Hood (15 page)

Dead prez niggas’ll be bootin you down,

If he move, I’ma Uz him, I ain’t foolin around!

Niggas fuckin wit’ a hooligan now!

LESS THAN A
week later Lil Jay was standing on his corner like a good little trap boy. Sackie was his man and all, but he was still pissed about having to take orders from the cat. It just didn’t look right.

Jay pulled hard on his Newport and wished he had a beer or something. A lot of shit had gone down in a short period of time, and with Hood off the streets the whole neighborhood felt shook.

He leaned against a stoop and watched the traffic. Whips and hoopties swished up and down the avenue and winos stumbled in and out of the liquor store on the corner. The owner of the store was in Xan’s pocket, and that’s where the corner boys warmed up in the winter or ducked inside to take a piss during the summer.

A tiny sister with a blond weave and a fierce booty walked past teetering on high heels. Lil Jay gazed at the definition in her thighs as her emerald green skirt flapped out and back, stopping right beneath her bold ass.

His eyes were deep in that split between her legs when a beemer sedan rolled up and the passenger window went down. The first face he saw was real familiar, but his mind couldn’t compute it when he glanced at the driver. What the fuck was these two niggas doing together? And then it hit him. Dreko was on the move, and had run straight to Chaos’s crew.

“Whassup?” Lil Jay nodded. Why the fuck was this crazy nigga still rollin for one, and rollin up in Xanbar’s territory with that banned nigga Riff and a car full of Chaos’s boys for two? That’s not how the game was played and Lil Jay smelled that nasty rat. Him and the rest of the dope boys had been hoping Xan’s gorillas would straight smoke Dreko’s ass for dippin with that product, thus making the strip safer for them all.

But the cat was very much alive. In the flesh, and holding his gat.

“I heard Fat Daddy got popped. That your body?”

Lil Jay shook his head. “Nah. Sackie’s. Fucked up, though. Fat Daddy was legit. Shit ain’t have to go down that way. So whassup?”

“You tell me.” Dreko smirked, then nodded his head like yeah nigga, what?

Lil Jay shrugged, his eye on Dreko’s gun. “Same shit, man. On this grind. I heard you ran into a little static yourself. You cool?”

“Nah, no static. I’m straight. I want this corner though.”

Lil Jay stood up straight. His eyebrows went up.

“
This
corner?”

Dreko nodded. His tool looked like ebony evil in his hands.

“
Xan’s
corner?”

“Ain’t none of this shit gone be Xan’s in a minute. So you got a choice, Lil Jay. You wanna go down defending ya block, or you wanna switch teams?”

The decision was a no-brainer. Dreko’s piece would spit hot death before Lil Jay could make a move.

“You offering me a new job, Dre?”

Again, Dreko nodded.

“Sheeit,” Lil Jay laughed and stepped down off the curb. “Man…when a nigga start?”

Taking Chaos down was easy.

He went peacefully too, without a single shot being fired.

It was almost comical to watch as the feds rolled up on him coming out of a pizza joint and slapped him in cuffs. Dreko stood across the street in a darkened doorway and laughed at the look of surprise and bewilderment on Chaos’s face when he realized that he’d gotten knocked without warning.

Chaos had got caught out there all alone on the strip without a single soldier left guarding his perimeter to send out a street alarm. Riff had choked his former boss’s goonies so tight that not one little birdie had managed to fly in and whisper a heads-up in his ear.

Riff had wanted to just take the nigga out and be done with him. Pop one off in the back of his dome, but Dreko had checked him. “Nah. That nigga got mad enemies. Putting him out on that Rock’s gone be a punishment worse than death.”

With his son Riff in charge and Ocean Hill under his thumb, Dreko and his crew crept into Brownsville. One by one they rolled up on Easy, Fif, Gardner, Sip, and Georgie, and popped them all. They ran up on a lot of other dudes too. Those cats who wanted to live, like Vandy, Kels, and Monk, switched sides with a quickness. Those whose loyalty to Xanbar ran bone-deep…died.

By the end of the night they had enough flipped niggas in the cut to straight catch Xan with his pants down. They slid up to his crib about twenty deep.

Kels’s brother Calvin was on the front door and the moment he heard Dreko’s prearranged knock, he eased that shit open.

He waved Dreko and his crew toward a back bedroom where the sounds of good fucking could be heard. Inside, they peeped Xanbar banging a local freak. With his pants around his ankles, Xan had her bent at the waist dog fucking the shit outta her. Wearing only a wifebeater, his naked ass swirled and pounded, digging that gushy out as the chick moaned and panted.

“Freeze, muhfucka!” Dreko laughed, pointing his Glock.

Xan’s ass kept pumping as he turned his head slowly to the side.

His shooter was strapped to his calf, too far away to reach, and besides, he had two hands full of titties anyway.

Xan’s eyes met Dreko’s over his shoulder. Fear wasn’t in them. Danger was.

“Go head,” Dreko told him, nodding at the burner strapped to Xan’s leg. “Let go a’ one of them titties and reach for that burner nigga. I’ll wait.”

Xanbar’s dick slid out of the broad with a wet slish. He pushed her down to the floor, then slowly dragged his feet around until he was facing Dreko, Kels, Falcon, and Lil Jay.

Kels chuckled. Xan stood there with his wifebeater pulled up above his navel, and his fat dick semisoft and glistening with pussy juice.

He looked at Lil Jay with cold contempt in his eyes. “You lil bitch,” he said, spitting toward his former cat. “I always knew Dreko had some street game, but I shoulda known your bitch ass couldn’t hold. Why you think I put a smart white boy in charge of your stupid black ass?”

Lil Jay popped one from his gat before he even realized it was in his hand. Fire flew from the barrel and Xanbar screamed.

“Oh shit!” Kels hollered. “You shot that nigga’s dick off!”

Xanbar went down to his knees clutching his groin and screaming in agony. Lil Jay glanced at Dreko and shrugged.

“Ooops. My bad.”

Dreko walked over to Xanbar and watched him writhe and scream on the floor. The trick he had been banging had crawled underneath the bed and was down there screaming too.

Dreko dragged her out by one ankle.

“C’mon, baby. Get out from there.” He helped her stand up, then put his arm around her as he let his fingers brush her naked breast. “Was that nigga’s dick any good? It’s laying over there on the floor now, in case you still want it.”

The girl didn’t know what to do. She cried and babbled, “No! No! I mean yes it was! Oh, no! I mean it wasn’t!”

Dreko laughed, then picked up a bright orange dress from the bed and tossed it to her. “Get dressed. We got some biz to see about in here, and you don’t wanna be around for this.”

“Th-th-thank you!” she stammered, nodding her head and making her titties and her fake curls bounce. “I’m leaving,” she whispered, pulling the dress over her head. “I’m leav—”

Pop! Pop!

She hit the floor and the dress fluttered down with her, her head and shoulders encased in the material, the rest of her naked body on display for all to see. Bright red blood pooled on the floor beneath her, spreading out in a circle around her body.

Still clutching the stump of his torn-off dick, Xanbar chuckled, grimacing in pain.

“I knew you was a fuckin bitch!” he laughed. “Taking out a chick! Suck my nuts, Dreko, you mental motherfuckah!”

Dreko didn’t bother to answer. Instead he fired twice. The first round caught Xan in the shoulder and he grunted. The second one was lower and it shattered his shin. Dreko’s third shot hit Xan in the crook of his arm in front of his elbow, and his final shot was supposed to strike him in the throat, but Xan jerked and the bullet tore into his mouth instead.

Mission complete,
Dreko thought as his team strolled from the apartment and hit their whips, pulling off slowly into traffic. Dreko’s sweep plan had been sweet. Now the corners belonged to him, and his army was on guard. He was a fuckin general who had finally taken his place at the top. Dreko laughed, then checked his watch. Time was money. He had an empire to run.

This ain’t love, but I would love it to be…

EGYPT WAS COMPLETELY
torn down.

If it wasn’t for Zena she wouldn’t have had the will to get out of the bed. Not even to use the bathroom. The pain was just that bad.

“I wanna die, Zena,” Egypt had moaned over and over as she tore at her own clothes and rocked herself in grief. “Oh, God…I just wanna die.”

Zena shook her head firmly and fought back her own tears. She felt for her friend, and while she was battling her own demons too, there wasn’t gonna be no damn dying going on. Not for either of them. Lying down and dying just wasn’t an option for bitches in the hood.

Zena sighed and tugged on the ends of the robe Egypt was wearing until it covered her friend’s legs. The girl been left with nothing to her name except the clothes on her back.

Zena eyed her girl with pity. She’d never seen Egypt knocked so low. And to top off everything else that had gone down, Fat Daddy’s shop had mysteriously caught fire a couple of nights after his murder. The apartment upstairs, and even Big Monk’s hero shop next door had been burned almost to the ground. Gutted and filled with nothing but ash.

That in itself had sent Egypt spiraling even further downhill, but Zena believed the biggest part of Egypt’s problem was that she had lived too much of a protected life over there with Fat Daddy and Hood. She’d lived with too much security. A big willie with money and status had taken care of her every need, day in and day out. Egypt had never been forced to find out what she was really made of. She talked a good game about what she was and wasn’t gonna do all the time, but really, the girl had been living a life untested.

Nothing had ever crushed her or knocked down on her ass real good, so Egypt really had no idea if she was the type of chick who could pull herself back to her feet and stay up standing strong.

But Zena and Sackie had grown up fending for themselves. Their grandfather had died years earlier and they were all alone. With no mother and no father to guide her, Zena’s whole life had been about survival and she was used to doing whatever it took to keep her head above water. Her life had gotten even harder after having Andreka and finding out she was HIV positive, but even as Zena struggled to deal with her guilt and her crack addiction while caring for a new baby at the same time, giving up and dying had never even entered her mind.

She put her arm around Egypt and shivered. “Stop talking that dying shit. Please.”

Egypt’s whole face was swollen as she sniffed deeply and wiped tears from her red eyes. “Zena my daddy is
dead
! I just can’t believe it even though I can’t stop seeing it!” she wept.

“How the fuck could anybody do something like that to my father? He had love for all these niggas around here! What kind of grimy fool could do something like that to him, Zena?”

Zena just closed her mouth and let the question ride. Fat Daddy had been stupid with his game. Plus, he’d kept his daughter too blind to see the kind of drill that had been going on right under her nose. In truth, Egypt was even greener than Zena had been. That’s what happened when you had people carrying you through life. You never learned how to really stand up and walk on your own. Zena started to say something slick, but she cared for Egypt so she shook her head and said instead, “You just gotta hold on, E. No matter what, don’t give up on yourself. Your father wouldn’t want that and neither would Hood.”

Just a mention of Lamont was enough to start Egypt crying deeply again. His absence cut her so sharply that some nights she prayed God would be merciful enough to take the breath from her body and leave her cold and dead. Her daddy was gone, and her man was locked up for attempted murder and could be getting crazy jail time. There was no sanity to be found in her life anymore, and despite Zena’s comforting hand stroking her back, Egypt knew she was truly alone in the world and it terrified her.

Eight days after Fat Daddy’s funeral, Dreko came by the apartment. With Hood knocked and Xanbar smoked, Dreko was now ruling supreme on the block.

Egypt had been laying in the king-sized bed next to Zena and baby Andreka, crying softly into her damp pillow with her eyes squeezed closed. When she opened them and found Dreko standing over her, she was startled.

He looked tall and fine standing there dressed in fresh gear from top to bottom. A diamond earring twinkled from his ear and his middle finger was encased in a hot platinum ring. He held his finger up to his lips to quiet her, then motioned for her to get up and meet him out in the living room.

“I’m sorry about what happened to your pops,” Dreko said, wiping tears from her red, swollen eyes. Sincerity creased his forehead and shone in his big brown eyes. “Fat Daddy was like a father to me too. To have him get took down like that almost deaded me inside. It was Xanbar who did him, E. And trust, I took care of that nigga for you, ya heard? I just wanted you to know that. I hope you satisfied with how we sent Fat Daddy off, though. I put a lot of money into giving him the same funeral he would have given me, if he could have.”

Egypt nodded, her tears falling once more. Just hearing her father’s name sent the pain of a blade stabbing through her heart. Dreko made a sympathetic noise in his throat and his pretty brown eyes went soft. Then he opened his strong, muscular arms, and an exhausted, needy, and grieving Egypt walked right into them.

“It’s okay,” he said, rubbing her back and soothing her sobs. He rested his chin on top of her head and comforted her as she wallowed in her grief. “Just let it out, baby. You can cry on me, Egypt. I’m right here for you and I can help you feel better too. If you trust me.”

“Trust you?” Every single thing she had ever trusted in her life was gone. Snatched away from her. Wiped out.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Trust me, baby. I can make it stop hurting. For real. I can take the pain away.”

Egypt didn’t want to be so weak, but her loss was excruciating and it felt like her heart would never stop aching. All she wanted was for it to stop hurting so bad. She wished she could go to the dentist and get a shot of something that would numb the pain. Not in her mouth, but in her heart and in her soul.

She longed to close her eyes and not see her murdered father. She was desperate to turn off the horror movie that played nonstop in her head. And she needed to quiet the soul-ache that came from the gaping space left by Lamont’s absence in her world. Egypt wept deep, exhausted tears.

She didn’t want to be numb forever. Only for a little while. Just long enough to turn the pain down on simmer until she could catch her breath and figure out how to cope with the harsh realities of her new life.

She watched trancelike as Dreko slipped a stem from his pocket and packed it with the tan substances that were the tools of his booming trade.

He took her in his arms again, then squeezed her gently before offering her a painkiller. “No…” Egypt turned her head as he urged it toward her lips.

“It’s okay,” Dreko said softly, squeezing her closer and stroking her arm. “I’ma take real good care of you, baby…it’s only a little bit. Just enough to make you feel good.”

His voice was like a song. Mesmerizing. Persuasive. Promising.

“Just a little bit,” he whispered, holding her close. “I got you, baby. I got you…”

Egypt was dizzy with confusion and weak with need. His body was hard and strong, propping her up. She leaned heavily against him, grateful for the emotional crutch.

And as Dreko stroked her arms and whispered to all the ailing places in her heart, Egypt closed her eyes and accepted the glass god he pressed to her lips.

Yesss
…she sighed, going to jelly inside.

He numbed her up for over an hour.

He was sympathetic and unselfish as he took away the pain and confusion, the heartache and the fear, and replaced them with relief and euphoria. She found herself connecting to Dreko on a very special level, and he kept right on numbing her up until all the pain was gone and there was nothing left except pleasure and gratification in her heart.

But Egypt came to understand something crucial long before her night of emotional ecstasy with Dreko ended. Whoever said you couldn’t get strung out on the pipe after only one mission must have never tried no good rock like this. Because after taking only one long hit Egypt was well aware that she’d been run over. And as she sucked that glass dick and watched the white cloud swirl and rush toward her lips like a toxic tornado, Egypt knew she was sunk.