The Mike Black Saga; MOB (2 page)

As Mr. Blue and Mr. Green exited the jewelry store, the rental cops got out of their vehicle. They cautiously approached the two masked men. The two rental cops raised and pointed their weapons. “Freeze!” one yelled.

“Drop your weapons!” screamed the other.

“Mr. Green, repel with zero causalities,” Mr. Blue said as he continued toward the Chevy.

“Acknowledged.” Mr. Green raised the pump and fired several shots in the direction of the rental cops. He fired over their heads and they took cover behind some cars. This allowed Mr. Blue to get to the Chevy. Mr. Blue removed the bag from around his waist and handed it to Mr. White.

“Estimated time to police intervention, Mr. White?”

“They should be here by now,” Mr. White replied.

Mr. Blue took out both of his 9 millimeters and began firing at the rental cops, who were still pinned down behind the cars. This allowed Mr. Green to make it safely into the Chevy. Mr. Blue heard the sound of police sirens approaching. He got in the Chevy. “Escape pattern five, Mr. White.”

“Acknowledged.” Mr. White dropped the Chevy into drive and sped off down Canal Street then headed northbound on Baxter Street. Two police cars were now in pursuit.

Mr. White drove the Chevy up Baxter Street and made a hard left against oncoming traffic. They were headed westbound on Grand Street with the police car maintaining its pursuit. Mr. White made a sharp right onto Lafayette Street and proceeded northbound. With the police closing in on their vehicle, Mr. Green opened the sunroof and came up firing several rounds from the pump. The police car dropped back as Mr. White made a left on Bleeker Street and another left onto Broadway. With the police momentarily out of sight, Mr. White stopped the car at the Broadway-Lafayette Street train station.

Mr. Blue and Mr. Green exited the Chevy and headed down the stairs into the subway. Mr. White took off again and turned into a parking garage. She quickly made her way to the top level and parked the car near the steps. Mr. White got out and ran to the stairwell and down the steps to the next level just as the police arrived at the Chevy.

She took her time walking to the escape car, a silver 2004 Lexus sedan. She got in the car and started it up. “Mr. Blue.”

“Go ahead with your traffic, Mr. White,” Mr. Blue yelled over the roar of the train.

“Exiting parking structure now. Proceeding to pick-up point.”

“Acknowledged, Mr. White. Drive safely,” Mr. Blue said.

Mr. White turned on the CD player in the car. Once again, Tupac’s music filled the car.
Outlaw, Outlaw, Outlaw, the game ain’t the same.  Outlaw, Outlaw, Outlaw, dear God, I wonder can you save me?

Mr. Blue, whose real name was Travis Burns, and Mr. Green, a.k.a. Ronnie Grier, stood on the corner of 34
^th
Street and 8
^th
Avenue and waited for Mr. White, whose name was Jacquelyn Washington, to arrive. While they were on the train, they went in between the cars and took off their coats and jumpsuits and were now dressed in business suits and ties, but they still wore their gloves.

Travis looked at his watch and wondered what was taking Jackie so long.

“Where is she? She should be here by now,” Ronnie said.

“It’s almost lunchtime. She’s probably just stuck in traffic. Don’t worry, Ronnie. She’ll be here soon,” Travis said, looking at Ronnie and recalling the day’s events. This was the closest they had ever come to getting caught. They’d had some issues before, had to do a little shooting, but the cops had never been close enough to chase them.

This was never the life Travis had intended for himself. He had gone to college and graduated with a degree in computer science, a field that promised plenty of opportunity. Ronnie had earned a dual degree in business and finance, but now look at them. Now Travis was standing on the corner of 34
^th
and 8
^th
with a briefcase full of stolen jewelry, wondering what went wrong with his life.

It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. Is this what his years of college had prepared him for? Once upon a time they had been three eager college students, ready to go out and conquer the world, armed with their degrees. They thought they were so prepared; they had even created their own list of rules to live by to aid in their success. 

It all began one night when they were fucked up, smokin’ bomb-ass weed and drinking Hennessey, and listening to 2Pac.  While listening to “Blasphemy” from
Makaveli, The Don Killuminati:
The 7 Day Theory
, the trio heard 2Pac rapping about the rules his father taught him.

“M.O.B., money over bitches,” Travis said. “That’s some deep shit.”

“That’s some true shit,” Jackie added quickly.

“I wonder what the other rules are?  He only told us two,” Ronnie said.

“I guess we’ll never know,” Travis said as he hit the blunt and chuffed.

“Why not?” Ronnie asked.

“Cause Tupac is dead, asshole,” Jackie stated flatly and laughed.

“No, he ain’t,” Ronnie said and stood up.

“Yes, he is, Ronnie. I saw the autopsy pictures,” Travis threw in.

“That don’t mean nothing. Pictures can be doctored. My cousin edits film for the networks and he tells me all the time about the wild shit they have him do to put whatever type of spin they want on those images. If they can do it with film, they can do it with stills,” Ronnie argued. He hit the blunt. “If he’s dead, why wasn’t there no funeral?” He too started chuffing.

“’Cause his momma had him cremated,” Jackie explained, taking the blunt from a still chuffing Ronnie.

“Yeah, I know. That’s my whole fuckin’ point. Pac never said anything about crematin’ his ass. He said bury him a G. He said bury him with ammunition, weed and shells. Y’all niggas know that shit just like I do. Pac ain’t dead,” Ronnie stated again.

As the CD played, the debate raged on for almost half an hour before Travis said, “Look, whether he’s dead or not, those are still some words we need to live by.”

“Why? We ain’t no thug niggas,” Jackie said. “We’re college students listening to Mr. Makaveli puttin’ it down thug style.”

“True that. I was just thinking about puttin’ y’all out so I can study for an economics test,” Ronnie said.

“Yeah, yeah, I know that,” Travis said. “But listen to what Pac’s sayin’. You can’t tell me some of that shit don’t apply to us.”

“He damn sure right about that, Jackie,” Ronnie agreed.

“Rule one: Get your cash on, M.O.B. That’s money over bitches ’cause they bleed envy,” Travis stated with passion. “Ain’t no truer shit than that.”

Both Travis and Ronnie turned to Jackie.

“As long as we can all agree the term ‘bitches’ don’t necessarily apply to women only,” Jackie said. “’Cause you know sometimes you niggas can be bitches too.”

“Agreed,” both Travis and Ronnie said.

“What about rule two, Tee?” Jackie asked, referring to Tupac’s second rule in “
Blasphemy
”. “You tryin’ to say you need to watch us? Like you don’t trust us?”

“No, that’s not what I’m sayin’. You two are like blood to me. I know none of us will ever betray the other. What I’m sayin’ is that you gotta watch your homies, because everybody you roll with that you may think is your friend, ain’t.”

“True that,” Ronnie said as he poured himself another glass of Henny. “Everybody you think is cool, ain’t.” He passed the bottle to Travis. “But we still eight rules short.”

Travis poured himself a drink and filled Jackie’s glass. “So, we’ll make up our own rules.” He got up and walked over to Ronnie’s desk to get a piece of paper. He returned to his spot and began to write. “All right, we got rules one and two. What else? Remember, these are our rules. Shit that applies to us and what we’re tryin’ to do. It ain’t gotta be that outlaw immortal, thugged-out shit.”

With Tupac’s lyrics as their inspiration, they created a list to fit the bright futures they believed they would have.

“Get off your ass if you plan to be rich definitely needs to be on the list,” Jackie said, and they all agreed. Travis wrote it down.

“I got one,” Ronnie said as he got up and changed the CD. He put in
Thug Life
. “Bury Me a G” jumped off.

“Stay smart,” Ronnie suggested, “’cause it’s all about survival.”
 

“That got to be one. And definitely keep your mind on your money,” Travis said.

“So, what we got?” He began to read from the list he was writing.  “Rule one: Get your cash on, M.O.B. Rule two: Keep your enemies close. Rule three: Get off your ass if you plan to be rich. Rule four: Stay smart. And rule five is keep your mind on your money,” Travis said, reading from the list.

“Come on now, we need five more,” Jackie said.

“What about give back what you earn?” Travis offered.

“No doubt,” Ronnie agreed. “We had this chance to raise ourselves up. It’s only fair that we give somebody else a chance.”

“So, what you talkin about doin’, Travis?” Jackie asked. “You talkin’ about startin’ a foundation or something like that?”

“I don’t know. There’s a lot of things we can do to give something back. You know we can do volunteer work or give to United Negro College Fund or whatever. But I think it’s important that we give something back, you know what I’m sayin’?”

“Chill out, Travis. We know what you sayin’.” Jackie laughed.

“I got one,” Ronnie announced, once again inspired by the music.

“What’s that?” Jackie asked.

“Don’t fuck with trick niggas.”

“That’s good,” Travis said.

“I got one,” Jackie offered. “Snitches get dealt with.” 

“Right. ’Cause y’all know we gonna meet up with some of them, even if we are headed for corporate America,” Travis said as he continued to write.

Jackie stood and walked over to the window. “I don’t want y’all to take this the wrong way, but I love you two. I mean, I love y’all like y’all were my blood. Shit, I love y’all more than I do them two lazy muthafuckas that call themselves my brothers. They only know me when they think I got money. I love you two. Y’all my family. So I got another one.” Jackie turned around and raised her glass. “Let no one come between us.”

Travis and Ronnie both stood up and joined Jackie at the window. Ronnie poured everybody another glass full of Hennessey. They all raised their glasses and repeated the words together. “Let no one come between us.” They turned up their glasses and they came down empty.

Ronnie poured himself another, “That’s word, for real. I would die for you niggas,” he said and passed the bottle to Jackie.

“That’s how it is for me, too,” Jackie said as she drained her glass. She passed the bottle to Travis.

Travis poured and quickly emptied his glass. “Shit, y’all can die if you want to. I plan on livin’ forever.” They all laughed.

“So, that’s only nine. Come on now, we need one more rule to make ten,” Jackie said.

“I know what number ten should be,” Travis said.

“What’s that?” Ronnie asked as he filled each of their glasses again.

“Even though it isn’t exactly a rule, number ten should be ‘Bless me please, Father.’ ”

Ronnie paced back and forth, trying to contain his thoughts. He took a deep breath and continued to pace until he could no longer hold it. “Travis, look man, I’m sorry. I fucked up. I let myself get distracted and tripped the alarm. I got careless.”

“Don’t sweat it, Ronnie. We got everything we came for. We didn’t get caught and we didn’t have to kill anybody. Besides, it’s not your fault; it’s mine. I should have known that the store manager would have a gun somewhere. I should have anticipated that contingency and planned for it.”

“Come on, Travis, you’re good, but there is no way you could have know that he had a gun and would be stupid enough to go for it.”

“Maybe, but I should have. It was logical for him to have one. Maybe we’re running on too tight a timeline. I don’t know. It would have only taken what, another thirty seconds to check and make sure he wasn’t armed?”

“Now you’re second-guessing yourself. You had the job planned down to the second, Travis. Another thirty seconds could have meant the difference between us standing here kickin’ it with that briefcase full of jewels in your hand or some cop telling you to relax your hand so he can get a good fingerprint.”

“I know, but still—”

“But still my ass, Travis. You said it yourself; timelines are tight for a reason. If we don’t have tight timelines, we get relaxed. Get sloppy, get careless and get caught.”

“Did I say that?”

“Yes, you did. You said it when I complained about the timelines being too tight. Now I can really see why they’re like that. You had the whole thing planned out to the very last detail. When they’d get there, how many cameras. You knew what kind of security and what devices we’d run up on and how to disable them. You knew what to take and how long it would take to get it all,” Ronnie said as Jackie pulled up in the car. “It wasn’t your planning. It was my execution that got us fucked up today.”