The Cartel (5 page)

He put the bills in ten-thousand-dollar stacks and wrapped rubber bands around each one, to keep the money organized. He counted the cash a second time to verify that his money was on point. He was thorough when it came to his paper. It was the one thing that he knew he could depend on. Money was his first and only love. Getting money came first in any situation, and he was determined to keep his pockets fed.

A knock at the door interrupted his thought process, and out of habit, he grabbed his pistol from the nightstand and approached the door.

He had been a bit paranoid from the events that had taken place the day before at the funeral, so he wanted to be as cautious as possible while he was in Miami. A nigga would never catch him slipping.

He looked through the peephole and eased up when he noticed the distorted image of his father’s right-hand man. Sliding the chain from the hotel door, he unlocked it and allowed Polo to enter the room.

Polo shook his head as he looked at Young Carter. It was still hard for him to get over the resemblance. Young Carter looked so much like his father, it was uncanny. It was a shame that the two men never got the chance to know one another. “Can we talk?” Polo asked, both hands tucked inside of his pants pockets.

“Yeah. come on in.” Carter set his pistol down. “You want a drink?”

Polo stepped inside. “Nah, I’m good.” He noticed how on point Carter was and thought to himself,
like father, like son.

Carter walked over to his bed and pulled the bedspread over the stacks of money to conceal his business. He then sat down and motioned for Polo to take a seat in the chair across from him.

“I just came to see how long you were in town for?” Polo knew that the Diamond family needed Young Carter now more than ever.

“I’m ghost tomorrow. Ain’t nothing here for me.”

Polo had predicted this reaction from Young Carter. He didn’t expect him to feel any sense of responsibility to his family at first, but he knew that if he could convince Carter to stay around long enough, the attachment would eventually grow.

“I know this is a lot to put on your heart right now, but your family needs you.”

Carter was quick in his response. “They don’t even know me,” he stated with disdain. “That’s not my fam. I’ve only known one woman my whole life, and she the only family I need, nah mean?”

“Nah, I don’t know what you mean, Young Carter. I saw the look in your eyes today when that Haitian mu’fucka had your baby sister at gunpoint. Only a man who had love in his heart would get at them niggas the way you did. It was instinct for you to protect her. Whether you want to admit it or not, that is your family, and they need you, especially Breeze.”

“Ain’t nobody tried to protect me my entire life. I’ve been out for self from the time I was old enough to understand the rules of the game. I don’t have time to baby-sit. That’s not my responsibility.” Carter wanted to make it clear that he wasn’t trying to get to know the Diamond family, didn’t want to be around them.

Seeing their expensive house and luxury vehicles just made him resent his father even more. While he grew up in Flint, Michigan, a city that was known as the murder capital, the man that made him was taking care of the family that he had abandoned his first-born for. The pain of growing up without a father had left a bad taste in his mouth.

Polo stood and shook his head from side to side. “Everything isn’t always as it seems, Young Carter. Your father had his reasons for leaving you and your mother, and it wasn’t because he didn’t love you.”

“It really doesn’t matter now. That man is in the ground, and it doesn’t affect me. I just came to pay my respects. I didn’t come here for nothing more or nothing less. That man has never done a damn thing for me, so I’m not gon’ even hold you up and say that I feel obligated to step up and take care of his family. A better man might be able to, but that’s not me.”

“I understand you are frustrated Young Carter. You come here and see how happy your siblings are, and you feel cheated. I know you’re asking yourself why you didn’t have the same upbringing, but believe me, your father did the best he could under the circumstances,” Polo stated, defending his best friend.

When Carter didn’t reply he continued, “Your father—” “I don’t have a father. The nigga got my mother pregnant and then left us for dead to come play house with another bitch.”

“Look, you need to watch your mouth.” Polo, enraged by Young Carter’s blasphemous statements, had to set the record straight. “I can’t just sit here and allow you to disrespect my man like that. You don’t know shit about nothing. If it wasn’t for your father, you and your mother would have been dead a long time ago. He had to leave you in order to protect you.”

“Fuck is you talking about?” Carter asked, hostility and anger in his tone.

Polo could see that the young man’s temper was beginning to flare and then remembered that Young Carter had a valid reason to be upset. He took a deep breath and calmed himself down, to de-escalate the situation. “Look, Young Carter, I’m not here to bump heads with you. As your father’s best friend, I’ve got nothing but respect for you. You have a misconception about the man that your pops was. I’m not saying that every decision he made regarding you and your mother was right, but he did the best that he could. Think about it, young’un. Your mother worked as a CNA since you were young. She’s bringing home thirty stacks a year at the most, but you grew up in a two-hundred-thousand-dollar house in the suburbs of Flint. Who do you think purchased that house? Who paid those bills? Use your head, young fella. How many fourteen-year-old boys you know kept a thousand dollars a week in his pocket? When you graduated you were pushing a limited edition Mercedes. Who do you think copped that car for you? Let me tell you, it wasn’t Mommy.”

Polo’s words were enough to silence Carter and make him think. His mother never told him about his father. She had never even talked about him and would explain their living situation by saying that she worked overtime, sometimes double-time, to allow them to live the way that they did. She often claimed to hit big at the casino or to have the winning lotto number. She had given her son every excuse in the book to explain the extra income.
All this time my father was sending money back home to take care of me?
Carter tried to wrap his mind around the fact that his father had never forgotten him.

“Your father never missed a beat in your life, son. You may not have gotten the chance to meet him, but he knew everything about you. It was nothing for him to fly in and out of Flint in the same day just so he could be at your Friday night football games. Remember that game you ran three hundred yards against Southwestern?”

Carter nodded his head as he placed it in his hands. “Yeah, I remember.”

“Your father was there. I know he was there because he dragged my black ass with him every week. Every touchdown, every awards assembly, your graduation, he was there for all of that. When you got into that trouble with the law as a juvenile, he made sure that the case was thrown out. Fifty grand made that little mishap disappear from your record.

“Your father loved you very much, but he was a hustler too. He met your mother when she was fifteen and he was seventeen. They dated throughout his senior year in high school, and when it was time for him to go to college, he regretfully left her to better himself. Your mother was so upset with him that when he moved down here she stopped contacting him. He tried to call her, but she would never return his calls. A couple years later he met Taryn. She was beautiful, unlike any woman he had ever met, and they fell in love quickly. She is a full-blooded Dominican though, and they don’t play that interracial dating shit. He had to prove himself time and time again just to be with her. If it weren’t for his persistence and her refusal to leave him alone, they never would have been allowed to stay together. He knew that she was the daughter of Emilio Estes.”

Carter lifted his head in surprise at the notorious drug lord’s name. His eyebrows rose in speculation as he thought,
I know this nigga ain’t talking bout—

Before Carter could finish his thought, Polo said, “Yeah, I’m talking about
the
Emilio Estes.”

“Damn!”

“Emilio took Carter under his wing. His coke connect allowed Carter to establish The Cartel as the most notorious and prosperous illegal enterprise Miami has ever seen. Emilio was clear in his concerns though. He told Carter that if he wanted to be with his daughter then he would have to keep up the lifestyle that she was accustomed to. Emilio told him that his family had to come first and that if he ever disgraced his daughter in any way then it would be the death of him.”

“So he deserted me and my moms. He chose his family in Miami over me.”

“Your father didn’t even know about you until you were a young child. Your mother didn’t even tell him that she was pregnant. When he found out, Taryn was pregnant with the twins, and if Emilio ever found out, you and your mother would have been put in direct danger. Knowing that he could trust his wife, he told her about you and your mother. Although she was upset at first, he explained that he had never cheated on her. She agreed to never tell her father, and they sent your mother money to support you from that day forth. It pained him that he couldn’t get to know you. He wanted to be a part of your life, but his connections with the Dominican Mafia prevented that from happening. You are his first-born. You look just like him. He loved you wholeheartedly.”

Confusion and anger took over Carter’s body. He didn’t know if he should be relieved or enraged. “It still doesn’t make up for the years I spent never knowing him. I don’t give a fuck what I’m facing. When I have a shorty, my seed gon’ know who I am. I’m gon’ be a man and take care of my family, no matter what the circumstances are. Money can’t make up for the times he wasn’t there. My mother couldn’t teach me how to be a man. I turned to the streets for guidance. My father came to my games, but he wasn’t the one who showed me how to throw the football. He never showed me how to grip a pistol. He ain’t show me shit. I had to learn all that shit off humbug on my own.”

“Sending you money and supporting you from afar was the only thing he could do. That cash kept you fed and a roof over your head. Your mother didn’t have to worry about shit. She chose to never spend the money on herself. She never had to work another day of her life if she didn’t want to. He made sure of that.” Polo looked in Young Carter’s eyes, trying to read him.

Carter stood up to signal that he was done with the conversation. “It still doesn’t matter. This ain’t home, and first thing tomorrow I’m out.”

Polo stood as well, He shook his head in contempt. “A’ight, I hear you, but now you hear me. There’s a war going on. Your little brothers and your baby sister need you right now. They weren’t raised the way you were. They’re spoiled, and they underestimate the seriousness of what’s going on. This family needs your leadership, your protection. There’s a lot of unfinished business that needs to be handled. Your father’s seat at The Cartel is waiting to be filled.”

Carter’s silence was enough to let Polo know that he was considering his options. He headed for the door. Before he left the room, he said, “There’s a meeting tomorrow night at the Diamond house. Your presence should be felt. If you’re still in town, you should drop in. I’ll be in touch.”

As the door closed behind him, Carter thought of all the times he had wondered about his father. He was going crazy as he tried to recount the endless gifts his mother had given when he was growing up. He remembered growing up in the inner city up until the age of ten. At that time, his mother had mysteriously packed up all their belongings and moved them to the suburbs of Grand Blanc.
That must be around the time that Carter found out about me,
he thought to himself.

A part of him wanted to leave town and never look back, but another part of him wanted to stay. The part that had seen the beautiful face of his baby sister, the part that had witnessed the arrogant swagger of his brother Mecca, and calculating discreetness of his brother Monroe. His emotions were at an all-time high, and for the first time in his life, he was indecisive.

Unable to stay cooped up in the hotel suite, he grabbed two stacks of money and headed for the door. He needed to clear his head. He figured that the best way to do that was to visit the floating casino that sat at the end of the pier on South Beach. He didn’t know that gambling ran through his veins like blood. It was a habit his father also had. What he did know was that it relaxed him, which was just what he needed at the moment.

Carter stood at a lively crap table with nothing but hundred-dollar chips in his rack. The casino was unusually packed for a Sunday night, and every table was crowded with eager participants just waiting to be taken by the house. Carter was lax from the top-shelf Rémy he was sipping on. The liquor and the intense thrill of the game had calmed him down since his earlier encounter with Polo.

“All bets set!” the dice handler yelled before maneuvering the ivory across the table and placing them in front of Young Carter. “Dice out!”

With his drink still in one hand, Carter picked up the dice with the other and tossed them toward the other end of the table with a nonchalant swagger. The dice tickled the fabric as they danced before finally landing.

“Yo! Eleven, yo!” the dealer shouted, indicating that eleven had landed on the face of the dice.

Uproarious celebration erupted around the table as everyone collected their wins and anxiously awaited Carter’s next roll. He had been on a hot streak all night, hitting point after point. His luck was unbelievable. He had held the dice for forty-five minutes, which was almost impossible to do in the game of craps. He schooled the dice against the table with his head down as he watched his hands work their magic. He concentrated heavily on his technique. Every hustler had his own rhythm with the dice, and Carter was no exception.

“Excuse me, can I get in here?”

Hearing the feminine voice amongst the crowd of boisterous men caused Carter to look up. A brown-skinned girl with shoulder-length, almond-colored layers and hazel eyes squeezed into the empty rack next to him. She was so close to him that her sweet perfume played games with his senses, and he felt his manhood acknowledge her presence. He put the dice down as he watched her reach into her skintight Seven jeans and pull out a small wad of money. He waited for her to throw her cash on the table before he continued his roll.