Invincible: A Novel (17 page)

Jake could hear the sincerity in M.B.’s voice and stopped pointing the gun at her. He sat in the chair. He was defeated. There was no one left in the world he could trust.

“I’m so sorry, Jake!”

“Yeah,” he answered. “I hear you but I gotta go.”

Jake wanted to kiss his baby and get a good look at her in case he never saw her again. He had a good idea of what was going on. Not all the way, but he was smart enough to figure out that Phil had somehow got to Phat Murphy’s brother. He made it look like it was Jake who was responsible for his brother disappearing off the face of the earth and excluded himself.
There was no way this guy would be that determined to kill me and not Phil
, Jake thought. He still needed to figure out how Kim got involved and why his uncle would cross him like that.

After seeing his daughter for what might have been the last time, Jake told M.B. goodbye, grabbed his book bag and the keys to her rental car, and drove away.

GAMBLING MAN

Mitch’s gambling spot,
one day later

“All bets are down,” Mitch yelled out. He had the dice in his hand and Monster was housing. There was at least one hundred to two hundred thousand dollars circulating in the spot and he wanted all of it. “It ain’t my thing to gamble.” Mitch was talking shit as he was rolling the dice. “I only do this once in awhile but with that kinda money involved shhiittt! I wasn’t gonna pass up trimming y’all young boys’ pockets. Plus I got so much money, so many employees, so many bitches if y’all didn’t know I was one of the biggest bosses in the world, I figured I’d show you tonight! It amused me that y’all would even bring y’all money here to lose like that against a c-lowologist like myself tonight! How stupid can y’all motherfuckers be to go against leadership like this?”

He was laughing as he was talking and joking around with the younger gangsters. He was playing with them. Nothing they ain’t heard before. To them it was just dice talk, but in his mind and to himself he knew the shit he was talking was true. Reminiscing, he could remember the day the 300 Crew idea came about. It was like it had all just happened yesterday.

Kim and Mitch had been fucking around behind Jake’s back. Mitch felt bad that it was Jake’s girl he was fucking—he truly loved his nephew—but there was something about Kim he couldn’t resist, especially not when Jake seemed like he was trying to dead it all—get out of the hood and get away from Kim. Mitch could tell that Kim was the type of chick always hungry for more—more money and more power. She had girls boosting for her and had a couple others stripping. She owned a few properties and was still running the smoke hustle Jake put her on to years back. In Mitch’s eyes, she had taken full control of things while Jake kept a low profile in the store and chilling at their condo—avoiding the real motherfuckers.

The night Kim came to check on him, Mitch could tell she was serious about something. She walked in his gambling spot, lit a blunt, took a long pull, and walked up to Mitch and shotgunned the smoke down his throat. She sat him down on his sofa, threw her jacket on the floor (and her Prada bag on top of it), and lifted her long sundress off of her body, standing there completely naked. Kim straddled Mitch and shotgunned the rest of the blunt smoke down his throat. Mitch was usually on top of his game, but this had completely stunned him; he could barely move but to inhale and to lean into her, when Kim’s last shotgun turned into a long, passionate kiss.
Damn, she tastes good
, Mitch thought, as Kim pulled away, getting off
his lap and walking over to her purse, reaching in for the two flasks inside.

Kim moved back to her spot on Mitch’s lap and took a big gulp out of one of the flasks. She grabbed Mitch by his cheeks gently, tilting his head back to give him her mouthful of liquor, following it up with another deep, slow kiss. She repeated each sip in this way until both flasks were empty. During this whole ordeal neither she nor Mitch said a word—not until after she’d pulled Mitch out of his pants and began to ride him.

“A man like you shouldn’t have to touch much. People should be doing things for you. I’m tired of just fucking you. I want more for both of us.”

“More? More like what? And what about your man?”

“Yeah, there’s Jake, but I ain’t thinking on that note right now. We can get around that. He too cool and content with whatever the fuck he doing—which is nothing much nowadays. I got plans, Mitch, and it involves a lot of bread.”

Money always made Mitch’s eyes light up a little brighter—and the yak in the flask or the sensation of Kim throbbing against his dick didn’t hurt, either.

Kim continued, “But I need a man like you behind me!” and she started to quicken her pace.

Mitch grabbed her waist, holding her still for a second—just a second so he could grasp what she was trying to say. “What you talking about, Kim?”

“Just listen, Mitch. I’m talking about taking over, taking over without getting dirty and without getting caught up. I’m talking about me and you and few other people getting together to make a
real
power move! Now shut up and let me finish.”

With that, Kim went back to riding Mitch hard and smooth until he exploded.

As they laid on the sofa, smoking that bomb after-sex blunt, Kim went on, “Mitch, I need you to shut down the spot one of these days so I can hold a private card game. And I need you to be my partner.”

———

The night for the private card game came and Mitch could remember how Kim shone among some of the area’s most powerful men—men like Phil Rosenberg, that crazy rich attorney who was known to be strong in the courts, and the Calvin brothers, who had a rep for being strong in whichever endeavors they chose to be in. Everyone knew you didn’t cross them boys if you didn’t want to be physically harmed—on top of that they were said to be related to Albert Murphy, the most connected man in the city. Albert Murphy’s name rang from the mayor’s office to every street corner. He was it—the don! Mitch couldn’t believe Kim had them all present. She even had CO Frazier there, the most respected CO from the jail.

Kim wasted no time laying out her purpose. She asked the room, “Do you guys know what it takes to win?”

Albert Murphy, most amused by the little black girl with the very big mouth, said, “Enlighten us, honey. What does it take?”

“One hundred percent offense. One hundred percent defense. And a game plan that’s one-hundred proof. Three hundred percent, gentlemen.”

Everyone nodded. The lady was on to something.

Kim continued, “The way I see it, everyone in this room is
powerful, but Mr. Murphy, Mitch, and the Calvin brothers and myself? We have a lot to lose if we get caught up. Now Mr. Rosenburg and Mr. Frazier, you guys aren’t in risk of losing much—if anything—given your connections with the long arm of the law. But there is much to gain if we work together, pooling our resources, and distributing our risks. I have a pretty good hunch you guys are willing to be involved—in your line of work, you have to be a little crooked to be any kind of successful.”

As all the men chuckled at her joke, Kim continued to layout the plans for their new organization. Like an exec for a Fortune 500 company, she had it down to a tee: how everything would work if they put all of their powers together; how they could run their shit like a crew of phantom bosses, the kind you only hear about in myths, the ones you’re not sure really exist. Catching on, Mitch added, “Police can’t arrest the boss if the workers don’t know who’s employing them.”

Kim shot Mitch a smile, and winked at him. “Exactly. No one would expect all of us to be working as one. Not even the feds will know who to look for.”

The plan was so solid that no one in the room could resist. Phil thought it was amazing money. Mitch could see nothing but more money, and Kim’s ass on top of him as soon as the meeting was over. The Calvin brothers were with it, and Frazier was hungry to rake in the dough and have the reign over the jail that he
knew
he should have. Even Albert Murphy was convinced that Kim’s idea—the 300 Crew—was brilliant, even coming from a woman. “Hey, Mitch,” Albert said, “Go get a bottle of something nice—Louis XIII nice. It’s time to make a toast, to the 300 Crew!”

———

Mitch’s thoughts were interrupted by Monster. “C’mon Mitch! This a forty-five-thousand-dollar roll. They got the bank stopped. Bust them motherfuckers in the head.”

Mitch blew on the dice and said, “Get ’em bitches,” and rolled 6-6-6. “Yeah, I told you motherfuckers! Watch out now them bitches is baaad!”

“That’s what I’m talking about!” Monster cheered his boss on. “That’s what I’m talking about! Ninety thousand in the bank. What they down?”

“I got it stopped,” a voice from the back of the crowd shouted. Mitch knew the voice as soon as he heard it.

“Who got it stopped?” Monster looked around.

“I do. I got it stopped,” Jake said patting his chest as he stepped to the front. Jake decided on his ride over that he was going to see his uncle and get to the bottom of this by hitting his gambling spot with a little plan to make his life a living hell. Mitch would pay for his betrayal. But he didn’t expect the place to be so packed.

“Are you sure you wanna do that, nephew?” Mitch asked Jake. “It ain’t good to bet against your own blood, youngin’!”

At that point Mitch knew that Jake knew something—about him and Kim fucking around, his affiliation with the 300, or how it was him that set her up to be killed. Either way, Jake wouldn’t come in there gambling against him if he didn’t think something was up.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Jake told him. “Roll the dice. Apparently blood don’t mean that much nowadays, Mitch!” That was his little message to his uncle that it was on between them.

“Okay then,” Mitch said. “It is what it is!” He blew on the dice and yelled, “Get ’em bitches,” and rolled a 4-5-6.

“Yeah, my gee,” Monster yelled.

Mitch looked at Jake. “I told you! See what happens when you go against the grain!”

“Yeah, I hear you talking, but I got more money in the bag, old man!”

All you heard was a bunch of oooohhhhs and aaaahhhs in the background. This was real dough they were playing with. With all these stories circulating around about Mr. Invincible—especially the latest one from Sparky—for him to show up out of nowhere in his uncle’s gambling spot betting against him was some real hood shit. Everyone in the spot felt something was going to pop off and they were right. And it wouldn’t be long. Even Monster was trying to figure out why Jake, the nephew Mitch spoke so highly about, had come out of nowhere to try to take money from his uncle.

Not getting too caught up in his thought, Monster yelled, “A hundred eighty thousand in the bank. Ten thousand and better bets.”

Jake said, “I got it stopped. Roll the dice, old man.”

The spot got so quiet when Jake said that the second time, you could hear a mouse pissin’ on cotton. It was so intense that no one in the room moved.

“You sure you wanna do that, young blood?” Mitch asked.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Jake said smoothly.
“Are you sure
is the question. Are you really,
really
sure that I’m the one to go against?”

Mitch knew Jake wasn’t talking about the dice or the money. As wrong as he was for double-crossing his nephew (he knew
he deserved death for crossing a real dude), something about Jake’s cockiness and attitude made him real upset. Maybe his nephew’s bad attitude was the reason Mitch fucked Kim or Kim fucked Mitch in the first place. Maybe that’s why Jake’s own girl didn’t invite him to be part of the crew. He definitely should’ve been at the card game—probably more than Kim—but he hadn’t been because he was a selfish arrogant prick. Jake had a chip on his shoulder. He thought he was so tough. Mitch never realized it before but he wanted his nephew dead.

Mitch told himself,
fuck him
, as he blew on the dice. “Get ’em bitches!” He rolled a 4-4-5.

“Five the point,” Monster stated. Jake picked up the dice, shook them in his hand as hard as he could for about ten seconds, then he let them go. He rolled 4-5-6 and the whole place erupted. Jake didn’t crack a smile. He looked at Mitch, and Monster slid over the $180,000, which Jake put right in his bag.

Monster, tight as hell said, “All you sweaters that ain’t betters need to get the fuck out the joint!”

“My bank now,” Jake said. Then he saw someone out the corner of his eye. A face he wouldn’t and couldn’t forget. One of the dudes who had robbed his store was standing there talking to the Calvin brothers, two dudes Jake wouldn’t trust any further than he could throw them. He didn’t want to be too obvious that he had spotted them, so he kept it moving.

“Two hundred thousand in the bank,” Jake said. “Ten thousand or better to play and if your money ain’t on the floor, it ain’t a bet!”

“I’m down a buck,” Mitch said, throwing ten-thousand-dollar stacks down.

“Anybody else down?” Jake asked.

“Yeah, I got the other buck,” Monster answered. “Shoot the dice, nigga! It’s stopped.”

Jake looked at Monster and said, “If the money ain’t on the floor, it ain’t a bet, ya heard!”