Promise Kept, page 15
“Sup wit ya peoples looking at me like they’re thinking about doing something?” Trap asked playfully. He was peering past Don B. at one of the men in his small entourage. Trap had always known Don B. to roll heavy, especially in New York. That night they were only four deep. Tone he already knew, but the others were unfamiliar. One was a large and menacing-looking, light-skinned cat that looked like he was ready to get it shaking. Trap could see the impression of the bulletproof vest under his shirt, so this told him that the sour-faced man was likely security. “You know? I can’t remember the last time I saw anybody except Red Devil watching your back out in public, Don. He ain’t with the team no more?”
“Devil has never been a part of the team. He’s family,” Don informed him. “Sammy is new to the organization, but just as efficient. I’ll be sure to tell Devil you asked about him.”
“You be sure to do that. Devil is a man I’ve always respected. With him, you always knew what to expect, but this one . . .” Trap tapped his chin in thought while eyeballing Sammy. “I’m not sure how I feel about how he’s looking at me.”
“Pay Sammy no mind. He’s got a built-in ‘fuck nigga’ radar, and you probably just set it off.” This comment came from the second unfamiliar man, a thin, short joker with coco skin. His youthful face was marked with tattoos, the most prominent being a black diamond with a Z inside. At a glance, you could’ve mistaken it for the Superman emblem, but the symbol represented the House of Zod in the Superman comic books. A chain similar to the one Don B. wore hung from his neck, adorned with a Rottweiler head as well, only his hound sported ruby-speckled horns sprouting from its head. His Atlanta Braves fitted was cocked ace-deuce on the side of his head, and there was a thickly rolled joint behind his ear. Like Don B., he too wore sunglasses though it was night, and they were indoors. It was obvious where he got his style and attitude from. Trap had never seen him in any of the Big Dawg circles, but the fact that he even had the balls to address Trap said that he thought he was someone.
Trap pondered how best to respond to the half-ass insult. In the end, he decided that laughing it off was a better solution than slapping the dog-shit out of Don B.’s little friend. “Don, I know you haven’t started trolling circuses to plug them holes in your crew?”
“Did this nigga just call me a clown?” the kid in the Braves hat asked no one in particular. It was his delayed reaction to Trap’s crack. “Homie, I’ll split your wig.” He took a step toward Trap, but Don B.’s voice halted him.
“Zod!” Don B. called his name in a stern voice. Zod opened his mouth like he wanted to continue the argument, but a look from Don B. silenced him. “Excuse my nephew, Trap. He’s young and a little on the wild side still, but we’re working on smoothing out some of those rough edges and teaching him the business.”
Zodiah, known as General Zod to his enemies, wasn’t actually Don B.’s nephew, but his cousin’s youngest son. He was a native New Yorker but had been living with his mother in Atlanta for the last couple of years. Zod had been a wild boy since the day he came into the world, fighting, stealing, and being an overall menace. Zod was a bad seed, but he was a saint compared to his older brother Terror, who was a stone-cold killer. Most people in the neighborhood were scared to death of him, which is why it came as no surprise when he turned up dead one day. They found him in a project stairwell, shot and with his throat cut, and had no real leads as to who had done it. Terror had been Zod’s hero, and when he received the news, he went ballistic. Zod was already a loose cannon, but he had gotten ahold of a PCP-laced cigarette, and it turned him into a demon. Since no one knew who for sure in the neighborhood had killed Terror, Zod waged a personal war on the whole block. He had made it rain blood in the hood for a few days, twenty-four hours straight before he was finally brought down by the police, and even then, it took pumping his ass full of bullets to stop him. Zod lived but found himself locked up for his actions. Don B. kicked out the money to hire a team of lawyers to defend his cousin. Because of his age and the fact that he had been high on angel dust at the time, they were able to use an insanity plea, and instead of spending the next twenty years in prison, he rode out four years in a mental institution. No one knew what he had endured in the institution, but it was clear that Zod wasn’t the same kid when he came out as when he had gone in. Upon his release, his mom took him to Georgia to try and keep him out of trouble, but it didn’t help. If anything, it made him worse. Atlanta had never seen anything quite like young Zod, and it was only a matter of time before he had a price on his head for the things he was pulling down south. Desperate and out of options, she sent him back to New York to stay with Don B.
Don B. started Zod out doing odd jobs and running errands. He mostly shadowed Tone and some of the other executives as they went about the day-to-day business at Big Dawg Entertainment. Young Zod might have been a violent sadist, but he was also incredibly intelligent. He mostly ran errands or spent his day shadowing Tone or one of the other Big Dawg executives while they went about handling the day-to-day operations at the label. Zod was like a sponge and soaked up everything he saw. He hadn’t been there for a month before Don B. recognized that his cousin’s talents were being wasted on coffee runs and rolling weed. The kid had a great mind for business, so Don B. promoted him to an A&R position and let him work with some of the newer acts. Some of those projects Zod had worked on were the only things keeping Big Dawg afloat. Though Zod would still need a little grooming, when the time came, Don B. planned to use him as the bridge between Big Dawg Entertainment and the new generation of artists that the label had previously struggled to tap into. Zod was in line to be Don B.’s heir apparent, if he didn’t let his mouth or his temper get him killed first.
“I can dig it,” Trap said after a pause. “I used to have the bad habit of speaking out of turn too until somebody punched me in my shit and knocked a few of my teeth out.” Trap hooked his finger under his lip to show off his mouth full of permanent gold teeth. “I can refer him to my dentist because he’ll likely need him soon enough at the rate he’s going.”
“Fuck all the subliminal threats. What you doing in my city, Trap?” Don B. changed the subject. “Better question . . . what the fuck are you doing at my meeting?” he was speaking to Trap but was throwing disapproving looks at Inferno and Finesse.
“I’ll take the blame for this.” Finesse raised his hand. “I know how busy the two of you gentlemen are based on how long it took us to arrange a sit-down with either one of you. It was just a stroke of luck that you both happened to have holes in your hectic schedules on the same night, so I figured we’d kill two birds with one stone.”
“Shorty, I came here out of the kindness of my heart to see if there was any star potential in you, and you repay me by inviting this snake-ass nigga to the table?” Don B. glared at Inferno.
“Watch your mouth, homie,” Moochie said, coming to her brother’s defense.
“It’s cool, Mooch. Ol’ boy didn’t mean anything by it. This is just a little friendly competition. Ain’t that right, Don?” Trap addressed his rival.
“Competition?” Don B. chuckled. “You doing your little thing, Trap, but don’t forget who sits at the top of this music food chain.”
“Right, the notorious Big Dawg Entertainment, where artists go to get fucked over or murdered under mysterious circumstances. You the only nigga I know outside of Suge Knight who has made more money off artists’ posthumous music than the ones who are actually still alive,” Trap accused.
Don B. took it and didn’t flinch. When he spoke, his tone was icy. Not just cold, but final. “It ain’t cool to make light of the dead. You popping fly about situations that are above your pay grade. Now, the fact that we’ve suffered some tragedies over the years is no secret. Still, for every soldier who has fallen while waving a Big Dawg flag, there is a family who’ll be taken care of for the rest of their days on earth. With some of my artists, if they were smart, it’ll be at least a generation before any of their loved ones will ever know what it means to work a nine-to-five. So, yes, I’ve lost some cats that were dear to my heart, but I’ve also made sure that their legacies live on. At Big Dawg, we leave no man or family behind, but let Nutty tell it. You wouldn’t know anything about that.”
For the briefest of instances, Trap allowed his mask to slip. It was a rare loss of self-control for a man who lived every moment of his life wearing a poker face, but he was quick to recover. “There was a time when you and I would’ve had a misunderstanding about that crack. One that might even lead to bloodshed,” Trap said in a deadly tone. This caused members of both crews to take up defensive postures around their respective leaders. Trap looked from Moochie to Don B.’s entourage. It was two against four, but favorable odds as far as he was concerned. A part of him wanted to take it there and humble Don B. in his own backyard, but he checked his ego and turned his attention back to the business at hand. “But that was when I was a lil ignorant ’jit, and putting a nigga on his back meant more to me than putting money in my pocket. This is a new day.” He made a sweeping gesture with his hands, letting everyone know that all was well. Some of the tensions eased, but both crews remained at the ready in case things changed. “Look, there’s too much testosterone in the air right now, and that can lead to poor decisions. Ladies, why don’t you entertain the troops while the generals walk and talk? Let’s see if we can’t come to some type of understanding.”
“Fuck that. I ain’t letting you out of my sight with King Creep,” Moochie protested. Despite his clownish behavior, she held no illusions as to how dangerous the Don of Harlem was.
“I’m with the dyke on this one, Unc. I ain’t cool with you sliding off with this joker,” Zod chimed in. Luckily for him, Moochie was so focused on Trap and Don B., she let the slur slide.
“Since when we start doing business in back alleys?” Tone asked suspiciously. Unlike Zod, he wasn’t worried about Trap trying Don B., at least not in the tristate. He was more concerned about whatever money might get discussed during that sidebar conversation. As far as Big Dawg was concerned, Don B. was in charge of the flash, and Tone the cash. Not a coin was exchanged unless he checked the date on it first.
“Since the beginning, my nigga. Or y’all been in rooms full of lawyers that you’ve forgotten how much money has been made over intimate conversations?” Trap jabbed. He picked up on them being suspicious of his motives, so he decided to have a little fun with it.
“We got a private room in the back where you guys can talk,” Keisha offered.
“That’ll work. If the Don is okay with it?” Trap asked. The opposing group still looked skeptical, so he decided to play on Don B.’s notorious ego. “What y’all worried about? This is Don B.’s backyard, so I’d be a fool to play it foul. I’m the lone frog in a gator pond. But if your Don feels like he needs some muscle around to feel comfortable, by all means, tag along,” he offered.
“Even before I was the richest nigga in rap, I was still the don and never needed to move in a group,” Don B. proclaimed. “Lead the way, shorty.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The first ten minutes of the ride felt like the longest ten minutes of Asher’s young life. Zul was, in general, a chatty muthafucka, but that night, he was unusually quiet. Quiet for Zul wasn’t a good sign, because that meant that his brain was working and usually on something sinister. Asher imagined Zul wasn’t happy at the fact that he hadn’t picked up his calls, but that wouldn’t have been the first time Asher had looped him, and certainly not cause for Zul to come all the way to North Newark to track him down. No, he had something else on his mind, and the fact that Asher didn’t know what it was made him nervous.
Every so often Asher would let his eyes go to the rearview mirror. He could see Fangs following closely behind them in Zul’s truck. For as near as he could tell, Fangs was alone in the truck and not riding with the Lynch Mob. That was the nickname given to the crew of killers that he kept at his disposal. They were a nasty lot who didn’t believe in traditional murder. Zul’s hitters would often come up with especially cruel ways to dispatch those who had run afoul of Zul. Asher had once been in a car with them when they had run down a kid who had been talking crazy about Zul. The only thing that Zul took more seriously than his money was his name, and to kick dirt on it would guarantee you a first-class trip to the afterlife. Asher knew, from the time they had picked the offender up, that he was as good as dead, but he hadn’t been prepared for the method of execution Zul’s twisted mind had come up with.
“Since you like to run your mouth, let’s see if your legs can keep up,” Zul told him before binding the man’s wrists and tethering him to the back of his truck.
To the offender’s credit, he had the stamina of a high school track star. He managed to keep up with the truck for four blocks and probably could’ve gone further had he not lost his footing and fell. Zul dragged that boy from Market and William Streets all the way to Lincoln Park before having one of the mob get out and cut him loose. They left him there to die in the middle of the street like roadkill. Miraculously, the offender survived, but lost most of the skin on one side of his body as well as an eye. That was the first time Asher really understood what kind of devil he had made a deal with. The two things that Asher remembered most about that night was the extent of the offender’s injuries and how eerily silent Zul had been up until passing the death sentence. It was a silence much like the one that filled Asher’s Benz that night.
Zul pushed the Mercedes deeper into the hood. Asher initially thought they were headed for the block, but Zul passed the neighborhood where they got money and rode further still. They were now moving up Frelinghuysen. The two- and three-family houses had started to give way to a more industrial section of Newark. There were garages on one side and the park on the other, but at that hour, all the businesses were closed, and the park was still. Asher knew, from past experience, that this is where they went when they wanted to get rid of something or someone. His eyes drifted to the gun he had stashed between the driver’s seat and center console. Zul was focused on the road, so he reasoned he could reach it in time, but even if he did manage to kill Zul and avoid dying shortly after the car crashed, there would still be the issue of having to deal with Fangs. Part of him wished that he had accepted Cal’s offer to ride along.
Zul made a movement, which caused Asher to jump nervously. Zul gave him a quizzical look, before grinning sinisterly. “Relax, I was just turning on the radio. Too quiet in here.” He hit the button, and Funk Master Flex’s voice filled the speakers. He was deep into his Friday night mix. “What’s with you, Ash? Why you so jumpy?”
“Ain’t nobody jumpy, man. I’m just high,” Asher lied.
“Not off anything stronger than weed, I hope?”
“Zul, you know I been stopped fucking with them pills once I started getting real money in the hood. I gotta stay focused,” Asher said, which was partially true. He had limited his ecstasy trips to only those occasions when he was trying to break a new bitch in and wanted to show off.
“That’s a good thing. Them pills ain’t no good. I’ve had my fair share of fun with them back in my day, but that was before we knew where the shit was coming from and what was in it. They’re tainting all this new shit with fentanyl, so there’s always a fifty-fifty chance that your next high ends up being your last. Sometimes it hurts to see how far your generation has fallen.”
“I never understood why you looked down so hard on pills, but ain’t got no problem putting them on the streets,” Asher said.
“My moral compass and bottom line are two things that’ll never intersect. One of the first things I noticed when I got out of prison and got back in the game was that the landscape was changing. Sure, people still want the brown and the white, but there is also a great demand for opioids. I’d be a fool not to get my slice of that pie. And based on this beautiful machine you’re riding around in, I’d say it’s safe to say that you agree.”
“You know me, man. I’m about a dollar,” Asher told him.
“Indeed, my sly young friend. You’d cross your own mama if there was a bag in it for you. That’s a quality that makes me both admire and detest you, Asher. If I’d been as ruthless as you are when I was your age, I’d either be way further ahead than I am now or dead. A worthwhile gamble at any rate, which is why I can understand why you sometimes do shit that makes me scratch my head about you.”
“Zul, you know I hate it when you talk in riddles. If you’ve got something you need to say to me, then come out with it. We ain’t gotta dance around the issue.”
Zul flashed him an amused look. “You’ve gotten real ballsy since I put that crown on your head. I’ll bet it makes you seem like hot shit among the homies, huh? Their beloved prince, feeding the hood again. I wonder if they’d still love you if they knew our twisted history and how you really came to power?”
It was a threat, and Asher knew it. The thing that he feared most about Zul was not his team of shooters, or the fact that he was a bloodthirsty maniac. Every man could bleed, no matter how untouchable he thought he was. B-Stone had been proof of that. No, what Zul had access to could do more damage than any weapon forged against Asher. It was the information he held that could bring Asher’s little kingdom crashing down on his head.
Only a few people knew the real connection between Asher and Zul, and most of them were dead. He and Zul’s relationship went back to when Zul and B-Stone were still on good terms. Despite the war between them that had rocked the whole city, the two men had been friends at one time. They were from two different gangs, but bonded over sports, with both of them having played football for Central High School. This was back when a kid named LA had been the one supplying the hood. Ironically enough, it had been B-Stone who introduced Zul to LA. Thanks to the introduction by B-Stone, LA had started to sell Zul weight directly, much to the displeasure of B-Stone. Someone who B-Stone had always seen as lower than him on the food chain was now his competition.
