In a Cold Sweat (26 page)

“What was that for?”

“Just somethin’ I been thinkin’ ’bout doin’ since the last time I saw you.” CeCe leaned closer to me. “Only when I’m thinkin’ ’bout kissin’ you, it ain’t on the cheek.”

“I’ll give you two some privacy,” Bobby said and started to get up.

“No,” I told him and he sat back down. CeCe was wearin’ a tight black V-neck top that displayed an ample amount of cleavage and some jeans that looked like they were painted on her. She looked good, damn good, but I wasn’t here for that, even though the more I looked at her, the more interested I was. But she didn’t need to know that. All she needed to know is that I wanted Stark. “You talk to Stark yet?”

“Yeah, I talked to him at K's funeral,” CeCe told me.

“You tell him what I said?”

“Yep. He said if you ain’t got no problems wit’ him, then he got none wit’ you.” Then CeCe smiled and I wondered why. “He said he won’t fuck wit’ you and what you do as long as you don’t fuck wit’ him and what he got goin’. He said
he ain’t got nothin’ to do wit
’ what Cash or K’s boyz do. But he ain’t goin’ to
no
damn meeting. That ain’t happenin’.”

That wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear and I guess she knew that, and that’s why she was smiling. She did tell me that Billy Banner was the fourth member of this so-called Commission. I knew his brother, Darryl, back in the day; he was a standup guy, as Angelo would say. The way I get it, Billy was nothing more than a placeholder. Darryl still ran the crew from his cell. I respected him, so I got a message to him about what was going on between me and his brother.

It took less than a day for word to come back to me that Darryl knew nothin’ about his crew being part of any Commission. The word was that they were lookin’ for Billy ’cause he bounced with all the money and product.

The week wasn’t a total loss. CeCe told me who it was that pulled the drive-by on me and Bobby. “
They tryin’
to make rep, tellin’ anybody who’ll listen.”

And then CeCe told me where I could find them. “You sure about this?” I asked her.

“Yes, baby. I’m sure. I would never lie to you,” CeCe said and pressed up against me. In my predator days, there was a rule that I used to live by: If a woman sets it out for me like she was doin’, she would get fucked, whether I really wanted her or not. Those days, I didn’t give a fuck; I woulda taken her outta there and fucked her in the first dark spot I could find. And then I’d go do what I had to do. That was then; this is now.

“They been braggin’ ’bout how they almost got y’all”

“Like almost actually counted for something.”

“And how funny it was to see y’all runnin’ like scared bitches,” CeCe continued

At that point, I knew that CeCe was a dangerous woman. She knew exactly what buttons to push. She was the type of woman who could get a weak mutha fucka to do anything she wanted. But I wasn’t
no
weak mutha fucka.

“So when you and me gonna get together?” she said as sexy as she could.

I stood up and so did Bobby. “When I’m done.” Then I thought about it. “Come with me.” I had no idea what they looked like, but I knew that as soon as me and Bobby walked in the place, that they would recognize us, nut the fuck up, and start blastin’. Takin’ CeCe along would make things easy.

She smiled at me like I told her to come get some dick. “Yes, baby.”

CeCe said that there were three of them and they hung out at a spot on 233
^rd
street. I told her to go inside and tell them that Stark was outside waitin’ for them. “Tell ’em he wants to get back to business with The Commission and he
need
’em to step it up.”

“What if they don’t believe me?” CeCe asked.

“Tell ’em you been thinkin’ ’bout it and you wanna fuck all three of ’em,” Bobby said. “All that body you carryin’, they’ll follow you anywhere.”

“At least somebody in here noticed,” CeCe said and got out of the car; and I enjoyed watchin’ her walk.

“You gonna fuck her?” Bobby asked once she was inside. “’Cause if you ain’t, I will.”

“Free country, Bob. You can fuck her if you want her. I don’t give a fuck. I didn’t think she was your type.”

“Why? She got a pussy,
don’t
she?”

“True. But she ain’t skinny as a rail and she definitely ain’t flat-chested. Ain’t that how you like them?”

“I’m tryin’ to broaden myself; try new things. I’m gettin' older now and I like a little more cushion than I’m used to.”

“I ain’t mad at you.”

We had been waitin’ about half an hour when I looked up and saw CeCe come out the lounge with three niggas trailin’ close behind her. “Where the fuck is she goin’?” Bobby asked.

“How should I know?” When I saw her get in a car with them and pull off, we followed them.

“How you know we can trust her?”

“We don’t,” I said as we followed them down 233
^rd
.

“I mean she could be leadin’ us into a trap.”

“You wanna back off? Call Freeze or Nick?”

“Hell no. Trap or not, these bastards gonna die tonight.”

We followed them to the Oasis Motel on Boston Rd. “I guess she went with the orgy story,” I said.

“Smart girl.”

They all got out of the car and one of them went to get the room while the other two stayed by the car with CeCe. She saw where we had parked and was lookin’ at me while they felt her up. The look on her face screamed,
“What the fuck you waitin’ for?”

I wanted them in a room, chillin’, thinkin’ about gettin' some pussy. I had something special in mind for them. Something that would send a message to Stark and any other nigga that was down with this commission, or who even had dreamt about comin’ after me over this bullshit. I had to let ’em know that I wasn’t somebody that they needed to be fuckin’ with.

“You still ride with the sawed-off and a hunting knife in the trunk?” I asked.

“I never leave home without it,” Bobby replied.

“Good,” I said and put on my gloves.

“Ain’t the shotgun gonna make too much noise?” Bobby asked.

“I’m not plannin’ on shootin’ it,” I told Bobby, and put silencers on both of my guns. He was more than just my partner and my best friend; he was my brother.

Once they had their room key, we watched as they went inside the room. I could see CeCe lookin’ back at us. I could only imagine what was goin’ through her mind as the door closed behind them. “Let’s go.”

Bobby went and got the knife and the sawed-off out of the trunk, along with some plastic handcuffs and a roll of duct tape. When we got to the door, I could hear the music playin’ and them yellin’ for CeCe to take it off. “You ready?” I asked.

“Let’s do it,” Bobby replied and kicked the door open. When I rushed in, one of them reached for his gun. I shot him in the hand before he could get to it. “Anybody else
wanna
try that?” Bobby asked with the shotgun pointed at one of their heads.

Complete silence was the answer he got.

I looked at the three of them for the first time in good light. None of them could be any older than twenty. “You mutha fuckas know who I am?”

Complete silence was the answer I got.

“I’m the nigga that’s gonna kill you tonight,” I said and turned to CeCe. “You can go now, CeCe.”

“CeCe, you fuckin’ bitch! You set us up!” one said.

“I’ma
kill
you!” the other said.

Me
and Bobby laughed and so did CeCe. “No nigga,” CeCe said and got in his face. “Didn’t you hear what the man said? You the one gonna die.”

“I said leave,” I reiterated.

“I’d rather stay,” CeCe told me.

“I don’t remember askin’ you what you’d rather do.”

“Please,” she said in a voice that made me remember that she was dangerous.

“If you don’t get the fuck outta here, I’ll kill you, too.”

“Okay, okay,” she said and started for the door.

“Before you go,” Bobby said and handed her the duct tape. “Put tape over their mouths.”

When she was done with that, I told her to put the plastic cuffs around their wrists and ankles. “Cuff those two to the chairs.”

When she was done, CeCe came and stood next to me. “What now, baby?”

“Nothin’. Get out of here.”

This time she didn’t protest, “Yes, baby,” CeCe said and walked toward the door. “Am I gonna see you again?”

“Yeah. Now get out.”

As soon as CeCe slammed the door, I turned my attention to the three of them. “You mutha fuckas gonna wish you were never born.” I walked over to the one I shot. I pulled him up from the bed. I hit him a few times and then
me
and Bobby dragged him into the bathroom. We put him in the shower with his hands above the showerhead,
then
Bobby secured him to it with the plastic handcuffs. “You're gonna bleed to death,” I said and ripped off his shirt sleeves. I could see the fear in his eyes. “Give me your knife, Bobby.” I made two long cuts on each of his arms and a very small one on his neck.

I came out of the bathroom and looked at the other two. I got in one’s face; he was scared too. “I’m gonna beat you to death,” I said, and began hitting him in the face. When I stopped, Bobby took over.

Then I turned to the third. There was no fear in his eyes. When the other two were screaming about CeCe settin’ ’em up and what they’d do about it, he was quiet.

“It was your idea to try me, wasn’t it?”

He nodded his head slowly.

“You
was
gonna be the man that killed Mike Black.”

He nodded his head slowly.

“I can respect that.” And I could. I could see the position that it would put him in. If he killed me, he could go to Stark, who’d been hidin’ from me, in a position of power.

“Too bad you missed and you gotta die for it,” Bobby added and continued his work.

“I’m gonna kill you quick; break your neck. But not before you watch me kill your boys.”

For the next hour or so,
me
and Bobby took turns beating our would-be executioner while his partner looked on. Every so often, I went into the bathroom to check on the bleeder. I came out and grabbed their leader. “Come on. I wanna show you something,” I said and pushed him in the bathroom. He flinched and tried to look away, but I grabbed his face and made him look. “Look at him!”

By this time the bleeder was covered in blood and shaking. The leader had sat there calmly and watched his boy take a beatin’, and didn’t flinch or close his eyes not once, but this scared him.

“He’s shakin’ ’cause he’s goin’ into shock, he’s startin’ to get cold and he’ll start losin’ color.” I pushed him out of the bathroom and he stumbled to the floor.

“Get up,” I said and pulled him up and back into his chair so he could watch Bobby work. I watched Bobby and thought about us two old guys doin’ shit we ain’t done in years. It felt great. Then Bobby went old-school style on him.

 
Back in the day, Bobby's idea of torture was while he slapped the guy around, he’d tell jokes. Some of them were funny, but most of them weren’t. If you laugh, you get slapped. If you don't, you get hit—hard. Only this guy got duct tape covering his mouth so he couldn’t laugh. So Bobby’s was just whalin’ away, tellin your-mother jokes, and
swingin
’. “Your mother is so ugly that they had to hang a pork chop around her neck so the dog would play with her.”