Cigar Bar (10 page)

“What are you talking about, Mom?” Amber inquired.

The older woman just shook her head. “Listen, I would ask you to stay, but as you see, Mama trying to do her thing. Please, if you don’t mind…” she said as she opened the bedroom door and escorted the girls to the front entrance. “Listen, thanks for coming by and be careful. Y’all are two beautiful girls. Don’t lose that!”

The two younger women exited, and the boy with the large cock screamed out, “Ma, get her number for me!”

“Boy, are you stupid?” the old lady asked, closing the door. “You just make sure that dick of yours stays hard while we see who can ride it the longest.” Amber and Sherry heard music and laughter coming from the apartment as they headed down the hall.

“Wow, that old lady be gettin’ it in!” said Sherry.

“Yeah, Moms don’t play,” replied Amber. As the girls got into the car, Amber turned to Sherry and said, “Okay, this is what I think we should do.”

“Wait!” Sherry screamed.

“What, girl?”

“We forgot to ask her about Tony.”

“Oh shit! Fuck! You’re right, shit! I’m so sorry, girl! There was so much shit going on that it completely slipped my mind.”

“Fuck that! I’m going back up there and ask her,” Sherry said.

“No the fuck you’re not! Didn’t you see how she hustled us out the fuckin’ door? Obviously, we are not welcomed. How ’bout we go get a hotel room, chill out for a while, and get a little high? But before we do all dat, we should take some of this money and go buy some outfits for tonight. Shit, because after we get high and chill, we’re gonna go to a fuckin’ club I know. It’s the perfect one, over in Manhattan. I figure we might as well get a room at, like, let’s say the Ritz Carlton or something. I mean, come on, Sherry. We got all this money and all this shit.” She paused and tapped her pocket. “If we go to any other hotel, we wouldn’t be able to leave this shit. We are definitely not riding around with this all fuckin’ night.”

“Okay, you got it,” Sherry said.

“Let’s have some fuckin’ fun!” The girl started the car, and they were off into the night.

Meanwhile, it had been over three hours since Sherry took off. Paulie still had no clue. He had been in the basement the entire time, torturing the man. He had sent one of his men upstairs to keep an eye on his sister, but the man had simply looked at the closed door, incorrectly assuming that Sherry was in there.

Paulie came upstairs, blood dripping from the towel that he was wiping his hands on. The front of his shirt was stained with what appeared to be blood and chunks of meat. “How’s my sister?” he asked the man.

“Not a peep. She must be asleep.”

“Sherry, come out here. What do you wanna eat?” he asked, as if nothing had just happened in the basement. He had two dead bodies down there, and here he was, taking his shirt off and just changing it as if nothing was wrong.

After he changed his clothes, he went back to Sherry’s door and opened it while knocking. “Sherry?” Paulie walked into the room. No Sherry. He checked her bathroom. No Sherry. “Hey, dumbass!” he called out to the man in the hallway.

The man ran to the bedroom. “Yeah, Paulie?”

“Do you see anybody in this fuckin’ room?”

The man said, “Huh?”

Paulie walked by his man and warned, “If anything happens to my sister, I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you! How fucking long ago did I send you up here, you motherfucker? You didn’t even check to see if she was still in her room, fuckin’ prick!”

Paulie pulled out his gun and began to beat the man in the face. Once. Twice.
Bam, bam!
Three times. Four.
Bam, bam!
Paulie’s hits landed so hard on the man that it sounded like he was shooting a gun as he beat him. More and more blood stained his clothes. He threw the man to the floor and wiped his bloody gun off on the man’s hair. Paulie was enraged. None dared to walk near him. He felt that his life was falling apart, and he didn’t know how to stop it. As he was walking into the living room, his doorbell rang. One of his men answered it and quickly moved out of the way.

“Hey, Paulie.” Veto was walking in with Sal.

They were almost like family. Veto wished Paulie truly had been in the family, but he had chosen his own path. His choice had worked out well until now.

As they walked into the kitchen, they saw Paulie standing there, drinking a glass of milk. They also saw his bloody shirt and the gun in his waistband.

“Hey. Oh, what the
fuck
is going on in here?” Veto asked Paulie.

“I have a bunch of crazy motherfuckers working for me, so I had to show them who was crazier,” he said, pouring another glass of milk.

“Where’s Sherry at?” Veto inquired.

“Fuck if I know,” Paulie said as he tilted his cup to his mouth.

Sal walked up and down the hallway, laughing as he looked around at all the blood. He saw the bodies on the floor in the basement and was glad that he wasn’t on Paulie’s bad side. “You really outdid yourself with this new art you have,” Sal said. He stepped over the bloodied man in the hallway, then asked, “So, what do you call this?”

Paulie looked up, knocked off the rest of his milk, and wiped his hands on his shirt. “I call it three shirts in one day,” he said, removing his shirt. He walked into his room to change it again.

Veto chimed in. “Paulie, look at me when I’m fuckin’ talking! Dammit, do you hear me?” He grabbed Paulie’s arm before he reached his room to change his shirt.

“Yeah, Veto!” Paulie said with arrogance and a look that made Veto flinch.

Veto pulled back and said, “If you ever do that shit to me again, you’re a fuckin’ wet spot on the floor that somebody is gonna have to wipe up! You got it?”

He said it with such conviction that the men in the room looked at Paulie, shook their heads from side to side, and tried to get him to relax. Nobody ever did that to Don Veto Santoro and lived to tell about it. However, Paulie was sort of a family member, and Sherry was like his niece.

Paulie realized that he might have fucked up. He tried to play another angle. “Listen, Uncle V, the niggers are trying to kill me. Your fuckin’ nephew gets my sister hooked on heroin and rapes her, and, to top it off, all my businesses were robbed and burned. They hit my taxi stand out in Queens and all the bars I own in Manhattan. So, please, Veto, forgive me. My head is not where it should be right now. I meant no disrespect.”

What Paulie didn’t see when all that transpired between him and Veto was that Sal was already standing behind him, shotgun ready. Veto nodded to Sal to let him know that it was okay. It was then that Paulie realized that he was a dead man. “Well, listen, first off, we find your sister.”

When Paulie heard that, he ran over to the man on the floor and stomped him a few more times in the face. “Hey!” Veto screamed out, demanding the man to stop.

Sal laughed and Paulie’s men couldn’t take it anymore. They had watched him kill and maim people for hours. Some of them just put their guns down and walked out of the room for fear that they might be next. Paulie said nothing as the men departed.

Sal turned and said, “Smart men! I would get the fuck away from your crazy ass too. You’re on a fuckin’ rampage over heeeere!” he said. He dragged out the last word while flicking his chin. “But I gotta say, I like you. You’re my kind of fuckin’ man! Hey, Veto, can we keep him?”

Veto looked around the house. “We can’t leave him here.” He then pointed to Paulie’s remaining three bodyguards and said, “Listen, you three, go clean this fuckin’ house up from top to bottom. I don’t wanna see a trace of anything! I don’t have to tell you what will happen, do I?” They knew what the whole state of New York knew. The men nodded their heads to let him know that they were loyal to his cause. They immediately jumped to the task at hand.

Veto stuck his hand in his pocket, pulled out $6000, and handed it to the men. “Now, listen, when this thing here is done, I want you to find those fuckers that left. Take care of that little problem, capisce? Then come down by the club later and sit down with Vinnie.”

The men were elated but they didn’t want to show it. They knew that if they accomplished this mission, their futures were set.

Veto demanded, “Paulie, now you go get your shit and get in the fuckin’ truck!”

The walk to the truck made Paulie feel like he was walking with the President. Veto’s men were lined up and down the walkway on both sides, each man facing a different direction, while one held the door open.

“Now, where the hell would Sherry go?” Veto asked.

“I really couldn’t tell you,” Paulie shook his head. “I watched her go to school. I would leave and just wait for her to return.” Then it clicked in his head. “Amber!” he screamed. “Sherry hung out with a short, blonde babe named Amber. She’s out in, in uh…
Fuck!
I can’t recall her fuckin’ address! Shit, I only went over there one time.”

“Give me her number,” he said as they drove down the highway. Veto then gave her number to one of his men. “I want you to reach that number, and don’t stop calling until you reach a live person.” The phone rang and rang, but no one would answer. It was set on silent, and it was sitting on the girl’s dresser at home.

CHAPTER 6

• • •

Mr. Y and Dawn sat
in his big mansion.

Mr. Y asked, “Dawn, please, is there some movie you want to watch? Are you hungry? Please, whatever you want, just tell my man. He will get whatever you want. Now, please, you relax and be comfortable. I regret you have to stay here, but, hey, look at what you get,” Mr. Y said with a heavy Ukrainian accent.

Dawn looked around the mansion. She had a swimming pool, a giant TV mounted on the wall, and a full bar available to her. She said, “Well, if I’m gonna be kidnapped, I’m glad it was you and not them hood-ass motherfuckers! They would have a bitch tied the fuck up in a basement on the block some fuckin’ where. Yeah, we good. The situation is fucked up, but we good.”

Mr. Y’s men laughed as they made their exit. Dawn kicked her shoes off and sat on the oversize chocolate-brown couch. It was so large that it looked like it could seat an entire family.

“Damn,” she said, “this joint is the shit!” She looked up at Mr. Y and gave him two thumbs up. “See ya around, Mr. Y.”

He said, “I will be right down the hall if you need me. Just think of this place as yours, and feel free to take a look.”

Dawn took him up on his offer and strolled around the mansion some more. She looked at the books on the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. She checked the titles of dozens of CDs and DVDs. Each room had something comfortable and familiar, making her feel right at home. Dawn smiled because, even in her present situation, she wasn’t fearful or uncomfortable. She decided to make herself a drink and go sit by the Olympic-size heated pool.

One of the men came back while she was sitting near the pool. He placed her cell phone on the well-stocked bar and departed. Dawn rushed to the phone and called her brother.

“Oh shit, it’s Dawn! Baby girl, you okay?”

“Yes. I hate to say it, but he’s been really fuckin’ nice, bro. They got me in this big mansion and shit. There’s movies, music, whatever the fuck I want, and a full fuckin’ bar!”

Spazo got pissed. “Listen, when I get your ass out of this shit, I’m gonna kick it, so get ready! You’re in this shit because you got a fucking drug habit. Shit, I’m doing all this crazy bullshit to get your ass out of all this shit, and here, you acting like you’re on fuckin’ vacation and shit! Ooh, just wait ’til I see your ass, girl!”

Dawn had not heard her brother speak like that before. She instantly turned into that cute, little five-year-old girl he remembered. She even sounded like a little kid. “I’m sorry, Derrick, I got in way over my head. Please don’t hurt me!”

Her little act worked. Spazo visualized her as he saw her at five, with her pigtails and adorable smile. “Listen, baby, it’s okay. We’re going to get you out of this. I’m going to pick up your Uncle Ghetto, and we’re gonna find this motherfucker and bring you home, okay, baby girl?” He hung up the phone. He didn’t have a clue as to how he was supposed to find this motherfucker Tony.

He put the word out in the streets. His crew had watched him for weeks, getting heroin from the motherfucker that they were stalking, but they never knew how relevant he would become in this situation. Oh well, he knew that someone would find out.

All of a sudden, Spazo’s phone rang again. It was a call from his people in the Bronx. There had been a shootout with a white boy who matched the description. The boy Flaco, who had copped from them on many occasions, knew who he was. In fact, the caller said that Flaco came to the white boy’s rescue with a crew of about three. He said that they were coming after his little cousin.

“Okay, check this out. Y’all go down there and put some eyes on this Flaco cat. I’ll be there in a minute. Also, hit that dude who gave you the info off with, like, five hundred dollars, and protect his family.”

The person on the other line said, “Yo, Spazo, I thought the bounty was five thousand.”

“What the fuck did you just ask me, pussy?” Spazo said angrily.

The man backtracked. He thought about the bodies that Spazo had accumulated. “I’m so sorry Spaz. My fault!” he said and then hung up quickly.

Spazo jumped from the back of the truck and walked into the apartment located on the West Side of Manhattan. Ghetto had a loft that was so big, he was able to drive his cars onto the elevator and park them in his apartment if he wanted to. The décor was dark: black walls, floors, and furnishings. He had a black leather sofa, loveseat, and ottoman in the living room; black table, nightstands, and lampshades too.

Strolling around the massive apartment was a big-ass black Cane Corso named Mighty. His size alone would scare anyone who encountered him, but he was also vicious and very smart. He knew Spazo as one of the cool ones. Had anyone else opened that door and walked in, a limb or a piece of clothing would have been lost.

When he saw Spazo, Mighty let out a loud “Woof!” The sound shook the room. Like a giant child, the dog ran to greet Spazo. Spazo was used to this treatment. He caught the big dog in the air and gently put him on the ground.

“How’s my big boy?” he asked gently. While he pet him, the dog rolled around on the floor, jumped up, and ran around Spazo. He made happy whining sounds as he expressed his joy of seeing Spazo again. Spazo reached into the bag that he had brought with him and pulled out a giant marrow bone that he had gotten from the butcher around his way. He never came over there unless he had something for Mighty.

“I’m on my way!” Ghetto screamed into the phone as he came out of his bedroom. “Damn! What the fuck?” As he hung up his call, he swore under his breath. “Dumb-ass bitches! Man, I swear, they a pain in my ass!”

“Who was that, pretty-ass Brenda? Let me guess…she wants to buy something?” Spazo asked, laughing.

Ghetto just shook his head. “Man,
fuck
that bitch! She’s fired! I gotta get me a new one!”

“Nigga, cut that shit out!” Spazo shouted. “That bitch is a fine-ass motherfucker with her caramel-colored ass. And that bitch is a freak, mu’fucka! You ain’t going nowhere!” Spazo laughed.

“You damn right! But damn, that bitch be draining a nigga. She pushin’ hotter whips than me! Shit!” Ghetto smiled. “What up, playboy?” He greeted Spazo with a quick hug and a tap on the back.

Ghetto had a bald head. Women loved his chocolate complexion. He wore jeans that were baggy but fit nice and obviously cost a grip, and he wore diamonds on his neck. On his wrist was a diamond watch. These boys were making millions from drug extortion and other crimes through New York, Atlanta, Baltimore, and Washington, D, C. It got to the point that they didn’t have to travel anymore. The money came back to them; people out there would never try to rob them, not like the Ukrainians had gotten robbed. They made a mess and they had some vicious thugs working for them.

He looked at Spazo. “Aren’t you a little overdressed for the mission we’re about to take on?”

“No, I’m good. You comfortable in your shit, and I’m comfortable in suits. What the fuck? How many times do we have to go through this same shit, nigga? Damn, you talkin’ ’bout me, but you got all this fuckin’ ice around your neck and wrist!”

“Whatever, nigga! Let’s bounce!” Ghetto said, and the men exited the house. Ghetto turned to the dog and said, “Guard!”

Mighty perked up immediately and began circling the apartment, window to window. Ghetto had a system set up so that dog food would drop automatically. The dog actually watched Ghetto turn the faucet on and off until he learned to do it himself. As soon as the door closed, the big dog grabbed his marrow bone, sat in the window where he could see everything, and devoured his bone.

“So, what’s our move?” Ghetto inquired. “And how’s my niece?”

“Well, hmm,” Spazo shook his head. “Can you believe she just called me and was bragging about having a pool and a bar and shit? Man, listen, when I saw them putting her in that fuckin’ truck, man, I thought I was never gonna see her again! That shit fucked me up, for real.”

Ghetto looked at the man. “Nigga, chill; she good. All we gotta do is handle this shit and get her back.
Shit!
We ought to be happy that those niggas off the block didn’t snatch her.” Everyone in the truck nodded their heads in agreement.

“Any fuckin’ way,” Spazo cut in, “we just got a call. Some young Bronx kid named Flaco. We on it already.”

“Well, cool! Let’s go scoop his ass up,” Ghetto said to the driver of the truck as they sped down the street.

It took no time to get from Harlem to the Bronx. They sat outside Flaco’s crib and waited. They sat so still, no one would ever have suspected that four armed thugs were in the truck.

Then Spazo’s phone rang. “Hello?”

“Yeah, Spaz. The young boy that runs with the Flaco kid will be in your sight in about fifteen seconds.”

“Got my eyes on him,” Spazo replied. The men in the jeep continued to sit there as Spazo looked on.

“Is that our boy?” Ghetto asked.

Spazo responded, “Nah, but that’s
his
boy.”

“I got this one,” Ghetto said. He leaped from the car. Although the crew in the car could hear nothing, they all jumped out of the truck when they saw Ghetto pick the guy up and slam him on his face. The guy was knocked out cold.

Spazo and the crew ran up. “What the fuck?” Spazo asked, looking down at the man on the ground, bleeding. “How the
fuck
are we supposed to get in there now, G?
Damn!
”

“I said I got this, right?” Ghetto said as he looked at his boy. “You pretty motherfucker,” he said to Spazo. “Boon, tie this nigga up in the back of the hall, and hurry the fuck up. Let’s go!”

They made their way into the building. As they got into the hall, Ghetto told them to chill. He knocked on Flaco’s door. It was perfect. The door was only about ten feet from the corner.

Knock. Knock.
“Who is it?” replied the man from behind the door.

“Sofrito!” Ghetto replied.

As soon as he said this, the front door unlocked. Ghetto let out two quick whistles. Spazo and the other two men came around swiftly, their guns drawn.

Flaco opened the door, expecting to see one man. He realized a little too late that the one man had suddenly become four. He tried to slam the door on the men, but it was useless. He turned and ran into his living room. Flaco twisted around and raised his weapon to fire, but this was no ordinary crew.

These hitmen who worked for Spazo and Ghetto were also skilled in martial arts. Flaco just happened to get Jimmy, who was skilled in capoeira. Jimmy leaped from the floor and into the air at a 360-degree angle. He spun in the air and kicked so hard that the boy went flying backward. His gun flew up into the air along with him. When Jimmy landed back on his feet, he caught the gun. This all happened before Flaco had finished falling backward and crashing into a corner.

Spazo loved to see his men in action, and a big smile crossed his face, “Damn,” he said, “you got fucked up. Wow.”

“Get him up,” said Ghetto. The two men went over and picked the man off the floor. While that was happening, his mother came out from the back room, speaking in Spanish.

“Mama, hold on.”

“Oh, Danny, what are you getting yourself involved in?” she asked, her hands on her cheeks, looking around at all the men with guns. She looked around her living room and noticed her TV destroyed. “
Aye
, my TV!” she gasped.

“Mom!” Flaco screamed. “You’re worried about your TV when all the rest of this shit is going on?”

Ghetto, Spazo, and his men stood there looking back and forth between them as the scene unfolded. “Okay, enough. Please, mama, would you have a seat?” Ghetto begged.

“Si, Si,”
the old lady replied, sitting. “Oh, my TV! All my shows! How am I gonna see all of my shows now?”

Ghetto laughed.

“Okay, listen,” Flaco spoke, “the guns are in a panel in my wall.”

The men looked at each other. “Yo, Boon, hold Moms down.”

The other three walked in the room, and they saw that he had multiple brand-new flat-screens, the latest Xbox, laptops, computers, and a number of other up-to-date gadgets.

Spazo spoke up first. “You mean to tell me, you have all this electronic shit in your room, and your mother is out there watching a TV from 1980? That is some fucked-up shit,” he said, slapping the back of the man’s head.

“She didn’t want anything,” he says to them. “Every time I tried to get her anything, she just told me, ‘No, I’m happy with this. Besides, who can work this new stuff?’”

They understood and Jimmy pushed the man. “Okay, where is it?”

Flaco went to a corner and pushed a button. Inside the closet, another door opened, and he pulled out a suitcase, then another. When they open them, they began to smile.

“What the fuck?” Ghetto questioned. “Where you get all these motherfuckers from?” he asked, picking up an Uzi and fondling several other guns.

“Does it really matter?” Flaco replied. “You got what you’re here for; now take the shit and get the fuck out.”

Spazo looked at the man. “Oh, wait a minute, you’re a tough motherfucker, huh? Yeah, yeah, you’re that same tough motherfucker I saw get kicked in the face in the other room about a minute ago. And, oh yeah, we’ll take your fuckin’ guns. But trust me, that’s not the only reason we’re here. You see, I heard you sold a gun to a white boy, who, in less than a half hour afterward, had a shootout with some boys with that same weapon he purchased from you. Then I hear that you come running to his rescue, which, to me, states the obvious. Where is he and how can you contact him? Let me remind you, if I hear ‘I don’t know him’ or anything like that, my man Jimmy here is gonna get some more practice in on your ass.”

“I don’t know where he is, swear to you. He’s a friend of mine; we met in rehab. I had a dope problem, and, from what I can tell, he still does. He came in, got a gun, and left. Then that shit happened and that was the last time I saw him. I promise, I’m not lying!” Flaco replied.

“What kind of car does he drive?”

“He was driving a 2013 newer model car, but it was crashed on the left-side rear.”

“One more question.” Spazo began. “Which way did he go?”