Life After Death (5 page)

     Since the allure of the drug game was getting to me, I satisfied the itch by selling four kilo’s of coke after giving Redman eight of them. Six were on consignment and two were out of love. I sold each one for fifteen thou, and was able to get rid of them in one day with Redman’s clientele. My itch was satisfied because the four guys I sold the kilo’s to were young black men and though they were shining right now, I knew that in a year they would either be dead or in prison or getting high off their own supply.

And Sajuan wasn’t done with his giving ways. According to his lawyer, he had had an extremely strong affinity for younger women, and, whenever he fell in love with one, he tended to go all the way in with her. His lawyer was used to altering his will each time he fell in love with a younger woman, so he didn’t contest the fact that everything was left to Samantha, which made her an instant millionaire. I couldn’t imagine how many times that cat rolled over in his grave every day!

       Fatima kept the club running the same except creating “Sexy Nights,” which was a prostitution ring under the guise of an escort service. The most desired strippers from different strip clubs throughout the city had been quick to collect their five thousand dollar bonus for joining the team.

     Meanwhile, we had opened up a raw coke and dope shop on Winchester, which was in the West side of the city. Our Aunt Terry had been in this neighborhood for over thirty years. So, she and her eight sons and four daughters reigned supreme there. We paid them a lot of money to run our drug strip.

     My female cousins were the lookouts on the block.  Aunt Terry separated all of the bills,  counted all of the money and kept all of the dollar bills. Our faces had never been seen, and we had done our best to make sure that our names didn’t start ringing in the streets. Even though we really didn’t need to be getting money in these streets, our mentality was a common one:  “once you in love with the streets, it’s almost impossible to break up with her!”

     My thoughts were disturbed by the sound of the sliding glass door opening. I looked up to see Samantha, wearing a sexy see through Victoria’s Secret lace teddy, with no panties on, staring at me with her horny face on. I pulled her close to me and kissed her small but sexy baby bump. Yeah! My baby was a few months pregnant so no matter what the outcome was with my acts of vengeance, I had a legacy on these streets. Now that a baby was on the horizon, I knew that that was where all of my focus had to reside. She looked me in my eyes and smiled bashfully, as she could see my genuine love for her.

     “Who did you give my big penis to last night?”

     I looked at her and smiled knowing she was dead serious. Even though she gave me permission to have sex with other women, since I was just getting out of prison, she  definitely did it to satisfy me, because like most women she is extremely territorial. I bent down and kissed her.

.

     “Nobody else can make me feel like this, Samantha. I love you, angel.”

Her eyes watered as I rubbed her stomach. As tears began to run down her face. They began to run down mine, too. We cried together, which added another level to our bond.

Chapter 15

                                                                 [Somewhere in Atlanta]

      “That boy Sajuan owed me seventy five stacks, and I wanted my cheddar. The streets said his woman probably got him whacked because she ended up getting everything. I don’t care if she had killed him or not. All I knew was that she now owed me a hundred and fifty stacks be-cause of all the time I had been forced to wait for mine. She pays or she dies.”

        Snowman looked at Messiah and shrugged his shoulders as purple haze smoke seeped out of his nose and mouth.

     “Alright, baby boy. That’s what it is. Who we sending to talk to her?”

     Messiah sat back in his chair looking more like a star NBA player than one of the biggest drugs dealers ever to roam the streets of Atlanta. He stood  6’6”, weighing about two hundred and thirty pounds. His fresh corn rolls and huge diamond encrusted chain and pendant screamed “money” to anybody who looked his way. He took a deep inhale of his Cuban cigar and smiled.

     “Send that dapper boy Dickey. That boy’s wardrobe will disarm her. After y’all get the money, leave Dickey in B-More forever. I don’t trust him ‘cause he knows too much about me and my brother’s business. When the heat comes if he snitches we’ll both be done. So make sure you take all of his books too.

     Snowman took a long sip of peach Ciroq as purple haze smoke seeped out of his nose. He looked at Messiah and smirked. Snowman is one of Messiah’s most reliable soldiers. The difference with Snowman is that he possesses the same ambitions that have put Messiah where he is. So, Snowman is a kingpin in his own right, and is copping no less than fifteen bricks every three weeks. He’s also a hitman too with his partner O.D.

     “That’s what it is then. After my studio session tonight to finish up my
Dying to Trap
mix tape, we’ll go up to murder land and show them boys how us real country boys play this game.”

     Messiah laughed as he handed Snowman a huge wad of hundred dollar bills.

     “Take your goons shopping and put some extra cash in their pockets before y’all go. Satisfied soldiers create dedicated, loyal killers.”

Chapter 16

                 “There he go,  there he go.”

     I followed Redman’s eyes across the street until they landed on Ronny King, who had been one of the jurors during my trial. I smiled at the sight of him. During my trial he had always been so sharply dressed; now he was a bum on drugs. We had heard that he was over this way, and we had been looking for him for the past couple of days. I looked at Redman who was also pumped up.

     “Pull up next to him.”

     Ronny peered into our car as we pulled up next to him. I rolled down the window. Once he saw that it wasn’t the police, he relaxed and walked over to the car, grinning, showing off his toothless smile.

     “My man, we ready to open up a shop on Old York, and we need you to test our blow. We’ll pay you to get the word out that we going to have testers out in an hour. You with it?”

     He burst into laughter as he walked toward the back door.

     “Hell yeah I’m with it!”

      As soon as he entered the car his foul smell instantly began to suffocate us, but all I was concentrating on was his face while he filled his veins with my killer mixture, heroin and Fentanyl. As his finger slowly pushed the stem on the needle down, his facial expression turned to complete pleasure for a split second. Then his face turned into a mask of pain, which made me smile. I moved closer to him to get as close to his pain as possible. His eyes popped open and we locked eyes. He reached out to me and I smacked his hand away.

     “What the fuck man? It feels like my insides are on fire. Ahhhhh!”

     I looked over at Redman to see if the screaming of a dying man was affecting him. I laughed as he was smoking a Newport and reciting a Meek Mill song – not paying no mind to the death scream that was bouncing all around the inside of the car. I looked at Ronny King and smiled devilishly.

     “First off, shut the fuck up with all that screaming. If I would have actually been put to death,

I wouldn’t have screamed like no bitch. So, man up! The poison you shot up with will have you dead in no time. This way, I’ll know you won’t ever put anybody else on death row. So embrace death, bitch. You’ve just been put on death row!”

     He scrutinized my face real intensely for a few seconds until recognition began to mix with his painful look. Just as a he began to have a seizure, he reached out for my hand and sat up. I didn’t grab his hand.

     “Man, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I understand your anger.”

     I looked at him and spit in his face.

     “Fuck your apology.”

     He shook his head as tears began to run down his face. Then his seizure took control over him, and he stopped breathing after a few minutes of violent shaking. I never took my eyes off of him until he was dead. We pulled into an alley, I washed my spit off of his face and I rolled him out of the car, poured gas onto him, set him on fire, and watched him burn for a few seconds before we left.

Chapter 17

     I answered the door with no shirt on and in boxer briefs because, a minute previously, I had been in a 69 loving life before the door interrupted me. As soon as I opened the door, I knew that I should have looked out the peep hole, because I damn sure wouldn’t have been standing in front of two cats that I had never seen in my life, without any type of weapon. The first dude I sized up was doing his best Carlton impression, so I paid him little attention. I then sized up the other one, who was laced in a 8732 outfit with some retro Jordan’s and an all-black Atlanta fitted hat that was pulled down so low that I couldn’t see his eyes. I looked where I knew they were, and stepped toward him.

     “Who are you looking for?”

     He stepped toward me while he pulled off his hat. We locked eyes.

     “We looking for Samantha. Where the girl at?”

     “Is it drama, ‘cause, if it is, what up?”

     He smiled and then stepped back quickly as his hand disappeared into his jeans. As soon as he stepped back, I rushed toward him and rocked his chin with a sharp right hook that caused him to stagger back. His gun dropped down his leg – still inside his jeans. He instantly charged back at me, and caught me in my mouth with a hard over right. I slammed him into the wall, and we both began to hit each other with hard uppercuts. Then, the preppy dressed cat appeared, out of nowhere, between us pointing glock .40’s in both of our faces. I was shocked and mad that I had allowed his appearance to rock me to sleep. We both stood still, looking at the gun in our face.

     “Snowman, while you with me, I run things. Step back and get yourself together. You, go get Samantha before we walk over you and go get her ourselves.”

     Before I could respond, my chrome .357 surprised me by sliding over my shoulder, and the hammer clicked. I smiled as I saw fear override the cockiness that had just been on his face. She placed the barrel on his forehead as she kissed my shoulder.

     “Here I am. What up? And before you answer that question, get that gun out of my man’s face, NOW!!!”

     He quickly began to lower his gun. I snatched it out of his hands and before he knew what was going on, I smacked him with the butt of it square in his mouth. He fell toward Snowman, who snatched the other gun and smacked him on his temple. We both stood over top of the cat who had just been in power, and laughed.

     “Look at your tough ass now!”

     I pointed my gun at his face, tightened my grip on the gun and… Samantha put her finger inside of my gun’s barrel. I looked at her with murder in my eyes. She smiled.

     “For one, gangster, why would you commit  murder in your apartment building? Two, these cats are from Atlanta, under Messiah. Let’s hear what they are talking about. Let’s take this drama inside. You with that boo?”

     “Hell no! Once he pointed a gun in my face, all that southern hospitality flew out the window.”

     I stopped pointing the gun in his face and let it hang in my hand on the side of my leg. I looked him straight in his eyes. He began to sit up, and I was surprised when Snowman pushed him back down by putting his foot on his forehead.

     “From where you lay, tell us what  y’all want with my wife.”

     Dick looked up at me with a murderous, yet fearful, look in his eyes.

     “Plain and simple, Sajuan was in debt when he died. And because of whatever happened to him, we never collected our money. This means, since you now have his dough, you owe Messiah a million dollars. Because of how y’all are treating me, I’m also owed a million, or it’s best if you kill me.”

     Samantha smiled as she quickly pulled out a .380 with a silencer. She walked up to Dick’s head, pointed the gun at his face and pulled the trigger four times. She then pointed the gun at Snowman. She looked at me and I smirked. I swore she just told me not to do the same thing she just did.

     “Grab your boy and get the fuck out. Tell Messiah that if he would have come at me correctly, I would have paid him his money. Since he came sideways, tell him to go suck a dick.”

      We watched him struggle to get the body in his trunk for close to twenty minutes. After he left, we went inside. As soon as we hit the living room, Samantha fell to her knees and began to cry uncontrollably. I knelt down next to her and forced her to look at me.

     “Chris, Messiah is going to kill us. He’s nothing to fuck with. He…”

     “Bleeds! You must have never listened to Life After Death. My money is now up so anybody can get it. Since we already started the beef it’s time for the A to get a taste of how Maryland plays the game.

Chapter 18

     Detective Raymond, Detective J.R., and Detective Imam sat excitedly, crunched together in front of Captain Reid’s desk as he read the file that they had assembled.  All four of them had gone to Morehouse on scholarships paid by Camille and Bill Cosby. When they all graduated and returned to their hometown, their love for Baltimore made them all join the Baltimore Police Department, with a genuine vow to make the streets as safe as possible.

     The file they had been compiling for the past two months alleged that Christopher Combs, after being released from death row a little over three months ago, was a serial killer that had murdered his prosecutor, two members of his jury, and a witness who had testified at his trial. The file was based on assumptions and possible motives – without one piece of physical evidence. The file explained how the initial attention began to be placed on him.

     During the course of his investigation, Detective Imam had looked over Elizabeth Abram’s apartment on the night her corpse was found, and had discovered, in her bedroom, many articles that concerned Chris taped on her mirror. One of the articles was about Chris’s conviction being dismissed because of DNA. Another article was about how the victim had refused to apologize for her misidentifying him. Two other articles were about Samuel Boswell’s and John Patterson’s murders. On top of John Patterson’s article was a hand written note of Elizabeth; it said “Boswell died the same day he was released. Is that a coincidence? Is John Patterson’s murder also a coincidence? Is it these percs or Mollys or this purple haze that have made me so paranoid? I know one thing, one more murder of anybody that was on the jury or a witness in the case, and I’m going to the police.”

     Too bad she got murdered before she had the opportunity to alert the authorities.  Detective Imam got with his buddies and they put together a file that they labeled “The Lizzy Murders Over Two Months.” It took about twenty five minutes for Captain Coughlin to read the entire file. When he finished, he calmly took his glasses off, pinched the bridge of his nose, and shook his head. When he looked up and sequentially glanced in the eyes of each of the brightest and sharpest detectives he had in his precinct, as well as his best friends, a sly smirk slowly manifested on his face.

     “Take your time on this one. Keep this confidential for the time being until we possess more evidence on this serial killer. We are either going to catch him or kill him. Either option will make Baltimore safer.”

Chapter 19

     Captain Coughlin re-opened the file after the detectives had left the room and shook his head as he closed his eyes and bowed his head as he began to pray.

     “God, I’m so sorry that I helped put an innocent man in prison. I feel I should help him now, but . . . he’s now a killer and really deserves to be placed on death row. Please guide me so I will not make the wrong decision.”

     He pulled out his thermal mug that was filled with Amsterdam from underneath his desk, and took a long swig from it. He then stared at Chris’s picture for a few minutes before taking another long swig. He turned to the last page of the file that had Reggie “Redman” Smith listed as the only known living kin to Chris, who is also under investigation for being a drug dealer. He fished out his cell phone, blocked his number out, and dialed Redman’s number. It rang three times before it was answered.

     “ who is this calling me from a blocked phone number?”

     “My number is none of your business. What is my business is that I know that your brother is a serial killer and, the odds are nine out of ten that you are involved somehow. A formal investigation has been launched against him in connection with three murders, and one other murder is a strong possibility. He’s being labeled a serial killer, Reggie. In no time at all, he’ll have the entire force on his heels. Better tell him to quit while he is ahead. Also, tell him if he has me on his list, it’s in his best interest to take me the fuck off of it.”

     Redman was driving but immediately pulled over as his weed high disappeared. He took a couple of deep breaths and regained his calm composure.

     “For one, I don’t know what the fuck you talking about. My brother hasn’t killed anyone, so y’all are wasting the tax payers money. Two, why not call him? Three, if you really a pig like you acting like you are, why are you giving a suspected serial killer a heads up? And four, if there was a list, why would you be on it?”

     Captain Coughlin took another long swig from his thermal.

     “I played a huge part with getting your brother the death penalty. I was the lead detective in that case, and his pleas of innocence fell on my deaf ears. While his anger is understandable, cold blooded murder is not. So, as of right now, we have no physical evidence against him or you, for that matter. But, we didn’t have any physical evidence against him back then, and we know how that turned out. If he stops right now, he can’t be arrested. He’s going to be harassed, but not arrested in less than 30 days if he doesn’t stop. If he continues, we will arrest him and be justified in sending him back on death row. Or, I will personally kill the monster that I helped create. It’s his choice and yours. And for you, Mr. Drug Dealer, you are only a few months from being indicted yourself. You change your drug strips but not the distinctive red baggies you place your drugs in. Real smart.

     Captain Coughlin hung up and laughed until tears were streaming down his face. Meanwhile, Redman was staring at his phone for ten straight minutes before he called Chris who answered on the second ring.

     “What’s up ‘Lil Bro?”

     Redman was in panic mode, and it showed with every word that he spoke.

     “Chris meet me at the spot on Monroe right now!”

              Chapter 20

     I hopped off and out of Samantha with the quickest, and started to get dressed as quickly as possible. When I looked up, I saw her getting dressed as fast as I was. I froze and we locked eyes.

     “Where in the hell do you think you are going?”

     She looked at me like I was slow.

     “What you think, boy? Get it through your thick ass skull that you are no longer in your single cell. I got your back whenever, wherever, against whomever. I can tell it’s some drama, so stop trying to block me out?”

     I smiled as I got her gun from underneath the pillow and tossed it at her. It bounced on the bed only once before she snatched it and put it in her dip – all in one motion. I went under the bed and grabbed my duffel bag where an old AK-47 and a brand new, still-in-the-box M-16 was waiting for me. I snatched out the clip, saw that Redman had already loaded it, slammed it back in, and smiled.

     “Let’s go.”

     She grabbed her huge ass Coach purse, ran into her closet, and came out in less than a minute stuffing cash into the purse.

     “Yeah, negro, two hundred and fifty thou fits up in this big ass purse that you love to hate. Just in case we got to bounce right away, we good. Let’s roll!”

     That’s why I fell in love with her! I ran to the car with my gun in plain sight – not caring about anything but my brother’s safety. I hopped in the passenger seat, clicked the gun off safety, and chambered a bullet. I was ready for war. Samantha hopped in, started the car, and then looked at me in my eyes.

     “For one, Chris, you never told me where we going. Two, I’m a roll regardless, so why I can’t know what’s going on?”

     I smiled as I leaned over, and we kissed passionately for close to thirty seconds. I then leaned back over as our eyes still remained locked on one another.

     “We are going to the spot on Monroe. Get there fast, and I’ll tell you why as we are going.”

     I laughed at how she took off like a bat out of hell.

     “I don’t know what’s going on. All I know is that my brother called me with genuine fear in his voice. I haven’t heard him sound so shook since the first time after I talked to him after I was sentenced to death.”

     We were quiet for the rest of the ride. As soon as we pulled up, Redman came out the house holding a bulging Foot Locker shopping bag, looked all around him, and then sprinted to our car. He went to get into the passenger seat, and when he saw me, I could see anger flashing in his eyes. He then got into the back seat, and slammed the hell out of the door. I turned around and we locked eyes.

     “What you bring her here for?”

     “What, you think she don’t know what the fuck we do? Nigga, you acting like Samantha don’t know what we do.”