Becoming Carter (The Carter Series) (Volume 2) (30 page)

“I don’t understand this shit! Has he lost his fucking mind?”

“Can you believe he knew about all of this? I just can’t believe it,” I said from the back seat of the Jaguar. “I’m not even sure what to think right now.”

Mikey, Kelvin and I had just left the junk yard after dropping off what was supposed to be Mikey’s getaway car, but ended up only casually driving away after Ivan was murdered by his own family members. I looked up at Kelvin who was sitting silently next to his uncle in the passenger seat, staring out the window. The look on his face was one that could only be described as being fed up and exasperated. His brow was furrowed and I could see the tension in his jaw as we drove.

“Kelvin,” I said, trying to grab his attention. “Are you okay?”

It took him a second to answer me, but then he finally took a deep breath and turned around to look at me, and I could see the anger in his eyes.

“I’m fine, Babe,” he replied with an obviously forced smile. “It’s just a lot to take in.”

“You goddamn right it is!” Mikey snapped. “It’s bullshit. I always knew that your father was little off his rocker. I always knew that he cared more about himself than he did the rest of us, but this is just on a whole different level. I mean, how could he do this? How could just completely disrespect Deshaun’s memory like this? Did he forget everything that we’ve been through? I mean… what the fuck?”

“It doesn’t make any sense. I never thought he’d take it this far,” Kelvin said quietly. “I always knew my dad was an asshole, too, but it just seems like something has clicked in his head, and he’s not thinking about The Family anymore. It’s all about him. He’s forgotten all about us.”

“You’re exactly right, Junior. He’s forgotten who he is and where he came from. We decided as a family a long time ago that we’d never get involved with selling
any
kind of drugs. We agreed that it was bad to be putting that shit out in the streets, and we agreed that it was destroying our youth and ruining the heart of our city. We said we’d never do it. He’s breaking a promise that we made decades ago, so that he can make a new promise to the fucking Russians. I just never thought anything like this would happen.”

“The question now is, what’s the next move for us?” I said, looking up at Mikey through the rearview mirror. “I know you have Lauren and your life to figure out, but what the hell are we supposed to do? Are we really naïve enough to believe that he’s just gonna leave us alone? I saw the look on his face as we were leaving, and I know he’s not done sticking his nose in our lives.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do, then I’ll tell you what the two of you need to do. What I’m gonna do is go home, kiss my beautiful wife, and tell her that we’re packing up and leaving Chicago. I love this city with everything I have in me, but I know that if I stay here, Senior will find me, and he’ll find a way to keep himself in my life, and I just can’t have that anymore. This was the last straw for me. It might take us a few weeks to get everything sorted out, but I think it’s the only way I can get a clean break from him and protect myself and my wife.”

“Damn, Uncle Mikey,” Kelvin said, looking over at his uncle with a disappointed look on his face. “You’d leave Chicago? That’s deep. You’ve lived here your whole life.”

“I know, and I never said that it’d be easy for me to do, but I really don’t see any other way.”

“You’ve always been my rock, Unc. I’ve looked up to you more than I have my own father. I understand what you’re saying and I know that you’re right, but it’d be shitty to watch you go. I’m not sure how I’d feel about living here if you weren’t here.”

Mikey looked over at Kelvin with a look of sorrow. “I know. You’ve been like the son I never was able to have, but you’re also a grown man, and you’ve got your own life to live. Which is what I suggest you do.”

“That’s your advice to me? Live my own life?”

“Yes, actually. My advice to you is for you to take sole control of the Red Chip, and make that shit yours. Owning that casino could be a very lucrative thing for you, but you have to cut out all the dirty money. Get rid of all that illegal gambling that your father has going on in the fucking basement, and clean that place up. You have to figure out how to get your dad to sign that casino over to you, Junior. That’s your ticket. What the hell else are you gonna do? Go back to college? Why go through all that and run the risk of never being hired in whatever field you choose to go into, when you can own your own business at the age of twenty-two?

No matter what happens, don’t let your dad start bringing drugs into that place. If you do, you’re fucked. It’ll ruin everything, and every chance you have of being financially stable at a young age. You’re the one chance the Carters have at having someone have success without having to get involved in this gangster lifestyle. You can be our success story, Junior. You can come up, and you can do it without having to look over your shoulder for the fucking cops every day. That’s where your focus needs to be, Nephew. Taking the Red Chip and making it your own.”

Kelvin nodded as his uncle, and then turned around and nodded at me. When I nodded back at him, I hoped that he knew that I was agreeing with his uncle. In my opinion, Mikey was absolutely right. I knew that Kelvin had no desire to go back to college, and when things weren’t completely hectic with his family, he was running the day-to-day stuff at the Red Chip already anyway. It was his plan all along to gain full control of the casino and turn it into his vision, and separate himself from his father, and with everything that had just happened, now seemed like the best time to try to do that. The only problem was, how the hell was he supposed to convince Senior to sign over the casino? Especially after all the drama that just went down.

“That’s exactly what I want to do, Unc,” Kelvin finally replied. “The hard part, however, is having to go through my dad in order to become the full owner. He has to sign it over to me. I get the feeling it’d take
a lot
of convincing to do that.”

“Well, then you better figure out when you’re gonna get started convincing him,” Mikey said as we pulled up to the gate leading to his house, and waited for it to open completely. “Don’t get caught up in what I’m doing. Me and Lauren are gonna be fine. Just do what you have to do. Maybe you need to take a page out of your father’s book and manipulate him into doing what you want
him
to do. If I was you, that’s what I’d do.”

Mikey drove the luxury car through the gate and into the garage.

“Well, that’s a lot easier said than done, Unc,” Kelvin said. “I can’t do that kind of shit. I’m not him.”

“I know that, and I wouldn’t insult you by saying that you’re like him, but it seems like a pretty smart thing to do, because he’d never expect you to do it.”

The three of us all got out of the car and made our way inside. When we walked through the door, Lauren was already standing in the hall smiling at us.

“You’re back,” she said, reaching out to hug her husband. “How’d everything go? Did you do it?”

The three of us looked at each other, wondering which one of us was going to be the one to tell her everything that had just happened. Kelvin and I smiled at each other, and then we both turned to Mikey, who caught on quickly.

“Oh, I guess I get to be the one to tell this long, elaborate, drama-filled story,” he said to us before turning his attention back to his wife. “Let us all get changed and then we’ll sit down on the couch and I’ll explain everything.”

Then, minutes later, we were all seated on the couch in the beautifully decorated living room wearing our baggy “house clothes”. All four of us had some sort of alcoholic beverage in hand while Mikey proceeded to tell his wife all the craziness that had just happened. The look on her face as he told the story was priceless, and I couldn’t help but smile, even though I knew the story was actually pretty ridiculous and nothing funny. We all could use a laugh and smile in this fucked up time.

“So, they shot their own brother right there on the street?” Lauren inquired, still surprised by the news. “And Senior knew all about this the whole fucking time? And now he wants all of you to start selling fucking heroin, and hiding it in your establishments? Holy shit!”

“I know,” I interjected. “That’s pretty much the exact same thing all of us said.”

“Okay, so what now?” Lauren asked, looking at all of us.

“Well, I told Senior that I’m out, Baby.” Mikey answered. “I told him I didn’t want any part of the shit that he’s doing with the drugs and the Russians, and I’m out.”

“You’re out? What about the rest of your brothers? Did they say they were out too?”

“I don’t know. At least not while we were there, they didn’t. But, it doesn’t matter. We’ve been able to put aside enough money from the club that we really don’t need anything else from Senior. We can move on and be fine without…”

Suddenly, there was a loud buzz that startled us all.

“What the hell was that?” I asked, looking around to try to figure out where the sound came from.

“Somebody’s at the gate,” Mikey replied. He got up and walked upstairs and into his bedroom for a brief second, then came sauntering back down into the living room with a baffled look on his face. “It’s the cops. Chicago PD.”

“What the fuck would Chicago PD be doing here?” Lauren asked.

“I guess we’re about to find out. I just let them in the gate.” Mikey made his way over to the front door with the rest of us trailing behind him. He opened the door and stood out on the porch as two Chicago PD cruisers pulled up to the driveway.

Once they stopped, four officers got out, two from each car. The moment I saw the one who was obviously leading the group, I felt my heart sink to the pit of my stomach. I’d seen him once before.

“Is there something I can help you officers with?” Mikey asked, purposely standoffish.

“Yes. In fact there is something you can help us with, Michael,” the short, stocky officer in the front said. I found myself staring at the tattoos that were running up his neck. The same tattoos I’d seen the day Kelvin checked out the hospital. Then, he held up a piece of paper for all of us to see. “I’m Officer Garin, and what I have here is a search warrant. We received an anonymous tip that you have drugs on the premises.”

“What the fuck? An anonymous tip, huh? Yeah, I bet it was anonymous,” Mikey said as he snatched the warrant out of the officers hands. “This is bullshit. I don’t have any fucking drugs in my house. Feel free to search the house, and then feel free to get the fuck out.”

“I didn’t say anything about the house, Mr. Carter. I said the premises.”

The two officers in the rear walked over to their car and popped the trunk, then pulled out two shovels.

“I’m gonna need you to lead us to your backyard, Mr. Carter,” Officer Garin said in his deep, husky voice.

“My backyard? You’re gonna dig in my backyard? I don’t think so.” Lauren asked, trying her best to hold back her anger.

“Let me handle this, Lauren,” Mikey interrupted. “It’s fine. Just do what you’ve gotta do and then get the fuck out of my house.”

Mikey turned around and led all of us through the house and out the back door. As we walked, I felt my heart beating violently in my chest, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that something serious was about to happen, and it absolutely was
not
a coincidence, just like this tip was
not
anonymous.

When we stepped outside, the three other officers followed the only one who’d said anything over to the edge of the decking. They all seemed to be looking down at the same spot.

“Right here,” Officer Garin stated, pointing to an obviously freshly dug spot in the ground. It was the only place in the entire backyard that wasn’t completely covered with thick green grass, and the moment I watched them start digging, I knew what was happening.

“What the fuck is this?” Mikey snapped. “That spot has never looked like that before. Look at my yard. There isn’t a patch of dirt anywhere, but all of a sudden there is a perfect circle of dirt right here on the corner of the decking? What the fuck is going on here?”

The cops didn’t even bother answering. Instead, one of the men with the shovels reached down into the shallow hole they’d just dug and pulled out a small duffel bag that had only been buried deep enough to just cover the top of it.

“Is this what I think it is, Mr. Carter?” Officer Garin asked with a patronizing grin.

“Man, what the fuck! I’ve never seen that shit in my life. That shit isn’t mine!”

Officer Garin placed the bag on the ground, unzipped it, and pulled out two brick-shaped bags of a yellowish brown substance—the same substance that we’d just seen at Senior’s place.

“You motherfuckers!” Mikey blared. “You’re trying to set me up! You’re trying to frame me!”

“This looks a lot like heroin, right here in your backyard Mr. Carter. That’s all the information we need,” Officer Garin replied. “You’re under arrest for possession of narcotics.”

The other three cops all rushed Mikey at the same time. Two of them held him, while the third put the handcuffs on him. Lauren watched in horror as they pushed Mikey back inside and started leading him through the house.

“Those fucking drugs aren’t ours! Senior did this!” she screamed as the cops opened the back seat to one of their cruisers and shoved Mikey inside. “This is a setup!”

Officer Garin walked over to Lauren and stopped only inches from her face. “Senior? Hhmm. I have no idea who you’re talking about. But, whoever it is, maybe your husband should’ve listened to him.” Then, he walked over to his car, smiling at Kelvin and me as he closed his door, and drove away with Mikey staring at us through the window of the backseat.