Trapstar 3 (7 page)

“Hi,” Auntie greeted, extending her hand out to shake Gwen’s.

“And you already know Selena, and this is her cousin, Chatima.” Brianna introduced everyone.

The women greeted each other, and sat down at the table. Brianna needed to get right to the point.

“Auntie, I asked for this sit down for two reasons. First, because my friend here needs to get a hold of some heroin. I told her that’s not what I deal with, but to keep our other business intact, I would reach out to see what you possibly could do to assist her.” Since Niya had been away, the streets had been dry on heroin because Gwen had not been able to secure distribution. Although Van knew Gwen, she wasn’t blood family, and it was no way she could put her girl, Inga at risk, with someone she couldn’t 100% co-sign. “The second thing is to let you know we need to step the packages up, because we need a lot more product.”

“So what type of volume we talking about?” Auntie asked with a smile.

The women sat there handling their business like some Fortune 500 men would, and by the end of the meet, all parties were smiling like family.

After a brief conference outside in the hallway, Casteno, Brianna, and Charrise walked back into the courtroom.

“You sure you wanna go through with this?” Casteno asked Charrise one last time before he took a seat at the table.

She nodded her head in the affirmative and then took a seat right behind him. Today, the District Attorney was ending his case. He produced a lot of evidence in the trial, most of which was circumstantial, but very convincing. The most important piece of evidence was Cowboy having been found with the gun in his hand. This was the same gun that had been confirmed to have killed at least two of the men. That alone, without anything to justify the murders would definitely end in at least two guilty verdicts for murder in the first degree.

“The state of North Carolina rests.” the D.A. declared after his last witness got off the stand.

“Counsel, will your client be testifying?” the judge asked Casteno.

Cowboy had the option to take the stand and tell his side of the story, but he opted not to, knowing that it would give the D.A. the green light to openly dig into his criminal background. That meant that every felony Cowboy had on his record, the D.A. could bring up and question him about the details. Cowboy could not afford that. His criminal history and felony convictions stretched a mile long. It would have taken an extra two days of trial just for the jury to hear everything.

“No, Mr. Parsons will not testify today. Although we do have an eyewitness account for what happened the day my client was arrested.

“Objection!” the D.A. shouted. “I ask that we have a sidebar,” he requested.

On the sidebar, the D.A. objected to Casteno bringing forth any witnesses at this stage of the trial, when he never put any on his witness list in the beginning. Of course, Casteno argued the fact that at any point during trial, he should be able to prove his client’s innocence no matter what. The judge quickly ruled in Casteno’s favor, allowing Charrise to testify.

After being sworn in by the clerk, Charrise took a seat on the stand. She looked out into the quiet courtroom and instantly became nervous. It wasn’t until her mother walked into the courtroom that Charrise felt a sense of ease. Lorraine took a seat right next to Brianna and directly behind Cowboy.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Palmer,” Casteno began. “My first question to you is, do you know Mr. Parsons, and if you do, where do you know him from?”

“Mr. Parsons is my sister’s real father. I recently just met him when he saved my life four months ago.”

“Can you please explain how this man saved your life, Ms. Palmer?” Casteno said, walking from around his table and standing right next to Charrise on the stand.

Silence took over the courtroom once again.

Charrise looked around and her eyes landed on Cowboy, who was looking right back at her with a shocked look on his face. He didn’t expect her to take the stand on his behalf, but not only was she testifying on his behalf, she was about to make sense and fill in many of the holes the D.A. had left open.

Once Charrise started talking, everyone in the courtroom listened attentively. Even the D.A. put his head down as Charrise testified to being kidnapped by the three men that were found dead in the house. She testified to the rape, and how she was pregnant by one of the men. Her testimony to the brutal attack had the whole courtroom wiping tears from their eyes. She even testified to the weeks of physical therapy and the months of psychotherapy she had to go through, and the struggles of her having to decide whether to abort her child. Charrise didn’t hold back. She even cried herself, while giving testimony.

After about two full hours of testifying, the D.A. needed a break. “Your Honor, the State asks if we can have a short recess,” the D.A. said, trying to put out the fire of Charrise’s testimony.

It was like he sat there and watched Charrise single handedly dismantle his case. She turned the three men who were murdered into monsters; killing the victim card the D.A. had played the entire trial.

“Well, seeing that it’s getting late in the day, and I know the State wishes to cross examine the witness, I think that it would be in everybody’s best interest for us to reconvene here tomorrow morning at 9:00am.” the judge said, wiping the sweat or what could have been tears from his eyes.

When Charrise got off the stand, Cowboy quietly uttered the words, “Thank you,” when she walked past him.

Lorraine quickly grabbed her daughter and held her tight. They sat there in the courtroom hugging and crying, all which the jury witnessed before they exited.

Herman hurried out of the courtroom. He had followed Lorraine in hopes that she was going to visit Brianna. He had been trying to figure out where she lived for months without any luck. He was surprised when he saw her exit downtown to the courthouse. He knew something had to be up with all her recent visits downtown, but he never thought about this. His stomach turned as Charrise testified about what happened to her. As she testified, he felt cold and sick, but she had made her choice to side with that bitch. If anything, it should have taught her that being with her family, her decent side of the family, would have saved her from what happened.

Herman watched Lorraine whisper something in Cowboy’s ear. He had to talk himself down to keep from walking over and choking her ass out. As the judge dismissed them for the day, he quickly left the courtroom. He needed to keep his cool and execute his plan, his plan to regain his throne in his household and family. Everyone had gotten out of pocket and they needed to learn their places again and soon.

__________

Jonathan pulled up and parked two blocks away from Betty Ford Road. He went right to work, doing his homework on his next lick. Tagging along in the passenger side was A.J.

“Check dis shit out,” Jonathan said, reaching into the backseat to grab his set of binoculars and pointing with his finger in the direction that he wanted him to look.

A.J. looked through the binoculars and saw nothing but zombies walking up and down Betty Ford Road. It looked like something out of a movie, the way dope fiends flocked to the block in packs. Looking further, A.J. could see a female standing on a porch in the middle of the block overseeing several other females standing off to the side serving the fiends their product.

“Damn, it’s crack heads everywhere,” A.J. said, as he continued to look through the binoculars.

“They’re not crack heads. They’re dope fiends, a whole ‘nother ballpark.” Jonathan responded.

Jonathan didn’t know that much about the drug game, but his knowledge did extend to the fact of knowing that dope money was better than cocaine money. He learned that bit of information from his newfound love, Gator.

“Oh, look, look, look,” Jonathan said, seeing the all-white Aston Martin Vanquish pull up to the block.

A few seconds went by before a female jumped out of the car, rocking a mini skirt, some heels, and a half cut t-shirt that showed off her stomach. The binoculars were doing their job, because A.J. could see everything down to her cute face.

“I think this bitch run dis strip. Rumor has it that the chick that owns this block, rebuilt it from the ground up after the whole block went up in flames.” Jonathan schooled.

“Damn, I think I remember seeing that shit on the news a while back. A couple of people died in the fire or something like that.” A.J. shot back.

“Yeah, the bitch replaced every house that burned down and then opened shop back up. I’m not sure, but I think that’s her,” Jonathan assumed, nodding at the female who had just got out of the Aston Martin.

“Who do hell do these bitches think they are?”

“I don’t know who dese hoes think they are, but they about to find out this is a man’s world.” Jonathan answered, grabbing the binoculars from A.J.

“So, how you wanna do it?” A.J. asked, looking over at his partner in crime.

“We sit and wait, brah. I say a couple more days of homework should set us straight. Right now, shorty that just hopped out of the Aston Martin is the target. If she is who I think she is, trust me, she is the only one we need.” Jonathan answered, looking off down the street.

The men looked at each other and then simultaneously reclined their seats as far back as they could go. This had turned into a full-fledged stake out almost instantly. In a short period of time, Jonathan had exceled with this money taking thing. Sometimes he would lay and wait for somebody for days in order to get his man. That’s one of the things that made him so dangerous. He had patience, and patience was a very important key to his success.

__________

“Herman! Herman, come on, your breakfast is ready!” Lorraine yelled as she placed the scrambled eggs on the plate. Even though she and her husband had not been seeing eye to eye, Lorraine still felt that it was her wifely duties to make sure he was fed.

Herman stumbled down the stairs. It was only 9am and he was already drunk. As he staggered to the table, she looked at him with disgust.

“Herman, really. This early? What is wrong with you?” Lorraine said as she poured a glass of orange juice.

“Shut ya fuckin mouth, woman!” he shouted as his blurred vision adjusted on her. “Now put my God damn food on the table … right now.” He burped and hiccupped.

Lorraine shook her head, walked over to the stove, and grabbed his plate. She really didn’t feel like arguing with him, and she knew that’s exactly what was going to happen if she said anything else about his intoxication.

“I have to go back downtown today to the social security office. I will be back in a few hours. Do you need anything?” Lorraine asked as she was putting the dishes in the sink.

When she turned around to grab some more dishes off the table, the last thing that she saw was the gold wedding band on Herman’s finger.

He smacked Lorraine so hard, he knocked the spit out of her mouth and blinded her temporarily. She held onto the sink trying to get her vision back, but when she did, Herman swung at her again, this time with a closed fist. He punched Lorraine smack in her mouth. This time, knocking her to the ground and filling her mouth with blood.

“You going to see your little boyfriend?” Herman taunted with his slurred speech.

Lorraine was still on the ground letting the blood drip out of her mouth onto the floor. She could barely feel her face. It was numb all over.

“You running around, going back and forth down to that courthouse to see that muthafucka. You must have lost ya damn mind,” he said, grabbing a fist full of her hair and pulling her to her feet.

“Herman… Herman…please,” Lorraine uttered as he dragged her to the other room.

Lorraine was out of it. She did not have any strength at all to fight Herman back. He knocked that out of her with the closed fist punch.

“You my old lady!” he yelled, throwing her onto the couch.

He began pulling Lorraine’s clothes off, starting with her pants and then her shirt. He didn’t even take the time to pull off her panties. Instead, he just ripped them off from the waist.

“Herman, what… are you doin’?” Lorraine cried out, swallowing the blood that leaked into her mouth from the cut on her upper lip.

He stood over top of her and unbuckled his belt, letting his pants drop to his ankles. Lorraine looked at him in disbelief as he climbed on top of her. She could feel him rubbing his limp dick up and down her vagina, trying to get himself hard. But Herman was so drunk, he couldn’t get his soldier to stand at attention for nothing. He was so frustrated about it that he cocked back and smacked Lorraine again.

“You crazy bitch. Carry yo ass up those steps!” Herman demanded, getting up from the couch.

He stumbled backwards as he tried to pull his pants back up, damn near falling into the floor model TV in the middle of the living room.

Lorraine, who was just about naked, eased up slowly from the couch, holding her face. She did what she was told and walked up the stairs and then disappeared into their bedroom, leaving Herman to storm out of the house in a rage.

__________

Jonathan cocked a bullet into the chamber of the AR-15, placed it on the table, and then picked up the 10mm and stuffed it with bullets. Kevin and A.J. stood around the table doing the same thing, loading and wiping down the guns they were about to use. Weed smoke clouded the dining room and the silence around the table indicated that all three men were focused on the task at hand.

A knock at the door took all three men out of their zone. Jonathan knew that it couldn’t be Gator, she had just left thirty minutes ago to get her hair and nails done. He quickly slid the clip into the 10mm. He proceeded to open the door with the gun in his hand. When he looked out of the small window next to the entrance, Kasy was standing there looking back at him.

“Damn, my nigga, I didn’t think that you was coming,” Jonathan said when he opened the door.

Kasy had been falling back over the past few months, keeping his hands in the drug game to a minimum until he got through the couple of drug cases he had caught during the spring. When Jonathan told him he needed him to help out with a situation, and that a nice piece of money was involved, naturally, he jumped at the opportunity. Mainly because he was Brianna’s little brother, and more than likely it wasn’t anything serious.