Money Makin Manhattan Read online

  The street doctor took advantage of their short silence to say his piece.

  “Well, thankfully the wound isn’t as bad as it looks. It will take a few weeks for it to heal and you’ll need to get on some antibiotics to make sure you don’t get an infection. It’s gonna be sore as hell, but other than the pain you should be fine,” he told Honore.

  “Yeah,” Sly McFly said, cracking a joke as he eased up and lit a cigar. “And after you heal up I’ll buy you some ass implants if you want. That’s the new shit all the chicks are into these days, ain’t it?”

  Honore rolled her teary eyes and smirked, but she chuckled a little bit too. “No thank you, I got enough tail back there for two chicks. You can send them implants to Aunt Frita since she likes to shake her tail-feather, okay?”

  “Don’t worry about Frita,” Sly answered. “Just worry about getting that shiny diamond back, baby girl. We lost some good people back there at Blondie’s and for all we know we mighta lost Cucci too. Them fools want their money and they ain’t going away, darling. But count ya’self lucky. The way them heat rounds was flying your forehead coulda got twisted back instead of your ass.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Shutting Shit Down

  The sun was coming up and the warehouse in Queens where the Zip ’em up Crew had gathered was buzzing off the chart. It was the first time the gunslingers had ever failed to complete a mission and their raw anger was about to tear the roof straight off the joint.

  The entire set was hyped as tempers flared and fingers pointed every which way. The normally tight and cohesive crew was all over the board as they shot out accusations, threw low blows, and sprayed blame for blowing the hit and sending the mission totally off fuckin track.

  “Yo, we gotta figure out what the fuck went wrong back there!” Slick barked, tasting the failure all down in his gut.

  “You went wrong, muthafucka!” Wild Man raged. “I knew we shouldn’ta took that job from the gate, slime! Not even for triple the money! You sent us in there with our hands tied behind our backs! You shoulda known this type a shit was liable to go down!”

  “Get the fuck outta here with that ol’ bullshit!” Slick barked. “We voted, you lil bitch! You knew the risks straight outta the gate and you was the main one hollering for triple pay, remember? So now that the job got fucked up you wanna belly up on that shit, huh?”

  All eyes were on Wild Man but none were colder and filled with more scorn and contempt than Noodles’s.

  You steady blaming Slick, but that was some low-level, amateur-ass, rookie-style shit you planned for us, son, Noodles wrote on his tablet as he sat on an overturned crate. That whole shit was doomed from the beginning. You lucky none of us ain’t get stretched out tonight.

  Noodles finished writing then tossed the tablet to Wild Man to read.

  As soon as he finished reading Wild Man flew up outta his seat and lunged. He barreled his whole body into Noodles and knocked him backwards off the crate. Noodles’s trach tube went flying outta his throat and the metal appliance clinked loudly as it hit the floor. In a flash Wild Man had his hands around Noodles’s neck so fast that none of them had time to register what was going down.

  “Nah, pussy!” Wild Man roared. There was murder in his eyes as he squeezed his hands together and tried to choke the shit outta Noodles. “It was ya weak-ass surveillance that almost got us fuckin whacked! It was your fault, you bitch-ass punk!”

  As Noodles fought to retrieve his trach tube and catch his breath, Whitey and Jewelz rushed to pull Wild Man off of him. With his finger pressed over the hole in his throat, Noodles made his move. Slick lunged at his gun hand, catching it just in time to keep Noodles from snatching his .44 off his waist and squeezing it off.

  “Back the fuck up, stupid ass!” Whitey yelled, gripping Wild Man by his massive arms. He rushed over to help Noodles slide his tube back in his throat and then he helped Slick clench the dreadlocked killer up tight so he couldn’t get his furious bone-breaking hands on Wild Man.

  “Your shit is way out there, Wild Man!” the white boy of the bunch spit. “You need to check yourself, homey, because you damn sure wasn’t on your A-game tonight, mothafucka!”

  “Fuck wrong wit’chu?” Slick whirled on Wild Man and sneered as the reality of what had just gone down began to sink in. “That shit was foul, nigga! It was low and it was foul.”

  “All y’all little boys need to calm the fuck down,” Jewelz chimed in sounding weak and weary. “This ain’t no big dick pissing contest. Everybody knew the risks involved with this job from the jump, and we also knew there was a chance this shit wouldn’t go our way. Now ain’t the time for y’all to be fighting and trying to kill each other. Instead of blaming Slick or Wild Man or anybody else, we need to put our heads together and figure out what we’re gonna do to fix this shit.”

  Cloaked in a cloud of fury, Noodles was mutely rocking back and forth and struggling to control himself. The look of pure rage on his face was indescribable as he lost the battle and reached down in his Timbs for his back-up piece.

  “Chill the fuck out, man.” Slick moved quickly to put himself in the line of fire. He placed his palm over the .32 gripped in Noodles’s hand and tried to calm his boy down. “Fall back bruh, damn. Be cool.”

  Noodle’s eyes were straight on kill-mode as he gestured wildly at his throat with rage and disbelief that Wild Man would dare put his fuckin hands on him in that manner. In that area.

  “I know, I know,” Slick said, eyeing Wild Man with a look of burning disgust. “He was wrong for that shit, my nigga. But he’s still your brother and you can’t shoot him man.”

  “So how the fuck did this happen?” Slick asked quietly when the men had finally gotten themselves under control. He spoke so softly it made the entire room go silent and all attention was focused on him. He sat down on a crate then leaned forward and tapped the muzzle of Noodles’s .32 on the table. He knew how fucked up his crew felt. Eating defeat was a foreign taste for them and without the proper leadership they would turn on each other like a pack of snarling wolves.

  “We’ve executed plenty of hits off sketchy intelligence before,” Slick continued. “The difficulty level of this job wasn’t something so great that we couldn’t handle it. Our crew has wiped niggas off the map and disappeared before their bodies hit the ground. We’re the best at what we do, and we’re the best squad in this whole fuckin game!”

  Slick continued to tap the gun on the table with his eyes seeming to stare somewhere way beyond the warehouse.

  “But for some reason we slipped up tonight. We slipped up and dropped the damn ball. I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Our shit just feels off. Way off. I been thinking…maybe there wasn’t nothing wrong about the hit, y’all. Maybe there’s something wrong about us.”

  Those words hung in the air thicker than gun smoke. Everybody kept the poker face in place but it was clear that they all understood. This thing was bigger than just a simple fuckup. It was an internal cancer, and if they kept it up sooner or later somebody was gonna get deaded.

  Slick stood up and tossed Noodles his gat. “Yo, fam. I think we need to take a break,” he said, turning his back on his team as he walked toward the warehouse exit.

  “Yeah, fuck the bullshit,” he said without looking back. “We need a break.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Everything Ain’t 100

  Noodles was flying on one thousand. Deep rage was an enemy he already struggled with on a daily basis, and right now puffs of hot smoke were seeping through the cracks of his self-control. He was doing his best to slam the bitter blackness deep into his gut, because experience told him if he lost this battle he had no chance of ever winning the war.

  He strode back and forth along the narrow ledge behind his house like a mountain lion pacing at the top of a ridge. Visions of the bloody carnage he could have caused tonight flew through his mind like gory scenes out of a horror movie.

  Wild Man had put his fuckin mitts on him. That muth
afucka had lunged at him and gone straight for his throat. The last cat who had pawed him up like that had triggered a bloodbath so gruesome it had landed Noodles in the womb of a tomb called the Asshole.

  He had been two seconds off of blowing Wild Man’s thoughts clean outta his head in that warehouse tonight, and it was only his respect and obedience to Slick that had kept him from aiming his gat and squeezing one off.

  But he had just barely managed it. He knew he owed it to Slick to keep a leash on the beast that lived inside him. His manz had put his life on the line over Noodles’s rage once before and almost got buried because of it. He couldn’t throw his dude’s sacrifice away just because some chink nigga stepped outta pocket and wanted to act ill.

  “Noodles,” Ayesha stuck her head out the window and called out to him softly. “Come on inside, baby. The kids just woke up and they’re asking for you. They want some pancakes for breakfast like you promised them.”

  Noodles didn’t look at her but he detected the tremble of concern in her voice. The sun had gotten high in the sky and he had been out there for hours trying to keep his rage away from her. What he carried inside of him was too big for her. Too violent. And after all the shit her and the kids had been through he refused to bring that type of destructive energy into their home.

  Nodding once, he continued to pace back and forth until he felt the glow of his personal demon shrinking and getting smaller and smaller. When it was finally tiny enough for him to handle it, he stuffed it back inside his mental box and psychologically threw away the key.

  Yeah, this was much better, Noodles told himself as he went inside the house. When he calmed the fuck down he was able to think clearer. He was able to strategize and rationalize. Yeah, the hit had been fucked up from the gate, and since it was Wild Man’s gig the nigga had cause to be on one.

  But even with the shitty surveillance and without the proper background info, something felt real grimy about the entire Zip ’em up program. It seemed like there was some type of hidden conspiracy floating around that Noodles couldn’t quite put his finger on.

  But he had his suspicions, though. He didn’t wanna ring no alarms to Slick just yet without having something concrete to show and prove, but some fuckin body in the click was smelling shady as fuck. And even though all the details hadn’t revealed themselves to him yet, Noodles couldn’t shake the feeling that certain niggas in his set was living foul.

  Noodles knew this was the wrong time for him to be having these hunches but he just couldn’t shake them. His mother was sick in Guatemala and he had made arrangements to go see her. He had bought tickets for Ayesha and the kids to go with him, and not only was he gonna surprise her with the trip, while he was there he was gonna get down on his knees and ask her to be his wife.

  Noodles gazed at her standing near the kitchen table setting out plates and he smiled inside. Everything in his life had turned to sugar ever since his woman and her kids had come into his world. For the first time since he got outta prison Noodles’s life had a purpose. He had peace of mind and peace of heart, and he slept damn good every single night.

  He forced himself to smile as Ayesha came over and stood on her tip-toes in front of him. She reached up for a kiss and touched the side of his face lovingly.

  “You don’t have to tell me what’s bothering you,” she said softly. “But whatever it is, I just want you to remember that life’s too short to hold grudges.”

  Noodles nodded. He loved Ayesha way more than he had thought it was possible to ever love a woman. No other chick in the world, no matter how fine she was or what she was throwing at him, could ever claim a piece of his heart. Ayesha had it all. She had the whole fuckin thing. And he was gonna show and prove that shit to her when they got to Guatemala and he asked her to be his wife. And to top it all off, he was also gonna ask the children to take his last name and to give him the honor of adopting them and becoming their legal father.

  Noodles couldn’t wait for all that to happen, but right now his gut was talking to him and his gut didn’t lie. As he lifted their youngest son up high and placed him on his broad shoulders, he knew for a fact that something wasn’t right in his set. Matter fact, something was far from right. Noodles didn’t know what the fuck was what yet, but given some time he was sure as hell gonna find out.

  CHAPTER 4

  Bury Me a G

  The afternoon rain fell in heavy sheets over Cypress Hills cemetery as the Goode Brothers Gang gathered to bury two of their very best young gunners.

  Dressed in all-black and standing under large umbrellas, they listened to the preacher utter the last prayers over the closed caskets of Ricky Rollack and his sidekick, Cajiid.

  Close family members and street niggas from several different boroughs were in attendance. Ricky had been a certified goon who was well-respected among his peers. He had looked out for his hittas in the street and was extremely loyal to his crew.

  Cajiid was like Ricky’s little brother, a young soldier on the come-up who was being mentored by the best. In his short lifetime he had been battle-tested many times and had come out on top. The fact that such a young cannon with a lot of heart and potential had been put in the dirt was hard for his homeys to accept.

  Handgun Goody had a lot of love for both of the men who were laid out cold in their caskets. He was taking their deaths personally. With his crew gathered around him getting soaked in the rain, Goody began to talk and thunder fell outta his mouth.

  “Yo, they got my young bulls man! They were Goode Brothers and nobody touches a hair on a Goode Brother’s head!” Goody’s whole body trembled with rage as he spoke.

  “These niggas out here think we soft? A’ight,” he nodded and a dark look of utter brutality crept into his eyes. “When we find them rats I want all their grandmothers tossed off a fuckin project roof!”

  He clenched his jaw and nodded again. “I want their baby mama’s guts mauled out by pit bulls right in the lobby of their buildings! I want their fuckin kid’s heads cracked open with Louisville Sluggers and their bodies stuffed down the fucking incinerators, do y’all bitches OVERSTAND ME?”

  Goody glared around at his crew and they all nodded their heads in silence. A shooter named Bolly who was standing next to him spoke up.

  “That’s all well and understood, big homey. You want they fam tortured until they suffer the most unspeakable pain and horror imaginable. We got you. But what about when we find the coward who actually did this shit? Their leader. How do you want us to take him out?”

  Goody stood in silence for a moment as he watched the caskets being lowered into the ground. He thought about it for a second then answered Bolly in a voice that was colder than a wet grave.

  “Bring that muthafucka to me. I’ll dish out his punishment. That clown owes me some blood and I’m gonna collect every drop of it. This thing ain’t coming from the pockets no more,” Goody growled like a bear about to tear into a warm carcass. “This shit is coming from the heart.”

  His men nodded in acknowledgement of their marching orders and Goody stepped over to the gaping hole that the luxurious caskets had just been lowered into.

  Standing there with his expensive shoes sinking down in the mud, he looked down and spoke out loud to his fallen comrades.

  “I got mad love for y’all niggas and y’all have my word that revenge will come sweet and swift. It don’t matter who put y’all in this hole—I’ma slay them niggas faithfully in the memory of your sacrifice. If y’all niggas made it to Heaven then sneak me in the back door when I get to them pearly gates. If y’all tearing shit up in hell, then do me a favor. Tell the Devil to keep it hot until ya nigga Handgun Goody gets there!”

  Handgun paused and held two white carnations up in the air.

  “Goody-Goody, always hoody!” he recited the Goode Brothers motto out loud and then leaned forward and threw one flower down into each freshly dug hole. Moments later he was heading off, back to the hood, fully intending to keep the promise that he had
made to his dead soldiers.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Origin of a Kingpin

  Dawn was breaking over the naked city of New York, and Handgun Goody was laying in his king-sized bed brooding with his eyes wide open.

  Burying his lil porch slangas Dolla and Black Pearl a while back had been cause for concern, but putting Ricky and Cajiid in the ground had taken shit to a whole different level.

  Somebody was testing his gangsta. They were probing his power range and slaughtering his niggas at an alarming rate. And so far none of his soldiers had been able to bring him the muthafucka he was hunting for.

  Goody was older and wiser than the average kingpin on the streets. He had gone to prison at a young age and come into his manhood amongst some of the most brutal criminals in the country. The joint had been good to him in a number of ways. He had been taught to think like a war general. To analyze conditions from every direction and to anticipate his enemy’s attack from every possible scenario. He had also been taught how to launch a vicious and effective counter-attack too.

  Goody knew he had an unseen but skilled enemy out there who was coming for his throat. The dead soldiers stacking up on his side of the line made that very clear. It was only a matter of time before he was next on deck, so right now Goody was using all of his mental energy to figure out what moves he needed to make in order to get the drop on the muthafucka who was waging war on his click. Goody had been targeted for death many times before so he knew what it took to survive.

  As the moon faded from the sky and the sun came out to announce the new day, Goody looked out the window and thought about the time he almost got smoked while pulling his first bid on Rikers Island.