Cracked Dreams (25 page)

Trigger and Spits just fell silent to Rachel's comment. Spits hadn't ever once seen his big sister lose her cool; and even though this is what Trigger had asked for, he himself was even surprised at the statement she'd made. They both just waited with anticipation for her to fill in the blanks that they needed for immediate action to be taken. She looked at Trigger in his eyes as she searched her memory banks for the best way to describe what had happened. Then, she looked at Spits to unconsciously assist her in her description. After another look at Trigger, she looked away—out of the window—and uttered under her breath, “It was a burglar.”

“What?” both Trigger and Spits said at the same time.

“It was a burglar,” Rachel repeated. “When I came home, I found somebody in the house. Before I even got a chance to get away or call the police, he was swinging a damn baseball bat at my head.”

“Did you see his face?” Spits asked. “Did he look familiar?”

“Yeah,” she answered. “I saw the bastard's face, but he didn't look familiar.
He was about five feet, eight inches, with long hair in corn rows. He had a brown skin tone, and he was wearing all black. That's all I remember.” With that said, Rachel just paused and waited for a reaction. Spits reacted first.

“All right,” he said. “That's cool for now. Don't stress yourself out behind this, Rachel, until you have enough strength to deal with this shit in your own mind. Let me talk to Trig right quick and I'll be right back.” Spits got up and walked toward the door and Trigger followed close behind him, still not taking his eyes off of Rachel. When they were outside the door, he said, “Yo, you think you could find something out from the description she gave? I know it ain't shit, but we ain't got shit else right now, you know?”

“Yeah,” Trigger replied. “That's just gonna have to be enough, I guess. I'm gonna see what the streets is talkin' about, i-ight? I'll call you here if I find out anything, cool?”

“Yeah, no doubt,” Spits said. “You do that. I'll be here.”

“Yo, it was good seeing you again though,” Trigger said as they exchanged a pound and a hug. “Even under these circumstances, you know?”

“Yeah, I feel you, son,” he said. “Let's see if we can't make the best out of a fucked-up situation.”

When Spits and Trigger ended their embrace, Trigger was off. As the elevator doors were closing, Spits reentered the room where Rachel was. Startlingly, Spits returned to hear the sound of Rachel sniffling. When he came from around the curtain, she had formed a small puddle of tears on her pillow. When he rubbed her back to attempt to console her, her cries grew worse.

He said, “Don't worry. We gonna find this mu'fucka, and I swear he's gonna die for what he did.”

When Rachel could no longer conceal her hurt, she looked up at Spits. She wanted him to just be able to read her mind without having to say what she was about to say, but he couldn't do that. She would just have to come clean. She softly uttered two words under her breath that got Spits' full attention the moment he heard them. She said, “I lied.”

“What are you talking about?” Spits asked confusingly.

“I lied to you, Michael,” she said, looking him straight in his eyes. “I never once had to lie to you, until now. I lied.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. “You lied to me about what?”

“I loved him, Michael,” she said now staring out of the window. “I loved him with all of my heart. I could've never imagined that he had it inside of him to do something like this. Never in a million years, Michael . . . never!”

“I don't understand, Rachel,” he said. “You're starting to confuse me.”

“I gave him everything,” she continued. “And I guess it wasn't good enough. I thought I was going to die. He almost killed me!” she screamed with all the energy she could muster. “I told him I was pregnant with his child and he called me a liar. He accused me of cheating on him with another man. I thought he would be happy for us.” She paused for a second, and then continued, “I thought you would be happy for us, but he didn't think so. He said you'd kill him if you found out.”

As Spits sat there and listened to Rachel rambling, her words started to make sense to him. Everything that had happened started to come together like a jigsaw puzzle. Pieces of one story were being pulled from everywhere. All the things that didn't make any sense were starting to become clearer.
That's why . . .
he thought to himself.
And that's what made him . . .
he figured. Could this be the answer to all of these questions? He couldn't believe it. He started to reject the obvious. He went through a brief period of denial, and then rage filled his body. He needed to hear it in plain English.

“I wanted to say it right to his face,” Rachel continued. “I wanted to scream, ‘You bastard, look what you did to me!' . . .But I couldn't . . .I just couldn't do it.”

“I need to hear you say it, Rachel,” Spits desperately requested. “I need to hear the words.”

“You know what I mean,” she cried. “Stop trying to fight it!”

“Just say it!” he yelled, as a tear leaked from his bloodshot eyes. “Just fucking say it, goddammit!”

“It was Peter!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “That's right! It was your best friend. Peter's the one that did this to me!”

Spits dropped to his knees and leaned on the bed over Rachel's legs and thought to himself,
How can this be happening?
He was just standing face to face with this punk mu'fucka, and he had the nerve to say that he was going out on the streets to find out who did this shit. His top lip curled up on one
side as he thought to himself what he would do when they met face to face again.

Spits suddenly got up off of the floor and, in a menacing trance, he walked toward the door despite the numerous cries from his sister to come back. His mind brought him to the waiting room where Red was still sleeping. Before he knew what he was doing there, he was waking him up to ask if he had a pistol on him. When Red confirmed that he was holding, Spits demanded his pistol and the keys to his car. When Red complied, he handed Spits a pair of keys and a shiny, nickel-plated .8mm Beretta, and Spits started toward the stairway. After numerous inquiries from Red as to where Spits was going fell short of his attention, he followed him to the stairs to let him know that he was parked in space number 2036 on the second floor of the parking lot. Spits shot him a “Good lookin',” and instructed him to stay with Rachel until he returned. Red complied once again.

When Spits found himself at space number 2036, he was surprised at what he discovered.

As Ceelow and El Don got back into the car, Poncho hit the gas. Everything went according to plans. Poncho drove calmly from the crime scene and went down 226th Street. He let Ceelow out of the car on 224th Street and Carpenter Avenue so that he and El Don could dump the car. Ceelow got out, leaving the shotgun in the back seat, and headed up the block where he would go home and change clothes before coming back out to see if there would be anybody talking to the police about the murder that had just taken place. By the time he got upstairs, changed, and then back out to the front of the building, about half an hour had passed. By now, the cops had reached the crime scene, and they were sealing it off from the crowd that had gathered. Almost everybody that lived in 666 was standing outside by now, asking each other what was going on. Cee posted up in front to make his own inquiries as to what had gone down.

“Yo!” he called to Winston. “What's all this shit about, dog?”

“Me no know,” he answered. “A bwoy must've get shot up, seen?”

“Oh, for real?” Cee asked.

Just then, out of a car that had just come to an abrupt halt in front of the building came another dark figure. But this time the dark figure was coming towards Ceelow. This dark figure also had an object in hand, cocked and loaded. When the dark figure pointed the object, Cee realized that the dark figure was Jacob and the object was a .9 mm pistol.
POW! POW!
The sound left an echo in Ceelow's ears, and he heard nothing else. Everybody was scattering now. All it took was a blink of the eye, and Ceelow could now feel some sort of hot liquid dripping down the side of his face.

When Spits confirmed that he was at the right space number in the parking lot, he found a blood-red Ducati Monster 800, with a matching blood-red helmet tied to the back seat. Spits quickly hopped on the bike and started the engine. He placed the Beretta in his pants behind him and rode off spinning the tires out. He had still been traveling in some sort of trance when he left the parking lot, and he didn't even know where he was going, but his subconscious was taking him exactly where he needed to be. He made left turns, and right turns, until he found himself on the freeway. He hit a small bump in the street and all of a sudden came back to his senses. He found himself behind a black Dodge Durango. He stayed behind it for a little while before taking a deep breath and pulling along the side of it. He crept up on the right side of the truck until he got a clear glimpse of the driver. Spits bit his bottom lip and his eyes began to bulge out of his head as he realized it was Trigger in the driver's seat. He sped the bike up and cut over in front of Trigger. Then, he slowed down on his left side until he was parallel with the driver's side door.

By now, Trigger's curiosity had been piqued, as he wondered
What the fuck is this dude doing?
By the time he figured it out, it would be too late.

Spits kept the helmet cover down, but kept looking over at Trigger to see if he had his attention. When Spits was sure he had Trigger's undivided
attention, he faced him and lifted the helmet cover. The look on Trigger's face was worth a million in cash. When he saw Spits' screwed-up facial expression, his heart dropped down into his ass. He hit the gas but Spits wouldn't get left too far behind him. They climbed up to speeds as fast as 95 mph, but never once did Spits break eye contact with him. They locked onto each other's eyes for what seemed like hours. Every memory they had together went through their minds. They both thought about when they were kids, when they could only dream of experiencing the things that they'd experienced now that they were all grown. Nothing could hurt a man more than being stabbed in the back by someone that he could have referred to as a brother.

Spits' and Trigger's whole lives together flashed before both their eyes, until Spits reached behind his back and pulled out what looked like a bolt of lightning. The way the newly risen sun shone off the nickel-plated Beretta made Spits' hand look like it was completely consumed with light. He lifted the light, and still parallel with Trigger doing over 100 mph, he shut his eyes for the split second it took for him to pull the trigger. He let off one, two, three . . .four, five shots at Trigger, shattering his window into a thousand pieces and sending brain bits and blood onto the passenger side window and all over the interior of the truck. When Spits took one more glance into Trigger's dead eyes, he sped off. As what was left of Trigger's head fell lifelessly onto the steering wheel, his truck lost control and swerved into the median flipping over thirteen times before it came to a complete stop. Nothing could explain the tranquility that Spits felt as he rode off hearing the noise of Trigger's truck flipping over, while the wind blew on him. He had just committed his first murder and he didn't even consider giving it a second thought, even though he had just taken his oldest and best friend's life.