Promise Kept, page 16
The difference between B-Stone and Zul was that, although they were both gangbangers, Zul was a businessman first and foremost. He had a different understanding of the game than B-Stone did and set up his crew to run like a well-oiled machine, instead of a bunch of trigger-happy dope boys. Zul’s business began to flourish, and he eventually knocked B-Stone out of the box as LA’s best customer. He was moving major weight while still flying under the radar of law enforcement. Zul was bringing in double what B-Stone did, with access to only half the real estate.
What started out as a business relationship between LA and Zul developed into a friendship. LA took a liking to the suave and ambitious young man. He saw that Zul was ready to step out onto the big stage and was about to open things up for him. Unfortunately, before LA could put Zul in position, he was removed from power. When LA went, so did his connect. The next thing you knew, the hood found itself in the middle of a drought. No drugs meant no money, and it created chaos. Nobody knew where their next dollar was coming from, so the homies started getting it how they lived. Violence was now at an all-time high and everybody knew that whoever found the next connect would be the next king of the hill.
Zul was the first one to break luck and find a halfway decent supplier. It wasn’t the best work, but he was the only one holding a bag at the time. This meant that anyone who wanted to buy drugs had to get them from Zul’s people, including B-Stone’s crew. Zul always looked out for B-Stone and never charged him the same thing he charged everybody else, but B-Stone couldn’t bring himself to get comfortable eating from Zul’s hand. He wouldn’t admit it, but he was jealous. The extent of his jealously wouldn’t fully show itself until B-Stone managed to secure his own connection. This is when B-Stone would fire the first shot in a war that would last an entire summer.
The battle between the two former friends proved to be one of the nastier ones that Newark had seen in recent years. To those on the outside looking in, the war looked like it would end as lopsided as Custer’s last stand. Zul had a handful of loyal men that all got busy, but B-Stone commanded an army of savages that lived to put in work. B-Stone rained some biblical shit on Zul’s head, but in the end, the odds tipped in Zul’s favor because he understood something that B-Stone thankfully didn’t. Wars weren’t won by whichever side knocked off the most people, but the side that killed the right people. While B-Stone had his boys executing drive-bys, the Lynch Mob was strategically assassinating everyone who had a position in B-Stone’s power structure. Even outnumbered, Zul had his childhood friend against the ropes. Out of desperation, B-Stone crossed a line that he couldn’t come back from. He broke the rules of engagement and used Asher to do it. It was Asher’s act of treachery that had been the nail in the coffin that carried Zul into prison and opened up the lane for B-Stone to become the undisputed boss of their section of the city.
“We still on that? I thought we was good?” Asher remin- ded Zul.
“In for a penny . . . in for a pound,” Zul replied.
“And after what I’ve already done, my scales ain’t balanced yet?” Asher questioned.
Zul laughed. “Young nigga, you a Judas twice over, and I still gave you a play. Name me one hustler on the planet who was double-crossed into prison and, when he gets on his feet, shares his bag with the joker who put him there? Either I’m stupid or I see something in you that makes me keep banging my head against the wall.”
And there it was. The thing that Zul had been holding over Asher’s head that had gotten him into this whole mess in the first place. The thing that forced Asher to betray his set. During the war, it had been Asher who B-Stone used to get close enough to Zul to plant the gun in the car that he went down for. Asher was a part of B-Stone’s crew, but Zul and Asher’s mother had come up together, so even while the two sides were fighting, he never viewed Asher as a threat, which had proven to be a mistake. He turned out to be the most dangerous one in the whole lot. Zul didn’t figure it out until he was a few months into his prison bid, and when he did, he had several years to plan his get-back. When he was released from prison, the first stop on his revenge tour had been to Asher’s mother’s house. Asher had almost shit himself on the day he walked in and found Zul in his kitchen making pancakes. It was time to pay the piper. Zul had given Asher two options: make things right by killing B-Stone, or his mother was a dead woman. With little other choice, Asher agreed.
Shortly after Asher made yet a second deal with a devil, B-Stone was found murdered. The thing was, it hadn’t been Asher who had killed him. Zul had charged Asher with the task of killing B-Stone. When the time came to make good, Asher found that he hadn’t had the stomach. He had known B-Stone forever, and besides that, the man was a stone-cold killer. Still, Asher found that he wasn’t up for it, but he would have to if he wanted to keep him and his family safe. By the time Asher had gotten up the nerve to go through with it, he found that someone had beat him to the punch. Zul had just assumed that Asher had been the one to do the deed, and Asher didn’t bother correcting him. In truth, to that day, he still had no clue who had murdered B-Stone, so he had ridden the lie straight to the top.
With B-Stone dead, Asher thought that he would finally be free of his debt to the homicidal Crip, but little did he know, the puppet master had only just begun to jerk at his strings. Asher told himself that he wouldn’t indulge in any more of Zul’s sick games, but this was before Zul made him an offer that would prove too tempting to pass up.
“I let you live, even after what you did, because I saw a lot of me in you,” Zul continued. “Yeah, you’re a dishonorable little piece of shit, but you’re also a charming bastard who knows how to get a dollar. What better shepherd to lead my new little flock than one the sheep already trusted? I made you a hometown hero in the eyes of your set, but you and I both know you ain’t shit but a snake.”
“Then why keep dealing with me?” Asher asked.
Zul paused before answering. “That’s a question I’ve been asking myself more and more lately.”
He steered the Benz toward a scrap yard on a darkened street. It was after hours, and the place was closed, but Asher could still see men milling about. Zul flashed the headlights in a pattern, and a few seconds later, two members of the Lynch Mob appeared and pulled the gates open. Seeing that Zul’s head squad was on deck filled Asher with uncertainty. The only thing that he now knew for sure was that Zul tracking him down was way bigger than a few missed phone calls. As the luxury car crossed into the yard, Asher’s mind again went back to his hidden gun.
Asher could feel his heart attempting to creep into his throat when Zul pulled to the back of the lot and killed the engine. Fangs parked the truck directly behind the Benz, boxing them in. Asher was trapped. “Zul, what’s this about?” he tried to keep his voice even.
“You’ll see,” Zul told him and got out of the car. As an afterthought, he added, “And leave the gun. You won’t need it.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Asher walked silently behind Zul, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jeans. Standing near a ruined car, holding an assault rifle, was a tall, light-skinned man who wore his hair in a fade with skulls tattooed on both sides of his head. They called him Whisper, and he was one of Zul’s top killers and a member of the Lynch Mob. They called him Whisper because he rarely spoke and you never heard him coming before he snuffed your life out. Whisper gave a curt nod, watching the group as they passed. Seeing him there only made Asher more uncomfortable, and he just hoped that, if he was to die that night, it would be at the hands of Whisper. At least then, it would be quick and unexpected.
Fangs trailed a few paces behind him. Every so often, Asher would look over his shoulder and find the man smiling as if he had a secret that he couldn’t wait to tell. He had never liked Fangs. No matter how Asher’s night played out, he promised himself that, whatever trip he was going on, he would take Fangs with him, if no one else.
“So, other than ducking my phone calls all damn day, what you been up to?” Zul asked as they approached the entrance of one of the storage containers that sat in the yard. It was smaller than a garage, but larger than a garden shed. The structure was just big enough to hide some truly devilish shit inside.
Asher shrugged. “Out here chasing a dollar. Same as always.”
“From the looks of things, you out here doing more than chasing dollars. You’re catching them!” Zul said good-naturedly. “You out here shining, baby boy . . . jewels dripping, skin looking all good. That California sun must be agreeing with you?”
The remark hit Asher like a playful slap. It was no secret that Zul had turned him onto the scene in California. It was Zul who had introduced him to the players, but it had been Asher’s low-key wheeling and dealing that put him in the game. None of the moves he was making conflicted with anything Zul had going on, but Asher hadn’t exactly been transparent about his latest venture either. Zul wasn’t a man who made random statements, and his bringing Cali up meant that he’d gotten wind of something and was fishing. Whether Asher would make it away with the bait or end up on the hook would depend on his response. “Cali has been good to me, but I got you to thank for that. Before that first trip you took me on, the farthest I had ever traveled outside Jersey was to New York.”
“Right, I did pluck you out of the slums and try to show you something different, didn’t I? They embraced you like a real ghetto celebrity out west. Laid the world at your feet. I guess that’s why you started making trips without me, huh?” It was more of a statement than a question.
Asher had seen this coming, so he didn’t try and deny it. “Yeah, I slide out there from time to time when I feel like I need to get away from Newark. Mini-vacations, you know?”
“More than you think,” Zul replied. They had stopped just shy of one of the storage containers that sat on the yard. It looked like just the right place where one could partake in some truly dastardly shit, and knowing Zul, that was likely its purpose. He placed one hand on the sliding door handle but paused and turned to face Asher. “You’ve been a busy boy, Asher. Busy doing everything except the right thing. After all I’ve done for you, I can’t figure for the life of me why you continue to go out of your way to disappoint me. That changes tonight.”
Asher didn’t have to run around to know that Fangs had moved directly behind him. He could smell his breath from over his shoulder. In Asher’s mind, he could see Fangs looming at his back with his pistol drawn, waiting for Zul to give the word. When Asher first opened his mouth to speak, he found his gums dry and his lips sticking against them every time he tried to part them. He swallowed once or twice to try and generate enough saliva in his mouth that would form the words to plead for his life. “Zul—” he began but was abruptly cut off.
“I told you earlier that, if you tried to spin me like one of your broads, we were gonna have a problem, and I meant it. You are a great fucking earner, Asher, but your problem is that you think you’re always the smartest nigga in the room. You’ve gotten so cocky in your new position that you’ve lost the qualities that put you there in the first place. That ego of yours has made you sloppy, and this is what has brought us to this point.”
Asher stood frozen as Zul pulled the doors to the storage container open and exposed what was hidden inside. As Asher had suspected, it was something truly dastardly. Something that only Zul could’ve devised. There was a treadmill set up in the room, with a man naked and bound to the front of it. His legs pumped at a light jog trying to keep up pace. His back was covered in a film of sweat that ran down his spine and dripped through the crack of his ass onto the treadmill. From how heavily he was breathing, Asher figured he had been at it for a while. He would run until he died of a heart attack, which was a far more merciful death than what waited for him if he stopped. At the back of the treadmill, Zul had set up two power saws that he’d purchased from the Home Depot. Their blades spun menacingly, daring him to stop running. Whenever he seemed to find a rhythm at one pace, the juvenile demon working the control panel of the treadmill would increase the speed a bit.
This was Zul’s protégé, Baby Blue. He was from out of Irvington. Asher hadn’t spent a lot of time around Baby Blue but had heard his name mentioned enough to know what he was about. At only sixteen, Baby Blue was already a headache, but once Zul had gotten ahold of him and started poisoning his brain with his ideologies, it turned Baby Blue into something that there currently was no classification for. He was just a rotten kid. His own mother didn’t want anything to do with him, but Zul embraced him like the bastard spawn of the devil that he was.
Asher was about to ask what kind of twisted shit Zul had invited him to witness, until he caught a glimpse of the jogging man’s face and his mouth went dry again. The man’s name was Danny. The last time that Asher had seen him had been on Market. Asher had been sitting low in a car while he watched Cal place an envelope full of cash—which Asher had provided—in Danny’s hand and tell him to get missing. The fact that Danny was now in the custody of Zul meant that he either hadn’t listened or Asher’s luck was just that bad.
“Big homie, he been at this shit at least a half-hour. If he wasn’t such a fuck nigga, he might’ve been able to make the Olympics,” Baby Blue told Zul with a chuckle.
“You can run from a lot of shit in this world, baby boy, but karma is the one bitch who will always catch up with you, no matter how fast you are,” Zul replied.
“Zul . . . please, man. I’ve told you what I know . . . enough,” Danny pleaded. He was breathing so hard that he could barely get the words out.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Zul told Danny. He then turned to Asher. “From the expression on your face, I take it that you and this piece of shit are acquainted already?”
Asher had considered lying, but Zul wasn’t a man who asked questions that he didn’t already know the answers to. “I’ve seen him around before. Ran with Saud back in the days, didn’t he?”
“He about to be running with God,” Baby Blue snickered, adjusting the speed on the treadmill. “Let me make him do the hundred-yard dash one time, big bruh.”
“Cut it the fuck out, Blue. We on business,” Zul scolded him before turning his attention back to Asher. “Fangs ran down on this nigga on the humble. He was in Wiggles tricking off and trying to get a couple of Spanish broads to spend a night or two with him and his over in New York. Couldn’t stop talking about all the money they were getting up there in . . .” He couldn’t remember the name of the city.
“Mount Vernon, boss,” Fangs offered in his best house- nigger cadence.
“Right,” Zul snapped his fingers. “So, we all know Danny been a bum-ass flunkie his whole life, and nothing short of God could’ve changed him dying in that same position. Yet, here’s this lifetime yes-man, flashing cash and showing out.”
“Zul, what I got to do with some off-brand nigga who stumbled into some good fortune?” Asher asked. He didn’t really want an answer, but he needed to say something to buy his brain some time to think up a deflection for whatever Zul was about to say next.
“Glad you asked. After my little conversation with Danny, I discovered that my suspicions about him now being able to wipe his ass without someone telling him where the tissue went were confirmed. This is where you come in. What part of clean house didn’t you understand when we came to our little arrangement?” Zul asked Asher.
“Fuck you talking about? B-Stone and Ab are gone. I saw to that. There’s no one left to challenge your claim to the hood,” Asher told him.
“Now, it’s my claim? Thought we were in this together?” Zul gave Asher a suspicious look. “But that’s for another conversation. What I need to know is, if you were instructed to get rid of every member of B-Stone’s inner structure, why is that sour old bastard Saud still alive and openly pissing on my name?”
Saud was an old-timer, a holdover from B-Stone’s reign. But long before he was B-Stone’s consigliere, he had been the king of the neighborhood. Asher had been barely a child old enough to cross the street on his own during Saud’s time at the top, but his name rang in the ears of the young and old alike. Saud had been a legend until a prison bid knocked him out of pocket. After doing almost two decades behind the wall, Saud was back on the streets. By then, LA was still top dog, but he was on his way out. Everyone thought it only natural that Saud would seek to reestablish himself as king, but he didn’t. Saud no longer had any interest in wearing the crown. Unlike a lot of hustlers who reached his age and were still trying to relive their glory, Saud understood that it was now a young man’s game. So, instead of positioning himself to become king, he became a kingmaker. His whispers into the ears of prominent underworld figures had led to more bloodshed than his trigger finger ever did. Saud may have no longer had aspirations of wearing the crown, but he knew he stood to benefit by manipulating whoever would sit on the throne next. This was how B-Stone came to power, and Saud his trusted right hand.
“Zul, B-Stone and Ab are gone, and Saud is an old man scraping the bottom of the barrel, trying to hold onto what little he got left. How much of a threat could he be?”
Zul gave Asher a look. “That was the same thing I said until he put the battery in B-Stone to cross me. It may have been your bullshit that landed me in prison, but it was Saud who set that plan in motion. I know his style, and B-Stone wasn’t smart enough to come up with something that creative on his own. I warned you, no loose ends. Saud should be laying in a hole next to B-Stone and Ab right now, but you acted like he went so far underground that you couldn’t get a line on him. I’ve seen you track and clip niggas in different time zones, so you’ll have to excuse me if I have a hard time believing that you couldn’t find a man living less than an hour away. If that’s the case, you’re either dumber than I thought or smarter than I’ve been giving you credit for. Which one is it?”
