Me and My Hittas (10 page)

Silence fell between the two men and before Pavielle
knew it, his uncle was fast asleep. Seeing this, he murdered
the TV with the remote control, draped his jacket over
Gangsta and killed the lights before heading into his
bedroom.

Early as shit the next morning
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

Gangsta awoke startled, hearing the front door rattle
with such brute force. “Who the fuck is it?!” he called out
from the couch.

“Police, motherfucker!” a voice boomed from the
opposite side of the door. “Open up!”

Gangsta sprung to his feet, hobbled over to the
window as fast as he could and took a peek out of the
curtains. There were about eight police cars outside on the
street. A dozen police officers were on the lawn, some of
them had K-9s but they all were packing some very serious
firepower.

Gangsta turned around and found Pavielle, Vayda,
and Gouch standing behind him, they all were groggily
from sleep.

“Blood, who the fuck is that?” Gouch asked, wiping
the scum from his eyes.

 

“Shhh,” Gangsta hushed his oldest nephew, holding a
finger to his lips. “Be quiet, it’s the mothafucking cops!”

 

“Ah, shit!” Gouch cursed.

 

“Say what?” Pavielle asked, hearing the police
mentioned snapped him out of his grogginess.

 

“Booby, Gucci, y’all niggaz stash the straps. Vayda,”
Gangsta addressed the redbone. “Go get momma up.”

The pounding continued on the door, as the trio split
up to complete their tasks. Pavielle and Gouch stashed the
straps that they kept in the house in a secret stash spot inside
of the attic. They then returned to the living room where
they found Vayda, G-momma and their uncle waiting.

“Alright, mommy, Vay, Booby, Gucci,” Gangst
a
addressed his family. “Everybody put their hands up and
keep’em up. When these people bust up in here, don’t make
any sudden moves. Do exactly what they say, when they
say it!” he looked to his mother. “You got it, mommy?”

“Yes, but I wish someone would tell me what’s going
on here, Cha Cha?” G-momma called him by his childhood
nickname, a pleaded with a worried expression.

“No
time to explain, ma.” He kissed his mother on her
forehead and headed to the door. Looking back at his family
he took a deep breath before going about the task of opening
up the door. As
soon as
he finished unlocking and
unchaining it, the police came flooding in over the
threshold. They directed everyone down on their bellies
with their hands behind their backs so they could cuff them.

The police tore the house up looking for guns and
drugs, but they found neither. Once they were done with
their search, the place looked like a tornado had been
through it. The police released everyone from their metal
bracelets except Gangsta; they were bringing him down to
the precinct. He was wanted for questioning behind a few
homicides. Hearing ‘
Homicides
’ mentioned made the O.G
heart skip a beat. He already knew what was up; Lil’
Gangsta had gotten pinched and had dropped a dime on
him. That’s why he never called him back last night. It was
just too coincidental.

When the police led Gangsta outside in handcuffs the
entire neighborhood looked like it was out. You would have
thought the president of the United States was going to roll
through the hood that gloomy morning. Gangsta kept a
broad smile on his face as he was led to a police car. As the
police car pulled off, he looked out the back window to his
mother and mouthed “I love you”. G-momma wiped the
tears from her eyes and mouthed the words back.

***

Lil’ Gangsta stepped out of the Newton Division
precinct a nervous wreck. He pulled his hoodie over his
head as he made his way down the steps of the police
station. Making his way upon the sidewalk, he observed all
of his surroundings before lighting up a Newport. He pulled
smoke into his lungs and unleashed it into the world in the
form of a cloud.

Arsenegger and Ortiz had his nuts in a vice grip so he
had two choices: keep his mouth shut and ride the bullet, or
turn state’s evidence. Lil’ Gangsta took the ladder. He opted
to become a witness for the state and in exchange he was
promised a shorter sentence.

Being a rat was frowned upon in his hood and many
hoods across the globe, but to Lil’ Gangsta, it was a small
price to pay for his freedom. He could live with being a
snitch but he couldn’t live with spending the rest of his life
behind bars. Though he did sign the affidavit, it was no way
in hell he was getting on the stand to testify against Gangsta.
He couldn’t bring himself to look him in the eyes after
stabbing him in the back; especially after all he had done
for him.

A forest green Ford Escort pulled up in front of the
police station. Lil’ Gangsta took one last pull of his cancer
stick, flicked it and hopped in. The little car pulled off,
taking the Y.G with it and leaving his misdeeds behind.

Meanwhile

Gangsta sat in the claustrophobic interrogation room
down at Newton Division police station, picking the scum
out of his finger nails. For the past three and a half hours
Detectives Arsenegger and Ortiz had been hitting him with
a barrage of questions, to which he shrugged his shoulders
and answered “
I don’t know
” to.

“Like I told y’all the first fifty million times,” Gangsta
began. “I don’t know shit about any bodies dropping way
over on the westside. I’m from the eastside, baby.”

“Bullshit!”
Ortiz called him on his lie, slamming his
fist down on the table. He was trying to scare the O.G but
had been failing miserably since the interrogation started.

“Hmmm, I beg to differ.” Gangsta grinned. All this
shit that the crooked badges were trying to pull he had been
through it a hundred times already. Needless to say, he
knew how to handle himself in such a situation.

“Listen, asshole,” Arsenegger began, rolling up his
sleeves and then sitting down on the table. “You’re not
fooling us with this line of bullshit you keep trying to feed
us, we know for a fact that you were involved with those
murders. Your little homeboy, Lil’ Gangsta,” Gangsta’s
eyes wandered up from his nails and met the detective’s. “I
thought that might ring a bell, told us everything. We threw
some numbers at him and he gave it up faster than a Thai
hooker.”

“Is that right?” Gangsta said nonchalantly, one
eyebrow lifted.

“You bet,” Arsenegger said. “His little punk ass gave
you a death sentence. You hopped in the electric chair, we
strapped you down, but he for damn sure raised the lever.”
Gangsta blew hard and rolled his eyes to their whites.
“Luckily for you I’m feeling very generous today. I’m in a
good mood. So,I’m gonna give you a chance to confess so
we can see about working out some kind of deal here for
you. What do you say, big man? Help me to help you.”

Gangsta looked like he had the weight of the world on
his shoulders. He blew hard and said, “Think I can bum a
cigarette off of you detective?”

Upon hearing the O.G
’s request, Arsenegger and
Ortiz exchanged shit-eating-grins. A suspect asking for a
cigarette during an interrogation usually meant he or she
was ready to confess their sins and needed the nicotine to
calm their nerves. Arsenegger gave Gangsta a cigarette and
lit it with a struck match, fanning out the flame of it. He
tossed the used match into the waste basket and posted up
beside his partner. They watched as Gangsta took two long
pulls of the cancer stick and then blew smoke, polluting the
atmosphere.

“What kind of deal do you think you can work out for
me?” Gangsta looked from Arsenegger to Ortiz.

“The sweetest one you’ve ever heard of,
big dawg.”
Arsenegger assured him. “I’m talking about two, three
years…tops.”

He lied through his fucking teeth.

“Alright,” Gangsta said, taking two more pulls of the
cigarette he was given. He mashed the Joe out in the ashtray
on the table, clearing his throat. The snake ass detectives
smiled and gave each other a pound. “You two crooked ass
mothafuckaz can suck my dick!” Gangsta started off,
looking between the two devils. Detective Arseneggers
smile gave way to a mask of hatred and he found himself
clenching his jaws. “Y’all got me fucked up, I’m Big
Gangsta from Eastside 20s!Lock me up and throw away the
key, but when it’s all said and done, they gone bury me a
G!”

Arsenegger leapt over the table and started choking
Gangsta,but Ortiz pulled him off. The interrogation room’s
door swung open and four uniformed officers rushed in to
help Ortiz restrain his partner.

“Hahahahahahaha,” Gangsta sat in the iron
-chair
laughing his ass off, he got a kick out of getting under the
detective’s skin.

“You fucking, nigger,” Arsenegger shouted, spit
flying from off his lips. His eyes were bloodshot and glassy
as fuck. Veins were webbed on his temples and neck. “I’m
going to see to it that they gas your black ass! Then I’m
going to go after your entire fucking family! And I’m going
to bury them in the fucking ground! And then I’m going to
go after your whole crew! You hear me, you black son of a
bitch?” he screamed, struggling to break free from the
uniformed cops and his partner.

“Hahahahahaha,” Gangsta laughed harder and louder,
taunting the racist detective.

 

“Get this piece of shit out of here!” Ortiz told the
uniformed cops.

Two police officers pulled Gangsta to his
feet,
handcuffed him and led him out of the interrogation room
laughing like a maniac.

“Hahahahahaha.”
Chapter Six

“You ever hear back from unc?” Gouch asked
Pavielle from the kitchen, he was sitting at the table
practicing rolling with a pair of red dice.

“Not yet,” Pavielle answered. He was sprawled out on
the couch taking down his hair. “He said he was going to
call once he got his hands on a burnout. He doesn’t wanna
talk on the jack they have in there, you know they be
recording niggaz conversations and shit.”

“Yeah, I know, has anything changed with his bail?”
Gouch schooled the dice.

 

“Hell naw, they haven’t set a bail amount.”

 

“Man, I swear to God, Blood, if I ever run across
bitchboy I’m a split his shit to the white meat.”

 

“There still ain’t no word on Lil’ Gangsta?”

“Nah, ain’t no word on that fuck
-nigga, all the homies
saying he fled the hood,” Gouch informed him. “And if he’s
smart, the rat bastard will stay gone.”

“I told unc I didn’t like that lil’ nigga, man,
it was
always something about him. But you can’t tell Gangsta
shit. That nigga stubborn than a
mothafucka.” Gouch
laughed “What the fuck is so funny?”

“Look who’s talking.”

Pavielle gave Gouch the finger, just then, his cell
phone rang. Pavielle picked the burn-out up from his lap
and looked at the caller ID. He didn’t recognize the number
displayed but he assumed it was his uncle. “I think this is
him.” He sat up on the couch, pressed
talk
and brought the
phone to his ear.

Gouch plopped down on the couch beside Pavielle.

 

“Hello?” Pavielle spoke into the burn-out.

 

“What’s up, Booby?” Gangsta said into the cellular.

 

“Ain’t shit, out here handling your business, how are
you, though?”

 

“I’m alright, taking it one day at a time, nephew. How
are mommy and Gucci doing?”

 

“They’re straight. Momma is at dialysis and Gucci is
right here, you wanna speak to him?”

 

“Nah, I can rap with Gucci later, I wanted to talk to
you.”

 

“What’s on your mind?”

“I think it’s time I pass the torch, it isn’t like I can do
shit with it locked up in here. Besides, one monkey don’t
stop no show, right?”

“You’re talking brazy right
now, unc? You’ll be home
in a hot minute. We got Goldberg on your case. He ain’t
ever lost a case for us. That old Jew is the D.A’s worst
nightmare.”

“Still, Booby, shit is not looking so good. The young
boy running off at the mouth and they’re saying they gotta
murder weapon. I don’t know, man. We’ll see, though. This
shit is in God’s hands.”

“Amen!”

“Besides, it isn’t like the shit isn’t in your blood.
Niggaz been saying you were an even better hustler than
me. And with Gucci to back you with the muscle, that’s a
deadly combination; brains and brawn. I’ve already talked
with the plug, it’s a go. I’ma give you the keys, all you gotta
do is walk through the door.”
“Alright, how are we going to do this?”

“You’ll get a call in the next couple of days, so keep
your ears open.”

 

“Bool, we’re going to bring momma up there to see
you Friday.”

 

“Alright, Booby, y’all stay up. I love y’all.”

 

“We love you, too, unc.”
“Twenty minutes.” He hung up.
Elsewhere

Bullet shook his head at the bad news that had just
been laid on him; he wiped his mouth with a dinner cloth
and cleared his throat.

“How much time is he looking at?” he asked Black
Jesus, who was sitting at the opposite end of the dining
room table.

“Life.” he replied, pouring h
imself a glass of red
wine. “I’m really disappointed with Charles; he wasn’t
supposed to get his hands dirty. Guys like us have clean-up
crews on our payrolls to handle matters like this. Shooting
in the middle of the ghetto like some common thug is not
how you handle business.”

“What are you talking about, bro? Gangsta brought it
to those fools how a gangster is supposed to.”