Country Boy 3 Read online

  “Very clear,” Stokely responded.

  “After I tangle my prey in my web, then you, and whoever you wish, may take turns sucking the blood out of them.”

  “I like you already, please allow me to give you the ins and outs of the case.”

  “Very well.”

  Two hours later, Vie was ready to leave Stokely’s office. She was excited, to say the least. Piece of cake, she thought as she stood to leave.

  “And you say the young woman who was shot is still In ICU?” Vie asked

  “That’s correct.”

  “Do you have anyone from the station doing sit ins outside of her room?”

  “That’s not possible, Vie.”

  “Why?”

  “Your target, Mr. Jackson.”

  “I see.”

  “What if she dies?”

  “That won’t happen either.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Cause that little bitch—. Excuse my language.”

  “Accepted,” she said with a smile. “Look Stokley, isn’t there a way this office can correspond with the doctors?”

  “Very little, if any. Vie, please don’t underestimate your target. He is everything a woman can want in a man, and everything that a man doesn’t want to deal with.

  “Very well, I’ll keep all that you’ve told me in mind. Let me worry about the young lady in the hospital.”

  “Miss—”

  “Aah...aah...aah,” she cut him off. “Trust, we must have trust…”

  Stokely simply nodded.

  “One more thing, what about Mr. Sims?” she asked

  “Dirt nap.”

  “Huh?”

  “I said that he’s probably already somewhere taking a permanent dirt nap.”

  “Let me guess, courtesy of my target?”

  “I see you’re a fast learner.”

  Vie could barely contain herself. She prayed that Sargent Stokley hadn’t noticed the wet spot in the back of her tight denim jeans as she turned and walked out his office.

  Chapter Five

  Honey’s

  Tee excused herself, then turned and walked to her office. After checking her messages for the fifth time that day, she angrily slammed her desk phone down, missing the base entirely. How dare you not even take the time to check on your own son.

  Tee continued to fume as her mind focused on Q, who hadn’t called, or come by her salon. Nothing.

  “How could he avoid my calls?” she mumbled.

  “Two weeks Quentel... two weeks,” she repeated again, as if he was standing right in front of her.

  “Knock, knock,” someone said, breaking Tee away from her thoughts.

  It was Terri.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but Mrs. Williams just walked in,” she said.

  “Oh, okay. Tell her I’ll be right out.”

  “Gotcha” Terri said, then left.

  Tee glanced at the photo of her and Q sitting on her office desk. Then, without the slightest hint of emotion, she killed the lights and walked back to her workstation.

  Two hours later, she was cleaning her station, when Elbony asked the question.

  “Have you heard anything from him, Tee?”

  “No, nothing,” she answered.

  “Maybe you should just drive over to the hospital,” Terri cut in.

  Tee gave her a stern look.

  “Well why not, Tee? I don’t see any harm in that.”

  “Me either,” Elbony agreed

  Tee didn’t respond, instead, she began thinking about her situation.

  Why hadn’t he returned any of my calls?

  “Do you want me to talk to Tim about his whereabouts?” Terri interrupted her thoughts again.

  “Thanks, but no thanks Terri.”

  Maybe I should go over there, she mused. Am I being selfish? She questioned her own feelings. What if it was her who was in Van’s situation? Would he be there for her the way he was for Van? Would he be ignoring Van’s calls if she was lying somewhere in a hospital? These questions along with countless others, continually raced back and forth through Tee’s mind. Questions that could be answered by only one person. Grabbing her oversized Dolce and Gabbana bag, Tee prepared to leave.

  “Where you going gurl?” Elbony asked. Tee stopped and faced them before answering.

  “Where does it look like? I’m going to find out what tha hell is going on, and why a bitch getting tha silent treatment.”

  “Yo go gurl” Terri shouted as Tee strutted out the door.

  Chapter Six

  “Friend or Foe?”

  “Hey yo. Gee, I’m out yo.” Dame yelled from the den area of their house.

  “Yo Gee, did you hear me Ma?” he yelled again.

  “I hear you Dame,” Gazelle shouted back before walking into the den, with her hands covering both ears.

  “Why you doing that Gee?”

  “Because, you are going to have a deaf wife, Dame, with all the yelling you’re doing.”

  “My bad Gee,” Dame said then reached out and grabbed both her hands, pulling them away from her ears.

  “Com’ere,” he said wrapping his arms around her slim waist.

  “Will you be home for dinner?” Gee muffled the words against his broad shoulder.

  “What are you fixing tonight, Gee?”

  “Your favorite. Curry chicken, beans and rice.”

  “Damn Gee, what’s the special occasion?” Dame teased.

  “Well baby, I was thinking that we could have a quiet dinner together tonight, since our little fireball won’t be back from her granny’s until day after tomorrow.”

  “Yea you right Gee,” Dame said as he remembered that little India had flown to New York with Gazelles older sister to spend time with her family and his mother.

  “I’ll try not to be late, Gee.”

  “What’s for dessert?” he asked as he prepared to leave.

  “Another one of your favorites, baby,” she teased as she stood in a seductive stance that almost made Dame completely change his mind about leaving.

  Gazelle was the epitome of a black goddess. Dark mocha colored skin, naturally wavy thick black hair that rested around the center of her back, emerald green eyes and a body that would make Lisa Raye get her ass back in the gym.

  “I promise you that I won’t be a minute late,” Dame spoke around the saliva filling his mouth.

  “I’ll be waiting baby,” she continued to tease him.

  “Stop it Gee,” he begged then walked towards her.

  “Aah... Aah…Aah,” she said, stopping him.

  “Don’t be late, she repeated.”

  Then with a killer walk, the kind that only a woman who knows that she is in complete control can perform, she walked back to the kitchen to finish preparing dinner.

  “Damn!” Dame screamed.

  As if on cue, the phone began to ring.

  “Answer that Gee, I’m out.”

  “I already have, it's for you,” Gee yelled.

  “Shit,” Dame said, before grabbing the phone.”

  “Yo what up?”

  __________

  More than four hundred miles away, lying in the damp confines of a basement beneath a boarding house, Scar struggled to get himself to a sitting position. He grimaced from the waves of pain that shot through his wounded shoulder like bolts of electricity.

  After struggling to his feet, he made his way over to the dirty stained glass window. It was barely visible and halfway covered by land. Locating a clear spot in one of the small panes, he stared up at the feet of several people passing by. He’d been locked inside the dirty basement for over three weeks. The last thing he could recall was falling into the back seat of a cabbie at LaGuardia airport.

  “Where to?” The African cab driver had asked, suspiciously eyeing him. After mumbling the address, he threw the cab driver two one hundred dollar bills.

  “Keep the change. Just...just get me to that address.”

  After that, darkn
ess fell around him. Two days later, regaining consciousness, he stared up from a small bed through blurred vision at the face of an OG gangster who’d taken both him and his childhood friend Dame, under his version of a father figure wing. Too weak to explain what had happened to him, Scar could do nothing but pray, as his life fell into the hands of a once well respected triple “OG” gangster, turned certified heroin junkie.

  The shuffling of feet behind him brought him back to the present. He turned as best he could, to find the “OG” sitting a poorly cleaned glass half filled with water on an empty five gallon bucket that was turned upside down and served as a make shift table.

  “I thought I was going to lose you.”

  “What?”

  “I said, I thought I was going to lose you!” The OG who went by the name of Bumpy, said.

  Many years ago, Bumpy controlled the very streets he now copped on. The entire “Soundview” area was his domain. For a decade, he ruled it with an iron hand, gaining the nickname of another “infamous” heroin kingpin; Harlem, and Virginia’s own Bumpy Johnson. After falling victim to his own poison, Bumpy’s reign over the streets, and his empire ultimately shattered like glass.

  “I told you a long time ago, Bumpy…I’ve got nine lives,” Scar responded in a strained voice.

  “Well, I think you’ve used them all up. What happened this time Scar?” he asked.

  Scar told Bumpy everything that had happened in North Carolina, but left out the part about the federal indictment supposedly hanging over his head. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Bumpy. In all actuality, the OG owed him and Dame his life.

  “Wait…wait…stop. Wait a minute. Are you saying that Rico is dead?” The OG cut him off.

  Scar momentarily thought back to the shooting before answering. He could clearly see the picture in his mind of Rico’s body being pumped full of slugs.

  “Yeah, Rico dead, Bumpy. He gone son. I saw it wit my own eyes, B.”

  “What about the young lady, Scar?”

  “What young lady Bumpy? That black bitch wasn’t no lady, son. That’s why I killed that bitch, and her fuckin dog, for what he did to my arm kid. Word Up!!” Scar screamed.

  After hearing Scar’s words, Bumpy whistled softly, then sat down on a wobbly stool.

  “You killed a woman, boy?” Bumpy asked again in disbelief.

  “Like I just said, Bumpy, this wasn’t your ordinary woman, this bitch was ill, son. I’m telling you. She killed Rico without hesitation. Didn’t even blink”

  Bumpy began thinking of his own days when he ruled his area of the streets, and the woman who’d stood by his side through it all… robberies kidnappings, and even murder. When it came to her man, there were no boundaries. He’d eventually led her down one path too many. A path that ended with a syringe filled with uncut dope.

  “Did u hear what I said, Bumpy?” Scar asked interrupting his thoughts.

  “Yeah...yeah, I heard you Scar.”

  “Well.”

  “Well what?”

  “What do you think?”

  “What do I think? I think you done fucked up, Scar.”

  “You see, not only did you kill a woman, you killed someone’s daughter, granddaughter, niece, cousin, best friend, and the worst mistake you could have ever made Scar,”

  The OG stood from the wobbly stool, then continued, “you didn’t kill the person you went there to kill.

  Yeah…yeah… I know OG, but as soon as I get strong enough to travel, I’ma find that nigga and—”

  Scar’s words were cut short by Bumpy, who shook a finger at him.

  “Listen to me, boy. If this man is the same man that saved Dame’s family in their apartment building last year, a woman and child that he didn’t even know. You’re right about one thing, Scar…you will have to kill this man, but you won’t have to find him to do it.”

  “Why is that?” Scar asked

  “Because, just as sure as we are having this conversation,” he paused again then continued. “He’s coming for you.”

  Scar nervously scanned the semi-dark basement.

  “Money is one thing, but when you fuck with a man’s home and violate his woman, there’s nothing else on earth more gratifying or simple for any decent man to die for.”

  Scar stood quietly for a moment, as if letting the words from Bumpy sink in. Then, suddenly oblivious to the pain, he walked over to the dingy bed, checked the clip in his glock forty, and grabbed his cell phone.

  “Who you calling?” Bumpy asked

  “Chill, B... just chill for a second,” Scar said as he continued punching numbers.

  “Hi, Thompson residence.”

  “Yo what up Gee, is Dame there?” Scar asked in a voice that wasn’t familiar to her.

  “Just a second.”

  “Yo, what up?” Dame asked on the other end of the phone.

  After a short silence, he asked again. “Yo what up?”

  “What’s good, son?”

  “What’s good wit chu B, and who the hell is this anyway?”

  “Damn nigga you left the city for dem country ass niggas and forgot where you come from?”

  At that moment, Dame knew very well who the person on the other end of the line was.

  “What’s up Scar? What’s da deal, son?” he asked, his voice turning serious.

  “Damn son. Why you sound so tense?” Scar asked, feeling Dame's uneasy vibe through the phone.

  “Ain’t nuttin Scar,” Dame said, feeling a little bad for coming off so serious with his longtime friend; a feeling that he would come to regret in a matter of minutes.

  “What’s going on Scar?” How’s tha fam?” Dame asked.

  “Which one Dame, the one that you left or the other one that you forgot about, son?”

  “I haven’t forgotten about anybody, and Scar you can chill wit dat shit, B.”

  “What about yo peoples, Dame?”

  “What about my peoples nigga?” Dame fed the question back to him.

  “I’m yo peoples,” Scar spat.

  “I have a family to look after now, son,” Dame said wanting to diffuse the potential argument before it happened. He would soon find out that a simple argument would be the least of his worries.

  “What about yo blood family?”

  “Come on Scar son, you know the love I have for my blood family.”

  “I can’t tell,” Scar shouted. “Ever since you moved down there wit dem country ass niggas, you forget where you come from.”

  “You changed, Dame,” Scar continued ranting at him through the phone. Dame had been pushed beyond the extremely low threshold of his temper. He felt as if he was going to explode with rage.

  “Nah Scar. You’re the muthafucka that’s changed.”

  “That's the way you feel son?” Scar challenged

  “That’s exactly how I feel, B.” Dame met his challenge.

  After a moment of silence, Scar finally spoke. “Look son, I’ve got some unfinished business down there.”

  Instantly, Dame thought of the shooting involving Van. After he’d found out about the shooting from Q, Dame had briefly thought of Scar, but didn’t think that he would stoop to such a cowardly act. No longer able to resist the temptation of knowing firsthand, he asked Scar directly.

  “Hey yo, son. Please, please tell me that you didn’t have nothing to do with this bullshit I'm thinking bout, Scar.”

  “Like I said Dame, I’ve still got some unfinished business down there,” he repeated in a sarcastic tone.

  “Scar, son, are you crazy? Do you realize what da fuck you have done, B?”

  “The bitch had it coming, Dame. Now are you wit me or dem niggas?”

  “Whatchu mean kid?”

  “What I mean is simple, son. You choose yo blood family over yo street family. Now either you wit us or you best get out the way.”