The Corner II (15 page)

“Yeah, they’re waiting for the call for another job.”

Chavez had hired some soldiers from across the state line. The brothas were from Gary—a city known for young men who were bout it, bout it. He hired the young guns to do the dirt and it wasn’t his first time using them, so he knew they’d get the job done and keep quiet. They only knew Chavez as The Spaniard. A name that he used on the streets in Gary so if they decided to snitch, all they’d have is a face making it all that harder to find him, especially since they thought he lived in Gary, and the killer had no record, so that meant no police photo.

Carlos smiled, “I figure they will assume that it’s Sammy’s people and not us or someone else. We get them to start canceling each other out and then when it’s time, when they’re weak, we start putting the hammer down on the both of them.”

Chavez nodded. “And with all the action it should bring Slim’s ass out of the woodwork and I’ll be there waiting,” he said while patting the pistol that was tucked in his waistband under his t-shirt that had the face of the Hispanic rapper, B-Real, from the old rap group, Cypress Hill, printed on it.

“In due time my friend, in due time.”

“What about that Lisa chick, he ain’t tried to see her since she been out?”

“Nah, and I don’t think that he’s feeling her either. LaTanza’s been on it, but it looks like she’s on the straight path. I guess that prison time rehabilitated her ass.”

The two of them laughed.

“You know Tanza’s a soldier, homie. Ever since back in the day she’s put in work for you for the
family
. I ain’t gonna lie, at the beginning I was wondering about her. But years ago when she knocked off that cat from St. Louis who beat your father for them kilos, she proved her worth.”

Carlos shook his head from side to side. “Nah, my friend. When she capped her step dad, it was no turning back then. She had a murder on her plate and we witnessed it so I knew then she was down, even though I always knew it in my heart.”

“I believe that, homey. Anyway, what’s our next move?”

“To sit back and let them make a play.”  Carlos rubbed his goatee as he thought for a second. “Better yet—”

Chavez cut him off. “You ain’t even got to say it.”

Carlos grinned, “You think you know me don’t you?”

Chavez flipped open his phone and dialed a number, but it didn’t go through. He shook his head and thought to himself
stupid ass.
He’d forgotten to dial the 219 area code. He tried the number again and after a few rings a young man answered. Chavez told him to turn the music down then got right to business telling the man that he needed his crew’s service again. The man asked was it the same type of deal. Chavez told him that it was and the man gave him his price, the same as before, five grand apiece for each one of his members and an extra grand for each body they laid out. They had made thirty grand earlier in the day, twenty-five for five men on the hit and five for laying five bodies down. Chavez didn’t need for it to be two cars or that many men this time so he told the man that he only needed one car and it had to be different from the one used earlier and only three men. The man agreed and Chavez told him he needed him for tomorrow night. They hung up and Carlos could do nothing but smile at his friend. The two of them figured that they’d have the young guns hit some of Sammy’s people and make it look as if Lucky had sent the killers in retaliation of their people getting killed. That way the two crews would go to war and the Fuentes’ would be there to knock off the weakened crews so their supplier would have no one to supply. That is no one major and then they’d have to buy from the Fuentes’ if they wanted to stay in the game.

*     *     *

Noonie, Greg, Jamel, Anthony and Duck, one of the shorties, were in the basement of a house on Chicago Avenue. A sixty-three year woman, who Lucky had known for years owned the house and he was paying her bills and putting money in her pockets to let him use her basement for any meetings his crew needed—and this was one of those times where they needed to meet and feel safe.

The basement was finished and nice. Flat panel on the wall, Bose stereo system, pool table, couches, stove, refrigerator, wet bar and a fireproof safe in one of the walls. They had no need to bother the woman and she had no need to bother whoever was in the basement. She never saw a face and didn’t care as long as she got her money every month.

“Where the fuck is DC?” Noonie barked.

Greg was mixing some Hennessy and Hypnotic. He said, “I don’t know, he’s your boy. I hit his ass up five times 911, and finally his girl answered. I told the ho to put his ass on the phone then asked him what the fuck was she doing answering his shit. He got pissed with me asking that. I know he’s higher on the food chain but what the fuck, he can’t be slippin’ like that!”  He took a swig of his incredible Hulk.

Noonie took up for his boy, “He’s right. He’s a lieutenant so you shouldn’t be questioning his ass.”  He knew that DC was wrong, but Greg was under him and DC. He ran the corners and couldn’t be talking about DC like that in front of everyone. He knew DC was wrong for letting Cat answer his cell and made a mental note to check his partner about it.

Jamel, who was only nineteen said, “I don’t mean to be out of place, but are we going to get this meeting started, I gots to go tell lil’ Ricky’s sister what happened. That nigga wasn’t nothin’ but sixteen, and his sister trips when he doesn’t come home for the night.”

Greg shot, “That ho knows he be hustlin’, we got shit to handle so you worrying about telling her that little nigga caught it is secondary until we find out what’s happening so we can let Lucky know.”

Jamel, who was a stone killer, looked at his immediate boss like he wanted to do something to him even though he didn’t. He was just a bit shook by losing some of his young homies. The boys he was supposed to look out for.

Noonie decided that he couldn’t wait on DC, no matter how bad it would look if he missed the meeting, but the hustlers in the room were angry and anxious for some get back at who decided to lay lead at them putting down four of their workers. Noonie told them all to fix a drink that he’d holla at them in a second. He knew his men were thinking of their friends and he needed them to relax even though it was a grave situation. He also was buying time for DC to show up. He went to the bathroom to take a leak and to call DC to see what was taking him so long.

DC was pulling up when he got the call. He answered and told his friend that he was just arriving and would be there in a minute. DC stepped out his newly purchased H2. It wasn’t brand new. He’d purchased the used vehicle at the auction and had it pimped out with screens in the headrest, an XBOX, DVD, navigation system and a maroon marbled custom paint job. He walked to the side of the house and unlocked the door. Jamel didn’t hear him unlocking it; he was downing his glass of Crown Royal and 7-up. Already jumpy from the shootout he’d been involved in, he drew his nine and pointed at the door. Noonie saw him pulling the gat and told him to chill, that it was DC.

DC stopped in his tracks smiling. “Quick Draw, chill, it’s me.”

Before any of the other men got out of place by saying anything, Noonie yelled, “DC, you late, and we got some serious shit goin’ on, and you dragging your ass up in here like shit ain’t happening.”

DC headed for the fridge to get a brew. He found a Heineken and popped the cap. “Man, I was fuckin’. Soon as I got the message I was on my way. What’s up?”

Anthony sat in the corner taking everything in. He had been down with the crew for a little over a month and saw how everyone rolled. He went on a few deals and put in a little work to where he got his hands dirty. All with members of the crew and he got a good read on most of them, and he figured Noonie to be on his Ps and Qs but DC seemed to be the type that a woman could get him caught up, and he didn’t like DC’s woman. She was a trick for sure and he knew this because the day he stepped in Chicago and he met everyone at the barbecue, she was standing with her girl flirting with her eyes and lips every time he saw her—she was definitely a ho who didn’t know her place or when she had it good. He’d made a mental note to keep an eye on her and what was going on with DC, especially after Lucky and Frank had schooled him on how a woman named Myte had caused the deaths of some of their boys when she got Slim’s boy, Skills, nose open.

Greg handed DC a glass of Hypnotic telling him, “What’s up is one of our spots got knocked and we got five dead.”

“No shit?” DC asked shocked at what he’d heard.

Jamel yelled, “Yeah, them was my dudes out there and I know it was Sammy’s people.”

DC asked, “How you know that?”

“Cause I know. Nobody got the nuts to hit us like that but him or Fuentes. And them were some straight thug niggas who was buckin’ at me. Not no Mexicans or Ricans”

Noonie intervened, calmly saying, “Everybody calm the fuck down.”

Greg pounded his fist on the bar and yelled, “I say we roll on Sammy’s spots. Call the niggas up and roll on ’em today!”

Seeing that the meeting was starting to get out of hand, Noonie figured he’d better take charge. Everyone wanted to cowboy up and go out bucking shots without even knowing who to buck at. He told everyone who didn’t have a drink in his hand to fix one. He waited while the men did so.

While everyone topped their glasses off, Greg quietly told DC that he had the money that he’d made off John John and that the baller had hit him up for another kilo. DC told him that he could keep the money he’d made, that he’d slipped on it so he could keep it. Greg smiled but glanced at Noonie seeing as how he’d told him to give the loot to DC. Noonie shrugged his shoulders as if to say ‘if he don’t want it, keep it.’  DC then told Greg that he’d take care of John John from now on. DC knew that John John was going to be a moneymaker. He had shit sowed up across the state line in Hammond and was moving about a kilo every two days and his operation was growing. The Lake County Drug Task Force had knocked off all the top dealers in the area and John John was a low-key everyday working motherfucker and was the careful type—almost too careful if there was such a thing.

Noonie asked Jamel to explain what happened out on the street. He told Noonie that everything was going like clockwork. Nothing out of the ordinary, they were relieving each other when Scotty went to serve someone in a mini van and they opened fire.

Noonie asked had he ever seen the van before. Jamel told him no. Noonie asked Jamel to tell the story again. He did and it was the same. He knew that through all that action they had to have seen something. He grilled him again only from a different angle and then it paid off. Jamel remembered the van having Indiana license plates. When he told Noonie this, the other men in the basement didn’t think that it meant shit—but it did. Noonie explained that they couldn’t rule out that it might have been someone else and not Sammy’s crew.

The next night the men Chavez hired rolled up on two dealers of Sammy’s crew and killed them. It was clean and easy, done thirty minutes apart. At a spot on Ashland Street they rolled up on a kid that was serving. They lowered their window and put four shots in his chest and drove off. The second young man was knocked off thirty minutes later near State Street. The kid never saw it coming, a blast from a .12 gauge knocked the kid to the ground, and he was dead before he hit the pavement. His partner, a fifteen year old, fired six rounds at the men as they sped away killing one of them. Carlos knew that everyone on the streets knew that Lucky’s men had been killed so the sudden hits on two of Sammy’s men would lead them to believe that Lucky’s men did the hit. Carlos hoped that this would cause the two to go to war once Sammy got wind of what had transpired over the last couple of days.

*     *     *

Noonie and DC were in Lucky’s office discussing what had been going on over the past week. They assumed that Bone, second in command of Sammy’s crew, was behind all the action that had been going down, a few drive byes and an attempted robbery of a stash house, but they weren’t sure. Lucky was an original gangster and knew that it was a possibility that someone could be trying to pit the two crews against each other—namely the Fuentes’. His suspicions were about to be proven true.

Anthony knocked. He stuck his head inside the office telling his father that he had a phone call. Lucky told him to take a message and to tell the person that he’d call them back. Anthony told him that he probably wanted to take this call, that it was Bone. Lucky waved Anthony into the office. His son wasn’t a lieutenant and normally wouldn’t have been allowed to be inside the office while business was being conducted. But Lucky knew his son was going to be in the mix whether it was with him or doing his own thing so Lucky decided to make sure he was able to watch over his son and have some say so in what role he played in the streets.

“Put it on speaker,” Lucky said as he sat on the edge of his desk. He lit a Kool and took a hard drag.

“Bone, what’s up with you calling me? You need some cash to send Sammy or something?” Lucky tried to lighten the mood with Bone who was as mean as they come.

“Fuck that jokin’ bullshit!” the raspy voiced man yelled. “Y’all lay down my little niggas at my spots?” 

“What the fuck you talking about?” Lucky asked. He gave DC and Noonie an inquisitive stare hoping that the two or some of their soldiers hadn’t put out any hits without his approval. Keeping quiet so Bone couldn’t hear them they looked serious when they hunched their shoulders in a manner to say they didn’t have a clue to what the thug was talking about.