The Cost of Vengeance (10 page)

He got cracked over some stupid shit. We had just gotten through takin’ care of a problem, and when we split up, I gave him the guns ’cause they was both hot, and told him to get rid of them. But before he got to do it, decides he needs to stop and get some cigarettes. When he leaves the store, he gets pulled over. Cops searched the car and found the guns. The guns had bodies on them, so Jay Easy goes down for murder,
b
ut he gets out on a technicality. His lawyer said the search was an illegal search, ’cause the cops didn’t have no reason to stop him; so they ain’t have no reason to search the car. But when he got out, I was with Nick and I wasn’t interested in steppin’ down.

Right now, lookin’ back on that shit, I kinda wish I was a little nicer to Jay the night he came by the club after he got out—he just caught me at a bad time. I had smoked me a blunt, was
sippin
’ on some Patron, and I had watched a little porn and was waitin’ on Nick to come and fuck me silly, the way he always does. So when Jay got there, I was just tryin’ to get rid of him before Nick got there. “Look, Jay,” I said that night. “Me and you is done. Now you need to get the fuck up outta here before I call security to throw your ass out.”

That shit was wrong, but shit, Nick got there right after Jay left. Shit, I never thought that nigga would go out like that. Start robbin’ me and shit. That nigga ripped a hole in my program and put me out of business. I had to kill his ass. But when you kill one, I guess you gotta take out the whole damn family—and their friends—before the shit is done.

I had been ridin’ for hours and I still hadn’t found where Baby John was hidin’ out. I was just thinkin’ about goin’ home and gettin’ in the bed, when my cell rang. I looked at the display. Nick, damn. I turned off the music and let it ring a few times. Then I answered it like I was asleep. I just hoped that he wasn’t callin’ me from my apartment.

“Hello.”

“Did I wake you?” Nick asked.

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“That’s okay.”

“How do you feel?”

“I’m okay. When you gonna get here?” I asked so I’d know how much time I had.

“I don’t think I’m gonna make it over there until late, so I’ll probably go home and see you in the morning.”

“No, baby. Come get in the bed wit’ me.”

“It’s gonna be late and I don’t wanna bother you. Besides, you need to rest and you know how you are: If I come over there you’re gonna wanna fuck.”

“Anything wrong with that?” I asked, playin’ my role and hopin’ he wouldn’t call my bluff.

“No, but like I said, you need your rest.”

“You’re probably right. You do what you gotta do and I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Get some rest,” Nick said and ended the call.

I hated lyin’ to Nick like that, but I felt like I had to do it this way. Nick was about to kill me over the shit I was doin’ and his warning to me was still fresh in my mind.
You don’t get another chance
. I wasn’t about to give that nigga another reason to even think about killin’ me ’cause I was too much trouble.

Now that I knew I had all night, I wasn’t feelin’ tired no more. I was gonna find Baby John if that shit took all night. I stopped in a bar to get a drink and got lucky. There was Baby John, seated at a table near the back of the bar with two honeys. Knowing how my temper gets, I started to just walk up to him and start blastin’, but that’s how I got shot the last time. So I took a seat at the bar, ordered a drink, and watched him; waiting for my opportunity to kill him.

I sat there watching him drop money on drinks for them honeys for damn near two hours. Since he’d just gotten out, I figured it was the money Kevin had paid him to kill my brother. I wondered if they knew that Miles was still alive; and if they knew, would they try again. I thought that I should have told Miles to request to be put in segregation, until this was over; but it was too late for that now.

I guess his money ran out, ’cause the honeys got up and moved on the some other mutha fuckas in the bar. Baby John sat there for a while and then he got up and started staggerin’ toward the door. I finished my drink, paid my tab and followed him out.

The fact that he was wasted would only make my job easier, I thought as I watched him walked down the street, bumpin’ into people, poles, and cars. When he rounded the corner I picked up my pace. The street was dark and there was nobody around that I could see. Then he did me a favor. When Baby John fell, I was on top of him. “What’s up, John?”

He looked up and saw me standing over him with my pistol pointed at this head.

“Why you stab my brother?”

“I didn’t have nothin’ to do with that. I didn’t even know your brother.”

I shot him in the leg. “Don’t lie to me, John. I know it was you that done it. Just tell me why?”

“I didn’t kill your brother, Rain.”

“I know you didn’t kill him, John. I talked to him today. So don’t tell me that you didn’t have nothin’ to do wit’ it, ’cause I know you did it.” I shot him in the other leg this time. “Last chance. Why you stab my brother?” I asked and put the gun to his head.

“Kevin Easely paid me to kill him ’cause you killed Jay Easy.”

“You tell me where Kevin is and I might let your drunk-ass live.”

“He’s at a house on Carpenter Avenue, down 219
^th
Street. I’m not sure which house it is,” he said quickly and I took the gun away from his head.

“Who’s there with him?”

“I don’t know. I swear, Rain, I don’t know.”

Now that he had told what I needed to know, I raised my gun and pressed it against his temple. “I thought you said you weren’t gonna kill me.”

“I lied,” I said and put two in his head.

I knew exactly which house it was: It was his grandmother’s house. Jay Easy took me there when we first got together. I parked on 220
^th
Street and walked down the block. I took a minute to think about what I was gonna do. I could wait here and hope that he came out, or I could go in after him. You know which one I went wit’. I started walking toward the door, when I saw a woman walking toward the house with a bag of groceries. When she got to the door and started fumbling around for her keys, I moved on her. I rushed up behind her and put my hand over her mouth and my gun in her face.

“You can live or die, it’s up to you.” She nodded her head. “I’ma take my hand away. If you scream or try to run, I’ll kill you. Understand?” She nodded again and I took my hand away. “Kevin in there?”

“Yes.”

“Who’s in there with him?”

“His grandmother and two of his boys.”

“Where are they?”

“Kevin and his grandmother are upstairs. His boys are downstairs in the living room.”

“Unlock the door. We goin’ in nice and easy, hear me?”

She nodded her head and unlocked the door. She went inside and I followed close behind her with my gun to her head. When we got in the house and approached the living room, I could hear his boys talkin’. “What’s up, Kendra? You bring the brew?”

When I got to the opening I pushed her on the floor and opened fire. I shot the first one in the chest. When I turned on the other, he had his gun out and took a shot at me. I fired back and ducked behind the wall while he fired away. When he stopped I came out from behind the wall and hit him with three shots to the chest.

I reloaded my gun and started up the stairs to get Kevin. When I turned around, there was Kendra, with the gun shakin’ in her hand. “Don’t do it.”

She closed her eyes and pulled the trigger. She missed by a mile; the recoil knocked her on her ass and she dropped the gun. She picked it up and pointed it at me again. “Don’t do it.” Her aim was no better. Not wantin’ to give her a third chance, ’cause she might have gotten lucky that time, I pointed my gun at her and shot her in the head.

I continued up the stairs slowly with my gun raised. When I got to the top, I checked the first room; nobody was in there. I closed the door and moved to the second room. There was his grandmother sittin’ by the window. I lowered my gun and turned to leave the room. When I did, grandma pulled a gun and started shootin’ at me. Her aim was better. I had to dive on the floor to keep from gettin’ shot. I hit the ground hard and I got off a shot. My chest felt like it had exploded. I looked at grandma; I’d hit her with a shot to the head. Damn—I didn’t want to kill her, but what choice did she leave me—but damn.

I picked myself up off the floor and looked down at my chest. I could see the blood seeping through. I walked out in the hallway and Kevin opened up on me right away. I ducked back in the door and fired back blindly. I knew the house, so I knew unless he was goin’ out a window, he had to get by me, and that wasn’t happenin’. I put another clip in my gun and took out the other one. I moved back into the hallway blastin’ with both guns. Kevin ran back in the room and I went in after him. When I went in after him, he was tryin’ to get out of the window. He had one leg out when he saw me enter. He raised his weapon but I was faster. I hit Kevin with two shots: one to the chest and the other in his head.

I left the house thinkin’ that I had shut this down. I had killed Kevin, his boys, some chick named Kendra ’cause she couldn’t shot, and his grandmother. I really felt bad about killin’ her—but damn.

By the time I made it to my car, I was bleeding pretty badly. I needed a doctor and I wasn’t about to go back to the hospital. There was only one place I could go and I just hoped I remembered how to get there, and that I could trust them to keep their mouths shut. It was almost three in the morning when I rang the bell. When nobody answered, I rang it again. It took a while, but somebody finally came to the door. The porch light came on.

“Who is it?”

“It’s Rain Robinson. I need your help, Perry.”

The day before, Nick had taken me out there for his friend Perry and his wife Glenda, to change my dressing. He opened the door and took me into the examining room they had in their house. Perry was unbuttoning my blouse when Glenda walked in. “Am I interrupting?” Glenda said and smiled. “You were supposed to be in bed resting, young lady.” Glenda sat down on the examining table next to me.

“What have you been doing?” Perry said when he looked at my wound.

“I fell.”

“Right,” he said.

“I’ll take care of this, Perry. Why don’t you go back to bed?”

Perry shook his head and left the room.

“He’s always a grumpy-ass when he first wakes up,” Glenda said and got what she needed to take care of me. When she was done, I apologized for getting them up and thanked her for taking care of me. “This time you need to get to bed and stay there.”

“I will, I promise. But I need a big favor.”

“I think I just did you a big favor,” Glenda said. I liked her.

“Yeah, I know, but you could, you know, like keep this between the three of us. I mean like not tell Nick that I showed up here bleedin’ at three in the morning.”

“You’re secret is safe with me. And I’ll make sure Perry doesn’t say anything either.”

“Thank you,” I said and she walked me out. I drove home and went straight to bed.

When I opened my eyes and sat up in bed, I called out for Nick, but he wasn’t there. With nothing else to do, I laid back down and turned on the TV. I channel surfed for a while and finally settled on the judge shows. My favorite was Divorce Court. I liked Lynn Toler, but thought that Madeline was better. Halfway through the show, Nick walked in. “How you feelin’?” he asked and sat down on the bed next to me.

“I’m a’ight,” I lied. I still felt kind of tired and my chest hurt.

“Good. Get dressed, we’re up,” Nick said and got up.

I reached for the gun I had under my pillow and got out of bed. “Where we goin’?”

“We’re goin’ to kill Ralph Watson.”

“That one of the niggas that robbed us?” I asked and got out of bed.

“Yeah. And hurry up before we miss him.”

I didn’t seem to be making any headway in this case. I really thought we were on to something when Sanchez and I rolled up on Leon Copeland at Nina Thomas’s apartment. But both of our sources have been telling us that Leon hasn’t been a player in this game in years. I really wasn’t all that surprised by that though. Leon and Mike Black were good friends those days, and he did seem to drop off the grid about the time that Black killed just about every other dealer in the area. Black made a deal with Chilly and setup what became know as the dead zone, where Black permitted nobody to sell drugs. Maybe Leon still respected the dead zone on the strength of his relationship with Black, so we had nothing. Then we caught a break.

I was at my desk, reviewing what little I had on the case, when an officer walked up. “Hey, Kirk, you know an asshole named Timothy Thompson?”

“I know a lot of assholes,” I said and keep reading my file.

“This one says he talked to you and Sanchez the other night.”

Now he had my attention. “What about him?”

“He got popped trying to sell to an undercover today. Instead of lawyerin’ up, he said he would only talk to you and Sanchez. You want to talk to him?”