The Apostles (4 page)

So far, Wayne had managed to stay one step ahead of them. He
would participate in gang activities, but only enough so that he could squeak by without them noticing his lackluster performance. Or so he thought. Some of the higher-ranking members had noticed his lack of enthusiasm when it came to dealing with the gang he had claimed, but there was never enough evidence for them to pursue him. Wayne knew something had gone wrong though, when he was ordered to be at a special meeting. The young Governor named Cave who delivered the message was obviously strapped and he never let him out of his sight until they reached the garage.

Wayne knew by the way that the other members looked at him that some bullshit was about to jump off. That and the way Cave planted himself by the door and never moved again. Wayne hoped that this was some minor bullshit. He was used to them trying to get to him. The older cats were always trying to press charges against one of the younger brothers for breaking “Government Law.” For small infractions you could pay a fine or get hit in the eye. Being punched in the eye was almost a badge of honor for the lower-grade Governors. To wear “Governor's glasses” meant that you were grimy enough to accept physical punishment over a monetary penalty. More serious violations of Government Law required stiffer penalties such as “crushing,” which meant being beaten and stomped by your fellow gang members until the Head Governor halted it. The most serious penalty by far was the “Cold War.” If Cold War was decreed upon you, no one in the gang could talk to you or have anything to do with you for an indefinite amount of time. Any property that you owned could be seized by another Governor and even if you were “brought in out of the cold,” the members didn't have to return any property they'd taken from you. Cold War was something that all Governors feared. Being excommunicated meant social and perhaps even physical death. It was also extremely hard to get back into the Head Governor's good graces. Usually it took something as extreme as killing one of the Governors' enemies. You had to be able to prove that you had done
the deed though, and that was where things could get hairy. The “State Department” still had to vote you back in and they were notorious for being hard on any member who wasn't part of their inner circle.

The inner circle was comprised of members who had been down since day one. The Governors were the brainchild of Vaton “Vee” Dawson, though it was patterned after the Apostles. In his teens while he was locked away in the St. Charles Boys Reformatory, Vee was a member of the Apostles; those days were responsible for the creation of the Governors. Vee considered himself in “God's grace,” meaning he was a totally dedicated member of the Apostles, but no matter what he did, Solemn Shawn never gave him any real power in the gang. For some strange reason the quiet youth never trusted him as much as he trusted Dante or Murderman. Try as he might, Vee could never impress Solemn Shawn with his daring deeds and ruthless acts, and in fact Solemn Shawn would always tell him that he was needlessly cruel. Though he was a part of them, Vee secretly hated the Apostles, but he had made so many enemies trying to impress Solemn Shawn and his counsel, he knew that it meant certain death for him to disassociate himself from them while he was incarcerated.

Vee felt that Solemn Shawn was too soft. The way that the (then small) group of boys adored Solemn Shawn made him sick to his stomach. They wouldn't make a move without his approval and careful planning.

Upon his release from the juvenile prison, Vee hit the streets determined to take over the flourishing Apostles, but he soon found because of the revolving door of the juvenile jail system that Solemn Shawn's influence reached beyond the walls of St. Charles and was just as strong on the city streets. His task was a delicate one in the beginning: to try to usurp the throne of the Apostles without showing his hand. Try as he might, Vee couldn't shake the resolve of the members to wait for Solemn Shawn's release so that he could take his rightful place at the helm of the Apostles as a free
man. Fearing the repercussions of his treasonous acts, Vee left the Apostles to start his own organization before Solemn Shawn's release. Though he made the offer of money, drugs, and positions of power in his newly formed organization as attractive as possible, he managed to convince only seven of the swelling membership of the Apostles to join him. He was disappointed at the dismal result of trying to split the Apostles, but he vowed to become a force that they would have to deal with someday. Over the years his gang had grown to roughly one thousand members, but the Apostles had surged to a couple of thousand members. They were all over the Windy City and had even branched out to surrounding midwestern and southern states.

Vee could only hope that one day the Governors would represent as much muscle on the street as the Apostles.

Vee rubbed his forehead and caused his white Cleveland Indians baseball cap to tilt backward, revealing his nappy braids. He straightened his cap and elbowed his way to the front of the circle. He stood directly across the circle from Wayne and smirked. Lately his members had been toeing the line, so there hadn't been much of a chance to pass down any punishment, physical or otherwise. But now the opportunity presented itself in the form of the terrified man standing across the circle from him.

Vee shook his head slightly as he grinned. He knew beforehand that it was going to go badly for Wayne. Of the eight men that made up the State Department of the Governors, the majority of them never cared too much for Wayne. As Head of State, Vee could have vetoed any decision that the State Department made, but there wasn't any danger of that happening, not when Wayne had one of the finest girls in the neighborhood as his woman.

Unconsciously Vee licked his lips as his mind brushed up against Wayne's girl's skin for the millionth time. Even her name was magic: Sakawa. Damn, that girl was bad. She had to be at least six feet tall, thick as a ghetto burger on white bread, and her skin was a reddish-brown hue. Her hair was black as a crow's feather
and hung to the middle of her back. To top it all off, she was bowlegged as a cowboy, giving her the most carnal walk that Vee had ever had the pleasure of witnessing. He had an opportunity with her, but he managed to blow it by lying to her about staying home for the night, then getting caught in a dollar party hugged up with a hoodrat. He thought the little chickenhead that he was grinding would be some sure action, but out of nowhere Sakawa materialized in front of him. She only stayed long enough to let him know that she had seen him, then she left. No fussing or fighting. After that night she refused to hear anything that he had to say. He'd tried begging, buying her gifts, even threatening her, but nothing worked. Somehow, Wayne managed to come up with her and she'd been with him ever since.

“All right, everybody shut the fuck up and put out them squares!” Vee ordered.

The dull roar in the garage faded.

“Governors, we are gathered here to decide the fate of one Governor. First we got to display the charges against him. Governor Wayne, step to the middle.”

Hoping that his knees wouldn't buckle and betray his fear, Wayne, stepped from among the ranks of his fellow Governors. In the middle of the circle he stood looking down at the oil stains on the concrete floor. At that exact moment, he wished that he could be like that oil and slide down the floor drain—anything to get the hell out of here in one piece.

Stay strong
, he told himself.
They ain't got nothing on you. Ain't no way they could know what you did. Damn that Bull and Grove. Them two dicks could make a nigga's life straight hell.

Vee announced, “Governor Wayne, the State Department has brought charges of treason against you. The same as all Governors you got the right to face yo accuser and his witnesses against you. Governor Bing, Governor Tonto, and Governor Toobie, step forward.”

Three Governors stepped to the circle.

“Governor Bing, tell the Governors in this room the same shit that you told the State Department.”

Bing cleared his throat. He was a tall boy, about six foot six. His slender frame moved with the grace of a ballet dancer and he walked on his toes. At his height and age of eighteen he should have been in somebody's school playing basketball, but he actually hated hooping. As a child his family forced him to play basketball because of his height. Under the advice of her friends, his mother dragged him to basketball camps, made him run drills and join any team that she could get him on. Never once did she ask him if he liked the game—that was irrelevant. Ironically he was good— real good. He had a post game and outside shot; he could run the floor with or without the ball, jump, rebound, and pass. The total package. The only problem was that he detested the game. Maybe not so much the game, but what it represented to his mother. To her, he wasn't James Bingham her son, he was a commodity. Despite her good-paying job in the mayor's office, his entire family dreamed of climbing out of the ghetto on his back as a superstar basketball player. They anticipated him going to the NBA after two years of college. They had everything planned for him, but Bing would prove them wrong. He decided to pay them back for all the things they wouldn't allow him to do as a child, because his mother feared that he might get injured and lose his basketball future. It was impossible to forgive his mother for all the time she made him spend running wind sprints, when all he really wanted to do was be at home playing with his Erector set. If his family would have taken the time to ask him, they would have found out that he really wanted to be an engineer. Two years ago in his junior year of high school, he grew tired of living for their dream and left home. Somehow he managed to graduate from high school. He decided not to play basketball in his senior year but even without a senior-year performance he was still of interest to several college basketball programs and they devoted a major portion of their recruiting efforts in his direction—to no avail.

Bing had grown up around the Governors so it was a natural thing for him to join them. He started off trying to serve a little crack here and there, but that proved to be too hectic for him. Maximum risk, often minimal payoffs. The girl he was dating at the time would always have some bomb-ass weed to smoke, so one day he cut into her and asked her where she got it from. She was the receptionist for a large construction company and the owner was her supplier. It took some fast talking, but Bing finally got his girl to agree to talk to her boss about making a purchase. Using his girl as a go-between, Bing soon scored his first pound of weed.

The weed was off the chain. The connection was friendly and reliable and made sure that everything flowed quickly and smoothly for him. Competition in the neighborhood was basically nonexistent on the weed side—everyone else sold crack or heroin. In a stroke of marketing genius, Bing packed the weed into little glass bottles instead of the customary coin bags or small Ziploc bags. Money came in hand over fist. Shit, everybody smoked weed. Dudes sold other drugs just to make money to buy that green shit. They were bringing him all the money and they would have kept right on bringing it, if it hadn't been for Wayne.

Bing shielded his eyes from the harsh light of the solitary, bare lightbulb. He was so tall that it was at eye level. “Governor Vee,” Bing said, and jerked his thumb at Wayne, “this stud is a trick. He sent them gang crimes dicks Bull and Grove to my tip.”

“No, I didn't,” Wayne protested. “That's some bullshit. This nigga up in here lying and shit.”

“Nigga, shut yo ass up,” Vee ordered. “Don't interrupt these fucking proceedings again or Governor Tango gone hit you in yo eye.”

Tango, a short, squat bulldog of a man, stepped forward. Wayne noticeably shifted around so that he could keep his eye on Tango. He did well to do so. Tango was a notorious eye shot artist.

Vee directed, “Go ahead, Bing.” This was going exactly as Vee hoped it would. Again he licked his lips, already tasting Sakawa's secret delights.

“I was at my girl's crib breaking down the twenty pounds of weed I had just copped. I usually don't grab that much, but my connect told me that it would be dry for a minute, so I scraped together as much cabbage as I could and my man let me owe him some. Me and my girl was laying back bagging that shit up in quarter pounds, just smoking and chilling. I ain't know that Wayne had got bumped by Grove and Bull trying to serve some clucker a quarter onion.”

Wayne wanted to protest, but a look at Tango's clenched fist made him hold his peace.

Vee asked, “How did Wayne know that you had that much shit? Do y'all do business or something?”

“Nall, I don't fuck with this stud like that. We was at the record store on 75th at the same time. That's where I get my weed bottles. He was copping some CDs and I was making a big order for weed bottles. When I asked for five thousand bottles that goofy-ass nigga behind the counter blurted that shit out loud and this nigga heard him. I had came up there in a livery cab so Wayne told me to let the cab go and he would drop me at the crib. He kept asking me what I needed with all them bottles. I played that shit off, but the nigga asked me to sell him an ounce of weed. I didn't want to, so I said I wanted two fifty for the shit and this nigga was like, ‘cool.’ I still didn't want to sell him shit, but I had just used all of my paper to pay for the weed and the bottles, so I was like, fuck it, I'll sell this nigga a onion. Wayne took me to the crib, I went and got the nigga a ounce, he hit me with the ends and bounced. The next day Bull and Grove was kicking in my girl's door. I had to jump out the second-floor window, but them studs put all that weed on my girl and locked her up. Now I need seventy-five hundred to reach for her before she start running her damn mouth. Now I ain't got shit because of this snitching-ass nigga. I should beat yo …”

Bing took a step toward Wayne, but Vee stopped him.

“Hold on, Governor, we'll get to all of that if this nigga is
guilty. Governor Toobie and Tonto, what y'all got to say about this shit?”

The twin Governors took their places under the lightbulb. The identical twins could be told apart by their hair and Toobie's various body piercings and tattoos. Toobie wore his hair long, hot-combed straight and parted down the middle. Tonto, older by forty-six minutes, chose to wear bald fades. Caramel-colored skin drawn tightly over their thin, muscular frames completed their appearance. Both men were respected for their loyalty to the Governors, but their fellow gang members knew that loyalty was overshadowed by their love for each other.