Dutch (5 page)

“I said, that ain’t all the money. The old wop got a safe in the back,” Dutch stated calmly, watching the greed build in the
gunman’s eyes.

Roberto shot Dutch a look of death. “You little black bastard! I’ll kill you! I may not know him, but I swear to God I’m gonna
fuckin’ kill you!”

Mrs. Piazza looked at her husband, concerned for his blood pressure and bad heart, then coldly stared at Dutch. How could
Dutch do that after all her husband had done for him? She couldn’t figure it out. She questioned, but it made no sense to
her.

“Roberto, why you let the black kid sweep up at the end of the night? He’s a moulyan and you got him hanging around like he
belongs,” she had questioned her husband.

“I like the kid, Miriam. Is that okay with you? He’s just a kid, he’s harmless,” Roberto had responded.

He isn’t that fuckin’ harmless. He got a nigger in our restaurant about to rob us blind,
thought Mrs. Piazza to herself.

The gunman looked at Roberto, then at Dutch, then took a quick glance over his shoulder at the street. He lifted the gun in
Roberto’s direction, then waved it toward the back.

“You heard the little nigga”, he said, smiling like a Cheshire cat. “Let’s go in the back, all of us.”

Roberto looked at Dutch angrily and Dutch returned his gaze nonchalantly. They all headed to the back with the gunman bringing
up the rear. When they reached the storage room, the gunman shoved Mrs. Piazza into the corner and put the gun to Roberto’s
head. “Where’s the safe, lil’ man?” he asked Dutch, never taking his eyes off Roberto.

“Bottom drawer of the file cabinet. Snatch the door off and it’s right there,” Dutch told him.

“Get to it, cracker,” the gunman spat as Roberto shot Dutch one last murderous stare, before bending down to open the bottom
drawer. When it was removed, it revealed a large safe.

“Bingo!” the gunman hollered happily.

Roberto opened the safe and inside were stacks and stacks of money.

“Cl-clean it out!” the gunman stammered. He’d never seen so much money in his life. He’d only hoped for enough to get high
for the night, but the safe appeared to have enough to get high for the rest of his life!

“Thanks, lil’ man. You leave wit’ me after this!”

He took his attention off Dutch, which was his first and last mistake. Mrs. Piazza saw the gun come out of Dutch’s waist before
her husband. The gunman never saw it. She started to scream and the little sound that did escape her lips caught the gunman’s
attention, but before he could turn around…

His brains sprayed all over the cabinet and the walls and on Roberto’s dirty white apron. He slumped over dead before he hit
the floor. Roberto looked up completely astonished to see the automatic .32 in Dutch’s hand and a smile on his young black
face.

“What the fuck?” was all Roberto could stammer out as Dutch retucked his gun and leaned against the wall calmly. Mrs. Piazza
stared blankly at Dutch. Her heart told her it was all over, but her mind couldn’t compute the chain of twisting events that
had left a dead black man lying at her feet quickly enough. Just moments before, she would’ve paid anything to see Dutch lie
in a pool of his own blood. But now she found herself thanking Mary, mother of Jesus, that he had been there. No one spoke
but Dutch.

“Gimme the keys to the van and I’ll take care of the body,” Dutch told Roberto.

Roberto was still too shocked to say anything. He merely reached into his pocket and handed Dutch the keys.

When Dutch returned, Mrs. Piazza was sitting behind the counter sipping a cup of black coffee. She had calmed down by then.
It wasn’t the blood or even the body that shook her up. She had seen more than her share of those, being married to the mob.
It was the way this young black boy had so correctly calculated the situation and moved so swiftly. Dutch approached the counter
and dropped the keys by her hand.

“Roberto in the back?” he asked politely.

She nodded. It was then that she knew this young black child was a cold-blooded killer. Only the cold-blooded could do what
he had done and return with the innocence of youth. As Dutch went toward the back, she called to him.

“Hey,” was all she said because she didn’t know his name. Dutch turned to face her.

“Thank you.” She smiled.

Dutch returned her smile and then disappeared in the back.

Two days later, Dutch was on her front porch. She answered the door to find him standing there.

“Hello, Mrs. Piazza. How are you?”

“Fine, young man, fine. Please, come in,” she said, standing aside to allow him to pass. Her husband had invited young Dutch
over for dinner and to meet Fat Tony Cerone, to whom the safe and its contents belonged. She walked Dutch into the living
room where Tony and Roberto were sitting waiting for dinner. She returned to the kitchen, which was separated from the living
room only by a cabinet-counter partition. Roberto stood up to shake Dutch’s hand. Fat Tony, who was too fat to get up even
if he wanted to, sat through the introduction.

“So, this is him, huh? This is the kid we owe sixty-five thousand to?” Fat Tony asked through teeth clenched tight around
an equally fat cigar.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Dutch.”

“Dutch? Strange name for a black kid; how’d you get a name like Dutch?” Tony asked.

Dutch just shrugged his shoulders as if he didn’t know, but he knew it just wasn’t important. Young as he was, he realized
he was in the presence of power and knew the potential of such a situation.

He’d learned from Roberto that Italians may be clannish and not particularly fond of his kind, but he knew they could recognize
a thoroughbred at first sight.

“Sit down, Dutch. Take a load off,” Roberto suggested, gesturing to the love seat across from Fat Tony.

“How old are you, Dutch?”

“Fourteen.”

“Fourteen, huh? When I was fourteen, I had a BB gun, a hard dick, and both were shootin’ blanks,” Tony said and they all shared
a laugh.

“I guess times have changed since then,” Dutch replied, wearing what would become his trademark smile.

“Yeah, I guess so. Listen, I want you to know I really appreciate what you did for me,” Tony said as his expression lost its
humorous touch and became serious. “But, of course, I wouldn’t have to be here if you hadda kept your mouth shut, huh?” Tony
concluded, but Dutch didn’t answer because he knew Tony had answered his question himself.

“So, let me ask you somethin’, Dutch. What were you thinking about when you just fuckin’ blurted out to the fuckin’ guy about
my safe, huh? What the hell was on your mind jeopardizin’ my fuckin’ money for fuckin’ pizza money, huh?” Tony was huffing
from the energy he expended, so he sat back, puffed his cigar, looked at Dutch, and waited for a response.

“I like Roberto,” Dutch simply stated.

“You what?” Fat Tony asked as if he didn’t hear Dutch the first time.

“I like Roberto,” Dutch repeated.

“Izzat so? Well, what would’ve happened if the fuckin’ guy didn’t take your suggestion, huh, then what? Suppose he hadn’t
believed you and ran out leaving you to deal with the fact that Roberto trusted you and you fuckin’ betrayed that trust, then
what? You think Roberto would’ve liked you then?”

“To me, it wasn’t just pizza money. It belonged to Roberto, and since I consider Roberto a friend, stealing from him was like
stealing from me, and any man is gonna do what they gotta do when what belongs to him is threatened. So, I did what I had
to do, but if I woulda been wrong, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation and I’d probably be dead,” Dutch explained
as Fat Tony just sat there looking at him like he was crazy.

“You afraid to die?” Tony asked as he paused for a moment, intensely studying Dutch.

“You askin’ me am I afraid to die or am I afraid of you?” questioned Dutch as he stared Fat Tony in his eyes, never blinking,
never looking away.

“Whichever one’s more appropriate to the question,” Fat Tony responded with a smirk as he looked at Roberto.

“Then no,” Dutch replied, his eyes locked on Fat Tony.

Cigar smoke drifted between the two and the eye contact was broken. Tony dumped his ashes in the ashtray as he looked back
at Dutch.

“But,” Dutch continued, “I do respect you, Mr. Cerone.”

Dutch stood up and held out his hand to Tony. Tony looked up at the small, black hand extended to him, then up into the eyes
of the young man it belonged to.
This kid’s gotta future,
he thought to himself.

After a few lingering moments he placed his hand in Dutch’s and grasped it firmly.

“I like you, kid. You got balls.”

“Dinner’s ready!” Mrs. Piazza called out. It had been ready for over five minutes, but she had waited and listened to every
word and saw every gesture between the men and the boy. She thought about her childless womb, and how she wished it had been
filled with a son like Dutch. That was the first time she wished Dutch was Italian.

Brought back to reality by a bunch of rowdy young black kids walking past with a handheld radio blaring, she placed the key
in the ignition of her Volvo.

“Moulies,” she remarked and pulled off.

C
raze looked up from the blunt he was rolling in his money-green 911 Porsche Turbo to see Mrs. Piazza’s blue Volvo drive by
as she left the courthouse. Dutch had Craze outside in the parking lot watching everything and everybody. Dutch wanted to
know who came and left the courthouse, what time, who they was with and what they was driving. Craze understood the importance
of his assignment, but that didn’t make it any less boring. He needed the weed to break the monotony. And his Dutch-style
Coronas and Scarface CD.

He looked around self-consciously as he lit the blunt thinking how Dutch felt about his people and drug use. Dutch didn’t
get high and was so tight on his people about using drugs, Craze thought he might even implement a piss test or some shit.
Craze knew the golden meaning of getting c.r.e.a.m.
Don’t get high on your own supply,
but he sold or rather oversaw the sale of heroin, not weed, for Dutch’s organization.

It had been years since he had actually touched the brown powder that gave him the ability to retire at twenty-eight. But
to Dutch, drugs were drugs, no matter what kind.

“How many crackheads you know started drugs wit’ weed?” Dutch would ask in anger whenever he found Craze’s stash or caught
him smoking.

“Nigga, you sayin’ I’m a crackhead?” Craze would shoot back.

“Shit, neither was G-Money at first,” referring to
New Jack City
. “And you know what happened to him,” Dutch would jokingly add.

“Muhfuck you, nigga. You can’t kill me. You’d go crazy without me, baby. That shit would be like Tony without Manny, Bonnie
without Clyde, the Rat Pack without Sammy and shit. Just wouldn’t be right, nigga.”

Dutch knew he was right. Not only because Craze was so instrumental in Dutch’s organization, but because the two men were
like brothers. They had grown up from being babies together, even rode in the same baby carriage together. Craze’s mother
died when he was only eight and he went to stay with his aunt. Up until then, if you saw one, you saw the other. Craze, aka
Christopher Shaw, had gotten his nickname just trying to keep up with Dutch. Dutch’s craziness was psychotic and only those
who were truly close to him knew the risks he took. But Craze’s insanity was worn on his sleeve like stripes. Everybody knew
Chris was crazy, so there was no need to call him Chris anymore. Crazy shortened to Craze over the years and he eventually
mellowed out. Actually he hadn’t mellowed, but everybody felt he had because he had fewer and fewer opportunities to prove
his nickname.

But seeing Mrs. Piazza again after so many years stimulated Craze’s mind with vivid pictures of how he and Dutch got in the
position to be attempting what they were now planning to carry out.

As Mrs. Piazza’s taillights faded into traffic, he thought back to the first time he saw her at the pizza parlor. He saw her
as a nasty old bitch who was always running them off from her video games if they hung around too long without buying anything.
He hated Roberto, too, because of the way he handed him his change whenever he did buy something. He would half throw it or
half drop it in Craze’s hands, like he was contagious with color.

That’s why he questioned Dutch whenever Dutch would be sweeping the floor or helping Roberto unload trucks.

“Man, why you always doin’ shit for that muhfucker? You know he don’t even like us?”

But, even at such a young age, Dutch was able to see an opportunity in even the most insignificant situations.

“I don’t give a fuck about him. He’s just a pizza man. It’s who he fuckin’ wit’, and you don’t hang around shit like that
without something falling your way.”

“Well, damn, you can at least get a couple of dollars or somethin’, like some free video games, fuckin’ somethin’. You damn
near workin’ for free,” Craze complained.