Eviction Notice (10 page)

CHAPTER 15

Old man Tony
busied himself with sweeping up the excess hair around the two chairs in the tiny barbershop from the few morning cuts he’d administered. Normally at that time of day the shop would’ve been sprinkled with men from the neighborhood, getting haircuts or swapping stories, but Tony had closed down early to receive his
special
client.

The ringing bell over the front door startled the old man. In walked a heavyset man wearing a gray tracksuit and white running shoes. Flanking him was a round man with a large nose who wore a dead expression on his face.

“Hey, Grovaldo, good to see you.” Tony stopped sweeping and walked over to greet the gangster.

“You know you’re the only man on the island I’d let touch this pretty mop of mine.” Grovaldo patted his high hair. He plopped into one of the chairs and got comfortable as Tony draped a smock around his neck.

“Grovaldo, I’d offer you some coffee but we’re all out. I sent my boy home early and didn’t have a chance to go to the store myself.”

“Don’t worry about it, Tony. I’ll take care of it. Gino,” he said, drawing the soldier’s attention from the magazine he was reading in the next chair, “do you think you can pry yourself away from your studies and go grab us some coffees?”

“But the store is like five blocks away,” Gino complained.

“It looks like you could use the exercise.” Grovaldo laughed. “Now move your ass!”

“Alright, alright.” Gino tossed the magazine down and hauled himself out of the chair.

“And while you’re down there, get us some of those pastries the old lady makes,” Grovaldo shouted after him. “I love those things, don’t you, Tony?”

“Sí.”
Tony grinned and nodded like he always did when Grovaldo spoke. “So, do you want your usual?” Tony began sharpening his razor on the leather strap hanging from the chair.

“Yeah, a little off the sides and clean up this stubble.” Grovaldo ran his hand across his chin. “My girlfriend doesn’t like the stubble on my face scratching her thighs when I’m going down on her.” He laughed.

“Don’t worry, your face will be as smooth as a baby’s ass when I’m done,” Tony assured him as he took the towels out of the steamer. He wrapped one around Grovaldo’s face and began mixing shaving cream in a small cup.

“Tony, how long have I been coming to you to get my hair cut?” Grovaldo asked from beneath the towel.

“I don’t know, maybe ten years or so. You’ve been a good customer and a loyal friend. When they rioted in the square back in ninety-eight my shop was the only business that didn’t get touched, and I am thankful to have a friend like you.”

“As you should be. Señor Cruz and I know how to take care of our friends, not like that Poppito and his bunch.”

“We hear many horrible stories about him and Los Negros Muertes, not good at all. But Señor Cruz and his men make the streets safe for an old man like me,” Tony lied. In all truthfulness, Cruz and his crooked cops were just as bad as Poppito, if not worse, because they had the government on their side.

“Damn right we do. Poppito thinks he’s being cute by bringing blacks to do his dirty work, but we’ve got a trick for them. Soon there will be no question as to who controls Old San Juan,” Grovaldo boasted.

“I as well as the citizens pray for the day when this war is brought to an end,” Tony said sincerely.

Grovaldo went on and on, rambling, but Tony was only half listening. All he wanted to do was get the gangster out of his shop so he could go home to his family. He was just about to get started on Grovaldo’s grooming when a gust of wind licked his cheek. When he made to turn, a gun barrel was placed against the back of his head. Sincere placed his finger over his lips, warning the barber to be silent, and Tony fearfully complied.

“Yes, my old friend, better days are on the horizon,” Grovaldo said smugly as the towel around his face was unwrapped. He expected to look in the mirror and see Tony standing behind him, but instead he saw Sincere and a wild-haired young man standing in front of him holding two knives. He tried to get up, but Sincere yanked him back down with the towel wrapped around his neck.

“Buenos días,”
Animal greeted him before driving the two knives into his hands, pinning them to the arms of the chairs. When Grovaldo opened his mouth to scream, Animal dumped the cup of shaving cream into it. “We can’t have you waking the neighbors now, can we?”

“You cocksucking muthafuckas—do you know who I am?” Grovaldo gasped.

“I sure hope so, because I’d hate to have to do this all over again,” Animal told him as he pulled out his Desert Eagle.

“What, am I supposed to be scared now? I’ve seen the devil and told him to suck my dick, so if you think you two li’l wet-behind-the-ears muthafuckas put fear in my heart, you can go fuck yourself.” Grovaldo spat in Animal’s face.

Animal calmly wiped the spit from his face with the back of his sleeve. He placed the gun back in his pants. He leaned in over Grovaldo and placed his hands on the hilt of the knives, driving them deeper into Grovaldo’s hands.

“You muthafucka,” Grovaldo bellowed.

“I’ve been called worse.” Animal busied himself, rummaging through the barber’s tools on the counter. When he turned back to Grovaldo he was holding a pair of scissors and tongs. “I was sent here to kill you, but I’ve got a better idea.” He opened and closed the scissors. “You, my bigmouthed friend, will serve as a living reminder to those who challenge the authority of Los Negros Muertes. Now open wide, you little bitch.”

*   *   *

The few blocks
to the coffee shop and back felt like miles to the heavyset Gino. As he approached the barbershop there was a car pulling off, but he paid it no mind, as that area was high traffic at that time of day. When he entered the shop he dropped the coffee and pastries to the floor. Tony was slumped in one of the barber chairs with a bullet through his eye. On the floor, Grovaldo lay in a pool of his own blood. At first Gino through he was dead, but then he saw the man’s leg move.

“Grovaldo.” Gino knelt at his side. The blood on the floor seeped through his pants but he paid it no mind. When he flipped his boss over he had to fight the urge to vomit. Both his ears had been sawed off to the gristle, and one of his eyes was missing. What was left of his tongue flapped around in his mouth as he tried to speak, but all that came out was a distorted gurgling. Grovaldo was allowed to keep his life, if you could call the condition he was in a life, but it was just as Animal had promised: Grovaldo would serve as a living reminder of just how Los Negros Muertes gave it up.

*   *   *

When Animal got
back to the farmhouse, K-Dawg was standing outside, smoking a cigar. He kept his eyes locked on Animal and Sincere as they came up the path. “I trust everything went well?”

Animal grabbed K-Dawg’s hand and placed a small ring box in it. “Just a token of my appreciation, boss dawg.” Animal laughed and walked off.

“What’s good, everything go down okay?” K-Dawg asked Sincere.

“Man, I don’t even wanna talk about that.” Sincere ran his hands over his face. “Ya man has got some serious issues, dawg, and you might wanna look into getting that muthafucka into counseling,” Sincere gave him dap and walked into the farmhouse, leaving K-Dawg alone with his gift.

K-Dawg opened the box and smiled when he saw what it contained. It was Grovaldo’s missing eye.

*   *   *

Animal lay on
his bed in his tiny room, waiting patiently for sleep, but it never came. As wired as he was, it’d probably be days before he was able to close his eyes again. For a long while the capers K-Dawg had set up for them felt like a chore, but the more blood he spilled, the more natural it became. He was slipping back into old habits and this worried him. If Gucci had been with him she would be sure to have some calming and reasonable words for him, but he was all alone in the company of sociopaths and a brother too blind to see the forest for the trees. Gucci had always told him that he had a knack for stepping in shit, and her words rang loudest in his ears that night.

“Knock-knock,” a voice called from the doorway.

Animal spun with his gun raised, ready to blast the intruder, but his finger froze on the trigger when he recognized the silhouette. “What the hell are you doing creeping around in the middle of the night, Sonja?”

“I wasn’t creeping, you were slipping.” Sonja stepped into the room. The moonlight shining through the window illuminated her form. She had abandoned her fatigue shorts and tank top for a bathrobe and pajama pants. “Whatever is on your mind, it must be serious for you to let somebody get within ten feet of you and not notice.”

“I’m straight, I just got a lot of shit on my mind.”

Sonja invited herself to a seat on the edge of his bed. “So I hear things went well earlier?” Animal shrugged in the way of an answer. “I don’t know what happened but you’ve got Sincere rattled.”

“He should be. I’m the devil, or haven’t you heard?” Animal said sarcastically.

“You ain’t tough, Animal, you just act that way, but I can see through you.” She touched his side and Animal flinched. “Jesus, I’m not gonna bite you … at least not right this second.” She smirked. “I see the stitches are still holding.” She traced the line where he’d been cut.

“Yes, thanks to you and those skilled hands.”

“My hands are good for more than just stitching wounds.” She reached down and grabbed his crotch. To her surprise, Animal was as hard as a rock. “Damn, it’s been a while since I felt that.”

“Stop playing, Sonja.” He moved her hand.

“Who said I was playing?” Sonja stretched out next to him so that they were facing each other. “You have the most beautiful lips I’ve ever seen on a man.” She reached out to touch him, but Animal grabbed her wrist.

“Chill, ma. We both know where this is gonna go if we open that door.”

“So let’s open it already and stop playing this stupid little game. Look, I know when we first started messing around we agreed not to make it more than what it is, but I really like you,” she confessed.

“I like you too, Sonja, but there’s too much on both of our plates and drama would only complicate things further.”

“You’re the only one being dramatic about this, Animal. I watch you walking around brooding day in and day out over what you left behind in New York instead of appreciating what you have right here in P.R.”

“Ain’t shit in P.R. for me but more reminders of why I want to be away from this place and everybody in it.” As soon as Animal said it, he wished he could take the words back.

“Even me?” Sonja’s voice was heavy with emotion.

“I’m sorry, Sonja, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You meant it just like you said it.” She sat up and turned her back to him. She felt Animal lay his hands on her shoulders to comfort her, but she didn’t turn around. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing the tears that had welled in her eyes. “So what we shared meant nothing to you?”

Animal turned her around so that she was facing him. By then the tears were rolling down her cheeks freely. He brushed them away with the backs of his fingers. “Sonja, you’re a beautiful girl and any man would be lucky to have you, but the things you want I can’t give you.”

“Can’t or won’t, Animal?” she challenged.

“Does it make a difference?”

“Maybe not to you, but it does to me. Animal, I know that we agreed to keep our li’l thing simple, but the heart doesn’t always agree with what the mouth says. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but I’ve fallen for you and I want to be with you.”

For as cold as Animal tried to make himself, seeing Sonja like that tugged at his heart. Animal ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “Sonja, I’m no good for you, ma. There’s just so much you don’t understand,” he tried to explain.

“I understand enough to know that you’re still holding on to the memory of a woman who has written you off as a ghost. I don’t see how you keep trying to accomplish something that’s impossible.”

“That’s because you’ve never been in love,” he said sincerely.

“I was in love once, but he didn’t love me back.” Sonja slid off the bed. “Anyway, I was just coming to check on you. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She headed for the door.

“Sonja, hold on. Let me talk to you for a second,” he called after her.

Sonja hesitated. A part of her wanted to turn around, but it would only make walking away harder. “Nah, I think you’ve said enough for the night.” She walked out.

Long after Sonja had gone, Animal was still staring at the door. He hadn’t meant to hurt Sonja, but sometimes the truth could be a painful thing. Sonja was all that a man could ask for: beautiful, intelligent, and dangerous. Animal genuinely cared for Sonja, so hurting her wasn’t an easy thing to do, but it was a necessary evil. With the state that his life was in at that point, allowing her to get close to him would only end in disaster. Had the situation been different, he could easily see himself falling in love with Sonja and living out the rest of his days happily on the beautiful island, but his heart was already promised to another.

Just thinking about Gucci made Animal feel nostalgic. He lifted his mattress and pulled out the only piece of his old life that he had left, and old photo of him and Gucci at Baltimore Harbor. They’d driven down to Maryland for the weekend and had a romantic dinner at Mo’s Fisherman’s Warf. After dinner they’d taken a walk along the harbor and found an old dope fiend to snap the picture. Gucci looked stunning in a tight-fitting Deréon dress that turned the head of just about every man they passed. Later that night they had blown Kush and made love until the sun came up. Animal was almost tempted to call Gucci and tell her everything, but he knew that would only pull her into the web of bullshit he had allowed K-Dawg and his brother to rope him into, and she deserved better.

“I miss you so much,” he whispered to the picture. It wasn’t until he saw a droplet of water hit the photo that he realized he was crying.

CHAPTER 16

After riding around
for nearly thirty minutes, Gucci was able to find a parking spot on 102nd and Manhattan Avenue. She stood on the curb for a minute, staring up at the tall brown buildings, and a chill ran through her. Though she wasn’t from Douglass, it held dark memories for her. Whenever she saw the projects she would think of her lover Animal.

Douglass had been one of many projects to feel the chill of Animal’s steel when he was in the streets full-time. He and his crew were known as menaces throughout the five boroughs and anyone with good sense feared them. Animal was bound to the streets, vowing to let nothing ever come between them, until he met Gucci.

They were an odd pair, with both hailing from the streets, but each with different aspirations. Gucci wanted to make it out of the gutter, while Animal’s destiny was to die in the gutter. Somewhere along the line the two souls had found a common ground, and good fortune gave Animal a way out. Lending his talent to the Big Dawg Entertainment roster, Animal was on the fast track to stardom, but his inability to let go of old grudges made it impossible to fully make the transition from killer to celebrity. The trail of bodies Animal had left in his wake finally caught up with him and he was sentenced to a lengthy prison term, which he would never have the chance to serve.

While being transported from the courthouse to Rikers Island, Animal’s escorts were caught in a vicious ambush that left three dead and nine wounded, including two NYPD detectives, and their prisoner unaccounted for. There was a nationwide manhunt for Animal, but he seemed to have just vanished. The police hounded Gucci for months, but not even she had heard from him. The media came up with a wild story about Animal being rescued by some drug cartel he had been working for, but Gucci knew better than that. Animal had always been independent—even when he was running with Tech, he’d made his own way. What did trouble Gucci was some of the things she was hearing in the streets.

Animal had made some very powerful enemies over the years so it was highly likely that the gunmen had been agents of his enemies who had come to settle up for all the lives he had taken. It had been two years and Animal hadn’t tried to contact her or have someone get word to her, which strengthened the rumors she was hearing of his death. Every time she thought about Animal being gone, she broke down into tears, but as time passed, her mind began to tell her what her heart didn’t want to hear, that he was dead.

Her best friend Tionna and her mother tried to bring Gucci out of her funk, but she was too far gone in her mourning for Animal. For months she would sit and look out her mother’s window, thinking she would see him jump out of a cab and rush up the stairs to tell her that all was well, but he never came. When one year rolled into two, she had to accept the fact that he wasn’t coming and try to begin the process of piecing her broken heart back together.

Gradually she began to crawl out of her hole, see what she’d missed while she was away. She had recently started dating again. It felt awkward, like she was cheating on Animal, but a ghost couldn’t claim infidelity. Some of the guys she met were cool, but none of them measured up to Animal, so at the end of the day they occupied time, but never a place in her heart.

Gucci’s little cousins Jalen and Miles came spilling out of the backseat, carrying on as they had been for the past half hour or so. From the time she had picked them up two days prior, they had been working her nerves. On the first night she had planned to watch movies with them at her mom’s house. She sat the kids in front of the television while she went into the kitchen to get their snacks. By the time she came back, one of them had done something to the color on the screen and changed the language to Spanish. It took her three hours and two customer-service calls to get it back to normal. Jalen claimed she hadn’t done it, but she was the one holding the remote control. Then there was Miles, sweet and innocent little Miles. For the most part he was pretty well behaved, but he cried over everything. Jada had spoiled him rotten and it was driving Gucci up the wall. She loved her little cousins but this would be the first and last time she offered to keep Jada’s badass kids.

Gucci let out a deep sigh. “Can’t you guys go at least five minutes without fighting?”

“He started it!” Jalen exclaimed.

“Nuh-uh! She did, because she keeps trying to take my candy,” Miles retorted, holding up a half-eaten bag of Skittles, which Jalen snatched.

“If I wanted yo candy I’d take it,” Jalen teased while finishing off Miles’s Skittles.

“She ate my candy!” Miles started crying again.

“Crybaby, crybaby, stick your hand in gravy,” Jalen sang, taunting her brother, causing him to cry harder.

“Enough!” Gucci snapped and grabbed them both by their arms. “Look,” she addressed Jalen, “I don’t usually beat other people’s kids, but I’m about to make an exception. And you”—she turned to Miles—“stop crying for everything, you’re a boy so act like one or I’m gonna buy you a jump rope and send your li’l ass to school in a dress! Are we clear?” Both children nodded. “Good, now bring your asses on.” She yanked them behind her and entered the projects. When she rounded the corner of 865, she smiled, because she had never been so happy to see her family.

*   *   *

Mookie stood in
the lobby of 865, looking suspiciously through the tiny glass square in the steel entrance door. He was dressed in a bootleg Gucci sweatsuit, with a two-tone black and red do-rag tied on his head. Mookie was a man trapped in time. It was more than a decade into the new millennium, but his mind was still in 1989. Mookie was a throwback goon who had at one time been the scourge of the projects and a ghetto superstar on the rise, until the crack epidemic hit. Like a lot of old players from his era, his chase for crack had derailed his chase for paper and he had ruined the empire his brother had built.

When the drug money was cut off, Mookie turned to strong-arm robbery to feed his demon. Friend and foe were all fair game when it came to his trying to score a fix, and only prison had slowed him down. Mookie had been back and forth to various prisons for most of his life, recently coming home from serving five years in Attica. Though Mookie claimed to have changed his fiendish ways, those who knew him knew better. Cats like Mookie never changed, they only got better at hiding their bullshit.

Behind him he heard the staircase door open and close. A skinny woman with bug eyes came speed-walking around the corner with her closed fist clutched tightly to her chest. She gave Mookie a toothless smile and a nod before rushing out of the building and heading up the street. A few seconds later Mookie’s cousin and crime partner Fish came around the corner, counting out the crumpled bills in his hand. Fish was a hulk of a man who resembled a mailbox with arms and legs. His pumpkinlike head always seemed to lean to one side, as if it was too much weight for his neck to support. Fish wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he was deadly and unquestionably loyal to Mookie and the Butler clan.

“What we looking like?” Mookie asked Fish.

“We ’bout done. After these last five bags we’ll be all out,” Fish said proudly, putting the baggies of small white rocks in Mookie’s hand.

“Umm-hmm.” Mookie sucked his teeth as if he had something stuck between them. “Let’s hurry up and finish them off so we can get outta here. I don’t wanna squat for too long and risk getting caught bogus.” Mookie shuffled the bags around with his fingers. To the untrained eye the baggies looked like they contained crack, but they were dummies—broken-up aspirin made to look like crack. They had been in and out of different buildings all morning beating the fiends with their imitation drugs.

Mookie and Fish slipped from the building with intentions on going down the block to purchase some
real
drugs and a few beers. The plan was to cop and get low until the sun went down and find another lick to hit, but when Mookie heard his name being called, he knew their plans would have to wait.

“Morris Butler, what the hell are you doing skulking around my building?” Ms. Pat called from the bench where she had been sitting, smoking a Newport and sipping from a Styrofoam cup. A large-brimmed yellow straw hat sat cocked atop her bleached-blond wig to protect her from the beaming sun.

“Hey, mama.” Mookie smiled innocently, showing off the gold tooth in the front of his mouth.

“Don’t
hey mama
me, boy. Whenever I see y’all two slithering around like
Night of the Living Base Heads
I know you’re up to no good,” Ms. Pat accused, glaring at the two of them over her bifocals.

“Aw, we wasn’t doing nothing, but about to run to the store,” Mookie assured her.

Ms. Pat eyed him suspiciously. “Mookie, you don’t run to nothing but the rock house, so don’t try to play me. I’m telling you, if I find out y’all robbing people in my building I’m gonna call the police on you myself.”

Mookie laughed. “Mama, with all the shit you got in your house, you know damn well you don’t want the police snooping around here.”

“Don’t worry about what I got in my house, worry about what I got in this purse”—Ms. Pat patted her shoulder bag, which was sitting next to her on the bench—“and if I find anything missing when I go inside I’m gonna give you a sneak preview,” she threatened, causing Mookie to take a cautionary step back. He knew better than most how Ms. Pat rolled and didn’t want any part of her infamous purse.

“Hey, auntie.” Fish smiled.

“Hey, baby, come give auntie some sugar.” Ms. Pat spread her arms.

When Fish leaned in to kiss her on the cheek, he caught a whiff of something familiar. “Auntie, what you got in that cup? It smells like whiskey.”

“Boy, you know damn well I can’t dance with no whiskey while I’m on these blood thinners. This ain’t nothing but a li’l Cîroc.” She swirled the ice around in her cup before taking another sip.

“Let me get some.” Mookie reached for the cup, but Ms. Pat snatched it away.

“If you try to put your crackish lips on my cup, I promise you I’m gonna take that fake gold tooth outta yo head. Now if you wanna
get
something, why don’t you try
getting
away from me?”

Mookie was about to say something, but Fish tapped his arm and drew his attention to Happy, Boots, and Bernie coming up the stairs. “Fresh meat.” Mookie rubbed his hands together in anticipation.