,” Ali said, looking out the passenger window as they drove up Springfield Avenue. “But, nigga, you ain't got no dog food?” Ali asked, turning again in his seat to face Rah Rah.

“No dog food?“ Rah Rah repeated with a puzzled look on his face.

“Yeah, nigga. No dog food, no P?” Ali asked angrily like Rah Rah was the dumbest cat he knew.

“Yeah, I got eight bags,” Rah Rah smirked, reaching into his pocket and passing the rubber band–wrapped package to Ali.

Rah Rah and Ali rode, sniffed, and swapped war stories for nearly two hours before they drove out to the North Newark Projects to take a look at the spot they were supposed to hit the next night. Before getting out of the car in front of the Magic Johnson Theater, Ali cuffed the remaining three bags of P, smiled to himself, and stepped from the car.

“Tomorrow night, round ten?” Ali hollered over his shoulder as he crossed the street and headed in the direction of the theater.

“Cool,” Rah Rah said as he drove away.

The next night Rah Rah and Antwan pulled up in front of the Magic Johnson Theater and Ali Mu was out in front waiting. When Rah Rah pulled to a stop, Antwan hopped out of the car to allow Ali Mu to sit up front.

“What the fuck you hopping in the back for?” Ali barked as he approached the car. “I don't want no muthafucka I don't know sitting behind me.” Screwing up his face, Ali lifted the seat to climb in the back.

“You got any more of that dog food?” Ali asked as he settled into the backseat.

“Yeah, I'm straight,” Rah Rah responded as he waited for the light to turn from red to green. “But I don't like to be riding through the city, sniffing with all of us strapped. Wait till we get on the highway or till we get in front of the building.”

Ali was sniffing the last corner out of the $10 bag when Rah Rah eased his car into the parking lot behind building twelve.

“Let me get that last bag fo we go up,” Ali said as he adjusted his
pistol in his waist and waited, with an annoyed dope fiend grin on his face, for Rah Rah's slow-ass cousin to hand him the last bag of P.

“Hand him that last bag,” Rah Rah told Antwan, who reached in his pocket and began to pass the blow over the seat. As Ali reached for a blow of the P, Rah slid a gun from under the armrest and raised it. Ali Mu stared in disbelief and groped for his nine, but before he could reach it, Rah Rah fired at point-blank range into Ali's face.

NOBODY was particularly shocked when Ali Mu came up murdered. Although nobody had any idea who did the work, the general consensus was that it could have been anybody. At Sensations Disco a group of cats, all former victims of Ali's at one time or another, hosted a “Thank God, he's dead!” celebration in the back of the club. As word of his death began to spread like an electric current through the club, most niggas felt that Ali Mu getting killed was like the chickens coming home to roost. He lived by the gun, most reasoned, so evidently it was his fate to die by the gun.

Most everyone shook their heads and went on about their business. Everybody, that is, but Furquan. Furquan was scared shitless. Ali Mu had been his back, his spine, and his trigger nigga. Ali Mu never asked why when there was work to be put in, he only asked who. Now that Ali Mu was gone, Furquan knew that he had to be extra careful. Plus, there was still that open beef he was having with Big Farook. Furquan decided it was time to pull back.

As a result, he seldom left his home in South Orange, and when he had to go to the projects to collect his money, he rarely even got out of his car. But like most people, Furquan had a weakness. Furquan was in love with a nineteen-year-old chickenhead named Shanaynay.

Shanaynay was coming out of building 178 when Rah Rah spotted
her. She was walking fast, heading toward Furquan's car, which was idling at the curb.

“Yo, Antwan, check it. Ain't that that nigga Furquan's burgundy Benz Shanaynay just hopped in?” Rah Rah asked, sitting up straight in the driver's seat.

“Yeah, that that nigga,” Antwan stated, taking off his sunglasses as he put out his blunt in the ashtray.

As soon as Shanaynay closed the passenger door, Furquan pulled away from the curb, driving to the corner where he turned left.

“Follow his ass, Rah,” Antwan said. “He's probably taking that bird home. Somebody said he bought her a condo in Metuchen or down the shore.”

Furquan got on the parkway heading south.

“You're too close,” Antwan told Rah Rah. “Stay at least four lengths behind him, man, so that he don't make the car. Then come off the exit with him.”

After fifteen minutes on the parkway, Furquan put on his turn signal, pulled into the right lane, and drove up the exit ramp at the Metuchen exit. Then Furquan drove eight or nine blocks and turned left in front of an apartment complex that read Tree Top Village.

“Don't follow him in there. Just keep driving straight,” Antwan told Rah Rah as Furquan pulled into the complex entrance. “We can slide back and ride through the parking lots after he's gone into the house.”

“That's money,” Rah Rah responded as he watched Furquan's car go about thirty or forty yards and then turn right.

Antwan and Rah Rah drove to the parking lot of a 7-Eleven convenience store three blocks from Tree Top Village and strategized a plan for getting at Furquan.

“He don't know what neither one of us look like,” Rah Rah said,
passing the forty-ounce bottle of Red Bull to Antwan. “We could go to the door, ring the bell, and say we have a special delivery. When they open the door, we pull our burners and down the fool.”

“The shit might work, Rah, and it might not. But you know if we do it that way we gon’ hafta down his bitch, too, and for real— for real I ain't wit’ killing no innocent muthafucka if I don't have to. Plus Rah, you know Little Man is ol’ girl's baby daddy. And that little muthafucka gon’ be heated,” Antwan said, rarely taking a breath. “Shit, we might have to end up blasting his ass if we dump her when we take care of her nigga.”

“Then it looks like we gon’ just hafta wait on his bitch ass and get at the nigga another time,” Rah Rah snapped as he reached for the forty.

“Fuck that, Rah. We been stalking this nigga forever, and this is the first time in over a month that we even spotted his ass. I'm not passing this nigga up,” Antwan shouted.

“Listen, Antwan,” Rah Rah retorted, raising his voice to match Antwan's. “If we ain't going in the house to get at him, and he sho ain't gon’ come to us, how the fuck you think we gon’ take care of this shit tonight? We sho can't use the same move we used on Malik 'cause this ain't that kinda neighborhood. It's bright as shit in front of that nigga's house. Plus all the muthafuckas out here keep they fucking porch lights on.”