Slipping Read online

  Weed-Eyes interrupted. “Little brother, you don't think them cats is gone try to rip us off, do you?”

  “I don't know,” Don replied. “But if they do, I'll be ready for the shit, so don't trip. Just do like I say and keep the Dumpster between y'all. You won't see me, but I'll be there. Let them studs know right off the top ain't nothing moving until you see the money. If shit look like it finta get shady, I would advise you to duck.” To emphasize his words Don pulled his .357 from his waistband.

  Weed-Eyes got out of the car and headed for the abandoned building. Don gave him a head start, then got out too. He walked over a block, cut through a gangway, and stealthily ducked into the garage behind the abandoned building. On tiptoe he picked his way through the rubble of a partially caved-in roof. He peered through a hole in the wall that once had a window. From his vantage point he could see Weed-Eyes sitting on the overturned Dumpster. He watched his mule pull a wine bottle shrouded with a paper bag from his back pocket and take a swig.

  Don stepped back into the shadows. He wanted a cigarette, but he knew the brief minute it would take to light one could give away his position if someone was watching. He knew that it was almost twelve and Diego would be showing in a moment. When he leaned against the garage wall to resign himself to waiting he heard a sound. It sounded like someone kicking glass.

  Don quieted his breathing and cocked his ears in the wind like a dog. He heard it again—he was right, those were footsteps. Someone was trying to be quiet, but failing miserably.

  For a brief moment a figure stood in the garage's mouth, then slipped into the interior shadows. The figure moved fast, but not before Don identified the silhouette as Sajak. The young boy was carrying what Don guessed was a shotgun.

  Don knew that although Sajak was carrying a shotty it didn't have to mean it was a setup. He might just be there to have Diego's back. Don watched Sajak walk over to the hole in the wall. Sajak took position there.

  Whatever the case, Don knew from his position he could easily overcome Sajak. For now he would just wait and see how the deal went down.

  Not twelve feet from where Sajak was standing, Don watched Diego and Lonnie saunter into the yard.

  Diego walked up to Weed-Eyes with a smile on his face before he realized in the dim light it wasn't Don. The smile dropped off his lips and he scanned the yard suspiciously. He swung his gaze back to rest on Weed-Eyes. “Nigga, clear out of here. I got business to tend to. You gots to find somewhere else to get cracked up, bruh.”

  “You Diego, ain't you?” Weed-Eyes asked timidly.

  “Why?”

  “Because I'm supposed to wait here for you. Don said that you would be here at twelve.”

  Diego wasn't satisfied with Weed-Eyes’ answer. “Nigga, I ain't got no time to be fucking around with no motherfucking messenger boy! Where the fuck is Don at?”

  Weed-Eyes tried to lighten the situation. “Behind that preposition.”

  “Man, what the fuck is you bumping about, dude?”

  “Nothing, nothing,” Weed-Eyes said. “Little brother, ain't no reason for you to get all stressed out, you dig. Don had another customer to meet so he told me to meet you here. You got the scratch?”

  Diego thought for a moment he had been outwitted by Don, but it dawned on him that the man before him had to have the kilo. Now he just had to get his hands on it.

  Much calmer, Diego said, “Yeah, I got the cash. Do you got the key?”

  “I got the cola right here, but I can't give it to you until I check out the paper, little brother.”

  Diego looked around. This is too sweet, he thought.

  “Lonnie, give this stud the shoe box,” Diego ordered.

  With a wicked grin on his face, Lonnie walked over to the Dumpster and placed a Timberland shoe box on it. He flipped the lid open. Neatly arranged in the box were rubber-band-wrapped bundles of money. There was a hundred-dollar bill on top of each one.

  “Each one of them stacks is five gees,” Diego said, while Lonnie leered in Weed-Eyes’ face.

  Watching Lonnie with one eye, Weed-Eyes checked through the bundles to make sure none of the stacks were funny. Everything looked legit, so Weed-Eyes removed the kilo from the front of his pants and slid it across the Dumpster to Lonnie.

  Using the edge of a straight razor, Lonnie cut a corner of the plastic wrapping of the kilo and scraped a bit off. He snorted it heartily. He turned to his boss. “Yeah, baby. This is the same shit. Uhh, it's good. If we really had to spend that twenty on this shit, I wouldn't mind too much.” Lonnie snorted and spit. “Nall, I'm lying.”

  Bewildered at Lonnie's comment, Weed-Eyes asked, “What you mean if, little brother? You done already paid for the cola, you dig.”

  The two laughed as if Weed-Eyes had told a side-clutching joke. When they finally stopped laughing both of them pulled out pistols.

  It happened so fast that Weed-Eyes didn't realize the deal had gone south until he was looking into the business end of Lonnie's 9-millimeter. Hoping Don was watching as he had promised, Weed-Eyes tried to speak, but he was so afraid his throat locked up on him. To try and calm himself, Weed-Eyes picked up his wine bottle off the Dumpster and took a sip.

  “Slow down, little brothers,” Weed-Eyes said, once he was able to control his voice again. “What's up with the pistol play?”

  Diego sneered, “You know what this is, hype. We should take yo life, but we only gone take the coke.”

  In the garage, Don was silently making his move on Sajak. With the fluidity of a boa constrictor Don stole up behind the wannabe thug and slipped his arm around Sajak's neck. After trapping his throat in wiry biceps Don tapped his temple with the .357.

  “Nigga, if you fart loud Imma knock yo shit out yo head,” Don hissed in Sajak's ear, keeping one eye on the proceedings in the yard. “Lose that shotgun and do it quietly, bitch. If I hear a clatter, yo brains gone scatter.”

  Sajak carefully laid the shotgun down.

  “Now walk, bitch. And take it slow before I air condition yo motherfucking head.”

  Don's arm was still around Sajak's neck as he maneuvered him into the yard. Diego's boasting subsided as his mouth fell open at Don's sudden appearance. The look of fear etched on Lonnie's face was unmistakable. The cocky drug dealer's hand shook as he pointed his pistol at Don.

  Don was pissed off. “So you niggas think y'all slick! Ain't this a bitch! Y'all already got money and trying to stick a motherfucka up! Weedy, grab that shoe box and the yay and go get in the car. You niggas back the fuck up or I'll blow this nigga shit loose!”

  Don didn't have to tell them twice; four pairs of eyes watched Weed-Eyes collect the shoe box and the kilo. Moving like a scalded dog, Weed-Eyes left the yard and headed for his car.

  Once he was safely behind the wheel of his vehicle, Weed-Eyes analyzed the situation. In his lap was the cocaine and the twenty thousand dollars, Don was still in the backyard— alone, outmanned, and outgunned. There was no way of predicting the outcome of this one. With that in mind, Weed-Eyes did the logical thing: He started his car, put it in drive, and headed for the West Side.

  Unaware of his companion's treachery, Don was negotiating for Sajak's life.

  “Spic-ass nigga, you think this a joke, don't you? Back the fuck up!” Don snarled through clenched teeth.

  Smiling, Diego tried to throw Don off the scent. “Don, my man. Slow the gorilla role, baby boy. We was just fucking around with yo man. We wadn't gone really rob the old dude. It was just a joke, you know what I mean. Don't even trip—we can all walk out of here. Just drop our package off at Harper Court and there's no hard feelings.”

  “Nigga, who the fuck do you think I am?” Don sneered. “You bitches …”

  Don never got a chance to finish his sentence as Lonnie fired his pistol at Don's head. Lonnie thought he was a marksman, but the closest the shot came to Don was going through Sajak's temple. Brain matter, blood, and skull fragments showered Don.

  Still using Sajak's lifeless
body for a shield, Don, his face a mask of determination, swung his gun in Lonnie's and Diego's direction. Diego's pistol spit several rounds. Two of them hit Sajak's body, making Don take a few steps back to lessen the impact of the slugs thudding home into his makeshift shield. In response to Diego, Don let off the six shots in his pistol at both men. He dropped Sajak's body and dove into the garage to reload his pistol.

  One of Don's slugs tore through Lonnie's stomach. Clutching his belly, Lonnie sprinted from the backyard, through the gangway, and out to the street. Once he gained St. Lawrence, he kept running as blood flowed over his fingertips. He tossed his pistol into some weeds and kept going.

  Diego shot the remaining rounds of his clip into the garage hoping to hit Don with a lucky shot. The only problem was Don wasn't in the garage. He had knelt and filled his pistol with fresh ammo and ducked out of the garage. Quickly and quietly he made his way past the garage to the small corridor that ran between that one and another abandoned garage. Cutting through the gangway brought him back into the yard, behind Diego, who was ducked down behind the Dumpster inserting a fresh clip in his pistol.

  “Diego, drop that pistol, bitch!” Don commanded from behind him.

  Diego started to turn to fire, but Don sensed his movement before he could make it and shot him in the right arm. Diego's pistol clattered to the concrete.

  The pain from the half-inch hole in his arm was excruciating. Don kicked Diego's pistol away from him. It slid along the concrete and came to a halt about ten feet away. Don already knew what he had to do. He firmly planted his feet in front of Diego. He put his hand to his eyes to shield them from the inevitable blood spray and put his pistol to Diego's head.

  Diego looked up at Don. All the contempt was erased from his countenance; only the pitiful face of a scared boy remained.

  “Don, hold up,” Diego whimpered. “Please don't kill me. I'll give you anything you want. My truck, money, my crib, whatever. Please don't kill me. If you let me live, I'll walk out of here and you'll never see me again, I swear.”

  Don lowered his arm and considered Diego's pleas. He had to admit the boy sounded sincere, but Don knew it wasn't in his best interest to leave him alive. It was an unwritten, ageless rule of the streets: Don't leave your enemies alive if you want to live longer than they do.

  “Ain't no reason to beg, nigga. You said it yo'self, the game is cold, but it's fair.”

  No other words were necessary.

  Don squeezed the trigger and watched the bullet enter the top of Diego's head.

  Diego's body swayed back and forth as if deciding in which direction to fall. Finally it toppled over onto its side.

  With the back of his hand, Don wiped the blood and gore from his face. Suddenly he became ill from the sickly sweet wine of death. Staggering like he was intoxicated, Don stumbled from the backyard. His pistol was still clutched tightly in his hand. How he made his unsteady legs carry him to where Weed-Eyes should have been parked he would never know. Instead of the invitation of a waiting vehicle to spirit him to safety he found only an empty, uncaring street.

  “Damn!” he shouted angrily. “I don't believe this fucking shit!”

  Two men had been killed over his cocaine, and the person he trusted the most had still managed to beat him out of his kilo. Tucking his pistol into his waistband he straightened up the best he could and headed for home.

  14

  NINE MINUTES LATER DON SLIPPED HIS KEY INTO THE back door of his house. He made sure that he double-locked the door before cutting through the kitchen and bounding up the stairs to his room. Juanita was gone. She must have went to the store or something, he thought. He sat on the bed and decided to wait for her; they could leave the minute she returned.

  While he waited, Don decided to pack a light traveling bag. Only the bare necessities—a few clothes, his money, crackpipes, and his remaining kilo of cocaine. They wouldn't need much more than that. Don planned to return home as soon as the heat died down from the murder he'd committed. He really wasn't worried about the heat coming down on him, though. Lonnie had killed Sajak and Don doubted very seriously that he was going to go to the cops. The only other person that could put two and two together to come up with the fact that he had murdered Diego was Weed-Eyes. Don seriously doubted that Weed-Eyes was around when the fireworks started, so Don wasn't worried about him as a witness. Right now Weed-Eyes was somewhere with a kilo of cocaine and $20,000 in cash. Don had to smile despite how angry he was. He would have done the same thing himself. But that wasn't going to stop him from cooking Weed-Eyes if he bumped into him.

  Don threw his mother's striped laundry bag on the bed and began tossing items into it. In the closet he felt around on the shelf for the kilo. Nothing. Quickly he dragged a chair over to the closet and stood on it, peering onto the shelf. As he looked at the empty shelf a feeling of déjà vu washed over him.

  Frantically he searched his bedroom, but his search was fruitless. Juanita. The idea of her running off with his kilo sent shivers up his spine.

  “Motherfucka!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, pounding his thighs with his clenched fists. “Motherfucking, thieving-ass bitch!”

  Don took out his frustration on his bedroom. He overturned the television, threw the stereo on the floor, and dumped his chest of drawers. Next, he flipped the bed and threw his Chicago Bears football-helmet lamp out the window. It thudded into the house next door, then crashed to the ground.

  “Don? What's wrong with you?” Rhonda screamed from outside his room.

  “Leave me alone, Rhonda!” Don seethed.

  “What's going on in there, boy? What the hell is all that noise? Imma call Mama if you don't quit making all that doggone noise!”

  “Leave me alone, girl! I'm looking for something!”

  “Well you better quit making that noise, I'm trying to sleep!”

  “Alright, alright.”

  When Rhonda left from outside his door, Don sat in the wreckage of his room, in the middle of the floor in the dark, and smoked several large pipe bowls of crack. The more he smoked, the angrier he became. He stuffed his warm pipe into his pocket, loaded his gun, and left the house.

  Sunrise was still about five hours away as Don walked aimlessly through the streets. The night was warm and the streets were teeming with nightlife, but any person who crossed Don's path gave the wide-eyed young man a wide berth. The walk began to dissipate the charge he received from his last hit of crack, so he dipped into an alley and took another hit. Recharged, he resumed his search for Weed-Eyes and Juanita.

  Desperation began to set in. He had been walking for hours and wasn't any closer to his betrayers. As he walked past an apartment building, he heard the song by the Geto Boys, “My Mind Playin’ Tricks on Me.” He thought, yeah my mind is definitely playing tricks on me if I think Imma bump into that green-eyed bastard. Weed-Eyes is long gone, he concluded. Don knew that no hype in his right mind would stick around with a whole slab of cocaine and twenty thou. Weed-Eyes could have driven to another area code by now.

  Don stopped in an alley and sat on some back porch steps to smoke again. Juanita was a different matter, however. She didn't have her own transportation, nor the mental inclination to sell the cocaine. Knowing Juanita, she would probably try to smoke the whole thing. He took another blast and continued to think. He had to find Juanita and recover as much of his cocaine as possible. He knew for a fact that Juanita wouldn't go home to the small apartment she shared with her drunken mother and four brothers—she hated it there. The only other place she might've gone to was Wanda's house on Cottage Grove. She was the only friend Juanita ever seemed to mention. It wasn't so far-fetched for Don to think she'd gone there.

  With the ease of a lifelong ghetto dweller, Don picked his way through the alleys and gangways until he reached the projects on Cottage Grove. Two-story walk-ups lined either side of the busy boulevard. He didn't know which apartment Wanda lived in. He described her to a group of young guys standing in one of t
he parking lots. He didn't know if they bought his story about being Wanda's long-lost cousin, but he accepted their directions.

  Outside the apartment door, Don glanced around to make sure no curious neighbors were watching and then he gave the door a well-aimed kick. The flimsy lock buckled under the pressure. Don whipped out his pistol and charged into the apartment like a DEA agent on a drug raid.

  In the living room he caught Juanita, Wanda, and Raoul in various stages of a crack party: Raoul had a pipe to his lips, Wanda was on the couch with a razor blade in her hand, and Juanita was cleaning her pipe.

  Don's and Juanita's eyes locked on one another. She had a shocked look on her face from Don's sudden appearance. Shock turned to terror as she recalled what Don promised to do to her if she ever stole from him again. The wicked-looking pistol in his hand confirmed his threat.

  “He gone kill me!” Juanita screamed hysterically. “He gone kill me!”

  Juanita's scream mobilized Raoul, who didn't see the pistol in Don's hand; all he saw was someone trying to fuck up their good time. There was no way Raoul could let that happen—not when Juanita had shown up with more cocaine than he'd ever seen in his life and was setting it out. If Raoul could help it, Don wasn't going to lay one hand on Juanita.

  Raoul dropped his pipe, jumped to his feet, and charged, brandishing an end table he'd scooped up, all the while screaming.

  Don silenced him by shooting Raoul in the left knee. Raoul flipped over the sofa, smashing himself in the face with the end table.

  Wanda watched Raoul get shot before she silently exploded into action. Moving swiftly and silently, Wanda slashed Don's forearm with the razor blade in her hand before he could react.

  Don tried to fend her off without shooting her, but received several more slashes on his arms. He backpedaled and stumbled over one of the children's toys, but recovered in time to dodge a razor slash aimed at his throat. With his free hand he snatched a heavy ashtray from the dinette table and smashed it against Wanda's temple. The force from the blow knocked all the fight from Wanda and she fell to the floor with an ugly gash alongside her right eye.