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  “Then what is it, Kenny?” I pulled away from him.

  “I got a meeting tonight,” he said.

  “Where at?” I probed.

  “Why you askin’ me all these questions?” he said, aggravated.

  My heart started to pound as I wondered if I had made it too obvious that I was trying to get information out of him. I was scared, but I couldn’t falter. It was time for me to step it up. I had to go all the way to get more information. This was the break I needed. It was now or never.

  “Because I don’t believe you, that’s why, Kenny.” I began to cry. “You been practically living with another girl for the last three weeks!” I made it about my being jealous rather than about my prying for info. I stood up and added, “You’re hardly here! You come, eat, grab some clothes, and leave.”

  “What you doin’?” Kenny asked. “Finish what you started and stop trippin’.” He closed the toilet seat and sat down on it. Then he grabbed my arm and pulled me close to him again.

  He moved my hair out of my face gently and aligned his dick with my mouth. “I ain’t goin’ do nothin’ on you tonight, man. I ain’t thinkin’ about no pussy. I got a million-dollar deal on the table tonight. Other niggas might be out partyin’ and lookin’ for freaks, but not me. Only place I’m focused on bein’ is at the Belmont Plateau at one o’clock sharp,” he broke. “So you ain’t got shit to worry about. Now, finish makin’ ya man feel good. Help me get relaxed.”

  I finished the deed, then allowed Kenny to relieve himself. All the while I was filled with anxiety. I couldn’t wait for him to be gone.

  It was close to midnight when Kenny finally left. Immediately I got on the phone and called Detective Daily.

  “I have the information you were looking for,” I blurted out.

  “Whatchu got?” he asked, excitement in his tone.

  “He’s making the transaction tonight. It’s supposed to be a million-dollar deal.”

  “When and where?” he asked.

  “The Belmont Plateau at one.”

  “Okay. I gotta make some calls. I’m on it,” Detective Daily said, rushing his words. “Good job, kiddo.”

  When I hung up I was feeling jittery. I couldn’t sit down. I paced the bedroom and bit my nails. I needed someone to talk to. I tried calling Nasir, but I didn’t get an answer. I called him right back one last time and that time I was forwarded to his voice mail.

  I sat down on my bed, my head in the palms of my hands. Damn it, I thought. I really fucked up with Nasir.

  Nasir

  Snake eyes!” Brock called out as he let the dice tumble out of his palms.

  “Seven, eleven!” I tried to jinx him.

  “Damnit,” he said. “I keep comin’ close,” he referred to the two and the one that appeared on the dice.

  He picked the dice up and shook them up in his hand again, but before he rolled, a long beep sounded from the scanner. We both paused and listened intently to what was about to be called.

  “Medic Nine, One-four-four-two North Felton Street. Domestic dispute. Female complaintiff. One-four-four-two North Felton Street.”

  “It’s been a lot of domestic disputes,” Brock said. “Niggas’ girls probably givin’ them hell about goin’ down Miami to South Beach. They get to arguin’ and the shit probably hit the fan,” he theorized.

  “Nigga, just shoot the dice and crap out so I can get on them things and show you how money get made.”

  Brock shook the dice up again, getting his head back into the game. And just as he was about to roll, he was distracted for the second time. This time it was by my phone ringing. I looked at the screen and pressed ignore.

  “Who the hell you duckin’?” Brock asked me. “That’s the third time ya phone rang and you looked at it and ain’t answer.”

  “Damn, it’s called the iPhone not the Brock phone, nigga. Roll the dice!”

  “Aww, you son of a bitch!” he shouted at the four and the three that showed up on the dice after he rolled them.

  I picked up the forty dollars off the dash and added it to the knot that was in my pocket. My phone rang again. Brock snatched it off the middle console.

  “Give me this mafucka,” he said. “I’ll answer it.” He looked at the screen.

  “Stop playin’, nigga. Gimme my phone.” I didn’t want him to answer Leah’s call. I really wanted her to get the message that I wasn’t fuckin’ with her.

  “It’s Kenny. I see why you duckin’ his shady ass.”

  “I’m not duckin’ that nigga. That was some chick the other times.”

  “So you want me to answer it?”

  “Naw. Fuck that nigga, too.”

  Brock shrugged his shoulders and put my phone back down. “Fuck ’im.”

  Then he rolled the dice and we went on gambling.

  A few minutes later the scanner sounded. Beeeeep. “Medic Nine, Belmont and Montgomery Avenue in the parking area of the Belmont Plateau. Medic Nine, Belmont and Montgomery in the Belmont Plateau parking area. Injuries from an accident.”

  Brock stopped the dice and threw them in his pocket. Then he sat up in the truck, put it in drive, and slammed his foot on the gas. We tore out of the gas station parking lot and headed up Fifty-second street toward Parkside Avenue. From there we hit Fairmount park, took it across Belmont Avenue, and pulled into the parking lot at the Plat. It was pitch-black. No streetlights or nothing.

  I could see that there was a dark-colored Denali parked. A few spaces away from it was a green Impala. There was a third car in the distance that looked abandoned. But of all the cars out there, none of them looked like it had been in an accident.

  Brock drove up alongside the Denali. It was then that we noticed a group of guys in back of the SUV. Some of them had briefcases and others had Sneaker Villa bags. After a closer look I realized that Kenny was among the group. He started walking toward the truck when he seen us park.

  “Fuck is goin’ on out here?” I thought aloud.

  “Yo,” Kenny said when he got to the truck. “You gotta be the most dedicated chaser I know. A hit is called and you come runnin’ just like I thought.” He smirked.

  “You called the hit?” I guessed.

  “Yeah, man, you ain’t answer my phone call. I needed you to bring the scanners up here and listen out for the law while I took care of this business,” Kenny had the nerve to say.

  “Nigga, is you retarded?” I asked him, really believing that Kenny had a mental problem. There was no other explanation for his up-and-down behavior. He fucked around and been bipolar. How else could you justify a nigga askin’ for help from somebody whose pop he scammed and who the last time he seen him had basically threatened his life. If I had a gun on me I was liable to shoot that nigga where he stood. “You expect me to sit here and be a lookout for you?”

  Then Brock chimed in, “If that is the case, that was stupid as hell of you to call a hit up here. By doin’ that you just called the cops right to you.”

  Kenny smiled and said, “I see it took you no time to learn the game. But the cops came and left. I was in the cut watchin’ them. Y’all ain’t hear them call it unfounded on the scanners? Shit, maybe I don’t need y’all niggas up here. Y’all don’t pay close attention to the scanners no way.” He chuckled.

  “Watch out,” Brock said to Kenny, opening the truck door.

  “Where you goin’?” I asked him.

  “Right here,” he said. “I gotta piss like a race horse.”

  “Hurry up, ’cause we out. We ain’t sittin’ up this mafucka,” I said, grillin’ Kenny.

  Kenny shrugged his shoulders and said, “I called myself burying the hatchet. You woulda got paid well and everything for this one.” Then he walked away from the truck and disappeared back behind the Denali with the rest of the group.

  I sat up in the passenger’s seat, leaned over, and yelled out the driver’s window. “Brock, hurry that shit up.” I was ready to go. I didn’t feel comfortable up there with Kenny and those other
niggas whom I didn’t know. I felt like a sitting duck.

  The sound of the driver’s door opening turned my attention to my left, and in a flash I heard a barrage of gunshots.

  POP! POP! POP! POP! POP! POP! POP!

  “BROOOCCCKK!” I shouted as I witnessed my friend’s body jerk back and forth as his torso attracted bullets like metal to magnets.

  I went to lean over to pull him in the truck and I felt a strong force hit me in the back of my left shoulder. I put my hand on the spot where I felt the force, and my fingers were instantly drenched in blood.

  I thought about climbing over in the driver’s seat and peeling out of there, but I didn’t want to get hit with another stray. So instead, I ducked down as far as I could.

  After a few seconds, I heard the gunfire slow to a stop. Then I heard voices and footsteps right outside my truck.

  I slowly sat up in the seat to see who it was and what they were doing.

  It was Kenny and his older brother Tim. They were rummaging through the Denali.

  “Yo!” Tim called out, pointing to the abandoned car I had noticed when Brock and I first got there. Kenny looked in the direction of the car. “Why the fuck is the horn steady beeping?” Tim asked with frustration.

  “His ass got hit, and I bet he’s slumped over on the mafucka,” Kenny summed up. “I know you got a light, right?”

  Tim nodded and pulled a lighter from his pants pocket.

  Then Kenny instructed, “Get the gasoline out the trunk and set that mafucka on fire. I’ll load the car up, and we out.”

  Kenny and Tim quickly and methodically performed their tasks—Kenny transportin’ briefcases and Sneaker Villa bags from the back of the Denali to the trunk of the Impala, and Tim settin’ fire to the car that was in the distance. Meanwhile, I was tryin’ to feel around in my truck for my phone to call the cops.

  “You was right. That was a mothafuckin’ cop!” Tim said, holding up a badge and an ID as he jogged up to Kenny, who was now standing right in front of the truck.

  Kenny’s face grew perplexed. “Who the fuck was tryna set us up?” He seemed to be thinking aloud.

  “Yooo!” I shouted out to get Kenny and his brother’s attention. I didn’t want to, but I needed to get to a hospital and I couldn’t find my phone. So I needed them.

  Kenny ran over to the passenger’s side and asked, “Nas, you all right?”

  “Yeah, but I’m hit!”

  “All right. Just chill. Soon as we leave I’ll call you an ambulance.”

  I didn’t believe that nigga. I’d rather drive myself to the hospital. I just needed him to help me put Brock in the truck.

  “Naw, you ain’t gotta call nobody. Just help me get my homie in the truck. I’ll drive myself to the hospital.”

  “Well, then, you might as well go ’head then. Ya homie is dead.”

  “How you know? Just help me get him in the truck.”

  “He gone, nigga!”

  “All right, even if he is. I ain’t leavin’ him out here. Help me get him in the truck!”

  I got out of the truck and walked around to the driver’s side. Brock’s lifeless body was facedown on the pavement. I felt like I had to throw up. I was light-headed.

  “I can’t help you get that nigga in the truck. I’ll call y’all an ambulance,” he said. “Gimme ya phone.”

  “It’s in the truck somewhere,” I said, leaning against the truck. I was feeling weaker.

  Kenny hurried over to the passenger’s side of the truck and searched around for my phone. He found it and dialed 911. He put it up to my ear and I grabbed it, holding it to my ear with my right hand.

  “I been shot,” I said in the phone.

  Then Kenny mumbled to me, “You came to a call for a tow and got caught in a cross fire. You don’t know shit else.”

  He and Tim then quickly ran to the Impala and got in.

  The last thing I saw before I closed my eyes was a blazing fire coming from the car that the cop was in and Kenny and Tim speeding off. And the last thing I heard were my scanners.

  Beep…“Medic Nine, Medic Nine, Belmont Avenue and Montgomery Drive, multiple gunshots fired. A male complaintiff shot. Medic Nine, Belmont Avenue and Montgomery Drive, at the Belmont Plateau, multiple shots fired. A male complaintiff wounded.”

  Leah

  It was four fourteen in the morning when the sound of my security system alerted me that my back door had opened. It woke me out of a good sleep that took me the whole night to get into. I sat up in bed and listened. It was Kenny and, from the sound of it, his brother Tim. What the hell were they doin’? I anticipated that Kenny would have gotten locked up at his meeting. That was supposed to have been the plan. What could have happened that led to Kenny being home and not in jail?

  I walked down the hall to the top of the stairs to get a better listen. I heard voices, then the refrigerator door opening and closing, then water starting to run. Next there were footsteps coming upstairs. I decided to go back into my bedroom and pretend to be asleep.

  “Leah, wake up! I gotta talk to you,” Kenny said the minute he walked in.

  I stretched and yawned, then sat up in the bed.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, peeking at him as he feverishly washed his hands in our master bathroom.

  “Come here,” he said, his tone not so pleasant.

  I took my time getting up. I was trying to think of all the possible scenarios that could have taken place that morning and what bearings they might have had on me.

  I went into the bathroom, stopping at the doorway. “What happened?” I asked, concerned at the sight of blood in the sink.

  “Never mind that,” Kenny said. “Leah, I need you to tell me everything you and the cop talked about while you was locked up.”

  I couldn’t imagine what had gone wrong during the transaction and what it had to do with me and the cop’s discussion while I was in jail. But I knew it couldn’t have been anything good. I became unnerved. My heart was in my stomach.

  “What do you mean, what we talked about? Pertaining to what?”

  Kenny paused from scrubbing his hands and looked at me. “Everything! From beginning to end! I need to know everything!” He said impatiently.

  I exhaled and started from the top, hoping the CI training I got before I was released from jail wouldn’t fail me. “He basically asked me who put me up to staging the accident. I told him that nobody did and that I wanted to speak to my attorney. He said that I was being charged with three third-degree felonies and was looking at about seven years for each charge. And then he asked if what I did was worth me spending the next twenty years of my life in prison—”

  “How did he get on the subject of you becoming an informant?”

  I took a hard swallow and said, “He basically asked me if I had any ties to Alliance Collision. I told him I knew the owner’s son. He asked if he was the one who put me up to the staging. I told him no. Then he said don’t lie to him, and he started telling me that he knew about other things that they had done like this and if I helped them build a case against Alliance, then my case could disappear. I told him I still wanted to speak to an attorney. Then I was put back in my cell and granted bail. That’s when I called you to tell you what the bail was, and you told me I should go ahead and give them the information they were lookin’ for,” I reflected. “Why, what’s wrong?”

  Kenny dried his hands with a towel, wiped his face off with the same towel, then turned around and leaned his butt against the sink. His hands were folded across his stomach. He was looking straight ahead, focused, as if he was concentrating.

  “So when you told him you would do it, did he mention that he had other informants or undercovers watching Nasir and them?”

  I thought about my response before giving it. I wasn’t trained on how to answer a question as such, so I wanted to be careful. I was already nervous as hell and didn’t need any slipups.

  I shook my head. “Why? What’s wrong? What happened?” I tried
to turn the interrogation off me and onto Kenny.

  Kenny broke his stare and turned to look at me.

  “It was a cop at my meeting spot tonight,” Kenny revealed. “And I’m tryin’ to put the pieces together to see why he was there and how he could have known about the meeting.”

  I could feel my heartbeat thumping through my chest. I scanned the room as my mind started focusing on what items were in my reach that I could use as weapons if it came down to it. I was petrified.

  “A cop?” I acted as surprised as I possibly could.

  “Yeah. And when I first peeped him, we were already in the middle of moving shit, so we couldn’t just switch locations. So I asked the bull who I was coppin’ from, was he settin’ me up? He told me no, so I wanted him to bust shots at the cop’s car to prove it to me. He hesitated, so I let a shot off at the car, then somebody else let off shots, and the next thing I know it’s a fuckin’ shoot-out. Two of my homies got killed, and the niggas I was coppin’ from whole squad got plucked off. It was a blood bath out that mafucka…” Kenny described.

  “Oh my God,” I gasped, picturing the sight and drawing the conclusion that Detective Daily was dead. “Tell me you didn’t kill a cop.”

  At that point my knees buckled. I had to grab on to the bathroom door frame to keep myself from falling.

  Kenny turned into a drill sergeant. “Get up, Leah! I need you to be strong! The pressure is about to be on, and I’ma need you to be able to withstand it. You hear me?”

  “Yes,” I muffled, dropping my head.

  “Look at me!”

  I looked up at him.

  “I’ma need you to inform me on everything the detective tell you about Nas and them—everything! And if you hear about that nigga Nas sayin’ my name at all, you need to let me know that shit,” Kenny commanded.

  I became more confused. “Why would Nasir say your name?”

  “Because besides me and Tim, he was the only one that didn’t die out there tonight,” Kenny explained.

  “He was out there?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Kenny said. “I had him out there with the scanners to be somewhat of a lookout.”