The Apostles (18 page)

Breathing heavily, Vee said, “Murderman sent me. I owed him a favor, plus he paid me a couple of joints to give you a hand in here. I hate that punk Frito anyway, so really it was a pleasure. Murderman said not to hip you that I was s'posed to help you out. That's why I hid behind the wall when everybody ran out in the hallway.”

Note to self,
Solemn Shawn thought
, I got to thank Murder for sending such a wildcat.

“All right, Vee, now we got to get out of here. We gone mingle in the crowd around the fight, then when ain't nobody looking we gone scram. Got it?”

“Uh-huh,” Vee said.

After peeking through the glass, Solemn Shawn pulled the chair from under the doorknob. He examined Vee's clothes and his own. Both of them had blood on their clothing, but it couldn't be helped.

Outside the door the rec room guard was having the damnedest time trying to break up the staged fight between Ben's lackeys. The hallway contained more inmates than were originally in the rec room. Most of them had wandered on the scene, hoping for a chance to see some bloodletting.

Using the melee for cover, Vee and Solemn Shawn slipped into the hallway unnoticed. For a hot second they pretended to watch the fight.

“It was a business doing pleasure with you,” Vee said, before walking away.

Solemn Shawn watched him for a moment, then began heading for his own cell to clean up and change clothes.

“S
ORRY I'M LATE, A,” SOLEMN SHAWN ANNOUNCED AS HE
dropped his bowling bag and looked around.

The huge bowling alley was full of families, bowling teams, and spectators. Children ran to the video games, quarters clutched tightly in their small fingers. Teenagers lounged at the snack shop. At the bar, women drank, smoked cigarettes, and cursed while their husbands, boyfriends, and future bedroom conquests battled one another on the smooth lanes. Sprinkled in the crowd were three young men. Instead of bowling equipment in their bags, they carried MP5s with fifty-shot clips. They were the security team for the Head Apostles.

“You ain't miss shit, A,” Big Ant said, as he took another swallow of his beer.

Dante spoke up. “The office is ready for us. I'll have Nick send back some pizzas and a couple of longnecks.”

As the others headed for the management office, Dante went toward the bar. He ignored the hungry glances of women as he had a few words with his brother, Nick, behind the bar. In the office, Murderman and Mumps sat on a futon, while Big Ant and Solemn Shawn chose two reclining chairs. When Dante entered the office he took a seat behind the glass desk. Few people outside of the five men in the room knew that the bowling alley was really owned by them. If the church leagues, police officers, and fine upstanding members of the community knew that their chief recreation center
was owned by Chicago's most notorious gang, they would be more than a little angry.

There was a tap at the door, then Nick entered the office carrying two boxed pizzas and a twelve-pack of beer. “Pies and suds,” he said cheerfully as he set the food and beer on the table in front of the sofa. “There's paper plates and napkins in the cabinet behind the desk,” he said before turning to leave.

“Any problems, Nick?” Dante asked his brother before he could get to the door.

Nick stopped and wiped his hands on the apron tied around his waist. His face twisted up in thought before he answered. “Nothing major but this cat that used to work here. I had to fire the dude for stealing. Dude was stealing liquor and shit so I got rid of his ass. Little motherfucker got to talking crazy and shit. Said he was gone burn the place down.”

Murderman's voice was a cold wind. “What's his name?”

“Little short dude named Troy. I'll give you his address and shit before you leave.”

“As soon as you do, it's taken care of, A,” Murderman assured Nick.

“All right, I'll get that to you, M1. If you guys need anything else just ring the bar,” Nick said as he left the office.

The five Head Apostles joked around as they helped themselves to pizza and beer, but the moment they were seated again it became all business.

Solemn Shawn asked, “Tay, how is the paper looking for the community center, A?”

Dante wiped his mouth and answered, “We already got a hundred in cashier's checks. We got about one sixty to one seventy stacks on the streets, and Benito from the Westside is bringing me another hundred, A.

“The yay is doing all right, so is the diesel, but the thing that's really bringing in the dough is that hydro shit, A. That fucking weed shit sell like heroin used to sell back in the days.”

Big Ant toned in, “But it be hard to find somewhere to store all that shit. Shit, my motherfucking junkyard was full of that shit. The fumes from that shit be a bitch, A. My goddamn dogs was walking around high as hell off that shit, eating up big bags of Eukanuba in one day.”

Everybody laughed.

Big Ant continued, “With the money Dante gave me to cop wit I almost scared my connect. They wasn't used to me grabbing fifty pounds, but because I been fucking with them so long they went on and did it. The turnover is crazy. We might be making between three and half, four stacks off of every pillow. That way we paying everybody that getting rid of it for us real lovely. We only paying four thousand for a pillow, while anybody else, even if they could get it, would be paying about anywhere between five thousand to fifty-five hundred for a pound.”

Mumps asked, “Is the shit gone dry up on us, A?”

Big Ant said, “Not no time soon. My guy will let me know if it's gonna go bad and let me buy everything he's got until he gets some more shit in. Plus when I told him what we were trying to do he said that he would let a lot of his cats dry up while we made this move. That's guaranteeing that we got this shit on lock. I suggest when this shit is over we keep on getting it like this, A.”

Solemn Shawn wiped his mouth and hands with a napkin, then balled it up and shot it at the garbage can halfway across the room and missed. As he left his seat and picked the napkin up off the floor, without looking at Murderman, he asked, “Double M, why you got rocks in yo jaws, A?”

Murderman's voice kept its cold edge as he answered, “One of the young cats got merced, A. He was up at that gyro spot on Sixty-seventh. Him and another Apostle. The other cat got clipped on his finger and his ear.”

Solemn Shawn took his seat and zeroed in on Murderman. “Why am I just hearing about this?”

Murderman was a bit uneasy under Solemn Shawn's intense
glare. “This just happened the other day, SS, and I been trying to find out where this shit came from, A. Me and Yo-Yo, the Under Apostle for that section, been checking this out. The young cat's name was Ghost and the cat that was with him is name Reg. Me and Yo-Yo hollered at Reg, A. Reg said that the stud that rolled Ghost's carpet back approached them like he was family. Said he didn't really get a good look at the dude but that he knew something wasn't right. Reg said this kid just upped his heater and started letting loose for no reason.”

Big Ant asked, “You sure them shorties wadn't trying to wile out or something on dude and he got the best of them, A?”

Dante answered for Murderman. “Don't make no difference if they was in the wrong. The stud that killed our little brother is dead wrong, A. Ain't no cat s'posed to be on no Apostle set offing one of ours.”

“You right, A,” Big Ant agreed. “Why I'm saying that is maybe if we knew what provoked this shit, then maybe, just maybe, we would know who this stud is that cooked our little brother.”

Mumps drawled, “We ain't even got to discuss this shit, A. When an Apostle goes to Heaven, somebody else goes to hell. M1, all you got to do is use some of those CIA-type informants you got to find out who did this shit, A.”

Nodding, Murderman said, “I already got my feelers out there now. Does the Council of Head Apostles agree that when I find this dude and whatever crew he from I can push some buttons?”

Everyone cast their eyes downward, a prearranged signal that meant death.

“I
'M DOWNSTAIRS,” VEE SAID INTO HIS CELL PHONE.
“Here I come,” Sakawa said into her telephone. She hung up the cordless telephone and tossed it on the bed. She walked to the mirror on her closet door and took a look at herself. On her last trip to the beauty shop, Mrs. Dunn's Get It Dunn, she had her stylist clip her long hair to a short, wavy bob that accentuated her beautiful face. Her Native American ancestry was easily recognizable in the reddish hue of her skin and her high cheekbones.

Sakawa was wearing a maroon, short-sleeved tight sweater that hugged her chest. Underneath her sweater the bra from Victoria's Secret was doing its thing. Her skirt was a long smoke gray, made from an almost sheer material that hung down to her ankles. On the right side of the skirt, a long split displayed her shapely thighs, thin ankles, and smooth skin. A pair of maroon Donna Karan sandals were tied up her well-muscled calves.

Satisfied with her reflection, Sakawa grabbed a pair of oversize Donna Karan sunglasses and her Donna Karan purse. She checked her purse to make sure she had her cock-blocking kit—tampons and Midol.

Slyly, she chuckled.
If this nigga think he getting some pussy, he got another think coming
, she thought. The telephone jangled, breaking her train of thought. Without picking up the telephone she looked at the caller ID—it was Vee.

“I'm gone have to train this nigga,” she said to herself as she picked up the telephone.

“I'm coming, baby,” Sakawa said sweetly.

“That's what I want to hear you say,” Vee said lecherously.

Nigga, you wish
, she thought. But she said, “Stop playing, boy. I'm on my way down. I had to make sure that I was looking good for you, baby.” Sakawa pushed the End button on the telephone and threw it back on her bed.

At the curb in front of her building, Vee was sitting behind the wheel of his Excursion. He had Musiq Soulchild's first CD playing softly on the sound system. He knew that he was looking good in a white-and-orange-trimmed Akademiks jogging suit with a pair of white-and-orange-trimmed Air Force Ones. Though he was looking fly he wasn't ready for just how lovely Sakawa looked with her new hairdo.

“Gotdamn, girl,” Vee commented as she climbed into the SUV. “You look good than a motherfucka with no hair. Like Halle Berry or Toni Braxton or something. Shid, I should skip dinner and go straight to the telly.”

“Stop playing with me, Vee,” Sakawa said with a seductive flash of her white teeth. “The only way you got me out the house after a long day of work is because you said we was going out to eat. Hungry as I am, you better take me straight to the restaurant.”

Sakawa's refusal of his proposition to go to a motel didn't make Vee angry. He had hoped she would say yes, but deep down he knew she wouldn't, well, not before dinner anyway. They had been out on about six dates so far and she never seemed like she was on the verge of pulling down her panties. Around the fourth date she had offered him a polite peck on the cheek, but not much more. One night he had gotten up his courage to palm her butt and she hit the ceiling. She had actually cursed him out and made him drop her off at home. For a few days Vee said fuck her, but soon he
found himself sending her flowers and candy. After that date Vee knew to keep his hands to himself.

My day will come though
, Vee thought.
And when it do, I'mma take me some ginseng and tear that pussy up.
Smiling, Vee turned the music up until the bass resonated through the truck, and he headed for Lakeshore Drive.

The day was pleasant with a mild breeze blowing off Lake Michigan.

Sakawa signaled for Vee to turn the music down. “Where are we eating?” Sakawa inquired.

“This little spot called Ron of Japan,” Vee answered. “It's a fancyschmancy Japanese restaurant. People be making a big deal out of it, but I only like this batter type of shit they put on the shrimp and lobster. Why you looking like that? Like you think all niggas know is J&J Fish, McDonald's, and on special occasions Red Lobster.”