Numbers

Dear Readers,

First and foremost: THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

Friends, family, those who have read all my work, those that have read some, those who have been contemplating it, and even those who criticize my work: I want to say THANK YOU. My team and I couldn’t do it without you.

Most of my tried-and-true readers have been keeping up with my Nikki Turner Presents novels
Gorilla Black
and
Against the Grain
and the Street Chronicles short-story collections
(Tales from da Hood, Girls in the Game, Christmas in the Hood).
I can’t thank you enough for all of your undying support. You have helped me to help others share their stories
with the world. I’ve been proud of each and every one of my authors’ tales, but I am even more excited about working with the author of the latest book to be released in my line.

Among many other things, Dana Dane is a first-generation hip-hop icon, and now he adds published writer to the list. Congrats, Dana! Before I make all the formal introductions, let me take you on a trip down memory lane. One of my dearest passions besides writing is music, especially old-school music: Slick Rick, Dana Dane, Run-DMC, etc. (This is ironic, since I can’t even hum in tune. Seriously! They kicked me out of the church choir. But that’s another story altogether.) When Dana Dane’s lawyer called and asked if I would be interested in doing a deal with his client, I could not pass up an opportunity to work with someone whose work I had loved and respected long before I ever picked up a pen to write a book.

After talking to the legendary artist, I found out that he had written a children’s book and a few short stories but nothing, at the time, that would be a good fit for my line. Months later, after talking on the phone about everything from sneakers to hats, books, movies, politics, and the game called life, we both started to realize that though our industries (books and music) were two totally different animals of the entertainment jungle, we both had been through similar highs and lows as artists.

And then Dana Dane sent me the rough draft of
Numbers.

This was it. I told him I loved it and thought that it would be an excellent way for him to enter into the book world, and he responded, “Cool! Let’s make it do what it do.” After slashing through all of the red tape with the lawyers, agents, and Ballantine, we worked it all out to make it happen. After the ink was dry I would tell people that Nikki Turner Presents had signed Dana Dane to do a book, and their first response was, “Is he going to write it or are you?” For the record, Dana was such a control freak (and I mean it in a good way) when it came to writing his book, he
crossed every
T
and dotted every
I.
When it came to the editorial process, the man gave Melody (my right hand and big-city editor) and me hell. We found out that not only was the man smart and charismatic, he was stubborn. But at the end of the day I was very impressed by the pride Dana put into penning his novel. He was a joy to work with. With every round of edits, he would call me and say in his serious voice, “Nikki Turner, I have a newfound respect for you if this is what you do for all of the books you’ve written.”

Through the entire process I soon realized that I liked the man behind the legendary songs “Nightmares” and “Cinderfella” more than I loved the artist. Often times, Dana thought that he was getting insight and jewels from me, but it was he who was passing so much of his expertise on the industry and life in general to me.

Dana is not only my author, he is my dear friend and my big brother. From the bottom of my heart, I really hope you enjoy his book as much as we enjoyed the crazy process of getting it to its finished product.

It gives me great pleasure, honor, and unbridled joy to unveil another Nikki Turner Presents … a Dana Dane classic …
Numbers.

There are not enough … numbers.

Everyone in the hood wants more money, but there isn’t enough to go around. There are endless excuses why financial freedom has bypassed most people. The truth of the matter is that more people spend their time working for money than working toward a goal.

Most think that they will get paid from get-rich-quick schemes or hitting the lottery—the fast-money myth. Many of the young men in the hood think they’ll get rich from selling illegal substances. A majority of the inner-city youth feel they have no other recourse than the street hustle. This mindset is programmed into young people and set in motion by their environment. If I had a nickel for every time I heard
somebody say, “I’m just getting into the street-hustle game to make
x
amount of dollars and then I’m out,” I’d be financially set. It’s rare that they follow their initial plan. This scenario is the one that has plagued street hustlers from the beginning. When is enough money enough? In the street hustle, just as in legitimate business, you have to develop an exit plan. I could tell you a thousand stories of street hustlers believing their own hype and getting caught up, but I won’t. I will only tell you this one.

This is the tale of a young boy who goes by the moniker Numbers.

Numbers was putting on an Academy Award–winning performance, taking Jake through every emotion he could possibly think of: scared, confused, dumbfounded, flabbergasted, and victimized. Keyser Söze would have appreciated the level of game Numbers was laying down.

Eleven hours had passed since he’d been taken into custody, six of them under tough interrogation. Although the agents didn’t know any more now than they did when they picked him up, Numbers knew that he was far from out of the fire. Crispy Carl had once told him, “When you stand in the flames, never let them see you sweat.” And Numbers maintained his composure.

The holding room was painted a dull mint green. It was
cruel and unusual punishment just to have to look at it for too long. The only furnishings were four metal chairs and a rectangular table. A DEA agent sat on one side of the table with two empty chairs beside him, while Numbers sat on the opposite side. The fluorescent lights overhead seemed to beam only on him. Directly ahead of Numbers was a mirror five feet wide by three feet high. It was obvious that there were agents on the other side listening and watching everything that was said or done in the room. Every so often the agent who was with Numbers would turn around and act as if he was looking at himself, asking the same question again and again. This was his way of letting his superiors know he was getting nowhere fast.

“So where are the drugs and money?” Agent Smith asked for what seemed like the thousandth time. Smith had been at the agency for only a couple of years, but his supervisor liked to use him when they interrogated black suspects. They believed another black male could lure the black perps into a false sense of security and thus trick them into incriminating themselves.

Agent Smith fancied himself a good dresser. Today he was wearing a charcoal-gray suit with a light gray shirt and solid black tie. His top lip sported a well-trimmed pencil-thin mustache. “Don’t make it worse for yourself than it already is,” he said, as if he really cared. “If you play ball, we can knock some time off your sentence.”

Numbers thought it was funny how the agent spoke to him as if they could have been friends under different circumstances.
But if he thinks that I’m gonna sit here and implicate myself, this nigger must be the one smoking hot monkey ass through a stem.
“I don’t know how many ways I can tell you this, man, but I ain’t done nothing. Y’all the ones that hauled me up in here, got me missing in action, my mom’s probably worried sick. You tell me what’s really good,” Numbers challenged.

“Numbers,”
Agent Smith called him by his nickname, hoping to
get some type of reaction, “cut the crap. Yeah, we know what they call you in the streets; don’t play dumb with us. We got you on tape with Coney setting up the whole drug transaction. Just tell us where the drugs are, and we’ll make this a little easier on you.” Agent Smith stood up and adjusted his shirt in his pants before walking around to the right side of the table and sitting on its edge. “Little brotha, you think I want to lock you up for the rest of your life? Nah, brotha, that’s not what I want at all, but if you want me to be able to help you, you got to give me something to work with.” This time he spoke in a hushed tone as if the conversation was just between him and Numbers.

Numbers looked straight ahead, his eyes defiant, at the two-way glass in front of him. He spoke, unfazed: “Drugs is not my thing, man! I say no to drugs like Nancy Reagan asked me to back in the day!”

“So you want to be a hard-ass?” Agent Smith hopped off the table. “We can be hard-asses too, you know.” Right on cue Agent Smith’s partner and two other suits Numbers recognized entered the room.

“Dupree Reginald Wallace, I am Agent Flask.” Agent Flask was a tall, well-conditioned, clean-cut white dude, and he spoke with the arrogance of a man who knew something that he shouldn’t. He didn’t bother to introduce the two other suits. Just as well; they needed no introduction. Numbers knew these crooked cops, O’Doul and Lockhart, all too well from the projects. “You’re in more trouble than you realize, kid.” The two detectives smiled, looking sinister. “It would behoove you to cooperate with us. Do you know this person?” Agent Flask cracked a bedeviling smile when he tossed a picture of Coney on the table.

“What kind of rhetorical bullshit is this? You know I do. You just picked me up with him twelve hours ago.”

“Then you should know he already gave you up. He told us about your whole operation. We’ve already cut a deal with him,
but we may be able to help you help yourself if you give us your plug,” Agent Flask said.

Numbers wasn’t surprised that Coney had given him up, but that didn’t mean that
he
was going out like a scrub. He kept his mouth shut.

“Okay,” Flask said, “how about this guy?” He dropped a picture of Sanchez on the table. Sanchez was once Coney’s drugs connect and was now one of the people who supplied Numbers. The agent held several other photos in his hand, waiting for Numbers’s reply.

The stakes had just gone up, and the seat was getting hotter. Numbers had no idea whether or not they had pictures of him and Sanchez together. His next words could implicate him, but if Numbers was nothing else, he was a gambling man. “He looks sort of familiar, but the face doesn’t ring a bell,” Numbers said with an expression as serious as a death sentence. “Isn’t he one of the original members of Menudo?”

Agent Flask frowned. He didn’t think Numbers was funny, and he didn’t like it when perps tried to play him. “Okay then, Mr. Funny Man, who is this … and this … and this … and this?” The agent tossed photo after photo on the steel table. Numbers took a few moments to look at them. It was like seeing a flashback of his entire life since becoming a street hustler, in colored glossy prints. The feds had provided a snapshot of almost everyone Numbers had dealt with in the underbelly of the street game, but what they were unable to do was provide any connection between them and Numbers. He was not in any of the photos, but somehow they knew he knew them—they just couldn’t prove it, so Numbers believed. Why else would they still be digging?