Chapter 1
Brooklyn
The night was cold. Neighborhood risky. They couldn’t be caught here. Not with what they had in the car. It would be a death sentence.
The car’s heater was blasting as three young men in a Land Rover pulled up and parked in front of a pawn shop on Myrtle Avenue in Bushwick.
They were in Crips territory. A bad place to be if you were a Blood. Really bad.
That’s why none of them had worn their signature gang red clothes.
The driver, DeShawn, glanced in his rearview mirror to see if Tyson, the youngest of the three and the least experienced, looked ready. He didn’t like what he saw. The muthafucker’s wound up tight. He ain’t up to this shit. I shoulda known.
DeShawn looked at his bud, Marvin, riding shotgun. Now he be cool, thank god. Marvin had made this run with him many times.
As he turned off the engine, DeShawn noticed Marvin pull up one leg of his baggy jeans and unsnap the ankle holster holding his Ruger semi.
“Yo, Marvin,” DeShawn said. “Why you be unstrappin’? Told you ain’t going to be no trouble. Edgar’s cool with us.”
“Maybe so, but I still don’t trust him.”
DeShawn laughed. “Man, like, who do you trust?”
“You. Nobody else.”
DeShawn surveyed the street a minute. No Crips in sight. Good so far.
“Okay, let’s roll,” he said. “Tyson, you stay in the car. You see trouble, beep the horn twice.”
“Oh man,” Tyson griped, “why I gotta stay out here all by myself in Crips territory?”
“Cause somebody gots to protect our stash.”
Tyson blew out an anxious sigh. “Okay, I’m down. But, like, if I see trouble, do I shoot first or beep the horn?”
What a numbnuts. “Just beep the fuckin’ horn, okay, Tyson?”
“Got it, boss man.”
As DeShawn and Marvin stepped out of the hot car into the brisk night air, they could feel the cold cut right through them like a sharp knife.
Both were wearing brown cargo pants and black hoodies. But even without any red clothes, DeShawn still felt uneasy. The Crips knew what he looked like. He pulled his hood down over his face as far as he could and tied the string really tight. Then he lifted a medium-size black duffle bag out of the SUV’s cargo space and glanced up and down the street once more.
Still no sign of Crips.
DeShawn slung the duffle’s strap over his shoulder and walked into the pawn shop with Marvin. The walls were lined with glass cases filled with all kinds of bling. He didn’t get why people paid good cake for this used crap. When his bros wanted bling, they knew how to get it without paying jack shit.
DeShawn stared at Edgar, who was standing behind the bulletproof glass counter, until he caught the Rican’s attention. The shop owner had just slid a gold chain under the slot in his window to a babe packing the kinda sweet butt DeShawn coulda warmed up to.
Just not tonight.
This was business.
Spotting the two Bloods, Edgar turned away from the window to a woman examining a bracelet under a microscope. “Trini, take my place a minute.”
Then Edgar nodded to DeShawn before disappearing through a backdoor.
Here we go, DeShawn thought, and tensed up. Even though he was down with Edgar, he knew people did all kindsa funny shit when it came to money. Especially Ricans.
They walked to a steel door next to one of the display cases and waited for it to buzz. As soon as they walked through it, the door closed behind them. Taking a deep breath, DeShawn put his hand in his pocket to touch his Glock 19 for reassurance.
They found Edgar sitting behind his desk with both hands visible on top of it. Just as I told him to.
“Yo, Edgar,” DeShawn said. “We got some goodies for you.” He plopped his duffle down on the desk with a heavy clunk.
Five minutes later DeShawn and Marvin hustled out of the pawn shop. The black duffle he had carried in was gone, replaced by a green one. DeShawn fired up the engine, slapped it in gear, and drove off fast.
“How’d it go?” Tyson asked.
“No problem,” DeShawn said. “Two more stops, then we can get our butts home. Safe and sound.”
“Let’s do it fast,” Tyson said. “I be hungry.”
“You’re always hungry.”
“I’m a growing boy.” He leaned forward. “Yo. DeShawn. Put on that new Eminem CD. It’ll take my mind off food.”
“No music, Tyson. We working.”
As he drove, DeShawn looked around for signs of Crips. He didn’t see them.
He also didn’t see an old woman who stepped into the street from between two parked cars.
By the time he did, it was too late.
He smacked hard into the woman and launched her flying like a rag doll through the air. She landed on the roof of a parked car and didn’t move.
DeShawn stopped the Land Rover with a noisy skid, looked back at the lifeless old lady, and slammed his fist against the dashboard.
“Motherfucking stupid old bitch! She musta been, like, mental, ya know? Man, I hope she didn’t dent my front end.”
Marvin said, “Why you be stopping? Let’s get the fuck outa here.”
DeShawn burned rubber.
“Do you think anybody saw what happened, DeShawn?”
Before he could answer, they heard a siren behind them closing in fast.
“Aw fuck!”
In his rear view mirror DeShawn saw a black Chevy Caprice racing toward them with a red bubble light on its roof and its high beams flashing.
“Maybe it’s not for us,” Marvin said. “Let’s pull over and let them pass.”
“You whack? We ain’t stopping now for nuthin!”
Not even red lights.
Just as DeShawn closed in on a traffic light, it turned Bloods red. He had no choice but to try and plow through.
And he almost made it.
But another SUV flying into the intersection clipped the rear end of the Land Rover and sent it into a wild spin. DeShawn tried frantically to straighten the car out, but it slammed hard into a parked truck and stalled out.
The engine wouldn’t kick over.
He kept trying.
No dice.
DeShawn saw in his mirror that the pigs’ car had stopped twenty feet behind them. Three men in suits sprang out of it and crouched by their vehicle with guns raised.
A sudden, eerie calm came over him. He knew in an instant their fate had been sealed.
He looked at Marvin and then back at Tyson. They understood, too.
Only one option.
Slipping out his gun, DeShawn said, “Let’s do it!”
Chapter 2