Murderville 2: The Epidemic (7 page)

“I want to see. I
want
to remember,” Liberty said, just before she closed one eye and slightly raised the gun.

“Oh shit. Li’l ma got some spunk,” Rocko said in surprise as he stepped to the side.

“I got you. Just pull the trigger when you’re ready,” Po slowly whispered into her ear. Just as the words slid out of his mouth, Liberty squeezed. Matter of fact, she squeezed until the clip was empty, filling Samad’s body full of holes. To say 3-Swiss cheese was an understatement.

Once the bullets were gone, she dropped the gun and stared at Samad’s corpse, never blinking as tears ran down her cheeks. Po looked over at Rocko and threw his head in the direction of the safe. Rocko went into the closet and grabbed a piece of Samad’s luggage and began to empty the safe. In the process of saving Liberty, they had stumbled upon a come-up.

FOUR

HYSTERICAL, LIBERTY FELL INTO PO’S ARMS, BURYING
her head into his chest as he held her shaking body close. She broke down completely. Po hugged her tightly and consoled her as she crumbled in his arms. Rocko looked at Po in shock as he watched Po handle Liberty gently. Rocko had never seen Po’s soft side with anyone but Scarlett, so to see him treat Liberty with such care was odd.

“How could you bring me back here!” she cried as she gripped his jacket collar and sobbed uncontrollably. She hit him in the face, slapping him with the sole ounce of strength she had left. “I trusted you!” she screamed angrily. In a mixture of rage and relief she clung to him, jerking his collar as she spoke. “You brought me back to him!”

Po took her smacks because he knew that he deserved them. “I’m sorry. Let me get you out of here.”

Liberty pulled away from him, but her wobbly legs gave
out beneath her. Samad had beaten and raped her badly. Her body was weak.

“Don’t touch me!” she shouted. “You lied to me!”

“I can’t believe we did all this shit for a bitch,” Rocko mumbled in disbelief as he watched the scene unfold. In all the years he had known Po, Po had never put a play down over a woman. Po was motivated by money, so to kick in a man’s door, guns blazing over this one girl was uncharacteristic of him.

Po shot Rocko a look that told Rocko to hold his peace, then knelt down to console Liberty. He knew that she didn’t trust him. She had every right to doubt him, but she had to let that go so that he could get her away from the murder scene.

“Let me get you out of here. I’m not going to hurt you. You can stay here with the nigga body or you can let me help you,” Po said in a low but serious tone. Liberty’s entire frame shook from fear and pain. Her once-flawless skin was marred black and blue from the beatings she had endured.

“Fine, just get me away from here,” Liberty said, giving in as she glanced at Samad’s corpse. Even in death the sight of him sent chills down her spine. Po scooped her up off her feet and carried her fragile body over to the bed. Liberty turned her face into Po’s broad chest to avoid staring at Samad’s lifeless body. “There’s so much blood,” she whispered.

Po turned her face toward his. “Just look at me, a’ight?”

“Yo, it’s time to roll, fam,” Rocko stated.

“I’m gon’ get you out of here, ma,” Po promised as he opened up the armoire and removed a crisp white business shirt off of one of Samad’s racks. He wrapped it around her body, moving swiftly as he helped her button it up. He picked her up again and headed out of the room. Rocko gave Po a skeptical glance, and Po’s firm stare was all it took to get Rocko on board. The pair had been rocking with each other since the sandbox. Rocko wouldn’t question Po’s decision.

“Fuck it, let’s roll,” Rocko said as he led the way toward the front entrance with his gun drawn and trigger finger ready.

Just before they exited Samad’s mansion, Liberty spoke. “Wait. The office upstairs. The bricks you took out of that safe are peanuts compared to what he keeps locked in that room.”

Rocko stepped outside and looked around in paranoia. “Yo, we don’t got time for this shit, fam. Let’s get out of this mu’fucka.”

Liberty gripped Po’s neck and whispered, “Trust me. It’s worth your while.”

Po headed upstairs with Liberty in his arms without hesitation.

“Fuck! What’s with him and this bitch?” Rocko mumbled under his breath before following.

“Go right; it’s the last door at the very end of the hall,” Liberty instructed.

Po followed her lead and entered the room. Liberty climbed out of his arms and weakly headed toward the walk-in closet.

“Yo, Po! We don’t got time—”

Po put his hand to Rocko’s chest, cutting him off. “Five minutes, fam, and we out of here.” His eyes followed Liberty the entire time he spoke.

Liberty stopped in front of the large glass showcase that contained the urns and her eyes burned with tears. “I’m sorry no one could save you,” she whispered, acknowledging the forgotten souls in the urns, the women that Samad had made disappear before her. Po walked up behind her. “We’ve got to go, ma.”

“No one even knows that they’re dead. No one even cares,” Liberty stated.

Po’s eyes diverted to the showcase of urns. “What are you talking about, Liberty?”

“If you hadn’t come back, I would be inside one of these urns by the morning,” she said as a tear glided down her face.

Rocko shifted uncomfortably in his stance as Po’s eyes widened at Liberty’s revelation.

“Let’s go,” he insisted as he grabbed her arm.

“Wait. I’m not leaving here until I get what’s owed to me,” she said. “Move the display, please.”

Po looked at Rocko and nodded his head. Rocko hesitantly pushed the glass display aside, revealing the door that it concealed behind. Liberty had always known the door was there, but Samad had instilled so much fear inside of her that it was only in his death that she had the courage to open it.

She quickly opened the door and turned toward Rocko. “I think this was worth the risk, don’t you?”

Rocko and Po stepped into the large room and both their eyes widened in surprise. Greed filled them as they looked at the treasure to which Liberty had led them.

Liberty was right. There were more bricks of cocaine than they could count. They lay stacked neatly against the back wall. Bank bricks of plastic-wrapped money were piled on a steel table and an arsenal of automatic guns hung from the walls. They had hit the ghetto lottery. The value of what lay inside of this hidden room was more than what Po would have ever attained in his entire life.

“Damn,” Rocko whispered.

“I told you,” Liberty said with a smirk as she exited the room and headed back toward the office.

Rocko turned to Po. “Yo, shorty a keeper,” he said jokingly.

“Let’s bag this shit up and get out of here,” Po said before he went after Liberty. When he found her, Liberty was rifling through Samad’s desk drawers, her hands frantically searching until they landed on a black book. She handed it to Po.

“What’s this?” he asked, taking it in his hands and flipping through the pages.

“It’s his ledger. Every time he would conduct business, he would record it in this journal. Names, dates, locations, amounts. It’s all there,” Liberty informed him. “You can have it all. The drugs, the guns, the contacts. All I want is a portion of the money. I’ve been passed around from owner to owner, man to man, since I was a kid. I appreciate you
coming back for me, but I don’t want to feel like I owe you. I don’t want to be indebted to you or anybody else ever again. I just want my freedom.”

Liberty spoke with such passion that Po couldn’t help but wonder what her eyes had seen in her lifetime. The pain from which she spoke he knew nothing about, but he could tell that it was deep rooted.

“You don’t owe me shit, ma. I came back because . . .” he paused as he realized that he didn’t even know why he had come to her rescue, and before he could come up with an answer Rocko interrupted them.

“I’ma need more bags, fam. There’s so much shit in here we gonna live like kings, baby. We on now.”

They snuck out of the house and coasted right past the guards in the van. After dumping the van and the lawn workers, who would soon be able to untie themselves, around the corner, they got into Po’s car and headed out. Liberty had just closed a horrible chapter in her life, but little did she know, she was about to start a new one.

*    *    *

Rocko and Po stayed up all night counting dead presidents. They were high off life. The money was good, but they both knew the potential flip from the coke and guns was far greater. The penthouse suite of the West Hollywood hotel they chose gave them the perfect view of the glittering city below. It was 4
A.M.,
and the city was winding down, but Po and Rocko had never felt more alive. Po’s life had taken a turn for the worse when he had lost Scarlett, but meeting
Liberty seemed like a silver lining around the dark cloud that hovered over him.

“How we gon’ get this shit back home?” Rocko asked.

“Shit, for me, this is home, at least for now,” Po stated. “Ain’t shit in the D for me, fam. Too many memories there. Without Scar . . .” Po’s words trailed off as he thought of the murder of his first love. A vice grip of pain captured his heart, and he took a deep breath to ease the grief. “I’m not going back,” he concluded.

“Fuck it. We’ll bring the hustle to Hollywood,” Rocko cracked, letting Po know he was down for the ride. “For the record, bro . . . Scarlett’s death ain’t on you. It’s a part of the game, and the fuck boy that called that play is grieving just as hard over his own mama right now.”

“His mama ain’t enough. I want his head, and that’s one trigger that I have to pull personally,” Po stated, tension pulsing through his jaws as he grit his teeth in fury.

Rocko nodded in understanding, then motioned toward the master bedroom where Liberty was sleeping.

“And what about her?” Rocko asked.

Po’s thoughts drifted from Scarlett to Liberty. “What about her? She’s just some chick. I put shorty in a tight spot, so I helped her out. That’s it. The only thing I’m focused on is getting this money. In the morning, I’m gon’ give her a third of this paper, and the bird can fly,” Po replied nonchalantly as he tapped one of the banded stacks of bills on the table before throwing it into the pile. “Meanwhile, this little black book is my key to a new empire.”

The sun crept over the city washing away the sins of
the night. The floor-to-ceiling windows let in the light as Po leaned against the glass, peering out over the city. Rocko lay sprawled across the sofa. Fatigue had been his undertaker hours before, but Po couldn’t rest. His mind was full of money schemes as he plotted his next move. L.A. was new stomping grounds for him, and he would be the new kid on the block, but with Samad’s book in hand, he had an obvious advantage over the competition. As he looked back into the room where Liberty slept he couldn’t help but think of Scarlett. The emotional roller coaster he was on took him through hills of grief, loops of anger, and dips of resentment. He was more than ready to get off this ride of mental anguish, and money was the perfect distraction.

Rocko groaned behind him as he arose from his sleep. “You still up, bro?” he asked.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Po replied. “We can’t keep this shit here. It’s time to get busy, fam. I need you to find a place where we can set up shop out here. This is too much work to keep where I sleep. Store it somewhere safe. Somewhere low-key.”

Rocko nodded. He opened the closet and found a bellman’s cart inside. He began to load the duffel bags on top. Just before he exited the room, Po stopped him.

“Yo, Rocko,” he shouted.

Rocko paused midstep and turned to Po, looking him dead in the eyes.

“Spend that bread slow, fam. Don’t draw no unnecessary attention to yourself. If the nigga Samad is as large as
I think he was, we might encounter some problems. That’s a murder that we don’t have to be tied to if we play it smart, understand?”

Rocko nodded in agreement. “I got you,” he said, before leaving the room.

Po turned toward the room where Liberty slept and went to her bedside, then he sat in the chair across the room and leaned forward, resting his elbows against his knees. Po didn’t know what to do with Liberty next. Yes, he had saved her, but he wasn’t trying to be her savior. He knew that it was time for them to part ways, and he hoped that the money he had set aside for her was severance enough. He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn’t notice Liberty wake up.

“How long have you been sitting there?” she asked as she sat up in the bed, resting her sore back against the headboard. She winced as she felt the effects of Samad’s vicious hand.

“Not long,” Po answered as he stood and walked over to her. He grabbed a pillow and put it behind her back, then he sat on the edge of the bed and looked at her. She was the definition of beauty, good by nature with a heart so pure that it had been abused many times. Po didn’t understand how someone could bring her harm. Being in her presence warmed his cold heart, and he could not fathom why. Po never changed up for anyone, but he felt differently toward Liberty. Being around her was like putting a Band-Aid over his wounded heart. She was healing to him, without even knowing it. But because his fiancée had just died, he felt
disloyal for finding relief in Liberty. He couldn’t explain his connection to her, but he would be lying to himself to say that one didn’t exist. If he felt nothing for her, he would have left her for dead. It wasn’t sexual or even a love thing. Her spirit was good . . . like Scarlett’s had been. She reminded him of what he had lost. If anything, he wanted friendship from her.

“How you feel?” Po asked.

“I hurt all over,” Liberty replied. “But it doesn’t matter now. He’s gone, and he can’t hurt me ever again. I don’t have to be afraid anymore, and I owe that to you.”

“I’m the reason why you’re lying here like this in the first place. I should have never taken you back there. I’m sorry, ma. You were just a face standing in the way of me and my paper, but once I got to know you, I couldn’t just leave you there. That shit ate at me,” Po replied. “I apologize to you, Liberty.”